Its been too long...

since I sat down and blogged. It has been a very busy couple of weeks. The day after we returned from Washington, I had in-service for work, an all day affair. There were several other training sessions, driving my route to find all the new houses, things that needed to be done to get Kevin's room ready for the start of school, a day spent working filling backpacks with school supplies that are given to our kids for the start of school. That is such a wonderful program! There is a grant through DSHS that allows them to purchase ALL the supplies our kids need for school: paper, pencils, crayons, markers, binders, notebooks, graph paper, calculators, even water bottles and backpacks. Each of the teachers in the district put together a list of supplies needed for their class and they are purchased from this grant. That way the kids have everything they need and the parents don't have to buy anything. This year I already have 14 new students on my route and will probably be getting more. It has been a challenge for me because we have to find the house or stop, write directions for our routes, each student is to have an assigned seat, we do all the record keeping ourselves instead of it been done on the computer somewhere. So that has been some extra work this last couple of weeks trying to get things in order and under control. I have also been sharing with some other people in the district some things I learned at a conference this summer regarding some changes or things that we have not been doing the best way possible so that has taken some time too.

Now we are getting into full swing with school. Both football and volleyball started and had their first games today. Kevin's pep band played at the volleyball game and then he and I went to the concession stand. It needed to be cleaned and prepared for football season. It had been used over the summer by another group and was kind of a mess with some of their stuff left there. Now we are back at his house enjoying the quiet and each working on our computers so I thought I would take a few minutes to catch up here.

I will try to do better about posting regularly.

Nanna/Mom/Lisa

Our Journey Home

After having had a very nice visit to Washington, with time to see my kids, grandkids, siblings, Mom, some dear friends and couple of places like the Pike Place Market, Zoo, World Spice Market, and Ted Brown Music, it was time to return home. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 9:00 am and we had to return our rental car so we left the hotel about 5:45 and arrived at the airport shortly after 6:00 to allow enough time. We were not sure exactly where we were supposed to go to turn in the car or how long that would take and didn’t want to run any chance of being late so decided we would prefer to allow extra time. It was a darn good thing we did that. On the way to the airport we needed to stop and fill up the gas tank on the rental car. The first gas station we stopped at would not take my debit card and would not take Kevin’s credit card either. We decided they just did not want our money so we went to find a gas station that did want our money. We found a station closer to the airport and again it would not take my card but at least it was willing to take Kevin’s card. Of course the gas was a little higher priced than it had been at the first station but at least that task was accomplished.

We got to the airport and followed the signs to the rental car return area. We found that really easily and there was a guy there to check us in which was accomplished before we were even able to get out of the car and get it unloaded. That was the quickest and easiest part of our trip home. We took our bags and made our way into the airport. At the terminal we discovered that of course, we were at the opposite end of the building from where our airline was so we weaved our way through the mass of bodies and luggage to the United counter. We got in line to get checked in. After waiting there for about 15 or 20 minutes we were already a little concerned about how long it was going to take us to get checked in. We arrived at spot in the line where they had a ticket agent who was directing us to go to the end of another line. This new line wound around and around inside the terminal, up the ramp, out the door and down the sidewalk outside. While we had been waiting in the first line we had overheard that there were several people who had missed their flight to Washington DC while waiting in line. We were pretty stressed by this point and rather concerned that we too might miss our flight even with allowing extra time.

We made our way outside and looked at how long the line was. The stress level (at least mine) was increasing. I am much better than I used to be but flying is still stressful for me so the added stress of the long lines and all the waiting was not helping at all. In the process of finding the end of the “five mile” line, we found a line for Curbside Check-in that line did not appear to be nearly as long however it required you to pay $2.00 per bag to check in. I dug around in my purse and had a five dollar bill so we jumped into the shorter curbside check in line. By this point it was almost 7:00. Our “extra” time was slipping away. It really only took about 15 minutes to get through the line and get checked in but it seemed like a lot longer.

Finally checked in we headed to security. The line there did not seem as long, that is until we got to the point where it splits off for the x-ray machines and the metal detectors where it was jam packed with people most of whom seem to have never been through airport security before and had no idea what to do or how to get through. We of course ended up in line behind a family with 3 kids. Not only did the parents not really know how to get through security smoothly but they were trying to teach their kids how to do it as well. Needless to say my stress level was increasing by the minute as was my desire for a cigarette, which the airport was kindly reminding me what seemed like every 30 seconds that I could not smoke in the airport.

We got through security and found our way to the North Satellite of the airport. We got coffee and something to eat before walking to the other end of that part of the airport to our gate. We arrived at our gate at 8:20 and were supposed to board at 8:30. We were a little later than that boarding but it was not to bad, it gave us time to eat our breakfast and for me to get the stress under control some. Once we got in the air, our flight was pretty good until we began to cross the Rocky Mountains where we hit some turbulence, but that is fairly normal. Touch Down! The excitement of the trip home is over, nothing left but getting our bags and the drive home right? Wrong!

We got our bags just fine in fact quicker than we expected to, they were not the last bags onto the carousel this time. We met up with Kevin’s parents who had brought our car to the airport for us to save us almost an hour on our return drive home. They are so great doing stuff like that for us. Jerry (Kevin’s Dad) said that he had checked the fluids in my car and added transmission fluid and antifreeze so we might want to keep an eye on the temperature gauge. They went to catch the city bus back home and we got on the freeway towards home. We had only gone a few miles when the car started to over heat. We got off the freeway and found a Wal-mart. Kevin went in and bought 2 gallons of antifreeze while I watched the water level in the radiator’s over-flow tank. We let it cool down and decided that maybe we should really let it cool while we went to get something to eat. We were a little concerned about how long the normally 3 hour drive might take us and there are not many places to eat along the way. After eating we put in about 1 ½ gallons of antifreeze before it was to the proper level and got back on the freeway.

We hit a couple of pretty good storm cells on our way home. I guess we brought some rain back to Colorado with us from Washington. There was one spot where it was raining so hard that even with the windshield wipers going full blast, you could barely see the road in front of you. Thank goodness Kevin was driving. Between the early morning we had had and the stress, I kept dozing off. We made it a little over half-way home and I woke up. Kevin was having trouble staying awake too so since I had taken a little “cat nap” we switched and I drove the rest of the way home. It was about 5:00 pm mountain time when we got home.

Monday I had to be at work at 8:00 am for driver in-service day. We had the joy of sitting through 6 hours of hearing reminders about rules, regulations, procedures and policies. The one good part of the day was that we had the fire chief and a fire fighter come to our meeting and we got to “play” with fire extinguishers. They started a fire in a metal drum that had been cut down and we got to put it out. Yesterday was spent unpacking and doing laundry to recover from the trip to Washington and start preparing for a trip next weekend to Montrose for a wedding. Amanda will be traveling from Washington to Denver by herself next Saturday while Kevin and I attend the wedding. I am really hoping that her trip home is less eventful than ours was. Kevin’s parents will pick her up at the Denver airport for us on Saturday and we will go get her from them on Sunday. Starting Monday, Kevin has to be in his classroom or in meeting during school hours for the week. I start driving again on Thursday since the kids have to be there for registration, orientation, getting their computers and school supplies. The following Monday school starts regular schedule and summer will officially be over for us. It has been a busy and active summer for all of us and not nearly long enough. I could use a couple more weeks of summer and I am pretty sure Kevin and Amanda would agree but I could be wrong.

Hectic...Crazy...Fun

Last Saturday after running a few errands and meeting with Amanda's boyfriend who is going to take care of Kevin's yard and fish pond while we are out of town, we drove to Boulder to stay overnight with Kevin's parents and be a little closer to the airport in order to leave on Sunday. We went to dinner at this great Scottish restaurant and then walked around the Boulder Mall. Boulder Mall is an area of downtown that has been closed to vehicle traffic and is filled with shops and from what I am told "two of every weird person and thing in the world". They have quite a few street performers and some really interesting shops. After dinner we wandered around some to "see the sights". It was an experience. I had a little confrontation with woman because she was following me so closely that she caught the heel of my shoe a couple of times so I moved to the side and told her to go ahead and go. She turned around and asked me what I called her. I really thought that she was going to hit me. I told her that I didn't call her anything but simply told her to go ahead and go. She then said that I needed to "take my junky a** out of Boulder". Kevin stepped closer to me and said something about her looking in a mirror and she backed down and left. Janelle said that with a confrontation with a "street person" our trip to the Boulder Mall was complete. We really did have a good time. We also got to have dessert down there, ice cream from the Ben and Jerry's store.

Sunday was a very long day! Janelle directs the bell choir at her church and she was a little short on players for the service on Sunday morning. Kevin directs the bell choir at our church and I play in it so Janelle asked us if we would fill in with hers. I was really nervous about doing it, in fact, I had nightmares about it Saturday night. We did it anyway. So we got up about 7:00 am and went to practice before the service. It was a real challenge since we were playing a song that I didn't know and only had a chance to practice once from beginning to end and a couple parts in the middle we did a couple of times. I really surprised myself with how I did. There were only a couple of places were I made mistakes but no one seemed to notice. Well with the exception of Kevin who was right next to me, but it was a real boost to my confidence to be able to play as well as I did with as little as I had seen the music. After worship, we had lunch and went shopping for a few last minute items for our trip before heading to the airport.

We arrived at the airport and found that our flight was going to be delayed by almost an hour. That meant that it was going to be a really late flight and we were really afraid that it would end up being so late that it would be canceled. We killed some time and then made our way to the gate. We did actually get to fly out which I was very thankful for but we did not arrive in Seattle until about midnight Seattle time (which is 1:00 am our time). Michael met us there to pick up Amanda and I felt bad that it was so late. We got our rental car, found our hotel, got checked in and finally arrived in our room at about 2:00 am. Very long day for us "old folks".

Monday we got to go down and finally meet Logan in person! What a joy that was! He is so cute and we had a really nice visit with Kristin and him. We hung around Kristin and Nick's condo, catching up on things and ohhhing and ahhhing over the baby until Nick got home from work. Kevin and I took the kids (Kristin, Nick, Amanda, and Logan) to dinner at Rock Pasta. Logan had been really fussy just before we were ready to go to dinner but I held him, rocking, swaying, cooing and got him to sleep. We put him in his car seat and that wonderful little guy slept through the whole dinner allowing his mommy to eat uninterrupted. He started to wake up while we were standing outside visiting a little more after dinner so Nick and Kristin took him home.

Tuesday we had arranged to take all the grandkids to the zoo. We asked Kristin to come and bring Logan so that I could have ALL my grandbabies there with me at the zoo which she did! Oh my! All five of them! What a trip that was! Five little very strong egos. Five little people each demanding the spot light. Five little people with different ideas about where we should go and what we should do. Not including the ideas of the big people (Kevin, Amanda, Kristin and me). It was quite the challenge. All in all, it was a good day. The kids each had their moments of course and we had to talk with them about a few things like staying with us, staying off rocks and fences, not being bossy, you know, normal stuff. But we got to see a lot of the zoo, I think that we saw all the things that each of the kids said they wanted to see. Even with the challenge of having them all together in a public place and trying to keep them entertained and still safe, it was so good to spend the time with them. I had the opportunity to "visit" with each one over the course of the day. They are all growing so fast! I hope that they had a good time and that it is a memory most of them will have for a long time. My only regret in being so far away is not having time with them and my fear that we will not know each other or have the relationship with each other that I would like us to have. I hope that even with the challenge of geographical distance, we will find a way to develop a relationship like I had with my grandparents who also lived halfway across the country.

Yesterday, Beth and Kaden meet Kevin and me at the hotel and we went to Seattle to the Pike Place Market. We spent the day wandering the market and watching for flying fish. Kaden really took to Kevin, when he was not in his stroller, he wanted to hold Kevin's hand or have Kevin carry him. He is growing into quite the little man. He is talking so much more than he was a year ago when I moved. We had a really good day with lots of time to visit as we walked. We eat pizza for lunch in this little corner deli and were able to visit one of the largest spice shops in the world! Kevin had a list of spices he wanted to look for a purchase there and we were lucky that they had all but two of the things he wanted to buy. When you come in, they have clipboards for you to write down your order on and Kaden spent the time following Kevin around and making his own list of items he wanted to purchase. Silly me, if I had been thinking about it at the time, I would have purchased the items on Kaden's list for him to take home but I didn't think about that until after we had left. Next time, I will have to remember to do that. He was so cute at first with that, walking around with his own clipboard, picking out what he wanted, asking what it was and then "writing" it on the paper. Before too long, he got a little bored though and started acting up so Beth took him outside. What a great day!

Today, Kevin and I had planned to have a rather quiet morning at the hotel. We don't have anything planned until about lunch time when we are meeting a friend of mine for lunch. However, today is the day that the hotel decided to test their fire alarms. I was woken up at a few minutes after 8:00 to the fire alarms blearing in our room. Not sure what was going on, we threw on some clothes, grabbed a couple of things and made our way to the front desk where we were told it was just a drill. I had not even had time to use the bathroom after waking up : O . We went ahead and stood outside where it was a little quieter and waited for the alarms to stop blasting. When that finally stopped, we were able to come back in and return to our plan of a somewhat quiet morning and I had a chance to sit down and catch up here. Tomorrow should be a fairly quiet day too which will be kind of nice. We plan to do a little "touring" around so that Kevin can see some of where I grew up and we are going to have lunch with one of my "oldest" friends, a guy I have known since I was in the 9th grade. Then Saturday is my Mom's 80th birthday party and he will get the opportunity to meet a lot of my family. Could be an interesting day. I am hoping that I will get the chance to get some pictures of all my grandbabies since I was not thinking the other day and failed to do that. Sure would be nice to have that picture to remember this time together.

Well, I guess that is about all that has happened in the last few hectic...crazy... fun filled days!

County festival

Last weekend was the county festival. The parade was pretty fun, a real small town parade complete with kids on their bikes decorated with streamers and balloons. It is kind of fun to watch a parade when you know the majority of the people in it. There were food stands, music and craft booths in the park. Amanda was off with her boyfriend almost as soon as the parade was over. Kevin was in the parade with his band kids and then he spent time with his daughter and grandson. I wandered around the park for a bit and had something to eat. They had these really good fried potatoes, funnel cakes, BBQ, baked beans, turkey legs, hamburgers, and the list goes on and on. I had a hard time deciding what to have and finally settled on the fried potatoes to get me started. Then ended up so full from those that I couldn't eat anything else. I checked out the craft booths and found a little something for Logan. It got pretty hot, I got tired and bored, so I went home. Amanda wanted to go to Scott's for a while and Kevin had the final night of the play. I spent the evening with the TV, AC, and playing some computer games.

This week has been really hot, temperatures over 90 degrees for the last 20 days straight and several days recently it has been over 100 degrees. The 20 days straight thing is a new record even for Colorado. For the most part this week has been about trying to stay cool and get ready for our trip to Washington. I am so looking forward to seeing all my kiddos and meeting Logan.

Tonight, Amanda and Scott went to dinner and a movie. Kevin had a long drive today picking up student council kids from leadership camp, so he is napping. Tomorrow, we will be heading up to Boulder before flying to Seattle on Sunday. Will blog as I can while I am gone.