Christmas 2010

Snapshots from our Christmas this year:

Walking the neighborhood in Fountain Valley with all the lights

Making Gingerbread houses with Grandma Holly

Going to the Nutcracker ballet

Going to Peter Pan

Hosting Christmas Eve

Singing in choir at the Christmas Eve service

Our tree

Big gift - an MP3 player

Big gift - a DS

Garden Park Everglades

BeforeSplish Splash

How can you say no to this face?

After

So it's been raining here for 6 days straight now. Not just a little rain here and there but our yearly total of rain in less than a week. I'm so over living in Seattle. Oh wait that's NOT where we moved. Anyway there was a small respite this morning. It was brief and we even saw some blue patches in the sky. We were thrilled to be able to be outside. The girls wanted to go to the park next door and run around for a bit. They knew the blacktop would probably be the only surface available to them so they brought some balls to throw around. We ran for a bit but the lure of the giant puddles in the field was just irresistable. So we went home, put on grubby clothes, picked up Daddy and went back. Worried about pneumonia and neighbors calling the cops for child endangerment, we couldn't stay long but man did they have fun sliding in the puddles, kicking water at each other and giving Mommy big hugs while dripping wet. Emily claimed it is a new tradition any time we get rain like this. Fortunately by the time we get another series of storms like this she'll be taking her own kids.

After getting home, taking a warm shower and eating a hot lunch everyone was cozied up watching a little TV. When Daddy was done eating he was ready to head to the grocery store to buy what we need for our Christmas Eve celebration. Claire characteristically did not want to go. We told her that it was fine to stay home but the TV was turning off either way. Daddy said he didn't want to get home and find Claire staring at the TV. He did his best impression of a slack jawed, mesmerized, lost to the real world TV viewer. Claire took one look at him and said, "I don't do that! I keep my mouth shut!" That girl.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Letter 2010

Merry Christmas all!

The Leeb family is soldiering on, in the face of stiff opposition. John’s plans for a quick transition to a new career has taken an unwelcome turn, but after a year at JC Penney, things are looking up recently. Jenn continues to work at Disneyland and loves it. Recently she attended a breakfast commemorating her first year anniversary. Around the dinner table that night, she explained her chagrin to discover it consisted of only a glass of orange juice and a Danish in a wrapper. I mentioned that hot breakfast is really the way to show someone you care. Claire took it one step further, “Here’s how you make breakfast,” she paused dramatically with one hand poised over the table, “first, you kill something!” and she performed an air karate chop. We all started laughing, so she amended quickly, “Not just anything…whatever you want to eat.” We’re not savages after all—killing things in some early morning ritual to appease our pagan gods. “Then you cook it and eat it. That’s how you make breakfast.”
One of our daughters is nearly a vegetarian. Claire is not that daughter.

In April’s Easter break, Holly took Emily and Claire to Utah so the girls could get some snow time with Uncle Paul and Aunt Kim. They snowboarded, ice-skated and played in the back yard snow. Emily woke up one night to watch the snow fall, decided it was worth waking up Claire too, and they pressed their noses against the window just like they’re supposed to.

We’ve spent the last year enjoying Disneyland. With Jenn working there, the price is right. Emily loves the thrill rides (especially if her shorter sister is not allowed) and so we have spent a lot of time at California Adventure. My parents also purchased Knott’s/Soak City passes for all of us and we made the most of it during the summer.

Emily has a good friend with Leukemia (complete remission) and decided to donate ten inches of her hair to Locks of Love. A week after the cut she dressed as Amelia Earhart for a report at school. For this kind of planning I get no credit--she takes after her mother.

I was asked by my good friend Karl Bertain to perform a wedding service for him and his new wife Margarida. My utter lack of credentials seemed to bother neither the couple nor the state of California. A Universalist church was happy to take my $8 and send me a wallet-sized card saying I could perform weddings. It was a brief but lovely ceremony among the pines in the Sierras above Bishop. We made it a weekend camping trip and visited the Bristlecone pines, thousands of years old.

My brother and his daughters, Magdalen and Natalie, came to visit in July. They went to the beach and Emily said afterward, “It’s like having cool older sisters.” What more can you ask for?

Jenn’s high school reunion was in August. She found it hard to imagine that so much time has gone by and wondered if it would really be worth attending. The answer was absolutely yes! She got to spend the day with her 3 BFFs reminiscing as they looked at yearbooks, old letters (yes the handwritten type) and photos.

The tyrant mouse wouldn’t let my wife have two weeks off during Disneyland’s busy summer season so we went to Wisconsin without Jenn. Frogs, deer, tubing, canoeing, picnicking and all-purpose adventuring. We especially enjoy the time spent with Michelle, Jason, Zach and Mara.
Since Garden Grove Unified starts the Thursday after Labor Day, we had two more days of summer vacation than most and elected to visit the Getty Museum. We stayed about three hours, or two hours more than I thought the girls would tolerate, and they said they want to return to see more.

I had two fatherhood dreams come true this year. I coached Emily’s soccer team, the Fighting Flamingos, to a fantastic season (but a less than stellar record). Claire developed very quickly on her team, Pixie Dust. Soccer was great fun for us all. Also, we went rock climbing in Joshua Tree over Veterans’ Day. Good friends, stories around the campfire, star gazing, scrambling and hiking. We set up a rope on a steep slope and had fun struggling up and rappelling down. We even saw a desert tortoise! I lived in Yucca Valley for 2½ years and never saw one, but we spotted a juvenile alongside a trail to an oasis.

Emily chose to learn the violin at school and has already performed in a group recital about two weeks ago. Mary Had a Little Lamb is rarely played by a string section of forty: sounded good though.

If any of you have ever asked for directions to our house, you know the last phrase has always been, “You can see our five palm trees from a half mile away.” That is no longer the case. We have had them cut down—a thrilling and terrifying, and strictly vicarious experience. The tallest was 85 feet and this guy climbed up with three-inch spikes on his insteps and a harness with a loop of chain attached. Then, once he was at the top, he would haul up the chainsaw, start it, and the bombardment would begin. First surprisingly heavy palm fronds, then sections of trunk that THUNKED into the yard so deeply we felt it even while standing on the driveway. Once the wind picked up and the trees were swaying five or six feet, they decided to hang it up each day. There are large pieces of the bases left. If you know anyone who needs 300 pound sections of palm tree trunk, let us know. We won’t deliver, but we can help lift.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Leebs

Weekend? What weekend?

'Tis the season... when no one get to stop and there are so many fun things to do! Just a quick run down of our weekend. Not too many details or I will be here forever typing.
Friday:
The girls started off their weekend with Bend the Rules at school. The last hour of the school day is dedicated to doing all the things that would normally be no-nos. There is candy, soda, toys and fun for all the students who met their reading goal this trimester.
It was also report card day. No complaints here! We are always so proud of our girls.
Dinner was at Grandma Wendy and Papa John's house followed by our annual walk around the neighborhood with the overly decorated houses. It's fun to see our favorite decorations year after year. This year Claire was especially interested in making sure each heard of reindeer had at least one Rudolph present.
Saturday morning we finally got to see Tangled. Once a movie has been in release for a few weeks, Disney employees get to see it for free. It requires standing in line for awhile but the price is right! The girls and I left straight from Downtown Disney to drive up to Thousand Oaks. Grandma Holly had a full agenda for them there. There was a New England lighted house village to set up, two gingerbread houses to decorate and a super secret shopping trip to do. After dinner we went to Camarillo to see Aunt Kristin perform with her church choir. Emily loved being able to watch the orchestra play from a fairly close position.
Sunday morning we wasted little time and were back in the car to head home. After a quick lunch and a change of clothes, Claire got dropped off with her Brownie troop to go see the Nutcracker ballet. Emily and I didn't want to be left out of our yearly tradition so we went to a different production of the same ballet at the same time. We all rendevouzed back home later in the afternoon. Our Christmas tree had been delivered on Saturday while we were gone. It and the house needed some decoration. That lasted until almost bedtime. Phew! It's amazing how with a little planning you can sqeeze so much into a short amount of time.

Bye Bye Palm Trees!

As much as the palms gave a sunny so cal look to our house, they were messy and on occassion dangerous - those big fronds fall when it gets windy. So rather than get them trimmed we decided to remove them. Correction we had someone else remove them.

It's hard to tell from this picture but step one was to get up inside the fronds and cut them down.

Most of the trunk pieces came down in smaller sections than this thank goodness since it sounded like a war zone as each piece hit the ground.

After the fronds were gone each piece of the trunk was cut. Yes he's up there with nothing more than spikes on his shoes, a chain around the tree and a lot of bravery!

Somehow removing the palms made the sunny so cal weather go away too. Coincidence?

Joshua Tree

The girls wound up with a 4 day weekend at Veteran's Day thanks to a furlough day. We took advantage and made a reservation to camp for two nights in Joshua Tree National Park at Indian Cove Campground. Our friends the Zs and Bs came with us. We drove out Thursday after lunch and spent the first afternoon setting up our campsite. When you make reservations online its hard to know exactly what you will wind up with but in this case we could not have chosen a nicer site. The campground has many rock formations and the campsites are nestled among the rocks. A lot of the sites we saw were narrow - wedged between the rocks and the gravel road. Our site was in a horse shoe shaped formation so we were surrounded on three sides by rock. It was very private and since it was windy, protected too. The sites are fairly primitive. We had to fill up water containers at the ranger station about two mile from the campground and the bathrooms were glorified port a potties. But the beauty of the surroundings more than made up for the inconveniences. As the grown ups worked on setting up the kids quickly got acquainted with the rocks surrounding us. Two walls were fairly steep but the third had great rocks for scrambling. They spent all afternoon finding caves and playing war games. We were pretty sure that someone would tumble eventually but the worst injury all weekend was a scrape.
Around 3:30 the sun dropped below the ridge near us and the temperature plummeted. Fortunately we had prepared and everyone started layering on clothes. Soon after we started the campfire and dinner. Since it was pretty dark by 5:30 we ate early. That meant we had a long evening by the campfire. S'mores and talking filled in the time until about 8:00 when everyone was ready for bed.
Friday morning dawned bright and early. We were up and going by 7:00. It was still pretty chilly but a nice warm breakfast got us going. Again the kids scrambled on the rocks in our campsite until John packed up his gear and took us for a walk to another area in the campground. There he climbed a relatively easy route and set us up with ropes. Emily was first to volunteer to make the climb. She carefully found her hand and foot holds and without too much trouble made her first official climb. She was estatic. She even did a great job rapelling back down to her starting point.
Little Jake was next on the rope. At 3 1/2 he wasn't quite ready to climb all the way to the top. So we lowered him down and let Claire go next. She was gung ho to scramble up. Her shoes were not as willing to go to the top. At one point she had lost both. Fortunately Troy was in a good position from his look out spot to help her put them back on. Once they were on tight she practically flew to the top of the rock. She really liked rapelling too.

Dean was next to go. He did fairly well getting started but right at the point of no return, he lost his nerve. He was having a hard time trusting the ropes to keep him safe and just wanted to scramble like he was used to on the other rocks. We coaxed him to the top where he had to spend a few minutes collecting himself before coming back down. He never did get the hang of rapelling. He was really trying to slide down the rock which made him even more nervous. After he finally go down he was done for the day on the ropes. Fortunately he went right back to scrambling on the rocks so he really wasn't scared off of the whole experience.

Emily and Claire each wanted another turn and did fabulously. Claire certainly didn't have any issues with trusting the ropes. On her second climb she started to lose her shoe again. On a fairly steep part of the rock, she sat down, adjusted her shoe and was back to climbing in no time. It was pretty amazing to watch. Not to be outdone by my girls I had to give it a try too. Of course the kids make it look so much easier than it is. The foot and hand holds that they found so easily apparently disappeared when it was my turn. At one point I thought I was going to have to end my climb and start back down. But when I leaned back into the rope to start down I realized I could make the next step up just as easily as down. So I did make it to the top! I had to head down fairly quickly before I started thinking about it too much. Once everyone had had the turns they needed we cleaned up and headed back to camp and lunch. John had to climb back up to bring our gear back down. Unfortunately he made his job even harder by throwing things down and getting them stuck on the plants growing on the side of the rock. He had to reach out unroped to free it. I had to watch else where.

After lunch I thought we would go to another spot to do the ropes again but the kids were just as happy playing on "their" rocks. It was a relaxing afternoon of scrambling, reading, napping and just enjoying some time off.

Again dinner was early right around sunset. After dinner we got the fire going again. John started telling stories of the ancient gods and godesses. Dean was enraptured. When John needed a break we started telling stories in the round. One person would start a story line then turn in over to the next person to add onto it. The stories got pretty ridiculous pretty fast. The girls declared that we should tell stories like that every time we go camping in the future though. One of our recurring characters was Awesome Squirrel. He seemed to show up in every story that we told. The other cool thing about the fires was watching the light flicker on the rocks around us. It could have been really spooky looking but instead it was just beautiful.

Saturday morning came early again. After breakfast it was time to clean up camp.

While we were rock climbing, Karl and Margarida had found a nice hike that they told us about. Once the cars were packed up we drove to the Fortynine Palm Oasis trailhead. Getting to the Oasis took us along a 3 mile round trip walk. There was some altitude gain so it wasn't the easiest walk but the kids made it without too much complaint. Claire and Dean were our guides on the way to the Oasis. They had picked up some Junior Ranger guide books and were busy reading and trying to identify the various plants we found. Emily was busy taking pictures for a Girl Scout badge she is working on. Once we made it to the Oasis, we rested for awhile and tried to convince Emily that we were truly at an oasis. I think she was picturing something more along the lines of Hawaii. While we rested we overheard some other groups talking about a desert tortoise that they had seen on the way. We tried to identify where they had seen it but there just aren't that many landmarks to identify where they had seen it. So we joked on the way back that we should keep our eyes peeled for a tortoise. Sure enough as we were talking, Troy says, "There it is." Calm as could be. Shannon and I were sure he was joking with us. But sure enough we looked where he was looking and there was a little tortoise cruising along just off the trail. We stopped to watch him for a few minutes and take a few pictures. The next group that came along seemed more intent on getting right in the poor creature's space. The guys took the kids and kept up their walk. Shannon and I stayed behind to glare at the offender until he started walking again too.

We had one more stop to make on our way out of town at the Information Center so I could get my patch and the girls could turn in their Junior Ranger books. Emily hadn't really gotten into it but Claire was busy checking off what she had seen and filling in the blanks on the pages. At the Information Center, the Ranger talked with Claire for a few minutes, quizzing her to make sure she had really done everything she had written about. He was especially interested in our tortoise siting and even wanted Daddy to fill out a report. (Ironically he couldn't find the paperwork.) When he was done he got everyone's attention in the room, made Claire raise her right hand to take the Junior Ranger oath, then presented her with her badge and a book. The book is not for sale and can only be earned by Junior Rangers. It was so cute. The Ranger certainly could have just handed her her badge and book and been done with it but he really made her feel special.

We've been wanting to make a trip to go climbing for awhile now. It went better than I could have imagined. John fulfilled one of his dreams to see his girls in harnesses hanging off of rocks. They are hooked and will certainly want to go again. We are getting better at camping. It seems to get easier each time we do it (even though we missed packing a bag of food into the car this trip! oops) Despite my best efforts we have become a camping family but I love it because I love the people I go with.

Halloween

It is still a few days until Halloween is officially here but the celebrations are well underway. Monday we went to Little Monsters at Disneyland. It's a scaled down version of Mickey's Halloween Party just for Cast Members and their families. There were 18 treat stations set up throughout the park and just a handful of rides open. We went on Haunted Mansion (duh it's Halloween!) and Space Mountain. It gets dressed up as Ghost Galaxy in October. I'd never seen it changed over since the line is usually so horrendous. At the party it was only 10 minutes! Yay! It was silly scary and kind of fun but I still prefer the usual version. By the time we had hit all the stations and the 2 rides the event was over. Quick but fun! Amazingly Claire even got recognized in her costume. She's a character from a relatively obscure cartoon series that she is hooked on right now. One of the girls working a treat station just happens to be dressing up as Katara as well and knew Claire right away. She was thrilled to be noticed and I was happy that I had been able to put something together that was recognizable to someone who knew what they were looking at.

Tonight we went to visit Greatmother and Greatdaddy at their place. The residents were hosting trick or treat stations and had done tons of decorating around the different halls. We had fun walking through and admiring all the work that had been done.

All Safe at Last

Like so many others I've been transfixed by the rescue efforts going on in Chile for the last 24 hours. Every chance I got I tuned into the news to find out how things were going. I'm so relieved that everyone including the rescuers are safely out of the mine finally. I don't know if they will ever make a movie out of this story (seems a safe bet though) but I can't imagine how they could make it more captivating than the actual events. Congratulations to everyone involved. Job well done!

Darth Stall

The differences in personality between the girls is rarely as evident as when we are getting ready for bed. Emily gets ready, reads for a bit, snuggles and falls asleep. Claire finds anything else to do but get ready, gets a book out which may or may not get read, turns into a tazmanian devil as she flops around in bed, eventually wears herself out and crashes. The other night part of the "anything else" included getting her light saber out and playing with it. She was quickly dubbed "Darth Stall" as she delayed the nightly routine.

Cooking Claire Style

We were sitting around the dinner table while Jenn was telling us about leaving home before sunrise so she could attend Disneyland's appreciation breakfast for trainers. "All they had was a Danish and a juice box for us!"
"You'd really expect Disney to prepare something hot--not just open a package," I said.
Claire thought about this for a minute and said, "Here's how you prepare a dinner:" she gestured with both hands in the air, like she was conducting. Then she brought down one hand in a karate chop, "First, you kill something."
Jenn just barely didn't spit out the wine in her mouth. It took us a few minutes to settle down. "Not just anything, whatever kind of meat you want."
I added, "You're right Claire. That's how you know they appreciate you; they have to kill something."
She went on to talk about planting vegetables and cooking, but we had already had the laugh line for the night.
That's my youngest daughter, Clairifying cooking for all of us.

Yucaipa Camping

We took a quick camping trip this weekend too. We made the reservations long ago before we knew when soccer would start. It was worth it though to get a nice break, let the kids play and have some grown up conversation (and beverages) around the campfire.
The kids played with water balloons and tried not to get soaked. Some were more successful than others. They also had fun rolling down the hill in the background. After dark they played with flashlights and ran all over the grassy areas. When we wanted them to stay closer to the campsite they played in the tent. Whatever that game was it was loud and funny.
Of course there were s'mores!
Water balloons are really only fun if someone is getting wet. We took this picture of John soaking himself showing off his mad heading skills. When we saw how the light picked up the water everyone wanted a try.
The girls aren't as good at heading (yet) so Daddy needed to help a bit. It was a warm, dry day in Yucaipa so no one stayed wet for long.

Soccer!

Daddy's dream has finally come true and both girls are playing soccer for the first time this year. He is even coaching Emily's team. They had their first games today and all in all things went well. Claire's team, Pixie Dust, played as well as they could against a stronger team. They don't keep score in her division but let's just say that we were really excited when our team was not going to be shut out!
Emily's team, the Fighting Flamingos, won 3-2 in a hard fought evenly matched game. Emily even played goal keeper in the final quarter. She had several saves! Phew! Mommy was sweating it a bit. They both enjoyed playing today. We'll just have to see how long the enthusiasm lasts. Who knows maybe they really will follow in Daddy's cleat prints.

First Day of School

Second and Fourth Grades have officially begun. Claire has the same teacher she had last year, Ms. S and Emily has her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. W again! Talk about recycling =) We're happy though because they are both great teachers. There's a little twist though... they are both pregnant and due fairly soon. Mrs. W had to let her substitute Mrs. S start the year with the kids and she will return after her babies are born (yes, twins). Mrs. S transferred from another local school and has taught 4th grade before. That was a huge weight off my mind. She also impressed me by walking down the line of students before they walked into their classroom and shaking each of their hands and introducing herself. Emily seems to like her a lot so far. But Em's favorite thing so far has been the binders that were handed out the first day. The school does a program for the 4th-6th graders to help them learn organization. Each of them gets identical binders so the teacher can help them learn how to put things away so they can be found again. My neat freak/office supply diva is in heaven!
Claire's class is a 1st/2nd combination. So far there hasn't been as much "talking talking" as there was last year. That was a constant source of irritation for Claire so I hope it continues to be peaceful for her.
We're all excited about another successful school year for the girls!

Getty Museum

We took advantage of the last few days of summer vacation to visit the Getty Museum. It was a perfect day to go. Most kids are back in school after Labor Day and it was an unusually cloudy, drizzly day. We watched a movie about the Getty to get an overview of what was there. We decided to stick with the decorative arts rather than the paintings. We thought the girls would be more interested and we know we are. I was amazed by the number of ways they had for kids to interact with the exhibits. Next to several pieces there were computer touch screens that they could use to get a close up of the art. On one small cabinet there were four very small painted panels. When we could see the detail on the computer screen we realized they represented the four classic elements - water, air, fire and earth, just like in the girls' current favorite show, Avatar: the Last Airbender. We studied the pictures for a few minutes and tried to guess which each represented. When we had decided, the girls pushed another button that "labeled" each picture so we could see if we were correct. The same information could have been written on one of the classic wall plaques next to the art, but this made it more interesting for the girls to be able to manipulate a screen.
After lunch we headed outside to the sculpture garden. We could have spent the whole day in this part alone. There we so many things to see between the flower garden (felt like we were back in Europe), the sculpture garden and the zig zag walk along the creek. Claire also had fun running up and down the steps. They were long with a short rise so she felt like they were built for her.

Emily is now aspiring to be a still life photographer. I think she has an eye for it.
Another cool thing they had for kids was the Family Room. Again the kids could interact with the art. In this case they hopped into a replica of an 18th century French bed. We later found the real one. Turns out that Emily's bed isn't that much newer than this one in the museum. Plus we think hers is prettier.

We also poked through the gift shops and found a letter box. I had to go to work that night so we had to leave before we were feeling done. The girls really wanted to stay longer. I think next time we may try to go to the Getty in Malibu to see the Roman and Egyptian pieces.

High School Reunion

I went to my 20th high school reunion this weekend. It was more fun than I ever expected it to be. It felt like a time warp had happened and I was a teenager again. Of course we all looked like grown ups and talked about the grown up things we were doing but I felt carefree again. It was fantastic.

The weekend started with meeting up with Karyn, Rachel and Mimi at the park next to school. Meem and I brought our girls. They are all almost the same ages and have met before. They took off to play which left the 4 big "girls" to talk. Rachel and Mimi also had husbands in tow but they were kind enough to indulge our conversation without asking for explanations. Three of us brought yearbooks, I had a photo album and Rachel brought letters and notes we had written to her over the years. It was hilarious to go through it all. Our hair was ridiculously big and our clothes were unmentionable. But we knew we looked good then right? We stayed at the park until we started hearing from the little girls that it was pushing lunch time. But first we needed to do a walk through of campus. We posed at our lunch spot for pictures. The girls had fun playing with all the lockers as we walked the halls pointing out classes and places we remembered. The school looks pretty much the same just a bit older - kind of like us.

After dropping my girls off at Grandma's and shedding the other parts of our families we had lunch at Lazy Dog Cafe. It was so cool to reminisce and to catch up with current events. It was like no time at all had passed. We could have all been together last week instead of years and years ago. These girls are not casual acquaintances but life long friends in the truest sense of the word. After lunch we drove around town visiting each other's houses. We walked up the drive of Rachel's house pointing out the changes we saw. We tried ringing the bell but no one was home. That gave us time to stare at the backyard without interruption. When we were done we were "caught" by one of the neighbors who turned out to be a friend of Rae's mom. They got a chance to catch up for a few minutes then we were off to Mimi's house. We visited with her parents for a few minutes, took some pictures on their steps just like we did in the old days and I got to try on an extra dress Mimi had. I wasn't planning on going to the Saturday night main event and hadn't bought a ticket. But they convinced me to at least come to the social hour beforehand that was taking place in the bar area. At this point I could have gone home happy and felt like the reunion was a total success. It was so great hanging out with people that shared so many of my memories. It was funny to see who remembered what and be reminded of things I had totally forgotten about.

We all took a quick break to go get ready for the hotel part of the reunion. Karyn and I went back to Mom's house to get ready. I was able to dig out some more pictures and scrapbooks I had kept. When Mom, Rich and the girls got home from swimming we all sat and talked and caught up some more. After spending the afternoon with the girls there wasn't anyone else I had to see but it was really fun to see everyone that had shown up. The conversations were more superficial and interrupted but fun none the less. I was so impressed by how successful everyone was. Not just financially but overall. People seemed happy and satisfied with life. Maybe the ones who aren't didn't come - who knows? Some people were so easy to identify, they hadn't changed a bit since high school. Others I was really glad had name tags on. After awhile everyone I wanted to talk to had wandered over to the dining room and I headed back to Mom's house.

Sunday there was a family picnic at the park behind the library. It was casual with all the kiddos running around. The conversations were better though because it was a smaller crowd and people could stay in one place longer. I brought out my photo album again. It spurred a lot of catching up about people who hadn't made it too. All too soon I had to pack up my kiddos and head home. I really hope we don't have to wait 10 years to do it again. There is already talk of doing something for the 4 of us girls when we turn (dare I say it?) 40 in a couple of years. Possibly there will be something for the 25th. We'll see how it all turns out. For now I will continue to bask in the glow of good times.

Another Month Gone By...

Working nights has been tough. I've had to let some things slide like this blog. Ugh. These last two weeks have been doubly difficult since I've been teaching summer school in the morning then heading off to Disneyland at night. *yawn* John and the girls have been troupers though. I try as hard as I can to give the girls extra attention when I'm with them. It's not too hard since they stick like super glue to my side.

On a brighter note... David Carolyn Magda and Natalie were in town this week. They pulled into town Monday night after driving from Chicago! Yesterday the Leeb clan descended on Seal Beach. I heard it was a good time. All the girls spent a lot of time in the water. Emily also wanted to be buried in the sand. Claire may or may not have gotten stung by a bee. (The jury is still out on this one.) After getting cleaned up they all met back at Grandma and Papa's house for dinner (minus Grandma and Papa of course). The 4 girls had fun playing a game with one of the bouncy balls where Claire played the net in a bouncy tennis sort of game. It's the kind of thing that is made up spontaneously and is immensely fun.
Today I signed them into Disneyland so they could go have some fun there. They took a break to have dinner at our house so all 8 of us could have some time together. Emily said she loved having older cousins because they knew fun games and it was like having cool older sisters.

The girls are also doing Girl Scout day camp this week. Claire is in the royal blue dolphins group. I haven't gotten a name for Emily's group yet. It's weird not being able to drop them off in the morning and pick them up afterwards. Today was the one time I was going to be able to pick them up. I had to identify myself as Claire's mom which felt weird. I'm used to being the overly involved mom that's at everything. This week I'm one of those "pop in" parents. *sigh* This too shall pass. Next week I'm back to working only one job and I will be able to feel more like myself again.

Purging

The girls brought home so many papers and things the last few days of school. Their rooms look like a bomb filled with papers went off. Today was Operation Clean Up. As usual Emily was all in favor of this plan while Claire had other ideas. Since it was going to be a one on one kind of job I started with Emily. She and I got on a roll. We went through the papers on the floor, the boxes in her closet, her night stand and her desk. We took out several trash cans full of junk and filled the recycle box twice. I was very proud of her willingness to part with things. Her room looks habitable again. Claire lucked out and we ran out of time to get to her room today. She was not upset by this in the least. I'm looking forward to tackling her room just as much I'm just not looking forward to the resistance she will put up in doing it. Sometimes the differences between the girls is more obvious than others.

I've switched to working nights at Disneyland for the summer. So far I've been assigned to the Annual Passport Processing centers exclusively. The last few nights I've been on the California Adventure side. I've really been enjoying it. The job itself has been pretty boring. Not too many guests at this time in the year especially at night. But I've liked getting to know the people I work with better. The pass centers are pretty tight spacewise so it's pretty easy for us to sit and chat to pass the time. On breaks we get to hear the music from Glow Fest. It sounds like we are working at a dance club! The whole atmosphere is so fun at night.

Summer has Arrived!

Yesterday was the last day of school! The girls had a great school year so we were sad to see it end but it's going to be so nice to not be on a schedule for awhile. They got out of school at 12:50 yesterday so we knew we needed to do something to celebrate. We wound up at Disneyland. Technically California Adventure. It seems to have all their favorite attractions right now. We started with Grizzly River Run since it's finally warm enough. Then around to the Silly Symphony Swings (Claire is big enough for them now), Maliboomer (Emily can go and I'm the only one who can't say no to her) and California Screamin'. Emily didn't want to do Screamin' so Claire and I jumped in the single rider line and cut the 45 minute wait down to about 10 minutes total. Then they surprised me by wanting to ride the carousel. Since our ultimate goal was to see the fireworks from Main Street we started making our way towards Disneyland. Along the way we got pulled into a Glow Fest dance show. Very Bollywood meets the 80s. We finally got to Main Street with some time to spare. We had some sundaes from Gibson and the girls got to go crazy in the Penny Arcade with a dime each! Woo big spenders! The fireworks were amazing as always especially since we could see the lights on the castle, hear the music and see Tink and Dumbo flying. We were all pretty pooped by the time the fireworks were done so it was time to head home. We parked in the Toy Story parking lot for the first time and it was really convenient getting away from the park. Definitely want to try that again.

Today we activated our Soak City passes. We got to hit all the big slides that we wanted to. Claire is definitely tall enough to go on anything she wants this year so she's pretty excited. They still really like the wave lagoon the best though.

Super Readers!

One of our proudest accomplishments to date with the girls could easily be the fact that they are both good readers. Not only are they good at it they really enjoy it. Awards came home last week for AR points. Emily got invited to dinner at Claim Jumper for the kids who read over 1,000,000 words. She had actually read over 2 million! She also got invited to a pizza party for kids who earned over 100 AR points. Both girls got to have muffins with the principal for earning over 50 points and they got to participate in "Bend the Rules" Day. Fun times! But they weren't done there. Today they each came home with gift cards to Barnes and Noble. Emily was the top reader in her class in both points and books. Claire got a medal for reading the 2nd highest number of books in her class. The gift card came for having the most AR points out of ALL the first graders! She was the only first grader to get invited to the muffin breakfast. They never fail to amaze me. Just when I think I couldn't be any prouder of them they do something even more wonderful.

Bunco Night

I stress sometimes about making sure everything is just right. I knew today was going to be an especially busy day. I'm starting a 9 day work "week" today. I start day 1 (of 5) of a new hire training run. The girls were getting ready and walking themselves to school for the first time. And to top it off tonight was my turn to host bunco. So as I was tossing and turning in bed this morning there was no end to the things that I could worry about. Would the girls be alright? Do I have a sore throat and no days off to recover for awhile? Should I have tried to get a hold of more subs for bunco? On and on and on it went. But figuring that there was little I could do at this point about most of it I got up and started my day. I was doing alright until it was time to get my work stuff together and I realized that my work id was in the van... with John at his work... oh ... no!!! There was nothing to do but go to work and plead my case. I was able to get a new id and get clocked in on time but it was not the start of the day I was hoping for. Training went well. We had 3 trainees; 2 trainers and 2 trainer-trainees. We were quite the entourage walking around the Esplanade today. The girls did just fine getting themselves off to school. Sierra was left inside the house for an extended part of the day which led to its own mess but that was taken care of by the time I got home. Claire had a good play date with Robby after school. I still had bunco and was still worried that we wouldn't have enough people to play. Turns out we didn't have enough but everyone was perfectly content to sit around the table and talk drink and eat. I should know better than to stress and let myself sleep but that's just now how I am. It wound up being a pretty good day all in all.

World of Color

One of the coolest things about working at Disneyland is the little bonuses that they give us. No not money but access to things that the general public can't do. Tonight was a big one. World of Color is the new dancing water / light/ music show in California Adventure. It debuts to the public on Friday but last night and tonight were the "dress rehearsals" that the cast members and families could attend. I always worry when things are so hyped that they could not possibly live up to the hype. This show really did live up to its hoopla. It was absolutely amazing. I couldn't have wiped the smile off my face if I wanted to. Emily even turned to me at one point and said "I'm so glad you work here Mommy!" *sniff* It will be awhile before we can see it again because I'm sure it's going to be packed all summer. But I'm looking forward to it already.

Hula Recital

The girls have been going to hula classes after school most of the spring. Miss Vanessa from pre school has been their teacher. It's been really fun and they've learned a lot. Tonight was the recital. Emily continues to amaze everyone with her grace. Claire can really hold her own too. During a costume change John and I had to get on stage and learn some moves too.

Open House

Tonight was Open House at the girls' school. There was so much to see in both their classrooms. I am always amazed by the quality of work that they are capable of. We like to visit the classes for the year ahead of them to see what they will be doing next year. I always think "There is no way they will be ready to do that next year!" And yet they are and they do. It's a good thing I don't homeschool because I'm certain I would be holding them back.

Owie!

Claire got her first bee sting today. I got a call around lunch time from the school health aide saying she had Claire in the office with her. The story I got later from Claire was that she and some friends were playing with what they thought was a dead bee. When it was Claire's turn to hold it it miraculously sprang back to life just long enough to sting Claire on the thumb. She was brave and found her sister (love that) to walk with her to the office (apparently you cannot show up alone). She got to sit in the health office for awhile with ice on it until everyone was sure she wasn't going to have a reaction. By the time she got home there was absolutely no sign that anything had happened. Almost as important in Claire's eyes was the fact that while she was sitting in the office with nothing to do she finally figured out how to snap her fingers. All in all a pretty good day as far as Claire was concerned.

In an unrelated story... I got up at a completely unreasonable time this morning to be among the first in line to pick up tickets for a cast member preview of the new World of Color show at California Adventure. The still pictures we've seen of the show make it look absolutely spectacular. I wanted to be early because most of the shows are late at night. The earliest one is at 9:00. Since the girls are coming to see it with me on a school night I wanted to make sure they wouldn't be out even later. I cannot wait to see this show and I'm even more excited to see it with my Disney and actual families!

Yay Emily!

Just to balance out yesterday's post a little... Emily was chosen Student of the Month for her class again! I didn't realize that could happen but I'm sure she deserved it =)

Is this thing still on?

OK so it's been over a year since I blogged last. I don't actually think that anyone has noticed but I'm back. I love to keep journals about the happenings in our family's lives but I've been terribly slacking at that too lately. I blame the DVR. I used to journal during commercials to keep myself occupied. Now that we have cable and that wonderful invention called the DVR I don't watch commericals anymore... sorry advertisers! Somehow I do spend a lot of time on the computer so I'm going to try and put some of that time to better use and at least blog some of the things that we do. Maybe I'll even print them out at some point and put them in our journal. We shall see.

So entry #1... Claire had a "mental health" day today. Yeah a first grader needing a "mental health" day. It's been a tough year for her in school. Academically she is doing fantastic (again this journal is for me so if there is an extraordinary amount of bragging involved so be it). Socially things seem fine too. She loves recess and all the jump roping that entails. What she is struggling with is as she puts it "All the talking!" She has a very chatty class and my dear sensitive child feels that it is her responsibility to make sure the class is being as responsible as she is. As many times as we have told her that she can only be responsible for her own behavior and that if the teacher is reprimanding the class she is really only talking to the people who are misbehaving Claire takes things personally. (Oh yeah the comma on our keyboard is broken so bear with the strange grammar.) So we have gone through many mornings of tears and "I don't want to go to school today." It breaks my heart to send her when I know she is miserable but there really isn't the option to let her stay home when she feels like it either. She has to learn to deal with situations that aren't easy. But we have also been in a couple of times to talk to her teacher and try to come up with some options to make things easier for Claire. Her teacher has been very understanding and supportive and we have found some things that seem to be working. We haven't had tears for awhile now. And most of the "I don't want to go to school"s seem to be habit.

So since she hasn't really asked for awhile I surprised her last night by telling her that she wouldn't be going to school today. I told her it was her reward for doing so well in school this year. She's the 2nd person in class to read 100 AR books and the 2nd to get her monkey to the top of the math facts tree. She really is an awesome kid. (I warned you about the bragging!) I had a free ticket to the Aquarium of the Pacific so I only had to buy hers and off we went. We got there right at the 9:00 opening. There are horror stories about field trip kids taking over the place so we were hoping to beat the rush. We did fine. We zoomed straight to the sting ray tank where she could say good morning to her favorites. We were the only people there for a good 20 minutes or so. The rays were still happy to be touched and swam right up to her. She was in heaven! We toured the rest of the aquarium and saw just about everything. It did start to fill up while we were there but we just kept avoiding the largest groups. When we were done we walked a little around the outside of the aquarium and found a nice bike path that I'm hoping we can bring bikes back to some time this summer. It was a good day. Claire needed it and I was happy to get some one on one time with one of my favorite people in the world.

Biggest Loser Finale

I'm not a big reality TV fan. Most of those kinds of shows bore me to tears. For whatever reason though I've gotten totally hooked on the Biggest Loser. Even when the people get booted they still have something to walk away with; either the knowledge of how to change their lives for the better and/or they've already lost a good amount of weight. So I've been watching for a few seasons now. A few weeks ago my friend Amanda posted on Facebook that she had a pair of tickets for the live finale show and needed someone to go with her. I jumped up and down waved my hands in the air and screamed "me me me mememememe". Then I posted back (because somehow she didn't hear me all the way down in San Diego) that I would love to be her plus one.
Tuesday was the big day. As expected there was a whole lot of hurry up and wait. We got to the check in area in plenty of time then sat until it was time to go in the studio. Everyone from the audience was in the same area though so we spent a lot of time saying "That person looks familiar... is it a former contestant or a family member of a current player?" Between all of us waiting we could usually come up with the name. With about 30 minutes to spare until show time we finally got into the studio. We were absolutely thrilled with our seats to put it mildly. The front section was reserved for the families of the final four contestants. We were in the front row of the next section back in the very center! We were so close to the stage! As former contestants ran back and forth to greet each other they came by us almost every time. Alison Sweeney is the host of the show. Her husband and mom sat right behind us! Her mom was cute though. I overheard her say to someone "We never stop supporting our kids do we?" I love that! No matter how famous you might get you are still your mom's kid and she will sit in the audience to see you perform.
Finally the show started. I usually watch the 2 hour show in about 2/3 of that time because I fast forward through so much of the fluff and commercials. The 2 hours live went by so fast! At each commercial break the MC was running around the audience handing out goodies. I got a CD of workout music and a box of water mix ins. You couldn't help but get even more excited for the contestants with them right there in front of you. They all looked so happy and looked so good! I didn't really have a favorite this year so it didn't matter to me who won. But I was totally amazed by how good Michael looked and how well he did. Unlike past seasons when the winners actually looked too skinny he looked healthy! He may lose some more but if he doesn't he'll still be good.
After the show was over we scooped up a handful of confetti and grabbed out seat tags. Our hands were tingling from clapping so much and our voices were scratchy. But it was totally worth it! We stopped some of the former contestants and got autographs. We saw the mom and son Dan(the musician) and Jackie; season 3 winner Erik (on this season because he gained a lot of his weight back but by the finale he looked good again) and Daniel who was on 2 seasons because he had such a long way to go. They all looked great and so did the other former contestants.
As soon as I got home it was time for the west coast showing. So we turned the TV on and there in the first pan of the audience was me and Amanda! It was quick but it was us!! The girls were so excited to see Mommy on TV! The whole day was such a cool experience. Living in California it seems like we should be able to do more of these kinds of things. Usually it's not something I care all that much about but to be able to see one of my favorite shows was a blast!