Wildfires

Hello to all. The Schmidt Family is fine here in San Diego. The fires did not come too close to our home, and all immediate friends and family in the area are fine. We went to LA for 2 days and 1 night for a couple of auditions for Joel and Lydia and to get out of the ash. It's a sad day when you go to Los Angeles for better air quality. We had fun, though, playing at parks, swimming and seeing a movie that cost us $50 for a family of four.

The fires here have been horrible, but for the damage they have done, there has been little life lost. Most are 50% contained now. The schools have been cancelled all week, and the high school around the corner from us has been an evacuation center which is closing today. Today the skies are blue, but you can see the smoke in the periphery. There is also not so much ash swirling around. We were just in a cloud of smoke and ash before. It was like you were sitting on the wrong side of the campfire. The pictures are from the back yard the morning after the ash started falling. It got worse after this. The last are the tracks from the pool cleaning up ash and some leaves because it was very windy. There is usually nothing on the bottom of the pool, so that is mostly ash. We are very lucky to just have ash, and to have clearer skies today.

Driving back from LA, we saw a couple of fires on Camp Pendelton. The flames were high and moving. It was a little frightening to all except for Ryan who has wanted to be a firefighter and said, "At last, I get to see the fires." The next morning, he came to me with his gardening gloves on and said, "I think firefighting is boring. I want to be a trash man." I would like to post a picture of our trash man right now wearing Lydia's dance costume from last year, but I'm afraid it would become an internet sensation and he may never live it down.

Interesting

Try this!

Which way did you see it?

I never really was into Shaun or David Cassidy, but I loved The DeFrancos. They made Tiger Beat worth reading.

I Was a Brady in Another Life

Fun!

Grand Nieces!

Regular nieces...

We also have a new Grand Nephew. I must get permission to post a photo! Should I start giving everyone waivers and photo releases to sign? I can eliminate the use of names to protect the young and innocent. My new Blog name will be Adventures of Joan and Clan featuring family members Jonah, Lilia, and Ryder.

My Very Original List of 9 Things I Love

1. Family...All of them!

2. Summer

3. Children in general...all of them most of the time.

4. The water...lakes, ocean, pools. Everything but swamps.

5. Eating out. So nice. No cooking or cleaning up, no disaster on the floor from Ryan...or at least no disaster on my floor.

6. Finishing a project. As a procrastinator, this usually happens around midnight. It is such a relief.

7. Water skiing. I'm getting worse and worse as I get older, but I still love it.

8. Reading. I can get lost in a book. I'd like to have a quiet week where I could just read anytime I wanted. I used to love plane flights because it was uninterrupted reading time. Then I had kids. Did I ever blog about the time that Ryan kept throwing everything I gave him (toy, food, book) at the angry man in front of us who then decided to keep the toy as punishment? Nightmare flight for all. No reading.

9. Games. I love a good game. I'm pretty competitive, but can contain my competitiveness as an adult. If you ever saw Monica on Friends during a game...that is really what I'm holding in.

Oh Boy!

Now, when you don't post in forever, you just get months and months behind in news. I'll just say we are busy. I'm back in school teaching and taking a class, and in our crazy world, the kids haven't gone back to school yet. This causes a child care nightmare. Sometimes Joel is home, and sometimes he is not. His schedule is erratic and unpredictable. We are making do, though. Lydia starts first grade on Wednesday and Ryan starts preschool again Sept. 10. Things seem to be working out.




My cousin Jon very kindly sent pictures from our time in MN to me. We always have a wonderful family fun time in MN and a huge thank you to the MN family for welcoming us year after year. Today is my Aunt Beth's 80th birthday, and I'm sending out lots of hugs to her especially.


Below, Ben and I are helping out with fishing. I believe that neither Ben nor I are really fisherpeople. Ryan spent his entire first day doing nothing but fishing. That means that someone had to constantly put a worm on his hook and untangle his line. Thanks to all who helped.



Below is Cindy getting out a splinter. Her audience got larger and larger as she worked. It was quite the enterprise. She soon had the group you see above gathered around all with those concerned looks.

AND Happy Birthday to the beautiful "Cousin Karen" as we call her around here. Happy Birthday Wendy, and tomorrow is Lydia's Birthday, too! Congratulations to Erica and Chong for the birth of their handsome, healthy son...Evan! So many exciting August birthdays and births.

Ahhhg!

Summer is coming to an end. This is awful. I start back at school August 15. I started painting in the house and I still have rooms to go. I know if I don't get it done before the end of summer it will never happen. I'm not sure about the colors, but I'm just going to go for it. People keep telling me, just paint over it if you don't like it. I didn't paint for 7 years, do they really think I'll paint again so soon?! I'm just going to be stuck with whatever I put up, at least for a year. I really hope I like it. Everything sure does look fresh with a new coat of paint!

Ryan did summer preschool...camp we called it to make it seem special. Lydia did Dancin' Feet camp and then Soccer Camp run by an Irish group that comes here. The soccer camp was amazing. 9-2 and she came home filthy and exhausted. Now that's a good camp.

The kids have been swimming a lot. Ryan is starting to get braver and actually swim around. He kept telling me he couldn't swim, but the thing is...he could if you made him. He was just afraid. Finally, desire to play with the others has overcome the fear. It is funny, because he is extremely cautious about some things and ridiculously reckless with others, such as walking under this horse he is brushing.
So, I never updated about other events, such as our visit with Uncle Ron, Dance recital and MN trip. I have no new pictures because I dropped my camera in the lake in MN, so it is better to stick with past events after all. The visit with Uncle Ron was a lot of fun because Ron is always fun, and he now has a couple of horses to add to the fun. How exactly he has acquired these horses, I'm not sure. He cut up tons of apples and carrots for the horses, which Ryan also enjoyed. The kids, my Mom, Ron and I all rode the horses around the corral. Before this, Ron fed us sausages and then when we got back to his house he made us some delicious pancakes. He is quite the pancake chef. It was a grand time, and the kids really wanted to spend the night.

Lydia's dance recital was very interesting. This is the first year that she took from this teacher. I did not watch the classes, so the recital was my first real look at the program (through our city's parks and rec.). Oh my goodness, some of these poor girls had been taking 8 years, and someone forgot to tell them to point their toes. The ballerinas were flopping around like they had flippers on. I couldn't take my eyes off their feet, but when I did, I saw flopping arms. I'm not much of a dancer, but I watched with my mouth open aghast through the recital. Lydia's group, being 4-5 year olds, was adorable, but we are quickly finding a new dance class. The poor older girls. Didn't anyone notice that they weren't improving? It would be better to not take any classes at all, because the kids thought they could dance.

Oh, and just as much fun, was being stage mom backstage for the second performance and a little girl started vomiting after her number. She was in a different group from ours, so another mom held her and soothed her (and we all walked around the vomit on carpet covered with paper towels). But then I guess they thought she was OK, so they led her on stage for the curtain call, for which she vomited all over the stage. Poor thing. All the girls around her just stepped out of the way while she was led out. Not one, ooh or ick.

Summer Days

We have just returned from our glorious yearly family reunion at Gull Lake, MN. But before I post about that, I must update you on other summer events. We began our summer with Ben Ruemke graduating from UCLA. You heard that right. We were all so proud. This is us looking proud.

I learned that UCLA is the most applied to school in the nation. Ben majored in history as did the graduation speakers, UCLA graduates Kareem Abdul Jabar and LA Mayor Villaragosa. I am not so sure of the spellings of the names, but isn't it enough that I am posting? I've got no time to research name spellings and my spellcheck doesn't do it for me. While I apologize for mispellings, I will also say that I like to start sentences with "But" and end them in prepositions without an object. Please note that I recognize problems in my writing, but I just trudge along.

Back to the graduation...Ben lived in Inglewood while at UCLA and decided that he didn't love living in LA. He is now thinking of going to law school and is looking at interning in DC next year, possibly at the DC public defender's office. That sounds a lot like living in Inglewood to me. Will it be the law offices of Ruemke & Ruemke? We shall see. Oh how time flies. It seems like just yesterday that Ben was Tiny Tim with his "crunch" (AKA crutch) in Christmas Carol or pivoting on the "A" tables at the West End during Oliver. Some things never change, though, Ben is still always ready with a smile and a big hug. Congratulations, Ben!

TAKE A STAND
by Geoffrey Canada

Maybe before we didn't know,
That Corey is afraid to go
To school, the store, to rollerskate.
He cries a lot for a boy of eight.
But now we know each day it's true
That other girls and boys cry too.
They cry for us to lend a hand.
Time for us to take a stand.

And little Maria's window screens
Keeps out flies and other things.
But she knows to duck her head,
When she prays each night 'fore bed.
Because in the window comes some things
That shatter little children-dreams.
For some, the hourglass is out of sand.
Time for us to take a stand.

And Charlie's deepest, secret wishes,
Is someone to smother him with kisses
And squeeze and hug him tight, so tight,
While he pretends to put up a fight.
Or at least someone to be at home,
Who misses him, he's so alone.
Who allowed this child-forsaken land?
Look in the mirror, take a stand.

And on the Sabbath, when we pray,
To our God we often say,
"Oh Jesus, Mohammed, Abraham,
I come to better understand,
How to learn to love and give,
And live the life you taught to live.
In faith we must join hand in hand,
Suffer the children? Take a stand!

And tonight, some child will go to bed,
No food, no place to lay their head.
No hand to hold, no lap to sit,
To give slobbery kisses, from slobbery lips.
So you and I we must succeed
In this crusade, this holy deed,
To say to the children of this land:
Have hope. We're here. We Take A Stand

Summer Fun

I do love summer. I have always loved it, even when I didn't have summer vacation. Somehow, I always resented working in the summer, though. We are having a wonderful time swimming, going to the beach and playing with friends (my friends included). Sometimes here in coastal SoCal we have what they call May Gray and June Gloom, but it has really been beautiful here this year.

The end of the year was crazy. Lydia had three performances of "The Kindergartner of Oz" and her Dance Recital in the same week. The next week was the end of school for all of us. Cleaning out my room at school was a big undertaking because it hadn't been done for years and closets and shelves were full. I started late in the year and was the new person, so I didn't go through all the junk and purge, but I felt that I could by the end of the year. We had file cabinets full of the old carbon copied worksheets in no specific order as well as a large amount of collected stuff like 7 umbrellas, piles of baskets, shelves of curriculum in Spanish that we are no longer allowed to teach, broken games, puzzles labeled "pieces missing," and piles of dust. Crazy.

The Kindergartner of Oz was another fun and crazy event. A mom from Lydia's class adapted this play and directed it. She included all 120 Kindergarten students and volunteer moms did the costumes, sets, etc. I helped with costumes and did the program which ended up to be a lot of work. All of the costumes were spectacular, but the mom who did the monkeys and lions was very talented and created as if the kids were going on Broadway. She also insisted on makeup, and of course we all helped her because she was otherwise going to do all the kids herself. The director did a marvelous job, teachers guided the cast, and the kids were marvelous. We ended up having to do a bit of fundraising to pay for the Broadway costumes, but it all worked out in the end.

Lydia was cute as can be as Dorothy and sang "Somewhere in the First Grade" solo. At the first performance, things were kind of rushed and crazy getting so many kids into costume and makeup. While I was putting on Lydia's makeup, I realized that I had a bad color of lipstick and then I accidentally went outside her lips, so I just kept making them larger and larger. I didn't want to make her self conscious about her clown lips, so I didn't say anything. I'm sure all the parents were wondering why I did that to her lips, and I keep getting pictures from other families of Lydia and her big lips! She was still beautiful.


Now, I still have to catch everyone up on the Dance recital, Ben's big graduation from UCLA, and much more. Grandma has gone back to MS and Grandpa Ed leaves on Friday. It was great to have them here for all of the fun, and they were a big help, too. Happy Summer Fun to all!

Too Much!

There is so much going on and no time to post! So stay tuned for more of The Kindergartner of Oz, Recital, and the visit to Uncle Ron. Here is a preview.

End of the School Year

It has been so long since I have posted. The end of this year has been crazy. Finishing up things at my school, and then Lydia's end of Kindergarten. She was Dorothy in The Kindergartner of Oz and then there have been all of the parental volunteer things to prepare for this extreme extravaganza. It was quite the production. I will do much more posting on this later. We were very proud and she was quite the sensation. Here is a photo of her and her very dear friend from her class who was a flying monkey.

Mother's Day

I hope that I will be as fine a mother to my children as my mother has been to me. My mother always thought I should be the star...even when I knew I shouldn't be. Holidays are her specialty. No one does Christmas like my Mom. When you go to my Mom's house, you know you will always find plenty of food and lots of love.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Sorry for all those years I made you eat cold toast and runny eggs in bed before your coffee on this special day.

Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful Moms out there!!!

Happy Belated Easter

Easter was delightful. We began the day with an egg hunt at 6am in pajamas and the finding of Easter baskets.

Later, we went to brunch with Tony and Marguerite and the Huebner clan. Karen, Chris, Ben and Corrinne joined us. We came back to the house for another egg hunt. Ryan had been clutching his found eggs from earlier in the day, and refused to let them be hidden again, but Karen and Chris hid plastic eggs.




The hunt was followed by the annual Easter swim. It is kind of like a polar bear swim. The pictures make it look deceptively warm. Karen took part last year. She did not make that mistake again. The swim is led by Lydia. Ryan jumped in, screamed, jumped out, and watched the rest of the gang. Kudos to Ben and Corrinne for the fun.



Tony and Marguerite then took the kids to a barbecue and another egg hunt. Lydia said that this was the best day ever- even better than Christmas or any other Easter.

The rest of us played Cranium, which was a lot of fun. Joel and I were very sad artists and now know to never play Pictionary with Karen and Chris. Good thing that there were acting and singing opportunities in our game.

Following is the flyer for the Walk of Ages this year. Karen does the Graphic design for ElderHelp. Her designs are always wonderful, and look who she put on the poster for this year (it's Ryan on the top).

Disneyland!

We finally went to Disneyland! It was a grand day. There were a lot of people there because of Spring Break, but we only waited in one truly insane line. Joel, Ryan, Lydia and I went with friends Sue and Aja. Sue knows the park well, so she acted as our guide and made things very easy. She knew the lines to avoid, the events the kids would love and generally eased the way.

Lydia and Ryan both loved getting the character's autographs. That would be $12 for an autograph book that you only know is a kid necessity once you are there. Ryan was a bit overwhelmed and wanted to be held a lot while around all the people, but none of the rides scared him. He is definitely a roller coaster sort of boy. He also passed out before dinner.

Ryan's favorite event was meeting Mickey Mouse. That was our one truly long line. We waited an hour for Mickey, and the only one who didn't mind was Ryan. They wound you through the mouse's house for the line and then you ended in a cartoon screening room. They let about ten people in at a time to meet him. Ryan was in awe and it was just too cute. He said, "See you real soon!" to him when we left. Lydia was half asleep as we were headed out of the park and the fireworks were beginning, but she woke up enough to ooh and ahh, and say, "Awesome!" before she passed out. It was just an incredible day.

We spent the night at the Marriott which was right next door. Joel is a Priceline expert and got the room for 1/2 of what the cheapest deal was. I highly recommend Priceline for hotel rooms, but there is an art because if you are refused for the first bid, they make you change parameters before bidding again.

The next morning, we saw Lydia's commercial on Playhouse Disney. That was very exciting. The show is My Friends Tigger and Pooh. It begins next month. They have plain animated commercials, and then the exciting ones with real live children like Lydia. Below is a picture of her with one of the other girls.

We swam in the pool, checked out, and then Lydia, Ryan and I went to the Disney desk to ask directions to Downtown Disney (shops). I was chatting with the lady and Lydia was taking brochures, as usual. She had one in particular and asked me if she could take another.

Jill: No, you already have one.

Lydia: Please, Mom, just one more (as she reaches for it).

Jill: Lydia, put that back. One is enough.

Lydia: But Mom, look.

She shows it to me, and it is a big picture of her! It was a brochure for annual passes, and she is on it riding in the teacups with her fake mom. I let her take another, and asked the lady if I could have more. I showed the lady that it was Lydia, and she said that maybe she was in the other brochure she had. Sure enough, she was in that one, too.

Then we get in the car and this Disney bus pulls up alongside of us. And guess what? There is Lydia on the bus! My camera was in the trunk, so we got it out, and then I made Joel chase the Disney buses. Luckily, there are a lot of them.

Happy Birthday, Joel!!!

We celebrated on Grandpa Ed's last day here in CA, but today is the day. Joel turned 40 on 4/4/04. Any numerologists out there? Interesting that 4 has always been my favorite number. The other child is Lydia's friend, Aja.