Ry and Coop Dot Com

For those of you who’ve been following along on this adventure, you’re familiar with Dance Parties!  Many have asked where they’ve gone, as they eagerly await the Monday morning release on Facebook.  The truth is, Facebook has been super unkind to me lately and continue to reject our super cute videos because of copyright infringement!  YouTube has found a way around this!  Thankfully, they have reached agreements where you can upload an innocent video that has copyright content in exchange for allowing the copyright holders to include video advertisements.  To me, that is both super fair and provides a path for our Dance Party return!  It’s a bit more work but TOTALLY worth it.

So, with that as background, I introduce the return to Dance Parties with the Austin Boys.  We have two children who love music and love dancing… one of them loves singing and hits the high notes…the other sounds like a drunk background singer at a karaoke bar.  I shall let you decide for yourself which of these two young men will make it to the stage and which will be singing from the cab of a bulldozer.

Five years ago today our littlest man entered the world… it’s amazing to see just how much he’s grown… such a warm, loving and funny spirit. Happy Birthday Doopster! We love you to the moon and back..

There are those who might suggest that a yearly trip to Disney World and another Florida trip would be spoiling our kids.  I submit to you the definition and these pictures to counter that suggestion.  Spoiled: “diminish or destroy the value or quality of.” I can say that our family fun time was neither diminished or destroyed!  Furthermore, we had an incredible parent victory when we successfully walked through two (DID YOU READ THE NUMBER?!) gift stores without purchasing any Legos.  We left LEGOLAND without ANY Legos!  I’m gonna chalk that up as a win.

I’d like to say there was some really amazing excuse why I’ve let go of this blog but the truth is… I’m lazy. I have turned into a Facebook junkie… all of my memories live there… for the world to see… in all their Social Media splendor. I realized tonight though, as I suffered through a short and excruciating two mile run, that the entire purpose of my blog was to capture the beauty that is my life… the original title was “Life’s Messy and Delicious” because that’s what it is! So, I’m hopeful to repurpose some of my Facebook energy to this blog…. and capture the world through my eyes for the boys to enjoy years from now.

True friendship isn’t about being inseparable, it’s about being separated and nothing changes.

This past weekend we were able to retreat back to Albany to visit a few friends and relatives.  We’re sorry we weren’t able to visit everyone but another trip will happen soon!

After a trying election season where we saw some of the most chaotic partisan politics ever, it was nice to be reminded that there are true friends nearly everywhere you look.  After months of not seeing each other, we did what we always do… pick up where we left off… Sure, there are a few who’ve grown (like me and the kids) but we had such a great time… So, my recommendation, if you need a break from this crazy world… call up an longtime friend… it’ll be worth it!

It happened!  Coop turned 4!  In all the chaos of us continuing to work on the house (yes nearly a YEAR after we’ve moved in) we weren’t able to host a kid’s birthday party for him.  Luckily we had a great T-Ball team to celebrate with yesterday and today we’re headed to New York to celebrate with family.

Coop is growing into such a wonderful kind-hearted little man and we couldn’t be more proud.  We asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday yesterday and rattled off a few things.  Go to the movies? An arcade? Nope.  He told us he wanted to “dig in the dirt with Ryan.”  And so, dig in the dirt we did.  He helped me mulch the beds in front of our house and they tackled the giant mountain of dirt behind the house.

We went out to dinner where he celebrated with French Fry Pizza… and broccoli.  Because he’s that kind of kid 🙂

For those of you who have a decent memory, you might remember Mr. Ry-Guy’s bout with generalized epilepsy.  Though the road was challenging, he was able to outgrow them.  We knew there was a possibility that they might return in some form and, in the last few weeks, they have.

The official diagnosis is “absence seizure” where he will go through “lapses of awareness” that typically last less than a second.  We’re going into unknown territory about what the full impact will be and this medicine he will take twice a day can help mitigate the symptoms.

With a little faith and some great doctors, we’ll learn to live with this.  It could be worse, a lot worse….