Training The Grandparents

A Scene From Sunday Night At Grandma & Papa Joyce's:

Grandma AND Papa: clutching toys tightly to their chests "Mine, Mine, Mine"
Nolan: laughing and mimicing above behavior, "Mine, Mine, Mine"
Michelle: utter shock, "What are you teaching him!?"

What followed from there was a conversation about how above listed behavior would only make my child the dreaded child at all playgroups and how no one will play with a child like that leading to the formation of the next hermited, uni-bomber Ted Kazinski. Parental response consisted of rolling of the eyes (grandma) and a philosophical diatribe (papa) about natural instinct and the desire to possess being a nescesarry component for survival.

It's times like these that I look back at my childhood and think..... "No wonder".

To their credit....within a few minutes I had retrained the grandparents to play a new game with Nolan called.. "Share, Share, Share".

I Love My Daddy

On Father's Day night Nolan woke up crying. So a very tired mommy scooped him up and brought him into bed with us. As I woke up the next morning and started getting ready for the day I looked over to the bed and this is what I saw....

Nolan snuggling a sleepy daddy.

Nolan Laughs Again

I realize it has been almost a month since I last blogged about Nolan, and with good reason. The poor guy has been miserable with a new tooth, followed by a cold, and then finished off with Hand Foot and Mouth Disease. It sounds much worse that it actually is but let me tell you...it was no walk in the park. His throat and mouth were really hurting him and absolutely nothing would console him. There was a breakout at the gym daycare that made its way into our March Monkey group and has seemed to be hitting the whole county in general. The doctors are very reassuring that it is typical run of the mill kid stuff but it does sound eerily similar to something barnyard animals get... and THAT is NOT reassuring

This is what he's up to lately:

*Nolan loves basketball (the one sport Martin is not very fond of but is starting to warm up to it considering the joy it brings Nolan). He plays basketball at his baby gymnastics and even took a run around the Kennedy Club Fitness court with Daddy pretending to dribble and shoot baskets while laughing hysterically.

*Grandma takes him for walks around her property and showed him the cactus plant. The next time I walked past it with him he quickly announced..."Cakta, no no no no" while shaking his finger. Apparently, my mom had explained that we don't touch the cactus.

*Nolan has finally figured out that he is not to splash around in the dog's water bowl. The next time I let the dogs in the house and Scout ran to her water bowl and started drinking he emphatically scolded her..."No, no, no, no"

*He works very hard to repeat words after we say them. He gives almost every word at least one try. His regular attempts are: bird, bicycle, basketball and waffle. He really suprised the lady at WhizKids toystore when my mom held up a ball and asked, "What color is this"? Nolan responded, "lel lellow".

*He has now learned to open all the doors and regulary want to be outside. The first thing he does in the morning is check if the front door and the garage door are locked.

*He still is in love with books and is constantly bringing them to us to read. He is still very active and loves to cimb thing but has a healthy fear for somethings now. I've notice that he now gets a little nervous about going down the slide...maybe it has something to do with the time he thought it was a good idea to try to run down the slide.

After a month of misery, leave it to Grandma Joyce to get the first smiles and laughs out of Nolan with a couple of her visits.

I Do! I mean...We Did! What I mean to say is...We Still Do!

On June 1st, 2002 Martin and I promised to eachother the following...

Today, I join my life to yours.

From this day on, I will be your partner and companion,

for you are my dearest love and my best friend.

I look forward to the joy we will find in each other's separate successes,

as well as our shared ones.

And welcome the challenge of whatever obstacles we encounter,

for I know that whatever we face, we face it together.

Because your happiness is vital to me,

I will strive to be more fully myself.

Because you deserve no less than the best of me.

I pledge that I will listen to you when you speak,

Encourage you in times of doubt,

Comfort you in times of sorrow,

And be a refuge of strength for you in times of uncertainty.

I will be faithful to you all of my days,

Will always be honest with you,

And will cherish and adore you every moment of my life.

This is my solemn vow.

We have recently had quite a few sad reminders of how fragile marriage can really be. And to be truthful, I've had to go back and read the vows and commitments we made to each a couple of times in the past 6 years; sometimes out of nostalgia but sometimes out of resolve. I love every hurdle, every tear, every laugh and every passionate outburst that has brought us to what we have today. Love is so much more than I ever thought possible.

Mountain Biking Mania

Lake Lopez

And the mountain biking mania continues....this time for almost 3 1/2 hours at Lake Lopez. I was sure I was going to have a heat stroke. I went with Martin and a couple of people from the Singletrax mountain biking group I joined. I just spent a bunch of our tax refund $$ on mountain biking gear: fatter tires, crash pads, gloves, etc. It was nice to ride a trail I was so familiar with so I could see if all the gear really did make a difference. The tires were WAY worth the $$, I could see a definate improvement in my downhill skills although there is still a lot more mental work to do.

I used my crash gear (elbow pads and knee/shin pads) on the Montana de Oro ride last week and that is going to take some getting use to. The leg gaurds make me look like I walked off the set of Star Wars, they are very similar to the storm trooper's gear. The tough part is that the people who normally wear crash gear are "bombers" (bikers who really fly downhill) so it's really embarrassing to strap this stuff on and have people think I'm hardcore only to go down the hill at a snail's pace with my brakes squealing the whole way down. Plus, I start thinking..."Crap, now that I have all this crash gear on I'm definately going to fall now. I'm too well prepared not to!"

Mother's Day 2008

Mother's Day is usually a day for pampering, breakfast in bed, flowers, maybe even some jewelry (Ha! I just had to spell check that, I don't even know how to spell jewelry). Luckily, my hubby knew just what to get me for Mother's Day... 2 hours of mountain biking madness in Montano De Oro.


We rode up the fireroad to East Boundary & Ridge trails. I always want to take a camera because the rides or so beautiful but there is no way with my crash record that a camera would survive. I snagged these pics from other mountain bikers who can actually bring their camera with them (and still have it come back in one piece). This is one of the most beautiful places to ride. I love it!

The peak of Ridge Trail


The descent. Yes, we do start at sea level. You know, when I look at the pics of these trails I don't feel so bad about the times I do crash. It's not the easiest thing in the world to ride.

March Monkies

Top Row: Cory, Phil, Maeve, Nolan, Michelle, Martin, Riley, Elaine and Ed
Bottom Row: Jenny, Brody, Megan, Josh, Montse and Urban

Today our Mom's Group did the Miracle Miles For Kids 10K walk/run from Morro Bay to the Cayucous Pier. Our team leader, Megan, organized us all and dubbed us the "March Monkies". (This may seem like a spelling error but it's not..... Monkey + Babies = Monkies. That's our story and we are sticking to it!) She even got us all the cutest matching T-shirts. We really got into the spirit of the whole thing with great big monkey balloons attached to our strollers and Nolan donned his monkey costume for the full effect. I think there were 1,500 people registered and at one point we estimated that there were probably only 30 people behind us. We were really having a good time!

Nolan - The Team Mascot


Our Monkey Family


Megan, Phil and Maeve. They just look like they are jet setting to wildly extravagant places no matter where they're at! You really could photo shop just about any background into this picture and it would work. New York...London..hey, how about Italy?!


Cory, Jenny & Brody. They could have ran this event in a quarter of the time it took us to walk it. We're glad they stuck around for us.

Riley & Elaine. How did Ed manage to dodge the camera so much?


Montse caring Urban rickshaw style.


Josh got a little lonely so he walked another monkey.