Getaway

Five

Couple weeks of celebration

Our sweet girl turned nine this month. With Stephen on a business trip for her actual birthDAY, I decided to make it a little extra special for her.
In December the elementary school had a winter wonderland fundraiser and Avery begged me to "win" her a lunch date with the school's service dog Charlie in the silent auction.
$40 later we "won"!
I arranged her lunch date with Charlie to be on her birthday, which she loved.
After school a friend came over and myself and four kids headed out to dinner (birthday girl's choice, Moe's Southwest Grill). A stop at Sweet Frog's for dessert and then an evening of swimming at the local community center.

Our girl is deep, but our girl is simple. Stephen pointed out to me that she is so hard to buy gifts for because of her love of the simple life. So we gave her a choice, a birthday party or a date with mommy at the Baltimore aquarium for a sleepover with the dolphins. Her choice was quick and simple, dolphins, definitely dolphins.

Amazing experience that my girl and I will remember for a very long time. Touring the aquarium after  hours with a tour guide that has worked or volunteered at the facility since opening day over 35 years ago (after visiting this aquarium so many times we really thought we knew the place...boy were we wrong!). Behind the scenes information and rooms that are kind of mind blowing. 

Making new friends. 

Watching a really special girl do her thing with her animal friends.

Using some of her birthday money, little miss bought a bat at the aquarium gift shop. When she heard the guides mention dolphins love to play, she held her bat up to the window to see if they would come over.

Not only did the youngest dolphin come up to play, Bailey did a flip, and then began blowing bubble rings followed by catching them with her teeth. It was amazing and I didn't really capture the moment well because it was such a beautiful sight to experience in person.

We had a really special moment of time together. What a blessing to share this time with an amazing "little" girl that I have the honor of raising and calling my daughter. 

Happy 7th

January 2nd is a tough day to have a birthday, especially as a child. Not only does it follow closely on the heels of Christmas and New Year's celebrations, it also happens to be the day our county sends everyone back to school.
While we celebrated as a family on C-Note's birthday by going out to eat at his favorite pizza restaurant and dessert at Sweet Frog's, we held off on having his party until this weekend, when things settled down a bit. Glad we did, we had temperatures in the 60's so windows were open and pinata activities were held outside.
So much fun to host a Star Wars party for eight, seven-year-olds. We found all of our ideas on the internet, they were all so easy to recreate.

I ordered personalized Lego Star Wars iron-ons from a woman on etsy. Stephen cut all the white t-shirts to make capes. So easy and the boys loved them!

A green and blue light saber battle for his cake. I wish he was smiling in this photo, he lost his second top tooth the night before the party!

Green and blue chocolate dipped pretzal rods for snack. We also had Cantina corndogs, R2D2 Ruffles, Anakin apple slices, Padawan (cheese) puffs, droid candy and Yoda soda.

Our family (extended included) collected all kinds of recyclable items. The boys were able to create their own recycled droids. Some boys worked together, some worked on their own. I thought it was so cute when one of the boys asked to take all three of his droids home! I am sure his parents were thrilled that our recycling then became their property!

We rounded out the party with pin the light saber on Yoda, a Darth Vader pinata, watching a bit of the Lego Star Wars series as well as playing Lego Star Wars on Wii. We were hoping for a silly strong battle in the back yard, but we ran out of time. So we sent that home in the goodie bags along with a small lego x-wing fighter and a star wars pez.

Happy Birthday C-Note, we love you!

The fight

Too much sugar? A full moon? Spring like temperatures...perhaps a combination, but all three kids were misbehaving the other night.

One child whining, we can handle. Another child talking back, we got this. But when all three pick the same time to act out with multiple misbehaviors, it isn't fun or pretty.

While one child was doing push-ups for talking back to us, another was sent upstairs to shower. 

10 minute shower rule. 

About 15 minutes later Stephen had to go up and tell the oldest it was time to get out.

When middle was finished doing his push-ups, he was sent upstairs to shower. 5 minutes later we hear running around upstairs, middle is acting silly, while oldest is still in the shower. 

I told oldest her time was up and scooted middle into the shower. 

10 minutes later we hear laughing, Stephen runs up and finds middle in the shower with oldest BACK in the shower with a towel wrapped around herself, both spitting and throwing water at one another.

5 minutes later I go to tell middle to get out, to put youngest in, and find oldest still there! 

As I tried to maintain composure, I loudly encouraged her to get to her room before she got in more trouble.

About 20 minutes later, with everyone showered and ready to read bedtime stories, Stephen has the boys on the couch and I go looking for Avery. I find this note on her door.

In her sensory processing disorderly way, she figuratively slammed her door in our faces (because actual slamming would be too loud for her), acting very pre-teenish. 

And it was so darn cute!! 

After I stopped giggling and wiped the smile off of my face, I asked her if I could talk with her. Her swollen red eyes and lip tremble made me wish I had cake in my hand. We talked about the events leading up to her getting in trouble. She apologized for not listening and I apologized for raising my voice. 

Then we snuggled and read a really dreary book (Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket...not for the faint of heart or those who are sensitive) and decided we would read happier books after just one chapter. Especially after a night like that night. 

her first piano recital

After playing "twinkle, twinkle little star" by ear at a very young age on her six key xylophone, we kind of knew oldest had an ear for music. When we lived in Baltimore, our music teaching neighbor recommended oldest take piano lessons after watching her hand positions and the ability to play songs without reading music.

So we enrolled her in lessons last year and she is enjoying it tremendously. A few weeks ago she participated in her first recital. She played two songs solo and then a third with a friend. It was really great to see her perform and hear how much she has learned in a year. One of these days I'll get the video I have of the recital on here:)

With her piano teacher Mrs. Reynolds.

Practicing her duet.

Two ninjas and a dragon

The kids enjoyed trick or treating this year. We went two full blocks more than we have ventured before.

They came home with a lot of candy and after they picked a few to eat (and mom and dad picked a few to eat!), they donated the rest to  our service men and women overseas.

Back to our regularly (altered) schedule

Oh look! It's November and there hasn't been a new post since July.
Learning to navigate the waters of working full time outside the home while trying to keep life "normal" as we have always known it, has been challenging, interesting, hair pulling and a bit exhausting. With some tweaks in expectations, throwing more independence at the kids and Stephen partnering with me on this new journey we have a new normal and it seems to be working.

I'll try to recap a few of our highlights from the past several months in future posts. Piano recitals, pumpkin picking, running races, Brownies, it's been fun and busy!

As Stephen makes his annual visit to Miami this weekend to watch the last Nascar race, we decided to take the underwater camera the oldest received for her birthday last February - out of the box (insert blush that we are just getting around to using it!) - and head over to the community center for some fun.

Happy 4th!

JMan came down for breakfast so excited to find a treasure chest and glow in the dark sword waiting for him on his 4th birthday. He has been talking about having a pirate birthday party for weeks now complete with:

a green glow in the dark sword

telescope

treasure chest

pirate ship

We thought we would have a little fun, so Stephen created a pirate map for JMan to follow to find his gifts.

He had to wait until we came home from church to follow the map. But when we came home, he disappeared! Five minutes later he came downstairs ready to begin his treasure hunt!

He loved his new pirate ship and his legos that were at the end of his hunt. He also enjoyed helping daddy put everything together.

After dinner and cake, we headed outside for the pirate ship pinata. 

It was a terrific pirate family party...ARGHHHH!! Avast, ahoy, aye, aye! Happy Birthday big guy!!

Save them all

Garden, thinning, hard to do.
Want to save every pet.
Now I want to save every historic home that looks like it is about to fall down.

Show me the money

Recently I have felt like calling the newspaper where I work and having this conversation with them.

SHOW ME THE MONEY! (click on the words to get to the link)

Another famous quote comes to mind in my circumstances - "Do what you love and the money will follow." 

In April I asked the newspaper for which I freelance if they would consider an increase in pay. For two solid years, over 110 realty sections, with little direction and no "vacations" or time away from my work, I have committed my time and resources to provide outstanding materials.

About three weeks ago I was called in for some meetings, new staff had been hired and some changes were being made to the section I edit, write and layout each week. Finally! Working as a team, more direction, more communication, building a better resource for realtors and homebuyers to utilize for their needs (because up until now I didn't think the changes were mine to make).

While the meetings have felt productive, there has been little movement following. Instead I am confused by the talking heads and the sides they are taking. One side wants this, the other wants something different. The something different side has more power but has rescheduled our most recent meeting four different times, leaving me to scramble to find a babysitter and then cancel, three times over.

My time is valuable. My kids, my family, taking care of my home and my sanity is much more important than working this job. This last week I crafted my letter of resignation and have been very close to pressing "send" many times this weekend.

And then I found this.

Isn't she beautiful? Well, I didn't find it, but I did find this story about a home built in the early 1800's. Lived in by three confederate soldiers, purchased by a couple who farmed over 200 acres of the land, bore their children in the home, with a family name integral to the history of Hillsboro, VA. Five generations of this family sat together for dinner at this home for many years.

When one son of the farmer and his wife built this new home just down the road, he asked the masons to look on the old property for stones to use to build this landscape wall. They turned up with this from the old tanning barn...to skin animals for their hides, not the tanning we know today...a cornerstone with the carving of the year the barn was built, 1815.

I love my job. My father's passion for history has enveloped me and I love to write about historical homes in this part of the country. To stumble upon this gem makes me daydream about what life was like for all of the people that passed through the doors of this home.

When the family decided to put a central heating system in the home, the installers found some of the insulation to be grain. A natural spring running down from the local mountain ran right to the house for fresh water, and then not only for this home, but three others and the local school. The wide planked wood floors were hand cut from trees on the property and with a little finishing will be stunning.

So my heart tugs to keep doing what I love, because I really do love this. But the money isn't following. I have been asked for more of my time and handed more responsibility with no sign of an increase in pay. Make no mistake, money is not everything. But I am beginning to feel of little value and that is disheartening.

The Crim Family

Missing Louie

It has been over a month since we had to say goodbye to our beloved lab Lucas. While our hearts do not ache consistently as they did that first week he was gone, we still miss him and think of him often. Over 12 years of memories with that big ball of love, I know we had a great time with him, I hope he felt the same.

I am thankful Stephen agreed to adopt Lucy last fall. While it did take her a few months to settle in, she is doing so well. And she really helped fill the void we felt losing Lucas. She didn't replace him by any means, but I think having her around for all of us to love on really helped. She really is such a great dog and so much fun to have around.

Father's Day

I heard from the one who mattered most yesterday, "I had the BEST Father's Day!" So glad we could make it such a special day for him.

We packed a lunch and enjoyed the day exploring Harper's Ferry National Park. This little gem is about 40 minutes from our home and while Stephen and I enjoyed reading all of the historical background and taking in all of the old buildings, the kids enjoyed swimming in the river.

Telling me of his days gone by tubing with friends on this same river, I could tell he really enjoyed introducing the next generation to this beautiful, peaceful place. 

He may be dying but he hasn't changed his ways.

Our twelve and a half year old black lab has lymphoma. His lymph nodes are swollen and rock hard and the tumors seem to be growing leaps and bounds every day.

We decided to forego any treatment, he is a big, old dog and his time has come. He has led a happy, albeit, gluttonous life and we are sad to watch him go, but happy he has been such a part of our lives for so many years.

He was my first baby. Well, the rottweiler we had to give away was our first, but Lucas is the first baby that we kept. We picked him out of a litter of 9, all black. We drove home with him at eight weeks and raised him day by day.

We moved with him. And moved, and moved and moved (there are still not enough 'moves' in that sentence!). He was my walking buddy, I took him

summer projects

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Insert blushing face now. 
The last month of school activities were crazy which left me little time to do much else including updating the blog. Which is unfortunate because the kids had some great achievements, funny quotes, fantastic photo opportunities. But I refuse to beat myself up about it. I do enough of that thinking about their baby albums...let me rephrase, their unfinished baby albums for my children who are now 8, 6 and 3.

We had a fantastic spring break. Which lead me to believe summer was going to be a lot of fun. Yet there was still some fear that the fighting, whining and "I'm bored" comments would begin within moments of packing away backpacks for fall retrieval.

Our first week of summer break has been very successful and I attribute its' ease to having a plan. As summer approached I sat down with a friend of mine and we planned our summer. We planned our days, which turned into weeks which made it look like summer would actually fly by faster than we would like.

So far the kids have really liked their scheduled days (Monday through Friday). On that schedule, I have picked a big craft for the kids and I to complete each week. This week included tooth pillows! Each child helped make this adorable soft place to hold their loose teeth (in the tooth's mouth!) in anticipation of the tooth fairy. The idea came from this lovely book I received as a gift for my birthday.

Yes, we have only completed week one. But I am hopeful our plan will be a continued success, especially with fun crafts like this one.

Big week for C-Note

C-Note is now a red belt, two belts away from earning his black. He did a great job breaking his boards sparring and showing his forms. He is so focused! He is really looking forward to his tournament in May.

He also lost his first tooth! Eating dinner, he asked me why there was red on his quesadilla. Excited, I jumped up and told him it was his tooth coming out. I then grabbed his very wiggly tooth and pulled it before he could say no. For two nights he waited for the tooth fairy. And for two nights, the tooth fairy was a no show. Quite the slacker. Last night he finally left the lid off of the glass gift box, which is the tooth box in our house, and she deposited $5 in return for the tooth. More than she gave for oldest's first tooth, but oldest also was visited the first night.

Oldest told C-Note that the fairy probably came the two nights before but due to the fairy's tiny nature, she couldn't lift the lid. It is hard to tell if Avery believes or not, so it is always cute to hear her take on the situation. I was just so relieved she had an explanation.

Getting off the sugar train

A few months ago a friend told me about the Clean Program. It is a 21 day cleanse created by a cardiologist, eating approved foods and supplements to rid toxins from the body.

I have wanted to do a cleanse for awhile now, but was never satisfied with the approach. Until this one. I didn't want to starve myself, I like food too much. And although this program does sell supplements to buy, you don't have to. I read Dr. Junger's book, Clean, which this program is based upon, and bought the recommended supplements at my local health food store.

The book, website and blog all have approved recipes created by a wonderful chef which is so helpful. But this is where my fear kicks in. There are numerous ingredients 1) I have never heard of, therefore 2) have no idea where to find them in my grocery store and 3) some of the ingredients I have heard of I don't necessarily like. Beets are one that come to mind.

But as much as the cleanse is physical, it will also be a mental cleaning. I don't feel healthy with my current diet (pizza for dinner last night, toasted salt bagel with cream cheese and a coke for lunch, insert eye roll here) so the point of this cleanse is to be open to new ideas, new foods, re-try foods I have tasted in the past that I may not have liked. I desperately want to change my cravings and palette, so I will face my beet hurdle and I am sure other food hurdles to come.

I imagined myself wandering around the grocery store, asking an employee to be my personal shopper hoping they would know what these elusive (to me) products were and where they would be located.

Thankfully another friend told me about Wegman's online shopping list. After I planned my weekly menu, I entered my items into the website and not only did Wegman's website show me a picture of the product, it also told me what aisle to find it in!

I spent 80 percent of my time this morning in the produce aisles. I learned that a daikon is a Japanese white radish, that there are many variations of kale and cabbages (of which I needed three, regular, red and napa), that Tahini is a sesame based paste, that chick pea miso has to be ordered online and so much more. 90 percent of my grocery bill was produce, green produce, and it felt good spending money on things that are nourishing and wholesome.

There is so much natural color in my refrigerator and fruit bowls. I am armed with all that I need for week one of Clean. I know the cravings for sugar and dairy will be strong, but I am keeping my eyes on the prize. I want to feel better and this will help me achieve that goal. Whether I find that I have food allergies when I re-introduce foods, or I curb my cravings, or I just start eating clean foods more often, it will be worth the 21 days of Clean.

Clean's motto: Address Root Causes of Poor Health Cleanse the Right Way
(I have linked to the actual manual that describes the cleanse instead of the website where the products are sold.
http://cleanprogram.com/files/clean-program-manual.pdf

no surprise

We picked up her glasses yesterday and not only does she love how well she can see with them, she looks great wearing them. It really is no surprise that one, if not all three, will need corrective lenses.



She picked a pink case that closes in the shape of a heart and she loves the little 'bling' on the sides of her frames. The optician gave her a few lessons about the general care of glasses and she is taking this new responsibility very seriously.
"Mommy, can I wear them in the bathroom?"
Me: "Well you need to see what you are doing in there, so yes."
"Mommy, do I take them off to shower?"
Me: "Yes, they will get too wet and then you won't be able to see out of them."
As she packed her glasses case in her backpack this morning she told me she would take them off for gym and recess. I told her to do what she thought was best, but that they are for her to see more clearly, so the more she wears them the better for her eyes.

Mile 20

Seasoned marathon runners warned me. But no matter how many warnings you hear, you have no idea what you will feel at mile 20, or 21, or whatever mile you happen to hit your wall.

Our trio of runners trained four months for this St. Patrick's Day race. We clocked a lot of miles, a lot of laughs, we felt good. Our longest training run hit 21 miles, we knew we would face a tough road from 21 to 26.1 on race day, but we knew we had laid a pretty solid foundation and would power through that last leg.

I'll spare you the details about my intestinal issues the day before and day of the race. What I thought were nerves was most likely a stomach virus, leaving me starting the race on empty, nothing would stay down, in, you get the picture.

With that said, I felt decent the first half. If I had crossed the finish with the rest of the half marathoners, my time would have been close to a personal best.

Close to crying, realizing I had another 13.1 to run, I hit my wall. Not at 20, not at 24...no, at 13.1. I felt awful and I could feel myself slowing down considerably. I could tell my neighbor was slowing down to stay with me and while I appreciated the gesture, I didn't want to see her ruin her race. But she knew I was in the pits and hung with me. I could feel the dehydration sinking in, I couldn't catch up with what I had lost the last 24 hours and nothing sounded good or tasted good even though I forced myself to eat and drink at every water station.

When training, the three of us passed the time by telling each other stories. We know a lot about one another now, and it is often hard to find a story we haven't told to one another. Many times we don't even care if we have heard it before, at least it keeps our mind off of the miles that lie ahead.

I begged my friend to tell me a story. She laughed but knew I needed it. She took time trying to find one that she hadn't told before and finally came up with one from her husband's time spent working for the secret service, nothing top secret of course, but a funny one to give me a good laugh.

A couple of the bands kept me moving, a women's drumline was particularly motivating. A lot of signs made me laugh..."Chuck Norris never ran a marathon" kept reading over and over in my head.

At mile 15 my friend asked what I needed. I told her I needed her butt running in front of me or else. We had slowed to a snail's pace. While I knew how badly I felt and that moving forward was my goal, no matter the pace, I had to get my friend running her own race. Finally she took off and when I couldn't see her within a couple of minutes I knew it was going to be a long day.

While most to all of our training runs have ended in 50 degree weather, race day we started at 55 degrees. By Mile 18 it had to be 70. The course had also opened to full sun. I kept drinking and eating what I could, but it was getting harder and harder to stomach anything. I pushed on, and felt pretty good until Mile 20. Then I got very dizzy, very sick and threw up right there on the side of the race. While I was OK with getting sick, I was not OK with the dizziness, I feared falling and hitting my head. I started walking and I called Stephen who tried the "mind over matter" pep talk until he heard the details of my intestinal issues. I so appreciated the "atta girl" talk, but had to cut the conversation short due to a wave of nausea. I went back and forth in my head about sitting down, walking over to a police officer to ask for help, or continuing on. No doubt in my mind, if I had been wearing white, I would have laid down right there and raised my white flag in surrender. I felt awful.

I did stop in a medic tent. Sat in the shade, stretched, drank some gatorade and talked with someone about my options. I could stop now, be taken to the finish and get an IV of fluids or try to walk for a bit and see how far I could go. I decided to walk but with the intent of finding help as soon as I felt dizzy again.

So for 6 miles I walked. With open cups of gatorade in my hands. I thought about a lot of things. Funny things, like how I managed to walk the worst part of the course, where the stores have bars on the windows and a house had yellow caution tape around it. I steered far away from the "I can't believe you are walking this after all of that training." I was already down for the count, I didn't need my self-inflicting talk to drop kick me as well. Pink's song "Perfect" played several times on my iPod which was a great inspiration:
You're so mean (Your so mean)
When you talk (When you talk) about yourself, you were wrong
Change the voices (Change the voices) in your head(In the head)
Make them like you instead
(Chorus)
Oh, pretty pretty please
Don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than, less than perfect
Pretty pretty please
If you ever ever feel like you're nothing you are perfect to me

5 hours and 13 minutes later I crossed the finish line. Physically, it was difficult. Mentally, it was a beast. I couldn't believe my body had let me down after months of training. I had to walk, not just here and there, but six miles, across the finish. Even though I had already signed up for another marathon (Marine Corp in October), I was ready to hand over my bib number to someone more deserving, someone who could run.

It took quite a few days to physically recover, especially since myself and the three kids were diagnosed with strep just four days later. It took until my next race to mentally recover. April 1, Cherry Blossom 10-miler, best race of my running "career." I'm back.

Lastly, I read this quote several days ago and realized it rang true for me and that awful race day.

"There is a difference between giving up and knowing when you have had enough."
Marc and Angel Hack Life - Practical Tips for Productive Living
www.marcandangel.com

I'm back.

The Kitty Party

Thanks to a lot of helpful tips on the internet, Avery's kitty party was a blast. Two hours was just enough time for twelve kids to eat a lot of sugar, play games and have fun.

Avery chose black, silver and pink as her party colors, colors of a cat of course! She enjoyed making this centerpiece for the party table.


We played lots of great, old school party games. Pin the tail on the cat (Daddy and Avery drew this masterpiece!), guess the number of goldfish in the bowl, hot kitty (our version of hot potato) and many rounds of copy cat (our version of Simon Says). Pop rocks were great game prizes! For a craft, the kids decorated balloons to look like cats.



The kids were also given plates of candy to decorate their cupcakes to look like cats.



The game the kids liked the best was when they found deflated balloons and decided to blow them up and let them fly around the house over and over. Who needs goody bags?