Someone school me on Star Wars

I watched Star Wars with the boys yesterday, it was the 3rd one (I think), the one with the Sith in it. After the first five minutes I was lost. I just couldn't get past the fact that Luke Skywalker and Princess Leah were siblings. Wha? Any way... I loved Star Wars when I was a kid. I remember standing in line for 2 hours to see it when it first came out. It was pretty hot that day and we stood in the sun for it seemed an eternity. My best freinds mom even threw up and passed out from the heat (we later found out that she was really hungover from the Molly Hatchet concert the night before). Anakin, was Lukes son? Or father? I'll never get it. I give up. I'm just going to stick with Napoleon Dynomite.

Oh, and I have a huge crush on Anthony Bourdain. There is something about him that intrigues me. He's not that handsome, his earring looks stupid and what is he, a buck thirty ringing wet? I just love to watch his show on the travel channel. Maybe it's because we both have the same things in common we like to travel and we like to eat.

The God Damned Duck

I must introduce you to the God Damned Duck. Bloggy friends, The God Damned Duck. The God Damned Duck, Bloggy friends. Good, now you know each other. So here is the story of The GD duck. For as long as Mark can remember his grandfather Bopey (all the grandchildren called him Bopey, even better they called his grandmother Mummies, yikes!) had this duck on the hearth of the fireplace at their home, it was his prized possesion. When he was a toddler this duck was like a flashing neon sign that said "PLAY WITH ME". His grandfather on the other hand was dead set againts any of the children playing with The GD Duck. He would spend summers with his grandparents in Pasadena and always gravitated toward his grandfathers duck, just to look at it, give it a pet and say hello. His grandfather always said the same thing when he was 6 feet from The GD Duck: "Get away from the God Damned Duck!" (hence, the name). So of course this duck became Pavlovs dog for the grandchildren, Mark being the oldest grandchild, this duck became synonamous with his grandfather. This duck continued to move with them from Pasadena to Arizona and finally with them to Leisure World (aka: Seizure World) in Laguna Niguel. When his grandfather died, The GD Duck stayed with Mummies until her death 2 years ago. So now starts the sucky part. His grandparents had a will but they changed it several times, the last change leaving the his crazy Aunt as executor. Long story short she got hungry with power and put all of their possesions in storage and staged an estate sale and started selling off all of thier things. Anything we wanted we had to buy. However, most of the valuable items she kept for herself, including The GD Duck, which everyone wanted for some reason. After a court battle between the siblings, it came down to drawing straws at the storage unit, and winner gets the first pick of all their possesions in the storage unit. Mark's mom picked the largest straw and gets to pick first. She goes through box after box and what does she see? Yep, The GD Duck! She wrapped it up and gave it to Mark for Christmas. You should have seen his face when he opened it and the first words out of his mouth were "The God Damned Duck!". So now The GD Duck sits in the den. His legs have been severed from his body but with some epoxy and rubbing compound The GD Duck is looking hot! I inspected it closely the other day and noticed that it was handmade in Spain the company being Bidasoa. I mean it is really hideous looking, but I bet anything it is worth something even with the injury. Mark would not part with it though, not for a million dollars.

Seattle Slew

Seattle is a great city. Good beer. Good times. Here are some highlights:

At the top'o the Space NEEDLE

View from the needle

We watched the Seahawks game in the room

Gotta love room service and football

Happy New Year!

2007. Time flies when your having fun? I still can't believe 2006 is history. Is it me or do the years seem to fly by. I guess it's a good thing considering the waiting game we are playing, but STILL, man! This year I plan on doing a few things. I know it is a total cliche but I need to actually USE my gym membership not just pay for it each month, after the 'personal trainer incident of '06', I need to get back on the horse. The other thing I want to do is become more involved in our business. Right now I just do the minimum of what I need to do, but there is so much more that I can get involved in. I need to buckle down and get on the program. There, they are out in the open, so now I don't have any other choice than to do it.

Well to bring in the new year, my birthday, and Conner's 2nd straight 'A' report card, we are going to Seattle for a few days as of tommorrow. Conner, my rock star, loves everything Jimi Hendrix so we are going to the Experience Music Project, an interactive rock and roll museum and home to the Jimi Hendrix exhibit. We are going to check out the Space Needle, Pikes Market, The Underground tour and the Sci Fi museum and anything else we can pack in. The weather channel indicates that it will rain the entire time we are there (of course), but since it rarely rains in San Diego it will be pretty cool to stomp around in the rainy weather. So, until Sunday I bid a soggy farewell.

Dreams and Birthdays

Last night I had a dream that we got our baby girl. Except in my dream I went with my parents not Mark and we went to Paris to pick her up. We rented one of those little squished up litttle cars you see all over Europe and we all seemed to fit in it with her carseat and everything. The funniest part of the dream was we went to this shwanky hotel resturant to meet my parents friends for dinner, we park the squishy little car and walk into the lobby of the hotel to find their friends. We all look at each other and notice there is no baby, we run out to the squishy car and there is the little sweetie in her carseat looking for us and then she says in a grown up voice, "Took you long enough". Hmmmmm? Oh, and the significantly strange thing about the dream was on her 'dream' paperwork there was a date, 01-07-08. I can't remeber if this was her birthdate or what I just remember reading it on something and remembered it when I woke up. Strange, it may mean nothing but it was something I wanted to document at least.

Today is my birthday, I am 38. Yuck. I don't mind getting older, I just hate my birthday because it's New Years Eve. We went out to breakfast at my favorite place for german pancakes and them we went with the boys (HUGE mistake) to exchange/return some Christmas gifts. While at Best Buy the boys were messing around at the gumball machine and I went over to referee. Well, Reed decides to do some kung fu move while hanging on me, he trips and falls taking me down with him. So here I am laid out in the middle of Best Buy on my birthday. Yay. Is this a sign of what is to come for me in the new year?

The Magic 8 Ball

Last week I got an email from our adoption coordinator telling us we got our Log in Date!! It is December 18th, 2006, wahooo! This is a great big step. Now we just sit back and wait for the "big day". So to celebrate we decided to go chinese for dinner that night. Because I was driving around like a stripped assed ape that day, we ended up getting take out at Panda. After dinner we cracked open our fortune cookies and Mark's says "You will soon be crossing great waters" and Reed's says "A wish will be granted after a long delay". We were trippin. How did Panda know? So then we consulted the Magic 8 Ball to to ask it if our wish will be granted and will we be traveling before Christmas of 2008 and it said "Without a doubt". So, all future questions regarding our adoption will be answered by the Magic 8 Ball.

The worlds unhappiest Jester

So, the boys are studying Medival History in school. They were given a project of making thier own costumes by themselves for a field trip to Medival Times. Given a pattern by thier teacher they went to town on them. This photo was taken this morning as we were leaving for school. Well Conner (blue and red) was WAY to into his costumes and LOVED the tights.....I think a little too much. He said he felt like Nigel Tufnel in Spinal Tap (I had to double check to see if he was commando as he decided not to go with the customary bloomer pant, luckily for his class he had boxers on). Reed on the other hand was geeked up on the idea of the costume UNTIL he tried it on with the tights. He decided that the tights were stupid and was pissed because I made him wear them. Check out Reed's sweet jester shoes we found, $2 at the Salvation Army!!!

I LOVE this commercial!!!

This makes me chuckle everytime I watch it. Dontcha sometimes feel like the caveman. Yeah, like everytime the CCAA ups the wait time.

We are having an elephant

Did you know that the getational period for an elephant is 18-22 months? It seems that by the time we get our daughter I could be the mother on an elephant. Yesterday it was refferal day for families who have been waiting roughly 15 months for their precious daughter. We are lead to belive by our agency and other sources that our wait may be as long as 16-24 months. This bites the big one. Mr. Voiceofreason (Mark) tells me not to think about it (You have to remember that Mark has this Polly Anna optimism, that border lines denial) and that it will all work out in the end and SHE it is worth the wait. I TOTALLY know it is worth the wait, I just want the wait to be over and our beautiful little girl here with us.

On the home front, things are going great. We just got our plans finished for the remodel of our house finalized and we should be right on track for springtime. I can't wait for my new kitchen. I picked out this awesome fridge. It's MAMMOTH (hence, the pachiderm reference). It is like the size of two standard size fridge and freezer side by side. We are SO going to be able to fill that puppy. Seeing that I am convinced the boy's have a tapeworm; they eat like it's their last meal. It's only fitting I should have something of this size on hand. Mark thinks it's obnoxious, I think it's mandatory. Oh, what does he know (wink).

Skippy, R.I.P.

We had to put Skippy to sleep. Last weekend we discovered that he had yet another tumor on his left hind leg. As most of you know Skippy had to have his front right leg amputated in September, because he had bone cancer. He was doing great after the surgery and recovered well. About a month after his amputation he started limping and not putting pressure on his left hind leg. It was actually funny because he got around better on two legs than three. Within the last month he seemed to be in pain and when you pet him he was becoming skin and bones. So, after watching him face plant for the 1000th time while trying to get up off of his bed, we agonized over it for a week and decided it was time for him to be out of pain. We took him to our vet in the work van. He LOVED the work van. Mark put his bed in the center and he with all his might jumped up into the van. This killed us because we knew what we were doing to him and he thought he was going for a fun ride in the sweet van. The boy's tearfully (and I mean THIS is what killed me) said goodbye to their faithful, loving friend. When we got to the vet he came out and lovingly administered a sedative to him right in the van so we didn't have to move him to a cold metal table in an exam room. Skippy passed away around 6:30pm on his favorite pillow in his favorite place to be, the van. We had Skippy for over 10 years and he I didn't know how much I loved him until he got sick with cancer and through his recovery of the amputation I came to realize how much I loved this dog. Rest in peace my friend, rest in peace. We will miss you.