Making Pizza

Tuesday after swim lessons, we decided to do something we haven't done in a long time and that was make pizza. We figured Nate would enjoy it as it was something he could participate in.

Swim Lessons

Monday Nate started his "Duck" swim lessons. He is going everyday this week from 6 to 6:30pm. Next week he moves up to "Alligator" lessons. Mon and Tues, as we've left to go to the lesson, he's been crying lots and complaining that he wants to go into the spa. He says he prefers the spa and cries all the way there, repeating I want spa, I want spa right now! The above picture is him pouting in the back of the car because he doesn't want to go.



Nate with his instructor Amanda.

Right now they are teaching him to blow bubbles, kick and scoop with his arms. He has no fear of putting his face in the water. It's sort of like he is trying to head butt the pool when he puts his head down in such a violent fashion.

One of the things they try and say to get the kids to put their face in the water was to look for fishes, or to look for the shark in the drain. Nate got a kick out of this, and it reminded Maria and I of the time in Hawaii, where Nate went under a wave, came out spooked, ran up to Maria and told her he saw fishes!!!
In swim class 30 minutes before Nate is our neighbors, Jimmy and Emily. So we get there a little early to watch them and get Nate all excited about jumping into the pool.

Tony's B-day

I had met with Tony's care home and the Alta regional center on Friday for her annual review. Overall she's doing really well. The medicine has been changed and it's stopped much of her facial ticks, the tongue licking and teeth grinding. Overall she seemed to be in a great mood. Only thing was she was complaining about seeing Sherry on Sat and that Sherry was swearing about Maria and I alot.
Saturday we went back to the Orinda property and got a few more bids. We picked and ordered our blinds and decided on a carpet/laminate solution for the house. Thigs are coming together, including the total cost to get it ready for rent. It seems we're going to be about double our budget, but feel it's all coming together. Hopefully we'll have it all done before May 13th when we go on vacation.
Monday was Tony's birthday. We decided that we'd take her out on Sunday to the Rivercat's game. We knew it was going to be a challenge, it was the first time we'd try and take Nate to a game, and we decided to also bring our niece Claudia as well.

We forgot the handicap parking pass, so Tony had to walk a bit more. However when we got to the main area, they were quick to bring her a wheelchair and bring her to our seats on the grass, and they also brought her back after the game. She seemed to have a good time, enjoyed the hot dog, popcorn, frozen yogurt, lemonade etc. She was really packing in the food.
Nate and Claudia didn't seem to interested in the game. Nate was more focused on the guy making ballon animals, face painting and most importantly the bounce houses. I don't think he even realized there was a game going on. I think we could have gone to a park and had just as much fun. He did enjoy the food, but it wasn't a focus.

Pool side in April?

With the recent heat wave, we've seen our pool temp rise. It was in the mid 90's yesterday and the pool got up to 76F. Nate and I spent the late afternoon checking the pool temp. It started by sitting around the pool, dangling our feet in the water, but it took all of 2 minutes before Nate stepped in. Within 5 minutes he had everything but his head fully soaked.
Lilo on the other hand, went straight into the pool as soon as the gate was opened. Almost like the movie Marley and Me, where the dog runs through the house(For sale open house) and jumps into the pool. The owner shouts who's dog is that?

Spent most of the afternoon at Eskaton. Spent time with Lorraine and then with the staff there discussing how she's doing. She's refusing to shower and even to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. She's spending most of her days sleeping. Since she wouldn't come home with us for Easter, I tried to convince her to join us this coming Sunday as we try and celebrate Tony's birthday. We'll see how it goes.

Sunday

While Maria lay in bed, still drunk from last night's party, Nate and I got up and did some yard work. Last year we bought an umbrella, but the stand wouldn't support it. It's one of those that hang out away from the base and needs lot's of weight at the base to keep it from falling over. It say's it needs 160lbs on the base. Last year, we threw heavy items from the garage on it, but it never looked right. This year I was determined to try my hand at concrete and making a really heavy base for it. I framed it up and mixed the concrete earlier in the week, made it all around the base and then Maria, Nate and I put our hands in it. However, 2 things were clearly evident. First, I know nothing about concrete and don't have the tools to make the top finished nicely. It was a pretty ugly finish. Second, Not sure why, but the concrete cracked. I think it's how the weight distributes on the base and the amount of concrete I had or something. Maybe I had too much water or it didn't dry thoroughly. Anyway, it looked horrible. So I decided to try and finish the base off in redwood to help hide the concrete.
The above picture is early in the base development. We had moved the base to where we think we want it. Very heavy, added to the cracking. Then Nate joined in and we got it almost finished before we ran out of scrap redwood I had laying around. I'll need to make a trip to the hardware store to get the final pieces and finish it off.


Sun afternoon, met Brad and Shawn for lunch at BJ's and then we played a round of golf at Timber Creek. Not one of my shining moments, shot a 105. I really need to practice, especially before league starts on Wed. Came home, played some Call of Duty: World at War, it was double points weekend, stayed up way to late.

Jimmy's Bday take 2

We had a great weekend. Sat was a blast, busy and fun family day. We spent most of the daylight hours helping our neighbor's celebrate their son Jimmy's Birthday. They rented a bounce house. The kids really love those. Although, I think parents love them more, because they wear the kids out.
Later in the day as the weather warmed up, the bounce house had a hose attachment that allowed water to go down the slide. The kids really liked combining water with bouncing. None of the kids really had bathing suits with them, but of course that never stops a kid from jumping in the water.

Here's Jimmy enjoying his water slide.



Standing next to Nate is Jake Green. No relation, but our neighbors also share the same last name. Their youngest Jake, loves to play with Nate and wakes up asking for him. Here Jake is intently showing Nate something.
The fun part of the party. Cake!!! What a great cake. Nate couldn't get over the fact that the cake wasn't for him and that he couldn't blow out the candles. So as we pulled him away to make room for Jimmy, Nate started to cry. The tears didn't last long, as we were able to take a candle and put it in Nate's slice, so he was able to blow out a candle too.


Maria had to leave the party early, we had promised to make her Sesame chicken for the Sushi/Poker party we were going to. So while she went and cooked chicken, I hung out with Nate for a few hours at the B-day party and went home around 5. Our Neighbor Kali came over and watched Nate, we figured he'd go down quick as tired as he was, while we went to the next party. As we left, Nate was showing Kali how to dance on the Wii to Disney's Dance Dance Revolution.

The poker part was, as usual awesome. It felt great to have a night out. Seems like we haven't done that in quite some time. We also got a chance to catch up with lot's of people we haven't seen in awhile. Nice to interact with adults once in awhile and not have to worry about the kids. We didn't win any money playing poker, but did manage to drink a lot and eat sushi. Maria got really wasted, could barely walk. Came home and broke the bed. Well not really, but it did collapse. Had to pull her off the bed to fix it and she nearly passed out on the floor. Here it is Monday and she's still hung over.

Bounce time

Jimmy's Bday party. Nate says it's more fun than ice cream!!! Bounce house with water feature.








Sent from my iPhone Michael Green

Easter Bunny - Extra Photo

The Easter bunny with his flock of little bunnies, Jake, Jimmy, Nate, Emily.

Easter

What a wonderful Easter. We spread our Easter celebration over 2 days. On Sat we had Tony come home along with German and Dina. We wanted to have Lorraine come with us, but when Nate, Tony and I showed up to pick her up, she refused to go. She said she was not feeling well and wouldn't let us get to close. I think overall she was really depressed and didn't feel like doing much. We still had a good time. We got Tony a Hello Kitty themed Easter basket and she really liked it. One of the things in her basket was some chalk. When Nate saw it, he was quick to tell her that only to be used outside. Funny how you can hear Maria in his comments.


On Sunday, we started the day with Nate getting all dressed in his new Easter outfit. He helped me clean up and prepare our back yard for the party we were set to have in the afternoon. The Easter Bunny came by and dropped off a basket for Nate, which as you can see he was really excited to get. It had lot's of Disney themed items in it, Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse etc. He also got some backyadigains toys. He's still really into the coins, so he got some of those really large toy coins, of course to Nate they're all quarters.

At 1pm, the neighborhood kids came by and joined the family as there was rumor that the Easter bunny was coming by. Nate was joined by his cousin Claudia, his buddy Jimmy pictured above. Below is Jimmy and his sister Emily posing for a photo op with the Easter Bunny.

Seen in the photo below is the kids rushing out to meet the bunny. Also pictured here is Jake, one of Nate's admirer's. Jake's brother Logan was not able to join us, but Jake had a great time. There's not to many photos of Claudia with the Easter Bunny as she was scared of the 6 foot rabbit.


After the Easter bunny moved on, Nate and Jimmy worked with Tom to see how far they could launch rockets. Tom helped set up the system and the kids loved jumping to see how far they could go. They succeeded in launching all the rockets into the neighbors yards.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail

We were getting ready for the Easter celebration and I wanted to post a few photos and videos. We had Nate dye eggs. Maria didn't want to do this, only thought about the mess that would be made. So while she was updating her Chile blog, I decided we'd just go ahead and start. She eventually joined us, but Nate and I got everything started.

We started with the standard PAAS dye kits that I remember from my childhood. While they now include more add on's (Stickers, holders, shrink wrap) it's still the dye tablet, vinegar, water and a hard boiled egg. We had 1 dozen eggs to work with and we started out by getting lot's of newspaper out to prevent spills. We didn't want to make Baba mad.

Nate's got a very cute habit now, makes it hard to correct him. As soon as we tell him he's done something wrong, or not to do something, he immediately says "I Sorry". It's so cute.

Run Dog Run

I've mentioned it before, but Lilo really likes running on the treadmill. Here's a little video of her doing it. She was going at 5 MPH, which seems to be a nice little jog for her. This was a short run for the video, but she went for about 25 minutes earlier today. It's been great getting her some exercise when the weather hasn't been great for taking her outside to play or walk. It helps burn off some of that puppy energy.



We saw Marley and Me the other night, and were surprised at how good it was. We can certainly relate to a lot of the things in the movie. In particular the point where she's screaming to get rid of the dog while trying to take care of the kids. Lilo is no where near as bad as Marley was, she has a lot more discipline, but still understand the frustration. Couldn't believe how bad Kathleen Turner looked in the movie. That was Jessica Rabbit.

Good Friday

Getting ready for a busy weekend. Sat we have Lorraine, Tony, German and Dina coming over to celebrate Easter. Funny thing is the last two times we've talked with Lorraine she's had some pretty wild stories and seems very standoffish with Maria. Once she told Maria she was not feeling well and didn't want to talk to her because she was having cramps, because it was her time of the month. Today, she told Maria that she didn't want to come to Easter because she has emphysema. Our speculation is that Sherry is calling and telling Lorraine what a horrible person Maria is. Sherry knows Lorraine won't listen to her bad mouth me, so all Sherry's anger is being vented on Maria. If that's the case, it's really shallow on Sherry's part. I'm not sure what to do. We're still planning on bringing the gang back here, but not sure how it will go. I guess we'll know more tomorrow.

Sunday, we're having the rest of the family over to celebrate Easter. We're expecting a visit from the Easter Bunny, who has said he'll be here around 1 to deliver eggs and play with the kids. We're all excited to see him.

We're about to dye Easter eggs today, should be fun. Nate's never done it before. I know he wants to, but doesn't know what it is he's really asking for. He's been spending a lot more time drawing and coloring lately, so this should be right up his alley. We're going to Mikuni's for dinner tonight, can't eat meat because it's good Friday, so sushi here we come.

Yesterday we took Nate to the mall to see the Easter Bunny and get his photo taken. He didn't want to go, and we had a hard time getting him to give us a good smile. The smirk we caught was the best we could do, but it sure looks like he knows something we don't.

Dinner in Davis

Rocket Ships

Took Bryan Gessaro out for lunch on Tuesday. It was his birthday last week, and about the only time we seem to chat these days is when we get around to taking each other out to lunch for each others birthday's. He's got a two kids now, his little boy is a little older than Nate and he was telling me about their fun launching rockets. I thought with all Nate's excitement around flyin gthings he'd be really into that too. So I started to look at Hobbytown for rocket kits, but quickly got side tracked by work. I did get a few minutes to check something out on Amazon and found a $15 rocket toy that I thought would be fun starter for Nate. It's nothing like the model rockets Bryan does, but it was plenty to get Nate excited. Here's a video of the rocket launch and another of my evening routine now that the weather is warm, playing catch with Lilo and entertaining Nate, this time with his rocket launcher.




Playing catch and launching rockets