Wisconsin trip

So in my last post I mentioned that it was a good thing it was only for a week. Well make that two, because on Tuesday my mom and Avery went to Wisconsin for the week. They left Tuesday around 6, and my dad was out of town until last night, so it was pretty empty in the house. Good thing I have the dogs or I don't know what I'd do!

Work has been really slow, which doesn't help matters any. I went shopping on Weds and ended up with new shoes and rat supplies. Thursday I bought after a big pool for the deck and spent a frustrating hour or so blowing it up and getting it ready. Today I filled it up and bought a tarp to cover it. Riley and I have been taking walks each day, and he enjoys that a lot and it poops him out. It's good for both of us.

Anyway Avery will be home Saturday night, so I've got one more quiet day. At this point I'm ready to have her home for awhile!!

Camp week

This week is Avery's Gale Farm camp. She started Monday and went in the morning to Grandma Robin's and came home after to go to her first swimming lesson. She said she rode on a tractor in the back with seats but that was about all I could get out of her. Oh and she had a snack of broccoli and carrots in dip.

Swimming was interesting, as she flat out refused to do some of the things the teacher instructed us to do, such as touch our ear, then nose and other ear to the water, and blow bubbles etc. She didn't want to get her face near the water. But she LOVED jumping into my arms from the edge. It's more of a water acclimation class than actual swim lessons, but I'm glad I went with this one because with Avery and her separation anxiety lately would not have permitted me to leave her on her own for the class as required for the next level. We have until the end of July to get her ready for that, thankfully.

Tomorrow is my dad's birthday so she'll be home after camp again. I got him REO Speedwagon tickets to put in Avery's card to him, so that should be a fun surprise. Then Sunday is father's day and I couldn't afford anything exciting for that. That's how it goes having your birthday so close to another holiday though I suppose! Good thing mines in the middle of a whole lotta nothing!

The main point of this post is I'm without Avery for most of a week and its just weird! The house is too quiet. Good thing its only for this week. =)

New Bike

Not a whole lot going on lately, I'm done with school so I have some time on my hands for the summer. Avery is signed up for swimming lessons that start the second week of June on Monday nights, she also has camp at Gale Woods Farm with Grandma Robin. Dance starts in September along with preschool. So much going on with her soon!

This weekend we went to White Bear Lake and got a bike that I found on craigslist. Its in great shape and was way affordable. Avery doesn't much feel like pedaling, or steering, so its kind of difficult going at this point. The same day we went to buy new streamers for the handlebars (which entailed going to Target, Walmart, Eric's Bike Shop, and finally Kmart before we found any) and at Kmart we also found Barbie rollerskates that go on your shoes on sale and got those as well. They came with knee and elbow pads. That was a bit harder for her and will definitely need some work. I got some cute pictures that I will upload soon.

Mothers Day

Well today was Mother's Day but Avery doesn't feel like treating me any different than usual. That is, trying to constantly be the center of attention and if she's not...well its just not pretty. My grandparents and Aunt Pam are here and we went to Kozlak's for brunch at 11:30. I was so stuffed that I didn't feel better until about 5 pm. After we got home around 1:30 we went to the Maplewood Mall. I got a few things at Penny's and at that point Avery was still being pretty good. We went on the carousel even though we had to wait for the guy to get back from his break who ran it at 3. Avery didn't even want to go on a horse she wanted to go in this little rocking thing. We were all fairly tired but we didn't leave till 4 or so.

I tried taking a nap when I got home with Simone laying on the bed but Riley was being naughty and kept coming in my room and barking at me for having her on the bed. I've been trying to keep her out more lately since she got sick on Wednesday. She can't use her hind legs and has insulinoma, but something else is going on because she should have been getting better at least a little on the Prednisone but she's worse. Then I messed up by giving her 0.5 ml instead of 0.05, so I ended up calling the E clinic yesterday to see what to do. Fortunately she's okay but I'm sure my idiocy didn't help her any. Monday her bloodwork will be back and I'm hoping it shows something so we can get her feeling better, because this is miserable.

Como Zoo

First visit of the year to the Como Zoo today. Avery had a lot of fun even though most of the animals were sleeping when we saw them (monkeys, lions, wolves...everyone, snoozing). We went to the kids theme park area and went on some rides, most of which she had fun on as per usual but we tried out the "driving school" which is like go carts for small kids and she didn't fare so well. The guy tried to help her (as you'll see in the pictures) but she wasn't having it, and ended up in tears. We quickly went to the swings to remedy that. She finished up with a giant rainbow sucker and her day was good. Grandma and Grandpa were leaving for a retirement party when we got home, but Grandpa had some time to swing her in the backyard after lunch.

The pictures are also up from Easter. I have a bunch for the month of April. I've even uploaded them in decent time increments, even with a failing external hard drive!

Easter 2009

Well this weekend I went snowboarding up in Lutsen, MN. Its close to the Canadian border, about 20 miles from Grand Marais. It was 7 people and myself, and I rode up with my friend Nick from South Dakota. He had never gone before so I had to teach him, but I'm not the worlds greatest myself, so it was kind of hard. I got a horrible sunburned face on Saturday, and bought some sunscreen for Sunday to save it from even worse. But when I woke up this morning my forehead was swollen. Thats a new one for me, and I've had many a sunburn. Its quite uncomfortable to say the least.

Anyway since I was gone for Easter, we had the egg hunt today in the backyard. Cece came over as per usual for Mondays, and my mom picked up Tierney for the day and to spend the night. They had a lot of fun, and after Cece left we all went to dinner at Acupulco. Shoe shopping followed, and then home to look at their Easter baskets. I had gotten Avery Barbie in Swan Lake so they watched that before bed.

Over all, a good, fun day for the kids, but a slightly tiring one for me. Having a sunburn always leaves you feeling pretty pooped and I'm really not looking foward to the walk on the treadmill I'm going to do after writing this. Oh well right? Then I can go to bed! And of course back to work tomorrow =(

Walker Art Center

Today was Avery's Easter egg hunt at the church she has bible study at. We got there at 10:00 and started off with a story, then hunted for eggs, then made some crafts. She had fun, but was being kind of shy. I actually ran into my freshman math teacher then Ms. Peterson. She got married while I was still in school and I can't remember her married name. But now she has 4 kids and she's a stay at home mom! She has a 4 year old too named Mya. Avery kind of said hi to her, but not really. Stinker. It was neat to see her again, so many years later.

After that we headed to Ruby Tuesday for lunch, after that it was off to the Walker. I needed to see a painting and do a paper on it for my Humanities class. I found one I like from the Elizabeth Peyton exhibit, but I needed something to take home with me to remember what it looked like, and since I couldn't take a picture of it, I bought a postcard of a different painting by her and I'll work off of that. Avery made a big picture in the craft area and we got a little doll from the gift shop, that is really cute. There were a few things that I wanted to get, but they're all fairly pricey. Momiji: favourite person is the doll she got. The website is lovemomiji.com its actually really cute stuff. These were called "celebration dolls". Anyway the pictures are up- enjoy!