The Autopia

If you're anything like me, you hate the Autopia. The line is always unreasonably long, the cars are uncomfortable to sit in, the pedal is too hard to hold down for the whole ride, and your kid thinks its more fun to slam the car against the rail down the center than to try and steer with it.

However, if you're anything like me, you'll gladly endure all of that just to see this look on your child's face. Worth it, don't you think?

Welcome Back

Most people who follow this blog already know that the sunshine and roses depicted herein over the last couple of years is, in at least some part, fiction. The problems were many and eventually became too much to live with so a change had to be made. The details of the split are personal... but the result is an ugly divorce. Its been almost a year since the split and it will be finalized in another month. We've got to be breaking some sort of speed record for a 12-month resolution considering how many trips to court and how much bickering there has been. I haven't been posting because I didn't know what to say. Unlike him, I don't feel it is appropriate to air our grievances in a public forum and, with so little else going on in the last year, it doesn't leave much to blog about.

However... life marches on. With regards to my career and home, my options are several. I'm planning on spending the next year figuring out what the hell to do (less if all goes wrong in court next month and I have to scramble). If you're interested in my progress as I leave the past behind and march into the future, feel free to check back once in a while... I'll share.

Um... Yeah...

You know how sometimes life gets so crazy you forget to make sure you put pants on before you leave the house?

When life is like that your blog tends to suffer.

I will return... I promise.

Happy Birthday Lorelai!

As promised, we took Lorelai to get her ears pierced on her 7th birthday. The kid's salon in the mall does both ears simultaneously so the piercee doesn't have to think about the second ear after experiencing the first. So great!

They gave her a sucker "for the pain".

She made faces and almost cried for a couple of hours, but by the end of her birthday dinner at Olive Garden, she was thrilled.

The other thing she was happy about was that we had told her she would probably get little gold balls for her first earrings, which is pretty traditional for piercers, but all the salon had left was cubic zirconias. She has sparklies instead!

Birthday Bowl

We went to a birthday party last weekend at the local bowling alley. The kids had a blast.


The had the guard-rails up so the kids were guaranteed to not get a gutter-ball.


Their technique was closer to throwing a softball and I've never seen it take so long for a ball to make it down the lane.


We actually had a point where the ball didn't make it and we had to hit it with another ball to get the lane clear. Bowling meets croquet.

I started recording this because she was starting to bop to the music (which you can't hear) but got lucky.

Again, can't hear the music he was rocking out to but- little dude's got some moves!

Final result: two strikes for Lorelai (one of which was guard-rail-free!) and one for Spence. I anticipate many future bowling birthday parties.

Christmas!

We took the kids to Tahoe for Christmas Eve and morning this year. They went up with my mom over the weekend before Christmas and I followed a few days later. They got to see a couple storms which was cool, snow falling is always magical.


By the time I got there the storms had past and we had beautiful sunshine on the new snow.


There was one present in particular that Spence was itching to open for days and the excitement was tangible.


The greatest invention ever - a doll house for boys. Its a fire station and police station complete with vehicles, dogs, people and furniture. It even has a toilet.


Spence had to have the fire captain hat to go along. It must be worn to protect one's head while playing Leapster.

Snow Dog.

Every time I drive into the Tahoe basin I think I should play tourist and pull over to take a picture of the amazing view. This year I went ahead and did it.

My Little Geek

"Mommy, can I stay up late and do math?"
-Lorelai