New Hair Color

I went and had my hair cut and colored this morning. I no longer have blonde hair, I know what a shock, my hair is now red!! The pictures make it look darker than it is but it is really more red than brown. Sorry this picture is blurry!!!! It's hard to take pictures of your own hair.

I need sleep...

Why can I not sleep? Jeremy is snoring so loud and hard that he is shaking the bed. I turned the tv on to try and drown out the noise but I can't even hear the tv over him. So now I am wide awake at 2:30 am, I am so glad that I do not have to work tomorrow!!! I am going to end up sleeping on the couch so I can at least get a few hours of sleep.

In other news I got a lovely notice from the Franchise Tax Board today. It is our final notice to pay our state taxes from last year. I am going to call them in the morning and pray that we can make payment arrangements as I can not afford to send them the full amount that they want. I am also not looking forward to doing our taxes this year because I know that we are going to owe them.

I did learn that thanks to President Obama, I should be getting an additional $25 a week on my unemployement check and when we file taxes next year they will not tax the first $2400 that I receive this year.

I do have an appointment on Saturday to get my hair cut and colored. I am going to see one of Jeremy's co-workers wives (she gave us a 20% off coupon). I really hope that I like the way my hair comes out. Jeremy thinks that I should go red. We have tried it before and it washes out after a few weeks, well at least the color that JCPenney's uses washes out so hopefully this one wont. I also hope that I like it when it's done.

Wow I can blog from my phone! I can even take pictures with my phone and post them directly to my blog. I love technology!

Queen Mary Part 1

I took so many pictures when I went to the Queen Mary that I am going to have to post at least 2 slideshows. So here is the first one!!

Denise

I found out today that my friend Denise has finally left Iraq!!! She is in New Jeresy and I can't wait until she gets back home!!

Santa Barbara Zoo

On Saturday we went to the Santa Barbara Zoo with Jen, Travis and Theresa. The kids had a great time. Travis is not into having his picture taken much these days, where as Theresa will pose for the camera and do weird smiles. We went on the train ride and it stopped by the Lion, who decided to make an appearance and walked towards us. I kept wondering if the chain fence is enough to keep him there.

Theresa got to feed the Giraffe. Travis did not want to feed it this time but he did do it when we were there last year.

The Giraffe's tongue is long, purple and very slimy. Theresa kept throwing the food towards the mouth and was trying to get it to land on his tongue. When I feed it last time the tongue wrapped around my finger and took the food so I do know how slimy it feels.

I was surprised that the otters were out and playing. Normally when I go they are sleeping.

Both of the Gorillas were out. This one was sitting on a rock and eating. We believe that he was eating poop, but we were not postive about that. The other people watching him were saying the same thing because he kept getting more "food" from underneath him. It was pretty gross.

I was amazed to see how he used his hands to hold his food. He pretty much has human hands.

We did see the penguins also. Not many of them were out and none were in the water. I guess they were having problems with the pumps in the pool so they were trying to clean it.

Theresa was very excited to see the Porcupines. I call her Porcupine because she can be prickly. I was actually pretty surprised at how big they were.

We saw some colerful birds, which were loud and smelled really bad.

The Jagurs were sitting on their "rocks". I had to zoom in a lot to get this picture. I like how it appears that he is looking at us.

We also came across this really strange bird. It was called a Rhinoceros something. It looks like it has 2 beaks. I kept staring at it for a long time because it was just to weird looking.

Next Zoo trip we are going to make is to the LA Zoo. I haven't been there since Theresa was little and they have a lot more animals.

Queen Mary Ghost Tour

Here is a few pictures from the ghost tour on the Queen Mary.


This is the swimming pool area. It was much smaller than I expected. They tell the story about the little girl whose ghost is supposed to haunt this area and then the lights go down and you hear a little girl laughing and then the pool fills up with fog. It was so dark in there that even with the flash the pictures were hard to take.This is the broiler room. I loved how the sign looked like it had blood running down it.Here is where the Queen Mary had broken her bow open when she ran into another ship. I guess that this happened when the Queen Mary was being used as a military transport ship. They of course had to have the lights go off and then make it sound like we hit another ship and then wouldn't you know, water came pouring through the sides. I was very impressed with this part.

I will post more pictures later from the rest of our tour!!

Our newspaper is dumb...

So today I thought that I would read the online edition of the Ventura County Star just to check out our town and see what has happened for the past few days that I have been sick. The first headline I read says this... "Ventura high school evacuated after threat" it was typed just like that. My first thought is holy crap my sister and brother go there!!!! So I click on the story and start reading it... Buena High School was evacuated this morning... I thought wait a minute did I read the title wrong, it did say Ventura high was evacuated right?? The Star can't seem to put one little letter in the begining of the headline to make it seem different. They should have put a big A so that people would know that it was not VHS, DUH even a 6 year could have writen it better. There are now 33 comments to this story and the ones I had read earlier all said the same thing, the Star should have said A ventura high school, not just Ventura high school. Someone pointed out that the high school part was not capitalized so that should have clued us dumb people in. Hello, if you had kids in high school or knew someone in high school and saw the head line wouldn't you think it was VHS????? Below is the article and the head line I had it add it so you all could see how "smart" the star really is.




Ventura high school evacuated after threat
From staff reportsOriginally published 11:28 a.m., February 19, 2009Updated 11:28 a.m., February 19, 2009




Buena High School in Ventura was briefly evacuated this morning as a result of a bomb threat, police said.
Students and staff at the campus, 5670 Telegraph Road, were evacuated to the school football field about 9:20 a.m. after a teacher found a note that said a bomb was going to go off at the school at 9:30 a.m., said Ventura police spokesman Sgt. Jack Richards.
After searching several classrooms and the school’s perimeter, police deemed the school safe, Richards said. They did not find any explosives.
Students returned to class about 10 a.m.
The investigation into the incident is continuing, Richards said.

2009 Ventura County Star

Has it really been 5 days?

Yes it has, it's been 5 days since I have posted anything. I came down with the flu or something like it Sunday night and have spent the past 2 days battling a fever, which I still have now. I did go to the Scotish Festival at the Queen Mary on Sunday. I did take a lot of pictures but I took them more of the boat than of the festival. Gretchen and I did the Ghost tour, which was a lot of fun and we learned alot about the Queen Mary. When you do the Ghost tour you get to go into the pool area which was a lot smaller than I had originally thought it was. We also did the self guided tour which takes you down into the engine room and you eventually get to see the propeller, yes it is still underwater. I will post pictures once I am feeling better. For now I am going to go take some cold medicine and go back to sleep.

Tigger...

I just found this picture of Travis from Halloween when he was 2. Wasn't he the cutest Tigger??

I have been going through pictures and trying to put them on a cd for Jen and Matt since I seems to have tons of pictures of both kids. I thought that I would share this one because he was way to cute!!

Lookin' out my back door...

I have CCR's song Lookin' out my back door stuck in my head and I have not heard it for at least 3 days now. We woke up this morning to the sound of pouring rain ( hey that's from another song, but I can't remember who sings it, must remember to look that one up later). Anyway I was looking out my back door this morning and here is what I saw.

A river of water running down the middle of the street.
My puddle at the end of the driveway is getting bigger.

And some very muddy grass.

Oh yeah and I noticed this yesterday, we have a gopher!!! Well actually I should say that we HAD a gopher. Last night my big kitty (outside kitty as the kids like to call him) came up on the porch and made that cry that he brought us dinner. I opened the front door and looked out the screen and saw that yes he brought us a gift. He caught the gopher. He dropped it on the porch and started to bat it around trying to play with it, but it was dead. I told him thank you and asked him to take his friend somewhere else to play with it, but of course he left it there for us. Jeremy got rid of it this morning, no I did not take any pictures of it.

I received a letter from unemployment last week and I have been approved for another 20 weeks at the same rate I was getting before!!! Now I have another 5 months to look for a job. I did go by McDonalds the other day and they are not hiring, which works for me because I really don't want to work around fast food. Wow I just looked out the window and for the second time this morning the sun has come out. Last time it was out for about a minute and then it got cloudy and rained really hard. I wonder how long it will be out this time. We did also have some thunder and lightening this morning. I checked the weather report and we are supposed to have rain starting again sometime on Wednesday and going through Sunday and the again on Tuesday of the following week. I love the rain so it can rain as much as it wants except for on Sunday. I have plans to go to Long Beach, the Scotish Festival is at the Queen Mary this weekend and Gretchen and I are going to go on Sunday. The best part is we get to do a self guided tour of the Queen Mary!!! Ok enough rambling for me this morning. I am going go to drink some more coffee.

Saturday

Today started out wet and cold. I went and got a pedicure this morning, which was most definitely needed. I tried to buy some shoes at Big 5, I found some Ugg like boots that they were supposively on sale but once we got to the register and found out that they were not on sale I decided not to get them. I still really want them, but I am not going to pay $70.00 for a pair of shoes!! There was a lot of confusion there with the whole shoe story but basically they guy who told me they were on sale probably got in trouble. I guess I will check their add tomorrow to see if they are on sale. Now we are babysitting Travis and Theresa. They are watching a movie, well Theresa is asleep and Travis is still trying to keep his eyes open to watch the movie. We had pizza for dinner and played a few video games and now it is way past their bedtime. Tomorrow is another exciting day for us, I am going to go to Target and then do nothing for the rest of the day. We did make it to the casino Friday night and actually came home with money. We won about $100, whihc has never happened to us before, but we had fun.

It's raining again today!!!

I love the rain!!! I would love to be out playing in it right now, but I still have a cough from having bronchitis so I am inside and staying drying. I do have the windows open so I can hear the rain and get some fresh air.

This is a puddle in front of our driveway.

And here is what the mountains look like today.

And the street once it started raining more than a sprinkle.

Jeremy and I are planning on going to the Chumash Casino tonight to get away for a little while. We had gone at the end of December and signed up for their players club card. They were offering $50 to play with then and another $50 on your next visit, so we are going to try and go for a little while and see how long we can play with their money. I like to play the penny slots because $20 can last for a few hours if you get the right machine. While we don't normally win when we go we keep hoping that one day we will win something.

What a pain

While Emily was here she wanted us to copy a bunch of our cds for her. I have been calling her all week to find out which ones she wanted so I can take care of it but she never answers her phone and apparently has not checked her voicemail in 2 days. Jeremy talked to her earlier today and told her to call me but she still has not called. I guess I can copy all of the cds that I know that she does NOT want.

Weather

We got rain today!! It has just stopped raining for the first time since early this morning. I just checked weather.com and they now show rain through Monday!! I love it when it rains. Everything get so nice and clean and the grass turns green again.

Rain?????

I got my car back yesterday and I am happy to report that I can now open and close my sunroof!!!! I am so excited because that was the one thing that I wanted when I bought the car. I guess techincally it is called a moon roof because it is glass, but I can now use it once again!! The dealershiip even washed the car and wouldn't you know it, we are supposed to get rain for the 3 days. I really hope we do get a lot of rain.

I have been cleaning out some boxes and cupboards in the house and I found a bunch of film the needs to be developed. I took 5 roles to Costco today and did the one hour photo and it only cost $20!! These pictures are from about 5 years ago. Travis is so little in them and Theresa was just a baby. There was even some from when we went to Sea World, which was about 5 years ago. I need to get them all done but there is about 60 of them so I will do them a little at a time. I am going to scan the good ones into the computer so I will post some once I have done that.

Waiting....

So I am up and waiting for Honda to call so I can have my car back. I hate not having a car. We took Emily and Todd home last night and got to hear all about my dad's vacation. They went to the Kennedy Space Center, The Magic Kingdom and Epcot. I have to say when we got home the house was nice and quiet without 2 teenagers here. My dad had to turn around and drive to Vegas last night and will be gone until Friday or Saturday.

Since I still have not been able to find a job I am slowly going through the rooms of our house and am going to get rid of evertything that we no longer need or use. I am just ready for a decluttered house. I did not realize how many candles I have. I was going through some cupboards last night and kept pulling out boxes of Partylite Candles. I need to burn them all so I can get a new supply. I also pulled out a bunch of pictures. It was fun to look at them and see how much Travis and Theresa have grown. I need to go through them and put them in order and maybe even into a photo album.

Bye Bye grocery money

So Honda just called and it turns out that the relay switch is fried and they have to order the part today and can fix it tomorrow morning. It is going to cost $320 to fix it!!!! I really hope that I get my unemployement benefits extended really soon otherwise we will have no more money. Darn car!! They tried to get the sun roof closed but they can not get it to work without replacing the relay switch things. My car will be spending the night at Honda and it will be covered in case it does rain. At least the guy I have been dealing with had been very nice and has explained everything to me. That is one thing I really like about the Honda dealership is the service people are super nice and they wash my car whenever I bring it down there.

I just read...

I completely forgot that today is Groundhog's day. I just read that Phil saw his shadow and we will have 6 more weeks of winter. What does that mean that we here in California will have six more weeks of a hot winter or are we going to get some rain?? It is supposed to rain later this week but who knows if that will actually happen. Also I saw that Michael Phelps is aplogizing for having his picture taken while smoking pot, well to me this just shows that the man is human and not some swimming machine. Yes you are not supposed to smoke it but what if he needs it for medical reasons? Why must the unfamous focus on all things bad that the famous do? Aren't they humans as well and make mistakes. Well I say go Michael Phelps, smoke your pot and have some fun after all the next Olympics are for what 3 more years. Ok time to go back to looking for a job and waiting for Honda to call.

Why I hate dealerships...

So I took my car to Honda this morning and I have to leave it there for who knows how long. I was going to get a ride home from the curtesy shuttle but there was a hour wait so Jeremy was able to run down and pick me up. Now I am waiting for Honda to call and tell me what is wrong with the sunroof, which it may be a few hours before I hear anything back. Hopefully it will be a quick fix. The sunroof opens but will not close so I don't think it is the motor. I am really hoping that it is not something that is going to cost a lot of money, just for them to look at it and determine the problem is going to cost me $95!!! Now I am stuck at home without a car. I guess I will go wash all of the blankets that the kids used and put them away.

Fun Monday

So tomorrow is Monday and while most people will be going to go work, I have a full day planned. First I get to go feed my dad's cats and then be at the Honda Dealership at 10 and then I have to pick up the kids from school bring them back to my house where they get to pack their stuff and then once Jeremy is home we will be taking the kids home. My dad comes back tomorrow!! Sad thing is he comes home and then has to drive to Las Vegas tomorrow night for work.

Why I am going to Honda? Well on Friday I was showing Jeremy how my sunroof is not working and the darn thing opened partially and now I can not get it closed. This has happened before and I took it to Honda and the were able to get it closed and it worked just fine for them. Well the stupid thing has never worked right for me. I am hoping that they can get it closed and tell me what is wrong with it and how much it will cost to fix it. I am sure that it is going to need a new motor and I hope that they can get it closed without having to install said motor as I am afraid of how much that will cost. So grocery money beware you are probably getting spent on fixing the dumb sunroof.

I actually enjoyed the Super Bowl today. I told Jeremy before it started that the Steelers were going to win but he did not believe me and was rooting for the other team. Well wouldn't you know it the Steelers won. It was a pretty good game though. I do have to say that the best commercial was the first dorritos one where the guy had a "crystal ball" which was actually a snowglobe and he wished that there would be free dorritos at work and threw the ball through the vending machine. We could not stop laughing, it was to darn funny!!