Linda Rokos Watts

Today Stella, Connor and I headed downtown to the Ronald McDonald house. We were there on behalf of UMass Alumni Association , Connors graduate school. We met some wonderful new people and saw some people that we already knew. We prepped lunch and in came all the residence of the 2 nd floor of the Ronald McDonald house. Stella met a little girl named Sierra from California. Sierra has leukemia and her and her family arrived in Colorado a few days ago to start another round of chemo at the Children's Hospital. This will be Sierra's 3rd round. What a brave little girl. Stella and her played almost the whole time we were there which was for about 4 hours. I think Stella made a new pen pal. :) The rest of the afternoon was filled with Home Depot, Big Lots and TJ Maxx trips. We got some new things for the house and came home to make a great dinner and bake cookies. What a great Sunday!

I was expecting to wake up this morning with tons of snow on the ground and to my disappointment nothing. :( Snow aside, we had a kick ass day (although a little cold) Before we get into today, last night Stella and I went to Dave and Busters for a few hour of fun (HOLY SENSORY OVERLOAD) but tons of fun. Connor went out with the boys to a Mammoth lacross game. Being just us the two of us, Stella and I took the opportunity to do a little shopping. We stopped at Ross on the way home and found really a great little Easter dress, and a new skirt for mama. woo hoo ! Back to today. We had a lazy morning then got motivated and headed to the Natural History Museum for a little learning . Stella loves that place. We explored the usual exhibits they have there and then hit Natural Disaster exhibit which I've been wanting to check out since they put it up. It was very interesting and Connor and Stella learned all they could about fault lines. Whew...so much to learn, so little time. Af...

I was organizing Stella's desk when I got home from work while Stella was outside playing this afternoon. My lil girl is a pack rat, she loves to keep everything. I tactfully organized so that she wouldn't miss too many of the things I put in the garbage. I also pulled out the arsenal of books that Stella has yet to read and put the stack of books that she has read to the side. I promised that once we got started on this stack of book we could head to Barnes and Noble and pick up a new book for every one that she reads from now on. She got really excited and wanted to get started right away. I also started looking online today for summer workbooks and comparing different learning structures and trying to find the ones closest to the one she uses in school. Mrs Boyat (Stella's teacher) made a few suggestions as well so I think we will have plenty of material to work on this summer. Summer vacation or not we're going to be learning all we can. :) It's a little mo...

Thank god for the snow. I think even if it snowed the whole month of April we still wouldn't catch up on the moisture that we should have in the ground BUT at least we are finally getting something. It was starting to look a little grim. Stella came home from school, threw on her winter play clothes and has been outside with Rudi sledding for about the last hour. Speaking of Stella, we had teacher parent conferences yesterday and my kiddo is doing good. She's got a great support team behind her and her teachers are really there to hold her accountable for her work. Her grades are kicking butt and she is working really hard. It makes me a proud mama! Hope everyone is getting a chance to enjoy the snow!

Yesterday (Monday) Stella had her weekly piano lesson down in Lyons. It changed a little from her regular Wednesday class because her teacher was going on Spring Break. Usually during her 1/2 hour class I go for a speed hike in the foothills. It's not a lot of time but I squeeze in a workout when I can. It was 5:30 when I dropped Stella off and 28 degrees out. It was a little chilly but after I got hikin i warmed up a bit. Got to the top of the ridge and the wind hit. HOLY COW it was freezing. I don't think I've ever made it down the mountain that fast. I made it back just in time for Stella to be walking out the door and thanks to John Common, and Mana tunes, I cruised though my hike with a smile on my face.

Friday March 27 th , was Connor's Birthday so we decided to have a good old fashion pig roast with a keg and lots of good friends. No snow storm was going to stop us. In the morning Stella, Connor and I set out in the snow to pick up out 70 pound pig and a HUGE grill. We had to drive up to Lafayette to Arapahoe Pig Roast to pick it up. On the way home we made a stop at Costco and at the cake shop. It was a HUGE hit and we totally pulled it off. Buying a 70 pound whole pig takes a long time to roast... 8 hours to be exact so we rushed home after picking the pig up so we could throw it on the grill asap to be ready in time for everyone to show up at 7. We had Stella all day until I dropped her off at her dads for the weekend at 5pm. She was so enthralled by the pig she didn't want to go but on the other hand she was really excited to go see her dad, step mom and Arlin. Here she is. We named her Miss Piggy, not too original but funny non-the-less. Here is Miss Piggy grilled up ...

Thoughts and prayers are with the McConkey family today! RIP Shane! http://espn.go.com/action/freeskiing/blog?post=4018726