The Star

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

And I may not be allergic to peanuts!

Charlee's follow-up peanut test was negative, meaning that she's unlikely to have a peanut allergy anymore. She will do a peanut challenge in the doctor's office sometime in the next 12 months to prove that the allergy is gone.

Yay!

I'm not allergic to leaves...

But I'm still allergic to a lot of other stuff. Good thing I'm stinking cute!

Charlee had her annual allergy checkup last week. They only tested milk, egg, and peanut because they're the only allergens for which the test has meaningful trend results. Here's the inventory of allergies:

• Milk (was 34, now 24)
• Egg (was 64, now 55)
• Peanut (was 4.1, now 3.2)
• Fish and shellfish
• Tree nuts
• Kiwi

Her peanut allergy is on the cusp of being able to challenge. They ordered a new test that will tell us with 99% certainty if she would react to peanut. This test is only available for peanut right now. The doctor said similar tests for other allergens are being developed.

Summer of 2013 Greatest Hits Volume 2

Eject and turn the cassette over!

6. MEAT. Chad dialed in ribs and brisket on the backyard smoker. Yum. We did lots of entertaining. Of carnivores. We have no pictures of the meat. Maybe because we were too busy eating. Unrelated to the abundance of smoked meats, I changed my diet to be more protein based with fewer carbs. It was the summer of meat.

7. AN EMBARRASSMENT OF TOMATOES. Chad planted a garden for the second year. This year, he planed several varieties of tomatoes that produced from mid-July through now. Our favorite way to eat the yellow and red cherry tomatoes was doused with very good, kalamata olive oil and salt. Yum E.



Our first harvest: July 21

The bounty we took to a dinner party in mid-September

Salad at said dinner party

The beefsteaks



Traditional caprese in mid-August


8. FIREWORKS and JULY 4. We started July 4 by participating in the local kids parade. About 500 parents and kids in Kirkwood meet near downtown and round several blocks on foot, bikes, scooters, and golf carts. We met several of our neighbors there, and our kids paraded together. This was the first year we took the kids to see fireworks. They loved it. In between parade and fireworks, we had an impromptu barbecue with several neighbors. Chad made several racks of ribs, and I made sangria. It was a happy day.

Scooter brigade

 

Post-parade, the girls played in their room, and Charlee fell on the bunk beds. Her eye was red, white, and blue.

Fireworks watching

9. CAMP DADDY. Kate spent 7 weeks at Camp Kirkwood. Her days were filled with swimming, crafts, and outdoor games. For one week in July, she went to Camp Daddy. Chad's #1 curricula was bike riding. He was determined for Kate to ride a 2-wheeler, and she learned on the first day. They spent the rest of the week bike riding, going to the movies and going to the science center. Kate said she liked Camp Daddy better than Camp Kirkwood, but next year "he should have a t-shirt."

10. CYCLING. Like the last several summers, Chad and I spent the summer training for the MS 150. Chad was able to get back on his bike in mid-July, and we did several group rides after that. We even convinced our friend Julie to join us. The highlight for me was the Tour de Wildwood, a 35-mile lung buster. We climbed about 3000 feet. Chad and I rode this one just the two of us.

A group ride over the Mississippi

Tour de Wildwood

At the end of a very rainy day 2 on the MS 150

MS 150 day 1. I rode with Julie and we enjoyed snow cones at the last rest stop

11. OPA & NANA'S. The girls spent 3 weeks at Opa & Nana's. They swam in the river every day except 1. It was an exceptional visit. My Mom called it Cousin Camp, and wrote a great post about it. Chad and I came home for 5 days. By. OURSELVES!! We loved the leisurely pace, ability to entertain, and our spontaneity. Here are some of my favorite pics from our visit.



Inspired By... Leo Babauta's Art of Living

I read a lot of blogs, and one of my favorites is Zen Habits.

Last week, Leo wrote about pursuing the art of living.

I was especially struck--in the way you are struck by something that seems so OBVIOUS but you didn't say it--by the following parts of his practice.

Joyfear. Joy is an awesome thing to have, but joyfear is present in the powerful moments in life where joy and fear mix, where we’re taking chances and doing something outside of our comfort zone that both excites us and makes us face the possibility of failure. I now embrace these moments rather than avoiding them.

Not avoiding discomfort or uncertainty. When we avoid discomfort, we are limited by our comfort zone, and new learning and new ventures become impossible. When we avoid uncertainty, we only stick to what we know. But we can purposely become good at discomfort and uncertainty, by practicing in small bite-sized chunks, over and over.

I need to embrace both of these in the rest of 2013.

Kate's Interview

Kate's class interviewed her today. Here are her responses.




Chad and I were just talking about how to have our girls think about being things other than princesses, so I loved hearing we have a budding firefighter vampire.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

All men are created equal

Kate (reading): "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."

Kate: "Men" means lots of people. If it meant just boys, that wouldn't be fair.

AMEN, sister.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sweet Sisters

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

T-Shirt Craze Attracts Fans

Kate's uniforms since June:

UNIFORM 1: The t-shirt tail

1. Shorts (usually of the running variety)
2. Boxy, giveaway t-shirt (preferably from camp)
3. Pony tail holder tied around tail of shirt
4. Optional: second shirt underneath

1st day of school

With her cousin, Emma, at the Reunion

Showing off our flat tire

 

UNIFORM 2: Surfer girl

1. Shorts (usually of the surfer, board shorts variety)
2. One-piece swimsuit

With a Kona look alike

Snow cones!

Watermelon!

 

The only two days she has deviated from these uniforms were the day we took family pictures in August, and the day she took pictures at school. We TRIED to get her to choose something different for the first day of school but no luck.
 
She's got fans and copycats!

Summer of 2013 Greatest Hits Vol 1

In high school, I wore out the Eagles Greatest Hits album on cassette, driving around in my Mazda 626 with it on volume 11. I loved every song on it except "James Dean."

Our summer of 2013 was like that album. Almost everything was easy and sunny, but we had our own "James Dean."

Our summer in review: the greatest hits and the stinker, part 1.

1. THE STINKER. Hit a 3-foot tall pole going 20mph and it hurts. And breaks your bike in half. June 3, the 2nd day of our summer, Chad did just that. His left thigh hit the pole, he flipped over the bike and landed on his head and back. He fractured 3 transverse processes in his spine (these are the flipper things that stick out from the lower vertebrae), got a concussion, and had an intra-muscular hematoma in his thigh. He spent the month of June on his back, in the recliner, and hobbling about. It sucked.

 

 

 

 

 

The songs we liked...

2. THE GREAT PURGE. Just before the bike wreck, Chad moved out of his office in the Central West End. Our garage was chock full of desks, chairs, printers, office organizers, an ice maker, a fridge. And given that our basement was already full of a lot of junk, we staged a big sale. My Dad came up in mid-June to help since Chad couldn't lift anything. We made several hundred bucks and called it a success. It was a lot of hard work.

Garage sale-ing is exhausting

 

 

3. SNOW CONES. We visited our local snow cone hut, Tropical Moose, on a weekly basis. We used to visit the local custard place, but since Charlee can't eat custard, we've transitioned to snow cones. Our favorites:

• Chad - monkey snot
• Paula - peaches and cream (peach syrup with heavy cream on top)
• Kate - monkey snot with nerds
• Claire - root beer
• Charlee - pink lemonade with sprinkles (note: she ordered blue when it matched the shiner she got on July 4th)

 



4. OUR NEIGHBORS. We love our street and all of the kids on it. Our girls spend the most time with the Mispagels who have a 6 YO, a 3 YO, and a 1-1/2 YO. All summer, 5 of the girls spent time every weekend at each others' houses.

Movie night at the Bookidis house

Claire, Molly, Charlee, Maddie, Kate in our backyard pool

5. The PERP WOOD POOL. Our community, Kirkwood, has an amazing aquatic center. We call it the Kirkwood pool. Charlee calls it the Perpwood Pool.

With 3 pools, a lazy river, and 2 water slides, it's like Wet N Wild in your own backyard. It's only missing poolside cocktail service. We wore out our season passes this year, and the girls became much better swimmers. By the end of the summer, none of them wanted to be in the kid's pool. They preferred jumping off the side of the 4-foot deep lap pool, and exercising their real swimming abilities. Only Charlee still needed to be held most of the time.

A very rare, uncrowded day. It was in the 60s and raining. We stayed about 5 minutes.
The only day I could sit and watch the kids without having to be in the pool.

 



...stay tuned for the B sides

 

Charlee the Model

Our babysitter and friend, Connie, started a photography business. She took these photos of Charlee for her portfolio. I wasn't sure about the concept when she told me about it, but I think they turned out great.










- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone