Welcome to our World

 Danny’s baseball tournament brought us to Gondola Square in Steamboat when all the winter stuff was over and before the official summer activities began. We had a marvelous place to stay at the resort that must have been the coolest condo ever when guests started signing in the year Hubby was born. Only trouble is when you stay in something built in the 1970s you might have a hard time finding it due to all the new builds around it. But the weather was perfect for playing baseball and for waiting to get back into the condo when we accidentally locked ourselves out.  Not too hot and not too cold and there is enough rain to make everything beautifully green. We drove in on Thursday as soon as Michelle got back from her first Stake Young Women's camp (more on that when I figure out who to beg for pictures) and take a shower. The next day my boys woke up at 5:30am to drive to Craig (an hour away) to be there for 7am warm ups for their 8am game.  Hubby and I decided this woul...

… you take the dog for longer walks in the morning because the weather is perfect, you meet friends at the park and have play dates at their house or yours, Mom and Dad are driving every day to the orthodontist or a ball field or dance or track practice or the swimming pool. And no one has to got to school!  It’s amazing!   Hot dogs and s’mores in perfect weather for the win after yet another baseball game.    Michelle’s dance studio celebrated their 10 year anniversary with an amazing recital. My mom and I loved being there in person to watch and were very impressed. Of course Michelle’s routine was my favorite and executed well and there were too many great ones to count. She is looking forward to being on the Hip Hop dance team again next school year even though it means she will need to quit Scouts to do so. (Her assigned dance classes for the team will be on the same night as the Scout meetings and there will be competitions on weekends throughout the school yea...

  Our son has leveled up to official teenager status!  The amount of love I feel for this kid that I used to carry around in my arms only keeps growing as he does. Sometimes I feel like my heart will burst as I watch him walk away. The feeling seems to be especially potent when he’s wearing his white baseball uniform and walking towards his team. My job is to work my way out of a job but I feel like my time with him is coming to a close too fast. In five years he’ll graduate from high school and I will cry big fat ugly tears as I smile and am just so grateful his birth mother chose us to raise him. Danny’s actual birthday was the day after we returned from Florida so we had his good friend, C, over for dinner with his current favorite kind of cake (that Hubby and Natalie picked up on their way home from her softball game).  The sweet shirt is courtesy of said friend and the sunglasses were Danny's big present that he had picked out at Disney Springs. This is actually the ...

Can you see the house of horror from our stateroom? Actually, tent of horror. The half an hour we spent waiting for our negative Covid test results probably took a year off of my life. My middle children and I were some of the first in a large group of people to be tested and some of the last to get our results back. I became so anxious I was pacing and making myself breathe slowly to keep from hyperventilating. Finally the six of us were cleared to board!  We booked this trip March of 2019!  After a red eye flight and staying at the Orlando airport hotel (I highly recommend Hyatt Regency at MCO) we boarded the Disney Cruise Line bus and headed to Port Canaveral. I didn’t start feeling relieved until we reached the familiar Cabanas restaurant for lunch.  Funny story from that morning: As we waited to board our bus I stayed and saved seats with Natalie while Hubby took everyone else to a Starbucks a few yards away to get breakfast. From what I’ve been told, Kate requested ...