Dexter’s tooth has been loose forever.  Last night, after loading him up on ibuprophen due to the fact he was sick and had a headache, I mentioned to Joel, wouldn’t it be a good time to pull Dex’s tooth?  Joel jumped right on that bandwagon and yanked away.  Dexter was afraid there would be a lot of blood and that it would hurt.  Guess what?  The tooth only cracked on one side and sliced his gum.  There was a bunch of blood and it did hurt, thus the tears.  Sorry about that Dex.  We really didn’t mean for it to hurt.

Fast forward to today.  My mom and dad had the fine pleasure of picking the boys us from school and bringing them back to our home (I was at a dr appointment) do that they could see our newly landscaped yards.  I don’t know how it transpired but all I heard was that my dad tried to rope up Dexter’s tooth but couldn’t get the string around it.  One yank later and Dexter had a hole in his smile.

Thank you Dad.  I’ll call you when the next one is ready for you to pull.  It might be a while knowing Dexter.

Well well well.  I see that a month has passed and everyone is still sick.  You’ve got to be kidding me.  I don’t know if I can take much of this.  In order to keep sane, and to tell you how my day went, I made up some new lyrics to an old song, Three Blind Mice:

Three sick kids, three sick kids
See how their noses run, see how their noses run
They all sneezed out some big snot goo
Their mom blew their noses till they turned blue
The garbage can filled up with tissue
Three sick kids

Three sick kids, three sick kids
They coughed and coughed and coughed, they coughed and coughed and coughed
They coughed into arms and into the air
Their mom covered her eyes in despair
What could she do but provide more care
Three sick kids

In other news, not only are the kids sick, but the boys are grumpy, especially Dexter.  Oh, I hope this passes soon because it is making me want to apply for jobs tomorrow.  Speaking of Dexter, he won a writing award in his kindergarten class last Friday.  The prize was a box of cereal.  Very cool for Dexter.  Nicky didn’t win one.  He was devastated.  We haven’t figured out how to teach him that losing should mean you try harder, not quit.  Still working on that one.

I achieved something I never thought I would accomplish.  I got Dexter to play in a mud-puddle today.  We are in the process of having our front and backyards landscaped by a professional.  Steve, the landscaper has had personnel problems and rain issues and thus has not finished yet.  Due to his handy-work, we have one small pond that develops in our backyard after it rains.  Today, I got the kids to make cork boats and we floated them in our backyard.  It was fun and Dexter played in muddy water.  I was so proud of him and of me.  :)

Can I think of anything else to tell you?  Our dog Mig has anxiety issues when I leave the house.  What do you do about that?  Who knows.  That is tomorrow’s problem.  That is enough for tonight.  Katie, signing off.

Well, maybe we can call this a monthly update or maybe I just needed to vent.  The last three weeks I’ve been living in snotsville.  All the kids, plus Joel have had a horrible cold – a never-ending, ever mutating, horrible cold.  Goldilocks was the first to succumb and after a week, I took her to the doctor to find out her ears were infected, again.  Round 1 of antibiotics started.  Goldilocks is such a good kid when it comes to snot, coughing and sneezing.  She blows her nose with such a force, that I’ve started rating nose blowing on the F scale used for tornadoes.  AND, when she sneezes, and snot is hanging from her nose to her arm, 6 – 12 inches below, she waits patiently for me to run to the Kleenex box, grab a tissue, and mop her up.  The best part about it is, she is happy when she is sick.  I needed that because the boys turn into grumpy, slightly pathetic beings.

About that time, Nicky started his runny nose and Dexter remained cold free.  I was astounded.  Dexter always gets it.  It seemed liked the kids where started to mend when two weeks ago, in the middle of the night (it is always in the middle of the night.  Why is it always in the middle of the night?) that I woke up thinking how is Joel snoring and talking in his sleep at the same time?  That’s how out of it I was.  I shook off the sleepiness to find that Nicky was wheezing up a storm.  Darth Vader was back.  Nicky had a strider and the croup and was panicking.  I got up, woke Joel up, we got the Nebulizer set up and then I nebbed Nicky while Joel went back to sleep.  I was fully awake and charged.  Hearing Nicky sound like Darth Vader always makes me a bit panicky.  Put him back to sleep.  Crawled into bed and Joel, also sick with a cold, started to snore so loudly that I could hear nothing else.  I poked him, I pinched his nose twice (his suggestion), I slammed the bathroom door, I grabbed the blanket off the bed and went to sleep in the other bedroom.  That was the same night I had picked my folks up from the airport.  They had just returned from two cruises.  My dad’s legs where all swelled up and he could not breath well.  As I dropped them off at home, I told him that he better not end up in the hospital tomorrow (which was Tuesday).  He didn’t but managed to get checked in on Wednesday with congestive heart failure.  To say that that sucked was an understatement.  He finally got to return home on his birthday, Saturday Feb 1st with an oxygen tank in tow.  He and my mom both have the nasty cold too.  We also found out that Grandpa Don was in the hospital in Florida on the 1st due to kidney stones.  We had to call Grandpa Loren to see if it was a triple crown but alas, he was well.  Good job Grandpa Loren!

So, two kids sick, two grandpas hospitalized and one husband with a snoring problem.  I was getting little sleep.  Then Dexter came down with it.  I swear, we had about 8 Kleenex boxes strewn about the house and I was running from kid to kid, checking the nose blowing status on the F scale.  My hands are cracked and bleeding from all the hand washing I’ve done.  With Dad home from the hospital, we celebrated his belated birthday with a very good non salted dinner and the Seahawks in the Super Bowl!  WHAT A GAME!!!!!  At half time, we headed home and watched it on our projection screen.  Super cool.  With 4 minutes left in the game, Goldilocks vaults head first off the couch and into a table.  Cuts her head open over her eye.  There was no one on the road as we traveled to the walk-in clinic and no wait.  The doctor super glued her head shut and I had him check her ears.  The ear infection was back with a gusto – both ears again.  Round 2 of antibiotics.  The next morning I took the boys in because I was sick of this cold.  No infections but because it had been going on so long, their doctor wrote me prescriptions for both – just in case the tide turned – not in our favor.  Nicky complains his hear hurt around 5pm, looking in his ears confirms it.  Joel fills the prescription and Nicky starts antibiotics.

Once again, at 1 AM, Nicky comes crying into our room.  His ears hurt so bad.  We drug him up and put ear drops in.  At 3 am he comes back still crying.  We prop him up in a chair in our room and all of us get a little sleep.  On Tuesday, I look at Dexter ears.  I think I see pick but he doesn’t complain.  At 2 am, he comes into our room crying in agony.  Ears hurt.  Really?  Again in the middle of the night?  THIS SUCKS!  We drug him up and at 5am, I prop him up in the chair in our room.  So much for sleep.  I think it is overrated.

I am amazed I am still standing.  I feel like there is a dark cloud of sickness surrounding me, just waiting to strike because everyone around me, and I mean everyone – kids, husband, brother, parents, are all sick.  I am hoping that it waits until they are all well before I succumb.  With the kids on antibiotics, they should hopefully mend soon.

That has been my last couple of weeks.  Anyone know a good remedy for cracked hands.  No lotions work anymore.  I have three fingers taped up.  I’m up for suggestions.  Email me.  :)  Thank you for letting me vent.  I needed to get it all out.

Oh, I almost forgot two very funny stories – both involving Mig, our resident escape artist.  Recently, we had our frankenfence torn down and a new one installed.  It looks beautiful.  And now that Mig is officially 1 year old, we’ve been dabbling in letting her roam free inside the house while we have been gone.  As you all know, we live very close to the boys’ elementary school and we walk there every school day.  Mig has come with us less than 10 times this past year.  One day, I decided to let her have the house while I walked to pick up the boys.  On our way home, outside our fence-line, there was Mig, happy as a puppy, running up to greet us.  The boys and I were all “What the Heck?”  How did Mig get out?  As we rounded the house we saw the gate to our backyard was open.  I could have sworn I had closed it.  To make matters worse, Mig was without her collar – we had just given her a brush the night before and forgot to put it back on.  I closed the gate and we went on with our day.

A week later, I tried again only this time, I made damn sure that gate was closed.  I was a bit early for pickup and thus waited a couple of minutes before the boys were let out.  As they ran out to greet me, so did Mig.  What the heck?  Holy SH*T – where did she come from?  I was freaking out.  It’s a good couple of blocks and across some streets to get to the school.  What was really strange is the day before the boys and I had watch Myth Busters and the episode was about police tracking dogs.  I had had the idle thought on the way to school would Mig be able to track me.  Well, question answered because that was not our current route walk or previous route walk.  The other parents had seen her bounding down the sidewalk at MIG speed and she was overjoyed to see us.  I carried her all the way home wondering what the ?   We got home and the gate was wide open.  How in the hell had that happened?  I had checked.  I closed the door and started to bop it with my hand.  About the 5th bop it popped open.  So that’s how she had done it.  The green/grass bin is now firmly keeping the gate closed until Joel can fix the lock.

Last Mig/boys story to make you laugh.  The Saturday morning before the Super Bowl, Joel and I lay in bed asleep.  The bedroom door is flung open at 7am and in strides Dexter, loud and happy.  Joel and I grumble at him and tell him to go potty.  Dex disappears into our bathroom and Joel takes Mig out to pee too.  He climbs back in bed after his job is done and we try to ignore Dex.  The door slams open again and it’s Nic.  Yippee.  He heads to our bathroom – why they don’t use their bathroom, I have no idea.  Joel and I are in bed.  Mig, Nic and Dex are in our bathroom.  The bathroom door slams open and closed every 10 seconds or so and there is lots of laughing going on.  As good parents, we try our best to ignore it.  Then our bathroom door slams loudly and I’ve had enough.  I’m just a little ticked off at this time.  I stumble into the bathroom and take in the situation.  There stand the boys next to Mig with toilet paper in one had and a toothpaste tube in another.  Mig is trying to get away from them seeing that they have just squirted mint toothpaste all over her back.  After deciding this might not have been one of their better ideas, they tried to wipe it off with toilet paper ensuring that it was smeared in good.  I asked them what they were thinking.  They responded with that seeing they couldn’t get the toothpaste up Mig’s nose because she wouldn’t stay still, that squirting it on her back was a good second choice.  They had to write an apology to all involved and they are currently not allowed to use any other toothpaste until the mint one is gone.  They hate that mint.  I thought it was a good punishment.  What do you think?

First off, I want to start off by saying thank you to everyone who put in their Christmas card that they like this blog and hope it continues.  I’m right there with you.  I would love to write about everything that is happening to us but lately, by the time the kids go to bed and I have a moment to breathe, my brain has shut off, as it has now.  Did you know that that last sentence took me three minutes to write?  Needless to say, lately I’ve been feeling very trapped by my house.  Two weeks of Christmas break with all three kids, a dog and a husband who has wanted to go back to work for the past week (Boeing shuts down between Christmas Eve and New Years) has left me utterly exhausted and very stir crazy.  But wait, I’m jumping ahead of myself.  Let’s crank back the clock and see if I can give you highlights of the last month.  Let’s see if I can remember the last month.

Think Wayne’s World Time Warp

Mid September – Joel and I had been wanting to take the boys to Legoland for quite a while – I mean – have you looked at our living room?  I looked out into our calendar future while Joel looked at the Internet and we concluded that the second week in December would be the perfect week for the trip.  Kindergarten is important – but so is vacationing when there are no lines.  Besides, I cleared it with Mrs B. (boys’ Kinder teacher) before we booked the tickets and we ended up getting and working through a week of homework during that trip.  Looking back on our decision – while there are not many people vacation the second week in December – it really puts one behind in the whole getting ready for Christmas adventure.

I am and have always been the type of person who gets Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving.  I hate going out in the crowds and I absolutely hate to do things last minute.  My co-workers at Boeing used to tease me about how prepared I was for the holiday.  Being a stay at home mom, one might think that this trend would continue.  I’ve got all the time in the world, right?  I was still shopping 3 days before Christmas.  Upon returning from our trip on December 14th, every spare moment was completing tasks.  The wrapping of presents seemed to go on and on and on…..  We were up until 1am on the 23rd and almost midnight on Christmas Eve.  I did not enjoy Christmas day.  The kids were cranky.  We were cranky.  Bunny trail alert – Dexter has been speaking his mind lately without tact.  So, Joel tried to prep him before present exchange with my folks on Christmas Eve.  ”Now Dexter – when we get a present we don’t necessarily like, we say thank you…bla bla bla bla bla (which is probably how Dexter heard it).  When Dexter opened up this very cool Lego Coastguard present, what do you think he said?  Was it A) Thank you Grandma  B) This is super cool or C) This is the worst present ever?  For those of you who said C, you are correct.  He hated it so much that he left opening gifts Christmas morning in order to finish building it.  I wanted to strangle him.  Anyway, it wasn’t until Christmas dinner at my mom’s house that the cranky cloud lifted.  It was seeing my mom laughing so hard that she started crying that brought joy back into my heart.   Joel was sharing with my mom and dad at the dinner table that Dexter got a great big bin of Legos for Christmas.  Mom asked where they came from.  Joel said Craigslist and Nicky piped up “Macy’s”.  For some odd reason, the Macy’s answer by a 5 year old struck her funny bone and she just started laughing.  Then Joel needed to tell the story of how he had purchased 97 pounds of Legos off of Craigslist before Christmas and then tried to keep me from finding out while at the same time, attempting to wash all 97 lbs because they were covered in cat hair.  It was a gripping saga that ended in tragedy when I stumbled upon the last bit drying in the old au pair room.  Oops.   Christmas ended with us all laughing thus making it a good day.

The next day our house looked like it had puked Legos and toys everywhere.  We were throwing a New Year’s party and thus had 6 days to organize and clean.  After a trip to IKEA, we got everything relatively cleaned up and set up with a couple hours to spare.  I had such a fun night at our kid friendly New Year’s Eve party.  That is until midnight when it sounded like our house was being bombed.  It never pays to go to bed 20 minutes before midnight.  Just as I started to relax into slumber BAM – the house shook and our bedroom lit up from the outside.  A mild heart attack is a wonderful way to ring in the new year.  ;)

So, hear I find myself on Saturday night – typing away.  The only chores left are the ones we don’t want to do.  That’s why I’m writing.  Something other than cleaning or laundry.  Yuck.

Let me tell you briefly about our trip to San Diego.  If you are wondering what happened to Goldilocks, she took her own vacation that same week and stayed with a delightful couple in a city nearby.  Our trip was a Saturday to Saturday trip.  We had planned two days for Legoland, one day for SeaWorld, one day for touring the Midway, one day for the Wild Safari Park, and we were hoping to also see the Air and Space Museum.  We had a morning flight and everything went like clockwork.  It was amazing.  Our flight landed early and thus, we were ready to go see stuff in San Diego by 1pm that afternoon.  It was a gray day with just a tiny bit a drizzle.  We got our rental car and debated what to do next.  Let’s try for the Air and Space museum.  Joel navigated while I drove.  As we got close to area where the museum was, streets were blocked off, roads were backed up, police were directing traffic.  We had no idea what was going on.  Even the handicap parking was full.  We turned around and started back towards the downtown area when we spotted a parking spot.  We decided to walk the mile back to the museum.  Half way there, the rain started to pick up.  I was the only one in a rain coat.  It had no lining.  We sheltered under a tree.  The rain came down harder.  Ummm.  Not knowing how long it would last, we made the fateful decision to run for it.  The sky opened up.  Joel picked up Nicky and ran.  I picked up Dexter and put him back down.  Our pants were soaked through.  The pavement looked like a river.  When Dexter gets a drop of water on his clothes and he’s feeling a little overwhelmed, he loses it.  He started to cry.  I turned to him and apologized and probably told him to man up.  We found Joel and Nicky next to the locked door of the museum.  IT DID NOT OPEN FOR ANOTHER HOUR.  We were all soaked to the bone.  It was cold.  WHAT THE HECK, SAN DIEGO.  Where was the sun?  Apparently, there was a carnival going on in that park and all the museums were open for free in the afternoon.  We found a dry patch of concrete, Joel got out the IPAD which was in the backpack I was carrying (way to go Joel!) and he made the boys forget they were wet by playing a game called Stick Man.  We picked up two more kids to boot.  An hour went by without a fit.  The museum doors opened and we went in to an air conditioned museum.  It had some very cool planes though.  By the time we left, we were dry.  Here is how the rest of our week went: Sunday, we trooped all over the Midway.  Monday – LEGOLAND where we scored an amazing behind the scene tour of how they make Legos, touch raw Lego brick material and had a one of a kind Lego Christmas ornament made.  Utterly Awesome!  Tuesday – SeaWorld.  Wednesday – day of rest.  The boys hung out at the hotel, playing Ace Patrol (flying missions in WWI and WWII) on the iPad and swimming while I drove up to Long Beach to visit my friend Beth and her brand new daughter Gwen.   The boys had so much fun that Joel forgot to get them to do their homework for the day.  They looked so guilty when I got back.  ;)  Most dinners were picnics in our hotel room.  The boys are a nightmare to feed on trips and eat little.  Thursday had us back up in Legoland.  That night, while looking for somewhere to eat dinner in order to sit out the traffic, we stumbled upon a Panera Breads.  WOW – that was my favorite event of the whole trip.  Everyone ate all their meal and there were no fits.  IT WAS AWESOME.  Friday we hit the Wild Animal Safari park and rode the Seal (San Diego’s version of the Seattle Duck ride).  We were wiped out.  The boys did a ton of walking without a grumble.  Then, on Monday, when we were back home and it was time to walk home from school, both Nicky and Dexter threw a fit because they didn’t want to walk the 10 minutes it took to get home.  I love the irony of life, sometimes.

Included are pictures from our trip.  Enjoy.  It’s so hard to post pictures and stuff and not talk about Goldilocks but I’ll try.

https://plus.google.com/photos/108903742019117947095/albums/5965656489150495281?authkey=CN-tt9iqxubTjQE

(Oh, we still can’t turn on comments.  We’re on someone’s spam list and the load was overwhelming the servers of Alison’s husband’s company that hosts the website.  I tried a few different solutions, and none worked.  Maybe I’ll be able to figure it out soon, but in the meantime you can comment on the photos if you like on Google+.-Joel)  

While I was making dinner and the children were all running around playing, Goldilocks came into the kitchen to say she had found a pair of her socks.  Noticing that they were a clean pair, I asked her to take them upstairs and put them into her clean sock basket.  A small fit a defiance ensued with a couple of no’s and then she was shouting for someone to open the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs.  I shouted a general “boys, can you help Goldilocks with the gate” seeing that my hands were covered in making meatloaf at the time.  Dexter walks into the kitchen and says to me, “I’m not going to help someone who is throwing a fit.”  To which I reply, “Dex, please help her.”  ”No Mom.”  ”Dexter, you throw fits all the time.  This morning you threw a fit over your coat being dirty.” (He had left it in the middle of the floor and Nicky had walked on it because it was in the way.)  Now, here was his reply for which I had no response to as it shut me up. “Mom, that’s your problem” and he walked away.

So, my dad is giving me a hard time about not keeping up the blog.  One might say that life has gotten in the way of writing.  Keeping our heads above water is the name of our game.  Our den is in a constant state of disrepair, as is our garage.  We have holes in our walls as Joel is attempting to hang a projector in our family room.  I forgot to pick the boys up on time from kindergarten on Friday.  Blast those early Fridays.  It’s a wonder we can still function.

Anyway, enough about our busy lives.  Here is a quick post to update you on our overall status.  In May, you all saw that we added a puppy to our family.  Mig is a fantastic dog who stares at me constantly with those eyes that Joel calls crazy and I think reproach for not playing enough with her.  Oh, how I feel guilty when she just stares at me.  The boys love her and she comforts them, licks them, and occasionally nips at their hands and ears.  ;)  Joel has caught her puke with his hands two times and has a special love for “my dog”.  In July we added Goldilocks to our family.  Goldilocks is staying with us for an indeterminate length of time.  I can’t tell you anything about her other than there is a true sibling relationship going on with her and the boys.  Man, two was a piece of cake.  Twins was a piece of cake.  Three is making me crazy.  She did that – he said that – and oh, the mess of toys.  I miss Boeing sometimes.  I do enjoy them when everyone is getting along and there have been some amazing moments that I’d like to share, but can’t put in the blog.  As for the boys, they started kindergarten in September and we got a glowing parent/teacher conference in October.  Apparently, the boys follow every rule at school and don’t believe they can talk to anyone.  Such good kids for their teacher.  We’ve entered the wild tantrums at home.  Where did they come from and why didn’t they get it out of their system when they were 3, I have no idea.  Forty pounds is getting too heavy to carry up the stairs to their room when they are not cooperating.  Then there is Joel.  He has seen so many doctors, physical & occupational therapists, and chiropractors that some in the medical profession have thought that he was in that profession too.  But alas, his arms are still killing him and he has given up typing for fun.  (Another reason the blogs have been put on the back burner.)  Joel finally got a challenging job at work and is really diving into his new role.  Last up is me.  Staying at home is a very hard job.  Harder than I thought it would be.  Being honest, I’ve been a bit depressed some days – doing the same thing, day after day, laundry, cooking, cleaning, talking to kids, not interaction with anyone else.  I did a really dumb thing and kind of isolated myself from all my friends.  I’m struggling to remedy that situation.  It’s not all bad though – there are these magic moments (quite a few of them) when everything clicks into place and life is amazing.

I was going to tell you of a bunch of fun we’ve had this year, but there is a melt down occurring upstairs and I’ve got to go.  Sorry for the negative bent on this blog, but today was one of those not so magic days….

As usual, we are alive and a bit overwhelmed.  Seriously, ever since I quit working in January, I feel totally overwhelmed at home.  There is always too much to do and not enough time to do it.  I’ve even jokingly thought about going back to work because I swear, I accomplished more at home when I worked than staying at home.  But, what does all of this have to do with the title of this post.  Well, it’s been far too long between bloggings.  I’ve recently started to go through all of our pictures dating from April to today (a future post in the works) and it is taking me forever to make it through the slog of stuff we did while Joel was home recovering from surgery.  If I waited until I was done with that to tell you who the tooth fairy visited, more teeth would probably be missing.

Can you guess who lost the first tooth????????

NICKY!  He lost it on Monday night, July 8th, 2013.  The tooth was basically being pushed out of his mouth by a new tooth when Joel yanked it free.  There Nicky put it, under his pillow and what happened the next day?  He found $2 under his pillow.  Man, I got just $0.25 for my teeth but as Joel says, that won’t buy anything these days.  So, attached is a picture of one proud boy.

One more thing – we turned off our comments section in the blog because after 5 years of remaining anonymous, spammers found us and our comment section was being flooded with garbage.  Hopefully, we’ll figure out how to fix this.  Besides, I do miss blogging.  I got really tired of it for a while but now, I’d like to find the time to share some of the totally cute things that the boys do and say during the day.  They are growing up.

Not quite as originally planned, but we’ll take it.  I’ll have to leave it to Katie to fill in a few more of the details as time permits, but in the meantime, here’s Mig Mayday Emma Piper Yates (say it to the tune of “John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt”, if you happen to know the song).  She’s about 14 weeks old and has more energy than all of us combined, and peed on the carpet before I even made it into the house.  Oh well, such is life.

I really wasn’t sure what to title this post. I wanted to call it “My first paid vacation as a stay at home mom” but that just seemed to be a bit long winded. Instead, let’s call it what it was, our first official spring break trip. And, where did we go, you might we wondering???? Cannon Beach in Oregon – home of the cannon museum, which is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday – the only full days of our trip. Lesson #1, when selling your kids on a destination, always make sure that if there is a particular thing you want to see, find out the times when it will be available to be seen. That caught us not once, but twice this trip, both times involving cannons, go figure. We also visited Tillamook, Oregon, (home of my favorite cheese and ice cream) on the way to a night in Portland, Oregon. Can I tell you how fun the Oregon Zoo is? Totally cool, even in the rain.

Anyway, our trip began Monday, April 1st and life played a cruel joke on me. For the months of January through March, I have been healthy, which is good because the rest of my family has been trading all sorts of colds. Case in point, Joel had just come off his antibiotic for bronchitis, Nicholas was a couple of days into his antibiotic for his sinus infection and Dexter had been rushed to the walk-in clinic Saturday night, one hour before it closed, to be diagnosed with an ear infection. It seems as though my luck had just run out. That Sunday was Easter and oh, what an absolutely beautiful day. The sun was out, the day was warm, my mom fed us a wonderful Easter meal, I ran up and down the street being chased by two boys on bikes and then Nicholas sneezed into my face. About two hours later, around 5pm as I was fixing dinner, I began to sneeze. An hour later, I had a Kleenex shoved up my nose to prevent it from running all over my face as I finished up the packing and loading of the van. The next morning, I looked like Rudolf, the red nosed reindeer. What the Heck! It was like a scene out of the movie Contagion. I finally get a vacation and I’m packing extra Kleenex boxes into the car. Life is just not fair sometimes. However, some planets must have been in alignment because we actually got out of the house on schedule, around 9:15 am. The flip side to this amazement was that our first stop was the walk-in clinic for Joel and Nicky, who had both taken turns for the worse. The next 1.5 hours were spent there, seeing doctors and getting drugs. Drugs always make road trips better, right?

So, in the end, we didn’t leave Everett until 10:45am and thus our first stop was axed from the schedule (the Olympia Children’s Museum). Instead, we stopped just outside the Joint Base Lewis/McCord base to get lunch. The boys saw so many people in uniform (and we had passed some tanks and artillery pieces outside the base museum along the freeway) and we had many conversations about war after that. It was a long haul to Long Beach with Nicky getting tired of being in the car. We found out how tired when he unbuckled himself from his car-seat before the car had come to a complete stop outside a random kids park we found along the way. Everyone, except the girl with the red nose, had a fantastic time running out some wiggles. We found out how cool a skateboard park could be without skateboards. What’s a little dirt on your pants? The Kite Museum in Long Beach was our next stop. We got there 15 minutes before closing and rushed to make kites with boys who were tired and irritated. It was just a tad difficult waking the boys up and getting them cheerful enough to make a kit but Nicky took on the challenge. Dexter declined to participate. Let us just say that my kite is a flier. The Nicky/Joel kite wants to fly but can’t seem to get much air time (in my defense, Nic insisted on positioning the curved strut horizontally which didn’t do much for the aerodynamic stability).

Dinner in Astoria (pizza – good, old fashioned grease soaked pizza) and finally, we arrived at the Surf Sand resort in Cannon Beach. Oh, our room was amazing and looked out over the beach and Haystack rock. Joel and I had a separate bedroom and Nicky and Dexter bunked on the pull out couch in the living room. After being shut up in our room as we waited for the boys to fall asleep that first night, I concocted a better night time attack plan that had the boys falling asleep in our room while we watched the campfires outside, listened to the waves crash, and chatted. Then, I would transfer them back to the couch mattress placed on the floor so that Nicholas would stop rolling out of bed in the night. It worked wonderfully and Joel and I really had a chance to reconnect those nights. It’s nice to think that after 7 years of marriage, we can still have a great time talking to one another. I smile just thinking about it.

Our first full day in town was a gray and colder day. We headed to Ecola State Park to look at tide pools and shovel some sand around. We suited up in our rain gear and boots and down to the beach we went. All was going ok until Nicky stepped into too deep water and one soaked foot emerged, attached to a very upset boy. I had found a starfish by accident and was so excited to share my discovery with others, that I forgot to help Joel bring the boys over to me. Oops. Then Dexter got his hands sandy and wet after catching himself from falling over and he had a small meltdown. Thank goodness we had packed extra socks and a towel with us. Those two items enabled us to stay on the beach for another 1/2 hour or so. There was also the small disconnect that the boys were planning on digging for pirate gold and building sand castles, while we thought we were there to look at the tide pools. It didn’t help that we had accidentally scared the boys with talks of being very careful when the tide comes in. We forgot to explicitly explain what a tide was, and that a wave was not something to fear. Oops. Joel headed back up to the van with the boys to eat our packed lunch and track me by binoculars while I headed to some more tide pools for a looksie. It was nice being by myself for a bit. Then it was back to the van and off we went to Costco, then Fred Meyer, in search of new rain boots for the boys. We did not want a repeat of water leakage into a boot or fights over who got to wear the new pair of boots so in the end, I bought two new pairs of monster truck rain boots. I just can’t help myself sometimes….

Because of this side trip, we didn’t make it to Fort Stevens State Park until a bit later in the afternoon. We’d been talking up the Fort with its cannons for weeks and the boys were excited to see them. The tide was out so our first stop was to the see the wreckage of the Peter Iredale. They were not so impressed. What caught their attention and put smiles on their faces was me finding two sticks – one long and one short. They had so much fun running up and down the sand hills carrying these sticks. Boys. We grabbed the kites as well, and took advantage of the steady breeze. It was hard to get the boys to give up their sticks and get back into the van to get to Fort Stevens. Here’s where we failed again. First we stopped at Battery Russell, the closest part of the fort and where we thought there would be cannons. There were just some concrete ruins and a lot of stairs, and the boys were not impressed. We failed to check what time the Fort closed and by the time we showed up, the gate was shut to people coming in. After a day of pushing and new things, this led to a Nicholas melt down. Dexter joined in just because. To make matters worse, they fell asleep in the van on the way back to Cannon Beach. This was bad. We hardly ever eat out and the boys are not restaurant people. We stopped at Safeway so that I could make cheese quesadillas in the microwave for them. I got tasked with waking them up and getting them happy again. Thank God for the 4 chocolate pieces I had stashed in the lunch bag. I had brought one for everyone but when I offered one to Dexter, the “I’m mad” look turned to a “Ha Ha” look and he took two. Little Bugger. That meant I had to give Nicky another one just to be fair. It did the trick though and smiles were restored. It was around 5pm when we got back to the room and by that time, I needed food. Room service, Mickey Mouse Club House and we were back on track.

Sunshine greeted us Wednesday morning and back we headed to Fort Stevens, climbing all around the fort and blowing up the British. Joel taught the boys to sing “The Battle of New Orleans” and that’s why we were focusing on the British as the enemy (supplanting the Germans, and most recently the Pirates). It has since been sung many, many times over the past few weeks. The boys are moving past the toddler attention span and starting to want to see more and understand what they’re seeing, so we got to spend a bit more time exploring and running all over the place. Then, hindsight being favorable, after walking around Cannon Beach and eating at Pig in a Pancake for lunch, we played in the sand near our hotel for the rest of the afternoon. The boys played pirates while first Joel, then I, walked over to Haystack rock to look around. I finally got them to take their boots off and put their toes in the sand when Dexter shouted “I’ve got to pee.” Joel raced back to the room with the boys while I dug for buried plastic pirates. By the time I got back to the room, everyone was in there swimming suits and off we went to take a dip in the hotel pool. A picnic in our room for dinner followed and then new Legos needed to be built. The day was incredible.

Thursday saw us packing up our room and loading our belongings into the van while rain started to come down around. Of course, what follows a good day but a bad day and Nicky was determined to be grumpy. Nothing could cheer him up. Not even an incredible (but not as good as my mom’s) grilled cheese sandwich and ice cream cone at the Tillamook cheese factory. The ice cream was too crunchy. What??? Soft serve vanilla at Mukilteo Beach had won over Tillamook Vanilla Bean ice cream. I rolled over in my grave, but wait, I’m not dead yet. Too pass the drive time away, Nicky slept some on the way to Portland while Dexter happily looked at a Playmobile catalog for nearly 2 hours. We got into Portland around 2pm and headed to the Oregon Zoo with rain coats and umbrellas in hand. What a fantastic zoo, even in the rain. We saw lots of different animals, close up, ranging from cougars, to hippos moving and wiggling their ears, to wet cheetahs, a baby otter and a baby monkey. I think the most impressive though was the male giraffe who definitely felt Spring was in the air, if you get my meaning. While we watched him stay super close to the female giraffe, I wondered if we were going to be having a “how baby giraffes are made” conversation but we moved on before anything more exciting could happen. We knew it was time to go when the boys really started to drag their feet. Six minutes of rush hour traffic and we were at our hotel. The Silver Cloud hotel in Portland is a nice hotel and in a good location for the zoo and children’s museum. We walked to a restaurant for dinner and watched people run up and down the street wearing Urban Running? green t-shirts. It was quite fascinating. Because we were done being good parents for the day, I turned on the TV and the boys and I watched Maine game-wardens on “North Woods Law” on the Animal Planet. The next day, their stories were all about catching poachers. Then we all had an absolutely horrible night’s sleep and I kept waiting with anticipation for day to come.

Up the next morning, Nicky skipped breakfast, a sign for the day? and we headed to the children’s museum in Portland and I have to say, we were not that impressed. The place was packed and I guess the boys are just starting to get a little old for that type of Children’s museum? Out by 11am and off to see my “Aunt” Joanie in Washougal, Washington. A quick lunch at Jack in the Box, where this time Dexter refused to eat. What is up with these kids???? We had such a good time at Joanie’s, working on puzzles, playing with pool balls and running around her house. But alas, at 3pm, we had to head back home for a very rainy drive north. Luckily, dinner at IHOP in Lacy managed to coincide with missing rush hour traffic through Seattle. Dexter crashed a half hour before we got home. Nicky, who through a 1/2 hour fit after leaving Joanie’s house (remembering that he didn’t get a souvenir, except for the tub of pirates, and pirate coins, and new legos, and new cars), peacefully napped for an hour in the car, so he was wide awake and HAPPY when we made home at 8:30pm. We unloaded the van and basically just dumped everything in our hallway to take care of the next day. And, when I say dumped, I mean dumped. Unfortunately for Joel, he went downstairs and on his way through the hallway and tripped over the suitcase I had opened and left on the floor. Oops.

Saturday saw me working on laundry, grocery shopping and getting everything put away from 8am to 7pm at night, with no overtime pay. Boy, I was tired and needed another vacation. All in all, it was a great trip, with much parental learning so that when we do it again, we can do it better. Isn’t that how it usually goes?

Enjoy the photos from the trip!

Ha ha!  Look – a link to 108 pictures for your viewing pleasure, complete with captions on most pictures.