We're So Gorgeous

Jeremy, the drama king, is certainly a musical little kid. He is still taking guitar lessons and is in the school chorus. He is thrilled to be singing infront of others, but ONLY with a large group. I could still hear his voice though. Very distinct.
He also won 2nd place in the science fair. Thanks to Diva-Tia, Big Momma and Diva Blue for participating. I have shots of the event but I am having serious trouble uploading any pictures.. I will add them later, its late and I need to go to bed...

Diva Kareoke style accepts your Anime Challenge! She has a firey wit about her and looks fabulous dahling!!!

I think....I think I'm done with tinkering. Please let me know if I need to fix anything.

(Many thanks to my Minnesota brother Trevor for the coolio tree pic!) Check out his site!

I still haven't figured out what I did to blot out my description bar.

Nor do I have anything enlightening to say...the kids and I have been trading colds all week.

Somebody else post a bit! *goes back to tinkering with html tags*

I fixed some of the header code this morning. Mozilla people, please let me know if you're still getting big black boxes instead of text.


No new pics to put up at the moment, so I'll just say Happy Equinox!

I have no brains today, I'll be more witty later on.
*flop*

First a bit of business: Apologies, to y'all on Mozilla. I know, there's a big black box right under the title--my header codes are all messed up. I'll do what I can to correct this in the next few days.

Now, on to something fun:

Here's a fun quiz I found on Quizilla, along with my results:



I didn't expect that result either. Still, pretty cool, eh? Take it, tell us what you got!

Here's another quiz, and what one person thinks I'd look like as an anime girl:

You look like this!
(I particularly like the messy long hair, that's very much in character, for me!)


Gaby as an anime girl. Take the quiz and find out what you look like!
brought to you by Quizilla

Two days later, and I've finally finished editing this blog. HTML is harder to decipher than it looks! I went with a sort of ethnic-southwestern mariachi color scheme because:
a) it seemed appropriate, given how much time we spent in Texas
b) the colors are happy
c) that's just the way I roll...(ok, I was tired, the colors kept me awake)

I really hope you like it, folks--I'm not sure I could do this twice!

Some quick news and then I'm going to bed:

Our very own Big Mama has found herself a man, and has decided to keep him. The wedding's taking place May 13th and the bride will wear p-e-a-c-h. No word on whether they'll go for matching tuxes....I hear he's nice and his name is John. They picked up the marriage licence and ring today, I'm told.

Diva Kareoke-style has scored yet another in a seemingly endless line of awards for her excellence at helping keep the Pentagon stocked with employees...Bob is still freezing his butt off in Montana, Jeremy has been having fun at the dentist.

Diva Tia (who has no computer, and thus, is not listed, but trust me, she's pure diva!) has gotten the job she's been angling for, something about Patient Billing. She's jazzed, to say the least. Last I heard, she'd survived her first week of work, while juggling school and Master Gavin...Mike recently got back from a trip to Thailand, word is he'll be going back for more Tattoo training sometime soon.

I've been playing with this and my other blogs, re-arranging the house and working out various and sundry ways for the boys to keep contact with their fathers. Gareth (who is in the gifted program now) will be seeing his dad in April (spring break). Vincent now web-cams with his father once a week. It's still a little wierd for him (well, for all of us) but he's getting used to the idea. I talk to Tristan's dad (and to Amelia) more than I do himself, these days. Amelia tells me they had a gig last Saturday downtown, apparently it went well....Finally, I've acquired a midi, so now I can go back to school...if I can swing the tuition.

Oy! With all the goings on of late, I have been slackin' at the gym-stuff, only getting there a couple times a week for most of the past month. I got serious about it again today and man...I am paying for my sloth. I am exhausted and sore, y'all, but it serves me right. For those keeping track, I can get into a size 16 now and not die...

The rest of you: I haven't heard anything lately! So get busy! Write, comment, post.

It's well past my bedtime...Night!

Sunta covered this quite adequately below, but just to add in:

Queen rocked! They held the concert at the MCI center, in downtown DC. We dropped wee V-man off at the lovely Miss Lynn's house, got gussied up in a reasonable imitation of concert gear (concert T and jeans for Sunta, basic black short skirt and go-go boots for me. Gareth's comment? "I don't know about this, you don't look like a mom any more"). I guess we looked pretty good!

After a quick dinner and an exciting Metro ride downtown, we found ourselves negotiating the MCI center. My friend Joe and his wife were there, right across from us on the opposite side of the stadium. We text-messaged back and forth (that was a comedy. We tried sending pictures but the distance was too great, I don't think we actually got any) until the concert began.
The lights went down, the music rose, the crowd whistled and howled! Showtime!

The boys were nervous when the crowd started making noise (let's face it, a huge stadium concert is a little overwhelming the first time, and these two are only 9 and 10) and they didn't know the music, so I was a little worried they wouldn't get into it, at first.
Jeremy did shut down pretty quickly and went to sleep (too loud, he said) but after an hour of adjusting and watching his mom and aunt ROCK OUT to the music (which must have been an amazing sight for him, since I rarely dance) Gareth loosened up, got into the spirit of the concert and started dancing and whooping along with the rest of us (I was so glad to see that, he's a lot more self-concious than his brothers are). We did rouse Jeremy long enough to hear "We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions" which is what he wanted to come for in the first place. Today, they've reported they had a good time, but they're both obviously tired. *laughs* Yeah, well, so are we. But it was worth it!

This is one of those bands that have been around so long that all they really have to do is stand there and play on some songs and the audience just rocks on without them. The best example of this was Bohemian Rhapsody. Wisely, Paul Rogers didn't try to sing it (or any of the really "Freddie" numbers). Instead, they just put Himself up on the screen and we all sang away like he was still with us. A dream realized! Sunta and I have always wanted to do that, since we were 9 and 10.

The concert was about 60/40 Queen hits and stuff from Paul's days in Bad Company and Free. All great songs. The audience had a blast. Many of the signature Queen songs were either sung by...err...whoever the lead guitarist is, or turned into instrumentals.
The most amazing thing I saw that evening was one particularly sentimental ballad (These Are The Days Of Our Lives?) toward the end. Usually, the norm is lighters, but this time, the whole stadium held up their lit up cell phones. It was very cool!

The whole experience was cool. I'm so glad we had the chance to go!

Well, Its March 9, 2006 and the show of a life time is about to start. Gaby, Jer, Gar and I are on our way.!!!! Here we are getting ready.



And here I am the next day, totally in Queen heaven. Paul Rogers was awesome too and he really rocked the night. Carole and I even had goosebumps during parts of the performance because it was SO special! Queen was AWESOME and I am so glad I bought the tickets. Gareth was cool, although being his first concert was anxious, but not for long... he started rockin' and got to see a rare glimps of his mom and aunt ... the rock goddesses that we are, get loose and have FUN...and Jeremy???.... well Jeremy fell asleep, so tired. 5:30 am to get up for school is just too early for a boy to enjoy the concert of the decade. He did manage to wake up for his favorite queen song (We Will Rock You).


Party on Gareth! Party on Jer, Gaby and Sunta. We will ROCK YOU!! ... Excellent

Yesterday was Vincent's birthday, but he was sick. Today he was feeling much better, so we celebrated Vincent's Birthday today! It wasn't huge, but we had fun.


The big event of the day was a trip to Toys R Us. The boys checked out each (and I mean each and every) toy in the store. After much deliberation, Gareth settled on a cute little chinese dragon car for Vincent's train set (He's slowly collecting the Thomas the Train Engine set) I got him the big yellow ball he's been wanting forever and Vincent settled on a cool set of real Tonka earth-moving trucks as his present from Daddy (who was kind enough to send me the money, since he was stumped).


When we got home, the boys had a birthday dinner, chosen by Vincent: Hot dogs, grapes, juice (in batman cups), ice cream (chocolate) and cake (also chocolate, ditto the icing, decorated with balloons), served on spider-man plates. For party favors, they got these cool electric candy fan thingys that lit up.

I threw on some happy hi-de-ho music (Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, etc) and we all danced a bit before the kids settled down to play with the toys. Gareth is a particular fan of the songs "Puttin' On The Ritz" and "Hi-De-Ho Man" while Vincent leans more toward "Jitterbug" and "Too Darn Hot". They both liked "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?" which is something I sing to them when I get a chance.


I had fun with "Are You All Reet?" and did my best Peggy Lee impression singing "Alright, Ok, You Win" (which amused the boys, I'm sure). I'm afraid I'm the only one who really got into "Papa Loves Mambo".
We finished up with Louis Armstrong's version of "All That Meat And No Potatoes" It's a great song and this is a particularly good version, featuring great ensemble work as well as some nice solos. Gareth said he could have done without the saxaphone, but he got into the trombone solo (especially after I told him I used to play). Vincent wasn't that picky, he was too busy imitating the drummer.
All in all, it was a successful birthday celebration. Whew! That's a relief!


Happy 4th, Vincent!

I figured out how to capture pics with the webcam! This is me and Vince, as of 3 seconds ago.
I'm still trying to figure out how to capture pics from other people's cams...
Anyhow, check out the webcam pics:

c'est moi, le Diva Bleu d'Etoille

This is what my coffee pot looks like en tableau.


This is what it looks like during the day, from the webcam


and this is the lovely exposure you get at night. Tres vert!

In other news, today's Vincent's 4th birthday.
Unfortunately, he woke up sick, so we've put off doing anything special until tomorrow. He did get to see his dad online though--Tom set up a webcam too. We're trying this out as our solution to the Super-Crazy-REDICULOUSLY-Long-Distance problem. Today was the first try. A little slow and choppy, but not bad. Kinda wierd, and Tom needs a new microphone, but I think this will work.

A friend sent me this and I had to share....

This is a dude in Saskachewan...he's tossing a bowl of boiling water in the air. The temperature happens to be oh...-40 degrees....

Ain't physics grand?

--Diva Blue

Hey chilluns. I finally broke down and got a cablemodem. Wow! I'm more than pleased, I can surf as well as I can at work now. I tried webcamming to Canada this evening and had no trouble--no freezing, good picture. I'm sure it helped that my friend has DSL. I'm looking forward to trying the connection to other places, so if you've got the set up, contact me and we'll try it ok? Great.

I haven't tried uploading anything yet, so we'll try it now:

(live report)
distinctly slower than downloading, thus far....*blink* but not too shabby! That only took a few seconds.

Now, these won't be great but they'll do for the sake of experiment.

Here's a recent one of me and Vincent:

Gareth took this one. He's learning how to work a camera.

Vincent was very tired!
We'd spent most of the day building a desk. This one was taken before we actually moved all the computer stuff over to it's new location so everything is all chaotic.

In true strategic form, Vincent exploited the desk-building distraction by climbing up the kitchen cabinets to snag the Forbidden Cheetos. He and I are discussing the matter in this photo.

Now, Gareth:

As you can see, he was also very tired. He's been a great help to me this week.

I think he was displeased when this was shot, though, he's got that, "Mom, I don't want my picture taken" look.

The angle sucks , he looks larger than he actually is. He's lost some weight (and gained some height) recently.

We measured him the other day--he's 5'3". This is a 10-year old boy we're talking about! His feet are huge...I bet he ends up being at least 6'3", unless the rogue Italian genes kick in and he quits growing prematurely.

Genetics sure are interesting:
Tris has big feet too, but he only made it to 5'6" (then again, Tristan was only about 4'5" when he was ten). Tristan got the short gene from both sides--he's built like his dad (who can't be more than 5'8") and otherwise takes after our dad (who was also only 5'6").

Gareth's paternal line contains nothing tall, brawny celts, most of them blond. He also seems to be taking after Mom's father's side of the family (more big celts, just irish instead of scottish).

I'm very interested in seeing how Vincent turns out. So far, he's an asian version of Tristan.