Memorial Day Weekend 2008

It was a super busy, but super fun weekend here. My friend from high school and her girlfriend flew in LATE Thursday night to Denver. By the time they got a car and got down to our house it was 2am.

But we got up and hit the road at 8am. We dropped Courtney off at Nana and Papa’s house, along with the dogs, while we headed out of town to go ATV’ing. We scheduled a tour out of a place in Salida, CO. It took us just over 2 hours to get down there. We all had our own ATV’s and we were scheduled for a 3 hour ride. As we were in the parking lot getting ready to hit the trails it started to snow. Thankfully we had all prepared for cold weather. Driving the ATV’s at about 30mph in the snow made the snow feel like ice pellets hitting your face. It kind of hurt! We stopped at a cabin and started a fire, so that when we came back by it would be nice and warm for us. Then we started on some trails again. At one point the sun came out for about 30 minutes. That felt really good. But soon the clouds moved back in and it was snowing again.

Overall we had a blast! We didn’t get back off the trail until closer to 4:30pm, so we got more than 3 hours. We realized once we stopped moving how frozen we all really were!

We got back into town late and ate a late dinner at Mission Inn. Once we came home we all crashed for the night!!! We were all very tired.

Saturday we started off with a nice horseback ride through Garden of the Gods. I really enjoyed that as well. My horse’s name was Maverick. She was large and very pretty. We rode for 2 hours. Boy did all of us feel that later! I don’t know how people ride horses so much all the time. I guess they just get used to it!

From there we stopped in Manitou Springs for lunch and then on to Pikes Peak. We took their Jeep they had as a rental car and drove to the top. The temperature at the bottom of the highway was 60 degrees. The temperature at the top of the Peak was 32 degrees. Plus the wind was blowing, so it felt pretty darn cold! We took a few pictures and then headed down to warmth!

We stopped at my parent’s house to have dinner and pick up Courtney after we got back to town. From there we went home. We all slept really well this night too!

Sunday morning we got up and headed for the zoo. We did all the usual things, fed the giraffes, saw the elephants, and Courtney rode the Pony again! She loves that so much! We got her a frequent rider card. So, we basically got 5 rides for the price of 4. She used her first one up yesterday. She rode the same pony she rode last time, Amiga. I have a feeling we are going to be getting to know all the pony’s names.

We also rode the “Sky Coaster” for the first time. It’s a chairlift that take you to the top of the zoo, over lots of the animals. Up top they have a large jungle gym, a rock climbing area, some food and a little hut thing. It just opened on Friday, so I was glad to get a chance to go. All though it did shut down on us for about 15 minutes while we were on the way up. Here is the view on the way back down:

That afternoon after lunch and putting Courtney down for a nap, the 3 girls headed to the mall. We introduced Jessica to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. She had a little bit of fun picking out some stuff to get. She and Cyndi walked out of there with a large bag full of goodies. But everything was consumed by bedtime that night.

The girls left Monday morning at 9am to head back to DC. It was a packed full but really fun weekend with them. It is always so nice to see Cyndi in person.

After they had left, Esten stopped by and we followed him out to his sister’s house in Falcon. They have about 5 acres and Esten and Hubby shot clay pigeons with Janette’s husband Kevin, while Courtney and I played inside (where it was warm) with Janette and her 3 girls. They also have 3 horses, 3 sheep, 2 dogs and multiple cats, including a 3 week old kitten. Courtney got to pet the horse, feed the sheep, hold the kitten and pet the dogs. Needless to say, she was in heaven. Hubby and I may need to move to Falcon and start our own little petting zoo for her. She is so truly and animal person. We almost had to bring the kitten home, she kept saying “mine, mine!”

Class starts up again for me today. It’s the summer semester, which means longer class periods, but shorter in weeks. I am taking intro to business this semester. Next semester I am taking economics I think. I think I may also try to add in an online class so that I can get classes done sooner! I need to meet with my advisor (who is also my teacher) and figure out what else I need to take.

All though I can’t rush it too much, because we get a discount at the daycare, so I need to be able to make classes last until Courtney goes to kindergarten, or we find somewhere we like better.

Well, I am off to class!

Summer's here!

The last week I felt like I barley have time to breath!

Last Wednesday Courtney had her pH probe test in the hospital for 24 hours. Getting the probe placed was not fun, but once it was in she was fine with it. Then we just had to keep her entertained and occupied. They had some little vehicles the kids could ride around in out in the hall. Courtney rode around in those a lot. That kept her pretty entertained. They also had DVD players in the room hooked up to the TV so we watched a lot of Sesame Street DVD’s.

She only had about an hour nap because even with the shades drawn the room was still pretty bright. That night she didn’t go to bed until 8pm or later. She slept until 1:30am and then she was wide awake. She stayed awake until 4:30am. She finally fell back to sleep and slept until about 6am. They pulled the probe out about 10am and she got to go home.

Thursday I had a lunch meeting I had to go to. I was able to suffer through that and then went home to take a nap. We were all pretty wiped out after that.

Friday was the first day of our garage sale. I was up and moving things out at 7am. The first day I made $97! The second day I made $62 and the third day I made $3.25. So, I determined that garage sales probably aren’t worth it. I think selling things on Craig’s list is much better. And whatever you can’t sell there, just donate.

Saturday was our Zoo Ball. We had a great time and ended up purchasing a painting session with Lucky the elephant! I can’t wait to do that! They had lots of animals out for ‘petting’ at the zoo ball. I petted a porcupine, 2 snakes, a turtle, and a millipede that was pretty big. Food was yummy and the dancing was fun!

Monday Courtney had a follow-up appointment at her ENT’s. No new news from there, her sleep study came back okay. She is a 1, which isn’t perfect (that would be a 0), but it’s not major. So, for now her tonsils can stay.

The next day she had an appointment with a speech therapist. We were hoping that the speech therapist would see a swallow problem that could be fixed with therapy. No such luck. The kid is fine as far as they are concerned. I have to say, I was disappointed. I was really hoping she would find an easy fix. Next test is on the 30^th, she has another upper GI test.

I will get the results of the pH probe next week. I am also anxious to see what it has to say. I was really hoping we could get this swallow thing figured out, but I am starting to lose hope.

Monday after Courtney’s appointment, she got her first haircut. It was driving me nuts; it was in her face all the time. Plus it was very uneven in the back. So, she got it trimmed up. She has bangs now, and it’s shorter in back, just past her shoulders. She was fine getting her haircut. We went to a kid’s haircut place, so she got to sit in a fire truck and watch a care bears movie. It didn’t bother her in the least to get her hair cut!

Yesterday at daycare she fell and cracked her gum open. They called us and one of us had to go and look at it to see if we felt she needed to get it looked at. I sent Brian since I don’t like blood. He said it looked fine. Her gum has a little cut and looks a little yucky but she is fine.

I did get time to plant flower on Sunday. I went to our local nursery and got a whole bunch of fun stuff including a little mini garden box. I planted zucchini, squash and cucumbers in it. I also planted tomatoes in a large pot. Hopefully I can actually get some veggies off them! We have a strawberry plant in the house, and it has 1 red strawberry already!

My best friend from high school and her girlfriend are coming in for a visit today! We have lots of plans to do lots of fun stuff!!! Tomorrow we are going ATV’ing. I can’t wait!

Well, I better go and get some work done!

Happy Mother's Day 2008

Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful mothers out there! I had a fabulous Mother’s Day, and it started yesterday!

Saturday morning, I was manning the WnW booth at the MS walk at a park down town. When I came home Hubby and Courtney were not here. I called Hubby who said that they were out busy on an adventure.

They eventually came home and I took Courtney up for her nap. I then took a shower and nap as the morning started really early and it was very windy and cold, so I needed to warm up. Hubby told me not to come downstairs without warning him first. After I woke up a little while later, he said it was okay for me to come downstairs. I came down the stairs and the kitchen table was full of photos! Hubby had taken Courtney to Kiddie Kandid’s and had Mother’s Day pictures taken of her. They were all so adorable! I loved it! He had also picked up some frames and had most of them framed.

That evening we went to Target to pick up a few more frames. I picked which ones I wanted and then I distributed the rest between Nana and Grammy. We gave Nana hers today as part of her Mother’s Day gift. And we are sending a box to Grammy tomorrow. She all ready knows about them, as we showed her on the webcam tonight.

This morning we woke up early, Hubby made waffles while I got Courtney up. After waffles and getting ready, we headed off to the zoo. We met my parents there just after 9am. We got front row parking!

We started off with the giraffes as usual. Courtney really loves to feed them, except to day she kept saying “yuck!” when the giraffe’s tongue would touch her. It was cute. From there we went on to the rest of the zoo. Courtney is turning out to be a BIG elephant lover. Not sure why, but she LOVES them!

When we went up to the new exhibit, the Rocky Mountain Wild, we were standing in the bear area, and the bears came and got in the water. The people are right on the other side of the glass from the water, so that was neat!

When we went to the education center they just opened as part of the exhibit, they had a skunk wondering around that you could pet! It had been someone’s pet so it didn’t have the stink glands that skunks have, so no worry about being sprayed. Her name is TigerLilly. She was very cute!

Courtney also loves horses. Part of the new exhibit is pony rides. There were no kids at the pony rides, so we asked if Courtney could pet the pony. They said sure. The girl said 'if you want, you can sit her on it to take a picture'. Reluctantly I did. Courtney grabbed right onto the horn of the saddle as if she knew what to do. Hubby said “she needs to go for a ride”. I said “I don’t think we are ready for that”. Hubby said “she is!”. I said “I’m not!”. Then Hubby paid the man the few bucks, and said “well, get over it, because she is!”. So, off we went! Courtney loved it! She was giggling and had a huge smile. I had my hand on her back the whole time, but she didn’t have any problems holding on! So, I have a feeling that from now on every time we are at the zoo we will be stopping for a pony ride.

We were then on our way to the carousel when we discovered they were serving brunch in the Rocky Mountain Lodge. So, we had a nice brunch there. That worked out well, as it was lunch time and we had not yet decided where we were going to go for lunch. And we sat right by the window that had the prairie dog exhibit on the other side of the glass. So, we got to watch them while we ate. It was nice.

After lunch was a carousel ride and then the rest of the zoo then a stop at the gift shop on the way out, and then to Nana’s house for presents and nap. When we were leaving the zoo, the line of cars to get into the parking lot was several miles long! We were thankful we got there so early!

Courtney, Hubby and I all took a nice nap at Nana’s. After naptime, we played in the backyard because it was such a beautiful day! We ordered pizza, and after dinner we had a visit with the neighbors.

We finally packed up and headed for home. Once we got home we were able to catch up with Grammy and Granddad online, and had a chat via webcam.

After a bath and a short playtime, I finally got Courtney off to bed. She crashed out pretty quick. And I don’t think I am far behind. I need to go and put sheets on the bed, as I stripped the bed this morning, but didn’t have time to put fresh sheets on yet.

Again, Happy Mother’s Day!!!

Where did the week go?

Another week has flown by.

Sunday night we had a Cinco de Mayo celebration. We had all sorts of yummy Mexican food. We had a group of people over and everyone brought something Mexican. To start we had a queso dip that my friend made that is very popular. In fact at one point, 4 guys were hovering around it! We also had 7 layer dip. For main course I made chicken enchiladas, Hubby made Chicken Mole, someone made black beans and someone else brought Mexican Rice. For dessert, our other friend made homemade sopapillas right on our deck (because of the hot oil). Talk about tasty! Plus I made margaritas, and Sangria. I even found a recipe for sangria punch for the kids. I really enjoyed it and we are thinking we need to do more cultural nights! We have already determined that we will be celebrating Oktoberfest.

We saw Courtney’s pulmonologist on Monday. The good news is that he wants to get to the bottom of WHY she is aspirating. The bad news is that this will require lots of different tests. I am sad Courtney will have to go through more tests, but I am very happy that we are going to get to the bottom of why it’s happening so we can fix it instead of just treating the symptom.

I learned that kids up to age 2 are able to repair their lungs. After that age their lungs will scar with any trauma. So, the important thing now is to try to get things figured out before she turns two.

At this point she has had a chest x-ray, she will have a Ph probe next week, she has a speech evaluation on the 20^th and an upper GI test on the 30^th. We also now need to do her steroidal breathing treatment twice a day. Then in July she is scheduled to see a neuromuscular doctor. Loads of fun, but I am glad we are getting to the bottom of this.

Tuesday was my last class. I not only got an A, but I also got the highest grade in the class! Whoo Hoo!! That sure feels good!

I have been pretty good about going to the gym. It’s all female and I am really enjoying that. I have only lost 2 pounds, but my pants are getting looser! So far so good!

Spring is finally here. It has been raining the last two days, instead of snowing. Thank goodness, maybe that means warm weather is here to stay. Here’s to hoping!

Courtney is doing things to amaze me all the time. The other day she asked me “why?” for the first time! She also says ‘bless you’ now when you sneeze, without prompting. It’s so cute!

Well, I am off to the gym!

More Courtney brags

More Brags about Courtney. Yesterday, while Nana was giving her a bath, she insisted “Potty!”. So, Nana took her out of the tub and put her on the potty. Wouldn’t you know she pooped! Amazing!

This morning I took her diaper off, and she wouldn’t let me put a new one on, she was insisting “Potty” again. So, we went and sat on the potty, and sure enough, she pooped again! Then she looked at me and said “I went in the potty”, it came out more like “I went in da potty”. WOW! I guess we could really work on potty training her. We haven’t pushed it, but gosh, maybe we could start!

I have about exhausted myself being a mother in the last week. We had Courtney’s sleep study Tuesday night. They hooked 48 electrodes up to her head. Plus an EKG on her chest, sensors on her legs to check for RLS, and two bands around her belly to measure chest movement. She looked like a little Medusa robot.

Once she got everything on she did okay until we put her down to go to sleep. Then she started to get really scared. She insisted on seeing both Hubby and I at all times. She screamed and cried. It took forever to get her to sleep. I had to stand there, rub her belly and not make eye contact. She finally fell asleep about 9pm. The tech came in about 10pm to adjust things and reattach things. She woke up and the whole processes started all over again.

The tech came in about 4 times that night to mess with stuff and every time she woke up, and every time it was a HUGE effort to get her to go back to sleep. We could tell from her crying that she was pretty scared. I almost ripped everything off of her in the middle of the night and said FORGET IT! But, I managed to control myself.

At 6am the tech came in and got us up. It took a good 30 minutes to get everything off Courtney. Then he washed her hair twice to get all the goop out. But she was still a mess. My mom had stayed home with the dogs, so she was there when we got home about 7:15am. She graciously gave Courtney a bath while Hubby showered and I went back to bed. Then, Hubby left for work and Nana gave Courtney ANOTHER bath, as she still had goop everywhere. I was sleeping. I got up and showered and left about 10am with Courtney and Nana went to work.

I had been so worked up the night of the sleep study that Wednesday, functioning was a problem. I felt awful, kind of like I had been run over by a train. It was very hard to hear Courtney so scared and upset. It really took a toll on me emotionally, which just drained me.

I had a lunch meeting yesterday, I made that ok. Later in the afternoon I went to the gym, and did a very easy Pilates class. From there I went to Whole Foods, and then to get the kid. That evening, once everything was settled down and Courtney was in bed, I laid down in bed to rest. But that is when my second wind hit, so I got up and did small stuff around the house. We finally went to bed about 10:30pm. But I was so far beyond tired, and beyond my second wind that I just could not sleep. I finally ended up taking a Flexeril to try and help get me to sleep. Once it kicked in, I finally fell asleep. But getting up this morning was not easy.

The pediatrician did call yesterday afternoon with the results of the sleep study. Everything is fine and they see no reason for the snoring. Good! But I was a little pissed that she had to go through all of that for nothing…. But, I guess such is life. Courtney is still supposed to have one more invasive test, but I really don’t think I can put her, or me, though it! So, I told the pediatrician I was going to cancel and she said that was fine with her.

The weather people were saying yesterday (when it was 80 degrees) that a cold front would move in with some possible moisture. Well, it’s a BLIZZARD out there currently. I can’t see across the street! Wild.

Well, I am going to go to my second to last class for the semester!

Hope everyone is well!