Never a dull moment...

Mom, Grant and I made it safely to Casper and Bryn is enjoying Idaho but we had some adventures along the way!

We had an interesting beginning of the trip. Grants baptism on Sunday was great and Jim made it through without crying like a schoolgirl (as Aaron would say). We got on the road around 2:45 and were doing well until we got caught up in the the north end of a really bad storm somewhere east of Hays, Kansas. There were ominous dark clouds, pouring rain, a little bit of hail, tornadoes in neighboring counties and warnings from the radio stations to get off of I-70. Of course there were no exits for miles and when we finally got to a gas station we got to hang out with about 40 of our new best friends to wait out the storm. Fun stuff. Thank goodness the worst of it stayed to the south and after pulling Aaron and John off of the golf course to check the weather and help us figure out whether we could continue on toward Denver we kept on driving. And then around 11 pm both Grant and Bryn started crying. It's always fun to be in a car with screaming kids.

The next debacle came in the form of me forgetting the medical release I had so responsibly printed, filled out and gotten notarized to send with Bryn. So I dragged Mom, Grant, Bryn, Cheryl and Nicole (who surprised us at the airport to meet us for lunch) around the airport to find a notary to make official the letter I wrote up in the back of some printed Mapquest directions. I guess it worked in the end.

We are having a good time in Casper (Grant has been amazingly good) and Bryn is living it up in Boise - she had already been to the park, McDonald's, horseback riding and talked Grandpa and Nana into a game of go fish within the first 24 hours of arriving!

The last of the good news is that the grades and coursework for my class has been restored through the 11th of April and the rest should be back tomorrow - hallelujah! It sounds like the entire server will have to be taken down to get the rest, but tech support has promised not to tell anyone it is my fault that they can't access stuff for a while! I am relieved as I think I have already perturbed enough people in this process!

Too cute for words (I think so anyway!)

Future class of 2020 grad!

Quick update

It has been a crazy busy week and is not going to slow down anytime soon as Grant is getting baptized tomorrow (by his Grandpa - pretty cool, huh?) and then my mom, Bryn, Grant and I are leaving to drive to Denver where we will drop Bryn off at the airport so she can meet up with Nana and spend a week in Idaho. The rest of us will head up to Casper to see my grandparents and pick Bryn up in Denver on the way back home.

Highlights from this week included:

*Bryn graduating from kindergarten

*Grants two month check up - he weighs ten pounds!

*going to the rodeo last night

*Aaron and I going to upgrade our cell phones and both ending up with Blackberries...now I can get online on my phone!

*getting a whole pile of books from the library to read

*getting our tickets in the mail for Mickey's Halloween Party and swimming with dolphins at Discovery Cove for our October Disney trip

*getting my paycheck in the mail even though I STILL don't have grades for my class

Book Review - What's in a Name challenge

I have finished my book for the First name category for this challenge and I am still kind of on the fence about the book.

My choice was The Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. It is the story of a boy from the Dominican Republic who doesn't quite fit in - a "nerd". I felt that this book was going over my head and I was missing things (probably due to the fact that there was quite a bit of Spanish slang that I didn't take the time to look up and find out what they were talking about). That being said, I loved the writing style of this author. The book was kind of crass in parts but written as if the author was having a conversation and with a dry sense of humor. The character development was great and I actually felt as if I could relate to the entire family and what it means to be from the Dominican Republic. Also included were quite a few footnotes about DR history - this was fascinating to me.

Without giving away the ending of the book (although the title gives an idea of what is coming) I will say this book is about human struggles, both self-imposed and those brought into the characters lives from outside forces.

All in all, I did enjoy the book - it was just a bit more intellectual (and a bit more intense) than the Janet Evanovich I have been reading lately. Maybe it was sleep deprivation (blame it on the 2 month old) or maybe it was just over my head.

Happy day

It is shaping up to be a great day.

The files for my class can be recovered. It may take a couple of days because the main tech support guy is at a conference, but it is possible to get it all back. That is what I have been told anyway - I'll feel better once I can see all the grades again!

My doctor's office called and this time my Pap came back normal. Hooray! I'll have to go back in six months to get checked again, but so far those nasty cells seem to be gone.

Grant and Elmer and I took a walk this morning in the lovely weather. It is somewhere in the 70's and feels just perfect out. It is so nice to finally have some decent weather, although it is getting hot in the afternoons. It looks like we skipped right over spring and are headed quickly for summer.

Now if I can just get a nap in the day will be just about perfect!

Panic

I just managed to delete all of my students grades and exams from one of my online classes before I got the final grades done...I am hoping the adrenaline rush I have from panicking doesn't kill me before I have a chance to find out if I have done irreparable damage.

It has been a pretty quiet weekend so far. Girl's night out was cancelled last night and today we all went to Bryn's last soccer game, took a nap and washed the dog. And then I deleted my student's work - I had to throw a little extra excitement in there.

Grant has gone up a size in clothes - he is now in 3 month sizes. Crazy...I can't believe how fast these 7 weeks have gone.

I am off to bed - hopefully I won't have too many nightmares about computers and grades.

Pictures of my babies

So here are the promised pictures...

This picture is from last month, but I had to post it anyway since I just love it!


Grant and his great-grandmother


Bryn up a tree!


Grant - 7 weeks old


Smile!

Little annoyances and little joys

Not having running water (yet another side effect of the construction related to widening the street we live on - we already have not been able to get in and out of our driveway) and finding an old dried up puddle of Elmer pee on the area rug (which I can't clean b/c I have no running water) and students who want to raise their "F" to an "A" in the last few days of class are ranking up there as little annoyances for the day.

Having a sweet and happy baby, finally getting my hair cut yesterday after 6 months (! - how did that happen?!?!), watching Bryn crawl the entire length of the three-legged race course on field day on Monday and seeing the sun shine are some of the little joys making up my day so far.

And there will be some new pics of baby Grant posted later!

Mother's Day thoughts and other stuff

Mother's Day is kind of like Valentine's Day - great if you have a reason to celebrate it and painful if you don't have a reason to. Ours will likely be low key and involve eating out (because I use any excuse I can to do that). I do feel fortunate that this year I have two babies to celebrate being a mom to. And I got a wonderful watercolor portrait of myself from Bryn with a message on the top that says "Dear Mom, I love you! You are so beautiful! Thank you for loving me! God made you Great! Happy Mother's Day!" Grant will likely either pee or spit up on me. What more could a mother ask for?

We had some friends over tonight and had a house full of people. Elmer didn't eat any of the children so it was a good night.

Bryn had another soccer game today and a mother made a spectacle of herself by running out onto the field during the game and grabbing some kid that had pushed her kid and forced him to apologize to her kid. Can you say "helicopter parent"? It would have been one thing if the kid had pushed him down and kicked him in the head, but it is a bunch of six year olds in the heat of the moment during the game. Aaron has threatened to disown me if i ever try something like that...

I have spent a lot of time online trying to figure out which bottles and sippy cups are BPA free to avoid putting toxic substances in my kids. Sometimes I feel like I am totally over reacting and then I feel like I should at least do what I can to keep all these crazy chemicals out of our bodies. It seems like a losing battle.

On a brighter note, Aaron's mom is continuing to have a great recovery from her surgery. I think she may start training for a marathon before too long!

Good news...

regarding Aaron's moms hip replacement surgery. Sherry came through the surgery just fine and it sounds like she should be better than new in no time. We headed to Manhattan today after Bryn's zoo field trip for a visit and she was a little nauseated but is pretty darn chipper for having had major surgery this morning!

Grant has his first cold (it seems I passed it on to him - good mommy, huh?) and is snorting and snuffling and spitting green gunk. He is still eating well and doesn't have a fever so we are just riding it out. We did get to stop at Target on the way to Manhattan today to get some extra burp cloths and wipes after an extra large spit in the car. Fun times.

We have a busy weekend coming up so I am planning to lay low for the rest of the week. I have my 6 week post partum check up tomorrow. I can't believe it has already been 6 weeks. Time goes so fast...

Good times

It's been a busy few days, but I have gotten to do lots of fun stuff!

Aaron and I went to the Billy Joel musical "Movin' Out" on Thursday night. It was basically just dancing and a lot of Billy Joel songs which was great with me. Aaron was not as impressed, but it was nice to have a night out!

On Friday I had a baby shower to go to and got to go out for a drink with Stephanie and Monica beforehand. And we have a girl's night planned in a couple of weeks - fun!

Yesterday I went a scrapbooked all day and actually got some of Grant's scrapbook done. I have no hope of keeping up with it, but at least it is started!

Gotta run and feed the fussy baby!