Hello Dolly

Coop loves books. This love has evolved from stacking, organizing, turning pages (and some tearing of pages) to a full on love of story time. Over the past several weeks, Cooper has definitely discovered what story time is all about. All we have to say is "Coop go grab a book and we'll read a story". He'll run over and pick a book of his choice and bring it to one of us to read. This one book turns into 2, then 3 and it goes on and on. Right now, Coop is the one guilty of skipping pages. Soon the roles will be reversed and we might be guilty of skipping a page or two from time to time.

We can thank Dolly (Parton to those of you not on a first name basis with her) for Coop's early love of books. We signed him up for her amazing Imagination Library program when he was just a couple of weeks old. If we didn't have reason enough before to think Dolly was Da Bomb, we do now. She sends Coop a book once a month in the mail until he turns 5 years old! And these aren't your average humdrum books. They're carefully selected by Dolly herself and a special committee.

It's a big deal when a new book arrives in the mail. Coop knows when one arrives. I'll say "hey Coop, Dolly sent you some mail. A NEW BOOK! ~~insert an excited Cooper smile here~~

Thanks Dolly! We'll make sure Cooper always knows just how special you are and we'll do our best to pass it on.

Everything's going to be all right

Bob Marley said it best..Everything IS going to be all right. I can't get over how calm and relaxed I felt all weekend long. After a couple of weeks of stress and worry, I feel completely at ease. Our house is coming along, Cooper and the doggies are adapting to all the change amazingly (why was I soooo worried about this???), Mark is home and we are all happy and healthy.

We moved into Cabin #2 (Afternoon Delight) this weekend. It's a little bit older than Cabin #1 (Brother Bear) but it was very easy to baby proof and the dogs have more room to frolic (translation: run off without bugging poor innocent vacationers). We're scheduled to stay here for another 3 weeks. Hopefully our house will be completed by then. Only time will tell....

A "before" pic of the front room Front Room sans hardwood

(one of the nice guys working on the place) Nice curb appeal (dumpster and storage pod)

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Cabin #1 (Brother Bear)

Apparently, rental cabins need a catchy name

Cooper checking out the new digs

BBQ'ing at Cabin #2 (Afternoon Delight)

We've come a long way in the last 2 weeks. So long are the days of staying in pee-stained, kennel smelling hotel rooms. My standards have definitely changed. I've looked beyond finding an occasional mouse turd and scorpion in the new pad. As long as the little critters keep their distance, I'm okay with co-habitating.

Before the You Know What

I just wanted to share some pics from our visit to St. George, UT. We had a fun and relaxing visit and I'm so happy we decided to go so last minute (despite the repercussions ).

Here are the thoughts that come to mind when I think about our visit:
sprinkler time, grass, hose time, 4th of July parade in Hurricane, pancake breakfast in Virgin Town, farmer's market in Springdale, people watching in small town UT, petting zoo, pool time, playing pickle ball (love it), golfing, tearing gma and gpa's house apart (and them not caring), Simon the Cat(Piggy and Tess too), dirt, cruisin' in the golf cart, pedicures, good food, popsicles, taking time to watch MJ's memorial (Cooper was really broken up about the whole tragedy and insisted on watching), relaxation, spending time with family, on demand babysitters, and AMY AND MARK'S 1st DATE SINCE APRIL 18, 2008!!!

Piggies Storytime

Pickle Ball

Riveted :)

Cheese!

Thanks Gma and Gpa for a wonderful time and for making us feel right at home.

Love, Coop, Mark and Amous

Our Day

A little glimpse at our day yesterday:

• Drive 45 minutes from the cabin to the house to drop the doggies off. Targhee runs off and tries to get into our not so friendly neighbor's pool house. Contractors are ever so patiently waiting in our driveway for me to let them in. Already running late for Cooper's 15 month check up.
• Drive 45 minutes (and arrive late) to Coop's appt. Poor little guy get 2 shots and now realizes the jig is up. He's totally on to the nurses and immediately screams when they put him on the scale. Mom asks the normal questions that the doc has probably heard a million times. Coop's stats; Weight-21lbs 14oz./Length-31.5 inches/Head circumference 47cm (I bet you were dying to know about the size of Coop's cranium).
• Drive back to ground zero to check on the dogs. They hang out on our screened in porch at the house because I don't trust them to leave them alone at the cabin. Coop and I join them on the porch while the demolition continues inside. Coop tries to figure out why he can't go inside.
• Drive back to the cabin (dogs in tow) and start preparing for the evening routine. As dinner is cooking on the stove, Cooper and I play on the back deck.
• Cooper gets stung by a wasp on his ear. I grab him, put an alcohol swab on the bite (thank-God those were in the diaper bag), give him a squirt of Benadryl. Cooper screams bloody murder.
• Cooper's ear quickly swells about 3 times the size of his other ear. I take a deep breath, turn off stove and put dinner (still in the pot) in the sink~thinking to myself there's no way the dogs can reach this sink.
• Cooper and I drive to the Emergency Room. Side note-I'm very allergic to bees. I'm also freaking out about all the stuff Coop now has in his system: 2 immunizations, Tylenol as a fever reducer because of the shots, Benadryl and now WASP venom.
• We wait in the very crowded ER waiting room as Coop begins to feel the effects of the benadryl. He could care less about the drunk lady sitting next to us because he is now drunk too.
• We finally see a doc and I notice that pretty much all the swelling has gone down, Coop has no labored breathing and we just experienced our 1st (of probably many) trips to the ER because Mom has overreacted.
• Doc "humors" Mom and tells me he would have done the same thing. It's better to error on the side caution (blah, blah, blah). His way of trying to make me not feel like a overreacting mother.
• Coop and I finally make it back home. Coop is sacked out in my arms, dogs are sacked out on the floor and the dinner that was left in the sink is gone. I guess they figured it would have gone bad and didn't want it to go to waste. How very thoughtful of them. Turns out they could reach the sink. Who knew?

In a nutshell .....

Home is where the heart is right? That is what I keep telling myself. We've had quite a bit going on since my last post. We decided on June 29th to be very spontaneous. That hasn't happened much lately as we try to keep consistency for the little man but we decided a vacation would be good for all of us. Mark had 2 weeks off over the 4th of July holiday so we checked on last minute airfare and availability to kennel the dogs and flew out the next morning to Utah to visit my parents in St. George. We had an incredible 9 day vacation and awesome bonding time with Grandma and Grandpa. We even managed to survive the 100+ temperatures and desert heat (that still beats humidity as far as I'm concerned).

That's where everything takes a turn for the worse (or worst, I never know which is correct). Sometime during the course of our 9 day vacation, our washer hose snapped causing water to spew, gush, surge (you get the point) EVERYWHERE.

We were so anxious to come home after a long day of traveling and couldn't wait to let Cooper run around after being Cooped (no pun intended) up on a plane all day. Needless to say, Coop wasn't able to do any running around. His swim lessons sure could have come in handy.

Basically, we're looking at a complete remodel to the main floor and part of the basement. Our house is unlivable and it's been quite a nightmare trying to find pet friendly and kid friendly accommodations. Not a good combo. Most hotels that allow dogs aren't very suitable for little boys that like to touch and lick everything~ICK. Luckily, after 3 nights in icky pet friendy (translation: pee stained--not from our pets) hotels, our insurance put us up in a cabin for the next little while.

I've been commuting between the house and the cabin with Coop and the doggies dealing with cleanup crews, contractors, duct cleaners, flooring guys, dumpster deliveries. The hardest part is keeping consistency for Cooper. He is being such a trooper and so are the doggies. Oh, and did I mention Mark left yesterday to burn in FL? Hopefully he’ll be home next week.

I'll try to post construction updates and pics when I can. Mainly so we can look back on this one day and laugh (ha, ha) and so that we can show Coop what happens when you don't turn your water off or have anyone check on your home when you go on vacation.