For Em on Valentine's Day!!!

Happy Valentine's Day Sweetheart!!!

Reading Garden!!!

 Last year I won a small grant to put together a reading garden for Finn's school.  A student designed a  mural for us which we completed last year, but it took a little longer to get through the LAUSD red tape to complete the garden.  Patrick oversaw almost all of the construction work and the other parents who are in Friends of Glenfeliz with us were also really, really helpful.

 We finally found an amazing nonprofit organization called EnrichLA.  They have been putting kitchen gardens into numerous schools in the LA school district.  It is truly inspiring to see what they have achieved.  After having to scrap our first plan for the garden, they came up with a totally different but very cool design that completely fit within our budget.  On our planting day, we had over 125 volunteers, including parents, teachers, students, staff, people from the community, as well as a dedicated group of volunteers from EnrichLA and USC,

 Here is the entrance to the garden.  The plants don't look like much yet, but eventually they will fill out and the vines will grow up over the arbor.

Our City Councilman Eric Garcetti (and probably future Mayor of LA, Go Eric!) came out on his birthday to lend a hand and offer his support. I had originally written this grant hoping to be able to surprise my aunt Teresa with it - she was both an avid gardener and a reader. She died right before I found out we had been awarded the grant, but I was able to talk about it with my brother Michael quite a bit before he died, so completing this project means a lot to me. No one else will ever think about it this way, but Teresa and Michael were both a big part of why I put so much work into this project. I hope the kids get a kick out of it.

Here is the park part of the garden.  This was pretty much a scrubby piece of grass with some pretty trees on it before.  It has lots of plants on the other end now, a picnic bench and some nice stools made out of the stump of a beloved tree that fell down on campus during our bad windstorms this fall.

Now on to planning our kitchen garden...

Dead Friday!!

twenty-nine!!!

Happy New Year!

The people in The Village don't tend to get out all that much.  So this year, Patrick, Amy and Julie put together a great dance party for us.  I was a little dubious at first, but it turned out to be just the thing.  Here are the girls, don't they look pretty?  Bell changed dresses about 8 times.  This is her wedding dress that made Scarlett go, "Oooooh!"

Party rockers in the house tonight!  All the kids had fun staying up late, but Finn and Lorelei shut the party down.  (With help from Marilyn.  Thank you Marilyn!)

Pretty Adrienne, ready to dance.

Lovely Michelle, also ready to dance. 

Jamie concocting one of his crazy shots.

This one looks a bit like absinthe and seemed to have the same effect.

Patrick and his sister Amy swing dancing.  I wish we had more pictures of everyone dancing.  Thor, Algis and Daniel all turned out to be great dancers, but you'll just have to take our word for it. The kids were pretty crazy cute doing their shuffling dance, but somehow it seems we were all too drunk and busy dancing ourselves to take many pictures.

A proper way to spend New Year's Day.

Three tired boys.  In case you can't read the awesome sign below that Amy had the kids make for us, Happy New Year everyone!  We hope this new year brings everybody many, many good things.

Christmas 2011!!!

Happy 2012 to everyone!!! Here are some memories from our 2011 Christmas. First of all, we were so glad that we got to see so much family!! Dad and Molly from Oregon, Brian and Krista, Pat and her family, Grandpa Hank, and many more helped to make it a great Christmas. Oh, and the perfect weather helped too!!

Christmas Eve at Mom and Petur's:

Christmas morning before pic:

Christmas morning after the hurricane:

Cute family:

Caroling on Christmas night - thanks for the suggestion Amy!!!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!!!

Cutie Patooties

 As many of you know, I have had a difficult time finding my Christmas spirit this year. The boys did their holiday performances last week, though and even my sad, lonely heart couldn't deny that there was Christmas magic in the air

 Funny Jack, front and center.

He has a bit of a cold, so he was a little off this year, but he was doing his best. Jack couldn't see us, but Finn was sitting right below the stage on the floor and Jack kept giving him the sweetest smiles.

Presenting...the adorable Dores.

That's Finn's awesome teacher Ms. Marks in the background.  He is so lucky to have her!  The girl in the glasses on the far-right is Finn's girlfriend. 

Here she is again behind Finn with Hana.  She seems like a sweetheart, but...

We're still holding out hope for Hana.  Or Ms. Lorelei!  : )

These pictures are long overdue, (sorry Mom and Zod!)  I decided to include them, though because they make me so happy.  Here are the boys with my sweet nephew Chris.

Doesn't Jack look happy to be spending his birthday at the Happiest Place on Earth?

Bell and I try to duplicate Jack's happy face.

Chris was a really good sport.  He carried Jack around all day.  Did I mention that Jack wiggles and kicks?

Come on, get happy...

That's more like it.  Love to everyone and a very merry Christmas!!!