Today was an action packed day. At Michela's softball practice, the girls and parents "painted/decorated" everyone's car for the upcoming weekend tournament. all of the girls had a great time signing their names, nicknames and numbers on everyone's cars. Jacob made sure to put a part that said "...and Jacob rocks at Rainbow competition" amidst all of the "Silver U10 Allstars Rule" sayings, since the minivan will be going to Riverside for his competition in addition to Westlake for her tournament.
Tonight Jacob did his tap solo at the competition and earned a "high gold," which was good for this competition because they give out the platinums only sparingly.
Harrison worked on a big project for school and his never-ending thank you notes and also had batting practice.
See you tomorrow!
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
New Blogging Promise
I know I sound like a broken record, but here I am again, apologizing for not posting in weeks. I just can't believe how fast the time flies by. And I also can't believe how overwhelmingly busy we have been.
The good news is that I now have an iphone (well, okay, i got it almost a month ago, but i'm now figuring out how to use it!) and i can blog from it while out and about, waiting for the kids' at activities, in line at the grocery store, etc. So i've decided that i'm going to do short blog entries every day so that i don't get so far behind.
To quickly catch you up, since i have to leave about 5 minutes AGO (!):
-Michela's softball all star team experience is going well. It's intense and time consuming, but she's loving every minute of it. Her team was CRUSHED in their first tournament, losing every game by a wide margin, but hopefully they'll do better this coming weekend. they had fun anyway, so that's what matters and she did a great job in her positions.
-Harrison's baseball all star team didn't fare any better in their weekend tournament. They were slaughtered three out of four games, but they ended the weekend on a high note by winning 12 to 7. Harrison played amazing -- getting great hits and making great plays in the field.
-With all the tournament games this weekend, marlon and I pretty much waved hi to each other on the freeway as we past each other going from game to game. Not exactly, but it felt like that!
-Jacob is as busy as ever with dance, as he has a competition coming up this coming weekend and the big dance show is in 3 weeks. He has something like 24 numbers (some of his perform more than once.) Michela is in 4. :)
-The other dancer in the family is Marlon. He's enjoying the "dad's dance," and has almost as many reheasals as Jacob does. They take this dance stuff seriously at Focus Dance Center. When i saw the rehearsal schedule, i just about thought he would kill me for signing him up, but he's loving it.
-New dance competition groups were annouced for next year's groups. jacob advanced to the next level, so he's happy about that. He'll be in Elites for jazz, tap and lyrical. they haven't annoucned honor groups yet, just large group competition numbers.
-School is good. the year is winding down. lots of projects and tests.
-Maintenance is good for the most part. I eat everything, just try very hard to keep a good balance, make every calorie count, and keep the calories low and the exercise high. sometimes i succeed at it, sometimes not. I'm basically maintaining, which is fine for maintenance, i just had hopes of losing a bit more. but my health educator today reassured me that maintaining the 120 pound loss is what's the most important thing. it's nice to eat somewhat normally again.
-My mom is doing thru a pretty severe depression and is not eating well, moving around enough, wanting to leave her apartment, etc. so that is taking careful monitoring and intervention. another thing to deal with, but i think the situation is improving somewhat.
-we still haven't finalized our summmer plans. i did decide on camps for the kids and just need to sign them up and we're still talking about/thinking about a trip around the 4th of July, which is our 15 year anniversary!
-I'm still (as always) hopelessly overwhelmed by the number of things that i have to do and on my to-do list (household stuff, kid stuff, work stuff, volunteer stuff, etc. etc) i have several new (fortunately, temporary) responsibilities that i'm trying to manage -- being in charge of ticket sales for the school musical, being the "team mom" in charge of scheduling tournaments and all communications for harrison's all star team and being a coordinator for one of the seven dance shows.
-on that note, it's time to go.....
i'll see you tomorrow!! and i haven't forgotten about posting bar mitzvah pictures, speeches and all that. i'll still get to it. believe it or not, we haven't even looked at the pictures ourselves yet! lol
The good news is that I now have an iphone (well, okay, i got it almost a month ago, but i'm now figuring out how to use it!) and i can blog from it while out and about, waiting for the kids' at activities, in line at the grocery store, etc. So i've decided that i'm going to do short blog entries every day so that i don't get so far behind.
To quickly catch you up, since i have to leave about 5 minutes AGO (!):
-Michela's softball all star team experience is going well. It's intense and time consuming, but she's loving every minute of it. Her team was CRUSHED in their first tournament, losing every game by a wide margin, but hopefully they'll do better this coming weekend. they had fun anyway, so that's what matters and she did a great job in her positions.
-Harrison's baseball all star team didn't fare any better in their weekend tournament. They were slaughtered three out of four games, but they ended the weekend on a high note by winning 12 to 7. Harrison played amazing -- getting great hits and making great plays in the field.
-With all the tournament games this weekend, marlon and I pretty much waved hi to each other on the freeway as we past each other going from game to game. Not exactly, but it felt like that!
-Jacob is as busy as ever with dance, as he has a competition coming up this coming weekend and the big dance show is in 3 weeks. He has something like 24 numbers (some of his perform more than once.) Michela is in 4. :)
-The other dancer in the family is Marlon. He's enjoying the "dad's dance," and has almost as many reheasals as Jacob does. They take this dance stuff seriously at Focus Dance Center. When i saw the rehearsal schedule, i just about thought he would kill me for signing him up, but he's loving it.
-New dance competition groups were annouced for next year's groups. jacob advanced to the next level, so he's happy about that. He'll be in Elites for jazz, tap and lyrical. they haven't annoucned honor groups yet, just large group competition numbers.
-School is good. the year is winding down. lots of projects and tests.
-Maintenance is good for the most part. I eat everything, just try very hard to keep a good balance, make every calorie count, and keep the calories low and the exercise high. sometimes i succeed at it, sometimes not. I'm basically maintaining, which is fine for maintenance, i just had hopes of losing a bit more. but my health educator today reassured me that maintaining the 120 pound loss is what's the most important thing. it's nice to eat somewhat normally again.
-My mom is doing thru a pretty severe depression and is not eating well, moving around enough, wanting to leave her apartment, etc. so that is taking careful monitoring and intervention. another thing to deal with, but i think the situation is improving somewhat.
-we still haven't finalized our summmer plans. i did decide on camps for the kids and just need to sign them up and we're still talking about/thinking about a trip around the 4th of July, which is our 15 year anniversary!
-I'm still (as always) hopelessly overwhelmed by the number of things that i have to do and on my to-do list (household stuff, kid stuff, work stuff, volunteer stuff, etc. etc) i have several new (fortunately, temporary) responsibilities that i'm trying to manage -- being in charge of ticket sales for the school musical, being the "team mom" in charge of scheduling tournaments and all communications for harrison's all star team and being a coordinator for one of the seven dance shows.
-on that note, it's time to go.....
i'll see you tomorrow!! and i haven't forgotten about posting bar mitzvah pictures, speeches and all that. i'll still get to it. believe it or not, we haven't even looked at the pictures ourselves yet! lol
Friday, May 8, 2009
Busy, Busy, Busy
I'm so sorry that it's been so long -- AGAIN. I thought things were going to settle down after the Bar Mitzvah. Well, I obviously thought wrong. It's been busier than ever.
The last two weeks I've spent hours and hours every day working on a work project. It went well and I actually enjoyed it, but basically all I did was work and do the basics to take care of the house and kids. I was already hopelessly behind on "things" (paperwork, correspondence, household projects, etc.) because of the Bar Mitzvah and this put me futher behind, but it was an important work project and had to be done.
Once it was finished, i spent some time this week catching up on post-Bar Mitzvah tasks, especially errands like returning the 11 dresses I had bought for Michela and we didn't choose, the 14 dresses for me, the 6 dress shirts for Jacob, etc. etc. Would you believe that I returned over $2,000 worth of clothes?!
we're gearing up for a very busy weekend. the kind that i have to do a typed up schedule for marlon and i to keep it straight. i won't give you the hour by hour rundown, but basically tomorrow (sat) we have: 1 baseball game, 2 softball games (semi finals and then championships), an "all star meet and greet" for Michela, two teams parties (one swimming all afternoon, one dinner and that's here), 7 hours of dance (jacob), 3 hours of dance (Marlon for the dad's dance) and i think i forgot a couple of things!
the next 2 months are going to be beyond busy with baseball allstars, softball allstars, dance competitions, big annual dance show, harrison's musical at school, normal end of year stuff, etc... I'm used to "busy," but these next two months are going to be hard for even me to juggle.
Here's a "bullet point" summary of the highlights of what's been going on (in no particular order other than the order i'm thinking of them):
-I got an iphone! so far i love it, BUT i haven't downloaded any songs or applications or had time to configure the email or anything. the texting is amazing. i got it last week. i need to make time to figure it out and get it configured.
-I'm doing a great job of maintaining my weight. i'm not really losing, but i'm not gaining either and i'm eating a full array of foods, so i'm very pleased with how it's going. hopefully eventually i'll start to slowly lose a little bit.
-i bought a FEW new things, including JEANS and a BELT. I don't think i EVER wore jeans or a belt before, believe it or not. i even have jean shorts now. and some cute capris.
-Jacob had his auditions for next year's honor groups at dance. Jazz/lyrical were last week, tap was tonight. he thinks he did well. we'll know in a couple of weeks.
-Michela made the softball all star team!!!!!!!!! She was so excited. it's very competitive. It's also going to be a very intense 6-8 weeks of 4-5 practices a week and tournaments every weekend. it's a very highly competitive level of play. it'll be a great experience and she's becoming quite a good softball player so we're hoping she'll keep it up and will be able to get a scholarship for college.
-Harrison also made his baseball all star team!!!!!!!! He was also excited. things will be equally intense and time consuming for him.
-in light of the two all star teams, our summer plans are completely up in the air and i've been trying to figure things out. we were talking about renting a motor home and taking two weeks to drive to texas to be with marlon's family, taking detours along the way to see things. but now we can't really be gone two weeks because you have to sign a committment contract for all stars. so we MAY still go to texas for the 4th of july weekend or we may do something more local, or we may just do little day trips around here all summer.
-our kids have the longest summer they've ever had this summer - 6 weeks. (not sure why.) usually we have 4 1/2 or 5 at the most. I'm trying to line up some camps for them because 6 weeks is too long to just sit around and i have a lot of work projects to work on. I think all 3 are going to go to SURF camp every day for a week. funny, huh? they have surfed a bit and want to learn how. it's a california thing. harrison might go to football camp (see below), jacob wants to try a basketball camp (huh? basketball? jacob? well, great if he wants to!). he may do a dance intensive. i'm looking into a softball camp for michela, etc. i think that jewish sleepaway camp is out of consideration because they can't be gone a week b/c of all stars and dance.
-Yes, harrison now wants to play football. he wants to try out for the freshman football team in high school (he has one more yr first). Matt Leinart is his idol. Matt Leinart runs a football camp for 5 days (overnight camp) here in long beach. Harrison is sending the receipient of his "camp scholarship" to it (he asked matt leinart's brother ryan if they'd make up the difference in cost between the $300 he raised and the $700 it costs and they said they would!)
-Marlon was away for a week and while he was gone i enjoyed a "special night" with each of the kids alone. harrison and i splurged (calorie wise and financially) and had a nice dinner out at the Melting Pot. Jacob and I went for manicures and pedicures and then had dinner at a cafe. Michela and I picked up dinner and ate it in a movie, just the two of us, then went shopping for some new clothes the next mornig.
ok, this is long enough. i'll try to update more often so that these aren't so long. and i know i still have to post bar mitzvah pics!
Barbara
The last two weeks I've spent hours and hours every day working on a work project. It went well and I actually enjoyed it, but basically all I did was work and do the basics to take care of the house and kids. I was already hopelessly behind on "things" (paperwork, correspondence, household projects, etc.) because of the Bar Mitzvah and this put me futher behind, but it was an important work project and had to be done.
Once it was finished, i spent some time this week catching up on post-Bar Mitzvah tasks, especially errands like returning the 11 dresses I had bought for Michela and we didn't choose, the 14 dresses for me, the 6 dress shirts for Jacob, etc. etc. Would you believe that I returned over $2,000 worth of clothes?!
we're gearing up for a very busy weekend. the kind that i have to do a typed up schedule for marlon and i to keep it straight. i won't give you the hour by hour rundown, but basically tomorrow (sat) we have: 1 baseball game, 2 softball games (semi finals and then championships), an "all star meet and greet" for Michela, two teams parties (one swimming all afternoon, one dinner and that's here), 7 hours of dance (jacob), 3 hours of dance (Marlon for the dad's dance) and i think i forgot a couple of things!
the next 2 months are going to be beyond busy with baseball allstars, softball allstars, dance competitions, big annual dance show, harrison's musical at school, normal end of year stuff, etc... I'm used to "busy," but these next two months are going to be hard for even me to juggle.
Here's a "bullet point" summary of the highlights of what's been going on (in no particular order other than the order i'm thinking of them):
-I got an iphone! so far i love it, BUT i haven't downloaded any songs or applications or had time to configure the email or anything. the texting is amazing. i got it last week. i need to make time to figure it out and get it configured.
-I'm doing a great job of maintaining my weight. i'm not really losing, but i'm not gaining either and i'm eating a full array of foods, so i'm very pleased with how it's going. hopefully eventually i'll start to slowly lose a little bit.
-i bought a FEW new things, including JEANS and a BELT. I don't think i EVER wore jeans or a belt before, believe it or not. i even have jean shorts now. and some cute capris.
-Jacob had his auditions for next year's honor groups at dance. Jazz/lyrical were last week, tap was tonight. he thinks he did well. we'll know in a couple of weeks.
-Michela made the softball all star team!!!!!!!!! She was so excited. it's very competitive. It's also going to be a very intense 6-8 weeks of 4-5 practices a week and tournaments every weekend. it's a very highly competitive level of play. it'll be a great experience and she's becoming quite a good softball player so we're hoping she'll keep it up and will be able to get a scholarship for college.
-Harrison also made his baseball all star team!!!!!!!! He was also excited. things will be equally intense and time consuming for him.
-in light of the two all star teams, our summer plans are completely up in the air and i've been trying to figure things out. we were talking about renting a motor home and taking two weeks to drive to texas to be with marlon's family, taking detours along the way to see things. but now we can't really be gone two weeks because you have to sign a committment contract for all stars. so we MAY still go to texas for the 4th of july weekend or we may do something more local, or we may just do little day trips around here all summer.
-our kids have the longest summer they've ever had this summer - 6 weeks. (not sure why.) usually we have 4 1/2 or 5 at the most. I'm trying to line up some camps for them because 6 weeks is too long to just sit around and i have a lot of work projects to work on. I think all 3 are going to go to SURF camp every day for a week. funny, huh? they have surfed a bit and want to learn how. it's a california thing. harrison might go to football camp (see below), jacob wants to try a basketball camp (huh? basketball? jacob? well, great if he wants to!). he may do a dance intensive. i'm looking into a softball camp for michela, etc. i think that jewish sleepaway camp is out of consideration because they can't be gone a week b/c of all stars and dance.
-Yes, harrison now wants to play football. he wants to try out for the freshman football team in high school (he has one more yr first). Matt Leinart is his idol. Matt Leinart runs a football camp for 5 days (overnight camp) here in long beach. Harrison is sending the receipient of his "camp scholarship" to it (he asked matt leinart's brother ryan if they'd make up the difference in cost between the $300 he raised and the $700 it costs and they said they would!)
-Marlon was away for a week and while he was gone i enjoyed a "special night" with each of the kids alone. harrison and i splurged (calorie wise and financially) and had a nice dinner out at the Melting Pot. Jacob and I went for manicures and pedicures and then had dinner at a cafe. Michela and I picked up dinner and ate it in a movie, just the two of us, then went shopping for some new clothes the next mornig.
ok, this is long enough. i'll try to update more often so that these aren't so long. and i know i still have to post bar mitzvah pics!
Barbara
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