Visiting friends

They're visiting me, not me visiting them! My good friends is coming to visit this weekend along with her husband. They've been in Japan teaching for the last...wow, almost 7 years. No, it might be more than that. Wendy and I go waaaaaay back. Her dad and mine kayaked together back in the '70's and '80's. So us kids hung out. Then, Wendy came to my high school. She lived out in Burnaby, but Prince of Wales was a good school and she got in as an out-of-district student.

I'm looking forward to seeing her. I'm super busy this weekend with a Board meeting all day tomorrow and the Friends of the Sunriver Library annual dinner/meeting on Sunday, but I'm taking Monday off to visit with them. I like showing friends around Bend.....

Uncoordinated

I've always thought of myself as being coordinated, and there are only a few things that make me feel klutzy. Well, evidently learning the breast-stroke is one of them!!!! :) We learned that stroke at swim class tonight, and I'm just not getting the rhythm. I can do each part on it's own, but putting the two together....it seems to be beyond me. Or it was tonight. I'll get better, but it's HARD. It might be the one stroke that Heidi can whoop my ass at! :) Hee hee hee.

Kai in his cast...

Here's little Kai in his cast. He's looking pretty chipper! Man, he looks SO much like my brother! :) He's evidently doing really well, just kinda pissy that he can't walk! Poor little boy. He looks really good!

I'M GOING TO BE AN AUNT!!!!!

Again...and well, not really a relative...but close enough. My best friend since eighth grade... that's ... ulp, 21 years (!!!!!) is pregnant and due Nov 17th...the same day her sister is getting married. Hee heee hee. Typical Sylvia! :) I'm sooooo excited! For them, and for me! :)

Sylvia and I met in grade 8 and discovered that we'd only lived 2 blocks apart for the last ten years! We'd gone to different elementary schools and didn't do anything in the same circles. We bonded instantly, and have been friends ever since. Sylvia is the one that has come for Christmas Eve every year since 1986. She's been with my family for more Christmases since then than I have! :) Here's Syl and my other best friend Jen.
Here's just me and Syl a couple years later on the porch at my parent's house. This was Syl's mistake of a perm. Hee hee. Man, that was NOT a good hair time for me and her!
This was Sylvia and Spiro's (otherwise known as Elmer) wedding back in 199..no, hmm, wait. When were they married? I was living in Bend...it must have been the late summer of 2002. That's her sister Serena to the right of me. She's the one getting married right around Syl's due date.

This was me and Syl last year. 21 years...that's a long time. You know, I do think about this a lot, and each time I'm reminded just how blessed I am to have had the friends I've had over the years. I'm STILL friends with Sylvia, and my friend Jen...who's been one of my best friends since we were infants. I've always thought that everyone has those kinds of friends, but it's not true.

So, thank you to ALL my friends. And look at my track record...hopefully we'll still be friends in another 21...or 33 years!!!! :)

Congratulations Sylvia and Spiro! Can't wait to say hello to your baby. You know, Chandra is a GREAT name! Unique names give...personality and strength! :) :) :)

My poor nephew! :(

I talked to my mom this morning...and she was SO upset! Evidently she was playing with him at the park while his mom did a few errands. They were going down the slide...and somehow his little foot got twisted and it broke his tibia! :( She feels so bad and responsible. BUT, we all know that these things happen...he'll mend. And it's evidently an extremely common break. In fact, it's called a Toddler Fracture, and the BC Children's Hospital is doing a study on the best way to cast it (full leg, or just below the knee).

He's doing fine, just pissy that he can't really walk. My poor mom on the other hand....is MISERABLE! She's going to feel guilty for a while, but none of us blame her. I totally understand though. I'd feel horrible too. But that's what life's all about, right? Bumps, bruises, scrapes...

WHOOSH!

I'm really enjoying the swimming class Heidi and I are taking at Juniper! It's a bit nippy after being in the water for an hour...but I'm learning a lot and am hopeful that I'm becoming a better swimmer. A lot of this stuff is more basic than I need...but some of what I'm missing are basic things. Even though they're not always taught in swim class, it's still basic stuff to a good stroke.

Wish it was in the indoor pool...it's COLD! :) Last night we were doing one arm high elbow freestyle. Hmm, is that what it was called? Anyway, on every stroke we were supposed to come up, say WHOOSH breathe in and then stroke again. It forced us to slooooow down and really feel what we were doing. It was fun...but I swallowed a lot of water on my first lap. Hadn't quite got the hang of it. Wonder what we'll do Wednesday? WHOOSH! :)

Redmond Art Show

This Saturday at the Redmond library they had an art show...we;; a wearable art show. It was called "Adornments and Embellishments." Made a bunch of stuff for it...only sold two pieces, but I'm still glad I went. There were about four other jewelers there. Here's my table:

Jacksonville, FL Humane Society

:( Human suffering is always horrible, and I'm not saying that animal suffering is MORE important...but suffering is suffering and it makes me sad. The Jacksonville Humane Society was destroyed by fire this weekend. They saved about half the animals but 67 cats and 18 dogs perished. They are accepting donations to rebuilt and shelter the animals temporarily. To donate, or for more check here. With animals it's just so hard, because you can't explain what's going on.

Finished the medical exam for my Green Card, so it's all done, no we just wait.....

Happy Easter!

Not that I celebrate easter in a religious sense...just secular. Its a good chance to eat and drink with good friends. I had to work Saturday, which was ok 'cause it rained. Then I took the boy I'm mentoring to COISC for skating. He skated for over three hours! I so wanted to be out there, but I was a good girl and refrained.

Since I didn't bike Sat, Julie and I went out for a little road ride up Skyliners before heading over to Cheryl's for our annual Easter get-together. I created a gallery of it, of course! I made may fabulous Caprese salad (mozzarella, tomato and basil...yummy!), and Julie and I rode over on our cruisers. Here's the spread...or one side of the room anyway. Let's see there was turkey, ham, vegetarian lasagna roll-ups, this fabulous five bean baked beans, two types of salad, corn casserole, potatoes au gratin, garlic bread, jello salad...and that doesn't touch on dessert! Man, good eatin'.
After lunch we set out the eggs for the kids egg hunt. They love it. It was mostly April and Jonathan who put the eggs out...they did a good job.
Then it was time to play spoons! Hee hee hee. Almost everyone played. Cheryl always does a nice twist...it's the looser of each round that gets the prize.
And the prizes are fabulous things like the bunny glasses Jonathan's sporting after he "lost." There was also colouring books, a variety of games, Peeps bubbles and lots of other things. Cheryl has these Passover 10 Plagues finger puppets that are HYSTERICAL! They weren't for us though.
It was so gorgeous out! But hot. Cheryl finally offered us hats...little did we know that the hats were vintage ones she'd gotten at a variety of garage sales. They were fabulous, but the best was Jimmy's dew rag. Ok, it's really a 1920's ladies hat...but it looks hilarious on him. April has the best laugh. Neither April not Julie looked silly...they looked FABULOUS in theirs.We, ah...like our champagne on these "special" occasions. After dinner, I'd taken a picture of our bottles and there were six. Halfway through our spoons game there were 9. By the end, 11. But then we just hit the hard liquor.
The sun went behind some clouds for a bit...poor Rachel was even a little cold! Here we are blowing bubbles from our Peeps bubble blowers.
So...Julie and I got burnt! I don't know what I was thinking. I was going to wear a tank top, then changed my mind. You think I'd know that if it's warm enough for a tank top, it's warm enough for sun block! Nope. I'm intelligent...just not so smart sometimes.

This last one is Barry returning to Cheryl's to give us some empty jars that Rachel was trying to get rid of. He came back on his bike...and when we called him so sexy, this was his response. Ahh Barry. Some things never change!

Good weekend. Tomorrow I get my medical exam done for my green card. I have to drive all the way to Prineville! I can't believe that Bend does not have one civil surgeon! Stupid. Oh well, at least it's a pretty drive.

Stuffonmycat.com

I'm bored, futzing around on the Internet and I find this site: http://www.stuffonmycat.com. I love it! I'm sure some people will think it's mean...but it's really hard to be mean to a cat without being truly bad. They don't put up with anything they don't want to. Then someone else sent me links to these other two: http://www.cuteoverload.com/ and http://uglyoverload.blogspot.com/

Ahh, a good laugh on a Friday. So I have these of my own:

Asker under a pile of blankets
Dread on Boston...he did that a lot.

Dread when he was a kitten sleeping on Pepper. Again, he did this a lot! It was his favourite place to sleep. He was an abandoned kitten, way too young to be away from his mom...so Pepper became his mother. It was so cute!

We had an EXCELLENT Bend Bella meeting last night. Lots of fun, and lots of new faces. If you want to see pictures of what we did, check here.

I'm going to try not to be depressed...

Sigh. I went to skating practice last night. My PT said no more then 10 laps, but try it out. It only took four to fire up my shins! DAMMIT!!!!!! I'm trying very hard to not be upset. My PT said that if it does hurt it may not mean anything. I'm only about 1/2 way through the treatments, so I still may be able to skate. I'm still so sad though. I want to skate so badly. I see the orthopedist on the 12th, so we'll see.....

But until then I guess it's just swimming, biking and walking. Which isn't too bad...but I WANNA SKATE!!! I'm taking swim lessons though. Second one is tonight. It's going to be fun. i want to learn that flippy turny thing.

And the Bend Bella Cyclists meeting is tomorrow night, 7:00 at PMS.