Mish Mash

The weather has been so gorgeous lately!! It's such a treat to see the beautiful blue skies and have the outside temperatures climb above the freezing mark. I actually saw GRASS today--on the edge of someone's driveway. It was a GLORIOUS sight!

I know it's only the middle of February, and the forecast says that we have 70% chance of snow on Wednesday, but it's days like this that give me hope that spring will come and that we've moved closer to the end of winter than the beginning.

I can hold on!

Not that I entirely HATE winter. I don't! We chose to live in this area specifically because it has 4 distinct seasons -- as opposed to the Oregon Coast* where the seasons were raining or not raining. Sure, here in Florin, some seasons are longer than the others and sometimes it even seems that we will totally skip an entire season, but the reality is that we do have amazing and beautiful springs; summers that have moderate temperatures so we don't melt into puddles each day; and while fall seems to be the shortest season, it's also lovely!! Winter.... well, that makes up the majority of our year, so I've learned to tolerate it. However, I do wish it would be a little shorter. (This year we've had a constant cover of snow on the ground since Thanksgiving.)

*Disclaimer: Don't get me wrong! I LOVED living on the coast!! It was a wonderful time in my life and I cherish the memories and friends that I made while I was there!!!

So, as we move closer to the end of February, I look longingly to the coming months ahead and the coming of spring... I think I can... I think I can... I think I can.... SURVIVE!!! :)

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Today is Valentine's Day. For years I have blogged my opinion on this terrible day. Last year I told myself I wouldn't need to say it again. If you'd like to re-read my rant, click here.

'Nuff said.

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A week ago we got new phones and I got this sweet little piece of technology:

The Droid X.
I have heard that it's a "smart phone" and agree with that. It's much smarter than me. But I am determined to conquer it!! After all, I have TWO YEARS to figure it out!

Some have asked why we didn't buy the iPhone (since we switched to Verizon). I will admit, it was a temptation. The cost was about the same. And since I have an iPad, there would be a smaller learning curve. But after thinking about it, I realized that we have already given enough of our money to the iGods. We have iPods, iTouch, iPad and iTunes. Isn't that iNuff already?

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Buttercup had a wonderful moment at school on Saturday. She finished cutting a 5 year old girl's hair. It was a shoulder length, pixie bob and I guess it turned out wonderful! The instructor who was supervising the cut -- who is also the same instructor who screamed at her (in front of the client and the entire school) that she picked the wrong profession because she made a mistake in a woman's haircut -- praised her in public and in private, telling her that she was proud of Buttercup and proud of how well she's doing. After wanting to rip this woman's hair out and teeth out, I now want to give her a big kiss and tell her thank you. That's all Buttercup needs... a little positive reinforcement goes a LOOONG way with her!!

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Inigo was diagnosed with The Influenza last week. Poor little guy was pretty sick. Steck heard that he was feeling down and did the nicest thing! She came over and "Heart Attacked" him!

Have you heard of Heart Attacks? Nah... I'm not talking about the killer kind. There was no numbness in his arm or a heavy feeling in his chest. No shortness of breath. These Heart Attacks leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy and totally loved.

Usually, they are done in secret and anonymously, but we just happened to be home and Inigo just happened to be in the living room when she came over. I felt bad that we caught her. She even parked her car up the street to be even sneakier!!

And what's even nicer than caring enough to cut out a bazillion hearts and write nice things on them? THAT SHE DID IT IN 14• WEATHER!!!!

Now, that's love.

(Here it is, several days later, and the hearts are still up! They haven't fallen off yet! But I think I'm going to have to take them off tomorrow. Especially since it's supposed to snow again.)

THANKS AGAIN, STECK!!!

(Hey, Andy, I'm pretty sure we'll be calling Eth this spring to make those dingy windows sparkle!! I didn't realize how bad they were until I looked at these pictures! UGH!!)

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Inigo and I were supposed to drive to New Florin and visit Max over the weekend. But since he had The Influenza (that's just fun to say... not fun to have though) the doctor advised that we stay home. Influenza is highly contagious and we didn't know how long Inigo would be feeling terrible. Since Max has just started a new job, he hasn't built up any PTO and (I'll be honest) he doesn't do well when he gets sick. Max always needs TLC when he feels bad and I wouldn't be there to give it to him. We just didn't want Max to get sick.

So we followed the doctor's orders and decided to stay home. We were very disappointed that it would be TWO WEEKS until we got to see Max again.

We got up Saturday morning and over texts (on my cool new phone) I asked him what he was going to do that day. He went into work for a while and said that if the wind died down, he might go flying.

We have house rules in regards to flying: He always has to call before take-off and always call when he safely lands. A text while he's in the air is a good idea to let me know how things are going, but there isn't always coverage at 14,000 feet.

We talked about the rules and I told him to be safe and have fun.

Well, Inigo and I went to the movie (Tron) and when we got out I didn't see any texts from Max. I wondered if he had gone flying so I texted and asked what he was doing. (Of course, I was getting geared up to be mad if he went flying and didn't follow our rules!)

I didn't hear from him for a while, then I got a text that said he'd be home in 20 minutes.

WHAT!?!?!

Yes, he said. He was flying over a prominent landmark east of town and he'd be at our airport in about 20 minutes.

Holy cow!!

So Max flew home and surprised us for the weekend! It was pretty cool!! And so, so nice to have him here!!

He didn't have a lot of time with us, but he took the kids flying Sunday after church. Ever since he updated his pilots license, Buttercup has been begging him to take her to the skies... so he did. It was a very nice day for them. (I can't go flying in small airplanes. I get TOOOOO SICK!!! So I stayed home and they flew over me so I could wave at them from the driveway.)

The pictures in the air were taken by Buttercup!! Nice job, sis!

My house is down there! Can you see it?

The lovely town of Florin

Ready to go!!

(For a GREAT shot Max took on his flight home, make sure you check out my cloud blog!!)