now interrupting my silence!

So sorry for the far and few between posts. Life is, well.....life and it keeps on going and going and time slips away.

One of the reasons that I have been away is that my flickr picture account is full and I am trying to figure out a way to post my pics on the web (I could pay for a bigger account through flickr, but I rather find a way to do this for free.) stay tuned for a post with pics quite soon. We have Caden's Christmas list (with picture examples!) and the halloween picture!

off to go grocery shopping and I will try to get this stuff blogged tonight!

the last two weeks...

We were able to go for a long weekend trip to the ocean two weekend ago...we visited our old stomping grounds where Paul and I were counselors in high school, and where we would escape to go camping quite often when we were dating. Now we get to share it with our son. It is amazing how much the ocean erodes the coast line. You really see it after not being able to visit for over seven years. We had so much fun just being able to hang out as a family without the daily distractions. Here are some of our pictures...


Caden on the trail that we used to bring the 5th graders on....it was such a beautiful day.


This was in the middle of the day in the redwoods...it is so dark from the thick canopy of redwood trees. Caden and I were touching an old decomposing stump, it felt like cardboard.


The plant life is so different on the coast. I just loved this bright pink thistle flower. Plants have to be strong to be able to survive on the coast.


Caden pondering the waves....


This is in the Russian Gulch State Park.


This is the devil's punch bowl, also in the Russian Gulch, it is caused by the ocean tunneling a cave inland and the power of the waves punching through the land.


more beautiful ocean.

< src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3254/2739318950_e89cc10e46_m.jpg">
Caden pointing, he said it looked like a giant hot tub, brrr I don't think so....


This is the bridge crossing the Russian Gulch, it was the first of its type, and, to me, one of the most beautiful bridges.


an interior shot of the bridge.

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Caden is going back to school August 15th. So soon. His very first soccer practice was last night.
He did a good job for his first try. He is so tall and lanky compared to the other kids, you just see his long legs towering over everyone!

here he is posing:


and running in for a break...


In other news, Paul had a bought of insomnia and was able to take my kiln apart and fix it. I wish I was as productive when I have insomnia, I just get mad! So when Caden gets back to school, hopefully I can start firing the kiln....

thanks for stopping by!

i killed the kiln :(

My kiln has taken a dive and we haven't quite fixed it, well because, I have no idea how to fix it...Paul is going to take it apart, it looks like the element might have gone bad (which is a normal thing) but neither of us know where to get parts for it or exactly which part is broken. Paul has been busy with work, as usual, so i decided to work on some log cabin quilted pillows for our couch.

Both pillows are pieced, but still need to be quilted. I have found that I am great at beginning a project, but not so great at finishing it!

tiny visitor

we had a baby praying mantis visit one of my bonsai trees....he was so delicately tiny and cute!


don't you agree? This maple tree is a bonsai, so the leaf he is one is less than one inch long, the little guy was the size of my pinky fingernail!

hello, haven't seen you around here lately...

ok, no good excuses for me, I am a big blog slacker. Sorry. We were gone for about ten days visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Oregon and helping with a wedding. I don't think I worked that hard on my own wedding! There was a lot of little things that I didn't have to think about because our venue took care of those little things like moving the chairs, set-up etc that make you scramble about and not enjoy the wedding as much. But all the stress was worth it, the wedding turned out very nice. Paul and I were in charge of the music and photography.

This last week was a busy one for us also. We celebrated Paul's birthday and our 11th anniversary. On our anniversary we went car shopping and finally found a nice car, low mileage and not a huge payment. But as soon as we brought the car home and thought we could celebrate our anniversary the right way, Paul got very ill. He got the worse cluster migraine he ever had and could not stop vomiting. I had to call an ambulance because he couldn't walk downstairs and he was really ill, I was afraid it was an aneurysm or something horrible. After some anti-nausea meds and pain meds, Paul had his sense of humor left and we were able to go home. Needless to say, Sunday was spent chilling. So here is a picture of the car that sent Paul to the hospital, I hope we have better luck with this car than it started out! :)


( that is caden in the driver's seat! )

ok, well I have the computer now and I know how to load pics, so I WILL, yes, I think definitely I will be posting more often. I will just get myself out of my blues! somehow, some way!

bumming

That's me right now, bumming. Paul has been working really long hours. He hasn't been home for dinner on a weeknight for about three weeks. They have been working on a big project, so that is the way it is. I always seem to call his office at the wrong time. I just haven't gotten my grove back yet since our move back to California. Everyone is busy, busy doing what I do not know, but busy. I just don't have any close friendships here yet. I have been thinking about trying to take an art class or something, to meet people that have similar interests and to learn a little something, but it doesn't fit into Caden's school schedule and I never know when to count on Paul being home, so that will have to wait too. It seems like all I have been doing is waiting. I have been waiting for my new laptop to load our pictures from Caden's 7th birthday party at Disneyland.

To top it all off, we just found out that our car that we purchased would have to be titled as a salvage, so now I am carless and we have to begin another search for a car. We seem to have no luck whatsoever with keeping a second car. It was a volvo wagon with only 70,ooo miles on it only a couple of surface dents, and it rode and drove really nice. Oh well, at least we had it to get us to Disneyland and back! So wish us luck on finding a car and actually keeping it :).....

OK, so that is my lame explanation on why I do not blog so much anymore, it seems the same story, different day. I still am having extreme problems with my back. I am trying a new treatment where they burn the small nerves that are impinged in my facet joints. The first of three procedures is next Wednesday. They will numb the nerves to see if it helps, if it does help, it will only be for a few hours. The second procedure will be the same to make sure the first wasn't a "placebo" effect. The fthird and final procedure is where they actually burn the nerves, it has helped some people for 6-12 months, and ever so often has taken almost all of the back pain away. My regual nerve blocks help my leg nerve pain from the scar tissue and permanent nerve damage on the sciatic nerve, but do not help at all with the back pain. We are hoping and praying this helps. I want so badly to get to work on my ceramic art again, I have been drawing so many ideas, but cannot stand at the table long enough to complete anything.

Ok, I am sick of complaining. If you got this far, sorry for whining. Just gotta let it out....


So to get my mind off of all of these things I cannot take cafe of right now, I played a little flickr game....

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

my answers:

out of the digital loop

Sorry about the lack of communication here lately. We sold my laptop and we still have not received the replacement one, so I took an involuntary which turned into a voluntary blog/internet break. It was kinda nice. I find myself distracted by the computer, not getting much accomplished. We had out desktop computer, but I cannot sit at a chair too long with my back problems.

So lets update everyone on what we have been up to. We went to San Francisco three weekends ago. It was beautiful. We brought the convertible, it was so fun driving through the city with the top down, we got to see a lot more of the architecture. We visited the seals at pier 39 and took a little boat cruise to under the golden gate bridge and around alcatraz island. It was a beautiful, warm weekend. We ended the day with a drive down scenic highway 1 and put our feet in the cold cold pacific ocean.

Two weekends ago we drove up to Oregon to visit with Paul's family and deliver the Wii we got for his mom. We had multiple family Wii bowling tournaments. We also got to watch our neice, Mandi, perform in the school play.

Last weekend we vegged!

My back has been horrible. I am waiting for the authorization to come through to take an MRI to see if the fusion has changed. I have had bruising and extreme tenderness around one of the bolt areas. I have another nerve block scheduled for May 7th, hopefully it helps as much as it did before. After that injection, we will begin the radio-frequency rounds where the small inpinged nerves can be burned away.

Caden lost his other front tooth and is on his way to losing another bottom tooth. He is growing like a weed! We will be going to Disneyland with some friends for a long weekend on his birthday. That is what we will be doing next week! I have not been to Disneyland since I was 8 years old! I am sure it has drastically changed. Caden is beyond excited!

Ok, so I thought that I would update you all since I have received a couple of worried emails.

'Oh yeah...guess what...we sold the Michigan house! It hasn't quite been finalized, but soon!
Once my laptop comes I will be able to upload pictures a lot more easily. So hopefully I can share some pics soon!

thanks for stopping by!

March

Caden lost his third tooth on February 20, 2008! It is his first tooth he has lost on the top. Now he has a gaping hole, so so cute! He was working on getting it out for quite a while.



see it?


We have been very busy around here. We are about all settled in, although my studio isn't set up yet. We are waiting to go to ikea to pick up some storage cabinets, and Paul is putting legs or having a couple of custom cabinets made for a butcher table top that we have sitting around to make a high work center for my studio. (that will be so nice for my back) We have it all planned out, it is just a matter of gathering up the supplies. Next week I am going over to a friend's house to pick out some more ceramic supplies, the people who owned their house must have been ceramic artists and left tons of supplies there. So rather than through them out, I get to have dibs!

Last week I had another round of epidural nerve block injections. This time they did L4, L5 and S1 on the right. It has helped, so that is a relief! I have also been having physical therapy in a warm salt water therapy pool. I found out that with my insurance that I will be enrolling into, I will get a free gym membership to the gym that has this pool, so I will be able to continue to keep up on working out. I really enjoy the pool, it allows me to get a lot more longer of a workout than I would be able to on land.


This is the picture of our new house (and my new little orange convertible VW!). We love it so much. We have discovered that is is really close to a part of the Western States trail that goes down to the American River and through the canyon. We took about a three mile hike yesterday. It is so beautiful, spring has sprung, and little wildflowers are starting to come out. Next time we will bring the camera! The only problem with the hiking is that the way down is great, but coming back up is all up hill, so we have to pay more attention to how far we go, Caden wasn't too thrilled about the long walk up to home. He survived....just as we knew he would, but you sure wouldn't think he would according to his drama :) Oh to be six again!

I also wanted to post his school picture for this year, I know that I have had a few requests for copies, we didn't get a big package this year because the pictures were taken like the second week after we moved cross country. So we bought the image CD so we could share.
here it is-all of his teeth and all!



Thanks for sticking with reading the blog. It looks like things here are settling down, and once the studio is finished I will be in production mode. I have tried blogging like three times this last month but this laptop has been a pill. It caught a horrible bug again, locked down the motherboard and all. After that was fixed it started acting weird again, so Paul just redid the whole computer again. Looks like we are in business now (we hope!) I cannot wait until we can switch to a mac! One thing at a time, though!

Take care! Thanks for stopping by!

We get to keep Suki!

We were able to agree to the lease option, so we get to keep our beloved cat, Suki. I am so glad we get to keep her. It was breaking our hearts just to think of finding her a new home. She has traveled with us for two cross country moves. She is such a trooper. Her allergies seem to be a little better here in the new house too!

We still have a few boxes to move over to the new house and the final cleaning. We need to have everything done by Sunday. This moving stuff is exhausting. We are looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday!

That is it for now! Hope you all had a happy Valentine's Day. We sure did. I have the sweetest husband, and I must say, Caden is learning to be quite the little charmer too!

take care! thanks for stopping by!

busy-ness

Life has gotten a bit busy around here. We are packing up the house and getting ready to move out of the mold this weekend. We are looking forward to moving into a bigger, brighter house! A house! Not a condo with no yard. I am so looking forward to see Caden ride his scooter again and get back to learning to ride his bike (once we can repair it from the last move-the movers crushed it a bit) Caden will be able to play outside again without me by his side every moment making sure he doesn't "disturb" the neighbors (mostly the manager...ugh!). It will be like regaining a bit of freedom back, like we had at our house in Michigan. Speaking of which, we got an offer, less than what we owe, but maybe viable with a counter offer and some generosity from the bank we will get out of the house without going under any further. Pray pray pray, please please please :) !!!

I have been going to physical therapy in a salt water pool two times a week. It is nice to be able to exercise a little, although I much prefer working up a sweat and seeing results like I did when I was able to run oh so long ago, but I am thankful that I am able to do something at least. The pool is nice and warm. My last injection was a complete failure, unfortunately. It ended up flaring up the nerves even more. Apparently this happens about once out of 200 patients. I have had so many nerve blocks that have been successful, I was so disappointed when my legs went freezing cold and burning, like when you have really cold hands and stick them under hot water-that sort of feeling. It remained like that for over a week, but now seems to just be lessening now, thankfully. I also got disappointing news yesterday that it looks like the surgery I had in December for endometriosis was also not successful. Such a bummer. My body and I are not getting along. I wish I could trade it in!

Caden is doing great in school. We made crayon hearts for valentine's day. You collect all of the broken up crayons, break them up some more, combine them in various colors and put them in a heart shaped silicon mold and heat them up in an oven at about 250 degrees for 15 minutes or so or until all melted together. It makes a multi-colored heart shaped crayon that we will attach to the valentines Caden will be giving his friends next week.


(pictures from familyfun.go.com arts and crafts site where you can find complete directions)

Ok, I better get back to packing so we can get outta here! We are convinced that the mold in this house have been causing Paul's headaches and just a general fatigue feeling. If anything, I know it isn't a healthy thing to be living in a house with mold and if they are not going to do anything more than spray some bleach water on the wall, it isn't going to get any better and we are not going to argue about it with the owner anymore.

it is always something...

Well, this week is zooming by. I had my caudal epidural injections yesterday at the surgery center. The doctor had to do it twice because my anatomy was different (his explanation) and he had to move the needles lower. It should start to help within 3-5 days, fingers crossed.

Our garage has had a mold problem for quite some time and we have become concerned that it may cause us to be ill. We have given notice here and found a house with an option to buy after things with our house in Michigan clear up. The house is great, I will have an indoor studio, Caden will have a back yard to play in, and we will even have a reason to buy furniture eventually, as it has a living room and a family room. The neighborhood also has a small park. The only problem is that we cannot bring Suki with us. We are hoping that a friend will be able to care for her until we can purchase the place (if that happens). The owner had a really bad experience with cats and she absolutely will not allow us to have a cat. We are concerned for Suki because she has a chronic upper respiratory infection that our vet says will always be a problem, so finding her a new home will be difficult. She is a big part of our family, but it is so difficult to find places that allow a cat, and we have to put our family's health and Caden first. The condo where we live currently is run by a really difficult person who does not allow kids to play outside. We knew this would be a temporary move when we moved in, but the mold situation has caused us to step up the house search. Ugh, it is always something. The move is set for February 15th.

Next weekend we will be traveling to Oregon for Paul's Dad's birthday. The big boys get to go deep sea fishing, while the girls and Caden get to hang out. So that will be fun!

I don't think that I have told you all that Caden was able to get his turtle! His name is Sheldon and he is a asian aquatic turtle. He is quite cute! I will try to post some pictures of his soon! The turtle can make the move to the new house.

We have also found a church home. We are so happy to start getting back involved in a community. It is a new, small church call Elevation. Paul's good friend from high school goes there and invited us to check it out. It is very different, in a good way, from what we are used to. Being so small is an advantage though, we have already had a few volunteers to help us move. It is a very young church, mostly young families, we have more kids than adults! Oh, I almost forgot! One of the teachers in Caden's room moved into a house where the owner must have been a potter and left a lot of supplies. She invited me to come over one of these days and take whatever I want of the supplies that the former occupant left! I am so excited to see everything!

Well, thanks for stopping by! I will try to post some pictures of Sheldon the turtle soon! Take care!

Januray Storm

As most of you know, we had a pretty big storm in Northern California last week. There are still a few houses without electricity! When the news tells you to stay home and out of the storm, what do we do? We go out and try to float the car....

Caden had fun, he thought that we were trying to become photo-journalists! Here are a few pics!




The park where Paul asked me to marry him (Auburn Recreation Park-ARD) lost quite a few old oaks.




Caden's school even had two trees fall down.






an inpromtu waterfall, not meant for drainage, but water goes the path of least resistence.

ornament exchange 2007

Just thought I would share a quick picture of all of the ornaments I received from around the world in this last ornament swap. They are all so wonderful!

goodbye 2007...hello 2008!

Happy New Year everyone!

The surgery went fine, I am healing up well. I am still waiting for the date for my back procedures. It should be before January 14th, which is the next appointment with the specialist. I am really happy with my new doctor, he is quite familiar with managing the results of a failed back fusion. Apparently, my entire fusion has slipped and is crooked which has caused more nerve impingement among other issues. I guess it is good to know it isn't "in my head" but sucks to know there really isn't anything I, or anyone else for that matter, can do to fix it. A total disc replacement is on the horizon, but being 32, I am quite young for something like that. Ok, so onward and upward!

We had a beautiful Christmas. The weekend before we were able to spend with Paul's family in Oregon, Mom and I had a quick, but successful shopping adventure. I needed some better shoes and fell in love with her clogs. So we went to the place she had bought them in Ashland, Oregon. They were out of hers, but they had a big sale and I was able to buy two pairs of shoes for the price of a little more than one pair normally costs. I got a cute pair of clogs and some ballet flats. Paul and I were able to go to a party with his family also....Caden spent time with his cousin, and we went out alone! Our first party without kid since I was pregnant with him! We all had fun. Christmas day was spent at our house. Caden made out like usual! Everyone sent such great gifts this year. My mom got Caden a cute Gap sweatshirt and great toys. He also got two huge lego sets. He got so many toys that we decided to go to ikea the following day to get a storage unit for all the new books and toys. (We need to go and get one more for his room, the first one filled up so quickly that there is no room left for 'sheldon' the turtle who will be arriving later on this month). Paul and I decided to save money this year for a vacation and to not exchange gifts. But strangely enough, our cat Suki must have gotten out to go shopping because I got some perfume from her and a beautiful necklace from Caden. One of the many reasons why I married Paul, very creative guy I have! After the Christmas toys and joys were unwrapped, we enjoyed a quiet day and prime rib dinner with my Dad. New Year's Eve was also quiet, we looked for trouble, but all we found was the back of our eyelids well before midnight. Caden and I woke Paul up for the countdown for a New Year's hug and kiss!

We have two possible deals in the works for our house in Michigan. Please pray for us on this matter if you can. We so miss our house, our neighbors, our yard...it would make a beautiful home for someone, just a shame to sit there vacant. We have been advised not to rent out because we are so far away and it is more difficult to sell. If something doesn't take place soon, we will be in a really bad place. We need the house to sell so badly. The new year is looking up!

That is it for now, I am trying to update once a week and add more pictures too! I will upload Caden's school pic this week so everyone who didn't get one in the mail can have one--we only paid for four prints this year and the CD, school pics are so pricey and we thought that this way was a smart option.

Happy New Year! Stop bye often and soon! Take care for now!