Amanda's 12th Birthday

For Amanda's birthday, I took her and 3 of her girlfriends to the mall for lunch and a day of shopping. Then, we ended the day with milkshakes at Ruby's Diner.

The next day, we had a family lunch at our house. It was a very nice day, complete with an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins!!

Click on either of the photos to see all the fun!

Happy Birthday to Austin & Bob

We celebrated Austin and Bob's birthday with a family gathering on January 7. We had a nice lunch with the family. The boys got tickets to the Sonics vs. Utah Jazz game (which turned out to be one of the best games all year). As you can tell, Austin also got some cool Sonics garb.

The next weekend, Austin had a birthday party with his friends. We rented out a gym at the MLT Rec center. He and his friends played basketball for almost 2 hours. I made Austin a music CD with cool basketball tunes to dunk by.

After basketball, we moved to one of the rec center party rooms for cake, presents,
and some fun party games.
By the way, it snowed that week and the roads were still fairly icy. Luckily, we managed to get most of Austin's buddy to to the party!

Click on any of the photos to see all the fun!

Dancin' Divas (like mother, like daughter)

I started dancing when I was very young and have kept it as a part of my life (when I can). My daughter caught the dancing bug at an early age as well. She has been dancing since the age of 3.

It's great having a daughter who shares my passion for dance. Dance is my therapy and "forces" me to take time out from my busy week to do something for myself (which also helps me keep in shape).

The photos shown here are from our 2006 Recital. Click on any photo to view its complete album. The video below showcases our 2006 season. Enjoy!

These are the days...

This is my first post on my new blog. I created this blog as sort of a diary of my life as a mom. Being a busy, working mom can make for whirlwind days and, before you know it, they are grown and in college. We have so much going on, it's hard to remember everything you need to do or have done.

I want to remember every crazy moment, so that is why I've created this blog. I'm going to encourage my kids to participate in this blog too. I hope that we can keep this blog going for many years. I think it will be fun for my kids and I to reflect back to all that we have done and all the accomplishments we have made.

So that's it in a nutshell... who would have thought my legacy would be a blog.

Congrats Erika & Jeff

Raccoon family in our back yard

This raccoon family came to dinner in our back yard to nibble on plums and cherries. After dinner, they played follow the leader with our cat, Trouble (RIP - our Trouble kitty was killed by a coyote in September of 2004). Many times I have found the raccoons sleeping on our back porch.