NEW EMAIL ADDRESS

In Houston, we had no choice but to switch to Comcast. It seemed like everyone else's switch was easy except ours. When the change happened, our old Road Runner email address was taken, here is the new one:

triplejms@comcast.net

I'm not sure if you send things to the old address if it automatically forwards it to the new, the safest thing to do is just use the new address and hope for the best!

I SWEAR I LOVE ANIMALS

Before our CA vacation I had to figure out what we were going to do with the animals. Luckily we worked it out with family members to stay with the Doodles. Mike and I couldn't bring ourselves (or our wallets) to put them in a kennel for two weeks -- they are way too big and are used to open spaces. It wouldn't be fair to have them locked up in a 10x10 pen. See what a thoughtful owner I am?

With Buttercup, I wanted to find a wonderful home and family that would take care of her and love her as much as we do. Permanently. Okay, now I'm evil (when I say permanently, I don't mean in an Italian mob, Jimmy Hoffa/Goodfella's, cement shoes kind of way -- don't believe Mike, no matter how much he tries to tell you otherwise).

Our good friends Carolyn and Gordon knew someone who has a little girl that LOVES animals, and wanted a bunny. They have a chicken coop, with chickens, that is totally enclosed and predator safe -- a big enclosure, and a little 9 year old girl who understands the responsibility of having animals. I thought if we found good owners who can take Buttercup while we are on vacation, coming home wouldn't be so hard.

I gave Buttercup to Carolyn the day before we left and Sophie had a meltdown. I explained to her that we will get Buttercup when we come home (yes, I lied right to her face -- but surprisingly, had no trouble sleeping that night...). I hoped that the time in CA would help her forget about Buttercup on some level. But no. PoPo liked to ask Sophie all about her bunny, constantly. I didn't have a chance to get PoPo on the side and tell him "Ix-nay on the unny-bay" (or some form of pig-Latin/code for STOP TALKING ABOUT THE BUNNY).

I wanted to be honest with Sophie about the whole thing, and tried to avoid the subject at all costs (okay, truthiness, is not my best subject). I remember my parents getting rid of a few dogs when I was younger and was absolutely crushed when they told me the truth (I was well into my twenties, probably during some sort of 'bonding/drinkfest' we used to have, bad news is always easy to deliver when your friend Jack Daniels is around) -- that some kid didn't take off with my dog (Mac) while my dad and I went shopping for a new bike for me, or that Duke didn't hop the fence one night -- I mean, I spent like , two months looking for that mutt. Riding around on my bike everyday after school calling his name, asking kids, putting up fliers, calling the local vet and shelters. Oh trust me, both dogs were out-of-control. When I was about 4 or 5, my mom used to put me in the back yard with Mac and I would scream and cry "No!", because I was petrified of him -- he used to take me down by my pig-tails like I was his prey on an African Discovery Channel special on survival of the fittest, as I tried to make a break for my swing set. I still have nightmares about that...

I knew at some point that I would have to come clean. Luckily, after we came home Sophie really didn't ask too much about Buttercup. Until one day, one of our friends from Houston came down, Avery. She's super cute and smart (stupid private schools!), and just flat out asked me "Mrs. Romano? Did Buttercup die?".

Crap. Now I'm on the spot. I knew I was living on borrowed time, but not now -- I'm right in the middle of doing wash. I hadn't prepared my "speech" yet. I had to think quick on my feet. I was standing in the hall and had a clear shot of both kids rooms which happened to be filled with kids. When Johnny heard the question he froze in his tracks. Think, Julie, think. Damn it, think!

"Komodo Dragon.", was the first thing that came to mind and I walked off. Whew. That was easier than I thought.

Johnny and Sophie's eyes grew huge with shock and concern, Avery was just plain confused. Of course the kids followed me for more information and I did in fact, tell them the truth. That Buttercup wasn't happy sitting in her cage at our house, no one played with her and it wasn't fair to her that she couldn't run and play like her cousin's Peter Rabbit, Flopsie and Mopsie. She's in a better place now (I promise it's not heaven...), she's happier and has all the bunny stuff she will ever need (I know this sounds very suspicious, but no, she's not in heaven), she can run and play and dig like a real bunny (really, it's not heaven, it's a farm. wait. that does sound bad doesn't it?). I know it's a farm because Carolyn told me so, not my parents.

Anyway, we are all on good terms now. And I truly hope that Buttercup is enjoying her new home with lots of space to run and be a bunny. And that, my friends, is the truth.

LATEST CLINIC VISIT...

Friday was Johnny's latest clinic visit since before our CA vacation. His counts are incredible! Really high -- ANC 2,100, Platelets 254 and HGB 12.3. Since Johnny's counts have consistently been climbing over the past 8 weeks or so, his doctor's upped his oral chemo -- just a little though -- to about 50% (he was at 33% pretty much all summer). Which is good, school's just a few weeks away, and none of us want any problems with his immune system. He was also due for vincristine and took it like a man. We go back for counts in two weeks, then two weeks after that he is due for the works ---- vincristine, spinal tap and pentamadine. he can't wait either -- NOT!

All is well at our house otherwise. Just trying to keep cool-- it's SO HOT right now YIKES!

FUEL TV

The Romano Crew on set



The New young Guns -- Quicksilver Team -- had you fooled didn't I? It's just our kids....


the Romano girls...

Right before vacation our friend Paul from Fuel TV called to chat about stopping by the studios while we in CA. He said he would send the guest list of who would be taping shows while we were in town, and if we saw anyone special we wanted to watch he would make it happen! so cool.

One particular name caught my eye on the list -- Johnny's too, but he wasn't going to admit it. A fairly new surfer named Mason Ho (I'm sure a relative of Don Ho -- shout out to my Granny if she is reading this!). Who's Mason Ho you ask? Mason is the big brother of another up and coming surfer CoCo Ho -- she's a super cute 14 year old. And Johnny is in love with her.
She's all he talks about. He even downloaded the Hannah Montana album onto his iPod -- because CoCo Ho has it on her iPod. aawww, matching playlists.... he watches a lot of Fuel, but rarely does he download someones playlist.

Unfortunately we couldn't make it that day. I think Johnny was RELIVED with the news.

The day we made it to the studio's, they had Erik Ellington and Braydon Szafranski (both skate for Spitfire wheels -- which is part of Deluxe) and a few surfers -- Dane Reynolds, Clay Marza, and Ry Craike -- (they're on the Quicksilver Surf Team, promoting their new "Young Guns" movie).


Mike and Paul -- classic Mike shot!


Dane Reynolds and Ry Craike -- the well spoken (cough!) sorry, had something stuck in my throat -- Quicksilver Team. I think the public education system is much better in Australia -- where Ry is from. just a hunch though.



Pat (host), Johnny and Ian. Ian is the Talent Coordinator for Fuel. Super cool guy. When everyone left to tape the show, Mike and I hung out with Ian. When his cell phone rang he answered it and said "oh. Hi Jay." , then mouthed to Mike and I "sorry -- Jay Adams...". OMG! Jay Adams?!?! We tried to stay calm. You may have heard of the movies 'Lords of Dogtown' (starring Heath Leger) or 'Dogtown and Z-boys' (narrated by Sean "Spicoli" Penn) -- they are pretty much Jay's life story. Ian is even in one of them. Whoa! Really -- Mike and I tried to stay calm. I'm not joking.



Braydon, Johnny and Erik. One point during the day I was looking for bottled water. Erik, always the consumate gentleman, offered me his and said "you can have mine, I just opened and only took a sip...". Um. I'm good. really. thanks...



Pat and Romano Crew


It was pretty cool to watch them tape a show. My biggest worry was someone from Team Romano knocking over some sort of hyper-expensive equipment or letting loose a loud bodily noise (Joey did during Johnny's commercial for the Blood Center! -- bringing a whole new meaning to the word "CUT!"). Everyone was very well behaved, no one was hurt, nothing was broken, nothing ripped!

Then Paul asked if Johnny was ready for his close up -- Yep! So they took off with the host of the show, Pat Parnell, to go over the questions and to ease Johnny's nerves. If I could have, I would have given the little guy a shot of whiskey -- he was nervous beyond words.

PLACES EVERYONE! (they don't really say that) As everyone got ready I could see the fear mounting in Johnny. But more importantly Mike. I thought the poor guy was going to toss his cookies he was so nervous for Johnny. Pat really made Johnny feel comfortable and in the end, I think he did GREAT!


This was one of the boys highlights of the trip -- skating the set of the Habit. I guess they can use it later in life when they are trying to get a date. "Hey, I skated the set of the Habit, how's 8p sound?"


Any opportunity my kids had to make themselves at home, they did.

If you have Fuel TV you can watch it tonight on channel 111 if you live in Houston. It comes on a special 'sports package', The Speed Channel (racing stuff), Fuel TV, and a Fox sports channel -- boxing or something.


Heath feeling confident enough to deploy finger guns at Fuel HDQ.



Two things I wanted to accomplish while at Fuel. Meet Pinto, the imaginary mascot and Jordan. I met Jor-dan! I met Jor-dan! this was the highlight of my trip. this kid cracks me up!!!



2007 Romano Christmas card? One of the 11 Quiki Marts in the world was just a few blocks from Fuel. We had to stop. It was insane. There were like 50 'Apu's' serving you donuts, squishy's, cops directing traffic in the parking lot, only a certain amount of people allowed in the store for crowd control. News crews filming. Crazy stuff. All of the makings for a classic family portrait.



This was the quietest ride home -- EVER!

SAN CLEMENTE SURF TRIP

Mike making the most of small waves by showing us why he's pro and we're not.


Last summer we met a young surfer (well, young to me) named Mike Losness -- you remember, he taught the kids what a 'corn dog' is. Since then, Mike has traveled all over the world for competitions, photo shoots and to film surf movies. No matter where Mike was (i.e., Scotland, Africa, Mexico, Thailand), he always kept in touch with Johnny and let him know he was thinking about him and to tell him what the water temp was -- (first question surfers always ask is "what's the temp?")

Mike knew about Johnny, Deluxe and his skateboard. Turns out Mike also skates and has his own board with a company called GFH. Being the Renaissances Man that he is, Mike is also an accomplished artist, and did the artwork for his board too. Of course the 'boys' exchanged decks.

At some point, Mike found out that Johnny likes to do his own 'artwork', and loves to color/paint/doodle on anything, antiques included -- (PARENTING TIP 112: never take a nap while there is a Sharpie and a very busy 3 year old in the same room -- never!), he sent Johnny special pens with instructions and 'how to's' for designing his own board. -- happily, no antiques were harmed during this art project.

Johnny couldn't wait to see Mike this summer to thank him in person for the deck, words or encouragement, and pens, -- and to show him his artwork. Desi (our friend at Adio) and Mike (he's on the Adio Team) made time for us and cleared their Saturday -- during one of the busiest times of the year for surfers and their sponsors no less!

We met at Mike's house and he gave Johnny a tour of his art studio, then took us to a 'local' spot in San Clemente. This was definitely a highlight of the trip. How cool is it to sit in the line up with one of the top surfers and play Frisbee while you wait for a set?

(FOR MY MOM:
- A 'set' is a bunch of waves that are evenly spaced apart, but come in at one time. "dude! check out the nice set coming in".

-The 'line up' is a group of surfers in the water waiting for sets. "Look at all the people in the line-up -- they're playing Frisbee! It's totally packed! -- oh wait, it's just the Romano's....")

THE LINE UP




Heath




You go Anne! Show those boys whose boss!



Joey, about to eat it...




This is Mike just as he was landing an 'air' (note to my mom: 'air' means he leaps out of the water board and all -- and lands it!)



I missed the actual air shot (BUMMER!) but I did manage to get this one.

Okay, I totally don't mean to be a prev, but, check out Mike's profile! Dang! He looks like a super hero or something! Later as we were looking at the photos, I mentioned it to my Mike and we both commented on 'the profile' -- or maybe it was me and Anne... Either way, male or female, I totally know that's what your checking out right now! Go on -- admit it!



Desi showing us he's still got it!



Go Johnny! Go!




My Mikey!

I WANT A POOL

I want a pool. Bad. I beg Mike for one all the time and use it as leverage whenever possible, i.e., 'I bet I could do wash faster if I had a pool...' He doesn't want one because of the cost, upkeep (hello, pool boy!), and he thinks that people would 'use' us for the pool. You know that type of 'friend', the kind that shows up at your front door wearing a bathing suit, flippers and a snorkeling mask. You occasionally call them to chat, they seem totally bored with the conversation until the word 'pool' comes up. Then then scamper right over.

Yeah, using people for their pool is bad. Mike would never do that, he certainly wouldn't let his kids do that. That's just rude.

When we met up with Jeff, Travis and Desi at Adio this summer, there were a few uncomfortable pauses.

Adio: Hey Johnny! How's it goin' little guy -- how you feeling? How's school -- bet your out already, huh? You having fun on vacation? Did you you fly or drive? Did you bring the Green Machine? Whose this new kid?

Johnny (mumbling, never really makes eye contact): Yeah, uh. Good times, good times. Hey, I heard you guys got a new pool? Can I skate it?





Turns out they would use someone for their pool. Of course they'd be totally bummed if it actually had water in it...Mike even took a few laps around the new pool (or bowl) -- which made me wonder where his medical info was.

Jeff Taylor is one of the Director's at Adio behind Johnny's shoe. He 'left work' early to skate with the boys -- okay, his office overlooks the new skate park, but still, how cool is that?

Anne was really studying the 'workings' of a large company and noticed that a guy was wearing flip flops. Which made her think, "what do I have to do to get an awesome job like this?". So we thought we would do a little curriculum research by asking Jeff, Desi and Travis what classes they would recommend she take this fall. can't say I blame her. When Mike and I find cool companies we always put it on the Southwest Airlines scale of coolness. C'mon -- SWA was the largest distributor of Wild Turkey in the 70's -- hot pants? how cool is that? We put Adio up there with SWA on the coolness scale. They might not give our kids free Wild Turkey, but they can wear flip flops to work and have a super fast pool. Things to consider when your job hunting...

For the boys to be able to skate in a park like this one, with only a few people around -- for free -- is amazing. There are a lot of cities (G-town included) that would kill to have park like this, and our kids had it all to themselves. They skated until closing time and they didn't have an ounce of energy left. I wish I could hose them off before our drive home...

APPARENTLY BARRY AND HIS SISTER AREN'T AS CLOSE AS I ORIGINALLY THOUGHT

Heerrree, Kitty, Kitty...



Komodo Dragon update.

Mike got up the other morning to find a voice mail from Barry -- Hannah's uncle. Barry called his sister (Hannah's mom) to help me with my fact checking, as it turns out, Hannah's cat was mauled by a giant lizard. It didn't happen in front of the kids or anything, but when the cat didn't come home the parents went looking, and found Bill-the-Cat (Ack!) looking like he spent the night in a shredder. At the time they had no idea that a lizard was stalking house pets in their neighborhood. But a few days later the neighbor's dog did corner it, and animal control was called. They said it was a 'giant lizard' (could be a Gila) that probably grew too big for it's terrarium and the owners 'set it free'.

I read that Komodo Dragons grow up to 10 feet long and 300 pounds. But Gila Monsters are about 3 feet, live in our region and pretty darn mean. If I saw either one in my back yard I would be scared out of my mind, -- rest assured, I would tell everyone I knew "I saw a Komodo Dragon!".

DO WE KNOW WHERE ANNE'S MEDICAL INFORMATION IS?

Every year we take Anne with us to CA we bring her medical info with a signed waiver from her mom. I kind of thought this was a little excessive, and had more of a 'glass half empty', kind of attitude.

The reason I touch on the subject is this:


Huh. Anne and Joey are taking off on the same wave. Someone will bail -- looks like they might crash into each other if they don't. Someone call it, quick.




Crap. They're gonna totally crash into each other. Where's that medical info on Anne?...



I CANNOT believe that just happened. Anne must be thinking the same thing. Joey looks like he has the whole "Eye of the Tiger" thing happening.





Eye of the tiger Joey, Eye of the tiger.

I was on the beach while Mike was out with the kids, I wish that I could say that the captions for each photo were quietly running through my head at the time, but they weren't. I was the lone crazy person on the beach you see talking to themselves, shaking their head and answering their own questions -- I probably smelled like a foot too since I just spent 2 hours in the car with the kids. All I needed to complete my 'look' was a few empty beer cans by my side.... anyway, I like to call it "quality 'me' time".