Happy Camper

I am a happy camper right now, sitting at the airport with Hubby, waiting for our flight to Las Vegas! We've been looking forward to this for a long time - a nice weekend getaway, thanks to my boss and the awesome company I work for!

My dental "issues" are about 90% better, and I am reminded of the pain only when I don't remember to chew on the other side. I did, however, wake up with a rotten sore throat this morning - thanks AJ! I won't let it spoil the weekend though. I've got a mini pharmacy with me, everything from vitamins, to dayquil, cold ease, and throat coat tea.

My finger is itching to hit that "repeat bet" button on the slot machine, and I'll let you know how it goes!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Veterans Visit the Padres

While I was at the VA today, I heard about a story Fox 5 news did this past Saturday. I came home, found it on their web site, and was tickled pink to see some familiar faces. (In fact today Kona and I visited with the gentleman who was in the story with his grandson.) What a nice story on the news for a change!

This Little Piggy Pays for College...

So, I bet you didn't know I was a pig farmer.

Well, OK, maybe not a farmer, per say, maybe more of a connoisseur...and that might even be pushing it.

Recently I've acquired an affinity for piggy banks.

I LOVE these little guys! This was my first little piggy. I got it to start with my Breast Cancer 3 Day fund raising last year. Every time I had a little spare cash I'd drop it into the pig. It added up! Then...I found this little fellow, and of course I had to bring him home. You all know how much I love Halloween. My annual party fund started the day this guy came home with me.
Soon after my pumpkin piggy came home, I found this Nutcracker pig...so I started to save for Christmas too. It can't hurt to start saving early! A little here, a little there...

The Easter Bunny brought me this pig. I loved the new addition to my swarm of swine.

The Bunny also brought me this blue fellow...I fear that this poor piggy may be the most neglected of them all, but I will do my best to give him his fair share.

Easter Day

I hope you all had as nice of an Easter Holiday Weekend as we did. We had a wonderful brunch at one of our favorite restaurants in Carlsbad - it happens to be the same place Hubby and I had our wedding reception.

My brother, his lovely wife and one of my nieces were here visiting from Texas, and it was a lot of fun getting to spend some quality family fun time with them. We spent some time at the beach, played some cards, and got to see some very interesting sites. (insert private family joke here...) It was just what the doctor ordered!

I hope the Easter Bunny brought you something fun....he brought me piggies...more on that tomorrow!

The Easter Bunny? Not Quite!

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter! From our family to yours ~ and with special greetings from our Easter Bunny helpers Harley, the Easter "Bulldog" and Wilson, the Easter "Big Dog!"

Busy, Busy

The days continue to fly by with a mere blink of an eye. I continued to struggle this week with the pain from my dry socket from my tooth extraction, but I am trying to be optimistic that it is slowly healing. It's been well over 3 weeks since all of this tooth/gum pain stuff started, and to say that I am frustrated and exhausted by it is putting it ever-so mildly. I had plenty to keep me busy this week though I must admit, I did decide to cancel a couple of my regular commitments. I just wasn't up for trying to be cheery when I felt like utter crap.

I did manage to feel good enough to spend ALL day Thursday cleaning the house - that sucked was so much fun. Thanks to vicodin and ibuprofen, I was able to get through that. The house was as clean as its been in a long time, and I did get a good bit of satisfaction from that.

I do find myself dwelling way too much on the fact that AJ will be going off to college in August, and each time my mind drifts off to those thoughts I find myself in tears. I keep telling myself that it's normal for Moms to feel this way, but I don't know if it's normal for Moms to find themselves in tears at least once a day for the last 24 days straight. Not that I'm keeping score, but I know that it was March 31st that it was decided (at least in my mind) that he'd be going to Purdue. It became "official" a week later, but the defining moment happened on the 31st and was "the" day for me. I'll talk about that moment another time soon - I've been thinking about it a lot.

I was able to get myself together to get to the VA for our regular visit on Friday, and I enjoyed it very much. I love this group of folks, and their dogs, and of course the people we visit with. They lift my spirits easily as much as we lift theirs. Last weekend we also got the chance to go on a nice little hike with some of our golden meetup group friends. We visited the Blue Sky Preserve and had a blast. The weather was perfect, the dogs finally got some great exercise and a change of scenery, and we stopped and had a fantastic breakfast afterwards.

The pups were pooped after our long walk...and tired pups = happy pups!

This is our friend Gracie. She is Kona's half sibling, and she has some of the same funny quirks that Kona has...she loves dirt, and she burps like a champ.

Jack - just before a sneeze. I don't know why I love this picture, but I do!

This was our breakfast "bunch" - it was so much fun!

Times like these - sore tooth and all, make all of my worries melt away, at least for a little while.

Kona's Favorite Pillow

He loves his Harley girl....

The Race to the Top is On!

Please take a few moments and visit this site.

www.whitehouse.gov/commencement

There you will be able to view the videos from the six finalists in the "Race to the Top Commencement Challenge." The video from High Tech High International is the awesome! I think all of videos are great - but I've got to say, (and my kids didn't have any input at all in the video) I think High Tech is the BEST!

Please take a few minutes to watch the videos and vote. The top 3 finalists will go to the President himself, and he will chose which school he will come to visit.

I would sincerely appreciate if you would pass this on to anyone you think might be interested in voting.

"Race to the Top"

Our school was the second one to get the call. Pretty cool indeed. I'll have the video available for your viewing and voting (hopefully) tomorrow.


http://www.whitehouse.gov/commencement

Courtesy of the White House:

Commencement Challenge Finalist Rating Begins April 21

The six finalists in the Race to the Top Commencement Challenge have been selected and the next phase of the challenge will begin on April 21, 2011. Beginning at 8 a.m. EDT on April 21 through Friday April 29 at 11:59 p.m. EDT, the public will have a change to view and rate on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the best) a short video from each school, produced with support from the Get Schooled Foundation, along with an essay on how their school is preparing its students to win the future and achieve the goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.

The three schools with the highest average rating will be sent to President Obama for a final selection. The President will travel to the winning school this spring to give the commencement address!

The finalists in the 2011 Race to the Top Commencement Challenge are:

Bridgeport High School (Bridgeport, Washington)
Wayne Early Middle College High School (Goldsboro, North Carolina)
Booker T. Washington High School (Memphis, Tennessee)
Science Park High School (Newark, New Jersey)
Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12, School for Creative and Performing Arts (Pittsburgh, PA)
High Tech High International (San Diego, CA)

Finnley Got her Pool!

I've been meaning to post this for the longest time.

Finnley finally got her pool! How cool is this.

As her Mom says, miracles really do happen. I was literally thrilled to tears when I saw this post.

Blogsy Anyone?

Quick question for my blogger buddies....are any of you familiar with the new "Blogsy" application for iPad? If so, I'd love your input. When I remote blog I use BlogPress, and I'm not thrilled with it.

What are your thoughts?

Breakfast of Champions?

What is one to do after a visit with their weight management doctor? Well, go have a great big, fattening breakfast, of course! I had piggies(how appropriate!) in a blanket, with chocolate chips (mmmm, melty....) and whipped cream.

Hey, listen people, my mouth is still sore and I needed something soft, and pancakes fit the bill!


Bear came along for moral support. She had this yummy plate of goodness - pancakes with walnuts and bananas and chocolate chips - oh my!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it - just like these pancakes are going to sit to my thighs...

Flat Stanley Came for a Visit!

We had a little visitor stop by this weekend...it was none other than Flat Stanley! This particular incarnation of Flat Stanley originated in Michigan, and visited Connecticut, Thailand, Germany and New Mexico (among other places) before arriving here in Sunny San Diego. We took our little house guest on a whirlwind tour of the sites of San Diego, and crammed as much site seeing in as we could in the short time we had with him.

We started off down at the beach. La Jolla Cove and the Children's Pool to be exact. Stanley loved the smell of the salty water and the sounds of the seagulls cawing as they flew overhead. It was really cool when a couple of young seals stopped by to say hi to Stanley too. Now that's some San Diego hospitality!

He wasn't too sure about being buried in the sand at first, but he decided it wasn't too bad after all.

The view looking back towards La Jolla Shores was beautiful. There were several groups of kayakers out taking in the sites of the cove too.

Stanley thought about trying his luck at cliff diving, but decided against it.

From the beach, we headed to Presidio Park. He enjoyed seeing the old mission.

After the mission we headed towards downtown, and stopped at the USS Midway museum. There are lots of cool statues in the area honoring the military, like this one.

Spotting Stanley in this picture is a little like playing "Where's Waldo?"

We tried to catch a Padre game, but didn't have any luck. We had the stadium all to ourselves!

After the stadium it was off to the world famous San Diego Zoo. Do you see Stanley hiding again?

Stanley was getting tired of walking, so he tried to catch a ride on this goat. The goat wasn't too thrilled, and tried to nibble on Stanley instead. We rescued Stanley just before he became the goat's lunch. Apparently Stanley likes to play hide and seek...he took off for a few minutes on his own, and we found him in this group of "wild" animals. Thank goodness none of them were hungry!

He certainly seemed to enjoy the zoo!

We had a much more relaxed day on Sunday, and spent the day soaking up the sun, and playing in the pool.

Stanley is a pretty good swimmer, and didn't mind getting wet...but he wasn't very good about throwing the ball for the dogs. After a couple of busy days, Stanley was happy to get some good rest with a warm, furry friend.

It's a Wonder I'm Not a Size 2!

With all of the "help" I am offered around here with my meals, it's truly a wonder I am not stick thin!

Valerie was kind enough to deliver lunch to me yesterday (I haven't been up to doing too much lately with my sore mouth and all) and boy, oh boy, did I have some interested bystanders! "Wings and Things" were just what the doctor ordered...mild strips, a couple of bread sticks, and some veggies. YUM!The pups were determined to "help" me - they are obviously concerned about my weight and want me to stay on the straight and narrow with my diet....yeah, right, they just wanted the darn bread sticks! (I'll never tell if they actually got anything from me or not...but could you say no to faces like that??)

Oh! Remember my special requests from the other day? I wanted flowers, and chocolates and ice cream, etc.? Well, I have to say, I did pretty good thank you very much! Big thanks to Lisa for my flowers. Valerie for my chocolates...and lunch!And Hubby and the kids for my ice cream-actually fro-yo with all the fixins. I'm still waiting on Brad to show up and give me that foot rub I've been waiting on, but obviously, he's got worse "directional skills" than I do.

I'll just keep telling myself he's lost, and hope he finds his way here one of these days.

My mouth is still hurting like heck, and I've come to realize (on a Saturday morning of course, when no one is actually at the dentist/oral surgeon's office to help) that I have "dry socket." I don't know if you've ever had to deal with this fun little complication of oral surgery before or not, but let me tell you, it sucks, plain and simple. I've been up "googling" it all morning and I've got every symptom. Hurray for me! The best thing I can find to do is to put clove oil on it, so Hubby is at a health food store right now picking some up. I do hope it works.

I just don't think there is enough Malibu Rum in the world, even in IV form, to knock this pain out. Keep your fingers crossed for me.