Swine flu?

Possibly. All of Park City School District schools are closed through Monday. Our private school is following along and closing as well. Apparently, we should know by Sunday whether the three children who are suspected of having swine flu actually have it. If it is confirmed, then we will be closed all next week. One of the kids just returned from Mexico on spring break last week, so I guess it's a good possibility we'll be off school all next week. Oh joy!

Thankfully, the kids are spending time outside (thank you for good weather!), riding bikes, doing sidewalk pictures, jumping on the trampoline. Inside, they have been working on some very serious beading projects.

Wish us all luck!

Brunch at the diner.

With a picture today!

Jim had a hockey game this morning at 8:30. The kids and I tried to get there to watch him play, but we didn't make it to the rink until 9:45 when the game was already over. But we all decided to go out for brunch and we drove a little out of our way to the cute little town of Oakley.

The Road Island Diner is there. It was built in 1939 for the World's Fair, I think, and then it was in Middletown, Rhode Island, until about 2006. In 2007, it was moved cross-country to Oakley and restored to almost exactly how it would have looked in 1939. It's a very cool little diner, and the menu was good. We had blueberry pancakes, a nice omelette, and some very good chicken strips. We splurged on ice cream at the end, and it was soooo good! They were just pulling the chickens out of the smoker for lunchtime when we were leaving. We'll have to go back on another Saturday to try their smoked bar-b-q.

While we were there, a contingent of early-60s cars pulled in and all parked together in the lot. This is a picture of me and the girls standing in front of the cars and the diner!

Got another bike ride in today.

Went for a longer-ish ride today and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is amazing, though, how much tone, skills, and aerobic capacity one can lose over the winter! *sigh*

Working way to late tonight 'cuz of a hearing tomorrow that I should have been prepping for all week, but as usual, I left it to the last minute. No, mom, I've never outgrown that teenage procrastination!

Just a quick fly-by post while I wait for a printer driver to download so I can whip out some neat color maps to give the judge to explain what I'm talking about tomorrow. Fun, fun, fun!

First bike ride of the year today!

I haven't posted much because I keep thinking I'll get my pictures organized and edited on my new computer and then post something, but then the new computer keeps sitting in my office, not set up!

So, instead of pictures (there are some, I promise, just not ready to post yet!), you get to hear about my doings!

Today I got my mountain bike up and going (thanks J for putting my tire on!), and promptly took it to the bike shop for some adjustments. I got new grips (the old ones were hammered and leaving exposed metal which will hurt me someday when I crash -- which I do a lot). I got a bike pump put on... my old one disappeared at my mountain biking camp last summer. I had my rear brake adjusted -- I'm a slow enough climber without having the rear brake dragging while I try to go up hill!

Everything fixed, I got out on the trail. Other than a slight issue with my shifters not working because they were hitting the new grips, it was fun! I rode about 45 minutes "out" and about 15 minutes "back." I didn't feel like I was going to die, which is good. I'm sure being 10 pounds lighter than last year makes a big difference... less weight going up is good!

The weather is supposed to get crappy on Friday and stay that way for a while, so I'm going to squeeze in another ride tomorrow morning, even though I should be working.

Now aren't you glad you wasted 2 minutes of your life reading about my bike ride?

Decluttering.

I've been trying to declutter in a more serious way the past few months. I swore when we moved into this house 2.5 years ago, that I would not unpack boxes unless I had places for the things in them to go. I did a pretty good job of it, I have to say, and I don't think I have any packed boxes left from the move. That feels good!

OTOH, there is so much CRAP in my house. From leftover baby things to paper-to-be-recycled to I don't even know what, there is just stuff everywhere. I crave order and cleanliness and I never get it.

So, today I was looking for a 30-day decluttering challenge, kinda like a Flylady thing (but I dropped out of Flylady a long time ago... too much to keep up with -- I do still shine my sink, though!).

In my search, I stumbled across an 8-week decluttering course online, that includes an online support group -- a bulletin board of people who cheer each other on through the process, keep you accountable, help you get motivated, stay focused, what have you. It cost $37 and I signed myself right up. It starts May 4 and I'm looking forward to it.

From the same site, I also downloaded a one-year decluttering calendar. It covers all of 2009 and just gives you one little, manageable decluttering project a day. For bigger projects, it assigns a whole week, but you can see it coming, get ready, and tackle it in smaller, day-sized pieces.

I even talked some online friends into signing up with me (and maybe a few real life friends too) and I'm just really looking forward to having a sytem for getting this done and the motivation and accountability to stick with it!

Here's the link to the program I signed up for... http://www.encouragingcoach.com/programs-decluttergroup.htm

She also has other e-courses online... one for a simpler, saner life (sounds good, huh?), one for procrastinating... that sort of thing.

Anyway, I'll try to post here to keep updated on my progress. I'm sure my readers can't wait!

Pics of the girls at the pool...

Hop on over to my sister Nina's blog to see pics of the girls at the pool on Wednesday.

The perfect break!

Well, I have to admit our spring break has been just about perfect. We have enjoyed being in San Antonio. It has been the most stress-free trip I have taken with the kids to date!

Yesterday we were planning to take the girls for a hike, but the weather just wasn't cooperating. We didn't get out of the house until almost noon, so we ended up taking the girls out to eat for lunch. Then on our way home we decided to take the girls to a local bouncy house. They had so much fun, I was amazed. Even M-Moo, normally a little on the timid side when it comes to physical challenges, was all over the giant bouncy slide. Thanks to Aunt Nina for taking her up the ladders and down the slides about a million times. Mama-V crapped out after two trips through the ladder/slide combo!

All the kids had fun, and then when we got home, Aunt Nina offered to do bedtime and bath and I snuck out to take Ethan to violin and Evan to his baseball game. Watching Evan play baseball was definitely a highlight of the trip. (And before you ask, no, I haven't shot a single picture with my camera the whole time we've been here, despite having lugged it here in my backpack!). We did get some great photos of the girls at the pool the other day, and some video of our adventure at the bouncy house with Aunt Nina's point-and-shoot camera.

Today we headed out to a beautiful antique rose garden. Despite the rain, we had a fun time and the place was absolutely gorgeous! After another lunch out, we headed to the McKenna Children's Museum in New Braunfels, which of course the kids thoroughly enjoyed.

It has been pouring rain all day. I've managed to get some work done while the kids play upstairs. Uncle Dave has agreed to watch the kids and do dinner and bedtime while Aunt Nina and I head out to dinner and a movie tonight.

We're on our way home tomorrow, not getting in until 9:00 at night, so it could be a long day... I guess we'll see. Wish me luck!

Fun in San Antonio!

The girls and I are on holiday in San Antonio. The girls have spring break from their school, and I decided a few weeks ago that taking them to San Antonio to visit my sister would be vastly superior to sticking around home with the famously variable April weather. If the weather was good, we could do lots of fun, spring-y things. But if the weather was bad, we were doomed to a week of driving each other crazy in the house -- no thanks!

I have never been to visit my sister in San Antonio, and I can't even say how long she's lived here... at least two years in her new house and maybe a year before that? Not quite. We came to visit San Antonio with her a few years back, and I think the twins were maybe 6 months old or so? So close to three years.

Anyway, we cashed in a couple of freebie Southwest tickets and bought two more and it's turning into quite the economical vacation. We also lucked out in that the weather here is sunny and warm (ok, isolated t-showers, but they hardly even count!) and the weather at home is, well, SNOWING!

Needless to say, I'm glad we came! It is so much easier traveling with the girls now that they are fairly reliably potty trained and pretty good (and flexible, finally!) sleepers. They will pretty much bed down anywhere when the time comes. They are definitely enjoying spending time with their cousins... mostly Miss D and McKinley are having a great time together... none of the crazy outrageous fights they had three years ago when my sister blessedly came and watched the girls while Daddy J and I went to Portugal.

All four girls seem to be getting along well and hanging out together. We took them to the pool in my sister's neighborhood today. It's an unheated pool, so a little chilly, but the kids still had a great time. They all got wet (eventually!) and we stayed for close to three hours and hardly noticed the time passing.

I can't believe how grown up my sister's kids are getting. Austin will be 13 in September, and he's quite the surly teenager. I think he must be a lot like I was at that age -- hence he drives my sister absolutely batty! Ethan is a big sweetheart, helping out with the girls whenever they will let him. He really will make a terrific dad and husband someday. And Evan is just all personality and movement. He reminds me of my friend's son, Ian... sparkle and hustle!

Uncle Dave is out of town on business for a few days, so my sister and I have even been sharing a bed like we did when we were kids. (Daddy-J... Nina says I was a bed hog even when we were little!). It's been fun to catch up with each other's lives and gossip about people we know. We never had a close relationship as sisters growing up, so it's always kinda fun now that we're adults with families of our own to talk and really be sisters... more than we ever were growing up. I love my sister, despite or maybe because of our differences. She is one of the most tolerant, forgiving, understanding people I know, which is a rare quality, indeed.

We don't have anything planned for the rest of the week, maybe a little hike tomorrow. I'm just enjoying relaxing and warm weather.

Birthday Prep Completed!

This week I:

Ordered Miss D's b'day cake and cupcakes.
Went to Michael's and bought little pink takeout boxes for the cupcakes.
While at Michael's, saw a cute, pink scrapbook to put photos in for Miss D.
Finalized plans at Beadniks for the party.
Got a new birthday dress for Miss D, complete with "fancy" shoes.
Got a new outfit for sisters (keeping the peace is important!).
Bought plates, napkins, balloons, and a big ribbon for the bike.
Had Daddy bring in the bike from its hiding spot.
Ordered 82 photos to put in the scrapbook for Miss D.
Organized said 82 photos and inserted them into scrapbook for Miss D.
(Miss D now has a "baby" book of pictures from her first year... and she's only 5!).

I'm sure I'm forgetting something I did, and I'm even more sure that I'm forgetting something I should have done! Oh yeah, I also organized the kids for their Earth Day celebration at school... traditional costumes from Scotland, England, and Belarus (ok, so I wimped out an ordered t-shirts with the flags on them, but they were durn cute!) and traditional food from each country (thank you Walker's Shortbread, deli roast beef, and frozen pierogies! -- I have no idea how to spell that and I'm too tired and lazy to look it up!).

I did also remember to clear the memory card in the camera and charge the batteries for the camera and flash.

The bike is all set up at the top of the stairs, festooned with balloons and a big white bow. The new dress, tights, and shoes are set up on her chair at the dining room table. The book is on the table. And her new camelbak and bike jersey (thank you G'pa Coombs) are on either side of the book. Here's hoping she gets a good night's sleep and we all get to enjoy a fun birthday morning!

A bit of this, a bit of that.

I know, I know... I've gotten out of the habit of posting. It seems nothing very interesting happens lately, or nothing I feel like blogging about anyway. Between the house all torn apart, the weather being on-again, off-again, and, well, I don't know what else, but I've been busy and unmotivated all at the same time. So here's a catchup post.

We went to Steamboat last weekend, with the kids. It was a real old-fashioned road trip. The kids and I even stocked up on road food at Wal-Mart before we left. It took about 6.5 hours to make the 5.5 hour trip out there. The first cry of "I have to go potty" was precisely 3.7 miles into the trip (I'm serious, I looked at the trip meter!). We learned that M-Moo has a shy bladder and has trouble (ok, she can't) going potty on the side of the road and is spotty, at best, going in gas-station bathrooms. This problem was solved by letting her ride in the car in a diaper and changing her after she had to go potty.

We spent Saturday with the big people skiing while the little people had a fun day with a sitter from our friends' Montessori school. It's a long drive for the kids to spend the day with the sitter, but they had a great time, and so did we. Steamboat, for those who have never skied there, is intermediate-tree-terrain heaven. Me, being a less-than-stellar tree skier, struggled a bit, but it was good to get out of my comfort zone.

Jim, of course, decided to take out a sizeable tree with his shin. Seriously. I heard the "oof" and turned around in time to see the tree falling on him! Our friends heard the "crack" and thought for sure he had broken his tib-fib. But the goofball barely had a bruise. The tree he hit with his shin turned out to be so rotted out that it just disintegrated where he hit it and fell over on top of him! Entertaining to the last!

We drove home Sunday, making it in 6.5 hours with only one stop at McD's in Vernal, where we stayed for about an hour to let everyone decompress. Our house is still in a state of disrepair. The bill for the water mitigation people was nearly $7000! That gave our insurer enough of a heart attack that we got "bumped upstairs" to another claims adjuster who apparently handles a higher dollar amount than the first lady who was handling us. The independent adjuster came out today to take his measurements and samples and we should have a dollar figure for the restoration work in a few more days, maybe by the beginning of next week. From there, we should be able to figure out whether we will just be restoring to what we had or making some upgrades. We have some ideas of what we'd like to do, a little remodeling, a little upgrading, but have no idea what we'll be able to do until we get the insurance number.

I bought 4 tomato plants at Home Depot today. They are Early Girl bush variety and I'm hoping to keep them indoors until mid-June then set them out on the deck and have some garden-fresh tomatoes this year. Of course I got some basil to go with them, as well as the wasp/yellowjacket traps I went to Home Depot to get (why is it I can't go to Home Depot to get something without spending at least $100 on something else that I never intended to get?!).

I made hamburgers tonight. G'pa Larry gave me some hamburger buns the other day because he had bought two packs instead of one. I winged it and mixed in some breadcrumbs, onion, worcestershire sauce, and egg. They turned out absolutely delicious, but of course I tried to burn down the house again by broiling the hamburgers. There is obviously something I don't understand about how broilers work, because I almost start a fire every time I broil something. This is why I leave almost all meat-cooking to Daddy-J!

As I type this, it is snowing again. They are calling for 7-11 inches tonight, so I may try to get in the last day of spring powder skiing tomorrow morning.

Oh, and work-wise, we settled one of the big scary cases that make up my work life. The case had been inactive for about a year, but the threat of the case kept everyone's stress level significantly higher than it is now that the case is settled. We had several significant victories in one of our other cases last week, so all-in-all it was a good week at the war!

That's probably enough. Everything is all set for Miss-D's birthday party on Saturday. She is uber excited, and I'm looking forward to it too. I just ordered her birthday cake from Mrs. Backer's, a great pastry shop down in Salt Lake. I can't wait to see her face when she sees the outrageous flowers all over her birthday cake! She has no idea what's coming. I also had them do a set of little flower cupcakes for the kisd to take home as favors... so cute!

I'll try to keep up with things a little better. I have a new computer now, a cute little Asus Eee PC, as my laptop is on its last legs. Daddy-J has his computer people working on building me a nice desktop with heavy processing capabilities and a really nice monitor to do my photo editing on. Once that's up and running (who knows when) I'll get back to taking and editing photos again, so I'll have something to show you other than just my boring words!

Our house, all torn up.

Can you believe all this from one overflowed toilet? Ack!

The dust is making my allergies go nuts. The blowers are giving me such a raging headache. And I've been trying to work at the house all day today. Double Ack!

Thank goodness we're getting out of here for the weekend.

Drought? What drought?

We're up to our eyeballs in water here. Well, technically, the sub-floor is up to its eyeballs in water. They're telling us 6-10 days of high-powered fans to dry out the sub-floor to the point they can re-install (install) new carpeting.

I fail to comprehend why it wouldn't be easier to just rip out the 7 or 8 4x8 sheets of oriented strand board sub-floor and replace them. Should take all of an afternoon, don't you think? I couldn't convince them, but we'll be talking to our insurance adjuster tonight or tomorrow to discuss it.

Anyway, current status is that the carpet is all ripped up in the upstairs great room, my office, and the master bedroom. The giant fan from h*e*doublehockeysticks is blowing away in the greatroom, giving me a massive headache. They haven't started downstairs, but did ask us to move all the stuff away from the walls in the (Rather Large) wet area downstairs. I'm thinking "that's what I pay insurance for, is to have people like you come here and move stuff!"

Keegan has stopped barfing and has now kept down some water and some dry cereals.

I, on the other hand, feel like I'm coming down with something.

We are supposed to leave for Steamboat on Friday morning to spend the weekend with our friends there and get in a last-ditch of powder skiing (hopefully!). Let's hope everyone is (At Least Reasonably) healthy and we can go.

I did manage to book a trip to Vegas for me and my friend Kerry, though. At least I think I did. Southwestvacations.com had technical problems all afternoon while I was trying to book, but I think I have a reservation and I think it's paid for. *cross fingers* So we're heading back to the Bellagio from May 3-6. This is a (Hopefully Healthier) reprise of a trip we made last year where poor Kerry got so sick that she ended up going home a day early after spending hours at the local doc-in-the-box clinic getting IV fluids. And no, she didn't have any of THAT sickness... she spent most of the trip in bed, poor thing. So think positive thoughts that this year she will have a much better time. Now I need to go reserve that cabana at the Bellagio pool again.

A very long posting drought.

Sorry for the long drought. Things have been insane here, but I haven't felt like I had much to blog about. The kids were sick, I was sick. Then work exploded. I spent yesterday, from 4:40 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. with 7 lawyers from all around the country, working. Exhausting. Productive. I missed my kids.

So this morning I woke up at 3:00 to the sound of water dripping... well, more like flowing. Our toilet in the powder room off the great room had sprung a leak... water everywhere... all through the walls and ceiling and floors downstairs. Ugh.

Thankfully, the insurance lady I spoke with this morning was nice and helpful. The water mitigation people will be here shortly (assuming they can get up the snowy driveway). Once everything is dried out, they will send in someone to assess the damage and we will be replacing drywall, fixtures, most likely carpet, and perhaps even some sub-floor. Should be fun, huh?!

Never a dull moment! Maybe our entire downstairs will even be nice and ripped to bits in time for Miss-D's birthday! Oh joy!