TAPIWLL Pt 1

Take a picture, it will last longer.

As I go through things which have come from my parents' house (as there were things which I had never taken with me when I moved out) I find things which hold nostalgic value but I know I will never wear again. I shall post them here and to facebook to preserve their personal value and to tell stories.

The above shirt was one I got for attending a conference for Texas Association of Future Educators. Somewhere I have the speech I delivered for TAFE which was very well rated by the scorers, but did not win (the one that did win was a direct plagiarism of a story from Chicken Soup for the Soul). I find to this day that I still want to be a teacher- hence my return to school next semester.

Morris the Cat. I loved this shirt. It was a sort of evolution of my love for kitties and my willingness to wear them on my person. Now I am far more likely to wear something with a simple vaguely-feline shape on it. Nor do I have many kitty decorations in my home. We do have two living, breathing ones that decorate our furniture most of the time.

When I was in High School I was engaged to a nice guy named Robin. He was going to Mississippi State and wanted me to go there too. This was a shirt from the Wesley foundation there. Thankfully, I went to UofH, and then events conspired to place me with my darling husband. Robin is married as well, and last I heard was doing well :-)

My friends and I were 'into' Sailor Moon in high school. I was Serena (middle) and Steph was Luna (purple kitty at bottom) and Lisa was Raye (Upper left). The other folks were a bit variable. You know how high school friendships are, odd and complex. Fun times, Fun times.

Ok... well there were a few more shirts (over at my facebook page) which have other stories, but these were the main ones.

Ugh!

Well... Our hard drive crashed and all the pictures saved to the computer and not online are lost. This really upsets me, and goes to show that procrastination is BAD.

Points of interest in our lives lately:

*Jules is scheduled for a sedated echo in the first week of March.

*Joe and Jules make a terribly devious duo when they work together to cause mischief.

*We had a fantastic stay in Island Park for Thanksgiving.

Mom and Dad Slatosky- They invited us up for T-day.

My Mom and Dad. It was hard to not have Grandma there. It was our first Thanksgiving without her.

Matt and I.

The Kiddos.

*Pray for my Mom and Dad as they make a transition in their life- and that my dad's interview goes well.

*Pray for safe travels for Matt's Mom and Dad as they travel to NZ for their 'winter' fun. :-)

*Pray for me to lose weight. I'll do my end, and I ask your prayers for the other end. I'm on Metformin now, as I have insulin resistance. I'm working on adjusting the sugar intake in my diet (though it's already a lot lower than the average American's) and am trying to get back into working out. The medicine has made me feel very weak, but I am feeling like I'm recovering from the dosage adjustment.

*Pray as always for Juliet's continued good health, and for Joseph to have fewer (painful) rashes.

*Pray for us as we go into our first Christmas without Grandma.

Arg!

It seems I always get side tracked when I am determined to update our blog more frequently. In recent news:

*Juliet is doing great! If she's caught the H1N1 virus she shows no signs of it. We know it's been going around in the area, and we've been exposed to it. Either we have not picked it up, or we're rockin' our immune systems.

*Matt has been busy busy busy with work! He's got a lotta deadlines and such this month, so pray for his sanity please!

*We're going to a Halloween party hosted by the HDBA, and an old friend might join us with some of her new friends. Fun fun! Our kiddos may be in the care of my parents if they are feeling better-

*Please pray for my parents, as my dad recovers from neck surgery and my mom is suffering from mysterious sinus symptoms. Her sinuses are causing her a great deal of pain, and the doctors aren't really helping much.

*Joe is up in Island Park until tomorrow! He's having great fun with his Granmom and Granpap (Matt's parents). Hopefully when he gets back we can introduce new forms of discipline to try to get his behavior on track.

*I'm going back to school! I've decided for sure that I am going to major in biology. Once I get my bachelor's I'll go through an accelerated education course to teach secondary education. This was my original goal when I was in high school, and not much has changed in nine years as far as what I think I'd be good at.

At some point soon I plan to finish my previous series of pictures from our trip this summer. After that I shall no doubt have other pictures I can post from Halloween and such.

Major update continued [The Incident with the Bird]

such a beautiful place. We very much enjoyed our stay there. We walked along the beach at night, we went to shops, we had barbeque burgers, we ate at some very nice restaurants.
We played in the waves with family.

We took the kids to a playground by the public beach.












And then there was an incident with a seagull. We were enjoying some breakfast on the balcony when I (stupidly) fed the birds some food. One of the little buggers became VERY BOLD.

He even took some food right from my fingers, and I was not expecting it, so I got a little pinch. No blood or anything.

But we got some seriously cool pics.



WHAT YOU LOOKIN' AT? WANNA PIECE OF ME?????





Julie-belle snuggling her kitty.

One night several of us went to the beach and the kids played in the room. When we got back they were passed out.

And my poor daddy scraped his foot badly on the shore when he was tumbled by a wave. The waves were pretty intense, and this got pretty badly infected. Thankfully our next stop was seeing my Aunt and Uncle in Placerville. My Aunt is an MD, so she was able to help. More on that tomorrow (or Friday).

Major update [Picture Heavy]

Ok. I know this will take a while. *sits comfortably*


There are a lot of things I wish to post about today. Hopefully once I am 'caught up' I will get in the habit of posting more frequently. *Sips Lemonade*



Pictures to tell a story:


We went on quite a long trip to California recently. We were celebrating my Grandma Nonie's life. We visited many places that she loved and spent time with family (one of her favorite things to do). The above picture is traveling toward Nevada- as Grandma LOVED gambling.

We stayed at Primm, Nevada. Some of my favorite memories with my Grandma take place here. We'd travel from SoCal to Stateline and there was always plenty for me to do. What with crazy rollercoasters and an awesome arcade. Not to even mention the pools.
Here we captured a PRICELESS look on my hubby's face:

"Me? Ride Desperado? LOLWut?"
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Next stop: Disneyland. Now this was not so much a part of the memorial trip as a chance for us to do something with the kids that will probably not happen again until they are MUCH MUCH older. My parents graciously provided for all of us on this trip- including Disneyland. Amazing generosity!
We stayed at a low priced (but amazingly beautiful) hotel nearby and spent most of a day in the park.

On our way in, Joseph caught a little snuggle with Donald Duck. Donald looked sad that he didn't want to hug him, so Joseph decided he wanted to make him feel better.

"Why do you have such a big nose?"

Joseph did not quite understand why we had to stand in lines. This picture was taken just after we rode Alice's ride and were in line for It's A Small World

Somehow the local critters were turned into hedges there.

So

Much

Fun.

We were so busy having fun that we did not get very many pictures.

Mom and I escaped to ride the 'fun' rides. As in the rides that are actual rollercoasters ;-) We waited in a very long line for Space Mountain. We also rode the Matterhorn. Later on JOSEPH rode the Matterhorn with Nana and Pop-pop. Can you believe that!
Later on we got tired, and there was so much more that happened... it was so very fun!

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The next day we headed to LAGUNA BEACH!

First I shall put in the pictures of the memorial we had at Pacific View Memorial Park.

Grandma's Ashes. This is a picture of her when she was much younger.

Here we all are (Left to right): Dad, Mom, Uncle Randy, Me, Juliet, Aunt Valerie, Kim (top), Julia (bottom) Aunt Carol, Kyle, Joseph, James, Emily, Aunt Lynn, Uncle John. Ellie is in her mom's lap, but you can barely see her (her mom is Aunt Valerie). Matt is not in this pic because he was behind the camera.



We miss her very much.

The cemetary is simply gorgeous. And it does have a view of the pacific ocean.

My Cousin Emily and Joseph had great fun together:





My handsome daddy.

Ellie with roses.

Julia with flowers

Julia praying.

Juliet 'improving' the arrangement on my Uncle Gary's grave.

Matt and Julia

Kyle and Ellie


Grandma's Gravesite, and the flowers we all brought for her.

The graves are: Uncle Gary, My Pop-Pop, Grandma. Then there's my biological grandfather and his wife.
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back to the beach!
We stayed at the Capri Laguna and enjoyed many wonderful days playing at the beach.
Playing at the beach makes little children tired:





Joe was unsure of what to do when he was being fought over by two beautiful girls.

One of The Beautiful Girls and her Beautiful Mama

The view from our room:



To BE CONTINUED: The rest of the trip, and what has gone on since then.