I Gotta Get Out Of Here...

Joel taking a siesta at Universal Studios. We were on vacation with Grandma, Grandpa, Scot, Jenny & the kids. We were all hang'n in the water area, but Joel and Scot just found a cozy piece of curbing to snooze the afternoon away.

Poor Joel, he's soooo burned out! As of late, he's been going through this little routine of coming home from a long day at the hospital and he has this look on his face. You know, that look that says, "I gotta get out of here!" He corners me in the kitchen (which I kinda like) and asks me if I want to hide from the kids. "Yes!" - I don't even let him finish his sentence. So we grab out latest addiction, Jericho (the TV series - pretty darn good I must say), and head upstairs. We leap on our 10 foot high bed, position our pillows just right, and delve into our next episode. Yesterday, we heard some crying or fighting or something of a devious nature going on downstairs, but we figured JD could handle it. Aren't we good parents?

We shouldn't have gone to Mexico because we discovered we still liked each other - now we're just trying to relive the memory. If Joel had his way, we'd be on a permanent vacation. His definition of work is "a means to an end." The end being a vacation. So as you can deduce, vacation time is a top priority for us when we start looking at practices to join.

Don't get the wrong idea about Joel's love of his kiddlins...he adores them - he just likes me better (ha ha!). Well, at least for now. It might be a different scenario in about 24 days when the hag lady comes out for a visit! So Joel, if you're reading this, I'll meet you up in our room about 5:30 pm tonight for a Jericho fix.

Hang in there babe!

Creativity Only Comes at Night...

Nighttime is a funny time around these parts. Once Joel senses the clock is approaching 7 pm, he gets excited: Alone time for Mom & Dad! I have to admit that I do too. There is this atmosphere in our house of a race being lost by some kid, "Hurry, hurry Camryn, JD is winning!" Or, "The person who gets ready for bed first, gets to snuggle with Mom the longest!" The latter usually being the true motivator. It's kind of cute actually. I love the fact that JD and Camryn fight over who gets to win the longest snuggles from Mom or Dad.

Inevitably, Camryn gets to bed first and once her book is read and she burrows into bed, she wraps her arms around my neck and refuses to let go. She pulls me down so that I'm practically laying on top of her, wraps her arms around me and then whispers in my ear, "Tell me a story Mommy." I hate that my first reaction is, "Ugh, why do I have to do this...I just want to go downstairs and hang out with Joel." Since my prime motivation for most things is guilt, I usually give in and say, "OK." This is how a typical story goes:

Mom: "Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl named ____________."
(I wait for Camryn to give me a name).

Camryn: "Ummm," (as if in deep thought)...she'll pick one of 3 names:
"Gabby", "Ballerina Zoe" or "Princess Fairytopia."

Mom: "OK, and Ballerina Zoe lived a beautiful land called ____________."
(I wait for Camryn to give me a place).

Camryn: "Ummm," (as if in deep thought)...then she'll usually say Fairytopia.

At this point I proceed with a very creative rendition of the adventures of Ballerina Zoe, or Gabby or Princess Fairytopia in the land of Fairytopia. By this point, JD has hopped into bed and is intently listening to Mom's fable:

JD: "Mom, will you snuggle with me."

Mom: "Yes, for a little bit." Again, motivated by guilt.
I say this while I'm trying to figure out a sneeky way to break free of Camryn's death grip around my neck.

As I continue on with my tale, it inevitably turns towards potty talk. As I begin prompting my kids for more plot to the story, they both head down the "poop, pee and gas" track. I usually cut them off by saying something very motherly like, "Cut the potty talk," or, "I'm done if you keep it up." Last night however, I decided to go with it. The story quickly turned from a nice little bedtime story to a platform for JD and Camryn to make each other giggle with potty words:

Camryn: "And then she pooped out of her eye!"
(both laughing hysterically)

JD: "And then she gased and her head blew off and poop flew all over the place."
(again, both laughing hysterically)

Now I allowed them to morph my innocent fable for a bit longer until I couldn't stand it any longer and I said, "And then she gased and it blew up the whole world!" Whoa, that was it, JD about lost it. He was laughing so hard he said, "Mom, I think I peed a little bit!" Anyway, as you may have guessed, I'm sure I opened up a can of worms with that story, but it was pretty funny. Some people just shouldn't have kids.

Our 2nd Honeymoon

Peurto Vallarta, Mexico

Joel was lucky enough to get bombarded with a very interesting case of "Awareness" last summer. Because of the nature of the case, Joel had to present it for an M & M meeting. After that, he and 5 other residents got chosen to present their cases at the annual UofM Anethesiology Convention in Peurto Vallarta, Mexico. (Laaaaaa! - that's me singing praises of joy!) Since Joel got invited, that meant that I was invited too! So after the elation subsided, I started getting stressed out over what to do with our 3 kidlins. We had never left our kids for more than one day, so this was pretty scary for me. There was never a question of whether or not we would go, it was just a question of what to do with the kids. We asked family and no one could :-( Finally, our good friends Mike and Tanya stepped in - so it was a go. Joel and I realized that we had a lot of preparatory work ahead of us: Updating our Trust, updating our Will, getting passports etc.

After hugs and kisses were piled on by the kids, I broke down and cried when we left to catch our flight. I asked Joel to say something funny so that my make-up wouldn't get ruined...he said, "Just picture me naked running on the beach." It worked. I have to say that traveling without kids is sooooo much easier! It was way fun to watch a movie and read a book without any interuptions. Our kids did great with Tanya and Mike - thanks you guys!

Upon arrival, we were bombarded by timeshare solicitors - it was totally out of control! I felt better about the future of our week once we got to our hotel though. First of all, it was paid for - sweet! Secondly, each room had an oceanside view - beautiful! These pictures show what we woke up to every morning. One of us would open our enormous sliding door each morning and let the ocean breeze in. The night we arrived, we ventured into the city with our friends, Mike and Aisa to enjoy some local cuisine (the Mexican food in the East is terrible!) We discovered the funnest restaurant: Pipi's! They made fresh guacamole at your table and served enormous margaritas (virgin of course!). We were so full that night, we decided to walk back to the hotel. It was like 10:30 or something and we had no idea how far away the hotel was. We kept walking and walking and walking...and walking until we found ourselves on a stretch of sidewalk that made us a little nervous. Luckily, it didn't last long and we just kept walking and walking and walking...and walking until hallelujah - we made it to the hotel! That was a little more adventure than we wanted, so we stuck with the $5 cab ride from then on.

On Sunday, the UofM guests were invited to a Super Bowl party in the Resident Director's Presidential Suite - so fun and the view was amazing! On the mornings that Joel went to the conference, I pampered myself by ordering room service for breakfast. I ate it out on the balcony while enjoying the ocean view. I even ventured out a couple of times to read (something I don't get to do enough at home) by the pool.

We decided to go on 2 tours. The first was a humpback whale watching tour. The Bay of Banderas is a breeding ground for the whales during the winter months. We saw (are you ready for this) 10 whales that afternoon! The amazing thing is that we were in a very small speed boat so we were able to get up close and personal with these amazing creatures! We were about 10 feet from them at times - close enough to see the little bumps on their heads AND the little hairs on the baby whale's head! We saw a mom and her calf, 2 males flipping their fins all over the place and a group of 6 traveling together. It was so amazing!


Our next adventure was a Sierra Madre expedition. It sounded so cool: Cruis'n into the tropical rain forest to visit some remote villages - we had to do it. It was so funny though because when we arrived at the office to leave, it was full of old people! We almost left. Joel made me feel better by crack'n a bunch of jokes (that I won't mention!) about the future of our day. I was pleasantly surprised to discover this wasn't a tour designed with the elderly in mind - it was so fun! We drove quite far into the forest with Brad, our colorful guide, to teach and entertain us along the way. Not only did we learn a ton about Mexico's history and culture, but we got to visit some remote villages and have a BBQ on a private beach too! We stopped in a remote village to see the area's (and it's a large area) local tortilla factory. Next, we were invited into a local dona's house (in another remote village) to enjoy some freshly made tortillas and such - wow was her food good! Oh, I neglected to mention that our truck broke down in one of those remote villages. So we had to squeeze into another truck until a new one could catch up with us! Some old man was constructing a new a roof for his abode when our truck broke down right in front of him. He probably thought we were idiots! On the way back to Peurto Vallarta, Brad (the tour guide) busted out a liter of Tequila for all to enjoy. It was so funny because we thought Brad knew we didn't drink because we told him at lunch; however, I think he interpreted that as we just didn't drink hard liquor. So when he brought a pitcher of lemonade for the truck ride back home, we assumed he was being thoughtful. It was pretty funny when everyone made a toast (one of many on the back of that truck) and took a drink - it wasn't lemonade! We discreetly spit it back into our cups and tossed it over the side. We decided to opt for the Diet Pepsi for the rest of the toasts. Everyone was hammered by the time we returned. I knew I wasn't in the States anymore when the tour guide in the truck ahead of us stood up (while the truck was speeding down the highway) and dumped half the bottle of Tequila down his throat. No open bottle rules in Mexico I guess! Anyway, we made it safe and sound and had a wonderful day.

Joel and I ate crickets for dinner too! We went out to a really interesting restaurant with the other residents one night. Nate Harrison ordered crickets and he passed them around. Joel & I decided to be adventurous and eat one. It tasted like burnt popcorn. Yum. Anyway, Joel did a great job on his presentation too so the trip was a success! I think Joel and I are hooked...we definitely need to do this more often! Who wants to come with us next time?

Joel's Job Security!

Spotlight of the Month: JD

The Lego Meister!

Since my primary motivation for blogging is to have a family journal, I decided to spotlight a member of my family (extended included - watch out!) each month. Don't worry, I won't use names if you don't want me to. Anyway, I thought I'd start with my oldest, my little "Sugar Baby." That would be JD:

I can't believe it, but JD is nearly 7 1/2!. I can distinctly recall those
first few months after JD joined our family of two. I had no idea
what I was doing! JD has been my (our) experiment ever since!

Anyone that knows JD is keenly aware of the fact that this kid loves Legos! He is so creative! Sometimes this kid amazes Joel and me with his imaginative use of objects around him. I'd like to think that I helped foster his imagination, but I think he was just born that way. Actually, I will take credit for a little bit of it - I played Legos with him for hours on end! We lived in Arizona when he was introduced to the infinite world of Legos. Since there weren't any kids around his age, I became his only playmate. We built all sorts of things together, but his favorite item to engineer was and continues to be ships.

He used to build the most ingenious little ships! I wish I could have kept every single one, but we would have depleted our Lego supply years ago! He would get so frustrated in the early years. In fact, I used to get so frustrated listening to him cry every time his ship would fall apart. He hadn't mastered the art of making stable connections. Once he would finish crying over his destroyed ship, I would show him how to rebuild the base to make it more stable. Through the last 5 or so years, he had gone from single brick "ships" to elaborate masterpieces!

In fact, he won a Lego contest in the summer of 2007. He, with friend Annie, won the most "Sophisticated" award: It was a ship (of course) with a removable ship and working elevator! His taste has moved into the realm of Star Wars Shipbuilding.

The first ship we purchased for JD's startup collection was Anakin's "something, something" (that's mom-talk) ship - it's yellow, that's all I know...oh, and I dust it a lot. He blew me away when he put the whole thing together without any help. He has since built quite a collection for himself. When I asked him how many ships he has right now on his "big white shelf," he said, "There are too many to count Mom!" That should tell you something!

Joel and JD bond through Legos: They have built a couple of JD's huge ships together. In fact, Joel started a collection of his own. For his birthday he bought the Millenium Falcon. For Christmas he bought himself the Death Star. I don't get it!

Anyway, Joel and I fully support and are very proud of JD's desire to create and collect. Legos get a nod from this family!

And So It Begins...

As with any great adventure, there must needs be a beginning! And so here is my be-lated and thoughtfully considered new blog. I must admit that I was quite hesitant to dive into the web of blogging, but after my fair share of late night blog surfing, I figured I had better catch the wave. Actually, the real appeal of this whole cyber world is that I get a chance to actually make a go at creating a family journal that I can print off yearly. This is huge for me - I've never been able to keep a journal - EVER! But I have a sneaking suspicion that my new best friend, "Mr. MacBook" is going to be the key.

So my goal is to post weekly with the hope that I can organize some of the crazy ideas floating around in my sorry excuse for a brain! I've got a serious case of ADD so be prepared for complete and utter randomonia. I hope that in the end, my family and friends can get an idea of what it's like to live in our little "Land of Garnia!"

~H