Bah-bahbahbaaaah Bumbumbumm

In 2009 a crack commando family of seven was sentenced to a summer squished into a grand caravan without air conditioning for the crime of having too many kids. The parents promptly escaped into the Cincinnati underground, flew to Florida and drove back in the biggest baddest van since...well, you know.

Mary, escaped with us and was very good little traveller. Here she is doing what Kenna referred to as "pole dancing." Nice, mom. But we found that she really doesn't appreciate being stuck in a car seat for 12 hours, but maybe she was upset we didn't take her to the beach before we left Florida.

So, we landed in Pensacola Friday evening, met our very friendly salesman who then showed us how to work some of the bells and whistles, prayed with him at his request, stayed in a hotel that night, and then drove home Saturday. Here is Kenna driving. I remember when we were at BYU she told me that she wanted a car that would make her look small. Well, I think we found something that accomplishes that.

As we were driving through Kentucky we decided to stop at a Waffle House for dinner. Neither of us had been to one and we wanted to see what all the hubbub was about. We figured that since they are everywhere they must be good, right? Wrong! Between the flies, the smell, and the freshly reconstituted orange juice seeing that place in our rear view mirror was a welcome sight.

Rylee had her first ride on the lift on Sunday. The other kids were sooo envious.

So, the story of why we had to go to Florida goes something like this: "You need how many seats? And a wheelchair lift?! We don't have anything like that" repeated at every dealership anywhere in Cincinnati. That left us with the internet. We couldn't find anything big enough, new enough, and with a wheelchair lift until Kenna found this van on eBay. We bid on it and lost, but the reserve was not met so nobody won it. Well, we called the dealer directly and appealed to his softer side and he made us an offer we couldn't refuse.

Now for the fun part. Continuing with the A-team theme we are going to play a matching game.

Help us figure out which family member should be which A-team member. Obviously, some answers will be used more than once.

The Original A-team

Col. John "Hannibal" Smith

Lt. Templeton "Face" Peck

Capt. H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock

Sgt. B.A. "Bad Attitude" Baracus

The Cincinnati A-team

Marc

Kenna

Rylee

Tanner

Ella

Sarah

Mary

The real answers will be given in a couple of days.

Just let this percolate in your brain for a bit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrK0rZj6pes

Tongue-tied

Mary was born with a 'prominent lingual frenulum' (for all you current and future doctors), also known as 'tongue-tied' (for everyone else!). Basically she couldn't stick her tongue out (which may not be all bad) because her frenulum connected to the front of her tongue. One pediatrician said to clip it only if it affected her speech or her eating. Another pedicatrician said, 'clip it'. And the ENT said it's up to you. We decided to clip it. So at 6:30 this morning Mary and I headed to the surgery center for her frenulectomy. Here she is in her hospital gown all ready for surgery, blissfully unaware of what the next hour would hold.

The anesthesiologist allowed me to hold her while they put her to sleep which was quite unnerving. One minute she is screaming because they are pressing a mask to her face and the next minute she is limp and unresponsive. She even kept her eyes open long enough that they asked me if she slept with her eyes open. Creepy. She did fabulously. The procedure took all of about 3 minutes, I think. Almost as soon as they walked me to the waiting room, they called me back to talk to the doctor and about 5 minutes later I got to go back to recovery.

Here we are just before leaving. Just a little groggy and dopey and with a really itchy nose from some narcotic drops they gave her. She drank that bottle while we sat in recovery and then lost the entire bottle all over the kitchen floor at home. I didn't get a picture of her sticking out her tongue, but the other kids were quite excited that she could !

Love is....

Chocolate covered cookie dough on a stick.

Today I came home from work and found a bag that said "Happy Father's day, a little late" and inside were some delicious treats from a local candy shop. Kenna knows how to speak my love language.

On another note, Kenna thinks the title of my last post was a little too NC-17 for a family blog. I apologize if you thought so as well. In retrospect the MoTab concert should probably have been a separate post.

Minimal clothing, heavy breathing, and sweaty bodies....just a typical date night

Last night for our date night Kenna and I dropped the kids off at the cousins house and headed to downtown Cincinnati to run in the "Run for Kids" 5k in Hyde Park. We were undeterred by the heat advisory issued by the city due to the high heat and humidity. In our minds that just meant we didn't have to spend a lot of time warming up. Also, being in downtown Cincinnati that meant that the course was going to have a few hills. It turned out to have the same long hill twice because we had to run two laps around the course. As we were waiting for the race to start we saw a guy with no shirt or body fat walking to the starting line and I told Kenna "I bet that's the winner right there."

When the race started Kenna mercilessly ran off with all the fast people and left me running with the mom pushing the double stroller, the Olympic speed walker, and some old guy with bad varus (that's bowlegged) knees. I did ok for the first mile and a half but then the effects of heat stroke started to set in and I had to walk. As I walked by the finish line on my first lap that same body-fatless guy crossed the finish line as the winner in 16:47. He lapped me by one second. Well, I picked up the pace because I knew Kenna would be waiting for me. Sure enough, as I came up on the last turn Kenna was there waiting for me. She offered a drink but I had not the capacity for speech at that point and so I just ran by her. She ran and caught up with me (easily) and said something else my ears heard but my hypoxic brain couldn't process and I just kept on running. Oddly enough, even though I walked about a 1/4 of the course I finished with my second best time of 37 minutes. By the way, we saw the fatless guy do at least two more laps while we recovered from the race. Showoff!!

After the race we stopped at Potbelly sandwich works where I got a sandwich and a boysenberry milkshake. And then on the way home we stopped at the Cone were Kenna and I both had peanut butter milkshakes. That's right, two milkshakes. There was a heat advisory!

Thursday night we took our friends from residency to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with the Cincinnati Pops. It was really, really, really good. They sang some very interesting songs in addition to classics like Come, Come Ye Saints. We had a great time.

An evening full of grace, poise, and beauty...

No, I'm not talking about an evening dancing with me. Rather, Ella's dance recital was this past weekend. She got all dressed up in her pink costume and Kenna put her hair up in braids and she even got to wear some make up. Kenna put some blush on her cheeks before I had a chance to protest. She kept asking if her cheeks were still rosey the following day.


Here she is all dressed up right before we left.

Here she is dancing. Notice the beautiful form, arm high, toes at 45 degree angles.

Tanner pretended to not like it, but I caught him clapping on his own a couple of times. Rylee did ok but she did not approve of a couple of songs. Luckily, the speakers were loud enough to drown her out.

Here is her tap number. The video says it all. I would have uploaded another video but it takes over an hour to upload the video so one is all you get.

Here she is getting her flowers (pink roses, of course) and a kiss from her lovely mother.

It's like I always said....

I frequently tell my husband, "You get what you pay for." For me, with a few extremely rare exceptions, this saying has held true. And apparently, it holds true for car repairs because the free repair of our knocking noise lasted less than one week. Yes, folks, the noise is back. Stay tuned.

On the other hand, one of my very favorite things so far in Mason has been Ella's dance class. There is a lady at church who has a studio in her basement. When I heard about her, my expectations were low. I figured it wasn't a real studio, just a home business and something to keep her busy now that her children are grown. I was in for a sweet surprise. Carolyn (the teacher) is the perfect blend of poise, grace, discipline, fun and patience. I just think she is wonderful. The kids have lots of fun and learn a great deal, too. (And she's cheaper than the other dance studios on town, so in this case, I have found a true bargain.) Tuesday was the last class before recital on Friday. Ella is in the black skirt.

Last Day

Monday was finally the last day of school for Tanner and Ella. Sarah and I made a sign while they were at school and we anxiously awaited their arrival. Tanner was happy to be home.
Ella was not. She had gotten wedding bells and a fake engagement ring as party favors because her teacher is getting married this weekend and she lost her wedding bells. This was quite tragic.

We tried to console everyone with a trip to The Cone and a couple of quarters each for the rides. Mary and Tanner enjoyed the fire engine.

As part of our family home evening last night, I asked the kids to help me create a list of things they wanted to do this summer. Here is what we came up with:

1. Learn to tie our shoes.
2. Learn to tell time. (these two are my suggestions)
3. Remove Ella's training wheels.
4. Go to Lazer Craze.
5. Go to Kings Island.
6. Go to the Great Wolf Lodge.
7. Swim.
8. Go to different states.
9. Read a book together.
10. Participate in Summer Reading Club.
11. Go to the zoo.
12. Go to a Red's game.
13. Go to the Whippy Dip. (a local ice cream place we haven't tried)
14. Go to Columbus.
15. Go to the movies.

It is a good thing Marc is a doctor. I think it is going to be an expensive summer! Stay tuned to see if we get them all done!

Happiness is......

.....being the only kid home to lick the beaters!

For FREEEEEEE!

A few weeks ago, as it started to warm up in Mason, we decided it was finally time to take our van in to get the AC fixed. It had stopped working last fall but I saw no reason to fix it then, since we wouldn't need it until now. We also had a lovely creaky noise whenever we turned or went over a bump. I was prepared to have them tell me it would cost $1500 to fix the AC (I actually knew someone with the same type of car who paid that to fix the AC!). This would then motivate me to start looking for a new car. Because a caravan may be advertised as a 7 passenger van but it is very difficult when 5 of those passengers are in carseats or boosters! Anyway, it only cost a couple hundred dollars for each of the problems. With labor and parts we ended up spending about $600. Still alot of money, but way better than what I was expecting.

Fast forward two weeks to last weekend. The car suddenly starts making an awful knocking noise (different than the previous creaky noise!) whenever we hit a bump. Those of you from Ohio know that there are a few bumps in the road here! I was a little upset. So we returned it to the mechanic and they drove it and tinkered for a day and a half and finally determined that it was probably the rack and pinion or bushings (translation: expensive). Caravans are famous for having problems with these. But, the mechanic said that a new part just came on the market that they thought might fix our problem. They asked if they could use our car as a sort of experiment/educational experience to see if this new part would work.

The vendor was willing to supply the part for FREE!

The mechanic said they would install it for FREE!

And it worked! Now we have a non-noisy car to drive and it cost us NOTHING(this time)!

Kenna here.

I have mentioned before on the blog that I look forward to school breaks with a bit of excitement (does anyone really like to get up at 6:30 to get the kids ready for school?) and a bit of anxiety (all day is a lot of hours to fill!). On that subject I was recently chatting with a neighbor and she mentioned that her daughter's kindergarten teacher was organizing pen pals for her class. This conversation started to wheels slowly turning in my head.

I thought it might be fun to organize penpals for my kids, after all I had a pen pal when I was little and it was lots of fun.

The pros of my kids having penpals this summer:

• They can practice writing and spelling.
• They can practice reading.
• They can get to know new people (I am hoping some of our Wahlquist/Garlock cousins might be interested! Wouldn't the reunions be so much fun if the kids had been writing for a while?)
• It would be a sneaky way of helping them not forget everything they learned this year in school.
• They would get mail and who doesn't love that.

The cons of a penpal:

• The price of stamps just went up.

So this is my shout out to interested friends and family. Tanner is going to be in second grade next year, Ella will be in first and Sarah will be in preschool. Comment if you are interested or email me at kenna wahlquist (all one word) [at] hotmail {dot} com.