Which came first?

Mike: Which came first, Ethan? The chicken or the egg?

Ethan: The bird came from the egg.

Anne: Then what?

Ethan: Then the bird comes out. Gobble gobble. Then there's a small birdie.

Life, as I know it, is sort of over

My camera – Nikon D70s - refuses to let me take any more photos, and I don’t know how to fix it. I feel helpless. When I turn it on, it just shows "PC" as if connected to a computer (when it’s not) and I can’t go to any mode to take anything despite trying all the usual suspects: turned it off, turned it back on. Took the battery out, put the battery back in. Changed memory cards. Slammed it across the wall.

Ok, not the last one, although my husband (who is the master of all repairs) firmly believes that’s how you fix things.

I’ve called all four authorized Nikon repair shops in California and none of them have ever heard of the problem. From searching on the internet, I was only able to find one person who posted the same problem in a forum. His camera was still under warranty and was given the runaround by the manufacturers… Eventually, a repair shop quoted to fix it for as much as buying an entirely new camera. After 2 pages of a combination of snarly remarks and genuine advice, the guy ended up swearing Nikon off and vowed to switch over to Canon!

Ugh.

I'm so pissed.

I can't say we didn't have a good run. After over a dozen weddings, a cross country move, and thousands of photos of my life's chronicles, that camera has treated me well in the 3 years I've had it.

Still......

Have I mentioned how disgustingly pissed I am???????

I Love Being Your Mom

I am so blessed.....

How long is too long?

So I have refrained from giving Ethan a haircut for a little over 2 months now, and I have decided that my plan has been defeated and I probably ought to give the kid one before it gets too hot.

I wanted to see if his hair would grow like his friend Seth’s hair…

Isn't he adorable???

Not happening.

Ethan’s hair is too fine for that wavy, surf boy haircut. He’s starting to look really grungy, and according to friends and family… he’s starting to look “asian”.

I don’t want to give him another crew cut, but I will shorten it and probably leave the top long enough to “style” – even though Mike’s version of styling is just wetting it.

I'm thinking if I could train his hair to this style, he'd be back to his g-Q-ala-Brad-Pitt self.

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Boogity Boogity

Ethan's no stranger to the race tracks. I think we took to him to his first race before he even turned 1. He likes watching the cars go in circles and hold on to his ear muffs while he yelled "I can't hear you Mommy!!!!!!!!" the whole night (he tried that in the car on the way home in the middle of a lecture and you can bet those ear muffs got confiscated)

Despite the fast cars, awesome crashes and delicious concessions... Ethan's favorite part is flirting with the girls.

Thunder Sticks are for...

Random silliness.

Taken from the AVP Beach Volleyball Tour

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WFMW: Pet Shopping in the 21st Century

Sometime last week, somehow between contemplating about Ethan starting to get lonely and Mike and I not being quite ready for the responsibility of having baby #2, I may or may not have inadvertently promised Ethan we would get him his own “Bolt”.

It fits. We’re moving into our new home and Ethan loves to play with dogs. It’s never too early for him to start learning some responsibility, like feeding or walking the dog. And we want to settle in first before trying again. A pet is a natural addition to a family without the pregnancy, right?

Right.

So now we’ve all convinced ourselves we’re going to get a dog.

But we have to wait until we settle in the house which probably won’t be until July – after closing, we still have some stuff to do in the kitchen before we want to move in. So to satisfy our excitement for now, instead of rushing to the shelters, we started perusing through Pet Finder – which is an awesome site in this Facebook/Twitter era for those looking to adopt a pet.

You can search by breed, age, size, gender, and of course, location. Majority of them have photos, and most even have their histories posted in their profile!

This little guy is definitely one of our runner ups…

We're in Escrow!

So, we finally did it. We sort of maybe bought a house. I don't know for sure. That's because we're in "escrow" and I don't actually understand what that means. We signed the papers last Wednesday and the bank signed it the next day… so that’s official, right? Our realtor beams with the “I’m so proud of you for finally making the decision” smile, and gives us the congratulatory “Yes, you are now in escrow”.

And then in the same conversation, she said something about the deposit going into escrow.

Right, okay. The escrow company hasn’t cashed our check yet… what does that mean?

So I’m a little confused. Your money goes into escrow, and then you are in escrow, except you most certainly are not in the same place as your money. Somehow "escrow" has become a sci-fi planet, and you and your money are both on it but in parallel dimensions. But you’ve already signed the “contract”, which meant you were already in escrow anyway. Huh?

Nonetheless, the good news is that if we jump through about a dozen more hoops, we’re told and that it will close 45 days from when the bank signed the paper – which was on the 14th, so really, we should start packing.

With that said... let me take you on a tour.

This is the front of the house

This is going to be the formal living room and formal dining room from 2 different angles... Depending on the budget, we were thinking of tiling the walkway from the front door all the way up to the back sliding doors.

This is the kitchen... they've just installed ugly linoleum on the floors, that we'll be replacing with tile as soon as they give us the key. Eventually, I'd like to upgrade the counter tops to granite, but for now, the tiles are in pretty good shape and the cabinets are practically brand new (although we're going to be staining them in a darker color).

This is the walk-in pantry (it's actually much bigger than it looks on the photo) -- the second one is where we'll probably put a smaller dining table...

This is the family room with gas/wood fireplace. We're getting some estimates on putting hardwood floors here since it'll be the highest traffic area, although we might wait since it's all brand new carpet downstairs anyway.

This is one of the bedrooms upstairs with a balcony... There's a decent size storage room just outside the sliding doors (by the balcony) which is a plus.

This will be our bedroom with the fireplace and balcony.

This is the master bathroom with the whirlpool tub. There's brand new carpet in there (all upstairs) as well, but we'll likely tile this when we tile the kitchen downstairs.

This is the humongous walk-in closet connected to the master bath. We'll definitely have to put some shelving in there, but I can't wait to finally have room for all my purses and shoes! :)

This is the balcony off of the master bedroom.

This is the loft, separating the master bedroom from the other bedrooms. It'll likely become a playroom for Ethan with maybe a seating area/entertainment area on one side (it's already equipped with surround sound).

This is the tandem 3-car garage. The plan is to section off the third space and maybe make it a 5th bedroom downstairs for maybe my mom when she comes over, or could potentially become Mike's "man cave" :)

This is the backyard... not as big as I had originally wanted, but there's plenty of room for Ethan to play safely and not a whole lot of gardening for me to do (I unfortunately did not inherit my mother's green thumb).

Well that's it for now! I will keep this posted on any renovations we end up doing!

We had our inspection yesterday and so far so good -- the only major problem the inspector found was the water heater not working, and hopefully the bank will fix that before escrow closes. The rest were just minor fixes, and that's what I married a handy man for! :)

Til next time!
I'm so excited!

Happy Mother's Day!

A Mother's Love Determines How
Author Unknown

A mother's love determines how
We love ourselves and others.
There is no sky we'll ever see
Not lit by that first love.

Stripped of love, the universe
Would drive us mad with pain;
But we are born into a world
That greets our cries with joy.

How much I owe you for the kiss
That told me who I was!
The greatest gift--a love of life--
Lay laughing in your eyes.

Because of you my world still has
The soft grace of your smile;
And every wind of fortune bears
The scent of your caress.

My Week in a Flash

It’s 1am, and I’m still at work. Yes, still at work.

Why am I blogging then, you ask?

Because I can.

Well, that, and the fact that I’ve spent the past 15 hours working on a deadline…. a deadline that we should never had a problem meeting if only people would extend a little courtesy and not PROCRASTINATE so we all don’t have to stay until 2 in the morning to finish something that should’ve been finished 3 days ago.



/RANT

Here’s a blurb on what’s happened the past week-

Friday: Attended Matt’s graduation, and then went to a dinner with the family.

Saturday: Spent the morning with Ethan, went to the mall to try to find Mother’s Day presents (unsuccessful), and then went to Matt’s graduation party.

Sunday: Spent most of the morning quarantined at the hospital with Jojo – negative on the swine flu, but he did have a pretty nasty ear infection. Met with Sidney to look at a few more houses, nothing we excited over. Went to Dave and Buster’s for Mike’s graduation party that evening.

Monday: Mike spent at least 7 hours on the operating table for his anthroscopic ankle surgery that was only supposed to last 2 – they ended up taking cartilage from his knee and placing it in his ankle.

Tuesday: Looked at more houses (our realtor is super great), one we ended up putting in an offer for – long shot, but at this point, I guess it doesn’t hurt. This is Offer #1 on House #2.

Wednesday: We found out from Sidney that after having been denied on Offer #2 on House #1, the listing agent tells her the buyer then picked over us backed out and (if we were interested), he could submit our offer to the bank without having to put the property back on the market. Essentially, we wouldn’t be competing with any other loans. After a bit of hesitation, we decided to put in Offer #3 on House #1.

Thursday: I came home from a long day at work to find poop all over the house. Ethan has done quite well in the potty arena, but he has pretty nasty poopy accidents. He must’ve been too busy playing to take a break, because it all originated in the playroom – and you could follow the trail through the hallway where he must’ve reached in to “check things out”, then ends in our room where he cleverly disposes the soiled underwear and shorts and tried to wipe them off with his socks.

Fast forward to yesterday/today (now technically Saturday at 1:30 in the morning): Got a GORGEOUS tulips bouquet from Mike. It always makes me the center of attention in the office. A coworker even warned me never to bring him to the office because she’s fallen in love with him (because he does my hair when my hand is broken, meets me for lunch, and sends me flowers all the time). BACK OFF, he’s taken!