I'm Wise to you Honey!

This morning (a hazy Saturday morning) Gary popped out of bed at 8am and volunteered to take the kids out to breakfast while I sleep in. This includes Madison's best friend Tessa who slept over last night. Wow, here I thought I would have to make pancakes for everyone but instead I get to sleep in. Sounds like a good deal until I remember what today is-- the Florida Gators are playing! Ok, now I see what's going on. He's probably thinking "let me get my brownie points NOW so that I can sit back guilt-free and watch that big game later". LOL!

Sunol Glen

Today was the "funnest" day, as Madison would say... we enjoyed two class parties and the Sunol Glen parade. The kids had a blast!

Andrew didn't want his picture taken... he went as a hippie and looked so cute! I went as a witch... so did the other three moms helping out in Madison's class today.

Got fish?

Andrew does! In what can only be described as the most awesomely warm October day at Tahoe, Andrew and Gary went out on a fishing charter that's operated by a local friend. Whenever they go out with this fishing pro, they come home with a big catch. Fishing should be over by now-- it's freakin' almost November and this is not supposed to be boating or fishing weather. But with temps around 65 degrees, lots of sunshine, and the absence of wind, you can't pass it up! So Gary and Andrew got up in the wee hours of this morning and headed out on this friend's boat. They returned with several fish. The biggest was a 5 lb Mackinaw! This baby is 24" long and put up a good fight. Looks like we have dinner for the next few days...

In other exciting Tahoe news, last night we went out to the Fresh Ketch for dinner. We couldn't drive because Gary had already taken the truck over to pick up the trailer in preparation for pulling the boat out of the water today. He drove it over to the marina and walked home. So we had to get creative and decided to canoe over to Fresh Ketch. We've never tried putting 4 people in the canoe before but last night proved it's possible. I instructed everyone to sit still and don't so much as breathe the wrong way :) I didn't want to go for an unplanned swim last night. We made it just fine and had a great time at Fresh Ketch. It was really crowded so we ate in the bar. There were only small tables available so we had to split up-- the kids at one table, Gary and I at another. It was kind of neat though because our table was next to the fireplace and the kids table had a built-in backgammon set.

Sorry for the poor quality pictures-- I once again used my cell phone because I left my regular camera at home.

Spoooooooky

Halloween is so much fun! We have collected alot of decorations over the years, and each year I try to buy something new. I'm leaning towards getting the fog machine this year which is always alot of fun... we started decorating last weekend and Andrew finished up today by putting up some webbing on the door. Madison had fun walking around with the giant spider, just waiting for Andrew to finish the webbing so she could position it in the web.

Hail to the (Vice) President

Andrew had his first student council meeting today. In his first official act as VP of the 6th grade, he proposed a fund-raising bake sale (cupcakes: $1 each; cookies: 3 for $1 -- he got that idea from McDonald's :) He proposed a bunch of other things too and when I asked if the President opposed any of his suggestions, he replied: "No, she was too busy eating the free pizza that someone brought into the meeting". That's my Andrew... wait until the more senior person is occupied and then drop a bunch of his ideas on the group.

In other news, as you can see, today was the 1st grade field trip to the pumpkin patch. I've been to this pumpkin patch at least 3 times and it's alway a blast. Madison never gets bored with it. She is so excited about it and always runs to get the first pumpkin that she sees. I normally have to talk her out of it-- she tends to gravitate towards the most beat up, unattractive pumpkin in the patch. I can tell that she thinks it's like a pinata that was beaten open and the kids are all running to collect the candy-- like if she doesn't grab the first pumpkin she sees, they may be all spoken for within 10 seconds. But I talked her into being alittle more discriminating and she ended up with some good ones. Here are some pictures from the day.

Long Story Short...

We've not buying the house, but that's ok. We really needed to not rush into this and take our time selling our house... with the holidays coming up, I had serious doubts about whether it would sell within the short time period we were allotting ourselves. Now I'm on a mission to decorate this house and upgrade it in a big way. For the last 3 years we've been doing projects at Tahoe but never really do anything to the house here. Today alone I bought new window treatments for the dining room and I'm about to order new ones for the living room too, decided to get estimates on redoing the kitchen and wet-bar countertops with granite, and tomorrow I am going to paint our front door. Martha Stewart, watch out!

Bad Karma?

I hit a squirrel today! I was on my way to pick up the kids from school. Those little, windy, canyon roads on the way to Sunol are just havens for wildlife. So many times I've seen deer carcas on the side of the road, and several times I have narrowly missed squirrels and raccoons. Well today despite the fact that I swerved out of the way, I nailed the little bugger :( The suspension is so good on my Jag that I didn't even feel a bump-- but I did see the roadkill in my rear view mirror. Rather than see the poor thing in the road, I took another road going home.

Well life goes on... we're still negotiating on the house but it's looking good. I don't want to jinx it! Even if we get a signed contract tomorrow (which, knock wood, there's a good chance!) we still have to sell our house. The market is not as good as it used to be but I think we're going to price it right. I need to have the house looking spotless all day, every day. That will be a challenge. I did enlist the help of my cleaning lady who promised to come every Friday in order to have it looking spick-and-span for the weekend open houses. Once the house sells, I will truly celebrate.

Andrew's Big Catch

Ya gotta check this out! Andrew and Gary caught the biggest fish of the season last weekend. Seems like whenever they get a late start (i.e. getting out there at 7am) they end up catching a big one. So needless to say, we had a big dinner last night :) Andrew was very proud of his catch.

On another note, at about the same time Andrew was reeling in Mr. Big, our agent was faxing us an offer to sign on the house. With a bit of shakiness (is that a word?) in our hands, we signed off on what would no doubt keep us in debt for the next 90 years. When I attempted to fax back the offer to our agent, the fax machine jammed. Is someone trying to tell us something? I had to get in the truck and drive to Staples to send it out. When I came back, Gary said to me "well, any regrets?" I can't say that I have any. If we get the house for somewhere near our opening bid it would be great... but I have a feeling these are difficult sellers. Their agent initially welcomed our offer but scoffed at the contingency we included-- we've asked for 30 days to sell our house. The agent however said the sellers were motivated and she would do her best to explain this to them in positive terms. She asked if she could see our house so that she could assure her clients that it would sell quickly. I took this as a positive thing. The couldn't be totally closed off to the idea if she is taking the time to see our house in order to convey to them that she feels it will sell quickly. The market is strange these days-- I think our house will sell fast but I wouldn't want to risk losing our deposit on the new house. Therefore, the contingency is a deal-breaker and we'll just hope for the best. Tick tock, tick tock. The counter offer is due by 9pm tonight.

Oh Goody!

Our plasma is finally installed at Tahoe. After all that hard work (and expense I might add) that went into the TV, it's finally up and running. Not a great photo because I took it with my cell phone but here's what it looks like hanging like a pretty picture above our fireplace.

"No One Would Have Believed Me"

Ohhh, I love my son :) Today I pick Andrew (and Madison) up from school, and we were chatting about their day. Andrew tells me he had a substitute today (who was "so cool because she had a tattoo") and being a Friday, it was a kind of laid-back day. At one point the class gets on the subject of the age of their parents. A girl turned to Andrew and said "come on Andrew, we want to know how old YOUR mom is". Andrew wasn't going to say anything because he didn't know whether he should or not-- but the sub (who knows me just in passing) said "Andrew, I was curious about that myself..." So Andrew told me he replied "she's 32". I said to Andrew, "Oh, you got it wrong, I'm 36". To which he replies "mom, I know that, but no one would have believed me if I told them how old you really are".

Ok, that comment will get Andrew an automatic 300% raise in his allowance...

Our Little Model

Here is a picture from one of Madison's recent modeling jobs. If you scroll down to my first post in this blog there is another picture. This shoot was for a local fine arts photography company, so all of the pictures were very creative and highly artistic.

The Pride of Ownership

Yikes, I forgot how stressful it is buying/selling a house. It's like having a baby-- you get amnesia almost immediately after the birth so you can't recall all that pain and suffering, and end up getting pregnant again only to put yourself through all of that once more. Well same thing with buying a new house. Here we go again... Don't get me wrong, we're greatful for what we have, but for the last year or so we've been salivating at the idea of having more than a postage stamp sized backyard. I became seriously disgruntled after a stupid neighbor decided to permanently park their city bus that they "won" at auction (don't ask, it's a long story) on our nice suburban street. Although I often complain about our HOA at Tahoe, I really think there are some benefits to having a group of people who tell you NO, you may not trash the neighborhood by parking your crap on the street. So our goal became to 1. buy a house where our neighbors aren't so close that they can hear me yell at Madison for not flushing the toilet and 2. move into a community that is regulated by a Homeowners Association of some sorts. After coming to terms with the fact that we may be once again "house-poor", we decided to go for the gusto and attempt to buy a house that we actually stand a chance of living in for more than 5 years (3 1/2 years is our record so far). I won't say anymore about the house we're attempting to buy because I don't want to jinx it-- suffice it to say, it's a cool house and the property ROCKS. If we pull this off, it will be worth all the pain, suffering, and very unromantic evenings spent pouring over numbers with our real estate agent.

Whose iPod is it anyway?

This just isn't fair! I bought an iPod Nano a few weeks ago and have used the thing maybe two times. I know I loaded it up with music but that was pretty much the last I saw of it... now I rarely see Andrew without those white earplugs in his ear. The most frustrating part is that he listens to it in the car and sings along. So while he is jamming LOUD to Bon Jovi's "Have a Nice Day", I'm struggling to listen to another song on the radio. Add to that the fact that Madison is yelling at Andrew to "shut up because your singing is awful" while I slowly go insane.

Welcome to Titusville

Ok we finally have a blog... it only took me a year to warm up to the idea. Kind of cool. It's like an online diary only I have to watch what I say because it's a public forum :) I think this will really compliment our Clubtitus.com website.