Mere Mortal

You know when you start to get braggy about how great your life is. Then you realize you have had so many wonderful memories in row that you can't even begin to count them. And then you use words like "epically" amazing to describe your life. And when you think about your life or are talking about it, you are all like "blah, blah, blah…life is amazing." Blah, blah, blah…"my family has had such an amazing trip." Blah, blah, blah…"everything is perfect, life is so easy breezy." Blah, blah, blah…"I can't wait for another amazing trip to happen next week."

Well once you start doing that God decides to remind you that you are a mere mortal and things like this happen to you.

Yep, that is me now. The short story, the day after Whitaker got his stitches, I woke up to go running with my sister. I wanted to get a run in early morning since I didn't get to the gym the day before and I wanted the time while Whitaker was in school to run errands and get some much needed stuff done around the house. There was ice on the sidewalks but we were being super cautious but clearly not cautious enough. I slipped on ice and ended up breaking my ankle in two places. I was scheduled to go to Mexico this past Sunday but had to cancel my trip and have been stuck in my house pretty much ever since. I broke my right ankle, which means 6 weeks of no driving. The experience all around sucks and I don't have many positive things to say so I am going to stick to the old saying "if you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all."   

Stitches

After being gone all weekend, today I was really looking forward to dropping Mae off at school, then hitting up the gym with Whitaker and then going to the grocery store. Then maybe running home to get a few things tackled around the house. Well this little guy had other plans in store for us...

After arriving at the gym and checking in at the desk, Whitaker barreled towards child care to see if his buddy Andrew was there. Honestly, I wasn't paying attention because I was getting my parking validated and since we do this drill enough it isn't like he needs any oversight to get the 15 feet from the front desk to child care. Well, I was wrong. All of sudden I hear a kid crying and it is Whitaker. I walk over to him and am not that alarmed since this seems to happen to Whitaker at least 5 times a day. He moves so damn fast that it is just bound to happen that he falls or crashes into things. There was another mom there and she said that he fell into the door. At this point, I am trying to figure out what happened but I can only assume he tripped and slammed into the door. 

I decide to take him into daycare and figure he will calm down in a second, which he does pretty quickly. Then the daycare worker says "his head is bleeding." Well, I look at it and in fact it is. I take him back out to the front desk area to see if they have some bandaids and some ointment and I figure I will clean it up and send him back in. After further inspection, I think that it looks rather deep. At this time, my friend and Andrew have shown up and I am talking with two gym staff. I decide with their input that maybe it be in my best interest to take him to the hospital to have it looked at it. 

We ended up at Alexandria Hospital and left a couple of hours later with three stitches in Whitaker's forehead. He was a total stud and cried only for about a minute when it happened and then cried when he found out he couldn't go play with Andrew at daycare. I got to give it to the kid he is tough as nails. I am so happy that it was nothing too serious and am weeping a little inside that he already has had to get stitches in his beautiful unwrinkled perfect forehead.  

Weekend(s) Recap

I realize I haven't posted for the last two weeks and despite the weeks being filled with some mundane, some tears, some belly laughs, and lots of funny kid quotes, the last two weekends specifically have been pretty epically awesome. 

So let's go back to the first weekend of February and the Superbowl Party at the Sannes. We rented a deep fryer and had a fry party. Yes you read that correct - a FRY PARTY.  It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G - the food and the family and friends!! There was a few hiccups getting the thing to work (there were serious flames when there shouldn't have been) but thank goodness for Matt Sanne and his willingness to never give up on a task at hand and his ability to trouble shoot. If you were wondering what we deep fried. Everything. Wings, onion rings, fries, chips, oreos, pickles and funnel cake. It seriously was a state fair up at the Sanne's House. 

Here are some photos from the party. 

Party prep at our house. Mae cutting celery for the veggie tray. Yes we had one thing that was not fried! 

Starting the assembly of the fryer. 

A bunch of folks milling about. 

Julie calling work because it doesn't seem to be working. 

I got bored with the milling so came in to check out this adorable little one. 

Ready for the oil. 

More staring. 

Heather and Jennifer. 

Another picture of this cutie. 

Then we moved the fryer to the garage area because it started raining.  Beef and Phil are really helping? 

Matt still at it. There were lots of problems and here he is trying to troubleshoot. 

Success at last!!! It is like a restaurant but in a driveway. 

My dad who become the lead fryer. He loved it. 

Two men and a fryer.

A couple and their fryer. 

Wings starting to look good. 

My onion rings!! 

Frickles!

Matt's wings and my wings.

Although her face isn't showing it, she loves the deep fried oreo. 

So does Luke. 

Then this weekend we headed up to Seven Springs, just the 4 of us for some skiing. My Aunt Mary and Uncle George/Cousin Kathy have a place there and they were super generous and let us stay there for the weekend. This was Whitaker's first time ever on skis and needless to say he was a stud. And Mae has only really been up on skis one time and she was amazing as well. Further, this was the first time I have been up on skis in over 6 years so I was happy to report that I actually made it down the hill.  

Pearson and I put the kids in ski school in the morning so we got some quality time just the two of us. Not to sound like a broken record but it was really nice doing an outdoor activity just the two of us without the kids. Then we skied as a family in the afternoon. I have always been iffy about skiing and still wouldn't say that it is "my thing" but all of us being out there was pretty awesome. And watching my kids ski was amazing. Again, I sound like a broken record. Here are a couple of videos of the kids skiing. I wish I had gotten a few more as this was them at beginning of going down on the magic carpet after ski school and lunch. Mae got so confident and good, she just did laps by herself. 

Here are photos from the weekend. 

Driving through Western PA on Friday evening. It was a pretty epic sunset. 

Eating dinner on our first night there. 

Ready for ski school.

Best buddies. 

When I picked them up, I did ask the people how they did. The person responded by saying, "they really are the best of friends. They get along really well." 

And they are off with not even a turn back. 

Just the two of us. 

We, of course, creeped on the kids at ski school. 

Whitaker in the yellow vest.

We picked them up from ski school and went to get lunch for us and hot chocolate for them. They were all smiles and funny faces. 

We were at the Foggy Goggle - a place we used to party 10 years ago.  Things have definitely changed. 

The kids on the magic carpet with Pearson and I. 

Too good to not take a picture. 

After skiing/being gone from 8 to 4 this is the position you assume. 

Then you get in the hot tub. 

And then we came back to a 60 degree day in DC today, which warranted a picnic outside. 

I kept trying to get a photo of Mae singing on the microphone but Whitaker kept moving to get in the shot.

It was so warm Whitaker took off his shoes.