Snow's a'coming!

Well, I hope the snow comes. It flurried on December 1st, but tonight we're supposed to see some accumulation. Anywhere from 1" to 100", ha ha. Gotta love weathermen.

So, the title of my last post was "Laziness". Now it's been nearly 6 months between postings so what's that called?? What can I say ... except I say most of my stuff on Facebook these days. I'm not giving up the blog, but I'm pretty sure it'll just continue to get updated sporadically.

This morning I booked travel for Evey and me to Hawaii in February to visit my Aunt and cousin! I had enough reward miles to fly us there so why not?! The only hard part will be coming home and arriving at 6am, and then having to go to work that day, ugh. They live near Hilo on the Big Island. I am excited!

Jeff, Evey, Harley, and I visited my Uncle and Aunt in Pensacola, FL for the week of Thanksgiving. We drove 16 hrs to get there! It was a long drive, but we had a great time! I'll post some pictures. Also, I got to briefly stop at Mammoth on the drive home and say "hi" to friends.

I'm sure I'm forgetting other things, but ... oh well. If anything comes to mind, you'll know!

Laziness

Wow, it has been a few months since my last post ... why?? I have no good excuse, unless laziness counts. It's not that we haven't been doing anything. I just haven't been writing about it!

So, let's see ... since Easter, what have we done? I went to Kentucky alone the weekend of April 10th for a CRF Expedition. It was nice to fly down after having driven there just a couple weeks before. Because it was only a one day expedition, we went on one cave trip. I went back to Belfry Ave via the Carmichael Entrance (which is an entrance that tourists use). This trip was dry and walking passage ... A LOT of walking. I think we hiked about 8 miles.

Evey and I went back to Kentucky over Memorial Day weekend, too. It was fun, though Evey tested my friends who watched her. She's a very strong-willed kid, which will serve her well in life as long as we hone that aspect of her personality well!

I went in the cave twice, the first time wearing vertical gear and my wetsuit along with two 4 ft sectional ladders. Another person carried the other two and the third person carried rope. We had a great time belly crawling through a water filled passage about 300 ft (150 ft each way). The passage continues with blowing air so it has a lot of potential, but the water was just too high to try surveying through it. The next day I went on an easy trip along the Historic Tour route, and we ended up climbing up and over one of the restrooms along the main trail. We hadn't realized we were doing this until we followed the sounds of flushing toilets down a hole and found ourselves along the side of the restroom wall!!

Oh, I jumped ahead a bit. On April 30th I passed my CPP exam, which stands for Certified Payroll Professional. I'm DONE with exams for payroll/HR now, thank goodness. It was awful, awful, awful.

I think that covers most of the exciting stuff ... random things, Evey starts big kid swim classes this Saturday. That basically means the class is 45 min long instead of 30 min and she's in the big kid pool. We also recently got her a 16" wheel bicycle with training wheels and she loves to ride it. She's gone all the way around the block on it now. She's also in love with the movie The Labyrinth. I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting, but if I remember them, I'll have reason for another post!

Onward we go with summer - swimming, camping, caving, movies, etc.!

Easter Weekend

We had a nice Easter weekend! On Friday, my mom and I took Evey to Spring Valley in Schaumburg. We also went swimming at the Streamwood Park District and were supposed to be part of an "egg dive" where the kids all collect plastic eggs from the pool, but they ran the last group of kids early so we missed it. It was supposed to have been at 2:40, but they did it at 2:30 because no one was watching the time carefully enough. They ended up giving us a few eggs just for Evey so we let her "find" them in the pool. Evey enjoyed it and that's all that matters. Mommy (me) had been very angry!

On Saturday Evey got to go swimming again because her swim lessons have started back up! And that afternoon my mom took her to see How To Train a Dragon in 3D and Jeff & I saw Clash of the Titans.

Sunday morning, per a suggestion from Nonnie and Poppie, the Easter Bunny left Evey's basket on our doorstep and rang the doorbell. Here's a video of her getting it!



Later, Jeff, Evey, Harley, and I went to the forest preserve for a picnic lunch. Evey likes to try walking Harley ... but it doesn't usually go so well!

Spontaneity

I had the week of 3/22-3/26 off work for spring break because Evey's daycare was closed during that time. I mulled over a few ideas of what to do. It had ranged from nothing to flying to Colorado. I knew I had to do something though, because I've never been one for taking a vacation and just staying home! At the last minute, I decided to take a road trip with Evey to Kentucky to do the tourist thing; to do what I normally am unable to do because I'm underground!

We had an uneventful drive south - stopping only twice. Somewhere between Indianapolis and Louisville I remember thinking to myself that I know now why I try to fly ... [[SNORE]]. However, once we crossed over the Ohio River into Kentucky, a familiar burst of energy reinvigorated me. We were almost there now!

We only went as far as Elizabethtown Sunday evening because we were staying with a fellow caver friend, Nicole Bull, and her son, Teddy. She welcomed us into her home for the whole time we stayed. I still haven't figured out a way to repay her for all she did for us, but I will!

Monday morning after a breakfast of delicious homemade banana chocolate chip muffins, we met my friend Michael Carter in Munfordville and then drove together over to Cub Run Cave. The visitor center was closed when we got there so we drove down to the cave entrance to look around.

When I tried to drive back up the steep hill we'd come down, I hadn't thought to put the car into 1st gear so we weren't able to make it up. As I backed down to get a better start, I hadn't been watching my side of the car enough and backed right off the road! We tried to get back on without luck. I was caught on the lip of the curb. We walked back to the visitor center (about a mile or so I think) and luckily it was now open! We "rescued" my car with the help of Mark, who also gave us the cave tour!

To free my car, he strategically placed plyboards down behind my left front tire so I could back up onto it to lift my car above the lip of the curve. It worked- and there was no damage! Evey did well on her first tour since the last one when she was just six months old. It helped that there were only the three of us and the guide! Cub Run Cave is a very beautiful, highly decorated cave for the area.

Afterward, we drove to the Mammoth Cave Visitor Center for lunch, and then we went on the Diamond Caverns tour nearby. There were a few more people on this trip, but Evey still did well, granted I had to carry her a lot. After the second tour, we drove back to Mundfordville to get Michael's car. Then we followed him back to Bowling Green to see his apartment and meet his kitty, Luna. Evey tortured- er, played with her for awhile, gave us the following replay of our day's "caving", and then we went to dinner.



On Tuesday, Nicole and I took the kids over to Dino World. That place is much larger on the inside than I had been expecting! It was fun to walk around with the kids and to even walk out by a giant T-Rex that sits just off I65.



After that, we had a picnic lunch at Mammoth Cave and went for a hike that was probably about 2 1/2 miles in total. Evey gave up early on, and Nicole let me borrow her backpack carrier. Teddy was a tough little guy and walked most of the way! I carried the 40 lb Evey with me for over 45 minutes, ugh!



That evening, Nicole made pizza and cookies. We ate well! Instead of driving home Wednesday as originally planned, we stayed one more day so I could visit with my friend Eli Winkler. I met her at noon at the Mammoth Cave Visitor Center. But first, Evey and I got there early enough to take the New Entrance Tour. It was awesome! I loved the stairwell built into the domes. I carried Evey down most of the steps, but she did a good job walking most of the rest of the time. There were eleven people in total on that tour.



After our picnic, Eli and I took Evey over to Sloan's Pond, where we looked for turtles and saw them as well as fish, frogs, and two geese. Then, Evey fell asleep in the car while we drive around looking for ice cream. Failing to find any, we bought chocolate instead at a place in Cave City. Then I took Eli back to her truck.

Lastly, Evey and I went to the Jesse James' Stable for an hour horseback ride. It's hard holding onto a three year old while riding! She did well for her first time, but she did complain that her butt hurt. I suppose the 30-minute ride might have been good enough. :-)

Thursday morning we drove home, once again it was uneventful and we only stopped twice. When I stopped for lunch at a barbeque place in Lafayette, Indiana, Evey slept in my arms the whole time!!

I figured I wouldn't miss Kentucky since I'm going back for a Mammoth expedition in two weeks, but I was wrong. We had lots of fun doing things and exploring together and I loved seeing several friends. I love Kentucky, what can I say?

I'll post a link with pictures soon!

Downsizing

We made two major purchases this weekend. The first, two new car seats because I realized Evey was just 3 lbs shy of the limit on her current seats. I've been reading about the importance of keeping children in a 5-pt. harness for as long as possible so I ended up getting the Graco Nautilus, which will allow us to keep her harnessed up to 65 lbs, and then it converts to a regular booster for up to 100 lbs.

The second purchase ... we traded in my Jeep for a 2007 Nissan Versa S Hatchback! OMG, she sold her Wrangler! I will miss not having to be wary driving over bumps ... but we lowered our monthly payments $120, dropped our debt by $5,000, gained back 10K in mileage, and I'm not afraid of the gas station anymore! Sure, it's no hybrid, but there's not much worse than the MPG on a Wrangler. Oh, and it's a stick!! :-D

Baby Shower for Janelle

February has become the month of surprise parties! This afternoon we had a surprise baby shower for our friend, Janelle. She wasn't as shocked as I had been last week ... she had suspicions for a few reasons. One - she saw Buy Buy Baby wrapped gifts on our kitchen table the day of my party. Oops! Not my fault though, I didn't know she was going to be over! Here are some more pictures from her party: Baby Shower

Potty, potty, potty

Evey is FINALLY wearing big girl underwear! She wanted to wear them 2/10 and she hasn't gone back to pull-ups since. And she's been dry at night since that evening! I hope this post doesn't jinx us. She has had a few accidents during the day, but that's to be expected. She is doing awesome! We never thought the day would come, ha ha. She was incredibly difficult to "train" as nothing motivated her - not rewards, not punishments, not being dirty and/or wet. Being the strong-willed little thing that she is, using the potty pretty much had to be her idea. We took a step back and while continuing to encourage her, we just acted nonchallant when she didn't do it.

Surprise!

Today is my 30th birthday! To celebrate it and Jeff's birthday, which was yesterday, we went to The Kampai in Mt. Prospect for dinner Friday evening. That is one of my favorite restaurants. It's teppanyaki - like Benihana's, only much better.

Early Saturday afternoon we went to see The Lightning Thief, and it was a fun movie! I only read half the book, so I didn't know how it would end (though they deviated greatly from even what I had read of the book).

Then, we went home.


Thinking Evey had fallen asleep downstairs with my mom for her nap, we went in the house quietly. She wanted us to come down, so down we went. As I opened the door, I saw my friends Matt Goska and Jen Lehst! As I peered more into the room, I saw a blur of faces and balloons and decorations. Oh sh$#. I tried to turn around and leave, but Jeff was behind me and wouldn't let me go! I had no choice, but to go in and face it! The surprise was awesome, as I had no idea it was coming, but I always feel awkward when I'm the center of attention! It took me a few minutes to take it all in - trying to get a handle on who all was there. Thank you to everyone for doing this for me, especially Jeff and my mom! I LOVE you all!!

Shoe Factory Woods

On 1/31 my mom, Evey, and I went for a walk in the Shoe Factory Road woods just a few miles from our house. It was nice, especially since this time Evey walked most of the way herself!

As we were getting back in the Jeep, my mom noticed several deer out in the field. Evey decided to go after them.

New Blog

We've had our website http://lexanderfamily.com since before Evey was born. I'm considering changing over to a blog instead, mostly because it's free. Before I do anything definitive though (like announcing it to everyone), I'm going to play around a bit to see if I like this better. The other issue with our website is that http://godaddy.com 's website builder is very slow and buggy.