Away To Me

A weekend in pictures

We had a great weekend in Northern California.
Photos include:

Dogs with "Captain Jack" look alike street performer from the San Francisco Wharf area. For those of you familiar with the area, can you believe we found a parking spot, on the street, 50 feet from our favorite restaurant large enough for our big pick up! Seriously. The cool thing was "Capt. Jack" set up shop right next to our truck so our dogs got to enjoy the whole show while we ate our Fresh Dunguness Crab!

Alcatraz "The Rock"
Grand Lake Theater sign in the Lake Shore district of Oakland where my cousins live, who we visited.
Street Car Trolly in San Fran
The beautiful trial field we got to trial on this weekend! Gorgeous!!!!! This was in Santa Rosa. Hello lottery, can I please win you so I can move there?
Large Marge's sister, Anna on course.
Blossoms and prettiness just for fun.

It was an awesome weekend.

FINAL 4!

Jake's Uncle Tom has made it to the FINAL 4 in the Mullet Madness contest! Please, please, please go and vote for Tom Greenfield!

Lot on to: http://www.jackmadness.com/ click on the Waterfall Bracket and vote for Thomas Greenfield.

Please forward this info on to EVERYONE you can and vote as many times as you. Remember the winner gets a '69 Camero!!!! And as promised, should Tom win, I'll send anyone who voted a picture of Jake and Uncle Tom in the Camero!

Thanks for everyone who has voted so far. PLEASE KEEP IT UP!!!!!!! Voting ends at noon on Saturday. Oh and if you have a blog, can you please post this info on your blog!

I'll explain later. Giggle!

Oh and don't forget to vote for Jake's uncle Tom in the Mullet contest!

Elite 8!!!!

My lovable brother-in-law (Hubby's sister's husband) made it to the Elite 8 Finalist for the radio station contest. Grand prize is a '69 Camero! Even he is excited about it now! Please, please please vote as much as you can from as many computers as you can and forward the info on to as many people as you can. This is so much fun! Oh and voting ends Sunday at 6pm Pacific.

To Vote go to: http://www.931jackfm.com/
Click on Vote in the center (where the blue car is)
His Name is Thomas Greenfield and he is in the Waterfall Bracket. Lower left hand corner.

Here is a pic of Jake and his Uncle Tom from this past January. Oh and please let me know if you voted! Forward the info along to family and friends if you can.

He's a big boy now! Well, sort of.

Potty training. Yep, I know I'm a bit early on this, but I figure as long as we make it fun it can't hurt anything....right?

Jake is 23-months-old and he shows very few signs of being ready to potty train. We wait till we see him give the "poop" face then we say, "Oh do you need to go potty"? and we hustle him to the bathroom to use his little potty. He gladly sits down and finishes on the potty. Peeing, well, no luck getting him to pee in the potty. That seems to be something he rather do everywhere else but the potty. Ugh. He pees on dogs, on the wood floor, on the lawn, on the concrete, etc. I am getting better about catching him before he goes now. But he gets real sick of me following him around when he has his naked time.

This morning is the first time I've put him in Pull Ups. I thought it might be easier for me cause he likes to undo his diapers (even when I don't want them undone - so he can never just have on diapers, he gets himself naked). With Pull Ups on him, it will be quicker to get him naked for the potty. Before the Pull Ups we had to take off pants or shorts then undo the diaper. Now when we are home we can just pull down the Pull Ups! He was extremely excited to have new under garments. He immediately started to poop in them. Off to the potty we went. He sat down and finished on the potty! Woo hooo. Then I went to get wipes and he actually stayed on the potty. Which surprised me, he normally doesn't like to hang out on the potty long. When I pulled out a fresh set of Pull Ups he smiled big and stuck his leg out so we could put them on. All good signs I think.

We are having beautiful 80 degree weather in our area right now so he can have lots of naked time and outside time so maybe we can get a good head start on his potty training.

Any suggestions from those of you who have BTDT Potty Trainers?

Vote for my Brother in law!

Okay, my hubby's sister is married to the nicest man ever. He is one of the sweetest guys I know. Jake adores him. Heck, everyone who meets him adores him.

But the mullett, well it is very silly. But it might win him a car! He is in a contest put on by a local radio station and he needs votes!!!!

So log on to: Go to: www.931jackfm.com and then click on the blue car, then go to the waterfall bracket, then he is on the bottom left THOMAS GREENFIELD. Voting ends on Wednesday at 6pm Pacific.

Oh by the way this is the third round, he made it through the first two rounds! Woohoo.

Let me know if you voted! And thanks.

Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. Yep, it fell on Easter Sunday this year. My birthday was just sort of blah this year. The best presenst I got were from Jake. I can't explain how wonderful it feels to watch my little boy enjoy Easter. Seeing him with his basket in the morning and then watching him hunt for the handful of easter eggs I set out for him, well, it is just magical.

He also got his first piece of chocolate EVER yesterday. His expression after he took a bite was so blah that at first I thought he didn't like it. Then he said, "mo, mo, mo"! Very adorable.

The other cool thing was watching his reaction when he would open the eggs and find match box cars. He loves cars or as he calls them, "Vroom Vrooms". I think his 2nd birthday party might be a Vroom Vroom themed.

Our weather was gorgeous yesterday. High 80's in the afternoon. We had bubbles and dogs and eggs all over the lawn.

My dad came over and brought Jake a plastic golf club set. It was so much fun to watch my dad play with my son. And Jake said, "Grandpa" very clearly! And he said it A LOT! Dad left when Jake was napping and when Jake woke up the first thing he did was go outside and look and ask for Grandpa. It melts my heart.

Then Jake said the one word I use everyday that he has never even tried to say. He said, "Sheep"! It was such a great birthday present.

The down side of the day was that my mom forgot my birthday. I didn't get a card this year and when I emailed her pics of Jake first thing in the morning with a Happy Easter message she emailed back about her day and failed to say "Happy Birthday". Later in the morning my grandma called to wish me a happy birthday. My mom was with her and I said, "Ya, I think my mom forgot" and my grandma got pissy with me saying she didn't. Then I got an email message from my mom saying she didn't forget my birthday. I felt like saying, what is worse not remembering my birthday or remembering it and not making mention of it? Ugh.

Besides Jake, the high light of my day was when my brother called. He ALWAYS calls me on my birthday and when he hadn't called by 8pm I was sure he had forgotten or he was too busy to call. It bummed me out. But at 10 after 8 he called. We talked for about a half hour. I really enjoy my crazy brother Greg. He truly is the best. Then after I hung up with him ( I think he called my other brother Steve) cause at just before 9 Steve called. I'm not as close to Steve, but it was really nice to hear from him.

So all in all my birthday was good, but not the best. Some how I let my mom regulate my moods way too much.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter blog buddies. Jake's basket wasn't very festive looking, but it certainly had lots of neat things that he enjoys. Mostly Hot Wheels!

Sitter & Congratulations!

Some of you know that we had only our second date night in nearly two years on March 1. We found a good sitter, but she has a child so her hours and availability is limited. So I'm still looking for a couple other sitters as well as a mother's helper sitter to travel with Jake and myself when we go to the dog trial in New Mexico in July.

About 2 months ago I stumbled (while desperately searching the internet) upon this site. www.sittercity.com. I've had a lot of applicants for my job listings. I'm surprised at how many of them are nearly illiterate or just don't care to re-read their applications or requests for more info on the position. I mean I know I'm terrible about spelling errors, typos and the occasional grammar infraction. But my goodness, some of these applicants don't use punctuation or upper or lower case. I guess I need to remember I'm in the age of text messaging. I'm also surprised at how many won't call me when I tell them to call me if they are interested about the job. But the good news is with so many applicants I'm able to weed through the not so perfect candidates and find the right one.

Anyway they have a bit of a contest on the site that I would like your help with. You don't have to join (it is a pay service) but if you go to the site and register and use my email as the referral: away_2me@yahoo.com I would really appreciate it. Besides, you might find the perfect house sitter, or baby sitter or dog walker in your area! How cool would that be.

So log on to: www.sittercity.com
Register and when asked about who referred you, please say, Away2me (Deanna) and my email is: away_2me@yahoo.com

Thanks!
Oh and if you get a chance, leave a comment and let me know if you were able to do that. I'll be sure to keep you all posted on my quest for the perfect sitter and a perfect Mother's Helper for my trip to New Mexico.

In other fantastic news. Our dear Cyber buddy Bek had her baby girl Grace Jane yesterday. Visit her blog and give her a big congratulations. www.ignorethecrazy.blogspot.com

My Artist! - **** Updated ****

Daddy has entitled the artwork. "Frog In A Blender"

I thought that was so funny I had to share with all of you.