We're the Horns

Our Disney Trip

2011-02-06T05:46:00.001-08:00

It is truly the happiest place on earth. Along with the normal anxiety caused by doing something different, not to mention expensive, we were additionally worried about the weather forecast. It was supposed to rain the whole time we were there. For the week prior, I watched the forecast temperatures drop from the high 60s to the high 50s, and the chance of rain increase from 20% to 70%. I played around with the idea of postponing, but eventually decided weather was always going to be an uncertainty, and that now was when we were free to go. As it was, our trip was wonderful and totally worth it.

No trip story is complete without the prequel detailing the planning. For us, we spoke of this for a little over a year, but most of the planning happened the week before. Tony had been reading the Disneyboards for months trying to find the best hotel. He wanted a HoJo, but we were unable to get a reservation within a few miles of the park. We didn’t want to spend all our time travelling or waiting on shuttles, so we wanted to stay within a mile. After the Bigley experience with Best Western over Thanksgiving (and our previous positive experience in Flagstaff), we chose one that had very positive reviews on www.tripadvisor.com Every comment there was addressed by the manager, and I felt that while I didn’t care if I was staying in a 5 star resort, I did care that we had what we needed and that someone cared. It wasn’t fancy or shiny, but it met everyone’s needs, had a AAA discount, a “free” breakfast, and most importantly, was literally across the street from the park. We will never stay anywhere else. Eileen helped us get discount tickets through her work, so we saved some money there. Finally, we splurged on a program called “RideWorks” which would help plan your day at Disney in order to ride the most rides with the shortest wait….the ultimate vacation cheat. I stayed up until 2:30 the night before planning several schedules that included the “must-see” rides. It was an amazing program, planning your day according to whether or not you wanted to stay within an area until you’d done it all or walk back and forth to get shorter wait times, etc. Ultimately we didn’t need the schedule as the park was not at all crowded the days we were there (thanks to low temps and rain), but we did take advantage of their recommendations for which rides, shortcuts through the park, best seating for outdoor shows, etc. The planning also included the purchase of rain ponchos we could pack in a backpack, snacks for the car and the hotel, new fleeces, packing lots of clothes for layers and emergency dry gear. Everyone got a new video game and movie for Christmas that we could take with us as well. Tony then pimped out the car with additional movie screens in the back so that Charlie and Alex could watch Poke’mon with their headphones and we wouldn’t have to listen to it. We also trained Florence to listen on her wireless headphones to the car movie so that Tony and I could actually have a conversation in the front seat. Lucy watched her ipod that Tony had loaded up with her requested movies.

The morning of our trip, I had set my alarm for 4:30 so we could hit the road by 5:00. I woke at 5:30 when Charlie came in to find out why we weren’t up yet. I thought I had slept through my alarm, clearly needing the sleep after not going to bed until 2:30 the night before, but as it was an ipod glitch for the new year caused many people to oversleep on New Years day. Anyhow, Tony reassured me that we would still make good time, after all California is an hour behind us. We had hoped the kids would sleep in the car a bit, but they were too excited and began their chorus of “are we there yet?” right off the bat. Even Florence’s version “Mom, we are going?” started early and often. We were blown away by the different landscape - even more desert than where we live. The kids were fascinated by the wind farms we saw once we crossed into California. We only made one stop on the way there for gas/potty breaks, so we made it to Anaheim by lunchtime. We stopped at a Dennys for lunch before trying our luck at the hotel. Fortunately we were able to check in early. As we unloaded the car, we realized that we had never stayed in a hotel as a family before. The kids and I have stayed with Grandma, Tony and the older kids did on their way to Alabama last spring, but never all together. We unpacked and hit the sidewalk to Disneyland.

We had purchased Park Hopper tickets that allow you to visit both parks (Disneyland and California Adventure) on the same day. I was confused by this, wondering who would want to take the time to leave one park and walk to another. But after going through security at the front, the two parks share a plaza about a city block wide. For our half day adventure, we chose Disneyland. We went through the ticket line, and immediately stopped trying to keep our mouths closed as we began gawking at the buildings around us. We were here! We got someone to take our picture in front of Sleeping Beauty’s castle. This is about when I decided to charge Charlie a quarter every time he messed up one of our pictures. We first went to the Haunted Holiday Mansion. (I’m not really going to give a run down of each and every ride, don’t worry). This one, however, had “must see” on my Ride Max and usually had a long wait. Also, it was closing the next day to be stripped of its holiday décor. Even though we weren’t scheduled to get here until later (Ridemax suggestion), the lines were short so we went ahead. We had not planned on taking the little ones on because we thought they might get scared, but we got caught up in the line being short and not wanting to split up in our first few minutes there. Besides it was decorated for the holidays with “Nightmare before Christmas”, a movie they were all familiar with, so we figured it would be ok. Well, as we were led into a small room to hear our introduction to the “ride”, Florence started screaming, “we have to get out of here”, and Alex put his head in Tony’s neck, and possibly cried a little. The ride wasn’t really scary, but it did have some ghostly images and people that played “peek-a-boo” as you went through. I think I might’ve enjoyed it more had I not been trying to play down every little scene as not scary for Florence. After that, it was just one ride after another, with us only waiting as long as it took to walk to the gate to get on. I guess everyone had stayed until after midnight the night before (New Year’s Eve) and was too tired to come back. We did park our butts on the edge of the sidewalk on Main Street about an hour before the parade so that we could have a good seat. We took turns looking around and buying hand-dipped corndogs for dinner while we waited (yes, even the corndogs are top-notch at Disney). The floats were beautiful, the dancers energetic, the music extremely annoying, and of course we saw Princesses (we remarked that it was only the white princesses that made the parade), Mickey and Minnie, Woody and Buzz, and Santa closed down the parade. We were so excited that we had already been able to cross so many things off our list, and it was only our first day, and it was only 6:00. At this point, however, Florence was really starting to shut down since she’d been up early and had no nap (not to mention the time change). So I took her and Alex back to the hotel to go to bed, while Tony took the older two back to the park. At the hotel, they both whined at me from their bed until I had collected my book/ipod to play with in bed and turned out the light. They were both snoring within 2 minutes. Tony and the others showed up around 10:30 and crashed in the bed as well.

Day Two. We decided not to push ourselves too hard getting up. It wouldn’t have mattered. Once again, my ipod’s alarm decided not to go off. Florence woke us up at 7 demanding breakfast. Fortunately, I had brought some fruit and granola bars to keep her happy while the rest of us got moving. We traipsed across the street for the free breakfast bar that came with our hotel room. Of course, there were doughnuts and bagels and coffee. I was fascinated by the perfectly peeled hard-boiled eggs and Lucy, born in the south, tried biscuits and gravy for the first time. After loading up on carbs, sugars, and caffeine, we walked across the street to the park, this time planning to spend the day at California Adventure. The weather forecast had suggested a 70% chance of rain. We weren’t seeing it just yet. It was overcast, but it was comfortable – not comfortable enough to rush to the Grizzley River Rampage and get soaked right off the bat – but light jacket. The park wasn’t scheduled to open until 10. We had been told to arrive early, so we got there around 9:25 – just in time to walk right up to a newly opening gate as they let us in to the “shops” part of the park at 9:30. We followed the crowds as they rushed for the “fastpass” tickets to the high demand show “World of Color” – we weren’t particularly interested, but it must be good, and it was impossible to resist the flow of people, even if we had wanted. After that, we aimed for the entrance to the rides so we could be there when they “dropped the rope” (oh, we have picked up so much Disney lingo!). We found a special line just for those who wanted to go on the very popular Toy Story 3 ride, a 3D interactive ride. We got in this line, and since we still had a few minutes before the park opened, Lucy and I hit the bathroom. When we came out, we found that they had already taken that group to the ride, and they wouldn’t let Lucy and me on the other side of the rope, even though we whined that the rest of our group had already gone. Day two, and we were separated even before the park opened. Once we got into the park, we ran quickly to the Toy Story ride, and while we could’ve shoved our way up to join Tony, the line was moving so quickly he just stepped out and waited for us. It was so cool. We wore glasses for the 3d effect, and shot at various targets to earn points. You could see from the high scores at the end that there were probably regulars who did nothing but come and practice on this ride. Afterwards, Tony and the little kids got right back in line since it was still short, while Charlie, Lucy and I went to ride “Screamin’ over California”. Later that day, Toy Story 3 would have a wait of over an hour. That whole morning, we were able to do nearly everything we wanted with just a short wait, and the rain held off until the early afternoon. We left “campus” to have lunch, and Florence and I took a nap at the hotel while Tony and the others headed back to the park. He took them on a few rides that would be inappropriate for Florence. I was sorry I missed the show “Jedi Training Academy”. Charlie was actually chosen from the audience to be a “trainee”, and got to fight Darth Maul with a light saber. Darth Vader and a few storm troopers showed up as well. Florence and I joined them after our nap. It was drizzly by now, so our ponchos came in handy. The rain held off (and even looked for a few minutes like it was going to quit) long enough for us to get a few rides in. The rides were still going even though the lines were very SHORT. As we were making plans for our “World of Color” show, the sky opened and poured buckets of water on us. We hid out in a store, purchasing some overpriced Mickey socks for Charlie, who had thought at one point stomping in puddles might be fun, not connecting it with wet, cold feet later. After a half an hour, we realized it wasn’t stopping any time soon, so we called it a night and headed to dinner near the hotel. After dinner, it had stopped raining, so I talked Lucy into heading back to the park with me for just one or two rides (since I had missed out on the afternoon) while Tony put the others to bed. She and I were two of about 30 people in the entire park – we had our choice of whatever we wanted to do, it only took as long as the walk to get onto each ride. The funniest part was Space Mountain, still a popular roller coaster, though it’s one of the older ones. Lucy and I were in the front seat of a car and we each tucked our belongings (my backpack, her gloves) into the front pocket. When we exited, I took my backpack, but she left her gloves. We got to the top of the exit ramp when she realized it, and she said, “Mom, we have to call someone!” Not knowing who I was going to call at Disney at 11:30 at night, I said, “We’ll just go again and ask about them when we get there.” So we take the long walk back down to the front of the line and get back on. As we sit down, this time in the third seat, I told Lucy I could’ve sworn I saw some purple gloves in the front seat of our car. Sure enough, as we get out of our car after our ride, she runs up and grabs them. We spend about 30 seconds in gleeful excitement until we realize that 1) I had left her ear warmers in my pocket where she had put them so she wouldn’t forget them, and that 2) I had left Florence’s ear warmers that I had borrowed in the car on our first ride. I’m telling Lucy that “forget it, we’re not going on it again, we’ll just cut our losses”, but she tells me “I’m going back down there, you can come or not!” So we march back down the exit and as we wait behind the line, one of the Disney cast members digs in the pockets of each car until she comes up with our ear warmers. She wasn’t thrilled to help us out, you could tell, but she didn’t tell us she wasn’t going to do it either. At this point, it’s now after midnight and they are closing down the park. I couldn’t believe that either of us made it that late. And the only thing was that we never did ride the monorail which was what we had headed over to do.

Our final full day had beautiful weather, but was also more crowded, so it was a mixed blessing. We began the morning at California Adventure, spending some time at the little kid activities. Florence and Alex saw the “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” show while Charlie and Lucy rode “Soaring over California”, an Imax “ride” where you feel like you’re, well, soaring over California. We saw a Muppet 3D show, rode the Monster’s Inc, ride, and then spent a good part of time in Bug’s Land which caters to the younger kids. Charlie and Lucy enjoyed a little bit of freedom as we allowed them to wander a bit just within this area. Lucy took tons of pictures of the oversized food items (bug’s perspective), she was camera happy. That evening I was bound and determined to see the fireworks as I had not seen them yet. After dinner in the park, Alexander fell asleep on the bench in the restaurant. We didn’t have time to go back to the hotel, so Tony just carried him in what he calls the classic “Dad at Disney” pose over to where we would not only get the best view of the fireworks, but we would get snowed on afterwards. Florence didn’t cry, but didn’t thoroughly enjoy the beautiful fireworks either. Alex slept right through them. We took the kids on “It’s a small world”, which was decorated for Christmas, because you HAVE to ride It’s a small world, right? Even the outside had special movie screens where they could change the decorations while we were standing in line. And my favorite part was how they had thrown in Jingle Bells and Deck the Halls during the ride so you didn’t feel like throwing up if you heard “It’s a small world after all” one more time! At this point, Alex was done and Florence was approaching overdone, so we woke him up enough to sit upright in the stroller. I had to talk to him all the way back to the hotel so he wouldn’t fall forward and faceplant on the sidewalk. Pushing the two kids back to the hotel in the stroller, I couldn’t help but think “Man, If they had a machine that could emulate this at the gym, everyone would use it!” Tony stayed on with Charlie and Lucy and got to ride a few more big kid rides (after all, Tony is a big kid too!)

We slept in the next day, packed our bags, had our free breakfast, and then headed back to the park just for a few more pictures. We couldn’t actually get into the theme parks, but we could get into what they call “Downtown Disney” which is the resorts and shops between the two parks, where they managed to take a few more of our dollars in what is the LARGEST Disney store I have ever seen. It had at least five “rooms” full of merchandise from the personalized embroidered mouse ears to the cheapy pins for your friends back home. Here, we located the puffy stickers Lucy had talked about non-stop. This helped make up for the fact that we never got to ride the monorail while there. We hit the road around 1:00. The kids were really well-behaved on the way home, everyone plugged into their favorite entertainment device, the ipods, the games, the movie player. Florence got a little fussy from being stuck in the car, and maybe a little bored with our choice of movie. At one point, she was just talking in her stream of consciousness way that she does. “I don’t like this movie, we are going, I didn’t like the haunted house, I saw Winnie the Pooh, we are going, I have to go the bathroom, I want to watch Wonder Pets, we are going, I had fun at Disneyland, I’m hungry, I like Mickey Mouse, I peed my pants, we are going…” Tony and I just looked at each other to see if we had both heard what we thought we heard. Fortunately, I had pulled her pjs out just in case she wanted to go to sleep, so we pulled into a rest area and cleaned her up. There are precious few places to stop while driving in the desert, so even if she had given us more than 30 seconds warning, I doubt we could’ve found a place to stop. We made it home by 9:00 or so and dumped the kids directly in the bed. I had packed our wet, dirty clothes all in two suitcases, so we just put those directly into the laundry room and Tony and I dropped into bed as well. It took us a week just to get caught up in school and in chores at home, but the trip was totally worth it. We are already trying to figure out what we can give up or sell so that we can go again. It was definitely expensive, but the park really goes out of their way to make sure you feel you get your money’s worth. It was clean, the cast members know where everything is, from the closest restroom to the best place to eat or watch the fireworks, they post, rather accurately, all the wait times so you can judge what’s worth riding. We’ve already put together our photo album so that we can look through and relive our happy trip.

Charlie's November Solo

2010-11-08T06:26:00.000-08:00

Charlie played his second solo yesterday. It was at the Mesa Arts Center in their smallest venue. It was a very intimate - the audience was also on the floor, and Charlie had a clear view of his dad who was filming, as you can see how he notices and even smiles at him. He wasn't as prepared as I had hoped, but he did well considering how much else was going on this week, and he has improved since last time. His accompanist did a great job (ha ha, that was me!) Anyhow, I'm very ready to move on off that piece, and I'm sure he is too.

Halloween...

2010-11-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

Florence and I began Halloween week by going to Mother Nature's farm. I had taken all the kids last year, but this year with all of them in school, it was just the two of us. It was really nice to explore the farm at her pace. If she wanted to linger, I didn't have to worry about the older ones running ahead. If she was ready to go, we could leave...of course she didn't want to leave. We rode the hayride twice. We visited some baby piglets that were only 2 weeks old. She pet the smaller goats - the smaller ones and the big cow scared her too much. She made her way quickly through the maze - it was quite impressive. In fact, she was out and walking away while I was only halfway through. And the haystacks were low enough that you could see easily over them; however, climbing over them would've been a challenge, and possibly humiliating. Fortunately, she came back to lead me the rest of the way out. She also got to decorate a pumpkin with stickers. As a bonus, Tony hadn't left for work when we got home, so he carried our farm smelling selves to a restaurant with outdoor seating.

We did our traditional trek over in Aunt Ginny's neighborhood. We gathered with all the cousins and walked about a block and a half. This year was huge for Florence and Patricia - they really got the whole begging for candy aspect of it this year. Patricia did mention a few times that she was scared, but Florence kept reassuring her: "It's ok, Tricia, we have flashlights". It was cute.

For our family, we went primarily with a Mario Party theme for the kids. Alexander dressed as Mario, Charlie as Luigi, and Florence as Princess Peach. Even though this was the first year Party City offered a Mario and Luigi official costume, I did ours from "scratch". Granted, I had overalls w/ yellow buttons leftover from a few years ago when Charlie was Mario - I handed these down to Alex. I sewed some yellow buttons on Charlie's overalls. We ordered newsboy caps in appropriate colors and glued felt on in the shape of their initials, and I got tshirts from Joanns for about 3 bucks. I painted on their mustaches with black face paint. I was pretty pleased with myself for being so thrifty. For Florence, I got a discontinued generic princess costume for about $6, and glued, again with felt, her "jewel" on the front. The creative part came when I realized that her blue jewel had a yellow outline. I hadn't bought yellow felt, so I used fabric paint to transform my white felt into what I needed. I also used the paint to write "Princess Peach" on her crown from Patricia's birthday party so everyone would know who she was. We even carved our pumpkin to look like Mario. Lucy went as Hannah Montana - we couldn't get her to go along with the theme. I couldn't complain too much as Party City had these costumes on sale for $10. The fun part for her costume was realizing Halloween weekend that even though the package said size 8-10, the shirt was actually a 4-6x. That was why we couldn't get her arms through the sleeve...so I cut the ends, and attached some self-stick velcro to hold them together after she had it on. We doctored up her High School Musical headset and off she went as a Pop Star. Since Halloween was on a Sunday, we were able to get double duty out of our costumes as a local restaurant was offering free meals to kids in costume - w/ four kids, that's quite a steal. We anticipated a low-key evening since some people chose to not decorate, etc; however, the kids pumpkins were all full by the end of their walk....even as I stole regularly out of them.

Tony stole the show as an 80s hair band rocker. He'd been working on this costume for weeks, though we were cutting holes in his shirt even in Ginny's driveway. Everyone loved it. The most fun was making the zebra leggings family friendly with discreetly tied sashes to hide his...well, you know...

I dressed up as Aunt Eileen. I went to her house and Uncle Jim help me steal some scrubs. She tried to con me into taking her shift at the hospital since she had to work that night. I had a dream (nightmare) the night before that I had attempted just that, so I had to decline.

All told, we had a wonderful evening. It wound up being a late night for a school night, but I don't think the kids regretted it a bit.

Happy Birthday Charlie

2010-08-29T14:31:00.001-07:00

Charlie turned 11 this year. We celebrated with our traditional swim party over at Aunt Ginny's house including his friends Sammy, (and her sister Breanna) and Jimmy. Of course, just inviting Aunt Ginny's and Aunt Eileen's family make it a party anyway. It gets easier every year as the kids become better swimmers. At some point, we had taken the babies out and the rest of them swam for another hour while we sat and talked nearby - it was kind of cool. We made one of his favorite dinners, beef and broccoli and had a strawberry cake with chocolate frosting for dessert.

We had a surprise visit from Aunt Kathy. She can really turn any gathering into a celebration with her ability to turn any story into a funny one and her loud contagious laughter. She spent a lot of time with the kids, playing duck, duck goose, board games, she made hair barrettes with Lucy. She made the most of her visit, ensuring that each of the kids will remember her the next time we see her.

Charlie is in 5th grade this year. He continues to study violin and plays in his school orchestra and in MYS. This year, he added trombone to his activities, playing in the school band. These with the kids other activities about kill me with driving, but I'm glad to see him weighing so heavily in music. I can't complain about that!

We continue to fight off his allergies, but we are now down to one food allergy - milk. He passed his egg challenge and along with being able to tolerate them, he actually enjoyed them. This will be a great source of protein and fat for my skinny kid. Now, if we could just get rid of the rest of his allergies (cats, dogs, grass, etc.).

What I did on my Summer Vacation

2010-08-06T07:11:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it is August already and that school will be starting back next week. I feel like we just finished packing for our trip, and now here we are with stacks of laundry, a suitcase full of new school clothes and a plan to hit Aunt Ginny's for what may be our last swim of the summer. Though maybe not, it still is hitting 112 or so every day.

We had a wonderful time at Grandma and Poppa Dyer's. We arrived at near midnight since that was the earliest flight we could get out with our coupons. We were there just short of a month and while that's only a few days shorter than our usual trip, we really kept busy cramming activities in and still didn't get everything we wanted to done. The weather cooperated some, but in some cases the oppressive heat and the beautiful thunderstorms hindered our outdoor activities. We did all our usual things, swimming, camping, fishing, going to Wolftrap Children's Theatre in the Woods to see Dino Rock (Florence is STILL saying "That dinosaur's funny")

One of my favorite things we did was to explore some of the bike trails around mom's home and down in DC. One day, we rode to downtown Vienna, inhaled some fries at the old Vienna Inn, and then rode back. Another day, I rode with the three older kids from mom's area to Reston, about 4 miles west. Poor Alex, I wasn't sure he was going to make it. He's so gung-ho so often, I sometimes forget he is only 5. His poor little legs were just pumpin'! Finally, Charlie, Lucy and I rode the bike trail from Gravelly Point next to Ronald Reagan airport to Roosevelt's Island. It was raining a bit, but the breeze off the Potomac (often only 2 feet from the path) dried us off quickly. I'm addicted to bike riding now - it's so fun!

As usual, we visited the downtown DC area to hit some of the endless museum opportunities. Grandma took the younger two to the building museum to play in the Building zone and visit the Lego exhibit, while I took Charlie and Lucy to the International Spy museum. I was fascinated by the spy museum, and could've spent a whole day there. But even though the kids loved it too, (I was surprised by how much they took in, I guess they are growing up) they wore out from walking and we eventually had to give up. They had interesting activities like memorizing new identification information and crawling through an air conditioning vent to try and hear the people below as well as displays of equipment used for spying throughout history. They were particularly interested in displays of the cars used to smuggle people out of countries, Russia, for example. Grandma also carried the three oldest to the top of the Washington Monument - this was a first. Every kid should get to stand in line to see this monument. While they were excited about the monument, their favorite part was feeding the squirrel some grapes - fascinated by how he peeled each one before he ate it. Doesn't he know the vitamins are in the skin? We also went to the National Art Gallery to see the Norman Rockwell exhibit. This really brought back memories of looking through mom and dad's coffee table book of Rockwell paintings, and next time I have the chance to see it, I'm going to leave the kids home. Finally, one rainy Saturday, killed time at the Dulles Uber-Haizy Museum. For the first time, we went to the "control tower" where we could see far off and watch planes take off from Dulles. Very cool. This trip was followed by a trip to Mom's local Moe's restaurant. Our's closed down a few years ago, and we spend all our vacations seeking out "moo-moos" and "homewreckers".

We got to visit lots of friends and family while we were there. John G. and Lisa brought up 1 year old Rocco to visit for the 4th of July weekend. While they were there, we visited the Clemy-John Tree park; briefly, for it was one of those 100+days. We also went to the indoor water park - Cub Run, an annual favorite for the kids with water slides, a lazy river and lots of spraying areas. We even convinced Poppa to join us, a first. The bigger kids even got to go off the diving boards this year. Pretty soon, we'll be dropping them off to swim.

We got to spend lots of time with Susannah this year. Now that she moved into the condos next to Harris Teeter (our favorite field trip for snacks), she was able to come over more often and have dinner, go to movies and of course, watch Season four of Boston Legal. I also joined her nearly every morning to work out in the exercise room at her condo. This helped keep my vacation weight down to a mere 7 pounds and hopefully got her into a habit of going regularly. The best part, though, was having a partner to exercise with, followed by conversation and coffee on her balconey afterward. I feel like I got to know her on a whole new level this year, and I really enjoyed that.

We also spent time with Aunt Kathleen's family. Mom and I drove up with the kids to see her during her 38th week of being pregnant with Dustin. We weren't sure our visit wasn't going to put her into labor, but we wanted to make sure my kids got to spend some time with her kids as she won't likely be traveling with her six any time soon. We went to the beach in Greenwich (which will most likely be the kids favorite part of vacation...AGAIN), visited an amazing wooden 3 story playground at Norwalk's Nature Center, and of course, took our yearly pictures of the cousins in matching outfits. The kids played wonderfully together. I got a kick out of seeing Kathleen SOOO pregnant, and enjoyed being with Aislinn who is turning into such a little person from the baby she was last year. Florence loved playing the role of the older sister to Aislinn. P.S. Kat managed to keep the baby inside for the whole trip - he was born two weeks or so later on July 28.

The kids and I traveled to Maryland to visit some old college friends of mine, Sharon and Greg. We have been fortunate to be able to see them every year. My kids especially love it because it's a chance to play with their two kids who are the same ages as Charlie and Lucy. They have a lovely large backyard perfect for running, and this year Charlie climbed to near the top of their tree. We had our annual cookout with hamburgers and hotdogs, followed by (unsuccessful) fishing at a nearby pond. When it got dark enough, the kids played with sparklers and Greg even gave us a mini fireworks show rivaling those you'd see professionally done. The kids loved it.

We celebrated Poppa's birthday with his requisite french dip beef and pecan pie. We did it while John and Lisa were there, and Susannah and Sean came too. It really made it feel like a crazy Dyer party with all those people there.

We managed to see two movies while we were there: Toy Story 3 and Despicable Me, the two kids movies promoted for the summer. We had been waiting for TS3 for a LONG time and despite a few cheesy moments towards the end, it didn't disappoint. It was a great movie. Despicable Me was also fun and sweet and very enjoyable. I saw a few grownup movies from the pay-per-view on the cable, but nothing worth really remembering - enjoyable for vacation time wasting, but glad I didn't pay full price for them.

The kids took their annual camping trip with Grandma. She took them to Fairfax Park which not only has camping facilities, but if you spend the night, you get discount tickets to 'The Water Mine' - a very nice swimming hole complete with water slides, a lazy river and many amenities. Charlie enjoyed it so much, I had to force him to cut off his arm band in time for school to start. This year Alex went and he did very well, not getting nervous at all when the night was truly dark. Charlie caught a few fish, and a turtle, - the only successful fishing trip of the whole summer vacation.

After nearly a month at Grandma's, we headed south to Alabama to spend some time with Tony's family. Tony met us there in Tuscaloosa. His brothers and sister had brought their kids over to spend time with us. While there, Uncle Andy played baseball and soccer with them out in the backyard. We traveled to McWane Center in Birmingham where they had an excellent Mr. Potato Head exhibit, followed by Johnny Ray's BBQ....mmmmmm...pie. We were able to have a nice visit with our friends Jeanette and Dan at Chuck E Cheese while the kids ran around spending our money. I also got to spend some time with my friend from my days at ASFA, Laura . We even took Tony's brother Ken out bar-hopping for his 50th birthday in downtown Tuscaloosa. We had a good time, but I learned that if you're celebrating a 50th birthday, you're probably too old for the college bar. I also learned I don't stink that bad at darts. We enjoyed some beautiful thunderstorms, though the humidity they brought left something to be desired. All in all, the kids had a wonderful time with their cousins, and we got to spend some good time with Tony's mom and siblings.

Happy Birthday Alexander

2010-05-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I skipped a few birthdays - Tony's, Lucy's, mine...but here's some pictures from Alexander's party. We celebrated his 5th birthday at Enchanted Island at Encanto Park in Phoenix. This was where we did his 4th birthday, and he had such a good time and it really was affordable for what you got, so I gladly took him back. The Bigleys and Dawsons were there, along with his best friend from church, Cameron.

Alex chose a Star Wars Lego theme. As popular as this is, it's not easy to find party supplies, so I had to make my own. I downloaded cover art for the games and turned it into a printout I could either insert between two plastic plates or paste onto a cup. I made light sabers for each child out of pool noodles and shiny duct tape. And I visited more than a few Walmarts searching for the Star Wars Lego tshirts in the various sizes so all the boys could have one. I even went to the Lego store in Chandler so I could choose a "kit" to serve as a cake topper. Charlie put it together for me. All in all, I thought it was a fun party.

From his cousins Joe Leo and Patricia, he received a collection of Bakugan balls. He's been asking for these since Christmas. I don't know how he knows about them or what to do with them, but boy was he excited to FINALLY get some. From his Bigley cousins (and godmother), he received a Darth Vader and Obi Wan outfit for his build-a-bear, complete with light sabers and boots. It was funny because one of the other kids mentioned that he got a Luke Skywalker. Just as Aunt Eileen was about to correct him, Alex yelled "No, it's Obi Wan Kenobi and HE'S MY FAVORITE!!!". It was funny. From his friend Cameron, he received a Transformer Star Wars ship. He and Charlie have had quite a bit of fun playing with that.

Aside from the travel to get to the park, this was a great place to have a party. They take care of everything and there's lots of rides. The park is mostly enclosed so it's a little easier to keep track of everyone, so it's a little more comfortable than a bigger area.

Alex rides his bike

2010-02-18T14:15:00.001-08:00

Someone in the neighborhood convinced him he had to be 5 in order to take off the training wheels, but I talked him into trying today anyway. I told him that he would be able to ride the trails faster with Grandma this summer with only 2 wheels. Anyhow, his training wheels were so cock-eyed anyway, once I removed them, he just took off. I didn't even need to hold the seat. He still needs to learn how to start himself off and avoid the curbs, but we're getting there.

Charlie's first violin solo

2010-02-01T20:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a recording of Charlie's first violin solo. He performed as part of a MYS solo recital. The organization offers several opportunities a year to perform. He was one of the youngest, but he gave a solid performance. He even did well with his bow (which I practiced with him) and acknowledging his accompanist (which I didn't due to modesty, I guess). We were very proud of him. A special shout out to the lady in the back who couldn't stop rattling her plastic bag for 2 minutes - we caught you on tape!!!

Happy Holidays...all of them

2010-01-15T05:29:00.000-08:00

It’s been so long since I updated the blog, I feel it necessary to include Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years all together. Hopefully I can keep a new years resolution to be more faithful to keeping up the site.

October
We spent Halloween at Aunt Ginny’s house, as has become our tradition. She and Uncle Joe love to decorate, stringing web everywhere and using lots of talking toys – dangling spiders, witches cooking over a black pot, etc. We went early for dinner of corndogs and taquitos before setting out to collect all our candy. This year, we were excited to have Grandma join us. This was the first year Florence was really getting into the trick-or-treating. Charlie, after two years of being a ninja, went as a Secret Agent. Tony helped him shop at Goodwill for his costume, complete with fedora and gun. Lucy dressed up as “her mommy at 7”. We found a fantastic polyester plaid dress with a giant collar at goodwill and dressed it up with a scarf and some black leather boots. Alex went as Black Spiderman, and Florence inherited the giraffe costume. They had a lot of fun checking out the decorations in the neighborhood and collecting the candy. Without sharing too much information, my surgery in mid-October was to repair some hernias caused by having kids. The initial pain was much more than what originally caused it - I can't imagine anything worse...though I've never actually been on fire. The recovery is still taking place, though the most difficult part - not being able to pick up my baby girl, took about 8 weeks. It was difficult to wrap my mind around that part when even my longest cold was only 2 weeks.

November
November 3rd was Charlie’s first concert with MYS. He placed 6 out of 27 after chair auditions – not too shabby for someone who only auditioned for the experience. Grandma was still here, so he was especially proud to show off his abilities in his adorable black pants/bowtie formal attire. We were so proud of him as well. Speaking as a formally trained musician, I was really impressed with the quality of playing from the kids. The music was well chosen according to their level, and with the exception of 1 or 2 places, was executed nearly flawlessly. The kids watched the conductors closely, used dynamics and different bowing styles, and all began and ended together. As a mom, my kid was definitely the cutest.

November 12, Monica finally got to play a concert with her ex-music minister, Jaime Cortez. She was robbed two years ago when Florence’s early arrival forced her to cancel her appearance at his concert at church. This time, she only did a few songs, but was excited to be included, at a concert celebrating Christ the King’s 50th Anniversary.

Thanksgiving was tame by past year’s standards. Only mom and dad made the trek since Kathleen had a show to prepare for and John Gilbert had used all his time off (and money) taking care of John Rocco’s arrival and surgeries. We had our dinner at Aunt Eileen’s house, as usual. The kids had a great time playing outside, doing races with grandma and jumping in the bouncehouse while waiting for dinner. Every year, as the kids get a little older, it gets a little easier to sit down and eat without chasing toddlers everywhere. Next year, we may actually have a “kid table” that doesn’t need an adult monitor. On Friday evening, we made what may become an annual trip to Rawhide in Chandler for a very nice steak dinner. They had a live band and we were able to keep the kids entertained with dancing while waiting for our food. The town didn’t officially open until the evening, so after dinner we wandered around and took the train, burro, and stagecoach rides. Even Florence rode a burro this year, with Tony marching close by, of course. Florence’s birthday was actually on Thanksgiving this year, and while we actually found a candle to stick into a turkey leg for her, in the hubbub, we forgot to light it. Oh well. She didn’t go without a party. We all gathered on Saturday morning to celebrate with Elmo cake and chick-fil-a. Florence really enjoyed opening presents this year – her favorite being the magnadoodle or maybe the Ariel pjs. That evening, Tony offered a chance for everyone to come over and enjoy Who framed Roger Rabbit on the big screen in our driveway. Only Grandpa came over and braved the cold night air – everyone else was still worn out from the night before.

Sunday afternoon we attended the local production of The Nutcracker at the Mesa Arts Center. It happens to be put on by the company housed in Lucy’s ballet studio, so we saw her teacher in a few dances. It was intimate, there were no bad seats in the theater. It reminded me a lot of how we went to see The Nutcracker with Huntsville Community Ballet, with the recorded music. (I remember watching from way far away a production in DC with a live orchestra. My friend was a percussionist and, just for fun, he stroked the chimes 13 times instead of 12 to denote midnight). I still am always amazed at the way they do the scenery to help you imagine you are, at first, in someone’s glamorous home, then in a rat’s basement and finally in a candy cane castle. The kids enjoyed the production – maybe this will be a new tradition.

December
December was a crazy time. Preparing for Christmas, in addition to all the end of the year performances, was made extra difficult by my continuing recovery. Tony really had to take on extra work helping Santa out. Charlie played with MYS again, this time a holiday concert at a local hotel. Charlie and Lucy both sang with their school choir and Charlie also performed with his school orchestra. Every year, they play the Theme from Ice Castles as they march around the audience…every year, I’ve thought it SO CHEESY, until my own child serenaded me this year, of course.

There were also tons of celebrations. In lieu of exchanging gifts with the neighborhood kids, we gather them together to decorated cookies and ornaments. We set up out in the driveway (you can do that here in the desert) and let them make as big a mess as they like. We also hosted our Marriage Encounter Secret Santa Revealing party, where Santa actually came and brought gifts for the kids. The little kids were blown away – the older kids were very suspicious…

I, myself, prepared and played for 3 masses on Christmas Eve and one on New Years’ Eve, in addition to normal Sunday playing. Charlie and Lucy joined me at the children’s mass to perform Silent Night on violin and Away in the Manger on piano. It was adorable. I’m not sure why they make the 4:00 mass the children’s mass, when anyone who actually has kids will tell you that’s an awful time for them. Granted, this was Florence’s first appearance at Mass (she normally goes to the nursery), and Tony did sit right up front by me where she could see me and come over and play a few notes on occasion…(btw, she played the correct bass notes 4/5 times…it was freaky). Anyhow, Tony wound up so frustrated that he left during communion – unfortunately trying to drag out four kids (one screaming) against the flow of “traffic” of people going to communion. A few days later, I couldn’t stop laughing about it, but at the time, it looked ridiculous. I love what I do at St. Bridget’s, but this year, I was as close to burnt out as I’ve gotten in a long time. I will say, our director did a fabulous job planning everything. His family came and played with us, so we had drummers and extra flutes and a trumpet even. It was beautiful.

Between all the chaos of preparing for Christmas masses, we did our normal assembly of gifts – this year the big one was a kitchen set for Florence. It had no less than 800 pieces to pop out of plastic handcuffs and screw together. Charlie even got in on it – he still believes in Santa, but he may use this moment to put all the pieces together next year. We did get it together in time, though, and since I had wrapped the presents a few at a time for the previous week, and Tony had gotten Lucy’s new bike already assembled, those were set as well. I was able to come home before the midnight mass to help lay out gifts and set up breakfast for them in the hallway behind the baby gate so that Tony and I might get a few minutes extra sleep in the morning…especially since I wouldn’t get home until 1:30.

The next morning was fun, fun, fun. Florence really enjoyed unwrapping everyone’s gifts. We just had to try and keep her slow enough to see what everyone was getting. The kids got lots of wonderful presents, most everything they had asked for, as well as the requisite books and clothes. Charlie’s favorite was probably the new Zelda DS game/book. Lucy’s favorite was her new Touch-n-brush (as seen on tv), though her new bike came in a close 2nd. Alex graduated to the real legos – the tiny chokable ones. Florence loved her new kitchen, though not as much as the shopping cart which she pushed around the house for days afterwards. Our family gift from grandma and grandpa was a new camera. Our old one was becoming unreliable so we were able to replace it. And FINALLY, the big gift from Tony’s mom and uncle (and us) was the Wii. We’ve been talking about it for some time, but we finally made the leap. Tony, who had been put in charge of supplies and games (after I bought a “bad” one) made sure each child had a wii-mote and numchuck, as well as several steering wheels, special remote holders for the mario games and more games than we can play in a month…though we did give it our best shot. The kids love it, of course, but I have to admit, even Tony and I occasionally race into the night or fight the dark side with Star Wars Lego. We’ve even taken it outside to share with the neighbors as Tony hooks it up to our projector and displays it on the carport wall. Talk about a kid magnet.

January
Happy New Year. We actually stayed up until midnight this year. I had to go and play mass at church, but then some friends of ours came back with us and played Wii and arcade. We had planned to play a bit and toast at 10:00 with the east coast since we all had young kids, but before we knew it, it was midnight. I even let Lucy have a tiny sip of champagne. We have had a good 2009 – some ups and downs – but all things considered a very blessed year. God has been good to us, protecting Tony’s job in this rough economy, keeping us healthy and surrounding us with amazing friends and family. We’re looking forward to 2010.

August 2009 - Back to School

2009-09-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

August was all about returning to school and our regular activities. We spent the first two weeks shopping for clothes and trying to kill time before school actually started. As it was upwards of 115 most of those days, going outside was impossible. We did visit the Hall of Flame museum in Tempe. We'd been wanting to go there, and it's an amazing museum. It was totally lost on the kids. They bypassed most of the history and displays of oldtime engines for the one they could climb on. There was also an actual pole which Charlie kept climbing...little monkey.

The kids started back on the 12th. Charlie is in 4th grade this year, and Lucy is in 2nd. Lucy actually got the same second grade teacher as Charlie had. We like her. I'm getting to do my volunteering in the classrooms again, thanks to Tony and I'm also reading books for their library. I just love that little school. Charlie has moved up into the Advanced Orchestra there at the school. He also auditioned and got into the MYS (Metropolitan Youth Symphony) - the citywide youth orchestra. He's in the bottom orchestra, but it's good for him. He's playing now in a group of 87 instead of just the 15 or so in the school orchestra. It's going to be a challenge for him - just getting him to rehearsal is a challenge for the rest of us. Lucy has started piano lessons. I'm teaching her in the morning before school. It's been good for us. For all the friction between mother and daughter normally, when we're in lessons, we treat each other as teacher/student and so far it's working really nicely.

This was the first year that Charlie has actually celebrated his birthday at school. We celebrated his birthday the Saturday after, with our annual swim party at Aunt Ginny's, then bowling with friends, and finally his favorite dinner (French dip beef) with friends and neighbors that night. It was a great day.

Alex and Florence are still hanging out at home with mom during the day. I'm trying to spend some time with Alex teaching him how to write his name and recognize his letters, but very often we just paint, color or read Curious George books. Oh well, I guess he can learn how to read at school, right?

Florence is an amazing girl. She is resisting potty-training. She's ready, just not interested. She just held it for hours following me around, saying "I want a pamper". Oh well, she's young still. She does like to color and draw as well. In fact, she decorated our entire leather couch in black ballpoint pen. I thought it was gone for good. Fortunately the Queen of Clean led me to rubbing alcohol and while I'm sure I've damaged the finish, for now the leather couch is now white again. She is a stinker with a capital "S". She loves playing with baby dolls and is talking up a storm. It really is such a blessing to be home with her.

Week Four in DC

2009-08-03T06:24:00.001-07:00

Our final week of vacation. On Friday, we spent most of the day just recovering from our trip the day before. However, kids are so resilient that for them, it was like nothing had happened. They were up and ready to be entertained as always. So we took our snack trip to Harris Teeter to get some groceries and then mom took the older three kids swimming in the afternoon. That night, Charlie experimented with Poppa on an electronic circuit game/builder set Poppa had bought on his Amazon shopping trip of toys for the kids. It reminded me of the one he and I had played with when I was little, but the connections were almost clearer because you could see where/how they were being made.

Saturday, we impulsively took a trip to National Harbor to see the National Children’s Museum launch center. The museum had closed it’s building for renovations, or perhaps even demolition, and had started up this launch center to collect ideas for their new place. It was free, and they wanted feedback from their activities to help them as they prepared to reopen. We drove down to Alexandria, VA to catch the water taxi to the harbor. Alex was so smart, as he looked around he kept remarking that the town had his name. We got our tickets to the taxi, and as we had a little time to kill, we wandered briefly through the Torpedo factory – a factory that has been revamped to house small artist studios. We played “I Spy” and even bought a few souvenirs/gifts from one artist. The kids (not including Florence) absolutely loved the boat ride over. Even though I’m not a big fan of boats and water, somehow, I felt safe and we all really enjoyed the wind in our face as we took the 20 minute ride from Alexandria to the Gaylord Hotel in National Harbor. Florence’s issues were lunch/nap related, along with some small irritation at being confined in her stroller. She did get to stand on the side of the boat as well, but preferred going in and out the glass doors to the air conditioned sitting area. Once we got to the hotel, we found a kid-friendly place to eat – a sports themed bar/restaurant where we ate the best tasting hamburgers, wraps, hotdogs, ever. While we waited for our food, Grandma took the big kids to ride the 18 story glass elevator so they could ride up and look out over the harbor. After we ate, we got to visit some of the elaborate sand sculptures built around the stores located by the hotel. We tucked Florence tight in her stroller as we left the hotel to walk down to the harbor and she fell asleep before we were even a block away. It was a lovely walk, the boardwalk was full of people, though the shopping was a little beyond my taste and probably affordability as well. But at the end of the block we found the museum. Their theme for the day was ladybugs, and there were puzzles, matching games, an “I spy” challenge, and a build-your-own bug jar kit. There were the requisite building blocks for the little kids and stuffed birds that sang their actual call so that the older kids could try and match them up with their description. They also had sing-a-longs, but we didn’t get to stay for that. After the museum, we wandered down to the waterfront to the beach where they had moved the statue “The Awakening” – the giant man coming up out of the sand. Here the big kids climbed while Florence took her place at the water’s edge, throwing in rocks. We then took our water taxi back to Alexandria to head home for the day. That night, Aunt Susannah came up to visit and Poppa treated us to the latest Harry Potter movie, complete with ginormous bags of popcorn and soda. As always (of late), the movie itself was beautifully and amazingly done, but we missed so much from the books. I’m glad they have decided to make the final book into two movies, though I hope they release them closer together.

Sunday, I got to attend church on my own without the little ones. I sat in the sanctuary and enjoyed one of the best youth choirs ever. Yes, they were primarily teenagers rather than children, but they had a small orchestra that was very well trained. I embarrassed Charlie by going to talk to their music minister after mass. That afternoon, Grandma and Poppa had opera tickets, so after we helped get the house cleaned, the kids and I took a trip to Target to a)get out of the house and b)gather our snacks for the trip home. That afternoon, Lucy loses yet another tooth – this time on purpose.

Monday, we made our annual trip up to Columbia Maryland to visit Monica’s friends’ Sharon and Greg and their children. Their two kids are the same age as Charlie and Lucy, though because of the boy/girl switch, they tend to be friendly to a child not their own age. Lucy gravitates towards older girls, so she really enjoyed playing with Sydney, especially her hamster and her other big girl toys. Charlie played with Brandon on his Wii – in fact, we didn’t really see them much the whole time we were there. Alex went back and forth between the two, and Florence hung out with the grownups, and tried her hand at the drums. She definitely has some music and rhythm in her, but please God, not the drums. We had our traditional hamburgers and hotdogs from the grill, with chips and fruit and cookies/brownies for dessert. This year, we had the added excitement of finding a tiny mouse with babies living in the storage can for the bounce house. Also, Greg and Sharon had some leftover fireworks from their big July 4 celebration and the kids got a chance to play with sparklers and Greg shot off a few bottle rockets and spinners. Followed by popsicles, it was an amazing summer evening for the kids. It is so much fun to see how, even though they only see each other once a year, they just slide right back into their relationships without thinking about it. It’s nice to have good friends like this to catch up with. Florence did wonderfully despite staying up past her bedtime. She was shy around Greg at first, but eventually played peek-a-boo through the fish tank and rolling ball with him. As always, it was difficult to pack up and leave, but we were full of promises for next year.

Our trip is coming to an end. We have two full days to squeeze in everything we have left to do. Tuesday morning, I get up early and head down to Richmond to see John Rocco one last time. He is now discharged from the hospital and living at home. I missed John Gilbert, unfortunately, but did get to see his renovated kitchen and the nursery. I only got to spend a few hours with Lisa and Rocco, but we did share lunch, she looked at my photo albums, and she got to get a shower while I played with the baby, who by now is smiling up a storm. It was also fun for me to pet their tortoiseshell kitty, who was so sweet. After 5 weeks, I was really missing my kitties, and their cat reminded me so much of my Phantom, who’s been gone for 5 years now.

When I returned, Grandma, Charlie and Lucy had packed all they would need for an overnight camping trip and lined it up in the garage so it could go directly in the car. They compromised on the site since we were running short on time. She usually likes to take them into the mountains, but this time they went to a campground closer to home. It had a lovely “swimming hole” for them to swim, some hiking and fishing, but Grandma thinks the outdoor sky would’ve been more peaceful without the occasional airplane from Dulles Airport. But the kids did get to pitch their tent and roast marshmallows and cook in Grandmas camping pot, so as far as they were concerned, it was a successful trip. Back at the home front, I tucked the young kids into bed early so that Dad and I (and Aunt Susannah) could attempt to watch as many Boston Legal episodes as possible before I left. This has been our tradition for three years now – I’ve watched the show from beginning to end on tv, but I enjoy watching it with him and revisiting some of the more funny episodes. Unfortunately, we didn’t finish, but he has already sent it to me so that I’ll be caught up for Season 4 next summer.

The next day is all about the packing. I get as much done as I can, and when the kids get home from camping, their gear goes directly into the washing machine. Our plane isn’t early on Thursday, so the pressure isn’t too bad, and we are able to take our time searching every corner for lost socks or hats, etc. Of course, Grandma did have to send us a box of stuff we forgot, but that’s always how it is. Thursday was our trip home. Our plane was on time, which was great. The kids had chicken nuggets in the car, so we could make due with snacks on the plane. I sat between Florence and Alexander in one row, and Charlie and Lucy sat behind us. We sat near the bathrooms in the back so that they wouldn’t have to wander too far from me. The trip was a nightmare. Florence took only an hour long nap and screamed for most of the rest of the 5 hour trip. I felt I should buy drinks for the lady in front of us, who was very patient. Alexander was very good, playing his DS or watching a movie on my ipod. He required very little of me, especially since he could see my hands were full with a screaming baby. The trip itself was bumpy and stressful – they would turn off the seatbelt sign only in short increments to accommodate bathroom breaks; of course, it was watching other people moving around that made Florence so dissatisfied in her car seat. But we did arrive safely in Phoenix, and Tony was a sight for sore eyes, waiting for us on the other side of security. Home sweet home!

Week Three in DC

2009-08-03T06:23:00.004-07:00

So I decided that in order to finish up the blog, I really needed to talk less and keep it short. However, this is NOT the week to do that. This week is our mini-vacation within a vacation.

Thursday, we get up early and head out to Connecticut where my sister Kathleen lives with her family which includes 5 children, three of which are very close to the age of Lucy and Alex. We wanted to leave early enough to avoid rush hour traffic. As it was, there was hardly any on the Beltway heading to Baltimore. Or heading to Philadelphia. Or on the New Jersey Turnpike. Or even really heading into New York. It was such a blessedly smooth ride, we couldn’t believe it. Just a few stops for bathroom breaks, coffee and lunch; we made excellent time.

Kathleen had been in charge of music for their Vacation Bible School program at church. So Friday was their closing ceremony. Her accompanist had a family emergency and was not going to be able to make it, so I went with her to read through their chosen songs and play for the program. I had always escaped doing our VBS at church by being on vacation, but it found me, even in another state. It was fun, and Lucy got to come hang out with the girls for a bit as well.

Saturday, we drove to Greenwich Beach and spent the day there. This was a smaller beach off the sound, so while it did get pretty crowded, it was a little calmer than you might have expected at the coast. It had fantastic “shelters” under which you could set up your blankets. The kids had a wonderful time building a “shell-o-saurus” with grandma. This was Florence’s first trip to the beach – unless you count the time we went to Chincoteaque Island when she was in utero. The kids all really enjoyed playing with each other in the sand and in the waves. We ate lunch there, spending most of the afternoon. We drove through KFC on the way home, fed the exhausted kiddos (the young ones didn’t get their nap) and put them to bed early. Really, the adults didn’t last so long either.

Sunday, I played at Kathleen’s church for the VBS service as well. That afternoon, we celebrated Kinneely’s 6th birthday with a Pet Shop cake and presents that included a pogo stick like Charlie’s and some girly fingernail polish, etc.
On Monday, Kathleen had to go into the city to run a dance rehearsal, so I loaded up Charlie and took him with us. We took the subway from her rehearsal site to FAO Schwartz, then walked to Central Park. Here, we took a horse and carriage ride around the park. It felt amazing to be in the midst of all the lush greenness and to see all the old buildings. Our driver told us stories about which tall buildings had been in which movies. We even bought a hotdog and a pretzel from a vendor and ate it next to all the people selling photographs, tin etchings, and old-fashioned posters. A woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty afforded me a chance to explain about performance art – in NY of all places. Then we went back to FAO Schwartz so that Charlie could dance on the big keyboard from the movie “Big”. We kept looking for the perfect toy souvenir to buy; however they sell toys, not video games, and Charlie couldn’t really find anything he truly wanted that would’ve been worth the effort to carry home. We did enjoy seeing the larger than life-size lego constructions of Batman, Harry Potter and Chewbacca. After that, to complete our NY experience, we caught a cab back to Aunt Kathleen’s rehearsal site. This wasn’t Charlie’s first trip to the big city –he had been there as a baby when I worked with Kathleen on one of her dance programs; however, he is more likely to remember this one.

All in all, it was a wonderful chance for all the cousins to be together and play together. It’s amazing how even though they don’t see each other very often, they just slip into playing together like no time has passed. And every year it gets easier. I enjoyed getting to know little Aislinn Patricia, who was born in December. She was such a super chunk and so good-natured. I guess you have to be when you’re that far down the line. We did the traditional “dress all the girls alike” pictures and all the cousins together, though Kathleen got to really make use of her photoshop skills because getting that many kids to cooperate all at the same time…well, it’s pretty impossible.

Tuesday morning, we headed out to visit a friend of the family: Elmer McDowell. He lives in a small town called Wurtsboro in New York, living on the edge of Wolf Lake in what we came to call his “Log Castle”. He used to live in the neighborhood of my parents in Northern Virginia, and they are still really good friends, but when he retired, he built this place on the lake. Once again, I was so overwhelmed, in a good way, by the lushness of it all. Our trip was relatively smooth, though it pretty much rained the whole way. We found this a little discouraging as we were going only for two days, and we were going to kayak and fish, neither of which would be fun in the rain. Once we got there, after a nice lunch, the sun showed its face long enough for Elmer to take Charlie out on the lake. In the meantime, his girlfriend Marie, took mom to Walmart to pick out jackets for the kids because the rain had brought cooler temperatures. That evening, Elmer cooked out on the grill for us some glorious steaks and hamburgers and probably the most delicious hotdog I’ve ever had. Something about meat cooked outside makes it taste better. While there, Marie gave us the tour of the 5 bedroom, 4 ½ bathroom, 2 story with a loft log cabin, Elmer showed us his complicated computerized system of how the lights work with automatic dimmers. It was funny as we would sit and visit in the evening talking after the kids went to bed, at one point the lights would dim, or one evening, they even went completely out: “Time for bed”. The first night, they took us for a walk on the ‘dam’ of their man-made lake. It was a good chance for the kids to run off some energy after being in the car. The next day proved to be much clearer and the kids got to fish, kayak, and swim at the “beach” to their heart’s content. Even Florence got into a kayak with both mom and me. She didn’t really enjoy it, though I think that was as much due to her impatience at being suited up in a life jacket when we couldn’t figure out how to put it on. Alex caught fish with grandma on the pier while Charlie and Lucy went out in the boat with Elmer. It really was such a beautiful area and setting – I wish our camera could truly capture everything, such as the deer which were comfortable coming right up to the house, or all the birds around his birdfeeders. That night, mom wanted to go to dinner at a local place to eat and Elmer and Marie found the perfect restaurant for us. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name, but it was a place that had been around in some form or other since the building of the canals. I had the best onion rings since we left Alabama, and probably my first tap beer since I left college. Their grilled cheese was even amazing. That evening, we sat around, programming Grandma and Elmer’s new blackberrys…or would it still be blackberries? They both had the same one, and he was able to help her feel more comfortable and less confused about using it. I also taught it how to pick up her email, but then we spent the rest of our trip hearing beeps as each ad from “Plow and Hearth” or “Amazon” came in. It was insane.

The following morning, we had to head back to Grandma’s house. She had tickets to see Carmina Burana at Wolftrap with Poppa and some friends of theirs. We had planned on leaving at 10, and we were pulling out of the driveway at 10:01. Perfect. Or so we thought. Our first rest stop for lunch was at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. We had hoped to find some tables, but had to make due with laying our beach towels on a grassy patch. They only had one working bathroom, which wouldn’t have been a big deal, except that as we were waiting to go, a church van pulled up with no less than 18 people that needed to go. We laughed as a few of the men made use of some local bushes. We already knew from driving around that there was NOWHERE else to go at this exit, and one of the kids really had to go, so we waited our turn. This made our first stop over an hour. Oh well, we can make it up on the road.

Not gonna happen. As we made our turn onto the interstate, we were immediately pulled into a traffic jam as three lanes took 2 miles to turn into one lane. For many miles, we drove at 5-10 mph, while we looked at empty lanes where there was occasionally a truck or two doing construction. At this point, I’ve taken over driving so mom can “rest” a bit for her concert tonight because we now know we won’t get home in time for her nap, though she should still have time for a shower and fixing her hair. At several points, we get some rain, but overall, it’s just slow going. At one point, someone has to go to the bathroom, so we try to choose a busy exit. Well there were plenty of places to go, but first, the exit off the highway puts us in the wrong lane to go to the closest gas station. The next place we pull over is closed. In the meantime, the kid in the back is getting more desperate, and the GPS is cursing us as we move farther and farther from our exit. Finally, we pull over and make everyone go. We have a few more stops and we’re making ok time now. Grandma is likely going to skip her shower, but will probably be able to fix her hair. We stop about 1 ½ hours out for another potty break and decide (wisely as it turns out) to feed the kids some chicken nuggets and Grandma and mom some coffee. I crawl into the backseat with Florence who has had enough of the carseat and will not quiet down for ANY movie, even Elmo in Grouchland for the umpteenth time. As we get closer, we feel the DC area rush hour traffic pick up. We watch as our GPS puts our arrival time closer and closer to the time Grandma and Poppa are supposed to meet their friends for dinner. We have called Poppa several times to let him know what is going on. We’re moving slow, but we’re moving. All the sudden, the sky opens and monsoon rains fall on us, bringing us to a standstill. We have to laugh at all this because, what else can we do. Stopping is not an option. Finally, it stops as quickly as it started and we feel like we’re making some progress. Grandma’s not going to have time to do her hair, but can maybe change clothes before dinner. Poppa will wait for her to arrive. Now another kid has to go to the potty. So we pull out of traffic and stop. While I take Alex to the bathroom, grandma changes clothes in the car. We have to get back into rush hour traffic, but our exit has actually put us ahead of where we might have been. We keep touching base with Poppa, who has decided to go ahead to dinner and order for mom and I will drop her off. We have to tell stories to the over-protective traffic cops at Wolftrap to be able to drop her off, but she makes it in plenty of time. When I arrive home with the kids, the sky opens again, right as we’re trying to unload the car. I give them a snack and a bath and put them to bed. At this point, the excitements of the day and the McDonald’s espresso have given me too much energy, so I set about doing laundry and unpacking. It was a gift from evening Monica to morning Monica, knowing it would be difficult to face it the next morning. So much for a shorter story.

Week Two in DC

2009-08-03T06:23:00.003-07:00

Grandma had signed Charlie and Lucy up for a Summer book club. The book for the first week we were there was “Recycle this book” – a book with short chapters on small things you can do to make a difference: recycling, composting, reusing, avoiding Styrofoam, etc. Grandma had gotten Charlie a small notebook in which he could make notes on each chapter. One of the ideas was composting. For Mother’s Day, my brother John had built Grandma a compost pile. She had spent two months contributing garbage to it and let Charlie and Lucy flip the compost. In those two months, the pile had turned into dirt good enough to provide a home to many, many worms, which Lucy began collecting for her fishing trips.

Grandma has bay windows off the kitchen which show off nicely her bird sanctuary in her back yard. Grandma’s backyard isn’t necessarily the ideal for a bunch of kids in that there’s no room for a swingset or pickup baseball game. However, the window gives a perfect view of “God’s TV” where the kids learned to recognize the native birds, especially the ones that liked to frequent the birdfeeders Grandma keeps next to the windows. Alex took to asking for his “bird map” every time he sat down for breakfast so he could learn the names of the birds. They also enjoyed watching the squirrels and chipmunks dangle from the feeder where dried corncobs were strung up. Occasionally, we would see a deer wander through the backyard on his way to eat the tops off Grandmas lilies. One night, grandma even found a raccoon on the back porch getting into the birdseed. She overheard it trying to break into the metal garbage can where she had put it to protect it from the squirrels. That was when she decided that the extra expense for chili pepper laced birdseed was worth it.

To further expand and enhance their appreciation of nature, Grandma took us to Rockville Nature Center up in Rockville, MD. As we drove through there, I recognized some of the roads we had taken to visit Tony’s childhood home last year. Anyhow, they have a lovely little center that has real animal pelts for the children to feel, turtles, snakes, and even an owl in cages/tanks for the kids to look at, and a live honeybee hive where we actually were able to find the queen. They had binoculars aimed out into the fields and a computer that played local bird calls. And of course there were the educational puzzles, the “touchables” like rocks and shells, and various books to look at about the local wildlife. It was quite enjoyable. Even outside the nature center they had beautiful flowers where you could see the giant bees at work collecting pollen. We had packed some Lunchables (the cracker/cheese/ham collection) to eat as a picnic. They had a small picnic area available that we shared briefly with some campers next to the tennis courts. The kids had a little fun running around the field. Grandma had planned to take the older three hiking in the woods there while Florence and I hung out in the nature center, but as it was approaching naptime, Florence was not going to have ANY of that. So we gave it up and headed home. My only requirement for calling an outing with kids successful is that the outing itself lasts longer than it took to get there. We were cutting it close on this one as we had to cross state lines, but a draw can still be considered a win in some cases. Grandma did take the kids hiking through the woods at Wolftrap once we got home in order to make up for the lost hike. She’s a good sport!

Thursday morning, Grandma and I took turns going to church to pray for good blessings and a watchful eye over John Rocco as he, at 4 weeks, underwent the first of what will be three surgeries. At this point, we didn’t know if he would be able to get the double ventricle heart we were hoping and praying for. While he was constantly in our thoughts, we distracted ourselves by visiting Meadowlark Gardens in the morning. We took over crackers/bread to feed the geese and the fish and wandered through the beautiful flowers, trees and hills. It was good exercise for the kids and kept Grandma and I busy so we didn’t overly worry. It was there, while photographing a bird’s nest with new baby birds in it, that we got the call that Rocco had gone to surgery. I took the baby birds as a sign from God that he would be ok. That afternoon, grandma took the older three swimming at Springhill, her rec center, to again keep herself distracted while I stayed home and watched Elmo with Florence. That night, we occupied ourselves with episodes of Boston Legal until we finally heard, around 9:00, that he had made it well through surgery, though with only a single ventricle heart which would mean two more surgeries. We still were so relieved to hear that he had done well.

Friday evening, Charlie, Poppa and I attended a concert called Video Games Live at Wolftrap park. Now, Wolftrap is a large outdoor amphitheatre that hosts groups ranging from the National Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra to Barry Manilow and Josh Grobin to Pilobolus and Martha Graham. I’ve been fortunate to attend a variety of events there over the years. I couldn’t believe that THE ONE concert I was going to go to was “Video Games Live!” We were of course attending to feed Charlie’s interest (obsession) with video games. Now my exposure to the various sounds coming from the DS, or the Nintendo 64, or the arcade has made me aware of how music has progressed from the bleeps and blips of Frogger and Pacman to relevant scores almost level with movie soundtracks. That doesn’t mean that I wanted to spend a Friday evening listening to it, even if it was performed by the National Symphony Orchestra. We arrived a little early to catch the costume contest, and to cheer on a yellow posterboard Pacman as the winner. There were three Links (Charlie’s favorite video game character), though only one made it to the final three. The costumes were amazing, and even though I had my camera, I didn’t think to get it out. The best I did was a fuzzy Link after they turned out the spot lights. Anyhow, even though this was only a week after the passing of Michael Jackson, they had already prepared a video “eulogy” of his character from MoonWalker kicking bootie through other traditional (Donkey Kong, Mario) and more recent games (Call of Duty, Zelda). It was hysterical, and it just goes to show what creativity can be found in the technical world. I was also, despite myself, swept away by the enthusiasm of the (young) audience as we watched videos from various games accompanied by the Symphony playing the scores from those games. It was a little like watching movie trailers for 2 ½ hours, but very effective, nonetheless. They also had a few promotional contests. The first one was where a beer gut bearing 22 year old donned a black tshirt with the Space Invader guy on his back (for computer tracking), then tried to beat the…..invaders in the traditional game displayed on the screen while the NSO plucked out a live action accompaniment to his game. He stunk and lost. The second one involved a kid, a long haired sloppy teenager, who had gotten the highest score on the pre-concert Guitar Hero contest. He then came up to attempt a score of 200,000 to win a computer. Well, he got over 300,000 and a 99% accuracy rating (which probably would’ve been 100% had the host not bootie bumped him to do that guitar thing band guys do). Everyone was so excited and cheering – it was impossible not to get caught up. Poppa commented that his parents must be horrified at how good he might be at a real instrument if he had spent as much time practicing that. Along with the NSO, they had a live choir, with a few featured soloists. I told Poppa, after it was over, that this was why live concerts were never going to die, no matter how good recording technology got. Because no matter how “uninterested” you might be in the material, it’s impossible to dismiss a well done performance. You could tell the nature of the concert at intermission when I was able to zip in and out of the ladies’ room while Charlie had to stand in a rather lengthy line to use the mens’ room. Talk about a switch. Charlie, of course, thoroughly enjoyed it and while I had to remind him a bit that he couldn’t just comment out loud every time he wanted, it was a great way to introduce him to a concert performance. Showing his age and his boyness, I think one of his favorite parts of the evening was running willy-nilly through the great grassy dip between the parking lots.

One of the kids favorite things to do with grandma is to go kayaking and fishing. She has several places she likes to carry them, but on this day, we ventured to a new place called Accotink Lake. It’s a man-made lake that serves to collect the run-off from the surrounding area. It has the lake, complete with “beach” to put in the boats, rental kayaks/paddleboats, a hiking trail through the woods, a carousel, and a playground for young kids. Florence and I hung out either in the woods where it was nice and shady, and at the playground. The other kids took turns kayaking with Grandma, Lucy riding with Grandma while Charlie expertly boated Alexander through the water. Florence and I got to call to them through the trees in the woods. We had planned to do some fishing, but as is Florence’s way, lunch brought on her fits for a nap, so we loaded up and headed home.

Later that evening, we attended church with my parents. They belong to a gospel choir that sings on Saturday evenings twice a month. It’s a good chance to hear a different type of music during mass, and both the leader and the pianist are very talented. Unfortunately, I usually have to enjoy it in the cry room with my noisy ones as well as half a dozen others. But it does feel a little good to be able to just be there and not have to worry about which song comes when. Afterwards, we returned home to celelbrate Poppa’s birthday, complete with French dip beef, pecan pie, and a nice bottle of red wine – his Chateauneuf du Pape. He made us sing between every present, as usual. He’ll no doubt send out a complete list of all he received; but I can tell you he received lots of books, including World Without End, a 1000+ page historical fiction novel by Ken Follett that I had just finished the week before vacation. He also got from us a new birdhouse decorated teapot, one that matched the bird canisters I had gotten Mom for her birthday. Susannah brought him a new bottle of Makers Mark, which he enjoyed as part of his after dinner celebration.

Sunday was a relaxing day. We had already been to church so we didn’t have any of that run around that morning. We did our best to put together one of dad’s other gifts, a floor to ceiling bike rack to hold some of the umpteen bikes that were housed in the garage now that Grandma is trying to keep bikes to fit every age of grandchild, God bless her. Charlie did help, and Poppa tried to, but ultimately Grandma figured out how to suspend the durn thing and actually get the child-size bikes on it. Before dinner, we took a short trip to Clemy-John Tree Park to run the kids a bit. It was overwhelmingly hot and humid, so we didn’t last too long, but Florence did get to ride the merry-go-round. It speaks to the ages of the kids that we pretty much didn’t see Charlie the whole time we were there, but didn’t really worry about it until it was time to go.

Monday was again a slow day. We planted flowers in the backyard, another favorite thing to do at Grandmas. Poppa had also bought a few games to share with the grandkids. One was an expanded version of a marble tower (where you fit plastic pieces together to form ramps and tunnels and marbles run from top to bottom). Charlie had been seriously enjoying for years the version we had gotten for $4 from a Toys R Us clearance table. The one dad bought came complete with a battery operated chain link “marble raiser” so that you no longer had to put the marbles at the top yourself – when they hit bottom, they were “speared” and carried back to the top. It was cool. The three older kids worked together with Poppa to get it put together and were pretty proud of themselves when it was finished. In between these two activities, we took one of our favorite fieldtrips over to Harris Teeter to “snack up” on the available samples they put out, including cantaloupe, cheese, lunch meat, and bread (and not your run-of-the-mill sandwich bread) and muffins. Grandma and I would split up so that they hopefully wouldn’t notice we were all together, but no doubt after 3 weeks of lunching at the sample cases, they probably recognized us.

On Tuesday, I traveled down to Charlottesville again to visit John Rocco and Lisa. John Gilbert had to work that day (someone had to earn a paycheck to pay for Rocco’s “fancy digs”…his words) so I went to keep Lisa company. I had brought along some games and photo albums to look at because when I arrived, Rocco was still attached to many monitors, IVs, feeding tubes, drains, etc. from his surgery. But by the time I left that evening, he had been disconnected from everything but the feeding tube and maybe one IV for the meds. And Lisa, who hadn’t held her son in days, couldn’t be distracted from holding him. She graciously let me have a turn as well. He was snuggly as ever.

While I was down there, Grandma had gotten tickets to Children’s Theatre in the Woods so that she and the kids could walk over. Florence would only tolerate one performance, partially because she was wearing Alex’s shoes, which bothered her and Grandma (thankfully) wouldn’t let her run around barefoot. But when she indicated it was time to go, it was time to go. Grandma also put out the slip and slide and the sprinkler for the little kids while her friend Lamar came to pick up Charlie and Lucy for a swim lesson. After the lesson, Charlie and Lucy took turns walking Lamar’s dog (part of Charlie’s assignment for this week’s book, Marley and Me, ), and then brought the dog back to the house. Lamar had envisioned sitting and visiting with the kids and Grandma while the kids played in the water and with the dog. She didn’t know Florence well enough to know that you’re not allowed to sit at all if she’s around, and when she’s tired and hungry, which she is in the evening, she rules the world, and there will be no activity that doesn’t focus on her.

That night, in an attempt to keep things “even” with the grandkids, Poppa took Lucy to Wolftrap to see a modern dance performance by a troupe of Merce Cunningham. She probably enjoyed the “single child” outing as much (if not more) than the actual performance. Interestingly, Merce Cunningham died that following weekend.

Wednesday, we played with the water slide some more, while Grandma blew bubbles for Florence. This time, Lucy followed a little too closely and lost a tooth as her mouth made contact with Charlie’s elbow. Grandma actually found the tooth in the “pool” of the water slide, but as we tried to pose for a picture next to the slide, Charlie elbowed it out of her hand and it was lost forever in the grass. Fortunately, the tooth fairy left her a note “I found your tooth outside in the yard. Next time, leave it under your pillow”. That tooth fairy is such a smart mouth! That evening we watched Marley and Me. It was interesting to hear Charlie comment on the differences between the book and the movie. I thought they had hammed it up a little bit too much from the book as well. It wasn’t until later that I realized the book Charlie had read was a kid’s version of the original book. So maybe the differences were closer to the original – that’s ok I suppose.

Tomorrow, week 3, begins our vacation within our vacation.

Week One in DC

2009-08-03T06:23:00.001-07:00

We arrived from Tuscaloosa on Thursday, July 2. Tony flew up with us from Alabama and will be with us until Tuesday. Thursday was mostly spent unpacking and setting up pac-n-plays, finding the beds, etc. The kids also reaquainted themselves with Poppa's electronics, especially his 500+ channels on the tv. They revisited old shows such as Wonderpets and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and discovered new ones like Phineas and Ferb.

Friday, we all (without Poppa) visited Cub Run, an indoor swimming pool/recreation center in Chantilly, VA, about 30 minutes from Grandma's house. It has a kids area that includes a zero-depth entrance with various sprays, and a slide with just about two feet of water for the little kids, a deeper area to play in - around 4 feet - with a lazy river and whirlpool for the middle kids, and two water slides (one of which travels outside the building) for the bigger kids. It also has a lap pool and a hot tub for the biggest kids (i.e., the adults.) This was the first year I actually got to sit in the hot tub since Tony was there to help take care of the kids. Mom had come with us, but when we were getting dressed in the locker room, she had discovered that she had only brought the top half of her swimsuit, tee-hee. So while we got started, she used her best friend, the GPS, to find the nearest KMart to invest in a complete suit so she could join us. After swimming for a couple hours, the kids were a nice shade of blue and we decided it was time for lunch. We had packed our lunch and, after showering everyone, ate upstairs overlooking the swimming area before heading back home for naps. I don't have any pics from this trip because when I got my camera out, it kept asking me to reformat the card. Well, this would've deleted all my pictures from our AL trip, so I let it go. Fortunately, my tech-savvy husband was able to rescue my pictures off the card, though I think the card is dead, and we're holding out little hope for the camera.

On Saturday, July 4, we began the day by participating in the Bike Parade in my parents' neighborhood. We decorated the bikes and Florence's stroller and headed up to the top of the hill where everyone was gathering. There were lots of kids with varieties of decoration: streamers, flags, balloons, etc. After the quick "parade" where the kids rode (or were pulled in wagons or pushed in strollers) down a predetermined path, everyone gathered in the backyard of one of the neighbors for fruit, cake, jello, even monkeybread, much of it tinted or arranged in red, white, and blue colors. They had a swingset/slide and a trampoline in case the kids had any energy left after bike riding the hills. They also had crafts and treats for the kids to bring home. All in all, the kids had a great time, even though they didn't really know any of the other kids. It's amazing to see how kids know no strangers in other kids. After that, Tony, Poppa, Charlie and Alex all headed into DC for a Nationals Baseball game. This was Alex's first live game, though Charlie has been before to see the Diamondbacks. They did head home after the game, against all the traffic heading into town for the fireworks. That evening, because it gets dark so late, the older kids watched the DC fireworks show on tv. It's sad, I know, but it was High-Def on a big widescreen, so it could've been worse, I suppose.

Sunday, I headed down, with my sister Susannah, to see John Rocco (and John Gilbert and Lisa). They were in the hospital still in Charlottesville, and this was before any of his surgeries. He was beautiful and John and Lisa were obviously so proud. While I was gone, Tony and Grandma took the kids to Chinatown, the Building Museum and the Portrait Gallery in DC. They ate lunch at a nice restraunt in Chinatown. At the Building Museum, they spent some time in the Discovery Zone, one of our favorite "play areas" that has collections of bricks, legos, tinkertoys, all for building your own creations. I think this was Tony's first time visiting there after hearing about it for years. There, Tony discovered that Pokemon is the international language of children after Charlie bonded with a brother and sister over a character named "Zabadus". After that, they had a quick trip through the Portrait Gallery before Florence had had enough of being in the stroller and encouraged everyone to go home. She did very well up until the last minute and I heard wonderful stories of the antics and songs sung in the car to keep her awake (if not happy) in the car on the way home.

That Monday, we travelled to the Natural History Museum. Grandma kept Florence so that we could take our time without having to worry about her schedule. (She must've had a different baby, because she kept talking about how good and well-behaved she was). There was a new Ocean's exhibit that we wanted to see. They also had labeled some of the exhibits so you could find them from the "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" movie. I've always been fascinated by the ocean, which is confusing since I hate going into the water... It was a beautiful exhibit, though going with young children, I didn't get to read as much about everything as I would've liked as they kept running ahead. And the most fascinating part, a live saltwater tank, was so crowded by people trying to see the colorful fish, that it was hard to get close enough. The kids also enjoyed the bug exhibit, they were fascinated by the working beehive that had a tunnel that led to the outside. You could see the bees hovering right outside the window, waiting to take their turn to get into the tunnel. Charlie's favorite exhibit was a special exhibition on the study of bones. They had many skeletons to look at as well as plaques that explained how they decided someone might have died based on what they read in their bones. Lucy and I found some broken arms to look at to see what her broken arm might've looked like. And of course, what visit is complete with a visit to the dinosaur hall or standing in line to glimpse the Hope Diamond. Grandma had driven us down into the city, but we took the subway back home, so this was another treat for the kids - riding the metro at the beginning of rush hour...woohoo!

Tuesday morning, before Tony left, mom took him and the three older kids on the bike trail into Vienna. Florence and I dropped them off near her house (back around near Meadowlark Gardens) and they biked into Vienna. Florence and I drove in, parked at the Vienna Inn where we would have lunch, and walked around the area while we waited for them. There was a small museum (which we didn't go into) that had a lovely "park" area. No playground so to speak, unless you count the numerous pebble size rocks from the rock path that were perfect for throwing, or the little slab steps that were perfect for marching up and down, or the concrete stage area that was ripe for a little dancing. It happened to bump into the bike path, so we were able to meet the kids when they finally showed up. At that point, we had a most fabulous lunch (it always tastes better when you've "worked" for it, doesn't it) at a quirky place. They're supposedly known for their chili dogs, but no one was brave enough to try this out. But they did have the most incredible onion rings - almost as good as the wedding bands from Johnny Rays in Alabama. The kids enjoyed it, even Florence was pretty good for it. After lunch, grandma and I took the younger kids home while Tony and Charlie raced back on the bike path. It was cute to see them smack-talking each other in the resteraunt about who was going to win. As it turned out, Charlie officially won the race as Tony got stuck behind a group of bikers right at the finish line...so he says.

Before Tony had to leave on Tuesday afternoon to go back to work, he was able to help Poppa get his new computer set up and connected to all the printers, and fortunately didn't run into the problem of the blue screen of death as he did last year. With him gone, that left me and the kids at Grandmas for the remainder of the month. We were sad to see him go, but we were glad he got to spend as much time with us as he did.

Summer Vacation in Alabama

2009-07-11T19:58:00.000-07:00

We are now about halfway through our vacation. Time just flies when you are having fun, there is no doubt about that. We are so fortunate to have this kind of time to spend with long distance family, especially Tony's family who are all in Alabama and don't get to come visit in Arizona.

We had a short 8 days in Alabama, which whittles easily down to 6 once you count travelling. But we made the most of our time. Jackson and Caroline, Tony's brother Ken's kids, came to spend almost the whole time with us. Jackson is a mere 3 weeks older than Charlie and Caroline is about 5 months older than Lucy...perfect playmates. Charlie was so excited about seeing and playing with Jackson that I began to worry that there was no way Jackson could possibly be as excited to see him, or that their time together could live up to Charlie's expectations. But I was so wrong. These two were peas in a pod, virtually inseparable the whole week. Unfortunately a good bit of their time was spent playing video games, but at least they were "linked" as partners and not just in their own solo world. Here's shot of a group of them on the couch, shoulder to shoulder so they can see each other's game.

Tony's sister Angela faithfully and selflessly travelled down everyday to see us. Yes, we had dragged four kids across the country, and she only had two; however, one of those two was a newborn, Ian Joseph born in May. (Here's a picture of baby Ian with gran. Technically he's a Fannin boy, but if you see him, he's ALL Horn). Any of us that have been there knows what it means to try to leave the house with a newborn. You pack your car to the lid with baby gear and bottles and diapers. When you are completely ready to go, it's time for a feeding, or a diaper change, or God forbid, an outfit change....either the baby or often yourself. Her older son, Trey (6) made a wonderful quartet with Lucy, Caroline and Alexander. They played the games of our childhood - ones involving imagination, costumes found in the dress up bin and lots of humor. It was wonderful.

Tony's oldest brother Andy was there everyday - his oldest, Meredith was struck with chicken pox on our trip there so we were unable to see her. But his youngest Abigail was there all but one night. She is at the magical age of 14 where she thinks nothing of scooping up the nearest available kid and playing with them. She was a near constant companion and friend to Florence while we were there (and therefore a Godsend to Monica). Andy also showed an unmeasurable amount of patience and enthusiasm for the kids, planning getaways to the golf course, bowling, or just to the backyard to play baseball or soccer or to the neighborhood streets to ride bikes and scooters. He kept laughing it off, but I know that my enthusiasm for outdoor play runs on the short side, and I couldn't thank him enough for being willing to go outside whenever they asked. There's a picture of Andy with Florence at a local water pad, and Abigail with Lucy, what beautiful girls.

While we were there, we visited a water pad for the kids to pl

ay in. It was a perfect day - perfectly warm for the ones getting wet and yet overcast for those of us that had assigned ourselves as the "observers". I was worried that my kids would be disappointed since the water pad was a little more low key than some we visit in AZ, but they didn't even notice. It's true what they say about kids: "For pure fun: Just add water". Uncle Andy even convinced Florence it was ok to get wet and helped her find a small "squirt" just for her and flew her into the more pressurized streams.

On another day, we took a hike in Tuscaloosa's Arboretum. It was absolutely beautiful to see all the really tall trees and wander through the woods. Alexander kept asking when we were going to go hiking - all his hiking experience involves bare steep mountains, not this woodsy stuff we were in. The Arboretum had a lookout at the end of a bridge built out of a higher hill. The kids, while still not at the top of the tree level, got to look out over the forest from about 3-4 stories up. It was gorgeous. Florence really kept up well, though she allowed Andy to carry her quite a bit, and also conned Andy and Abigail into carrying her between them a few times. It was cute. The picture on the left is the entrance to the arboretum trails. Andy had cut walking sticks for each kid. The picture on the right is taken on the observation deck. You can see a tree coming right up the middle of it.

We also got a chance to visit the new church built at Mary Lou's home parish: Holy Spirit. I know that Mary Lou was excited to fill up a pew with her kids and their kids. It was under construction when we were here last year, but it's finished now with the exception of a few more stained glass windows. Next year when we go, we hope to see one Mary Lou has purchased in honor of Tony's dad, Charlie. He was very active at that church and he deserves a permanent place there, that's for sure. We did all go (also that Sunday) to visit Charlie's gravesite. All the brothers and sister were there and all the kids. I know Charlie must've been tickled to see everyone together all in one place.

All in all, it was a great trip. There were wonderful adventures with all the cousins and I don't think any of them will forget it any time soon. Here's our annual picture on Mary Lou's deck with all the kids, from the top: Trey, Florence, Abigail; Lucy, Caroline, Jackson, Charlie; Mary Lou, Ian; and Alexander.

Summer is here.

2009-06-22T12:16:00.001-07:00

Ok, so summer has actually been here for a while. But I'm just now getting around to updating the blog. I have finally been pressured into signing onto Facebook, so now that all my high school friends are suddenly able to track me down, I want to appear competant at the technical writing habits.

May flew by. Mother's Day was rather uneventful compared to everything that happened in April. We didn't do anything special, though we did get together with our neighbors to play a game called "Fact or Crap" that was one of my gifts and a lot of fun. We sat out on the patio on an unusally cool evening and had wine/beer while the kids played video games inside until bedtime. Florence was already down for the night. I'm truly seeing the light at the end of the tunnel - the "baby years" tunnel, that is. One of my other gifts was to go visit (again, without the kids) the Dale Chihuly exhibit at the Desert Botanical Gardens. It was absolutely beautiful. Tony and I went in the evening to try and avoid some of the heat (we only fared so well, it was still about 105), but it meant we got to see the exhibit after the sun went down. It was gorgeous. I had not been to the gardens since we moved here, so it was also interesting to walk the paths and read up on the desert.

For Memorial Day, we hiked at "Hole in the Rock". This was Florence's first trip on foot - she's been several times in the Baby Bjorn, but this year, she climbed the steps herself. I think her favorite part was sitting in the dirt playing with rocks. The other kids went to the top with Tony. I just try and wave and not think about the damage that could happen if one of them tumbled. They did slide down the "buttcrack" this year - that's a crevice down the face of the "mountain" that is considered the shortcut down.

May was filled with parties celebrating the end of one "year" or another. Charlie and Lucy finished their 3rd and 1st grade years. Each of them finished strongly in school. Charlie had had some struggles adapting to the higher requirements of third grade - reading science and social studies text books and remembering information to answer test questions. And since they are exclusively writing in cursive now, he is constantly having to rewrite his spelling words so they are legible. I'm having great difficulty making this a priority as my own writing is barely legible some days. Often, he would get no grade for homework because he would forget to write his name on it, he's so casual about anything not video game related! But his last report card balanced out in As and Bs, so I truly can't complain. Charlie also had his first orchestra concert at the end of the year. I was so proud of him keeping up with that even when it meant setting his alarm to rise and get to school early. He is now going to orchestra camp which meets every morning. I've even letting him walk home on his own most days. That's a big deal for me! He did very well with his private lessons and plans to continue into the fall. Still not interested in piano. pooh! He is continuing his karate lessons - he now has a green belt.

Lucy did wonderfully at school. She is so intense and conscientious at her work that sometimes it left her in tears at her desk. She's reading really well now, even reads to Alex and Florence some days and is able to finish chapter books with only a little bit of help with some of the longer words. She started back to gymnastics in May - her first session since her broken arm in December. Her strength came back quickly. She also attended a week of camp, but while she had fun, it wasn't quite what she expected, and actually was uncomfortable with being away from home all day everyday. For someone who is such a social butterfly at school, it surprised me to find her clinging to me like a moth to a lamp when it was drop off/pick up time.

Alexander has one more year at home before kindergarten. He is starting to learn his letters and even some words...despite me, really. I haven't worked with him much - we spend so much time playing ball, climbing, dancing etc. I've thought I'd just let him learn at school, but since he is showing some interest, I'm going to make an effort to at least introduce him to the alphabet. He is extremely active, loves playing swords, spiderman, ball. He is also pretty coordinated with balls - he dribbles really well and can hit a ball if you pitch it to him.

Florence is really starting to be a stinker. She can throw a tantrum that makes me worry about her hurting herself. She loves to climb and I have had to pull her off bookshelves, the back of the couch, and the boys' bunkbeds. We're going to have make more effort childproofing than we ever did with the other kids. She is extremely observant - she's learning how to work doorknobs (my life will be over once she learns how to get into the laundry where the catbox is!). She is picking up new words everyday, especially names of people that mean something to her (neighbors, babysitters, etc.) She LOVES to dance. I can usually pull her out of a bad mood by putting the radio on (she's especially fond of 80s music, can't imagine why?!), and dancing with her. She loves spinning around and getting dipped. She is finally starting to get some hair, it's all curly in the back, and she is gonna be a red head. Maybe that explains the tantrums.

We are leaving in two days for our summer exodus out of the desert. June has been very kind to us with very few days over 100. We're really looking forward to the luciousness of the east coast, though, even if it means humidity in addition to heat. We'll spend a week visiting Tony's family (mom, two brothers with two kids each, and his sister with two kids, one a new baby born in May) and then we'll head up to the DC area to stay with Monica's parents. Tony will stay with us for a week, but then head back to work in phoenix while Monica and the kids stay on until the end of July. We'll go camping, fishing, swimming, up to Connecticut to visit Kathleen and her five kiddos, especially the new one, Ms. Aislinn. We'll also head down to Richmond to visit with John Gilbert and his new baby, John Rocco born June 12. John Rocco is doing very well despite his heart condition, better than they thought he would. They may even get to take him home before he has surgery. We are keeping our prayers going strong for him.

The only other new thing for this month: We've finally done the "green" thing and bought an electric lawn mower. I don't know how "green" we are actually having grass in a desert climate - and I have to put "green" in quotes so you'll know I'm not talking about the grass - but maybe with the electric lawnmower we'll at least break even with our footprint. Anyhow, the whole thing was a frustrating exercise in exasperation at trying to train a 100 ft long snake. Unfortunately I tried to learn how to use my new tool at 4 in the afternoon when it was blazing hot. I found myself wanting to run over the cord just to teach it a lesson. But I'm going to give it another shot because the pushbutton start is so amazing compared with the shoulder detaching, cord yanking, starter of the other mower.

For Father's Day, I took the kids to Kiddie Kandids to get their pictures made. It's amazing that I was able to get a good one of Florence, she was so uncooperative, but that's what makes the guys at KK so fantastic. Here's some updated shots of the kids from our trip.

Congratulations, Charlie!!!

2009-05-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

Another big event for our family this month was that Charlie made both his First Communion and Confirmation this month (ok, last month, I realize it's already May!!) The Diocese of Phoenix is changing things to reflect some pre-Vatican II practices of combining these two sacraments and giving them earlier. Some say its because they recognize "8" as the age of reason. Ha, whoever says this, doesn't have a 8 year old. I'm not sure Charlie truly appreciates what has happened. After all, he still can't sit still in Mass. This child can play video games without a bathroom break for upwards of 4 hours, but can't give one hour to stillness and quiet listening. And when asked to pick his Confirmation name, he chose Patrick..."because he likes the color green and he's always wanted to know more about the shamrock". Ask a kid, you get a kid's answer. But he did do all the projects and preparation, and willingly I might add. As his service project, he played violin at Christmas mass and regularly hands out programs before Mass. He loves greeting people, though he is still a little too shy to actually say "Good Morning".

There was one big Mass on a Saturday morning. The sanctuary was packed and overflowing as 60+ kids received these two sacraments. We didn't actually have the Bishop, but his helper Fr. Felt, who gave a very nice homily to the kids. Fr. Scott (our pastor) told me later that Charlie was one of the very few who remembered the proper responses for Confirmation. I gave credit to Aunt Eileen who was his sponsor, and who prompted him as we waited in line to make sure he did his thing right. Ginny and her two little ones attended mass with us. Fortunately, Eileen was able to come without her brood since that helped distribute the adults a little better among the kids who quickly got bored and frustrated with being trapped in church. Next year, I think I'll offer to open a nursery for the families. Charlie's neighbor friend, Sammy, came with us. It's hard to tell what she thought of all the pomp and circumstance (albeit it noisy and chaotic) of our Mass as she attends a Evangelical Christian church down the road. I do think she enjoyed being there for Charlie and what was clearly an important moment. It was a really beautiful service, and I couldn't help but be teary-eyed as my first born reached yet another milestone.

As Eileen stood up for Charlie, Monica stood up for Jimmy, one of Charlie's best friends from Kindergarten. Their parents led us to St. Bridget way back when and even though the boys no longer go to school together (Jimmy still goes to Queen of Peace), they still get together regularly. They just get each other.

After mass, there was a nice reception with cake and then we took Charlie to his favorite Chinese buffet resteraunt. It was a nice break from the usual Saturday lunch at the Golden Arches. This is a picture of Tony trying to feed Lucy some octopus!!!

Happy Easter and Happy Birthday Alexander

2009-05-04T16:49:00.000-07:00

This is a full month, so I'm combining some of the posts. Easter was a busy week for us since I played nearly every night at church. The choir had worked really hard, but it really paid off in the Masses. On the mornings of both Holy Thursday and Good Friday, I played Morning prayer services. I also played the masses both nights. Then there was the Easter Vigil on Saturday evening. It's my favorite Mass of the year, and I love how they do it at St. Bridget's. There is tons of music intertwined with the readings, lots of candles; it's very high liturgy and extremely fulfilling. But it also lasts for about three hours, so I didn't get home until close to 11. Then, after meeting with the Easter Bunny, I crawled into bed for a few hours before I had to get up and be at church by 5 to prepare for the Sunrise Service. That was complicated by the fact that rain the previous day had prevented us from getting everything set up the night before. So we had to wipe dry the seats, get everything plugged up and running. The 6:00 mass was pretty much our dress rehearsal for the later Masses. But it was a beautiful day outside, very sunny, but not too hot. In fact, I was wearing my leather jacket at the early mass (I was ticked since I had invested in a new Easter dress), but managed a sunburn at the later masses. We had a hummingbird present and hanging about the alter at all three masses, it was gorgeous. Tony brought all the kids (which he had to dress and feed since I left before they got up) to the last mass of the morning. Not only was he on time, he was early, I was so proud. And the kids looked great too. He forgot the camera, so we don't have proof, but you can take my word for it. We took a few pics once we got home.

The kids had a big weekend too. On Saturday, Tony took them to the YMCA Easter Egg hunt where Florence got to chase down her first eggs. We then all met up for lunch at Village Inn where the Easter Bunny was hanging out giving out balloon hats/animals. What a fun and special weekend for them. This is a poloroid they took for us while we were there.

That afternoon, we had planned on celebrating Alexander's birthday since the three families (Bigleys and Dawsons) were going to be together anyway. Knowing that I was going to be exhausted from working, and having visited Enchanted Island in Encanto park during spring break, we decided to hold his party there. Enchanted Island is an amusement park for the younger set - according to their website, they cater to the 1-10 year olds (Hey! That's us!), but really, it's more for the 1-6. Lucy and Charlie were a little bored, but they had a great attitude for the party. These guys did EVERYTHING for us. They did let us bring cake (they would've provided, but since it's not personal, they encourage people to bring their own), but they gave us ice cream, a table in the shade, a host to make sure we had everything we needed, drinks, food, balloons, a tshirt for Alex...and all for a reasonable amount of money, especially when you consider how much fun the kids had on the rides and how I didn't have to clean up either before or after the party. Alexander loved his Power Rangers party, though he got so many Spiderman gifts, he then adopted Spiderman as his favorite superhero of the day.

He did get to have a home party as well. More presents, more celebration of Alex. Here he is with our neighbor friends. And here he is with Florence planting flowers, one of his favorite activities.

Happy Birthday to Me

2009-05-04T06:03:00.000-07:00

I managed in true childlike style to have my birthday last the whole month. I figured I deserved it. After all, I turned 40 this year. Most people shy away from celebrating this particular milestone, but I figured, I have three degrees, a good marriage, four kids, and we own our house (sort of), so it's not like I'm 40 and still trying to figure out what I want to do. I've achieved alot, with the grace of God, of course, I do recognize that while I've worked hard, I've been truly blessed with everything we have.

April 1, my actual birthday, started out like any other day. I was to work in Lucy's classroom, teach piano in the afternoon, take Charlie to a rehearsal at church, and then Tony and I were joining Ginny and Eileen and their husbands for dinner that evening. While I was all about the dinner out as adults, I was really saving my birthday celebration for later in the month. More on that later. Anyhow, around 7:30 that morning, Ginny shows up with donuts for breakfast. The funny part was how she had them carried in by my parents who had flown in from DC to surprise me. I was so tickled. She had also, with some help from my neighbor, cancelled my working in the classroom and arranged with my sister to cancel lessons for the afternoon. So while I couldn't get out of the church rehearsal, I was able to spontaneously have a whole day "off". We hung out, ate too much sugar (doughnuts and a dirt cake the little boys made), had a beer in the middle of the day with lunch, napped and played with the little kids left at home (the older two sadly left for school at the normal time.) It was glorious. And that evening, the eight of us went to my favorite resteraunt, Red, White and Brew for dinner. I love that place, but somehow only manage to make it there for my birthday. Oh, well, keeps it special. It was a wonderful day. It was especially amazing how mom and dad arrived on Sunday, everyone except me knew, including my neighbor, and somehow, they still managed to surprise me Wednesday morning. In hindsight, I saw the signs...Tony cleaning up, Eileen not calling me back the evening before (Ok, that actually happens quite a bit), Ginny making my hair appointment so it didn't interrupt the day...I'm glad I'm not so "mature" I can ruin a surprise by being suspicious.

Because I was turning 40, I asked my friend and neighbor Tricia to throw me a party. I love parties, but I tend to be the thrower, not the receiver. I figured I deserved one for this milestone. I postponed it until the end of April since my birthday fell during Lent this year. When you're Catholic, and most of your friends are Catholic, a party on a Friday night during Lent can be a little less than you're looking for in a party. So we waited until after Easter.

Tricia got my sisters involved. As part of my gift, Ginny, Eileen, my brother John and my parents through money into the pot to help pay for it. This allowed us to cater the party instead of making all the food ourselves. We went with Joe's Real BBQ from Gilbert, AZ. Having moved here from Alabama, Tony and I have been looking for good BBQ. Well, we hadn't been to this place before, but now it's my new favorite. We, of course, ordered too much food, but we kinda did it on purpose so we would have leftovers. Which we did, for a week, and I still have some in the freezer. We did pies instead of cake, because that's what I prefer, and Hey, it's MY birthday. I got my favorite, Lemon Meringue as well as a few others. We also had veggies and fruit and chips and enough beer, wine and vodka lemonade to serve the neighborhood. I'm going to have to throw another party just to get rid of leftovers! The most difficult thing to get rid of was the fruit/veggies. After all, the alcohol will keep, the meat will freeze, the desserts disappeared quickly (ha!). But fruits/veggies have to be eaten once they're cut, and eaten quickly. We did pretty well with the watermelon, grapes, and cantalope, but I was the only one who would eat the celery, and I'm afraid the peppers didn't make it.

Here is a picture of my sisters, Ginny, Eileen and Susannah with my friend and neighbor Tricia and her husband Ray. I had spent weeks preparing the backyard, overseeding the lawn, watering the heck out of it, throwing away toys that had been beaten to death by the sun and planting flowers with Alex. Here he is with some of his handiwork. I also revived the fountain in the front with a new pump/plug, hoping that everyone would ooh and ahh over the fountain and not notice that the grass in the front was dead, and my goodness the house needs painting! We rented tables and chairs for the back patio/yard and covered them with purple tablecloths. In the planning stages, we had messed around with the idea of an 80s theme, but in the end, decided to spend money on food/beverage instead of decorations and took advantage of post-Easter sales to decorate in Spring pastels. My neighbor's husband, Ray, who's in construction borrowed some lights from his work that we strung along the back fence all the way around so that the backyard once it got dark, was lit up nicely. It was truly beautiful, especially once my friends started arriving. My sister Susannah was able to fly out and join us, so it truly felt like a special occasion. Here is a picture of some church friends - Dan and Sue I know through Religious Education, Andy, his wife DeAnn, and Nancy I know through choir.

The best part of the party was that some friends of mine in a band volunteered to play for the occasion. They are some friends from church, including my old music director Jaime and his wife Kari, my friends Leon and Ed from church and Phil that I've only met once or twice. They play regularly at weddings, etc., but wanted a chance to get together just for fun, so we were blessed to have them come and grace us with their covers of pop music. It was amazing. They played while everyone ate, and after dinner, they played while everyone danced. It's so nice to see that giant concrete pad in the backyard get some good use. Bottom line, it was a great party. I really felt loved, from the attention showed me that night, to the help from my sisters and friends preparing for it. It was exactly what I wanted, and even better than I could've imagined. Happy birthday to me!

Here's a few extra pictures from the day after. Susannah with Lucy out in the backyard (Lucy had gone to a glam party for a friend's birthday.) Here she is with Florence, who took to her like a hen on a junebug. And here is Florence enjoying the balloons who may have lost their "float" but not their ability to entertain!

Happy Cranioversary Florence

2009-04-28T20:23:00.001-07:00

Florence had her one year check up this month with her neurosurgeon. She passed with flying colors of course. The doctors are going to watch one area of her forehead carefully to see if it continues to smooth out, but are otherwise pleased with her progress. They wouldn't do anything until she was 5 anyway, but I figure unless it's something seriously visable, we won't subject her to any more surgeries. Her scar is barely visable, and once she has some hair, it's not likely to show at all, I hope. It's hard to imagine that a year has already passed. Just one year ago, I was thinking of running away with her rather than allow them to take her from me. But she is doing so well, we have no regrets. Here she is with sister Lucy in their cutie matching sweaters.

Physically, she does just about everything the older kids do. She climbs on the couches, the outside playset (she bats my hands away when I try to help) and has even figured out how to drag the kid chairs over so she can reach things. Here she is on a playslide out in the backyard.

She talks all the time. You can't understand her, but it's very conversational and she is CLEARLY trying to communicate something to you. Most often in the shape of a question. She throws a mean tantrum when she doesn't get her way. I'm trying to stay on top of these. She's learned how to bite and scratch, and will even bite herself to make a point.

She loves balloons, and balls and baby dolls. She LOVES music. Very often I will catch her in with Charlie while he is practicing his violin with the taped accompaniment, just dancing and twirling and bouncing. It's adorable. I have videotape, I just have to figure out how to get it on here.

It's been an incredibly busy month with my birthday (the big 4-0), Alex's 4th birthday, Easter, and Charlie's first Communion. Stay tuned - I'm hoping to update and post pictures of all of them.

Almost 40....

2009-03-27T20:45:00.001-07:00

I'm a terrible blogger. I guess I keep waiting until I have some time to sit down and be creative. Pretty much, never. I finally finished a huge recital yesterday. Tuba. Somehow I've become the go to person for the low brass accompaniment in this town. You know what they say, though: "Find something no one else wants to do...." Anyhow, the recital went really well. This was a Masters Recital over at ASU. Previously, I've only done competitions and juries (well, one recital) at Mesa Community College, so this was like big leagues for me. I got called because no one else would play this piece. Truthfully, when I agreed to it, I thought I had already played it. Stupid, stupid...never agree to music over the phone, and never quote a price until you know what you're doing. I learn something new everytime. I did work really hard on it, and I feel like my chops returned, but since it's been so long since my days of 2-3 recitals a week, my nerves are not quite what they used to be. More of a wet pasta than the steel of a few years back. But it went well, I got many compliments, and already one of the teachers from MCC wants me to help him make a tape. Doors are opening...

Back in February, I threw a Mardi Gras Party for my MOMS group. This set off a string of Kings Cakes. King cake is actually a bread, so I got some good use out of my bread machine. I even hid the baby inside. I also found that it is such a southern tradition that even my friend from Georgia didn't know what it was. It's primarily a New Orleans thing, but since Mobile claims Mardi Gras as well, we knew about it in Alabama.

The kids are doing well. We're managing to fend off most of the winter illnesses. Except for a stupid stomach bug that keeps making the rounds in various extremes. Charlie's my carrier. He gave it to me and I was so bad off Tony had to take off work. Now Charlie's got it again, though it seems more mild. But after visiting my friend in the hospital with her baby who has RSV and pneumonia, I'll take our little "crappy" illnesses.

Charlie is doing very well in violin. He's getting good praise in orchestra too.He's so diligent about his practicing, and I love to hear him all the time. He's been funny about listening to me practice - "Why do you keep playing that one part over and over?" He usually just plays everything through and calls himself finished. He is doing well in karate as well. He got his green belt a few weeks back and even one two medals (2nd place) in a tournament last weekend. I was proud of him. I've started letting him walk to school by himself on occasion. He likes to play wall-ball with some buddies before school, so if he does all his chores and practice, I'll let him go a little bit early. Of course he has to pass the quiz before I let him out the door: "Do we talk to strangers? What if someone is looking for a puppy? What if they offer candy" I try to get creative, but he knows the right answers. I don't worry too much since it's only down the block and I'm ususally 4 minutes behind him. But I did cry that first day, but Tony said it was ok, he was old enough.

Lucy has been cleared by her doctor for all activities she wants after her broken arm incident. She is still lacking just a bit of flexibility in her elbow. Her Dr explained this is because her arm bone, in healing, filled in a divit that is naturally there to allow the arm to fully bend/extend. As she grows, the divit will return. Isn't that interesting?! It's this same divit that makes that area a common break in kids. Lucy has also turned 7 in the last few weeks (ha, month). She had a little birthday party with all her little girlfriends. They came over for "tea" and an afternoon of glamour with makeup, hairstyling, and fingernail polish. It was hysterical to see all these girlie girls together. Her favorite gift was from her daddy....a geniune ipod - yes, an older model bought off of Craigslist, but one with a screen that plays movies and all the Soundtracks to High School Musical movies.

Alexander is doing Kindermusik again. It's been a slow start, but now he actually goes to class with a few other kids without me. Florence and I hang out in the lobby until he's finished. It's so big boy of him. He's been so patient with me as I was preparing for that recital. He about knows every movie we own by heart, poor neglected thing. I would try and have a few outings. Here we are feeding the ducks at a nearby pond. Florence loved this to, but she seemed determined to find her way into the pond, so it wasn't as nice for me....much chasing and screaming....from both of us.

Florence is approaching her one year "cranioversary". It's hard to imagine that this time last year, I was afraid to put her down because I wanted to hold her as much as possible. And now, she is such a stinker, and so independant. She pulls chairs over to reach things, she is starting to say new words everyday, she knows many of her body parts, and OH, she loves to dance. She can't hear music without bouncing and twirling. Here's a pic of her getting ready for bath...I used a far away one so it's not obscene, but if you look over her shoulder, there's her papoo hanging from her dress. She's a funny girl. She loves making people laugh, and I can't help it when I watch her tiny dimpled butt run around the house.

So there we are. You probably won't hear from me again until after Easter since I'll be at church everyday that week. But by then I'll have made it over the hill. I'm planning on dinner with Ginny and Eileen and their husbands (and mine of course) that night, but I'm saving my big party for after Easter. Who wants to have a party when everyone's given up desserts, alcohol, etc.? I gave up dessert....the pounds should've been falling off of me as I usually have something every day. But no. I'm the only person who can have a 48 hour stomach bug and still not lose any weight. I give up!

Happy New Year and a little bit....

2009-02-05T11:26:00.001-08:00

January 28, 2009

Dear all,

I’ve been wanting to write a letter updating everyone for a while, but time is just not my friend. As it is, it’s almost February, some of my decorations are still sitting out, even if they’re not “displayed”. But since Dad’s letter writing of Christmas just came, ok, several days ago, I felt inspired again to write. My inspiration this morning comes from a book I’m reading called “The Hour I first believed” in which there are extremely detailed letters of a young girls’ visit to Mark Twain’s house. I realize that I’m reading fiction, but the amount of detail that went into that letter was impressing and amazing. It had its own chapter and contained so many elaborate details of venue, environment, food and dress, and it embarrasses me to think I will try and include enough info to be informative and yet, small enough not to clog up everyone’s email….

We had an extremely busy Christmas Eve. As usual, I played a great deal at church. I had told Mark (our director) that I would play every single mass on Christmas Eve if it meant I didn’t have to show up Christmas morning. He had already asked me and the kids to come to the 4:00 Children’s Liturgy, since he is new to this job and doesn’t have the Catholic School connection that Jaime had, he was short on kids for that service. We normally have this one outside, but for once, Phoenix weather didn’t comply and we had to plan to put our masses back inside. This meant splitting them in half since our sanctuary is not prepared to handle everyone who only comes to mass twice a year. I was glad to help, but I was disappointed that Charlie and Lucy’s first year in the children’s choir would be without me there to witness it. As it turned out, they delayed the start of the second mass so that people had to time to wander in to church, not find a seat there and cross back to the hall. That meant I got to accompany Charlie as he played “O Come Little Children” on the violin as prelude music. I was so proud I thought I was going to burst – he, of course, was really laid back about it, no big deal. Lucy was also feeling vulnerable because of her arm, so she accompanied me to the other service and sat next to me at the piano and sang. By the time I got home at 2:00 after midnight mass, Christmas was laid out, Santa had come and gone and everyone was asleep in bed.

But Christmas day was great – nowhere to be, no specific time to finish, no work – all in all, a great day. I joke that Tony and I did our part to keep the economy afloat. With all our talk of cutting back, including our substitution of ornament making and cookie baking with our friends and neighbors in lieu of exchanging gifts, the kids still had tons of gifts under the tree. I desperately tried to stay away from video games as the gift of choice, but Tony did find a creative way to give the gift of electronics: two sets of bongo drums and the video game that accompanies them. In this game, Charlie and Alex (or sometimes my neighbor Tricia,) compete to properly accompany a song on the video game by tapping the correct drum at the correct time according to a series of colored circles flashing on the screen. It’s fun, if not a little tiring, and certainly noisy. Even Florence likes to get in there and dance if there’s not a drum available for her. The boys also got some outside toys – a pogo stick for Charlie, and a “big boy” scooter for Alex. I have to say the pogo stick hasn’t gotten that much use, but a lot of that is my fear from more broken bones after Lucy’s accident. Lucy’s primary gifts were extremely girly – a Barbie head for her to fix hair, a kit for braiding, crimping, and beading extensions that you would then clip into hair, and her favorite, a pretend espresso machine so that she can serve coffee/hot chocolate to all her friends and family. The hair toys are sitting quietly waiting for her to get her cast off so that she can have both hands available, but she and Alex play “Starbucks” nearly every day. Florence didn’t care much about opening presents, but she did get a few things she likes to play with – her own cell phone and this magnet play set for the fridge that talks to her and makes animal sounds. I envisioned her playing happily with this while I prepared dinner in the evening, but mostly I just keep retrieving the parts out from under my feet and shutting down the stupid Old MacDonald song. My big gift was an I-Pod Touch. Tony had bought me, several years ago, a really nice 2G MP3 player that did music, photos, videos, etc. I enjoyed it and got great use out of it as Alex watched movies on it during my many OB visits when pregnant with Florence. Well, I helped my neighbor research ipods for her daughter’s birthday and was surprised by how they’d come down in price, so I asked for one for Christmas (8G, please). Well, I had given up since he told me he spent my ipod money on my driving school course I had to take to keep a ticket off our car insurance (you can’t pass even a street sweeper in a school zone!). He told me I couldn’t just go hot-rodding around town (16 mph in a minivan) without consequences. But he surprised me with the Ipod Touch (16G, yay!) and it can do everything – even check my email and get on the internet as long as I’m near a wi-fi. It’s so cool. In fact, it’s so cool, he bought himself one for his birthday…32G of course, because his has to be bigger and better. That, and he got a good deal on Craigslist.

Charlie has gotten to join the orchestra at his school this semester. It’s not exactly what I imagined for him – a place to make music with his peers and make new friends who had something in common besides wall ball and video games – pretty much, we get there at 7:30 in the a.m., I help the teacher tune everyone up and by the time he finished roll call, it’s 7:45 and they have 15 minutes before he dismisses them to class. Knowing this, it’s not surprising that he figured after only 6 months of private lessons, Charlie would belong at least in the intermediate class if not the advanced. He also continues with his karate twice a week. In school he is doing very well, except for handwriting. I waver back and forth about how important this is to me. On the one hand, every genius has notoriously bad handwriting; on the other, sometimes I don’t even grade his homework because I can’t tell what it says!

Lucy’s broken arm has hardly slowed her down. I have to keep reminding her that even though she feels better, running and monkey bars are out of the question. We took a hike on New Year’s Day and she had no trouble making it to the top of Hayden’s Butte despite the fact that I kept fussing at her to slow down and be careful. And despite the fact that I threatened her about the playground after we found sand in her first cast, she still comes home covered in it. She looks cute running around in her hot pink glittery cast, and it’s going to seem weird to see her without it after we get it off next week. Gosh, time has flown. We’ll still have to see how long it will be before she can return to normal activities, but I know gymnastics is off the table at least until the fall. Her birthday is coming up and despite the fact that she made out like a bandit at Christmas, it hasn’t stopped the begging for birthday plans. She lost one of her front teeth. It has really changed her face.

Alexander thinks that because Joe Leo has turned 4, that he must now be 4. After all, they were always the same age, right? He wonders why he hasn’t had a birthday party. But if we try and explain it’s later, he still asks, “you mean, right now?” – he just isn’t getting the whole calendar thing. He loves his scooter he got for Christmas and he is also getting good at driving the jeep (even with Florence buckled in) and he is also learning to ride Charlie’s old bike. It does have training wheels, but they are so off-kilter that half the time they don’t touch the ground because he doesn’t like how the leaning feels when they are. I figure if I get him outside everyday, I could definitely take them off by this summer. I think Lucy was only 4 ½ when she did it. He and I are still going to Kindermusik classes. It’s a lot of motion and dancing and rhythm repetition and playing on instruments. The only part I don’t like is the CDs that were part of our kit. Two CDs full of songs, some of which are ok, but most of which are sung by “trained” children who sound so unnatural, it’s creepy. There’s also all the synthesized music they attempted to make sound like real instruments, down to how they record several string instruments, making them just slightly out of tune with each other. And the sound effects…well, don’t get me started.

Florence finally started walking on Christmas day. We had seen the signs it was coming. She would let go of things here and there and take a few steps. Then that day, she just quit crawling. And when she’d fall, she’d get right back up. We were so happy. Of course, the few bonks she got were right on her forehead where her surgery was. But now she is pretty steady, learning to navigate stairs here and there where she meets them – even treating the step off the patio and the seams from grass to driveway as a step, getting down on all fours and putting one foot at a time on the new level. She loves to do what the other kids are doing, which drives them crazy. I’m constantly being asked to remove Florence from whatever blocks, legos, or games they are playing. Her favorite toy, besides Charlie, of course, is a pretend cell phone. And from the moment she learned to walk, she has paced the kitchen with the phone to her ear chattering away. She babbles all the time now. Other than Uh-oh, she still doesn’t really have discernible words, but her babble is extremely conversational with ups and downs, pointing and pauses so you can respond. It’s really amazing. She’s also really stubborn and totally understands the word no. She can throw a big time fit, but she’s still easily distractible, thank goodness. She also is currently healthy for the first time since Thanksgiving – it has really improved her nighttime sleeping – she goes from about 7 until about 4:30, when she’ll wake up to eat and then go back to bed. I finally put away the little crib in my room. She enjoys going to the nursery during church time and pretty much eats anything we give her. Tony and I are beginning to see the light at the end of the baby tunnel.

By now, you all know about Tony’s new car. The accident in early January totaled the Sentra, which wasn’t difficult given it had 160,000 miles and was 11 years old. The thing that put its value where it was were the new tires and the nice stereo I installed for his birthday last year. So USAA is “buying” it from us and we bought a really nice, almost new, Civic Hybrid. Tony’s first choice was something cool and fun, but after doing a little research, the MVD convinced him that if he bought a used car that already had an alternative fuel tag, they would transfer it to him so he could use the HOV lane to get to work. Well, in true government fashion, after being reassured by no less than 5 people that it would work out, when he went to do it, they wouldn’t let him. I expected him to turn around and trade it in for a VW Bug convertible he had his eye on, but he’s keeping it. We’re hoping that perhaps our new governor (because, as you know, Napolitano defected to DC) will find a way to expand the program or make it work for us. I even wrote her a letter. It’ll no doubt get lost in the shuffle with all the letters she is receiving on planned cuts to education funding, but I had to try. Maybe she’ll be happy to take on something she can actually solve to someone’s satisfaction. But in the meantime, we’ll have to be happy with our financial savings in gas mileage, as we watch gas prices climb back up. That and the fact that Tony is no longer commuting in a car destined to break down.

My projects lately included putting together a photo album for Tony’s birthday. I collected all the “professional” pictures in one album from our history as a family. It was so much fun to see how the kids have grown and to see how much they favor – those Horn genes run deep, I tell you. Alex kept looking at pictures of Charlie and wondering if that was him. I also dug up all our Christmas letters, so it was neat to read the highlights of each year too. My other projects include getting the house ready to host two gatherings this week. Tony and I will host our bi-monthly Marriage Encounter meeting on Tuesday and I will host a Mardi Gras theme party for my MOMS group on Friday. I’ve put pressure on myself to do extra dusting and cleaning, hanging curtains over the kids toy clutter “closet”, organize pictures that didn’t make it into the album into frames, put batteries in the clocks that are dead…you know, the stuff that doesn’t really matter if you have good food and plenty of wine. I’ve also been working in the yard. We planted winter grass in the front and now I’m trying to keep it from dying. I always love getting the yard together, but I have the worst time “maintaining” it. I planted flowers in the beds out back, but they died during the one freeze we had in January. There’s the back lawn which I deliberately allowed to go dormant for the winter; however, the weeds don’t know the meaning of the word dormant. They creep underneath the alley wall and are thriving. Even the weed killer I put down doesn’t seem to be helping. I should just put down Astroturf and plant fake flowers and be done with it.

Christmas loometh

2008-12-02T19:32:00.001-08:00

I can't believe it's December already. This year has just flown by.

Florence had her one year old checkup today. She "passed" with flying colors, though, bless her heart, she is still too small to face forward. She only weighed 18 1/2 pounds. It's not for lack of eating - she's been pigging out and especially enjoying the whole milk we're giving her now. Oh well, we are reluctant to give up the little carrier seat anyway. It's so convenient, especially when she falls asleep in the car.

We are trying to get ready for Christmas. I got some shopping done, but there's still so much to do. We don't even have our tree up yet. I keep telling the kids I am not decorating a dirty house, but that doesn't seem to inspire them to help me clean. We're all so busy between daily chores and committments that we can't seem to find time to do anything extra. Hopefully this weekend will find us decked in green and red and at least a few twinkle lights.

Happy Birthday Florence

2008-11-28T06:48:00.001-08:00

My baby girl is now one. This year has gone by so fast. Nothing makes time fly like a baby. We celebrated her birthday on Tuesday evening surrounded by extended family who are in town for Thanksgiving. Because it was a work day, we had it in the evening. She held up pretty good; however, she started breaking down right around the time we had cake. We went with an Elmo theme, not that she really cared - but she does recognize Elmo, so I got some Sesame trinkets to decorate her cake with and an Elmo pinata.

She continues to be a tiny peanut. At a Dr. appt last week, she weighed less than 18 1/2 pounds. Unless I can really fatten her up, she won't be able to face front in the car seat. We have another checkup this upcoming week, so we'll have another look. Truthfully, I'm reluctant to give up my pumpkin seat anyway. It's so convenient for if she falls asleep in the car or if she needs a place to be contained at church or Kindermusik. She isn't walking yet, but the last few days, she has really made progress with her balance, standing unaided and also making people walk her around holding her hands. No steps on her own yet, but it's just a matter of time. I have mixed feelings about this - on the one hand, I hate having to constantly clean her knees and hands because they get so dirty crawling around; on the other hand, I want her to be a baby as long as possible. Her only real word is "uh-oh" which she loves to say every time she drops her cup - repeatedly. She babbles constantly, but doesn't really use words for anything else. We're trying to teach her some sign language, but I can't remember much myself, so we've only done milk, bath, and grape. I think she does bath - it's hard to tell.

In other sibling news, Charlie's doing really well with violin. He's even going to learn a little song for the Children's Christmas Mass - talk about pressure...on me, that is. We really like his teacher - she is very enthusiastic and playful. At first, I thought this might not necessarily translate into a good teacher, but I really think she is doing a great job.

Lucy will be turning cartwheels for Tempe Parade of Lights again this year. Again, I don't really want to take the trouble to go, especially with so much family in town; however, last year we had such a good time, I know it will be fun. It was after marching around this parade last year that I went into labor with Florence...now we'll be taking her with us in person.

Alex is enjoying Kindermusik. We drive around listening to his CDs in the car...the overproduced, overarticulated silly children's songs with their incessant sound effects for EVERYTHING.

My parents, my brother and his wife, and my sister are all in town for Thanksgiving holiday. Through the week, we've been doing our normal stuff - eating at Moe's after church on Sunday, grocery shopping, gymnastics, karate, etc. We ventured out to a movie on Wednesday - Bolt - which was so cute. There were many laugh-out-loud moments, and the animation was, of course, Disney perfection.

Yesterday, we all gathered at Eileen's house to celebrate. There was tons of food, of course, and fortunately, the weather turned out gorgeous despite predictions of rain showers for the day. It was too muddy for the kids to play outside much, but Eileen had bought little crafts for them to do and somehow they occupied themselves nicely coloring placemats and glueing turkey crafts. Dad and the boys all watched the Dallas game, which we won, and then we all retired home for post-dinner snacks. After we got the kids to bed, Tony and I along with my brother and his wife watched Tropic Thunder, which I've really been wanting to see. It was hysterical, over the top offensive, and just plain funny.

Today, we're planning to head up to Rawhide - a country/western town just south of Phoenix. Hopefully the weather will hold out for us, it's suppose to. Then, hopefully this weekend, we will start decorating for Christmas. Everyone here really goes over the top to decorate for Christmas, I guess compensating for the lack of winter weather. Since Thanksgiving was late this year, we want to make sure and get our time in.

Sneaking into fall

2008-09-13T19:35:00.001-07:00

I have a small window where all but the baby are out, and I thought I’d try and update our blog and write a brief letter to update everyone. I always feel so guilty when all the letters come from dad, but the latest was when he took responsibility for chronicling our visit knowing that it was likely I wouldn’t do it – that was just embarrassing for me.

School has started – we’re approaching week 5, believe it or not. I breathe a huge sigh of relief at now only having two kids at home to care for, at the same time shedding a tear that the only two capable of real conversation or game playing have left. Every week, I have tried to fine tune our schedule so that we are not frantically trying to get somewhere on time all the time, but the bottom line is that with four kids each doing their own thing, until one of them learns to drive, my life is just going to be crazy. We are still easing our way into the school year, adding a new event each week…so far so good.

Charlie is in 3^rd grade this year. We celebrated his 9^th birthday at Ginny’s house – having an August birthday continues to be a bonus when you have a relative with a pool, and Ginny has been so generous to host us. She has even offered to invite some of his school friends, but at 9, inviting his friends would mean inviting their parents and between our family, Ginny’s family and Eileen’s family, we feel like he is properly celebrated without adding any extras. I made his birthday cake this year – yet another video game theme (third year running) though I returned to a homemade cake this year, inspired by Kathleen and her homemade petshop cake for Kinneely’s bday. I even made the frosting from scratch, though I had to then make Charlie his own cake since he can’t have butter or milk. I kept it simple, made it colorful and bought Pokemon figurines from Walmart to slap on the top. DONE! He continues to be addicted to video games, and I continue to be unable to control them. But for his birthday this year, I requested all board games. He loves the game of LIFE and will even shut himself up in his room (small pieces just begging for Florence to choke on) to play by himself. I like this game, though it is complicated enough that we have yet to play without the instructions. It’s teaching him about money, though some of the actual LIFE lessons are unrealistic: automatic pay raises, going to college earns you a higher salary, houses will automatically sell for higher than you paid unless you buy a mobile home (…ok, that one is realistic), and children contribute to your retirement fund. He expressed an interest in violin at the beginning of the summer, thanks in part to some neighbors who happen to play string instruments. I tried to talk him into viola, but he insisted on being in the “dime a dozen” category of instruments…well, if you don’t count pianists. Anyhow, I started him myself, drawing on my years of playing; however, I recognized my limitations to actually teach the instrument – not knowing what skills could be polished later on verses which ones needed to be perfected from the earliest days to prevent technical problems down the road. So we have been auditioning teachers. We have found two that are great, but now we are trying to decide which to make our permanent home with. In other Charlie news, he continues with karate. He will take his test for his green belt in October – this is the next step up from the orange belt he has now. It’s not as active as soccer or baseball (actually, we got tired of standing around waiting for someone to get a hit in that sport), but I love that it is inside (AIR CONDITIONING) and I’m hoping it will teach him how to control his body so he’s not just a bundle of spontaneously flailing limbs all the time. He will make his first communion and confirmation at Church this year – here in Phoenix, they’ve reinstated the whole “8 is the age of reason” thing – whoever decided this doesn’t know an 8 year old. The only way I could get him to sit still in church and not play with the baby is to take away video games for a week until he “earned it back” by paying attention in mass. We’re still working on the participation part. However, I’m constantly getting comments from the congregation on how great my kids are during mass – they know they’re mine since Tony sits in the front with them, and they all troop up to give me kisses during peace time. Charlie recently had a checkup with his ENT and he has recommended a visit to an allergist. We’ve been doing the nasal rinse and a daily Claritan, but it just isn’t helping and the ENT is concerned with some tissue swelling and growths inside his nose. So hopefully we will get some answers that will help my little sneezy, coughy boy.

Lucy is in first grade this year. She started to learn to read last year in Kindergarten, but has really crossed a line this year from sounding out words to reading sentences. I remember this from Charlie’s 1^st grade year. It’s like, one week they can’t read, the next week they can. She’s still slow, but every day she reads a book to Alex and he is minimally patient with this. We’ve started back to gymnastics. She is older and more experienced than most of the kids in her class, but I wanted her to start slow so she could get back into shape after taking the summer off. After the Olympics, she was bound and determined to become an Olympic gymnast; however, she is not the type to put in the work required, so we just are back to going for fun. She will, hopefully, move up to a more advanced class soon. She is fun to watch at school, such a social butterfly with a slightly bully edge. In other words, she holds hands with her little girlfriend on the playground, but mostly so she can yank her around where SHE wants to go. And the first week of school, I had to talk to her about being sensitive to others’ feelings when she and her friend took a “vote” about whether or not a new girl could join their group. Shouldn’t I have another few years before I have to deal with that? At home, she’s starting to do more around the house. She loves to wash dishes and she cooks her own eggs for breakfast. I try to give her some other cooking things to do if I think she can handle it, but she also is good at setting the table and pouring milk. Occasionally, she’s a good babysitter for Florence, but it depends on Florence’s mood. A lot of times, I just hear “I think Florence wants you, Mom”. She is begging for piano lessons, and I’m trying to figure out how to fit that into our schedule. It would be easier to pay someone, but I can’t see spending money to get someone else to do what I do. I was hoping to teach some this year, but there is just not a day free to do it. Maybe next year.

Alexander is my favorite little boy ever. Not that he doesn’t have his moments, he can throw a pout like no one I know, but overall he is the sweetest, most accommodating, easiest to get along with kid I’ve ever known. He is addicted to all things Spiderman. In fact, as we speak Tony is with the kids at Party City to see if the costumes are out yet because Alex just CAN’T WAIT until October to get his costume and mask. He likes to play games – “Will you play a game with me?” – like I could ever tell him no when he asks that. He likes Battleship…never mind he doesn’t know his letters or numbers. Last time we played, we made pictures of sailboats on the grid. He also is starting to get into computer games. Humongous Entertainment has two characters (Putt-Putt and Freddie Fish) that are geared towards his age group. The first go-round through the game, I help him, but after he’s played a few times, he can totally do those games himself. I love that when Florence is being difficult, or I need a shower or need to take care of a few chores around the house. He’s really starting to blossom socially. He used to be painfully shy, and he is still a little shy, but he’s starting to reach out to other kids and even calls them “my boyfriends”. I met a lady at school one morning who had a 3 year old with her and I told her I was going to try and bring Alex with me one morning to play with him. I told Alex about him, and one day he got up and got dressed to walk to school with me so he could meet “that boy”. Unfortunately, they haven’t connected yet, but I love that he’s looking forward to that. He will also start “church school” with the other kids this year. He’s really excited, mostly because he thinks he will get to have a Spiderman backpack, but also because it’s what big kids do. He has always been very articulate…not so much in the speech sense but how he can communicate his thoughts…and he says the funniest things. He loves to look at the fish at Walmart when we go shopping and I suggested that maybe Santa would bring him a tank this year. He says… “I don’t know, mom, maybe when I’m older”. When he was wanting to go golfing with his boyfriends, I said, “When JoeLeo was here, you kind of hid out in your room instead of playing with him” and he said “Sometimes I just need to go in here and think”. And he likes to try and articulate Florence’s thoughts as well: “I think Florence wants to get a drink” or “I think Florence likes me” and the never ending “I think Florence wants you, Mom”.

Florence, of course, is making the most progress. When you start out as a flimsy blob, there’s no way but up. At nine months, she is starting to pull up on things and she is crawling EVERYWHERE. She’s getting quick too. If she sees an open door to the outside or even worse, the laundry room, you can hear her little hands and knees slapping the floor as she puts her head down and tries to get there before you spot her. She has pretty much given up on baby food. Her favorite food is Spanish rice and spaghetti, though she doesn’t like to have it for every meal I found out. You know how it is, they eat something well, you give it to them for every meal? She does prefer to feed herself. She loves nectarines and peaches, but won’t eat a banana chunk if her life depended on it. She will eat pretty much any vegetable. This morning she had a waffle and some yogurt. We’re starting to work on signs with her – I’m trying to teach her “drink” and “all done”. She’s almost got the “all done” – well, when she’s finished, she swipes the entire meal off her tray to the floor. I guess the most important thing is that she is communicating. She is still nursing, but she’s getting bored with it in the daytime…unfortunately, this means we’re still up a lot at night. I’m finding it difficult to ignore her, which I know is the answer, but between the ear infections and the teething and the head surgery from way back, I’m having a hard time making her cry it out. She is going to be SO ROTTEN! Eileen gave me Jordan’s old crib and I now have it set up in Lucy’s room which I painted last weekend (ok, two weekends ago). Hopefully when we transition her into there, she’ll adjust to Lucy’s schedule of sleeping through the night (which could still use some improvement, frankly) instead of keeping Lucy up all night. We’ll have to see how it goes. I take some comfort in knowing that SOMEHOW I got my older kids to sleep through and that SOMEDAY she will too. She is definitely developing her personality. She is actually pretty good to play by herself for short stints and with Alexander. She loves our musical toys and the blocks and she takes great pleasure in destroying whatever someone else might be playing with. She appears to have a good sense of humor – she’s a very smiley baby. I try to take pictures of her, but whenever she sees the camera, she starts crawling quickly toward me – like she already knows she can see herself in the viewfinder after the flash. She loves the water – we’ve taken her swimming at Ginny’s as well as this cool pool that is down near Eileen that has a whirlpool, a kids area, a spray pad, and a lazy river (ok, she hates the lazy river).

Her scar is barely visible these days. You almost have to know to look for it. As for the shape of her head, most people can’t tell anything has happened to her. I still see her little bump on the side of her forehead (where they moved her ridge), but I believe it’s actually becoming smoother. As I spend time on my web support group site and relive it all through their surgeries, I can’t believe we ever went through that – but it’s been five months now.

We’re starting to feel the effects of the fading summer. The weather is noticeably cooler – not quite cool yet, but not in the 110+ level it was this summer. We all went hiking to the top of Hayden’s Butte a few weeks back, even Florence. Granted, she rode up in her stroller, but this was the first time she and Mom had been there.

Back to Business

2008-08-12T22:11:00.001-07:00

It's been so long since I've been here, Google didn't even remember me!!! We arrived back home from our month plus vacation last week and it's been a nonstop run towards getting ready for school. We had a wonderful time in Alabama and in Virginia. We got to see all our close friends and relatives and spend quality time with Tony's mom and my parents. My dad was home (on leave from his surgery) for most of our visit so that was a real treat.

We spent a little over a week in Alabama with Tony's family. We stayed with his mom and the cousins, Jackson and Caroline, came and stayed as well. Every year it gets easier - the kids slipped in together like they'd never been apart. We went to the movies, golfing, bowling, went to the McWane Center in B'ham, did a few chores around Gran's house and saw friends.

After that, we spent almost four weeks with Monica's mom and dad in Vienna VA. We went to museums, visited with her brother and sister that live in VA, went to see the Lion King at the Kennedy Center (totally worth it!!!), and even took a side trip up to CT to see Kathleen and all her kids. Lucy, Florence and I took a train up for Kinneely's bday and then drove down with her so that Rob wouldn't need to take time off to bring her. It was an adventure traveling down (in the RAIN!, complete with potty on the side of the highway), but the kids were so excited to be together, it hardly mattered we were stuck in the van. Mom took Charlie and Alexander up to a friend's (Elmer) home in NY to go fishing and they absolutely loved it. My mom says there is nothing like being with a child when they catch their first fish. Shamefully, I wouldn't know - all my kids have been fishing with her, but I have never been there. Now that I write this down, I feel a little guilty.

While in VA, I had a wonderful opportunity to meet up with some other craniokid families. 5 families met in Springfield, VA one Saturday for lunch. It was slightly insane, but beautiful to finally meet these people who have been my friends (over the internet) for the last several months since Florence's surgery. Florence was the only girl, but we thought it interesting that all babies present were metopic. Anyhow, it was fun to meet the other families with whom we will be linked forever because of the timing of our circumstances.

School started this week and while I miss my older kids (Charlie (3rd grade) and Lucy(1st)), I'm loving having only Alex and Florence to be with. Alexander is amazingly smart and so easy to be with. He listens to everything I say, but you have to be careful because he WILL repeat it back to later on. Lucy and Charlie are (sort of) glad to be back in school. They have good teachers and the perfect combination of new friends and old friends in their class. Grandma had taken them shopping for their back-to-school outfits and new lunchboxes, so they were ready to head in, complete with Sparta bags for backpacks. It was cute to watch the 1st graders on the "big kid" playground now that they had graduated from their Kindergarten area. You could easily spot them wandering around, awed at the size of the kids around them, searching for their peers in the midst of the giant aggressive upper level students. It didn't take them long to connect with their buddies, though. Charlie is in school in time for his birthday - tomorrow, as a matter a fact. It confuses me that I'm old enough to have a nine-year old son, in my heart, I'm still a child myself. But time marches on. We are enjoying watching the olympics on TV. Lucy loves the gymnastics since that's her current interest.

Florence officially started crawling today. Of course, she will only do it if you bribe her with small chokables out of her reach so she has to crawl. And when I say she has begun crawling, I mean, crawling forward....she's been crawling backwards for a few weeks. I have pulled her out from under couches, out of corners, from behind bookcases.... We had an appointment with her NS last week and she got a clean bill of health. Her scar is practically invisible and unless you look at her really closely, you can't tell she's been through anything. She is extremely alert and doesn't miss a thing. She is eating baby food very well and even starting to take on table food such as bites of chicken and fruit. She loves her siblings - loves all children really. She is still not sleeping through the night, but I haven't been pushing this too hard, so I'm probably to blame. But it's hard for me to push her in any way...After all, she is my last baby.

Summer in the desert

2008-06-20T08:54:00.001-07:00

Well, we're about to head East for the month of July. It's just too hot here. We're blessed to have family to escape to. Though some of that time will be in Alabama where I don't think it's going to be that much cooler - not to mention the humidity factor.

We went back to the Plastic Surgeon to get our postop appointment with him. He rubbed her head all over, double checked a few milestons and gave her the ok. We had been concerned about a small bump on her forehead that was sticking out. It looked like a mosquito bite. He assured us that it was just a leftover stitch from her surgery and that it would dissolve soon. In fact, it was so quick, I didn't even really get a chance to take a good picture of it. As the swelling continues to come down, more bumps and unevenness show up, but he reassured us that it would all even out over time. Here's a before/after shot of her head...unfortunately, my photoshop skills aren't great enough to get rid of the shadow in the after. But you can see that the triangulation/egg shape is pretty much gone. You can also see that the scar is just barely visable. Yay!

Florence is continuing to heal and is growing and developing right on schedule. She is sitting up now - it's amazing, one day she couldn't do it, the next day she could. We went to Kiddie Kandids the Friday before Father's Day pictures, and they asked if she could sit. I said "barely" but she is upright in all her shots, and from there it was no turning back! Now she'll actually sit in the middle of the floor and play with toys or watch tv for 15-20 minutes alone before she starts to get tired or lonely. She is still inclined to topple - in the picture with the legos, you can see a little redness over her right eye.

We had started baby food over Memorial Day weekend. We noticed some intolerance to the rice cereal, so we kept taking a break and starting up again. Eventually we just moved on all together to other types of baby food. She started out ok, but then started refusing food all together. This, coupled with a temperature and a swollen fontanel (the soft spot) led me to take her to the Doctor. It turns out that she had an ear infection. She's already shown reactions to amoxicillan so we went to Zithromax. She was ok for this until about 2 days in when she broke out in a rash all over her trunk in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, we happened to be at the Dr. for her 6 month checkup, so she wrote us another script. She also told us to lay off the food until she was totally feeling better. I'm bummed for her, but in a way it was just a useless exercise since she wasn't really eating. Hopefully she'll do better next time we try. She is also cutting her bottom teeth - the poor peanut can't catch a break. By the way, when we called the Neurosurgeon with concern over her swollen fontanel, the nurse told us that all babies' fontanels swell when they are sick, but that most parents don't pay such close attention to changes in their babies' heads.

In other news - I do have three other children, and no other website - the summer is flying by. Charlie has started violin lessons - I am teaching him and he seems to have a real knack for it. I'm hoping to teach some piano lessons in the fall in order to afford a real teacher for him. Lucy has been continuing her gymnastics - class attendance is small, so it is almost like private lessons, however, I really regret not putting her in camp. Maybe next year. Alexander is getting so grownup I can't stand it. I'm hoping to find an activity for him in the fall - something with balls, no doubt, so that his only outlet won't be riding in the car to the others' lessons. He also has a really musical ear, but I think he is still too young for any musical training. We've been hanging out quite a bit with our neighbor friends, though they just left for Montana for three weeks, so we'll be on our own for the remaining 10 days until we leave. We're also trying to organize the house a bit - get rid of clothes that don't fit (bye, bye maternity clothes!!!! finally!!), make room in Lucy's room for Florence (she's still sleeping in my room), we brought the arcade that Tony built in from the garage - it got too hot to play out there. Most days I don't feel we accomplish anything great, but the days disappear just the same. We're really looking forward to our trip out of town and will probably start packing soon.

Oh - and we did get fantastic news about my dad's prostate cancer. After surgery, they biopsied some lymph nodes to make sure it hadn't spread and he is completely clear. So while the recovery is tough, it's wonderful to know that he has no chance of getting prostate cancer again. He and my mom seem to be getting on well given that he is now home 24/7 and probably a little frustrated with being unable to work. Mom is busying herself with home improvements and dad is absorbing probably a book a day and catching up on movies.

2008-05-29T08:23:00.001-07:00

Wow. It's been nearly a month since I wrote last. Now, the kids are out of school and we're trying to kickstart our summer schedule so it won't all be filled with video games and wandering around saying "I'm bored". Florence took her first hike up Hole-in-the-Rock. I did the climbing, of course, while she rode in the Baby Bjorn, but I think she enjoyed the view. She has also started eating "real food" - and by that I mean, rice cereal. She acted as if she'd been waiting for it her whole life. She gagged a few times, but otherwise really seemed to manage to get the food to the back of her mouth and down her throat with little trouble. We'll starting adding bananas today.

Florence goes back to the plastic surgeon next week for a checkup. She really is looking good. The swelling continues to go down and now you can start to see the shape of her forehead. If you look closely, you can see a piece of "hardware" sticking out in the middle of her right side. There's also a slight ridge - I'll feel better once the Doctor has a look at her. You know, if God gives you a bumpy head, it's easy to accept. But if you pay big money for one, it's another story alltogether!! Her eyes still look a little puffy - it's so hard to know if this is how she's going to look or if she will continue to change.

We continue to make plans for our trip back east for the summer. We leave for Alabama on July 2 to see dad's family and then up to DC to spend time with mom's family. My dad has surgery on June 4 for prostate cancer, so my mom wanted him to have a good six weeks of recovery before we showed up with all the kids in tow. We're praying hard for my dad's surgery - we take a small bit of comfort in knowing he really doesn't have a choice. Please keep us in your prayers.

3 weeks

2008-05-01T13:39:00.001-07:00

To look at Florence, you can hardly tell anything has happened. I had bought some cute little headbands when I envisioned I would be hiding a serious scar until her hair came in around age 2. However, you really have to stare at her to see anything. Her hair is already starting to grow in - she had stubble where they shaved her for the surgery. The swelling continues to go down, though it's hard to tell that there's really any left - only those that know her the best can still see it (at least I hope that it's swelling - I would hate for her grandfather to remark on her "basketball head" forever). She does occasionally have crying jags where I wonder if she has any pain left, but I'm pretty sure she is also teething, so it might be that. Of course, I still worry that everything is ok in there, and I get nervous as she works on sitting up or when she has floor playtime and older brother runs toys and small furniture over her. But I suppose this worry is normal even for a baby that hasn't had major surgery.

Clean bill of health

2008-04-25T08:45:00.001-07:00

Here she is with her big brother Charlie. We went to the Doctor yesterday, two weeks plus a day after the surgery. There is still a little swelling to go down, but otherwise, we are starting to really see what she is going to look like for the rest of her life. They took out her 52 staples and gave her a clean bill of health. She cried while they removed the staples, but was fine right after. Here are some close up pics of her staples, and her with her nurses Mary and Joyce.
We've been given the ok for summer travel and said that she is out of the woods unless I drop her on her head or something. She is a happy baby with lots of laughing and smiling, and we are so happy to be this far out from the surgery. Here she is with Dr. Moss, her neurosurgeon.

13 days

2008-04-21T14:28:00.001-07:00

Florence is still doing really well. It's been one week since our ER trip, and she's run no fever or showed any signs of anything being wrong. Friday evening, we went to my sister's for a birthday party and all her nurse friends were there. They kept commenting on how pink she looked (as opposed to pale and anemic) and how good her incision looked. That made me feel better as I'm still a little inclined to believe the worst about anything. Her swelling continues to go down and while she still has some bruising on her head, her eyes look normal. She has started doing this funny thing with her mouth where she sucks in her bottom lip when she smiles. This little trick has showed up about the same time as her recovery, but the timing is most likely coincidental. Anyhow, it makes her smile sweet and shy, especially with her eyes being still a little heavy lidded. She is good natured most of the time, though her temper continues to rear its ugly head in the evening. We've been receiving meals from our Marriage Encounter group which means that I only have to feed the brood rather than try to prepare a meal during the "whine and dine" hour. My neighbor and her daughter come over often to make sure I get a break from holding her all the time - I'm still not inclined to let her fuss it out - she is going to be SO rotten when this is over. My mom left Saturday so I'm back to doing my own chores and entertaining the toddler during the day. I'm so grateful that she was willing and able to come as long as she did, not everyone has that. We are incredibly blessed with so many people coming to help us out, really.

We're starting to venture out of the house a bit - going to the b'day party, going to church, today we took Alex to the park with his cousins and my sister. She's doing great and probably happy to get a change of scenery too. We go on Thursday to take out the staples - I'll feel good to get reassurance from the doctor that everything is as it should be.

9 days later

2008-04-17T16:11:00.001-07:00

Things are improving slowly but surely. Her eyes are really starting to look open now and I'm sort of pushing her back into her old schedule. She is sleeping really well at night. She is a terrible napper, but she was that way before the surgery. She hasn't been running a fever since we came home from the hospital the second time so that's good. She also hasn't seemed to need the Tylenol either, though we're not deliberately denying it. I'm beginning to see my beautiful baby girl again, though there is no denying that even once the swelling is completely gone, she will look different. That is what we paid the big bucks for. I look back at the before pictures and I feel a little sad at the cutie-patootie we left behind.

One week mark

2008-04-16T17:03:00.001-07:00

I missed a few days because she had to go back to the hospital. She began running a fever Monday morning and they sent us to the ER. When we got there, the blood tests showed that her white blood cell count was high and her red blood count was really low. They checked us back into the PICU and gave her a transfusion and IV antibiotics. Fortunately they were able to find some of the donor directed blood left over from last week. Now, she has my sister's blood in her - they are forever linked. Even though they ran many tests, they never found a reason for her elevated blood levels and after one night and the full day Tuesday, they discharged us again with instructions to watch her closely and come back if we felt like she needed to. But so far, she has no more fever and is doing very well. We are still trying to get back to a normal schedule (she was up a few extra times during the night), but she is eating much better and I have confidence we are really on the mend now. My mom is still here caring for the other kids, a real Godsend. We have until Saturday to rest and recover before she goes home. Her eyes are both open now, though there is still some swelling and bruising . Her scar is healing nicely and we will go to get staples out next week. I'll post pictures soon - our internet is out and I'm borrowing a neighbor's computer just to update everyone.

Day 5 - back to normal?

2008-04-13T21:12:00.001-07:00

I've heard so much about babies taking a long time to readjust but Florence is really doing so well. The only thing is that whenever she gets really fussy, we have to wonder if she is in pain. Her eating is not quite back to normal, but she is doing pretty well. Her daytime sleeping is fitful, but truthfully, she was never a good napper. Last night went pretty well. As long as we keep her Tylenol current, she really doesn't seem to complain much. She likes to play with her noisy toys - the ones that make crinkly or squeaky sounds. The swelling is continuing to go down. The bottom of her face, from the nose down, looks almost normal. Tonight, her left eye is opening up a crack. When we noticed and got all excited, she actually laughed at us. As I sit here typing, she is talking sweetly to her stuffed octopus. It's so good to see her returning to normal. We go back to the doctor a week from Tuesday to get our staples out. Hopefully by then all the swelling will be gone.

Day 4 - Going Home

2008-04-13T20:58:00.001-07:00

We survived the night. Our 6 month old roommate moved out at some point during the night, and because they needed the space, they were in there cleaning at 6:00 a.m. Yuck. Florence had a good night, waking up only to eat and doing well. I'm buckling down for another day and night in the semi-private room. The nurse brought us a music playing mobile for Florence. She couldn't see the twirling birds because her eyes are still closed, but the music was sweet and we both appreciated it. She even smiled at me a few times. I called my mom to bring me a few things, and Tony brought them to us. He sat with Florence while I ran to take a shower. When I came back, Dr. Moss had come by and said that Florence looked so good, we could go home today if we wanted. He said it was up to me and how comfortable I felt about cleaning her incision and the fact that her eyes weren't open, but he didn't have to ask me twice. Of course I was nervous, but really, I thought we'd be fine and we lived close enough to come back if we absolutely had to. So they cleaned her incision for us one last time, removed her central line and all the other monitors and sent us on our way.

I called my mom at home to get her to explain to the kids what she was going to look like. When we got there, I offered them one chance to wash their hands really well and gently touch her staples in case they were curious, but they declined. They did wonder if they had ever had such a surgery or staples in their head. It felt so good to be home and absolutely amazing to sleep in my own bed!!!

Surgery - Day 3

2008-04-13T20:49:00.001-07:00

Friday morning. Just when I think her head couldn't possibly get any bigger. We got visits from our neighbor Tricia again as well as Aunt Eileen. The doctor says that we're well enough to move to the regular floor from the PICU as soon as she has two more doses of lasix (sp?) which they are giving to help reduce the swelling. We're sad to be leaving the personal care and private rooms of the ICU, but relieved that she is doing well enough to no longer need that kind of care. Her eyes are still swollen shut, but she is eating well and just getting Tylenol for pain control. They removed her catheter and her arterial line (in her wrist) today. That left the central line and the O2 monitor on her toe. Oh, and all the stickies that are monitoring her breathing and heart rate. Those were such a pain, beeping the machine every time I picked her up. We didn't move until around 8:00 that night. We moved into a semi-private room with just another 6 month old baby ( no parents with her) and we were so tired. The chair pulled out into a "bed" and that's where I closed my eyes...calling it sleeping would be pushing it. But Florence is doing fantastic.

Surgery - Day 2

2008-04-13T20:33:00.001-07:00

We had a decent night. I gave up trying to nurse her and just pumped bottles for her. She did pretty well - she was too drugged to try and resist. Whenever she got too fussy, we gave her half a dose of morphine and she would quiet right down. We spent the day trying to eat - she pretty much gave up on the bottle by about lunchtime, but once the nurses told me I could hold her, I figured I could nurse her again - and she was happy to do that. Our neighbor came by to visit, followed by her Aunt Ginny. At this point, she was really beginning to swell. I had seen many pictures of other children so I was aware of the swelling that was going to come, but since I didn't know what these children looked like beforehand, there was no preparation for how I lost her in all of that. I almost felt a little relief when she cried because it was the only part of her I really recognized. She slept alot and we started using Tylenol for pain relief. Her last dose of morphine was at noon this day.

Surgery - Day 1

2008-04-13T15:28:00.001-07:00

Florence's surgery was April 9, 2008. We did pre-op labs the day before which basically included a history and a blood draw. Then we showed up around 11:30 on April 9 to begin our process. After checking in, we met with the anesthesiologist and the neurosurgeon. Our surgery was scheduled for 1:30, but they wound up not even taking her back until about this time. This made our wait difficult since she had not eaten since 9:30 that morning. She did sleep a little while waiting, but also fussed at us when we didn't offer anything to eat. My husband, Tony, was fabulous with her, rocking her to sleep. When it was time to go back, around 1:30, we carried her to the operating room doors, and at that point, they took her from us. She was actually smiling and happy and went willingly with them. Tony and I walked the other way to the waiting room. I cried a little, but actually felt pretty at peace about the whole thing. We were able to kill some time trying to figure out where I could pump and also find some lunch. They came to tell us at 3:00 that they were beginning the surgery. Our nurse told us that she would come to update us at 4:00, but not to panic if she didn't. After lunch, Tony did some work on his laptop while I listened to music and read through a prayer book my sister had made especially for me and this day. I even managed to take a small nap. We watched 4:00 come and go, but I told myself that they were probably just finishing up and figured they'd be able to pass that news on shortly. Sure enough, but 5:00, both Dr. Joganic (ps) and Dr. Moss (ns) came out and told us she was finished. They escorted me back to her room while Tony packed up our stuff. She was taken to the PICU where she would do her recovery. Here we were introduced to some of the daytime staff and nurses. I watched from the door while they got her connected to everything. She looked positively normal except for being asleep with a green turban wrapped around her head. After removing the turban, we could see her incision with about 50 staples from ear to ear. She also had the most round smooth forehead - the beak was gone. There was almost no swelling at this point, and when she woke up you could see her beautiful eyes. She didn't seem to be in much pain, but they were keeping the morphine pretty steady for that first night. After she woke up, we were able to feed her some pedialyte from a bottle - a miracle since the previous week she had been refusing the bottle. I did try and nurse her by leaning into the bed; however, it was difficult for her to get a good latch and it was extremely hard on my back to lean over her. So I pumped milk for her and as long as she was "drugged", she seemed content to get her nourishment this way. My sister Eileen, who happens to be a PICU nurse at Phoenix Children's came by to make sure that I was comfortably settled in. She didn't really need to worry - all the nurses there were doing a fantastic job - but it was wonderful to have her there to make sure I had everything I needed and that I felt comfortable asking for whatever I needed. We felt greatly relieved to be on the other side of the surgery, even though we knew we had a long road ahead of us, we thought the worst was over. Everything was so good, Tony actually left to take Charlie to karate that evening, though he did come back and check on me later. Our room had a pullout couch where I would spend the night and the Family Center of the hospital had showers and a kitchen area where we could get coffee or use the fridge, a microwave, etc. We had a phone, a TV with a DVD/VCR player and even a CD player. We were set up pretty well and ready to face the first night.