~ Bertelson Bulletin ~

So here is a photo of the pups to tide you over – Nils JUST called to say he dropped them off at Bernie's (Camp Buddy for them) and his 110lbs Dobie Buddy is in heaven with his two 10 lbs furry Norwich girls!!

Twix watched Nils leave through the glass door with a sad face 😦 Twizzler is oblivious still and prefered playing with Buddy! Nils sounded sad!

I just got my hair done by the FABULOUS Robyn, who comes to my house (Mel and Maddie had theirs cut too.) NO picture of mine this time – it looks the same as it did when I had it done on May 12th (check the What's NEW page if you are curious!)

Managed to get the complete partial design of the Donna and Brant dot com web site today so that they can use it while I am gone and I will finish the rest of it when I get back. You should check it daily – their his and hers approach and dual blog is a hoot!

The suitcases are all packed, had a slight panic when we could not find the keys that lock all the suitcases, but realizing that international travel won't let you lock them anyway – we opted for luggage straps from trust old Wal-Mart for $3 each!

Nils firefighter buddy Gary arrives at 4:30am tomorrow to drive us all down to Miami airport.

So I am signing off – gonna post one last email to my elists then relax for a bit, set all my email to digest mode and we're outta here!

Alice,
and Nils, the 4 M&M's
Twix and Twizzler are staying in USA to hold down the fort!

So today is Kenzie's birthday – my baby is EIGHT !! WOW, time flies!

We all celebrated her birthday yesterday at Grandma's as Nils is on duty today. This is her with her Towel in a bag – she loves anything with monkeys on it! She was thrilled with her CD player.

I bought the monkey towel for her from my Mum in England and she LOVED it.

She also picked out a Chocolate by Death cake from Cold Stone, which Surprised us all as she is a Vanilla girl all the way (like me) and always says she doesn't really like chocolate!! It was supposed to have peanut butter in it too, but it sure didn't taste like it although it did have reeses peanut butter cups on the top of it. My Opinion, it wasn't worth the $20 – Publix cakes are MUCH better!

So I am still not fully packed, but since everyone keeps asking me what a “capsule hotel” is (we are staying in one for one night in Toyko to see Tokyo for a day before heading up to the Nagano Mountains for the rest of the 3 weeks.) I decided to find out (for me and the kids too!)

So I did a trusty google image search thingy and found some COOL pics – now I am really excited because they are WAY bigger than I imagined, certainly no claustrophobia for me! Check out the photos (click them for bigger size)

Another GREAT birthday pressie for Kenzie today – while going through an old bag we found her GameBoy which has been “at Grandma's” for about 6 mths now – LOL – whenever my kids lose anything and can't find it, their standard answer is “It's at Grandma's”

Grandma's house must be riddled with little theiving Gremlins that take all my kids stuff, hide it, use it, break it and even have the audacity to bring it back to OUR house and hide it again!

Well off to pack some more! – Probably won't, in fact won't be able to do any updates from Japan. You will all just have to wait with baited breath until I get back for phtoos and trip reports!

WOW – This last week FLEW by – Nils, Matt and Maddie are due back tonight from surf camp (no doubt with a mountain of 'surfer style' stinky laundry to be done! I did manage to get quite a bit done this week though.

I ordered the bazillion Yen we need to take with us (since where we are going up in the Nagano mountains, it's pretty much cash only, no credit card or American Express traveler's cheques convenience!) I am a tad worried taking that much cash with us (you work it out 6 people for 21 days!!) but I figure if we split it in half and duct tape it to our bodies (Nils and I that is) it should be safe !

I also renewed my driver's license – first time in AGES that I had to do it in person and not by mail. I had a slight 'scare' on the vision test though. This was the only thing I needed to take being “one of them there safe drivers” you know – OK you can stop laughing now, I AM a safe driver!

Anyway I couldn't read the far left column of letters. But the lady figured it out pretty fast and asked “Have you had lasic surgery?” and I answered yes – so she asks “did they undercorrect one eye for close up stuff?” Yes I said (actually when I had the lasic I ASKED for full correction on both eyes, but I guess they are SO used to doing the undercorrection on one eye in people over 40 they did it anyway – and NO I am NOT going to sue them, it's better in the long run, prolongs me getting glasses again and I am used to the 20/20 in right and 20/30 in left now.

So phew I GOT my license (with a B restriction – which means the left side mirror !!)

I even got all the suitcases down ready for us to start packing this weekend.

I had a quiet night last night – Melanie went to a friends house and Kenzie BEGGED to stay at Grandma's again (she and her friend from that neighbourhood were here the previous night) so I was all alone with the 2 fur babies!!

So I went to work on my latest web-redesign project. The lady had finally given me the copy/text and images, and decided on the finalized look of the site and she wanted it up online before I left for Japan. So I started working on it at 7pm and at 3am I was done and went to bed!! I hope she likes it

This shows her OLD site and this is the NEW site I designed

Now I need to go get the 2 kids from where they are so we are all home ready to welcome home the sandy surfers!

Huh? – Well the Blond Blue-eyed contingent of our family is gone for the week. Nils, Matt (16) and Maddie (9) all left yesterday for Surf Camp (YES – EVERY year they leave on Father's Day!) up in Cocoa Beach.

So it's just me, Melanie (14) and Kenzie (8 in a week) for the week. Oh and of course the 2 fur-kids!

It's nice, it's quiet (no squabbling between Matt & Mel or Maddie and Kenzie (most prevalent!) and even though the weather is rainy, hot and humid, it was a good day.

Got my first ultrasound that WASN'T of my uterus today!! My Endocrinologist wanted me to get an US of my gall bladder and Liver, just to make sure things are ok there since some of my levels are a bit screwy right now. It went well, and was the opposite to the torturous US I remember when PG – ie NO water or food from midnight the night before, so no painful full bladder, just dizzy I need caffeine and food symptoms!!

Then the 3 of us (minus the dogs) went to a friends house (with a pool) to see her new 8 wk old grandson – lemme tell you this woman just turned 50 and she looks incredible – been working out with a trainer, she is slim, muscular and looks fantabulous, made me feel like a slob!!

Then I actually watched Napoleon Dynamite for the FIRST time ever – all my kids know the movie dialog by heart. Well sorry to tell you all I thought it was a stupid and pointless movie and I don't think I laughed once!! Oh well can't be everyone's cup of tea.

Now I liked “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” SO much I am going to see it again with Melanie tomorrow (I took the 2 little girls the first time) – really GOOD movie – and another one I saw recently on a Mummy date with Matt was “Crash” – brilliantly done – quite violent but very touching, moving story.

The countdown has started for us leaving to Japan, and I am both excited and getting panicky ! Will I get everything done before I go that I need to, will I remember everything I need to take with me, will the dogs be OK with Firefighter Bernie, will they remember us when we come home! will I.. and the list goes on in my head!!

Then I remember that worry won't make anything happen, so I am going to stop worrying and just make lists!!

Tootles, off to watch TV with my 2 girls.

Oh and don't forget to look at this week's POTW

So my sister (and nephew) have returned back to England and I miss her. Her visit was lovely, brief (9 days) but lovely.

Sadly they brought the English rain with them, so it pretty much poured sometime (if not all) of the day after the first 2 days of sun. Mind you it's probalby good for 122 yr old James to see that Florida is NOT Paradise and sunny all the time!!

Matt (16) and James were stuck together like glue, did everything together. My younger girls were a bit miffed that James really had no desire to hang out with them – he's a boy's boy and only had eyes for Matt and doing boy stuff with Matt!

I even got my sister Melanie to come to Jazzercise with me (4 times even) and she did great. We also started designing the “split” of the girls room. – How to make 2 girls who share a room and profess to 'hate each other' feel like they are not sharing a room!! So they picked out their favourite colour (wow 2 words with the UK 'ou' vs US 'o' only in them!!) palettes and my sister also did some COOL 'photoshop manipulation' to some photos for the girls to frame on thier walls – check these out, click on the thumbnail to see the full size image.

Off to wake up the kids, we're all off to Jazzercise this morning (well me and the 2 little girls)