First day of Autumn!

I'm writing this and the weather outside is a cool 62 and I'm loving it. This is absolutely my favorite time of the year.

A great deal of things are going on with us. The boys are entertaining as ever and getting bigger and bigger!

It's hard to believe Sean is a Junior in High School. We just purchased him a new truck. To be honest we need his help with this gaggle (at least driving himself to places) and figured he was old enough to have some more responsibility. Before he drives off into this brave new world, we decided that the smart thing to do would be have a contract with him. Steve and I think we did a pretty good job deciding what we should put into this contract. A job was the first thing that came to mind...lol.He signed willingly and we're off to new adventures. Lord, help us! He's going to Homecoming this year and on the Varsity Basketball team at Franklin. All is good in Sean's world.

Blake has recently taken up cooking deserts. He loves to help me in the kitchen and has become the "Smoothie King". Every night he will try and make a new recipe that he has found online. I'm not too much of a smoothie drinker but I've tried some of them and they're delicious! He has taken on Guitar lessons and is looking forward to when he can play the music without help. I'll admit I'm looking forward to it too! NJHS hours are already finished for the Fall (ahead of time) and he is actually considering trying to become an Officer in NJHS. GO BLAKE!

Football Mania is Jason. Middle School football as started and Jason is pumped. He is playing more than last year and loving it. It helps that he has grown tremendously over the summer.....it's amazing how little the 7th graders look compared to our 8th graders.

Austin has joined Blake and Jason at Middle School this year and is in Band! He has playing the trumpet and enjoys it. Although with Austin the bigger plan is to master the trumpet enough so that he can move on to drums...yep drums...hee hee. I think the older brothers enjoy having him there with them...although they'd never admit it.

Finally, there's John. John is in 1st grade now and was a little nervous in the beginning. All the brothers would telling him how it's going to be so hard and he'll have homework so needless to say he was nervous. But, he is doing well. Steve and I still think he is going to be the biggest one of the Filley boys and they better look out. All those years of picking on him will be bad for them in the end.....lol

Organizemydad.com is trucking along and he is having great response from it. Escuela Montessori is thriving this year and we couldn't be happier. Steve and I (way more Steve) are still running the Basketball website for Sean's school at www.franklincougarbasketball.com I've decided since I have 3 in Middle School, I'd be on the board of the PTA and I'm loving it. Besides it helps me keep my eye on the boys....kinda like a Mom Spy! And if that's not enough, I've decided to take on becoming a Mary Kay Consultant. The product and the company is awesome and I'm planning my Debut Party in October. Steve and I are busy as ever......but truly loving it. Our boys keep us entertained. I have truly come to the conclusion that I'm going to have the worst empty nest syndrome when they all leave. But, until then.......bring on the fun!

Summer has come and gone

It's hard to believe that summer is almost over and the boys will be heading back to school soon. We just got back from an exhilarating vacation in California and I can honestly say all 7 of us wish we were still there.


We had the pleasant task (said with sarcasm) of moving to a new house the weeks prior to our trip. I was so adamant on having everything not only moved into the house but put away before we left. Ok, so it sounded good before the moving began. As the days of the calendar flipped faster and faster I finally excepted that it would be ok if we are not completely unpacked before we leave. I had to keep telling myself this...lol


While we were moving I had decided to pack all of our beach items into our "turtle" that goes on the top of our truck. Oh wasn't I so smart......this was going to make life less complicated. I really thought this was a good idea until of course the night before our departure and I can NOT locate the keys to the "turtle". No kidding....one thing led to another and Blake and I are forced to pry it open and pull all of our beach items out one by one. We were forced to pack much lighter this year due to this.

Normally we stop off in Coronado, CA before heading to Cayucos but this year we headed straight to Cayucos! We were ready for the beach!

The same night we arrived so did cousins (as the boys call them). Steve's sister and brother in law (Barbara and Gary) arrived with their gang. They have 5 kiddos too so we pretty much dominate the beach. We had an amazing time as always. The olders boys stayed together...some stayed in what we called the "Man Cave" in the house. It was this unique loft area in the house that you had to crawl into in order to sleep. We had fun beach time, kayaked, even took family pictures. Barbara's photographer that takes all of her family pictures met us in Cayucos and took the most beautiful pictures of all of us on the beach. I'll post them later. Thanks Jacque and Barb for these wonderful memories!


On our way home we made a pit stop in Newport Beach to visit Blake's godparents and to take in Disneyland. It was the first time that all of us have gone except for Steve. WOW! What a magical experience. I even got to meet Tinkerbell!

As the years pass and are boys get older we are realizing how precious our times are. There will not be too many years that all 5 of them will be traveling with us. We are so pleasantly suprised that all of our "silly" traditions have kept with the boys and they enjoy doing them every year. We can only hope that when they are married with children they will remember all of the wonderful memories and continue our traditions that we started for them. That's all we can ask as parents.

Twilight Series

Ok...so I will admit that when everyone was raving about the Twilight Series I was thinking to myself "that's sad....why would grown women love those books so much...it's Vampires and Werewolves...PLEASE!"

We went and visited my parents a couple of weeks ago and my mom passed the 4 books to me. She said she never got around to reading them but since we were heading out to CA soon I might try them on the drive. I agreed considering I haven't picked out any books yet for the drive. When we got home I figured I'd try my hand at one so that if I didn't like them I wouldn't waste valuable space in the truck with these books.

Well, I read through Twilight like there was no tomorrow and then through New Moon and before I knew it I was done with Eclipse. What in the world happened to me?!?!? I love these books. I'm trying to hold myself back to not read the 4th book but it's not working. I just keep telling myself..." just a couple of pages"..lol.

So, to all my friends and family who I secretly teased for liking such books..."I'm sorry." You were right and I was so wrong. I can't wait to watch the movie and I will be in line on November 20th when the second movie comes out!

www.organizemydad.com

Steve has worked so hard (with Richard his partner) on a website designed to help dads stay active in their children's lives. Tonight he was on the local ABC TV station (KVIA) and will be in the newspaper tomorrow. Check out the links:

El Paso Times:
www.elpasotimes.com/living/ci_12650646

It's been a while...

Whew! Spring Break is over and we are struggling to keep our mind focused on getting through the next couple of weeks of school. Our Countdown to Cayucos, CA timer is set and we are under 85 days now
Our last month has been busy with all sorts of events. The majority of them were new religious experiences. This year we were invited to a Passover Seder at one of my friend’s house. At first I wasn’t quite sure just because I had no clue what a Seder even was. We make it a point to try and go to church every Sunday, the boys go to youth group, and I do a bible study, but this was something new that I had not even heard about. Since the family was going to be apart for Easter, (Steve’s boys were with their mom), Steve and I figured it would be a great new experience for not only us, but the boys as well. That Wednesday we dressed in our best and headed to embrace this new adventure. Upon arrival the boys and Steve were instructed to put on yarmulkes. At first the boys were not real excited about messing up their hair or in their words “looking stupid” but when we all sat down for the presentation it was a must so they had to buck up and join in. To our surprise we had assigned seating. Sean (16) was at a table with young adults his age, Jason and Blake (both 13) were at another table and Steve, Austin (11), John (6) and I were at another table. The tables were beautifully decorated with all of the traditional items for a Seder…the different elements, glasses, dinner wear, etc. We sat down and begun to look through the booklet on our plates that was basically a program for the night’s events. As we sat there listening to our leader read from the first couple of pages I noticed John was flipping through the pages. He takes a break and then leans over to me with booklet in hand. “I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries,” he whispers very seriously. It took all I had to not burst out laughing. It was the funniest thing I have ever heard. Once I explained to him that it wasn’t a menu I tried to compose myself and listen attentively to the leader. We all had a great time! The boys were tickled with the whole concept and we even decided we are going to have our own Filley Passover Seder next year.
A couple weeks later, Jason and Blake were invited to one of their friends Bat Mitzvah. They’ve gone to the after parties before but only Blake had participated in the morning ceremony at the Temple. Steve and I decided that it would be a good idea for both of the boys to go and show respect to their friend. Steve took them to Temple in the morning. Since they had to wear the yarmulkes at the Seder this was not a surprise for them. They happily put them on and listened as their friend read from the Torah. The next day we had lunch with Steve’s parents and grandparents. We asked Jason and Blake to tell their grandparents and great grandparents how the Bat Mitzvah went. As their grandparents awaited the story, Jason reached into his pocket and pulled out his yarmulkes from the service…lol! He was so happy to put it on as to get into character. He has even started wearing it around the house while he does homework. I guess it helps him focus.
Steve and I both are busy at the school getting ready for our Art Festival, the end of school festivities, and the summer camp which starts right away. Steve still works away at www.organizemydad.com, getting ready for a big media event coinciding with Father’s Day. There’s always something to be working on. Everyone is looking forward to some time off in July, and our annual pilgrimage to California. We hope to be able to stop by the eHarmony headquarters and see where all the magic happen s!

Spring Break with the Gang

Another Spring Break has come and gone and what a blast we had! This year we decided that we’d hit the town of Tucson. Look out Arizona, here comes the Filley Family!

We stayed at our favorite place ....La Posada. Steve found it during one of Sean’s basketball tournament trips. It’s nestled into the side of a hill, has quail and lizards running around for the boys to find. It has a great pool and hot pool....which is what John calls a hot tub.

The boys were so excited about going and the main reason was not only because of not having school but because there is an In- n- Out burger in Tucson. Yep, you heard me. All that really matters deep down is good food!

We learned early on that traveling with our gang meant learning how to keep them all busy and entertained. This of course means ELECTRONICS and food…lol. It also means we all have to have patience with one another and work as a team. It's just a given that John is going to dominate the DVD player with something the boys have seen a million times…probably Clone Wars. Not everyone is going to want to do the same thing or eat at the same place, occasionally the truck will smell really bad, there will probably be some fighting but majority rules and Steve and I have the final say. I think the boys understand that we start off as a Democracy but can swing to a Dictatorship at any time. It works!

The drive wasn’t too bad. Sean even drove for a little bit. It was nice to have another driver in the group. Steve could rest for a little bit and I could catch up on Clone Wars...lol. We took our time getting started and even stopped off in Las Cruces so Steve could give the boys a tour of Digital Solutions. This is the company that has worked with Steve and his partner to create OrganizeMyDad.com. All of our boys are computer savvy so this was right up their alley.

Once we got to Tucson we took it easy and swam. The next day started early…we hit the Pisam Air Museum. Austin is going to be our pilot and Jason loves WWII so we figured this would be exciting for both of them. He was in heaven! We saw every type of plane imaginable, rode the flight simulator and even had dried ice cream like the astronauts would eat. The afternoon wouldn’t have been complete without our first stop at In-n-Out Burger.

Our second day started out with the fun trip to the zoo. We saw lions, tigers and bears…oh my! During our trip around the grounds, we met 2 of the funniest people. They were an older couple that were the sweetest and friendliest people we’ve ever met. They were so funny that Sean (our aspiring comic) wanted to follow them around just to be entertained…lol
Steve and I discussed what to do for dinner and figured what boy wouldn’t want to go to an Old West Town for a Steak. We decided to go to Pinnacle Petes. It’s a huge area of land that's made to look like a small western town. It has gun shows, little shops, a train and even one of those old photography places where you dress up and take old time pictures! I’ve been wanting to do one of this pictures for several years now. Steve and I had talked about it ahead of time and decided to not tell the boys about it. It’s better to take them by surprise…..they do out number us. After the gun show, we walked over to the photography shop and went in. The boys were a little thrown off, but surprisingly they all went along with it! Yeah!!!! We all enjoyed stepping back into that era and taking a traditonal western family picture. The photographer and his wife were great at dressing us, teaching us about that time and reminding us not to smile. That was hard...how do you take a family picture and not smile?!?!? The picture turned out great !

Our trip ended way to fast but we have so many new memories to look back on and many pictures to embarass the boys with...lol

OMD and snakes...yep snakes

Last weekend the boys and I supported Steve and his partner (Richard) at Generation 2000 Kids Fair. OrganizeMyDad.com (their new company) had a booth there. It was so exciting to see all of their hard work paying off. Everyone that came by the booth seemed very impressed with the whole idea. All of the boys (dressed in their OMD shirts) jumped in and helped as well as Grammy and Poppo. The boys seemed geniuly excited about seeing people's reactions with the website which thrilled Steve and I.

We cruised around the fair and came across the Petland area. Well, what was there took all of us by suprise. Austin was thrilled. They had 3 pythons. You could hold 1, 2 or all 3 of the snakes and they'd take your picture. Blake stood his distance, John left with Steve and Austin jumped at the opportunity.

Our Latest Project

Steve and I are often asked to do a new project for Eharmony. This time it was to do a blog for them.

Check it out:

http://advice.eharmony.com/article/an-eharmony-success-couple-blog-meet-the-filley-family.html

Traditions

On Friday, I turned 35 again. I know, I know I'm not really that old, but as Steve described it I am now into the second part of my 30's. I wasn't too upset about turning 36 until he mentioned that. I mean, I still think I look young, even though I've started making that horrible "Uhhhhh" sound when I try and get up from sitting on the ground too long...and sometimes the boy's music does sound a little loud and I'm not quite sure what the singers are saying. Oh yeah and there is the fact that I have started waking up at night just to go to the bathroom. lol...ok so I'll admit it...I am getting old.

I did have an amazing b-day. I have the best friends and family, I will say that. Since moving from S.A. to El Paso my mother in law, Marti, and Steve have taken on the main 2 traditions that my mom created many, many years ago.

Every year on my birthday I would receive tulips. My dad brought them to my mom when she was in the hospital after having me. Every year, my mom gives them to me and I give them to my mom. Steve has graciously taken on this role.

The 2nd tradition is kinda a silly one, but I thought this year it had actually ended until tonight (2 days after my birthday). I absolutely love strawberry cake...whether it's strawberry shortcake or the good old Betty Crocker boxed mix. I have either one or other on my birthday. This year was a little different.....we were busy and my in laws were sick so the bday "party" didn't quite happen. My mother in law gave me my cake so that we could at least have it here. It was a beautiful little cake that was so adorable and made me feel like it was personalized just for me. I didn't cut into it and put it in the freezer. I was a little disappointed about it not being strawberry but was so touched by her generousity that I thought maybe that tradition needed to pass and more would take it's place. To my suprise today, when I cut into that delicious looking cake I noticed that it was STRAWBERRY! I was so excited! It took me back to when I was little and my mom would make my cake every year for me! Thanks Marti!

Latest News

Since my last post:

1. Jason has made his middle school basketball team. Go Warriors!
2. Steve has launched www.organizemydad.com It's still in the beta testing phase, so check it out!
3. Sean is now about 6'1 and the doctor said he still has growing to do.
4. Austin is back to playing soccer. He is with Coach Miguel who coached Sean and Jason.
5. Blake has contacts now and is so excited!
6. John is doing TUMBLEBUS every Friday and loves tumbling all over the place.
7. And me....the most exciting thing I've done lately is re-organize our bedroom.