Category: family

A visit from my parents

My parents flew out from Italy.  It’s been their first trip to the US since they moved to Italy (temporarily) last year.   It was nice to catch up with them and show them around the bits of Omaha they hadn’t seen yet.

This is us (sorry, Ian is taking the picture) laughing because Brit kept laughing.

We ate at a really nice restaurant called Firebirds, which has wonderful steak, by the way.  Ian cooked an amazing dinner of pork chops, potato salad, potato wedges (for those against eating potato salad.. is there anyone?  Oh.. Brittany!), and a lovely salad with homemade vinaigrette.

We toured Village Point’s shopping area, went to Kohl’s to do some shopping, then my dad bought loads of Jiffy cake mix and other various things to send back to Italy.

Oh, and we couldn’t miss going down to the Missouri River to see how overflowing it was.

Good Stuff is Happening

So, we’re winding down on one of our “projects” that has been going on for several months. It’s been a few months on the edge of my seat, really.

Have you ever had someone say, “I don’t wish to do that. Do this instead and then you won’t have to ask me anymore.” So you say, “Are you sure that’s what you want me to do”, and they say, “Yes. I will sign off. Just get me the paperwork.”

So you get the person the paperwork and there are all sorts of reasons why the paperwork won’t be signed today. Maybe in 3 weeks. Or maybe not. We’ll see.

It goes on to the point where you’re thinking, “Has this all been some sort of crazy joke to get us to do a bunch of work and accomplish nothing but create a boatload of frustration?”

Then, the papers are finally signed and you can MOVE ON. Moving on is good. Moving on is one less thing to worry about.

No, this doesn’t have anything horrible to do with my marriage. 🙂

Anyway, in other news, I have all of next week off. Thank you. I’ve been on-call all week and odd stuff has been happening. So, good luck to who is left. I’m not the one able to fix these things, just taking calls from people who are frustrated due to the problems. So I’ll have a week of quiet where I imagine they’ll have it all squared away by the time I return.

Yay for vacation. 🙂

Stuff and Things

So, The Little Kid has started back to school (last week).   It’s all very middle-of-the-summer for school, but the rest of the families around here seem to be following the same freaky schedule.  🙂

Last night was Meet the Band Director and Talk to Him About an Instrument Night.    TLK is going to be playing a euphonium this year, although I’m not sure if it’s base or tenor yet.   The point is that the school has some on-hand and she was lucky enough to receive one of them for $90/school year.    This is a big savings off the price of the music store rental, which was $60 a month.

I can stop trying to convince her that a really small instrument (no matter what it is) would be better to play than her humongous euphonium.

We are back in the land of homework, where there are spellings lists and stories to read, and questions to get through.   Last year seemed to be full of math.  This year seems to be full of reading (not a bad idea). 

The interesting part was having her do safety patrol (blocking traffic so that kids can cross the street safely, for those of you in the UK, who I hear do not put your children in the midst of the street for this purpose).   The school parking lot can be crazy, and she’s in the middle of it, but not every day.   I said, “Really?   You’re in the middle of the lot?  Are you looking both ways before you block the traffic?”

“Mom.. the principal tells me when to go.”

Good deal.   🙂

Birthday Things

Wednesday was my birthday.   It was the first birthday where Ian’s been in the same country (and even in the same house) with me on my birthday.  It was nice to be able to celebrate with him and The Little Kid.

I got some nice presents, including a Cuttlebug that I can use with my cardmaking.    TLK and I had fun making cut-out butterflies and frogs, and playing with embossing, which I must say… using a machine to emboss is much easier than hand-embossing… more dramatic and less painful.  🙂

The people at work bought me an ice cream cake and my friend put a banner on my cubicle so everyone knew.    I received flowers from my family in Texas and the funniest card from my family in Kansas.   I put a call into my parents via Skype, but had to leave a message.  Not sure if they’ll hear the voice mail.  My dad says he can’t get through the Italian prompts.. but maybe he can by now.  🙂

We went to Applebees for dinner, which was nice.  They have good steaks and something wonderful called “Peach Sangria”  🙂  Yum

Oh, and everyone I knew on FB said, “Happy Birthday”, which was fun.  😀

Overall, a really good day.   It is good to be 23 again.  “Mommy counts backwards now”.  LOL.

Weekend

It was a good weekend.    We spent Saturday going to the Heartland of America Park.   I like to go there because I love birds, and there are always plenty of them around.   It was a good chance to interact with nature.   The geese we saw were relatively ok with having people around.  When we sat still, or stood still, they would walk around as if we weren’t there.  

It’s funny to watch them.   At one point, one walked near the water, started honking loudly and jumped into the water, still honking. Once it swam around for a bit, it quieted down.   I’m not sure what it’s concern was, if it had one.  Maybe it just felt like honking.

Sunday, there was shopping (something I’m not entirely fond of for long periods of time) and the World Cup finals, which was really exciting.   No, I didn’t cry for Spain.  Do you believe me?  🙂   I felt bad for Netherland, and although there is always “next time”, some of those people won’t be playing soccer next time.      They all played their best, it seemed, and were well-matched in the end.

Ian seems to have recovered from a severe bout of sinus issues.     Nothing tea, marmite toast and lots of meds couldn’t resolve, thankfully.   And TLK has lost another tooth, which is good, because her teeth were beginning to get a bit crowded.  She’s always a year or two ahead of where she should be with teeth.

She was a little miffed when she thought the tooth fairy only left her a quarter.. but actually, it was $3.25 (still not the $20 she was hoping for).  I mean, I know about inflation, but one tooth?  $20?  lol

I think that’s about it.   Is it Monday already?

Fully Upgraded

to 月经期可以泡脚吗 3.0!    I got more features when I replaced my old wp-config.php with the sample one, all doctored up and renamed.   So now I can have multiple user blogs if I want.   I may try that out over my holiday vacation (at home) whilst sitting by the sparkling pool.   😀

Or, I may have an expedition in bento making.

Sunday is Father’s Day.   Happy Father’s Day to all the dads, step-dads, grandpa’s and people who are technically not dads, but elected to take on the role anyway.   Go you!

The Week (so far) in Review

It was not monumental, really, except for Tuesday when we dropped the car at the shop expecting a couple of brake pad replacements or a belt replacement. We ended up with “all of the above”, plus two new rotors, a brake flush and radiator flush.

It was not an unspendy day, but the brakes work well now! And all the massive squeeking is gone.

It’s Friday and we’re thinking about going to Lauritzen Gardens  tomorrow for awhile. I’m hoping to see some plants, but it seems to be a bit early in the season for that. The only plants I’ve seen thriving so far, in our insanely variant weather lately, are my mother’s irises and the herbs Ian’s planted.

I would rather see the gardens when there are lots of plants to enjoy, but it would also be a good walk if the weather is good.

The other day, we were walking to the car from the grocery. It was raining and I was the lucky holder of the umbrella (usually we let TLK have it) and I was reminded of the day in Milton Keynes when Ian and I were going to the grocery and it was absolutely pouring.

Actually, it was raining sideways.

If I lived in England, I would have to get one of these super-sturdy wind-impervious umbrellas.    Although, I’m not sure it would be helpful with sideways rain.   🙂

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