www.journeytofamily.com

My Blog Has Moved!!!

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 12:36:25 -0700

Please come on over to my new blog address:

http://www.journeytofamily.com

If you have subscribed to my blog or have linked to it on your website, please update the address and come follow me over on Blogger!
(faster loading and actual ability to comment!)
Thank you for reading. You guys are the best!

Wacky Wednesday #14

Wed, 6 Aug 2008 09:48:07 -0700

If you've never clicked on the "About Me" in my Mac blog, then you've missed this little gem of a picture. Apparently in 4th grade I was Asian. Thanks Mom, for picking that lovely outfit for my school picture and of course for picking out those lovely glasses. Apparently at the time, someone was trying to indoctrinate everyone into believing that with glasses... bigger is better. That person should be shot.

Diaper Full of Sand

Mon, 4 Aug 2008 12:12:12 -0700

Well we survived the beach day. A couple of applications of 70 SPF to the three fairest members of our family kept the sun at bay for our 4 hour beach event. The darker two members survived with just one 70 SPF application.

It was really fun to meet several people who's blogs I've been following for a long time. It's like meeting celebrities, when you know the names and faces of people you've never met before. My only regret is that I didn't get to hang out and chat more with them. I'm understanding a little more why some people had their nannies come along. It's hard to have much conversation when you're trying to keep an eye on your three kids. Especially when they keep bugging you for things like "water" and "food" and all those other unreasonable requests that make it so inconvenient to chat with friends. I'm kind of wishing we had been able to attend Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday morning activities of the Blog Union. Though we were "local", we were just far enough away where it would've been hard to attend all of those events.

The kids had a blast at the beach, despite our best efforts to brainwash them to hate the beach like we do. Perhaps I'll like the beach a little more once they are old enough to clean the sand out of their own orifices. I'm still finding sand days later.

Marshall preferred to hang with the kids instead of being photographer guy, so he only got a handful of pictures. No complaints here... the ones he did get are great, and the kids enjoyed the extra time with him.

It just warms my heart how often Seamus and Marlie are holding hands when we are out. It reminds me of the 2 year old Seamus who was VERY upset at the addition of his baby sister, which booted him out of the baby role. He had a very difficult adjustment, but now look at them! At just 17 months apart in age, they are my virtual twins and enjoy each other so much. Seamus tells Marlie several times a day that he loves her very much. And then of course he gets offended if she doesn't return the sentiment immediately.

Haven chose to play in the water, despite the fact that it was Shark Week. And being the ever supportive mother that I was, I couldn't resist pointing out that hungry sharks were probably swimming all around him in the water. Yeah, I know. I've already started their therapy fund, that they will most likely need when they are older.

**For more pictures, please click here.

Blog Union, Here We Come...

Fri, 1 Aug 2008 17:47:21 -0700

The First Annual Blog Union is upon us. Thanks to Drew and Carey for arranging this whole thing. What is the Blog Union? Well, it’s a big weekend get-together where a bunch of bloggers who blog about their Ethiopian adoptions can finally meet face to face, after stalking each other’s blogs for years. I suppose this makes our online friendships slightly more validated.
If you think we’re nuts getting together with a bunch of people we met online, consider that all of us have adopted or are in the process of adopting, which means we’ve all had FBI background checks and have had our fingerprints processed through Immigration. Probably couldn’t get a safer group of people to get together with. This thing is so legit, we even have Blog Union t-shirts that everyone will wear.
Though there are events Friday through Sunday, we’ll just be attending Saturday’s beach event. Because we love the beach so much. No, actually we hate the beach. Well, just mainly the sun. And the sand. And the saltwater. Other than that, we find it absolutely peachy.
Having been born a redhead, with no natural pigment, I’m only slightly more tolerant of the sun than a vampire. Depending on the light, you might even call me “clear”. I’m talking skin translucency, not Scientology levels.
So I’ll be there with my big beach umbrella, a big floppy hat and my 70 SPF sunblock, trying to not burst into flames.
Of the group of bloggers and families attending this event, there are four or more Julie’s. (myself included.) In fact, there are THREE blogging Julie’s from Los Angeles attending this Blog Union. Which is why I’ve been given the “Julie in the Purple House” distinction. Incidentally, one of the other blogging Julie’s in Los Angeles USED to live in a purple house. She’s fabulous, by the way, and I’m looking forward to seeing her again and sharing my 70 SPF with her.
So I’m very excited about meeting some of my “friends” in person for the first time. And Marshall is going because I’m making him go with us is excited to meet everyone too. I know the kids will have a blast, finding ways to get sand into all of their bodily orifices that I’ll have to clean out later.
Oh, and I totally stole the Blog Union logo from the Julie that USED to live in a purple house. Cause imitation is the best form of flattery. Either that or I’m just lazy.

Wacky Wednesday #13

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:29:10 -0700

Ok, I’m opening Wacky Wednesday to any little thing I find that is wacky.
Yesterday we were at the LA Arboretum. I can’t believe we’ve never been there before! At the entrance was a little warning sign that the peacocks are wild (and therefore unpredictable) and we should not try to grab them or pull out their feathers (DUH).
Well, we found that the place is literally swarming with Peacocks. They even named the Cafe inside, “Peacock Cafe”. And now I see why. Apparently one of the tables even comes with its own personal peacock.

iHappy Now!

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:24:45 -0700

That's right! I finally got my hands on the iPhone. CAUSE I GOT TO THE MALL AT 6AM AND WAITED UNTIL THE APPLE STORE OPENED. And it was kind of worth it. I was actually first in line. So I sat my hiney on the comfortable hard, granite floor, pulled out a book, and waited. Fortunately for me, Apple is now opening their stores at 8am to deal with iPhone customers. And no I didn't leave the kids home alone or anything. Marshall had the day off work.

I'm totally loving the phone. It's even got GPS built-in, so I can have it pinpoint my exact location, just for giggles. The best part? When the Xbox 360 is otherwise occupied by another family member, I can still play Bejeweled!

So, uh, you might've heard we had a little earthquake in the city of angels today. Yep we did. 5.4 magnitude. How did we react when the house started shaking? Well, we weren't home when it happened. You see, we were in the car, on our way to the LA Arboretum. (which is totally awesome, by the way!) Marshall (who was driving) told me later that he felt the van shaking when we were on the freeway off-ramp. He looked back to see if Haven was shaking the car, then looked at the trees to see if it was a strong wind or something. He was a little puzzled, but didn't say anything. Me? I was hunched over in the front seat, playing with my iPhone... surfing the internet, checking email, updating my Facebook status, etc. Didn't notice a thing, actually. I didn't even know there had been an earthquake until I was checking email on my handy dandy iPhone and saw the frantic Facebook messages and voicemail from my sister.

After we finished with lunch, we headed back to the house to see if there was any damage. And you know what? My Buffy the Vampire Slayer action figures were knocked off the shelves. How rude! Just a few things, here and there were knocked over. No cracks in the walls, nothing broken. You see, I've got most of the breakable things secured to their shelves with earthquake putty. That's what you do out here for precautions. I've got the childproof latches on all my upper kitchen cabinets. Not because the kids can reach up there (they can't), but so I don't lose all my dishes in an earthquake.

In the almost 12 years I've lived here, this is the first earthquake we've had that's actually been strong enough to knock things off shelves.

And you know what? I'm kind of bummed I missed the party.

I’ll Let You In On A Little Secret...

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:00:24 -0700

Are you tired of my Mac blog taking a while to load? Tired of having trouble leaving comments?
If you choose to, you can view my same blog entries at Blogger. I had been waiting until I could get a blog makeover from a Fairy Blogmother before announcing the other blog, but I’m still on the waiting list of the lady who is going to do my makeover. And I’m getting a little tired of Mac’s blogging glitches while I wait. So, if you value speed of loading and ability to comment over aesthetics... feel free to go ahead and move on over. I’ll fix the aesthetics as soon as I can. And for those of you who like no-hassle comments, I’ve even taken off that pesky “image verification” for the other blog. I expect to get many, many comments from all of you now.
I’ve just transferred my www.journeytofamily.com address to the new blog. (though you can keep reading at the Mac address until I make the official switch.)
For now, I’ll keep up both blogs. Since Mac is not friends with Blogger, and therefore doesn’t have an easy way to transfer old posts... I have started the very tedious task of importing all my old posts to the new blog, one at a time. Only have 100 or so more to go. Why, you ask, am I going to all this trouble to bring over old posts? Hmmm... good question. I’ve been asking myself that too lately.
Sounded like a much better idea before I actually started doing it.
Gotta go now. The most exciting week in television is starting tonight. I’m talking about Shark Week, of course. You better believe I’ve already set my Tivo so I don’t miss a single cheesy reenactment. This is television at it’s best!

The Culprit?

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:02:59 -0700

So late last week Marshall had the day off and we were taking a family walk around the neighborhood, like we love to do in evenings and days off. This time, we spotted a hawk sitting on a city light pole at the end of our street. Wildlife is rare in our suburban Los Angeles neighborhood, except for ‘possums and the occasional raccoon.
We said, “Hey look kids! There’s a hawk! And OH! He’s caught something and is eating it on top of the light pole.”
It was too high up and the since the sun was setting behind us, we couldn’t see what kind of animal he had on top of the light pole. We stood there for a few minutes admiring the hawk and thinking it was cool that we were watching him eat his “catch.”
Last night we realized that we haven’t seen our gray bunny since that evening. YIKES!
We might have witnessed the devouring of our fuzzy wuzzy bunny Willow and we were standing there admiring the murderer! The horror!
Hey you know our local pet shop has a whole new shipment of very cute bunnies. I’m not suggesting we get some non-neutered bunnies that can reproduce faster than the hawk can pick them off or anything. That would be distasteful. (for me, not the hawk)

iFrustrated

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:12:18 -0700

Marshall checked online and saw that our local mall’s Mac store had received a shipment of iPhones. So we arrived bright and early, before the mall opened. Of course there was already a line outside the store. People started lining up at 6:30am, which I think is a little silly considering it’s been out for a couple of weeks already.
Of course they probably don’t think they’re silly now. They ended up with iPhones. I waited in line for over an hour with my three kids. And guess what? The person in front of me got THE LAST iPHONE THEY HAD. I’m not bitter or anything. I’m just sitting here, staring at my empty iPhone case (which is purple, of course). We had ordered the iPhone case online and the rub-it-in fairies made sure it was waiting in a package outside my door when I returned home after NOT getting an iPhone.
On a totally different note, we noticed that our gray bunny Willow has not been seen in several days. I’ve checked both gates and there are no exit holes to be found. The only conclusion I can come to is that she must have been carried away by an animal. It’s a little surprising since she was as big as a cat and the only wild animals I’ve seen here are opossums and the occasional raccoon.
The other bunny Spike is still here, but as is typical in this situation (when one bunny that is part of a bonded pair dies), Spike is not eating. He lays in the hutch of the cage all day and night. Poor Spike.
Of course you know what this means. In our 10-pet household.... there is a slot free now for another pet. And there might just be a second slot opening up soon.
What? That’s a terrible thing to say. I know. I feel really bad about it too.

Wacky Wednesday #12

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:29:02 -0700

I’m giving you all a break from retro, potentially-embarrassing pictures of myself, to showcase my daughter, doing one of her favorite faces.
As long as we keep laughing, she’ll keep making the faces. Which reminds me... when your four year old son turns around, pulls down his pants and moons you... it’s probably not a good thing to laugh hysterically. Cause that just encourages it. I’m speaking from experience, of course.
Not gonna show you any pictures of the “moon”, though.
It’s not that kind of blog.

No One Warned Me

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:48:07 -0700

So we decided to take the kids to the movie theater to see Wall-e. I had seen the trailers and everything but I was still not prepared for what I saw.
Hey, did you know that Wall-e’s best friend is a COCKROACH??? And that this COCKROACH is featured in a good 60% of the movie... with creepy wing-fluttering sounds to make it seem even more realistic. Remember how I have an unnatural phobia of roaches? Well, let’s just say that I sat there in the theater with my eyes closed for most of the movie.
What is Disney thinking? They pulled the same thing with their latest princess movie, Enchanted. You know, normally, how the princess sings, and the birds and mice clean up her little cottage in the woods... except in Enchanted, she was in New York, so when she sang, it was rats and cockroaches who responded and cleaned up the apartment. I think they even danced... not sure ‘cause my eyes were closed for that too.
It’s bad enough that I get bombarded with roaches in TV commercials without warning... but why do they have to make them a part of Disney movies?
First they created that Princess line. And now they’re putting roaches in their movies.
Disney deserves to be taken out for this.

Wacky Wednesday #11

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:35:43 -0700

I got this lovely hairstyle during the summer after my freshman year in college. My high school friend Nicole did it. I remember her grumbling through it because she had never braided caucasian hair before, and my hair was... well, caucasian, and therefore much more slippery than she was used to. And it took an exhausting 4 or 5 hours to complete. I thought I looked so cool with those braids.
Ok, to be honest, I still think I looked cool. But for some reason, everyone who sees this picture laughs hysterically.
Why are you laughing at me? Aren’t I cool-looking with the braids??? Marshall says, “Because you’re white. White people don’t do that kind of hair unless they’re smoking something.”
He’s just jealous his hair can’t do that.
You know, if Nicole wants to come out, visit me and re-create the hairstyle, I will gladly oblige. Though with her three kids and my three kids, finding a spare 4 to 5 hours for both of us would probably be a bigger challenge than her braiding my caucasian hair.