finally ... snow!

When I woke up yesterday morning, Lion was playing in his room. He was about to wake Blue up (Blue, I playing in my room! Blue? Blue, I playing, Blue! Blue? Blue, I playing in my room!) so I went in and sat with him and we talked quietly for a bit and then we happened to notice that it was snowing outside! So we ran in to wake Daddy up and show him the snow. And Blue came staggering in all half-awake and we showed her the snow. We were so excited because snow is one of the main reasons we moved to Colorado and this was the first real snow we've had! (It all melted by midafternoon so I'm sure that part about "real snow" will crack me up one day..)

So after breakfast, we bundled the kids up into their winter coats and snowboots (thank you, Grammy!) and went for a walk with Mabel:

Mabel playing in the snow

close-up of Jonathan

close-up of Mabel

Lion, deciding he was cold and ready to head inside

Blue, also feeling pretty cold

grumpy Lion

tomorrow

Jonathan and I close on Glenbogle house and celebrate our tenth anniversary!

So I may not be posting very regularly in the days to come (not that I have been posting regularly, but whatevs) because we will be moving and when I do manage to post it will probably be "house house house bladdy-blah house..."

Wait. So we have "Grey's Anatomy" on even though I've missed a bunch of episodes and WTF? Why is Denny on again? Were ratings slipping that badly? I mean, he is hot, but he is dead. And he has obviously had a haircut in the afterlife. And doesn't he care that Izzy is sleeping with Alex again?

Lame. Lamelamelame.

Why is the new redheaded doctor-guy always making a face like Zoolander?

Why are the interns secretly practicing IVs on each other? Mary, Jonathan's sister learned how to do IVs in nursing school so how come these surgical interns cannot do them by now? And why is it so taboo that they practice on one another? I thought Mary told me that she and her fellow nursing students practiced on each other--that it is the best way to learn. So why are these interns hiding in some dark closet to practice IVs?

new haircut

I finally gave in and cut Blue's bangs. She's never had bangs and I am just sick and tired of trying to keep her hair out of her eyes. It just grows straight forward and falls across her face. Plus she always seems to have little bang-like pieces around her face, shorter hair that is growing in.

Last night we were in Pottery Barn Kids, watching Lion and Blue play with some other children and one little girl had bangs and hair just a little longer than Blue's and it looked pretty cute so I told Jonathan: I'm doing it.

So I did it. What do you think?

(As usual, sorry about the quality of the photo. Crappy camera. And also, ignore the background of boxes and newspapers. If you haven't heard, we're moving soon.)

bear lake

not exactly

The kids are obsessed with Spider-Man. We watch it every day and twice on Sundays. The Lionves to go around playing Spider-Man and Green Goblin and pretending to shoot spiderwebs out of his hands. Except he can't really get the fingers right so he is going around making jazz hands with cool sound effects.


So today I took the kids to get our flu shots.

And on the way home, I told them, "Tell me if you feel sore tonight, okay?"

Blue: Why would we feel sore?

me: Because you got your flu shots just now and sometimes after a shot you feel a little sore.

Blue: Oh. Just like Spider-Man's uncle got shot. And then he died.

chew your food!

Jonathan and I just love biting off more than we can chew. Case in point: Glenbogle house.

It is going to take a lot of work to get this house livable. Much less looking awesome.

I think this blog will become a "home improvement" blog before long.

"ET" was on television last night and Jonny and I were watching the end of it and it hit both of us that the house Elliot's family lives in looks a lot like Glenbogle house. Totally dated. And he asked me (Jonathan, not Elliot) if I will be happy there. Because, to be honest, it is not the sort of house I pictured myself falling in love with. I always imagined myself living in a very old house. Not a house from the late seventies. With cat pee saturated orange shag carpet:
and a horrible faux stone wall:And have we mentioned the ... sunroom ... that looks like a Denny's restaurant attached to the back of the house?

But who can explain love? I love this house. And not only will we make it habitable again, we will make it fabulous.

So back to the biting off more than we can chew part. Guess who volunteered our new home for his office Christmas party in mid December? That's right. My husband. And at first I was all excited and full of party plans. And then we realized we will have just moved in and not even finished unpacking, much less painting and who knows if we will have appliances or even floors installed yet... So Jonny called his boss and was like, "Um, yeah, hi. I think we will have to rethink the office Christmas party thing..."

Which brings me to Thanksgiving. We close on the house on Friday the 14th (our 10-year anniversary!) and will try to have flooring and appliances put in by the end of the month so we can vacate this apartment by December 1st. And Thanksgiving is somewhere in the middle there. And I have decided to try and have our very first Thanksgiving in Glenbogle house this year rather than going to a restaurant and having our first Glenbogle Thanksgiving next year. Maybe sitting Indian-style on the bare (hopefully non-cat pee smelling) subfloors with paper plates. But I am very excited about this idea. I plan to pack all of the kitchen items I will need for Thanksgiving in a specially-marked box so I can find everything I need. And not make a ton of food, since there are only 4 of us, but just the basics: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie...

And I was lying in bed the other night, just giggling as Jonathan and I predicted that all of my elaborate plans will probably come down to a box of Stove Top stuffing and those instant mashed potato flakes! So, we'll see...

He is doing okay today. Sad. But okay. But, like I said, Tante Inge had been very ill. It's just hard because the last time we saw her she was fine. We never saw her ill. We were so far removed from the situation that it feels very sudden to us.

Tante Inge's birthday is on November 29th so we were thinking of celebrating her life on that day. I will make her apfelkuchen and Jonathan volunteered to make some spaetzle (again, in Glenbogle house, so we shall see if this comes to fruition!) but we plan to go to the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster because Tante Inge loved butterflies. So we should at the very least get to the pavilion even if the apfelkuchen and spaetzle have to wait until next year!

Thank you, everybody, for your kind words and prayers. It means a lot to Jonathan. And to me.

sad news

Herbert and Inge Helmbold
celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in May 2006

Jonathan's Tante Inge passed away today in her sleep. Isn't it crazy how life can send you such an amazingly incredible emotional high and then a tragedy that causes you to crash back down to earth?

Tante Inge was very ill so this is news we have been dreading. But sort of expecting. But still completely devastating.

I don't know what I believe about what happens to our souls after we die, but I do know that I will probably "talk" to Inge a lot now and that she will be watching over the children and Jonathan and I from wherever she is now. I am so thankful for the times I got to spend with her. Our visit with them in Germany during our honeymoon. And that she showed me how to make her apfelkuchen. And that she got to meet "her boy" Jonathan's children.

O my god

making history

I am so nervous and excited and emotional today. I am so proud of Jonathan for volunteering but I also wish he were here! Because I am on such an emotional rollercoaster...

Luke Russert is on MSNBC
and I am so proud of him and teary-eyed and he looks so much like his father and I keep thinking how much Tim Russert would be enjoying today. I have a huge lump in my throat watching him.

We are making history today, whoever wins. But IhopeIhopeIhope Obama wins. I cannot imagine how I will react if/when he does. I will either cry or faint or throw up from all of the excitement.

I realize I am not making much sense. I don't even know why I sat down at the computer. I just am very restless.

I knew it

It is 2 am and I am still awake.

one day left...

I will probably not get much sleep tonight. But for some reason, I haven't been sleeping that well lately anyway, so that is nothing new. Unfortunately.

But I am so nervous and excited about Election Day.

Jonathan is taking tomorrow off and has volunteered so he will be out and about all day. I told him to pick up an Obama sign after the polls close, if he can. We already have a couple that the campaign sent us, but one from the polling location would be neat.

Funny side story. We have an Obama/Biden magnet on the side of our fridge that the campaign sent us after Jonny sent a contribution. We also have a cute little Obama finger puppet/magnet on there that Kurt and Elizabeth sent us. My mom was in the kitchen and she asked, "Where did you get this?" Meaning the cute little finger puppet. And Jonathan was in the other room and was like, "Oh, we got that in the mail after contributing to the campaign." And my Mom was all like, "And they sent you that?"

Which would have been hilarious if it were true. But the little finger puppet/magnet came in a housewarming package from Kurt and Elizabeth along with some other funny trinkets, like a Jane Austen magnet, a box of Office Space flair and some of Kurt's brilliant articles from the Free-Lance Star because, as Elizabeth so rightly said, "Nothing says thinking of you like a box of tschochkes."

So the Lion and I ran some errands today, and we bought Daddy an Obama tshirt to wear tomorrow while he is out volunteering. We plan to eventually turn the basement of Glenbogle house into a fun hang-out, complete with the ubiquitous pool table, and display all of our Democratic mementos down there. So that will be the future home of the little Obama finger puppet.

I plan to spend the day at home with the kids tomorrow, watching MSNBC all day long. I have bought some Smirnoff Ice because Target was out of Mike's Hard Lemonade (but I may have to make another trip out to find myself some dang lemonade because the Ices are just not cutting it) and I made spinach dip tonight so I can munch on that and watch the numbers come in tomorrow evening.

Jonathan is on such a high. He is so excited and claims that there is virtually no way McCain can win. I, on the other hand, am much more nervous and fearful of some kind of upset. I am still confused about how Bush managed to wrestle the election away from Gore in 2000 so I am sure that sneaky politicians could find a way to steal this election away from Obama if necessary. Somehow. But. If/when Obama becomes the first African-American elected president tomorrow, I will cry with joy.

In the meantime, I have been making spinach dip. And weeping over the death of Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, the night before her grandson possibly wins the election and makes history.


And chewing off all of my fingernails.