I’m Going To -- Canada, No DISNEYLAND!

Avery wasn’t too sure she wanted to miss a day of swimming, golf, and golf cart riding for a trip to some place called Disneyland. No matter how much I tried to convince her she wanted to go, she didn’t understand until we were there. Now she’s all about Disneyland! She was completely overwhelmed, but loved it. It took her awhile to get into the spirit – for the first hour or so she was very serious, trying to take it all in. But in the end, she was sold. We rode on the train around the park and got of at “It’s A Small World” – which was magnificently holiday themed. Then we rode the Tea Cups, the caterpillars in Alice’s Wonderland, and flew around on Dumbo. Luckily, except for Dumbo, the lines were quite reasonable, although by our Vancouver standards, the park was still pretty packed.

We also got to spend the afternoon with our friends Safaa and her daughter Maddie. Maddie is just a couple of months younger than Avery, and the girls were fast friends. They were real troopers, especially considering the ~10-mile hike from the parking lot to the gates – and back! (Somehow we were guided to the only parking lot without transportation to the gates).

And yes, the girls both wore harnesses. We felt a little silly while hiking through the vast, empty parking lot & past the hotels & theaters, but by the time we entered the park, I was thanking my lucky stars we had them. There was tension on the “leashes” the entire time we were there – we would have lost them in 3 seconds flat I’m sure. Luckily they didn’t seem to mind, and even decided they wanted to trade with each other midway through the day. [Avery’s was a monkey, and Maddie just had to hold the tail. It was extremely cute.] They even enjoyed “trading” mommies off and all day.

Now, instead of “I want to go to the jumble-gym” or “I want to go to Canada,” I forsee a lot of “I want to go to Disneyland.

Avery, Safaa, & Maddie. They don't know to be excited as we're just getting into line for "It's A Small World" -- our first ride.

Avery was so focussed on taking everything in that this was her overwhelmed/happy face for much of the day.

Maddie loved holding on to the "monkey tail," & Avery didn't mind.

The Tea Cups were the ride of the day for Avery!

One of the few ways to pass the time while standing in lines was to let the girls take pictures. Avery took this one of Maddie.

Waiting, waiting, waiting. . . .

They both agreed that it was pretty silly to ride in a giant caterpillar.

Flying elephants? We've never heard of that before! Despite the long wait for this ride, it was Maddie's favorite.

It was Christmas time all over the park.

Time for a cool snack -- just as the sun went behind some clouds & the cold wind started to blow -- Burrrrrrr

The last ride of the day -- tibby up horsey! (as Avery would say)

Ahhhh, the bobsled run. That's the one I would have liked to try, but we ran out of time. We'll have to save it for our next trip.
Finally, a place to sit! Maddie unwinds after the death march to the Simba Parking Lot (warning, no transportation provided to and from the gates from Simba).

The End Of An Era

343 days. 94% of a year.

The boob juice is gone, and Jordan is now a formula-fed baby. I was hoping to get her to the one year mark with breastmilk, but we didn’t quite make it. But considering she hasn’t actually nursed since early March, I guess 11+ months isn’t too bad. For the time being she’s on a commercial formula, but we’ll be meeting with the dietician again soon and get her onto something specialized, which, theoretically, our insurance will pay for. Phew, ‘cause that stuff is expensive!

Sunshine & Palm Trees

You’d think with all the spare time on their hands, a community like Rancho Casa Blanca would have great internet access. But they don’t. I guess the folks here are too busy enjoying the ~75’F weather, playing golf & tennis, swimming, and just taking it easy.

We had a hectic trip down. What was supposed to be a direct flight from Portland to Orange County, with a 10 minute trip to the hotel, turned into another LAX nightmare! Yes, even though I swore in October I wouldn’t do LAX again, we didn’t have a choice this time. They cancelled our flight to OC, then sent us to LA. It took 1h55m to fly to LAX, then 2h30m to get from LAX to our hotel. The shuttles were overbooked, the loaned carseat (from Alaska Airlines) had a broken buckle, Jordan’s carseat didn’t fit in the shuttle van, there were other people to drop off on the way, well, you get the picture.

Anyway, on Wednesday morning Devon took off for work in his office, while Avery, Jordan, & I recovered from our hectic Tuesday night by sleeping for a couple more hours (yeah!). Then Grandpa Earl picked us up & brought us out here to the desert: Indio, California. Since arriving we’ve mostly tried to keep up with Avery. Put-put golf, swimming, & running around in shorts in the sun.

I only packed one pair of shorts, so while I was out doing a little shopping yesterday I decided to get another pair. Virtually impossible! Despite the gloriously summer weather, all the stores are full of winter clothes, including puffy snow-type jackets & boots. I had to repeat myself 3 times to every sales clerk, as they looked at me in astonishment. Shorts? Why would we have shorts? It’s the middle of winter. It was crazy. I finally found some on a clearance rack at the 3rd store I went to. At least they were cheap.

Jordan seems to have a pretty bad cold. I considered the ER last night, but she slept all night from 10:30pm to 7:00am, and is much better today, so I’m hoping we’re through the worst of it. Avery & I are planning to go to Disneyland tomorrow, so I hope Jordan’s well enough to leave with grandma & grandpa for the day. Despite all the mucous, they seem to be in heaven with their girls around.

Avery’s quotes of the trip (so far):
There sure are alotta people here, eh!
This is a fast one, eh!

You can take the girl out of Canada, but you can’t take the Canada out of the girl. I just hope she gets over the fact that we’re going to Disneyland, not Canada – which is where she says she really wants to go.

"Too Much Potty Paper"

Well, Avery was right -- it was too much potty paper in nana Noma's toilet last night. All our efforts were fruitless until I removed the toilet and dug out the blob from the other end -- with some (now former) kitchen tongs. Then Devon had to stop by the plumbing store on the way over to bring a new seal, and he put it back together. Avery had to watch the whole process, and hopefully understands the problem with putting too much potty paper down the toilet. We told her that next time it's plugged she has to unplug it herself. Considering she won't even go potty if the toilet is "not clean" (said with a turned up nose, and believe us, she can hold it for a whole day to avoid a sub-standard bathroom), she wasn't too excited about having to take it apart and dig through it. Hopefully she has learned her lesson. And although we were skeptical that such blockage could be caused by toilet paper alone, we were glad to find out that she was telling the truth.

Nothing like a fun Monday night with the family around the toilet! Sorry, I didn't have the camera around, and I wouldn't have wanted to touch it if I had.

I guess "toilet" was a good theme for the day. Jordan had 2 doctor appointments that didn't go so well, so I pretty much sobbed for those 2 hours. And now I'm starting to panic about being packed in time for our trip, and having food for Jordan after the boob juice runs out on Wednesday (long story with the dietician, part of the general frustration of the day). I think I will sleep for a week while I'm there. Of course I say that now, but about 8 hours into laziness I find that I can't take it anymore & get busy again. Hopefully this busy will include reading some books that are due back to the library soon & watching some DVDs I've been waiting to see.

What A "Bum"mer

Finally we had some time to visit at Nana Noma's house today. Avery helped her set up her Christmas tree, Devon sneaked out for some Christmas & home remodelling shopping of his own, and I plugged away at my list. We all took turns holding & feeding Jordan, of course.

The visit ended on a particularly low note, with Avery plugging the main bathroom toilet. We're not sure what all went down, but all she'll admit to is "too much toilet paper." It's got ~22 hours to fix itself, or Devon will be headed back over with a new set of plumbing supplies, and directions printed off the internet. Lovely!

On a completely different note, here are some pics I snapped of Jordan yesterday while Devon & Avery were out at Home Depot getting a new Christmas tree stand & more varnish for the new doors. I just love them, but can't decide if I like the color or the b&w better.

Happy Week to come!

It's Beginning To Look Alot Like Christmas

It took all day, but we got our tree. It was gorgeous outside, so nice Avery even took off her coat. Too bright for good pictures, though. Oh well. When we got home we had a little issue with a broken tree stand -- it had a barely visible crack in the bottom, and flooded the floor. So that set us back a couple of hours while Devon went to Home Depot for that (& more varnish for the new play room door). Avery did her best to help decorate, but it just wasn't fast-paced enough to hold her attention for too long at a time. She had much more fun bowling with the bulbs (yeah, plastic) & "decorating" the house with all the stuff she wasn't supposed to get into. Devon will be permanently attached to the broom for the next few weeks -- he hates the pine needles everywhere. But to me the tradition of going to get a real tree, and the smell of the tree in the house for a month is definitely worth a few pine needles on the floor. He's a fairly good sport about it.
Avery was so into the Christmas spirit she was found to be wrapping her toys up as presents (for Kate, she said). But she didn't have any tape, so she didn't get very far. Oh well, after wrapping them a couple of times she was bored with that, too. By the end of the day Avery & I had to get out of the house. We were going to go play at the local inside play park, but it was so packed we settled on a trip to the carousel, again. Avery rode her favorite horse, "Ginger" (#47), again, and I got dizzy, again. Devon & Jordan stayed home for Hockey Night In Canada (yes, the miracle of modern technology at work).

When we got home I crashed for 3 hours. I was sooooooo sleepy, but so relieved to have the tree in. I know I shouldn't be so crazy about all these things, but it's just the way I get in December. Oh well.

Now, any good suggestions for buttering Avery up for pictures tomorrow? I'm sure that will involve a huge bribe. . . .

Snow In Vancouver, Washington!

Okay, so these pics are from Tuesday, and as you can guess it didn't last long -- but we enjoyed it! I know, I know, for those of you in real winter places like Canada & Alaska (and many more), this is pathetic. But hey, it wasn't rain.

Striking A Balance

So, it's finally December 1st. I've been so anxious about December that I've gone a bit crazy. In an effort to avoid the chaos, confusion, and stress of the month, I transfered it to this week instead. I'm exhausted, have a hellova cold, and am still plugging away on my lists of things to "get done."

Gotta get my stuff done. Write a holiday letter, get the girls' Christmas pictures taken, decorate, plan 2 birthday parties, buy Christmas & birthday presents, and catch up on all the little tasks I've been ignoring for the last few months (mainly get all my pictures from January to October organized and labelled before all the holiday shots start filling my files -- I've never fallen behind like this before, yikes!). In addition, I've still seem to spend way too much time on the phone with doctors and especially the insurance company (they don't make it easy).

For most of the last year I've felt like I'm busy all day and have nothing to show for it by night. Where does my time go? Some days it's not so bad, but other days it's soooooo frustrating. Avery takes the normal amount of almost-3-year-old attention, and Jordan, of course, is still like a newborn (with a feeding tube and alot of medicines & supplements), so I practically never have a minute without tending to one of them. Yes, this is the life of motherhood, and I'm certainly not the first person to go through this. But it certainly can be frustrating at times, as many of you know.

But sometimes enough is enough -- I warned the troops that I was putting my nose to the grindstone, and this week was going to be all about me and my lists (yes, plural, for different topics). I just can't bear to head into the holiday season, not to mention 2007, totally unprepared. And with our upcoming trip to Orange County & Indio coming in just a few days, I've got to get my ducks in a row!!!

Of course, that means that this week has basically sucked. My mom has been here everyday helping out (see photo below), while I run & run & run to "get stuff done," while still trying to carve out time for Avery & Jordan so they don't think I've forgotten about them. Maybe I should have paced myself better over the last couple of months, and perhaps I should just let things go a little more. I've already dropped my annual goodie-baking day (yes, one day a year, I like to bake & fill up goodie plates for friends & family). The holiday letter is a maybe/maybe not this year (especially because of the blog). And I've officially given up December gloegg (mulled wine) parties for birthday parties. But some things just can't be forgotten: getting and decorating a fresh tree, shopping for gifts, taking Christmas pictures of Avery & Jordan, celebrating our anniversary (not in the hospital having a baby this year), and tending to the end of 2006.

Now it's Friday night, I'm up too late again, and I'm already anxious about finishing up things this weekend. I keep crossing things off my lists slightly faster than I add to them. I hope it will pay off, & that I'll be able to enjoy the rest of the month a little more. I will enjoy the desert, Devon's office holiday party (on the Queen Mary in Long Beach), Disneyland (with Avery), and visiting friends & family while we vacation. Either that, or I'll sleep for a week straight while Grandpa Earl & Grandma Linda tend to their grandchildren.

Jordan bundled up after one of her numerous baths over the last few days. Boy does she stink when she's barfing (from her cold). Unfortunately, a bath only does so much, and brushing her 3 teeth & tongue is a challenge in and of itself! At least she's cute about it, but both of us could all do without a cold this week.