Thinkin' of Delayin'

We forgot to mention our woohoo last week...our exchange student is finally gone! He begged his exchange program and his parents and left five days early, last Friday. Our entire family is relieved to have him gone, to finally have just us and be able to focus on us as a family. Friday night, we went out to see Bridge to Terabithia, which was a fantastic movie, definitely a tearjerker.

Then, as previously mentioned, we went to the Families Rock! concert on Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. On Sunday, Aurora and Karma decided that we need a family newspaper which will keep our family updated on what is going with ourselves. We're going to try to include some of their content here on our site, to tell it from the children's perspectives. They published their first paper today and we will try to get it scanned in and posted on here as a picture. If it doesn't come through, we'll just type out some of the content.

As for the title of this post, this has to do with our vacation. We still haven't gotten Sam's license back yet and we'd really like to have two drivers before we hit the road. Also, our good friends at Families Rock! are producing a concert with the legendary Vallejo on April 14th and we would really like to attend. The subject has been broached to 4/5 of the family (Caed is always the last to know) and we will be taking a group vote sometime this week or weekend. So far though, we all feel torn in two because we love our friends, would love to be there to support them in their most awesome venture yet, plus catch a kick-butt concert, but on the flip-side, we're really feeling the need for the road trip. We think we're coming to the conclusion that putting off the road trip a week and a half won't really hurt and we'll also be able to make sure we get Sam's license.

Well, in the infamous words of Porky Pig, "That's all Folks!"

Rockin' Concert!!

We attended a rockin' concert today! Put on by our very good friends at Families Rock (www.familiesrock.com), it featured Farmer Jason and Matt the Electrician. We showed up a bit early because we had made some decorations for the show. Farmer Jason was on first and the guy was cool. His music was awesome, child appropriate, but fun for adults. Someone accidentally pulled the fire alarm during his portion of the show, so we all poured out of Antone's onto the sidewalk and partly into the street. He was such a good sport and a talented musician, he kept the show going right out there on the sidewalk! We got his autograph and bought his new CD. He thanked us for helping keep the energy going outside.

Matt the Electrician rocked. His music rocked a little harder than Jason's, and was more for the older set. It was definitely very dance-able. Families Rock decided to have a family dance contest, so of course the Dharma Family had to participate. We didn't want to win, just wanted to dance. It was a little hard for Andrea because of her foot, but she hobbled through some country type dancin'. All-in-all, four-fifths of the Dharma Family had a great time (Sam couldn't make it to the show) and we left just feeling the energy!

It just keeps getting better!

That was our sarcastic voice. In our last post, we mentioned the recent murder in our neighborhood and the fact that it makes us want to move (including all the hassles therein). Well, last night, Sam was up reading Cell by Stephen King when he heard several shots being fired and footsteps running past our house. Then, a car door slamming and the car peeling away. He went outside to see if our car had been damaged and saw folks from our extorting neighbor's house filing outside to check their vehicles as well. No report on whether or not anything (or one) was shot.

So...our lease is up in August and it just can't come soon enough. Fortunately, we will be gone for 3 weeks in April for vacation, before which we plan to get renter's insurance so should something untoward happen in our absence, we'll be covered. This is just crazy. Of course, last night's occurence has not been mentioned to the children, they already hate our house and are scared enough in our neighborhood. What kind of life is that, to be terrified to be in your own home?

To make it worse, we're homebodies. We prefer to be at home. Don't get me wrong, we love to go places, see friends, rock out at concerts, etc, but at the end of the day, we're happy to be back in our home where we can enjoy each other in what should be peace and quiet. We don't have that. We can't feel peaceful to be home. That's just wrong.

Need to Move!!!!

This is the reason we were out of the world. We have been debating for the year we've lived here about whether or not we would stay in this place after the end of our lease. We have a 3/2/1 for $725/month. That is hard to find and about as much as we want to spend. We've had a problem with a neighbor who has been extorting us for money (in exchange he's done some lawn care), but the one time we had no money, our rental car got its window smashed. It looks like there are a lot of drug deals going on over there and last year, our lawnmowing neighbor was arrested and we didn't see him for three months. All of this has been enough to make us want to live elsewhere, but we still didn't want to move. About two weeks ago, there was an incident that made up our minds.

We went to soccer and then enjoyed a friend's birthday after. When we came home, there were four police cars on our block (one in front of our house) and a forensics van across the street. When we went to leave a couple hours later, the forensics van was gone, there was an extra police officer and the medical examiner had arrived. We asked the folks who lived on the other side of the duplex where all the officers were and they said that it seemed someone had been killed. They didn't know the details, just that it had happened. While we're not naive, we know that murder can (and does) happen anywhere, we just don't feel safe in our home and that's no way to live. Our lease is up in August and we're going to move then. We just don't know where or how much it will cost.

Out of this World...

It seems like we've been out of the world lately. Fortunately, it turns out Andrea is not broken, just sprained, but in pain nonetheless. Our exchange student is on Spring Break this week, so we've been getting to sleep in, which has been just plain nice. We got up early this morning to go to soccer, so we're all a little sleepy today.

Sam and Andrea saw 300 last night, we loved it!! Andrea thought there was some senseless nudity (not like she minded seeing that much of Gerard Butler, she just wished there was a reason) and was a little put off by the CGI blood spatters, but enjoyed the story and acting. Sam loved the story and the soundtrack, he wants to get ahold of the soundtrack for home listening. He also enthusiastically states, "We need to own it!"

Our vacation is definitely a go, unfortunately though, due to circumstances beyond our control, we've had time limits imposed, so we'll only be able to take 3 weeks. We might try to drag it by a day or two, but don't think we can get away with much. With those kinds of time constraints, we're going to be limiting our number of stops, just so we have enough time to enjoy the ones we will have. We've decided to take care of family obligations first so that we can take all of our leisurely time after.

We're trying to get Sam's license business taken care of so that he can share the driving on the trip. We've got an appointment for him on the 21st to be checked out by a doctor, given the okay to drive, etc. After that, we just have to wait for the MAB to approve his license and then we can pay the $124 to get it reinstated. We're leaving on 4/6, so we're just hoping that the license business can be taken care of in the 2 weeks between the appt. and our departure.

Broken!

We're not all broken, just Andrea. After scolding Caed and Brian (the exchange student) yesterday morning, she caught her foot on the corner wall outside their room and broke her toe. Actually, we're not 100% sure it's broken, because Andrea always thinks her toes have been broken, but this time, she swears the pain is much worse than usual and now more than 24 hours later, the swelling is worse, not better. She is using a boot given to her at the hospital last year when she did sprain her foot (it wasn't broken). She plans to go have it x-rayed tomorrow if it hasn't improved (definitely if it's still worse).

This last week has been pretty good for the family, though. We got to spend some good times at soccer and then at lunch afterwards with our friends: Jenn, Austin, Sunny, and Kesley. We also had new friends: Angela, Astra (sp?), May (sp?), Milo, Eric, and Eric's mom that joined us at lunch.

At work, Andrea received a new Friday student, a 4 year old boy who is a hard worker and joy to talk to. Also, Andrea requested to not work on Mondays and Wednesdays anymore and she looks forward to having more time with the family.

Sadly, we were not able to attend First Thursday this month, Karma was quite disappointed, but everyone was quite sleep deprived and we just couldn't stay up/out that late. Also, we missed the kite festival this morning, due to Andrea catching up on some much needed sleep.

Sam's back/neck are feeling better, he anticipates being able to function normally again beginning tomorrow.

Karma has come up with a kick-butt work of art that she is able to reproduce. It's a version of the UT symbol, so we're looking into copyrights/licenses to see if she can market her art on bumper stickers, etc.

The whole family is having further discussions on Andrea's business venture idea. Andrea got some good information from Jenn on Thursday, which sadly she can't remember all of, but she'll ask again when she gets the chance and we'll look more into it as a family.

We've also talked to some relatives over the weekend, letting them know we're planning our trip north in April, folks seem fairly jazzed, so we're getting (more) excited.

Well, I think you have the full dharma update now.