Our "Me Tree": June 2009

Wow, it's been almost a week since I've updated! That doesn't happen very often. We've been busy, but not with anything exciting, I guess!! Here are the highlights:

Wednesay last week, Josh got home from football camp. Brecken REALLY missed his daddy this time around- it was hard for him to have Josh gone to basketball camp, home for a day, and then turn around and leave while he was sleeping again for football camp. He's been very clingy on Josh since he's been home and doesn't like it one bit when Josh leaves to go anywhere without him! Wednesday night we also had company for dinner- Josh's cousin Kevin was in town on blood drive work so we had him over. Brecken kept saying, "Kevin! I have toys in here!" and "Kevin! Look at this!" and so on. He had fun showing Kevin around our house- he hadn't seen our new one yet. He even showed Kevin his bathtub. :)

Friday we made a quick trip to Home Depot to get supplies for a new fence. The back of our fence is about to fall over, so that will be our project next week. The back portion cost us a ton of money, so the sides will have to wait until next summer. :) Manual labor and Kara do not usually go in the same sentence, so it will be amazing if we can get through the project without Josh getting TOTALLY irritated with me. :)

Other than that, not a lot has been happening. This week, Josh is teaching summer school for a couple kids that need to recover a credit. It will go Monday-Thursday, 8-12 this week. After he gets home on Thursday, we're taking off for Gillette for the 4th of July. I LOVE the 4th of July in Gillette. Big parade, the biggest fireworks display in Wyoming, just a bunch of fun. My aunt, uncle and cousins from Montana will be there, as will my grandma and my sister, David, and the kids. My mom will just have gotten back from Europe, so I hope my dad is ready to go from a house with just him in it for the past 3 weeks to a house with 14 people in it!

Until next time...

We had a great trip to Marco Island! This could be a long post- sorry about that. I do promise to not post every picture I took- I think it numbered in the 700's.

Sunday, June 7

Sunday started off with something I've been looking forward to for a long time: The Children's Hospital NICU reunion party! Since we were in the NICU, Children's has moved to a new location. I thought the old hospital was fantastic, but this one is just spectacular! We didn't get to see much of it, just the lobby area, but WOW! Upon entering, we went to the registraion table and who was there registering people, but our favorite NICU nurse! Betsy was the one who gave Brecken his first bottle, and was the one who was the most instrumental in getting us transferred back to Laramie. The day we got released from the hospital for good was her first shift back from her days off and was supposed to be assigned to Brecken. He wasn't there so she called me to make sure all was OK! That meant a lot to me. Anyway, we walked in and she looked at Josh and said, "Hey... I remember you!" THAT is an amazing thing too- how many babies and parents has she worked with since Brecken was there? I wouldn't be able to remember one specific one, that's for sure!

The party had tons of games for the kids to play- golf, basketball, a bean table to dig in and find prizes, craft stations, the most amazing face paintings I have ever seen, a bicycle safety course, etc. Of course, my child wanted to do golf and basketball ONLY. Sound like someone else we know?

They served lunch and had their slideshow of kids- after it was all done, Brecken clapped and said he loved that! :)

Then they gave away some door prizes. Each family was given a ticket when we got there and they started calling numbers. They only had about 15 things to give away, and there were a couple hundred people there, I would estimate. They gave away some boring ones, like tickets to the railroad history museum, but was I ever thrilled when they called OUR number and gave away a fantastic prize- tickets the Denver Zoo! Woo-hoo! We love zoos, so that will be great to go back to Denver later this summer and go to the zoo.

After the party, we went to the aquarium to burn time until we could go to the hotel for the night. Brecken had a BLAST. He could have spent all day at the aquarium. He ran from exhibit to exhibit and was in awe of everything. And it wasn't crowded at all in there, so it was a fantastic visit!

Since we were so busy Sunday, Brecken only had about 10 minutes total of nap. You would think he would be tired and go to bed, but NO. We finally turned the lights off and he ran around the hotel room in the dark at 10:00 p.m. He finally got the hint and laid down and went to sleep.

Monday, June 8

Monday started off very early! We made it through the flights and landed in Fort Lauderdale with no problems. Hooray for that!

Tuesday, June 9

Tuesday we took it kind of easy. We explored Marco Island a little bit, and went to the Marco River Marina, which is owned by my uncle's company, Rose Packing Co. The lady there found out I was the niece, and gave us fabulous service. :) Josh and Jeff and Brecken all got new fishing poles to use on our boat dock at our house. Brecken was so dang excited he could hardly contain himself. We also reserved a boat for later in the week- and imagine our surprise when the marina called Josh later and said they had called my uncle and they were waving the fee for the boat! YAY!! That afternoon was spent hanging out in our pool and teaching Brecken how to fish. Yes, at the same time.

Wednesday, June 10

Beach day!! We went down to the public beach and prepared to have fun. We did have fun, too! To get to the ocean part of the beach, you had to cross water over a sand bar. Josh and Jeff checked it out in the morning while us girls and Brecken stayed back and played in the sand there, and then after lunch we all went over the sand bar. It was a lot deeper then than it was when the boys crossed over in the morning, and when we came back at the end of the day it was deeper still!

Brecken LOVED swimming in the ocean. He giggled and giggled when the waves came. He had so much fun and didn't want to leave! We had a good time looking for shells, playing in the water, making sand castles, and relaxing.

We got back to the rental van and that's when things went downhill. We could not find the keys ANYWHERE. We tore apart all of our bags and still nothing. The last anyone remembered was they were in Josh's shorts pocket and he couldn't remember if he had put them in the bag or not. A nice lady in the parking lot gave us the phone number for the local Enterprise. Jeffrey went back to the beach to see if he could find them anywhere. Beth and I stayed with the kids. After forever (it seemed), a family asked us if we lost our keys because they had found some. Oh, thank goodness! They were our keys! We thanked them up and down and they left. We went to unlock the car, and nothing. It's those new keys where EVERYTHING is electronic. We were able to take the electronic cover off and get the "old fashioned" key out to unlock the doors, but then it would not start the car. At all. We called Enterprise in Marco, Enterprise in Ft. Lauderdale where we rented the van from, and got nothing. An Enterprise guy finally came to get Beth and I and the kids since it was HOT and a storm was coming, and brought us to the house. Josh and Jeff stayed with the van. They finally had to get it towed to Naples, where they kept it overnight, to get the stupid key re-programmed. This was the second time we have had one of those van keys where it's all electronic, and the second time that it has quit working on us. I'm not impressed with the new Chrysler Town and Countrys right now. I won't be renting one of those again unless they give us the good ol' "old fashioned" keys!

Thursday, June 11

Another low-key day, partly because we didn't have a car for the morning. Josh and I went and got it and got back around lunchtime. We hung out around the pool and in the afternoon the boys went fishing. Didn't catch anything except a palm leaf but they sure had fun!

Friday, June 12

What a fun day this was!! We went out on the boat we rented from the Marina. Beth and the kids and I dropped the boys off at the marina and then went to the store to get lunch to pack. The boys brought the boat right to our back yard to pick us up! Brecken thought that was so funny. We spent all day out on the water. What a blast. I haven't spent a lot of time boating because let's face it- not a lot of boating options in Wyoming. Brecken had so much fun that he didn't even fight the fact that he had to wear a life jacket. We saw dolphins playing, lots of birds, a ton of boats, and it was a beautiful day out. We even stopped for fishing. Jeff caught one!! We also went to this place where you could park your boat and get out and wade in the nice warm water, look for shells, and walk on a little trail to the beach. SO. MUCH. FUN. I didn't want it to end!!

Saturday, June 13

Today we went to the swamp. I'm glad I went to see what it looked like, but I can live without going there again. Talk about HOT, MUGGY, and BUGS. Ugh. Remember that scene in Monsters Inc. where the monster was banished to the swamp and he ends up in a trailer and the lady thinks he's a 'gator? Yup, that's exactly how the swamp was. But Brecken was so excited to see alligators so off we went. We found an airboat place so we took a ride on one. That was kind of fun- I've never been on one before and it created a breeze! :) We saw alligators, so the trip was successful.

That night, Jeff and Beth went out on a date and we got to babysit Bryell. Brecken took that job super seriously, and was so much fun to watch. He read her books, helped me give her a bottle, even insisted on using the wipes when he helped me change her diaper. What a good babysitter he was!

Sunday, June 14

Took it easy again today- we went up to Naples to explore a little bit and found a nice air-conditioned mall. :) Other than that, nothing exciting happened.

Monday, June 15

Another fantastic day on a boat! A few days before, a Rose Packing guy called our house. Am I glad we answered the phone- because he offered us a day on the Rose Packing yacht- the Ramblin' Rose.

We had so much fun on this boat too. It had an airconditioned cabin, but we mainly stayed upstairs where we could see everything! Did you know that when huge boats go through the water, the dolphins use the wake to body surf? We got to witness it and let me tell you- it is one of the most awesome things I've ever seen!!

(I tried positing a very cool video of it but it was taking too long. I'll try again later.)

We saw some HUGE houses (I'm talking in the 13 milllion dollar range), some fantastic swimming pools in these huge houses' screened in porches, the house of the Stanley Steemer guy, a famous country singer's house (hold on... trying to remember which one it was...), some amazing scenery, had all the food we could eat, and had a really fun time. It was hard to believe that 4 hours passed as quickly as they did!

That evening, Josh and I got to go out on a date. We went to Naples and ate at a crab shack- we at so much shrimp that I'm not sure there are any left in the ocean. :) After that we bummed around in some cute little shops and then headed out to see a movie- "Angels and Demons". We had a good time together.

Tuesday, June 16

It was Father's Day for Josh and Jeff today! Beth and I got them a round of golf at a golf course for Father's Day and today was the day they got to go out and play. Beth and I had every intention of having a girls' day out (with Brecken and Bryell) but the guys played so fast that we only had time to get ready and have lunch!!

We went and picked the guys up and then we all went to the Naples Zoo. I'm not a fan of this zoo. Part of it was our fault- we went in the heat of the day (and let me tell you, it was HOT) and all the animals were resting where we couldn't really see them- but part of it was the zoo was pretty terrible. They didn't have a lot of "normal" zoo animals like elephants and zebras! The animals they DID have were behind two sets of fences so you couldn't hardly see them because of the two sets of green chain link you had to look through. We walked through the paths and then headed out. We ate dinner at a restaurant that was my Grandpa's favorite while he was alive. I never knew my Grandpa because he died when I was a year and a half old, but it was great to be somewhere that I knew he loved- I've never really gotten to do that before! That made it worth it, even if we were too hot to really enjoy the food. Next to the restaurant is a shell shack so Brecken picked out a special star fish to bring home for his friend Dylan. He kept telling me, "Dylan will LOVE it, Mommy!"

Wednesday, June 17

Today was the day we had to pack up. :( We ran a few last minute errands and then came back to clean out the fridge for lunch, and then took off for Ft. Lauderdale for the night. Our plane left really early on Thursday and driving from Marco Island to Ft. Lauderdale early on Thursday morning didn't sound fun. It was sad leaving the house- we had so much fun there. 10 days kind of seems long, but we all decided it was about the right amount of time for a trip. We were able to have fun-packed days and days where we did nothing but hang at the house- and we came back refreshed instead of feeling like we needed a vaction to recover from the vacation. We checked into our hotel in Ft. Lauderdale, ate a yummy dinner at TGI Fridays, and Josh and Jeff returned our car to the airport.

Thursday, June 18

Flew home today. We had a great time and I can't wait to do it again sometime!! Rita and Pudge, if you read this, we had the time of our lives and we thank you SO MUCH for your help in our vacation. We had a blast!

More pictures can be seen on Beth's blog.