Prayers for Maximus

A quick note this morning to ask for prayers for my friend Claire, her husband Jordan and their sweet baby Maximus, who is in the fight of his life. Max was born about 3 weeks ago with a condition called CDH, a defect in the diaphragm that allows the abdominal organs (stomach, intestine, liver, bowel, and spleen) to migrate into the chest cavity in utero. Since surgery, his recovery has been steady and progressive until last night when he crashed a bit and is now stable on the heart and lung machine. Hopefully, this machine will do a little work for Max and give him the rest he needs to continue fighting in the coming days, weeks, months...

This family needs all the prayers they can get! You can check out their story at www.clairegriffinsblog.blogspot.

Australia Update

Just a brief update as Vic's still in Australia, but from the pic she seems to be doing well making friends across the pond... She leaves today (Sunday in Aussie land) on the 22 hour or so trip back. Say hi to Vic's new friend Khole. Animals love Vic; I guess Khole was hugging her like crazy!

For our Golfer Followers....who'd like to visit!

I apologize I haven't been posting as much lately; been busy with tiling, painting, work, etc....need to get more pics up. But, I do have a quick post for all our golfer followers out there. I played the course we live on (across the street) this past Saturday and I'm extremely glad to report it's a great track (83--driver and short game good, irons awful. FYI: R9 460 TP is $$$). I went in cautiously optimistic but thinking there was a 50/50 chance I'd not be a fan. Well, I can now say I'm really impressed. I'm over the super desert-like courses and this is not one of those. Plenty of grass so you don't feel like every shot is going to go in the desert, even if you miss hit it. I'm sure the Colorado River isn't a fan but I am. Lot of different terrain and two par 3s where you literally tee off on top of mountains overlooking the foothills.







I hope those of you that follow our blog that are golfers will get to experience the course soon. The guest room is furnished and ready to roll so come out and visit. Sure it's hot but the pool is only a minute drive away...

http://www.clubwestgolf.com/

Benny Update

Well, I give up. I didn't get a call back, no emails, and no response to the application I sent in. So... no Benny. Sad :o(

Benny

This is Benny, he's a cocker spaniel & papillon mix. He's featured on a website called PetFinder.com and he's looking for a home. The more I scanned through the dogs last Thursday, when I was the only one in the office practically, the more he grew on me. I looked at cockers, same as Brittany was and decided that would be too weird, I looked at Bernese Mountain dogs, we looked at Golden retrievers, but I kept coming back to Benny. When you first look at him he has a forgettable quality about him, but the more you look at him, he's really pretty. His fur looks 'cocker' soft and he definately has the cocker snout, without being a cocker. Anyway, he grew on Craig over time too, me sending messages to his blackberry with Benny's pictures that said Hi, probably helped! Here's the thing.

I've called the shelter twice and even sent an email to get an adoption application. No word. Are several people lining up to adopt each dog they have? I can't belive this to be the case since their website is seriously begging for foster families. So, why don't they call us back? If we had a shelter organization with bunch of contacts from a family that wanted to adopt one of our dogs, I would definately be calling back. What if Benny is in the kennel somewhere chillin' alone when he could be with us? ugh.. poor Benny. Or maybe he was already adopted since he's so cool. Who knows I guess. Keep your fingers crossed that it was just the holiday weekend slowing things down, and we get the call to come and pick up the Ben-ster. Doesn't he look like he just wants to give you a high 5?

DLove's Wedding

Last week Craig was able to take off on Thursday to help DLove start celebrating his wedding weekend. He had a great time, able to play Torrey Pines with the boys. Being that we had the children that weekend at home, I was able to get a sitter for Saturday and flew in around noon. When I got there it was raining and June gloom, but it was so good to be there at the beach and smelling the ocean air!

I know our friends are tired of hearing about it, but I must blog about it anyway. Being that we booked our room on Hotels.com, we thought we were in for another view of the hotel parking lot somewhere, so imagine our huge surprise when they told us we would be in the presidential Suite. This place was an amazing 3 room suite - bedroom, seperate dining room with a table for 10?! and a seperate living room - all with double door access to our own private beach? I seriously thought it was a mistake! This suite would later come in handy as we invited anyone who wanted to keep the party going over for drinks. Even the bride and groom came to our after party, how cool is that?!

Derek and Julie's wedding was amazing and just before the ceremony started, the clouds parted and the sun came out. It was a beautiful ceremony filled with quite a lot of emotion. Julies face when she saw Derek waiting for her is something I'll always remember. I'm a crier at wedding's anyway, but this just caused me to lose it entirely. What a moment? After cocktail hour, Derek and Julie surprised their guests with a choreographed dance to Fly me To the Moon that was amazing! They are very smooth. Such a lovely wedding, thanks so much to the May-Laake families for hosting such a fabulous night! They are on a 2-week honeymoon that includes 1wk at a very nice hotel/resort on an island, and then switching to another island and another lovely hotel for the second week. Nice.

On Sunday, after reluctantly checking out of our awesome suite, we tried to go see a couple of things we always like to see in la Jolla and just spend some time. But instead, I got horrible sick and we ended up missing our flight. Oops. They were seriously overbooked and just gave our seats away, for us to fly standby for the rest of the night. Craig put me on the flight right after ours, so I could get home for the kids and he came home finally around 11pm.

Thanks Babe!

It's time for me to say thanks to my beautiful wife Victoria. First, she puts up with me daily which is not an easy task as most of you know. Second, she literally has taken our new house from a Grandma palace to a really cool, great house. Finally, we recently had our 1 year anniversary and I can't say enough about how great things are going. Vic, you supported me throughout law school, in taking the Bar and now as a great wife with a beautiful family. Thanks for a great first year of marriage and many more to come. Life is good. We are lucky.

Is anyone still reading this Blog?

We haven't really been on top of the posts lately. Its not even that we don't have spare time, its just that when we do, we veg out. Literally. I love reading everyone elses posts...

The last few weeks have been just us settling in at home. We've been really happy with some of the things we're getting accomplished. The painting of the common rooms came out really well. Its pretty amazing how talented these guys were. They managed to paint 3 big rooms and a hallway (with ceilings) in 2 days time, while we managed to barely paint, 2 small-ish bedrooms, a halfway finished master bedroom and bathroom in 4 weekends. Huh? Since I am 'the closer' (the girl who does the trim and finishes the connection from wall to ceiling) I asked what they thought of my skills. They were not overly excited to have me on their crew?

Kitchen before, nice shade of apple green - not really our taste though. Doesn't actually look too bad in this photo, maybe you had to see it in person?

Kitchen after - Warmed up a bit, we think. More exciting. Will look good after some darkening of the cabinets with new hardware, new countertops and new floors too. The stuff on every surface has been put away now.

This is the family room, which was a goldenrod, yellow baby poo shade. Can't really tell a difference in this photo. Cannot wait to plaster over those weirdly shaped, useless cubbies next to the fireplace and really make it the focal point. Not a big fan of the old fan either.

After. Kind of looks like we successfully made the room look smaller, but I think it's just the way I shot my photo. Now a nice shade of khaki on 3 walls, with an accent wall on the back. Again, stuff will be moved out of the center of the room.

Formal Living room. Also a yellow-y shade of baby poo. Not horrible, just not us.

Formal Living room after painting. Khaki shade on 3 walls, accent wall in the back.

Perhaps the 'after' photography could be a little better, but I took those shots right after the painting was mostly complete. Now, I can't get new ones uploaded, so....

Here's one more, not a before/ after yet since it's really still work in progress. The status of the master bedroom is not good right now. There are still boxes everywhere in there, which I'm slllowwwly chipping away at. Even the bed is a bit in disarray as I can't find the bedskirt or the duvet cover? It's odd. But thank goodness the TV's hanging on the wall. Never mind any of that other stuff all over the place...TV is hung. Whew. Thank you Craig.

Painters for hire?

We've resurfaced briefly for a quick post about what we've been up to. Was it 3 weeks or 4 weeks ago we were sitting in lovely San Diego with friends celebrating a wedding? Our lives of leisure have changed! We've closed officially on our home, that news is probably old to most of you, but we've started making our changes already and with the hope that we can get the painting done before the actual move. The master bedroom that was a fabulous peach color everywhere is now turning into a nice gray/blue. It was seriously everywhere, ceilings and windowsills too. Is that normal?



Its nice having some extra help when the kids are home for the weekend. Even though they spent most of the day in the pool while Craig and I taped, painted and labored in general inside the house - they pulled out some hard labor at the end of the day on Sunday. Nick is all business, he wants to help. And Mallory? - well this is how you paint when you've been outside in the sun all day and are completly exhausted. Its rough playing in the pool...

We're hoping to get the painting all done this weekend, Saturday actually. Then on Sunday our goal will be to purchase the 2 items we deem to be the top priorities. We'll try to purchase a guest bed and bedding, and a really nice outdoor dining table for the patio since we'll be spending most of our summer out there.

We're planning our move for May 22 and haven't packed a box yet. We're more of a box it while you move it family, I think. It's just been a crazy month of major projects coming due, end of year school parties, birthdays coming up and our 1 year anniversary too. To say that I'm overwhelmed is an understatement, but these are all good things. At some point, I'll post some photos from our Chicago trip. The wedding was gorgeous and it was nice to see the Fellows/Riebe side of the family as well as spend time with friends in the downtown area. Mallory is still talking about our 4-mile walk to the (wood)Shedd Aquarium.

Our Honor Student

Congratulations to our Mallory who was inducted into the National Jr. Honor Society last night. She's worked very hard throughout her school years so far, this accomplishment is her reward. We're extremely proud of our wonderful girl!