the big green monster dream

eight or so years ago when rich and i took a little trip to florida without our children, i rode the best roller coaster i have ever ridden in my life - and i'm a seasoned rider so you can trust my judgement. in fact i rode it several times just to be sure, and yes, i was right, it was awesome. from then on i started dreaming my kids being little adrenaline junkies tall enough for any coaster. and about some day bringing my tall adrenaline junkies to florida to ride this big green monster. cheesey? ya, i know. but i'm a simple girl, so leave me my joy.
well, of course, it finally happened, why else would i be typing up this story?
there we are on the front row - we waited extra long to ride in the front, it was worth it.

even better, is that it's still as awesome as i remember, and the kids agree. best. coaster. ever.
however, this photo doesn't possibly do justice to the pure awesomeness of this ride - check out this video and try not to get sick.



seriously, tell me that doesn't look like a blast and half.
everyone, needs this on their bucket list.
lucky for me, i have one more little guy to day dream about taking him here some day.

tons more stuff to post about florida, and all the great stuff that happened spring while my dang computer was down and out. but for now, the hulk is enough.

funny guy

ever since ethan was very small, he has had this funny little quirk about him that always makes us laugh. i call it the "anticipation dance". he does it whenever he is watching or waiting for something to happen. a classic example of this was when he would send a marble down the marble track. as he watches the marble go down through the maze of track, he hops from foot to foot in a marching, hopping sort of dance. it's not reserved only for the marble track though, ethan dances while waiting for a train to come around, a toy car to race down the hallway, or even a suspenseful part of a movie.

so ethan loves going to primary children's hospital for taylor's well checks every three months because in the waiting room there is a fun toy mounted on the wall, perfect for the anticipation dance, it has large balls that move through a series of obstacles you can move and change as they fall . te last time we were there, i got a little bit of it on video, because let's face it, it's kind of hard to describe and something that i always want to remember about him.



we all have our little quirks right?
funny guy.

the kid wrangler

this is the time of year for family portraits. everyone loves the autumn leaves. unfortunately, it's also the time of year that i feel the most anxiety about my craft. i still get knots in my stomach before a shoot, especially a family one. it's really dumb, i know, but welcome to my anxiety, it's the irrational kind.

there's plenty to worry about with a family shoot, they seem to be the hardest ones for me. i worry about being able to capture the right tone and feel of the family, getting the group to all smile and hold their heads just right at the same time, and of course all the technical aspects of the photoraphy itself. it's enough to make a girl quit her glorified hobby job, and believe me, i've considered it several times. but, i have a secret weapon, and her name is allie.

  you thought i was going to say xanex didn't you?

not unlike xanex, allie has a nice, happy, calming effect on me.

makes me feel like i'm not alone at the shoot, and takes away some of the anxiety for me. makes me feel like i brought a "crew" with me which helps me feel more professional. 'cause you know you only bring a crew if you're a pro. right?

she's also good at placing people, which is such a relief, that's one of the hardest parts for me. she's also fantastic at "wrangling" the children, which can include, but is not limited to: jumping up and down,  making funny faces, loud zerbert-like noises, etc. no matter what, she gets the job done.

oh and did i mention?

she is a fabulous photographer herself.

and i feel a little twinge of JOY when i see this...

so she's also my little apprentice, except she has a way better eye for beauty than i did at her age.

is there nothing that this girl can't do?

and of course, we have to have a little self portait before we leave the shoot.

freezing cold red noses and all.

 love. this. girl.

resistance is futile

first, i saw the puppy sweater.

and i tried to resist.

the cute little shoulder buttons.

the brown patches on the elbows.

oh man.

and that cute spotted puppy kept looking at me.

you know, with those puppy eyes?

he wanted to give ME that paper i just know it.

he wanted me to take him home.

i picked it up.

put it back down.

picked it back up.

then put it back down for good.

"too much money" i told myself, although it broke my heart a little.

i almost made it out of there without it.

and then....

i saw the matching hat.

oh that little puppy beanie!

and after that it was all over.

you see, i have a weakness for hats.

especially little boy beanies.

can you blame me?

more than you really want to know

i'm long over due for an addition to my 100 things about me list. so here we go.

1. i've always longed to visit the redwood forest, i think i need to see it in person because the photos are so stunning i don't really believe what i'm seeing.

2. i love to collect plates, especially salad size. i finally bought plate hangers and hung my collection on my kitchen wall. they make me so happy!

3. i feel baddly that i am NO help to my kids with their math homework. poor rich. he's their hands-on tutor and only hope of any help.

4. tiny sample bottles of perfume are one of my favorite things.

5. i have the world's best girlfriends. seriously.

6. i think i'm a pretty good cook, but i am a TERRIBLE cookie maker. it's just not my thing.

7. i try not to make my bed before i've said my prayers in the morning. then when i see my unmade bed, i remember to pray.

8. i found out tonight that i'm going to be camp director again next year. i wonder what the record is for consecutive years is? my biggest fear is that the girls will be disappointed when they hear it's me again.

9. at camp this year, i won the "dancing queen" award because of my late night partying in the cabins. it was the most fun i've had in a long time.

10. i found out this summer, that i love twitter. i don't really follow anyone on it, i just like being able to give short little blurbs about my life without the pressure of followers or comments. and i am obsessed with making each entry exactly 150 characters.

11. loving bananagrams lately.

12. i'm finding that driving lessons with taylor are not so bad. i'm more patient than i thought i would be, maybe because i remember how nervous i was at that age. of course, we haven't left the parking lot yet...

13. i recently got my nails done, a birthday gift from rich. they are too fancy for my plain jane self, but i love how feminine they make me feel.

14. i love cherry dipped cones from dairy queen, but only when they hand them to you fresh out of the dipper and the shell is still soft. once it gets hard, it's just not worth the calories.

15. i am needing a creative photography project right now. any ideas?

16. feeling TICKED that all the tickets for the midnight showing of new moon are already sold out. all the screaming fans made the mediocre twilight movie so entertaining. it just won't be the same without them.

17. i stopped drinking diet coke. i'm kind of scared to put that one in writing.

that's enough for now.

gLeek

hi, my name is wende, and i am a gLeek.

(no, not a fountain of spit.)

i am in
L-O-V-E
with this new show!

cheesie?
absolutely.
(but in a fantastic sort of way)

if you haven't seen it - check it out!

the (recent) bane of my thighs and all parts flabby

these marshmallow and chocolate frosting brownies....mmmm....brownies.

the kind of brownies that are so good, the knife never leaves the pan.

and this jar of homemade, buttermilk ranch dressing....mmmm....buttermilk.most recently seen poured generously over taco salad.

**what is the bane of your flabbiness?**

**did you catch the homer simpson tones of this post?**

one word

i love going back and reading these little "peeks" into my day. such a fun and simple way to journal. found this fun one on gail's blog. have fun.

1. where is your mobile phone? hidden (from ethan)
2. relationship? content
3. your hair? dirty
4. work? slow
5. your sister(s)? in-laws!
6. your favorite thing? home
7. your dream last night? bread
8. your favorite drink? dark
9. your dream car? clean
10. the room you’re in? messy
11. your shoes? barefoot
12. your fears? overwhelming
13. what do you want to be in 10 years? sane
14. who did you hang out with this weekend? friends
15. what are you not good at? sewing
16. muffin? lemon
17. wish list item? wand
18. where you grew up? virginia
19. the last thing you did? goodnights
20. what are you wearing? pjs
21. what are you not wearing? bra (sorry boys)
22. your pet? goldie (for this week)
23. your computer? sticky
24. your life? content
25. your mood? relaxed
26. missing? sleep
27. what are you thinking about? camp
28. your car? toyota
29. your kitchen? unfinished
30. your summer? zooming
31. your favorite color? yellow
32. last time you laughed? today
33. last time you cried? tuesday
34. school? wish
35. love? tons

breakfast of champions

according to a reader's digest i was thumbing through at the doctor's office, what you eat for breakfast says a lot about you. i thought this was kind of dumb slash interesting and filed it away in my brain for later.

flash forward to this morning when i see this little grouping on my counter, and a little voice says, "what does this breakfast say about you?" i have a little chuckle to myself and decided that maybe there is something to this theory. let's try it out shall we?

first of all, i have this almost every single morning, i don't really love breakfast and the slim fast (kirkland brand because i'm cheap) really helps to settle my icky morning tummy that i wake up with most days. and, i'm usually trying to get ethan and i out the door somewhere and i only have time to "fix" (read pour bowl of cereal) for one of us, and i can easily take it in the car with me. so right off the bat we learn that i'm a cheap habitual person who has icky tummy in the morning who is always in a hurry. WOW! all that! it's true too!

next, is One a Day vitamin with energy booster (really the target brand). i take this because i am concerned for my health and want to make sure that i'm getting the proper vitamins and nutrients my body needs. the energy booster - c'mon, do i really need to explain that? so from this we learn that i'm a cheap (still), tired person concerned about her health.

next is Wellbutrin (again, the generic brand buproprion). so here we learn that i'm a cheap (still) person trying to get a handle on her depression issues. which by the way are doing better, i like these meds.

ok, so put it all together and what have ya got? i'm a tired, sad, late, sick to my stomach, vitamin deprived old lady stuck in her ways who makes food decisions based on level of convience. oh, and that i'm cheap.

hmmm. you know, maybe there's nothing to this reader's digest theory after all. nope. absolutely nothing at all.

so what does your breakfast say about you?

i want to read all about it, so consider your self TAGGED!

acting responsibly. which is so inconvenient some times

tonight after the teenagers and cranky toddler were finally in bed, and my hard working husband working away at his computer on something or other, i found myself trying to decide how to spend the rest of my night. my to-do list is long, but i narrowed it down to three choices:

a: clean my office that has reached an unpresidented level of chaotic.

b: edit photos that have been sitting in my inbox forever.

or

c: drool over robert pattinson because today i folded like a house of cards and bought the twilight dvd.

ya, i know, i'm weak ok? i resisted all last week when it first came out. but today i was at costco and it wasn't a bad price and it was an ok movie, not great but, well, just LOOK at him.do i even need to explain why i wanted to sit and watch this overly cheesy, turn-your-brain-off movie, alone in my living room? one look at those gorgeous eyes and that crazy hair that just screams, "run your fingers through me please!" and i'm thinking that an explaination is no longer necessary.

however, i did the responsible thing and cleaned my office. i know! i must not be as weak as i thought. cleaning the office didn't really have the same sexual tension as watching the movie would have, but it was very satisfying to get things put away and have some elbow room on my desk again. i think i made the right choice. my husband who shares my office space but manages to keep his half very neat and tidy, agrees. i am looking forward to spending some time with edward though. soon.

chivalry please

on my way out of the church building this afternoon i almost had a near death experience. really. it's totally true. our parking lot was one big sheet of ice and in order to get to my car, i had to cross it. i had only made it about a third of the way with every step requiring the flailing arms of a high wire act in order to stay verticle. upon arriving at a section of ice that was completely hopeless, i stood still for a moment thinking to myself, "i am going to fall in front of all these people and break my neck. i hope when i'm dead someone will pull my skirt down and move me out of the middle of traffic." just then, a very nice gentleman appeard out of no where (how did he get to me so fast and why weren't his arms flailing?!) and said to me, "it looks like maybe you could use an arm", as he offered his elbow as a life line.

at this point, i wish i could tell you that i held on to his elbow with only three fingers all scarlet o'hara kind of lady-like. but i can't, because it would be a lie. i grabbed on to his elbow with both hands and held on for dear life. i did laugh though, the kind of nervous giggle that says "i feel like an idiot". he ended up walking me all the way to car and even opened my door for me, asked how my family was doing, and then wished me a nice afternoon. i of course thanked him for helping me get across the ice without breaking my neck, i was so grateful.

so i'm going to make a batch of cookies for him tomorrow to really say thank you, but i wanted to say on this blog, for the public, that chivalry is not dead and i for one, am grateful.

quirky bits

it is a well-known fact, for those who know me best, that i wear flip-flops year round. mostly it's because of spiders - i know, i know, i need therapy, but long story short, i just really prefer an open-toed shoe. in fact, i really only own one pair of socks. besides the spider factor, my feet are rarely ever cold and a little snow on the toes really doesn't bother me at all. last monday april came over for a visit to find me shovelling the driveway in my flip-flops.she found it humorous enough to take a photo and commented about how it's just "so wende". she's right, and it's such an accurate "portait" of me and my quirky tendancies that i had to post it, you know, for posterity and all. (and yes, that's ethan's new tiny shovel - i swear it works better than the big ones for clearing those last little bits of ice). by the way, i do wear closed-toed shoes some times and i especially love slippers for around the house.

**tell me about the qurirky bits of you!**

**do you have a fear of naked toes meeting arachnid in the dark unseen spaces of your shoe?**

spider type scream

I wear flip flops almost all year long. There has to be deep snow in order for me to put on my tennis shoes, even then it's negotiable. I am lucky to be warm blooded I guess, and the whale blubber helps too. But I have a confession to make, I wear flip-flops because I have always had a fear of putting my toes into a shoe and then feeling a spider in there! I'm sure this is the real reason people in Africa don't wear shoes. Ahhh, so irrational I know, but it could happen and it totally scares me! My fear was made worse one day listening to the Today show's Matt Lauer tell a story about finding a scorpion in his shoe on one of his "where in the world is Matt Lauer" trips. Oh my gosh! The spider wouldn't even have to bite me, I would die of cardiac arrest! So, on Saturday I had to go out to the car for something, and while in the garage decided to slip on some snow boots due to the deep deep snow in the driveway. I was getting ready to slip my bare vulnerable piggies into Rich's snow boot when I looked and saw a BIG brown spider sitting right on the edge. Did I scream? Oh baby, I have never screamed like that before. Poor Rich came into the garage with a look of terror on his face, expecting to see Ethan or me bleeding to death and instead I yelled "spider! kill the spider!" He was so mad! But he killed the spider. After it was all over, I ended up wearing flip flops out to the car and my poor neighbor Don was shoveling his walk and said, "everything ok in there?" Poor guy! Completely humiliated, I told him the whole sad story and he said, like a true dad, "ah, I have daughters and should've recognized the scream". So that's it, I don't think I wear anything but flip flops for a while. Oh well.