U is for "Under Autumn's Spell"

Lovely, lovely Autumn......love it!!!! Lately (although not today) the weather has been fantastic. Beautiful sunshine, warmish days but chilly nights, and the most gorgeous colors on the tree leaves around town. Let me show you..........

These were taken around the neighborhood 2 Saturdays ago on a very nice walk in the afternoon.

Matthew and his kick-ass shoes (obviously I love them!) playing in the leaves. The leaves on these trees are now completely gone since last weeks storms completely stripped them down!

And then on Sunday on my way to work....yes, this would be driving along hwy 26 at about 65 mph on my way to work! The fog in the trees was amazing.... it was also really cool coming across the Ross Island Bridge but I snapped the camera too fast. After I took the picture I had a much better view/sight but at that point there were cars and I really needed to stay in my own lane.

And more amazing displays of nature when I got to work on Sunday!

Just for Autumn's sake....this I think is still one of Matthew's (and mine too) favorite poems. It's in Caroline Kennedy's "A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children" and I think Matthew still has it memorized.

Thoughts

I love the Autumn,

And yet I cannot say

All the thoughts and things

That make me feel this way.

I love walking on the angry shore,

To watch the angry sea:

Where summer people were before,

But now there's only me.

I love wood fires at night

That have a ruddy glow.

I stare at the flames

And think of long ago.

I love the feeling down inside me

That says to run away

To come and be a gypsy

And laugh the gypsy way.

The tangy taste of apples,

The snowy mist at morn,

The wanderlust inside you

When you hear the huntsman's horn.

Nostalgia-that's the Autumn,

Dreaming through September

Just a million lovely things

I always will remember.

Jacqueline Bouvier

T is for "Tour" ...as in the Keith Urban tour of course!

So back in SEPTEMBER.... (yes I am slow but nothin' ya'll didn't know!) my girlfriends Crystal, Anne and I went to see Keith Urban in concert on Friday the 15th and then on Saturday the 16th went up to Seattle and saw him again. What fun!!!! The Portland show was so great....our seats rocked! I think we were something like 17th row on the floor and we were near enough the "runway" that he has going down the middle of the crowd on the floor that we could get right up front. Such a cool experience! The Wreckers opened the show (and I admit I knew very little of their music but they were entertaining) and I was still figuring out my camera when I took the picture of Michelle Branch and Jessica Harp.

Most of the time when Keith Urban was on there was a giant screen in the background that basically showed what was going on .....in other words it made for a trippy picture!

The next morning was a bit rough in trying to head for Seattle. We were all still quite tired and yet jazzed up for the coming evening and we also planned a little bit of shopping in between. On our way up to Seattle we stopped in Olympia to visit a mall that had a Steve and Barry's store. Since we do not have one in Portland, the point of this visit was to check out the new Sara Jessica Parker line of clothing titled Bitten. What can I say...we were girls with no children with us and felt we needed to indulge in a little fashion! Actually, the line of clothing is affordably priced although it seems what we ended up buying the most of was the accessories. Lots of earrings, cute sunglasses, etc. Then it was off to Seattle to get dressed for our evening! We stayed in downtown which was of course expensive but splitting it 3 ways helps. At this concert we didn't have as good of seats, although they weren't bad either. We just weren't down on the floor.

The amazing part of this concert was that while it was really good, it wasn't as good as the Portland show! Which really shocked me...I think I just assumed that for some reason they would either be about the same or that Seattle would be even better. I guess it was just a weird notion on my part. In Portland, the band and Keith actually played a bunch of improv stuff. Not original music but just covering some past hits of various artists. If I remember correctly, they played Billy Joel's "You May be Right", Steve Miller Band's "The Joker" with all the band members taking turns at verses, Tommy Tutone's "867-5309/Jenny, Jenny" and Violent Femmes "Blister in the Sun". Which I loved, since I was impressed that a country artist would even know who the Violent Femmes are! We got all of that on Friday in Portland and then on Saturday in Seattle we got almost none of that and about a 25 minute shorter show. But it was still all good!

Sunday morning (or very early afternoon by the time we were with it!) was for shopping and shop we did. Lots of retail in downtown Seattle and plus there was Pike Place Market. I love this place. A food lover's paradise. I could go back daily for weeks just to try all the different foods and eateries. And I had to kind of keep my purchases to a minimum, because whatever I bought I was going to have to haul around with me since we left the car at the hotel until it was time to go home. Pike Place is just amazing...even on Sunday afternoon(with typical Northwest drizzle) the place is packed full of people and food and street artists and performers. I very much enjoy the vibe there!

We didn't buy or eat anything at the "Three Girls Bakery" but we enjoyed the sign! The one very important thing to do while we were there was to visit the original Starbucks (opened in Pike Place Market in 1971). We do like Starbucks and the 3 of us girls have done quite a bit of bonding over coffee! It's actually quite different inside from all the other Starbucks, dark wood paneling and floors and very tiny. But very busy and worthy of a picture outside!

So not the best shot of me and who knows who the guy is in the pic but I did say it was crowded! :) A very lovely trip with very lovely friends....

And coffee/Starbucks makes everything better!! This is according to Zoe, Meegan's daughter who is one smart girl when she told this to her mom. I can't quite remember the exact story but I heard about it today, and now I may have to force Meegan to blog about it because it was really cute!

S is for "soccer"

Matthew is really liking soccer. I am not sure I would go so far as to say he loves it but he does seem to really be enjoying himself! At this age, soccer is rather funny to watch since the kids never seem to know which way to send the ball, nor do they seem to understand much in the way of strategy. Well, except for a few of the kids. I think Matthew enjoys just running with the kids but if I could just convince him to play chase with the ball instead of his friend Robert everytime they are in the game together....hmmmmm. All things with time I guess.

R is for "Random Thoughts"

So our regular family programming is unavailable today as Amy is about to talk about a few random things going on in life!



1) Our day here started off rather badly this morning. Matthew was already up at 6 a.m. and

just as Andy was leaving for work, he asked daddy to turn on our alarm we have for the

house. Which is fine, except that then Matthew decided he wanted to watch daddy leave

for work out on the front porch and must have opened the door at the right moment and

tripped the alarm. Like full on, intensely loud, screeching alarm and let me say now that at

this point I had been awake for all of 60 seconds previously. This isn't exactly how I like to

ease into my morning and plus it had Matthew all freaked out for awhile too. Bad, bad

morning.



2) I read something in today's A&E about a "White Trash" woman contest. Really? And why?

Do we really need to encourage such things? I guess I do see some of the humor in it, but

I also kind of think that maybe yuck in the world. Let us not add to it intentionally.



3) We had 'back to school night' last night at Matthew's school. (It's basically open house)

He did much better with it this year. Last year was really hard on him, dealing with such

a massive amount of people but this time around, he handled things fairly well. He didn't

seem so "lost" and found some of his friends rather quickly and played on the playground.

Last year, he spent most of his time wandering and didn't quite know what to do with

himself so this year seemed to be a big improvement.



4) Why are people who are perfectly normal drivers on the road, become complete idiots in a

parking lot? Who knows, maybe they are idiots on the road too but a parking lot shouldn't

be difficult! The other night at the grocery store, someones car was getting towed out of

the parking lot and in order for me to get out, I was going to have to back all the way out

since I couldn't get around the tow truck. It all seemed pretty clear to me but apparently

to the guy this whipped in behind me and wouldn't move because he wanted my parking

spot. (the parking lot wasn't very crowded at this point either!) So I had to go forward,

past my parking spot but still stuck behind the tow truck until he pulled into my old spot.

THEN I could back all the way out. (Insert expletive) The kicker was when he got out

of his car he looked rather sheepish and ducked into the store. Yeah.....idiot.



5) Mason has the best belly laugh!!! The other night he was joking around with Andy with some
story they were reading and I swear...if he gets going with the deep belly laugh you can't help
but laugh too! One of these days I will actually have the camera handy when it happens and
take a movie of it but until then....believe me. It's great!

6) And damn it....I obviously need to learn some basic computer coding because this blog is really pissing me off!!!! Seems like I can't get the font to ever stay, the line breaks where I need them, and nothing (lately) seems to post as it looks when I preview it! argghhhh.....

Q is for "Quorn"

So I honestly thought that coming up with a "Q" would be difficult but wouldn't you know it....I decided to try Quorn's fake chicken the other day! :) I am obviously not vegetarian, but am open to all sorts of food and had heard about Quorn from my friend Diane (who is vegetarian) so I decided it was time to try something new. I must admit, the chicken cutlets were actually pretty good. I would love to buy them again and do like a grilled chicken salad or maybe some fajitas with them. When I made them, I didn't bother telling Andy that they were fake chicken and he thought they were pretty good. (I had marinated them with some teriyaki sauce) So he was pleasantly surprised too....now I am not saying we are going vegetarian but I do like having other options too. (I swear I can hear my family breathing a sigh of relief!) But I so enjoy a new food adventure.... I'm sure I will be having more adventures soon! ;)

O and P are for "Otter and Penguin"

Boy, I bet you think I am never going to finish this damn alphabet. I have actually had that thought too....but I am determined so I can get on with blogging about other things as well! ;) Anyway, over the summer the boys took swimming lessons and I mean we went every day! It was good for them though, and the routine was oh so helpful in keeping Matthew's (and my) sanity!! Matthew started out in the "Penguin" class (a beginner class) and I was wondering if he would ever make it out of that class since he just couldn't grasp the concept of kicking! His legs were bent too much and he wouldn't go anywhere and honestly, I must say, it about drove me nuts! He did (finally!!) get it just before the last session so that he could move on up to the "Otter" class. I don't think of myself as a competitive mom but it just got ridiculous after awhile when he had all the other skills to move up but (and was on the verge of boredom) couldn't get the kicking thing down. Which I admit, kind of is important! Thank goodness he had a couple of really good instructors who kept him busy learning other things as well and he ended up loving the summer and being in the pool everyday.

Now it may sound like I am ignoring Mason in all this but he took swimming all summer too. And can I just say....duck???? As in, he is one! It took all of about 3 seconds for him to be in the pool and that was that and of he went. Loves the water, loves swimming, loves learning new skills, loves flirting with his teachers. He managed to have all female teachers and I think he mostly enjoyed charming them.

Our swimming lessons also included the walk up to the pool and back so I do have to add a couple of pictures about that. For those who don't know, around Portland there are still tons of old horse rings along some of the streets. Supposedly to be used for tying up horses in the days before cars is the idea.... or so I am told. I also believe there was an article in The Oregonian newspaper about this subject along with people who have taken up tying little plastic horses to these old rings. Now, obviously I didn't read this particular article well and I think it was awhile back when it was in the paper so I apologize now if I don't have any of my facts straight. But on our walks up to the pool, there are some of these horse rings in the neighborhood and someone has ties up a few plastic horses. Which my children found absolutely fascinating!
We had to stop by them each trip (both going and coming, thank you) and talk to them and since they often had fallen on their sides.....we had to set them upright. The boys really want to get some of their own horses (and they have never been interested in horses until this) and tie them up around town. I see a shopping trip in my future! ;)

N is for "New Seasons"

My favorite grocery store!!! Honestly, I actually enjoy going to the grocery store when I hit up New Seasons. Tons of organic produce and other organic/natural products but also things that aren't "organic" and they don't make you feel like a total heel if you aren't being a totally perfect organic snob. I can buy my free range eggs and still pick up some Diet Coke in the same trip, although the coke may cost me more here than it might at a regular grocery store. But sometimes I just don't want to make two trips! The deli section always has something divine looking....not to mention the dessert/bakery area!! There always seems to be some sort of tasting or sampling of something and my kids enjoy taste testing too, which they are extremely kid friendly/tolerant.

Not only do I really enjoy shopping for groceries but they have a very helpful wellness area. This was great for when I slipped down the front stairs at my house back in December (there was ice on the stairs and we were on our way to a Christmas party!) and I asked about what to do for the massive bruise on my backside. The lady there was very helpful (Arnica gel is a godsend!) and I needed all the help I could get at that time in particular.

One of my other favorite things about this store is that I always seem to find a gift in their "gifty" or housewares section. I swear, everytime I look I can either find several things I want for me or I find some appropriate gift for a friend or family member. Nothing like the "perfect" find for somebody else to put me in a good mood! ;)

M is for "Music"

Ok...I know I have neglected the blog lately! The last week of summer vacation became extremely busy and then school started and we are still getting used to new schedules! That will have to wait until the next post. I will finish the alphabet (I swear I will) but it may take me a little while since there will be other things to talk about in between. But for the moment....

Music....since my favorite friend lately is my Ipod (and I don't even have a cool and updated version yet like Meegan!) I think I will take some of my musical tastes from what I have downloaded. Meegan did a wonderful post on her workout/what gets her moving music and I rather like that idea. Besides, my Ipod really is divided up into different playlists such as workout music, what my kids call "kitchen music" which is what I listen to while I'm cooking/cleaning, (which takes much of it's inspiration from Sirius channel 22), and chill out time music. Since I loved Meegan's post so much I am putting up a fairly current list of my favorite tunes that I listen to when out on my walks in the very early a.m. Or at least it's early to me....my mom scoffs at my notion of early! ;)

1) "Juicy" Better than Ezra-- A good song to wake up to and to get movin'!
2) "Desire" Gene loves Jezebal--Oh reminds me of my youth
3) "Pon de Replay" Rhinna--Music that forces your legs to move, no matter how tired
4) "You can Do it" No Doubt-- Love No Doubt...saw them in concert...love them!
5) "Holiday" Green Day--modern, punkish, rebellious, love it!
6) "The Cup of Life" Ricky Martin--what can I say, this was meant to make you move your
body!
7) "Add it Up" Violent Femmes--Actually Andy was really into this when I first met him...
reminds me a lot of that time period!
8) "Marked" Bad Religion-- So love them, they rock fast and hard...just like I like it! ;)
9) "Dearly Beloved" Bad Religion--from their new album, rocks just as much as their older
stuff....plus they always seem to lay their feelings out on the line
10) "52 Girls" B-52's---oh another band from younger days that i love!
11) "I Dream Myself Alive" A-Ha-- cheesy but I still like them!
12) "Sing, Sing, Sing" The American Patrol-- love big band stuff....makes me want to dance
again!
13) "This is Not a Love Song" Public Image Ltd-- This song is like a moving sidewalk, I can
totally wiped out and I swear this one will carry me home! :)
14) "Tonite" The Go-Go's-- they were secretly very naughty girls, who knew?! ( I watched
some program on VH1 I think and was quite shocked!)
15) "Live and Let Die" Guns and Roses-- Who knew they could do such a rockin' cover of
this song? Plus, it's good for pushing some intervals!
16) "Angels on the Balcony" Blondie-- I worshipped Deborah Harry as a youth...still love the
music too!
17) "Throw Away Your Television" Red Hot Chili Peppers-- I admit, I came to like them
rather late in the game but boy....love em now!
18) "Do It" Dead or Alive-- club music from years past but still classic!

Probably enough for now....I could go on and on and talk about my entire list of music but for now this is it! I didn't provide links to any of these because I am just not as good as Sarah and don't really have the patience for it today. Besides, tonight we are juggling soccer practice with a preschool meeting and various other stuff for the weekend and I really should be cooking dinner right now!