To my mom

I know it is not Mother's Day, but with such great weather I have been doing a lot of yard work, and it has made me think of my mom.
Last June my mom came up to visit us for a week and as guilty as I feel, I put her to work. We did tons of yard work and by the end of her visit I no longer felt like the yard was someone else's. As we began simple clean up, I would mention something I liked or disliked about the yard/garden and before I knew it my mom was gathering the necessary tools and giving orders. We made drastic changes that made great memories.

One particular thing we did was cut down a dieing pine tree that was next to my front window, leaving a large gap in the garden. My mom hinted at going to the nursery to buy a "grandma tree" but we never got the time. After she left and I continued the yard work I found a beautiful Rhododendron bush that blooms salon pink. I decided to get it out of the shadows of larger bushes and plant it in the gap. It is now in full bloom and every time I look at it I think of my mom. (Picture above)

Since starting a family and buying a home I find myself fixing, adding, or changing a lot things that I really don't have experience with. I credit my confidence to my mom, I have never seen her hesitate to do a job on her own. It is great to work hard and have a great finished product.

During her visit some of the things we did; we pushed back and trimmed over grown bushes, adding a 2 ft. width to my yard and opening it up (made a big difference), we filled in an old garden patch and planted grass. One of the most painstaking projects was to lay a brick path connecting all of the previous paths (the old owners thought it was a good idea to spread tiny little rocks to fill in gaps instead of finishing the paths).
To put it bluntly we kicked ass! And we did it by ourselves - thanks mom!

We are still here!

Not only have I not updated the blog for a while, I also haven't had a chance to get online for several days.

So this is a "catch you up" post.

In March Jordan spent 2 Saturday's testing for a "highly capable" program the that district offers. About a week ago we got the news that Jordan did pass the test.

Some of the details about the test: students had 5 scores from various tests and three of the scores had to be in the 93 percentile of the nation. Jordan's highest score was reading and he was in the 98 percentile.
About the program: next year Jordan will be in 5th grade, however his curriculum will be at a 6th grade level. Fortunately, our current school is were the program is located so he will have his same friends and be only a block from home.
This is something Jordan really wanted and he worked so hard for the test. So to tell him we took him out to his favorite restaurant (one we never go to) - Benihana's. He was so excited, we are so proud of that boy!!!

We are now planning out his 10th birthday...yes I said 10!!! Double Digits!!! We are hoping to make it big for him -- hopefully pictures will follow.

As for Julio, on May 7th, he was a keynote speaker at a charity breakfast for the Center for Children & Youth Justice (http://www.ccyj.org/index.html).Though I couldn't attend - I have heard from several friends that he did awesome.
He was honored to be asked to speak for such a cause.

'J2DAO' is now at a sports law conference in San Fransisco until Saturday. Part of the conference includes a Giants game - I am sure he is "working hard" while he is there.

Next is Diego, not much going on with him just the terrible, terrible, terrible two's. I still adore his personality - but sometimes it can be too strong. I have finally stopped him from saying "I hate" (don't know where he got that from). I no longer have to tell him he has a bad attitude, he tells me he does. Ah, little Diego - that is completely a different blog.

I don't have any new pictures - or themed pictures so I inserted one of Diego...don't let the sweetness fool you.