Nate Tries Skiing

Yesterday we told Nate that when the sun went down, then the sun come up and we'd go skiing. So, after the second night in a row of sleeping the whole night in his own room (Yeah!) he came in to our bedroom at 6:15am and said sun is up let's go skiing. And that began our day. We woke, ate breakfast, packed, got dressed in our ski gear and headed up the mountain to Soda Springs. For $25 they have an all day snow park, with inner tubes, a little ski run and an inner tube merry go round thing.

We arrived around 10am, got his ticket and made the trek over to the snow park. He got his little ski's and snow boots, no poles and we headed over to see what his first day of skiing was going to be like.
Not much for having instructors there, it was very much parent interaction and involvement. I asked one of the folks who worked there how to begin. She sat down in front of Nate and told him to bend his knees, lean forward and if he wanted to stop, make a big slice of pizza with his ski's. Nate went about a foot, she stopped him, he did it again and I said I'd help him the rest of the way down the mountain. We did two runs down the hill like that, the second, I was running backwards down the hill while he chased me. By the third time, he told me to get out of his way and he went down all by himself. That was it, after that he was hooked and couldn't get enough. He went down about 6 or 7 more times before he wanted to stop and eat. We'd packed hot chocolate, sandwiches and some snacks and made a little picnic in the snow.
Afterwords a few more ski runs before we went over to do the tubing. At the tubing place, Nate saw a snowman, so we built our first snow man, but he destroyed it before we could get too many pictures.

We then played in the fresh area of the snow, rolled down the mountain and had a great time. He then wanted to get back to skiing and we went for another 10 runs or so before we finally called it a day. We could tell he was getting tired and started to fall/crash into other skiers. It didn't stop him, barely slowed him down. He wanted to stay, but I felt it was time for us to leave. We headed back down the hill and was home around 4. He slept most of the way home and when we got there, while we were tired, he was ready to go play.

I took him out back to play catch with Lilo and decided to turn on the spa for us to relax in. While playing catch, Nate kept going to check the front yard to see if our neighbors, and his new posse were playing out front. Sure enough, Jake, Logan, Jimmy and Emily gathered for their afternoon biking session. Nate wanted to join in, so we went out front and played for 1bout an hour and a half. When the other kids went inside for dinner, I grabbed Nate, we went home and put on our swim trunks and hooped into the spa. We through the ball to Lilo, so she went swimming in the cold pool, while we hung out in the spa. Everyone ran inside, we took a shower, ate dinner and I read him stories while he quickly fell asleep. I have to believe there was not much else we could have crammed into what must have been an almost perfect day for Nate. All the things he loved, he was able to do in a single day.
Tomorrow Nate is going to Nene's house and is going to spend the day with Claudia. It'll be good for the kids to hang out together. Maria is thinking of trying to arrange a more frequent rotation with them so we can give each other more time and give the kids regular play sessions. Maria's even thinking she might volunteer to take Claudia some days to give Nate someone else to interact with, hoping to make it easier on her.

Socks

Nate is wearing daddy's socks. We are getting ready to go skiing.

Nate in rain

Nate wanted to use an umbrella.

Actually No!

Nate's latest little saying is putting "Actually" before he answers a question. So you can ask if he wants to eat dinner and he answers, umm Actually No!

My dad came to visit on Tuesday. Wanted to upgrade the hard drive in his PC. We changed his 40GB drive for a 1.5TB drive and got everything copied over. It went surprisingly well, which seems to be unusual when dealing with PC upgrades. G-pa, Maria and Nate went to Costco and got some shopping done, while I was working and then we had a nice BBQ before we called it a day.

Sherry called me 8 times yesterday, left 8 voice mail messages, each 4 min in length, before the machine runs out of room. In those messages, the basic theme was that IO was taking things from her mom's house that she wanted or felt was hers. The two main things she thought I took were a down comforter and some dishes, neither of which I did, nor do I know anything about them. It's been difficult dealing with her. She called again today and left a more nasty message which prompted me to call her and try and set the record straight. While she claims she wasn't accusing, but merely asking, I don't know that a rational person would agree after listening to the messages. I did tell her that we were looking at making the house available to rent and that we needed to empty everything out of it. I gave her until March 15th to remove any and all things she wants from the house and I will then clean it up after that. I guess the good news is that there may be less work for me to do.

It was clear on the call that Sherry is having a difficult time dealing with her mom dying. I know she was in tears when all was said in done, but she wants to blame me for the fact that life is hard, people get old and die. I know she struggles, wanting to place blame or fault or have someone or something to go after, but it annoys me that she has to pin it all on me. At least she was understanding and supportive of getting the house ready to rent, despite her feeling bad that she had to deal with any of this while Lorraine was alive.

On to happier news, I guess that means I won't have to work on the house for the next few weekends, so we're planning on taking Nate up to the snow on Sat. Would like to try and get him up on ski's. We're thinking of going to a small resort like Soda Springs, so he can get a lesson and we can see how he does. The following weekend is Maria's birthday and the Cottles are coming and we're planning on spending the weekend in Tahoe, with some skiing, gambling and dining. Should be fun.

I'm now on a conf call with the JOEM's, HP customers in Japan, as I have been all week, and can't wait for this set of meetings to end. Makes for very long days. Nate's out front riding his bike with Jake and Logan, while Maria is chatting with Jessica. Glad to see Nate get out and play with the neighbor kids. Funny it started with him and I in the back playing catch with Lilo, when he went to the gate and saw "others" out front and pulled me to go let him play with them. Kind of cute actually.

Have a good night,

YOU make me sad!

So Nate's latest little exclamation when he doesn't get his way, is "You Make me Sad" or sometimes the variation don't make me sad. He usually pull sit out when he's told to do something he doesn't want to, or is forced to go to timeout, or gets yelled at. An example would be when he's eating and starts kicking Maria, she hates it, tells him to stop, he keeps it up, she yells louder then tells him to go to time out, he cries and says Baba you make me sad.
Been trying week. With all of us sick, haven't been able to do much. Maria finally turned the corner on Tuesday and has been getting better. Nate still has the swollen lymph nodes, but otherwise is not acting sick at all. I've been struggling with a sore throat, fever and headache. Today is the first day I'm feeling better than the previous. Hopefully I've turned a corner as well. Haven't exercised in a week and feel like a slug.
We were hoping to get to Lorraine's for a visit, but with our sickness, I'm afraid to give any of it to her. Same goes for Tony, who fell and broke her ankle this week. Hasn't been a good week for all involved. Tony's fine, or at least as fine as you can be with a broken ankle. She was at her program when she fell and broke it. Hopefully we'll feel better and can get her to see her mom. I know that will cheer her up.
We did get some good news on the condo, looks like we have a renter who wants to sign a 1 year lease, so that will be a big help and load off of our mind. We really need to dedicate some time to Lorraine's house, hopefully we'll get over our sickness and start to really see some progress. I was hoping to have it ready to rent by end of March, we'll see how that goes.
Sat was a great day, weather wise. Nate has been dying to get outside, and we were able to take him out and play in the street with the neighbor kids. They have one of those electronic ride in cars/jeep things that go 2.5-5MPH A pretty good pace. Nate loves to run around in them, but he has a ways to go before he gets a license. He steers, but doesn't look where he's going. He rode his bike and scooter with the kids and the adults hung out and chatted. Nothing too exciting, but at least we were outside. It's raining this morning, so not much to do today. Trying to figure out how to keep everyone entertained.
Maria has now seen all the best picture Oscar nominee's, I've seen all of them but Milk. Just couldn't get into that. I'd rate them 1. Slumdog Millionaire. 2. Frost/Nixon. 3. Benjamin Button and 4. The Reader. I liked the india aspect of Slumdog, and I though the music was great too. Good story and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was surprised by Frost/Nixon, I knew the history, but certainly don't remember it. And I should say I knew the history of Nixon, never heard of the interview. It was a great story and I love the Nixon performance, amazing, easy to understand why he was nominated for best actor. Benjamin Button wasn't bad, a bit long, generally a feel good story like Forrest Gump, but didn't feel anything overwhelming about it. It was good, but nothing too special. The reader, was pretty boring to me. I thought the concept was good, but it really dragged on, not something I'd normally watch. Finally we watched The Wrestler last night. Mickey Rourke was nominated for best actor, I can see why. I've never been a fan of wrestling, so I wasn't excited to see it, but overall it held my interest. I'd say either he or Frank Langhella the guy who played Nixon should win. Maria, who saw Milk, said she though Sean Penn for Milk was right there too. A toss up. I'm rooting for Nixon as I think I overall enjoyed that film more.
Now, to entertain the boy for the day, any suggestions for a rainy day with him?

Back to "Normal"

Well, the family is back together again. Maria and Nate arrive home on Sat. What a welcome sight, loved picking them up at the airport and ensuring they made it all the way home safe and sound. Nate fell asleep on the way home, but woke up shortly after arriving home. He was only mildly excited about his new "Ka-Chow" bed. Yeah, I wound up buying it for him after he asked for it again last week. I was surprised he still remembered, so I figure it was something really stuck in his head. The Roseville Costco was out, but the Folsom one had 5, so Shawn was nice enough to pick it up on his way home from work for me. Luckily, the price was down another $100, so I got it for 50% off the online price. Spent 5 hours putting the dang thing together. Nate liked it, but was upset that it didn't move.
Sunday, Nate went to spend the day with Aggie, and we got about 6 hours together, before she called in a panic. Nate had a scratch on his neck and his glands were swollen. We wound up taking him to the Dr on Monday. Nothing serious, just a viral infection and his glands are working overtime. They ran a bunch of tests, required us to draw blood, which was a painful process to go through, not sure who it hurt the most. Got the results today and nothing out of the ordinary, just what the DR expected. However now Maria is sick too. So while they're back, they're not feeling good.
Maria and I did get to see Slumdog Millionaire. Maria got all caught up on Biggest Loser, Survivor, Saturday Night Live, Big Bang Theory and about half of the Bachelor's. Still need to catch up on Lost, Law & Order, Top Chef and Hells Kitchen. Such important stuff.
We reserved a hotel in Tahoe for Maria's birthday weekend. Mike and Lilia are coming up without the kids for an adult getaway weekend. Should be a lot of fun.
Back at work today, not much else new. Seems strange to actually be back in the office instead of working from home. It's going to take me awhile to get back into this routine.

Take care.

Almost There

I'm about to call it a very long day. By the time I wake up in the morning, Maria and Nate should be boarding a plane to begin their journey back to LA and they'll be closing the chapter on their journey. Which means I'm about to close a chapter on mine as well. I'm very excited about seeing them. I miss them terribly. It's been a very interesting month. While I knew it would be different, I'm not sure I did everything I expected to do.

Looking back now on what I accomplished versus what I thought I was going to do, I come to the same realizations I have every other day of my life, there just isn't enough time to get it all done. You find you make time for some things, hopefully, if you're doing it right, they're the things you value most. When I look at the last 4 weeks, I can say that my priorities have been working, golfing, my dog and my fitness. I fell short of my intentions in terms of seeing Lorraine, mostly because she was sick. The incident with Tony's seizure also changed some of my intentions there, however overall about what I expected. The house is still standing, in fact I even made a few repairs, mostly with paint and spackle. Got a tray made for Aggie's Xmas decorations. Did laundry and kept the mess to a minimum, luckily I haven't had to do much to clean here in the last few days. I didn't leave the house as much as I thought I might, wound up working from home alot. Recovered a PC crash from a bad hard drive and isolated the issue with Maria's laptop. I'm nearly ready for valentine's day, just need to figure out what to do for dinner. After all, they'll be too jet lagged to do anything too special. Didn't go skiing like I wanted, not sure if it was laziness or not wanting to do it alone, probably a bit of both, with a little lack of new snow thrown in. I did get my taxes done and have a strategy for the next steps with Lorraine's house, but the hard work is still to come there. Back yard is in a bit worse shape than I'd like, but didn't plan to have so many issues with the dog and she tore up the back yard quite a bit. All in all, I guess I'd grade my time a B. I could've done a little less HP work and had some more me time to accomplish a bit more, but like when Maria's here, I always struggle to minimize that piece. Got the major things done I wanted to accomplish and had some fun. Overall, glad it's coming to end and I can be back with my family and get back to the normal routine, which is anything but normal or routine.

I'd chat more about V-day plans, but if Maria reads this, I don't want to spoil anything. It's not much anyways, things are tight now, and it's a down economy. We'll save anything major for her birthday coming up. Looks like Mike and Lilia will be joining us for skiing in Tahoe. Looking to book a room at Harvey's for a night or two. That should be a fun getaway.

Time to hit the sack, and plan out the last few things to do before maria gets here. I know I need to catch up on laundry and file away Lorraine's '08 paperwork, but I keep thinking I'm missing something else. Maybe it'll come to me while I'm dreaming.

Good night!

Lilo

Took Lilo to the dog park yesterday. She was super obsessive. I made her walk around the dog park before we went in. She was crying and whining, couldn't wait to play. When she did get in, all she wanted to do was fetch. Well, it was going well until another dog wanted to join in. They both grabbed the Frisbee and Lilo got upset and nipped at the other dog. Wound up biting the other dogs lip, drew some blood. I felt really bad. It was really the other dogs fault, but you never know how an owner will react. Following that, took her home and left her in the back yard while I went to RC Wiley to pick up Nate's portable DVD player, and Safeway for some milk. Then I came home, let her in and starting doing chores around the house. Of course, as she usually does after the dog park, she waited until she came in to puke in the office and in our bedroom, including up on the curtains. Spent the next 45 minutes cleaning the mess up.

Been Awhile

I really need to do this more frequently, I'm sure I'm missing some updates. Funny how I thought I'd have more time with Maria and Nate gone, but I actually don't seem to have any more time.
Speaking of them, the most recent update is that they are leaving the Island on Thursday and taking th ebus back, will arrive 7am local time. Staying with Nicole through the weekend, so far been prmised to have Internet, then back to Sabine's for the last few days before she heads home. Her mail from Yesterday, she tells of Carlos taking the SeaDoo out and spraying Salvador and Nate who were on the shore. It spooked Salvador, but Nate loved it and kept shouting again again. He seems to really like the SeaDoo. Something for us to think about getting, if there was any lakes around here with water in them to do those things. One other interesting note, I guess there was a bit of excitement when one of the tree's there caught on fire. Everyone ran to put it out and it was all taken care of before the fire dept got there, but it spooked the kids and made everyone a little nervous. Here's a photo of them on the beach, then I'll continue below.


I just finished a call with Aggie, she went to visit Lorraine today. She mentioned that she wasn't doing too well. I think this cold is really getting to her. I know Eskaton called and said they wanted to change her "memory" medicine, but no update from them on her cold. I'm going to go visit her tomorrow, hopefully she's feeling better. I know they put her on antibiotics this week. I've also started a more regular dialogue with the attorney about what we can do with her house and what the best scenario is. Hopefully we'll get some paperwork drawn up in the next two weeks.
I went to the bay area yesterday, played golf with my dad at Tilden Golf Course. As the guy who played with us joked, it shoul dhave been called tilting golf course. I don't think there was a level lie anywhere on the course. Ball was always above or below your feet. Overall a nice course. I played a bit better on the back than the front. Shot a 93, on a par 70 course. Had 2 birdies, and actually had an eagle shot on the par 5 on the back, I reached the back edge of the green in 2. Definatley interested in playing it again, but it will probably be a long time before I do. Afterwards, we drove over to Lorraine's house their in Orinda. I wanted to check in on the place and see how it's holding up. Also need to asses what we're going to need to do to get it ready either for sale or for rent. Either way we need to clean it out and that's going to be a lot of work. Then we headed over to Casper's for a hot dog and I made the long drive home.

Over the weekend, I played golf with Shawn and John out at Wildhorse in Davis on Sat. Another new course I hadn't played before. Nice, green's were very fast. Some interesting holes. I shot a 96, but that was with 6 penalty shots. Funny, but felt I played a lot worse than I actually scored. Sunday I went to Brad and Kim's to watch the SuperBowl. Good game, better than I thought it would be. Played a little poker afterwards, but there was only 5 of us, so it went quick. Felt a little odd being out without Maria. Not used to going out solo.

On Friday, I was at home when I got text message from Rich Ramos asking me what Taro's balls were. For those that don't know, Taro is the owner of Mikuni's Roseville, as well as several other Mikuni's. Anyway, they're actually called Japanese Bon Bon's, they're fish, I like Hamachi, wrapped around crab meat and shaped like balls. Anyway, I was bitter he was at Mikuni's without me, and so he invited me down. I headed down and met up with him and Ian. We had a beer and some sushi, before agreeing to head back to my place for some Scotch and cigars. I think Ian, who's Scotish, was a little jealous over my golf trip and the Scotch I had around here. But their girls started to nag almost before we got to my place, so the night ended rather early. We agreed to go out this coming Sunday for some golf, then come back to my place and finish what we started, hopefully they will have permission this time out.

Going further back, I took Lorraine out to dinner at Crush 29 on Thursday. It was just the two of us. We had a nice dinner, but it landed in my stomach a little wrong and I didn't feel well on Friday. The night was a little long, as most dinner's with Lorraine are. It was a 3 hour dinner, but Lorraine barely spoke. She doesn't have much to talk about, so it makes for a difficult conversation. She was not feeling her best, but was really excited to get out. I think she needs the outside stimulation because otherwise she won't get out of bed.

That's about it for tonight, I finished my 6.5mi run, so now I got to shower, finish dinner and try and get some sleep. Got a long day tomorrow. Need to get to Lowe's and get some paint so I can patch of the walls from where the dog has tried to eat through them.

Talk to you all later,