So, it seems my grandmother, my last grandparent, has cancer.

There isn’t any concrete evidence yet, but the doctors believe all of her current symptoms fall under the uterine cancer column. Also, they can tell the cancer has spread due to some excess fluid in her abdomen. Lovely.

All in all, this sucks. The gal is 85 years old, 86 in October. She has outlived her first husband, my grandfather, by over 20 years and lost her second companion of 19 years, Jerry, in February. She works out at her local gym several times a week and is quite the bad ass driver in her hip, stylin Lexus.

I talked with her on the phone earlier today. She said she went and walked a mile on the treadmill and even lifted weights. Good God woman! Impressive to say the least.

So, our trip home to Oklahoma (OKC) tomorrow has taken on another form. Our initial plans consisted of seeing my brother and his posse, my grandmother, a few friends, attend the first home OU football game, and make our way to Tulsa to see more cousins, aunts and uncles. None of that will change, of course, but the tone of the trip is altered. I don’t mind a bit, but after all our family has gone through in the last few years, why this, why now? Hasn’t she, we, suffered enough? I can tell you one thing. Going through something like this, or similar, does show you what you are made of. Our family, which includes: my grandmother, 3 daughters, their significant others, their kids and my CA crew are all way tight. We have to be. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Otherwise, what IS the point?

So, I’ll try to post while we’re out there, but who knows what wireless I can pick up “where the wind comes sweepin down the plains”. Yee Haw!

Go Sooners!

e

p.s. Tonight on TLC they are re-airing “Crazy, Sexy Cancer“. It’s a documentary based on a 31 yr old’s life with cancer. It is so amazing and quite inspiring. It can change the way you view your life. If you are in need of a little change, then tune in.

1. the ability to pine Rt off down the hall early in the mornings without a second thought.

2. only having to put Rt down for 2 NAPS the entire vacation. Hubs did every nighttime and other four naps.

3. the use of my 10 yr old niece as entertainment for Rt anytime of day.

4. being able to say, “I’m taking the day off. You guys go to the beach without me. I’ll just sit here. All. Day.”

5. to not have to “think” to clean the kitchen every time a meal was made.

6. to be left alone at moment’s notice.

7. to feed Rt a cereal bar and raisins for every meal and not feel guilty about it. they both are packed with vitamins!

8. never having to get up once in the night if Rt had a nightmare. Once again, hubs, you rule.

9. never having to feel lonely.

10. the ability to look out the window and see the most incredible view of the insanely gorgeous Lake Tahoe. My backyard just doesn’t satisfy the same.

e

Our week long vacation in TAHOE was quite a success even though it took the whole week to get Rt to say Tahoe correctly. He kept saying Ta-koe (T-A-C-O). I finally got him to say it right by stating “TA - HO - HO - HO”.

As I mentioned in a previous post, West Shore Tahoe caught on fire. So, our first day in town was filled with much “excitement”. Luckily, Rt was enamored by all the activity including the water helicopters and bomber planes that he didn’t noticed he missed his one nap for the day.

Here we are at hub’s parents’ 40th wedding anniversary party. (whole reason we were there)

Here we are setting a trap for crawdads with cheese ‘n bacon. We caught over 30 of them!

And here is Rt’s first pony ride! It was a family affair, for sure!

And here are my two favorite boys.

Can’t wait for our next getaway. Oh wait, I am heading to Oklahoma on Friday. Dude, just thinking about it already makes me exhausted…..

e

We’re home. Pooped, but home. Will fill you in more tomorrow when life gets back to being life.

e

We arrived in Tahoe Saturday afternoon ready to sit back and lounge in our North/West Shore cabin while Rt took an afternoon snooze, but that would not be the case. Not even close.

Did any of you hear about a FIRE? In TAHOE? Just down the street from OUR cabin? Ya, we couldn’t get to our pad cause a total of 5 houses caught a blaze near the entrance to our neighborhood. I have never seen anything like it. Our entire group sat down at the beach and watched 2 helicopters fly out over the water and dip their water bags into the lake to take back to the burning houses. This happened over and over again for several hours. Two bomber planes also dropped their “red stuff” over the blaze to contain the destruction. Luckily, the high winds were heading North towards Tahoe City. If they were headed West, up the mountain, I can’t even imagine how many more homes could have been destroyed, including ours.

From what I hear, some guy was cooking outside on his bbq. I think he dropped the propane tank and it exploded, caught fire to his house, then 4 of his neighbors. Poor guy. Major ass bad luck. I am assuming he is “ok”, cause I haven’t heard anything else about him.

Other than the craziness during our arrival, we are enjoying the nice 75 degree weather and the fabulous company. Oh, and it doesn’t suck if your kid wakes at the crack of dawn, you tell him to go find “Gran Gran and Fava” and go back to sleep for a couple more hours.

e

While I am recovering from a whirlwind 24 hour visit from my sister-in-law, her hubs, and their three kids, 8 & 6 year old boys, and an 18 mo old girl, I’ll provide evidence of my mothering skills in full force.

Rt is currently enjoying his 791st episode of Little Einsteins. He is getting what he wants all afternoon cause this little puppy is falling asleep at the couch wheel. It’s not just the superb visit from the sis and bro in-laws that’s got me a tad tuckered, it’s been a week filled with “getting ready” for our big trip to Tahoe this weekend. I’ve got a two year old and that calls for SUPER MEL to come out and play for a bit. She’s a tiring ‘ol broad, but things get done around here. So I’ll try to keep things fluffy and fulfilling around here until we take off, but I can’t promise anything.

Oh Toodles!!

e

Hubs had to be on-call for work on Saturday morning, the same morning I usually get to sleep in. So, plans had to change and I had to find something to do with Rt that didn’t involve the same weekday routine, cause then it wouldn’t be the weekend, now would it? So, I called my mom, who lives a hop, skip and several jumps down the highway and decided we should meet up somewhere in between at the local toddler amusement park.

As we drove through our neighborhood, Rt pointed out the local park, basically stating why in the hell we weren’t going there, like we do everyday. I told him we were going to a BIG PARK today hoping that would satisfy him long enough to get to our destination.

Now, Rt has never been subjected to one of these amusement parks. I’m not sure why. I guess we just haven’t made it down there yet, but I now believe we’ll be heading back sooner than later. We met up at 10am, the time the park opened and purchased the 10 tickets for $15 pack. Each time the kid rides on a ride, it’s one ticket. That would be super if Rt could ride ANY of these rides by himself. He is just shy of 2 1/2 so, he needed a partner in crime. Luckily, my mom and I were willing.

First up, the log ride. Second, the car ride. Third, the tea cups. Fourth, the carousel. Those were followed by another log ride, car ride, (both courtesy of mom), then one last carousel before we got the heck out of dodge with a couple of bucks left in our wallets. The thing was, we got there so early, before the crowds and birthday parties arrived, we rode every ride in 27 minutes flat. (not really, but we blew through the tickets in record time.) Fortunately, Rt is little enough he didn’t really throw much of a fit when we left. All he kept saying was “Where’s BIG PARK? Where’s BIG PARK?

Little stinker.

e

I have no idea why that song popped into my head, but I was apart of the “chorus” in No, No, Nanette Freshman year, so I’ll blame my musical theatre background on that one.

Last night Rt and I were on our own for dinner since hubs was flying back from SD. It was day 2 of “it’s just me manning the ship” and I was in no mood to cook for a 2 year old, let alone myself. (I had mac ‘n cheese and broccoli the night before) So, after an afternoon of socializing with a friend, Rt and I hit the local Chipotle restaurant.

As I got him out of his car seat, and he noticed where we were, he said “Black beans”. Not bad, kid, not bad! We ordered the “usual”, a chicken bol with black beans, rice, mild salsa, corn and cheese. (Corn was a new addition and a well liked choice!) 5 minutes and $5.90 later, we were on our way home.

While both of us were sitting at the big table eating our beans and rice, Rt looked over at me and said , “mmm, this smells soooo good”.

You just got to love the mind and mouth of a 2 1/2 year old. They just call it like they see it. Rt, I agree. That was some damn fine tasty piece of somethin, somethin. At it smelled nice, too.

e

So, Rt and I headed down to the doctor’s office this morning to get my annual cholesterol/everything else blood work drawn. The process itself is quite painless. There is rarely a line, let alone anybody there, so it definitely isn’t much of a to-do.

As we waited our short turn, Rt wanted to sit on the couch chairs as opposed to his stroller, so I kept him at bay with some crackers. Once those were burned through, we turned to a cereal bar. After that was mauled down, I offered raisins, but he had to sit back in his stroller to eat them. Luckily, at the same time, my name was called. We wheel ourselves into the room and sat for the inevitable.

I am pretty good with needles, WHEN, and only when, the blood is drawn correctly. This woman clearly was having issues with me, or the needles, or her annoying gold bracelets clanking together everytime she moved a muscle. At this point, Rt was making his was through the raisin box with vengeance. I knew then and there, we had little time left before the monkey wanted to climb out of the stroller and check out the cool chair mommy was sitting in. (Wow, it swivels. Wow, it has a big arm that goes up and down) Before I could wish for her to hurry her ass up, a tremendous wave of pain ran through my body. She already had the needle in my arm, but clearly hadn’t found the vein yet, so she decided to move it around over and over again looking for the mother ship. I have never, I mean never had this happen before. So, what did she do? She took the needle OUT and started over. While being ever so understanding with the nurse, I tried my best to keep a calm poker face with Rt.

Fortunately, she got a clue before coming at me again and thought she might need to use a smaller needle for my teeny, tiny veins. (Way to think on your feet Einstein) Once she got the right sized weapon, it was smooth sailing. It did take a little longer to get her vile-full because the small needle could only do so much, but it was tolerable by that point.

While the second phase of “what the F was this chippy thinking?” was happening, Rt did finish his raisins, but got distracted by the Windows ‘07 screen saver next to the chair. He kept calling out the colors from the square, RED, BLUE, GREEN, LELLOW. So, we made it out of there in one piece. Rt didn’t get in the way of the workspace and I didn’t lose my mind nor my breakfast throughout my ordeal.

Amazingly, I don’t have a heroin sized bruise going. But, I DO have a major sore spot on my arm that will be a nice reminder of my early morning manhandling.

Neato.

e

take endless photos of you and your kid on your computer while talking on the phone. yeah bob. go monday.