Where to Start?

I’m sure you are all dying to know how the concert was & if there are still tickets available for the St Louis show.  The concert was wonderful & yes, you can still catch them in St Louis or even Kansas City.  Well worth the trip.  Jordan takes his shirt off, need I say more?

The whole weekend was a blast.  Tova traveled like a seasoned pro, only screaming as we were waiting to deplane in Tampa.  I couldn’t blame her, I was ready to scream too.  She was squirmy & refused to sleep, but I had patience in spades (a rare occurrence) & our seat mates were accommodating on all flights.

My friend, the Original Tova (from here on referred to as OTova) met us at the airport & we met her 2 little boys, J~ & L~.  When we arrived at OTova’s place, we talked until late & we all crashed about midnight.  On Saturday we headed to St Petersburg to the beach.  On the way we stopped at Hungry Harry’s, one of the best barbque places I’ve ever eaten at.  The pulled pork sandwich was on garlic toast, yummmm.

Tova loved the beach.

Tova, J~ & L~

On Sunday, we went to OTova’s church, took a nap, ate at an awesome Cuban restaurant & then headed to the St Pete’s Times Forum for the NKOTB Concert.

As you’d expect, the crowd was mostly women.  There were a handful of men sprinkled in the crowd, but you could tell they were there under duress.  I have always wanted to see NKOTB in concert.  My parents wouldn’t let me go (I think that’s the story ) when I was really in love with the group so I’ve waited to see this concert for 18+ years.  They sang a good mix of old & new stuff.  It was weird to see Donny Wahlberg all blinged out instead of in army fatigues (I’ve been watching Band of Brothers).  Joey wore jeans that were probably painted on, Jordan took his shirt off, Danny did some breakdancing that was pretty cool, & Jonathan was featured very little, & seemed happy with that.  I wonder how much convincing it took to get him to do the reunion tour.

I will admit, I was on my feet for Hangin’ Tough & I screamed like a preteen girl when Jordan whipped off his shirt. I also am going to find Hangin’ Tough & put it on my MP3 for my sporadic workouts.

The only downer to the concert was the two drunk girls who sat next to us.  They were really obnoxious & had the potential to ruin the concert, but they kept leaving to either find more beer, smoke, or potty.  OTova & I were mostly able to ignore them, which they didn’t like but I suppose it was better than trying to toss them off the balcony, which is what we wanted to do

On Monday, I packed up our stuff, & OTova & I took the little kids to the Aquarium.  We had a lot of fun there & my Tova threw her biggest fit of the weekend.  Not too bad, really.  We caught our flights with plenty of time, Tova slept from Tampa to Atlanta, we had plenty of time in Atlanta & then we arrived home at 10:30 Monday night.

I’m so glad I went & soon I’ll get some pictures posted.

On Tuesday night we met with our Realtor & the sign went in the yard this morning.  I’m sad to see it there.  If you know anyone that’s looking for a great 4 bedroom, 2 bath home in a great neighborhood, send them my way.

K~

The Long Awaited Concert Weekend

As soon as Tova’s pink blanket is out of the dryer, we’re on our way to the airport.  I’m so excited!  We’ll be in Tampa this evening & have the rest of the weekend to catch up with one of my greatest friends & of course, see NKOTB!

Have a sunny weekend!

K~

First!

This past weekend I ran my first race since high school.  There were a couple of options.  You could do the 10 mile bike ride, a 5K run, a 1mile run, or a 1mile walk.  The shirts look a little like the ones from The Office’s Michael Scott’s Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race for the Cure.  My friend C~ & I chose the 1mile run because we wanted to spend the rest of the weekend still able to walk.  In the made up categories, I won for the Over 32 age bracket, tied for second overall (there were only 4 people running the 1 mile), & had a great time.  Still, I finished, I ran the whole way & spent some time with a friend I don’t get to talk to very often..

We’re all about Cross Country lately.  There are 4 kids from our church running on 2 different high school teams.  We’ve been to 2 meets in the last week & I can’t wait for the kids to run Cross Country.  I’m hoping all this early exposure will mean I’ll end up with at least 1 runner.  I took the kids to a meet this afternoon.  Lots of exciting finishes for all our church kids.  I think the kids realized the value of cheering.  Gavin commented after the girls race that they ran faster if you cheered for them so he made sure he cheered loudly for the boys race.  I LOVE this sport.

K~

Finally Finishing What I Started

Let’s jump into the Way Back Machine for today.

Way Back in late 2006, Jason & I embarked on a major home remodeling project.  We gutted the 2 downstairs bedrooms in anticipation of moving the boys downstairs so their new sister, rumored to be referred at any time, could have their room.  We made great progress & by the time the referral came in, we were mostly done with the big things.

By February I must have been nesting or delusional.  I’m not sure what possessed me to think I could make the curtains for the room but I found some good fabric & actually thought I’d get them made before we embarked on our Vietnam Journey.  What actually happened was I cut the fabric in four pieces proceeded to store it in the boys closet.  That’s where it remained until this summer when I decided to try & finish start the project, only 18 months later.  Here’s the finished project.

*******Make sure you click over to The Chatt Pack & celebrate with them that Olivia DOES NOT have Leukemia!  I’ve mentioned Olivia in the past, but as a refresher, Olivia spent most of the spring & summer in the hospital preparing & recovering from another heart surgery.  Late this spring she was diagnosed as having AML.  It turns out the stress her little body was under because of her heart troubles was causing her blood to do funky things (I’m sure that’s a medical term).  What an answer to prayers.********

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I’m hoping to have my first protected post up tomorrow.  It’s not too late to get the password, just leave a comment with how I know you & I’ll get it sent to you.

K~

Owies

Mine, not the kids.

On Wednesday I took the kids to the pool, slathered everyone, including me, with sunscreen.  Guess who got burned?  My back & shoulders are still sore.

On Thursday I slipped on a wet sidewalk & skinned my knee & banged up my hip.

It is so true, the older you are the harder you fall.

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We all went to VBS last night.  The boys were very excited about family night.  The kids sang their songs & then we all had cookies & the required red kool-aid.  Gavin can be shy but he jumped right up on stage with the other kids & was dancing away.  Ethan tends to do the “I’m embarrassed & will not dance” routine except tonight when he decided to ‘help’ Gavin do the actions.  I was afraid they were going to start wrestling up on the stage, but thankfully it never came to that.

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Today is Jason & my 11th anniversary.  Jason will spend the day working, I’ll spend the day at the pool with the boys.  Later we’ll head out to supper & do a little shopping.  Tova’s coming along since she has a major aversion to baby-sitters at the moment.

And yes, I do remember how hot is was that day.

K~

No Cowboys, but lots of Other Stuff

One of the first questions the boys asked me after I got home from my conference was did I see any cowboys? I was stumped until they reminded me I stayed at the Westin. Get it? West-Inn? Yeah, I was dense for a minute too. Gotta love the humor of 7 & 4 year olds.

I had a wonderful time. I feel refreshed, frustrated, motivated, & scared. I took a 9 hour intensive course (over 3 days) on the psychology of faith development, a session on Helicopter parents, & a session given by the pastor of an innovative Lutheran church.

Here’s the top 10 things I learned at the conference

1. I love, love, loved the music. Billy Buchanan from Fusebox was there with his solo band & he was great! Oh the music. There were Lutheran’s DANCING! Well, it was more like they were clapping & intentionally swaying, which is about a dancey as Lutheran’s get during church. My kids love the Fusebox version of Every Move I Make aka, The Na Na song, so I screwed up the courage to ask Billy for a picture with him. I felt like such geek. He consented & as soon as I figure out how to get the picture off Jason’s phone I’ll post it. The boys were excited about the picture.
2. I really want to attend services at Room 211 in Lincoln NE. They do some very different things, like contemporary music, testimonies, & use a lot of media. Their sermons are online & I’ve only been able to listen to one so far. They do some different things, not all of them I agree with, but at least they are trying to reach people.
3. I love going to school. The psychology course proved too much for a few of the class participants. I think they found it too boring or technical. I found it interesting to study how we currently try to teach kids versus how they learn best. It gave me lots to think about.
4. Having more questions than answers at the end of the conference is a good thing.
5. Never stay in a hotel room close to the elevator. The bed can be soft as a cloud, full of pillows & down, but the sound of the elevator running all night will ruin your sleep.
6. Meeting Jenny B was wonderful. She was a bloggy/agency friend but now she’s an IRL/agency friend. We ate at Rock Bottom Brewery & stayed for HOURS talking. I love that when you finally meet someone & it feels like you’ve known them forever.
7. The conference swag was awesome! I came home with a t-shirt for Jason, a polo shirt for me, & a Nalgene water bottle, & of course about a dozen pens. Many times I had flashbacks of The Office episode where Micheal & Dwight “take the slow train to Philly” for a conference & Micheal talks about decorating his condo with all his conference swag.
8. Calling late for hotel reservations can pay off. We ended up being upgraded to Westin’s preferred customer floor & we were able to get a nice complementary breakfast, access to internet, free drinks & snacks all day. It kind of made up for the whole elevator keeping me awake all night thing.
9. The owners of Group Publishing are incredible people. They came to Indy after vacationing in Vanuatu, where they ended up setting up a mission trip for next summer. Amy & I visited with them our last evening in Indy & we learned a lot about Group & about what drives them. They are really neat people.
10. I cannot go on youth oriented trips when my sister Becky is pregnant. Two years ago, Jason & I had just returned from our youth mission trip to Mississippi when Becky was flown to Sioux Falls SD, to have her baby, 10 weeks early. The coincidences are a little eerie. In 2006, Jenny had been out to her place 2 days earlier with our boys, who were staying with my parents. This time, Jenny had been out 2 days before the onset of labor, & my parents were again watching the boys (& Tova), but they were at our place rather than in MN. Either Becky needs to stop having babies or I need to not travel when she’s pregnant.

K~

Ready? Set. Sit!

I’m in Indy so this is a race themed post.

My friend Amy & I made it to Indy with only having to turn around twice.  This is not something to be proud of since Indy is literally a 4.5 hour straight shot from home.  One U-turn was when we missed the interstate exit & the other was when Google maps led us horribly wrong while trying to get to our hotel downtown. Despite all the turning around, we ended up at the conference on time.  Or so we thought until we discovered that we were actually an hour late because there is some weird time change thing in Indiana.

The session I went to was pretty good.  It was a quick overview of developmental psychology & tomorrow we will dive into the psychology of faith development.  Sounds really invigorating to most of you, I’m sure.  Tomorrow’s plan is more of the same.  I’ll do more psychology & also a session on worship for a new generation, plus the great mass session.  Then the highlight of the day (I hope) will be meeting Jenny B., a current online friend, soon to be an IRL friend.  (that’s in real life for you non bloggy people )

I’m off to my bed covered with 5 fluffy pillows & a down comforter.  And I get it all to myself!

K~

Regret

I don’t know what I was thinking.

I had a Mt Dew last night at supper. Two actually. I was eating out with a women’s group from church & the restuarant only had Pepsi products. I’m not a big fan of Cola, or Mug Rootbeer, I wasn’t in the mood for Sierra Mist, & I don’t like iced tea. That left me with Mt Dew or water.

Water would have been the smart choice.

This morning I wake up (after being awake from all the caffeine until 3am) with gut rot. My stomach has decided it really doesn’t want to send that stuff through & I know this is normally how I feel after a Mt Dew, which is why I almost never have one.

Someday I will learn…

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Ever the last minute planners, Jason & I are hoping we can go camping this holiday weekend. Smart to think of this about 2 days before we’d need to leave. This will be the first 4th Jason’s had off in 10 years & we’re feeling the pressure to make this a good weekend. We’ll for sure do some biking but we’re trying to decide whether it’s worth it to add camping to the weekend as well.

We’re also trying to decide what to do about a vacation. We’d originally thought we would go camping in Michigan but we don’t really want to spend $1000 in gas to pull my parents camper or spend the same amount getting the van’s A/C working again. I’m not sure what we’ll end up doing, but my guess is it’ll be a lot closer to home & involve a hotel.

K~

Welcome to the Gun Show

Last night I decided I had put off working out long enough – it was time to head to the Y for a serious workout. After I finished my 1 mile run I headed to the circuit room to do a little stretching & some weights. What I got was a gun show. It was my lucky night

I admit that I do look at the mirror when I lift, but I swear it’s only to correct my form. I have a terrible problem with scrunching my shoulders & rounding my back. I do not use the mirror to see how big scrawny my ‘pipes’ are. The 2 guys in the room last night, quite obviously did not have my same philosophy regarding the mirror. Before the one guy got started, he made sure to roll up his sleeves so he would have a better view of his ‘ceps’s. Then another guy walked in & proceeded to do the same. Only I’m not sure how this guy could walk. He looked like he concentrated pretty heavily on bulking up his upper body & forgot about his chicken legs. I was surprised those things were enough support to propel him forward. Anyway, I had a hard time keeping a straight face as I watched them try to outdo each other with the free weights. My word, the grunting…

K~

The Day I’ll Never Get Back

I went to a mission conference with some women from my church today.  What looked to be a time of renewal & learning turned out to be a boredom fest.  One of the main speakers would not shut up!  She blathered on & on & on about what the group was about & I wanted to stab myself with my fork in hopes of escaping the afternoon session.

There were a few highlights.  The presentation from a couple who had served in Jamaica was good.  Then a woman talked about service opportunities around the world & I spent the rest of the afternoon tuning out the blatherer (who thought it was a good idea to let her on the stage again?) & daydreaming about whether we could uproot the family & go teach English in Hong Kong or Macau.  I’m not sure we could do it with our current debt load, but it’s an interesting idea.

The other good part of the day was a post conference trip to Cold Stone Creamery.  The kids had a good time with Jason.  I think it was great timing for Jason to spend some quality time with Tova.  She’s been swinging back to the hardcore Mama’s Girl again.

We’re looking at a busy week next week.  Jason needs to squeeze in about 8 days of work into 3.  I need to get the laundry, house, & kids in order for our trip next week.  I have a feeling, Thursday will come rather quickly.

K~