Thursday, March 15, 2012

Long Walk

It was a beautiful day today (well, yesterday by now) so I set out today with the kids in the stroller to take a quick walk around the block.  I decided to stretch it a tiny bit and walk through campus.
On the way down King St., I decided I was hungry and would walk to Taco Bell.

On the way to Taco Bell, I saw the sign for Spectrum Photography and remembered that I have been meaning for 9 months to see if they could help me retrieve the pictures that I accidentely took on the internal memory of my camera instead of on a removeable card.  I had broken the pins in either the cable or the actual camera and so the hookup to my computer doesn't work.

Well guess what, I am an idiot.  Okay, that wasn't much of a stretch for a guess.  Larry was able to move the missing pictures from internal memory to my card in about 10 seconds flat.  Right there as a menu option, although I swear I had searched DOZENS of times myself!

So without further ado, here are the FIRST pictures of my family together, which I thought were lost (except being seen on my tiny camera screen) forever.


These were actually taken on Sunday the 12th, the day after Ellie and Tommy were born.  We didn't try this pose again until two weeks later, despite knowing that we didn't have a group shot yet.  That's what tired will do to your brain.

And here are a few of Sandy at the hospital, and one of Tom, taken at the same time.


Sandy is holding Ellie, and Tom has Tommy. 
Thank goodness for those hats or I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to tell them (the babies, not Tom and Sandy) apart in any of the newborn pics.


So to pick up my walk story, here is a picture of Tommy and Ellie as we left Spectrum.  Aren't those sunglasses cute?  They don't stay in place very long; I'd like to find sun goggles instead because I think the real problem is that the ear pieces on the glasses are too long for them.  Or maybe their cute little noses are just to small to hold them up.
Please ignore the beautiful background and the shadow of some fat lady with a camera.  I was hungry, so I couldn't focus (pun intended) on taking a good picture.

Made it to Taco Bell and squeezed through the door.  At the last second, after I had struggled almost all the way through both sets of doors, a kind customer helped me by trying to hold the door open for me.  From the inside.  In front of us. Which, of course, blocked my very narrow entrance path.  But his heart was in the right place, so I'm not complaining.

Tommy and Ellie stared at me with that "aren't you going to share" look while I ate my taco.  I didn't give in, because we didn't have bibs and they had been fed right before we walked out the door at home.

When I left Taco Bell, I was kinda tired and the Claremont hill seemed steep, so I thought I would cross over to Center and walk back that way.

Then I noticed that the stroller tires were looking a little flat, so I decided to go to the bicycle shop to have them checked.

Next to the bike shop is Kid's Kountry, a clothing shop that I have a few $5 coupons for that I got from my ad sponsored baby books.  (Which NO, I have not kept up to date!)

So of course I had to stop in there first.  You never know, they might carry sun goggles.
If they do, I'll never know, because sticker shock set in within 10 feet of entering the door.  They have very, very cute clothes.  But it will take more than a $5 coupon to get them into my kiddos wardrobes.  $48 for an Easter dress.  And the coordinating suit for Tommy would have been $32 for the pants, $28 for the shirt, and another $30-something for the sweater vest!  Yikes!  And thank goodness for Andrea and Chelsy and everyone else who has given me hand-me-downs.  Maybe I will find something Easter-y for them at the CMOMC sale this weekend.  With any luck, someone there shops at Kids Kountry!  I have been keeping my eyes peeled for coordinating spring outfits to have their 9-month pictures taken.  Hopefully I won't be more than a week or two late getting that done.

It's very hard to make a quick exit from anywhere with a stroller that has about a half inch clearance through a standard business door, and even tougher when the very gracious and kind proprietor has to help you do it. :)

The bicycle shop guy was very helpful.  My stroller tires should be inflated to 40 psi, which I knew from reading the tire, but I didn't have a working tire gauge.  At least I thought I didn't.  Last week when I was getting the stroller cleaned up, I inflated the tires with my little $3 WalMart hand pump.  I checked the pressure on the front tire, but the little thingy wouldn't even  pop out of the end of the tire gauge so I threw it away.  Oops.  There was a reason that it wasn't popping out.  Even with all of my pumping the pressure was too low to register.  At least the rear tires (which are the ones I thought were low by the way) were at 20psi.  The owner didn't laugh too hard.  At least not to my face.  He did scare the crap out of my kids though with the pneumatic air pump!  Nap over!  And he sold me a new tire gauge.  $5.95 for one that looks exactly like the $.99 one that I threw away.  But it is important to support Main Street, and since I couldn't do it at Kids Kountry I bit the bullet here.

Leaving the bike shop, I was right around the corner from Center Street, and I wanted to stop in to visit Marji, but I didn't have her phone number to call her, AND it had now been over 2 hours since Ellie and Tommy had eaten and I didn't have any bottles with me.  So we trudged on home instead.

My "quick walk around the block" stretched into a 2-1/2 mile walk around town.  Granted, not a very FAST walk, but I was still pushing a stroller the whole time.  My arms are killing me!  I've been working on my arm muscles by doing Ellie-lifts and Tommy-lifts every day.  Many, many sets of them.  And you can actually feel muscle now.  But this stroller requires muscle in the saggy underside of my arm and whatever muscle goes into my armpit.  It's going to be a long, tough summer.  Hopefully those muscles develop quickly.

It would be really nice if they would magically develop overnight tonight, because I have an 8 a.m. date with Brittany Kucnick to walk at the Kroc Center.  Pushing that loaded stroller.

Which means that it is bedtime now.

Good Night!


2 comments:

  1. It's about time you get this blog going. I saw you on your walk up Center. I passed you by Starkey Chiropractic Center and waved, but was in my friend's car...so needless to say, you missed my waving. We we saw you Ellie was not wearing her sunglasses any longer. By they were so cute just enjoying the stroll.

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  2. To answer your questions, Yes, still 6th grade, yes, still at Osborn.

    Taft/Osborn will be sister schools. Taft building having K-3 from both buildings. Osborn will have 4-6 for both buildings.

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