I Couldn't Make This Up Either

I went to the doctor today (I'm fine, just a routine visit) and as I was checking in I noticed a black Lab wandering around behind the counter. Surprisingly, I've now lived here long enough that at that moment it didn't even strike me as odd that there was a dog (especially a Lab since 95% of the population here owns one, usually two) hanging out. I went on back to the exam room and really didn't give it much thought again until the dog followed the doctor into the room. Can I repeat that for emphasis...followed the doctor into the room. And I guess this is normal practice because the doctor only sent the dog back out because Kyle and Reed were with me. When I was finished, there was the dog sitting at the door waiting for the doctor. I then went to check-out, and guess who was behind the counter. Yep, another dog! I think this one was some kind of Shih Tzu mix since it had an overbite. Now I will say dogs wandering around the doctor's office and behind the counter are quite entertaining for my under 2 crowd. But as I was discussing with my friend, Caroline, as cute as it is to walk into a little boutique and see a "store dog" wandering around, I'm not sure it's cute at all in a doctor's office. In fact, wouldn't you think that's breaking some sort of health code? I mean, is that even legal? Of course it's legal here in Durango, I'll probably be the one who ends up on the Police Blotter for even mentioning it. But dogs at the doctor's office? Surely that's as dog loving as it gets here!

There's Danger and Diagramming Today!

As we were getting toward the end of Tiny Tots today I thought, "Wow. They didn't ask the kids to do anything crazy." But of course, I was wrong. It was about that time the teacher started dragging out the big blue mats. I should know by now that "big blue mats" are really just a way to alert the parents that it's time for the danger portion of class. I couldn't imagine what in the world the kids were going to do as she started setting them up. She stood one mat up on its side leaning it slightly against the wall (so it was about 7-8 feet tall), then left the other mat on the ground. And here were the instructions: climb the mat (Um, there's nothing for them to hold on to) and when you get to the top, turn around and slide down it. (Um, it's pretty much at a 90 degree angle, won't the kids just fall 7 feet to the floor?) Reed was first so I turned to the teacher and said, "I have no idea how this is going to work. What should I do?" She suggested holding Reed at the waist, but he (like me) didn't really understand how to climb the mat without anything to hold on to, so I just kind of pushed him up as far as I could with him sitting in my hands. He then "slid" down (I was holding onto him). Then it was Kyle's turn. I should have known he wouldn't need any assistance since he's able to scale everything in our house. So here's Kyle's turn climbing the mats in diagram form. (Please remember I was trying to make the mat look like it was standing on its side, which requires 3-dimensionalish drawing...and that's pretty mathy, and y'all know how I feel about math.)

Okay, so diagram 1 shows Kyle scaling the mat. He just dug his little feet in and went straight to the top. (And in no way, shape, or form does Kyle have that much hair. I was just trying to show that was the back of his head.)


Diagram 2: Yep, he went straight to the top...and stood up! I would have had to climb the thing myself if I needed to get to him. (And BTW, one of the moms did have to climb it when her son got up there and got scared.) After Kyle stood up and got a bird's eye view of the gym. He sat down and dangled his feet over the side.


Diagram 3: And then he slid down! It was pretty much a half slide/half free-fall drop, but he did it. Twice.

New Title!

So what do you think of our new blog title? It's always bugged me that we didn't have a fun, catchy title. "The Ingy Family" just didn't seem to cut it. I've been trying to come up with something for awhile. And although "Jan" is pretty easy to work with (my favorite I came up with being "Jivin' at the JANBOREE"), I wanted something that included the whole family since they're my main blogging subjects. Needless to say, not only is Ingersoll a mouth full to say, it's also really hard to rhyme and/or use in an alliteration (there's a reason it's always easy to find "I" stationary). Of course I tried to work myself into the new title proclaiming myself Empress of the Ingpire, but I guess that'll just have to be implied.

Hair It Is

Growing up my mom used to tell me that I had to find a husband with good hair because we were just all out of hair genes. Well, I did just that. Jason has all kinds of hair, and luckily so does JR. I know I'm lacking in the hair department, so I wasn't really surprised to see JR's drawing of me only contained 4 strands of hair. I tease, curling iron, velcro roll, and spray it...but JR's right, it does pretty much just look like this:

Now what I wasn't expecting was for JR to already realize how superior that Ingersoll hair really is. And just in case you have any questions who's who, JR has ever so graciously labeled himself.
Really? Bald? He's drawn himself a head full of hair o' fabulous and didn't even give me my 4 strands. These Ingersolls and their hair...it's so amazing others appear bald in their presence. But on the bright side, at least he drew me skinny!

More TXans in CO

We met my cousin, Sarah, and her husband, Steve, bright and early this morning (8:00 AM) for breakfast. They've been vacaying in Colorado and drove through Durango this morning on their way home. As we were getting in our cars to leave, Jason and I were commenting how nice it was for them to stop and see us (especially since they have such a long drive ahead of them today). JR said, "Did they drive all the way from Texas just to have breakfast with us?!" No, JR, I know we're a pretty fun and fabulous family, but even we aren't that fabulous. We took a quick picture this morning (I edited myself out since my eyes were closed) but look how cute Steve, Sarah, and Reed looked. Especially since Sarah and Steve left Ouray this morning at 6:00! (Coincidentally, Reed decided that would also be a good wake-up time for himself....sigh...)

An Ingy Announcement

For those of you who know us well know that "Ingy Announcements" usually mean it's time for us to move again. So, in that fine tradition, I have an Ingy Annoucement for you: We aren't moving. Yep, you read that right...not moving, staying put, settling in. It was officially announced today that Jason's new title/job is "Business Unit Director of the Southern Rockies". Which for the Ingy Family means: get comfy cause we're going to be here for awhile. Of course "be here for awhile" has a lot different meaning for us than most (normal) people, but it does look like we're going to be Durangoans for a bit. Yee-Haw organics, recycling, bicycling, and dog loving...the Ingys are here and all up in your business!

Mary Lou Part 2

Last week I predicted they'd break out the pommel horse at Tiny Tots today. Well, it wasn't the pommel horse; it was the vault. So much easier, right? They were to run up to the vault, jump on the springboard, and land on top of the vault feet first. This happens to be one of the skills JR is still working on in his gymnastics class, so of course it's totally appropriate for the 3 and under crowd. Obviously the babies were never going to be able to jump feet first onto a 4 ft high vault, so basically they stood on the springboard and I slung them up there stomach first. You'll just have to imagine that one since I don't have any artist renditions of that particular apparatus. But what I do have for you is what we looked like when we moved on to the bars. They were to do bat hangs (hang and bring your feet up to your hands) from the high bar. I needed to be in ready position to catch them (since they were hanging 7 feet off the ground), but for some reason I was being attacked by a swarm of gnats. It was about that time I found myself breaking out in a flop sweat. The heat was on in the gym (since it was 45 degrees outside), I was wearing pants and long sleeves (since it was 45 degrees outside), my children were dangling from the bar above me, and I was being mauled by a pack of gnats. And as Jason will confirm, I don't do well with bugs (swarming, crawling, or otherwise). So here we are today. Babies hanging, and me slapping gnats. Thankfully nobody was injured in the hanging/gnat fiasco; we all came out of it unscathed.
(I actually drew this to resemble me swatting gnats, but after looking at it, those gnats could also double as my flop sweat....so really, it works both ways.)