I miss my boy...

Last week my mom came up to help take care of Mason while I had my third and final kidney surgery. Yippee to that! While she was here we took Mason to the zoo, which he loved when he could actually see an animal. He also got to hang out in his pool and we went to a Luau on Friday night, where he discovered the sand box and spent most of his time.

My mom offered to take him back to Montpelier with him for the week since his babysitter is in Hawaii and though I initially said no, I finally caved and said that she could take him. I thought of all the things we could get done and all the fun we would have being baby free. Well let's just say I shed more than a few tears on more than one occasion on Saturday and Sunday. The house is so quiet! And although I enjoyed reading the Sunday paper in 30 minutes without it being ripped out of my hands and torn to pieces, I just want my monkey back. I had no idea it would be this difficult to not have him around. We pick him up on Wednesday, so I think I'll survive.

I was tagged a while ago by my cousin and never posted so here are the answers to her tagging...

List 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, , 3 random surprising facts about yourself.

3 Joys

1. Spending time with Jake and Mason. No other joys even come close to this one. I don't care what we're doing, I just love doing it with them.

2. Working. I occasionally feel guilty about this one, but I do like my job and I enjoy using my adult, educated brain.

3. Going out to eat. I like when someone else cooks me a really good meal. I especially like going out with girl friends that I haven't seen in a while because then I get good food and good conversation.

3 Fears

1. Mason getting seriously hurt.
2. Losing my job.

3. Hydroplaning/sliding on ice to my death.

3 Goals

1. Be completely debt free by the time we're 40. That's everything, mortgage, student loans, etc.

2. Be a size 8 or 10. This has probably been a goal since I was 16, but one day I'm going to make it happen. You'll see!

3. Spending at least a summer, and possibly 6 months, traveling the world with our children when they are preteens. I would like to focus on the humanitarian side of things, visiting some third world countries helping the less fortunate. I would also like to visit some of the true wonders as well.

3 current obsessions/collections

1. Spending the least amount of money possible, which means I spend about 2-3 hours a week finding sales, coupons, etc.

2. Being the high scorer on the Wii bowling and WiiFit games.

3. Carmex and mini charleston chews.

3 random surprising facts about yourself

1. I love to make garbage. I get a rush when the milk is gone or a box of cereal runs out because then I get to throw out the empty container. I spend serious time on the weekend combining almost empty containers of things or going around the house looking for stuff to throw away. Love love love it.

2. I am an excellent shooter and really like to shoot guns. When Jake and I used to go to the range, I would smoke all of the other guys there. I graduated number one in my FBI firearms class during private investigation school, which consisted of 10 men and one other girl.

3. My favorite television show of all time is Deadliest Catch. I've seen every episode at least twice and actually caught a marathon while I was in labor with Mason.

Video Stuff Again

This is kind of old but we dug it up and are posting it for all to enjoy!

Couple of Things

You know the saying (or the Cinderella song) "Don't know what you got 'til it's gone"? Yes well, I have experienced this phenomenon with tomatoes. While I appreciate that every store and restaurant is removing them from shelves because they don't want to be liable for the Salmonella poisoning I may get, I really, really miss tomatoes. Now I can still buy them on the vine at the store, but no restaurant is serving them. I have discovered that I don't like salad without tomatoes and this evening I ordered a BLT and when I remembered that tomatoes were not an option and told the sandwich maker that I would like to change my order he said that it was too late. So I had bacon and lettuce on bread because I like a good juicy tomato instead of any kind of sauce. Please bring back my tomatoes, preferably Salmonella free.

A couple of months ago Jake said he wanted a PlayStation 3. I said he would have to sell his worldly possessions because that was definitely not in the budget this year. So, he sold his gun and PlayStation 2 and proudly reported that while he had enough money to buy the PlayStation 3, he would rather buy a Wii. So that's what we set out to do last Wednesday. We wanted a Wii and a WiiFit, which are not so easy to come by. Many thanks to Joe, who called every place within 20 miles of our house. We actually saw an area we had never seen before, downtown Nampa, when on our quest. Anyway, I'm not sure how we lived without a Wii, and more specifically the WiiFit. It's fun and exercise. What?! I always thought those terms were mutually exclusive. I honestly never thought a little gaming unit could be so fun. We actually haven't watched TV since we bought it and anxiously look forward to putting Mason to bed so we can get some solid Wii action. I highly recommend this device to just about everybody.

Oregon Wrapup

As promised, here are some photos from our recent week long trip to the Oregon Coast. Mason had so many firsts on this trip. First time swimming in a pool, first carousel, first time swimming in the ocean, first time piloting a Coast Guard Cutter, to name a few. He absolutely loved the ocean, every part of it: the sand, the waves, the shells, the water. He was so cold and yet would not stop running full speed into the waves. He didn't even care when they washed over him. We may have left him in just a hair too long though because as we were walking up to the beach with him naked and bundled in towels he looked to the sky and said "doggy! doggy! doggy! doggy? doggy!" He must have said it at least a hundred times and didn't stop until he was lying in a warm bath. We both just looked at each other and decided that we would pull him out of the ocean before he lost color in his face and his lips turned blue. Give us a break, we're new at this.

Anyway, although it was cold and rainy most of the time there were a lot of cool things to see on the coast, my favorite being the Tillamook Cheese Factory. There is an observation deck where you can watch 40 pound bricks of cheese being cut and packaged, really quite fascinating.

We really appreciate Grandma and Grandpa Portela for taking us all on this wonderful vacation.