Pirates & Girls!

We took the kids to see a production of "How I Became a Pirate" - it is based on a book that Zane got for Christmas from GrandAnn - so we were all very excited about seeing it. We decided it would be a good outing to get to know Cody's friend, Maggie, who we have been hearing a lot about - but haven't met yet. We have known Graham's girlfriend, Amara, for several years now - but we thought it would be fun to have us all go out. So, the girls were dropped off at our house late in the afternoon and we all went out to our favorite local restaurant, Christos - a Greek place.

Then we went to see the play and hit a favorite ice cream shop on the way home. It was fun to spend the evening getting to know Amara & Maggie better - since they occupy so much of our kids's thoughts!



Cody & Maggie



Graham & Amara

Seby and Zane had fun getting dressed up for our evening out.

What a day!

So today started out with us all waking up (on time) and going the First U (our Unitarian Church).

Well, I guess really the day started with me waking up from Cody's coughing - the background here is that he has been getting hit with his fall allergies, then Friday night he was at a friends who has a dog that he is highly allergic too. He came home from that straight to a shower and neb for his asthma. Then, me waking him up to do a neb and then a shower. While he was in the shower I decided to play doctor and gave him 20mg of prednisone after his breakfast. We then went to First U. During the service (which Cody & Graham attend with us, while Seby & Zane are in their classes). Slade decided to take him home for a neb. He came back and did his class from 10-11. In driving home we decided that I would take him to the Urgent Care. We came home and got lunch.

I should note that our plans were to come home from First U, have lunch, then take Graham, Cody & 7 friends to do paintball. So driving home we also decided to cancel that 16th Birthday celebration.

Instead as we were driving down Blaisdell, we were hit by an SUV (we were driving my cute, car) top down, glass flying, smasharoo.

Nobody was hurt. It could of been way worse - but oh my. I was swearing up a little storm at first.

I almost went into all the parked cars - but luckily it is a street with cars parked only on the left side, if there were any on the right I would of flown into them.

We must of gotten the tires off the pavement because it activated the roll bar - which apparently shoots out of the backseat headrests only when the tires are off the pavement.

I was so confused by all the flying glass - all our windows were down. Well the glass came flying out of huge hole in the side of my door, and I think it flew straight up the top of the door.

It was some scary maneuvering. I pulled such a Jackie O as the car came to an abrupt stop, I quickly realized my door wouldn't open and I started to climb out of the car. I stopped myself, and waited for Cody to get out his door.

I was sooooo mad. I went over to the other car and then quickly walked back to mine as I saw it was a mom (who was crying) and her baby in the back seat. They were fine - but the car was also quite smashed and had lots of oil on the ground. I was amazed at all the glass in the street - and it just stays there. Don't you think a city should clean up after something like that? And this wasn't a lot of glass for an accident.

We were both unable to drive our cars.

I had Cody call Slade right away and he came down and started to call our insurance company. The cops were super nice. And the firetruck and ambulance that showed up. They kind of arrived at the same time - I think. We were asked first if we were ok, Cody's response made me comment that we were on our way to the Urgent Care for him. They took him into the ambulance right away and started checking his stats. They would of taken him to the local ER - but I like the Urgent Care better, so we declined. It would of been better if we had a neb with us - but we did end up getting to the Urgent Care.

He did do three nebs there and he had an IV of a steroid. I talked with the Doc about putting him on the appropriate kinds due to his past experience of psychosis - yikes, we don't want to go back there. I also told her we just wanted to stay out of the hospital.

The doc was ...

ok Cody has just come in - he can't sleep because he has had so many drugs today. It is kind of cool, he is a teenager and these are approved drugs he can have. Ok, that doesn't really make any sense - but he and I were joking as the day went on about how many drugs he was getting and how hyped up they were making him.

It is 11:43pm on a school night but I'm letting him watch a some TV. He is drinking his Night Time tea with lemon, and hopefully that will help.

So, the doc was really good about asking us our thoughts on what meds to do - she told me the options she felt we had and I picked what I thought would be best. I decided that he needed to be hit with some meds. He can just go down so fast with his asthma. I'm glad we did because even after coming home he has needed to use the neb every two hours. It has now been 3 hours since his last neb and he sounds like he could do another, but Cody has decided to skip it so he can MAYBE get some sleep. Which is why he will have some tea and watch a little TV.

We recounted the accident - again in amazement of how much worse it could of been had I not tried to move out of her way - I guess it did keep us out of the line up of parked cars. I've never been that close to three parked cars while driving.

ugh.

Ok, I will now go post the pics of our eventful day.

Cody came home and posted the pics on facebook - the smashed car pick then the hospital pic.

His cousin, Wes, saw them and called his dad (Slade's bro, O'd) saying "Dad, Cody smashed Michelle's car and now he is in the hospital."

O'd called Slade pronto, which made me go upstairs to tell Cody to please add a caption to the hospital pic that he was there due to asthma NOT the car accident.

So, not the 16th birthday party we planned - but maybe here at the end of the day - a great lesson for our soon to be driver about the safety in driving and the risks we take with other drivers.

The real issue with the accident is that there should be no parking 30 feet from corners where traffic has to cross. Slade came down to the scene and took over waiting for the tow truck, while Cody and I went to the Urgent Care. He parked on the street where the driver who hit us came from - we were low to the ground in his Mini and it was a little weird to be in the other position of this accident. It was so hard to see if cars were coming.

Roses!

See, roses!



This is the second blooming of these roses. The pair near the front door and patio re-bloomed first, now this pair (Meg - they were supposed to go to your Dad).

It is great to watch the front yard come together. We are still missing a few pieces, and it won't be finished for me until the fence is painted (in 4-6 weeks). The plants are all doing really well and the grass had it's first mow. I'm very judgmental on the mowing, but Slade did a good job (thank you sweetie). I am really enjoying the irrigation system. It has saved me so much time not having to water everything. Now I am working on a list for bulbs to plant.



We get comments from most everybody who is walking down the street when we are outside. Some of the folks are quite colorful, and give us these great stories of how they have been watching this transformation. It always is a great opportunity for me to remember why I like living here. I love the diversity of the city.

The weather is changing and our time will be spent more indoors in the coming months, so I have had Erika's help to get some areas of the house organized again. Seby and Zane have turned the basement into quite the archeological dig while doing this. The laundry remains untouched so life can still go on upstairs. Erika has said she made a few paths the other day.

Seby's Belated Birthday

Ops, I never posted about Seby's birthday. Seby had his 9th birthday at the end of July. His has been wanting to have a birthday party here in Minneapolis ever since we moved here (this is his fourth b-day here) - we have been having them at the lake house because we are usually on some family trip there during his birthday. This year was his year. We were actually supposed to go to California on his birthday but that fell thru for us. He was thrilled because we were able to have him attend his last soccer game for the summer.



Here is is with his new ipod which was the only request - I have to admit he hasn't used it more than the first 3-4 days after getting it. But then I don't want to bring it to his attention because he is also too young to be walking around constantly with ear phones in his head.



The stack of money from Clip Clop & Papa - and then a bacon wallet to hold it all in. I couldn't help myself in buying him this plastic bacon wallet - it is pretty funny and he loves it.



A few weeks later we did do a birthday party for the boy - his first here with these new friends in Minneapolis. We had 6 boys over for a pizza, movie & sleep over party.



The boys spent the next morning having an elaborate ninja game outside.

Zane's First Day of School

Here is Zane on his first day of school. He is in Children's House (the pre-primary level of Montessori) for his fourth year. We could of moved him up to primary (first grade) for this fall - but he really didn't seem ready. We know lots of other kids who have taken this path (his brother Sebastian for one!) and are all glad that we made this choice. He really needs one more year in this environment before heading upstairs to the bigger kids! He is very excited about starting school and getting back to the teachers and peers he knows. It will be interesting to see how he feels next year going to a new level of the school.

Zane's Tooth

Zane lost his first tooth today! He noticed a wiggly tooth about 10 days ago and has been trying to wiggle it out. We were driving to pick up Cody & Graham from soccer practice and he asked me in a panicked manner "Where is my tooth?" "I remembered to wiggle it, but it is gone!" I pulled over and found it on the floor where he was sitting. Of course he was worried he had swallowed it. As soon as we got home he put it under his pillow and checked about 100 times to see if the tooth fairy made a visit before he went to bed. Strange that we don't do Santa, but we do the Tooth Fairy. He was thrilled to lose his first tooth and feels like quite the big kid now!

Seby's first day of school

It was Sebastian's first day of school yesterday. He is now in third grade. His last year for the Elementary 1 level of his school. He had a half day yesterday and today gets the whole day. We had to find the lunch boxes and sandwich wraps, etc for lunch packing. He is very excited about school starting.