It's been a very busy month! David & I have both been working lots of hours, he had a business trip to Orlando, Fl. last week, Jzo has both indoor & outdoor soccer plus his new baseball team (David is the coach) has started training 1x/week, Ryker's been in full swing with the EHS swim team and doing really well this year by the way!, and below you will see some pictures highlighting some of Marina's recent activities and other family activities.
Friday the 23rd, Marina & I carpooled down to Portland, Or. with 2 other sets of mother-daughter good friends to kick off the first of 5 weekend dance conventions she will be participating in this season. We joined up with some other friends and 10 of us enjoyed a really delicious dinner at "Piazza Italia".Natalie, Jacqueline, Rachel, Marina & Tess
Susan, who introduced us to this terrific authentic Italian restaurant got some "special treatment" (serenades, dances, cheek-smooches plus dessert!) from the funny little restaurant owner. We celebrated her birthday that night, a few days early.
None of us were "safe" from his attentions.... yes, he danced me around the middle of the little restaurant!
I think he enjoyed our table of 10 pretty girls so much, we couldn't get out the door without him giving kisses to all 5 really embarrassed teenage girls!
Saturday night the girls got to compete their new dances for the first time this year. This is Lindsey and Marina in their lyrical costumes, down in the dressing room.
Since our dance numbers weren't performing until after 9pm, but they had to meet for hair, make-up and costumes much earlier, Tess and Marina went back up to our adjoining rooms to get some homework done. 
This past Monday, Ryker got to the pool for swim practice and one of the coaches told him there was something in the bottom of the pool he needed to dive down and retrieve before they started their warm-up laps....His girlfriend Alison, had the help of one of the dive team guys in getting this poster sunk to the bottom of the pool. Ryker went down to get it, the coach made him hold it up in front of him like in the above photo, do a belly flop into the pool while shouting his answer to the Tolo Dance invitation. "Tolo" is the annual semi-formal, girl-ask-guy dance at our HS.
It was a really cute/clever way to ask him, and there were even two big bags of Swedish Fish (his favorite candy) duct taped to the back side of the poster.
His answer of course was, "Yes!".
For the last 2+ weeks I've been working on 2 new paintings. David thought it looked like Moka was helping me, so he took this shot.That pretty much sums up the recent goings on. The master shower is 1/2 way repaired, I'm fighting a nasty cold, Marina had a sick day, the kids all just started 2nd semester so they have 1 or 2 new elective classes at school & I think all of us will be cheering for the AZ Cardinals on Superbowl Sunday tomorrow!
Later on.... yes, David is doing more demo-work. Maybe all those hours/days/weeks/months of watching home improvement shows last summer during back surgery recovery will pay off!
See the 6 tiles on the lower right area in the photo above? There's some odd color-change to them, that is the 90 degree 'other wall' of the corner shower. Not a very good sign.
