CLICK HERE FOR BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND MYSPACE LAYOUTS »

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Fair Report 2008


We had a great weekend. We went to the Santa Cruz County Fair on Saturday and I have to say we "faired" pretty well. Har Har. Matt did the best out of all of us, he coveted a First Place, Best of Division Rosette for his picture of London's Tower Bridge! He also got a blue ribbon for his picture of Sam. Matt is incredibly talented. In fact, most of the stuff I entered and got ribbons for had pictures he had taken in them! I rarely take pictures anymore. I just don't need to. We need to frame the winning photos asap, so we can show them off in the house.

My sister did well also getting ribbons for mostly everything she entered. I finally got First Place for my Chocolate Peanut Butter surprise cookies! The secret is the dutch chocolate. Yum. Cindy and Lilly also did quite well. Cindy's blueberry muffins won First Place and she credited the win to the Martha Stewart cupcake holders that she had put them in. Most excited of us all, however, was little Sammy. He entered his Lego creation, "The Roblox Home 360" and won First Place in his age group!! He was bragging all week. Henry, was the only one who didn't get any ribbons this year. He entered in a painting and his Legos. Unfortunately for Henry the Lego category was jam packed this year with nearly 100 other entries and a good number of them in Henry's age group. Henry was excited for his brother but, sad for himself. I felt bad for my little guy. He did work hard on the Legos. Matt promised to take Henry out and teach him some Photography techniques so he can enter some photos next year.

The weather at the Fair was perfect this year. Usually, it's boiling hot but, it was rather mild all week. We looked at all the usual stuff (Farm Animals, Home Arts, Trains, and Reptile hut), did all the usual things (rode Rides and the Ponies), ate all the usual bad things (wall of curly fries, burgers, and ice cream). Mary got hypnotized by Mezmer again. There were a couple of new things, the Watsonville Speedway race cars were there for a free but, very loud show. The boys loved watching the cars speed by. And some piglets had been born over the week. We didn't leave the fairgrounds till almost 9 p.m. It was a long but fun filled day. Until next year!

Monday, September 08, 2008

Back to School...

I'm up early this morning. Matt left for a flight to Atlanta at 5 a.m. so I have a little bit of time before I have to round up the boys and get them ready for school. I'm working in Sam's class today. It's incredibly tiring working with preschoolers!

This weekend was incredibly busy! On Friday Henry attended a birthday party at Seacliff Beach for one of his classmates. On Saturday we hosted some friends over for a long overdue dinner and slideshow from our trip to Yosemite in the Spring. The other two families brought the food while we provided the venue. We meant to do this earlier but, life just go so darn busy!

It was kinda good that we waited so long to do this because seeing the pictures just took us back to how much fun we had. We stayed in adjacent cabins with the Hoffmans while the Linnevers stayed at Yosemite Lodge.

And even though Matt joked that some of the pictures were the same (he and Dave Linnevers have the exact same camera) it was great to see everyone's perspective. Dave's were all about beauty - the beauty of Yosemite and the beauty of his wife and daughters. Matt's were all about the adventure - the adventure of Yosemite and the adventure of his sons. And Dan's were all about the fun-which was had by all. I particularly enjoyed the pictures he took of Matt taking pictures and the one of Sam literally communing with nature (peeing by a tree)!

On Sunday Henry had another birthday party to attend and I offered to watch two of his classmates after the party. My house was filled with boys yesterday. Needless to say it was very loud in this house.

I'm excited because today is my first day of class! I'm taking a digital scrapbooking class on jessicasprague.com. Jessica Sprague is one of the big wigs in the Scrap world. She's a contributing editor for Creating Keepsakes Magazine and a real inspiration. I'm taking a class specifically on Typography and Writing, something which I need to brush up on. I played with some templates yesterday and I only had to ask Matt to help me once! Anyway, time to head off for school. C ya.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall


How bad of a blogger am I? That should be reserved for a whole other post (which I will draft and probably not upload because I am just that bad at this!). Summer went by so fast! One moment I was driving Henry around to Jr. Guards in Capitola, watching him compete, eating Pizza My Heart, and then congratulating him and the ceremony.

The next moment, I would take Sam to swimming lessons at the new pool in Watsonville High School. Aside from some time outs for not hanging onto the side of the pool, Sam had a real blast at swimming. The high school instructors got a kick out of throwing him around all over the pool!


And the next moment they were off to school! Matt and I decided that although Sammy was already five (in July) that we would give him one more year of play and preschool. This was a tough decision for us to make. I was really agonizing over it all of last school year. Academically, Sam is fine but, maturity wise he is just a little too young. Honestly, after the first week in preschool I was very glad that we had made that decision. He's really happy back with Teacher Debbie and I am just relieved. Next year, he will be ready for sure. Occasionally I'll get a question as to why his classmates from last year are in another class but, it's never a long or sad discussion.

At first I thought it was going to be really really busy for me, having to work in each of the boys classes and being elected on the SMT (Linscott Parent Board) meant up to 3 meetings a month for me. But, in the end things are working out. I work in Sam's class on Mondays (co-op parent secret -- there are a lot of Monday holidays). And I'm only working an hour a week in Henry's class - I'll be doing a keyboarding center with the kids on Fridays. Darlene, Henry's teacher is on the SMT too so she knew how busy I would be anyway. Plus, she's been teaching 3rd grade for eight years and she pretty much has the curriculum memorized so, she didn't really need my help. Good news is I get stick with my work out routine 2 weekday mornings again this year.

Anyway, next week is the Fair again. And I'll be updating with ribbon tallies, if I can manage to keep my act together!!