We flew out to California for the Easter weekend, to visit with friends and family. I was nervous to see Andrews grandpa; he has since moved into a nursing home since we last saw him. He remembered us and was "with it" on the day we visit with him. He has been in and out of current time frame and been living mostly in the past, by reliving the memories as a current incident. I am just glad Kara was able to visit with her great grandpa again. The visit was lovely. When we got there we sat in the common area at a table with 4 chairs and other chairs along the walls and hall. At first it was just us in the sitting area, then little by little people started to gather. The elderly people were all admiring baby, Kara. She was in such a cheerful mood, waving to everyone, clapping her little hands, and babbling her baby talk. In a matter of minutes we had an audience.
The rest of the weekend we visited our folks. My parents came down and stayed in Westlake to visit with us. Saturday night we went out for sushi with our friends, Kara, and my mom and dad. Kara sat at the head of the table, and we would feed her bits of our sushi, like the avocado or cucumber bits. She had a fun time and behaved very well.
On Easter Sunday we went to a family friends house for Easter celebration. This was Kara's 2nd Easter (officially)... this year really counts more than last year to be able to enjoy it. There were other kids around her baby age so there was a separate baby egg hunt set up on the side grass/yard aside from the bigger kids looking for eggs. I got her some bunny ears for her to wear, as a headband...and left it back in Missouri. Drat, I didn't get any pics of her with the bunny ears on, but I did get plenty of other pics to post on here.
She loved the plastic Easter eggs, they fit perfectly in her little baby hands. The eggs all rattled with candy inside, and Kara would sit on the grass rattling her two eggs; one in each hand. We had to encourage her to go find some more eggs! "There are more eggs, right there Kara!" Then she got the hang of it and crawled all around the grass, scooping up eggs into a pile in front of her...We had a blast watching her find the eggs (in plane sight).
Later we were all sitting down for lunch and kids are still running around playing in the yard. I was eating egg salad and I thought one of the kids came up behind me jolting my chair, and when I looked back no one was there. About the same time I was questioning what was moving my chair, other people felt it too. Turns out we felt the Earthquake that happened in Mexico, a 6.2 on the rector scale at the time that we had all felt it. We were all the way up north in Camarillo, CA, to have felt part of that Earthquake. The funny thing was Kara didn't even wake up from it, she was napping in her car seat in a chair next to me. She slept through the big jolt. While she was sleeping, she held onto her two Easter eggs that she had been rattling earlier.
We had a fun filled weekend, with so much to do in the few days that we were in town. On our flight Monday going home, back to Missouri, Kara slept the whole flight.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Road Trippin to Nowhereville!
My heart is set on finding a reasonably priced sofa. Ideally I would like to get a sectional, leather sofa with chase. So far this past week I have been to 4 stores in search of THE sofa. I found a good candidate near my house about 15 minutes away at a furniture store for $798... THAT IS UNDER one thousand bucks, for Leather, Sectional, with Chase!
I want to call it a week and buy the thing. Andrew's coworker tells him about this furniture store up north in a town called Vandalia, MO, about an hour and a half away. Waters Furniture. I check out the website; This looks like a good idea to go ahead an go up to see for ourselves what great deal we can find on a leather sofa. Andrew is set on checking the store out first, before buying any sofa. According to his coworker, the store sells competitors sofas, etc. for way cheaper deals and it is worth checking it out. FINE.
Of course, Andrew is away in training this week... so who not to do the trip out to the store than me. I was planning on Google maps and a diaper bag, toss Kara in the car and driving up myself on my off day, Saturday. SO LUCKY I didn't go alone. This place is in the Boonies, middle of no where and in a small town that is one street long. There is nothing interesting about Vandalia, but its name. I like to say the word Vandalia.
My friend, Carissa and her two kids come with me and Kara and we make it a road trip. We have the directions printed out and Tom-tom for back up. As we are driving along, heading north it is nothing but: a long stretch of road and flat land, abandoned barns, grain silos, dead grass, a house here and there, some Pepsi factory or building of some sort and nothing else. Just totally desalinate. We are both thinking, "Where the heck are we going and this better be one awesome store once we get there." In my mind, I am picturing this store to be like a Home Depot style, with a warehouse of great sofas and chairs! When I had called the store on Friday for information, the sales gal told me there are 10 show rooms to select from. I am thinking, COOL! This is going to be great, Vandalia, here we come!
After an hour and a half of driving we are to make a right on Main Street and be blown away by this really great store that Andrew's coworker suggested we check out. BULL SHIT!
We drive into "town" and it is snowing! Turned right onto Main street, go up to the store... a guy from across the street pokes his head out and asks if we are here to buy a mattress? No? a Sofa sir, He tells us the sofas are here across the street in this building. Come on out of the snow!... Little flakes of snow rest upon Carissa's curls as she shook her head and wiped her feet on the welcome mat. The kids and I follow her in the store and have a good first impression to begin with. It is quaint, and well set up with all the furniture nicely displayed. I am glancing at the price tags, it is all priced at $1200 or more and a leather chair is priced at $900, and so on... WHERE are the cheap deals, and excellent prices we drove all the way up here to see. The "sales man" says look around and we have more sofas in three other buildings (shacks more like it) out back through this back door. There is the silver bldg, brick bldg, and the tan bldg all with sofas in em to check out...
What? this is a weird set up... having to go out side to other buildings and tromp around in the puddles and muddy gravel going from building to building. It was snowing out and we have to go back and forth? And with three kids in toe. This was getting to be ridiculous!
We go to check out the other buildings, which I think is what the sales lady on the phone had referred to as "showrooms"... Oh my God! Say it isn't so! Carissa and I are looking at each other and I am telling her, "sorry I dragged you all the way out here for nothing." She says, it is ok, and the road trip part is fun, don't worry...I guess I had to make this trip out here to give it a shot and consider it for a good deal.
So not worth the trip out north. The furniture was regular priced or more expensive than I had found locally. I had found much better deals in my own back yard, just 15 minutes away.
So we are heading out and it is about time to get the kids lunch somewhere. Driving around we have a Dairy Queen and a local diner to choose from in this town they call Vandalia. We had seen a McDonald's in the next town over so we decide to go there instead. Kara's first McDonald's experience. She ate some of the apple slices, and I peeled off the fried part of the chicken nuggets for her to eat also. I bought her a little kid size milk, but she didn't know how to use a straw. HAHA. I saved it for later.
In the end, Carissa and I basically took the kids for a 2 hour drive out to lunch at McDonald's. We got out groove on, listening to a Bob Marley CD. Her kids knew the words and sang along to, "Baby don't worry, about a thing" song. It was so cute when they sang along. Kara chimed in a couple of coos to! Fun times and ridiculous times.
I want to call it a week and buy the thing. Andrew's coworker tells him about this furniture store up north in a town called Vandalia, MO, about an hour and a half away. Waters Furniture. I check out the website; This looks like a good idea to go ahead an go up to see for ourselves what great deal we can find on a leather sofa. Andrew is set on checking the store out first, before buying any sofa. According to his coworker, the store sells competitors sofas, etc. for way cheaper deals and it is worth checking it out. FINE.
Of course, Andrew is away in training this week... so who not to do the trip out to the store than me. I was planning on Google maps and a diaper bag, toss Kara in the car and driving up myself on my off day, Saturday. SO LUCKY I didn't go alone. This place is in the Boonies, middle of no where and in a small town that is one street long. There is nothing interesting about Vandalia, but its name. I like to say the word Vandalia.
My friend, Carissa and her two kids come with me and Kara and we make it a road trip. We have the directions printed out and Tom-tom for back up. As we are driving along, heading north it is nothing but: a long stretch of road and flat land, abandoned barns, grain silos, dead grass, a house here and there, some Pepsi factory or building of some sort and nothing else. Just totally desalinate. We are both thinking, "Where the heck are we going and this better be one awesome store once we get there." In my mind, I am picturing this store to be like a Home Depot style, with a warehouse of great sofas and chairs! When I had called the store on Friday for information, the sales gal told me there are 10 show rooms to select from. I am thinking, COOL! This is going to be great, Vandalia, here we come!
After an hour and a half of driving we are to make a right on Main Street and be blown away by this really great store that Andrew's coworker suggested we check out. BULL SHIT!
We drive into "town" and it is snowing! Turned right onto Main street, go up to the store... a guy from across the street pokes his head out and asks if we are here to buy a mattress? No? a Sofa sir, He tells us the sofas are here across the street in this building. Come on out of the snow!... Little flakes of snow rest upon Carissa's curls as she shook her head and wiped her feet on the welcome mat. The kids and I follow her in the store and have a good first impression to begin with. It is quaint, and well set up with all the furniture nicely displayed. I am glancing at the price tags, it is all priced at $1200 or more and a leather chair is priced at $900, and so on... WHERE are the cheap deals, and excellent prices we drove all the way up here to see. The "sales man" says look around and we have more sofas in three other buildings (shacks more like it) out back through this back door. There is the silver bldg, brick bldg, and the tan bldg all with sofas in em to check out...
What? this is a weird set up... having to go out side to other buildings and tromp around in the puddles and muddy gravel going from building to building. It was snowing out and we have to go back and forth? And with three kids in toe. This was getting to be ridiculous!
We go to check out the other buildings, which I think is what the sales lady on the phone had referred to as "showrooms"... Oh my God! Say it isn't so! Carissa and I are looking at each other and I am telling her, "sorry I dragged you all the way out here for nothing." She says, it is ok, and the road trip part is fun, don't worry...I guess I had to make this trip out here to give it a shot and consider it for a good deal.
So not worth the trip out north. The furniture was regular priced or more expensive than I had found locally. I had found much better deals in my own back yard, just 15 minutes away.
So we are heading out and it is about time to get the kids lunch somewhere. Driving around we have a Dairy Queen and a local diner to choose from in this town they call Vandalia. We had seen a McDonald's in the next town over so we decide to go there instead. Kara's first McDonald's experience. She ate some of the apple slices, and I peeled off the fried part of the chicken nuggets for her to eat also. I bought her a little kid size milk, but she didn't know how to use a straw. HAHA. I saved it for later.
In the end, Carissa and I basically took the kids for a 2 hour drive out to lunch at McDonald's. We got out groove on, listening to a Bob Marley CD. Her kids knew the words and sang along to, "Baby don't worry, about a thing" song. It was so cute when they sang along. Kara chimed in a couple of coos to! Fun times and ridiculous times.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Teeth
I was just thinking about the cycle of Teeth we go through. I am looking at Kara with her baby teeth growing in and how cute it is to watch her smile grow. She will be a year old this month on the 23rd, so far she has 3 1/2 teeth on her smile. Two on the bottom grew in first and one front tooth, now the other front tooth is growing in, and is half way poking through her gum. When she smiles it is a small collection of teeth and bare gums for her grin.
She has a whole mouth full of teeth to still grow. Then when she is in first grade or so, she will start to loose those baby teeth, after all that hard work and minor pain she went through. It doesn't seem fair. She then has to grow more teeth after loosing the baby teeth and get stuck with a school photo or two with a broken smile. The smile will show her missing tooth/teeth, stuck captured in a photograph for ever. I think it is amazing how teeth come and go.
Then, around high school age, the wisdom teeth decide to grow in and smoosh over the other teeth taking up too much room.. and the dentist says you have to get the wisdom teeth removed...Well then why are they even there in the first place? Our mouth can only hold so many teeth and it grows more than it can hold. I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth pulled out in one day. It was a piece of cake, and I don't remember any of it, in the end I had to eat jello and apple sauce for a while till my gums healed enough to chew again. I don't really know why our mouths havewisdom teeth in the first place? We go on living the first 20 years with out these teeth and only yank the teeth out when they do come in? So what is the point?!
Then once we reach the ripe old age of 70 or so we begin to loose all our teeth again and some people get the teeth replaced wtih dentures. They come full circle with teeth by that age.
Good luck little Kara with your cycle of teeth. It's an adventure.
She has a whole mouth full of teeth to still grow. Then when she is in first grade or so, she will start to loose those baby teeth, after all that hard work and minor pain she went through. It doesn't seem fair. She then has to grow more teeth after loosing the baby teeth and get stuck with a school photo or two with a broken smile. The smile will show her missing tooth/teeth, stuck captured in a photograph for ever. I think it is amazing how teeth come and go.
Then, around high school age, the wisdom teeth decide to grow in and smoosh over the other teeth taking up too much room.. and the dentist says you have to get the wisdom teeth removed...Well then why are they even there in the first place? Our mouth can only hold so many teeth and it grows more than it can hold. I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth pulled out in one day. It was a piece of cake, and I don't remember any of it, in the end I had to eat jello and apple sauce for a while till my gums healed enough to chew again. I don't really know why our mouths havewisdom teeth in the first place? We go on living the first 20 years with out these teeth and only yank the teeth out when they do come in? So what is the point?!
Then once we reach the ripe old age of 70 or so we begin to loose all our teeth again and some people get the teeth replaced wtih dentures. They come full circle with teeth by that age.
Good luck little Kara with your cycle of teeth. It's an adventure.
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