Star Gazing

It was a slow hard day. Somehow we manage to not make it outside except for drop offs and pick ups. No fun. With two naps to manage, this is becoming more frequent than not. While I had given up on making it out, Rod hadn't. He came home late, at 7pm, but after dinner, we put sweatshirts over our pjs and laced up our sneakers to go for a walk in the dark!

It was so fun to be out past bedtime. The kids thought it was a special treat. Usually we do walks and the kids are on bikes or scooters or blades. Usually we do walks with some destination in mind. Not this time. We simply walked up up up the street behind our house until we could spy the ocean line of lights. Then across the neighborhood with no lights. Luke reached for my hand over and over again, something new to me. I loved it. Rod and I recalled the weekend events and visited like we were on a date. I loved it. As we began to walk down down down the other side of the hill, Bella said she was tired of walking, so we all four layed down on the sidewalk and looked up to the dark night sky for shooting stars. Bella has yet to see her first one! There we were, all on our backs pointing out constellations in the middle of our neighborhood with the occasional car passing by. I emptied my head of the busy day and rested with my family. It was peaceful. It was fulfilling. It was monday night.

Field Trip to the Fair

Isabella's 1st grade class went to the Santa Cruz County Fair last Friday for a field trip. I really wanted to take Luke and was happy to hear that my Friday plans got canceled. So Luke and I jumped in the car and hooked up with Bella's group of 5 kids and 2 parents.


No offense to the two brave dad's who volunteered to chaperoon the 5 kids. However, let me tell you something... You don't bring them to the tables with hats, bags, pencils and loads of crap for the first activity! I mean isn't that common sense? Do they not know?!! I just spent 10 minutes consolidating my own camera, purse, and lunch to be handsfree all day (to grab Luke).

So of course, we are headed to the next activity and I get two, "mom will you hold these please?" "Uh, NO. If you want your hat you hold on to it." I take the bags and buckle them to my backpack. Sigh.

My favorite was hearing, not once, but twice from working parents who took the day off, "This is harder than work!" Yeah, puff puff.... It's my full time job. I know mom's rock. So I'm proud to be one! ;)


After Luke's last couple of Houdini acts at our last big venues (Mall and Boardwalk) ... I did a little tattoo stating:

IF LOST:
CALL JULIE
xxx xxx xxxx

I penned it on his right arm and right leg. It was that or the monkey leash, which I'm still building confidence in using as it gets less rave reviews than the tattooing.





Yeah! Pig Racing. Have you ever seen such a thing?! It was halarious. My favorite part was when they were announcing the names of the competetors, such as SpiderHam. I could see Bella from afar (she's the red hat on the mid-left standing up in the crowd). Anyway, they announce... "In the red, we have, Strawberry." In which Bella turns to her friend and matter of factly shakes her head with confidence, "I'm going for Strawberry."

The Luke Daily

Luke likes to copy his surroundings. Unfortunately, his surroundings are Isabella and I.

Here wanted to wear my wrap that I wore for two weeks post hernia surgery. (Hernia from my pregnancy with him-bugger!) I like the cute buns hanging out.







Here he insist on wearing dress up like Bella and helping sort my tangled jewerly into ice cube trays. I like how boy he looks with a huge band-aid across his face. You never see girls with as many band-aids that this kid ends up with on any given day. Thank goodness for Costco 3 packs!
Swim Lessons- round 3. He loves the water, but sure can't swim- yet. He'll go charging in, jump off the side and do the dead mans float until someone plucks him out of the water. If only he could do that float on his back, I wouldn't worry so much!



Here Luke masters thee ol' peanut butter and honey. Building self-independence-right? He was pretty proud of himself - hence the big grin!

to fly or not to fly

Gee... we finally worked out that Rod could ask for two weeks off work to fly back to Australia and take advantage of the Qantas special $998 through the end of November, only to find out he only has accumulated 18 hours of vacation time at his new job!! Yeah, hours. Not days- hours!

What a joke. Now what?! Still no offers on our house. Hmmmm... maybe a vacation to Oz just for me. Yeah, that's what Rod suggested! I wouldn't even know what to do with myself. I need to make it there before the 10th of January one way or another for visa purposes!

It's Official: I'm a Soccer Mom!

Our new fall schedule is in full swing. Bella has hit the first grade and is checked in until 2:25pm everyday! She has soccer practice twice a week and a game every Saturday.

Luke has enrolled in swim lessons and a tumbling class with mom. In addition to all that, I got a job! Yep... here is my new little man and Luke's new best bud, Greyson!

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

I'm back! This time though, no top secret info that might get hacked into and used against us. That was Rodney's paranoid thought about my last blog that detailed our efforts to go you know where!! Ah, poor paranoid husband. I'm a little bitter about having to delete my last blog. It held a wealth of information that has documented the last year of our journey. I can't believe I was so foolish to not print up my entries or at least write down the timeline bits and pieces. Anyway... on with the show!! Well, not really a show, just more waiting.