Steve has a jeep. Not a cherokee or a liberty - a 'jeep' jeep. AKA Wrangler. Hmmm I know it's a Sahara Unlimited. Which means it has 4 doors - not the 2 you're used to seeing. Came with a soft and a hard top. Pretty cool the jeep. Oh yah - it's Jeep Green of course.

So in the last few months I've noticed something interesting.

Jeep people wave to each other.

It's pretty funny and I was glad I noticed. So that when I took it out and someone waved at me from another jeep I knew what to do and was prepared... I gave them the finger. OK no I'm just kidding - I waved back of course :o)

So now I wonder... Durango people don't wave to me. On Thursday decided I was going to do just that. Every time I see a Durango I'll wave. Easy peasy - I may get arrested for over-friendly-driving - but we'll see. Since Thursday I have noticed exacly - 0 - durangos. No that's not true - on Friday when we went out and Steve drove (in the jeep) I saw 3 durangos. But when I've been driving big Red? Zero. How am I supposed to start the Durango friendly waving craze if I don't see any.

Sheesh. I'll try to keep watching. I'm sure they're out there and sneak past when I'm lost in thought. Then I see a JEEP and remember the wave thing and I start looking again! LOL

The woman that Ky had been taking riding lessons from has been MIA. I managed to run into her friend/partner at the barn and chat - sounds like J was making some changes. She dropped her email and barn phones to instead use her work email and her cell phone (I have neither). I did try leaving her a couple of messages on her voicemail at work, but haven't gotten a response.

So yesterday we visited a *new* barn. This one is closer - about 20 minutes closer! It's only 5 minutes away from us. It's not someone's backyard - it's a business barn. About 15 horses in the main barn (or maybe 17?) and 4 ponies in the 'Pony Barn'. It's owned by a husband/wife. We got to meet both of them and all of the horses that they own (there are also boarders, but since they don't own them they don't vouch for them). Kyle was in love. Ryan was antsy and nervous and shy. So we walked all over and finally found the smallest pony they have - Yellow Brick Road. "Bricker" is I think less than 13 hands. She is blond and cute as a button. She stands about as tall as Kyle. Ryan was petting her and loving her and I even heard him singing to her softly.

Ryan has declared he would like to ride - as long as it's on Bricker.

Poor Mommy. I will sacrifice my own riding so that he can. I won't be able to afford all three of us! But who knows, maybe they'll have some random barn type chores I can do to bring the cost down :o)

A link to a picture of 'Bricker'

So I got back to The Walking Company yesterday and came home with a pair of Unstructured shoes. The guy had me get my feet scanned...

Here is a random image of a foot scan:



Mine was red all through the areas that are orange above - showing all kinds of - well, whatever it is that these images show you ;o)

So he dissappeared and came back with 4 pairs of shoes for me to try out. I ended up liking the Unstructured best for comfort and came home with these:






Comfy comfy! And an exact exchange - they were the exact price of the sandals I was returning - bonus!

I am not sure I will ever buy cheap shoes again.

Now that I have been introduced to the comfort of high quality shoes, I have a hard time going back. Even wearing sneakers doesn't compare.

Over the weekend I broke one of my Dansko sandals. On Sunday I made a trip back to the store - WITHOUT A RECEIPT - but I had a print out of the charge hitting my credit card. I pled my case. He took the shoes and told me he'd contact Dansko to see if maybe they would do a direct repair. Fabulous! No guarantees, but I was happy he was going to try. I figured worst case, maybe they could repair it for a charge.

He called last night - Dansko has authorized him to accept the return. RETURN! I get a brandy new pair of shoes! He doesn't have that type in my size, so I'll go on Friday and try some stuff on again. But how thrilled am I? If this was my usual $20 shoe pair I would have just thrown them out. And the number of cheap shoes laying around my house that I never wear because they aren't as comfortable as I thought they'd be? I am now committed to stocking up on a few different pairs of GOOD, QUALITY shoes instead!

Directly related to this new found happiness - www.zappos.com - WOW! If you need shoes, you need to go here. Having successfully worn my sandals for a few months now, I decided not having them was a good time to order an additional pair of non-sandals. I ordered them Monday evening. Zappos offers free shipping both ways... so I figured there was little risk involved - just inconvenience if they didn't fit. I also figured 'free' would be 'slow boat from China' kinda shipping... but OH NO was I wrong! They bumped up my regular shipping for now cost and I got them yesterday! That's overnight for those of you not wanting to do the math ;o)

Sadly, they didn't fit... but there's more happiness here. I log on to my Zappos account and click the big button 'begin return process'. They ask me why and a few other questions and give me a UPS label. I ordered a new pair in the next size up - which they again upgraded shipping on. Woohoo! Even if these don't fit, I am so very thrilled with this level of service!!!

It's a busy home week around here. Ky's birthday is Saturday. We're having a small 'family' party Saturday, followed by his mostly-school-friends party on Sunday - swimming at the community pool. We've got to pick up all the clutter because it's probably going to rain. And we've got a new bedroom to move into.

Oh and we work too :) there's that.

At any rate, the new bed is in the house and assembled. Waiting patiently for the mattress and boxspring. Maybe we'll get them down there tonight! And then Holly HAS to sleep through the night because we'll be a floor removed LOL.

Lots to do, lots to do.

Can't believe my baby is 8!!!!

So in looking for the 'before' picture below, I flipped through a bunch of pics we had taken while house hunting. At the time Ryan was just 2 and Kyle was 3 1/2...




Awwwww!

So I thought I'd do a little "then and now" excercise...


Here is a picture of the room from when we were house hunting:




And here it is today - from each end of the room...
(remember the closet didn't exist at all previously...)







I'm so very happy with the floor - it's beautiful and feels great on my feet!

Ky's Birthday is coming.

And everyone asks what he wants. He's been pretty quiet on the subject. He's got a new bike from us (and he loves it!).

So I'll throw some ideas up here...
He's growing like a weed - so pants/shirts would be good for him in size 10/12
He has a great denim jacket with a fleece vest insert that he got from Grammie which is going to be too small - so a new jacket of some sort. Identical would be ideal... it kind of acts like a weighted vest for him when he wears it.

He's wearing out his sneakers again - regular boy size 3 (as opposed to 'little boy')

Decorations for their new room... wall stickers, that kind of thing. Something we can use to make it 'theirs'.

And if anyone wants the link for his Amazon wish list - just ask.


...

I booked a party for him and some friends at the local swimming pool, and we're planning a family party in just over 2 weeks. That means I have to make a cake! (and clean! LOL)

...
In other news, we finished up what we needed to and have the guy coming to measure for flooring in the new room tomorrow! Almost there! Yay!

Just a glimpse at the painted room (I think the dots are from spackle dust on the lens maybe?)

I spent most of the day yesterday painting. The painting in the new room is now done :o) We need a floor and we can move in!

In between rounds of painting, I checked email. And one of them was an inquiry by a manufacturer on a video I had posted of Ryan on YouTube. Seems they are looking into making a new commercial and wanted to check to see if I might OK the use of small pieces of this video. Hmm - doesn't sound like they are going to compensate us for anything, but it'd still be pretty neat! I'll know more on that next week.

At the end of the day, the boys and I had appointments at the chiropractor. I was greeted with "did you get my message?" - Me: dumb look... "no?" - Dr C - "you won the grill?"
I won the grill?
You won the grill!
Oh.

OK so I could have been more excited, I was absorbing the information. AND we already have a nice grill. This one is just a tiny bit nicer - it has a griddle for cooking breakfast! So I took it - it's hanging out in the back of the Durango at the moment. But now we have to find a loving family for the 'old' grill (which is still fairly new!). Maybe I'll post it on Craig's list.

So we won a grill! Isn't that cool?

It's summertime!

Last week Steve and I alternated working from home since the boys were home. By Friday they were SO DONE with each other. Lots of annoying whining, they apparently lost the ability to share and neither wanted to play what the other wanted, but they both insisted they needed to play with their brother. The further into the week, the higher the amount of parental intervention that was required.

Monday morning came and I was SO happy to drop them off at the summer program! They had a great day and were both exhausted (nice!). Ky did come home with a nasty headache which caused him to throw up :-( poor guy. But he was fully recovered by bedtime. I'm pretty sure that's the first bad headache he's gotten since he's started chiropractic treatment in January.

Holly's vocabulary is zoom, zoom, zooming. And just in time for her to meet her new speech therapist this Friday ;o). She's saying 'Ry Ry' and Mama, and in the last few days has added 'off' - as in take my diaper off, take this shirt off, I want to be off of you, turn the light off. Lots of uses that 'off' has! We got her pictures back, and this round I will actually keep.

Uncle Paul came up last weekend and he and Steve finished getting the wallboard up in the 'new' room. I've started spackling and taping. It's looking like a room finally! I'm starting to get excited now - it looks like we may finish some time this year ;o)

At work, both products are shipping this week. Yay! It will be nice to experience some less stressful time over the next few weeks. It will pick back up again for sure, but it will be nice to have some down time.

We also sent away for our catepillars some time ago - they grew and grew and built their little chrysalis's and we moved them to the pavillion where they eventually emerged - all 10! On Sunday we set them free:






And Holly playing with the water bowl:

IBM has broken the Petraflop barrier...

A number of years ago today (the exact number shall not be named), the woman who birthed me was born.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Right around Mothers' Day we experienced a shortage in cash. Nothing alarming - just the kind of thing where you don't have extra to buy any nicities without dipping into other funding. So I told Steve to forego the traditional gifting.

A few weeks later cash-flow returned to normal. And I had chatted with the Chiropractor about shoes. He had suggested Earth Shoes - which sounded promising. So I looked around online, but didn't want to spend that kind of money without trying them on. I mentioned it to Steve and suggested this could be the Mom's Day gift he'd wanted to get me :o) So I hit The Walking Store at the mall. And I was so glad I did. The Earth Shoes were JUST as comfortable as I could hope they would be - but they were too narrow. And going up a size caused them to be ridiculously long. So I sadly decided they are not the shoe for me (maybe later after I lose some of this extra weight!). The oh-so-helpful Sales person pointed me to Dansko - a whole rack. And in the same price that I had been prepared to spend. I looked at a few and come home with these:



I love them. I have worn them daily for about 12 days now - all day. The only exception is when I wore sneakers to the gym today. I love my new Danskos. They are fabulous. And my feet are happy, happy, happy. Definitely worth the money.

For the record it was hard to work up to spending that much on shoes. Traditionally, I shop in places like PayLess for shoes. So there was some sticker shock involved. But now I'm starting to think about when I can fit the purchase of another pair into our budget!!!