four years

Four years ago today, I married my best friend. What a ride the past four years have been- buying and selling a house in Lingle, changing jobs for me and careers for Josh, struggling with infertility, having a baby, adding neices and nephews to the family, adding a sister-in-law to the family, fantastic vacations, two Masters degrees, and soon getting ready to move into our 3rd house. I am a very lucky person to have Josh in my life.


I had a great surprise at school today- I got the most beautiful bouquet of roses delivered to me! 12 red roses with 4 yellow roses mixed in- one for each year we've been married. I was the one everyone was jealous of today. :)

more beth

As I go slowly through my photos from this past weekend, I found this one tonight that I really like. Have I mentioned that she's gorgeous?!

beth

Here's my beautiful new sister-in-law. She's awesome. We're very excited for her wedding to Josh's brother! She's a perfect match for Jeff and will be a fantastic addition to our family.

new word

B has a new word this weekend: MINE.

Oh, joy.

We had a housefull this weekend! What a great time we had. My sister Kristen, her husband David, and their son Ryan came over Friday night. The boys had a GREAT time playing Friday night and Saturday. They ran all over the house giggling and chasing each other. It's nice that they are only 2 months apart in age, they have a ball when they are together. Saturday afternoon we played outside and they practiced jumping off the wood border around our yard and into the grass. Giggles galore. They practiced and practiced jumping on the floor inside, too.

Saturday night my mom and dad came down. They haven't been here in a long time so it was good for them to come. Unfortunately, Kristen and David had to leave shortly after my parents got here, but at least they got to see Ryan for a bit.

Sunday, the rest of our company came. Let's see- we had Craig and Lennie, Josh's uncle Dwayne, our friends Mark, Erin, and their daughter Avey, Jeff and Beth, Beth's parents Carol and Wayne, Josh's cousin Brady, his wife Stacey, and their son Parker, and probably some other people that I'm leaving out (but not on purpose!!). We had a great time. The guys went golfing in the Saratoga High School Football fundraiser tournament at Old Baldy and the girls and kids hung out all afternoon. We played at the park, we got to see the new house, and we went on a photo tour and got some great pictures. Unfortunately, I have misplaced the cord that connects my camera to the computer so I will have to post pictures later.

Today after breakfast with Craig and Lennie and Jeff and Beth, they all left for home (my mom and dad left early this morning) and we relaxed all afternoon. B is WORN OUT. Sharing his toys and playing hard all weekend made him a tired kid! He slept in this morning, only woke up once last night, slept in his OWN BED all night long, and still took a 2 1/2 hour nap this afternoon and went to bed early tonight!

We've had an afternoon full of thunderstorms and hail today. Good moisture, at least. Birdie is a big baby when it comes to thunder so she's been freaked out all afternoon and refuses to go outside. Hopefully we can convince her to at least go potty before we go to bed.

Happy Memorial Day!

jumpin' on the bandwagon

Since everyone else in my family (except my sister, which I'll get to in a minute) wrote about tornado experiences, I'm jumpin' on the bandwagon and doing it myself.

My sister spent the entire afternoon, about 4 or 5 hours, in her basement with her crabby almost-2-year-old, her husband, 4 other adults, and 3 other crabby children. They were all at the house when the UW texting alert system had it's debut, alerting everyone to get shelter because here comes a tornado. From what I can gather, several tornados touched down in Laramie yesterday. Kristen's power went out but I was calling her constantly throughout the afternoon and so was her father-in-law, who was watching the weather service in Wisconsin, where he lives. And Kristen said the new texting alert systerm that UW put in place worked fabulously- updating with text messages every 5 minutes. Awesome!

Kristen drove around last night to see the damage and called my mom. Walmart was closed at the time of the tornado because of a power outage so no one was in the store at the time the tornado hit it. Her friends Debbie & Sean were working at Gem City Bone &Joint (right next to Walmart) at the time and there was a surgery going on at the time of the tornado and a window was sucked out of their van in the parking lot. They saw some uprooted trees, siding torn off motels and homes but no destroyed buildings. Another tornado was said to go right past the high school. Around the high school area, they saw sports equipment (hurdles, soccer goals, etc.) blown up against the fences but no other damage that they could see. Josh had heard the bus windows had all been blown out, so kids had to wait for their parents to come get them. As a teacher- what a nightmare. Trying to keep all those kids calm and not let them leave until their parents got there? And man- they spent 4 hours in the hallway doing the tornado drill. Yikes. We've never even practiced that drill at our school this year. Perhaps we should.

Watching www.wyoroad.info yesterday showed some scary pictures of the interstate right as you get to Laramie- there was a semi tipped over in the middle of the road, and then the strangest one I saw, a big huge BOAT that got blown off a semi. Scary stuff.

I'm glad all we had was rain yesterday. LOTS of rain though. On my way home last night, there was flooding all over the fields. Canals are flooded. The ditch that runs in front of my house is only about a foot from running over with water.

I see on my email right now that Kristen emailed overnight, so her power must be back.

Praise the Lord that everyone we know (including Annie's sister, Stacey and Brady and Parker, and my family and anyone else we all know!) is SAFE! What a freak storm to come through this area. Makes me glad my new house has a basement!!

sold!

Our house, that is. In 2 1/2 days of being on the market. Holy smokes, that was fast. When we moved here, we put our house in Lingle on the market in May. It sold in 10 days. We thought that was a record. We thought with this house, there would be no way we could get that lucky again. And we weren't- we were LUCKIER!!!!

It wasn't a full price offer, but close. We asked $139,700 and the lady offered $135,000 with no other requests. So we said yes and signed the papers! We're working on getting a really fast closing date so we can move before we go to Florida. The lady buying our house would be OK with that, and hopefully the other people can get out of our new house that fast. They were in the process of moving out when we looked at the house last week, so it shouldnt' be too difficult.

YAY! We're pretty excited right now.

sounds of summer

and the air was full of them today...

• birds chirping
• kids playing
• parents taking walks with strollers
• lawnmower
• sprinklers
• Brecken slurping a slurpee on the front porch

it's official

Our realtor already put the sign up in front of our house!

under contract!

We bought a new house today! Kind of.

The house we've been waiting and waiting to see finally opened up to buyers on Monday. The owners are building a new house outside Laramie and that was behind schedule, so the showings of this house kept getting cancelled. Finally, we got to see it on Monday. It's just about perfect for us! It's in the neighborhood we have wanted to live in since we moved to Saratoga. It has a beautifully landscaped yard. It has a dog kennel already built with acess to a kennel inside the garage. The back yard is fenced. It has a big wooden deck on the front and a brick patio out back. It has 4 bedrooms plus a playroom. It has a fully finished basement. For us at this moment, it's just what we're needing. So we put an offer in on it- FULL PRICE (it hurt to do that!), they pay closing costs, they pull the carpet flat downstairs where it is a bit bubbly, and fix the two heaters that aren't working (the owners were going to do the two previous things anyway...) and then wait 60-90 days for us to sell our house. We thought it was a pretty good offer.

They counter-offered yesterday. Full price, they will NOT pay closing costs, and they will give us 15 days to get our house under contract. If after those 15 days ours doesn't have a buyer, and someone else comes along and offers full price and can move in right away, we have 72 hours to come up with the money for our house AND their house. Otherwise they can void our contract. We fretted all night about that. 15 days is NOT a lot of time! Our house in Lingle sold in 10, but surely we can't be that lucky twice!

Today we went into the office to list our house, and the other houses' agent said they would go to 30 days instead of 15 for us to sell our house. That made us feel a lot better and we signed the deal.

Our house already has an appointment to be shown on Tuesday. And the agent who has the house we are buying has two other parties that want to see the house, too. And the broker has a list of people to call, too. HOPEFULLY, it won't take long to sell. It's the ONLY one for sale in this price range right now. We're listing it for $139,700. The next cheapest is $112,000 and the next expensive is $165,000. So hopefully someone only wants to spent up to $140,000 and buys our house. :)

There is some work that needs to be done in the new house, but nothing major. The three upstairs bedrooms need new carpet, and the whole house needs painted inside. (This lady likes pink!) And eventually, we'd like to update the floor of the upstairs guest bath and some things in the other bathroom upstairs. But like I said, nothing major. Here's what it looks like!:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8EctXLRw1atDk

graduation

My baby sister graduated from the University of Wyoming on Saturday. She's now Kristen M. Winegar, BSN. She got her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree and we are all very proud of her! Way to go, Krissy!!

Senator John Barrasso was the speaker for the Health Sciences Commencement:

Josh graduated yesterday, too. He completed his Masters in Curriculum and Instruction. However, his graduation ceremony was in Bozeman, MT. And since we were in Laramie, WY, we weren't able to make it. :( We're very proud of you too, Josh! It's not easy to finish your Master's while working full time, adding a baby to the family, coaching, and being a great husband!

picture day

Today was the day my Senior class, who I co-sponsor, went out to take their traditional Senior class picture. It will go on their composite which includes all their Senior pictures and will hang in the hallways of Encampment School for eternity. We have frames dating back to the 1940s in our hallways! Today we left school and headed to Baggot Rocks outside Encampment. We climbed up what seemed like miles of rocks to find good spots to take pictures. It was high noon, I was fighting direct sunlight and shadows, but I compromised and took pictures where they really wanted to, because to get these 14 kids to agree on anything is a miracle in itself, so I just shut up and took the pictures. :)

Here is the Encampment class of 2008:

my son has a friend!!

Josh came home from school today saying we had to go to a concert- a really good guitar player that did an assembly for their kids today. He built a new prototype of guitar with a man who has a guitar shop here in Saratoga that builds guitars for all sorts of famous people. So, we went to the concert tonight. B came too. Deb and Jake and their kids sat one aisle down and across from us. While waiting for it to start, Chandler, their 3 year old, came to say hi to Brecken. B thought that was great. As Chandler left, B ran to his diaper bag and got out two rolls of Smarties that I had in there to bribe him into being quiet during the concert, and ran over to where Chandler was sitting and gave them to him with a big ol' grin on his face. Chandler said, "Thank you, Brecken!" and B nodded and then ran back to us. He shared with a friend! How nice. That's the first time he's shared like that. He shares food with us, and with anyone else that happens to be around while he's eating, but this is the first time he's gone out of his way to get something and bring it to someone!!

He liked the concert but had a hard time knowing to be quiet. He danced and danced, though. He really liked the music. The guy was excellent. Writes his own songs. He's kind of a motivational musician- Josh said he talked about bullying in their assembly this afternoon.

i see london, i see france...

I see Brecken's underpants! His pants got dirty today so I threw on some of his new shorts that were handy. I just bought them a month or so ago, for the summer. They are size 6/9 months.

And they are falling off.



I feed my child, I swear!

same word, different meaning

When we woke up this morning, B had a runny nose and a cough. I asked him, "Do you have a cold?" He replied, "Brr!"

Time to teach him the meaning of homographs. :)

give them a hug

We watched ESPN2 tonight, there was a story about a girl I went to high school with on it. She is a fantastic runner, and is trying to make the Olympic team this summer. But the story was really about her husband, who died during a marathon last November. They were training together to make the Olympic team. The worst part of the story is, they were married for 4 months. That's it. It reminded me of how fragile life is. Alicia, the girl in the story, told her husband she loved him at the starting line to the race and never spoke to him again because he collapsed a few miles into the race from a heart problem nobody knew he had. I cannot imagine losing my husband, especially after only being married 4 months.

I read a story once upon a time about a woman who lost her husband in a car accident on his way to work. Someone asked her how she could cope so well. She said that they made a point of ALWAYS having the words "I love you" be the last thing they said to each other as they went to work. The morning of the accident, they had a big fight and he stomped out of the house mad. She chased the car down as it was backing out of the driveway. She made him stop, roll down his window, and she gave him a kiss and said, "I love you" and meant it. She said that is how she could cope so well- she knew that the last words he heard his wife tell him was "I love you". That story sticks in my mind every day. (Though the story said it much better than I just did.)

Hug your husband, your wife, your children, your parents, whoever you love in life. Never take a single moment for granted.

the bug

I think I have B's bug today. I woke up with a bad stomach ache. I haven't puked, but I slept until noon! Good thing Josh is home now.

Brecken was SOOOOO glad to see Josh yesterday. We were watching out the window for him, and saw lots of trucks go by. But when he saw Josh's, he yelled, "DADDY!!!!!!!!!" and knocked on the window so hard I thought he was going to break it!! Josh brought him a stuffed wolf puppy and a board book about animals you see when you go camping, and I got a t-shirt and a new mug for my soup.

Josh had to go down to the community center this morning to get his health fair results. While there, Senator Barrasso walked in and right up to Josh! He introduced himself and I guess had quite a long conversation with Josh. They talked about the Teton Science School, Gillette, (Josh said I grewup there and he said he was there last night for the Crawfish Feed!) and a few more things. I asked Josh if he asked Dr. Barrasso to interpret his results for him. :) He said no, but the aide took their picture while shaking hands and then asked Josh for his mailing address. I told Josh we now have Washington covered- I know Sen. Enzi and he knows Sen. Barrasso. :)

Today Josh was supposed to help out with the track meet Saratoga is hosting, but it got cancelled because it was snowing hard this morning. It quit snowing but it didn't ever get very warm today.

Brecken can now identify Mickey Mouse. He pointed to the poster we have of him in the bathroom, and said, "Mappy!" That's good, since we only have two months until we leave for our trip to Disney World!

We were invited up to the Hayes' house for a BBQ tonight, but I stayed home since I'm not feeling that great. Josh and Brecken went though. It's kind of nice to have the house to myself for once!

not-so-fun field trip

I had to take my choir kids to Cheyenne yesterday for our annual music festival, where they sing for judges. They did great- my solos got 26 out of 30, 27 out of 30, and my duet got 34 out of 35! I was proud of the kids.

However, yesterday morning at 3:00, Brecken woke up puking. He puked again at 6:30. I couldn't leave him at the babysitter's, so I had to take him with me since Josh is in Jackson. What a not-fun day. He puked all day long. My two students were awesome though- never batted an eye, helped take care of him in the car, and even took turns reading books to him. What troopers I have!

When we got back to the school I told my secretary that I'd need a sub for today. Brecken puked before bed, but slept for 12.5 hours and didn't puke. Hooray! This morning he woke up and asked for water, which he promptly threw up. He slept some more, then has been able to keep down some Saltines and Gatorade. He has slept most of the day today. I did make it up to the store to get some Pedialyte and Pedialyte popcicles, so we'll have those this afternoon. He's sleeping again. Poor kid. And poor Mommy- what bad timing for Josh to be gone! Cleaning up puke for two days by myself isn't my idea of fun!

prom night

I had two smokin' hot dates to the Saratoga High School prom last night. The little one danced his heart out until about 10:30, when he finally gave in and fell asleep on my lap. HOW he slept through that loud music, I don't know. But he did! He loves dancing, however, so he had a blast. Plus, there was pretzels and cake with chocolate fondue, so he was in 7th heaven. :)

Here is B, ready for the Prom:

Dancing with Dad:

Even dancing while snacking:

growing up

You know how it just hits you like a ton of bricks sometimes, that your baby is no longer your baby? Tonight was one of those nights.

and this little piggy went wee, wee, wee... all the way home

These little piggies didn't go wee, wee, wee, but there was plenty of snorting! Josh's Ag teacher breeds pigs each year and B and I went up to see them this afternoon. I wish I would've known when they were born because they would've been a lot cuter then! But they aren't too ugly right now. B didn't scream this year. He didn't get too close, but watched them pretty intently!

I haven't been very good at keeping up with the blog lately. I feel bad, because I know there are people that check in every night! I'll try to be better. I guess we've just been pretty busy. Josh had Parent/Teacher Conferences twice last week at night, and B and I went to hang out with him for a bit each night. This week, he is setting up for prom from 4-7 each night, so we won't see much of him this week, either. And next week, he'll be gone all week on a trip with the 8th graders to Teton Science School. Then maybe we can have our daddy back!!

This past weekend we went to Lyman to see Beth and Jeff. We had a great time. Saturday we spent the whole day shopping in Park City and Salt Lake City. Everyone found great deals except for me. Rats. We had a wonderful weekend though.

It was BEAUTIFUL today. I love it when we don't have to wear coats! Brecken even had to have a bath at daycare because he had mud everywhere, Deb said. Even in his hair! He must have had one heck of a time playing outside this morning! He was wearing his extra outfit when I got him after school because his clothes he went in, plus his coat, were all in the washing machine. :) He's an outside lover, that's for sure.

spring

I went outside today, hoping to find signs of Spring. This is what I found instead:

But after searching hard, I found signs that Spring should be here soon:

trick rider

bubbles

I forgot to mention in my below post how long we were stuck on Sunday. I wrote it in my original post, but as I hit "publish", the internet said, "Cannot display the webpage" and I LOST everything! I had to start over. Anyway, we were stuck in the truck stop for 6 1/2 hours. Yes, SIX AND A HALF HOURS. It was miserable. But not as miserable as some people- a teacher I work with just got back from Rawlins this afternoon! She didn't get out while they were letting Saratoga people go on Sunday night and she got stuck all night, all yesterday, all last night, and all this morning. She finally got back after lunch today. Wowzers.

Back to the subject of bubbles. Craig and Lennie were here for a couple days to babysit for us. It was wonderful and B had a great time! They brought him some Easter presents, and his favorite of them is a big ol' bubble tube. He and his grandparents spent some time outside today blowing bubbles. This afternoon after they left, he asked me, "Bubba?" which means bubbles. I asked "Do you want to blow bubbles?" and he nodded yes and ran to the bathroom, where he takes bubble baths! Silly kid. So we blew bubbles in the bathroom.

stuck and going nowhere fast

We had a great time in Gillette last week. It was nice to sit around and relax! My grandma came over for a few days too and had fun playing with Brecken with his cars. The Easter Bunny left lots of new cars for B, so he was in 7th Heaven.



Yesterday we headed back for home. After Casper, you have two choices for which way you want to continue on to Saratoga- through Medicine Bow or through Rawlins. Each is the same amount of time, and one usually has a bit better roads. We chose to go through Rawlins. As it turned out, that was the WRONG choice!! We left Rawlins and the sign was blinking to tell us the road was closed at Sinclair, 6 miles up the interstate. So we stop at the gate that was keeping the road closed and talked to the highway patrolman, who said that there was a bad 12 car/semi pileup at Ft. Steele, another 10 miles up the interstate and they were working to get it cleaned up. So we pulled in the truck stop parking lot along with at least 100 other cars, thinking it would be an hour or so. We got B out of his car seat and he sat up with Josh in the driver's seat, "driving". He looked out the window at all the cars and said, "Oh geeze." HAHAHAHAHA. I didn't know he knew that phrase! He said it a few more times and we cracked up. :) After about an hour, Jeffrey called because he and Beth were on their way back to Lyman and passed the wreck- he said nothing had been cleaned up yet. So, knowing it was going to be a while, we made our way back to Rawlins. We stopped at the TA Truck Stop in Rawlins and said hi to Beth and Jeff for a very fast minute so they could get back on the roads before the snow, which was falling, became worse. We let B pick out a treat from the truck stop and we settled in one of the tiny little booths from Subway, which was inside the truck stop. This was a much NICER truck stop than the one in Sinclair- no smoke smell, had tables, and was a lot cleaner and friendlier.



There were a ton of people at the TA that were stranded with us, and there was a line of semi trucks so long that I couldn't see the end of it. There was a grandma and grandpa with their granddaughter who was probably 7 or so, and they were sitting next to us. The grandpa asked B if he wanted one of their bananas, and was just really nice. And through this whole thing, B could've been a monster and I wouldn't have blamed him, but he was AWESOME. With no toys or anything, he just sat at our booth and watched out the window and watched the people in the store with us. A few times he wanted down and would run around for a minute or two but then would sit down again. He was incredible.

Josh had been in touch with the dispatcher from Saratoga's police dept., who was giving us updates from the Highway Patrol. As we were sitting and waiting, waiting, waiting, we got the bad news that National Weather Service had called and said we were getting a big storm at 7:30 (bigger than what we were getting already!) and that the HP wasn't going to let anyone through on the interstate. Even "local traffic" (those of us that live in Saratoga). That totally bummed me out. We were making plans to stay overnight in the truck stop when Josh got a call at 8:00 or so from a guy he knows, who was also stuck in Rawlins, saying the HP was letting us go through. So we hurried up and got ready and headed out. It was pretty eerie- the usually very busy interstate had two of us on there- our car and the guy Josh knows. However, I much prefer that to traveling with all those trucks and the 7 bazillion cars that were waiting to get out!!

I would've documented the whole exciting ordeal with pictures, but my camera battery died in Gillette and of course I didn't have my charger! BUT, we're all home safe and sound.

thunder and snow

Right now, in Gillette, we are having snow so thick it has covered my mom and dad's deck in the past 5 minutes, and with it we are having lightning and thunder! What a strange combination.

B and I went to story time at the library today. Gillette has a fantastic library. We actually almost missed story time- I thought it was at 10:00 but it was actually at 9:30, with one for 3 and 4 year olds (and younger, but the majority were older preschoolers) at 10:30. We made it in time for the last song, and then B and I played with the puzzles, played in the great fort they have just for little guys, played with the bead table in there, climbed on the outside up the ladder to the reading nook where B played "BOO!" with me, picked out a movie to check out, and then the other story time started. B didn't want to participate in the song they were doing but was very interested in the surprise box, so interested, in fact, that he let a stranger help him down the stairs so he could get right close. After that, however, he lost interest and we went home.

B gets to hang out with his grandma and grandpa tonight while Josh and I go to a movie. That is, unless we get snowed in and can't get to the theatre. :)

eggs

B has been busy today. He decorated 3 eggs (and in the process, spilling green egg dye all over the table) and then found 10 more at the Easter Egg Hunt we went to this afternoon. Whew! Big day for a little guy.

spring

Happy SPRING!! Saratoga is welcoming the new season with a forecast for snow. Of course.

We had a busy week this week. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday nights at school until 8:00 p.m. for Parent/Teacher Conferences. I hate Conferences. This year was especially boring, because out of the 8 hours I spent at them, I saw a whole one parent. Whoop-dee-doo. And being at school for over 12 hours a day wears on a person!! I went to school this morning feeling like I had a hangover! Josh and Brecken came up on Tuesday night for a few hours and had dinner with me, which was nice. Brecken likes it at Mommy's school because I have lots of noisy instruments to pound on in my room. :) He also found the lockers and discovered that he fit inside of them. He thought that was pretty hysterical. :)

We had an early out day today, we got to go home at 1:30. Josh had a full day of school, but neither of us have it tomorrow because it is the start of SPRING BREAK!!! Hooray! We are leaving tomorrow to go up to Gillette. We haven't been to my mom and dad's house since August so we're looking forward to the visit. We'll stay until next Sunday.

luck o' the irish

Some of you may remember this adorable picture from last St. Patrick's Day...

I tried again this year with another hat but B had other ideas. I was barely able to snap this shot before he threw the hat with all his might across the living room with that "ug" of disgust:

Sorry it's blurry- he moves fast!

the bear

Our Advanced Art class at my school did something awesome: The State Wildlife Museum gave any school that wanted to participate, a fiberglass bear. Plain white. Nothing on it. Their job was to decorate it somehow, like the Pronghorn project here in Carbon County, or the Cow project in Chicago. I think Cheyenne did something like that too. All of the bears that were decorated by art classes around Wyoming are going to be judged at State Art and a winner will be determined. I think our kids did awesome. ALL of the things on the bear were made of clay and they are so tiny I have no idea how they got the details painted on! All the boulders are made of clay, all the little tiny animals are made of clay, everything was painted. Teeny tiny. Some of the little chipmunks are so small that you miss seeing them the first time you look at the bear! It's quite amazing.

You can see the rest of the pictures I took at: http://www.flickr.com/gp/14494706@N03/Mn8LMH

Click on "view as a slideshow" to get the full effect.

a tornado

A tornado went through our house. Or, that's what I'm going to tell people when they ask why it's so messy.

We decided to put our house on the market, hopefully next week. The realtor is coming on Monday to give us a Market Analysis on it, so we're feverishly going through things and not only throwing a lot of stuff out, but packing up things that aren't needed, that way when we DO get to move, we won't have *as* much packing to do. We have simply grown out of our house. It's a tiny little 1200 square foot house and we simply need more room! We don't have any storage, only 3 bedrooms, teeny tiny bedrooms, a tiny living room, etc. The only thing I'll miss about it is the beautiful view we have out our front windows! We've looked at 3 houses now, and fell in love with one, but it only had 2 bedrooms and I really don't feel up to an addition on the house right away. Turns out, it didn't matter because an offer went in on it the very next afternoon! We've had our eye on one house and it's supposed to come on the market within the next week. We'll go look at it and hopefully it will be wonderful and in our price range! It is supposed to have 4 bedrooms, a finished basement, and a brand new kitchen. However, if this isn't the "right" house, we'll just wait for another one to pop up. The nice thing is, we don't HAVE to move. We can take our time looking. When we moved to Saratoga, we had one day to look at houses and out of the 8 we saw that day, our current house was the only one that was in good shape. So we had to take it. This time around, it will be nice to not have to settle, and wait for the right house to open up. I HATE moving, so I don't want to settle for something we won't be happy with in a few years!!

think pink!

The beautiful being growing here in my sister's belly is my new NIECE!!!

bad, bad babysitters.

Deb and Dr. Jake babysat for us Friday night so Josh and I could go on a real date. We went to dinner and then to the Count Basie jazz concert! When we got back to Blazzard's, we got B and then talked for a few minutes. I looked down right as we were getting ready to go and noticed blue underneath his sweatshirt. B had worn an orange shirt under his sweatshirt when we dropped him off... So I pull up the sweatshirt and under it was a stinking BYU jersey!!!! (Deb and Jake are BYU alumni and make fun of us for loving Brown and Gold.) Both Jake and Deb went, "OH MAN! We hoped you wouldn't notice until you got home!" B wouldn't let us take it off, either. In fact, that's what he slept in!!!! Dang kid!!!

I know the jersey got put on because last Wednesday night, the Blazzards went to Laramie
for the BYU-Cowgirls basketball game. BYU lost bad, so I put B's WYO shirt on to go to their house the next day. :)

Dang jersey. :)

in love

My son is in love.

With a pair of shoes.

Now is where you say, "Yup, just like his daddy. Again."

He wears them all day long. He wears them for naps and cries when you try to take them off. They are the first things he brings you in the morning and gets very impatient when you make him put on socks before the beloved shoes.

I'd say he's in love with them because of the little red man, but frankly, I'm pretty sure that just happens to be an added bonus. His first love is the shoes themselves.

lucky

I'm a lucky girl.



Here's why: I have an immediate in-law family that I love. Not everyone gets to say they love their in-laws.



I've always wanted a little brother. A few summers ago, I got to add THREE of them (including my sister's husband) to my family! All in one summer!! My three little brothers-in-law (here on out known as my brothers in this post) are awesome. I get to joke around and rough house with them like I always wanted to do while growing up. My brothers are the best.



I have two sisters-in-law that are awesome. We can just sit and hang out together, or go shopping, or do lots of quality girl-talk. My sisters are the best.



My mother-in-law and father-in-law treat me like I've always been in the family. They've been nothing but nice from the day I met them, which was a terrifying experience- I met them at Red Lobster along with a whole table full of Josh's family- talk about nervousness!! My mother-in-law and father-in-law open their arms to their new daughters-in-law like we've always been in the family, but were just gone on a long vacation. They've never been judgmental, they love us for who we are, they love us for what we bring out in their sons, and I think secretly, my mother-in-law likes having girls around for once. :) For that, they're the best.

funny for the day

I love kindergarteners.

I have a bean-bag activity song that I do with my really young kids, where they have to balance a bean-bag on their head, walk around the room, and when the song says "Sha-boom", they have to jump and try to keep the bean-bag on their head. We haven't done it for a while, so when I pulled it out again I asked my kindergarteners if they remembered what the magic word was in the song, and one of the little girls goes, "YEAH! LIGHTNING MCQUEEN!" I thought she was crazy and wondered where in the world that answer came from until I realized a few minutes later that that song IS in "Cars"- it's when the town gets all spruced up and the cars are dancing down Main Street. I think I probably laughed out loud when I realized that her answer was a very clever one!!!

busy on the ambulance

Josh has been busy on the ambulance already this week. Sunday night/Monday morning, he got a call at 3:00 a.m. Poor guy, got home about 5:30 and had to get up again at 6:30!! His ambulance director went with him. And then she called last night to let Josh know that the lady they hauled (an elderly lady having problems breathing) tested positive for influenza. So Josh is now on Tamiflu, because he never did get his flu shot. He went and got it tonight.

Then he got another call at 5:45 tonight. This one might take a while- the roads are SLICK out tonight because it's been snowing off and on all day. And like usual, it can't just snow, it has to BLOW, too. My drive home from work was real slick this afternoon, so I can imagine how much worse it is tonight!!

oh my gosh!

Encampment's boys basketball just won State!!!! I think this is the first time in school history to have a State basketball title. Man, was it close- within 1 or 2 for most of the game. It was tied and one of our boys made a basket with 2 seconds left in the game for the win. Our home ec teacher said on Thursday that she dreamed it would come down to this boy, Garrett, and how weird that she was right, since he was the one that won the game for us tonight. Whoo-wee! How exciting! Too bad we weren't there.

B and I made a run to Laramie today to stock up on stuff. We were going to go to the rec center indoor playground to play, but I think they were having a swim meet there and we would've had to park a mile away. So instead, we went to my sister's house, where nobody was home, and played in her front yard instead. :) B had fun on the swing and the slide and then found a water puddle and because of it, had to ride home in a t-shirt and his diaper because his pants, socks, and shoes were soaked. He had a blast though! :)

laundry in the night

Doing laundry in the middle of the night is never fun. I guess this wasn't really the middle of the night, but close enough! Poor Brecken woke up about 11:00 coughing, then cried pretty hard, calling for his Mommy. (Some day, I really want him to call for his Daddy.) I went in there and the poor baby had coughed so hard he threw up. So in went the load of laundry. I got him changed while Josh threw the dirty things into the washing machine.

Josh left about 6:00 this morning for Denver for the coaches clinic. Brecken decided he wanted to get up then too. We don't have school today, so I was hoping I'd get to sleep in! But B had other plans. And from the time we got up until about 9:00, all he did was throw tantrums. Then at 9:00, he gagged and threw up again because he tried to put a toy in his mouth. So, I got to clean up puke twice in 12 hours. It was lovely. I finally got him settled down enough to take a nap. I took one with him while I had the opportunity! After a nap and some lunch, I finally got some smiles out of him.

Sure was nice out today, but there's nowhere to play outside since we still have a foot of snow on the ground. I could tell B wanted to go somewhere, however, because about 1:00 he brought me his shoes and my coat. He wanted his, but couldn't reach it. So on went the shoes and coats and we went to the library.

Now I'm watching the webcast of Encampment's boys' basketball team playing the semi-final round at State. Saratoga plays right after them, but that one will be on the radio.

regional basketball

We all spent the weekend in Torrington watching Regional Basketball. I left right after school on Thursday and picked up B, then headed out. We missed most of the first half of Josh's game but watched the whole second half. Unfortunately, they lost two games in a row, (Friday morning was their second game) meaning they were out of the tournament and are not going to State. :( The team stayed all weekend to watch the boys though- the boys team ended up Regional Champions and are going in to the tournament with the #1 seed! Hooray! We didn't get to watch any Encampment games, because Encampment's Regionals is in Lander.

Brecken did really good on the trip. He had to sit and watch a LOT of basketball and was ready to run around by the end of the day but he did so great. He really enjoyed the trains in Torrington- our hotel room sat practically ON the tracks so he heard the whistle every time. He'd then want up in our arms to see out the window so he could watch the trains go by. By the end of the trip he was saying, "Tray!" I have a smart kid. :)

i think they smell good

Here are the roses I got from Josh for Valentine's Day. I got 18 beautiful red, white, and pink roses. I said above that I think they smell good because Brecken and I have terrible colds and I cannot smell them! Too bad, because roses are one of my favorite scents.

flight for life

I never knew how much Brecken's Flight for Life trip cost because we never got an insurance claim form for it. I was always curious though, because I've never known anyone needing Flight for Life services so I had no idea how much it cost!! YESTERDAY, after a whopping 17 months after the Flight for Life service, we finally got a statement for it. I have no idea why it took that long to get claimed, but it did. And it was expensive. Are you ready for this?

$14,183.00

WOW. That's a lot of money.

older ladies

Since Josh's team hasn't played a game in almost 3 weeks, he and Amy, the head coach, planned a fun game for tonight. Josh came home the other night saying they were inviting some older ladies to play. In my mind, "older ladies" means 80-some year olds and I couldn't figure out why they would invite them to play ball... He said, "No, like Deb!" Deb is all of 34- maybe? I laughed that he called her an older lady!

Anyway, Josh coached a team of "older ladies", including his cousin Dixie tonight. There were 12 of these "older ladies", two real refs, score keeper and clock man, and then the Saratoga girls team. What a fun game to watch! And the "older ladies" an Josh won! By 9! Everyone had a good time. There was a pretty good crowd, too! It wasn't really a "game", because that would be against WHSAA rules, but it sure was a fun "practice"!

Brecken spent the day at Amy's house today. Dr. Jake had some things he needed to do in Rawlins so he didn't want to keep B. Amy's such a trooper- she's home on maternity leave, so she had her son Dylan, who will be 2 in April, Brecken, and then her 4 week old baby Cooper. Brecken had a great time playingwith his friend Dylan all day today. I held Cooper for a while tonight while the game started and Amy's mom wasn't there yet, and I was exhausted from holding the tiny little baby and chasing after Brecken!!! I'm glad I don't have a newborn right now! But it sure was fun to hold such a tiny little guy again. Cooper is over 10 pounds, but I don't remember B being that small! :) Brecken loves Cooper. At the game, he'd go pet Cooper's head or pat his feet, just to make sure he was OK. He even gave Cooper a kiss all on his own. I'm glad he loves babies. :)

aperture

Here is Stacey's assignment for this week: Aperture. This means how much of the picture is in focus (on purpose!). Here are Brecken's farm people set up in front of their big ol' barn.

it always tastes better....

When it's been dumped on the floor.

"vacation"

We had a nice day yesterday. Josh's game got cancelled AGAIN (this means their girls haven't played a game in 3 weeks!!) even though the roads were all open and pretty favorable conditions. Josh was pretty ticked. But we haven't been out of town and haven't gotten to a Wal-mart since before Christmas, so we decided to go to Laramie and stock up on everything. We went through Encampment and down that way to Wood's Landing because even though the interstate said good conditions, it was WINDY and 3-way (the way we went) is usually much better. However, yesterday, it was NOT. Very limited visibility for about 15 miles of it, with snow drifts covering the whole highway. We had to go in the other lane to get around lots of the drifts, which was scary because we really couldn't see who was coming at us! We were too far away to turn around though- this all happened in the Colorado stretch of the drive. When we got cell service again, Josh called the Highway Patrol to see if they could get ahold of CDOT to either close the road or get someplows stationed out there!

Anyway, we made it to Laramie and had lunch at Applebee's with Kristen, David, and Ryan. Then K came with us to Wal-mart while D took R home for a nap. Then we went to K's house for a while and then Kristen and I went to watch "27 Dresses" at the theater while the boys stayed home. It was a cute chick-flick. I haven't been to a movie theater since last summer, I don't think!! B and Ryan had a great time playing together. B would dance and R would laugh, and they'd run around together playing. When Kristen and I got back, we all picked up the toys that were ALL dumped out of the bins, and then we headed home. This time, on the interstate. :) It was dry all the way, just windy. Got home about 8:30, got B out of the car (he was asleep before we even got out of Kristen's neighborhood!!) and put his jammies on and he went right back to sleep.

This morning, Josh left to go snowmobiling with our neighbor and B and I are being lazy. I love lazy days. :)

polar bear in a snowstorm

We have been hit terribly with wind and snow this winter. The "old timers" in the teacher's lounge have all said within the past week or two that they cannot remember a worse winter in our Valley. The visibility is terrible, the wind is even worse, and looking at the ground, you wouldn't THINK we've had much snow but that's becuase with 60 mph winds (and gusts up to 80), the snow all blows away. I honest-to-goodness can't remember the last time the snow fell DOWN here, it always falls sideways.

Way back in college, I used to draw "art". It was completely dumb- and I must have had too much time on my hands while sitting at the front desk of the dorm, answering phone calls and sorting mail for the dorm. It looked like this Photoshop rendition: (and don't laugh- this is the extent of my artistic abilities!)

I called this "creation" Polar Bear in a Snowstorm.

My drive home today looked extremely similar to the above picture. Here's the photoshop rendition of the trip that took forever:

That grey line is the reflector pole that I would be able to see just as I came up upon it. Our English teacher also lives in Saratoga, so we booked it out of school as soon as we could and she followed me back to town. It was not fun, that's for sure! The weird thing was though, that we got about halfway back and all of a sudden, instead of not being able to see anything, we had blue skies! Saratoga was nice and clear, whereas we drove through a white-out to get there.

Our cat Ditka had to go to the vet yesterday to get neutered. The vet comes from Rawlins on Wednesdays, so we dropped him off yesterday afternoon. I was supposed to go get him this afternoon, but there was no way I was driving on these roads, in the dark on the way back, to go get him. However, one of the vet employees lives in Saratoga, so Ditka got sent home with him. He was supposed to get here about an hour ago, however. I guess the vet clinic called Josh on his way to basketball practice to tell him that the guy got stuck at a roadblock on the interstate. I'm assuming that means an accident on the road. He was going to wait a bit and then see if he could still get here, or if he would have to turn around. (I would think they would all have to turn around- the interstate is closed again. It's been open for about 4 hours in the past 48.) We haven't heard anything since the initial call, so I think the poor guy is still sitting on the interstate. With a meowing cat. I can think of better things to be doing. :)

an owie

Josh went to pick Brecken up from Jake and Deb's today after school. Jake watches B on Tuesdays, because he has the day off and Deb works at the hospital in Rawlins. Here's how the conversation went when Josh walked in the door:

Jake: We had a bit of an accident today.
Josh: Oh, great.
Jake: You know how Brecken follows you around everywhere, wherever you go?
Josh: Yeah....
Jake: Well, I'm not used to that and I ran him over. He fell and bit his lip and I thought he needed stitches, he was bleeding so much. But he finally quit bleeding and he doesn't need stitches.

Poor Brecken!!! He's been whining when eating, I think it hurts him. And he's a GRUMP, you can tell it's hurting. And his lip started bleeding again a while ago, but I didn't notice because he's sucking on his mimi, and by the time I noticed, the bleeding had stopped. So I still don't know which lip it was coming from. Good news is, at least he got hurt at the doctor's house. :) I bet Jake would've done the stitches for free, too. :)

hungry, hungry hippo!!

Brecken is eating us out of house and home. No joke. For the past week and a half, he's been eating CONSTANTLY. He seriously eats all day long. And if he doesn't have anything handy, he goes to his high chair and tries to get up in it, saying, "bowl?" And even while eating all day long, he still does eat full meals and drinks lots of milk! He must be in one heck of a growth spurt. Yesterday we got home at 4:30 and at 5:30 I finally took him up to watch the end of basketball practice to keep his mind off the food! In that hour we were home, he had juice from a real cup, cauliflower, and Wheat Thins. Then after we got home from practice, he finished the 100 Calorie pack of the Wheat Thins and then ate a full dinner. Then a snack before bed, too. He's been eating Deb out of house and home also- we'll have to give her a raise to keep up with food costs!!!!

Josh said with B eating all day long, there IS some of his mother in him. :)

accomplishments

On a board I belong to for people that are struggling and have struggled with infertility, someone asked us on the parenting side of it to list the recent accomplishments our kids have achieved. I thought it would be fun to post what Brecken can do here, too, for those of you that aren't close enough to see him a lot!

Words: bowl, mama, ah-mee (mommy) dad, daddy, dit-da (Ditka the cat) kee (kitty), dog, woof, moo, uh-oh, see, this, juice, mimi (what he calls his pacifier), milk, tee (tree), ball, vroom (when he's driving his cars) and boo!

Body parts- he can point to the following body parts on his body or anyone else's: nose, eyes, ears, mouth, belly. (though he has to lift up his or anyone else's shirt to get the belly!!)

He is in size 4 diapers now, size 18 month clothes, and size 5.5-6 shoes. He has 9 teeth and is using them lately to the fullest- we can't keep this kid full this past week! He is CONSTANTLY eating. It will be interesting to see what he weighs next time we go to the clinic.

He understands what we say. He can answer questions like the best of them. He nods, shakes his head, and turns his little hands up in the "I don't know" pose when he doesn't know. 99% of the time, he answers the questions correctly, too!! Last weekend I didn't feel like putting much effort into getting dressed, so he ended up wearing what I pulled out first- a red pair of sweatpants and a purple Panters sweatshirt. Josh asked Brecken if his clothes matched. He shook his head no. He then asked B if he was sad about not matching, and he nodded his head yes! :)

No more bottles! He FINALLY gave up that nightime bottle this past week. Now we're full-time into sippy cups, cups with straws, and his new favorite- REAL CUPS. He does really good- doesn't spill anything! If we're at a restaurant, he will not drink out of his sippy cup- he insists on the real cups. He practices lots at home, too.

Sleeping is still sketchy- some nights he does great and sleeps through the night until between 6 and 6:30. Other nights, it's like he's afraid of the dark and wants nothing to do with sleep.

His favorite toys at the moment are cars and balls. And books. Oh, how he LOVES reading books. He's very much into climbing now, he climbs on EVERYTHING. The other day he wanted up on the side table next to the couch. He stood on his tractor to get there, but still wasn't tall enough. So he went and got on his chair, up on the couch, and over the arm of the couch to get on the table.

So, there's my (almost) 17 month old! It's so crazy how fast time flies.

new words

Brecken has two new words this week: Bowl, and ah-mee. Bowl means snack, because usually put his snacks in bowls. So when he's hungry, he'll walk around going, "Bowl." :) Ah-mee is him saying "Mommy" instead of "Mama" now.

Josh's games this weekend both got cancelled due to the weather. It's been weird to have him home on a Friday night and a Saturday afternoon! He did get called out on the ambulance about an hour ago, though. They needed an Intermediate for a transport from the nursing home.

Brecken's asking to read books now, so I better go. We've only read about 100 already today.