More than one surprise

So alot has happened and it all happened at once. Yes we decided to add Hershey to our family and also to take our house off the market.(See, no sign!) We felt at this time that it was the best decision. That also left us some extra money for the year and we thought " hey, it's been a whole 10 months since we've been to Disneyland, let's go to Disney World!" We are going the end of August.

We are very excited about each of these choices that we've made. I am now in the process of moving back into our house. In a few ways it's nice. I am decluttering as I bring more things back into the house and reorganizing as I go. It is helping to clean up after living here for 7 years. The down side is that I'm fed up working with boxes and it's been a slower process than I'd hoped. The garage is a mess and it will be for awhile longer I'm afraid.

Pete taught the kids how to play ghost in the graveyard and sardines. It was a great day and it was a whole lot of fun.

The kids and I went to the zoo with some friends and we went through the dinosaur exibit they have right now. All of the kids enjoyed it. The exibit was done really well. The active animals were the bats, the elephants, and the birds during the bird show. Connor always enjoys seeing the birds. We have a golden eagle that has a wing span of 8 feet! They are remodeling the Alaskan Tundra area and a few other spots but it was still a fun trip.

Last night we were able to take the kids to see Hershey for the first time. She was so good! She never ran off or barked. I think she is going to be a fantastic dog. She's very loveable and playful. We took her new collar out to her. It is a little big but she's growing fast! Her eyes have changed to hazel. They're very pretty. We are very anxious to bring her home and have her as part of our family.

Well, alot to catch up on and the Melanson family reunion starts this weekend. We'll see you soon Hershey!!!!

Pete + Latin America = Adventure

I had the timeliness to schedule a business trip to Costa Rica on what would be game 6 of the NBA finals. A co-worker also noted that I scheduled a business trip on the night of the NCAA basketball finals as well. I guess I need to do a better job of looking at the calendar for major sporting events before I schedule any more trips. So as Boston was clinching world title number 17, (ALL HAIL THE CHAMPION CELTICS!!!!!!) I was tracking the game while watching Spanish SportsCenter and calling home for updates. But, that was nothing compared to my trip down to San Jose.

Apparently I'm not allowed to have any easy trips to Latin America. Hurricane Wilma will hopefully never be topped, but this was an interesting flight to say the least. Everything started well enough. We landed in Houston early and there didn't appear to be any troubles when boarding the flight for San Jose, Costa Rica. We were scheduled to land at 8:45PM. After being in flight for a while, I checked my watch and noticed that it was 8:45. No worries, maybe just a little late. 9:00 passed and so did 9:15 without any announcement from the crew. Finally at 9:30 the pilot announced that the airport in San Jose was closed due to fog and that we would be landing in Liberia. I hurried to find Liberia in the Continental magazine. It is a small resort town in the northwest corner of Costa Rica.....about a 30 minute flight and 3 hour bus ride from San Jose.

The pilot made a quick landing and told us that we were going to try to wait out the fog and get into San Jose that night. After 3 hours on the ground (and in the plane) in Liberia, the crew gave up hope. Unfortunately, the customs crew had given up on us and went home. They were called back in while we waited for another hour. There was another bit of bad news. Since it was tourist season, there weren't enough hotel rooms available, so we would have to double up. Yup, we had to bunk up with complete strangers. The ground crew originally tried to even have different genders bunk up together, but that didn't fly.

I was one of the first out of the airport with my new buddy, a guy who had moved to Costa Rica a couple years ago from Arizona. Nice enough guy, but a smoker. The hotel was on the coast, about a half hour bus ride away. Continental was great enough though to pick up the entire tab, including phone calls and food. The weather also brought down the AT&T line, but my new buddy had an internet phone that allowed me to call home and worry the heck out of Julie. Yeah!!!

After a few hours of sleep, we were bused back to the mini airport to be flown down to San Jose. Just another adventurous trip to Latin America. Glad to be home again.

Welcome to the family Hershey

After watching the Celtics come back from 24 down to pull out the game 4 win in Los Angeles to take a 3-1 series win, I thought we had seen the surprise of the week. But, oh was I wrong.

Julie and the kids pulled off a stunner by convincing dear ol' dad that it was time to add to the family. And you see the results, the newest addition to the family, Hershey.

Julie had picked up the pressure lately because the kids had been working her over pretty good. Well, I had overheard that my neighbor at work's dog had just had a litter. My mistake was telling Julie that she should see the picture of the chocolate labs not knowing that was one of Julie's favorite breeds. It was over from that point on.

We headed over tonight to take a look at the puppies and Hershey played Julie like a fiddle, cuddling up in her arms and calming down so well after being rough and tumble with her sisters. We marked her toe nails and will pick her up after a little more time with her mom. The kids (and Julie) can't wait. Me neither, but don't tell Julie.

A Super Saturday

Today we started off with an Intel sponsored family fun run. It was at the Ronler Acres site. I'd never really been there before. They have a nice wet lands area that is really pretty. Mallory and Pete ran a little of the 1.7 miles and Courtney, Connor and I walked. Mallory came in 2nd in her division and Connor got third in his. I have to say that Courtney beat Connor but she had more competition in her division so we're not sure what her placement was. Way to go kids! I enjoyed doing this as a family.

Afterwards Intel gave away prizes. Pete and Connor were drawn and Connor and Mallory got stuff for their placement. Yeah, free stuff!

Later this afternoon the girls had the gymnastics June Jubilee at Oregon Gymnastics Academy or OGA as most people deem it. Courtney and Mallory did a really good job. Courtney really shined doing the vault and the floor routine. She did a one handed cartwheel! Mallory was fantastic doing the beam and the bars. She is very fluid with her movements. We were very proud of all they have accomplished.

Celtics and the Melansons

Well, I wasn’t sure if I should write this entry. Being a deeply superstitious person, I don’t want to jinx the upcoming NBA finals, but I feel that I needed to post something about the Celtic’s meteoric rise. Much to Julie’s chagrin, for the first time since she’s been a Melanson, the Celtics are in the finals. Which means that I am a verified schizophreniac, crazy on game days and relatively normal (although more ESPN centric) on off days. She’s always known of the family affinity for the Celtics, but due to their lowly status over the past 20 years, she hasn’t had to deal with me in “playoff mode” as I apparently blurted out during one recent episode. Sure, she’s had her brushes with my crazy sports nature during the ’95 Cowboys Super Bowl run (early on in the relationship, she’s probably blocked this one out) , the Red Sox World Series in ’04 and ’07 (including nightly conversations with Dad breaking down each game) and Italy’s ’06 World Cup title (which included hijacking brother Mike during the family reunion which Julie and I were in charge of, to go to an Indian Casino to watch Italy’s semifinal game against Germany. Wow, that didn’t seem so crazy at the time.), but they weren’t the Celtics. I can sense Julie starting to shake nervously just reading this.

I really feel that the blame should squarely fall on Dad’s shoulders. :) Growing up I could always count on a few things, Mr. Kirby not seeing how “wide open” I was on the Lafayette Elementary School field during recess, regular wood cutting retreats to the mountains followed by weeks of stacking cords of lumber with blackberry faces on them and watching the Celtics playing late into May and June sitting on the couch next to Dad. Dad indoctrinated us all. Sure, there were some rebellious points for most of us, Bob with the Knicks, Mike with the Hawks and Pacers and even myself with the Suns, but we all have Celtic green running through our veins. Living in rural California’s only impact on us was that we weren’t able to go to the games in person. We proudly displayed our loyalties on Tom’s masterpiece of a Celtic backboard and our homemade Celtic shirts (rest in peace DJ #3) deep in enemy Laker country.

Bird, McHale, Parish, DJ, Cornbread Maxwell, Ainge; they might as well have been part of our family. They certainly brought our family together for me. The memories I have watching games together are too numerous to count, Mike being thrown off the couch following a Bird jumper against Atlanta, Mike and I jumping around in an empty house screaming while taping the “Bird steals the ball” game against Detroit for Dad because he was at the Saturday night session of stake conference and Dad taunting Grandma (wish she were here for this, she would have relished this year’s playoffs) during the ’84 Lakers/Celtics finals. There were a million double thumbs up/YES!!! moments from Dad.

As I am the obsessive sports fan of the family, they probably made more of an impact on me than the others, but maybe not. What I do know is that it was something special for me. Thanks Dad, for spending that time with me, watching the games, telling me stories of the Celtic glory. It’s been a while, but a glimpse of the glory is back.

Come to think about it, this has been a crazy last few sports years for me. The Sox won in ’04 and ’07, the Cowboys are resurging, Italy holds the World Cup and is competing in the Euro finals, BYU is coming off of back to back 11-2 football seasons and is getting serious BCS buzz for next year and now the Celts are back. Could this be the cherry on the sports sundae? We’ll see. (Can we dig out the old backboard and prep it for an ’07 on the border?) What we do know is that we are in for a solid week and a half of basketball madness. Sorry Julie, but welcome to the Melanson family for real.

BEAT LA! BEAT LA! BEAT LA!

Our House

So, our house has been on the market since just before Thanksgiving 2007. Wow that makes it seem even longer!! Anyway, because it hasn't sold we decided to update the bathrooms upstairs by putting tile on the counter and floor in the master bath and on the floor in the girls bath. It turned out great!
Because the updates are now done the house has a new listing in the hopes that someone will see it, fall in love with it, and yes- BUY it!!!


We also got to have Allie, Luke and Kate for a little on Saturday. I love having them over. The girls play, Luke and Connor hang out and Pete and I play with Kate (even though she was supposed to be sleeping!). The girls built a fort to play in and made a sign to welcome Allie and Luke into it. I'm starting to wonder about how long Pete's actually going to live. After the girls had said he was going to get dead the other day, Luke was here and climbing on him and told him the same thing!

On to another week of life. The kids only have nine days left of school and then they're mine. I'm hoping to have a fun summer around home. Swimming, biking, frisbee, tennis, parks, and who know's what else!