These are the flowers Danny sent me for Valentines Day. He’s brought flowers home before, but never had them sent, he only gets better with age.Grandma O’Barr sewed skirts for the girls. It started out as my project, but it was a little over my head, although I do think I could make one now. Anyway, I only had a pattern for Aubrey, but Grandma was able to manipulate it to make two more patterns for Emma and Aubrey. They turned out cute!
Poor Tanner, Friday was not his day. I took the kids to school and when they got out of the van Tanner realized he didn’t have his backpack. He had is Nintendo D.S. though… hmmm. Anyway, I was very patient, it’s not like I’ve never forgotten anything so home Tanner and I went to get his backpack. Now the poor boy was late so I had to unload the girls and walk them into the school so that I could sign Tanner into school, I was still being very patient considering I had somewhere I needed to be. So Tanner went to school and I took Aubrey to preschool.
When we got home from preschool I got a call from one of Tanner’s friends moms inviting Tanner to go with them after school to a movie. So I stepped into Tanner’s room to get away from the noise of the girls so that I could chat for a minute, and there sitting on Tanner’s floor is his homework. The same homework that at breakfast he had assured me was safe in his backpack. Hmmm, what to do with the forgetful boy? Tanner doesn’t care for writing he doesn’t mind coming up with things to write, but the physical act of writing drives him crazy. So I decided to have Tanner write me a paper on being responsible, funny boy, here’s his paper.
He was pretty upset that I made him write, I think I have found an effective punishment. I laugh at the part about him being able to have sweets… I don’t think I have ever told him no sweets as a punishment, I have threatened to serve nothing but broccoli for dinner before though.
Hiking with the Hamblins Sept. 2008
Emma and Devree camping May 2008As many of you know our good friends here in Dayton have a daughter who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, and it’s cancerous. If you want to read their story you can click on Devree on my blog.
Devree has had a huge impact on my Emma. When Emma was in Kindergarten she would sit with Emma on the bus and make sure she made it to her classroom safely. Devree is 5 years older then Emma but has always treated Emma as an equal. She has attended Emma’s birthday parties, and is never embarrassed about hanging out with little pipsqueaks, I think was her term of endearment for Emma and her friends.
Anyway, Devree has shaved her head for the radiation that she is currently undergoing, and wants a wig so Emma was very excited to donate her hair for this purpose. So today Emma got her hair cut and I just wanted to share the before and after pictures. I think she looks older, but very cute.
We flew out on Sunday morning for NYC. I was so sad to leave the kids. I knew they would be fine with my Mom and Dad, but I still felt like we were being irresponsible for leaving them. I tried hard to control my emotions, but I’m not sure I did such a great job. The flight was uneventful, which I was grateful for, but we did have to go into a holding pattern over JFK for about 40 minutes and that got a little old. (Danny’s note: We flew to Phoenix first, then changed planes. The flights were smooth, but very long…and then the landing at JFK was really rough. It felt like the pilot dropped us on the runway, then hit the brakes hard like I’ve never felt. The airport is under some construction, and we had a little bit of difficulty finding where to pick up our luggage. It took over an hour for them to get our bag down, and the handle was ripped off. Considering they charge $15 for every bag, I was even more irritated…)
Once we got our baggage, the company we were traveling for had arranged for a car service to pick us up. I’ve always wanted to have one of those guys in a suit holding a sign be for me. I would have taken a picture, but my camera was in my luggage. We were very late, but he was waiting there with a smile. (Danny’s note: When I got back to work today, there were multiple voice mails from the car service…had we been only a few more minutes, he might’ve left.) Driving in Manhattan is a talent and I was grateful for his talent. We arrived at The Essex House right on Central Park South, it was a great hotel in a great location. Can I just say I love door men! That is something we don’t have much of out here in the west, but that gentleman had our luggage out of the trunk, a receipt in our hand, and we were up to hotel check-in before we even knew what had happened.
The hotel room was great. What can I say, I’m not sure what the definition of art deco is, but that is what they call the decor in this hotel. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite decor, but it was beautiful. We got into the hotel about dinner time, and I envisioned myself ordering room service for dinner and just really enjoying myself. I decided that I would be unable to enjoy myself while eating a $35 sandwich, and a $6 soda, not to mention the delivery fee and the tip that was required, times by 2. So Danny and I coated up and went for a walk in the neighborhood. We found a deli that was still open and we ordered great big sandwiches for $4, some fresh fruit, drinks and dessert. I got a meatball sandwich with big chunks of mozzarella. Danny got some weird sandwich with spicy chicken breast, avocado and watercress. We ate back in our hotel room.
On Monday we had nowhere we had to be to except for a cocktail party that night at 7:30, so we set off to do some sight seeing. We did have to find Danny a dress shirt, he’d forgotten his white dress shirt. We went to the giant famous Macy’s, but no luck finding Danny’s size, his arms are really long. So we stumbled into this odd store called Conway’s, everything is cheap, and I figured there was no way we’d find what we were looking for there. There were lots of sleezy women clothes, really baggy men jeans, and gold chains. You could also get piercings 2 for $5. We found a rack with dress shirts for $5.99, and sure enough right there was his perfect size just waiting for us.
We took the subway down to the Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty (we decided to avoid the tourist trap and not go all the way out there), and wandered our way up past the Manhatten LDS temple, stopped in at a four-story Borders Books, and eventually got all the way up the Museum of Natural History. We had to get a picture with Dum Dum from Night at the Museum for the kids. I was only wishing I’d had a piece of gum for Danny to hold up for the picture. I’m sure the people in the museum thought we were idiots, but oh well. We were really debating if it was worth the entry fee to the museum. We’d been to the Natural History Museum in D.C. just a few years earlier, but the entrance there was free, and we spent a lot of time inside. So when we got to the Museum there in NYC, the guard asked us if we were going to go in. We said probably not, it was getting late and we still had to dress for the party that night, and we were all gross from the day’s events. Then the guard said that the last hour was free–now how can you pass that up? So in we went. Our feet hurt so badly, but we ran from the top to the bottom seeing as much as we could and then headed back to the hotel.
Now I’ve never been to a cocktail party, and I was feeling very nervous. We arrived at Trattoria Dell’Arte which is right across from Carnegie Hall. The place is decorated in a unique fashion. I’m assuming it must be chic since it had lots of large body pieces hanging on the wall. It really was f
un though, really large ears, lips etc… We were shown to a private party room and they were handing out drinks and horderves. I just felt like the whole thing was so surreal, so unlike my normal everyday life. I kept wondering how in the world I got there. The guests were arriving from all over the world. There was a reporter from Italy with quite the eccentric personality, and many large names that Danny recognized from many different technology publications. Danny felt quite honored to be included in this group of people who are considered experts in their fields. Danny was invited to speak with these people as a customer who was an expert and could tell the reporters and the investors from a user’s end of what this company does. I know I’m going into so many details but this is all so foreign to me, that I found every detail fascinating. I’m sure what I do would be as foreign to them, only not nearly as glamorous.
They had waiters walking around serving horderves–crab cakes, beef ca bobs, shrimp wrapped in cucumber slices, and many more. Danny and I got ourselves some Sprites, and were happy to see that there were others there that weren’t drinking either.
We sat for dinner at 8:30. Now I remember having manner classes in Young Woman’s, but I don’t remember them covering what to do with three different wine type glasses. Danny and I figured out pretty quickly which one was the water glass, but the other two… we weren’t sure of. I think by the end we figured out one was for white wine and one for red wine. We are such hicks sometimes. The other thing with the table configuration that I didn’t know what was for was two knives. There was a small plate with what was obviously a small butter knife, but then there were two other large type butter knifes. It’s all good though, everyone was having a good time, and no one really cared what everyone else was doing with their knives. They hired a guy for entertainment, he played the harmonica, and a guitar and sang great folky/country type songs. We watched him and after every song he switched harmonicas, we weren’t sure if it was from spit or if it different harmonica’s have different pitches. So many unimportant questions in life. Anyway, feeling like we’d better call our kids before bed we left the party and headed back to the hotel. I felt like I was some other person for the evening, so much fun. Oh did I mention how delicious the food was? It was really good, I was irritated that I’d eaten horderves and didn’t have much room for dinner.
Tuesday was my day to do as I pleased. Danny had his meetings all day long and I was to meet him in the hotel lobby by 2:30 to catch our ride back to the airport. (See Danny’s blog at http://www.danobarrjr.net/2009/02/application-delivery-architect/ for more information about the geek stuff.) I was bummed, it was snowing and the wind was blowing, and it was a miserable kind of day. I didn’t do much, I really wanted to see a Broadway play but there were no matinees on Tuesday, so I walked down to Times Square, and then over to 5th avenue to do some shopping, and down to F.A.O. Swartz to look at kid things. I returned to the hotel early and just enjoyed the lobby and read a book sitting at a window seat overlooking Central Park. The snow was beautiful, as long as I was inside. Danny showed up and informed me that our plane was cancelled, and I panicked. My kids, I had told them I’d be home tonight, and my Mom had called earlier to tell me Aubrey was sick and I just wanted to get home to them. The company put us up in the hotel for another night, and we caught a flight out the next day. Danny and I wandered down to the temple to buy some underwear, and then stopped and picked up some dinner. Danny ended up going out with some people from the company that night, but I stayed home. My ankles were swollen, and I was stressed about the kids, and didn’t have anything else to wear, so I just enjoyed the hotel for another night. Maid service comes in around 7ish to turn down your bed, that I haven’t figured out yet either, why turn down my bed? I was asleep shortly after. Everything went as planned after that, and we returned home safely.
Danny’s note: In New York we saw almost no children. The only ones we did see were on the upper West side, as they call it. We kept thinking something was strange about them–then it dawned on us–most of the women were a different race from the kids. Guess if you live there, you have to have a nannie. We also noticed that everyone seemed to be so serious and in a hurry. Matter of fact, on Monday we had some fun torturing New Yorkers by making eye contact and smiling. They were so startled they almost dropped their Starbucks cups. I talked to my employee from New York, and he says we were right on–everyone is just so intent on surviving that they’re just frowning all the time. Anyway, when our flight touched down in San Francisco, we immediately noticed children in the airport, and more people with smiles. Maybe we’re nuts, but I think things are more relaxed on this side of the rockies.
Finally, we made it home! The kids were so happy to see us. I felt very appreciated by my babies. Aubrey shed a few tears, and said that we were never to leave her again. I felt a lot of guilt. Grandma and Grandpa were great, they took good care of them, and I don’t know how to thank them for that. It was nice to get away, but so sweet to come home. I think I’ll be writing a Thank You card to the company that paid for our trip. They treated us like royalty, took care of everything in a first class way.
Danny and I are working on names, so last night we went to Family Search to look at some family names for inspirations. Let’s just say there are some interesting names out there, and I would love to know the story behind some of these names. I’ll share some of our favorites.
Mahitable Prudence: I’m not sure if I spelled that correctly or not, but I spelled it how it’s pronounced.
One that caught my attention for a boy was :
Orange: Yup, that’s right, maybe it had been so long since this pioneer family had fresh fruit they started naming their children after fruits.
I actually found some real contenders though. My favorites came from the Horn side there was Camille, Kirsti, and Josie.
As for boys, I’m kind of leaning toward Gavin with a middle name of Justus, which comes from the same side of my Tolman line as Mahitable.
We have not decided on anything though and I love name suggestions, so suggest away.
In honor of your 35th birthday I give you 35 things I love about you!
1. Your Smile
2. Your eye color
3. You communicate well (rare for a person who talks with computers for a living)
4. Smart… is there anything you don’t know?
5. You change diapers
6. You do dishes
7. You’ll eat ANYTHING!
8. You’ll watch chick flicks with me
9. You’re honest
10.You work hard
11. You’re a great father
12. You ALWAYS put the toilet seat down
13. You kill critters for me
14. You listen to me blab about things that bore you
15. You tell me that you love me everyday
16. You care about community things, learn and study them out
17. You’ll eat left overs
18. Did I mention dishes?
19. You really good at organizing things
20. You’re not afraid to help with laundry
21. You are patient with the kids
22. You keep my computer running
23. I know you stand by me and things that are important to me
24. You do projects with the kids
25. You readily help me with painting projects
26. You give baths
27. You’ll cook
28. You don’t hog the bed
29. You let me drive
30. You’re a good provider
31. You lead our family in prayer and scriptures
32. You have compassion
33. You’re loving
34. You’re kind
35. You’re You!
Happy Birthday, I love you I hope you’ve had a good day.
The weather has been relatively nice around here lately, but my kids are still feeling the need to get out and play. Today Aubrey and Alyssa put on their swim suits and took apart my couch to make a swimming pool to dive into. Normally they wouldn’t be permitted to jump on the sofa, but they were being so creative, and having so much fun, I couldn’t ruin it for them.
Maybe we need to take the kids swimming this week.
I loved the underwear hanging out of the suit, Alyssa couldn’t get her shirt off so she put the swimsuit on over it. I love it when they solve their own problems.
Grandma and Grandpa O are here visiting from Alaska. I guess the weather in Alaska this winter has been brutal, but this week it has warmed up and it is actually warmer up there then here, go figure.
We really haven’t done anything except sit around and yack, Grandma did help me with some kitchen chores this morning. If it wasn’t for my own mother and my mother in law, I’m afraid my microwave would never get cleaned.
Grandma made each kid a blanket for Christmas. My kids happen to love blankets, and they are being used and abused already.
Grandma is also helping me with my sewing skills. We had to quit tonight because my machine is acting up, but we think it is my needle, so we’ll go to the store on Monday and replace it and hope that it works. I have a fairly cheap machine, but I have a hard time investing in something more spendy when my skills are less then mediocre, and I don’t sew a lot. Maybe some year, but for now what I have works 90% of the time.
I am excited to finish this skirt we are sewing, having someone with me step by step has helped, and I’m pretty sure I can reproduce the same thing for the other girls. Watch out Emma, your going to be matching your sisters soon (insert evil grin here).
My Star Wars watching buddies or should I say Zombies?