Part Time!!

I am going part time in a week and I am so excited!!! Finally! I am going to have tuesdays, wednesdays and thursdays off now. Three days in a row, each week. It's like a mini vacation! And from there, if Sean keeps rising up in the ranks at work, I can cut down to three days and finally be at work less than I'm at home.
And tomorrow, (my first day off since I got back), I will officially start the search for a place to live! I really hope we get into a house. So sick of apartments!
Well, I just thought I'd post a little update. Don't have much going on right now, but that's all going to change soon, I'm sure. I'll post later if anything exciting happens!

The Best/Worst Day Ever

Yesterday was a weird day. We flew back to California yesterday, and it was a good day because we arrived safe and sound and so did Sean. I am very thankful for that and it's because of that that I can't dub it the unluckiest day ever. But, here is a list of what happened yesterday that sucked!
Woke Matt up super early.
They changed the gate of my connecting flight and I had to run across O'Hare and almost missed my flight.
When I told Sean "San Diego" he misinterpreted it as "Ontario" and he went to the wrong airport to pick me up.
(a note: I got my Aunt Karen to pick me up since she lives close by and that was a blessing in disguise because I hadn't seen her in a while plus she had some extra food items to give away so we lucked out!)
Sean met us at Karen's and while he was waiting for us, someone called the cops on him to report a suspicious person. (Karen was able to convince the cop that Sean wasn't that suspicious)
We drove out of our way a bit to go get the car and go to Jana's to pick up the animals.
On the way to Jana's, Matt puked everywhere.
After getting a change of clothing out from the car, I stepped the wrong way on her lawn and twisted my ankle pretty bad.
Picked up animals and they were super gross and dirty (no ones fault there, they were outside and they like to roll around in the dirt) and they stunk up the cars.
We were finally on our way home when we waited in traffic forever, and it turned out they were doing construction and blocking off a six lane expressway that goes straight home. We go onto a side street and travel along it for a while until it dead ends.
We go the long way home, after backtracking.
I look at my phone and discover that somehow the front screen LCD broke completely.
Sean gets rear-ended.

And this doesn't directly affect us, but after we settle in we get the news that Jana's mom had a stroke. We are all wishing she gets better. She is stable and doing okay now.

Oh, and this was technically this morning but I am counting it anyway: Matt woke up at 3:3o thinking it was 6:30...yuck.

Anyway, that was the best worst day ever. Hopefully work goes ok today. Heck, even if it doesn't, I am comforted because I go part time in two weeks! Yay!

Haha

Sean is going to kill me. I just found this site. Best thing ever. Let's just say he is getting an urgent call from the future...

Interesting

I was reading Brenda's blog, and she mentioned a thing called Wordle, in which you take a bunch of text and makes a "cloud" from it, with the most repeated words big, and the least very small. So I put in my most recent posts and this is what I got:

I like the many variations of Matt I have in there. Time was a surprising big one, as was the (apparently) many mentions of myself. Ally didn't know Ally mentioned Ally that much by name, but Ally guesses Ally does! Hehe...

Also, Hillary's surprise baby shower was today, and I do have some pictures!

Here's the mother-to-be with her great-nephew.

And here is Matt making a strange face...not sure how this is baby-shower related, but it's cute.

The shower was really nice. Hillary was surprised, she genuinely thought we were going to brunch. She did surmise that there would be one at some point, but she didn't know where or when. We played the typical party games and chatted about babies--typical shower stuff. Matt behaved ok under the circumstances.

Here he is, trying to be the center of attention. He has a light-up duck in his hand (ducks were the theme). He managed to find and gather every single duck there. By day's end he was pretty duckered out. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Sometimes it isn't always a great match with 37 1/2 week along pregnant women and really fussy squirmy toddlers.
After the shower, I headed over to a local Cambridge park which Matt loved.

They had a separate toddler section and everything (yes, besides the trash can). It had a bunch of donated toys, a safer playground and sandbox, and even benches that rocked back and forth, I'm guessing for moms with small babies. It was nice. I really like the big city and the strong feeling of community. I like that everything is within walking distance and the abundant public transportation. I want to live here or someplace similar someday, but not sure Sean would go for it. Plus to get a GOOD inner-city experience, you have to have more money than we have now. Someday!
Well, I go back to Brenda's tomorrow, which will be nice. And we fly back wednesday! I do not want to go back home, to all my responsibilities and my job, but it will be nice to see Sean again. I miss him, and I am sure Matt does too. Sean is having an awful time at his training. 122 degrees with no a/c today. He's miserable. Enough of that though! I am going to say goodnight. Goodnight!

My Un-Adventurous Adventures In New England: Part 5

I had lots of time to post, but unfortunately my Grammy Schafer does not have internet and I didn't have an opportunity to go someplace with wi-fi. Now I am at my Aunt Hillary/Uncle Brian's place and they have internet. Yay! So, continuing on with the adventures...
We left Brenda's house on tuesday and traveled to New Hampshire to go visit some grandparents! First, we stopped by Grammy Dawn's to say hi. She hasn't seen Matt since he was 6 months old, and she liked him lots! Here is a cute picture of them:

We played with her dogs a bit and Matt ran around. We saw the guest house, which is close to being finished. It is so nice! Before long though, it was time to be on our way to Somersworth to go visit Grammy Schafer.

Here's Matt and his cousin Andrew sharing some secret toddler attack plan.

"Now, like we planned. Take the mower and run!"
We had a really fun time. We went to York beach in Maine and that was really fun. Matt loved the beach, of course.

"Aren't I handsome?"

He loves running! Too much. We had to make him stay still...somehow.

Believe it or not, Parent's Magazine actually says that burying your toddler is a widely-used and acceptable method to make them shut up and stay still. Well...it made him stay still.
Next we went to the Nubble lighthouse, which was closeby.

It was super windy! And cold. Actually I just glanced at my Forecast Fox sidebar and it says tomorrow in Hemet it will be 111 degrees. Today in 29 Palms according to Sean it is 122 degrees. Here it's about...80. Wow. Anyway!
Last but not least, here is a beautiful shot I got from near Nubble.

That is so nice, I may make it as my background for my laptop. Ah...pretty. And I have to go back to this:

I guess it is beautiful...if you're a cactus!
Well, I'd better get back to visiting! Hope you enjoyed the post!

OSV

Or, Old Sturbridge Village!

A sign, to prove I was here. See? See? I MUST have gone to take a picture of the SIGN!

It was pretty interesting to see all the old historic buildings. Some were replicas, but many were moved here from other parts of New England. This was one, a Quaker meeting-house.

That is just really gross. Ew.

Here's everyone playing Ye Olde Hasbro Checkers. Matt won!

Here's a beautiful circa-1800's garden. Things have sure changed...

A room!

And a Matthew!

They luckily had a Olde Playground, which Matt enjoyed. I love how no matter where you take kids, it's always going to be the genaric food and playgrounds they like best...of course he is too young to fake any interest in anything else. :-)

This looks like the other garden, but it's all herbs. This actually was pretty interesting because I got to find out what they used them all for. There is an astounding range of medicines hidden in there.

On the way out, Matt decided to tear the place down! But it didn't work. Sturbridge is here to stay!

On the way back we stopped here. It's exactly what it seems like from the sign. A family resturaunt centered around books. You get to take three home free! I took two, but they are in the car so I can't tell you the titles. One is "Bury Him Among Kings", but I don't remember the author.
All in all, I omitted a lot of boring (to you guys) pictures, but it was a really fun day! The next post may not be for a few days because we are heading off today to visit my grandparents! Grammy Dawn and Grammy Schafer. I will post later with many more pictures and adventures of "Matt Invades New England".

Big One

This is going to be a big post! I might even split it into two different ones. This is what I get for being lazy about posting! Basically we have been going places and doing exciting things and I have been taking pictures!
Yes, I am going to split it into two posts. This one is going to be about our trip into Historic Hartford!

Here is the capital of Hartford! Yay! This is the only good picture I got so I guess I won't have to put you through a billion shots of the same thing.

Here's Matt on the trip. He had a good time for the most part. He wanted to dive in the "DANGER DO NOT GO PAST THIS SIGN" lake, but I wouldn't let him, so that made him mad. But he forgot about it when we put him on the carousel!

He was mostly confused, but seemed to be having a good time. Here we are before it started. I decided to start him off on a stationary horse. Next time we'll go on a fun one. Besides going places, we've just been hanging out at home.

Here is coffee from a local place here that I like. Good coffee and bagels. Dunkin Donuts is a given, but it's always nice to find another place that's good.

On sunday we went into Boston and picked up the car that Hillary and Brian very generously offered for me to use on the trip. It's a Honda Civic Hybrid, which is AWESOME! We filled it up right before leaving, and got completely lost on the way home (missed an exit) and drove almost to New York. We knew when we saw the "ALBANY: 111 MILES" sign go to "ALBANY: 55 MILES" that we were probably off track. Anyway we went hundreds of miles, along with the trip to Sturbridge, and it's only gone down half a tank :-). I love it! Bet I can make it today from here to my two stops in New Hampshire on that same tank. The best part: it fills up with 10 gallons! Ok...enough of that. Onto more important things!

Here's Matt making strange faces as he eats.

Matt enjoys playing in the back, near the strip of woods. It's a perfect environment to introduce him to hiking. There is a trail that goes through it that's very short, probably a hundred meters or so, but it is rocky and uphill, and he loves climbing it. Hopefully he will continue to love it so we can go hiking together when he's older! (crossing fingers)

He has also (almost) mastered the art of climbing down stairs, which is a relief because those can be pretty dangerous to someone his size.
Well, that's enough for now. The next post will be about our trip yesterday to Old Sturbridge Village!

First Round!

Yesterday we decided to go do something exciting, new and refreshing. Something you can ONLY do in Connecticut.
...Go to the beach!!!

Matt had a great time! He was a little cautious at first, because this is his first time at the beach when he could actually walk and play in the surf.

Trying to get him to walk in on his own.
Guess he knew better! He wanted Mom to help.


In no time at all, though, he was playing and having a great time.

Look Mom! I bet I can walk into the Atlantic all by myself!

No I can't.

After all that, we headed off to wander around New London, and came upon Fort Trumbull.

Well, we HAD to stop there, because as you know, I have a lizard named Trumble at home and we had to see his ancestry. I am figuring his family had to change the spelling of their name due to an immigration discrimination issue sometime last century.
Then we gazed at the beautiful scenery:

Beautiful New England shipyard...

The Mystic River...

And ME!!!

Needless to say, after a long day, Matt promptly passed out in the car. That was fun! Today, we are going to explore historic Hartford. More pictures to come!

We Made It!

Matt and I made it here to Hartford, Connecticut safely and soundly. Matthew especially loudly...
Anyway I will be calling everyone soon and working out a visitation schedule. Today is just going to be a rest and recuperation day, mostly for Matthew. He really was not happy when he saw the sun streaming in through the windows at what he thought was 3:30 am.
Okay, well neither was I, but that's what coffee is for!
Well, that's all for now. I will call everyone (including you, mom) soon, and let everyone know what's happening!

Here's Isis! If anyone remembers, she used to be my cat, then Brenda and I did a cat swap. Amazingly, Nostromo is getting skinnier at my place and Isis is...well...getting fluffier and fluffier here.

New England building. This is the local grocery store.

And another typical New England thing. Just enough mowed grass to get by, and a wall of thick forest right beyond. This is in the middle of a city and the forest still penetrates. Very nice.
Okay, NOW I am done posting. Talk to you all later!

Birthdays and Stuff

My birthday was fun. Sean made me breakfast in bed and got me coffee, and I spent the morning relaxing. We went to go get ice cream then headed over to my friend Jana's house where she was setting up our birthday party! That was super fun and Matt also had a good time playing on the slip and slide with her two girls and another little boy. Of course he didn't play on it exactly right, but oh well.
So there's just three days left until the trip and NOTHING is done! Laundry is a big mess and so is the house. I doubt Sean would clean the house for me AND put away laundry, but it would help so much. I do have a packing list though, so that will help when the time comes.
Oh yes and my awesome friend Lorenza is coming over Monday to take Matt somewhere so I can clean and pack fast without him. Yay!
And to top it off, Sean got out my luggage and my big one was broken so I will have to buy another suitcase before I go. Oh well, not a big deal--it's not like I am packing anyway!
I am dreading the flight but really looking forward to the trip (if that makes any sense). It's always nice to be around a lot of family. :-)
Okay, guess that is enough ranting for now. Gotta go get ready for work!

Matt's New Hair!

Argh that kid is so weird! If you don't remember, let me refresh your memory of how he was last time. He had to be held down and was screaming and thrashing for the entire cut. The time before that, he was an angel. And the first time, he was AWFUL. So, following the pattern, he was WONDERFUL today. He sat in the chair by himself and couldn't care less what was happening. The stylist got to take his time and make the haircut perfect. I guess this means next time he is going to be awful. Anyway, here are a couple pictures.

Here's Matt with Uncle Joey after his haircut.

Doesn't he look tough?

Okay well, that's enough posting for now. I will post tomorrow because IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!! YAY!!!