We're busy up in here, yo!

The past 2 weeks have been just so busy, I barely have time to think!  Amanda's birthday pizza party was a huge success.  Her whole class was so cute and thankful for their pizza lunch.  I had fun too, setting up the plates, doling out fruit & pizza slices.

Last week was an emotional roller coaster.  We all had MLK day off on Monday, so we headed up to Castaic to drop off the boat for some (what we thought were) minor repairs.  The floorboards were feeling a bit soft, so Mike thought a few might need replacing.  Well, turns out the whole floor is rotted, along with the supports that keep the floor up.  So we're talking thousands of dollars to repair on an already super-old boat (not worth the cost of the repairs).  Mike has an emotional attachment to the boat since it originally belonged to his dad, so he was really feeling down about it, and deciding what to do.

Then he found another boat for sale with all the extras in a boat he ever wanted.  At a very good price too.  But the guy didn't call him back for several days, so we weren't even sure the boat was still for sale.  Plus, we weren't sure we could afford it.

Then on Thursday I found out at work that due to a new 'job grading' analysis they did, I would be receiving a fairly large raise, effective immediately!  Talk about good luck (or bad luck, if you see it as I was being grossly underpaid for the past several years)!  AND, that evening the guy selling the boat called Mike back and the boat is still for sale!  He is out of town, so we agreed to come down and see it next Sunday.

Then, upon talking to various family members over the weekend, it became obvious we may not be able to fit the new boat in our backyard.  You see, in order to store our current boat, after pulling it into the backyard, we manually swing it around in a 270 degree turn, and back it into a paved spot in our backyard.  The new boat has a double-axle trailer (old boat was single) so the pivot point changes and turning it sharply becomes out of the question.  So, Mike became depressed & upset again that we may not be able to get the new boat (he refused to even think about storing it somewhere because there are no storage places with roofs in LA for boats).  THEN, after discussing with more family members, now he thinks we can just pull off one of the tires (on each side) and still pivot the boat.  So then he was happy again.

Talk about the gamut of emotions!

So on a happy note, we celebrated my grandmother's 89th birthday on Sunday at my parent's house.  Though her health could be a bit better, she is a pretty spry 89 years young.  She is hilarious because they live in a retirement community and my grandmother constantly complains that it's all "old people" so she doesn't participate in any of the activities.  Hilarious!

This weekend (Saturday the 28th) is Amanda's birthday party.  I have almost everything finished except the food which I'm taking Friday off to do.  I am also cleaning our house from top to bottom and making my own balloon arch.  Hopefully I will get it all done in time.  The balloon arch is a funny story...
So the theme for her party on Saturday is "RockStar" because Amanda loves to sing and pretend she's a rockstar.  I bought a Rock Show set from one of those half off deal sites:

and a stage background to put up the day of the party.  So then I was looking up ideas for decorations and came upon the idea of a red carpet leading up to a balloon arch.  Looked it up on Amazon and a red carpet was like $5 - score!  So then I started looking up how much a balloon arch would be.  I was seeing prices from $350-$400.  Really?  For BALLOONS?

Thus began my search for a reasonably priced balloon arch!  I love the internet.  I found a site that said how to make one yourself, and set to work.  I headed to Home Depot and (with Mike's help) for about $5 got some PVC pipe to act as the base on either side.  Then I bought some aluminum wire on Amazon for $5 for the arch, and some pink & purple balloons from the 99 cent store.  All in all, I think I spent barely over $20.  Now it just remains to be seen how this will look!  Wish me luck!