Bear Hunt

I've been downloading all my video camera tapes to try to get caught up. Remember this one from July 2002.

OK, I was going to make it private, but its too much of a pain, so the whole world gets to watch it... if they can find it.

New Post

I was going to post about how I was trying to decide whether to replace our old van with a new one. The old is a 1997 Chrysler Town & Country with 140,000 miles and no A/C -- which is the biggest reason it needs to go. The repair bill for the A/C will be at least $1,700, and it needs another $1000 in other stuff.

We've lived the last two years without A/C by tucking into a smaller car for vacation. But that is no longer an option. The girls all grew a foot taller last year, and we added a baby to the mix -- so no possible way to travel without a large car.

Then I was trying to decide if we wanted to get a new car or another used car. We've always bought used and I know it's recommended by all the stay-out-of-debt gurus. We bought our last van with 40,000 miles on it and its done OK. Unfortunately, it was a Town & Country and needed lots of expensive repairs. We've spent over $9000 in repairs in the last 8 years. and that was with a warranty that covered some of the early repairs.

So, anyway, I took Avarie over to look at my dream car -- the Odyssey. OK, my dream car would not be a mini van, but you get the idea. Of course the price was way more than we were looking to spend, but guess what? We ended up with one anyway. It was new, It was shiny, It had A/C!!! It has a little hole to plug in your ipod. (no, we didn't get the one with the DVD & GPS and leather -- I'm not that crazy)

So come see it. It's sooo pretty.

Other news: Micah sang with CineMagic at the Celtic fair this morning. Their number was so cute. (not cute like my new car, cute like a gaggle of little girls.)

I found a really funny book at Borders last night. I'm going to order a couple of copies to share.

Carsten is also cute and getting huge. Prunes really took care of his problem. (prune juice didn't work.)

Well my 15 minutes is up. Or Carsten won't be so cute. bye, debbie

Avarie's New Look

This is Avarie's old look. She had a lazy eye when she was little so she patched her good eye from when she was about 3 yrs old until she was around 7. Her eye sight was eventually 20/20 which is why I didn't worry too much about taking her to her annual eye appointment.



















This is Avarie's New look. I was surprised to find out that her eyesight is TERRIBLE. She never complained and when I asked her if it was ok to wait 2 months for her next appointment she said fine. I didn't need to drive her to Ventura for a quicker appointment. I was in the exam with her when she was asked to read the letters on the wall. She kept moving to the bigger and bigger lines and still couldn't really see them.



Needless to day, she now has glasses.

On the way home from picking up her new glasss she kept pointing out all the things she could NOW see. Like the STOP sign (?!!!) and the names on buildings. I didn't know she couldn't see any of it.

Things should be a bit clearer for her now. And she looks CUTE!

CineMagic Pictures

I've got pictures of CineMagic, I've got movies too. Someday you may see them. But until I get around to posting them you can see pictures of everyone taken by my good friend Debbie here:

See pictures of CineMagic Here

I also have pictures of birthdays. Since Birthdays and CineMagic were the same week we just had birthday breakfast before school and then Kevin took the girls shopping on their birthdays. Grandpa is also taking them shopping. Lots of Nintendo DS items have been purchased. I think birthdays are done. Except Bradlee has one coming in 2 weeks.

Its CineMagic Week

We are finally down to our last week of CineMagic.  For those who don't know its a musical program put on by kids in Camarillo.   I'm waiting up for Bradlee, who was suppose to call me by 8:30...  Phone just rang, she's on her way home at 9:10... She's stage manager for this years production so she's been at the stage all afternoon working. Avarie & Micah are both in a couple of numbers and look really cute.  I was costume chairman this year which means I got to sew a lot of costumes and order some others.  It really wasn't too bad since I started before Christmas to get them done.

Kevin went out of town this week too.  So, I probably won't be much use backstage with a baby but I'll go anyway and try to have fun.  Last year was really fun.  I got to work just off stage, lining kids up to go on stage for their numbers.

We have rehearsals from 4 to 8 Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, and then performances on Thursday 7pm, Friday 7pm and Saturday 1pm at Pacifica High School,  so come and see a bunch of cute kids sing and dance.

Birthday Lists

Micah wanted me to post her birthday wish list. While I'm at it I'll post Avarie's also. Just so you remember Micah turns 9 on Apr 2 and Avarie turns 12 on Apr 3. Also CineMagic shows are on Apr 2, 3 & 4.

Micah

1.A Club Penguin membership card (for a month)
2. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (for DS)
3. Bakugans (at Target or K-Mart)
4. Zelda Phantom Hourglass (for DS)

Avarie

1. Books (and lots of them)
2. gift cards
3. I-pod
4. Avatar book 3 DVD
5. ugg boots
6. Love from you
7. Bean bag, or the type of chairs the boys got
8. good running shoes
9. more dark boot cut jeans
10. Fabric?
11. DS games
12. more love from you
13. cake
14. party

15. A Club Penguin membership card (for a month)

Happy St Patricks Day

Bradlee went to a friends and made 3 doz cupcakes to take to school today and didn't even bring me one. Everyone is wearing green today except me because I'm still in my PJs.

Any ideas for an art project for 3rd grade. They are suppose to make a collage out of trash. I was thinking more along the lines of Warhol and soup labels. Maybe finding an old pack of Uno cards or something they could use.

We are all finally healthy again. I hope. Being sick and having sick kids is a pain. Carsten's sleep schedule got all messed up but he's doing better again.

CineMagic is in two weeks. Yeah!

Electricity

I'm the over achieving parent again.  Micah's class had to give a speech that was "how to " or " an explanation".  Since she has been doing electricity experiments since christmas we decided to do a talk about electricity.  Our first draft was 3 pages.  Even I figured that was too much to talk about.  We ended up with 2 pages that Micah proceeded to memorize.  I saw some of the other speeches today and they were more along the lines of "how to make a cake", and a really cute one about how "how to give blood" (the little girl has a blood disorder so has had a lot of blood tests.)

You'll notice that I'm still not smart enough to use the video on my camera.  For some reason I think its ok to turn the camera sideways to get the framing better.  So watch the first part of the video laying down.

Electricity Part 2

I got the camera going the right direction!

Electicity - part 3 - The End

Do you know how hard it is to type Electricity? Anyway, if Micah is chosen she gets to go to the district Speech tournament in April.

Smartie Pants

    My Smarties.  I get to brag once in a while.  Report cards came home.  Bradlee, who is taking 3 honors courses got straight "A"s.  Avarie got all "A"s except PE (who cares) and Micah now gets to take the math test before they start the chapter and then do fun homework instead of the workbook.  So Yeah!!!

     I wish we didn't have to do so much homework to make it all happen.  Last night I got to learn about the Aksum and Kush and Nok empires.  Never heard of them.  Probably never will again (at least until Micah gets in 6th grade).  Also learned how to write the equation for a line in standard and point-slope formula and how to find the slope and the perpendicular bisector of a line.

    Micah is home sick this morning.  She didn't finish her homework.  She was suppose to write a letter to President Obama.  She spent most of yesterday making her own planet out of model magic and coloring it.  I guess I should have spent more time on my 3rd grade homework.

Rain

It rained today. The news weather was trying to make a big deal out of it. They went to the weather girl on the street. It had stopped raining before they got to her. She was wearing her little sleeveless top and cute hair. She had the camera pan to the right so we could look at the puddle on the sidewalk. "You have to look at our van, its got the most rain on it" The camera panned to the left as she drew her hand across the water drops on the hood of the van. That's all there was. No flood, no wind, no rain.

That's some weather we've got.

HEY !!!

Hey guys.. who put me in this beautiful PINK crib... with a canopy... don't you know I'm a boy !!!