A Utah Family Travel Writer's Adventures with Altitude
Turns out, Hadley has been diagnosed with Strep, which means the rest of us have been catering to her every need.
And believe me, they are plenty.
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| Sick Haddie. Notice Puke Cup above head |
On Tuesday, Bode decided he was going to make her double-fudge chocolate chip cookies.
Not because she could eat them.
But because it made him feel better about her being sick.
I like his style.
If you’re just tuning in, be sure to read Behind-the-scenes at 9News’ Back-to-School Segment Part I.
Despite my best efforts to pull together two back-to-school segments for 9News (and believe me, both segments were a ton of work) one very important thing started unraveling the day prior: Haddie wasn’t feeling well.
I assumed it was because we’d stayed up late at our neighbor’s outdoor movie theater and gotten up early for church but she ping-ponged from OK to worse as she claimed stomach pains. I debated replacing her with her friend but then she’d recover enough for us to see the silver lining and hope she’d be OK.
She wasn’t.
Around 1 a.m. she came into our bedroom claiming nightmares about the sound of necklaces (can you say hallucinating?) so I let her stay. Problem was she thrashed and turned all night and I had to be at 9News by 6 a.m. for my first segment.
Translation: I barely slept.
The plan was for Jamie to bring the kids later for our fashion segment that aired at 8:40 a.m. My first segment on back-to-school products went just swell (find them here that includes the coolest alarm clock) but when I called Jamie to see how she was, he simply said, “Not great,” but that they would be there.
Once they arrived, we hung out in the green room and Haddie seemed pretty OK and my hope was renewed we’d survive the segment.
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| The Green Room (that is not green) |
About 20 minutes before our segment, TaRhonda came to get us and the kids got a little tour of the newsroom. Much to Bode’s delight, he met his celebrity crush, Meteorologist Becky Ditchfield.
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| Blurry Becky. Apparently I was excited for him |
At the end of the segment when Becky was talking to TaRhonda on-air, Becky called Bode “pretty dang awesome.”
Warning: Don’t tease him about it. He starts to blush and roars, “STOP IT!”
Once in the studio, we did a couple of dry runs and all the kids did great.
And then came SHOW TIME! Be sure to check-out the video here (kids’ segment starts at about 4 minutes and for clothing/product info, go here).
Jamie was a stellar stage father, guiding and helping the kids behind the scenes and they were all amazing. Hadley, in particular because she sucked it up and still performed when she felt sick.
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| Ignore the flash; no time to remove it |
Steph was adorable, Bennett was cool but that Bode? For a kid who has a canned smile, the little dude stole the show.
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| Becky raving how awesome Bode is. |
When the segment was over, we were all relieved, grateful and elated with how well it went. As we were walking back to our green room to retrieve our belongings, Hadley confessed:
“I threw up.”
“WHAT? When? Where?”
“Outside!”
I turned to Jamie and he confirmed it. Turns out she was still having stomach problems and the moment they got out of the car upon arriving at the 9News studios, she vomited all over the next parking stall. She recovered enough to perform for the segment and has been down-and-out with a feverish stomach flu ever since.
“Yeah, and Daddy told me not to say anything to you about throwing up until after we went on TV!”
Wise, wise man that Jamie.
And that, my friends, is how you leave your (literal) mark on your television debut.
When TaRhonda Thomas asked me to do a couple of of back-to-school segments on Denver’s top news station 9News, I readily agreed to one but took a big, long pause for the other. I’m fine with pitching products–I’ve done plenty of those on-air segments. But she also wanted me to pull together a fashion show for the second segment. Me? The woman who wears North Face and Arcteryx all winter long?
I reluctantly agreed and admittedly had the most fun pulling that particular segment together. Both were a lot of work–between researching what products I wanted to use, working with the company’s corporate office and then individual stores to get the item and not to mention finding models.
I needed two younger kids and was surprised when both of mine were enthusiastically on-board.
I think Bode secretly wanted to meet Meteorologist Becky Ditchfield (whom he has a crush on).
Next, I recruited Stephanie, a cool sophomore from church was elated to do a shopping spree at H&M (they got to keep their clothes).
But then came the teenaged boy. Turns out most of ‘em don’t want to be on TV. Modeling. Excuses ranged from “I have to work” to “I have band camp,” to my favorite, “Ohhhhhh no. I respectfully decline. I could never do that.”
How many teenaged boys even talk like that?
It got to the point where, at a stake BBQ where a number of wards congregated after a community service project that I lamented to Jamie, “I JUST NEED A TEENAGED BOY.”
And then I realized how that sounded.
My friend Lisa finally recommended my guy who was the son of a friend. Bennett is a cool sophomore who didn’t mind basking in the limelight and did a stellar job.
But, of course, there were problems (this is me, right?)
Be sure to read Part II for all the sordid details of the stress…and the puke as my kids made their television debut.
Tomorrow is the annual “Patch Tour”–a time when the illustrious Rocky Mountain Giant Vegetable Growers Group select a few of their fellow growers’ patches to tour and, if we’re being honest, SPY.
My pumpkin updates have been few and far between because we’ve been gone or busy this summer and I’ve barely noticed all the time Jamie has been spending in the pumpkin patch (I think that has been his evil plan). He lost one of his plants to a disease a couple of months ago so we’re down to one hallowed pumpkin he has christened after my mother: Christine.
There are a number of jokes I could insert here about hoping she’ll be big and round but I’ll refrain.
A couple of months ago, I was given some perspective on Jamie’s whole pumpkin obsession. It started out like most Sundays do. We attended church, came home and there was a message on our voice mail from a pumpkin grower named Tom who was visiting from Indiana.
“He wants to know if he can come over so I told him to swing by,” Jamie said.
“When?”
“He’s five minutes away.”
I inwardly groaned but then Jamie offered: “He’s bringing his wife. She doesn’t like pumpkins, either.”
Finally an ALLY!
The phone rang just as they arrived. It was the chicken lady on the phone for me (another topic, another day) so I could only motion “hello” as Jamie led them to the pumpkin patch.
After wrapping up my call, I raced out there and called out to Tom’s wife Megan: “I heard you’re NOT a pumpkin grower?” She eagerly nodded. “Well get inside with me, right away!”
I’ve never seen a woman move so quickly.
We commiserated about (what else?) our pumpkin-obsessed husbands.
How we are the same:
Our husbands grow giant pumpkins. Duh.
How we are different: Tom grows over 400 pumpkins. Yep, you heard correctly. He has a separate patch for his competition pumpkins and another field of them that they hand-plant over Memorial Day. These pumpkins are primarily used for genetics.
If you’re not a pumpkin geek, you have no idea what that means.I do, so that sadly means I am one of them.
I also discovered another way Megan and I are different.
“How long has Tom been growing?” I queried.
“Several years,” she replied.
“Wait. How long you have been married?” I countered.
“Four years.”
“So there was FULL DISCLOSURE BEFORE YOU GOT MARRIED?”
Yep. And even worse, she was on vacation in Denver and he managed to work in some patch tours.
I got a lot of things out of that visit but one thing in particular: perspective.
I never thought I’d say I’m grateful for just one giant pumpkin.
When I was at BYU, I had one of the coolest jobs on campus: I worked as a research assistant in the religion department’s Faculty Support Center. I did everything from make copies (a lot of them) to transcribing OLD manuscripts to editing very cool documents.
It was there my fascination with Ancient Israel and world religions was borne and the reason why I did a study abroad to the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies for my final semester. In August. With heat so unbearable I thought I’d never make it outta there alive.
But I still loved every minute of it. Except for the heat parts. Which was all the time except for when we were in air-conditioned buildings.
It was a complicated love affair.
Several of my co-workers and boss Patty are lifelong friends and I was thrilled when I was able to hook up my soon-to-be freshman neighbor Alexis with a job at the FacSupp starting in June.
When I posted about my water breaking with Hadley in very public booth #3 at Einstein Bros., Patty dropped me a note to remind me of an experience I had long forgotten.
Or chose to forget (thanks, Patty).
Once upon a time, I was at work and grabbed something out of my backpack. Something you should know about me is as long as I can remember, I’ve carried a water bottle full of ice-cold water wherever I go. My kids have inherited this trait and we can’t leave the house for even a 5-minute walk without some water in-hand.
So, that day so many years ago, I grabbed my backpack and it was SOAKING wet. All my homework and text books were drenched and I’m sure I was raising a fuss because Patty asked me, “What on earth happened?”
Still in shock, I finally blurted out, “MY WATER BROKE!”
The foreshadowing is not lost on me.
We’ve been so busy these final weeks before school that posting will be sporadic. Last weekend, we went to First Friday and Street Fair in Golden, followed by a free outdoor movie–Puss ‘n Boots–in the square with our friends.
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| Hanging w/ Karla waiting for movie to begin |
Watching that funny movie reminded me of something Haddie said a few months ago that still rings true.
Hadley: “Mommy, I’m 100 percent sure the Easter bunny isn’t real. I think there’s just a person dressed up as a bunny.”
Me: “Why do you suspect that?”
Hadley: “Because I got ‘Puss in Boots’ for Easter and there was a Wal-Mart sticker on it. AND BUNNIES CAN’T SHOP!!!”
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. Learn More