Bribery

My middle child has ADD. Getting classwork and homework done on time is challenging. Even with a 504 plan, there are still a lot of things that are REQUIRED. Even though my child does NOT want to do them. She tries to ignore them, she tries to make deals, but the assignments don't go anywhere, they just accumulate. The deadline was quickly approaching for the assignments to be turned in because the teacher needed to turn in grades for the first report card. We had something like 20 missing assignments that needed to be completed, and right before the assignments were due, a nice long 4 day weekend. I didn't want to spend my 4 day weekend yelling at my child to do homework, so I got this brilliant idea. "If you get all these assignments done before the weekend, we can go to Disneyland" I said to my dear child. Ohhh, was she excited. We haven't been to Disneyland in 3 years. She quickly got a couple assignments done and then decided it was hopeless. Somehow the idea of the trip got leaked to the other two children. I had not told them for fear they would kill the middle child if she didn't get the work done and prevented them from going to Disneyland. Now they knew and the pressure was on. "Get your work done, we want to go to Disneyland" they said. Slowly but surely she got one assignment after another completed. By Saturday night I felt that she could get the rest done on the way to Disneyland and back. So we went. Sunday night in the hotel she got more work done, and Tuesday when we returned she completed the last couple pages. It was amazing. Here are some pictures.

Everything was all decorated for Halloween. Growing up in California and having been to Disneyland bazillions of times, I had never been there when it was decorated for Halloween. It was cool.

The sign in front of California Adventure was decorated too. The A's were big candy corns. I like candy corn, lol.

Here are my kids standing in front of the R. We took a picture like this the last time we went to Disneyland 3 years ago.

See how much they have grown. Cool Huh??

Here are the kids as we are waiting in line to get in. Tiff was pissed about something, but Kimberly was happy. See the heart she is making with her hands?

Here's Aimee, annoyed that I'm still taking pictures while we are waiting in line. She couldn't wait to get rid of us. Some of her friends were there too. She was excited to spend the day with the other teenagers instead of the little kids.

This is a picture of me waiting in line. It's not the best picture ever taken of me, but since I'm usually not in the pictures because I'm always taking the pictures, I won't complain.

Kimberly and Tiffany got invited into the wheel house of the Mark Twain river boat. Kimberly got to steer the boat and blow the whistle and ring the bell. They were very excited. I didn't even know you could do this. There was a log book we got to sign our names in, and the kids got pilot's certificates when we were done.

Kimberly and Tiff in a cage made out of bones on Tom Sawyer Island.

Here are the kids sitting in a tea cup after we bought mouse ear hats. We just happened to bump into Aimee and the teenagers at the hat place. See Aimee's boyfriend sneaking into the picture?

Here is Kimberly ready to drive her Autopia car. Not too long after someone had to go rescue her because she got stuck out on the track.

Kimberly and a chicken inside Micky Mouse's house in Toon Town. Kimberly has a thing for chickens and ducks.

Waiting in line to ride Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters for like the 4th time.

This is a picture from the parade. They all came out kinda blurry because of all the motion and the night setting on the camera, but I thought I would include this one, because I couldn't help thinking that if they tried to make this movie today, I don't think a hookah smoking catapillar would fly with all the parents groups.

The kids lasted all day at Disneyland, from open to close, but within 2 minutes of our arrival back at the hotel, this is what we had.

This and That

Again a week has gone by without writing. I just didn't have anything monumental to write about. I was all bummed that my little vacation was over and I moped for days. I didn't get much of anything accomplished, but I forgive myself. So here are the few little highlights of my week. Not neccessarily good things, just stuff that happened.

Directv DVR sucks monkey butt

My Directv DVR decided to erase or not record all the season premieres that played last week. I turned on the tv the other night to watch some tube and found my list EMPTY. Not a thing there, and I have no friggin clue why. I'm seriously pissed. I seriously follow about 10 shows, all three CSI's, Bones, House, Pushing Daisies, and well a few others I can't name right now. Ok so let's say 6 shows. The CSI's especially all ended with nifty cliffhangers that I wan't to see the resolution to. Hopefully they are all on the internet. It just reminds me of the fact that Directv used to have Tivo, and Tivo kicks DVR butt. I still have one in my living room, but the kids have taken control of it recording all kinds of kid crap. The only good thing about the DVR was it had WAY more recording space, but what does that matter if it just RANDOMLY erases everything??? The Tivo never did that.

Inconsiderate Real Estate Agents should be strung up by the toenails

People came last night to see my house. Not at 5:30 when they said they would and I was purposely out of the house, because it's just weird watching strangers walk through your house, but an hour late at 6:30 when I was in the middle of trying to do homework with Kimberly and making a salad. Rude! Rude I tell you. It put me in a funk for the rest of the night. It made it all the more real to me that someone is going to buy this house, and more than likely want to live in it, because it is after all a really awesome house, and I'm going to be forced to move to a way less awesome house.

Change is not always good

I bought a new kind of coffee at the store. I'm kinda new to coffee, being like the last 30 something year old on the planet that didn't own a coffee maker until about 6 months ago when after mentioning to my mom that it might be nifty to have one, she picked one up for me at Kohl's for 10 bucks. It sat in the box under my bed for another couple of months until I decided to start using it when I had to give up soda as a means of self medicating myself with caffiene. My friend Alisha was staying with me then, and she actually knew how to make the coffee maker make coffee. She went to the store and bought coffee and filters and taught me how to do it. Ever since then I have been buying the same coffee that she did. Last week I decided to change it up. Bought some kind of Brazilian Blend. It sounded good, but it tastes like crap.

That might make a good book

I got this crazy idea to write a book. Not some kind of auto biography or witty book about parenting like other bloggers are doing, NOPE pure fiction. One day last week this thought popped into my head. "Hey, a book about a talking dog with tourette's syndrome would be really cool" it said. So I started pondering it, and I've since come up with some other great characters and now I'm working on what those characters are actually going to do.

Back To Reality

I'm back from my little vacation and I remember now why I don't like vacations. I never want to come back. It's like a tease. Like life is saying to me "Hey, this is what your life would be like if you were independently wealthy, but you're not, so HA HA, back to the grind you go". For three nights I stayed in a hotel where someone else made my bed and hung up my towel for me. I didn't have to cook because we ate out for every meal. The day I arrived I got to hang out on the movie set and met Kim Cattrall. Saturday the hubby and I went to an amusement park, something we hadn't done alone together since we first dated. Sunday we did a little outlet mall shopping and hung out. Monday the hubby had to be at work at 5:30 am, so I slept a little longer and then joined him at the set a while (like 4 hours) later. They were filming at this beautiful beach, some state park, on Lake Erie. It was gorgeous, but cold. I could have stayed there forever. We had lunch, and let me tell you, I love having lunch with the hubby at work. Movie catering is most excellent. I had some chicken with a cucumber sauce that I told the hubby he needed to get me the recipe for, veggies, and couscous. It was the best meal I had the whole trip. Then it was off to the airport. Sad goodbyes and hugs. Back to the rat race at home.