So It's Been a While

Heya friendly bloggers,

Sorry it has been so long since I've posted anything. We've had a death in the electronic family and I have been too bumbed to post the happenings without photos. Yeah, I know! The digital camera crapped out on us and right in the middle of our big family vacation down to see EVERYONE in the lower 48. I'm heartbroken to say the least, but Christmas will be long enough to mourn before we get a spankin new one with all the bells and whistles. :)

So the vacation was awesome. We had a great time and send many thanks to all the family and friends that made heroic efforts to accommodate us and our crazy crew. It looks like we may be headed back to Portland just before Christmas, but we gotta make sure Daddy Warbucks has enough airmiles to make it all happen. I'm not looking forward to traveling alone with the girls again, but sacrifices must be made so I can escape some of the hard winter... yeah, I know, Portland isn't quite the escape most people think of, but my mom doesn't live in Puerto Vaillarta. Dangit!

Anyway, the girls traveled really well and grams and gramps were really good to us. Kaia really enjoyed the Portland Zoo, Circus Circus Adventure Dome and playing with all her grandparents and cousins. Mekayla didn't care much and slept through most of it.

One fantastic thing that came from this trip is that we had plenty of hands to help with the transition from breast feeding to bottle feeding. Mekayla's poor little belly was just having a tough time with my milk, I cut everything out of my diet and still no help for the littles. So we are now on a soy-based formula with added rice and a shot of Mylacon and we have a whole new baby. She still spits, but not nearly as much as she used to and she seems a lot less anxious and rarely clenches her fists in pain anymore. It's amazing what diet can do for personality. :)

Halloween was so much fun, but again, no pictures. Which is really tragic because the whole family dressed up. Ben was Shrek, I was Fiona and the girls were little monsters. WAY CUTE. I'll see what I can get from our friends who took pix and post something for the record. That totally bums me out! I'm just glad the "treats" part of Halloween is finally over.

I have been tightening up on the "treats" I used to let slide and have officially signed up for the gym. I figured that when Ben is gone, I was dumping about $10 / visit on Carl's Jr. just so that I could get a break from Kaia and she could play with other kids. The Alaska club has a play center and it only costs $6 for both girls to be there for 2 whole hours to myself. You can't put a price on sanity! Plus, I'm getting my exercise and LOVING IT!!! Every last danged minute of it is FANTASTIC! and you can bet I wait till the very last minute to pick up the kids. Not because I don't love and miss them, but because I wanna make sure every penny counts.

Now, about counting, I've got a bone to pick about electoral votes. I really feel like my vote doesn't count. They called the presidential election hours before the polls even closed here. Heck, they didn't even make it to Colorado before McCain gave hes consession speech. Now I know that Obama won the popular vote too, but I wish they would have waited to declare it at least till I felt like my vote was in the mix. Anyway, congrats to all who are pleased with the outcome, my condolances to the rest of us. Now that it's over, we can unite in praying for our new president elect and that he will make decisions that will be good for our great nation. Here's hopin!

Well, since we've been back, I've started up the Mom's club book group and we had our first get together. It was nice, and I think that since more and more moms know who I am now and have been to my house, I will get more and more participation. That's right... dag-on-it, people like me.

This was especially good for my huge going out of business sale for Pure Romance. Can you believe I had nearly $5000 in bedroom accessories just sitting in my garage. Yeah, it would take a 100 lifetimes to take full advantage of that and we just don't keep that busy at our house. :) So, I had a little bash and unloaded at least 1/2 of it at screamin deals... like my cost or less. If anyone is interested, just shoot me an e-mail for a complete list of what is left and I will get it right to ya.

Well, Ben is headed back up to the slope and that sucks. It's always tough on the kids when he has to go. It's tough on me too, but I just slip into survival mode and keep my head down till he gets back. I'm hoping that between the gym and my mom's club, we will be mostly destracted and get through it without too much anxiety or drama.

Take care all and until next time... Ciao baby!