Saturday - May 23, 2009

The kids were dropped off to my mother last night for a sleepover, since Tim and I needed to be in Foxboro for my cousin Billy's wedding at 11am today. We got dressed and drove down, got stuck in traffic and missed the entire ceremony. We got there in time for the receiving line and joined in for the reception. (The ceremony and reception were both in the same place.)



The wedding was beautiful! We were at a table with my aunt Anne and uncle Bill (the groom's parents), my grandmother (Grandma Frana), Anne's best friend Kimmy and her husband, and Anne's best friend Audra. Marissa (the bride) spelled my grandmother's name wrong on the seating card, but that happens a lot.



First dance:



Being toasted:


Bill, Billy, and Anne:


Uncle Bill with my cousin Danielle:


More dancing (the tall little girl is Camryn, Marissa's daughter):


Cake cutting:




The mother/groom dance:


Grandma and Tim getting in a dance:


Me with Grandma Frana:


After the wedding, Tim and I picked up the kids and headed over to Mike & Josi's house to hang out with them during Josi's son's graduation party. Brought over some scratch tickets for him (he won $30) and we were waaaay overdressed for the occasion. But we all had a good time!

Friday - May 22, 2009

The soccer season is coming to a close, so I bought some red pinnies as an end of the year gift for Coach Larry (he says kids take them home all the time and he rarely has enough of one color to provide to a whole team.)

Noah had his Busy Bee Field Day today, which included a ride on a school bus (he was so excited!) to a local Kindergarten class so he could see how Kindergarten works before he goes. After having that experience and then a picnic lunch, he got to have ice cream with his class at Peaceful Meadows! He had a blast. :)







Wrapped Alana's birthday gifts and that was about all that was exciting today!

Thursday - May 21, 2009

All I can remember from this day is that we prepared for Noah's field trip and I signed paychecks and paperwork at the Library. Tim and I skipped our cycling class and Alana's friend Hank never came over, though he was supposed to...so I think it was just a low-key day.

Wednesday - May 20, 2009

I went to my power lifting class this morning before picking Noah up from Busy Bee.

Alana's birthday cake was ordered today, and the goody bags for her party were put together. Alana was allowed to ride her bike to her friend Tyler's house after school and play there until 4:00, then she, Noah, and I went to her soccer game at 4:30.

Today is Karen's birthday! Happy birthday Karen!

We went to dinner with Stalker Dave too, which is always a good time. :)

Tuesday - May 19, 2009

As I'm writing this (today's date is November 16, 2009), I am realizing that I will have forgotten quite a lot of details of things that happened day to day from May 19th up until this morning. I do still have my planner and some pictures to work with, so I will do my best to accurately reflect as much as I can. Sorry for the long absence from blogging!

Today Alana got to play with the birthday gifts she got from Greg & Rachael. The first thing she wanted to try out was the butterfly bubble wand. She thought it would make bubbles shaped like butterflies. So she went out to the back yard, followed the instructions, and was initially dismayed that it just made regular bubbles.

(video will go here once I can figure out how to have ubuntu recognize my video files in photobucket.)

But then she got into it and had a lot of fun with it. :)







Later on, Cameron came over to play with the kids.



Allie is still calling him her boyfriend!

Monday - May 18, 2009

Alana's birthday! Happy eighth birthday, girl! <3

It's also my aunt Anne's birthday, so happy birthday to you as well!

Ari came over this morning (Noah was at school, I didn't want to bore the poor child to death) to help me go through the script and break it down into a manner that makes sense. He gave me some blank forms that are really helpful, and we discussed whether I should try for bigger names or go for relative unknowns. There are pros and cons to both. Still haven't rightly decided.

Once Alana was home from school (and after we ate some celebratory cupcakes)



we went to the mall to let her pick out a rip stick. This was our gift to her for her birthday. She picked a red, black, and orange one with flames over a pink one. This kid really is my kid. I made her promise I could use it too, which she happily agreed to.

Bought some elbow and knee pads too and we took them home to mess with.





Once Tim was home we headed to the bowling alley on Route 18. Met up with Greg and Rachael and went to town.

















Allie and I tied. Sadly, I forget how everyone else scored. :(
I did remember to embarrass the ever-living crap out of all everyone though:



We hit up the arcade for a while after bowling and played some air hockey as well. I killed Tim, of course (he hasn't beaten me at any sport yet, virtual or otherwise).









Alana opened her gifts from Greg and Rachael (DS games that rule, bubbles and stuff, plus bubbles for Noah!)



and we headed home. There was a package for Alana from Bop on the doorstep! Inside was a sweater (also another one for Noah!) and this duck which she LOVED.



I think the kid ended up happy. :)

Sunday - May 17, 2009

Today is film scouting day (number one). I've been excited for this.

The kids stayed over their Mammma's house last night so Tim and I could get an early start. The weather was drippy, but not too bad...warm at least. Brought some sweatshirts with hoods in case it started pouring.

The objective for today was to find:

1) a location in the woods which includes a climbable tree and a large rock next to it
2) a bench and/or location outside a subway station which could house a bench
3) three houses which would pass as character's houses (within walking distance of the subway stop), one which has street space wide enough to light a car on fire
4) a second story balcony attached to the subway station
5) how much time it takes to ride the Braintree Mall escalator up and down

Some of them were misses, but we got some hits. Some great things in general:

















We had lunch here, at Bobby C's (GREAT food):



then headed across the street into the woods:





Sat by the pond for a while and enjoyed the scenery:





Ha Ha, grossed you out! :D

On the way home we swung by the Braintree Mall for that quick stuff:



then we went food shopping and picked the kids up to go home. :)

I got a ton of ideas and have to rewrite some stuff now that I've seen these locations "in the flesh". SO much to do.

Saturday - May 16, 2009

Today was a "try to catch up on yardwork that's been neglected for waaaay too long" day. Got a bunch of leaves (yes, from last fall) put into bags and hauled to the dump. Tied some roses to our front fence. I plan to plant more rose bushes so they can trail along the fence all the way, but I haven't the first clue on what type of roses to get that will trail sideways rather than up, and how far apart to space them. I have to ask Steve LeClair, but his father in law just unfortunately died of a heart attack and they're dealing with the shock and grief of that right now. They were also the recipients of some heart-shaped brownies and a note expressing our deep feelings, though that feels like it's not good enough for that kind of a thing. Still no words. Rest in peace, Jerry.

Alana decided to color on the kitchen counter in pen today. I saw it and asked both kids to come into the kitchen. They've been brought up to know that we appreciate honesty, and they are likely to be punished less severely if they tell the truth than if they try to hide it. Before I could even ask, Alana said she did it. So Noah went back to play in the living room and I asked Allie what she thought her punishment should be. She said no video games. I agreed that that was a good punishment, since she loves playing Mario Kart with Tim and would definitely miss it. She then backpedaled and said "No...something else, I really want to play video games." So I said (jokingly), "Okay, you can clean the toilet. It's either clean the toilet or no video games." She thought about it and thought about it and decided she wanted to clean the toilet. Well, okay. Sure, kid. Okay.

So, she cleaned off the pen (yay, magic eraser!) and then I showed her how to clean the toilet and she went to town. Is it bad that I'm hoping she'll keep getting in trouble so I don't have to clean the toilet anymore? Haha. :)

Her friend Hank called to talk to her and of course the first thing she said was, "My mom made me clean the toilet!" I made her explain why so everyone doesn't think I'm some really awful slavedriver. Sheesh.

Soccer game at one o'clock. Allie did really well! She's really getting much better at this, especially blocking when she's goalie.





Tim went over to hang out and build guitars with Mike for most of the afternoon, and I watched the Preakness with the kids, much to Noah's chagrin. He's not a big fan of the horse racing. I rarely, if ever, watch anything on TV so when I want to, tough luck for everybody else! :p

Friday - May 15, 2009

Today is Jimmy Vento's birthday - Happy Birthday Jimmy! You rock. I think it's also Matt Gregory's birthday, so Happy Happy to him too. :)

Made some brownies this morning while Noah was at school so I can drop them off to Ari later. Cut them into heart shapes so my film boys would know I love them. I really should have taken pictures of them, but again, I dropped the ball. I still have to get used to taking pictures of everything.

Went to pick up Noah and he played in the playground before we headed home, making "volcanos" all over the place with Max and Ryan. I guess people aren't that different from ants after all. :p





Got Noah a haircut, finally...man did the kid need it!





After Allie was home we three headed over to Rockland to feed the ducks and geese.









I wanted to keep that duck. He was the man.

So, Ari showed up to pick up his brownies and he and the kids did some racing. I would have also partaken of the running, but again was wearing flip flops. It's finally nice weather, so that's my excuse. There were too many sharp objects lying around for me to be willing to take them off and run, so I just watched and laughed. I had some video which was awesome, but I think I deleted it to make room for other stuff, thinking I had already uploaded it. :(

Do have some camera phone pictures though:





So Ari, Ben Gamer, and Dave Langill all enjoyed my brownies. I got texts all night that they missed me and the hearts were tasty. :)

The plan is for Ari to come over on Monday and help with with script breakdowns...I'll need it.