C-IV Holidays

Okay, these people know how to party! Here is a copy of an email that my boss sent out this afternoon:

This is my favorite time of year here at C-IV, it is the only place I know of (besides my mother’s house) where you can consume 10,000 calories before noon and someone will say to you with a straight face “what are you doing for lunch?”. This is also a place that runs on its collective appetite, where you can almost set your clock by the activities and traffic flow into and out of the break room, or should I say C-IV café (thank you Grace!).

Ø 7:30 – 8:00 a.m. – Check to see who picked fruit or baked the night before;
Ø 7:55 – 8:22 - Line at the coffee pots due to the two containers of French roast being empty (does anyone else vote that we turn the decaf container into an espresso pot?);
Ø 8:47 – 9:32 – Did anyone put out any pastries donuts or cookies following their morning meeting?
Ø Fridays only – It’s 9:32….. no pastries or cookies in the break room?...... Oh yeah it’s Friday…. the Tech Team brought in Breakfast.
Ø 12:02 – 1:37 p.m. – What committee, workgroup, trainings or brown bag sessions didn’t finish their sandwiches, pasta, pizza, chicken etc? Remember first come first serve, if you wait for the email you are too late.
Ø 2:16 – 3:52 – “Who had a birthday?..... I don’t know why do you ask? Well there is pie, cookies, ice cream and cake in the break room”.
Ø 5:17 – 11:30 p.m. – Did anyone stay late and order dinner?
Ø 11:31 – 7:29 a.m. – It’s pretty quiet in the break room…….hey maybe it’s a cut over or mock conversion weekend and we can get a snack over at the Conversion Team’s area?

That's my boss. He's a crack up! It’s no joke though. There is constantly food here and there is LOTS of food if there is an event going on.

Today, we had our Holiday Potluck. (This is the 3rd party of the week for me.) We set up for 160 people and I believe there were closer to 200. Guess what! There is still a ton of leftovers! Turkey, ham, stuffing, chips, queso dip, bread, potatoes of all kinds, collard greens, rice, sushi (really), some dishes I don’t know the names of because they're from foreign countries, dessert, etc… You name it, we’ve eaten it this week. I’m about to burst. It’s not going to be pretty people.

Halloween is also a huge event here. Here are some of my favorite characters from my first Halloween here:

Boy Scout Cory and Man Bear Pig in front of the cave:

PMO (Project Management Office) as the 7 Deadly Sins. Oh, by the way Barbi and Jeanne, Wrath is the Deadly Sin we couldn’t think of the other day at lunch:

Cowgirl Karen

KISS Live

PacMan & The Mrs.

Happy Thanksgiving and Stuff :-)

Yes, I know that lately I suck at blogging. Sorry!

Okay, here goes...

Thanksgiving in San Diego was fun. I loved seeing my family and Quentin was really happy to see his Dad. But, with as much fun as we were having we ended up having to come home a day early because I got sick. Quentin had a cold earlier in the week and at first I just thought I'd caught his cold, but I took a turn for the worse and ended up with Bronchitis. Yuck! Time off from my new job, antibiotics, Robitussin with Codien, and an inhaler later I'm back to normal. As normal as can be for me anyway. I think what made it worse was the sitting out in the cold at the Day After Thanksgiving sales. I'm seriously considering not doing it next year.

Christmas is quickly approaching and all of the parties have begun. I was going to go to Gregory's Christmas Party this past weekend, but he cancelled it due to weather. It made me very sad. I was really looking forward to seeing everyone. I did get to go to lunch with Barbi and Jeanne though and as usual they cracked me up. I've posted a picture of us and I'm sure it's going to make Jeanne mad. I think she looks cute, but she seems to think she looks like a linebacker. I miss you guys and your daily antics. Quentin went to a party while we were there. He informed me that he only ate two cookies. I was impressed. Then, after a long pause, he added the fact that he ate about 10 little brownies! But, he said don't worry because he didn't eat them all at once. He let some settle and then he had more! Well, at least he knows how to pace himself. This week there are a few parties at work and last week my boss took about 20 of us out to dinner. I'm sure that by the end of the season I'll be partied out.

Andrew and I went to dinner at the Peppery and it was surprisingly good. And, even more surprising was the fact that it was somewhat quiet! It's always so loud in that place. We also went to a movie. We saw the new Sandra Bullock movie, The Blind Side. It's based on a true story about a man named Michael Oher (I don't know if I spelled that right). He went from being basically homeless when he was young to being a current player in the NFL. It is a wonderful movie! Sandra Bullock did a great job. Tim McGraw plays the role of her husband and he didn't do too bad either.

Have I mentioned how sweet Andrew is? I forgot to bring my hair dryer with me when I went to visit and he got up Sunday morning and drove to Wal-Mart and bought me a hair dryer while I was in the shower. It could possibly have been because he was hungry and I wouldn't go out to breakfast looking like a mess with shower hair, but whatever the reason, it was nice of him and I appreciated it. (He's probably not going to appreciate that blog post.) ;-)

Here's a random fact for the end of my post. I love football season for many reasons, but this year I love it a lot because Quentin says "thumble" instead of "fumble". Isn't it cute?! I know I should correct him, but I love it when he says it.

Update for Gregory

Hello! This is an update that was requested by my good friend Gregorino. Updates, updates...what to talk about? Hmmm...

Okay, one thing to update everyone on is the fact that Little Miss. Lily is five years old as of today! Wow, time sure does fly. I remember when Justin and Chandel met, eloped (we all got in trouble for that one) and had Little Baby Lily. She is quite a character. And this picture of her looks just like her Aunt Aubrey at that age!

Another update is that there are only seven more days until we leave for San Diego! Yeah! I can't believe I haven't been there in a year. Seriously. I used to go down there every 6 to 8 weeks. I miss my sista'! I'm coming to visit Aub!

And the final update is that Quentin's soccer season is almost over! One more game to go and we're done until next summer. Although he has been asking if there's some way he could play soccer all year. I don't know if I have the energy to be a soccer mom all year, but there is an indoor arena just across the freeway from my office. I should look into it, but it's probably too much dinero.

Pumpkin Patches

Happy Fall! What a start to a new season. We had a major storm this past week. I love the rain, but the wind that accompanied it I definitely could have done without. Two huge trees came down at our apartment complex. One smashed a carport, and the truck underneath it, and the other came down over the sidewalk and grass area at the end of our building. Other than all of the mess we came through it okay.

The previous weekend, Quentin and I went to a couple of different pumpkin farms near here. One was not too impressive, but the other was pretty neat. We got lost in the corn maze and we went on a tractor ride out to the pumpkin field and picked our own pumpkin.

Quentin picked a huge one that he could barely carry. He was just a few feet from getting out of the field and he tripped over a vine. I felt really bad for him, but this chick that was sitting on the back of the tractor just kept laughing at him. Later on the ride back to the main farm I just happened to look over at her and what do I see? Hmmm....paybacks are a bitch. Don't laugh at my kid mercilessly. Now, I know that when someone falls it is funny. I will laugh with the best of them, but this was out of line. She never even asked if he was okay between her snorts and laughs.
Yesterday, Quentin and I met Justin, Chandel and Lily at the pumpkin farm in Lathrop. It's so cool. They have pumpkin blasters, a haunted corn maze, a regular corn maze, horse rides, bounce houses, zip lines that were added this year, oh yea and they even have pumpkins! Miss. Lily enjoyed her horse ride. She talked the ear off of the guide the whole way.

She danced her way down the pumpkin aisle. There was music going in the background, but I couldn't hear what it was.

Aren't they just the cutest kids? Lily told Quentin, "Quentin, you're my favorite." I said, "Lily, I thought I was your favorite." She informed me that I was her 2nd favorite.

After we left the pumpkin farm, which by the way was on the news today for having reached a visitor level of 25,000 people yesterday, we went to Bass Pro Shop. What an amazing store. While we were there we saw one of Quentin's teachers from Sonora. Small world huh? Here is a picture of Justin and Lily playing in the ORV department. Justin is fake crashing, and Lily is loving it.
Now, Lily is driving and Quentin is fake crashing. Again, Lily doesn't care. Ahhh....good times!

Good Times

Quentin and I had a really good weekend. We went to his soccer game Saturday morning and Quentin played very well. I really love to watch him play.

Then, Saturday evening we went to the Dierks Bently and Brad Paisley concert. I had gotten a deal on tickets, but they were for the lawn section. Once we got to the venue I went to one of the people checking tickets and asked if anyone was selling upgrade tickets (like they did at the Fray). They directed me to a man holding a small supply of tickets. I asked him if he was selling upgrades and he said "No". I was slightly confused, but then he said he would GIVE me upgrade tickets! I love free stuff!

Anyway, the concert was great! If the tour comes to your hometown you've got to go check it out! Jimmy Wayne opened the show and he did really good. But, our favorite was Dierks.

Don't get me wrong, Brad was awesome too. All three of them really engaged the crowd and they sounded as good live as they do on their CDs. At the end, all three of them sang Brad Paisley's song Alcohol.

We left then, beause I wanted to beat all of the drunks out of the parking lot. We were tempted to stay because Jimmy Wayne was going to be signing autographs and we thought maybe the other guys would come out too, but as they say "safety first".

This morning we went down to the river and hung out for a while. Quentin didn't have any water shoes and didn't like how the slimy rocks felt on his feet, so he put his socks on and played until it was time to go home and watch the Charges beat the Dolphins! It wasn't a very impressive game, but at least they won. Philip Rivers did have a couple of good passes though.

Sunday Drive

Andrew and I went for a quick drive around town the other day. There are so many places I failed to explore while I lived there. Here's an old barn that we came across:

And a cool windmill:

Andrew took this picture. I was taking pictures of weathered fence posts and whatnot and he said he preferred the rocks. So, I gave him the camera to take pictures of the rocks. Doesn't that rock on the right look like the profile of a face? Somebody must have done that on purpose. I'm not convinced that it's natural. Anyway, I'm glad I gave him the camera...my pictures of the fence posts sucked and the rocks look cool!

Surprise Party

Quentin's birthday is in a week, but we had his party today. He didn't know it until he got there and his friends ambushed him at the door of the pizza parlor.

He's been homesick and last weekend he asked if we could go back to Sonora. I told him I didn't know. Then, Monday I called and emailed and did what I could to make contact with the people I knew he would want to be at his party that he didn't know he was having.

It was last minute and a holiday weekend, so I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. But, it was really successful!

He was so completely happy to see his friends and especially his favorite teacher, Mrs. Neumann!

I just want to thank everyone for coming again and for keeping it a surprise! I know it was hard on some of the kids.

The Greatest Show on Earth

Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus. I love it and so does Quentin! I remember when I was a little kid my Aunt Shirley loaded a bunch of us kids up in the station wagon and took us to see the circus. I figure every kid should see the circus at least once, so I asked Q if he wanted to go. He said no. I felt dejected, but said okay.

Well, a few days went by and the weekend rolled around. I told Q I wanted to go to the Circus. He agreed to go, but wasn't excited about it until I showed him a video of it on the web.

He saw those girls get shot out of the double-barrell cannon and he was all in favor of going to the circus!

He thought the guy that was in the cage with tigers was the "biggest idiot on the face of the Earth"! He was cracking me up. The guy kept hitting the tigers on the butt with his whip and Quentin would say, "Oh yeah, that's really smart! Keep smacking them on the butt. That will calm them down! He's going to die!"

We both had a wonderful time and I'm so glad that I talked him into it.

It Has Arrived

The end of Summer is here. Today was Quentin's first day of 5th Grade. He's not excited, but I am! I drove him to school this morning and we finally got confirmation that he will be staying in that school, so we don't have to worry about him getting transferred due to overcrowding. He is student #34 in a classroom that is allowed to have 34 students. :-)

He was looking quite handsome this morning in his new school clothes. I know I'm a bit biased, but really we've already had the little girls doing "walk-bys" in front of the apartment because "he's so cute"! No kidding. I hope the girls here aren't psycho obsessive like they were in the old school. Harsh? Sorry.

I started this post a little after 8:00 a.m. this morning and in the middle of it the internet went down. Free internet is not all it's cracked to be.

Anyway, Quentin did admit to having a good first day at school. He liked that the Yard Duty on the playground actually played with the kids instead of just standing there yelling at them. He liked the kids he is sitting next to in class. And, he liked his teacher.

Wordless Wednesday: Pretty Pout

The Fray

Awesome concert! Fiasco of a day.

Barbi and I were supposed to meet at 3:30 p.m. and have lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, so I left early to allow for traffic. Well, it's a good thing I did because one hour into the drive I suddenly realized I LEFT THE CONCERT TICKETS AT HOME! Yes, you read that right. I had already driven for an hour and then I had to turn around and drive back to get the tickets. So, a drive that should have taken me two and a half hours ended up taking me four and a half. I was quite irritated. Needless to say, I did not make it to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. It was all Gregory's fault, because he distracted me with a phone call, but he claims no responsibility.

Anyway, once we finally got to Shoreline Amphitheatre Barbi paid for V.I.P. Parking and that was the best money ever spent! We walked right in with no problems. Once we were seated in our rainbow pride chairs I noticed that the tickets had a row and seat number, but they also said "LAWN". We were seated in the lawn section. Barbi talked me into asking the weird security guard why the tickets had seat numbers when they were lawn seats. He explained that it was so they could keep track of how many tickets were sold. Gotta' stay within those Maximum Occupancy limits! But, he also told me that there was a guy walking around that had upgrade tickets for $10. We both wanted to upgrade the tickets so I went on the hunt for the ticket man. I was so excited when I found him and he was actually legit...not a scalper! We packed up our pride chairs and headed for the center reserved section of the amphitheatre. It was great! They played all of my favorite songs and even though the lead singer can be a bit dramatic sometimes the show was really good.

Knight Fire

A week ago today the Q-Man and I were driving home and as we came around a curve in the road the view changed. This is what it changed to:

This is the Knight Fire approximately a half hour after it started. It is still burning and is at about 30% containment as of the last report. It has burned over 4,000 acres. The cause of the fire has not been released, but because of the area it's in, I'm going to guess that it was an irresponsible backpacker. Of course, there were clouds in the area, so maybe it was dry lightening. I don't know... Either way, there are homes in the general vicinity and I'm thankful for our firefighters, as I'm sure they are!

GPTW

My baby is back home! I'm so happy to have him here, even if that means I have to listen to that damn SpongeBob! I bought him a new workbook, so that he can start refreshing his academic skills. I can't believe he's leaving again in a week or so to go visit his Dad. It seems like this summer is just flying by. I registered him for school last week. Hopefully, he'll get to go to the school that is actually in our district. They said that there is a possibility that he'll have to get transferred to another school due to over crowding. We won't know until next month some time. Nothing like the waiting game.

Here is a picture I took on my cell phone when I picked him up at the airport. We kept hugging each other and smiling. He was definitely gone too long! Love you Mom, but we're not doing that again! :-) Well, maybe when he's a teenager and driving me nuts!

The new job is going well. I really like everyone I work with. There is a ton of new information for me to learn. I've been to countless meetings. I have to attend two more tomorrow and at least one on Thursday and Friday. This place uses acronyms like nothing I've ever seen! Seriously. They have an acronym glossary. It's 15 pages long! And it hasn't been updated in a few years. I thought HR had a lot of acronyms, but I guess not. This Thursday is the annual BB-Q after work, so Quentin and I will be going to that. They also do an annual golf tournament in the spring and a bunch of other stuff. There's a committee dedicated to coming up with fun things to do. It's called the GPTW Committee (Great Place to Work). Oh, one of my favorite things is that every Friday morning they bring in bagels and cream cheese! Yummy! What a GPTW! :-)

Ole Mexico

Ole Mexico is the name of a Mexican restaurant near here. I've been eating at home because I need to save money, but this evening I was jonesin' for a taco. There are tons of Mexican Food places around here and they've been calling my name since the 1st. I think that me holding out until the 9th is quite an accomplishment. I seriously love tacos!
Okay, so I decided to stop at the restaurant closest to my office...Ole Mexico. I go in and look at the menu and of course they don't have shredded beef. What is it with Northern California taco shops not having shredded beef? Don't they know how delicious it is? Anyway, I decide to go ahead and order the carne asada tacos. I like to order my tacos crispy not soft. So, I tell the little lady behind the counter that I want two crispy carne asada tacos. I go to the register to pay for my order and the guy puts my ticket on the counter. I read what the lady wrote and it says, "gringo steak". WTF!? I get my printed receipt from the guy at the register and it reads, "2 El Gringo Tacos". Apparently, if you order crispy tacos you're ordering gringo tacos! The menu did not say Gringo or non-Gringo tacos...it just said "tacos". When I saw the receipt I almost laughed out loud. I kept my smirk in check, got my tacos, and went home.
When I got home I sat down to eat. I unwrap my El Gringos and to my surprise they are STORE BOUGHT taco shells! Just because they're called Gringo Tacos doesn't mean you have make them like a gringo would! I wanted some freshly deep fried taco shells people...like a Mexicano would do it! How disappointing. Next time, I'm going to the south side of the freeway to Julio's Taco Shop. Ha ha! That's right, I'm going to check out Julio! :-)

The Move

It went pretty well considering there was a moment that the moving truck overheated and we thought we were going to have to trade it in for a new one, which would have entailed transferring all my stuff from one to the other. My wonderful friends helped me load the moving truck Tuesday night after work and then we moved to the new place Wednesday morning. It was really hot, but it got done pretty quickly. The guys worked really hard. I have no idea how many times we all went up and down the stairs. Woody was kind enough to point out that the stairs were "really going to help me". Well, so far they have helped to make my calves cramp. I can't wait to see what they help with next. :-)
I really like the new place. It's set up differently than the apartment in Sonora. I've made decent progress on the boxes today. I should have the kitchen done by the end of the day. And I've gotten some other things done too.
I'll post pictures when everything is where it's supposed to be.
Quentin, if you're reading this...I love you honey and I miss you!

Sayonara Sonora

All righty then...this is my last post from Sonora. It's on to the big city as of tomorrow. I've got to say that so far I'm holding it together pretty well. Yesterday, Barbi asked me if I was going to cry today. I told her I was determined NOT to cry anymore! I've had enough of it. She asked if she could cry instead. What a good friend! She bought me breakfast this morning. Yummy!

I will really miss all of my Tuolumne County friends and family. You all mean a lot to Quentin and I. I hope you keep in touch!

Here is a picture Jean-NAY took of me a year or two ago. See how hard I'm working? :-)

Take care everyone!

Packing and More Packing

Quentin requested that this post be titled, "Hard, hard and more hard." He's not into the packing thing. We're going to do his room today and he's not really looking forward to it. Honestly, neither am I. But, there are no other options. We just have to do it. I have considered carrying everything out to the dirt lot and burning it, but the burn permit doesn't allow that sort of thing. Damn city limit rules!

Here is our pile of boxes that are stacked in the living room. By the end of the day I'll need to move them into the dining room so that the front door can actually be used. Then again, if we barricade the front door maybe we won't have to move.

Today is Father's Day and I hope that all of the Fathers out there (especially mine) are having a wonderful day! Relax and spend some quality time with those that love you. I love you Dad!

4th Grade Fun

Quentin is finishing up the 4th grade in a few days. So, not much studying has been going on the last week or so. On Friday the fourth grade band gave a concert. They played their little hearts out even if there were some unintentional high notes here and there.

Here's my little guitar man. I'm so proud of him for sticking with band the whole year. He really didn't care much for how the teacher handled the class.

After the band concert the fourth grade classes did a play called "The Pirates of Grammar Island". Quentin was Captain Comma.

In this scene the good Captain was telling his first mate they were looking for parts of speech. The first mate hands the captain a peach pit and a stem. And Captain Comma says, "I said, 'Parts of speech. NOT parts of a PEACH'!"

And here is Quentin's friend Hannah. She was also Captain Comma for her class. She was very animated!