All Dressed Up

Reagan is becoming quite the little fashionista. She picked out her outfit today... and she demanded to wear her boots and her hat. It's all about the accessories!

I have to brag on her for just a minute... we are officially COMPLETELY potty trained. It didn't even take a week, and I wasn't even trying to get her to do it. I had planned to wait another month or so. As I mentioned in a previous post, she initiated the whole process herself. We have said goodbye to diapers (she only wears one to go to bed) and she is so proud to wear her big girl panties. After only a couple of accidents, she now knows when she needs to go and she goes all by herself. She even asked to go potty in WalMart the other day! We are soooooo proud of her!

Little Ballerina

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Reagan has started taking ballet classes at the local recreation center on Friday mornings. Last Friday was our first class. When we walked in the door, she was the only little girl not wearing a ballet leotard and tutu. She promptly turned to me with a sad pouty voice and face and said, "Mommy I don't have a dress." Her Daddy took us shopping over the weekend to make sure that was not the case when we went to class this week! She's a natural... our little ballerina.

Birthday Potty for Pops

September 25 is Pops birthday, so we of course phoned first thing in the morning to sing Happy Birthday to him. But September 25 almost marked another SPECTACULAR occasion this year... REAGAN STARTED USING THE POTTY! She came to me about 1:00 this afternoon and took off her diaper, handed it to me, and said, "I need to go potty." We ran to the bathroom and VOILA... pee pee in the potty. That was her first time, and she has gone in the potty every time since! (Except while sleeping of course) We even made poop go in the potty before the day was done. Up until today, she had only sat on the potty and pretended to go. We are so proud of her! She phoned Pops and told him all about it... we are sure it made it an extra special birthday for him! LOL!

Lullaby and Goodnight

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"Lullaby and goodnight, go to sleep little puppy."
She was just too cute singing to her puppy this morning. I'm not sure what puppy did to warrant going to sleep in the refrigerator, but at least he got a lullaby first!

More Late Summer Fun

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She is such the Little Miss Sunshine! Here's a couple of cute videos of her playing in the pool and soaking up the sun. As she jumps in the pool, she is saying, "Yahoo!" And yes, she is counting in Spanish... thanks to Dora & Diego. She can count to 10 in Spanish, to 20 in English, and she can sing her ABC's. Smarty Pants!

End of Summer - Or Maybe Not!

We were so disappointed to think that summer was over when we had a couple of weeks of cooler temperatures and rain. But it was just Mother Nature giving us a tease, because the weather this past week has been terrific! Reagan & I are working on our tans again, playing in the back yard for hours and hours each day.

It's been a really crazy summer for us this year. We completely re-did our backyard in May. June marked the start of the kitchen renovations and we went on vacation. July was busy with working on the house still while enjoying Pops & Momsey visiting with us. August consisted of getting back to a normal routine and finishing all the little projects that needed to be done. And in the midst of all this happening, Ryan has been in severe pain. It started in May, and it's not over yet. He has been to numerous doctors, physical therapists, and finally a neurosurgeon. CT Scans have shown that he has mild to moderate bulging discs at L3 & L4, and a severely bulging disc at L5 that is compressing his S1 nerve root... The sciatic nerve. The neurosurgeon recommended surgery, but was hopeful that an epidural block would solve the problem instead. Ryan had that procedure done on August 26, and it helped at first. But the pain is now back, so the process starts over. And if that hasn't been enough for him to deal with, I had to call an ambulance to come rush him to the hospital on August 19 because he had fallen down upstairs and couldn't get up from the pain of KIDNEY STONES. Thankfully, that trauma is over as Ryan gave birth to a 4mm stone the following weekend!
So, it has been a tremendously fun yet tremendously stressful summer! Here's to hoping that fall is a little nicer to us... and maybe the summer temperatures can hang around a little while longer too!

Mommy's Little Helper

Monkey see - monkey do! Reagan is quite the little helper these days!

Bike Ride

We went for our first bike ride of this year (due to Ryan's bad back) and Reagan had a ball! She started to get impatient while Ryan was filling the tires with air (note to self... do that before you put her in next time!) But once we got going, she was honking her horn and yelling and waving at everybody she saw.

Grandma's Hat

Wilf & Edie were in town again the weekend after Pops & Momsey left. Reagan wanted to play dress-up that day, much like everyday, and Grandma's hat was the perfect compliment to Reagan's Minnie Mouse dress!

Pops & Momsey

We were so happy to have Pops & Momsey come stay with us this summer. It makes us very proud to know that we have been their longest stop this far in their retired motor home life. (Be sure to follow along on their travels at www.mytripjournal.com/skipandcindy) We were all sad to see them go, especially Reagan, but we are happy for them to be "chasing the dream".

Work Work Work

I don't think that Pops would consider his 3 week stay with us this summer much of a vacation. We worked him constantly this trip! It was great to have an extra handyman around the house to get all of my lists completed. A SMALL sampling of the jobs that Pops did: put a new roof on the shed, filled Reagan's play area with 4 truck-fulls of pea gravel, installed a new microwave above the stove, fixed a shower-head, put up towel and toilet paper racks, put together a large wooden file cabinet, fixed the shelf in Reagan's room, installed new lights in the bathroom and den, cleaned and rewired our whole-home humidifier system, fixed the broken drawer on the desk, installed a fan in the bathroom, washed & waxed my Denali, and put a slam-stop on Reagan's toy box. He barely had time to do his own "to do" list from trying to keep up with mine! He was exhausted to say the least. While he was working to death, Momsey kept Reagan entertained all day each day, and I would either clean the house, work on my bridal business, or just be lazy! There was many a day that I took advantage of having them here and I would just sit outside working on my tan, reading a few good books and cooling off with a cold one! YES I AM SPOILED!

At the Zoo

For Pops and Momsey's last day here, we decided to take them to the zoo. Reagan was so excited to take them for a train ride, and to show them all the animals that she loves to pet. The Vancouver Zoo is great for kids in that they can go right up to most of the animals without fear. Reagan liked to tickle their ears!

Little Miss Sunshine

If the sun is shining, Reagan has to be outside. She has developed quite the tan this summer as we sometimes play in the backyard all day long. She loves to help out in the yard... watering the plants, sweeping the patio, pulling clover out of the grass... you name it and she has done it. She even helps Ryan cut the grass! But her main job is to be responsible for the bird feeder. As you can tell in this picture, she keeps it well stocked so that all the birds in the neighborhood come to our house for dinner!

My Little Gymnast

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Reagan is a natural at gymnastics. I like to think that it is something that she gets from my genes. But unlike me when I was a gymnast, Reagan has no fear! She will do anything that the coaches as her to do, and she sometimes goes WAY beyond what we think she should be doing. She scares me sometimes! We couldn't resist taking a pictures of her posing before going to class, and then I was lucky enough to get her to perform for a quick video as well!

Wilf's Birthday

Ryan's dad celebrated his 70th birthday on July 22, so we had a small party for him at our house while they were in town on July 30. Everyone was more than impressed when Reagan sang Happy Birthday to Grandpa all by herself!

Up to Date

So there you go. You are now up to date on all of our latest happenings. Well, almost. I haven't posted any pictures of the massive kitchen renovation that we have almost completed. Not to worry, you can rest assured that when it is 100% done, I will be posting pictures like crazy. It's at 90% right now. Hopefully, by the end of next week it will be complete and I will be ready to share! Just trust me...it's AMAZING!

I KNOW....

Yes, I know that I have not published a posting in over two months. I've been more than a little busy! We have TOTALLY renovated our kitchen and downstairs bathroom, as well as we were on vacation for over two weeks. So I have extremely neglected this blog. I haven't felt too guilty for it though, because I figured that most everyone was keeping up with all of our goings-on via my parent's blog (www.mytripjournal/skipandcindy) that I have referenced in the last posting I did manage to make! But I promise to try over the next day or so to get Reagan's blog back up to date. So scroll down to where you last left off and work your way back up. Get ready... there is LOTS to post!

The Outdoor Pool

The Al Anderson pool and water park is only open three months out of the year here... and it is located three blocks from our house. Reagan decided to take Pops and Momsey there to show off her swimming and sliding skills. She ended up showing off for everyone that was there by surprising us all when she wanted to go down the BIG slide. She showed no fear (unlike her mom and dad who were scared to death for her) and took off on her own little mission. After about the tenth time going down, Ryan & I started to relax! We rewarded her for all her hard work at the pool with a cherry popsicle. As you can tell from the picture above, it was a real tough ride home in the wagon for Reagan... what a life!

5th Wedding Anniversary

July 12, 2008 marked the five year wedding anniversary for Ryan & Tiffany. This was also the day that Pops and Momsey arrived back in Canada. They happily played as babysitters so that Ryan and I could enjoy an evening out to ourselves. We went down to White Rock beach for dinner and then a stroll on the pier. Being as that it was our first evening out without Reagan with us in her entire life, it was an early evening for us... we were home by 7:30! When we got home, Reagan was in the same place as when we had left hours earlier... playing outside with Momsey. I think we could have pulled an all-nighter and Reagan would have never even noticed that we were gone!

Lodging Fun

The kids had tons of fun while we were "lodging" at Roche Lake. Reagan loved the loft where we slept, and would climb to the top of the stairs and holler down at us through the wooden slats. There was a (very) small playground for the kids to enjoy, along with a freezing cold pool. It didn't stop any of us from getting in though! I think they had the most fun watching the gophers run in and out of their holes and through the resort. I couldn't resist taking the picture of them looking out the window for the critters, and then going out to get the shot of them from the outside as well.

Roche Lake

Now you may think that we are crazy for the way we planned it (I must say that I would agree with you!) but less than 36 hours after we returned home from The West Coast Motor Home Adventure, we left to go on a weekend trip to Roche Lake Resort with Ryan's brother Kyle and his wife and son, Denise & Brady. We joined Ryan & Kyle's cousins once we got there, and it was a family weekend of fishing for the guys. Ryan and I had a good laugh... we thought we were going camping. To us this means pitching a tent, using the woods for an outhouse, and cooking by the fire or on the Coleman stove. Ah, no... this is not what we did. We went lodging! We stayed in cabin by the lake with all the modern conveniences. Well almost all of them... no cell phone service and no television. Not to worry because I had brought along our portable DVD player. It was a nice relaxing weekend, and the views of the lake were really amazing. Ryan caught a couple fish, so that made the weekend a huge success in his eyes! The kids tried all weekend to catch one of the thousands of gophers that were running around, but thankfully never met with success. We've decided this will become a yearly event at different locations for all who were involved. Who knows... maybe one day we'll convince them all to actually go CAMPING!

San Francisco

Our return trip to Canada was via a flight out of San Francisco, so we left from Bodega early that morning in order to have time for a little sight seeing. We crossed over the Golden Gate Bridge and went directly down to Fisherman's Wharf. Reagan was excited to see a "pirate ship" and of course we had to go aboard. Pops even got us all on board for free by using his old age pass. Ryan was impressed with Alcatraz... he said he felt like he belonged there! We all had a great time, but it didn't make saying goodbye any easier. The only comfort was knowing that Pops and Momsey would be going back to Bodega for just a few more days and then they were heading north to Canada!