This Week

We are getting ready for Daytona this week! We've got our camping gear ready to go, all I have left to do is buy the food! Caleb is so excited! Every day we check the calendar to see how many more days till RACE DAY! Zachary acts like he could care less, but he is excited that he gets to miss a day and a half of school.

Christina won't be going with us. She was supposed to fly to Phoenix, but decided that she'd rather stay here with her friends, (and boyfriend) and not miss school.

Mike and I went to the book store a few nights ago to get him a book. He loves true stories about people having life changing adventures. 15 minutes later he found me with my arms FULL of books and games, and his were empty!

(My dream job is to work in a bookstore. I'd never make any money tho. It'll all go to the inventory I would be collecting!) He finally found a book, and we were out of there for $68.

Among one of the items we bought, was this Shrek Scrabble Game. Zachary loves Shrek, and he needs to work on his reading and spelling. Its learning disguised!! YES!!

He loved it! This is now our new family game.

The boys like to hang out in Zachary's bed and watch cartoons. Christina is in the process of redoing her rooms style. We sold her bunk bed and got her a futon sofa bed. She picked it out. She also repainted her Chest that I had painted years ago white with butterflies. She did a great job! Gramma--this is the dark green chest that came from you and Grampa. Is it from World War II? Caleb has discovered the computer. This is one of the reasons I haven't been on in awhile.

Every time I sit in the den to get on, he runs over, jumps up and says, "Lets play c'puter mommy!" How can I resist? He has been asking me for the past 10 minutes if its his turn yet. I woke up at 6:30 Sunday morning, and came into the den to this:

Caleb on the computer and Zachary playing playstation.

Zachary said they had been up for awhile. At least they were quiet!

Zachary had his first sleep over on Friday night! His best friend Avery, who lives just down the street, came over to stay. It was his first sleep over as well.

They wanted us to tell them stories. So we gathered them around and told them a 'Scary' one. They were intensly listening when Mike scared them. It was hilarious!

Our plans for the rest of February after the race, have changed a little bit.

My Mother In Law was admitted to the hospital for testing due to some pain she was having in her stomach. She has Diverticulosis. She is doing ok now.

***Mom2, you are in all our thoughts and prayers.***

However that means she needs to have it taken care of soon so she wont have to worry about having the pain again. Unfortunately that time is over the time they were due to come out and now they have to postpone it for a few months.

(They are pretty anxious to get out of WA because its in the low 40's and rainy. BRRRR!)

This of course also means that they cant watch the kids while Mike and I go on the cruise.

That we all ready paid in full for. aaahh!

So I asked, ok, begged and pleaded my Sister In Law Michelle, who lives in San Jose CA,

that she could have an all expenses paid trip for her and my niece Elektra to Florida if she'd babysit for us.

She said YES!! Yeah!!! Michelle!! I SOOO owe you big time!! Thank YOU!!!!!

Well there is supposed to be a big storm tonight with the chance of tornados.

Its all over the news, and warnings running across the bottom of the all the channels.

I think we will be sleeping in the laundry room. It is the safest room in the house. I hope.

They recently put in a tornado siren at Zachary's school.

I am glad we live in a brick house. That helps. I hope.

hmmm, maybe I shouldn't of put that. Michelle might cancel her ticket here.

A Quiet Time

I haven't written this past week, because there hasn't been much to write about! Which is OK with us! In the last 13 years, we have lived in 3 new builds, so there was always something that needed to be done. It is actually kind of nice having a rental right now, that requires nothing from us other than maintenance! It certainly leaves us more time to enjoy going to the Parks and other fun places. And after our Dec, it is nice to just have quiet and no excitement! After all, our Feb promises to be very exciting! The Daytona Race, which we have In-Field Camping Passes! We will be inside of turn 3! We will be camping there Wed Feb 13 - Mon Feb 18. On Feb 19 my mom and dad in-laws will visit us thru March 5. Although they will be gone for a few days to go to Miami to visit friends. Feb 28 Mike and I are going on a cruise to the Bahamas. His wonderful parents have generously volunteered to babysit the kids for us. Yes, we will miss Calebs 4th Birthday. But SSHHH! we will celebrate it on the 27th, and he'll never know the difference! March 8 is Christinas photo shoot, then on the 13th is her 16 Birthday! So we are enjoying this quiet month.

Busy Weekend

On Thursday we took the kids and a friend of Christina's to IOA.

Caleb really wanted to ride "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish".

So it was their first ride. I didn't go on it because it sprays you with water.

The boys finally got brave and got their picture taken with this character. Any idea what its name is? We don't know either.

Zachary wanted his picture taken with the Grinch, but Caleb said "NO WAY" This is Sinbads 8th Voyage. Its a very neat stage show. Zachary absolutely loved the show. The fireworks scared Caleb a little bit. But he did ok.

Here we are in the Discovery Center in Jurassic Park.

We got to watch a Dinosaur hatching out of its egg.

Zachary got to name this girl dinosaur. He named her Muffin.

Caleb is 44 inches now, so he is tall enough to go on the Jurassic Park ride.

This was Zacharys first time as well. They did really good and enjoyed the peaceful boat ride.

Then at the very end you come face to face with a huge T-Rex. Just as its getting ready to eat you, the boat goes down. Down. Down. Down.

We are in the front. Wheeeee!!! When we got to the bottom, both boys burst into tears. They didn't stop crying until we got off the boat. Then all of a sudden, Zachary said, "wow that was fun, lets go again." Caleb was done tho. "NO way am I going on that Dinosaur ride AGAIN." So Mike took Zachary one more time. The pictures above are of their boat coming down. This time they sat in the back. Zachary loved the ride!

Here the boys are at the Boat Show. We went here on Friday. It was alot of fun looking at the boats but Caleb kept wanting to know when the show would start.

On Saturday Mike took the boys to the Science Center. For this week only they have video game area, with all the new game systems all the way to the original ones like Atari. They dropped Christina and I off at a hotel for a modeling audition she heard of on the radio. This was our first time going to one of these, so we weren't sure what to expect. I looked it up online and it looked legit, and free. One thing I have heard alot of is, DON'T pay for anything. The legitimate ones, do not charge. The person running it was the founder of Model Search NYC. He said that most people would not get picked. The reason they are so different from other ones is that when the other ones pick you, YOU pay $3000 - $4000 to attend the expo that modeling agencies attend, and you may, or may not get a callback. So of course they pick ALOT of people so that their cost is little to nothing, or they make a big profit. The one we are going to, they are putting on a $750,000 Expo for free. For every model they pick, THEY pay for the entire thing, not the wannabe models. So they are only going to pick the ones that they think can make it in the modeling industry. Out of about 200 people he picked 30 or so and Christina was one of them!!! She is going to a photo shoot March 8. Included in all this, NYC makes her a portfolio, and a composite card. FREE! And she gets the CD of all her photos. He asked someone in the audition how much they paid for theirs, and they said $1000!! I'm glad she is getting her start here! Thank goodness I listened to a friend of mine and my brother, and we didn't get taken for lots of money! The Expo is the last weekend of April. She will get to meet the heads of 35 top modeling agencies in the country. How exciting for her!

Go Christina!!!