animal kingdom

If you've never been to Animal Kingdom, I highly recommend that you put it on your list of places to visit. It is probably my favorite of the 4 parks at Disney. It's a beautiful place. And it's where we spent our last day in Disney World.

lazy day

Here we go- another Disney post.

Wednesday July 2 was a lazy day. My mom unfortunately was sick the whole night before with food poisoning that she got somewhere. We had a character breakfast planned at our resort, but she was still sick in bed and my dad stayed with her, so just the kids and their parents went. B was once again afraid of the characters but Ryan had a ball!!

After breakfast, Josh, David and my dad took off for 18 holes at the Palms golf course. Josh had been looking forward to that since last time we went to Disney World! Kristen and I decided to be brave and take the little boys to the Magic Kingdom by ourselves. We wanted to visit Mickey's house in Toontown there. That was a disaster of a trip! A 9 month pregnant lady with a double stroller and a two year old, along with me, my tired toddler and our stroller, wasn't a good combination. It was very hard to get on all the transportation since you have to fold up the strollers and take everything out of the bottom of them. We didn't spend too long there since both boys were tired and cranky. We did manage to get some shopping in though, and B came away with some super cool sunglasses. :)

The rest of the afternoon was spent NAPPING. It was needed for all of us!!

magic kingdom and hollywood studios

I'm back and exhausted but I'm going to try to catch up with our Disney trip tonight!! OK, maybe not ALL of them tonight, but I'll try. :)

Tuesday, July 1 was spent at the Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. We had a fun day. We rode Dumbo, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, etc. Some of us rode Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

In the afternoon, we moved over to Hollywood Studios. We watched a great parade and Brecken loved it. The little green soldiers from Toy Story were in it and had microphones on. I had Brecken saluting to them. One of them told him, on the mic, "Looking good, recruit!" That was pretty fun. :)

Happy 4th of July!

I know, I didn't update from Disney as much as I would have liked. I was so exhausted by the end of the day that I just couldn't do it. And same tonight- we are coming up on 24 hours of being awake because our plane left so dang early this morning so we could get back for Jeffrey's wedding rehearsal tonight. But I wanted to with everyone a happy 4th of July and I'll update with Disney stuff soon! For now, here's a picture of Brecken with his first ever sparkler, enjoying it with Aunt Annie.

hollywood studios and epcot

We went to Disney's Hollywood Studios this morning. It is a short boat ride past the next resort over and bam! there you are. My dad, David, Josh, and I went to ride Rockin' Roller Coaster and the Tower of Terror while the lines were short and my mom and Kristen took the little boys to ride the new ride, Toy Story Mania, and get fastpasses for the whole group to ride it again later. Then we met up with them to watch the stage show Playhouse Disney Live on Stage. B and Ryan LOVED it- there were bubbles!!! And we got to sing the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse song and all the other ones we know. THEN, we got to eat lunch with JoJo, Goliath, and two of the Einsteins from the show "Little Einsteins". Once again, B was afraid of them but Ryan had a wonderful time. :)

This afternoon we headed back to the hotel and went swimming for a bit. Then we headed over to Epcot and did some rides there. We rode a Nemo ride and saw a show with Crush from the Nemo movie. B had a fabulous time at both of those- he loves fish! Here is a picture of him looking at the fish before we went into the show:

We stayed until closing (at 9:00) to watch the fireworks show. It's one of my favorite shows at Disney. B is one tired dude after today.

riding trains and chef mickey's

Yesterday morning was spent again at Downtown Disney. My mom, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew flew in late Saturday night and hadn't been there yet so we went again. The kids are so excited by choo-choo trains lately so we let them ride the one at Downtown.

Yesterday evening we had dinner at Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary Resort. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto came around to our tables while we ate. Brecken was so brave at the water park on Saturday when he saw Goofy- he gave him a big hug. While standing in line to get our table last night, he was holding his arms out saying "hug" when he saw the characters at other tables, but when it came down to our time, he chickened out and didn't want anything to do with them. :) We had a birthday celebration for the two boys while there, and Mickey helped them blow out the candles on their cupcakes. That was pretty neat. :) Unfortunately, my camera battery died after a few pictures and so I will have to steal some from my mom. Here are a couple that I did get though.

After that, my mom, Josh, and I took B to the Magic Kingdom for a few rides. He was so tired but had fun. We got to ride Dumbo under the fireworks- what a special ride that was! However, my mom's batteries died, too, so we didn't get pictures. :( We were out until 11:30 p.m. but B did great and did a great job today, too.

blizzard beach

We had a fabulous day at Blizzard Beach yesterday. Blizzard Beach is a fun waterpark and B had a BLAST. He was there and having fun for almost 5 hours! They have a little kids' area, called Tykes Peak. There, you will find waterslides for babies and shallow pools and kids over a certain height are not allowed in. B played and played and played. The only time he wasn't having fun is when I was trying to tell him that no, he cannot bring the chips into the water with him!!
Here is a video and a couple pictures.



This next one was taken at Downtown Disney, while we were waiting for dinner. The ducks were very friendly and B wanted to pet them.

a sigh of relief

So we had an offer on our house last Saturday. It was a lady who had seen the house on Tuesday and then brought her husband back on Saturday and we knew they were bringing an offer with them. It was the same offer we accepted last time, but this time we waited until we had the confirmation that they could get a loan before we signed anything. After what happened last time, we weren't going to take chances! And so this afternoon we got word directly from their bank that a loan would happen. So we went down and signed the papers. YAY! And the bank said they could most likely be ready to close on our deadline, July 16, depending on if the appraiser can get there fast enough. So that was also good news. Our seller said we could start moving things into their garage the week before, so that was good news too! Lots of good news this week, for once.

SO, now keep your fingers crossed that this will all work smoothly from here on out!

We have spent the day doing laundry and packing for our Disney World trip. We are leaving tomorrow and going through Laramie. Our dog kennel here is closing for a couple weeks because of a dog virus going around, so we had to scramble and find another kennel. We're taking the dogs to Laramie to a kennel there. So we'll stop and drop off the dogs, then stop and see my sister and try some maternity pictures with her. Then we'll head on to Cheyenne, where we will stay the night with Brady and Stacey. Friday we'll head to the airport to begin our vacation!! We will have internet access while we are there, so I'll post pictures and videos of our trip as I can.

Hooray for good news!!

a shower and a shower

I got to go to Lyman this weekend to Beth's bridal shower. What a fun weekend it was! Her shower was great and she got lots of fabulous gifts from her friends. Here are a few snapshots:

And now for a shower of a different kind: Jeff and Beth's bathroom is almost finished!! They just have a door on the linen closet to put on with a tiny bit of tile finish work around it. It looks incredible. Jeff did a fabulous job. (And so did Beth, with the little part she helped with. :) ) Beth wanted me to post pictures since she doesn't know when the next time she'll have internet access will be:

sand and water

I got Brecken a sand and water table this weekend. We put it together this morning and headed out to the lake to get a bunch of nice soft sand. B had a blast playing with it before lunch today. We both got nice and wet!!

One of his favorite words right now is Eww. It's the cutest little eww ever. Lots of things are eww- food, dirt, the cat's bum... apparently so is the sand being thrown in the water. Even before the deed is done!

spoke too soon

After a great day with B feeling really good (though he hardly ate a single bite all day long), he went to bed and then threw up all over his pillow. I sure wish I knew what was making my boy sick!!

feeling better

B is feeling much better today. He hasn't puked since about 2:30 yesterday afternoon. Hooray! He's more like himself, playing and being funny. He's been tickling me and talking and running around, so that's a relief.

We get showing reports from the realtor's office each time they show our house. The one in the mail today said the people who saw the house on Tuesday really liked the house and it's their first choice right now, but need to sell their houses first. (It's a mid-aged couple that are moving in together.) So that's good news that they like it so well, but bummer news that they have to sell their houses first. We don't have time for that!!!

puke puke

The realtor's office called about noon to see if they could show our house to a lady this afternoon, she was only in town for the day. They wanted to show it about 2:00. Perfect, since we had to take B to the doctor at 1:45. So the dogs were put in their kennels in the back of the pickup and came to the doctor with us. The realtor called us again this afternoon after we got back and said the lady is bringing her husband back on Saturday to look at it again, so that's good!! Don't know if the husband is coming back to see just ours, or some others too, but at least it's getting a second look.


B does not have a fever, but he's still puking. I wondered if he did have a fever, because his skin is HOT and clammy. He hasn't worn clothes in 2 days- just his diaper. He's got a little pentagon-shaped mark on his arm, I thought it was just a scrape but it's 5 tiny little bite looking things. Jake said he's never seen anything like that. B's ears are red but Jake said that's probably from the puking, putting pressure on his ears. He said try to push the liquids still and keep an eye on him for the next day or two. As soon as we got back, B puked all over the kitchen and Josh. Gross. He's asleep now, has been for almost 2 hours. Hopefully the sleep is healing whatever is wrong with him.


He gained a whole 9 oz in the past 3 months. He's "up to" 20 lbs, 7 oz. At least he's over 20 lbs now. :) With him going around with no clothes on, you really notice how scrawny the kid is!!

sad

Today is sad on a couple levels:
1) We were up all night with Brecken while he threw up. It was a very long night and we are all very tired today. And now my stomach is feeling terrible.

2) Today was the day we were supposed to move into our new house. Instead, we're sitting in the old one waiting for action. Which isn't happening.

There is nothing is more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in all that book which, alas, musicians read but too little - the book of Nature.

-Claude Debussy-

jump jump jump

I'm figuring out my new camera and how to save the movies and stuff. We'll give this a try and see if it works. Here is Brecken, Trevor, and Karlee jumping on the trampoline at Grandma and Grandpa's last night.

words!

Brecken has learned SIX new words since we got to Gillette on Monday! Eat, 'mon (as in come on, kitty!), nigh-nee (night-night), socks, down, and one more that I'm blanking on right now. I know I counted it last night though, so when it comes back to me I'll come back and post it. I counted up his words before we left for this trip, and with these six, I think he's now up to about 65 words! Holy moly!!

No news on the house. :( Our realtor called this morning and said no appointments to show it, even. I'm so sad. But Josh called our mortgage lender to let her know and she said she knows some people looking in Saratoga so she was going to call them. Maybe that one will work out. But I'm not getting my hopes up.

uncle wally

We found out that my Uncle Wally died on Monday night. We think his heart gave out, but nobody knows because he went to sleep and didn't wake up again. :( He had a a lot of health problems his whole life. Any of you that have met him, though, know what a funny guy he was. He will be missed.

at the risk of sounding like a copycat...

We bought a new camera too. :) I swear Annie, we didn't copy you!! :)

On the way up to Gillette yesterday, we were talking about Disney World and the fact that I do NOT want to lug my DSLR camera all over the place. I want a nice tiny one to take around and throw in the diaper bag. So today Josh and I went out and bought this one:

It's nice and small and will be perfect for taking along with us on all the rides and we won't have to worry about my super-expensive one getting ruined!! It also takes videos- something I've wanted for a long time so I can post some clips of Brecken being goofy. Because sometimes, being goofy is what he does best. :)

here we go again

Our house is back on the market. The lady that was going to buy it couldn't get financing, so it's being shown again. Please wish with us that it will sell fast again- we only have until July 16 to close on our new house before we potentially lose that one.

his daddy is going to kill me...

But I SWEAR, it was B's idea. He walked over, got the clothes we bought for Baby Brooke, and said "on" as he put them on. He needed a little help but most of it was on his own. And most of the outfit is backwards. He even insisted I button things up. And I had to hurry to take the picture.

puh-weeze?

B and I went garage sale-ing this morning while Josh is out at Old Baldy with my dad, who is playing in a tournament. We went to one garage sale that only had kid stuff- it was great! I got B some shorts jammies for $1, some water shoes that look BRAND NEW from Carter's, for $2, Baby Brooke (my sister's coming baby) got a beautiful yellow dress, and B's favorite find of the day- a new toy. It has balls (his favorite) and plays music (his second favorite.) He's been playing with it now for 2 hours, with only a small break for a snack and a small break for lunch. I couldn't resist when he discovered it at the garage sale- he looked at me and said in the sweetest little voice, "Puh-weeze?" He knows how to get me. :)

coming to a head

I'm so frustrated right now. Josh and I both are. Seems like everything with the house came to a head today.

We can't move until July now. The new closing date is July 8 but who knows if we'll get to on that actual day. The lady buying our house hasn't gotten her loan qualification yet. And she hadn't turned in her earnest money as of noon today. (Just found out though at 5:30 that her realtor now has it.) Both were due before May ended sometime (I can't remember the exact date). We only have until July 16 to close before we can lose our new house. It's to the point where if our buyer's loan doesn't get approved by Monday, we're going to start showing it to other people. We need to get the ball moving.

THEN: our new house needs a new roof immediately. Here's why it's an emergency: the master bathroom has water damage on the ceiling from the roof leaking already. And I went to look at it this afternoon after all the rain we've been having and the damage is a lot worse. We asked the sellers to pay for all of the new roof. That was a while ago too, and just heard back from them today. They'll pay half. Fine, that's OK with us. (But I got really mad when we found out the husband seller said he wasn't paying for any of it. The wife seller talked him into half.) But get this: the inspection report came back saying the roof needed replaced and it looked like storm damage. So the sellers are calling their insurance company to come see if they'll pay for it. Fine, that's great. We are putting in the contract that we'll pay 50% of whatever insurance doesn't cover. That way, we don't pay them $3200 for our half of the roof and insurance actually pays for it- then the sellers are walking away with our money!! But our broker said we might not get them to agree to that. What the heck?! I'll have to check on this, but it kind of sounds like insurance fraud- they can't have us pay for something that insurance is paying for!!

So, we're still stuck going nowhere fast. And it's very frustrating. I don't want to lose the new house, but I have a strong feeling that if for some reason we can't close before July 16, our sellers aren't going to be any sort of flexible with setting a new date- they'll just tell us they're showing it to other people and we'll probably lose the house.

Ugh.

play-doh

I made this today:

Simple Playdough
3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups salt
6 tsp. cream of tartar
3 cups cool water
3 Tbsp oil
Food coloring
Mix dry ingredients in a big cooking pot. Blend liquids together in a bowl. Combine with dry ingredients and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat when dough pulls away from the sides of the pot and can be pinched without sticking (about 5 min.) Turn onto board or counter and knead until smooth playdough consistency. Store in an airtight container.

We haven't played with it yet because B is sleeping, but after he wakes up we'll mix some food coloring in and play!

the river wild

The river is flooding. We've had so much rain that it's causing problems. Josh heard at his fire meeting last night that FEMA was coming in this morning to monitor the river. The trailer park next to the river has flooded, as has the park we went to just last Sunday. I went out to take some pictures of it this morning.

This deck isn't normally IN the water.

If you look close, you can see the water standing in the park where we played on Sunday:

If I lived in these houses by the river, I'd be awfully nervous!!

chopped off

I got a new summer 'do today. It's SHORT! But it will be nice not to have to spend 20 minutes in the morning with the blowdryer!!

timeout king

I have a toddler to give away today. Any takers?

Man, B has had a rough couple days lately. I think the Terrible Twos have hit hard! Tonight, he had 3 timeouts in one hour. It's been quite ridiculous. He's having a hard time listening to what we say. He thinks it's hilarious. That's fine- he can think it's hilarious all he wants, but it won't change the timeout status!

Today in Wyoming is the Eat out to End Hunger program- certain restaurants througout the state are giving 10% of their day's proceeds to the Wyoming Food Bank. One restaurant in Saratoga was participating, so DARN! We had to go out for dinner. :) It was the ice cream shop downtown, so we went out for sandwiches and ice cream.

a day at the beach

We went to the beach today. It wasn't the ocean, but it smelled like it, felt like it and had nice soft sand like it, so we pretended it was. It was the Saratoga Lake, but close enough. :) We took B out there on kind of a spur-of-the-moment trip; we started at the park but he wanted to get in the river soooo badly, and it was running very fast. So we went to the lake, where if he fell in, it wasn't quite so serious. :) He had a BALL. We'll have to go back with his swimsuit on instead of his shorts and shirt, which got soaking wet. :) All in all, it was a very peaceful way to start the afternoon.

anonymous

I've changed the settings on here, so those of you that don't have google accounts can still comment on here if you want to.

new look

Thanks for all of you who commented on the new look- I'll have to tell Josh, because he is the one who did it! He wanted to learn a little about blogging last night and changed the page. AND he was the one who posted about B getting the door open. AND, he thought it was kinda fun. :)

We have a busy day today- Graduation has FINALLY come. We need to go up to the school about 12:30 so I can get all the last minute thing done, like get out the Valedictorian medals I didn't remember I had until I woke up this morning. After graduation we'll have some cake at the party. Encampment is so small that the whole class sets up tables in the gym and has one big party afterwards instead of everyone having them at their own houses. Each kid has a table and puts their name and whatever else on it (a girl who's dad died last year has her table covered with pictures of her and her dad) and people can leave their gifts on their table and eat cake and mingle. I think that's neat. Our class is one of the bigger classes in the school- we have a whole 14 kids. Coming from a class of 442, I giggle at that still. :)

the child can escape!!!

Brecken has been pulling on the door handle for a couple of weeks. Tonight he learned how to pull the handle and pull the door so it opens! We are going to have to turn the deadbolt on the door to make sure Brecken can't get out and think he can go swimming in the irrigation ditch.

beth has a blog!

http://jbsandlian.blogspot.com

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!