Knott's Berry Farm and Uncle Pavel

Our first family trip to an amusement park happened last weekend.  This was really my Christmas gift to my family (since I am a horrible gift buyer).
Even though the trip was short, it was packed with fun and family adventure times.  My uncle Pavel, is always so kind to let us stay with him.  It's been over 2 years since we've seen him and his family.  His daughter Athena is now 6 1/2yrs old and she loved playing with Patrick and Maggie.  And they loved playing with her.  When we arrived at their home, I said to my kids: this is Uncle Pavel's house.  They thought it was Uncle E. I think they understood that the only thing Uncle Pavel and E have in common is their mysterious nature.

At this age my kids were limited at what rides they can go on.  There were a couple of 'exciting' train rides where some outlaws asked us for our money and pointed a gun at us.

We went on a water ride, Timber Mountain Log ride where Patrick sat in front, in between my father's legs, I was right behind them with Maggie sqeezed between me and David.  This is a fun ride, but at one point there is darkness for a few moments, you feel water falling on you and a slight fall that gives you that weighless feeling.  We didn't get too soaked, but I think Patrick was bit scared and cautious after this.  He was more observant and selective about which ride he goes on.

Maggie was my little tomboy girl.  She actually makes me remember that I was somewhat of a tomboy myself, although I never thought of myself that way.  But she was eager and energetic and leading us to the next ride.  "Come on guys, lets go", I heard her say this a few times.  She acted fearless, but she did have that scared look on her face and got glued to me when we went on Lucy's Tugboat ride.  This ride actually made me little nauseated, but I had to stay calm and tough for my little girl.

Off course, the bumper cars were a must, but my little Maggie was too small to go on it, even riding with me.  She was pretty upset about this part and I had to trick her into cheering for Patrick, David and my dad.  I told her we have to be the cheerleaders as we were leaning on the wall, watching them and trying to take a few pictures.

Here they are, David and Patrick, and my dad behind.  Actually at one point during this ride, Patrick took his safety arm belts, and the whole ride stopped.  Some 30+ bumper car drivers were looking at eachother, as the attendant came to David and Patrick's car and asked Patrick to put back his safety belt.  Ah my boy....




Being at an amusement park with kids, limits the adults from going on big-scary-loopy-upside-down rides.  My dad and David went on the Ghostrider, which they reported to be bit scary.  I went on the WindSeeker ride twice, once with my dad, and then once with David.  This was quite fun, you could see the entire Orange County area.  It felt good, like a flying bird, it felt free and just beautiful.  My dad and I went on another roller coaster, the Jaguar and David and I were going to try the Sierra Sidewinder, but the line was long and moving slow, so we gave up.

We ended the day with all of us riding on the Merry-Go-Round.

Then we drove back at Uncle Pavel's house, tired from the long day of fun.  Patrick however was ready to still play with Athena.  And she was ready and waiting to play with Patrick as well.  The next day when we left they were sad.  Athena was sad to have her cousins leave.  And now as I am writing this, I realize that the two opportunities the kids got to play together was at night and I didn't take a single picture of them together.  What is wrong with me?!  I guess I will have to go back to Palm Springs and visit my Uncle Pavel again.

When you can't get snow for a snowball fight, pine cones will do the trick

My kids have never seen snow in their lives.  But I noticed that there must be something instinctive about snowball fights because my kids are doing it with pine cones.  We picked up a whole bag of them few weeks ago at the park across the street.  The kids wanted them, and refused to go home without them, so what a heck, I gave them a bag, packed them and thought I may get a chance to make something Christmasy with them.  Well I didn't.  So I dumped the entire bag in my desert landscaped front yard.
The kids divided them and Maggie had a bunch on one of the chairs in the front patio.  As I was sitting and enjoying a morning coffee one day, and they were riding their bicycles, I noticed they were throwing the pine cones at eachother.  Fortunately they can't throw far, so they never hit eachother with the pine cones, otherwise I am sure I'd be labeled an awful mother by neighbors and passerbys.  Half of these pine cones ended up on the driveway.

And here is Maggie, trying to charge at Patrick on the other side of the yard.

And Patrick hiding at the side of the house and picking up some pine cones, stocking his ammo bunker.

The Whole World Celebrates My Son's Birthday

It's no joke, he is that special, because his birthday is on New Year's Day.  I was due on the 31st December.  And my husband really wanted him to be born on the 31st.  Something about a tax break (read my wedding post).  So few days before my due date he made me walk a lot, but nothing happened.  Then he went to a health food store to buy a natural labor inducer, Blue Kohosh.  The lady that worked there wouldn't sell it to him because we didn't have a doula and we weren't going to have the baby at home.  The next day my husband made me go to the health food store.  The same woman was working and she had her suspicions about me. She asked if my husband had come the day before.  I couldn't lie to her.  She gave me this advice: in few days it's going to be a full moon and that always helps with labor and delivery.
For real?  She did look very hippie. 
My husband wouldn't give up and went to a completely different store and just purchased the darn 'potion'.  He put a few drops in my drink earlier in the day on the 31st.  Other than it being so gross, nothing else happened.  Then later he put it in a glass of water.  This was a whole lot more gross than the first time.  But still nothing happened.  It wasn't until sometimes after midnight and the new year had already arrived when I started not feeling right and started bleeding and eventually decided that it was time to go to the hospital.
My son was born at 11:26am on January 1.  Ha ha.......I love how life can be funny like that.

Happy Birthday my son, you are 5 today.

The bird with the green feet

A few days ago we were hanging out by a park with a lake.  The lake had a lots of ducks that were delighted to come out of the water and snack on some saltine crackers that another mom with a kid had brought.  As these ducks were walking around us with no fear, I noticed a non-duck, but I couldn't really tell what this bird was.  He sure swam like a duck, and had he not come out, I would have not noticed his non-duckness.  He had the weirdest feet, suited for swimming for sure with the skin flaps in between his bird toes.  But this bird had green feet, and I tried to capture these strange green feet of his/hers because they were almost fluorescent green.
What is he/her?  Do you know?

This is the closest I could get to this bird without scaring him, so I know it's not the best photo here, but come on your bird watchers out there, help me identify this sneaky bird.
Apart from bird watching, I also was trying to watch these two from falling into the lake.

Black and white

I probably will never be as good a photographer as my husband, but thanks to advanced technology I can be a good fake.  My cell phone has a pretty good camera that I can add different effects to it, and occasionally I like to mess with the black and white stuff. 


I don't often dream in black and white, but these couple of pictures I took of my children remind me of something I would see in my dreams.



And then here I was trying to be Ansel Adams.  You can laugh, it's ok.

Grass Angels

It's hard to think that my kids have never seen snow falling.  It should not be so surprising to me, we live in the desert after all.  This week I went to my son's school to help out in the classroom and they were playing with fake snow.  It was strange, it felt like styrofoam, but it was wet and it wasn't melting at the normal rate that real snow would melt.  I am not sure how I feel about it all.  Growing up winter was one of the funnest seasons.  I remember building forts, having snow ball fights and all the usual snow games kids play.  I also love skiing.  I love a lot of things about winter, except the shoveling snow part and the really really cold days.  So I do feel lucky that I don't live in a place that I'd have to see the real face of winter.  But my poor kids....
Here they are making grass angels, instead of snow angels.

Pima Park

One of my favorite parks in Phoenix east valley area is Pima park.  Although I don't go there very often anymore.  It's in Mesa and it was close and convenient when we first moved here and lived in an apartment complex.  I used to take my dog Mulder there.

I think it used to be David's favorite too.  The park is really a field walled out from Hwy 60 on one side.  The other side borders a neighborhood.  The only way to access it is by taking a dead end street that meets an alley way. Unless you knew where you are going, you won't even find it.  It's always pretty quiet.  That's probably what attracts me to it.  It's quiet, although you can see the highway traffic zooming by.  It gives you this feel that you are inside a snowglobe, shielded and protected from the rest of the world, but you can still see the busy world going about its business.

And today we went there.  The last time I remember visiting this park was in the midst of summer about 2 years ago.  At the end of that visit, my car battery was dead, and I had not taken my cell phone.  I was stuck with Patrick and Maggie.  If it wasn't for some couple in love, who decided to come by and have their lunch in the park, who knows how long I would have been there.  I used their cell phone to call a tow truck.

But today it was ok, no dead battery.  Just us, and at some point a guy with his two dogs, then a loose dog, and then at the end two more loose dogs.  I tried to take some action shots of my babies.

And also pictures of some cactus.  I think this is prickly pear cactus.  It's supposedly edible, although I have no clue how to prepare it. 

And the sky was epic.  With a cloud here and there.

There was some wrestling going on as well.

But also some loving and hugging.

And more running.

You've been married how long?

Well, 10 years, that's right.  I can say 'wow, where did the time go?'.  So here is where it went:
THE WAY WE MET:
I met David when I lived in Omaha.  I happened to visit a gallery one night where one of my friends had her work displayed.  David had his work there too and he also happened to be there that night.  He casually mentioned something to the mutual friend about me.  It took some time after this for us to actually meet.  When I finally got introduced to David it was at a bar/restaurant in Dundee area.  I had just gotten off work from my library job at the college and was invited to stop by at this bar.  David was sitting on top of a speaker when I met him and he's been drinking because he was nervous to meet me.  He said to me that he would like to take photos of me.  This was quite new to me and perhaps a bit unusual, so I said: that's fine, but I don't do nudes.
At first I wasn't really interested in dating David, or anyone for that matter.  It was too much work, too much drama, too much heartbreak.  But for some reason he wouldn't give up.  I decided that this much determination deserves a chance, so.........we dated.
MARRIAGE:
About a year later we went on a road trip to the southwest.  Our final destination was Las Vegas, where we were going to meet my uncle Pavel.  It was around Thanksgiving and we were in Tempe, AZ when David asked me if I would like to share my life with him.  We got married the day after Christmas.  It was the only slot the courthouse had opened before the end of the year.  And there is something about getting a tax break as a married couple for the entire year.  I am glad you agree with us.  And really there was no point to wait.  I still don't understand couples who are engaged forever.  What's the big deal?  He asked, you said yes, take a trip to the courthouse.  I guess I understand a little bit, because wedding time is supposed to be the one time in a woman's life when she does actually feel like a princess.  It's every woman's dream, come on, admit it.  But all the fuss and glitz over this one day, it's not my cup of tea.  Sure I want to feel like princess, but I did enjoy the minimal stress of my farmhouse wedding. 

Shortly after we got married we moved to Arizona.  This is where David had gone to college some years earlier and really loved the desert and wanted to move.  I must admit it was very very hard to leave my family.  And it was hard on my family too, especially my mom.  But here we are, still in Arizona almost 10 years later.

 And still married.  And marriage is a lot of hard work, and sometimes drama, and an occasional heartbreak, but then so is life.

Reading Your Fortune

Today I received a set of cups with saucers for Turkish coffee from Terri.  This in turn reminded me of one of the favorite past times in my native country: reading your fortune on coffee grounds.  I am sure you are immediately thinking of gypsies.  Although there is a large gypsy, Roma, population in my country, this reading fortune business is not exclusive to them.  It's in every household.  Sometimes three times a day.  Excessive?  Well, at this point you probably should not trust my observations, because I have not been or lived in Macedonia in the last 16 years.  But I still occasionally engage in reading my fortune simply out of boredom.
       
The set from Terri.


Menagerie of cups I own for Turkish Coffe.
.
I am not exactly sure of the moment I started drinking coffee, but it was probably in my teens when I started having 'crushes' on boys.  My fortune had to be read, don't you get it, just to make sure that all is well with my 'crush'.
I never believed in the fortune lies I was told, but it was fun to do.  I don't even think that anything I was ever told came true even by a mere chance.  But then there were no professionals reading my fortune, just my girlfriends.  Some of them were known to be very good fortune readers.  I tried to learn, but I really wasn't good at it.  Probably because I am a terrible liar.  At my bachelorette party over 10 years ago someone even gave me a book on fortune reading, specifically on coffee grounds.


When I was young I was not allowed to drink coffee (but I could drink beer, and I got drunk at age 4.  More about this in a different post).  There was actually a myth to scare off young kids from drinking coffee.  It was said that a young person who drinks coffee or tastes the coffee grounds left on the bottom of the cup after the liquid is gone (Turkish coffee is not filtered) will grow a tail.  Yes, precisely, a tail on your butt.  On days where I'd sneak a sip or a taste of the grounds, I'd go to bed at night feeling my behind for any tail growth.  It was such a relief when I wouldn't feel any traces of a tail growing.

This Season

Mend a qarrel
Seek out a forgotten friend
Write a love letter.  Share some treasure.  Give a
soft answer.  Encourage youth.
Keep a promise.  Find the time.
Forgive an enemy.  Listen.
Apologize if you were wrong.
Think first of someone else.
Be kind and gentle.
Laugh a little.  Laugh a little more.
Express your gratitude.  Gladden
the heart of a child.  Take pleasure
in the beauty and wonder of the earth.
Speak your love.  Speak it again.
Speak it still once again.

My Uncle Pavel

The first time I met my uncle Pavel I was about 13 and lived in Macedonia.  My uncle Pavel was one of those mysterious relatives that we all knew existed, but no one has seen him for ages.  He lived in the USA and at that time when I first met him, he hasn't been to his homeland in over 20 years.
Now if you ask my uncle Pavel about his homeland, he won't say it's Macedonia.  He'd say it's Czech Republic.  That's where he was born.  But if you ask him if he is Czech, he'd tell you that he is Greek.  I told you he was mysterious.  With a last name of Lavdakopulos, he can pass for a Greek, although he can hardly speak Greek.  He has been mistaken for being a Cuban, yeah...a Cuban.

Whenever I visit my uncle Pavel, there isn't a dull moment.  At age 60, he has a 7 year old daughter, still does Iron Man races and always has a funny story to tell you that makes you laugh so hard, your stomach hurts and your eyes are in tears.  All the while he is serious telling you his crazy story.  He is a mad, mad Greek.
I haven't seen my uncle Pavel in almost 2 years, even though he lives in southern California, only about 6 hour drive from me.
Here is a picture of him and I from about 5 years ago.