Happy Holidays!

It's Christmas Eve at last. The house is full of good things to eat, the presents are all wrapped and under the tree and this evening the kids will hang their stockings. I'm glad that's a tradition they've decided they're not yet too old for. Something else we always do together on Christmas Eve is go see a movie and this year we decided to go see King Kong.

Tomorrow Sam's Dad and Grandmother will spend the day with us and Monday morning the kids and I will head for the airport and fly out to Colorado Springs to spend the remainder of the holidays at my parents. My sister Ann always plans something fun for all of us to do and this year we're heading up to Loveland for some skiing and snowboarding.

A Quick Vern Update

Adam and went to the zoo today to see Vern, the young Sufaka we're so taken with. He's about twice the size he was on our last visit, about half of what will be his adult size but I'm happy to report that he's got still got plenty of personality. The baby orangutan was also very active and playful and we watched him for quite some time.

We also got our first look at the two Samaitran Tiger Cubs that were born at the zoo this past June. They only joined their mother in the exhibit about two weeks ago. A male and female, only 3 lbs at birth and born three days apart, their birth generated a lot of excitement for two reasons. Sumaitran Tiger breeding in zoo's, (don't think I'm spelling it correctly) hasn't been very successful and they are endangered so any cub born is cause for celebration and two live cubs for a first time mother is apparently unheard of. They are such beautiful creatures. I'm glad we'll get to watch them grow up.

Tracking Santa

Thought I'd share this in case anyone is interested. When our kids were small we used to listen to the radio tracking reports of Santa on Christmas Eve and it's something we still enjoy doing. You can also do so online at NORAD Santa Tracking.

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/default.php
Xhildren (and adults) can track Santa via NORAD ;)

My Dad was stationed at NORAD for several years and helped to build some of the structures it holds. I remember being awed when we had a chance to go inside.

A Camp Week

Andrew really wanted to do a baseball camp over the school break and there's a really nice local guy, Mike Borzello, a gradulate from one of the near by high schools, who was a big league catcher with both the Cardinals and Yankees. Now he's an assitant coach with the Yankee's where he also does bull pen catching and pitches batting practice. He recently decided he wanted to try putting on a camp for local kids ( he spends his off season here) so Andrew's been at his league fields from 9am to 3pm everyday through Friday.

He's having a blast and today Jeff Weaver, the Dodger pitcher came by and he pitched to the kids and played a game with the youngest group. Andrew was jazzed at taking pitches from Weaver. Andrew figures he was throwing about 70 which he loved, he doesn't get to see pitches that fast much outside the batting cage.

After winning the home run derby game both Monday and Tuesday today Mike told Andrew he had to play with a handicap from now on so he had to hit from the back stop instead of home plate and it's a deep back stop. Sadly it didn't make any difference and he won again today but he did have a first--instead of just hitting it over the fence he hit one over the fence that flew over the parking lot and into the nearby river.

Tag You're It

I was tagged by my sister on this so here goes:

Seven things I hope to do before I die:
Visit Italy
Attend an Olympic Games
Go on an African Photo Safari
Visit Russia
Visit the Amazon Rain Forest
Go Deep Sea Fishing
Actually see a whale on a whale watching trip

Seven things I cannot do:
Speak a second language
Eat Spicy Foods
Read Music
Cook--not very well anyway
Draw
Pass a book shelf without looking at the books
Tolerate Selfish People

Seven things I say often:
Aren't you going to clean that up?
Don't forget to...
When do you need it by?
Please
Thanks
How can I help?
You did what?!?

Seven books or book series I love:
Star Trek novels
Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
Pride and Prejudice
I, Claudias
Hamish MacBeth Mysteries
Agatha Christie Mysteries

Seven movies I could watch over and over again:
Lord of the Rings
Anything Star Trek
Anything Star Wars
Anything Harry Potter
Forrest Gump
The Full Monty
Fantasia

Seven people I want to join in this “Seven Sevens” meme:
Tom
Dayton
Bob
Allyn
Janice
Larry
Diane

I'm Done!

Yesterday I purchased and wrapped the last gifts and sent packages off to my sister's family and Sam's niece and nephew--yeah I'm done shopping!

Steph arrived home late yesterday afternoon and promptly got ready to go out and see some of her friends. Andrew was also out with friends, he and a bunch of his buddies went to see the Chronicles of Narnia, which they apparently didn't enjoy that much. So Adam and decided to go out and get a bite to eat and then we drove around looking at Christmas lights.

Tonight's the big holiday bash our friends Gary and Steve throw every year at their home in Hollywood which is always a lot of fun.

Happy Birthday Dax!

Dax is our dog and she's 6 years old today. At least we think she is, she's a resuce dog, a pointer/lab mix and our best estimate is that she was born around mid-December.

Me, being me, couldn't let today go by without doing something special for her so we went for a long walk today around the lake which is one of her favorite places to go. I also got her her favorite kind of bone and she's been happily munching away on it all afternoon.

Dax has issues but we love her dearly. She was badly abused and a physical mess when we took her in but with lots of patience and tender loving care she was soon transformed into the beautiful creature I suspected she had the potential to be. The day we met her one look into her eyes was all I needed to know that she was a sweatheart.

I'd always hoped that with time some of her issues would fade but she's still terrified of strange men and very sensitive to certain sounds. She's a great companion and so devoted to us that it's a bit intimidating at times but I wouldn't trade her for all the so called 'normal' dogs in the world. She's our Dax and that's all that matters to us.

My Weird Habits--You're It

Well, it seems that I've been tagged by Dayton Ward. Dayton's an author and fellow Star Trek fan and if his list is anything to go by, he's not nearly as quirky as I've always assumed him to be.

Ground Rules: The first player of this "game" starts with the topic "5 weird habits of yours" and people who get tagged need to write an blog entry about their 5 quirky habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next 5 people to be tagged and list their names.

My Weird Habits:

1. I don't drink coffee so every morning I drink a can of Mountain Dew while I read the paper.

2. I can't fall asleep at night unless I read for a little bit first.

3. I talk to animals and inanimate objects--thankfully they don't talk back though!

4. I admit to being kind of obsessive when it comes to organization and tend to get really bent out of joint when something doesn't get put back in the correct place.

5. When something is bothering me I tend to pull on my hair, if I'm really stressing I've been know to pull out a chunk before I realize what I'm doing.

Tagged people:
Bob Greenberger
Ann Alderman
Tom Sharp
Larry Barnes
Allyn Gibson

A Bit of a Mess

One of the things I've never quite adjusted to living in southern California is the lack of distinct seasons. As crazy as it sounds I still miss winter, a cold snowy winter followed by the feeling of renewal that always comes in the spring as everything begins to turn green again and the flowers begin to bloom.

Here in Los Angeles it's possible to not even really notice the changes the different seasons usually bring, almost all the plant life has been imported and everything is green and blooming all year round. Winter only really differs in that it rains a lot, sometimes for days at a time, and it's usually a hard driving rain accompanied sometimes by howling winds.

The rains usually start sometime in January and in anticipation of that a few months ago we decided to replace some of the windows in the back of our house that take the brunt of the storms. It took what seemed like forever for the windows we ordered to arrive but they finally have and things have been a bit of a mess around here this week with the contractors around but it looks like they'll finish tomorrow and I'll be glad when it's over.

It's Beginning to...

feel, and look, like the holidays around here.

The house looks wonderful. Sam and the boys spent a good part of today hanging lights on the house and building their trademark candy cane fence around the front yard while I finished up with the inside. It's always been a family project to decorate the house inside and out for Christmas and as the kids have gotten older they've assumed an ever larger roll in the work involved.

We usually make a weekend of it but this year none of us liked the idea of not decorating the tree together and the kids didn't want to wait until Steph got back again we did that together right before she had to go back to Oxy after Thanksgiving. The tree has been looking a bit lonely without all the other stuff that's usually scattered about but now it looks like Christmas is coming.

Last night Sam and I went to his company's holiday party and had a great time. The party was at Shutters on the beach in Santa Monica and the food was delicious but what I enjoyed most was the dancing. It was also great to see so many people I haven't seen for quite some time

Sometimes Life Just Sucks

Do you ever have short periods in your life when nothing seems to go right? When everything that can go wrong, does? That is what the past few days have been like around here. Thankfully nothing really serious, just a sudden string of seemingly bad luck like two major appliances conking out on the same day, but it's certainly causing a lot of headaches and frustrations around here.

What's really driving me crazy is the US Post Office and the high school PTA. Somehow the post office has managed to lose a very large and very important mailing I was in charge of for the LAFSC. At the beginning of each new skating year a new membership directory has to be printed and mailed to all 398 members. The entire mailing (four trays worth) was delivered, accepted, paid for and then seemingly lost. It's been almost a month and still not one member has received their directory. I've been on the phone daily with the post office trying to track it down. All I get is we're really sorry but we don't know what's happened to your mail. In the meantime we're out the cost of printing the directories, mailing them and the entire membership is still waiting but we don't have the budget to reprint and remail.

Then after busting my butt to put together the student directory for the high school and preparing that for mailing I delivered it to the mailing company the school uses only to discover yesterday that they have not yet taken it to the post office. It seems that the PTA hasn't yet paid for two previous mailings and the mailing company is refusing to release the mailing or deliver it to the post office until their invoice has been paid. I don't blame the mailing company, if it was me I too would be reluctant to incure more expenses on behalf of an organization that owed me money, but in the meantime I'm the one taking alot of the heat from people wanting to know whey they still haven't gotten their directories.

It's getting to the point where I'm almost afraid to answer the phone or go out. The rational part of my brain knows that neither mailing snafu is my fault, and I can understand why so many people would think I've totally screwed up and am just trying to shift the blame but I'm starting to feel as if I'm cursed or something.

To top it all off I just learned last night that the rink has cancelled everything next week and now I've got to scramble to reschedule the planned USFSA test session which is going to mean reams of paperwork and calling dozens of skaters, coaches and judges to explain. If I survive the next few days I'm definately going to need a vacation soon.