Responsibity – Take Some!

I have been disturbed lately by this whole media firestorm known as the “Jon & Kate Plus 8 Scandal” or “Jon Hates Kate Debacle” or “Kate Makes Waste Mess” – whatever you call it, it’s freaking annoying. I think what bothers me the most, outside of their 8 children being thrust into the media without their consent, is the fact that these two bozos seems to have no concept of personal responsibility.

They have been making the talk show rounds as of late, seemingly intent on blaming the other person for their needing to appear on TV or be interviewed for a magazine. SHE’S only on the “Today Show” to ‘respond’ to him. HE’S on "Larry King" trying to defend his character.

Spare me. All this does is further my opinion that these are two people who may have started out their show to document the lives of their multiples, but have instead, been sucked into the vortex of celebrity for celebrity’s sake. And in the process, their marriage as ended.

Both of them have acknowledged that they believe that the marriage was probably going to end with or without their family being on a hit TLC show. I give them props for admitting this and I do believe that is probably true. However, the way that they are conducting themselves now is nothing short of horrifying. I am not sure why they haven’t gotten the hint that maybe instead of running around doing talk shows (WTF with Kate on “The View” Seriously? There was so much tension at that table you could have cut it with her spiky hair!), traveling on speaking engagements, running to New York to be interviewed for yet another cover story on “People” magazine maybe, just maybe, they should shut up lay low and focus on figuring how to co-parent and repair the damage already done to those kids.

But really, the reason why this story has resonated so deeply with me and stayed with me is that it’s not a new one. It’s a very familiar story just being played out in the glare of the national media. And there are thousands upon thousands of children who have been affected by divorce and the emotional, physical, and financial fallout from it.

Before I go on, I should throw in a disclaimer here. My parents are still happily married. They will be celebrating their 42nd wedding anniversary this month. I am not a child of divorce. However, I have been married and divorced (almost 11 years but with no children) and my husband has been married and divorced and has a 17-year-old child from his previous relationship. Believe me – I have lived through and seen first hand the devastation and destruction that divorce can cause and continue to cause even years after the fact.

In my opinion, children deserve a lot from their parents. They deserve unconditional love, safety, security and for their basic needs to be met. Children of divorce deserve all that and perhaps more.

They deserve to not be thrust into the middle of feuding parents. They deserve a chance at being a kid and not worrying about all kinds of adult issues that they cannot and should not have to process. They deserve to feel safe and secure in the fact that the demise of the marriage is not their fault and that they are loved. By BOTH parents.

Any child of divorce that does not get the emotional support that they deserve is getting the short end of the stick. Parents need to make sure that their children are “allowed” to love the other parent. Extended family also carry the burden of reassuring these children that both parents love them and will always love them – regardless of whether or not they remain married. And in a healthy divorce (and trust me – there can be healthy divorces and there are divorces that would scare Satan himself) the parents should be able to come to an understanding of how their children will be raised.

Anything less is unacceptable and quite honestly, child abuse.

Which brings me back to the Gosselin kids – what on Earth are their parents thinking airing all of their dirty laundry on TV? In this age of YouTube and the Interwebs (and yes, I know that’s the wrong word…I just love using it) their words will live on forever. And trust me – when their 9 year old daughters turn 14 in 5 years, I firmly believe that they will be Goggling dear old mom and dad to get some answers. And how horrible for them to have to hear all of the nonsense that has been going on. How awful for them to have to witness first hand the acrimonious and vengeful nature with which their parents are treating each other, and as a result, them.

It is my hope that these two train wrecks people figure out that it’s time for them to take responsibility for their actions. They need to man up and accept that their marriage has ended, yet their children still need to be raised by both parents. They need to shut their mouths, stop badmouthing each other in public and on record, and get focused on what’s really important – the children.

And that, my friend, is all I have to say about that.

New and Improved...I Hope.

Hello there faithful blog readers! Oh wait...there probably aren't any of you left since I have not been blogging in quite some time. OK then - Welcome new and improved blog readers!!

I have been struggling for quite some time with how to change the direction of my blog. In the beginning, my blog started out as a way to update extended family and faraway friends with the antics of our kids, family outings, and in general fun stuff that I thought people would find interesting. Riveting stuff, huh? Well, not anymore.

Although my blog will still have certain little stories and anecdotes about our kids and our life together, I am going to shift the focus a bit. To me. All about me. I am giddy with excitement.

You see, it's not that I don't enjoy spinning a good yarn about my little rugrats. Or sharing pictures and video of the happenings in our lives. But I need more than that. I have lots to say and I need a place to say it. I am going to join the millions of other narccassistic creative people out there in blog land and get my 2 cents in.

You may not always agree with me (I can't imagine why - my perfection and intellect have long been the stuff of legends). My hope is that somewhere along the way you will gain a different perspective from having been invited into the inner workings of my mind. Or not. I'm going to be putting it out there on the "interwebs" whether you want to read it or not.
Which begs the question - can you handle it? I hope so.
Much love and here's to a happy week,

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Kneipp Family Victory Garden - Update, July, 2009

My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant's point of view. ~H. Fred Ale

I am pleased to note that we are quickly approaching the harvest portion of our gardening chores. However, there were a few missteps in planning the garden that have lead to some unanticipated results.

First of all, I forgot to plant any zucchini. Flat out forgot. And we love zucchini bread so much around here - now we are going to have to get ours from the produce market. Lame.

Second of all, I didn't give a lot of thought to how aggressive the cucumbers that we planted were going to be! They have started snaking their way up the sweet pea stakes and have all but eaten one of my green pepper plants. Not good...I still have one green pepper plant that is holding on for dear life and has 3-4 little peppers budded out. If the cucumber will keep it's distance a little bit, we may be eating stuffed peppers from our own garden yet!!

Thirdly, I gave thought to the fact that we needed to plant corn in rows, so that they could cross-pollinate, but I did not spend a lot of time in thinking about the fact that the growth of their neighbors, our tomato plants, would block almost all of their sunlight. Oops. We may or may not get any corn cobs out of the deal...but definitely learned a lesson or two on that one.

Finally, we have a ton of tomatoes on all 3 kinds of plants, Brandywine, Cherry & Roma...however, just 2 little individualist cherry tomatoes are showing any signs of ripening. I do hope that it's not a repeat of last year when we had to eat fried green tomatoes just to feel like we hadn't failed miserably.

So, there you have it. I would think we're at the mid-way point for the Garden of 2009. Once again, I have learned a lot of great lessons, the greatest one being: I have no flipping clue what I am doing in the garden and if I EVER hope to feed this family of 5 with home-grown produce, I better get some books and read up over the off-season. There's always room for improvement, right?

Tanner in the Kiddie Pool - Finally!!

Wordless Wednesday

Tanner's Walking!!

Anniversary Pics!

A good friend of ours, Dale Chumbley, agreed to take some anniversary pics for us this year. Unfortunately, we had no way of knowing that the day we chose to meet and get it done would be the hottest day of the year so far. It was closer to (if not over) 100 degrees that day. And further "planning genius" led to us meeting at 2pm.

I still think I got a touch of heat stroke after walking around taking pics for an hour or so. Poor Mitch, who wasn't "loving" taking pictures anyway, and was trying "not to sweat", but he wasn't very successful.

Even though it wasn't the best of circumstances, we had a fun time and managed to get some good pictures out of the deal. Here are just a few of the shots that we got - we are looking forward to many more years of anniversaries, but the next time we take pictures, I think there will have to be an understanding that it won't be in the middle of a heat wave. :-)

Once in awhile, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale.

Author Unknown

4th of July and 7th Anniversary!!

We did it! We made it through another year of marital bliss...or at least that's how I would classify it!! We did some of our usual traditions - pictures at the park, breakfast at my parents, BBQ at our place.

Our photo shoot was not on of the better ones we have had. Tanner was tired and crabby and really hardly smiled at all for any of the posed pictures, and in fact, screamed his head off for most of them. It is what it is and the kids had a blast making funny faces and then playing on the play structure when we were done. All in all, we had a good time and that's what's important, right?

There were also some "firsts" for the holiday. I grilled for the first time in my life! We had Poblano-Avacado Salsa Shrimp Tacos - YUMMY! I realized at one point that we were basically having a "Cinco de Mayo" meal for the 4th, but oh well - it was good!

My parents headed home before the fireworks and we got our blanket all spread out on the front lawn and watched the fireworks in our neighborhood for almost 2 hours. The kids were every excited in the beginning, but I think we were both pretty shocked when Tucker fell asleep in my lap and Lexi followed soon after. It was very sweet.

All in all, it was a good anniversary and I think we'll go ahead and shoot for 8!! I think we have a pretty darn good thing going here...

No Title Necessary

My Bucket List

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I had one too many epiphanies and need to put "pen to paper", so to speak, and create my bucket list! It's a rough list for now, but hopefully I can add to it as time goes on - and delete from it as well!

1) Visit Alaska, both in the summer & the winter
2) Learn how to operate the grill - I have never done this before and feel like it may be the "final frontier" of my cooking skills.
3) Learn how to use Adobe Photoshop properly

4) Actually do something with the thousands of digital photo files that I have

5) Read "Don Quixote" in it's entirety

6) Visit Washington D.C.

7) Make my own soap

8) Learn how to sew

9) Live on some acreage that would lend itself to raising some small farm animals

10) Drive across America on the classic "Family Road Trip" (picture National Lampoon's "Vacation")

I challenge you to think about your own list - and get to livin'!! Who knows...maybe I'll get to cross one of mine off before the end of the weekend...you never know! :-)

Tanner Rocking Out on Thomas the Train!

Thomas the Train

We had our annual trip to see Thomas the Train in Hood River, Oregon this past weekend. We have been going for the last 3 years and it has been so much fun! We usually try to get tickets for the first train out at 9am, which makes for an early day, but we also usually beat the heat and the crowds that way! This year was no exception and the kids had no problem being ready to get picked up at 7am! Mitch and I might have struggled a little bit more with that. :-)

Here's Tucker in all of his Thomas gear (including Thomas underpants!) waiting to get picked up:


The other thing I always forget about is that to the kids, the bus ride from the parking lot to the train station is just as big of an event as the train ride itself! Since I am a paranoid mom and don't let them ride the bus to school, the novelty hasn't worn off one bit!

Here's Lexi enjoying her bus ride:

And once we're on the train, they can hardly contain themselves! It's a quick ride - 15 minutes out and then a turnaround to come back, but it's right by the river and so pretty! They pretty much have their heads at the window the entire time!

Here's my three little engineers!


Tanner was with us last year, but he was so little I don't even think he realized he was on a train. This year he was very excited and danced along to the music and LOVED the ride!

And finally, we had our picture taken with the big man himself, Thomas!! Peep, peep!! (And miracle of miracles...EVERYONE was looking at the camera!!)

Until next year!! :-)

Old Friends, New Friends

I had the opportunity last week to have a "mini-reunion" of sorts with a couple of my friends from high school. When I signed up for Facebook several months ago, I reconnected with many, many old friends, not thinking for a second that I would actually ever get to see any other them face to face - and certainly not so soon!

Bob Kraft ('Robert' if you met him post-1992 or so) and I had gone to school together from 1982 (eek!) through 1988. We both were big into the basketball and although we traveled in different circles, he was a constant throughout my years at the gym - I sort of fit school in around basketball at the time!

Kim Snowden and I were friends from '86 -'88. Although we can't remember why, or when, or how, we became friends! There were a couple of classes that we may or may not have had together - and some birthday memories. Whatever the case may be, what's important is that we remembered we dug each other's company!

The best thing of all...they married each other and are now Bob & Kim Kraft! A 2 for 1 deal!

Last week Bob ran in the Rock & Roll Marathon in Seattle...on their way up, they stopped into the 'Shoug for some family fun. They have 2 daughters, 10 and 4. We planned dinner at our house one night and a trip to the Oregon Zoo the next day.

To say that we had a good time would be the understatement of the century. I didn't think that it would be possible to like someone even MORE than you did in high school. Although we have all grown and changed, much of our visit felt to me like I had finally "come home" after being away for a very, very long time. The kids got along famously and Mitch loved them all as much as I did! And if you've been married for a while, you know how hard it can be to find couples that you both like equally!! We've been blessed lately with an overabundance of such couples!! We're so lucky!

Anyway - if you are ever hesitant or doubtful about reconnecting with people from you past, I say go for it! Could it be a terrible experience that leaves you asking "Why on EARTH did we do that?"...sure. But you never know - you could make some "new" friends who only add to the joy of your life and your families.

I think it's worth taking the risk!!

Wordless Wednesday

Pictures From Our Disneyland Trip

These are out of order - Sorry! If you start at the bottom and go up then they will be in order. Enjoy! :-)