Cue the ABBA please

About a week and a half ago I made my annual jaunt to "registration day" at the elementary school. It's here where the perky moms and dutiful fathers make the rounds of the cafeteria to buy school "spirit-wear," sign up to help at the JackOLantern Jamboree or some other completely out of control school party, buy more of this, donate some of that, and gather up most of the information you would ever need to know to be a responsible parent of a child in elementary school. As I made my way around the room, I came to one of the last tables. It was marked "Valley View Organizers, Grades 3-5." I had seen the organizer listed on the supply list and didn't think much of it, except that it was probably a binder with the school logo that they would use to keep their work in. After verifying Kennedy's name, the table helper reached behind her and pulled out a notebook. She handed it to Kennedy who proceeded to hand it to me. As I thumbed through it, I realized it was no binder at all. It was a day planner! A time management academic calendar, with inspirational quotes up in the corner and enough space to make lists and notes to help her stay organized.

And it hit me like a hot pitchfork to the eye. My daughter is old enough to have a day planner? An overwhelming sense of fear and sadness filled my heart and my eyes got real "juicy." 3rd grade must be serious. How did my tiny girl make it to the 3rd grade already? Is this for real? Trying to gain my composure, I proceeded to the next table, where a callous, although perky, woman asked me "if I was ok" and would I like to know who Kennedy's teacher was. "I'm fine and yes, please, enough already."

Teacher name in hand, planner received, we began to walk out of the room when I realized that I had another child with me....the one who normally tags along to said event. Only this time, she was to receive a teacher too. Are you freaking kidding me? Cue the freaking ABBA.

And there you have it. My life is passing before my eyes, my children are, as sappy as it is, literally slipping through my fingers.

Family Vacay, Part 2: Fun is Contagious! And apparently, so are cold sores....

Ah. The dreaded cold sore. Apparently I get them. Apparently, I have passed them on to my children. Yes, vacations are all about sharing close quarters in cars and hotels, lots of unmarked water bottles, lots of extra time hugging and playing....all a LETHAL combination. Not a good time to get a cold sore.

By day 12 of vacation, Kennedy had a terrible fever, which continued through day 16. This led us to the second worst doctor I've ever known (the first was Barry Noorda in Logan, Utah - stay away...stay very far away...). Anyway, I took K to the doc in Utah but he said she had a sinus infection and proceeded to prescribe her an adult dosage of the worst tasting antibiotic ever created. Said antibiotic led to multiple bouts with vomit, ongoing fever, and these strange sores starting to form on her upper and bottom lip. Said sores started to grow, and yellow, and ooze, and grow and scab and grow and grow. The poor girl looked like she had a tragic encounter with a crooked collagen needle in a back alley somewhere. She wouldn't let me take pictures and I'll spare you any of the horrible images that I found online. If your curiousity gets the best of you, however, it looked a lot like this, except it engulfed both her upper and lower lips, gums, and tongue.

Turns out that when a child is infected with HSV (herpes simplex virus), their first episode can be pretty ruthless. Well, they're definitely right about this one. Yes, i assure you it is true. Kennedy was sick for 2 weeks - nearly motionless, exhausted, feverish, didn't want to eat or drink... She lost 8 pounds during the process. Luckily, we saw our pediatrician as soon as we got home and he was able to give us some medicine that wouldn't make her toss her cookies and some strong lim cream. And it turned out she did have a sinus infection too so we got some child-safe vomit-proof antiobiotics too.

Needless to say, we didn't do much the last week of our vacation. Or our first week home for that matter. Special thanks to Grandma Laura for letting us "camp out" for days and not do ANYTHING that we planned on doing. Better luck next year. At least I wasn't at work though. And, now we all know everything there was to ever know about cold sores and all the horrible horrible ways it can manifest (Bernd - we have major empathy for you now! - He got it in his EYE! Yuck).

Aaaaaaaa.....Life is not too shabby

Greetings from summer vacay. It wasn't Tahiti or Europe or anything exotic...just a couple a sweet girls, a fun husband, lots of aunts and uncles and cousins, grammies & grampies, and gluttonous amounts of food. (eek). There were a few hiccups too, but we'll save those for another day.

Here's a few of the highlights: Part One

(Part Two will be for next time..better some than none for now)

**Half marathon...Check!**

Times: Tosh, 1:37 - Lisa, 2:20

Not bad for a couple of first-timers.

**Post Marathon - the healing waters**

This did wonders for the blisters.

PS: Between this and the run, I think it was one of the best days of my entire life.

I'll never forget it.

**Lots of trampoline time**

**Some singin and dancin**

(thanks to Uncle Bo, Uncle Ty and Scodads for the amazing venue)

**Last but not least, we also learned how to do a few new things...

you know, like four-wheeling and armpit toots. Nice. **



I guess that's enough for now. This is just week one. Week two coming shortly.

Thanks to everyone for making it so fun. Thanks Kath for the amazing fotos.