After 16 years, I'm becoming Matt...

This morning when I woke up, my first thought was not that this is our anniversary. I'm not quite sure what my first thought was, but remembering that it's our anniversary didn't happen for about an hour. When I did remember it, I thought ,"oh, how nice. It's our anniversary", and then moved onto my next thought. So, you see how I'm becoming Matt, lol. I wonder if this should be alarming? It doesn't feel like it, but still. He's been alarming to me for 16 years, and now I am him.

We are celebrating tomorrow though. We already had it planned, so I guess that's one reason I wasn't thinking about it so much. We'll be celebrating by making Ella watch Eva and Sophie while we go out :)

Aunt Eileen

I just came home from a meeting tonight, and my mother called to tell me my great aunt Eileen passed away this morning. She was just shy of her 90th birthday. I will miss her, even though I only met her a few times. She was my maternal grandfather's sister, and lived her entire life in Kansas. I always wished that her family had moved out to California with my grandpa, then we could have known her better. That's Eileen in the baby buggy, with my grandfather on the left, and their sister Dorothy on the right, just shortly after their mother died in the flu epidemic of 1918.

It's strange to think that little baby just died today!

I mentioned I only met her a few times. This was because they lived so far away, but the families always kept in contact. She was always so fun when we were with her, and there was something about her that just made me want to be in her presence. She was light hearted and always laughing or smiling, and had a way of saying things in her mid western accent that that was so charming. Like when we saw her in two years ago, I remember saying something facetious, and she said, "well Rachel, I'm just gonna have to kill you sometime." It was so funny the way she said it, like she was saying she was going to have to give me a great big hug sometime.

We were so lucky to get to go see her two summers ago. We (the girls and I) drove my mom out to Kansas to see her (yes, I said drove). She was just like I remembered her, but older. She was still puffin' away on her unfiltered cigarettes like crazy, but had the youngest sounding voice of anyone her age I'd known, even though she'd smoked since she was about 20 years old. She tired easily and took a lot of naps, but was her funny old self. I don't know why I remember this so well, but when my grandfather was very ill right before he died when I was 15, she came out to see him, and one day we ate at Jack in the Box. We all had french fries, and I always squeezed some ketchup out of a packet onto a place-mat. But Aunt Eileen tore off the top of the ketchup packet all the way across, and then dipped her french fries into the packet. I just thought that was genius, lol! I ate my french fries that way for a couple of years.

I talked to her on the phone quite a few times over the last few years, and she always made me feel so special, for lack of a better word. Our girls fell in love with her immediately! We'll miss her!!!!! RIP Aunt Eileen

Stray cat owns family

We don't know who owns this cat, but this cat seems to own us. Someone in the neighborhood recently put a collar on him that reads 'Rocky, AKA the visitor cat', with a disconnected phone number. Ella named him Jackie before the collar appeared, so Jackie he remains. He answers to just about anything though, and comes out of no where when they call him. He then struts into the house like O'Malley The Alley Cat, and pretty much takes over. He had the girls at meow, and me at hopping on our bed while Matt was napping.

Sophie feels older

Today Sophie turned 7. We took her to the movies, and while we were there she whispered in my ear, "I feel different today." I said, "what do you feel like?", and she answered,"I feel like Eva" - as in as old as Eva, lol. Happy Birthday Sophie!

Btw, The new Narnia movie is a real bore fest!!!!!! I don't recommend it. I can't believe it got a 64% freshness rating on rottentomatoes.com. I've seen more engaging movies that received 15%. I can't remember which ones at the moment, but I know I have, lol. Sophie said she liked it though. Maybe send your kids along with a friend and unsuspecting parent ;-)

I saw and heard my Mother's Day gift tonight

For Mother's day, Matt got me tickets to see Al Green. We went to the show tonight (yesterday actually)and he was INCREDIBLE!!!!! Thanks honey :)

Part of Love And Happiness

It happens very rarely, but sometimes Janene (my sister) and I come up with some bad ideas

Tickets to see Carrie Underwood: $55 each

Tank of gas to get to the concert: $100

Concert t-shirts for the kids: $30 each

Having your 5 year old twins get tired before the show even starts, whine and fight about who gets your attention, then fall asleep on your lap, preventing you from enjoying the show or seeing anything happening on stage: PRICELESS

This is what they (my sister's kids) slept through. My camera work is wobbly in the beginning because Sophie had to tell me twice that her silly putty was lost, and that she wanted to go home. But she made her way over to Ella and Jordan eventually, so I can't quite explain my lameness after that.

This was the scene in the parking lot after the concert :D

What were we thinking? :)

Went to see Grandma Ruth

May 18, 2008 Eva, Ella, Sophie, Grandma Ruth, Rachel and Matt

We were able to go visit Grandma Ruth this last weekend. With her cancer in stage four and a blood clot in her lungs threatening to dislodge, she could leave us at any time. But that wasn't cause for her to cry, mope around, or complain while we were there - it was cause to play cards! And that's exactly what we did.

She insisted we didn't come until she was all made up and looking beautiful, as she always is. She was sitting at her dining table waiting for us and playing solitaire. We only talked for a few minutes before we started a game of Hate Your Neighbor. Grandma Ruth is pulling out all the stops for her last little while here, and has broken out the fancy cards friends have been giving her through the years. We played with a vintage deck from Alaska. I know I was irritating her the entire time because I kept messing up and not paying attention, lol. It's almost takes effort to screw up Hate Your Neighbor, but I succeeded. She didn't get on me about it too much though. She won the game fair and square (Eva passed her a lot of bad cards, lol) and of course was very happy. All the quarters were in her wooden pineapple dish. I know all you Hamricks know the one I'm talking about. She had really wanted to put in for the girls, and after she won, she gave them all three quarters to play with later at Marv & Joannie's. What else could they want from her? She was getting tired and had only wanted us to stay for about an hour, so it was time to leave. She stayed in her chair because it tires her to walk at all, so we all took turns giving her a hug goodbye. She acted like it was any other visit, and said goodbye like she always does. I was thinking it might be the last time I would see her, and cried a little, but I was the only one who shed a tear. She made the girls feel so comfortable and was so much fun like she always is, they didn't feel at all like they should be sad. Or maybe they didn't quite grasp the moment. Anyway, it was so much better than having a cry fest, and they'll always remember that visit as a happy one!

So I said I was the only one crying, and as I went to the kitchen to grab a Kleenex, I put my camera on the television. Of course I forgot it, and we got to back again on Sunday before leaving town to get my camera :) And I thought we'd never see her again. She was at her table again, and ready for another game. We played Hate Your Neighbor again. She was her usual fun self, but this time she had some parting words of advice. Just before the game was over, she said in her very straight forward way, "well I hope you teach your kids about sex, so they don't go out at 14 and get pregnant!" LOL!!! Matt and I busted up laughing! She kept going, "they need to know what the consequences are for going out and having sex." We were dying!!! Matt pointed his finger at each of the girls and said, "no sex for you, no sex for you, and no sex for you!" Ella was mortified and pretended she didn't hear any of it and asked, "so where are we going for lunch?" LOL!!!

Matt won that game, and then it was time to go. We said goodbye like before, like it was any other day, and I didn't even cry. It was just a fun time, like Grandma Ruth likes it. As we walked out, she said, "see ya sometime."

I hope everyone gets the chance to go visit her in the next few weeks. And be ready for some cards!

Maybe Ella will be a photographer

Okay, I won't post the other 50 pictures she snapped that were lousy. But it's really hard to take a good concert photo with an ordinary crap camera on the available light setting! I think these shots are as good as any concert pics I've ever seen. EVER!!! And the fact that I'm her mother doesn't make me biased in the least ;-)

Carrie Underwood at the Reno Events Center, May 19, 2008

Eva finds a new way to ask her favorite question

I'm just wondering what the fate of the hot sauce packet will be? It's been floating around the house. I've seen it in a few different places the last couple days. If someone actually used it on a taco, that would be wonderful. But it's probably more likely that it'll end up splattered on the carpet, or rolled over on in Eva's bed after she's had her back scratched and fallen asleep.

To blog, or not to blog...

...that is the question.

Obviously, I'm answering that question in the affirmative. But, it may well turn out that I'll give up blogging the way I've given up so many other projects I've gotten excited about :( In that case, I suppose I'll have to reassess that deep question - to blog, or not to blog...

But in the meantime, I'm trying to figure out where to begin. After looking at the blogs of some friends, I'm a little jealous. I'm already suffering blog envy. If only I'd been blogging for the last couple of years, I could have written about so many fun things we've done and made everyone sick with really cute stories and pictures of the girls. I could have been chronicling their amazing talents and brilliant achievements all this time! But if I try to catch up, I know for sure that this new wonderful project will be dropped faster than the diet I start every Monday. So, I guess I'll just start with what's going on now, and not worry about the past. But now I feel like I'm just waiting for something exciting to happen, and that's kind of like waiting for water to boil. I think I'll just start with something simple that happened Tuesday evening...