Backyard Fun

Well after visiting Steve and Kate last month and seeing their awesome backyard pool, we decided to take the plunge too:

Admittedly, our pool is a just a little bit smaller in scale, but the kids think this pool is THE DEAL...looking forward to many fun summertime hours relaxing under the umbrella while the kiddos play!

Reunion Party

On Sunday we went to a backyard party at Carol's house. Lots of folks that I haven't seen for years were there. These are people that I used to go to church camp or youth conferences with, and I've known most of them since I was about 14 or 15 (almost as long as I've lived in Colorado). Most of us still live around Colorado (several of us even live in Parker but don't get together as often as we should; we are going to make a concerted effort to get at least the Parker crew together regularly), some live out of state. It was a fun reunion afternoon! Look at us and all our kids...unbelievable...the next generation.
(Also there but not in the picture: Carol (obviously); Holley and husband; Drew (showed up later); Sarah and boyfriend; Scott, Jane and Matthew. I think that's it, sorry if I'm forgetting anyone.)

Shout out

All right, I have to give a shout out to Kelsyus for a positive customer service experience. Holla!

Last summer, I picked up one of their portable hammocks on clearance at the Bed, Bath and Beyond in West Jordan, UT. Well, this summer, one of the black caps on the frame broke, rendering it unusable. On a whim, I found a customer service e-mail for them on-line and sent them an e-mail basically explaining the situation, that of course we don't still have a receipt, we've moved to another state, we never exceeded the weight limit, etc, and was there anyway we might be able to get a replacement part? (And this is to take nothing away from BB&B, I just tried Kelsyus first because it saved me a trip to the store.) Anyways, I figured this e-mail would basically go into a Customer Service Black Hole, but I'd at least give it a shot.

Lo and behold, less than 24 hours later, I had an e-mail stating that they'd send me a new hammock frame at no charge. So now the test was whether or not a hammock frame would actually show up or if they were just kind of placating me. Well, an entirely new hammock, frame and canvas, showed up on our porch yesterday! And it's a better model portable hammock too! So thanks, Kelsyus!

A Camping We Will Go

We had such a fun time on our first camping trip in the tent trailer this weekend! We went with two other families from church. It was nice to start out close to home before our longer trip over the 4th. We camped in a national forest campground called Kelsey Campground, in southwest Douglas County, near Deckers and Pine. The kids basically had a fabulously filthy time: What more could a kid ask for? The dudes: Andrew's first ever s'more in his life: Cooking breakfast:Rich and Sarah (Sarah's due Sept 15th with their second girl): Hiking: The kids (Ben, Megan, Max, Mason and Sophie):Hanging out:
Hope you all had a great weekend too! And Happy Father's Day to all the dads!

Pop-up!

Here's the one we bought, an '03 Coleman Bayside. We don't actually pick it up until next Saturday (they're running it through their shop to make sure everything works, etc), but we're excited for some good ol' family fun! (Do I sound like Clark Griswold or what?)

May - Where did it go?

Hey all! All right, so I realize that I tend to blog in spurts. I've kept up reading everyone else's blogs regularly, but not so much on the writing. Let's see...this month we wrapped up soccer and school for Maxwell - both of which he had a lot of fun with this year.

Last weekend we flew to PA for Mike (Andrew's brother) and Caitlin's wedding. Both of the boys were junior groomsmen. The whole trip, they were a little sleep deprived (getting up earlier on eastern time and getting short to no naps), so on the day of the wedding, we wanted to make sure they got an opportunity for a good nap so as to minimize the likelihood of terrorist-like behavior at the wedding. Well, you know what happens to the best-laid plans. On the day of the wedding, the boys bounced off the walls of the hotel room for about 3 hours, getting absolutely zero nap. By the time the wedding rolled around, Ben was just downright surly. When the florist pinned his boutonniere on, he immediately ripped the head off the rose and threw it on the ground. Ahhh well, we did the best we could. Max hung in there fine and was brave enough to walk down the aisle like he was supposed to. Ben and I just hung out at the back of the courtyard. I consider it a victory that he didn't scream or cry during the ceremony. (You'll notice in some of the pictures that we had to put Ben in his more comfy tennies as soon as the ceremony was over.) The wedding was lovely - held at Washington Crossing Historic Inn right along the Delaware River. The weather was as perfect as we've had back there...mid-seventies, sunny, and low humidity. We also had a couple of days to let the kids play together at their cousins' house in their awesome new pool. It was fun to have the whole Shier side of the family together and catch up.

The boys were excellent little travellers - now we are home and I think the boys have been catching up on their sleep all week...they're taking loooooong naps (which is why I'm blogging right now :) ).

Other tidbits:

We got our sod rolled out and are nursing it along with lots of water on our little backyard project.

We're headed to Mt. Rushmore for the 4th of July! We reserved a camp-site at one of the KOAs there that has a water-park and all kinds of fun stuff. We decided it'd be tons of fun to buy a pop-up tent trailer. Some of my most vivid memories ("I'll run the heater just enough to take the chill off;" that awesome thunderstorm in the middle of the night camping in Corpus Christi; being a bonafide Jr. Park Ranger at Custer State Park) are from camping trips and I can't wait to take my own kids! So we've been researching and shopping pop-ups - probably going to buy one this weekend.

And here are some other pics from earlier this month:

Worker-bees

Look at the dudes working away this afternoon! We had a walkway running from the driveway to the patio that was this awful messy, red rock-dust. It was a walkway you couldn't walk on because it was so dirty and messy or muddy if it rained, snowed, or the sprinklers turned on. The boys certainly loved digging in it, and were frequently covered from head to toe in red muck, but that's about the only positive. So making the red rock disappear was landscaping task numero uno. On Tuesday, we got our new walkway poured! Awww... However, I only had them concrete to the edge of the sod. We all worked to haul the red rock stuff out of the rest of the length of the walkway and we plan to lay sod on that part. We cleared out the rest of the walkway in about two hours this afternoon; we'd thought it would take a lot longer, so we were pleasantly surprised to finish that task today without a ton of effort!

Other things since the last post...

Andrew had a birthday. I baked blueberry pies.

Aspen tore her ACL (again).

My husband surprised me with a fancy shmancy diamond anniversary ring for our upcoming 10th anniversary!

Good book I read: Angry Housewives Eating Bon-bons (ignore the stupid sounding title)

Good movie I saw: Sicko (don't even get me started)

Reason #392 why I love craigslist: Less than 24 hours after listing 2 car seats that Max outgrew, I sold 'em today!

That's all for now...

American Idol

I LOVED David Cook tonight!!

I even voted.

Weekend recap

We started off with MORE SOCCER! It was fun, but goodness gracious, there was something in the air this weekend - the kids were unbelievably weepy! It was just comical to see all the kids crying along the sidelines. And it wasn't just limited to our team; all of the teams seemed to be afflicted with crying this Saturday. You gotta expect that sometimes with 3 & 4 year olds though - or any age on a bad day.

Later that afternoon, we surprised my friend Maranda with a baby shower. She'll be joining the "Mom of 2 boys club" in May. She was 45 minutes late, so we were all kind of drumming our fingers for a while - part of the risk of having a surprise shower. She said "well if I knew you were throwing me a baby shower, I would've left Home Depot earlier." They were in the midst of a ceiling fan crisis. Oh well, it was a fun afternoon.

Then some friends and their 2-year old daughter came over for dinner Saturday night.

Sunday was a day spent relaxing at home after church. Andrew watched the race and I got to laze on the couch and read. I finished Marley and Me. Such a good book about why we love our dogs - even the ones that drive us crazy (Aspen, anyone? Yes, we love her.) - and why we open our hearts to these creatures even knowing from the outset that with life spans shorter than ours we will eventually have to go through the sadness of their deaths. Andrew is reading the book now...it's made us both laugh out loud almost every other page, and of course I cried too.

Grandma/Mom and Grandpa/Dad joined us for pizza and pinochle Sunday evening, and that's about it. Enjoy your week, everyone!

Awesome!

If you look closely, you'll see that Ben is wearing shin guards AND cowboy boots - and don't forget the Lightning McQueen patches peeking out...

Too Good to Not Share

I just had to put a link to this post: http://boomama.net/?p=2253

Hmmmmm

Came across this list today:

Top 10 Useless Body Parts
By The Science Channel

When you're sick you may feel that certain body parts are more trouble than they're worth. And in some cases, you'd be right. While the human body has evolved and adapted significantly since the caveman days, a few biological traces of our prehistoric ancestors still remain with us in the form of freeloading body parts we lug around with us, but have no use for. Take a gander at the top offenders!

10. Plica semilunaris
You may not know it, but you have a third eyelid. Pull open the two more noticeable eyelids and take a look -- it's located right in the corner by the tear duct. This small third eyelid is left over from what's known as a "nictitating membrane," which is still present in full form in some animals including chickens, lizards and sharks.

9. Body hair
No doubt we were once hairier. Up until about 3 million years ago, we were covered with body hair. But by the time Homo erectus arrived, the ability to sweat meant we could shed our woolly ways.

8. Sinuses
Doctors don't really know much about sinuses -- only that we have a lot of them. Possibilities for their function range from insulating our eyes to changing the pitch and tone of our voice.

7. Adenoids
Adenoids trap bacteria, but they're also prone to swelling and infection. Just ask any 7-year-old. Luckily, our adenoids shrink with age and are often removed, along with ...

6. Tonsils
Also prone to swelling and infection. If you still have them when you reach your 30s, it's almost an accomplishment.

5. Coccyx
More useful as a game-winning Scrabble word than as part of the anatomy, the coccyx or tailbone, is made up of several fused vertebrae left over from the olden days when we had tails.

4. Arrector pili
When we were hairier (see No. 9), the arrector pili made the hairs stand on end when we needed to appear bigger and scarier. Now, it just gives us goose bumps.

3. Wisdom teeth
Back in the day, when we ate mammoth meat off the bone and didn't floss afterward, our teeth tended to fall out. Therefore, when those reserve molars, aka "wisdom teeth," came in, they were welcomed. Nowadays, fluoride and dental plans have made them just a huge pain.

2. Appendix
Darwin claimed the appendix was useful for digestion during our early plant-eating years; it's dwindled down to little since we started eating more digestible foods.

1. Male nipples
Because, why?

Soccer!!