Life in California

I am in Ca this week working. It is weird coming this far west. I am up at 3:30 am, ready to face the day. I am not really ready for bed at 6:00 pm, so I am getting tired. Just thought I would share.



I get home on Friday morning, after Eric closes on our new house. He will have to close without me - which means he will have to sign twice as much. Oh well, it could not be helped. We then take off for San Antonio to watch Kelsey perform for TMEA and head back that night. I then have the weekend to finish packing, and get ready to move early next week. It is going to get crazy at Chez Pearson.

Happy Day

Go Kelsey

Kelsey worked with a small group to create a project for History Fair. She had to do this as a class project. She had the best project in her class, and one of the best as judged from the History Dept at Willow Wood Junior High School.

So, she got to go to regions. For this opportunity, we needed to be up at the Woodlands at 8:00 am on a Saturday. She spent the morning being judged, answering questions, etc. She left at lunch and did not stay around for the judging.

Well she should have because she and her group won first place! So, now it is on to State. We will all get to go to Austin in May so she can compete there. Who would have thunk it? I am very proud of her!

AND - she did it on how women served during the Civil War and I am all about girl power!

I am off to the sunny state of California this week. I come back to go to Kelsey's choir conceert in San Antonio at TMEA, and then packing, packing and more packing - oh and some moving and upacking as well!

Have a great week.

For Good

Anyone who knows me knows I am a sentimental fool. Songs really get to me, and I can cry at the drop of a hat. Especially relationship stuff - imagine me at 16. Maybe I do owe my parents an apology...



But I digress. As has been stated we had Rachel here for the weekend. Before they moved we had the awesome opportunity to see Wicked with Rachel and Becky. It was great. I LOVE LOVE the music from the show.



When it became apparant that the Hansen's were really going to move and break our hearts, I told Sophie we should get a picture of she and Rachel and type out the words to this song, For Good, and make a collage. She looked at me like I had three heads (she looks at me that way a lot).



We did not do it. Fast forward to Sophie's birthday. Rachel got her a charm from James Avery for her bracelet, and then this pillowcase arrived. It is filled with pics of the two of them through the years - from the time they were three to present. Becky then typed out many of the words to For Good and put them on the side with the one big picture of the two of them.



What can I say, great minds think alike!! Or Becky is as sentimental as me. I will go with the former. Now we have this great keepsake of the two of them, and a tie in to Wicked. Some of the lyrics for those who don't know:

I’ve heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return…

…So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You’ll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend.

Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
Because I knew you,
I have been changed for good.

Glinda and Elphaba

Sophie's Surprise

We had one last birthday surprise for Sophie. Jared Hansen was coming to town to do some stuff, and he and Becky decided to surprise Rachel and let her come with.

Well, the timing worked out that it was close to Sophie's birthday - what better present could she have?

When she came in Rachel was hiding in a box.

I told her I had one more present for her.

You can see by her reaction she was in shock and very surprised.

Those are real tears!

Now they have the weekend for fun and together time. It will be great to have Rachel around. Fun for everyone!!!

Where have you been Carrie Pearson?

OK so I have been busy. I have not even looked at any blogs - I just saw that I had been tagged - and as Sarah told me - I am the only one who has not done it. Do I have a great excuse? I was kidnaped and held for ransom? No, I am just doing the job of three or four people.

We decided to finally put an end to the add on or buy a new house debate. We decided in early January to try and find a house. There had been a house for sale in a neighborhood next to ours last fall, but it was off the market. Long story short we are going to buy said house, close on Feb 15th and then have ours ready to put on the market Feb 27th. Our new house has 5 bedrooms, 31/2 baths and a pool. Oh and a real office for me.

I have forgotten how much I hate buying a house - what a pain. We are doing it without a realtor which saved money, but that means I have been doing all the work!

Lets hope we are as luck and Heather and our house sells fast! We are repainting, recarpeting and switching out a few things. We just had the whole outside painted, powerwashed and cleaned up.

So, there you go. I have missed my mothers birthday, my daughters birthday and my sister's birthday. Happy Birthday to them. My Sophie girl is 11. More on that later. I am in Ohio where the wind chill is in the single digits. Not my idea of fun. I have work to do for a few days, then I am going home to the other task in front of me - pack the whole house!

More later including my tag - notes about my husband. Is there something I have not already said?

Finally

Allie lost her first tooth. She is hoping the tooth fairy remembers to come tonight....

The Problem With A Blog

Is now I have one more Christmas thing to clean up - I need a new banner and have not found time to make one. Since January is Sophie's birthday, it should be a Sophie banner, but I will have to work on that. I have a three hour flight tomorrow, so maybe then.

I am happy to report that all the rest of Christmas is picked up AND put in the garage. No small feat. Now, we are just working on the real life stuff...Homework, after school activities, church et all.

I did my supermom impression today (it does happen every so often) and got up at 4:30, ran 7 miles, made 5 lunches, got kids out the door, was showered dressed (hair and makeup done) AND had dinner in the crock pot by 8:15 am. It did wonders to make me feel empowered all morning, but now I am just tired. Is it bedtime yet?????

Christmas and New Years Recap

I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I have been checked out of life. It was great. We had a great Christmas, and a Happy New Year's Eve. Since Santa brought a wii, we have been wii-ing our hearts out. A few pics from the holidays. We played Twister on New Year's Eve, and I busted some pretty good Twister moves!! Michelle was SO jealous...

Now, back to life.

Do You Ever Feel

Like you are drowning in things to do and all you want to do is sit and watch TV? That would be me right now. I have a million, or maybe six, loads of laundry to do fold and put away, Christmas Cards to get out, a house that could be condemned, and I have not started wrapping or baking. The baking may or may not get done this year - although Allie asks me every day if we can make Santa's cookies today because ones from the store will not work.

So, I am going to avoid my desire to watch TV and buckle down. It sucks to be a grown up!

Why I Don't Live In a Cold Clime

I can't stand to be cold, and even worse is keeping up with all the stuff. I mean the hat, the gloves, the scarf, the coat, the boots etc etc. After three days there, lets just say I am happy to be back in sunny Texas - temp 81 today. I thought I would die waiting for the parking bus, out there in my wool pants, sweater, boots , coat, etc.

I am happy, happy, happy I don't have to venture to the airport again until January 11th when I will again go to the frozen tundra - Philly. Oh well, for now I am enjoying good weather and no aiports. See, I am not hard to please...

Now, I just need to get ready for Christmas - no easy task with five short days left. I am up to the task!

Ryan Brittany Spears

Last week Ryan asked me if he could shave his head. I told him to ask his dad, who of course said yes. I am not sure why he wanted to do this. It is just a thing he wants to do. Since I am leaving tomorrow am, he wanted me to do it tonight. I am not sure why, but I did it.

So now he is bald - balder than he was as a newborn. We are calling him Brittany as in Spears. This was Allie's reaction.

She is sick, so that magnifies her already dramatic personality. Have a good week.

The Long Awaited Picture

Here she is Miss Caroline in her glasses. She is adjusting to wearing them, and she is doing a good job keeping up with them. It helps that she wears them all the time. She had been headache free, but today at church she needed to come home. Allie was home sick, and miraculously once home she felt better. She was not happy that I stuck to my no church no tv rule for her!

In case you are wondering, I did make it home on Friday. Got home around 9:30 pm. On my way back out tomorrow morning. Keeping my fingers crossed the travel gods are with me since I am flying into blizzard country - and I'm not talking Dairy Queen.

After this trip I am home, that is until we go to Dallas the day after Christmas for festivities which will include a Linford Family football game, and lots of time to play with aunts and uncles! Have a great week.

Stranded At The Airport

sing it like from Grease. I am at the airport in Columbus. I killed myself to get her at 11:00 today so I could make the 11:00 am flight which the operator at Continental said had seats. Not so much. The 2:20, also no seats. So, I have spent the day here. Not much to see. My flight is at 6:00 and there is a HUGE snowstorm hitting the NE, including OH, this weekend so I am hoping to get out before it hits. The skies look ominous, but I am hopeful... I have to turn around and fly back up to Syracuse on Monday morning. Now that is just crazy! Such is my life.

We have a weekend with no soccer. Poor Sophie is going through soccer withdrawl. We do have a soccer party, and Eric is taking the 3 older kids up to Stephen F Austin for Ty's graduation, so it should be a fun weekend. Just the babies and me on Saturday am.

So, if you read this say a prayer for me.....

Why Are Rental Cars In Such Ugly Colors?

And why when you only have 5 minutes to make your connection at the airport are the two gates on opposite ends of the airport? And why when you get a GPS and it does not work does the rental agency tell you to get out and check the fuse for the lighter under the hood? And most important, why do I have so dang much to do and no time to do it?

Just some whining from the road.

I Have Been Busy!

I have gotten lots of questions as to my lack of blogging. I have been busy, OK? Some days it is all I can do to keep up with what is happening right in front of me. Highlights of the last week:

Caroline got glasses - this was the answer to our long headache issue. She looks really cute and when I get a chance I will post a pic. Lets hope this fixes the headaches.
I got sick - came home from Louisianna with a sinus infection and a double ear infection. That slowed me down some.
Had Allie ask me, "Why don't they want a Mormon in the White House?" Had to take time to explain Christlike love for those who are not nice to you. Just so you know I LOVED Mitt Romney's speech.
Took Sophie to the last two soccer practices for about a month. Looking forward to a break, but she is not. A day without soccer is not a good day to her. She is expecting to play some soccer with the whole Linford crew in December.
Got to visit with Anabel, sister-in-law, and our nice Catherine. It was nice to spend some time with them.
Miscellaneous work, homework, and Christmas shopping since I am now gone until the 20th.

We spent this last weekend in Dallas. Eric had a company meeting and Christmas party in Dallas so they put us up in a hotel here. My parents were nice enough to watch the kids. Fun was had by all.

Eric and I ran the White Rock Half Marathon on Sunday and it was cold, rainy and the wind was blowing. I had hoped to do better, but with still being on antibiotics and the weather I changed my plans to just finish, which I did.

So, there you are. All caught up with our boring lives.

I am in Dallas Monday and Tuesday, then flying to Ohio for the rest of the week. It is really cold there!!!! I have, I mean get, to go to Syracuse NY next week. Now, that will be cold. I get back just in time for holiday parties at school and Christmas. Fun Times.

Christmas Through A Child's Eyes

I have always loved Christmas. I love to decorate the house, enjoy the whole Christmas thing. This year, however, has been hard. We were gone for Thanksgiving, I went out of town right when we came back and I came home from Louisiana sick on Friday night. The last thing I wanted to tackle was decorating for Christmas.

But, I have had a couple of kids dogging me to do it. Sophie, in particular, has really wanted to get the decorations up. So, I have started. I put up the stockings, started with some stuff. The tree is going to be a big project...

I was working on this early this morning. As Allie and Caroline came downstairs they were SO excited to see Christmas stuff. They wanted to look at our stuff - which is nothing that fancy or great. Allie even told me that the advent calendar goes here, pointing to a shelf, and the nativity (such as this one is - Playmobile) goes here.

All this Christmas stuff bring back memories for them. This is what Christmas is. Yes it is presents, but it is the stockings, the nativity scenes and the memories of years past.

A few years ago I got the stocking hangers at Target. It took me a while to get everyone's pictures in (I gave up on having Sarah Jones type professional looking pics, and went with a Carrie Pearson look). Eric would not have his picture taken. He was being a grinch, so that is the photo I stuck in his stocking holder.

This morning Allie looked at him in ALL seriousness. "Dad you need to get your picture taken like us. I don't like you not having your picture. You love Christmas and you don't want people to think you are the grinch!" Of course, she reached him when I could not. He got a smile on his face and said he would do it.

The point to this rambling? I do have one, it is just buried. This morning made me realize that all the decorations which I think are nice and I need to get to, matter to my kids. That is what Christmas is. The feelings it invokes, the memories, and the excitement can't be touched.

So, I will go and stick my head in that darn Christmas tree to see if I can get it working. We will trim the tree and sing carols. And hope that in five or ten years, Allie will still get that same look in her eyes when she sees her stocking. Because, that makes it ALL worth it!

Just How Big Is Texas?

When you enter the state line at LA/TX, it says that El Paso is 868 miles away. Yes, 868. Crazy huh? We are still driving, having survived our White Trash Thanksgiving 2007. Here are a few highlights:

Beach was too cold to swim. Crazy Kelsey and Sophie did get in.
The temp at night was a chilly 40 degrees. High only 61.
First night was pouring rain, so we stayed in a Hampton Inn instead of setting up camp in the rain.
We have seen every Waffle House between Tomball and Destin, and let me tell you there are a ton - one in every small town in the south.
Fried Turkey was indeed tasty - as were all the other accompanying sides. I am here to tell you, outdoor cooking is great for a Thanksgiving meal.
Our "bumper buddy" did not have catastrophic failure as Robert felt it might. We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies, but we had no failure.

I did not take any pics. I have no excuse - I was cold. So, I need to get some from Mary and Sarah to post. I will be happy to be back in Tomball, believe it or not! The craziest part? I leave on Tuesday for LA - I will be driving throughout the state. Who planned that??

Whose Idea Was This Anyway?

Somewhere along the line, I agreed to a Thanksgiving camping trip in Destin Florida. I am not a big fan of car trips. I deplore them. Nine hours did not seem so bad at the time I agreed, but then I-10 was not closed from Lafayette to Baton Rouge and I was not sitting in the very back between Allie and Caroline to keep the peace (is that motherly love or what?)

So, it is 3:43 PM. we left at 6:42 (15 min late) and we still have about three hours to go. This goes down as a big "what was I thinking?" I was thinking that my kids have been so excited for this it is all they have talked about for weeks. We are going with our usual camping partners, and one family is in our ward. So, we have been the talk of the ward because not only our kids are so excited, but so are theirs.

So, for this, I will sit nine hours in the back of the Suburban packed to the GILLS and enjoy a good ole Chevy Chase style vacation (if you don't get the reference, you are too young!). Just FYI - no Christie Brinkley sightings!

The One Kid

We all have them. The one that causes problems. Or the one with problems. Or in my case, the one with the funky weird medical stuff.

Caroline has been complaining of headaches. I ignored her - she complains a lot. She has been bugging her teacher, and came home from school in tears twice a couple of weeks ago. So, finally I decided to not be a bad mom and take her to the optometrist. I was sure it was an eye thing.

I took her to my friendly Wal-Mart optometrist. I took Sophie there when she needed glasses for a while and it was fine. He seemed nice, competent and it was close and easy (my two favorite adjectives for a doctor). He said she was fine.

Phase two, the same day I take her to the pediatrician. We go through all the basics, and she says nothing is popping out at her. She prescribed a decongestant (since we live in the allergy capital of the world) and we were going to try that for a few days to see if it helped, and then she was going to order an MRI to make sure there was nothing in her head (remember this is the one with the peeing problems, and she has had other medical stuff when she was younger).

We went a few days and she was not complaining. I, of course, did not bring it up since I did not want to go looking for trouble - hello. All was well for about a week. Then the complaining, crying began again. I called to get the MRI scheduled, but our Dr was out of the office and the Dr covering was not comfortable ordering an MRI if he did not see her. WHATEVER. Our Dr would be back when I got back this weekend, so we were going to take care of it on Monday.

Since I was going out of town, I took some decongestant up to nurse, and told her my story of woe. She took the medicine and said she would give it to Caroline - I was hoping to avoid a having to come home episode.

ANYWAY (get to the point Pearson), Eric just got a note home from the school. It stated Caroline had flunked her vision test twice and had 40/40 vision and needed glasses.

My two major problems with this:

First, why did no one tell me this when I was emailing the school discussing our headache issue. She was going to nurse on regular basis. HELLO.

Second, is the Wal-Mart doc on drugs? I know the school test is not conclusive, but something is crazy here. I am torn between taking her back to the Wal-Mart and having him redeem himself, and finding a new optometrist. I think I will just take her somewhere else, but I paid my money for Dr Wal-Mart. Was he not paying attention? Does he not do kids well?

The upshot is I am going to put off MRI until we get another opinion on the eyes and try that route. It would have saved me a lot of time and Caroline a lot of pain if we could have figured this out earlier....... I just need to find a time to do it when I am home. I am in for two days next week then we go to FL. We get back and I am home one day before I leave again.

Why can't anything be easy???

Is It Possible To DIE of Boredom?

I mean actually die? I might find out over the next day or so. I am at a show in Arizona. There are just a few times during the day when we will get busy, the rest of the time I am trying to come up with things to occupy myself. I finished my book, the Historian (loved it), so I might need to go in search of another one. I just sit here running through the list of things I should be doing, but I am not since I am sitting and waiting for people to come and exclaim they want to buy Polaris!

If I indeed do not die, I will find something of note to post later...