Travelogue

We are home. And we had a blast!

Nicole traveled better on this trip than on any previous trip and I believe that this is due to her new found freedom in her booster seat as opposed to being so confined to a two strap car seat. We had packed various “surprise” toys for her and they also went a long way toward ensuring everyone’s sanity in the many long days on the road. Besides the wedding, which was the reason for and the center point of our trip, we also stopped in New Mexico for two days to see family, spent some time with my sister in Denver, got to go to the Buffalo Bill Museum and Gravesite, Red Rocks Ampitheater, stopped to shop at a large outlet mall in Castle Rock, went to the Garden of the Gods park in Colorado Springs, saw an aunt and uncle in Albuquerque and explored Old Town Albuquerque. We packed a lot of stuff and way too much driving into 6 days and made it home a day early so that we had one day to spend at home unpacking, unwinding and doing a couple of small home projects.

I am including a few of our photos. We plan to make a family vacation an annual event, as we believe that it was a bond-strengthening, family-developing occasion. The only downer on the week was an infection that developed in my impacted wisdom tooth just as we were leaving. This kept me in some pain and made me eat funny as it hurt to open my jaw. I’m sure it was quite entertaining to those around wherever we ate, including the very nice wedding reception. I have an appointment with the dentist first thing tomorrow morning.

As soon as the whole dental pain thing is done, I can’t wait to get back into the swing of things around here, get the house in order and get back into a regular writing schedule. I am excited to see what this summer will bring!

Interruption Anyone?

As a fellow blogger and fellow mommy writer, Gina Conroy’s blog title is quite appropriate. Portrait of a Writer…Interrupted is a fantastic blog that I am coming to look forward to reading on a regular basis as I embark on my new writing adventures. Boy, did I feel the Interrupted part today. I had just finished cranking out about three pages of work on my new short story when I realized that in my writing zeal I had failed to notice the extreme quiet that had settled over the house. Uh-oh… Quiet is never good with a two and half year old around. Upon entering the bedroom where I had last seen Nicole happily drinking milk out of a sippy cup and watching her Country Elmo DVD, I now found her sitting in the middle of my bed covered in “Daddy’s cream.” My husband has issues with dry legs, so he keeps some extra-thick heavy duty skin cream on the nightstand. For the third time in a few months, she had it from her head to her toes and today it was all over the bedding, including on the mattress and the bed skirt, all over the floor on his side of the bed, and a little bit on his Bible, his copy of a Bible-study workbook and the portable DVD player.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!! I was just really getting into the story. Now, I got to take time out for discipline, a bath, stripping the bed, laundry, carpet scrubbing and taking a shower after all was said and done. Sitting back down at the computer, after having put the offender to bed for a nap scrubbed clean of all white stickiness, I thought immediately of Gina’s blog and how apropos it was. I also thought of what a great blog today’s incident would make. And the story is still sitting there in the other Word window – waiting for me to pick right back up where I left off when I was interrupted!

(The picture is a few months old, being from the first of these ‘cream’ incidents. The creamy temptation has now been removed from that bedroom altogether. :-) )