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Normally I send out a newsletter, ofcourse anyone who knows me will be saying ha, ha, ha. Since for the past two years I've managed to procrastinate long enough that I've e-mailed out newsletters. Though I was rather proud of myself this year. With plan intact I set the tree up the day after Thanksgiving, thinking it would then give me plenty of time to take the family photo and have them printed out to send out with the newsletter. Well for once I got the picture taken and printed out but had written nothing newsletterish. So I found two boxes of "Picture" christmas cards in the stored christmas items and sent those out. Anyone who was supposed to get one and didn't please accept my apology now, I sent out 40 cards this year and luckily only two have been returned with wrong addresses. So, so sorry Glenn and Elizabeth, I either have an old address or wrote the address down wrong when transferring it to my address book.
I'm hoping everyones Christmas was filled with holiday cheer! And I wish you a happy new year.
On to Us, way out west, here in Warm, Sunny Arizona
IVAN
What can I say about our little man.
Ivan has been doing very well. Thankfully he hasn't had any accidents this year, but he'll forever have a scar on his noggin from the mag-lite incident of 2008. Oh well, I say, now, he looks even more like his dad, as they both have scars on their heads, lol!
He's been working with his letters. Though the curriculum of pre-school work I had told myself I was going to follow fell by the wayside. He knows 13 of the 26 letters of the alphabet on sight, can spell his name and also knows his colors, and can count to 10.
He still plays with his action heroes, the most popular now being Star Wars and Tranformers, though he loves to play the X-Box360 lego games and super hero games. Sometimes it can be a trial getting him off, but he always asks if he can play them first and normally doesn't throw a huge fit when told he has to practice his letters first.
He turned 4 in August and had a blast at his birthday party. At the beginning of the year Pete and I agreed that the kids parties would not be the huge to-dos that the past years have been and that we would keep them small and simple in 2009. So Sierra's was -no family, and only 2 friends for a small sleepover (i'll tell that story in her section). So needless to say it was fairly quiet. Then here comes Ivan's party. I didn't save up any money for decorations/food etc. that a large party calls for, cause it was supposed to be us, and our Tucson family/friends. Then 2 days before the party when Pete is away at camp he calls and asks me how much it costs to rent a bouncy castle?? Because he invited a few people from work to bring their kids over.
So Ivan's small party turned into a party of about 25. So in two days I rented a bouncy castle (last one available) placed an order for 7 papa murphy's (YUMMY) pizza's, cleaned the house, present shopped and managed to make an erupting volcano cake with the help of my wonderful business partner Crystalle.
For the most part the rest of the year has just been going through the motions for him as he's too young to sign up for any sports and hasn't started school yet. He spends a lot of time playing with his friend Evan, has the occasional play date with the Sylvestre boys and plays with his sister.
Both of whom spend amazing amounts of time down in the basement playing with their legos!
SIERRA
Wow, Sierra!!
Where do I even begin. At the beginning of 2009 she graduated kindergarten at Ironwood. She recieved awards and performed in their end of year performance. Saying so long to friends with the typical I can't wait to see you in 1st grade. Which would'nt have been bad, Casa Grande not decided to redraw their lines to take into account all the new housing developements that had been built. Unfortunately we were one the unlucky who were told that Sierra would be going to a different school come August. Having gotten used to Ironwood and liking the small size, location, staff and kids that went there. I put Sierra on the waiting list for open enrollment. Something I was told was that we would not know if she got into Ironwood until 2 weeks after school started again. This seemed to me a bit silly. I didn't want Sierra to start at one school get used to it then two weeks later change. But, alas, I'm just a mother and have no say over what the rules of the school district are. SO Sierra enjoyed her last day of school with smiles and tears and promises of staying in touch...no matter what!
Mackenzie, Faith, Sierra, Celeste, and Michaela
We go through summer with the cancellation of Gymnastics, - not by our choice - Coach Robert packing up shop and taking off with $80 of tuition that was never refunded. Having an amazing vacation with Grandma and Grandpa at Disney World in FLORIDA!!! Thank you so much Grandma/Grandpa!
Coming home to hot weather minus the humidity, whew!
The entire time I'm thinking, "Seriously, are you sh#$ing me??" Do you know how to say ghetto??
Once home, I immediately call Pete, and ofcourse he's out of cell range, so I leave him a message about how ghetto the school was and that I thought he would agree with me when I say we are not going to allow our child to go there. After talking with several people, and after 2 days finally getting a hold of Pete the day before school starts. We discuss our options of
1. Waiting to hear from Ironwood
2. Seeing if there were any open slots at the new Charter School
and 3. Home schooling (Last option since we both like our daughter alive)
On Monday, the supposed first day of school, I manage to get a hold of Legacy (charter) and they still have spots available in 1st grade. I run over and register her, and luckily, their school year didnt start until the next week due to construction delays at their temporary facility. SO Sierra didn't miss a dau of school, and I'll have no problem enrolling Ivan this coming year, since Sierra is already enrolled.
The funny ha ha thing about all this, was the fact that no more than 30 minutes after registering her at Legacy, Ironwood calls and tells me they have an opening for her.
Sierra loves her new teacher and likes the new school but she says it's boring, as they are currently at a temporary facility there is no cafeteria or large playground. The small play area they have must be shared by all grades k-6 so they all have specific days/times that they can use the playground. So most of her days are spent in her classroom. Her class size is 20 and there are only 4 girls, Sierra included. So I understand when she says it's boring. She's doing very well academically and even made the honor roll this past semester. She enjoys the extras they offer too, like music class and art masterpiece.
She's made new friends but has managed to keep in touch with Faith from Ironwood too.
Since gymnastics went kaput Sierra decided to try her legs at Soccer. She managed to get on the same team as her friend Faith, who's dad was the coach, and then since we knew Faith's parents, Faith's dad asked Pete to be co-coach. Pete ended up being a helpful practice coach which enabled him to spend more time with Sierra, it was nice but hard on him as his schedule changed to midnights instead of days.
She enjoyed soccer but missed gymnastics so after soccer ended in November Pete and I broke down and signed her up for Gymnastics at Desert Lights. So every Saturday Sierra, Ivan and I drive the 45 minutes north to Chandler so that Sierra can do her gymnastics again. We all must admit that this Gym is soooo much better. But then again, being the top club in Arizona, it better be nice.
There are other BP's kids who go there and we have some friends that though not BP go there as well. One other BP wife and myself have discussed the possibility of carpooling which more than likely will start this month, to save on that pesky gas bill!
MYSELF AND PETE
I'd like to say that not a whole lot has changed, but a few good things have happened this year.
Pete came off bikes and works the midnight shift which inturn pays a little more cause of night time differential. The only other nice thing about that being Pete isn't as likely to get hurt. Typically he gets home, goes to sleep and is up in time for a late dinner. We see a lot less of him, but try to hang out more and do things on his days off. He's taken a few weeks here and there to play dirtbike instructor at work, which he really enjoys doing. He can't wait for me to get of my bum and make him his little crash video. He enjoys wearing a helmet cam and taking video of the training, capturing all the crashes and what not to do moments.
We work on taking one day at a time, and going from there. In October we had a blast at Halloween and thankfully I did not over do it this year. After getting wasted for the first time at 28 last year I was more than certain it was not something I wanted to repeat. I do not see how waking up the morning after with a hangover appeals to anyone.
I myself am still currently working as a Wilton Instructor though it looks as though that may change this coming year depending on Pete's job. My friend Crystalle and I finally managed to find the commercial facillity we needed and are now fully licensed and operational. Everything Cake is open for business. We did a festival in August and got rave reviews. We've decided not to advertise until after the new year, but even without advertising we have 4 orders for 2010 and have done 4 orders since Oct. We're proud and excited, we took the final step and opened out business account 2 weeks ago with the deposit from our second wedding order.
http://www.cgcakeladies.com/
Health wise everyone seems to be good though I've been visiting a chiropractor 3 times a week for the past month. I was originally told to visit one due to a severely mis-alligned rib, that I noticed during a morning workout at the gym, (in one of those oh my god that hurts I can't possibly do another crunch moments). During the consultation I was told that since it's not causing any pain and it's a floating rib not to worry about it. But we're working on my back/shoulder/neck and wrist pain. All of which is getting better aside from the wrist for which I have recently taken to wearing a brace. I also need to make an appt. to get all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed, oh joy, so not looking forward to that, but I'm afraid I can put it off no longer.
Health wise everyone seems to be good though I've been visiting a chiropractor 3 times a week for the past month. I was originally told to visit one due to a severely mis-alligned rib, that I noticed during a morning workout at the gym, (in one of those oh my god that hurts I can't possibly do another crunch moments). During the consultation I was told that since it's not causing any pain and it's a floating rib not to worry about it. But we're working on my back/shoulder/neck and wrist pain. All of which is getting better aside from the wrist for which I have recently taken to wearing a brace. I also need to make an appt. to get all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed, oh joy, so not looking forward to that, but I'm afraid I can put it off no longer.
We also got a new addition to our family this year. In the beginning of October we brought home a new puppy. He's a Weimaraner, we purchased him from a local woman whom I'd met through my friend Crystalle. He was 9 weeks old when we got him, and the original owner was trying to think of German names for him, because she'd always named her Weims german names. She had been calling him Adolf.
I'm sorry to say that I was not going to call my dog Adolf, so I told Pete we were going to have to come up with something else. So on the car ride home with the puppy sitting in Pete's lap, Pete named him German, pronounced "Herman". That names progressed to Hermie and then within a day had conlcuded at Hermes. So what started out german ended up Olympian as Hermes was Zeus's son (the messenger of the gods).
The breed is supposed to be super smart, and while he seems to learn somethings very quickly, he still hasn't been able to pick up the whole peeing outside "everytime" thing, and continually has "duh" moments. Pete has been continually saying that we may have gotten the super smart retard dog. Any way you look at it, I really hope he learns the things he needs to learn quickly because I could not have ever imagined that any dog short of a st. bernard could hold so much liquid in their bladder.
He's much bigger now at almost 5months old. We were told that he should get to be about 80-90lbs. Which was one of the reasons I chose him over his brother who was supposed to be around 120lbs. Hermes was the "lover" out of the two which I thought would be better for the kids, and they do, do very well together. Though I have a feeling that I'm going to end up having an 80lb. lap dog. LOL!
Our actual Christmas was very nice, DJ came up from Tucson and we had a typical Christmas morning. Stockings, presents - yay, lego christmas - afterwich the 3 adults spent much time putting together many lego sets. We took a break for our Ham Dinner, and went to the theatre to see Sherlock Holmes. After that we came back and continued to build more lego sets.
The kids loved it and we had a good time too!
We're looking forward to the new year and hoping that it brings nice things to us and to all of you!
