Pedal the Parkway

Here’s some pictures from today – the kids and I met Sam in Williamsburg for lunch (at our fave place the Cheese Shop!)  He was riding the “Pedal the Parkway” which is an event where the city closes the Colonial Parkway down for cyclists!

The Colonial National Historical Parkway runs between Yorktown and Jamestown, right through Colonial Williamsburg.  A tunnel runs directly underneath the Historical area. The road runs alongside the York river for several miles, then passes through the Colonial National Historical Park on its way to / through Williamsburg, then weaves along the James River on its final leg towards Jamestown.

It is a beautiful ride and Sam burned (drum roll) FORTY EIGHT HUNDRED calories according to his Garmin.  Holy Crap!   (I’m not sure I’ve burned 4800 calories this whole year!!!) 

Anyway, we had fun at lunch and then we followed behind Sam for the last 14 or so miles and cheered him on until we got to the Yorktown visitor center where the Jeep was parked. 

Notice Sam’s new riding jersey?  Gooooooo Gophers!

        

Kids

Our fab nanny Miss Ashley took this picture of the kids last week on the trampoline. Notice her cute little baby bump ... she's having her own baby in August....I can't wait to find out if it's a boy or a girl!

WORLD CHAMPIONS

Kayla competed in the World Cheerleading Competition against EIGHTY OTHER COUNTRIES.  They came back with two gold and a silver.  AMAZING!!

Way to go Kayla … what an experience!

 

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Go Team USA!

The U of MN dance team was chosen over all the other colleges in the United States! When you think about how many colleges, students, etc. - it's truly amazing!! Congrats to Kay and team ... what an awesome experience!!!

2010 Dance Team Selected

The dance team from the University of Minnesota – Minneapolis has been selected as the 2010 Team USA Dance Team. The team will represent the United States at the 2010 International Cheer Union (ICU) World Championship this April 22-23 in Orlando, Florida at the Walt Disney World® Resorts.

Approximately 60 nations are expected to compete at the ICU in cheerleading and dance in a variety of categories. The dance team portion of the event will include three categories, Pom (Freestyle Cheer Dance), Jazz and Hip Hop.

The ICU World Championship is the largest international cheerleading and dance team competition in the world. The ICU is now comprised of more than 80 member countries fielding a national cheer or dance team.

USA Cheer is the governing body for sport cheering in the United States, and Team USA Dance and Team USA Cheer are the representative National dance and cheer teams. Last year’s teams won a combined six gold medals.

The University of Minnesota dance team is coached by Amber Jackson, who has much experience with international dance teams. Last spring, the coach took her team to perform in China where they were chosen for a television program in the region of Changsha.

“The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis dance team was the best overall choice to represent the long tradition of team dance in America,” says Dani Rein, Director of Team USA Dance. “The UM team is well known for their strong technique in jazz and pom, and we know they will impress the many different nations competing in their categories.

Jump...jump.....jump up Jump and get down...Jump Jump

Yeah, we got our kids a permanent wear 'em out machine ..... a trampoline! (We're smart, don't ya think??? A couple hours on the trampoline a day....we're thinking sleep in, sleep in, LOL)

They always play on the neighbors, but we can't see them so we have to actually be in the neighbors yard to watch them ... so we decided to "spring" for it (no pun intended, haha).

The kids love it, and I'm so happy that Zachary can read now. When Sam first put the trampoline up he was doing flips and somersaults (same as he always tries to get away with on the neighbors). We told him don't do that Zach, you could break your neck and die, he's like "nuh-uh" ........ so ..... there is a very large warning printed right on the padding of the trampoline. I took Zach over to it and had him read it (I had to help him with the big words) but it said "doing flips or somersaults can cause serious injury including paralysis or death." He said death? I said, yes, die. It means you could die if you do a flip and land on your neck the wrong way. So now, no more flips. Ask Zach what he's not allowed to do on a trampoline and why and he will tell you no flip or somersaults or you can die. We told them about the dangers of playing too rough and landing on their neck, etc. and one time Addie fell (well I think Zach knocked her down in a "battle" which is their newest game) and she said "Zach you broke my neck!" lol! (not really LOL but it was funny to hear her scolding Zach!!)

Yes, "battling" is Zach and Addie's new game. Notice I said Zach and Addie - Avery wants no part of "battling." They pretend they're "Pokemon" characters and take each other on right down to moves that look like wrestlers, and they're usually laughing the whole way. (Of course, sometimes one of them gets poked or pushed or prodded the wrong way and there is tears, but we tell them if you want to battle each other, you're going to have to deal with it.) Oh, and Zach is always a character called Chimchar....which apparently has something to do with fire??

Funny thing happened when Sam was putting the trampoline together - I had picked the girls up at dance and we had to get a few groceries and we stopped at the new "Dollar Tree Market" to see what was inside. They had everything normal dollar store would have, plus groceries, HBA, produce, etc. One of the things they also had were a zillion different mylar balloons. So I let each girl pick a balloon (and they also picked a football / baseball one for Zach) and we left. Avery's was a purple (her fave color) star and Addie's was pink with princesses. Well, they wanted to take the balloons outside in the backyard while daddy was putting together the trampoline and we both said it was not a good idea to take them outside. Of course, mommy and daddy know best...because two minutes after coming outside, Avery lets her balloon go and it's stuck in the trees - way beyond reach. Sam said to her, well Ave, we told you not to take it outside so now it went to baby Sammy. She came inside where I was cleaning and threw the mother of all temper tantrums. Kicking her feet, banging her fists on the floor about losing her balloon and she says out of the blue - and Baby Sammy never gives our balloons back why does he need so many balloons. How do you explain to a 4 year old that when we "let a balloon go" to baby Sammy we're really not "giving him the balloon to play with." And I tried to explain it the best I could but she was not getting the fact that baby Sammy was not "keeping" all her balloons. Oh, from the mouths of babes. :)

We told her she could take a dollar out of her piggy bank (well it's a collective piggy bank between the 3 of them) and we'd go the next day to get a new balloon and she finally (finally) calmed down. So after brunch on Sunday (which BTW the kids think is the funniest word) I took her to get a new balloon and she handed the girl her money and was so happy. She decided it wouldn't be a good idea to take this balloon outside. Hmm, where did I hear that before?

Have a good night y'all!

xoxoxo,
Rachel

Hippity Hoppity Happy Easter!

 

Hey everyone – I know, I said in my last post I was going to be better at posting.  Ok, Ok, I lied.  Well sort of.  I *want* to do better but this crazy schedule for work has me beat (Sun-Thurs in MD) and on the weekends, it is just mass chaos getting cleaning done and hanging out with the family.

So we had a nice but not relaxing Easter … the kids did their hunt in the morning (I got striped eggs for Zach, polka dotted eggs for Ave and flowered eggs for Add) and they had fun finding their own and helping each other find the eggs.  I had them on a goose chase for awhile – I thought each package had 12 eggs, turns out each package had 10.    They’d come back with their basket and ask how many more and we kept saying 2 … and after the 3rd kid asked and the answer was 2 … I realized that the plastic egg packages only had 10 eggs each!  LOL!!  

They had fun, though, and after the egg hunt and a short nap on the couch for momma, we got the kids all dressed up in their Easter outfits and took them to breakfast.   Here’s the pictures I took – I’m just downloading them all because it will take me too add them individually :)  Then we got to come home and spend the afternoon cleaning and in the yard (yay!)  <—not so much.  And of course I had to come up to Baltimore last night……..didn’t get in until almost 1AM thanks to DC traffic!!

 

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Anyway hope you all had a Happy Easter.  I only have 4 more weeks of this crazy travel schedule left so hopefully next month things will be “more” back to normal! :)

Xs and Os……….

                         Rachel

Easter Preview

Grandma Jean sent the girls & Zach Easter outfits ... whoa, we're going to have to go somewhere fancy in these! Hats and purses too!! :) BTW, Zach LOVVEEESSSSS the tie. He wants to wear it with his PJ's. Who'd-a-thought!

I'm baaaaccckkkk.......

I have taken a blogging hiatus but I'm back! :)

Let's see where have I left off and what's happened. Hmmm....where to start, where to start .... I haven't been here since January. YIKES!

Ok let's start here ... the twins turned FOUR a couple weeks ago. I know right. FOUR??

Then sharing the hospital bassinet:

And still now sleeping together in one bed! I can't believe 4 years have gone by! It seems like just yesterday everyone was encouraging us you'll get through it, you'll get through it, you'll get through it" .... things sure are easier and we don't have to lug around a rolling suitcase full of baby stuff just to go to the store ..but they ARE four years old, so sometimes they can be a little too independent if you know what I mean. :D They are definitely their own little people though - Addie is still the crazy, kooky one - and Avery is much more serious and takes care of her "animals" very seriously. Avery is certain she's going to be a "betterinarian" when she gets older. But just for kitties. Grandma got her a "Pet Doctor" costume for her birthday and she LOVES it (lab coat, stethoscope, bandage, etc.) They are starting to have a couple of "secret" words which is pretty cute - cessaberry, in case you didn't know, means mine. They both separately confirmed what "cessaberry" means. A twin thing?

So..........girls birthday...check.

Sam was given the exciting opportunity to take a trip to Italy for work, and I was going to tag along ... we got grandma out here to watch the kids and everything.....and the trip got cancelled just a couple days before we left. Rats! We were going to be in Milan, and then stay around Lake Di Garda (which looked amazing) and take a day trip to Venice....but it wasn't meant to be.

Cancelled trip to Italy. check.

Moving on to work....things are crazy for us both right now .... Sam's company has been going through a bunch of system conversions which has had him travelling a bit more than he usually does. My company started a new program and I have to be in Baltimore from Sunday through Thursday every single week for 12 weeks. I'm on week 5. It seems like week 52. I get home on Thursday night and Sunday afternoon I'm repacking to go back to Baltimore. Last week I came home on Tuesday because Sam had to travel to San Antonio for work - I got home around midnight on Tuesday and he left at 4:00 AM. We barely got to say hello. He came home Friday around midnight and then I was off again on Sunday. Ugh. Not to mention Baltimore has had an unbelievable amount of snow over the last month- the first week I was there they had just got like 30 inches of snow ... the second week while I was there another 30 inches fell - all of our facilities closed and we were snowed into our hotel. The counties in/around Baltimore completely closed to non-emergency vehicles ... it was amazing. I have to say even though I grew up in Chicago that was DEFINITELY the most amount of snow I've seen all at one time.

Here's some pictures one of my friends took while they were shoveling .... freaking crazy!

We got a lot of snow in VA Beach too, believe it or not ... about 8-9 inches. It was so much fun to see the kids playing in the snow - they loved it but of course we don't have "snow gear" so they had to go out in multiple layers, cowboy boots, plastic bags, etc.

Speaking of the dog:

It's a good thing he's cute .... I mean who could be mad at a face like this?

Except look what the little Marley did. Grr.

Dog - enough said.


Ben has been doing really great in hockey ... here's some recent pictures of his games (and I had to throw in the Mickey ears photo from Disney World where he went in January to see Kayla compete in the Cheerleading competition):

Ben. Check.


Kayla is doing really great - doing good in college and looking forward to her spring break. You saw my last posting which was her squad winning the National Cheerleading competition! (Yeah!)


Here's the UMDT with the "trophies!"

As some of you may or may not know, I've reconnected with my real dad after 20 years. It's been great - I talk to him and my step-mom every couple days and the kids have enjoyed getting to know them also (through the phone of course.) They live in Las Vegas and sent the kids cowboy boots, cowboy hats, and guns. Here's some pics of them in their giddy up gear...

When I first reconnected with my dad, I reminded him of a dollhouse that he bought when I was little and he started it but never finished it. He has decided to build me the one I never got (for my girls, obviously) ... and here is his work in progress. He has applied every one of the several thousand shingles by hand, after painting each individual one 3 times. He has spent the last 5 months putting this together and he's still not finished, there is that much work involved. How we're going to get it out here is the next question! Though I'm OK waiting a little bit - he's put so much work into this thing, I'm afraid to let the girls have at it. He's also built all the furniture inside and my step-mom Jean has papered the walls, painted the furniture and put little pearl handles on the drawers in the girls room - she even put stone around the fire place! My girls are going to LOVE it. They painted what is considered "Zach's bedroom" in the dollhouse in maroon and gold (UofMN colors) in honor of his big sister! :D

The picture is hard to see because it's from my Dad's camera phone, but you get the idea. It's really been nice having him in my life again, and my kids are lucky they get to have TWO grandmas, TWO grandpas and a Nana!! :)


Anyway - that's about all that's going on for us. Ohhh, I forgot one thing. Cancer.


Yeah, you read that right.

Zach had been complaining of his knee hurting and when we touched it there was definitely swelling on the back of his knee that hurt to touch or when he extended his leg. We weren't sure what he did and he couldn't remember doing anything to injure it - so we iced it up, gave him some motrin, but the swelling didn't go down and after a couple days we decided to take him to urgent care (it was a Saturday and our Peds office was closed.) We thought - worst case scenario - a torn ligament, miniscus, etc. (the Tramontana side of the family does not have much luck with their knees!!) So we take him in and they do an X-ray and all that and the FNP comes to our room and asks us to look at the X-ray (which basically show nothing seeing as it's muscle/tissue, etc.) and she says, as if it's the most normal thing in the world to say - well, it looks like he has either a Baker's (popliteal) cyst, or cancer. (I guess bone cancer in kid's can present itself there.) She gave us a referral to Children's Memorial and told us to call on Monday and sent us on our way like we were just told our son had strep throat.


So the "C" word. We both NEARLY died. We hardly spoke all day long except to compare notes on what we could find on the internet about bone cancer. We took the kids out to lunch and Sam had to keep stepping outside because as you know he's already lost one son, he was thinking "baby Sammy" all over again. About 11PM on Saturday night I finally called the "on call" doctor at our Peds office and he called me back a short while later and was FURIOUS that Patient First would say something like that, he assured us it was probably just a cyst - no big deal - but to bring him in the next week so they could take a look. He also told me he was going to file a complaint against that facility because the way they approached us with that was completley reckless. Well, neither of us got any sleep all weekend and when we called on Monday AM to get him an appointment with the Children's orthopedic surgeon they told us the first available appointment was 4 days away. NO WAY were we going to wait 4 days. So we took Zach to the Children's Memorial Emergency room and they pretty much immediately took one look at it and said it was a Baker's cyst and by NO MEANS cancer. They were literally appalled that the urgent care even SUGGESTED that something like this might be cancer. They did an ultrasound of the area which showed exactly what they thought - it was a collection of water/fluids in this cyst. They wanted us to follow up with the Ortho later in the week, and we did and he said that the cyst should just go away on it's own (reabsorb into his muscles) and only if it gets any bigger and/or continues to hurt him will they need to do surgery to remove it. They don't want to mess around with the muscles / ligaments around the knee of a child unless absolutely necessary. So yeah, for two days - we were pretty freaked out. He still has the cyst, and it still hurts him occassionally - so we just have to keep an eye on it. We didn't sign him up for a spring sport, maybe this will give it time to heal so he doesn't injure himself - although the Ortho said he could do whatever he wanted as long as it was comfortable.

So ....NO cancer. Check. (And a Thank God.)

I have to say I think that's about it right now. My brain is completely fried. Oh .... Here's a couple of random pictures I took of the kids - just cute ones I thought i'd share....they're always making silly faces!

We hope everyone is doing well! Next I'll update my page and get rid of the Valentine's background........but not tonight!

XOXOXO,

Rachel

Dance Nationals U of MN

Here are two videos of Kayla's dance performance in Orlando at the 2010 Cheerleading and Dance Team National Competition. It was taped for TV but won't be on until February - I'll defintiely let everyone know of the date / channel.

U of MN took first in both divisions (cheering & dancing). After watching the videos though - you will see why. They are FABULOUS! Way to go Kay and UMDT!

Insight Bowl

Kayla cheered in her first college Bowl game on New Years Eve - the Insight Bowl in Tempe, AZ. Her Aunt Toni and Uncle Murray live in the Phoenix area so they were able to go the game and see her dance!

We caught her on TV a couple times ... so I recorded the TV with my camera. Very cool that we got such closeups of her!