Snowpocalypse ‘11?

And it has begun.  This is supposed to be the biggest snow storm since 1967.  I've even heard it referred to as "Snowpocalypse '11."  Kinda reminds me of all of the "Stormwatches" we had in California any time we were expecting more than 1 inch of rain in any given day!

Here is the scene as I went to bed last night.

I know it looks like stars and the moon, but it's really snow!

Looking out across the street.

 Today the snow really picked up.  You can't tell from these pictures but it has been snowing sideways.  It's even snowing upwards!  Kinda like a snow tornado.....School has already been canceled for tomorrow.


Here's a picture of the kids coming home from school.

Note how high the snow drift is

The dogs loving running around in the snow!

"That's right.  I ain't afraid of no blizzard! Bring it on!"

        Here you can get a better idea of how hard it's snowing.  You can hardly see the houses across the pond.

See how the snow is blurring sideways? Click on the picture for a larger view.

According to the Northwest Herald:

A blizzard watch issued early today warned of a "dangerous," "multifaceted" and "potentially life-threatening" winter storm to hit the area Tuesday afternoon....

Commuters should be warned of lots of blowing snow, white-out conditions, wind gusts between 25 miles per hour and 40 miles per hour, accumulations of 2 to 3 inches per hour, and possible thunderstorms throughout the metro area. There will be wind chill values as low as -4 degrees.

The heaviest snow will come Tuesday night and will make traveling very dangerous, especially in rural areas. Travel will become virtually impossible at times...with extremely poor visibility and snow falling so heavily that plows will be unable to keep up. Side streets and untreated roads will be impassable.

Heavy snow still will be falling Wednesday morning and more than a foot of snow is expected to accumulate by the afternoon. Flooding may occur along Lake Michigan shores Tuesday night and Wednesday morning with widespread blowing snow after noon.

 Some areas may get inches in the mid- to lower 20s, [sic] likely making it one of the top 10 biggest snow storms the area has seen. There is also some potential that it could be the biggest snow storm in recorded history. Currently that chilly title belongs to a snow storm right around this time in 1967, when 23 inches fell on January 26 and 27 at O’Hare International Airport.

But the weather service meteorologists are weary [sic] to speculate, citing many factors that could alter or completely change the outcome of inches.

A swath of Illinois...could see 22 inches or more of snow between this Tuesday and Wednesday.

“With a high-impact storm like this that will affect parts of Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan, we’re telling everyone to prepare for it.”

...A total of 18 inches is expected to cover most of northern Illinois.

Crazy, eh?  I'm not much into hype but it's definitely building up to be a nasty storm.

So now we are settled in for the next 36 hours or so.  We have plenty of food, endless water (thanks to the snow piling up outside), our gas fireplace and lanterns and batteries in case the power goes out.  Most importantly, I have the receipt to return said lanterns and batteries when the storm turns out to be not such a big deal after all.  LOL!

From California to Cornfields to Where???

Most of you know that we're moving but I wanted to share how the conversations went down.....

End of November:
Phil (to Me): I'm not being transferred.
Me (to Phil): I'm so sorry.  I know how much this meant to you.
Everyone Else (to Me): I'm so glad you're not moving.
Me (to Everyone Else): Me too.  Just don't tell Phil I said that!

At this time, I settled back into my home and my life here in Illinois.  Disappointed for Phil, but happy to be staying put for now.  Happy because Kiki decided to move to Chicago.  Happy because Scott and his family are going to be moving much much closer to us.  Happy to be staying near my brother, sister-in-law, nieces, nephews and countless cousins. 

Two weeks later: 
Phil (to Me, over the phone): You'd better sit down, 'cause things are changing.
Me (to Myself, as I sit down): Oh my goodness.  He's been laid off.  But he doesn't sound stressed.....
Me (to Phil): OKayyyy......
Phil (to Me): I'm being transferred.  My boss had an "epiphany" and decided that she better move me out there.
Me (to Phil): Out where?
Me (to God): Please, not Florida.
Phil (to Me): To Ohio.
Me (to Myself): Does he mean we're all moving? (In my defense, I was in a state of shock).


I'm not really sure what we said after that.  Shock, still.  I called my mom and between crying and laughing (if I didn't laugh, I would have fallen apart) I somehow managed to tell her what was going on.  She was just as shocked, because at one point she said, "Wait a minute.  What did you say?"  Yeah, I have no idea what I actually said to her but I eventually got the important information across.

Me (to Anyone Who Will Listen): I'm glad to know that Phil's boss values him so much, but couldn't she have had this "epiphany" two weeks ago?!?

So anyway, that's where we stand.  We've rented a house in Columbus.  The elementary school rates very high.  Tons of shopping nearby and we got a family pass to the Zoo/Aquarium.  And I've already found myself a knitting group.  But the question begs.....

What will I call my blog???

Off to continue purging and packing.  Wish me well! 

And They're Off!

....To school, that is.

Today is the first day of school.  I can't believe that Kai is in second grade and Malia is in first.  For the first time, they are both in full time school.  I thought this phase of life would be hard for me, but I have to admit that I'm pretty excited about having a little time for myself again.  After nearly 9 years of pregnancy, infants, toddlers, preschoolers and kindergartners, I finally have a little bit of freedom again.

Here they are, waiting at the bus stop:

I have no idea why Malia is making such a silly face!

Our friends, Elise and Adam

Daddy, waiting in the shade (with his phone, of course!)

 

And waiting to go into school:

This is the 4th year that Kai and Jaclyn will be in the same class

Malia and her friend, Jory

So the question begs......What do I do now?  The house needs some serious cleaning and I have a ton of projects to work on.  I haven't actually read a book in months or wandered around a store with no time limits and no one wanting to "go home now."  Wait!  I think I hear my knitting bag calling me.....Gotta run!

The Ballet Box Presents...

.......CELEBRATIONS!

Malia's dance performance was on Friday and it was so much fun!  Malia was a little nervous but she had such a great time! 

Waiting to go onstage

The preschoolers performed first and they were adorable!  They did a tea party dance....

Here they are, making a "tutu train"

In order to watch the videos, you will need to enter the password "dance"

Here is a video of Malia's tap number, "Welcome Aboard."  Sorry for the wiggling camera.....I couldn't stop laughing!

MTT from Rita Takenaga on Vimeo.

And here is her ballet number, "I'm Cute," and boy, were they!  Expect more camera wiggles.....

 MTB from Rita Takenaga on Vimeo.

My friend, Amy's, daughters were also in the show.  They are the sisters of Malia's friend, Adam.  Both girls always make Malia feel so special.

Malia adores Elise and is always excited to see her.  She is the second from the left (the one with the adorable smile).

EO from Rita Takenaga on Vimeo.

Olivia is a graduate of the Ballet Box and she was one of the girls who was invited to return and perform for the school's 10th "birthday."  Olivia once commented that Malia looks like her when she was little (lucky Malia.....lucky Olivia.....).  Olivia is in the center in purple and yellow.

OO from Rita Takenaga on Vimeo.

Feel free to leave lots of comments telling Malia how great she was! LOL.

A Sneak Peek

Tonight Malia makes her dancing debut!
Here is a sneak peek of what's to come....

The top outfit is for her Tap performance

and the bottom one is for Ballet

Spring-Take 2

A much brighter second day of Spring!

What a difference 24 hours can make

What did I tell you, Heather? Save the clothes shopping for when you get here. We have a great outdoor mall right here in town (in village?).

First Day of Spring

Hi all and sorry I haven't blogged in so long. I did want to take a minute to wish everyone a happy first day of Spring!

The tree in our front yard

Anyone want to come over for a BBQ?

We can eat on the deck and enjoy the view!

Gotta run so I can go unpack our Summer clothes......

A Reason to Celebrate

I only have a minute to do a quick post as I'm packing for my girls' weekend in Colorado, but I have exciting news to share....

Our newest niece, Sophia Grace Takenaga, was born on Monday. She weighed 7 lbs., 2 oz. and was 19 3/4" long.

Congratulations to Ryan, Nancy and Dylan. We can't wait to see you, Sophie!

New Beginings

There are no words to describe how I'm feeling right now on this first day of school. I'll update in a few days. Right now it's time for Momma to regroup and rest up after a Summer with very little sleep. I'll leave you with a few pictures in the meantime.....

Seriously???

On Saturday, Aug. 16th, we had some family over for dinner and to visit with Kiki. After our guests left, I started the dishwasher, listened to the water fill and then......nothing. So I called my good friends over at Home Warranty (HAH! If you don't know why I said that, take a look at this post). No one was able to come out until Friday the 21st! To make it worse, we had more family come over on Saturday for dinner and despite using paper goods wherever possible, there was still a ton of dishes to hand wash. I couldn't even use the dishwasher as a drying rack because the inside was dirty from the dishes I had loaded in the night before.

The very nice repair guy came out and said he had to order a new motor. At least he was kind enough to schedule my follow-up appointment right away so I wouldn't have to wait even longer. So I went out and bought a dish tub and settled in to hand washing the dishes.

Then.....the metal that wraps around the goose-neck faucet started to separate. This actually started before the dishwasher incident but it got much worse after. I knew what was coming next and guess what happened tonight??? You got it.....the metal punctured a hole in the rubber hose and it sprang a water leak! So now I have no dishwasher and no faucet! Really, this is a true story. I could never make something like this up.

Off to figure out a way to patch the faucet together until we can get that replaced. Looks like we'll be eating out for the next few days.

Wish me luck.......

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Phil found a snake tonight while mowing the lawn. Good thing he found it before the lawn mower did! He had a ton of fun trying to pick it up and toss it in the garden while the snake was striking at him. Seriously, if you know Phil, you know he was having fun! Too bad I didn't get any pictures. Yet another adventure in the land of cornfields........

A Day For Fun

Today is going to be a cool day. It's not even supposed to hit 70 degrees. There's a bit of a breeze...just enough to keep things fresh. It occurred to me that Summer is half over. The kids start swim lessons next week. They're signed up for two sessions but if they take a third session like they did last year, then school will start the day after they finish swim.

Today we're just going to have fun. No worrying about laundry, sorting through papers or other chores. Malia has been wanting to go on a picnic in the worst way. We even got a beautiful picnic basket at a yard sale a few weeks ago. I think we'll make a picnic lunch and go to a park....or two....or three. Maybe we'll practice T-ball....or frisbee....or riding bikes. Maybe we'll read books or lie on the ground and look at the clouds. We'll just have to see where the day takes us.

Guess we better start by going to the store....we don't have any bread to make sandwiches for our picnic!

I'll leave you with a few fun pictures I took of the kids the night Malia found the toad. I was just lying in the grass taking random pictures of them running around. Hope you enjoy them!

It's Not the Heat.....

......it's the broken air conditioner!

Our A/C has been having some serious issues. I turned it on and it hummed away. Cool air even came out.....but not much. Two hours after turning on the air, the house had gone UP several degrees! So, I call home warranty and they eventually sent someone out. And he replaced the coil because it was leaking freon. But, what do you know? This wasn't covered and that wasn't covered, so on top of the $100.00 deductible, we had to pay another $250.00! And we have to dispose of the old coil ourselves.

But, at least we had air again, right? Wrong! That very night, the fan had trouble starting up and the lights dimmed when it finally did go on. Called the A/C guy back out and he returned three days later to "fix" the problem by putting a "hard start" on our compressor. The next day, the fan started making loud noises and the next day, it wouldn't start at all. And surprise, surprise, the A/C guy didn't call me back.

So I called home warranty back and they sent someone else out who said the motor was burned out. That will be another $100.00 please because now it's a new claim. Are they kidding me??? The fan was working fine all winter and all the way up until the day the first guy replaced the coil and I'm supposed to believe it's just a coincidence??? All the guy from home warranty can say is that it's a new claim so we have to pay again. As far as I'm concerned, it's the same claim, they just gave it a new number (that was their idea, not mine!). Now I'm waiting (still) for a supervisor to call me back so we can discuss this. Advice anyone?

And of course, we've been having a heat wave. Temps in the 90s with one million% humidity. Nothing like sweating while sitting on your couch doing nothing. Before the coil was replaced, at least I could run the fan. To top it off we had a few storms so I could only have the windows cracked to let in the hot humid air and rain.

Well, at least it's fixed.....for now anyway. Wish me luck convincing home warranty that I've already paid them enough!

Edited to add:

Of course, now that the A/C is fixed, it's only going to be in the 60s for the next two days. Figures.....*sigh*

A Different Kind of Before and After

No, I didn't finish the coffee table. I'm still waiting for Phil to change the sand paper on my sanding block. Pathetic, I know, but I just HATE touching sand paper. My mother taught me not to use the word hate, but seriously, I can't stand the stuff!

So, here's a before:

And after:

My hair had gotten ridiculously long:

It was definitely time for a change and I
missed having short, low maintainance hair

This is after I "styled" it myself.
A little more unstructured, a little more "me":

So what do you think? Honestly. Brothers and fathers who don't like short hair need not reply! LOL!

Voles and Bunnies and Toads, Oh My!

Living in the Midwest is still so bizarre in so many ways! I already posted about our adventures with the Bullfrog. If you didn't read it before, you can click HERE.

Back in April, I was looking at one of our fruit trees when something ran past me, low in the grass, really quickly. I figured it was a baby chipmunk since those are at least somewhat familiar to me now. I also noticed that we had damaged tracks in our grass surrounding the trees and the swing set. They looked a lot like this:


So, a few weeks later, we decided to clean out the disgusting sand box that was under the swing set. It was cracked and flooded and weeds were growing out of it. UGH! I started by bailing water out and some of it must have gone under the sand box because all of a sudden, this tiny little furry thing went scurrying past me. Then another.....then another.....then another. We had at least six of these little guys running across our lawn:

They looked like small, squat, very furry mice

Well, after screaming and laughing with the kids, I went inside to do some "research." I tried looking up Dormouse (because that was all I could think of) and eventually saw the words "See Vole." I had never even heard of a vole! Seriously, have you??? When we eventually pulled up the sandbox, I found a nice little nest of dried grass underneath. The thing that worries me most is wondering where those little guys are now!

We also have a cute brown bunny that visits our weed vegetable garden. I never got around to planting vegetables this year and sadly, there are a lot of thistles in there. And if you have ever read Watership Down, you know that Bunnies love thistles. Or is it dandelions? Hmmmm...I'll have to go find my book. Anyway, he loves something in the garden and hopefully, I'll get a picture of him soon.

And lastly, Malia got a shock of her own when she went to turn on the hose about two weeks ago. This little guy was waiting for her:

Of course, we had to do a photo shoot:



Then we let him go in the neighbor's yard so Lola wouldn't bother him.


So, there are some more things to file under "Things that never happened to us in Long Beach!"

Just A Couple of Pictures

I know it's been a while since I posted. There has just been so much going on lately and blogging has been on the bottom of my list. Anyway, I thought I'd share a few pictures until I'm ready to get rolling again.

Kai and Malia share responsibility for emptying the dishwasher and it is Kai's least favorite chore. He asked if he could wash the dishes instead so we gave it a test run tonight. He was very serious about doing a good job. It was so cute! I can't believe how fast he's growing up.

Rinsing the dishes

Loading the dishwasher

All with a smile!

He even washed the big cutting board

Malia wanted to help out too, so she cleaned the chairs and the table.

What a cutie!

Here are some pictures of Kai playing with our remaining mouse, Poggle. What has happened to the rest of our pets? That's a post for another day......

Kai calls Poggle his "Pirate Mouse"
when he sits on his shoulder

Bath time
(Yes, that's mouse poop on my floor)