March of Dimes Walk

United Health Group, my employer, participated in the March of Dimes "Walk for Babies" this year so my co-worker, Beth, and I agreed to support and walk this year!

Beth is much more physically fit than I am (hell ... so is Kirstie Alley!) so she really challenged met to walk at a fast pace! We speed walked 3 miles in less than an hour! The first five minutes were the hardest, but then it was painless! As always, she was great company and made the time enjoyable!

The walk was held in downtown Kansas City - which has many, many parking garages. Well, neither Beth nor I really paid much attention to which garage we parked in (maybe we were both assuming the other was paying attention or had *some* sense of direction?). About 30 minutes after we arrived and registered, I asked her if she knew how to get back to the parking garage. She "thought so." Well, we got a few extra walking strides in anyway, but were able to find our cars after only about 20 minutes of walking around!

It was a great experience; so touching to see so many people show up! And sooo many kids there to show all the great work that comes from the donations!

After I got home I took advantage of our beautiful weather and mowed the front yard (I go into near cardiac arrest if I try to do the back yard!). After mowing I thought I'd save my honey some time and sweep the garage out for him. Trying to stop and appreciate the things he does to the home to make it beautiful and enjoyable!

Now Dayne and I are getting ready to tackle all the junk in the "dungeon" in preparation for our neighborhood garage sale on the 15th and 16th! They are sooo much work. I think by the time all the work is done I end up making about $5 and hour ... maybe this year will be different!

It was a pretty boring week this week, so not much to post about!

Graden left on Wednesday evening to MN for his annual St. Judes fishing tournament, so it's just the kids and I for the weekend. Actually, he has to be in Chicago on Tuesday and Wednesday (for work) so he won't be home until Thursday. Gives me a taste of single parenting ... and makes me appreciate all he does to help with the kids!

This morning I volunteered to help at the Kansas City Wildlands to help preserve some of the ecosystems in our parks (planting more plants, really). While I would have liked the kids to join me, they didn't. After I got home and did a *thorough* tick search and showered, I decided a little nap was in order. Pathetically ... three HOURS later I woke up. Whew! Guess I needed that, eh?

Spent the afternoon doing a little scrapbooking, watching Hannah Montana with Dayne and thinking of a strategy for the neighborhood garage sale in two weeks. Garage sales are so much work ... .

Tomorrow morning we are participating in the March of Dimes walk at the Kansas City Power and Light District. We do a lot of volunteer work through work, so I am trying to get more involved with that ... and hopefully inspire my kids to do the same.

Will post more if anything exciting happens!

Hugs,
Tiffany

Girls, Girls, Girls! * Only! *

What a great weekend it was! My BFFs (Trista, Jen and Kim) have been planning a visit for about two years .... but it finally came to fruition this past weekend!

The girls arrived on Friday about 5:30 and we immediately starting having a blast! We kicked the weekend off with some Margaritas, chips and salsa! Our signature snack! We had a nice dinner (Talapia & Chicken with veggies) and sat around chatting until about 7:30 ... then we started to get ready for the night out!

Even though I have lived here for almost 4 years I have never taken part in all of the excitement of Kansas City night life ... but all that ended Friday night! We went to the Kansas City Power & Light District, a well known 'hip' place. It was great! I can only describe it as a mall of bars. A wide variety of types of bars - country, hip hop, rock, sports, etc. Mostly we just did a lot of people watching. One of the great things about the P&L was that everyone was dressed *nice*. No one had their pants drooping half way down their ass, no one with upside down, red bandanas, etc. Much to our entertainment, there were still plenty of people wearing things they had NO business wearing! We stayed at the P&L until about midnight ... then headed for home!

Saturday we got up about 8:45 and had bacon, eggs and toast for breakfast on the deck ... lounged around a bit ... then went for a little shopping and dining at the Town Center in Overland Park, KS. We got pooped and headed back for home ... to get ready for our next exciting gig: The Comedy Show!

We had reservations to see Ralphie May at Stanford & Sons Comedy show at 9:45 so we went to dinner kind of early so we'd have plenty of time to get to the club, enjoy an adult beverage and not be rushed. That was the plan .... but not exactly how it turned out! <> Read on! <> We went to a local Mexican restaurant and had a great dinner! BUT, Mother Nature decided she wanted to partake in our evening plans and gave us a tornado close to where we were headed for the comedy show! We took our time at dinner, watching the news and video clips of the tornado ... trying to wait for the storms to pass since it was about 45 minutes north of where we were.

As good of a plan as that seemed ... seemed like Mother Nature had other plans: Round 2 of Storms. As we were headed toward our destination, the sky got to looking weird so we got off at the next exit that looked like it might have a bar we could hang out at and, if need be, seek shelter! Finally, about 9:00 it looked safe to continue to our destination and we arrived safe and sound about 9:15.

The show was quite late getting started (10:30 vs 9:45) but it was a funny show! We didn't leave the show until after 12:30 so we didn't get home til after 1:15 (waaaaaaaay past our bedtime!).

The weekend came to an end this morning about 9:15 when the girls headed for home. It is a 5 hr drive, but Kim had another 2.5 hrs and Jen had another hour til they were home. They traveled through three "monsoons" on the way home and Jen saw a tornado from the interstate. A little too much excitement!

I am so glad they visited and so thankful to their husbands and kids for making some adjustments and sacrifices to allow them to come! I can't wait to see them again!

iTouch iUpdate!

Fantastic news! Hunter was able to get his iTouch back on Saturday! It wasn't because anyone came forward and did the honorable, honest thing ... but none the less it is back with it's righful owner!

Hunter was at his friends house (the same one where it was stolen from) and Sam*, the brother of Marcus* (the theif) was showing someone "his" iTouch and was asking for help on how to work certain applications. Sam didn't know that Hunter was there and Hunter came up behind him and said, "Give that to me ... it's mine." Sam argued that it wasn't and ran home. Grant, one of Hunter's friends, ran after Sam and followed him home. Sam came back out of his house with an iPod and said that it was their family iPod .... hoping Hunter was dumb enough and wouldn't notice that it wasn't the same one. Duh. Hunter called Sam on it and pointed out that wasn't the same one he had earlier. Enter brother #3: Bobbie*. Bobbie goes in the house and comes back out with Hunter's iTouch and hands it to Hunter to look at. Hunter notices it has all the same applications (programs) and in the same order. Even better - it has all the same pictures Hunter had downloaded. Including pictures of Hunter! Hunter didn't give it back at that point, but went back to his friend's house.

I am seriously considering calling the parents of the boys to let them know what happened since there is a 0% chance that they didn't steal it.

Either way ... very glad it is back and just hope there are not any future problems with it.

The iTouch Drama

Tuesday night Hunter was playing basketball at a friends house with about 8 other kids. He took his iTouch out of his pocket while he played ball, so it wouldn't get slammed against, etc. He set it down and ... fast forward a bit ... it was gone. He never left it ... just took his eye off the darned thing. Of course no one knew where it went, but oddly enough two boys (not friends of anyone there, but just showed up to play ball) weren't around when it was discovered it was missing.

Hunter is so mad ... I think he is beside himself with anger, really. He paid for the iTouch all on his own (birthday and Christmas money) plus all the songs, movies and videos the he has downloaded .... alll gone. Disgusting to think that someone would think it's okay to steal that, but clearly some thug in the making does think it's okay.

I hope to be able to report that it was returned, but we are not exactly holding our breath.

Happy Easter!

We had a really fun weekend this Easter weekend! It was a GIRLS only weekend! Gretchen, Kylie and Donna arrived on Thursday night and stayed through Sunday (early) afternoon! TJ stayed home to keep Dennis company and Hunter & Graden went fishing at Table Rock for the weekend!


I took the day off on Friday and Gretchen and I spent most of our weekend scrappin'! We got lots done, too! My cousin, Amy, suggested I post my scrap works, so I have created another blog site that I will (try to) post my scrap works. http://www.thisishowiscrap.blogspot.com/ Check it out!


Dayne had been asking me if I'd take her and a friend to see Hannah Montana's move (appropriately named Hannah Montana - The Movie) so we all (Dayne, Parker, Lauren, Me, Kylie, Gretchen and Nana!) loaded into the van and set out for movie time! Although predicatble, it was a very cute movie. I just like to cherish and hang on to the days she is still into the sweet and innocent things!


Saturday we did some running around - lil' bit of shopping, etc. but mostly just laid back! We all started dieting (low carb diet) so we had a great dinner of Mushroom and Swiss burgers with some delicious sides! I started on April 5th and am down just over 5 pounds! My goal is to lose 33 lbs by my 33rd birthday! Wish me luck! I have had more good days than bad days (as far as urges to eat some bread and cakes!) but have not caved! Go me!!


While we had planned to have the girls dye eggs on Saturday night, we didn't get around to it so we had them do it Sunday morning! They had fun - we had Glitter Dye for them! Shortly after they dyed their eggs they went for the anticipated Egg Hunt in the front yard! Of course, the first thing they did when they woke up was to check out what the Easter Bunny had brought!


Kylie got shoes and crafts; Dayne got a scrapbook kit; Hunter got iPod gift cards and TJ got a CD! And of course ... all of them had enough snacks to satisfy their sweet tooth for the next month!


The Hansen/Peterson girls headed for home about 1:00 Sunday afternoon and once again, the house was quiet! The boys got home about 5 so Dayne and I had a few hours of alone time! That's always nice to have every so often, too!

The Weekly Haps

Things that took place this week in the Hansen Family:

1) Dayne got her report card and got almost all 3's (the equivalent of an A) ... only one 2+ in Language Arts. We are quite proud of her and plan to treat her to dinner at her favorite restaurant!

2) Graden was home for the weekend ... kind of a rarity since the beginning of the year. He stayed home this weekend to "regroup". I think he was still recovering from fishing last weekend where it was in the mid 30s and HORRIBLY cold!

3) Graden taught Hunter how to shave. <> YIPES! <>

4) I worked on organizing and sorting ALL my pictures in hopes of determining which ones I want to scrap and which ones I only want to put in photo albums. I am in a quandry because I want to put the photo album pics in a chronological order and I am so afraid that I will find pictures AFTER I have already filed them and then they will be out of order .... and the world will stop spinning. Just kidding about that last part. Ahh ... the things that worry me. Ridiculous, I know.

5) I have started to .... ick ... don't even want to say the word ... diet. This girl LOVES her some food but she really, really needs to start watching what she eats. It's going to be a struggle. Graden has lost a lot of weight so I am going to mimic his habits. We are planning to run an 8K in August so it'll help me prepare for that, too.

We are super excited to have Donna, Gretchen & the kids visit for the weekend! Graden & Hunter will be gone fishing so it'll be just us girls ... except poor TJ.

I guess that about sums up the Hansen Weekly Haps. Check back for next week's update!

Love to all,
Tiffany