Morning little camper, Morning doggie camper

Campers, Griffen, iPod with moring music, nightime movies, books and pictures.

Memorial Day Camping

Spring geese, and Swim

Lexie carries Tiki, my beautiful foot, Mommy learns to braid, and Elina's b-day party

Lucas' b-day party at Conestooga pool,

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Memorial Day

What a good camping trip! I know that Lexie would have enjoyed having more children her age to play with, but since there weren't, I got to spend time with her. We went fishing with her Barbie fishing pole that Jenn and Glenn gave her, put together a craft of a bunny and a lion window hangers with pipe cleaners from a prize she won playing bingo, and generally had a great time. Bingo was the best! The food was wonderful, thanks to Michelle and Mike who alway do so great with this. Fireside in the evenings, warm sun during the day. Lexie had so much fun that the first thing she did when we got home (after her Monday visit with her dad) was to start packing a bag for her next camping trip. She feed the ducks, and loved her first taste of fishing. The funniest thing, when her line caught a snag, she thought she had caught a fish and it scared her so bad she screamed, dropped her pole, and ran. She had lost the plastice, weighted fish that came with the pole the first day when she went fishing with Jen, and Glenn, so Mike had carved her one from wood. Sunday, I took her fishing for the fourth time (she really did love it) and she did such a beautiful cast that I yelped with appreciation. Well...she mistook my joy and thought that she had caught a fish, and again, dropped the pole, screamed and ran. She wouldn't even let me touch it for a while. So long in fact, that her line got snagged on a close by driftwood snarl that I couldn't get it free from. We had to cut the wood fish free (big sigh). I got us both sleeping bags, and she really loves hers. It's purple, yellow, and green, junior sized. We're going to sleep in them again tonight in our beds. I have such fond memories of my orange stuff sleeping bag when I was a kid! We're already hoping to camp at the end of July at Ft. Stevens. After last Memorial Day there, I am planning a big defensive against mosquitoes. I'm going to try to post some overdue pictures now, along with the camping pics.

Today I'm grateful for Lexie, Mom and Dad, life, the Spirit camper and camping, and so many things.

I think I rememeber the film, and as I recall, I think, we both kind of liked it...

Ouuuuuuuuiweeeee..... I'm back on a juicer kick. Lexie and I saw an infomercial Monday for a juicer, and I remembered, "I have one of those!" I used to really enjoy that thing. So... Tuesday Mom took me grocery shopping and I got a weeks worth of juicing staples. I've done it twice now, and boy do I love it. Last night's recipe: Half bell pepper (orange), two stalks celery, on small zucchini, half cucumber, one apple, eight baby carrots, one tomato, one floret broccoli, one floret cauliflower, and spinach leaves. Sounds kind of gross, but it is so tasty!!

Mom had her second surgery today and came through great. I'm glad that she can get on with healing now.

Word(s) of the day: LEATHER NOSE

Griffen gave me a nice little bump on the head when we were wresting on the kitchen floor yesterday. He has a really solid head!

Going to another birthday party tomorrow, Sujata's daughter, Elina. It will be another Chuck E. Cheese adventure, and the third birthday party in two months. Sunday we are going to see Spider Man III with Tobie and her kids at Lloyd Cinema. In one hour I'm going to leave to go get Lex and we are going to see Shrek the Third, just came out today.

Last night was awesome. Lexie took a bath ( found out she has a reaction to cinimon, she broke out in mild hive from the bath beads, so she jumped in the shower and rinsed, and the hives went promptly away), then we sat on the bed and I brushed and braided her hair (I'm new to braiding) while we watched and laughed at "Alice in Wonderland". It was a priceless time.

Today I'm grateful for Lexie, Mom and Dad, life, water, egg foo young, priceless moments, happiness, and purple.

Under the pale blue moon.

Ok, I have a 1:30pm podiatrist appointment and I hope that it will be the unavailing of my foot. The surgery went well. I am always intrigued and amazed at the gap in time spent in anesthesia land. Last memory, wheeling down the corridors in a hospital bed, starring up at the ceiling noticing the occasional wireless network hub (everything blurry without glasses), the country music in the OR, OR lights, and people talking about the days surgeries as if you don't exist, changing tables, and then the next thing I know, someone is handing me my glasses in my recovery room as I chatter away. Truly amazing.

Lucas' birthday was great at Conestoga Water park. I will add pictures.

Today I'm grateful for Lexie, Mom and Dad, friends, my podiatrist, pain medicine, music, video cameras, books, iPod, and life.

Duh nuh-nuh nuh-nuh nuh, You say it' s your birthday...

We're having birthday talk here. Lucas' party this Saturday, Sujata's daughter the next Saturday.. Whew! Some of us have decided that we do not like singing the traditional birthday song and we're going to start a motion to change it. Now, we just have to come up with a replacement.

Toilet humor

I just got the biggest laugh here. We were joking with the IT guy, Alex. Val comes out of the bathroom and says there is a lot of water on the floor, is there something wrong with the toilet? Jeff says that we are going to make Alex fix toilet problems now, and I tell Alex that the toilet is now on the network and he will be responible for troubleshooting. Alex is still laughing as Jeff says, "Hey yeah? Alex, what is the toilets IP address?" Get it? I pee adress. HEhehehe. Ok, back to work.

It's all happening at the zoo!

Lexie and I had a terrific time today! Shannon and her two girls, Clara and Luna, drove up to our house, and we all spent a few hours at the zoo. Lex now officially has two new friends! She got along great with Clara, and I almost cried when they gave each other a great big hug. Clara is a sweet, sweet girl! Luna is exactly how I imagine a fairy pixie would be. Very strong willed, adorable, and ever so slightly mischeivious. Thank-you Portland to Coast for meeting me up with Shannon. Friendly, intelligent, and funny? Who could ask for more. I hope we can continue our new friendship.

Word(s) of the day: SNORE

That is exactly what Lex is doing at the moment. A well deserved nap. I'm going to get a little work done, and then read some more Potter. My one and only regret for the day, that Griffen didn't get to have an outing. My super friend dog is the best!

Six days and counting to my bone sawing, 15 for Mom.

Today I'm grateful for Lexie, Mom and Dad, new friends, Shannon and her girls, my new Cannon, the zoo, weekends, and life.

Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting, Ha!

I already took my lunch today, so this will be a short entry. I actually took my lunch break at about 9:00am so I could go to my podiatrist appointment. Dr. Broadbent. Great Dr., but I had one of those episodes where you expect a doctor whose only seen you once to remember you in such great detail. Not so. When he checked my foot out, he said I should keep the boot on one more week and come back in. Huh? I asked about surgery and he said, “Yeah, I saw that in my note”. Well… Then he says surgery is possible if it happens again. Huh? So, I reminded him that this has been happening since I was in Junior High. He asked me if he took x-rays last time, as a spot of recognition started crossing his face. He got the x-rays, put them on the board and exclaimed again at how wrong my great toe bone length is. My big toe is 9millimieters too short. So pre-op visit next week and surgery that Friday. Unfortunately, he can only shorten the second toe by four millimeters max, so it will only partly correct the problem. I’m still looking at orthotics or possibly fusing the foot-toe joint on the big toe to force it down and to take some weight. Eeeks! Very strong likelihood that I will eventually need it on the other foot.

Word(s) of the day: TARANTULA

Yesterday after work Lex and I went to the Kennedy School for their May Day celebration. We wandered around the school and the courtyard while an Irish flutist and guitarist played music. Then we were second in line for “The Balloon Guy” who was very well-known and popular there. Then we watched the Laurelhurst 5th grade May Pole dancers do May Pole dances. Lexie had pizza, then we watched Gypsy belly dancers. It was a great time.

Thursday we will go to the first clinic softball game. It’ll mean she stays up a bit late, since it doesn’t start until 715 and is over 20 miles from home.

Today I’m grateful for Lexie, Mom and Dad, weekends, fun stuff to do, modern medicine, and life.

Baby let me drive your car...

The nut shell account of the love-hate relationship with a 1972 AMC Javelin, by Rachel Keller; Back in 1972, Phillip Lloyd Hodel, being of not so sound mind and body went out to “replace” the MG midget he and my Mom were so fond of. To my Mom’s horror, he came home with a White 72 Javelin, 380 V8, with fake black t-top vinyl and a black racing stripe. Picture the car below in white…

Then…in 1986, Phillip and his wife Margaret drove the car from California to Oregon to begin it’s new life with a freshly licensed me! I was in heaven. I loved my car. It had it’s quirks being older, but I still loved it. I drove it (turned the odometer over on a trip to the coast) until 1990 when being newly living on my own and working at the front desk of a local Shilo Inn, I couldn’t afford to be without a dependable car, in Oregon weather, and something had gone wrong enough with the car to stop me from driving it. The heat riser was stuck, open or shut, now I don’t remember, but it caused to manifold to glow red with heat. Scared the crap out of me. I refused to give her up though. I started driving other cars. I got my grandmothers Oldsmobile Firenza, then my new Subaru Loyale, some really funky weird cars during the TD (Tweakster Dee and Tweakster Dumb) years, from an old Chevette to a Cadillac, to an ancient Chevy Suburban from the early 60’s. During this same time, the Javelin was stolen by someone who said they were interested in buying the car. Years later (Civic, Saturn, Malibu, Accord, and Pathfinder) I have the car back. I had reported the car stolen when I still lived in North East Portland. Six years ago, after I moved to Aloha, I got a call from the police to tell me they had found the car. I actually drove it home. Wow. By then, I was trying my hardest to help Lexie’s dad find a hobby of his own, and a motivating reason to be active and work. One or two times he actually messed around with the thing, making it worse, not better. He had me help him disassemble the dashboard to get at the wiring and panel lights. This was against my better judgement and I argued with him exstensively about it. Now the interior is horrible and it still doesn’t run. Four more years go by, now in another house in Aloha, this time it has to be towed to the driveway. I kept trying to give him the car, he would refuse to take it, but it would be unforgivable if I were to sell it. Oh…if I only had a nickel for the times he would talk about what he would be doing to that car, if only he had the right parts and tools. I even went so far as to go on a shopping spree trip with him to NAPA to get the beginnings of what he needed. That was three years ago, all the stuff is still in the trunk of the car. He constantly used the excuse that he couldn’t work on the car while he had to watch Lexie and that he needed the garage to be cleaned out to move it in there. Now as the paper work is being put together by my divorce attorney and the decision of were the car lands is up to bat, I’m revisiting some anger and sorrow. The car is in a state now that I can’t repair, I don’t want to give it to him, but I also don’t want to argue about it. So, he gets the car as long as he pays the expense to remove it and does it timely, and I have to stipulate that he needs to take care of the title transfer too. My poor car, a tragic victim in all this.