Seven Things Sunday!

1. I had my first actual massage ever this week! One of the local Moms mentioned that we was going to start doing massages again after a few years "off" to take care of her little ones. The kids are all in school now, though, so since she'd kept her license up over the years, all she had to do was get her insurance back up and running. When she asked if anyone would have any interest, I pretty much jumped up and down saying "pick me!! pick me!!!" It was one of the things the doctor had recommended I do for my shoulder (which while not completely better, is much improved) that I hadn't yet done. Anyway, it was fabulous and the morning after was the first morning I've woken up in months without my shoulder aching!

2. After weeks of homeschool sucking for everyone involved, we made two big changes that have made a world of difference. At my son's request, we adjusted his meds, and at my instinct, we switched math curriculum. I sensed he needed less of me and more instruction that was easy to understand. We signed up for ALEKS and the clean pages, and immediate feed back for everything, along with helpful instructions a mere click away are making him super happy to do math. In fact, I set a timer for him to work on math each day, and on Friday when the timer went off he growled at it and begged for 10 more minutes. It's the first time THAT's ever happened with that particular child!

3. Week 2 of healthier eating is going well and continuing to yield results. And I did actually have some Doritos to satisfy that particular craving and all is now right with the world.

4. This past week we began the high school enrollment process for Nathaniel. If you'd asked me a year ago, I would have predicted that he would have dived head first into the STEM program offered at the high school, but he's much more interested in what the alternative program has to offer. We are lucky enough to live in a town that has an alternative middle school and high school. If he's accepted, he would be one of 45 students in the Freshman class which is pulled from both of the high school's in town. The types of classes offered change every semester, the teachers are called by their first names, there are no official study halls or lunch period, and kids are expected to stay on top of everything themselves. Basically, it's the hippie-commie preschool for high school kids. ;) He would still be bused over to the regular high school for language, music, and theater, but he's really looking forward to this opportunity. I hope that if it's the right thing for him, he'll get into the program.

5. There are times when familial drama makes the 1000 plus mile distance between me and our relatives seem just right, but the last couple of weeks as we've all banded together while my grandmother has experienced several hospital stays and all that go with those, that I really wish I could be closer. That being said, most of the siblings and cousins were rocking the staying in touch with one another with any technology available! Our respective parents, not so much, but they were more on the front lines of things, so I suppose that's to be forgiven. Anyway, it just makes me realize how lucky I am to be from a big, zany, loving family.

6. My youngest son wants a dog more than words can possibly express, but Todd is super allergic to dogs, and I'm not willing to take care of one more thing in this house even if he weren't. (although, I confess that if Todd weren't so allergic, I could probably be swayed. That is how much this longing in my youngest son is tugging at my heart!) Instead, we decided that we could take advantage of the fact that he's home during the day and he could advertise his services for dog playing, walking, letting out during the day for those in our neighborhood who work. I offered this via our neighborhood fb page in September and we had no takers, but my parents just got a new puppy and have been sending pictures and it was more than Caleb could take. So, I sent out the proposition again and we had a taker! Caleb and I met the family yesterday, and he is super excited to begin going to take care of them starting this week! It's just a mid-day potty break and possible walk, with some play time thrown in, but it's as if he's been handed the world!

7. I've been listening to French language CDs in the car while I driving to and from preschool each day, and I'm pretty sure that Pimsleur just taught me how to flirt, and basically do the "your place or mine?" thing. I'm sure this would be much more useful if I weren't going to France with my husband and 4 children in tow, but I suppose it might come up. ;)

Seven Things Sunday

1. All passports are in and tickets to and from Europe are booked!

2. Thanks to my French language cds that I listen to in the car and a lot of research of where to eat in Paris, I now know how to ask for directions and more importantly how order cream puffs, and croissants, and baguettes, and tartines, and macarons, and crepes. I have gastronomic plans and priorities, people! Also, no thanks to my freshman son's otherwise fantastic history teacher who knew Benjamin was going to Paris this summer and said, "Honestly, with the current political climate, I'd be more afraid of France than the Middle East right now." So, I got to talk him down off the ceiling from that idea.

3. In other news, I am super grateful for modern technology that makes it so easy to keep in touch with family far away and in the midst of a crisis.

4. I am also grateful to live in a place with fabulous hospitals and whatever kind of care I may need all within easy distance. This is not a thing that most of my relatives have.

5. Took the little miss to her first salon experience and Sweet and Sassy. If you've never been, it's like everything pink and glitter exploded in one place and left behind a staff who totally gets little girls, and pretty hair-bows. Lilyanna was pretty much in heaven. It was a little overwhelming to me, but she was super happy AND relented in letting us donate her hair. For reasons I could never get to the bottom of, she was very hesitant about hair donation.

6. Caleb started his first Spanish class this week. When asked how he knew so many basic vocabulary words already, he said, "Because my sister used to watch a LOT of that crappy show Dora the Explorer". Charming, no?

7. Week one of healthier eating is yielding results. Which is encouraging, but still hard to stick to. Especially on snow days. Snow days seem to scream for hot chocolate. And whipped cream! And Doritos. Mmmm.... Doritos....

"Harses, Harses, Harses, Harses"

My nephew enjoying a ride.

What could be more Wyoming than horseback riding??  When I was growing up, my Grandpa Bradshaw always had horses and ponies for we grandkids to ride whenever we came out.  So even though we were a bunch of city slicker easterners, we could still hold our own on a horse.  It did not even begin to occur to me that not everyone knew how to ride horses until the year I took Todd horse back riding.  It became quickly obvious to everyone watching that riding is actually something learned and people don't just know how to do it.  (Although, he can beautifully navigate through every major city's mass transit system with zero problems.  We all have our strengths.)  

Warren's first time on a horse.

Nathaniel and Benjamin trying to remember how to do this.  It's been a few years.  "But Mom, WHY do I need to put my feet in the stirrups??"

Anyway, my parents have failed their grandkids in providing horses to teach them these valuable life lessons, but fortunately they know people who can help.  Some cousin of mine (second-ish, I think) was absurdly nice and loaded up a bunch of horses and a pony and drove all the way from LoneTree to the rodeo grounds in Lyman just because my Dad asked her if she could help out his poor deprived city slicker grandkids.  Some of whom have Never Even Been On A Horse!  

"Horses are stinky!"

The summer that I was 16, I went out to Wyoming to live with my grandparents for the summer.  Every morning my cousin Cassie and I would go down the dugway to where my Grandpa kept his horses.  Apparently, I pleased him that summer, because shortly before he died, he mentioned what a "fine horsewoman" I had become.  (For a city girl.)"

Anyway, it was fun to share some of my love of horses with my children.  I'm grateful that they, too, have Wyoming Grandparents and that they can see and experience some of my favorite things from my childhood.

Aunt Rachel decided that the pony was more her size.  ;)

Caleb, on the other hand wanted the big horse.  He actually trotted for a little bit.  (Not on purpose, and it spooked him a little bit.  But he did get back in the saddle one more time after that.)  Good boy!

C'est moi!

Lilyanna and HER Grandpa Bradshaw teaching her about horses.

Fun Times at Grandma's House!

So, no visit to my parent's house is complete without an awesome bubble bath in the whirlpool.  It is because my parent's installed a huge whirlpool in the bathroom in their NJ house when I was 9 that has made it so I haven't taken a bath in a regular sized bathtub ever since.  You can't grow up with that and then downsize.  

Nothing says FUN like a bath full of bubbles!!

I promise that somewhere in there, there is a tub.

 Meanwhile, Lilyanna discovered the joys of crawling all over the place and cleaning up after everyone who dropped food.  To be fair, in this picture she's just cleaning up the tortilla that she dropped, but she was just as happy to help the morning that somebody spilled the cocoa krispies on the floor.  It's amazing what the last child gets to eat that the first child would never even have been able to touch.

 Happily, my Mom still had a walker up in the storage room from when my nephew was a baby.  The boys had a great time tying a piece of string on the front of it and pulling her all over the house.  Later in the week, the string even got attached to a bike so they could pull her even faster.  Again with the youngest kid, thing...

 

We all had a great time in Wyoming this visit.  It was really relaxing to hang out at my parent's house and enjoy spending time with them as they enjoyed spending time with their grandkids.

A Visit with Great Grandma

While in Wyoming, the younger kids and I went the few blocks down the street to my Grandma's house to introduce her to Lilyanna.  Happily my cousin, Becky, and her family were visiting as well.  Her daughter, Harper, is a week older than Lilyanna and just as physically precocious.  It was really fun to see them play together, and great to see Becky again after so many years.  Lilyanna snuggled right up to her Great Grandma Bradshaw.  It was very sweet to watch.

Natural Corrals

Natural Corrals-one of our favorite places to go in WY.  This is 15 mins from my parents' house.  Wyoming is amazing and breathtakingly beautiful.  It's a stark beauty.  But it is Beauty.

Caleb was fearless and scampered all over the hills like a mountain goat.  (MY child.)

My boys and their cousins hunting through the dried clay for bones.

Look at the huge pile of huge bones my children found!!

Okay.  They were only this big.

This is how high up I was when I scampered up to the top!!  I always feel like I'm in a Ford commercial when we're climbing out in the hills!

Prairie Dogs

"What are YOU lookin' at?"

taken by our new friends from California.

I have no great love for prairie dogs.  They are an extremely prolific animal that take over vast quantities of space making it dangerous for horses and every time I see a colony of them, they make me want to play "whack a mole".

However, on our drive from Denver to our destination of Lyman, WY, we stopped at a rest area that featured a whole colony of prairie dogs who are extremely tame.  It made time at the rest stop much more enjoyable as my boys scampered all over the place trying to see where the next one would pop up.

There was a large van full of people there dressed in lovely billowing clothing with lots of jewelry hung on hemp.  Without censoring myself for judgement, I immediately thought, "THOSE people are from No. California."  A glance at the license plate confirmed it and they all decided to make friends with my children and me as we watched prairie dogs.  It was very amusing to explain to them, that, yes, it is okay to pick a sprig of sage brush.  Sage brush can more than take care of itself.  If it can survive the winters of Wyoming and poison every plant around it, some California hippie wasn't going to hurt it.  (Keep in mind that I and two of my children were dressed in tie-dye that day and I would move to northern California in a heartbeat if given the option, but for some reason, that day, I was feeling smug about knowing so much about Wyoming, a state that I normally make fun of whenever possible.)

We had a fun time chatting about life while the kids and a few of the adults ran around chasing prairie dogs and had an all around pleasant time with one another.

If you ever get the chance, stop by.  It's the Bitter Creek rest stop at mile 144 on I-80 west bound.