Great West Adventure - Day 1

3:45 AM - the alarm called out the start of our Great West Adventure. We were ticketed for a 7:00 departure from Milwaukee's General Mitchell Airport. With 3 and 10 year old in tow, we didn't want to leave anything to risk. So we all showered the night before, set the alarm for 3:45, and aimed to leave by 4:15.

The plan went off without a hitch - the crew was excited for the trip. We pulled into our offsite parking lot at 5:10, plenty of time to spare. I suppose we could have probably slept a little longer, but who knows on a work day how bad traffic will get. After a quick shuttle ride we were at the ticketing counter, then off to the gate to meet up with our first trip on Southwest Airlines.

I'm not sure if you've flown Southwest before, but here's how it works. Basically it's like a bus - you get on the plane, pick a seat, and sit there. Their fares are pretty low and they don't charge for luggage, so we decided to risk it. In actuality they do give you a number to board, so we would have been the 90th people to board the aircraft, if we hadn't "won the lottery" by traveling with Quin. After the preferred ticket holders, group A, Soutwest lets families with children under 5 board so they can hope to sit together. Us and another family took advantage of this rule and boarded the plane. Quin and I sat together in one row with Jenny and Ethan sitting behind us.

The flight was pretty uneventful. Quin couldn't wait to "blast off". As we taxied down the runway to do so, however, he promptly fell asleep for about 30 minutes, some of the most peaceful on the flight for me!! Actually he was a good flyer. Surprisingly, another set of good flyers were the set of 2 dachshunds flying in this woman's carryon a couple rows ahead of us. I couldn't believe that they would sit still and quiet for a 4 hour flight in that little bag!

When we got to Arizona, Mom and Dad Grady picked us up at Sky Harbor Airport, still the best name for an airport as far as I can determine. Though we arrived fairly early in the day - we got to mom and dad's southern home by 11 AM local time, we were pretty well spent. We took the rest of the day fairly easy by picking up some odds and ends that we weren't able to pack and swimming in the old folk's pool at the community. One smallish faux pax on my part was that I bought the wrong pull-ups for Quinny. He still sleeps in night-time pull-ups. I was assigned to go to WalMart and pick up some various things that we couldn't get, one of which were pull-ups. Jenny and Ethan were shocked to find that I had actually purchased princess pull-ups rather than the normal Cars 2 pull-ups. Luckily Quinny was OK with it.

We dined out at Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa for dinner, truly an amazing sight! This largish restaurant is completely filled with glockenspiels, pipes, drums, dancing cats, and gobs of other things, all hooked into the central organ where the organist controls it all. We got to take in a 45 minute show while we polished off a pitcher of beer and 2 pizzas.

Back to the folk's pad, we finished up the evening fairly early. I'm pretty sure we were all sleeping by 8:00 local time. Mom and dad were surprised until they realized that we had been up since 2:00 AM local time... All in all it was a decent travel day.

Staying in Shape

Four years ago I ran in my first organized race since I graduated from high school when I participated in a sprint level triathlon. Since then I got in shape, got out of shape, lost 30 pounds, and have been in pretty decent shape since then. I've also managed to run in a half marathon, 2-200 mile relays, a number of 5Ks, 10Ks, a 20K, trail runs, road runs, you name it. After all of these races, my last two have been the most enjoyable for me.

My first half marathon was a year ago at the Lake Country Half Marathon in Oconomowoc. This year, a friend of mine told me that his son of 11 was going to run the 5K version of that same event and he was going to run it with him. I thought this was a great idea and immediately convinced Ethan it to do it with me. Throughout the summer he "trained" off and on, but never wavered from the course, he was going to run the race with me. Well, my buddy's son ended up not running the race, but Ethan and I ran it. He didn't train a whole lot, and when he did, he ran SLOW, so I figured we would finish the race in around 40 minutes. When we finally got to the race, though, he ran the whole thing and completed it in just over 30 minutes, that's about a 9:40/mile pace. It was very gratifying to run a race with Ethan. It took me 34 years to discover the joys of staying in shape - I only hope that I can instill it in him early so he doesn't have to go through that painful period of getting in shape once he's well beyond it!

My most recent race was today when Jenny, Tim Z, Steve K, and I participated in the Warrior Dash. This race is one in a series of many "mud runs" that have been popping up over the last couple of years. It's a 5K run in a farm field with a bunch of obstacles thrown in. Jenny and I ran it together and had a great time! A sign reading "Danger, Obstacle Ahead" would warn us of each impending contraption to slow our pace. Obstacles included climbing walls, cargo nets, barbed wire crawls, fires we had to jump over, and finally a 50 foot long mud pit that you had to swim through to evade the barbed wire hung over it. It was a very fun event, very well run, but what made it most fun was doing it with Jenny.

I'm pretty lucky to be able to enjoy this pastime with my family. I'm really looking forward to the day when we can corrupt Quinny into doing these crazy things. Maybe one day I can cross a finish line with my whole family beside me - that would be fun.

Welcome our new Family Member

A big welcome to Heinz Doofenshmirtz Grady, our new puppy! Heinz comes to us from Little Buddies Rescue where he was dropped off from a puppy mill. We originally went there intending to adopt his sister, but she had already been spoken for by the time we got there. No worries! Heinz immediately endeared himself to us by fetching a toy for Ethan - a sure way to his heart! He had to stay at the rescue for a few more days so he could be neutered and have his initial vaccinations, so we went and picked him up yesterday. Unfortunately Ethan is up north spending some time with his grandparents, so he was not here to help us bring Heinz home. Quinton has been a lot of help, though! He was so impressed yesterday by the decrease in attention that he pooped his pants!

Heinz is about 11 weeks old. I had forgotten what a pain in the butt new puppies can be! He's pretty well behaved so far, but I fear he's still being shy and will quickly show his naughtiness. He did not come crate trained, but took to it with little complaint last night. He even lasted through the night (7 hours) without having to go to the bathroom.

We look forward to many years with Heinz Doofenshmirtz as our new family member!

Catching up with Quinton

Neither Jenny nor I are very good about creating content for a baby book. In fact, I know I could not tell you where either of my children's baby books are - perhaps in the top of our closet collecting dust. To capture memories, though, I've turned to this 'blog. It worked out pretty well with Ethan so far, and Quinton has been no different. This post, then, is going to be some quick hitters to get into Quinton's virtual baby book.

I really enjoy age three for some reasons, and really detest it for others. Most of the 3 year olds I know are some of the funniest people you could ever hold a conversation with. Quin is no exception. The other day Jenny bought a new swimming suit as she's prone to do from time to time. She brought it home and tried it on. While looking herself over in the mirror, Quin came into the room, looked at her, and said to her, "Mommy, you look fancy."

Quin is quite a lady's man, from many perspectives. For one, he's never shy about telling us about the girls he likes. He'll see what I would consider an attractive young lady walking past and loudly say, "Hi!!" to her until she responded. If he gets a little extra attention from her, he'll put his hands on either side of my face (so I can hear him better) and tell me, "I like that girl!" He'll do the same thing with women on television. Another example is at Ethan's baseball games. A couple of weeks ago, one of Ethan's teammate's sisters decided she was going to play soccer with Quin for like an hour (God bless her!). She's about 12 years old, and Quin had a blast with her. Last Thursday, then, we were at another park playing on the playground equipment while Jenny watched the game (we have to take turns). I had convinced Quin that we should go sit by mommy for awhile so I could take in some of the game. He agreed in principal and started to follow me when he spotted his playmate from the previous week. He stopped short, got my attention and said, "daddy, wait here, I have to say hi to that girl," after which he immediately walked over to her, said hi, and started playing with her again.

It doesn't end there, however. Quin is quite smitten with pink. He also likes to dress in Jenny's high heels and sunglasses while carrying around one of her pretty purses. He gets mad at her if she takes the purse away, complaining that "I had it first!"

In the last two days he's been particularly enamored with pink and princesses, though I suspect the sudden surge in interest has more to do with what he did yesterday than some new trend. Yesterday morning we were up north for our 20th class reunion. We went out to Jenny's folk's house to drop off some cargo and Jenny's sister and her two boys were there. Emmet is 4 and learned to ride a 2 wheel bike this year. Grandpa had found one of the older grandkid's bikes, and pink princess bike, and lowered the seat so he could ride it. Emmet was so excited that he had to show Quin right away. I was inside, glancing out once in awhile, and I noticed that Quin was striding the bicycle and trying to push himself off. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, I rushed outside, held the bike for him, pushed him off, and away he went! Unbelievably he was able to ride for quite awhile before crashing into the grass. Each time he would fall down he would want to get up and try it again! Emmet got a little upset, so we had to take turns, but Quin insisted on taking his turn. I took this video as proof - I'm not sure I still believe it.

Buyer Beware

A couple of weeks ago I ran a Webelos Scout Camp for Ethan and his Cub Scout cohorts (I know, the scouts are an intolerant bunch, but that doesn't have to affect Ethan's learning - let's keep this among adults, shall we). The camp was pretty enjoyable - the boys were tasked with setting up the tents and camp themselves, had to take part in meal prep and cleanup, etc. Part of each camp is doing some kind of craft. After observing how crazy the kids went for this Indian neck thing they made at the winter camp, I thought it would be fun to do some kind of craft where the kids could make something and take it home with them - something they could wear. I came across "Paracord Survival Bracelets" through my searching, which turned out to be right up their alley. A week or so before the camp, I practiced by making one for myself, then I showed Ethan how to do it. After about 5 minutes he had picked it up, and about 10 - 15 bracelets later, he had decided that he was going into business!

So - if you find yourself heading down here for the party this coming weekend, please don't be surprised if Ethan attempts to peddle his wares on you. His business is making survival bracelets, obviously. For $5 you can get up to a 9 inch premade bracelet. For an extra dollar, he'll make it custom for you on the spot, specially fit for your wrist! I am interested to see if he actually follows through with it, because he's been talking about it for weeks now. His goal is to earn enough money to buy a laptop, his latest obsession. When I asked him what his company would be called, without missing a beat he proclaimed "E-biz." He then went out to explain what that meant to me, which was pretty funny...

Anyway, we hope to see you at this very special occasion this coming weekend. And we apologize up front if our first born tries to weasel you out of some of your money. Laptops aren't cheap, you know!!!

Quin's First Movie

Cars 2 is out! We've been waiting for awhile for this event as I had unofficially earmarked it as the first movie I would attempt to take Quinton to. I'm happy to report that there was nothing out of the ordinary that happened... Yeah, boring blog post, but I'll take it. I'd say he was as good as, if not a little better than Ethan when we took him to his first movie (I don't recall which movie that was right now).

One nice side bar of the first movie story was that I got to enjoy a rare treat this morning. Since the movie started at 6:45, Quin didn't get to sleep until about 9:30 last night, so I had the vary rare pleasure of waking him up this morning! Ah, payback. I can't wait until he's a teenager - I plan to wake him up every weekend for at least 3 years!!!

My Mac is actually a Slot Machine!!!

The other day, Jenny wanted me to burn a DVD for her to give to a person at church. I told her no problem, grabbed a blank DVD which I promptly attempted to insert into my Mac superdrive. I was somewhat surprised to find that I could not put the DVD into the drive, however. The cmoputer did not say there was anything in the drive... Quite strange, I thought. I suppose that there could be a disc in there that the OS didn't know about somehow, a computer glitch. So I went to "the Google" and researched how to force the Mac DVD drive to eject. Having found my solution, I executed it according to instructions. The drive whined and made that mechanical eject noise, but no DVD appeared.

So I did what anybody would have done, I grabbed a letter opener and jammed it into my Mac's drive. OK, maybe a dumb idea, particularly with the power still on, but I'm not always the brightest. I was surprised that at one end of the drive my letter opener met resistance, and that resistance moved when I prodded it. So I unplugged the computer (finally coming to my senses) and continued my surgery. My efforts were quickly rewarded when a nickel and 2 pennies dropped from the drive! I wonder who could have put those in there? I suppose it's possible that the computer is actually now making money...

Well, the story didn't entirely end there. I was now able to put a disc into the drive, but it would not read. By now I suspected there was probably more in the drive, so I unplugged again and this time tipped the machine on its side when another penny and a quarter dropped out!!! In short, my computer somehow generated 33 cents for me.

In the old days, I would have quipped that this was a result of one of my sons wanting to play a video game on the computer - but in today's terms, putting any sort of coin into anything is quaint - so I really have no idea what would have led Quinton (yeah, I'm pretty sure it was him) to try to put money in this location...

Quinnie Quickie - TMI

File this one under TMI (that's "too much information" for those not in the know). I believe I've discussed how Quin and I have pee races in this blog in the past. On Friday I went on a field trip with Ethan, and to make a very long story much shorter, I didn't have much to drink during the day. When I got home, Quin wanted to have a pee race. While we were racing, I said, "wow, daddy's pee smells bad" (I told you this was too much information - you had been warned). Quin leaned forward and sniffed and said, "Yeah, it does. You need a new penis daddy. A black one!"

I'm pretty sure mommy's been feeding him information...

Ethan's 10th Birthday Party

My son is 10 years old! It's tough really to get my head around that fact. I can only imagine what it is like for my parents to think about each year one of their aging children reaches another annual milestone.

9 was a pretty good year. Ethan's shown a lot of improvement in school, thanks to his mother's constant prodding and encouragement, he's begun to really shine at the piano, and is starting to show real promise at soccer. I'm not saying that he's looking like he may be Pele one day, but considering our dismay at his total lack of competitiveness or energy in previous years, this year has been one of wonder! It's hard not to have high, unreasonable expectations of your kids. Lord knows how badly we've screwed him up already. Well, I suppose we get pretty good contact with him for the next 8 years or so (man, is it that few?!?!!), hopefully we don't mess it up even worse than we have...

So this year we decided to allow Ethan to have a friend party with all the boys from school. Since Ethan's class is pretty small, it is easy, or rather required to invite all of the boys in his class. Luckily, all 6 (including Ethan himself) were able to attend! I picked the boys up at school at 3:30 and traveled with them into Waukesha for a couple of hours of lasertag. I'm not sure when the last time any of you has spent a considerable amount of time with a carload of 10 year olds, but it really opens your eyes about all the stuff they already know. Their conversations ranged from cars to jokes ("that's what she said" - they are getting better with that one - probably 70% of the references would work) to music (ACDC is the best, Mr. Grady) to movies. It ranged quite a lot. Even though the topic was anything but constant, one thing that did not stop was the chatter! They can talk A LOT! It was kind of nice to see that they are still, for good or for bad, very much influenced by their families. All of them liked the same cars their dad's liked, the same music their mom's liked, and had the same opinions about the world as their parents. I'm guessing that's going to change sometime soon, but for now, it seems we still have influence...

Lasertag was pretty enjoyable. Jenny and Quin met us there for the first game. Jenny quickly purchased $40 in game tokens for the arcade games which the boys burned through in about 15 minutes. Luckily they were completely loaded down in prize tickets which they each exchanged for handfuls of candy and some alien in a test-tube toy. Candy... Good idea!!! After the second game of lasertag was done and they had burned through all of my cash for game tokens, I tried to buy them all a slushie at the snack counter. Unfortunately the slushie machines were on the fritz, so I said, "just get a soda". What do you suppose they all ordered? "Mountain dew", "Code Red", one of them actual asked me if they could get a Monster Energy Drink... I was quickly losing control!!

After the last game of lasertag I loaded the gang up into the van to leave. That's when one of the boys flipped off a passerby... Oh boy, now I'm going to get beat up! The kids explained to me that this group of 11 year olds was really giving them trouble in the arena and demanding their respect, so they really had no choice but to flip them off!!!

The ride to our house was somewhat quiet. Most of the boys settled in to watch Ironman 2 which I had playing on the van DVD player. When we got to our house, the kids ran in and bee lined up to Ethan's room, right past a smiling and anxious Quin. By the time I got into the house, Quin was in tears! He had been patiently waiting for the boys to come home and play with him, but none of them even said hi!!! Luckily after a couple of minutes they came back down and started interacting with Quin as well. He couldn't have been happier! He came up to me and said, "daddy, he was nice to me!"

The rest of the night went about as expected. We had pizza - each of the kids ate about 1/2 a piece. I made root beer by special request - unfortunately it didn't fizz up very well, so it wasn't all that popular. That was OK, because one of the boys found our stash of Mountain Dew in the basement pantry!!! Many a Nerf Gun war was had, both inside and out. Quin and I actually played with them for awhile. During one game, Quin cautioned us to "keep our eyes peeled." I'm guessing that's a phrase he picked up from the older boys!

As I dropped each of them off for the night after insisting that we were NOT going to be entertaining all of them for a sleepover (that didn't go over well - too much caffeine), all of the boys clamored out of the van at each stop, wanting to see each others houses. It was like herding cats to get them back into the van to make the next stop in a reasonable timeframe. I'm pretty sure it took an hour and half to deliver each of them home!!!

All in all it was a nice party. It's always good to interact with a group of kids so you realize that yours isn't the only weird one - they're all weird!!! I'm happy that it is almost a full year until we will have another one, though! I suppose next year we'll be doing it for Quin, too!!!

Not my friend...

Quinton has experimented with lots of different ways to express his anger with people when they don't do things he likes. Initially he liked to call people "poopy butt," but we quickly tried to squash that. He then moved on to calling people "stupid," which I think I like worse than poopy-butt. Lately he has categorized you as either his friend or not his friend. If he likes you particularly, or if he wants something from you, he tells you, "you're my best friend (he pronounces it fwond)." If, on the other hand, you tell him that he cannot have a candy bar after he hasn't eaten his supper, he says, "you're not my friend, Ethan's my friend." Of course, he will pick whoever else is around at the time, but you get the picture.

I can't wait until he gets old enough to know what swear words are for...

More Adventures with Potty Training

So - potty training boys... Yeah... Well, we're still doing pretty well, but something new has reared its ugly head. Now that Quin knows when he has to go to the bathroom, and no longer does it in his pants, he has decided that he wants to find other things to pee on other than the toilet. Jenny caught him peeing in the bathtub the other day. Yesterday I stopped him from going in the garbage can and in the refrigerator, while Jenny caught him trying to spray down the plunger in the bathroom. I have to admit, I didn't see this one coming. Oh, the joys of raising boys!

Adventures in Potty Training - again

Boy, a week makes a big difference. As of today, Quin is a week without diapers (while conscious). Last Saturday, Quin finally decided that he really, REALLY wanted to wear his light-up shoes all the time. He woke up on Saturday morning and told me, "daddy, I want my light-up shoes." I told him that he had to wear underwear if he wanted to do that, and he thought that was OK. Since then, it's been pretty much smooth sailing. Sure, he had a couple of minor slips the first couple of days, but overall it's been outstanding! On Sunday morning when he woke up, Jenny went upstairs to find him sitting on the toilet pinching a loaf, so to speak. In fact, most mornings now when he gets up, the first thing he does is strip down and put something else on so he can wear his light-up shoes. One night I caught him with his shoes in bed with him! It's kind of nice that we really don't need to do a lot of potty training, we just have to find a bribe worthy of our kids training themselves.

Still, one thing is eluding us. Quin still can't manage to make it through the night without causing a minor flood. He still has a diaper on at night, and he's OK with that. We're trying to figure out the magic to eliminating even that, but so far it seems impossible. By the time Ethan was potty trained he had been waking up dry in the morning with a diaper on. I can honestly say that has never happened to Quin. In fact, generally at least once a week he has wet through his diaper and leaked his bed. Our friends tell us we just have to grin and bear it with underwear at night - that sounds messy and hard... Maybe next week.

For now, I will bask in the glory that is superior parenting with a quasi-potty-trained child. I realize it is crazy to take such pride in something that literally all children do, but I can't think of a time I've been more proud of Quin than I was last weekend. It really doesn't make sense, but then again, not much does with this crazy parenting thing.

Adventures in Potty Training

I hate potty training. Jenny does, too, for the record. We're no good at it. We rarely stay at home long enough to actually get our children into a rhythm of going every so often, we constantly forget to ask, and, well, it's just pretty convenient to not have to worry about one of the four bladders in our posse at any given time of day. That said, we have (finally) started attempting some degree of potty training with Quin... It's not going so well.

To be fair, we've really only been at it for like 2 days. We took a page out of our "parental almanac" devised with Ethan and decided there are 2 things that work best for potty training: first, you wait until they are ready, and boys aren't ready until they are at least 3 (hey, it's true for one, it must be true for all of them, right?). Second, all children are motivated by cool shoes (please refer to the previous parenthetical sentence).

So part one of potty training is pretty easy - just don't do it until the age of three. Well, Quin's three now, so we are obligated to make sure that he doesn't have to go on his first date some day with a diaper bag. We also went out and purchased some pretty snazzy light-up shoes, the envy of all three year old boys.

As of tonight we thought we were doing OK. Unfortunately, we were going to be away most of the day at a Bucks game. No matter, a morning's worth of training is better than nothing, right? So he had underpants on all morning, no accidents whatsoever. We're geniuses!!! Along came his nap, however, and since he has NEVER woken up without such a full diaper that I'm afraid he would literally flood his room if he didn't wear one, we convinced him to put on some "nap underpants" just in case he had an accident. No problem, he acquiesced. While he was napping, Ethan, Jenny, and I left Quin in the care of our babysitter and went to see the Bucks downtown.

Five hours later (Milwaukee construction season has begun, so traffic is glorious, even on the weekend), we returned home, surprised to find Quin in his underwear, wearing his light-up shoes. The babysitter said that when he woke up, he made her help him go to the bathroom and put on underwear. He then proudly put on his light-up shoes. She told us that he had been to the potty three times already with no accidents. We are geniuses!!!

Fast forward another 2 hours, Quin is sitting at the table, watching the iPad, when I go over to him to ask if he has to go to the potty. He says no. He then sheepishly looks at me and says, "I went potty..." Sure enough, his pants were about as wet as if we had thrown him into the swimming pool fully clothed. Not only that, but a sizable pool of urine had collected beneath his chair. Nobody knows how long he sat there like that - but apparently our progress wasn't quite as great as we had hoped...

One thing that has me a little worried about our potty training technique is the use of being a "big boy" as the reason he should be going to the potty. I think all parents do it, but each time I do it I feel a little bad. Am I completely ruining his self confidence? My guess is - no. Quin has taken to walking around the house, finding something that looks heavy, then lifting it up and proclaiming, "I'm skrong!." (He similarly mispronounces "skinky," as in, "Ethan take a shower - Ethan's skinky.") One of his favorite things to do is to torment Ethan by saying, "Daddy's skrong, mommy's skrong, Quinny's skrong, Ethan's like a baby." In Quin's world, "like a baby" is the biggest insult you can impart on somebody, or at least the one that you can get away with since we have demanded he stop calling people "poopy butt" or "stupid." Quin thinks he is so "skrong," in fact, that he is now proclaiming that he is a "superhero." Apparently his self confidence is intact...

I'm sure Quin will one day be potty trained, and I'm sure once it happens it will seem easy in comparison to the challenges that are ahead with him, but for now, Quinton is winning the battles of the potty training war. Time to ferret out some more ammunition.

Ski Vacation - Part II

Tuesday was another ski day. This time it was adult ski day. Quin was going back to school, and Ethan was enrolled in Woodward, an indoor extreme ski and snowboard school. The warehouse is immense with fake snow ramps that empty into foam pits and trampoline sections to teach people how to tumble with ease through the air. I think Ethan was in for a fun day!

Ethan and I went down to Woodward to drop him off while Jenny dropped Quin off at school. Apparently this day wasn't as easy to drop off as the previous - Quin really didn't want to go.

The ski day was relatively uneventful. We did a few black diamonds (for the ski uninitiated, these are rated as "most difficult," though there were plenty of runs quite a bit more difficult than the ones we did). All in all we skied for around 7 hours straight before packing it in and hitting the hot tub briefly before picking up our little boys.

Ethan had a great time. He was one of only three kids on skis there, all the rest being on snowboards. He learned to do jumps, back and front flips on the trampolines, he went in the half pipe on the hill, and finally was able to do some woods skiing before all was said and done. Quin didn't have as good a time - too bad we are so lazy and he wasn't potty trained - once you are 3 and potty trained you can be in ski school which is WAY more fun. Maybe next time.

The rest of the night we spent trying to eat and drink as much of the way too many groceries we brought up to the hill. Jenny met Maylee and the "younger generation" out at a Absinthe bar in the village while I concentrated on finishing out the beer in the condo.

Wednesday was a travel day - we packed our car and were on the road down the mountain by 10:00. We wanted to get some pizza in Idaho Springs, but it was too early when we went through there, and we weren't sure we'd have enough time to make it to the airport. Our flight was at 3:00.

Fast forward a few hours, the drive down went well. We stopped at a Target to use the bathroom, then had a minor adventure trying to find a gas station within 20 miles of the airport. We were able to return the car by 1:00, got on our bus back to the terminal, then grabbed some pizza in the main terminal before heading through security for the last time and on to our gate.

After getting to the gate, Ethan had some more homework to do, so Quin and I decided to tour the rest of the airport by way of the subterranean train. Our gate was on concourse A, so we took the train to C and walked through. On the way, Quin was propositioned by no fewer than three 30 year old ladies, flight attendants mostly. Two of them were going up the escalator while we were going down. He flirted incessantly with them, poor things. They asked if he would be their boyfriend to which he answered "yes." They asked if they could go home with him and he again told them "yes." To their chagrin, he had forgotten all about them by the time we got back on the train...

The flight back was quicker than the flight out, but Quin had a full 2 hour nap under his belt and was in no mood to sit still. Luckily we were on a Frontier plane where we could purchase DirectTV service for the kids. It went mostly without incident, though I'm pretty sure Jenny was ready for her afternoon drink by the time we were about 60 minutes into the flight.

We got home around 7:30, threw down some fast food, then rushed the kids to bed. We were right behind them after quickly emptying the suitcases into the dirty laundry baskets. It was a nice vacation.

Some random thoughts:

• It's easier to pack for a 6 day vacation where you fly than a 2 day trip to Neillsville. When you are taking a car, you can just keep jamming more stuff in. When you are flying, though, you have to be able to take all of your stuff in a single trip.
• Quinton is "weawy skwong." Just ask him.
• If something can be broken, Quinton can break it.

That's it for this year's kid trip. We don't have any other vacations planned for this year, so who knows when we'll take off for another adventure. When we do, I will for sure be here 'blogging it and blowing your mind with our whirlwind, exciting escapades!

Ski Trip - Interlude

OK, I hope this goes away like almost all other things, because if it comes back and is something serious, I will look like a schmuck. But Ethan had his little spell with sickness yesterday, during which he thought he was going to throw up. He is a fan of the drama! Today, he has a low grade headache as far as I can tell, because he's running around, tubing, and being a general 9 year old menace, but after sitting on the couch for 30 minutes drinking water and eating popcorn he started complaining of a headache again. He stood in the kitchen, looked at me, and said, "I hope this isn't something serious. It probably is, though. I've had a headache for 2 days now - that's not normal, dad!"

He HATES the drama!!!

Ski Trip - Part I

As I sit here in our rented condo, Ethan and Jenny are sitting on the couch studying social studies (Jenny struggles, so they need to study), Quin is watching Monsters, Inc. on the iPad, it is brisk and snowing outside while the gas fire burns warmly in the fireplace. Our first ski vacation in 7 years is in full swing!

This vacation finds us in the beautiful US Rocky Mountains outside of Denver, CO. Though we're already settled and active in our vacation activities, the trip started many days ago. Last Wednesday to be exact. We had settled down for a typical evening at home - Quin and Ethan were sleeping soundly in their beds while Jenny and I attempted to get some last minute television in before our whirlwind trip to Colorado. All seemed normal, that is until 10:30 when Quin called out from upstairs. It's not atypical for him to wake up from time to time, particularly early in the evening. I slowly made my way upstairs to check on him. As I started walking down the hall, the door to his room opened and he walked out, covered in vomit. Awesome! Here we were, less than 48 hours from leaving for our trip, and Quin had come down with the flu! He was up the better part of the night, mostly dry heaving as he had done a pretty good job of emptying his stomach on round 1.

By the time morning rolled around, Quin was feeling fine. Too fine, actually. We had to keep him home, but he was up and bouncing off the walls by 6:30 the next morning already! The good news is that, should any of the rest of us come down with whatever he had, it should be pretty fast moving...

Friday morning came without further incident. Our flight was at 10:30 in the morning, so we wanted to make sure we got out of the house by 7:30 to make time for getting gas and travelling to the airport. The commute couldn't have gone better - chalk one up in our favor! The roads were clear and traffic was light, so we were able to get to the ticket counter by 8:30 - no problem. Travel through the airport was fairly uneventful as well, which was a surprise. Quin has a tendency to run away. To give us peace of mind, we purchased him a "leash" disguised as a little backpack with a tether (yeah, it's a leash). Turns out we probably didn't need it, at least in the Milwaukee Airport, as Quin was so impressed by the whole experience that he stayed close the whole time.

After some breakfast, a trip through the security line (regular metal detectors, no full body scans today), and a short wait at the gate, we were finally aboard the plane awaiting takeoff. This was both Ethan and Quin's second time on an airplane. It was the first time Quin was able to comprehend what was going on, though, as the last time was when he was only 5 weeks old. He was excited and a little scared, but he did great. He and I sat on one side of the aisle while Jenny and Ethan sat across from us. The boys bided their time on the airplane by utilizing many pieces of tech that are worth their weight in gold on a trip like this! Of course, at some point, a three year old's attention span is still a three year old's attention span, and Quin decided he had enough of sitting in one place. He had done so well for almost 2 hours, who could fault him for 30 minutes of ants in his pants?! After bouncing between our seats for awhile, he ultimately ended up in Jenny's lap for a nap for the last 15 minutes of the flight.

After the nice flight and uneventful landing, we started trekking through Denver International Airport. The tentative plans were to land at 12:30, be in Denver for lunch by 2:00, check into the hotel, maybe swim for 30 minutes, then head up to Boulder for the beer festival. Ha, funny!!! By 2:00 we had finally gotten our luggage and made it to the rental car outpost. Things just take longer when you have kids along. At one point, I changed Quin's pants after him having sat in them for 6 hours - he was wet. No more than 10 minutes later he had filled them again... By 3:00 we had finally gotten to the restaurant for lunch (note that is 4:00 our time, lupper anyone?), we did check into the hotel by around 4:00, but there was no time for swimming. I had purchased a ticket to the Avery Brewing Company's 9th annual Strong Ale Festival, which started at 5:00 in Boulder, a 45 minute trip in good traffic.

So, immediately after checkin at the Holiday Inn Select at Cherry Creek, we got into our red Toyota Corolla rental car and headed out for Boulder. The 1.5 mile trip down Colorado Blvd. took a little longer than expected. We were on that road for 30 minutes! We did manage to get to Boulder by 5:30 and I attended a wonderful beer festival! So many beers that I had never tried, and true to the title, they were all strong. In fact, the prerequisite to have a beer at the festival was that the alcohol content was 8% or better. My company has an office in Denver, so I was able to meet up with one of the guys from that office along with his family which made for a less lonely beer festival overall. Surprisingly I saw many people from Wisconsin with whom I started up some casual conversations. All in all, it was a lovely 2 hours spent.

The original plan for the beer festival was to drop me off, have Jenny drive the kids back to Denver for some swimming, then come back to pick me up for the 9:00 closing time. After the hectic, traffic heavy drive, however, Jenny didn't feel too comfortable that she would be successful in this venture, and I agreed. So we compromised - I shortened my night to 7:30 (more than enough time) and she took the kids shopping for the consumables we would be charged through the nose for on the mountain. That worked better...

When we finally got back to the hotel, it was around 9:00 Mountain time. Quin still hadn't had much for a nap, Ethan was tired, I was tipsy, so we got in bed and went to sleep. Unfortunately, that is not where the adventure ended for me that evening. I'm not 100% sure that I didn't drink "too much," but I've had some experience judging this in the past, and I felt I stayed well within my limits on this particular occasion. Rewind two days to when Quin was up puking all night before the vacation - I'm pretty sure that's what I caught. After an hour spent on the bathroom floor, I felt marginally better - well enough to sleep. Jenny woke up with the kids the next morning, took them swimming, got them breakfast, and by 8:00 I was feeling like I belonged among the living again. Again, I'm pretty sure it was just the flu!!!

We checked out of the hotel fairly early on Saturday and went over to Maylee's apartment to await the caravan up the mountainside to our condo. Checkin time wasn't until 4:00, so we had a fair amount of time to wait. Quin and Ethan bided their time climbing on the dog fence outside Maylee's apartment while Jenny joined Maylee, her sister, and her mom to get some groceries.

By 2:00 we were ready to drive. After spending over 3 hours at Maylee's apartment, we were happy to get moving again. However, we weren't gone for more than 5 minutes before Ethan claimed he had to go to the bathroom! As we drove down Colorado Blvd passing gas station after gas station, Ethan was wondering loudly why we wouldn't stop to let him go to the bathroom. So I took a page out of my vacation past and handed him an empty water bottle and told him to fill it up, explaining that we were in a caravan and couldn't just stop and go to the bathroom. To my delight, he managed to tackle the task with vigor, filling it 1/3 of the way to the top, even though it took him quite a while to overcome his "stage fright."

The drive up was uneventful. It was snowing lightly once we passed through the Eisenhower tunnel. Our luck seemed to continue as the weather called for a winter weather advisory for later in the evening, a prediction that partially came true.

We arrived at the condo a little after 4:00 and settled in. The condo is very nice. Two stories with a kitchen, spacious living room with a fireplace, and a bathroom on the first floor, and a master bedroom, loft bedroom, and bathroom on the second floor. More than enough room for the 4 of us!

After unpacking and laying claim to sleeping arrangements, we headed out to check out the town. The Winters had purposely booked this time of year for vacation due to the "En Fuego" party that they were having. En Fuego, according to the signs, is Spanish for "Good Times at Copper Mountain," or something to that degree. The village was lit by bon fires. At 6:30, they had fire dancing courtesy of "Cosmic Fire," which was a troupe of three young people that apparently had no fear of close proximity to flaming objects. After about a 30 minute show, they started a 15 minute firework display to finish off the evening.

After that we basically went back to the condo, had a beer, and Quin and I went to bed. Not sure what other fun happened after 8:00 because I was out for the count. The nice thing is that when Quin woke up at 6:00 the next morning, I had 10 hours of sleep already!

As Sunday morning dawned, we were looking forward to getting Quinton into something more structured. Daycare opened at 8:30 sharp, and apparently they mean 8:30, because we were there at 8:27 and we were unable to check him in. Too desperate? After dropping him off, getting Ethan's rental skis, and obtaining our lift tickets, we were out on the slopes. It felt great to be on an honest to goodness hill for the first time in a long time. I had no idea how long it had been until Jenny and I took an assessment on the way up the hill one time. The last time we had been on a "mountain" run was at Copper Mountain 7 years ago! That's too long...

The skiing was great. There was several inches of powder snow from the previous night, which I'm told is great. For us flat landers, it was challenging getting our legs used to skiing on anything other than ice, and on something that took more than 45 seconds to ski down! By the second run, all three of us (Jenny, Ethan, and I) were feeling very comfortable and excited about what we were doing. I will admit, I felt more than a little nervous on several occasions as Ethan caromed down the hill with what looked like absolutely no control whatsoever. When later challenged, he admitted he had absolutely no control! By lunch time, however, we were all looking like the solid intermediate skiers that we knew we were!

We took in a nice lunch at Endo's Adrenaline Vault in Center Village. Ethan had maybe the largest peanut butter and jelly sandwich ever made! After lunch, we took on a couple more runs before panic struck. Ethan started getting a headache. It wasn't long before he was diagnosed, by both Jenny and himself, as being dehydrated. Much like the previous day, we were no more than 20 minutes from lunch and Ethan needed to stop because he didn't have enough water in him!!! We finally convinced him to do 2 more runs and then we'd head back to the condo for some rest. The first run went fine, but the second was maybe the most tragic skiing incident I've ever been a part of. There was plenty of sobbing and threats to throw up. The poor woman that rode the lift with us offerred to give him a stick of gum and some sage advice to drink water, but nothing was making him feel better.

We finally made it back to the condo around 2:00, which turned out to be plenty of time skiing the first time in so long! We left Ethan to rest on the couch while Jenny and I took in some hot tubbing with the Winters.

After picking up Quin from daycare, we settled into the condo lifestyle for a couple of hours - Ethan recovering, Quin playing, and Jenny and I trying to hold all of it together while planning dinner, baths, and whatever else adults have to do. At one point we were invited to the Winters for a drink, though Maylee was in the village at Endos again. I offered to let Jenny go there to spend some time with her, which she "reluctantly" took me up on. While she was gone, Ethan convalesced from his sickness so the three of us had some dinner, gave Quinny a bath, and hunkered down to watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine. As the movie was winding down around 7:30, Quin sat on my lap and fell asleep. Vacation's hard!

Jenny finally made her way back, hungry and a little tipsy, by around 8:30. She dug through some of our leftovers of mac and cheese and hotdogs from supper while Ethan and I prepared our evening's entertainment. The owners of the condo have a collection of old movies on DVD. One of the movies looked interesting. It was called "Copper Mountain" and starred Alan Thicke and Jim Carrey. The description looked promising, so we decided to give it a try. Wow. I can now say I have viewed the worst movie ever made. At 60 minutes, it was about 55 minutes too long! It makes most porno movies I've seen look like Oscar candidates! There was nothing we could do to top that experience, so we decided to head off to bed after that...

Monday morning rolled around. It was our planned day off from skiing, so we decided instead to do some sightseeing instead. After breakfast we headed into the village to get Jenny and I some caffeine and the kids some doughnuts. It was a little brisk, so we headed back to the condo and enjoyed some relaxing downtime through lunch.

After lunch, Ethan and I went tubing in the East Village. I wasn't convinced going into it, but it turned out to be a blast. We took a video which I intend to link to here once I get it uploaded. That takes us to now - as I sit here "blogging," Quin is enjoying a nap, Ethan is relaxing while watching "The Rookie" on TV, and Jenny is enjoying some more hot tubbing. Tonight looks to be relaxing and low key before tomorrow's adventures - Quin is going back to day care, Ethan is enrolled in "Woodward," a school that teaches kids how to do tricks on skis and snowboards, and Jenny and I have the slopes in our sights, this time without kids. For now, though, I have to concentrate on getting rid of the enormous amount of food and beer that we bought for this trip so I don't feel bad about leaving so much of it behind.

Dancing Quin

This video is hilarious, I think. Obviously there must be some degree of nature going on here as nobody of the non-adopted persuasion in our family can dance like this...

6 Feet of Air

Ethan belongs to the ski club at school. Last week we went skiing for the first time this year. Since Alpine is close to some friends of ours, we were able to meet up with them and their two kids, one of which, Justin, is Ethan's age.

Justin and Ethan were having a blast! Justin snow boards, but Ethan skied. Of course, as soon as he saw Justin snow boarding, he immediately wanted to try that. Jenny tried to convince him that he would want to do that prior to us going, but he didn't want to until he saw Justin doing it...

They spent most of the day in the terrain park. Jenny, Jeff, and I hung out with them when they would allow us, but we were by far the oldest people in the terrain park by double or more! Jeff said he likes to get the kids in the terrain park because it enhances their vocabulary. Indeed... I'll give Ethan credit - even though he lacks in style or skill, he has no fear on the hill. He was taking every jump he could take. Him and Justin would brag to each other about how much air they got and if they "landed it." Ethan proclaimed that he "must have had 6 feet of air" at one point. Below is video proof of the feat.

As I said before, we're re-doing the kids' rooms. Quin's is slowly morphing from a baby's room to a boy's room. The first step was a new bed, but first we had to get rid of the old one. After taking the crib up to Grandpa and Grandma Grady's house, and not yet having a replacement, we opted to put the mattress that was destined for the room on the floor. Quin slept great on it! One small quirk, though. When he goes to bed, he likes to have the ceiling fan on as high as it goes and he likes to put the covers over his head. In the interest of time, I oblige him each time. Hey, it's an easy way to get him to bed.

One of the more interesting Quin tendencies lately that forces us to pay attention to him pretty much every second of the day is his desire to climb on the railing surrounding the staircase. I'm not talking about the inside of it, but the outside, the side that hovers precariously 10 feet above the bottom step below. The first time I caught him doing it we were painting. He called out to me to "look at me," and I calmly crapped myself as I extricated him from the wrong side of the stair railing. This one is a challenge!

Like another time, over Thanksgiving, Quin was playing with my keys. Jenny and I both said, "that's probably a bad idea. We should get those away from him." Well, good intentions being what they are, we spent the next day and a half trying to find the now lost keys. We had to call Brett in Janesville to make a special trip to Oconomowoc to get the spare so we could get home. I even replaced the keys to the tune of $100+!!! My mom spent the better part of the last two weeks looking for them... Should have listened to my own advice.

To follow up, the keys were finally located - last night! They turned up in the snack tray which was safely tucked away in the cupboard for the last several weeks. Apparently the gigantic feast we had for Thanksgiving obviated the need for snacks the remainder of the weekend.

Christmastime

Wow, it's been a long time again! I hope to post multiple times this week to get caught up. So much to talk about!

Well, it started a few weeks ago with Quin getting sick. The sickness eventually spread throughout the house but Quin got it first. The poor guy was just listless, throwing up, no fever, but sick. Every time he threw up over the course of several hours he just did it over the bucket, no crying or anything. He was fine the next day, but now he constantly tells us that he's going to go "throw up."

Several days earlier (or later, I can't remember), we were repainting Ethan's room. We're actually redoing both boys' rooms with new beds and the lot. One night when Jenny had finished painting, she put Quin to bed, left one of the roller trays to dry, then went downstairs to clean up the brushes. Apparently little sweety decided to help out as when I got home from my cub scout meeting I found a little treat on the wall, trim, and carpet. He had gotten out of bed, taken one of the clean brushes and used it to apply some of the drying paint in the roller try to the "wall."

More to come...