I apparently have a very magnetic personality

Hanging out in the condo. Waiting for a phone call from the washing machine repair guy letting me know he's almost ready to come to our rental condo to look at the washing machine there. After he calls, I get to load up the kids and head out in the crazy wind and rain to hang out while he checks things out. But after that! Target!!! And maybe Trader Joe's! And it's Friday, which means picking up Daddy at work and then going to eat sushi and visit the pet store and probably go to another Target!

Tomorrow morning I HAVE to go running. I've been making excuses because my back's been hurting and I haven't been feeling well otherwise, but now I have no excuses and I need to go out because the Free Them 5K is in two months and I haven't run a step in ages.  So there's that.

I finally just banished my kids to their room. Also known as the small place crammed with toys that they never seem to play with. Because they'd rather be climbing me or begging for my iPod or pulling the blankets off my bed to go "camping"

Admittedly, this is a very cute game

Mostly though, they just want to be wherever I am.  Cleaning the kitchen? In the bathroom? Sitting on the couch? They're there.  Which is fine most of the time, but it's been a long week of not much exciting going on and lots of time in the condo and I need them to separate from me physically for just a while.  They tried bringing their cars in here to where I am, after I banished them to play the first time. But I redirected that train of play back to their room and it seems to have worked this time.

In other news, Ethan's breaking my heart lately with his feeding tube stuff. He's finally realized that 1) not all kids have a feeding tube and 2) that he's different and 3) it's restricting some of his activities. He's a huge fan of climbing and playareas at McDonalds and IKEA, but his tube is super vulnerable to infection (three rounds of antibiotics in the past month), so we have to either remember to cover it up really well ahead of time, or not let him play in public play areas. Last night he was crying and asking when he could grow up and get rid of it, and when I again told him that he has to start eating first, he sadly looked at me and said "Mommy, I'm tired of this subject."

I think one of the things that surprised me most about our trip to Iceland was what a sense of relief it was to not have to deal with Ethan's feeding stuff for a few days. You don't know how heavy something is until you put it down and feel the relief.  His feeding issues and Daniel's rheumatoid arthritis are both this low-level, constantly present stress that I don't necessarily even acknowledge anymore, even to myself, because it's just reality.  It was awfully nice to have someone else dealing with mealtimes and lack of eating and the feeding pump at night and everything. 

Well, this post turned all depressing. And they're back, so I need to wrap up and get back to cleaning/trying to convince the kids to actually play with their toys without me.

Iceland, day 4

I decided to finally wrap up my Iceland trip recap, mainly  because I'd like to mentally (if not physically) be somewhere with better weather. And the weather in Iceland was definitely better than the nastiness that we're having this week in Seattle. 

Anyway- Saturday was day 4 of our trip.  We woke up early, loaded up our bags and checked out of the hotel, then went to wait in the lobby with all the other people that we'd been seeing off and on all week. That was kind of the weird thing about this trip- since it was through IcelandAir, it was a hotel/flight/excursion package. So we saw the same people over and over whenever we participated in a group activity.  Kind of like what I imagine it's like on a cruise. 

We all loaded up the gigantic bus and were off to our much-anticipated trip to the Blue Lagoon! We originally weren't sure if we were going to do this, but then we decided to add it on, since the last day of our trip was also our 6th anniversary and we wanted to do something fun and romantic before spending hours on the plane.

The scenery on the way to the Blue Lagoon was very pretty- snow on the lava made for quite a contrast.

The Blue Lagoon was breathtakingly beautiful! After figuring out the fancy bracelets that controlled our lockers, we changed into bathing suits and ran through the freezing air into the lovely hot spring. And hot it was! It was so neat to float around in the warm or hot water and just relax after a busy week. A perfect anniversary spot.

After several hours of floating and a lovely snack, it was back on the bus and time to head home to the kids! The plane trip home about drove me insane, as I had watched all the interesting movies on the way there and I was tired of all of my games and it was just time to be home. 

But finally we were back and through customs and back to our munchkins. Who hadn't seem to notice we were gone, thanks to great childcare by my parents.  My parents left soon after we arrived and apparently went to bed at 8:30 that night :) 

Seriously, if you ever get a chance to go to Iceland- go. It's a gorgeous country with super-friendly people. Everything is modern and really efficient.  Food is expensive, but everything else was pretty reasonably priced. And since they accept credit cards absolutely everywhere, we didn't even ever see the Icelandic currency. We'd definitely like to go back when the kids are older and see more of the country. Well worth the trip.

Temporary insanity brought on by miserable weather

After I wrote yesterday's psycho post, I sulked around the condo for a while.  Then I started researching vacations to Southern California. Ethan's been asking about Disneyland a lot lately. Another thing I can blame on school, I think.  I know a bunch of his school friends have gone recently, and peer pressure starts young! Anyway, we'd been sort of keeping it out there as a family vacation idea. But the summer is filling up quickly, and it didn't really fit on the calendar.

Then I remembered that thing called Spring Break.  And so I started looking at Disneyland trips. Daniel was vaguely on board with the idea. Then I discovered (I'm really new to this Disney stuff) that 2 year olds get into Disneyland free.  Which means going on Spring Break rather than this summer after Vivian turns 2 will save us a bunch of  money. 

So then Daniel was completely on board and I spent the rest of the day glued to the computer looking at all the options.  Finally I found one that worked well for us and I was about to book it when Daniel looked at me and hesitantly said "what do you think. No wait. Maybe.... we could invite my parents?" To which I of course rolled my eyes and sighed deeply, but got myself together and agreed. And they're going!

I am actually glad Daniel suggested it. Yes, going places with his parents and the kids is much like herding cats.  They all tend to just wander a bit, and even going to Target together is usually an adventure requiring search parties to be sent out for one or more temporarily misplaced family member. So Disneyland should be interesting. But I know his parents will love seeing the kids happy and they really don't ever get to do anything fun with the kids or spend long stretches of time with them like my parents do.

So I have sunshine in my future to get me through the horrifically dismal weather that we're having in Seattle this week. Hurray!

Oh, and did I mention that I'm flying with the kids to Virginia at the end of May? Alone? And yesterday the airline changed my flight so now I have 35 minutes to haul two kids across a large airport to a connecting flight? I'm praying really hard that they change the flight times again, because that's just not happening.

Anxiety

I'm feeling anxious this afternoon. Thankfully Ethan's at school and Vivian's napping, so I can hide in my bedroom and feel this way without causing stress to anyone else. Except our psycho cat. I think I'm making her jumpy.

We have done pretty much nothing now for the past couple of weeks. I was really wiped out physically by the Iceland trip and emotionally/mentally by all the people in my presence. So after my parents went home, I pretty much did nothing after that. We haven't had things on our social calendars, I don't have any pressing obligations right now. We've just kind of been existing. Which is fine and I like that most of the time.

Then I started updating my calendar for the next few months and suddenly it was full almost to the end of August. WHEN I START GRAD SCHOOL AGAIN. OH MY GOODNESS WHAT WAS I THINKING!

Hyperventilating.  Suddenly I have to plan things and get ready for a really busy next few months with trips and visiting people and a wedding and lots of fun stuff! And then I have to somehow juggle taking care of my family with studying law and public policy and what if Vivian stops napping in the afternoon.

Oh, and I have discovered on the last two school friend playdates that my kids are woefully un-busy. They don't do music classes or swim classes or anything.  Nothing other than school. And Vivian doesn't even have that. Am I harming their development?

I think I'm just going to hide under the covers now.

Iceland: Day 3

We just got home from an outing to downtown Seattle and while we waited for the bus, Daniel and I remarked simultaneously about how much the weather reminded us of Reykjavik. 40 degrees, windy (thanks to the proximity to the water), constantly changing skies of rain and then sun and then rain again two minutes later.  We were really surprised by how much it felt like home in terms of the weather. We'd really expected it to be cold, but other than the day on the glacier and the Northern Lights hunt, I wore my normal clothes- even my totally unsensible open-on-the top shoes!

Anyway, day 3. Slept late, thanks to a very late arrival at the hotel the night before. Had another breakfast of yogurt and fruit from the store around the corner. Iceland had some excellent drinkable yogurt.  I used to do a lot of drinkable yogurt when I lived in Ukraine, and it was nice to get to have that as part of my breakfast again.  Yummy!

Then it was off to the old part of the city again.  Much the same as what we saw on Wednesday, but this time we were actually awake, whereas on Wednesday we were functioning on virtually no sleep. It was nice to just wander around and check out all the old buildings and sites. 

This sculpture reminded me of Ethan :)

 

Our favorite set of buildings- loved the colors!

Oldest timber building in Iceland

Parliament and a church

Catholic Church 

 

Museum of a famous Icelandic sculptor, whose name I am too lazy to look up at the moment

Loved these sculptures!

Sunset on our last night

Tired-out Daniel

 

 

 

Even though we'd gone on a failed Northern Lights hunt the night before, we decided, based on the weather and Northern Lights forecast to buy tickets for another attempt on our last night. Better to give it a shot and fail than hear about the great sighting the next day! 

Unfortunately, it was another bust in terms of seeing the lights, but I'm still glad we went. We (and about 600 other people on a huge bunch of buses) headed out into a dark area, outside of Reykjavik. Then we walked down to the edge of the water and stood and watched. No lights, but we could see the stars for a long time. It was an incredible feeling just to be outside, breathing the air and hearing the water and being awed by the stars.  Not things that I do a lot in the city!  Unfortunately, the weather turned before the lights showed up.  And yes, we were very cold on this outing. Really the only time I was truly cold on the trip.

The reason for the cold and the clouds became evident when we woke up the next morning to see this!

Snow! And yes, this is taken in the morning. It's dark until 9 or so at this time of the year.

Iceland, Day 2

We were just outside waiting for Ethan's bus and I saw a city bus drive by with the IcelandAir ad on it "only 7 hours from Seattle to Iceland!" and realized I'm behind on this again.

So, day 2 in Iceland was Thursday, which was the big glacier hike day.  We found ourselves hanging out in the Hilton lobby in the morning, with a big crowd of people, all dressed in layers and wearing boots, so we were pretty sure everyone was heading to the same place. I suspect I had on the best socks under my boots:

 Our big bus eventually arrived, and we headed off across the mountains to the glacier.  Just a bit outside of Reykjavik was the first mountain pass, and our view looked like this:

But pretty soon we were past all the snow and back to the lowlands of Iceland. Which pretty much looked like this:

Eventually we stopped for a yummy lunch of Icelandic meat (lamb) soup. Super yummy!

And we got fitted for crampons, and thankfully the guide noticed that most of the group was wearing warm clothes but not waterproof clothes, and they handed out waterproof pants. Thank goodness.

Then it was back on to the big bus and off toward the glacier, with a stop at a famous and pretty waterfall:

After driving past the volcano that caused all the air travel uproar in 2010 (but that apparently had almost no effect on the local area, other than an abundance of volcanic ash) we were at the glacier. And I started second guessing the wisdom of this decision.

First view

I was a bit comforted by the fact that I was traveling with a large group that was, shall we say, more in the range of my physical fitness than my husband's. So I didn't think I would be slowing them down too much. After stopping at the edge of the glacier for our insanely patient guide to show us how to put on our crampons (which most of us screwed up repeatedly), we were off! 

Our guide, explaining that this overhang was a tunnel the week before

The black stuff you see is volcanic ash.  It was really pretty up on the glacier. A bit more strenuous than the "leisurely walk" that was advertised, but worth the climb.  It wasn't even very cold on the glacier, just very, very, very wet.  Between the rain falling from the sky and the glacier melting since it was above freezing, we were absolutely soaked.  Thank goodness for the waterproof pants, as that was pretty much the only dry spot on my body.  

Going up was challenging, but I knew going down would be worse as I 1) have a crazy fear of falling and 2) this makes me not walk properly when I'm going down inclines and I generally fall. I was actually praying that when I fell I wouldn't hurt myself or anyone else, and when I fell a few minutes later I was fine.  Daniel and the guide, both of whom and gently been telling me that I needed to stomp harder to get a better grip with the crampons, both refrained from 'I told you sos'.

Eventually we were down and were wet, but happy to have risen to the challenge.

After a stop by another waterfall:

We were then off to a delicious dinner of lobster soup. Oh, and beer. Definitely beer.

Then we ended our night with a failed hunting trip for the Northern Lights and at midnight rolled back into our hotel, exhausted, wet and so thrilled to have had the adventure. Not bad for an overweight city girl, I think :)