Princess Tea

The Gym did a "Mother daughter princess tea".  The initial plan was for Ashton, Jacqueline and Mom to attend.  When the time came Jacqueline was sick again (stomach flu this time). So Mommy and Aston got some time to go together.
Here is princess Ashton ready to go.  Mom was especially pleased with her hair.
Ashton met up with her friends Madeline and Sophie for the event.  A princess came and entertained the girls with a very cute story.
Ashton, Madeline and Sophie decided to do some dancing on the stage before we left.
Ashton convinced me she is growing up when she decided that she didn't need to stand in the long line for the photo with the princess right away, but chose to come back later when the line was almost done.  Here she is getting the last photo with the princess before we went home.

Phoenix 2008

Right after Easter we all packed up for a fun in the sun visit to Phoenix to spend some time with the Ochse/Driscoll families as well as celebrate Stu's birthday with a surprise party.
Both girls had a great time in the pool but sadly Jacqueline was pretty sick this whole trip.  In fact, one could question her parents for dragging her on a plane with a high fever and a case of bronchitis (in my defense she did see the dr. the night before and was cleared to travel but she also did throw up 4 times before we left for the airport and spiked a fever of 103.  Thank goodness for Tylenol and Motrin!)
Daddy and the girls eating after the lazy river run.
Ashton was fast friends with Stu and Diane's dogs.  Although I think the big attraction was the pretzel chips.
Ashton, on the other hand managed to stay well the whole time and really enjoyed playing in the pool.

Easter 2008

Easter was an excellent spring day.  Of course not all family members were well (Jaq) so it was also a bit slow for us.  Although Jacqueline was struggling with a bit of a cold, she did manage to start her day out with jelly beans so she was happy.  Dad enjoyed some time in the sun.
The highlight of Easter was the visit from Natasha (the only family member that came through for the celebration).  While she wasn't able to stay for dinner, she did manage to play some with Buddy and do some time in the bounce house with Ashton.
Special thanks to Judy who not only came through with dinner even though she was sick but also got the girls these adorable easter outfits, complete with purses.
Ashton was very adept at the easter egg hunt this year.
Jacqueline also did pretty well, especially since she wasn't really felling 100% at the time.

Spring Ski trip 2008

As you can see the highlight of this ski trip is the snowmobile day.  Vic (and Co.), Chris (and Co.) + the Bear clan all took to the snow.  The day was beautiful, the girls loved it and only a few in our party tipped over (not me of course, I had the convenient excuse of the girls for going the slowest).
This was just a pose, we did not all three ride together.  Bob took both girls once but I was not confident enough for that!

This is Jacqueline showing off her new turtle fur hat.
We celebrated Bob's birthday while we were in Park City.  Papa Terry managed to get decorations and a cake which was a big hit with everyone.  Interestingly we didn't manage to get any photos with Papa Terry in them ?!  But he did enjoy a couple days snowboarding and got quite a reputation of someone who could easily be convinced to go for a Hot Chocolate run.

And finally a family photo.  You will notice that we all own helmets now which was the highlight of the season.

Jacqueline's Operation

We are finally home from the operation ordeal and I thought I had better get a blog entry out there to update everyone. First and foremost the operation was a success. The doctor said that her tonsils were not only enlarged but chronically inflamed and that the operation "couldn't have gone better". Adenoids and ear tubes were also done just to keep it real.




They moved the operation to 7:30am (from 8:30) so it was an early morning.  Adding to that, for some reason even though we got the girls to bed late on thursday night Jacqueline was in our room at 5am friday morning ready to go. Add to this I decided to get sick on wednesday night so I was up since 3am with fever which made for a bit of a rough morning. The operation went according to plan and we were in recovery with her around 9am.

She was pretty sleepy most of the morning and we were hopeful things were progressing along well but then she got a bit behind on her pain medicine.  

Sadly, she then decided to get sick every time we attempted to give her any pain meds which left us with only tylenol for her. Needless to say it was a rough evening/night. Later in the evening she decided to progress with a bit of an infection so fever and runny nose/cough were added to her fun.

Since this was my only non-birth hospital stay I realized that the back pain I had associated with epidural really was just an uncomfortable hospital bed. We kept her on the IV throughout her stay which was good as she was refusing to drink on her own and getting more challenging as the day wore on.

This morning, we learned that the surgery center closes at 2pm so we were going to have to either move her to the hospital or take her home and find a way to get her to drink.  We decided we'd risk taking her home and got the doctor to agree to let us give her some motrin in addition to tylenol for her pain.  Well as I'm sure you guessed that worked like a charm.  We got home and gave her motrin which she took without much protest and suddenly she was on the road to recovery.  

A few tv shows and some chocolate pudding later she was ready to play some games with dad while mom took a nap.  Now she is laying down, in theory taking a nap but she has willing taken a bottle and even managed a smile.  So I'd say we are on our way.  I'm planning to start her on the antibiotics this evening to clear up the infection.  We are told to expect a bit of a rough week but now that she is drinking we are out of the woods for any serious worries.

Ashton is happily enjoying a sleep-over with her cousins so hopefully we'll all catch up on our rest before she comes home tomorrow and be ready to start another week.  I'm on day 3 of the antibiotics myself so I'm also hoping to be feeling better by tomorrow.  

Thanks to all for the well wishes, cards, flowers and cuddly bears.  I will write a different post about our Disney Princess on Ice adventure as I promised Ashton I'd include some photos and this post was getting too long.

Ashton turns 5

Taking after her mom, Ashton has had a most excellent birth week celebration. Her birthday was on a Thursday this year so she celebrated from Thursday through the weekend. This had Judy making more then 50 cupcakes and 3 different cakes for the series of events.

There was a cake on her birthday, cupcakes at her school on Friday, cupcakes at her kids party on Sat and a beautiful Barbie cake for her family party Sat afternoon.

Jacqueline, not to be left out, also requested a "blue Dora cake". Judy delivered on that request as well much to Jacqueline's joy.

The kids party was at Safari Run. Here is a group photo of the kids. It was a lot of fun for Ashton to have so many friends celebrate with her. Lots of running and playing was happening. Jacqueline was thrilled to be joining in, especially since she was supposed to wait until she was 3 years old to participate. In fact, she couldn't attend this group photo because she was too busy climbing the structures with her dad.

A big bonus for this years party was Grandma and Papa Terry were here to celebrate. Terry is back from Iraq (we hope for good of course) and they are out for a few weeks to visit and celebrate the birthday. Cute photo huh?

On my side, I'm already enjoying five years old. The independence is wonderful and I'm still amazed at everything that Ashton can do on her own. In addition, the gifts for five years are very Barbie-focused. Which means that you can store a lot of gifts in a much smaller space. A great help for our small house.

I really can tell we are about to enter a new phase and I think we are all planning to enjoy it. We are back in ballet on Saturdays and also starting a parks and rec dance class next week. Kindergarten sign-ups are week after next. The times they sure are 'a changing. Can't believe that I have only one toddler in the house!

Park City ski trip, Jan 2008

Yes, we did another successful ski trip.  This was especially successful in the fact that Jacqueline did not get sick.  As you can see the girls were happy to test out their snow gear in the condo itself.
Both cousins came along this year which was really nice for Bob and Meg.  It was not good snowman snow though, we went out to try and just kept falling into the snow up to our knees but could not get the snow to stick together at all.  It was too dry.  You can tell what California girls we all are since none of us realized this was even a possiblity.   

Jordyn took her first snowboard lessons and did real well.  Ashton also did ski school this year and was very pleased with her "report cards" which made her dad very exited.   She has managed to do "10 turns in a row" which sounds pretty good to me.  

Jacqueline was too young for ski school so she spent most days home with her Tasha (except the one day Mom stayed with her so Tash could snowboard).  She did, however, become very proficient in hot chocolate drinking, which I'm sure will come in handy at some point.  Also, I should mention again that she stayed healthy and happy the whole trip which was such a huge bonus.  She even managed to get a nap on the day that mom stayed home.  Turns out that mom is boring and she is happy to nap when I'm around.  Tasha, on the other hand, is way too much fun to sleep through!  Below is a photo of what a happy and healthy Jacqueline looks like.

Ashton enjoyed showing off her nice ski thermals.  Mom was happy she had good gear since this was a COLD trip.  Most days were in the high teens or low 20's but with either snow or windchill or both.

The highlight of the trip was getting to ski with our friends Vic, Lisa, Dan and Ruth and having Dan and Ruth meet our kids.  Of course I didn't manage to get any photos of the adults but we all know what we look like anyway (which is the same as we have for the past decade at least of course!).    

Ashton was very anxious to get a birthday cake for Dan who had a birthday while we were there.  Turns out the rest of us were ok with eating it as well.  In addition, Tasha and Jordyn watched the girls while we all had a wonderful adults-only dinner one night.  What a treat to eat dinner at a sane pace and even drink a few glasses of wine.  

All in all a wonderful trip, we came back tired of course but happy (well at least the three girls are happy, Bob is still not so happy he isn't going back this week).  Next trip is scheduled for March but I'm guessing Bob will be doing some skiing in between.  He even brought home his old outfit and some gloves to consider a mid-week trip to Tahoe once of twice.  Stay tuned.