Happy birthday to me

A lot has happened since my last post so I'll try to cover it here.

The neighborhood progressive party was on January 24. It was a lot of fun. The brown's were the first house of the evening. They also offered to have their older kids watch everyone else's kids for the evening. Rachel and A.J. had fun playing with the other kids. Helen and I had a good time going from house to house. I left to pick up the kids at 9:00 and ended up going to bed after I put the kids to bed.

It snowed on the 27th and 28th. The kids didn't have school either day. You know that they enjoyed that. The snow was too dry to build anything with, but Rachel made a snowman on Thursday the 29th.

Helen and and did not do a big anniversary celebration. She just picked me up for lunch and we went to Dewey's Pizza. I did manage to ride home from work without getting hit by a car this year.

Saturday the 31st was a busy day for the kids. Helen took Rachel and A.J. to the Science Center in the morning. After they got back I took Rachel to sell girl scout cookies. A.J. can with us too. In the evening Helen took Rachel to a sock-hop. It was a Hawaiian themed dance at the school. Rachel won a prize for being the girl with the best costume.

On Sunday it warmed up quite a bit. It was close to 50 degrees. Rachel's snowman melted enough to fall over so she tried to carve an igloo out of the base. That didn't work so I decide to build one. We have a plastic container that is designed to make snow bricks with. We had never used it before. The snow was very wet so it packed down very well. Rachel and A.J. both ended up helping me. It was weird because all of us were wearing gloves and none of us were wearing coats. I was a little worried that it would collapse before I finished but it ended up being pretty strong. It was only big enough for one of the kids to go into at a time but I think most of the fun was in building it.

I started getting a cold during the week. I ended up staying home from work on Wednesday and Friday (and should have stayed home on Thursday as well). The next weekend (Feb 7 and 8) had nice weather too.

On Saturday we went to Powder Valley Conservation Nature Center. I wasn't really up to doing much but I knew that if I didn't go, A.J. would want to stay home too. He's a home-body by inclination so I like to encourage him to do things like this. He usually has fun once he gets to an activity. Sometimes it's just hard to convince him to go. The trail that we ended up walking was only 1.2 miles but it was very hilly. We saw robins, chipmunks, and deer. A.J. was pretty tired by the end. After the walk we went into the nature center. I had been there before but I had never gone through the whole thing. Rachel ended up dragging me all over the place. It's actually very impressive. The kids would probably have liked to stay even longer but I was ready to go home.

On Sunday, Helen took Rachel and one one of Rachel's friends to the Botanical Gardens. The boys (A.J. and I) stayed home. Actually we decided to walk to Jack in the Box for lunch. A.J. was very proud that he didn't stop to rest on on the way there or the way back. It's a bout a mile each way so that's actually an impressive feat for a five year old. Since Rachel wasn't there he got to walk at his own pace and I think that helped.

Monday was my birthday but I didn't do anything very exciting. We just had a quiet dinner home. I did ride home in the rain and get a flat tire though. Even that wasn't too bad since it was sixty degrees.

Today I went back to my hand surgeon. I've been having pain in my thumb since the accident even though there were no broken bones in the thumb. The doctor diagnosed it as osteoarthritis. He gave me a splint to wear when it is bothering me and suggested Alleve. There's not much he can really do.