Fire Trucks

Tucked into the neighborhood behind our house is a fantastic little fire house that is within walking distance. They have events throughout the year including an open house on Halloween and their annual summer open house that the boys and I attended. We ran into quite a few of the kids from Tyler's class which was an exciting bonus.

The activities are great and the boys absolutely love it. Check this out. It was smoking hot that day, yet they both had to try on the fire gear. Crazy kids. I tried not to think about all of the mouths on this mask...

Ry Ry too!

It was all worth it so they could put out a real fire. Cool stuff!

Tyler is now a big boy and wanted to go through the safe house without me (sob) so Ryan had to be entertained. A rocket pop worked well.

Here's Tyler coming out of the safe house. How neat is this... smoke and everything!

You can't go to a fire house and not climb all over the equipment. Be thankful that there is no sound on this blog. The kids loved cranking the old fashioned siren and clanging the bells!

Tyler looks forward to this every year. He gets to use a real fire hose!

I have no idea what the attraction to this was, but the both love it... over and over again...

We had to checkout the inside of the trucks on the way out...

What a great way to spend a summer evening.

Summer

I started this post on Wednesday, 6/22 and am finally finishing it on 6/27 so I'm going to write it like it is 6/22...

Even though the calendar still said summer was a few days away, we decided to start our summer a little early starting by letting Tyler play hookie for a couple of hours on his last Friday of Kindergarten. Why? Well, they were offering tours of the GM Powertrain Plant and you can't miss that!! Doesn't this look exciting?? No, I didn't go.

Everyone wants a picture of themselves in front of a big engine, right?

Or, on a forklift.

All in all, he did have a great time. It was worth missing the end of Field Day at school.

Meanwhile, back at home... Ryan and I arrived home to find this in the garage. I had been anticipating this package all week. And, Dan left it sealed up for me with the necessary extension cord on top. He must love me.

Ta da!! Every kid needs their own bounce house, right??

It is a lot of fun.

Hmm... I don't know about this...

Great face Ty!

Yes, I am pleased with my new toy and I think Grandpa W is too!

Shortly after the above picture was taken, Dan and I rushed Ryan to urgent care for the first time. Nope, it had nothing to do with the bounce house... just a close encounter with the driveway. It was very scary as there was a lot of blood, but my visions of broken teeth, a broken nose and a head injury quickly faded upon our arrival. Phew!!

Here he is 48 hours later... I think he's going to be just fine...

Today was the last day of Kindergarten (sob!). This year started with a bang, but ended fairly quietly.

Overall, he had a wonderful year with a great teacher and lots of memories... of hiding in the closet, sticking his leg through the back of the chair, running during fire drills, yelling in the lunch room and all sorts of other antics!!

A few days before the end of school, his teacher sent his clip home...

This is what was used to track his behavior and it spent a lot of time on yellow, red and two days on white (resulting in a call home). He managed to stay on green for the last month or so of school. I don't know if that means he finally figured it out or his teacher gave up. After the clip came home Tyler told me he didn't have to worry about behaving because he doesn't have a clip to move. Nice Ty.

Oh well, Kindergarten is over and Tyler got to pick dinner on the last day. Moe's. Of course!

Weekend Activities

I'm usually game for unusual activities so when I friend told me about Cow Chip Bingo, I was in!! A person purchases a square piece of "property." If the cow comes out and plops on your "property", the winner receives a portion of the total ticket sales. It all benefited the American Cancer Society so off we went.

Meet Mr. Cow...

He cooperated and plopped rather quickly.

The boys were mostly interested in the activity bounce house. Ryan was right along side the big boys. Check this kid out. His physical feats amaze me. No help needed.

They chose to come down the slide side by side. Isn't this a great picture? Pure joy.

I love activities that please a six-year-old...

and a two-year-old at the same time!! (In case you can't tell, he's laughing)

Yes, we had a great time!

We even got to check out some Alpacas. What is really strange is that we've never seen Alpacas before, yet saw these guys twice in one day. The same ones!! First they were at the farmers market in the morning and then this event. Strange.

Fun stuff!

Then a quick stop for ice cream was in order. Yummy!

On Sunday the boys and I attended Survivors Day at Roswell. They hadn't been to the hospital so I thought this was a good reason to bring them down. I think they missed the point!

Despite Ryan's blank face, he absolutely loved this... It was kind of like a big balloon with regular balloons flying around inside of it. When Ryan came out the second time (out of three) a woman pointed at him and said "he is the funniest little dude I have ever seen." I agreed. He was a hoot in there!

Tyler enjoyed all of the other activities which included milking a cow (somewhat of a cow-themed weekend!) and other kid-friendly games.

I'll have to bring them back to the hospital some time if I actually want them to see it. They were way to busy to pay any attention to where we were.

We had hot dogs, and popcorn, and candy, and fried dough, and ice cream and soda... oh my!! I came home and tried to look up fried dough on the weight watchers database... guess what? It isn't there. I suppose I made a bad choice, but it was really good!

Ryan

Ryan. What are we going to do with this boy? He certainly lives life to the fullest. He is our rough and tumble boy... and getting rougher by the day!!

Our latest challenge is keeping him in shoes. I bought him brand new sneakers from Stride Rite three weeks ago. Here is what they look like now. Three weeks!!

These are Tyler's old sneakers in the same size. He wore them for at least 3 months... probably a lot longer. My boys don't share their primary shoes. I can't tell you why I still have Tyler's old sneakers except that I put the shoes away just in case and haven't cleaned the closet in a while. But, Ryan couldn't wear his own shoes in their current condition, so I had no choice except to put him in these.

I took a picture of the shoes because it was a clear visual of the difference between these two boys.

Here are Tyler's old sneakers after ONE day of Ryan wearing them. Seriously, he went through a pair of sneakers in ONE DAY!

We know how he accomplishes such destruction in such a short period of time... he rides his outdoor toys very aggressively, dragging his feet forward for another push. And, he loves it. We have tried showing him other methods, but this is what works for him. Next week I'll be sending him to daycare in open-toed sandals. He's a smart boy... it should only take one swipe to fix this problem.

Ryan has no fear. And that makes me very afraid.

At the same time, he is such a joy. This video makes me smile, I have another video that I'm having trouble posting of him watching this in fast-motion and laughing that hardy har har laugh of his. He couldn't be cuter.

I suppose he's worth a pair of sneakers a day!!

First Cut

It is rare to get a first hair cut as an adult, but last Sunday I did just that. And, no I didn't get a certificate with a clipping of my hair!!

I woke up feeling like a poodle that day and knew that I had to do something about it. I guess chemo curl is a real thing as my hair seemed to be growing out. It turns out that my hair is growing forward and I'm trying to push it back like I used to, causing it to stick straight up. Oops.

So she trimmed up the back, around my ears and clipped some of the chemo burn off of the ends. She then gave me what she called an Ellen style. It looked like bedhead to me. See...

I tried to make it less bedheadish, but I can't say I did much better. My current strategy is to straighten it out the best I can. I think it is going to take me a while to get used to this. Hopefully it will grow through and be gone. If not, I may have to grow it long and pull it back.

The back of my head is still looking a bit crazy, but it is much better after the cut.

Another recent development is the disappearance of my eyelashes... again! I had read that eyelashes regularly shed and regrow on a cycle. I also read that it is common for them to all fall out at the same time since all of them grew in at the same time and to avoid it you should pluck a few random eyelashes every few days until they find their own rhythm. That sounded painful to me so I didn't do it and now I am back to naked lids!! I can already see more coming in so I know this won't last long. Very annoying!

Watching Weight

After a couple of months of trying to clean up my diet on my own to address the ten pounds I gained while denying myself nothing during chemo, I joined my friends at a Weight Watchers meeting. I never would have done it on my own, but after only one week I am glad I did.

In the first meeting, last Wednesday, I had my first light bulb moment. The focus of the meeting was exercise which is something I don't do. They were talking about adding exercise to your every day activities and suggested parking away from a store to extend your walk. Hmmm, and all this time I thought Dan was protecting his car from door dings... turns out he was protecting my backside from expansion!!

Things only improved from there. Saturday night I was wanting a glass of wine... or two, but I was out of points for the day so I dragged Mom, Alisa, baby O and Heather with me on a long walk enduring the pterodactyl skeeters so I could earn some points back for my treat. We finished the walk, but by then I was too tired for the wine!! Was that the point?? The good news is that I earned my 5K award even with less than honorable intentions. Maybe if I practice, I can walk 5K and have a glass of wine afterwards... we all need goals in life!

Seriously though, it has been a good program over the last week. I discovered that a number of the "healthy choices" I made over the last couple of months turned out not to be such a great choice. Now I can evaluate my choices so if I'm going to choose junk, at least I know it is junk! And, I'm making some minor changes that haven't impacted taste that I can live with. The fancy WW calculator is helping me read those nutritional labels that have befuddled me for years! Throw in a little motivation to exercise and maybe I can make this work.

Drum roll please... I lost 3 pounds this week!! After months of slowly, but steadily creeping up the scale, this is huge.

This picture isn't really relevant, but it was taken tonight and I like it so here it is. Yes, they are wearing coordinating PJs and loving it. Big brothers and little brothers are awesome!!

If you don't hear about this topic again for a while it means things aren't going well... so lets not mention it, ok??

Hair Crisis at 5 Months Out!

Aaaaahhhhh! There isn't much more that can be said about the current state of my hair. Keep in mind that these pictures were just taken at the end of a long day... hopefully it looks better at the beginning of the day, but probably not.

About two weeks ago I noticed that there is a band of hair across the back of my head in the middle that is growing up. Yes, I said up! The hair below it doesn't know which direction it is growing in and the hair above it is very thin, but kind of straight with a side of bedhead. What to do??

The front is still really short, but I can see some progress. I am in the stage where I hate my hair and know that other people think I chose this look which makes it worse. Oh, and I just love that everyone stops to tell me how good it looks. Hrmph! Hopefully in a couple of more months my hair will look bad by choice and people will go back to not saying anything out of kindness!

It may be time for some professional help.