Rowen's first commuter train ride!

Today Rowen had his first commuter train ride, and on a Double Decker to boot! He was SO excited. Since Brandon has a couple days in between jobs it was a nice to go at time where it wouldn't be too crowded.

We thought it would be both boys going but has they were walking to the train it intimidated Corbin and he decided he didn't want to go. It was also his nap-time so he was a little tired.

Of course for some reason we didn't think to have to Brandon take the camera after I took the picture of them...duh. So we have no pictures of him on the train.

I dropped them off at the station down the road and they went for about 5 stops where I then picked them up. It was a nice 25 minute ride. Rowen was not too happy when he got in the car though because that was not long enough for him. He wanted to go for a longer ride, naturally, the boy is a train freak :) We decided that towards the end of the summer one of us will take him for a ride all the way into Chicago, maybe walk around the city for a bit, then ride back.

Past few weeks...

have been pretty mellow. We haven't done a whole lot of outings or anything since I had my ablation (for the most part I am doing pretty well now). We've been playing it low key and hanging out at the house. We've done a lot of playing in pools and such with it being SUPER hot here the past week. Its been in the high 90's with the heat index up to 105!

I felt daring one day and took them all to the community pool. Lily was happy to be playing in a warmer pool. When we use our pool she doesn't really like it because it's SO cold. Though it wasn't very refreshing because it was quite warm. I'm not sure what Rowen is doing here.

I wasn't too worried about the boys since they took swimming lessons, plus the pool doesn't get deeper than 1ft 3in. They have a nice separate kiddie pool off from the big pool.

Our new pool since
last years was not fixable.

Lily's new favorite thing to do is eat with a bowl and spoon. Its nice because it will keep her occupied for a bit, but of course the spoon part doesn't always last too long :)

Lily checkin' out the Basil

Our Tomato plants have grown a TON! This picture was from a couple weeks ago so they are even bigger now. You can check out under the blog archive in May and see what they looked before.

We have a good dozen or so of long vines full of tomatoes.

Rowen just looks so grown-up to me in this picture.

We have discovered tiny frogs (which is that tiny speck to the right near the edge of the grass) down the street that has become a regular walk everyday to go see them. We noticed today they installed a Tornado siren there. Which is good cause now we can hear it better.

Lily walking around barefoot looking pretty!

The new siren will come in handy as we had our first Tornado scare last Friday. The boys are practicing good safety here. Corbin HATES thunder, so he had his hands over his ears almost all day. There were funnel clouds spotted just down the road from us. Not fun.

Clouds gearing up.

And Rowen is still all about his trains. I think more than he ever has been in the past. Everything is or looks like a train to him. Clouds, bubbles from his pee in the toilet (oh yeah), drawings, EVERYTHING!

And a BIG Congratulations to our friend Shayne and his girlfriend Jenny who had a baby girl, Violette, almost 2 weeks ago.

Bye, Bye HVS!

Today is Brandon's last day at High Voltage. He will now be working for Twisted Pixel Games! He will still be a Concept Artist, but at a company he likes way better. Well, what does that mean? Yes, we will be moving. We are going to be moving to Austin, Texas! We won't be moving until March so he will be working from home until then, with trips to Texas about every two months, give or take a couple weeks depending on crunch times and what not. He will go for a week when he goes, so that will be another change and difficult at times (mainly for me) but its only until we move.

I am actually REALLY exited about moving there! I've been doing a lot of research (naturally) and have been impressed with the findings. One of the towns I am looking at houses in is called, Cedar Park, it was named a top 10 place to raise a family. There is great organic farmers markets, all sorts of natural rivers to swim in, exceptional schools, awesome botanical gardens, water parks, and the housing is WAY cheaper than Chicago.

Anyways, Twisted Pixels latest game release is called The Maw, which is a downloadable game for the Xbox. Its funny, the last few days Rowen and Corbin (Rowen in particular) have been very into play The Maw. They wake up in the morning asking to the play "The Maw game" and when Brandon gets home. Rowen is actually getting the hang of how to play a game. He does really well! Corbin likes to push all the buttons, he doesn't really understand how it works, but loves to see it.



Twisted Pixels next game to be released is called Splosion Man. It was nominated by IGN for FIVE "Best of E3" awards:

*Best Overall Platforming Game
*Best Overall Downloadable Game
*Best Xbox 360 Platforming Game
*Best Xbox 360 Downloadable Game
*Best Xbox 360 Artistic Design

It won Best Xbox 360 Platforming Game! E3 is a HUGE gamers convention if you aren't up on your gamer info. The game consists of you play as an experiment breaking free from the people who created you. Your only power is the ability to explode. And you'll use this to launch yourself around numerous levels, solving platforming puzzles along the way. There are even some stages built specifically for four-players coop platforming.

You can watch the trailer for it here. Pretty awesome, huh??? :)

Oh the lovely Female body...

So, today I scheduled my Endometrial Ablation for next week. This is needed for my horrid of a menstrual cycle that I get. We are also 99% sure (with my symptoms and family history) that I have Endometriosis as well but I'm not willing to have surgery to find out for sure. After having 3 C-sections in 3 years I was ready to not have my stomach cut into, yet again. But hopefully having this done will also help with that problem. It won't help with the fibroid cysts I've been getting too, but that's for a later time to deal with unless it becomes a bigger issue. Sorry Lily, I hope I don't pass this down to you baby girl.

I will being having one of the six ways to do this which is called, Cryo-ablation. It is the better sounding one of them, though still not very fun. The Doctor will be using a probe at sub-zero temperatures to destroy the lining of my uterus- weeeeee. But it is the least invasive option for some relief. It won't mess with my hormones (though it can reduce PMS symptoms as the whole purpose is to reduce or possibly eliminate my period) and their is no need to remove my uterus...yet. I don't like leaving the house when its "that time". But I am hoping that this will help.

The procedure should take only about 20-30 minutes. But I need to be at the office an hour before hand to get some nice Valium, painkillers and to drink a ton of water since I need to have a very full bladder during the procedure. I think that is going to be the hard part.

Update (6/13/09)-
Well it has been 4 days since having it done and it was a quick and easy recovery. I had what I can describe as mild contractions and being very lightheaded for a few hours after. I still have a couple weeks of stuff I have to deal with but not bad ( I won't go into detail). The actual procedure wasn't all that bad actually. It was after that was the worst! I was given Valium, to relax me, and Norco for pain. The Valium didn't kick in before they started, thankfully. My body does not like medicine and the Valium hit me hard after I got up. My blood pressure drop very low (was around 52/30 something's) then I got extremely nauseous. I was given anti-nauseous pills and that helped. So now I wait and hope that it will help my cycles.