The Weekend Continues......

Well, so far, so good. Saturday didn't disappoint! We anticipated Allison sleeping in Saturday morning, but of course that didn't happen. She was bright-eyed and ready to go at 6:15, Brent and I not so much. So we tackled breakfast and Brent and I went back to bed. As in Allison was upstairs with us and we were in bed. That's about as close as it is going to get.......
We did eventually rally and took Bailey for a long walk and then tackled yard work. Allison and I cleaned the weeds out of the vegetable garden, which at this point is rockin'!, and Brent did some weed eating around the house.
Naptime for all, ahh, we made it! And then we made a FABULOUS dinner. I love summer food! The fresh vegetables, using the grill, it's just awesome. I was able to use some bok choy from the farm and I put it in my salad. It was good, I had never had it before. It was a little tangy but very good! And of course what doesn't go well with a yummy dinner than a margarita! We tackled pork ribs, sweet potato fries, corn, fingerling potatoes, mac n cheese (guess who ate that?!?) and salads. Oh, it was good.

Sunday morning, we were reminded of Rolling Thunder with the roar of motorcycles on 66. We decided on a whim to head down to Dumfries.

When I lived at home we always went and watched the bikes come out of Classic Iron and East Coast Harley. Obivously we took a break for a couple of years, so Allison's ears could mature! We thought she was finally ready this year. It is always so touching to see this event and it's awesome that our local law enforcement makes sure the riders are safe all the way to DC.


After Rolling Thunder, we headed back to my Mom's (after a blueberry bagel at Panera--I opted for the strawberry parfait. Good, but definitely a rip off for the $3.50 and the three strawberries they gave me! The granola was good, but I'm convinced the batch I plan on making this week will be better. Once I find the wheat germ......
Then we headed to Kids Dominion. Only to be turned away since we didn't have beach tags. Really? MPOA is ridiculous. Shame on you!! We were one of only one other car in the parking lot and we were turned away. Stupid, so stupid.
Out of every difficulty comes opportunity......so we headed to Anne Moncure park. Brent spent some time there back in the day, me not so much. Then we were off to lunch, home, and nap. Yeah, it's the happiest time of the day......we all love naps! :)




Tomorrow we are off to the Water Mine and cookout with the family!

Senior PT Retreat and Dinner Party

Yesterday was a fabulous start to the Memorial Day weekend. I was invited to attend the Senior PT retreat at the Cozy Cottage Inn in Clifton. What a fabulous setting for a work event! All of the Senior PT's were invited as well as emerging leaders interested in starting the Senior PT track. ((I've been a Senior PT with Inova since 2006)). Our Senior Director, Lorraine Riche led the session and we learned managing and handling crucial conversations as well as budget fundamentals. Which was appropriate for me since I had just revamped our Booker Household budget. Three directors were also there to help facilitate our learning, including my director Barbara. We learned how to take a quick snapshot of a clinic's financial health and how our dollar billed becomes our 8 cents earned. Yes you read that right, for every dollar I bill an insurance company, I'm lucky to receive a whopping 8 cents! And that's when the system works well, meaning it's deemed medically necessary and insurance has approved the visits. We don't need healthcare reform--trust me I think I do my part very well! We need healthcare payment reform!
Next we learned skills to have crucial conversations with patients, physicians and staff. Skills we learned really can be applied to other parts of our life. True life skills were shared and it was fun to do all the role playing. I got to play Mrs. Cling the patient who will not accept the discharge. Trust me it happens and when it does it's ugly. The typical Mrs. Cling will cry, rant, call her doctor, make a scene and then turn around and bring flowers and cookies for the clinic. I try to eliminate all Mrs. Cling possibilities from my case load ASAP!

Lorraine is a big quote person, she really likes a good quote to really drive home a point. There were two quotes from the day that I thought were especially good. The first was "You only promote what you permit". This was presented in the context of workplace behaviors and interactions. But I also think it can apply to life in general. There are folks that just need to be told that their behavior is unacceptable and therefore won't be tolerated. This eliminates the awful elephant in the living room by establishing boundaries with certain folks that we have interaction with. This is so refreshing!

The second quote is from Einstein, who really has a lot of good quotes. "Out of every difficulty, there is possibility". Wow, that's a loaded one. But a wonderful sentiment. I am always in awe of those folks who can turn a difficult, tragedic situation and make it a wonderful opportunity......which brings me to the dinner party we attended last night...........((which I brought my camera to and low and behold the battery was toast, that is super frustrating!))....................

We had dinner with the Barrett family. Michael Barrett is an attorney at the Union and his wife Andrea is a massage therapist. They live in NW DC with their six children, they have been married about 5 years and Brent and I were fortunate to attend their beautiful wedding. They are a blended family with six children ranging in ages from 10 to 20. Both Mike and Andrea were married previously and tragically lost their spouses to cancer. We knew Mike's previous wife, Stacy. She was a beautiful person and a wonderful mother. When she was approaching the end of her life, she made "milestone" videos for each of her 3 children. Proms, high school and college graduations, weddings, etc., will all be made special with a Stacy video. I can't fathom that kind of personal strength! It was a beautiful thing to see all the kids call Andrea"Mom" and Mike "Dad". I can't imagine all of the activities and sports they juggle with six active kids. Unbelievable! Their home was beautiful! It was full of antiques and trinkets. I was nervous with Allison but then relieved when the kids went out and jumped on the trampoline. Which brings me to another point, our god daughter, Stephanie was there and she was awesome with taking care of Allison. She kept an eye on her and went out of her way to make sure Allison felt like a "big kid". Which she still does, she is now asking for those damn silly bands and twirling her hair......it's really cute!

All in all, we have had a wonderful start to our Memorial Day weekend. Yesterday will be tough to top, but we will try!

Lunch Dates and Budgets

Today I was fortunate to have lunch with member's of the Booker clan. Aunt Judy and Uncle Bob are visiting from Iowa and Wendy agreed to stay with Allison while I had a doctor appointment. It was a win-win! Allison is quite the social butterfly and enjoys spending all kinds of time with anyone and everyone! She enjoyed playing with play-doh, "ants in her pants" and sharing secrets with Aunt Judy.
I'll go ahead and confess that I had a traffic mishap with Aunt Judy, Wendy and Allison in the car. It did not involve law enforcement of any kind but when you blunder in front of a Booker you prepare yourself for a penance of infinite teasing. We rounded a corner, I was chit-chatting and disregarded a red light. Wendy, my co-pilot, pointed it out, I slammed on the brakes while Aunt Judy screamed and flung her arm in front of Allison. Allison was secured in her car seat, but I guess it was that weird protective reflex that all parents have. Not a biggie, but I am prepared to endure the various twists, turns and future embellishments this story will take. I'm sure by the time Allison graduates from college, we will have made it through the intersection on two tires and a small fire in the engine.....

Fortunately we arrived at our destination safely and had a wonderful lunch at Olive Garden. Bottomless breadsticks and salad, yum!

I spent the rest of my day re-vamping the family budget. I am trying to pay off Christmas before we deck the halls! It was a boring afternoon in that sense, but a beautiful day on my deck while Allison slept off her pasta.

Oh the things she says......

Allison has started swim class, I say this because you need to know that she was present when the moms were subjected to the "if your child has diarhhea, don't come to the pool" lecture. This was on a Monday.
That following Thursday, we were headed home, typical night, Brent was on travel and Allison just asked me out of the blue, "Mommy, what's diarrhea?". Really? It's 5:30 on a Thursday, really? I just told her it's when your poop comes out of you really fast. What else could I say?

Later that night, we were getting ready for bed and Allison had to go to the potty, uh-huh for #2's. When she was done, she looked at it and then me and asked, "Mommy, is that diarhhea?" I told her no and when and if (I try to be optimistic!) she'll know. Then I just shook my head and said, "Where is your father?" To which she responded, "Duh, Mommy, Daddy's in Arizona!".


After swim class we head to the locker room to change Allison to come home. The first week of class there were some Korean women in the locker room speaking Korean. Allison asked me what they were saying. I said I didn't know that I thought they were from Korea and they were speaking Korean words and I didn't understand or speak that language. With that, she innocently looked up at me and said, "Right, like Maimo and Pop-pop. They are from Tennessee and they use Tennessee words and Tennessee language to talk".

Melt.

Strawberry Fields Forever

This Saturday (yes something else from this month--we did do things in April, really!) we went Strawberry picking. We decided to go to Hollins Farm out in Delaplane. I know this area well with Winchester closeby. Allison had been asking to go strawberry picking for awhile so we headed out. It was awesome! Hollins Farm is a HUGE working farm that's been with one family for years. Currently, it's run by a son and father. The son's family live on the farm. They have three children (or free help!). The kids were all over the fields and were just picking up the strawberries and eating them on the spot. The son was walking around carying a chicken, seriously! Awesome! When we first got there, we were not alone and I was anxious that we wouldn't be able to get enough. Boy was I wrong! There was a BOUNTY of berries.

We played Strawberry Shortcake, I was Raspberry (don't remember her second name, sorry!) Alli was Strawberry Shortcake and Brent was Angel Cake. So perfect--in fact that's his new pet name, Angel cake. Love it, my three year old is awesome!

We scoured the fields picking berries and filling up our quarts and "fussing at the Berry birds". Next it was on to pick lettuces. We got some bok choy, swiss chard and spinach. He had arugula but I have plenty in my own garden. When we got home we decided to make strawberry pie. I made the whole thing from scratch, pie crust and all and it was delicious. Allison especially enjoyed cleaning off the spoon with the strawberry glaze.

Flower Expo at the National Cathedral

Mother's Day weekend I decided to play the "I want to go to a flower show" card with Brent. I knew it was more than a flower show at the National Cathedral but I wanted him to squirm slightly and dread the whole thought of walking around and looking at various blooms. So early Saturday we headed up to Georgetown (so wanted to stop at Georgetown cupcakes, but ugh the line and this was EARLY in the morning--besides I'm married to a Booker which means no patience, no stopping not even for heavenly sugar coated godliness, not gonna happen--I just looked longingly as we drove on by!) and got parked at the National Cathedral. I had never been or if I'd been i was probably for some CCD (Catholic child development) thing and I wasn't interested, same with Brent minus the CCD part. It was magnificent, beautiful and breathtaking all in one stop. We had gorgeous weather that day except for the fact of the wind--this was "there's no place like home" wind! It definitely warranted a light sweater. We walked around the grounds and went pass vendors -- think Occoquan craft show, but high end, and headed straight for the "Kid Zone". We got our ride tickets and Allison went to the slide, the trampoline, and the carousel. I drew the short straw for that and rode with her. I say short straw because my vestibular system isn't what it used to be and I turn green very quickly. I opted to "pick one spot and focus on it", this happened to be Allison and take deep breaths. She didn't want to ride on a horse and we were on a sled for the trip round and round. Daddy was in charge of the camera. We had fun making silly faces, scary faces and crazy faces to Daddy when we went around.




The Flower Expo choses a country to celebrate and this year's choice was the Ukraine. There was Ukranian food, dancing and information on the culture in the Ukraine. In the cathedral itself, they lined the church with flower arrangements celebrating countries all around the world. ((This was also shortly after Dorothy Height passed away so some of her memorial flowers were around)). We also stopped by the Children's Church for Allison to sit in the smaller chairs and take it all in. We lit candles in honor of Aunt E (miss her!) and took as many pictures of the stained glass windows as I could.



After touring the Cathedral we opted for lunch (needed weights to keep everything down!), then ice cream (of course!) and finally home.


It was a definite hit and a card I think I'll be able to play again next year!
Speaking of Mother's Day, I got a flip video camera! That thing is sweet and perfect for taping kids. It's very portable and I just take videos of Allison at a moment's notice. No bag, no power cord, no charging the battery the night before--ok well there is that, but it's not as painful. I was treated to breakfast in bed--Allison made me french toast (with Daddy's help) and fruit. Allison joined me and she said, "Mommy this is so fun, it's like the bed is our table!". Precious. Allison made me bath salts at school, yeah! I heart Mother's Day! :)

Happy Birthday Jeff!

May is like Christmas around the Booker house. My Mom's, Aunt's (technically two), Mom-in-law's, niece's, nephew's birthdays and Mother's day all in one jammed pack span of 31 days. ((Not to mention Tony and Lisa just had another May baby, yeah, Emily, boo May--perk is that it's also Connie's birthday, so at least we will remember!))
We all got together to celebrate Jeff Steele's birthday, he's Tony and Lisa's oldest. It was at the House of Bounce and it was F U N ! This is the second time we were there for a birthday party. The first was when Allison was barely one and I remember thinking there's NO WAY my child will ever be big enough or brave enough for the house of bounce hysteria. And I am now eating those words. Let's just say I'm happy and RELIEVED that they have such tight security in this place because there was time or two or three hundred that I had NO IDEA where Allison was where she had been or where she was going. And that's with both Brent and I watching and looking for her. Granted we did engage in conversations with other parents but seriously she was crazed! She had SOOO MUCH FUN ! She and Kaia went up the stairs and down the slide over and over. It was an early night to bed and a good night's sleep!

Roller Skates

As many of you know our chosen mode of positive reenforcement is a sticker chart. It works really well for us and Allison seeks out positive things to do in order to get stickers. Truly a win-win. When she started in that she wanted roller skates, I told her that I would call Santa and let him know. Then it dawned on me, poor thing has a December birthday and there's no way that the weather will be roller skating favorable! How unfair. Next I had an idea, I told her that if she filled up her sticker chart that maybe Santa would "send" her rollerskates early. ((You'll notice I do everything to avoid the "Mommy get me this, get me that discussion!) It worked like a charm and within two weeks, Allison had her chart filled up and we were off to get rollerskates. She insisted on the pink princess skates, of course! I was happy since they came with elbow and knee pads! The first day she had them it was raining, so we practiced in our house. I guess a perk to tile floors (otherwise I don't really like them!). It was tough at first, but she seems to be getting it. She does much better if one of us only holds one hand. Brent and I were really proud of her determination and it was heart-warming to see how proud of herself she was once she got the rollerskates. AAHH, parenthood. Woot! Woot! For Allison!