Home for the Holidays, Part I

Home for this entry equals Heidi's childhood home in Wausau, WI.

We were in Wausau this year for Thanksgiving and for an early Christmas (this time we gave the weekend before Christmas a spin).

Thanksgiving
Scot and I signed up to run Wausau's 2nd annual Turkey Trot 5K on Thanksgiving morning. So, that meant we packed up on Wed and shuffled off across the border so we'd be ready for our early morning run the next day. There were about 1000 runners, the weather was decent, the route was nice...all in all, it was a fun time! Best of all, I finished with a 5K PR of 28:29. I've only run 3 5Ks, but hey, I keep shaving off minutes so I'll take it. My goal was to finish in under 29 minutes. Poor Scot was a trooper to even have run at all, considering he spent part of Wednesday night in front of the toilet. He seemed to have picked up the bug that Reese had a few days prior. By race time, though, he was feeling OK. And then the bug transferred to me on Friday. Ah, fun holiday weekend!

Before

After

Thanksgiving itself was nice - we got to enjoy a Packers win, tons of great food, and family!

I love this Packeriffic picture!

Christmas
So, yes...3 weeks later we were in the truck again, loaded with presents and enough gear to make it look like we planned on staying for weeks. We pulled Ava out of school at noon on Friday the 16th, picked up Reese from daycare, and headed east. That night, Grandma & Granpa babysat the girls while we enjoyed a dinner out with JoAnn, Greg & Gus. It turned out to be a celebration of sorts, as 13 year old Gus bowled a 300 (!) just that afternoon. Because it was during practice, he doesn't get the official accolades from the Bowling Association, but nonetheless it was AWESOME and I suspect there will be more 300 games in his future!

We played it pretty low key on Saturday morning. Grandma, Grandpa, Ava and I took a family trip to Fleet Farm to get Ava some new ice skates and snowpants. We took the girls out on the rink when we got home - Ava picked it up again just like riding a bike (well, she can't ride a bike yet without training wheels, but hey, she can ice skate). Reese wasn't feeling the ice rink love, so she mostly sat on the ice when I wasn't breaking my back trying to push her around.

In the afternoon, the gang came over and we did our usual snack-feasting, present-opening, and lasagna-eating. We really had such a nice time hanging out with everyone! As usual, the visit was over too quickly and we were back on the road on Sunday.

We took LOTS of pictures over the weekend because Scot & I splurged on 2 new Christmas cameras - a new point & shoot and a Canon SLR. It's been a lot of fun experimenting with the SLR and we're looking forward to taking a series of 3 classes in January/February.

It looks like I'll have to resize them before I upload though...I'll do that another day.

She's Six!

Goodness...Ava turned six over a month ago already. Here goes!

Her birthday was on a Thursday & coincidentally fell on the one day a month I volunteer in Ava's classroom. So, it was fun to spend some time with her in class and then stick around to eat lunch with her too. One is made to feel like a local celebrity amongst a gaggle of 6 year old girls - pretty fun! That night, we played it pretty low key. She got to open her presents and I'm pretty sure we had spaghetti and cake.

Two days later, we had not one, but two parties for her! The first was her "friend" party during the day at Lookout Ridge, an indoor play area in Woodbury. In addition to our local standby friends' kids, I gave Ava the go ahead to invite 6 friends from school. It didn't take her too long to finalize a list...Mya, Lindsey, Clarke, Lauren, Cora & Henry O. She's told us she's in love with Henry O. numerous times, so it wasn't too surprising that he made the list. Thankfully, for Henry O., we also knew Alexander & Bennett would be coming, so he wouldn't be the ONLY boy. Keira and Anna rounded out the guest list. And all of the kids she invited were able to come, so she was thrilled. It was so fun to see her SO happy, she loved playing with all of her friends outside of school. It all went well. They played hard and stopped to catch their breath twice, once to eat cake, once to open presents. And I also learned that kindergarten is apparently the magic age where, as a parent, you don't need to stay at the parties your kids get invited to. None of the parents of her school friends stayed. So, now I'm just waiting and hoping for Ava to get reciprocal invites so we can get some 2 hour blocks of free babysitting. Ha.

After that party, we had family over to the house for pizza, cake & ice cream. Ava had just as much fun with all of her admiring family members as she did with her friends. All in all, it was a great couple of days. And once again, I am left to ask, "Where did my baby go?"

Trick or Treat

Only about a month or so late... Here is our resident Renaissance princess and bumblebee.

The girls got to wear their costumes 3 times this Halloween season. On the Thursday night before Halloween, Ava's school had a DJ dance/dressup party - the kids had fun walking around the dance floor, but were pretty shy when it came to actually dancing. On Halloween day, they got to change into their costumes at daycare for a little parade and trick-or-treating throughout the center. Finally, it was Halloween night and the girls were SO excited! Julie and Todd (and dog Greta) came over too to partake in the fun. We made an hour long lap throughout the neighborhood. The girls pulled in quite a haul and just had so much fun - they were both at such a fun age to go trick-or-treating. After we got back, Ava handed out candy to the last of the kids to hit our neighborhood. I told her she could give one piece of candy to each kid (I wasn't sure how many more we'd have)...so when one older boy came and grabbed a handful, Ava sternly said "you can only take one." He said sorry and put the rest back. Ha! I never would have had that much gumption at her age. Heck, even now I probably would have let it go...:-)

Progress = none.

No way am I actually going to do anything on here...but look how cute I am!!!

Pitter Pat

"I'm in love with Henry O." Ava, almost 6.

Kindergarten

It's hard to believe that Ava has been in kindergarten for over a month...but in other ways it seems like we've been in this routine now for quite some time. Ava absolutely loves school. After being in preschool for 2 years and in the daycare center this summer, I don't think she found the transition to kindergarten all that daunting.

We had our first parent-teacher conference this week with her teacher, Mrs. Lloyd. Mrs. Lloyd has been teaching kindergarten for over 20 years, so she really is on top of everything. She started by showing us Ava's assessment results from the beginning of September. She scored high on it all - recognizing letters, numbers, etc. and she will repeat the same tests twice more over the course of the school year. She showed us other examples of Ava's work - and pointed out the folder cover that Ava made, as she was impressed that she used a scissors to create such detail in her picture.

One of my favorite things she showed us was Ava's Writing Workshop folder - each day they practice writing by thinking about something they did recently, drawing a sketch of it, counting the words in the sentence to describe it, and then writing it by drawing a line for each word and writing the words. The skills among the students vary widely but it's something they can all participate in, regardless of their level.

Here are some of Ava's writings/drawings. I'm especially proud that she has begun to spell words on her own and get pretty close to the actual spelling a lot of the time. She wasn't doing much independent writing before school started, so she's come a long way very quickly.

Me and my sister were watching Sponge Bob this morning.


We are getting our pics today.


Mommy pulled my tooth out.


A long time ago my family went to the apartment. (Atlanta!)


Like writing, her reading level has come a long way quickly too. She just started reading this summer and has become much more confident since school started. She is one of the top readers in the class and so Mrs. Lloyd is going to have Ava leave the classroom two days a week to go down to the Special Ed classroom and read to those kids. I feel like a broken record, but I'm so proud of her! Scot and I think it's great that she can practice her reading even more and essentially "volunteer" her time as well. It's awesome all-around and she is so excited about getting to do this.

Of course, not everything is good. Ava has issues with self-control in the classroom and sometimes needs reminders about the rules. Not surprisingly, she wants things her way. Mrs. Lloyd asked if we see those behaviors at home. Yes, we said,ever since birth.

I like so many of the things Mrs. Lloyd does. She sends a "book tote" home every Friday with a book and special activities that we can do together to work on comprehension. She also just started sending beginner reading books home every Thursday so the kids can practice those and then rate them easy/ok/hard. This week we got a special math pack that came home with all sorts of math-related games to play. We took this opportunity to also finally teach Ava how to play "War"! She had a lot of fun playing that with Scot and it reminded me of all the times I used to go over to my neighbor Essie's to play when I was her age. :-) Tonight when we got home, the first thing she did was sit down and play one of the math games by herself - drawing 2 cards out of a bag and then either adding them or subtracting them. I had to take a picture of Ava doing math homework first thing on a Friday night - I know that won't last long!



I also signed up to volunteer in the classroom one Thursday a month, so I had my first session last week. I helped during "center time", where the classroom is set up in about 8 or 9 centers with various activities. It was fun to check out Ava's classmates and see who she's been talking about so far. I give lots of credit to anyone who can spend all day with 20 5 and 6 year olds!

So things are going well with school. She started off the school year by only taking cold lunch (and even started packing it herself!) but since then she has diversified and gotten hot lunch about half the time. We check the menu every night and I let her decide what she wants. She also really loves to ride the school bus, though she also likes it when I drop her off at school, which I've done a few times. I get to work at about the same time either way.

Ok, so that's probably enough annoying mom chatter - it's just we've had so many challenges with Ava over the years, it's nice to see her settle down a little and really start to mature. I have a teacher friend who always said she never stopped being amazed at the things her own kids learned and it's so true - they really are such little sponges. It's awesome to watch.

Charleston

So, Trip #2 was to Charleston, SC for a friend's wedding. We met Bob in Mississippi when both he and Scot were going through pilot training. Imagine a 22 year old fresh from Texas A&M, sporting a high and tight haircut, driving a brand new cherry red Corvette, and bringing little personality to the table. Despite all of that, he was an endearing character and we took him under our married couple wing for that year. He's gone on to have a very successful active duty Air Force pilot career and was lucky to find himself a Jillian Michaels look-a-like for a bride. We couldn't miss the wedding.

Bob and his bride are currently living in Charleston where he is stationed with a C-17 unit, though they are moving to Virginia very soon. We flew down there from Friday to Monday. Since Scot was in the wedding, he had some pre-wedding obligations throughout the weekend, but we were still able to spend some time exploring the area on our own. Unfortunately, the weather was unseasonably cold that weekend, so we didn't get to enjoy our hotel on the beach as much as we would have liked! We still managed to get out for some walks on the beach (albeit in sweatshirts and pants) and got to see a good part of the city. In Charleston proper, we took a horse and carriage tour, which was really beautiful and fascinating. And had several meals just the two of us...which really is all we need to be happy these days!

Bob & Scot


Lindsey & her bridesmaids


The venue - I'm not sure I've ever seen a more breathtaking wedding site! To top it off, Lindsey arrived with her dad by horse and carriage.


Fun in the photo booth :-)


Congrats to Bob and Lindsey!

More Reese-isms

Skirt = sirk
Sweater = Fetter
Switch = Fitch
Bandaid = bandan

Parts of speech = Uses "her" instead of "she", i.e.: "Her is going to get dressed."

This picture really captures Reese's personality...



And we've also hit the phase where Reese can dress herself (good!), but which means she changes outfits 4-18 times a day (sigh).

Busy August & September

There's been a real reason for my blog delinquency for the past couple months - we have been busier than normal! We have had 3 long weekends in various states...the first was our family of four at Cragun's Resort on Gull Lake (near Brainerd, MN), the second was just Scot and me attending a wedding in Charleston, SC, and finally the last one was just me attending a girls' weekend in Las Vegas. Phew!

Cragun's was a great time, though next year we'll probably shoot for a weeklong stint. Four days was still nice (and all that we could make work for this busy summer between my hectic work projects and Scot's new job)...but it took us awhile to get in our groove, just in time to pack up and head home again. Cragun's is very family friendly - we had 3 free buffet meals included in the price and there was plenty of things for the kids to do (like a dj dance party - holla!). The weather was perfect, it was late August but still warm enough to be out by the lake and play in the sand. They had a giant indoor pool and hot tub which everyone loved too. We tried renting a speedboat one afternoon, but that was a bust (naptime + wind = unhappy little people). Live and learn. We had a condo with an extra bedroom for the kids that had bunkbeds, so they thought that was really cool. On the way up to Brainerd, we stopped in St. Cloud to walk around the beautiful gardens on the opposite side of the river from campus and then dropped by campus itself (boy did we feel old!). While we were up in Brainerd, we got together with old college friends who we hadn't seen in over 10 years. All in all it was a good time.











I'll have to write more about the other trips later...it's bedtime for this girl!

Reese - 33 months on 10/10/11

Our "easy" girl hasn't been so easy lately...she has really embraced her independent 2 year old-ness in the past several months. Decisions are painful. What to drink, what jammies to wear, what pull-up to wear, ponytail or not, the list goes on and on of topics that require multiple changings of the mind. I can't imagine how stressful life must be for our little Reese ;-) She'll committ to one (yes, the monkey jammies would be great, Mom) only to furiously object as soon as you help out with the original choice. She likes to go back and forth at least 2 or 3 or 17 times, only to finally settle on the choice decided upon 3 minutes earlier.

She has become even more verbal over the past few months, and I think going to the daycare center has helped a lot with that. The girl can rival Ava with her talking (who would have imagined this was possible?) and she really enunciates quite well. In fact, we've noticed that she already pronounces her "R"s, whereas Ava was still talking like she was from Boston up until about 5.

Reese has come home with a lot of songs from daycare - she really enjoys singing. And just the other day she sang the alphabet song all the way through for the first time. She just loves L a little more than the other letters, her version goes like this...H - I - J - K - L - L - L - O - P. She can also count to 13.

She is still our little comedian - she loves to make us laugh with her expressions and funny voices, she's always hamming it up. Even though dinners at our house can be stressful, we can generally count on her to break things up a little with some humor.

Potty training has not gone anywhere unfortunately. Ava even made Reese a "Princess Potty" sticker chart...but she has only gone 3 times over the past few months. Ava was potty trained by now, so it is frustrating. Reese just doesn't seem to have any interest whatsoever. The daycare has told us that when we are ready, we can just send her in underwear and that will usually do the trick in about a week...but I am still skeptical at this point. If she was making any sort of effort at home, I'd be all for it, but she just doesn't seem to have made any connections yet nor does she seem to have the desire.

What else? She is still at that cute age where she misprounces a lot of her words.
January = "Jean-a-ware!" (She loves to announce when her birthday is)
Museum = "Moozoom"
Computer = "Puder"
Anything that starts with L is pronounced as Y (i.e.: Like = "Yike", Look = "Yook")

I'm going to have to start writing these down when I hear her say them - I know there's a ton more but I'm having trouble remembering them now.

To piggyback on the last one, though, here is a conversation that was repeated occassionally over the summer. It made me laugh everytime...

Ava: Reese, I don't like you.
Reese: Ava, I yike you!
Ava: REESE! I don't like you!
Reese: Ava, I yike you...
Ava: REESE! I DON'T LIKE YOU!
Reese: I yike you, Ava.

Second Day

As I said in the last post, Ava's second school day would start with her first bus ride from our neighborhood. She was so anxious to get out to the corner and get on!

Does it get any cuter than this?


On Day 2, she sported the new sweater that her Aunt "Joyann" made for her - Ava had picked out the yarn when she was in Wausau this summer. My talented sister strikes again! I really couldn't get a decent picture of her that morning - she was even more wired than normal!


And Reese decides to ham it up too...


When the bus finally made it to our stop, I think Ava panicked a little then. She ran back to Reese and gave her a giant hug and then gave one to me too. The hugs seemed to calm her nerves and she was then ready to go. Sniff, sniff.

First Day

Sigh...really, where did my baby go?

Today marked Ava's first official school day, starting kindergarten with Mrs. Lloyd. She will be attending for the full day every day (8:10 - 2:40).

Ava has been talking about Kindergarten for months and was SO excited that it was finally the day to go! They ease them in to the first day by starting later and inviting the parents to attend for an hour of orientation, a short recess, and lunch. During that first hour, the kids did a scavenger hunt to find things in their classroom, Mrs. Lloyd read them a story, and then they got to take a school bus ride for about a half hour to get used to it and learn some things about bus safety. While the kids were on the bus, Mrs. Lloyd gave us all information about what the school year would be like, expectations, etc. It was really an enjoyable and well-organized morning. I didn't find it too hard to say goodbye to Ava after all of that - she was already adjusting well and it didn't seem all that different than dropping her off at daycare.

Tomorrow will be a little different in that she will ride the school bus for the first time from our neighborhood. I expect to get pretty choked up about sending her off that way, it definitely seems more like "letting go". At the end of the school day the daycare will pick her up in their own little short bus ;-).

Here is our cute, confident school girl!

School days!

Ava got a letter addressed to her in the mail last week from her soon to be kindegarten teacher, Mrs. Lloyd. This was such an exciting treat for her!

Along with the letter came a homework assignment:

She had to tape a picture of herself within the puzzle piece and decorate around it. Then she got to mail it back to Mrs. Lloyd! I presume all of the puzzle pieces will be fit together on the classroom wall when we go for the open house on August 31. Later that week we also went school supply shopping - one of my favorite things to do as a kid!

Happy Birthday Sam

My baby kitty...all 24 furry pounds of him...turned thirteen today. Thirteen!

One Sunday afternoon, long before kids and houses and well-paying jobs, I took a look at the classifieds in the Ann Arbor, MI paper. Yep, this was back when people still placed printed ads, back when there was no Craigslist...or really much of the internet period (gasp). The ad for "kittens" jumped out at me. We already had a dog at that time, why not a cat too? I called the number and the man who answered described the kittens - there was one male left and 2 females. He said the male was the ringleader of the bunch, the kitten he had named "King Cruiser". This would later turn out to be such a perfect description of him :-) Scot had grown up with cats and preferred those of the male variety so I told him I was interested and that we'd try and stop by later after I talked to my husband. Husband Scot was at Guard that day, which in Michigan was an hour long drive, so I waited very impatiently for him to get home.

Luckily, Scot was on board with the plan when he got home, so we called the man back and went over to his house that evening. We fell in love with "King Cruiser" as soon as we saw him - he was more or less a ball of puff that fit easily into one hand. And he did seem like a confident little cat.

We took him home and immediately introduced him to our dog Guinness, a lab mix. Guinness excitedly started poking her nose at him and panting, jumping around with anticipation at this new little play toy we brought home for her. Without wasting any time, "King Cruiser" hissed and took a swat at Guinness. And from that moment on, he ruled the roost.

We changed his name to Sam. And he has been such a wonderful pet...to Scot and me. That's about it. He hates pretty much everyone else, except Scot's sister. Di and Gardy tried so hard to win him over and all he did was bite them. And it's a rare occasion when he'll let anyone else pet him. Which is too bad, because with Scot and me, he is extremely affectionate. He takes purring to a new level. His favorite time of day is at about 8pm, after the kids are in bed and I'm on the couch. That's when he gets me all to himself and he is up on my lap literally within seconds of me sitting down. At bedtime and all through the night, he nuzzles up to my head, with his back end facing Scot. (Scot's extra happy we recently made the move to a King size bed) Well, and I guess his other favorite place is in front of the food bowl.

I'm having trouble finding some of my hard copy pictures of Sam's early years (where is the fricking 1998 photo album?!) to scan in...but here are some good ones that I had on hand...

Baby Sam (1998)


Killer Sam (he brought this chipmunk to our screen door when we lived in an apartment in Plymouth - 2000)


Study Partner - Sam (& Rocky) faithfully lended their fuzzy support to Scot while he was in pilot training. Mississippi, 2002. Sidebar: Rocky joined our family in 2001 as a young kitten. Sam took on the responsibility of nursing Rocky. Yes, nursing. Well, he tried really, really hard. They both seemed to take comfort in it for a few weeks. I can't believe I don't have a picture.


"Fat Cat in a Little Coat" (2006)


Samta


Probably taken about 10 years ago, but really nothing has changed. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAM!

New Job

Not me. Scot.

It's been at least a year or so since major change swept through our household, so we were due. Scot has been applying for full time positions at the Guard base for the last several years, only to come in shy of first due mostly to higher ranking individuals edging him out for one reason or another. So, recently one of the Colonels at the base encouraged him to apply to a job outside the Guard base - a joint planning position between the Air and Army Guard in MN. Lo and behold, he ended up number one this time! He found out the news just as I was heading out the door for the MS150 and I pleaded with him to ask if he could think about the decision over the weekend and give an answer on Monday. After much lengthy discussion on Sunday (there's nothing quite like riding a bike 150 miles, coming home, taking a bath, and then talking for a few hours to make a major life decision) - there were about an equal number of pros and cons - we decided to go for it.

He started on Monday and has liked it well enough to go back on Tuesday and Wednesday. This is a pretty big deal for him - he hasn't worked with any real job security or steadiness since he quit Champion Air in 2008. He has been able to piece together contract 9-5 type work for much of the last 3 years in addition to his flying, but it has never been anything we could depend on. He hasn't started at a new "company" since 2000 when we moved back to Minnesota after 3 years of living in Michigan. The job is located in downtown St. Paul, so it's a nice 15 minute commute for him. His wardrobe has expanded a little from his usual "jumper", as I like to call it. He wears his Air Force blues on Mondays and any combination of fatigues or his flightsuit the rest of the days. He was busily buying more uniforms last week, getting them tailored, and all of the rank sewn on.

So...congrats to Scot! We're hoping this ultimately is a good fit for our family and a new challenge that he enjoys. Time will tell!

New Daycare

So, the girls have one week checked off at the new daycare and I think we can call it a success! Ava is part of the school-age classroom, which has 24 kids for the summer doing more or less a "camp". They have a few scheduled field trips each week, water days on Thursdays (running around in sprinklers and such), and lots of other activities with which to keep them busy! She is really having a great time so far, I think she thrives on being with kids her own age and older. Last Friday, they even had a sleep over at the center! We dropped her off at 7pm and picked her up at 8 the next morning. She had a blast, playing games and watching movies, sleeping in a sleeping bag, all sorts of fun stuff. The director has emailed me a few pictures throughout the week already and sends out a weekly email with all of the upcoming activities so we are in the know. This week they are headed out to a DJ dance party on Wednesday in Bloomington (ha!) and Crystal Caves on Thursday. The other night she told me, "Mom, you really did a good job picking out the new daycare." Aww...that was music to my ears because I really did fret over the decision.

Reese is having a good time too - she is in the youngest preschool room and was happily dropped off every day...until Friday. All of the stimulation of the center has made for one tired little two year old, so she was just absolutely beat by the week's end. That morning, she screamed and kicked and cried from the time we started putting on shoes until the time we got to the center (about 5 minutes). Reese's screaming intensified while we were in the car, which caused Ava to start crying and yelling, "I want to talk!" It also kind of sounded like she was saying, "I want a dog!" which I found equally amusing. At one point, Reese somehow wrangled her arms out of her carseat straps, to which Ava exclaimed, "Mom, Reese is going to die!" Reese didn't stop crying after we got out of the car, or after we dropped Ava off at her room, or when we made it to her room. Fun stuff! Finally, one of the teachers just asked me if she could take Reese. I agreed. If I hadn't been so exhausted by it all, I would have been pretty broken up about it. I called later and she calmed down a few minutes after I left and went on to have a fun day. Hopefully she'll get more used to the activity and also start taking longer naps. She is adjusting to sleeping on a cot while she's there, so her naps have only been about an hour long, which clearly isn't long enough! On Saturday, all 4 of us took 3 hour naps - it was heavenly and very necessary!

Here are a few pictures from last week:

Ava getting her nails painted at the sleepover

Reese, giant gloves & worms

Ava & a friend on the bus to a local nursery to choose plants for their garden

MS150

So...over the weekend I rode my bike 150 miles to raise money for the MS Society (my grand total was $730!) It was an amazing adventure and I am really proud to have finished it.

The event couldn't have been run without hundreds of volunteers and their dedication made it a very organized event. After signing up for it way back in February, it was hard to imagine how all the pieces would fall together, but they did. Everyone who worked so hard to put it together made it pretty brainless for the riders - we just showed up to ride and everything else was taken care of!

Buses were available to depart the Twin Cities starting at 1pm on Friday to make the journey to the starting line - Proctor, MN, which is near Duluth. My friends (Jess, Katie, & Matt) and I decided to meet at 2pm and go from there. We picked up our registration packets and put our race numbers on our bikes and luggage. They had semis to load the bikes on, which were then transported to a large field near the starting line for pickup on Saturday. We kept the luggage with us on the bus. As soon as we got up to Proctor, there were more buses that were shuttling riders to area hotels. We were lucky enough to get a hotel for Friday night (not so lucky on Saturday - more on that later), so we boarded the next bus and checked in at our hotel. By this point we were starving, so we headed out on foot to Canal Park in Duluth to eat at Old Chicago. The walk to and from the restaurant was freezing and we were getting pretty nervous about the temperature for the next day...so when we got back to the hotel we tried to drown our concerns in the hot tub. We were all in bed by about 10:30, in preparation for our alarm to go off at 5:30 (gross).

We were all dressed out of our hotel room in about 15 minutes and then headed down to the lobby. Hopped on another bus to take us back to the starting line - loaded our luggage on another truck - ate breakfast at the high school - found our bikes - and got ready to depart. It was about 7:30 when we headed out across the start. And yep, it was cold indeed - probably about 50 degrees and overcast. And it really didn't warm up all that much throughout the ride on Day 1, we all rode with jackets.

They had designated rest stops about every 12-15 miles and these were great - they had port-a-potties, tons of food, water, gatorade, bike repair tents, everthing we needed. We were generally pretty grateful to get off our bikes and walk around a little bit at these stops - it was a good way to work out the soreness and get a little refreshed to tackle the next stretch. On Day 1 we averaged about 13-14 mph. We were towards the last third of the pack (3500+ riders) due to our late start, a moderate pace, and rest stops. We pulled into Hinckley, MN at about 2:30 or 3 with 75 miles in. It was a great feeling to get there! Most of the ride was a trail lined with trees, which made for great riding (no wind, cars, or potholes).

Once we got there, we dropped off our bikes in a designated area and then went to find our luggage which was set up in another field. Then it was time to set up our tents! Ugh...when we registered for the race 4 months ago, all of the hotels in the area were already booked...which left us with outdoor camping. Suck. But again, most everything else was taken care of - they had a dinner catered by Buca, Medtronic had a tent with snacks, there were food vendors, etc, etc. Oh, and we took showers in a "Shower Truck" which was a new experience for all of us. They had separate semis for men and women, with private shower stalls inside - they were actually really great! We hung out for a few hours and were all ready for bed by about 9:30. The temperature dipped below 40 degrees overnight so it was COLD. Yeah, a hotel would have been nice.

Sunday morning we were up at 5:15...tasked with getting dressed at 41 degrees (shiver!), packing our luggage and our tents. This time we skipped breakfast and headed over to the starting line at about 6:15. It was nice to get on the road earlier with more riders, but holy hell, it was COLD. I had tears in my eyes because my fingertips were numb. That first stretch was about 14 miles and by the end of it, we had finally thawed out for the most part. The sun was out and the temperature was warmer. What a difference that extra hour made! Our friend Katie dropped out of the ride at this point - her knees were hurting and she hadn't trained as much as the rest of us...fortunately they have vans at the ready to transport riders back who aren't feeling well enough to finish. The next 25 miles were actually a lot of fun - we got into a groove of going about 16 mph and at one point were drafting behind a group going about 19 mph. We felt a little more energized being in the first third of the pack, as compared to the day before.

We got to the halfway point at about 10:30, where they were serving lunch. The sun was out, it was about 70 degrees and we were feeling great. The second half was another story. Friend Matt rode with his sister for the rest of the ride, so it was down to just Jess and me. The sun disappeared, the temperature dropped and the headwind was relentless. We averaged about 11-12 mph for the next 2 legs, it was rough! One of these legs was the longest too at about 16 miles, we didn't think we were ever going to make it. Finally we got to Hugo - the last stop before the finish - and that was a big lift. We stayed there for just a few minutes and got back on the bikes again, with new resolve. This time we were back up to 15-17 mph, trying to keep up with 2 guys on road bikes. The last leg wound through mostly residential streets and then we hit the last stretch where we had been warned there was a giant hill. UGH! Giant hill it was, but we made it up...all the way to the parking lot near the finish line. Our friends Craig and Meghan were there to cheer us on, among hundreds of other people. It was very exhilirating to finally finish!

TBD if we'll do it again.

Jess, Katie, Me, Matt


Team Medtronic (we had 36 riders and raised over $27,000!)


Finished!

The end of an era

So we have been using Vicki - the same home daycare since Ava was 12 weeks old...and tomorrow is our last day! (Ava's was actually last Friday, Reeese has been there an extra week). We had to switch because they live in a different school district than we do and so transportation was going to be an issue for the fall. I'm writing a thank you card right now and getting choked up. This woman has spent more time with my kids than anyone, including me. Wow. We are moving the girls to a daycare center close to our house, which I'm excited about (except for the cost!) because I think in many ways Ava especially had outgrown the home daycare. But wow, talk about an end of an era - I can't believe we won't see them every day anymore.

The Graduate

On Monday, May 18, we experienced the first of many formal milestones - Ava's graduation from preschool! She has gone to the same preschool for the past 2 years and they have now declard that she is officially ready for kindegarten.

We invited the local family - Julie, Todd & Marilyn - over for dinner and then headed off to the church for the big event.

The preschoolers had prepared EIGHT songs for the program. After the songs, it was diploma time. Each student's name was called, and they were given a diploma and a cross necklace and their head was donned with a graduation cap.

And so another occasion goes by which prompts my famous question, "Where did my baby go?"

Mother's Day

Very tardy post...but something I still wanted to get down. Of the 6 Mother's Days I've experienced AS a mother, 2011 took the cake I think. But let's see...2006 was pretty fantastic, as that was my very FIRST Mother's Day. And 2009 was right up there - my first Mother's Day with Reese and mother to two. But 2007 and 2010...those didn't rank nearly as high because Scot was deployed and thus I didn't have my favorite father to share them with.

What does a perfect Mother's Day look like? I think it's a balance between being pampered a little and spending good quality time with the family. And that was how the day went. I rolled over to look at the clock in the morning and it was 8:15! And then I looked down and the Sunday paper was on the floor next to the bed. Wow. Wow. Wow. I opened the blinds, let the sunlight in, turned on some music and read the paper. UNINTERRUPTED. For about an hour. Then I heard some commotion coming down the hallway and two bursts of energy blew open the door with repeated chants of "Happy Mother's Day!" And with them they had a plate of monkey bread! I opted to join them all down in the kitchen for our breakfast feast.

Then it was present time! Scot got me a great gift - a Camelback water backpack, which will come in handy on my big bikeride in a few weeks. Ava made me some notecards at preschool that are adorable...and Reese, well she just flashed me lots of smiles with those cute dimples of hers. Later in the morning, Scot took the girls to the park and came home with an Edible Arrangements fruit basket. Yum! We spent the rest of the day hanging out at home and Scot and I made lasagna for supper. It was such a great day.

And because I'm a little bit spoiled/selfish, I was feeling a little pouty towards the end of the night because I had asked for a mother's necklace - I had sent Scot the link and everything to make it super easy for him to get me exactly what I wanted ;-) I finally asked him about it while we were curled up on the couch and watching TV. He jumped off the couch, ran upstairs, and came racing back with a little yellow mailing envelope. And lo and behold, there was my necklace! He had gotten it about a month ago and had completely forgotten about it - it was sitting on his dresser the whole time.



And my two little monkeys who make me such a proud, happy mom!