From Watery Bliss to Watery Torture

Cara did a recent blog about their trip to a local "mini" water park. Dude saw this post and decided that we too would need to go familiarize ourselves with this sanctuary of watery bliss. We met Stacy, Emma and Noah on Wednesday at 9:00am - this is the hour they reserve for the little ones, before they turn on the sprayers. I didn't know what that entailed, but whatever. We went early. And I'm glad we did. Dude thought this little paradise was the best thing ever, next to his trusty ball machine of course. He romped around the knee high water playground, explored the best little people targets for the water guns at the top of the plastic fort and spent a good 20 minutes going down the orange slide.

Then the clock chimed 10:00am and the "sprayers" woke up for the day. The little kids cleared out and the big kids entered because you have to be a good 50 pounds to be able to even stand up with all the jets they turn on. Dude's orange slide was belted with water pistons, his plastic fort was surrounded with sprays in your face from every direction...he was mortified. What happened to his watery sanctuary? Whatever happened, he wasn't going near it. In fact, we went to the opposite end of the water park, just to ensure that we couldn't even be remotely close to the "sprayers." We all diverted to the deep end for another hour, but I'm certainly not going to pay $10 for an hour of spray free fun again. Sorry dude. It was fun while it lasted.

Celebrating Momma K

My parentals wrapped up round #2 of their trek out West. They flew back from Vegas on Friday after a week of maxin and relaxin with Bruce and Barb. Friday just happened to be my Momma's birthday. Not just any birthday. A big birthday. She's not 40 and she's not 70. I'll let you guess from that point. My cousin Melissa is working at a ranch up in the mountains and came down for the weekend to hang with us cool folks. To celebrate the big birthday, us adults went to The Perfect Landing out by a small airport near our hood. It was a heavenly meal friends. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed being served as much as I did that night. We all ordered fish - lobster, crab legs, salmon, fried corn, brussel sprouts, wine...heaven for the taste buds.

Momma K is about as youthful as they come - inwardly and outwardly. Stop blushing Mom. You know it's true. Happy Birthday! We loved having you and Dadio out. Dude can't wait to see your shining faces again, hopefully soon.

I know it's a parking lot, but look at that sky.

Isn't she cute? She just might be single for the right gent!

We took a "medium/low intensity" hike on Saturday morning. Dude did great until he bailed on a bunch of rocks and needed to be carried, bloody ankle and all, the rest of the way back.

Flyin' High with Uncle Wes

Cara and Wessums had us over for Tim's belated b-day dinner this past week. Who had the very best time? That would be dude. He had never been as close to the airplanes as he got that night. He had never been introduced to the awesome game of "force field" either. Uncle Wes gets on the ground and if a little tyke gets anywhere close to him, they get pushed to the ground while calling out "force field." You'd think the kids would get tired of being pushed around, but they could have kept at it for hours if Wes didn't about die of perspiration. The kids were drenched too. And they loved every single second of it. Dude had the time of his life, but we had to have a serious talk with him about NOT playing force field with all the kids at his new day care the next day.

Wes is losing this round of force field.

When Wes took a breather, Brady and Duder played "force field tackle" against each other.

Look at ME Mom! Where's my head?

Oh yeah, happy birthday dad. I'll blow out your candle for ya. And eat your brownie and ice cream.

A Day Without the Dude...What to Do? What to Do?

We trade kid watching with our neighbors and were up for a free Saturday. A Saturday to get up and go wherever we wanted to go. Do whatever we wanted to do. Talk about whatever we wanted to talk about without little listening ears. And he hears all friends. ALL.

We left at 8:30am in Tim's speedy, white baby, Isabelle, came back at 5:00pm and filled in that time with an unbelievable amount of beautiful. It's easy to forget that we live within an hour of take your breath away scenery, so Saturday was a much needed reminder of why we live where we live. We drove through Boulder, where more people bike than drive and put us to shame, up through Rocky Mountain National Park and did some hikes to water falls and hidden mountain lakes. We ended the day driving over Trail Ridge Road, stopped to take in the sites and came back home through Berthoud Pass and the well traveled I-70 route. It was 98 in Denver and 68 on Trail Ridge, so that was a lovely addition to the day. Absolutely lovely. We even got our hands in some snow.

We miss our mountains. Dude's inclination to puke on windy roads causes us to think twice about forging ahead into the mountain terrain on weekends, so this was just what the doctor ordered. Thanks Sheas for taking more than good care of our dude. I don't think he ever noticed that we left and was rather annoyed when we came home.

January 7, 2011

....is the due date for our long awaited bambino!!!!! We're matched friends and are giddy with excitement. Check out the adoption blog for the whole story!

Dudeisms for the Week

We came into the house and Nanna was there. Dude was all excited to go find her, saw a small box in the living room, ran to it, stuck his head in and screamed, "Nanna, are you in dere?" I don't know.

Tim and I got in a road scuffle driving to friends last weekend. Of course, Dude asked what we were talking about and I told him that Daddy yelled at Mommy's driving and was naughty. Tim LOVES it when I do this, by the way. Dude walked into our friends' house and said, "Daddy yelling at Mommy and needs a time OUT right now."

Dude has missed Tot Church for 3 weeks now and was super excited to go yesterday. Up front, as the minister was talking to the kids, you hear a little shreechy voice scream, "And I have a monkey too!" There had been no mention of monkeys. As the minister says a short prayer and "Amen," dude screams out, "Mommy, Aaaaaamen! It's time to go!" The entire church is laughing and looking at us, as they now know that the schreecher is our kid. He stops at our pew and says, "Mom! I going to Tot Church now. Bye!" And he runs down the aisle to the oh so lucky teacher of the day.

We started at a new day care today and I got lost trying to find the street. My memory didn't serve as well as I thought it would. First thing Dude says to his day care provider, "Mommy drove on the wrong street. We were lost to your house." Thanks dude. Good start.

I bought new lamp shades for the basement (too many balls have been thrown at the old very brittle ones). Dude walks downstairs last night and says, "Ohhhhh! Look at dose pretty new lights!" My kid. Observant is his middle name. Nothing gets by him. Not even a lamp shade.

I was eating cottage cheese and Frito's (I know, my taste buds are a little off) and dude said, "Dat's Grandma's cheese?" We were baffled by this one. He continued with much interest in the nature of this cheese and said, "It's cheese for the beach!" Ah...he thought it was cheese to be eaten at Grandma's cottage. Tim would say that it's cheese that should never be eaten, period.

My not so little man dresses himself. From head to toe. He walked in the other day, complete with undies, shorts and a t-shirt. I had to take a moment.

I'll end this post here. I could go on for an hour, but he's my kid, so everything he does and says is funny and worthy of blogging about. I understand that my readers are much more difficult to impress.

QT with the Rents

Dude's legendary Nanna and Pappa have come and gone and will come again on Friday. They flew in for an education conference that my Mom attended last week. My dad was lucky enough to spend the ENTIRE week with his darling grandson. For 2 of those days he was fortunate enough to babysit while I went to work. Glad to report that he survived and still had love for the little man when I got home.

They flew to Sin City with Bruce and Barbie on Friday and will return to our homestead again this Friday for a long weekend. Then they'll fly back home to Chi-town and dude will wonder where his fun, exciting, attention filled life has disappeared to. Especially since his neighborhood girlfriends will be gone for 3 weeks on vaca. I'm gonna have to pump up my fun factor big time.

We're looking forward to Nanna and Pappa's second arrival on Friday - our heat wave here in the Mile High City doesn't quite compare to the 114 temps they're being graced with in Vegas, so I'm sure they'll be ready to semi-sweat here in Denver.

Puzzle making with Nanna.

Dude "lending a hand" while Pappa paints our laundry room. He's a rock star painter man (not dude), so we're lucky when he agrees to pick up a brush.

Afternoon Light Rail trip downtown to show Nanna her commuting route for the week.

We spent the evening "lounging" and swimming at Nanna's hotel pool. Dude thought he was quite something. A "prince," is what I believe he referred to himself as.

Shocker...we went to the donut shop for a morning sugar rush.

One morning we went to Bow Mar Lake with our friend Kristin and her girlies. It's a hidden treasure in the middle of Littleton. Thanks for the invite friend!

B-Day for my Super Old Babe

I married a younger man. He likes to remind me of the earth shattering 6 month gap in our existence quite often. Timothy takes a bit of pride in his youthful status. Well, we're now equals again. Despite his baby face, he really is the same age as his decrepit wife. I love July 14. It's the day God put my amazing hubbie on this earth. And I'm pretty sure he knew, right then and there, that the two of us would join paths and make a life together. Happy birthday babe. Much much love.

The night started at La Sandia's roof top deck for happy hour with Mike and Stacy. 4 girly drinks....the fuzzy, girly, fruity, red one is the birthday boys' choice.

Following girly drinks we participated in a MANS activity...indoor karting. Helmets and all. Tim had the fastest lap by a landslide, but we all put forth an effort. A valiant effort. Putting on these head socks was the beginning of the valiant effort.

Those of us (Stacy) who didn't have close toed shoes were blessed enough to wear loaner socks and rockin' Danskin orthopedic kicks. She was lovin' every minute of it.

Side note...Thanks to Nanna and Pappa for watching the little dude and making this night out on the town affordable and possible.

4th of Juuuuuuly Happenings

We loooove 3 day weekends. Time to chill, time to hang, time to eat, time to sleep in, time to play. And we did all of those things. We started off Friday night celebrating our dearest Cara and her b-day. The kids played in our pathetic snake sprinkler while we devoured steak fajitas and lured the kids back with smores assembly. A fun Syers filled night.

Look at that pregnant glow.

We didn't have to convince the dude that it was okay to be messy with this tasty treat. He sucked it up and dealt with the goo. Forward progress.

Sunday morning kicked off with our very first neighborhood bike/stroller parade. We decorated our bike stroller to the nines and joined a ton of other dudes and dudettes at the park for the ride of fourth of July fame. I think we thought it was way more fun than the dude did (he was quite confused by the whole thing) but the park afterward brought enthusiasm.

Lisa = life of every single party.

Neighborhood hotties.

Precious Delaney girl. Oh how we love that little darlin'.

Following the neighborhood festivities, we headed up to the cabin for a partly sunny and warm, partly wet and goose bump like day of fun. I didn't go camera crazy as we just posted a ton of cabin shots, but there are a few cuties below. We did hang in for fireworks, which were viewed from the front seat of our car. Dude didn't seem to care. He was so dang cute we just laughed through the whole show. "Wow Mom! Wow Dad! Look at dat! Woah!!!! Look at dat one! It's a huge one Mom!" You get the picture. We watched random shows all the way home and he cashed out upon putting his tired little toe head to the pillow.

Dude's signature "say cheese" face.

Rain, rain, go away, but since you didn't, we played any way.

Monday was picture perfect weather wise, so we picnicked at the train park, cooked out with the Sheas and walked over to the Perettis to chow on ice cream with every topping imaginable. Bless the Perettis for exposing their backyard to 15 rowdy children with ice cream in hand.

That wraps it up. Back to work and counting the days until our next fun factor....Nanna and Pappa come Monday, so not long to wait. Hope you had a rad 4th of Juuuuuly.