Feb 14th/220

Valentine's Day which we spent at 49 Degrees North running the Sheimo Cup Race which is a fund raiser for our team as well as a fun memorial race. The racers love it because they get to race their friends and parents. My oldest daughter took first in her category!

Feb 13th/221

This is our family wall in the little hall of our house. I love to walk by this wall and see the girls and see how much they have changed over the years.

Feb 12th/222

This was an afternoon of basketball at my daughter's last basketball game. She is number 47. Unfortunately, they didn't win this time.

Jan 26th/339

My middle daughter answers the main switchboard where I work and where she goes to school. It isn't a job that she wants to do for life as she has learned over the last eight months. Good thing her career goal is really to be a physician's assistant. Switchboard operator is a good college job though as she gets to study, play on the internet, watch movies on slow days and gets paid. It is just a bit boring and somewhat isolated I have to admit. Everyone needs that job sometime in their lives that helps them figure out what they never ever want to do as life career. The college job I had that made me decide that I needed to finish college was at a mushroom farm picking mushrooms. Manual labor-YUCK!
Pentax Optio10, automatic

Jan 19th Photo/346

Jan 19th was the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Holiday. President-Elect Obama deemed it a national day of service. My daughter did her service at home. She was cleaning up our very nasty rental house so she and two of her college friends can move into it ASAP. This is a picture of her priming the bathroom so she can paint it. She was able to wash the floors, all of the walls and prime the basement and part of the upstairs. She really made headway over the weekend!

Jan 17th Photo/348

The 17th was race picture day which is always crazy. Nothing like trying to get 40 kids to stand still. I remember what it was like when I was teaching full-time and we had to line up wild kindergarteners. I decided to snap this great picture of the cousins who ski together while they were waiting for the rest of their team.

Pentax Optio Z10, auto

Jan 15th 2009 Photo/350

Two things that make me happy other than my family: Facebook & Starbucks Coffee! All can be quite addicting!

I like Facebook because it allows me to stay in touch with my college-aged daughters who although they go to the same university where I work, I don't get to see everyday. FB is great as I can see pictures the girls have posted and we can write little notes to one another. I can also stay in touch with some of my past students, employees and friends. It has been great to catch up with people I haven't seen in ages. It truly is replacing the emails I used to get from friends and family.

I like Starbucks Coffee because it just makes me feel good inside. My favorite drink is a Non-fat Sugar-free Vanilla Caramel Macchiato. It is ultimate comfort for me. Nothing like a warm cup of coffee with milk and caramel that is infused into the drink which sinks to the bottom of the cup so that the very last sip gives one an amazing burst of warm caramel.

Today I posted my status on my Facebook as the follows: "Judy wants to go shopping and have a Starbucks!" With that, the most amazing thing happened. My middle daughter called me on her way to SBs and asked me what kind of coffee I wanted and then brought one to me at work. It was such a nice surprise and a great middle of the day pick me up. I really needed it! I am truly blessed to have such thoughtful kidos.
Pentax Optio Z10, without flash

Jan 11th Photo/354

On Jan 11th, we decided not to go skiing. We all had a lot of other things to do so we took the day off. My husband worked on the camp trailer, readying it for a ski race in a couple of weeks while the girls and I went shopping for snow boots and supplies.

Overall, shopping in general proved to be quite difficult considering all of the snow we have had in the last few weeks. Not only were snow boots next to impossible to find, but Costco was a mad house. People were everywhere and acted like they were stocking up for the next snowstorm. Apparently it was the first good weekend out and people were out of supplies and going to get what they could while they could. Some people had more than one cart. The lines were all open and the lines were a couple aisles back in the store. Maybe it was a ploy to get me into the candy aisles so I would buy more. Who knows, but it was busy so my daughter and I thought a picture of the Costco parking lot would be the best picture to represent the day.

Canon Rebel EOS XT, auto

Jan 7th Photo/358

Jan 7th my daughter hit the wall and asked if she could come to work with me. In my office, I have a little love seat. She cranked up the tunes, crawled behind the love seat and took a little nap. She actually spent most of her day there resting, reading and on the computer. People would come into my office and hear noises and wonder if the roof was starting to fall in as many building in town had been experiencing structural issues due to the weight of the snow. I had to explain to them that it was my daughter. I am blessed that my supervisor allowed her to be here.

Canon Rebel EOS XT, auto