Happy 40th Birthday Tom!!

This post is a couple days late, but with a month full of birthdays and anniversaries for our family and toss in Valentine's Day, a dance competition and some illness, I think only a couple days late is not too bad considering.

Tom usually keeps pretty quiet about his birthdays around his co-workers. The kids and I decided this year to send him a balloon bouquet with some chocolates at work so that people would know it was his special day on Thursday. It worked perfectly as the front desk receptionist called him up to receive his balloons that morning, a few of them gathered around the office and sang Happy Birthday to him.

Later in the day, the kids and I drove to Tigard and met him at McCormick & Schmicks for some yummy seafood dinner, his choice. They print their menus daily, so they even put a special message at the top of the menu that said "Happy 40th Birthday Tom" on it. We thought that was pretty cool. He dined on crab and shrimp stuffed salmon, served with mashed potatoes and veggies. He said it was really good. The waiter brought him a chocolate raspberry truffle cake with a candle too. Of course, we had to help him eat that since we had dessert waiting at home! :) That was some yummy chocolate.


When we returned home, we had arranged for his parents to come over so we could have a miniature celebration. We visited, had Chocolate Cookie Dough Blizzard ice cream cake from DQ, and he got his presents. The kids and I gave him a Blazer limited edition Brandon Roy photo that was framed and matted with Blazer and NBA gold coins. He really loved and it and overall it was a good birthday celebration for him. He topped off the evening with some relaxation and playing on the Wii. Here's to another 40 years and more!

So this is what we're paying for...

As a mom, I NEVER get tired of watching Courtney dance. She has danced for 7 years and I still love all the recitals, shows & competitions. The studio she has been with for the last couple of years has a parent watch night every couple of months so that we parents can "see what we're paying for". I get to see Courtney dance A LOT! She dances around the house, at the store, in her room, marks dances in the car, and I'm sure she has even been caught dancing in the cafeteria or the hallways at school. Parent watch night is a can't miss night for me. I really enjoy seeing her progress as well as the progress of everyone in the class. Her classes on Monday span about 4 hours since she dances in different styles & classes. It is so worth it though to see her in HER element. I can't believe how much her gracefulness has improved in this last couple of years alone. She is now doing ballet en pointe and although she has only been doing that for about 5 months, she looked good. Really, really good. I know I'm her mother and I'm sure the teachers and professionals would have plenty to critique, but there were times it was hard for me to believe that she was doing a pirouette en pointe like she was after just a few months. I mean to move that gracefully with your toes crammed into a wooden block on the floor is amazing. I can't wait to see how much more she has improved after several months of training in this new technique. It was also fun to see her getting reacquainted with some old tap moves and finding her "inner hip hopper". Jazz/contemporary style is definitely her favorite and it was fun to see her and her dance team work through their competition piece that they will take to an event on Saturday. (VERY early Saturday. We have to be in Portland by 7 am. Anyone that knows her and I knows that is VERY, VERY early to us!) I saw a lot of growth in all of the kids on Monday. It was fun watching a few girls and friends that Courtney has brought to the studio grow in their dancing as well. I can't wait to see the next parent watch night in April and the culmination of all of their hard work at the recital in June. Sometimes it is nice for us parents to get to sit back and enjoy what we are paying for.

Meeska Mooska Mickey Mouse

Last night we took Ryan and his friend (and our neighbor) Faith to Playhouse Disney Live at the Rose Garden. It was such a fun show complete with songs from My Friends Tigger & Pooh, Little Einsteins, Handy Manny and of course Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I got seats a while after they had been on sale, so I wasn't really sure how good our seats would be, but they provided a perfect view. To see Ryan's face light up when Mickey came on stage and then a littler later out bounced Pooh & Tigger, it was really worth the whole price of admission. The kids clapped, they sang, they danced. (And truth be told, my little Prince Charming tried to grab Faith's hand a few times during the evening to which she just giggled and replied "Ryyyyan!") Afterwards we stopped at Gem 100 for some ice cream on the way home. It was a really fun Disney sort of night. Now just 2 1/2 months until we get to go see the magic of Disneyland. Can't wait!

Tag....I'm it!

I was recently tagged by my friend Sarri and asked to come up with 7 interesting things about myself. There really aren't 7 little known things about me, let alone really being all that interesting, but here is my best shot at it:

1) I used to sing in my elementary school talent shows every year. I would sing such hits as "You Light Up My Life", "9-5" and many Captain and Tenille songs. My mom made me a new gunny sax dress every year and I had matching ribbon barrettes in my hair.

2) I am extremely afraid of heights. Once in elementary school, my parents signed me up for gymnastics and I cried the whole time because I had to go on the balance beam. (It was a whopping 1 or 2 feet off the ground!) Needless to say, we knew early on that I was no Mary Lou Retton!

3) Tom & I met while I was babysitting next door to his house. I had to go to his house when I accidentally locked myself out of the house with the kids. Tom answered the door and was happy to help. I may have possibly locked the door other times just so I could see him to get the key. Maybe.

4) Tom & I broke up 8 times while dating all through high school. He was my first real kiss (not counting the time a really cute boy at church camp kissed me quick after a campfire one night.) Our first kiss was when I was babysitting at another neighbor's house. Note to self: Courtney will NOT babysit!

5) I know practically everyone camps, but I have never been camping. Let's just say I'm not an outdoorsy sort of girl and I am not a real fan of bugs and creepy crawlies. My idea of a camping adventure is blowing up the air mattress in the living room and roasting marshmallows over the BBQ and popping popcorn in the microwave. It is the perfect camp IN!

6) When I was 20, I had a Jamaican propose to me while on a travel agent familiarization trip there. He wrote me a long love letter, tried to give me a ring, the whole nine yards. And NO, we weren't dating at all while I was visiting there. He was working at the hotel we stayed at and he just took a liking I guess to my really light blonde hair, green eyed self. Needless to say, I declined.

7) Soon after the trip to Jamaica, I won a trip to the Cook Islands at a travel seminar I attended. It was before Tom and I were married, so I took my brother who wasn't married at the time either. Nightlife was rather slow there, but we went to one of the hotter restaurants/clubs there and then missed the last bus back to the hotel. Since the island wasn't very big and there weren't many cabs either, we decided to walk back to the hotel. On the way, I had to go pee so bad I couldn't hold it anymore. I couldn't bring myself to go in the bushes along the roadside(remember, not into creepy crawlies, not outdoorsy, etc?) so I wet my pants instead. Seriously! Soon after, a cab came by and gave us a ride back to the hotel. All I could think of was that I hoped I didn't smell like pee and that I didn't want to get his seats wet from my current not-so-comfortable situation. My brother has never let me live that moment down.

So there you have it, the not-so-interesting 7 things about me. Most everyone has been tagged already, so I tag whoever reads this and hasn't already had to do it!

Stars or Angels?

This past Christmas Ryan was pretty fixated on every Christmas tree having a star at the top of it. Grandma & Grandpa's has an angel on top as that is the same tree topper they have had for years...tradition. Ours at home has a star. Every year Ryan can't wait to put the star up on the tree and that to him makes it complete. In fact, this year the only smile he had while he was so, so sick during "Artic Blast 2008", was when he opened a box that Grandma had sent over. It had a homemade silver star in it just for his little tree in his room. He was soooo excited! In a continuation of his questions about why some people have angels and some have stars, he and Tom were talking about angels on the way home from dinner tonight.

Ry: Daddy, where is heaven?

Daddy: It is up in the sky.

Ry: Do angels live there?

Daddy: Yes, they do.

Ry: Daddy? What do angels look like?

Daddy: They wear long gowns, have wings and have halos on their heads.

Ry: Are there boy angels?

Daddy: Yes, there are boy and girl angels.

Ry: Do the boys wear gowns too? Those are for girls.

Daddy: Yes, they all wear gowns.

Ry: Daddy, when I'm an angel, can I wear jeans instead of a gown?

Realizing he wasn't going to win this battle, Tom replied, "Sure, Ryan, you can wear jeans."

A Little Prayer Please...

As you could see by the length of my last post, life has been busy at our house this past few weeks. Sometimes though, when you get caught up in everyday life, you get jolted by someone else's life that has been turned upside down in the blink of an eye.

Yesterday, we just found out that one of Courtney's good friends has been diagnosed with diffuse large b-cell lymphoma. There is still so much we don't know. We know it seemed to happen very fast. Courtney dances with her and she was at dance last week, then she went home sick the next day from school complaining of having a hard time breathing. Because of her symptoms, they took her into the doctor and at first suspected pneumonia. They did some xrays and found instead a large tumor on her chest area. After several tests and a week of waiting, they determined her diagnosis at Doernbecher yesterday. They also found out that there is evidence it has spread to the kidneys as well. She starts chemo today and the rest at this point is unknown. This family is wanting all the prayers they can get. What a rollercoaster ride this past week has been for them. I can't even imagine what they must be feeling right now. She is a great kid with a positive attitude and a love for God, and I'm sure if anyone can get through all of this, she can. Please lift their family up in prayer during this difficult time. Please also pray for the friends surrounding her that their words will be wise, their support network will be large and that they will be able to help comfort their friend through a very difficult time.

Life!

I know it has been a while since I have blogged about our family happenings. Life has been busy. Since my last blog, we've had a birthday party with 6 other girls, Ryan has lost his first two teeth, we visited the Pumpkin Patch, Courtney and I have been busy with Peter Pan the Musical, and an interesting Halloween.

Warning: This will be a LONG post as there is lots to catch up on!

Oct 12th:
The birthday party for Courtney went well. We all went to Safari Sam's and played, golfed and ate. All of the girls had a good time. They came to our house afterwards and enjoyed pizza, dancing, partying, cake, games, etc. Then the sleepover.... most didn't go to sleep until 1:30 or so, but they were at the other end of the house, so no problem for us! I would be fibbing if I said no girl drama happened while we had the party. We had a couple of little incidences, but thanks to having a strong willed girl who knows how to get to the bottom of things (can we say black and white, cut and dried?), she handled those all on her own. Basically bottomline...no drama was going to hinder her party. Ryan had an important milestone that night as well. He lost his 1st bottom tooth. He was pretty proud of himself and all the girls let out a big cheer for him.

October 16th:
I went with Ry to his first Kinder field trip. They went to Heiser Farms and a fun time was had by all. He was partnered with a nice boy (who unfortunately wanted to find the biggest and apparently muddiest pumpkin he could find!) but they were good kids and stayed right with me. We did a little hay ride over to the patch, a maze and learned about animals and different kinds of pumpkins. I have been volunteering in his class since September, so by Pumpkin Patch time I know a lot of the kids, but it was fun to get to see them experience their first field trip and how exciting the ride on the bus was to them. When I asked Ryan what his favorite part was, I really thought he would talk about something to do with the patch itself. No, instead "I really, really liked riding the bus!" Alrighty then...

October 18th:
Our family met my parents and my brother's family at Plumper Pumpkin Patch. We went here last year too, and had a lot of fun. This year they added a barrel train, so the kids (and my 6'3" brother!) enjoyed a ride around part of the patch. They went through corn mazes, played on slides, raced rubber duckies with a water pump (this is always a favorite for all), and launched mini pumpkins at old beater cars. Afterwards, we enjoyed dinner at Spaghetti Factory. Yuuummmmmy!

October 29th:
Back in September, Courtney had auditioned for Peter Pan the Musical at Gallery. She was given the part of an indian. Since I have to still drive her to all of the practices anyway, I have started making myself useful during the various shows she has been in. I usually work stage left and communicate with the tech crew and get the people on that side of the stage in their places when they need to be there. It is a very fun job, but we don't really get started practicing that part until a week or two before the play opens. I agreed to help out during the rehearsals in various ways and tonight, I was helping by taking some measurements of the kids for their costumes. All was going well until one time I bent over and my lower back spasmed. I have had little ones of these before and they usually pass as quickly as they come. Well, not this time! I could barely stand up all the way through the rest of rehearsal. I came home, still not registering that this was going to be a lengthy process, and put a heating pad on and took an Advil and rested.

October 30th:
This was the morning after I hurt my back, I literally could not get up out of bed without it hurting so bad that I had tears running down my face. I tried reaching Tom who was already on his way to work and of course when I need him, the cell phone is off. GRRRR....(I'll let you all imagine how friendly I was once I did get ahold of him. Poor Tom!) I did finally reach him when he was in King City and he turned around and came home and got the kids ready for school. Ryan was late, which I was not happy with, but what else could we do? I could not sit or stand or lay or anything comfortably that entire morning. It was very frustrating and very painful. I got ahold of a good friend of mine who is a massage therapist and she got me in that afternoon. I tell you, she worked wonders. By the time I got out of there, I felt the best I'd felt all day. Still, it was slow going and this on and off discomfort I now know since I am posting this so late would last for weeks.

So, onto the rest of the fun for that day.

Did I ever mention my favorite thing about middle schoolers is their opinions and their indecisiveness? Courtney had been saying for weeks she was not going to dress up for Halloween this year. She was convinced that no one dressed up at school because they hadn't in elementary school either. Most of her friends were not either, or so they thought until about zero hour. Since at 7:30 the night before Halloween, we didn't have any time to go hunt all over town for the perfect costume that met all of the criteria that had been given to me (nor was my back feeling up to that challenge), I agreed to ride along as Tom took her out to find a festive orange shirt and some festive socks to put with the black skirt she already had. This way at least, she would look like she had at least given Halloween some thought before, well, 7:30 the night before. :) She looked cute and has decided that maybe next year she will find a costume earlier (that of course meets the middle school criteria).

October 31st Halloween:
This morning, I was well enough that Tom went to work after he dropped the kids off at school. I still wasn't doing much, as every bend hurt, sitting and standing were both uncomfortable, and was on anti-inflammatories which were making me very tired, but there was no point in having him miss another day of work just to watch me sleep. Ryan is a good napper after school and I had my parents in place to drive the kids home from school. It would be a fairly quiet afternoon. I was bummed today as I couldn't help out at Ry's school Halloween party as I had planned. He had a great time. He did report he wouldn't try to pumpkin pudding they had made, and when I gave him sort of a weird motherly look, he said "I know, I know, if you had been there I would have had to at least try it." Apparently the boy is smart enough to know what he can get by with when I'm not there. :) My parents had invited us over to dinner, and this was great as I wouldn't need to figure out any dinner plans for our busy evening. Halloween is always busy seeing family and making a few trick or treat stops in the neighborhood. Tom is never home very early, so because of our late start we usually don't get much if any "normal" trick or treating in. This year with Halloween being on a Friday, it allowed us time to go to some neighborhoods and take the kids out for real door to door trick or treats. Things were going fine until at dinner time Courtney kept complaining of her back and arms itching. She had commented earlier in the day that she had a nasty bite on her arm, but not much more was said. Well, as dinner progressed, more and more of her body was itching. My mom started suspecting chicken pox as when they looked at her body her whole back and part of her stomach was covered in red spots with blistery tops. Selfishly, like the great mother I am, I thought "this is just great. I need one more thing right now." We put a phone call into the doctor, but it was taking a long time to hear anything back. By this time, Courtney was miserable with itching and was on my parent's couch resting. She had no interest in going trick or treating and I wasn't wild about her spreading whatever this might be to everyone around. Since my parents had already been exposed, we decided to go ahead and take Ry out trick or treating. He had been looking forward to it for several days, except of course when we went to put his costume on. He wasn't as excited to go all of the sudden, but we did convince him to put his costume on and practice trick or treating at G & G's house. He was soon totally into it and off we went. We went to neighborhoods, and all of usual family places too. Finally about 9:30, the doctor called back and when I described what Courtney's spots looked like, they said that they were not chicken pox, but a case of hives that were an allergic reaction to an insect bite. We would likely never know what insect it was, but we could expect to see the spots continue to spread over the course of the next couple of weeks. She was not contagious they said, it would just be itchy. Courtney was less than thrilled that whatever this was would last for longer than a few hours. She was already sick of it.

November 1:
(Allison, you will appreciate this next part.) This next morning, we went ahead and decided to take Courtney to the doctor so they could see the spots, just in case they really were contagious. They really looked bad, red and blistery, and it was hard to fathom they weren't contagious looking like that. They had spread during the night too. She now had more on her stomach and now a few on her face. (Which for a pre-teen girl is the LAST place she wanted them to be!) There were more on her back too, in fact her back was pretty covered. So, off to the doctor we went, and they took one look and agreed with the original diagnosis of hives. She was NOT contagious and could do normal stuff and they recommended some cream or Benadryl to relieve the itching. Over the course of the next few days, Courtney's spots got much better. She was really worried that first day back at school that if kids saw her arms and neck they would think she was freaky. So, she made sure she wore clothes that covered up all of this. The only people that really knew were those close to her and those that had PE and dance with her since they were all over her back. Finally, about 3 weeks later, the spots are almost completely gone. I think she only got one scar from itching out of the deal and it is on her back so no worries. What a crazy Halloween!

Fast forward to current: Things are getting more and more normal. When I get a chance, I will post pictures to go along with this post, assuming any of you were patient enough to read until the end! We are enjoying a few days off of school, the play at Gallery opened last weekend and had near sold out crowds every day with good feedback, her spots are almost gone and my back is getting better...although still not perfect. We have survived the 1st quarter of school and conferences went well for both kids. Life could be worse and for some close to us, it is...you'll see in my next post.