I hate to burst your bubble but this post will NOT be about the Grammy Award winning song by one of my favorite heavy metal bands, Metallica (ok, well they were my one of my favorites in high school).

Gosh, I hope I didn't lose any readers.

ONE. Today's post title is in honor of the ONE year anniversary of our little Adventure OUT of Concord, California. Those Camry tires didn't actually cross the CA/AZ state line until early March '08, but leaving the Bay Area was definitely significant. Just to reminisce, I popped over to the last 2 posts from my Bay Area residency ("Charlotte Ave, 7500lbs lighter" and "74 miles down, 2226 miles to go"). It seems like ages ago when I wrote those...so many miles driven, so many sights seen. An apartment, a house purchase and BOXES, BOXES, BOXES! And moving box paper...OH the paper. New friends made, old friends missed. New church, new gym, new cuisine, lack of cuisine, new weather patterns. Parenting a kindergartner, the "pick up" line, the homework, the PTA, the "my kid is smarter than me" syndrome. The new job, the new neighbors, the new language, y'all... The new Mom's group, being a participant, not being the leader, missing my H2H girls, opening up to new girls, wondering if I say "y'all" they will like me more. Aye, yaye, yaye.

Just in case you were curious, I will tell you what Mike and I will be doing over the next few months. We will have conversations that go like this:

Kristin: "Guess what we were doing one year ago today"

Mike: "We were in San Diego eating at Nicolosi's with your Dad and brother"

Kristin: "No we weren't, that was last night...today was the day that we went to Balboa Park and Steve and I bailed on you guys at the Space Theater"

Mike: "Nuh uh...that was tomorrow....go look on your calender"

Kristin: "Oh yeah."

Don't deny my prophetic giftings...it will happen. On to other topics... Once again I have been delinquent in updating you on major happenings here at Club Amaro. So sorry...I've been too busy thinking about my one year anniversary this month. :) So, here are a few morsels to satisfy your Club cravings...

Jumping Bean



Some of you may know that Abby wanted to participate in the American Heart Association's "Jump Rope for Heart" event at school. Never mind that she didn't even know what a jump rope was, but nevertheless, she had been praying for ways to help other people and she saw this as a way to do that. Of course her PE teacher at school did start to teach jump rope, so I was fairly relieved and decided that she could participate. She set out to do her fund raising and raised quite a tidy sum. $603 to be exact.

Turns out, she was the top fundraiser of the entire school!!! She doesn't seem at all moved by the fact that she raised more money than anyone. I think that's kinda cool. She was just excited to be the one to get "Heart Dude" (a little stuffed heart with arms and legs). The funny part is, I didn't tell her about all the gifts she earned for raising that much money (you remember those crazy gifts they give you when you did fund raising at school). I guess they'll have some assembly or something and hand all that out. I'll just let her be surprised.

We're in "treble" now
Mike and I are big fans of Dave Ramsey and are trying to live out the principals that he teaches. In order to get Abby on board, we set her up with the Dave Ramsey Jr. program. She earns a commission each week for various things around the house. With her commission, we teach her to "save, spend and give" wisely (God help her that she has us for role models - but we are trying!). She decided that she wanted a real keyboard so she could start playing the piano. So we put that up as a goal and she started to save up. Fortunately for her, Christmas and birthday money came in to supplement the commissions that she gets each week. She saved up $114 and bought her a Yamaha YPT210 AND an adapter. It's a great keyboard except for the default volume is LOUD. She's loving it... I'm keeping my eye on her to see if there may have to be piano lessons in the future. I'm itching to get a piano in this house, and that seems like a good excuse.

That's about all the post I can pump out at the moment...hopefully your craving is satisfied for the time being. I promise I still love you...

chaocito...

k