Nuggets

Tonight during bath time, the kiddos were using their bath crayons and drawing pictures. Kade started drawing a picture of himself. It had a nice round head and two eyes...but no mouth and nose. He then proceeded to draw two legs directly connected to his head. Seeing as how we clearly needed to work on his self image a little...I politely asked him what was between his head and his legs. His reply: "My Peenus....and nuggets!!!". So he happily drew a third leg between his other two legs which went all the way to the ground. Interesting...but sadly not quite correct. Then he drew a big circle next two his third leg and proclaimed "This is my big nugget". Jen witnessed all this and I thought she was going to pee herself. Daddy's reply: "Yes, but what about your chest, neck and arms?". Not quite what I was thinking...but probably the right thing to say...I was simply proud of the fact that Kade felt it more important to have a "Peenus" than a Mouth....interesting...

Desperate Times Call For Desparate Measures...

When I get called out by CherkyB for my blog I know that it is usually going to be some mommy-blogger or bore-blogger comment....but when CC starts getting up in my grill I know that I am getting seriously behind. So here I will give you no excuses....just some easter goodies!

The Easter season kicked off in an interesting way this year. You see....in CR...Holy Thursday and Good Friday are both national holidays. AND...just to top it off, the NCAA BBall tourney juuust happened to start on Holy Thursday. What great luck...I got to watch a lot more of UCONN playing crappy than I care to ever see again. But I digress... Thursday ended up being consumed with Kade's friend Brady's birthday party. It was a modest affair at the (unheated) pool here in Condominio Calahonda. Jen has already uploaded the pictures and will send the link out shortly....so I won't bother with those. Then on Friday we waited all day for the big game. Even Payton got into the groove by wearing her newest UCONN gear courtesy of Poppy - as you can see in the pictures. What you can not see in the pictures is that she has no pants on (as that would probably get me in trouble somehow)....apparently she was so upset by the UCONN loss that she wanted to pee in those lousy pants...I think I heard her say something like "piss on them" before letting loose!! Then after we all calmed down....we settled in for the coloring of the Easter eggs. This is always a love/hate affair in our house as Kade always drops the eggs in too hard and breaks them all....while Payton is spilling dye all over the place. But...they both love it so we all enjoy/tolerate the whole affair. Saturday was a nice day spent with the "Panama-Jen and the tribe" who just happened to be in town....we had a nice BBQ Rib dinner. And then the big day....

EASTER!

Seeing as how we live in a predominantly Catholic country, there is at least one church per every square mile. I find it interesting that we were unable to find our way to a single one ;-) Anyway.... as always the morning started with the Jellybean trail. Now...I did not think too much about this seeing as how you basically just throw jellybeans into a line and put gifts along the way.....but seeing as how this is CR...nothing is as easy as one might expect. The night before I set out the trail. As I was setting the out the JBs...I gots-to-a-thinking:

"these little buggers are solid sugar....hmmm....ants love sugar.....we have lots of ants....and I bet those cockroaches wouldn't mind a slice of the action either....and oh yeah....the JBs are kind of sticky due to that humididty....that must be why all the dirt on the tile is sticking to the JBs...hmmmm...this is going to be interesting....maybe Jen won't notice all the ants and cockroaches dead on the floor from sugar and red dye #5 overdose tomorrow morning..."

So I continued on, finishing the trail. BUT, before going to bed I did decide to spray all the major ant arteries with CR's version of Raid, left a light on and also turned the fan....figuring that the light/sound/motion/poison combo would stave off the apocalypse for at least 12 hours. Now, being as smaart as we are...and since we just sprayed poison...and since the JBs are covered in some kind of slimy tile funk....we wisely planned to swap out the JBs after the trail had served its purpose (of course a few JB soldiers would fall before we could swap them out but that is life). EASTER MORNING! The kiddos got up and Kade was FULL THROTTLE picking up his trail. I even made his go under the coffee table...he gladly assumed his best Rambo crawl and powered on to the end. Miss Payton picked up the first 5 or so JBs and then walked about 3/4 of the way to the end and picked up another few....bypassing all the presents along the way....don't try to understand.....it's a Payton thing ;-)

Later in the day we went over to a friends house for a late-lunch/early-dinner kind of thing. They Had Virginia Ham and New Jersey Turkey....you know....a Costa Rica Easter dinner! But the food was good and the drinks were great ;-) Until next Easter....

Oh...and which picture of Payton with her egg do you like best ;-) Someday when she is in her teens she will love me for this!!!

Hasta Luego!

Notable Quotables....from the press

"The good old dichotomy (male predators, females patiently awaiting the warrior's return in front of the cave entrance) is in big trouble", said Le Nouvel Observateur. - ahh - the good old dichotomy! Are French allowed to talk this way?

"A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare," the judge wrote - Forget about all that edumacation stuff...it is all about the loyalty to the state!

"We f***** up in Ohio," she [Samantha Power - Obama foreign policy aide] admitted. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win.....She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything,"
- SHOCK AND AWE...such a refined woman...and a foreign policy expert at that!!!

"We cannot allow this to happen to the men and women serving in our military whether they are at home or abroad," McCain said. New York Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said "federal, state, and city authorities should be given every resource and every tool to swiftly complete that investigation." - I wonder if you will regret that statement Billary...when they accidentally find your tax returns!!!

The Federal Reserve said Friday it is taking bigger steps to ease the nation's credit crisis, including increasing the amount of money it will auction to banks this month to $100 billion. - Giving away really cheap money: how does this helps us in the long run...especially as the purchasing power of the dollar continues to shrink? To me it just kind of sounds like the money I already have tucked away - is simply getting less valuable. Hurting those who were smart enough to steer clear of bad loans....interesting policy. Oh yeah...that national debt gets more expensive too....meaning higher taxes folks. But don't worry. O-bam-ya will magically fix all this with talk!

-Did anyone notice that the average 30 year loan went up almost a quarter point in the past week....must be all that free money kicking in!

3-3-3-3

First let me say that I am not complaining. I have my family, a job and my "health". Buuuttt...

I had - against all better judgment - let myself develop a higher than normal expectation for my birthday this year. Not in the typical "I hope I get this present" type of expectation....but just in general. You see, this year I turned 33 and the number 3 is my lucky number (seeing as how my birthday is 3/3)....so naturally, I was kind of hopeful that this would be my lucky year in general. Heck, we are living in the lap of luxury down here in CR after all, so how can it be anything but great...right? (insert favorite snarky comment from Jen HERE...)

My day started like any other Monday morning...get up early, deal with kiddos and try to get to work on time...despite traffic being snarled all over San Jose. Ahh...success. I get to work only 20 mins late for my first meeting (due to a bus hitting an 18 wheeler) and I settle in for a long day of meetings from 8:20-5:00 with one half hour slot open...which will inevitably be filled by one of my employees wanting to ensure I remember who they are.

Oh yeah, Kade had a fever of 103 all weekend and I need to call the Spanish speaking receptionist to get Kade an appointment...check. I pick up the phone and after 15 mins I convince the receptionist that this is important and the doctor should come into work this afternoon despite a likely tee time I will be ruining. Check. Call Jen to let her know....she is peeeiissed off...power is out at the house again (happens at least once a month in the Trejos) which apparently is ruining her ability to make birthday cards and such. Anyway, the day goes on. I finally move a meeting so I can run home and watch Payton while Jen is at the appt with Kade...power is still out and Payton is not taking her normal nap.....power is still out...grrrr. That means I have to hold two meetings on my cellphone with crappy reception and Miss P climbing all over me. Thankfully one is just a 1:1 with my boss...and those are generally something you don't have to pay much attention to....

Finally get done with work for the day...power is still out. Guess we are going out for dinner. Kade still has a fever of 103 but for some reason thinks there is a party for Daddy at the restaurant so we still go to Outback (not that we have many options at this point). I think he only fell asleep on my arm two or three times at dinner....but at least he ate a bunch of mac-n-cheese....something I would be holding once more by the time the night is over!

Dinner is nice but stupid expensive since it is Outback in CR. We head back home "expecting" that the power is back on....nope....house is still dark. We light a pile of candles (which Jen had the foresight to buy when we moved here) and settle in for the present opening. There are 3 nice cards and 3 boxes. I open the first...a new coffee maker! Open the second, an IOU to get Kade a NY Giant jersey. Open the third, an IOU for a new camera lens. So as I sit there in the dark, I silently take note of the fact I have only one gift which I can not use since the damned power is still out....oh the irony. Life in CR!

We quickly get the kiddos ready for bed since there is nothing better to do and it is late anyway. I settle in with Kade and read books by candlelight. After about 15 minutes he starts to cough and grabs his stomach...oh crap. So I pick him up and book it for the second closest bathroom (since the closest bathroom has a leaky pipe and the floor is flooded...but don't worry, Carlos the maintenance guy will get on that sometime next week). Almost made it....well beyond the first bathroom but well short of the second closest bathroom, I catch most of the mac-n-cheese in my hands or on my shirt. At least we didn't have to change the sheets on his bed!!! Finally get him and me changed, get the leftovers cleaned up off the floor and get Kade back to bed. I end up spending the rest of a "sleepless night with Kade and a bucket" (good title for the movie)...but.... technically most of that happened on March 4th so I have absolutely NO reason to complain about that.

FYI - The verdict is still out on 33!!!! The good news is that we get to do it all over again in just 5 days (March 10th) since that is when Jen turns 33!!! JOY!!