randon stuff...

so, monique had her state a couple weeks ago (when grandpa and gramma were here) and she did pretty good. i dont remember all her scores, but i remember that they were all in the 8's, and her all-around was 34.975

my state was the week after and i got an 8.85 on beam, a 9.025 on floor, an 8.75 on vault, and a 9.25 on bars.

gramma wanted to know about my ankle (which i hurt in practice a couple weeks ago) and i went to the normal doctor a week after it happened and they took x-rays and said it was normal. they said that i had to go to a special ankle doctor and to stay off it until i could have an appointment. my mom said that i could compete if i wanted, so i went to state and was tumbling for a few practices when i went to the ankle doctor today. he took more x-rays and found a tiny crack in a bone... i guess it had been long enough, or it wasnt that broken, but anyway he said hes just going to call it a sprain and he gave me a strange brace thing-y to wear for a couple weeks. and im supposed to stay off of it... i dont think thats going to work too well, i'll probably be back on it in a week with full tumbling and vaulting, oh well...

GOOOooooo padres

...Or they sure are positioning themselves for a terrific MAY - right???

I'm sure glad we have not been at some of the games we considered. Like the one in Dodger stadium a few weeks ago where it was 10 - 0 early on. Then the Diamondback series this weekend was another possibility. SIGH. We have tickets with the Schmidts in May for the Rockies. MAYBE by then we'll get a win or 2. 15 &9 record. Maybe Kyle better reconsider his desire for office colors.

The Petrie's Have Bought a House!

Or:
The economy is falling rapidly, the credit market is shaky, and the mortgage industry is a basket case; let's buy a house!


Yes. It's true. And you can click on the title of this post to be taken to another blog detailing the progress of the remodel (or the evolution of the box, if you will).
Sorry for those who might feel deceived, but I am a bit suspicious, and I didn't want to jinx it. And technically we didn't buy a house until today, when we closed.
The house in a great part of Lakewood called Applewood. The prices for homes in the area are all over the board: $300 to 1.4m, and none of them are alike, which Kaze really loves. Ours is a bit boring compared to others, but still lovely none the less. A brick ranch with a walk out basement and a partial mountain view on a lovey 1/4 acre. 2200 sq feet 4bd, 2ba upstairs. 1800 sq ft completely unfinished downstairs. Most would consider that a bummer, but we consider it actual living space. The boys can scoot and skateboard and I can have a place for all my tools, and Kaze can workout in peace.
I spent most of the day ripping wallpaper from the walls. Heath's whole room took 10 minutes, and the kitchen has taken hours and isn't done yet. Windy spent about two hours removing the carpeting from the deck. So far we have made a whole lot of messes, but I can see the progress.
That might be it for a while, but you should check the other blog occasionally.

KJ

Sunny San Diego

Here is a shot of our garden a week ago. We took out the poppies this weekend and out in our veggies.

Skylar in Charge

But he is no longer in charge in this house. We had to put him to sleep on Friday. He was 12 years old - too young! but he had apparently developed an internal hemorrage of some sort. He seemed to us to have a slight tummy problem on Thursday but was no better on Friday so I took him to the vet. He was already going into shock from blood loss - though we had seen no sign of it til he had bloody diarrhea at the vet. (I realized he was cold when I petted him and put him in the carrier) Even with IV fluids he was badly off and the vet did not think he would survive the night without a blood transfusion. Then it would have been a lot of tests to determine the problem and see if it was fixable. We loved that big sweet guy! We are very sad.

Windy was at a conference in Michigan with students so we waited to post this til Kyle could tell her when she got home.

More Spring Loveliness

This is hail, not snow.

Spring in Atlanta

Need we say more!? Next week temp's are predicted to be 69 to 79 during the day.

Lovely Spring Weather

Or "Why Nathan and Teresa Moved to Atlanta..."
(click to enlarge for full effect and to see my sad little snow-covered tulips)

Did you know...

...there are only 48 days until the Naughtons hit the road for OC?

Indiana

Our trip to Indiana was wonderful - and we had beautiful weather (sorry Darc!). We spent some time at the McCardle cemetery trying to read some of the old inscriptions. It is now on the historical registry and someone put a fence around it.

We really enjoyede seeing my cousin which Marilyn meet that day. Marilyn now knows why I love her so - such a sweetheart. She needs a knee replacement, so she wasin a lot of pain. Teresa is taking Kelsey to school and I just heard a lot of noise upstairs where Ethqan is, so I better go check. mb

More random nothingness

I'm shamelessly springboarding off Darcy's post...or should I say, I was inspired by her post to share our spring craziness?

Let's see. Jordan's still in classes for another month, but starting to gear up to register for his fall classes. But I'll let him fill you all in on how and what he's doing.

Jake is doing swimming lessons and has also started judo. It's twice a week and I think it's going to be a good thing for him. I've always wanted him to learn judo and luckily our local YMCA teaches it for a ridiculously low price. The class is certainly more loosey-goosey and disorganized than a private studio, but we're in no hurry and I still think it will be good for him. It's going to progress pretty slowly. There are 3 degrees of white belt before even getting a yellow belt and the 1st degree white belt requirements are no walk in the park. As for swimming, I think we'll continue the swimming lessons until he's totally deep end safe, which he's just not yet. I guess he didn't get the Counsell fishy gene and learning to swim has not come naturally to him. But we'll stick at it until he's there.

Mark has joined the adult judo class, and is pretty excited to be doing an organized athletic activity for the first time in a while, since he usually is running or lifting by himself. Since he's already so strong and fit, he'll be able to move through pretty quickly. He can already do several of the skills that most people have to work at to get, like being able to handstand into rolls, and the sensei has already had to ask him to please just gently practice the moves in class so he doesn't actually break anyone's bones. Flexibilty is his weakest point, not a big surprise for most muscular guys. But let me tell you there are a ZILLION moves to memorize for judo. There are adult brothers who have been in the class since they were 5 and they are still only brown belts!

I am winding down my academic year. Woohoo! It's been the most stressful semester I've had, I think, since first starting. With 3 senior recitalists and being on 2 other seniors' committees it's been a lot of extra work and worry. All of my recitalists have been giving me heart attacks with their flakiness and procrastination. The recitals all take place in the next 10 days. Then I have a studio recital for my private and elementary students, for which I have no accompanist as the original one backed out and I haven't been able to find a replacment yet. And it's in 2 weeks!! Ahhhh!!!

I pulled out of the planned book project for this summer because I just can't maintain this level of stress and I haven't had a relaxing summer for 2 yrs now. I'm actually looking forward to summer now and it feels wonderful.

Darcy...are your toes warm yet? And let me know how the stopwatching goes, ;)

Random nothingness

Hello all ~
Alive and kicking here in the cold and gloomy Pacific Northwest. Feels more like winter than spring this week and to top it off my furnace is making terrible noises and waiting on a service call. We're shivering in the house and out!

We're knee deep in spring craziness ~ amazing how the calendar fills up. Amy's riding, Sarah's swimming and about to try Girl Scouts, Joshua's playing baseball, Caleb's in track... dinner has become a rarity this month. It's a lot of eating as we run out the door around here.

Joshua's first baseball game of the season was... well... it was challenging. :) It's a young team and coaches who haven't coached at this level before, so they had a bumpy start. The game was shut down at 10-0. Joshua had his team's first hit, though!

Caleb's first track meet introduced us to the world of track with a bang. It was freezing cold and lasted 4 hours. Ack! Next time we're going with all the winter paraphenalia and a dinner plan. He won the 100m event for sixth grade, though, which was fun. He also ran the 4x100 relay, the 200m, and threw the shot put.

Anybody know a good furnace repair person they can send my way today? My toes are cold.

More "World of Coca Cola"!

"Attempting";-) the wait in line to enter! ;-) How helpful it was of Coke to provide running areas! :-)
Taste testing SEVENTY Coke flavors popular around the world! There was ONE agreement among us that "Beverly" from Italy was awful - as Nath put it, like cough medicine!

PS. Yes, this wasindeed very interesting and entertaining for ALL ages, plus, w We hadn't known that Coke was invented by a pharmacist IN Atlanta and although it was instantly popular with the public, its sales didn't really take off til his creative bookkeeper came up with name Coca Cola and hand penned it himself!("They can't ask for it if it doesn't have a name"!) His hand written "Coca Cola" name logo has never been changed from the original penmanship! mc

World Of Coca-Cola

The Coco-Cola Polar Bear was a big hit.

I thought the truck was really "cool".

mb

AtlantaBotanical Garden

The Botanical Garden is a beautiful place, with a children's area and various theme gardens. The orchid area was simply beautiful.

Windows

I forgot to mention the other job we tackled on our trip to AZ. Mont came prepared, having purchased what he needed to do the job - his idea, not mine.

We washed our windows. It had been 1 1/2 yrs since we moved in and they sparkled then. We washed every single window in the house - though a few got only outside or inside depending on what could be reached safely. The windows had a film inside - I suppose from all the new stuff giving off fumes????? Everything looked so much nicer after the job was done. Mont even climbed on the roof and washed the bird poop off the bathroom skylight. I did the inside while he did the outside.

HEY! I think certain people need to get on the ball and POST!!!! Is this getting neglected after only 2 years? I know we're all busy - but just give a minute.

Fun in Atlanta

Emma & Ethan on the walk into the zoo.
Emma & Ethan having fun!
Emma, Ethan & Kelsey looking at caterpillars.

Happy Jack Days

We had a wonderful time in AZ last week! The weather was mild - anywhere from 24 - 36 at night, and 53-63 during the day.

As you can see we worked a lot. We had trees that needed trimming, or cutting down and pine needles and other fallen stuff to remove from close to the house. We planned to rent the dumpster as hauling the stuff to the 'slash' dump in the car was a little hard on the interior. Our neighbors had already strated their 'spring clean' job and wanted to share the dumpster & cost with us. So the 4 of us filled that thing (stomped down hard) in 5 days. We could have done more - but there is always next year.

We removed some juniper too close to the house, or any that were too close to a pine tree. (A few less straws in the ground will help the Ponderosa Pines grow healthier.) We removed a few pine that were small and too close to the house, also. As much as we hate cutting the trees we also are committed to fire safety around the house. We have a lot more work to do but can only do a bit at a time. We only worked in a small area around the house and got all that.

We also lined our run off 'creek' with rocks. We are anxious to know how the rocks will survive the monsoon downpours in late summer. Time will tell. Gigi wanted to help so she picked 2 half full buckets of small pepples to start the creek job while we hauled branches. That was hard work for her with Mont's old too big gloves! One thing that is east to do there is find rocks!!! Hauling those rocks to the area to work only took a short time for me. I could fill a bucket in no time flat. They are such pretty rocks I wanted to study each one, though.

It is amazing that at 60 degrees there I work in shirt sleeves - where as here in SD 60 is sweatshirt weather.

Mont had the hammock set up and tried a few afternoon naps in the shade - but then the breeze would blow up and he would get woken up with the chill.

All in all a good time!!

This weekend

Few funny things to watch for
1. brief cameo by Jake
2. Jordan's Magic Marker moustache
3. in the store scene, the guy in the block hat was the cashier who said they couldn't film there unless he could be in it. :)

I'm so relieved

I booked my Hawaii tickets a couple of months ago after literally months of research and watching fares. I did what appeared to be a slightly crazy thing at the time and booked our tickets on Hawaiian Airlines, even though their prices were higher than either Aloha or ATA, which were my other primary choices. Probably cost an extra $300-$400 total at the time. Can I just say WHEW?! With both Aloha Airlines and ATA folding this week it's going to be a nightmare for people trying to rebook ~ I'm thankful that I already have my tickets and that I followed my instincts and went with Hawaiian.

Happy Blogiversary!

It was 2 YEARS ago this month that we started the family blog!! Yay!!

It was a JUNGLE out there!

ARRRG a CHARGE!
YIKES!!- It's got Gary!
NOT to worry, MARILYNS got THEE touch! :-)
OH-kay the jigs up! ;-)

No, I don't know where the exhibitor got this fabulous pelt (I asked), and I won't "go there" re the likelihood of it's "politically INcorrect" useage in todays world, but it sure made for a teriffic display of her/his orchids! mc

Orchid show

On March 30th, we went to the spring Orchid show in Portland with our super friends, Gary & Lou. It is always great to see such beauty after a long, cold winter. mb