For #4, sorry it took so long

Sorry, so busy sis. Here is a short video of one day of the snow here. I have three more videos of care drives to and through Astoria. The problem is impatience with downloading and my still not taking the time to learn to edit the videos and voice over w/music. Every time the camera fell over on one of the trips, mom would swear. Hehehe!

Check out the family pics over on my flickr page to see more snow and Christmas pictures. We had a lot of fun, wish you guys were here. All it is doing is raining now, maybe you'll be able to make it if the rains ever hit up north.

I am not sure if we should be happy that the PacNW finally has three seasons? Fall, winter and spring. I guess if the trade off is an equal amount of summer sun we can stand the late fall and early winter snow. If only it doesn't mean we have flooding next!

Love to P, and a "ciao" to sis #3, the lucky bum!

Snow Pics for the Fam

The whole outta state family is laughing at us as we close down schools, government and huddle indoors. What can we say? We did survive the first ever three day 125 mph sustainable wind storm, we just don't know what that white crap that keeps falling perpetually from the sky is doing accumulating on the ground.

Bedtime ritual - Nasty

So every night, now, bedtime at our house is hell time. Somewhere along the recent way Eldest has read a book about puting a child down at a regular bedtime so we are all treated to an hour of hell. The amusing thing about it is that her and my mom act, each night, as if grandson's temper tantrum at being put to bed is new or different.

Eldest doesn't like the temper tantrum so she puts up with it for about 20 minutes and then leaves that part of the house to let him cry to himself. When she works late the task falls to my mother and she will read to him after arguing with him until he falls to sleep about an hour after it all starts.

Both of them swear the process takes about 20 minutes. They lie. Hubby and I refuse to take part in the process aside from a hug and kiss goodnight. Because the amusing thing is that Eldest doesn't get up in the morning with this child she has forced to go to bed at an hour he doesn't wish to. He comes in to OUR bedroom to get us up not only because he wants to see Papa right away in the morning but because she tells him she doesn't want to get up yet and to come to our bedroom!!!

Guess the book didn't cover who is supposed to get up with him. Needless to say, I am writing this as another round of tantrums, begging and wails for his 'Bika or Papa to save him are going off. This is probably the biggest bone of contention between the different raising styles. I never believed in "bedtime". Apparently, she found that to be something she wants to correct in my parenting style. I WANT my children to do better than me, but, of course, only when I was wrong. Why she would want to correct something I did right is beyond me.

So here is me, taking my bitch to the 'net. And you thought it was a different kind of nasty didn't you?!?

Oh, the weather outside is frightful!

UGH! Another storm hitting but this time on top of the wind we have high waves and a cold front followed by snow! We've done all that we can do at this point to prepare. We bought all of the pipe coverings which went over the electric warming tape we already had on the pipes in case we lose power. We have all of the propane tanks filled for heat and cooking (too bad no natural gas down our way but NW doesn't have enough gas to make it out to our area. So much for "there's no need").

We have twenty five gallons of gasoline in reserve plus the generator's filled. If we lose power we will be able to run for three days if we used it constantly and six if we used it half of the time. Thank goodness gasoline prices are below $2/gal right now. I filled my tank and 15 gallons in spare gas all for less than $36! WOW. Three months ago, in the red truck, I filled the tank and it cost me over $72!

We have all the flashlights ready, the battery operated lanterns as well as the propane lanterns, the kerosene lanterns, and the white fuel lanterns filled. Candles are stocked. All of the bathrooms have the tiny tap lights stuck on the wall right by the light switch so they are easy to find and down the hallway so Dad can find his way easily.

Just letting all the fam that is far away know that we are pretty well prepared for this storm so even if we lose our contact by cell phone you should know we have everything pretty well taken care of. Papa has all of his meds up to date and more than enough (they come via mail, in three month supplies). Grams and I just came back from a Costco shopping spree where we even got some cedar to decorate (yeah, we are surrounded by cedar but YOU climb up those trees and cut down their limbs)!

We have out the board games for later, right now we are Wii-ing. Books are stacked up. If cable goes out I also bought the seventh and final season of West Wing which Bart and I missed and are looking forward to watching. I actually bought it in January or February and have been picking up quite a few movies whenever they go on sale, preparing for a time when the power/cable goes out again. Its no big deal when it is for a few hours, like night before last when the power pole went down and we lost electricity from 6pm until 1 am. But when it is the second, third or fourth day the games are getting pretty old and movies are a nice respite.

We even remembered to get our five gallon water jugs refilled. With each winter storm we get a little bit better. Clatsop County's new Emergency Operations Center may get christianed with this storm. Bart is not looking forward to a repeat of last year's crisis on Hwy 26! I keep checking the ODOT camera to see if Seaside's flooding but even at the high tide when Youngs Bay came over the road at Linehan's corner the road in Seaside looked pretty clear. We will see what happens and hope Bart doesn't have to go out in this. If they open the EOC then I will take a run over to the media room and find out what is going on and post live from there to NorthCoastOregon.com. Remember to read there or KAST for updates on how this area is faring doing down here. If you can't get a hold of any of us leave a meassage on the comment section of NCO and we will try to respond there, too, as the satellite allows.

Also, if you read the article a couple of us pulled together on NCO, you can check out what's happening here by looking at the ODOT cameras and the Brevins cameras. Of course, you can't see our house in any of those shots but you can see different points across the county and get a general idea of what is happening around here.

I am puting this on time delay so it will post tomorrow morning. Hope you all are safe and warm. Keep the Jelly Bean happy and her mama (hmm, wonder what I am hoping for!), too. Love you all.

Welcome to our World, Jelly Bean

Welcoming into the family a new little tiny member. Jelly Bean was officially recognized by a medical technician so it is now safe to announce that Memers and her gentleman hubby are expecting! Due date July 19th! She actually DID learn something in Japan from all those newlyweds.

We are all very excited. Gentleman Hubby can't wipe the grin off of his face. Memers quit drinking coffee and is not to be tolerated in the early morn (anytime before noon) and has muscle spasms more often than morning sickness at this point.

We can't believe how much has changed in such a short time in our "little girl"'s life. I could be weepy that she is so far away (all of three hours, down in Salem) except for the fact that she is so darn happy it is hard to begrudge her even a moment of this precious time in her life. She deserves it, truly. They have picked names but I am not telling, quite yet. Simply put, I am honored, deeply. These two continue to surprise us in delightful and touching ways.

Getting ready for the holiday season as we also prepare the homefront, once again, for other various projects. Sigh, sigh, sigh. We will have a Christmas themed house, though and grandson is having a great time being strawboss and telling us where everything should go. We will be bursting at the seems with family (which I love) but missing dear daughters in Blaine and Alaska (which I abhor). Sis #4 will be down the day after Christmas which is great and we will see #3 sometime later.

So, here's to Jelly Bean, hear our thoughts of love to you and treat your brand new mama good. She's giving up her precious coffee for you and your new daddy can't wait to hold and cuddle you. Cousins K & D are waiting to show you all of the great hiding places in the woods and their newest tree fort. Cousin R hopes you are a girl so she can share her princess outfits with someone!

Rest well mama & daddy and enjoy one another for this very breif time of aloneness. By the time the kiddies leave home Bart & I will be just about the age to be moving in! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Mulligans DO happen!

My baby came home the other day! I got a mulligan! I can hardly believe it. Hubby pulled off a miracle and the day before Thanksgiving I got my little malibu back. And then I went and filled the tank. WOW! I filled the tank for under $20 AND I am still running on that tank of gas. DOUBLE WOW!

Also in November I received a certificate for having completed the Love and Logic course along with my daughter and my mother. The course was facilitated by Ann Bales, with ESD, and funded by the Commission on Children and Families. Eldest Daughter (ED) had asked that we take the course with her so we could decide if it was a tool we wanted to use and then all be on the same page in dealing with grandson. It is an excellent tool, although personally I am not overly fond of the guys who developed the L&L concept. They do the videos that go along with the series and, for me, are just plain corny.

Ann Bales is a very good facilitator of the course. She said the class that we took was one of the largest she had ever had with about 30 starting and 22 completing the course. It takes six-eight weeks (giving time to make up any missed sessions) to go through the course. Ann is thorough but not once did we go over the 8 o'clock deadline she set at the beginning. We started at 6 pm and even received dinner! That was followed by discussion of the chapter in the book (very brief 4-6 pg chapters that were more like outlines) and videos giving examples of behaviors and practices of using the Love & Logic techniques.

Some of the participants were there because of mandates from the court. They would mention visitations with CSD when relating how they were using a certain technique. Some were there because they were going through a divorce and had to show a parenting plan which included a parenting course. There were quite a few there from the different day cares in the area which use the Love & Logic techniques which was nice to hear and it was also nice for mom and I to hear what they charged (as we looked pointedly at my daughter) as well as some of their other techniques (like mandatory nap times for all toddlers four and under from 12:30-2:30 PM!!!) .

It is almost impossibly to get our three year old down at 8:30 pm we couldn't imagine how late he would stay up if he had a two hour nap in the middle of the day! ED questioned the daycare provider closely if ALL children HAD to take a nap. "No, but they have to stay on their mat and not make any noise for those two hours." A look of horror crossed her face. I kept thinking of the report I had recently read that said that the business industry was starving for factory workers and that was the next big push. Obviously the daycares had got that message.

For Thanksgving we had #4 and p come and spend four days with us which was wonderful. With her work schedule it is a rare occarance although she just lives up the freeway from us. Grandson and p really love each other and bonded tight during the summer's camping trip. It was great watching them together. Dr. Sis, (aka #3) was supposed to come over from Hawaii but she got tied up in prepping for finals and couldn't make it.

The newly weds did make it, though and looked as cute as could be with one another. We went down to the Seaside Christmas Parade and then some of us went on over to Ilwaco and saw a fantastic performance of Fiddler on the Roof put on by PAPA while others stayed at home for the Civil War, which played out in our living room as the trash talk on the television heightened the agitation at home! Three ducks and two beavers hollered for three insane hours. We only had to bear with an hour of it before we left. Yeah, beavers should have won for the Pac 10's best interests, but SWEEEEEEEEET that the ducks won at Reser's Stadium! Not that I was pulling for any side. Man, this mother-in-law stuff is HARD!

All in all, November was a pretty good month. Very busy with a dozen or four that I really don't have the time or inclination to go into. I really need more reporters in order to do this county justice in the news that they are currently not getting. Oh well, it will happen when it happens.