Michael (and Elizabeth's) birthday, part 02

Elizabeth had the best time ever in California and is ready to move there, with or without us.  We were so happy to have her back we celebrated her return with another birthday party for the kids.  They each invited a friend to play laser tag in Lexington, eat at Applebee's, and spend the night.  I'll bet the mortgage you can guess which friend Michael chose (and which color shirt the friend wore); E chose Lindsay, a former soccer team friend that she's kept in touch with for years.  Because E&M told me they are done, done, done posing for pictures, I had to surreptitiously take these, although the flash during the cake photo gave me away.

Last night we went to the Scott County Fair for the first time ever - next month's mortgage regarding whom M took; E met up with Lindsay and many of her middle school friends.  You can see I was once again the stealth photographer.  The kids rode the rides while Steven and I watched many fair goers lose their money at the carnival game booths.

Dads

For Father's Day, Steven paid tribute to his dad by making a striking fashion statement by pairing black shoes with white socks and shorts.  I have seen that look on Terry the past 20 years, but don't worry, I made Steven change shoes before we left the house.  We went to Morehead to have lunch with Terry and his wife Linda.  Yep, Morehead is moving up in the world - they now have a Cracker Barrel, rocking chairs and all.  After the meal, Michael and I went to Mom's (but first stopped at Morehead's new frozen yogurt store - do not tell anyone about that stop) while Elizabeth and Steven went with Angie to see Terry and Linda's new home.  They have a dog, so Michael and I couldn't go.  We hung out with Mom for a while, took the fauna and flora tour of course.  She gave us a real treat bag for the ride home, full of newspaper articles and magazine clippings of information she just knew we would love to have.  Try not to be jealous, I'm sure she's saving some gems for each of you, too. 


During the summer we are so sad when Steven goes to work, so we decided to take a tour.  Can you tell where we are?  If you squint, can you read the letters in the background?  Do you know which tour it was?  Most of you have taken the same tour.  Lots of  noticeable waving and smiling from Steven while we were on the tour, so much so that the tour guide even announced to our group, "My, that's a friendly fellow," not realizing he was more than just a happy employee.  We actually saw multiple people we knew while on the tour, and at the end, the tour guide said to E&M, "You are like celebrities!"  The tour was excellent, as always, even though half the information made no sense to me, and I am still frightened by those robots.

Today is June 24th, Dad's birthday.  We decided to celebrate his life and love for most things sweet by going to Bruster's ice cream shop tonight.  Zoe and Niki have heard plenty of stories about the man, so they wanted to celebrate his life, too.  I love it that I still run across Dad's script in many of my lecture folders throughout the academic year as he would sometimes find psychological information or attend lectures he thought would interest me and would send me extensive notes later.  I cherish all of those handwritten notes.  Sometimes it seems like he's been gone for such a short amount of time, while at other times, I am astounded at how many life events have happened for which he hasn't been here.  He is missed so very much.

Michael's birthday, part 1

Michael is 11.  Oh, how can that be?  Because of his surgery on 06/06, he didn't have a big celebration on 06/08, but he still had a super-fabulous time (my opinion, and I'm a psychologist, so I know these kinds of things).  Steven and I went shopping with him in Lexington.  Michael is the child who has no use for shopping for any reason whatsoever, so he was rather resistant in the beginning, but since parents always know best, we insisted he go.  And he was so glad he did - in about an hour's time, he spent much of his birthday money (thank you to everyone for sending him gifts - you'll perhaps eventually receive a thank you from him, but don't run to the mailbox just yet): legos, slides (like flip flops but fancier), sports necklaces, and sneakers.  We had frozen yogurt as well (thanks, Elizabeth, for reminding us of the joy in frozen yogurt - we've been to 4 different places in less than 2 weeks.  Obsessive you say?  Don't be ridiculous!).  Stephen came over when we got back and the boys immediately starting working on the legos.  Dinner was at Applebee's - of course the boys sat alone - and then more legos and a 12:15 a.m. bedtime (just this once).

Last night we went to the Lexington Legends (minor league) baseball game.  Michael took Stephen I think that blue shirt must be his favorite shirt).  We met Steven's good friend and co-worker Nate and all had a grand old time.  Stephen spent the night (goes without saying), and while I'm not sure what the final score of the ball game was, I can say that the Lexington team wasn't doing too well when we left. 

The first phase of Michael's birthday celebration has now ended.  He plans on having an afternoon with his friends in a couple of weeks, so I'm sure you'll see another post soon.

Amazing that Michael has had no pain, no painkillers, no bleeding, no bruising, and no swelling since his surgery.  We are so thankful for that, and of course, for him.  So precious.

Memorial Day weekend

  Katie Columbus came to town!  We never, ever tire of being with Katie.  We met her at Gattitown in Lexington - I was allowed to eat lunch with them, but then Michael told me to run errands while they played all the games.  They ran out of tokens within an hour, at which time I was allowed to come back and buy them all frozen yogurt.  Michael became a wee bit tired, so he laid (Laura, is that the correct tense?) down while Katie sat on him.  He was too tired to care.  She is moving to New Zealand in the fall for a year.  She and Elizabeth share that adventurous spirit. 

 Memorial Day weekend was also the perfect time to visit Mom/Grandma for her birthday.  We hadn't been to Morehead since Christmas.  I like Mom's house in the summer because of all her healthy flowers and green plants.  Who wouldn't want to take the walking tour of her gardens and grounds?  (Don't answer that.)  We had a lovely lunch, which fortunately was not al fresca.  We forgot to put a birthday candle in the pie after lunch, oops.  Steven and Elizabeth went to visit Ma-Maw, so Michael and Grandma had quality time together for a couple of hours.  First they watched TV, then they played some competitive games of chess (note: you can see his allergic reaction to some medicine on his face if you look closely).  I was told to move to another table with my puzzle; apparently my moving arms and hands are distracting while others watch TV.

Dinner was a trek to La Finca.  Again, we forgot the candle, but Grandma had a nice Manhattan, so I think she was feeling happy anyway.

After dinner, Elizabeth stayed the night at Grandma's, while the rest of us went home.  We hope it's not 6 more months before we go back to Morehead as a family and visit.  I think Michael is gunning for a lone visit with Grandma this summer, something he hasn't done in years.

While E was in Morehead, Michael hung out with his friend Christian.  E returned to Morehead and finished packing for her trip to California.  Here you see her in the airport parking lot, so happy to be on her to way to visit her aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Or maybe she's smiling because for once, we weren't late and rushed for the flight!  Steven, Michael, and I really miss that girl.  We are trying to find solace in the puppies.

 

Not the best week

It's been quite a week for us.  Steven's grandmother, Ruby Elizabeth, died Monday morning in Morehead.  The family knew her days were limited, so 2 weekends ago Steven and Elizabeth visited her in the nursing home.  Last weekend Steven visited her again and said his good-byes.  The visitation was Tuesday evening from 4-9.  Steven and I drove separately, and I ended up behind a car accident on the highway; no traffic moved for over an hour and 15 minutes.  I finally arrived and saw many of Steven's relatives that I hadn't seen in literally 10 years.  It was good to see them, but it was so sad to see them so sad.

Steven's grandmother, "MaMaw," was his favorite relative, and I completely understand why.  He has many memories of being at her house with all his other relatives as he grew up - she was always laughing and cooking in the kitchen.  She is buried next to his grandfather, in the same cemetery as Dad, Oma, and Opa.

Michael's adenoid and balloon sinusplasty was the next morning (yesterday).  I'm exhausted just thinking about it.  Looooong day, here's the summary: The surgeon ended up running seven hours behind, so Steven left for the funeral while I stayed with Michael at the hospital.  We waited and waited and waited and waited.  We were starving.  We were tired.  We (mostly me) were cranky.  I ran out of fun and exciting word analogy games to play with him and he had no interest in reading.  He did want to hear the plot of the book I was reading - an intense murder mystery book.  He was a bit surprised so many people would be killed in only a few hundred pages.  I didn't even tell him about all the deaths!

FINALLY he goes back for his surgery at 5:30 p.m.  At 7:30 he's finished.  Because of the anesthesia, his breathing was suppressed; the usual protocol is to monitor the patient a few hours, ensure his/her breathing has returned to normal capacity, and send him/her home.  Because of the late hour (8:30 p.m. by the time he wakes up and is allowed to have us go back to him), the surgeon and anesthesiologist decided Michael would have to spend the night instead of being released within a few hours (patients apparently aren't routinely discharged at midnight, sigh).  You can imagine how excited Michael was about that, as he'd said "I want to go home now" 4,236 times in the recovery room, awaiting the paperwork that would let us go home.  No such luck.  So the 3 of us basically pulled an all-nighter in the hospital last night but didn't have a term paper to show for it.

The "relatively simple procedure" was anything but and 25 hours later, we finally went home.

On a more positive note, his friend Stephen came over within 10 minutes of our getting home and they have played quietly and calmly (except during competitive wii games) all day long.  He hasn't had any pain medication at all.  Now it's 8 p.m. and I think we all need to go to bed.

We are thankful to have had Ruby (MaMaw) in our lives as long as we did, and we are hopeful that Michael's allergy-related breathing issues will improve.

Other events

When E&M were younger, I always worried one or both of them would accidentally end up in the dryer and hurt him/herself.  Never happened. Apparently I should have instead been worrying  that my son would put himself in the puppies' cage and lock the door behind him!  He decided the life of a puppy wasn't as great as he'd assumed it would be.  Was it mean of me to refuse to let him out until after I'd taken this picture?

A few weeks ago, Michael and I went to Toyota's Spring Fling, which is a carnival-like event, where Michael played basketball, won lots of prizes for various games, ate cotton candy and popcorn, and threw a baseball really, really far.  He made a beautiful Mother's Day handprint gift, too.  Neither of us wanted to leave, and Michael decided he and I are definitely going next year as well.

In what is becoming a yearly tradition, Elizabeth and Michael both came to the psychology department's reception for its graduating seniors.  Zoe and Niki came as well.  The students love meeting or seeing E&M again, and E&M love the smorgasbord of desserts (Michael insisted he ate some fruit, too).

I genuinely enjoyed this year's senior class over 99% of the time (there's always that one bad apple, but I won't mention any names, although I'm tempted) and was quite sad yet happy and proud during graduation. 

Robin, her mom, and 2 sons stayed with us last weekend and we were sooo happy to see them.  Sadly, no photo of their visit.  Too busy having fun, laughing, reminiscing, and watching the children be energetic, athletic, and not tired, in spite of the late hour and the fact that two of them had played soccer in the sweltering heat earlier that afternoon.  But here's a photo of her with her 2 sons on a recent NYC trip

I look forward to a summer at home with my beautiful husband, children, and puppies.  And any visitors who can make the trip.  We're always excited about visitors (that means you!).