Days

When I'm driving to pick the kids up from school, looking to the left I see sailboats anchored in the wharf, bobbing in water that is so blue on sunny days. Straight ahead are the hills, which more often than not are covered with a thick layer of fog that doesn't look like it can exist at the same time and in the same place as the scene on the left.
The 7 minute drive to the school isn't quite enough to take it all in.
Sometimes I catch myself taking it for granted, and I try to remind myself that there are only 4 months left to enjoy it.
It looks like a setting from the movies sometimes. And I like claiming ownership of the bay, for as long as we have the privilege of being "locals."

Of course, when I park my 2002 Corolla in between the Lexus SUV and the BMW convertible in the school parking lot, I'm reminded that I'm not quite as local as some others.
But it is a Corolla Sport if that makes any difference.

I've finally gotten used to driving on the hilly streets here with a manual transmission.
But still, don't pull too close at a red light going uphill. 


We went to Back to School night yesterday. We like both of the kids' teachers a lot, but there's no denying that for all the fancy cars in the lot, California schools are a reflection of the budget crisis statewide. Classroom sizes are large, and music and art classes are nowhere to be seen.
Josh asked Alex's teacher about where she would be math-wise when we move from here, and we were disappointed to find out that she wont even begin to get past the things that we had covered with her last year. Yikes.

I've been trying to drop a few pounds lately. I decided I look better when my cheekbones are somewhat visible.
Besides, if I'm going to eat my way through Spain, I should probably start off a little lighter, no?
It's all in the planning.

Did I mention that Josh and I are going to volunteer at Awana this year? Or half of it I guess.
I'm just going to jump in without thinking about it, because if I stop to think about it I might remember that other people's kids kind of annoy me.
Well, mine annoy me, too, but I already love them. The unbreakable genetic kind of love, that can exist even when they lick their own snot or don't wash their hands after they pee.
But take that, subtract the genetic love, and mulitply it by however many small bodies I will be in charge of, and ...

Well. I'll keep you posted.

Let's wrap up the random with some pictures, shall we?

Alex-- in pain. Derek-- confused.

Alex-- in less pain, but somewhat manic, Derek-- pouting

Alex-- happy. Derek-- not.

Derek and Daddy playing superhero chutes and ladders.

A Post

It would appear that I've been on an unplanned bloggy hiatus. For some reason, I just wasn't in the mood to post lately. It starts with a lay and ends with zee.

But I've been pulled out of my blog-cation by an increase in the hate mail I've been receiving. Yep, I'm being verbally accosted for my lack of updates. Please accept my formal apology. 

We've certainly had plenty going on around here. The days just fly by.

So let's play catch-up.

School-
You know how I said that the days fly by?
Well I'm particularly referring to the hours between 8am and 2 pm.

Alex is the student of the week, so she's had the privilege of having her teacher's chair for the entire week. She's chillaxin' in style with the cushiony, twirly chair.
She quite likes her teacher, and had nothing but terrible things to report after having a substitute on Monday. Her OCD tendencies show themselves when someone makes her deviate from her beloved routine.

Derek is, well, who knows. He enjoys school, but all he really tells me is a page-by-page review of the story they read in class. So I'm not sure what he's learning, but I can tell you all about the rabbit who got lost in the woods.
I had to keep Derek home today though, all those with a y chromosome in our family have been sick of late. Thankfully, they are on the mend now.

Miscellaneous-
My baby boy turned 5 last week.
We wont discuss this any further.

Alex has her palatal expander in place now, and she's finally getting used to it. I have to turn it every night to slowly make her palate larger. She's done much better with it than I would have predicted, what with her being a drama queen and all.

Derek had blood work done a couple days ago to see if he's made any more progress on outgrowing his food allergies. Tomorrow we got in for skin testing, which he's never had before.
We're mostly just trying to get all "caught up" on health care and dental stuff before we leave the country, which in reality is just around the corner.

That brings me to:
Spanish-
Yeah. We don't speak it.
But I give us an A for effort.

 I'll try to do better on the blog front, but hopefully this placates some of you hate-mailers out there.  ;)

First Day

Good news. I finished the last book in the Twilight series tonight, so now I can go back to my regularly scheduled programming, to include cleaning toilets and learning Spanish.

I apologize if you happened to visit me in the last 6 days and were forced to use a dirty bathroom.

Also.
Today was the big day.

My second grader and kindergartener:

Josh was a little late to class, but he wanted to be there on their first day, too.

Walking Alex to her room.

This is Derek's classroom. Fun!

 
I would have taken a picture of Alex's classroom, but it was a bit... utilitarian.
Her teacher is a man, so that shouldn't come as a surprise. Interior decorating probably wasn't as big a priority.

Derek was assigned to the same teacher that ran the Kinder-Camp he went to last week. Which is great, because that saved me from having to explain that Peanuts = Death equation to another person.

My little dragon hard at work.

I didn't notice until I was walking around the school that I had slipped on a pair of Josh's flip flops to go outside to take a picture of the kids, and apparently had never changed into my own shoes.

A lovely first impression, no doubt.
Hi, I'm Alexandra's mom. I don't always wear flippers out in public, only on special occasions. 

Oy.

And for all you who want to know: I did not cry, I did enjoy the quiet around the house, oh...and Team Edward.

twihard

If you look up the word "twihard" in the urban dictionary you will find:

 A combination of the words "Twilight' and "Die-Hard", Twihards (usually young females) are obsessive fans of the "Twilight Saga" series of books by author Stephenie Meyer, and the film adaptations.

Or more amusing:

Stupid obsessive people (mostly teenage girls) who are "in love with fictional characters and wouldn't know a good book if it punched them in the face."

Despite not fitting the typical mold of being a teenage girl, I'm afraid I might be one of these...twihards.
I'm not really sure what happened. Looking back, it was an unstoppable chain of events over which I had no control.

1- K-Stew and R-Patz have been all over the news lately with the whole Kristen-Kissed-her-Director thing. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's a good thing. It means you have a life.

2- Seeing the actors in the news reminded me that, though I'd never read the books, I had rather enjoyed poking fun at all the teenage angst in the first Twilight movie. You know, all the passionate stares and chest-heaving. HI-larious.

3- That reminded me that there had been a couple other movies in the series released that I had never seen.

4- A quick library catalog search showed that they had all of the movies available to check out, and so I did.

5- I also noticed when I was searching on the library website, that they had the book Twilight in Spanish. So I went ahead and grabbed both the Spanish and English copies thinking it would be a good learning tool to try to read/translate the Spanish edition using the English copy to help.

6- Turns out I was enjoying the English copy too much to stop and translate, and now I've read 3 books in the series in... 3 days. And I've done no Spanish learning of any kind.

7- Am I a twihard? I don't think I'll ever live this down. 


Let's move on to something that doesn't cause quite as much shame, no?

This afternoon, I checked my e-mail and saw that Josh had forwarded me a message from his work account. It should have been a message that made me feel happy, or excited. Instead it was a mix of a tiny bit of excitement and a large amount of terror.
The date is now official; we will be moving to Spain in January.

 5 months.

Five months until I know no one, speak a pathetic amount of the language, have none of the support system we're used to.
Just the four of us. Finding an apartment in Madrid, enrolling the kids in school, trying to shop for groceries.

I will be excited next week. This week I'm reserving for fear.