tyson and the birthday cake

hanna brought along a nice cake for tyson's birthday, so we put on some candles and sang the song.
for some reason, hanna and tyson have been really into this "face in the cake" thing for a while. here tyson is just emerging from the mess.
and he looks great! man, we may need to get that kid a weight set for christmas.

strange body

yesterday i rode in wildwood and hit a few of the tough hills. i'm not joking when i say that i was crawling up the climbs. it was really odd. today, i rode again, and just to punish myself for yesterday's horrible performance, i rode twice as long and hit twice as many hills.

i'm going to go out on a limb here. i'm not right just yet. it's been an eye-opening experience to ride a bike and feel like a beginner again. i am not going to be stupid and say that i am completely recovered from "the pancreas incident". in fact, my body is telling me that i've got a long way to go to be normal. it's depressing because this was the first winter that i haven't suffered a lot from my typical sinus infections, and i was able to get in those consecutive days of riding in vegas.

i don't know what to say. i'm guessing that i'll just have to see how it goes for a while, and take the races off of the calendar until things come around. i think i might start the tuesday night worlds next week, but i would hate to get out there and just not be able to do it.

curses.

bigwheel-athon

today was the annual bigwheel-athon at eli's school. this year, the course was bigger and better, as you can see from the photos. i was getting a little jealous that i wasn't going to be ripping around this sucker.
the back straight was brimming with checkered flags.
eli was totally jazzed. he sat quietly on the mat, waiting for his turn on the bigwheels.
i was quite unaccustomed to the way the teachers pinned on the kids' numbers. masking tape? simple and effective, i guess.
eli was checking out the competitions hardware. he had the fast bigwheel, for sure.
lined up and ready!
a popsicle for the effort! eli gunned it around the course. i have video, but it takes so long to load it on blogger that you'll just have to take my word for it.
and they even got some encore laps after the race.

Rocky the Dalmation 1998 to 2011

rocky and deanna started their friendship a long time ago, when he was just a little pink-nosed pup at the pound. he turned on the charm and deanna had to have him. for 13 years, he ran with her, protected her, gave her love and affection. and when the kids came along, he protected everyone just like he should. even as he got older, he still tried to protect everyone. his bark will forever ring in my ears as the loudest dog bark i have ever heard.

anyone that ever met rocky will miss him forever. we miss him terribly already.

easter 2011

easter sunday. always a time of great stress for the little people. here, you can see one of the reasons. there was a "easter egg hunt olympics" course set up in the basement at church. you should have seen the little suckers go after those eggs.
eli bagged a sucker early on. yes, i ended up holding it moments after this shot.
eli sprang into action. here, he is actually sliding out of the frame as he lunged for the bounty!
he was a living terror. eli scooped up dozens of eggs.
....and had to show off his winnings.
a nice shot of the three of us. hanna and tyson were not with us today. we always miss them when they are not.
later, we went to grandma's for another easter egg hunt as well as dinner. here, the beautiful mrs k gives me that smile.
tyson joined up after dinner. after the adults had their easter egg hunt ($5 in a plastic egg is not a bad deal for two minutes of hunting) and again it was off to the races.
eli and tyson frantically search for their eggs. uncle keith did a good job of hiding them. all in all, a great day, despite the rain.

hospital visit, missed eli's birthday party

so an unscheduled visit to the hospital on thursday nixed my plans for eli's birthday party at bounce-u on friday night. i sent the beautiful mrs k to the party with my camera with explicit instructions to capture my big five year old in action. and this is the best shot i got. at least you can tell he was living it up and having a good time.
and mrs k also got this semi-possessed looking photo of hanna, which i really like. cool shirt, too.
eli came to visit me a couple of times during my excruciatingly boring stay at st. anthony's. he brought along some friends, too. they had some epic battles on the heat register.
some transformer action was in full effect.
and this was my view. i went in for acute pancreatitis, which meant no food or drink for a couple of days. That was no big deal, since i hadn't been eating really for the last week or so. the problem was the IV i had to have attached to my arm the entire time. talk about a pain in the butt. i walked all over the hospital, dragging that damn thing around with me to alleviate the boredom. and i watched tv. and i played on the computer. pretty much, staying in the hospital is the most boring thing i can think of. i practically had to beg to leave on sunday evening. but leave i did. and you know what? now they're not sure it was pancreatitis!

i need a break from the medical community.

his first yard sale

we took eli for a big ride today around wilmore park. there are nice asphalt paths that criss-cross the park, and it was such a wonderful day that it seemed right to give the little guy a bit of running room on two wheels. deanna and i broke out our mountain bikes to ride along with him.

he rides so well! we took him twice around, which is maybe two miles. he has very little trouble getting around, and he even tackled the climbs nicely. he has a habit of trying to stay in front of us, too. then came his crash.

poor guy really accelerated like a mad man at the top of a hill, and then promptly went into a little wobble and did a yard sale all across the trail. he scraped his already scraped elbow, and it took a lot of coaxing to get him back on the bike. but, he finished the ride back to the car like a trooper.

he went to bed very early tonight. i felt so sorry for the little guy.

stomach drama

so rosco didn't get his bladder stones removed the other day. instead, the vets noticed a large mass in his stomach. they went in with a scope to do a biopsy on friday. we won't know what it is until tuesday or wednesday. that makes me very nervous, because it very well could be cancer and that would be bad.

i went to the doctor on friday, too. my stomach has been giving me fits for a couple of years now, and over the last 7 days i have been miserable. i stopped eating at all on wednesday. the doc thinks i might have an ulcer and so i went to the lab for some tests and i'll know tuesday or wednesday, too.

i'll take an ulcer if rosco only has a benign growth that can be removed. actually, i would gladly take no stomach drama at all, but sadly i don't think that is one of my options.

20 years ago today

man, it's hard to believe that it's been 20 years. that is a long time in anyone's book. i've always been sad that he never met my kids. dad was gone so far before any of them were born.

he died on april 4, 1991. we had his funeral on april 8, at jefferson barracks cemetery. that so happens to be eli's birthday, although eli was 15 years too late to have met grandpa george.

although i think of my dad often, i have very rarely dreamed about him. i just so happened to have had a dream last night that somehow included him, which i remembered today, which reminded me that it was the 20th anniversary of his passing. a little odd, but i always begin thinking about him a lot around the first of april, so it's not too surprising.

dad, i have a lot i'd like to talk to you about. not that you'd ever say much anyway, but i really miss telling you stuff, and you just sitting there listening. kinda funny like that.

volleyball, bladder stones, and no racing as of yet

on a positive note, i was able to watch hanna's volleyball team compete in another tournament today. they really struggled today, but none of them have been playing for more than 8 or 9 months, so i'm cutting them some real slack. i'm hoping hanna will have some good quality playing time in this whole year with some of the volleyball camps that we have our eyes on.

my little buddy has bladder stones. yes, rosco is taking after his large pal rocky. poor little rosco has been in a bad way for the past week, and i sat at the vet's tonight looking at 5 rather large star fish shaped bladder stones on the xray board. yep, he has to have surgery to take them out wednesday. do me a favor and pray for him, because he has been with me for 12 years now and i'm not about to let him go.

i have not raced yet in 2011. i totally intend to. really. but our lives are busy and i just can't justify taking time out from the kids, my dogs, my job, etc., to race yet. it will come. after 33 years, i know it's just a matter of time.