DJ Strikes Again

This post is dedicated to, caused by, and in all ways devoted to DJ. No, not my better half, not by a long shot.

I work late, but last week I came home to blazing lights, a snorting husband, and one terrified 10-year old. DJ, my sweet, loving husband, father of four, and dedicated Sci-Fi channel bad movie aficionado saw that "Dawn of the Dead." a remake of "Night of the Living Dead" was on. He must have thought, "What a fun family night movie. Zombies are such an uplifting thing for my four impressionable children to watch. Let me TiVo it and show it to them. And to make it more fun, let me do it while my overprotective wife isn't there to stop me!" I'm sure that's what he was thinking. Well, they watched it. Tre' bolted upstairs a couple of times, but peaked through the bannister and finished it.

Later, DJ and Tre' had to pick up a couple of things for a Halloween costume, so went down the dark, scary back road to Target. Steve and Lindsay, your Benson road has nothing on our Indio road. We are at the edge of Joshua Tree National Park, and we can hear the coyotes at night as they chase......whatever. We have trees/bushes called tamarisks that are a desert version of a pine tree that were planted decades ago to stop the blowing sand; they're very frothy, but there's enough branches that no light can get through. These trees are planted down our back scary road. DJ started swerving towards the trees, turned off the lights, opened Tre's window and said, "What's that? It's moving in the bushes!" Tre', of course, tried to put the window up, and was batting at DJ to make him stop. While he was turned towards his loving father, DJ managed to get the window down and get close enough to the bushes for some fronds to come in the window and brush against Tre's face. Tre' was in the back of the van within a half-second. Yes, his father was laughing.

Today DJ drove me into work. When we're together, we qualify for the car pool lane, which is a big deal and saves a ton of time. There are only certain points of entry--otherwise, drivers are supposed to respect the double line to prevent people from going in and out and causing problems. A car darted across the double lines in front of us, and so DJ decided to teach them a lesson, and laid on his horn for a good 30 seconds. I was ducking my head and glaring, and finally, he stopped. Right after that, DJ noticed that the other lanes were moving more quickly than the carpool lane, so he exited (in a designated spot). From my experience, I knew that traffic would be backing up within a mile, and told DJ to get back in the lane. He didn't, for he was going faster than the car that came in front of us, which was directly to his side at that point. Of course, we came over the hill, and there was the typical morning traffic jam. By this time, we were back in the section of the double-lines, so we weren't supposed to enter. What did DJ do? I'll leave it to your imagination, but if you know him, you know what happened.

Yes, this post is dedicated to and inspired by my husband, DJ. I love you!

Reader Girl

I LOVE to read. Love, love, love, love to read. My library at home has over 2000 titles, alphabetized by author. I'll get home, and go in and just look around and think I'm in heaven. I'll buy extra copies of books just because I know I'm going to loan out a book and not get it back. I can't wait to share books and authors with my kids and co-workers, because it feels like I'm introducing a new friend. In fact, I was just talking with someone at work about how I love a good book; it's not that I'm escaping, it's that I'm enjoying the unfolding of the story.

I've attached a link for an article written by Shannon Hale, fabulous author extrodinaire. Although I never was an English major, and never lost my love for reading, this feels as if its an insight to my psyche. I, too, used to sneak into the fantasy section of the libary and almost feel ashamed for liking those types of stories.

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=talkBackCommentsFull&articleid=CA6600686&talk_back_header_id=6558881

Both Reagan & Tre' are officially part of this family. They consume books as well. I loved it when Tre' begged me to buy the next book in a new series, and then told me that I'd love the series as well (since I hadn't read it yet).

It's not from MY side of the family

The kids LOVE a new discovery of ours. Because I work in Anaheim, and everyone knows we love Disneyland, one would assume that it would have some Disney-related theme. Nope. It's a place called the Children's Discovery Science Center. Now, the love of science is actually inspired by both DJ and I. My contribution may be limited to genetics (thanks Dad!), but DJ is the one who inspires them to enjoy it. When we have hikes, he points out the geological formations and their causes. He encourages them to understand why one body may produce farts, while another doesn't. Good real-world stuff like that.

DJ and Josh discovered this place on Monday. They had dropped me off, and wanted something to do. They enjoyed it enough to get a family membership for the year. This science center has everything from dinosaurs to an earthquake room to a place where you can stand inside a tornado. Of course my kids would love that! You can play virtual volleyball with another kid on a screen and it tracks your movements. You can lay on a bed of nails. A TON of cool things.

One of the things my kids like is an "outlining" wall. I'm not really sure what's it's called, but it's like those little toys you can get where you push your hand against something filled with little pins and the outline remains. You can do your hand, you can do your face, you've got the image. Well, Thursday, DJ and company came to pick me up; they arrived early enough to get there and enjoy the center for a while. They liked the earthquake room; Tre' loved crashing the flight simulator. Then they did the outline with all the kids, and sent a copy to me. It inspired my title for this blog. Can you guess which one is Reagan?

Better Late Than Never

OK, I admit it. I'm intimidated by Lindsay and Janae's blogs. Pictures, cute stories, blah, blah, blah. Every time I thought that I wanted to get a story down, I didn't have a picture (never mind the fact that I don't have a camera now, thanks to our friendly neighborhood thieves who stole from an unlocked car in the driveway, but that's another story). DJ bugged me; my parents commented on it; Janae mentioned it. Then I thought "I can have one of those literary blogs. OK not literary. Just plain-old wordy! I don't have to have pictures! I'm just not creative." (Like that's a news flash.) Hence, my new start with a "wordy" blog.

I'm working from home today. I guess not working yet, but it's the thought that counts. Now that I'm (almost) done with the annual financial audit, I'm going to be working from home on occasion. I presented it as "think of how much time I'll be saving on the commute which I can devote to work." DJ's picked me up the last two weekends to save me the aggravation of driving home in traffic. I even worked through this last commute, so I got 2 more hours in, and one more project done!

The kids are great. Reagan seems to have blossomed into teenage-hood (and "hood" is the key word) as an 11=year old. I swear I wasn't as moody as she was until I was at least 20! Maybe I was a late bloomer. However, she still is sweet, good with kids (she's a big hit in the neighborhood as a babysitter), etc.

Tre's student body president, football team quarterback, and the highest scoring student for math, science, and reading. Yes, I raised a renaissance man. Or least, a renaissance boy (take that Steve--mountain boy!). OK, I've been working for the last 4 years, so at least I contributed to his gene pool. He's an avid BYU and Colts fan, so we do the weekly sit down to watch the BYU game (I've sneaked in a book a time or two).

Madi loves her horses. It just broke the 100-degree mark, so we'll start visiting them soon. In fact, I think that would be a lovely activity for Thanksgiving, (the kids can go see the horses) so put it on your calendars everyone! She had picture day yesterday, and the night before we looked at her outfits. She wanted to wear a particular shirt, which was getting a little small for her, but I thought--no one can see her from the waist down, so why not? We laid it out, and put a skirt together for it. In the morning, DJ wasn't as pleased as she was (because it was too small), and so we discussed the choice. Guess what my little daughter did. She SNEAKED IT TO SCHOOL IN HER BACKPACK AND CHANGED!!!!!! Yes, it brings back memories of Reagan and the scarf. It also gave me a taste of what my fashion-conscious daughter will do in the future.

Josh is Josh. He's a puppy at heart, and is fun to cuddle (still). With DJ having more Sunday meetings, Josh is my new buddy on the organ stand until DJ can get into the chapel. Josh has been known to change the organ stops, press the floor pedals, and even turn off the organ. However, he then turns to me and smiles. The kid's going to get away with murder.