The plan was for Noah to travel to California to refinish the floors in my parents house. I had some time off work, so Logan and I hitched along and made a vacation out of it. Not only did Logan get to spend time with both sets of grandparents, his aunt and uncles, he also had his inaugural trip to the beach!
With any luck you can view pictures here. If I need to give you permission, let me know. I can’t recall how I set up the site.
Memorial Day was Noah’s 30th birthday. Every time I would ask him what he wanted to do, he would tell me, “nothing”. That’s a bit boring for a milestone birthday. It works out nicely that friends of ours host an annual Memorial Day BBQ at their house that we always attend. So this year, I was in cahoots with them to add in a surprise birthday party element for Noah. I even arranged for a pastry chef friend to make a cake (since I obviously could not make one undetected) and had a friend lined up to get the cake and take it to the party. Well, the day before the party that friend’s family all came down with strept and were no longer going to be able to go to the BBQ, so Joe, Noah’s brother, got some frantic texts from me to see if he could pick up the cake. Thankfully he was able and the surprise went off without a hitch. I had meant to take a camera to the party, but the surprise was yelled while I was still unloading Logan’s diaper bag and Noah had already made it outside. *sigh*.
Instead of bringing traditional gifts for Noah, I suggested people give him 30 random items (an idea Gretna gave to me). He ended up with:
Technically there are 31 bottles, and they are from Joe. I like the effort that he went into with the gift. So, here are news headlines from Noah’s last 30 years on Noah’s birthday:
1982 – “The Escape Artist” movie was released
1983 – Flashdance theme song “What A Feeling” hits #1 on the pop charts
1984 – USSR tested nuclear bomb
1985 – David Jacobsen is taken hostage in Lebanon
1986 – Pepsi stock splits
1987 – Mathais Rust lands his airplane in Red Square
1988 – Genie Francis marries Jonathan Frakes
1989 – Emerson Fittipaldi wins the Indianapolis 50
1990 – Dave Thomas comedy show debuts on CBS
1991 – Ted Turner is named the Man of the Year by Time Magazine
1992 – Amanda Goad wins the 65th National Spelling Bee by spelling “lyceum”
1993 – Polish government of Suchocka falls
1994 – Cafe American airs last show
1995 – Earthquake in Russia kills 2000 people
1996 – President Clinton’s pals are committed of fraud
1997 – 600 Taliban troops are killed
1998 – Comedian Phil Hartman is killed by his wife
1999 – Boring…
2000 – Small earthquake in the Sierra Nevadas
2001 – NATO ratifies treaty with Russia
2002 – Cosmonaut Oleg Makarov dies
2003 – OSHA announces ergonomic guidelines
2004 – Donald Voight is accused of fraud
2005 – Boring…
2006 – The winning lottery numbers were: 5-11-16-27-43
2007 – Hubble sends pictures back to NASA
2008 – Red Wings play Penguins in game 3…whatever!
2009 – National Museum of Natural History turns 100
2010 – BP oil spill is confirmed as the worst in US history
2011 – Jewish Holiday. Shabbat.
2012 – Joe put: Make your own history. Boring…so I looked one up: Asteroid KP24 nearly misses earth by 32,000 miles
Happy 30th birthday, Noah! Glad you enjoyed your surprise party (and were genuinely surprised)! 😀
This weekend we headed up the hills to Georgetown to take a ride on the Georgetown Loop Railroad. Logan loves trains but had yet to actually ride on one. Not too shabby for his first train ride to be with a coal-fueled steam engine. 🙂
Logan loved the train ride and watching the cars move along the track. The weather was pretty nice for late May, which in Colorado is pretty unpredictable. It was warm, a bit smokey (from fires in New Mexico) but got increasingly WINDY as the day progressed. By the time we left, there were 70 mph gusts blowing through the canyon!
Our excursion was also newsworthy! A fault of the wind, a small-ish pine tree (5″ diameter / 20′ tall) was uprooted and hit a passenger sitting in one of the open air cars on the head. The ride came to a very abrupt emergency stop and rumors of what happened began to pass through the cars. I think we originally heard there was a deer on the tracks, then we heard a tree fell on the train or the tracks, and finally that a tree had hit a person. It was like a one-sided version of telephone. The person who was hit, was in a car three or four ahead of ours, but by the time the train stopped, the tree was just past our car. I got a photo of it being moved, but it’s not very easy to see, so I won’t post it.
The person was not seriously injured yet when the train stopped in Silver Plume, paramedics were brought aboard and the individual was taken off on a stretcher as a precaution. We were glad we chose to ride in one of the enclosed cars.
After our ride, we had lunch at a great Euro restaurant (German food for the win!) and checked out the donkey race. Bet you didn’t know that donkey racing is the official indigenous sport of Colorado? All of the donkeys were adorned with mining or other frontier supplies:
If I had my way, this year for Mother’s Day the weather would have been warm, sunny and we would have spent some time up in the mountains. Instead, it was cold (40s), gloomy, cloudy and threatening rain (although barely a drop fell). Even in Colorado, I didn’t want to be outside in it for long.
If I had my way, I would have gotten the chance to sleep in past 6 am. I asked Logan if he got them memo that he was supposed to sleep in, and he said yes. I guess he just decided to ignore it. 🙂
If I had my way, I would not have needed to scrub poo out of a onesie. At least it was a small amount and easy to clean.
If I had my way, I would not have gotten puked on. Twice.
Poor Logan ate something on Saturday that did not settle well with his belly. Every one was up, pretty much all night, even Lava as she was concerned for her brother. Logan first got sick around 11 pm on Saturday and did not finish puking until around 3:30 am Sunday morning. We went through three sheets, three blankets, and a towel. I personally went through about 3 shirts and a pair of pants. I was thankful that Logan had not yet transitioned to sleeping in his big bed, as that would not have been as easy to change so many times.
After the boy was cleaned up, he and I would rock in the chair while Noah scrubbed the laundry. It was a pretty good routine. And thankfully, I did not add to the vomit. That’s always a plus.
Yesterday morning, Logan rose around 6 am and was acting like himself. One of his first goals of the day was to come find me. That was sweet. 🙂 We all took naps, except for maybe Noah. I definitley felt I needed the two-hour doze on the couch. I’m not used to only receiving 3 hours of consecutive sleep, some of which occured sitting in the rocker, anymore.
Aside from all the gloom, puke and poo, I did have a fabulous Mother’s Day playing cars and choo choo train with Logan, and relaxing and reading (in-between loads of laundry). My men also gave me a bouquet of tulips, a new set of pots/pans for the new kitchen (something I wanted), and a card that Logan picked-out (it plays music and has a dancing snoopy inside).
It may not have been a “dream” celebration, but I would not have traded the cuddles I got from Logan in-between bouts of sickness for anything. 🙂
Logan was not limited to one egg hunt this year, but three (or four if you count the two we had in our yards…more on that later).
Our church holds a community egg hunt each year, but one that teaches the resurrection story. Logan was pretty cranky and uncooperative during most of it. Again eggs were thrown and tantrums were had. For his sake, he was very ready for a nap and was entering meltdown stage. Pretty sure he didn’t absorb much of the lesson this year, but thank goodness the volunteers had LOTS of patience!
Also, do to the various stages of 2-year old shenanigans, I didn’t get to take any pictures. Oh well.
On Easter, we had hosted our potluck dinner/egg hunt. When we started this tradition there were only a couple of children. This year we had seven!
Because of that we held two egg hunts, a small one in the front yard just for the children with age-appropriate prizes in the eggs, and then one in the backyard for the adults. We also try to do something different with the adult hunt each year. We’ve done a treasure hunt into the open space (on a very wet and rainy Easter), special golden eggs, camouflage eggs and this year we did a giant egg
The weather was great this year, too – near 70! No chance of tracks in snow leading up to the hidden eggs!
Before all of our friends came over, Logan opened his Easter basket. Crackers, a new Veggie Tales DVD, a stuffed lamb from Gramma, and his favorite item – blueberries!
Wishing you a happy Easter from our family to yours. A day to remember the Ultimate Sacrifice made for us by our Lord and Savior!
Have I mentioned how much I love living in a small town? Things are much more quaint and activities are free! The city puts on an annual Easter egg hunt. One at the lake for the older kids, and one in Old Town for the younger. This year Logan was up to the challenge, so we walked to the downtown hunt with the Feiglands (Noah was at work). There were probably 100 children (guessing), half of which were in line for the opportunity to seat on the Easter Bunny’s lap!
Logan was very excited to see the bunny – until it was actually our turn to meet him. I had to pick up Logan and carry him over to the bunny.
Shortly thereafter everyone circled around the lawn as the volunteers/city employees tossed out hundreds of eggs, packages of animal crackers, gold fish, Rice Krispie treats, etc. It was nice that there were options offered other than candy! We were initially expecting the kids to only grab three or four eggs, but both Logan and Jocelyn filled their baskets to the brim!
And, of course, Logan had to have a two-year old meltdown during the hunt. He overturned his basket and pulled away from him. That then led to a massive scramble on my part of righting the basket and trying to find my child in a sea of other children! That is a panic I would like to never experience again. Thankfully, I found him a minute or less later, making his way to the bunny! Apparently he had regained his courage, but I was not about to reward his behavior by allowing him to see the bunny again, let alone by cutting in front of other children!
It was also 85° on the last day of March! That’s unheard of here! March is typically the snowiest month, and yet, we did not receive any measurable snow!
Since I was in single mom mode, I didn’t take a lot of photos and must rely on Larry for the one’s he took. When I get those from him, I’ll upload them here, along with the pictures I did manage to take.
We celebrated Logan’s actual birthday by going to the zoo! What child doesn’t like the zoo? Definitely not my kid! We apparently went on twitterpation day. The peacocks and mountain rams were very…enthusiastic. 😉 Other than that, the weather was great, and since we went early it wasn’t too crowded. Logan had a fantastic time!
I’d like to point out that this picture is not zoomed. This peacock walked about 4-inches from my foot!
And just because, some beautiful spring tree blossoms near the bear exhibit:
More pictures from the zoo, including many of the animals can be found here.
At times it is hard to believe, and others it’s very obvious that Logan is two years old! It feels so long ago that I was pregnant, on bed rest and bringing home a tiny 5-pound baby. The age he is at now is very fun. He’s active, talkative, loves to help and tell me he loves me all the time.
Saturday we had a party to celebrate Logan’s birthday. One of his favorite toys are Legos, so picking a theme was very easy.
All of the above plus several bins of Legos for all of the kids (and adults) to play with. If you want to see additional pictures from the party, go here.
Last year we drove to California for Christmas. This year we opted to stay at home. Logan was old enough to enjoy Christmas, I wanted a tree and we have been having plenty of snow so I was very hopeful for another white Christmas.
Instead of us going to see Gramma, Grampap, Aunt Gretna and the dogs, they came to see us (really, just Logan).
Helping Gramma make cookies
Reading books with Aunt Gretna
Hanging out with Grampap on Christmas Eve
The trend for snow continued, and three days before Christmas we received 24-inches of fluffy white powder! We were all ecstatic for the snow (except for maybe Noah, who helped his brother plow and shovel). Gretna was able to experience her first white Christmas. We all enjoyed playing in the snow, and Logan helped Gretna and me build a snowman in the cul-de-sac, a dangerous location. The snowman had many close calls with Death in the forms of: neighbor’s minivan getting stuck, the mail truck, the garbage truck, and a neighbor’s cheep turning donuts. We eventually set cones around it until the weather warmed up enough where he was already starting to melt away.
To top off the snowfall, we even received another 1/2-inch on Christmas Eve!
Logan was not overly excited with opening gifts on Christmas morning. He had already been up for a while, had grown quite cranky and was ready for a nap. Alas, he enjoyed his presents after he had taken a morning siesta.
It was a great Christmas with all of the snow and family.
December was a busy, cold and snowy month. It felt very much like Christmas. We made sure Logan had plenty of opportunities to meet Santa, this year, starting with Santa Cow at Chic-Fil-A:
Logan was recovering from a cold, but was not one bit afraid of Santa Cow, and even offered him a high-five! After breakfast, we headed out to buy our Christmas tree…in the snow. I was the only one who thought that was a fun outing. It was incredibly cold (15 degrees-ish) and snowing. Logan got cold and Noah got cranky (but then again, he didn’t bring his gloves). I will concede that it is difficult to unwrap a frozen tree.
At the beginning of December we got almost a foot of snow in a couple of days. It made for a wonderful family photo op, that would have only been improved by Logan not being sick:
Once he was feeling better it was time again for not one, but two more opportunities to meet Santa! One of the perks of living in a small town is all of the fun and free events the chamber puts on. Santa was set-up downtown with Victorian carolers. Unfortunately we missed the reindeer, but Logan didn’t seem to mind.
The following opportunity was at the neighborhood Christmas party. Logan ran right up to Santa and wanted to sit on his lap, unlike the other children. He was very happy to receive a candy cane. 🙂
But the best part of December was yet to come…