Whew, back in CA, back to almost 100%. Happy New Year!! (Didn't even come close to staying up for the ball but had a ball chillin that night outside with Greg's rents and their new chiminea.) So December...hmmm, what happened? I feel like that is my common blog theme. Maybe a resolution should be to find was to slow down the passing of days, weeks, and months. (Instead my resolutions are to look into some professional development ideas, make sure Cody's hands are always washed in my presence (see below) and as always, work out more.
December went quick. We went to a friend's daughter's birthday party in San Francisco. Then prepared for Christmas by shopping, packing, and eating. Mike McNevin was able to come out for a weekend visit the second weekend. It started out so fun...
While Greg and I were out for his birthday the idea emerged after a couple of rum cocktails to maybe consider buying a house in Arnold a 2 hr away mountain destination. So Mike came in late on Thursday, Friday I went to our school's holiday party for an hour then they picked me up and we headed up there, staying at a friend's place. Arnold is pretty cool. It's not Tahoe and although Tahoe is pretty, Arnold is situated amongst many big lakes, a ski resort named Bear Valley, National Forest and even a couple of wineries. The big winner is that its only 2.5 hours instead of the minimum of 4.5 hours (or 8.5 like we've experienced) to get there. Mike and Greg got to relive every memory of Colorado until 5 in the morning on Friday. So....
Saturday was kindof rough. The guys were sleeping and Cody just wasn't himself. Me and him poked around town and walked around the neighborhood, but by night time he was lethargic and fevered and we were an hour from the nearest hospital. Sunday we all had a little bit of energy to see some houses, one of which, "The Hippie House" we really liked. More on that another time :) The car ride home was fine but by Monday Mike and I went to the Pedi Doc twice. Mike was awesome, he went above and beyond friend status when he immediately helped to clean up puke, put together a broken nebulizer while always keeping a smile.
By Wednesday before Christmas we thought he was okay to fly and we went to Philly. Both there and back Cody was a flight champ. This was his 9th round trip on a plane. He was into it, flapping his little arms on take off. We got to Greg's rents house 330 that morning. We did their traditional Claudio's meats and cheese from South Philly on Thursday night and it was awesome that John picked up Oma and she stayed over night. Friday we took Cody to Jungle Wonder to play and he was feelin pretty good, but by this time both Greg and I had severe sore throats. That night we went into Philly and went out to dinner for Jon's 30th bday in Chinatown with about 20 of his friends. Super fun time catching up, he's got a great group of friends I enjoying hanging out with.
Saturday we made record time (4 hrs) driving to Utica. There my whole family-including Jan and Mandy's newest addition-Wyatt was already there. My mom made about 45 different things for Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas was another marathon of food. Monday it was fun to take the kids to Martha Hanno's Rough and Tumble indoor play center. None of us were feelin 100 % but the kids had a blast and it was really nice having lunch with Mandy's family at Peter's Cornucopica. Tuesday Paige and I had fun organizing pictures and cabinets, a favorite pasttime of mine and we went out to a fav Italian Restaurant, but before the Utica greens were even finished Cody puked in the restaurant. Bummer! But it's okay because we quickly got take out and had a really good time drinking wine and sitting around the table talking. Cody was coughing so much by this point it was hard to keep food down. So Wednesday, back in the car to drive back to Philly. We got to stop in and see Uncle Bob and Aunt Chris and Sara, Xavier and Eve for mere moments since we were quarantined Cody in our car. I'm glad we got to see them and Kate's family too (they stopped over to visit in Utica for awhile.)
Thursday we were concerned about the cough and took him into the ER. They said all signs pointed to croup, even though his persistent cough didn't sound like the typical croup "bark." So back on steroids, back on nebulizer, back on not sleeping through the night. At least Cody's ultimate favorite city, Notionville, was downstairs. That's the awesome train set up that Greg's dad created. (The plane ride home I just played a video I took on the Ipad of Cody watching the trains, he watched it on loop until he feel asleep.) Speaking of sleep, we're back home, I unpacked all day and it's 7:34, feels like east coast 10:34 and we're all finally feeling better, we loved spending time with loved ones, but we're tired, good night, hope all your resolutions come true.
One more thing, I can't name everything Cody got, it was insane, but besides watching the trains, he LOVED playing with his cousin Asa, being the center of the his own dance show at the Notte family party (right after he puked there too) and being with both of his grandparents who helped us everyday. That was the best gift.
January in Northern California is a pretty fun time. Actually all year is. Cody's been healthy and happy and becoming such a little boy. He's saying animal sounds, pointing to head, shoulders knees and toes, and wanting to play play play (unless it's up in Squaw, Lake Tahoe in the windy snow, then he'd rather play play inside where it's warm...We'll work on that one.) Last night we went to La Costanera near Half Moon Bay and watched the sunset over the ocean and had some dinner (with a Groupon of course) It was beautiful. The weekend beautiful Greg was an awesome driver up and back from Tahoe (super heavy rain up there and snowy roads on the way back.) Although they didn't get that much snow overall we had fun skiing, hot tubbing, and relaxing. Cody got his 1st real boy hair cut this month too. He looks so much older which has prompted me to get on the pre-school search again, but after looking and talking about it we're excited for him to start another homecare place next September for slightly older kids then maybe do pre-school after that. We've been exploring classes and swimming options too. Yesterday we went to Junior Gym, though I think we're going to sign up for swim lessons instead at the super nice JVCC. Work for both of us has been busy but good. I just finished my first semester of Spanish Cultural Studies Technology with the 6th graders. It was awesome, they were awesome and we all learned a lot and had fun. It will be exciting to do that all over again starting next week. I've been looking into camps for Cody and course work for me this summer inbetween trips to Philly, NY, maybe San Diego and Denver too. Well we're having a Domingo fiesta with some friends and I need to start working in the kitchen on guac, fish taco sauce, plantains, rice and beans and for dessert arroz con leche. Where's my cerveza?
