We're Baaaaack!

Wow, I can't believe it's been almost 3 weeks since I've posted anything.  But, let's be honest - it's been a busy few weeks.  Clearly, I wasn't busy taking photos, as I only have 3 to show on this post. 

Let's recap what's been going on in the Goers' household:

New siding for our house...!  This is a project that we've been talking about doing for years, and we finally found someone that had the right product and the right price.  Our house is no longer a light peach color, it's Tuscan Clay with white accents.  It looks so shiny and fresh!  Now, we just need to work on our monster of a garage...

I was in Palm Springs for eight, verrrrrry loooooong days.  I was staffing a travel program for one of my favorite clients, so at least I liked who I was supporting while there.  I hadn't traveled for work since May 2007, and honestly, I don't miss it.  I guess everything changes once you have a kid.  I missed Ava like crazy, and kept seeing kids her age around the hotel.  I did call to talk to her every night, and got lots of "I love you, Mommy!" from our conversations.  I also got a text from her, unbeknownst to Scott.  It was blank, but still, a text.  She's light years ahead of Scott in that area.

The view from my hotel room - I love that we could see the snow in the mountains while it was 90-degrees in the desert!

 I staffed a dine-around at Hog's Breath, Clint Eastwood's restaurant.  This is the closest I got to seeing him.

While I was gone, I also celebrated my 34th birthday.  Well, celebrate isn't really the word for it.  The staff I was working with are fabulous, and had a cake and ice cream brought to our work room, and then we all went out for a very tasty Mexican dinner.  Not a bad second place considering I wasn't at home with Scott and Ava.

Oh!  We also saw Rosanna Arquette at our hotel.  I was helping with a tradeshow, and happened to walk right by her in the hallway.  Kinda fun to see someone famous!

I've been busy at work - we'll just leave it at that.  Good busy, but busy nonetheless.

Scott's been incredibly busy with side jobs - he's working on getting a client base for his heavy equipment profession, so he's been taking all of the side jobs he can.  It's been great for him, but it also means we don't see him as much.  We miss him!

My parents are in the process of moving back to Colorado, so Scott just got back today from a whirlwind trip to KC to pick up a load of items to bring back to our house.  Poor guy is passed out on the couch right now...we're glad he made it home safely.

I've been focusing on the Race for the Cure, which I'll be participating in tomorrow at the Mall of America.  Let me clarify - I'm not really racing.  My good friend Emilie and I will be doing the walking portion of it.  I'm looking forward to supporting the boobies of the world!

And Ava, my how she has changed in the last three weeks.  I swear, she grew 5 feet while I was gone.  She's speaking in full sentences (when she wants to), which makes it a heck of a lot easier to understand her.  The other day she looked at me and said, "Mommy, I want oranges" (meaning mandarin oranges.)  Such a simple sentence, but it blew me away that she used a noun and a verb, etc.  Look what happens when Mommy goes away...next time I travel, she'll probably learn how to fly a plane or something...!

In general, she's still our happy, sassy little girl who continues to crack us up on a regular basis.  Her latest thing is to put her feet on the dinner table when she's done (yes, we're trying to break this habit.)  We tell her to put her feet down, and then she looks at her feet, and says, very sternly, "Down feet!  Down toes!" and proceeds to push them down, while her feet "refuse" to move.  Oh, and I think I got my first mis-truth from her the other day.  She had a mittened finger (don't ask) up her nose, and when I said, "Ava, are you picking your nose?" she looked at me, said "no", pulled the finger out and proceeded to wipe it on me.  Thank goodness there was nothing on it, but sheesh, let's not lie about something we can plainly see is happening.

Who needs fancy toys when you have an empty box?

I'm sure there's been a million other things that we've experienced over the last 21 days, but honestly, I can't remember them all.  I'm 34 now.  I'm old.

Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful mothers I know.  You are beautiful and so appreciated!