Home Sweet Home

It's past my bedtime again, but I needed to quickly log on and share that while we had a wonderful weekend visiting not one but both sets of grandparents, it is again so good to be home. Just walking in the door renewed my energy and spirits after a long car ride home today. And I'm so grateful that I feel that way (it wasn't always true in my life).

Our long weekend began Thursday when we headed up to Cumberland to visit my parents and spend some time on the lake. We were also blessed to be able to see Rebbecca, Charlotte, Ahnika, Cully, and Ellen. As usual I have lots of pics and Flip video to process ... maybe next weekend. I do have just a few tubing pics that Grandpa Don took that we managed to upload to Picasa Web albums before we left Cumberland so I could access them from home.





We also spent time swimming... (Tami with Nessa and Rebbecca)


While scanning the web album, Shawn saw this nice picture of us on the tube, but when looking closely I realized this was NOT from this weekend (earlier this summer or last year?). These are the errors that happen when the camera doesn't have an accurate digital date. :-)



It was a gorgeous weekend though!!!

Friday evening we left for Walker, and we barely made it there before Saturday morning appeared! We did spend awhile in Duluth as we stopped at their food co-op and enjoyed shopping there a bit too much apparently because we were there quite awhile. Some day we have to arrive in Walker at a normal time again. :-)

Saturday Megan and I explored downtown Walker, and Sunday Shawn, Megan and I managed to sneak off to a movie while Nessa napped at Grandma and Grandpas. Of course there was also much relaxing, and Megan did manage to finish her book before the weekend ended and school started.

In other news -- the drive was uneventful other than Nessa's screams when she wanted a neck pillow like mom's (thank you Jan -- it worked wonderfully), and when the portable DVD player broke ... we did get Nessa a similar pillow at a Wal mart along the way, but the DVD player may still be broken. We did miss our van several times along the way (we were in the rental; a Camry), and we appreciated all of Megan's help with Nessa in the back seat!!!! We are so thankful that this was the extent of our challenges on the way home.

We're trying to get geared up for the fall/school year schedule this week. I'm not really ready and unlike many moms I really wasn't ready for school to start, but it is so we adjust. Megan starts 5th grade tomorrow! Nessa starts preschool Sunday school this Sunday, and it will be our only year with both Megan and Nessa in Sunday school.

I have a week scheduled full of physical therapy, chiropractic, and massage appointments to help with my neck injury. I'm also off of yoga for at least another week. :-( And I have way more than a lot of work to do, so I'll have to find other ways to de-stress ... like prayer and looking around at the wonderful family I'm blessed with!

Happy Fall and blessings to all --

A whole lot of Olympics watching going on ... (quick updates)

I want to take a few minutes to let you all know we're still here just in case my plan for some blogging during the Olympics doesn't quite work out since multi-tasking during swimming and gymnastics this past week certainly hasn't worked. :-)

Where has this month gone!?! (OK, it's not over yet)

• August 2nd: Tami's Birthday :-) Yes, the month started out delightfully as I was treated to a very lazy Saturday from sleeping in to making things in the kitchen with my new blender and cookbooks. There are pictures of me yet to uploaded smiling with my new "cook" books (or uncook books as Shawn calls them since most of them are raw food books). That is exactly what I wanted to get my year off to a great start now that I'm 37. Much of my spare time (?!) this month has been spent reading those cookbooks as well as experimenting with raw recipes beyond Green Smoothies. Most of the time I've felt great in comparison to much of the last few years (chronic fatigue/allergies/Celiac symptoms/low thyroid function fibromylagia symptoms/cadida-related symptoms), but there have also been some days of detox symptoms as my body heals. The detox days encourage me even more than the days I feel great because it means my body really is healing. This post isn't all about that so I'll stop here -- but if you want a less biased opinion just ask Shawn about how he fells about having "his Tami" back.

• August 7th -- Our Anniversary! :-) There are photos of my wonderful flowers -- those gorgeous red, yellow and orange roses like we had at our Wedding. Shawn got extra bonus points for not only sending the flowers to work, but then stopping buy and picking them up for me when I ended up not going into the office that day because Megan was sick so I worked from home after returning from the clinic (no strep this time). We went out on the weekend for a combination birthday/anniversary dinner and a movie so we spent the day just appreciating the every-day wonderfulness of our marriage and our family. It has been 4 wonderful year, and my only hope and prayer is that it is only the beginning.

• Vacation Bible School: Megan went to VBS at Prince of Peace in La Crescent Monday thru Wednesday (because she was sick Thursday and Friday) the week of August 4th. She had lots of fun and also enjoyed seeing friends from La Crescent. Then starting Sunday evening August 8 we had VBS at our church. It was Nessa's first experience at VBS or "macation Bible School" as she called it even though she says "vacation" perfectly well by itself. I stayed to help in the preschool room and to help be sure Nessa didn't accidentally get any gluten. Shawn stayed nearby at church most nights as well, and it made for a busy week for the family.
  

• Olympics -- starting on about the 9th Shawn and I started watching Olympics most nights. Who else out there knows how late those gymnastics events went? Well CST, it was way past our bedtime, but we watched anyway. It was particularly fun to watch with Megan the last half of the week as she is old enough to appreciate the athletes and ask good questions. In addition the gymnastics, you may have guessed we really enjoyed watching the swimming. :-) I'm sure we'll find some new favorites this next week too.

• Houston County Fair -- I'll do a post with photos and/or video on this, but as a quick bullet point -- Megan showed two of her goats on Thursday August 14th and then Megan, her friend, and I went back on Saturday to spend some time with the goats as well as go on rides and do other fun fair things. Megan did get a Reserve Champion while showing one of her goats and received blue ribbons for her goats in their respective classes. She also learned a lot about what to do to improve her standings for next year! It was the first goat show I've watched, and I look forward to watching more.

• Sand on the Riverfront (http://www.riverfrontinc.org/sand/) The event was Friday August 15th and Shawn was on the Business Objects team. It took nearly all day Friday to build the sand sculpture, but for Shawn's team it was worth it -- they won Best on the Riverfront and Best Interpretation of the Theme! Unfortunately my picture isn't very good, but hopefully you can get an idea of their "Farmer in the Dell" themed sculpture. There were also many fun kid's games and inflatables so Nessa had fun playing without getting frustrated at not being able to play in the sand on Friday afternoon.
  

• International Green Smoothie Day!!! Yes, Friday the 15th was also International Green Smoothie day, and I was ready to have an excuse to celebrate! I'm always ready to toast to the drink that has helped me along my path to wellness -- AND gets Nessa to eat greens as a bonus! For more info go here: http://therawdivas.com/blog/?p=287 / http://www.greensmoothiequeen.com/and if you need and more ideas or recipes, just let me know. I've developed many favorites over the summer from juicy nectarines to fresh berries! And I've explored all kinds of greens as well with many thanks to our CSA Farm for providing me with a wide variety of chard, kale, carrot greens, beet greens, lettuce and more. Pictures and possibly video coming soon. I know I've forwarded my original green smoothie post, so if anyone out there has been inspired to try green smoothies due to my sharing please leave a comment or email me. I want to know and so do the Raw Divas ... so let me know you're favorites or even your flops (even I still have those sometimes). Shawn is becoming a sometime green smoothie enthusiast too, but my urge for a post-workout smoothie of banana, celery and frozen blackberries didn't go over as well with him, but I didn't mind too much because that meant there was more for me (yum! ... oh there was one chard leave in there too just for good measure). And by the way the rest of you are not allowed to say "eww" until you've at least tried it ... it wouldn't hurt to read about the health benefits of blended greens as well. Who else has managed to have more than 10 fruits and veggies by noon and two bunches of greens each day this week? Smoothies are the best way to keep up with my increasingly busy schedule ... but wait this is just a quick update post so more on that later ...
  

Coming up before the official end of summer:

• This Wednesday I'll be taking Megan and a friend to the WI Dells to a water park for a fun day that she requested instead of a birthday party or big present. So far the weather looks ideal for such a day.
• Then Thursday Megan leaves to go stay with Aunt Ellen for a long weekend. Megan will be going shopping with Ellen as only Aunt Ellen is really good at shopping according to Megan. :-) We'll go up to Northfield to get her on Sunday. (And I hope to sneak a few smooches and baby snuggles with Cully as well.)
• Then it will be time to start getting ready for our Labor Day weekend trip which will include visiting both sets of grandparents. We'll stay in Cumberland for a few days and then move on up to Walker for a bit.
  

We did manage school supply shopping today, so we're officially prepared for school in that regard. The weather has been great this week (not too hot or humid!), and we hope to spend a bit of time outside with water toys yet this afternoon, fit a few more evening trips to Erickson pool in yet this month, and I personally hope to get many more bike rides in not only this month but also throughout the fall.

I hope everyone else is enjoying the last days of Summer!

Portraits of Megan

At the beginning of July Megan had a Portrait session with Nick at Lechnir Designs. The photos were taken in our back yard and came out wonderfully! I hope Nick doesn't mind that I share one directly here and link to the rest. I'm ordering a few, but if family wants more, I'm sure we can order additional ones as well. What a beautiful young lady we have!

You can see the rest of the photo proofs here: http://lechnirdesign.com/accounts/groth/20080706/

Now, how am I supposed to decide what to order!?!

Signs of Summer

End-of-the-year slumber parties: Megan and a friend had a blast dressing up in the formal dresses that Aunt Heidi gave Megan (rumor has it they played "What Not to Wear" (!) ... I think the dresses were the makeover result), as well as watching movies and spending LOTS of time giggling!
Tired Girls: Busy summer days and nights lead to tired girls ... sleeping peacefully. This was taken the morning after I returned home from Philly (I think) as I can see Nessa tightly clutching the little koala bear that I brought home for her (received from an attendee from Australia).


Swimsuits and Sunburn (!): Hopefully this will be the only sunburn shot you'll ever see of Megan, but she was complaining heavily so I wanted to show it. She did say "Mom, you were right" when she discovered she was burnt and I asked what/when she applied sunscreen during her first outing to the pool with her friends (she didn't) this year.


Last Tuesday Megan was thrilled to spend all afternoon at the pool, and then we all went to the pool as a family as well that night. Megan had a blast, and so did the rest of us. Nessa actually did great in the water, and was excited to get to go down the water slide on mom or dad's lap as well. We're looking forward to more fun days and nights at the pool this year.

Unfortunately not all of our early summer days have been full of sunshine. The region has received way too much rain as well. South La Crosse, is fine, but areas just south (east and west -- WI, MN, and Iowa) have once again been devastated. I really hope raising funds for flood victims does NOT become a La Crosse summer tradition. :-(

Checking in from Philly...

I'm in Philadelphia for the Society for Technical Communication conference (www.stc.org)until Thursday. Since this is a family blog I won't go on and on about the career-inspiring sessions I'm attending. I'm learning a lot and I'm getting pretty exhausted, and yet I'm so glad I'm here and thankful for this opportunity for professional development ... and yet on a personal level, I'm mostly Lonely in Philadelphia.

I felt it before the plane even left La Crosse. The emotions were in stark contrast with the last time I was traveling (to Annapolis with Shawn over Mother's Day weekend). Traveling with Shawn is one of my favorite things, and this past trip was one of the best. Then after I arrived here there were so many things I wanted to share with Shawn, and being me I wanted to share them IMMEDIATELY ... much of it will be shared in various conversations over the next several weeks, but much of it will also be lost in time. Shawn and I love exploring cities together too ...

Okay I'm in danger of getting really sappy and it's late so it probably wouldn't turn out well. I miss my best friend in every way.

At the same time I smile when I think of Shawn home with Nessa. I miss my sweet girls too. It helps me to know that Nessa is happily following her normal routine (you know, our routine girl), and that Shawn is there to sing her to sleep at night and give her extra hugs and kisses from me. I also know Megan is having fun on her end of the year field trip today, and is counting the hours left in 4th grade.

I'll barely be back in WI for a day before leaving for a weekend in Northfield, MN to get more Cully snuggles and see the rest of my family at Cully's baptism.

Next week I plan on soaking up the every-day wonderfulness that is my family ...
and laundry.

Limping along (brief updates)

Yikes I can't believe it has been two weeks since I've posted!!! Just when I had you all nice and trained to come and read a lot... Sorry.

So first to the title of the post which I admit might sound dramatic since it's not really an all-out limp. Monday I was diagnosed with bursitis in my hip. Which is much nicer to tell people than "it hurts so bad I want to cry." It started a few days earlier, and on Friday my chiropractor said it sounded like bursitis to him and if it didn't get better I should go in. Well, Monday morning I could barely move, and well to say it hurt was an uderstatement. So, I went in, got the official diagnosis, a cortisone shot, and some good drugs along with instructions to use heat on it at least four times a day. The doctor said that IF the cortisone was goine to work, it should work within a week but might be worse the first couple of day. I think it's starting to work today, but it's hard to tell at this point. The mornings are always the worst, but after some heat, streching, and time for the drugs to take effect I've been able to "limp through the day."

The worst position to be in (most painful) is sitting, so most of my computer time has gone strictly to work this week. We leave again Friday for the weekend so likely it won't be until Memorial Day or after before I upload more pictures. Here are a few more tidbits in the meantime:

--Shawn and went to Annapolis for a long weekend over Mother's Day weekend. It was gorgeous and a nice getaway for the two of us, and so much more. We once again were able to avoid any hassle with airline travel and things went smoothly. (Pics will be posted eventually.)A big thank you to my parents for watching Nessa.

--Way back in April we passed the one year mark for having our van. We love it A LOT and are still happy we went with the Grand Caravan (with DVD player), but at the same time we're looking forward to downsizing in a couple of years when the lease is up. We were happy that it was not too difficult to stay within the milage allowance for the lease.

--We now have Harmony ... at least in the laundry room. After our old washing machine clunked out earlier this Spring (if you didn't hear me complaining, it was because I was spending too much time at the laundry mat for a month), we purchased a GE Harmony Profile washer and dryer set, and we're thrilled with it. Honestly the deciding factor was that the washer was a "dented" floor model (in quotes because you can't really see the dent so I don't think it counts, but I was happy to take the discount). I now have an even larger capacity washer than before, and that's saying something; however, this one uses much less water which is a very good thing. :-)

--I joined Nessa on the gluten free diet after being frustrated with both the tests available to do on my and what the results were that I was getting and how my health was doing. Ever since pulling back from the very strict no wheat diet of almost two years ago now (original allergy testing dx) I haven't been able to get things under control digestion wise no matter what therapies I tried. So, after reading over and over that tests can sometimes be inaccurate and seeing what happened with Nessa's testing, I decided to let the difference in diet be my test for awhile. There are some new tests I can explore out of pocket or something new can come up in the future, but for now I'm satisfied that my feeling better is enough of a positive test result for me. So, while I do not know for sure if I am a diagnosed Celiac, I do know that gluten (wheat, rye, barley) makes me sick so at the very least I'm very gluten sensitive and need to avoid it the same way that a celiac does. It is an advantage to already have incentive to make the house gluten free (Nessa's diagnosis -- even more important in a child for everything I hear/read/am told). So, both Nessa and I seem to be responding well to the gluten free diet.

--Megan is down to the wire with school -- 11 days left last I heard, and I think they are all field trips or parties! She has decided/been assigned to play the trumpet next year for band so I'm looking forward to hearing her practice already. :-) She's looking forward to a fun, not overly scheduled, summer (no summer camps this year...at least that we know of today!).

Well that's about half of something...

Have a happy and safe start to the summer!

Megan at the Houston County Fair recap

Megan loves her goat Floppy!!!



I just realized that while I uploaded the photos to Flickr I never actually blogged about it which is bad, bad, bad because I should have been brag, brag, bragging about how great Megan did!!

Megan got not one but TWO Grand Champion ribbons for showing her goat at the fair! One for Showmanship and one for Market Goat. Megan also got a blue ribbon and honorable mention for the bird house she made in teh crafts catagory. Megan worked very hard creating her bird house and writing about how she did the project so I'm so glad that was noticed by the judges (and I wish I had a photo to share with you). And of course Megan works hard caring for all of her goats (three of them at her Dad's house) all of the time. Megan also had to teach Floppy how to walk on a leash and do some other special things to prepare him for the fair. Megan also has learned a lot about the goats and this paid off when the judge asked her lots of questions.

I asked Megan what the best thing about the fair was and the first things she said was, "It was fun!." Then she did say it was a good learning experience too. She says that next year she wants to enter more goats and do more things.

Megan and her friends had fun earlier in the week at the fair, but Shawn, Nessa and I didn't get to go until the Saturday of the fair -- the day the rain started (probably why I forgot to blog about it the next day) ... So, we all have our rain ponchos on in the pictures. We spend a fun but very wet couple of hours there seeing not only Floppy but many of the other animals and projects (and eating of course).

Nessa's favorite part of the fair was being allowed to go in and pet "Megan's goat."

To see all of Megan's photos from the fair, look at the set in Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooksgroth/sets/72157601544335368/

End of summer ... hitting the road one more time

For a change we're heading East rather than North.

We're going to spend the weekend on Kelleys Island in Ohio with Kev, Jo and Max. It should be great once we get there! Wish us luck getting there. We do NOT want another construction/traffic nightmare like we faced a year ago going to Michigan. So we're leaving tonight so that hopefully the girls will sleep for at least some of the drive and we won't be stressed about missing the last ferry to the Island on Friday due to delays around Chicago. My hope is to get to the other side of Chicago tonight and then leisurely go from there Friday morning, but just getting to this side of Chicago will still buy us some time.

Shawn and I have both taken Tuesday off to recover from the long drive on Monday. We also hope to prepare and transition into our new fall schedule which I'll fill you all in on as soon as possible after we get back.

In other news:

• Our grass is now back to a normal length and things appear to be drying out here.
• According to some my hair is back to a too short length ... according to Nessa it's "beautiful."
• Megan will be able to tell you personal stories of trying to clean up after the flood/mudslides including carrying mud out of the basement one bucket at a time. Our hearts continue to go out to everyone affected by the rain storms and resulting mud slides.
• We have survived yet another year of "back to school" shopping and remain convinced there is a conspiracy so that a parent can never get everything all at one store.
• When it comes to things like bike helmets you should always just go to the bike store right away instead of wasting your money on the cheap version first. My first ride with Nessa in the great new (used) bike trailer I found was met with "Get this thing OFF of me!" screams. :-( Then before I could stop she managed to get if off herself (without undoing the clasp). Other than that, I think she enjoyed the ride. :-)

May you all enjoy the last days of summer!

Links to photos and area flood information

I just wanted to quickly share these ...

Specific link to La Crosse Tribune pages --
This PDF file has a nice map of what happened in the area, complete with rainfall totals as of the time of creation (Sunday night?): http://www.lacrossetribune.com/news_pdfs/flood_map.pdf

This is a list of flood photos sent to the Tribune. They are listed by community.
http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2007/08/20/newsupdate/01photos.txt

From the above list there is a link to Hokah area photos:
http://lacrossetribune.com/shared-content/story_tools/slideshow/?type=slideshow&id=32
And in that slide show you can see where Megan's dad lives (look for the sunflowers in one of the pictures). There are also many pictures of nearby areas of course.

WKBT Photo link
Many, many photos here sent in by viewers; however, they are not organized in any way at all.
http://www.wkbt.com/Global/link.asp?L=166107

There is this one of what the intersection by Kwik Trip in Hokah looked like on Sunday morning:
http://couleeonline.com/upload/photos/17/1720.jpg

And this one also close to that area:
http://couleeonline.com/upload/photos/18/1839.jpg (those are cars from a Used Car lot)

It is hard to see this in the area, and I do have to admit that the photos of the Hokah area do hit me especially hard having once lived there. I also worry about how Megan will take this change to the area she loves so much (by the way her goat did make it home from the fair safely ... will do an official fair update soon).

I'm also appreciating our own South La Crosse home a bit more today. The last few months have brought many minor complaints about the house forward as we're dealing with more and more plumbing issues and various other little things that have me thinking about possibilities of house hunting in the future ... but today I am SO thankful that between the location and the house, we're safe and dry ... old windows and all, I'm loving our house today.

Hope you're all staying safe and dry too ...

Up North trip -- photos and more

Remember that wonderful trip "Up North" that we took at the beginning of July? Well, I finally got the pictures off of the camera (you have to love digital ... snap, snap, snap).

Below: Nessa and Megan swimming in Leech Lake's Walker bay

A hundred pictures later I decided that I had to give in and use flickr to share them with you ... they are all typical "family vacation" photos so there are a ton of blurry, out of focus, heads about cut off, etc. ... but they also tell the story ... fun times on the lake in Walker, MN and a bit of adventuring in the area including a great visit to a Bison ranch.

The girls also got some much needed Grandpa and Grandma time while Shawn and I relaxed with a movie and dinner (and a bit of unsuccessful gambling but we won't talk about that ... should have spent the money on fine dining instead). And we all did a bit (and then some) of shopping around downtown Walker.

The comments/descriptions on the photos in Flickr tell more of the stories so it really is worth a look (link below) ... the photos I uploaded there are a bit smaller in file size so they will only print well if you print them small (just in case any family tries), but they should display on the monitor well. :-) If I continue using Flickr, you'll probably see more posts like the one that I did with the picture of Marcus (directly from Flickr) too, and with those posts you can click on the photo and go right to the photo stream and view more recent photos. :-)

It was lovely and I wish we had another long Up North trip planned ... until I think about the driving.

Want to see more pictures (like Nessa below)?

View my favorites UP North pictures on Flikr!

Or, view all of the photos form the trip here.


Important -- when you look at all of them tagged with Up North, they are NOT in any chronological order, so you may want to look at and read the descriptions with the UP North Favorites specific set first.

Few pics from Megan's week in Cumberland

In June Megan spent a week at Grandma and Grandpa Groth's going to summer school (Aunt Ellen was the teacher -- how much better can it get?) and just generally having fun. Thanks to Ellen we have a few photos.


The trip to the circus included an elephant ride so here is Megan (and a few other people she knows) riding an elephant.

Megan keeps telling me she could live on the lake in the summer. The lake here is Sand Lake in Cumberland (just down the back yard hill at Grandma and Granpa's ... how convenient). Megan is learning to really love to ride on the inner tube (can you call it that when there are seat backs?) and I'm hoping soon she'll decide to try to water ski. Below are a few pics of Megan (and other) "on the tube."

THANK YOU GRANDMA AND GRANDPA!!!!!

Home sweet home ... sort of

I thought it was about time I at least let you all know we're still breathing around here (although doing so around the diaper pail and litter boxes is always "at your own risk" these days).

No overnight trips last weekend and we still didn't manage to get the numerous blog updates done! Maybe this weekend we'll have better luck. Yes, TWO entire weekends without packing or unpacking! WooHoo! However we've still been busy ... and then there's the not feeling well part ... the drive to the Mall of America last Saturday (still recovering from that too!), and then there are little things like house and yard work, and job deadlines. ;-)

So here are a few briefs ... until we can get details and photos out ...

• Those of you that have asked me lately "what's wrong with your eye?" -- it was/is a bacterial infection. If you ever see me or anyone else with an eye that looks like that again, warn me/them not to put off going to the eye doctor. Because it kept seeming to get be getting better I blamed it on other things ... by Monday night it was keeping me awake, the pain was back, watering nearly non stop for a few hours and I had a fever w/ symptoms ... a quick trip to our eye doctor thankfully provided a quick resolution on Tuesday with some good, though expensive, eye drops ... no contacts for me for awhile though :-(
• Last Saturday I drove Megan and her friend Kendra up to the Mall of America. Or, rather, I drove to Northfield and then Ellen (word on the street is that she is the best aunt to shop with) joined us and drove to the mall from her house. According to the girls it was something like "super duper super fun (as they repeated much of the way home). According to me, it was "not as bad as I thought it would be." In addition to shopping we went to the Aquarium there and I would definitely go back there again!
• The week before we left for Up North Megan went to Camp Invention (http://www.wicampinvention.org/3.html) here at one of the local schools in La Crosse. We think Megan liked it and the activities sure sounded cool.
• Next week Megan goes to a week of summer school here in La Crosse, and one of the two classes is on the American Girl, Kaya, so Megan is excited about that. This may be part of what is contributing to Megan's love of all things Native American.
• Our Up North trip was fantastic. Photos of the girls enjoying the beach and spending time in the lake (Megan continually informs us she could live "in the lake" in the summer) will hopefully follow soon. We also enjoyed the downtown area of Walker as always.
• On the way home from Walker, we went home via Elysian, MN (near Mankato) to stop and see Heidi and Ben and Jake AND Marcus. Marcus is the newest of the "Groth cousins." Congratulations! :-) There seems to be a growing consensus (well in the Brooks Groth household anyway) that Marcus looks a lot like his mom -- and Heidi, that's a good thing. ;-)
• With all of the pre-birthday celebrations going on, we've already been saying that Megan is 10 but really it's not official until July 16th, so those of you that have her email address, please send her birthday wishes. :-) Wow, a whole decade!!!!
• Nessa is continuing to grow into her toddler voice and um, independent, personality. :-) (when "stubborn" traits are inherited it can be interesting to see who truly can be the most stubborn ... I like to see it as my patience of course when I wait her out).

OK, back to work for me ....

Like a kid with a new bike

Except, I'm not a kid any more ... not even close enough to pretend.

But I can still love riding my new bike!!! :-)

Shawn and the girls got me a new bike (a Trek hybrid Women Specific Design ... in celedon, who knew they even made bikes the same color as my brides maid dresses) a few weeks ago as a combination Mothers Day, Birthday and Anniversary present ... It was EXACTLY what I wanted ... how did they know. ;-) THANK YOU!

It's been great but I'm getting antsy to ride MORE so I'll be glad to get a trailer for Nessa soon too; otherwise when Shawn's gone (like this week!) I can't really ride at all. :-(

My plan is to ride bike to work a lot but so far it has only happened once so we'll see how that works out. Megan and I have also been riding on some nearby trails together and that has been lots of fun.

Anyone want to go for a bike ride?

Another sign I'm getting old

We went to the pool last night. It was the first time that all of us went to the pool this year...

I just really don't like all the splashing in my eyes and always look for the calmest spot in the pool (hah, good luck) when Megan wants me to spend time in the deep end with her. Yep, I'm an old fuddy duddy now ... although I do manage to keep my mouth shut and not actually say anything to those kids making all that noise and splashing all that water ... I mean what do they think they're doing splashing and having fun at the swimming pool?!? Sigh.

I did go down the water slides though so that made Megan happy. I did not have a chance to take Nessa down the "yellow slide" (much calmer and MUCh slower than the "blue slide") though because Nessa was only interested in standing at the edge (zero depth pool) and splashing her hands in the fountains there for about the first hour we were there. Eventually she went in deeper but never really settled in to "swimming" (and I was worried she would just run all over and walk right into the deeper water like last year).

And in spite of the hot day, as the sun went down the pool was quite cool (we were there from about 6:15 until closing at 7:45) ... Nessa's lips were blue and she was shivering ... eventually I decided she had had enough and dried her off and put clothes on her ... after she was dry and warm she decided she wanted to go back in the water! Instead Shawn took her to the nearby park for awhile so Megan could swim until the pool closed. :-)