Weekend and things

Had a lovely weekend. Went to Orange Theory Saturday morning, then took Oliver to Target to get a pair of pajamas (in theory they all have pajama day this week, but I haven’t actually heard anything about it from their teachers, but it’s not like he’s not going to wear his new pajamas that have the design of some YouTube dude he admires. [WTF, btw. A guy who makes YouTube videos has licensed stuff like pajamas. Also he has blue hair. That is not a coincidence.])

After the pajama trek, I went and drank wine in Heather’s backyard, and was in theory going to only be there for an hour or two but that turned into coming home at midnight. Ooops. So didn’t go to OTF on Sunday as planned. Instead, made these delicious chocolate chip cookies to bring to my cousin Lisa’s house.

Going to Lisa’s house is always fun. The boys love her boys (who are not really boys anymore, but legit grownups) and there’s always delicious food (some insane corn dip yesterday is something I need to eat every day except not really because it has mayo in it) and Lisa and her husband are super laid back, so it’s just nice.

FullSizeRender 13 — They are very comfortable at Lisa’s. Maybe too comfortable.

But the best part is they have a deck along the back of the house, which makes the perfect stage, so now you have to watch this play the boys put on. JK you only have to watch it if you’re related to us.

After the play, snowballs!

Want to talk a tiny bit more about OTF – I’ve been going a bit over a month now and it’s exciting because I can see muscles that were not there before! Today I was doing this arm exercise thingy, and I couldn’t take my eyes off some muscle, while sweat dripped down my nose. Tomorrow I have an appointment for an assessment with one of the trainers, and I really wish I’d done that before I started. But it’ll be interesting to see my progress from here on out.

Random cute picture of Miles and Ziggy:

It’s the last week of second grade! I can’t believe it. I’ll be glad not to have to do the drive to school every afternoon, but I don’t think I’m ready for third graders.

That 366 project

No, I’m not giving up on it like I did last year. But I am definitely being lazy about it. Here are a bunch of pics in gallery format to make catching up easier.

The 9th through 15th are covered in my Austin recap post. I mean, I’m pretty positive I posted at least one picture from each day I was there. Let’s just say I did, mmkay?

So now for the 16th – 25th:

April 18 – If you use your dog as a pillow, you have to keep it happy.

April 20 – Donuts after school as bribe.

April 23 – With Ziggy before the last game.

April 23 – “Good game”-ing after the last (pretty bad) game.

April 24 – The new obsession. Hula-hooping.

Okay, yes, I missed a day in there. Whatever. I’m being nice to myself and not obsessing over it.

We had a nice weekend in Baton Rouge. My mom and Larry hadn’t seen all three of them in a while. (Miles and I had seen them after his second day of filming.) There was hula-hooping and playing on a playground and going out to dinner for pizza. Sunday I was able to sneak off for a bit to buy some new workout clothes which was nice. We also made some more homemade cupcakes – lemon cupcakes with strawberry buttercream this time, but I don’t know if we should be making a habit of Sunday cupcakes. Well, we still have to make chocolate, so this isn’t the right time to be making a decision.

Speaking of my new workout, I’m really liking it. I am sore, but not like so much that I’m debilitated. It’s more like the “oh right, I have muscles there!” kind of sore. I’ll admit a big part of my motivation is the trip to Europe I have in June where I’ll be up on stage with my beautiful colleague Erica. There will be video of our talk. Need I say more?

Okay, on with the week!

January 14, 15, 2016

I drove to Baton Rouge (and back) on Thursday to see my mom get installed as president of the Greater Baton Rouge Woman’s Council. Go mom!

Ziggy got neutered Friday morning. He was not a fan of the cone of shame. I call this one “sad dog in dark yard.”

2015 in review

Man, did this year go by fast, or what?

January

Beckett bought me a birthday crown!

I turned 40!

In Barcelona!

Then celebrated again with my friends once I was back home.

February

Lots of high school friends

This lady drives us to school?!??

Not much besides Mardi Gras, really.

My Achilles’ tendon started hurting.

Went to Vegas for Kiki’s 40th.

March

Ellie, Emily, Linus, Oliver, Miles

The traditional pre-race selfie.

Spoke at my first WordCamp, in Dayton.

Ran the Shamrockin’ Run for the third time.

Emily and Ellie visited.

Scott Bakula was in our front yard.

April

The kids made a poster for her, and the adults made a few too.

Kiki came to visit and we had a garage sale.

We also went on a big boat and ~~watched~~ missed seeing Heather finish her first Ironman triathlon.

It was…a slow month.

May

My ankle got x-rayed.

I took the boys to Virginia.

The boys made a movie.

Miles danced.

I wrote a v popular post for the New Orleans Moms Blog.

Started physical therapy for my Achilles’ tendon.

June

But still, I’m happy.

Cockermouth flooded. A lot.

George and I gallivanted around England.

July

I went to NYC for BlogHer.

Completed my third (and last) triathlon.

August

Got the attic insulated.

My coworker came to visit.

I photographed my friends’ wedding.

The boys started 2nd grade.

I went uber-Goth for the NOMB Mom’s Night Out.

September

We got a new fridge!

I was volunteer coordinator at WordCamp DFW.

The boys started playing soccer.

October

We were devastated by the loss of our dear friend Gareth.

I went to Park City again for the Automattic Grand Meetup

I got another tattoo.

Ran my twelfth half marathon.

November

Breakfast gluttony

There’s the boat.

The first ice cream of many.

Breakfast at the kid’s cafe

George and I celebrated our tenth anniversary!

We went on a big cruise.

December

The boys turned 8!

We got a dog!

My ankle still hurts.

In blogging news…

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 190,000 times in 2015. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 8 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Quick Christmas recap

Christmas 2015: It was hot.

There.

Oh, well, there’s more.

I made us all steak and crispy gnocchi for Christmas Eve dinner (and now I’ve found that they love gnocchi so win!) and put a batch of eggnog French Toast in the fridge to soak overnight. And then drank the rest of the eggnog with Winter Pimm’s, which I’m sorry to say is impossible to buy in the US but is really good in eggnog.

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A post shared by Pam Kocke (@pyjammy)

I also spent made lemon cake and lemon bars from the lemons on our tree in the backyard. I am quite proud of that, I have to say.

Christmas morning, the boys were kind enough to not leave their room until 7 am (remember that one Christmas when I got up before them and got to enjoy my coffee and sit in front of the fire? (Of course I mean “the fire channel on TV.”) Yeah, that was nice. Maybe it’ll happen again when they’re teenagers.

So at the stroke of 7, the gift opening commenced!

Gifts from Santa were opened first…Linus got a 3DS game that he’d been coveting, Oliver a couple of books and a Rubic’s cube, and Miles got some accessories for his faux GoPro. I think Oliver got a bit cheated, Santa-wise. Dang that Santa. Sigh.

Their favorite part is opening the gifts from each other. Miles got Linus an Amiibo, Oliver got Miles a DVD with the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and some kinetic sand, and Linus got Oliver a Diary of a Wimpy kid activity book and a little binder for Pokemon cards.

I got to open my gifts next. A silly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ mug, some dog toys (well, they’re for me in that…the dog will stay occupied while I work?) and an Instant Pot. I’m really excited by that, I’ve been wanting a pressure cooker for a while. I made hard boiled eggs in it (easy!) and a pot roast (may have overcooked that.) So if you have any pressure cooker recipes that you like, send ’em my way.

My mom and Larry came over for Christmas dinner, which was delicious.

It snowed!

Later, we went to Chris and Steph’s house where we, you know, ate a little more, and Ziggy wore himself out playing with the other dogs.

All in all a pretty calm (I was going to say “chill” but it was SO FREAKING HOT AND HUMID I cannot even use that word) Christmas, and hopefully next year the boys won’t be so dang hard to shop for.

Merry Christmas 2015

My cards this year were such a debacle, I hardly ended up sending any out. Hopefully next year I’ll do better.

Well, this has been a week

And it’s only Thursday? Argh.

Monday was possibly the worst, with sickness of the human and canine variety, but Tuesday came in a close second. I drove the kids to school (each trip is about an hour round trip – longer during rush hour, maybe a little shorter when it’s not) in the morning. And then a couple of hours later, I got a call from the school nurse. No, not Linus. This time it was Oliver.

I was in the middle of the first of two interviews I had scheduled, so I asked if he could hang out in the nurse’s office until I was free. She said okay, so around lunchtime, I made the trek to get Oliver.

He just needed a little medicine and a breathing treatment, but before too long, he was fine. Whew.

And then two hours later, we had to make the trip again, this time in afternoon rush hour, to pick up from school. (I don’t usually drive in the mornings, only when Mary Catherine travels for work, which fortunately isn’t that often. And it’s fine because I travel for work too.)

Okay, driving to school three times in a day probably didn’t warrant four paragraphs. I’m being overly dramatic.

Wednesday was fine. No one was sick. Ziggy’s digestive system is definitely responding to his meds and disgusting wet food. Yay! Finally got my correct Christmas cards in the mail (from the other family, not Minted) so now I just have to go stand in a very long line to get postcard stamps.

I did write a scathing (well, for me) review on google of the place the boys had their party at last weekend. I’m not ready to think about that yet, much less blog about it.

But how in the world is it only Thursday?

Tomorrow will be good. I don’t have to drive to school at all! Ziggy has a vet appointment, and fingers crossed he gets the all-clear and his vaccinations so we can start going on walks again!

In other news, happy birthday to my mom! Since we gave her her birthday gift last weekend (a giant framed copy of this), now I can share:

cruise-9552

My mom’s birthday gift 7 years ago was an engagement ring from Larry. So glad she said yes, and not just because we got a free cruise. Ha!

A new addition to the family

Meet Ziggy (I think.)

That face. I could not resist. You know I am not a dog person. But I kind of figured that it was inevitable that we would get one, one day. I knew it would be good for the boys. Linus even said the other day that he wanted a puppy for Christmas.

Let me back up a little.

A few weeks ago, my coworker (who lives here) mentioned that his roommate had found a dog wandering around in the street. They took him in, tried to find his owner, took him to the vet, and advertised, to no avail. No one claimed the dog. I saw a picture and said, “aw, cute.” My coworker said, “you want him?” I said, “no friggin way.” (They couldn’t keep the dog for various reasons, but not because of the dog, if that makes sense.)

Actually, I’m not sure what happened after that. I guess he mentioned the dog again here and there. I saw a few more pictures. I asked a few questions. I talked to George. I asked more questions. And it all culminated in my coworker and his roommate bringing the dog to our house last night.

We took him for a walk. The boys walked him. They got him to sit. We took him to our friend Steph’s house to see how he acted around other dogs (this is important, since our friends get together with dogs all the time.) On the way, we passed the pub, and the dog went right up to the door, eager to go in. I think George was won over at that moment.

We got to Steph’s, and our friends that really know dogs checked him out. They played with him, held him, observed him around the other dogs. And he passed their tests with flying colors. So we asked my coworker and his roommate if we passed the test. We did!

We need a few days to get the house (and ourselves) ready for a dog, so we’re going to get him on Thursday and bring him home.

I know there are people who are going to think I’m crazy. Especially anyone who knew me as a child (I was absolutely terrified of dogs.) But this dog is kind of perfect for us. And I do want the boys to grow up with a dog. So here we go!

Cruise on the Norwegian Dawn (recap)

Okay, sit down, this is gonna be a long one.

Sunday, November 22

Stephanie drove us to the cruise terminal, so we were able to avoid paying for parking or a taxi. The boys were so excited. I was proud of my minimal packing skills. Though later I will have wished for more clothes. We waited in several lines to get on the ship, but finally, we were on!

cruise-9593 — Larry and my mom with the grandkids

We just got home today from a week-long cruise with the whole family, and while I will be writing up a very detailed post with pics and stuff, I wanted to jot down a few things before I forget.

I am still a little dizzy. I didn’t get seasick or anything, but getting your land legs back is a real thing. My body is adjusting to being still for once.

I am terrified of getting on a scale. There’s just so much food. And it was good. And rich. Oh, right, and we had the unlimited beverage package. So there was that too. I think I’m going to try to detox for a week or so, and then see how bad the damage is.

The boys were kind of celebrities on the ship. By the end of the cruise, if I just had one of them with me, random people would say, “you lost two!”

It was really awesome to hang out with my siblings and their kids and spouses. We don’t get together often enough. No wonder since we’re spread out all over the place.

The boys are now all eating new foods. Oliver ordered PB&J at every meal, they all scarfed down calamari (okay, we told them it was shrimp), and Miles stole half of my lamb at last night’s dinner.

And they ate so much food. I mean, the ice cream alone – Miles ate about 8 cones a day. Not even exaggerating. Their breakfast plates were piled high with bacon, sausage, pancakes, cereal, toast, etc. And then we’d have lunch, and at dinner, they’d order two or three entrees each. And eat them all.