Today's Economy and other updates

I'll be starting a new job on Tuesday, Dec. 9. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), I was part of the "poor economy" layoff at my last job. Of course, I'll miss my friends there, and there's the challenge of learning the applications and processes of a new company. But. At least, I have a job! All this negative "economy" talk I like to think of as just temporary.

Andrew passed his most recent taekwondo exam, and he is now a green belt! I'm very proud of him. He'll now be doing sparring and board breaking.

Alex's singing group will be putting on a Christmas performance tomorrow. They have a dress rehearsal today. I'm sure it'll be good.

We spent Thanksgiving with Michael's relatives. We'll probably spend Christmas Day at our house; I signed us up to help with Meals on Wheels that day. Then, we plan on going to Chicago the last week of December.

I'm also LATE :-o and have an EDD of Aug 11. This will be our last one!! =)

Yellow Belt!

From Andrew's taekwondo awards ceremony on Friday - getting his yellow belt!

Taekwondo and Caws Crunchy

Last Friday, my MIL came and took Alex and Andrew to school for Grandparent's Day, and after the events were over, she brought them back home. When I went home for lunch, she and the kids were there cleaning. She asked me where there was a place to get gas. I hadn't realized that a lot of the gas stations in the area were either out of gas or had long lines at the station. I called around and only found one that was 10 minutes away but was apparently backed up with cars down the street. I also needed gas because I had only 1/4 of a tank. I was able to make it back to work, and then I later picked up Lucas; I tried to see if there was gas at some other station - which there wasn't, and so I went back home, and picked up Alex, Andrew, and my MIL, and we headed to Andrew's Taekwondo studio (which is like 40+ mins away!) because he was testing for his yellow belt. ALL the gas stations we passed were out! By the time we got to the TKD class, I was on about an 1/8th of a tank. Michael met us there; he had a 1/2 tank so he was fine.

Anyway, the testing was for just the white/yellow belt group. The parents/families were allowed to sit in the room - there were 2 rows of chairs against one side of the room for us. The students sat on the floor around the perimeter of the room and went up in groups of 4 when they were called. There was a table at one end of the room where the instructors sat. When it was Andrew's group's turn, after they did their form, the main instructor said, "Andrew, are you nervous? You usually do that perfectly in class." LOL! Andrew just smiled, and he and this other girl had to do their form again. Andrew did it perfectly that time. But the girl had to do it again - twice I think? She looked like she was struggling. After that, then they had to face their partner which meant the girl who was struggling was Andrew's partner, and they had to do some technique which I've seen them do in class. This time each pair had a "referree" who was a brown belt watching over them. Andrew was really focused and knew what he was doing; can't really say the same for his partner who kept looking at the ref. Anyway, after the kids did that, then the instructor asked a couple of the students (not Andrew) a question, and that was it! The policy was that if the instructor did not call me by 10am yesterday (Monday), then that would mean Andrew passed. Since I did not hear from him, I assume Andrew PASSED!!! There's an Awards Ceremony on Friday, so I'll be sure to take pics. I really wish I had had a camcorder to videotape the testing. :(

So after the test, we decided to try going to some gas stations. We were in line for one (the line was long backed up onto the highway!) and then at one point, one of the employees came out and was like, "Folks! I only have 400gallons left, and it won't get to you all! I'm sorry!" So, we chanced it, and I actually made it home. Whew. We ordered pizza for dinner, and when the delivery guy came, Michael asked him if he knew of any places to get gas, and the guy mentioned a place along the highway. So around 10:00pm, Michael and I decided to go by there. My MIL spent the night so she was able to watch the kids. Anyway, there was a freakin long line down the highway for that gas station! But we did see that another gas station near us which was out earlier now had some, but there was a long line at the one, too. So we decided we'd wake up at 2:30AM. I mean, cause really, who's gonna be up at that time? So we went to bed, and woke up and left the house around 3AM. We decided to just go to this one station near our house, and would you believe it? There was actually a line in front of it! So, we just sat there, and while we waited, this one lady honked her horn coming down the road in the opposite direction saying that there was gas at some station about 5-10mins away and that there was no waiting there. So we decided to chance it. And amazingly, she was right! So we filled up Michael's truck. Then we headed back home, got my SUV and my MIL's car and went back to that station to fill up; by the time we got there, it was starting to get busy. Word of mouth probably spread. But thankfully, we were able to fill up.

Sunday, we had Andrew's first Cross Country meet of the season to go to. When I told Lucas where we were going, he kept referring to it as "Caws Crunchy". LOL!!! Anyway, we made the mistake of eating lunch right before the race, so when Andrew was done running, he threw up a lot. Poor dear. We know not to do that again!

Jumping on bubbles in the sky

Rays of Light

Playing around with a photoshop technique.

School has started!

Alex and Andrew started school a few weeks ago. Daily homework, exams and quizzes to study for, washing uniforms - it all starts over again. I love Fridays - no homework! This year, Alex will actually be getting graded with A's, B's etc. In K-2nd grade, they only have stuff like "E" for Excellent, "N" for Needs Improvement etc. So it should be interesting this year. So far, she's doing fine. She really doesn't like Science, so it's a little frustrating trying to help her study for an exam in that subject. I write up a lot of practice tests for the kids, which seems to help. Andrew joined the school's Cross Country team again. He's also still taking tae kwon do; he got his blue stripe on his white belt last week. Yay! In less than 2 weeks, his instructor said he'll be ready to test for his yellow belt. That's awesome. :) Alex is still doing her weekly singing lessons, which she LOVES. They practice being on stage, and at one point, during a session, her teacher said, "Alex! Stop wiggling so much!" One of the parents said to me she kinda liked the wiggling. Alex just has a tendency to move her hips a lot; if you can imagine a model going through various poses in front of a camera, that's what she does. :)

Lucas turned 3 last month. We didn't really do much, but he knew it was his birthday and kept telling us so. His latest phrase is "What s/he say?" If someone's talking to me or if he hears a line in a song, he'll say, "Mommy, what s/he say?" It's really cute. I need to get a more up-to-date camcorder so I can upload videos easily. Speaking of videos, my talented brother put together this video of visiting the Botanical Gardens with Katie in Chicago. It's beautiful, and it makes me feel relaxed. I don't know why he's not a famous movie director yet. Here's the video: http://www.vimeo.com/1398185

Tomorrow's Andrew's 7th birthday. All he wants to do is go to Chuck E Cheese's. So simple at this age. Of course, it has to be at the Chuck E Cheese that's 30mins instead of 5mins away from us!

I've started submitting some images to some stock photography sites. So far I have images on http://us.fotolia.com/. If you search for the following numbers, you'll see my images: 9018181 9018179 9150092 9233366

I recently bought a polarizer for my 17-40mm lens to use for landscapes and water reflections. I haven't been able to use it much yet, but here's a pic I took of Lucas with the polarizer on my lens. Remember when it was fun blowing bubbles in your drink? Good times...

Landscape pictures

We recently got our landscape taken care of. Pics can be seen here. http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AYsm7Zq5aN2TK