I love blogging. I wish that I did more of it. The problem is that you blog a lot at first, then not quite as much. Then you get busy and don’t have time to blog as frequently as you used to. Then you lose your blogging mojo. Once you’ve lost your blogging mojo it’s much more difficult to get back. You make plans to blog. You commit to blog. But it doesn’t happen right away. Then you have so many things to blog about that the task becomes daunting. So you put it off some more. Then you become ashamed because you took so long to blog. Then you end up where I am now.
I’ve always felt that injuries and illness are winning reasons to blog. We’ve had lots of sickies. It seems like this year has been worse than usual for colds and flus. Right now everyone is healthy and the kids just received their flu shots. We’re hoping the next year will be less exciting as far as illness goes
We’ve also had some stitches and urgent care visits. Mason took the prize with a 9-stitch cut on his head. Bryce came in a close second when he slammed his hand in a folding chair, causing a messy gash on his finger. Shortly after that (I think it was the same day) Jaxon ran into him with a bike and Bryce ended up with a giant egg on his forehead. It was as big as an actual egg.
In less injurious news, Chase played tee ball this year. He had a blast even though the weather stunk on ice. Cold, windy, dusty days didn’t seem to lessen the fun.
Did you know that I originally typed this out on July 6th? And now it’s October. My blogging is a disgrace to you, me and the entire Gem State. Anyway, I added a few updates and here we are. It’s a poor start, but it’s what I’ve got.
I could blog all day, but that would be boring. So, I’ll start here and add a little. Then again, if you had anything better to do you wouldn’t be here, right?
After an absolutely dismal performance last year, I adjusted my reading goal and renewed my effort. The last two years I set a goal to read 30 books during the year. Although I met my goal the first year I fell short last year. This year my goal was to read 50 books and I met my goal by reading 51. Several of the books were recommendations, a few were gifts and a few more were ones just laying around the house when I was ready to start a new book.
I am always looking for recommendations. If you have one for me I suggest recommending it through Goodreads. Here’s the list – it starts with books most recently read:
This is going to be a very sad and pathetic post to end the year, but not as sad as going so long without posting anything at all. Have I mentioned before that illness and injury seem to be the best motivator for blogging? Well, that’s certainly still the case. It started on Monday when I was coughing at work and progressed until today when everyone in our house has the swine flu. I thought Emilie and Jaxon were going to skip this one, but they finally starting showing the signs today. Mason is on the rebound and Chase is right in the worst of it. Bryce is about a day behind Chase. Not a lot of partying going on in our home tonight. Then again, we’re usually in bed by 9p or so on New Years anyway. We’re lame.
The thing that makes our current situation especially sad is that our TV died a few days before Christmas. It’s being repaired, but we have no idea when we’re going to get it back. We’re using an old TV that is very small. So while we’re stuck at home sick, we have to vegetate around the tiny tube.
I never got to make my December blood donation because I’ve been sick the whole month. I got food poisoning around Thanksgiving somehow and then I had a cold. By the time that I recovered I end up with swine flu. Bah.
In non-illness happenings, we had two birthdays this month. For Bryce’s birthday we had a small family gathering. We enjoyed some delicious doughnuts from Doughboys. (I hope people are understanding what terrible filth they put in their mouths when they ate Krispy Kreme “doughnuts”.) There was a little excitement when Bryce tried to put his face directly in the flames to blow out the candles.
The next day Chase had his first birthday party with friends. Emilie’s mom made a couple of incredible Buzz Lightyear cakes and the kids played games and stuff. We had a family party on Chase’s actual birthday, too. He’s spoiled.
The holidays were great. We had some excellent family time, played some games and things were good. Sadly, more family is in town for the holiday and we’re quarantined. Which reminds me, I better go to bed and get a few winks before the other sickies start waking up. Happy New Year. Yay!
Starting work at 6:30a does not seem to agree with my blogging habits. By the time the kids are in bed I’m usually ready to crash. There have been enough exciting events that it behooves me to try to catch-up.
Since my last post, we’ve had a few medical situations. Besides the usual flus and colds we tend to experience this time of year, we’ve also had a couple of injuries that required doctor visits. Chase fell at school and hit his head on a rock, leaving a nice wound on his forehead. The doctor was initially going to stitch him up; however, Chase wimped out and stitches were eliminated as an option. The wound was glued together, despite Chase’s spirited protestations. His head has since healed and he has his first manly scar.
Of course, we would be remiss if we discussed injuries and Jaxon wasn’t included. While in the nursery at church he got his finger shut in the door. Of course, the doors are giant wooden doors and the frames are metal, so his little finger was no match. The tip of his finger was broken. He had a pretty rough day that day, but seemed to recover fairly quickly. We kept him medicated for a couple of days to help with the pain, but he didn’t complain for long. The doctor couldn’t do much since it appeared to be just the tip that broke. Anyway, he toughed it out and has since made a full recovery.
And while we’re on the topic, I made a whole blood donation on October 9th. If anyone wants to join me for my next donation let me know. I plan on going on Dec. 4th. I’ll even treat you to juice and cookies afterward.
Coming up next, the story about what happened in the elevators at work. And stuff.
A lot to catch up on so I’ll get right to it. About a month ago Bryce reached that wonderful milestone where he realized he could climb out of his bed. This was a bit surprising because the twins didn’t start climbing out of their bed until they were two. Chase never climbed out of his bed. I think he tried once but ended up stuck on the rail, screaming in terror. He was apparently traumatized because he never tried it again. The first night Bryce realized he could climb out of bed he spent the whole night climbing out again and again. I think he climbed out five times during the course of the night. And he was devastated when he got put back in bed. Since then it hasn’t been much of an issue. He stays in bed most of the time but a couple of nights ago Emilie thought she heard someone downstairs in the middle of the night. She got up to check and caught Bryce coming back up the stairs. And she apparently startled him because he started screaming and she had a hard time calming him down. It’ll be a few more months before he gets the big boy bed.
Around the time Bryce learned to escape the crib, Chase decided to start pronouncing his S’s. He always had a lisp when making the S sound; however, one day he just started saying his S’s in a very deliberate way. I’m not sure what made the difference, but there you go.
Speaking of Chase, he likes to spray Lysol because of it’s miraculous disinfecting power. Emilie caught him spraying Lysol all over the toy room to freshen it up. Except it wasn’t Lysol. It was cooking spray. The good news is that all the toys now have a pleasant buttery taste.
Bryce had quite an adventure earlier this week. That story will be included in a future post. Stay tuned.
Here’s a short video made by my father-in-law when we rode the Tunnel Creek portion of the TRT earlier this year. I haven’t ridden hardly at all this year. I’m pathetic.
The kids are getting colds, so it must be time to blog again. The whole family was together two weeks ago to stage the grand family picture. Justin is leaving for his mission this month so everyone got together for one last big party before he leaves. It was quite an eventful extended weekend.
The morning of July 26th we went for a little hike up to the top of Mt. Rose. The weather was great – overcast and fairly cool. Emilie kept wanting to chicken out and go back, but she made it to the top easily and all was well. As we were driving back down to Reno we found the road was closed due to a semi overturning. We had to go back up to Tahoe and around through Carson to get home. Once home, we all had to get ready for the family pictures.
Taking the pictures was pretty crazy. Once you count kids, spouses, etc. you have a current total of 31 people. Also consider that four of those people are my children. And the pictures were being taken next to pond and streams. Controlling them was like trying to catch a bunch of flies using the lid off a tube of ChapStick. Jaxon insisted on making the pictures difficult by following directions quite literally. The photographer would say “look up” and he would look straight to the sky. She would then say, “no, look down” and he would put his chin to his chest and look straight down. “No, look up” and he would look straight up. And on it went. Nevertheless, we eventually accomplished the feat and went home.
The following day we headed up to Lake Tahoe. We spent all afternoon on the beach, which was surprisingly relaxing. Bryce and Mason were terrified of the waves so they pretty much hung out under the canopy all afternoon just eating and playing in the sand. Or in Bryce’s case, he combined the two activities and was eating sand. Gritty. Jaxon – being the social butterfly that he is – wandered off quite a bit. He wanted to play with other kids and their toys. We were constantly trying to steer him back to our part of the beach. Chase even spent a lot of time out in the water. A few of us played some Frisbee out in the water. Later we found a good rock to jump off of down to the south of the beach. The only downside to the day was that the parking lot was full when we got there, which made parking and shuffling cars a challenge considering all the food and equipment we were hauling in. But the good times overshadowed this minor issue.
Everyone has since returned to their homes and life has resumed. I’ve still got more to catch up on. Goal: try to catch up before the next illness strikes.
About two years ago I set a goal to read 30 books each year. Last year I posted a list of 30 books that I read. It’s that time of the year again, but woefully I fell short. This year I made it to 25. And that’s if you count the two audio books I listened to and the two times I finished the Book of Mormon. So, it’s time to strengthen my resolve and get started for another year of reading. Here are the books I completed during the last year:
I have a few books in the queue already, but if you have recommendations please send them over! You can send your recommendations to “brad” at this domain.
No doubt you remember our incident in May when Jaxon and Mason ingested Tylenol. Here’s a couple pictures I took with my cell phone during the forced charcoal consumption part of their treatment – believe it or not, they were quite clean at this point:
