October 2013

October 2013
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Archive for October 2013

An Eye Opening , “Power-less” Day.

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Renee Spindle

Transformer repair – lots of trucks and equipment.
Photo courtesy of tspindigital.com

Today is Saturday, October 26. It’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and we’ve been a neighborhood with no power since 5 am this morning. It’s not our entire area just our little block of a neighborhood. Weird huh? When I called Southern California Edison to report the outage the customer service rep says, “Are you sure your power is out Ma’am? I’m not showing any outages in your area.” I was the first one to call in. And then she proceeded to ask me if we had checked the breaker box. Ha!

I have to admit I was not planning on spending today with no power to the house. It’s somewhat inconvenient, much quieter, and really making me want to take a nap, and I am not a napper by trade.

We are hosting a birthday dinner/party tonight for our oldest daughter. My Mom will be handing out flashlights when everyone walks in the door. It will be an adventure!!

In light of this change in our Saturday plans I have compiled a list of ten things I have been enjoying or will be enjoying with no power today.

What’s that you say, no laundry can be done today? Whoopee , no problem there.
Can’t run the dishwasher, that’s ok, we have lots of paper plates in the pantry.
No TV during the power outage- that’s fine, I probably watch too many home improvement shows as it is. However, I would like the power to be back on for the World Series game tonight.
What? I can’t be on the wireless internet either? That’s fine I probably spend too much time on the computer.
No baking or cooking (my stove requires electronic ignition) . Honey, let’s go to Olive Garden for lunch? Yum.
Birthday dinner will require paper plates and plastic cups! Easy cleanup! No problem.
Watching our two cats interact with one another. They have this love-hate relationship going on. The older cat is always growling and hissing at the younger guy. Even when he is doing absolutely nothing.
I’m noticing that having a technology free day is not a bad thing! Maybe I should do this once a week.
Maybe The Party House needs to “disable” the wi-fi for family gatherings. Hmmm?? What would the twenty-something crowd do with themselves??
Having Travel Man home today to start-up the generator -priceless. He loves going into “survival” mode. It’s a guy thing.

An interesting side note to this day- the power did not get turned back on until 9 pm on Saturday night. We strung a few lights in the house via my Mom’s RV generator for the birthday dinner. The conversation was great, not a lot of cell phone surfing going on. Oh, and my kind brother and Travel Man hooked up the TV so we could see the last few innings of the World Series game. My family is so great. Happy Monday everyone!

No comments Posted in Around the House, Birthdays, Family

Setting the Bar High

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Renee Spindle

The definition of a goal is; the object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.

My daughter, Hilary, set the bar high for herself, and achieved an awesome personal goal last month. In January of this year Hilary boldly signed up to run in the Disneyland half-marathon at the beginning of September. This was Labor Day weekend by the way. No end of summer parties for this gal.

The starting line for the marathon.

Get going Hilary – it’s only mile 4!!

She joined a gym, changed her eating habits, and set the course for herself to run 13 miles start to finish. It makes me tired just typing that. As the date loomed closer Hilary became more determined than ever to get to the marathon, and get it done. She had every confidence in herself that she could do it, her mother of course was totally worried about her. That’s what I do. And by the way, she wasn’t running with friends or any of her sorority sisters, she did this solo, start to finish. No buddies to run with, and no family members by her side. Just herself and the pack of other runners determined to do what she was doing, and finish what she was finishing. Hilary’s cousin, Mary, made sure she got to the race venue on time, and was probably her biggest cheerleader for this event. The excitement and cousin love between the girls just warmed my heart.

During the marathon, Hilary had to be able to stay within a 16-minute mile in order to stay in the race. She set a goal for herself to run a 13-minute mile and she did it, all the way through the marathon. We were able to track her time, and milestones through an amazing system Disney had set-up for marathon day. My Mom and I were in awe of what she was doing.

During the race we were able to scope out a spot in Angels Stadium parking lot to cheer her on. It seemed like we were waiting a lifetime for her to come around the corner and through an archway that was set up for the event. Thankfully we finally spotted her, and she stopped momentarily to take pictures with us, and then was on her way. I’m pretty sure I got a tear in my eye at this moment in time.

Hilary’s cousin, Mary, and her brother, Bryan raced to the finish line to get a picture of her. Many, many thanks to Mary for sprinting through the race venue to get this shot.

This picture captures all of the emotion of I set my goal, and I met it. My first hug with Hilary after she finished her race was filled with such happiness for her. As a parent, there is no greater joy than watching your kids set their sights on something, going for it, and making it happen.

You set the bar high for this family dear Hilary. Congratulations to my daughter for stepping out there (no pun intended), and getting this done. Wow, there’s no other word to describe this, just wow!!

2 comments Posted in Family, Kidstuff

A Lovely Backyard Wedding

Posted on October 19, 2013 by Renee Spindle

What does it take to throw a backyard wedding? First and foremost is a big backyard, which we have. Check that one-off of the list. Then the bride and groom have to be willing to pitch in and get the backyard ready for a wedding. Check, we have that. Then we limit the guests to no more than 70 people. How do we know this is a good number you ask? We’ve had lots of parties and lots of people in our backyard, and this is the number that works and is controllable.

The remaining major supplies to get our backyard ready for a wedding went like this- Over 20 strings of white lights, 350 ft. of speaker wire for the PA system and the music, around 20 poles for the lights to be strung up on (this was for the Mama Mia effect!), an amazing misting system (put together by our favorite uncle), a newly painted deck for dancing the night away on, rented tables, chairs, and table clothes, lovely centerpieces crafted by the bride, lots of big bags of ice, and lots of helpers to get it all set up on time. Plus we were really hopeful the weather would cooperate, which it did.

Our youngest son got married in our backyard towards the end of August, and due to the nature of our “stressful” summer there were a lot of plans that just ended up being put together at the last-minute. This was a 5pm wedding, and my son’s vision was to have the backyard lit up with white lights for a truly memorable evening, once the sun went down, and I think we pulled it off. We had around 65 guests (that’s my closest guesstimate), in our backyard. A party this size has not happened since the ladies of ZTA (Kappa Theta chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha) graced our backyard, as we were the host of their annual Bid Day (there were around 70 giggly, gaggling girls in attendance that day!).

The weather was not too hot, which we were all thankful for. The temps stayed somewhere in the 90’s, and cooled off quickly after the sun went down. The California summer heat swooped in the weekend after the wedding. I think it was around 105, the Saturday after!

The wedding ceremony was performed flawlessly, everyone looked so wonderful, and then it was time to party. We had an amazing caterer who brought in Mexican food, some of which was cooked on the grill right before our very eyes. This was a great set-up and the food was spectacular. Drinks were kept simple; just soda, beer and wine. A cake was brought in by a friend of the bride (it was delicious!).

And then it was time for the dancing. My most memorable moments from the dancing were watching my baby boy (he won’t like that I called him that) dance with his Grandma, and seeing the daughters dancing with their dads. Of course, the first dance by the bride and groom was memorable too. Such a cute couple. My favorite dance of the night was our deck filled with party-goers dancing to “The Macarena”!! That was fun!

This was definitely a ceremony/party to remember. One for the ages so to speak. I loved the toasts that were given from the heart. I loved the fact that almost all of our family got to be here with us to celebrate this special occasion. I loved the fact that all of my kids were so helpful on “The Day”, and made everything fall into place for their baby brother. And our backyard wedding would not have been complete without this amazing ring-bearer. He carried the rings in his pants pocket, and was so grown-up and handsome when it came time to pass the rings to the groom. He made his Grandma’s proud.