Ten on Wednesday

Let's see, I wonder how long it has been since I did a Ten on Tuesday post... in any case, I think I'm turning the mental corner back towards crafting, writing, etc... instead of just reading in all spare moments. Only time will tell if as I do tend to shift back and forth.

1.  Yes, I have completed my December Daily--- I documented all the way through January 3rd!  I "may" take pictures of the days from Dec. 22-Jan 3rd... but we shall see. At the moment, I'm happy to close the book on that project. I do like the neat row of December Daily albums and love looking through them with our kids.

2. Swimming- over Christmas break, B was promoted from "Sapphire" to "Ivory."  The good news is he is getting faster and it is a big deal to move up a level. It does mean one extra additional day of practice a week (for a total of five) and, of course, the distances in practice get longer and the time to complete the sets get shorter.  So far, due to weather and holidays we haven't actually had a five days of practice week and I'm guessing it won't happen this week (probable ice storm) or next (his birthday party).  So maybe we'll make it there before the end of the short course season. He does happily still seem to really enjoy it and improved his times in the most recent race.

3. Horses -  riding - this remains M's activity of choice/passion/one true love.  Grandma gifted her with Holly Jolly Horse Camp as her Christmas present and she adored every bit.  She loved mucking out stalls almost as much as riding and was a font of new information each day.  She continues to take lessons for an hour a week and would probably live in the horse barn if that were an option. Her Christmas was filled with lots of horse related items and she spent her Christmas money on even more horse toys.  Obsession! I'm glad that she has found something she loves.

4. E - E does not have any activities per se.  He does really like snuggling me and we emphasized doing that part of every day of break.  He is also pretty fond of his hot wheel cars/tracks and all the newly aquired nerf guns.  Lately, he has persuaded B to read him a book in bed each night, which is tremendously adorable. I love the way our children's relationships are growing of late.  E is VERY tired in the morning as we shift back to school.  We all got pretty used to sleeping in.  I hear he has taken up napping at school, which is good for everyone. He is very sweet and polite right now, which is awesome---- save for when he is not, of course.

5. Brent is heading in to a harder semester.  He has more students in his classes than usual and more sections of his classes/labs than is normal.  Also, this is the spring semester which means he is also trying to plan and set up all the camps for the summer. Usually sometime around March I can feel the stress ratcheting up.  It is not fun.  Maybe this year will be better/easier as they have done it more than once now? It is tricky.

6. My big project for the last six months (off and on) has been helping with my job's search for its next president.  We locked that down last week in a flurry of last minute things.  Now, I'll move to help with the transition along with my normal load.  I did get a big raise and a slightly new title as the year begin, which is awesome.  I'm also doing the Yoga Revolution - 31 days of Yoga series.  I'm about 2 days behind due to our journey to Tulsa over the weekend, but finding it challenging and just the right length for a daily practice.

7.  Disney World - We are going to Disney World for Spring Break.  I'm not quite sure how we're getting there yet, but may actually be driving as the plane tickets are obscene, and hey, we should show the kids more of the country, right? Planning has been a bit more involved than I anticipated, but the kids helped pick out what rides they most wanted to do (and get FastPasses) for yesterday so progress is being made.  It feels a little overwhelming as a new to the Disney universe person, but this is going to be tons of fun, right?

8. Gather - my one little word for 2017 is going to be "Gather." It came to me as I reflected on the many holiday gatherings we had and how much I enjoyed them. It is my element and a strength.  Prior one little words have often been areas that I need to focus work on to improve or change.  This one is about embracing something that is so essentially me.  Looking to 2017, I'm playing to my strengths---gathering hope, courage, bravery, perseverance, people, knowledge, inspiration, challenges, opportunities, new experience and adventures and more.  I've begun by signing up for the Oklahoma Policy Institute's State Budget Summit to try and learn more about the Oklahoma budget I so often rail against.  I'm planning to be much more active this legislative session.  I'm also going to look for ways to gather people to our house as much as possible, and much more.

9.  Tulsa Trip - We flew out the door to Tulsa Friday afternoon on the idea that it might be better to drive on the snow while the sun was up and other people were driving than it would be to leave on hard frozen streets at like 6 am.  B had a swim meet in Tulsa and we had planned a weekend with the Wainrights.  So as soon as I finished the post-president electing debriefs with my colleagues we rushed out the door. We arrived in the middle of a game night with their friends and stayed until almost noon on Sunday.  Chrissie watched our younger kids while Brent and I went to the swim meet with B.  We played games, crafted, watched random shows on Netflix, read, snuggled kids, and then did it all again.  The weekends we spend with them whether at our house or theirs are a great blessing and truly relaxed and wonderful.  I feel so lucky to have their entire family be close to our entire family.  SO amazing. I'm already looking forward to whenever we manage to do it again!

10.  Babies -

Alice - is not yet here.  Kari's due date was earlier this week and we're all anxiously awaiting Alice's arrival.  I am irrationally excited about snuggling our very first niece and about all the fun to come. She will likely arrive by the 17th if not earlier!

Thatcher - My sister is also pregnant and has settled on a name for our sixth nephew.  I have no idea what it will be like to have two family babies again, especially so close in age! I am beyond thrilled that they will get to grow up together and we'll get to be a frequent presence in their lives.  Thatcher is scheduled to arrive in late March/early April so all the cousin fun and snuggling is just beginning!

Ten on Thursday

1. I don't have nearly as many exciting things to report this week, but I am in DC and having a great time with my colleagues doing my lawyer gig.  DC is so beautiful in the spring. I will always love it more than NYC.  It is just more my city and more my style.  NYC definitely has DC beat on things to do in the evenings though. Couldn't find a dance or theatre performance I wanted to see this week ending my streak.

2.  While in DC, I try to run at least on Wednesday, if not more.  Last night, I made sure to run past George as E requested a photo.  It was a beautiful cool evening for a run. I was surprised to find less people out than usual, but they may have been deterred by rain earlier in the day.

3.  Have I mentioned how much I love regalia? In wandering around campus today everyone was wearing fancy new navy GW regalia with the logo on the sleeves. I miss the traditional black a little, but they did look very sharp.  It is luck I'm married to a PhD who does have to wear his regalia few times a year :)

4. I had dinner with a law school friend this evening.  She is from Nebraska so we share a love of college sports.  She got to see Hamilton very early on so we talked about that as well as the presidential election, DC, and our jobs.  It was lovely.

5. My mom is sick :( (Hi mom! hope you feel better soon!) This is sad in its own right and her particular ailment I happen to know is really painful, but she has meds now and is recovering.  Brent, Audra, and Bill have formulated a plan to cover all the kid logistics tomorrow in her absence, but I suspect she'll miss the long anticipated land run.

6. I, sadly, will also miss the land run, but I did get to see B off to his day in the one room school house. I think he had a good time, but was mostly focused on his lunch.  They apparently worked on penmanship and the teacher pretended to take someone outside for swats?  B's family will have a conestoga wagon they made for the land run tomorrow, operate a little bakery set up with cookies each kid is bringing, and then after the land run and claim staking, have lunch in pie plates and play fun period games.  Should be great!

7. We went to the farm a bit this weekend, and made a group hike out to this old house my ancestors staked in the land run of 1893 and told the kids all about it. It is amazing it is still here and may not be much longer given the creek erosion, but it was a neat visit. (Much more my speed than the snake hunting......which also happened).

8.  The kids brought a variety of mother's day things home from school.  E, apparently, wrote his very own name on his for the first time, which was awesome.  B made this entire long amazing book full of poems, drawings, and other memories. It twas incredibly sweet, well-writen, and with such beautiful hand writting.  I will keep it forever.

9. Our strawberry crop is amazing.  We get a couple dozen small berries every few days almost.  The ants are certainly getting some too.  One day E and I came home and had to run off a squirrel from our strawberry patch as he clearly wanted some as well.  It is great fun to pick them and eat 1/2 of them in the front yard in the afternoon.  I so adore this new house and the strawberry bed is such a random fun bonus.  It makes me happy.

10. The Wainrights are some of our very closest friends and we love getting to do things together. In a miraculous turn of events we got to go on a double date with them to the Pentatonix concert in Tulsa last Saturday.  (This is amazing as between us we have six kids).  My sister took our kids to the farm for a slumber party with Grandma and the Korenaks while Chrissie's sister watched their kids. It was amazing.  Brent and I spent almost 22 hours together sans kids which may be our longest kid free vacation in awhile.  We started it with a nap, as one does.  The concert was good - very high production value and great singing from the main group (the first act was... not so good?).  Dinner was quite delicious and we loved getting to spend some kid-free time with some of our favorite people.


Tomorrow I fly home and it is back to the flurry of the last week of school.  I'm amazed it has gone so quickly.  This week, Ali did week in the life, but I want to do it when I'm home. The last week in the life was the first week of school so it seems somewhat fitting to do the last week.  We shall see how that goes as my big camera is broken, but my iphone should do the trick. 

Ten on Tuesday

1.  The Wainrights spent the weekend with us.  This is a great bonus of both of us having bigger houses now.  Our kids play so well together. It is relaxed and fun.  E said his favorite part of the weekend was playing Skylanders with Donovan -- this is how they play, not using the game itself, but just fun with the awesome figures.

2.  M & Serenity played with this flowers all weekend.  We have hundreds of them and they used them for many things and even tasted them like honeysuckle.  M loved having Serenity to play with all weekend and was a little sad when her friend was gone.

3.  Saturday evening - we hosted bookclub here on short notice.  It was a fun taco fest with several ladies I don't get to see that often.  Great wine, women, and chocolate!  The book, Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman was a bit macabre for my taste, but the first short story based in sherlock holmes was great!

4. Due to all the fun Saturday night, I probably didn't get enough sleep/eat properly, but to my great surprise had a really good race on Sunday.  It didn't feel as hard as most of my training runs and was much faster than it has been. I had been hoping for a sub 40 minute run and ended up at 37min45seconds which was awesome!  I had a great time racing and hanging out with Able & Kari through the early morning.

5.  Friday evening was photos for M's dance recital.  It took many hours, but getting to spend the time all fancy and with her best friend definitely helped.  They were very cute.  One ribbon was missing from her jazz costume, which was sad, but she persevered and a short two hours later we made it home.  Meanwhile, Brent thankfully picked up the race packets and Grandma took the boys to tennis.  It takes a village!

6.  Both Saturday and Sunday we took this crew to the park for tennis, nature time, and playground fun.  On Saturday we also had a picnic.  M& Serenity did lots of building up their faerie house in the woods.  It was great fun!

7.  This snuggly little guy still loves selfies, snuggling, and taking walks/stroller rides with his mama.  Love him to pieces. 

8. Thursday, it was beautiful outside so M&E spent a lot of time playing in the sprinklers.  It was one of many outdoor days this week, including a walk to the park with the neighbors to the tennis courts yesterday.  

9. Thursday evening Brent went to Dad's night at E's preschool.  They had Star Wars doughnuts, made a tie, pretended to shave, They also played lots of other fun games and apparently played with a bulldozer, which E liked most? Sounds like a lot of fun to me!

10. Today we're worrying about tornadoes and severe weather.  We're also trying to prep for my trip to NYC.  It is a big busy day.  Hoping all goes well on both fronts and that I'm full of news next week. 

Ten on Wednesday

1.  Today I had outpatient surgery and my first full anesthesia experience.  All went well and I am fine.  We're actively trying to stay ahead of my pain and I'm glad I have a couple days off work to really rest before reentering the fray.  Thanks to all of you who sent supportive emails, texts, and phone calls.  Big thanks to my siblings and their spouses for the help with the kids and the scones today.

=== as a result I am lazy/tire so there will be limited photos today.

2. Yesterday we flew kites for the first time at the new house.  To my tremendous surprise, the kids made it work even with all the trees.  I think you can see the video here: Fly a Kite Video

------ This is as far as I got, two weeks ago, before I realized that sitting up for more than 15 minutes the day of surgery was a bad decision.... then two weeks passed.

3. Good news! Surgery recovery went well.  Taking a full three days to rest was a great decision.  I restarted exercise on the following Monday and am now on day 10 of 30 day Yoga Camp (via utube).  This does mean double run/yoga days at least twice a week as the race is coming up very soon... eeek.

4. B's first communion is this weekend.  It has been a long time and a lot of learning in coming.  I am glad they  are doing a thorough job teaching them about it.  We're having a party afterwards at our house complete with some of his friends from his old school, special cookies form his Godmother, and pork made by Uncle Able.  Should be fun!

5. This weekend, we made a last minute trip to the OU Red/White game. It went pretty well.  It was very clear that E is not ready for a real football game.  Everyone else did pretty well and enjoyed wandering campus a bit.  We had awesome Rusty's frozen custard afterwards too.

6.  On Friday, M, E, & I spent the duration of B's tennis lesson playing at Hafer Park.  This is becoming a bit of a Friday afternoon routine and the weather was lovely.  Can you believe this big boy can pull himself up like this repeatedly and easily? So big!

7. Thursday, Brent, Able, Kari, Tracie, Nikki, and I joined about 445 of OKC's coolest people for the Starlight Super.  Able, of course, knew everyone and Tracie knew the people he didn't.  This is one of those moments when I realize that thanks to telecommuting, living in north Edmond, etc... means I don't know anyone and that is kind of sad.  I then retreated to my forest home and am happily loving it here.  In other news, the food was delicious, the company wonderful, and the setting pretty magical.  I would definitely do it again!  (This was a fundraiser for downtown OKC and featured 5 courses of food from OKC restaurants and local wine pairings.  The dessert from Guernsey Park was definitely my favorite!)

8.  Due to his baseball team not reforming this spring, B is not playing baseball.  He has been to see Zane's team play a few times lately and I think there is some wistfulness there.  We will see if he starts again, but both boys are currently loving playing in the front yard til then.  Playing baseball with beginner tennis balls is greatly improving the safety and fun.

9.  Meanwhile Spring at the new house is completely beautiful.  I love it.  This was taken a week or two ago and it is already different and fully leafed out, but the flowers continue.  My iris haven't bloomed yet, but I'm watching them daily. Running in the neighborhood is awesome too.  M went with me last night and commented on how beautiful it was.

10. Also, there was Easter!  We spent part of Saturday with the Rouse/Richards crew and part at the farm where we made it through Easter Vigil mass in Bison and the Easter bunny found us too.  Maybe more pictures of that to come? 

Family Vacation 2015 - DC Day 3

 Rationally, as an experienced DC area resident I knew the National Mall would be insane the week of the 4th and hot.  Also, seeing one of the space shuttles up close was a definite personal life goal.  So, we began day 3 (aka museum day) at the Smithsonian's Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center out in Virginia instead.  It is a cousin to the Aerospace Museum in DC, but enormous and with a space shuttle!  It was as awesome as I'd dreamed.

 This is our crew in front of the shuttle - Brent and our three kids and Heather and her daughters (who had visited previously)

 Look how up close you get? The tiles are individually numbered and the whole experience of discussing the space shuttle and thinking about its life journey was amazing.

 Lion & E were in to the astronauts, but really, really wanted us to get back to the airplanes... and we did...

 But not until we saw the shuttle from every angle.

 Around the space shuttle were several other space type vehicles of various eras as well as the rockets that proceeded them.  (And my daughter with a penguin stuffie).

 B ended up being very interested in the rockets and missiles.   This section led to discussions about why they were developed and why most were never used, the cost, the cold war, etc... B read all the signs in this area and figured out which could go furthest, had the most strength, etc...

 We did make it out to see the planes to E's delight.

This is a mock up of an early wright brother's plane.

The planes are just in layers upon layers all through the hanger. It is phenomenal and a little overwhelming.  There are famous ones like the Enola Gay (another complicated conversation) and the Concord as well as trick planes from shows, military planes, hot air balloon baskets, fed ex planes, etc... To the right here is one of the simulators that Brent and the big kids rode in.  About this time people were tired and ready for naps.  We headed back to DC and E napped in the car.

 Brent really wanted to take the kids to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and we did.  Getting there involved a lot of driving around the mall area looking for parking and taking in the sights.  Then, there was a bit of a forced march across the National Mall, accompanied with a surprisingly small number of complaints.  We made it! And took the requisite picture with the elephant inside.

 We took a peek at the Hope Diamond and then meandered our way through the minerals and gems exhibit. It is a great place with lots of hands on and shiny things.

 I've been here dozens of times, but experiencing it with them was totally new and awesome. I wish we had had more time and that there were several thousand less people enjoying it with us.

 We also visited the ocean area, the small dino section (larger section is under construction), and a bug zoo portion.

And more of this guy.  The building itself is just gorgeous.  SO glad we made the rushed trip to see it and that our kids held up for the whirlwind adventure.

One reason we were rushing was that Heather and Evan were graciously hosting a BBQ for us back at their place for my Law School and Masters Program friends and their families.  It was a lovely chance to catch up, watch our kids play, and hear how everyone is doing.  Thanks so much to everyone who came and to Heather and Evan for being amazing hosts this day and throughout our stay!


Family notes/Favorites for Day 3

Day 3:

E- elephant, panda, lion, frogs, turtles, lot of airplanes

B- lots of pretty shiny expensive things, lots of airplanes and missiles, middle that went 700 mph, second highest 620 mph

M- making crowns, playing in a tree club

Abbey- minerals and Quartz and space shuttle, old friends

Brent - so many airplanes

Ten on Tuesday

1.  Our house has not yet sold.  There is only a week left, roughly, on the contingency on the new house.  So, that's stressful.

2.  I am in DC for the next few days.  It is always great to be back.  I think I've made roughly 25 trips since moving back to OK.  Is that possible? It will always be my home away from home and, yes, I still truly love my job.

3. I failed to tell my friends I was coming this trip until this afternoon as I've been so wrapped up in house issues in my spare time at home.  Luckily, I think I'll get to meet a friend for dinner tomorrow anyway.  This evening, I went for a run instead, and it was quite lovely.

4.  We hung out at the farm on Sunday to celebrate Mother's Day with my mom.  E is totally in love with her new fountain, which is perfectly his size.

5 . Grandma's house is tremendously more fun than our house with lots of adventures, pirate treasure hunts and wild animals.

6.  On Saturday, we had lunch with Brent's parents and walked around outside the new house again.  Still love it.  Then, we went to the Science Museum with a bunch of our friends.  Can you spot all of our kids in this photo? It was particularly nice to get to spend some time with the Palfreymans, who now live in FL.

7. When we packed up our house almost every book went in the storage unit.  We've all  been going a little crazy with our now, more limited, book selection so we made a big trip to the library between storms to replenish our choices.  They still love the library lizard.

8. Baseball is still happening intermittently.  Most of the games have been rained out and rescheduled of late, but I'm told they actually got to play today.  I'm less optimistic about tomorrow's game actually happening, but we shall see!  In good new, B still loves it and his 2nd grade teacher came to the game tonight so it was extra special.

9.  M amazes me more all the time.  She is so much more grown up and self-sufficient than even in the fall.  She will sit quietly and do all of her home school work without any supervision or complaint.  It is amazing.  Her reading also seems to have taken another leap, which is extra cool.  It is hard believe that next week is her last MDO program, but she is definitely ready for the next big step.  I think she will miss her fun family days like today when she gets to go on adventures with Grandma and Aunt Audra, but I'm sure we'll work them in somewhere around her school schedule next year.

10.  E continues to potty train sort of ? Sigh.  Otherwise, he is completely adorable, talking in full sentences, and still delightfully affectionate.  Tonight on the phone he told me he had gotten to have Gatorade at the baseball game no less than a dozen times.  Love that snuggly boy.

Thanks again to everyone who is helping out while I'm in DC.  I so appreciate all the extra support and love for our kids and our family.