Category Archive for ‘Family’ at eastowners

« Older Entries

Archive for the 'Family' Category

Attack of the Pumpkin Ninja Pt. 2

Published

charmaspice

on October 27, 2008

in Family and Updates

. 1 Comment

Current Mood: Happy emoticon Happy

Yesterday I blogged about our amazing community experience with Twitter. Everyday I go outside and see those pumpkins sitting on my porch; I am reminded of the kindness and sense of community we’ve found. Let me elaborate a little more on why I love the ability this program has given me to find people in my own town as well as accross the country.

I’ve blogged about Twitter before; it’s an awesome way for people to communicate with others around the world and in their own communities talking about daily things in 140 characters or less. We’ve had many conversations with this group of people, and have been unsuccessful at being able to join them at what are known as GR Tweet-ups. The group usually meets at a public venue for drinks, conversation, and face to face meetings where we don’t have to limit talk to small posts. They figured that since we’ve had so much bad luck as of late, and since we hadn’t been able to make it to a tweet-up, they’d bring the tweet up to us…along with some pumpkins for Clare. I was so overjoyed, and words couldn’t describe how it made me feel to have random people in our community reach out to us like that. I know Brad has already blogged about this, but I felt I needed to elaborate on how much it has meant to me. I had no words that night, and am still struggling to find them 3 days later.

All my life I’ve always had friends, and family around me. Whenever we needed something there was always someone there. As I grew away from my family by going to college on the other side of the state I didn’t have that. I’ve always had lots of friends to count on for emotional support, so I didn’t think much of it when we moved up to Grand Rapids, but then the friends we had moved onto their own lives and careers around the country leaving us kind of on our own. We’ve struggled through life making friends along the way maintaining some of those relationships, but it’s never been the same as having them in the same town and community. For the most part I figured that if I had Brad it was all I needed, and while he is definitely a good friend & partner in life I’m finding we needed to find a community to live in.

I thought that we had that when we bought our house, but people come and go, the neighborhood changes, and we still didn’t find the community we were looking for. While neighbors still stopped and talked, it just wasn’t what I had thought it might be. Everyone comes home, parks in their driveway, goes inside, and stays inside until the next morning when they leave for work. What happened to the days of going over to “Sam’s house” for a play date and dinner without a second thought? Today’s time and age has everyone freaked out about “Stranger Danger”, and people are afraid to become a part of a community. I know that we still need to be aware of our surroundings and not take things for granted, but we also need to have faith in people we know in our community.

Today I think people, at least most people in this town, are finding this in their churches rather than their neighborhoods. As most of you know Brad and I are not exactly the church-type, so we haven’t found our community yet in this town, at least we hadn’t until Twitter. This tiny program that allows me to talk to people throughout my day has instilled my sense of community once again. I now have a group of local people that I can talk to throughout the day about our fine community, and it has helped me realize that there is a sense of community here after all…it just took me 6 years to find it!

I want to thank the Pumpkin Ninja’s for all that they did, even though it may seem like a small gesture to most, it really brightened my mood, and for those that were not involved in the ninja experience I am still greatful to have you in my little Twitter Community. I can’t wait to figure out a way to show my appreciation for all of you, other than finally being able to put it into words.

Attack of the Pumpkin Ninja Pt.1

Published

charmaspice

on October 26, 2008

in Family and Updates

. 1 Comment

Current Mood: Ecstatic emoticon Ecstatic

I know it’s been a while since I’ve last posted, but things have been a little crazy around the Eastowners’ house. About 3 weeks ago I went back to work. It was a huge step for me, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle it. So far it’s been a good thing, and I love the people I work with. I’m working a seasonal job in a Christmas tree distribution office. Apparently I can’t stay away from Christmas trees, as if you know me in real life you’d know that I worked on a small tree farm after high school for a few years. Now, I’m dealing with truck drivers and their companies mostly on the distribution side of things. It’s taken me away from keeping up the house a bit and doing the things I had been doing during the day when Clare was gone, but the extra money will come in handy to help pay down some credit card debt and do some projects around the house.

If you read Brad’s portion of the blog you’ll know that we’ve had some things happen to us as of late…both good and bad. About 2 weeks ago Brad’s cruddy Nissan Altima was stolen off the street from in front of our house. It made life for us a little difficult, as I am Clare’s transportation to school and we leave around the same time as Brad usually does for work, so it wasn’t like I could take Brad to work. Brad walked a few times, rode his bike, and once in a while if we were ready fast enough I drove him to work on our way to school. Well, it wasn’t really on our way, but I made it on the way. It really put some strain on our lives, but in the end Brad got some exercise and actually found that he enjoyed his bike ride.

Then something odd happened 2 weeks to the day the car went missing. I had a voicemail on our phone from a guy named “Josh” who said that there was a Nissan in his driveway, and was wondering if it was ours. It was in an alley about 3 blocks from our house behind a house that looks like it was split-up into apartments with a large parking area where our car was. After calling the cops we went down to identify the car, a squad car came by, took some prints, and sent us on our way with a caved in roof and hood as it looks like whomever took it had a dance party on it. After closer inspection it looks like they may have danced on the roof after not being able to steal the radio out of it.

Things began to look brighter until I went to leave to take Clare to school on Thursday when I noticed all but one of our pumpkins were stolen. I know they were just $20 worth of pumpkins, but the one that really mattered was one that Clare had already carved. She had planted pumpkin seeds at my parent’s house, the pumpkins grew, and my parents took them with them on their Halloween campout with Clare for her to carve. She put lots of time, energy, and creative thought into this pumpkin, and it sucked to have her cry in the backseat of the car on the way to school and later on that afternoon when we found it smashed in the street around the corner from our house. I felt defeated as both a mom and as a human being. What’s next to steal, my porch furniture or my valuables inside my house?!?!?! After school we came home to pack up the remaining things we had outside, so they couldn’t be stolen.

We did have a nice evening despite our morning. Clare played outside, the VW was towed away to be fixed up, and we went out to Moe’s for some dinner. We came home, Clare was sent to get ready for bed, and I curled up on the couch with a blanket, and my laptop to settle down for the night with a drink, and some TV. I had just logged onto Facebook when I heard voices outside. I threw the laptop on the ottoman, and flung open the shade to see people outside with pumpkins. My first thought was now what is someone trying to steal? I opened the door to see about 10 people on my steps, and they all had pumpkins in their arms. They told me that I wasn’t seeing anything and that I needed to go inside, my response was “Shut up, No WAY, stay right there!” “It’s a present from Twitter they said.” I went inside to call for Brad, as he was upstairs tucking Clare in. He came downstairs to see what I was so excited about (although he thought something went wrong). Apparently we had been Pumpkined by some Pumpkin Ninjas, also known as a great group of people we’ve been talking with on an online app called Twitter for about the past 6 months.

More to come tomorrow on our attack…so stay tuned!

Weekend Delight & When Things go Terribly Wrong

Published

charmaspice

on September 22, 2008

in Family and Updates

. 0 Comments

Was it a full moon this weekend? Holy smokes! Friday started out wonderfully, and we enjoyed our pay day by going out to dinner. We’ve been cutting back on our dining out at the Eastowner house, and most nights it’s no biggie….other nights it’s painful not to be tempted to just go out and eat somewhere. The habit of dining out began when I was pregnant with Clare, and cooking and smelling most anything made me extremely ill. I didn’t have Morning sickness with her, I had 8 month sickness…I kid you not! Because it was the 2 of us it was super convient most nights, and when we added Clare, it was just toting the baby carrier around. Over the years we’ve slowly began cutting back on our eating out habits; sometimes we ebb and flow with it, buy now it’s becoming a matter of conserving money with the decrease in Brad’s raises and the higher cost of living.

Anyway, after I picked Clare up from school we came home to spruce up a bit, and then after Brad came home we headed to Graydon’s Crossing Derby Station. Brad wants to write up a proper review, so I will leave that to him. I’ll talk about all the fun stuff though! It’s in East Grand Rapids, wich is right up the street from us, and if we were rambunctious and not having martini’s we could have rode our bikes there. They have a great patio section for warmer weather, and inside is set up in an English pub style with hints of Indian infulences. The bar is well stocked, as it comes with a binder full of alcoholic goodies ranging from wine to beer to top shelf liquors. Their menu is divine, and it was hard to choose just 1 thing to eat! There are even games sitting on the book shelf in the middle of the dining room, so if you plan on hanging out for a bit head over and pick up a deck of Uno cards, or the Cribbage game.

The children’s menu is great, and the kids have about 10 items to choose from ranging in items like the usual Mac & Cheese fare to Grilled Steak. They also get to choose their own side along with their meal, ranging in the healthy fruit cup to onion rings. The only thing missing was chocolate milk, but lemonade was a nice substitute. The Cosmopolitan’s are wonderful, and poured in the correct and tasty way. Brad had the beer, he’ll have to tell you about that. We started off with an appetizer off of their seasonal menu called Hairy Eyeball Cheese Dip. The dip was wonderful, and I wish they had added some baby carrots to the plate that had deep fried green beans and 2 different style chips to dip in it. Clare even liked it! For dinner Clare had the grilled cheese & fruit cup; it wasn’t anything too spectacular other than the bread was not soggy white bread like you get a some places. I had their Harvest Risotto, and it was absolutely wonderful. Brad had the South Indian Shrimp Taco’s, and from the bite I had it was yummy! The food is a cross between English pub food and Indian-style food. Dessert was not in the cards for Brad & I, but because Clare had finished all her meal and had been extremely good we let her have a dish of vanilla ice cream.

Afterwards we came home, shipped Clare off to bed, and had a nice, quiet, adult evening with martini’s and a movie. Saturday was a different story though, we awoke to a pretty good start to the day. We all got dressed, and went to Panera for some breakfast sandwiches and then did some errand running. While driving around we noticed a small car show in front of Toys R Us on 28th street, so we stopped and looked around. Clare enjoyed it, and then it was downhill from there - whis is the terribly wrong part. We had asked Clare to be quiet in the car because Brad & I were talking and she needed to wait her turn. She couldn’t seem to hold it in as she got louder and louder, next step was to have her sent to her room when we got home and not to come out until told. Melt down continues deeper and deeper into her little 6 year old spiral, until I tell her if she comes out of her room she can’t attend a friend’s birthday party that was to happen later that afternoon. We come home, she goes to her room, I work on things and am about to head up to talk to her when suddenly she appears on the steps. “What are you doing I ask?”, “Coming to talk to dad.” Nobody had called her, so I had to follow through on the sucky punishment I had put forth already. She was distraught and beside herself, causing a bigger meltdown. I offer her lunch thinking she might be hungry, so I made her mac & cheese telling her that if she finished her lunch she could have an apple…but the m & c had to be all gone. I head upstairs for 2.5 seconds to grab something and she’s now asking Brad for the apple, he asks if her mac & cheese is gone, she says yes and proceeds back to the kitchen to empty her bowl to show dad an empty bowl. Now we have to have a lieing discussion! So, Saturday sucked, and we ended up punishing ourselves in the end by not attending Eastown’s yearly Street Festival because Clare was not behaving well.

Sunday was slightly better, and because Clare had good behavior all day we ended our weekend with a trip to the bowling alley. Despite my argument with the a$$ hat that told me I was a coupon abuser at the alley, we had a good time and it was a good way to end our weekend.

Where Did the End of Summer Go?

Published

charmaspice

on September 16, 2008

in Family and Updates

. 0 Comments

Current Mood: Happy emoticon Happy

I honestly have no clue where the month of August went, well maybe I do. Our weekends were booked pretty much back in May or something silly like that. I think we were home for 1 weekend last month, and were busy filling up the end of summer the rest. We started out the month with my parents big bash. I wrote about that here, and you can see from the pic on the left that we shot off some cool fireworks. Nothing like big fireworks to celebrate!

Then I went off to Chicago for a bachelorette party the 3rd weekend, and it was probably the best bachelorette party I’ve been to - no offense to the other parties I’ve been to, but we had way too much fun. It was the Geek Girl’s weekend of mischiefness , well some of them don’t like to be called Geek girls - but we all met thorugh the Geek Guys, and most of us gals are with one of the guys in some fashion or another so it’s how I separate that group of friends from others. Deal with it girls! We had our lovely driver Amy pick up all of us local folks in her styling mini-van, and we hit the road to the Chicago burbs were our gracious host and friend Katie lives with her hubby. The ride was full of laughter, and jokes, as well as catching up since we don’t see each other that often these days. We arrived to some late night pizza for dinner accompanied by drinks and silly games. On Saturday we did some shopping, and then got dressed for our big night on the town. We took the train into downtown Chicago, all dolled up in our pink & black boa’s. Everywhere we went it looked like we massacred a pink chicken! I sincerly appoligize to anyone we left in our path of feathers, it was our way of finding our way home if necessary. We dined out at Carnival, and the music on the page, is exactly how it is in the restaurant! The food was delish, and the atmosphere was awesome. Our waiter was absolutely ~~awesome fantastic~~ wonderful, and did a great job in dealing with a table of 8 giggly women.

From there we took a train to a tattoo parlor. That’s right readers….Char is now tattooed! Originally we were all going to get the same style of heart just in different colors, but when we got to the tattoo shop some changed their minds and we ended up getting our own designs. All but 1 of us were tattooed that night, no she didn’t chicken out…she has a medical issue, and wanted to check with her doctor before doing something so brasin as getting it done on a whim like the rest of us. If I had a picture of my tattoo I’d post it, but alas I can’t take a picture of my back all by myself, so you’ll have to settle for a description. On my left back shoulder I now have a cute little pink heart with 2 eighth notes in it (music notes for those that are non-musicians). No, I did not cry - although 2 people did, and we still love them because they joined in the fun reguardless of their fears. I did have a sensation of almost passing out, but Sara our resident nurse in the group kept talking to me and kept me breathing. I’ve been wanting to get a tattoo for about 3 years or so now, so it’s not like it’s anything I didn’t want to do. Even though I love my little heart, it will not be the only one I get in my life time, as I have one planned for another time…when I loose all the weight I want to I’ll get it done. After our tattoo fun we got on another train and headed to Mother’s to shake our booties all night long. It was tons of fun, and we met some rather interesting people while dancing and handing out bead necklaces. Our trek home wouldn’t be complete without riding back to our hostesses in style in a limo.

The weekend after that we celebrated Clare’s 6th birthday in Hannah Montana style. Well, as stylish as our small budget could handle. We had both her grandparents, Brad’s brother, wife, and their soon to be 1 yr old, and 5 of Clare’s gal pals over. It was way more girliness than I had bargained for. All they cared about was opening presents and eating cake, and I had a different adgenda! I’ve never seen presents opened with such furry as they all “helped” Clare see what was in the packages. I wanted to know who it was from, and what it was so I could get the appropriate thank you’s to the right person, but apparently that didn’t matter to a bunch of screaming 5 and 6 year olds. Thankfully 2 of the girls went home, and the other 3 spent the night. First of all we had to clean-up the upstairs…I had no idea we had so many toys up there! Then the girls settled in for a movie & popcorn in our bedroom upstairs so I could sit in peace and have adult conversation with Brad and my dear friend Holly that helped me keep my sanity that night. Afterwards we played some Wii, and then it was time to get ready for bed…..finally! They all brushed their teeth around the sink spitting all at once on the count of 3, and they of course had to have a pillow fight before settling down to bed. We told some not so scary stories, and then a princess story to get them to sleep. I think I only had to go back in the bedroom 5 times to get them settled down to fall asleep, oh…and I definitely crashed way before they did! The next morning they were all up at 7 am and ready to start the day, so Brad and I set to work making waffles and readying them for their day. After breakfast highlights (as well as the previous night’s highlights) included lots of girly screaming, more girly screaming, and my favorite quote “Naked Party” from when I sent them upstairs to get dressed on Sunday. I now know why my dad used to come booming into my room as a child telling all of us girls to go to sleep during sleepovers…completly.

To end our summer of fun during Labor Day weekend we went down to Elkhart, IN to celebrate Danielle’s first birthday (Brad’s brother & wife’s daughter). She was oh so cute on her big day, and did okay with her cute little individual cake (she mainly wanted to play patty cake with it)…although I think we made her cry a couple of times because there were a lot of people there. It was a nice afternoon, and we enjoyed the last bits of summer sun hanging out with family as Clare played in the sand box with some kids. We came home to finish up our lazy summer fun with some activities around town on Sunday & Monday. Nothing too big, but it was just what Clare wanted - some Wii time with her Lego Indiana Jones game. August has come and gone, and it’s hard to believe we are almost half way through September!

Happy Birthday Clare!

Published

dead headphonist

on August 17, 2008

in Annoucements and Family

. 2 Comments

Clare is six today. Everyone wish her the happiest of birthdays. We went to see Clone Wars and got some Coldstone on our way out. They have a blueberry ice cream right now that doesn’t suck. Party for the Clarester is next weekend. Tonight… if Char gets back from Chi-town in time, we’ll be heading to Clare’s favourite little Mexican joint for dinner.

Happy 1st Birthday Olivia

Published

charmaspice

on July 21, 2008

in Annoucements and Family

. 0 Comments

Current Mood: Ecstatic emoticon Ecstatic

Last Sunday we treked to my parent’s house just outside of Port Huron to celebrate our cute little neice’s 1st birthday. She had quite a turn out to help her celebrate, and it was fun to see yet another little one turn the big 1. We can’t wait to see how you’ll grow, especially now that you’re walking! Here’s Grandma with her 2 girls: Clare & Olivia.

And here’s the big Birthday Girl!

Life in the Not so Fast Lane

Published

charmaspice

on July 20, 2008

in Family

. 0 Comments

Current Mood: Bored emoticon Bored

This week has been one of the most boring weeks I can recall in a while. I really shouldn’t complain, but in the end I think I may have actually learned something about my life. I think I might actually like my daughter driving me crazy. For the past week Clare has been visiting my parents, as they didn’t get her earlier while we were on our trip (which is usually how it goes). I had a list to work on while she has been gone, have I done anything from the list….not really. I’ve spent most of my days cruising the internet, working on my Pure Romance business, and doing much of nothing because I’ve gotten side tracked a number of times. The first part of last week was heaven, I got to sleep in until I wanted to get up, I could stay on the computer for as long as I wanted, and I didn’t have anyone to bother me while I was sucked into small projects. Now, I really have little motivation to work on anything, and I found myself uttering those aweful words this afternoon “I’m bored.” Ya see, with a rambunctious almost 6 year old around I’m driven to do things I normally wouldn’t do - like go outside and throw the frisbee around, or go for a bike ride to the park, or spend some quality time cuddling on the couch watching a girly movie like “Charlotte’s Web”. I know I usually complain about having the “Mom” title sometimes, but seeing as how this summer I’ve had about 24 days without a kid in tow I’m kinda missing it. I’m kinda missing hanging out at the park, the library, or even swim lessons getting to do all the fun things that summer time brings. I can’t wait for her return on Wednesday, it’ll be nice to hear her giggles around the house again. In short I’ve learned that I shouldn’t take the little annoyances in life for granted, for some day I’ll miss them. Especially when she’s all grown up, and wants nothing to do with us because we’re icky grown-ups that aren’t hip.

It’s Like Riding a Bicycle…Right?

Published

charmaspice

on July 19, 2008

in Family and Updates

. 0 Comments

Current Mood: Bored emoticon Bored

So, some of you may have thought I’ve fallen completely off the face of the planet, when in fact - I haven’t. I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed with life and uninspired in my bloggings. I’ve been reading all of your great blogs while I’ve been on hiatus, so never fear I’m well caught up on your blogginess. I’ve actually been around the internet quite a lot, and putting most of my communications into other forms of social networking. I have just about all of the accounts a social networker uses…I’m on MySpace, I’m on Facebook, and as of late I’m on Twitter. I love Twitter, and it’s a great way to send out short micro-blogs about what I’m up to. If you’re on any of these formats feel free to look me up and add me as a friend.

Let’s see, school finished in a whirlwind the first week in June. I helped out with end of the year projects, field trips, and helped out whenever I could. Clare has officially finished Kindergarten, and will be entering the 1st grade in September. I swore I wouldn’t, but I did - I cried during the last day’s little class assembly where all the kids got awards, and we watched a little photo slide show. Now my baby is going to be in school all day, and we had the joy of shopping for her lunch sack & what not last week. Hannah Montana was the theme for everything she picked out.

A week after school got out Brad & I headed out for our road trip to CO. It was a welcomed break from life, and we had a great time. If you read Brad’s postings you’d know that already. Clare stayed with Brad’s parent’s while we were gone, and she had a blast doing all the fun things they did. While we were out in CO we did some shopping, went to Boulder, visited the Redstone Meadery, had a great afternoon walk in the Garden of the Gods, went to a Renisance Festival, and did more shopping. The trip out was a little crazy, as we had to take the South route through Missouri & Kansas to get to CO due to the flooding in Iowa, and we did it in 23 hours. On the way home we were able to take our normal Nebraska/Iowa route home which was nice. We were gone for almost 2 weeks, so it was a great break.

Next thing I knew we were celebrating the 4th of July, which we did with our friend Gabby and her kiddo’s Gwen & Finn by doing some fireworks at the end of our driveway and lots of sparklers. We let the kids stay up until about 2am….kinda having a sleep over in the living room while us adults chatted & imbibed in some drinks on the porch. The following week Clare & I did an extremely cool summer art camp. I am going to write a seperate blog on that - it was THAT cool.

Currently Clare is in the middle of spending a week & a half at my parent’s house. My parents didn’t get their time in while we were on vacation, and they wanted to get some summer fun in with her - so who am I to pass up 11 days without my kiddo! That’s the update from me. Blogging wasn’t so bad, I figured it’d be like riding a bicycle and once I get back on it it’ll be smooth riding again.

Wedding Photos : Part Two

Published

dead headphonist

on June 5, 2008

in Annoucements and Family

. 0 Comments

The second installment of wedding photos are up in the Gallery now. Some of my favorites are in this batch, including this one. I still have my shoes (and wear them once in a while… they are getting pretty worn).

Red Robin - Veggie Stylie

Published

dead headphonist

on June 4, 2008

in Family, Food and Kid-friendly

. 1 Comment

OK. The adverts have gotten me along with reading one of the blogs that I read that Red Robin has Boca patties and will make any of their burgers as veggie-friendly. So, after many many months of shunning them as “just another wasted space on a burger joint”, we gave it a shot.

It was certainly an interesting night. Apparently Wednesday is kids night (free frisbees and they play movies). That was cool. Clare was completely calm and behaved. She actually ate her dinner in a timely manner. We were informed that there is some kind of salmonella scare going on with tomatoes right now, so we were tomato-less. And they didn’t have Boca patties tonight, but they have gardenburger patties as well. Score. Veggie burgers with choice!

Beside all of that, the burgers were absolutely stellar. Since the Eastown Grille closed up, I haven’t found a place with customizable veggie burgers anywhere in town. This more than fits the bill, their toppings are tasty and fresh and the service is quick and friendly.

The fries, while good enough, would probably be rather bland without the seasoned salt that they provide on the table. The fries are big steak-cut jobs and the portion is actually reasonable (you don’t have half of Idaho on your plate like some places).

I had a BBQ burger that had thin-cut onion rings, cheddar and BBQ sauce on it and Char has a Teriyaki Burger that had Pineapple and Teriyaki sauce. Both were well received and we both agreed that this is the place for a good veggie burger. Can’t wait to try it with Boca next time. Clare like the place due to a “classic” bowling video game they had in their waiting area that she played on the way out (score : 166).