Hello Fall

Been a while since a post so thought I would post tonight just to prove I am alive. It is definitely fall here in Chelan. The temperatures have gone down to a high of 70 in the day and the high 30s to maybe 45 at night. Gone are the shorts and the hooded sweatshirts are out.

The kid are staying busy in school. Chase loves first grade and his teacher. He knows his sight words for first and second grade - all 400 of them and is started reading chapter books and loves it. He has gotten 100% on all 5 spelling tests so far! I am so proud of him. He has soccer practice two afternoons a week and had his first soccer game on Saturday. He was a very tired boy after that game. He even took a nap this afternoon which he NEVER does and was still ready for bed at bedtime. Mackenzie is started on her sight words and on her first books in kindergarten. She is tired by the end of the week as she has soccer practice one afternoon a week in addition to full day kindergarten 5 days a week. She has the same teacher Chase had last year and loves that she knows the routine. She really misses being at home with Mommy so we do a lot of encouragement some days to get her going and other days she is ready to go.

We are ready for fall and love the change of weather. Wishing a happy fall to all of you!

Events in Chelan

It has been an interesting week in the Chelan area. Not only did school start this last week on Wednesday but to add to the chaos, we had a tractor-trailer rig run into the side of the Beebe Bridge which connects the Douglas County side of the Columbia River to the Chelan County side. Our school district has 120 students and 5 teachers that live on the Douglas County side. This is not usually a big deal of a commute but . . .

as you can see in the photo, there is extensive damage to the bridge so the commute has become quite an event. The kids on that side are being picked up about 6 AM in order to ride the 1 1/2 hrs one way back to Chelan via Wenatchee and are not getting home until 4:30 or 5:00 PM. Mackenzie's teacher (Chase's teacher from last year) lives on that side of the river. She and her husband (Steve and Carolyn Burdick) are both teachers in Chelan and have a 4 month old son Jayden who goes to daycare in Chelan. They have a new commute as they began school on Wednesday bycoming to work by boat from Sun Cove area to Chelan Falls thanks to Mr. Blair (the husband of another teacher in the district).

Hopefully they will be clearing the bridge for pedestrian traffic by school on Tuesday. In the meantime there is a long detour and any traffic that needs to go north of the bridge has to be rerouted through Chelan making it a very busy traffic area especially with apple harvest in full swing. If you are from out of the area and want to see more pictures of this accident, which unfortunately resulted in the death of the driver and her partner, go to http://www.golakechelan.com/ or http://www.wenworld.com/.

Here is hoping for a smoother week this week!

My Baby Grows Up

Well, as the beginning of school approaches, I am realizing how much the kids have grown up. Mackenzie is spending this week and next week in 4 day a week 9 am - 2 pm KinderCamp at the elementary school in order to get the routine down. She is absolutely loving it and I am having separation anxiety. Chase has been in school at least part time for 3 1/2 years and Mackenzie has been a constant at home. Even last year she was only in preschool for 3 half days - and that 2 1/2 hours flew by for me. In a mere 3 weeks, I will be sending both of them off to full day school. How do they grow so fast?

Mackenzie has really enjoyed her first few days of KinderCamp. On the first day, I drove her to school and when I went to pick her up, she wanted to ride the bus home with her friends. Thankfully Mr. Peck (the fabulous principal at MOE) could quickly arrange for that so Chase and I drove home and waited for her to come home on the bus. I asked her what she did at school and got some fragmented little snippets. I thought a more pointed question would give me the information I was looking for so I asked what her favorite parts of her day were . . . her reply - riding the bus home ang getting chocolate milk for breakfast AND lunch at school. I asked what else she had for lunch - her reply - I can't remember exactly but maybe a corn dog but I DID have chocolate milk. On day two, we waited out front of the house and the bus came down the hill, she was so excited to run out to meet it. She climbed on the bus and sat down. I stood in the driveway waving - - - she didn't even look out the window at me - she was busy visiting with her friends . . . I cried! She arrived safely home on the bus after day 2 - her favorites that day - recess and chocolate milk! She is on the bus on her way to school this morning as I type (again no wave for Mommy, but no tears either). I am sure she will have fun. She comes home and hugs Chase immediately but doesn't seem at all worried about what she "missed" by not being home. I wonder what will join chocolate milk as her favorites today - guess I will find out at 2:45 pm when she gets home. . .

On the Mend

Good morning everyone!

I am up and about. The kids (yes both finally) are back to school and the house is very quiet. Mom and I have offered to run around the house screaming for one another if it feels too quiet but neither of us have had that urge yet. Mackenzie has taken the opportunity to enjoy some one on one time with Daddy, Mommy and Mamma while Chase is in school as he started back a week earlier than she did. Yesterday, I caught this shot of Kenzie enjoying games on playhousedisney.com on Daddy's laptop while Daddy was snoozing. It seemed to work for the two of them clearly. She was ready to go back to school though as she didn't even finish her pancake for breakfast as she was ready to go!!

I am feeling quite a bit better today. I was up all day yesterday and today I got lunches ready for school and got Kenzie dressed and I was showered and dressed myself by 8:30 am. Not bad in comparison to a week ago. I see the internist tomorrow and I have no reason to believe that I won't get to be off the oxygen then. I am done with nebulizer treatments and am breathing much better. The recovery for my neck will be the same 12 weeks regardless so will have the lovely brace for a while and then a soft collar but at least I can breathe and have energy today. Now I am not ready to run a marathon but the idea of being up all day at home and taking care of myself and helping with little ones does not seem to be a daunting task at this point.

Mom flies home on Friday. Chase has gotten wise to that so yesterday he was too "sick" to go to school but we beat his game as he had to go to bed for a nap instead of school. Last night Mom commented that she was going to go call Papa and Chase ran to her and said "yes, you can call Papa because now you have 3 night nights left here but after you call Papa, you will have 6 night nights here". He could remember that when Mamma said on Saturday that she was calling Papa that as soon as she got off the phone that meant Mamma was staying for a few more days as that was the day Dad sent her meds so she could stay till Friday. Funny how that little mind works so fast. Mom told Dad about that last night and he was not so keen on the idea as Chase was.

I am feeling enough better that I have started my to do list in preparation for our trip (which we leave on in less than 4 weeks) and am ordering tickets for Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty and narrowing down the selection for a Broadway show while in NYC. I am getting excited. We did select our on-shore excursions for the cruise before my surgery and heard from the travel agent that she has our cruise documents that she will deliver today so it is getting to be so real. Now I just have to be a good girl and stay on the mend. Thanks so much to all for thoughts and prayers.

My niece Rachel is 3 months old already - hard to believe. They had family pictures and her 3 months pictures taken the other day and I just LOVE this one. I love the grin on her face like - I got you!! She is so much bigger than her sister was at this age it is hard to believe the difference. They had a great family picture to and I had to share.