Back in Business

I got home safely today from my trip. I don't like flying and I especially don't like flying alone... I always go through the "what if" senario... "what if" my plane crashes and my kids are motherless and my husband is a widower ... all because I needed a "weekend away" with the girls... blah... blah... blah... guilt... guilt... guilt... plus I'm prone to motion sickness, which hit me hard the last 20 minutes of my flight home today. I thought I was going to be sick before we made it to the gate. Thank goodness I found a vending machine while I waited for my ride and bought a Sprite. That really helped settle my stomach a bit for the ride home. All in all, it was a great weekend away... but I'm so glad to be HOME!

We also have our computer up and running again... works fast and I'm really excited about it! If I could just keep my kids off it, I might actually get to use it!

More on my trip adventures tomorrow... I'm just too darn tired to do more than the bare minimum tonight... I never sleep well in hotel beds, so I'm expecting a great night's sleep tonight!

One last thing... to all the special women in my life -

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Sorry you didn't get a card or email or anything from me, but I still think about you all the same!

A New Solution...

Not to the computer problem... but we may have that worked out tonight.... maybe.... I'm borrowing Eric's laptop right now to get online, but still can't access my email... I'm apparently typing in the wrong password for online access and so I still haven't seen my email!

Over the last 6-7 months, my workout routine has been sporadic at best. I've been suffering from chronic allergies and asthma and it seems that I get one head cold after another. I'm not sure why I've been suffering so much lately, but I've had a really hard time exercising on a regular basis when I feel so crummy all the time. This week, I've had no computer and lots of motivation (my upcoming weekend away....) so I've been to the gym all 3 days this week. That's a miracle for me! I've also started in on a new head cold complete with some nasty sinus headaches. I'm dreading getting on a plane tomorrow with my current sinus situation. So, I remembered that my mom told me that swimming helps to clear her sinuses out when they are clogged up. So yesterday, I headed for the lap pool and swam for almost half an hour. I logged three quarters of a mile. It felt really good and my head felt clear (for at least a couple hours). So today, I decided to do exactly what I did yesterday... again. I wasn't sure how long I'd be able to go... I've never swam like that two days in a row and I was worried I'd be sore. The first 5 minutes were hard, but after that it was much easier. I ended up swimming one mile (64 laps in a 25 meter pool) in exactly 40 minutes. Yes, I was darn happy about it and my sinuses once again were clear! I wish I had time in the morning to work in a swim session before I head to the airport, but I don't think I do! I'm definately packing my suit, and goggles, just in case I need to spend some time in the hotel pool clearing out my sinuses this weekend!

Temporarily Out of Service

Eric started to upgrade our computer last night. It still isn't working. I had to come to the library today so I decided to get online and let you know that we are "out of order" in the cyberspace world for now. We could be back up and running tonight or it could be a couple days. I may not have internet access again until I get back from my weekend away in L.A. The kids are already disgruntled that they can't get on the computer to check email, etc... but they will just have to deal with it for a day or two. I'm getting the feeling that when this is all done, we are going to have two complete desktop computers... not just one. I still really want a laptop to keep downstairs, so we'll have to see how this works out in the end. It's okay for me to not have computer access right now because I can focus for my trip and clean my house without online distractions... so if you need to get in touch with me over the next day or two... don't rely on the computer... I may not see my email for a week! But, I'm still just a phone call away!

Adventures in Boating

Saturday was a crazy busy day. We got the "boat family" together to give the boat a good spring cleaning. What I thought would take an hour, took almost two hours, but the boat was dirtier than anyone realized! Then we got our sitters and headed for the lake. The bummer thing about our favorite lake is that it is the "favorite lake" of everyone else too... the parking lot for boat trailers filled up at 9:30 a.m. (we didn't get there until just after noon), so we had to wait in a "staging lot" where they line boats up to come in as other boats leave for the day. We waited 1 hour and 20 minutes, which really wasn't bad, because it would have taken us almost that long to drive to a different lake. We ended up sitting in the boat and having a "tailgate" party ... we ate our lunch and hung out while we waited for our turn. The funniest thing of the day was when this guy came by (he had the look of a homeless, stuck in the 70's, spaced out on crack, bum) asking us if they could borrow a deck of cards or some dice. They didn't come prepared to wait for entrance to the lake... (I'm so wishing I had taken a picture of the waiting area with all the boats....) Unfortunately, we didn't come prepared to wait either, so we had nothing to give him. Then 5 minutes later, he's back again asking the same question... before he could finish his request, Spencer says, "we still don't have any dice or cards..." Embarrassed, he explains that he couldn't remember which boats he had been to already and which ones he hadn't. He walked away and we noticed he hopped into a boat with some pretty cute girls in it. Then Tammy said, "that just proves that having a boat does help get the girls flocking to you!" It was so funny.... we were all busting up! Our time on the water ended up being pretty limited, but 4 of us got in and tried it out. If we hadn't brought wetsuits, I don't think any of us would have gotten in the water... it was really cold! We were joking that Peter Parker doesn't struggle this much to get into his "spidey" suit.... it must take lots of practice! All in all, it was a good day... until we drove the boat down a road that we thought had a parking lot in it to clean it up for going home and the gate was locked... we ended up having to do some crazy 3 point turn with a trailer to get back out again.... we never have a boat day without at least one glitch in it!!!

It Really Works....

I believe in the "let your kid run around naked for a day or two" theory in potty training. I did it with Ian and now it's worked again with Brayden. Friday morning, we took off the diaper and used no pull ups. I started out the day letting him wear some of his new "big boy undies", but he soon had an accident in those. I explained how we want to keep our new undies clean and not go potty in them. Then I decided not to put anything on him after that. He had one more accident in the living room, but that was it! The rest of the day, he went in his potty chair all by himself. I didn't even have to remind him to do it. I did my part by pumping him with sugary kool-aid, so he would have to pee frequently and supplying great TV entertainment for his potty pleasure! He even did a #2 job in the potty by himself!

I don't recommend this if you have mostly carpet in the main living areas of your house. We don't. We have carpet in two rooms, both of which have locks on the door, so I closed and locked them for the day, just so he couldn't wander in and have an accident when I wasn't looking. Cleaning up accidents on the floor is no big deal and he even helped me with the clorox wipes to sanatize the floor after we'd wiped up th spill! I've heard this technique works as well if you spend the day running around in your backyard... another easy place for clean up. I only had to clean up two accidents. Since then, when I'm home, he's in undies and he goes in the potty. When I'm gone he's in a pull up or a diaper and he doesn't tell anyone he needs to go to the bathroom, so I definately need to stay home as much as I can over the next few days so we can perfect this!

p.s. He loves to wear those blue goggles... he thinks it makes him like Leo the blue ninja turtle....

The Sight of Blood

The men in my life can't handle blood. Eric always got sick when donating blood and he threw up in the hallway when we took our first pregnancy/childbirth prep class way back in Provo. It was a humiliating experience for him. The childbirth video was more than he could take. In his defense, he never got sick in the delivery room. So, when it's crunch time he is fine. He's passed this problem onto our boys, too. Taylor passed out once at school (4th grade) when they watched a movie that showed a dog getting an injury and bleeding. He doesn't like blood... when he biffed it really bad hiking last summer, it took 3 people to keep him distracted while we cleaned up his bloody knees so he didn't pass out. Ian has this problem too... the first time we watched "The Other Side of Heaven" he passed out (in the pantry too...) when he saw the bloody feet incident. Since then, we are really careful about letting him watch movies with bloody scenes. It must be hereditary!

Tonight we finally watched Lost...(which deserves another post entirely...) and Taylor didn't handle watching Jack's apendectomy very well... he was in the kitchen and all of a sudden, we look up and he's laying on the floor in the pantry. He'd passed out again. Usually, when he does this, he wakes up the minute we touch him, but tonight it took a few seconds... it was probably 10 seconds, but felt like forever! It's a frightening thing to see your child unconcious... I don't recommend it! Thank goodness he didn't hit his head! Talk about a heart stopper!

Wow... this is Amazing!

So, Wednesday we finally learned how to pressure can meat! Our RS pres, graciously let us invade her kitchen on Wednesday and do a pressure canning session at her house while we had our weekly meeting! We did ground beef. I'm not going to post step by step instructions here, but this is the pressure canner we used, and all good pressure canners come with very detailed instructions. I will say how we prepped the meat... that's the only thing you might not get in the instructions... we precooked the ground beef (using fresh high quality meat, on sale of course!), drained the fat and put it in the bottles with some liquid. I used beef broth, and Tammy used a mixture of tomato juice and water. I think either one works equally well! If you would like to read more on how to do this before making a sizable investment in a pressure canner, google "pressure canning ground beef". You should be able to find lots of websites that explain how to do it. Next week we are going to try roast beef. It's going to be great. I've already told Eric I want one of this for Mother's Day! I found a place to put my meat collection - above the fridge! Thanks Jill for teaching us how to do this - it was a blast!