My Take on Burlap

The makings of this wreath have been sitting on my kitchen island (technically, it's a peninsula) for over a month. Dan has been very tolerant. If he hasn't learned anything else over the last fifteen years, it's not to mess with my creative carma.

Anyway, here it is... bright and cheerful, just what I was going for. I really wanted to do something with burlap since it's everywhere (have you seen what people are doing with burlap?) I cut the fabric with Stampin Up's Big Shot- I told Lorraine I'd make her a wreath if she let me borrow it. I just need to find the right shade of ribbon and hers will be finished.

Today was the perfect day to hang my cheery wreath since it's SNOWING AGAIN. It's a good thing I have more fabric to play with today or I might be depressed (fabric makes me happy, snow in almost-May does not.)

Drama, Drama Everywhere

Each spring the Spectrum program does a drama. When Tristan was in 3rd grade he was a 1920's dancer in Flappers to Rappers. Last year he was a very animated pirate in My Bed is a Boat. This year the drama was Hubbub on the Bookshelf. Tristan played a Chinese warrior and Jolie was a sneech.

Last year when I saw the drama for the first time (I couldn't go in 3rd grade because of my back injury) I was AMAZED. Tristan was dancing and acting and I knew it was nothing he'd learned from either Dan or I. I was very impressed with how the whole thing turned out. My favorite part of Hubbub was the little 3rd grade Sneeches. My contribution to the play was sewing sneech gloves out of yellow felt.

This year Tristan was disappointed that he didn't get a bigger part in the play. Every year it seems that his best friends get lead roles. I'd heard from a friend that a city near us was getting ready to do auditions for Willy Wonka so I encouraged Jolie and Tristan to try out. I enlisted the help of our teenage babysitters to help them with their music. They worked magic! The kids were so confident and prepared after working with Rosie & Livvy. They really built them up and gave them some good pointers. We went to the audition and Tristan ended up getting a callback. Jolie (being the singing, dancing fool that she is) wanted to be an Oompa Loompa all along so she wasn't too disappointed.

The best part of the audition process was when I was in the hall waiting for Tristan and his friend David. They were both in the callback audition in a closed room with paper over the windows. I had no idea what was going on. They were both trying out for Mike T.V., a hyper-active, disrespectful kid who's addicted to technology. They'd been in there a while and it was getting late. David came out in the hall to get a drink and I asked him what was going on. He told me it looked to be between Tristan and one other kid for the role of Augustus Gloop. I nearly fell over. Augustus is the fat German kid who finds the first Golden Ticket in the play. The thing is, Tristan is neither German nor fat. I just didn't see it.

Sure enough, Tristan was cast as Augustus Gloop and Jolie an Oompa Loompa. The next six weeks were very busy with rehearsals three nights a week plus Saturday mornings. By the time we got to the last two weeks of tech rehearsals and performances, we ate drank and slept Willy Wonka. I was in the sound booth every night helping with sound and lights. I also did the music editing for the musical director (had to refresh my knowledge of Adobe Audition). No wonder I laid awake each night with Willy Wonka songs running through my head.

We all have good memories of Willy Wonka. It was a great experience. One of my favorite memories of the play is when Tristan finally figured out how to melt chocolate. Augustus makes his exit from the play by falling into a chocolate river. Immediately before this, he dips his hands into the river to taste the "hot and cold running chocolate". He is told not to do so by Willy Wonka but being a fat little child with no self-restraint, he sneaks the chocolate while the rest of the group is looking the other way. When they discover Augustus sneaking the chocolate, Willy Wonka says, "Augustus, didn't I quite recently state that my super special chocolate was never to be touched by human hands? Especially yours?" Then Tristan (Augustus) looks up, chocolate is smeared all over his face and he replies, "Toooooo Late!" It took some practice for Tristan to get this right. In the first couple of performances you couldn't see chocolate on his face. Then one night he looked up and the chocolate was there. He got a good laugh from the audience. He figured out that if he put his hand in his pocket in the scene before this, with the chocolate in his hand, it was melted by the time he needed it on his face. That created a monster. Each performance there was more chocolate and more laughter. By the end of the play one of the stagehands told me she was wiping chocolate out of Tristan's nostrils, ears, and every other place it could possibly go.

Another memory is our constant singing of the Oompa Loompa songs: around the house, in the car, Mia singing them while the kids were at school, and by the last few performances we were all singing and dancing to them in the sound booth. Jolie was on the verge of laughing on stage because she could see us up there waving our arms and dancing.

**Need to get Willy Wonka photos from my dad- will hopefully post tomorrow**

Feeling Left Out

We'd finally got the kids to bed the other night and I was in the office checking my email. Out of nowhere I heard Gavin wailing from his bed, "Mommy, I feel left OUT." I thought he was referring to the fact that I made him turn off his light while Jolie and Tristan were both in other rooms reading. I went into an explanation of why he, a five year old, had to go to bed while his siblings were being allowed to stay up a little longer to read. Then he set things straight for me. He burst out, "I'm the only one who hasn't lost a tooth!" By that time nearly everyone had gathered in the doorway of our upstairs office. Jolie and Tristan and I looked at each other in disbelief. Gavin was SO suddenly distraught over this seemingly insignificant point that it was actually hard not to laugh. He was VERY emotional. This was a big deal. All of his little kindergarten friends have been losing teeth while Gavin is nowhere near losing any of his.

We got Gavin though his emotional crisis by sending the boys to their room to get back in bed. I asked Tristan to tell Gavin about his famous front tooth that he bumped when he was a toddler and which has continued to cause him problems. His braces and the retainer he wears at night are all partially related to this problem tooth.

In the meantime, I've been interrogating all of the little boys in the neighborhood about their teeth. I couldn't believe they'd all lost teeth this early. Gavin was right. Every kid who's played at our house this week has lost at least one or two teeth. I realized they're all older than Gavin, though. A lot of the boys in kindergarten are several months older then him. That's when I realized this is only the beginning. We have a long road ahead of us of feeling left out.

Having to wait until OCTOBER my entire growing up years, I can definitely relate.

Our Last Day

I have a vacation hangover. Mia and I both caught Gavin's chest cold and I feel like crap. I decided to spend the afternoon looking through my photos from our last day in San Diego rather than at the snow on our front lawn. Mother Nature insists on torturing me.

We spent Saturday in our familiar stomping grounds, La Jolla. We spent the afternoon at La Jolla Shores and headed to Nana and Papa's for dinner. As always, the kids had a fabulous time on the beach. The weather was a bit cool but they didn't notice. They worked on their sand castles and before long Tristan and Jolie were swimming in the ocean. Our land-locked garage houses two boogie boards so they have to put them to use when they have the opportunity. I also enjoyed watching Mia play in the surf, running away from the waves as they rolled in.

Dinner at my dad and Nancy's was a highlight. We had pizza off the grill (if you haven't tried it you're missing out), a great salad and brownie sundaes. The kids hit the hot tub and caught up with Nana in the kitchen. We love being invited to their place!

The Sun is Our Friend

Gavin has been asking questions lately about the sun. What would happen if the sun exploded? What would happen if the sun burnt out? How many million degrees is the sun? Being the excellent physicist that I am, my standard reply is that the sun is our friend. There would be no life as we know it without her.

There's nothing that reinforces the value of the sun more than living in a cold climate during a long, never-ending winter. That's why we come to places like this in April (The Welk Resort, Fallbrook/Escondido area). We like it here because there's a lot to do and it's HOT. We were here three years ago at spring break and we noticed it was a good 10 degrees warmer than being right on the coast. Perfect for April if you want to swim and hang out at the pool.

Disneyland

We spent yesterday at the Happiest Place on Earth. This was no casual day in Disneyland. We went with a plan and a purpose. We had just one day (more about that later) so we had to make the best of it. We got up at 5:00 am, left just before 6:00 and were standing at the turnstiles before the park opened. We met up with Grandma and Aunt Lisa in Fantasyland and with Dan and Grandpa just in time for Pirates of the Carribean (they ran into some problems parking.) We were able to ride several rides and get some valuable FastPasses before the park got CRAZY busy. We partied all day long and finally left about 10:00 pm as the fireworks were going off. We all fell asleep within minutes of our heads hitting our pillows around 11:30. What a day!

We booked this vacation through our timeshare exchange in protest to not getting our exchange for Hawaii (we ended up having to rent a Marriott timeshare in Kauai). I challenged the guy on the phone to find us a place in SoCal over spring break. He came through so we scheduled it. That was last year about this time. A few months ago we heard about Disney and their "Give a Day, Get a Day" promotion. We each did volunteer work (we made blankets for Project Linus) and got a free pass to Disneyland. So despite the spring break crowds and the hour and a half drive, it was a great opportunity.

Now onto the hightlights:

Tristan: Indiana Jones (he got to be in the driver seat of our Jeep), Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Matterhorn Bobsleds. Tristan also got a big rush out of being our runner for FastPasses. Throughout the day we sent him across the park with our entrance passes and a cell phone to get FastPasses to use later when the lines were long. I think it made him feel very grown up to do this on his own.

Jolie: The "teacups" continue to be Jolie's favorite. She's our notorious scaredy cat. I'm actually starting to wonder if she has a legitimate fear of heights. I've learned not to push it. Later in the evening we split up and I took Mia, Gavin and Jolie to Mickey's Toontown because Jolie wanted to ride little kid rides with Mia. When we got there we disovered there was only one actual ride. It was a little roller coaster. During our 45 minute wait to get on the ride I could see that Jolie was getting more and more nervous but we were too far in to get out. We stayed through the line but opted out when it was time to climb in the car. We did end up meeting Mickey Mouse in Toontown and had our photo taken with him, so I guess it wasn't a total waste.

Gavin: Pirates of the Carribean and the Haunted Mansion. I loved watching him on his second trip through the Haunted Mansion. He was mesmerized! I'm not sure if it's his BIG imagination that made that ride a hit or if he was fascinated with trying to figure it all out. Gavin is also a thrill seeker. He went on absolutely everything (Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones, Thunder Mountain...) I'm still trying to figure out how a kid can be afraid of the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp and can't watch Finding Nemo but is ok to have ghosts flying all around him and can go down roller coasters in the dark. It's all quite baffling to me.

Mia: The moon and the dancing girls in Small World, the teacups (we had to get back in line after Dan told us to go ahead without her the first time around), King Arthur's Carosel and the CONCEPT of meeting Mickey Mouse. Ask her what happened when she saw him up close and personal and she'll tell you... she "FREAKED OUT".

Grandpa: The Tiki-Tiki-Tiki-Tiki-Tiki Room

Grandma: Small World and avoiding lines by sitting with Mia.

Lisa: (I need to ask her)

Dan: Splash Mountain (anyone have a petition for bringing back "Song of the South?") He also enjoyed pointing out that we were in the Happiest Place on Earth every time a kid melted down or there was unease in the universe.

Me: "It's a world of laughter, a world of tears. It's a world of hopes and a world of fears..." Did you know they've redone Small World? It's even better than it was before. My #2 favorite is Splash Mountain (we got stuck halfway up the big hill due to mechanical issues) and ofcourse just watching everyone have a magical time. That's always the best part.