::adventures::

My Max likes adventures.

For the first week of school his new teacher sent home a brown paper lunch sack and asked the kids to bring it back the next day containing five things that they felt defined them as people. They were supposed to share and explain these things to the class.
When I saw this assignment I started to brainstorm of course, so I could give Max some good ideas. I started to talk about it and he told me he already knew what he was going to put in there.
"I love adventures," he said "so I'm going to put my geodes in there and a Matchbox Land Rover. I'm also going to put a little yellow bike that looks like my Scott Bike and my stick that I found in the desert that looks like a gun."

I thought it was very very interesting that he defined himself that way. I hadn't realized that about him up to that point--in fact I don't think it was true up to very recently.

I'm happy to have a boy that defines himself as an adventurous outdoors guy. There are so much worse and more boring things to want to be at this age.

And what it really comes down to is that I thought it was awfully cute.
I suggested he include a family picture in his bag and off he went to school. I think it went well for him.

(No, I don't know why Max is wearing a bike jersey backwards.)
When my parents were here last week Max invited my dad into his special club--the club I didn't know existed. It's called the "Explorers Bike Club" they had a secret handshake, a secret meeting location and they went on all sorts of cool bike rides. Adventurous and fun. And active.
Pretty cool, right?

::first ride::

Last week Kris took Max on his inaugural "real" bike ride. They went four whole miles down the rail trail.

This is impressive because in the past you could hardly get Max to walk, run or ride seriously for much more than a couple of minutes without a meltdown.
Maybe things have changed--at least a bit. But that's the whole reason why we hadn't gotten him a bigger bike before that bike race. He just wasn't that interested, and certainly not dedicated to going fast or long.

So we'll see how it goes from here. No pushing, just gentle encouragement.
I think it was fun for Kris to get Max into watching the Tour de France this year--the bit he watched seemed to rivet him. We'll see if any interest continues!

(storm light--monsoon season!)

::new bike::

If you think he's pretty proud and excited about this bike you'd be right. And who wouldn't be proud of this blazing yellow fancy thing?

::lost::

In order to keep this blog from being 100% cute baby pictures, I thought I'd tell you all about a biking adventure that Kris had on saturday.
First important detail--Kris got a new mountain bike and he was so excited. He'd been yearning after this bike for months. He's been riding on the same old entry level mountain bike that I got him before Max was born, and it just wasn't holding up to his level of riding. When we got to NM we met friends that had a bike for sale--of course the perfect size, and a better price than the store.
So we finally were able to buy it after months of working towards it. I surprised Kris with it and he was very happy.

See? That's definitely his excited face.
So he got the bike late friday night. Then the baby was born on saturday night! Poor Kris was dying to ride his bike. He went for a quick ride on saturday afternoon, but I didn't want him to go far.

So the following saturday morning he planned on heading into the mountains early for an adventure. My mom was leaving to go back home early afternoon, so he had a deadline.

Of course he got lost. Totally lost. He went up the mountain on one trail (272 if you're looking at the map) and then ended up going down on a completely different trail (175). That trail went completely in the wrong direction. By the time he realized he was in the wrong place it was too late. He couldn't get back up the trail easily because it was too steep. So he just had to keep going. He called me right before he lost reception and asked me to try to figure out where he would come out and meet him with the car.

I'm not that great with maps, geography or directions, so I wasn't super excited about that.

But I tried. I found the road I thought he'd end up on and we packed my mom up and headed out with a car full of kids to go find dad.

He called me as I was driving towards the road and said that the trail had disappeared and that he'd had to hike his bike along a creek for a ways, then through and ranch and he had no idea where he was. That was discouraging news. Then he lost reception. We kept on driving. I thought it was a serious long shot that we would find him, but I had to try.
Then of course, the deeper into the mountain foothills we got, the less phone reception, until we were completely without communication.
We drove up this random dirt road, and after a while there he was! It was kind of miraculous that we found him, and such a relief.

Lucky Kris got to drive all the way to Albuquerque in his spandex. We barely got my mom dropped off in time--by way of Chick'fil'a for lunch, then we drove home exhausted.
So that's the story of Kris lost.

And just so we don't accidentally forget that this blog is 99.99% about cute baby and kid stuff, here's a confused baby with puppy ears.


Good night!

::mail boy::

Our mailbox is way down at the end of our curvy dirt driveway.
So these days, if we want the mailbox checked we have to call the mailboy.
If you "call" him on the pretend phone, he will check the box for you. He does it on his bike, helmeted of course, and usually takes his awesome green backpack to carry all the mail.
He's good at his job.
And he's very serious about it.
And it occupies him for at least a couple of minutes, and right now that's very nice.




He's too big for his bike now, isn't he? When we bought that bike I thought it would fit him forever. Time files as they say!

::::

In honor of the ending of the Tour de France today I thought I'd post a few photos from when Kris and I got to go to the Tour of California bike race last Feb. We had a blast. Kris's friend Jeff had VIP passes we got to use, and so we got to stand right at the edge of the course, right before the finish line. It was the time trail stage, which meant that we got to see each of the riders go by alone.
I got a few good pictures and a lot of bad ones. And the guys near the end--the exciting fast ones--I couldn't even get photos of because everybody was hanging over the edge of the barrier, sticking their dumb old point'n'shoots way out in the way, so that I couldn't see anything. I don't usually feel short, but I felt short that day!

Here's Floyd Landis, one of Kris's favs.

Thor Hushovd, another guy we really like.
And now a few random guys that I can't identify because we lost the roster with all the numbers/names on it, dang it!



I hope we get to go to the Tour of California again, and someday to the Tour de France. It would be so fun!

::::

He'll be riding the tour before we know it.

::back::

We made it home.  It's always sad to end a vacation, but at the same time coming home is nice.  Especially since our bed(s) and sleeping situation are so much better than it was stuffed in a small hotel room with three of us all sharing two small double beds.  It's been nice to get some sleep.  In fact, Max slept in until 10 this morning!  I can't remember the last time that happened.

And he could sleep in because he had a snow day today.  Supposedly there's this huge winter storm coming in today.  It's supposed to drop around a foot of snow on us in a few hours time.  I guess last year they had a surprise storm similar to this one on the afternoon of a workday.  The plows and snow guys weren't ready, so a lot of people got stuck on the road.  It took one of our friends about 3 hrs to get home from the hospital.  He lives right by us, only about 10 to 15 minutes away from the hospital on a normal day.

So there was much preemptive canceling.  All the schools are closed today, Max's swim lesson at the Y is canceled, his ballet class is canceled.

I don't mind too much because I still feel like I'm recovering from our busy vacation, but Max was sad because today was going to be his last day of school before winter break.  He loves school and was kind of bummed to miss it, even for our vacation.

So anyway, it's about 2PM and the snow just started.  We'll see how bad it actually gets.  Maybe they're not just paranoid out here, I don't know.

Kris took his mountain bike to work today.  His theory is that if there's bad visibility and really bad road conditions, he'll make it home a lot faster on the sidewalks with the mountain bike. We'll see about that.

Max and I are going to hang out and watch christmas movies (if I can get the one currently jammed in the DVD player out) and maybe make some yummy christmas cookies.  And watch the snow.  Sounds like fun to me.

Now if everybody could just cross their fingers that they send everybody home early at Kris's work it would be great.  It's a very very long shot, but it sure would be nice.

::bike man::

Kris has been trying to teach Max to ride his bike without training wheels. At first it was a huge ordeal. Max cried and cried. He just wanted his training wheels back!
But then Kris somehow convinced him that it was super duper cool to ride like dad. And so Max gave it a try. Before this trip he's practiced twice, and he's started to really get the hang of it.

There he goes!

Yikes! He's getting good at swerving, that's for sure.

At our dog park they have this long strip of softish pavement that I think is used for long jump or something. It's perfect for Max to practice riding on. Especially since this day we forgot his helmet, jeeps creeps! That's not a mistake we like to make.

Kris is like "Don't forget to USE YOUR BRAKES!" That's Max's biggest challenge. He forgets about his brakes, takes his feet off the pedals and drags them along the ground to stop. It's not very efficient, and makes for some rather spectacular wipe-outs.

Sultan likes to run alongside--or more usually in front.  See him there just barely in the left of the above photo?  That's made for some pretty good wipe-outs too. He likes to make sure Max is ok, but I don't think he understands that he stresses Max out more than otherwise. But that's ok. He's just a nice and silly dog.

But sometimes it's hard to stick with the practicing.

"Um, Max? We're not here to ride up and down this strip by ourselves!"

And whoever else is there usually feels the need to run alongside too--just like Sul. The other day when we had Max out practicing I raced the boy up and down that strip for what felt like hours. Finally I got tired and Max said that I ran out of "juice."
Luckily as Max says, Grandpa NEVER runs out of juice.





Grandpa didn't run out of juice.  He's tough.  Max is having a great time. He's very proud of himself when he can make it all the way down to the end.

It's about right here he starts to get worried. He's trying to remember how to stop.
By the time we left he was stopping pretty well. So well in fact that I didn't even get a picture of a crash. I'm glad he wasn't crashing anymore, but I'm seriously bummed I didn't get any good action shots.

To finish up Kris rode a couple of races against the bike man.

It was a good day for bike riding. Pretty soon he's going to be riding everywhere, all on his own! And we've found a few places around here that are actually conducive to a small cute boy riding around. It's hard, being in the middle of the city, but we're going to make it work.

::"Our" Children's Museum::

Max has been dying to go and visit the Providence Children's Museum ever since I let it slip to him that there was one in existence. So finally the other day we talked our friends into picking us up, and we went to check it out.

For some reason they give out free tickets to the museum at the library. Since we basically live right across the street from the library I went over and picked up free tickets for all of us.

It was pretty fun. It wasn't as nice as the Manhattan one though, and didn't come anywhere near the one in SLC. So far that one has been by far the best we've seen.
But he did have a lot of fun. And his three year old friend that we were with had a great time too.

For some reason the first exhibit you see is this huge hideous set of teeth (you probably can't see it, but the teeth have a little body with legs. Super weird). Max practiced his bass technique.

I find it a little creepy myself, but I guess this museum isn't all about me.


There was a big room filled with water stuff, faucets and floating things and currents and stuff, kind of standard kid's museum fare. Max liked it, but was ready to move on pretty quickly. His friend loved it and so we had to split up for a while. Max charged ahead to see what else there was. I could hardly keep up. As usual.


They had a big exhibit that was supposed to educate the kids about different periods in RI history, and the immigrants and all that. Max didn't quite get the point of it, but he did like driving the pretend boat.

And being the cashier in the super old little store.

But of course, he can't hold still for too long in a place like this. What if he missed something?

I think it was ingenious that they had a little area filled with fake rocks and Tonka trucks. That was a winner with Max and his friend. Probably if that'd been all there was at the museum the boys would've all been happy.

Another cool thing was this little road smushing machine. What are those called? Steam rollers maybe? Anyway there were little boys crawling all over this thing like ants. It was a big hit.

Can anybody tell me what the man of a thousand faces is thinking here?

Another exhibit was all about bones. Max thought he'd check out some x-rays. But of course the light didn't work.

They did have Kris's collarbone on display, which I thought was pretty cool.

They had a cool skeleton riding a bike. His bike was attached to a bike on the outside for the kids to ride. When Max pedaled the skeleton pedaled with him so we could see the way the bones all worked together. Max just couldn't figure out why the guy didn't have any skin. I don't think the bone articulations did much for him. But he was psyched there was a bike to ride.

He must've thought it was pretty cool because he stayed there longer than like 3 seconds.


My friend and I eventually got tired of chasing the kids through the museum, so we made them go outside into the garden. It seemed like a great idea until the three year old climbed up into the little fountain and got soaked. Then he climbed into a tunnel and got covered with dirt. So fun!
But they did have this really cool thing out there that was like a whole bunch of trash cans and different things that the kids could play with drumsticks. I think it was a really good idea, and it kept them busy for a little while.

I think this is one of the only pictures where I was able to get Max and his friend in the same shot. They're two very busy little dudes.


All in all it was fun. I'm sure we'll go back. I'm glad we got to go with my friend Bonnie though, it made it all so much more fun and less boring for me.
Max liked it a lot, but he was bummed there weren't a whole bunch of little cars like in the SLC museum. Oh well. There're reasons why they call it Zion I guess...

~ A Year Ago Today ~

A year ago today I had just brought Kris home from the hospital after he had been through a major surgery for his shoulder and collarbone.
Why you ask? Well, let me tell you the story.
On the late afternoon of May 23rd Kris headed out the door for a bike ride. For any of you that don't already know, Kris rides bicycles a lot. He was on a racing team at the dental school with some friends and went/goes on a lot of rides alone and with friends, whatever works. He usually rides a long ways when he goes, at least 10 miles but usually more.
Anyway, this night he was going riding with a couple of guys from the cycling team. He left from our house.
I wasn't feeling that good that day, and so I was resting and getting Max ready for bed when suddenly my cell phone rang. Usually I don't answer my phone if I don't recognize the number. I'm a big proponent of call screening. Anyway, my phone rang with some weird kansas number, and against my instincts I picked up. It was a stranger who immediately told me that she had found my husband lying in the road. He'd had an accident evidently and had hurt his arm or shoulder. She put him on the line, and he talked to me and told me he needed me to come and pick him up (obviously!). My stomach dropped down to my shoes. This is like one of my nightmares! I immediately grabbed Max, strapped him into the car and took off. The unfortunate thing is that Kris had ridden miles and miles before this accident. It took me about 30 minutes to get outside the city to where he was. By the time I got close I was so nervous. I pulled up to the side of the road, and there he was, holding his arm. He was with the guys he originally left with--however, turns out that they had ridden far ahead of him and weren't there when he had his accident (which I'm still mad about).
The rumor is that he was riding along a kind of narrow country road and came upon a really cruddy one lane wooden bridge. There his front wheel must've slipped into a rut or somehow gotten stuck, and he went over the handlebars and fell on his head and shoulder. (He doesn't remember any of this--this is mostly just what the lady that called me said. Evidently she saw most of what happened)
Here's a picture of the infamous bridge. You can't see much, but maybe it'll give you an idea of what it was like. When you drive up on that thing, there's a big chunk sound. It's not well put together at all.

I loaded Kris into the car to take him home. Once I got him in there I realized something funny was going on. He had told me that his shoulder hurt and that he thought he probably had broken his collarbone as I was getting him into the car. As soon as I got myself into the car and closed the door he told me the same thing again. Then he told me again a minute later. He kept asking me about what had happened and where he was. He asked over and over again if his bike was ok. It was about the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. I started to cry. That didn't help. All that did was make him ask me over and over if I was ok!
I realized this was more than just a shoulder injury and figured there was something really wrong and that we should head to a hospital right away. Unfortunately we were in a part of town I was completely unfamiliar with. So I called up Kelly (Kris's brother that lives in Kansas City). Luckily he answered right away. He went online, found the nearest hospital and gave me directions. He also said he would head to the hospital right away to pick up Max and take him home. So nice to have family around.
We got to the emergency room, Kelly came to pick up Max and Kris kept repeating himself. Over and over. It was so freaky.
The doctors took a look at him, took some x-rays and did an MRI. They seemed to think his repetitions were kind of funny, which I didn't appreciate. Finally they told me he had a concussion and a broken collarbone. They told me he should probably get his short term memory back soon, but it could take as long as a couple of weeks. Well that was great to hear he was going to be ok, but I wanted him to have his brain back NOW! Turned out later when we looked at his helmet that he had cracked it straight through. I'm so glad he was wearing that helmet or else he might not be around right now.
They gave us the name of an orthopedic surgery place we needed to go to in the morning and sent us on our way. It was the middle of the night by the time we got home. Kris had started to normalize a little by that time so I was feeling a little better.
Here's a picture of his shoulder from that night. Doesn't it look weird?

You can tell that something's wrong there, can't you?
We headed off to the surgeon the next morning, where max threw fits the whole time, and we waited for ages. They finally told us that his collarbone was so badly broken that it was poking up through his shoulder muscle. It had to be operated on.
Here is the shoulder the day after the accident, but the day before the surgery.

Ouch, right? What a crazy bruise. They tried to set his shoulder in the dr.'s office before they realized it was so badly broken and he almost passed out. Poor guy.
Here's one of the x-rays. Can you see the bone?

My friend Vicky watched Max all day so I could take Kris to the surgery. It took a lot longer than I expected and made me nervous, but he came out just fine. In a LOT of pain, but fine.
Here he is the day after surgery I think. Ouch again.

I thought I was going to be ok dealing with everything until I got Kris home from the hospital and realized that he was SO out of it and so in pain that I had to watch him every second. I called my mom and begged her to come. She flew out the next day. Aren't moms great? She helped me take care of Max and covered for me with a lot of other stuff too. I wouldn't have survived without her help.

Kris started to feel better after a few days of almost constant sleep. A care package from his mom certainly didn't hurt.

Max got jealous and told us he wanted a "collerbone" too, so Kris hooked him up with one. He felt pretty cool.

Cute huh?
Kris was supposed to be in Utah about a week after the accident for an externship with the U's pediatric dentistry program. He manned up and decided to go in spite of everything. I drove us out there and he went ahead and did the externship without really having to tell anybody about the injury. He healed really pretty fast luckily. He made a connection with one of the residents at the U which eventually led him to the interview for the RI program we're in right now. It's lucky things worked out the way they did.
And here he is close to a month after the accident. Looks pretty normal, huh?
Thank goodness he's a strong young guy. All he has to show for the accident is a titanium plate in his shoulder with a whole bunch of little screws you can feel through his skin. Yeah, it's weird, but ok. We can deal with it.
Just thought I'd share for those that didn't know the story! I was thinking about it this week as the year anniversary went by. Thanks for listening. :)

***addendum
Kris just found this xray for me. It shows the before and after and is very scary looking. He also corrected me and said that he usually goes out for at least 20 mile rides, but usually more.

Whew. Telling that story wore me out!!