Something to pass along

When my Mother was sixteen, her mother gave her a gold charm bracelet. Throughout her life my Mom has received many gold charms that have marked many monumental occasions. I.E. graduation, marriage, baby, tick-tockers, etc.

My Mother has really cherished this bracelet. So when she became a Grandmother she decided to start the same tradition with our girls. Note that she didn't start the tradition with us sisters because being a working mother of three doesn't really afford you the luxury of buying gold for your children. No worries, no permanent harm done, no therapy needed. :)

She has been collecting these gold bracelets for a few years now and to mark a sweet sixteen birthday a granddaughter receives a bracelet with one charm on it, with the promise of more charms to come to mark monumental occasions. Indy got the pleasure of seeing these bracelets that Mom has been saving. She is excited to receive something so special and meaningful. There is a story behind each charm. There is a memory.

I got such pleasure out of watching mo Mother and My daughter sit and talk about the special day that she will receive her bracelet. Of course Indy would like to have hers now but the beauty is that she must wait. Must wait for that special day when she turns sixteen and will receive her special bracelet.

Do you have something to pass along to your children?? It doesn't have to be gold. My son Alex received an original copy of "Mark Twain" when he was born. Also from my Mother. It had been given to my Grandfather when he was a small boy and then passed on to Alex...the first born "Boy" in our family. Alex talks about how special that book is to him. He holds it very dear to his heart and says that it is the most important thing he owns. Now that he has an ipod he might change that story but I will still say that the book is very special.

One more thing to share... Dinner ideas. Mom made this the other night... sauteed end of summer squash and grilled halibut

And for Ari since she is a carb girl... scalloped potatoes. Yum Yum!! Yes that is cheddar cheese on top.

The Wonderful World Of Disney

We went to Disneyland on Sunday. We went for two reasons...

1. Because it was Alex's birthday and

2. because the kids have been begging us to go and I didn't want to leave the state having NOT gone. Plus this otta get them off my back about it for at least a couple of years.

The arrival on the tram.

Ari was nice enough to relinquish control of the drivers seat to the Birthday boy.

I did NOT ride the tea cups... we just took a picture in one. No amount of money would get me on that ride. Well maybe a very high amount of money.

Indy and Danielle (cousin)

Alex and the cousins

Our last meal of the day. Ari bellied up to a plate of ribs.

Nina bellied up to a burger with an enormous amount of mustard on it. See it oozing out of the sides of her mouth?? Yum Yum.

My little angel

a tram ride back to the car after a very long day

Indy "yanked" her tooth out at Starbucks the day before.

1. pulling a tooth out at Starbucks? $3.00 for the cup of coffee

2. wearing a "snuggie" all the way home from Disneyland? $15.00

3. Filming my Mother on a roller coaster??? PRICELESS

In a footnote... I told my Mom that this is what her face will look like if she gets a face lift.

Happy Birthday Alex!!

Happy Birthday Alex!! You have made the last nine years an absolute joy. I felt like I won the lottery the day you came into my life. You are an amazing human, so kind hearted and gentle. I'm so proud to be your mom.

I love you.

Target

Went down to Target with Mom today. It's an event because the nearest Target is 30 minutes away so we make a day of it and go to Target and of course out for lunch. We got there and of course Mom goes straight for the juniors dept because last time she looked she saw a "junior" in the mirror. I of course get my list out and head straight for the beauty dept to get face wash, face wipes and hair doo-dads. We meet up after about 15 minutes when Mom call me from her cell phone from somewhere in the store. I have gotten most everything on my list. She has gotten a whole lot of stuff that was NEVER on her list. Oh wait... she didn't have a list, but her cart is full and on top is a huge fake pumpkin. I tell her that the pumpkin is too fake looking so she puts it back and gets one that doesn't look quite so fake.

We meander upstairs to the kids dept and electronics to shop for Alex's birthday. Of course we get sidetracked by the girls dept because Indy is the most fun to shop for and before we knew it we had several things in the cart for her and she really doesn't NEED anything but oh well!!

So we find some cool stuff for Alex's B-day and head to checkout. That's when I see them. I am shocked and horrified at the sight of them.

I do a double take!!

I look in Mom's cart as she is unloading her stuff onto the conveyor belt and I see the pile of leggings... All from the juniors dept.

Gold metallic leggings

Silver metallic leggings

Black lace leggings (she's attempted to buy these two times prior but I have managed to thwart her attempts)

Black cable knit leggings

Now these on a 17 year old would be super cute I'm sure. Ari would look adorable in them. Any 20 something could TOTALLY pass it off, but MOM????

I don't think so.

So I rip them off the belt as fast as she is unloading them and tell her that no woman over 60 should be wearing metallic leggings in ANY color. She starts laughing and crosses her legs and try's not to wet her pants but we all know how that's gonna turn out. I quickly remove the

leggings tel her how much money I've just saved her. She is happy about that but I know her, and next time she goes to Target she will mos definitely head straight for the junior dept. as she always says to me...

"I'm young at heart" Well I can't argue with that. She even looks like she's in her 50's. Don't get me wrong... How many girls can shop with their mother at Target and have that much fun?

Atlanta

Ted flew off to Atlanta This morning. He is going for his second round of interviews for a major Pharma co. It is a very competitive pool of people and he will be mad when he sees this post because he won't want anybody to get their hopes up. He won't want to disappoint, but I say we need all the support we can get in times like these and my readers won't blame him if he doesn't get this job. We had a very nice fashion debate last night about what suits he should take and which shirts/ties. We even had a debate on the color "brownish-grey". He says there is no such color but I beg to differ. We even had to bring Ari in on the discussion and her answer was the same as mine..."that's brownish-grey Dad". He didn't like her answer either.

I spent the morning telling my parents about our discussion and of course I had to "be" him when I was telling the story and Indy chimes in and says...

"Mommy I like it when you tell Daddy stories. You do Daddy better than Daddy does Daddy and it's funnier when you do Daddy" Yep that's my girl...seeing the humor in my schtick. I really love anyone who thinks I'm funny.

Drove some of the volleyball team down to Oxnard yesterday for a game. Stopped at taco Bell for some bean burritos so they could get fueled up for the game. i sent a couple of the girls in to order and when they realized that they didn't know what one of the girls wanted, they called her in the car from inside of Taco Bell. They looked so silly doing it through the glass that I had to snap a couple of photos of them. It would have been a lot faster for one of them to run back out to the car and ask but that's not how this generation operates. If they have to talk...they text. If they MUST call then they call, even if it's faster to ask in person. They wolfed down their burritos on the way to the game and thankfully won the match. I told them if I saw any signs of sluggishness coming from any of them than that would be the last time I got them burritos before a game. I only had to yell "no more bean burritos" once during the game before they "woke" up and played a little harder. Whatever it takes.

Alex gets his hands on my laptop

This week

This week is coming to an end. It's probably best due to the happenings.

I showed up at our 6am beach workout in flip flops. Now normally that would be the appropriate footwear for our Thursday morning but this was an unusually cold morning so Erik our trainer had on long pants and a sweatshirt and running shoes. Shell and Little C also had on running shoes. Mom tried to put shoes on and i told her "don't bother" because Eric always makes us go barefoot in the sand. So mom goes in pink socks. So we show up at the beach and Erik's all..."yea of course you can wear your shoes...it's too cold to go barefoot" I try to run in the sand in bare feet and my feet go numb from the cold. I looked like an ass as I had to do the rest of the workout in my flip flops. Mom looks equally foolish as she does her working out in her pink socks. By the way, Mom and her best friend Cathy have joined the morning workout group. I call Cathy "little C" because Kathy is my Mom's name too and it just seams to suit her because she is tiny.

Mom comes home from a meeting and is reading a text as she is walking up the front walkway to the house. She takes a spill and lands flat on her stomach and swacks her chin on the walkway. Later that afternoon her chin turns black and blue. I tell her that she looks like she is growing a five o-clock shadow. She's not really into that look seeing as how we have to go to a charity luncheon tomorrow. People will think she's growing a beard. Good thing she has a really good dress to detract from her chin.

My parents dog sage has recovered from having a few socks removed from his gut and then started eating more socks. He has eaten about a dozen socks since his surgery and today he had to be put down due to his insane addiction to eating sweat socks. Every time my parents lose a pet, and they have lost many due to old age etc. in the last few years, they have the pets cremated and put in a fancy wooden box. I guess we will have another "dog in a box" to add to the collection. I have threatened to do a blog picture of all the "pets in a box" stacked on top of each other like a pyramid. I know...not funny. But I can't help it.

I'll come up with something better to write about this weekend...I promise.