Saturday, February 20, 2010

Saturday Tennis Lessons

Richard's favorite sport is tennis. He loves to play it, to watch it, and hopes that some day his children will enjoy it also. All of the boys like to go and play around with a racket and ball and we try to get out and play when ever we can.


Nathan would probably be decent for his age but he gets too frustrated and upset so he gives up. We are working on that.


Josh does well but is still too young to be really interested. This day he just wanted to play ballboy.
I didn't get a picture of Randy but he does pretty well. He has expressed interest in joining the school tennis team next year so I think he and Richard will keep working on it.


When the little boys get bored, we go over and play in a nearby park.



It was a lovely day and we had a very nice time together.

Good Bye Disneyland


We have had year passes to Disneyland on and off for a while now and this past week our latest passes expired. The day before they did though, was a day off for me and the kids so we decided to go to Disneyland one last time. I was expecting to have a good time just relaxing and riding some of our favorite rides. It turned out to be one of our stranger visit to Disneyland.


Now I know that my boys are really too old to be using strollers and that they are both old enough to walk but we still brought our stroller to make things easier and faster. We started out our visit playing around Disney's California Adventure. After going by a few areas, we parked our stroller in front of the Monsters Inc. ride and went in. Richard didn't have the day off but was joining us at the park after work. He called while we were in line and I told him where we were. He started over to meet us and asked were the stroller was. I told him and the boys and I rode the ride.


We got off the ride and I looked around for Richard and the stroller. Neither were in sight. We wait around for a little while and Richard comes walking up to us, without the stroller. Where's the stroller? He hadn't been able to find it and it's not were I parked it with all of the other strollers on the side. We look around for a while but still can't find it. We ask a couple of Disney cast members (employees) and they let us know that we can make a report and ask if we would like to do so. We say sure.


After being passed from the Monsters Inc. ride greeters to a Mumpets 3D greeter to a park mini-security person we meet John, from a little town in Scotland, lives just a few miles from us in Lakewood, really nice guy and official park security. He escorts us quickly to the lost and found, helps us make an official report, and then takes us over to the stroller rental where we pick up a couple of complementary Disney strollers to use while we finish our night.
Quick side note, we have used the Disney rental strollers before but I had forgotten how much I loved them. They are the best. We looked up once how much the regular sell-to-the-public ones cost. Super expensive.
We spent the rest of the night going between the two parks, trying to get all of our favorite rides in. I didn't get my bowl of clam chowder (it was too cold to eat outside) but we did get Josh his custom-made light saber that we were supposed to get him for his birthday.


John tried to be positive for us and let us know that sometimes people take other people's strollers but then just use them for the night and leave them in the park. The park employees eventually find them, bring them to lost and found and everything works out. He said he had even know of a case were a stroller was taken with a camera, wallet, and souvenirs and the whole thing showed up later, with everything still there. It didn't work out that way for us. Almost a week later and nothing. We didn't lose much, just our old sit-n-stand that we got when Josh was born. It was four years old and well used. The only thing in it was my sweatshirt. But it was my Minnie Mouse sweatshirt that I had bought for myself my last birthday. And we hope to have another baby some day and wanted to keep the stroller in case we do. Ugh. A bad way to say good bye to Disneyland until the next time we want to spend a bunch of money on passes.
You want to know the kicker? After our last ride, the rockets in Tomorrowland, we went to get our complementary strollers and head out when we discovered that someone had swiped one of them. Nathan walked out of the park.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Nathan's New Smile

Poor Nathan has been having some dozy dentist appointments lately. Last November/ December when we had our regular checkups, the dentist discovered three cavities. We had them take care of them and I was really proud of well he did with his first cavities.
Fast forward a couple months and Nathan is still complaining about his teeth. Richard takes a look in his mouth and sees what looks like an abscess. Richard found a new dentist and I took Nathan by for a check up. Apparently, two of the fillings fell out and one of the cavities started growing again. Nathan had a huge infection, which, even after a week of antibiotics, was still going strong when they pulled it out last week. After pulling the tooth, the area drained out and the infection was basically taken care of then. It was NOT fun for Nathan and I ended up buying him a new video game to make up for it.
Yesterday's appointment was better but Nathan was still understandably nervous. The took care of another cavity, sealed his molars, took a mold for the spacer he will need for the missing tooth, and pulled his two front teeth which were being stubborn on coming out. He did a really good job and Francisco (the amazingly wonderful hygienist in the office) made sure he got plenty of stickers.
So here is Nathan's new smile. Glad he can smile about it all.