The girls and I took a trip to Scholz Farm down in the valley with my folks. It’s a great size for little kids and just about everything is free!  Carys led us through the “pumpkin maze” (the field of pumpkins) from one end to the other while Lilia touched a lot of pumpkins very tentatively.

They have a big sawdust hill for kids to play on so the girls played with the other kids for awhile, with varying degrees of success at getting to the top of the hill. We fed chickens and a donkey before heading into the gingerbread-man-themed corn maze. Then it was time to pick out a couple of pumpkins and head home for lunch! Quite a nice way to spend the morning.

And then we spent the next day in the ER… Lilia managed to split her head open in the back on our fireplace hearth (I’m not entirely sure what happened as I was in the kitchen at the time). Head wounds bleed a lot, which was really impressive and kind of makes me glad that we’re getting new floors next week as I don’t have to figure out how to get blood out of the carpet! By the time we made it through triage, Lilia was running around dancing with Carys in the waiting room. After much cleaning and numbing and waiting, Lilia got two staples in her head and we were on our way. She’s fine and it hasn’t slowed her down a bit. Danger baby.

This weekend brought more fun, though. We headed out to the farm for apple cider! We trekked out to the orchard to pick our own apples (we visited the beehives on our way, which Carys found fascinating) and the girls had a good time picking the ones they could reach.

We then washed and ground and pressed them into cider. Both girls had a chance to crank the wheel and feed the apples and, surprisingly, didn’t get bored! It was a nice little outing and we’re all enjoying the cider.

No-Pressure School Fundraising update: It’s the last week for Entertainment books. We’re also selling Ram Cards (for the restaurant) and I think we’re doing an auction in a couple of months if anyone has something they’d like to donate.

This week will probably be a little more busy. We’ve got to finish up our preparations for the remodel and there are 3 different doctors appointments and Carys has school, of course, and classes start at the Y. And I still need to decorate for Halloween! I need more pumpkins.

I hope everyone is enjoying the last of August. I can’t believe it’s almost the start of school already! I have a new interest in all of those “back to school” ads these days as it will only be a couple of years before that has to mean something to me.

We had a lot of fun over the last two weeks. Unfortunately, last week ended with all of us coming down with a cold and missing out on the weekend. It was a planned “stay at home and get something done” weekend, but we mostly just sat around sneezing and coughing at each other so not much got done. The girls didn’t get nearly as sick as Chris and I did, so they were practically back to normal quickly. Chris took a sick day today to avoid infecting his coworkers. Unfortunately, my parents were not so lucky.

CareBear had another day camp type of class, this time with a safari theme. She had a great time and got to bring home an elephant mask, which has become a very popular car ride accessory. The class was particularly helpful since we had so much down time due to our colds… CareBear tends to get a little stir crazy if we stay home too much!

Everyone recovered from their colds around here except me. I ended up having to go in to the doctor for antibiotics as my cough just wouldn’t go away and apparently decided to turn into bronchitis. I’m tired of being sick so often!

We took an impromptu trip up to Mt. Rainier… it started out as “let’s go for a little drive”, then it was “hey, maybe we should go to Alder lake” and it turned into “why don’t we go pick up a national parks pass while we’re out here?” Since it was late in the day and we weren’t really planning on going all the way up there, we only went as far as Longmire before stopping to explore. The girls were more impressed with the bugs they found than the mountain, but they had a good time nonetheless. It was a very nice day for an outing.

We spent part of this weekend doing some comparison shopping and errands and then providing “tech support” over at my folks’ (ok, Chris does all the work, I get to visit), which was a nice change of pace. We’re in the market for a new washer and dryer and new flooring if anyone has recommendations!

Sunday was spent down in Centralia for a celebration of life/memorial gathering. It was nice to visit with family that I don’t see often, though the circumstances were unfortunate. CareBear made fast friends with Aunt Gail and has been talking about her ever since. She was particularly tickled that Aunt Gail thought the butterflies on her undies might be real!

We made a surprise stop at Chris’ folks’ on our way back north. The girls helped feed the goats dinner and we had a nice visit. It turned into a later day than we expected, but the kids did some napping in the car so everyone maintained good moods all day!

This week will finally (hopefully) see our long planned visit with Auntie T and Z. Our classes have finished for the session so it’s our week off. I’m not sure what else we’ll be doing with ourselves, but I’m sure we’ll keep busy.

We had plenty of ups and downs this week, but it was mostly good. Everyone is still enjoying their classes at the Y and CareBear spent a good portion of her time during gymnastics running around an obstacle course screaming “fire! fire! hurry! hurry!”. She had a great time.

We managed to make it to the Ren Faire on Saturday. The weather was overcast, but warm, so it was a good day to go. CareBear and LiliBee collected fairy stones and mermaid glitter from random costumed people, which was a lot of fun. We watched part of a play and browsed through the shops. The kids liked the sword fighting but were really impressed by the whip-weilding pirates. I even ran into someone that I worked with years ago at Good Sam!

In other big news, LiliBee is 21 months old! She’s practically two… where did my baby go?

The down part of our week was on Friday when CareBear was a bit under the weather with a tummy ache. I’m still not sure what that was all about, but at least it didn’t last long.

We’re hoping to do a little visiting this week and maybe go play in the park while the weather is nice. Chris will be heading to the dentist for a temporary crown, which should be lots of fun for him. I’m just hoping to take a nap.

]]> http://www.dragonbard.com/2009/08/17/weekly-update-30/feed/ 0 http://www.dragonbard.com/2009/08/03/weekly-update-29/ http://www.dragonbard.com/2009/08/03/weekly-update-29/#comments Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:10:41 +0000 Amy http://www.dragonbard.com/?p=659

I hope everyone survived the record heat… I know that I’m very happy with our decision a few years ago to add an air conditioner when we replaced the furnace. We had to be out and about in the heat some, but it was nice to come home to a relatively cool house (still way too hot for me, though).

Chris finally came down with the plague, almost 2 weeks after I did. I’m not actually sure that it was the same thing, but he was pretty sick for a few days. Since we didn’t want the rest of us to get sick again, he got quarantined to the bonus room with a can of Lysol and hand sanitizer (and a window a/c unit, thanks Grandpa!). He’s feeling much better now so he got to come back downstairs and go to work today.

Between the heat and Chris being sick, we didn’t get out as much as we’d planned. The girls and I made a fun trip over to my folks, though, complete with (kiddie) swimming pool and dinner! The girls had a great time splashing and playing in the water and stayed in the pool for a long time because of the hot weather.

We did get a bit of cleaning and organizing done this weekend. Not nearly as much as we need to do, but anything is good!

We missed out on going to the Ren Faire but, happily, it runs for two more weekends. That is particularly handy as the Pierce County Fair is this coming weekend. CareBear was very excited to see a couple of rides driving down the road this morning. Have I mentioned how much I love fairs?

This week is the start of new classes for the kids. CareBear is taking a swimming class again and LiliBee will be taking one, too (though she has to have one of us with her). CareBear is also going to try out gymnastics. It will be interesting to see what she thinks of that since she’s been so excited about doing summersaults and walking on the balance beam by herself.

I’m just glad that it’s not as hot anymore.

]]> http://www.dragonbard.com/2009/08/03/weekly-update-29/feed/ 0 http://www.dragonbard.com/2009/07/20/weekly-update-27/ http://www.dragonbard.com/2009/07/20/weekly-update-27/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:00:14 +0000 Amy http://www.dragonbard.com/?p=636 As it turns out, I was overly optimistic about this week…

About 2 hours after I sent last week’s email, LiliBee’s eyes started oozing. So we had several days of eye drops for two! On Tuesday, LiliBee had some kind of discomfort that I couldn’t pinpoint (I’ll be so glad when she decides to talk to us) but I suspect that it was her tummy. It only lasted a couple of hours, but kind of cancelled our plans for that day.

On Thursday, CareBear had some very definite and visual tummy trouble that, happily, only lasted a few hours. Also on Thursday, I woke up with a sore throat so we took a quick trip to the doctor for my strep throat diagnosis… by evening, my fever was 102 degrees and I was pretty much useless to everyone until Sunday.

The good news is that Chris was able to take a few hours off on Thursday and go in late on Friday, which helped greatly. Also good that he has yet to get whatever plague we’ve picked up.

We did manage to have some fun with swim classes (they had a special safety day which CareBear loved), toddler gym (the confirmed source of the plague), our weekly trip to the farm and lots of backyard playing.

It’s been tough for CareBear to stay home so many days and I didn’t have enough energy to find as many things to do as she needs. She’s a high energy kid! Consequently, we had a few days of too much tv and not enough good behavior. It’s a good thing that LiliBee is a cuddler and was happy to just hang out with me and play quietly much of the time.

Chris helped by taking them out to ride their “bikes” for awhile. Also by making sure everyone was fed and dressed and clean while I was out of commission.

I’m hopeful that this week will be much better. We have the last week of classes for this session and CareBear gets to got to special music preschool day camp kind of thing (it’s just two hours on Tuesday and Wednesday, but it’s a big deal to her).

I’m sure that LiliBee and I will find something fun to do with our free time. And one of these days, we’re going to take CareBear to her first movie theater movie!

We had quite an exciting week… a trip to Alder lake, a trip to the doctor, lots of sprinkler fun…

We all headed out to Alder lake to celebrate my dad’s birthday and CareBear had her first fishing lesson. She was very impressed. Pas brought a fishing rod just for her and showed her how it worked.

She got to hold it and practice reeling it in. She was excited about it for awhile, but soon traded fishing in for “skipping” rocks and playing at the playground. They ended up catching a few little fish and CareBear helped release them back into the wild. All in all, a very successful introduction to fishing.

Meanwhile, LiliBee hung out throwing things into the water and watching everything. She probably would have waded right into the lake, but it was one of our chilly days so we wouldn’t let her.

Both of them really liked the tire swing and playing with their uncle, though.

On Saturday, CareBear woke up in a panic because she couldn’t open her eyes. Poor kid picked up pink eye somewhere last week (probably the Y) so we headed in to the doctor for eye drops. That has been a bit of a challenge, though talking her into sitting still for the drops takes much longer than actually getting them into her eyes. She’s actually pretty cooperative.

I told her that we couldn’t go anywhere if she didn’t let me put the medicine in her eyes… that kid hates staying home. She’s not contagious anymore, but I’m guessing it won’t be long before LiliBee comes up with it, considering how much they both touch everything!

We had a nice weekend overall, though. We went to the new pancake place for breakfast and had a fun trip to the hardware store. Chris spent some time smoothing out part of the lawn (or starting the process, anyway) while the girls and I worked on cleaning wallpaper off of a wall.

This week will be interesting. We have the usual classes scheduled, but the pink eye could change how we do things if it travels through the family. Hopefully, we’ll be able to hit a park sometime and enjoy the nice weather.

Our visit south got cancelled, but I’m sure we’ll find lots to do.

The beginning of summer hasn’t been nearly as “summery” as the last couple of weeks, but my allergies are really appreciating the slightly damp weather right now.

We had a pretty mellow week. We got back into our routine after the vacation weeks and just enjoyed not having much to do. That will all change this week when we start our next session of classes at the Y! We’ll have our usual Toddler Gym class and CareBear is starting swimming classes. She’s really looking forward to it, especially since she gets to go by herself while I watch through the window (she’s so independent).

Adding those to our week means that there aren’t any days where we just stay home all day! I’m not sure how that happened… for all my planning, I never see these things coming.

Chris had his follow-up appointment with the neurologist last week. We found out the results of his testing (mostly normal) and his sleep study (really abnormal). He was being worked up for sleep apnea vs narcolepsy… apparently, they sometimes have the same symptoms and can only be differentiated by the sleep study. As it turns out, he as severe obstructive sleep apnea (he stopped breathing more than 40 times an hour and woke up more than 50 times an hour) and what they call “pathological sleepiness”, plus his blood oxygen saturation goes down to 85% during the apnea.

So he went back to the sleep lab to be fitted for what’s called a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine that he will wear when he sleeps. Considering that he’s apparently been severely sleep and oxygen deprived, that should make him feel much better.

We spent Saturday down at Meeker Days and it didn’t even rain on us. The festival was lots of fun, though we didn’t get to browse as many of the booths as I would have liked.

Once CareBear spotted the bouncy rides, it was all over! She spent a lot of time bouncing, going on everything they had there. We convinced her to walk around with us after a while and managed to check out all of the things that we really wanted to see.

We even got to watch the belly dancers, which was something that I wanted to do. The girls both enjoyed that, too, which was nice since it meant that they sat there and watched instead of running around… for awhile, anyway. LiliBee was most impressed by all of the dogs walking around, though. She loves pointing out dogs to us.

Father’s Day was very, very mellow around here. Since Chris already had his unofficial Father’s Day a couple of weeks ago (can’t beat the radio convention for Father’s Day gifts around here), our “present” to him was a relaxing bath and a few hours off. The girls and I went shopping so that he could have peace and quiet to play with his new radio gear. We all spent the rest of the day lazing about, reading and playing.

It was nice to be slackers for awhile.