Hand, Foot, & Mouth & The Great Escape

I earned Mom of the Year this week.  First I completely ignored Gavin when he complained about his cheeks hurt.  Then I noticed spots in Ehtan’s mouth but really wanted to do my Body Pump class on Friday so I sent him to school.  Don’t judge too harshly, he was running around the house & yelling at his brother & sister & he wasn’t complaining.  Gavin was sooo tired all week but I chalked it up to getting used to Kindergarten.  By supper time on Friday both boys were in agony.  Off to the dr. we go!  Both have lovely cases of Hand, Foot, & Mouth.  You’d think by now I’d know HFM is a virus & the only thing you can really do is treat with pain meds.  Our former dr. would give us Tylenol with Codeine.  I love Tylenol with Codeine.  This dr. wasn’t inclined to prescribe narcotics so we could all have a nice weekend   It’s going to take some getting used to our new dr.’s medicinal preferences.  Tova has been healthy so far.  I’m sure she’ll get sick so I’ll have to miss class & I’ll never look like this:

Give me a few months & I'll invite you to the gun show

I love it when the kids are really sick but I completely miss all the signs.

The only thing that got me through all the whining this past week was the thought of my weekend away.  On Saturday I drove away from the house as fast as I could after lunch for a little shopping.  I as looking for something specific but came away with this instead.

I’ve had my eye on this jacket for months.  Only I wasn’t going to fork over $80 for a rain coat.  All I had to do was wait several months & Sears eventually would sell me the coat for $16!  That’s right $16!!  I love clearance sales.  I also found some cute things for the kids but nothing like the steal that is my raincoat.

After the shopping I headed south to Rural City for a lovely Mom’s Night.  We met for Mexican food & then went to see a friend in the female version of The Odd Couple.  After that it was drinks until really late followed by crashing into bed.  Morning came too early but I did enjoy my breakfast with my friend C~’s kids.  What a great way to start the day, Panera Bagels & 6 kids talking about the fun of ‘our’ sleepover.  I love sleepovers where the kids sleep in a diffrent room than me   I love C~’s kids.

I left my sleepover & headed to our former church for our friend’s daughter’s baptism.  We’ve been waiting for years for them to have a child to baptize (& love & parent, etc) & it was a long-awaited, joyful, & tearful occasion.  It’s always wonderful to be around our church family.  I had a wonderful chance to visit with friends over lunch & had a surprise run-in with a grandma from Gavin’s preschool.  I really miss living in a place where someone familiar is always popping up.

Now I’m home & happy to be Mom of the Year again.

Fabulous

What a weekend!  The weather was perfect.  The camping was excellent.  The friends were unbelievable.

I love going home.

This past weekend was the Balloon Rally in Rural City.  It’s my absolute favorite weekend in RC.  We decided to break out the tent for the first time in ‘09 & camp at the local lake.  Things were pretty loose & we set up camp about half way between the bathroom & the playground.  Perfect.

Friday night some of our church family came out to make s’mores & catch up while the kids played ghost in the graveyard.  It was a fun night.

Saturday we went to the Old Dairy for some grilled cinnamon rolls & some supplies.  Later we caught a flag football game & then spent some time with a former co-worker.

The main event was the Balloon Glow.  Ethan & Gavin were thrilled to see so many of their friends in one place.  Eventually we tore them away so they could collect the cards from the balloonists.

Ethan & Grant comparing cards & balloons while Gavin reminds me why I need to always carry earplugs.

Sunday we went to our former church, sent the kids to Sunday School & headed to breakfast with friends.  It was wonderful to catch up with everyone & reconnect.  You have no idea how much we miss you!

The drive home was pretty uneventful.  We learned our lesson Friday’s drive & Gavin was relegated to the back seat all by his lonesome.

I felt completely rejuvenated after the weekend.  On to tackle the week!

K~

Summer’s Finally Here!

Just in time too.  It’s the last full week of summer vacation & the forecast has highs in the mid to upper 80’s all week!  Yippee!  We’ll see you at the pool!

~~~~

We had a great time at my sister’s.  We didn’t do much, & that was fine with me.  The kids rode bikes, fed calves, played farm & stepped in lots of poop.  I read a book, watched the kids do their thing (except the stepping in poop) & relaxed.  We took the kids to a great indoor pool, who knew Y’s could have nice, kid friendly pools?  They had a water slide Gavin & Tova could go on.  Gavin was thrilled.  The pools in Metropolis have a minimum height & Gavin is 1/4in too short.  We’ve tried a couple of times but he’s gotten to the point where he won’t go near the slides because they keep telling him he’s too small.  At first he didn’t want to go, but once he realized he wasn’t going to be turned away, I couldn’t get him off the slide.  Tova rode with me.  I only dunked her once, but she gave me another chance & she loved the slide as much as her brothers.

I also was lucky enough to get a taste of what having a new driver will be like.  My nephews were given a kid sized 4wheeler for their birthdays (their 3 & 1 & only grandchildren, as if you couldn’t tell ;-p).  They haven’t gotten much use out of it, but my boys loved it.   Ethan & I were taking a ride & he told me he would like to drive.  Ethan took over steering & the gas.  I held onto the brake for dear life.  Ethan was actually fairly cautious, but it was still a scary ride.

He's so proud. I'm so scared.

Checking out the cows

Tova taking Coley for a ride

The ride home was awful, but I won’t relive that for you.  Let’s just say Gavin’s teacher will either love him or will be driven to an early retirement.

K~

182 Miles in 8 Hours

That’s right, 8 hours.  It should have taken 3.  Granted we stopped at a little zoo & numerous towns in search of apples & crackers.  But still.  It took me 8 hours to drive from my parents house to my sisters.  I’m not looking forward to the return trip.  It should take us 6 hours.  Any bets as to how long the actual trip will be?

It’s a good thing we are at my sister’s.  She lives on a dairy farm & my kids are truly ignorant of animals.  Mostly my sister has cows, but they also have a couple of goats, geese, & cats.  My boys keep calling the geese chickens & Tova refers to the cows as horses.  We could not have picked a better time to get some real world animal experience.  In defense of the boys, about the only meat we eat is chicken & there is endless confusion when we have pork.  Silly kids.

Speaking of kids.  Kindergarten camp went well.  Gavin was not surgically attached to my leg when we needed to leave him with the other kids, it only took a crow bar to get him off.  He had fun though.  When he was brought to us in the library he had a huge smile on his face & even waved at a few kids.  Every time we’ve been at the school on official business, a particular kindergarten teacher has always made a point of talking with Gavin.  I had really hoped we’d have her as a teacher as Gavin thinks he ‘knows’ her.  Classroom assignments came out today & Gavin actually ended up in Mrs. Nice’s class!  He was really excited when I told him. 

Ethan knows nothing about his teacher which is as much as I know about her too.  I hope he has a better teacher in 3rd grade than he did in 2nd.  His Rural City teacher was lovely, the Metropolis one was a piece of work.  I know the kids are going to have poor teachers.  Everyone does.  But do we really need to pick on the new kid in school?  She was awful & had waaaaaay too much time on her hands.  Luckily, Ethan offset the rotten teacher by making friends so it wasn’t a total waste of 2 months.

I cannot believe we have only 2 more weeks of summer left.  I have a lot of swimming, hiking, parks, & a zoo trip to squeeze in yet.

I’ve finally screwed up enough courage to read A Long Way Gone.  We’ve had the book since our Vietnam trip  & Jason was very moved by the book & frankly, that scared me.  He wasn’t so much moved by Harry Potter, which really moved me so you know it has to be deep. 

It is.  I’m only a few chapters in & Wow.

I’ll let you know if I sleep tonight.

My sister is trying to either kill my child or earn the title of Greatest Aunt Ever by letting Ethan try & drive a kid-sized 4wheeler.  We are such city people…

K~

Why I’ll Never Be A Boy Scout

First, there’s the obvious reason, the whole gender thing.

Then there’s the fact that I drove from Metropolis to Rural City, a 2.5 hour, one way trip, without my purse.  That’s pretty bad, but what’s worse, is I didn’t realize it until I pulled into my parking spot at our Rural City church.

I had taken the kids to Rural City for an Eagle Scout Court of Honor.  Apparently Boy Scouts have this thing about being prepared because they mentioned it over & over & over again.  I felt about 2in tall by the end of the ceremony knowing I was going to have to ask one of my friends at the reception to loan me some money for emergencies, like gas, on the way home.  There were lots of offers of help & only a few jokes at my expense.

I still would like to start the day over.

We’re home now.  My purse is on the counter right where I left it this morning, supposedly so I wouldn’t forget it, & the boys can’t stop talking about what they’re going to do when they are Boy Scouts.

Thanks Ben.  Because of you & the other Eagle Scouts at church, the boys can’t wait to be Boy Scouts.  Maybe then they have a shot at not being as absent minded as their mom.

One can always hope…

Congratulations Ben!

K~

Vacation Wrap Up

It’s been a long week.  It feels like a month rather than a week, since we arrived home from vacation.

Our last stop was South Haven for a few days of sand & sun. I think I would have enjoyed this part of the trip more if we had done this part first, on a warmer week, or stayed at a different campground.  I was so tired of being dirty & the campground we were at had 10 showers for over 100 sites.  Plus it was a magnet for area rednecks with campers – not our usual crowd.  Speaking of rednecks.  I haven’t listened to country music regularly in well over 10 years.  I spent one summer working in a factory where that was the only music played.  I began to loathe Garth Brooks & whoever else was popular in the summer on ‘95.  Anyway, there were places on our trip were the only radio stations were country & every single time Jason ‘accidentally’ tuned in, playing was a song I recognized!  How is that possible after almost 15 years the playlist hasn’t been updated?!

So, South Haven.  It was fine for a beach town.  We swam, we ate, we bought souvenirs.

10lbs of blueberries - the greatest souvenir

Here’s the last of the pictures.

Tova at Van Buren State Park Beach

Ethan taming a piece of driftwood

Perfecting the Sand Castle

And lastly,

Making supper over an open fire. There's no better way to have a hotdog!

K~

Sault Ste Marie by Guest Blogger Ethan

Ethan will be dictating today’s post about his favorite part of vacation – Sault Ste Marie

We want on a trip & saw the biggest ship on the Great Lakes, the Paul R. Tregurtha.  It is 1013ft long & 105ft wide.  It’s self-unloading ship which means it has a crane that can load & unload cargo.

The Paul R Tregurtha passing a Soo Locks tour boat

The next ship I’m going to tell you about is the Pine Glen.  Also like the Paul R Tregurtha the Pine Glen is a self-unloader too.  The Pine Glen is ocean going because it has a hump in the front for pushing waves on the ocean.

I’m going to tell you about how a Lock works & what a Lock is.  A Lock is a something that helps ships avoid going down rapids or waterfalls.  There’s pumps or gravity that help the Lock fill up & empty.  The Soo Locks are 4 Locks helping boats go from Lake Superior to St. Mary’s river which leads to Lake Huron.  The boats cargo is usually grain or taconite or coal or coke (type of rock).  The Soo Locks work by a gate that opens under the Lock & water from Lake Superior rushes through to fill the Lock up.  And then when the boat needs to go the other way water from Lake Superior rushes back to the St Mary’s river & the boat can go through.

The Soo Locks. The Pine Glen is entering from St Mary's River on the left of the photo (K~)

The Pine Glen waiting to exit the lock.

Another thing I liked about Sault Ste Marie was learning about ship wrecks.  My favorite shipwreck is the Edmund Fitzgerald.  One thing I thought was really cool is that the Valley Camp Ship Museum had two of its (Edmund Fitzgerald’s)  life boats inside it.  The Edmund Fitzgerald was in a wreck on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975.   It was coming from Duluth when it went down because of hail & high winds.  There were no survivors.  The Edmund Fitzgerald wasn’t alone though.  It was being followed by the Arthur M Anderson which was 17 miles away.  The Edmund Fitzgerald was split in 3 parts, the bow, the stern, & the middle part.  All of which are still at the bottom of the lake.  The middle part is scattered into small pieces.  One whole lifeboat & a half of another are the only things that survived.

by Ethan, age 8.

Who Wants to See Vacation Pictures?

My idea of a perfect vacation for this year was to sit on a warm beach somewhere, watch the kids build sandcastles, occasionally go for a swim, search for seashells, read a book, & relax.  That’s not at all what we did, but it was fun anyway.

The itinerary of our trip had us driving through Wisconsin on our way to the UP of Michigan where we would do a couple of boat tours, see some big boats & some big locks.  After that little stop, we were to drive to Sleeping Bear Dunes for a quick climb of the Dunes before we headed to a beach town in southern Michigan for the longed for beach time.  All in 8 days.  Sounds relaxing, doesn’t it?

Here’s the before shot with the rig we towed 1900 miles.

All Smiles at the start of vacation

Our first day was mainly driving.  Our first official stop was Lambeau Field.  Being staunchish Viking’s fans (the hubby & the kids, I couldn’t care less) this was the only decent picture we took of the place.

Boo Packers!

The next stop was Iron Mountain for a tour of an Iron Mine.  It was pretty neat.  It’s hard to fathom how big the mine really was.  At one point there is a 10ft statue & it looks maybe 3-4ft tall, that’s how big the cavern was.  I don’t have any good pictures because it was dark & we had 3 kids we were trying to keep from touching things they weren’t supposed to.

All Aboard! This is the train that takes you into the mine. No idea who the guy in the background is but it looks like he thinks he's part of our family.

I knew the UP was going to be chilly.  I didn’t really pack for it to be chilly the whole time we were in the UP though so you’ll see these outfits (minus the rain jackets) a lot.

After the Mine we drove to Munising MI for a sunset cruise of the Pictured Rocks, but there was no sunset – too cloudy.  The rocks were interesting.  But it was COLD.  And windy.  And that made for a queasy Kristen.  Plus the kids were bored & that meant we had to wrestle them into submission or subject the other tourists to Tova’s screaming & the boys whinning.  After the cruise, Jason & I were exhausted.

Pictured Rocks

More Pictured Rocks

Tomorrow I’ll try to post pictures from Ethan’s favorite part of the trip – Sault Ste Marie.

K~

We Survived 8 Days, 3 Kids, A Mid-size Truck, A Teeny Camper, Sand, & More Sand & Now I’m Going to Blog About It.

Well not a long blog post, but a post nonetheless.

I’m pooped.

It was a great trip & I only had the shakes of technology withdrawal for about half the trip.  We had one night of intermittent internet but nothing long lasting enough for a blog post.

Anyway.

We had fun.  We took lots of pictures.  We slept late.  We ate great.  We hiked.  We swam.  We biked.  We S’mored.  We read.  We boated.  We toured.  We drove.  And now we’re home & over the next few days I will force you to look at my vacation slide show.  Only it won’t be a slide show (because that application takes FOREVER to load) it’ll be post after post of pictures.

I can feel your excitement.

To wet your appetite, here’s an early vacation picture of the kiddos.

Don't they look clean? You won't see many more pictures like that...

K~

5 People, 1 Mid-sized Truck, The Smallest 5th Wheel Made, & 8 Days.

That’s right.  It’s time for VACATION!  For the first time as a family of 5 we will be hitting the open road & camping for a week.  We’re heading to Michigan – both upper & lower.  I’m excited to get away.  I’ve told Jason no work calls or his phone ends up in either Lake Superior, Lake Huron, or Lake Michigan, depending on which body of water we’re closest to when the offending call comes in

As always, our first line of defense is the attack cat.  Because it’s a new house, we had to get a whole new set of curses.  Just so you’re aware, the new curses came with an extra nasty set of consequences.

For your reading pleasure, I have written a rebuttal to my first nasty comment.

Enjoy!

~~~~~

While away for my sister’s wedding I had my first bad comment.  I was a little surprised it was on my post about Cartu$, as every other communication I’ve had with people about Cartu$ seem to agree that Cartu$ is a company staffed with people of nominal intelligence & run by people who are just plain evil.

The lone dissenter seems to have found their way to my blog.

The comment is such a gem, I feel the need to take it piece by piece.

First up, the email address & URL.  Can we please come up with something more original than slang for $ex & female body parts?  (I’m not spelling it correctly because I don’t want people who are looking for ’slang for $ex’ to find pics of  my kids).  It’s just so juvenile.  How about something more creative like IloveCartu$@needaspellcheck.com?  See?  That wasn’t so hard.

Onto the comment.

hmmm it seems like someone should learn how to tell a story or blog before they call someone else a moran…

Hmmm.  It seems someone should use a spellcheck before insinuating someone is a ‘moran’.

I checked into Blogging for Dummies & this is their definition of a blog.

Blogs (Web logs) are short, diary-like entries on a Web site that has a chronological, journal format. Fun or informative, but not formal, blogs are easy to set up, maintain, and update. You can share your personal, stream-of-consciousness musings or your expertise on any subject ranging from your family vacation to world peace.

So according to the “Dummies” people, I’m doing okay on my blogging.   But I understand if my blogging style is not for you.  Not everyone will appreciate my wit, humor, & candor.  But I would expect those people to stop reading instead of forcing themselves to do something so unpleasant & unnecessary.

This is the final portion.

what was the point of this story besides bashing a company for no clear cut reason…seems like someone is mad b/c they’re upside down on their mortgage

The point of my story was to give a snippet of info to my readers about what was going on with our relocation & how the misinformation we’d been given was wreaking havoc on us.  I have a clear cut reason for bashing the company.   They made more ‘mistakes’ than one would think would be possible by a company still in business.  As for being mad – you bet I’m mad.  Only not because of mortgage trouble  – & again, can we get a little more creative?  How about I’m mad because a family of rabid raccoons have made their home in the chimney & after smoking them out, we couldn’t get rid of the raccoon pee smell?  That’s much more interesting that being upside-down in a mortgage, don’t you think?

Anyway, yes, I’m mad;  but my reasons are valid.  Too bad you don’t have the password to read all about them!

I’ll tell you what you, Lone Dissenter, should do.  If you are really convinced Cartu$ is such an outstanding company why don’t you hire them to do your next move?  Then you can blog about it & we’ll all enjoy the experience together!  Let me know when you set up that blog, okay?

K~