Musketeer Training

Tuesday night was Awana night. I called Jenelle to dinner. Curt and I hear a big THUD from the living room. Not an unusual sound in our house. Jenelle jumped off the back of the couch in the living room. She comes into the kitchen crying and holding her wrist. The Gilliland side seems to be prone to wrist injuries so I put a pack of frozen pees on her wrist. Well, the crying continues to go on and on. Again, that is not so unusual in our house. After 20 minutes, the crying continues and the wrist looks a little swollen. So Curt and I pack things up for the emergency room.

I must say that Jenelle was extremely brave. Once we got to the hospital she didn't shed a single tear. She was moving that wrist around for the doctors and for the x-ray. She has a buckle fracture in the left wrist. The bone compressed in the fall and instead of being straight, it now has a little bump to it. She is in a very bulky temporary cast with a sling. We'll go to the ortho on Friday where she'll probably get a cast (in hot pink, of course) for a few weeks.

Jenelle got the new Barbie and The Three Musketeers movie for her birthday. She has wanted to watch it every day. Barbie and her friends are Musketeers in training and they do all kinds of cool moves in the video. Jenelle has jumped off the back of the couch a zillion times (apparently), but I think last night she might have been trying out a new Musketeer move. Who knows?

When we were leaving the ER Jenelle says to me, "I'm so lucky. Now I don't have to ride my bike." Then she says, "I can still go bowling." I don't know where the bowling thing came from. But I guess she really doesn't like learning to ride without training wheels. She even mentioned it again this morning about how lucky she was. I guess that's finding the silver lining in all this.

Seeing Jenelle in her sling brought flashbacks to when she had a broken arm as a baby. I thought I'd post the picture for you to see. Hopefully, this will be our last injury for a long time.

Happy 7th Birthday

Jenelle had her 7th Birthday party last weekend. We had a Webkinz party. For those of you who don't know what Webkinz are; they are stuffed animals that you can take online. The online Webkinz world is really fun. The kids take care of their pets up there; feed them, bathe them, buy them clothes, etc. There are lots of games. Jenelle LOVES her Webkinz. So that was our party theme.

We invited all her girlfriends from school. We had eleven girls at the party. It was a little crazy, but fun. We played Webkinz games and had a wheel of wow. The kids went on a gem hunt and made jewel studded collars for their pets. The kids had a great time. Jenelle got lots of fun presents.

Jenelle said that she wished every day could be her birthday. I can't believe she is seven! Everyday she seems a little more grown up. But then there are those days when she acts like she's three.

Jenelle is already planning next year's party. She will spend lots of time talking and organizing for her next party in the coming year. That's my little party planner.

Camping in Estes

We did our last camping this weekend. It was our worst camping trip of the summer. The weather was so disappointing. It rained a lot. We spent a lot of time in the camper playing games. We didn't build one fire.

We arrived Friday night and had dinner. It was very windy so we didn't make a fire. We got up on Saturday and went in to Rocky Mountain National Park. It is near impossible to get a parking spot at Bear Lake, but we got one! We did a long hike to Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and then Emerald Lake. It was very beautiful. I think Jenelle's favorite part of the hike was all the chipmunks. We had trail mix with us so she would feed the "chippies" some peanuts. There is a sign before you enter the park that says "Don't feed the animals". Now I know why. Those chipmunks are a little too friendly. They were getting on our shoes. I was leaning over and one climbed on my back. It scared me too death! Those little guys are getting a little too tame. After the hike, we had a picnic lunch in the park and then headed back to our campsite. It rained and rained so we decided to go out for dinner.

Sunday we got up and went fishing. We didn't catch anything, but we had fun hanging out near the water. Jenelle and Curt made a rock castle. Soon it started to rain. So we headed back to camp and played some games. Finally it stopped raining. Jenelle and I went to play at the very wet park. She gave that up and found a nice rock pile to climb on. Curt and I packed up camp. As we were driving out of the campground it started to rain AGAIN.

We plan on going back next year. Hopefully, we'll have better weather.

New Bike

I bought Jenelle a new bike at Goodwill last week. She was getting way too small for her other bike. She was also way too dependent on those training wheels. We raised her training wheels earlier this summer thinking that she would learn to balance. Jenelle wasn't too happy about that. She compensated by just leaning over to the right and rode on the one training wheel. Big mistake on our part! Yesterday we took Jenelle out on her new bike and she was leaning over the whole time. Jenelle did a fair amount of moaning, groaning and crying. Curt and I are going to try to get her on that bike every day. Pray for us! Wish us luck. I don't think this is going to be easy.

First Day of School - First grade

Today was Jenelle's first day of school. She is a first grader now. The summer seemed short. I don't think we're ready to start school. I know I'm not ready for the 8am start time. Jenelle was up early enough this morning, but she is my slow-mo girl. It just seems to take a long time to eat and a long time to get ready. I'm going to have to get super organized this year if we're going to get out the door on time.

Jenelle seemed fairly excited for school. She seemed most excited for recess again. I'm sure it will be a great year of learning and fun.

11th Anniversary in Pagosa Springs

Curt and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary by going to Pagosa Springs. We have never been there before and we wanted to check it out. It was a 5 hour drive, but it went by fast. Probably because I read a book the whole time.

We had the best time in Pagosa. We went on some beautiful hikes. There are a lot of waterfalls in the area. We did a hike every day. We spent an afternoon at the hot springs. Jenelle who likes everything lukewarm (her food, her bath) did really well there. She sat in some of the cooler pools and played around while Curt and I soaked in the hotter pools. We did a lot of fishing. Curt caught 3 trout that he cooked up on the grill for us. Yum! We attempted to go tubing, but the water on the San Juan was too low.

The campground was really nice. They had a lot of hummingbird feeders around. Jenelle and I loved watching them every day. We stayed in a camper cabin that was very reasonable priced. On our last night we discovered where they were hiding all the good restaurants (on the other side of town). We had a delicious dinner at a local brewery. We ate outside surrounded by aspen trees.

We plan on going back next year.

Triathlon

Well I did it. I finished my first triathlon. It was so fun. It wasn't so fun getting up at 4:15am, but the morning went by really fast. I carpooled with Chris and Anne. We found a place to put our bikes and then we checked out the course. It was easier than I thought it would be. The swim wasn't bad, but I kept getting bumped by other women. It threw me off quite a bit. The bike ride was really pleasant. A zillion people passed me, though. They all had fast road bikes. I was using my mountain bike. The run was tough. It starts out uphill for a long time. I don't enjoy running so I didn't train much for it. I was happy with my time of 2 hours 23 seconds. My friends and I were all happy with our accomplishment. I'm going to sign up again next year.