No excuses, but this is where I've been

"The girl who vowed to blog a post a day," scoffs you... Well I got through the entire month of January and knew that daily wasn't really very realistic, but still I thought I'd do better than disappear for over a week.  "What happened? Where have you been?" asks you...

Well Friday I ended up at the car wash. The free car wash.  I had decided to go ski by myself for just a couple of hours and by the time I got back my car was dirty. Nasty dirty. I was afraid my clothes would get dirty just climbing into it. The problem is that it was raining.  Not enough to clean off my car raining, just wet enough to make all the car washes in town close up shop for the day.

My only option was one of those drive through kind with no workers. I went to buy one at the newly re-opened gas station around the corner.  A man approached me and asked why I would buy a car wash today? And why here? I just pointed to my car. He nodded knowingly, but then listed off several other locations that would be more thorough in getting the job done.  I explained to him that all of those places required workers to scrub your cars down first and none of them would be offering that today. He smiled and said that one of them would.  He made a quick call the the Chevron he happened to own and let them know that there was a lady in a silver Infiniti that was crazy enough to want a car wash on this rainy day and that they were to take care of it on the house and to do it well.  I left the station around the corner and the kind stranger and one mile and one car wash later he had a new customer, and I was one happy lady! 

Me and my clean car headed over to Beamer park to watch Garrett at my first ever rugby match.  It was the muddiest, slipperyest (so what if I totally made that word up just now!)roughest,  most confusing thing I have ever watched.  I don't understand that game at all!  

While this was going on Wes was on quite the adventure with the priests and laurels trying to get up to two cabins near Huntington Lake.  The neighborhood the cabins were in had 8" of fresh snow and a steep uphill grade.  Getting there ended up involving tow ropes for almost all of the vehicles at some point.  

 With everyone else occupied, my parents and I took Brynne to the movies to see Nut Job. She cracked up laughing the whole time, and we just laughed at how happy she was.

But the night was still young after our flick and all the guys were gone, so I went back to the movies with a friend and watched Matt and George in The Monuments Men. Those men don't even need last names, you know who I'm talking about. And yes I went out to the movies twice on Friday night, whatever!

Jeff was totally unaware of all the excitement going on at home since he left thursday to work in Sacramento for two days and from there went straight to Idaho to spend time with his dad.  He's been battling cancer for the last 6 years but it had recently spread to his brain and Jeff knew this might be one of the last times he might have to spend time with him.

Saturday was one of those dumb days where everything took longer than it should.  My 7 mile run turned into a 7 mile walk because of my dumb hamstring and all I could thing of was Gilligans Island and how they were only supposed to be on a three hour tour and ended up being gone years! Yeah that was last week's run. It made me late/almost miss the a baby shower for a dear friend, but I snuck in for the last few minutes.   The rest of the day was equally as frustrating but I did my best to be productive. By Sunday evening we were all a little nuts.

Wes was laughing and rolling around on the counter tops

And I got roped into a game of war with Brynne! 

 Somehow she magically won! (wink, wink)

 Monday there was no school so after a quick run I was back up on the mountain skiing with Drew.  But skiing would be a generous term.  It was actually closer to downhill ice skating. It was a gorgeous day though and we had lunch with some friends who happened to be up there too. In all though, we were there for less than 3 hours.

 That night after I picked Garrett up from rugby practice Garrett told me he'd been having stomach pains since before practice.  They continued to get worse over the next hour until he ended up on the floor bawling in pain.  This from my big tough guy, I was pretty nervous. He said he hadn't been in this much pain ever not even with any of his 6 broken bones.  Since it was after hours and Kaiser had no more urgent care appointments available for the night the only option was for us to go to the emergency room which usually consists of several hours of waiting.  I tried several non Kaiser urgent care facilities and in the end wound up back at Kaiser's ER. They did a quick intake and then sent us back out to the waiting room.  Some friends came and gave Garrett a blessing as his pain had started to subside.  By 1am we were tired and sick of waiting  so we just went home and I scheduled an appointment for tuesday afternoon.  They ended up doing blood tests and still arent sure what the deal was, but he's been taking it easy and has been feeling fine.  Hopefully it was just some kind of a fluke thing.

 Tuesday Brynne had activity days.  She's been spending lots of time with a bunch of the girl in her primary class, most of whom have moved here in the last several months.  Above is Brynne tackling Jess Blackwell.  Her daughter Isabel and Brynne have been spending tons of time together and I just have to say she is one awesome lady!

 She just moved here and has spent hours of her time helping people move, she's organized an exercise group, thrown a baby shower, and is constantly stepping in and vlunteering to help anyone out who might possibly need it.  It's so incredible to me to see the way she has just jumped into everything in such a short time and is always at the middle of anything fun that is going on in the ward.  I totally thought of her when I saw the picture above on Facebook. She is not one of those ladies sitting on the third row letting life happen to them, she jumped right into the front car is all in.  I always want to be like that!

 Wednesday night I got to go to celebrate with my friend Kacie who has just  had the sequel to her first book published by Harper.  It's the third book of hers published in the last year and she has another on the way.  It's sooo cool to see awesome things happening for her!

On Thursday that has often been dubbed in social media as "throwback thursday" I saw these beauties in Target. Really. I have seen a ton of crazy styles come back into fashion recently. It's one of those indicators that you're getting old when fashion starts to recycle itself.   But honestly of all the things to come back around iI never thought I 'd see the likes of these again! If I wasn't so dang lazy I'd round up a picture or ten of me in a pair of these, much younger, with big hair, but I'll spare us both for now. 

It had been a busy and eventful week. I had been going to bed pretty early and sleeping til late and still feeling pretty wiped out so I played hooky from all responsibility thursday morning and enjoyed my favorite room on a comfy couch with the sunshine pouring in and a good book.  Sorry for palying hooky from the blog too.  I got lots of texts and calls wondering where my posts had gone.  This is where they've been, but we're back now.

My Brains Are Absent, Really!

Today I Brynne and I made the drive to Oakland to meet with a team of doctors that regularly treat Mito patients.  It's awesome.  We go into one room and then a series of specialists come in to see us. They note any changes or progression of symptoms and answer questions. They offer advise and any possible assistance.  I love having a great team of doctors ready to assist at any time as we move along this unknown journey of having a child with mito.

I took this picture because I remembered taking one just like it almost two years ago when we last met with the team.  I actually spent a lot of my drive thinking about the last two years between these doctor visits and considering all of the changes that have taken place in such a short time.  I never would have guessed at some of the twists and turns that have come about. 

But it also reminded me of  the adventure Brynne and I had on the way home from this visit last time.  Brynnes pants that disappeared into the wind unbeknownst to me while I was talking Brynne through relieving herself on the side of an empty highway in case of an emergency.  The panic I felt upon realizing the pants and underwear were gone contrasted greatly to Brynne's carefree little self doing a headstand on the back seat of the car, crossing and uncrossing her legs singing about having no pants while wearing only a t shirt.  Ahh yes, what sweet relief it was to find the pants 200 yards ahead of us after I had completely given up hope of finding them.  Today's trip was blessedly uneventful.

Upon returning home I found mail addressed to Jeni Hurd.  You can always tell that I go way back with someone if they call me Jeni.  Jeni is the girl who grew up in Woodland.  Jeni is what my grandparents, a few aunts and uncles and a couple of cousins still call me.  Jeni is who I am to anyone who knew me from the time I was born until my senior year in high school.  I moved just a few weeks before my senior year.  The friends I made in Clovis already had a Jenni and a Jennifer, so I became Jen and never looked back.  For someone to call me Jeni who didn't know me then, it almost comes across as just cute or a term of endearment not my name...is that weird?  Anyway that piece of mail sent me quickly down a different path of Memory Lane.

And what was inside, brought me down yet another.  My high school 20 year reunion is this August.  How in the heck did that happen.  That's a lot of years.  Where did they go? How did that happen so fast?  What I have done in the last 20 years?  Am I where i thought I would be?  Am I who I thought I would be?  It made me feel a little old, but not in a bad way.  It's one of the first times I can remember where I actually felt like a grown up and not Jeni still in high school.  So often I feel like I am still young, just a kid, making it all up as I go, faking it til I make it, you know?  But today I just felt like a grown up. Owning the last 20 years that have taken me down paths I never could have possibly imagined for myself.  

Instead of dwelling on any of it for too long I just got to work on a few projects that I have been really needing to get to. No matter that it was raining, I had been gone and stuck in the car for so many hours I just needed a little productivity.  I cleaned and scrubbed off the upstairs patio, swept and hosed off the front porch and walkways, and then I filled 5 wheelbarrows of dirt from the side yard, spread it all along the back fence and then covered the side yard with wood chips. I'm several bags short, so Home Depot will be seeing more of me in the next couple of days. I ended up tossing a few sand bags across the fence so Shelby won't dig underneath the fence and get out.  I cleaned up her dog house and dragged it over to the side yard/ dog run as well. The crazy thing is that I did all of this in the dark only really seeing what it looked like when I took the picture. Why? I know what a weirdo I am that I absolutely had to get this project done tonight while it was raining and I could barely see.  I don't think I even know anyone else who would feel compelled to start a project like that in those conditions. It's not normal.  So I'm just 'fessing up, admitting it now to anyone bothering to read, I am crazy. 

Further proof of how weird I am is this.  The husband is out of town and I don't even bother to take all the pillows off the bed before climbing in.  Oh no, I stack them all lengthwise on his side of the bed so it will be easier to make the bed tomorrow morning.  

So basically the point of this whole post is just to give everyone fair warning, this may not be the time to ask me or tell me anything important.  My brains are absent.  Either they are strolling down one the many paths of memory lane, or they've just gone completely nuts.  Either way I'm kinda useless.  Let's talk next week!

Sunshine from the Bakery

I've been feeling a little under the weather the last couple of days but these little gems from one of Jeff's clients helped to bring a little sunshine into my day!

Tight Squeeze But Still Pleased

And we're back! Our family for the weekend has disbanded and we're back into our own homes.  We'll all sleep much more comfortably tonight.  All of us will have hot water for our showers in the morning. Not one of us will be sleeping in a closet. No one will have to explain why the bed is completely broken underneath them.  We can dry our clothes without plugging our ears to buffer the wretched screeching.  The ratio of showers to people will be better than 23 to 3.  We'll have room to park the cars with out an engineering degree. But we won't have the late night chats, the noisy meals, the competitive games of ping pong, the piles of junk food, tons of laughter, and awesome skiing just 15 minutes away.  Our weekend was an adventure with a little danger, and a lot of fun, and in spite of our lovely accommodations we were all sad to see it come to an end so quickly! 

Sunshine and Smiling Freezing Faces

 It was one of those perfectly beautiful days

The kids were happy

 and the sun was shining

 it was also incredibly, cover your face cold!

 the powder in the trees lured all of the boarders

and the jumps just begged you to put your skills to the test

 At lunch time we learned to stay clear of the spaghetti and meatballs

heard all about the ski bus

 rescued lost bindings and adventured uncharted routes

 We determined the fine line in beard stroking that determines pensive and pedophile

and debated on just how awesome my hair actually is.

 But when its time to go you just gotta flip your weave and leave

We spent the day in awe of our beautiful surroundings and so grateful for the timing of the snow

We sarcastically shredded the gnar and slayed the pow pow

 We doubled the fun with Austen and Austin

 We teased 

 and posed

and went down a couple of runs that we could have done without

even if we kinda rocked it anyways ;)

 We all had at least one really good yard sale 

 We found lots of ice and plenty of rocks

 our skis and boards will need some freshening up 

 But if we could, we would all spend at least one more day on the slopes at Sierra!

 Kirsten called Chevy's to warn them we were coming. All 23 of us. She didn't give them three good reasons they should split our checks and didn't tell them that the mayor would be there, but we all managed to get good parking and dinner served none the less

 I'm not going to lie and tell you we didn't leave a huge mess, but hope that the tip was enough to allow us back in next time!

Haley warned us that Aaron was picking up ice cream and brownie mixso we should put on our stretchy pants.

 We didn't argue with that, we just nursed our wounds and thawed out by the fire and patiently waited

 while discussing Austin's closet and Drew dreaming of rainbows

 And then we just sat and laughed at all these crazy kids. And then they laughed at us when they beat the adults in two competitive rounds of reverse charades.

 We had no complaints about the men serving us dessert

and everybody was happy with their ice cream

 We were reaquainted with an old friend with an affinity for camels

 The party animal McCauleys finally started unwinding after two and a half hours of energy

We were all impressed at what a trooper Lauryn has been since her accident yesterday.  So many versions of how it happened are going around and nobody's telling which one is true!

 Clearly these guys need a huge Mountain dew or some berries and cream because they were quckly losing steam

And things just got crazier as the night went on

until everyone slowly wound down

 Some people couldn't even make it to the vestibule or their rooms before calling it a night.  We won't mention anything about the loud noises, brown drool or supposed snoring.  Well just say it was another great day and we were all spent.