The Christmas Cards have been mailed...and other holiday acheivements

So, it's been a busy holiday season for us.  Lots of important things to do like get presents, go to parties, wrap presents, plan a vacation for late winter, and put presents upstairs.

Last night we finally got through the Christmas cards...kind of.  Keegan wanted to sign some of them so we pulled some off to the side for him to sign.  And of course then we didn't get it done tonight because we had a whole bunch of other stuff to do like: mail the rest of the Christmas cards, buy stamps, mail off yet another UPS package containing a signed patent witnessed by my husband, get a bottle of wine for a hostess gift, and pop by the library so that I could pick up a book I have been wanting to read that has a fairly trashy cover on it of an almost naked man holding a really big sword...ever wonder how they design these covers?

Anyway, Keegan won't get a chance to sign them tomorrow night either because the schedule is just as crazy.  Tomorrow night Kee has his Christmas program at daycare and then immediately after that we have to trek down to Afton for a party at my manager's house.  All of that should be lots of fun, it is just a lot to pack in to the evening.

So, what else is going on?  Well Lyle and I are still at our new jobs.  So those are going pretty well.  I realized as I was driving home today in horrible traffic, that despite the awful commute that varies between 35 minutes and 60 minutes depending on how many traffic accidents I pass on the way home, I am actually really enjoying my job.  There have been a couple late nights, but no long trips anywhere and I enjoy what I am working on.

The funny thing was how foreign it has felt to drive home feeling happy about work and how weird it has been to wake up and think "Oh, I can't wait to get to work I have so many cool things to do today."  I guess I hadn't realized how bad my last job had become.  But even though this new job is busier, it doesn't seem to be as taxing because I am enjoying the people and the interesting work so much.   So that has been awesome and makes me grateful and happy that I am able to work over at 3M.  Now if we could just move 3M center to Blaine I would be perfectly happy :-)

My last job still creates some turmoil.  I had filed a number of provisional patent applications before I left and now they are being filed as full patents and going into foreign filings; so there are lots of little overnighted packets for me to sign.  Lyle has to be my witness and then we have to drive over to the UPS store to send them off.  I don't mind some of this since it my responsibility as an inventor to support this.  But we got three of them this week...on separate nights and it has started to get a bit wearing....

Lyle has been taking the bus down to his job and that has been working well for him.  I am a little jealous that he gets 40 minutes of reading time on the way to and from work.  He's been reading nearly as many books as I have because I haven't had as much time to read and he has had a lot more.  The good thing is he has been writing some guest reviews for my blog; so that takes some pressure off me as far as providing content goes...BTW I have over 1000 followers now!  How cool is that :-)  Really makes all the work worth it most of the days!

Keegan had his first session of hockey last Sunday and is still doing swimming as well.  He is skating so much better than last year and is a lot taller.  He's been growing like crazy and eating like crazy; the amount of food that kid can put away amazes me!  He had a bout of pink-eye starting Sunday, so I stayed home with him on Monday.  (I get a whole week of paid time off just to use for family sick time...totally awesome..my personal sick time is separate form this).  It was nice to spend a whole day with him and we had a pretty good time.

Keegan is taking off to Florida with my parents on Monday.  Lyle and I are looking forward to eating poorly, staying up late, and playing video games while he is gone.  I am flying out to Florida Thursday to spend a few days with everyone...Lyle will be holding down the fort in MN.

We have finally started planning vacations for next year.  We are going to try to do a snowmobiling trip with some friends in January and then in February we are taking a week long Western Caribbean cruise with my parents that we are all super excited about.

Anyway, that's my rambling update.  Here's some pictures to make the post more visually appealing ;-)

What Keegan does in his spare time...

Putting up the tree!

Keegan took this picture of me!  He is getting pretty good with the camera :-)

Keegan told Santa exactly what he wanted...

Hope that everyone has Happy Holidays!

Huskers RULE!!!

So Keegan and I went to the Nebraska-Minnesota football game over the weekend, thanks to a friend of mine who was willing to sell me a couple of tickets :). Really we both had a pretty good time, though Keegan still doesn't really understand football, he was able to enjoy himself.

So here is the rundown. First parking sucks down there for a football game, it took us probably half an hour to find a place to park, and that was after asking a police man who was directing traffic where you could actually find parking. From the parking spot, it was a long walk to the stadium, but there was lots to see because there were a lot of tailgating people for both teams. It also happened to be homecoming for Minnesota (what the heck where they thinking?). So after the long walk to the stadium, and finally hooking up with the ticket supplier. So while the other guy and I are talking, Keegan is rolling down a small hill in front of Williams arena. We talked for 10-15 mins and Keegan just kept running up the hill and then rolling down and laughing hysterically, everyone else around us also got a pretty good laugh too.

After saying good buy to our supplier, who was sitting next to us during the game, Keegan and I went into the stadium, and then walked around for a little while to take a look around. The TCF Bank Stadium is pretty nice for watching a game, but for the most part, I wasn't all that impressed. They did have plenty of bathrooms, so I guess I should be happy about that part, but the whole stadium just kind of felt cheap, like the fact that the bleachers overhead are pretty much exposed to the concourse, and it just wasn't all that exciting along the line of decorations.

We finally went to our seats, and watched the marching band for a while before the game was starting, and that was kind of fun. I was pointing out to him on the big screen that we were close to that the band was making the block M, but you couldn't really tell from where we were sitting. Finally it got to kick off time, and we were able to make it half way through the first quarter (Nebraksa was already up by 10) when Keegan had to have a bathroom break. So we went and did that and got some snacks, and annoyed everyone in our row with the leaving and coming back etc, but hey... he is 4, give him a break ;).

From Keegan Nebraska game

We sat through the rest of the first half, and then went to go get water and stuff during half time, and by then Nebraska was already up 34-0, so it wasn't much of a game. Every time someone had a big play though Keegan would get excited and clap and stuff, so that was fun. We watch more of the marching band, and part of the third quarter before the Keester needed another bathroom break, so we did that and came back, but by then I could tell Keegan was ready to leave. So we finished off the third quarter and took off. I let Keegan ride on my shoulders the whole way back, and he was pretty much wiped out at that point, so it was no surprise that he actually fell asleep in the car on the way back up with Meema and Gpa's house.

We did carve pumpkins after I woke him up and we went in. We had a good time doing that too, and I think mine is the best :). We don't have pictures of them up yet, but probably some time after the halloween party.

Changes....

So, things are a-changing in our house lately.  The result of this is that we've been super-busy...even busier than normal.

We took a trip to Yellowstone the beginning of September which was fabulous!  We had a wonderful time, then the next weekend we went out camping...so we had basically three weekends in a row where we were gone.  You can see all of the awesome Yellowstone pictures here.  Start with day one and work your way out from there :-)

The second to last day at Yellowstone I got a call from 3M.  They wanted me to come in for an interview!  Most of the people who know me know that I had been very unhappy at my job for the last year or so.  My job hit an all time low in July where I had a horrible manufacturing run that ended with much emotional upset; I almost quite my job on the spot.

I had to step back and take a few deep breaths (like a million of them) and I decided to try and hold out until I had another job.  But it was definitely time to start looking for a new job.  When you dread going to work every morning something is not right.

Things actually were getting better in August/September.  My manager was removed from the project and the team lead left; the people that replaced them were doing an excellent job of trying to straighten out the whole mess.

Still the call from 3M was like a god-send for me.  I meet with the people at 3M the Wednesday after I got back from Yellowstone.  I had a great time at the interview, I liked the people and they were looking for someone to do exactly the type of work I love to do.  About five hours after the interview they called to offer me the job, a few hours later I had a formal offer.  They meet my pay and vacation requirements no problem.  It was a bit of a whirlwind but I was sooo excited.

Needless to say I was incredibly busy trying to get things finished up at my old work and get all the legal/drug check stuff done for 3M.  I just finished my first week there and it was wonderful.  The people are easy to work with, they love what they are working on, and they all seem to truly love the company.  The stuff I am working on is incredibly interesting (although a bit overwhelming...there is so much I need to learn) and the resources to do that work are amazing.

The first thing the lab manager told me was that the company is structured so that we can all succeed and do our jobs well....I was like what?  Coming from a company that does forced ranking and seems to set its employees up for failure this is a big deal.  Getting support from your company and having it make your life easier is a foreign concept to me at this point.  The benefits 3M offer are fantastic and definitely set up to make your life easier.

So I've been pretty excited.  Then things got even more exciting.  Lyle got a job offer for a permanent full time position at SureScripts; he will make nearly as much as he did contracting and he gets full benefits and 4 weeks of vacation!  So, needless to say he accepted the position.  He starts on the 31st of this month.

A lot of changes.  All of them have been good ones.  Still it's been tumultuous, it's hard to leave your old work and jump into something completely new...I think it will really pay off in the end though.  Keegan has heard more about benefits and pay then any four year old should ever have to deal with in the last couple weeks but he's been sweet about it all.

My first day Keegan was worried that I wouldn't know anybody and that I would be sad.  I explained that I would meet new people and make new friends and that it was great to get a chance to do that.  Then when I saw him that night the first thing he did was ask me how everything went.  He is such a thoughtful boy at times :-)

I never thought things could get even better for us.  We have been so lucky to have steady jobs and a healthy family.  Then suddenly things are getting even better.  It is so wonderful to be working on something exciting again...of course this is the Honeymoon period of my job...so we will see how I feel about it in a few months :-)

Hope all is well with you guys too!

Aednoid Removal

Well it will only be August for one more day, so I better get a post up quick :-)

It's been an eventful month.  Lots of camping.  Lots of going to the beach.

Eventually I'll get pictures up. Until then words will have to do.

Keegan got his Adenoid Glands a couple weeks ago.  He had a lot of trouble with strep throat earlier this year and when we went into the ENT the ENT mentioned Keegan mouth breathed a lot.  The poor kid also snored a lot.  After looking at his tonsils and Adenoids the ENT recommended removing the Adenoids because they were huge (said his tonsils were fine though). So I finally had a lull in travel and we decided to get Kee back into the ENT to schedule his Adenoid removal.

To our surprise they had room in the schedule to do the surgery the upcoming Monday.  I was probably more nervous about it than Keegan. The surgery went well.  Immediately after surgery there was a lot of crying on Keegan's part.  He got pain meds but they made him puke.  The surgery was at 7:30am and we were all miserable until dinner time.  I finally told Kee I wasn't giving him any more pain meds outside of Tylenol because I was sick of watching him puke his guts out.  Which pissed him off, but then he ate some dinner, took some Tylenol, kept everything down and was a brand new happy boy.

He got tired easily for a couple days after that.  He stayed home with me the day after the surgery and then on Wed was back to school.  He was really dragging by the time I picked him up on Wednesday, but by Thursday he was better.  By Friday he wasn't complaining about his throat hurting at all. The ENT put him on antibiotics and that was making his tummy a bit sick.

Finally late last week he was off of the antibiotics and since then his stomach has been fine.  You also can't hear him breathing all the time anymore and he isn't snoring.  The Tuesday after the surgery he woke up and told me "Mom, it finally feels like my nose isn't all stuffed up."  It is weird for us because you can't hear him breathing over the monitor anymore, so we can never tell when he finally goes to sleep...

So overall we are glad we did the surgery.  The recovery wasn't horrible and he is much happier for having it done.  The only bad side effect is that he is getting up earlier than normal; I think this is because he is sleeping so much better over night.  But he gets up at 5:30am and plays for a while and that is fine (we get up at 6am usually anyway).

Below is a pic of him getting ready for surgery.  They let him choose a new stuffed animal to bring in with him; he chose the kitty pictured below.  Overall it was a decent experience.  Keegan was a lot like me coming out of anesthesia, lots of crying and a bit pain in the butt...we got through it though and he is much happier and less tired.

4th of July

We had a great 4th of July this year.  We were lucky enough to have friends and family come and join us for a party at our house.  We had a great time and shot off a lot of fireworks.  You can see all of the fun below!

Sadly Gma Lucy and Gpa Larry weren't able to come up from Florida to join us this year.  Gpa Larry is undergoing chemo for colon cancer.  So everyone send happy thoughts their way!  We are hoping the treatments go well and aren't to difficult or painful.  They were definitely missed!

You can see some of the pics below.  It was a lot of fun; of course Keegan was the life of the party just like he usually is.

The Party started inside, with the play room being a main source of entertainment!

We ate lots of food, watch some dolphin movie, and talked.

Then it was time to go outside and get wet (at least if you were Keegan)

Even Everett joined in on all the fun...while his mom and dad relaxed in the sun :-)

Lyle organized his stash of fireworks in anticipation of the soon to set sun.

Keegan ninja fought smoke bombs.

Even some baby swallows got in on the action.  You can see one of the chicks chirping for its mom.

What a great looking group.  Hard to believe that Gpa Ralph is almost 90!  He doesn't look like he's out of his 70's :-)

After smoke bombs it was on to lawn darts...Keegan's way.  Who knew you could turn the lawn dart target into a whip for Captain America?

Cate and Chris took in all the action as we got closer and closer to the sun being down....

Keegan does his sweet pose for the camera while waiting to start the "big" fireworks!

Then we started on the big ones!  Guess who was really excited???

It was a great time and fun to see everyone.  Hope you all had a great 4th of July also!

Soccer!

Keegan just finished up soccer for the summer.  He had a lot of fun especially since his best friend from school, Jared, ended up being on his team.  See below for some pics of the boy doing his thing!

Getting ready to play soccer.

Still waiting for Soccer to start.

This is so much fun.

Keegan is the one with the cone on his ear, Jared is the one with the cone on his head.  Guess they are bored.

Now they both have cones on their heads....

Click to watch video.

Keegan and his friend Jared after the final soccer session.

Keegan with his soccer trophy.

Keegan asked why he got a soccer trophy and I told him it was because he did a good job.  He looked at me and then said "Well, mom everyone got one."  I said "You all did a good job."  Keegan handed me the trophy and said "Well it's not that special then is it."

Uh, okay...well I guess he is kind of right.  It's like those participation ribbons I used to get in gymnastics...nice but not all that special.  Whatever, at least he had a great time playing soccer!

Behind again

So this weekend we went camping up at Bear Head Lake State Park.  Despite the occasional thunderstorms blowing through it was a lot of fun.  We took walks, boat rides, naps, and ate lots of Dairy Queen.  Maybe not the best for the body, but my mind enjoyed the break.

I have pics of our New York Trip, Kee's final hockey session, Lyle's Birthday and the last two camping trips at home on the computer.  I will try to make it a priority to get all those darn pictures online some time this week.

I did get wonderful news last week; I do not have to fly out to our plant for work this month!  This news made my week and means I will spend a full month at home...the first in a very long time...I think since December or something like that.

I've also been having a bit of a tooth deal going.  During my last trip to the plant I cracked a tooth; probably from grinding my teeth (which I do when stressed).  Went in to have the dentist look at it on Thursday and I needed a crown.  The whole thing sucks because I have very good teeth, this is the first major thing I have ever had happen to them. 

Then things got worse when the Novocain wouldn't work...seriously the dentist shot me up with Novocain like eight times and then put me on nitrous oxide.  I still jumped when she would hit this nerve in my tooth...it just wouldn't go numb and hurt horribly when ever she tried to drill that part of the tooth.  So she drilled about a quarter of it out, epoxied it or something and wants me to come back this afternoon to finish drilling.  I was at the dentist office for like 3 hours and am really not looking forward to the appointment this afternoon.  She was worried I might need a root canal and I have heard that is so not fun.  I am not totally clear on what happened because the nitrous oxide zapped me out pretty good.

So I am really really hoping the drilling goes better this afternoon and I can just get this crown on and be done with it.  Or maybe they can just knock me out or sedate me or something; I wish there was someway to have this done without me having to be present and conscious.

All that fun aside, I am going to try to get some posts up about camping...birthday...etc.  Hope you are all doing well.

Ramping up for yet more fun...

This weekend Lyle and I will be in NYC.  We've never been there and hope to see a lot of great sites Sat to Monday.  Then on Tuesday we will be attending BEA (Book Expo of America): I'll be covering that adventure on my book blog.

The general craziness has continued.  I was at the plant in Oregon again last week.  Then got back and we picked up our boat and finally got that in the lake.  So could we calm things down for a bit?  Of course not.

We fly out to NYC this week and then get back for a couple days.  After that it is up north to go camping over Memorial Day weekend.  Then back home for a few days and then I will be out at the plant again for a week.

I swear I feel like I am at home less than 50% of the month some times.  It is fun but exhausting...okay well the work trips aren't exactly fun...but I am a Platinum member of Choice Hotels now and I get free airline tickets a lot so that is nice.

We still haven't gotten the canoe out this year.  We have done lots of bike rides with Keegan on his tag-along bike.  I will have to post some pics of that at some point.

Keegan is done with hockey for now and still has a couple sessions of swimming left.  Then in June he starts soccer.  After soccer he has informed me he wants to do karate with mommy.  So the boy's got plans.

Everyone in the family has been doing well.  It looks like Lyle's contract is going to be renewed at Medtronic so that is nice.  There have been some sniffles and sneezing from occasional allergies but other than that we have been surprisingly healthy.  (I suddenly feel a need to knock on wood)

Hope that you all are doing well.  I still have yet to post pics from our first camping trip...hope to get around to that in a couple weeks.

Keegan Quote of the Day:

We were debating what to have for dinner while Lyle was at the hospital visiting his stepbrother.  Keegan's input was this:

"Well mom, you know me.  I am kind of a sprinkles and frosting type of guy."

Happy Mother's Day!

Okay I know it is not quite Mother's Day but I plan on doing other fun things on Mother's Day, so I will say Happy Mother's Day right now :-)

This brings to mind last Mother's Day.  I had been having to travel a lot to the plant (which I am still doing and just seems to be my lot in life right now).  I got home late on a Friday and was kind of bummed about it all.  When I walked in the door I was greeted with the below:

Yep that says "I Love Mom" written out in Duplos...  It was so geeky and so sweet.  I love my family :-)

For this Mother's Day weekend we got plans.  Saturday is yard work, then going to Free Comic Book Day at the Source (I am so excited!!!  I can't decide which one I want...I love Locke and Key and am really looking forward to the Jack of Dreaming one, and then there are the neat ones for Keegan), then to pick up the boat, then meet my parents for dinner and hopefully go see Thor at the movie theater. 

For Sunday we have plans to hit the Outlet mall (my Mother's Day present) and then meet up with the rest of the family for dinner.

It should be a lot of fun and I am really looking forward to it :-)

Hope that you all have an excellent Mother's Day too!

using lyle's new r

Stuff

Okay so this blog has been very lame lately.  I apologize.  Of course we have a lot going on.  Also my book blog karissabooks.blogspot.com is going really well; over 500+ followers!  So...uh...I've been spending most of my time on that...

We do have a lot going on though.  Keegan is playing hockey now and is also in swimming lessons.  He keeps bugging me about when he can start karate and soccer.  So when he is done with hockey he will have a month of soccer and then we will talk about the karate.  He likes to do things, lots of things.  But constantly complains he doesn't get enough time to play and then constantly complains he wants to do more sports.  Ah, well, he is four.

I have missed a lot of big things, so here's a partial recap.

Keegan's Birthday

Keegan had a great birthday.  He had a lot of his friends over to pump it up for a party and they had a great time.  Thanks to everyone who came and for all the great presents.

 These are the kids we could get to sit still for a picture.

For some video of the jumping go here

There was much present opening and eating of cake.

All pics can be found here.

Swimming with the Dolphins:
We finally got some pics up of us getting to interact with the dolphin in the Bahamas.
I will be posting the video of it later.  Lots of fun; definitely something cool to do with the kids if you ever get a chance to.

Kissing the Dolphin

Family Dolphin Pic

Keegan Starting Hockey:
Keegan was very excited for this and really seems to enjoy it.  The sessions are kind of long for him (a whole hour) but he has fun and really is getting to be a better skater.

The Hockey Player Himself getting ready to go out on the ice.

Learning How to Shoot

Look Mom I Made a Goal!

For all hockey pics go here.


Refinished Our Bedroom:
We refinished our bedroom in January too.  This involved pulling up the carpet, repainting, and then laying down a hardwood floor.  It looks really nice.  I don't have a before picture, but here's what it looked like after.

 

We Also Went to the Mirror Maze at the Mall of America:

That was actually pretty cool.  We were worried it would be lame.  But it is very well done and actually quite a bit of fun.

So...what are we doing right now?  Well we are trying to find a hardback travel trailer to replace our pop-up camper.  We do so much camping that we think it would be nice to have something with A/C and a toilet.  So we've been looking around for one of those.

I am still doing a lot of traveling for work.  I keep hoping it will slow down but it hasn't really.  

Lyle and I will be taking a trip to NYC mid-May.  It is both for his birthday and so that I can attend BEA (Book Expo of America).  I am excited to attend BEA, it will be my first time there and I am going as Press for my blog.  I am super excited to meet some of my fellow bloggers and some of the publishers I've been working with.

We are also trying to plan a trip to Yellowstone Park sometime in September.  Haven't really done much for it yet but we are excited to go see geysers!

Other than that just normal stuff.  Trying to get the lawn cleaned up for spring, getting the boat back in the lake, Lyle's contract is up in June so he is looking for a new one, Keegan is going to daycare and doing his activities...then we have our first camping trip next weekend.  So, just normal stuff.  We keep pretty darn busy and never seem to have enough time, but we sure do have a lot of fun!

Here Comes Science...

Funny little story.  We are sitting in the car listening to Here Comes Science by They Might Be Giants. The following rousing rock chorus is being sung:

"The sun is a mass of incandescent gas."

Lyle is shaking his head.  Then the following conversation ensues; while Keegan is in back "reading" his hockey magazine and belting out the chorus line above.

Me: What's wrong?
Lyle: The sun isn't made of gas it's made of plasma.
Me: Well maybe they couldn't think of anything to rhyme with plasma.
Lyle: Miasma rhymes with plasma.
Me: (rolling my eyes)
Lyle: What?! It does.

Then the songs ends and the next song starts up.
"The sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma.  Don't listen to what we told you before."

I die laughing. 
Me:  You've listened to this CD before.
Lyle: (shakes his head) Wow, that is just weird. 
Me: It's like they read your mind.
Lyle:  I guess great minds think alike.

I could not believe that they were signing about miasma rhyming with plasma; I mean come on what are the chances.  It was just absolutely unbelievable.

Anyway it is an awesome CD, if you have kids check it out.  I mean where else to they sign a song about chemical elements where "Elephants are made of elements".  The teacher was pretty impressed at daycare when Keegan told her we are all mainly made out of Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen, and Oxygen.  Lots of fun songs on here ranging from chemistry, to space, to electric cars, to paleontologists.

Cooking while working full-time

So I came across this article and it struck me as interesting and practical.

I know cooking good meals was tough for Lyle and I before we had Keegan, and now it is even tougher.  Now instead of getting the Vegetarian (or chicken) that I crave along with the meat Lyle loves I have to consider the wants of Keegan (4 year old food sensibilities) as well.  I have to do this all in the two hours we have together each night before Keegan's bed time, get all the housework done, and would like to have time to play with Keegan as well.

I shouldn't say I...because Lyle does just as much as I do.  Still, there are occasionally nights when Lyle and I get home, look into each other eyes, look at Keegan, and say "How about a pizza night?!"

We are pretty lucky in that we make enough money that we can go out to eat a few times a week.  With only one kid it's not too hard.  Then everyone can be happy.  I can order a nice salad, Lyle can get meat, and Keegan can get his chicken nuggets and fruit.  Still even that takes time.  So most nights we try to make something for dinner that doesn't take more than 10-15 minutes to make.

What does that mean?  Well it means most of our meats are frozen and many are packaged/processed.  Is that bad?  Not necessarily.  We stick to chicken and fish.  That includes such dubious items as fish nuggets (which actually taste much better and are healthier than you would guess) and chicken hot dogs (again much healthier than the traditional version).  It also includes frozen raviolis and chicken taquitos; things like that. 

Could we make tastier stuff ourselves?  Possibly.  But I personally have never been a fan of cooking.  Friends tell me that chemists love to cook!  I guess since I stand in a lab all day doing formulation work by the time I get home I just want to sit down and eat.  I do not want to spend another 30 minutes standing over the stove, doing yet more lab (albeit kitchen) work.

Unfortunately even if you make healthier processed foods for dinner, there are downfalls.  The healthier options generally cost more and are harder to find.  We have been lucky that the Super Target we shop at prides itself in healthier options.  So I can find much healthier options there (chicken and turkey hot dogs) than I can at more traditional grocery stores.  Still they are more pricey than traditional options.

The other thing we do with side items is to just keep it simple.  Having a four year old means picky eating.  Keegan hates vegetables with a passion I will never understand, but he loves fruit of all types.  For veggies we eat them raw and dip in ranch sauce (Keegan loves ranch so sometimes he will fold).  I also keep many varieties of fruits around.  Keegan will eat any type of fruit and loves them all.  More calories than veggies but similar nutrients.  I have also taken to buying the veggie/fruit baby food mixes in foil pouches.  Keegan loves slurping the "smoothies" out of them and how else am I going to get him to eat a full serving of broccoli, pumpkin, or sweet potatoes?  He slurps up these mixtures and really enjoys them, I feel good because he is actually getting vegetables.

Then there is the sinking feeling you get after spending 20 minutes making tacos for your family because your preschooler requested them and then having him decide he absolutely will not eat them.  We've pretty much remedied that too.  I keep a supply of low-sugar yogurt and cheese sticks in the fridge.  If Keegan turns his nose up at taco meat, I say fine go have yogurt and fruit for dinner.  He gets his protein and calcuin, as well as important nutrient from fruits.  I can think of worse dinners to have than yogurt and fruit.

So, all in all I have been pretty happy with how we control meals at our house.  Many of the prepared frozen items are actually healthier than ones I would make by scratch, everyone in the family will eat them, and they are quick to cook.  We keep things simple; fruits and vegetables are usually eaten raw with occasional dipping sauces.  Generally it works out pretty well.  There isn't a lot of junk food around (although neither Lyle or Keegan can live without their weekly dose of Sun Chips).

Still occasionally we have those nights and last night was one of them.  We got home realized we were out of dog food and that I needed to stop by my parents to get something.  It was beautiful out and sunny and Keegan asked if we could go to Dairy Queen.  Lyle was ready to make dinner on the grill but time just wasn't going to allow for it.  So...we went to Dairy Queen and indulged in greasiness and saltiness.  It happens...not all the time but maybe once every other week or so...   Well we are just human after all, and every once in a while you need a little bit of ice cream and a big juicy burger :-)

My..ami

A couple weeks ago we took Kee on his first cruise.  It was a 4-night Bahaman cruise and great fun.  On the way there though we had a bit of a mis-communication with Keegan.  The boat left out of Miami. 

Keegan: "What city are we in?"
Me: "Miami"
Keegan: "Is Your-ami in Florida?"
Lyle: "No the name of the city is Mi-ami."
Keegan: "No daddy you are wrong is it Mommy's-ami."
Me: "Nope the city's name is Miami, even if you say it, it is Miami."
Keegan: "but where is Your-ami?"

He finally got the hang it but it took awhile.  You can see all of the pictures for the trip here.

I got dreadfully seasick the first day at sea; weird because that's never happened to me before.  But by the second day I was better.  The first day we spent at Key West.  We went on a trolley tour, went to the Sunken Ship Museum, and went on a tour of their Aquarium.  The Trolley tour was nifty, the Sunken Ship Museum pretty lame (except for the walk up to the watch tower), and the Aquarium was small but neat since we got to watch them feed the sting rays and sharks and then got to pet a baby shark.  Did you know shark's feel like sandpaper?

 

Keegan in Front of the Sunken Ship Museum Leaning on a Cannon

 

Spongehead Keegan outside of the Key West Aquarium

The first night on the cruise ship we found the Aquanauts kid's area and signed Keegan up for the kid's program.  We felt a little guilty leaving him there but he had a great time.  It was a great program.  He got to play with other kids his age for a couple hours and do stuff he thought was fun, while Lyle and I got to go sit in the lounge and listen to musicians and relax.  The second night was pirate night.  The kids got to dress up as pirates and parade across the stage for the main show, then they went on a scavenger hunt throughout the ship.  Below is a picture of our little pirate...

The second day we went to Nassau, this was our big dolphin excursion.  Swimming with the dolphins was spectacular.  We did it at Blue Lagoon Island and they did an absolutely fantastic job.  It was a once in a lifetime type of thing (of course, we will probably try to do it again sometime because we had so much fun).  I have to scan in the dolphin pics later, but below are some pics of our boat ride to the island.

Coming back from Blue Lagoon Island.

After that we went to Senor Frogs and had dinner/partied.  Keegan danced like crazy in the dancing area and there were funny hats for all.

Lyle with the silly hat.

Outside of Senior Frogs

The next day was Coco Cay.  There we did a glass bottom boat tour (which was kind of lame and long) and had a lot of fun playing in the ocean and on the beach.

The beautiful beach.

 

Looking at a peppercorn snail on the glass bottom boat.

The next day we were back in Miami and we took a Fanboat through the everglades.  We saw lots of alligators and had a great time zooming through the Everglades on that fanboat...those things can really whip across the water.  Definitely something fun to do if you can.

 One of the many Alligators we saw

Keegan and I sitting on a fan boat.

Overall it was a fun trip and it was very nice to hang out in some weather that was in the 70's and sunny.  We have really been missing going to the beach over the winter and can't wait until it warms up.  The highlights were probably the fanboat tour and the dolphin excursion.  Lots of fun was had by all :-)

The other funny thing Keegan kept asking about were tsunamis, he wanted to know all about those.  Except he kept saying Salami.  At one point he asked someone if the island ever got hit by giant salamis...  It was very hard to not start laughing at him...