We ditched Grandma this weekend. With a pizza tucked under our arms and two backpacks of clothes, my husband and I hopped a train bound for London and didn’t look back. Wait, wait, don’t go feeling all sad for Grandma. We left her with a highly trained team of Lowestoft experts—our almost-four-year-old triplets. Now wasn’t that nice of us? Read More…
What should have been a smooth, 7ish-hour mission to fetch Grandma S. from London’s Heathrow airport and bring her back home to Lowestoft turned into a 14.5-hour debacle of cancelled trains, incorrect directions, miscalculations, and missed connections. Factor in the stress of shepherding three almost-four-year-olds through it all and the addition of a jet-lagged, clueless-about-England Grandmother and her two pieces of rolling luggage, and you have a recipe for a Mother Meltdown of epic proportions.
Don’t worry, I didn’t let you down. My meltdown in hour thirteen was truly glorious. Read More…
I know, you can’t get enough of me on this blog, right? Well then, hear me live on the radio this weekend! I’ll be calling in from England to the “Live with Lisa on The Daily Flow” radio show on Mile High Sports Radio AM 1510 this Saturday, November 29, 2008, at 9:00 a.m. MST (8:00 a.m. PST, 11 a.m. EST). “Live with Lisa” is a national radio show “for women and about women that talks about anything women need to know—with a twist of sports from our point of view.” Each week, listeners hear celebrities and locals talking sports, health, family issues, and fitness. This week, I’ll be talking for twenty minutes with Lisa, a personal trainer, and Lisa’s listeners about BIG MOUTH, competitive eating, and eating disorders.
If you’re feeling in the mood, give me and Lisa a call on Saturday at 303-297-1510 or toll free 888-817-1510 with any comments, questions, or random musings about anything food or fitness. Since this show comes on the heels of Thanksgiving gorging, everyone should have food high on their minds!
I’ve spent most Thanksgivings of my life wearing shorts. But this is not most Thanksgivings–heck, it’s not even officially Thanksgiving, which is next week. It is Thanksgiving in England . . . where pumpkin pie filling is as plentiful as the mythical unicorn, where whole turkeys are as easy to find as your car keys when you’re late, and where grocery store clerks look at you like you’re speaking in tongues when you ask, “Which aisle is the cranberry sauce in?” It’s also the place where temperatures of 31 degrees and snow and hail join in the giving of thanks, much to the amazement of three San Diego triplets who’ve never seen either in their lives. For that matter, their native San Diegan parents haven’t seen much of hail and snow, either. Read More…
I’m teaching my sons to moonwalk—and I’m not letting the fact that I don’t know how to moonwalk deter me. My almost-four-year-olds expressed an interest in dance when I scooped them up a few days ago and swung them around to Madonna’s “Beat Goes On”, and I will run with it. Or rather, I will trip and stumble across the living room with it. I’m a pretty heinous dancer, truth be told. Read More…
I forget my anniversary every year. So does my husband. If not for my mom and my friend Melanie sending us cards every year, we’d never know another year in our marriage had ticked by. I’d be equally forgetful about my birthday if it weren’t for the fact that it comes the day after Halloween. My husband’s birthday is a few days before Halloween. His is the one we forget.
This year, we actually DID remember his birthday—just as we, quite coincidentally, sat ourselves down in front of five plates filled with cake. Read More…
Our friend Donna, whom the boys mistook for Madonna a few weeks ago, became our first house guest in Lowestoft. Visiting from her temporary home in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, she brought along her teenage daughter—and a whopper of rainstorm.
We didn’t let the weather deter us from showing our guests the town, though. We learned long ago that Read More…
Grown-ups make a big deal about seeing the Queen’s house when you go to London. Our first piece of advice? Let them think you like it, too. Then they’ll walk you around the whole thing and you’ll see the REAL “big deal”: The guy who sweeps the leaves on the sidewalk around Buckingham Palace. Now that’s royalty.
And that Big Ben guy they keep talking about? He’s a clock. Did you know that? What’s so exciting about a big clock? It doesn’t even have any moving statues like the Astronomical Clock we saw in Prague last week. But Big Ben DOES have Read More…
“Say cheese. Cheeeeese. Cheese? C’mon, say cheese. Just once? Cheese? Please….” I take my camera with me everywhere, and until the boys turned three, this wasn’t a problem. I could get candids and posed shots with equal ease. Now, photos like this one are more the norm. Why? Because I have the audacity to ask my children to stand there and say cheese.
Three-year-olds rarely do what you ask them to do. Read More…
Imagine yourself an earthworm, squiggling on your tummy through dark tunnels no bigger than yourself, far below the earth’s surface, dirt and rock rubbing you on all sides, with nothing for it but to squiggle onward. Me, I don’t have to imagine it—I lived it.
A few years before our triplets were born, my husband and I went caving in central California. We’d gone to the caves fully intending to take a normal walking tour, quite unaware that you could do more, in fact. But a series of strange circumstances landed us in overalls with miner hats on our heads and work boots duct-taped to our feet. Read More…
Now that the U.S. presidential election is over, I’m back to posts about our holiday in the Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic…
I’m sure there’s an official name for this statue in the center of Prague’s Old Town Square, but we Halversons don’t much care. The majority of us are three-year-olds, and the ‘adult’ Halversons rather like making up new names for official statues. So this statue is “The Cranky Man” as far as we’re concerned. Please don’t take this renaming as a sign of disrespect but rather as a testament to just how closely the little boys studied that statue. “Why do all the people in it wook cwanky, Mommy?” See? Art appreciation, with a preschooler twist. Read More…
In celebration of today’s U.S. presidential election, I have been “showing reruns” of my most patriotic posts. “The Presidents and the Potty” was originally posted in February 2008, just after the primary elections, when my triplet sons had just turned three years old.
Many presidents have found that the metaphorical fall from the presidency to the potty is a short one. Maybe that’s why the toilet is also known as “the throne”? My three future presidents, who are now happily playing cars in the living room with underpants on their heads, are no exception to the presidential potty slide. Read More…
In celebration of the pending U.S. presidential election, I’m going to “show reruns” of my two most patriotic posts. I originally posted “Presidents Halverson” during the presidential primaries back in February.
My recent post about my Big Thinker—my future U.S. President—got me to Thinking Big myself: What if ALL THREE of my boys became President? Wouldn’t that be a kick?
It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Read More…
Three-year-old triplets, a two-and-a-half-hour flight from London, no nap, and a nightclub that blares music through your floorboards until 4:00 a.m. Welcome to Night #1 of our adventure in Prague, Czech Republic.
My husband and I thought we were being smart, booking an apartment in Prague instead of a regular hotel room, scoring a kitchenette, living room, and separate bedroom. We could eat breakfast and prepare lunches before setting out on adventures, then duck back and put the boys in bed for naps in the middle of the day while we whipped up quick dinners before hitting the streets again. What could be better?
Alas, that was not to be. Read More…
I do believe I blinked and turned into an ice cube. We just returned to our temporary home in Lowestoft, England, after eight days in freezing Prague and London. Guess what? It’s freezing here, too. Time for a weather report!
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, USA:
Sunny
83°F
Feels Like 78°F Read More…