Quirkiness Runs Amok

I have been "tagged" by my sister in the great quirks confessional. Unfortunately for me, many of the best family quirks have already been spoken for.
I too have itchy ears. I buy my q-tips in double packs. They are not only handy for taking care of that inner ear itch they are great for getting mascara out from under you eyes.
I also must confess to being an obessional readder. I too have been known to stay up until all hours of the night trying to finish a book or get to a "good" stopping place. I don't do it as much as I did when I was younger because Dennis makes me turn off the light. Not sure why, since he is such a sound sleeper.
So when I to think of some original quirks I must confess that I kind of drew a blank at first. I had to think about it a bit. I didn't want to ask any of the boys for fear of what I might find out. I did finally come up with one or two. Maybe lame, but my quirks nevertheless. Here they are:
I hate to call people on the phone. I think I may have gotten this from dad. I never liked it as a kid and I still have qualms about it as an adult. Even if I know that someone is expecting my call I still really have to think about it. I got better about it when I became a receptionist. Answering the phone is not the problem because people are calling me. It's when I have to call other people that I get all nervous. I have to think long and hard about what I am going to say. I especially hate it when I have to call someone to ask for a favor or question. Sometimes when I hang up I go over the whole conversation thinking about what I might have said badly or might be misconstrued. Call me an insecure caller.
I hate waiting at stop lights. I like to take backroads with no stoplights everywhere I go. I have all these routes to most visited places that are unusual just to avoid stoplights. When i ride places with Dennis I have to grit my teeth because he is just to opposite. He goes on major roads with all the stop lights. Drives me crazy.
I hate chipped fingernails. They totally drive me crazy. When I was younger I was a nail biter (a nasty habit to break). I think I developed this habit largely from my dislike of snaggy nails. I would do anything to make the nail smoother, including biting it down to the quick. Of course I outgrew that habit, but I still can't stand nails that catch on things. I now keep my nails cut short purposely so they are less prone to breaking.
That's the best I could come up with. I am sure that I could come up with some other things (especially if I asked the boys). They are kind of lame, but I have alot of the family quirks besides the two I mentioned. Very funny how things run in a family!
I choose not to tag anyone because I think everyone has beend tagged. It is fun to think about quirks in a family though. Genetics or environment? Who knows!

Love/Hate Relationship & Other Stuff

I hate this tree! I love this tree! This is big, beautiful, amazing tree is across the street from our house. It is difficult to really appreciate how big it is without seeing it in person--especially when the photo is not the greatest. I love it in the summer when it is in full bloom. It has about a billion, maybe even a trillion leaves on it it. I hate it in the fall when the billion or so leaves begin to fall. If we are lucky, the prevailing winds are blowing in a northerly direction and the leaves mainly end up in the park behind the tree. If we are unlucky, the prevailing winds are blowing in a southerly direction and they end up in our yard, against our house, all over the street. Even if we are lucky there are still a few thousand or so leaves from this tree that end up in our yard. I have already filled up our gigantic yard waste container twice with leaves from this tree and the much smaller tree that is in front of our house. (I love our tree in the spring when it is full of plum blossoms).
Now Cooper, he loves the tree across the street! (As you can see in the following pictures.) He went over Sunday afternoon and took over this pile of leaves that some other kids had left. As you can see, there are plenty of leaves to make and remake again and again, one heaping, mound of leaves that any boy would love. Cooper had a heyday.
What's not to love about a big pile of leaves? At least when you are not in charge of raking them up. Fun times!

Groucho & Cowboy Dennis (the other stuff)
I guess Sunday was a banner day (or at least a day worthy of blogging about). Oma & Opa came over for Sunday dinner. After dinner we generally end up sitting around the dining room table chatting about this and that. This Sunday somehow the topic of discussion got on to facial hair or the lack of it. Spencer who is the throes of puberty insisted that he did not have any facial hair. I guess if it is blonde, and a little hard to see that means it's not there. Next thing you know, Oma has my mascara in hand and is "highlighting" Spencer's facial hair. I don't know whether to comment on his Italian heritage showing through or his resemblance to Groucho Marx. Needless to say there was alot of laughter that went on, but it did illustrate how much facial hair he actually has. It did make him look quite a bit older too. And yes, as you can see in the picture without Dennis, Oma colored in his eyebrows too. She did better with the eyebrows than the moustache because I suggested that perhaps she should brush against the grain of the hair rather than with it. You never know what hilarity while happen when Oma & Opa come for dinner! (And no, Dennis is not sleepy or high in this picture--just caught him between expressions I guess)

This last picture is for Ann. Don't know whether she ever looks at the blogs, but this one is for her. She had a hat much like this the last time Dennis saw her in the summer. He commented about how cool he thought it was and she offered to get him one. When the boys and I were down for a visit this summer, she gave me this hat for him. I promised that I would e-mail her a picture of him in it. I never got around to it and was reminded when we saw her at grandma's 100th that I needed to do that. So, since I was in a picture taking kind of mood this weekend, here's the picture for Ann. Ride em, cowboy Dennis!! (I think the hat loses a little authenticity when paired with the sweatshirt, but what can you expect for a city slicker!)

Grandma Turns 100!

Who in their right mind would travel 1000 miles round trip in two days just for a birthday party?! That would be us because it is not every day you have a Grandma who turns 100! That's right, this weekend we celebrated 100 years of life for my dad's mom, Lydia Vaden and it was on her actual birthday to boot, November 1. It seems like a crazy thing to do, but it was important to my dad and well, it was important for me too, so Dennis went along with it all.

We left Friday after school and drove halfway which was Pendleton, Oregon roughly four hours away. We enjoyed a dip in the hotel hot tub so I guess that almost made it seem like it was a vacation. We drove the final four hours Saturday morning and arrived in Moutain Home, Idaho at about 2pm Idaho time. Grandma's party did not start until 3pm, but we enjoyed hanging out with my two aunts at the American Legion hall where the party was being held.

As one might expect, the American Legion hall in Mtn. Home is not a particulary fancy building. It dates probably back to the 70s or possibly earlier and hasn't been updated since then. For ambiance, there is 30 years accumulated cigarette smell, low ceilings and poor lighting. It made it very difficult to get good pictures, especially for an amatuer photographer like me. I did my best but the photos were either too dark, people's faces too shiny or green or the photos were blurry.

It was a very simple affair with mostly family, various relatives outside of direct family and people from Mtn. Home. There was a country/folk/rockabilly/gospel singer on accoustic guitar (too loud as most people complained but grandma thought he was great). My family, meaning dad's descendents, probably accounted for half the people there. Five of the eight siblings with some of their kids and grandkids were there. Everyone from my family stayed until about 5:30. We the Chandlers were the last to leave when dad left. We then drove the four hours back to Pendleton, stayed the night and drove the other four hours back this morning.

Now why would we do such a crazy thing? I guess it was so my boys could do the two-step and the swing with their great-aunts Boots and Deanna. So that I could see relatives that I haven't seen in 20 years or more, many of whom I would not recognized if I met them on the street. So that I could hear over and over again from those same Aunts, my Grandma and most importantly my dad, how happy they were that I came. So that my children could meet a Great Grandmother that they have never met before (Tucker is the only one who has met her and the last time was when he was just a baby). So we could pay tribute to a woman who has lived a long, somewhat cantankerous (okay really cantankerous) and amazing life.

I don't know my Grandma Vaden as well as I should. We were never particularly close. I think I like to place most of the blame for that on her end (and she deserves alot of it) but I think it works both ways. I don't know that she was every very comfortable with our family and we with her. Who knows everything she had to go through in keeping my dad at a time when having a baby out of wedlock was so very frowned upon? There is so much of her life that is a mystery that she would never divulge and now never will. I don't know all of what makes/made her the way she is. I guess I should have tried harder to find out.

No one is certain how much of her birthday party Grandma will remember. She seemed pretty lucid but who knows. What I do know is that my boys will probably remember it for a long time. They will remember that mom made them go on a crazy drive for a visit that lasted roughly 3 hours. They will remember being kissed, sometimes more than once, by strangers who mom insisted were family. (The Vaden clan are a kissing kind of family). They will remember dancing with their great aunts, eating pickled beets for the first time (Spencer, and he didn't like them) and most importatly, I hope they will remember that family IS the most important thing there is and sometimes we do crazy things for them.

Why I Love the Puget Sound

We had a visit from my nephew Tyson the other day. He was up here interviewing for a job with Microsoft. We were talking about what it is like to live in Seattle and it got me thinking about why I love living up here. In my spider blog I already mentioned the great weather--truly! (If you like weather that never gets too cold or too hot for long periods of time, this is the place for you! I have to admit that I haven't been to some of these places--even though they are close--but they are places I intend to visit someday (soon). Pictures are worth a thousand words, so here is some of what is great about living in the Puget Sound!

The lighthouse is located in a park that is only a few miles away from our house. It's a huge park with hiking and biking trails, open fields and beaches. It is really cool.

I have always loved the Seattle skyline. It is especially cool at night when you are driving up from the south. I don't know why but it I think it is just beautiful. it is also really cool at night from a ferry.

Downtown Seattle is funky and cool and fun to walk around. Of course there is Pike St. Market but it is fun to wander the waterfront, the Seattle Center, Seattle Art Museum (first Thursdays of the month are free), and lots of other great places. The kids love to ride the bus from our house and wander all the cool places downtown. It is one of their favorite summer adventures.

The Washington coast is only an hour or two away depending on which beach you want to visit. We haven't been to that particular beach in the picture but every summer we go camping a the beach and it is one of the funnest events of the summer for everyone--even when it rains (which it has only done twice in the 15plus years we have been beach camping).

The walking train is in the heart of Seattle around a lake called Greenlake. The trail is just under 3 miles and is very popular for running. That is where I did most of my marathon training. It is beautiful at 6am in the morning with the moonlight glinting of the smooth clear surface.

The picture with the mountain in back is Mt. Rainier which isn't as close to us as in this picture but it is amazing nevertheless on a clear day. There are amazing hiking trails and camping spots. If you love the outdoors then you couldn't ask for a place with more beautiful outdoor opportunities all within and hour or two of the city!

The other mountain range is the Olympics which is the mountain range between Seattle and the coast. This is not the view from where I live but there is a park about 1/2 a mile from our house that has a killer view of the Puget Sound and this mountain range. On a clear beautiful evening, nothing beats the view from this park (Sunset Park) of the sun setting behind these mountains and with sailboats on the sound. If you listen closely sometimes you can hear seals barking and an occasional tugboat whistle.

Since no blog would be complete without one obligatory picture of my kids, the picture with the dragon is from a field trip I took with Cooper's class last year to the International District (or Chinatown for the non-PC crowd). Regardless there is amazing international cuisine to be found in the city of Seattle. Whether your taste runs to Thai, Mexican, Mongolian, Italian or BBQ, you can find it all in Seattle.

Spiders

When Cooper and I left for school this morning we noticed that it was a bit of a foggy day. In Seattle that means a pretty heavy dew. Because of the beads of dew, you could see all the spider webs. There were probably 10 or more of them in the evergreen bushes in front of our house, which you can kind of see here. They were so cool I had to go back in the house and get the camera to take pictures. Now we are NOT ones to get scared of spiders so naturally we were quite fascinated with all the webs and their shapes and intricacies. I find it interesting to observe the interesting shapes and patterns. They are just amazing. The weather was perfect for viewing them. We walked a few blocks farther and saw tons of webs all over the bushes everywhere. Then we saw a great big one, with a huge spider on it that I just had to get a picture of him. He was HUGE! But he was also beautiful, just sitting there waiting for something edible to come along. SO I had to snap a picture of him too. (Click on both of them to enlarge them to really appreciate how many webs there were on the shrubs and how big the Big Daddy was!)
It was such a cool morning to be out and about and it really made me think about how beautiful the earth is that God made for us. I was thankful for Cooper's excitement, enthusiasm and exuberance about the whole thing. There are so many beautiful things that we pass by every day without even considering. It also reminded me what I love about living in Seattle. Yes, it rains a fair amount here, and when it is not raining it is often gray. But...it is vibrantly green much of the year, the climate is generally mild (not too hot, not too cold). Tall mountains to remind me of Idaho but lots of water everywhere. Yes, there are spiders but there aren't any snakes and flies are almost non-existent. So today I am grateful for spiders and all the amazing things that are on this beautiful earth!

Spencer is a Teenager!

Yes my tall, skinny redhead is now a teenager! Spencer turned 13 on September 11. We went out for pizza on his actual birthday but saved the majority of his party for Saturday when the Chandler clan could be there. He was very excited to get two things on his list (he always has one prepared for every gift-giving occasion). He got and i-Pod and a gift certificate for Hollister, which he is out spending with Tucker as I type.
I am always so amazed at how different all my boys are from the other, with their own unique personalities and likes and dislikes. Spencer is my little chef. He loves to make desserts. He is especially good at chocolate chip cookies. He is very good a reading and following recipes so he will always eat well. (Unlike Tucker who may be living off Top Ramen). He is very artistic and has a great eye for color, details, shapes, sizes, etc. He is funny, a good student and has a great ear for music. Lest he seems to be nearing perfection, he also has a temper which has a very short fuse. When he gets in a snit, he has been known to shut himself in his room for a couple hours. Moody doesn't do justice to his moods swings at times. He is now several inches taller than me and within an inch or so if being taller than Tucker. He is probably about 4-5 inches taller than Tucker was at age 13. Perhaps he got the tall Chandler gene. Time will tell. He is a super kid and we are blessed to have him in our family.

1st Day & Wedded Bliss

Today was the 1st day of school for Seattle Public Schools. That means even more now than it did before since they are my employer. The last two weeks I have been working a little extra time to get ready for the big day. Well truth be told, I have been working alot of extra time. Will be looking forward to things getting a little calmer. We did make it through the 1st day though--both me and the boys. I always take a picture of the boys on the 1st day of school and the last day. So here is the one for this year. (I also took one of each boy alone.) I always like to compare the growth from year to year. I guess this one won't be all that helpful since Spencer is crouching. He is actually taller than me and was laughing yesterday about how short I was.

Today was also a banner day for Dennis and I. It was our 20th Anniversary! Yup that's right. We have been married for 20 years!! Scary. Even more scary, that's what we looked like on the big day 20 years ago. The kids find it hilarous that Dennis had hair. They think their dad looks really funny. I guess that would seem weird since they have only known him sans most of his hair. It seems pretty weird to think about being married 20 years, but then I kind of seems like we have always been married.

I guess the fact that we have Junior in high school and have 20 years means that we are officially old. Well at least that's what our kids think. Funny, other than a few extra pounds and a little less flexibility, I don't feel that different than I did 20 years ago.