November 2008

Well, besides my feeling generally crappy and visits to multiple doctors and being poked and prodded, we did actually have a November. Girl 1 performed in her first junior high band concert and I suppose did well, although I sat in the exact wrong location because the band director was directly between Girl 1 and me. I visited with Girl 3’s preschool teacher at Parent Teacher Conferences. She is doing really well—the best in her class of four.

We took Girl 1 and Girl 2 to Tapas night at the Country Club. I don’t think we will take them next year. Not their favorite kind of food. Girl 1 at least tried the fried octopus. We had a babysitter that night just for Girl 3. She thought that was pretty cool. The next night we got a babysitter for all the girls so we could attend the temple with the bishopric (apparently husband, as Ward Clerk, is a member of the bishopric). With Girl 1 being 11 1/2, we have to find just the right babysitter—not too young or currently in her grade (as we got the night before for Girl 3), although she probably wouldn’t be offended if it was someone young. Girl 1 still doesn’t feel comfortable babysitting for a long period of time or late at night. And, as a bishopric wife (hee, hee) I was invited (with others) to help the bishop’s wife make hot pepper jelly to give out for all the ward members at tithing settlement. I’ve never eaten hot pepper jelly before (made with green peppers, jalapeno peppers, and sugar), and neither had some of the others, so we got to try it. She poured it over a block of cream cheese and we ate it with crackers. It wasn’t bad.

Early last week they finally knocked down the house next door to us. It has been vacant for about a year and a half. A builder purchased it and I thought it was supposed to be demolished in August, but I guess they weren’t ready yet. Girl 3 and I watched some of it, but it was very cold and time for school. It took about an hour and a half and the whole house was carefully flattened, bricks pulled off, metal separated, and the rest forced into the basement. Fascinating. The next day they returned to sort and haul away the mess and the following day was the loudest; they broke and hauled away the cement foundation. It was like constant thunder. It will be fun to see the new house being built. The new family will move in in late summer; they have 3 young boys. : (

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house, and despite me having a particularly bad day, it was great. We had 3 families over with a total of 8 adults and 18 children. Luckily, we happen to have three dining tables for dinner and a playroom and several bedrooms upstairs for the non-eating times. It was just a really good group of friends.

Saturday we took the kids to the circus at the United Center. Husband’s firm has a luxury box that we got tickets for. I’ve never been in a luxury box and really liked it. I probably enjoyed the circus the most with Girl 3 coming in second. For some reason Girl 1 and Girl 2 just didn’t care for it that much. It has probably been 6 years since we took Girl 1 to the circus and she didn’t like it then, but we thought she was just too young. Apparently, the age didn’t make a difference.

October 2008

The highlight of our month was our trip to New York and Canada. Girl 3 still asks almost everyday when we can go back to Canada. The second weekend in October we flew to Buffalo, New York and drove first to Palmyra to see the church history sights. The weather was fabulous and the fall colors were incredible. We saw the Smith Family Farm, walked through the Sacred Grove, drove past the Palmyra temple, and hiked up the Hill Cumorah.

From there we drove north across the border into Canada to see Niagara Falls. The falls were amazing. We walked all along the Canadian side (where we got the best view of the falls), walked along the American side for some neat views, and even took a boat ride (Maid of the Mist) right to the base of the falls—it was very wet.

None of the previous activities sparked Girl 3’s interest. Her desire to return to Canada comes from our stay at the Great Wolf Lodge where we enjoyed the indoor water park and ate doughnuts for breakfast every morning.

Girl 3 loved the water slides and they were tame enough she could do them by herself.

Girl 1, Girl 2, & husband spent most of their time on the big water slides.

We stayed in a Kid’s Cabin themed room and had a fun couple of days.

Happy Halloween!

My kids love the eBay song

Here are a couple videos of Girl 3 singing her favorite parts of the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoxlyRBljNs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UltzR_F8AcU

September 2008

Girl 3 started preschool at the beginning of the month. She is going to a regular preschool this year (last year she went to a Parents Day Out program at a local church). She attends Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons and has been really enjoying it. She has even figured out how to use a big potty by herself. Her teacher’s name is Miss Miranda (although when she says it, it sounds a lot like Mr. Randall). There are only 4 kids in her class—there were 5 (one moved) and could be up to 8. I went to the Parents’ Day on Monday and she appears to be the oldest, and most well behaved in the class. Girl 3 & I also started our new playgroup in the neighborhood. We are in a large group—13 kids and 7 adults. It makes for quite a houseful when it is our turn to host. The nice thing about it is there are 3 other 3-year-old girls in the group and they will all start kindergarten together. Girl 3 is also in a park district Gym Tigers gymnastics class. She really loves it.


On the other hand, Girl 2 is not so fond of her park district Tumbling class (neither am I). Her class is at the high school (lots of traffic and high school after-school activities going on), we have to enter a door near all the traffic, without sidewalks and right by the garbage dumpsters (really stinky), and the class is taught by high school students—who, from what I hear from Girl 2, don’t really know how to teach very well. And also, Girl 2 really wanted to do the balance beam and bars, which they don’t do in this class. Luckily it was cheap and will be over soon. Girl 2 decided to join Student Council and Running Club at school. Both meet before school (7:30am), and have been good motivation for her to get out of bed in the morning.


A couple weeks ago Girl 1 and I went downtown and saw Wicked. It was good, but probably a little long for Girl 1. Girl 1 keeps busy with her school stuff—homework, band, and chorus. She leaves 30 minutes before Girl 2 does and gets home 30 minutes after Girl 2. She thinks it’s quite unfair.


As for me, I keep busy running the kids all over. A couple weeks ago, I spent over 3 hours at the cannery dry packing food storage. Some people didn’t show up and others had some really big orders. I was recently released as the Nursery Leader in our ward. I was pretty burned out—due to lack of support. My new calling is the Beehive Advisor in the Young Womens. I haven’t been in Young Womens since I was one, so this should be interesting. We only have about 15 Young Women, and only 3 Beehives (Girl 1 will be in my class in March). One of my new responsibilities includes being at (and perhaps planning) all the youth activities on Wednesday night, which should be much easier once husband is done teaching his night class.

August 2008

August went by quickly, probably because we only had 2 weeks of it before school started. During those 2 weeks we did dentist and eye appointments and tried to do a little fun stuff like museums and swimming before the summer was over. Here is a fun picture of Girl 2 at the zoo. This polar bear kept swimming up to the glass over and over again.

School started for the girls on August 19th. Girl 2 has the only male 3rd grade teacher (which is who she wanted). I attended Parent Orientation and he seems like a good teacher and one that will help her stay organized.

Girl 1 started junior high - she is now a Jefferson Patriot. She has 9 periods everyday (one period is lunch - which she now has the option of having hot lunch), 3 locker combinations to remember, and an hour longer school day than Girl 2 (which she is not happy about). So far she is doing really well. I don’t think she has gotten lost and she can now make it to all of her classes in the 4 minutes allowed - with the proper materials.

Girl 3 has a great time at the bus stop with her friends Will and Cate.

Husband attended his 20 year high school reunion last weekend. He was a bit disappointed in the reunion, but enjoyed hanging out with his friends the following day.

July 2008

July has flown by rather quickly. Girl 2 turned 8 on the 12th. She is now 4 feet 6 inches tall and 46 pounds. According to our state law, she no longer has to be in a booster car seat. But according to her doctor she needs to stay in a booster car seat until she is 80 pounds. Hmmm...how long will that be? I told her she was not allowed to go on a date while riding in a booster car seat.

Our new rug came (the one in exchange for the one I didn’t like because it was too yellow and made our carpet look pink). I like it. So, the furniture we ordered in February and was delivered in May is finally complete in July. The room is almost done, but took so long. We really would like to furnish the living room, but how long will that take?

The grandparents came to visit July 19-28. Unfortunately it was a busy week with swimming lessons, tennis lessons, piano lessons, etc. so we didn’t do much, but I think they had fun just hanging out with the grandkids (when they were home to hang out with).

While they were here we visited the garden (had to do some weeding - we had been a bit neglectful). We had quite a few zucchini ready (or over ready) from our one zucchini plant. Everyday after that for over a week we had something with zucchini in it—zucchini muffins, zucchini pancakes, zucchini waffles, baked zucchini, grilled zucchini, sauteed zucchini, tacos with zucchini, ratatouille, and zucchini gratin. The kids were less than thrilled. Luckily the grandparents like zucchini.

Girl 2 and Girl 3 just completed 3 weeks of swimming lessons. Girl 2 is quite a good swimmer and was even learning dives into the deep end. Girl 3 loved her first week of swimming - kicking and kicking with a great big smile on her face. Although after kicking for 30 minutes straight (or shivering because sometimes it was cold) she decided she needed an afternoon nap most days. The second week of lessons she wasn’t so sure she wanted to be there - the newness had worn off. The third week she tolerated it well, sometimes enjoying lessons, sometimes not. I’m just glad I don’t have to shlep to the pool every morning and wash off the kids after lessons each day anymore.

Girl 2 and Girl 1 are both doing tennis lessons now. Hand-eye coordination really doesn’t run in the family, but they are enjoying it.

Girl 1 got her first babysitting job last week for a lady in the ward with 2 little boys. It took her a while to decide if she really wanted to do it, but she did and quite enjoyed the pay.

Girl 2 was baptized last Saturday. It was really nice (and we kept it fairly short). She was pretty nervous, but enjoyed all the attention.

Girl 1 is at Girl Scout Camp this week with her friend. They chose one called Footloose which involves a lot of hiking. She’s pretty tired but is having a lot of fun. They’ve gone to the Arboretum, the forest preserve, and even a water park. It’s a day camp, except for Thursday night when they sleep over.

Girl 2’s birthday party was yesterday. She had it at a place with lots of those giant inflatable toys to bounce and slide on. It was pretty fun. She really enjoyed being the most important person.

Road Trip

Well, we survived the road trip. I’ll admit, I’d been dreading it since the first time it was mentioned. I don’t care for being in the car for a long time, and the girls have never done more than a few hours (and some of them tend to get car sick). I kept voting to fly, but unfortunately it was cheaper to drive, even with the high gas prices and hotel stays (although two of our hotels were free due to Kevin’s accumulated points). I tried to do some of the planning, but adding up the hours on various routes through the country just stressed me out—so I got fired. Kevin finished the planning.

We left on Friday, June 27th in the afternoon. Twenty minutes into the ride, before we had even picked up Kevin, Girl 3 asked, "Are we there yet?" Oh, you have no idea. I drove through Indiana to Indianapolis and by that point Girl 3 was asking if we could go home. My driving shift was too long and my shoulders had really tensed up.

Kevin drove into Kentucky where we arrived pretty late and spent our first night in Louisville. The next morning we woke early and drove to Mammoth Cave National Park. On Friday we had driven into the Eastern Time Zone, but on the way to the cave on Saturday we crossed back into the Central Time Zone. We had reserved tickets for a cave tour for 10:30am, but not knowing the time zone, arrived much too early. Sure wish I could’ve had another hour of sleep. Our tour of the cave, the longest in the world, was great. We descended hundreds of stairs through narrow passages and saw some neat sights. Girl 3 was a little afraid and wanted to be held most of the way.



Back on the road and on to Tennessee. We didn’t hear from Girl 1 or Girl 2 much the whole trip. They were in the back seat of the van, stocked with books, books on tape, activities, and this ancient VCR with travel TV screens. They traveled very, very well. It was sometime in Kentucky, I think, that Girl 3 developed an accent. She started saying "Ye-ah" and "N-o, wa-ay." Too funny! She also decided that she was 4 years old and would tell that to people who asked. By the end of the trip she was saying that she was 4½ years old. It was a very long trip. She also got very particular about numbers. If we pulled into a gas station and we were at the wrong number pump she would scream. She would pick out the number lane we had to drive in to pay our tolls on the toll roads. I suppose it was the only control she had left—being strapped in her car seat for 8 or more hours a day.

We drove Tennessee top to bottom, dipping into Alabama and Georgia at the bottom, just to say we were there. Strangely enough, they looked a lot like Tennessee.
That evening we went to the wedding reception of Kevin’s cousin in Cleveland, Tennessee, just outside of Chattanooga.

After the reception (which was incredibly boring for the girls) we drove to Knoxville and spent our second night there. Kevin decided that for food, we would never eat at the same place twice, so Saturday night we tried out the Waffle House. We had seen signs everywhere and were curious. Curiosity satisfied, we don’t need to eat there again. The food was fair, the prices too high. We missed out on Kentucky Fried Chicken in Kentucky and didn’t get the chance to introduce the kids to Chick-fil-A. We did find a full menu Dairy Queen (ours only serves ice cream and hot dogs) and got our food to go. Who doesn’t put ketchup on hamburgers? Very bland. Oh, and crying from the back when the ice cream bar fell apart. We had to take what we could find when we were hungry—meaning that sometimes we didn’t get lunch until 2pm or dinner until 9pm.

Bright and early Sunday morning we were on the road to North Carolina. We stopped just past the border to do a mini hike in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. Very pretty.

Realizing that our trip across North Carolina to the beach house would take us about another 8 hours straight (arriving quite late) we decided to take an extra day and do a little detour to Chimney Rock Park. Now, had I realized that the road there was tiny and full of switchbacks, I never would have suggested it. Certainly a bad idea. Girl 3 made it, only because she fell asleep. She did get carsick on the way from the park and we had to make an emergency stop on the side of the road. Chimney Rock Park was nice, although we didn’t have much time to spend there and it rained most of our hike up to the waterfall (the only time it rained the entire day). Time to move on.
Since we had decided to take an extra day we drove into South Carolina, just to say we had been there. Again, looked a lot like the state we were just in. Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina were all beautiful. We spent that night in Raleigh. By that point, Girl 3 had decided that hotels were okay and we could just stay at the hotel. She was not excited to get back into the van, even though we assured her that we were really going to the beach house.


We were almost to the Outer Banks when we saw (and smelled - even though our vents were closed) the smoke from the smouldering fires. So much for that exciting Alligator River boat tour Kevin was planning on taking Girl 1 on (Girl 1 was cheering).


Every morning at the beach house the air was smoky, but it usually went away by the afternoon so we could spend a pleasant time at the beach or in the pool. The girls had a blast and got quite tan. We all had a good time.

But all things must come to an end, so by Saturday morning we were on the road again. Over and over Girl 3 asked, "Why do we have to leave the beach house?", "Why?", "Why?" We drove first to Jamestown Settlement in Virginia for a little history lesson. Then toward Washington DC where we got stuck in traffic for a couple hours due to an accident (or so they said—we finally got fed up with 5 miles per hour or less and took an alternate route).

We drove into Maryland then Pennsylvania where we spent the night just outside of Pittsburgh. Another late night. The next morning, we left early again. Girl 3 did not want to get into her car seat and screamed when we made her. She was so done with the road trip. Me too. Even though I was sitting (sometimes driving, sometimes entertaining Girl 3) traveling was physically draining for me. "Mom, I’m hungry." She had finally given up and realized that she was going to have to sit in the car for who knows how long.
Across Ohio and Indiana—not quite as scenic. It’s not that they are ugly states, but not nearly as lush as the states we had previously driven through. "I want to get out of the car!" Sorry, kid, we’re just not there yet. Finally we arrived, about 3pm on Sunday, July 6th. We stumbled into the house and began the task of unpacking. No rest for the weary. So the next day, what do I hear..."When can we go back to the beach house?" Not for awhile, not for awhile.


All in all, we drove 2,424 miles in about 42 hours (1,409 miles 25 hours on the way there, 1,015 miles 17 hours on the way home). Traveled through 12 states. Tiring. Sure glad to be done.

June 2008

The kids have been out of school all month. It seems like forever since they were in school. This summer has been nice because now that Girl 1 is 11, the girls often choose to stay home if I have an errand to run. Sometimes I just take Girl 3 - which is a real treat for the older ones because Girl 3 likes to ruin much of their fun. At first Girl 1 wasn’t comfortable with the idea, but now she realizes the benefits and enjoys it.

Girl 1 and Girl 2 just completed 3 weeks of swimming lessons. They are both doing really well. Girl 1 can do all sorts of strokes and is comfortable swimming in any part of the pool. I saw Girl 2 today swimming in the deep end with her face in the water with no assistance, even though it was only for a few strokes. We have had quite a cool and somewhat rainy start to our summer so the girls have been cold many times at their lessons, but they like it so much they haven’t complained. Girl 1 also started tennis lessons and although she is truly a beginner, she is enjoying it.

I took the girls in for an orthodontic evaluation. Girl 1 is ready for braces, although we are not in a rush to get her started. I can’t imaging her doing well with the pain. Girl 2 will need a little more work. She has an under bite that the orthodontist said will only get worse. He wants to place an appliance in the top of her mouth to expand her upper jaw, then attach to it an appliance that sits on her forehead that she will wear at home (even while sleeping) to help her upper jaw grow. Only at that point can they fix the large space between her upper teeth (that bothered her so much for awhile that she refused to show her teeth when she smiled).

We have had a few wild pets visit our home this month - a snapping turtle, a dove, and many chipmunks. The chipmunks keep digging in our flower pots and one of them somehow fell down our covered window well and died. An unpleasant experience for me who had to retrieve the body and conduct a funeral (after his dead body smelled up our garbage for a day or two).

We had our shutters and front doors painted. Fiberglass doors are a bit of a pain to deal with, but then I guess real wood doors wouldn’t be easy either.

The girls and I went to our block party (located right in front of our house) a few weeks ago. It was pretty fun (food, moon bounce and slide, music) until after about 9pm when the noise just wouldn’t stop. Kevin managed to skip the party by working most of the day.

Kevin has been really busy at work lately, coming home most nights around 8pm or later and working on Saturdays. He was supposed to go to his cousin’s wedding in Washington last weekend, but cancelled the trip because he had too much to do.