The Wooden Wedge

I'm posting this blog from our hotel in Loveland, Colorado. Here in a few minutes we're going to make our way up to Estes Park. When we get back to Idaho I'd like to blog about our trip, but for now I just wanted to record the conversation I had with my husband last night in our hotel. Well, it really wasn't much of a conversation, it was more just a comment he made that made me laugh and made me remember how much I love him and my mother and how grateful I am for the both of them.

As Ken was crawling into bed last night he turned to me and said, "You know what we should have brought for the hotel? The wooden wedge, in honor of Caren."

The wooden wedge is this wedge of wood my mother gave Ken and I before we left for our honeymoon to Las Vegas. She told us to wedge it into the door at night to keep people from breaking into our hotel room. She didn't think the hotel lock and deadbolt was enough:) We actually still have that wooden wedge somewhere. I love my mom. That story always makes me laugh. I also love my husband for remembering that and for being around to share those memories about my mom with me.

Summer

Summer has really flown by, and in a little over 3 weeks I'll be back in school. I am doing a jump start program at my school, which is basically a two week long summer school program; so my first day of school is actually August second, which is coming up really quickly! I have mixed emotions about this. A part of me is ready to go back already. I know, kind of sad, huh? I think it's because I have cut myself off of the "True Blood" series, and so I have found myself a little bit bored this last week:) Another part of me wishes I had a little bit more time for summer. I know that there are still some projects out there that I would like to finish before the school year gets into full swing. I did go out to my classroom yesterday and I must admit, I kind of missed it. I'm hoping I make the best of these next few weeks and that I take advantage of my time off.

Our summer has been low key and I thought that I'd use this post to share a little bit of the Dietz summer experiences.

This is what our summer has looked like:

I was verylucky this summer and my incredibly good friend Amanda came to visit me from Wisconsin. It was much needed. We really didn't take her to do anything too exciting, but I'm hoping that was O.K. I really enjoyed having her here and so far that has been the highlight of my summer. Sadly, I have no pictures of us from the trip (Well, I have a really bad, wind blown picture of us, and just a plain bad one Ken took, so I should rephrase: I have no shareable pictures of the two of us:). Here are the highlights of her trip:

*We partook in a lot of this----------->

paired with sometimes intelligent, sometimes not, conversation.

*We consumed A LOT of junk food, resulting in me gaining two pounds and having to eat incredibly healthy for the week following Amanda's departure.

*We attempted to exercise...


*We watched all but two episodes of the "True Blood" series while lounging on the pull out couch. Amanda introduced me to this series and I have become addicted to both the books and the HBO series. I will not let myself pay extra for HBO though and so I am just going to have to wait until season three is done playing out and available for purchase. It will be tough, but I can do it:) I would like to take this opportunity to say this series rocks! Thank you Amanda!


*We spent a night dancing the night away at Mugsy's. Amanda had some very creative moves:)

*We had a BBQ, where again, we ate incredibly unhealthy food and...

*We toured a few Vineyards in the area. Bitner's was beautiful! Although I think we ended up enjoying the wine the most at Indian Creek.

Those were the highlights from Amanda's trip. Again, it was so much fun to have her come to visit. Next time I am going to have to plan a trip out to Wisconsin to see her.

The weekend after Amanda left we celebrated both my nephew's thirteenth birthday and Fenix's 8th.






It's hard to believe that Dennin is officially a teenager. These years have flown by. I used to change that kids diaper! My friends and I used to bring him along with us when we hung out in high school. In fact, at one point, I think we tried putting him in a hand cart and carting him through the store like that. I literally used to hang out with him all the time. There were many nights when we stayed up late playing Mario Cart. I even took Dennin to my Senior Prom. I had, by far, the best date there:) Ah! It's just hard to believe how much time has passed and how quickly it's passed. Pretty soon he will be speeding through high school. Kind of scary...:)

As for Fenix, eight is a big year too! I think Ken and I realized just how big of a year it was just the other day when Fenix was getting ready for the day and he brushed his own hair! Normally he gets dressed and brushes his teeth and one of us does his hair, but this time he took the liberty to do it himself. He is definitely getting older. Fenix is such a good kid. We are so blessed with him. I really hope that when Ken and I have children that they turn out as wonderful as Fenix. Although I have a feeling that if we have a girl some day she will be a terror in the same way that I was:) Fenix is just so well adjusted and polite and grateful and sensitive and creative and intuitive and intelligent and...I'm being obnoxious and I'm going to stop. We really are lucky though. I am proud to be his step-mom and happy to play the role in his life that I do. This is the sixth birthday that I've celebrated with Fenix and I really can't imagine my life any other way.

O.K. Moving on... as for the rest of our summer, Fenix did both swimming lessons and soccer camp. We got him signed up for soccer in the fall and he's really excited! He gets to play on the same league as Brooke and so this fall should be really fun and filled with Saturday soccer games! We've spent a few days at the water park and a lot of days at Hastings, which is the book store near our house. I swear to you that Fenix may just read us out of house and home:) It could be worse though. In all reality I just need to pay off our insane library fine! Fenix has also started an obsession with "Club Penguin". Don't ask:)

In addition to all of that, we've spent a lot of time in our yard. I planted a new rose bush and laid down new mulch, etc in out rose garden...if you can really call it that. We set up some barrel planters in our backyard, with clematis and some annuals, and Ken built an arbor that I planted grapes around. Our hope is that by next year we'll have some grapes that we can hopefully use to make some wine with. We also had a patio cover built and we've really enjoyed having that.






All in all this summer has been good. Ken and Fenix's mother were able to reach an agreement on where Fenix will be attending school, which is awesome! That has also been a highlight as well as a stress to our summer. It's taken a lot of work and came at a price, but I think it will be well worth it in the end. We're happy Fenix will be in a district that he lives in and we're really excited that he will be attending Meridian Elementary and will be able to bus to our house every day. He seems to be pretty stoked about it too.

Our next adventure for the summer is our trip back to Ken's hometown. We leave in exactly a week to visit these folks in Nebraska...



...plus quite a few more as well as some in Colorado:) We're really excited to get there, but less than excited about the actual trip due to two factors. One being that it takes 14 and a half hours. The second factor is that we are bringing this...

She may not be wearing the costume for our trip, but I am sure she will be playing the part after 14 hours in a car:(

Well, that has been our summer thus far, in a very big nutshell:)