Happy Birthday, Ed!

On February 28, Ed (Grandpa; Great-grandpa) celebrated his 92nd birthday. Mom and I took him to El Torito to celebrate (and so that we didn't have to cook dinner). Ed and I had shrimp fajitas. Mom ordered this appetizer plate and actually put away a lot of it!

The server kept taking our picture when Ed had his mouth full. Happy 92nd Birthday, Ed! You look fabulous and we love you!

Pathetic!

What did we do before the techy toys?????

And, then, there's always the low-tech version of enjoying oneself. You go, Omi!

Another Super Busy Week

Last weekend - Alex's girlfriend, Shawna, spent four days with us (actually with Alex, but we were here, too).

Sadly, Ed wasn't able to join us because he wasn't feeling well AND I don't have any pictures of the weekend! But we had fun.

Monday - President's Day
Took Andy to the airport super early.
Went to the movies with Mom (The Vow).

Tuesday -
Took Shawna to Martinez to lunch with Alex (who is still on jury duty). Shopped at a few antique stores. Took Shawna to the airport. Babysat at 47 while Beth did tutoring. Sorted pictures for eventual scrapbooking.

Wednesday -
Super busy day at work after not being there for two days. It was "Kids eat free day" at Chili's so Mom and I joined Beth and the kids for a yummy dinner. Sorted pictures for eventual scrapbooking.

Thursday -
Another super busy day at work followed by "cut and color." Vicky did a fabulous job! Had to go back to work another hour so missed the RS Dinner/Conference. Sorted more pictures for eventual scrapbooking.

Friday-
Yet another super busy day at work followed by a scrumptious Indo dinner fixed by Mom. Sorted more pictures for eventual scrapbooking.

Saturday -
Up early to clean the church building followed by Costco for staples followed by house cleaning followed by picking up Ed's birthday dessert, which I won't be able to eat (sad) followed by big get-together for Ed's 92nd birthday. He still looks fabulous.

Phew, I'm tired.

The Preparation is the Hard Part

After FOUR days of sorting these

and these




and these




I am still not finished...

But when I finally am, I am going to have so much fun scrapbooking!!

15-minute "Computer Time"

Aron and Will are allowed 15 minutes of computer time. Sometimes they choose my iPad, sometimes they choose the computer, sometimes they choose the Wii. This past weekend, after eating dinner at our house, they chose to play Mario Cart. See if you can figure out who won...

Starting the race

Driving on the track

Those tricky turns!

Is Will turning off the track???

Where are you going, Will?

What the heck, Will?

Who won?

Sarah ready to roll with her

gloves on and her spy glass

All that just made me hungry and it was

"free day Sunday." So, I made a Bananas

Royale - so yummy!

At 9 PM, I Was Asleep on the Couch

What? This doesn't happen to me...I'm the one who easily stays up until midnight or 1 a.m. I think the week's activities and too many super late nights did me in. Here's last week's history:

• Saturday, El Dorado's came to Concord - Cooked, ate, played, stayed up late to make Primary puppets.
• Sunday - Church, Sharing Time, crab feed, stayed up late chatting with Theresa.
• Monday, school holiday - cooked, shopped, cooked, El Dorado's left, worked on school accreditation documentation, met Theresa in Vacaville at 10:45 p.m. to hand off Arie's backpack that was left at our house, stayed up REALLY late to finish accreditation documentation.
• Tuesday, Valentine's Day - Early to school for accreditation team visitors, had to be on my game all day for the visitors, took the fam to dinner for Valentine's Day, stayed up late watching a depressing movie about a cancer patient.
• Wednesday - Early breakfast with visiting teachers, drove to Sacramento for federal funding workshop with school administrative secretary, stayed up late preparing bedroom for Alex's main squeeze.
• Thursday - Early appointment for CT scan, spoke at M.A. graduation, spoke at RDA graduation, played cards with Mom, cleaned out linen closet with Mom, stayed up late signing staff time sheets.
• Friday - Long meeting with RDA staff, followed by another meeting, followed by intense clean-up of piles of papers on desk. After dinner, watched TV with Mom and fell asleep on the couch by 9:00 p.m. Woke up just in time to post this before midnight.

I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow, getting to know Alex's girlfriend, Shawna, and a nice, long holiday weekend of laziness and my favorite thing - cooking!

Good night!

Keunings, Crab, and Fun

Mark, Theresa, and Arie came to visit last weekend. It became a whirlwind weekend of fun, eating, working, eating, playing, eating, shopping, eating, and eating.

On Saturday, Mom made a giant pot of nasi goreng and pangsit (Indonesian fried rice and fried wonton). Yum! Then, we played Joker and Mom and Theresa helped me make puppets for my sharing time lesson.

On Sunday, we ate Cinnabons (did you know Costco sells them?) and eggs for breakfast. In the afternoon, the 47's joined us and Mark, Andy, and Alex did a mini Jam Session while Arie and the little guys played video games. Then, for dinner we ate Dungeness crab (my ultra favorite), salad, and sour dough bread (lots of it) with baked salmon for the non-crab eaters, followed by ice cream. Thank goodness, it is a free challenge day for me. Theresa, Alex, and I watched Downton Abbey.

On Monday, for breakfast, we ate chicken-apple sausages and avocado-cheese omelettes and for lunch, homemade deli sandwiches. The women then shopped at TJ Maxx while the guys played video games and read.

Then, the Keunings left and it became really quiet. It was a great weekend.

We Got Flocked!

Imagine my surprise when I left for work this morning and saw a flock of flamingos on my front lawn:

Then, as I drove past Andy and Beth's house, another flock:

I wonder when the flock they will leave! (Cute fundraiser idea, huh?)

Great Helpers!

On Sunday, it's my turn to share a lesson with the kids on Choosing the Right. We will be talking about how the disciples followed Jesus. It was suggested that we use some puppets during the lesson. My mom and my sister-in-law, Theresa, said they would help color them. We needed Jesus, Mary and Martha, Peter and Andrew, Saul (Paul), and Lehi. We discovered that there were only two templates for the puppets--one figure for Mary and Martha and another figure for all of the men. So, we decided to get creative and doctored the templates so that they would look different and more like the disciples we needed. We colored, drew, cut, taped, and laughed until our sides split. In the end, we had seven individual puppets.


Thanks, Mom and Theresa!

My Favorite Things

 Dungeness crab
 My microfleece house “uniform”
 A hot mug of Pero with Irish Creamer in the evening
 French-milled soap – Milk
 Sweet Amber Musk from Salt City Candles
 Filet mignon dinner at Magleby’s in Provo
 “Movie day” at home
 Homemade hot buttered popcorn
 Dark chocolate
 USPS’ Click-n-Ship

Gas Station Pet Peeve

Halfway to work, low gasoline warning.
Duck into nearest gas station.

Credit card slots don't work.
Pump handle locking mechanism broken.
Annoying!

I WANT FULL SERVICE GAS STATIONS BACK!

Oma, Can I Play Your "Ah-ped?"

In 1988, I marveled at the fact that Alexander could pop a cassette into the video player all by himself. Technology has advanced since then at lightning speed. Today, Sarah has no problem figuring things out on my iPad.

In 1988, I marveled that kids would sit quietly and watch Andrew play Nintendo for an hour. Today, I guess nothing has changed…

SuperBowl Sunday

We love football. We love food. We love being together. Put them all together and you have one fun afternoon!

Beth, Sue, Alex, Omi, and I had fun preparing the food.

Andy had fun (?) putting all of the cables back together so that we could watch the game on the big screen.

Tatiana, our neighbor joined the festivities, but I was so into my plate, I forgot to take a picture. We missed Grandpa Ed (went to Michael & Janine's) and the Romneys.

We were all routing for different teams. Tom Brady, NE Patriots QB, contributed to my winning the Leal family Extreme Croquet Fantasy Football League trophy this year. The NE Patriots was Bill’s fav team. So, it’s not hard to guess who I wanted to win. Beth is mad at Tom Brady, so she was rooting for the Giants. Omi always roots for the underdog. Mandy wanted the Giants to win.

To officially close the 2011-12 football season and, at the risk of gloating, I’m going to take this opportunity to show, again, the trophy that I get to keep all year.

What a Day . . .

How many weird things can you experience in a day?
• Wait in a doctor’s office for 1 ½ hours AFTER checking in…
• Avert your eyes from doctor with a 7-10 split…
• Be offered a free radial arm saw by a neighbor…
• Haul a radial arm saw around the corner to your home on a “dolly”…
• Find out via a returned Christmas card with a notation in Dutch that said “Overleden” that my dad’s only living brother passed away…
• Buy 5 boxes of Tagalongs…

And I haven’t even talked about what happened at work.

A Jury of Your Peers

Last month, Alex received an invitation . . . to Superior Court.



Today, he was invited to sit here:




Mum’s the word. He’s not talking; taking his juror-dom very seriously (as he should). I would want him on my jury, wouldn’t you?

Thanks for your good citizenship and service, Alex. Your dad would be proud! Enjoy the experience.