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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Ava's Turn

Don't fall out of you chairs with disbelief that I've blogged 3 times in 1 week. Enjoy it while you can!

Since Emily has been the focus of the past couple of entries, I thought it was time for Ava to have a turn. Last week, I joined Ava on a field trip with her class to Deanna Rose Farmstead. The farmstead is 12 acres filled with farm animals, birds, a fishing pond, playground, dairy barn, one-room school house, and tepees. The girls always enjoy going there, especially Ava, who is afraid of very little.

Since Deanna Rose is further south than where we live and Ava's school is north of the house, I opted to meet Ava there after dropping Emily off at Grandma and Papa Price's house. Ava was very excited to ride the bus and from what I was told, she talked of nothing else from the moment she got to school until getting off of the bus. Below: Ava getting off of the bus with help from Ms. Tina.

Once inside the farmstead, the kids visited many of the animals. They were able to feed the goats and even enter a goat petting zoo. Unlike Emily, Ava enjoyed the goats and never once felt overwhelmed by the assertiveness of them. Below: Ava feeding goats.

After looking at some of the animals, the children found the playground. Ava had a wonderful time climbing, running, and sliding.

After 30 minutes or so, the children headed off to the dairy barn to look at the cows and the newborn calves. Once again, Ava had no fear of petting the calves.

Before heading off to lunch, we walked past the fishing pond, where one father decided to fish. The children looked on and enjoyed seeing the fish squirm when out of the water. They also enjoyed the worms used for bait. Ava and a friend decided that playing in the rocks that formed the path was much more exciting. Miss Tine, a teacher, gave Ava a cup to use to play in the rocks. Below: Ava proudly showing off her cup of rocks.

Finally, we sat down and ate lunch. Ava ate a little of the lunch that I packed her but soon discovered that Ms. Tina was passing out chips, which are much better than anything that I would pack for her lunch. Throughout lunch, Ava kept asking me where her bus was. I explained where it was and that it would not leave without her. Every time a bus drove by Ava would yell out, "No bus! Don't leave without Ava!" Eventually, the class walked back to their bus and Ava was very happy to see it. As her bus was pulling up to pick up the kids, Ava once again yelled out, "No bus! Don't leave without Ava!" Needless to say, Ava was very happy to get on the bus. All in all, everyone had a great time to Deanna Rose.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Emily's First Day Home cont.

As I left off on Sunday, Emily was having a busy Monday morning. Below are pictures of her washing and waxing the car which began enthusiastically but the enthusiasm only lasted for a short while.

She was a good little helper but did get pouty after awhile. I asked her what she thought I did at home everyday. She didn't respond so I said, "Do you think that I watch t.v. and eat all day?" To that, she nodded her head up and down and said "Yes!" I told her that I do work around the house during my vacations and complete projects that I can't otherwise do during the school year. As a side note, I have noticed that Kevin no longer asks what I do everyday during my vacations. I think that he believes the same thing that Emily did, that I watch t.v., take naps, and eat all day. I will admit that some of that does occur, however I do complete projects, exercise, and read during my break. I believe that after a hard year of nonstop working that I deserve some time to relax, as does every other hard working person.

After finishing the car and having lunch, Emily went upstairs to complete her "homework". I purchased some fun vocabulary and math workbooks for her to work on during the summer so as to not loose everything that she has learned over the past 5 years. Emily is also so close to reading that I want to continue to encourage that. She is very excited about spelling words. She runs around the house spelling "hat", "sat", etc. It is just amazing how much she enjoys learning. I hope that will continue throughout the next twenty some odd years. Below, there is a picture of her studying.

Emily finished her first day at home with attending Vacation Bible School at our church. The theme was Rock Star with the idea that God is our Rock and that we build our life upon him as our foundation. VBS was Monday - Thursday evening from 6 - 8 with a rock theme every night; Monday was 50's/60's night with "Rock Around the Clock" as the theme song, Tuesday was70's night with "I Wanna to Rock and Roll All Night" as the theme song, Wednesday night was 80's with "We Got the Beat" as the theme song, and Thursday was dress up as your favorite rock star. The Praise Band played each of these songs on the designated nights. How often do you get to hear KISS in church? The kids had a variety of activities that related to rocks that included drama, art, recreation, and building techniques. Emily had a wonderful times and said that she couldn't wait for VBS next year. While Emily participated, I also helped by being a class guide for a 1st/2nd grade class so I also had the opportunity to experience this fun time. Next year Ava will be able to join us and hopefully Kevin will want to volunteer as well. Below are pictures of our VBS shirts that we were every night.

As I said before, Thursday night was "Dress as your favorite rock star" and Emily chose to dress like Hannah Montana. We do not allow Emily to watch Hannah Montana as we feel that she is too young for this show and we don't necessarily believe in what it or any other preteen show seems to portray however, Emily wanted to dress as she thought Hannah Montana would dress when she preformed. Below are two pictures, one as Hannah Montana and the other with her VBS shirt.

She definitely looks like a rock star to me!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Emily's First Day At Home

This spring, Emily made the choice that she would like to stay home with me during the summer instead of staying at Day Care. In anticipation for this, I signed Emily up for 4 weeks of swim lessons and tennis lessons, we purchased a pool pass for our city pools, and I made arrangements for Emily to spend 1 day a week with her Grandma Price. Kevin and I decided that Emily would start this new adventure on June 16, which would allow me 2 weeks to by myself to complete projects around the house as well as relax from a busy year. So Sunday night, Junee 15, arrived and Emily was so excited that she would be able to sleep in Monday morning. Emily morning arrived and she did sleep in until 6:45 a.m. She then put on her "work out" clothes, helped me send off Kevin and Ava, and then proceeded to work out with me. He weights consisted of two cans of baking powder and her exercise ball was a big ball that we purchased at Target a few years back. I was impressed with her ability to do the exercises. She still needs some work on her techinique but that will come in time. We then went for a bike ride around the block. Emily received a bike for her 4th birthday and has been too scared to ride it anywhere except the kitchen. She told us that she would learn to ride her bike this summer. Unfortunately, the few time tht we have had the bike out this summer, she has cried and whined for the majority of the ride. She doesn't like going down the hills, understandably, because she goes too fast and it is scary for her. Bike riding has become a bigger ordeal than eith Kevin or I want to deal with. The problem that now occurs is that she has out grown her bike, the largest available with training wheels. We don't want to buy a new, larger bike if she doesn't know how to ride the current bike that she has. I brough the bike over with us to Indy, hoping that Grammy and Gramps might be able to help with the learning process. Their streets are fairly flat so I thought that Emily could get more comfortable with riding before tackling the hills. Back to Monday, Emily to a great job on her bike and cried and whines very little. Upon returning to the house, we had breakfast and I told her about our day. I planned to wash and wax the sedan since the weather would be in the mid to upper 70's. Emily thought that would be so much fun so after breakfast we gathered our supplies and began the job. First the wash. Emily was very helpful and even had a little shower in the process.

I'm having some techinical difficulties with adding photes and since I'm not very good at navagiting this site, I'm going to stop now. I'll continue on Tuesday when I return from Indy.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

A Funfilled Weekend

Although it is Wednesday, I am going to back track to bring you up to date. Emily began staying home with me on Monday so I haven't had much time to write. On Saturday, Emily had a birthday party of a former daycare buddy to attend. It began at 1:00 and concluded around 7:00. During the 6 hour party, the kids were entertained by a bilingual clown, swam, danced, ate, and hit a pinata. The clown spoke both English and Spanish so during the show he spoke both languages. At one point he asked Emily's friend Morgan if she spoke English and her response, in perfectly English was, "No, I don't speak English!" The mothers and fathers could not stop laughing at her response. Later in the afternoon, the children enjoyed hitting a pinata. This was Ava's first opportunity to hit a pinata and this was the first time that Emily actually hit one. Usually, she refused to hit the pinata and would just watch the other children. When the pinata broke, the girls had fun collecting candy. Ava was a little shy about it but did pretty well.

After the pinata, the birthday girl pulled out her motorized Barbie jeep and let her friends drive her around the tennis court. Emily took her turn and unfortunately, gave us an idea of what her driving will look like. Emily began her tour of the tennis court in reverse. Once she figured out how to go forward, she began to drive toward the tennis net. As she drove, she looked up at us smiling and, of course, not paying attention to where she was going. Pretty soon the adults were yelling at her, "Watch where you are going!" "Turn the wheel!" I think that Emily needs to get her hearing checked because she just looked at the net and kept driving straight for it. Soon, the net was on the girl's faces as they drove under the net. I'm surprised that she didn't tear the net. Kevin and I were laughing hysterically. Before we knew it, Emily had made it through her first road block and was proceeding onto the next one, the fence. Luckily, the father of the birthday girl ran over to Emily and turned the wheel just in time. The rest of the ride, Emily kept turning the wheel left and right and forced the other birthday participants to keep out of her path. Finally, she stopped the jeep, jumped out, and ran to me in tears. She was embarrassed of her driving performance. Of course, it didn't help matters that many of the adults were laughing, including her own parents. Overall, the party of a success and the girls had a wonderful time.

On Sunday, we began Father's Day with a trip to the zoo with our friends Scott, Wanda, Allison, and Jeremy. We arrived around 10:15 and enjoyed viewing the animals in the Africa section of the zoo before the rain moved in around 1:00. We made it back to the van just as the rain began to fall. Around 3:30 guests began to arrive for our Father's Day celebration. Kevin's parents, his sister and her family, and my grandparents all came to have dinner. We had flank steak pinwheels, potato salad, fruit salad, vegetables and dip, and strawberry cake with homemade Orange Dreamsicle ice cream. Everything was very tasty. Sorry, no pictures. After dinner there were gifts and finished watching the U.S. Open.
Below: Kevin, Emily , and Ava.

All the fathers lined up: Doug Price, Ken Tebow, Doug Houdek, and Kevin

Great G'ma and G'pa with the girls.

We concluded the evening with a fabulous performance of dancing and singing to a Johnny Cash song by Emily and Ava.

Monday, June 09, 2008

The New Backyard

I had the best hopes of writing a new entry last Wednesday. I planned my day so that I would return to the hotel around 3:30 which would give me enough time to post a new entry before Kevin returned from the office. When I arrived back at the room, Kevin was already there with a proposition of taking a ferry ride across the Puget Sound. I decided to scrap the blog entry and take the ferry ride instead. Kevin and I had a wonderful time in Seattle. I had dinner with Pat and Carl Tuesday night and enjoyed their highly recommended "Blue Plate Special" at Chitnook. Kevin was not feeling well that night so he did not join us but I still had a wonderful time visiting with them. As I told Mom later in the week, it is such a different yet enjoyable feeling to visit with my aunts and uncles as an adult instead of as a child. Wednesday I walked around downtown as well as Capitol Hill looking for Peet's Coffee for Mom. After a nice workout, I saw Sex in the City before heading back to the hotel. Deciding to take a ferry ride, Kevin and I walked down to catch the 5:30 ferry to Bremerton, but not before meeting Kevin's coworker Chris for drinks. The ferry was a little crowded, with commuters and Mariner fans returning home however it was an enjoyable ride. Once in Bremerton, we had a delightful but rushed dinner at Anthony's. Somehow our order got lost and when it was finally discovered we did not get our dinner until 7:30. Out goal was to catch the 7:50 ferry back to Seattle. Needless to say, we wolfed down our food, had the waiter package up our complementary dessert, and dashed to the ferry. In the end we had enough time, but neither one of us wanted to take the chance of missing the ferry and waiting over 1 hour for the next ferry back to Seattle. Overall, we had a fabulous time and I just wish that Kevin did not have to work so that we could have spent more time together. Maybe next year we can plan a trip for out 10th anniversary.

Now about the backyard. It took about 2 1/2 weeks to completely change the backyard from a "landfill", as Kevin commonly termed it, into a place where the girls can safely play. The workers took out all of the railroad ties, bushes, weeds, and rocks; pushed back lower level to add more "flat" area for grass; put in a french drainage system to help drain the unusually large amount of water that pools in the backyard; and built a wall that, at its highest, is 4 ft. tall. The finished product is amazing! Below are pictures showing the same section of the backyard from beginning to end.

I still need to go outside and stand on the roof of the sunroom to get a good overall picture of the entire backyard. Maybe I can do that tomorrow. The whole family enjoys the backyard. The girls stand on the wall and perform while whoever will watch sits on the patio and waits to be told to clap. Although we knew the backyard project would have to be tackled some day, we had hoped to wait for a while. However, now that it is done, it is wonderful to actually enjoy looking at the backyard instead of cringing at it. Any one who is in the neighborhood, please feel free to come and enjoy the new backyard!

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Well, I just wrote an entry and somehow lost it. So I'll try it again. I'm sitting in the "Living Room" of the Downtown Seattle W Hotel watching the businessmen dodge the raindrops. Kevin has business in the Seattle office and was able to plan the trip to coincide with my first week on summer vacation so that I could join him on a mini vacation. I have to admit, it is nice to be able to get away and spend the days on my own and evenings with Kevin. I won't have much time to myself this summer since Emily will be home with me starting the middle of June.
Admist the difficult times with Zoe this month, May has had some highlights. Emily graduated from preschool during mid May. She and 16 other little ones participated in a ceremony in which each child individualy or in a group sang songs, read poems, counted by 5's or to 100, and wrote their names. Emily sang, in her bousterious voice, "Tell Me the Continents". For those of you who have never been blessed to be serinaded to by Emily need to know that she tends to yell the song instead of sing it. A little embarrassing considering she comes from such a musical family.  She did a great job and it was wonderful to see her perform. She received a certificate and of course, I cried when she received it. It just seems so hard to believe that she will be attending Kindergarten in the fall. Where does the time go? Below: Emily with her teacher Ms. Sevendar

The day after her graduation, Emily had her first dance recital. I think that I was more excited about it then she was, fondly remember my own dance recitals on the big stage. Emily performed two routines, one tap and one ballet. She did a fabulous job! She didn't seem to be nervous but was a little unsure of the next step which led her to watch the other girls. I was so proud of her!   When I went to pick her up backstage after the show, she wanted to see everyone that came to watch her and wanted to know where her flowers were. We went to the lobby and she was excited to see Grandma and Papa Tebow, Grammy and Gramps, Grandma and Papa Price, Aunt Beth and Uncle Doug, Aunt Charlene, and Ava. She wanted to know where Cole and her Dad were. We headed outside, and ran into Cole, who was carrying flowers in his arms, and Kevin. Emily was so excited to receive flowers that she didn't hear me when I told her that they were from her Dad and me. She still thinks that her cousin gave her the flowers. I guess that's how it should be.


I'm excited to sign her up for dance again in the fall. Although she said that she was bored, I think that I will veto her and sign her up for it anyway. I think that dance definetly helps with her self-confidence and coordination with her long legs and arms. I guess we'll find out this fall.

Tomorrows entry: Whatever happened to the Price's backyard?

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Saying Goodbye is Never Easy

Exactly two weeks after getting the grim diagnosis of liver cancer, we made the difficult decision of saying goodbye to the dog who we love greatly. Originally, we were given a potential life span of 2-4 months for Zoe to live and unfortunately that did not hold true. We were however, able to enjoy a little over 1 week of a slightly less energetic but enthusiastic Zoe who eagerly greeted us at the door every time we entered, anxiously awaited scrapes of food falling from the table, and immensely enjoyed any TLC lavished on her. This week we began to see changes in her and by midweek we knew that our time with her was limited. Within 72 hours, Zoe transformed from a dog full of energy to a dog who no longer could move. When the decision was made to put her to sleep on Thursday evening, we began to dread Saturday morning, knowing what needed to be done. However, as the next 36 hours progressed, Saturday morning could not come quick enough as we watched Zoe decline further by each hour. By this morning, we knew that we had made the correct decision for Zoe. We said our goodbyes and by 8:15 a.m. a sense of peace passed through us as we gave Zoe the peace that she needed.

She will be greatly missed by those who knew her and loved her. She has taught our family so many wonderful lessons and is still teaching us as we learn to live without her. The most difficult part of the last few days have been the explanations of her decline to the girls. Their innocent questions and statements have actually been a good way to prepare for Zoe's death. The most comforting statement was made by Emily when she said, "When Zoe dies, she will be able to go to heaven and take walks with Grandma Schultz." Interestingly, it takes a child to comfort an adult.

As the day has progressed, the sense of relief and peace has become greater, although the numbness still exists. I'm sure that we will struggle with this for many weeks and/or months but, eventually, we know that the good memories will outweigh the unhappy ones of the past fews weeks. Below we have included some pictures that we feel reflect Zoe's funfilled personality.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Yellow dog is in trouble--The Grim Reaper has come calling

This past week we got the horrible news that Zoe, our yellow lab (8 years old and unofficial 1st child), has a massive growth on her liver. After several sleepless nights and much second guessing we decided to let nature take its course (2-4 months). The surgery and treatment was upwards of $5K with no guarantee of any prolonged life. In fact, it appears that even surgery wouldn't be able to remove all areas involved. Devastating. A picture of Zoe's mama, Dolly below. Zoe looks just like her mama. Beautiful dogs. A tear hits the keyboard as I type this...

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Who needs a Backyard Anyway?

Answer: The Price family.

Last week we started on a backyard renovation project to replace rotted railroad ties that were undoubtedly installed when the house was built almost 30 years ago and to hopefully resolve some drainage issues. The project is well underway and should hopefully be wrapped up sometime this week (weather permitting). We decided to go the expensive route and have someone do it for us. Doctor's Lawn and Landscape (www.doctorslawn.com). After all, we don't own a Dingo (www.toro.com/dingo) or know how to operate one. Not to mention the removal and disposal of all of the rotted ties (several hundred pounds a piece) and the time it takes to complete such a project on your own.

Below: Some before shots

Last Monday, 4/28, the crew arrived to rip out the ties and begin constructing the stone wall to replace them. Destruction pictured below.

What a mess, but it is something we decided needed to be done. It wasn't safe for the girls to play in the backyard anymore, not to mention the mess of all of the mud! However, Zoe is a little unsettled and perhaps even suffering from slight depression because of her disheveled "kingdom". The silver lining for Zoe is that she is receiving many more walks and will continue to benefit from daily walks until the project is complete because part of the fence was removed to get the equipment into the yard. More pictures to follow with the new stone wall installed!! We decided on this product for the wall-- http://www.belgard.biz/photos-retaining-walls.htm.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Funny How Certain Days Can Be

On the way into work yesterday morning, I had an interesting happenstance. A little background first. Generally working downtown being in close proximity to the Jackson County, MO courthouse and KC City Hall means endless harassment from activists trying to get a signature on this petition or that. Yesterday, turned out to be a little different. I was approached by a younger gentleman and at first I was prepared to give my standard response...I'm not a Missouri resident or a Jackson County, MO voter so I cannot sign your petition. However, I was surprised to find out he was a Justice of the Peace or a minister of some sorts and he was asking me to be an official witness to a wedding. A wedding in the courtyard of the Richard Bolling Federal Building? Very romantic indeed. I quickly asked how long it would take and he said 2-3 minutes. I obliged. So I was an official witness to a wedding for an Asian couple. It appeared the groom was Asian-American and the bride was Asian but not from the U.S. She spoke very broken English. Anyway, I along with a maintenance man from the Federal Building, armed with broom and trash can, were "official witnesses" to the wedding. I signed the marriage certificate and headed into the building to start my work day. Interesting to say the least. I suspect the bride needed to get married to stay in the country. There wasn't even a kiss between the two after the vows were exchanged. The groom did mention that they planned to have a traditional wedding in China. For their sake, I hope so. Not exactly a picturesque wedding in the courtyard of the Federal Building.

Below: The "beautiful" Richard Bolling Federal Building.