Homeward Bound

Woke up last night to thunder snow! One of my favorite weather phenomena’on’sms’.

By the time I woke up for realsies, there was a couple inches on the ground. Melted off pretty quickly and turned out to be a decent day.

Spent the day in Boulder, Golden, Denver in that order. Some good stuff happened and some less good stuff. Imagine that, right?

Now, just hanging in Denver airport, which should probably be known as West Kansas International. Why is it so far from everything?? I know SLC isn’t Denver, but seriously our airport is like 3 minutes from downtown. And now we have a great mass transit system…Utah, so hot right now.

Not much else to report, really, looking forward to getting home and enjoying Halloweener.

 

On the Road Again…

If I’m posting, that can only mean one thing…on the road again.

Jumped out of bed at 5:15 this morning to await my destiny in the great state of Colorado.

Sadly, I managed to back over one of the wheels of the stroller as I backed the car out of the garage. Unfortunately, this is the 3rd time I’ve managed to do this and I think it’s not worth repairing. Now we have to decide if it’s worth getting a new stroller when our youngest kid is almost 2….

Wow, this post went off topic. Anyway, I made it to the airport. Yes! Traveling by airplane!! So much faster than driving. Or walking. Continued on my journey to Denver.

Spent most of the day visiting accounts in Colorado Springs. It went well. No wacky stories to tell or anything, just kind of a normal day in the sales rep life. Probably better than average, really.

Spending tonight in the Holiday Inn Expresss in Boulder. I don’t feel any smarter. I do feel poorer, however. Excuse me, “more poor”…maybe it is working.

I ran on a treadmill. This was exciting for at least 3 reasons. 

1) I hate running inside. 

B) I haven’t run since June

3) I listened to the Book of Mormon on tape while I ran.

We’ll see if I can walk tomorrow.

After my epic run of extreme epicnicity, I walked to Subway for a delicious air pipe. It was 35 minutes to closing time, but they already had everything packed away. They were kind enough to only show a little bit of disdain for having to bring everything back out. I guess they don’t get many visitors in the evenings.

Back at it tomorrow, home for Halloween, then off to Moab through the weekend. If I get to the airport in time tomorrow evening, I’ll be sure to do another post.

Peace out, yo.

A cycling post…like old times.

Yes, I participated in our local Wednesday night cross race, P-town, tonight. I am completely vexed by the fact that I’m not totally awesome. Despite this, I had a blast. Tonight’s course was a little mountain bike-y for me, but whatever.

I slipped a pedal at the start and found myself way back and was slowly picking my way back up. I think in another 3-4 days I could have reached the front runners.

Probably not though. Anyway, it was good and fun. Not clean though as the creek crossing (you know, back in the hobo jungle) kept us pretty dirty.

Yesterday, I snuck in a quick Alpine Loop. You never know when it will be the last time this time of year. Odds are pretty good that was it. It was sunny and relatively warm on the way up the climb, but when I summited I immediately went into the clouds and…a light snowfall. Ouch. Wasn’t ready for that. Cold descent. It wasn’t ever snowing hard, but enough the roads got wet, so my feet got wet and yeah, ouch. Haven’t adapted to cold feet yet. 

Beyond that, I’ve mainly just been working. Off to St. George tomorrow. And then back home tomorrow night. Nothing like 8 hours in the car to make you feel alive!!

Dr. Sandros, Always Keeping me Honest

Thanks to the good Doctor for “reminding” me that I had pledged to consider thinking about trying to update slightly more frequently.

It was a pretty hectic week. Nothing important, just that every single brand I work for has their orders for 2014 due this month, so basically this month determines how much income we have next year. No pressure!

The week kinda started really frustrating and difficult and just got better and better. Which is good. At the end of the week, I won a sales contest. In my tenure as a rep, I have never won one of these contests, so that was pretty sweet. I won a frame with Garneau’s “Dream Factory” custom paint…going over the options now. Big choices!! So excited!!

I was actually going to buy the stock frame anyway, so yeah, getting it, plus the custom paint…pretty freaking amazing, really.

Kids went on fall break on Thursday. This makes life a little difficult when you make your own schedule as you want to be around a bit, but then, umm, you remember the part above about income for the next year! Anyway, seems like I balanced things out okay.

We ended up riding the lift at Sundance in the evening yesterday. Our passes are only good through this weekend, so we probably won’t ride again until ski season. Which is okay, as it was quite chilly. There was some snow on back mountain, but not nearly ready for skiing yet. Of course, in Utah that could change at any minute.

Got in a few bike rides this week as well. Aiming for a goody today. Wish me luck!!

Happy Reunion

Yeah, we got our Kelly back!!

Well, first I’ll tell you it was snowing when I dropped the girls off at school. Like snowing hard. Not sure I’m ready for that, but 99% sure I don’t have a say.

Then, I was super stoked to run to the airport this morning to pick up mommy dearest.

Haley and Morgan were in school, but it was absolutely precious to see the looks on Piper and Rory’s faces when she came out. Pretty similar when we got the girls from school actually, but there’s something about the little ones…

Grabbed lunch on the way home. Always interesting with kids. The place didn’t burn down, so I guess that’s a win.

Nothing else too exciting. Kelly’s bro Jeff came by, and hung out for a bit. Kelly gave us all dets on the funeral. It was too bad we couldn’t all be out there, but I think it was the right choice for us. I can’t really imagine trying to load everyone up and make it out there on my own. Now, if Kelly had been here…yeah, we’re a good team and probably would have made it happen. Anyway, enough speculation.

Overall, not 100% proud of my skillz as a single dad, but not too shabby either. I’d give myself a B, probably. Lost it from time to time, but mostly it went pretty well. The older kids were trying super hard to make it easy on me too, and yeah, I had lots of help. Glad it’s over, but hopefully I’m more appreciative of what Kelly does. Not that I wasn’t before, but I should probably look to these situations as growth opportunities.

 

 

Final Countdown…

Yes, late tomorrow morning I pick up my beloved!

Very excited to reunite our little family. And to have some help around here! She’s had quite a week, so I’ll try not to throw all the responsibility on her at once.

Today was okay. Nothing too exciting. Walk to school…discover both kids forgot their bags, go back to school, Costco trip, lunch and nap (not me), pick up kids at school, walk to local grocery, homework, dinner…not a bad day.

I barely lost my cool, really.

Due to get quite cold here tonight. I guess it’s already snowing in Park City and they’re saying it could come down to the valley floor over night. It seems like we always get these early season storms and then it stays dry and (relatively) warm for awhile, before winter hits in earnest.

On a personal note, I am super excited to get back into a normal exercise routine. I usually get really depressed when I don’t get out. I think I’ve been too busy for that, or too depressed about other stuff! That said, physically, some weird things happen to me. Like I get all fat. No, really, my back always starts hurting when I don’t ride. And if that’s not weird enough, I will get cramps in my calves in the middle of the night sometimes. Yes, from doing nothing. 

We got some great news with Kelly’s mom the other day…she won’t have to have chemo!! We’re all super excited for this development. Hopefully with that, they can get out here sooner. The kids have definitely been asking about grandma and grandpa, in addition to mom.

I guess that’s all my news. I’ve actually enjoyed blogging a bit again, so hopefully I can keep it up. Though I wouldn’t bet on it!

The Dentist

Oh, man…Today was pretty much okay. Except for when I had to take the girls (yes, all 4) to the dentist.

Sidebar- my kids love the dentist. They think it’s great, so, no, that was not the problem.

My little Rory has a bit of a cold and so she took a super early nap today. She was pretty much up by lunchtime, where she’d normally be napping until 2 or 3. So, we picked up the older girls from school and went to the dentist at 4:00. Rory was not stoked. Piper was not great either and they have a tendency to fight over who gets to sit on my lap. I’m big enough for the both of them, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

I’ll make this short by saying we spent close to 1:45 at the dentist. Not pleasant.

I kept relatively cool (because you really can’t go ape at the dentist office, can you?), but when we got home, I was trying to make dinner…

Sidebar- when I say make dinner, I mean heat up the dinner my mom made…)

So, yeah, I was trying to “make” dinner, but every kid was just super whiny. Rory was basically hanging on my leg, crying for me to pick her up. Again, not pleasant. And I may have lost my cool a touch. I’ll try hard to be more like Fonzi in the future.

This is becoming a pretty whiny post. For the record, I am aware that people suffer through greater adversity than a few days of being wifeless.

Once dinner was out, everything was (mostly) okay. We played outside for a bit after dinner, enjoying the beautiful fall weather while we can. Getting everyone to bed was another epic battle in the life of Turbo, but I’m too wiped out to write about that now.

As expected, I am gaining a new appreciation for stay-at-homers, particularly mine. Can’t wait for darling wife to get back to me. Really only a day and a half out at this point. Can’t come soon enough.

Hey, I love you guys and goodnight!

Today, the quick and dirty

So, day one went okay… Walked the girls to school, had a little downtime at home, then took mom to the airport…So grateful that she was able to help us out. We stopped and picked up some wheels on the way, which I took to a shop on my way home. Yes, with Piper and Rory. Nothing like visiting an account with two kids under 3! Both kids napped in the car. We had a couple other errands to run too, so by the time we got home and ate lunch, we didn’t have much time before we had to pick up Haley and Morg. Morgan and Pip went over to a friends’ house directly after school, so I helped Haley with homework with Rory climbing all over me. Next thing I knew, “Uncle Jeff”  brought over tacos for dinner. He bailed pretty quick and the girls and I played outside for a bit then got everyone ready for bed and read stories. I am pretty tired, but I gotta say today was no problem! 

Last night sucked though. Rory woke up and was screaming. I didn’t want her waking up Piper, so I brought her in my bed. Big mistake. She doesn’t sleep. Or if she does, she just moves constantly. And Piper wound up on my floor shortly thereafter anyway. Tonight, it sounds like Morgan is coughing up a storm up there, so here’s hoping things go better.

I am beat. Going to have a show now and hit the proverbial hay.

Fork… just as I type that, I hear Rory start crying…

The final countdown…

My mom has to fly home tomorrow. I am aware that there are single parents everywhere that take care of their children on their own, but yeah, I am bracing myself. It’s going to be hard on me. Probably good for me in the long run and it’s only 3 days, really.

I don’t have a great track record for not flipping out when all my kids are screaming at me at once though and I’m sure my patience will be tested. 

Kelly gave me some great advice last night…”Just keep reminding yourself that if things go off schedule, it doesn’t matter”. This will have to be my mantra. I am really bad about screaming when we are late for anything, including arbitrary schedules like dinner and bed times. I don’t REALLY want my kids to grow up only remembering me screaming, so I’m going to do my best  to remember this.