Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Let's start off with some updates.

Last Friday, July 2nd. Standard day for me. Working from home for the day. I made this scheduling change when I went back to work after having Lexi. Gave me some opportunity to start earlier, get more accomplished, since it's quiet and give me a little more work/life balance. I love it and get so much done!

The plan was to leave for the lake following work. I get a text from Charles about 4:30 - he's going to be late, very late. His work day gets busy right before lunch and right before the end of the day as his dealers are out selling and come back for lunch or to finish up the day and submit all the paperwork.

Oh, at any rate, one of his co-workers helped him out and he got home about 5:15. Got left about 6:15 and to Poky about 8:15-8:30.

Saturday, July 3rd. Headed up to the farm, where Uncle Byron lives to pick-up the waverunner and then off to the lake. What a beautiful day. Lots of swimming, waverunner rides and tubing behind the ski boat for Ella. Lexi and I spent most of the early afternoon in the camper as it was warm out and we both needed some rest. Then we went swimming. She didn't mutter anything but big toothless smiles and a few giggles. She rode in her little infant tube for a while and just let the waves take her. But then, she got a little frustrated because she wanted to splash, but couldn't while she was in the tube.

Lexi started to eat those little fruit puffs that are like cereal, but filled primarily with air and a tidbit of flavoring. She really likes them. It's funny because a serving size is 90 of them! What kid would eat 90 of them? And 25 calories. What a great snack! She's really liking her baby food too! She's been through sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, peaches, green beans, peas, mixed veggies, pears, and mixed fruit. All have been fine.

Then my parents came up for a boat ride and a quick visit. Brenda & Don then came up for some drinks -- just a few =), some ribs and some fireworks. Lost Island did their fireworks on Saturday night. Ella got to do sparklers. Poor Lexi fell asleep before the big fireworks started. Oh well, they'll be plenty more years of fireworks.

Sunday, July 4th. Appeared that it would be a wash-out with the weatherpeople calling for 1-3" of rain. We didn't get much more than some sprinkles. Late morning, we headed over to the nature center for a hike. Very nice - Lexi really enjoyed it and Ella & Charles caught a blue butterfly for her bug cage (which she later let go). Lexi really enjoyed it. Hopefully next time it will have dried out, so we can walk the classroom path. Later in the day, we were able to go for a waverunner ride(s) and go swimming. Charles jumped in the water to go swimming and Lexi looked at him and grunted a little bit, so we took off her clothes, left on her diaper and away she went - at about 7:30 at night. So all 4 of us went swimming. So much fun! Then Ella went with her 3rd cousins (Patty Origer & Peggy Pfeffer's kids) out on the ski boat tubing again. She loves those kids (cousins) so much!

Monday, July 5th.
We woke up and had a good breakfast - pancakes and bacon! Yummy! Ella & Grandpa Leonard went fishing for a while, Lexi fell asleep on Grnadma Helen and Charles & I took a walk. What a great start to the day. Then we played some outdoor games at the lake, like catch using these circle disc like things with velcro on them and a tennis ball. Ella & I headed out on the waverunner for a while hitting all the big waves we could find. She has so much fun, until it was out of gas - turned it to reserve and headed back to the lagoon. Ella didn't want to go swimming (amazing!), so we rode the waverunner over to load it up and Charles met us there. We loaded up and headed to Emmetsburg for lunch at A & W, one of Charles' favorites, then to the farm to drop off the waverunner and to Pocahontas to get Penny. Finally we got on the road about 3:45 heading for home. Got home about 6:00 after we stopped to get supper (Taco John's) and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Or not.... We had to head out to the garden to check on the peppers, tomatoes, green beans & carrots. We've had a fair amount of green beans already and the tomatoes are growing like crazy. Peppers are about nickel size right now and the carrots are about 4" long. Strawberries probably won't produce this year since they're just getting established and I just planted the raspberries last week, so no production in 2010 for them!

It sure was a fabulous weekend, but we are glad to be home!

Tuesday, July 6th.
Charles always takes the week of the 4th of July off from work, so I decided to take a day off as well. I couldn't afford to take off the whole week since I burned 7 weeks of PTO while I was on maternity leave with Lexi.

We did a lot of running around, including a trip to the doctor's office for Ella's rash. She has had it for about 2 weeks now on the trunk of her body and on her neck just beneath her hairline was really bad. So on top of the rash, sunburn from the weekend and mosquito bites, her skin is looking pretty grim. We've been giving her Claritan (nothing new there), Benedryl, putting hydrocortizone cream, Aquaphor and Curel lotion on the skin and nothing was helping. Diagnosis - allergies of some sort, or reaction to something. Unfortunatly, there wasn't anything more to tell. Just keep doing what we're doing. So baking soda baths & scrub (baking soda & water paste all over) is what we'll keep on doing. Took Ella to daycare...

Charles & I spent the rest of the day running various forms of errands. Oh well, at least we got to spend it together.

Wednesday, July 7th.
Back to work for me. It was a great day with a lot of work done! Charles headed to the golf course and then to help my brother, Brian rip out a cement pad under his deck at his rental house. Ella 'helped' pick up the concrete and Lexi & I walked down to watch a little bit then back home to play and hang out.

Lexi went to bed early (7:30) as she was really tired. We think she's getting some teeth. Her chest was soaking from all of the drool. Poor girl can barely hold her head up!