Day 3 of Family: Holiday Breakfast

It was a hectic hour of cooking but so worth it. We had such a great time sitting around the table together, eating food, and just being together. I love when we share a meal together and totally reconnect with each other.

I'll post a picture as soon as I get them off of my camera.

Day 2 of Family: Family dinner and decorate the Christmas Tree

We had beef tips and rice with broccoli for dinner. We decorated the tree with all of our favorite ornaments. The we read the Velveteen Rabbit together. Just so nice to be together. :o)

Buddy and kids are watching Christmas specials on the dvr and I am posting this then heading upstairs to wrap presents.

Day 1 of Family: Family Lunch

So, we had to go with Family Lunch for day 1. Perrin had a cardiology appointment in the morning. (He's doing fine, btw. His blood pressure is perfect. The stenosis is fine. It's the insufficiency that the doctors are monitoring.) Buddy and Random dropped Perrin and I off at the house after the appointment and then Buddy and Random went to just about every fast food place within a 5 mile radius. We had food from Arbys, Burger King, Jack in the Box, Taco Bell, McDonald's and El Polo Loco. This may not sound like much of a celebration BUT it was. Not a single family member had to compromise for lunch. It was wonderful!

Here's a picture of Perrin. I know his nose is gooey. He's teething - 2 year molars... but the picture is cute.

14 Days of Family

So, this year we are trying out a new tradition. We're going to make the giving and caring part of the season last 14 days. It's a celebration that's all about being a family and appreciating one another. My parent's will be here from 12/27 until 12/30 and we're looking forward to seeing them.

Here's how the schedule lines up, beginning today (12/19):

Day 1: Family lunch
Day 2: Family dinner and decorate the Christmas tree
Day 3: Family breakfast
Day 4: LA Zoo to see reindeer
Day 5: Dinner, movie, and homemade gift exchange
Day 6: Christmas Eve Dinner
Day 7: Christmas
Day 8: After Christmas Shopping (yes, it's an event for us... we love a good bargain)
Day 9: Board game day
Day 10: Off to see Golden Compass
Day 11: Trip to Santa Barbara (or another beach city)
Day 12: Pajama Day
Day 13: New Year's Eve
Day 14: New Year's Day and family movie day

I'll try to post everyday (with pictures to let you know how it's going).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh, and just for the record - In the last 20 hours, Perrin has thrown up 8 times. Lots of good holiday fun at our house. :o) And yes, those are boxes from the move - still in the dining room. Some are empty, some are full. Also, do you love the nice pumpkin centerpiece that Random made? You know, the one on top of the huge Heroscape castle that has been on the dining room table since Buddy's birthday... the house is just so us. Cluttered, a little messy, and full of things that we love.

If your Halloween ends this way...

Mostly naked on your front porch with a cauldron on your head - you probably had a pretty good time! :o)

Happy Halloween from our monsters!

Pictures of the Kids

Perrin Pretending to Drive

And before anybody starts to fuss at me -

No, he wasn't actually driving the car. The motor on the car was not running. I was sitting in the seat next to him the whole time. He was having a good (supervised) time.

New family addition - It's a ...

Turtle!

Shelldon joined our family on 8/11. He lives in the pond that is in our backyard with several fish. I can't tell you how many because whenever we get close to the pond, they hide.

Various junk

First off, I would like to apologize for the fact that my posts have been lacking photos. I didn't install my camera's software on my laptop and I forgot to grab my usb cable to connect the two in order to download. I should have some photos to upload once our household stuff arrives.

Speaking of arrivals, my car is here! Yay. No more walking to the grocery store. The boys and I can explore next week and most importantly, I can eat at in-n-out for lunch. :)

On Thursday, Buddy had the day off from work because the power was out in his building. We went up to our home. We had lunch. We went swimming. We explored and found a nearby Costco, Target, Joann Fabric, and Michael's. It was a good day. I love that house. It will be a really lovely place to live.

We're off to the house again today. We're having a cleaning crew come in and clean the house before we move in. I need a clean start before I take over the cleaning myself. I also need to go through the cabinets of stuff left at the house. The owners left a ton of cleaning stuff behind. I kid you not, I found 5 unopened cans of lemon furniture polish. There are four large bottles of bleach. I probably won't have to buy many cleaning supplies over the next year or so.

Hello SoCal! :o)

We made it! Woo-hoo!!!

Those last 21 in days in Maryland getting the house packed up without Buddy around were so not fun. Thank you to my Mommy who came to stay with us and keep me sane. Both of the children made it back into Daddy's arms alive because of her! :o)

After we got here on Saturday, we ate lunch and took Buddy's glasses in for repair. While we got his glasses fixed, I got bought this really cool picture tree. Perfect for pictures of our new start.

We went to see the new house. Buddy is right! It's gorgeous. There's a play set in the back for the boys complete with sandbox. There's tons of built in shelving everywhere. Very perfect for us. There are fruit trees in the back yard - lemon, orange, persimmon, blood orange.

So, it looks like I will set up my scrapbook room/office in the sun room. Buddy will put his office in the office. All the bedrooms are upstairs. I didn't take any pictures cause I haven't been carrying my camera with me. That will have to change.

Yesterday, we went to the Santa Monica Pier. We had lunch, walked around, and Random and Buddy rode the roller coaster. It was a good time. We then went grocery shopping and to the community pool once we got back to the temp apartment.

It was a good day!

Goodbye to you, Idlewild house.

Tonight I finished up the last few cleaning projects at the house in Bowie. I said goodbye to the house as well and was overcome with so much emotion.

There are some good memories at that old house. It's the first house that Buddy, Random, and I all lived in together. It's the house that we lived in during Random's Fairhaven years. It's the house that Perrin came home from the birthing center to. It's the house we went home to when we had to leave Perrin, a precious newborn, in the heart corner of the PICU.

It also finally hit me that I am leaving all of the girlfriends that I truly love. The ones that I was always excited to see - Linda, Denise, Karen, Marsha, Vicki, Jen, Maggie, Denise the Fiber Fairy, Kitty, Jill. I will miss you all so much.

Never in a million years did I think that we would be moving to California. It's expensive to live in California. I never thought we would find a job there. A job with all the benefits that we needed in order to move. I can only think of one thing to say...

I love you, ebay!

Home...

As a part of his relocation package, Buddy received a tour of the SoCal area with a local realtor. He saw several places and fell in love with this one. He says it's the only house that he would pursue the rental process for without requiring me to see the house first. Yesterday, he got the executed lease back. We still have to complete the financial transactions for it all but it's all ours. It's easy to see why Buddy loves it so much. Here are some pictures. I'm sure that we are all going to be very happy living in our new home.


Front of House


Kitchen overlooking backyard


Pool and Spa


More backyard


Patio off Master Bedroom

Other details: It's on the corner of a 6 home cul-de-sac. It's roughly 40 miles from Buddy's work. It has 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, pool, spa, sun room, and a fish pond.

If you never thought it before, you should be convinced now - Buddy is an overachiever. For sure!

Random's Message to Daddy

Perrin Being Cute

Sleepless Nights

So, Buddy left on July 1st for California. Perrin has been having a hard time sleeping at night. See, Buddy normally puts him to sleep. Buddy also takes care of Perrin until about 4:00am as well. If Perrin gets up during that time, Buddy rocks him back to sleep. The first couple of nights, Perrin sat up in bed at about 4:00am and demanded "Daddy!" Bottom line, neither Perrin nor myself are getting much sleep. I think the sleepless nights are starting to get to him because I found him like this today - twice.

Big News!!! (as told by Buddy)

Subject: News from the Budmeister

Guys,

So, I think most of you know this already, because I've been better than
usual about telling people in person this time, but there are still some
(particularly you out-of-staters) who don't know, and possibly some who
don't know all the details. So here ya go.

We're moving to California!

That was the short version. ;-> Long version is, after a rough day
on Memorial Day, I randomly
responded to the first email from a recruiter I could find that said
"California" in it, and about a week later I was in Santa Monica for a
job interview. It all happened really fast ... and so much of it was so
wildly unlikely as to make me believe that this was yet another thing in
our lives that was "meant to be" ... call it fate, destiny, kharma, or
the hand of whatever higher being you subscribe to. I mean, that one
email was the only recruiter email in my inbox at the time (my resume on
Monster is very stale, so I hadn't been receiving many responses
lately), plus Barefoot's email server has been very flaky lately and I
had to wade through 800 spam messages to find it, plus I didn't even
realize Santa Monica was in southern CA or I might not have responded
(knowing there are no Sudbury schools down there), plus I hardly ever
respond to recruiters _anyway_, plus when the guy called me back I
didn't answer my phone and the message he left was so garbled I wasn't
even sure it was him .... you get the picture. Plus the dizzying speed
of it all: on Tuesday I was talking to this recruiter, on Wednesday I
was talking to his boss, on Thursday I was talking to the guys at the
company doing a phone interview, on Friday I was talking to the travel
chick making flight plans, on Monday I was getting on a plane, on
Tuesday I was getting a job interview, on Wednesday I was getting a
signed offer letter PDF in my email, on Thursday I was getting the
paperwork from FedEx, and here it is Monday/Tuesday again and we're
already starting to go through the house looking for stuff to put out
for the yard sale. :-D

The company is rent.com, which (as I'm sure you already know if you
dashed out and loaded up their web site before getting to the end of the
sentence like the geeks I know some of you are ) is an eBay company.
That means they're paying full relocation. The salary bump is ...
significant. The atmosphere seems to be just as casual as ThinkGeek.
The guys I'll be working with are all senior developers and they seem
like a great bunch of guys. The boss (who won't even be my direct boss)
is non-technical but he seems to be devoted to listening to his techs
and getting them more involved in providing input on business decisions.
And they don't just have _a_ DBA and _a_ sys admin ... they have
several of each.

So, I said "yes" (actually more like "hell yes") and now we're
scrambling to move me, Christy, and the children--two humans, two cats,
two ferrets, three geckos, two parrakeets, and one ball python--across
the continent. Fun fun fun. Terrifying ... and yet exciting.

I'm going to miss being closeby to so many of you guys. My years here
in NoVA (all 18 of 'em) have been great ones, and I have some awesome
memories.

We love all you guys. We'll miss you.

Well, except the ones we're moving closer to ... hopefully we'll see you
more often. :-)

Take care everybody!


-- Buddy