In Lieu of Science Camp: Santa Monica Pier

Upon waking up Tuesday morning (literally, 45 minutes before we were due to check out), we got everything packed up and headed out for breakfast at Denny's-far and away better than the disastrous meal at Cocos the night before! We watched people fly up and down the Mickey Mouse roller coaster at CA Adventure, which was right across the street!  After that, we jumped on the freeway and headed to Santa Monica Pier-a bit of a drive, but we thought that would be a cool destination.  We were right!

 The pier was amazing.  I have never been there, and Jared said this entire area made him love the beach much more (he doesn't care for the crowds or the grossness of the water, generally speaking).  I LOVE the ocean more than any other place on the wold-this pier was icing on the proverbial cake!  Karianna loved everything.  She was pretty young last time she was at the ocean, so this was a neat experience for her.  We walked the pier, took lots of pictures, wandered through the amusement park, played air hockey, and watched the waved pound into the pier supports.  The day was overcast and windy, so the waves were really on point!

 We had to get creative setting up my camera for the self-timer.....

 After we got our fill of the pier, we headed down to the beach, spread out the sheet we had brought, and just reveled in the sound of the waves crashing on the shore.  Karianna and I ran down to the surf and played wave tag for a looooooooong time.  We experimented with how deep we went, giggled at the sand shifting under our feet, and shrieked when the waves soaked our jeans.  We are fairly certain we saw a few dolphins a ways out-or something big.  We didn't find any shells, but we were so entranced with the waves, it didn't seem to matter.  Jared took a little catnap on the sheet, and by the time we got back, we all just laid there enjoying the sunshine that had finally popped out and the sounds of the ocean.  Have I said I LOVE the ocean?  I do.  Somehow, it just puts things into perspective....makes you feel more capable and confident than you normally are, and as if the big things don't really matter all that much.  I feel so invigorated at the ocean, and I think Karianna caught some of that.  It was so much fun hanging out with her-I really, really enjoyed myself.

 Jared saw this thing flying through the sky-I think he called it an ospry?  Apparently it is a military grade plane that is really rare.

 We stayed much longer than we anticipated-until 3pm.  It was so worth it though.  We knew we had to start heading home though, so we washed off our feet, listened to a few more verse of an unrecognizable song sung by a homeless lady who managed to locate an amp and a mic, and trudged for the car, leaving the beautiful ocean behind. Sigh.  I always get sad leaving the ocean.

Our drive out of the area was horrendous, as was the traffic jam heading towards Disney.  We got well out of the city and pretty close to the border before we stopped for an extremely late lunch/early dinner at Subway.  Karianna slept a good part of the way, and both Jared and I found it much easier to drive on a good night's rest and knowing we were heading home to the kids.  We arrived just after 11pm to relieve my mom-the house was still really clean, just as I had left it, which was impressive!  We woke all the kids up after she left, and must have played/talked with them until just before midnight-it was a sweet reunion.  All the kids were extremely jealous of Karianna, but also excited to see pictures and to hear about all our adventures.

I can't express how grateful I am for these last few days.  They meant so much to me and Jared, in terms of connecting with Karianna and sharing these experiences with her at such a tender age.  We love her so much and we are so proud of the young woman she is becoming!

From the Mouths of Babes

Karianna: Our house is really clean!

Me: How long do you think it will stay this way? Please say longer than a day-I worked so hard!

Karianna: Okay, but reality has so many expectations that we can't possibly hope to compete with.

LOL! Wise words have never been spoken, especially by a 10 year old, self-proclaimed genius!

A Perfect Birthday Gift

Jared gave me my birthday gift tonight, even though my birthday is not until Sunday.  He knows that day is going to be filled with cleaning projects before we go out of town early the next morning, so he opted to give it to me today.  He knows I have been searching for the piano sheet music to "Never a Better Hero".  Where I have had no success in finding it, he easily located it, along with 79 other memorable piano/vocal solos compiled in one spiral bound book!  Seriously, seriously amazing!!!!  Since getting our piano, my skills have improved a lot, I think, especially in terms of playing multiple flats/sharps, sight reading more easily, and adjusting my finger positioning so I am not using my two dominant fingers on each hand to play all the notes (I realized I was subconsciously doing that shortly after getting the piano). I am so excited to practice out of this book, I feel like the piano bring such a calm, positive spirit to the home, and it is certainly my prime form of a stress reliever.

Perfect gift, Jared-you are amazing!

Summer Plans in the Works!

I can't believe I am already putting together summer plans--how is it that time keeps flying by so quickly?  You think I'd be used to it by now!

Today I signed up JD, Jordan, and Sara for Boredom Busters, which is basically the same summer program through City of Mesa that I did as a kid, and then worked/supervised as a teenager/adult.  I love this program, though I am sad they made it only a 2 week session with swimming once a week, as opposed to a month-long session with swimming twice a week.  In any case, I think those three will have a grand time with BB, and it will give them a lot to do during those two weeks.  So far, here's what we got planned:

1. Cub Scout Day Camp: JD, end of May
2. Phantom of the Opera:  Me and Karianna, end of May.
3. Family Camping Trip:  Memorial Day Weekend
4. Dive Team: Karianna, June-July
5. Boredom Busters:  JD, Jordan, Sara, 2 weeks in June
6. Family Vacation to CA/Seaworld: end of June
7. Family Camping Trip: End of July

We'll have 4th of July stuff, and then a lot of free time that month that I'll fill up with other activities, mostly home based.  We will go to a splash pad once a week, the dump bucket pool once a week, and a MPS pool once a week during Karianna's dive meets.  We have Summer Movies on Thursdays as well, and of course, our near-daily swimming excursions in the backyard. I have booklists made up for the kids, and working on getting other basic summer school stuff together.  

With only 6 weeks or so left in school, I am sure these activities will be upon us sooner than later!  

Adding to His Limited Repartoire

 Jackson is the pickiest kid on the fact of the planet.  He has about five main foods he will consistently eat and that's around it.  He loves bananas, grapes, yogurt, applesauce, and string cheese; he also eats basic crackers and dry cereal.  Other than that, he is a really tough cookie in terms of eating new things.  So it was extremely nice the other day to realize he had snuck an apple out of a grocery sack before I could put it away and proceeded to pulverize it with his teeth, all the way down to the core.  Granted, it took him about an hour, and he ended up discarding it in a book basket, but I caught the latter before it started to decay, and at the end of the day, I can now add "apple" to his food list.

Have I ever mentioned Jackson has a fused tooth, just like James?  He does.  :)  Also a nice little side comment-Jackson was sharing his apple with James so very kindly for about 5 minutes.  For a toddler, I think that's pretty impressive!

Yellow Flowers!

 I LOVE this time of the year, when our huge palo verde starts to flower!  Sure, it makes a huge mess, but the bright yellow flowers are just so beautiful, as is the yellow carpet that inevitably forms on the ground.  So pretty!

Cousins!

As much as we get to see Jared's side of the family, we just don't have a ton of pictures of them.  We were able to take a really good one of all the Lautenschlager cousins today, and it turned out super cute!  This includes Aubrey and Brennan's little girl, Brielle, and David and Sarah's little girl, Olivia.

Easter Pictures!

Easter Egg Hunt 2015

 We went to Princess Park to do our own family Easter Egg Hunt today-a little out of the norm since we usually do a hunt with the cousins, but we are not doing that until the 18th of the month, so we opted to do our own after conference today.  The park was empty when we got there, so that gave me ample space to "hide" the eggs.  Each kid had to also find one large egg that they would get to trade in for a prize in lieu of getting actual easter baskets this year.  We had a great time finding all the eggs and then trading-Jackson was so cute in his deep egg-finding concentration!  I was super impressed with Karianna and JD for donating eggs when the little kids didn't get as many.

 Emptying all the eggs out and getting read to trad in the big one for a prize!

 Jordan finally got a pokemon folder and new cards-made his day!

 James and Jackson got this awesome red ball to share, which they went nuts over!  Sadly, the ball got trapped between my legs and this wall, and for oddly enough, it popped!  I was so surprised, and sad, as the boys really loved it!  I'll have to replace it next week.

We will have another Easter Egg Hunt tomorrow with the Lautenschlagers, as well as celebrate Easter in general with dinner and hopefully some great conference talks.  Happy Easter!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

 Sara got to participate in her kindergarten play today-Goldilocks and the Three Bears! This is the third time we have seen this play, and I actually enjoy it-the kids are cute, and the story is cute in that they start confusing it with other fairy tales, only to sing, "Uh uh!  No No!" and then tell the real story.  Sara looked adorable in his grown up dress that she just inherited from Karianna.

 She's pulling out all the stops with her posing!

 The one thing this play had that the others we have seen didn't have was puke. Yes, you read that correctly.  Right before the last song, we noticed a disturbance behind Sara.  Upon closer look, we realized that the tall boy in the back left corner of the picture below was throwing up everywhere.  He threw up all over that cute little boy in the blue jacket and bow tie.  You'll notice Sara is standing pretty close to that boy-you could tell she was utterly disgusted, and told me afterwards she thought she was going to throw up just from the smell.

You would think a parent would rush up on stage upon seeing his or her child throwing up during a performance, but no such parent arose.  So Mrs. Davis ran up, picked up this little boy, and carried him off stage and towards the rest room.  She must have found the mom because she came back as the other kids started singing the final song while plugging their noses and backing away from the puke.  Mrs. Davis came back on stage to make sure no one was standing in the puddle.  She took that blue jacket of the blond boy and have that little blond girl in the black and white dress come off the risers at the request of her moth.  Thankfully the play ended after that final song, and the kids were able to get off stage.  I went up to get Sara, and wow, did it smell bad!  Certainly an exciting element of the traditional kindergarten play!

Regardless, Sara did great singing all the songs and keeping her cool.  She looked a little tired during the beginning of the play, but perked up after a few songs and just looked beautiful.  We are so proud of all the progress has made-except for Tyler, and maybe 1 or 2 other kids, Sara is the youngest in the grade, but she sure does hold her own quite well!  Great job Saree!

Cardiology Check Up

James went in for another cardiology check up today, bright and early at 7am.  It was the easiest appointment we have ever had in terms of James's attitude and behavior-Echos used to take over an hour because we had to keep James entertained and still.  I had to sit with him in the bed, hold his head at certain angles, and when he was a baby, even nurse him to keep him still while they were doing the actual echo.  As I told the tech today, the days of having to do a song and a dance, so to speak, are gone, and thankfully so!  We put on Toy Story, gave James a sucker, and the echo was done within 25 minutes.  James cried for a few minutes when asked to lay down on the bed, but after that, he was perfectly content.  He loves the blood pressure and EKG machines, so those were no big deal-he enjoys taking the blood pressure cuff and EKG stickers off.  Jackson was with us, but he just wandered around the room, or sat in my lap the whole time.  All the nurses in the office always exclaim about James' hair, and how big he is getting-these nurses have been with the office since we started coming here when James was a baby, so they really have seen him progress and grow.  they all said they felt like they were in a time warp because Jackson apparently looks just like James did at that age!  Upon looking at some of James' pictures, I have to agree-the similarity is uncanny.

So the appointment went well, and I was so proud of James for handling it like a pro.  Everything on his tests looked great, thank heavens!  the gradient across his aortic valve is 20; it was 18 post-op, and the lower the better.  They consider the current 20 close enough to the 18 to say there is no change from surgery, which is great-it means the surgical fix is holding up well, and that is something Jared and I were really worried about.  James' aortic arch has only slight narrowing in the same spot, which was expected-nothing of great significance, and the blood flow through it is great, as are his pulses in his feet, which also suggests good blood flow.  His mitral valve is showing a small gradient of 5, which is so small, it is not considered an area of concern at all-Dr. Garn is just keeping an eye on it since it has shown a small gradient like that before.  Nothing to worry about, just something to monitor.  

That's it!  We don't go back for another 6 months!  Upon Dr. Garn's advice, I am going to take James back to his ENT to start looking at his focal cords. James still doesn't have much of a cry or a laugh-both sound like raspy, heavy breathing, and that's it.  I haven't been too concerned as it takes up to a year for those vocal cords to heal. However, we decided it would be good to establish a "baseline" of where he is at, and then as we get closer to that year mark, we can start to decide if there are therapies/surgeries we want to engage in to resolve this issue.  

Enjoying the echo sucker and the EKG stickers!

Flashback

I was going through some files today and chanced upon these pictures from my college graduation in December of 2003.

There are many memorable moments from that weekend, and these two pictures actually commemorated my smaller teacher's college ceremony, and the larger university ceremony.  However, when I saw these pictures, my mind instantly went to the fact that my Dad was not supposed to be there.  He was supposed to be at Falcon Hill, as he couldn't miss two days of work to attend both ceremonies.  I was not expecting him to be there when I hurried out of the stadium to find my family and Jared.  To my surprise, my Dad was, in fact, there with my Mom!  I remember beaming from ear to ear, and teared up a bit when he told me he could never miss any part of my graduation.  My Dad and I had so many talks throughout my schooling, internships, and first year teaching-we connected on a deep level through education.  The fact that he was there meant the world to me.

I look back at that experience and just feel a deep sense of gratitude for my Dad, who always made it a point to support me in everything I did, great or small.  He was so dedicated to being there, as a means for showing his love.  These types of memories warm my heart so very much.  I miss my Dad all the time, yet I am so grateful for the things he taught me, some of which were most clearly conveyed through his example.

I hope I can be that type of parent to my kids, and in that sense, honor my Dad.