Heat Wave

Oh boy it has been a hot week. In the 90's everyday. Yesterday we spent about 6 hours at the pool. It was so hot and everyoen was in the water or in the shade. The kids were exhausted and I was more tired than usual. I could barely stay awake last night to finish my martini and watch my soaps. I had to go to bed. Today is another hot day and it is perfect to do the laundry. I have a clothes line in the backyard and I hang up my clothes. I have to remember to pick them in 20 mins unless I want stiff cardboards instead of a soft dry towel. I love the smell of freshly laundry sheets and towels. Hubby is home today and he has Pravan fpr most of the day. They were out this morning doing errands and now they are both at the pool. Priyasha is enjoying an ice cream and a movie and I am stealing some mommy time. I have been busy packing this morning. We are going on a spontaneous trip to Crater Lake. It is in Oregon which is a ten hour drive from us. Pravan loves volcanoes and this will be a fun trip for the kids and us. I will get my photo fix as there will be many many photo opportunities. Looking forward to it. I will be back to post more next week. Have a great weekend.

Lazy 5 water park

Today it was about 95 degrees and I had planned on taking the kids to this water park. I discovered this morning that I had no bread in the house so I could not make sandwiches. I then realized I was running low on other essentials like maple syrup and dish soap. I had to squeeze a trip to the grocery store in somehow. Since I am always so early I stopped at the store and bought all my dry groceries and then we went to the park.I picked up lunchables and a sandwich for myself.I met Candice and her kids there at the park .The kids had a good time. They ran and splashed and tried to get me wet as well. It was all fun until the water just stopped. Usually they take a break for about a min and that gets the kids all excited and waiting in anticipation. Pravan tries to stand on a hole to cover it up and not let the water spray and it works. Well this time it stopped and we were soon told that they had to shut down because the pump had broken. All our fun came to a screeching halt. We did get free passes for our next visit. I got the kids ice cream to cool of as it was so hot. It was an exhausting day. Tomorrow we plan on going to the pool. Loving this summer.

Lavendar Ridge Farm

Just about 4 miles from my house along the Truckee River is a lavender nursery. I have been meaning to go there for a while now. Finally I decided to take the kids there and do a photo shoot. They make all kinds of lavender products form scented sachets, lip balm, lotions, potions, soaps and even ice cream. The kids had a blast running up and down the lavender isles. Is was quiet a site to see so many lavender bushes. We also observed the workers pick the flowers to make the products. They work fast. We also saw many many bees. They were busy working too. As long as we did not bother them they did the same for us. I will have to post some pictures later. As a treat before we left I ordered some ice cream and the owner being as sweet as she is could not resist the joy on the kids faces and gave us complimentary ice cream. It was pretty potent and the kids liked it. Very interesting taste. I thought I was just eating the flower.

We had a great time. It smelled wonderful and the chimes and waterfall made it relaxing.

negative space photo challenge

2006 pictures

Okay so I cheated this time for the challenge. It has been an overwhelming week and I did take pictures and some were specific for the challenge like my daughter on the swing. I was browsing through my thousands of pictures and found these and thought that they would be great for the challenge. This is the annual Reno Balloon Races .Traditionally every year in September we get the kids up at 4am. I make hot chocolate in a huge thermos and pack some blankets. We head out in our jammies and watch the dawn patrol. It is an amazing event to witness and the kids especially Pravan looks forward to this. Hope these work and I had the right idea when taking the pictures.

Okay so I have too many. Some are from 2006 and some are from 2007 when mm y mom visited us from South Africa. Sorry could not narrow it down. It is a wekness I have. Looking forward to feed back.

2007 pictures

Monday Madness

The weekend is over and the madness has not left. Yesterday we went to a birthday party at Jump Man Jump. It is a place with bounce house's and lots of energetic kids. My son was playing a game with a bunch of grown ups and kids and all was going well. Then he wrestled with another kid over a ball. He refused to let the ball go and he fell to the ground and hit his head. I was not to far away and saw him laying on the ground. I went to comfort him and when I picked him up he collapsed in my arms. He got all stiff on me and his eyes rolled back into his head. It was very scary but he snapped right back. This was his third head injury since January. i am surprised he has not had a concussion as yet. I took the necessary pre-cautions watching over him through he night and waking him up several times to make sure he was okay. This morning I made an appointment to get his head examined by his paediatrician. He passed all the tests and was told to be more careful as he could bruise his brain. I love that little boy and he just gives me too many little heart attacks. I probably will restrict some activities for a while. Now he is doing well and playing just as hard. I watched two other kids today as my friend Suzanne needed to go to physical therapy. Her arm hurt her for a while and she discovered she has calcification on her arm and it is painful. Tomorrow I will watch another friends two kids as she had to go to a specialist. Lately all my friends have health issues and I feel like the old woman in a shoe. I can't seem to keep track of how many kids I have in the house. Until tomorrow.

Great Basin and batman

Today we had plans to go to great basin. It is a small fun adventure park for kids with a log ride and pony rides.Since the kids went to sleep with their faces painted I had to wash it off this morning. Spider man washed off with no problems but the butterfly outline was there and was a stubborn stain. I could not take my two year old princess out like that. I had no choice but to paint over it again. Since I painted her face we were all ready to go but Pravan needed some attention too. He requested batman and I did a good job with that. The park was great. Pravan enjoyed the pony ride. Looked more like a horse to me.

Priyasha was afraid of it so he used her ticket. He also loved the log ride. I was afraid to go on it but since he was having so much fun I had to give it a try and conquer my fears. I screamed the whole way down and when we stopped he turned and said " come on mom, that was not so bad " I did loose my nice sun hat on that ride and I was not too thrilled. We also enjoyed the dinosaur park. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy. Take care and have a wonderful weekend.

Face Painting

Today was the last day of swim lessons. It is interesting how I saw the same group of people almost everyday for the last two weeks and now I may never see any of them again. I did make one friend there that I hang out with on a regular basis now. After class we race to Papa Murphy's and picked up a pizza for lunch and we were expecting some friends to come play. Brandy and her kids came over and we had a great time. Priyasha and her little boy being the younger ones had to take a nap. Brandy had to leave around 2pm because of that but two of her other kids Hannah and Spencer wanted to stay and play.I said it was okay and they did. They had a great time and so did I. I let the kids jump on the trampoline for a while and then the boys played water guns while Hannah did puzzles. I then decided to paint her face. I though she would be happy with a cat but she wanted a butterfly. I googled it and found some images I could copy. It turned out great. When I boys came inside they wanted to be spider man. I googled that too and I loved the results. When they were picked up their parents were shocked but not mad. Thank goodness. I think I found a new way to entertain all the kids that come to play.

I was the joke of the day

Okay for that last two weeks everyday at 10 am I have met with the same group of moms at the pool. We were all taking the kids to swim lessons. Priyasha is the youngest and loves the water. Being the youngest puts her at a disadvantage as she cannot reach the bottom of the pool at two and half feet. So she gets out of the pool and comes to me. I roll up my Capri's and walk with her in the water as far as I can without getting wet. I then hand her to her teacher and she is fine. I then stand on the edge of the pool and support her and even hold her hand. Well all the moms look at us and have this huge grin on their faces. They think it is cute, I think it looks silly. I look silly hanging over the pool in my clothes trying not to get wet.

Everyday I say that I should bring my swim suite and everyday I do not. Well today was an exception. I thought if I got in a swim suite it would help her. I joined the instructors and it was a hopeless idea.Priyasha got out of the pool and sat on the cement crying. She refused to get in the water with me. I stayed there and helped all the other kids out. I finally gave up and got dressed. She then got in the water with the teacher was as happy as a clam. Go figure. Women they start young. Sending all these mixed signals of what they really want.

Click happy

Been a away for a while now. I have been busy. Waiting for spider man to show up at my front door. I have so much to post and talk about. Many pictures to upload. My husband called me click happy the other day and I did not realize how true that was. I have finally moved all 27 000 pictures to my hard drive. I copy and pasted. That took four hours of baby sitting the laptop to make it was going without a glitch. I then deleted each file but only after I cross referenced each file. I gave it a quick glance which was not so quick with about 500 or so in each file. I was still afraid to empty out my recycle bin. I then could no longer view my pictures in the Kodak software as the link was broken. I had to call Kodak and they had me update to the latest version and helped me re - connect the pictures. That was another 3 hours. I am not very patient with the PC. First I click an icon and I am not sure if I clicked it so I double click. Still nothing happens so I click and click yet again for a total of about 8 or 9 clicks before it opens. That drove hubby insane and he called me click happy. When I told the Kodak guy I had 27 000 pictures he called me click happy too. Wow two men on separate continents call me the same thing. What's up with that. Anyway I later discovered after finally hitting the empty recycle bin button and searching for more pictures I still have 10 000 pictures on the laptop in different folders in different places on the laptop. Click happy is an understatement , don't you think ?

Spider man captured

Yesterday was a busy day. Lately I have been killing my mice. I have killed three in the last two years. I think that is a lot so I got very comfortable with the touch pad on the laptop. After taking the silhouette class I decided to but a new mouse. I always purchased the one with the retractable cord but the store did not have that. I advanced on the technology ladder and bought a wireless one. I love it and feel like I have a new laptop. Then I bought a cooling pad but it is too small for my 17" PC. I like big things and the PC is big. I am going to return that today. I also chatted with lots of strangers in a chat room on a digital scrapbook site. I had fun and I am hoping to move to hybrid scrapping. I am nervous like everything else it will be addictive. So while chatting, checking e-mail and a few other things I was browsing eBay for spider man. There was a new listing except it was for 6 days. I cannot wait that long. Well I can but with being the queen of instant gratification I WANT IT NOW ! ( lol ) I e-mailed the seller and asked her to make me a deal. She was willing to if there were no bids and told me so. I was at swim lessons and did not get the e-mail until later. When I accepted her price and deal there was one bid and that changed everything. Then I was ready to play the waiting game but she responded and told me that she had more fabric available and made me another deal and I accepted. She listed it as I was watching eBay so I could snatch it right away and make payment. Wooohooo SPIDER MAN IS CAPTURED !!!! Pravan is going to be thrilled. I am thrilled. I will be getting the sewing machine out when it arrives and be in stitch heaven. Okay off to swim lessons now. Later !