Ain't she Grand? The grandest of them all...

When ever some one asked with surprise (for some reason) "You've never seen the Grand Canyon?" I would reply, "You've seen one canyon, you've seen them all." Or the equally amusing to me pithy, "I've seen it in the movies and on TV." How ever, when my friend suggested we go I agreed. Cody hasn't see a canyon in person before, you know? He started out asleep, but now he too can say, "Yes, yes, I have been to the Grand Canyon." Don't fret, he did wake up to see it in person, too!
For those wondering, when I was a kid growing up my parents took us on family vacations. One summer we visited Zion and Bryce National Parks. They both have beautiful canyons.

The Grandest Canyon is so grand it has grand in it's name. My friend even narrated and looked up answers to my questions. While it is only ten mile flying from one end to the other to travel in car or down the Colorado River is is 215 to 219 miles long. It is an awesome feat of nature. While it's colors were much more vibrant through my sun glasses, the view is breath taking. We had a great time! My camera ending up quitting on me. I got a few pictures before it died. And Marah will be sending me more. (I will spare you and not post all of them.)

Scentsy

I am having a Scentsy party on April Fool's day! Yep, Wednesday April 1st. I am excited. I am inviting you. (readers of my blog who will be in the state on that day.)
7pm. My house. Open house, type I believe. I will have some yummy foods. Lemme know if you are coming.
Thanks! Hope to see you here!
You can order directly online by 4/5/2009 if you are unable to attend on the 1st. Order at www.scentsy.com/kshumway and click on the calendar for 4/1/2009. And place your order under my party.

Mission Completion!

 

The mission was a huge success. We boarded Rocket (Earl Gray, actually, that is my car) and drove to CA to celebrate my 32nd birthday and have a vacation. It was awesome. I only got some of the pictures downloaded to my computer, so there will be more to come. (I put some on facebook already, too. Those were mostly from Colissa's computer.)

We started at grandma and grandpa Kerns where we went to dinner with Granna Tina and Jeremy. He picked Tina up there. The next day Aunt Lorraine, Jackie and Susan came over to see Cody. And me, I guess... That night, dinner with Jessie and Heather. That was fun! After that we met up with Mook and Melissa to say hello and have a quick visit. Then back to granny's to sleep.

On Friday we went to Disneyland. We had 15 fun filled hours there! Cody was such a trooper! Grandma and grandpa Kern were there, and Colissa and her daughter Amanda, and Chad! Cody really was great. He was even awake most of the time and so happy. Just one 2 hour nap.

After the park we went to HB and stayed with Colissa. Then met up with Cody's Great Grandma and Grandpa Ferguson and my Aunt Donna and her daughter Jane for breakfast at the Rivers end in Seal Beach. So yummy!!

This has to be the most boring narration I have ever written. I think I am going to get the rest of the stuff out of my car and go to bed. It is late and Cody is finally peacefully asleep.

We're going on a misson...

....Start the count dowm...5..4..3..2..1...

Tell you all about it when we get back.....

Cody loves his sister

Can you believe he decided to shut that door all on his own, so she couldn't leave him? That is awesome!

Opened eyes, the zoo and the Bella story you have been waiting for!

Today we went to the zoo with my friend and her little boy and my seester and her kidlings. We had tons of fun with Jenn and Rowan. Cody kept his eyes open for most of the pictures, too. He's a keeper! He is finally seeing the animals, too. It is so sweet and cute.

Monkey village, where a head is growing out of Cody's back...

I love posing for pictures at these spots in the zoo.

We all know Drew is a cute kid, and it is moments like these that I love.

On a nice lion.
There are 2 pictures on the camera I can not get to upload for some reason. They are Rowan and Cody in the turtle shell. Ah, well. I got my zoo membership, though. I am excited about that. I need to go like 10 times to make it worth it, I think. But I can bring a friend each time, too.

On to Bella:
So last Monday night I am trying to sleep. I went to bed later than I like to. I am going to stop here and add some quick back ground facts that might be useful for the story. 1. Bella, the skilled cat that she is, can open cupboards. She is very good at this. 2. A few months ago I discovered nibble marks in wrappers of Fiber One bars I had in a drawer. I immediately recognized those little holes as rodent nibble mark. (Flashbacks to RatGate 2004, you know what I am talking about Sheron.) There were other signs, too. Like Bella eating her food twice as fast as normal and her whole obsession with the kitchen cupboards. Any ways. I had the apartment complex come in and they added sticky rat/mouse traps under the sink in the kitchen and bathroom. 3. No real sign of a rodent since then, unless you count Bella opening the kitchen cupboards and sniffing at the Tupperware. Ok, back to the story.

So I am in bed at like 2 am. I wake up and check on Cody. See the kitchen cupboard is open, so I close it and go back to my bed. Just as I am drifting back to sleep I hear Bella making a ruckus opening the cupboard under the sink. I am like geeze Bella give it a rest, I need sleep. I try to ignore it. Then suddenly it sounds like she is knocking over the trash and getting in it. This is not like her. She doesn't usually dump the trash. So I get up and go turn on the light and find she in fact has not knocked the trash over at all. She isn't even at the cupboard any more. She looks up at me. She had pulled the sticky trap out of the cupboard (with out knocking the trash can over) and dragged it to the blockade I had up for Cody to not get in the kitchen. There on one corner of the trap was a grocery bag on the corner closest to that was a little mouse. Sad little mouse. The lil guy had been torturing Bella for months and she finally caught him on this trap. I am happy she got him, sad he had to die. Happy she wasn't stuck to the dang trap, too. Sad there might be more, because who really knows? Maybe that fellow had a friend. Happy Bella didn't try to eat him. Sad it might have been Bella's friend and now it is a goner.

Moment of silence for the little guy. Ahhh.

1-2-3-4 I declare a thumb war

I have been meaning to write a blog for a while now. Curse you Facebook! (But I like it. I can't believe how many people are on there!)

Since the hospital Cody has been great!! I am so happy about that. I think he has finally gotten that second top tooth. So he has 4 teefers now! 2 tiny ones on top and the 2 on the bottom. He is eating people food now. He does "real" crawling, too. The love of my life. He has blinked in every picture I have taken of him the last week! It is so funny.


I had 2 fun stories to tell that are not about Cody. One is all me and one is about Bella. I shall share.

Me:
Friday a week ago this all shook down.
It was the day after 6 months of no donuts. I had made myself a promise no donuts for 6 months. I held to it, too. March 5th was the day I was allowed to have a donut or doughnut if you prefer. I didn't feel like it that day, so the next morning I left the hose a little early and Cody and I went to the Dunkin Donuts they built next to my house (like 3 months ago!!!) for the first time. I got a dozen and thought this way I could eat a couple (4-6) and share the rest with my team at work. Well, two donuts later I am at work and I sit down and hear this tear. Riiip! Oh, no! What the whaaa? My pants split right down the seam in the back. I stand up. Oh, no! they really are ripped. I sit back down. Riiiipp! Ut oh! Not just a little hole any more. I pull my shirt down and scoot my chair in to hide my back of my pants. Or Panst as Ethan called them when he was about 5.

Luckily I sit in the farthest southest corner of our building and of the 150 or so people in the building there is absolutely no one behind me, too. And that is a good thing. Because as you can guess when i scooted my chair in.. Another 5 inches ripped. They were split from the waist band all the way down to mid thigh! The guy who sits next to me, my friend David, went to his car and got his dirty gym shorts for me to wear so I could run to the store (I live to far away to go home in the middle of my work day) and buy new panst. I had to buy the first pair that fit me. Stinkin JC Penny outlet store and your silly mom jeans. (I returned them the next day. What evs, they were not for me.) As a kindness David sprayed his gym shorts with Axe for me so they would smell nice. I had Axe burning my nostrils for the next six hours. That was fun. And funny since I wondered why his gym shorts smelt so strongly of cologne. I was wondering if he sprayed his shorts to work out to meet the ladies or something. He later told me he sprayed them so they smelt nice for me to wear to the store. Hahahahaha!

That is all for tonight. The Bella story will be coming soon.

Sick sick no fun

Cody had a little scare. We spend 5 days in the hospital. He was having a hard time breathing. A bronchial virus. He is doing better now.

Gearing up to go in the ambulance.


Our ride to the hospital.

Like a celebrity; getting in the ambulance.

Got Oxygen? Cody had to be on Oxygen. This is what caused us to have to take an ambulance.

He had a cage crib bed at the hospital.



Ride around the hospital. He had to wear a little mask.


Home and happy!