hello...anyone there?

So after dropping off the face of the earth (also known as El Paso, TX), I've decided to update my blog a little. I'd like to say I'm back...but it's more my desire to do anything except make dinner right now.

That said...let's begin!

Waaaaay back in March we took a trip to Arizona with my in laws, and it was a blast. The smell of oranges was in the air, the place we stayed in was amazing, and the company was the best. Not to mention shopping, Cheesecake Factory, two rounds of golf, and sushi.

Come May we had the most amazing (hopefully not a once in a lifetime) experience...a trip to Chicago without our children! Grandma Mc was a saint and came to play with the girls for an extra long weekend while Kev and I lived it up in the windy city. It was cold and rainy (both welcomed changes to the climate we are used to), and we got to go with some of our favorite people since the guys were all attending an ortho conference.

My favorite things: breakfast at Yolk, Chicago shopping, Gino's Pizza, breakfast at Yolk, all the glorious trees, sushi, dim sum, running in the rain, and breakfast at Yolk...again.

Some of the coolest ladies (moving our partay from Texas to Chicago!)

And of course my favorite guy...

The girls are of course older now and have somehow become partners in crime.

Ry also had her first dance recital. She was so cute and funny to watch. It's weird I have a kid that is old enough to be in a dance recital.

And lastly I have gained 10 lbs in the past 6 months. It is partly due to my indulgence of ice cream every night but mostly because I'm growing another person inside me and that tends to make you plumper. And in case you haven't heard...it's a boy!

Rylee's bday and dragon training!

I have received e-mails from two grandpas, both requesting I update my sad looking blog. Here's a good place to start...Ry's 4th bday way back in February. Ry's favorite holiday (Valentines Day...aka Love Day) and her birthday are within a few days of each other, making it the best week of every year.

We did a combined party with Ry's best buddy Blake from Colorado who made the move to EP with us. So sparing Blake from having to have a princess party, we went with a theme from one of Ry's favorite movie, Dragon Training! Thank you TX! Where you can have a February bday outside! We trained our dragons, grilled hot dogs, and opened presents.

I had a brilliant idea to make 10 "hobby" dragons, once again way overestimating my sewing skills. These things took me forever to make. My first attempt Ry guessed was an alligator, and Kev just laughed at the sight of it (thanks for the constructive criticism). The second go they turned out better, but I'll admit I was a tad embarrassed to bust them out at the party. The kids liked them though and my shotty sewing held up until the end of the party at least!

Happy Bday Ry! I couldn't love you more.

Birthday morning. Where once again Ry was spoiled ROTTEN by all her grandmas and grandpas! Thanks!

Let the training (party) begin!

Birthday boy, girl, and little sister with their fierce (and somewhat goofy looking) dragons.

Games included racing dragons and collecting fish for them to eat (the dragons, not the kids).

Toothless the dragon cake by the birthday boys dad. I was VERY impressed.

My somewhat less impressive cookies. Viking helmets and fish...get it? You know, because vikings train dragons, and dragons eat fish. There was no way I was going to try to frost a dragon onto a cookie.

Grandpas, hope that is satisfactory!

another flood...of bigger proportions

For the second time in one month our home has turned into an indoor pool. Last time it was contained to the tiled hallway...this time we weren't so lucky.

Let me begin with the previous day. It has been abnormally cold in EP, apparently the coldest temps in the city's history (so glad we could be a part of it..). So on Thurs when we woke up with the water frozen to our shower, it was disappointing. When I later noticed flooding in the back yard I was a little panicked, but we just went without water for a day, and fared pretty well. When the contractor and his crew fixed the pipe so we could once again have water to our house and broke the news there was leaking on the inside of the wall...I was getting frustrated but glad it was contained. Ok...here it gets good.

While the contractor was still her fixing the pipes, we decided to go grab a bite and perhaps play at the play area. But noticing it was lunch time we told the workers we would bring back some lunch for them. Fast forward to an hour later, we arrive home to see the workers had left already (a little happy, I could easily eat three more hamburgers).

Let me pause to mention some key characters in this story...my inlaws. Oh thank goodness for my inlaws.

Ok. When we walk inside our house we are greeted with a small river, which when followed eventually turns into a lake. Apparently another pipe had burst, which went unnoticed because we had no water the past day. After the workers fixed our outside pipes, they turned the water back on before they left. Only this busted pipe was leaking on the inside of our house, right by Rys room. The water had completely flooded Ry's room (where her carpet was floating), made its way down the hall (partially into Soph's room), through the hall between the kitchen and living room, and snaked around to the garage.

Where I was rooted to the floor, ready to burst into tears, my inlaws sprang into action. I know it probably isn't the best vacation for them...but I'm SO happy they were here. Four sets of hands made clean up way better.

This was rough of my emotions, but there were a few things to be grateful for. I'm glad we returned early to bring lunch back...another hour of this leaking would have been disastrous! Glad my inlaws were here otherwise Kev would have been at work and I would have been home alone, probably still staring at the water. Glad our house is mostly tiled, even though I curse it every week when I have to clean it.

To the left of the door and all the way down that hall is where the leak was coming from.

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I snapped this pic within the first couple mins. of cleanup, and look how much water is already in the courtyard. Ushering the water out the front of the door went on for another 45 mins. Then another couple hours of sucking the water up with the shop vac in Ry's room. And we were only gone for less than a hour.

even in texas

Even Texas is feeling the effects of the big storm system. The difference between EP (el paso) and the rest of the country is the city of EP is apparently not equipped to fall below 20 degrees. So the all time single digit record lows put the city in a frenzy. So what happens in EP when the temps dip into freezing and a few flurries dust the street....

City generators break down causing rolling black outs

Businesses close their doors (including the gym and chick-fil-a)

Schools are canceled

Streets and interstates are closed

Just about everyone's pipes burst guaranteeing employment for every plumber in EP (post to come)

Ry misses the snow, so when she ran into our room around 4:30am exclaiming "there's snow out my window!" I think she was pretty thrilled. We broke out the snow clothes, and I watched the excitement from inside my toasty house.

Remember this Denver post? Funny how those snow days in Denver cause less damage than this "snow day" in EP....

On a side not...yes Ry is still wearing the same snow clothes from 2009.

last christmas post...promise

This is terribly past due. It's an important time of the year though so it's going in the blog!

So we we had a temporary case of insanity this year and decided the 17 hour drive to Idaho was a good idea. It actually wasn't too bad thanks to splitting it between two days and listening to The Hunger Games and Mocking Jay. A good time was had once we were there, and we tried to enjoy the snow before heading back to the barren dessert.

christmas morning at Gma and Gpa Mcs

Funny thing-I can count the number of times Ry has woken up after 7am on one hand, one of those times was Christmas morning, and all her cousins were patiently waiting to open presents. So a first in Ry's life, being woken up in the morning (which doesn't quite make up for the thousand times she has done it to us).

All my kiddos and their stockings. Kevin is included in that, I have this fear that now that he's married Christmas morning will be lame.

Love that she is overjoyed to get a pair of wings...which is good because that's about all she got from us. Lame Christmas morning fear is legit...I'm the worst!

christmas day at Gma Lou's

I LOVE this pic. This is my little bro...uncle mike. Ry insisted we get him a present, and I convinced her he would love this plaid shirt (that was 75% off).

Thank goodness for Gmas and Gpas, my kids had a great Christmas. Ry got a princess dress from my dad and his wife, and transforms into Princess Ryeena every morning right around 5am.

Sledding. Ry loved, Soph froze.

She was much happier to be back in our toasty warm car.

Spent our last couple days in Jackson Hole, WY with Kev's brother (at his cabin) and their friends. Always fun, thanks for taking us Jeff and Maja.

My niece came along and watched Sophie one day so we could take Ry skiing. The best part was after we sent Ry home with my sis-in-law and Kev and I enjoyed some runs alone.

Jackson Hole...fabulous, not so great was the three hrs. it added onto our already 17 hr. ride home.

it's christmas. all over. again.

Christmas was a CRAZY time for us here in El Paso. It was so nice to have Christmas decorations that filled our empty house. We also enjoyed all those fun Christmas activities (many of which revolve around baked goods), getting to go to Idaho to visit our families, and telling the story of Jesus' birth every FHE for a month straight.

We did miss delivering and receiving all those Christmas goodies on our doorstep (we miss you Denver people).

Something new this Christmas was Kev's company's formal Christmas party. 1. We get to get all gussied up. 2. We get a night of eating and dancing without the kiddos. 3. Some of our closest friends work for the same company so we got to bust a move with these cool people.

Don't let this pic. fool you....I have MAD moves on the dance floor (even though Kev compared me to Elaine Benes from Seinfeld in this pic...rude).

Also, my favorite part of El Paso are these women. They also came from Colorado and they are the best. They have saved me from many days of crying over loneliness.

This was our first year of making "ginger bread/graham cracker" houses (actually a house). We gave it our best, but it was pretty sad looking. Got to love kids though, they thought we were the coolest parents...something about all the candy you could eat.

The finished product (complete with a flower garden).

Kev was unimpressed with my last minute addition (a bridge).


The next day when it was suspiciously quite, I came out to the kitchen to find Ry had managed to move the house from the counter to the table...and proceeded to make a meal of it.

And let's not forget Christmas cookies. We had every intention of delivering these to our neighbors, but I wanted Kev to go with me (due to a slight language barrier), and we just never had a night that worked...so we downed all these little girls and boys ourselves.

flashback

Got all my pics. back and am ready to post. So this is a flashback, not to the 80s or anything cool, but to our week in limbo during our move. We had a week to kill before we could move into our house so we took our time touring New Mexico and all its glory.

First stop-Taos, NM.

Enjoyed Swimming, celebrating my birthday in the hotel with cupcakes and Ben and Jerrys. We even found some snow and skied on it. Well, Kev and Ry skied while Soph and I hung out in the lodge.

Also found this little Native American restaurant and had ourselves some fry bread with choke cherry sauce...AMAZING!

So cute. So tired.

Second stop-Santa Fe, NM

Saw Tangled, toured down town Santa Fe, and checked out some cool Mexican furniture stores.

Pretty cool, but next time we move I vote we kill time at Disneyland!

Finally we have arrived (and yes...Ry is wearing moon boots).

the perfect storm

So my ambitions of blogging all our happenings now that we have the internet have been foiled because our pics. somehow were transferred to my mother in laws comp...and what's a blog without pics? Actually, this post is picture less...but do read.

This is a short comedy from the lives of Kev and Stef McMinn, who due to a flu ridden kid and a malfunctioning washing machine, had one crazy night. Let's preface the story by saying our entire day was spent in the car on our 20 hr. drive from Jackson Hole to El Paso.

Ok...dim the lights.

It began at 3 a.m. when Ry walked into our room claiming her stomach hurt, and although all past experiences have taught us to run her to the toilet IMMEDIATELY, we laid their daze just trying to console her. Any parent knows what happened next...Kev's side of the bed was doused with puke. Any remnant of sleep was quickly gone and we rushed into action. Me cleaning up Ry, and Kev tearing off the bedding. Fast forward to the bedding in the washer, Ry sleeping on our floor with a big bowl by her side. Right as we were settling down I heard a noise from the laundry room that didn't sound quite right and begged Kev to check it out. Kev obliges and next thing I hear is "ohhh", so I jump out of bed and proceed to sprint down the hall.

I need to pause to describe the layout of our home. Our entire house is tile except for the bedrooms. Our laundry room is just a couple feet straight down the hall from our room.

And begin scene. I take off full speed to the hall, and the moment I set foot on the tile my feet fly out from under me, I enter the air, and crash onto my back smacking my head on the tile. And there I stayed for the next minute pretty wet and hurting, until I could make it into the fetal position....then cue puking (not me, but Ry). Do you comfort your sick child or try to prevent the flowing water from entering your carpeted room? I did the latter, but THEN I attended to Ry.

The rest was pretty uneventful, the washer hose had come out from the wall, lots of towels, big headache, but a little giggling between Kev and I. At 4:30 as we were crawling back into bed, Sophie could be heard on the monitor just waking up. Kev called it the perfect storm.

Two things I was grateful for that night:

1. That Ry didn't get sick on MY side of the bed (sorry Kev).

2. That we were forced to run the laundry that night, instead of the next day when I would have been home all alone. I would have probably admitted defeat... immobile and crying.