A tribute to a musical Jewish icon

Ever since last week's Glee, I can't get Sweet Caroline out of my mind. What is it about that song that is so universal? Is it Neil Diamond? Is it the music? Is it the lyrics? Is it the beat?

It seems everyone has done a cover of this song: The Jonas Brothers (horrific--how did they get a musical career?), Elvis (not so awful--definitely Elvis-i-fied), David Archuleta (so sweet--only as cutie David can sing it), and apparently the Red Sox play it at every baseball game (thanks for that trivia, Trent).

On our first day on the cruise, Kraig and I were in the pool and the DJ played Sweet Caroline. Everyone on the deck started singing the song, especially the drunk people next to us (whom Kraig later challenged to do Karaoke that night). It was hilarious.

So here's my tribute to this musical icon. Hopefully this will help me get the song out of my mind.

This year's submission

I have been planning this year's Halloween costume since last Halloween. Do you remember what Kraig and I went as last year? Here's a refresher:
The Farmer and his Carrot Harvest. Hmmm...In light of what we've done with our food storage this year, it seems our costumes were a little prophetic last year :)

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Anyway, I've had ideas floating around my head for the last 11 months. In fact, for the majority of the year, I was pretty sure we were going to be a bowling ball and bowling pin this year, but it never materialized. Maybe next year.

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I got the idea for our costumes this year from an episode of the game show "Let's Make a Deal." It was pure inspiration. All I needed was a little felt and a few hours and viola! We were in business.I've always loved that Kraig's my complimentary piece of meat:)

Bon Jovi Really Got it Right

After you see these photos, you'll understand how my family and I are really "Livin' on a Prayer."

Monday night Kraig, the kids, and I were coming home from dinner with my parents and brother when we were in an accident. It was caused by a 16 year old girl driving a sooped-up Jeep who was "checking the clock" (translation: texting). We were stopped at a stop light in a long line of cars, the car behind us (a Honda Prelude) was stopped also when the Texter rammed into the Prelude. There were no skid marks on the road, so my assumption is that Texter didn't slow down at all. Here are some photos of that poor car. The young man driving it was ok, thankfully.




That wasn't our car. We were driving my parents Acura. It fared a little better when the Prelude rammed into us. We, in turn, hit the Accord in front of us, who hit the car in front of her, who hit the Nissan in front of them. Total was 6 cars, plus the motorcyclist who was behind the Texter in her Jeep and was probably following a little too close, but had to brake hard and ended up laying his bike down.

When the Texter hit the Prelude the Jeep flipped and she ended up inches from Joshua on the driver's side of our car. Some how she flipped the car so it landed on the her driver's side, facing the wrong way in traffic. Pretty scary. She crawled out of the car through the passenger door. Her car hardly looks scratched:
After Kraig checked the boys and me to make sure we were ok, he got out to help the others. I called 911 and by the time the call ended I was getting hysterical, but the boys had calmed down thankfully. I called my parents who were just a few miles in the opposite direction heading home after dinner. They came back to where we were in time to see the firemen and paramedics put a neck brace on me and lift me from the car on a back board. The kids and I hadn't gotten out of the car, but when they found out I was 21 weeks pregnant they decided to not take any chances. They loaded me in the ambulance and took me to the ER. Kraig rode along with me, so it was so wonderful that my parents had come to gather the kids and get them home.

Andy and Joshy thought the flashing lights and all the firemen and police officers were pretty cool. They were even evaluated by a firewoman, each giving his own account of if they were hurt or not. Joshua told her he'd hit his head on the ceiling :)


I spent 4 hours at the ER (mostly just laying down letting my BP return to normal). They did an ultrasound on the baby, listened to his heartbeat, and pronounced me fit to return home. I have a follow-up with my OB later this week.

Besides being sore, I've got an ugly scab forming on my forehead from where I hit my head on the ceiling. Kraig's pretty sore too, but I think we're both on the mend.

One of the hardest parts of this whole accident is thinking about the "what ifs" and the "It almost happened this way." This is definitely one of those instances where I am so grateful the prayers were answered that we didn't even know we needed to offer. My family and my baby are all ok and I have the Lord and his angels to thank for it.

20 Weeks and Counting

FEEL FREE TO SING ALONG

The significance of this song shouldn't be lost to anyone who has ever roadtripped with me.

If you carrot all

So from the harvest at Miller Farms, we brought home over 40 pounds of beautiful carrots. Last year's harvest of carrots was less than impressive, and I'm sad to report that I ended up letting most of them go to waste. Kraig and I are both determined to not let our harvest go to waste this year.
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Friday afternoon we processed all 40 pounds of the carrots. We washed, peeled, rinsed, sliced, rinsed, blanched, dried, and bagged our harvest. We got 24 bags of carrots to fill our freezer.
It was a lot of work, but we both feel so much accomplishment having done it. What is it about padding your food storage that brings such satisfaction?
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Now I just have to get the orange stains off my bowls, cutting boards, and hands :)

Welcome, October!

October's always been my favorite month. I love the change in the trees, the green light to wear orange as much as I want, making soups without Kraig complaining that it's too hot outside for soup, the cooler weather, pumpkin cookies and the harvest.

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Here are a few ways we celebrated October yesterday:

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Kraig and the boys had their final (we thought) camp out of the season. Forget the fact that it was in the 40's overnight. I was convinced that they would come inside sometime during the night because of the cold, but my boys are definitely cut from the Webb mold. They survived the whole night outside by themselves and crawled in with Daddy in the morning to warm up. So cute!

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Our (now) annual trip up to Miller Farms to harvest. Our haul this year wasn't as extensive as last year because there was a lot of hail damage to the crops, but what we did bring home was much higher quality. True to Kraig form, he made good friends with our tractor driver and our driver took us to the fields they harvest for market in addition to the publicly gleaned fields. The boys were much more "helpful" this year with their shovels and "work gloves." I haven't totaled out pickings yet, but I'll post price/pound savings in a few days after we've processed it all.

Check out the time stamps on these photos on our way home after hours of harvesting and playing. They're 4 minutes apart.

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Pumpkin cookies! Need I say more? The boys and I ate some for breakfast this morning. Delicious!

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Welcome, October! You're like an old friend returning home after a long vacation.

Where does he learn these things?

Last night Andrew made some bad choices and got his blanket and snuggle bear taken away at bedtime. After the meltdown ended, he calmly called me in for a snuggle and told me through quivering chin,

"Mommy, you hurt my feelings....and....and...and broke my heart!"

I gave him a big, long hug (to mask my silent giggles), a kiss and told him to take a few deep breaths and close his eyes. He was asleep within 10 minutes.

That little boy melts my heart.

Where do I start?

So we've been home for a week now. Crazy. It honestly doesn't feel like we were even on vacation because of the deluge of trials that have come since we've been home, but then I look at the photos and remember the wonderful, child-free time that Kraig and I shared for one blissful week (thanks again, Tina and Kurt!).

We took the Royal Caribbean Western Caribbean cruise. Our ports were Ft. Lauderdale, Key West, Cozumel, and Belize. It was worth every penny we paid (and didn't save--I know! Me! Not saving money! Unheard of!) and if I had the money, I do it again in a heart beat. I loved the boat, the beaches, the food, the people, the ocean, but mostly being alone with my best friend.

We took almost 200 photos, so here are the highlights. Hopefully it doesn't get too boring.

First hour on the boat. We were both in awe of it's size and splendor. This was Deck 10, with Ft. Lauderdale in the background.

Probably within the first hour also, but I just couldn't get enough of how beautiful it was and we hadn't even left port yet.

Our first adventure was tandem biking around Key West. If you've never tandemed before, I highly recommend it. I didn't stop laughing the entire time I was pedalling. This was mile 0 of US1.

We didn't see any swimmers. One of the places we biked.

Kraig snorkeling in Key West. He was actually really far out. Apparently the beaches are not great in Key West. The locals don't frequent them for fear of getting a disease. But this was a State Park that was guaranteed clean.

You can tell it was the first day of the cruise because of the farmer's tans:) Beach in Key West.

Formal night. Being pregnant posed a few packing challenges because I didn't fit into any of my old formal dresses. Tina helped me find this beauty the night before we left flew to Ft. Lauderdale. Huh, it looks like maybe I should have used the laundry service on board to get it ironed. Whoops.

The food was wonderful--definitely one of the highlights. We ate in the dining room as often as possible because I loved having someone wait on me for a change. Plus, the food was better in the dining room. The first two nights we were at a table by ourselves, but then the head waiter moved us to an adjacent table with 6 other delightful people. Truly. We made great friends at dinner.

Kraig tried escargot. I wanted the Webbs to see how much it looked like an abelskiver pan :)

Enchantment of the Seas in port in Cozumel. This was at the beginning of the day because we aren't laden with shopping bags yet:) It was a good day to shop in Mexico. :)

Snorkeling in Cozumel. Fantastic. We had a boat take us about a mile off shore to a couple of coral reefs. Our dear neighbor loaned us her digital underwater camera. It was SO fun and took such awesome photos underwater.

We went on a Cave Tubing excursion in Belize. First we hiked through the rain forest to a freshwater river that runs through the country. It was the definite highlight of the cruise. Don't ever visit Belize without cave tubing. (The great underwater camera doesn't take the best photos out of the water).

There was a rock wall on the back of the boat. It was closed most days because of the wind, but Kraig snuck in a climb our last full day on board.

There was always something fun to do in the evening on the boat. There were games (made more entertaining by the number of drunk people playing), comedians, dancers and singers, and on the last day, a magician came. He was looking for a volunteer from the audience and chose me! It was fun to be a part of his trick. I still don't know how he did it:)

So that was our trip in a nutshell. It makes me smile to just remember the fun times on and off the boat.

First things first.

We had a fantastic time on our cruise. Pictures to follow, as soon as I finish reinstalling every program back on my computer. And figure out why my speaker aren't working.

Anyway, we had an ultrasound on Monday and new baby Webb is a very un-shy LITTLE BOY!! We're so excited!

Things I'm doing rather than doing the things I should be doing

You know how the days leading up to a vacation seem shorter and shorter and longer and longer at the same time. It feels like there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done that I need to but at the same time my vacation is never going to get here. Maybe it's just me.

So, instead of tackling the mile-long list of "to-dos" this afternoon, I took myself (and my children) to the mall. Now, normally, I don't take my kids many places that don't have the luxury of shopping carts and child safety seat belts. And I don't employ my double wide stroller very often (outside of a walk to the park) because the aisles are never wide enough and stacks of clothing seem to end up on the floor as we walk by. But I digress.

The mall. I've lived here in Denver for over 2 years now and I'm afraid I've never walked the length of the outdoor mall until today. I even did things I don't generally do while at said mall:

1. Bribed my children to behave, stay close to me, and not touch things. Ok, I bribe my children into good behavior often (if anyone has a better parenting tactic, I'm all ears), but today I bribed them with a trip to the candy store. Really. It sounds so cliche, but it's true.
2. Bought a book full-price from Barnes and Noble. Who does that anyway? I paid $19.45 for a book that was $10.23 at barnesandnoble.com. Does anyone really shop bookstore/music stores when everything we want can be shipped to us the next day from amazon.com? This is Suzanne Collins' 2nd book in the Hunger Games series. I decided to buy it instead of wait for my copy at the library (another first) so that I can have good reading material on my cruise.
3. Paid $10.45/pound for Jelly Belly jelly beans (to bribe/reward my children with at home) that I can get at the grocery store or --gasp-- Walmart for $2/pound. But I had to follow through with the candy store reward. What kind of mother would I be if I didn't?

I'm worn out. I need a vacation. Thank heavens I have one scheduled.

One year older...

Today's my birthday. Yea! Happy birthday, me! I made it though another year. I'm making my birthday cake this year, so I think I'll do this:

But on a more exciting note than turning 29, Kraig and I leave for our cruise ONE WEEK from today!

I must admit, I'm a little nervous about leaving the children for a week, flying across the country, and loading myself and my honey on a large boat. I'm trying to settle my anxiety about leaving by preparing lists and menus and addresses and directions.

Please help me! If you've ever left your children for an extended period of time, what were things you wish you'd done or what were some things you were so glad you'd taken care of before leaving?

Police car

Just wondering. If you saw ME in a police car, what would you think I got arrested for?