Summer Fun {And Survival}

Alternate Title: Tornadoes and Parties and Bears, Oh My

Playing catchup again--here's what we've been up to so far this summer!

Reality and the Couch
The week after school ended we (I) spent a lot of time on the big comfy couch both exhaling after the craziness and deep breathing about the fact that it was actually summer and I had three littles to entertain for the next nine weeks. Getting out my calendar to fill in the next three months--and realizing that we only had one free weekend and two free weeks during the entire summer--sorta helped. The snuggles definitely helped.

Oh yeah, and I managed to
take them on a nature walk/scavenger
hunt which entertained them for
almost an hour!

Tornadoes
Some Colorado natives (i.e. my husband) like to joke that everything west of Denver (the Rocky Mountains) is awesome, and everything east of Denver (the plains) is basically Kansas. So it shouldn't be a surprise that some years we have a slightly more active "tornado season" than other. Thankfully, Denver tornadoes are nothing like Kansas tornadoes. This year was a little more active than past years, and mid-June the was prime time for most of the activity. So we spent a few afternoons sitting in the basement and watching (or obsessing over in Marie's case) the hype on the local weather channel. Only one tornado has actually touched down, and it was a few miles east of us, and thankfully all the really damaging hail has landed east of us too. But tornado talk has been pretty much ceaseless around here. Especially amongst the boys, who play tornado (it's about as destructive as it sounds) and request tornado YouTube videos instead of bedtime stories. But the best part of it all is how Ethan still says the word: "Mommy, look at the torMADO!"

Father's Day
For Father's day weekend, our ever-young hockey player at heart wanted to take his kids the skating rink. It was fun for awhile, until Ethan fell and scraped his face, Erik ran into the boards and got a bloody nose, and then after recovering from that fell while trying to race Daddy and Marie and got a nice goose egg. Nothing that couldn't be remedied with some snack bar therapy, though.

The next day, the kids assaulted presented their Daddy with cards and breakfast in bed. Then we went to our very first West Point Society of Denver picnic (made me feel so old), and had some fun flashbacks with other old grads while knocking our crass masses of brass and glass together and stuff. We closed out the day with Peter's dad and mom at our house, letting the grill master cook up a feast on his updated man grill. The weekend confirmed once again that our kids are the luckiest ever to have such an incredible father!

Gymnastics Camp

One of our non-free weeks was taken up by gymnastics camp, which involved me dropping Marie and Erik off at our gym to run and flip around all morning while I skipped off with Ethan to do all sorts of one-kid chores and errands. It was a delightful(ly productive) week for all!

Summer Solstice Party
The longest day of the year happened to fall on a Saturday this year, and Peter had been talking for awhile about getting the neighbors with kids and school classmates together, because we've only lived here for two years now and we should take time to do more than wave in passing. So we had a Summer Solstice barbecue complete with some water balloon launching and s'mores. It was great fun and we can't wait to do it again.

Da Bear

The next day we were started preparing for our first family campout of the season-we had only 24 hours to pack up before we hit the road. (The campout will be its own billion-picture post, don't worry!) Anyway, Eagle Scout Peter spent quite a while over lunch teaching the kids (and me, let's be real) about bear safety: what to do if we saw one while hiking or at the campsite, etc. etc. We were still packing that afternoon when I suddenly heard guard dog Samson start growling and jumping menacingly at the front door before running to bark at the back door. Marie had just come in from playing out back; I looked out the window and after a few seconds saw what I thought was a large black dog that had gotten into our backyard, walking diagonally across it from right to left. In took only a nanosecond to realize that it was NOT AT ALL a dog rambling across our yard, it was a bear cub. At which time I locked the door, started "excitedly" yelling about the bear (pretty sure that went against the bear safety rules) and Samsonator jumped against the back door going crazy while the kids and Peter ran to look. I ran upstairs to grab my phone and call animal control (after taking a picture of course, because priorities). When I got to my phone I saw someone was calling me--our neighbor across the street, who started with, "This is going to sound really weird, but a bear just got into your backyard!" "Yeah, we just saw!" I choked out, but by the time I ran back downstairs it had climbed over our back fence and disappeared into the greenbelt. We never saw the mama bear or another cub, which is what we were really worried about. The sheriff's department said they were already on it when we called, and about an hour later we heard a pretty loud shot which we assumed was the tranquilizer. It took about as long for my heart to stop pounding. I mean, he would have been totally cute in a zoo. On the other side of my kitchen window, though, not so much. Thankfully, we didn't meet any of the cub's friends during our campout--it remained that our only bear encounter that week was in our suburban backyard.  

He's out there somewhere...
*shudder*

Definitely NOT a dog.
Source (taken by my neighbor and shared with local news)

4th of July
For the 4th we went to our town's local parade and festival, which we've done for the past two years so far.

I realized that I'd taken pictures with Ethan for the past
two years, so I'm keeping up the tradition. Crazy
to think that even though he's not a "native,"
he's spent every Independence day since
he was born right here! 

We actually had fireworks this year, unlike the past two years when there was a ban due to the dry conditions and wildfires that devastated much of the surrounding area. I guess tornadoes were our consolation prize. We found out last fall (when they rescheduled the fireworks for Oktoberfest) that we could see the them from our backyard. So the night of the 4th we had friends over for a cookout, more s'mores, and some prime fireworks viewing from the comfort of our own home. It sure beat fighting the crowds!

Thunderstorms, Aunt Chica, and Teeth. Or lack thereof.
On the 4th we found out that my sister, who had been thinking about visiting, was able to book a flight that arrived Monday night. We thought we could swing it, even though Marie had dental surgery the next day.

The tooth drama: long story, but at Marie's first appointment over a year ago, everything 'looked great' and it seemed she was in perfect dental health. We didn't get x-rays, though; if we did, we would have seen the cavities between each set of molars that could have been fixed or even prevented in her toddler years through flossing and limiting juice between meals. (Or maybe not since genetically it seems her teeth just bite). Since we didn't get x-rays, though, we didn't discover the problem until I was helping her brush her teeth this past spring, shortly before her next annual appointment. I saw two teeth with very large dark spots--not good--so I immediately took her in. Our dentist said it was too extensive for them to treat, and referred her to a pediatric dentist/specialist who told us she would need 5 crowns and two to three pulpotomies (baby root canals). Her anxiety prevents her from opening her mouth properly in scary situations like the dentist, so they also said she would be a good candidate for general anesthesia at the Children's hospital during the procedure. Naturally I was suspicious, and sought a second opinion which took more time than I'd like to admit. The second dentist said the same thing, and so we began the arduous process of deciding how to go about torturing our daughter, finally scheduling the procedure for July 8th in the dentist office with a private anesthesiologist.

Meanwhile, my sister Michaela, aka "Aunt Chica," was supposed to arrive the night before the dental torture, but this incredible storm sent her to Salt Lake City where she got to spend the night on the airport floor:

Snapped with my phone from our backyard (on rapid fire to catch the lightning of course!).

But she got a flight the next morning and Peter was able to get her from the airport and make it to the dentist just in the nick of time to help calm our little girl's nerves. I was pretty darn nervous about the whole general anesthesia aspect, but I didn't want my daughter to develop PTSD because she had to be semi-awake during such extensive torture, so I just prayed that it would all turn out well. And it did, except for the fact that the two worst teeth, where I originally saw the problems, were so far gone that they had to be pulled. So now poor girlie has three crowns and two spacers. Which none of us are too excited about, least of all her. But--as I'm trying to convince her--it's better to have them for the next 5 years until her permanent molars come in, than for the next 50 years like some grownups.

Recovery was rough at first, but after a few hours, an ice pop, and Aunt Chica's magical presence, she was finally smiling her new silvery smile and feeling better. Two gold dollars from the tooth fairy also didn't hurt!

Goodbye Crib

It's been a long time coming, but we finally traded in Ethan's crib for a big boy bed last night. He climbed out a few times when he was around 12 months old, but got scared enough those few times that he stayed put after that. So I was convinced (despite Peter's push for the toddler bed) that we would wait until Ethan's third birthday this fall for the big move. No worries, just leave it to big brother to teach him in recent months how to swing a leg up and use the rocking chair to climb down to foil my plan. The last straw was this past week when we were playing outside with the big kids and Ethan was quiet in his room taking a nap (or so I thought), when all of a sudden, there was Ethan in the garage telling me this story of how he got out of his crib:

Peter to Ethan: "Show me how you 'fly'
out of your crib."

Then the next morning he showed up in my room unannounced bright and early like it was no big deal. He'd just woken up and happily climbed out of his crib again. So I admitted that Peter was right (grr) and that we needed to move him now. I am so so sad to retire the crib to the basement for the first time ever without another baby in line to use it. But Ethan is so so happy about his new bed. Can't beat that big boy smile!

~ ~ ~

That's all for now, hope summer is treating you well! But just in case, you might want to pick up some bear mace...