Someone’s been busy with my phone….this is just a sample of the Auggie Selfies floating around my camera roll
Tag: blog
Traveling Friends
My friend Beth M always catogorizes friends into three groups: friends, good friends and friends you would travel with. The last group is the biggest complement because it means that you like your friend enough to spend tons of time together for days on end.
We are so lucky that we have lots of friends that fall into that last catagory. And this summer, we were lucky enough to have our friends, the D family, came to visit us in Montana. As if we couldn’t love this family more, after sharing a glass of wine in Big Sky Country really put it over the top.
One of the best parts of having them visit was that their daughter, Morgan, shacked up in Baylor and Auggie’s room each night. And they. all. slept. Like all night. So clearly we have to move in together.
We did a little of everything – rafting, hiking (well, tried to, that’s a long story), Yellowstone Park, roamed around Livingston, and just enjoyed laughing with each other. It was a fantastic week!
I can’t stand this picture. It kills me. The girls are THRILLED to be playing the hardest game of Go Fish (no numbers, only names, they can’t read. You get the picture.) ever and Jeff is physically in pain over it. I’m laughing as I type.
I’m not sure what this is about…but I like it
Someone finally finally won the game and put poor Jeff out of his misery
More to come on our Griswald-esk trip through Yellowstone National Park.
Losing It
A few days before we departed for Montana, Baylor told me her tooth felt “funny”. My first thought was oh super. The occasional skip on tooth brushing has caught up to me. I’ve got to figure out how I’m going to spin this to the dentist when he tells me she has a cavity. Good God I hate brushing their teeth…. So I took a peek in her mouth and noticed her tooth did look odd – I touched it and it wiggled under my finger!! SHE HAS A FREAKING LOOSE TOOTH!!
My reaction was a little strong. It’s not often that life’s events sneak up on me and take me by surprise. But man, this one caught me off guard. I sort of gasped, yelped, freaked out in one sentence. Which, of course, made her freak out. Suddenly there was a total freak out had by all with lots of “I don’t want to loose my teeth!!” being screamed.
After we were able to get it together, we decided it was all ok and actually very exciting. A week later, B woke PW and I up with her tiny little tooth in hand and a big toothless grin on her face.
The Tooth Fairy, Penelope, shelled out $5 for her tooth. She said it was because her tooth was sooo clean, it deserved a few extra dollars.
I sighed in relief that we survived the whole ordeal….and then B informed me that her other tooth in the front is loose. Holy moly. What’s next?! Didn’t she just get her teeth and now their falling out?! Cripes, at this rate, she’ll be in college by the end of the week!
America the Beautiful
All American 4th of July 2014
Small town parade….
Rodeo…where the only limit on the number of beers you can purchase is how many you can carry
I’ve got some work to do on high speed low light pictures….
Fireworks, pig roast, family and friends
‘Merica
(Did you notice Baylor’s missing tooth?! More on that later when I can stop crying…)
Loving Cousin Z time
There was much controversy brewing over the ring in my back pocket. Anywhere else? No one would notice. In MT? Everyone things I’ve taking up dipping…I assured everyone it was my lens cap, not a can of tobacco!
We did discover that Auggs is not a big fan of fireworks. But he was a trooper and agreed to watch them from inside so there’s hope he’ll be with Peter on the fire duty in the future!
Fancy Footware
I think we have a Keens problem….
Feel free to send us some swag, Keens!!
Ride ’em Cowgirl
The first week we arrived in MT, Baylor was scheduled for riding lessons with a friend’s wife. She is a teacher and she and her family have an arena and a pony perfect for lessons. I skipped the first lesson and I was totally shocked at the second lesson how amazing she did! Our friend, Carolyn, also noted that she seemed like a natural. She has a calm yet excited respect for the horse, Duke. She listened to everything Carolyn told her and she did each action, even the scary ones, happily. I’m excited to find her a stable at home and keep up her skills. Can’t wait until we can go out for rides together.
Leading Duke to the arena
Each lesson starts with her turning herself around in her saddle while Duke is lead by Carolyn. It is to teach balance and this kid must have been a cat in another life because she does this like she’s done it every day of her life!
You gotta love having a school teacher teaching riding. Carolyn put the letters of her name on signs around the arena and B had to ride Duke to each letter in order.
In just three lessons she had Duke in a trot and was neck reining all around the arena! I’m guessing by the end of the month she’ll be jumping him over obstacles…
Keep on Washin’
I got an email last month that a post I wrote for Scottsdale Moms Blog had been picked up as part of an article for SheKnows.com. It was really exciting! Totally the boost I needed to keep writing AND a new place to start shopping some articles! On to find all that creative writing time…
Check out the article here: Cool Down with these Fun Water Games for Kids
Nailed It
On the second day of our Montana adventure, Peter took the kids to Baylor’s ridding lesson. When he asked me what I was going to do while they were gone was A. work and B. clean up/laundry/dishes.
So substituting “beach” for “mountains” this article nails it. Sigh. Oh well. At least it’s cool and the windows are open!
http://www.theonion.com/articles/mom-spends-beach-vacation-assuming-all-household-d,33431/
Big Sky July
In a moment of stressing about packing lists, I realized how far we’ve come and how much we’ve done in a short time to make a dream of ours come true.
Let me back up to last summer. After a long flight and drive to the ranch, Peter and were sitting in rocking chairs on the deck waiting for Auggie to doze off. It was after 10pm and the sun was almost down. It was cool and quiet and…perfect. We started seriously thinking about how we could make a transition that would allow us to spend more time in Montana. After a lot of conversations, we came up with a plan.
In just under a year, Peter has passed the Montana bar, been admitted and we have booked a rental house for all of July. We can both work from here and he’s working on a Montana client list – ensuring lots of summers in Big Sky country to come – and I’m sure a few “client meetings” during hunting season too…
The logistics of getting here were a little daunting. We settled on having Peter drive the 18ish hours with Mac and all our crap stuff while I flew with the kids. I’ll save you the details…but there was a barf bag involved in my part of the trip. But we made it all in one piece! The house we rented sight unseen has turned out to be great (with a few additional baby proofing measures post Auggie’s minor tumble down the stairs. Hearing Baylor scream “Auggie fell down the stairs!!” was as close as I’d like to come to knowing what a heart attack feels like).
We’re unpacked, settling in and awaiting the arrival of our friends/house guests! And this morning, we’re waking up to this:
Dear Sandman
Dear Mr. Sandman,
Where the hell have you been?! You decided to take a vacation weeks ago and then just never returned?? What is the matter with you? How do you expect to keep your job when you are so sloppy?? No one in this house has slept more than 4 hours at a time for the last 2 months!! Four hours!! Do you know what it’s like to have to sleep in intervals and never know when you’re going to get to go to sleep and when you’re going to be woken up again?! No! You don’t! Because you’re on vacation!!
Did we do something to offend you? Was it something I said? Something Peter said? What about Auggie? He doesn’t have a big vocabulary but since he’s the center of the problem, I’m wondering if he did something….
Because if he did, just tell me. I’ll make it better. I’ll fix it, I swear. Just tell me. TELL ME. I WILL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT JUST PLEASE COME BACK!!
Please?
Pretty please?
The Goon Room 
