Goats, Sheep & Burros - Oh My!

Happy Memorial Day!

This weekend we went up to Georgetown, a little town in the mountains. They were having their "Railroad & Mining Days" and I'm a sucker for festivals of all kinds! Heather & Trent went with us too. We had a good time! Here the three of us are up a pass above the town.
It's hard to tell who was more excited about the goats and sheep petting zoo... oh wait, it's definitely ME!
They also had burro rides for the kids. Next year Violet's going for the ride of her life!
Peeking over the fence at the mommy burro. She had an adorable 3 week old baby with her. Awww!
This was the view of Georgetown from up the pass.
On Friday I checked out the Denver Zoo with a few of my friends. It was SO COOL! It is a really nice place to walk around and has tons of cool animals. Here we are petting the goats. I now have a membership so if you come to visit - we're GOING!
Violet and a lounging gorilla.
Violet spends a LOT of time by her play table. The one good thing about her being in another long legged cast is that we don't have to worry TOO much about her standing up. Honestly I'm not sure if we could stop her!
And in other house news... Jon finally got the garage cleaned out, and spent the evening putting new tar down. "New" is relative since he's pretty sure the buckets of tar that were in the garage were 30-40 years old. But it rained last night and NO LEAKS so apparently it worked! Here he is tarring away as Mike looks on.

Cast Change!

Violet had her 6-week cast change at the Denver Children's Hospital on Monday. It went really well!

First, we decided to decorate her cast the day before. Jon did the writing. I did the polka-dots. We're taking ideas on how to decorate her new cast before they saw it off for good!

At the hospital. She did really great waiting in the morning. Here she is playing in her metal jail (aka crib) with her Aunt Heather.
Here is the new cast! I took this the same afternoon she got it so she isn't all that thrilled with having her picture taken ;) This one is very similar to the old cast - still one leg free. This one is at a little better angle for holding her, and her leg that's fully casted seems to be more leg-shaped than before. Her diaper opening is a LOT longer and a little wider so it has taken some getting used to diapering her again!

Our new doctor was happy with how her hip looked. In between casts he moved around her hip and it stayed put so that's great. He did want to keep her in the long-leg on her "bad side" for another 5 weeks just as a precaution. Although we're a little disappointed to not have two legs out, we also want her to heal 100% so whatever we can do to speed that up, we'll do it!

We go back next week for an x-ray to make sure things are still sitting right, and then in four weeks after that (five weeks total) we're camping out at their offices early in the morning to be the first ones in to get this cast OFF FOR GOOD!!!!!

She'll be in a Rhino brace for naps and at night for a while after her cast if off, which is great with us. I'm just so excited to know that we've already made it halfway. Hopefully these next five weeks FLY by!

Here is Viole reading her book with her sunglasses on
And in other news...

I vowed that when I lived in Denver where it is nice and dry, I would try my hand at line drying our clothes. I am excited about not using up so much energy AND everything smells so yummy from being out in the sun!

Here was my first attempt:
And Jon is almost finished cleaning out the garage! What a gross, dirty job it has been. The things he found in the garage that are really weird: 4 large canvas bags of DIRT, a box of old socks, a box of neatly folded carpet padding remnants, a box of rotted out small pillows with "ER" stamped on them, and a 5 canvas bags of.. canvas bags. Go figure.

There has also been a few treasures (although very, very few). He found some old US Mail bags that are still in surprisingly good shape, and a couple of wire crates that we like. But that's about it. The rest of it was picked up by the trash collectors yesterday. We owe them something - it was not a pretty sight!


If you found this blog searching for info on spica casts,
please visit this wonderful and incredibly helpful forum:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/
Also, please take a look at my Spica Cast Survival Guide, which you can download here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/files/
It's the first thing on the list.
Sending lots of good hip healing vibes your way!!

Our 100th Post!!

This is it! The big One-Oh-Oh! And what a post it is...

Our dear, sweet, fearless Violet had decided enough is enough - she's going to figure out how to WALK regardless of her "hard candy shell" or not! Here she is on her knees behind her little push-toy:

And THEN... we discovered that if we help her a little and hold her up, she knows EXACTLY what to do to walk!! The little dance she does at the beginning was ALL she did the first time we tried it. She was SO SO SO excited!!


Saturday we spent most of the afternoon at a BBQ that Mike put together at a local skatepark. Thanks to watching lots of skateboarding videos with Daddy, Violet had a great time watching and yelled and clapped for everyone. It was very funny! The park overlooked the mountains (okay, and a lot of industrial areas, but still!) so we had Mike take this picture:

New Friends and New Toys

Dear Internet,

Thanks for the chance to make some friends in a brand spanking new city before I even move there. Who knew that using cloth diapers could lead to this??

Love, Jesi & Violet

Here is Violet and her new best buddy Laina. I met Laina's mom Jenna through a cloth-diapering bulletin board online. We found out we had FAR more than me moving to Denver in common.... Jenna also rides horses AND has a daughter so close to Violet's age! We met up at the mall today with a few other cloth-diapering moms, including Beth and her 6 week old daughter Lily, and Taryn and her two kids. The girls had so much fun! I am going to have to get my hands on one of these banana slices - they were the perfect height for Violet to pull up on!
Holding hands... (or maybe moving Laina's hand off "her" banana, but still!)

Violet and her banana
We also finally put together the deluxe Radio Flyer wagon Violet got back at Christmas. She fits in it pretty good... notice her foot is in the cup holder. I walked her around the alley in it and she only slid down once.
Silly with her sippy cup and pigtails.
The dogs are doing really well. You can see that Porter (on the right) has taken to Denver quite nicely. He LOVES the backyard! Obi is doing well too, although he does like to bark (and consequently scare the crap out of) our neighbors on a regular basis. Also please note the obscene amount of "stuff" near the back fence. This is only about 1/8 of what was in the garage. Included: 5 lawn mowers (already sold 1 on Craigslist), 2 stoves, various car parts... you get the picture. A dumpster is hopefully on its way so we can get the rest out!
This is what I like to call the "Little Shop of Horrors Weed". They are HUUUGE and take up almost half of the yard. This one is about 3' across. There are two other patches of them. They are horrible and will not be killed by a lawn mower OR by applying gallons of Round Up. They are prickly and also smell.

*** Video Time! ***

Here is a video of Violet petting Obi, and then her perfected Spica Crawl to the TV. Warning, she's TOPLESS! ;) Yesterday it was in the 70's while today we are in the 40's with SNOW! Luckily we are pretty used to this sort of weather, Michigan taught us well :)

I love how she answers my questions in this one, and crawls very funny at the end.

This video shows Violet pulling up on the coffee table in her cast. She is getting so STRONG! She still can't figure out how to get DOWN though, and I do rescue her really quickly after she starts crying. I still can't figure out if it hurts her or not because she still does it all the time!

You've probably heard of a Keg Stand...

But we bet you haven't seen a Spica Stand! Violet has been tipping herself up on her one leg and staying like that for a while. It's pretty funny. We also call it the "Peeing Dog".
She also is starting to pull herself up to stand by her toy basket AND the coffee table. It can't feel that great (it LOOKS painful!) but she keeps doing it so it must not be that bad! You can sort of see it here - her left leg is the "free" leg, so this is about as far as she can get. She sometimes does stretch out her free leg all the way but she looks like she's doing the splits and doesn't stay that way for long!
Violet is OBSESSED with going for walks! So we go for a lot of walks. Luckily we live in a very nifty eclectic neighborhood with some really amazing houses, so we don't mind. Here she is showing off her hat (thanks Sue!). EVERYONE wears hats outside here, since it's always so sunny! (p.s. today it was snowing for a few minutes... in TOTALLY SUNNY SKIES!)
This picture cracks me up! I love Violet's face.
Hangin' out on the porch with Daddy and Uncle Mike. We're trying to get a good video of her waving to each car as it passes. It is so cute! So far every time we've tried there is NO TRAFFIC!
Gross. This was in the tub. There was one in the kitchen sink the other day. I believe I'll take a spider over this dude!
And here is a silly little video of how Jon plays with Violet. Notice his handy carrying handle for her. She LOVES it!

More to come! I'm working on getting some pictures of the inside of the house. It's not QUITE ready for "visitors" yet :)

If you found this blog searching for info spica casts,
please visit this wonderful and incredibly helpful forum:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/
Also, please take a look at my Spica Cast Survival Guide, which you can download here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/files/
It's the first thing on the list.
Sending lots of good hip healing vibes your way!!

Pictures of the Great Move of '08

Since I had to stare at the butt-end of Penske Truck and Green Outback for 20+ hours, you can too! Here they are driving through Chicago...
Hello, Iowa!
Hey, a little rain never hurt anybody! Somewhere in Nebraska...
These are some HUGE HUGE HUGE propellers that (smartly) were waiting on the side of the road in Kansas. I think they are for wind power. They were about the length of 2 semi trucks and were just gigantic! Pretty nifty! This was somewhere in Kansas.Let the snow begin! This was what the last 5 hours of our trip looked like. Have someone blow loudly in your ears every few seconds to get the full effect of the wind.
Finally!! Colorado!!!
Oh John Denver, thank you for writing such lovely songs about the Rocky Mountains. I would have sang them loudly to myself had I not been gripping tightly to the wheel and trying not to be blown off the road. Aforementioned Rocky Mountains are seen here if you squint. It was a cloudy day, okay? Boxes! And when you're done with these boxes, we have some MORE boxes for you! And after that? You guessed it! BOXES! Please note the little glimse of Disgusting Rust Colored Carpet on the floor. It is, thankfully, the last you'll see of it :)
Jon and Trent move in the chair. Now we can sit on something soft and squishy, not just the plastic lawn chairs.
Mike and Tim move in the couch.

Check back later for more pics! I'll post some before and after of what the house looks like... but first we have to get it organized enough to HAVE an "after"!

The good news is that today we have.... wait for it... a WORKING BATHROOM!! All three items (sink, toilet, shower) work in the SAME BATHROOM!! Oh hurray!

Guess where we are?

DENVER!!

It's pretty crazy that we're actually here, made it in one piece, and finally have our new (rental) house looking a little more like home!

Recap: We left early last Thursday morning from Grand Rapids. Jon drove the Penske truck with my car towing behind. I drove the pickup truck with the dogs in the back. We were packed to the tippy top of every available space - we even had to leave some stuff behind! And here I thought I did such a great job of decluttering!

The first day's drive was fine. We drove about 14 hours, and besides a little traffic jam outside of Chicago (Jon commented via cell phone that he felt just like he was in a wagon train, seeing how slow we were going!), we had no problems. The dogs did pretty good and we ended the night in York, Nebraska.

The next morning we did see some weather reports that there was snow in Northern Colorado, but didn't think that much of it. After driving a few more hours, we stopped at a gas station outside of North Platte, Nebraska to fill up. It was sleeting, windy and cold by this point. The ladies at the front counter were talking about a highway being closed but it didn't sound like the one were were on. They asked where we were headed, and when I told them Denver, she laughed and said "No you're not!" - it WAS our highway that was closed a few hours ahead due to horrible icy conditions and semi's rolling over left and right. Luckily a trucker told us about a different way to go, through Kansas. So we backtracked a few miles and headed down some really cool 2 lane roads. Everyone always said that Nebraska was flat as a pancake and boring... not when you get off the highway! It was really pretty and would have been even more so if it had not been so cold and rainy and windy!

All along the way I kept in touch with my mom, sister, and Guy. They kept track of the weather ahead and Guy was our own personal GPS navigation system - he directed us to another route to again miss the really bad weather. Thanks to our own little Grand Rapids Storm Team! :)

To make a long story short, the drive didn't get much better when we finally made it to the highway. Now there were 80 mph gusts of wind, and it was sleeting, raining and/or snowing. The 5+ hour drive we still had in front of us was pretty crazy and I know Jon was having a hard time keeping the truck on the road.

BUT - we made it!! In once piece!

To add insult to injury, the rental was not in quite the shape we had expected when we arrived. Let's just say that it needed a LOT of work before it was ready to be occupied by human beings :) Luckily we had a great crew of family and new friends to help us unload everything, clean everything out, and get a handle on what to do next!

I admit that the first night both Jon and I had about 28,479 thoughts of "WHAT THE HECK WERE WE THINKING?" but things have been looking better and better. We were able to tear out the 30 year old rust colored carpet from the house... it probably harbored about 654 diseases, parasites and bodily fluids. Let's just say Violet wasn't getting anywhere NEAR that floor! So for the past two days we've all been busy ripping it up and then crawling around on the floor like so many crabs taking out the staples. We are not quite sure how we'll ever thank Trent, Mike, Heather, Joanne, Scott and Tim for all their help! I don't think it was quite what any of us had in mind when they said they'd help us move in!

But finally today I have the kitchen about unpacked and it looks *gasp* like a real kitchen! And the rest of the house is really coming together. The dogs are happily sleeping in their usual spots in front of the couch, Violet is happily asleep in her crib upstairs, and Jon and I are about to sit down and open our last bottle of wine from our trip to Italy a few years ago in celebration.

Cheers!
jesi