Cade started back to school on Monday. He was excited and everything was cool and calm for the morning. We got out of the car to take our yearly pics of course and then he went in and Neva and I left. It was pretty much that simple. I could tell he wasn't nervous at all and he even told me so. That made me feel so much better so dropping him off was a breeze. I didn't shed a tear but then I get these feelings of guilt from taking bonding time away from Neva. She did ask a few times if it was time to pick him up. However, she was loving the fact that when we were at the grocery store she could hold anything she wanted without having to fight over it w/ Cade.
Wednesday, we dropped off Cade and Neva and I headed out to buy her a bedroom set that I found on craigslist. It is perfect for her. It is a twin bed, 2 dressers, a desk and chair. I got a killer deal and the condition is perfect. We just need to get her a mattress now and she will be all set for the "bigger girl" bed as we call it. I think that we may throw a coat of paint on it, even though it doesn't need it. Right now it is cream and I think I prefer it to be white to match the trim in the house. Ok, just my neuroticness, if that is a word. She seems pretty excited but hasn't said much about it. She never said that she didn't want in her crib it is just Truckie and I's guilt for putting a 3 year old potty trained girl in there. :)
Wednesday evening was a blast!! Cade and I had our first soccer game and we started the season off great. The kids just had so much fun as did I. I think that Cade played w/ a smile on his face the whole time. He had a hat trick for the game even though he is trying to tell me he scored 4 goals. Man, that kids is good. He has crazy coordination for a kid his age. I know that every parent says that about their child but he just excels at every sport. Sometimes it just blows my mind. As a teacher for sports classes to 4-5 year olds I have seen the "best" and worst of them and Cade is no comparison. Ok, enough of my bragging.
This is a funny story about our soccer team color. We were supposed to be scarlet, which I thought was pink. I told Cade that the color of our team is pink and he was in tears. Truckie told me that scarlet was NOT pink so Cade and I checked on the computer and that put a smile on his face again. So, we are at the game yesterday and my boss is handing out the soccer jerseys. He hands me a stack of PEACH jerseys. I gave him the look "Really?" and he said that he would send them back. I told him not to bother. The kids really didn't mind at all, they were just so happy to have an official soccer jersey. Cade told Truckie that he didn't mind if they were peach. I told him that we could be named the Salmon fish team or something like that since the jerseys are the color of salmon. Hey, open to suggestions for a team name relating to Salmon.
Now, we are getting ready to up to Stacy's family cottage for the weekend. We were supposed to camp but Stacy is just not ready having Emmett now and it is fine w/ me. The cottage is about 1 hour away on a small lake. The kids can fish and we can all sleep in a real bed and have a roof over our heads. No complaints here. It is supposed to rain too so it will be great. We are all looking forward to spending some time w/ the Vances as the last time was for the canoe trip!! Way too long in other words.
Ok, gonna go but before I do I will share the quote of the day....
On Monday afternoon the kids were playing a game together and they were laughing so hard. I am not sure if I've ever heard either one laugh this hard for this long. So, on Tuesday morning Neva asked Cade if he wanted to play the game again. Cade said "No, I don't have a very good laugh in my mouth right now." Gotta love it!!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Life has been way too busy
I feel like I barely have time to sit down and just relax these days. Between getting ready for Holley to visit, orientation for Cade's school, soccer starting soon and all the things in between we are just plain busy. Hopefully once we get into our school routine again things will seem a bit more under control. At least that is what my thinking is and I try to think positively.
Holley and Chris are coming to visit for the night. The kids are very excited to see them. Cade has all sorts of questions for Chris about his race car driving. They have no idea that he is even a Dr. Not as important to him as a race car driver though. We are going to have my new signature meal which is fish tacos. Yum!!
Tomorrow morning Cade and I are going up to the YMCA for team orientation and a short soccer clinic. I am really excited and looking forward to being a part of his soccer team. The rules are a bit different than the standard games but they will start to learn more about the game and fine tune their tactics and skills of the game. Cade said he would be calling me Coach Mom and he thinks that is so cool. I am glad that I am still "cool" in his eyes and not embarrased of me yet. I cherish these moments!!
Tomorrow evening we are planning on going down to the city for the Celebration on the Grand. There are also a few other events going on. We plan on meeting Stacy and Simon and the gang for dinner and who knows what else. Should be fun.
On Sunday, hopefully NOTHING!! We just purchased a couple 55 gallon barrels for composting and rain water collection. So, I am anticipating that we will get this up and running. I am very excited about composting. We are really trying to do everything that we can whether it be big or small to help the environment. Not just for us but for our kids and future generations. You don't realize how big of an impact one person can make. Just trying to give our contribution as a family and it feels great.
On Monday, Cade will start school and the following week I will start teaching my classes at the Y. It will be nice to have the first week for Neva and I to have some time together.
Ok, here is one quote that sticks in my head. Enjoy!! As my life seems to stay busier you will notice that my blogging has gone way down. I will try to update as much as I possibly can to keep everyone in the know of what we are up to.
The other day I was making piles of stuff to sell on Craigslist and Neva came in the room. She looked at me and said "Mom, your not going to sell me." She said it in a way that she was letting me know and convincing herself at the same time.
I was talking about how my body was sore from backpacking and I told the kids that I was getting older, not old, but older. Neva said "your not getting old your getting new." Just so sweet. Wish it were true. :)
Holley and Chris are coming to visit for the night. The kids are very excited to see them. Cade has all sorts of questions for Chris about his race car driving. They have no idea that he is even a Dr. Not as important to him as a race car driver though. We are going to have my new signature meal which is fish tacos. Yum!!
Tomorrow morning Cade and I are going up to the YMCA for team orientation and a short soccer clinic. I am really excited and looking forward to being a part of his soccer team. The rules are a bit different than the standard games but they will start to learn more about the game and fine tune their tactics and skills of the game. Cade said he would be calling me Coach Mom and he thinks that is so cool. I am glad that I am still "cool" in his eyes and not embarrased of me yet. I cherish these moments!!
Tomorrow evening we are planning on going down to the city for the Celebration on the Grand. There are also a few other events going on. We plan on meeting Stacy and Simon and the gang for dinner and who knows what else. Should be fun.
On Sunday, hopefully NOTHING!! We just purchased a couple 55 gallon barrels for composting and rain water collection. So, I am anticipating that we will get this up and running. I am very excited about composting. We are really trying to do everything that we can whether it be big or small to help the environment. Not just for us but for our kids and future generations. You don't realize how big of an impact one person can make. Just trying to give our contribution as a family and it feels great.
On Monday, Cade will start school and the following week I will start teaching my classes at the Y. It will be nice to have the first week for Neva and I to have some time together.
Ok, here is one quote that sticks in my head. Enjoy!! As my life seems to stay busier you will notice that my blogging has gone way down. I will try to update as much as I possibly can to keep everyone in the know of what we are up to.
The other day I was making piles of stuff to sell on Craigslist and Neva came in the room. She looked at me and said "Mom, your not going to sell me." She said it in a way that she was letting me know and convincing herself at the same time.
I was talking about how my body was sore from backpacking and I told the kids that I was getting older, not old, but older. Neva said "your not getting old your getting new." Just so sweet. Wish it were true. :)
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
A few quotes
I haven't been posting any quotes of the day so I have a few that are fresh in my mind I have to share.
The kids and I were talking about me being sore from backpacking and they said that I was getting old. I corrected them and said that I was not old and before I could say I was getting older, Neva said "Mom, you are new." Too cute.
We promised the kids if they didn't have any accidents this weekend w/ g ma and g pa we would get them a special treat. So, I took them to Toys R Us and they each picked out their toy. On the way home Cade said to me, "Mom, can you open my toy first?" I asked him why and he said, "because I am FREAKING out." That was a laugh out loud moment.
One more that involves both. Neva was fake coughing and Cade leaned over asked her "Where in the world did you learn that Neva because I didn't teach it to you!?"
Hopefully this will put a smile on your face like it did mine.
The kids and I were talking about me being sore from backpacking and they said that I was getting old. I corrected them and said that I was not old and before I could say I was getting older, Neva said "Mom, you are new." Too cute.
We promised the kids if they didn't have any accidents this weekend w/ g ma and g pa we would get them a special treat. So, I took them to Toys R Us and they each picked out their toy. On the way home Cade said to me, "Mom, can you open my toy first?" I asked him why and he said, "because I am FREAKING out." That was a laugh out loud moment.
One more that involves both. Neva was fake coughing and Cade leaned over asked her "Where in the world did you learn that Neva because I didn't teach it to you!?"
Hopefully this will put a smile on your face like it did mine.
North Manitou Island
Well, life has been extremely hectic and I feel my blog has gone by the way side. So, I wanted everyone to be able to read about our amazing experience this weekend.
We had such a great time w/ great weather. We left my parents cottage Saturday morning to a cool foggy morning w/ deer spread about in random fields. It was somewhat surreal and a great way to start out our weekend. We left the mainland at 10:00 AM sharp to head out to the island. The waters were calm which I was very happy about as the last time I was on this ferry it didn't treat me so well. Truckie and I had been studying the map to decide which part of the island that we were going to focus on. It is 11 miles long and 7 miles wide so trying to explore for a weekend made it hard to decide which area to go. We decided we would stay in the Northern part and stay close to the inland lake which was Lake Manitou.
We got to the island, the ranger gave his talk and then everyone went their own way. I would say there was close to 100 people or more on this island but you would NEVER have guessed because we barely saw anyone just hiking around. It was awesome. We set off for North and it would wrap us around to the West eventually. I was so proud of Truckie and his map guiding skills this weekend. He really stepped up and took charge of where we were going and the distance to that point. It was impressive.
We set up camp about 3.5 miles from the dock. That was more than enough walking w/ our packs on. I have realized my knees are just not what they used to be and they took a pretty good beating. My new motto is, "I am getting older, NOT OLD, but older." We set up camp in the deep dark woods. It was a really remote spot and set us up to hike down to the lake and further west on the island if we wanted and we did.
We were getting low on water so decided to hike down to the lake which was about 2 miles one way. It such a beautiful place. It is so crazy that you are at a lake on the middle of an island. WE filled up our water and splashed some water on our face and just relaxed for a bit. Then we headed back for bed and to hang out in the tent because the bugs were so bad.
The next morning we woke up and had breakfast and then headed for another day hike to the north west part of the island. That was a 3.5 mile hike round trip and it got us some views of the water but we were still in the thick of the woods. Then we headed back to camp for lunch and to pack up to head closer to the dock so we would be as close as possible for Monday morning when the ferry came.
We packed up camp and headed back down to the lake for a swim and a fill up on water. Truckie was going to fish but I think we were just exhausted and we still had almost 4 miles to go until we were where we needed to go. Neither one of us complained (believe that one about me) about our packs being so heavy so that made it for a peaceful trip. My feet were getting so torn up from just walking w/ 50 lbs+ on my back and not have worn my boots for ages.
We finally made it to our camp by 5:00 or so and set up quickly because we were getting hungry. We made dinner and then went for one of the most refreshing swims of our life in Lake MIchigan. It was fantastic!! We went back to camp and were able to hang outside because the bugs weren't as bad and drank some wine. Oh yeah, we brought a bag of wine w/ us to help us sleep better at night and to be able to unwind from a long day. Really glad that we did.
The next morning we got up and ate breakfast and broke down camp and headed for the docks to head back to the mainland. Overall, it was a challenging weekend but so rewarding and am so glad that we did it.
The only wildlife that we did see was chipmunks and a couple snakes. The island is littered with deer but we weren't so fortunate to see any. Oh yeah, we also heard a coyote yipping on Saturday night for about 2 seconds and that was it.
We clocked a total of 17 miles of hiking for the weekend and I thought that was pretty good. I don't think I have hiked that much in the past 2 years total. :) I am physically tired in my legs, knees and feet but mentally I am stronger. It is such a great feeling to be out there and carrying everything you could possibly need on your back. Then, we come back to reality and have this house just full of stuff. It really makes you think about life and just how simple it can be and how much happiness it can bring you!!
So, I have decided to permanently retire my backpack for long trips like this in the future. My knees just can't handle it and I have to really listen to my body. Truckie kept saying that when we bring the kids out here and I kept having to correct him and say YOU. It makes me a bit sad to think that I am only 34 and my knees just can't handle some of the things I just love to do. I guess it is what they call reality!! We can always just take the kids over to the island and camp not far from the dock and just do day hikes.
Anyways, we took lots of fantastic fun pictures and I hope to get those out this week.
We had such a great time w/ great weather. We left my parents cottage Saturday morning to a cool foggy morning w/ deer spread about in random fields. It was somewhat surreal and a great way to start out our weekend. We left the mainland at 10:00 AM sharp to head out to the island. The waters were calm which I was very happy about as the last time I was on this ferry it didn't treat me so well. Truckie and I had been studying the map to decide which part of the island that we were going to focus on. It is 11 miles long and 7 miles wide so trying to explore for a weekend made it hard to decide which area to go. We decided we would stay in the Northern part and stay close to the inland lake which was Lake Manitou.
We got to the island, the ranger gave his talk and then everyone went their own way. I would say there was close to 100 people or more on this island but you would NEVER have guessed because we barely saw anyone just hiking around. It was awesome. We set off for North and it would wrap us around to the West eventually. I was so proud of Truckie and his map guiding skills this weekend. He really stepped up and took charge of where we were going and the distance to that point. It was impressive.
We set up camp about 3.5 miles from the dock. That was more than enough walking w/ our packs on. I have realized my knees are just not what they used to be and they took a pretty good beating. My new motto is, "I am getting older, NOT OLD, but older." We set up camp in the deep dark woods. It was a really remote spot and set us up to hike down to the lake and further west on the island if we wanted and we did.
We were getting low on water so decided to hike down to the lake which was about 2 miles one way. It such a beautiful place. It is so crazy that you are at a lake on the middle of an island. WE filled up our water and splashed some water on our face and just relaxed for a bit. Then we headed back for bed and to hang out in the tent because the bugs were so bad.
The next morning we woke up and had breakfast and then headed for another day hike to the north west part of the island. That was a 3.5 mile hike round trip and it got us some views of the water but we were still in the thick of the woods. Then we headed back to camp for lunch and to pack up to head closer to the dock so we would be as close as possible for Monday morning when the ferry came.
We packed up camp and headed back down to the lake for a swim and a fill up on water. Truckie was going to fish but I think we were just exhausted and we still had almost 4 miles to go until we were where we needed to go. Neither one of us complained (believe that one about me) about our packs being so heavy so that made it for a peaceful trip. My feet were getting so torn up from just walking w/ 50 lbs+ on my back and not have worn my boots for ages.
We finally made it to our camp by 5:00 or so and set up quickly because we were getting hungry. We made dinner and then went for one of the most refreshing swims of our life in Lake MIchigan. It was fantastic!! We went back to camp and were able to hang outside because the bugs weren't as bad and drank some wine. Oh yeah, we brought a bag of wine w/ us to help us sleep better at night and to be able to unwind from a long day. Really glad that we did.
The next morning we got up and ate breakfast and broke down camp and headed for the docks to head back to the mainland. Overall, it was a challenging weekend but so rewarding and am so glad that we did it.
The only wildlife that we did see was chipmunks and a couple snakes. The island is littered with deer but we weren't so fortunate to see any. Oh yeah, we also heard a coyote yipping on Saturday night for about 2 seconds and that was it.
We clocked a total of 17 miles of hiking for the weekend and I thought that was pretty good. I don't think I have hiked that much in the past 2 years total. :) I am physically tired in my legs, knees and feet but mentally I am stronger. It is such a great feeling to be out there and carrying everything you could possibly need on your back. Then, we come back to reality and have this house just full of stuff. It really makes you think about life and just how simple it can be and how much happiness it can bring you!!
So, I have decided to permanently retire my backpack for long trips like this in the future. My knees just can't handle it and I have to really listen to my body. Truckie kept saying that when we bring the kids out here and I kept having to correct him and say YOU. It makes me a bit sad to think that I am only 34 and my knees just can't handle some of the things I just love to do. I guess it is what they call reality!! We can always just take the kids over to the island and camp not far from the dock and just do day hikes.
Anyways, we took lots of fantastic fun pictures and I hope to get those out this week.
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