Mary’s 2005 – Year in Review

Year Synopsis:

The beginning of 2005 was the end of Chowchilla JV basketball coaching where my team was doing everything I asked of them. Yet, we couldn’t beat the Amazon hill people of Yosemite and Sierra High Schools. Two thousand five was also the end of Chowchilla entirely! Three years = sun spoiling, San Diego tripping, Gilroy’s Casa de Fruta, good people, interesting cultures, Merced, San Fran, beaches, Yosemite, Tahoe Joe’s, Sonic, In and Out, & Edwards’ Theatering! There was a great, sad but happily true, send off from FCA and all, and a quick trip to Santa Cruz with loved ones to finalize the chapter. The sun and arid temps were soon to be traded in for -16 degrees of dark, dark morning commutes comforted by the Aurora Borealis.

“North to Alaska” with Jeepy and the Uhauled truck, our Verizon cell phones were to be shut off two days earlier, but we were still secretly using them as we drove separate vehicles. Randomly by a Sovereign One, I got a mysterious out of the blue phone call from Houston High School’s principal. We talked for two to four minutes and almost entirely about FCA and the Lord! My “lucky” break! A job!

Picking Tommy up in Seattle for fun and drive time relief was followed by a smooth 3,500 or so mile drive to Anchorage, Alaska, where we hung out and also passed the time exploring the Mat-Su Valley. Our new homeland! As we were homeless and prospecting a new job, a new life, a new Bo friend, we quickly became enrolled in House Buying/Building/Bullying 101, via IEC Realty and some fickle, unmentionably named people.

August came quick with job errands and house negotiating, all the while settling into a rental house owned by an interesting dude named Andy Anderson. We exercised Bo while bike riding to Willow Creek, while seeing many kinds of huge salmon. It was a leisurely time soaking up the Alaskan people and culture of Willow, enjoying it and feeling good that we’ll be here for many years.

Then, school happened in an overwhelming way with new systems, people, and curriculums to learn. However, that time has passed now, and passed quickly, with coaching basketball as a comforting cushion of balance. Our first Christmas here disappointingly is experienced in our rental home, but it is a joyous year-end feeling with Storm and Bo, and a grand present of parentals that joined us here in ALASKA! Selah.


Honorable Mention Specifics:

Driving the Chowchilla tennis team to San Luis Obispo
Exploring San Francisco with Ben Sebastian and staying at Embassy Suites
A surprise iMac laptop and Nano! wowee!
Not to mention the dreadfully, seemingly empty 6 months living without an iPod
Getting Storm at the Anchorage airport and seeing how much happier Bo is
Finding and buying 5 acres of land and building our first home
Tennis with Dad and Mike taking pics at Chow High
Encinitas and palm tree skies
Resting out in the middle of a huge cabbage patch and strawberry fields on a bike in Santa Cruz County
Sunset Cliffs laying out and gabbing with Trace
Every single S.D. road trip – including the Alpine Challenge
All items purchased and consumed from Casa de Fruta
Receiving the Jeep from Justin and road tripping to West Point Loma Blvd.
They Might Be Giants and separately Sanctus Real free pizza in Solana Beach
Taking Bo on a walk to Casey’s baseball games
Santa Cruz camp ground with everyone
Showing Mom and Dad our house and sconces
Days at Yosemite with Case and Bo
Ignoring knocks on my classroom door and Chow house, ducking.
Going to Save Mart and Blockbuster 3-5 times every other afternoon
Running and biking up and down the fairgrounds ½ mile side road to train!
Walking to Pedro’s to pick up pizza after getting some Mike’s Lemonade at the corner store
Hanging out at the baseball field and track with Casey and Bo on hot, sunny days
Picking up my parents in Anchorage on Christmas day!
Many other little things that shall be embraced some other day in a published format

Much Music: always justin greed and love project & mike solo project and sufjan covers as well as all oldies, frou frou, death cab, jack johnson, sufjan, garbage, the raveonettes, mono band, joyce meyer, always amelie sdtrk, still pinback, concretes, palomar, reliant k, rob bell, rilo kiley, innoncence mission, finding neverland sdtrk, bloc party, over the rhine-ohio, eisley-room noises, still the fire theft, new p’s, old crow medicine show

Skimpy, yet highlightable, Movie List:
Kung Fu Hustle
Star Wars: Episode III
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Narnia
Serenity
Millions
Holy Schnikes - great extras
1040 Christmas/thanksgiving dvds cheesily yes
video blogs de j

pink Lynne orangutan

me kipling owner as of dec. 25, 05

fleece on the way thanks md (mom&dad)!

good 3 days ahead!

Hey, hey, hey!

Lotsa Alaska chill time going on- HA! Good one! chill, that's hilarious, 8 degrees and all, come on!

There are some dogs here. They bark and a;ldkfawjefdfslkd, but they are cute and endearing to Mom and Dad. Bo absolutely loves Dad! Bo loves them both as he slept under mom's cot last night!

Today there's a sport time for my torture, yet where Mom will see the school cheesily, and Dad again b/c he saw it yesterday.

We're in the middle of nowhere as the parents experience just how far out, with no shopping.

BUT! Tomorow we shall head to Anchorage to stay two nights, avoid helping the basketball program (varsity) who plays there all weekend.

Also, we'll check out an ulu shop (special Alaskan knife), some good food, some relaxing, some shopping at rei, Joann's, quilt shops, best buy, starbucks, you know.

OH, we've been watching The Office, Serenity, 2004 & 2005 funniest with commercials with Kevin Nealon, listening to Mike's album, playing Atari (woo!), Gun, Sudoku (ha!), eating salmon, potatoe soup with bread bowls, pizza tonight, and OF COURSE MUSIC SHARING!!!!!! Looking forward to loading up my computer and nano with Enya, Sara Groves, some sdtrks, and more. And more videos from Dad's video iPod!

Quick rendition completed: Peace!

We got our three inches of snow to beautify things! And a little bit is on the way every day from here on out! White Christmas, WOO!

Storm gotta bath!

Time is well spent with the tv on the treadmill and the iMac. Going through old cds to put absolute musts on my nanomare. Ha! It's not really called that, but maybe it will be from here on out.

Dogs will go tomorrow with two rooms booked in Anchorage! Looking forward to a grand old time! Woooo! Christmas is super long and extended this year. Like timewise. Slow. Good. I think it's because we have/had a full week to wait for the big day, and then another long week till New Year's. Yeah that's it.

Music revived!

Can't wait for some music from Mike!

I finally, FINALLY downloaded the New P's album that I bought like 2-3 months ago at the time of Death Cab. It's enjoyable! I like it better genrewise than Death Cab. Really that's apples to orangesish. I just fulfilled a free cd membership with Avril Lavigne's old latest one (simply b/c of Chantal Krevia's major influence - actually want nothing to do with Lavigne), and I also took a stab at The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - rock gone back porch acoustic (harmonic?). Could be cheesy - must take more music risks to enjoy hobby! Wish I had better, faster streamlined iTunes clips. Argh!

Thinking about this year: 2005. I have my year synopsis (YIR) constructed and am waiting for some lists to settle down on paper.

It was/is good to think about the closure of Chow. A good three years. Temporal, three years. Sun. Yeah. Alaska now.

Our house has it's wood floors in and we're waiting for the following to make it look almost fake complete: baseboards, counter tops, carpet in back rooms.

It has all the doors in the rooms and our sconces are up! Mom and Dad you get to see our fun sconces! HA!

What's going to take us into a January move in date is the stair banister/railing and our pine ceiling. CAN'T WAIT! yesletsgo,yesletsgo, yesletsgo.

We were promised 3 inches of snow yesterday with NO DELIVERY of such! Speaking of delivery I have one last present for Case that should be in the mail today or ELSE!

Dogs are resting, it's still dark outside: 9:32 A.M. House is spick and span with 3 living areas now instead of one. You'd have to be here to realize the wonderous benefits that statement uncovers to our existence here. Ahhh!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!l And I shall say that many more times throughout the weekend! Back to Nano organizing!

"wooo oooooo oooooo oo ooo oooo ooo....heyla heyla heyla heylaaa...we have arrived too late to play the bleeding heart show" the bleeding heart club, new p's

Things, what things could be thrown upon this screen box?

Lotsa shopping went down, and a dogvet viz today!

House serious meeting tomorrow to hash out why/what our builder wants us to pay more on.

Supposedly he's barely breaking even, literally from Katrina, yeah hurricane, taking all our supplies and jacking up the prices. Should we have to pay for that and ill plannning of our builder. Hmm....

More to report on that weirdness after tomorrow.

Bball the next two days hanging over me but it's all good in seasonal spirits!

Getting prepared for Ohioans visiting! YEAHOO!!!

Good to see your house info mom! Looking forward to our visit and maybe a gab or two with some more 1040s!

Side note: I'm thinking myspace soon for me b/c I have other people telling me about it too besides j and mike.

Oh, today we got a cute bearnativity set from Casey's mom and dad! It is so cute and cool! bye bye now

lost a game tonight agst. homeschoolers, wish I could remember a funny line from readysetbad ;0

also

we had a restful thanksgiving

here's what I wrote nov. 6

I discovered one of the most amazing musical artists ever

The team played well and agressive. They exceeded my expectations, which were....non-existent actually. Wasn't sure about the competition level, more to analyze as the games progess I'll say.

SO, the house is looking CRAZY GOOD EVERYONE!!! The fireplace is up and in with rock going all the way up our small but dynamic great room wall to the ceiling. They are set to put baseboards, window sills, doors, and the hard wood floors in a few more work days.

They have the cabinets, vinyl flooring, and half the porch set up. We forgot about our pine plank ceiling and the banister that extends onto the loft of course. Coming along!

Well, I wanted to say, Michelle (Good) I still read your blog, thanks for writing! happy Christmas to you and your fam!

Happy travels soon to many fam members!

Can't hold it back anymore mom and dad!

EVERYBODY!!! I GOT AN EARLY CHRISTMAS GIFT a couple weeks ago.....

A SHINY NEW BLACK NANO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!


Needlesstosay (all those words should go together just like nevertheless), I'm enjoying it thoroughly. I've opted to put only my absolute musts on it albumwise and that turned out to fill it almost completely, HA, of course! The plan then is to put new ones on to get into them and allow staplehood to take over or manuever it off and on as per needing to hear.

So I literally sat down during my prep period and wrote down the ones I must, MUST have on the Nano. It included about 20-30 quality all time albums such as the following, and not limited to in my late night memory here and now:

cranberries, corrs, pinback, interpol, amy grant, keane, justin, koufax, ken stringfellow, amelie, mike, sixpence, overtherhine, plumb, ravonettes, rilo, stellastarr, stills, sujan, death cab, equation, cure, fire theft, mclachlan, cardigans, eisley, switchfoot, reliant k, shins, finding neverland, millions, hotel rwanda, friday night lights, mogwai, herb albert, innoncence mission, tmbg, some other staples that have escaped my mind this second of recreating the list in fun

Tonight I used our new Swiffer wet jet! I love it! So good, so needed in this pre-prep for padres viz. It works well anyone thinking about getting one, get one. I have the vaccum swiffer too and like it lots. Next up: the flipper swiffer and swiffer duster. Yeah I know, a whole paragraph on cleaning products.

I wrapped presents tonight and that was fun! So many are on their way or already at 1040 that I was getting depressed not to have any to look at and cherish until giving time, HA! So it was good to get a few little ones yesterday and wrap them today.

We went to the house today and it's all painted in our buckskin color of beige! It looks nice and sharp. They put the fireplace in and are starting the rock decor. We were surprised that the rock is like real rock! Well it's faux concrete made rock but it looks good! Some natural looking shades of color from grey, brown, red, and on. Neat!

Our realtor heard they painted last week and said, "Hmmph, it shouldn't take him till the end of January to finish.....". Oh, also at the house they have all the cabinets and wood floors ready to go in - still in boxes though.

In other news, what better way to end Narnia than with a Frou Frou and then Alanis' new contribution! I forgot to say that yesterday! GOOD stuff!

Went to town today and saw Narnia!

We both really liked it, regardless of the many, many children and families at the 3:15 P.M. showing on the smallest movie screen I've ever seen!

Some high points: Lucy all together, all of Aslan's words and scenes, the battle scene at the end where Peter sees Aslan and the rest of the warriors pass bay in blurred slow motion.

All others rushed out of the packed theater as Casey and I sat waiting to go out the opposite door and then blamo! The extra scene that Dad mentioned! I forgot that you mentioned that dad and I'm glad we caught it.

A good movie. A great movie. A touching movie. Blatant Lord everywhere if you let it shine through!

Might see it again next week with my colleague and one of our church buddy/students!

In other news, some Christmas shopping was done today! WOO! More online tonight!

"compact treatment" I like that description of your book dad!

To the house tomorrow in the daylight - today there were workers there. Have I mentioned that we're not getting in until the end of January......:(

"Even old New York, was once New Amsterdam"

How many of us out there know the following?!?!?!

"Istanbal" was originally by The Four Lads, 50s pop music? Not TMBG?

Bball keeps me afloat and with it, after so many years, my time management goes through the roof! Through the roof positively! Like I literally had to force myself to do some work after school today. Actually create something for me to just to have something to do I was that FAR AHEAD IN LESSONS and grading etc. in waiting for practice.

Well besides that comment, I've been running and lifting light weights, high reps for 2 weeks now and it's great! So, all around it has been good coaching! The season looks to be a major positive progression. In my years of coaching I've never seen a team/s hear something and do it and learn it so quickly. NICE!

All the players and coaches are super really nice and fun to be with. There's a major difference from Chow. There was a veil, or even iron curtain if you will, on the California kids where they were always on the defensive. These kids here in Alaska are instantly trusting and accepting. There's almost a naivity to them, really. From many odds and ends I've noticed, they really seem sheltered from the rough edge of reality in life. Oh not that they don't have A LOT to deal with, we are in a low income population for sure. There are sad things.

But there are great things, and God truly came before us here! Wow, so obviously every corner turned, You, yooooooou Lord, only you on these inside things and jokes You and I know, HA! Good stuff!

Revving up for NARNIA!!!!

Wish this was the week before Christmas break!!!!

A first week of bball practice went well last week, and it ended with an overnight lock in. The lock in was full of team building little cheesey activities and it went fast and well. My assessment of the program is high quality players, coaches, and in general a good season prospect. I'm enjoying it.

Booku bad news, problemo with the house. Our builder got home from a 2 week hunting trip on Friday, yeah 2 weeks vacation in the middle/end of our house building, and said we're not getting in until after January?!!?!!?!

Not sure if anyone's aware but we can only lock in an interest rate for 30 days, so with this up in the air point of view from our builder, we're not in a good situation. Not to mention that it makes us strapped for anything spending that's not cash. No detriment to our credit is the deal you know. Interest rates are going up daily.

I had a sneaking feeling this would happen. So I've already changed any expectations at all that we'll get in any date that he says to us. We just want it done and it, him, the waiting, the credit approval, the slop OVERWITH! When it finally happens, OH THE JOY!

The only real disappointment in this news, partly b/c I was expecting this, is that the parents will have to stay at this rental house during their visit. :(

Oh well, I guess it's another work week before us tomorrow to help distract off of all that jazz. The weekend was too fast.

Looking forward to the holidays, bball, and showing the parents around our new homeland!