News

It's March... not doing too badly!

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:37:49 -0700

So, it’s March, and we last updated in February! Woo hoo... we’re getting better!
Things are going pretty well here. Except for the Evil Sickness. Zaida and I are home sick today. This is the first full sick day Zaida’s taken from school (she’s taken a half-day twice). But she’s actually on the mend. She slept a TON last night, and woke up feeling better. But the fact that she’s not bouncing off the walls says a lot about how poorly she must still feel.
I’m home taking care of her, and it’s a good thing because by about 10 a.m. I felt pretty crappy too. Shane spent last week curled up on the couch sick, so we universally blame him ;)

Congratulations to Nesey!

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:05:58 -0800

My awesome little sister Nesey was just named CHIEF RESIDENT for the upcoming year!!
In case you’re one of the... well ... no-one I haven’t told yet, my baby sister is an ER resident in D.C. She’s a second year resident. And they’ve just told her she’ll be CHIEF RESIDENT in her third year.
Woo hoo! She kicks ass!

It’s 2009 and all is well...

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:14:59 -0800

I know. I know.
It’s 2009. We haven’t updated this site since... well, probably August of last year.
But here we are with lots of new photos!! Do you forgive us?
ANYhoo... Here’s the poop. Er... scoop.
Zaida:
Zaida is her usual awesome self. She’s five and a half. Though you won’t hear her say the half part, because as far as she’s concerned that just means people expect her to do more. Probably because Shane and I always say stuff like “Get your own shoes on, you’re five-and-a-half now!” She says she never wants to grow up. That’s an alien concept to me, as I always couldn’t wait to grow up. But Shane says he was the same way.
Zaida is halfway through Kindergarten now. She’s doing very well. Particularly since she’s the youngest in the class. Actually... she’s the youngest in the school, I think. Her birthday is the day before the age cut-off. We were worried about that, but at her mid-year parent-teacher conferences her teacher said she didn’t stand out as one of the youngest. She said she had no concerns about Zaida at all, so that was nice to hear.
Of course, as she was telling me that, Zaida was in the bathroom and called out “Maaaaaama! I need HELP! My butt fell in the TOILET!”
I just looked at Mrs. Nelson and said “Really? No concerns??” ;)
What else has Zaida been up to since August? (wow... we suck).
She broke her arm in November. She was swinging on the monkey bars at school and fell off. Not a biggie usually, but she flung her arm out on the way down and it smacked the metal ladder. She fractured both her radius and ulna. She spent a few weeks in a splint/removable cast, and was fine.
She had a great Christmas this year. I was home for almost two weeks around Christmas time, and it was really nice to get that time with her. We just hung out, played in the snow, and decorated. She got a lot of toys, and more stuffed animals than ever.
Zaida is still doing gymnastics, and has also started swimming classes. She is such a fish! She loves the pool, and since there’s one around the corner from our house, we go with great regularity. She has already been bumped up a level (after three lessons!) and is doing things for her teachers that we can’t even begin to get her to do.
We would still very much like to get her into music lessons (she wants to do drums) and martial arts. But at this point it’s a matter of both time & money.
Recently Zaida has been asking/caring about clothes. Normally she’s a big fan of whatever is most comfortable. But the other day she looked at Shane and I and said “Can I please have some beautiful clothes?” We were more than a little shocked. So much so that we just said “Um... yeah.” I took Friday off work to spend the day with her (she was out of school last week on Mid-winter break) and we hopped over to the outlets in North Bend and picked up some “beautiful” clothes.
Yesterday we got her skates. She had some already, but they were the big plastic clunky little-kids kind. We got her some of the leather-boot kind. She’s learning (slowly but surely) to skate.
Shane:
Shane is still working his butt off at the Apple Store. He’s still Lead Genius, and is in the management training program, to eventually become a store manager. He’s working hard at improving a lot of things at Apple, and does a fantastic job.
His band is doing some recording right now. They’re on a gig hiatus at the moment, trying to write/record new material.
The only other big thing right now is that Shane is in the process of getting a huge tattoo. It’s very cool. We will post photos, but most likely not until it’s all done. It is going to take approximately three 6-8 hour sessions to complete. He had the first eight hour session last Monday.
Oh, and one last thing... Shane and his brother Reed are going to start rebuilding a “project car” together. Stay tuned for photos.
Tara:
Things are going OK. I’m pretty wiped out from my job. I’ve been working 80+ hour weeks, and doing my best with Zaida in the evenings. Can’t lie... it’s been a hard past year. No free time to do stuff like update this site, unfortunately. I’m hopeful things will get better. We’re hiring another dev, which will hopefully take some of the stress off.
Otherwise, it was really, really nice to see my sister Nesey at New Years. As always we just hung out and had fun. Nice to see her, and quite a surprise. Didn’t think I’d see her until August of ’09! We did the unthinkable and got “sister” tattoos. No, we didn’t get each other’s names! We just picked one we both liked and have sort-of the same tattoo. I says “sort of” because two different artists did them, and let them color them differently. Also, because of positioning (mine’s on my leg, Nesey’s is on her back), mine is inverted.

Vacations:
We have, despite how busy we’ve been, managed to get away TWICE in the last few months. In October we visited Orcas Island for a weekend, and in January we visited San Juan Island (Friday Harbor) for a long weekend. It was awesome! You can check out photos in our photo gallery.
Otherwise everything’s pretty much the same. Please take a look at our new photos!
Cheers!  Tara (and Shane and Zaida)

Holy Crap, Updated

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:32:13 -0700

This is just a quick update to let everyone know that Zaida is pretty much fully recovered from her surgery. She went in very, very excited about it, and came out much more dubious.
After some issues with her pain meds, and lack of eating/drinking, she’s now fully on the mend, and at about 95%. We’re very happy. Her sleeping has changed fundamentally. She sleeps deeply and peacefully now!
In other Scot family news... well, there really isn’t very much. Shane’s new band Holophrase rocked their first two gigs, and are anxiously awaiting Saturday’s big Hempfest gig. Otherwise it’s just been work, home, work, home for us.
Over’n’out...

Holy Crap!

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:30:15 -0700

OK, we really, really, really, REALLY suck.
Wow. I just saw that it was OCTOBER when we last posted. It’s now June. Um... at least when we suck we do it well!
So, let’s see what’s new since last October...
Our house: We’re in a new house! We are renting a cute little house in Seattle’s “Northgate” neighborhood. Really close to I-5, the Northgate Mall, schools, pools, etc. We have a fantastic fenced yard, and Zaida loves it. She’s a big fan of watering the yard, watering the fence, watering the house... you get the picture. She has a kiddie pool, a slip’n’slide, a sprinkler, a small trampoline, a sand box, lots of yard toys... it’s great. And even though it’s a tiny house (1100 sq ft) it’s three bedroom, so Shane gets his own teeny office, which makes it feel bigger because his office isn’t in the living room anymore.
Jobs: Well, the jobs are the same - I’m at Hacker Group still, and Shane’s still with Apple - but a few things have changed. I’m now located in downtown Seattle (we were in Bellevue). My company moved there in May. Very fancy schmancy if you ask me. It must be, since I pay $305/month just to park! As for Shane, he’s his normal rock star self and was promoted to Lead Genius at the Apple Store. Speaking of which, they’re undergoing a major renovation/expansion, and are currently operating as a mini store. You may see some photos of this popping up soon.
Zaida: As always, Zaida is awesome. She’s such a smart, funny, cute little kid. Every day she makes us laugh, glow with pride, and also want to bang our heads into the walls. She’s so much like Shane it’s not even funny. Smart, outgoing yet sometimes shy, and someone who definitely knows what they want and won’t deviate from it at any cost. Her favorite things right now are Lilo & Stitch, Kung Fu Panda, and anything to do with water. Also, in minor Zaida news, she won a medal in Gymnastics for completing her first full year!!
Zaida has some big moments coming up in the near future:
July will bring her to Children’s Hospital for surgery to remove her tonsils, adenoids, and put in ear tubes. This is not something we are doing lightly, but she has been suffering serious hearing loss for almost a year now, as well as chronic congestion, so we’re really hoping she sees some good results. The absolutely shocking thing is that we assumed all along it was allergies, and it turns out the child is allergic to NOTHING. Shane and I both had such severe allergies as kids (me hayfever, him hayfever and animals) that we assumed she’d get some of it. Maybe she will in future, but for now she didn’t have even a teensy weensy reaction to any of the tests! We were very surprised.
August will, of course, bring her fifth birthday. We will be having it at our house on the day of her actual birthday. She’s looking forward to being five, and most of the time thinks she is already. She’s convinced that people are doing nothing but sitting around contemplating what to get her, and that she has great things in store for her. Oddly though, she requested a “family only” birthday. But when questioned more deeply she did consider a few friends to be “family”.
September will bring... dun dun dun... SCHOOL! I mean real school. Kindergarten. Public school. I won’t go into all the details over our struggle to find Zaida a good school, but it was a long hard battle. We didn’t move to Seattle until 5 months after the school assignment cut-off, so she was left with the bottom of the barrel pickin’s when it came to schools. We were frantic because she was assigned to a TERRIBLE school and nowhere else had room. But a long hard battle was won, and we actually transfered her out of the Seattle school district entirely! She’s now going to attend an elementary school in Shoreline (the city limit is just half a mile or so from our house). We’re super excited for her. Until then she’s attending a pre-school that’s literally around the corner from us. It’s insanely expensive and not very good, but it’ll suffice until she starts... dun dun dun... Kindergarten.
Music: Shane’s band situation is different, but not completely, if that makes any sense. Lucid Spiral is no more. However, all the members minus Brandy re-formed to create a new band with a new singer. The new band is called “Holophrase”, and will be performing at some awfully cool events this summer, including Hempfest! Quite a coup for a new band to get into an event like that! Look out for Holophrase in the next few months.
Kitties: They’re fuzzy. Way too fuzzy. We have all hardwood floors in the new place, which is great because you can completely clean the fur away rather than having it live in the carpet (good for Shane’s allergies). But it also means that you see the fluff flying around and have to clean the floors all the freakin’ time. That’s what comes from having two long-haired beasts and a super-shedding short-haired beast.
Well, I promised Zaida we’d play Cars (like, the movie) so I’d better go.
Love & hugs,
Tara, Shane and Zaida.