2010 AFA Graduation

Well, graduation week is over! Phew! I am not the graduate, or a member of her immediate family and I am wiped out! I can't imagine how they feel!

Monday night we went to dinner at the Cliff House. It's a fancy restaurant/hotel down in Maintou Springs. We got a babysitter for the girls and had a nice, relaxing, grown up dinner! It was tasty!

I was making a quilt for Maddie for her graduation gift. So, I had been spending my free time trying to get that finished up. It took a while, in fact I finished it Thursday morning (yesterday) and was able to get it through the washer and dryer to give to her that night!

Tuesday night we had our cadet from last year come into town. He was back to commission two kids at the Academy, so he stayed with us Tuesday night, not that we saw much of him. He got here late and we left at 8am to go to graduation the next morning.

Wednesday was graduation day. The weather was beautiful! In fact it was quite warm actually! I got a few small spots of sunburn where I missed with the sunscreen. As usual I really enjoyed graduation. The Thunderbird show is always so fun to watch! The speaker this year was the Joint Chief of Staff, Mike Mullen. His speech was really good! We were so proud to watch Maddie walk across that stage and get her first salute!

Maddie's mom, dad and sister were out here for the graduation from Minnesota. Plus Toby, our cadet, was with us in the stands. So, we had a small cheering section.
Maddie and Toby spent the night at our house that night, but first they went to dinner at the Golden Bee up at the Broadmoor. Maddie was quite "happy" when she came home, but we all agreed that she deserved it!

Last night we had everyone over here for a big meal. Maddie's choice for smoked meat was brisket. So, we smoked a brisket for her, made her twice baked potatoes (which she loves) and a few other things. For dessert, Maddie got a Little London cake. So, we had a yummy dessert. She loved the quilt I made her.

Toby and Maddie left about 11pm last night. It was so hard to say goodbye to Maddie. We have really enjoyed getting to know her over the past year. The girls have really loved spending time with her too. But, we know for at least the next year she will be back to visit since Toby will still be up at the Academy. She report to Texas in late July to start pilot training!

Other big news this week, Courtney had her last hippotherapy session. So, they "graduated" her! For now she is done with physical therapy! She will continue occupational therapy for the summer.

And I forget if I mentioned in my last post, but Courtney was accepted into the district preschool program! This means that in the fall she will start preschool at the elementary school right down the street from us! I can't wait! It's a free program too, so you can't beat that!

Someone turned off winter and turned on summer. So much for spring around here! The last few days have been HOT! Today was about 85 degrees with no storms! It's nice, but it would have been nicer to have a spring to get us ready!

Hubby had a great time on his trip over seas. It took him longer than expected to get back, meaning he landed in Denver several hours after originally planned, but he did get home safe and sound!

I think I will stop here, I am so tired still it's hard to think! Last night I tried to read a little before bed, but I was so tired I couldn't focus on the words!

Hope everyone is well!

Where did this week go?

This week has flown by. Which is really good. Usually weeks when Hubby is gone take forever to go by.

I believe the Thunderbirds have arrived in town! I can hear several jets flying around. That is not a normal sound around Colorado Springs except for this time of year. Yep, it's Air Force graduation time! We do not have one of our own technically that is a senior. But our our Junior has been dating a girl who is a senior for over a year. She has become quite close with us so we are participating in the whole graduation thing this year. I made her a quilt as her graduation gift. We have a busy week ahead! We have dinner out with her family tomorrow night, graduation Wednesday morning, dinner here with her and her family on Thursday night. I am going to really miss Maddie. She is such a wonderful girl and has really become part of our family. She got a slot in pilot school, she is quite excited! We are so happy for her!

Kasey has 2 new teeth. They have actually cut through the gum. I was wondering if we were finally close to their arrival when she recently started grinding her teeth. There is no sound in the world that gets under my skin more than grinding teeth. UUUGGHhh.

She had more x-rays on Monday. The results were the same. Meaning low lung volume and some cloudiness around the upper part of the lungs. Which in turn means a trip to the pediatric pulminologist in Denver at Children's Hospital. The pediatrician wants us to go because she is puzzled as to why this isn't clearing up as she thought it would after 2 months of breathing treatments. I called on May 19th to get an appointment. You know when the first appointment available is? July 28. Ugh. But they told me to call back this week to see if more appointments opened up. Meanwhile, I unfortunately have worried myself sick. I guess if the pediatrician thought it was more serious, she would really push to go see the pulminologist (I did call her to tell her when we got an appointment). But I can't help it, I am a mom, I am going to worry until we see the pulminologist.

But I did get really good news in the mail today! Courtney was accepted into the district 11 preschool program! I have been trying to get her into this program for quite some time now. So, starting August 23 she will go to preschool at the elementary school right at the end of our street! I can walk her to school! I am so excited and happy! What a relief to know that is taken care of for the fall!

I am hoping Hubby gets home from his trip abroad tonight. Last I heard he was stuck in Chicago. I haven't heard from him in a while though, hopefully that means he is on his way to Denver. It's going to be a late night for him. Which I worry about some, because of all the time changes he is already dealing with.

Well, I have a ton of stuff to do, so I better end this one here!

Zoo Ball!

Well, the Zoo Ball was Saturday night. All last week we had icky weather. Anything from snow to rain to just dreary all week. Saturday morning we woke up and it was still overcast and dreary. BUT, the sun came out mid morning! I was so happy! This year the featured animal was the giraffe, so you KNOW I was stoked. However, I knew if it was raining we would end up being inside somewhere and not where the giraffes are.

I spent the afternoon, while the kids were napping, getting my hair done. The whole time I was watching the skies. It looked a lot like a typical spring afternoon. Storms were scattered over the city and moving around. In fact it rained while I was getting my hair done, but had cleared out by the time I was done. However, I came home and while we were getting dressed to go to the ball, it started raining again.

It was raining when we pulled out of the garage and it rained most of the way down the highway. However, it finally stopped raining about 3 miles away from my parents' house. And it looked nice and clear over the zoo, so we were hopeful.

We dropped off the girls with my parents and headed to the zoo. They had gone ahead and took the gamble to be outside with the giraffes. This was only for the cocktail hour, as was the plan the whole time. They have a silent auction, appetizers, drinks and animal visitors during the first part of the evening.

We started off by visiting with Tiger Lilly the skunk. She was out to say hello for the evening. They also brought out one of their HUGE turtles, who was also dressed for the evening with his giraffe bow tie.


We were also graced with the presence of a few baby wallaby's, Walter the bearded dragon, Radar the African Grey, and a few other animals here and there.

There was only one item we bid on for the silent auction. It was a print of a baby giraffe (from our zoo), and they had baby giraffe hoof prints on the mat around the picture. Well, this other couple outbid us at the last second. Good thing we have some connections, we asked if we could pay the same price they winning couple paid and we could get another print. Our good friend, who I was asking about this said: that's my picture! She had taken the picture of the baby giraffe, so she spoke with another girl and we are going to get our own picture with baby hoof prints. I can't wait!

Another perk was that they had stuff for us to feed the giraffes. Now as most of you know, you can purchase crackers and feed the giraffes. So we were expecting crackers to feed them. But not on this special night! We fed them lettuce leaves and elm branches! Those giraffes are a lot stronger than you can imagine! If you were daring enough to try to hold onto an elm branch while they ate off it, you had to hold tight! I only tried once, I mostly stuck to lettuce. Here we are over by the giraffes:

The giraffes were a riot. The "juveniles", as the keepers called them, were running around like crazy. Even the new babies got into it! They were so cute! It was the first time I have seen them out in the main yard. I was loving every minute of it!

The evening was still chilly. We moved up to the Moose Lake Lodge for dinner. While we were in there, the rain moved in. Good timing! Here we are at our super yummy dinner! The food was wonderful as usual.


After dinner we wandered over to the new Grizzly Grill. They served several desserts over there, and they too, were fabulous.

So, after much food and good times, we finally headed out. We picked up the girls who of course were sleeping at my parents house, and headed for home. I so love the zoo ball, every year.

Other than that, it's been pretty standard around here. Well, except for yesterday. Hubby was supposed to fly to London for the week, and wouldn't you know that the Iceland volcano caused the airports to close. His flight from Denver (it was direct to London) was canceled. He ended up getting up early this morning, driving to Denver, and flying Denver to Toronto, then Toronto to London. He was able to get on the plane in Toronto and should be landing in London in the next 45 minutes.

Had he been able to go on his original flight, he would have had plenty of time to try to get adjusted to the time and such. However, now he will end up going right from the airport to the client site. Sounds fun huh? Apparently Ireland has missed most of it recently, so my mom should be able to get there on Wednesday, and Hubby is flying up to catch up with her on Friday night. Yes, my Hubby and my mother will be hanging out in Ireland, without me...

So, we are adjusting to life with just us girls. I spent the morning while Courtney was at daycare running errands with Kasey. One of those errands was getting her another chest x-ray. Here's to really really hoping the cloudiness in her lungs has cleared up so she can be done with the breathing treatments, and we don't have to see a pulminologist. We should know tomorrow or the next day.

This morning while running errands I also stopped at Starbucks, which is a regular on my route. As I try to do once and a while (at least once a month if not more), I told the lady at the window I wanted to buy the drink for the car behind me. She must have been new. She was so excited that I was doing that, and asking me "do you know her?" I explained that no I don't know her, but it's something nice I try to do every so often. She was just tickled.

Well, it's getting late. I had better head to bed. Hope all of you are well!

Forgot

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that Kasey is officially a "walker". Meaning she now walks about 95% of the time. In fact she is so excited that she knows how to walk that she no longer likes to sit still! So, going out to a restaurant is no longer an easy thing to do. As soon as she is done with her meal, she is ready to get up and move!

Today I realized another bonus for having young kids. In spring, the snow and rain showers mostly move in during the afternoon. Well, by that time my car is home in the garage because it's nap time for the young one's. SO, when I get my car washed, it lasts a bit longer than it does for others!

I was thinking about that today because yes, I got my car washed this morning and it's supposed to rain this afternoon! It's the little things in life that make me happy! =)

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's to any and all mother's out there!

Originally we were planning to go to Greeley this weekend to be with my sister and brother-in-law. My mom was planning on being there also. But then my sister realized this weekend was graduation weekend for UNC, so they would be busy all weekend. Instead we ended up going to brunch with my parents at Jose Muldoon's downtown. It was nice, then afterward we had a few moments to peruse through a few stores on the way back to the cars.

Its been a busy week as usual. But since MOPS is over, we actually didn't have anything to do on Friday morning. It was nice to not do much. But at the same time I spent the morning taking care of things around the house. So, it wasn't a quiet morning.

Hubby has had a cold and/or sinus infection all week. He has been miserable and took a sick day for the first time in a very long time. He has a cough that is keeping him (and me) up at night. Hopefully he gets over this soon. He feels pretty drained from it.

The weather has been crazy. Thursday was BEAUTIFUL. We has zoo preschool that morning, and we spent a few hours after class walking around the zoo enjoying the day with some friends from class. Saturday morning I went to the grocery store and it felt like winter walking to and from the car! The wind was COLD. Then today was beautiful again. After nap time, we spent about an hour in the back yard enjoying it. We know it's not going to last.

Other than that it was a pretty typical week around here. So, I guess I will end it here!

Busy weekend

I am exhausted! What a weekend! Courtney's swimming lessons Friday evening kicked it off. Saturday morning we went to visit our friend who has 7 cats. Courtney got a kick out of that!

After nap it was a quick trip to Home Depot for some house stuff and baby proofing stuff! For the first time since we have had kids, we actually have had to do more baby proofing! We had to finally install those cabinet lock things. We had to buy some other baby proofers that keep a cabinet with handles closed. We had to install a lock on our pantry, but that was both for baby and Buddy sake... It's funny to me that it took us until our SECOND kid turned 1 that we finally had to baby proof pretty significant. We have had the basics like stair gates and outlet covers and such, but we had to take it to a whole new level this weekend!

We also got an upgraded handle for our powder room door, and some of that stuff to put on the window to make the window look frosted, not clear. This way we can actually open the blinds in our powder room and let in some light without worrying about the neighbors watching us pee!

We installed a towel holder in the kitchen (also due to having to baby proof stuff). We were tired of just laying the towel on the kitchen counter all the time. So, amazingly enough, we now have a towel holder!

I got a new latch for our gate (for our outside fence). You would be amazed how difficult it is to find a latch that you can use from BOTH sides of the gate. Most are just one sided! Thank goodness for Ace!

And then last night I was at a girl party with friends! That went until about 10pm, so a late night for me!

Today we stopped and checked out Chef's warehouse sale. We found a 10 quart stockpot for cheap. Hubby has been wanting a bigger one than what we have, so we were happy to find it. Of course he thinks this means he can cook lobster. HA! right.....

Courtney and I went to church this morning. I am loving my new Sunday school class. Courtney seems to be adjusting and fitting into her's as well.

We are sure ready for warmer weather, especially since it's now May! But wouldn't you know that Friday, yesterday and today we had snow. In fact today we encountered lots of weather on a short drive! We drove from our side of town over to the west side of town (about a 15-20 minute drive) and on that drive we encountered heavy snow, grapple, rain, snow, thunder and lighting and more snow. Yes, we get thunder-snow here. It's the oddest thing if you haven't experienced it. We have actually had quite a bit more than usual.

On top of all that, we have had an emotional weekend too. While one friend was losing a pregnancy another was announcing her pregnancy.

Well, this crazy weekend has worn me out! Night all!

Life's just moving along!

I feel like my life has really changed over the past 2-3 weeks, in a really good way. It all started on Mom's Weekend Away. Something happened that just made me feel all put back together, and like I became a whole person again! I have just been feeling great.

Then Courtney had the incredible swallow study. That just added to the wonderful feeling I already had! We just got a copy of the swallow study in the mail. Hubby asked me if we should frame it. Tempting!

Courtney started new private swim lessons yesterday. I found a lady in Monument who has a pool in her house and has swimming lessons there. She also has an instructor who works with special needs kids. At one point she was a physical therapist, so she is helpful to have work with Courtney. Courtney got right in the pool, she has no fear! She had a blast with flippers on her feet and goggles on her eyes. She even put her face in the water a few times! We plan on going about every other week for a few weeks. We will then decide if we want to stay there, or try something else. It's a bit far away and a bit pricey because its private lessons, but that is really what Courtney needs right now.

The sale of our domain DOOH.com should go through this week. So, please be sure you switch our email addresses over and also if you go to our homepage to look at pictures, that is changing too.

Kasey is walking almost all the time now. She's so cute, I love this stage when they are learning to walk. I have several videos of it on my website, it looks like they don't work, but you click on the video it is there.

I think I forgot to mention before that Kasey is on breathing treatments. Her last set of x-rays didn't look great, they think she might have either asthma or reactive airway disease. So, she is currently on once a day breathing treatments with a steroid and another medicine. We have to do those through mid May. She will then have another set of x-rays to see how her lungs looks. Hopefully they look good, but if they don't we will have to take her to a pulminologist. The one pediatric pulminologist that was here in Colorado Springs moved out of state, so we would have to take her to Denver. But here's to hoping that whatever is going on with her lungs clears up with these breathing treatments.

She is such a ham too. You get the camera out and she starts making faces like this:
Courtney had her first Fluffernutter last weekend. Ok, it wasn't a TRUE fluffernutter because we don't have FLUFF out here, but it was as close as we can get. She didn't gobble it down like I did! (My mom made one for each of us), but once we added chocolate chips to it, she ate it. Now, doesn't that sound like a healthy sandwich?! That's what happens at Nana's house...
Courtney is still doing well at Hippotherapy. She rode a BIG brown horse named Echo this past week. She is doing really well at that! She doesn't realize she is working her muscles!

I had my last MOPS meeting. The MOPS runs in two semesters concurrent with the school year. So, we are done until fall. It's sad, I have really enjoyed MOPS, it came into my life at a much needed time! I think I am going to volunteer to be on the ministry team next year.

Kasey helps out with laundry and the dishwasher! She moves clothes from the washer to the dryer all by herself. And when I am emptying the dishwasher, she will hand me the silverware to put in the drawer. It's awesome. Now if I could just teach her to vacuum....