Snow Day (old post. February?)

We woke up this morning to an inch of snow. The kids had fun playing in it. I was suprised. I thought we were supposed to get bad weather over night but had no idea we'd get real snow. I had trouble getting them all ready to go to church with the excitement of the snow. Charles drove up to Phoenix yesterday night and flew out this morning to Hawaii. I'm glad he didn't chance driving in the bad weather in the dark. Funny enough, my friend Richelle's husband Eric was on the same flight with Charles! It's small world.

I'm trying to get remotivated today. I started the year out feeling pretty motivated but this last week I've been really bleh. Tired and just not into doing anything. At all. Except eating. So I'm attempting to recharge the motivational engines this week.

The kids are sitting at the table with me right now. We just finished playing "dragons" and "baby birds". Our living room nest is still not picked up. I caught K giving Laney's stuffed animal a hair cut. Now they are all chopping away at the newspaper and practicing using scissors.

I saw Rorie's mom at Target yesterday. She told me that Rorie recently changed her plans to marry her older brother's friend and she's planning to marry Laney instead. LOL.

I think the kids are attempting to chop up the table cloth now. Off I go.

[Found this in my drafts for some reason. So here you go. A post from last winter.]

Back in the Saddle Again

We made it home without any major hitches. Griffin puked in Deer Lodge. We'd stopped the car and he got up, then puked. I'm pretty sure it doesn't count if we don't have someone throw up once. It is almost guaranteed if we feed them something pink first. I took the twins into the bathroom and to buy dramamine and this old lady gave me a hug in the bathroom. I thought "weird" but I went for it anyway. Never pass up a hug.
We always dress for AZ on the way home and then freeze to death on the way there. Montana is always cold for some reason. It actually hit 32 degrees going through St. Regis. On Labor Day weekend. I guess things warmed up again later though.
It was HOT in Tucson (suprise) and I'd turned our AC off after I got my last bill ($235. Seriously. And we weren't there). I asked Ernie to come over and turn things on before we got there, but it was hot in the house. I couldn't figure out why it was taking so long to cool downstairs until the next day when I realized I hadn't turned on the AC compressor online.
The kids started school and were just thrilled. The twins marched in to Mrs. Wallace's class and started playing and didn't even blink when I left. Laney is in love with her new teacher, who is new to St. As and pretty young. She pronounced Mrs Miller to be "tremendous!" after school. I was nervous because I'd heard some dissatisfied reports from other moms.
We also restarted play group. I need to get my playgroup hat back on and come up with some ideas. September is one of the hardest months because we're all busy and it still really hot out so outdoor stuff is difficult. I think I'm going to have to do one more lame date to give myself some prep time and then we'll be back in action. I'm considering making ice cream in the park--I saw a cool idea for making ice cream in ziplocks where the kids throw them around. Fun, right?
We've also returned to church again which makes me really happy. I like to go to church and I like that it is something that we share as an entire family every week. I missed it over the summer.
We were looking at the tiny amount of photos we took over the summer and realized that we didn't take "after" picts of the house! I'm going to have to con someone into doing that for me.
Today is dentist day for the kids and errands errand errands.

How Moose Make the Trees Grow

We were on our way up to Sandpoint yesterday to go huckleberry picking and then to my Aunt Kelsey's 80th birthday party in Clark Fork. Laney suddenly brought forth this nugget of "wisdom" gleaned from who knows where (nature shows gone awry?):
Moose make the trees grow because when moose die, the other animals eat them and then that makes trees grow.
[our response: ???!! What?]
Because moose eat trees and when the wolves eat the moose, then the moose don't eat the trees. So then the trees grow.

So. There you have it. Kill the moose, grow a tree.
We went up Schweitzer Mountain to go huckleberry picking and tried to find the spot that my cousin Brian told us about. I think we started counting switchbacks before we should though. We found huckleberries, but they were already picked over and at the end. We needed to go a little higher. But by the time we had hiked up the hill and through the brush for a while, we weren't in the mood to stop again and repeat. We ended up with about 1/2 gallon of berries. Which is not too bad considering we were picking with three toddlers. For those of you not in the know about the huckleberry: it is not a cultivated berry, grows at high altitudes, looks something like a blueberry but it is a lot better tasting. Berry picking involves hiking around in the forest and, since bears including the grizzly also enjoy the berries, we go armed. It adds a certain something to the process. Honestly though I've been doing this for my entire life and have never seen a bear (up close). Kenna was not at one with nature yesterday so she was just cranky about everything. We had a very edifying moment in which we all learned the fine art of peeing in the woods. Girls pee facing uphill, boys pee facing down hill. After picking berries we drove the rest of the way up to Schweitzer ski resort for lunch. The view was great but I shut Griffin's finger in the door of the car so that wasn't so awesome. I couldn't believe how different it was up there. I haven't been up there in a really long (ahem. decades) time and never in the summer.
We went to Uncle Phillip's house to rest and recoup before heading on to Clark Fork. Another place I haven't been to in a long, long, long time. Clark Fork is situated where the Clark Fork river enters lake Pend Oreille. We met up with all of the Hatcher clan at their family home in Clark Fork. I guess Reno's mother owned this little log house there. It's a funky little place and very filled with Hatchers. My aunt Kelsey is my grandfather Phil McNearney's little sister. She married Reno Hatcher and they had 8 kids. Who all had lots of kids (or adopted lots of kids).  Between marriages and adoptions they are sort of a mini UN.
I'm torn between having Charles help me remove doors to paint or taking the kids to Art on the Green today.

August Already?

It's been a difficult summer. Dad went in to the hospital the day we left Tucson with pneumonia and he didn't leave again until last week. His pneumonia led to a heart attack and then on to pulmonary edema, kidney failure, a tracheostomy, medical coma, a series of stents for the arteries in his heart that were blocked 99% (and no bypass surgery because he couldn't survive it), bacterial pneumonia, staph infection, possibly another stroke in a series of strokes, a rehab center, a recucitation, ICU again, a rehab/extended ICU hospital again, another rehab center and then home to my mother's 24-hour care. He was brought back from near death 3 times. He lost so much weight I could see the outlines of all of his bones. He had ICU induced psychosis. Let's just say that it wasn't the summer that I thought it was going to be.
So I haven't written much in my neglected blog. Somehow I need to get back in to the habit again. I'd post pictures, but my camera broke too.
Anyway, enough of all that. What else have I been doing this summer? Yes, I have done other things besides sit in a hospital. I'll give a quick run down of the high points and then I'll try to go back to fill in with more detailed posts.

• We built a chicken coop! My hubbie did a great job and we built the cutest little coop that is just perfect for our two borrowed chickens. The kids named the two hens Peach and Boy. The saga of chicken keeping is worthy of a whole post of its own.
• We painted our house (and are still painting it). Ourselves. Specifically mostly me. I even tore down the old gutters myself and boy was Charles impressed with me climbing on to the roof and banging the gutters off. Not only did we paint it, we painted it black. Ok. Not exactly black. It is a very dark grey/brown called Ebony Field. Yeah. I know. This is also worthy of its own post. And pictures!
• I've made jam like it's a calling from God. Seriously. We went out to Green Bluff with the kids one afternoon and picked strawberries (they taste amazing when eaten in the field) and then made jam with mom. I think we made 24 or so pints that day. Then I got crazy with my bad self. I picked our raspberries and made jam. I picked Dana's cherries and made jam. I'm going to pick huckleberries and make jelly. I bought my own canner this year. I'm officially a grown up.
• We went camping for 6 days over the 4th of July.
• I planted my first garden. It was sort of late since we had to deal with tilling issues and weather, but I put it in and have eaten things that it produced. My first vegetable garden!!
• I made curtains for my living room. Mostly.
• I hosted a pampered chef party and a book club party.

I have a whole list of stuff that I'd like to do before we head home this fall. Some things are little and some are bigger. I want to go huckleberry picking, go to the fair, go kayaking, go to Art on the Green, take the kids hiking on Tubbs hill and to the beach, take the kids fishing, host a cowboy themed birthday party for the twins, drink a few really excellent lattes, maybe make some applesauce, and start to remodel my bathroom. I've got 4 more weeks!

Waiting for the Sunshine

Quick update since last post: Finished school etc., headed to Idaho, got to Flagstaff and found out my dad was put into the ICU and had pneumonia, a heart attack and kidney blockage. Made the rest of the trip unsure whether we would see dad when we got here. He's been in ICU for two weeks today. Tuesday they did a surgical trachistomy and he was able to wake up and respond to everyone yesterday. He even sat up for the first time in 2 weeks. This morning he had two episodes of tachycardia and they are making the decision now on whether to do an angiogram. He's back in a medical coma again.
It's been cold and wet here (suprise. not) and we've been busy busy trying to get everything back into shape in the yard and house. I've got big renovation plans for the kids bath this summer and we're going to plant a garden. My sweet cousin Brian just got a job at the lesbian llama ranch and is bringing a load of "compost" over today for the garden. I've rented a tiller for tomorrow. We're kind of a little behind in getting things planted, but the family tiller hasn't been in good working order (machine or man).
We went to Sandpoint over Memorial weekend and visited the cemetaries. I had planned to do this before dad got sick and went ahead with it. Charles and I took the kids to Pinecrest and visited Grandma's grave (Smith. She passed last spring. Today would be her birthday). In retrospect, given the current climate in our lives we might not have taken the kids. Laney had a lot of questions and I got weepy a few times. Prior to the cemetary, we got lunch and then Griffin barfed all over himself as we left the drive thru window. Appetizing. So we made a stop at WalMart for more clothes. It was cool to see all of the headstones and recognize so many of our ancestors. My grandparents, their parents (with the exception of my grandma's dad) and my Grandma's grandmother are buried there.
After that, Charles dropped me at Uncle's and I met Mom, Aunt Lynda, Uncle Phillips, Uncle Curt, Ian, and Aunt Joyce, Matt and Michelle, and we made the trip out to Pack River cemetary to visit Grandpa and Grandma's McNearney graves. We take beer and have a beer with Grandpa--we each pour out a little for him. Afterward we go plant shopping in honor of grandma. Yeah. We're weird. I love to go out there because that area of Sandpoint is just beautiful. Seriously. Like Oh My God! beautiful. I'll take pictures one of these days if my camera ever gets fixed.
That afternoon we all went to Aunt Joyce's for a BBQ. Charles and the kids went early. The kids got to feed the baby calves their bottles and chase chickens/play in the hay/generally make a ruckus. Michelle took pictures, so when I get some, I'll post them.

Force March Phillips

In my brilliance, I decided to take my playgroup hiking. We went to Catalina State Park yesterday. Of course, it was the hottest day of the spring so far (about 90. seriously). I was initially planning to do a short flat hike at the Romero Ruins, but the guy at the booth said to do the Canyon Loop since there was water still in some pools. So I looked at the map and thought, hey we can do this. When we started, I wasn't sure where the trail head was for our loop and chose the one closest to the parking lot. I had a feeling though that we should start at the other side of the loop but didn't act on it. First part of the hike was a steep uphill and then we went up hill, up hill, up hill. My kids were horrible but everyone else's were great. The twins wanted to be carried though and so I did the majority of the hike holding someone and my friend Jill (bless her heart) carried Kenna quite a bit. The hike took FOREVER. Laney was supposed to go to school but we didn't get back until 12:30 and school, which was a 20 minute drive away, started at 12:15. I felt terrible for making her miss school and boy was she mad. I'm pretty sure all of the other moms were hating me by the end of that hike too. I think we hiked about 2.5 miles. Secretly though I enjoyed the hike even with my whiney kids. We'll have to go again. But next time I'm bringing more supplies. Like trail mix. Because hiking is a lot more fun if there are M&Ms involved.

Wax B's and Eye Disease

Oh, glorious day. I looked in the mirror this morning and discovered that my eye was NOTswollen, red, itchy, and was only slightly peeling/flakey. For the first time since January. It has been just as awesome as you would imagine it would be to have said eye condition for nearly 3 months.
Not much on the agenda today. I cleaned the kids' rooms and we generally hung out. Looks like we're mostly on the mend. The kids still have a cough if they get active, but things seem to be clearing. I can't tell if I'm still sick or just allergic to everything. It is pollen season in the old pueblo.
The kids keep trying to go swimming. The pool is freezing cold, but it's been in the 80s every day for a little while and looks like it will be continuing. Spring is sprung.
As I mentioned previously, writing is a big activity in my house. On my way down the stairs yesterday, I discovered a big red B drawn on the stair carpet using red chapstick. Hmm. Also, a tiny robot looking thing has appeared on Laney's wall. In ink pen. I have a lot of painting ahead of me.