Emuzines

Today Nik bought cake ingredients at the grocery store.  We baked a cake, and I got to use my new Valentine’s Day spatula from my mom, covered in hearts, to make it…then I got to lick!!

It’s the little things that make me happy.

Hi!  Lately, I have been more buried than usual in work and school stuff.  I have a genetics midterm on Monday, which I decided to devote all weekend to getting ready for, so I’ve had to do a lot of work for my other class ahead of time, to clear out the weekend (for fun and excitement, like MAOA, tetO, housekeeping genes, and stuff like that).  Well, this was designed as a post to talk about exciting things, and that was quite sarcastic (although I admit I really do enjoy the genetics of autism), so here are some things I’m excited about:

Nik found this for me: http://www.scrapncube.com/  I doubt I’ll go with that company for a scrapbook area, as it’s really expensive, but I thought it was so sweet that he found it for me!  Once we get a house, my scrapbook stuff will have a home besides shoved into closets and on high shelves out of reach.

CHICAGO!  I wanted to go to IMFAR, an autism conference, but I also really wanted to spend Mother’s Day weekend with…well…my mom!  It happened to fall on that weekend, so I invited my mom along.  We’re extended it into a nice little trip and we already have lots of really, really exciting plans.  We’re going to see Mary Poppins, eat at great restaurants, go to Navy Pier, and go on a dinner cruise.  I am beyond excited.  And I keep forgetting about IMFAR, which is also something that really makes me happy.  Sally says I’ll be presenting there next year, so I better get ready!

LAS VEGAS!  This is coming up really, really soon.  I am going to meet my mom, Aunt Debbie, Memere, and Pepere there, like we have been doing every year for…3 years now?  Nik isn’t going this year, so it’ll be a girl + Pepere week.  Great food, a show, the spa, and Vegasy stuff.  As you can tell, food and good company make me very happy.

HOME!  I am going home in 2 weeks!  It’ll be a very, very short trip, but I’m happy about it.  Mark and I are going to take Noah to the park to feed ducks, I’m going to go out to dinner and a hopefully girly movie/illegal sweets with Gaby, and have breakfast with Melissa.  Should be a nice, quick trip.

VALENTINE’S DAY!  Nik and I cooked in last year, so we’re going out this year.  We wanted to try something new (although, most things are new up here for us, still).  We have reservations at Ruth’s Chris.

DENVER!  This is happening in April.  The primary reason for the trip is another conference, but I’m going with David, Abby, and April.  We’re going to have a lot of fun together!!  I am more than lucky in meeting these friends.

Finally…relaxation…I’m giving myself the night off.  So off I go to eat lasagne and watch a movie!

The dishwasher and dryer are humming, and I’m trying to decide between watching some TV or starting a new book…I’m sure I’ll go for the book.  This quarter has been such a nice change, with time in the evenings and nights to myself, time for Nik and I to hang out, and free weekends to house shop.  We had a Day of Fun scheduled for last Saturday, but I couldn’t come up with something good to do, that would be rain-acceptable.  It was supposed to rain through today.  Of course, it’s been nice and sunny, including Saturday.  But we rescheduled and I’ve come up (finally) with a potential Day of Fun activity: Sausalito! 

Feeling kind of “speechless.”  Just don’t have many topics set to blog about.  But all is well, and I miss everybody.

Similar to my List of Happenings post, here is a bulleted list of happenings.  I don’t feel like I can put into words the great fun and relaxation I have had during this winter break home, so here are some thoughts and happenings.

• Scrapbook catch-up!  Or, rather, scrapbook work-on, since I have completed a few pages, but made so many more memories since I’ve been here, that I’m sure I’ll go home needing to do more than I did.  But hopefully I’ll have completed all July, 2008 activities by the time I get back into school.
• I finished sorting all of my literature for my chapter.  In other words, I finished reading through all early intervention literature EVER DONE on kids who are blind, deaf, mentally retarded, or premature, or have Down Syndrome or cerebral palsy.  That’s a lot of studies.  I had to find them, first of all, which I’ve been doing since September.  Then I had to read through them all, determine their quality, and rate them.  Now I get to write on the highly rated ones!
• Gaby time.  Last night Gabs and I went to Cozymel’s for dinner and then to the movies.  We laughed so hard.  She’s the best.
• Logan cuddles.  Logan spends most part of most nights with me, and leaves in the mornings (or middle of the night, I can never tell).  In what *I* consider morning, I call him in, and he jumps on my bed for cuddles.  He is so cute.  SO CUTE.
• Again about Logan.  We played “Where’s the ball?” with him tonight, which is really hide-and-seek with a ball.  He’s great at this game and searches the house high and low for whatever particular toy we’re playing with–he always remembers.  He looks on every shelf, he checks the top of the table, he looks under and over furniture and between each pillow on the couch.  It’s great.  So today we hid it in his water bowl.  This was new, but he found it right away.  He just couldn’t bear to stick his nose deep enough to get it out.  He worked at picking it up by tennis ball fluff for a long while, while we sat and laughed until we couldn’t breathe, but that didn’t work.  Then, he drank all the water and got the ball!
• Tonight we had a Thanksgiving dinner, mostly since Mandi wasn’t able to join us in Amesbury for Thanksgiving.  My mom did a spectacular job with the food, as I selfishly perused the scrapbook store and worked on a Mark and Noah page while she cooked.  Yummy!
• Mandi, Danny, and I went ice skating, which was great fun.  We went to Seaside Lagoon.  Here we are:

• My mom treated Nik, Mandi, Danny, and myself to an incredible dinner at Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian restaurant in Beverly Hills.  It was quite the experience…SO much food!  We chatted and chatted and couldn’t stop chatting (and eating).  Here WE are:

• Tomorrow is sledding with Mandi and Justine.  It should be really fun.  I remember toppling over quite a bit last time Mandi and I went.  We’re sure to scream, and the most fun happens when it makes us scream (think dark San Francisco forest)!
• There’s so much more…  It’s just been a great break so far, and it’s been nice to see everyone who I’ve missed so much, and I hope I can squeeze everything in in my last remaining days!

The household has taken turns being sick.  Despite my very best, very thorough, efforts, I must have caught it from Nik.  Or maybe from work, since people there are sick now, too.  Anyway, I’ve been working from home–still getting a lot done, but in huge pain.  I haven’t been able to enjoy my Christmas break, really, since I fall into a heap of pain after working all day.

On a happier note, Nik ordered me a very, very exciting Christmas present.  Here’s my new friend:

I am heading home next Thursday after a meeting with Sally.  I’ll get in pretty late since I’m driving.  I am so excited!!  I can’t wait to see everybody and do Christmasy things!

Back to resting…

Today is my first official day of winter break!  Ok…maybe yesterday was my first OFFICIAL day, but I worked all day…so today is really it!

We sure celebrated on Thursday after our last day of classes.  Here we are at Bistro 33.

We had a pretty good, but uneventful, last two classes (April and I gave a great puberty-related presentation, and David was a champion wrapping up Piaget in an exact hour)…and then headed out to Bistro 33.  We had some mojito pitchers and sweet potato fries, and had an exciting White Elephant gift exchange.  It went so fast and we were all so polite about (not) stealing gifts that we invented a new, Forced-Trade Gift Game after we were done, to up the competition and laughter.  It was a great time, and we moved inside (thank you, my Southern California, flip-flopped in 39 degrees toes said) for shots…yes, shots…  It was tough to get up for work yesterday, but it was completely worth it.

I made it through yesterday without a zombie-day, which I’ve had 2 or 3 times since starting school, and even just 1 caffeine.  Sally and I worked for a solid few hours on our chapter, which was great.  After work, I lounged around, watched a movie and lots of TV–totally lazy. 

I slept in very, very late today.  So did Nik and JoJo.  None of us had any idea it had already hit the PM.  Nik and I did some Christmas shopping, went out to lunch, and grocery shopping.  It’s so nice not to have to read all weekend, not having enough time to lift my head for a drink of water.  I do have some work on my chapter to do this weekend, or Monday, but I enjoy it and am super-excited about it, so it doesn’t count.

Anyway, yay to winter break!  I’m relaxed already.

I tend to refrain from updating until I have huge stretches of time in which to do a post justice…and that doesn’t happen.  So here is a list of recent happenings.  Time may soon permit me to expand on some of these…

1.  Nik and I had a wonderful, relaxing, food-consuming, amazing, beautiful, great-company time in Amesbury.  Nik is working on a post about it, but Happening #3 got in the way.

2.  It took us 3 days to fly home.  Our plane almost crashed.  It was traumatizing.  We also had broken planes, delayed flights, cancelled flights, bad weather, poorly rated pilots, etc.  We were stranded, after our trauma which made me sick to my stomach (fear, not bounciness), in Phoenix for a night, then we were stranded in Las Vegas for a night.  We thought we deserved a treat, so we stayed in a penthouse suite on the strip.  The shower, to say the least, was incredible.

3.  Nik is sick.  He’s been in bed for 2 days.  He gets to win the “No JoJo on the bed game” (or rather, “Yes JoJo on the bed game”), so they are both quite pleased.  She’s exhausted from Happening #4, so it’s suiting her well.

4.  JoJo had a great time at Wag Hotel.  She has a reputation there, and when we called during the trip, they said, “Oh, JOJO…” and when we picked her up, the workers all emerged from their offices to talk about her.  She’s in the “High Energy Group.”

5.  I am off to my last day of class for the quarter!  After class, my friends and I are going out to have a gift exchange and celebrate our survival!  YAY!

Nik and I have realized in the past week, that neither my mom or Mike D. live with us…so…who is going to kill the spiders that are apparently quite rampant in Davis???

I’ve refused on the two and only occurrences in the past few days.  Nik stepped up.  Anxiety all around.

Hi All!

I have been trying to write a Mandi’s Visit post for quite awhile, but for some reason the picture uploading on the site is messed up, and we haven’t been able to fix it yet.  So, instead of posting pictures directly with a story for them all, like I wanted, I’ll post a link to my Facebook album, where you can see the pictures from Mandi’s visit: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2008978&l=2ec38&id=1262058331  We had a great time.  On Friday, which was Halloween, we baked pumpkin nut cups and dressed JoJo up in her spider costume (using lots of bribes), then went to eat in downtown Sacramento when Nik came home from work.  On Saturday, we explored San Francisco in the rain.  It was a fun and adventurous day, ending in a dark, rainy, and deserted forest, locked out of the car.  On Sunday, we went to Napa…went to an incredible lunch, a couple of wineries, the state park, and ended the day shopping at the outlets.  It was great having her here–we all had fun!  We’re already planning our next adventures which will include Alcatraz and the Redwood Forest!

So everything is going really well.  Schoolwork, while still busy, is getting easier to get through more quickly.  I think most of us feel that, as we’ve commented that we can finally stick our heads up for air.  In fact, our cohort had some fun at the world’s largest corn maze this weekend: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009269&l=8c83c&id=1262058331  Out in about 45 minutes, muddy and laughing!

I am getting extremely excited for Thanksgiving.  It’ll be Nik’s first time in Amesbury.  Today we went November-in-Amesbury shopping, and were pretty successful…except for shirts, since wool makes us both itch…and all warm clothes are at least part wool!  Nevertheless, we both came away with too much to carry, which is a good sign.

Speaking of Nik, he’s got a job…has been working for maybe a month or so now.  I wish he would post more (!), but I think he’s pretty tired from working and spends his free time relaxing in other ways.  But…just to let anyone curious know, he has found a job.

Ok, time for me to get to relaxing…