Random Catch Up

 Myles room is about to get a major revamp, so we basically took everything out so it's ready for paint and furniture.  We just hung his rug and moose up for fun. The real story is Kona bonding with Pluto.

Below, that's a stuffed sweet potato. Such a good dinner!

I think I've talked about Myles and his verbal and non verbal tics here on the blog before. 

This kid is a champ.  He puts up with so much and never complains.  For the past 2.5 weeks, he's had a coughing tic.  Sometimes his verbal tics (verbal meaning any noise he makes verbally, non verbal are twitches, jerks, movements he can't control) are a hum, throat clearing, or burping.....this cough is rare. It has happened before, but not for this long.  While the cough isn't a "real" cough, the wear and tear on his body is - so tiredness, sore tummy and upper body from using the muscles to cough...those sorts of things.  Also, it's very disruptive.  Think about sitting next to him in class, or a teacher listening to this all day.  We've hit the age where kids are shifting from being understanding, to being annoyed and making fun of him.  Since the tic increases with anxiety, stress, or emotional situations, it get worse when he's in class trying to be quiet but he's unable to.

Don't even get me started on taking him to places like the store, or mall.  Adults look at me like I'm taking my kid with pneumonia out in public.

Like I started with, though...he's a champ.  He's such a sweet kid, and handles things with such courage and sense of humor.

 Brian and the girls went to a monster truck rally.  Myles knew it would be too loud for him, so we had an evening out, just the two of us.  We hit the Disney Store and a tea shop.  His pick.

This dog got used to 70 degrees real quick and then went into hiding when the rain started back up and temps dropped back down.  CA dog.

 New porch lights make me happy!

 Rare site this time of year, but that's a teenager playing in the back yard, seldom seen out of doors with no electronic devise.

 I took this one to show my mom in WA the temp.

 Brian and I found some muddy water to play in out in Clyde.

 The flu hit our house hard. Hard.  Like begging Brian to take a day off so I could just stay in bed, hard.  Kona took good care of me, stayed pretty close...like snuggled up under the covers stealing my pillow, close.

 You may know I like old things.  I don't talk much about that because it seems every time I do, someone gives us something old that they have.  I don't want people to feel obligated.  But when it happens, I do so enjoy it!  This is a bookcase from Germany, from the 1800's.  It's amazing, as it folds completely flat.  It's all one piece, but the shelves fold down, and the sides fold in, and it's flat.  It's really heavy wood.

 Here it is all settled in to our living room.  Myles was home, sick with the flu that day.

That's about it.  I mean there's lots of other stuff happening- Emma tours UC Davis Monday.  Then she's off to a HOSA competition in Sacramento for 4 days. Our place of worship had a bomb threat.  Try getting your 2 kids with anxiety back inside the building after knowing everything is fine.  Good times. We have a Disney trip coming up to see the electric light parade in Disneyland, where it was when we were kids. Brian's getting paid to volunteer to clear Black Point Trail on Diablo today. Not a bad way to earn a days wage.  Anyway, lots of life stuff, thus not a lot of posts. 

PBR & Life

With Brian and I heading towards our 20th anniversary, this whole year is full of smaller "20th anniversaries".  Now, I am horrible at remembering dates of things, but Brian is not.  It's scary some times.  So when he started saying we had plans the weekend of Jan 28th because it was the 20th anniversary of something....I was totally stumped.  Turns out, it was the anniversary of taking him to his first PBR event in Portland, OR.   While I didn't remember the date, I vividly remember that day.  My dad got into an argument at dinner with a dad who was loudly swearing at his son at a nearby table.  Then, a cowboy hit his head on the chutes during a pre show and fell to the dirt having a seizure.  It was horrible.   20 years later, we loaded up the kids and headed to Sacramento for a night of PBR, minus the drama.


Ok, well, there was a little drama getting there...like driving to the wrong stadium, parking issues, will call issues, getting to our seats after the start, not eating dinner till 12:30a.m....thus the kids faces in this pic right after we finally got there....

 If you follow PBR at all, you know that name.  We got to see him ride twice, once in the go round, and again during the 15/15 challenge.

   Ok, so this is where the guys you hear on tv are filming their intro, and then doing commentary during the event.  It was airing live on tv. They threw a black blanket over the monitors, filmed the intro, then hurried and sat down, removed blanket, and put on their head sets.

 

 Ok, so the first event is over.  After that, they filmed the 15/15 buck off challenge, which aired the following day on TV.  So the guys you saw on that show had already rode about an hour earlier.  This was a big match up as JB is the best, and Asteroid is the new top ranked bull since Bushwacker retired. JB is also fresh back after a hip injury.  That long crane has a camera on the end, it's what gets you the chute shots for tv.

 

 Hey mom, if you look close you can see the feather in his hat.

  This is right outside the gate where the boys do their tv interview right after they ride.

 This was the winner of the night -

 

20 years...from 'just friends' to married with 2 teens and a 10 yr old. Crazy how fast it all goes by.

Life....is busy.  Nothing exciting really, just busy.  In the works are redoing 2 of the kids rooms, and getting another dog.  We are looking into a dog just for Myles, possibly a therapy dog for ADHD, anxiety, and OCD.  Best case scenario we get a therapy dog, worst case we get a dog that is just his, bonded with him, sleeps with him. It really calms his to cuddle and pet, but our current dog is very much mine, so it's not ideal, hard to get him to snuggle with anyone other than me. Oh, also...ugh...it's time to start looking into the drivers ed and learners permit situation for Emma.
Hope you are all well!