the bike tour

we did it again! and when i say "we" i mostly mean "my team excluding me." my team rocks-saturday was the MS bike tour up in logan and team iron myelin rode the century!



justin gets the award for riding with the least amount of training (1 ride?) and NO sleep and the strength to ride on a flat for 10 miles until his wise teamate noticed the problem. i think the ride marshalls dubbed him "that idiot without a tube or pump," but iron myelin would like to fight that bearded jerk of a marshall on that one (who wants to carry extra weight when we know the marshalls are doing it for us?!).



gina bina gets the award for being the only girl on the team to finish it. okay, that's kind of lame-her only competition for this award was her patch-wearing, vertigo-fighting teamate. but seriously-i'm so proud of her! 100 miles! she's my inspiration.

bd gets the award for being the best team mechanic and motivator. this guy is mr. super-seratonin, and mr. super-mechanical genius. we're lucky to have such an over-qualified team member! if only he'd been riding alongside justin when he got his flat...



stevie gets style points, of course-who else can sport bibs and get away with it? (he wouldn't take his jersey off for the photo, but you can reference last year's photo here.) he also wins the award for most offensive language used on the tour toward a ride marshall. the very same ride marshall we'd like to fight.



i was just glad to be able to get on my bike without tipping over. let's just say my balance has been slightly askew-especially with the one eye thing going on. but i managed to ride somewhere between fourteen and sixteen miles. i know, those of you who ride are scoffing at this number. i was feeling so defeated that i didn't even cross the finish line and instead went straight to my car. i then spent the remainder of my day sunbathing at the pool feeling dejected and wussy and wishing i'd gone farther. i don't know why i beat myself up over things like this-i mean, i could barely walk two weeks ago. SO i'm going to be happy with my little bike ride and shoot for the century next year. who's with us?

thanks for another great year, iron myelin!

havey's party

one day shy of a month after the party and i finally am getting havey's birthday party post up! can you say "slacker"? so here it is, the sweet girl's sweet little party. for being such a messy girl (i call her "the destroyer"), you'd think she'd have jumped right into her cake, but it took a little coaxing from dad to get her to touch it. although once she got the hang of it she managed to destroy half of it. thanks to jessie for the great photos! it was nice to enjoy the party instead of being worried about taking the pictures myself.





* i don't know why that last collage is looking pixelated, but if you click on it it looks normal. i quit.

argh, we're back!

after another long drive across country, the kids and i are finally home! we got here at three in the morning on thursday. steve and i got to have the weekend to ourselves since my mom was here, so we went to see 'the hangover', went out for sushi, bought a bag of riesens and watched 'the dark night' in bed in our hotel room, enjoyed each other's company (if you know what i mean), slept in, went to the farmer's market and bought delicious cherries, went to 'the proposal', then had cafe rio for dinner and enjoyed each other's company a little more.

it kind of made me miss our young and married without children days (those didn't last long). it also made me miss patch-free days-i can't believe how many people ask me what's wrong with my eye! how do you make a long story short? well, em and i devised a plan: when asked what happened to my eye from now on, i will lift my patch as i say "oh, it just acts up sometimes" and then a marble that i store inside the patch will fall to the ground as emilie says "bwohooohahah" (you know, sort of like the way large marge says it in pee wee's big adventure?). i also need to increase my pirate-joke repertoire, so if you have any good ones send them my way!

BUT, all good things come to an end-my mom flies back to pennsylvania tomorrow. which is when i will probably start to worry again, so if you want to bring me dinner or take my kids away, please don't hesitate! just let me know you're taking the kids...living in the ghetto makes me terrified that they'll be snatched up the second i turn my back, so i might call the police if you don't give me a heads up!

and a few nash-isms from the trip, just to make you snicker:

when it was nearing bedtime on the road, i asked nash to say his prayers so he'd know it was bedtime:

nash: dear hevny fadder, not go bed!

mom and nash in the same stall of a gas station bathroom while making one of our many potty stops along the way:
mom: squatting over the toilet taking care of some business
nash: good job mama! push one more time...you did it!
lady in the stall next to us begins to laugh
nash (totally excited): huh, grandma goin potty!?!?!

i guess you know what i tell nash as he goes to the bathroom, huh? it's funny how i don't realize the repetitive things i say until nash starts saying them. in public.

still kicking

a little update from the sticks:

haven's not doing much worth reporting-drinking milk, trying to walk, cuddling more, and obsessing about talking on the phone. she's the same age now as nash was last time we were home, which is really weird to think about. they are so different! haven seems like she's still such a baby, but i remember nash seemed like he was more of a kid at this age. i think it has to do with the fact that nash never shut up-and he still hasn't. haven's just quiet and content and super sweet. unless she wants something...

nash is having a blast with grandma & grandpa. grandpa has been singing him to sleep with the "tar" (that's guitar in nash-talk). nash asks for 'grandpa play tar' every night before bed. it's so cute to see him watch and listen and melt to sleep. last night grandpa went to pick up his new sailboat (the one he is not allowed to take nash on for at least a year), so 'grape grandma' (great grandma) came and took nash on a special outing. they went to the playground where grape grandma got to observe nash being "all boy." then they went to the DQ and nash must have been under grape grandma's spell because he ate an entire hot dog. this is a kid who does not eat meat (not my doing, he just hates it)-and then he goes and eats a hot dog?! kids will do the darndest things... apparently nash told grape grandma that he missed grandpa, which lead to grape grandma telling nash about the sailboat. so when i was tucking him in and asked him to say his prayers, he prayed for "grape grandma, grandpa, sailboat, and cookie monster." prayers are by far my favorite part of the day-you never know what's going to come out of his mouth!




















as for me-i'm starting to feel a lot better. more energy, less tingling and numbness, and a better attitude. my eye is still turning in-the lateral muscle on the temple side of my left eye is weak so my eye turns in and causes me to see double. it makes everything hard, but is making me all the more thankful for the almost perfect functioning of my body when in remission (especially when i consider this only my second relapse in four years and the first to really affect me). i have been wearing a patch most of the time-mostly because i look stupid holding an eye shut and it gets tiresome doing it. the good news is that it makes me look like a tough chic. just kidding, the real good news is that my opthalmologist took a gander into my eyes and can't see any permanent damage or any reason that my eye won't return to full function (i.e. no nerve damage)!

stevie wanted me to send a picture of myself with my patch. i tried to take a normal one (below) but i don't think i'm capable of looking "normal" in a picture. sorry beeves, you knew what i was when you picked me up. except for the MS part...

sometimes it takes what seems to be the world crashing down on you to realize just how good you've got it.

friends

i don't know if i said it before, but this place is boring. so i've had to make some new friends. keeping me company (in no particular order) are:




apparently i like to eat when i'm depressed. this is new to me, but i'm okay with that. everything that's happening to me right now is new...like jello-legs and arms, a nearly entirely numb body (except where there are tingles), googly eyes that can't "search" for anything (and combined with jello legs lead me to clip doorways), a brain that can't remember even the simplest of words, the memory of a fish (although apparently that's just a myth), emotions that get the best of me approximately twice a day (i cried watching a commercial for alzheimer medication today and cry at least six times during any given sytycd episode), insomnia that persists despite the above pictured friend, and this depression thing where i feel like everyone's out to get me. wait, i guess that's called paranoia. so if i snap at you or freak out at you (which hopefully i won't do since i am practically quarantined), or if i forgot your birthday (i think this counts for all my may birthdays except haven's) just know i don't mean it. i'm in a serious funk. and i have roughly one week to get out of it. wish me luck...

p.s. thanks for all the nice comments, emails and calls to check up on me. apparently i have people-type friends too! i really appreciate all those offers for kid-watching and lasagna-delivering. but don't think you're in the clear just because mommy came to the rescue- i'm coming back and just might take you up on the offers! just please don't feed me meat.

havey's party

i forgot to pack the cd of images that jessie took at haven's 1st birthday party, so this one photo will have to do for now. you can see a few more on jessie's blog here. i'll post some more when i get home, but i feel like i better post this one now, just in case i never remember to post the rest. hoping i won't forget though, because there are some really cute shots of havey eating her cake!

road trippin'

with my two favorite allies:



fully loaded we've got snacks and supplies:



it's time to leave this town, it's time to steal away.
let's go get lost anywhere in the u.s.a.
let's go get lost, let's go get lost...

my mom flew out on thursday night and we packed the car and hit the road on sunday morning for the kids first cross-country drive. after a rough start (i think the kids sensed that this wasn't our normal salt lake to provo drive) things calmed down and the kids did surprisingly well. even on his third week in 'unnerwears', nashy boy was a star! going potty (including number two) on the side of the road in the middle of wyoming and nebraska is no easy task for a 2.5 year old! i think i may actually market some sort of road trippin potty training method because i can now say that he is officially potty trained! he only had one accident on the whole trip and it was in his sleep (yes, i'm a proud mommy). he finally cleared his big hurdle-he's telling me when he needs to go instead of me having to ask him (which i forget to do).

and sweet havey was nearly an angel-i am constantly amazed at how easygoing she is. nash got to get out of the car quite a bit with all his potty-going, but haven remained strapped in during most of it and was still the happiest girl. we took a few fun stops at the little america playground and cabella's to feed the ducks. nash saw his first windmills and prarie dogs, crossed the mississippi (he can say it like it's no big deal), and went through his first tunnel (i think? either way he thought it was pretty cool). haven had a first as well once we arrived home at 3 am on monday/tuesday: she slept with me in my bed! bevie is so jealous-she's not a snuggler and definitely likes to sleep in her own space, but she didn't want to go into the strange crib at grandma's so i took her to bed with me and she went with it! that right there made the whole trip worth it.

***i'm looking at this trip through the rose-colored glasses that come with a few days rest afterward. so before you think you should pack up the minivan and tour all the national parks or something, read on: there were definitely some moments where i wanted to strangle myself. like sunday night at 11(after the hours of scary thunderstorms) when both kids were crying (not sleeping). which, despite sleep aids, meant i couldn't sleep either. and wasn't sleep the whole reason we were making this trip? so we got a hotel and all was right in the world for a few hours. and then there was the constant dropping of toys and sippy cups which led to my being unstrapped from my seatbelt for 90% of the trip. oops. also not my idea of good rest-climbing back and forth from back seat to front seat. then there was the raffi cd, the elmo dvd, and the constant children's entertainment drilling holes in our heads...but that's just motherhood-on the road or not, right?