open up that Golden Gate...

I love San Francisco!

just got back.

Did you know the Golden Gate Bridge 

is one of the "Seven Wonders of the World"

???

For a moment in time, I was one of about 20 people in the whole world who could say they were sailing underneath the Golden Gate.

I made a wish.

The other six wonders?

Actually, there are several "lists."

7 Wonders of the Ancient World,

7 Wonders of the Midieval World,

7 Wonders of the Natural World...

The Golden Gate falls under the 7 Wonders of the Modern World, alongside the Panama Canal, The Channel, and the Empire State Building.

in case you wanted to know :D

nap adventures- part 1

Time to Surf.
Oh the places he can go.
It's not really considered baby torture if he's fast asleep, right?

my little sunshines

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It's what sunflowers do. ~Helen Keller

If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. ~Terri Guillemets

I'd rather have {sunflowers} on my table than diamonds on my neck. ~Emma Goldman

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.
~Claude Monet

Every friend is to the other a sun, and a sunflower also. He attracts and follows. ~Jean Paul Richter

I am working with the enthusiasm of a man from Marseilles eating bouillabaisse, which shouldn't come as a surprise to you because I am busy painting huge sunflowers. ~Vincent Van Gogh, letter to his brother

I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it. ~Groucho Marx

I love my darling and beautiful (inside and out) friend Tamara, who took all these pictures, and had this fun idea.
The girl's shirts are from our close friends in Hungary, the Mecseri's. (Can you believe they still fit?)

professional ping-pong.

I've been playing lots of ping-pong lately.


Here's how to play:


I am the ball.
These are the paddles----

Ping.....

Pong! 

From one to the other all day long.


Add in a few more paddles- unpacking, cooking, laundry, weeding, diapers, planning, playing.
It's really quite fun to be the ball, not complaining. 


Ping.


I love our new little lives.
Just stating the facts.
And why blogging isn't part of the game lately.


Pong.


Because when blogging becomes a chore, its definitely not fun.
But I feel as I am starting to come up for air.
Slowly the blog posts will begin to trickle in.
I'm excited to see where this little blog will go.




Pra-fessional.

what's in a name?

Why, hello.  Welcome to the beginnings of my new blog.  After a few identity crises, it finally has a name.


Since when did choosing a name for a blog become so difficult?  Every good idea I had was already taken.  I really wanted to name it Suds in the Bucket.  Taken.  Other ideas were Wide Open Spaces, and Shiny Happy People.  All taken.  I changed the url a few times, from racheldangerpowers to Homegrown on Love to A Hint of Detail, to Terminezcequevousavezcommence (don't ask), to mine and my husband's first names, which in the end I decided were all boring and forgetable. 


So, when I finally thought of "Family Ever After," and it wasn't taken, and it had a matching gmail account available, (I know, I'm crazy), I snatched it up. Yes... yes, its super cheesy.  It will pop up on your screen and you'll popbably snicker at the silly name.  I do every time.


(Apparently I spend way too much time thinking of nonsense while I'm nursing my baby.  I should probably start reading more books.  But that takes two hands).


So what's this blog about?
Basically, I've been losing steam with our private blog, and I needed a fresh start. I could have made our private blog go public, but then I'd have to go back and edit out any details about our family that I don't want the whole world to read about.  Yeah right.  I'll still update the private one, with stuff about the kids, husband's job, etc. I want this one to stay pretty non-specific when it comes to all those details.  So to answer the question- this is my Finish What You Start project (a previous blog), extended to include pictures of us, projects, ideas, photography, ramblings, whatev.  I promise its the last time I re-vamp things.


And moving on...
This is what I did today: froze 50 pounds of meat (and grateful we are), took the kids to the park, and declared a new blog. Boy do I feel accomplished.