The Roller Coaster!

Since our last chat, things have been a bit of a roller coaster...

A few days after E's party, we packed up the troops to fly out to New Mexico to spend E's actual birthday out there -- I know, it's hard to keep track of the true day when we seem to celebrate these occasions in month-long stretches. But we try to visit my homeland (and GG) a couple / few times a year...and it was my high school reunion...and...well, we basically just need the slightest excuse to go on an adventure.

And, boy, was this a good one. Besides spending a lot of time with GG...we also introduced J to Il Vicino, one of my favorite pizza places -- and though the kiddos liked the food, the real highlight is always the pizza dough that they get to play with while the chefs make our pies in the wall-sized, lion-faced woodfire oven. I got my fix of green chile several times over and plenty of birthday cake.  Fueling his obsession with rockets, we stopped by the National Nuclear Museum (conveniently located across the street from my parents' frequented Costco) and we didn't even go inside the building since walking around looking at the rockets & planes out front satisfied both the kids for a good long time (ok, J just enjoyed toddling around the big open area).

However, even the trip to the Nuclear museum was topped by the alumni day at the high school. The day started out a bit strange upon waking up to a snow storm out the window, but by the time we got ready and headed into town, the weather was chilly, but not freakish. We had a good lunch of green chile burgers / chicken sandwiches (more peppers!). Then we headed out to the mesa surrounding the campus where their model rocket club was doing launches. The highlight was when a 9th grader, Lucas, bent down and asked E if he wanted to build & launch his own model rocket. Oh man! I think that's the best thing that's ever happened to the little guy. Plus, he'd get to keep the rocket after!! (Best present that he got for his birthday: the free model rocket). The thing flew a good 50-75 feet into the air and we chased it down. The nose cone had flown off on the windy decent and landed who-knows-where in the desert scrub and I thought it was a goner -- preparing to tell E that he'd be going going home with 85% of a rocket -- but Papa, the superhero that he is, combed the brush and found the neon green part.

The actual reunion was that evening and Nana / Papa watched the kids while Lisa and I attended. I'm not a "reunion" type guy, though all-in-all, it turned out to be really fun chatting with a former classmate and his wife most of the evening about our shared interests in kiddos, cakes, the Bay Area, and Disney. Plus, there was good beer.

Our final day hit another high when Nana & Papa took us all to the Unser Racing Museum. The Unsers are a powerhouse Formula One racing family -- though they do race other cars as well -- that goes back four generations. They have lived in Albuquerque for many, many decades. All of us were blown away by how close we got to the cars (couldn't sit in them or touch them, but there were no ropes), the personal docent (who was very, very impressed that a 3-year-old respected and obeyed the 'no touch' rules without handcuffs), and the Disney level of detail (the ulta-soft paper towels were custom printed with "Team Unser"). Al Unser Sr., four time winner of the Indy 500, randomly showed up and E got to take his picture and got a new copy of THE BERENSTAIN BEARS AND THE BIG ROAD RACE autographed by the racer himself.

That trip was one of the big hills of the roller coaster -- the type of hill which precedes a dip. And this particular dip was a stomach flu. The night we arrived home, and just hours before I was to head out for a business trip, J threw up. A lot. Several times. I felt horrible leaving Lisa with a sick kid for a couple of nights, but they had plenty of help with Oma & Opa there. By the time I got home on Thursday, everyone was well. A minor hilltop, but a hilltop. And then a dip. After dinner on Friday, E got it. Bad. We threw out all the gardening / unpacking-from-New-Mexico plans for the weekend and just focused on E. Saturday night, Oma got sick. Lisa didn't feel great, though she never got hit as hard as the others.  Maybe she had a mild case, or maybe she just felt sick from cleaning it up so much. Sunday evening, E was feeling better, as was Oma. Hill. What's next? Dip. At 4am, I woke with it and it floored me for 24 hours. Now, I'm on the mend and all the others seem fine, too. So maybe we're at the end of this particular ride and can enjoy a little lull in our activities before summer-madness starts...or maybe it's just another hill. *Cue ominous, cliff hanger music*

And the hill keeps climbing: As of 4/28/15, Lisa & I have been married for EIGHT...count'em, EIGHT...years. And while we didn't really do much in the way of celebration, seeing as I was deep in recovery -- we did manage to get a nice dinner out sans kids (though we mostly discussed our preschool options). Talk about a wild ride, though: marriage...leaves your heart pounding, head spinning, and sometimes a tad queasy. I wouldn't want to sit next to anybody else, though. Seriously, Lisa is -- 1,000% -- the most fun to ride along in any sort of thrill ride. I spend more time laughing at her reaction than even paying attention to the ride.

Now on to the real update: How are the kids doing? In short, they're great.

J becomes more of a toddler every day -- and she can cross rooms, squat / stand, and turn around on mid-jaunt. Her hair is growing like a weed and she looks spot on to what Lisa looked like around the same age. She's very independent when it comes to things like eating and deciding which book she wants to read -- as in, don't try to sneak LITTLE BLUE TRUCK when she wants PEEK-A-WHO and she has to have her own spoon, even if we're feeding her with another. As for vocab, she seems like she's going to be a talker like E (Lord, help us). She can use sign language (or "sign lay-mitch" as E calls it), to say bath, more, please -- which is a frequent "sentence" of hers as bath is her favorite activity. She signs poop and milk. She says, "da da da da da" in reference to me. Her go-to communication style is still the good ole' grunt'n'point. However, if you ask her something like, "where are the dogs?" she'll point and say, "Duh-air!" (translation: there, but with a 'd' vs. a 'th'). The final cute thing that I want to log here is her whiny/crying face. It's so hard for me not to laugh every time I see her peel back her lips, reveal her six little teeth, and scrunch her eyes.

With E talk-talk-talking all the time, some of our own verbal ticks have become obvious through him. I never realized this, but I often add, "or something" to the end of a statement. Like after seeing that the ground is wet one morning, I'll say, "I guess it rained or something." (As if the incident wasn't painfully obvious, for some reason, I must think it softens the statement or something). E has taken this and used the oblivian out of it. "Maybe J wants some grapes or something." "It's getting dark or something." Actually, re-reading this paragraph, he also says,  for some reason all the time, too. Jeez. I thought I was getting a son, not a genius parrot.


Anyhow, I hope everyone out there is doing well and keeping your hands and feet inside the car for the duration of the ride.