Hey, it's almost 2011. Weird, eh?

We've survived the holidays so far....

Meghan turned 14 and we still let her live here. :0) Mostly she's a good kid, just going through the "I'm fourteen, so I'm braindead" phase of her life. But, we'll survive it, I'm sure. We didn't have a huge celebration, Ry and Sue were here and we had a party with some friends.

On Christmas Day, we tried, unsuccessfully, to eat ourselves to death. We had a huge Christmas dinner with three other families, we fried two turkeys, smoked one and cooked a huge ham. THEN, as if that wasn't unhealthy enough, we had fried potatoes, fried sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and au gratin potatoes as side dishes. I did make green beans, but really, who wants green beans when there are au gratin potatoes? We're still eating leftovers and we're totally sold on the turkey fryer thing. I don't even LIKE turkey and I thought it was good.

We got family gifts of a Wii and a new television, so mostly Meg got presents under the tree(her brother sort of went overboard). She got a new iPod, so that was the highlight of the day for her, I'm sure. Sam and I put a bow on the TV and he pretended to be surprised when he opened the Wii. Mostly it was nice just all being here together, we miss the kids when they're in AZ.

Last night, my Jordanian friend Salah made us an epic feast of middle eastern food. Amazing yummy food, best thing I ever did was let that guy live here for a bit. Tonight, we took Sue out for her first taste of Thai and had another epic feast. I think I'll stick to lettuce the rest of the week.

Ryan and Sue are on their way home now...... I sure wish they lived closer. Everyone cross your fingers, toes and anything else that he can get into law school in CA somewhere. Otherwise, they might be having my grandbabies in some other state, which would be tragic.

We STILL have extra people here..the plan now is that they will be leaving right after New Years. I hope so...I'm anxious to get my house back.

We're off on a roadtrip tomorrow to ....actually, we don't know...haven't decided. Apple is closed until the 3rd, so Sam is off this week. We're gonna look at a weather forecast and find someplace where it isn't raining.

We are still alive!

I don't have time to really post. It's Christmas, I live on a piano bench. If I could figure out how to play and blog at the same time, we'd be set. Not that that excuses me from the months of silence before that. Anyway, thought we'd let people know that we're still alive out here.

We did halloween. I have pics, but they must be on the other computer. SO....

We have a family of 7 living with us for the moment. Mostly good kids: stinkin' cute 18 month old that gives me a big grin and says "hi" every time he sees me, a 2 year old with epic lungs who uses them fairly regularly (and not in a good way..yeesh), a 4 year male drama queen who makes any fit thrown by Meg over something stupid seem like nothing, an 8 year old who is ALWAYS hungry, and a 10 year old who is in the burp-fart-spit stage of his life. They are relocating here from Minnesota...who could blame them...but things aren't going as smoothly as they'd hoped. It's been a month, I'm ready to have my house back now.

We had Thanksgiving at the beach with three other families. Sam took lots of pictures, but as I haven't actually seen any of them yet..they'll have to wait for another post.

Ry and Sue are coming for Christmas, which we're excited about, of course.

Sam and Meg and I have been passing around colds for a couple of months. Sam's coming off one now, and I think I've got it. Perfect timing since the Stake Christmas program is next Sunday and I have some kind of rehearsal every day this week. I'm going to go find some drugs....

The latest...

So, we're slackers. Haven't blogged in forever. Blew off the family newsletter (not on purpose, however). But, that doesn't mean nothing's happening. Although, if you ask Sam, nothing is. We never do anything or go anywhere.

So, homeschooling is the biggest part of what we do at the moment. Or at least what Meg and I do. She still has a hard time focusing so I spend a lot of time at the kitchen table with her reminding her to "stop watching the cat and do your math", or "quit doodling and finish your English". I get really bored sitting there watching her, but if I start reading or something, then I'm not noticing what she's doing...or not doing. If I clean house, she complains that I'm distracting her. We have fun with the field trips and other activities, but the actual schoolwork is tough. One of our field trips was to the local NBC affiliate station KSBW. It was a great tour, they were all so nice and we got to sit in on the live noon Newscast. Afterwards the anchors answered all the kids crazy questions and let us take a picture on the set.



We've had a few visitors. Andy and Amber came with their kids one weekend when Andy had a wedding to shoot in Carmel. He took Sam off to help/watch him and Amber and I took the kids to the aquarium. At least that's how I remember it....it's been long enough that I couldn't be sure about that, lol. I DO remember waiting for like an HOUR for a pizza in a place that was almost completely empty. I think everyone else had already given up and left. It's always nice to have those guys come visit, Evy and Preston are a blast, and Sam says "baby therapy" is better than drugs. Even if the "babies" are toddlers.

Last spring we made Linus Project blankets for the Disney "Give A Day, Get A Day" promotion and got our "free" tickets to Disneyland. So we went the last weekend in September to Disneyland and Ca Adventure. I say "free" because once we spent $150 on gas, $250 on a hotel, $250 on CA Adventure tickets, $150 on food, it wasn't very "free". We ran into Sam Waite and his girlfriend Indiana in Disneyland...kind of random. CA Adventure was kind of a disappointment, because half the park is closed, but I have to say the California Screamin rollercoaster was AWESOME. I coulda ridden that a dozen times. Only managed twice, though. Disneyland was crazy-crowded and hot, but we managed to get to most of the stuff we really wanted to do. We tried to take it easy a bit that day, but it was a long day. We were there from opening until midnight. The light/water shows at both parks were amazing, totally worth the not-so-free tickets. All in all, it was a nice weekend away from home, which gave Sam a bit of a break. We splurged on a nice hotel, and took it easy. It was DANG hot, (106 in Disneyland, ugh, and 113 the day we drove home), so we headed over to the coast and came home via Santa Barbara. I never saw so many people on Hwy 1 at one time before. Crazy. But, it turned out to be a lovely drive anyway.

The next weekend, my crazy/lovely niece Melissa came from Colorado with her family, so my sister Kate and her family drove up from Lancaster to hang out too. We had a GREAT time, attempting tidepooling when it wasn't a very low tide, hung out in the redwoods, had a beach BBQ. Then, she ran in the San Jose 1/2 marathon. Sam and Meg and I had a blast racing to see how many times we could be there when she ran past. I think we made five. Took a GPS, two maps and some luck, but it was fun. She ran her best time ever and then didn't even seem tired when it was over. She piggy backed her 6 year old about 8 miles to the parking lot. I totally enjoyed getting to know her husband and kids better, and hope they come back soon. It was even more fun with Kate and her family here, too. That's a party we need to repeat regularly.


Sam and Melissa's Keely. They were pretty good friends almost from the start. No surprise there.


Melissa with Keely also. She has two other kids, but they are too fast for this slow photographer. Sam got some good shots, I'm sure.


My sister Kathryne and her baby Zachery. Who spends most of his time smiling this huge.


Here she comes. Still not sure how someone who looks so much like my brother can be so cute. :0)


And there she goes....at Mile 13, sprinting for the finish. Time: 1 hr 42 mins.

General Conference was awesome as usual. I missed part of it that weekend with everyone here, but I'm on my second time through, listening again.

The next week I spent the week playing for the Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) Choral workshop in Carmel. It's my fourth year, I think. I enjoy it, it's like having 20 grandmas, they are all so sweet, and so many of them come every year. So, it's like a reunion every time. They spend the week learning some choral pieces, then have a concert on Friday. This year was a little shaky (in more ways than one, lol), we had 16 altos, 3 men, and 4 sopranos (the youngest was about 75, the oldest 89). But, it's always fun. I always worry when I say goodbye that someone won't be back next year.

During the Road Scholar week, Sam and I had our 15th anniversary. Since I had a rehearsal that night, we didn't do too much. But we did find a lovely outdoor Mexican bistro in Carmel Valley with live music. We went to dinner, then he came with me to give the poor mens section a boost.

So, all that in the last six weeks or so. But nothing ever happens around here and we never go anywhere. :0)

Cakes and Homeschool Adventures

First of all, in case you didn't hear, we came in third in the 2nd Annual Hunger Games cake decorating contest. If you haven't read the books, there is a main character that is the son of a baker, hence the cake contest. Find last year's contest cakes here, and the subsequent fallout here, here and here. Due to hackers, pirates, etc, the aftermath was very dramatic and highly entertaining. We won that one, which surprised the heck outta me, since I didn't think my cake was the best one. This year's cakes are here and the results are here. We had some stiff competition, and frankly, I'm amazed we did as well as we did. We did have a popular vote also this year, which was won by the best hackers, in this case my niece Sara. I'd post a pic of my cake, so you wouldn't have to follow all the links, but I don't have it for some reason. Must be on Sam's computer.

In homeschool news, we have joined a local group of homeschoolers for field trips, social activities and sports/PE stuff. Yesterday we got to visit the local NBC affiliate, KSBW and watch while they broadcast the noon news. I've got pictures here. I'd upload them for you, too, but for some reason our internet is EXCRUCIATINGLY slow the last couple of days. It was cool, we got to talk to everyone from a producer to an anchor to the weatherman. The kids asked all kinds of questions, and everyone was extraordinarily nice and glad to talk to them.

In older news, our friends, the Filceks, have been building a house for the last 8-9 months with the help of Habitat for Humanity. They finally finished it and Habitat had a ribbon cutting ceremony and open house before they moved in. There was much rejoicing. Yay!!!

A Real Post, with some News and Everything!

I've been putting this off, waiting for time to add pictures.

So, what have we been doing since February? I actually remember very little of it, it all zoomed by so fast. So, I'll start in February and do the best I can.

The beginning of February, I got an email from an old friend, Brian, that had been living in Jordan (the country, not Utah) for several years. While he was there, he had a good friend, a Jordanian, who was a member of the church, named Salah. He was a convert who had been persecuted, thrown in jail, etc, for being a member of the "American" church. They accused him of being a spy, mostly. He also had some great experiences; traveling around Jordan, Syria and Israel, translating for Elder Holland being one of them. He met an LDS girl from Texas....an amazing story in itself...and got married and sealed in the Frankfort temple. (Just before he left to be sealed, he was arrested and they accused him of going to Germany to get more spy training. They let him go just before he was to leave.) Now he's not only a member of the American Church, he's married to an American. Made it very difficult to get work, even though he had a Bachelor's degree...in accounting, I think. So, they decided to move to America. He got a job teaching Arabic at the Defense Language Institute here, but needed a place to stay for about six weeks while he looked for housing and while his wife finished a contract she was working in Texas. Brian emailed me because Salah was having difficulty finding a place he could afford here and he wondered if we could find someone in the ward who could use a little extra cash to rent him a room. I forwarded the email to the Bishop, who then asked Sam at church if we could maybe rent a room to someone for a few weeks. I shoulda known it'd get back to us.

It's not like this is the first time we've done this. We are so blessed to have this place at all, that we don't mind sharing the "wealth". However, the whole Arab guy thing had me worried, which is why we didn't offer in the first place. I have friends who have been at DLI with Arabic men and they were all kind of worried about it, so I worried about it. But Brian, who I trust, said this Salah was like a brother to him. So, we agreed.

He got here on President's Day. Within a few minutes, I was no longer worried. He was a lovely, charming young man. We did tell him that he looked more like a Scot than an Arab, lol. After a couple of days, we were telling him that we wouldn't even take him to LOOK at housing that wasn't in our ward. Because, after all, THIS is the true ward. When his wife came a few weeks later, my friends and I worried about whether we were going to like her, because we decided we'd hate it if she wasn't as cool as Salah. But when Erin and their little boy Laith got here, we were just as hooked on them. He's cooked us some amazing middle eastern food, and they really feel like family now. Salah and I like to swap recipes. I teach him to make teriyaki stir fry, he's going to teach me to make hummus. REALLY good hummus. :0) This is Salah, Erin and Laith, making blankets with us for Project Linus to earn free Disneyland tickets.



In April, we went to Arizona for the wedding of our best friends' daughter, Stacy. It was great to see our friends again, it had been a couple of years. But, even greater was how happy Stacy was. It was hot, of course, it's hot everywhere but here, I think. We had a lovely lunch with my niece Emily, and her family, and Sam's cousin Vickie and her family, and my brother and HIS family, and my nephew Kevin and his family....etc etc etc. Started out a small party, ended up a big one. But it was great to see them all. Especially since Emily and her family moved to Tennessee shortly thereafter, and we're not likely to see them as often now.

In May we went on the Bailey family cruise to Alaska. We went with five of Sam's siblings and their spouses and his mom on a Holland America cruise to Glacier Bay, Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan and Victoria BC. It was a lot of fun, but it always is to hang out with Sam's family. Doesn't matter where we go. We had fun going to La Bufadora a couple of years ago, so it was a cinch that we'd have fun in Alaska. We took Meghan on this trip, her first cruise. She loved the entire cruising thing. We ate too much, laughed a lot and saw some beautiful country. I'd love to go back.



On the way up there, we stopped in Portland to visit with our old friends, the Dolenc's and many, many Coopers. We went to the Portland Zoo with Dolenc's on Saturday and then spent Sunday visiting with all the Cooper kids and their kids.






Having shot all our money on that trip, we haven't been too far since. Ryan and Susan came out for the 4th of July, and brought my nephew Kevin and his wife Emily and their baby. We had a good time visiting with them, and doing the touristy stuff.


Then, towards the end of July, I had a couple of friends come that I hadn't seen in at least 20 years...maybe longer. I was nice to see that we all still like each other and we took up like 20 years hadn't even happened. We're planning to get together again in September. Neither of them live all that far away, it's funny that we all ended up as close as we did, we knew each other in Utah so long ago.

We did go to Bakersfield for a few days this month, to work on Lizzie's movie. That was fun, although the heat reminded me why I live here. Ugh, it was really hot. We usually avoid Bakersfield and anywhere else that hot for the summer months. But, watching them do their movie thing was interesting and fun and Sam had a bit part as a preacher.

Now, homeschool has started again. Meg is in 8th grade and I'm hoping to send her to High School next year. I've told her that she's not getting away with as much this year, I'm going to work her harder than last year to get her ready for a high school load. It's taking more of my time than last year, but that's OK, there's a time and season for everything. I'll clean the house next year.

Wow, a new post!

OK, so I didn't really intend to go six months without posting. But, "stuff" happens and I kept thinking, "I'll get to it later, when I have more time". Three days later it's August. I hate when that happens.

So this is a silly post, no news, etc. I'll get to the news update in the next couple of days. A couple of people have told me that they actually miss reading our silly goings on. All I can say: they must be hard up for entertainment.

So, the theme this week seems to be bugs. If you're squeamish, skip the links. I got an email from someone about these that supposedly live in the the southwest desert, in addition to Iraq and several other places that I never intend to go. I never saw one of these in all the years I was growing up in the desert. Tarantulas, yes. Camel spiders, never. I'm glad. I think this is one more reason to NOT move back to the desert.

So, THEN, my sister in law in AZ posts on facebook that they found one of these in her pool. She didn't specify the size, but they can grow up to SIX INCHES long and they FLY! Ugh. Reason number two for not moving back to the desert. Not that I really needed any more reasons; the fact that it's a 1000 degrees is reason enough.

Then I got thinking about the day that Ryan found one of these in his pants. AFTER he put them on. You'd think it'd cure him of "filing" his clothes on the floor, but I don't recall that it did. We found several of these in that San Jose house. ::shudder:: But, this one incident makes me smile. Only because it wasn't me. :0)

OK. That's it. We are still alive out here, and I do post from time to time on Facebook, but I really need to get back to the blogs. I haven't written anything, haven't really read anyone elses, either. But, I kind of miss it.

Not much to say....

....but here are some pictures to entertain you until I think of something.

Christmas Trip

So, we went to Arizona for Christmas to see my family. I posted most of the pics on my facebook page, but here are a few. On Tuesday the 22nd, we drove down to Bakersfield and stayed with Liz and Greg. We visited with them, then left early the next morning for Phoenix. On the way, we saw Bob's Big Boy. I haven't seen one of those in years, so we stopped for breakfast. So, which Boy is Bigger?


Pretty uneventful trip, and we made it to Tempe just in time for the 53rd Annual Fuller Family Christmas Eve Eve party on the 23rd. We've had this party every year since before I was born, always at my mom's house. It used to be a Christmas Eve party, but as the grandkids grew and wanted their own Christmas Eve traditions, we've moved it back a day in order to get more of the cousins there. We have a short program and a pretty wild white elephant party. Although not as wild as Amy's. No live animals, etc, here. These shorts were a pretty hot ticket item, Chris opened them, but I think Sue ended up with them.



My sister Julie's kids:


Christmas Eve is Meghan's birthday. She turned thirteen, which scares me to death. Ryan was a pretty easy teenager, I don't think anything we learned with him is going to apply in any way to Meggie. Anyway, we started off opening some presents from her parents and grandmas. Money and clothes. What more does a 13 year old need??



Then we went mini-golfing with Meg's cousin, Dawson, and Susan. We had a great time, then went out for lunch. That evening Mom and Aunt Keri had a great dinner and cake.



We went and saw the Mesa Temple lights, afterward. Sam got some great pics!



Christmas was Christmas....gifts, food, food, gifts, visiting the sibs, food, etc. Christmas evening, after dinner, we had a big Hand and Foot (card game) tourney. We started out with six teams. Last two teams standing were Sue and I and Kate and Jeff (sister and brother in law, although not married to each other). I haven't been able to beat Kathryne at anything since she was about five, and Jeff uses his big black hat to intimidate the competition. They creamed us. Oh well....next time!



The next day, we drove down to Tucson to see my niece Emily and her family. We went to the Sonora Desert Museum. It was a really nice day and the museum/zoo was great. Dad says I've been there, but it must have been a zillion years ago, because I have no recollection of that. A few of Sam's pics:





After the Museum, we kidnapped Emily's Sarah and headed back up to Tempe. Sunday night, Sam's cousin Vicky invited all the Baileys that were in town for the holidays to come over for dinner. It was fun to see Dan and Laurie, Kerra, Kevin (although he's in trouble for not bringing Em and his baby), Vicky and her family. Emily and her family came up from Tucson, also. It was a great visit and we hope it's not forever before we get to do it again.

Monday morning we headed home, or at least to Bakersfield, where we got to go to Izumos with Mark, Cherie, Liz and Greg and Mom Bailey. We then spent the evening hanging out at Liz's with Andy & Amber and kids, Sami and Lysander and their cute Jonas and Mark and Cherie. We had a fun visit, then headed home this morning. Sam's already back to work..he gets to work at home this week since Apple is closed.

A post just to have a new post....

Ok, Halloween's WAAAAY over, just haven't had the time/desire to post anything. I've been crazy busy, as I usually am this time of year. I wrote/played for a Relief Society Christmas lesson the first week of December. That involved four different groups singing four different songs, so rehearsals for that. I'm also the pianist for the Stake Choir, which had a big Christmas fireside on the 13th. Besides the choir on that one, I played for most of the small ensemble pieces. Then, one of the girls who sang for me in the RS program called, said her hubby was in charge of Sacrament Meeting on the 20th and wanted to do the program I wrote. No biggie, except about a 1/3 of the people aren't going to be here, so I had to practice with a bunch of new people.

We're on the tightest budget I can remember for Christmas, so we're having to be very creative, which takes time. No Christmas cards this year....which I swore I would send out because I didn't last year... just can't spend the stamp money. I do have a couple of very cool gifts in the works that I'm excited about, and not having any money makes the actual shopping part MUCH faster. I got lazy in the Christmas decorations department, too....only put up the tree this year. And the giant Christmas star, which actually never got taken down because it was a pain to get up there in the first place.

I apparently have no charger for my Canon 20D, so no pics either. Sam takes loads of pics, I just don't ever get them. His old 5D used the same charger as my 20D, apparently we only had one charger and he sold it with the old 5D to pay for the new 5D Mark II. So, I'm scouring ebay for a charger. When we find one,or when I can pin him down to get me some pics, I'll post a REAL post. I sort of have a weird issue about posting without a picture.

Halloween 2009

Meghan is fascinated with all things Egyptian, so she decided that she wanted to be Cleopatra this year. We recycled the collar and belt from her 1ST GRADE costume and just made the dress part. I only added about 1 1/2 inches to the belt, if you can believe that....she's only that much bigger around than she was in 1st grade...geez. I'm not sure where she got those genes, but they weren't from me. I was a skinny kid, but not THAT skinny! The hardest part of the entire project was finding her something to wear under it. Nobody sells a slip for a 12 year old stick, lol. Or any other 12 year old, for that matter. She had a camisole, and I made her a half slip out of an old slip of mine.

The pics are little grainy...Sam forgot that he had the ISO set really high when we were taking pics at the beach.

Sunset at Moss Landing....

We went down the street to the beach to watch the sunset tonight. It was spectacular...here are a few pics. There are more on my facebook page...

Can't believe it's the end of October...

It seems like Christmas was just last month and now it's time to start thinking about it, again.

No pics this time, just an update. Sam's computer is being retarded and we don't have the money to replace it yet. He downloads the pics to his external drive so we don't lose them, but it's hard to search, etc because the stupid computer keeps crashing. Being broke sucks.

In August, the company that contracts Sam said they couldn't pay him as a contractor anymore due to IRS issues. They offered him a salary lower than we've made in over ten years, but it's not like there's anywhere else to go at the moment. So we took it. We got insurance (pretty marginal insurance, but it's better than nothing) and paid vacation out of the deal, but otherwise it's a lousy deal. They still have him contracted to Apple, though, and we kind of like that. They have a shuttle that runs up there from Gilroy, which saves us about $500/month in gas. They rarely want him to work weekends or nights, a rarity in Silicon Valley. I'm guessing they're still paying the contracting company by the hour, so they don't want to go crazy with his hours. There are people at Apple that, I swear, live there.

So, we've had to be on a really strict budget; something we're not great at. But, we're getting better. If we'd been on a strict budget for the last two years while we were making good money, we'd be in better shape becuase we'd have more stuff paid off. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I guess the Lord needed to rein us in a bit and make us be more responsible. I'm trying to learn what I need to from this, so we can move on to something else.

On the upside, if you have to be broke somewhere, this is the place. We got a beach five minutes away, great friends, a beautiful place to live where most people just get to come vacation. I see the cruise ships in Monterey harbor and think, "Ha! WE get to live here!" (Even as I'm trying to figure out how to sneak on and get dinner, lol). As Sam dreads the end of DST, which means it'll be dark when he gets home from work, we ramp up our beach visits. We go nearly everyday, as soon as he gets home, to watch the sunset, and hang out until it's just too dark. The sound of the waves reduces my stress level significantly and we always see a few "critters"; usually seals or otters. Last week, we were treated to dolphins, a rarity in the Bay.

This week is Halloween costume week. Meg wants to be Cleopatra...not surprising, considering her current love of all things Egyptian. This year, though, she will get to sew most of her costume herself. She's not a bad seamstress and seems excited about the prospect. We have almost everything already to make it, so we won't have to buy much, which is good. I'm a Halloween scrooge...I hate spending money on Halloween junk. Sam's pirate costume that I made last year got put away somewhere "safe", which means I'll spend my week looking for it.

Lastly, I have to announce that Sam is, officially, the best husband ever. He spent the weekend catching up the laundry that I've been getting behind on. I haven't felt great for the last couple of months and a lot of things have been sliding. He did all the laundry, and put it all away. I hate laundry and dishes becuase they are never done, and when I don't feel well, they are the last things to get done. Granted, he may have been desperate for something to wear, but rather than complain, he just washed it all. I LOVE that guy. Besides, he's cute. :0)