Mali's Birthday! 14 orbits!

I took Mali, Andrew, and Mali's friend Tesia to Tom's Pancake House for a birthday breakfast. Then took Mali and Tesia to their first soccer game of the Spring Season, where they won 4-0! Woohoo!
I gave Mali a Flip Video camera, and I think she liked it. She started using it right away. As she set it up, she said, "What's the date?: Then laughed "oh yeah, my birthday." We all cracked up.
Andrew immediately posted it on Facebook.

Andrew's Birthday! ~ ~ ~~ ><((((°>

I woke up early so I could work this morning, but I had trouble thinking past the excitement of Andrew's birthday. So I ran drove (no time for exercise this morning) to Safeway to buy all the types of sugar-free gum I could find that he might like (as he and I did for Mali), this time in a Costco box of Goldfish (crackers) his mom picked up for him yesterday. (He has already received his main gift: a new cell phone! Also his auxiliary gift: a digital camera.)
He needed his present this morning because we won't all be together until he gets home late from watching the Varsity track meet. I also retrieved his traditional birthday donut and even some chocolate and blueberry muffins as they were still hot from the oven. Susy was up early when I returned, making home-made chocolate muffins for the boy, so now there are many muffins for celebrating his birthday. He may even share. Andrew stumbled downstairs in his usual morning fog to a joyful, non-singing birthday greeting, and was happy.

I'm guessing there will be kids here this afternoon who will help him eat the muffins before I drive them to the track meet. Yesterday Andrew's friends Rian and Kyle were here until 8:00, since I let them talk me into playing a game of hearts after work. (Hey Mom: Guess who won!)
Mali had her friend Hannah over, helping her sort through her clothes - a Susy-decreed project. Hannah took payment of a couple of outfits, since she is slightly smaller than Mali.

Mali's Birthday

Mali's birthday is today. We began celebrating last night with the traditional birthday donut. This morning I thought she should open our presents to her, since tonight will be hectic. Tonight includes:
Mali's rehearsal for The Music Man until 5:00,
Andrew's track practice until ~ 5:30, and
restaurant dining with the Washington grandparents,
who are on there migration North after their month in the South in their RV. They are in Oregon today especially for Mali's birthday.
I made this early-morning-present-opening decision just as Susy got out of bed and Andrew only had four minutes before leaving for school. Still, it worked out wonderfully, and Mali loved her presents!
Andrew gave her two of the movies on her list: Sydney White (a modern Snow White remake with Mali's favorite actress: Amanda Bynes), and The Devil Wears Prada with favorite actress #2: Anne Hathaway.
Mali's big present was a Fuji Finepix digital camera - Orange: her favorite color.
Yesterday I had a brilliant idea regarding Mali's recently developed love for chewing gum. Andrew and I went to Safeway and bought every kind of sugarless gum they had, about thirty of them. Then we replaced the crisps from two bags of Snow Pea Crisps (which Mali likes) with the gum. She was weirdly surprised, and thrilled at the cavalcade of gum packages. We forgot to give her one present, so we'll do that tonight after dinner to cap off her day. (I'll tell you about it later.)

Samira's birthday!

Mali and Moose walked over to Alana's yesterday afternoon, to help with her Christmas decorations. Well, Moose romped around with Max, while Mali decorated one of Alana's two trees. They were there all afternoon. Alana invited us over for dinner and birthday cake for Samira, who turned 23 on Saturday. I forgot my camera so didn't annoy anyone, though since Samira and Maiara are both beautiful enough to be models maybe they won't be annoyed by incessant picture taking.
Rocio and Matias also came over for cake. Matias brought along his Rubik's Cube, which he has just figured out how to solve. He demonstrated and explained it to all of us. Mali took pride in scrambling it up for him so he could re-solve it. Andrew thought a Rubick's Cube would be nice to find in his stocking.

Maliday Schmaliday

Mali's maliday is turning into a bad holiday - yesterday we got another estimate for putting in hardwood floors, and it was good from a guy who's work we've seen, so we're having it done - This weekend - while we're gone to Crater Lake and Medford. So we have to get everything out of the downstairs today. Mali's plan was not to spend her extra time off cleaning and moving things.

Yesterday was extraordinarily hectic. We discovered Andrew's game didn't start until 5:45 instead of 4:30 like always, so our evening got all squished up. Andrew played great, and they tied 1-1 at Sunset High School (at sunset!). They went down by a goal right away, ferociously fought back to tie it at 1-1 in the first half, then got clobbered the second half but managed to hold on to the tie.
We rushed from the game to Mali's teacher conference at 7:30. Dinner was reheated pizza at 8:30. Happy Chompo to me.

Mali's conference went great: Her science/social studies teacher has Mali all figured out, and so Mali should be poised for greatness this year. And Mali talked to her large scary math teacher and sorted out her missing assignments. So the rest of her weekend is free and clear, except for the cleaning and moving part.

Susy took this great photo of the game at halftime. All my photos turned out blurry - it may have been too dark to capture all the motion going on.

Maliday - A holiday for Mali: She's off today

Today and the rest of the week. She made up the word - maliday. Susy is off too. Oh, and it's my birthday, but I'll be working. Andrew has school. He's off Friday, when we will drrraaaaaagggggggg him to Crater Lake. Andrew says it should be called Caldera Lake. The crater is really a caldera. I love my little nerd.
We're watching Veronica Mars most evenings now. We got the first disk from netflix and I now have the whole first season from the library. We love it.

I'm healthy!

Except for a little relapse last night, I am doing fine now. Still tired.
Mali got her birthday present a little early - we went and got her a cell phone today.
Andrew went out to lunch at the Chinese place with a bunch of his friends. He's not home yet, so not sure how that turned out.
Susy took Mali to Michaels to get supplies for her Valentine's Day dragon/swan mailbox that she is creating. Her class is having a contest. They dropped me off at the library, then afterwards we all went out for coffee/hot chocolate at a nice new coffee shop next to the library. While we were there they posed for a cell phone photo.

Birthday Beginning

For my (first) birthday dinner I let my parents take us all to my favorite restaurant - Swagats. It is a very low-key Indian restaurant. The kids weren't thrilled but they found chicken pakora and tandoori edible, at least. They also brought me a delicious apple cake, and brownies for the kids. And zuccini bread for breakfast. All wonderful, and all but a few slices of bread are already gone.

Saturday was busy:
Mali had a great soccer game, her team winning 5 - 2. It was wet, but didn't rain. Erin scored the first goal, and Heather got one and almost two others. Mariah scored on a pass from Chandler. Amazing how these former wallflowers have come alive to play good soccer. That is my favorite part of coaching. Very similar to track - teaching the littlest, most timid kids how to long jump. It is hard to go wrong there. Mali was a force for good, playing great defense as usual.

Andrew and I left soccer immediately to get him to his cross-country meet. After sitting in traffic on I-84 until the actual start of his meet, we sadly decided there was no way we were going to make it, and so exited the first chance we got. I asked Andrew if there was anything we should do downtown, since we were already there. He asked me if there was a bookstore.

SO: I took my boy to THE bookstore, Powell's, for the first time. He liked it, and was properly impressed. We had a good time. We bought a dozen half-priced books, then went across the street for some gelato. He wasn't too broken up about missing his meet.

For dinner Saturday we joined the A's and S's at Alana's house for dinner. Paul was missing, because he's down South trying to help hurricane victims. Alana made tortilla soup, and I picked up a pizza for the kids. Rocio had picked up a pizza too, so there was an over-abundance of food, as usual. I was stuffed for the second night in a row. I didn't eat much today. I think I'm on rabbit food for awhile.

Sunday was lazy. We watched Gilmore Girls, then Kyle came over. I played one game of Settlers of Catan with the boys after I put some purple paint on bedroom walls. Then William came over too, along with Larry. Larry and I had a beer while Susy napped and Mali played Apples to Apples with the boys.