Old people forget stuff....

So I write my post today at 5:30 am, get ready for work and at 6:30 (on my way to work) I think, "Sue! You ignorant senior citizen, you....(or something like that)  Why did you leave out some of the most important moments of last week?  No excuse, except "old people forget stuff".  Anyway, no one (ok, maybe a couple of other peeps) was more thrilled than me when Curt passed the Master Electrician test on the first try!  He has studied hard the last few months and his passing was just stellar!  I'm sure it made their trip to Oregon way more pleasant.  Anyway, congratulations!

I also forgot to mention that Meredith interviewed last week for the position of Sr. manager of the ER.  Now, here's the kicker....She is not sure which location she will accept the position for- here in Greeley @NCMC or in Loveland @McKee, which will then lead to setting up the new ER in Ft. Collins.  She will make the right decision, I'm sure.

I also want to give a big, giant "Thank you very much" to Tasha and Bryan for taking such good care of the kids so that Amie and Curt could enjoy their trip.  I heard they had a great time hiking on Saturday and enjoying the Windsor Lake yesterday.  I asked Rory and Sophie to share Tasha's secret to getting Grayson to sleep at night without a hassle and they both said, "she just puts him in bed and he goes to sleep."  Yeah, sounds easy enough, huh?

Happy Monday!

Back to School, Birthdays, etc., etc., etc.

These past two weeks have been a blur!  I think the last time I had posted, we had just completed the garage sale and were on schedule for the September 1 listing of our house.  I was a wreck trying to figure out where the three of us would live, when the house DID sell.  Awhile back, I signed up for emails when a property fitting my specifications came up, and last Saturday morning, (the 16th) I got a notification that sounded perfect.  By 11:00, (with the help of Carrie's friend and Realtor, Stephanie, we had not only looked, but made an offer on a townhouse!  Short version, we have 60 days to sell our house....Yikes!
Since that day, we have made some pretty

big strides in getting things done.  It was recommended that we "spruce up" the yard, so Brad has been busy weeding and spreading mulch (along with the help of Spencer and Curt) to give it some "curbside appeal".  It will go (sadly) on the market Monday, and then a new phase of stress will begin.  I mentioned to Stephanie that Gramma doesn't close doors (bathroom or bedroom) and because she doesn't hear, I am somewhat concerned about perspective buyers catching her "in the act", if you know what I mean.  And, I've told Brad that he will most likely have to give up his afternoon naps.  I got a look of bewilderment about that!
School finally began for all 6 kids with, if you can believe it, 6 different start dates.  Rory started Aug. 13, Sophie on the 14th, Emma on the 18th, Elijah the 19th, Gabi the 20th and Corbin the 21st!

 No wonder I couldn't keep the dates straight!
Everyone is liking their new year so far with Rory and Emma starting high school (freshmen), Elijah starting middle school (6th grade) Sophie in 3rd, Gabi in 2nd and Corbin in all day kindergarten.  Grayson is the only remaining preschooler!
We've celebrated 3 birthdays since my last post: Brad's on the 8th, Amie's on the 22nd (along with Spencer and Carrie's 10th anniversary) and Carrie's on the 25th.  I think Amie wins for best celebration this year as she ran the Hood to Coast Relay over this past weekend, and then was joined by Curt, Heather and Matt to have a few days vacation in the Portland area.

This week also marked the beginning of Gabi's ballet class.  They came by for dinner before class, and Corbin had to try on her ballet shoes. Pretty sure his Dad would've choked on that one!
She had to show off her flexibility....and Rory, Sophie and Grayson also stopped by.

 

Yesterday, we celebrated Carrie's birthday (they had a family day at the pool) by bringing "Roma's" carolis and pizza to their house.  Meredith baked peanut butter filled chocolate cupcakes (yummy) and brought ice cream.  We played Mexican Train Dominoes while the kids took an excursion to the park.

Corbin suffered a boo-boo when he misjudged the height on the monkey bars and tried to ride underneath them.

Corbin working on a selfie

 So here's a little" Gramma-ism" for you today.  Saturday, Meredith took her to her "shampoo-set" appointment and Gramma revealed her worry about the move was that it was going to be too far from her hairdresser (it WILL be and extra mile or so!).  Ahh....the concerns of the elderly.....I overheard her yesterday talking to someone on the phone and she says, "Well, why don't we just cancel that.  We're pretty busy around here.  You know we are moving."  Not sure what part of the WE she is involved in!

 I just want to thank my amazing family for all of the help and support we've received getting ready for this move.  We honestly couldn't have done it without you!  I am so grateful.

Part 2 of my AMAZING summer vacation

Back to Saturday, August 8th.  It was Brad's 64th birthday and boy, do we know how to celebrate, or what?  It began with the second day of the garage sale and melting temperatures. Gabi and Corbin had a pop/water stand and sold lots of drinks (about $30 worth) and we lasted until about 2:30 until no one could take the heat.  Meanwhile, Spencer was picking Sarah and Trent up at the airport and arrived back just in time to help pick up the remaining unsold stuff.  We loaded up 2 truckloads of leftovers and took them to the ARC, and then crashed...literally couldn't get off the sofa for dinner.....

 

But,we rallied when we were asked to meet Carrie, Curt and families for bowling.  It was great that we went, otherwise we would've been in bed at 7:30!  Sunday morning arrived with on onslaught of tidying up to be done before Don and Vicki arrived to pick up Grandma & Grandpa Lee's old bedroom furniture. 
Don showed up with Mom, instead, as Vicki was exhausted.  We loaded up the furniture, visited for a bit, then they were off to return to Denver.  We were invited to Carrie and Spencer's for dinner, planned and executed by the boys, Spencer and Curt. ( Gabi, Corbin and Trent were assigned the task of shucking the corn )

 They (Spencer and Curt) made us a fabulous Cajun Boil meal  with crab, shrimp, potatoes, corn, sausage, garlic and artichokes, served on parchment paper and followed by Meredith's peach cobbler.

 

 Soooooooooooo delicious! In the interim, Sarah cut and colored the remaining heads of hair, including Heather, who arrived with Keva.

 What a sweet and good baby, she is!  I couldn't get enough pictures of her happy little face.  But I did manage to get a few shots of some other happy faces.

 

 One of the best moments came when the kids sang "Happy Birthday" to Brad and opened poppers filled with string to shower him with.

 That last day of vacation certainly made up for the other not-so-fun days and I count my blessings that I have such an amazing family.  I am thankful for each one of them and for all of the hours  that they volunteered their help-couldn't have done it without my Peeps!  Love you all!

What I Did On My Summer Vacation, Part 1

Wow, this is going to be a long and exciting post, since it's been awhile and I've been on vacation!  So, buckle up, because this vacation is going make you super jealous (although most of you joined me for some of the fun!) Hard to know where to start, but Friday, August 1st, seems like a good starting place.  It began just fine with coffee with my friend Shirley, followed by a call on my way back from someone wanting to look at our house (not ready to show yet!!!), but I thought, Hey, if you can see it in this state (mess), why not? So, I raced around (with the help of Amie) to get ready. Just moments into our quick clean-up, Brad reports that there is some water in the basement (yes, it had rained like a "mutha" that week), but I was unprepared for just how MUCH water there was.  So, the first day was spent cleaning up the gallons of water in the storage areas.  Thankfully, Curt came by to help and we were able to get the majority of water out, and things picked up.  Next came the revelation that water was also seeping into my craft room via the sprinkling system. (I'll call this part of my vacation my "beach" time).  Brad thought it was coming from the neighbors house, but of course, it was entering from a broken valve in our yard, which was discovered following a call to a sprinkler repairman.  Gratefully, my sister appeared on Saturday morning, as well as John that afternoon. (john was on his way back to Iowa and agreed to help get the deck railing finished (yeah, no rush, it's been unfinished for 15 years!)  That morning, Brad and I took a side-trip to Home Depot to pick up some materials for the deck.  I knew that it was all going back to the store, since it was not the right stuff, and it did. John and Brad went back and got new materials and they worked on constructing for several hours, while Pam and I enjoyed the relaxation of sorting and boxing more junk for the garage sale.  We ended the evening with a card game that was lacking in direction and players who could stay awake! Sunday morning, the saw continued to buzz with some very difficult cuts using some not-so-sophisticated tools.

 

 We all went to Amie and Curt's for dinner and celebration of Sophie's 8th birthday. Wow, where does time go?

 And, when did 8 year olds' request clothes for their birthday gifts?  She did get a couple of new games, one involving some pretty crazy glasses!

Bright and early Monday morning, Pam and I (after John's departure) went to borrow some

tables from my friend, Erin.  While we were gone, Brad decided to make a few "changes" to the railing.  After a few moments of panic, the three of us remedied the problems with some wood glue and a a couple of screws! He went on to complete the rest of the job without incident. (Unless you would like to refer to his decision to have his old truck towed to a garage for repairs...the truck is worth less than a tow job!  By the way, when we called a few days later to find out what the problem was, we were told that it was just out of gas!....oh boy....)  In our quest to empty closets, drawers, shelves, and boxes (which Grayson loved!) we discovered lots of treasures, including Pam's wedding dress! Circa 1974 AND it still fit (raise your hand if you hate her!)

 

 By the end of the day, we had accumulated a fair amount of garage sale items.  Pam left on Tuesday morning, and was replaced by Sophie, who had some dental work done that morning and chose to wait for the numbness to wear off at our fun-filled home. I spent the day sorting through my craft room....good times....Wednesday, Tasha came to help and ended up taking two carloads of assorted garage sale items home with her. ( I kept wishing EVERYONE would take two carloads home.....) She helped me get through the rest of the basement, and the STUFF continued to grow.  Earlier that morning, Meredith requested a ride to the ER as she was suffering from vertigo and couldn't walk (at least without looking like she'd been on a severe drinking binge), so Carrie transported her and I took her back with me after she was treated with some drugs and the "Epley maneuver", which rearranges the crystals in your inner ear, controlling balance. Who knew? She spent the rest of the day (and night) sitting up, sleeping, per Doctors orders.  On Thursday, Erin volunteered to spend the day with me, pricing all of those great treasures (why, you ask, did we price anything, when no one pays the asking price anyway?) Finally, it was time for the big event....drum roll please...and they DID show up !

At the end of the day, I thought we had made quite a bit of progress, but when we hauled it all back in the garage that afternoon, we still had tons of STUFF.....Saturday morning, we were hard at it, celebrating Brad's birthday with DAY 2 of the sale.  Oh yeah, and during that sale, Curt and Amie got a call that the transmission had gone out on their car (one with only 90,000 miles on it) and after a few frustrating hours, they returned with a new vehicle (not in their plan, for sure)

 Sophie sure loved it!  Oh, and speaking of Sophie, we were super proud of her for completing her first triathlon (swimming 2 pool lengths, biking 2 miles and running a mile) and earning a medal.  (Do they give out medals for completing a garage sale without going loony tunes??? If so, the whole family (Thank God for their help!) should have lined up to receive theirs!

 More of my vacation to follow.....the excitement mounts........