When we put in an offer on our Colorado home, it was because of the beautiful floors, 5 bedrooms (well, 4 and a small office they called a bedroom), location, and.. well, I could go on. We really love this house.

But now, I love it even more.

WE HAVE A PEACH TREE!

These are fresh from the tree, barely molested by the birds. The real trick is waiting until they are ripe enough on the tree, but not all eaten by the birds. If you have any tips on that, I’d love to hear it.

Ahhh… the weekend comes to a close, and we all tuck in to bed for the week ahead.

This week will be week 2 of school for the kids. Last week was pretty soft I think.. not really any homework, getting back into the school groove, learning the classroom.. We’ll see how this next week goes. Hope the homework battles don’t start yet!

Saturday was pretty fun – we went to Mile High Comics in Denver, which we thought was only open to the public every few months or so, but after we arrived, we found that they are open 7/days a week now! Still it was fun, and it was HUGE. We all got a comic.. and someone *coughjamescough* got more than one. Wondergirl for Jocelyn, Wonder Woman for me, Star Wars for Ethan, and a ton of Batman for James. It was a pretty cool place, lots of toys, TONS of comic books, and the staff was very friendly and helpful.

We’ll be back. Oh yes, we’ll be back.

James took the kids to the airshow at a local airport. I dropped them off and picked them back up, and caught the tail end of some thrilling fly-bys by I think a stealth bomber (if Ethan was here he would immediately correct me). I picked up the crew tired, hot and sweaty, but mostly happy. Ethan complained that it was awful, but honestly, he says that about everything. If we didn’t drag him out of the house now and then, he’d stay in his room 24/7 building legos and listening to Harry Potter until he starved!

I’ve been keeping busy coiling up a huge amount of coils to cut into jump rings Monday morning, and working on my supplies website. I have been unhappy with my shopping cart platform I was using, and have been working on getting both sites moved to a new location. My jewelry website was done and moved over about a month ago, and I am happy to report that I have made the switch over for my supplies shop this weekend. Yay! I’ll be spending this week checking things over and adding in anything I’ve forgotten.

The downside to the new platform — anyone who previously had an account (on either site) will have to reset their password in order to log in, and there is no order history available. I think the change was a good one — the system I was using before had some quirks that were just a bit too quirky for me, and the admin panel is much more user friendly. It will save me and I hope my customers a lot of time in the long run!

If you’d like to check out my new sites, feel free:

http://www.rainestudios.com
http://www.rainestudios-supplies.com

Last week I went to the gym Tuesday & Friday, to my favorite class — water circuit (basically a circuit class, but in the pool!) This week, I need to do better — I’m shooting for Mon-Wed-Fri or maybe Tues-Wed-Fri. The days I went last week I felt AWESOME. When work starts to pile up it’s hard to make myself go — even though that is when I need to go the most, to relieve the stress!

A few parting kid quotes:

“Mom, don’t worry. I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING.”

….

“…. Most of the time.”

— Ethan, age 10.

OK, just one kid quote. Later!
-Amy

Another video tutorial! Would love your feedback!

Purchase a jens pind bracelet kit on my jewelry supplies website.

A video I made and posted up on youtube — would love to hear your feedback! I need to work on keeping my camera in focus, but I think I repeated things enough that it comes across. Please let me know what you think!

Interested in trying your hand? You can purchase a kit to make a byzantine bracelet right here on my website.

Ahhhh blog…. How I have neglected you! I’m so sorry… I really need to do better.

Starting now!

This week has been interesting. First off it’s the last week of summer vacation. Next Monday they have an assessment day (only go in for a few hours of testing) and then school officially starts on Tuesday.

I CANNOT WAIT!

I feel like a bad mother when I say that, but I am sorry — running a home based business with kids at home all day, who refuse to go outside and play by themselves or with friends, and therefore come and pester ME for everything (YOU MEAN I HAVE TO FEED YOU LUNCH AGAIN? I JUST DID THAT YESTERDAY!) makes getting orders out the door kind of tough at times. And let’s not even talk about work on new ideas! HA!

So yes. I am sooooo happy that school is starting next week. I am also looking forward to getting back to the gym regularly. I have not really felt comfortable taking the kids to the kids area at our gym and leaving them for 1.5 hours — I always think I hear my name being paged over the sound system, worried that Ethan has had some sort of melt down, and I just can’t really enjoy myself.

Plus, I like sleeping in, and my favorite classes are at 8 or 8:30am. *cough*

So yeah. Gym. Getting back will be painful… but nice.

This, our last week of summer holiday, I’ve implemented a “no electronics” rule. Even James and I are following it! (Only a little plants vs. zombies cheating on my phone right before bed. Really! Working on my laptop doesn’t count, btw.) I think the kids are really doing pretty well – Jocelyn is getting creative and coloring, making cardboard art and interesting items, I try to have a nerf battle with Ethan once a day, and he turns out some new Lego creation regularly, and last night we had family game night — with MY favorite game, Rummikub! I used to play it as a little girl with my grandmother (the “game grandma” we called her, she had a closet stuffed to the gills with games!) and it’s a good one. We haven’t had a family game night in a while — not that us parental units aren’t to blame — sometimes the TV after dinner is just EASIER.

In other news this week, we are now the proud owners of a 1999 Toyota 4Runner! James had this cockamany idea to sell his Subaru Impreza STi and with the proceeds, buy both a 4Runner and an older Mazda Miata. One to go camping and off roading with, the other for James to turn into a racing car. One down and one to go! We bought a new 1999 4Runner the year we were married (1999) and had it until I wrecked it in a car crash.. I think in 2009? We have missed it so, especially now that we are in Colorado – Land O’ Mountains. It is a little bit of awesome to have one in the garage again. I just love those trucks — and this one is going to be rigged out to go off road — so we are excited.

OK — I think that will be all. I don’t want to overload this here blog with too much on my first foray back. Hopefully I won’t forget all about it for another 6 months.

-Amy