Ups and Downs

What a roller coaster ride this week has been! Elle had her last session of tumbling and her dance class called "Boogie Woogie." Elle's favorite part of her dance class was the animal dance where the kids did movements similar to a monkey, elephant, and tiger. When Elle started tumbling she wouldn't walk across the balance beam without holding the teacher's hand and walking sideways on it. Now she walks forward all by herself! The next session of classes through the Parks & Rec Dept. doesn't start until next year so we have some time to decide what classes she'll take. She really enjoys the tumbling and dance classes, so we'll probably continue them. There's also a Spanish class for 3-5 year olds which we've considered enrolling her in. Any suggestions as to if a Spanish class would be a good idea or not?

Last weekend we attended the Old Fashioned Horse and Buggy parade. It was really, really cold out, so we only stayed for about half of the parade. Also, Jay tried to eat gum off of the ground twice, so Sarah's hands were a bit full. Elle and Sarah also made two batches of cookies. One batch had a plethora of chips- chocolate, peanut butter, and butterscotch. We used Christmas cookie cutters on the other batch and covered them in icing and sprinkles. Sarah bought one of the sprinkle containers that has 6 type of sprinkles and Elle pretty much depleted the whole thing! We enjoyed just a few of the cookies before Guinness got a hold of them and ate every single one of them. What are we going to do with that dog?

On Friday we attended some festivities at Elle's school. It was open to members of the Arts Center and to families who have their children at school there. On Saturday it was open to the general public. The flier said the had some small gifts for children to purchase. It was really neat how they had it arranged- Sarah had to fill out a list of who Elle should buy gifts for and then hand over some money. Then, Elle went back through a miniature door with a helper and she picked out gifts for everyone on the list. Sarah met up with Elle downstairs where she came out with a bag full of wrapped gifts. So, she truly went Christmas shopping without any of us and what is under the tree will be a surprise! I think it's such a cute idea and it allows the kids some independence. We also supported the preschool by buying some cookies (which was good since ours were already eaten by Guinness) and we entered some raffles.

Patrick spent last weekend in Newton for a swim meet and is currently in Wichita for a 3 day meet. Elle woke up around 6:30 yesterday morning, crying. Sarah thought maybe she had a bad dream, but when she went to Elle's room Elle said, "I throwed up." Poor little thing. So, we put her sheets in the washing machine, brushed her teeth, and she laid in bed with Sarah (although she never went back to sleep). Meanwhile, Sarah's stomach started to feel a biz queazy and it just grew worse from there. Sarah grew much sicker whereas the kids were okay most of the day. That is until Elle threw up right before bed time. She's still feeling pretty pathetic today :( Hopefully we'll all be better by Monday.

Winter was here in full effect this week. We had very cold temperatures (one day the high was 13) and some snow. Schools in many nearby areas were cancelled, but Lawrence still had school. The roads were quite icy and unfortunately Sarah's car, Lyle, was in a little fender bender. Later Elle said, "Mommy, watch out for cars 'cause you bumped into one."

Thanksgiving in Indiana

Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone. Things have been quite busy for us. Sarah finished up her semester today, although she'll still be going to her practicum without a true holiday break. Patrick has been bogged down with coaching, swim meets, and lots of design work projects. It's been challenging for us to stay on top of things lately (like our blog), but we're trying.

For Elle's last preschool class prior to the Thanksgiving break all of the kids had to bring in a piece of fruit. During class the kids made fruit salad together. Then, parents came early to pick up the kids and everyone shared some fruit salad. Isn't that quite festive for Thanksgiving? A nice way to show teamwork and sharing.

For Thanksgiving we went to Indiana and had a lovely meal with Patrick's family. Everyone worked really hard on making the meal. Meanwhile, Sarah ended up clogging the garbage disposal and it took Patrick's dad about an hour to fix the problem. Thank goodness he was able to fix it and a plumber wasn't required. Sarah may go back to just using the trash can instead of the garbage disposal.... Elle played Bingo on Thanksgiving with one of the little girls of Patrick's cousin. She was so sad to leave Elle and nearly started crying when she found out that Elle was lying down and wasn't available for a goodbye hug.

While in Indiana we spent some time shopping in the quaint town in Nashville and were able to find some good Christmas presents for the kids! One of the days Santa rode into town on a fire truck and met the kids at the "North Pole." As usual, Elle gets really excited to see Santa, but then won't actually get near him. She didn't mind getting close to Mrs. Claus, though. Patrick, Grant (Patrick's brother), and Sarah also visited a brewery in Bloomington.

Another reason we went to Indiana was for Patrick's high school reunion. We saw a number of his friends, many of whom we hadn't seen since our wedding! It was really good to catch up with them and take some photos. It was also quite exciting to learn that some of Patrick's high school classmates read our blog (thanks!). Our drive home from Indiana was not very fun. Everyone else was on the road so we were in stop-go traffic and were much delayed in our return. Here is Patrick with some of his high school friends:

The Stickwork Project

What a beautiful weekend we have had here in Kansas. The temperature has been in the 70's and we've had the windows open. It's been great. Unfortunately, Patrick has missed out on the warm weather since he was coaching all weekend at a meet.

On Friday Sarah and the kids went for a nature hike around Clinton Lake. It was fun, but it was quite a long distance for the kids. Both were quite tired on the way back to the car. On Saturday Sarah and the kids went to the Stickwork Project (a huge hut made of intertwined sticks; see http://www.stickwork.net/news.php) and the History Museum on campus. Lots of fun! And today we went to the park and made pine cone bird feeders. I'm not sure if now is the time to really put out pine cone bird feeders, but it was fun.

Patrick's been a bit under the weather this weekend. He won't have a lot of time to recuperate as he had a meet this weekend, will have morning practices this week, followed by another meet next weekend.

Last weekend Sarah rearranged Elle's room a bit. Elle walked in and after gasping she said, "thank you, mommy, for making my room so... happy!" It is funny how kids describe things. We have had lots of adventures with Guinness lately. He recently ate through our fence so he could go visit the neighbor's dog, so the fence had to be replaced. Last weekend when we were doing yardwork, Elle held the front door open so he could sail right out and down the street. Today, Sarah must not have latched the side gate well as both dogs got out and trotted down the street. After Sarah retrieved the dogs, Elle suggested that Guinness go to time-out. Never a dull moment with Guinness around!

Halloween!

It is hard to believe that it is already November! October sure did fly by. It will be a new year before we know it. We've had a lot of house projects going on lately. We had to fix a leaky kitchen faucet recently. As you can see in the picture, the kids were trying to be quite helpful when working on the faucet! We also replaced Jay's ceiling fan. The light on it still worked, but the fan didn't, so we replaced it.

We had a fun Halloween. Elle dressed up as a bat and Jay was a dinosaur. Jay was funny when trick-or-treating. When people opened their doors, he would try to walk right into their houses! The kids definitely had fun trick-or-treating and indulging in some candy. They also were able to dress up for trunk-or-treat, which was put on one evening by the Aquahawks. Elle wore her costume to class on Friday and the preschool kids paraded around downtown a bit. It was extremely cold that day, so I don't think they were gone from the class too long.

Patrick celebrated his birthday this past week. His parents came into town to help celebrate. On Friday they all went to a concert- Yonder Mountain String Band. The band actually played two evenings in Lawrence and recorded both sessions. Apparently they were very good and they played for quite a long time.

A Cold October

Lawrence has gone from a nice, warm September to a freezing cold October.  The high this weekend has been in the upper 40's--burr!!  What happened to fall?  Patrick and Elle went to part of the KU football game yesterday.  Elle was dressed in her snowsuit and a winter hat, but was still cold!  Sarah and Jay tailgated inside the warm house of some friends of ours who live close to the stadium.  We were also over at their house a few weeks earlier during the football game and the weather was nice and warm so the kids were able to play outside a lot.

Last weekend we went to the pumpkin patch.  It's good we went when we did since it is so cold this weekend.  We had a nice time at the pumpkin patch and had a good choice of pumpkins.  Jay was very excited to see all the pumpkins, which he calls "bum bums."  That is his version of pumpkins.  Elle is also going to the pumpkin patch tomorrow with her preschool class.  Sarah won't be at her practicum as VA employees don't work on Columbus Day, so she's going to help out with the preschool class.  It should be fun!  

Elle Starts Preschool

Well, we've had a busy 2 weeks.  Elle officially started preschool and she's been loving it!  The first day of school was only a half day to allow the kids a chance to better acclimate without overwhelming them, I suppose.  She comes home most days with art projects- drawings, paintings, and artwork involving stickers and even sugar.  Elle came home from class one day with an invitation to a birthday party for one of her classmates.  The party was today and it turns out that Elle and the little girl took tumbling together over the summer.  And speaking of tumbling, Elle started another tumbling class this week.  She enjoyed her summer class so much that we decided to enroll her in the fall.  Now that Elle is in preschool she is no longer going to daycare.  Instead, we are sending Jay to daycare during the time Elle is in school so Patrick can go to the office and get some work done.  Jay has been coming home each day from day care utterly exhausted from playing hard with the other kids.  Going to daycare sure does wear him out for the rest of the day.  

Here is a picture of Elle on her first day of school:

This weekend was K-Club weekend, which means that there were event for former student athletes.  Sarah and Patrick's friends, Julie and Andy, flew in from New York and stayed with them over the weekend.  We also saw a bunch of other swimmer friends from college, which was great!  On Friday night there was a get-together at one of the restaurant/bars in town.  Saturday morning we went to the K-Club tailgate on the hill and then attended the football game.  Although the high temperature was only supposed to be around 80 degrees, sitting in the sun made it feel as if it was quite a bit warmer and we all walked away from there with a pink tint.  On the down side, Patrick apparently parked where he wasn't supposed to- within 20 feet of a crosswalk- and received a parking ticket.  Did anyone else know you aren't supposed to park within 20 feet of a crosswalk?  Anyhow, it was good seeing old friends and we wish we could see them all more often.

On a sad note, Sarah found out that her mom has to put one of their dogs to sleep on Monday.  Simba is 15 years old and has lived such a great life.  He has fluid in his lungs and has a massive tumor in his lungs- so large, in fact, that the vet could not see his heart on the X-ray.  It is hard to receive such unhappy news but it has been wonderful having Simba in our lives.

Our Butterflies

I wanted to provide an update about our butterfly garden.  We have added to our garden throughout the summer and it is doing quite well.  Hopefully most of the plants come back next year.  We were all excited when we noticed some caterpillars crawling up the side of our house and settling in on the overhand right over the butterfly garden.  It was even more exciting, though, to come back a couple hours later and see that the caterpillars had become cocoons!  Cocoons are quite intricate and beautiful with the little gold colored specks on them.  We have had a total of 4 cocoons in our butterfly garden thus far.  Unfortunately, nature takes its course.  One of the cocoons fell down for reasons we don't know.  We think a spider may have attacked a cocoon that is currently hanging up.  The other 2 cocoons, though, have become beautiful monarch butterflies.  

We noticed each of the cocoons turning from a bright green to a dark, blackish color.  If you looked closely at the cocoon you could see the details on the butterfly's wings through the cocoon.  Shortly thereafter each of the butterflies came out and were seen flying amongst our butterfly bushes.  I know I have spent a lot of time writing about this, but it has been neat to watch and exciting to share with the kids.

  

Sarah has started the new semester as well as her practicum at the VA in Topeka.  Her schedule is a bit crazy and Tuesdays are the worst day with her starting work at 6am and finishing at 9:15pm.  Patrick has had some respite from coaching, but starts back tomorrow.  We are hoping this will be a great swim season!

Elle will be spending her last days at daycare this week.  Starting next week, Jay will be going to daycare.  He will be going during the hours that Elle is at preschool.  I think he will have a blast playing with all of the other kids.  This past week we took Elle to the Arts Center, where she'll be going for preschool, and she saw her classroom and met her teachers.  There are two teachers and one aide in the class.  On Wednesday this week she will go to preschool for a half day and then finally get to go for a full day on Friday.  There is an open house for parents this week, so I suppose we'll get to learn more about the teachers and their plans for the school year.  Elle is very excited to go to school.  Whenever Sarah talks about having to go to school, Elle says, "just like I go to school."  If only Sarah could color and go out on the playground still!

What else have we been up to?  Last weekend Sarah had to work on Saturday.  Patrick took the kids to Pendleton's, which is right outside Lawrence.  They have a gigantic butterfly garden with caterpillars, cocoons, and butterflies everywhere.  They also picked some apples and purchased some wine grapes that are from a nearby winery.  The next day we all went up to campus and had a lovely picnic near Potter's Lake and the Outdoor Dance pavillion.  We took kites and flew them with the kids.  

Lots of Petting Zoos

As you can see we haven't been as diligent about updating our blog as regularly as we used to.  I think that will continue through this busy school year.  Patrick finished up the swim season with a three weekend run of meets.  During his last meet in North Dakota, Sarah and the kids went to the Topeka Zoo one day.  Another day they went to the Douglas County Fair petting zoo.  One of the llamas at the fair was named "Joe Llama" which is pretty clever.  They also went to Deanna Rose Farmstead one day and fed more animals there.  So, there were a lot of petting zoos involved while Patrick was out of town.

Following his return from North Dakota, he and the kids headed to Indiana for a little break.  Patrick hadn't been on a vacation in a long time, so this was much overdo.  He was able to spend time with his parents, brother, and graphic design business partner.  While in Indiana, Patrick took the kids to Norman, IN and the kids were able to meet Terry's parents for the first time.  They also went shopping in Nashville, IN and to the Indianapolis Zoo.  The drive back to Kansas was extended by a few hours due to traffic, weather, and a potty accident in the car.  Unfortunately, Sarah wasn't able to go because she had to attend orientation for her practicum as well as work some extra hours as she had missed some work days while Patrick was in North Dakota.  

While everyone was out of town Sarah was able to work on a few things around the house that she doesn't normally have a chance to work on- she put pictures on albums and finished our wedding scrapbook (only almost 5 years after getting married)!  Because of the long days in Topeka without anyone at home to let out the dogs, Sarah asked a friend to stop over and let the dogs out during the middle of the day.  On the last day of orientation Sarah got let out early and when she arrived home, she saw our friend's car at the house.  After not hearing the dogs outside or being greeted by them as she came in the house, Sarah became concerned.  It turns out that the dogs had broken through the fence and were over in the neighbor's yard having a grand time.  Our friend had been reading a book on the couch and fallen asleep, so was unaware that the dogs were in the neighbor's yard.  We retrieved the dogs and luckily the neighbors were really nice about the incident.  Sarah and Patrick nailed boards of wood on the broken part of the fence so the dogs can't go over again!

Yesterday we participated in a garage sale with a couple of other families.  The back room off of our garage had turned into a storage/clutter room, so it was nice to get rid of a lot of it.  We still have quite a bit left over, but overall, we sold quite a bit of stuff.  We may still participate in another garage sale in a few weeks and hopefully get rid of a few more things. 

 

Elle's Mishap in the Pool

Well, the summer is quickly slipping away.  KU starts school in 2 weeks- on August 20th.  Sarah only has class on Tuesday, so she begins on August 25th.  Sarah also finally has a practicum placement.  She will be at the Topeka VA in the hematology and oncology unit.  Although commuting is definitely ideal, it didn't look as though a placement in Lawrence was going to be an option, especially this late in the placement process.  Sarah will commute to Topeka 3 days a week.  She is supposed to be at practicum for 24 hours per week, but that's not feasible with all of the other demands our family has. So, Sarah will be at practicum for roughly 19.5 hours and will have to continue her practicum for much, much longer than usual.  Sarah has to go to the VA for orientation all day next week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  She will then officially start her practicum on August 24th.  Things at work will begin to get busy at the end of the month as we have a new cohort of participants starting on August 29th.  This is our largest cohort thus far (30 participants), so things will be more hectic there, too.

Patrick is wrapping up his 3rd weekend of meets.  This time he is in North Dakota for six days.  Last weekend Sarah and the kids kept busy by going to the Lawrence Nature Center and to Potter's Lake on KU's campus.  The kids enjoyed seeing all of the different animals at the Nature Center.  The had bearded dragons, a huge iguana, eagles, owls, turtles, snakes, and more.  Elle's favorite were the "mouses."  I think she liked watching them running on their wheel!  We went to the pet store the next day to pick up dog food.  We usually walk around the store and look at their array of animals, and again she was excited to see the mice.  

Our walk around Potter's Lake was very pleasant.  It seems like it would be a great place for a picnic.  It's always interesting to come across things around town or on campus that we didn't know about even though we've been here for years and have possibly walked quite close to the spot.  Well, when we were walking around Potter's Lake we saw the class gift from 1943- an outdoor dance pavillion.  There was a filled in fire pit and some stone grills.  It looked like it would be a fun place to hang out, but I'm guessing it's never really used any more, which is too bad.  

This week Sarah and Patrick took the kids swimming at the outdoor pool.  It has been a couple of weeks since Elle finished her lessons and since she's been in the pool.  None the less, she got right in and was swimming like a fish and was hardly taking a break.  Perhaps she was a bit too enthusiastic.  I'm guessing she swallowed a bunch of water becasue all of a sudden Patrick asked her if she was okay.  Sarah looked over when he said this.  Elle's cheeks puffed up and she threw up.  Everyone in the pool (perhaps between 100 & 200 people) had to exit the pool while the cleaned it.  I'm not sure how long everyone had to stay out of the pool because we left.

Before Patrick left for Zones he wanted to do something fun with the kids so he bought them a slip and slide, or as Elle calls it- a slippering slide.  Patrick demonstrated how to use the slip and slide and even helped the kids slide down!  We also had a large storm one night during the week.  We woke up to find that one of the branches of one of the trees in our backyard had been knocked down.  It snapped our clothes line, which we were able to fix easily.  Now we just have to take care of the branch.  During one of the recent nighttime storms Elle woke up.  As Sarah went to get Elle back into bed Elle said, "I better have to get new boots in the morning."  This was followed with,"When the rain goes away, there will be sun."  This also reminded me of Elle's recent book reading.  She wanted to read a book to Sarah and picked out her Bible.  This is how her story went: "In the beginning, there was a girl and a boy.  They was small.  And it was about once upon a dream.  Amen."

Princess Elle

I think our theme as of the past week and a half has been: so much to do, no time to do it!  Patrick began his 3 week string of meets this past weekend.  Meanwhile, he has been working on entries for the meet this coming weekend, registering swimmers for the meet in 2 weeks, and preparing for end-of-season tasks among other things.  For Wildernorm he and his business partner are working on finishing up a brochure for an art center in Ohio.  Sarah had her last class of the semester on Monday.  Fall semester will start in just a few weeks and then it will be her time to be crazy busy between class, practicum, work, and finishing all of that by 3:30 every day so that she can pick up the kids before Patrick has practice.  We are already preparing ourselves for this being a very, very hectic year.  

Elle had her final tumbling session last week.  It was parent observation day, but with two tumbling classes going on simultaneously, there were so many parents that we could only observe from outside the room.  At the end of the class certificates were handed out.  Elle was so excited to stand up and receive her certificate.  Also, Elle made a funny comment during her tumbling class.  Each time she's there, the teacher gives the class a break half-way through the class time and lets the kids go get a drink of water.  While standing in line I heard one little kid say, "I love ... (I can't remember what now)."  Another little kid said, "I love my mommy."  Elle chimed in and said, "I love princess hair!"  Oh good grief. 

I don't know how Elle became so infatuated with the Disney princesses.  Over the weekend when I offered to do Elle's hair and said I could curl it, put it in a pony tail, or braid it, she said she wanted "mermaid hair."  I think I ended up curling it for her.  And last night Elle said at the dinner table, "I'm not Elle, I'm Princess Elle."  I think Patrick said something to the effect that she probably wouldn't want to be known as "Princess Elle."

There isn't much new to report on Jay.  His hair has been getting long and falling over his ears, so Sarah trimmed the spots above his ears.  It's not perfect, but now he doesn't have wings any more.  We have arranged for Jay to go to daycare where Elle has been going for the past year.  He will go during the time that Elle is in preschool starting in September.  I think he'll be excited to go as whenever I take him in the house and he sees all the kids and toys, he always wants to join in the fun and play.  

I forgot to mention that a few weeks ago Patrick and the Aquahawk team participated in the World's Largest Community Workout.  There is a person (who I believe is a former high school coach) who used to lead dog-day workouts for his football team in the summers (starting in the early 80's) for those athletes who wanted to stay in shape.  It later changed into a community workout (called the Red Dog Days) and for quite some time now he has been leading summer workouts for Lawrence residents twice a day M-Th during the summer.  There is always a good number of people who attend, so they decided to see if they could break the Guinness Book of World Records for how many people participated in a community workout.  I think they were hoping that 1,500 - 2,000 people would attend, but it turns out that over 2,750 people worked out that day.  

One last thing to note- I saw a butterfly visiting our butterfly garden the other day, and snapped a few pictures, which I will include.  We also found a caterpillar and put it near our butterfly garden.