Easter sugar - yummy !!!

We just got home from a delicious Easter dinner at mom's house (see, mom, you can do Easter on Saturday) and had a great time. Dan's folks and our family and Ed and Jane were there and we had lots of laughs. Cora ate way too many hershey's kisses - she was even sneaking them behind my back. Then because she's so cute and smiled at Bop-pa (grandpa Smith) he gave her more of his chocolate bunny. Can anybody say "sugar high"?

Today was quite a day for the kids. Henry's first soccer game was this morning which Grandma and Grandpa Eckhoff were here to see. He scored two goals - way to go Henry. However, as is the case with 4-year-olds playing, one of the goal points went to the other team because he couldn't remember which goal he was supposed to head for. And he was so proud of himself when the ball went in. He looked at me and yelled, "I did it mom!!" I had tears streaming down my face as myself and all the other parents around me laughed hysterically. Then we had an Easter egg hunt at the local park which he thoroughly enjoyed. The best part is the bunny that was running around with the kids was a gal from church we have babysit for us occasionally so she tormented Henry and chased him all over the park. It was great. Cora didn't recognize her of course, because she was dressed up as a bunny, so she was terrified of the bunny and cried through most of the egg hunt. Oh well !!

Welcome Sheila. It's so great to see almost everyone finally getting on board - it's only taken a little over a year. But it is fun to see what everyone has to say. When we were in DC and saw Ranae she mentioned she would really like to be on and just needs to have Todd walk her through registering. So maybe you could call her sometime, Todd, and get her going. It was wonderful to see her and John and their beautiful house and we really enjoyed getting to spend time with her.

Tomorrow we head to Ames for IFDA convention. Dan will pass over the gavel and become a past president. He's had a good year and enjoyed it, but I think he's ready to turn it over to someone new. But we will have a fun-filled week of meetings, dinners, receptions, more dinners, some lunches thrown in, a few more meetings and more dinners. So I'm taking my "fat" clothes along. :-)

Hope everyone has a great Easter and it's so much fun to read your posts. Love to all --- Carin

Here's hoping for Spring

Well, it's in the upper 40s today and raining (thankfully not snowing) which reminds me of early March and the promise of spring. Please, please, please come soon. Henry seems to love winter and the snowball fights (which are kinda fun) but it's so cold we can only stay out for ten minutes or so. Last weekend the temps were so low and the kids were so stir crazy, I actually carried about ten buckets of snow inside from the porch and poured them in the bathtub and the kids had all kinds of fun playing in the snow while still staying warm.

We're doing great here. Everyone is healthy and for the most part happy. Some temper tantrum issues from Henry, but that's pretty normal. Cora is still just a delight and it's so fun to help her discover her words. "Juu" for juice, "shuu" for shoe, "gok" for sock, "ank-uuu" for thank you, and other fun ones. My favorite right now is if she needs you and you aren't paying attention to her, she will walk up to you and place her hand against your cheek and gently (okay, not so gently) turn your head until you are looking right at her and she has your full attention. It really works !! The other one is she will pat (okay, pound) on your leg until you look at her.

Henry is enjoying birthday parties with his friends, swimming at the local Y, building snowmen, throwing snowballs, and playing with his christmas presents. Tomorrow we are going to the local performing arts theatre where they are bringing in a Bob the Builder show, which doesn't mean much to most of you, but he's pretty excited to see Bob live on stage.

Dan had surgery last week on his shoulder and is recovering nicely. They thought he had a torn rotator cuff, but it turned out to only be torn cartilage so the surgery wasn't as involved thankfully.

I'm doing well - not working unfortunately. Things in the legal community have really slowed down lately, similar to the entire economy, so I'm catching up on scrapbooks, cleaning out the basement, and have taken Cora out of daycare a few days a week so she can stay home with me. We are really having fun together and enjoying our one-on-one time without big brother around to steal the toys she is playing with !! Hope all of you are doing well and I'll look forward to reading from you. Kudos to the Arizona boys for doing so well blogging on here so often. How about the rest of you ????? Love - Carin

Walt Disney World

Hey all !! Hope everyone is doing well (except Chris that is). Chris, it probably is time to admit that you are getting older and can't keep up with the young'ins like you used to. But your sense of adventure is what we love about you also.

We are doing fantastic. We had a spectacular two weeks in Orlando and just loved it. Henry and Cora had a great time at the Disney parks. Henry especially is such a great age - he was just in awe of all the Disney magic. Loved seeing the characters that he watches on TV up on stage in front of him, riding the rides, playing in the play areas, swimming at the condo pool, and just enjoying time with his parents and grandparents. We were sure lucky to have mom and dad along for most of the trip to help with kids and to just hang out together. We got to the Magic Kingdom three times, Hollywood Studios (the old MGM studios) three times, and Animal Kingdom two times. Our favorite park is probably the Hollywood Studios. We had breakfast with Mickey and Pluto and Lilo and Stitch (characters from a TV show Henry watches), lunch with the Little Einsteins and JoJo's Circus (again from the TV) and dinner with Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eyeore, and Piglet. No, not all on the same day !! It was so fun to see the kids' eyes light up as the characters came towards them and even Cora towards the end of the time there wasn't afraid of them and was giving them hugs. She quickly figured out who Mickey and Minnie Mouse were and every time she saw them either in person or a picture, etc., she would smile and point at them.

The flights were difficult as to be expected. Confining children in a seat for over four hours is not a good idea. Then when we arrived in Omaha we discovered that Henry had left the light above his seat on, so we had a very dead car battery. Oh, well. But overall, except for the crankiness that comes from children that are out of routine and tired, everyone had a really good time together. Now back to the daily grind (and answering two weeks of mail and email and phone calls). Take care ----- Love, Carin

Hi to all

Just wanted to say hi to everyone. I know the aunts were hoping the kids would be on here more, but I think everyone is doing a great job of writing in. It's fun to see what everyone is up to and it's certainly more current than the Round Robin. We are doing great here. Had an incident with Cora a month ago. She and Henry were playing toys and she fell down on a toy (as she does a million times a day), cried for a little bit and then went back to playing. A few hours later I noticed she wasn't using that arm, so I tugged on it gently and she went through the roof screaming. Needless to say, we headed off to the ER. After many doctor visits and multiple sets of x-rays, we believe she fractured her shoulder. It took weeks before she would use it and almost a month before she would raise her arm up to shoulder height. Poor little girl - I felt so bad for her. The Tylenol and Motrin was not enough to help with the pain the first week, that's for sure. But she seems to be doing better now. Henry is off the charts as far as his excitement over going to Walt Disney World. 

We leave tomorrow and will be gone for two weeks. He has told everyone in his class, all his teachers, the lady at the grocery store, and basically anyone who will listen that he's going to see Mickey. Ahhh, to see the world through the excited eyes of a child. I know we will have a great time and will be lucky to have mom and dad along to help. Dan has responsibilities at the convention for the first week and won't be around, but we will manage just fine. Work is going well for me - finally picking up a little bit. The first part of the year was really, really slow, but it's better now.

We wrapped up Henry's fall soccer league this week (Chris and Todd would be so proud of our little soccer boy). He really enjoyed it (except for one of the first games where he cried the entire time) and is asking if he can do it again, so I consider that a success. Otherwise, we're just plugging along doing the normal kid stuff and wondering how this fall flew by so fast. It will be basically November before we get home and settled, so I guess that would mean wintertime in Iowa. Hope all of you are doing well and look forward to seeing more news from you here. Love - Carin

Greene Iowa

Jo and Eldie -- Greene, Iowa, made the front page of the Sioux City Journal today showing that almost all of downtown is under water. How awful !! Have the storm waters affected your house? We are praying they don't. I can't even imagine how difficult it will be to recover from the damage that flood waters inflict. And from what I'm reading, it seems like people only have a couple of hours if even that to get out of their homes. How do you even begin to decide what to take, if you have time to get anything out? Anyway, wanted to let you know we were thinking of you and praying your home isn't affected. Take care everyone. Love - Carin

Memorial Day weekend

Hey all, hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday weekend. Mexico sounded like fun, Chris !! So thankful to hear Uncle Eldie is doing so well - must be all those Grush prayers. We are doing great and had a fun weekend. Spent most of it at mom and dad's eating and golfing, what more could you ask for, right? Henry is pretty good at talking Papa out of his responsibilities (like painting the garage) and into taking him out golfing. Sorry, mom !! I even got out Sunday afternoon with Dan and did pretty decent considering how little I have golfed in the past few years.

Cute story - I took Henry and Cora for pictures Friday afternoon and had some taken of Henry holding a number 4 planning to send them out for his 4th birthday, right? Well, today on the way to school he asks me why the lady with the pictures made him hold a 4 since he's only 3 years old. Because apparently he even told her he was just 3 when I was busy with Cora and she told him "don't worry about it." How long do you suppose he sat and pondered that question before he decided to ask me? Aren't they amazing? The stuff they wonder about is just fascinating to me.

Just wanted to say hi and wish everyone a good week. Take care !!

Mother's Day -- what NOT to do

So, last Sunday was Mother's Day, right? Since Henry is almost four years old, we have now had four of these days. You'd think by now Dan would have a clue, wouldn't you? Here's how it goes: I told Dan I wanted to sleep in Sunday for once as a treat. At 6:10 a.m. (the usual wake-up time for Cora) Dan says, "Carin, I think Cora's awake. She probably needs a bottle." Thanks, hon, for the extra rest time. Then after Henry was up I made breakfast for him and was feeding Cora. Dan wandered into the kitchen (this is 7:45 and he's been sleeping since 6:10) and says, "I'll make you breakfast, Carin." Don't get too excited - it was a frozen Eggo waffle that he forgot to put syrup on. Then he proceeds to make himself scrambled eggs, toast and sausage. As we're getting ready for church he and Henry get into a huge fight which results in me trying to calm Henry down enough to stop sobbing. After church we have a really lovely time at mom and dad's with delicious food that I didn't even have to prepare. Thank you, mom, for making part of my Mother's Day great !! Ed, Jane, Grandma Darlene and Uncle Tom were there as well and it was nice to chat with them. After we arrive home, however, Dan announces that he needs to mow the grass and spends the next two hours outside while I play with the kids, feed them dinner, bathe them, and get them into bed. When Dan makes it back into the house he makes microwave popcorn, which I don't like, and tries to tell me it's for me, but then proceeds to eat all of it while I'm finishing getting Cora to sleep. Then he brings in his trench coat and reminds me that I need to sew the button back on. So at 10:00 at night on Mother's Day I'm sewing this stupid button back on his coat while he watches TV. Then, and this is the best part, the card he picked out for me opens up three ways, okay? He signed his name on the second page of the card. Quite obviously, he didn't even read the entire card when he picked it out because he didn't even know there was a third page.

So for all you husbands out there - this is what NOT to do on Mother's Day, okay? By the way, today is Thursday and I finally spoke to him last night for the first time. :-)

Take care everybody and hope to see more posts sometime soon.

More Christmas pictures

Since it didn't let me upload all eight pictures, here are the rest of them. Thanks - Carin

Pictures of the Grush Family

If I've done this correctly, there should be pictures of the Grush family attached to this. I took the Christmas cards I got from everyone and put them on my computer harddrive and I'm attempting to get them on our website.

Todd, if this doesn't work correctly, since you're the site adminstrator, perhaps you can fix it.

Thanks ! - Carin

Natural disaster - ha ha

Yeah, right. Naural disaster - whatever. You want cold, Chris? Try northern Iowa where there's about six inches of snow on the ground with piles in the parking lots of about 15 feet and temperatures hovering in the minus range, with wind chills hovering in the double digit minus range. :-) Gotta love ya' bro !! Glad to hear it's warming up some in AZ. Mom, dad, Dan and I are headed to AZ the end of March so we will look forward to seeing you then. We are all taking golf clubs and planning to get some time in on the links, however, I have not golfed since I was eight months pregnant with Henry (yes, Henry) so I'm bound to be a little rusty. Hopefully it won't be too embarassing.

We're doing well here - everyone is healty and happy. Dan and I are headed out to Washington DC for a conference the beginning of March so if anyone has any ideas for museums to visit or places to eat, we'd love suggestions. I don't know if the cherry trees will be in bloom yet or not, but we're sure to have a good time.

Way to go, Aunt Jan, for posting on the blog - we're proud of you. Did Rhonda help with that? Very relieved to hear Uncle Bob's tests went as well as could be expected. We've been praying for you. And it sounds like you're doing a lot of baking at Rhonda's so if you want to stop here on your way home and fill up my freezer, that would be much appreciated !!

Best close for now - hopefully more of you cousins will start posting. It's a great way to keep up on each other's lives and only takes a few minutes to hop on and post. Love - Carin

Way to go !!!

Kudos to Chris and Todd for getting this set up for us - I think it's a great idea and belive it will help us to stay connected as a family. I had the best of intentions for getting a post up right away, but alas the best-laid plans, etc., etc. :-)

I will write more frequently and also have combed through my cookbook to pull out the few recipes I have from Grandma Grush and will plan to type those in and post them. I think it would be neat if we all had grandma's noodle recipe so that there's a possibility we might make them. (or we could just let mom do all the work for now, right?)

Aunt Jo, thanks for the sippy cups. Mom said she got them from you when she and Aunt Jan were making you clean off your countertops. We appreciate them because now Henry can take drinks into their great room. You'd think in three and a half years somewhere along the line it might have occurred to mom to buy a sippy cup for her grandson, but at least she got one from you now. :-)

We're doing good here - Cora and I both have a little cold or something, but it's the season for it. Cute story from Henry - I was getting dressed for church Sunday and was standing in the closet. mostly naked, trying to decide what to wear. Henry is on our bed reading a book and he looks up and says, "Mommy, you're naked !!" I said, "Yes, I am. What do you think about that?" And his reponse was quite an ego deflater. He said, "Not very good, mommy." Thanks a lot. The honesty of children is refreshing, isn't it? Now I think I'll go start my diet ------

Take care and I look forward to reading posts from all of the cousins. Love - Carin

Carin - June 12, 2007

Greetings Grush Bunch,

So great to go to the mailbox and get something fun to read instead of all the junk mail that usually accumulates in the box!! However, it does seem to be taking a while for the letter to make it around. I had it exactly 5 days - lets see if we can't keep it moving a little better.

Everybody here is doing great. It's so fantastic to finally get outside and play in the evenings after being cooped up all winter long. I don't know about you guys, but I was really tired of playing with the same toys and reading the same books over and over and over again. Now I can just say, "We are heading outside" and Henry is in heaven. There are so many fun things to do outdoors. His latest fascination is with the hose. We drag the hose out every night and he sprays off out driveway and street. I have to say, we have the cleanest driveway of all the neighbors.!!

Monica, is sounds like you had a huge project on your hands. I can't imagine tackling something that big!! I'll bet you are glad to be done and just enjoy it now. We aren't doing anything on that scale, but we have had our share of home improvements projects lately. The house is ten years old and it is time to start replacing things like the carpet in the bedrooms, the bathroom fans, the front door, painting downstairs and my office the air conditioner (okay, we really didn't want to replace that one, but it died last week and you can't have a pregnant woman in a house with no air - its not pretty), the master bedroom bed (okay, we really didn't have to replace that one either, but I really wanted a king size bed and after giving Dan a sob story about how I needed more room to be able to sleep at night comfortably with my big belly, he agreed) and then some outside painting, some concrete work around the house to slope the rain away from the house so it doesn't leak into the basement, re-staining the deck, and putting a fence up in the backyard so Henry can run outside by himself and play. Its been a lot of little projects, kind of a pain, but nothing too serious I guess.

The funeral home has been really busy lately so Dan has been a little frazzled but his boss talks him into sneaking out of work and golfing in the afternoons as much as possible. Cour reporting is wonderful, almost too busy lately. I've been working on a construction case for the last year and they get together about once a month for an entire week to do depositions, which is quite a lot of transcripts for me to get done then. Next week we head to Minneapolis for another week of depositions, but perhaps I'll get some shopping in as well:)

Best close and get this out. Hope all of you are enjoying your summer and making lots of wonderful memories with your families.

Love - Dan, Carin, Henry and Baby Eckhoff