First Week of February

My first week of February started out in excellent fashion.  Travis and Steph had pre-arranged to take Monday off, so I took full advantage of my freedom and scheduled a cut and color with Christi.  Being pampered at Bello, with someone I love so much, and walking away feeling happy with my hair again - well, it's a heck of a way to spend a Monday!

Later that night, John and I were catching up on some DVR'd programs and this happened....(no use repeating the story when I wrote it all out already).  I think I got close to a record number of "likes" for this one...   

After having called the number, we found out they live just about a block away - the couple knew exactly what house we lived in (thanks to our waterfall which their grandson oohs and ahhs over every time they take walks with him in our direction).  I arranged to pick the keys up the next morning and it was so great to have both sets accounted for again.  

On Tuesday, I met with Leah to walk the interior of Valley River Center.  Five laps equals about 50 minutes and 3.2 miles....if the weather is ornery (moreso an issue now with Whitley who likes to remove all bits of clothing and therefore I worry over hypothermia!), this isn't a bad alternative.  I'm definitely getting a taste of the clothing styles that are being brought in for the spring season as I walk next to the shops yet to open over and over again.  

It was a great catch-up time with Leah - as it was with Danielle who I originally did the mall walk with a few weeks ago.  Love these ladies who encourage me on these occasions.

This contraption was a new addition to our mall this week.  Great - another way to suck me out of money because I can't say "No" to a fun thrill for Whitley.  Fortunately, she doesn't seem that overwhelmed with the motion of it and I think in the future would be just as happy to move about on her own from vehicle to vehicle (as she did while it was going....I got a little exercise trying to accommodate those whims).  

Whitley "paid me back" bigtime, though, on Wednesday afternoon, when we went to Brayden's afternoon "root canal" appointment.  Poor guy had a rather large filling fall out and the original appointment to refill it got postponed.  By the time we went to fill it again, it required a root canal to fix.  OUCH!  That's a costly and painful misfortune.  He was amazing, though - he has such a stoic response to pain and is so cool and collected in those scenarios.  I'm just gonna throw it out there, his response to pain and situations like this is definitely a "me" trait, where John and Mikayla tend to be a little more expressive about such things.  (I'm sure I could get in trouble for saying that, but there are a few things about Brayden that are more me than John and the same with Mikayla....it's fun to see how those genetic/personality traits filter down).

While Brayden was being worked on, Whitley hung out in the comfortable waiting room with me.  I came in not expecting it to take that long - we were there for two and a half hours!  So impressive that Whitley was just fine with it all.   It's bigtime proof that this little girl is really just happiest when being directly played with and loved on, and not just put in front of a massive amount of new toys and such.  It's so great in scenarios like this, not so much so when I need to clean the house, get laundry done, etc.... =)

On Thursday, we woke up to some pretty interesting weather scenarios.  We'd been hearing potential for snow for a bit - and the timeline ended up being more like a 6am Thursday arrival vs. the original estimate for Saturday.  It came as predicted, but after the school superintendents had already woke up early, saw no snow on the road, and decided to go ahead as planned with school.  Well, at least for my kids' schools.  Almost all the rest opted for a two-hour delay (wise!) and then ended up canceling (even wiser) as conditions quickly escalated from bad to worse within hours.  There was a pile-up on 1-5 that involved over 20 vehicles that day.  Traffic was snarled everywhere.

So, we chose to enjoy a little cocoa (leftover from Mikayla's) and watch the snow come down.  I felt like I was at limbo, wondering when I'd get the call that my kids' schools would be closing early.  It was irritating.  Unfortunately, Whiltey was a little bit needy on this day as well - I'm pretty sure we spent only about 5 minutes throughout the whole day not physically touching (outside of the time she was in the car).  Sometimes, we all have days like that.  I think she was getting a bit of a cold, and for whatever reason, the snow was unsettling to her.  (She woke up from her nap and looked outside repeating, "Uh Oh!"). 

So, no cute pics of Whit in the snow.  She didn't even want me taking this picture.  She kept saying, "Brrrrr".  

Eventually, I got the call from Brayden that Marist was closing at 11:30.  (He actually ran up to hug the substitute teacher they had during the class they announced that in...what a goofball!)  We dropped off Brayden's buddies, ran a few errands, and then I texted Mikayla to let her know I'd be picking her up early.  I wasn't going to let the rest of my afternoon and potential driving hazards be dictated by her [messed-up] school district.  When I picked her up around 12:30, there was a mass exodus happening by other parents making the same decision I did.  I was done driving.  So, it was with a great amount of pleasure that I took this pic, when all my "kiddos" were accounted for.