le blog de bloogue

We celebrated Katie’s sixth birthday last weekend at the Waterpark of America.

Given that cost associated with the event, it was fairly low key and just a handful of Katie’s friends were able to attend. All seemed to have a good time and Katie got to have her beloved Littlest Pet Shop cake from the Target bakery.

I was pleasantly surprised with the water park after hearing several negative reviews. There were a few annoyances, such as having to retrieve towels from only one side of the park but all in all, it’s certainly a decent enough local substitute for the Wisconsin Dells water parks.

Katie’s Birthday @ Waterpark of America, originally uploaded by trypnotic.

I suppose I should write more. But why when we have Twitter and Facebook? After all, does anyone really want to more about what I’m doing than one or two sentences at a time? Get real!

Well, life has been a blast. As always.

Katie turned FIVE, yes, FIVE this February. It still seems strange that I’m a father let alone a father of a FIVE year old. FIVE! She has been successfully enrolled into Kindergarten this fall into an Eden Prairie elementary school near her daycare. Given her entry into the Eden Prairie school system, Kieran will be enrolled without any worries of being rejected as we were with Katie …. given that we live outside that school district. Here we see her with her favorite (only) Uncle, Corey visiting us this Easter from Sioux Falls.

Kieran is still a sassy little punk, just like his daddy. He turned 3½ a day before his sister turned… FIVE. Kieran got a Lightning McQueen bike this Spring and has been begging us about every night to get out and ride it. It’s just now been warm enough for him to ride around with it so he’s no longer stressing about it like he had been when it was cooler out.

Brandy is still at United Subcontractors and working harder than ever. She enjoys working for the smaller than ADC Telecommunications company that she was laid off from last fall. She feels as if her efforts really do contribute to the success of the company more than being just another employee at ADC.

Brad is still employed with NWA/Delta. It’s been tough to see a lot of co-workers go and getting dealing with a lot of “survivor” guilt.

Yesterday was Take your Kid to Work Day. Brad took Katie and Brandy got Kieran. Katie joined a preschool gang of girls dressed in pink. They harassed the various departments until they wrote on all the post-it notes and drained them of all their candy. Kieran joined a gang of similarly aged boys at Brandy’s office and caused equal havoc. Consequently, Kieran went back to daycare after lunch. All involved parties had a lot of fun but were all happy that the day was over and collapsed into a coma shortly after the day ended.

Corey & Katie Easter 2009, originally uploaded by trypnotic.

My iPhone photo will have to suffice until I scan the ‘purchased’ photo.

Kieran declined the opportunity to sit on Santa’s lap. This wasn’t surprising to us after last year’s incident.

Kaitlyn told Mr. Claus that she would like an American Girl with her various accessories. We’re not entirely sure she’s got a grasp on the Santa concept yet as we’ve told her repeatedly that WE’RE getting her an American Girl. Sigh.

Santa & Katie @ Eden Prairie Center, originally uploaded by trypnotic.

I figured at least my brother would get a kick out of this guy’s name. I sure did! I guess this leaves little left for the imagination on my maturity.

I was just looking at bradaho.com and saw a picture of him. He kinda looks like the kinda guy that might get pissed off at me for this. Oh well. Sorry, my fellow Brad. You can tell on me to Norm Coleman if it makes you feel better.

A laugh for Corey, originally uploaded by trypnotic.

Told to Brandy by Katie this morning on the way to daycare:

“I was with Grandma Kris and a bird pooped on her. It wasn’t a bird, it was a special cute bird called a home pigeon. The home pigeon had a bracelet on his foot that helped him find his home. Even though he could find his home he still needed to poop and he pooped on Grandma Kris. I told Grandma that it was a special pigeon because it had a bracelet on. I like home pigeons the best.”

Here’s another that I found in my email from Brandy:

This morning, Katie found a one dollar bill in her coat pocket and was quite pleased with herself. She asked me if it was enough to go to the Kalahari. I told her one dollar wasn’t quite enough, but maybe if she found a couple more (like $250 more, but I’m not going to burst her bubble!)

Katie: “Well, let’s look in my other coats and see if they have dollars in them.”
Me: “You only have one coat.”
Katie: “Then let’s go to Target and buy more coats and see if they have dollars in them.”

Somehow, I have failed her on the money concept.

Started off this lovely Sunday by dropping Katie and Brandy off at the airport around 8am. They listed themselves for a flight to Duluth to spend a day with Kris and Cliff, get some shopping in and some Red Lobster. Meanwhile, Kieran and I took advantage of the empty Mall of America and walked three laps in there for a nice 1.5mi walk. Kieran pointed out each store that was closed. Even by the third lap, he was still amazed how many stores were closed. After we finished our walk, we took the light rail up to Minnehaha Park and wandered around there for a bit. We haven’t been there before so we figured with the extra time on our hands, never a better time than the present! We continued on, back on the light rail, to downtown Minneapolis. There was clearly a Twins game today as a majority of the people on the train had jerseys on and such. I guess baseball will never be one of those things I’ll ever understand or get excited about. We arrived downtown, and I convinced Kieran he was hungry as it was now around 10am and neither of us had anything to eat yet. After getting off the light rail in the Warehouse District, we took a shot in the dark and headed to Pizza Luce. With some luck, they had JUST opened up for brunch! Kieran nabbed some OJ and a cheese quesadilla while I had some sort of scrambled marinated tofu, peppers, hashbrowns, and tomatoes (I think). My GOD it was GREAT! Due to our train tickets expiring in the next half hour, we decided that we better get back on the train and back to the mall. From there, we headed back to Chaska and nabbed some petunias, a tomato plant, and a few planters from Home Depot. Ok, so it’s probably a little too early for it all but we’ll give it a shot anyway and keep an eye out for low temperatures.

I’d have some photos to share but the Wing got left at work on Friday. I had left early to go with Katie and Brandy to the school district’s early childhood screening. She did a great job and took it very seriously! With that, she scored a 30 — with the requirement for Kindergarten being a score of over 21. She’s still another 1-1.5 years away from that but at least we know where she’s at.

I started going to Lifetime’s Team Weight Loss class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in order to suppliment my Weight Watchers progress. Every Monday, we meet with a nutritionist for a half hour and get chastised if we’re not filling out our food/exercise journal. I’ll likely get regularly yelled at for lack of filling mine out — it’s just so much easier to keep track of my food via Weight Watchers eTools than it is figuring out how many starches, proteins, etc. I’ve ate during the day. The other half of the class, exercise, usually lasts 25-50 minutes per nights. We’re usually on a treadmill with weights and bands and keep our heart rate up in the zone 2-3 range. This will go on for a total of twelve weeks and we just completed our first week so I don’t really have any progress to report. However, I am starting my fourth month of Weight Watchers and have lost a total of 43lbs since mid-January. Earlier last year, I was seriously considering pursuing the idea of getting the lapband — the gastric bypass alternative, to assist me with my weight loss. Then later that year, I started thinking… you know, if I can raise two kids, I should be able to lose this weight on my own. So far, that method of thinking has been working well.

Nothing else to report for now. So far I’m surviving the possible NW/Delta merger, pending congressional approval. Keeping myself as optimistic as possible with Brandy’s assistance. Bye bye.

I don’t know if I’m proud or embarrassed about all the time I spent trying to finish it.

Passed through Hitchcock on the way back home and appreciated their humor with the next three exits sign. I do enjoy a good novelty. For those that aren’t familiar, Hitchcock has about 100 people.

Stopped in Clark to see Grandpa Ralph. I wish Katie would have been in a better mood but she had just woken up from a nap – probably prematurely and she wasn’t imressed!

Got home around 10:30pm thanks to yet another detour on 212 around Bird Island which leaves no close east/west routes to SD that aren’t being messed with. Grr.

Enjoying a ride in the covertable and watching Katie at the playground.