Sweet Corinne, we love how easily you brighten a room with your amazing personality. We’re amazed by how well you can express yourself and by all the things you can do. We’re grateful to be your parents and to help you to grow into the strong, loving, joyful person you are meant to be.

Happy birthday, Corinne! We celebrate you on this very special day.

The big news is Corinne is almost two  years old. Yea, I know, already? It’s true, she turns 2 on Monday. Needless to say we’re throwing a birthday bash for her this weekend. The guest list is fairly exclusive, and it’s going to be the in thing for the 2 and under set this weekend. Okay, not really. But because of the storms we’re having it at our house, and we were only able to invite Corinne’s friends and their immediate families.

We spent last weekend on house stuff, and our downstairs living room looks a lot nicer. We’re almost ready to buy that large screen TV. The weekend before that we went to the birthday party for one of Corinne’s friends, and I played in my monthly CthulhuTech game.

Corinne is doing well. Is it normal for child under 2 to have memorized her books? She’s as good at reciting them as I am, and I’m reading the things. She still loves Caillou, but her new things are The Wonder Pets and Yo Gabba Gabba. The strange thing is we don’t even have cable, and she’s still hooked on these shows.

Last night I discovered an application that will allow me to write and upload blog posts directly from my phone. I can’t imagine writing anything but a short update using it, and I’m sure the rate of spelling and grammar errors is going to go way up. On the other hand it could make writing quick updates incredibly convenient.

Other than that things are fairly quiet. No news is good news, I guess.

To be honest I’m happy we got at least some of our money back. I was expecting them to keep everything. But I will certainly never buy anything from The Vegan Collection again.

This whole thing is sad.

So about six weeks ago Raelene ordered me a pair of vegan dress shoes. Unfortunately the shoes that arrived were significantly smaller than what she ordered. I wear size US 10’s, I’ve fit US 9’s on my feet but was in pain, and I couldn’t get my toes inside these shoes. They fit Raelene, not me. Okay, no problem we thought. We’d contact the company and let them know we received a mismarked pair of shoes.

Raelene contacted the website, and over the past weeks they’ve continually refused to admit that there might be anything wrong with the shoes. We even emailed them pictures of the shoes they sent us next to the 10’s I’m currently wearing, showing clearly that the Vegan Collection shoes were nearly 2 inches shorter. No response other than to say the Vegan Collection shoes run a little small and that the owner’s shoes fit fine.

We mailed the shoes back for a refund, which initially they claim they issued over a week ago. Unfortunately we have yet to see any money from them. Last night they sent Raelene an email saying that we had to include a note saying the shoes were defective if we want them checked, despite the fact they are now in possession of the shoes.

Right now they have our money, they have the shoes, they have all the handling charges, and they’ve given us no reason to believe that they’re going to give any of it back. Quite the opposite, actually. We keep getting emails that approximate customer service, but I believe they’re simply trying to postpone us going to the BBB a little while longer. At this point I’ve given up on the idea that we will ever see our money.

There are few options for those who want leather free dress shoes, belts, and wallets. Unfortunately this is not a place to get those things. Buy from them at your own risk, or better yet avoid completely.

On Saturday we went to a birthday party for one of Corinne’s friends. The weather was beautiful, so the party was held out doors. Corinne enjoyed running around and playing, talking on a toy phone and pushing a child sized shopping cart around. It was a lot of fun, and she was exhausted by the time we got home.

Sunday was Valentine’s day, so Raelene and I concentrated on having a nice and romantic day. It started off with pancakes and sausage (all vegan, of course). Then we decided to try and do some volunteer work, but Corinne ended up falling asleep in the car on the drive over. So I stayed with her while Raelene helped the N&E Safety Patrol pick up trash at Grant Elementary School in Richmond. Afterwards we ran some errands, and we had a nice big romantic and heart healthy salad for dinner.

I had Monday off for President’s day, so we had a third day together as a family. In the late morning we picked up a tricycle from Freecycler, who as it turns out had two more riding toys for us. We now have 3 trikes, one with a push handle that is sized perfectly for Corinne and 2 more that are too big. We also now have 2 plastic outdoor riding toys in addition to the wheelie bug inside. I think Corinne is good for riding toys for now.

The Freecycler lives near a really nice park in Berkeley, so we wheeled Corinne in her new push trike over and let her play for a while. She loved it, and she absolutely loves the trike. When we got home I took the dog out for a walk and pushed her around the block, and it wasn’t long before she was back on the trike and demanding mommy take her out as well. She even successfully buckled herself in, which is pretty amazing given she had to get a leg through a loop to do so.

We made some good headway in cleaning out the shed, although we still have  way to go before we’re ready for Corinne’s birthday party. It’s a lot of work to get rid of stuff.

Our friends Scott and Maria came over with Maria’s dad, Tom and the adorable Sagan, who was dressed head to toe in purple and ready to party. This dinner was originally scheduled for a different day, but illness and busy lives and general life stuff serendipitously brought our dinner plans to February 6th and we made a celebration of it. It was truly special to sit around the table with the people I love who make me laugh. Add some sangria and lemon cupcakes (thanks, Wayne!) and the day was near perfect.

And the fun didn’t end at the stroke of midnight. On Sunday, Wayne used a quick errand as an excuse to spend the day out in the sunshine and far, far away from anything resembling housework. We walked around Pt. Richmond and took Corinne through her favorite tunnel. We sat on the cliffs and enjoyed the views of the bay while listening to the ice cream truck (aka “the music truck”) drive up the hill in search of people who forgot that it’s still winter.  Ice cream trucks in February?  You betcha!  After our walk, we went to Cactus Taquiera. This place has really fresh and amazing food and usually has a line out the door, but thanks to that thing they call Soup Bowl Sunday we had the place pretty much to ourselves.

All in all, it was a truly memorable weekend.  And the gift I’m giving myself is a month of exercise.  Every day, thirty minutes, no excuses. On Saturday I danced like nobody was watching (mainly because there really was no one watching) and Sunday we walked. Today I’m hoping to do another walk and maybe some hula hooping.  The only rule is to exercise, make it challenging without sacrificing the fun, and to do it every day without excuses. So far so good, and I’m looking forward to seeing how I feel after thirty days.