lilbits

Walk Through Lincoln Park in West Seattle

Posted on May 9th, 2008 by lilbitgabby.
Categories: Friday Chat.

Last Friday Monday hubby called me up and asked if I wanted to go for a walk in West Seattle. Sure! I’m always up for a walk along the beach at Alki. But this sounded really nice compared to our usual nightly walk. Okay, as I’ve said before, we are trying to get out walking every day and lately our walks have been around the track at the school. Can we say boring. Yeah.

Well, even though I was thinking Alki, hubby was thinking Lincoln Park. What a nice change of pace! Through the years, we’ve taken the kids to the park for picnics, frisbe, and baseball. It’s a beautiful 135 acre park, located on the waterfront in West Seattle.

We walked the perimeter of the park… all the way down the hill to the waterfront. The views of the islands are beautiful. But here’s the thing… remember where we’ve been walking? The track. It’s flat. Flat and boring… but very flat. The park is on the hill. Ummm.. in some parts of the country (Kansas - Oklahoma - Texas) they would call it a mountain. So the park is on a really big hill. What walks down… must walk up.

Good thing there were benches and big rocks along the way. On our way up the hill, I sat down and huffed and puffed as quietly as possible. I wouldn’t want people to know I’m out of shape. Nooo… lol  Not in Seattle… land of the fit.

It was a wonderful evening. When we left the park, we picked up a Subway sandwich and had a picnic on the other side of West Seattle, watching the sun go down.

Okay, I’m sharing some photos taken with my cell phone…

If you look closely, you can see the ferry in the distance… through the trees.

Do you see that tree top? Like I said… we are way up on the hill.

The trails through the park are really nice.

Sea level…  

0 comments.

Kid Custody and Alcohol

Posted on May 2nd, 2008 by lilbitgabby.
Categories: Friday Chat.

At a party a year or so ago, I picked a Mike’s Hard Lemonade out of the ice bucket. One of my friends took it from me and chose another appropriate drink for me… Mt. Dew. Why? Mike’s Hard Lemonade is an alcoholic beverage. (Obviously this was not a church function).

I had no idea. Seriously.

Maybe you saw this in the news. This past week, a dad takes his 7 year old little boy to a baseball game. Dad buys the kid a Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Security guard sees the kid with the lemonade. Dad loses custody that very day. The child was put into foster care. Mom and Dad didn’t get to see the 7 year old boy for a couple days.

The dad, Christopher Ratte, said he didn’t know it was an alcoholic beverage. Honestly, I belive the dad.

So here’s a situation I question. We know a couple. They are going through a custody battle over 3 babies.  Well, a 4 year old and the toddlers. The situation saddens me to the deepest part of my soul. 

The mom gave the twin babies alcohol in their bottles. One of her friends saw this. Took photos on her cell phone. She turned the mom in to the authorities. The alcohol incident (and a bunch of other neglect and abuse incidents) are on record with CPS. The mom still shares 50 percent custody of those babies. Why?  

Why is this case still going through the court system? Why doesn’t the dad have 100% custody of the three babies by now?

For one thing, there isn’t one judge. There are many judges. Each time this goes before the judge, it’s a different judge. I want to know why! Why don’t they don’t have one assigned judge to review each case? This particular case has a file that would take a judge days to review. The last judge took about 15 minutes to read through some of the paper work.  We were there when he took a short recess to review the case. Then he put the case off for another review.

People. The mom gave the babies alcohol.

Security….

5 comments.

Storm Watch

Posted on May 2nd, 2008 by lilbitgabby.
Categories: Family.

My best friend called me  yesterday to let me know there was a storm in Andrea’s neighborhood. I tell ya, I was more than a bit worried. Hubby and I said a prayer, then I tried to call the kids. Mitch called back. They were out in the yard along with the rest of the neighbors… Say what? Storm is coming, go to the storm shelter. Noooo. Storm is coming… block party.

I know I raised my kids smarter than this.

The storm passed right over their house. The tornado touched down about a mile away. Andrea has photos of the baseball size hail and the storm storm clouds and tornado on her myspace.

It’s past time for my kids to come home to Washington.

0 comments.

My Three Things meme

Posted on April 28th, 2008 by lilbitgabby.
Categories: It's All About Me.

My friend Dana tagged me… I’ve done this one before, but  here we go.

Three names you go by:

Babe
Mommy
Cyndi
Three screennames you have used in the past:

Mrs Footballmom
lilbitgabby
Mrs. Mom
 

Three things you like about yourself:

I’m a mom
I’m Stubborn
I’m a Martha Stewart type of person
 

Three things you dislike about yourself (would like to change):

I’d don’t exercise enough
I’m too dependent upon hubby
I’m not real organized anymore - I use to be the queen of organization
 

Three parts of your heritage:

Family came over with the first settlers
Cherokee Indian
Christian

Three things that scare you:

Spiders
Lack of independence
Sending family & friends off to war

Three of your everyday essentials:

Hugs and “I love you” from the kids
Coffee with cream & sweetner - thank you very much!
All my tech-gear (gotta have it to connect with my kids across the states)
 

Three things you are wearing right now:

Jeans
T-shirt
Socks
 

Three of your favorite bands/artists (at the moment):

FFH
The Gaither Homecoming Tours (okay, so it’s a bunch of groups and bands lol)
Elvis Presley - Gospel
 

Three of your favorite songs at present:

Big Fish - FFH
Angel Band
Keep On the SunnySide
 

Three new things you want to try in the next 12 months:

Make some blown glass beads
Apartment Living - okay, so I might not really want to do this, but I want to want to.
Open an etsy store

Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given):

Faithfulness - (it should be a given)
Friendship
Passion
   

Two truths and a lie:

I could do a back flip off the balance beam and handspring across the floor
I had lime green hair for awhile with hairclips and a wardwrobe to match
I have always lived in this zip code
 

Three things about the opposite sex that appeal to you:

Trust
A good sense of humor
kindness & respect
 

Three things you just can’t do:

Eat octopus
Jump out of a perfectly good airplane
Extreme skiing LOL for that matter I haven’t been skiing in decades

Three of your favorite hobbies:

Computer Graphics & Designing Webpages
Scrapbooking
Flower Gardening
   

Three things you want to do really badly right now:

See my kids and the babies
Have my house organized 100%
Lose the extra weight faster than I’ve been losing
 

Three careers you’re considering:

Stay at Home Mom
Stay at Home Wife
Stay at Home Gramma
 

Three places you want to go on vacation:

Alaska
Italy
Rain Forrest - all of them
 

Three kids names:

LOL Well, if I were to have 3 more kids, they would probably be boys. But now that I’m a grandma…. I don’t plan on having more kids. Oh well, I’ll play along. Here are the names I like:

Logan
Bailey
Bryce

Three things you want to do before you die:

Road Trip to all 50 states
Pay off ALL debts
Celebrate living
 

Three people who should take this quiz now:

Gale
Andrea
Debbie