Hello! Did ya miss me???

Oh, my. That was some long break I took! And in the middle of Nablopomo, too! Unbelievable. When I finally ventured back to the computer, I was overwhelmed by the elephant in the room (or the elephant in the blog) which stood staring me in the face. The elephant loomed larger and larger the longer I went without blogging, and I finally decided that the only way to make it go away would be to finally write something.

So there you have it. The End.



LOL - okay, just kidding. I'll fill you in on what we've been up to.

Hubby and I went to the Awards dinner for work. He didn't win Engineer of the Year, but his boss, and the general manager, had all kinds of glowing things to say about him. The evening was alright. The food was great, as was the wine (amazing how someone kept magically appearing to refill my wine glass!), and all the spouses went home with a box of Godiva truffles - sort of a thank you gift for putting up with the ridiculous amount of time our significant others have to spend away from home and family. Mmmmm... yum. Makes all those 60+ hour weeks so worth it! ++ insert eye roll here. Okay, it's the thought that counts I suppose. A very nice gesture.

Oh, and for our evening out I wore a nice, black v-neck, A-line (lol - almost said "A-frame"! Hopefully it was more flattering than that!) dress, with a long scarf/shawl thing that I'd bought in Mexico draped over my shoulders. Turns out that in the deep dark depths of my closet I even had a pair of strappy black heels. Who knew?!! Our camera wasn't functioning properly, so my sister (who watched the kids for us) snapped a few photos with her camera phone. Not quite the same, but I'll see if I can't put one up.

Father's Day came. We bought hubby a Gorilla Ladder. He was suitably impressed, and promptly took it outside to clean gutters and prune tall trees.

The following weekend, my sister and I took our three kids to go visit grandparents over in Yakima. Those would be the Mexico grandparents who decided that maybe only spending part of the year down south was a more reasonable goal. We're quite happy to have them back for a longer stretch of time than last year. The kids had fun swimming in the pool, and playing at a dinosaur park outside of Yakima. They even went paddle boating.

Fourth of July was a busy time. My mom took the train up to visit! Our family was going to be leaving on the 4th (a Friday) to drive down to my MIL's in southern Oregon, but my mom was able to come up a few days ahead so we could spend some time with her. I love sipping coffee in the mornings with my mom when she comes to stay, or when I go visit her. Something very soothing about it. Anyway, the kids enjoyed their time with Grammy, and are looking forward to seeing her again soon.

Down at the ranch (MIL's place) we had a great week. We went to a potluck hosted by one of the creekers, and then drove into Glendale for their big fireworks show. The show was put on at the high school, and it was mine and the kids first time actually driving through the town of Glendale. For some reason hubby never felt a need to take me there - Grants Pass was about as close as we ever got to touring his old stomping grounds. Glendale put on a great show, probably breaking all sorts of fire codes - we were close enough to feel the heat of some of the pyrotechnics, and there were pieces of debris raining down on us throughout the show. "AWESOME!", as the boys would say (that would be A. and our friends' boy D.- who also exclaimed many times "America ROCKS!"). The following night there was another big potluck and music party at my MIL's place, as well as our own fireworks display (if you buy them legally back in WA, surely they're still legal in OR, right? lol). We partied with family and friends, and had a great time. It was nice seeing the next generation of kids all playing together and having fun.

Back at home we started to brace ourselves for our oldest turning 9 years old. Her big present this year was a brandnew mountain bike - she's turned all tall and leggy over the past year, and her old bike wasn't a good fit any longer. Even with the seat raised all the way up, she still had to pedal with her knees up around her ears - only slightly exagerating. This new bike is a smidge big for her, but she's getting the hang of it, and is learning to appreciate having multiple gears to choose from! Our family has been doing a lot more riding this summer, both individually, and together. Now we just need to convince A. that he really can ride without those darn training wheels on! On the eve of N's birthday, I found myself contemplating what it meant to be the parent of a nearly-9yr. old kid, who was snuggled up to her Mama at the time. I realized that our time with her at home is about half over, and our time as with her as a snuggly little girl will likely come to an end in far less time than that. I want to pause it all, or at least put it into slow motion. I'm afraid this is all going to be over in the blink of an eye, and I'm already missing it. Um... and don't even get me started on puberty, which is looming not too far off on the horizon. So not ready. Less ready than Mom would be Dad. I'm learning that Daddies do not like to talk about, think about, or admit to the fact that little girls become women. These next few years should prove interesting. Next week, our animal-loving girl will be going to Animal Adventures day camp at the Seattle Humane Society. She's going with a couple of friends, and is really excited. One of the activities they'll be doing is getting assigned to a cat who will be their "mascot" for the week. They'll make posters, and wear a button with their cat's picture on it for the whole week, and if their cat gets adopted before the week is up, they'll be invited to a party in their honor. I hope we don't find ourselves with a new pet before the week is up! ;p

Hmmm... I guess that brings us to the present. Today the kids had dental appointments. I see orthodontia in our future. N has an overbite and a class 2 occlusion. We'll likely be referred to the orthodontist at the next appointment. Little A. does not have an occlusion, but currently has a 90% overbite (I read that optimal is 10%). Lord help the poor child, LOL! And on his x-rays we saw that his 6-year molars will be coming in soon.

Last week we finally got A. in for his 5-yr. well kid check and shots. He was 44lbs. and 45 inches tall, which puts him at a BMI of 15%. I am so jealous! ;P He had his last tetanus booster, and woke up the next morning looking like he had a huge delt - the swelling from that shot was enormous. Followed that by brushing up against some stinging nettle a couple of days ago, which promptly blistered, oozed, and then swelled to twice it's size. What's with this kid? Oh, I forgot to mention that next week we go to the local elementary school to see about enrolling A. in half-day kindergarten. I'll devote more time to this topic soon. I have a lot of thoughts on the issue, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Screw NaBloPoMo

LOL - that lasted all of a few days, didn't it?

Feeling "at home"

Aside from physical location, people will often say that they "feel at home" in certain situations. For example, maybe you feel right at home when you are out shopping on the streets of a big city, or hiking through the backcountry. Conversely, either one of those things might make you feel completely out of your element.

I bring this up because last week Hubby came home from work with an invitation to an upcoming awards dinner. He's up for Engineer of the Year, and is one of 3 finalists, narrowed down from a pool of nominees. This is a well-deserved honor, as this past year has been especially grueling for him. It feels good to see hard work and quality being noticed. Of course with Hubby and I both being fairly introverted by nature, him especially so, we're having trouble seeing past the dinner that's taking place at a yacht club on Lake Washington. My stomach gets tied up in knots just thinking about it, but then I tend to get myself worked up in advance of things like this, creating more suffering than will actually take place once the big day arrives. It's my nature. I'm so much fun to live with, LOL!

So for me, feeling at home does not resemble getting dressed up and attending a multi-course dinner with a bunch of strangers. It would probably help if you knew that for me getting dressed up involves putting on my best pair of jeans, clean tennis shoes, and one of my nice t-shirts. For hubby, feeling at home definitely doesn't involve being singled out in front of others to receive an award. He'd probably appreciate it more if they handed the award to him at his desk some afternoon, along with a gift certificate to Black Angus. It would certainly involve less anxiety.

My question to you is: Where do you feel like a fish out of water?

...and, maybe more importantly: Where do you feel at home?

Co-sleeping survey

Take the survey here.

Home is where you make it...

Home is where you make it. I'm learning that as I get older, and move from place to place. Shortly after hubby and I got married, we packed up and moved 1000 miles away from all our family and friends. It was scary. And lonely. I attribute some of that to the shock of moving from the Pacific Northwest down to southern California. It was like moving to a foreign land - we didn't even speak the language (Hello? Who drinks "soda"?). For years, anytime we made a visit to our family in Oregon I'd pine away for our "home" up north for months after. I would devise plans for us to pick up and move out of that barren cesspool that is L.A. Ironically, when it finally came time for us to leave sunny CA, I couldn't bare to leave the close family of friends we had created during our nine years there. I got my wish to move back up north, yet I'd learned over the years that there's more to home than location. When we arrived in Washington 2 1/2 years ago, I found that same isolation, just a different place. Happily, though it took a while, we're creating a home for ourselves again. We're making connections to our community, and nurturing new friendships. Home is that place where you make the effort to make yourself at home.

Like riding a bike

I went on a bike ride tonight with some of my homeschooling mom friends. It felt great to get out and ride with other adults - I think hubby and I have only done that once since having kids (together that is - he goes all the time by himself). Riding at an adult pace is significantly different than riding with kids on a family ride. While my oldest is quite capable of a 9-12 mile ride, it would take us the better part of a day, not a short evening. The ride out was kinda tough, but the ride back was more leisurely. I'm looking forward to making this a weekly event for the summer.

Thinking about bike riding takes me back to being a kid in eastern Washington. Moses Lake is a place I considered my home for a long while, in part because we lived there longer than any place I ever lived during my childhood - we lived in that neighborhood in that small town for almost 3 years. I spent the "golden years" of my childhood there (ages 6-8), and I still can recall all my close friends by name. One activity that we all took part in was bike riding. We rode our bikes everywhere, and our world seemed huge, though by adult standards it probably didn't amount to much. We felt independent and "big" being out on our bikes with friends, where adults knew only our general whereabouts. I feel badly that most kids nowadays don't have that same experience. I remember on the morning that Mt. St. Helens erupted I rode further than I'd ever gone before - across the main road that led to our street, and into the next neighborhood up. Everything about that day seemed so surreal, but besides the popcorn clouds, and the sky going dark at noon, I remember the freedom of riding my bike far enough to expand my world just a little bit more.

Oh, and for the record: I rode a pink Schwinn with a banana seat, and the seat had flowers on it. Like this, but without the fancy handbrakes:
I know you're jealous.

Giving NaBloPoMo a try...

I've never done this before. NaBloPoMo challenges bloggers to make a blog post each day for an entire month. They even provide a writing prompt to help provide inspiration (though I read that you aren't *required* to write on the topic if you don't want to). The topic this month is "home". I've got lots of ideas in my head already, but I'm running low on time on this first day of June. In my home, there are currently two little rugrats running around in their jammies, sounding not unlike wild banshees (though banshees are actually female spirits that warn of impending death - I looked that up so I could spell "banshees" right) , and expecting Mommy Dearest to read them a bedtime story. Home Sweet Home.