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the (frozen) orange bowl
All the ‘menfolk’ except Timmy went to the Orange Bowl last night. Grandpa took a picture with his phone for me. And do you notice what the boys are doing in the below picture?
We were all supposed to go (including Mom, Timmy and me) but it was so freakin cold here in Florida last night (36 degrees) at half time, we decided to take a pass and just watched at home.
High only in the 50’s today so looks like the pool and beach are out for the rest of the trip. Oh, well. There’s still the balcony.
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winter music
The boys at their winter concert. It’s a little like “where’s Waldo?” but with Jack & Patrick. They played the drums and did a great job, but being all the way in the back makes it hard to take any decent pictures of them during the ‘band’ portion. Oh, well. It’s not like I don’t have any pictures of them.
For the chorus finale they sung “holiday lights” with multi colored flashlights. It was pretty cool.
Still in Florida but looks like we are done with the pool & beach. Pretty cold down here (only in the mid 50’s today) but I am NOT complaining, cause it’s still significantly warmer than home. And it’s still pretty and sunny and colorful (not brown & gray like NY). And tonight is the Orange Bowl where we are ALL going. It’s supposed to be in the 30’s- OMG. That IS cold.
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the kindle (version 2.0) & 2009’s reading list
John got me a Kindle 1 for Christmas 2008 (although I opened it early cause I just couldn’t wait). And for this Christmas I sorta bought myself the Kindle 2. There is a reason for this. Really.
I’ve been spending about $300 at the bookstore every other month to load up the big boys on new books. They love (and I mean love) to read and fly thru books like crazy. So… I am giving Patrick my Kindle 1 and my dad is giving Jack his Kindle 1 and both of us got Kindle 2s. See, makes sense.
They got new skins (in blue and red, of course). And they haven’t put them down since opening them Christmas morning. I think they have both already finished two books a piece and are working on their third.
So I got a nice new (pink, of course) cover for my new Kindle 2.
And here’s a list of the books I’ve read in the 2009. Not a bad run.
1. The 8th Confession- James Patterson
2. Against Medical Advice- James Patterson
3. An Almost Perfect Moment- Binnie Kirshenbaum
4. Angels & Demons- Dan Brown
5. Best Friends Forever- Jennifer Weiner
6. Bones: An Alex Deleware Novel- Jonathan Kellerman
7. Cross Country- James Patterson
8. The Gate House- Nelson DeMille
9. The Gold Coast- Nelson DeMille
10. Handle with Care- Jodi Picoult
11. Just After Sunset- Stephen King
12. The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini
13. Memoirs of a Geisha- Arthur Golden
14. The Neighbor- Lisa Gardner
15. Obsession: An Alex Deleware Novel- Jonathan Kellerman
16. Peony in Love- Lisa See
17. Private- Kate somebody
18. The Reader- Bernhard Schlink
19. Relentless- Dean Koontz
20. Revolutionary Road- Richard Yates
21. Run for Your Life- James Patterson
22. Shanghi Girls- Lisa See
23. Snow Flower & the Secret Fan- Lisa See
24. The Stand- Stephen King
25. Swimsuit- James Patterson
26. A Thousand Splendid Suns- Khaled Hosseini
27. To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie Antoinette- Carolly Erickson
28. UR- Stephen King
29. Water for Elephants- Sara Gruen
30. The Weight of Silence- Heather Gudenkauf
31. When Will There Be Good News- Kate Atkinson
32. Your Heart Belongs to Me- Dean Koontz
33 & 34. Twilight- Stephenie Meyer (read twice)
35 & 36. New Moon- Stephenie Meyer (read twice)
37 & 38. Eclipse- Stephenie Meyer (read twice)
39 & 40. Breaking Dawn- Stephenie Meyer (read twice)
41. The Road- Cormac Mccarthy
42. Atonement- Ian Mcewan
43. Alex Cross Trial- James Patterson
So, all in all, thats 43 books in a year. I guess I know where Jack & Patrick get it from, huh?
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our shoot
Had to squeeze it in, but we did do a shoot for us this year. And believe it or not, I was actually in it. Needed my hair highlighted bad, so please try to ignore the black, yellow and grey mess that’s on my head. Other than that, it was so good to actually be in some pictures.
A big thank you to my friend Beth who came along with us and shot all of the pictures with me in them.
And I’m not going to go into how totally BAD my children were for this shoot. So freakin bad. So freakin bad that they were punished for three weeks immediately following the shoot. (there were a few things besides the shoot that lead up to the punishment, but the shoot behavior was the cherry on the cake of my day. week. month.) I know, you look at the pictures and watch the video and say that they were perfect. But John, Jerry (the videographer) and Beth all know the truth cause they were there. I tried to be calm but lost it after the first 15 or so ‘incidents’. We lost the light so fast but I did manage to still get some fairly decent ones in. In spite of them.
I had so much fun styling the boys for the shoot and shopping for all their outfits. It’s almost always sweatpants and some kind of jersey or sports related Tshirt, or a character shirt. It was so nice seeing them in ‘real’ clothes. And the best part? They liked them too and have worn them a few times since. Money well spent.
Here’s our video, too. Thanks, Jerry, for a great job and for not showing me losing my mind with my very misbehaved children!!
Beyr1file from Jerry Silecchia on Vimeo.
Happy New Year to everyone! We watched the ball drop with Grandpa Ken and John fast asleep and Jack, Patrick and even Timmy staying up til well after. Too funny! Then out to the balcony from the 20th floor to watch hundreds of different fireworks all over south Florida. We started the New Year with tons of giggles. Hope that sets a high standard of laughter for the rest of the year.
And we’re off to the ‘left coast’ of Florida for 2 days. Going to do a shoot for a high school friend and his family and getting in a visit to Ft. Myers Beach, Sanibel and Captiva Islands. I’ve never been there before and am really looking forward to it all. Don’t worry, there will still be blog posts while we’re on our adventure. Psyched for my first shoot of 2010.
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the oldnew mac
As most of you already know, my computer bit it not too long ago. Fortunately, it waited to die until I was done with the ‘have to have this finished before Christmas’ sessions and projects. If it was only a week earlier, I would have been buried in a shallow grave right next to the dead pc.
So Mr. Mark at Rockville Camera had this Mac G5 sitting unused in his basement and offered it to me. I (of course and with huge thanks) took it and we are becoming fast friends, I think. Still lots to learn and lots to try to transfer from the PC but overall, getting the hang of it. Also going to have to buy some software so I can still use my Windows documents and possibly some font issues, but in the big scheme of things (and being kinda forced into the mac switch) it wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I had imagined. And it already had Photoshop CS2 installed! Bonus!!
Plus the tower throws off lots of heat so I am really liking that cause you know I’m always freezing. And the white keyboard, mouse and silver screen and tower really look good with my pink chair, pink cell phone and pink mouse pad.
Oh, and the verdict on what caused the PC to die? Overuse. No, seriously! The PC is back home and sitting upstairs in the scrapbook room/office til I can get up there and put it all back together. We’ll just keep it and use it as a second computer. Can’t have enough backup!!
And a big thank you to Paul (our IT guy) who worked so hard to fix my overworked computer and saving everything from the black hole of file stealing.