Better Buzz Pics

My friend took these pics of Apollo on Memorial Day. They turned out much better than what I posted the other day:






Estelle- American Boy

I love this song....

Buzz Boy


On Saturday I had a list of "to do's" as usual. After I got out of the van from taking Sascha and his friend skating, Steve came out onto the front deck with a buzz-headed Apollo. That was one of my to-do's. To give Apollo a buzz. Steve jumped the gun and took it upon himself to do the deed. He actually did a pretty good job.

Letting Go

Saturday morning during breakfast Sarah decided she wasn't feeling well and ran to the bathroom to throw up. Yay. Poor girl. She went and lied down on the couch. Meanwhile I was getting plans made to take Sascha and his friend Jake to Skateland. Sarah insisted that she felt better and wanted to go. No way was she going. Hello? The boys ended up having a good time even though Jake only made one lap around the rink. Sascha made several and did really well at it. Afterwards we ran over to Six Star to see if they had anything good since the store is closing. And then over to Goodwill. I actually found a cute shirt and jacket for Apollo. Like new. Then we headed over to McDonalds for lunch and the boys played in the play area. There was a little three year old girl there that kept calling them "butthead." They didn't like it.


Sunday, early around 5-ish Sascha came into my room and said he'd just thrown up. I asked "where?" and he said "in the hallway." Yay again. Poor Sascha. I got him situated and back into bed and then spent the next hour (no kidding!) cleaning up the two huge red (not pink) throw up messes in the hallway. Later I found out that he had gotten into the tub of red licorice and maybe eaten more than he should have. Of course Apollo had to wake up around 6:30 so I didn't get much sleep at all, staying up late the night before. I ended up staying home with Sascha and Apollo from church.




Monday-break from "letting go."




Tuesday Sascha stayed home from School with a tummy ache. Later while while Apollo was playing in his room, I noticed that he looked like he may throw up so I grabbed an empty toy bucket quick and into the bucket went his breakfast. Yay. Poor Apollo! I gave him a bath and cleaned him up, got him dressed and he was happy again. He just didn't eat much at all for the rest of the day. A few cheerios and a sippy cup of water. Lindsay, my friend's daughter, came over around 3-ish so I could help her with campaign posters. She's running for press secretary at Ridgetop JH. This is how they turned out:

While we were working on the posters I got a call from Sarah saying she needed a ride home. Her stomach hurt too bad to ride the bus home. Luckily Lindsay was here and I could leave Apollo home (he was napping) so I could go pick up Sarah. Later Sarah woke from sleeping on the couch and started "letting go" right there. Yay. Poor Sarah! She's usually good about running to the bathroom. Luckily we have leather couches. Easy cleanup. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Unwanted Visitor(s)

So we have unwanted visitors...
Our neighbors across the street were getting rid of a furry critter and after spraying it with ammonia to come out of the roof, the other guy had to attack the raccoon with a broom so the other guy wouldn't get attacked. The raccoon then lost his footing and went right over the edge. They patched up the siding where the raccoon had weaseled his way in. The very next day, kid you not, we got the same visitor to our home. I saw with my very own eyes as the critter had his head poked out of a small hole leading into our attic, the wire mesh ripped completely off.
Later on we decided to see what exactly was going on up there. The attic had never been inspected since we moved in, so we didn't know what was in store. As Steve climbed up the ladder and poked his head through the attic door he shone the light to get a good look. What did he see you ask? A raccoon STARING right at him! I told him to get down RIGHT NOW! He wanted to see if staring at the raccoon would scare it away, but it didn't. Our neighbor, who is always running around the cul-de-sac helping out here and there with whatever projects need help with, came over and helped with our little project. The raccoon actually came out on his own and made it to the top of the roof while the guys hammered up some custom cut pieces of wood to fill up the hole until we get a permanent fix. All I can say is, HALLELUJAH! It's gone! For now.

Symphony or Bust

Duncan and Kaitlyn came over yesterday to be with the kiddles while Steve and I went to the last performance of the '07-'08 season for the Bremerton Symphony. We had a fabulous time and enjoyed these performances: Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, Shostakovich's Festive Overture and a Chorale finale farewell, Fauré's Requiem Mass. Elizabeth Stoyanovich's style of conducting was so impressive and entertaining. She seemed to be dancing to the music as she was conducting. And at times the music was so soothing that we even fell to sleep. Okay, maybe the lack of sleep thing helped out with that too. The Bremerton Symphony Concert Chorale was also there along with two guest vocalists, one male and one female (I favored the female vocalist). Her voice reminded me a little of my Momma's. My Momma actually used to sing in operas and musicals. I remember when I still lived at home I could hear my Momma practice her singing while doing the dishes. Vee-she no-tro.... who knows what it meant? My Dad was also a concert pianist. They used to perform together. It was amazing hearing them play and sing. I wish I had some of their recordings.
...meanwhile back at home there was some mischief going on.

Later they cleaned the house (thank you, thank you, thank you!) and played Apples to Apples.

When we got home we made some dinner: salmon, veggies and pasta salad and had a little picnic on our back deck. First meal of the season outside. Yay!

Hot Mama!

Hottest Day of the Year

...so we HAD to take advantage. We packed up our beach gear and snackage and headed to Point No Point in Hansville. If you're not familiar, here's a map. You can also click here to find out more about it:


...and here's a picture of the famous Point No Point Lighthouse, although I did not take this picture:


Teesha (my niece) and Apollo very much enjoying themselves:



Apollo's not sure about this picture taking business...


He's trying to resist Teesha, can't you see?


Denied!

My sis in law-Geeta, nephew-Christian and brother-David. It was their idea to get out today and enjoy some away time. I had planned out a nice day full of pulling up blackberry bushes. I'm very grateful to them for helping me play hooky from yard work.

What a "ham"-ster...

Christian has a tradition of building a fort out of drift logs:

And the finished product, something to be proud of:

Nathan (Sascha's friend) and Sascha enjoy a nice meal of rock on clam dishes:

All of the sudden from out of nowhere a huge gust of wind blew in. It was nice because it was so warm outside. Every now and then the gust would be nice cool air.
Me and m' bro...

When we got there, the tide was all the way out, which was nice for the kids because the water was actually warm. I've never felt it like that before.


Poor Punkin fell and got a face full of water. He bounced back quick enough though. He LOVED the water, and sand, and rocks and snacks:
Check out the muscles on that kid! Okay, that drift log was actually very light... A fun day was had by all. We ended up spending about three hours there and I think it got into the mid-eighties. We would have stayed longer but Teesha needed to get back home to get ready for her first Freshman dance. Okay, and the tide was coming in too.

P.S. You'll notice that Sarah's not in any of the pictures. She had spent the night at her friend's house and got to go to the Armed Forces Parade with them.

Still Without a Road

Since we're STILL waiting for this road to be fixed, I thought I'd post this blog piece Steve wrote back in December of last year. The last I heard, it could be after this year until they start any repairs.

Illahee Road near our house. This means our son’s bus ride to school has gone from 10 minutes to a half-hour. Kitsap Sun photo by Larry Steagall.

On Wednesday we returned from a week’s vacation in sunny (mostly) Southern California to this.
While in San Diego at Legoland, my brother-in-law sent a picture to my cell phone of a car submerged in water. It was in Silverdale, and the water flow is the worst there when it rains heavily, so I thought perhaps we had a storm that was a little wetter than usual. Then I talked to him and it took me a while, but I eventually understood that the storm this region was getting was significantly bigger than normal. I made some calls to folks from church to make sure they were OK and to see if someone could come sweep some debris out of a couple of storm drains at our house, but one guy I talked to said he didn’t think he could make it. He lives about a 10-minute walk away, but it sounded to him like the road was out.
The picture here is what had happened.
Our house was fine. The water got a few inches deep in the driveway, but none went inside. We didn’t take the laptop with us on our trip, so I wasn’t checking my paper’s Web site for updates. We relied on phone calls and watched Nightline, surprised that rain in the Pacific Northwest merited a segment on the show.
It wasn’t until we got home that I really understood the strength of the storm. The road outage you see here means my son’s bus ride to school has gone from about 10 minutes to about 30 minutes. Not only was this road completely destroyed here, two others that beat a path to the school were partially damaged, enough to close them for a few months.
In short, this was a big deal.

Speaking of Fame



Might I add that I, too am famous. I thought this was definitely blog worthy. This picture of Howard Jones and I was taken at the Admiral Theatre backstage after his fabulous performance. Only select people were allowed backstage and because my friend's sister and her hubby catered the event, they made it so I got to be one of the lucky ones. Yes, this is an older picture. I was about three months pregnant with Apollo.

Here is one his songs that made him famous back in the '80's.

Famous Home Teacher



Steve sent me an e mail with these pictures. They're banner ads on the Kitsap Sun website. As I looked closer, I realized that this guy used to be our home teacher in our last ward. I thought it was blog worthy.