Thankfulness-Inducing Bad Events

So, my last blog entry was all happy and smiles, but we did have a couple of……events…..occur right around Thanksgiving, that made me REALLY appreciate my family's blessings.

THANKFULNESS-INDUCING EVENT NUMBER ONE.

You remember our fun Thanksgiving Annual Ritchie Family Retreat Getaway (or whatever the heck I called it) to the Roxbury, right?  Well, what I didn't mention was that when we returned home, our basement had flooded.  Flooded a LOT.

Our sump pump on/off switch was broken in that once it was on, it never turned off!  And we hadn't gotten around to replacing the sump pump yet.  So, at the time, we had it turned off, BUT forgot to turn it back on before we went on our trip.  And, of course, it rained.  Hence, FLOOD.  Three inches of standing water everywhere, all over.   So, our Thanksgiving evening was spent sloshing around the basement and up and down the stairs moving things into the garage to start the cleaning and drying process.  However - and here's the weird part - Our family retreat must have done me an AMAZING amount of good because not ONCE was I irritated about any of this, NOR was I irritated at Mark for forgetting to turn the sump pump on, which would have prevented all of this.  REPEAT, I did NOT get irritated (well, irritated is too gentle of a word, normally I would have been raging furious), but I did NOT.  I still can't figure that out.  I should add that Mark is probably extremely thankful for THAT.

Anyway, I am…

• Thankful that with three prior basement floods in the past 9 years, we were (mostly) prepared, with everything off the floor or in plastic bins, and we keep virtually no wood items/products in our basement anymore at all.

• Thankful that I still have intuition/the Spirit working within me - for about a month before this happened, I kept thinking (at least once a day) that I needed to get those recently-put-in-the-basement cardboard boxes of old family photos OFF of the basement floor and into a plastic bin.  I did NOT do this, so one box of photos is pretty much ruined, but I'm still grateful that I was warned (by SOMETHING) and I have no one to blame but my lazy bum self.

• Kinda thankful that one less box of family photos means less scrapbooking and work later.  Is that bad??

• Thankful for our dehumidifier (purchased after a previous flood) that works amazingly well and is keeping it from getting too stinky and moldy down there!

 (I know, I know, but I needed a photo of SOMETHING up here. 
All hail to the dehumidifier!)

• Thankful that in the process of moving stuff up out of the basement and into the garage so we could clean, that we decided half of the stuff we could get rid of and give away.  Yay!  More simplification is always good.

• Thankful to get rid of more towels - our upstairs linen closet is overflowing and I've been meaning to clean out the towels and give them away to a pet shelter, BUT our kitchen was a sloppy mess from our wet and muddy books and it was sooo nice to be able to use a few old towels, clean up the crud, and then toss 'em.  MORE simplification.  Yup, still always good.

• THANKFUL that our basement floor is sooooooo clean!  I still can't believe how clean it looks.  We'd been meaning to clean up down there so we could put together our kids' winter playground (basketball, hockey, tricycle and scooter racing), but hadn't yet, so the flood kicked our tushies into gear and the basement is much cleaner that it would have been had there been NO flood.  Weird how things work sometimes.

• And finally, thankful that, for whatever strange reason, our sump pump has mysteriously begun to work again and we do NOT have to replace it just yet.  Woohoo!  I know that replacing a sump pump is, for most people, not a big deal, but for my woefully-impractical and woefully-unhandy husband (though brilliant) even changing a light bulb can become a big deal.  I love you, Markli, but well, you know it's true.

THANKFULNESS-INDUCING EVENT NUMBER TWO.

Fast forward about 5 days AFTER the flood from which we were finally recovering, around 11:00pm our downstairs carbon monoxide detector alarmed.  HOLY CRAPPIE!  I am terrified of carbon monoxide gas, terrified that something so invisible is so deadly.  I mean, dying by C02 poisoning certainly beats dying by shark attack (a great fear of mine. because I'm in the ocean so much, ya know), but anyway.  We've had CO2 detectors as long as we've had houses and I test and replace them religiously.  Anyway, Mark and I flurried around (we were still awake watching TV and catching up on Terra Nova and Castle) immediately finding owners manuals, opening windows, checking on kids.  We weren't sure what to do, 911 seemed too extreme and we couldn't call a furnace repair guy until the morning.  Mark thought we should just open windows and wait until morning.  But I KNEW that even with every window open I would NOT get a wink of sleep that night, worrying obsessively about my kids (and about Mark, too, a little).  So, we woke up all the kidlets and went to a hotel, everyone in their pajamas (including me).

My three kids were AMAZING.  Of course, it probably helped that we were going to a hotel with a swimming pool.  Because everyone with kids probably knows that the MOST FUN thing in life to do is going to a hotel to swim in the indoor pool and watch TV in bed, right?  It was another vacation for them, two in one week!  Woot woot!  We kept them home from school the following day, letting them swim for 2 hours in the morning and then going to a family breakfast at Dennys.  And THEN, because Connor and Noah were sooooo good at the hotel, I took them to Target and let them pick out new Wii games to play - since they had the day off from school, we turned it into a full-out kid goof-off day!

Anyway, I am…

• Thankful that Mark was NOT in Africa.  He'd been planning to go the previous Friday (day after Thanksgiving) but delayed until the following Wednesday.  Usually all of the BAD stuff happens when he goes to Africa (I KID YOU NOT - record breaking snowstorms, air conditioner breaking, Shelby breaking her wrist, the furnace going out, our first super-bad basement flood - ALL when Mark was conveniently ON ANOTHER CONTINENT!), so having him around to help me deal with this latest little….adventure….was, as American Express says so eloquently, PRICELESS.

• Thankful for CO2 detectors.

• Thankful that we live in such a safe neighborhood that we could leave every window open and not lose one second of sleep worrying about intruders or burglars.

• Thankful that our pets were healthy and safe. 

• Thankful that the weather was unusually mild enough that if the CO2 gas didn't get our pets, the usual freezing cold would have!, especially our poor little tropical lovebirds.

• Thankful that we had enough money to be able to flee to a nearby hotel immediately and not have to worry about it impacting our budget too badly.  

• Thankful that the hotel night manager took pity on our little temporarily homeless family and upgraded us to a nice suite, free of charge.

• Thankful that our swimming lessons bag is always packed and ready to go and it was easy to toss in the car quickly.

• Thankful that Connor and Noah were soooooooooo amazing with Shelby in the pool (since Mark and I's swimsuits were NOT in our swimming lessons bag), each taking turns carrying her around. I love Shelby's little swimsuit wedgie here in this first photo.  Hee hee!

• Thankful for Connor and Noah's amazing water dancing skills.  But yeah, Connor, keep up your plans to become a quantum physicist, okay?  And Noah, even driving a garbage truck (Noah's current life ambition) will pay better than water dancing.  Mmmkay?

• Thankful for Dennys.  Kind of.  Why do kids like Dennys so much???  Eww.

• Thankful for good friends (Gerri, Patricia, Angie, Tammy, Deutschmans) who offered their help to us upon finding out about our predicament (since I whined about it on Facebook).

• Thankful for an efficient local Fire Department who arrived the next morning within mere minutes of our phone call.  Sure, two fire trucks and a squad car, meaning 10 huge fire-uniformed men tromping around in my house, was probably overkill.  But they took it absolutely seriously and even chided us for NOT calling them the previous night!  As they pointed out, "We're open 24 hours, you know!"

• Thankful that it was just a faulty C02 detector (it went off exactly in the pattern of a real CO2 leak and NOT the pattern of an error, which is why I basically freaked out) and NOT a faulty furnace!  I don't even want to know how much replacing a furnace would cost, especially at Christmastime.

• Thankful that I now know how to light the pilot light on our water heater (since the Fire Dept forgot to re-light it and I didn't know it was out until after Mark was gone to Africa) and it was easy.  I need to learn more life skills like this!

• Thankful that Connor is seemingly over his autism stage of going into full-alert meltdown with any sudden change to his schedule and/or life.

• Thankful that Shelby and Noah are so easy-going and up for anything at any time!  :)

Thankful that we're all (including our pet family members)
alive and healthy and happy and BLESSED.

(even though we take horrible Christmas family photos)

Thanksgiving, Ritchie Style!

With the advent of Thanksgiving 2011, we started a new Ritchie family tradition - an annual quickie family getaway retreat.  And where else would we do our first Ritchie Family Annual Quickie Thanksgiving Getaway Retreat (we'll have to think of a shorter name for that, eh?) but our FAVORITE regional hotel, the ROXBURY!!!  I've documented a couple of our stays here before (see here and here), though we've been many more times than just these three.  Anyway, it's a fabulous little hotel in the Catskills and each room is a theme from the '60s and '70s era of TV & movies, but not in a tacky way.  Some of the rooms are definitely over the top (over the top AMAZINGNESS!!), but you won't find a cleaner or more luxuriously appointed hotel (in terms of textiles, bedding, bathroom amenities) anywhere.  It's owned, operated and decorated by former Broadway set artists, so there ya go.  Awesomeness.

Here's their new addition - isn't it great?

 

More cuteness.  I could NOT love this limey-apple-green and black and white color combination MORE.  As a matter of fact, I'm going to paint our front door this same color come spring, I love it so much.  Fortunately, the rest of our house is already black and white.  Yes!!

Gloriousness!

So, here we are in the Genie's Bottle room.  Helloooooo color!  (and Mark)

Other side of the front area (notice Shelby & Noah already on the couch waiting to watch TV - little junkies):

And look at this - flowers that Mark had ordered ahead of time to be waiting in the room for me.  Cue the "awwwwwwwwwws" now.  Yep, gotta be thankful for my Markli.  :)

Bedroom one, invaded.  (note to self: clean your camera lens!!! Sheesh!)  Ordinarily I don't EVER stay in a hotel unless it has white bed covers (you know what stains hide on those colored ones, right???  ewwwwww), but the Roxbury is my ONLY exception because they're fabulous and I trust them to be clean.

Bedroom two, which is where the kids were transferred after I decided I wanted bedroom one.  And here my little kid gang is, doing what they love most in hotels (aside from jumping on the beds, which they are NOT supposed to be doing) - watching TV in bed, the ultimate luxury, since we don't allow TVs in bedrooms.

Back to bedroom one, with ME enjoying watching TV in bed.  Gosh, that IS a nice luxury.  We'll need to rethink that no-TVs-in-bedrooms-rule, Mark.

The glorious bathroom, shaped round like you're INSIDE a bottle!  (Genie's Bottle, remember?)

I must admit, this was my first encounter with a tub like this.  Have you ever seen one of these?

ALERT!  ALERT!  A BLOG FIRST:  Me in the bathtub!!!!  Yessirree!  See my hand in the mirror waving?  So, I just sat perfectly upright in this strange little tub and read a book.  I'm not sure what else to say, other than it was...different.  And the kids refused to go near it, fearing it was too deep for them.  Which, of course, it wasn't, but I suspect they just didn't want to waste their valuable and rare watching-TV-in-bed-in-a-hotel-time with something as mundane as a bath.

And here's the cool thing - the bathroom was a pass-through bathroom, connecting both bedrooms, so I could hang out in MY room but still keep an eye on the kid gang.  VERY convenient.

This whole trip was Mark's idea (another FIRST!) and he wanted us to decide on three goals each (or as we called them in the Genie room, wishes) for 2012.  Each of us had time in the "throne" seat while Mark wrote down our goals, since HE is supposed to keep track of them and make sure we're doing something about them in 2012.  I'm not sure how that will turn out, so if you see Mark around, ASK HIM and REMIND him that he's supposed to be doing this!

Noah's turn:

1. Go to China  (Noah is obsessed with China, we have no idea why)
2. Go to Africa  (that's reasonable)
3. Play baseball  (the first we've heard of this, it came out of left field.  BWA HA HA, pun intended!!!)

Here's Connor usurping the throne from King Noah:

Now it's Connor's turn:

1. Learn French (because dabbling in 15 other languages isn't enough for him!)
2. Go to Seaworld  (works for me)
3. Go to another country, even it's just Canada (again, works for me, especially if we can go to the rumored hotel made of ice in Toronto??)

Shelby's turn (photobombed by King Noah, hoping to return to his rule soon), even though she didn't have to specify any goals.  Her only job is to be cute.  :)

Queen Mommy (with assistance from Princess Shelby):

1. Get the house completely simplified and organized.  (Hey, it *could* happen. But I'll have to go back on caffeine in a big way.  And get a couple of nannies.  And get a $5,000 gift card to The Container Store - my mother ship, my Mecca)
2. Get in shape and get healthy (yawn, I know)
3. Get a bigger vehicle (keep in mind we were fresh off a 3.5 hour drive with 3 kids smashed all together in the back seat of a small SUV - my main thoughts during that time were ^#^!&#@&^ WHY DIDN'T WE GET A @#@&#*($&*@(&$ BIGGER CAR??!?!??)

And of course, what fun would a Ritchie family getaway be without playing our favorite family game, The Adventurers!   (sooo thankful my kids never liked Candyland)

Unfortunately, Noah's adventurer was smashed to death in the exit corridor by a rolling boulder.  Here's how he took that news:

And after that he continued to tantrum, and hit his chin on the edge of the table, thereby necessitating a chin Angry Birds bandaid:

And here's Connor in timeout for laughing at Noah dying and then cutting open his chin.  We found that doing timeouts outside in bare feet worked QUITE well - after all, no one likes cold, wet feet.  (another note to self: Move time-out chair to our front porch in the winter)

We didn't do our actual Thanksgiving dinner at the Roxbury, but came back to have dinner at home.  Here we are, and yes, we ARE still in our pajamas, thanks for noticing:

Oh, yes, you also noticed that our Thanksgiving table had no turkey, and are those…..chicken wings?!?!?  What kind of Thanksgiving is THAT!??!?  Well, a few years ago, Mark and I realized that no one really liked any of the traditional Thanksgiving foods (except Mark, who will eat anything except jalapenos), so why bother going to all that hassle?  So, instead, everyone chooses one or two favorite dishes for which we are VERY thankful, and we eat and share those. 

Here's thankful Mark with his pork ribs stew concoction (and he's thankful he didn't have to share because no one else wanted any of THAT!):

Connor is thankful for ravioli this year:

Shelby is thankful for macaroni and cheese (with a side of Honey Nut Cheerios) - AGAIN (same in 2010):

Noah is thankful for pizza (and has been every Thanksgiving of his life):

And it's no secret to anyone that knows me how thankful I am for Angie's famous hot wings!  Mark complained that this was the third year in a row that I wanted these for Thanksgiving.   He also has to make them for Mothers Day and my birthday.  And a few times inbetween.  But I really really love them and I am really and truly thankful for them.  And I'm thankful that I do NOT have to eat turkey or cranberries or sweet potatoes or pie - none of which I like.

To finish off our Thanksgiving 2011, after dinner we went to Lights on the Lake, Syracuse's annual 2-mile drive along Onondaga Lake with…well, lots of Christmas lights!  It's fabulous!  And yup, we STILL didn't change out of our pajamas (I specifically told Mark I wanted a Pajama Thanksgiving, meaning we didn't go anywhere that required real clothes, and darnit, I made it happen!).

We always let the kids sit in the back of car, free to roam (and fight). That's Noah getting comfortable here.

As they get bigger, it's getting too crowded back there.  YES, we definitely need a bigger car.

It didn't take long for the boys to remember our summer drives up the gravel roads to my parents house in the mountains of southern Idaho where I let them hang out the sunroof, and indeed, whaddya know - worked great for Lights on the Lake, too!  Of course, it's also been unseasonably warm here this fall.  Which I am EXTREMELY crabby about.  I am NOT thankful for this CRUMMY WARM weather.  Bah humbug!

Our Thanksgiving weekend grand finale was getting our tree up early (complete with bad cat on bottom who keeps batting ornaments off).  Joy to the world!  Something done EARLY.  I'm thankful for that, for sure. (Unless we put it up TOO early and it starts drying out and dropping needles everywhere.  Then I'll be grouchy about that, too, in addition to the lack of cold and snow.)

 

Footnote:  I know you're all ogling my BEAUTIFUL red sideboard table next to the tree.  As a matter of fact, if I saw it on YOUR blog I would immediately email you and ask where you bought it and/or BEG you to sell it to me.  Anyway, I am the supremely and eternally THANKFUL owner of an original Vintage Charm piece by the uber-talented Darice.  My sideboard's name is Olivia, and is she the very definition of *glorious* or what??  :)

All the Ritchies were Kung-Fu fighting…

If there's one blog entry I always seem to get down, it's our annual Halloween shenanigans.   We dig Halloween.  Probably mostly it's me, but I seem to have rubbed off on my family, in a Halloween way.  Woo-hoo!  And I know this post is a couple of weeks late and everyone now has turkey on their minds (well, not us, but that's another blog entry), but since *I* still have vinyl decal bats still stuck all over my front door and garage door that I can't get off, we're still feeling Halloween here at our house.

Every year we do a family theme in which to go to parties and to our church's Trunk or Treat (where you hand out candy from your cars in the church's parking lot - which, when I write it down like that sounds awfully lame, eh?).  Granted, we do a *leeeetle* more than most people do for Trunk or Treat, but it's actually a lot of fun.  Read on for proof...

Anyway, this year our family theme was up to Noah and he wanted a Ninja family! ROCK ON, little No! Excellent choice!  Our outfits weren't QUITE as ferociously Ninja as I'd envisioned, thinking that black clothes and Japanese-looking headbands would be quite enough.  But at least Mark and Connor had their karate gi (yes, gi, it's a karate thing that I had to learn because Connor and his Kyoshi became upset every time I referred to it as an outfit), so those two look a little more officially Ninja.  I think.  Well, except if you look closely, you'll see that Connor's headband is actually his Halloween necktie.

Talkin' the talk, walkin' the walk…(and please ignore the spaghetti stain on Mark's outfit, I mean gi)

We don't plan it this way on purpose, but we get Grandma (my mom) out to visit us regularly almost every October, so we dress her up, too (at least we didn't dress you up as the Emperor from Star Wars this time, Mom!)!  Here's Grandma Ninja with the ninja grandcherubs.  (blow this photo up by clicking on it and check out Shelby's face looking at Noah - she is so NOT impressed with his Ninja-ness)

Okay, back to the Trunk or Treat (remember, the weird church thing where the kiddies trick or treat out of cars).  As weird as Trunk or Treat may sound to some of you, I  LOVE Trunk or Treat and am our family's architect/producer/puppeteer. And fortunately, I have an awesome husband with NO shyness (no shame??) who is always recruited to be my entertainment, doing things *I* would NEVER do.  Ha ha! 

Here's our tricked-out Ritchie crew, blocking the view of our awesomely tricked-out car (is it tricked-out or tripped-out?  Do I sound completely ridiculous?):

We had "Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting" (of course, what else?) blaring from our speakers (over and over, apologies again to Jamie W sitting in the car next to ours, who will now forever hate that song), giving Mark a fabulous opportunity to show off his moves - VIDEO!!!  (click to play)  Who says university professors are boring old fuddy-duddies?  MINE is pretty awesome, eh?

Here's a better view of our decorated trunk, along with Mark fighting off another family's ferocious and very tenacious Ninja.  Mark had to defend his "Temple of Candy" against Joshua for pretty much the whole evening. It's a tough crew out Trunk or Treating, you know!

I know this next one is blurry, but this illustrates the perils of Trunk or Treating in late October in New York State - VERY COLD trick or treaters.  Look at my little shivering Ninja Noah!  And it was only after much whining that I finally let Shelby put on her coat - kids, we live in New York and we trick or treat so ya better toughen up!!!  Of course, the cold didn't seem to be stopping Connor from eating all of his collected candy right then and there... 

As much as I love Halloween and like to plan the stuff and the show and the decorations, I'm a little lazy with costumes and try to hobnob them together on the cheap.  However, NOBODY does costumes like my beloved Rich & Angie Bailey:

Need I say more?  These guys are my costume IDOLS.  Seriously, guys, those outfits deserve their own party (because wearing them only once in front of a limited audience is cheating the WORLD of your awesomeness).  I'm still figuring out how to plan a party for LDS folk (Mormons) and telling them the theme is PIMPIN'.  When I figure that out, we'll PAR-TAY, my friends!

Back on the homefront, on the actual 31st of October, we finally relax and chill.  Grandma and Shelby were the tag-team for answering our door this year.  Mark was taking the bigger Ninjas around the block gathering more candy (since the Trunk or Treat candy from 2 days prior was long gone).  As for me, I was relaxing and eating…..ummmm…….carrots!!   Yeah, carrots.  For sure.

Next year's 2012 Halloween theme is up to Shelby and as soon as the words "My Little Pony" and "Unicorns" were uttered from her mouth, Connor began screaming protests.  Sooooooo, stay tuned next year to see what happens there, 'cause THAT should be VERY interesting…