Griego’s Page

Kim and I had been wanting new furniture for our home for years.  Pretty much since we actually paid money for a couch/chair combo that was headed to the dump. Yeah, in hind site, we could have simply let it go. I spent a good deal of time, and a lot of Bissell steam cleaner fluid trying to take the dirt, smoke and general stink out of those original pieces. Bleah. 

As I was saying, we have wanted new furniture for a while. Mom and dad don’t seem to be to anxious to downgrade their home anytime soon, so our claim to their furniture in the basement would be postponed for many, many years. We finally decided to do it. We have had our eye on a nice sectional with recliners in 4 of the 7 seating positions. The biggest hurdle was that it would not fit in the area that we had dedicated to our family room with the current lay-out. At some point we finally said, let’s do it. We’ll re-arrange the room, and it should fit with barely some inches to spare.

So as we cleared out one side of our family room, throwing most of the stuff to the other side of the room, we proceeded with the cleaning of carpets and walls etc. When the rumor got around the family that we were finally getting new furniture there, the ideas and suggestions, and labor offers came pouring in. The loudest call was to “put color in the room!”.  You see, neither Kim nor I profess to be anything close to interior designers, hence the reason that we have white on all of our walls. We’re boring, and not afraid to admit it.

So with the help of my sister Jolene my sister, Kim and one of our neighbors were off and running on Sunday night, say about 5pm or so to get paint. We had a very small window of time. We had a dental and doctor appointment for Ryan first thing on Monday, sandwiched with another appointment for Kim between them. Followed immediately by the expected delivery of the furniture. So, we were up late painting with the much appreciated help of one of our neighbor’s sons, my sister, mom, Kim and I. We had other people over just purely to entertain Ryan and keep him out of the way

Long story short, room looks great! Furniture is wonderful, and long, long overdue. Now all that remains is to get the many piles of junk that we had to move out of the one room, cleaned up, so that we can actually walk in the other half. 

Maybe I’ll think on that after I finish taking a nap… in the new furniture.

Ryan turned 6 on January 6th, and had his 6th birthday at a place called Savageland Pizza on Jan 9th. Think a moderately tolerable Chuck-E-Cheese, with good food. He continuously made wagers with his mother and I as to who was going to his party, and where it was going to be. Even up to the night before the actual event. You see, we got a Foosball/coffee table. Ryan loves Foosball, and loves talking even more. So as he is playing, he makes ‘bets’ that if he scores the next goal, that only mommy can go to my party. Of course, the goal after that is only daddy going to my party. The one after that is for birthday bowling, Savageland, Chuck-E-Cheese, and the list goes on and on.

Ultimately of course, we chose one place, and stuck with that. Wow, 2 hours of a dozen plus 6 year olds can go by very, very fast. I think that all had a good time, and in 9 months, we are going to have to start revisiting the whole mess all over again!

Happy B-Day Ryan!

It’s hard to believe we are almost all the way through 2009. Ryan was very excited to not go to Kindergarten Wednesday (busses only ran FROM school, not TO school), and kept rubbing in the fact that he “gets a 5-day weekend from school”.

We spent Thanksgiving out at Pete & Linda’s, as we do each year. Tons of food, and everyone was stuffed. We had the Liberty Lake Griego’s, Jo and the boys, Aunt Vicki and Uncle Allen from Montana, Correna and her family, and another friend (and her family) of Jolene’s. It was a relaxing time, and there were good discussions and lots of laughing. That kind of day is what family and holidays are all about. Onward to Christmas!

Flash back – early – mid 1980’s. There is actually a place here in Spokane that is stuck in the ‘old days’. It’s the Roller Valley Skate Center.

Ryan’s Kindergarten class (really, the entire Kindergarten Center) was invited to go rollerskating for a couple of hours at this facility. Somebody turned on the way-back machine and cast us into it. Complete with the music from the good old days – ala Michael Jackson (and a lot of it).

Of course, we can’t make too much fun of this time period, or the activity itself. For one, all the kids had a blast, flopping, slipping and rolling all over the place. And 2, my wife says that she was an official ‘Rink-Rat’, e.g. she spent a very large amount of time at the roller-rink during her junior high/early high school years.

Overall the night was a lot of fun, and Ryan was trying to get us to commit going back there every 2 weeks. When we hesitated on that large of a commitment, he backed down and offered to have us take him every 5 weeks instead. I have a feeling that we’ll be rolling along here again before too long.

Today marked the start of Ryan’s school life. It’s hard to believe, but he is now officially a “school-ager”. He wanted to ride the bus, so we let him do that. Both Dan and I took off work for the big event (Dan left early; I took an extended lunch). We started out at Liberty Lake Elementary, waiting for the new Kindergartners to arrive from their daycare on the bus. Along with us were Grandma Pat and Papa Vic (Kim’s parents), and Grammy (Dan’s mom).

When they all arrived, they were very orderly walking in to the school lobby with their backpacks. Now, we wait for the school bus to take them to the Kindergarten Center. Since Liberty Lake is crowded, the Kindergartner’s have their very own school. The bus arrived, we got pictures, and then left to head to the Kindergarten Center to see them arrive at their new school.

We made it to their school shortly after their bus arrived. We walked inside and to his classroom to look in on him as he was getting settled. We of course, took a few more pictures, and then quickly left so they could begin their first day and be focused without the parents being a distraction. He was so excited, and is such a big boy now. We are very proud of him, as always!