Spencer the Swimmer

Spencer learned how to swim today. We have been working on getting his head under the water and kicking at the same time. Today he did it! Take a look...



















Here are some pictures of my girls out enjoying the pool. Lily likes swimming more and more each year, especially when the water is as warm as it is.

High School Musical

Last night Siena and I went to see Disney's "High School Musical on tour". It was so much fun. The energy of the performers and all the children in attendance was electrifying. Siena and I have decided we need to see many more Broadway performances because we both enjoy them so much.

We attended the performance at the Gammage Theatre which as designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Before the performance, we went to dinner with our wonderful friend Pearl, who adopted us into her family when we moved here 10 years ago. We can't believe we've been here that long! But it sure is nice to have Pearl and her whole family who have loved us and taken care of us for so many years. We would certainly be lonely without them as our extended family.

Home from Camp

Siena made it home from camp yesterday afternoon. It sounds like she had lots of fun and made some good memories. Not too long after she got home we had our neighbors over for dinner because they are moving back to Germany. Siena crashed as soon as they left around 9pm and didn't wake up until 11am. She was bush-whacked. We are glad she's home. She was missed. She was quite surprised that we got a new car while she was gone.
You can catch up on all her adventures on Siena's blog at http://mycatroxmysox.blogspot.com/.
As I mentioned earlier, we had our neighbors over for dinner. I made this great dessert that my friend Lorraine made for our book club meeting. It is quite an impressive cake and yet, it is really not that hard to make. If you want to dazzle your friends with a cool summer dessert, you'll want to try this recipe. I topped my cake with lots of sliced strawberries. Yum!
http://www.norway.org/culture/food/recipes/worlds+best+cake.htm

Our New Car

So we bought a new Toyota Yaris. Paul spent all day Saturday on the computer researching cars with the best gas mileage for the best price. Then he went out to test drive a few and then we both went out and picked one. For months we've been talking about getting a hybrid, but when it comes down to it, they are too expensive for only getting a few more miles to the gallon than the Yaris. Plus, we decided we want too many other things to get in debt up to our eyeballs for so many years. The hybrids are cool, but too expensive and they usually have long waiting lists. The Yaris is considered to be one of the best economy cars with the best mileage. We broke out of our shells a little and departed from our usual gold color and went with Pacific Blue. Siena will be happy about that when she gets home.
Paul had barely driven it in the garage when Spencer went to check out Dad's cool car and got gum on the door handle. Of course, Paul was peeved to say the least.
Considering that our car died on Friday, we worked fast. We both feel good about our decision which is nice since even an economy car isn't all that economical.

Quite a Day

So today was quite a day. We woke up at 5am to get Siena off to YW's camp. She was so excited. She actually woke up at 4:45am because her clock was a hour ahead. She only meant to give herself 30 minutes to get ready, but instead she gave herself an hour and a half. That can be disorienting and she didn't believe Paul when he told her what time it really was.
She got off OK. Spencer actually cried when she left. I think he didn't understand that she would come back on Tues. She took so much stuff, I can't believe she got it all packed. I already miss her and it hasn't even been one day.

So when I got home I found out that Paul had been anxiously trying to call me because his car broke down on the way to work. Luckily, he was only a couple of miles from his office (which is an hour away from home) and one of his co-workers went to pick him up.
He had to get the car towed to the nearest shop which was a mile or two away from the parking lot he made it to. Then they said they charged $210 just to look at it. That's Scottsdale for you. They weren't in any rush to fix what we thought was the water pump, so I ended up driving out to Scottsdale with Lily and Spencer to pick him up after work. Since he still hadn't heard anything from the shop we went by there only to find out it was "toast". I guess they would have to replace the whole engine. Now we have to go car shopping.
The good that came out of it is that the car was bleeding us dry with problems every six months anyway and the shop didn't charge us the $210. Also, Paul took us to a delicious Indian food restaurant for dinner. So that was yummy!
Well, wish us luck in finding a good car that gets good gas mileage and will get Paul safely back and forth from work.

Summer Days

So my friend the "blue kangaroo" took these darling pictures of my baby boy just in time to add to my new blog. Thank you very much. Isn't he just the cutest thing?

Wow, I was actually able to load a picture! It was quite easy.

I did it!

Well, I started a blog. My sister has been encouraging me to make one. She said it was so easy, and so far it has been. I have no idea if I will ever write another entry. I suppose it all depends on how my life goes from one day to the next. However, since I rarely connect up with my family and friends and I almost never write in my journal, I decided this might be the easiest way to kill two birds with one stone. I'm not very computer literate since my husband is a computer genius. I always leave everything electronic to him. So I have no idea if I will even be able to upload/download (see what I mean?) any photos to my blog page. If I do figure it out, it will be much more exciting since my kids are so cute!
Here's to starting something new (for me). Cheers!