Do You Realize?

I was listening to one of our CD's on the way home from work yesterday. For some reason I felt like the words applied to me and my inability to keep in touch with those people that I have deep feelings for- but have been so bad at showing it, especially since moving on to every new part of our lives.

The Flaming Lips:

"Do you realize that happiness makes you cry?
Do you realize the everyone you know someday will die?
Instead of saying all your goodbyes
Let them know you realize that life goes fast.
It's hard to make the good things last.
You realize the sun doesn't go down,
It is just an illusion caused by the world spinning round."

I have been touched by many other poetic and inspirational quotes and songs but this is the one on my mind today- as I remember great friends, great times, and all the happiness each of you provided for me- despite my failures to communicate that to you!

Happy Birthday Mark!!!

Mark turned 31 years old on March 28th. Getting old. He struggled a bit with this birthday and threatened that he was going to get himself a midlife motorcycle. The movie clip is Mason singing his version of Happy Birthday. (The candle on the cake is from Christmas a couple years ago and Mark is under his blanket because we were pampering him!)

Easter 2008

Mason's third Easter. We did the usual egg decorating, egg hunt and easter basket full of books and toys... and no candy! We will continue to stay away from candy at holidays as long as he lets us!






It was a good Easter- although Mason had a stomach virus for 4 days before the "big day." He couldn't keep anything down for 3 days and unfortunately one of those days was spent traveling home from our desert trip. Poor little guy... it was rough for all of us and I still smell vomit just thinking about it!

Trip to the Desert

If anyone knows me, you know that I love red rocks, blue skies, sunshine and slot canyons. Lucky for me Mark enjoys these things as well. Luckier for me was that Mark was needing a break from school around the same time of the year that I go through my deep longing for the desert items just listed. Mark surprised Mason and I by purchasing tickets to Las Vegas. Hurray! A much needed trip for the mentality of all three of us.



Mason was such a big boy and was very insistent on pulling his own bag (or carrying it while Mark or I carried him) through the airports.








We visited the Valley of Fire in Nevada with my sisters, Gina and Mitzi, and Gina's daughter, Avery. We had a perfect day of 80 degree weather and clear skies.











We stayed in Mesquite, NV for a couple nights for some swimming, miniature golf, and yes, $20 lost at gambling :( Then we moved on to St. George where we met up with our close friends and family Kyle, Beth and Finn Price. We visited Snow Canyon and enjoyed the swimming pool at the Price's hotel... which coincidentally was where my good sister Mitzi works.

We stayed with Gina and Aaron for a couple nights- and spent some good quality time with family.

I have so many great pictures of this trip... but I haven't figure out how to add a slide show so the pictures are somewhat limited.

Buckskin and Antelope Canyons

Our desert trip continued to Paria Canyon. I had big plans to hike the Wire Pass to Buckskin Gulch, which is about 4 miles of hiking through slot canyon and actually passable with a kid. We made it to the BLM and were strongly encouraged not to drive out to the trail head secondary to muddy/ impassable roads (we had a rental car without 4 wheel drive). I was almost in tears... We traveled over 2400 miles to go into a slot canyon. I was ready to give up when a jeep of fellow hikers told us to follow them. We made it to and from the trail head with no problems other than a little beautiful red mud on the car.



The hike was beautiful. Nothing beats a slot canyon in my eyes.















We then moved onto Page, Arizona; home of the well know Antelope Canyons. I have seen pictures of these canyons... but needed to see them with my own eyes, especially if I wanted to use similar pictures to decorate my house. Well, the canyon was very beautiful as you can see from the pictures... but the magic of the desert red rock was lost because of how populated the canyon was. Only tours can go to these canyons and it cost us nearly $35 per person. The canyon was packed full of other tourists- not unlike ourselves. It was quite disheartening... but we still were able to take some fantastic pictures.

February Fun

February was a fun month for Mason because of Valentines Day. This was the month that he discovered how cool scissors are (because it is the first month I let him use scissors... child safety ones, of course!) Whenever asking Mason what he wanted to do- he would say, "Make Valentines to give to my friends." So I would get out all the paper, stickers, etc- then all he really wanted to do was cut the paper into tiny little pieces of confetti... which is why none of Mason's friends ever got a Valentine this year!

He also really enjoyed making Valentine cookies- which is quite apparent from the picture associated with this blog!


We also had a special visit from Grandma Cioffi which meant taking her to see the cool waterfalls and gorges of Ithaca. We love visitors!!!

Addition to the Family

During the last couple months Mark had been spending far too much time at the SPCA (unknown acronym for the animal shelter in Ithaca). It was becoming apparent that he was serious about a new addition to our family. Unfortunately there were far too many barriers... for example: Mel didn't want to be cleaning up dog hair or smelling stinky dog all the time, we don't have an actual yard so we couldn't adopt an outside dog, we needed a dog that we knew would be OK with a two year old terrorizing it, we didn't want a wimpy lap dog that couldn't be a running partner and we didn't want to adopt from a horrible pet store that charges $750 per animal!

At this point the research started and we found that there were dogs out there that would fit our lifestyle. Two days after the decision was made we found Olive on Craig's List. One year old Schnauzer/ Poodle mix (no shedding!) that was already potty trained and was already used to a two year old messing with it. She did choose to run away and stay lost for about 24 hours (the coldest night of the year)- but we found her and have really enjoyed her since.

Blogging

So, obviously blogging is not a strong point. Life tends to be hectic (as everyone knows) and the last thing I consider doing when I have a second is to post a new blog. This may be why it has been nearly two months since there has been anything new on this site. The good news is that it is possible to make up and enter dates of when I really wanted to post the blog. For example, our un-descriptive little Christmas blog was just posted today, February 9th- but no one would know because I dated it December 25th! Hah!

Another blogging issue is that I named our blog "Adventure Slavens." So, what happens when the Slavens aren't adventuring? It can be slightly embarrassing. I am considering a change of name to "Lame-o Slavens" or "Wannabe Adventure Slavens." Any thoughts?

If imagination counts then consider the pictures posted with this blog. This would easily be one of my top ten choices of where I really, really want to be adventuring right now! I would almost give anything to see the contrast of blue sky and red rock-- oh and to have a tan again!
(Pictures taken in June 2004).

January Adventures

I must quickly update on January. Pictures include Mason's second time bowling (the first time was when Uncle Andy and Auntie Cynthia were here), Mason playing outside with his friend Emanuel and hiking around Beebe Lake. Items of interest that do not have pictures to correspond includes several trips to Greek Peak for snowboarding and skiing, including Mason's first time on skis. (At some point I will post a video clip of Mason's first skiing trip- once I figure out how to download from our video camera!)