MORE MID-WINTER BREAK FUN

We're all about having fairly cheap fun these days. While Blake is having fun at the Great Wolf Lodge, Mimi and Zoe are some fun on their own. Yesterday Zoe came over to our house and today Butch and I walked Mimi over to Zoe's. They always have loads of fun together. A couple of hours after playing I received a phone call from Shelly. She says that the girls are conjouring up a sleep-over plan. Since Zoe's big sis Allyah is having a sleep-over with her friend Courtney, Shelly figures that Zoe could have her sleep over with Mimi. When I talked with Mimi on the phone I said "you don't want a sleep-over with Zoe now do you?" to which the girl says in a big loud voice "UH-HUH-UH!!!". I then continue "I know you want to come home to me, dad, Butch and Stanley" to which the girl says "Mom, you're just messing with me. Now don't make me mad". I'm such a stinker. Next thing I knew Shelly dropped her off at home to collect her stuff while she did a bit of grocery shopping for tonight's dinner of hamburgers. Mimi and Zoe said that they are going on a vacation when I took this picture of the two of them. The next picture is of Mimi talking with her dad and telling him all about her plans for the evening. We do have a busy social butterfly on our hands. Dad says that gone are the days when Mimi absolutely would not leave our side, now she practically flies out the door.

MIDWINTER BREAK

This week is Mimi's midwinter break. Due to the fact that we will be in Canada next week, she will have two weeks out of school. What to do with this energetic, hot chili pepper of mine??? Since we had a busy weekend, by Monday I was way to exhausted to do anything so we gave Blake a call to see if they would like to join at Black Diamond Bakery for breakfast and they did because Keri was feeling the exact same thing. Then it was time to do some grocery shopping and piano lessons for Mimi. Then came Tuesday where Blake called to see if he could come over while Bailey was at gymnastics "I really don't wanna go with my mom and Bailey" the boy said with a sad, sad voice. However Bailey was upset because she wanted him to come and watch her practice as he is in school when she has her gymnastic class. Blake really did not want to go, so I suggested to Keri that ALL of us would go and then we would have lunch at McDonald's. Unfortunately lunch did not happen as you may have seen on my FB. Someone bashed into the drive-up window. Mimi then went home with Keri while I did a bit more shopping at Costco. Then it was back to the gym again for Mimi's gymnastic practice. Our local Costco is the watering hole for those of us up here in Maple Valley. While there, I met with other parents whose girl takes lessons from Ms. Celia (piano teacher) and Mimi's gymnastic coaches. That brings us up to today. A short while back, Keri invited us to go to the Great Wolf Lodge with her and her family this week, but since we are going to the Olympics, we politely declined. We are saving our $$$ for next week. Mimi was quite upset when she found out Blake was going to The Great Wolf Lodge (huge indoor park with a copied Disney, somewhat of a Brother Bear theme interior decorum). Don't know how else to describe it. It is very popular with the locals up here in the northwest. Especially during the winter season. Anyways Mimi was quite livid with us that we are not going "I HAVE BEEN DYING TO GO THERE AND YOU WON'T TAKE ME!!!" Truth of the matter is.......I wanna go to as I love swimming more than anything. She quieted down when we told her that we may take her in June. Now she cannot wait to go to Canada with Samantha and her family. She already has it in her mind that both she and Samantha are going as "Rockstars ". Today she and Zoe played together while Shelly and I had a nice visit. We don't get much of a chance to see each other very often as we both have busy kid schedules. Tomorrow and Friday will be busy with taking care of any last minute details. Then when we get back there will be another competition up in Skagit County, Mount Baker to be exact. Then come this summer is our annual camping trip to Ohanapecosh near Mount Rainier. Phew! It seems like we never stop. Just go, go, go but I am loving it every minute of everyday.

HAVING FUN WITH BUTCH

FUTURE ROCKSTARZ???

Today Mimi was telling all of her gymnastic friends that we are going to Cananda next week for the Olympics. I think that she is starting to get excited about it. She is also looking forward to her friend Samantha's visit. Tonight Mimi tells me "Hey mom, maybe Samantha will be a rockstar with me! You think?!"

RIKKI RIKKI'S

There was a time when Mimi did not like any candy. Now that she is older and meeting more kids her age, there is more influence. Thankfully she eats it in moderation. Her ultimate favorite sweet thing is ice cream still. Before practice and competitions the kids are not allowed any sweets because of the effects it has on them. Therefore I did not pack any in Mimi's bag yesterday however I saw the little stinker eating candy hearts that another team member gave her. I'm assuming it was Elsie as they always share their food/snacks. Plus also I saw Elsie eating the candy too but it was when they were done with their part of the competition. By the time they were all done, it was 6:00 and we were quite famished! So on to Rikki, Rikki's Japanese restaurant in Kirkland we went. I still cannot believe how much Mimi eats. Everytime we see the doctor for her physical, the doc says there is nothing wrong and she is very healthy. I guess that she just has a high metabolism. Yesterday she ate breakfast at Testy's, a fish sandwich on the way to the meet. Then came her chicken nugget lunchable and carrot sticks for snacks at the meet. At dinner she had 3 bowls of miso soup, 3 shrimp tempura and of course her tuna sashimi. Man can she pack it away. When we got home I heard those immortal words of "Mom, I'm hungry again." So she ate a bowl of cereal and oh we cannot forget the ice cream for desert. On top of all this, Mimi and Elsie are like two peas in a pod. Just crazy, energetic little things. Emma just shakes her head.

YESTERDAY'S MEET

All the girls did great including Mimi. However when it came time for her to receive her first medal for the double mini in which she won 3rd place, Mimi was nowhere to be found. It was sort of like a Where's Waldo thing going on. The announcer kept saying "Naomi Putney" over and over but there was no Naomi to be seen. So on with the show it went. I was not allowed to take pictures with my camera so Rhonda says that she will send the picture of "Phantom" Naomi to me later. Mimi says that Jaelyn took her to the bathroom at that time. None the less I saw Debbie (Summit's gym owner) talking with her later. I do like the fact that the older kids come to the meets even when they are not competing to support and help out with the younger athletes. Mimi, Elsie and Emma all just adore the big girls too.

MAKING PLANS

Yesterday morning started off with Mimi and dad going out to breakfast by themselves for some father/daughter time. Mimi says that it is "T vs B. Mom, you what vs is? It stands for verses, so it's Testy Chef vs Black Diamond." Testy Chef won out. Then it was time to come home and get ready for the meet. Mimi was calm, cool and collected about the meet, I on the other hand was a nervous wreck. Is her hair ok? I was told that points would be taken off if the hair is not done right. Can't use any bobby pins either. What if she forgets her routine? Heaven forbid the girl hurts herself? So many thoughts ran through my head. Since we have never been to this gym and it is an hour's drive, I did not want to get lost so we left early and got there one hour early. Therefore we decided to kill time at the local Costco. Not much else interesting in Woodinville. That's when Teri called to talk about kids clothing and what they wear up here. Completely different from California. Yesterday was rainy with a temperature of 56. There are times though when the weather has been so clear and beautiful with the gorgeous blue skies and even though the thermometer says 60, but if there is no wind, it is quite pleasant outside. When Mimi saw that I was talking with Teri, she saw it as her opportunity to snatch the phone away and make plans with Samantha.

VALENTINE BINGO

During the party I saw Ms Greenfield lay out some cards so I asked if I could help her with anything and she said I could help her out with leading the kids in playing Valentine Bingo. "OK" I said and things were going fine until the boys found out that there were no prizes to give out and started to eat the stale candy hearts that were supposed to be the markers. Grant's mom (the one who got upset that I did not remember her daughter) thought that Grant was being such a good boy by not eating any of the stale candy. However truth be told, along with Dixon, Grant DID eat the old stale candy. I just let sleeping dogs lie. Next thing I knew Mimi had a Bingo game going on for herself even though there still no prizes to give out. The girls did not care one bit.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

This afternoon there was a party goin' on in Rm.306! Tried to upload all of the commotion but it's not working out for me. It was a lot of candy eating and chattering and laughing going on everywhere. There was a "thank you Dixon, thank you Chloe, thank you Hayden" so on and so forth. Besides me there was a couple of other moms there too. One of them (Grant's mom) I think was upset with me because I did not remember that Grant has a baby sister "well (with a slight huff), you saw her at the Open House!" The Open House was way back in the beginning of the school year and I'm supposed to remember that far back? I'm doing darn good to remember my name, address and phone number let alone what kid has a sibling or not. Oh well que sera sera as I always say.

FIRST OFFICIAL COMPETITION

The last time Mimi had a gymnastic competition it was a in-house competition and did not really count as it was only a "practice" one. Tomorrow however will be different. It will be a "real" one with the judges and everything. We are excited and nervous at the same time. Mimi and I practiced her routine last night and it was more than anything like a comedy act. "Mom, you're the judge and you're supposed to go like this (hand raised) and I go like this (Mimi's hands raised to look somewhat like a Y). " Then the girl proceeds with her routine only to forget what comes next and she is asking me "what's next???" "I dunno" I say. It went on and on that way. I'm sure she will be fine. I may be a wreck though. We'll see.

The competition will be up in Woodinville which is about a little over an hour's drive from our house tomorrow afternoon. Elsie and Emma will be competing tomorrow too. Rhonda says that usually after the meet everyone goes out to dinner together. However since the girls meet times will be staggered throughout the day we may not do the dinner. Dad says that we could go to the Japanese restaurant out in Kirkland. I forgot the name of it but I think that it is Rikki's which is the same name as their salad dressing.

Any hoo, stayed tuned for the results.

SPRING IS ALMOST HERE

We have been here a little over two years and my backyard is still a bit bare but it is slowly coming together. Since going from two paychecks to one, I have only been able to buy plants that are real small or plant the bulbs myself. This year I had purchased a cherry tree (top left pic) from Costco and had dad plant it in the ground for me. It is already starting to show their buds. Maybe we will get some cherries this summer/fall. The rest of the plants are as follows: tulips/daffodils (top right pic), apple buds from our apple tree (bottom left), buds from the Japanese cherry tree. Last year we planted the apple tree and by fall apples started to show up. However the tree was rather small and just the right height for Butch to pull them off the tree and eat them. Which is what the boy did.

SATURDAY........AKA THE DAY FROM HELL

Actually the day started off quite nice then at 1;30 p.m. it went on a one way trip down to hell. Mimi had made plans to play with her friend Alex. That was fine. I dropped her off at his house behind our neighborhood park then proceeded to go to four corners to fill up the gas tank and then get my SUV cleanned at the Elephant Carwash. Everything went fine till I got to the carwash. DO NOT EVER GO THERE! YOU WILL GET ROBBED! They charge $18.00 to do a crappy job of cleanning your car. I still had to clean my car after they were "finished". There was still dog hair and dried mud all over the back part of the car from where we go skiing every weekend and take Butch along with us. The people at the carwash was not happy with the fact that I was taking my time cleanning out my own car. They told me "I have a $80,000.00 Mercedes behind you that I do not want to get into an accident!" I said "Not my problem. Had you done your job correctly we would not be in this situation!" The people who were sitting and just watching me taking the kids trash and dumping it, all of a sudden were standing and rubber necking. It takes a lot for me to get this upset and they were pushing every last one of my buttons. The M to the A to the damn DEA came out in me. The stinky part about this whole situation they are just about the only full serve carwash in the whole darn state of Washington. If someone wants to make it rich, just open a California carwash where they charge $7.00 plus tip and do a whole lot better job. There just isn't any competition up here.

Next thing I knew it was time to pick up Mimi and dad and head over to South Center Mall for movies and dinner. Dad went to see Avatar which he said was fantastic. Super great. He saw in 3D. I was still fuming about the carwash however ice cream always makes you feel better until Ben & Jerry's charged me $8.00 for 2 small dishes plus a small bottle of water. Mimi then pulled a fast one on me. When I was not looking she stole my ice cream. The little thief! I did not really need it anyway. Dad was still at the movies so we went to buy a few items for the father/daughter ball coming up in March. Then at 6:00 we found out that the movie was 3 hours long! One more hour to go before it let out! That's it! We are going to get dinner without dad. Mimi wanted to go to the Rainforest Cafe so that's what we did. We then found out that it would be another hour wait but that is what the girl wanted, so ok, that's what we did. Dad came down and met up with us and we had dinner. The unfortunate part about dinner is that unlike Red Robins, they don't give free refills on the mac 'n' cheese. I think they should.

I think that I am done with the Elephant Carwash, Ben and Jerry's and the Rainforest Cafe for a long time to come.

MAPLEWOOD PARK

When lunch was over and playing in the playset was done, we had a little more time to kill before gymnastic practice and then going to Sara's house in the evening. So over to Maplewood Park we went. Ever since Mari took Mimi rock climbing and when she was here visiting, she showed Blake how to do it, they both now love it. Blake was quite proud of himself in regards to how well he can climb and Mimi is quite proud of herself on the fact that she now can cross the monkey rings all by herself. They are growing up way too fast for me. Mimi exclaimed "Mom! Did you know that the school year is already half way over?!" It seems that it was just like yesterday when I first brought her to the UCLA pre-school/daycare.

SOOS CREEK

It seems that every month Mimi's school has a three day weekend because of staff development day. Last Friday was the day. Although we did not get any snow here it is plenty cold for most out of towners. I think that we have already acclimated to the weather here. As you can see the kids are not wearing any jackets and it was about 46 degrees outside that day with very little light rain. They did most of the running and I did most of the fast walking. We walked/ran about 2 miles that morning before heading over to the McDonald's playset where Mimi saw a couple of her classmates Luke and Sarah.

THE TRUE MEANNING OF NAOMI

In anceint times a woman with this name could have made a promising warrior queen. Naomi is tough with a capitol "T" and is more than happy to demonstrate it in order to get her own way. Naomi can sometimes be regarded as vain by those around her and in a sense this is true. However, when you are good looking, intelligent and couragous in any situation you probably have good cause to be quite pleased with yourself. While she is certainly gutsy, Naomi doesn't go out of her way to create confrontation. In fact, she will far rather sit down and discuss things calmly and rationally. The central number in the valley of her name, indicates that along with everything else, she has the gift of gab and Naomi will usually be able to talk people around to her way of viewing things. In relationships, Naomi likes her partner to be as strong as she is.

I guess we did choose a good name for Mimi cause this fits her personality to a "T".

DAILY LIFE

Found this in one of grandma's catalog's and I may just go ahead and order it.

It seems that the older Mimi gets the busier we are. Maybe it is the same for everyone else too.

Just yesterday Keri asked if I was going to sign Mimi up for Little League. Yep, that's right, it's that time of year again. I told her as of now we have a whole lot on our plate so I think that we will pass it up. This is our schedule as follows: Monday-school/piano lessons, Tuesday-school/gymnastic practice, Wednesday-school/piano practice with Maddy, Thursday-school/playdate??? That is if anyone else is available, Friday-school (volunteer time for me)/gymastic practice, Saturday-family time, Sunday-ski lessons. Then we start all over again.

This year we did not have hardly any snow but lots of cold freezing weather. Yesterday was rather nice outside so I was able to do some garden work and much to my surprise my plants are starting to grow. The Fall is the time to plant your Tulips and Daffodils which I did and they are now starting to pop up from the ground. Then there is the annual "mystery plant" that is starting to growing and I can't remember what I planted last year. Gawd how I hate these "senior moments".

MLB.com Video - Buhner at FanFest

dorothy putney (gd.putney@comcast.net) has sent you a video link from MLB.com.

MORE MARINER FANFEST

Buhner at FanFest
01/30/2010


Jay Buhner at Mariners FanFest


http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=7151641

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