I had one of the best mother's day ever this year. Michael threw our door open and turned on the lights, just like he does every morning, at exactly 7:20 A.M. He's more reliable than our alarm clock. Dan hopped right up and took him downstairs, turned off the light, and then I fell back asleep. An hour later, all three came in with breakfast of french toast, scrambled eggs, fresh strawberries, and grapefruit juice. I ate my breakfast, then went back to bed. AHHH.....SO nice. It would have been great if that's all I got.

But, I finally woke up, took a long shower, and then got ready to go to the rhododendron garden here in Portland. We've gone the last three years around mother's day...but this year it was exceptionally beautiful. I told Dan I wanted lots of pictures...with ME in them. :) Here are some of the better ones. The first three crack me up...just because of Michael's smile. Do NOT ask Michael to smile, or this is what you'll get.



Chelsea and Michael really liked the ducks. We told them we were going to feed them, but when we arrived to the garden, there was a big sign that said "Please no bread!" Sometimes they will sell bags of seeds for the ducks, but they were all out. So, Chelsea and Michael kept throwing rocks and leaves into the ponds, but couldn't understand why the ducks weren't eating their "food."




Chelsea wanted to get into the photography action, so we let her take a few pictures. She did a great job...I think she's got the knack for this picture stuff.


Lately, Michael has been asking to hold my hand! I LOVE it. It's not often that he'll let me hold his hand, so I'm taking advantage of every moment that he'll let me.


The flowers were gorgeous and the sun peaked through the cloud a few times to make the garden extra beautiful. Here are some pictures of our favorite rhodi's.






I love being a mom, even though it gets hard sometimes. I'm so grateful for my family. They are the most important things in my life.

I'm also so lucky for both of MY mothers. Each of them has influenced my life so much and I love them so much. I miss my mom so much but am so grateful for phones and the internet to help close the distance between Portland and Texas. I'm also so grateful for Dan's mom, who always makes me feel at home and part of the family. I couldn't ask for greater parents. Happy Mother's day!

Trying to stay little....

I've finally come to the realization that my baby boy is no longer a baby...and is probably way past the age when he can be taking showers with mom. I don't feel I've ever encouraged him, but I rarely get a shower before Dan leaves...so I usually have to when Michael is awake. I try to preoccupy him with a movie or a toy, but he's not easily entertained..unless it is with food or dirt. For this reason, I have to leave the bathroom door propped open so I can hear if disaster strikes while I race through my shower. I usually don't even notice he's in the bathroom until he asks for help to get his shirt off..the rest of him already completely naked.

So, what am I supposed to do? Say no and accept the risk of having a disgusting accident happen on my carpet? NO WAY. So, I plop in the tub while I quickly finish showering...get dressed, get him dressed...and of course..stick him in time out.

Okay, now that I've give my excuses....this morning I was trying to get in the shower and Michael runs in the bathroom tugging at his clothes
"Macko Boy showah wit momma!"
"No, Michael. I'm sorry, but you're just getting to big to shower with mommy."
His face hurt and dejected...looks up at me and says
"No, Macko boy still liddle!"

It broke my heart, but I remained firm. Got him out the Dora tent and got him excited about making me a picnic ready for after my shower. Why do they have to grow so quickly?!

When you need a good laugh...

Preface: This video is not intended to offend anyone. Dan posted it originally, but he was too worried about offending someone, so he took it off. Guess that just says what kind of a person I AM. :) seriously though, we hope no one will hate us for posting it...we just thought it was really funny. Blame me, not Dan. :)


I feel for Pres. Bush when I see this clip. I'm always mixing up my words and staying stupid things. I usualy hope that know one has caught what I said...but instantly Dan is teasing me about it. I'm sure some of you have noticed my unique words and phrases, like "quiss" which is my word for "Quit bugging me and Kiss me". Maybe that's why I keep so quiet. Anyway, here is a clip of all Bush's bloopers. (There are two parts where he flips the bird...so beware.) At the end there's some wierd song...yeah, just ignore it. :)

Chelsea's face update

I wanted to post this one week after Chelsea's fall, but other things came up. :) I am amazed at how fast her face has healed. Even just 3 days later it was almost gone. Before



After:This picture was taken one week after she fell. We just put neosporin on it three times day, and wahlah! It's gone! :)




I thought this was a cool project Chelsea brought home from school. They stuffed dirt andgrass seed in a knee-high nylon and then twisted the body to make four different sections. We watered it every day and it grew and grew to make this awesome worm! Now, Chelsea loves to give her new friend hair cuts.

YES! I AM original!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

An old friend is found....and let go.

At 3:00 AM this morning, we got a call from the Police stating they had found our car. The conversation whent something like this:

Police: Hello, Mr. Perry?
Dan: Yes?
Police: We understand you have a car missing?
D: That's right
P: Well, we've found it!
D: That's great!
P: Yeah...not so great.
D: Uh oh.

They found the car at a local park about 5 miles from our house, totaly gutted and stripped of everything. We could either come and get it or they would call a towing company and get it hauled off. We decided on the latter, since we didn't exactly own a tow truck.

This morning, the towing company called us to see what we wanted to do with the car. We decided to head out to the junk yard to take one last look, with hope that maybe, just maybe, we could salvage it for just another month or so.

My heart was beating so hard as we drove into the lot and I saw our poor little car. I expected the worse...but part of me didn't want to see what it looked like.


the outside didn't look too bad until we got a little closer and saw the inside.

I found it interesting, amusing, and shocking the things that they took...and didn't take. They stole one of the wheels...but not the brand new one we put on a few months ago.

They took the sun visors...


Each door was completely stripped...

They took the middle buckle on the back seat, but left all the other seat belts...

They took the passenger chair, and unscrewed the driver seat.

They took the middle console.

Of course they took the CD player, but the air vents? Maybe I don't know much about cars...but I certainly had no idea there was any value behind those little guys besides nice, cold air!

Dan had a bunch of Dental stuff in the trunk, like old teeth models, and they took all that. Dan says it's completely worthless, even to him...I'm just curious to know what they think they will get from them. NOt sure what a pawn shop would do with someone else's teeth model.

They left my trunk organizer, a quilt that we always leave in the car, and one of Chelsea's drawings. She was very happy to see it. They even left some important papers Dan needed for his board exams coming up. It really confuses me why they took the time to stick all this stuff in the trunk, although not before they cleaned out the spare tire and car jack.

However, we can't be completely upset about the whole thing, because they did leave Dan a present. They left a Bone Thugs CD for us! Dan is actully pretty excited about it and says it's now an even trade. He listened to it the entire way back home and up to school. (Yes...I'm cringing while typing)

So, the car is gone. Sometimes I feel like bursting into tears that someone could be so thoughtless. But then I feel sorry for them that they feel they have to do this to get whatever little money they can for it. The thing that makes me MOST angry, is that we are now responsible for the towing fee of $240.00!!!!

And no, we won't get any compensation from our insurance company, because we only had liability on it. We just didn't feel like it was worth enough to pay for whatever dammage might come to it. If we had had it, we probably would have come out for the better, but it was a gamble and we lost.

We just hope that we are the lucky ones who get to be one of the few statistics of victims of stolen and gutted cars and that you all will just get to say you "knew of a friend" that it happened to. Thanks for all your calls and concerns! We do appreciate it!

How Rude!

This post is mainly for the people here in Portland. Our white car was stolen last night (4/29) right from our parking lot. It's a '98 Mazda protege. It's missing the side-view mirror on the driver's side and also has a big spot on the bumper where the paint has chipped off. If anyone sees it around, please call us or the portland police department at 503-832-3333


When we told Chelsea her face just dropped and she said "That is SO rude!" I agree.

And yes, the pictures are of our car stuck in the sand dunes by Rexburg, ID. That is another story...but with the happy ending that we got it out...and that we have pictures of a car for such a time as this. :)