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Another Big Bite

Another Big Bite

Category Archives: Monday Morning Water Cooler

Playing Tourist… Again.

26 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Monday Morning Water Cooler, Out of Doors

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Tags

colorado springs, family, feeding elephants, seven falls, Travel, zoo

Nathan’s mom (the kids’ Mima) came to town for a visit last week. Once again, we played proud momma and poppa to our new city of C. Springs, showing it off and basking in our new-found pride. (Isn’t she beautiful? Absolutely perfect! And she even sleeps through the night!) We played tourist again. And I said “Isn’t this awesome?!?” way too many times.

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There are two things that are a must-do for us when someone comes to visit. First – Garden of the Gods. Second; Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. They are a good “bang for your buck” since one is free and we are members to the zoo, and they are both quintessential Colorado Springs experiences.

Finn is always excited when Mima comes to town; I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that she always brings a suitcase of presents every time she visits. Mima also has more patience for Finn’s antics than anyone else. And he makes every effort to see how far he can push it until the happy-go-lucky visit implodes. I always lose my cool well before Mima even winces. So Finn pushes harder, culminating in a shit-storm big enough to get Nathan involved. Thankfully, we evaded any major drama with him this time around, almost to the point where he was tolerable to be around.

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While waiting for Nathan to get off work on Wednesday, we headed to Target and spent over an hour perusing all the new toys. Christmas toys are up, folks… Children, get your roll of paper and pencils ready. We examined every toy in the store and rocked out Chick-fil-a for dinner. Then came Garden of the Gods. I love it there. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a soul who doesn’t. We hiked a little, let the kids run wild and headed out to Manitou Springs for ice cream.

Hitting Manitou Springs on Wednesday was a great idea… On Thursday, we were hit with another epic storm, meaning more flooding and destruction in Manitou. I love it there, but adding mudslides to the crazy tourist season in the summer and getting up and down the hills in the winter makes me glad that we live far enough away where none of that affects us.

Finny had his second day of school on Thursday (more on that later – the jury is still out); meaning we were stuck hanging around the house for most of the day since preschool is smack-dab in the middle of the day. After everyone had been schooled, Mima treated us to dinner and a visit to Seven Falls. We had never been. Remember that awesome storm on Thursday night? Yeah, we arrived just as it started… Visiting a place that has just shy of 400 steps… In the rain… Not the greatest activity ever. It ended up being totally fine, though. They stamped our tickets – a real “rain check” if ever there was one – and we called it a day.

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Finn was looking forward most to Friday. Zoo day! We took Mima through all the regular zoo attractions; giraffe-feeding, lion-gazing and giant-sandwich-eating, but this time, we got to do something new. They let you feed the elephants, too.

Good lord, I almost cried when I found out.

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Sadly, the experience was a little less magical than feeding the giraffes, since space is limited and everyone waits in line to feed the same elephant. I made the mistake of snapping the carrot in half so each of the kids could have a turn, and was promptly scolded… “It is a per-person charge, ma’am. Ugh. You can’t break them in half.” (Cue the epic eye roll directed at me.) Whatever. Mima forked over another fiver so Alice could be terrified of the beast without her brother standing beside her.

Having zoo-ed ourselves out, the kids and Mima napped when we got home. We took Mima to Garbanzos for dinner, one of the best fast-food joints out here (because we like to keep it classy), and tried Seven Falls again.

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This time, the weather was be-a-utiful and we had no problem getting the full experience. We climbed the 180+ steps to the overlook of the falls.

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Mima is none-too-fond of heights, but she was a trooper and braved her way to the top of the steps running adjacent to the falls. We all arrived safely at the top. The four of us, Mima, and Alice’s Pony. It is a little plastic My Little Pony that goes everywhere with her. She clutches it at night when she sleeps. Though all six of us made it up in one piece, only five came down together. Sure enough, after an exhausting day, Alice decided the wisest course of action was to pitch Pony right into the falls after I refused to take her out of the carrier.

I have watched too much Toy Story; all I could think about was that poor little Pony loosing her Alice… It sat in an eddy at the top of the falls, bobbing sadly in one spot. Nathan booked down the 200 steps to wait for it at the bottom, but we couldn’t get it to move. We headed down, defeated and forlorn, but the security guard gave us a little hope. This apparently happens all the time, and Nathan and a custodian high-tailed it back to the top with pool skimmers attached to long poles. Sadly, in the time it took us to climb down and Nathan to climb up, Pony had tumbled. And was lost forever.

This one's for you, Pony.

This one’s for you, Pony.

Moment of silence, please?

Good thing Target is littered with Ponys. We stopped and picked up a new one on the way home – just as Alice was starting to panic about impending bedtime.

Mima left early the next morning, before the kids had woken up, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Successful visit in the bag!! I kept waiting for a major Finny-Meltdown, but it never happened.

There is always next time.

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Nothin’ New to See Here, People…

03 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Monday Morning Water Cooler, Out of Doors, The Good Ole Days

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Tags

colorado springs, friends, Garden of the Gods, giraffes, old friends, zoo

Just more pictures of giraffes.  And Garden of the Gods.

And this lovely lady:

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Last week, we had our first official visitor; Gwen, my dear, dear friend from high school and Alice’s godmother.  Since I posted about feeding giraffes, she made sure we knew THAT is what we should do when she came to visit.

I had no problem indulging myself her.

Despite the fact that I never quite got around to cleaning the house properly, she still loves me.  I am the antithesis of Gwen’s BFF back in Chicago, who really is the perfect mother while keeping her house spotless…  While I’ve never actually met her, she seriously seems amazing, and genuinely put together (and is a total knockout in every photo I’ve ever seen of her on Facebook).  Meanwhile, I haven’t mopped the floor in a week and a half, Finn spent a large chunk of our time at the house from Wednesday to Friday parked in front of some kind of screen or another – and my eyebrows?  Haven’t been landscaped in over a month.  There has to be balance in the world, right?

Gwen asked when I got to the point where I wasn’t constantly wiping the kids’ faces…  Should I feel horrible that I cannot recall a point where I ever DID wipe them clean?

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photo 4 (2)So, after a fantastical journey to the zoo (again), we took a much-needed breather.  This, Gwen, is what you traveled thousands of miles for:

photo 4 (3)G and I went took in The Great Gatsby; and subsequently got in a delightful, yet heated argument about Paul Newman vs. Robert Redford on the way home…  The movie was surprisingly pretty good; and even though I’m not the world’s biggest fangirl of Leonardo DiCaprio, oh…  That look when he finally sees Daisy for the first time in five years?  Ugh, it gets ya right in the feels.

We also took her to Garden of the Gods – which never fails to disappoint.

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On Friday night, when her sister (who lives a few hours from here) came to pick her up, I didn’t even get that feeling that you normally get when house guests leave… You know the feeling; where you simply cannot wait to run around in your underwear again?

I guess we’re past all that, her and I.  And I adore her for it.  Despite the fact that she honestly believes that Paul Newman was better looking than this guy:

 

Love you, G.  Miss you already.  But Redford beats Newman by a mile. XOXO

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Weekend Bathroom Timelapse (Sorta)

17 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by anotherbigbite in Fixing Up the House, Monday Morning Water Cooler

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

bathroom remodel, Remodeling, renovating

Ahhh, the weekend that wasn’t. Being as this was the first weekend Nathan has been home in a month, so we put our noses to the grindstone and hoped to knock the last bathroom out. We got a great start. But didn’t finish.

Friday afternoon:

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Friday night:

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Saturday afternoon (after grocery shopping, cleaning out the garage and power washing the front of the house):

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Sunday morning:

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Sunday evening (and the floor is now ripped out; boo yaa!):

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And now, it is a smidgen farther, but the thinset wasn’t very thin, or good at setting the tile any longer, so we have to mix a new batch tomorrow to finish the wall tile. While Nathan spent much of the weekend working on the bathroom, I was keeping the little ones out of his hair. When we weren’t outside cleaning up, Finn spent a good part of the weekend in front of the electronic babysitter television. Or doing yoga…

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While Alice got further aquatinted with Violet…

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Coming up this week, we have to get this damn thing finished, make an Ikea run (three hours round trip, yay.) and replace the countertops and backsplash in the kitchen. Anyone interested in performing free manual labor – I’ve got an uncomfortable blowup mattress here with your name on it.

Act quickly to reserve your spot as space is limited.

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Grandma Rescues The Black Thumb

11 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by anotherbigbite in Fixing Up the House, Monday Morning Water Cooler

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I kill everything. Everything with leaves, anyway. We have lived in our house for almost two years; our big plans for landscaping have stalled, and the most exciting thing that has happened to the yard is its biweekly mowing.

I have inherited some wonderful traits from my mother; her creativity, her prowess in the kitchen and the agility to win the Passive-Agressive Olympics. (Last year I took home the bronze.) One thing I did not inherit is her green thumb. She can rattle off fourty different plants that would thrive in a particular shady spot in my front lawn and almost passed out when she discovered the perfect piece of flagstone in my backyard. She can grow plumeria in Chicago for peet moss’ sake. She is a horticultural genius, my mother.

To the surprise of no one but me, she completly worked a 180 on my front yard with nothing more than a trowel, a pair of hanging ferns and three bags of cypress mulch in under two hours. She went a-transplanting this and that, and now my front yard looks like someone actually lives here. I wish I would have taken a before shot so y’all could have seen just how dire the situation was.

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Then she planted an herb garden in a naked patch of earth. She also came baring gifts; one of which was a very patriotic whirligig from my great grandmother. It’s delightfully tacky, no? Every yard needs a little “flair,” after all.

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I love it when my mom comes to visit. We dine in Ohio’s fanciest establishments (Red Lobster – holla!!), gossip about the neighbors and I watch in amazement as she works her magic with leaves and roots. She is the kick in the ass that I need to get my yard closer to par.

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Then she and my stepdad leave. And we all are a little sad. Especially my new basil plant. Because now its days are so numbered.

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Mr. Stossel Goes to Ohio

29 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by anotherbigbite in Monday Morning Water Cooler

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This weekend was awesome. And exhausting… My dad came in to visit from Phoenix with his girlfriend and her daughter in tow. We had a blast; my dad got to meet Alice for the first time and reconnect with Finn. We haven’t seen each other in a little over two years, so it was good to watch old home movies, share an actual meal together and just chillax.

We kicked off our weekend on Thursday with Nae and I completing the marathon cleaning fest. You know to type; the kind that only gets done when you have guests over? It doesn’t help that my dad is Danny Tanner incarnate; he is known for vacuuming himself out the door and traveling with a bottle of Windex in the glove compartment. We didn’t even come close to doing all the stuff we planned on doing, but my dad didn’t have any complaints.

We headed over to one of the local parks for a nice hike on Friday. Finn walked the entire way- or almost the whole way. Nathan popped him on his shoulders for the last leg with Alice already on his back.

Have I ever mentioned my dad is John Stossel? No? It’s probably because he isn’t. But he looks just like him. He’s been approached in the locker room of the gym whilst wearing nothing more than shampoo for autographs. (And my stepdad is a dead ringer for Mike Ditka; I’m so lucky!)

We capped off a long day of toddler-entertaining on Saturday by puking on the floor of the Olive Garden lobby. Finn had just had too much excitement and upchucked all over the floor. I’d be lying when I didn’t feel just a little smug; though I love The O.G., the fact that we were the only people waiting and were told that it would be a twenty-five minute wait made me want to vomit, too.

To the horror of the entire hosting staff, we stayed and ate dinner. Finn wanted to. So we did. Kids puke all the time; I totally don’t understand how a person can purge themselves of the contents of their stomach and still want to stuff it with garlic bread sticks. Turned out that he crashed before we even ordered. So that saved us six bucks on a kids meal.

Sunday was Nathan’s birthday. The old man turned 31. We celebrated with turtle cupcakes. Finn decided what Nathan’s birthday theme would be; the trusty old Twilight Turtle. And so it was. Nae lit the candles with a blowtorch; which is so Nathan.Then we watched videos of my brothers, dad and I when we were young. I’m sure that was a real birthday treat for Nathan. He fell asleep.

After a puke-free breakfast at Ihop, everyone departed and we went home to catch a nap. We hit Home Depot at the end of the day since no weekend would be complete with out “hitting’ the Depot.” Though I had every intention of doing some work last night, I just hit the sack.

To recap; clean, hug, hike, cook, play, puke, eat, sing, blow out candles, eat, roll my eyes at my obnoxious fifteen-year-old self, marvel at the sweetness of my brothers when they were young, eat, not puke, nap, Home Depot, sleep. I think that about covers it.  I was sad to see my dad go, but I’m glad that I can walk around in my undies again.

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