Thursday, 10 June, 2004

Our much anticipated journey to Grandpa Kline’s house began Friday morning.  We packed all of our stuff into the van and left around 9 am.  The girls got to sit in the back seat of the van and watched dvd’s for most of the day.  What should have been an eight-hour drive ended up taking about ten hours with stops for lunch and potty breaks.  We finally arrived in Albuquerque around 7 pm, checked into our hotel -the Marriott-and then went to find some dinner.  If the girls had their way, we would have eaten at McDonald’s every meal and had chicken and french fries.  We quickly began vetoing that suggestion and ended up at Village Inn for pancakes and eggs–another favorite.  The girls were excited because the hotel supposedly had a “heated pool”; alas, it was freezing.  Chris and the girls jumped in anyway and swam (if you can call it that) for a bit and then headed to the hot tub.  I figured that would make them drowsy like nothing else and expected they would drop off to sleep without too much difficulty.  Wrong!  They were in bed by about 9 pm but didn’t fall asleep until after 10.  Too much excitement added to the fact that Chris and I weren’t quite ready to go to bed and tried to watch tv in the bed next to them.  Foolish, I know, and they didn’t go to sleep until we finally turned the tv off and went to bed ourselves.  I got up early the next morning to make use of the exercise room.  For most of the time, I was the only one crazy enough to be up so early on a Saturday morning, but I was determined not to gain 5 pounds like I did last summer on our vacation.  Took forever to lose it.

A new word that Amy coined was “licolish” aka licorice.  Another cute word she said the other day was calepittar for the obvious catepillar.  Licolish became the favorite treat of the vacation and was purchased many times.

We were off once again Saturday morning for Phoenix. Another fun day of travel.   We were slowed down a bit trying to find some breakfast; Chris opted for donuts from Smith’s Grocery, and I ended up having yogurt, fruit and fig newtons.  Had to be better for me than the donuts.  We finally left Albuquerque around 8:30 am.  Neither Chris nor I were all that impressed with the city or with any of the state for that matter.  Kind of bleak. 

We stopped in Holbrook, Arizona for lunch at McDonalds.  Yep, we caved, but there weren’t all that many options.  The girls played on the toys for a bit and then we were off again.  We talked to Grandpa Kline while in Holbrook; he suggested we take a scenic route down through Heber and Payson.  It was a little more enjoyable than the desert-like scape we had been in, so while the girls slept, Chris and I listened to our book on tape.  We finally arrived in Phoenix about 4 pm local time (they are one hour behind) and just as we rounded the corner to Grandpa Kline’s house he called us wondering when we might arrive.  I told him we had been lost and were just now back in Payson and would still be about three hours.  He didn’t have to say anything, the tone of his voice suggested that I was a sorry excuse for a navigator.  He started pulling out his map to give us some direction while I knocked on his front door.  He said he would call me back in a couple of minutes and hung up the phone to go answer the door.  Well, we played a good joke on Grandpa who was quite surprised to find me standing on the doorstep.

The first thing the girls wanted to see was the swimming pool and they wasted absolutely no time getting into the pool.  With temperatures around 100 degrees and hotter than we’d seen in a long time, I slathered on the sun screen and they took the plunge.  Misha was a bit more timid and climbed in slowly.  Amy had on a new floatie swim suit like Misha’s and quickly plunged into the wonderfully cool water.  Grandpa had lots of flotation devices to play with too.

We were finally able to pull the girls away from the swimming pool to have dinner a la Grandpa Kline-turkey burgers, rice, kidney beans.  The girls weren’t too thrilled by the selection, but then that is pretty normal around our house too. Misha asked to go to bed during the middle of dinner. It had been a long day for them combined with swimming and both were ready to sleep. Both girls slept in the spare room next to ours on an air mattress.  It was soooooooooo hot in Grandpa’s house.  The temperature upstairs was 81 degrees and 84 on the main level.  Chris had his dad turn the air down to 78 so that we could sleep comfortably! 

Sunday morning we woke up early after a sound sleep.  We went to Grandpa’s ward  at 9 (one hour behind).  Amy loved Primary because they sang to her as the visitor and she was the best singer so she got to pick another song to sing.  Misha gladly went to nursery.  I am grateful that they don’t scream and cry about going to new classes.  When we went to pick up Misha, we couldn’t find her shoes anywhere, though the teachers had remembered seeing them.  We finally found them hidden in one of the toy kitchen ovens.

Must be something about the heat, or maybe just knowing that we were on vacation and our schedule really demanded little of us, but we all had naps after lunch.  The girls were raring to swim after their naps and nothing could keep them out of the pool.  Stan, Pam, and Evan Braun came to visit for dinner. They live in Tucson now but were in the Phoenix area visiting family for the Memorial Day holiday.   We ordered pizza (the first of many that week) and had salad and watermelon.  Grandpa’s friend Eric came over as well with his son Thomas and all of the kids had a great time playing together.  Eric brought a fold out fire engine that captured their attention and imagination for an hour or so. 

While we were outside visiting, the kids were running around and exploring and all of a sudden we had a run on accidents.  All but Thomas fell and scraped something.  Misha got quite a few scrapes on her forehead and legs.  Amy knocked a pointy metal wall hanging off its hook and it cut her heal on the way down.  After that they were ready to go in and settle down, if you can call it that, with the fire engine.

We had planned to spend most of Monday with Stan and Pam.  We had told Grandpa repeatedly that we would be doing stuff with them, but he wasn’t too happy with our schedule and wanted us to make changes so that we could go to a waterpark with Eric, Thomas, and some other friends.  We decided to stick to our original schedule and let come what may.

We met Braun’s at Chuck E. Cheese for fun in the morning.  We were among the first to arrive and had the place mostly to ourselves.  We planned not to have dinner there because your choices are greasy pizza, greasy pizza, and greasy pizza.  It is not so good.  The kids played for well over an hour and had a blast and then we all went to On The Border for lunch.  I love Mexican food and crave it often.

Grandpa Kline had wanted to go to water park in the afternoon, but both girls fell asleep on the way home and we really didn’t want to cut their naps short since they seemed so exhausted from all the heat and the fun they were having. Chris and I read and dozed while they slept and just enjoyed a relaxing afternoon.  Misha woke up to go to the bathroom, and I figured she was up for good.  I told her to climb up on the bed beside Chris and she promptly fell back to sleep.  That has never happened before.

Since we had opted out of the water park in the morning, we all decided to just swim and play in Grandpa’s pool with Eric and Thomas again. One of Grandpa’s current girlfriends, Christine, also joined us for dinner.  Chris’ Dad barbequed a frozen lasagna on the grill; I didn’t know you could cook them that way. Everyone cooled off and played in the pool, though I did get out a bit early to cut up the watermelon and make a salad.  Eric brought “Shrek” to watch and that was just the send off the girls needed to calm them down for bed.

Tuesday morning Grandpa asked us to hang around the house until he left for work at 11:30. He wanted us to spend time with him before he left for a couple of days, but he was so busy doing other things we just sat around waiting.  We ate lunch and drove to some malls to shop.  We picked up a new stroller at Sears which came in handy for the rest of the trip.

While shopping, Quentin Wilcox, an old mission buddy of Chris’, called and we set up a time to get together on Wednesday night for dinner at TGI Fridays with his wife and girls. 

We came to the conclusion that the girls were having too much fun.  Literally.  They were so overloaded on fun activities and were so far off their schedule that they were becoming ornery and whiney and demanding more and more.  We had dinner at a Bakery Company thinking it would be a bit cheaper. Not so.  Following dinner we stopped at Walmart and Sams for a few groceries and then headed home to put the girls to bed.  I think this was the only day of our vacation when the girls didn’t get to swim at all.

Chris headed off to work at the American Express office in Phoenix.  He is a Team Lead on their IBM account and wanted a chance to meet the people that he talks with on the phone and Instant Messenger all of the time.  He also conducted some training.  Before leaving for Arizona, Chris’ boss and the American Express account approved to pay for part of our gas if he were to work a couple of days.  Bonus for us since the price of gas had sky rocketed and the average price in Phoenix was well over $2.00 a gallon. 

The girls and I stayed at Grandpa’s house for the day.  It was a welcome rest from all the comings and goings and super for having a bit of a routine day.  We swam for a couple of hours in the morning.  The one toy that I brought for them that I thought they would enjoy was their tea set, and it was a winner.  They played with it in the house as well as out by the pool.  They would stand on the step of the pool and pour water into their cups and saucers for hours.  Misha especially loved it.  We came in to have lunch and both girls were ready for a nap and slept for a couple of hours in the afternoon.  I took the opportunity to shower then while they slept.   With a more relaxed and quiet day, both girls were much happier and amenable.  Just what we all needed.

Grandpa was working from Tuesday afternoon until late Thursday evening and then had another trip scheduled to fly Friday afternoon through Saturday evening.  We weren’t complaining about being able to simply relax and be on our own schedule.  What more could you want?  A nice house to ourselves and a pool.  Perfect.

Chris arrived home from work about 6 pm Arizona time; we left shortly after that to meet Wilcoxes for dinner at 6:45. We drove around a bit to check out a water park that we kept driving by but couldn’t see the entrance to and then drove around even more trying to find the restaurant.  We had the wrong exit and after exploring all the side streets hoping to find Fridays we drove up one exit and there it was.

Quentin and Bev Wilcox got married about a year after we did if I remember correctly, in the Mount Timpanogos temple.  We were able to attend their ceremony.  Quentin works in the accounting department of Honeywell and they have a 2 ½ yr old girl Quincy and a 10-month old girl Sage.  The kids warmed up to each other after dinner when they started dancing around the tables.  We tried to contain them, but that never happens.

We drove back to the water park that we had just discovered and let the girls play in the sand, on the toys, and Chris even stripped our girls down to their underwear and let them run through a sprinkler.  They had a blast.

I don’t know what we were thinking by deciding to go to the zoo on Thursday morning with Bev Wilcox and her girls.  It was HOT!  We walked around for a bit trying to find shady spots and finally ended up in a water play area for the kids to cool off.  We stopped for lunch on the way home (more pizza), picked up some groceries and then more naps for the girls.  They, of course, headed to the swimming pool when they woke up.

Chris worked at a co-workers house in the morning until 2 pm. Grandpa Kline was home until 1:30 pm and then left for another trip.  He jumped into the pool before leaving to play with the girls, and we stayed in the pool for a couple of hours after that.  After naps and Chris’ arrival home, we went shopping.  One of the first stops was Deseret Book where Amy bought some Bible coloring books and a small Book of Mormon.  I purchased a DVD called “Charlie”.  Misha had to go to the bathroom while we were waiting to pay, and we just didn’t make it to the bathroom on time before she had a bit of an accident.  I only had an extra pair of panties with me so I had Chris drop me off at Ross to get her some clean clothes.  A great way to get new clothes.  We called Wilcoxes and had them meet us for dinner at Olive Garden instead of making something at Grandpa’s house.  We had about an hour to spare and headed over to a great new mall.  Chris stayed with the girls at the play area and I was able to look around a bit.  We decided to come back the next day since there was so much to see.  We had a yummy dinner and then came back to Grandpa’s to swim.  After that we put all the girls to bed so that we could watch the DVD I had bought earlier in the day.  It was quite a tear jerker and probably would have been for Chris if he wasn’t trying to maintain his manly image among friends.

We had a lot of fun with Wilcoxes and were surprised that we had so many people to do things with on this vacation.  It was good.

Saturday morning we hit a few garage sales, but it was really too hot to enjoy it.  Chris started on a meandering (it seemed that way anyhow) drive to top of the mountain where all the antennas were. Frankly, it was a long, boring drive that was very winding.  We humored him though since it was someplace he had always wanted to explore.  Misha and I got carsick which is unusual for both of us.  After conquering the mountain, we decided to head back to the mall in Glendale and spend a cool afternoon inside. 

It was still so hot outside, most days were well above 110 degrees.  Well, the mall was packed; everyone else seemed to have the same idea as we did about beating the heat.  Oh well.  We had lunch in the food court and then shopped for awhile until we could stand the whining no more.  The too-much-fun-syndrome was threatening to emerge again.  Amy and Misha promptly fell asleep on the way home.  We BBQed hot dogs for dinner and swam in the evening.  The pool was a balmy 90 degrees.  Grandpa pulled in about 7 pm, decided to hop into the pool with us for a short time and then headed to a party down the street at the Country Club.  Without much argument, we put the girls to bed.  What am I saying!?  Without much argument, we finally split the girls up and put Misha to sleep in our bed since they wouldn’t be quiet and go to sleep.  That did the trick and they were asleep in no time.  Chris and I watched tv for awhile, but since I was falling asleep, I decided to go to bed.

Sunday dawned bright and, well, hot.  We packed everything up to go.  Grandpa wished we could stay longer.  I once heard an idea that you should leave when you are having fun.  Better than leaving when you are tired of each other and aren’t speaking.  Plus we had reservations at a Trend West resort in Pine Top, Arizona for the next two nights. 

We met Wilcoxes at their church and then had lunch at their home after.  The girls were sad to leave a new-found friend, but we still had a three-hour trip ahead of us. 

Again the girls slept as we drove (we really like those times).  We moved away from the desert, cactus, and heat of Phoenix and into beautiful, mountainous areas with trees.  Hard to believe we were still in Arizona.  The air was cool and pine-scented and felt a little more like home.

We found the Trend West resort and were highly impressed, as always, by the amenities.  We had a two-bedroom condo complete with kitchen, living room, two bathrooms, laundry machines, and bbq.  The girls were excited to see the heated swimming pool and the play ground, and I was looking forward to the exercise room Monday morning.

I got up early to exercise and watched the continuing coverage of Ronald Reagan’s death-he had died the previous Saturday.  Upon returning to the condo, Misha woke up and shortly thereafter Amy woke up too.  We had breakfast and then decided to go for hike around a nearby lake.  The girls didn’t enjoy that quite so much as the swings and slides that were located conveniently at the end of the hike.  Nice for motivation.  We were getting hungry after that and found a nice Mexican Restaurant (my choice).  Misha wasn’t feeling too well today, she had a runny nose and seemed as though she was getting a cold.  She took a nap while Amy got to go swimming with Chris.

In the afternoon we took the girls to see Shrek 2.  They were fairly excited.  They sat still for this movie mostly.  Amy was just itching to get up and dance to all the fun music.  We finally told her she could dance but had intended that she would just dance beside us in the aisle.  She had different ideas and started for the front of the theater.  We had to call her back and she was definitely NOT happy. She danced beside us though until the movie was over and then we let her go to the front.  This child has no fear.  When we left Grandpa Kline’s she had progressed so much in her swimming that she was doing cannon balls into the pool.

Tuesday was the dreaded long driving day.  We left Pine Top about 8:30 am our time and drove all day until 10:30 pm.  The girls were really quite good for such a long day and watched movies most of the way.  As we drove into Colorado and toward home a huge thunder and lightning storm lit up the sky.  It was pretty cool to watch.  The girls were fast asleep when we pulled into our garage, and reminiscent of Grandpa’s house, ours was at 86 degrees.  We couldn’t open the windows because it was pouring outside so we opted for the air conditioner.  What a great feeling to be home.

Tuesday, 25 May, 2004

Grandma Andrews and Grandpa Kline visited over the weekend.  Grandma Andrews arrived on Thursday the 20th and Grandpa came on Saturday afternoon.  There was a mix up at the airport and Chris was waiting for Grandma at the gate while she waited for him by baggage claim for about 45 minutes.  She was becoming a little frantic after awhile, as you can well imagine any one would.  Chris had previously made arrangements for someone to bring her to baggage claim from the gate in a wheelchair, so Chris didn’t really need to meet her at the gate.  Oh well.  They finally arrived around 7:30 and sat down for a meal while the girls bounded around them with questions and lots of talking.  Welcome to our world.  Probably pretty noisy for Grandma who isn’t used to little girls.  Grandma Andrews turned 80 last December.  She is moving a little slower than on her previous visits.

Amy loves having visitors, especially if they are coming to see her.  Misha, this year, has matured enough and has gained some courage in talking and opening up to people she isn’t familiar with.  Made it so much more fun for Grandma.  She would sit in the rocking chair with both girls flanking her and would read them stories over and over. 

Chris took half the day off on Friday so that we could go do some fun things together.  We borrowed a wheel chair from Krauses (neighbors) and Grandma was good to go.  We headed towards Flat Irons Crossing and both girls fell asleep on the way.  We continued to drive around until they had both slept a sufficient amount of time (maybe 45 minutes).  Chris drove up past Chattaqua in Boulder into the mountain.  The ride was curvy but beautiful.

We shopped awhile at the mall without really finding many bargains, wants, or needs.  Chris and Grandma went with the girls to play on the toys, and I shopped a little on my own–always a nice treat.  Grandma treated us to ice cream from McDonalds and then the girls were off again to play in the huge sandbox outside the mall.  They weren’t really ready to go when we said it was time to go.

We had promised the girls we would take them to the Artwalk on main street in Longmont.  So after a quick dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches, and with wheelchair in tow, we headed in to town.  There was live music, art projects and dancing.  Just Amy’s thing.  She danced, she glued, she had fun.  Misha even did a little dancing on her own too.  She was content to sit on Grandma’s lap for most of the time though.  I think we pretty much wore Grandma out by the time we headed home and all were glad to drop into bed for the night.

Saturday morning we went to a few garage sales.  Chris scored on some electronic and computer equipment as well as a camp stove at one house and that was the last of our good finds for the day.  Since Grandma wasn’t enjoying herself too much, we went shopping at Target and then Kohls and found some new shirts and shorts and dresses for our vacation to Arizona (or Arizonia as Amy likes to say).

We didn’t expect that Grandpa Kline would arrive until after 3 or 4, but he was able to catch the early flight in and was at our house by the time we arrived around 1:30.  Misha fell asleep on the way home, and I think Grandma and Grandpa both took the chance to catch up on some much needed rest as well.  Grandpa treated us to dinner at Texas Roadhouse that night–good but fairly noisy.
Grandma and Grandpa both came to church with us on Sunday, but only stayed for Sacrament Meeting.  They took off for a park while we attended the rest of our meetings for the day.

Grandma and Grandpa left for the airport Monday morning, but not until stopping to watch the girls in their swim lessons for a couple of minutes.  More picture-taking opportunities.  The rest of our day passed in relative normalcy as I started cleaning and washing later in the day.

Sunday, 16 May, 2004

The good news is that the sprinklers are finally done.  Chris did the final electrical work this past weekend.  We still have the fence, rocks, sod and trees to do, though sod and trees won’t be right away.  It is a slow project with a lot of time and effort involved.  I don’t do a lot with installing, but I do a lot of weeding and keeping things looking nice around the yard.  I expect that trees and shrubs will be a work in progress.  I don’t really profess to have much of a green thumb, though I can keep my house plants alive, so I want to learn and make wise choices.  I have been reading and perusing a lot of gardening books from the library lately to get a better idea of what I should and shouldn’t do.

My parents visited last weekend.  They drove all day Friday-the 7th-and arrived around 8:30 pm.  It was quite a long day for them as they left about 5:30 am.  On Saturday morning, Dad was great to help Chris finish up the outside sprinkler work and raked the dirt back into the trenches that had been dug.  Mom and I and the girls went to some garage sales.  I was lucky enough to find two metal bed frames for the girls’ bed - FOR FREE!  What a blessing.  I had just been thinking that I needed to get a frame at least for Amy’s bed so that the air vent wasn’t covered up by her bed.  We just happened onto both of them and I felt so lucky.  When we got back, I made lunch and we got ready to go to Estes park and Rocky Mountain National Park for the afternoon.

The weather was wonderful, though we did get rained on a bit.  We drove up into the National Park and saw dozens and dozens of elk grazing.  There is still plenty of snow in the high country, so we didn’t go too far.  Amy was good about all the driving because we said that if she would be patient doing our stuff, we would stop and do some fun stuff for her.  As we headed into the mountains, she spied a huge-really huge-slide that she wanted to go on.  She didn’t let us forget about it either on the way back.  Chris bought her three rides and went with her down the slide the first time.  After catching a bit of air and coming back down hard on his tail bone, Chris opted to let Amy go by herself the next two times.  She wasn’t a bit scared and begged to go again after her third turn.

We wanted to take Mom and Dad out for dinner for Mother’s Day, but ended up back in Loveland because there was nothing in Estes that they were interested in. I think that they thought that most of it was just way too much $$.  Mom likes to shop and shop and shop, but they don’t spend a lot of money on food.

We stopped for some groceries at Walmart after dinner and it was a madhouse.  Everybody was running around trying to get meals and gifts for Mother’s Day.  We got what we needed and hurried to get out as quickly as possible.

Sunday, to be honest, wasn’t much of a Mother’s Day for me.  I did all the meals for everybody, Chris was getting better from having a cold AND had preparations to make for his last University of Phoenix class, and this is the second year in a row that he has made Mother’s Day unmemorable for me.  Kind of disheartening.

Monday morning the girls had swimming lessons.  Grandma and Grandpa came with us.  The girls are doing super in their class.  Amy is so brave in the water.  When she has her life jacket on, she is comfortable going pretty much anywhere on her own.  Misha is still pretty tentative.  I don’t know if that is just her personality or age.  We’ll see.

After swimming lessons, we headed over to the library to return books and to check out some more.  I also signed the girls up for their summer reading program.  It starts the first week in June while we are still in Arizona.

Tuesday morning we received a call that Grandma Great (my dad’s mom) had finally died.  It has been a long hard struggle for her the past couple years.  Her body and especially her mind had deteriorated to such a point that quality of life was fairly non-existent.  Maureen and Gayle have done a tremendous service in caring for Grandma Great, though I think it has been a hard struggle to let her go.  They had her revived from near death a number of times.  It was more a relief and a feeling of “finally” when we heard the news.  I am sure that Dad was sad to see her leave this world, but was grateful that she no longer has to suffer.  Plus, I can imagine that the family reunion she was having with her husband, brothers, sisters, and parents far surpassed any earthly family reunion we have ever had.  Her funeral will be this coming Wednesday.  Since Mom and Dad had already driven down here to spend time with family, Dad’s family was kind enough to let him enjoy his time here without having to rush right back for a funeral service.

The other night I was talking to the girls about strangers and warning them about never talking to them if they were to drive up to our house and tempt them with candy or seeing kitties or puppies.  I could tell it really registered with Amy as she said, “We put an X on the stranger and a circle on mommy.”  School has definitely had a positive impact on her.

Speaking of school, we attended her preschool graduation this past week.  All of the students from the morning and afternoon classes along with their parents and families attended.  Amy had a cute little felt mortar board hat to wear.  The exercise consisted of them singing a song, showing the “zoophonics” that they had learned and receiving their certificate of graduation.  Amy did great, and Misha was pretty entranced through the whole thing.  That’s big since she’s not usually one for sitting still.

Sunday, May 2, 2004

The girls are sick, though Misha is on the tail end of it.  They kindly woke up at 6 am this morning which wasn’t so happy of a moment for me.  And that was after a week of Misha sleeping in until 7 or later.  Nice treat for me since I can have some time for myself in the morning without a little one wanting juice and her shows and whatever else.

Chris has been trying to fit in every possible spare moment on the back yard.  Either the weather doesn’t cooperate or he has some meeting or activity that he needs to be too.  Yesterday he was able to work most of the morning in the yard, but that was after a couple days of rain, so it wasn’t exactly dry.  He spent the afternoon at the temple helping with baptisms.  Enjoyable yes, but I know that he is feeling pulled in a million different directions.  He has been spending a lot of time on his University of Phoenix class.  I think that he is glad that he did it, but not so happy about the time crunch in his life.  He has two more nights of classes and then it is over and then he teaches another class in August.

The girls started swimming lessons last Monday.  I am not sure if they will be able to go tomorrow with their colds, I’ll have to decide in the morning to see if they are feeling any better.

Friday, 16 April, 2004

After a three bad weather weekends in a row, we are going to enjoy some 70 degree weather tomorrow.  Chris has the back yard ready to trench for sprinklers and will work on that project tomorrow with our next door neighbor Mike.  Since the weather wasn’t so nice last weekend - we had snow - Chris spent most of Saturday getting all the sprinkler parts sorted and put together, so now everything is ready to go.  I am excited; each project completed brings us one step closer to having a fence and sod and a wonderful play area for the girls.

The girls seem as though they have had a growth spurt recently.  Their pants are about 1 inch or so above their ankles, fortunately shirt sizes will stay about the same this year.  We just bought them new spring sandals, so they are pretty set for a summer of fun.

Grandma Andrews is coming to visit in May.  Chris was able to get her a non-stop flight which is a tremendous relief for her.  She worries so much about traveling and changing planes.  She probably wouldn’t have done it except that she has some wonderful great granddaughters whom she loves to come and see.  Grandpa Kline will also make an appearance when she is here also.  Kind of absolves him from having to make a special trip to her house to visit her.   My parents will also swing by for a short visit a week prior to Grandma Andrews’ visit on their way to Utah and then on to Las Vegas with Brad.  He has a conference to go to and is staying at a luxury hotel.  Since they have never been to Vegas before, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.  They’ll probably come away thinking that one trip was plenty and they’ll never need to go back again.

After Grandma Andrews’ visit, we are planning a trip to Arizona to visit Grandpa Kline since we haven’t been to his home since I was pregnant with Misha.  The girls are thrilled to know that Grandpa has a swimming pool in the backyard.  They have been swimming at the new Rec Center in Frederick three times now and have a blast each time they go.  Amy is like a fish.  She goes down the slide by herself, jumps off the diving board or “jumping board” as she likes to call it, and pretty much swims wherever.  She, of course, wears a life jacket in the water, but it doesn’t seem to bother her or impede in any way.  She would probably like swimming less if she didn’t have it because we would have to hold on to her all the time.  Misha is improving and getting braver all the time as well.  She doesn’t jump off the diving board yet, but she can stand on it for four or five minutes at a stretch and pretend that she is going to jump “any second now”.

Speaking of Misha, she has been a whiney crab lately.  I am not sure what her problem is.  I am constantly reminding her not to whine.  She does it often for no reason at all, except that maybe it is becoming a very bad habit.  It, however, drives me crazy.  Her vocabulary continues to grow all the time.  I was trying to entice her to eat a carrot this morning and she kept saying “Keep it away from me!”  She is also quite fond of saying, “Just leab (leave) me alone.  Don’t bother me!” and “I sure love you too” (that’s in her sweeter moments).

Amy has a couple more weeks of preschool and then swimming lessons begin.  I received a call yesterday from a lady in our ward who has been trying to get Amy into her preschool program for a couple of months now.  I am not sure yet what we will do in the fall, I really wish that Amy could just go to kindergarten.  I think she would be plenty ready for it.

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

We have been enjoying some fabulous spring weather in the past couple of weeks.  We are expecting some snow this weekend, and it is hard when you can be outside enjoying 70 degree weather one day, and cold and snow the next.

We have started working on our back yard.  We installed a retaining or “garden” wall in hopes of removing some of the slope from our yard.  It looks great and definitely flattened out the lot.  I am excited about getting the rest of it done and most especially to get sod laid.  That won’t be for awhile yet, but the girls track in so much dirt right now.

Amy came in to the office after drawing whiskers on her nose and cheeks, so proud of herself.  I wasn’t so pleased and even less so when I found out that she did it to Misha as well. 

We are going swimming tonight at the newly open recreation center.  The girls have been waiting since the end of last summer to go swimming and are thrilled.  We went and toured the facility on Saturday and were completely impressed.  The pool area is huge and has a lot of fun things for kids to play on.

Monday, 8 March, 2004

Chris has been in Orlando at a conference since Friday and doesn’t get home until Wednesday evening.  We sure miss him.  Amy says something about missing him a couple of times a day at least.  Amy and I both started getting sick on Friday evening and have been trying to get better ever since.  I think I am recovering a bit faster, though, her upper lip is red from wiping her nose so much.  I am pretty sure we got sick from one of the moms at play group.  She came last Wednesday with a hoarse throat claiming that she wasn’t sick.  Her attitude frustrates me to no end because we were not sick.  Misha got sick earlier in the week and it didn’t last very long for her.

I was exercising early Friday morning last week when I saw a mouse in the basement.  I hate mice in my house.  I knew that there was a mousetrap over by the food storage, so I jumped off the treadmill and went to move it.  AAAGGGHHH there was already a dead mouse in it.  It has always been Chris’ job to dispose of the mice–he knows how much I hate them.  I ran upstairs to look for another trap and couldn’t find one.  EW, so with deep disgust I picked up the mousetrap (dead mouse and all) and walked over to the garbage with it to dump it.  If I had been thinking more clearly, I would have brought the garbage closer to where I was.  I cinched the garbage bag up tight and then reset the mousetrap in the new location.  It snapped shut on me once scaring me but I finally got it set.  My adrenaline was pumping when I got back on the treadmill, it was though I had a second wind.  I was successful in catching the second mouse–more EW!-but sadly it was on Saturday morning when Chris was already in Florida and I had to dump this one as well.  I didn’t want the girls to come across it.  I haven’t caught any more since then, and hope that I don’t.  I don’t relish the idea of disposing of another one.

Last week for Amy’s preschool, the morning and afternoon class combined for a trip to the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster.  Amy was thrilled about going for days before.  Her teacher asked if I would also come along and drive some of the kids, so Tuesday morning I packed a lunch for Amy, Misha, and me (Misha couldn’t stay home with Daddy while he worked) and we were off.  Two other little girls-Peyton and Savannah-came with us.  Talk about a bunch of high-pitched screaming.  We finally arrived, paid our money, took care of bathroom needs, and then started looking around.  We started in a room with spiders, beetles and cockroaches.  Those roaches were HUGE!  A volunteer sat in a far corner surrounded by little chairs holding “Rosie” the tarantula.  Misha would have nothing to do with it, but Amy said, “I’ll be brave” and sat down on one of the chairs and held out her hands to Rosie.  My camera was little slow but I got a picture of Rosie climbing out of her hands and she got a sticker saying “I held Rosie.”

They also had fish that looked like Nemo and Dory from the movie “Finding Nemo” as well as star fish to touch and an octopus.  Misha was pretty intrigued by the fish.  You would have thought, however, that they both would have loved the butterflies.  Not so!  They both cringed in fear when one flew close to their heads.  It was terrifically humid in the butterfly pavilion, but despite protests from a few of the kids, we ventured into the plant jungle.  Granted there were some butterflies big enough to be birds that Amy and Misha really didn’t like, but they didn’t like the smaller ones either.  Amy was cautiously excited when a butterfly landed on my hand and sat there for about 30 seconds.  When we told the kids that it was time to go, there were no arguments.  We headed to the picnic benches out front for lunch before heading home.  Misha, as usual, wouldn’t sit still, and eat but I gave her part of her lunch to eat on the way home.

I finally remember where I put Amy’s scissors the last time she was “grounded” from them for cutting things she wasn’t supposed to cut.  When I brought them to her, she said, “Good job Mom, you’re a good finder.”  You realize what you say frequently and how much the girls pick it up when they begin to say it back to you or to each other.  The other day Amy was out in the van looking for some doll clothes.  Misha asked where she was doing, and when I told her that Amy was in the van she asked, “For being rude?”

This morning Amy and Misha were playing in the living room, and I was in the office on the computer when I heard some commotion and then Amy saying, “Use your bean, Misha!  Use your bean!”  (At our house, that means, use your head-think about what you are doing).  I asked Amy to pick up things on the floor of her bedroom this morning so that I could vacuum.  When I went in, everything possible thing including throw rugs and toys from the closet were piled on her bed.  Later in the morning, I asked Misha to help Amy clean up her room.  Amy said “You can say that again!”  She must have heard that somewhere recently because she has been saying it a lot today.

We finally received some new living room furniture that we purchased online back in January.  I am getting used to it being there but don’t think I like the placement of it quite yet.  Sadly, it is darker mahogany type wood and really shows the fingerprints and the girls certainly like to play on the coffee table, the end table, and the sofa table.  At times I wish we hadn’t got them because of the upkeep.  Just one more thing to keep nice.

Kevin and Candace welcomed Jeremy Matthew into their lives February 28th–three weeks early.  What a treat!  One day later and he would have been a leap year baby.  He weighed 6 lbs 15 oz, was 19 ½ inches long and is doing great.  Amy was excited since she has her friends Jamie and Jeremy.  She would say “big Jeremy, little Jeremy” while moving her hands up and down to signify their sizes.

Friday, 27 February, 2004

Brad called last Thursday to say that he was being called as the second counselor in his ward’s bishopric.  He has known through inspiration that a change was coming for him, and more specifically this calling for about a month now.  He called Mom and Dad last Wednesday night and told them that either he needed to come home or they needed to come to Utah so that Dad could advance Brad to a High Priest.  Mom and Dad decided to leave on Friday morning, and Chris and I, on the spur of the moment, decided to leave last Friday afternoon.  We talked about it around 2 pm, decided we were leaving at 2:30 and were on the road by 4:30.

It was definitely a quick trip for us as we came home Monday morning, but enjoyable.  The girls, especially had a great time playing with cousins.  We arrived at Brad’s on Friday night around 12:30.  He thought that maybe I would be coming as a surprise but was a bit shocked when we all showed up on his doorstep ringing his doorbell.  The first thing he said to me was, “I knew it.”

We quickly got the girls settled in Brad’s twin bed.  They both snuggled in close together and we didn’t hear a peep until Misha woke up at 6:30 Saturday morning.  She was pretty disoriented and started crying.  That got me out of bed fast.  The good news–both she and Amy were dry.  As we were driving through Wyoming, Amy kept saying, “I know I can, I know I can.”  She did.  And she was dry two nights in a row.

Brad didn’t have too many groceries around, so Chris went and got a few things Saturday morning for breakfast.  I gave the girls a bath and once we were ready, we drove to Brad and Dallin’s practice.  Chris had his glasses fitted and I got to pick up a pair of sunglasses for me for free.  (Since Chris does so much free computer work for them).  We drove down to Dallin and Donna’s where Mom and Dad were staying.  Mom and Dad were originally going to stay at Brad’s, but when Angie spilled the beans about us coming, they decided to stay at Dallin’s so that we could have a little more room and wouldn’t have so far to drive.

Donna was a bit harried and crabby since Isaac had kept her up for a lot of the night and Dallin was out doing fun stuff with Dad all day long.  We picked up Mom and drove her to Susan’s.  We thought we would surprise Susan, but Brad had already told her we were coming...something about Susan not liking to be surprised and wanting to make sure there was enough food for lunch on Sunday.  Party pooper.

Susan wasn’t too pleasant to be around and quite rude.  Fortunately, we had plans to meet Chris’ sister Jenni at noon at BYU.  We picked Jenni up and had lunch at the Cougareat.  Amy was thrilled to be at BYU where her mommy and daddy went to school.  She was the bowling alley and all its fun games, had fun eating lunch and then got to see Polynesian dancers.  She was thrilled though I fear she has a rather skewed view of BYU and what fun it must be to go to college.

After lunch, we took the girls and Jenni to see “Brother Bear” at the $1 Movies in Provo by Shopko.  They had a great time and Misha lasted for maybe 2/3 of the movie before getting antsy.  After the movie, we took Jenni to the grocery store to pick up a few groceries and then dropped her off at home.  We drove back to King’s hoping that the mood was better.

We sat around and talked which is never Chris’ favorite thing to do, but I enjoy it and the girls loved playing with their cousins.  I wish that Jenna lived closer to be their babysitter.  She is great with them.  After much deliberation, Chris and I left for dinner on our own.  The girls stayed at Kings and at the last minute, Mom and Dad decided to join us for dinner at Olive Garden.

Brad’s church was at 9 am Sunday morning.  He had meetings from his previous calling at and so we were on our own to get there.  Actually it was nice to not be rushed.  The girls didn’t take much effort to get ready since they had bathed the day before.  Mom and Dad were at the church when we got there and after getting the girls settled in their classes (without any crying I might add) we went to our meetings.  Sacrament was last, so I went to Relief Society first.

After the call was extended to Brad in Sacrament Meeting, we met after all the meetings for him to be advanced in the priesthood and to be set apart in his new calling. 

A lunch was planned at Donna’s–soup, rolls and salad-with the whole family.  Gayle and Maureen brought Grandma Great but hadn’t come to church.  Grandma is looking rather pathetic.  I wish that they could just let her go.  She had all of her teeth pulled awhile back because she had gum infections of some kind that were infecting her fingernails.  She isn’t coherent much and quite unstable walking.  I felt sad and quite uncomfortable around her.

Again, the kids had a great time playing.  They even roughhoused with Grandpa for awhile which was fun to watch.  I could tell that Brad and Chris had had their fill after awhile, so we all went back to Brad’s house and just relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Tuesday, 10 February, 2004

Amy goes to school now.  She is so thrilled about it.  She goes on Tuesday and Thursday from 1 to 3:30.  Her teacher is a lady from church-Hallie Springer-who teaches from her home.  Amy has five other students in her class.  She has such expectations for the way things should be.  She wanted to pack a lunch the first day, take snacks, she likes to wear dresses and tights.  This week she is the “star of the week” and gets to bring five things that represent her.  She loves going.

On Tuesday when Chris is home, I can leave Misha with him while she sleeps and go and do stuff on my own.  It’s kind of nice to have a little time to myself.

The other day it was snowing and Amy looked outside and said, “It has to stop snowing!  You have to call the sun and tell him to melt the snow.”

My girls are growing fast.  Some days I sit and watch them and am amazed at how much they know and are learning.  Amy has only been in school for two weeks and already the counting thing seems to have clicked with her.  She just finished doing all her Valentine’s for play group tomorrow.  I wrote out the names and then she copied them onto the cards.  She did a super job.

Misha seems to be sick a lot lately with colds.  Nothing too serious, but it is a definite shift in her personality.  She wants to be held, she is whiney and for some reason, she doesn’t take very long naps.  She has also had a lot of potty accidents recently.  I think she was on her fifth pair of pants and underwear by noon yesterday.  So frustrating for me.  I try to be patient and understanding, but I am not always very good about it.  Today she has done better, so I hope that she will continue to do so.

We painted the office blue on Saturday.  I had the touch-ups still to do and tackled them on Monday.  While I was finishing off the last spot, I dropped my paint brush and in reaching down to get it, I somehow lost my balance.  I fell backward off the stool and watched as the paint sloshed out of the container and on to me, my hair, the girls’s table, and the carpet.  I was mostly worried about the carpet and didn’t take much time to see if I was hurt or not.  I got most of the paint out of the carpet, but noticed that there is still some there today.  It would have been a good day for swearing.  Misha was in the living room watching tv; she didn’t move but hollered to me “What happened Mom?”  Guess I don’t compete with Mickey Mouse.  After cleaning up the mess, I took some Ibuprofen and rested.

I went to the doctor today to have my IUD removed.  We are planning to have another baby, but I don’t want to be pregnant until August.  Here’s hoping.  I would like to have my body have a normal schedule for a couple of months before getting pregnant.

Monday, 26 January, 2004

I bought Misha some colorful new socks at Walmart the other day.  She found them in her drawer yesterday and brought them to Chris.  She had pink on one foot and yellow on another.  She would have put all the colors on if we had let her.  She hasn’t been feeling well lately and woke up last night quite frantic and unwilling to be pacified.  Finally I climbed into the guest bed with her after making sure she had the right pillow.  First she popped her head up to tell me to open the door and leave it open.  Then she wanted her socks on.  I grabbed some of the new blue ones, but those wouldn’t do.  So I had to find the yellow and pink ones from Sunday.  Success!  But as I start to put the yellow one on her right foot, she tells me it belongs on the left foot and wants the pink one on the right foot.  Finally she goes to sleep.  I woke up about an hour later and returned to my bed and Misha slept until about 6:30.

We surprised Amy by telling her that she gets to start a preschool program.  It is held two days a week for 2 ½ hours a day.  Her looks of surprise, awe and joy said it all.  She is thrilled to be going but thinks that she is going to a real school with a bus and lunch.  She informed me that she would need to pack a lunch and when I told her that no she would eat before she went, she was quite indignant that that is what big kids did when they went to school.  She and I will go tomorrow to observe and mostly see if it is the right fit for her.  I hope so because she is excited.  She always tells Misha that Misha needs to be a good girl while Amy is gone to school.  She takes on the big sister role quite well.

My birthday was last Thursday.  Chris surprised me by planting some seeds that he gave me before we were married.  After he got home from work, he took Amy to Safeway to pick up an angel food cake.  When they finally returned (they took so long I was starting to worry), Amy walked in carrying six pink roses for me.  She had written “I Love You” on a card and hugged me and said “Happy Birthday Mom”.  What a sweetheart.

Chris and I went on a date on Friday.  We had our usual babysitter, Alisha M. come but that might have been her last time.  When I got home, the house wreaked of smoke.  I should have asked what happened, but I was waiting for her to tell me.  All that she said was that Misha had a hard time going to bed and then rushed out the door.  I began searching for the problem.  Nothing in the oven, garbage or fridge–and then I opened the microwave.  It was coated in a smokey film and blasted me even more with the smell.  I started cleaning it out and was very disappointed that whatever she had burned had been in there so long that it discolored the sides of the microwave.  When Chris returned, he found a burned bag of popcorn in the dumpster in the garage.

When Amy woke up the next morning, she said to me “something happened last night.  We weren’t watching the popcorn and it burned and filled the microwave with smoke.”  Surely accidents happen, but I wish that Alisha would have had the courage to say something to us about it.

Misha is learning her brand recognition.  She sees the Wendy’s restaurant logo and calls it Peter Pan (because of Wendy in that movie).  McDonalds is called Mikadodalds.  She can spot the golden arches anywhere.

When I was painting all of the flowers in Amy’s and Misha’s room, Amy was in there fooling around throwing a doll.  Suddenly it hit me in the head and landed on my paint container.  Fortunately it only got a small bit of paint on the doll.  I made her sit quietly on the bed.  All of a sudden I hear, “Are we still friends?”

Misha is doing exceptionally well with her potty training.  Since Christmas, it just seems to have clicked with her.  She rarely has accidents, is dry during naps and wears pull-ups at night.  We are still working with her and Amy to stay dry at night.  Amy had a three-day run at Christmas time.  I think because she woke up early before she had a chance to pee in her pull-up.


Chris and I painted the dining room on Saturday.  I had a sore throat and wasn’t feeling so hot, but finally got it done about 6 pm.  My part of painting takes a whole lot longer since Chris kindly lets me tape, paint all the edges and corners-two coats-and then do the touch-ups afterwards.  He rolls the paint on and is done in no time at all.

Friday, 9 January, 2004

We had a great Christmas.  It was just the four of house here at home, and it was so much fun.  The girls had a wonderful time and were thoroughly spoiled.  Sadly I wasn’t feeling so hot and had the stomach flu all day Christmas Eve through Boxing Day.  That was the beginning of the bug circulating through the whole family.  Misha had it next, throwing up numerous times.  I spent the night next to her in the guest room and was grateful that she finally got the hang of throwing up in a bowl.  It wasn’t very restful for either of us.  She slept on the couch for about four hours the next day as we began painting the living room and was much better by the afternoon.  Chris was sick next on Tuesday and pretty much stayed in bed all day.  We had been painting non-stop for the past couple of days and since I hadn’t had much of a break the entire holiday I decided to leave the painting for another day.

Chris ended up working on Wednesday while I painted away by myself, but he took Friday off in exchange.  Amy then got the stomach flu and threw up too, but after a good night’s sleep she was feeling better the next morning.  Saturday we painted the girls’ room purple, and I have been working on finishing their room ever since.

The living room is a tannish brown, “latte” color and the kitchen is deep burgundy.  I missed my white walls for a couple days after painting because the change was so dramatic, but I really like the color now.  The girls’ room is purple with a cream stripe around the middle of the room and in that I am painting pink, green and purple flowers.  Much the same as Amy’s old room since she requested it.  The flowers take hours and hours of my time though.

We also got paint for the laundry room (yellow), the office (blue) and the dining room (sage green).  I think that I will also take some of the leftover paint from the girls’ room and paint the powder bath purple.

Wednesday, 17 December, 2003

Amy had her birthday party last night.  She was so excited.  Another one of those “best days ever” kind of days.  We put up some balloons and had lots of desserts, ice cream, and treats for everyone.  I didn’t make another cake since we were still working on the pink one from her birthday.  Her friend Ellie Glover and family came, Lexie Krause (next door neighbor) and parents, Jamie Riddle (Chris’ coworker), and Rochelle Allred and kids (friends from church).  Her bestest friend Audrey Wasden couldn’t come because her mom was sick.  She got a new dress and purse from Jamie, a Strawberry Shortcake doll, crayons, and coloring book from Ellie and a Barbie Princess dress-up dress from Lexie.  There were quite a few kids running through the house and even though we didn’t plan anything formal other than eating and opening presents, they had a great time.  At play group today, Audrey gave Amy a fun balancing game with lots and lots of little pieces that I am already tired of picking up.

Thursday, 11 December, 2003

Amy turns four today.  She has been so excited about her birthday coming.  We had hoped to have a small birthday party for some of her friends and their family tonight, but either they are out of town or have school programs to attend.  So we have moved the friends party to next Tuesday and celebrate tonight by going out to dinner at La Mariposa in Longmont (one of our favorite Mexican restaurants) and then came home after for PINK birthday cake.  She has been requesting pink for probably the entire year now.  Chris and I gave her a new dress, pants and a shirt, and "The Lion King" DVD.  Grandma Ball sent a new Leap Frog learning system, Grandpa Kline sent money for her savings account, Grandma Andrews sent money for fun (though we usually end up depositing it in her account), and Grandma and Grandpa Rice sent a necklace.  Amy kept saying “This is my best birthday ever”.  Good since she doesn’t have too many to compare it to.

Friday, 5 December, 2003

Chris comes home today!!!  Wahoo.  We are all excited.  It seemed as though this day would never come, but I am so grateful that it is finally here.  I will take the girls to the airport with me this time as his flight comes in at 5:30 pm.  Amy has been very vocal about missing her dad while he has been gone.  As I sit here and listen to her “write a letter” to grandma, she says “I really love my dad, but please come home.”  A couple of days ago, she said to me “Mom, please can we call daddy?  I’ll be your best friend.”  I passed that info along to Chris and a couple of seconds later, the phone rang.  She was thrilled to have her own phone call.

Amy was just talking to me about Grandma and Grandpa Rice and wanted to call them.  I told her that we couldn’t because they were at the temple today.  “Are they getting married.”  “No, they are already married.  They have been married almost 41 years.”  She responds, “I don’t want to get married.”  I say, “Well someday when you get bigger.”  Amy: “I don’t want to get bigger.  I just want to stay little.  Well, maybe a little bit bigger so that I can go to school.”

Misha hasn’t been nearly so vocal about Chris being gone, but when he came home last week and found him in bed on Tuesday morning, she laid on his chest and enfolded him in a hug that lasted for about a minute.  It was pretty tender to watch.

Three of my brothers came to visit last week.  Brad, Shane, and Dallin and his family.  It was quite a full house, moreso because we hadn’t planned on Chris being here at all.  It was enjoyable but a lot of work.  Endless meals it seemed like and then lots of cleaning up after.

Tuesday, 2 December, 2003

Only three more days until Chris comes home.  He was able to get away for a couple of days last week and flew home for Thanksgiving but had to return on Friday.  His flight came in at 11 pm last Monday.  I wasn’t looking forward to driving to the airport at a time when I am normally fast asleep and a little slow on the cognitive response, but what to do?  Rochelle Allred was kind enough to offer to stay with the girls while I went, since they were sleeping.  That was nice not to have to wake them up and put them in a cold car.

Thursday, 13 November, 2003

I had my first mammogram last Friday.  Dr. Walker suggested that now is a good time to start and get a baseline for comparison as I age.  I hadn’t thought too much about it since then, just wanted to get it done before Chris left.  I took the girls in to town yesterday to run errands and then to play at the mall and had a message on the answering machine from Dr. Walker when we arrived home.  Basically she said that my mammogram showed a “benign change on my right side” which she said is nothing to worry about at this point.  I have to go back in next Tuesday for another mammogram that will magnify the spot they are concerned with and then have an ultrasound as well.  I am having a bad day, to say the least.  I called Mom and Dad this morning because mostly I needed someone to talk to and Chris was at work already and IMing him didn’t really help.  I wanted to know if there was a history of breast cancer in our family and to get a little support.  They will be fasting for me this weekend along with the rest of my family.  I am so grateful for the strong support of my brothers and sister.  Susan, Brad and Dallin have either called or IMed to say they are thinking and praying for me.

All this in the midst of poopy accidents with Misha.  She went to the potty and I asked her what she was doing.  She came running out saying, “I sorry mommy”.  I started cleaning up the mess calling for her to come back to bathroom so I could wipe her bottom.  She wasn’t obeying and by the time I got to her she had wiped poop on the couch.  Thank heavens for leather.  I started crying, and I know they have no idea why mommy is having a hard time today.  This being alone thing really stinks–just over three more weeks to go.

In conversing with Dallin, I asked him to please pray for my girls too, they don't understand why I am upset and I am not being as patient as I should.  His response was: “I can do that.  You know I watch my children and know that Donna has days that are better than others but I really think that they are naturally blessed and that a lot of times they are playing with angels.”  I have felt very strongly the presence of angels this past week as I have been with the girls non-stop.  Most evenings, I am more than ready for Chris to come home and give me a break. 

Today has been hard on me, and I know that I shouldn’t let this get to me so much because the real likelihood is that it is just an abnormality and nothing more.

Update: I had a second mammogram and then an ultrasound scheduled for November 18th at 8:30 am.  I dropped the girls off at Melissa Glover’s to play with Ellie and headed into Longmont.  The mammogram was centralized on the specific area of concern and then immediately following that I went across the street to the hospital and had an ultrasound done.  The ultrasound showed that I have a growth as well as a much smaller cyst but both are benign.  Whew.  I called Chris after I left the hospital and asked him to pass the information on to my family on the instant messenger on the computer as I wasn’t going to be home for awhile.  I took the opportunity to go shopping on my own and thoroughly enjoyed myself.  I will go back in six months for a follow up mammogram and ultrasound just to check and make sure nothing has changed or grown

Tuesday, 11 November, 2003

Yesterday, I was sewing curtain rings onto the dining room curtains.  The rings had previously been attached with curtain clips.  Amy was playing with the rings with clips in the office, but suddenly walked back into the living room and dumped them all in my lap.  She looked as though she were going to cry, but I couldn’t see that there was anything wrong until she dumped the rings and one lone ring continued to dangle from her tongue.  She didn’t say anything to me but opened her mouth for me to remove the clip.  I tried not to laugh so that she would see, but it was pretty funny and still makes me laugh.

This morning Misha woke up earlier than usual.  Normally, Chris is here to get up with her but with him gone, she started downstairs.  As I was coming up to meet her, she said, “No Daddy.  I lost him.”  Poor thing.

Whew.  The wind is blowing so hard here today.  It tore the bbq cover right off the bbq and up, up and away.  I grabbed my shoes and jacket and tore after it before it blew beyond the fence two house down.  My ears were full of dirt, and I was almost attacked by a tumble weed.  The water in the toilet is moving and the window sills almost have enough dirt for the girls to play in the dirt inside.