Life and stuff

Some days I feel like I'm having an outer body experience and watching life past by. I'm not sure where the days go, nor can I say what we did on those days. So, I'm going to sum up some latest and greatest happenings around the Bell household.

Jake - Started 4th grade. Since then he has received his green belt in martial arts and is officially considered a 'high belt'. He will spend the next 3 months practicing to test with his martial arts sticks (yeah, I'm sure there's a name, but I don't know what they are called). Also, Jake joined the elementary school orchestra. For the school year he and his buddy are the only two cello players the school has. Apparently, we didn't get the memo that cellos are not allowed on the bus and we are locked into this rental contract, so we are making do. This should be interesting. Hopefully, we have more luck with the cello than we did with the guitar. When Jake isn't at martial arts or thinking about practicing his cello, he's in the chess club and also is part of the school's flag football team. Yes, there is homework nightly that has to get done. Our week is pretty packed with Jake's stuff.

Andy - Um, right now Andy is all things Transformers. His little world revolves around transformers. Somewhere in there we are trying to fit in the alphabet and writing (he knows how to count and all this colors). Andy refuses to learn to write with a pencil, marker, pen, crayon, etc. A work in progress. He's in his happy little world and we love a 3 yr old mind. I can't believe his 4th birthday is quickly approaching next month and doesn't seem like it should be here already. They grow up so fast (and doesn't help this one is quite a little momma's boy).

Steve and I - I think I summed it up in last two paragraphs. Oh, yeah, and that full time gig we have during the day called jobs. For 11 hours Mon - Fri Steve and I work at intellectually demanding jobs so you can only imagine a few things 1) how does our house get cleaned, 2) when do we get things done, and 3) how? Well, we have Saturday and Sunday the two fastest days out of the entire week. Nothing gets done during the weekday (I highly discourage dropping by), so we can spend what little time we have with our kids. A typical conversation with either Steve or I is "Yep, totally busy - that's it." But I think we live the lives of majority of the folks out there, so we are not unique... just busy. So, I could have written 'Steven and I - totally busy.' :) We recently had date night and that was pretty darn awesome. We had a lovely dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House followed by the musical "Wicked" then a little casino time before calling it an evening (or early morning, we got in around 2am). We love our musicals and "Wicked" was pretty darn spectacular. What a wonderful story of how one becomes wicked/evil - is it self inflicted or is it your environment? Well, that's a whole philosophical blog, so I'll just stop here.

Maui

Well, it's been a while since we were in Hawaii, but I never wrote about part deux of our trip, Maui. This is where we had all our great adventures and totally worth sharing with you.



We took a quick plane trip from Oahu to Maui (it was a total of 16 mins) and that uneventful short trip was more action packed for my comfort level on an airplane. As we are coming in, we are turning to the right and all the "ooohs and aaahs" as we get to see the beautiful waters, we hit a thermal and dropped about 50 ft and the water was that much closer. So, getting off the airplane with my heart still in my throat, I was a little shaken. My kids thought it was pretty darn awesome.

We stayed in Ma'aalea Bay which is right next door to the acquarium and not far from the airport. However, its also not far from the sugar cane fields and they were burning the sugar cane so there was dust on everything in our condo. But were in a great location for all the stuff we had planned. Our condo was right up against the water and we had a beautiful view everyday.

Later that night we attended a luau at the Royal Lahaina Resort. Great entertainment, great food.
The next day, our family was off to snorkel in Molokini Crater and Turtle Town. It was a 5 hour event and we got breakfast and lunch out of it. Pride of Maui, the way to go if going out to Molokini Crater. We definitely got the most bang for our buck and most importantly had get service, the staff was wonderful from helping with food to helping us with the kids. Awesome!


Our 3rd full day in Hawaii, Steve and I signed up for an EARLY excursion. We were picked up at our condo at 3am and proceeded up 10,000 ft to the top of Haleakala Volcano (inactive). We got up there about 45 mins before sunrise to watch the sunrise. We took a van up, but we went bike riding down. So, us and 400 hundred of our closest friends huddled on the top of the volcano to play the waiting game. I get bored easy and it was cold, so I was really ready to get on my bike.


It was very cold up there, abot 45 degrees.





After the sun finally rose, we went down about 4000 ft to our bikes to coast down the mountain at about 25 mph. Apparently, some folks go about 35 mph, but they are probably more comfortable on a bike... I was fine at our speed. We were in a group of 12 and had a lead biker and the van behind us. It was truly awesome. We rode about 25 miles down the mountain and had a great histort lesson from out guide. He's a history buff and had lots of interesting facts about Hawaii he shared with us.


Once we got down the mountain and back to our condo, it was 10am. Steve and I already had full action packed morning and the rest of the condo was just waking up, watching TV, and eating breakfast. We were pooped. So, we took a little siesta because we had to be in Lahaina (about 45 mins away) at 2pm for Steve and Jake's surf lessons. :)

Surf lessons had about 5 people and the motto is "everyone gets up once" and they truly hold true to the saying. Jake & Steve were up on the 1st run. Each person had 13 waves they caught and Steve and Jake averaged 9 - so pretty darn good. Jake learned something very valuable in surfing, having arm muscles is a must otherwise you can't paddle through the waves. Poor kid had the hardest time. At one point, he ended up down the beach and the photographer had to put her camera down (not me) and go chase after him. Steve finally saw that Jake wasn't heading in the right direction and went paddling after him, but Jake was paddling to his heart's content to what look like the other side of Maui while hugging the beach. After that, Steve and Jake went together and Steve would paddle both him and Jake back out to the necessary location.

Lots of fun to watch and maybe next time I'll give it a go! The surfing was our last full day in Maui. We left the next morning, all equally sad to say good-bye to our wonderful vacation. We made lots of great memories and lots of photos to look at. I like to think we are taking a hiatus because we are going back soon!

Hawaii

We had a glorious time in Hawaii, just wonderful! This was our first (of many I hope) family vacation that was more than a weekend trip. This was Steve's and my first extended vacation since our honeymoon, 10 years ago! To sum it up, it was an overdue vacation.

We left on a Wednesday on a brief 5.5 hour flight to Honolulu, Oahu. We had stressed over Andy being the defiant child on the flight yelling and kicking, and while there was one, it wasn't ours. The power on a Nintendo DS and DVD player (oh yeah, and the nap helped too). Both kids were a breeze and made a great start to a great trip. We landed in Oahu before noon, and had to get our rental mini van. The time it took to get our van was half as long as our flight... and that's no lie. Not exactly how I wanted to spend the first few hours in paradise, but whatever, right? We got to our hotel in Waikiki and the kids were kicking off their clothes and getting into their swim trunks before the door was completely shut. Our hotel (like many) was right now the beach and the hotel had beach towels (yeah) and we were on the run. The kids went full blast into the salt water, mouth opened and all. While Jake being the more mature older child was able to handle his mouth full of salt water better, Andy on the only hand had a full on fit. Ran out of the water and threw up right beside a very beautiful lady. Did I mention he had fruit punch just before we went into the water? Not to be mean, but the look on this ladies face was priceless. While I felt bad, what do you do? Well, what I did was kick some sand over it and went about my afternoon. Phew, that was just the first afternoon...

We were in Oahu for 5 days. In those 5 days we went to the Polynesian Culture Center which was a delightful day trip. I highly recommend it to anyone who can afford a day away from the beach. We did the whole experience where we visited each island's center, luau, and show.

PCC was on the other side of the island from where we were staying so we had a beautiful scenic drive to the PCC. One place we stopped off at was Chinamen's hat (very top picture). Here are some other pictures from our trip to the PCC and at the PCC:

The other place we visited was the Dole plantation and learned all you ever needed to know about how pinapples grow and how they are harvested. We did little train ride there (for Andy) and Jake and Steve did the largest human maze ever. Andy and I went in and well, it was big and it was hot that day. Water and shade was more our speed. :)

The rest of our days were spent lounging by the beach and shopping. It was all very relaxing.

This concludes our trip in Oahu. I'll be writing a follow up with our stay in Maui.

Steve and Michelle's 10th Anniversary

Steve and I thought it would be a great idea to celebrate our 10th anniversary where it started... in Tahoe. We got married at the Cal-Neva resort in '99 and never really got to enjoy being in Tahoe because of the whole wedding thing going on. So, this was our opportunity to really get to enjoy the surroundings. We left early Saturday morning and had a beautiful flight into Reno on a turbo prop which I was less than thrilled about. But we got so close to Mt. Rainier, it was breath-taking. Steve also took that opportunity to take a picture with his cell and tried to transmit the photo to FB. Um, yeah! Getting past the mild hysteria on my part, we were able to enjoy the rest of our flight into Reno. Upon arriving in Reno, with no agenda at hand, we had breakfast since it was the logical thing to do seeing our flight was so early and we didn't eat before leaving. Then off to Tahoe we drove. It was a beautiful drive into Tahoe and I totally forgot how beautiful the lake was. We found the Cal-Neva and pulled into a parking lot where we were 1 of like 20 cars. A little disturbing. We check in and the guy tells Steve something along the lines of how we just missed the rush. It was all Steve could do to hold back, "Seriously?!?" We get to our room which has this spectacular view of the lake, but that's about all it had going for it. Otherwise, I would put it on my list as one of the worst hotel room's I have ever stayed out.

Here is the "living room". See that TV? That TV had 12 channels.

This was our bedroom. See this TV? This TV had a lot more channels and no remote. It was a complete bust!






Tahoe wasn't a complete bust. We drove over to Tahoe City where we found that was the place for us. We took a wonderful Sunset sailboat cruise equipped with complimentary wine, beer, and appetizers. Coming from Washington, we get complimentary nothing. So, this idea of "free" was very liberating. :) It was by far the most relaxing thing I have ever done. The only kicker was that no agenda thing I mentioned earlier. This sailing charter was decided on the whim and we were not dressed to be on the water while it's windy. A little chilly. Totally worth it!

After our sailing excursion, we had a wonderful dinner where we both realized that we were exhausted.

On Sunday before the drive back into Reno, we stopped and played mini golf and had a blast. It's been a while since we played and forgot how much we both enjoyed it.


After our game of mini golf we stopped at a little ice cream shack. I got a scoop for the trip back and Steve got a classic shake. He took on large slip and spit it out. Instead of using the oh so safe vanilla ice cream, they stuck coconut ice cream in his. I thought this was pretty funny. He has such a physical reaction to anything he doesn't look, his looks are always classic. Now, we were onto Reno.

We stayed at our favorite hotel, Peppermill got freshened up for dinner. We met Shelly, Bill, TJ, Mike, and Debi (oh, and Lily) at a restaurant and had our anniversary dinner with everyone. It was really great spending time with them and visiting. It was the perfect dinner!

After dinner, Steve and I went and saw "Footloose" at The Nugget.


This pretty much wrapped up our anniversary weekend away. It was a wonderful way to spend our 10th anniversary. It's hard to believe that 10 years went by so quickly. Steve and I feel very fortunate that we have a great life with wonderful children, great parents, and a loving marriage. It's our perfect world! :)

My Boys and their Toys

Well, Steve finally got a motorcycle. It's not the motorcycle of his dreams nor is it a motorcycle he can use on the street, but when he said, "Man, I would love to have a motorcycle" he didn't exactly specify what type. There is a loop hole to everything. :)

With these stores going out of business, we took advantage of some of the sales. We have been talking about getting Jake on a dirt bike for some time. When we saw how cheap the dirt bike was we couldn't pass up the opportunity. HOWEVER, Jake didn't really know how to ride one, so I actually insisted that Steve get one too. There is no way that Steve can run after Jake if needed. So, Steve's bike really is to chase Jakob around.

Steve settled on a 90 cc while Jake's is a 49 cc. The idea is when Jake gets big enough he will take the 90 cc and Steve will get a 250 cc and Andy will take Jake's 49 cc. Convenient that I have all boys! Per Steve, it was meant to be. :)

Jake is getting the hang of his bike. Shifting is still a little jerky, but with more practice he'll get it.

Tulip Festival

We had a wonderful, but very tiring day today. It's been a long while, but we decided to take advantage of the Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon, WA. It's about a 3-ish hour drive from where we are and the BIGGEST patience tester a driver has to go through (which is why Steve drives). While the drive is a straight, I-5 north, once there, you have to wait to exit (a good hour), then you proceed to wait to get to a field. Once we got there, we were in the car for another 2 - 2.5 hours just chugging along with everyone else. Granted the tulip festival isn't an activity that rates "fun" in Steve's or the kids books, but it is beautiful and the you can beat the pictures you can get. I've never had a bad picture. The kids did enjoy getting their pictures taken and we enjoyed walking around. AND it was a beautiful day in Washington for such and activity. Typically it's pretty rainy during the times the festival is being held and so you are sloshing in mud (which is why we typically don't go). This little trip has me tied over for a couple of years before I feel the need to for another visit.

Afterwards, while we were in the area, we headed to my favorite outlet mall for a little shopping. Got Jake a pair of shoes and the boys a little bit of clothes. I wasn't in it for personal gain today, so it was a pretty short trip... we still had a couple hours drive home. Once we were back in the area we stopped off at one of our favorite restaurant for some dinner. It was very yummy!

Now we are home and it's 10pm (we got home around 9:30pm), and I'm ready to call it a night. I'm sure there are a few hours of good sleep ahead of me tonight!

Easter 2009

We had a wonderful Easter and you would have known about it sooner had I been able to get my pix downloaded to the computer. Different story, different Blog!

Saturday we got together with our friends, The Lee family, for appetizers, dinner, and drinks. During our time, myself and Wendy stuffed many plastic eggs full of candy for the kiddos the hunt the next day. Then realized that we needed more stuff and did a Wal-Mart run. Okay, the night before Easter, not the best time to be in Wal-Mart. We were in line at Wal- Mart for as long as we shopped there. Crazy-ness! We came back to my place to wrap things up and then they headed out. I still had Easter baskets to make and to create the Easter morning scene in the Bell household. Steve and I went to bed, finally, at 3am.

Sunday - we rush out of bed at 9:45am to get the kids bathed and ready for brunch that we needed to leave for in 45 minutes. The words "on time" and "quick" do not exist in my household. Rather "rushed" and "on time-ish" are words that best describe us. So, around 10:30 we are not ready. Oh, and remember the "Easter scene" I mentioned above, yeah, still had to happen. So, since Jake was a year old, I have had an Easter bag (not basket) that I leave by his door, empty. Then from his door to his Easter basket I leave a trail of eggs for him to pick up and put in his bag. Well, now having two, I do this for both kids. They love it, so it's worth it. So, we rushed the easter bag trail thing to get out of the door by, yes, 11am. We have brunch on the waterfront in Tacoma, it was a disgusting rainy day, but the scenery made up for it. Then we headed back to my house and waited to see if we would get a break in the now thunderous rain. Yeah, 2 hrs into the waiting game, we have restless kids and still thunderous rain. We revert to plan B... Easter egg hunt indoors. These are things you need to be prepared for in Washington. The kids still loved it and they still got their hunt on.

All in all, it was another successful Easter!

Andy's 1st Dentist Appt - OMG!

Andy had his very first dentist visit today. I purposely put it off until he was a little after three because, well, Andy is our strong willed child and we need to have buy in before we can really proceed with anything new. We talked about it and we walked through some of the motions, but nothing apparently could prepare him for the real life event. We took him to a Pediatric dentist for the fact they are use to dealing with some children who do not always cooperate and I really didn't know what to expect with Andy. So, like any good mother, I expect the unexpected.

He did not want to get weighed or have have his height taken... so right off the bat we did not start off well. We get through that then onto X-Rays. Yep, was not having it. Wasn't going to participate and definitely would not be bribed into it. Okay, we'll just start the cleaning. Lord have mercy, you would have thought this child was being tortured if not for the sound proof crying room we were in. Aside from the fact the chair could have been made out of snapping alligators because he refused to sit in, he totally lost all composure as soon as they started to "work the chair", yes everyone, they laid it back and raised it up. The horror!! Imagine how the rest this experience went once they actually had to start cleaning his teeth. This is the first time that an appointment was a 2 parent task. Steve had arms and head and I got the feet. We had to restrain him in order to accomplish cleaning his teeth. The only positive is that through all the screaming they were able to clean his teeth successfully.

It was truly an awful experience. Unfortunately, he had the same reaction when first started to get his hair cut. If that tells us anything, it would be that it's going to take a few more rounds at the dentist in order for Andy to fell comfortable. Andy does not new experiences nor does he like any surprises.

Keep track of what's online the easy way!

Hopefully in this post I'll give everybody a good tool to keep up with whatever you find interesting online, like maybe this blog and the Frantz blog. What makes it easy is something called Real Simple Syndication, or RSS for short (if you already know what RSS is you can probably just skip this post). RSS is a way for a web site to alert readers of updates to the site. Using an RSS reader you have one place to see everything that's new.

In order to use RSS you need to start with an RSS reader. The easiest to get started with might be the google rss reader here. Another option, if you use the firefox web browser. It has a feature called live bookmarks that allows it to act as an RSS reader.

Once you find an RSS reader the next step is to subscribe to RSS feeds. The best way I know to find RSS feeds is to use firefox. If you're using firefox as your web browser (which I highly recommend) you'll see this icon on any page that has an RSS feed at the top in the address bar. Clicking on that icon will take you to the feed and give you some options of where to add it (with firefox live bookmarks and google reader being two of those options).

RSS feeds allow you to go one place and see updates for all the things you're interested in. I follow about fifty feeds in my RSS reader between news, comics, blogs, etc...

Hopefully you'll find this useful. Let me know if you have any questions.

You're lucky day - Very Long BLOG!!

Well, let me start off by saying Happy Reading. I meant to blog all weekend, but hurt my wrist like nobody's business and couldn't do much of anything. As technical as Steve is... he doesn't think to get on our little blog website and write a word or two for himself. To date, he only reads what I write. It's like an elaborate calendar entry for him to reference.

Saturday - Jake had his graduation for his Orange belt. The test was last Thursday and he passed with flying colors. Then on Saturday they make all those who pass put on a demonstration for the parents wrapping up everything they learned for the last 3 months. We are very proud. He's got his sight set for that black belt. It'll be a while, but it's a great positive influence and when it comes down to it, he loves it. You can see the yearning in Steve's eyes to get out there too. One day, Steve, one day. Right now, you can live vicariously through your son.
Sunday - Well nobody really wants to know that I spent the morning at the spa (again, while Steve's not writing this he would like me to add his input and say that he got me the spa deal for Xmas) which is great and all until I had an acid peel done to my face. Um, interesting. My face is still sensitive. That's really all I have to say.


Monday - Well, I'm pretty sure we crossed into March. By the looks of it it might as well be December all over again. I guess Mother Nature wasn't done with the pretty white stuff. While we are not expecting anything above 2 in, it's facinating that I still am writing about these, well, at least once a month. It is pretty and I don't get tired of looking at it... while I'm inside the confines of my house. While I was enjoying the beauty of it all, Andy's got really sick with some sort of stomach bug. Got up early this morning and hasn't been able to keep anything down. Thank goodness for hardwood floors!

Circus on Sodor - Thomas the Train

We have officially taken Andy to his first play production and as we guessed, he LOVED it! He was literally on the edge of his seat partially due to his size and partially due to the fact he was taking in the entire play. We had pretty good seats with no view obstructions, which is nice when you have little ones. After the play was over, he wanted to watch it again... the difference between live plays and DVDs.
After we were done with watching the play and eating junk food, we played by the fountain at the Seattle Center. It was a cold day, but it didn't stop kids from actually playing in the water. Andy had to settle for running around the fountain with Steve while I took pictures.THEN after we were done with the fountain, we headed to IKEA where Andy got a whole hour in the ball pit with kids his age and Steve and I walked around. I was conceptualizing refurnishing our loft while Steve humored me by saying, "Yep, ah-huh, that sounds great..." I still walked away with my latest organizational storage unit thingy. :)

Alas the end of the work week!

OMG! It's been one of those weeks. I worked like 60 hours, my house in shambles, I don't remember the last time I had a decent dinner, and I believe my kids grew at least a half inch since I saw them LAST weekend! Seriously! I'm so exhausted. There is nothing more that I would love to do than to sleep in tomorrow and do absolutely nothing. But my weekend is booked. We are taking Andy to see a Thomas the Train production tomorrow (which I'm so excited for him to see because I know he will LOVE it!), then there the "house in shambles" I'll need to clean, and to top it off I will need to work this weekend so I'm not slammed come Monday. Every little thing that I didn't get to during the 12-14 hrs I spent at work each day all week will need to be done by Sunday.

I hope everyone else had a much better week!

Huh??

So, just yesterday I blogged about rain and the different types of rain, etc, etc... Well, I wasn't prepared for the SNOW that is coming down right this very second. I mean I knew it was cold, but I didn't realize it was snow cold. Apparently, we have a low pressure from the north and mixed with all that rain I was gabbing about, we got snow. While I would love to sit here and get excited I believe our "snow advisory" is effective through 4am. So, well before I go to work it'll be all over an done with leaving us with either ice or slush. I'm not sure what we are expecting tonight and I've learned my lesson from banking on the weather sites/guys/or any forecast. We been there, as the night progressed the temps warmed up and we got nothing but rain.

Crazy weather!!!

Continuous rain

Well, it started to rain on Sunday and it really hasn't stopped. We have all varieties of rain from misting to down pours but it's all rain. Saturday was a beautiful day and we had close friends of the family watch the kids while Steve, myself, my mom, and Ben (kid's grandpa) went north for a little shopping therapy (well, that was for me) and dinner, plus some casino time. Steve has been hoarding his lucky $100 for the Craps table, and well, his lucky $100 is no longer lucky. We had a good time hanging out having adult time. We got home late around midnight and I was very glad to sleep in on Sunday.
Steve and Jake went paintballing on Sunday and Andy and I gardened... well, until the rain started in. I was able to get a considerable amount of weeding done and while I was doing so, I got inspired for our summer backyard projects. We have all the basics in for backyard enjoyment, but this year, I would like to kick it up a notch and actually add some visual interest (i.e. plants, yard definition, etc). So, as I sit here writing this looking out to the backyard from the office, the wheels in my head are turning, and mother nature is slapping us with thunderous rain. I love Washington!
Anyhoo... really looking forward to this weekend because we are taking Andy to see his ALL TIME FAVORITE train, Thomas in a theater production at the Key Arena in Seattle. I'm so excited to take him! We took Jake to two live productions when he was Andy's age (Blue's Clues and Dora) and nothing beats the experience of a live production. Steve and I love a great musical on stage and hope that one day the boys will have the appreciate for theater as much as we do.

Just as I suspected...

The blogging is slowing down as there doesn't seem to be much to write about. I officially started Weight Watchers again last Saturday. That was a huge milestone because that was something that I have been wanting to do over the holidays. Steve also finally got my treadmill together over the weekend. So, I no longer have an excuse not to eat right or exercise. Aside from battling weight, I've finally attempted to learn VBA... a much needed skill in my job. Thank God I have Steve. Like it or not, he has to field all my questions. It's going to be slow going as I have to be able to apply these concepts to something tangible for me. So, we talk in lots of examples. It's a good thing. Next thing will be SQL, then I'll be working on my leadership skills for my position. It's been a while since I set "acedemic" goals for myself. Speaking of acedmeics... Steve and I have been researching the potential of going back to school. The Bachelor I've always wanted and the Master that Steve wants. We'll keep you posted.

Jake is currently working on getting his Orange belt. Going through the motions of getting his tips that lead up to the next belt test. He's also doing pretty awesome in his guitar lessons. As if that wasn't enough, he was just awarded Acedemic Achievement in Math this quarter. Can you say, "Proud Mom??". :)

Andy, well, is coming into his own. He's overly observational and part sponge. He's so funny and comes up with the wittiest things to say. He contantly has Steve and I fits of laughter over what he says. I would love to write them all, but that would be one long blog. My latest and greatest is him helping me clean house over the weekend while wearing his Iron Man costume. He said he needed the extra power to get through all the cleaning. Amen to that!! A little extra power can always help get through the pains of house cleaning. When that failed him, he has his tractor beams to blast those items in our way... I'm not so hip to what tractor beams are actually for, but they are there if we need to tap into them.

Fast Forward?

Ever feel like you are living life in fast forward? Days are flying, the weekend's here before you realize Monday actually ended, the first month of the new year is practically over?? That is our life in a nut shell. I think we had a weekend. I'm pretty sure that is what those last two days were. Hard to tell when Monday came and went so quickly, I'm already making plans for the upcoming weekend, and actually our entire February is now booked every weekend. It's just craziness. About the only thing good of the days rushing by is the fact that eventually it's going to warm up around here. We were blasted with some cold air and a dusting of snow over the weekend. I'm about done with having numb toes. I'm ready for the warmth and spending time on the deck having BBQs again. Something to look forward to. :)

Just kicking around

So far, January is another ho-hum type of month for us. Everyone back into their normal routines that we took a brief vacation from in December. Work is busier than ever... funny how that never seems to quite end. New year, new goals.
Jake started guitar lessons and is loving them. He's learned a few chords and it's only been his 2nd lesson and he's strumming like a pro. I can't wait to see how far he gets at the end of 8 weeks.
Well, after all the snow, then all the rain that caused some pretty bad floods in our area, we are expecting sunshine the rest of the week and thru the weekend. Mother nature is giving us a nice little break. Jake and Steve have big plans to get out there this weekend and break in those new paintball guns they got for Christmas. While they are out, Andy and I will probably go on a bike ride this weekend.
Nothing out of the ordinary around here, just your typical everyday type of things.

Happy New Years!!

Happy New Years and welcome to 2009!! It's been a while since I've been able to blog as we have been either busy or lazy. Christmas was yet another wonderful event in the Bell household spending our time with great friends. Our Christmas season kicked off with our good friends Lynette, Charles and Nathan with dinner at our house and gifts for the little ones. Then Christmas Eve we divided our time between the Palafox family and the Lee family. However, before starting anything we allowed the kids one gift each from our house. They got to open their, yes, PJs. Jake being an ole pro that this tradition was not exactly thrilled that he got to open just clothes. Andy to his little delight, opened his gift and wondered where the toys were. Then when we were done, we left to enjoy the first of our evening with with the Palafox (to name them all would be a blog entry in itself) family. We enjoyed some munchies and the kids were able to get open their gifts (which included toys). After a short stay there, we drove to our other good friends the Lee's and had dinner and visited with their family visiting from CA. The kids got to open, yes, more gifts, and yes, which included toys. Dinner, presents, our gag gift games, drinks, more games made for an exciting night. We wrapped things up around 11:30pm and got home (they only live around the corner from us). The kids got into their new PJs and into bed for the big day. Our family isn't one to wake early, so Christmas morning excitement starts around 9:30-10am in our house. The kids made out like bandits. Jake got a plethora of Wii games, clothes, Bakugan, and a new guitar (for his upcoming lessons). Andy also did very well with adding to his Geo Trax collection, toys, and John Deere stuff. They were both very pleased (each kid has a chair in the picture above with their stuff... mind you this is only one half of our living room). Andy is just understanding the whole Christmas thing this year, and when the presents were all opened and everywhere in the living room, he looked under the tree and said, "That's it? Christmas is over?" We'll be working on the meaning of Christmas by next year. Steve and I spent the next 3 hrs after the present opening untieing twisties, separating our plastic and cardboard, filling garbage bags, and finding a home for all the great stuff the kids got. AND if that was not enough, Steve continued to put together Andy's GEO Trax town that now fills up and entire bedroom (our spare that only houses a dresser). It's so awesome! Andy just loves his new train set and we love that we have the space to allow him to leave it out at all times.

New Years - On New Years Eve we decided to start the day a little different than just getting ready for a get together. We hiked in the Cascade for a little snow tubing. It was awesome. What a great way to spend time with the boys. The thoroughly enjoyed their experience. We also say we have to do it more often, but the last time we did it was when Jake was 3 yrs old - so that goes to tell you how frequent we are.
We wrapped things up around 6:30pm and made our way back home on some pretty snowy roads. Actually, good thing we went when we did because on New Years, all the major passes were closed and we wouldn't have been able to go tubing. After getting home, and showered we made our way over to the Lee household again for some appetizers and drinks to ring in the New Year. We decided to call it quits around 2:30am when Steve fell asleep on their couch and Wendy's husband, Jarrod, decided that looked like a good idea.

Sleeping pretty much into the next day (I did mention my kids are not morning people), we jolted out of our slumber to take the kids out again. This time we spent half our day at a place called Charlie Safari - another indoor activity center that has mini golf, laser tag, an arcade, and one of the biggest climbing toys I've ever seen.
Alas, it was the end of another exhaustive day and we got home early evening as Steve had to work the next day for the first time in 2 weeks. I would love to say I spent that same day cleaning house, cooking dinner and all that good stuff, but it was a purely lazy day where the kids and I didn't get out of our PJs and read books and vegged in front of the TV. Steve came home to pretty much how he left us the previous day. :)

We both start our day jobs again on Monday full time. It's going to be difficult getting into the grind of it all... work, school, homework, after school activities, overtime, commuting, etc. Actually, it exhausts me from typing it all out.

So, far the best thing about 2009 - we can officially say we are going to Hawaii this year - 7 months and counting. 1st real vacation with the kiddos!