A Boy Turns 5...

I never did post about your birthday last year..  I was so excited for that birthday because you were turning four.  Four is my most absolute favorite age.  Fours are curious, increasingly independent, creative, caring and their verbal skills grow by leaps and bounds.  And you did all of those things! and more....  Last year nearly killed me - about a thousand times over.  It nearly killed you, as well.  If anything, it is amazing that you were lucky enough to reach five.  ;)  Your never-ending, almost suicidal curiosity put my graying-hair into overdrive.  Your never-ending potty-training, mess-making, getting-into-things-you-shouldn't put me back on anti-depressants.  That's okay.  We'll get there buddy.  Let's be glad that you don't go to preschool, where the potty training would present a serious problem.  Your difficulty in this department gives me a clue as to just how BUSY your mind is.

Five will be a year of huge growth for you.  You are building with Legos like a champ.  You love to draw, you love to count and you repeat the things Owen is working on with his schoolwork.  I think that once you and I are ready to start formal school work later this year, you will do really well.

I love your love of life.  You are the epitome of 'gusto'.  You rode your first roller coasters a few weeks ago (Space Mountain was your favorite) when we visited Lego Land and Disneyland, and you LOVED it.  You loved the ocean, but oddly enough, only your toes got wet - as that was enough for you.  You watched the Star Wars trilogy (eps. 4,5 and 6) for the first time during the trip to CA and back, and you were hooked.  Star Wars-themed play has been a daily event ever since.  In a few weeks you will go skiing for the first time.  I will stay home with Owen, but I will worry about you every second.  I know you are breakable - you broke your leg last year.  As long as I live I will always think of you as vulnerable...fragile.  You are a big, strong boy with a big heart, but I can't shake that urge to be overprotective.  You insist on climbing tall trees, jumping down from high places, swimming in deep water, and constantly elude my radar and ride in the car without fastening your carseat belts.  Mayhem is your middle name.

This year will be another wild ride, I'm sure...

update: I've now posted a post-dated blog post about Colin's 4th.  I was riddled with guilt over that draft that has been sitting in my blog queue for a year now.

New Roof, Physical Therapy, Traffic Flow, Birthday and Friendship Blues, Schedule Hell

New Roof

I don't think I mentioned it, but our new roof went on 7/29, two days before my ACL surgery.  I got up early and reparked the cars, we moved the roofing materials that we had stored temporarily in our garage for a few days out onto the driveway, and then a couple van loads of roofers showed up at 7:14 a.m. and got busy.  They were fast, efficient, and stuff was flying off our roof within 15 minutes.  Not a moment was spared.  The kids and I watched chucks of roofing fall from the sky for the next couple hours.  The sound was loud, but not deafening, unless you were in the garage.  In there, chunks of wood were falling from the ceiling.  We left for about three hours for errands and then came back.  Storms moved in around 1 p.m., the rain started to really come down at 2 p.m., and still they carried on with the work.  The entire job was done, the yard was picked clean, and they were on their way at 4:10 p.m.  I have only found two nails in the days since, so they did a really good job with the clean up.  The new roof looks absolutely beautiful.

Physical Therapy

I have made it through my first week of physical therapy on my knee.  I only have anywhere from 7-11 weeks to go.  The difference between my physical therapy this time around and the therapy I had on my shoulder is like night and day.  My shoulder therapist (different clinic) was cool, indifferent, and she did no manual therapy (like massage) on my very stiff and sore joint.  The only thing I did was lift weights in all sorts of different directions.  This time around, in a clinic in the same building as my surgeon, I am with the nicest therapist, ever.  Except that what she makes me do hurts more than you can imagine.  She massages my knee first, loosening my very stiff and swollen knee, and then has me work almost exclusively on contracting my quadricep - over and over, to strengthen my weakened leg.  Twice now it has been done with the help of a vicious torture device called STEM, which delivers an electric current to my muscle, to make it contract.  It hurts so bad it brings tears to my eyes, but I know it has to be done.  The nice thing is that after it is over, I get to relax while a nicer version of STEM massages the muscles and a bag of ice helps with the swelling.  I had the rest of my stitches pulled out last week, and just yesterday I graduated from the walker to a single crutch, which I use opposite of my bum knee.  I struggle with hyperextending my knee backwards (due to weak muscle control), so I have to walk very slowly, concentrating on keeping my knee bent ever-so-slightly as I move.  Now that I can walk with a free hand means that I can now carry a few things, which is like a whole new world.  I hated being so dependent on others to carry absolutely every little thing for me from point A to point B.  Therapy will continue for the next several weeks, twice a week, for an hour each visit, plus the time to drive 70 miles round trip to get there.  The good thing is, Dean can drive over from his office and meet me there and take the kids for the hour while I am in there.  The bad thing is it occurs right in the middle of the day, which isn't conducive to proper homeschooling.  :(

Traffic Flow

I've had a lot of people flow in and out of the house in the past couple of weeks.  Normally that is a thing that makes me break out into a cold sweat because that means people are in our house and they can see it for the messy disaster it is.  Dean really got things into shape while he was home that first week, and we have been fighting like hell to keep it that way.  So far we have had multiple visits from the window contractor, a couple of different guys who delivered and set up medical equipment pertinent to my knee rehab, the parents of Rylan's friend that lives on our street - as they shuttle the girls back and forth on play dates, my cousin and aunt who paid me a visit, my mom's cousin visited for a day... lots of traffic flow.  In the first few days, I was stuck in bed.  The contractor CAME TO THE BEDROOM to discuss plans for replacement windows with me.  He and Dean had toured all over the house, while I had to stay in the passive motion machine.  I was not exactly up for wandering around the house, anyway.  The contractor seemed totally nonplussed by it.  On his next visit, he had a measuring guy with him, and he was totally uncomfortable with it.  He couldn't even make eye contact.  So while there was a ton of traffic, what I wished is that it wasn't a parade of strangers in my house, but a continual flow of friends instead.  The visit from my cousin and aunt, my mom's cousin, my brother, mom and dad were all very nice indeed.  They were integral in keeping my spirits up, but I wish it had been more.

Birthday and Friendship Blues

My birthday on the 8th sucked.  Several of my family members were on a cruise, and they were out at sea on the day of, so phone calls could not be made.  I was in pretty serious pain.  I was still struggling with an ineffective dosage amount of my pain meds, plus terrible cramping in the gut, and all I could do was curl into the fetal position and lay there.  Which meant I wasn't in the mood for company.  Which meant that I was left alone for hours (my own doing, not because my family was not taking care of me), with no means of getting anything I needed when the need did arise.  By the time dinnertime rolled around, I was dehydrated, had very low blood-sugar, and thoroughly pissed off for even being in that state.  We were to meet my dad for dinner and ice cream, and I could barely keep my bearings in the car, as woozy and dizzy as I was.  Dinner helped, the ice cream was better, so the day felt a little salvaged, somewhat.  In looking back, it was just an unfortunate confluence of a lot of different circumstances that couldn't be helped, that made the day what it was.  There was a nice trickle of messages throughout the day on Facebook, and that helped, but you know... I've had a lot of time to lie around, thinking about different things.  Friendship, and what it means, has come to mind a lot lately.  This recovery has been one long and lonely road.  My phone has been rather silent, my inbox a little too empty, and my heart a little heavy.

I've talked about these friendship troubles with Dean at length, as he lets me vent and feel sorry for myself.  He sees that at times I hold myself distant from friends, and that I close myself off.  I think that is true.  There are so many hurts and let-downs in my past that I think I use that as a protective measure so that I don't get hurt anymore.  But I think that loneliness hurts even more.  So, take a moment and give thanks if you have that close circle of friends that rally behind you when you face adversity.  If you have that friend that shows up with a cup of coffee and stays an hour to visit with you and makes you laugh to momentarily take your mind off your pain or your troubles, if you have that friend that calls you up to see how you are doing - just because, if you have that friend that drops off a new library book, or a casserole, or fresh produce or flowers from her garden.... you are so, so lucky.  Friendship is precious.  I have a lot work to do in the department of being a good friend and creating better friendships.

Schedule Hell

School starts for us tomorrow.  It is not the *official* first day for Colorado Calvert Online Academy, but we are getting a head start so that we can figure out how it all works beforehand.  The new school room is ready, but not quite ready for pictures.  I still have a few more things to get put away today.  For the past several months I have been hard at work clearing our schedule so that when we did make the jump and start up with Calvert, nothing during the daytime hours got in our way as a distraction.  Then I tore my ACL, and the rehab alone will steal hours from our school time.  Then, late last week, I realized I completely forgot something when planning out our fall schedule.  I spaced that Lego NXT is starting up again.  Both Rylan and Jordan are on Lego NXT teams.  Rylan is on an all-girls team, and her practices started last week.  I love Lego.  I love that they are excited about Lego.  I just don't love the time slot they practice in very much.  Monday-Thursday, for two hours each day, Jordan and Rylan will alternate days for their practice sessions.  I don't have a schedule yet for the times when Jordan, Rylan and Owen meet online with their teachers, but I anticipate we will have a serious time conflict in very short order.  I keep telling myself that Lego and therapy will only last until mid-November, but that is not helping very much.  This was not the start I was envisioning.  I'm already stressed...

Turning 43...

My sweet daughter made me a birthday card and a get well card today. Not only that, but Rylan's neighborhood friend, who spent the morning at our house, made me a card too, which was very sweet. I spent the entire morning making trips between bed and bathroom. Dizzy, nauseous and in pain isn't how I wanted to spend the day.

A man from a medical supply company came early in the afternoon to deliver yet another torture device for my knee. I have to wear a muscle stimulator cuff around my thigh twice a day for the next month or so. Twenty minutes of squeezing pins and needles, as electric currents stimulate my quadricep muscle. This was my surprise birthday gift, I suppose. (Yay....)

In the late afternoon we picked up my dad and drove to Culver's to have dinner and then take ice cream to the park. That was nice to see my dad and catch up with him. The kids were squirrley, the restaurant was loud, and my pain meds are still clearly not working well in the pain relief arena, but they were sure doing their job of making me dizzy and sick.

I went straight to bed when we got home, but got up around 10 pm when I heard Colin crying in bed. He just needed to be held. Dean lost his patience with him days ago. I feel bad that I have difficulty being the mom I need to be right now. I held Colin, propping him on my good leg, and he fell asleep after awhile. Holding a sleeping child is birthday gift enough for me.

No deep reflective thoughts about the past year at the moment, other than I hit the highest high and the lowest low in regards to my health and emotional well-being. Since I am in the midst of the lowest-low, the only way is up, so I hope this next year brings better health and happiness my way.

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Simple Women's Daybook Entry

Outside my window... A beautiful sunny morning.  It is supposed to go into the 80's today.  We have had unsettled/rainy weather for the past several days.  I like days like that so I will miss them.  I am not a fan of hot weather.

I am thinking... about the week ahead.  A lot of loose ends need to be tied up.  We need to wrap up Jordan's school work for the *year* by the end of this week.  His subscription to his science class (Plato) ends in August, but beyond the end of this week he will only be around here for a couple days here and there until mid-August, and so we have the entire second semester of lessons and activites for both Chemistry and Physical Science to cram in this week.  yay......

I am thankful... For the beautiful bright greens of the leaves that seem to glow as they filter the sun from above.  I am also thankful for all the yardwork that my husband and kids did over the weekend - the yard looks nice and ready for a week of play in the sunshine.

From the Learning Rooms... Lots and lots of science (yay), our last homeschool PE class is on Wednesday, and the End of Year Picnic & Field Day is on Thursday.  Plus all of the regular stuff in-between everything else..

In the kitchen... A mess.  Last night I made cupcakes for Rylan's make-up birthday dinner w/ family.  Chocolate with vanilla icing and strawberries.

I am wearing... Knit skirt and shirt.  My favorite kind of stuff to wear during the day.  I need a ton more skirts.  And shorts.  Can you believe I have NO shorts anymore?  The last pair I had wore out last summer, and I never replaced them.

I am creating... This week - nothing - there is no time... :(

I am going... today I am going to the store because we have nothing to eat for the week.  Today is also our usual Park Day, but I am thinking we will skip it for today.  We have so much to get done, and Jordan's schoolwork for this week is the priority.  Late this afternoon I am picking up my race packet for the 5K I am running walking in, then Rylan, with hair and makeup done, has formal pictures for her tumbling class.  All of the costumes for the Spring Recital came in last week, so this present week they are taking pictures of every class.  Rylan will have formal pictures for her other two classes tomorrow.  This evening was supposed to be a Mom's Night Out, but everybody is cancelling.  I am feeling a bit let down - I had been looking forward to catching up with friends I have not seen in awhile.  There is this tough dichotomy we all struggle with, finding that elusive balance between family obligations and the obligation to yourself to take care of you - how do you prioritize this?  Thinking back to this blog post, it is a lot of mental food for thought.

I am wondering... About the two turtles I special-ordered for Rylan yesterday.  They are to arrive on June 10th.  It occurred to me, 0.9827349872 seconds after clicking the 'confirm order' button, that I have no idea if I will be getting two males, two females, or one of each??  This might be a good thing to know...

I am reading... Still finishing Parenting Beyond Belief, which is due back to the library tomorrow and I've already renewed it once.

In the garden... A very enthusiastic rhubarb plant that is going just a bit crazy...I need to make something with it this week - Rylan has been requesting a rhubarb crisp.  We can have some for Tuesday Teatime!

I am hoping... That we get through this week in one piece, yet enjoy it, since Jordan will be leaving for most of the summer at the week's end.

I am looking forward to... Sunday evening.  It is this huge mental thing for me just to get through this week, to see several obligations through to their end and then I can relax.

I am learning... About Southern Painted Turtles, acrylic adhesives, heat lamps and salmonella.  I am also learning about France, as I trace my mom's journey along the Rhone river, where she is currently traveling aboard a river-cruise ship for a week.  She toured about Lyon over the weekend, visiting a market and winery.  So jealous...  (Glad you are having fun, mom!!!! :)

I am hearing... Rylan making hot chocolate, Owen cracking a hard-boiled egg, the hum of the fish tank and birdies.

Around the house... Jordan and Colin are sleeping in (it is currently 8:46 a.m.).  Today we begin combing through Jordan's packing list for SeaBase and combating the laundry pile(s).

I am pondering... turtle diets... it's a bit complicated!

One of my favorite things... early mornings - the birds and the quiet - with hot coffee.  happy sigh.

A few plans for the rest of the week... makeup, fussy hair and pictures for today and tomorrow.  Tomorrow night we have our last homeschool board meeting for the year, and this is also my last official duty.  I am stepping away from the board and my duties that lie therein.  It is a good feeling.  The board is such a nice group of ladies - I'll probably still attend meetings next year, just for the camaraderie.  We have the end-of-year picnic on Thursday - we are bringing water balloons.  The weather looks like it will stay 85F and sunny through Thursday, so that will be perfect.  The last time it got cold, and water balloons were not all that fun.  I think the kids threw them at trees instead...lol.  Friday will be a frenzied packing day for Jordan.  He leaves for SeaBase at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning.  Saturday is the day that I run (ahem) a 5K, and Rylan does a Kids' fun run.  Neither of us kept up with our training schedule this month because we both got sick.  We will be walking this week and maybe run a few short bits so that we can both run at least a little bit.  Rylan has a total of nine fun runs throughout this summer, so pretty soon she will be able to run the whole mile.  Before I got sick I was averaging 3 miles a day, walking a mile - mile and a half, and running the other bit.  I'll have to start at "0" again... :/

Here is a picture for thought I am sharing... 

Beaujolais Region, France
Please insert me here...with a glass of something cold and fruity...
(photo courtesy of my mom..of whom I did not ask permission, but I am sure she wouldn't mind)
(Well...pretty sure...)

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The week where we cancelled just about everything...

We got sick last week.  All of us.  We dropped like flies, one by one.  Rylan started it, on Mother's Day.  The following day was her birthday.  Instead of celebrating with a family dinner and blowing out 8 candles on her birthday cake, we cancelled everything and she fell asleep in my lap, feverish and miserable.  Colin and Owen followed suit the next day - after I dragged everybody but the fever girl to the dentist.  Do you know how hard it is to reschedule four simultaneous dental appointments?  I'm sure the dental hygienists loved me.  We skipped Park Day.  We missed tumbling.  And the saddest of all, we stayed home instead of driving to Boulder and watching my nephew - the first of the great grandkid generation - cross the stage and accept his high school diploma.  My mom took several short bits of video and so we got to see things as they happened, which was nice.

Rylan on her birthday afternoon.  She isn't feeling too hot..  :(

Jordan was next.  Jordan is leaving for a scuba diving trip in just two short weeks - the last thing he needed was a head cold, considering he had burst his eardrum on Christmas Eve during the last cold, but germs don't seem to care about plans like that.  Rylan finally ate a single bite of birthday cake on Wednesday night.  She had skipped scouts that day - more due to her brothers than to her, but she did go to her ballet class late that afternoon.

Dean came down with it and stayed home from work on Thursday and Friday, running the occasional temp.  We skipped a morning of play and work time we had planned to spend with the other girl scout leader and her three girls, and rested the rest of the day.  Friday seemed to be a good day for the kids, so we left Dean at home to fend for his sick self, and we took off for Colorado Springs to take part in a field trip to the Air Force Academy for Jordan.  Even though we don't officially start up with Colorado Calvert Academy until the fall semester begins, Jordan was invited to go on this field trip with other Calvert eighth graders for a tour of the campus.  I'm glad everyone was feeling good enough that we could go.  I gave a Jordan a don't-you-dare-cough-on-anyone lecture and we left him with a fellow homeschool friend and her mom (they are the ones that introduced us to Calvert) and wandered around the area for a couple of hours to kill time.  I took the kids by a B-52 that is on permanent display, and then that was about all there was to see on the Academy grounds, so we drove to the east, into the Black Forest, an area that was devastated by wild fire not quite even a year ago yet.  It was certainly a sight to see.  I was curious to see if La Foret, the UCC church camp that I attended in my youth was still standing, and to my relief it was.  The kids and I drove onto the grounds, and circled just a bit.  It looked very familiar, and I wish I could have wandered around on foot, but I didn't feel comfortable asking.  We drove back down the road to a parking lot we had seen for a recreation area, and got out to walk a trail through the blackened forest for a bit.  I'm glad no one else was around because I'm sure it would have been a sad scene to listen to three kids hack and cough and wheeze as they ran back and forth along the trail.

We went back to pick up Jordan and then made a bee-line back up the interstate to none other than IKEA!  I just about peed my pants when we passed it on the way down.  It has been open for what...three years now?  And I haven't been there yet.  So I WENT.  :)  The place is huge, confusing, and I have a few unkind things to say to the men (obviously) who designed the layout, even though I know the effed-up plan is all in an effort to control 'flow'... but if you are someone like me, who leaves her wallet in the car and only figures that out while trying to pay for food in the cafeteria, it is damned near impossible to make a dash for the parking garage in any kind of quick manner.  I am proud to say that we spent a whopping $17.  We came home with a new wastebasket for the office, and plastic snack cups, bowls and plates.  My husband got off very easy.  This time...

Saturday morning I woke up and well...wanted to die.  It may have been a cold for the rest of the family, but for me late Friday evening into Saturday morning felt like the flu.  Everything hurt.  I could even feel my insides hurting.  I don't think that another single ounce of snot could have been packed into my sinuses.   Despite feeling like curling into the fetal position, Dean and I dressed up, traveled across town and spent a scant 15 minutes congratulating a young man (who will forever be a sweet little toddler in my mind's-eye), on his high school graduation.  Austen was a wee 5 months when I first started nannying for him and his older sisters, and the next seven years I spent with them were very happy ones - gosh I love their family.  They were kind enough to host our wedding in their gorgeous backyard almost nine years ago, and so it was nice to be at their home again, for one last time.  They are empty-nesters come this fall, so they are putting their home on the market this summer.  I remember when it was built.  I dragged the Austen and his sisters over there when they were pouring the concrete and each of them placed their hand prints on the front sidewalk.

The garden area where we got married nine years ago

Straight from the party, with enough Sudafed in my system to trigger alarm bells at a Walgreens, Dean dropped me off to see a movie with friends.  I hope they forgive me for showing up sick.  Even though I felt like absolute crap, after a week of sick kids and all the *super fun* we were having, I really needed to get out.  I loved the movie - as you may have read - and I think I need to see it again, because I was kind of in a drugged-out haze at the time.

Dean picked me afterwards, with all the kids in tow, and we -as promised to our birthday girl - set out to start our quest to build a turtle enclosure that will sit on top of our present fish tank.  All week, between episodes of dealing with sneezy, wheezy and snotty kids, we had been doing research on how to go about this.  It has been a crash-course in all things turtle - habitat, keeping, species...blah, blah, blah.  Rylan has settled on a Southern Painted turtle, which is one that swims and basks - hence the need for a basking area above the water.  I'll go into more detail in another post.  What it meant on this day was three hours of going from store to store to store gathering the different items we needed.  Turtles are a real pain in the ass, if you ask me.  I wish she had asked for a kitten.

On Sunday we went to my nephew's graduation party.  He had his ceremony on Tuesday, and now it was time to party.  We all went, I greeted people with a safety sick perimeter around me and we didn't stay too long.  It was nice to see some of my SIL's family that came and family friends, I wish I had felt better.

And that was our week.  It was a week I had been looking forward to - a birthday and two graduations, and to miss some of it was very frustrating.  There is also that strange freedom you feel though, as you cancel things right and left... that you get to stay home and do nothing because nobody feels like doing anything anyway... and suddenly you feel a lot more relaxed and at peace.  Note to self though - I need to have a batch of chicken noodle soup, frozen and ready to go for the next time.


 

Simple Woman's Daybook Entry

Outside my window... A nice mild morning, with a few clouds here and there. The sunlight is illuminating the bright green leaflets of the ash tree in the front yard - it just started leafing out a couple of days ago. Birds are twittering all around the neighborhood, and the occasional puff of a breeze is carrying a multitude of different floral scents: honeysuckle, crabapple, currant, red cherry and Daphne. It's heady stuff, but makes a walk through the neighborhood a real joy right now. I love the jasminey smell of Snow Crabapples. A man just walked by with his dog, talking loudly on his headset thingy, and the neighbor just fired up the engine and is heading to work. I have no idea what he does -it is an ongoing mystery. We just see a different brand new car in their driveway every few weeks, it seems. Maybe he is a car salesman...we just don't see dealer tags on the cars. weird. Let's sniff the jasmine again....ahhhhh.

I am thinking... about the wonderful dance show that Rylan and I went to last night. The dance academy where she takes lessons has an audition-only performance dance team, in addition to the wide variety of classes they offer. They have groups that perform hip-hop, jazz, contemporary, tap and dance theatre. Last night they put on a show that showcased all of the dance performances that they have used in competition during this past season. There are 86 dancers in this group, ages 4-18, and there were 43 (!) different dance performances for the show. The show moved at a steady pace, with no announcing, just dance after dance, and we saw some really amazing stuff. The most moving (for me anyway) was the solo dance that a 10 (?) yr old girl (she played one of my 'daughters' during the party scene in the Nutcracker), performed. It was a contemporary piece, and she really nailed it. I think I like contemporary best because it is just so open to interpretation, and a dancer can really pour their soul into it. How a child, so young, can be so gifted in that regard is just beyond me - but I enjoyed it immensely. Rylan had three friends from her jazz and tumbling classes that performed in a jazz piece (which was the real reason we were attending) and she looked wistful. I felt a little bad because I was wondering if she felt like she was on the outside of an exclusive club she didn't even know existed until a few weeks ago. We talked about it on the way home. I told her that being on this team meant that number one, you had to audition to get in, and number two, it meant a lot more practice and numerous performances. She considered it, and then decided that didn't really sound like fun. She loves dance, but the passion is just not there. That's okay. She has her whole lifetime to discover what her passion really is.

I am thankful... That Rylan doesn't have that kind of competitive streak in her when it comes to dance. Those types of girls drive me crazy. Their mothers even more so. The audience behaved pretty respectably,with families only whooping and hollering for their kid after each performance....except for one mom. Her daughter - age 6, maybe - got set on the stage for her solo (there were only 10 solos), and seconds before the music started, her mom, camera video rolling, yelled out - "You got this, baby!!". uugh.

I am also thankful that Colin is recovering well from his broken leg, now that the cast is off. He is still walking around on his tip-toes on that leg and favoring it quite a bit. We are working with him to stretch his leg every night. He is back to riding his little blue Strider bike instead of his pedal bike, but I can only imagine how uncomfortable that might feel to pedal a bike right now..ouch. He got on a trampoline yesterday at a party a Rylan's violin teacher's house, and he bounced for a little bit but greatly favored his leg. He got off with a grimace - it must have hurt.

From the Learning Rooms... We are just steadily plodding along here. Jordan went to a friend's house last week to listen in on a Calvert Academy online class session. He will have 2-3 weekly sessions himself next year, when we start with Calvert in the fall. He got a nice feel for it and said that he liked it. We have a field trip with the Calvert group in a couple more weeks when Jordan gets to go on a tour of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. I look forward to meeting some of the families.

In the kitchen... This morning it will be yummy blueberry pancakes. Only one kid is up right now. Dean and Jordan are up at Spring Camporee, so they won't be home for a few more hours.

I am wearing... comfy clothes - t-shirt and yoga pants!

I am creating... I am making a discussion list for Dean and I to use late this afternoon when we go out for coffee. I have some pretty good ideas from a book I am reading (see below) to help him sort out some priorities for him in regards to his scoutmaster role in Jordan's boy scout troop. He is struggling with intense overload lately, and he completely stressed out. Parent emails are driving him absolutely insane, and he spends an average of 1-2 hours every work day (when he should be working ?!?) trying to put out fires, answering dumb questions, or asking a person for the umpteenth time to do the job they volunteered to do. He does delegate, but eventually all queries come back to him. He is behind at work, and by virtue of his employment being in the tech industry, I am always afraid that poor performance will mean his number will be up the next time layoffs come around. What really pisses me off is that this is a volunteer position that seems almost like a second full-time gig.

I am going... Whew - busy week ahead! It's birthday season again - Jordan on the 9th and Rylan on the 12th. I am getting my first salon haircut in years on Tuesday. Yay me! While my mom babysits the little guys on Friday (Jordan's birthday), Dean and I are taking the older two to an amusement park that has a private day just for homeschoolers. The last two years it rained on this particular day, so I am crossing my fingers. This is the second time it has coincided with Jordan's birthday, so that makes it extra cool. On Saturday Rylan is having her birthday party at a local pottery studio, and Jordan will be playing laser tag with a good friend later that afternoon. And Sunday is my favorite day of the year. :) Mother's Day!

I am wondering... If Rylan will like riding on rollercoasters...

I am reading... I've got two going right now - Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life, by Julie Morgenstern, and Parenting Beyond Belief, edited by Dale McGowan. I am enjoying both immensely and learning a lot. There is good advice in the Morgenstern book about how to line out job or volunteer duties and separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

In the garden... The lettuce is growing. As are the weeds and grass. I need to get busy.

I am hoping... That this nice, mild weather continues all week.

I am looking forward to... birthdays!

I am learning... all about sleep apnea. I have it. I did an at-home sleep study (all the insurance company would spring for, at the time) last Tuesday night, and saw the results the next day. I stopped breathing multiple times during the night, and my brain was poking me awake on average every 2 minutes. Needless to say, I never wake up feeling rested. Ever. My pulse ox runs at about 90, dipping down to 86 every time I stop breathing. The results are being sent to my doctor and insurance company, in the hopes that I will be approved for a full-on sleep study - an overnight at the testing facility, so they can see what the brain is doing as well. When your body stops breathing and then you snort and gasp after several seconds (my longest period without breathing was 17 seconds), your brain releases adrenaline and pumps up the blood sugar in a flight response. This prolonged increase in the blood stream is hard on your heart and your liver. My blood pressure has seen a very slight, but steady increase over the past year. Dean has reported that my snoring is pretty bad, that I repeatedly stop breathing throughout the night, I wake up with a headache most mornings (due to the pumped up adrenaline in the system), and I never feel rested. I also feel sleepy throughout the day, drive while drowsy and have poor concentration. All bad things. A CPAP machine is definitely in my future. But so is feeling rested, better sleep for Dean, better concentration, better mood, and maybe an end to my depression???? yay!

I am hearing... Shawn the Sheep. A Sunday morning kid favorite.

Around the house... The dirty, smelly camping gear will be arriving shortly. :(

I am pondering... how to work in a walk this morning. Being home alone with the little kids presents a problem that I can't just leave the house and walk for 45 minutes on my own. The solution has been to walk in the gigantic church parking lot behind the house and let the little kids roam all over on their bikes while I walk laps. Kinda hard to pull that off on a Sunday morning. I could drive a short distance to a walking trail, but there is always the danger of rattlesnakes, and kids who take off on their bikes - out of earshot.

One of my favorite things... The birdies. And the scent of jasmine.

A few plans for the rest of the week... My haircut is something I am really looking forward to. Not a big change - I don't think. Sometimes all reason escapes me the second I sit in that chair... I've got the birthday cake requests in - Jordan as always wants Blackout Cake, and Rylan wants a 2-layer chocolate cake, with marshmallow frosting, strawberries on top and a Barbie stuck in it. okay.... we'll have to negotiate on the Barbie. For her party I am going to special-order cupcakes at bakery close by. Most of her friends have the tough lot in life of food allergies to contend with, so I want to make sure I have a treat to offer that they can have.

Here is a picture for thought I am sharing...

Colin took this picture from his car seat when we took our road trip last week.  I think this was on the stretch of highway between Steamboat Springs and Craig.

To read more entries and visit a variety of other blogs, go here...

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A mom turns 70

My mom celebrated her 70th birthday today. Mom invited her sister Sandy to come play duets in church (mom on organ, Sandy on piano), and then after church have a party with friends and cousins. My mom and aunt Sandy have a lot of cousins.

Mom and aunt Sandy grew up playing duets in church because my grandma was the church organist for their Methodist church for decades. A summer visit to my grandparents meant thunderous joyful duets in church (mostly the postlude) with my grandma on the organ and mom on the piano. If luck would have it that we were all visiting at the same time, mom and Sandy would play. People would not get up and file out, they would stay and listen and applaud like crazy when they finished. It was the same after church today. The congregation and choir started to applaud, and then mom and Sandy launched into 'Happy Birthday', followed by a very solemn 'Amen'. Haha..

 

We wandered down to the party room, where a lot of yummy potluck food was waiting. We had a good time visiting with relatives and watching a continuous slide show of family pictures from all stages of mom's life thus far... She has traveled so many different places, and is still doing it now. In a few weeks she will be flying to Paris, and at the end of the year she is traveling to South America for a five weeks tour where she will visit Argentina, the Easter Islands, Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia and a whole bunch of stuff I am forgetting.

My SIL made a memory book and asked everybody to write down a specific memory of an event they shared with mom. I wrote about the time mom and I drove across country, on our way home from Boston. I was 21, and it was in August, just a few days after my birthday. I flew to Boston, where my mom and my brother were waiting to pick me up at the airport. Mom had previously drove from CO to Washington D.C., where my brother lived, and they drove up to Boston. When I arrived, we did the touristy things you do in Boston, including a visit to "Cheers", for a celebratory beer in honor of my birthday. Trouble is, I left my luggage at the airport, in a luggage locker. Including my purse and I.D. :(.

We left Boston and drove north, visiting places along the way. Kennebunkport, LL Bean flagship store in Portland, Bar Harbor, and then camped in a campground in Acadia National Park. It was our last family adventure. We camped, we drove, we got lost, we hiked, we bickered, we ate....we had such good time. We saw my brother off on a plane back to D.C., and mom and I continued to meander our way home. We saw the Man in the Mountain in N.H., crossed Lake Champlain on a car ferry, drove into Canada, came back across and braved a desolate, scary-looking Detroit, drove through morning rush hour traffic in Chicago (that was an experience), saw our old house in Madison, WI, and then came on home. It was a lot of fun. My mom is the best travel companion. Our family has the habit of driving on blue highways, so we see a lot more of what there is to see, and get invariably lost several times. In getting lost we have made so many neat discoveries, hole-in-the-wall eateries, colorful people...my mom embraces that experience above 'getting there'. I love that about her. :)

Happy Birthday, mom. Thank you for all you provided me, taught me, and modeled for me.

 

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A boy turns 4...

Colin has turned four.  Our last one to be four.  This is sad for me.. I love four.  Four is my absolute favorite age.  I will savor this year.  During our video chat with the Oklahoma grandparents, Colin tried to show on his fingers how old he was now.  I said...'tried'.

Then he opened some presents.  Among them was this little gem - a Minion with a foam dart gun.  You would have thought Colin had won the lottery.  This grin says it all.... like I said - this little boy has a thousand different facial expressions, and I love. them. all.

42

photo credit

 

 

 

"The answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything"

 

 

 

I turned 42 today.  I am lovin' this age and I can't wait for this year to get underway!!

 

 

Here are some awesome things about 42:

 

1. I've now got the answer to a long-forgotten question.

 

2. 42 is the angle rounded to whole degrees for which a rainbow appears.

 

3. 42 is a (2,6) perfect number.

 

4. '42' is a track on Coldplay's (my fav band) Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends

 

5. On page 42 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry discovers that he is, in fact, a wizard.  (I verified this by checking my first-edition copy of the British version that Dad gave me for my birthday, a few years back.)

 

6. The element Molybdenum has the atomic number 42, and is the 42nd most common element in the Universe.  It is used in steel alloys where it gives great strength and heat resistance.

 

7. There are 42 illustrations in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

 

8. Toy Story character Buzz Lightyear's spaceship is named '42.'

 

 

We celebrated my birthday by hiking one of my favorite trails in RMNP, in the Wild Basin area.   Dean took the day off and my dad joined us, so it was the seven of us on this adventure.  We had a great time.  Owen and Colin were wandering every which way - much like Billy does in the Family Circus cartoon, by Bil Keane.



 



Our destination was 1.8 miles up the trail: Calypso Cascades.  It was coolish, and rain threatened from time to time.  We stopped for lunch along the way, and stopped another 30 or so times to get wandering kids back on the trail.

 

 

 

After we hung out at the falls for a time, the skies looked very threatening, a cool wind blew and we put on our rain jackets.  And then it began to pour.  And pour.  And pour.  I didn't mind - I think it is kind of neat to hike in the rain.  But - it did get chilly, and by the time we were within a 1/4 mile of the car, Owen was on his last legs.  His hands were cold and he was getting miserable.  "I just don't like this trail much anymore..."  :(  We got in the car, peeled off wet rain jackets and shoes and socks, and were sorta warmed up by the time we got home.  Luckily we had already made plans with my mom for dinner, so we just changed out of wet clothing and headed over for a yummy beef roast dinner and birthday cake for dessert.  I couldn't of asked for a happier day!

 

 

Lucky...

I am one lucky mom, wife and daughter. This was my 7th Mother's Day, and it just keeps getting better every year. I have few requests when it comes to celebrating Mother's Day. There are just a couple of must-haves: breakfast in bed (along with long stretches of quiet time) and handmade cards from the kids. My husband achieved this with flying colors again this year. Jordan fried bacon and helped Dean with the dishes, and Rylan and Owen flipped pancakes. Dean brought up a venti mocha from Starbucks, Jordan delivered granola with fruit a little while later, and then a while after that he brought up a fully loaded breakfast tray with juice, bacon and pancakes. I was stuffed! The kids each made a card - all sweet and endearing in their own way.

Worthy of special mention this year was the fact that Owen wrote on his card. He printed 'mouse' on the front - complete with a drawing of one on the front of the card...

 

And a message on the inside...

 

This is extra-special because this is the first handwriting sample of his that I have. His very first writing sample was made on Thursday, when he signed his name on the inside of the Mother's Day card that the kids sent off to their grandma in OKC. Up to this point, all I have been able to encourage him to write was the letter 'f' in his Explode the Code workbook, a couple of weeks ago. Owen is five years and four months, and he is the kid that has previously avoided anything that involved drawing, coloring or writing. It took serious arm-twisting to get even a little drawing as a 'signature' in other cards and so forth... So this is huge - and I have my husband and his idea to use Bananagrams to thank.

We had an awesome day, and it was even better since I got to celebrate both Mother's Day and Rylan's 7th birthday on the same day. Happy (belated) Mother's Day to every mom, caretaker and mentor out there. It is a hard job, but oh so rewarding...

 

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The Merry Month of May

 

It's birthday week around here... Jordan turns 13 on Thursday, and Rylan turns 7 on Sunday (what a neat Mother's Day! :). We have some very nice, laid back plans, so I am actually looking forward to it. Jordan wants to go to the Hibachi (a Japanese steakhouse) for his birthday dinner, and then he will play laser tag with his good friend Abbi this weekend, hopefully. Rylan has a small(ish) party planned later this week, painting pottery with her fellow Daisy scouts friends. We will have a family dinner out on Sunday at a Mexican food restaurant that Rylan requested.

Jordan wants his usual request for birthday cake: chocolate blackout cake. I will be making allergy-friendly dairy/gluten/artificial 'anything' free chocolate frosted cupcakes for Rylan's party, and then I get the joy of puzzling out how to make a 'pond' of blue cupcakes as a base for Silvermist (the Pixie Hollow water fairy) to sit on - on a lily pad, of course, for Rylan's official birthday cake with the family on Sunday. Way easier than a doll cake, (last year's effort). Not sure if my teenage son and nephews will be thrilled to eat pretty blue cupcakes off of Tinkerbell plates - and at a public restaurant no less - but there you go. That is the wish of a certain soon-to-be seven year-old girl, and since she is the only girl in both our families, she is given a lot of latitude. :)

Jordan is getting close to reaching his savings goal for an iPad. He was initially shooting for a laptop, but I think we have finally convinced him otherwise. His birthday money just may get him there this week. I just love super-easy birthday presents.

Rylan is eagerly awaiting the arrival of her Barbie Dreamhouse that is on its way from Amazon. I am so proud of this girl. She has been saving for months, and fully funded the purchase herself. A combination of Christmas money, allowance, chore money and tooth fairy money got her there. In fact, the final push was the surprise removal of two bottom teeth at the dentist this past Friday. She earned a whopping $10 dollars (such a generous Tooth Fairy!) for that. Get this - on Friday evening, Rylan speculated how much the Tooth Fairy was going to leave her. She laid the two teeth out on the counter to compare them. One tooth was tiny - practically one sneeze away from falling out on its own (in fact, the dentist did that one for 'free'...) and the other had a very, very long root. So Rylan figured that since the long tooth was the same length as 'four' of the little tooth, then it should be worth 4x the going rate for a tooth ($4 a tooth, in our house). So she did the math and figured that the Tooth Fairy would be leaving her $20. Ahem. I informed her that I wasn't positive, but I was pretty sure that the Tooth Fairy didn't base her payment structure quite like that... I did think, however, that the Tooth Fairy did take into consideration if you went through a painful tooth extraction when you lost your tooth. So, in the end, the Tooth Fairy must have calculated a 50% increase in payment for the extracted tooth, which I think is pretty fair.

So, here's to a busy, but fun week ahead. Hope you have a good one too!

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A Boy Turns Three...

 

Colin turned the ripe old age of three on Feb 5th. In my ripe old age of 41, I'm just now getting around to writing about it. Hummph.

 

This was an easy birthday for me to handle, emotionally. I am so glad to leave the two's behind. You have no idea how glad. I am totally torn up inside that our babyhood days are long gone, but I am tired. Bone tired. Colin is the two year old that broke the mold. He defined the terrible two's, and I will forever have the gray hairs to remember it by. But now, after (almost) seven looooong years, the end of diapers, booster chairs, cabinet locks and sippy cups is near. In the past year we have already bid a fond farewell to the diaper bag, stroller, and most triumphantly - the binkie.

A few months ago, after several repeated attempts to encourage Colin to give up his binkie, we just let the issue rest. It was not worth the tantrum that would ensue, or the late night visits from Colin - in search of his binkie. He would fall asleep without it at times, and we would put him to bed. Then sometime in the night he would wake up, and search for it. When he couldn't find it, he would either sit up in his bed and howl until Dean or I came to help or he would take matters into his own hands and come find me to help him. Then, one morning, I heard Colin get up. I was still pretty groggy with sleep, so I dozed a bit, even though I did register that Colin was the only one up, and therefore unsupervised. Sure enough, when I found him downstairs, he was putting the scissors that Rylan had left out the night before to good use. He had taken the scissors and lopped off most of the silicone part of his binkie. He looked stunned, and a little sheepish. He wanted me to fix it. Ah-ha! A teachable moment! That afternoon, at nap time, Colin was beginning to understand the deeper implications of his actions. No binkie. It was now useless, and he would have to throw it away - AND there were no more in the house. He was going to have to go without. He looked sad, but he didn't cry. He accepted this new reality with adult-like resignation and went on with life. He never asked for it again.

At Christmastime, during a final search of the grandparents' house for lost toys as we packed up to go home, I found one of his binkies under the tv cabinet. It had been left there most likely during our previous visit last summer. I pocketed it rather quickly so that he wouldn't see it. When we got home, as I was cleaning out the kids' travel duffle bags, I found another binkie tucked away in a random pocket. Then I found a third one the next day, as I was searching through an seldom-used cabinet for something else. Weird - all of a sudden it's raining binkies! So many nights,at bedtime, Dean, Jordan and I would have to turn the house upside down in search of a binkie. We would even have to strap on a headlamp and go out to the backyard and search... most often it was left behind in the sandbox. It was imperative that we find it, for the little urchin would not go to sleep without one. Yes, this is one vestige of babyhood I was only too happy to see fall by the wayside.

Now he is three. He's contemplating toilet training, but only seems mildly interested. He can't distinguish the difference between pee and poop yet, so I don't think he is totally ready yet. In his own time... He is done with sippy cups, but whenever Kool-aid is served, you can bet a sippy cup will be pressed into service. Did I mention that Colin has a mean throwing arm?

 

He is bright, funny and he laughs at his own jokes. He argues constantly with Owen and 'stupid' is his favorite word. He loves to wear Rylan's princess dresses as equally as he does a Spider-Man costume. He Loves, Loves, Loves trains, cars and playing in the sand box. He pays rapt attention whenever Dean is working on a building project and then 'builds' his own stuff when he plays. Of all of the kids, he - by far - is the most dramatic with his imaginary play. His favorite characters to use are our vast collection of Cars - I think we have something like six different Lightning McQueens alone - and he creates very elaborate story lines. His favorite place to play is on the stairs. That was my favorite place to play too...

 

Colin's favorite meal is a banana, followed by an apple, followed by another banana. Even having been through these strange eating phases three times over now, I still don't understand how toddlers/preschoolers survive on what little they eat... Colin is also my coffee buddy. He will sneak a sip (and polish off the whole cup) when I'm not looking.

Colin's favorite book is a Thomas book that has noises. His favorite tv show is Team Umizoomie. He loves music - we've got another Coldplay fan in our midst... and his favorite movie is Cars2.

 

Colin has no reservations about talking to people. He will introduce himself ("I'm Colin!" - as he taps himself in the chest) - and all of his other family members - well, to anybody who will listen. I feel sorry for the store clerks who must suffer through his long list of the people who live with him. I am an introvert, so I have to work hard at not squelching his desire to be social with any and every adult we come into contact with in a given day.

 

Colin gets up early with me and quietly watches tv as I launch into the day. He loves to snuggle and he still likes to rock to sleep - although the past few nights he has gone to sleep in his bed on his own, so those days may be over. That is the one vestige of babyhood that is the hardest for both Dean and I to let go. We love those quiet, peaceful hours of rocking. Colin is a good rocker, he doesn't (usually) squirm, and he nestles right in and goes to sleep. I got to do the afternoon nap, and Dean got to put him down at night. We are both sad that our rocking days are practically over, but then again it meant that the entire bedtime process for all of the kids pretty much dominated our evening and we never got that quiet time to attend to bills, budgeting, mail, to do lists and so forth. We have been some very nonproductive people for quite some time, so it's nice, in that respect, that Colin has reached this stage.

 

Remember the many faces of Colin? Here are a few more...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Field trip: Berry Patch Farms

We visited Berry Patch Farms, in Brighton, CO, on August 15th.  (So...yeah, this post is a little delayed...).  A lot was happening on the 15th - my nephew, Connor was turning sweet 16, our dog, Abby, was turning 8, and Jordan was arriving home on a flight from OKC.  There was also a preschool-aged event happening that morning at the Berry Patch Farms - a place I have wanted to visit ever since fellow homeschooling mom, Kristina, arranged a field trip there a couple of years ago.  (we didn't go - Colin was only 6 mo. old and I was not up for it).

So the scheduling stars aligned that day, and we went to the farm that morning and then hightailed it over to the airport to pick up Jordan by early afternoon.  The event ran from 9:30 - 11:30.  The website was a little lacking in it's description... it sounded more like 'a class' than an: 'arrive whenever you want to, do some stuff, and leave whenever'...  'And pay us $5 per kid that you bring.'... 'Thanks.'

So I was sweatin' buckets when I pulled in at 9:39am, thinking we were late for a class.  Parking was difficult but we managed to find a spot amongst the other 128 minivans.  I didn't think to grab a backpack for myself when we left the house because I am still in stroller-mentality - which is a method of transportation we rarely use anymore.  It sure would have been helpful that day, and I think I will have to go that route for any future events like this.  When you take into consideration the waterbottles, sunscreen, camera, phone, keys, money, snacks, blah, blah, blah... I can't really wing it anymore.  Fortunately we did have Colin's little backpack, which has morphed into the on-the-go diaperbag in recent days.  ('THE' diaperbag - the bag we have used everyday since Rylan was born six years ago, had run it's course a couple months ago.  It was also something we rarely used anymore.  I had this little backpack, and it was perfect to hold 2-3 diapers, small box of wipes, and a large baggie of kiddie first aid stuff - bandaids and antiseptic wipes, which is all we really need anymore)  So I put my phone, keys and money in there too (no pockets that day), and hoped that he didn't run off!

Sunhats and sunscreen were next, and we finally left the car around 10 am.  No kidding.  Nobody exactly felt like being compliant that morning.  It didn't help that we were parked next to a goat pen, with an extremely friendly goat to distract the kids.  We wandered into the farm area and I got my bearings.  I figured out from some other moms that were milling around that we needed to go into a big barn/produce & product farm stand to pay.  That's where I found out that there wasn't really a schedule, and that we could wander around from activity to activity.

Here were the activities:

1. Each kid received a pint-sized container to take to the berry fields to fill with strawberries.
2. A craft project.  The craft project this day was rolling a beeswax candle.
3. Watch out for the resident bad-tempered farm pig.  Don't pet him. 
4. Chase the chickens.
5. Watch a video about bees.
6. Ride on a hayride out to the fields and back.
7. Climb on a wooden tractor and let your mom take a picture of you.

And that was about it for the agenda that morning...  slim pickin's IMHO, but I guess it was perfect for the preschool set.


So, first things first - try and drag the diaperbag-backpack laden two year old away from the nasty-tempered pig. (who didn't appear to be all that mean, but the resident farmer sure hustled over when he saw this mob scene...)

I steered the kids over to some picnic tables so that we could do our 'craft'.  It took about a minute and a half to roll up a sheet of beeswax around a long piece of sting.  Thirty seconds if you are an impatient six year old.  Twenty seconds if you are four, and your name is Owen.

So with that difficult task out of the way and the finished product safely stowed in the little backpack, we were off to the berry fields.  It was very hazy that day due to some smoke from wildfires in Idaho and Wyoming.  This view is looking west, and you can't even see the mountains!  Besides berries, there were long rows of flowers and herbs to pick from as well.  (if you paid for that)

The tractor dropped us off at the field and we tried to wander away from most of the people in the hopes of finding some strawberries.  The fields were already pretty well picked over, unfortunately.

We did manage to find a few.. Owen was eager to pick, and so was Rylan.  But it was hot and the kids were a little cranky.  Especially Colin.  He was all about the tractor, and was *really* pissed off at me that we had to leave the tractor behind as we walked into the fields.  And he let everyone know it too.  To the degree in which he wandered around, carrying our one lone waterbottle, bawling his eyes out and refusing to follow us.  Nice.

See?

 

So once we had picked a very measly collection of less-than-stellar looking strawberries, I made Colin happy by snagging a ride on the next tractor ride back to the main farm.  And then we had to get off.  I was once again the meanest mom in the world...

 

 

There wasn't much to do after that because the kids were hot, tired, cranky - and now hungry, so a little educational video/talk was out of the question, so we left.  We ambled towards the airport and hit a Sonic for lunch and good-mood inducing shakes.  I needed as much leverage as I could get because I was about to not only take the kids into the airport, but get concourse passes, go through security and meet Jordan at the gate when his plane arrived.

 

We were tight on time, and the only parking available was in one of the most remote spots in the outdoor short-term parking lots.  I did use the stroller this time (it's almost always in the car, still) and loaded Owen onto it too so that we could huff it through the lots and up to check-in.  The process actually went very smoothly.  We got our passes and then went through security.  Both Rylan and Owen have done this before, but never Colin, and never as a whole group.  In the past it was mostly Dean, taking only one designated child with him as I circled the main concourse waiting for him to come back.  We got ushered through a different area so that we didn't have to do the full-body scan thing.  The TSA were very polite and patient with us, I must say.  We went down to the trains and rode all the way out to concourse C to meet Jordan - which is nice because it means the longest train ride.  The kids loved it.  We arrived at the gate just as Jordan walked off the plane, so our timing couldn't be better.  We rode the train back, picked up his suitcase and then did the long walk back to the car.  Jordan was thrilled to be back in Colorado, after the awful heat he endured in OKC.

 

We drove home, had dinner, and then made a 'birthday cake' for Abby.  We do things fancy in these parts and spare no expense - so the cake consisted of a peanut butter sandwich with 8 dog biscuits set in additional globs of peanut butter.  I'm sure we shortened her life just a little bit...