Happy Belated Mother's Day

To all those moms out there...Happy Belated Mother's Day. I know I'm very behind the times...but it's been a busy week and I've been exhausted! We had Steve's family over for dinner on Mother's Day and of course had to clean the house, do the yard work and go grocery shopping...not to mention the car and hair appts and a night out with the neighbors on Saturday. Don't get me wrong...we love entertaining...it's the work before hand that's no fun!!

We had a great time with Steve's family. Shawn wore out Coco Bean...which is a tough thing to do, and we are eternally grateful :) The guys all played pool and I got to practice my shoddy photography skills on Samantha. I took a gazillion pictures hoping that I would just get one good shot. Here are a few of my favorites...definitely not a professional photographer :)

 

By the time Sunday night rolled around we were both completely exhausted! Work has been hectic...late nights, lots of deadlines and a drive to San Luis Obispo rounded out my week so far. I'm just glad tomorrow is Friday!! However...I'm not so glad we are going to have a 100+ degree weekend. It's ONLY May!! Oh well...I suppose it could be much worse.

Miscellaneous Stuff

For whatever reason I have been in organizing mode the last few weekends...maybe it is because I was tired of not being able to find things :) I've managed to get the pantry, hall closet, and spice cabinet organized and cleaned out...the garage also got a MUCH needed cleaning, although there is still a little work left out there.

This past Saturday, Steve and I went to UOP (our alma matter) to server on our respective Industrial Advisory Councils. It's always interesting to see what direction the school is headed...the latest development is the likely addition of an engineering masters program. While we were there, we also served as judges for the senior projects. I have to say we were both impressed with the projects this year. The project boards and plans were very professional...the Civil Engineering students gave great 10 minute speeches about their projects, and they all had very interesting projects. Two of the projects were actually proposed to improve conditions in Kenya. Both teams with the Kenya projects are hoping both projects get implemented in the near future!

After we were done at UOP we headed over to my sister in-law's house to see our new niece...and everyone else too of course! She is now 2 weeks old. These pictures are from 1 week. She is quite the wiggle worm, but so far has been a very good baby (or at least so her parents say :P).

Earth Day

Thought I would post a couple of things I learned recently that pertain to Earth Day since it's coming up on Tuesday.

1. Costco (and I'm sure other places) now have globe and recessed light bulbs with the energy saving twisty bulb technology, but with the look of a normal light bulb.

2. To go a step further...we found that Home Depot now carries versions of these bulbs that will work with dimmer switches....but they aren't cheap!!!

So this weekend we replaced all the light bulbs in our house (at least all the ones that we could) with their more energy efficient counterparts.

3. There is a website called www.catalogchoice.org which allows you to "opt out" of receiving catalogs in the mail...saving a WHOLE lot of trees and saving you the time of throwing it in the garbage. You will want to have the catalog in your hand when you do this, because it asks for the customer number which is printed on the magazine. I opted out of 7 catalogs that I had lying around in about 5 minutes.

Welcome Samantha!!

We are so excited to be an aunt and uncle again!! Steve's sister, Carol, and her husband, Jim, welcomed their little girl today...2.5 weeks early!! Below are the stats:

Name: Samantha Marie

Born: April 20, 2008 12:07pm

Weight: 6lb 8oz

Length: 19 inches

Big brother Shawn was pretty excited. He was a little reluctant to hold her at first, but gave in....however it only lasted about 3 minutes which was when he told me he was done :)

Windows Live Writer

Maybe I'm the only person who didn't already know about this, but Windows Live Writer makes posting soooo much easier than using the blogger interface. You have so much more control over picture placement and manipulation...it's like writing and inserting pictures in Word. If you want to try it out you can download it from HERE for free.

Wyoming

This past weekend I flew back to Cheyenne for my sister's baby shower. I almost didn't fly out for it, but I'm REALLY glad I did. It was so nice to spend some time with her and her husband. Our visits are far and few between. The weather was crazy...at least compared to California weather...When I flew into Denver Saturday it was absolutely gorgeous...65+ degrees and sunny. Sunday morning I woke up to 1+ inches of snow and VERY cold weather...not sure how cold because we didn't really venture out. Monday started out sunny...snowed a little while still being sunny...became almost white out conditions...then got sunny again all within a few hours. What a roller coaster ride!!

So besides the weather...

Saturday we stopped at Babies R Us so they could pick up a couple of items and had lunch at Ruby Tuesday's. Then we made a pit stop at JJill in Fort Collins so I could buy a new pair of jeans since mine ripped getting into the car at the airport...guess I better start working out again :P We stopped at Susan's inlaws to pick up folding chairs for the shower on Sunday then finally got to Cheyenne around 3pm. We got dinner started since some of Leevi's friends were coming over for dinner then got some wall decorations put up in the nursery and installed the mobile on the crib.

The baby shower was on Sunday. It was a nice turnout. Unfortunately quite a few people ended up sick and were kind enough not to come so they wouldn't get Susan sick :) We had some munchies, played a few games, and Susan opened gifts. Unfortunately my mom wasn't able to come out for the shower due to the price of airline tickets out of McKinleyville, but she joined the shower via webcam. I was the picture taker for the shower, but I used Susan's camera so you'll have to go to SUSAN'S blog to see them.

Susan's goal is to be completely ready for the baby by May 1st (a month before her due date), so after dinner on Sunday, we headed to Target to see if they had any of the big items still on her registry. We came home with a swing and a bouncer among other things which Leevi got to assemble :) And then we did more shopping on Monday. We got some organizers for the closet and kitchen, a few other items for the nursery and very cute little boy and little girl outfits for when they leave the hospital (since they don't know what they are having).

GIRL OUTFIT

BOY OUTFIT

   

The overalls are similar to these, but have a green frog in the pocket instead of the orange dinosaur. Susan has a few frog onesies and a pair of blue and white striped socks to go with it.

It was a really great trip. I'm so glad I got to hang out with Susan and help her get things organized...I can't wait to meet the baby in June!

Around the House

So, again I'm a little behind the times, but a couple of weekends ago, we installed a ceiling fan in our front room. Before we remodeled the front room there was a VERY ugly brass chandelier hanging where most people would put a dining room table. So when we did the remodel we took it down and put a smoke detector in it's place so we wouldn't have to patch the hole. For about a year now, Steve has been bugging me to put a fan in the front room because it gets a little warm when there are a lot of bodies so I finally caved. So here's the fan we chose.



We had to find a smaller fan so it would fit within the constraints of the monorail lighting. So down came the smoke detector and up went the ceiling fan. It was actually VERY simple to install...especially since we didn't have to wire it to a switch since it has a remote control. Here it is up in the room.


Last weekend we finally fixed a broken drawer rail. The one installed by the contractor had a plastic boot on one end (by the way, just about the whole slide is also plastic). They stapled the boot to the back of the cabinet...and well the last time I pulled out the drawer it snapped off, but all is well now.

I also had the joy of trying to get my raised garden beds prepared for planting...essentially what I ended up doing was cleaning cat poop out of GIANT litter boxes since the neighbor cats have apparently decided to use them as such. Now I'm trying to come up with how to keep the cats out after I've planted in the them. If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them!