I read to the girls, for at least 30 minutes each night. Yes, they are old enough to read on their own, but I think it is the highlight of all our of  day. We explore all sorts of new books, share the stories together, talk about what is happening and what we hope happens, talk about new words and best of all cuddle. Both girls swear up and down that they can't sleep and if they do, will have nightmares, if they don't get their bedtime story.  Right now we are working on Inkheart, a much longer book than we have tackled before. It is not a book I had read before, so we are all discovering it for the first time. I am really enjoying it and we understand it is being made into a movie for kids. Anyhow, if you have kids, I highly recommend starting this nightly tradition, it is fun for everyone!

The girls had a long, 3-day weekend, for a teacher training day, but both ended up with the flu, so it was not much fun for them. Megan had it the worse and just burned with fever all day Saturday and she only wanted to stay in bed and sleep. But by today, they seemed pretty much back to normal. I may have had a mild version of it, or am just fighting it, I have been dragging this last week, and sleeping way more hours than normal, often 12 hours a night with even some naps, on top of that. So hopefully we are all past the worst.

It turns out I am going on a sudden and unexpected trip to Scotland next week, for a week. A friend of ours, who lives there, needs some help in the home she is renting for herself and four kids. Joe can't leave the U.S. while his immigration application is being processed, so I am the only one of us who can go over right now. So while I would like to pretend it is for pleasure, it really is going to be a work week. Although I will find it interesting to compare to our visit last June, when daylight was close to 10 hours long, with the twilight never totally going away, even at midnight. So now it will be opposite, with almost no sunlight! And it is also winter, and Orkney is known for it's umm..hardy weather, this time of year. In other words, it won't be heaving with tourists. LOL! I will try to find enough time and daylight to get some photos so I can share the differences. I am really going to miss Joe and the girls, but this is a very critical visit, but I am not really comfortable going into details here, since it involves some private family situations for our friend.

Today, Becca's class went on a whale watching field trip. The day started out rather cold and cloudy, but by the time the ship left at 10 am, it was nice and sunny. She ended up having a great time, seeing a mother whale and her baby, as well as dolphins, porpoises and seals. I drove a van of 5 girls two and from the trip and they were so excited and chatty on the way back to school. I think it was a big hit.

Megan is busy selling Girl Scout cookies. It is door-to-door sales time, with the orders turned in this Wed. Then we move into selling the physical cookies. She is doing better than I expected, even with the minimal effort she has made so far. People seem to be pretty open about buying the cookies, unlike so many things I had to sell as a kid, like candy bars.

Hmm, what else? Just another typical week here. I have to take my car in for service tomorrow. Joe is going into the doctor on Wed. And of course the normal grocery shopping, laundry and house cleaning. I want to try to have everything really caught up before I leave next Tuesday, so poor Joe doesn't end up twitching by the time I return.

Oh, and as to the landscaping, we continue to make progress and it looks like there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. The jacuzzi is done, we are just waiting for the plaster to cure and now they have started to build the wood patio cover. After that, there is the backyard sod and the installation of the hardware in the BBQ island. They didn't want to risk wood falling on anything, so are saving that for last. The front yard and sides of the house are all done and it feels really good to see something complete and not that horrible mars-like dirt that has been there for so long!

Anyhow, hope all is well with everyone! Hugs to my friends!

We are having record cold this week, it was down as low as 23 degree one night and apparently has really trashed the citrus crops this year. The girls reported finding ice on the playground at school today. Kids were lining up for a turn to play on it! Only in San Diego!  I rather like the weather, since it has been unusually warm most of the winter. It finally feels a bit like it is supposed to. For once I am enjoying the warmth of a laptop on my lap! LOL!

The girls Monday off for Martin Luther King, Jr. day. We went to the movies and saw "Night at the Museum" and I was expecting something really painful, but was surprised how fun it was. It really had us all laughing often!

Megan is working on memorizing a poem for an oral presentation and "didn't get the kitty one" so she is grumpy at a few levels over the assignment. I think she has to have it learned by February 5th. So think kind thoughts tomorrow, as I try to get her to work on it. So far, she is actually doing better than I expected on it. So I guess there is hope.

I got a call from Becca's teacher today. Becca is going to be rewarded on Friday for working so hard in school. Each month they give the kids a by-word to try to focus on that month. For instance, one month it was "responsibility", this month it is "perserverence". This is an award for a student who really shows outstanding effort in the word for the month and because Becca has worked so hard to catch up in math and other areas of school, she will be honored! Way to go Becca!

Tomorrow I have to take her to the eye doctor. We got a note from the school nurse saying her prescription is not strong enough. We seem to have to get her new glasses at least every six months! Ugh! But at least our medical insurance is finally straightened out. My COBRA ran out and I have been working on setting up new medical insurance since Thanksgiving! They finally called to say we were approved yesterday, after I had submitted three different applications. Maybe they hope you will die before the process is over, to save them money.

They laid grass sod on our front lawn today, and except for the lighting being hooked up, I think the front area is all finished at this point. The backyard is still being worked on, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel! I realized this week, that it was just about a year ago this month, that I first went and looked at the models homes for this development! It has been amazing, exciting, frustrating and sometimes downright tedious watching things progress, but we are almost done! Yeah!!! By spring, we should be able to relax in the jacuzzi and have a BBQ and just enjoy all the long hours of work. At this point they still need to build the patio cover, finish the interior of the jacuzzi, and lay the sod in the backyard. So hopefully by the end of this month!

Anyhow, that is about it for now. I am tired and gonna try to just go veg for a bit, before reading a bedtime story to the kids. We are currently reading Inkheart. It is good and I understand they will be making a movie of it at some point! See ya all later!

There has been no lack of things to do with the new year, in fact I am semi-guilty taking time to blog, with my list of things to do. Okay, maybe not that guilty...

So, let's see. Becca was in a special school assembly that we went and saw on Friday at her school. It was very cute, she helped illustrate the virtue of the month. This month is perserverance. She showed that perserverance in her math tutoring has helped her move to where she needs to be. I am really proud of her, it was just about a year ago that she tested at only a 2nd grade level of math skills and on her last math test, she got an A! She has really worked hard in the last year!

Joe and I went out to Santa Ana to look at laser cutters. We have decided to invest in one and see if I can start a business with it, doing custom work for people and making miniature related items. And anything else we can think of. It is pretty cool, about the size of a old-fashioned printer, you just open the lid, put in the material to be etched, scored or cut, then use a graphics program to tell it what to cut, etc. and just hit the "print" key. It can cut paper, wood, plastic, glass, metal, you name it....it is very cool. I already have one lady in my miniature group who wants to have me cut leaves for her. She does miniature 1:12 scale plants and has more orders than she can handle. She tried to get another person to laser cut her leaves and they quoted her $10,000 to do it! It was insane! I would like to make a 1:12 scale old-fashioned floor radio as my first project. I think laser cutting will really make it easy to do some impressive wood design on it.

Then Joe spent the weekend on his new geek project, a new computer set up to do his music composition on, as well as his video editing. After a long time researching, he finally settled on a Mac Pro desktop and a massive geek screen. He is in heaven and busy playing with the set up and such.

Meanwhile, I am in catch-up cleaning mode and trying to make up for our current lack of a maid. Out big problem is the dirt coming in from outside while they finish our landscaping. The kids track in mud, continually, despite our best attempts to avoid it. Because everything is so torn up, virtually every doorway has lost the original cement step and is waiting for bricks, so currently they are big muddy messes. Today I am working on laundry, groceries, mopping floors, cleaning the oven and doing bills. Bleh. See why writing a blog was more interesting?

Speaking of landscaping, I have been asked for more updated pictures. Technically they are supposed to done by the end of this week, but it will likely be a few more weeks. They have been working like busy beavers now, since the holidays ended. So, without further ado, here are the updated pics:

A little army of plants, waiting for homes. And of course the ever classy port-a-potty on the front lawn.

The front stairs. The walls we be a white to match the house color and they will be laying bricks in the opening at the base of the stairs and the base of the door.

The side patio, with more plants waiting for homes. Mortar still has to be put between the bricks on the ground.

In the backyard, our waterfall, now with real falling water. This goes down to a pond for koi fish, that encircles the island to the left, where this is a fireplace and BBQ. The bit to the right is the jacuzzi.

A better view of the island. A red bridge, Japanese garden style, will lead from the island to the jacuzzi. You can see the pond part a bit better. There is a second cement bridge to the left.

The jacuzzi, beyond the koi pond. You can sort of see the bridge to the right, where it has been sitting while being painted.

The jacuzzi, getting a row of tiles put around the top. The bottom half will be coated with a black texture.

Here you can see where the BBQ will go, and a small fridge.

So there you have it for now, the next set of pics will likely be the finished product. Meanwhile, I best get on to the rest of my chores for the day. Hope everyone has a great week.

2007! Wow, this week marks my 6th year at Xanga! I guess the good part is I don't have to explain to most people, what a Blog is now. I am most grateful for the friends I have made here, over those years.

Our holidays were very nice. The week before Christmas, we went to visit my sister Sarah and her family in Chicago. My kids were able to spend a day hanging out and playing with their four cousins and I think they all had a great time. We took them to the WinterFest at the Navy Pier, and then to Rain Forest Cafe for lunch, followed up by a trip to Build-A-Bear.

We had one day without family and used it to go to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry which was just way too cool and fun! We didn't have enough time to see everything we wanted, but we sure enjoyed it. They had an International Christmas Tree display with trees decorated by people representing over 100 different countries. There were sparkling lights all over and it was very magical. We also got to see the very cool Fairy Castle dollhouse they keep there. I had read a book on it, but never seen it in person. It was built by a 1920's silent movie actress and is amazing, especially considering the time period it was built in. She used it to raise money to help needy kids and then finally donated it to the museum. The dollhouse includes a library of real miniature books, written by famous writers of the time, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, complete with illustrations!

Becca's favorite exhibit was a special engagement called "Frogs: A Chorus of Colors", which was just filled with displays of all sorts of frogs from all over the world and of every bright color you can imagine.

The girls also really liked the baby chick hatchery. Well we all loved that, what can't you like about newborn chicks?

Another cool exhibit is a robotic factory that makes toy tops and you can watch all the steps. If you pay a small fee, you can even have a custom made top built, just for you.

After all the fun in Chicago, we flew down to lower Indiana and visited my mom and sister Beth for several days. We had some really great fun there too! Mom took us to see a candystore and factory called Schimpff's Confectionery in Jeffersonville, Indiana. It has been owned and run by the same family for something like 115 years, and they live in the space above the store. When you walk in, the smell is the most delicious mix of chocolate and hard candies and you can watch as each chocolate is hand dipped and decorated. They also have a really cool museum with all sorts of things related to the history of candy.

Mom also arranged for us to see a production of A Christmas Carol. The girls loved that too, they got to dress up and it was their first real adult play. There was a special tea afterwards and tours of the backstage which was very interesting. The play was very well done and really put me into the Christmas mood. We did a number of other things, but this blog is already getting rather wordy, so I will wrap it up for now.

I wish a great new year for everyone!

Dollhouse is probably an insulting term for this, making it sound like a toy. It is really a highly detailed scale model in 1:12 ratio, created by artisans worldwide, over a period of five years and it has an estimated value of half a million dollars. It is accurate down to the working doorknobs and closing latches! I am sorry a few are a bit out of focus, I was trying to take the pictures through a glass case.

The Game Room

The Music Room

Upper Main Hallway and Staircase

The Washington's Bedroom

George Washington's Study

Guest Bedroom

Formal Dinning and Meeting Room

Another Guest Room

Family Dinning Room

Lower Staircase and Main Hall

Another Guest Room

Another Guest Room

Bedroom of their Grand Daughter and her Baby

In other news, I am madly trying to get ready to fly out to the Chicago and Indiana area on Saturday with Joe and the kids to see my family. Since we don't return till the 23, I have to have the gifts wrapped, decorating done, cards out, food ready for Christmas dinner and all that good stuff. So I have been running around a bit insanely lately. As my sister Beth likes to say, like a crazed weasel on speed!

Yesterday afternoon, the girls did Christmas caroling at a retirement home with Megan's Girl Scout troop. It was very nice and the girls wore Santa hats and had hot chocolate afterwards. Megan is busy at school working on a holiday play they are doing on Friday, which Joe and I will attend. She is a bunny, in a huge family of bunnies, celebrating the holidays. It should be cute.

We got gas log sets put into our fireplaces yesterday and enjoyed our first fire last night. It was really cozy and nice. We can't do wood fires because the smoke from wood gives Joe asthma. Today I am going to find a Christmas tree while the kids are at school, then they can decorate it tonight. I wanted to bring them too, but by the time we do that and decorate, they would not have time to do their homework as well and that makes for a painful night. This will make it a bit less hectic.

While Joe's mom and sister were here, we took them to the zoo for the day. They really enjoyed that and we got a nice family picture done, which I hope to scan and post soon. Joe also took them to the winery where we got married, which I think they enjoyed. I was tied up with Girl Scouts and had to stay home that day.

We also had a bit of a scare the day after we got home. Joe noticed that his ankle was very swollen on the left side and all red. He was also red faced and sweating a lot. He has a history of heart problems and has had a triple bypass in the past, so I insisted we go to the emergency room. After a lot of stress and way too many hours there, we learned it was not DVT or anything heart related, but a staph infection of the skin called celluitis. They have Joe on antibiotics and it seems much better now, thank goodness. Apparently, even celluitis can be very serious, without treatment it can be fatal and even with treatment it can often be serious enough to require hospitalization! Argh! Anyhow, he is fine and life is good and I am glad we went in and got everything fixed!

If I can't manage to post again before Christmas, I hope everyone has a wonderful time and remembers to treasure and embrace their loved ones and count all of our wonderful blessings. Each of us is rich in so many things, if we just take the opportunity to see what we have.

We have visited and returned from our trip to Washington, D.C. We lucked into some very nice weather and it was only on the last day that it started to get cold and windy. Unfortunately, I also came down sick on my birthday, so the last few days were rather quiet for us.

Anyhow, my two favorite parts of the trip was the say at Mount Vernon, where George Washington lived, and a really cool tour of the Library of Congress.We had the very best weather of the entire week while at Mount Vernon and it was also a very quiet day for visitors, so the combination made for a fantastic day. They have just opened a huge new visitor's center, museum and education center a few months ago, so there was so much to see and do. Straight off, I discovered a huge, scale dollhouse replica of the Mansion in 1:12 scale! It was amazing and I will post some pictures of it in my next blog. Five years were spent building it, and everything works and is accurate to the real house, down to door knobs that turn and latches that catch! It is estimated to be worth half a million dollars and it eight feet long! Unfortunately, it is so new to the exhibit that there is not a book about it yet, so I am hoping one comes out soon.

The grounds are very pretty and they were getting ready for some Christmas nights where they do caroling and such, with mulled wine. They had lanterns set up and period holiday decorations. Unfortunately, we were there a few days too early to enjoy the actual event. I was amazed at how large the grounds are, you can walk and walk and walk! There are fields, forest and path down to a wharf on the Potomac. The are large formal gardens, as well as working vegetable gardens, orchards, berry plant areas, vineyards, and grazing for the farm animals.

This is my favorite photo I took on the grounds, it was just so pretty and captured the feeling of the area so well:

And here is a photo down by the wharf, on the Potomac. I loved the last of the colors on the tree from fall.

At the Library of Congress, we were lucky enough to know someone who works for Congress and thus was able to take us on a private tour, showing us places the normal tourist can't get into. Normally, if someone wants to look at a book, they fill in a request form, an employee goes to the stacks, gets the book and brings it back. So normally, visitors never see the stacks. However, my friend Becky took us in there.

It had the wonderful smell of old books, with old, low ceilings and marble floors. In fact, the floors are just marble, several inches thick, held by a steel girder system and there is nothing else between each floor! Becky said if you go into the stacks at night and the lights are low, you can actually see light from other floors, glowing through the marble!

The department she works for is also responsible for maintaining and restoration work within the building. She showed us how they have been stripping years and years of paint and such, and found the original wall decoration. They have been busy restoring the halls to their original and former glory. Here you can see an archway, partway redone.

If you get to DC, I highly recommend exploring this building. It is just amazing at every turn. Mosaics on the ceilings, painted murals, gilding, you name it! Here are some other pictures I took there:

Part of the stained glass ceiling and arches in the great hall.

Detail of a wall mural in one of the halls.

A gilded dome in one of the many hallways

One of the many halls

The main reading room, as seen from a private alcove, not open to the public.

Higher up in the main reading room.

Hope everyone is having a great week and enjoyed the pics. We are busy at home this week, getting ready to travel to see mom in Indiana and of course Christmas right after that. I will try to get up the miniature pics of the Mt. Vernon model in the next few days.

A year ago, this time, I was still in Europe with Joe, meeting his family. I was going through the photos today and came across some I took near the end of the trip. It had been very cold and I woke up to see everything painted in frost. Being a California girl, I have not had a lot of opportunities to see frost, so I ran out with my camera and took these photos:

In other news, we celebrated Joe's birthday yesterday. I found a place to eat that we had not been to before and it ended up being very yummy. They had the most delicious lamb chops! Megan was off at a birthday party most of the day, where she got to go horseback riding. While she was at the party, I took Becca out and bought both girls some winter pajamas while they were on sale.

This coming week, the girls are off from school all week for Thanksgiving. They will be going to a day came on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, which I hope they will enjoy. I also need to work on a project about American Indians with Megan. She is supposed to do an oral presentation and a poster.

Joe's mother and sister are arriving next Sunday and will be staying here while Joe and I go on a trip to Washington, D.C. for a week. I have never been there and it is part of my birthday celebration. I am really looking forward to seeing Mt. Vernon and some of the other sites. We hope to meet up with some friends while there too. When we return, Joe's mother and sister will stay a few more days and do some tourist stuff.

I am hoping to get most of the preparations for Christmas done before the trip to D.C., because shortly after we get home from that, we are heading off again to spend a week with Mom before Christmas. I need to sort through the gifts we have and what is left to get, so I can really get organized. I don't want December to be insane!

Anyhow, that is about all the news for now. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

I have been working on this since spring time and I have been dying to post pictures, but I wanted to finish, so I made myself wait till I was totally done. I built the cottage, did the landscaping and built 90% of the furniture and accessories. (No, I didn't make the three cats though! Aren't they cute?)

This is done in 1:48 scale, which means the finished house is about 6 inches call and is 1/4 of a inch for each real life foot. The roof thatching is made from cut up natural bristle paint brushes! (And yes, that alone too over a week to do and left stupid paintbrush bristles all over everything!)

So,without further ado... (Click on any picture to see a larger picture for better detail.)

Here is Becca as a dragon. The bit on her head is supposed to be a dragon head. The yellow on her arms does not show very well, but they are wings, and down her back are scales and a small tail.I guess I should have taken a picture of the back too.

And here is Joe. Being his first Halloween in America (it is hardly celebrated in the UK)  he was eager to dress up to hand out candy. Guess I should call him Count Joe Joe!

And no, I didn't dress up this year.

I finished sewing costumes for Halloween last night, with 3 days to spare! Go me! I have a pic of Megan, but I still need to get one of Becca. Megan was being a total ham, so her pic is a little dorkey. She says this is her cute kitty expression.

You can't see it, but she is holding her tail, which I tipped in white, and I added little pink pads onto the paws to make it more cat-like. 

Becca's is a dragon, done in red and yellow. She found a dragon head-piece at Legoland, so I did the body part for her.

Last week the girl's school had their fall carnival and the kids had a lot of fun. I ran the frog ring toss both for an hour, but the other parent didn't show up, so it ended up being a bit more exciting than I expected. But it was fun and all the kids were cute in the Halloween costumes. Becca managed to collect enough points from games to trade in for a huge, camoflaug stuffed frog. Megan used her points to get lots of little things. It always is interesting how different they are and how differently they do things.

Speaking of different, Megan was diagnoised with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Poor kid got that from me I am afraid. Anyhow, apparently all the trouble we have had with her being a picky eater, since way back when she was even 2 and 3 is her particular obsession. They do have drugs to help with it, but they don't recommend them for kids, because often the side effects are worse than the original problem. So for now we will see if a therapist can offer any help or stratagies. Perhaps we can find something 'acceptable' for her to move her OCD to. I don't know, that is how I try to cope, but I have had a lot more years to learn to deal with it.

Our landscaping is moving alone, they seemed to have placed all the cinder blocks for the walls and back patio. Next they will be filling the hollow interior with cement. Not sure what comes after that. Last week they took a whole truckload of dirt away that they had dug out. Well here are some pictures, which should show better than I can explain:

This will be the retaining wall for the steps up to the front door.

This will be a little patio off the driveway, next to the house.

Another view of the same patio off the diveway. The two sets of double-doors are off the living room and main hallway.

And this is part of the backyard. This will be a covered patio. The back bit is going to be a fireplace and to the left will be a work island with small fridge and BBQ. It doesn't look terribly impressive now, does it?

Our other happy news this week was that we finally got most of our drapes installed, so we finally have some privacy from the street! We are still waiting on one set, the delay being fabric that has been on order for close to 6 months now. They say it will shipped early November, but at this point I am not holding my breath. Anyhow, here are some pics of how the living room and dinning room look now. We are basically done furninshing them now, we just need to hang some pictures.

This is the left side of the living room.

The right side, Milkyways favorite sleeping couch, especially when the sun comes through the windows and onto the couch.

And our dinning room, ready for entertaining! Just in time for Thanksgiving!

Okay, well that is about all the news for now. Hope everyone is well and has a great week!