Sam's Photography Art Show

Sam has such a cool teacher this year.  She is really into Art and Photography.  She incorporates Art into many off her lessons, and its such a great thing for Sam.  Tonight she organized a photography show at a local restaurant, featuring the photographs taken by her third graders.  Sam's photographs were displayed (along with his classmates) all over the restaurant.

This is my favorite "Sam photograph". 

You could buy your child's photo.  The money goes to the Springcreek Art supplies fund.

Of course, I am a sucker and bought his photograph!!!

Grammy was there and she bought one too, what an awesome Grammy.

It's official, I am so proud of my photographer and his first official "show".

This is the adorable restaurant where the photography show is being held.

You can actually go there for the whole month of March and see it!

The Vintage! 

They have the best chocolate fondue ever . . . 

Yummy!

Joshua, Gabe W, Lindy, Gabe B, and Sammy

The middle picture (goat friends) was taken by Sam too!

Sam and his awesome teacher Ms. Chang

Skateworld!

Gotta Love Skateworld!

It  is seriously EXACTLY the same as it was in 1978 when I used to skate there as a kid!  Same carpet, same old floor and same skates too!  Yuck!

Fortunately or Unfortunaltely my kids love it!

Sam's school had a skate night this week and I took the kids. Ever since then Sam has been begging us to take him back so he could skate with Dad too!  So Pancho and I loaded up the minivan with Sam, Lucy and a couple of neighborhood kids and headed out to Skateworld for a fun family night!

(Max was at a sleepover, we missed him)

Lucy and I with our (cruddy old) skates on, ready to tear up the rink!!!!

Cameron (neighbor), Tyler Bob (friend from school) & Sam

Good old Skateworld . . .

I have such fond memories of the air flowing through my feathered hair, with my comb firmly placed in the back pocket of my buckle back jeans!

Lucy and Pancho

(notice Pancho doesn't have any skates on . .  . he claims that he doesn't know how to skate)

also, they don't rent skates in size 14 :) 

 maybe I should buy him a pair of his own so he can skate whenever he wants!

Sam was cruisin around the rink . . . GO Sammy!

Sam is on a "skating kick" right now

He is a pro at begging us for things until he wears us down,

I think that we are going to be skating a lot in the near future.

Lucy is still in the very beginner stage.

She fell quite a bit and brought me down with her at least 5 times!

I am a little sore today . . .

teaching a child to roller skate is true "mom love".

Birthday Parties!!!

Almost every weekend, at least one of my kids has a Birthday Party to attend.

Some weekends, we are even juggling two or three.

This weekend Max got invited to Sam Graf's sleepover/swimming party and Sam was invited to Jeffrey's Olympic Games Party.

I think these pictures are fun because they show the boys with some of their buddies from school.

Max with his buddies Sam, Peter and Sonny,

on their way to Splash for some swimming!

notice the semi-matching sweatshirts :)

Sam with his friends Tyler Bob, Jeffrey and Alex,

Sam is wearing the medal he got for participating in the Olympic Games!

being crazy!

(last weekend Lucy got to go to Chelsea's Build a Bear Party, but I forgot to take pictures!)

Irish Echo Concert

My Dad's Band (The Irish Echo) had a "gig" tonight at Marist. 

That's right, my Dad plays bass in a band that plays about five times every March.  They play a bunch of fun Irish songs.  We look forward to going every year with our friends.  We all have so much fun singing along to all of the songs, then dancing the night away.

As you can tell from this picture,  Dad loves playing with his band.

Amy, Me and Christy

Dressed in our Irish Green for St. Patricks Day!

We were all dancing the night away,

but I got this fun picture of my Mom as we were dancing and cheering Dad on . . .

We all had out cell phones out with the "Zippo Lighter App"

We had our phone lighters out and we were waving them back and forth,

it was almost like a real concert!

The Girls, chatting away as usual . . .

The Band

One more picture of Dad "rockin out"!

Me and my Mom!

What a fun night with family and friends. . .

Baking Banana Bread

My kids LOVE Banana Bread, Zuccini Bread, Pumpkin Bread . . . you get the idea.

So Lucy and I took those rotten bananas and put them to good use!

Lucy loves to bake, and I do too!

(cooking . . . not so much)

It's so much fun to chat with her and teach her about recipes, ingredients etc,

We usually pour together :)

Now for the best part . . . YUM!!!!

OK, I think THIS is why we both love baking so much!

Thats my girl!

OK now we're ready for the actual Banana Bread!

All of the boys came running when they smelled that banana bread cooking in the oven.  Lucy was so proud to serve her brothers, the neighbor boys and her Daddy her special banana bread.

(As you can see, I am finally feeling better too!)

Sometimes its OK to Complain!

On the couch after work one night . . . completely worn out!

Thank goodness for my Lulu, always there to make me feel better!

OK, so I know that we all like to post these super happy, life is always wonderful posts,

BUT THIS ONE IS DIFFERENT!

February was no fun,

I was sick the whole month with a terrible cough that strained my ribs and back so that I am in constant pain.

Max got the stomach Flu

Then I got the stomach Flu last weekend (along with the cough, back and rib situation).

Pancho has had to travel a LOT.

Working Full time does not give me a lot of flexibiliy to deal with all of this.

OK is that enough complaining?

Sometimes a girls just gotta complain to her girlfriends.

March JUST HAS to be better right?

OK Now that I have that out, I am back to positive happy Julie!!!!

Can't wait to see what March has in store for us and Spring Break can't get here fast enough!

The O'Hara Auction

The O'Hara Auction has been just about the only event that I have dragged my broken down, sick body out to this month.  As you  can see from the pictures, I had a GREAT time, and luckily I wasnt actually feeling too sick that night (but maybe a little bit the next day :)  ).

Annie, Christy and I at the "Baseball Theme" Auction

This was the logo for our auction this year.

We hit a grand slam raising over $220,000 for our kids!

This is what it looked like in our gym.

Hundreds of hours given by parents, teacher and staff to make it happen.

Me and Floretta . . . drinking apple juice together!

Cheers to 5th grade teachers!!!

Believe it or not, that was the only drink that I had all night!

These pictures make it look like I had more, but I was having a really good time! 

There was a D-J that played the best tunes until well after midnight!

Christy and I dancing the night away!

I know, I look special . . .

Pancho was there too, but he was the photographer that night apparently (hes not in any pictures).

That rarely happens, so I'll take it!

Dancing, Dancing, Dancing . . .

One last shot of Julie having fun this past month,

It was a rare thing!

Super Bowl Sunday

We had a great time on Superbowl Sunday!

The Hakalas have a party at their house every year, complete with tons of good food, a betting square, drinks and fun for the kids.

"The Girls" ...most of us were rooting for the Saints,

but we really spent a lot of time talking :)

The kids had their own games going on in the other room,

Wii games that is . . .

The kids made us this cool betting square, where we all "got" to bet our money to see which of them would win our money!  Isn't it cool being a parent?  They sure have this one figured out!

Donnie, Pancho and Keith actually watching the game...

We all watched the commercials though,

I like the "babies on the internet" ones the best.

Ethan won for the second year in a row!!!

Max and Cade . . .

these two were really into the game as well, both rooting for the Saints.

What a fun day!!!! 

Always a great excuse to lay around, eat, talk to my good friends and spend time with my family . . . four of my favorite things to do.

My Business Trip :)

All of the Catholic School Teachers in Salem, Portland and Eugene were required to go to a Conference on Friday at St. John the Baptist Church in Portland.  This was my first year going, but I had heard from all of the other teachers that it can be a long tedious day.  Sooooo, I decided that we needed to spice this thing up a little bit.  I decided that we should head up the night before, stop for a nice  dinner along the way and stay at a hotel.  I called it "Our important business trip" and sent out emails to my super fun co-workers.  We all told out husbands that we were very sorry that we had to leave town for an important business trip on Thurday night and all day Friday.  It was kind of fun to turn it around on them (I must admit).

Kris, me, KoLynn, Angela, Leslie and Jeanette

eating at Claim Jumpers on our way to Portland.

This was just the beginning of a night full of uncontrollable belly laughter.

We have so many funny jokes between us, (that I am sure that only we would think were funny).

We know how to crack eachother up with one look or hand signal.

We "rocked" the Hapmton Inn in Milwaukie!!!

After the conference, we stopped by the local Mexican Restaurant Cha Cha Cha's for some chips, salsa and maguritas. . .YUM!  They were much deserved after this conference.  It was about half way through the day that I realized that they had lied to me, that conference wasn't "teduious", it was BORING!!!

  . . .but we made it fun!

All I can say is that if I have to work full time and live this crazy paced, lightning speed life, at least I get to do it with these awesome ladies.  They are so good, to listen to me vent about the trials of adjusting to being a full time working mom.  We are all in the same boat, so they have such good advice for me.

We already have our business meeting on the calendar for next year.  Everyone loved the "stay at a hotel" idea. We have a pact to try to get to sleep before 1:30am next year though.  Too much talking and laughing can't be a bad thing though right?