Non Stop Action

Last night, we had dinner at Union Bistro with cousin Jon (Altenberg) who was in town on business. He came by to take the nickel tour of thehouse, and then we went out to dinner w/the kids.

Today we attempted to have a play date with Ava (from school, and her brother Jake) at the zoo...but it was a Zoo at the Zoo! It was a total mob scene -- we thought surely it must be a free day or something, but no, it was just SPRING BREAK. The weather wasn't even that nice today! I was shocked how many people were flocking to the zoo.

So we took a pass on that, and were going to visit a nearby park...but when we got there it was under construction. Yikes! So we went to the swanky mall -- Cherry Creek -- they have the best play area for the kids. And I stopped in the Children's Place and bought Syd an adorable green creeper that says "Future CEO." And somehow we managed to visit Cherry Creek mall WITHOUT Andy stopping in to buy a shirt at the Tommy Bahama store. (I think that's a first...)

Tonight Andy got home from picking up a pizza and we remembered that we had tickets to a circus here in Castle Rock. So we called up Hudson's parents all last-minute, and they were delighted to join us. Sydney's first circus! Naturally, she slept through most of it. Sally had a blast -- she got cotton candy, peanuts and a sno-cone (which she only drank -- she didn't want the ice part, go figure). I suppose that's what happens -- once you get a taste of a New Orleans snowball, you just can't settle for some crappy sno-cone.

IT was a L O N G circus -- from about 7pm until nearly 10pm, so we are all tired and I'm the last to head up to bed.

I wonder what excitement awaits us tomorrow? Ah, the joys of spring break. I think we'll hit the bouncy place tomorrow for some bouncing and crafting....and then a nice long nap! This "break" is wearing me out!

If the weather is warmer than it was today (Saturday was a mess, Sunday was gorgeous, yesterday was nice until sundown, when the wind picked up, today was chilly adn windy) then we may visit a park, since everything is nice and dry and snow-free now.

Sydney adn Mommy are gearing up for our trip to Vegas! Mommy is slowly tackling the laundry...hmmm...might be time to look into a laundry service here in Castle Rock.

Oh! but I do have news -- I hired an Executive Assistant to help me in my business. Last week I worked something like 30 hours and that just won't do. My goal is to keep it around 10 hours per week, so having an assistant will help me maintain pace while cutting down my hours. Hooray!

His name is Mark -- he's a Brit, but he lives in Indiana (go figure). Great guy, I am drawing up contracts now.

And when are you coming to visit us? We haven't had visitors in nearly a month, what's up with that??

Sydney Discovers Her Feet

Well, today's weather was the exact OPPOSITE of yesterday's. Warm, sunny and gorgeous today, I even put little Sydney in sandals.

She discovered her feet this morning, lifting them up to admire them, too cute.

Today we went to church (daddy ran the sound board, since Larry was out) and then we visited a most interesting metaphysical bookstore. Have you read much about these "Indigo" children? Ours definitely fit the description. So many "old souls" coming into the world now. I found an interesting book on how to deal with indigo children, and I can already see how it applies to our darling Sally.

Fortunately, some of hte book was intuitive for me (although it seems counterintuitive to society's thinnking) but I am curious to see what else it says, and whta other advice it provides.

Tonight we went to Janinne and Dan's for dinner -- they are parents of one of Sally's schoolmates. The kids all had a blast (they have an older boy as well) and we adults did too. I think we were there for something like 4 hours -- such wonderful people.

It seems we keep meeting people from New York state. For some reason, we seem to connect with folks from that area (perhaps it's the zero tolerance for B.S. ??)

at any rate, we had a lovely day, adn we can't wait to see what Sydney discovers tomorrow.

Today, her toes...tomorrow, the world!

(and next week, Las Vegas!)

A-ha! Wintry Mix

OK, so for awhile now we've seen "Wintry Mix" on the weather forecasts, but we couldn't get a straight answer as to waht exactly that might mean.

Today we saw it first-hand.

It was raining, and snowing this morning. Then it started to sleet. Then it started to snow, in big heavy chunks of snowflakes. Then it rained some more, then it snowed again.

A-ha! Wintry Mix!

A good day to stay home...but that's not what we did. Our friend Al brought his son Omar over, we all went to lunch, and then Sally and Omar watched Dumbo while the rest of us masterminded/worked on stuff.

Tomorrow should look better, weather-wise...

Sally's Trip to the Dentist

Yesterday was Sally's 3 year dentist appointment here in Castle Rock.

How did it go?

I've never seen anyone have so much fun at the dentist.

They cleaned her teeth, gave us some tips about discouraging the nighttime thumbsucking (although she -- the dentist -- said there's nothing to worry about until she turns 5, but it's good to start now).

She got her teeth cleaned, had an exam, got a lipstick (mini-chapstick) and 2 toys. She's supposed to come back in 6 months, and we're supposed to start flossing her 3x a week.

I was so impressed by the whole operation -- super-nice receptionist, greeted by name, wonderful dentist, very nice hygienist, beautiful facility, and only about 5 mins from our house. I'm switching to this dentist -- made myself an appointment for May (since I just had my teeth cleaned last month).

Sally was so great -- she had a wonderful time and talked about it all day.

NExt week, there's no school (spring break) so we'll be looking for fun things to do together.

Also -- we're watching teh houses on either side of us go up, adn teaching sally what it takes to build a house.

And Sydney is starting to LAUGH -- ahhhh, the sweetest sound in the world.

And she talks up a storm -- reminds me of Aunt Theresa because she is so L O U D !

:-)

First Word?

The weather here has been absolutely FABULOUS! Sunny (as usual), clear (as usual) and temperatures in the 60s ! Hooray!!

Sally was a bit under the weather, but feeling much better now.

We were all horsing around yesterday and I said to Sydney, "Say Mama!"
and we all stopped short when she said "Heh-meh."

It was quite a triumphant moment for me. But Andy was a little bummed, since he was hoping at least ONE of our kids would say "dada" as their first word.

I'm headed to Las Vegas in just under 2 weeks to hang with Sydney, Nana and Susu for a few days. Should be a blast, I've never been there before.

My new product launch is a smashing success, and I'm still interviewing candidates for my Executive Assistant position.

Well, I've got to go pick up Sal now and then we're off to lunch with a friend and her daughter.

Oh -- one more thing -- the other day, we were talking to Sally about our Australia trip. We said, "We're all going to Australia."

Sally said, "Can I come too?"

We said "Yes, we're all going together."

She said, "After my nap."

"Yes," we said. "After several naps!"

Generic Update on S&S

Yes, it's just a generic update. I'm at the bouncy place (Sir Bouncealots) in Castle Rock and they have computers and internet access for adults. Nice, eh?

So I am excited to be going to Vegas in a couple of weeks -- just me and Syd to meet Mom and Susu for a few days. Since I haven't been before, I'm willing to let them take the lead this time (haha) and show me around. Should be fun. This is such an easy time to travel wtih a baby -- nearly 4 months old now.

In other news...
Andy got all excited because he heard there was an oyster fry here in Castle Rock tonight. I told him he'd better check into it....when you live this close to teh Rocky Mountains, you'd ALWAYS better ask about what kind of 'oysters' you're getting.

Especially when he told me it's sponsored by teh FFA (Future Farmers of America).

So he called. Yep, disappointing news. No bulls balls for us tonight. We're going to the Knights of Columbus fish fry tonight. Sure, we'll probably be the youngest people there, but you know old people like to see little toddlers, so what the heck?

Tomorrow we might go see Monsters Inc on ice downtown. Or we might just hang out and go to the park -- weather is absolutely picture-perfect today.

I am hiring an executive assistant, did I tell you that? Probably not, I've been far too busy creating new products and taking action on all these divinely inspired ideas.

My newest product is a 6-week live teleclass that teaches unique releasing techniques for the Law of Attraction (seen The Secret yet? If not, what are you waiting for? It's already been on Oprah twice, and Larry King at least twice!). Fun times and more to come.

Sydney is as darling as ever -- smiling, happy, just cute as a button. She's learning to flip over from back to front and she's showing signs of starting to crawl. Cooing, gurgling, gagaing, very chatty (imagine that). Oooooooh, she's just so YUMMY!

More to come....

Home From Cancun!

We had the best limo driver last night -- his name is Matt and he lives here in Castle Rock. What a great guy -- I love to meet people who genuinely love people.

The trip was fab -- I wrote a lot more about it in my success blog. Sydney was a dream baby (as usual). She slept through most of the conference, so we were able to keep her in the room and I didn't have to miss a thing. She slept through the whole gala, so we stayed up late and partied every night. We were kind of in and out (Thursday through Sunday) since we had left Sally home with one of her montessori school teachers but we did make it to the pool 1 afternoon and Sydney got to dip her toes in the water. Updated pictures coming soon....

Fabulous trip, wonderful baby, adn great to be home with Sally again. Now it's time to start planning our summer trip to Australia!!!

On the Road Again...

Well, Mommy, Daddy and Sydney arrived in Cancun today (Sally stayed home -- Stephanie is with her at our home, she is one of the teachers from Sally's montessori school). If Sally had come along, she would have missed a field trip and 2 birthday parties!!

Since this is Sydney's first international trip (and her 3rd trip by plane -- not bad for a 3-month old!) we had to get her a passport. We'll be getting Sally's as soon as we get home, so all 4 of us are set for Australia. Well, at least as far as passports go.

The Moon Palace is beautiful as usual. Since tomorrow is our 10-year anniversary, Andy arranged to have red roses, fresh fruit, wine, champagne, chocolate-dipped strawberries (you know those darling ones that look like tuxedos?) and chocolate cake waiting for us.

Everyone wanted to see Sydney at hte welcome reception (we are here for a conference for Andy's home-based business) and she definitely got passed around a bit. We met 2 of our new associates, adn it's alwasy nice to put a face with a name.

The room even has a big screen HDTV on the wall. And the views are amazing -- Sweet! If I can figure it out, I'll post some pix tomorrow...

p.s. I got a new phone, but the # is hte same. It's a very cool red Razr -- nice! and Andy also bought me an iPod Nano for an anniversary gift :-)

It's official -- we're Colorado people

Well, it's official. We're now Coloradians, or whatever they call people who live here.

As of yesterday, the whole family (well, those of us who can walk) now own Crocs. When we first visited here (during Katrina evacuation), I noticed that EVERYONE in Colorado wears these. We resisted at first (they do look a bit goofy, yes?) but then we tried them on.

WHOA! They are extremely comfy. Daddy has black ones, Mommy has turquoise ones, and Sally has purple ones. Sally ***LOVES*** her new crocs -- and she is so excited that mommy and daddy have some too. I'm already picking out a color for my second pair...

Our friends Bart and Joy came up (over? down?) from Utah for the weekend, and we had a wonderufl (although short) visit. Hung out on Saturday, and then went shopping on Sunday. Daddy got some new Tommy Bahama shirts -- one that I love in particular. It's black with embroidery on teh back and it says "Seas the Day" with a seafaring theme. Gorgeous!