Happy Birthday, Jack!

Happy 12th  Birthday to this Guy!

These pictures were taken the day after Jack was born. They are blurry because my camera wasn’t that good…or is it because he wouldn’t sit still!

Notice the new outfit? He was moving around a lot because he was “reliving himself” and suddenly needed a new outfit! But, no more blurry pictures and showing the interesting way he sucked his thumb!

Here’s most of the family meeting Jack for the first time!

Jason

Sam
(Love Jack’s little foot sticking out!)

Grandma Rold (my mom)

Grandpa Rold (my dad)

Aunt Steph (Jason’s Sister)

Cousin Cameron

Cousin Logan

Cousin Meredith

Grandma Sharon and Eldon in the background!
(Don’t have one of them holding Jack)

Aunt Megan (my sister)

Jack greeted her with a toot! (Her face makes me laugh!!)

Jason’s grandma meeting Jack for the first time 12 years ago. She is now 101 years old!! One of my favorite pictures!

I would include one of me meeting Jack, but I thought the picture on the night of July 13 (the night before Jack was born) shows how ready I was to have this little guy in the world with us!

Happy Birthday Jack, my favorite brown eyed boy!
(Jason is brown eyed, but he is a man…wink wink)

I Did It Again!

Welcome Back!

So Sunday night, I decided to chew my cuticles (yucky). Something made a loud noise and my first thought was, “WOW! That was a big cuticle.” I looked down and part of my TOOTH was on my finger! UGH!!

I looked at Jason and said, “I just chipped my tooth off again!” His first reply was, “LET ME SEE! LET ME SEE!”

Really, Jason!

(Back story…my front four teeth are all bonded. The chipped one is due to my breaking  the tooth off when I was 11. The other teeth were so tiny, that they needed to be built up to look “normal” size. I had to get it fixed three weeks ago for it chipping off in the same place. )

 

Allergy Testing

Welcome Back!

This spring Jack fought allergies something terrible. He was miserable and actually missed school due to headaches, sinus infections and his boat just being sunk. Our doctor suggested seeing an allergy doctor. Good thing we did! (photo heavy!!)

This is the apparatus that is used for testing. Each prong is filled with an allergen and then the entire thing is pressed against your back. No needles… (yet.)

Once the allergen is placed on the skin, a timer is set for 15 minutes to watch the development of the areas to see what Jack’s reaction was to the allergens.  (I realize that I spelled allergen wrong in the pictures and I didn’t want to go back and fix it…I apologize!) Right after the allergens were placed on his skin he looked at me and said, “These itch!!” 

He immediately started to react to the allergens. This is after 2 minutes.

The doctor came in again around 5 minutes and decided to wipe off the allergens due to the reaction Jack was having. Especially in the A (grasses) and B (trees) areas.

  The C area (certain corn pollen) started to puff up, as did D (animals and cockroaches…ew) and E (molds).

He continued to welt/react!

The largest welt under B is ash trees.
The “control allergen,” how most people would show a typical reaction, is in B section, last dot in the second column or row. So you can see how allergic Jack is to certain things.

At 10 minutes the doctor came in and said, “I think we know,” and went on to wipe off the allergens, put cold compresses on his back…and paint his back with Calamine lotion. He poured it on his back!

Due to the “terrible” allergy reaction Jack had, especially to trees and grasses, the doctor suggested allergy shots would work great for Jack, but that would mean 7 “shots” in the arms to check for more specific reactions. We decided to do that right away instead of coming back another day. The shots didn’t bother Jack at all! He even watched and did not flinch once. What a trooper!!

This arm was tested for cats (allergic) dogs (allergic) feathers (allergic) and then the control allergen. I shared that we had a dog and Jack did not show symptoms. The Dr. said Jack may not react to certain breeds of dogs, so keep to that breed. He also shared that there is no research at this time that hypo-allergenic dogs are really hypo-allergenic!

This side tested for more specific molds and dust mites (allergic!) which our found everywhere in your house.

Next step, starting shots, which Jack is totally ok with. It was a rough morning, but Jack was a trooper and never once complained and we got some answers!

Vacation!

Hello!

Our first big adventure was last Sunday when we headed to Snowbird. Snowbird is a ski resort in the winter and summer adventure park in the summer! I am proud to share, that I rode/did almost every adventure ride that the boys did!

But first, I ran into the boys playing a game of baseball in our room! (they were using a floating pool ball and an empty water bottle.)

The first adventure was taking a ski lift up to the top of the trail area to ride the Alpine Slide down.

I rode with Sam. He doesn’t enjoy riding any ski lifts and on this trip, that was how you got around, much to his non-enjoyment.

Can you spot Jason and Jack behind me?

This was my first Alpine Slide. Overall, not too bad, but I go pretty slow. No racing to the bottom for me. Especially after I saw a kid wipe out…Can you say skin rash. Ouch!

Then off to the Alpine Coaster. I enjoyed this more than te Alpine Slide. I actually went on this two times!!

We took a ride on this Tram to the top of the mountain, Hidden Peak. Tram do not have seat, but everyone packs in and stands. (EEK!)

Jack thought the view was excellent and stood right up in front.

Sam and I, not so much. it took us 7 minutes to get up to the top. A long 7 minutes.

But the ride was well worth the views!

After the 7 minute ride down the Tram (which we thought was much quicker than up) the boys headed to the flyer. You get on this two seat ride and it pulls you up backwards, holds you there a few seconds and then lets you fly down to the start.

I told Jason he was on his own with that one., BUT the gal said he needed to ride with someone. Lucky me. I must say, it actually  too bad. It looks worse then it actually was.

The next stop was the rope climb. All four of us strapped in and started to climb. I did two walk overs, announced this wasn’t for me and climbed down. Everything you walked over was not stable. It was either logs, a rope, two ropes, just not for me. Jack fell in love with the rope climb!!

Finally, I was done. There was NO WAY I was going to do the free fall jump. You jump off a platform and free fall for about 10 feet. At that time, the rope tightens and you are then lowered the rest of the way. Sam and Jack both jumped!

Realized when Jack jumped the second time, the perspective of the jump from another angle was much more dramatic!!

The boys actually went off to do a bungee jump trampoline and a climb wall. I said I was done, found a table with an umbrella and listened to a local band!

We honestly thought we would spend 2-3 hours here, but stayed about five hours! It was a great place…not too crowded when we were there, highly recommend a visit if you head to Utah in the summer.

Regional Track Meet…

Welcome Back!

As I shared yesterday, Jack had a regional track meet in Minneapolis this weekend. He did very well and was overall very pleased with his and his teams performance.  I did not head up, so unfortunately I only have one picture of this historic event.

Jack finished 10th overall in the 100 and the 200. The  top 8 times qualified for the finals.  We are super proud of him!! He, too, was pleased with his accomplishments!

In the 100 finals, the top 5 finishers all broke the meet record. These boys ran in the low 12s (meaning 12 seconds) FAST!! Especially for that age group! These boys are all the same age!!

In the 200, the top three finishers also broke the meet record. They ran in the low 25s (25 seconds.) Very few kids Sam’s age can run that fast! Extreme talent at this meet.

This is Jack’s 200 heat. He placed fourth in his heat. Boy are those boys fast!! Could not get the video to upload, but you can click on the link to watch his 200 prelims race.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESie2PVF0Q

Jack’s 4×100 team, though, remains undefeated!! They finished first in their age group, got to stand on the medal blocks and receive their medals!

I must say though, I don’t know if Jack was more excited about the track meet or staying up late Saturday night with his friends that didn’t have to run on Sunday! I heard much more about the evening than I did the meet!

 

A Nice Welcome Home!

Hello!

We spent last week in Park City, Utah and I would go back in a minute! We absolutely loved it there…the weather, no humidity,  being in the mountains, but still being “able to see out,” the laid back feeling and lots to do! I would put this vacation in my top 5! Loved it!! Have lots to share with you, but need to spend time editing pictures…which I do not like to do!! Belch!

Anyway…We landed at 6:00 on Friday night at the airport, drove home, Jack and Jason switched bags, got back into the car and drove to Minneapolis because Jack had a regional track meet on Saturday.

Sam and I stayed home.

Anywy, Sam headed to bed (he’s been sleeping in the basement because it is nice and cool) and then (of course) he came up into my room with the dreaded look on his face.

Sam: “You need to come downstairs.”
Me instantly knowing this isn’t going to be good “No.”
Sam: “Mom. You have to.”
Me: “I don’t want to.”
Sam:”MOM!”
Me: “Is it a snake?”
Sam: “No. But you have to see it.”

I don’t want to….but I pull up my big girl pants (only half way) and headed downstairs.

Sam: ” Look…”

This petrified, hard as a rock, frog was dead…on Sam’s blankets.

Please understand, I was tired and really just wanted to go to bed.

Me: “Gross. I’m not touching it.”
Sam: “It’s on my blanket.”
Me: “Turn away.” I then proceeded to pull his blanket out fast so the frog would just stay were he was. He did, but bumped against the wall with a thud. (gag)

Me: “Here you go.” (handing my 6’3″ son his defrogged blanket)
Sam: “What about the frog?”
Me: “I’m not touching it…are you?”
Sam: “No.”

So I went upstairs and got a plastic bowl to place over the hard dead frog. We were both very pleased with our braveness.

PS
Jason wasn’t too pleased we left it for him to take care of when he got home two days later.