"A" is for Alameda

In June, I had the great fortune of taking two friends and heading for the Alameda Flea Market.
Let me just say, I Love, Love Alameda!!!

As an avid collector of everything vintage, this is the place to go. A dream come true. The pot of gold. The find of finds. The place you can go to find all of those delicious do-dads that bless homes in the pages of magazines like Country Home and Country Living.

Did I mention that I love Alameda?!

We took our Expedition. Stayed in Walnut Creek. Went to the movies and caught a cute chick flick. Ate at a wonderful Italian restaurant where we all ordered something different and shared everything (it was sinful). Turned in around 10:30pm and woke at 4:30 the next morning so that we could be "early birds" on Sunday morning.

Now the reason I mention we took our Expedition is that there were three of us. Three of us who all love similar things. Three of us on a mission. Three of us armed with a little money to have a lot of fun with. Three of us whose "finds" would have to be stuffed into that Expedition!

We shopped, scoured, haggled, searched, snatched and grabbed. One of us got a "Home Depot" style cart to hold all of their booty. One of us bought a very cute vintage shopping cart in which to carry all of her goods. Its wheels squeaked and rattled over the uneven pavement row after row. And as she passed, some people would comment about the terrible noise coming from that cute little vintage cart. Some people were actually down right rude and made snide comments about the cute little cart that squeaked even louder as it begin to fill with lots of other vintage treasures. (Ok, it was me...I bought the cart. One thing I can say about its noisiness is that it helped the other two girls keep track of me!)

By 3:30, my cart along with my friends' pallet-style cart and every arm available were full. All three of us had "large" objects set aside for us at booths located in various places.

I brought my car to the loading area and parked. We unloaded the carts and picked up our purchases at the other spots and stacked them up next to the Expedition. Then, we cracked up...Would we have enough space? It would seem we had not thought of space when we were on our spree? Hmm...

We attracted the attention of others loading their U-haul trailers and moving vans. People were walking by saying what great items we had. Some even wanted to purchase some of our items. (No Way!!!). Most seemed to be placing bets on whether or not we could actually get all of this JUNK (oops), good stuff, into this vehicle.

Well, we shocked and amazed those betting against us. We were women on a mission. Everything had a spot. Miraculously, all of our vintage goodness fit. Mind you there was absolutely no inch of that vehicle not occupied by something and I, being the driver was the only person whose lap wasn't holding at least two bags!

The car looked something like the one the Beverly Hillbillies came to town in! The picture at the beginning of the post is a little peak of my purchases.

Mom and Dad are coming in March and we are going to Alameda...Ooooh, I can hardly wait. :)

"When is the next conference?"

This was what Frank asked as he opened the curtains of the 1000+ square foot suite we stayed in at Olympic Valley in beautiful Lake Tahoe.

The hospital sent me to an Infection Control/Engineering conference here and encouraged me to take my family. I can't tell you how glad I was that they were able go. For one, I would have felt terribly guilty if I were the only one able to enjoy the breath-taking views from a such an AMAZING room.(Brag, brag) But also because we had such a great time!

On the way, we were able to visit the Train Museum in Old Town Sac. Franky has wanted to take Red there since he was around three months old!!! They were in heaven...

The training itself lasted three days (the hospital let us stay four). While I was in class, the boys hung out pool side, explored the golf course, Olympic Valley's Village and watched TV on one of the two HUGE flat screen TVs. (I'm sorry I'm bragging, again...)

When I finished for the day we would walk around, eat yummy food, drive around Lake Tahoe, take pictures like tourists and call to brag (hee, hee) to any one who would listen, about how beautiful it was!

On the way home we got to stop in Auburn, which was where I spent most of my summer's with my great aunt. It is a wonderful little mining town, rich in history and cute as can be. We met up with some family and had a wonderful visit and breakfast, then got to look around at some fun antique shops in Old Town.

What a awesome trip. Definitely a place we want to visit again!

Let's Play Ball

With Spring of 2009, came T-ball. Red's first go at organized (ha ha) "team" sports. Honestly, I don't think there is anything more entertaining than 40 four and five year olds with mitts, cleats, saggy uniforms and an abundance of energy vs. two or three grown ups (usually men) bringing them together in an effort to play something resembling a baseball game!!!

For those of you who haven't experienced this before, it looks something like this: Four kids are in the outfield. One is sitting in the grass looking at bugs crawling around, one is picking her nose, one is doing some version of the "pee-pee" dance, the fourth is waving at his family who is doing the wave in the stands.

The short stop is looking at the clouds. The kid on third is showing the kids from the other team how he can jump on one foot, the one on second is standing on the base trying to push the other teams' runner out of her way and yelling "He won't get off!!!".

The kid on first is the coaches' Son and actually knows what to do and is being watched by recruiters from the Dodger's farm team. The batter from the other team nearly takes out our coach when she swings at the ball before it is placed on the "T".

And Red? Well, he's all over the field, chasing the ball where ever it goes, tackling his team mates and who ever else who may have reached said ball before him...I think maybe he got confused as to which "organized" team sport he was playing! Let's just say he LOVED it.

The season lasted about two months. We usually had two games a week. Red had a blast and I laughed so hard, I now have six-pack abs! Can't wait until next season.

We're back...

Really, we've been here the whole time...just haven't been bloggin'. To be honest, I've missed it. I miss reflecting on our day to day life, our adventures, Red (and how incredibly fast he is growing into such an awesome little man). So many things to look back on...

Life has been good. There has been a lot of change this year. Some already written about, but so much more that I want to share. Moments that I want to remember...

Time has passed so quickly, I want to document these experiences so that they are more than just a memory inside my head.

I think I wrote this very words in a post before. One which I had taken a break from writing and was playing "catch up" just like today. And as I sit here on the couch, four (yes, four) dogs surrounding me, the music from the blog drifting out the speakers of my pickle-green laptop, diet Pepsi by my side, Red sound asleep under his fuzzy red blanket, my best friend (and soul mate) making noise upstairs, I look back to the very beginning and am reminded why I created this Blog in the first place.