The Zoo with Cousins

One beautifully warm and sunny winter day last month we went to the Denver Zoo and were met there by cousins Ande and Kyle and their momma too (John ditched us). Ande, Kyle and parents have recently moved back to Colorado, we missed them and are happy to have them back.

Amik with Kyle

Fionnula and Ande

We are generally lovers of zoos, and have visited a handful of others, but the Denver Zoo feels very much like it is ours.  We have been visiting there since our family began.

We celebrated Erin's first birthday at the Denver Zoo. She made kitten noises at the mountain lions.

Once, we took Erin, Bayley, Kegan and Rhys to see the holiday zoo lights. We got there and realized we had forgotten to bring the girls' coats. It was cold and dark and after bedtime. We ended up bundling the girls into the double stroller with lots of blankets. I pushed the girls and Kris carried a toddler on each arm through the whole zoo. By the time we were done, Kris's arms were so sore he could barely move them.

When Kegan was two we went to the Denver Zoo with our LaFond cousins on Christmas Day (yes, really, Christmas Day). A snowball fight that day nearly turned lethal when Kegan tripped, smacked his face on a rock and broke his nose! He effectually ruined Uncle Greg's jacket with the copious amounts of blood that flowed freely from his face. Most of my kids, even those who were not yet born that Christmas, can still point out that offending rock.

That was back when Enrights and LaFonds lived about 20 minutes from one another. Years later, they traveled from Pennsylvania to visit us in Colorado Springs and we wanted to go to the Denver Zoo together, of course. The day of the zoo trip turned out to be rainy, but we went anyway. Mostly the rain just effected the picnic part of the day, not the moods of anyone involved. At lunchtime we piled into the two vehicles to eat our lunches. Everyone was happily eating and chatting and loudly laughing when in the bus there was a sudden and complete silence followed by a loud chorus of "Ewwwww! Gross!" And an extremely efficient evacuation of the bus. Rain was nothing compared to remaining in the vehicle that poor Ronan had just puked in.

Last June we met cousin Alison for the first time at the Denver zoo.

Ronan and Liam up a tree

Alison under the tree

Cousins and zoos sort of go together I guess.

Ronan, Kyle, and Amik

Yes, we actually own THREE cars

Isn't it cute? Soon Erin will be taking her driving test with this little guy, and probably not long thereafter, Bayley will too. And then I can cease to be a full time chauffeur, except I don't think I will give up all my duties because I like to drive it too!

Of Snoopy Slings and Purple Casts

Okay, so I really need to catch up here. I really want to catch up. But first I am just going to jump right into what is going on now at my house and the biggest event I can come up with for the week is that Fionnula broke her wrist. Well, is it really a 'break' if what you actually did was bend your bones and not really snap them in two? Whatever, it is the first cast any of my children has ever had (just cause they don't cast toes and noses).

It started out like this; I was having a leisurely Sunday afternoon phone conversation with my mother when I hear a screaming child coming my way. I mean, really screaming, Fionn is a screamer anyway, but this scream sounded a little more serious than the usual 'my brother won't let me have his toy that I want' scream. So I hung up on Mom (well, I didn't just hang up--I mean I told her I was going and all),I listen to the story about how she was on the trampoline and first her arm 'was like this and then it was like this!' (There were actions to go along with the story, but truthfully they didn't add much and I still don't know precisely what happened to her arm, just that she was jumping on the trampoline and landed on it).

I looked at the arm, there was no bruising or serious swelling; I did the requisite 'can you move it like this and like this,' she could. So I took her downstairs, sat her on the couch with an ice pack and a movie and hoped it would get better by tomorrow. I even threatened her by asking in my most concerned parent voice; "Do you think it is so bad that you need to go to the doctor?" This always works on all my other kids, they always feel a lot better after I ask this question. I know, it is not a good mom sort of thing to do, but sometimes I am not a good mom. But whatever, because it didn't work with Fionn, she said immediately that yes she thought she needed to see a doctor, either because that sounded like fun or because it really hurt that bad. Both, as it turned out.

Later that evening I had a meeting to go to and left her with her big sisters. I came home to find them comforting her after she had bumped it in the bathroom. But she slept well that night and I was feeling optimistic until the next morning she got a little jostled and the screaming started again. So I called the doctor and I called the insurance and I bundled her into the car. There were no more tears now, she was completely psyched. This was going to be an adventure.

In the waiting room at urgent care she was thrilled to see they had a TV, and piles of magazines. And she wondered at every person she saw how they had hurt their arms, because obviously this was a place you went to when you hurt your arm. We looked at magazines, toured the waiting room, and finally they timidly called out her name. We get great renditions of Fionn's name when people first see it.

So, she loved getting her blood pressure taken loved the little red light they put on her finger to check oxygen levels (that is what it does isn't it?), declared that getting her temp checked tickled and practically skipped over to be weighed. She had not had this much fun in a long time. They showed us to a little room where she got to sit on a big old hospital bed. Oh we were having so much fun! We saw a nurse who basically told us they would need x rays and we waited a long time, Fionn singing 'The Ants go Marching' and 'The Tree in The Woods.' She makes up her own words to 'The Tree in The Woods' and she loves the format where she says it and then I have to repeat what she says. Such a sense of power! A very noncommunative tech came and led us to x-ray, snapped a few pictures of her arm, sent us to another room to wait and then back to our original room to wait some more. We sang more songs. We played I Spy. We tried to use a cell phone in a big medical building with iffy cell coverage. The Doctor came in to pronounce the verdict--buckle fracture-- they would splint it and she could go see another doctor who could decide about the cast. We waited some more. Another tech came in and measured Fionn's arm. We waited. She came back and put on the splint--a process which Fionn can describe in detail if you ask her. And found her a snoopy sling. The whole thing was just fascinating to Fionn.




Later that day I heard her detailing the whole story to Liam in the back seat of the car. "And she called me pumpkin!" Fionn says incredulously.

"Pumpkin!?" laughed Liam.

So I explained that calling someone 'pumpkin' was like calling them 'cutie.'

"So 'pumpkin' means 'cute?' Asked Fionn, sounding a little doubtful.

"Yes... sort of," I said.

Liam and Fionn, pondering the oddities of their native tongue; "Hmmmm..."

So we suffered through the splint and sling for three and a half days and then went to the orthopedic surgeon who wrapped her all up in a purple cast and told us to come back in 3 weeks for more x-rays and, hopefully, cast removal.



So far, Fionn is still mostly having fun. She loves it when people ask what happened. And it is especially fun to correct those who say she broke her arm; "Actually, it's my wrist.' After about twelve hours of not holding a crayon or pencil, she started to learn to use her left hand, because she just couldn't take it anymore. She challenges her brothers to hit the cast and then announces 'See! It hurts you and not me because it is hard!" But sometimes at night when she can't get comfortable, or when it starts itching, she just wants the cast off now and it isn't quite so much fun for anyone.

Fun Runs and Treasure Hunts

Halloween for us this year began with the Creepy Crawl race out at Palmer Lake. Bayley paid the entrance fee and ran in the 5K and got the cool t-shirt.

The shirt Bayley is wearing in this picture is actually from The Great Pumpkin Run earlier in the month, not the run she is actually running in, but it is conveniently Halloweenish anyway. Can you see the pumpkin design?

After the official 5K race they had a 1 mile race around the lake for kids under 12 and their running companions--so each of our younger kids ran with a big brother or sister.

Here is Noah at the finish line. I believe he was the second runner to finish.

And Ronan already in costume.


And Liam. Who was reluctant at first to run, but then loved it.

And finally Fionn, who fell only moments before this at the last turn, but was determined to finish.

Then everyone who wasn't already in costume got dressed up and we had the now traditional Halloween treasure hunt (right after the equally traditional photo shoot).

A fairy princess. Honestly, it is not too unusual for Fionn to be dressed like this.

Han Solo.

Robin Hood.

Sid. (from Toy Story) I painted that skull on the t-shirt the night before. Pretty good, huh?

Deb. (from Napoleon Dynamite)

Edmund? Peter? A generic knight? It is a versatile costume. And, for those of you who are wondering, yes, the sword is just a lame prop and behind that shield it actually has no hilt, but is, in fact, just a blade.

Well, Erin is a pirate, but Bayley is mostly someone who never came up with a costume idea but had run in a run that morning and acquired a conveniently colored t-shirt.

Kegan is obviously a demi-god (the question being which of his parents is the god), I have no idea what Rhys is. Cool glasses though, huh?

Yellowstone!

This post is an experiment. I want to know what happens when I finish a post that I started months ago and left as an unpublished draft. Will it be posted with today's date attached (it is actually January already!) or with the date it was originally attached to? Because if it is the latter, then that opens a whole new world of possibilities to a procrastinating blogger such as myself.

In July we went to Yellowstone. Yellowstone was one of the destinations on our list of places to visit with the whole family before our children start moving out on us. We haven't finished the list yet, which is why Erin and Bayley can't move out yet. We actually tried to go last summer. But when you call the West Yellowstone KOA in May and say you want to stay there in July, they politely chuckle at you and then suggest that you call around October and schedule something for next July. Which is what we did. And which is why we didn't even think of cancelling our plans when Kris broke his leg two weeks before our scheduled departure. One thing I might do differently if we were to return though, the KOA is not really all that close to the park, so I think I would try to get a place to stay that is actually in Yellowstone. You might have to call earlier than October. And, there is the bear factor too, it turns out there are bears in Yellowstone, and apparently they occasionally they eat park visitors, so one of the cool lodges would definitely be my preference. No tents.

But, what I am really trying to get to is the pictures. This was our first major trip in which multiple people carried cameras. And cell phones. So there are literally hundreds of photos.

Seminary Graduation

Erin and Bayley graduated from seminary last night. That's four years down and only fourteen more of getting kids to seminary everyday at 6 am. It is my penance for never having graduated myself. Except I have to admit that Kris does most of the driving to, I usually wake up just enough to kiss them each goodbye and take my occasional turn driving early when Kris is out of town. Instead, I take my turn driving when it is our turn in our little two-family carpool to pick up after seminary.

I should probably mention too that Erin and Bayley are officially high school graduates now also, I finished up their transcripts just last week by filling in their grades for their last semester of twelfth grade, which also happens to be their third semester at the community college, and gave them a high school graduation date. It was really just a silly and, probably, unnecessary formality since to us they left high school behind a year ago and have been full time college students for the past year. I know this is a confusing point to some of my family and friends with the way that high school just drifted into college with no 'graduation' in between. But, in a year they should be done at the community college and we will try to be more formal then and really celebrate a graduation.

In somewhat related news, Kegan and Rhys took the accuplacer (the test community colleges administer to determine college placement) and both placed into the college level in both the math and English portions of the test (that is all there is by the way-a math portion and an English portion). This means that in the fall they will both be part time students at the community college also. More blurring of the lines between high school and college, I know.

The Short Happy Life of a Kenmore Elite

So, Dave the repair guy was over today. Remember him from the oven cleaning fiasco awhile back? Dave is actually a fairly frequent visitor at our house. In the past 18 months or so he has repaired nearly every major appliance in our house; the dishwasher, the oven, the dryer, and today he was over to have a look at the washing machine. Well, Dave says the washer is a lost cause and we need a new washing machine. Something about the pump being about to spill a lot more water on my floor than it has already been putting out and, apparently even worse, everything that is holding up and turning the tub is also ready to give out and die. In fact, he looked more than a little stressed when I revealed my intention to continue to use the slightly leaky machine while I searched for a new one. But, I doubt that Dave has ever experienced what happens in a household of twelve when the washing machine is out of comission for 48 hours. It isn't pretty. And I can handle a little water leaking onto my basement floor for a few days. Besides, even when that pump gives out completely, and dumps the whole load of water on the floor--it is a high efficiency washer, it supposedly uses hardly any water, right? Well, anyway, there is a drain in the floor right beside it, how bad could it get? Probably not even close to as bad as the time that Ronan put the hose in the window well and ‘forgot’ he left it on.

The point is, my super expensive, should last me a lifetime washing machine, lasted us six years. I am willing to admit that my family is harder on a washing machine than your average family, but seriously, I am fairly certain that my mom used the same washing machine and dryer for at least most of the years that I lived in her house. And while the washer does get a lot of use, I don't think it is being abused. It's not like my children are climbing in for a ride (and, by the way, I totally put a stop to the dryer being used as a hiding place for hide and seek games too). It isn't just the washer either. I am already looking for a new vacuum cleaner. The current one is probably the fifth we've owned. I buy a toaster every couple years, and that is usually after months of going without toast or eating it either burnt or barely warm (or, with some toasters you can have it both ways--burnt on one side, barely warm bread on the other). We have replaced dishwashers three times. I am on my fourth Kitchenaid mixer. I buy new electric griddles every few years. So, is it me? Am I super destructive? Or is my stuff just wussier than the stuff my mom had? Or, am I just not remembering the headaches my mom went through because they weren't my headaches?

By the way, Dave did not charge me anything for his original diagnostic visit Saturday morning, his trip to the parts store to pick up the parts he originally thought would fix our problem or even for the 50 minutes he spent lying on my basement floor today discovering that things were way more serious after all.