Things are moving right along with the wedding plans. Sarah already has her dress and they are looking at a late August wedding. They are thinking about having the wedding at the lake in Irvine where Sarah lives. If you remember, we took Ryan and Jacob there a couple of summers ago because they have a mini-waterpark there with waterslides into a pool-like area. They have a couple of large gazebos that you can rent for occasions. The area is very similar to Westlake which is near us. Here's a photo I took when we were at the area in the past. There is a big lake where you can sail and ride on non-motorized watercraft off to the left.
As I mentioned before, Sarah's main emphasis will be on the honeymoon rather than the wedding. She is such a world traveler so they've agreed to have a 2 part honeymoon... Justin wants to go somewhere luxurious like an exotic beach so they will do that and then they will go to something more unique to satisfy Sarah. Justin said he didn't want an all Third World honeymoon. Interestingly, our plans to travel would be in early September as well for our 40th Anniversary. Justin said maybe we could meet up somewhere but I said I doubted they would want their parents on their honeymoon! He said with the hectic travel schedule Sarah plans, there wouldn't be time for romance anyway on her part of the honeymoon.
As usual this time of year, Jeff and I have been busy seeing all the potential Academy Award nominated films. I'm writing this before the Golden Globes on Sunday night but that should give us more of an idea of what's likely to be nominated. So far we've seen Gravity, Captain Phillips, Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle. Coming out on DVD this week is The Butler so we will rent that.
The other fun news is that Ryan and Jacob have both signed up to play soccer. They went to tryouts on Sunday and their games will begin next Sunday so Jeff and I will be going to their games and cheering them on. We had such fun for many years going to Jessica's softball games.
Does anyone still have a VCR? We have one but we never use it. Video tapes have been replaced by DVDs and now BluRays. We had some of our home movies copied to DVD but we still have boxes full of old movies on video. I took a quick cellphone photo of a box of videos and sent it to Justin asking if he was interested in any of them. Most of them were movies that were his favorites...like Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Arc and other movies that he could watch over and over again. Here's the photo.
Of course he wasn't interested so I googled, "What to do with old videos" and a good suggestion was to donate them to your public library so I will take them this week if Jacob is well enough to go to his Storytime on Wednesday. I did save quite a few children's Disney videos and put the VCR in the "boy's room."
Our big entertainment center has really nice roll out storage racks for videos but the racks won't hold DVD's or Blu Rays so once again, I googled, "Blu-Ray Storage Pull Out Tray" and found THIS.
This will be perfect and over the weekend, shipping was free. Here's a photo of our entertainment center.
The storage rack will go in the cubby on the bottom right with the wood door. Behind the wood door on the left are XBox and Wii games. I was able to get the old video racks to hold them. As much as I love our entertainment center, it is limiting in that we can't get anything bigger than a 40 inch screen. It's not that big of a deal because our furniture floats in the middle of the room so we're close enough to the TV. Anyone else have any outdated technology? Typewriters, cassette players? What else? Jeff was inspired by my cleaning and found lots of old 3.5 floppy discs to toss. Remember those?
Ryan and Jacob are so excited about the prospect of going up to the local mountains to play in the snow. We took them to Costco yesterday and picked out a Body Glove snow board. Don't know what to call it really- not quite a sled or toboggan but more of a boogie board for the snow. It's made out of foam and has a slick back and in the center at the top is a little light show of flashing lights caused by friction as you slide down the hill. There are handholds for two riders so should be perfect for Ryan and Jacob. Here's a photo.
Not sure when we are going to go yet. Jeff's getting over a sore throat and cold and Jacob still has a lingering cough. When we do go, we will take the dogs, too.
Jeff and I are going to go see The Impossible today. It's a true story about the 2004 tsunami that hit Thailand. I have a teacher friend who also narrowly survived that disaster. She was separated from her family for many hours not knowing if they were alive or dead. Fortunately, they were all okay. We always try to see the likely Oscar nominated films and performances. So far, we've seen Argo, Lincoln, Les Miz, The Hobbit, Silver Linings Playbook, Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Skyfall. We still need to see Zero Dark Thirty, Life of Pi, Django Unchained and maybe, The Dark Knight Rises. Next Thursday, January 10th, are when the nominations are announced so then we'll know for sure what ewe have left to try and see.
We had a wonderful Christmas! Justin and Sarah were here on Christmas Eve and on the all important (to me) Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve, we had tamales and played the board game Wits and Wagers. In the morning, Jessica, Pat and the boys arrived followed by George and Robin and Jeff's mom, Audre. We opened our stocking stuffers then had our usual brunch- see last post- and then continued on with opening the gifts. Ryan was most excited about a Spiderman that climbs up walls. Jacob was happy with tools and his Bob the Builder DVD's.
Jessica and Jeff both got new Kindle Fires. Sarah surprised Justin with plane tickets to Denver towards the end of January. Her best friend lives there and it's her birthday and Justin will be able to bring along his snowboard for some fun in the Colorado snow. As I write this, I'm smelling white chili with chicken cooking in our new Cuisinart Slow Cooker. I don't make Jeff abide by the "no gift with an electrical cord" rule! We had four dogs here (Justin's Sierra and Sarah's Buddy in addition to our two) and our three cats. The dogs all got Christmas presents and the cats shared an electronic mouse with flashing lights that made squeaking sounds. So on to 2013. I signed Jacob up for a little class called Busy Bees that takes place in our local recreation center so will be taking him to that on Tuesday mornings. Sarah gave Jeff and I the book 1000 Places to See Before You Die, two passport applications and a suggested itinerary (complete with flight, hotels, etc...) that would take us from LA to Dublin, to London, to Paris, to Venice, to Rome, back to Dublin for a flight returning us to LA. She's hoping we'll take the hint and make our travel plans a reality!
As I mentioned before, Sarah, Justin's girlfriend, is off on another of her exotic vacations. She finds the coolest places to stay. Here's a photo of her and her relative Kirsten (on the left) at their "floating" hotel in Thailand.
Here's a link to where they are staying: Float House on the River Kwai in Thailand. Check out the link... it looks amazing! They have lots of exciting things planned so I'll post when I get photos. We definitely need to get Sarah to plan our trips! Justin said they are planning to go to Europe next year and would like us to go with them.
We had a nice weekend visiting with Justin. He came Thursday night after dropping Sarah off at LAX. Buddy, her yellow lab that stayed with us when they were in London and Istanbul, is at a 2 week Boot Camp for wayward dogs. He is so full of mischief so she figured it would be a good time to get some more training for him while she's away. Sierra was with Justin so we went on a dog hike in addition to seeing the movie Skyfall. We thought it was very good but Justin still thinks Casino Royale was the best. Justin spent the night again on Friday and went home on Saturday.
We are planning to take Ryan and Jacob to Disneyland on Tuesday. We'll avoid today since it's a holiday... Happy Veteran's Day and have a great week ahead!
What is this rare wet stuff? After our 90 degree Santa Ana wind-driven heatwave, we now have our first winter storm on the way. It's been raining on and off all day and we have the first snowfall of the season coming to our local mountains. Not complaining though considering what the Northeast is going through with the Nor'easter on the heels of Sandy! As I was typing this, we had a brown-out... half the power stayed on but my computer shut off. Glad there's auto-saves by Blogger. I'm writing this Thursday afternoon and Justin will be arriving tonight. We have plans to go see the new James Bond movie, Skyfall, tomorrow. Jeff and I bought a Groupon for the Muvico theater. We got the Premier, over-21, seating for the price of regular seats. You can order drinks, food and they give you free popcorn. The boys are looking forward to Uncle Justin's visit and Ryan especially because a belated birthday gift is anticipated. Going to cut this short before I lose power again. Just for the fun of it, type "askew" into Google. Have a great weekend!
Jeff and I went to an Arts & Crafts Festival over the weekend. He's not really very interested in them (hence the title arts & craps) but tags along because he knows I return the favor by going to car shows and motorcycle races that I have little interest in. Just as we were about to leave for the festival, Pat and Jessica drove up with the boys. Ryan was insisting he wanted to go to Nani's house. So we took Ryan and Jacob along with us so Jessica and Pat could do a little shopping without the boys. Jane Seymour is a local resident and she was there displaying her artwork. My friend, Wynne, is the biggest Jane Seymour/ Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman fan so I grabbed my cellphone to take a quick photo. The set of Dr. Quinn is just a few minutes away from where we live as is the set of MASH. I once went and took many photos of the Dr. Quinn set for Wynne and she made a webpage for them. Anyway, here's the photo of Jane Seymour.
She is still very beautiful and managed to look cool despite 100 degree temperatures. It was so hot that we left after an hour or so and took the boys to Golden Spoon. It's a frozen yogurt shop where you can pick one or several flavors and also choose toppings. I had vanilla yogurt with fresh strawberries and Ryan had gummi bears for a topping and Jacob had dinosaur sprinkles. Jeff chose a toffee topping. It hit the spot on a hot day and the boys enjoyed the afternoon with Nani and Grandpa.
Our new iPhones are scheduled to be delivered today! I'm just as excited about that as Ryan was when I bought The Avengers for him yesterday! I sent him home with the DVD, while I kept the BluRay and put the digital copy on my iPad.
Writing this before the results show of Dancing with the Stars but it HAS to be Pamela Anderson! I'm rooting for Giles and Peta! Anyone have a favorite?
Jeff and I pre-ordered iPhone 5's for our anniversary present to one another. The conversation went like this:
Me: You can get me the new iPhone for my birthday.
Jeff: I'm getting one, too.
Me: Okay, then they can be our anniversary present.
Jeff: Okay, it can be your anniversary present AND your birthday present.
He knows better. I ordered mine in white and he ordered a black one. We currently have LG smart phones but haven't used them as such so this will be new for us. I'm somewhat used to the idea because I have an iPad but it will be interesting having access to the internet while out and about. I'm also happy to have a good quality camera on my phone and a bigger screen will help because it's hard to see the photos I take on my small screen. We should have the new phones by the end of the month.
Last night, we watched the movie "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen." Guess what we had for dinner? Yes, salmon. I told Jeff that we should let our movies help suggest dinners for us. We're always trying to figure out what to have for dinner. Meatless Monday and Friday Night Take-out helps with 2 nights a week so planning a dinner around a movie is a way to get a little creative. For example, next up on our queue is "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" which takes place in India so we're going to have chicken curry. Also on our queue is the thriller Cabin in the Woods. What should we have with that? Maybe chili? And then there's "What to Expect When You're Expecting?" No pickles and ice cream! I guess what ever we are craving that night. Speaking of cravings... my grandmother craved ketchup when she was pregnant with my mother and my mother ended up being a big ketchup eater. I inherited the love of ketchup and so has Jessica. And does anyone still spell it catsup?
I thought I'd better write a post today so you won't think I perished during my colonoscopy yesterday. Everything went as fine as those things can go. I was so tired when I got home. Our insurance only covers the use of Demerol for the procedure and that can make you very dopey. The nurse told me I could pop for propofol for $250.00. Uh... no! That's what killed Michael Jackson! Considering Jeff's role with that, it would seem too ironic for me to go that way! I always want the mildest anesthesia possible so would've been fine with something like Valium. After the procedure, Jeff picked me up with the boys and we went to Wendy's for lunch since Ryan likes cheeseburgers and Jacob likes French fries. I had a cheeseburger, too, and while I was eating I started feeling so faint and everything was getting white in front of my eyes. Jeff said I looked ashen and my pulse was faint. Jeesh! What a way to go... in Wendy's! Anyway, I was fine after about 10 minutes and made it home and took a nap...something that is foreign to me. By afternoon I was feeling normal and went in the backyard and watched Ryan in the spa. He has goggles now so was trying to put his head underwater.
Today we have the freebie movie, Puss in Boots, at the Muvico theater at the mall. When we were there last week, I noticed a sign that said on Tuesdays children's lunches are free with the purchase of adult lunches at Bogart's. Bogart's is the in-theater restaurant. So we will have a free movie for the four of us and four lunches with the purchase of two. Such a deal! We are in the midst of a big heatwave so a cool theater will be a nice retreat!
No, not a review of the movie but a review of how things went at The SpongeBob Movie. As I mentioned, it's free so that's helpful because you haven't wasted a lot of money if you have to leave early and abruptly. I brought along some Capri Sun Super V- the new ones that have veggies disguised inside- and then I bought one of the $3.50 snack trays that have popcorn, soft drink and candy. I asked for a diet coke because I thought I'd drink the coke but I was wrong because Jacob drained it. I had Jacob sit on my lap since it was his first time at a movie theater. Both of the boys were mostly excited about the snack tray. Jacob did really well but after about an hour, Ryan was whispering to me that he wanted to see The Avengers. I asked Jacob if he was ready to go home and he said okay. I don't think either of them paid much attention to the movie. They were mostly interested in the snacks and the other children in the theater. The rest of the free summer movie lineup (each week is a new movie) is: Rango, Madagascar, Shrek Forever After, Puss in Boots and Over the Hedge. Maybe if we go each week, they'll get to be better movie goers.
I saw this photo of a swan and her babies (cygnets) and thought it was such a beautiful photo so I thought I'd share it with you. I don't know who to credit it to but I saw it on Pinterest.
We are having a heatwave...checked our thermometer Tuesday afternoon and it was 101 degrees. The boys will be here today and I'm taking them to the Muvico theater for one of their free summer movies. The movies are every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 10 AM. For $3.50 you can get a little kids tray with popcorn, drink and candy. Ryan has school on Tuesday and Thursday so Wednesday is our only day to go. Unfortunately, that's the day Jeff goes with his mom to this Alzheimer's group in the valley which means I will have to take Jacob along. So I'm going to see The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie with a two year old and a four year old. Am I crazy or what? I guess I'll look at it as relief from our heatwave.
The Skamper Ramp arrived and it was a very warm weekend so we decided to test it to see if it would save our cats if they ever fell into the spa. Our cats are only allowed outside in our backyard and they cannot get out of our yard because we have barriers that keep them inside. It may seem mean to put a cat in the spa but after a squirrel drowned in our spa, we decided we needed to do this experiment for our own peace of mind. Hunter was our first victim. Hunter is our boy kitty who is currently on a diet so he's not as agile as he should be. He's a laid back cat and the dominant pet in the household. Even the dogs fear him.
As you can see from the video, Hunter did not need the Skamper Ramp to get out. I was surprised when Jeff came with Hayley next because I hadn't even thought of testing her. She is outside the least of all the cats but she is the one I've most worried about around the spa because she has seizures. I've always worried that she could be laying on the spa bricks in the sun, have a seizure and fall in. I took two videos of her. In the first one (which I won't show) Jeff placed her in the spa and she sunk like a bowling ball. She surfaced and then just didn't seem to know how to swim at all. She finally got the hang of swimming but Jeff had to help her out. We decided to try her again because the first trial was such a failure that we would've been left not knowing if she could get out on her own. She did better, but like Hunter, did not use the Skamper Ramp.
Finally, it was Kalani's turn. He's the one cat that we have that seems to enjoy the water. He often climbs into the kitchen sink and sits there. He did the best of all and scampered out (sans Skamper Ramp) in a flash.
As you can see from the videos, I can't really tell you if the Skamper Ramp works to save a pet who falls into a spa or pool. I was happy to know that our cats wouldn't drown if they fell in the spa. I told Jeff we could return the Skamper Ramp to our local PetCo even though we had bought in online through Amazon.com. He said he'd just as soon keep it because it might help the random wild animal that might fall into our spa. I laughed and said we'd probably never know how many squirrels, rats or frogs we saved but we can imagine we're saving them all the time.
Cooper is doing great after his neutering. He's back to his old self and it's going to be hard to contain him to light activity until his stitches come out in a week. His teeth look beautiful, too, and I'm trying to remember to brush them daily.
Jeff takes the dogs out on daily outings. They either go to the dog park or on a hike but if he takes them to our neighborhood park they both run like crazy and get far more exercise than they do at the dog park. I told Jeff to take my camera and get a video of them running like maniacs at the park. Here's a typical outing.
Later that morning I took Jacob to the same park to play and we were surprised to find a huge herd of Boer goats that were brought in to graze on the hillside as a fire prevention measure. Jacob had fun seeing all the goats and I was surprised to hear them say "Baaa!" I thought that was what sheep said! Guess goats say the same thing. Here's a photo of our neighborhood goats
Jacob has bounced back from his sickness. Here he is playing with my iPad... a cute little musical game called "Monsters." He doesn't really get how to play it- you touch the monster that has a spotlight on him and it plays different children's songs- but Ryan is a pro at it.
I'm liking Windows 7 and I was able to get everything working including printers that needed updated drivers, etc... Unfortunately, I still have my problem with my pages scrolling on their own but not as severe as before. I've tried to take a movie of it so I can show the geeks but every time I start to record, it stops doing it. I may just hang in there a little longer until I can get a video of the problem. We're having rain as I write this entry and all my new flowers are loving it. I used Super-Bloom on my annuals and rose food on the roses and everything is just exploding with blossoms. Have a great weekend- we'll be back into the 80's!
We had a nice quiet rainy weekend watching movies. We had Drive with Ryan Gosling from Netflix which was way more violent than I was expecting. I hadn't heard much about the movie so I was surprised at the number of times I had to cover my eyes... and that's usually not that often for me. Then we had Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara from Redbox. I knew to expect violence from that because we've seen all 3 of the Swedish versions of that trilogy. Finally, we watched 5 of the 10 episodes of season one of HBO's Game of Thrones. Season two begins April 1st so I'm trying to get all caught up so I can start watching it. It's quite good and wildly popular and I never like to be out of the loop on pop culture so thought I'd jump on board.
We had some good news regarding our babysitting duties. Jessica was able to get a schedule change at work so she starts at 9 AM instead of 8. That helps because she wasn't able to take Ryan to school at 8:15 and since Pat leaves for work around 6:30 AM, Jeff was having to get over to their house early in the morning and take Ryan to school and then bring Jacob back here. Now Jeff won't have to go over there in the mornings and we won't have Jacob arriving until a little before 9. Thanks goodness for small favors!
If you didn't see last week's travel photos, please go back and have a look. They are really fun and interesting photos. Tonight is Meatless Monday and we're having whole grain ravioli stuffed with goat cheese and roasted vegetables.
I'm still working out how to add things to Blogger. For Kia and Heather and anyone else who may be having problems leaving a comment, I added a tagboard. It's in the right column right below the photo of Ryan and Jacob. I'm using a C-box so we'll see how that goes. It seemed like one of the better free ones. Thanks to Sadie and Nancze, I did find the Picasa Web Album where my photos are going so another mystery solved. Sometimes I can't upload a video straight to Blogger so I upload it to Vimeo and then add it using the HTML tab on the Post Write tab. Vimeo is also undergoing a change so I used their new interface to copy the code to add here and it's much wider. That's nice unless it makes things go askew for viewers so let me know if things are wonky. In this video, Jacob is vacuuming using my rechargeable Electrolux Ergorapido. He's obsessed with my Roombas and vacuums but the big Dyson scares him so this is just his speed because it's not that noisy. I use it mainly for the stairs since it's so lightweight and maneuverable. Funny how little ones like to help out with housework. That sure changes as they approach the teen years.
Since Ryan and Jacob will be here 5 days a week now, I'll have less time to myself. I have to work out a deal with Jeff so I can stick to my routine of exercising 3 days a week. I think I'll try to schedule that for Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays since Ryan is in school Monday through Thursday so all Jeff will have to do is entertain Jacob for an hour on Tuesday and Thursday. This weekend I will try and make time to find a tagboard that I can add for those having issues with the commenting. Have a great weekend! We are going to be in the 80's!
Since I wanted to get my post done Sunday afternoon before I plopped in front of the TV for the red carpet arrivals and Academy Awards show, I thought I'd post a video of Cooper and Kanan at the dog park. I took this Sunday morning. Although the weather forecast was for a cloudy day, it was clear, sunny and beautiful. There's a lot of butt-sniffing going on in this video which Cooper is not a fan of!
Here's a link to the Red Carpet Arrivals. The first photo shows Brad and Angelina and the exact pose she struck on stage. I'll bet she is going to get a lot of flack for that!
Tomorrow morning on Good Morning America, they are announcing the new cast of Dancing with the Stars. A few rumors are Melissa Gilbert of Little House on the Prairie fame, actor and former Melrose Place star Jack Wagner and comedienne and The View co-host Sherri Shepherd. Another rumor is Maria Menounos who co-host Extra with former DWTS contestant Mario Lopez. Three others have been mentioned but are less certain: Singer Gavin DeGraw, Pee-Wee Herman and Suzanne Somers.
We who live in the LA area are way more obsessed with the Academy Awards than the rest of the US. Well, some of us anyway. I know I never miss them and get all ready to watch the early red carpet arrivals on Sunday afternoon. I'm looking forward to the return of Billy Crystal as host. His opening bits where he's inserted into the nominated movies is usually hilarious. Jeff and I have done a good job of seeing most of the nominated movies and performances. I'm pulling for The Artist as Best Picture and it's a toss up for me for Best Actor. I'd be happy with either George Clooney or Jean Dujardin. I'm pretty sure Viola Davis from The Help will win as well as Octavia Spencer for Best Supporting Actress from the same movie. Tonight we have The Beginners to watch starring Christopher Plummer who is the front-runner for Best Supporting Actor. Next week we can dish on the gowns. It's not as fun as it used to be before the actresses all had stylists. We don't have the swan dresses to look forward to anymore. Have a great weekend!
