A little this, a little that...

A couple more weeks/weekends have come and gone and the Ribclan has made a few more memories along the way. The weekend of July 20-22 began with some log rolling and lots of greasy street vendor foods...not too shabby! Needless to say, the kids enjoyed both. Saturday afternoon I headed down to LaX for Chandra's bachelorette party and I'm proud to report that I was able to keep up with all the fun ladies until bar time! Whew, it's been a while since I've been out that late, so I had reason to hope I could do it! We did lots of...hmmm...laughing,selling lollipops...ummm, and enjoying some refreshments. I had a great time celebrating with my sister-in-law, the future bride! And speaking of brides, I was one 12 years prior on Sunday the 22nd. To celebrate, our fave babysitter Ann came over and gave us a huge break out...8 hours! We almost didn't know what to do with ourselves, but it was really no problem to hang out at local restaurants, movie theaters and shopping areas (oh, yeah, the weather was a bit questionable that day!). The kids didn't even have a chance to miss us, as Ann & her boyfriend Kevin took them to the Zoo and out to dinner--they had SO much fun. They really love time with Ann, and now Kevin's an equally big hit to them.

The week in between was spent with "Grandma Honey" in mind. Her hip resurfacing surgery (aka similar to hip replacement for the younger generation) went really well and her recovery has been nothing short of amazing. Each day she walked a bit further, started doing steps and looked a bit perkier. Her determined spirit has been impressive and kept her progress moving forward. Since her hospital was near my work, I was able to visit her often. On Tuesday, the kids joined me for an evening visit...so little B could surprise her with his new "big boy" haircut. It's a riot of short, spiky hair and it gave Grandma a big grin. I had a surprise as we left the hospital when I ran into my awesome cousin Karla and her parents, the equally awesome Marlys & Wayne. Well, I turned around immediately and spent some time with them during their visit to my mom. (Yes, the kids were absolutely stir crazy and were making toys out of Grandma's walker and cane...yikes!)But, I loved seeing my family--they are such an important connection to my dad. Mom got out of the hospital on Thursday, so I spent time with her Thursday night getting her all set up for her time at home.

Last weekend began with a fantastic get together at a local playground & BK with my friend Jacqueline and her adorable (& very fun and funny) kids, Carly & Cole. Kdee and little B had a blast playing with them (well, Kdee and Carly especially...2 1/2 year olds don't really play together yet :-). Jac and I had moments where we were able to stand near each other to talk...and then the rest were shout outs across sand boxes, swinging bridges, over french fries--you get the picture. Someday, someday we can be "those" moms who can actually relax during playdates. Kdee announced at the end of the playdate that she wished Carly was her sister! Jac is a very good friend and it means a lot to get time with her during her busy schedule.

The rest of our weekend was pretty low-key, which was a welcome change of pace! I spent a good chunk of Saturday with my mom. It was kind of a treat to just hang out with her and I even got a short nap next to her! Wow! By Saturday, she was walking up two flights of stairs (much to my surprise when I turned around in her kitchen!)and was really showing good improvement. While I was there, ribB was a good sport and pretty much just played outside with the kids non-stop. Kdee did take a short nap that day (a rarity!) before her much anticipated overnight playdate with her good friend Ally. Since they don't see each other much during the summer, Kdee was counting down the days (and even hours!!) until their big get together.

With only one child at home (another rarity!!), ribB and I enjoyed some one-on-one time with little B and went out fishing at a local lake. Our trip out got a bit of an interruption, though, in the form of a trailer tire that was about to BLOW! So, ribB got us set up for boating time and he took the trailer to a local store to get a spare tire. Later, we picked up ribB and enjoyed a gorgeous night outside. With only one child to put to bed (which feels so weird!), we enjoyed a movie and some nice chilling out time later.

Our Sunday was spent with a lot of trailer/tire fixing, Church, retrieving a very tired Kdee (oh the joys of trying to stay up as late as possible!), waiting for a long-napping Kdee to wake up (she slept a record 3 1/2 hours!), being outdoors and later visiting mom & Paul. Very relaxing overall! There is something to be said for not over-scheduling yourself during the weekend.

On Monday, Kdee got her stitches out--yes!, but we were all disappointed that she can't do any big water sports (aka waterskiing) for a week. Our doc also said she should try to keep the incision site out of the sun for a full year, to help reduce the scarring. HA! I had to giggle when I heard that...I can appreciate the thought, but following through with a 7-year old on that one is pretty funny...

If you're looking for any inspired online reading lately, I've got a couple of great recommendations: 1) www.noahsteven.blogspot.com (I wrote about this family & their site in January, but the entries continue to be so amazing and inspring, especially in the face of what this family has been through...their Faith continues to move me!) and 2) www.restandbethankful.com

Pictures for your enjoyment: little B's new haircut (from a couple of angles :-), Kdee's stitches, bachelorette Chandra and friends enjoy a "Fishbowl"...you wouldn't believe how long it took many of us to finish that thing!

Have a great week everyone!

Momma's So Hip!

Just a quick update on my mom, who had her first hip resurfacing surgery yesterday...she's doing GREAT! They had her up and walking only 2 hours after she awoke in recovery and she's been walking with the nurse or physical therapist at regular intervals throughout the last day. Her spirits are really great and she's so pleased with how things are going.

Overall, the biggest pain she has right now (which she claims is better than how she regularly felt before surgery) is the incision pain (not the hip). She's able to sit in positions she hasn't been able to handle for quite some time, and that certainly makes her happy. She's at an awesome hospital, which is conveniently only a few blocks from my work office. I spent a great deal of time at the hospital yesterday, but was still able to get a couple of things done at work while she napped, etc. Today, I've been able to pop in and out--it's really nice!

I'll keep the blog posted with how she's doing. So far, so good...it's so encouraging to see how great she's feeling and what a blessing it is for her to not have the chronic level of pain anymore! Learn more about her procedure at: www.birminghamhipresurfacing.com

...and a couple more photos...

Here's a couple more photos I didn't have room for on the other page...Kdee waterskiing and a cool rainbow at the cabin...
Happy Weekend everyone!

Celebrate!

Whoa...where has the time gone? My goodness it's been a long time since I've posted and there's been so many fun events going on in the Ribclan household. Yikes, I've got some catching up to do here. In an effort to save time, space, my hand strength (for typing), your eyeballs (for reading) and everyone's attention span, I'll give you the short(er) versions as follows:

Weekend of June 24-26: "Cabin Weekend a la Streamers and Noise Makers". Ms. Kdee had the option this year of having the usual friend party at home or taking 1 friend to the cabin for the weekend. Much to our delight (hey, prepping for a birthday party is a bit of work!), she chose having her friend, Ally, come with us to the cabin. We all had an absolute blast. The girls enjoyed catching frogs, being "super spies", swimming, fishing, tubing, waterskiing, shooting Kdee's bow and lots of giggles. We were so happy that they didn't stay up all night talking--all the sun and fun really wiped them out! Kdee was also treated to cake from her great aunt/uncle Barb & Tim on Friday night and cupcakes with great aunt/uncle Donna & Bart on Saturday/Sunday. ribB did his annual fireworks display--and I have to say, I think it was his best ever. He's put that pyrotechnics license to good use (I kid you not). The fun thing this year was watching little B take in the fireworks for the first time--the past 2 years, he's always been asleep! He was SO EXCITED by them and gave big cheers of "yea, Daddy!" after each one. What a hoot. On Sunday night, we drove home watching fireworks in the sky...always exciting for us this time of year.

July 3: "Kdee's Fun Night Out"! Grandma Honey & Grandpa Paul took Kdee out for a night full of her favorites: Subway (she can eat an entire foot-long ham sub...where does it go?), shopping & the movie, Ratatouille. This was a great night in her book and I know she was pretty jazzed about all of the alone time with Honey & Paul!

4th of July: "The Day Our Firecracker Came Into Our Lives!". It's still surreal to me that our first born was born to the sounds of fireworks, with her actual birth time being one minute after our city's fireworks were done. If I had been on the other side of the hospital, I could have watched the fireworks during her birth--definitely wild! Our special day with our little lady, Kdee, was a relaxing one overall. During the morning, ribB took the kids out for some splashing around in our blow-up kiddie pool to escape some of the heat. (I was busy doing some cleaning and birthday prep!) Later, ribB's parents joined us--fresh back from their 40th Anniversary trip to Mexico. Together, we all enjoyed boating up river to an amazing fireworks display. It had been 4 years since we've made the trek to see the fireworks and we were not disappointed. Kdee did not remember seeing them before (and was a bit uncertain during our ride up river...there are so many boats heading to the fireworks that you get some major waves!)Once there, we enjoyed champagne, shrimp and some fine finger foods to enjoy during our wait. As we expected, the fireworks thrilled us all! Our boat was literally across from the area they were lighting them off from, so to say they were practically on top of us is an understatement. The whole show was like one big finale--amazing! Kdee loved it. It's always a late night, but well worth it. So much fun! Overall, the big hit gift

July 5: "She's Caught The Bug!". This was one cool night for our family. We've never come home from work and headed out waterskiing...until this night. We called our friend, Brian, who joined us with his son and we all enjoyed a beautiful night out on a local lake. Kdee did a ton of waterskiing, as did the rest of us. It's exciting that our kids are getting old enough for us to do some favorite activities again!

Weekend of July 6-8: "A Little Recovery From The Busy Birthday Days". Ahhh, just some down time back at home. We tried to take it a bit easy since the kiddos had some late nights recently. One highlight was more waterskiing on Saturday night (the day was far too hot for the kids--100 degrees). Little B even tried kneeboarding (with dad behind him, of course!). He loved it. We also anchored the boat and did some swimming--it was so refreshing!

July 9-10: "Little B Gets A New Playmate". Little B didn't have daycare this week, and that's always a bit tricky for us to cover. Fortunately, ribB has some great resources through his job and his boss's daughter came to babysit little B for us. I think he had a great time and loved being at home (they did a lot of playing outside, little B's fave activity!).

July 11-15: "The Ribclan Takes A Vacation". With little B's daycare situation, it was inevitable that ribB & I would need to take some time off of work. In order to make the most of our days off, we decided to make it a vacation up north at the family cabin. The weather wasn't awesome, so we did a lot of fishing (which was pretty successful...a nice northern, bass and lots of great sunnies). The kids get a pretty big kick out of fishing (and when they start to get distracted, there's always the fun of playing with the fish in the live wells!). One shocking moment during our fishing was the unfortunate break of the infamous "Barbie" fishing pole. Lucky for little B (who was using the girly pole), he was upgraded to a "Spiderman" version...he was pretty happy!During our vacation we also did more waterskiing, kneeboarding, swimming (all when it finally warmed up to 70 degrees!), as well as some nice walks, trips into town and general relaxing in the cabin. On Sunday, we enjoyed hosting breakfast with Bart/Donna (family) and Carl/Rose (family). Always a good time! Then later, ribB's parents came up with the grandkids for the start of their week at the cabin (yeah, our time didn't coincide with little B's lack of daycare). It was still very nice to catch up for a couple of hours and Kdee got a chance to show off her skills to Grandma/Grandpa and her cousins! Her cousin, Dylan, even gave a try at waterskiing and kneeboarding, so you can only imagine the fun we'll be having in a few years with all of the grandchildren!

July 16: "Goodbye Sweet Mole". At her 7 year check up, Kdee's doctor prescribed another mole to be removed. Her first mole that was removed 2 years ago turned out to be technically fine, but it revealed she is susceptible to skin conditions. Our doc feels she has a lot of moles for her age (despite our faithful sunscreening!) and any that look a bit interesting will need to be removed. Well, this year's candidate was one that she's had since she was born (I remember admiring it in the hospital, as I have one in a similar location). On Monday, ribB took her in to have it removed--she's got 8 stitches and a nice long scar to heal. She's been an absolute trooper throughout it all and we're hoping for a speedy recovery. And, yep, she can't do any water sports for at least 10 days, if not more...ohh, the waterskiing withdrawl has begun! One fun tip we've learned during this experience--Fleet Farm has an awesome deal on bandaging (as recommended by the nurse at the procedure)--look in the horse section for "3M Vetrap"--there's lots of fun colors and it's only approx $1.50! It holds gauze in place awesomely and has been a great tool in helping Kdee's skin heal.

Whew! That's the lot of it...now we're just back to work, school and daycare around here. ribB and I are looking forward to our 12th wedding anniversary on Sunday and will be enjoying a date out (yep, Ann is coming to babysit!). I'll also be celebrating with my sis-in-law at her bachelorette party on Saturday. Friday night (see how I'm going backwards?) we're going to go watch the log rollers & boom runners during the 2007 STIHL World Championships of Log Rolling & Boom Running Championships, being held in Stillwater (during Lumberjack Days). I've been working with the International Log Rolling Association and these athletes are awesome--I can't wait to finally meet some of these folks I've been talking to and writing about! Fun!

Pictures: Kdee at the fireworks; the family watching the fireworks; Kdee & her friend, Ally; little B and his big catch; Grandma Honey & Grandpa Paul with the b-day gifts...