i had plenty to say.........

..........over the last two weeks since blogging, but i just didn't do it. so now, i guess some updates are in order. last week: good this week: good, plus, extra fortified with "camping". not real camping, mind you. matthew and i are not what one would consider the outdoorsy type. it's roughing it for us to have dial-up for two days every six weeks when we go to the coates family vacation home in prescott. but toby has been talking about camping for a few weeks, after seeing it on max & ruby. so, we decided that when all the camping stuff goes on sale in a month or so, we'll get a little tent to put up in the backyard every so often, so we can "camp". in the meantime, though, i was invited to lead the worship for the retreat for our primelife (senior adult) group at church. i did this last year also, and was thrilled to be asked again. it's at bison ranch, up in overgaard. so, i told toby we were going camping. camping in a 2 bedroom cabin with a kitchen, dining room, and living room with a fireplace. (we even "roasted" marshmallows in our campfire) i hoped this would satisfy his camping requirements until the whole tent-acquiring could take place. my fears that it wouldn't were calmed when we ventured out from the campground to black canyon lake. he laughed at how bumpy the road was, barely noticed the cows standing ten feet (!) from our car at one point. and then, when it was time to go in the lake, he walked out on the boat concrete slopey thing, got his feet completely covered with water, squeeled, and promptly left the water. thats my baby- a little nature went a long way. i got him to go in all the way up to his tushy- i suspect the front side package wasn't excited about the coldness of said lakewater. and he enjoyed it thoroughly. for about 30 mins. then we left. back to our wilderness cabin. here's a pic- it's from my camera phone, hence, the graininess.

movies, movies, and more movies

so, this weekend, we went a little overboard on the movies.

there were 7- actually 5 and 2/2. yeah, i know. movies were our full-time job on saturday.

shut up and sing- documentary about the dixie chicks controversy from a few years ago. good, interesting look at their off-stage lives. nothing too spectacular. but it was rather ridiculous that people actually threatened their lives over not liking the president.

wall-e- this was the only theater viewing, and it took us a long time to see it because toby kept saying he didn't wanna see it. matthew and i made the executive decision that we wanted to see it. toby did come, and did enjoy it. so did we. it was very sweet, and fun to watch a movie with so little dialogue, but plenty of story.

m- an excellent german movie. one of the first talking movies from germany. subtitles were good, as most of my german is just in poetry/song form. it's about a child murderer, and the underground thugs that decide that the cops aren't gonna solve this case, so they better. once they catch the guy, the town secretly meets and begins to decide what his punishment should be. this starts a debate about whether he can control himself, and therefore, should have to face any judgement or be declared insane. great script, well acted, we really enjoyed this one. strongly recommend- as long as you can get past the subject matter and all the reading.

kite runner- we'd been hearing about this one for a while. it got great reviews. and we agreed. there were some disturbing moments, great heartfelt memories, and a story of friendship and family. amazing to see how much life has changed in the middle east. strongly recommend.

next we tried two that we stopped after about 45 mins each

all that jazz- bob fosse?- good. jazz?- good. movie about a jerk, adulterating musical director's messed up life?- not so good. i was expecting a musical. we righted this later. you'll see.

brazil- a wacky british comedy (which is a genre we normally love- we enjoy the sarcastic wit)that we just couldn't "get into". didn't work for us.

i still wanted a musical, so we watched........

state fair- we received this in a rodgers and hammerstein collector's set, and just never watched it. we are both musical fans (seeing as we met during one!) so it was a lovely cap to our movie viewing extravaganza of a weekend.

and yes, we did get other things done. we did some laundry, had a date night, went out to lunch, took a friend a birthday present, gave a home staging estimate, went to church, baked cookies, went swimming, got family portraits, and went to target. that sounds like a lot, but didn't feel that jam-packed. a fun few days..............

my boys

matthew has been making a concerted effort to spend more down time with the family. toby is always trying to do whatever matthew is doing. so here are a couple of pictures to go with these familial developments.


sharing a chocolate milk........










having a picnic........






........and "working" with daddy. basically, toby "talks" to someone while matthew is making his business calls. toby even adopts the vernacular. apparently, toby has an appointment to show some lady 5 houses later this week!


we also went to portrait innovations today to get our long overdue 4 year old pictures. (he's four and 7 months). he did way too well looking cute. we ended up with more pictures than necessary, and it was hard enough to narrow those choices down. i'll post a couple over on the side later.

2 more movie reviews

we saw a couple other movies this week that i didn't review.
donnie darko- very dark (o) indeed. an interesting journey into the mind of a disturbed teenager. he is a paranoid schizophrenic whose shrink decided to try placebo medication on. um, hello! he starts to hallucinate a demonic rabbit, well, actually a man in a demonic rabbit costume, who gets him to do bad things in his sleep. wacky, but good, if you enjoy a little comedy mixed in your macabre stories.
the bucket list- we thought this would be a pretty frothy one. but there is some decent story and substance. of course, i was just happy that morgan freeman's character didn't follow every other hollywood storyline and cheat on his wife when propositioned. yay, a decent male role! the movie was pretty light fare, but had some genuine chemistry between the leads, and some touching moments.
i'm sure there will be more reviews soon enough..........
fyi- toby and i are both sick. pray for us!

a surprise for tia

so, this morning matthew and i were trying to figure out what to do today. after first service at church, he comes up and says, "i know what we're doing, and it's a surprise". the man is rare with surprises, and often i have figured them out. not today. he got me good. probably because i know how tight our pursestrings are usually kept around here.

well, when i told him i was ready, he told me to wear something i'm comfortable walking around in. i begin my guessing in my head. zoo? houses? those weren't exactly surprises, we do those all the time.

he made me wear a blindfold (sleep mask) in the car, although i could tell we were driving north for a while. the 101 north being closed helped me have time to realize this. i could just feel it. i know, it's weird, but my mom can always tell what direction is where just by feel- even indoors. i'm not that good, but i could feel this northerly driving. so my next guess is walking around downtown scottsdale, followed by dessert at the sugarbowl. another classic coates' outing.

next thing i know, we make a few turns, he stops the car, and talks to a man. then turns to me and says, " we're getting valet". i think, okay, but we have toby with us, so it's not a fancy dinner or anything. he tells the valet that we're here for a surprise, and the valet takes my hand to escort me to matthew's arm. he says "enjoy your surprise". now i feel really special.

we go inside somewhere, i smells nice, it feels cool. hmmm. up the escalator (super fun with a blindfold! yes, he made me keep it on), matthew turns me to about 4 oclock from our forward walking, and finally says, "okay, we're here, you can take off your blindfold".

i do.

i'm looking in the door of tiffany and company at scottsdale fashion square.

it's close to the sugar bowl, so i made a good guess, but this was much more exciting for tia!

matthew had given me a tiffany chain bracelet for christmas, but he hadn't added anything yet. 'til today. we went in and i picked out a square lock charm. and we decided that since i wanna add to the bracelet over the next few years, we should note the dates on the charms. so we ordered engraving on the original heart charm to say 12/25/07, and on the lock to say "10" in honor of our 10th anniversary that just passed in june.

soooo excited!

but now i have to wait four weeks to get my bracelet back from the engraving.

still soooo excited!

a very good surprise for tia