Some Pwards...

First off I know that I really left ya'll in a lurch last week wondering why in the world Jack made a trip to the ER. I apologize. I had really hoped to have a couple minutes to update that but it never happened. Please forgive me!

Last Sunday after church I noticed that Jack had a rash all over. Not sure what it was about. He was slightly itchy but otherwise fine. No big deal to me. That night after we put him to bed he slept for about an hour then woke up screaming. We snuggled him on the couch for another hour then went to put him to bed. I decided, finally (not sure why it took me so long to do this...), to give him Benedryl. I discovered that I didn't have any infant Benedryl so I called the triage nurses at our pediatrician's office to ask how much to give him.

As the nurse was calculating the dose she was asking me questions about Jack. Then she asked if he was coughing. I said yes and that it had started that night. Then she was quite for a moment. She asked how far away I was from the hospital. I told her 10 minutes and then she said for me to give him the Benedryl and then get in the car and go to the ER. I asked why. She said that he could possibly be experiencing anaphylactic shock. Allergic reaction combined with coughing is serious! She said if I waited and then he stopped breathing I'd have to call the ambulance. I decided that even though I hadn't been concerned up to this point about how he was doing it would be good to obey her. So I did.

Basically we were at the ER for an hour and a half. They saw him, weren't too terribly concerned that he was in shock although they did check him out. He was obviously having a reaction so they gave him a steroid to make sure that his lungs stayed clear. That was it. It was overall OK. Scary for a moment but in the end he was just fine. Just itchy. Very itchy.

So he gets the Pward for most drama on an otherwise peaceful Sunday night!

As for other awards - hopefully I can catch you up on some of our other adventures at the same time.

This Pward goes to the ladies of the house with the most beautiful matching toes....

Of course! Kate and I! Like the sparkly pink polish? I love it!
(how's that for random and somehow squeezing this cute picture of our little piggys into a very random blog?)

This award goes to the person, or persons, who jumped the most on a hot day inside a bouncy house.

The Pward goes to.....

the Palmer children! These kids jumped and jumped and jumped and jumped and jumped during the River Run for Orphans. They adore the bouncy house and I'm sure I'd be the greatest mom in the whole world if I bought them one. Yeah so not gonna happen.

This award goes to the cheesiest, goofiest, fakest stretchers....

And the Pward goes to....

Mark and his friend Mark (yes I'm serious. They're both named Mark.) Here they are "stretching" for the race.

This award belongs to the person with the most fake tattoos applied in one short hour.

And the Pward goes to....

Kale! He has 5 total on his arms. I hear they're addicting. You get one and keep going.Runners up are Kate

and Jack with his first ever tattoo (OK so they didn't have very many but they're stinkin' cute)

The next Pward goes to the one Palmer who ran without being chased (and you can bet it was not me!). And ran for a good cause. And it goes to.....

Mark! Notice the happy smile and the wave. Yeah it was the beginning of the race :)

And here's his time...definitely not bad for a first timer. He was awesome. Tired but awesome.

This Pward goes to the sweaty, stinky men who finished the race.

You guessed it!

Mark and Mark. OK they really weren't all that bad. I just had to harass them.

And my final award of the day goes to the child with the craziest little mind and goofiest sense of humor - at least for this day.

And the Pward goes to....

Jack. Notice the bucket on his head.

That's all for today. So much more to update you on but only a few moments at a time to blog it!

Animas Forks Field Trip

Just one of the crazy things we've been up to lately....

Our homeschool group went on a field trip a couple weeks ago to Animas Forks, Colorado. This little "ghost town" is just outside Silverton. It took us almost 2 hours to get there from Durango. Silverton is only an hour but then the rough, bumpy road we took to Animas Forks was slow going!

But it was worth it. The scenery was gorgeous. The buildings were really neat to walk through. And the company was a blast. Here are some of the lovely pictures from our adventure.

Here are the kids that came that day (not our whole school group though) playing on a playground while we stopped to use the bathrooms.
Ashley, Kale, Jack, Ruthie, Drew, Benen, Anna and Kate (missing Chris)

The first house to explore.

Original newspaper they used to insulate the walls. So cool!

Can you imagine looking out your window to this view every morning?!

My lovely daughter

Some of the chaperons ;)

We all had to try out the indoor outhouse

The whole group.

top row: Jo, Sommer, me, Kim

front row: Anna, Kate, Kale, Jack, Drew, Ruthie, Benen, Ashley and Chris

This is the view from the big house (totally didn't get a picture of it)

Happy siblings....for now

Thought this view of Kate was hilarious!

Our staged picture of Jack. Surprisingly he never actually fell into one of the many, many holes in the floors. I had some amazing helpers watching Jack!

The kids were fascinated with a Jeep that drove up. It had huge wheels. Ya know like a monster truck...or so they thought.

The colors were just beginning to change. I still thought they were beautiful. Kinda like a quilt on the side of the mountain.

You can bet there's more to come! Maybe some Pwards....

What to say?

I've probably come to the computer a dozen times - each time for about 5 minutes (cause that's all I can spare at the moment) - ready to write something funny, witty, entertaining, thought-provoking, enlightening etc...and I leave with nada.

Today might be no different but I thought I'd at least make excuses for myself. Ya see I've got to blog about the River Run for Orphans that Mark ran this weekend. I've got to tell ya'll about how Kale turned our house into his own Home Depot store complete with departments and signs. I've got to tell you about our trip to the ER on Sunday night with Jack as well as his 2nd birthday last week sometime. I've got to update you on Kate and her life. But ya see....here's what I am doing....

We are in the process of packing up 60% of our house in order to get new carpet installed next week. And as you know, when you do one house project it inevitably leads to 3 more. And that is true for us. We will be redoing the kitchen floor as well as the dining room floor and painting our bedroom because I can NOT paint on new carpet. We are also getting all new windows and doors. This leads us to putting a sliding door in where there are 2 windows and then building a deck so that you don't drop 3 feet when you walk out the new door. And we are doing this all now that we have 9 years of equity to use...finally! And trying desperately to get it done before it gets stinkin' cold outside.

We are also busy going on vacation (Labor Day as you've already experienced), going to San Diego in 2 weeks for a sweet friend's wedding, homeschooling, going to occupational therapy for Kate 3 days a week, as well as packing up our house, living in Home Depot and jaunting from one Dr appt to another (stinkin' vaccines!). So. That is why you get this 5 (OK maybe 10) minute post of excuses with no pictures. I apologize and promise that in the future I will make things right by you and make this blog worthy of your reading time :) Until then? Well I don't even know what to say. I guess...wait?! :)

Have you ever...

...sat THIS close to the action at a baseball game?! Me neither. That is until last week! My dad got 4 tickets from a friend to the Rockies/Reds game and asked if Mark and I would like to go. It meant staying one extra day in Denver and leaving the next day at 5:30am but it was soooooo worth it!

First we got to park in a lot right across from the stadium. Then we went in a special entrance, rode an elevator up to the clubhouse and were greeted by 5 hostesses who sat us at table 37 :) We had, basically, an all you can eat dinner of fish, chicken, roast beef, cheese-steak sandwiches, nachos, hot dogs, brats, fruit bar and salad bar and of course desserts! It was amazing. Mark was in heaven!

After dinner we went out the umpire's entrance and we were escorted to our seats. Throughout the game there was a waiter who came every inning to see if we wanted anything. We had a menu of stuff we could order. Hot dogs, nachos, ice cream, candy, popcorn, peanuts, jalapeno poppers, soda, liquor etc.....All part of the tickets! (except the alcohol - you pay extra for that) Even though we'd had a fabulous meal you couldn't help but order stuff off the menu. It was so fun!

Here are a few pictures of our amazing game!

Seriously close to the action!
Rockies dugout
Tulo!

Me and my mama

Me and my mister - notice the Bird Man from the Nuggets in the background {left of Mark's shoulder - the guy with the spiked hair and tattoos}. He was 4 seats over from us.

My parents and ticket share-ers. {we were 4 seats away from the visitor's dugout}

Mark took this cool shot of a gorgeous sunset over the field.

Dinger.

One last shot of the field. Not likely to get this close again...So awesome.

Estes Park/ Day 4

Day 4 was Julie's 30th birthday. Alisha decorated the house and her door -very sweet- and brought party hats.

Here is Jack showing off his party hat.

And here's the beautiful birthday girl herself.

Kale and Chad

Doug, Kate and Alisha

Me and the sweet princess

The birthday girl and her man

The silly crew. Note Doug's "bonnet"

After breakfast the family went on a hike. 3.4 miles to be exact. Ask Kale :) He apparently hiked the whole time without complaint {thanks to chocolate and the promise of more chocolate at the end...} Still very proud of him!

Kate, Jack and I stayed home. Like I said yesterday, Kate had had enough. And honestly I see why. We definitely pushed her limit of what she could handle and we paid for it. It was sad and frustrating but in the end we had a good time relaxing at home. We all needed it I guess.

The hike was good. Windy but good I heard. Here's Kale in front of Nymph Lake.

And here's Mark posing Kale. Kale took the picture.

The hiking crew. Doug, Kale, Mark, Mike, Julie, Chad and Margie in front. Alisha must have been taking the picture.

3 Palmer boys - excuse me -Palmer men.

Doug and Kale stuck between a rock and a hard place

Shelter from the wind. It was beautiful but it was cold!

Kale took this one. Can you tell it was windy?

After the hike some family friends came and visited for the afternoon. That night it was Mark's and my turn to make dinner. Sadly we never got a picture of Mark and I in the aprons but we did get a good one of all the girls.

All the girls showing off their fun new aprons. Thanks to Grandma Margie!

After this picture was taken Doug and Margie had to leave and go see if they could get to their home. The Boulder fire - Four Mile Fire - got to within 2 miles of their home. Unfortunately they were turned away and had to come back to the house. But they tried again a couple days later and were able to get in and get stuff. A pretty scary ending to a good weekend.