a little of this -- and yep, a little of that too

my friend, Becca, is going to be doing the san diego 3 day walk for breast cancer! 3 days. 20 miles each day. amazing! she is just a little short of donations to walk. here is her page. i first met becca online on a wonderful yahoogroup for moms pregnant with babies due in december of 1999. we've been on that same group for more than 7 years now - gosh - is that right? eek! it IS right! i've met her and her daughter, claire (who was actually born in early early january) a few times when i've gone to visit the grannies in escondido. she is a really lovely person inside and out and i feel lucky to know her.

rob went on a huge hike this weekend. he went to the top of mount rose! go check out his blog and read about it. you can see pictures on our new website. i'm HUGELY proud of him. this is a hike that, while i could probably do it, it would not be pleasant for those around me. i tend to bitch and moan when i do the "upandupandupandups" otherwise known as big steep hills.

while rob did that, the kids and i met mom and ken at a neighbor's house for a democrat get together. there were very few folks that came which was a bit disheartening. and it wasn't just for democrats, we had a green party member there too. i've offered to do some phoning as well as be a mini hq again. during the 2004 presidential election, ken was the precinct captain and our house was the headquarters. we were canvassing neighborhoods w/pamphlets at 5:30 am and manning the phones all day. ken is very disillusioned by it all and feels like the democrats really need to get the young people into this and get them to help do the canvassing. he was quite upset (as were most of us on the left side of the political spectrum) that kerry gave up so early.

yesterday was one of those amazing days when my children truly enjoyed one another all day. did you read that? ALL DAY. they played together and just had fun. at about 11:00 am, i told rob, you know, even if they lose it now, they've played together since 7:00 this morning really nicely. well, it continued through the evening. irene helped rhys on Starfall which is a REALLY cool children's website that encourages learning to read, learning the alphabet, the sounds the letters make, etc. irene's been on it since she was a little more than 2 i think and has used it in different ways as she's gotten older. they both had a lot of fun on it. irene is working with rhys on his alphabet, so they worked a lot on the alphabet pages. they also went outside and made some mud and had a great time just playing and gigggling and getting dirty. after that they took baths and then made some pictures together and built a spaceship outside. it was just delightful and i was afraid to take pictures b/c i didn't want to disturb this perfect setting. i was so pleased with them. it warms a mama's heart to watch her children enjoying theirchother.

while they were happily playing, i prepped the sit upon materials for tomorrow's brownie meeting. rob helped me by punching holes in the sit upon "fabric" while i cut rug padding (padding that goes under a rug) for them. that rug padding stuff was REALLY hard to cut! but i did it and rob finished his stuff too. mom came over and we put one together. she had a lot of yarn and big eyed needles, so we got those prepped for tomorrow as well. i hope the girls enjoy the process of sewing their sit upons together. i also hope it takes them a bit of time to do it and they aren't done in 3 minutes. after tomorrow they will have earned their first "try-it" and they will get them when we have their investiture. hooray!

this morning it's a perfectly crisp fall morning. i love fall. i hope everyone enjoyed the vernal equinox.