Spring Training

Since we didn't really plan anything for my spring break, we've just been going day to day before deciding what to do. Yesterday Jon-Paul didn't have to work, so we decided to catch a spring training game at Peoria Sports complex. I've never been there or to a spring training game, so I killed 2 birds with one stone. On the way there Adrian saw my Mp3 player and loved listening to it. He wouldn't give it back.

We sat out in the lawn. It was bright and hot until about the 5th inning and then a nice breeze came through to cool us down. I had a heck of a time trying to get a good picture of them. This was the best one I got and Adrian's eyes are still closed.

He was actually happy eating his ice cream. I just don't think he wanted to take anymore pictures.

It was a day off that was well spent!

Happy Birthday to me (a week late)

Yep it's true, I'm now a quarter of a century old. It happened on Tuesday, but I got to celebrate for a few days. On Sunday we went over to Jon-Paul's parents' house to have dinner. After dinner Jon-Paul suggested we all go to Castles-N-Coasters to play goofy golf. It didn't take any convincing at all, and off we went. Adrian has never been goofy golfing, and he had a blast.

Here's daddy showing him how to hold the club.

Mommy helping him hit the ball.

Adrian and Grandma moving on to the next hole.

Doing it all by himself.

Say what?

Cheese!

Now we're up to the day of my actual birthday. Like I said, it was a Tuesday, so I went to work. My 4 hour class had been planning something and they were trying to be secretive about it. It wasn't working. They were speaking in Spanish, but they should know by now that I can understand most of what they were saying. I just kept on pretending that I didn't know what was going on to make them feel better.

One thing that was very surprising though was the delivery that showed up to my work from Jon-Paul. He did something so sweet, I couldn't believe it was from him. (Sorry babe!) He sent an arrangement of chocolate covered strawberries and a balloon. I ended up sharing them with my class because I knew I could never eat all of those strawberries by myself. Then, Jon-Paul brought me lunch too!

After my class got back from PE they threw me their little party. They each brought something in. There were tostadas, beans, avocados, tomatoes, mexican white cheese, chips, cake, and ice cream. It was so cute. They tried so hard to put it all together by themselves. There were some things they didn't think about, like a knife to cut the avocados up, but luckily I had one.

After school we did have a soccer game. I'm coaching the boy's soccer team right now, and up until the game on my birthday we had an undefeated record. We had 3 wins-0 losses-2 ties. The team we played on my birthday was Palo Verde. The last time we played them resulted in a tie. All I asked the boys for for my birthday was a win and not a tie. Well, I should have settled for a tie because we ended up losing for the first time this season. It put a little bit of a damper on the rest of the evening, but oh well.

When all the boys finally left I was able to go eat dinner with my parents, Jon-Paul, and Adrian. Overall, I had a wonderful birthday filled with a tremendous amount of thoughtfulness.

Introducing Ginger

Last October tragedy struck at my parents' house. Adrian was out in the backyard throwing the ball for Brandie, as he always did, when she just suddenly fell over while chasing after a ball. My parents rushed her to the vet because she was crying in pain and unable to move her back legs. I got a call just as I was leaving work from my dad and he was crying. For a second I thought something had happened to Adrian, so there was a moment my heart stopped. I couldn't really understand what he was saying, only that they were at the vet and I was supposed to meet them there.

When I arrived I found my mom sitting on the floor of one of the exam rooms crying and Brandie laying next to her on a blanket. It was determined that she ruptured a disk in her back and was paralyzed. She was sedated when I got there. There was a surgery that could be performed but there was absolutely no guarantees, and she wouldn't be allowed to play catch anymore. Brandie's life without catch wouldn't be fair to her, so my mom decided it would be best to put her out of her misery. This was the second dog I saw put to sleep in front of me. Not something I recommend.

One of the hardest things was having Adrian talk about the event. He would recall step by step what happened that day. It would mainly happen at night while he was going to sleep. It took about 2 weeks for the nightly recall of events to stop. Anytime he would see a picture of a sheltie he would say, "Brandie!" Here are a couple pictures of the two friends...

So, now we're up to last week. My mom knew she wanted a new dog, but she also knew that it would be best to hold off on the search until after we got back from Hawaii. She started looking in the paper and online the day we got back. She was just excited to find a new dog. She found a few leads in the paper the past few weeks, but nothing too promising.

I got a call on Thursday while I was at work that she thought had possibly found one. I was in a meeting all day and then I had soccer practice in the afternoon, so I was unable to go to look at them. So, my dad, mom, Jon-Paul, and Adrian drove out to look at the puppies. The lady had said that she had a 7 week old, but that she didn't have white around her collar, so my mom might not want her. The lady said that there were some 5 week old puppies that they could go look at and pick one out, but they wouldn't be ready to go home.

Well, the 7 week old was perfect and now residing at my parents' house. They decided to call her Ginger. She is so sweet. She follows my mom everywhere and sleeps through the night. It sounds like I'm talking about a baby, but a new puppy away from mom for the first time can be like a baby when it comes to sleeping at night.

Adrian loves her, but isn't used to puppy teeth and nails. She loves nipping at toes and he's not for that one bit. He's very protective of her especially keeping her out of the pool area. Right now she could fit through their pool gate, so Adrian makes sure to pick her up and move her away from the fence.

Introducing Ginger.....

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, life in the Klein household isn't so happy today because we are all sick. Jon-Paul and Adrian have been suffering with a cold/flu for about a week now. Adrian actually had to go in to see the doctor, and he has his first ear infection. It's so hard dealing with a sick 2 year old that throw tantrums even when he isn't sick. It seems as if Jon-Paul is finally on the mend. He took a few days off of work, and it's a good thing that he's feeling better this weekend. The NBA All-Star festivities are here in Phoenix this weekend and he is super busy. Just yesterday he left the house at 6am and got home around 10pm. Then he had to leave again this morning at 5:30am and I'm not expecting to see him again until 10pm.

So, no happy Valentine's Day for me this year!

On a side note....Adrian slept in his big boy bed last night from 8pm-8:30am. He did wake up twice, 2am and 6:30am, but he went right back to sleep when I layed in there with him. So, yay for sleep! And now he's been napping in his big boy bed for almost 2 hours so far.

The last 32 days

A few things have changed in the last 32 days. It seems as if we have entered the terrible two's in full force, and it was amazing how it happened pretty much right when he turned 2. The main thing that changed is his sleeping patterns. Adrian has been the best sleeper since he was 3 months old. He would sleep 12 hours straight at night and then had been taking one 3-4 hour nap during the day. I'm going to blame our vacation and the noisy trains that run along Grand Ave. for the sudden change.

While we were in Hawaii we tried to keep his sleep schedule as close to normal as possible, but once in a while he skipped his nap. This didn't seem to be a big deal because even 2 weeks after we got home he went right back to his normal sleep pattern. Then, one night I laid him down in his crib like I always do, but about 30 minutes later he woke up screaming. This wasn't a normal cry and then go back to sleep situation. It was an ear piercing scream that couldn't be ignored. I went in there and all he wanted me to do was pick him up, and he requested to sleep in our bed. Mind you, we NEVER co-slept with him when he was little. His first exposure to co-sleeping was in Hawaii for one night in a hotel that didn't have a crib. So, I indulged his request and let him sleep with us. This may have been a big mistake, but he wasn't going to calm down otherwise.

The next night we did our normal bedtime routine but when it was time for me to lay him down in his crib he clung to me tightly and started crying. So, once again he slept in our bed. This was right during the week that I had to go back to work from Christmas break. The main problem with him sleeping in our bed is that he tends to sleep right next to me and crowds me off the bed. I was not used to this type of broken sleep. Since I was the one that has to get up at 5am everyday we just let him continue to sleep with us. Jon-Paul is more than willing to help get him to sleep, but the problem is that Adrian only wants me to do anything related to sleep.

After asking around we determined that he might be ready to get out of his crib and sleep in a big boy bed. We ordered one right away and cleaned up our front room. We really hyped his new room up to him and got a lot of Disney Cars stuff to make it appealing to him. The first few nights he would go to sleep in there mostly willingly, but he would still wake up around 1 am and want me to go lay in there. I've always been a CIO mom but his screams at night couldn't be ignored and wasn't going to calm down on his own.

It seems that noises outside are scaring him too. That first night it happened I'm pretty sure it was a train. Now, every night as we crawl into his bed he has to ask me if cars are coming and if trucks are coming. He can definitely hear a lot of vehicle noise in that front room especially since the floor is all tile which makes it echo a lot.

So, this is where we are right now. He will fall asleep in his bed only if I lay with him until he falls asleep. Then, he wakes up around 1-1:30 am. Sometimes if I just go in and lay down he lays right back down and fall asleep. But, certain nights he won't just fall back asleep. One night this week we were up from 1:00-2:30 and we ended up just going to our bed since I had to be up at 5 am.

We're just going to have to work on getting him to stay in his bed. Although right now he is sick so we're just letting him sleep with us until he feels better. I have to say that waking up to his smiling face about 2 inches from mine is the sweetest thing.

Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

One of the most exciting things that happened on our trip to Hawaii was Adrian turned 2 years old. His birthday was on December 21st, and we were on Molokai at the time. The family friends we were staying with were so great, and they even made him a cake. A rainbow dot cake at that!!

Nina Niquey was thinking way ahead of time and she was able to send a gift with us for him.


He was ripping and tearing to find out what she sent. It was a way cool alphabet v-tech book.


Of course he needed a football.


Practicing his throwing skills.


Papa thought the alphabet book was pretty neat too.

The big wind up to blow out his # 2 candle.
This wasn't his successful blow. It took a couple times.

The best part, licking the icing off of the candle.

A big cheese face with a mouthful of cake. He's now hooked on rainbow dot cake like the rest of us.

It was a wonderful ending to a great trip. I can't believe two years have flown by so quickly! He's getting so big so fast. He's talking up a storm and yes it's time for potty training.....fun!

Hawaii 08

Let me preface this by saying it will be an extremely long post, so happy reading! This trip was in the planning stages in April. On December 11th we began our vacation to the big island of Hawaii. There was no real reason for the trip other than my parents needing to use their time share week. My parents and I have been to at least one of the islands before, but Jon-Paul and Adrian had never been. Jon-Paul was excited to say the least. Well, excited to be in Hawaii, not so excited for the flights.

I was especially happy to go because I got to take and extra week and a half off of work before the winter break. Planning for a substitute is harder than actually teaching though.

So, we got packed and ready to go. The night before we slept at my parents house so that we wouldn't have to wake up as early. We had to be ready to go by 6am. Early! One of my dad and Jon-Paul's coworkers, Frank, picked us up in his limo to take us to the airport. It was nice to not have to worry about dropping off a car and leaving it at the airport for the duration of our trip.

Our pictures begin with the trip in the limo. Already Adrian and my dad are sitting together. They were completely inseparable the entire trip.

This is pretty much the only way I made it into a lot of pictures, taking them of myself. Don't we look so tired? Like I said, it was early.

Adrian was all strapped in for his first plane ride. He did wonderfully! He didn't even seem to notice the pressure or noise from the take-off. Coloring was one activity that kept him busy for a little while. On the way there he did take a nap on me for 3 out of the 6 hour flight.

This seating arrangement was very temporary because of course Adrian wanted my dad to sit next to him. Doesn't Jon-Paul look brave?

This picture cracks me up. We were sitting in airport on Oahu waiting for our connecting flight to the big island. He's playing peek-a-boo under the Papa tunnel.

I'll add at this point it was raining on Oahu, and little did we know that we would be encountering a lot more rain when we got to Hawaii. We stayed in Kona. This is the side of the island that is known for being very dry with a lot of volcanic rock. When we landed in Kona it was pouring! The airport on Kona is all open air so we had to run out from the little plane and find baggage claim in the rain. Jon-Paul and my mom went to get the rental car while the other 3 of us sat, waited, and watched the rain. The first night was stayed in a different hotel than the time share hotel because we flew in a day earlier to save some money on the flights.

My sweet boys looking at the ocean the first morning waking up in Hawaii. I love this picture!

Trying to take one of these impossible picture with 3 people again. Of course I already have a flower in my hair. We were in Hawaii. Although I may have it on the wrong side. I forgot which side to put it on if you are taken. Oh well, I have a ring on.

We're sitting eating breakfast on the first morning. We had to check out of our one hotel and wait for check-in time for our main hotel. I had macadamia nut french toast, yummy!

On Saturday morning there was a welcome breakfast down at the pool. This is intended to welcome and provide an explanation for different activities we could do while visiting the island. The first activity we signed up for was a submarine ride. This was a picture taken by some trees while we waited to get on the boat to take us out to the submarine.

Guess who's sitting with Papa. Here we are riding the boat out to the submarine.

Awww...

This is such a great picture taken in the submarine. He didn't freak out at all. Jon-Paul on the other hand didn't get a chance to take some Dramamine and paid for it the rest of the day.

This is a WW2 boat that is laying on the bottom of the ocean. It's the kind that stormed the beaches of Normandy.

This was a sailboat that was also down there. Some lady sailed this boat all the way from Alaska to Hawaii. Then, as she was anchored in the harbor she accidentally shot of her flair gun in the cabin and it sunk. Too bad.

There's the top of the submarine.

Most sights on Hawaii are beautiful, but once in a while I would see something that was too funny. I remember on Kauai there were chickens running wild everywhere. Well, in Kona it was cats. We went to the grocery store and saw that there was actually a cat house for them. There must have been at least 20 cats in that area. We did see a woman feeding some of them.

We took our Christmas pictures while we were there and actually printed them and sent them out while we were there. This is standing in front of our hotel. Notice all the lava rocks.

Some nice man took our picture.

The big island is not the place to go if you are looking for a nice sandy beach to lay out and play in the waves. We didn't find one of those the entire trip. This was a little strip of beach but there weren't any fun swimming waves. Adrian was really brave in the beginning, and then a wave knocked him over and that was the end of that. He kept to digging in the sand from that point on.

This was a good morning picture looking off our lanai. That is one of the pools at the hotel and the ocean is visible in the distance.

Monday morning Jon-Paul and I walked to the place we had had breakfast before. I was only about a mile away. On the way back we stopped to take these pictures.

There's me.

Monday night we had a luau to go to. Once again we were taking picture for our Christmas card.

The ceremony of uncovering the luau pig.

Adrian enjoying his first luau food. Not my favorite and we had it once more on the trip.

Hey, guess who's together again. He loves sitting on his shoulder.

Picture with the cute dancers.

If we get one with the guys I guess he's allowed one with the pretty girls.

Still on his shoulder.

One morning there was a cruise ship in the harbor that we could see from our hotel.

Tuesday we didn't have any activities going on so we decided to drive to the place my parents visited in 1977 and got engaged. We drove down the south side of the island to where the volcanoes are. No one told us that the road was very curvy on the way there. We found out that Adrian gets carsick just like his father. After stopping at a gas station to hose off his car seat we were back on the road. The place is called the Volcano House. We stopped there for lunch, luau food again, and set off to explore a little bit.

The steam from the volcano.

We did a little hiking down to a lava tube. Up on the shoulder again.

Entrance to the lava tube.

Jon-Paul hanging loose in the lava tube.

Climbing out of the lava tube. It was very wet and cool in that area.

We ended up driving home on the North Side of the island because we were told is wasn't as curvy. The whole trip is 180 miles, but due to slow speed limits and stopping to eat it took about 8 hours to make the drive. Poor sick baby slept on the last stretch of the drive.

Wednesday morning we set out on our first snorkeling trip. This was the only time Adrian had a mask on. In fact, he didn't even get in the water.

We snorkeled on a reef around Captain Cook's monument. It's a popular place to snorkel.

After a couple hours of snorkeling I joined a few other people in jumping off the front of the boat. Here I am hanging loose after a jump.

Thursday we went on another snorkeling adventure, but this time we were off to swim with some dolphins. The boat we went on would normally hold 22 people, but since we were there when it was a little bit slow we ended up being the only people on the boat. It was as if we had privately charted the boat without having to pay the price. It was cool.

We spot the dolphins we would be swimming with.

I think my mask was a little bit too tight.

Adrian did feel a little bit braver and got in the water for a few seconds.

My big cheeser eating lunch on the boat.

He sat with me on the back of the boat and splashed his feet for a while.

We were done swimming with the dolphins and headed out to do some whale watching.

My mom spotted a whale!! I got a few pictures but I missed out on the big tale picture.

Thursday night Jon-Paul and I went on a dinner cruise. We had to go alone because for some reason Adrian wasn't allowed on this extremely slow moving boat. Silly if you ask me. It was probaby due to the fact that alcohol was served. This picture looks like a postcard to me. We saw a lot of beautiful sunsets, but it was always cloudy and we never saw the green flash.

There weren't too many people on this huge boat so we had to take another picture like this. Not too bad though.

And then it goes down behind those clouds.

This was the view of our hotel from the boat.

Headed back to shore after a lovely evening.

Friday morning we left the big island and flew over to Molokai. My mom's best friend's brother lives there so we stayed with his family for 3 nights. On Saturday we drove up to see the leper colony. We couldn't actually go down there because there are still a few that live there. Once the last of them die then the public will be allowed to go there.

This is the Phallic rock. Yep. I was a little bit hesitant to touch it because the last two couples that they know who have touched it are now pregnant with twins. Then I embraced my destiny and touched it.

Hiking out from the rock. This was the prettiest part in my opinion.

Jon-Paul hanging loose again.

They drove us to some of the beaches on Molokai. This was the prettiest by far, but we couldn't swim because the waves were breaking too late.

Adrian stayed away from the water and let Papa bury him.

The waves would come up unexpectedly.

We drove over to another beach and look who got buried again.

Breaking out.

On Sunday Jon-Paul and I stayed at their house and watched football. My parents and Adrian took a little hike. They hiked to the top of the big cliffs and it was apparently very wet and lush.

At the top, yay!

The small little walk way they had to hike on most of the way. Yep, on the shoulders again and most of the time.

On Monday the 22nd we headed home. From Molokai to Honolulu we flew in a plane that only held 9 passengers. Jon-Paul was a little bit freaked out but it turns out it was his favorite flight of the whole trip.

Waiting in the Honolulu airport for our long flight home. It looks like he is really using the computer. Once again, Adrian did a great job on the 6 hour flight. He slept on my for 2 hours and then bounced back and forth from me and my dad the rest of the time. He did fall asleep again right as we got into Phoenix. Oh yeah, and it was raining when we got home. Apparently we bring the rain just in time to land.

It was a wonderful trip, but we were glad to sleep in our own bed. Adrian did great and turned 2 the night before we left, on the 21st. This post is long enough so his birthday pictures will come later.