Cross Country Kid

It must "run" in the family. Ooh. Sorry. Anyway, Xander has decided that he'd like to try out Cross Country as a sport. I know, seems a bit young, but kids have a lot of endurance! We're hoping he takes after Uncle Casey and not mom & dad.

The Sioux Falls Running Club is sponsoring 4 cross country meets for kids in grades K-6. There's no workouts, no extra practices or anything like that, just show up at the designated place on Wednesday afternoon for 4 weeks, and run in a race.

K-1 grades run 1/4 mile, 2-3 grades run 1/2 mile and 4-6 grades run 1 mile.

We showed up last week, not sure who else would be there. We saw many All City kids, including Xander's best friend, Isaac. They didn't really run together (Isaac's small and really fast), but they had fun sharing the experience. We're halfway through the "season," and here's some pictures.

He does not get this from me.
Look how he's smiling!
(I was a very crabby runner)
Week 1

Week 2
Xander's time was 10 seconds faster
(not because he trained- Just lucky, I guess)

This is Isaac right before the finish line.
He's a hurtin' unit- came in about 5th or 6th.
The girl about to pass him is one of my piano students :)

Another student, and a good friend from our last church, Megan

Full Steam Ahead

I'm going to apologize now. I may not get many more blog posts entered before next summer.

I thought I was being reasonable when I set my schedule because I don't have to be two places at once most of the time.

WOW am I busy. Last week, I had to get up and get dressed to go to work (teaching at USF) for the first time since May. Not bad, really. I kind of messed up and had to make a few adjustments, but now things seem to be going smoothly.

So, what's going on?

Maia had her first day of preschool at First Baptist Church. Isn't she cute? Her Tinkerbell backpack has wings on it. She's in Miss Julie's Doodlebug class with 7 other kids. The small class size makes it kind of obvious when one mom (who shall remain unnamed) doesn't read the schedule and therefore takes her preschooler to school an hour late on the very first day.

Much like Xander's school, the First Baptist preschool (chosen primarily for its proximity to USF, but turns out it's an excellent program- lucky us!) requires parents to be classroom helpers 3-4 times per semester, so I helped out in the Doodlebug room last week. Maia was extra clingy and whiny that day, but Miss Julie says that's not typical behavior for her.

By far, Maia's favorite thing at school is art. She is a very careful artist, who is getting pretty close to coloring in the lines, and likes to take time with her artwork, adding details like eyelashes to her ladybug rock that she painted the other day.

She goes on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and stays after on Mondays so that I can teach all day at USF. I am carrying a course load of 14 USF students and 16 at-home students. Each of my 30 students gets a half hour of my undivided (hahaha) attention each week. (seriously, when is my attention undivided?)

Amazingly, I'm able to keep Fridays open to have a rest day (much needed), and Matt & I take turns with our 1/2 day of commitment time at Xander's school each week, so I do have a little time for myself. Turns out I really need to do housework then because otherwise, this big house can get really cluttered really fast!

Xander is going to run in a cross country meet this afternoon. He has kind of half-heartedly been training for it, he will run a 1/2 mile with other 2nd and 3rd graders. This is the first athletic extra-curricular activity we've done with him, and we think he'll enjoy it. That's today (Wednesday) at 4:30 at a school that's pretty close to our house. (WAY closer than All City!) He will do that for the next 4 Wednesdays.

Matt's fully recovered from his surgery. He's just got a few little scars from the holes they poked in him. Now we just have to figure out how to pay for it. Turns out, having your appendix out doesn't cost nearly as much as having a baby removed from you. That's good! Not as nice of a keepsake.

Poor Matty is grieving the end of bike season at work. He has spent this week putting his beloved bikes in backstock and putting coats out on the floor in their stead. But hey, "Only 6 more months until bike season!"

It got pretty chilly here over the last couple of weeks. We've already had a couple of frosts, and the leaves are starting to show their colors. I guess Winter is inevitable, but I hope we have a long Autumn. There's something about Fall that is like a cushion to help me get mentally ready for Winter.

The Start of School... and Sickness

We started school 2 weeks ago. I can't believe it. I haven't written in a while because I can't seem to get my life in order enough to find time to write.

It's not that I'm really that busy. When we moved to SD, I made a conscious effort to cut back on the number of things I try to cram into one day. For the most part, I have stuck to that, and I'm glad I'm able be a working stay-at-home mom.

But the sudden impact that school has on my otherwise leisurely schedule has come as a sudden jolt after the lazy hazy days of summer.

Xander started school on Monday (August 22) and he had his first sick day on Friday the 26th.

Poor guy! He was really sick. I awoke from a dead sleep at 1 am to the sound of his wretching into the toilet coming through the transmitter of the baby monitor (our bedrooms are not close together anymore). I went down 2 flights of stairs and helped him clean up, gave him a barf bucket and put him on the bottom bunk of his bed. Then I came back up the 2 flights of stairs and tried to sleep.

Repeat the above scenario every half hour until 4 am. Then the barfing stopped and the diarrhea began.

Yuk.

I sure was tired of running steps by about 7am.

Luckily, it didn't last too long, he picked at a dry toast breakfast, skipped lunch and took a long nap in the afternoon. By suppertime, he was perking up, and ate another piece of toast. Saturday morning, he was back to himself. Whew!

Sadly, he missed bowling day at school, but we took our whole family bowling Saturday afternoon and had a good time together. Xander almost won. I think he beat me. That was with the bumpers up. Our family does not excel at bowling.

Sunday, Matt started feeling a bit queasy and by Sunday night was squirming around the bed enough that he had to go sleep on the couch. "Sleep" is not really the word. He groaned and moaned and made several trips to the bathroom. About 4am, he threw up, but got no relief.

I took Xander to school Monday morning (it's about a 20-minute drive kitty-corner across town), and about the time I dropped him off, Matt called and notified me that we really needed to go to the hospital. We strongly suspected his appendix was the cause of all the trouble.

I zoomed back home, where he had gotten Maia out of bed. She had her pajamas on, but her clothes in her hand and said, "Daddy got really hurt!" I sent Matt out to the car, and I got Maia dressed, grabbed some snacks and coloring books, and we went to the hospital.

I took him to the emergency room at Sanford hospital. This was a major step for us, as we don't carry health insurance (I know, I know... gambled and lost). Everywhere we went, I kept marveling at how beautiful and expensive everything looked. "I'm paying for this parquet floor." "I'm paying for this aquarium." "Really? Flatscreen TVs in every room?" "Does it have to be so cold in here? You could save a lot of money if you turned the thermostat up a couple of degrees..." "wonder how much they charge for that toast?" stuff like that.

Matt was disappointed to be so unoriginal as to be the 2nd appendectomy of the day. I felt reassured that a laproscopic appendectomy was all in a standard day's work for the surgeon.

They took him in for surgery at 12:30, and Maia & I waited in the surgical waiting room. It was nicely equipped with a children's area that included an aquarium, Lego table, TV and some other toys. She ran out of steam on coloring and stickers in the ER waiting room, but entertained herself nicely with Mega Blocks for most of the time we had to wait. They had vending machines and complimentary cookies, muffins and coffee, which was pretty much our lunch.

The surgeon showed up around 2:30 and let me know that everything went well, though the appendix did rupture when he went to remove it, but he irrigated the area and cleaned it out thoroughly. Hopefully no complications from that.

Then we moved to the post-op waiting room, which was prettier (more $$$ racking up in my head), but did not have as nice a kids' area, but we did find a TV playing SpongeBob, so Maia was entertained there for a while. There was a fresh supply of treats and the option of decaf coffee this time. They let us in to see Matty around 3:45 or so. He was looking pretty peaked, but had already done some vital things like pee and eat a piece of toast, so they were pleased with his recovery.

The nurses kept asking him how his pain was on a scale of 1-10. When he was in the ER, it crept up to a 10, and after surgery, it was down to a 7, then a 5... But they wouldn't let him leave until it was at a 4. So the next time they asked, I whispered, "You're a 4!"

We were home and had Matt tucked into the couch "watching" a movie (read: zonked out in front of the TV) by 4:30. Amazing.

Many thanks to all our friends and family who were so loving and supportive. My mom came up that evening and helped me get the kids put to bed. (I had a couple of meetings to go to that night, so it was nice to have her help).

Xander went home from school with his friend, Isaac, and their family kept him until almost 8:30.

Kim made dinner for us and Martha brought it over- and she repeatedly offered to take Maia for the day if she got out of hand, but it wasn't necessary. How nice not to have to make dinner!

Many phone calls from prayer supporters and well-wishers. Thanks to all!

So Matty gets the whole week off from work, and we get to go to Lifelight this weekend. It's a Christian Music Festival right here in Sioux Falls that's absolutely free. We've never made it over there, but the weather and the circumstances are right this year, so we'll go check it out. Of course, Matt gets tired pretty easy, so we'll probably only take in a little bit.

Whew! Long post. That's a brief synopsis of what's been going on in our world.

Xander's going camping

This week, Xander's little best bud, Isaac, called and asked if Xander could go with his family up to their cabin for the weekend.

Yes, Isaac is also 7, so the fact that he had such polite phone skills is quite impressive. Xander still chooses to ignore my phone, even when it rings right next to him, and yells, "MOM! PHONE!" instead.

Isaac's family is a wonderful Christian family, and I really like his mom, Mary. They're picking Xander up Friday morning and will keep him until Sunday afternoon. Their cabin is near the ND border, and sounds like he'll experience typical cabin life for a couple of days, complete with fishing, swimming in the lake (river?), hiking, forts, no TV, etc.

He's going to have so much fun! It'll be good to have him do something besides play on the computer all day long.

School starts the next day. Summer's officially over. How sad! I guess life goes on!

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday, Matt & I celebrated 15 years of marital bliss.

15 years.

I know! Am I really that old? That's what you get when you get married so young.

We spent the day shopping for new bedding in our master suite. Our anniversary gift to each other. We finally found one we like. It looks mostly like this. This one came from Bed Bath & Beyond, but they didn't have it in Queen size, so we got a very similar one at Target. I did get that funky brown pillow in the front plus a couple more. Boy, throw pillows are expensive! Also, we got chocolate brown sheets instead of tan.

So now I can finish decorating the master bedroom suite. Meaning I can pick paint colors and get the junk cleaned up from in there. It is currently the repository of all our framed tabletop pictures as well as the bazillion books we don't have bookshelves enough for. Big challenge!

So this morning, Maia threw up on my new comforter. She's fine, but I'm a little grumpy that she chose my new comforter to puke on. Not her disgusting stinky blanket that spends more time in her mouth than anywhere else, not even the eternally stained carpet in front of the TV that needs to be covered with a rug anyway ... nope. My new comforter. Now I have to figure out how to wash it. Luckily, we're taking a little trip to Grandma Marilyn's this weekend, and she has large capacity, front loading washer & dryer that will probably handle it. Look out, Grandma, I'm bringing 3 comforters to wash (old one, new one and down-filled one)

It's good to have these connections.

Speaking of connections...

This morning, I met with several other voice teachers from Sioux Falls, and we had a lovely brunch at one of the teachers' house. There were 8 of us there, including a few new ones. Nice to get networked and share information a bit.

We have a back-to-school ice cream social at All City this evening. Matt has to go to church for a meeting, so we'll divide and conquer.

Oh, the rest of our anniversary was nice. I taught one lesson in the middle of the afternoon, and "let" Matt do the grocery shopping (a gift in and of itself). I also showed him my Rachel Ray cookbook and let him pick the recipe for supper. He chose "Martini Shrimp and Manhattan Steaks" which were delicious! Also, because there was so much alcohol in the recipe (vodka, lemon zest and chopped celery added to the shrimp cocktail sauce- served in martini glasses with the shrimp hanging over the sides; and pan-seared steaks with vermouth and whiskey as a glaze), I got to light the pan on fire to burn off the alcohol, which set off the smoke alarm. Nothing tasted burnt (even though my skillet looked like a Grandma Eitemiller dinner creation), and even though the kitchen filled with smoke, we really enjoyed our dinner.

The kids had hot dogs. They enjoyed those too. Xander said it was the best meal I ever made.

Vacation Pictures

We had our first ever family vacation with just the 4 of us last weekend. It was a great success. We visited some really fun places, everyone enjoyed themselves, had a fun hotel stay, a nice balance of activity and rest, and we (AMAZINGLY) stayed within our budget.

We went to Minneapolis/ St. Paul (or "the Cities" as they're known in this part of the world), and I found a hotel through Expedia that gave us a small suite (with a pull-out sofa, desk, kitchenette & 2 queen beds), with an indoor pool and a free continental breakfast for less than $100/ night. I felt pretty good about that (Spring Hill Suites in Eagan, in case you're wondering).

What we didn't bargain for was that there was some sort of National Pre-teen girls' softball championship going on and we had at least 2, maybe 3 teams staying in our hotel. We were secluded up on a corner of the top floor, but the pool was REALLY crowded and giggly and screamy.

On Friday, we went to the Mall of America. Xander's big thing that he was looking forward to was going to the LegoLand there (actually just a Lego store, but with cool displays). We gave him a spending limit, and he spent it all on Bionicles. No surprise there.

The kids with a Lego man

Have to get a picture with Boba (Jango?) Fett
(they're hard to tell apart for a non-geek)

This was cool, a huge Bionicle, made of -what else? Legos!
(it's a Toa- "old school"- like from 2001- in case you care!)
Matt & the Death Star

Spongebob!

Maia geeked out at the Disney store, where she was treated like a princess, and just loved every part of the store, especially the big screen that showed clips from her favorite movies. She just wandered around and sang along. She was in heaven.

I got a dress. I didn't take any pictures. It's really cute.

Matt forgot to pack a book, so he went to Barnes & Noble and picked up a couple of books to keep him occupied during our down time.

We went to the Underwater Adventures aquarium, which was really cool. There's a slow moving sidewalk that winds through a tunnel and the fish swim all around you. Several sharks and rays, beautiful salt water coral reef fish... it was hard to get pictures because of all the glass.

Here's some Koi in a little pond on the way down to the aquarium:

Some bottom-feeding sharks
Maia was excited to have sharks swim right over her head! (or on her head as she said)
Here's some perspective. Matt kept getting in my pictures.
After the tunnel, there was a room with smaller tanks with things like baby alligators...a tank like the one in "Finding Nemo"
(that's someone else's kid. I thought it was Xander when I was taking the picture!)


Some "jellies"

And I thought this was fascinating, an octopus that they have to keep in a special tank because she's so smart, she keeps trying to escape. They said that Octopi can get as intelligent as a 2-3 year old child. Is that why Mr. Potato head's in the tank with her?
That room opened right into the gift shop, where the kids had to check out some of the booty:

Then we went and played in a kids' area for a while

Awww..... my treasure (nice picture, Xander!)
Got a picture with "Sharkey" then headed back to the hotel

That evening, we chilled at the hotel, Xander built some Bionicles,

Maia played with princesses

and Dad & I read our books (I had packed one).

Saturday, we went to the Children's Museum in downtown St. Paul. It was really fun! We started out in the habitat world, and the kids got to be turtles,
Climb around and get lost in an anthill (Maia was not so wild about the getting lost part. You could probably hear her screams from South Dakota!)
We got to "drive the clouds," which were on huge pulleys and suspended across the ceiling.

When you got all the clouds to one side, they'd break into a "thunderstorm" which was cool!

There was an outdoor terrace on the top floor, with a sand pit,

a fountain, where Maia painted with water

And an area where you could draw to the music that was being played inside. You could also play along on drums, but neither of our kids were interested in that.

The Curious George exhibit was very lively and colorful.

Maia found the (stuffed) animals that belonged in these
pens and put them away, a chicken and a bunny.
In one area, you could learn all about Curious George's
evolution from a French monkey named Fifi. This bike
told about the Reys' flight from the Nazis during WWII.
They fled Paris on a bicycle before flying to S. America
and eventually ending up in New York. See? Everyone
learns something at the Children's Museum!
Xander found a conveyer belt and played with it the
whole time we were in Curious George land.
Another gallery had water fun:

And another one was all set up like a little town. There was a post office, a doctor's office, a recording studio, an art gallery, a grocery store, a restaurant, a home, and a tailor where the kids could all find costumes to wear:

Xander really liked the "centasaurus" outside the museum. This dinosaur had a bunch of pennies glued to his back. Xander was convinced that he could get one off and it would be his lucky day.
We had a lot of fun and were exhausted after only 3 hours there. So we headed back to the hotel for the evening again.

The next morning was Sunday, and since we rarely get a Sunday where we're not obligated to be somewhere, we took an opportunity to check out a church that is really different from ours. We wanted to go to Solomon's Porch, but they were having a service in the park and an outdoor baptism, and we didn't really want to intrude on that, so we opted for Spirit Garage in downtown Minneapolis.

They meet in a small theatre downtown, which is currently playing a show called "Double Espresso." The environment is really great, and we enjoyed visiting a different setting for worship, but we're also really glad to be at Mercy.

Sunday afternoon (hold on, I'm almost done) we went to Cascade Bay in Eagan- just down the road from our hotel. It was a moderately hot day (low 90's)- just perfect for water parking.
Here's some pics.

Some of the slides and the lazy river

The mini-golf course that Matt & Xander checked out while Maia & I had a snack
Maia being "Mulan"Nobody got too sunburnt, just a few little patches.
Monday it was time to leave, but we took our time. The hotel pool was- predictably- empty so we played there for an hour or so, then headed out.
We enjoyed dinner at Emma Krumbee's restaurant (or as Matt insisted on calling it, "Emma's crummy restaurant") outside of Belle Plaine, and the kids zonked out most of the rest of the way home. Me too. Glad Matt can drive without needing company!