Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Still trying

California trip plus

I'm still having trouble doing this

Monday, June 09, 2008

Interesting week... lots of news

Tyler is now officially going to Voyager Academy next year. We got the call last week. Yeehaw! We're very, very happy about this. Voyager is grades 4-8, so we now know where the kids will be going up through high school. Of course, we know our current high school district as well, but a lot can change in 5 years. Carson will be going to Voyager as well, and we know she'll get in because of their "sibling preference" policy. Next year is going to be a challenge because Tyler will be on traditional calendar while Carson is on year round calendar AND of course they'll be going to different schools, which means lots of coordination on drop-offs and pick-ups.

Speaking of school calendars, last Friday was the last day of school. The kids are now on summer vacation. In Tyler's case, he has ELEVEN weeks of summer vacation. He's very happy.

Carson got her hair cut into a bob. She's adorable.

The kids had their first swim meet on Saturday. Carson won her heat and got a ribbon. Tyler now has to swim 50 yards (across the pool and back), which he did without a problem, at his usual speed. Tyler likes swimming, but he's not very concerned about what place he comes in (which is a double-edged sword -- it's good that he doesn't get upset at himself, but it's hard to motivate him to improve). Carson is a natural swimmer. She's amazing. She'd probably be one of the fastest free style swimmers in the city (after 2 weeks of practice) if she knew how to dive. We're going to setup a private diving lesson for her. She's mad at us about it, because she's scared of diving. This is the same story for Carson... over and over... she's always scared of trying anything knew and gets really upset when we force her to do it and then she ends up loving it. Like swim team. And bike riding. And water parks. And cartwheels. And skydiving.

We got Guitar Hero 3 for Carson and we're having a blast with it. Karen is the best, but she has the unfair advantage of knowing how to play guitar. Tyler's busy playing Lego Indiana Jones so he hasn't been too interested in Guitar Hero yet, but it's all Carson wants to do. Maybe she'll enjoy it so much that she'll want to take real guitar lessons like cousin Nick. I'm really bad at the game but it's still fun.

And La-La got poisoned and almost died. We still don't know what poison she swallowed, but last Thursday night she walked into the kitchen while we were eating dinner and she was panting and drooling and making strange sounds and her pupils wouldn't dilate so Karen rushed her to the vet office where she started vomiting blood and lost control of her bowels. They had two vets working on her for an hour and a half while I scoured the house and yard trying to find some toxin that she might have gotten into, unsuccessfully. They stabilized her and then Karen took her to a nearby animal hospital that could monitor her overnight. Her liver and kidneys were having problems, so the vet basically said that if the toxin destroyed her liver or kidneys then she wasn't going to make it. Her kidneys did not get back to normal until Saturday morning. We picked her up Saturday morning and she's now back at home and feels fine. The whole thing was very scary. Karen and I agree that La-La is the best cat either of us have ever had (which is saying something), so we're extremely relieved.

Friday, June 06, 2008

I had my first MRI this morning

After hearing so many horror stories about getting MRIs, I had my first MRI this morning. I've got a pinched nerve in my lower back that is causing my left thigh to go numb. They're trying to find what exactly is causing the pinched nerve... er, the "nerve impingement" is what they call it. First I had to get an X-Ray because my insurance won't let me get an MRI until I've had an X-ray first, even though everyone agreed that the X-ray wouldn't find anything. It didn't.

Anyway, the MRI was boooooooring. I didn't feel claustrophobic at all. It was just boring to have to lay there for 20 minutes with nothing to do.

So I've decided the rest of y'all are big wusses.