Hey Everyone, it’s now the middle of December and so much has happened this month, November seems so long ago, but here goes anyway.
We started the month of with what can only be described as an Angels weekend. Bruce unwrapped and I stickered over the course of the weekend about 4500 angels. We had the little sweatshop going, he was on the dining room table and I set up camp by bringing the small kitchen table in a sitting in front of the TV with all my stickers…. Conner decided that he wanted to retire from Angels, so that didn’t help, he will come out of retirement when he wants to buy something.
The first week of the month was a kind of exciting one for everyone here, we had US Election day and got to be a part of watching the country elect their first black president. It was nice that the campaign was over, but the man can deliver a speech.
It was a good night, we were at Paula’s and we all sat in front of the TV and watched his speech. It’s just another once in a lifetime experience for our little family on our US adventure. We finished out the week with Conner finishing up his school football team party and Jamieson had a field trip at school. A couple of weeks later Jamieson’s teacher would give him a good citizen award. Apparently there was one of the special needs kids on the field trip that he sat with while he had his lunch and made sure he was sitting along beside him until he was fine. We were really proud of him and so was Mrs Sack, as was Jamieson who got to stand up at assembly in front of the whole school.
Our weekend was a busy one. It was Peter’s 1 year anniversary on Saturday so we kept him (Bruce) nice and busy. We had photos for basketball around lunchtime, then mid afternoon Conner’s team had a practice match to give the referee’s at the center assessment time. They (CJ’s team)did far too well, the game ended early as they were 30 points up…Conner enjoyed himself naturally, everyone loves to win. We finished up at the basketball and went over to the Rivera’s for a catch up and to meet (finally) their friends (The Thompson’s) from Sydney. They are the parents of one of the Andrews who were over visiting last year. Graham and Kathy, great people and it was nice, as always to hear the accent. The boys spent a quiet Sunday at home and I went out with Paula and her mum (Doris) who was over visiting from Ohio. We went over to the Mall, had a nice lunch just us girls and did a little shopping, which was fun; Paula and I always find some good bargains especially at Macy’s. We made our way home and all the boys were at the house and had some dinner and caught up with Doris and Pat. It was a nice night and good to see them again.
The month continues on, work for me is still cleaning up after the other employees, which is never fun, especially when you keep finding things…. Paula and I did a little strategic planning which always clears the head a little. Angels are still ticking along, we are in the process of translation into Spanish for the new range of Angels which will be sold across California and Texas mainly. The boys are doing fine at school, I’m in the classrooms each week, which helps with the teacher relationships and have apparently become known for how quick I am on the tasks. I suppose I should take that as a compliment or it means that other mothers so just really slow!!
On the weekend, we finally finished the angels orders (Our first 12 Border’s bookstores and some UPS stores around the country), thank goodness!!! The boys had their first basketball games. Jamieson’s team lost by 3 which was a bummer, but they are still getting used to each other, I think they will probably 4-4 this season. Conner’s team, well, they won by goodness knows how many! We spent Sunday cleaning, baking and gardening. Conner went off to a birthday party, when Bruce came to get him he got upset because he didn’t want to go, always a sign of a good time. I rang home to say Happy Birthday to mum. She was the big 60, I called on Saturday, but she was out enjoying her day. I got the bonus of talking to mum and the Godmother ‘Tracey’ which was really cool. I got the home goss and an hour and a half later hung up the phone.
Our next week consisted of Conner having try outs for the school basketball team every afternoon after school, as the weather is getting colder and darker early Bruce or I had to be at school around 5.30 to pick him up, which makes it tricky considering that usually when we are heading home from my office, but we made it work, a little adjustment here and there. Jamieson had some play dates, so there was a couple of you go that way and I’ll go that way, which I suppose we should start getting used to. Conner made the team, which wasn’t a surprise to him he said, not sure how I feel about that…is it confidence or cockiness??? We’ll see!!
I had a busy week at work, we had a big deadline, long days. We had a lot of sickness through the office in November, which didn’t help with the deadlines we had. Our General Plan, Draft EIR were due. I did a couple long nights, but it’s deadlines. Friday was a long day, but I got it all done, thank goodness.
We had a huge basketball weekend…it started on the Saturday morning; we had the pleasure of going to watch Julian play a CYBL game. (CYBL is another league other than Jnr NBA, which Conner has been asking to play and we have heard no good reports about) Let’s just say, it’s a different breed of parent….and leave it to your imagination. Well, the rest of the story will let you know. It was the end of the game and Julian’s team were up by 3, the referee made a call that could have gone either way and off they went. One parent was ejected, another was asked to get off the court, (yes you heard me) then they were just about to get back to the game and the other coach lost the plot and told all his kids to get off the court and leave!! Yep, we couldn’t believe what we were witnessing; I’ve never seen anything like it. To their credit, some of the parents bought their kids back into the stadium to shake hands. The good thing that came from it was, Conner looked at me while all this was going on “I don’t want to play here’, thank goodness!!
Bruce got a call from an old teammate, Dale Ryan who was staying up in Moraga with David Patrick (St Mary’s assistant coach) and we organized to go and see their game for Sunday and have an Aussie dinner after, which was going to be fun.
Jamieson went off to have an early Thanksgiving Lunch with Julian, Greg and Ruthy. Conner, Bruce and I got into the car, and went home for a little bit, then up to the stadium to watch Justin and Jeremy’s basketball, then watched Jordan’s team and Jamieson’ arrived for his game and finished up the day with Conner’s game. By the time that was all finished it was late, so we got some American fish n chips, which the boys had been asking for, so that made them happy. What a day!!!
On Sunday we made our way down the freeway towards San Fran and just before Vallejo, turned left and down towards San Jose then off to Moraga. It’s a gorgeous little place in the hills. We were driving on these narrow roads in the hills saying, ‘There’s no way there’s a school in these hills’, then there it was, smaller than I thought, but a gorgeous school, beautiful white buildings. We arrived and Dale was there already, I met David while he was darting around before the game, nice guy. We took our really cool front row seats and watched the game. St Mary’s has 5 Australian guys, including Patrick Mills, what a great player to watch play. Adam Quick, one of Bruce’s guys that he used to coach ITC (individual & Elite coaching) with was there with his wife, they live in San Jose now, so it was a real Australian day. After game we met a couple of the guys, Conner got his picture taken with Patrick and he ended up coming out to dinner with us, which made Conner’s night.
We ended up at a little restaurant in Lafayette, talked a lot of Australian basketball, what we are doing here etc, etc, but mostly Australian basketball. It was a good night and the boys had a fun time, especially the big boy. He enjoyed seeing old friends and meeting the young guys. It was a late trip home, but it was worth it, we all had a great day.
Thanksgiving week was upon us, which means the boys are about to go off track until January, that’s the long holiday. I did double duty at parent helping for both teachers, cause they were going off track and needed some help before they finished up.
The boys went off track on Tuesday; the rest of the school went off for the Thanksgiving break. Paula and her boys went to Daytona for the week, Bruce dropped them off at the airport on Monday morning and they are coming back on the weekend. We had a few loose ends from the General Plan/ EIR to finish up, which we got done and we were out of the office at lunchtime on Wednesday, yeay!!!
We spent our Thanksgiving Day at the Rivera’s, Kristie and Carlos made a beautiful meal and we all sat together and had a great afternoon and evening. We went over to the park and the kids ran around and played and the parents froze their butts off. The boys ended up staying at Jeff’s (Rivera’s friends) with the other kids, so they all left and Kristie, Carlos and Bruce and I had a cup of tea watched a movie, then Bruce and I went home to an empty house…so weird!! The only catch was, the car didn’t start, cause we didn’t want to deal with it at 11.00pm at night; we drove the Rivera’s car home. Bummed about the car!
Bruce didn’t go the Black Friday sales this year, nothing we wanted was on big sale, so we decided to sleep. Bruce picked the boys up the next morning and we had a quiet day at home, I did a little tidying up and relaxing. I went out to the sales for a little bit, nothing that I wanted. We ended up going back to the Rivera’s for Turkey pit pie dinner with Carlos, Graham (Australia), Jeff and another friend from United that stays at the Graham’s place in Sydney sometimes too. We called Lizzy for her belated birthday call, sorry Liz! Bloody deadlines will do that!!, that’s my excuse anyway.
Bruce spent the next few days with the mechanic, which was very interesting…. turns out that it was just the fact that there wasn’t a fuse where there should’ve been, go figure. What a crappy way to finish the month and also didn’t help the stress levels, praying it’ll be fixed to drive the San Fran airport for our trip to New York, thank goodness it was.
Hope you all had a great November. Happy Birthday Mum and Liz. It’s getting cold here, all the boots and coats are out.
Thanksgiving at the park...
