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First Day of School - 2010

Hubby and I took the kiddos to the bus stop this a.m. to send them off to their first day of school. Princess is starting 2nd grade and is SO excited to have Mr. Krich, the same teacher Dude had when he was in 2nd grade. Dude is starting “his last year of elementary school” as he puts it . . . and he better stop saying that or I’m going to hold him back a year! Anyhoo - he’s way excited about his teacher and the kids that are in his class as well.

Princess of course thought it completely necessary to get a new outfit for the first day of school. She gently reminded me last Thursday as we were leaving for camping that “Mommy! Oh no! We forgot to get a first day of school outfit for me!” I reminded her that she has tons of clothes and that I hadn’t forgotten . . . I just didn’t suggest it. She was OK with it. But of course I planned on getting her a new outfit . . . so when we got back from camping I said “We’ll need to get showered and ready so you and I can go pick out a new outfit for the first day of school.”

You would have thought I’d just told her she could buy every stuffed animal ever made!

So here they are . . . Princess in her new duds and Dude in an “outfit” he’s had for 3 years now :-)

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No, they’re not waving and giving a peace sign . . . they are indicating the grade they are in . . . much easier for me to figure it all out many years down the road if I have them flash cryptic messages in the photos.

Here they are last year on the first day of school. They haven’t changed a lot in pictures, but they sure have grown up a lot in person!

A Duck And A Goose

My lucky duck got to meet THE Goose! Dude had the opportunity to attend a pitching clinic at Sky Sox stadium with 2 Sky Sox players and THE Rich “Goose” Gossage - 22 years in the majors for quite a few teams, including the Yankees and Cubs - one of the original closers! Ya - THAT Goose Gossage.

He talked to the kids about committment and what it takes to be a good pitcher and player, then they all went to the bullpen and he did a one-on-one mini pitching session with each of the kids . . . giving them individual feedback and advice on how to pitch better and what to work on.

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Goose is a great guy. Very opinionated about baseball and the good ol’ days versus how the game is today (those pitchers are so babied and those pitch counts are just messing it all up!) . . . but a great guy all around. He hung out for photos afterward and autographs . . . signed Dude’s Cubs hat and also Princess’ Cubs hat that Jason was nice enough to take. The Sky Sox players were great and hung around for photos and autographs as well. You never pass up an autograph from a AAA player - you never know when they might be the next “one” :-)

I will admit that while Jason had fun and enjoyed it, I may have been a bit more excited FOR him to be on a pitching mound with Goose ;-) I was so bummed we weren’t allowed on the field with them!

One Million points to the first person who knows why he’s nicknamed “Goose” :-)

To The Point

On our hike to Pancake Rocks, or any hike for that matter, Dude and Princess always look for walking sticks. Conversation with Dude on the way down . . .

Dude: These really are some cool walking sticks I found this time.
Me: Yes, they are. They worked well today.
D: Yup. And this one - it’s got like little things on the top so if I broke my leg or something I could use it like a crutch.
M: Ya - that is pretty cool.
D: And this one, it has that cool pokey end on it, so if a mountain lion or a bear came to attack us I could just stab it with my sharp stick and it would run away and we could run down the mountain.
M: Yup. That sounds like a good plan, too.
D: Man, it sure would be nice to have sticks like this every time I go hiking.

Pause . . . pause . . . pause . . .

D: Yup. These walking sticks sure are really cool. It would be a bummer to have to drop them on the trail somewhere.

Pause . . . pause . . . pause . . .

D: Um, Mommy? I was trying to get you to say that I could bring them home. So can I?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Of course I said Yes after he went through all that trouble ;-)

10

Somewhere in between our trip to MN/WI and my vacation to New York with Hubby, my Dude turned 10! TEN! One-Zero!

That number uses 2 digits. I’m not sure I like that. I won’t go on and on about how wonderful and sensitive and great and handsome and smart and fun and goofy he is or how he loves anything outdoors like hiking, biking, baseball, Boy Scouts, his fort, playing, walking Duma or how he’s discovered the IM feature of gmail and loves to kid and send messages to me and Queen Taunya if he gets online during the day.

Everyone who reads this little blog knows all about my little Dude and how much I love him and how awesome he is.

This year he decided to have a Rock Climbing party . . . woo hoo! I love his parties :-)

I’d like to thank Martha for the idea for the invitations . . .

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I thought they turned out pretty cool if I do say so myself! And the goody bags were fun, too!

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Water bottle to stay hydrated . . . carabener because every climber needs a carabener . . . ROCK candy, CLIF bars, Pop ROCKS . . . trail mix :-) The boys loved ‘em!

I found some fun cake ideas, but I ended up asking a friend to make it since I wouldn’t have done this one justice. Christie did an awesome job - I think it turned out great!

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I love the Happy Birthday banner at the top, how she decorated the ropes and tied them around the letters in his name, and how she made the person look like Dude with the ever-present camo pants, black shirt, and baseball hat.

Dude is totally a small group kinda guy, so he invited 3 friends to his party. We went out for pizza buffet lunch and got all good and full before we headed to the climbing joint for some fun!

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The Rock Climbing place was cool . . . it’s only $12/climber for the entire day and they teach the adults how to belay. We only had 3 adults, so the kids had to take turns, but it all worked out - they needed breaks in between climbing anyway!

Princess had a great time climbing with the boys…

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Dude always enjoys the climbing! He tried all kinds of different difficulties of walls.

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Near the end of climbing, all the boys wanted to conquer this one wall that none of them had tried. It took a while, but they all finally made it! Dude touches the top!

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While the kids were climbing, the adults got to do this . . . which makes your back and neck really sore after a couple hours!

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Here they all are, on their last climb of the day. They’re allowed to climb up to 5 feet above the gravel without being tied up . . . so of course I made them do it for one last final picture :-)

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After climbing we were off to head back home for cake and presents . . . I seriously can’t believe he’s TEN!

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Cake was eaten, presents were opened, and dinner was made. After that, there were no photos or even adult interaction because everyone knows that once the boys go downstairs to build forts and whatever else it is they think they need to do for a sleepover, anyone under 4 feet tall and over 4.5 feet tall is no longer welcome :-)

Happy Birthday, Dude!

Pancakes Anyone?

After my adventure in Manhattan, I was TOTALLY needing to get up to the mountains with my family. So on Sunday morning, we loaded up the kids, the dog, the backpacks, and the GPS and headed out for a hike.

We decided to hike to Pancake Rocks. We’d been on the trail before to go to Horsethief Falls, but had never taken the additional 2 mile trail to the pancakes. The first 3/4 of a mile is up hill - not bad, but definitely up hill. We were geocaching on the hike, so we took a little detour on the Ring the Peak trail to hunt for our first cache.

Have boulder, will climb.

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Half a mile down the trail we got to the location . . . but had no luck to start with. Then Dude (who must’ve actually been listening to me at some point in the past month!) mumbled the finding-the-cache-mantra ”Natural, but out of place . . . natural, but out of place.” He rummaged around under a giant pine tree and found a string hanging from a branch . . . he followed the string and VOILA! We found our first cache of the day.

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It’s always fun to see what’s in the caches. This one was a microcache, so there wasn’t really room to trade anything, but they signed the log and left a little bouncy ball anyway.

After back tracking to the regular trail, we finally came to the turnoff for the Pancake Rocks trail. Woo hoo! We were totally unprepared for this little 2 miles one way hike. We didn’t know we would gain 1400 vertical feet in 2 miles of trail . . . that’s like the trail hiking up Pikes Peak. We kept going, switch back after switch back, waiting for it to level out. I have to say I’m proud of the kiddos for doing so awesome - it was toasty in the woods with no breeze - they did awesome just hiking and hiking without complaining.

Dude and Princess always seemed to find something to “do” during our little rest stops.

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No they didn’t build that, but it sure was fun to plan on/in/around :-) Off we were back up the trail. We were so excited when the trail leveled off at “the top” cuz when you reach the top, you’re there, right? Wrong! After a brief flat walk, the trail took us DOWN  . . . which of course meant going up on our way back down . . . ya, I know. Turns out we had to go down and up three times after we’d reached the top! But, looking for the geocaches always makes it a bit more interesting - we found cache #2 at a perfect time we all could’ve used a little rest and snack anyway.

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Checking out the log is always fun. Dude and Princess also dropped their travel bugs in there . . . we’d picked one up in a cache in MAY when we went to Grand Lake and the other a week or so ago at Fox Run Park - so the bugs are now officially travelling. Yay! Signed the log and Princess traded her compass for a teeny tiny eraser.

Off to the pancakes! We had to be close . . . but we started to doubt it a bit because it seemed like we’d gone more than 2 miles and it didn’t seem like there would be any coolness just around the next bend or at the top of the next hill.

*** I don’t have any idea why we didn’t check the GPS at the beginning to see how many miles we’d hiked so we had some clue. We’re smart that way. GPSes are for geocaching, not personal location, right? ;-) ***

We kept on and finally made it here…

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… stacks of pancakes! Got butter? Syrup?

Nope . . . but we did have PB&J and chips and water and beef jerky . . . so we all picked our spot for lunch. Dude and Princess always find the coolest spots - literally and figuratively :-)

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The boy and his dog always have fun hiking and climbing around. Every little boy should have a dog!

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We had to take our family photo - you never know when we’ll get that one shot we want to actually put on the Christmas card.

*** 1) it’s not easy to set a camera up to take your picture higher than the camera will be, even with the coolest little tripod ever made 2) after hiking to the pancakes, it’s not easy to make your legs RUN up rocks and climb a bit to get into the picture before the timer goes off in 10 seconds 3) I have no idea where Duma was when we took the picture - probably off pretending to be a mountain goat. ***

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We wandered around for a while and found a REALLY cool old sleigh thingy - wooden skis that were rounded to form the sleigh and they had metal nailed to the bottom so they’d actually go on the snow. Definitely looked like there was a spot to tie up a horse . . . maybe it was old, maybe it wasn’t . . . but it was still cool, and we’ll still pretend it was super old and someone tried to be pulled over the mountain with their horses in winter and had to dump the sleigh and just ride the horses down the other side with all the rocks.

We did find cache #3 on our way down.

On the way up, I may or may not have told the kids they couldn’t possibly be going the right way to get the cache and they needed to get back on the trail because the trails usually turn and go right to the caches when they’re a 1 or 2 difficulty and oh my god you don’t know what’s behind that big stack of boulders and you might get eaten by a mountain lion or you might fall right off a cliff to your death and how would we get you out and I don’t want to return all of your school supplies to the store because I can’t handle going to Walmart twice in one week!

They may or may not have found the cache exactly where they were headed on the way up.

I probably hung my head and apologized to them.

But oh - the pancakes . . . look at the pretty pancakes!

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Ahhhhhhh . . . family, rocks, trees, SILENCE, and amazing blue sky with big fluffy white clouds.

Home Sweet Home.

Mouse Batteries, Keys, and Poop

IM between me (at work) and Hubby (at home) . . .

Hubby IM: Insurance adjuster just showed up unannounced to look at the roof.
Me IM: Uh oh. We didn’t take down the tramp!!!
HIM: Ya. I asked him about that. He said he sees it all the time and wouldn’t say anything.
MIM: Cool. What about the roof?
HIM: He says we have no hail damage. He’s coming back next week when the roofer is here, too, so they can chat about it. I learned a lot about roofs following him around while he inspected.
MIM: Did Dude follow you guys around and learn a lot about roofs, too?
HIM: No…he was busy looking for the mouse battery in the yard while Keira was taking Jason’s fort key out of a peice of Duma’s poop - long story.

I just about DIED laughing! For ONCE, I wasn’t the one home to deal with that. Bwaaahahahahahaha!!!

Things I Learned and Confirmed In New York

Hubby had to do a half day of work in New Jersey, so he invited me along to play for a few days. For me, New York City is like Las Vegas . . . fun place to visit and experience, but 3 days is enough for this small town girl. During my 3 days in New York, many things were learned and many things were confirmed.

My Hubby is gone quite a bit, but one bonus to that is that he racks up tons of hotel points. And when you’re Hubby racks up a ton of hotel points, you get to stay places like this . . .

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for free.

Walking in to a historic place like that is amazing.

The clock in the lobby was commissioned for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

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Nine feet tall, two tons, and likenesses of Cleveland, Harrison, Washington, Grant, Lincoln, Franklin, Jackson, and Queen Victoria. Very cool.

You are not allowed to touch your own luggage in nice hotels.

I don’t like not being able to touch my own luggage.

Expensive hotels on Park Avenue use the same crappy toilet paper and kleenex as the Super 8.

2 Bloody Marys in the bar of the hotel cost $40.

You are not allowed to wear tennies in the lobby of expensive hotels after 6:00 p.m.

Getting free Starbuck’s every morning does not help an addiction.

Whoever thought up the subway is a genius.

It’s hot in the subway.

It’s cold in the subway cars.

There are rats in the subway.

The subway is much cleaner than I thought it would be.

The subway is still dirty.

The subway takes you cool places, like this . . .

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A lot of people meander around in Times Square on any given night.

My sunglasses are not big enough.

I need to start wearing my sunglasses all the time. Including inside. And outside in the dark.

Hot dogs from street vendors are yummola!

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Foreign men like to wear manpris.

The fashion police in New York appear to have gone on vacation.

Manpris are just wrong.

Some people should not wear sandals.

A subway/train ride from Park Avenue to Morristown, NJ takes approximately 1 hour.

There’s nothing to look at on the train to NJ.

Train employees actually wear those cool conductor hats and use a hole punch when they check your ticket, just like on TV.

I don’t want to live in NJ.

NY is just like it looks on TV.

Manhattan is dirty.

Real life cab drivers are just like they are on TV.

People in Manhattan do not look you in the eye or say hello randomly.

People in Manhattan always have somewhere to be, and they want to be there before you.

Lombardi’s in Little Italy has awesome pizza.

The only place for a driving range is out into the Hudson River.

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There are 4 levels to the driving range.

If the net were gone, you could’ve hit a golf ball to Captain Sully.

Just because someone has an expensive camera and talks all cool about photography and the perfect shot and getting sunrays in pictures doesn’t mean they can actually take fabulous pictures.

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Hubby almost lost an ear, but luckily we got plenty of the nasty dirty Hudson River in the photo.

The Statue of Liberty is as cool in person as I thought it would be.

Lady Liberty is huge when you’re up close.

The number of buildings on Manhattan is mind numbing.

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I don’t want to live in Manhattan.

It’s never dark in Manhattan.

It’s never quiet in Manhattan.

There are a LOT of people in Manhattan.

Most of them leave each night and come back the next day - via the subway.

This is where the “regular” people get to live in Manhattan/Brooklyn/Queens.

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You are eligible for subsidized housing like this if you make up to $175,000/year.

You could even live in these luxury apartments.

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I don’t want to live in luxury apartments.

A ride around Central Park on a peditaxi is fun.

Jamaican dudes who give peditaxi tours are very fun.

Jamaican dudes insist that you take tons of pictures in the park.

Yoko Ono lives in the apartment behind us that overlooks Strawberry Fields.

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I can’t Imagine.

There are no strawberries in Strawberry Fields.

It’s cool to be able to walk anywhere.

There is no way Sarah Jessica Parker walked around Manhattan in those shoes.

It is possible to stay on Park Avenue and not buy anything.

Ground Zero is more amazing in person than on TV.

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It’s truly amazing that two buildings that huge fell and didn’t take more with them.

Veggie burritos at Charley’s are very yummy.

The New York Stock Exchange is VERY secure.

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You have to be specially invited to see the NYSE in action.

It’s disappointing to not be able to see the NYSE in action.

People in Manhattan do not offer to take your picture.

You get lots of nostril self-portraits because nobody will offer to take your picture.

The flag attached to the NYSE building is GINORMOUS!

It’s friggin’ hot and humid in Manhattan.

No matter how much you expect to see trees and grass just around the corner, it won’t happen.

It gets frustrating to see nothing but metal, concrete, and people after a couple days.

Chinatown is cool.

Chinatown is a little scary.

I don’t want to buy a fish head on ice when I just saw the little Chinese dude whack it with a hammer and cut it off.

Chinatown is just like it looks on TV.

You can go from China to Italy in as little as 10 steps.

The culture and number of people walking around Manhattan is amazing.

Not all of New York’s Finest can park a patrol car . . . not even at the police station.

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The food at Cellini’s is yummy.

The concierge at the hotel has a very different interpretation of “moderately priced Italian” than I do.

Dessert at Serendipity is worth the 90 minute wait.

I want to try to make frozen hot chocolate.

There weren’t as many people at the Today Show as I thought there would be.

You should always shower before walking to the Today Show.

If you don’t want to get on the Today Show, don’t stand behind the cute old lady with white hair.

Celebrities don’t always take flattering photos.

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Matt is not a large guy.

Meredith is a tiny woman.

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Even with those shoes on, she’s still barely as tall as Al, who is not a tall man.

I would fall off of those shoes.

When your plane is delayed an hour out of LaGuardia, it’s OK that your connecting flight out of DFW is delayed 1/2 an hour so you can make your connection.

I may have actually kissed the dirt when I got home.

I loved driving home in the dark.

I like dark.

I like stars.

I like mountains.

I like fresh air.

I like SPACE.

I am a small town girl.

I love where I live.

The Other Ball

April 2010
Me
: Hey Princess. It’s time to sign up for a spring sport. Do you want to play Little League coach pitch or play YMCA soccer?
Princess: Totally soccer!

And so we did . . .

June 2010
Me: Hey Princess. It’s time to sing up for a summer sport. Do you want to play YMCA coach pitch or do gymnastics again?
Princess: I want to do whatever that game you play with the ball is.
Me: Baseball?
P: Yes.

And so we did. And I’m coaching her team.

August 2010
Me: Hey guys. This is our last week of YMCA baseball. I’ve had a lot of fun, but it’ll be nice for baseball to finally be over.
Dude: Ya. I like baseball, but I’m ready for a little break.
Princess: I don’t really like baseball.
Me: What?! But you said you wanted to play, and that you wanted me to coach your team!
P: Ya. But after I got to play, I remembered that’s not the game I wanted to play. I wanted to play that one that you do inside where you hit the ball up into the air.
Me: Volleyball?
P: Yes.

I just about died laughing! Seriously - she watched Dude play baseball 3 nights a week from April-June. I don’t believe she actually didn’t know what it was called ;-)

I guess I’ll have to find a volleyball camp for her somewhere this fall/winter.

The Boy Drives

On an 11-day vacation, Dude got to drive . . . a lot!

He got to drive an airplane . . .

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This is the exact same plane Hubby learned to fly in. Pretty cool!

 

Dude got to drive a golf cart . . . I have no picture of him in it because I was not yet in MN, and he and Grandpa went out to have fun by themselves.

Dude to got drive a 4-wheeler . . .

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We spent an awesome day with Grandpa on the 4-wheeling trails in Black River Falls, WI. Dude technically isn’t supposed to be able to drive until he’s 16, but I was sitting right behind him, and it was Grandpa’s 4-wheeler - so we let him. He did awesome and had a great time plowing through the mud puddles getting us filthy!

 

Dude got to drive a canoe . . .

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. . . and pull his sister along behind him in an inner tube! What a good brother :-)

 

Dude got to drive an inner tube . . .

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He was quite resourceful if you ask me :-)

 

He got to drive a pontoon . . .

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I don’t have a picture of him actually driving, but I promise once he got back on the boat he convinced Grandpa to relinquish the controls for a little while.

 

Dude got to drive a GINORMOUS remote control airplane . . .

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That guy owns the plane, and many others. He spends his time going around the country and Canada flying his planes at model airplane shows. He was awesome and let the kids have a shot at it.

 

And last, Dude got to drive a fire truck . . .

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He only got to drive it a couple inches . . . while it’s cool to have a Grandpa who was a fireman forever so he gets to take the fire trucks to the local parades, it would not be cool if they scratched the brand new fire truck that has never yet been to a fire ;-) After the couple inch drive, we all walked the parade with the truck and threw candy, which is always cool for the kids. And since the fire trucks are first, we got out at the end and sat on the curb to watch the rest of the parade and rake in candy.

I don’t know about you, but I’m 37 and I still haven’t driven all those things!

Lucky little turd, he is.

Serenity Lake

My vacation view for the past week…

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