Aaron has a birthday!

The baby of the family is a Teen!
A turned 13 today...for dinner We all went to Chili's




A had a great time!








My great-nephew was full of energy...








N & J had attitudes...as usual.












And me & R endured!


We missed my mom, but all in all a great evening. If I only had a kitchen, I could of made a cake!

Not Anonymous Anymore

I always knew that writing on the blog made it available to whomever wanted to read it.
Today, I commented on a blog of a dear friend who had some sort of a stroke the other day. (alansrecovery.blogspot.com)
After I hit "Publish" I realized...whoopsie...now others can read this.
Then, I realized I haven't written anything I regret or haven't told most people in my life.
SO ...who cares, bring them on.
Maybe they will "figure me out" after all!
Welcome!

Baseball Photos

"N" age: 18
Varsity- Monterey High School
2006












"J" age: 15 1/2
Junior Varsity- Monterey High School
2006

Old Kitchen Photo Found!

This is an old picture of the "before" Kitchen. Notice the disgusting OLD cabinets circa 1951. What you can't see clearly is the bumpy "wood" grain. When we first bought the house, the kitchen was dark brown. The first thing I did was paint it white. Funny that now I want it dark brown again.

Senior Appreciation Game

Saturday was the "big" game...J 's team played at 12:30 and won! (First time up to bat he hit a double and the crowd went wild!)

When we walked into the field, there were posters of all the Seniors. My heart skipped a beat when I saw my son up there on that board!


Moms (who wouldn't normally give me the time of day) were surrounding me, telling me what a handsome son I had and what a cute baby he was.

I was so proud!

Of course I agreed with them and my chest stuck out a little bit more as I went to my seat. As I watched J play his game, there was excitement all around. Green and gold balloons on the home (Monterey) team side and red and white balloons on the visitors (Carmel) side. After the JV team won, the contests started. To my surprise, N was chosen to participate in all three.
The Homerun Derby (Both teams had 4 representatives to take turns hitting the ball out of the park) Carmel won that one.
The Relay (Both teams had 6 reps (two teams of 3) to throw the ball from the outfield fence -240 ft- to 2nd base and then to the catcher) Nick was the guy at 2nd base. Monterey won that one.
Finally The Base Running The guys were timed running the bases. One time Nick made it in 7.2 seconds and the next time he had a slow time of 9 seconds (he hit the "wall") .
Then they announced that all of the senior parents were to meet on the side of the field. I quickly put my lipstick on and nervously went to the field with R and met N there. We walked onto the field to the pitcher's mound and were announced one by one. My heart was beating as they read the following statement we wrote:
"Ni ~We are so proud to be your parents! You have worked hard and have achieved so much, in academics and sportsmanship. We smile everytime we think of the person you have become. You have proved that hard work and perseverance can bring you all of your dreams. May all your dreams come true! We love you, Love Mom and Dad~"

When we got to home plate, another player gave me a yellow rose.
Very sweet.
As we stood there with our son, I realized that this was the beginning of the activities toward graduation. I also realized that I am not done with this boy/man and I still have a ton of parenting to do! This time flew by quickly. I cannot say that enough. Just yesterday he was learning to walk, and now he is ready to fly.

Kitchen Remodel...When Will It End?

The kitchen remodel project has been going on for about three weeks now. I am so over it!

It is terrible living out of a mock kitchen in the living room! Eating all dinners out or from the microwave. There are only so many things you can make in the microwave until you get sick of it!
We are living off of Chicken from Costco, chimichangas, pot pies and other TV dinners from the microwave and if I have one more sandwich from a fast food restaurant I will scream. (That goes for pizza too!) Anyhoo..Here are some progress pictures I took last weekend. Since then there has been more progress, I will take some more pics later today after we get home from another day of baseball.

The Home Depot moved in the spot where our old KMart was...And now we practically live there!

R and I designed the cabinet layout and we did a pretty good job if I must say so myself! I am trying to find some "before" pictures...The old cabinets were terrible, original from 1951 when the house was built. When the kitchen is complete, we will have more counter space and new appliances...After 17 years in this house, it is about time!

Notice the new crown molding and new lighting! I know that the paint color looks dark, but I am telling you, it looks great!

Here is a sample of the tile for the counter and the backsplash. (Granite counters are way out of our budget, granite counter=$2,400 vs tile counter=$300) I am so lucky that R is so handy! We are saving so much money on labor! Of course his back is killing him, I noticed he is taking more pain pills lately... I hope he doesn't over do it too much.

The boys have been helping a lot also, I think they actually are learning life-long lessons about the electrical, painting procedures,cabinet hanging, tile and flooring. They are really proud of their work!

I will post updated pics later...

~K ~

Life Goes On

The depressing rain has stopped for today.
(Take whatever meaning comes to you)

Life goes on.

I sat in the pouring rain yesterday afternoon and watched N 's team play a muddy baseball game at North Monterey County (Castroville area). As it was miserable sitting there with a leaking umbrella (I just bought it, I am taking that sucker back!) but it fit with what I was feeling so I didn't really mind. The umpire finally called the game in the 4th inning. It was starting to get really dangerous for the kids, but the other coach wanted to keep going, he was a real jerk about it. Whatever. The umpire stuck to his guns and called the game. I guess the big deal was that the game had to be finished in Monterey on their home field. Varsity sports get really ugly. People take it so seriously. Unbelievable.

In a couple of weeks, there is a fundraiser game in Monterey against Carmel. It is also called the Senior Appreciation game. I guess they call the parents onto the field with their son, its a big deal.
I won't have my mom in the stands to cheer for me so I am hoping that maybe Stacey will come *hint hint* and I am going to force my little sister to come so I can have someone to clap for us!! J 's team will play that day too...It will be something to look forward to.

A has a game today in Seaside (my least favorite place) I hope I get through it OK. The field is across the street of where my grandfather was murdered in 1989. (A really long story, which I will post about later, but the long story short is that a 14-year old boy took my grandfathers life without any guilt. He did go to the California Youth Authority until he turned 24 years old but then when he got out he proceeded to kill a innocent guy who worked at a Taco shop in Seaside and then his girlfriend who was found buried in a shallow grave on the former Fort Ord, she was about 6 months pregnant...like I said, it is a really long story and the details are awful, someday I will get it all down)
So anyway, it is really hard to go to the baseball games at that field, when I am constantly looking across the street at my grandparents old house.

Like I said before, Life goes on.

Then J has a double header in Monterey starting at 3:30. Another long day of baseball, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I love watching them play!

Let's hope that the weather holds up!

Next Post: Kitchen remodel in progress...Life as we know it is gone..Living off of cereal and microwave meals...What an adventure.

Mom Left CA Today

She left today.
In tears with a huge truck following my sister's truck.
I can't really talk about it without crying myself. I had to go home from work today because I couldn't see the computer monitor through the tears.
She made it to NV safe and sound and is probably exhausted.
I am not quite sure who I am without her around.
I feel like someone has died. It is a deep saddness.
I hope it will get better, right now it sucks.
~Kim~

Family Secrets

I just got off of the phone with my older sister. She told her landlord stuff about me and Ralph...this is a small peninsula. After she told me what she told him about us (a HUGE secret by the way), I calmly asked his name. Not only do we know him, he works for the same company that Ralph does. AAAAGGGHHHHHH
Ralph is so mad.
He was going to drive the moving truck to NV on Saturday for her and Mom (loaded with all of the things that didn't fit in the other two trucks) and then fly back home that night (on our dime). I doubt that will happen now. He hasn't said anything, but I know that conversation is coming soon. I hope she has a plan B.

Time to get started...

Holding back~I really hold back when writing in this blog.

Really, I do.

I have been thinking about it lately and I am thinking I should really "let loose". Be warned, it will not be pretty.

Work~I am still thinking I will never blog about anything at work...I have read about too many horror stories about bosses looking up their employees names and seeing what they write about. I seriously don't think my bosses would ever do that, they are far too busy. But just in case... I will just keep that information inside, besides, there isn't anything bad about it at all, really.

Reading and Revelations~As I read my daily blogs
(I have mentioned that I am addicted right?)
I noticed that I really like it when the writers are honest about how they are feeling.

One blogger in particular is frustrated about how long it is taking to receive her daughters referral from China. Today she wrote a post about how hard it was to wait. Poor thing, she is probably watching others pick up their babies from China, just like I am watching...it must be hard.
As I read her comments from all of her faithful readers, I realized that those comments will keep her going. Others are thinking about her, etc. If she reads this, I want her to know that I am thinking about her and I hope her wait ends sooner than she is expecting. I am sure her wait will be worth it. I can't wait to see her story unfold!

Addictions...I am addicted to reading blogs about adoptions from China. Who knows, someday I might be writing about my own story...I have the three boys who will be grown and gone sooner than I think, and I am still young enough to be starting over. R had that **snip **snip surgery about 13 years ago; I doubt it would be reversible at this point. And all of those baby girls are so gorgeous! (Especially my friend Stacey's Ryleigh, I could just squeeze her!) I will just have to wait until we are a bit more financially stable. Long story short, after a back injury (ruptured disc with pieces of vertebrae taken out in emergency surgery last year), R changed careers. He now sells Real Estate. He just sold his first house, (yea R !) and the commission check was nice, but after a year fighting with workers comp and disability, it was a long time coming -the $ in the checking account that is! If he can keep selling houses, and getting check like this one, we would be on easy street! Then, we could pursue adoption!

Family stories~I have so many stories to tell! Some make me sad, some make me laugh and some really make me mad! I can't wait to get them all onto this blog so keep checking in, if I am going to get it all down, now is the time to start! My memory is fading fast, don't want to lose all of the details..

O.K. off of my soap box for now...just wanted to get some stuff off of my chest!

~K ~

Trucks, Coffee and Baseball

Thursday was a crazy day.
I took the day off to help my Mom load her moving truck.
I started the morning off by going to the store to buy flowers for my Dad's grave site as it was the 7th anniversary of his death. (I am a good daughter like that) I chose bright yellow flowers, when I drove away I looked back and it seemed as though the flowers were glowing.
Pretty cool.

I then went to my favorite coffee store, you know which one. (It is getting really ridiculous going there, as soon as I get in line, they start my coffee, I go there so often, they know my order.) Everyone was excited to get some caffeine in their system (except for mom, she had hot chocolate)

So we started to load the truck. Mom has lots of stuff. (I was going to say crap but that wouldn't be nice) After a few hours, I ran home to change clothes, It was the hottest day we've had in weeks. ON my way back to Mom's I decided to run by my sister's house to check on her truck. When I pulled up, I was shocked, her truck was empty! It seems as though my brother from Utah was not here yet and it was noon already. I called my other brother to have him bring one of the boys there to help. It was crazy, I went into robot-mode. I am not a strong person, but I was carrying VERY heavy furniture and boxes into the front yard. (talk about crap, my sister has tons of it)
Anyway, my brother and my nephews finally showed up about 1:30 and we got busy getting stuff into the truck. (I won't even get into how I went into my sister's kitchen and NOTHING was packed in there, I packed about 10 boxes and stopped. By then we all realized that not everything (from both Mom's and my sister's houses) was going to fit inside these two 24 ft trucks, they will have to rent another one for their last trip next Friday. I had to leave about 3 to take Nick to practice. I came back and they were all "resting". I put a stop to that and got everyone back to work. I had to leave again at 5 or so to take J to practice...A had a game at 6 so I was done for the day.

They packed as much as they could after I left and went to the game. A was so excited to have so many spectators to watch his game. Too bad his team lost...

When I woke up the next day, I was so SORE! I am so out of shape.

The trucks left about 9am and they made it to NV before the storm. (It was snowing on the way but they didn't need chains thankfully.)

They will all come back Sat night and stay until Friday and then they will be gone....the jury is still out on how I will react then. For now, I am still too sore and tired to thank about it.

Today is the day I was dreading

Well, Today is the day I was dreading.

I took the day off of work to help load Mom's moving truck.

One of my brothers drove all the way from Utah with my two nephews to help my sister and Mom load the moving trucks today.
They will be able to go to A 's baseball game tonight and then first thing in the morning they are all on their way to Nevada.
Mom will come back on Saturday after emptying the truck to clean the house here...she can't get into the new house until the 1st.

Strangly enough, there is a wierd calm about me.

After a quick look at the calendar last night, I realized that today is the anniversary of my Dad's death. He died 7 years ago today. It was one of the worst days of my life. It wasn't an easy death like in the movies, he wasn't ready to go and fought it until the end. Just put it this way, I now know where they got the term "death grip". I had a bruise on my hand for days. A terrible reminder of those last moments. I would not wish that experience on anyone.

O.K. enough of that...the reason I mentioned it..is because I think that is why I am so calm...maybe Dad is helping us get through this.

Now I have to get the boys up to go over to my Mom's house. They are on spring break so it will be nice to spend time with them.
I am rambling now, am I stalling????

I will report back later.

~K~

Getting Stuff

As my mom is getting ready to move, her and my sister are finding lots of stuff in the garage for me to have...fun stuff like my dollhouse that my uncle made my sister and I when I was 8 or so. (my sister got all of the barbies-whatever) I am excited because I am going to give the house some upgrades...you know, bring it from the 70's to the 2000's! (by the way, be sure to keep that on the down-low...R still doesn't know I am getting that)

I also am getting a cool side-bar table that was my grandmothers.

My mom also found my journals from 1982 & 83...some funny stuff in there. I guess R and I did quite a lot of bowling during that time. I barely remember.

Anyway, they also found some cool pictures and I thought I would share:






1984- First Car! I bought it myself, I worked at the bank..it was the coolest car! I don't even know why I ever got rid of it! I am here waving!

1993- A 's first day home...here being held by N and J looking on with my Dad...do I look stressed out or what? lol

This one is from 1982 or so. R and I were such babies!

Good times!

Headaches and Teeth

About 5.5 years ago, after a tramatic moment (I will most likely blog about that another time) I started suddenly having MAJOR migraines.
They would put me in bed for 3 days at a time and I was having them 2 or 3 times a month. After many tries with different medications, blood work, trips to UCSF Hospital for cat scans and MRIs, I finally got a handle on them in about 2003. I got them down to one every three months or so. Life was good.

Then, in 2004 the problems with my teeth started. A long story short, I have had 4 root canals, pulled 4 teeth, and was diagnosed with TMJ (causing the headaches this whole time? Who knows?) But the headaches have dwindled to about one every 9 months or so.

The reason I am telling this long, drawn out story:

I had root canal #5 today and my mouth is killing me! I have taken two norco's and I still feel the pain. Not good. It is going to be a long night!

Just want some sympathy...no one is giving me any over here...:-(

Grades are in!

I was worried about the boys' grades this quarter.


A couple of weeks ago one of them (he shall remain nameless) came into my room and said,

"Mom, I have something to tell you"
(Of course I was thinking.."Oh Great~what now?" )

He proceeded to tell me that he wasn't doing so well in school and he wanted to prepare me. Trust me, we had a lllooonnnngggg discussion about priorities, etc. (You know, how they shouldn't go on myspace or be IMing all of their friends before getting that homework done)
Ever since baseball started, we don't get home until 7:30 or 8, don't eat dinner until about 9..so homework comes in after that, then showers etc.

Anyway, I saw those envelopes in the mail today and my heart dropped.

However, to my surprise...All three got over a 3.0!

I am happy and relieved. I know I have been really busy at work and I haven't really made the time to go over their homework etc. like I normally do, so I was actually feeling really guilty...

I think we all deserve Ice Cream tonight!

Blog Withdrawals

Comcast was working on our street on Saturday morning...I didn't think anything of it until I got my coffee, crawled back into the warm bed and was all set to read blogs all morning.

To my dismay, the internet was down! I called Comcast and they were really sorry, they could not come until MONDAY to fix it!

I don't know what/how/why it happened but all I can say is...MAJOR BLOG WITHDRAWALS were happening.
(And myspace withdrawals for the kids)

I do have to say that it was fun spending time with the family, and R and I did make it out to the movie theater on Saturday night, however, I missed looking up all of the happenings in the blogland that lives in my laptop!

I am happy to report that we are back up and running fine!
Whewww!!

Breakup, Baseball and Blogs

Just got news that the oldest (N) broke up with the girlfriend...

OHH...That's why he has watched TV with us in the family room the last two nights...
I didn't even noticed that his phone wasn't ringing or getting a text message every 2 minutes.
I am thinking this is a good thing. He isn't acting all sad or anything.
Should be an interesting weekend.

J 's baseball game in San Jose got rained out today. He has one scheduled for 11am tomorrow. I hope he plays, he is fun to watch. (Plus grandma needs to get in as many games as she can before she goes)

A 's team has a practice tonight at Cages (Batting cages in Monterey).

I might have the house to myself for a bit this evening! What will I do with myself? You guessed it...I will be reading everyone's blogs! I am WAY to addicted to these blogs...I stayed up until 2am reading Nurse and Doctor stories...they are fascinating! I need to start limiting myself. It was hard to get up for work this morning. I was tempted to call in "sick" but then remembered....it is PAYDAY! Yahoo!!

Got to go to "Tar J "now...
~K ~

Mom(Grandma) is moving

My mom is moving at the end of the month.


She has lived here for 72 years. She married my dad when she was only 15. They raised their family of five children here. She buried my dad here. Her heart is here.

It's a long story but the bottom line is that she does not own a home. She is a renter and has been for the last 40 years or so. Her landlord (who, by the way has been my cross-the-street neighbor for over 17 years and I thought was my friend) has kicked her out of her house. She wants to fix up the house she says, I think she will give the house to her daughter to live in, no one has the whole story. Bottom line is, she has to be out of the house by April 1st. She cannot afford to live here anymore on what's left of my dads retirement she receives. Housing is out of control here. (Houses rent for $1,200 to $3,000 a month-or more.)

She is moving to Carson City, Nevada of all places. Why there?
I have no idea.

Along with her, my older sister and brother are also moving with her. (My sister will live in a different house)

I just don't know what to think about all of this.

I will miss her terribly, the boys will miss her chocolate chip cookies. She will be missed at all of the baseball games, as she attends as many as she can.

I am still trying to sort out all of my feelings. Bear with me.

~K ~

My "Baby" is an ADULT!

Well, it happened...my baby turned 18 years old yesterday. We celebrated by going on a whirlwind trip to Valencia CA to Magic Mountain.

We left at 5pm on Saturday night and got to Valencia at around 9:30pm or so (we stopped at Paso Robles for dinner).

We brought N 's girlfriend, Cassie on the trip. Let me tell you, it was an interesting trip. I first need to call my mother and apologise for being a teenager in love myself!

(There was one trip, when I was around 16 that I insited that R come with...I remember my parents setting down the rules and of course breaking them...no big deal ,right?!?Of course until YOU are the parent with a teenager in love)

So anyway, rules were made (and broken...but that is a different post all together) For anyone who is wondering, we got two rooms and I slept with Cassie and I let N sleep on the other bed..and I did sleep with one eye open..it was a long night-did I mention that I am really sorry that I caused my parents any grief at all....Karma is terrible.

Here we are a breakfast...Nick obviously wasn't into pictures that early in the morning.

We all went to the park at 10am when they opened... I have never been there before so I was just as excited as the kids. (R , not so much because he couldn't go on any rollercoasters because of his back)

N and Cassie are in the back of this rollercoaster...

We had a fun day (although it was very strange to walk around with N and Cassie with their arms around eachother...whatever, it is something I have to work on...kind of like driving without looking in the rearview mirror and catching the stolen kisses and wondering what exactly those two were doing back there!Needless to say, it was a long drive home last night.)

Now we are back in the real world...baseball, work and school...I wish I could keep him a child forever, but I know I cant. I have to send him off to the big world...I hope the world is ready!

Happy Birthday N !