Vacation Re-cap Part 1!

Alrighty! The vacation re-cap will take quite a while so I'm going to do it over the course of a few days - plus, that lightens the load of having to come up with something "good" right!? So, here we go (and hey, I want to have this all in one place since some day I'll probably print this blog - you didn't know you can do that? You can! - anyway...)

We took of from home around 1:00 in the afternoon since Jim had to work that morning. We grabbed lunch at Sonic and then decided to take the scenic route and go down the gorge on the Washington side via SR14 instead of hitting the interstate on the Oregon side. It certainly made it feel like vacation started right away instead of us driving TO vacation if that makes sense.

Karleigh caught a glimpse of the wind surfers and kite surfers along the way so we pulled off and watched for quite a while and the kids loved it! Karleigh's decided that's going to be her sport when she gets older. I say good on her but she might want to learn how to swim much better first! And fair warning... I was not in the 'zone' for snapping pictures at. all. soooo it is what it is. As I kept reassuring myself, I have the pictures, they will help us all remember, the don't need to be perfect at all.

Wind surfers along the Columbia River, standing in Washington, looking at Oregon.

Karleigh posed but just for a moment. They both had too much fun watching and screaming and laughing about the new-found sport.

We continued along the gorge and eventually ended up in Spokane for the night. Between stopping for almost an hour along the way and the even longer road construction delays in Spokane we were rather late checking into our hotel room. We had planned on going out to a fairly nice dinner for my birthday that night but instead I ended up with a yogurt parfait from McDonalds! Ahhhh how the priorities change when you become a parent... and it's almost 10:00 at night and you promised to paint tiny toe nails purple. :)

We woke up the next morning, hit Starbucks and the road. Instead of heading straight to Whitefish, we took a detour south to Missoula first. We met up with Jim's aunt, cousins and the kids' "cousin", Carson. We had a picnic in the park and as you can see, they were thrilled to get to play with Carson. They've missed him so much since we saw him in December. Rylan absolutely thinks Carson is the greatest. It's so hard to believe that he's up to my chin now. I can still clearly remember holding him for hours the day he went home from the hospital.

Some swing time with Aunt Casey too!

The park not only had a great play area but it had a really fun spray ground too. These aren't the best pics that I got of the kids but I feel kind of strange posting pics of kids I don't know so this is it. It was pretty busy and Karleigh's never met a stranger in her life so she usually has quite a few other kids around her.

They had a great time running around and cooling off! We, as in Jim's cousin and I. decided to let the kids keep playing while we went to do my hair. We weren't gone all that long before her cell rang and it was Aunt Casey letting her know that they were going to leave the park and head to her house. I said when the phone rang "oops, someone must have gotten hurt." Turns out I was right. Some other little girl slammed right into Karleigh and she got all scraped up. She's tough though and luckily none of the scabs were rubbed by her "hiking shoes", which really are just regular ol' Nikes. :)

So, hair felt a million times better, kid was all cleaned up and we said our 'goodbyes' and slid back into the van for the last 2 hours of the drive. The park was the greatest idea because Rylan fell asleep pretty quick and Karleigh just relaxed for most of the way. The stretch of country between Missoula and Whitefish is rather nice to just sit back and day dream about. We swung past the St. Ignatius Mission that was built in the early 1890's.

I've always been rather impressed with the Mission Mountain Range and really liked it this time of year with the vibrant green and gold in the fields.

Flathead lake was also looking mighty nice as we drove past. We looked for the monster for you Mark but alas, we didn't spot him this time ;) but there was one tiny looking sail boat!

Finally, at 8:15 we pulled into Whitefish. What a cute little town! After less than a week there Jim and I both decided that we could totally live there even though it would be pretty tough to beat where we're at right now.

We drove to the condo, picked up the key, hauled everything in, got organized and just sat back and relaxed. The condo was cute! Nicer than what we had anticipated and very clean and cozy. Oh and the beds... ahhhh... the beds were so cozy. The kids had a bit of a tough time getting to sleep that first night, excitement and a new place but once they were asleep, they slept well! And so did we!

Home Again, Home Again!

First things first... the odometer reading as soon as we pulled into the driveway when we got home from our trip!

There are a couple of great guessers out there! But the closest was "Keegan's Mommy"! She was only off by 157 miles. Not too shabby at all! I didn't even have a clue how many miles we would cover! Nice job! You can email me your address to potterjk@msn.com and I'll pop your little gift in the mail.

(don't worry, we don't really need to "check engine"... it just lights up when the car is on but the engine isn't running!)

In the 2,290 miles that we travelled, we stayed in Spokane, Washington two nights, Whitefish, Montana for a week, explored Glacier National Park, visited with one of my friends and her new baby, went to the National Bison Range, swam, stayed up late, woke up late, and just had an overall great family trip.

Of course I have a ton of pictures to go through and hopefully I'll pull it together and share some here. We left on the 11th and got back late on the 20th and of course today is Father's Day so it's going to be a quick post tonight but yes we're home, safe, happy, tired and filled with memories.

Bloggity Blog Contest!

Figured I'd try something new to me. I've never done a blog contest here so here it goes! We're headed off for vacation today...



All you have to do is leave a comment with your guess for how many miles we end up putting on our van during our trip.

Here's the starting reading:

The person (maybe even people??? who knows!?!) closest to the total number of miles driven will get a nifty gifty. In the case of a tie, I'll have Karleigh randomly pick the comment number for the tie-breaker.



Easy enough? Now, go get your guess on!

Where to start? My head is in a weird place right now. We're getting ready for a nice long vacation, the kids and I just got back from my parents house last weekend for a visit with my brother, we had playground night tonight at the school, my birthday is just around the corner and yah, there's lots of exciting stuff for our little family going on.

On top of all that great stuff, there's still that underlying sadness? weirdness? strangeness? of the whole lots-of-dead-babies, are-we-ever-going-to-have-another-live-baby thing and while I'm sitting here I can't even focus on my thoughts because I'm listening to our local news and I really just want to puke. One woman throws her baby into a porta-potty, another mother of two kills a young mother and cuts the unborn baby boy from her body while a soundbite says "it wasn't a living being so there was no crime towards that unborn baby". Then there's the other local mom who shoved her 4 and 7 year olds from a bridge, resulting in the 4 year olds death. I will never ever understand what possesses people to pull this kind of crap. Insane, literally.

I know that God doesn't always work the way that I think He should. Babies don't only end up with those who "deserve" them and sadly they also aren't guaranteed to those who do but man I'm just so... ugh... there really are no words right now so I'm shifting gears a bit, but only a bit.

Back to the whole ever going to have another successful pregnancy? thing... Basically all I can say is that I covet your prayers for being lead the appropriate way for our family. Jim and I have discussed the Femara, off-label, use. We are not going to do it this coming cycle but we may the one following that. Yes, the drug is more expensive. Retail is about 6 times that of the Clomid. However, get this... our insurance covers it on our strange sliding prescription coverage and is guaranteed to cost us less (out of pocket) than the Clomid. Since it's off-label use, it's not viewed as an infertility drug as far as our insurance is concerned. They only view it as a breast cancer medication. Hey, I don't write the rules but I'm happy to play by them!
Although at this point I'm still undecided.
And right now? That's ok.
Even though I don't necessarily FEEL like I have time, I know that I have enough... what ever that really means. I enjoy having my kids 21 months apart in age. How would I feel about 6 years? 8 years? 10 years? Where do we draw the line? If we were to get pregnant at the next possible opportunity, that baby would still arrive over 2 years after we lost Eli. 2 years passes so fast and during that time I do not want to miss out on what I have but I know I've talked about that before.

I'm so far away from where I thought I was going to end up when I sat down to blog tonight. Sooooo far away. However, I do feel a bit better. Anyway, I was supposed to end up with something along the lines of ... we're getting ready for vacation. During that time I will probably be taking a big break from the internet because I want to totally check out and just take in the beauty of our destination, enjoy our first vacation that is just for us -no other reason except for vacation - and *cough* I'm not sure I'll have internet access! LOL I may squeeze in another post or two before we go but I'm also getting our things ready and the house ready for our sitter. I'm hoping to keep the news off for a whole week, re-group, re-charge, hike, drive, swim, play tennis, BBQ, sit next to the fire, take pictures and just relax more than I've done in years... maybe even ever.

Race Cars, Hair Cuts and IEP's, Oh My!

Once again, it's been a week since I updated! I suppose that's a good sign in a way on the other hand, that doesn't mean that I don't have anything to talk about. Like the title said, it's been race cars, hair cuts and IEP's among other things including fishing in the yard and a trip up to my parents house again since my brother was in town that I'll get to later.

Wednesday was a family day. We had some errands to run and along the way, ended up hooking up with a replica of the number 5 car! Rylan was so impressed and though Karleigh hates loud noises [I mean seriously, she runs out of the bathroom with her fingers in her ears when she flushes the toilet] she too loved the sound of the revving engine of course, fingers in her ears. It was a pretty cool set up and had screens for virtual racing inside the car which we did, boys against girls. They drove faster but Jim was black-flagged so that means we won, right? Very fun on a hot day, at least it was in the shade!

Posing with the number 5...

Breaking out a pit fight for reality's sake!

While we were on that side of town, we stopped in to visit one of our friends at one of Jim's stores. While we were there they gave us certificates for the "boys" to get free haircuts, who can say "no" to that!?! The place just opened, in fact I guess their grand opening was today. It's a great place for the guys. TV's tuned to sports, etc. very fun and Rylan was in 7th heaven. Believe it or not, this is his first "real" haircut. He was so thrilled! I've always done it at home because he's just an easy kid but he was so excited to be a big boy. By the way? LOVED his stylist! She was soooooo good with him.


You may have noticed her buzz cut? Well, turns out... she had been working at another salon and had a client with breast cancer. So, she shaved her head along with her client as a show of support for the battle. Then? Her employer decided that it wasn't a professional appearance so they fired her! Can you believe that? Of course, it didn't take her long to find another job because the owner of this salon heard about it and called her and offered her a job. Like I said, she's great.

Oh! Oh! and you know how I've been talking about the weather? Yah, this? is HOT for western Washington in August... and it was only June 3rd!
So, that was Wednesday in a fairly boring nutshell. A whole lot of testosterone for us girls but a great day for the guys. Thursday morning, I had my last meeting with the school for Rylan's preschool information. We went over his IEP and where he is in comparison to where they would like him to be next June. I do have to say, I'm really looking forward to it FOR him. He just loves the teachers and I feel like there's really great communication between the whole team that will be working with him and it seems like they all get along which is a huge bonus. The office staff also called the bus barn for me and it looks like both kids will be in the afternoon session. They will probably load up on different buses to school (it's a staggered start time for the preschool kids) but ride the same one home. At least that's what they're going to try. So yah, I know it'll be rough sending them off to school, 5 days a week at the same time but I'll get to ease into it and I know that it'll be really great for him. Karleigh will start on September 9th and then Rylan will start on the 21st.

We've been getting ready for our vacation so time feels like it's flying for us and hopefully, I'll have lots of great pictures to share over the next couple of weeks!

Happy on My Face

Even with everything that has gone on - test results that give me no answers, continued loss, still working through this process - dare I say I'm making strides and starting to feel a bit more normal. It's been such a process that I don't think I've actually been able to step back and notice it for myself until today.

When we went to the beach on Thursday, Karleigh asked if she could have my "old new camera" for the day. That's her way of asking for the camera that I was using up until December and believe it or not, I actually told her yes. She's quite careful with it and I figure the best way to learn is through doing and she's actually "doing" quite well. It's funny to hear her groan when the flash goes off and then watch her set it so it won't fire. She says she likes grain better than the flash. That's obviously not exactly the way she puts it but that's the point she was trying to get across as we were looking at them today. Fair enough, that's her style and I'm not going to ask her to change it :) Obviously I cropped and edited them a bit but you can't Photoshop in the emotion.

Anyway, on to my point finally. I looked through the pics that she took, most without me knowing and you know what? I look happy in them. Not the fake smile that I've been used to putting on but real smiles while buckling Rylan into his seat, when she called my name to get me to turn around and just chatting with Jim. It makes me so glad to know that this is the look that they are seeing again because this is the way that I want them to remember me.

Psalm 30:5

For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.

Thursday, Beach Day!

As I've mentioned, several times... actually to the point of almost bragging... our weather has been wonderful. Not only was is sunny today, it was near 90 so we took off this morning and hit the beach instead of sweating it out here at the house. The kids had a blast and it was great to just sit around for several hours. If by sit around I mean we walked around, built sand castles and almost, literally, had to drag the kids out of the ocean then yah, we sat around. It was so great and a fairly uneventful day!

These kids have some crazy hops!

We decided to grab one quick family pic after we took the kids over the Astoria Megler bridge, which Karleigh was not too fond of. She's going through this weird afraid of heights and doubly afraid of heights if it's over water thing. We actually had to carry her down from the river viewing tower earlier in the day because she couldn't handle seeing the water below her through the metal stairs. However, back to the bridge... once we were across she admitted that it was a pretty great bridge and was fine as we went back to the Astoria side. Rylan's not looking his finest in this pic. He was very tired and said his tummy hurt. He was asleep in his car seat before I buckled myself in.

Not 45 minutes down the road I felt him kicking my seat and I turned around to look at him and saw... if you're a mom, the look. The look that makes you blurt out "Oh man, he's going to throw up." Jim pulled off the road instantly but it was too late. He threw up on himself and his seat. I don't like puke. In fact, I haaaaaate puke but on puke level of 1 to 10, I would say this was only a 2. He had had some Dr. Pepper when we were leaving Seaside and they never get bottled soda, fountain soda on occasion, but both of them complained about how carbonated it was. We're thinking that was the problem because after getting cleaned off and drinking some water he said he felt a lot better and looked it too. That was about it for excitement so, though I detest puke, it wasn't bad at all.

See? Back in town and all better!