Time Away with the Fam

Hola!

Well, we made it back. My family had our every-five-years-or-so family reunion at Aspen Grove Family Camp in Utah! I put our backdrop on the header. Just beautiful.









Of course there are tons of activities at a family camp, and the best part was that I didn't have to cook! :) One of Teresa's highlights was the High Ropes course:

















The cousins tried out slingshots.






One of Kara's highlights was being in the pool--yes, her cast is truly waterproof! Unlimited time in the water, if she wants.








We took a morning to go horseback riding.

















And here is Frank playing horseshoes...he's actually pretty good.











The flights to and from were of course loaded with adventure, from construction detours getting us lost so we almost missed the first flight, to delayed flights later in the day, to losing our luggage! Luckily, the losing luggage was on the way BACK, so we could just come home and have them bring it to us another day.

The one big bummer was the stomach flu. :( We hit the very unusual week where stomach flu spread like wildfire through the whole camp, for Pete's sake! Our week, there were a total of 450 campers attending. Probably 75% of the campers caught this silly stomach flu at some point during the week. Of our 21 who went, only 3 stayed healthy. All the others were sick in bed for 24-48 hours during the week sometime. Kara's age group had 22 kids in it, and one day they only had 6 show up! All the rest were sick in bed.

Oh well, what can you do about that...? (Wash your hands, for one thing...but THAT's another soap box for another blog entry, of course--)

After a lovely week in cooler, dry temps, we are now back to the humidity of the east coast.

Have a great weekend, Kari

Summer is Here!

Hello!

Whew--the kids' last day of school was Monday (??!? whoever thought of THAT...). Can't say it really feels like summer yet: we are still scrambling to get as much of the basement/garage level done before ... our Aspen Grove reunion this Saturday!

But. Some impressive mile markers:
Yesterday, we actually EMPTIED the POD. What significance does this hold, you ask? It means they came to pick it up from our driveway today, where it has resided for the past THREE MONTHS! UGH! So we bid it adieu, and no longer have the credit card automatically charged each month on the 25th. Here is Kara (on crutches) and our neighbor friends.

It also means that the french drains in the garage are finished enough to put all that stuff back INTO the garage. Yessss!

So. The garage is certainly not organized yet, but the pod left today.

Another mile marker:
Kara got a BELOW the KNEE CAST today! Yes! As we board a plane Saturday, the use of her knee and a lighter-weight cast will help immensely. Plus, it is "waterproof." Now the shower is not such a monster ordeal, and she can even be in the swimming pool for as long as she wants! She can put on her swimsuit withOUT also donning a large black trash bag for her cast.

Here she is, with the July shorter cast (nice stars and stripes for the 4th, doncha think!). Oh--she also got her hair cut shorter yesterday. A "modified bob," I think it's called?



































And I'll close with a photo of Kara and her doll Mia--Grammie D outdid herself by making a wedding gown for Mia, including a veil and cape...thank you, Grammie D!

Kari

My Weekend Away

Hello!

Checking in from Arizona! I think it's 99 degrees outside. (All together now:) "But it's a DRY heat..."

Somehow the "dry" part negates all discomfort. If it's not humid, it must be lovely.

I have actually been quite comfortable, mostly in air-conditioning, mind you, but it's been so long since I've been warm and even (gasp) HOT, that I get into a stifling hot car here, and just bask in it. Let me soak it in until I start to perspire. I'll take it.

I'm visiting Mom and Grandma (99 years old!) in the Tucson area. I could be here, visiting and relaxing, indefinitely. Unfortunately my plane ticket says "June 16" on it, and that means I go back tomorrow. :)

No photos to post this time, just mental images of my early-morning walks. The sun wakes me up around 5:30 or 5:45, so I start the day with a walk around their subdivision/town. 5000 homes should make Saddlebrooke its own city, right?

Anyway, I have seen a deer, birds, quail, rabbits, a desert rat and a king snake (road kill still counts, I believe).

Mom and Grandma and I chat over breakfast, on the way to church and stores, and over dinner. We went to Kris & Jessica's house (very cool), and saw Trent (4) and Avery (1). Mom and I went to see "Killers" yesterday afternoon, and to a Mini Museum today. The Celtics play tonight, game 6, and will hopefully wrap up the NBA Championship with a win.

I got a few more memories out of Grandma, and we found all the paintings in the closet that she had not signed. They have signatures on them now.

It has been a grand trip! I left Frank alone at home to deal with kids' schedules, work schedule, a painfully unfinished basement/garage/drainage catastrophe, and Kara in a cast. He is a prince for doing it all while I am here.

I'll check in later! Love, Kari

Memorable Memorial Day

Hello!

My last post started with something like "I'm a little dry on exciting topics for the blog." Well can I tell you, I like it that way. Nothing dramatic. Just normal life. I like that.

Too bad for me/us! It was a Memorable Memorial Day last Monday. We have all kinds of construction junk in the basement and the garage. We had sheets of 4X8 drywall, 7 to be exact, leaned up against the wall in the garage. They are 60 pounds each. You do the math.

Kara was putting away an extension cord, whose hook was above and behind those drywall sheets. She couldn't quite reach the hook, with those boards in the way, so she pulled them from the top corner a little, so she could reach. They moved, but instead of just a little, it was enough to keep them tipping forward and then all of them fall to the floor. She tried to get out of the way but wasn't fast enough. 400+ pounds of drywall came down...they clipped her leg, breaking the tibia AND the fibula of the lower leg.

Wow. Long story short, ambulance to 1st hospital, painful xrays, ambulance to Children's Hospital in Boston. They set it and splinted it Monday night at 11p.m., then looked at it again Tuesday. (Here it is only in a splint, bruised but straight...)

Fixed it up a little more, then a monster cast--it almost reaches the top of her leg! For the first 3 weeks, she has the thigh cast, then to a shorter one below her knee. She was released from the hospital Wednesday.

She was on the same floor, just two doors down from where David was, 3 months ago for his back surgery! Nurses recognized us. Actually, the doctor who set Kara's leg, who "happened" to be there all night that night, was also one of the doctors who worked on David's back.

Here is one of the volunteers: he comes in to draw the kids' caricatures! It was fun.

Kara is learning to use crutches. She takes rides, both self-propelled and friend-propelled, in a wheelchair. We have such good neighbors, and her 4th-grade friends are so concerned about her.

Tonight she showered with a BIG black plastic bag on it...the stuffed puppy on her lap came from the hospital.

(Frank emailed a few co-workers on what had happened. This was after last month's lyme disease, basement flooding, and our son's back surgery the month before. His co-worker emailed him to suggest that we hire an Exorcist to rid our house of evil..."What is with you guys??")

Here are x-rays of the broken leg. (You can click on them to enlarge.)

Better boogie. Have a great week! Kari

The Calendar Keeps Going!

Hola!
I have been a little dry for "exciting topics" for the blog! So I decided to just give an update on the regular day-to-day. Nothing earth-shattering, just days of normalcy.

We have been making baby steps of progress on getting drainage work done in the basement. The garage and the laundry room were the worst, so we've had a group chopping up concrete and digging trenches, laying pipe and filling it all back in with gravel. Then covering it up with cement again. Here is the laundry room before...

















Here is the laundry room right now...


















...and the garage floor now...















Frank put down some new mulch in the front yard last week. Now he wonders why there are so many tiny plants coming up through it? Maybe he didn't read the label, and instead of "mulch" it was "weed fertilizer?"














Teresa (7th grade) has had a few track meets. She runs the 800 meter dash (2 times around the track), and is learning the high jump. Here is an action photo of the high jump this past week.










And, David (9th grade) is making dinner for us tonight. Ham and cheese and scrambled egg in a pita, plus pasta salad and a vegetable. Here he is, studiously examining the boiling water with the pasta.


Our long weekend will involve a little more jack-hammering of cement, sealing walls in the basement, framing walls in the laundry room, choking down more dust and shouting over lots of noise to go along with it!

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend, Love, Kari

May, May, May

May is one of my favorite months in New England.

I've decided that May and October are the very best and most beautiful times to be here, so if you can swing a visit during those months, it is WORTH your WHILE!

Flowers, flowers everywhere, new growth on trees and bushes, and just enough rain to keep things fresh but not too hot or humid yet. Excellent.

I'm sure we did a million things this week. I wish I could remember just one!

While the rest of the country finishes up their school year, we still have about 5 weeks left. We didn't even have any snow days this year, and we are STILL in school until June 21st. Go figure.

I'm drawing a blank on excitement: I drive every day more than I thought was possible. The school, sports practice, orthodontist appointments.

I still go to the grocery store more than I'd like (note: I'd LIKE to go ONE time a week. It never seems to happen). I still spend more money there than I'd like.



Oh, here's a good thing: they've finally started digging the perimeter of our house foundation: jack-hammering up concrete, digging-digging-digging, and laying gravel and pipe so in the future, water has a place to go, easily flowing to the sump pump in the other corner of the lower level. It's loud. It's dusty. My house is still a shambles and I can't find anything...but we have been dry--! :)


I'll leave you with an image of the great cake that Grammie D made for Kara's birthday party a few weeks ago. I promise you, it totally looked like a dish of spaghetti! So much so, that the girls at the party were NOT too sure they wanted any or not! Very funny. but the noodles are frosting, the meatballs are frosting, and the reddish sauce on top is strawberry jam. It was awesome!

Have a great week, Kari

The Hair Donation

Hello!

Teresa (12) has had this idea for a long time that she wants to donate her hair. It's kind of a cool thing, where you grow out a ponytail and donate it to be made into a wig for cancer patients. She got the idea from her cousin Mandy, who had a new haircut last summer and she had just donated her hair.

It takes quite a few ponytails to make a wig, and it has to be tied together with rubber bands before you cut it, so they won't be all straggly.

Many places require a 10 inch minimum, but we found one with an 8-inch minimum. (Pantene Beautiful Lengths is the program, if you want to click for more info.)

The other part was, she didn't want a REALLY short haircut. So she grew it out a little longer. (She could keep a little more that way.)

You can click on these to enlarge them. Here are the "before" pictures.

Then me cutting the ponytail...

And the "final look" after we went to a friend of ours who cuts hair professionally.

Teresa donated 9 inches.

Now. Before you think she's "turned over a new leaf" with a BRAND new look or anything...she came home, we took these photos, and she immediately put it up in...what?? -- of course a ponytail, which she wears every day except maybe Sundays, when I can convince her to do something different with it! It's just a shorter ponytail.

Have a great week! Kari