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What I Did on My Weekend

After Blitzen hit on Thursday night, things calmed down a bit the rest of the weekend. Prose version was boring, so snappy bullets:

• Matt ended up taking Friday off (no internet to work over).
• Tabby and I met up with some friends at the Colorado Railroad Museum. We had a great time!
• Went to the mall with my mom ans sister – couldn’t find a hat for Tabby, but I got a new bag and Tabby got a dress.
• Saturday = rainy + gloomy.
• No hike, so gym instead (boo!).
• Mom and I went to a baby shower (awww!).
• Matt and I had date night … got to have dinner at J Alexanders and checked out the new Microsoft Store and the new American Girl Store, both *very* cool.
• Sunday = rainy + gloomy.
• Run with the girls canceled (boo!).
• Brunch with the girls = ON! Had bottomless Bellini AND Eggs Benedict (half order, thanks!)
• Got lots done around the house
• Had dinner with my parents (and retrieved our offspring from their excellent care).
• All CRASHED.

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Blitzen!

Sorry for the lack of communication … but we had a very interesting start to our (my) weekend. Thursday night a little storm blew up. It was over with in a very short period of time but Mother Nature showed us some of her best fireworks. One of them went astray and hit our house.

We were down in the playroom (basement) after dinner, hanging out. We knew the storm was blowing up and we’d nixed our after dinner walk. There’d been a couple of booms and cracks and it was obviously a pretty powerful storm. Then came another very very loud crack, immediately followed by our alarm system going off. We assumed it was a vibration thing, but it didn’t stop. So Matt went to check it out and in our master bedroom, he smelled burning, so we evacuated to the car with the kids, dog and fileserver and drove around to the front of the house. Matt had called 911 and four firetrucks showed up.

A while passed, chatting with neighbors, etc. and the firefighters (hot ones) geared up and checked out our house. They were up in our attic and surveying the roof with their infared tools. They could show us the studs, sans fire, happily on their displays and we were pretty lucky.

The lightning struck through our eve, not into a room. Pieces of our roof were all over the neighborhood, up to a half-block away. It took out a speaker in the ceiling of our master bedroom and traveled through the speaker wire to burn out the volume control. It took out my Tivo (waaaah!), upstairs TV and most of the electronics attached to our main-floor theatre system as well as our networking equipment (wireless router + switch). It took out cable, phone and internet as well as killing our phones themselves and our alarm system and the light fixture in the master bedroom. It tripped a few breakers and took an entire GFI circuit (had to be replaced).

All in all we got off easy. It will be a bit of a pain to right everything, but nothing irreplaceable was lost and no one was hurt. It is a small thing in the long run, but it makes for a good story.

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Ben at 1.12

I don’t know if you noticed or not, but I’m doing rather poorly with these monthly or quarterly updates on my kids. See the problem is, I blink and months go by in a whirl of play, work and laundry. Little MAN is well over 13 months old by now, but I haven’t updated in a while, so I will share with you all that is Ben.

Monday I took him to the doctor’s office to have his cold + ear gunk checked out. He had an ear infection and so we got a prescription for amoxycillin and then got to wait around the clinic for like 40 minutes while it was filled. So we were there a long time and Ben drew much attention. Everyone wanted to know how old he was and the answer inevitably drew two comments “boy he’s sure big!” and/or “He’s sure getting around well!” Both are quite true. Mobile is hardly adequate to describe him. He is lightning fast and pretty sure on his feet. He still has the funny toddle/swagger when he walks, but not especially clumsy (for 1.12).

He is quite sizable as well. He is only 25.4 lbs and has hardly gained anything since January, but he has gotten much taller. He’s just a head shorter than Tabby and I always get comments to the effect of “Soon he’ll be carrying you!” when I walk around holding him because compared to my towering height of 5′ nuthin, he’s very tall. I am always amazed how much of his crib he takes up when he stretches out. Continue reading “Ben at 1.12”

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Tabs at 3.25

Unbelievable that (more than) a quarter year has passed since my little girl turned three. At this age, of course, you don’t see changes as rapidly, but they are there nonetheless. One change I’m annoyed about is her new-found resistance to certain foods. My child who would eat broccoli straight out of the steamer now turns up her nose at foods she’s always loved as well as new ones (that I’m pretty sure she’ll like) without even trying them. It’s a bit irritating, but I am a mean mommy and she can eat as much as she likes of her dinner (and various fruits/veggies we keep around) or “You know when breakfast is.” She sometimes surprises me ant eats a ton of this or that (a whole bowl of guacamole), but you just never know.

She’s also gotten really into her alphabet and has been having a lot of fun identifying letters. She’s always been much more interested in Little Einstein than Sesame Street, but now partially thanks to preschool, letters are fascinating for her. She’s gone through over half of her workbook and we’re contemplating getting her another (and this time photo-copying the pages). Along those lines, she’s also started drawing people that bear some resemblance to actual people. They’re still rather abstract (head, eyes, arms, legs, no torso), of course, but they are very neat. Continue reading “Tabs at 3.25”

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Weekend Update

It was yet another fast and furious weekend. My darling mum had a birthday last week, so we had lots of celebrating to do. Friday night, my sis and I took her to dinner at Tamayo (*drooool*) and then we went to see Sex and the City 2. It was a fun flick and FULL of laughs.

Saturday we went for a hike (first of the year). There were four adults and four kids. You might think that'd be chaotic. And you'd be RIGHT. 4 miles in like 2 hours and that's because Matt and I ran uphill for .75 miles to GO GET THE CARS. And that makes it sound bad, but really it was fun. Tabby hiked a lot of it, Ben grumped (he's still sick).

After the hike and lunch, we put the kids down for naps and I got “girl time” with one of my best girls, Holly. We went GROCERY SHOPPING while our husbands assembled MY HUSBAND'S new ginormous toy (I know you're dying to see it). The kids started waking up about 30 minutes after we left, so it was peppered with distress calls as well. We're planning to abandon them sometime soon for REAL girl time. Then we made pizzas for a big crowd … our families, my parents, sister and our neighbors (who were also helping!) and their grandkids. Lotsa work, but lotsa fun. We ate outside.

Sunday Kelly and I went to the gym only to find out our fave instructor was off in the mountains. We put up with the sub (she was good, really) for a while, but it was TERRIBLY hot in the room, so we finked out on the second half and phoned in some conditioning instead. What? We did TEN burpees (with pushups). Of course after that, it was time to do our bit for the economy, in the form of a $200+ trip to CostCo. You're welcome, Mr. President.

Then the kids had naps while I worked on the new webdesign site (it's going slowly). Later that evening, we went to my parents for a fab home-cooked meal to celebrate mum's birthday. I think (hope) we spoiled her proper.

All too soon the weekend is gone. Hope your's was lovely and slow as molasses.

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Summer in the Bucket

So everyone seems to be making those bucket lists (y'know – the list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket). A bit morbid, perhaps, but generally a nice idea. Kind of like 101 in 1001. Anyhow then I saw another idea for a bucket list. One for summer. I truly love all seasons in CO, but summer hedges out ALL the others by just a smidge. It's short. It's fleeting. But it's glorious!! Some things I want to do this summer:

• Get in a few NEW hikes. Beaver Brook Trail 6/25
• Take the kids to Berry Patch Farms.
• Take Tabby to Film on the Rocks (I'm thinking Princess Bride!). Done!
• Make homemade ice cream.
• Cook pizza on the grill.
• Take a bike trip to the library (with picnic).
• Run a race I haven't run before (already kind of did this at the Bolder Boulder, but I'll probably do another).
• Actually make it to the neighborhood pool (harder than it sounds). Done!
• Take the kids to The Splash or another water park.
• Go camping with my dad.
• Take a day off, without the kids, somewhat for organizing, mostly for RELAXING.
• Visit the Paris Street Markets again.

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Overwhelmed + Links

I need more hours in the day. There is so so much to do. Thank goodness I have Matt. He really pulls his weight! Anyhow, here are links I've been collecting:

• Check out these super cool flour and sugar drawers … for my dream kitchen, someday!
• It is amazing how much nutritional info is available on the web now. This one is very nice and was new to me: WikiWeightWatcher
• like this neat looking cord wrapper to keep cords under control
• very cool trick for taking people-free photography in a crowded place
• ingredients list as typographical art
• Fun staycation idea: make your own travel guide
• this has been everywhere, but in case you haven't seen it: adorable recipe card maker
• awesome book themed baby shower
• great article about the future of your ipod
• ideas for a toy story birthday and a princess birthday
• identity theft protection? think again.
• like this water boiling mug
• my love affair with the vending machine continues
• pretty illustrated recipes – might need something like this for my kitchen!

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What’s Cooking: Volume 13

This time of year is just nuts! We have Mother’s Day, tons of birthdays, graduations, end of school year events, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, races, summer events and on and on. It’s a lot of fun, but recently I’ve felt like all I’m doing is spinning my wheels. The house has been a wreck constantly and we have not been doing a ton of cooking – we’ve been gone too much!

This week (Sunday thru Friday). We’ll eat dinner at home a total of three times. Sunday my parents had us over for Matt’s birthday dinner. My dad cooked steaks and asparagus and my mom made scalloped potatoes and a lemony birthday cake. Everything was delicious.

Yesterday, after we got back from the race, I made up two batches of pizza dough, enough for four pizzas. After the jointer surgery (taking apart a half-ton power tool and moving it to our basement) was done, we made up all four pizzas for our family, my sister and our friend and his boys. Pesto chicken pizza with tomatoes, pepperoni for the kids, ham and pineapple and buffalo chicken with bleu cheese and green onions. There was not a slice left … those guys worked up huge appetites moving that half ton thing.

Tonight we are out again, celebrating my mom’s birthday as a family and we are celebrating just my mom, sister and myself on Friday (with dinner and movie – Sex and the City 2). Wednesday and Thursday we will actually be at home, cooking! One of the days we’ll make fish tacos (similar to these) and the other, chicken gyros.

In other news, Ben is teething … heavily. He has at least 3 teeth making their way into his mouth. And that is a photo of him teething on an apple. He ate pretty much the whole thing.

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Our First Bolder Boulder + Memorial Day Weekend

Damn. We really know how to pack a weekend. I am absolutely exhausted!!

Today Matt and I ran the Bolder Boulder. It’s a VERY big (3rd largest timed race in the world) very fun race. We hopped on a RTD bus this morning at around 6 AM and rode into Boulder. We had just enough time to pee and walk to our start corral before we were up! We hit the road running. I tried to keep up with Matt in the beginning and over-exerted myself, which led to crampy calves. Once I slowed down to my own pace I did just fine. The course is great … there’s hills, but they aren’t too bad, and they are all done after mile four until mile 6.1 when you head into Folsom Stadium (where the Buffs play!). There’s great crowds along the way who really get into it. We had about 5 houses with hoses out ready to spray people who wanted it (I did!). There were cupcake, bacon and beer relief stations and plenty of cheering fans (including some cheer squads!). The course goes through some great old neighborhoods and is very pretty.

The race overall was very well organized. It felt no larger than the 30K participant one we ran in Nashville, despite being almost 2x the size. The RTD buses made it so easy to come and go from Boulder and I cannot think of a reason to get ot the race any other way. Gear is top-notch and entry fees are pretty reasonable. 5 stars, highly recommended, wonderful experience.

Just about the only thing I’d do differently is my sunscreen. I wore neutrogena on my face which totally clogged up my pores ANYWAY and it ran into my eyes. OUCH. Continue reading “Our First Bolder Boulder + Memorial Day Weekend”

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Random Thoughts on Thursday

• I'm thinking about running the Bolder Boulder on Monday. I hesitate only because it's something of a mob scene, and also the $63 entry fee – not so bad on its own, but they just add up, especially with two of us running! But I wouldn't bother with the cheaper one. The tech T is way cute.
• Had dinner at BJ's (seriously, best lettuce wraps EVER) with a couple of friends last night and chatted for a couple of hours. It was nice. I missed Matt and the kids though.
• I am attending the graduation party of a young woman I used to BABYSIT for. I've known her since she was a baby. It is a bit surreal. She, incidentally, babysits for my kids now. She is all kinds of amazing and I know she's going to love college even if we all miss her like crazy!
• I went to the dentist this morning. I have a clean bill of dental health. Hollllla!
• My dental hygienist told me she's going to Macchu Picchu next month. I am hella jealous.
• If it weren't for the dentist appointment, I would have taken today off. As it is, I might still take a half day. I need more hours in the day.
• I am working on a couple of sites right now. I bought JKNDesigns.com for my own business and I'm working on a project for a coworker's daughter. Ani has also graciously allowed me to work with her on a new design for her food blog, and I'm psyched about getting started on that!
• We are having a b'day party for my sweet hubby this weekend (only 20 days late, what the hay!). I have absolutely NOTHING for him, gift wise. He is ridiculously hard to buy for. I like things like books and shoes, things that you can get shipped two-day from Amazon Prime. He likes things like clamps that come from Canada and anything with a $500+ pricetag. I will probably have to give him socks.
• Our friends want to camp out with the kids in the backyard this weekend. Sounds like fun! Now Matt will want to buy Tabby a sleeping bag.
• Our pool opens this weekend too. I cannot wait to get the kids over there. Tabby is excited too. She's asked me when the pool opens at least 10x now.