Daddy's birthday dance

Last month, Dad turned ??. The girls performed a little dance just for him, all decked out in their baseball best...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!

time to play catch up

New summer, new summer song, "The Climb"... time to switch into summer mode. So we'll see how long the kids let me sleep in, how many parks we can hit in 2 months, and all the vacations in between. Until, then, time to catch up on the blog and we're we've been the last month...

Nani's 99th

This is my grandmother, Edna K. Shaefers and she is my inspiration. She was born May 31, 1910. Last Friday we celebrated her 99th birthday! She is one amazing woman who has lived an incredible life thus far and always has a positive attitude. We celebrated her birthday at Perche No, her favorite Italian restaurant in Seattle, where they all know her by name. Nani and Gran (my mother, Jayne)

Nani had her own birthday concert given by her great-granddaughters, Audrey, Elise, and Margot. They were the hit of the restaurant! Nani and her great grandaughters (Audrey, Elise, Celeste, Margot, Natalia, and Sacia)The cousins got their own "private " table!
The girls LOVE their cousin, Taylor. They tried and tried to get him to open a helium balloon so they could talk like Mickey Mouse. "C'mon Taylor, where's your sense of adventure? Pretty please with a cherry on top?" Taylor, Andrew and Lauren - more great grandchildren Nice look, Becky. It's so hard to get a teenager to just smile pretty. Aunt Sandrine and Aunt Trish, "say (parmesan) cheese" Daddy and Natty looking at Nani's pretty birthday cards The two youngest grandaughters (Sacia and Natty). They spent most of the evening playing on the stairs with the balloons and being happy just doing that.

Seattle Sounders FC

Tim knows just what he wants for his birthday...you can try and suprise him, but he always guesses his gift. This year he decided to treat himself and us and bought several tickets to the Mariner's baseball games this summer and two tickets to a Seattle Sounders FC soccer game. So far he's taken Becky, Audrey, and I to a Mariner's game. That leaves 2 more games for Celeste and Sophia. I was lucky enough to go to my first professional soccer game which was like nothing I had imagined. It was so different than any other professional sporting event I'd been to. I sort of felt like I was watching a Harry Potter's Quidich game (the fan attire of choice were scarves...even before the game started the recently retired Seattle Seahawks coach walked the red carpet to recieve his special award...a golden scarf.) But then it sort of felt like a college football game (rowdy fan section which chanted all sorts of special cheers only they could understand. Then, I heard a live band and sure enough, the Sounders have their own band...kind of strange.) But the food wasn't quite college hot dogs and popcorn. We enjoyed a great international buffet right before the game. Here's the band with the space needle looking kind of tiny in this shot.

What a fun time we had! The game was so fast moving and exciting...yellow cards, red cards. I left realizing I didn't know what half of the referee calls meant. Next time I'll bring my little portable AM radio so I can listen to the "play by play"...oh wait that's baseball :-)

Bushed Bambi

Look...Look closer...We found this fawn in the middle of our road, mom nowhere in sight. We tried to get it to move, but it was too tired. Tim figured it was trying to keep up with mom getting up a hill and just exhausted itself. After flinching at first, eventually Tim was able to pick it up and put it down in the grass. We saw mom waiting in the woods and after 30 min. or more, she finally went back over to her baby. We checked 15 min. later and they were gone. We saw the mom earlier in the week looking pregant, so we think the fawn was just a day or 2 old. So sweet!

Welcome Home!

I forgot to add one last Puerto Rico picture. As we stepped off the plane, back home after a long day of planes and airports. We were greeted by a most wonderful brood of crazy children waiting for us a baggage claim. They were all dressed up with crazy hats, crazy clothes and one big sign which said, "The Geriatric Club welcomes Tim and Jolie". Tim took one look at that sight and quickly turned the other way, making sure everybody in the airport knew they didn't belong to him. But, that didn't work for long...they found him, hugged him and after that there was no use denying it. Gotta love our crazy daughters!!!

Puerto Rico 2009!!

After catching up on mounds of laundry, jumping back into mom chauffer duties, and answereing the work call that didn't go away just because we did....we finally have a moment to blog about our incredible trip to Puerto Rico. Just Tim and I... the honeymoon we never had! Tim had a great year at work and was nominated to go to the Pitney Bowes (PB1) conference in Puerto Rico for a week of sun, fun, and relaxtion with a little bit of work tucked here and there, all expences paid! It was my first time to a tropical destination and it was everything I had imagined and more!First we said "adios" to the kiddos and left them in the care of their fun (and we hoped cabable), big sister, Vanessa! They had a great time with her and I think hardly missed us at all! When we left for the airport, I realized I had forgotton my camera, sunglasses, sunscreen, and cell phone! I didn't realize how attached I was to my pda (my brain) and felt like I literally left my brain at home. It turned out to be a good thing...I really unplugged and relaxed. It was all good until having no sunscreen, no way to tell time, and a day of hot sun got the best (or worst) of me...you'll see/read more about that later. Anyway...one of the most memorable things we did was go to El Yunque Caribbean National Forest. The sights, the sounds were incredible. The canopy was thick and so was the humidity...but that is what makes everything grow so big. The plant leaves were huge. Nestled inside were the little coqui frogs which seredaded us as we hiked among waterfalls. We didn't see many of these guys, but we heard them from the time we awoke each morning to their singing us to sleep. We stayed at El Conquistador Resort which was pretty amazing. The rooms were ok, but the views, the 7 pools, the waterpark, the beaches, and of course the pina coladas were

"tolerable" :-).
View of the resort from the ferry which took us from our room to Palomino Island in 8 min. where we spent a day, sunning (burning) and swimming among the tropical fish.As we were about to leave, I realized we didn't get any pics on the island. I dragged Tim over to the shore for a quick shot as the sky began to swirl and the palm trees began to sway (kind of violently too). There was this tiny little island across the water with just a few palm trees. I tried to get more of that in the pictures, but the weather and our disposable camera just weren't cooperating. Oh well...after a "click" of the camera, we ran for cover under a tiki hut, until the sun came out 5 minutes later. You wouldn't even know we had a rain/wind storm. As quickly as it came, it left, and we ventured back out to our loungers, ordered another pina colada and relaxed....(until the next weather burst came) After a few more, we decided to call it a day....running to the ferry for cover.You can't really see it here, but I got one heck of a sunburn. I didn't realize Puerto Rican sun and Seattle sun are quite different. After shedding a few layers of skin a week later, I'm back to myself with a little color to show for it. Lesson learned!!We spent much of our time with Tim's co worker, Kathy and her friend Tom. We joined them for a fabulous seafood dinner outside near the ferry dock. We also enjoyed our atv ride, wii party, and dancing with them. I think my shirt is the same color as my skin...ouch!Our last day, Saturday we went for a atv ride throught the forest. It was hot, it was stinky, but it was FUN, especially when you ride on the back with Tim at the wheel. It was really up to him what kind of ride we got. The line of quads was slow and steady. There were about 25 of us. But Tim just held back a little right before each puddle and gunned it. Woo Hoo!...so we got a little muddy, what's fun without a little mud, right?? Kind of hurt on the sunburn, but hey how often fo you get to ride quads in Puerto Rico?!There were several old dogs just laying around the ATV barns. Here is fido, thinking the bench is the best place for cool ventilation.We stopped for a little break on our ride next to a river. The guides took some colored rocks and mixed them with water to draw on the bigger boulders in beautiful reds and browns. Some people in our group really got into it and painted their faces with the stone paint. Our last night Jim Belushi and his band were the entertainment for the evening. The pictures are pretty fuzzy, but he was out in the crowd dancing with everyone. This was the 2nd night of live entertainment. Even though Tim resisted at first, I finally got him out on the dance floor. After a few songs, we couldn't sit him down! Oh, how I wish I had some pictures of that!

Part of PBMS (Pitney Bowes Management Services). We were with this group a few times during the week. Kathy and Tom, Loran and his wife, and Joe Gomez.