Mi Vida Ocupada: My Busy Life!

Aboard the Andiamo.....

On Saturday night we met up with a few of my cousins, aunts and uncles for a dinner cruise on the St Croix River.  It was pretty hot out!
These are my a couple of my cousins from Tucson, Dan and Michael...

The cruise included a buffet dinner (decent, but nothing special) and a jazz trio for entertainment.  Here is a pictoral run-down of the evening:

My aunts Connie (my mom's sister) and Chris....

Jazz trio playing "La Bamba"

 

Michael and Bennett (how cute is he in that hat?!)

 

Baby Bonks trying to be a papparazzi (like the rest of the fam!)

 

Me and Tyler

Watching the band....

 

The above picture cracks me up.....my dad is always recording something!! LOL  He is making good use of his new HDD camcorder!  Here he was recording the jazz band's original impromptu  song that they made up in honor of my grandparent's 60th anniversary.  Its called "Lenorby" because my grandparent's names are Lenore and Norby.  It was pretty cute! When I can get the footage from my dad I am going to upload it.

After the boat cruise was over, Brian and Michelle had most of the group back to their place where we enjoyed a fire (in their outdoor fireplace that is so totally cute!)  Later when there were just a few of us left, we rocked out on the Rockband game.  I haven't played a single video game in the past 20 years until last night and I enjoyed it! Even though I am the self-proclaimed worst-singer-in-the-world, I enjoyed the singing part the most!!!

4th of July Party at the Lake

What a beautiful 4th of July we had this year!
The weather was great and I got to see many of my aunts, uncles and cousins.  We have a lot of papparazzi in our family, so the amount of pictures I took were just a sampling....

 

Croquet anyone?? (Insert British accent!)

Here is Bennett (almost 4 mos.) with his 2nd cousin Grace (6 weeks)

 

Looking forward to seeing more of my family this weekend!

Whoa...my week off flew by!

I have been on vacation the past week, most of the time spent working on the movie for my grandparents 60th anniversary party (happening this Sunday!).  I interviewed my grandparents on video on Monday afternoon using my dad's Sony HD camcorder.  The camera is awesome and takes really high quality footage.  Unfortunately I had technical difficulties and no matter what i did, I could not get my computer to recognize the camera and wasn't able to get any of the footage for the first 10 hours I tried.  I tried researching the issue online and it seems many others have had the same problem, but my brother said he was able to get his Macbook Pro to recognize my dad's camera, so I just kept trying and trying until I was ready to throw myself out the window.  Fortunately my dad was able to get the video files onto his PC and luckily he had a program that was able to convert the files into a format that iMovie would recognize.  After what seemed like 10 hours, the video was safely on my computer by Tuesday afternoon.  After hours and hours of editing and teaching myself how to use iMovie, my video is DONE!!  I enjoyed how it turned out, even though it is 49 minutes long!!! I am in the process of burning the video to DVD for all of my family members (going to need around 40 copies!).  I know the family won't know how much time was spent on this project, but I know it will be worthwhile when they see and get to keep a piece of history!!

Looking forward to an eventful weekend and I am very excited to see all of my family!!!

Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable weekend!

Happy 80th Birthday, Gram!!

Here is my Gram when she was a young woman..... (Yes, my mom looks a lot like her!)

Since I scanned so many photos of my grandparents for their upcoming anniversary, thought I'd share a few of them over the years....

 

 

 

My Newly-Graduated Cousins!!

I have two beautiful young cousins who graduated this year.  (Katie on my dad's side and Cassie on my mom's side). I missed Katie's graduation party last weekend because I was out of town, so I stole this photo of her and her brother Mike from her Facebook!
Congrats Katie!

Cassie also graduated this year. 
Cassie and Katie have never met, as they are not related, but they are both going to the same University this fall! I hope they meet and get to know each other :)
Of course her graduation party last night was a good opportunity of me to take some photos of the family. 
Here is Cass with Gramp & Gramp

Cassie's parents, Bob (my mom's younger brother) and Chris...

Me and my aunt Carol (my mom's youngest sister)....

My parents with Annika and Bennett (I think this one is so cute!)

Carol with two of her daughters and a cute little weiner dog!

I can't wait until next weekend when everyone is in town for Gram & Gramp's 60th anniversary!!! I am so excited to see everyone, especially all of my Arizona and Chicago family!!!

Candlebox at Rock Nightclub

Its been a concert weekend!
Friday night I saw Candlebox at The Rock Nightclub.....
For a bunch of guys who have been around since 1991, these guys still sound awesome!!


I was back at the Rock late on Saturday night to catch Fair to Midland.  Awesome show except for the stupid-ass DJ at 93X (Pablo) who felt the need to stand on stage and tell everyone a million times how much he loves the band. (Even during the band's encore!) It was seriously ridiculous and he made a fool of himself talking the way he was....
Sorry, I didn't take any photos of Fair to Midland.

Needing some clever ideas for my big project!

My Gram and Gramp are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary next weekend.
60 years of marriage!!
Can you imagine??

Next weekend there will be a big party here in the Cities and all of my family is flying in from AZ and Chicago.
Many, many months ago my Gramps personally called me up and asked me to help out with the party planning.  (I am the #1 Grandchild).  I got a great idea and committed myself to making a fabulous iMovie featuring photos of them throughout the years, as well as photos of their 8 children and their grandkids (21) and great-grandchildren.  I am also planning to interview them on Monday to get some video footage to include in the movie.

Thats where I need some great ideas....

What kinds of questions should I ask them??

"Tell me about a time when you went on a special vacation together...."

"Tell me about something really sweet that Gram/Gramps has done for you....."

I thought I could do something clever and ask them questions game-show style....but what???

I need to come up with a game plan ASAP so that I can give them the questions ahead of time.  My Gramps wants to prepare!

Why did I wait this stinking long to get on this??!! (Oh yeah, grad school)

Why haven't I spent more time learning iMovie? (Oh yeah, grad school)

Did I mention that I am making DVDs of my imovie for each family member?!! I think it is going to be the coolest memento!! I am really excited about how it will turn out :)

Thanks in advance for any awesome idea/questions you can help me think up!

Thoughts for Thursday: Your ideal sleeping conditions

I have had too much going on to think up good TFTs lately...I need to find my little notebook so I can jot ideas down as soon as they come to me! LOL
This week's topic is about your ideal sleeping conditions.... I thought of this one after going up north last weekend.  My SIL Michelle brought a little fan up with her and said she just can't sleep without it because she likes the "white noise".  It reminded me that I used to sleep with a fan on all throughout college and I have now been sleeping with the fan on for the past week and have slept pretty good!  A Fish tank is another one... as long as it has a quiet filter, it is kind of soothing to sleep to... I have gotten to enjoy the fan (although I don't need it), but never can I sleep with a radio or TV on.  Not a good sleep anyway.  I also need the room to be dark...super dark.  And somewhat cool, as I would rather snuggle up than be too hot.  A/C has to be on at night in summer.  Oh...and I use two feather pillows.

Since sleeping is something we all do every night, I thought you'd be willing to share what your ideal sleeping conditions are?

• Do you use something to create white noise? What?
• Temperature level?
• Number of pillows?

Thats about it for today!

Other TFT posts this week:

Robyn on planning

Kim on clean freaks

Jenny on random people who read your blog

Denise on Myspace and Facebook

Heather on DVR technology

Michelle on SEX!!!

Dana on chores

Internships??

I am curious to know who out there had to go through an internship or clinical practice placement?

If so:

• Was it before or after you went to college and started your career?? 
• In what area was your degree?
• Did you have to find your own placement?
• How long was your internship?
• Was it paid or unpaid? 
• Did you get a stipend?
• Did you have to pay tuition?
• Did your internship play a big part in helping you find a job?

I know I have mentioned this before, but I am currently doing a 4-week clinical practice as a state requirement to add the additional two endorsements to my teaching license. (Nevermind that I already did student teaching full-time for an entire school year 10 years ago and have taught for 9 full years under contract).  It has been a good experience so far (although I can honestly say I havent learned anything new), but it really stinks that I am paying tuition to work for free.  $300 per week plus another $100 for gas and lunch. Its BS!!!!

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel.....I have all of next week off and then just two weeks to go until my real summer vacation starts :)

Lots of Layouts....

These are all of my personal pages I did this past weekend.  I also did a two-pager for Erin and a single page LO for Michelle that I did not scan...

This is one of my favorites....

This next batch are all the ones I did for myself on the 2nd day....

 

And another of my favorites...

This one scanned like crap because there are big gaudy rhinestones across the bottom of the page....

 

And there ya have 'em!

Our scrappy trip.....

Got back yesterday afternoon from a fun weekend filled with scrapping....
As I mentioned in my last post, I went with Michelle, Erin and eight other girls to a scrapbooking retreat in northern MN.  Wow, I have never scrapped so much or for so long in my life!!!
The building we were in is awesome!  The lower level is half scrapbook store called Once Upon A Page, the other half is a large crop room.  Here is what that room looked like with all of our stuff spread out at our tables.....


Notice the table in the middle full of snacks?????!!!  We had a wide range of goodies to keep us going!
Erin and Michelle, getting their scrap on!!

Scrapping for hours and hours on end is really exhausting, both mentally and physically! I was so tired!

So that was the crop room.  The upstairs of the building was the living quarters (which was really modern and great!) Besides this Great Room, there were three bedrooms to sleep 10 girls (plus one more on an air mattress) and two full-size bathrooms.  We had everything we needed!

We had pre-arranged for small groups to provide each meal, so we had baked mostaccolli on Friday night, and then waffles, sandwiches and enchiladas on Saturday.

It was a nice trip and I got just about everything I wanted to get done finished.  I will post my layouts later!

Thanks for inviting me, Michelle, I had a great time!

PS  They had some great product in the store, but I didn't allow myself to even go inside until Saturday, 30 minutes before they closed.  I was the only girl on our trip who did not spend a single $$$$$.  It took some restraint, but I will not buy anything else for a long time.  I have too much as it is and I just cannot justify spending $$ on scrapbook stuff with as much stuff as I already have!

Scrapbook weekend is here!

In just a little while I will be heading up north with Michelle and Erin and several other girls (half of whom I do not know) to spend the weekend at The Intensive Crop Unit.  Going to have a fun time and will hopefully catch up on all my recent photos!
Have a great weekend everyone!

Thoughts for Thursday: Cleaning Up Someone Else's Mess

This isn't a thought so much as a rant....
How can I make a long story short? Alright, because of some major changes at one of my schools this upcoming school year, 75% of the teachers need to move classrooms.  This is a huge PITA, as most teachers are attached to the furniture they already have and want to take it with them.  I am no exception.  I am moving into a room almost identical to the one I already had.  The big difference is that the teacher whose room it was previously resigned from her position to move out of state.  No big deal, right? HA! Except that this teacher never cleaned her room in (what seems to be) several years.  She didn't take much with her, but left behind a mess you wouldn't imagine.   I spent 6 hours cleaning it one day and that was just getting rid of all of the stuff that was left in the room.  It will be weeks before my stuff is moved in and reorganized. Lets take a peak at what I was dealing with.......

This is what the room looked like before I took over....

 

The thing is, you can't even see what i was dealing with yet because it was all HIDDEN in the cabinets, desk, drawers........years worth of CRAP!!!

I literally threw out 5 huge barrels worth of junk that I didn't want or need.  There were some things that I kept, but everything else that looked like it was useful I set up for others to take.  It was seriously ridiculous!!

 

Some people made off with a load of stuff.... (about 8 carts filled like this left my new room)

 

Others had fun digging through her old desk which was filled to the brim with a mix of office supplies and worthless junk.... (like the used coffee cups and other dishes.  Or the rotten apple and moldy tupperware she left in the fridge)

 

Did I mention the room looked as if it had never been vaccumed? And from the looks of all the mice crap I found, Mickey & Minnie and the whole gang are all living in my space.  GROSS!!!!!!!!!

How inconsiderate do you have to be to leave a room in that condition???

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TFT posts today:

Robyn on Planet Green

Dana on annoying people

Jessica on remembering and following through

Jenny on potty training

Kim on Weight Watchers

Nicole on inflation and the movie PS I Love You

Abstract....

 

Victory for Celtics!!! KG gets his Championship ring!!!!

I am ecstatic!!!!!!!!!
KG and the Celtics kicked the Lakers A$$ 131-92 to win the 2008 NBA Championship!!!
This was totally worth getting only 5 hours of sleep to see!!!!!!!!

Kevin was so emotional after the game.....made me cry a little too....tears of happiness!!!!!
My man finally got his ring!!!!!!!!!!

Too busy to blog!

Man, I have had so much going on this week.  I have tons of things to blog about, just no quality time to do it.  maybe one of these nights, but I am swamped with other priorities at the moment.

In the meanwhile, you can check out my bff Kim's blog....she just started it today because she loves reading both mine and Michelle's blog so much.  Kimmy is another MN girl :) She reads many of your blogs but just never comments.  She likes our little blogging community, so go welcome her!!!!!I am off to watch the Celtics beat the Lakers  (I hope!!!!!!!).......

What's new?

I haven't felt like blogging lately....I was busy with training all week and needing a break away from my "interfacing" time.  Here is a little randomness:

• The Celtics are ONE WIN AWAY from the Championship!!!
• I have had a headache for about 5 days straight.  Nothing is working to get rid of it.
• Happy 30th Birthday to my dear friend Kara (It was yesterday but I will celebrate with her next Sunday)
  
• My friend Bradie is having her third baby girl today.  Hoping the induction goes well!
• My Praxis this morning sucked.  I studied and I found out there really is no way of studying for this test.  I know I got 10/90 correct...hopefully I guessed okay on the others.  The essays weren't bad, but I had only 7 minutes to complete the last one and was stopped in the middle.  The cutoff for this test is much higher than the other....many people were there re-taking it (for the 3rd, 4th time!) I don't even care at this point!!!
• Its finally sunny out today, hopefully I can take advantage of it..... I am still a white girl with no summer color
• I made the best chocolate chip cookies the other night (let me know if you want the recipe!)
• Hanging out with my BFF tonight (given that this headache goes away)
• Heading up to spend time with my family tomorrow for Father's Day
• Start my unpaid job on Monday.  (Actually, I am paying over $300 a week to teach for free)
• I am going out of town next weekend for a scrapbooking weekend with my SIL Michelle and her friends

its raining again

Just some video action today.....

Jeff's blogging from his Alaskan Cruise!

Remember my brother Jeff? The one who used to blog about his fun travel adventures and other trivial things (but works too much now to keep up the blog)? Well, he and my dad are on an Alaskan cruise right now and he is blogging about his adventures.  Make sure to read them and comment too because I want him to blog every day that he is out there.  The kid seriously cracks me up with his stories and it sounds like he is having a ton of fun and making some good money at the ship's casino.

Alaska Day 1:

Alaska Day 2:

Alaska Day 3

Alaska Day 4

Alaska Day 5

The Purple Prince turns 50 today!!!!!

Where has time gone???????

PSA: Dry Drowning

**If you have kids, you will want to read this**

How many of you have heard of Dry Drowning?  I hadn't at all until yesterday when I read this article at MSNBC.com.   Basically, it is the story of a 10-year-old boy who died an hour or so after he walked home from a day at the pool.  What!? How is that possible???? Well, according to Wikipedia.org:

"Dry drowning is when a person's lungs become unable to extract oxygen from the air, due primarily to:

• Muscular paralysis
• Puncture wound to the torso (affecting ability of diaphragm to create respiratory movement)
• Changes to the oxygen-absorbing tissues
• Persistence of laryngospasm when immersed in fluid
• Breathing for too long any gas other than oxygen that does not kill the patient on its own. (e.g. Helium)

The person may effectively drown without any sort of fluid. In cases of dry drowning in which the victim was immersed, very little fluid is aspirated into the lungs. The laryngospasm reflex essentially causes asphyxiation and neurogenic pulmonary edema (oedema)."

MSNBC.com also had this to say:
"According to the Centers for Disease Control, some 3,600 people drowned in 2005, the most recent year for which there are statistics. Some 10 to 15 percent of those deaths was classified as “dry drowning,” which can occur up to 24 hours after a small amount of water gets into the lungs. In children, that can happen during a bath."

Symptoms include:

1. Trouble breathing
2. Extreme fatigue
3. Unexpected change in behavior

Just thought everyone should know about this....

Thoughts for Thursday: Neighbors

We have been very fortunate to have had the best neighbors we could ask for living next door to us for the past two years, as well as other good friends living just a few more doors down since we both moved in 7 years ago.  We spend a lot of time together, have meals together, etc.  It is truly a blessing.  It is hard to imagine not living so close to them!
To me, the important part of a neighborhood is not the value of the houses, but the value of the people.  People that look out for each other.  People who have things in common.  Do you agree?

I think I lived in a pretty awesome neighborhood growing up.  There were a ton of kids in the neighborhood and  while we didn't all always get along, we spent a lot of time together playing games, sports, all sorts of stuff.  Having so many other kids around was really important to us, although I didn't really recognize the importance of it while I was a kid.  You experience a lot together when you see each other all the time.  One of my old neighbors is still one of my dearest friends (Bradie). 

I have heard horror stories about bad neighbors, and it makes me even more grateful for the good ones we have!

Are your neighbors important to you? Do you have a good relationship with them or do you dream of a big move?? (Either you or them!!)

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Other TFT posts today:

Michelle on change

Jessica on culture

Jenny on giving Hi-5 or the "pound"

Dana on scams

Helmet on thieves

My Confession...

I have never watched Sex in the City.  Like NEVER EVER.

That's right, ladies....I am sure you're all gasping in shock and horror.
I am not much of a TV person and I am definitely not a series person.  I just cannot accommodate my schedule around a certain TV show, it isn't convenient for me.  My life does not revolve around TV and it never will.  And I will not start watching a show randomly in the middle of a season unless I have seen the very first episode of the first season.
In fact, I am totally out of it regarding any prime time TV series that have come out in the past 5 years or more with the exceptions of  1. Grey's Anatomy, 2. Eli Stone.  These shows are the only ones I have gotten into and only because I either bought them on DVD or watched online.  Oh, and That 70's Show is another one I have watched! I almost forgot that one.

So that means I have never watched:

• LOST
• Desperate Housewives
• Will & Grace
• Seinfeld
• Frasier
• Sex in the City
• American Idol (with the exception of Prince's performance a couple of years ago)

Ummm, I am already at a loss....there are hundreds of shows I have never watched.   Including everything Reality related.  I am sure some of you hate me now, but too bad.  I'd rather read a book or be a computer geek :)

ETA:   I am ALL ABOUT cable programming....Discovery, History, Travel, etc.  This is what I will watch  if I am going to bother to watch TV! IMO They have much better shows :)