GR NASCAR NUTS

Crazy busy

2010-03-23T02:46:00.002-04:00

We have been so crazy busy since my last blog that I just can't seem to get on the computer to write about it. Of course, I was also sick for a while in there too which doesn't get me in the mood to blog much either.
Some nights we are literally running in circles around this town keeping up with the kids. There was a Friday (3/5) that Stephen was doing a youth group activity so he had to be dropped off at the church around 5:30. Then Rachel was going to a dance at her school so she had to be dropped off at 7 at the other end of town. That left Joshua stuck with Mom and Dad and not much planned. We decided we should blow off some steam so we went to an indoor activity center that has bumper cars, go karts, and lots of video games. We had a blast there until it was time to pick Stephen up at the church at 9 and then back to Rachel's school by 9:30 when the dance ended. Between the church and Rachel's school is probably about 15 miles so you see that it was quite the run around but everyone had a good time so it was worth it for sure.
I was down for a while with a sinus infection. Even after I finished the antibiotic I was struggling with a sore throat. Dr assures me it is just my allergies. Welcome to spring!
We have had quite a bit of spring weather already. The funniest thing is that we had temps in the 60s most of the week before spring started and then on last Saturday when it officially started we awoke to more snow on the ground. It then spent most of the day snowing on Saturday.
This is midterm week so it is keeping the kids, especially Rachel and Stephen, busy. Lots of tests, quizzes, and projects due. Rachel has had an especially heavy load of projects and papers in the last couple of weeks. She is actually in the process of a paper for her Honors Biology class, and she is defending her stand on the origin of life. It is really a huge undertaking! All the kids are looking forward to Spring Break that will be starting here next week. Rachel actually gets an extra day that the boys don't. She has a 1/2 day on 4/1 but the boys still go all day on 4/1 but also have to go for a 1/2 day on 4/2.
We are also working on plans for Joshua's birthday. He was planning to take some friends to a museum that is having a special exhibit called "Big, big, bugs" where they have made huge replicas of different bugs. You sort of get a "Honey we shrunk the kids" type of effect. I figured that would be really cool for young boys. What happens but Joshua's class plans a trip to that museum the week before Spring break so now we are changing plans.
We have had 2 rather unusual experiences since I blogged last and not necessarily good ones. The first happened on a Wed. as I went to pick up the boys from school. None of the kids & teachers were outside when we got there and it was time that they should be. So Rachel & I walked up to the school to go find the boys. Turns out that the entire school was on "lock down". The school had been notified just shortly before the end of the school day that the sheriff had gone to pick up someone on a "mental warrant" and he had bolted when he saw the sheriff in the driveway. This occurred less than a mile from the school as well as 2 other schools. The guy had been known to be aggressive & possibly had a pocket knife. This put all 3 schools on lock down. It was rather good experience to see how well all the teachers handled their responsibilities. They had males (asst. principal, PE teacher, social worker) out patrolling the parking lot to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious. All outside doors were locked and there was only one way in to get to the kids. It was being controlled by the principal and another worker. The sheriff never did catch the guy. It is believed that his girlfriend helped him leave the area.
The second one happened last week (I think it was Thursday). Joshua had finished his homework and went outside to play. He came in and said that there was a WOOD TV 8 news van at the top of the street. I looked at the time and it was 5 which is when they start news coverage. We turned on the TV and they said there had been a shooting at the corner of Ann & Center. We rushed out the door & up to the corner and sure enough here was a ton of cop cars and the intersection completely blocked off. There were lots of stories going around as to what had happened. The final (official) story is that a police man stopped a moped because there were 2 people on it. When the cop asked the driver for ID, he didn't have any & then he took off. The officer got a hand on his jacket but then the guy slipped out of it & took off. The guy went between a couple of houses and when he couldn't make it over a fence, he turned around and pulled a gun on the cop. The officer ended up having to shoot him. Turns out that the guy was a parole absconder. He was wanted for parole violations from last October & wasn't very happy at the idea of getting caught. This would actually have been his 4th strike with such charges as armed robbery as well as drugs. It was a rather strange night. They had the intersection shut down for 4-5 hours and then the next afternoon there were about 4 cars back on the scene. Of course, this is the time of excitement we would really rather avoid. The only positive thing I can say is that it breaks up the normal routine of our lives.
Well, gotta get going. It's mop night here at work & I also haven't gotten any other cleaning done yet. Only an hour and a half before I have to get a resident up and ready for her day so I better get at it. Especially since I have a "newby" here that needs a good example set & I don't want her going around telling others we don't do our work.

Great Wolf Lodge

2010-02-24T00:50:00.001-05:00

Ok. I know it was almost a week ago but we have been recovering from a rather strange weekend. Last Thursday, the family was going to enjoy a one-night vacation. Thanks to a very generous Christmas present, we were going to spend a night at the Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City. This resort has a spectacular indoor waterpark that the kids had always wanted to check out. The kids didn't have school on Friday so we had some time after arriving Thursday evening to use the park & then we could stay & use the park all day Friday even though we had to be checked out of our room by 11 am.
The kids had been looking forward to this ever since Christmas. Stephen counted down everyday for at least the 2 weeks prior to leaving. I wasn't sure that the kids were going to explode in the van waiting for Mark to get us registered and find out where our room was. We simply threw everything in the room & changed into our suits and hit the park.
It is really something! There is a fort for climbing through. There are all sorts of water activities along the way. On top of the fort is a giant bucket that is constantly filling. It actually tips over and spills 1,000 gallons of water every 5 minutes. There is a warning bell when it is about to go over. It was interesting to watch because when the bell rings everyone runs right to where it will dump so they can get soaked. There are also 5 different waterslides, 2 are body slides that you reach from the fort & 3 are tube slides that you go up a seperate set of stairs to reach. These slides are 3-4 stories tall so we definitely got in our stair climbing. They have single & double tubes for 2 slides and the third slide uses triple tubes. The air temp is 84 degrees and the water is all plenty warm. There are also other water activities & pools. They even have 2 hot tubs: 1 for families & 1 for adults only. Joshua was even tall enough that he could do everything he wanted to without having to convince someone to go with him. IT WAS A WONDERFUL TIME!
Like I said we spent several hours there on Thursday evening then went down just after checking out around 10am on Friday morning. I was scheduled to work Friday night so we planned to leave there by 7pm to have plenty of time to get home so I could work. Our plans were changed, however.
Not 5 minutes after giving the kids a 30 minute warning that they were going to have to get out, showered, & dressed, Joshua gave us all quite a scare. I went down a slide in a single tube & Mark & Joshua was following me down in a double. Well, something happened & as they were coming down the slide, Joshua slipped through the hole of the tube too far. He was pinned with his neck between Mark's legs and the tube. Mark did what he could to get him back up but there isn't much you can do while in a winding tube with water splashing all around and carrying you down it. Mark jumped off the tube the second they splashed into the pool and scooped Joshua up. At the pool edge, he set Joshua on his feet & I found a chair a few feet away for Joshua to sit down on. Joshua just couldn't settle down. He was crying and just really upset. I went and got towels and grabbed a floor supervisor. Joshua was to the point that he wasn't responding to our questions. He got to the point where he couldn't catch his breath. By this time, we had the other attention of 2 other supervisors. Now his hands were turning inward in a very strange way and his feet were turning purple. They put oxygen on him but still couldn't get him to slow down his breathing or stop the crying. We finally had them call for an ambulance (I wasn't about to transport him ourselves when there was a possible neck injury.)
Mark ended up riding in the ambulance with Joshua while I got dressed and Rachel & Stephen loaded up our van. Rachel and Stephen did great at getting dressed and loading the van so that we could get to the hospital. Actually, we beat the ambulance because the EMT's took the time to put on a neck brace and put him on a backboard before putting him on the gurney and wheeling him to the ambulance. Rachel was impressed that I knew how to get to the hospital without any problems. But since it is the same place that Mom was for her heart attack & surgery as well as having to take Joshua there probably about 4 years ago when we were at Lake Ann.
Joshua had settle down and was looking pretty good by the time I got to his room at the ER of Munson. The doctor's ordered a full set of xrays. The final verdict was that he had a neck sprain. All bones were fine. When people sprain the neck muscle, the muscles have a tendency to continue having spasms. So we believe that the spasms were either hurting Joshua and/or scaring him to the point that he hyperventilated. He was released about 9:30pm and doctors said that it would be ok for him to ride home that night.
I had already called in because I didn't want to wait to late to call and had no clue as to how long we might be or if they were going to even release him that night. Turns out that I could have gone to work but only been an hour late because we got home about 12midnight. But then again, I was also exhausted & it didn't have to due just with the busy day that we had had. I was just very much emotionally drained. That drainage continued for all of Saturday and most of Sunday. I felt as though I had worked even though I hadn't.
Joshua has been doing very well & is pretty much over it now. He was taking ibuprofen at least twice a day until Tuesday when he was able to go down to once. Then on Wednesday, he didn't have any. I kept him out of gym for Monday but let him do it Wednesday. He is really anxious to get back to playing basketball. He was rather disappointed that he didn't get to do it on Saturday after we got home but he also admitted that he didn't feel up to it either.
So that was our mini winter vacation. It came to a close rather unexpectedly but we really did have a GREAT time other than that.
Well, my time is about up for now. We have cleaning to do & lunches to pack before we get our residents up and finish up our shift.

Different evening

2010-02-12T23:51:00.002-05:00

This was quite the different Friday night for our family. Rachel had her first "hanging out with friends at the mall" night. She wanted to go see the new Percy Jackson movie that came out today with a set of twins from school. Their sister had to go to work at the mall this evening so I got Rachel to their house in time to go with her. The first movie showing was booked so the girls went shopping for presents for another friend that they have a birthday party to go to later this month. She was a bit hyper to say the least when she got home shortly after 10 pm.
Mark had volunteered to take our AWANA grand prix track to Allegan for them to use tomorrow. So he took Stephen with him. They had dinner at Sonic & didn't get back till 10 pm either.
That left Joshua & I at home. We went to Fazoli's for dinner & then Joshua played on the computer & watched TV. I did the usual & fell asleep on the couch watching TV & completely missed the opening ceremonies that I wanted to see. Joshua didn't seem to mind not doing much because he did have the computer and TV to himself, not to mention he was still up when every one got home at 10.
Tomorrow we are going to be scattered throughout much of the day too. We will all go to Joshua's basketball game at 11 am. Then Rachel is going with a family from church to put on a show at a nursing home & hang out at their house for a while. It is homecoming week at Cornerstone so Mark is taking the boys to see the women's and men's basketball games in the afternoon while I get some sleep. I believe Mark & Stephen are going to see a movie then in the evening.
You better believe that Sunday will be much more settled at home as the boys are all looking forward to Daytona. Stephen was really excited that I had the Gatorade Duels on when he came home Thursday afternoon. He was able to watch the second one which is the one that Tony was in anyway. So now that football is over, it is on to NASCAR.

Another snow day

2010-02-12T01:56:00.002-05:00

Well, the kids had another snow day this week. It started Tuesday morning and kept up snowing till Wednesday morning. We received around 10 inches and some blowing. Truly, it wasn't horrible Wednesday morning but it was the infamous "Count Day" in the state of Michigan. This is the day that official counts have to be done at all schools and it determines how much money the school will get from the state. I think most of the schools were concerned that parents would just decide to keep the kids home even though it wasn't too bad and their counts would be low. So they closed on Wednesday and that made today "Count day". By mid-morning Wednesday, the sun was out and it looked very pretty (of course, it would have been prettier if it were still Dec.).
Things were so much better that they even decided to have our normal Wednesday services. The policy is usually if schools are closed, so is church but that changed. This wasn't a good thing for me because I was making cakes for our Pastor's birthday for Wed. evening and they weren't done. There was a problem at work Tues. evening so they didn't get done there. I had to cut my sleep short and was a bit late but they did get done & he really liked them. I ended up making 2 cakes both being 1/2 sheet size and double layer. It seemed like a ton of cake but we only had 1/3 of one left so I was happy.
If you happened to try calling the house phone for the past 2 days, you couldn't get through. We were in the process of dropping our landline but we don't quite know why it took 2 days to get the port of our house phone number to the new cell phone. Here's the $ saving plan the we are trying: We have cancelled our landline but purchased a new cell phone and added it to our plan. That cell phone is to stay at the house and become the house phone. Good news is that it even has the old house phone #. So we are saving by not paying for the landline ($40-$50) & when we went to add the new cell phone, we were told that the same plan had dropped $20/month so we are still saving $10 on the cell bill even with another line. The only thing going up $10 is our DSL line for our internet service. All total, we should be coming out ahead each month. We can also now receive text messages at the house #. So if you like texting that is fine too. Every little savings helps, right?
Not much else to tell you about right now. Work is work & we are still busier than we know how to handle. Mark's dad is staying with Mark's aunt for a while so that has settled down a bit. There may still be more to deal with there but for now our focus is on pressing concerns and responsibilities right here.

Time to brag!

2010-02-05T00:31:00.002-05:00

That is a parent's rights, right? Report cards came home last week. All 3 kids did very well!
This is Joshua's first year getting letter grades & he did well. There are a few improvements that need made but nothing very major. (Most of it is even behavioral, not knowledge problems.)
Stephen was on the Honor Roll again this quarter. He also made a program called TCB which stands for Taking Care of Business. This focuses more on responsibilities and behavior. Each quarter that he makes this they have a party of some sort for the kids then if he makes it at least 3 of the 4 quarters, he could spend a school day at Cedar Point. So far this year, he has done it 2 quarters. I don't know if I posted it earlier but he is also doing 8th grade math this year like Rachel did. He should go on to algebra next year and stay a year ahead the rest of the way. He also did a paper at the end of last semester that was very impressive. It was graded in both history & English and he received excellent scores in both. It actually surprised his teachers and us at how well he did on it. He didn't even ask for much help which made us a bit nervous but he evidently didn't need it.
Rachel took her first finals that will be following her throughout the rest of her schooling. She ended up with a 3.74GPA. Not too shabby! She was a bit disappointed in a C+ that she received on one final but since it was in her college level history class, we can't hardly complain. The fact that 4 of those classes are all advanced for her grade level adds to the impressiveness to me. She will also know more of how and what to study next time. She was invited to an honors party at the school tomorrow. It is for everyone with a 3.0GPA or higher who also didn't receive any referrals (demerits). There were only 40 kids invited to it so that is pretty cool. They will even be giving away some gift cards.
OK...I guess that is enough bragging! Rachel says I embarrass her when I talk about her grades but then again, she is a teenager I always embarrass her!
On to other things: Mark's dad is being released from a hospital tomorrow. He had to be taken in due to a severe blood sugar drop almost 2 weeks ago. They have also now discovered the start of heart failure & dementia. As you can imagine, this has been a difficult situation for us. Mark has made 2 trips over to the Detroit area during this time which has been a bit overwhelming with our already busy schedule. For the time being, Bob is going to go stay with his sisters' "Up North". It is even more stressful as there was nothing discussed or put in place ahead of time and Mark & his sister are not necessarily in agreement with what Mark's aunts want to do. We are having to take this all one day at a time to see just how well he can get with new medications. It is also getting us busy making things are set up for Mark's mom as well as for ourselves.
Mark & I were a bit disappointed that Rachel didn't try out for the school musical this week. She just isn't confident in her singing ability. She is a lot better then she thinks. She did, however, contact last years science teacher and is making plans to help coach the 8th graders for the science olympiad this year. If you remember, she did well last year & helped her team go from the regionals to the state competition.
Rachel's Monday elective this semester is "Creative writing/Journalism". I think this should be good for her. At least, it will give her some creative outlet & she is such a reader, I'm sure she probably has lots of ideas.
We are still praying concerning a first shift opportunity for me. I have put in some applications/resumes but no nibbles yet. The one that I would most like to get that I have applied for is a school secretary position. They may be bringing another one on at Rachel's school which would be great but also they are starting another prep (charter) high school at the north end of town & they are going to need someone there too. I would be happy with either.
Well, time for bed checks & I have other things to do on the computer tonight. I need to make the best of the time I'm awake here so I better post this and move on.

Last weekend...

2010-01-21T00:25:00.002-05:00

was not exactly a good weekend around our house. I received a call from the boys' school about a 1/2 hour before school was out saying that Joshua had thrown up & needed picked up. Turns out that he was having trouble at both ends and couldn't even keep water down the rest of the night. I ended up calling in at work which was good because he and I were up most of the night. Finally about 3 am, he started holding down liquids so then I could give him some Tylenol for the headache he had. Not sure if the headache was from the virus or if he was getting dehydrated but it hurt pretty bad. We kept him on clear liquids all day Saturday then started a bland diet on Sunday. By Monday, he was all better & back at school. It was some kind of virus that hit him but fortunately it didn't last too long & even more important, the rest of us have been fine.
It was a real concern that he didn't pass this around the house because this is the end of the marking period for everyone. Stephen has had several mid-terms this week & Rachel has been dealing with finals. This is really the first time that she has had major finals and of course being in 9th grade, these are the first ones that will follow her the rest of her educational career. We didn't need either of them sick & thankfully they haven't gotten it. Rachel has 4 finals down and 2 to go tomorrow morning. She'll be done by 11 am and have a long weekend to rest up from them. Grades from the first 2 were both B's but overall, she ended up with and A in Honors Biology & a B+ in Spanish II. This gives here a 3.65 GPA at this point. I'll be surprised if that doesn't go up higher when all is said and done for the semester.
Other than Joshua's flu, it was a rather normal weekend. Rachel had a birthday party to attend Friday evening (another one this Friday too) and Mark & Stephen went to a Griffens' hockey game on Saturday. That was supposed to include Joshua but didn't for obvious reasons. They were able to bring him home a jersey that was the gift for the first 1200 kids that night though. (Mark has a friend that has season tickets that pulled some strings.)
This week has been a bit tough on me though. I have had to work Mon-Thur nights & Rachel has had 1/2 days Tues, Wed, & tomorrow. This means that she needs picked up at 11am which makes my sleeping a bit interrupted. Fortunately, I'll have the weekend to rest up.
That's about all the news from here.

Nothing much

2010-01-14T01:16:00.002-05:00

Well, I haven't blogged because there hasn't been much to say. Kids are back in school. Mark & I are busy with work. We are just back into the normal routine of things.
Rachel did miss 2 days of school last week due to severe congestion. When her head backs up it just really backs up. She couldn't breathe well & was draining like a faucet both of those days. She was able to get caught up fairly easily though. She is also preparing for her finals next week. It is sort of a nice method they have for doing it at her high school. She only takes 2 finals a day and then has the rest of the day off for Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday. She then should have some quiet time before the boys come home to study for the next days finals.
Next Friday is Records day for all 3 kids so they will be home. Actually, they are hoping to go tubing from 10-1. Then Stephen has a basketball party from 2-5 & Rachel has a birthday party for some twins from 5-9. So I would say it is going to be a rather busy day.
So that is about it for us. Nothing big. We are healthy & fine so not much to write about. Maybe I'll have some exciting grades to write about soon. Also, there are tryouts for a musical at Rachel's school in early Feb. Will keep everyone informed on those as things develop.

Quiet Christmas

2009-12-30T00:51:00.002-05:00

We have enjoyed a rather quiet Christmas holiday. I actually had Christmas Eve and the rest of the weekend off from work. Santa did make a stop at our house with a few items for each person even though our main gift for the family was the laptop that we didn't wait till Christmas to start using.
Mark's mom came for a visit on Saturday morning till Monday afternoon. We enjoy her visits and she is a great help with getting caught up on dishes and laundry which is never ending around our house.
The weather was such that on Christmas Eve, Mark & I almost hit a parked car directly across from our house head-on. There had been some mix of light precipitation throughout the day so the side roads were turning very slick. As much as we always enjoy the Christmas Eve service at our church, we didn't feel that we could chance wrecking a vehicle to go so we stayed home. Our candlelight service was held with a Gaither Homecoming Christmas in Atlanta (I saw a little of it but slept through most.).
Mark did get to use his snowblower again over the weekend. It was debatable as to whether he should bother with the blower or just use a shovel but the blower it was. No one was predicting much but we did end up with a couple of fresh inches here & there.
I have been back to work since Sunday evening so not much excitement for this week. I have Wednesday off but then back to work for New Year's Eve & the weekend.
The kids go back to school on Monday & we will all be getting back into the routine of things around here. Stephen is done with basketball (at least through school) so that should lighten up on some of the evening activities & running around that we had during Nov. & Dec. We haven't decided if we are signing Stephen & Joshua up for more basketball through the Y during their next session. We would sort of like to though because it is exciting to see their improvement each session.
That's about it for here. All's relatively quiet & I rather hope to keep it that way. I would really prefer that to some of the other options (illness, injuries, & such).

Survived

2009-12-23T03:19:00.002-05:00

Well, we are all surviving this busy season. The puppet performance at church went very well. All three of our kids are developing into quite the little puppeteers.
Rachel turned 15 on Sunday. She had a party last night. We let her have 5 friends over from school. It got rather noisy around our house with 6 teenage girls. They watched videos & tried to make gingerbread houses. The Longenberger mold came in rather handy. Unfortunately, the houses didn't stay together very well. Ended up each girl took a part of the house and decorated it separately. Of course, that did make them all happy because they all had plenty of sugar in the decorations. I think Rachel had a good time!
Now we are focused on all the last minute preps that always need done. So not much out of the ordinary here. I am actually working until Wednesday night then will have 3 nights off. I will be working the New Year's holiday this year instead of the Christmas weekend. Some jobs just don't come with time off for holidays. The residents still need care.
Well, that is about it for now. Guess I just am not very "chatty" tonight but wanted to try to make sure it wasn't too long between posts.

Try again...

2009-12-15T01:31:00.002-05:00

Well, I am going to once again try to start blogging regularly. I am hoping that it will be able to be a much more regular occasion because we finally did it...we broke down and got a laptop. We just really felt it would be beneficial to all of us, especially the kids. Our desktop is so old it doesn't have the software the kids need for school projects not to mention it is sooooooooooooo slow that it takes forever to do anything. When you have 2 that have lots schoolwork that requires either research or to be done on software it gets pretty frustrating. Of course, the only time I am actually awake enough to blog is when I have to be here at work. I won't go into all we went to get this laptop on Black Friday because that is a major blog in by itself.
It was so nice to see all the family for brother Mark's 50th! I just wish that it had been for longer. So many to visit with and so little time!
We are all doing fine since then. Busy is really an understatement to our lives right now. I hardly know where to start telling you about all that is going on. I am so glad that the kids didn't start sports till now. That seems to have added so much to our already busy schedule. We are so glad that the both boys are in basketball and are thrilled to see their improvements over the last year but I'm not sure I could have handled this for too many years.
Also adding to the craziness of this time of the year is the weather. We went from having no snow at all to getting 9 inches over night (forecasts were for 1-4 inches). That was the first week of December and all the kids got a snow day. Then last week we had a 3-4 day storm (near blizzard). The administrators just didn't know what to do with themselves. Ended up that Stephen & Joshua had 3 days off while Rachel only had one day off. One of the days she went may also not even count toward the states required hours because not enough kids were in attendance. In the 10 years that Rachel has been going to school, I don't remember a single year that they have had 4 snow days for the whole year. Now it is only December & they have already had 4! Or 2 in Rachel's case! This week now we have had 2 days of above freezing temps which has brought rain & fog. Today we are headed back below freezing & the lake effect is starting up again. None of my kids' school closed this fall for the flu though so we did bypass those days off. There are some systems in the area that I think used up all the "Snow days" as "flu days" this fall. Those kids may be in school till 4th of July next summer.
The snow days have also affected the basketball schedule which in turn dominoes and affects all the rest of our carefully planned out activities. It did, however, give Stephen lots of time for a research paper he had due this week.
Now don't expect something every night because I do sometimes get nights off, not often, but occasionally. And also, like I said, I have to share it, especially for homework. I also have other things I like to do when I have the chance too.
Love to all who actually keep checking on our family.

Where to start...

2009-05-28T09:08:00.002-04:00

I know it has been FOREVER since I blogged last. Sorry about that. It isn't that we don't have anything to write about either. The problem is that we are so busy doing, it is hard to find time to write. Now, if someone would like to donate a laptop to my family so I could blog from work, I would promise to blog much more often. It seems lately, that if I'm not at work I'm either sleeping or busy doing & not doing much sitting at the computer either. I'll try to bring you all up to speed but I'll do it in short bursts so as to not tire all of you out=)
I should probably start with the fact that we are all fine. Rachel had a bad case of strep throat last week but other than that, we have all been healthy. Kids have just a week left of school before their summer vacation starts & they are anxious for that.
I figure I should probably start with an update on the state Science Olympiad that Rachel qualified for that I had mentioned previously. It was held at MI State University on May 2. We had to meet the bus at the kids' school to leave @ 6 a.m. We left Stephen & Joshua with Gramma @ our house & boy, is it a good thing we did! It was a full day! Rachel competed in 3 competitions, same as at regionals: ecology, crave the wave, & pentathalon. There were 48 schools from around the state competing that day. Our school came in 28th overall which isn't the greatest but yet the fact that we were even at the state level competition was a big deal. Rachel ended up placing 16th, 19th, & 24th (I think). So no medals this time. However, there were 2 competitions that our school did medal in which is not too bad for our first showing. Overall, it was a lot of fun & a great experience for us all! They're talking about changes to the program that would allow up to 5 9th graders to come back & compete next year & Rachel piped right up & said to count her in for that.
Speaking of Rachel, next Thursday (June 4th) is her 8th grade graduation! They make quite a big deal out of it at this school which I am not used to but can rather understand. Most schools the kids will all be together for the following years in high school. Not so with the charter schools. The kids are all from many different school districts & will now be scattered next year as they enter high school. It is rather tough when you realize some of these kids have been together for the last 9 years. You are all invited if you would like to come!
Well, I think that is enough to start with. I hope to get back on later today to tell you about Rachel & my trip to DC a couple of weeks ago. Right now, though, laundry is calling!

So proud, we might bust

2009-03-24T03:03:00.003-04:00

Our children have us so proud of them that we could just about bust. This is the real reason I wanted to blog but figured I better give the other post as an update first.
Stephen & Joshua are both on YMCA basketball leagues again this 8-week session. They are both improving with leaps & bounds. It is really amazing to watch their progress from week to week. Who knows, maybe in the future, March Madness will have a greater meaning for all of us.
As for Rachel, all of the 8th graders at the school have spent the last 8 weeks studying different subjects for the regional Science Olympiad. Only 15 of them make the final team but all students are required to study & help build projects & attend the day of the competition. Rachel was sure that she wouldn't be competing but would just be there as a helper/coach for the day. The teacher has access to previous years tests for certain categories. By giving those & seeing their building skills, he chooses the 15 for the team & there is also criteria that has to be followed such as each person competing in at least 2 categories & also time schedules to consider. Well, when all was said & done, Rachel was chosen for 3 competitions: ecology, crave the wave, & a pentathalon. The first 2 are tests that she took with one other teammate. The last was her working with a team of 3 others to do 5 different activities that included both physical challenges as well as answering science questions.
The regional competition was last Saturday at Grand Valley State University. There were a total of 55 junior high/middle schools competing. Rachel did excellent! She came in with an 8th place (ecology), 11th place (crave the wave), and 17th place (pentathalon). Turns out that they give medals to the 8th place so she even came home with a medal.
Since this was our first time at the Science Olympiad, we didn't realize that the top 10 schools overall are then invited to go to the state competition. When we found that out it didn't seem too exciting because our school had only gotten 4 medals and most of them were around 7th or 8th place. We had only 1 first place. To everyone's amazement, including the coach/teacher, our school came in 10th place! The school is officially invited to send a team to the state competition! This is the first time in our school's 10 year history to have that honor! WOW! To have Rachel go from not even thinking that she would make the competing team to now having a medal & a chance to compete on a state level. It is really exciting! Science isn't even one of Rachel's major areas of interest but she applied herself anyway & now has great memories/honors to be proud of.
Of course, this means another 6 weeks of hard study, as the state competition is on May 2nd at MSU in East Lansing. The other thing is that her study time will have to be after school & not during science class now as they will be moving on to other areas of study & she'll have regular classwork to do in there as well as keeping up with all her other course work.
So, it should be pretty clear why Mark & I are so proud of these kids we have been blessed with. Now, I have something else to tell you that I am also rather proud of before I sign off of this post. My husband has lost 60# & 10 inches off his waist since last September. He has been logging everything he eats so he is watching his calories & eating much healthier. He also works out 5-6 days a week. We are currently participating in a challenge through the Y that keeps us motivated in our working out. Mark even goes mall walking during his lunch hours on days that he knows he won't be able to go to the Y in the evening. He still has a long way to go but he knows he didn't get this way overnight so it isn't coming off overnight either. Also, the way he is doing it is a lifestyle that the whole family can live with instead of a fad that no one can stick with for their entire life. I am really proud of all he is doing to keep himself around for our family as long as possible. We know this is no guarantee but it should help to ward off problems with his heart, diabetes, & all those other problems that arise with being overweight.
Well, I guess that is about it for now. I have to go make lunches for residents & do some cleaning before I get a resident up for work in a little while. I have been reading this while typing it, but if any of it doesn't quite make sense, remember what time I am doing this at=)

First week of March

2009-03-24T02:37:00.002-04:00

So it has been awhile again since I have blogged & we have some updating to do. That first week of March was really a stressful week. I went Sunday to Alpena (after getting some sleep since I worked Saturday night). I was able to be there for Mom's shoulder surgery which went rather well. She was a bit disappointed when she woke up & had a sling on her arm because she knew that meant that the dr. had done some work on the rotator cuff which meant longer recovery time. I then came home to GR on Tuesday in time to pick up the kids from school. Tuesday's are always hectic in the evenings & this was no exception.
While in Alpena, we learned that Pauline Joder had passed away. It was tough on Mom to know that she couldn't travel for the funeral. You could tell by the look on her face, she was trying to figure if she could handle it or how to work around not being able to drive. I told her that I would make arrangements to go to the visitation at least which was Wednesday (funeral was Thursday). Since the children had 1/2 day on Thur & Parent/Teacher Conferences, I knew that the funeral would not work out at all. My husband was concerned with my doing more travelling by myself, so he took the day off & we travelled to Fort Wayne together on Wednesday. It was rather nice having a day to spend together. The Joders were all very thankful that we came. They kept calling me "Melanie-Pooh". I did pretty good at recognizing everyone except for calling Holly, Cheryl (her mom's name). It was a pleasant visit considering the circumstances.
One thing I hadn't considered in my planning to attend the visitation, was the amount of fresh flowers, particularly roses, that would be in that small of an area. These are becoming my worst migraine triggers. The minute I walked in the room, I could feel one coming on. (I haven't even been at church for a couple of months because of renovations that are creating migraines.) I wasn't about to just say "hello, sorry she's gone" and walk out again when it had been so long since I had seen them and we had driven 3 hours to get there. So I was extremely miserable by the time we left there which made it a very good thing that Mark had come with me so he could drive home.
The other news of the week was that we also had a resident pass away that week. His visitation & funeral lined right up with Pauline's. Mark & I considered going to the visitation on the way home from Fort Wayne but I was in no shape to expose myself to more flowers. Actually, by the time we got back almost to GR, my chest felt heavy & tight. This really bothered Mark so we went to the ER to have it checked out. We were there till 2AM to have them tell us everything was fine. There was no signs of any heart problems or blood clots (they looked for these since I had been travelling so much that week.). I have also had a stress test since then & it pretty much confirmed that it was probably just the major migraine that caused the problem.
Then on Thurs, the kids had a 1/2 day due to parent teacher conferences at school & then they had no school on Friday. So that was how we started March. I ended up calling in to work on Tues. & Wed. that week but now everything is back to just the normal stress of everyday living. More to blog but will make it a separate post.

Nothing to blog about...

2009-02-25T18:51:00.005-05:00

Dad's wondering if I have had nothing to blog about this month & that why I haven't posted. Not at all. Actually we have been so busy that I hardly know where to start as well as haven't had the time & energy to blog. I'll try not to be too boring as I catch you up.

Stephen took his turn being sick a couple of days this month. Then Mark had to get in on the act. Although instead of being sick, he decided on something different. One Sunday afternoon about 3 weeks ago, Mark tripped in our bedroom. He put his hand out to catch himself & did on our closet door. His middle finger on his left hand really hurt after he did it but we just thought it a little jammed because he could still move it. By Monday, it was swollen to almost twice the size it should be and his range of motion was limited. So he spent 3 hours that evening at the med center & came home wearing a 1/2 cast most of the way up to his elbow. They told him is was broke. He followed up with his dr. on Thursday that week only to be told it "might" not be broke but to keep wearing the cast. He then had to have it re-xrayed 10-14 days after the incident. He did that and called Monday to find out the results. They now tell him that there is a sliver of bone lodged next to the knuckle. So, evidently, he somehow chipped the bone. He was now told he has to wear this 1/2 cast for 4 weeks. He isn't really thrilled with that thought. The swelling is down but he still doesn't have much movement & it really hurts when it gets bumped.

The most exciting part of the month was that Rachel performed in the middle school musical that she has been practicing for since late October. She was the jester in "Once Upon a Mattress". It was a very extensive role & she did a wonderful job. The whole production was wonderful! We were really impressed with Rachel. She had several special parts & did great in both the singing & choreography as well as speaking parts. She looked great in a dress that Mom made for her.

We didn't tell Rachel but we had invited some special friends over to our house for a post-production party at our house. We ended up with 6 people coming to congratulate Rachel on a great job on her performance. It was a rather fun time.

I am currently unable to attend our church. That's why I have time to blog right now. The rest of the family is at the Wednesday evening programs. The church has been having some renovations done to turn a room in the basement to more of a mini-auditorium. They did lots of things including adding sound-proofing, painting, and new carpets. I did fine while they were tearing things out but when they started putting new things in, I started having problems with the odors. I am getting much more sensitive to odors & they give me worse migraines. I am having problems in other places as well but currently church is the worse place. Both Sunday & tonight I went & tried to stay but couldn't handle it for long. Hopefully, the weather will get nice soon so they can open up the church more & get it aired out.

I have still been working 32-40hours a week on third shift. I really enjoy the work. The residents are all so special & it's not hard to get really attached to them. Currently we have one from our house in the hospital. His family is spending every day with him but since he is unable to communicate verbally, Harbor House is providing an aide for him every night. Last night, I spent 10 hours with him so his family could go home & get some rest. It is a special part of the services that HH offers & I was happy to minister to the family this way. The update this afternoon said that Jason may have to have surgery tomorrow or soon due to a bowel obstruction. He also is dealing with pneumonia. The family appreciates all prayers for him.

The kids are all doing well at school. We have parent/teacher conferences again next week. I don't expect any problems. Rachel & Stephen both made honor roll for the second quarter of the year. Joshua is still struggling in a few areas but nothing major. His biggest struggle is with remembering to bring homework home & return it the following day.

Grand Rapids is at 104 inches of snow for the season. Just another 3 inches and we will have the second snowest season on record. What's interesting is that we just set that record yesterday. HHHMMM...2 years of record setting snowfall...someone explain to me again about global warming! My husband isn't complaining though because it makes his

Hanging in there...

2009-01-28T03:02:00.002-05:00

I'm busy as usual. Kids are taking turns with minor bugs getting them down for a few days here & there. Joshua started it with a strange virus that gave him stomach cramps & loose stools for 5 days. Now that he is better, Rachel is down. She had cramps & an upset stomach over the weekend. Then starting Monday afternoon, she has had problems with headaches, earaches, & dizziness. I don't know if she'll make it to school yet tomorrow. I really hope so. So far Stephen, as well as Mark & I, are fine & we hope to keep it that way. I'm just really tired from working 3rd shift & not sleeping well during the days because of dealing with sick kids & other appointments.
I guess appointments is where you would say that Stephen is keeping my hopping. He developed very red, dry skin on both hands most of the way to his elbows back in October. By Thanksgiving, I decided he needed to be seen. The dr. gave us some cream which helped for a while but then it got rather bad again . It was miserable to look at. When the cream Rx ran out, I called the dr. back & said that I either wanted a different Rx or a referral to a dermitologist. I got the referral & less than a week later we were in to see a dermitologist specializing in psoriasis & ezema. Stephen now goes for special light treatments 2x per week. Fortunately, we are able to go in after school & don't even have to have an appointment.
2 weeks & counting for Rachel's musical performance! On Feb. 10th she will be the minstrel in the middle school production of "Once Upon a Mattress". I have to make another lute for them to use. Fortunately, I thought they might need a second one so I kept all the leftover pieces from the first to use toward a second one if needed. I still haven't figured out how to make it have a strap attached to it to wear it like a guitar. Mom has made her a beautiful costume though it has some kinks I have to work out yet too.
The weather has finally settled down a bit. We were getting hit with a good amount of snow every 2-3 days for a couple of weeks. Then it went completely frigid for most of a week. Now, we haven't had more than just a few flakes here & there for over a week & we are just barely below normal for temps. The snow machine is supposed to start up here again. According to tonights 8 day forecast, we are supposed to get at least some every day for the next week. They did have one 32 degree forecast in there!
I don't remember if I put this in the blog yet or not but I'M GOING TO WASHINGTON D.C. in May! After school started up again after the holidays, it came to light that I had made it to the top of the waiting list of chaperones & a seat became available. We leave GR late in the afternoon on May 12, sleep on the bus overnight. Then we are in DC for the 13th, 14th, most of the 15th. We return to GR early on May 16th sleeping on the bus coming home as well. I figure I won't have a problem sleeping on the bus since this body can now sleep most anywhere at anytime when it is tired. Rachel may not be as fortunate in that category but then again, she's going to be so excited it will probably keep her from sleeping too. I have already got the time off approved from work & am saving up my PTO so that I will still get a paycheck while I am gone.
We have also been busy researching area high schools. We really don't want Rachel going to GR Public next year. At least not the neighborhood one that she is supposed to go to. We are looking at outlying districts to do as a school of choice. It is nice that 3 charter schools just held a HS fair where lots of area schools, public & private, had tables & you could talk over the pros & cons of each with representatives. This was the first year they held it & it was rather interesting. We think we know which school we would prefer she go to, now it is a matter of prayer to see if God wants her there. She is also going to do a "shadow day" with a girl she knows in that school to get a feel for the school. That will have to wait till after she is better & the musical is over though. We are going to attend a few more meetings & possible tour some other schools just to make sure we are taking a fair look at all the options.
Can't think of much else to write about right now. I don't want to get into the car struggles we've had lately. That is a bit of a downer. Just a constant matter of prayer.

Blogging from work...

2009-01-12T04:02:00.003-05:00

I have a laptop with me at work tonight & was able to get it connected to the internet here so I can actually blog here tonight. The laptop belongs to the guy that Mark does accounting work on the side for. What is strange is that other times I have had it here, I haven't been able to get the wireless connection to work but tonight it does.
We are all doing just fine. All of us are doing well at getting back into the routine now that the holidays are over and the kids are back in school. The way the kids were intentionally irritating each other, it is a good thing that school is back up and running. Some of the area kids had an extra day or two on the end of their holiday break as well as starting the break early. Fortunately, that wasn't ours. It was really time for mine to get away from each other again.
The weather has been rather crazy this winter. We have already been "snowed in" more this winter than we are on most. We actually missed church 3 weeks in a row. It was cancelled complete the Sunday before Christmas. The week between the holidays was only morning worship, it was cold, & we decided we wanted some more family time. Then last week we weren't about to chance the ice even though it was open. If you've seen the slope to our road & saw the glare of ice it was, you'd understand. I came home from work & knew I wasn't venturing out again. We did make it to evening service since it had warmed up enough to melt the ice some. Their talking a winter storm watch to start this afternoon through tomorrow morning then artic temps for most of the rest of the week. That means inside recesses, oh fun! At least Joshua spent some time outside this weekend both shoveling with Mark & just for fun, playing with a neighbor boy.
Well, about time to go. I have some laundry to fold & cleaning to do before I get a resident up shortly after 5 a.m. We should have the computer for the next 2 weeks so I hope to bring it so I can blog more during that time.

Holidays are over...

2009-01-02T11:05:00.004-05:00

The holidays are done & we have enjoyed them in a nice quiet ways. Mom was here to visit from Dec. 17-22. Then Mark's mom came on 12/24 till 12/27. Other than that, it has been just our little family. I have had to work off & on throughout the holidays, including Christmas Eve but Mark has had some extra time off.
I actually started off the new year very sore. On my way into work on 12/30, I took quite a spill on some ice in the parking lot. I guess that's what I get for actually parking where I'm supposed to instead of up by the house, where I sometimes do. I went down on my back hitting back, shoulder, & head all just slightly to my right side instead of smack center. I went in & actually worked my shift after dosing up good on ibuprofen. I reported the fall before I left work then decided I better get checked out before the holiday & the weekend. The dr. put me on some weight restrictions but did clear me to work. He said that it mostly looked like muscular bruising & nothing skeletal. Since then, I haven't had to work but go back tonight. The most painful area has been my neck but even it is coming along rather well this morning. Not a fun way to finish a year or start a new one but it could have been worse.
The kids go back to school on Monday. They got an extra day of vacation as they had a snow day on Dec. 19. The teachers were evidently really hoping for the snow day as most of them starting talking about it on Wed. that week & most of them did they fun party type activities on Thurs. I don't know what they would have done if the snow hadn't come.
We were late getting our Christmas decorations out but I think we'll try to get them down before the kids return to school. The schedule will be hectic again in just a few days so better to do it while I have the help.
Well, Rachel is wanting the computer & there is plenty waiting to get done around here. Hope you all had great holidays!

Busy with Snow, Snow, and More Snow

2008-12-21T09:09:00.002-05:00

Hi! This is Rachel (for once).
We have had a very busy past week. On last Sunday, the boys had their CHRISTmas play @ church. On Monday, my musical practice was canceled because of the snow. (Thats 1). Mom, Dad, and the boys had to still go to the last puppet practice before the performace. On Tuesday, I had to deliver the Advance newspaper, go to an appointment, and then finish delivering while everyone else went to the Y for Joshua's swimming lesson. Wednesday was the usual bussiness only Grandma Joyce was here too now. We had the puppet performace for the Awana kids. I taped it with the heavy camera above my head. That hurt. But we did have a little time to celabrate Mom's 40th birthday. Thursday was our band concert, but Dad had to go the Y for basketball practice. Friday we woke up to find that we had a snow day. (Thats 2). I was also supose to have my birthday party, but no one could make it. But Mom and Dad took just me and we went and saw the movie The Boy With The Striped Pajamas. That was sad. Then we went to Denney's for dinner, then to Cold Stone for ice cream, and then to Blockbuster to rent videos. When we got home, Mom went to work, everyone else went to bed, and I stayed up and watch movies. Then yesterday, (my 14th birthday) we had to go to the school because Stephen had 2 basketball games. Then all of us went to Cold Stone. After that Mom, Dad, and Grandma went to a banquet leaving me to babysitt my brothers. Not a fun birthday. Today, we got up and got ready for church. JUST before Mom got home from work and Dad got home from going to Lowes to pick up the snow blower that we bought yesterday, we got an e-mail saying that church was closed. (And thats 3). The reason I was saying thats 1,2,3 was because there has been three things canceled because of SNOW. We are getting dumped on and its not supose to stop until AFTER CHRISTmas. Grandma is supose to go home tomorrow. That might not happen. Well maybe now that church is closed we can finally get out the CHRISTmas decortions out, along with the tree. Well I have got to go.

Survived Tuesday

2008-11-19T16:08:00.002-05:00

and that was rather "iffy" for a while. Here was yesterday's itinerary: After getting about 5 1/2 hours sleep, I picked up Stephen, Joshua, & Sarah (neighbor girl) from school @ 3:15. I actually made sure I was there when they got out so we could get everything accomplished. Rachel stayed at school for musical practice. The boys had a quick snack & then we had to deliver the Advance Newspaper that we do once a week. The fact that it was cold out made it easy to motivate them to keep up a quick pace so they had time for hot cocoa. We did have approx. 15 minutes after we arrived home for us to enjoy a cup while the boys worked on homework. It was then back in the car to run out to the school to pick Rachel up from practice. The kids & I swung by a Little Ceasar's to pick up their hot & ready pizzas for dinner. As soon as Mark arrived home we had approx. 20 minutes to eat dinner. Then I dropped Mark & Rachel off at the school. Mark had a parent committee meeting at 6:30 & Rachel had to be there by 6:45 for Parent Awareness Night. The boys & I proceeded to the Y where Joshua had swimming lessons from 7-7:45. After a quick shower, we headed back to the school. Parent Awareness Night continued till 8:30 so Mark & I had a few minutes to go around and see some presentations that the kids had prepared on issues that teens are having to deal with such as alcohol abuse, cutting, suicide, teen pregnancy, & more. It was all very interesting. (Rachel did hers on teen pregnancy.) I did have about 1/2 to sit & rest after the kids finally got to bed before I had to go to work. So that was our Tuesday! Most of the time, life isn't quite that hectic but it does seem as the kids are getting older that they are happening a little more often.
Other than that, Mark has been struggling with a cold for 2 weeks now. We haven't been at the Y as much because it is hard to work out when you can't breathe. As you may have noticed, Joshua is now in swimming lessons. Stephen is now signed up for a Y basketball league. The practices are on Thurs evenings. This is also keeping Mark busy as he is the coach of the team. The first night of practice there was no coach so Mark stepped up to coach so they wouldn't cancel the team. They had the first game last Saturday & they lost. Also, Mark & I are now directors for the puppet team at church & we have a performance coming up on Dec. 20. Our church is changing the curriculum we use for Discipleship Hour so since we are both working in that program, we have extra things going on. There's definitely always something going on here.

$2.22/gal

2008-11-07T09:42:00.002-05:00

That's what I last paid for gas! It only took $18 to fill up my little Prizm! Prices have fallen more since then, as low as $1.96/gal in an outlying area called Plainwell according to the news. It is down 1/2 of what we had been paying. I wish it would stay this way but I would lay money on the fact that it will probably be back over $3 by the time everyone starts travelling for Thanksgiving.
Well, the first marking period is over for the kids & they all did very well. Rachel made the TCB Club & probably both her & Stephen will be on the Honor Roll. Joshua had a bit of an incident on the playground the other day but otherwise is doing very well too. We had parent/teacher conferences earlier this week so Mark & I spent Wed. afternoon going from teacher to teacher around the gym which is where the middle school teachers are all set up. Having 2 in middle school, there were only 3 teachers that didn't have at least one of our students. Some of them actually have both.
All three are a bit disappointed in the election outcome but it was interesting to see them get involved with all the discussions. Rachel's history teacher held a debate where 4 students were designated as the candidates & had to research their stand on questions the rest of the class had researched to ask them. The teacher said this really brought Rachel out of her shell to the point they think she will either be a reporter or a lawyer. Rachel, of course, was armed with a lot of the information that we had received via email concerning some questionable stands of Obama.
Other info, we are most disappointed in our last washing machine. We bought it less than 5 years ago & went with a Maytag thinking reputable namebrand. Well, it is dead. At first, we thought it was just the timer but when the repair man listened to it they said it would be over $350 to fix because it needed an entire motor & probably the timer too. So we have had to go washer shopping. So much for a laptop for a while. I've actually had to be taking all the clothes to the laundry mat for several weeks. That gets really tiring really quickly, not to mention getting very expensive.
Mark is going to Lake Ann Camp tonight for a Camp Captain's retreat. He took the day off today so he can leave for up there earlier than getting out of work. I think it actually starts around 6. So this morning he is volunteering to help with "centers" in Rachel's Language Arts class. He then meets with the guy he has been doing accounting on the side for and then it is down to his office to get his flu shot before he can leave town. He'll be back tomorrow afternoon though.
He also took off Monday & Tuesday because the kids are off of school on those days. The plan is to get lots of cleaning done during those days. With everyone here, working together, hopefully we can get some cleaning & organizing done that has been put off way to long. There are a few other things on the agenda for those days too such as visiting a high school that we hope might be good for Rachel to try to get in to next year but cleaning is highest on the list.

Back to blogging

2008-10-24T10:06:00.002-04:00

Sorry. It has been crazy around here. I so wish I had a laptop. I'd have lots of time to blog at work but need a laptop to do it. Maybe by Christmas. I'll try to keep this somewhat short but hit the high points of what has been going on in our lives.
School is off to a very good start this year. Rachel is in 8Th grade but doing 9Th grade algebra this year. She has a wonderful homeroom teacher that said how much she had been waiting for Rachel to get to her grade & was excited to have Rachel in her homeroom. Rachel's weekly progress reports have been coming home with incredible percentages. Several classes she has had more than 100% score as an average for the class (including Spanish which is her least favorite class). Since this is Rachel's last year at Chandler Woods, they almost treat this as a senior year with lots of special activities. They started the year with a "sneak" field trip that went from 8 a.m. -10 p.m. It was really focused on team building but also memory building. They highlight of the year will be a trip to Washington DC in May. Hopefully, I will be going to as a chaperon.
The rather big news that Rachel has is that she has a part in the school's musical this year. They have already started practices but the performance isn't till February 10, 2009. It took some doing to get her to try out as she was afraid of not being chosen but at the last minute she did & she will be the "minstrel". She even has a duet to do with the "jester".
Stephen has the most adjusting to do this year as it is his first year in middle school. He has the same homeroom teacher as Rachel did & she is very encouraging to the kids. She does great for Stephen as she uses food (candy) as incentives a lot. He had a few adjustment issues as he has had 3 detentions so far. (Detentions are served during lunch time with sitting, eating, & no talking under the supervision of the assistant principal or social worker.) They were rather minor offenses & I think he won't be getting any more. He is trying to make the TCB Club that the school has to earn a trip to Cedar Point at the end of the school year. TCB Club is based strictly on behavior & responsibility & not on grades. If students obey teachers and turn in assignments, there is no reason not to make it. Each quarter there is a party for TCB & if they make it 3 of the 4 quarters, they get a day at Cedar Point while the others are still sitting in classes. Stephen's grades are doing well too. The biggest challenge is to keep things neat & organized.
Joshua is in second grade this year & has the teacher he was hoping for, Mr. Steinbacher. He has been struggling this year with making sure his homework gets turned in but we are working on that. The GREAT news is that I have not had to make a single trip out to school to clean him up since school started! He still has accidents sometimes but so far not during school. They are definitely getting fewer & farther between.
I think that covers the highlights of school. As for me, I am now working 40 hours every week. We had some switching around of aides & I ended up with an extra day when the schedules were adjusted. I am also now a "lead" at least once a week. That means I am the supervisor of the shift. I am also responsible for handing out all meds during that shift. It also comes with a raise which is nice too. It is taking some more adjusting on the home front. It is strange that just one more night a week affects the family so much more.
Mark just passed his one year mark at URS. Things are still going really well there. He even got a former coworker from Camp & Cruise a job in his department. So now he has another man to talk to since they are up to 3 in the dept and 11 ladies.
The other big news is that we have joined a YMCA. It has been great! We are there 4-6 days a week. Stephen took a basketball class this fall & now wants to do the Y basketball league. He hopes to be good enough to make the school team by next year. Joshua has been playing in the Y flag football league this fall. They practice on Tuesdays & have games on Saturday mornings. I don't know what their record is but they are doing rather decent. He is not the best player but also not the worst & he is having fun. There are 6 different Y's in the area & we can go to any of them. We mainly go to the one by the kids school because they have a great family area where there is weight machines that the kids can use as well us as adults. They have cardio there too & some other fun activities including a Wii. So we can all do whatever kind of workout we want and we are at least in the same room even though not necessarily right with each other.
The kids also completed a "marathon" this fall. It was called the GR Kids' Marathon & we just finished last week. What they had to do was walk 1 mile 3 days a week from mid-August. They had a chart to track their miles on. They had to have 25 miles done by Sat. 10/18. Then we went downtown & finished the last 1.2 miles on their course. The kids all received a packet of prizes, certificates, t-shirts, & medal. It was rather fun!
So much for keeping this short! Oh, well. I think that is about it for now. At least I hit the highlights. We'll save the "low lights" for another time.

My Summer (So Far) Part 2 By Rachel

2008-08-15T09:36:00.002-04:00

So I left off at Canada Monday. Well I should describe the place we were at. We were on a island on the French River, 4 hours east of the Sault. The only way you can have electricity is by a generator. There are 3 cabins. The middle has a kitchen, 2 bedrooms, and a bathroom with a toilet and a hot shower. This was the girls cabin. The boys had the other 2 cabins. The only electricity they got was from a light bulb. The boys got to use an outhouse for the week! And if they wanted a shower they got to take it in the river! Now because the girls had the kitchen, we spent most of our time in our cabin. At night after the boys left we had to get our sleeping bags out and lay them out on the floor. Then in the morning we had to pack it up and get dressed by 8:30 so that the boys could come in. Well everyday there was a kitchen and boat crew. The kitchen crew made the meals and the boat crew took care of the boats. Every morning after breakfast we went out to the rocks and did our God and I time until lunch. After lunch we got to do different activities that Art had. (Art owns the camp and is a pastor. His wife Judy was there too along with Sharon (Beaver) the nurse). On Tuesday half of the group was blindfolded. the other half was to lead them and follow Art. We had to go around trees, OVER DITCHES, and over a beaver dam. The reason that I capitalized over ditches is because my leader lead me into a little ditch and I twisted my ankle! On the way back it was really hurting. Also it was thundering. When we got back, that was when it started to rain. Well part of the boat crews job is to got all of the water out of the boat after it is done raining. So after they thought it was done raining the boat crew went done to bail the boats and everyone else who had nothing to do went with them. When they got down there the whole back of the biggest boat was underwater!!! They came back up to get Art and some buckets. As they starting it begins to rain again! It then turned into a big water fight and everyone was soaking wet when they were done. I did not have any part in it. I was watching from the cabin and keeping off of my ankle. After the rain stopped and everyone was dry and done eating Art did a devotional on John chapter 21 every night. Afterward we got to play "Simon Says." Now you may say what is the big deal, but you have not played "Simon Says" until you have played with Art. He is so good at getting you out. He got one girl out by asking what her name was! On Wednesday afternoon we got to go tubing and skiing!!!!! That was a lot fun! When it was my turn, I had a rap around my ankle and when I fell off I felt like seaweed was tangled around my foot but it was the rap mostly undone. I just took it off. Before we went back to the dock to trade with some kids so take they could tube, one of the leaders named Avery was trying to windsurf. She was a ways away and she was to tired to swim back with the board. So we got to bring her back. That was interesting trying to get the board back. Later after the devotional, Art made a circle with a rope and had us kids try to pull on it so that we didn't fall on each other. After we did it the leaders got to try it. We then did a challenge were we all had to close our eyes and keep them closed. We all were put some where on the rope by Art. Well when he said he had everyone on the rope I to say that I was not on there. He forgot me because I was behind someone. So while keeping our eyes closed we had to make a square without Art and Beaver's help (Judy was sleeping). We did a good job for the space that we had. Well on Thursday the morning schedule stayed the same but lunch was postponed until later so we had a snack and we got into canoes and started our trip. We were supposed to go 2 hours have lunch then go 2 hours back. We didn't even get 1/4 th of the way and there was thunder, so we had to turn around and go back. So while it was raining, we did another challenge. This one two people were tied with shoe laces that crossed each other and the object was to undo it. The girls didn't give up, every one else had Art tell them how to do it. Afterward we got to go to a different island and climb up the rocks. It was an amazing view! We then climbed down and went swimming. Friday, we all got on boats and they spread us out at different spots close to the camp for a hour. That was a nice quiet except for when a train went over the bridge. When that hour was over we went and had a picnic lunch on "exile" island (the island across the river). We then came back, got our bath suits on, and went cliff-diving. I only went once, but everyone else was doing a lot. For devotional we went outside and had a fire. We got to tell everyone what choices we had made that week. After the generator went off we waited a few minutes and we scared the boys by making them think there was a bear outside when it was only the female leaders. But when they came over to our cabin to make sure we were all right, we went outside and we saw the stars. They were amazing! Well Saturday, we were getting on boats and leaving and started the rain, again. That was a terrible cold ride. We were going to try to leave by 8:30, we didn't end up leaving until 9:30! We had so much fun on the 12 hour ride home. Except for 1 boy who throw up. We were hypper then we all fell asleep then we were all hypper again. We ended up back at the church at 10:30 p.m. The next morning, we got to sing our theme song for the week for the church wearing our Canada shirts. That was fun! I ended up sleeping in until 11:30 to catch up on sleep on Tuesday becase on Monday I had to babysit. But I had lots of fun in Canada!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Summer (So Far) By Rachel

2008-08-14T09:58:00.005-04:00

I was told that I had to write about my trips I took this summer. We got out of school June 6th. When we got home we left for Detroit so we could go to my cousin's open house. That was a really hot ride. On the way home we had to travel through a lighting storm. The follow 2 weeks I helped the church prepare for the garage sale. Whatever money that we made was divided up between the people who worked, and it went to their summer trip. After that was over we went to Lake Ann on June 30th. That was a lot of fun! I got to do the Flying Squirrel. What that is is where one person with harnesses is pulled 40 feet into the air by everyone in their cabin. Going to the sleeping bear dunes was fun too. When we were to come down, they recorded everyone doing it all at once. We also got to race blue barrels with people inside. It was awesome!!!:):):) And because we were there on the 4th of July, we got to see some amazing fireworks over the lake! Well we came home on Saturday, but we all wanted to stay. I am hoping that next year I can work there. Grandma had her surgery while we were there, so when she left she took Stephen with her!! Hey!!! That meant 1 less brother around. On the 13th, we went to Birch Run to help celebrate dad's uncle's retirement. We also met Grandma so that Stephen and I could switch places. I had fun. We went to the museum and I really enjoyed that until when we were coming out and I wasn't paying any notice that a curb was there. I tripped and scraped up my knees. We also went sidewalk shopping at the mall. On Friday and Saturday we got to go garage saleing. On Sunday I went to the ditch that is at the end of the driveway and as I was going into it, I slipped and scraped the side of my left leg. Well on Monday we drove 5 hours home. Starting the 28th, I helped take care of the preschoolers during VBS for the week. On Saturday, we left early in the morning to go to a campground in Omar (the smallest city in MI) for the Berry family reunion. We left later that evening. I spent most of Sunday packing. Monday, at 6 in the morning, I went with 16 others kids and 6 adults for a 12 hour bus ride to CANADA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Plus when we got there we had to go another 35 minutes on a boat!!! And because not everyone got to go at once we all weren't there until 8:30 p.m. We endedup going to bed at 11:30! Have to go will finish blogging later.

Canada

2008-08-04T13:43:00.003-04:00

Well, Rachel is off to Canada for the week with our junior high youth group from church. They left at 6am this morning & have a 14 hour trip today (10 to the Sault then another 4 to the east), then they unload the bus & put all their stuff on a boat for a 1/2 hour trip to the camp. It should be a great experience for her. She paid for it all herself between her Advance newspaper route & all the fundraisers that the church put together. They will be coming home on Saturday. They don't even give us an estimated time of arrival for Saturday because of the length of the trip. When they have a good idea of when they will reach town, they start a "phone tree" to notify parents.
There were 17 kids & 6 sponsors that are going. What is really interesting, is that we just had a new "Pastor of Family Ministries" that officially started with our church on Aug. 1 & he left with the group this morning. How's a trip to the Canadian wilderness with 17 junior highers sound for the first full week on the job for someone?! Hopefully, we don't have to start a new pastoral search the minute they get back! Also interesting, is that our "Lead Pastor" will be at home with his 3 children all week as his wife was one of the chaperones that went on the trip.
I had to work last night & am not supposed to get off till 7:30a.m. I didn't tell Rachel but I made arrangements to have the last 2 hours of my shift covered so I could see her off. She was really excited and came running across the parking lot with a big hug when I showed up at the church. It feels rather good to know that it still matters to her whether I am around for things like that.
Last week was VBS & I'll have to blog about that later. I need to get a few things done around here this afternoon.

Big "E"

2008-07-23T09:24:00.002-04:00

No, I'm not talking about Dale Earnhardt Senior. I'm talking about the one that eye doctor's put on the wall when checking your eyesight. Mom was down for her 2 week checkup since her surgery & it took a little doing & wasn't clear but she could see the big E on the wall with just her left eye. She hasn't been able to see that since her last surgery 8-10 years ago. The doctor was a bit concerned with some clouding but says that should still clear with time. She doesn't have to come back to see him for a month now.
The summer is rather flying by. Of course, I feel like I am sleeping most of it away. My job is going well and the kids are doing ok at letting me sleep during the day. They are getting to watch way too much t.v. but other than that it is going good.
Rachel & Stephen have each gotten to spend their week at Gramma's house. She took Stephen home after her 1 week checkup. Mark's family was having a retirement party for his uncle in Birch Run the following weekend so we met up with Mom at the party & traded Rachel for Stephen. Rachel then was able to come home with Mom when she came down for this week's appt.
There really isn't much to write about as things are mostly right in the norm for us. Very busy but nothing too exciting. No major vacations or other excitement going on. I have a wedding cake to make this weekend & need to do the purchasing for it today as well as go to a staff meeting. But we are all fine. I'm still trying to get the kids to do some blogging but that hasn't happened yet, obviously.

Survived Storms

2008-07-03T08:44:00.002-04:00

We had major storms come through West MI yesterday. They made quite a mess but we survived them just fine. The biggest excitement was that the neighbor next to us lost a BIG tree! The good news is that it fell out in the street where it did the least damage that it could have. Had the winds been out of the SW instead of W/NW it could have brought it down on the front of our house. The other thing is that it covered the place on the street that we often have a car parked but all our vehicles were in our driveway (or Mark's was at work) at the time. It did hit a car parked on the other side of the street but that thing only had 1 scratch on it. This event brought out the whole neighborhood. Amazingly we even had the city here around dinner time cleaning it up. Of course, the fact that the road was completely blocked might of had something to do with the speed. There was a wire down with it as well but we all still have power in the area. We think that it must just be for the street lights. We're really fortunate since there is 150,000 without power through MI & they are saying that it could be Sat before it is all back on.
The other good news is that Mom's eye surgery went well (& we were home before the storms hit). The dr was very pleased with how it went. We go in here shortly for a check up on it. We don't know how much more we will know about the success of the surgery at this check up or whether that will take longer. Mom is hoping she can get the ok to stop looking at our ceiling when she is there. She didn't have to stay flat on her back but she did have to keep her chin pointed up all day.
Rachel & Stephen are up at Lake Ann Camp near Traverse City this week. This is something they look forward to ALL year. So it has just been Joshua here with Gramma & I. He is enjoying that but he is also excited about going to camp. He is going up with Mark & the other chaperones for the return trip tonight. They are going to tent camp on the camp property & then observe the campers for the day on Friday before bringing them home on Saturday. This is a treat for all of them & only happening because of the holiday tomorrow so Mark has the day off.
Well, I have to get busy. We have the appointment & packing to do plus I haven't even started fixing a rather large hole in the ceiling that occurred last week.

Quick update

2008-06-14T09:39:00.002-04:00

I can't figure out where the time has gone since my last blog. But it has prompted several emails & phone calls from Dad checking to make sure we were still around & surviving.
My part-time first shift job has now become a full-time third shift position. I love the work that I am doing & in a way miss first shift because I don't get as much interaction with the residents on third shift but we really feel this should be a great change for our family. I even thought I might get to blog more because I can do whatever I like when my cleaning is done & as long as I do the bed checks each hour but I havn't been able to get permission to use the computers there yet. So now I'm thinking I might write out the blog long-hand & have a child type them in while I am sleeping the next day. We'll have to see. But that is why I haven't blogged, working lots of hours, adjusting to working nights, busy with kids finishing school, & I just finished my training for work the first week I went full-time.
I don't have much time to blog now but wanted to let you know that we are all fine. The kids all finished up school & are happy for summer break. I'm hoping that I can even get them to do some blogging over the summer too.
The biggest news that I wanted all to be aware of (& I don't know that Mom will inform everyone) is that Mom is going to have eye surgery here in GR on July 2. She has been coming down here every 4-6 weeks over the past couple of months and seeing an opthamologist here. She didn't like the care of the one in Alpena & there aren't any other choices there. She was really getting concerned that she was struggling with her right eye which is her good eye. The first dr. here gave her some drops & ointments to help with that. Then he referred her to a cornea specialist in the office. He feels that he might be able to get her vision better in the left eye which she had really given up on. He says that there is no chance of harming the right eye & not even any extra risk of going under anesthetic even though she has had a heart attack. It is outpatient surgery & should only take an hour or so. She will then go back in for a check up on July 3. After that he will determine how soon he wants to see her again. She may need to stay in town for a week or so for another check up.
Well, more news later. We have lots going on right now. Mowing, weeding, laundry, preparation to go to a wedding later today, & Mom just got back from taking Stephen for his birthday breakfast. His party was Thurs. so at least that is out of the way.

Job News!

2008-03-28T13:29:00.003-04:00

I officially have a job! I am a Residential Aide for Harbor House Ministries. This is an adult foster care facility that has 3 homes with 12 residents in each home. The residents are severely, & multiply impared. I will be doing personal care of them. I have to get some training which they will pay for but I think I will be able to do well at it. I'm mainly working 6-10 a.m. & every other weekend. We aren't thrilled about the weekend hours but then again, it is better than nothing in this economy. It is only 15-20 hours to start with. Training is paid at minimum wage but then I'll be getting $9.50/hours which isn't too shabby. (It's more than I was getting for decorating cakes.) Mom, I hope you don't mind some babysitting while you are here during Spring Break while I get some training in. I have to work classes around their schedules & I have to have everything complete in 60 days.
The kids are a little disappointed that this came through & we haven't heard from the Christian radio station about the morning co-host position. Actually, I talked to the director of the station last Saturday at the AWANA games. He said that they had received 105 resumes and so far had only gotten through 80 of them. They were hoping to go through the remaining 25 this week. The only thing is we don't know if mine was among the first 80 and they weren't interested or if I'm among the last 25 and might still get called. I told the kids that I will still pursue that position if they call me for an interview but that I wasn't turning down a "sure thing" for a "slim chance".
Now we just have to get a second car by Tuesday because there is no way to tackle this without a second vehicle. We know that God will provide & we do know of a couple of possibilities but haven't gotten anything definite yet.

Dateline

2008-03-28T13:22:00.003-04:00

There is a special 2 hour Dateline tonight on NBC that deals with a family from West MI. It is about Mistaken Identity the family that found out their college daughter was alive & mistaken for a classmate for 5 weeks. This all happened 2 years ago with students from Taylor University in IN. The families were from MI though. They are strong Christians and have written a book about the experience. If you can't catch Dateline, you can probably find the Today Show interviews on their website because Matt Laur interviewed both families for the last 2 days.
There was also an interesting show on CNBC a week or so ago on a show called American Greed. It was all about CyberNet Engineering and Barton Watson. Mark used to work for this crook. We seriously suspected something was crooked but not as bad as it was & definitely didn't have any proof we could take to authorities. We sort of wish we had taped the episode but hindsight is always 20/20.

Some prospects

2008-03-20T16:03:00.002-04:00

Well, I have a little update on the job hunt. I did a typing test for Spectrum Health where I am still up for a Registration Specialist position. They were looking for the typing speed of 35 WPM and I had a 43 WPM. Now that I have that on file it may help my apps get more attention there.
Also, I had placed an application at a place called Harbor House Ministries on Monday. They had a posting on a bulletin board at church. It would be for a Resident Aide position as this organization has 3 long-term homes for developmentally & physically handicapped people. I received a call to go for an interview there tomorrow morning. The posting said that they had 6 full-time positions but they asked if I was willing to consider part-time. I said that I would consider it but it is a bit of a drive there so I'm hoping that they are still talking about 8-10 hour shifts instead of 4 hour shifts. We'll just have to see how it goes. How do you dress 1 level above scrubs?

Same old...

2008-03-13T15:07:00.002-04:00

Nothing much new to report here. I'm still looking for a job. I have several applications and resumes out but haven't gotten any interviews. The kids are busy with school. Lots of projects to work on and, of course, with March being reading month, pushing for lots of minutes reading for a competition at school.
Mom was here last weekend. We had a nice visit with her. She stayed with the boys while Rachel, Mark, & I went to a church ministry conference Friday night & Saturday. She also went to an opthamologist while she was here. She wanted a second opinion & that's not possible in Alpena. He put her on some drops & ointment. She has to follow up with him in a month which is fine by us since she has to come for Joshua's birthday breakfast about then anyway.
Well, it is time for me to go get the kids. I just wanted to let everyone know we are fine. No major illnesses or injuries lately & really nothing new to report.

Job Search

2008-02-15T19:30:00.002-05:00

Well, no word from UPS and it has been almost 2 weeks since the interview. So I have still been out searching. I applied at a gas station and a hotel (front desk) earlier this week. Now, today, I have put in 5 more applications. Gotta love modern technology. With 3 kids at home, I was still apply to put in apps over the internet. I applied for 4 different clerical positions. These all pay better than UPS and the work wouldn't be as physically demanding so maybe one of these will work out.
The other position that I applied for today was as a Morning Show Co-host for the Christian radio station that we listen to. I know it is a long shot but it doesn't hurt to try. I actually know several of the people that work/run the station since it is run by my alma mater. I do have radio experience (haha) since I worked with Uncle Bill in Alpena so you never know. I also figure that I may be a good fit since the other co-host is a single young male. Being older, married with kids, and female, might just help since a lot of ladies listen while getting kids ready for school in the morning. The last duo was a male/female team that abrutely left and joined a secular station right here in town. It seems like a strange switch but no one has said much about it. I actually was joking with Mark about it just a couple of weeks after the last team left that I should apply then I found the ad today.
I don't know if any of these will pan out but we know the Lord has something in store. We are trying to stay patient while we look for the one He has for me.
By the way, taxes are DONE! This is a record for us! We have them done, efiled, accepted, and now just awaiting the direct deposits into our account. We have to file the city by snail mail but that is ready for Mark's signature and it is in the mail too.

Snow days #5 & #6

2008-02-11T10:05:00.000-05:00

Yes, the weather has continued to be crazy around here. The kids had last week Thursday off since we recieved 10 inches of snow on Wednesday afternoon & evening and the blows just couldn't keep up. It also doesn't help that we had rain before the snow started falling. Now they have today off too! There were actually over 400 churches cancelled last night and numerous school systems called off before bed last night. We have some counties that the plows don't work on weekends so there was no way to have school today. We really didn't get a lot of snow with this system but the temps are so cold that they can't salt the roads and what snow we got blew around and drifted pretty bad. If you paid attention to your national news today you probably heard GR mentioned. We had 3 major interstates closed in multicar pileups at different times yesterday. One of them involving 50+ cars! Fortunately, we are safe and warm.
This is really going to make for an interesting week. The kids were only scheduled for 3 days as it was. Thursday & Friday were Teacher Inservice Days. And now they are forecasting the temps to stay cold and another 2-5 inches of snow overnight & into tomorrow. The kids may only be at school on Wednesday which, of course, is the day for all the Valentine exchanges.
The good news is that it appears that we should get to hold the AWANA Grand Prix this Wed. It was scheduled for last Wed but had to be postponed due to the weather. The thing is that the Regionals are this Saturday so we have to have our church one before then. They announced last night that if Wed is cancelled, we would do it on Thurs evening (or Friday if need be).
Other news: Joshua's allergy testing came back negative. That dr. thinks it is just a matter of going through that "potty training" stage again. Not what I wanted to hear! I'm more than tired of this already & would like to move on.
I spent this weekend sick. I started not feeling well Friday morning but thought it was just over-tired. By early afternoon, I had diahrea and it was so bad that I knew I couldn't pick up the kids from school or Mark from work. I had to call on friends to help with both. I had to stay on clear liquids till yesterday morning. I felt a little better or at least like I should do some things Saturday evening but could only be up for a few minutes at a time. I stayed home from church yesterday morning and started back on a bland diet throughout the morning. By evening, I was able to attend church. (Yes, of the over 400 closings, ours was not.) I was a bit back down when we got home but part of it was that we stayed to help with track setup & it was more than I had done all weekend. Also, it could be that I needed more in my stomach because I was also having lots of sinus drainage which often bothers me on an empty stomach.
Well, I am back on my feet now and playing catch up. So I better get at it. My main focus of the day is our taxes. (YES MOM, our taxes are almost done!) I spent time last week doing them most of them and just have to do my AVON business part of it. I hope to have them efiled later this week.

Joshua's appointment

2008-02-01T14:32:00.000-05:00

Joshua has a new appointment on Monday to see if we can figure out something concerning his bowel problems. It came to me last Sunday that I had read of kids' with his type of problems that have food allergies that cause it. So, I started by calling his gasto specialist and she said she hadn't checked for that & we should see a specialist. So then I had to call our regular pediatrician for a referral and by Thursday the allergist's office called and had an appointment available for next Monday (2/4). I don't know what we will find but it will at least rule out something else. I can't believe that we are getting in so quickly! You all know how it can take months to see specialists but less than 1 week!

Happy Birthday, Nate!

2008-02-01T14:04:00.000-05:00

Just a note to wish Big Brother a happy birthday. I'm not good at getting cards in the mail so this will have to do. He is one of the few readers that drop by regularly (besides Mom & Dad) so he should see it this way.

Another snow day

2008-02-01T13:51:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it. I'm not sure if there has been another year in all of Rachel's years in school that she has had 4 snow days in a year, especially since all these have been in less than a month's time. The crazy thing is that it isn't looking very good for next Monday or Tuesday either. We are supposed to be in the mid-30's with precipitation switching back & forth between rain and snow.
Stephen was actually disappointed to have a snow day today as his class was supposed to have a "Super Bowl" party today. All of the kids had to earn the right to participate in the party and he did so he is a little disappointed but the teacher assured the kids they would get to have the party on Monday if there is a snow day today. This has been good for him to have time to come up with more Super Bowl trivia that he is suppling for the class. This also means I don't have to put together a football-shaped cupcake cake till Sunday afternoon now.
I do have to get a cupcake cake decorated for a baby shower for tomorrow though. I think I'm doing an umbrella shape in blue frosting since it is for a baby boy. I made sure that we got all the stuff to do these with last night just in case there was a snow day today.
Mark & I also stopped by the library to get books for Rachel since she needs to be reading for a Jack London author study they are doing. Since the books had to come from the public library, we didn't want to wait till the last minute.
So we are homebound again. But at least we are warm and have power.

Snow day #3

2008-01-30T09:23:00.000-05:00

Well, we awoke to another snow day. Mark almost had one too. It took us over 50 minutes to get the car open so he could even get it started. The locks were frozen and then the doors themselves were froze. We had a high temp yesterday of 45 degrees. It was 39 degrees at 7 p.m. then dropped 25 degrees by 1 a.m. The major problem with that is that while it was 39 it was raining. With the quick drop in temps, we had what meteorologists call "flash freezing". Mainly, there is a thick layer of ice under the very fine snow that is blowing and drifting and making white-out conditions. Our windchills officially qualify as "dangerous" as they are in the teens below zero. It is a good day to be inside. Fortunately, we have not lost power as a lot of people in the area have. Mark did make it to work safely although 30 minutes late.
I had hoped to go to Aunt Millie's Bakery because they are taking applications for a merchandiser today from 1-4 p.m. But I didn't feel that it was worth just putting in an application to keep the car today. If it was an actual interview, I would have considered it. We can't have anything happen to this car as it is the only one we have. I'm hoping that they may take them on another day too seeing as State Police are saying to stay home if at all possible.
I did go on an employment tour at UPS last night. It is a possibility that I could work there as a package handler nights. It would be hard work & I would definitely get in better shape then I am right now. It also has very good benefits so we are thinking about it.
This snow day also means that I probably have to cook dinner tonight. We normally have dinner at church on Wednesday, but the rule of thumb is "no school, no church". Actually, as I was typing this the official notice came through that all activities at church are cancelled. So I guess I better go get the kitchen cleaned up so I can cook something tonight.

Winter's back...

2008-01-26T09:33:00.000-05:00

Well, we have been back to winter weather since my last post. It's typical MI. Last weekend we were in the teens or below and now we are supposed to get to 40 by Monday and have rain on top of the 8-10 inches of snow that has fallen recently. The kids have now had 2 snow days during January. One was more because of fallen power lines in the area than for the ice itself. The other one was this last Tues and it was definitely a good call not to have school that day. GR Public even called off school and that only happens on rare occassions, like every 2-3 years.
My family is going to be going through withdrawl tomorrow. No football and no NASCAR! What to do on a Sunday afternoon without either of those. That only happens a couple of times a year but this is one of them. Even though there are some weeks that there are Saturday races during NASCAR season, at our house they are still Sunday races as we tape them instead of letting Stephen stay up too late on Saturday evening.
At least it is AWANA Grand Prix time so they have their cars to work on and at least think about racing. Mark has Stephen at the church right now for what they call "Pit day" where they bring in tools that not everyone has at home and then they can work on them there. Rachel is done with making cars since she is in youth group now and Joshua is still in Sparks and they don't do the cars yet.
Rachel battled a really bad head cold this week. She missed school on Monday, then Tuesday was a snow day, Wednesday we got her there long enough to take her midterms that were that day, she missed Thursday but was back and doing better on Friday which is when her other midterms were. Fortunately, she was able to get there for all of her midterms and there weren't many other assignments that she missed when she was out because it was mostly prep time for the midterms.
The rest of us are healthy and doing fine. I can't think of much else to update you on right now. I guess I would just say to keep praying for us and our car situation (getting us everywhere with 1 vehicle is tricky) and also I am looking for the right part-time position for me. See it is a bit tough as I can't do a daytime position because of Joshua's intestinal difficulties, but I also don't want EVERY night committed to a job because of needing to be able to do stuff with the family (school & church commitments, etc) & then there is the 1 car situation to deal with too. So I am looking but haven't found the right opportunity yet.

Weather

2008-01-07T16:48:00.000-05:00

With Big Brother doing lots of shovelling & Dad shivering, I just had to tell you that it was 52 when we woke up this morning which broke a high record for the day. It has now been 64 this afternoon! The kids would like to break out the shorts about now. But all good things must come to an end. They are forecasting snow & 36 by Wednesday again & next week it may not get out of the 20's for highs. MI--gotta love it! If you don't like the weather, you won't have to wait for long to get something different, that's for sure!

Teenager

2008-01-04T22:02:00.000-05:00

Yes, we officially have a teenager in the house. Rachel turned 13 on Dec. 20. Tonight is her birthday party. We wanted to let her do something more than she usually gets so she was able to invite 7 girls over for a slumber party. Only 3, however, were actually able to come. 1 cancelled at the last minute because she came down with the flu. We were hoping since the holidays were over and some kids are already back in school that more would be able to come but it didn't work out that way.
We started with gifts and cake/ice cream. Actually, this time I decorated a brownie as her cake was hardly eaten that I did at her actual birthday. Mark then took our boys out for a movie (Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium with Christmas $ from Grampa). I crashed this party because the girls were watching "Hairspray" and I wanted to see it and hadn't yet. Now Rachel has a new DVD, & probably soundtrack too, on her "must have" list.
The girls are doing the HSM (High School Muscial) DVD game. It's the only board game I know that keeps the kids on their feet most of the time. The kids have to learn the dance moves from the movie and be able to figure out what moves are missing when they show a clip. I'm rather glad that we don't have many more girls because we couldn't have many more learning the moves at one time in our living room. (There goes a plate of chips!)
I'm trying to stay out of the way but yet supervise properly. Next will probably be the 2 HSM DVD's. Rachel is hoping to stay up all night but we'll have to see. I have fondue for the girls too but they didn't hardly touch any munchies during the movie so I haven't decided if I'm going to make it or not.
Rachel had to work hard to get to have her party. Besides the cleaning in the basement, she has had to help with cleaning the family room and her room as well as taking down all of the Christmas decorations from the living room. Of course, the hall getting to her room is still a mess but the room is clean, not organized but it is cleaner than it has been in months. Good thing that she had 2 weeks to work on it.
Of course, our poor cat doesn't know what to do with all these giggling girls around here. They are invading her space and quiet time with mom. She also doesn't like all the cleaning. No blankets or pillows on the floor for her to lay on and she lost most of her hiding places in the basement. Guess she'll just have to adjust.
Well, we'll need more prayers than ever to get through these years ahead. We just are going by the theme of HSM, "We're all in this together".

Holidays

2008-01-03T16:35:00.001-05:00

Well, we had a very pleasant holiday season. It was actually rather quiet, at least as quiet as this house goes. The only travelling we did was over to Detroit on the 15th for Mark's family Christmas party. We did that as a 1 day trip and even cut it short as the weather was not very nice. We kept on eyes on weather reports through out the day as this was a fast moving system and every time we checked it, the reports changed on who was going to get how much and when it was coming.
Mark's company party was the night before on the 14th so we couldn't go over ahead of time. (Rachel also had a youth group party that night.) The URS party was at a place downtown called the BOB (Big Old Building). It has been renovated on the inside and has several different clubs (bars) and also private rooms to rent. It was definitely rather fancy and we hadn't done anything like that in a long time. I think it would have been nice to of had some little gifts or something rather then having the open bar but I'm not in charge of planning. By 11:00 p.m., it was pretty noticeable of who had taken advantage of the open bar. Quite a few from Mark's department weren't able to make it so even he didn't know a lot of the people there so we were ready for home. What I did find interesting was the number of retirees who were invited and attended the party. They also recognized people for their anniversaries and I am amazed at the people who have worked for URS for 20+ years. It must mean that URS knows how to treat its employees for them to want to stick around so long, right? Hopefully, this is a place that Mark can stick around at too.
Mom came to visit the week before Christmas. It is always fun to have her here. I seem to get to some projects that don't get done otherwise. We even did some baking this time. She had Rachel & Joshua making cut-out sugar cookies while I had Stephen helping me make carmels. This is the first time I have attempted much for baking with the kids and they really enjoyed it. We did some other cookies after she left and put together plates with cards for neighbors and friends.
It was just us for Christmas day. Mark's mom came over on the Wednesday after Christmas though. We actually worked each other pretty hard for Friday & Saturday. I had a friend from church bring over his trailer so we can start going through the basement to get rid of the radon gas in the house. Well, the trailer is almost full, we made 2 trips to Goodwill, and we made 2 trips to our church to what is called a "Paper Gator". This is a recycling program that recycles paper products and our church makes some money off of it so we helped them out for sure. The basement isn't completely done but it is definitely headed in the right direction and we wouldn't have been this far if she hadn't stayed and helped out with it.
More updates soon but just one other thing before I sign off---How's the weather, Dad? At least we have clothes for these temps and they are forecasting a January thaw by Sunday, heading to mid-50's by Tues. Stay warm=)

Still here

2007-12-31T10:00:00.000-05:00

...just extremely busy, as usual. Thought I would let you all know that the kids did get to meet the 2 starts from High School Musical and get their autograph. One of them had gone from blonde to black hair and Joshua even piped up to tell him he should go back to blonde.
I'll post about Christmas soon and what all the busy-ness is about but don't have time to now.

Hockey game

2007-12-08T15:56:00.000-05:00

Well, big on the agenda tonight is a hockey game. We are going to see the GR Griffens play at the Van Andel arena. Now seeing a hockey game usually isn't that big of a deal. We usually get to several a year. However, there are 2 stars from the High School Musical movies that are going to be at this one. They are doing a pre-game autograph session and one of them will be singing during the intermission. The kids are totally excited. They would probably like to be standing in line already even though doors don't open till 6:30 for the 8 p.m. game. We, however, have more things going on then we know how to get all done. We will probably go down around 5-5:30 to see how long the line is. If there is a chance of getting an autograph then we will stay. If the line is too crazy, we'll come home and go back in time for the game. I'll let you know.

Important Note

2007-11-29T16:15:00.000-05:00

If you notice on the list I posted a couple of days ago, there is no NASCAR driver listed for Rachel. That is because she has decided that she is not going to continue cheering for Dale Jr. when he switches next season. She has not at this time decided which driver is going to be "hers" but she is up in the air for now. So no more #8's and no #88's in this house at this time.

Catch up

2007-11-27T10:33:00.000-05:00

Ok. Here's a post to try to get everyone caught up on our family.
I think most of you have probably heard that Rachel ended up with a hospital stay around mid-Nov. She had had abdominal pain for 4 days and we had made an ER visit the first day because it hurt so bad she couldn't sleep. So after 4 days, we went to our regular doctors office who ordered a second ultrasound. That came back normal and they just wanted us to go home and call back the next day but we pushed and said we wanted more done. So she was admitted through the ER to have a CT scan done and more blood work. It was rather funny when she was talking to our doctor that the doctor asked if there was anything that helped make it feel better and Rachel's response was "morphine". The doctor meant a certain position but all Rachel could think of was the morphine they had given her in the ER. After 2 days and numerous tests, the best educated guess was a virus. Basically, they said that instead of getting a cold that affects your sinuses or the flu that makes your joints all achy this virus went to her organs (kidneys, bladder, etc.). She is fine now and back at school trying to make up all the work she missed.
We were able to make a short trip up to Lake Ann. Mark had a "Camp Captain's Retreat" while the kids had time off from school so we all went and made it a work weekend. The kids and I pulled nails out of boards that were being taken out of a house they were tearing down while Mark was in his retreat. It was rather tiresome work but we got a lot done. What was rather interesting was that the maintenance supervisor told us as we were leaving that we had saved the camp between $3-$4 for each board that we had cleared.
We spent Thanksgiving at Mark's family in Detroit. We went over on Wednesday after Mark got out of work and then came home Friday afternoon. It was nice. We hadn't seen some of them in a couple of years. Mark & our kids did a lot of the cooking which is what they wanted to do. Rachel would have been most disappointed if she hadn't gotten to help bake the apple pies.
Before we came home on Friday, Mark & I & his sister spent the morning shopping. We were out of the house about 4:30 a.m. We knew we were crazy but it was fun too! What was really interesting was the number of times that we ended up with the last one of the items we were looking for. I think it happened at least 4 times that we managed to get the last one off the shelf! There was only 1 item that we wanted that was actually sold out before we got there. Not a bad average.
We came home Friday afternoon because we had free tickets to a GR Griffens hockey game that evening. The Griffens have a program that by reading the kids can get free tickets for certain games. Because there are only certain games you can get the tickets for, this was about the only date left that would work for us. 2 of the dates in Dec. are for Wednesday evenings. Even if we weren't already busy at church on Wednesdays, I wouldn't let my kids go to a hockey game on a school night. That would be way to late for them.
We spent much of the rest of the weekend cleaning up and Rachel working on homework. It would be hard to get out any Christmas decorations with all the mess in this house.
Also during all this, a friend of ours from church brought over his radon tester. He does home inspections for a living and so he thought we should have this checked (especially with all the illness in this family). Turns out that the EPA recommends taking action if your radon level is at a 4 and ours was at a 5.8. So we have got to have some work done around here. We are going to have to clean out the basement and then paint it with some type of special paint. We will retest after that and see if more is needed to be done. The EPA says that the only proven harm of radon gas is that it significantly increases the risk of lung cancer. There is no proof that it causes any other illnesses but I definitely don't like what has been going on in my family's health lately.
The latest being that Joshua has been complaining of headaches regularly. Then over the holiday, he started complaining that his neck hurt. I checked it out and there is was a spot that was tender to the touch. It then formed a lump right behind his ear, most of the length of his neck. By Sunday evening, there was the start of a lump at the same location on the other side of his neck.
I took him to the doctor then yesterday. She believes that his lymph nodes are enlarged due to a virus. She doesn't think that the headaches are necessarily related to the lumps. She ordered some blood work and said that it was possible that he still may come down with a cold or something in the next day or so. Well, by yesterday afternoon, he was not acting himself. He just spent the day on the couch and didn't look like he felt very good.
Today he is still home complaining that his stomach doesn't feel good but he looks quite a bit better. I hope that he can go back to school by tomorrow. He is only slightly sniffly and doesn't have a fever so maybe. The lumps are still there but the doctor said that they could last a while. She actually wants to see him back in 2 weeks and said if they aren't gone completely in a month she is sending us to an ENT.
We still only have 1 vehicle but friends of ours have loaned us their van because 1 of them has been laid up due to surgery. He goes back to work on Dec. 11 and we'll have to give it back before then but it has been a great help. We have seen some different vehicles for sale but haven't tried for anything because of trying to get out from under some debts and not sure about making payments right now. Christmas and birthdays don't help with these things at all for sure.
I know this is long but that about does it I believe. Back to work caring for Joshua, cleaning, and doing laundry.

Lists

2007-11-27T09:54:00.000-05:00

I know that I owe you all a real post on what's happening here but let me do this first. I emailed this list to Mark's family and thought I would post it here for anyone else interested.

Here's what the kids are really into & you could get most anything that has to do with them and they would be pleased:

Rachel:
Hannah Montana
High School Musical
Jonas Brothers
Ernie Haase & Signature Sound (This is a gospel group that travels with the Gaithers.)
She wears an Adult Medium or Large depending on the cut

Stephen:
Home Depot - Tony Stewart
Pittsburgh Steelers
Football Cards (but not baseball)
Cars (the movie)
He has also recently been reading Hardy Boys and lots of Calvin & Hobbs
Wears a size 12-14 (Pants should be slims if possible.)

Joshua:
Go Diego Go!
Jeff Gordon
Webkinz - He would especially like a Chihuahua but would be happy with any.
Cars (the movie)
Anything doing with cars & trucks
Wears a size 6-8

All the kids also really like the show from Disney channel called "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody." They also all have Build-A-Bears that they like to get new clothes or accessories for.

Here's some DVD's that the kids would like that we don't have:
Ratatouille
Night at the Museum
Santa Clause 3
Meet the Robinsons
Firehouse Dog
Herbie Fully Loaded
Jump In

The kids also really like it when we can go to activities together as a family so tickets to see the Grand Rapids Griffins, West Michigan Whitecaps, or races at Berlin Raceway would be a big hit too.
I just like to give lots of choices for you to pick from. Email me directly if you have any specific questions. Rachel reads my posts regularly so more info is not secret here.

CT Scan

2007-10-25T08:41:00.000-04:00

Stephen must have been jealous that Joshua had a procedure that he hadn't had because now he has had a CT Scan. (Not really...but the timing is really something.)
What happened is that Stephen was running around the AWANA circle last night when he lost balance and ended up hitting the wall with his head. There was an instant goose egg. I ran to get him some ice while Mark sat with him. One of the other leaders told me that her husband was helping with the Cubbies and he is an ambulance worker. So then I ran the 2 flights up to get him and back down. (Where fortunate I didn't need help by then.) He checked Stephen out and said he should be all right.
We had Stephen sit in with Mark for the rest of the evening but by the end he was starting to feel nauseous. Our friend checked him over again and recommended we take him in to have it checked out. So we ran Rachel & Joshua home and took a trip to the ER. Hadn't been there since June so it was about that time!
At first they thought they wouldn't do any extra tests but as Stephen complained of nausea everytime he moved much, they decided to do a CT Scan. The scan only took a couple of minutes but we asked the tech how long before the results and she told us an hour. Not what I wanted to hear when it was after 10p.m. by the time they took the CT. But it was really only 10-15 minutes before they came in and said that the scan was all clear. They officially called it a concussion and sent us home.
This morning, Stephen is doing rather well. I can't believe how much the swelling has gone down already. He also was really late going to bed but was still the first one awake. He wasn't moving very fast this morning but that is his usual speed in the morning.
It might have had something to do with today being Grandparent/VIP day at school. Since grandparents weren't available, Stephen invited one of our pastors who was very happy to be asked. Joshua has his Sparks leaders coming to see his classroom today.
So that was our excitement for last night. We have now had 2 hospital visits in 2 days. That should be our fill for a while again, I hope!

MRI

2007-10-24T09:58:00.000-04:00

Well, everyone is home safe & sound and getting back into the routine of everyday life. The entire trip was wonderful! I hope to post some pictures when I can. Mark also had a great time in Austin and learned a lot for his new job!
Some of you know but not everyone so I thought it time to fill you all in. Joshua has been having trouble with controlling bowel movements. For quite a while we just brushed it aside as immaturity but this summer it became apparent that it was something more. We went to the pediatrician who did xrays and sent us to a pediatric gastro specialist. Fortunately, we were able to be on a cancellation list or else we would still be waiting for our initial appointment with them. We are told that he truly has lost sensation in his pelvic area but the question is why.
Yesterday, we took him in for an MRI to try to find out some answers.
Well, no answers yet but I have to tell you that Joshua did awesome! He was able to hold still enough that they didn't need to sedate him. Instead he was able to watch a movie while in the MRI machine. We were planning for them to sedate him but after the nurse talked to him a bit and mentioned possibly watching a video he wanted to try it without going to sleep. They gave it a try and it worked just fine. We could hardly believe it! Joshua isn't usually very still but he did for the test!
We are told that it will probably take a week before we hear from the doctor. Hopefully though this will give us some answers. I'll keep you all informed as we find out more.

Travelling

2007-10-17T07:41:00.000-04:00

I just have a minute for an update here. I have been travelling with Mom and a group of "seniors" from our church since Sunday morning. Mom wanted to go on this trip and having me as a travelling companion wasn't going to be much more expensive then travelling alone so she invited me to join her and boy am I glad she did!
Sunday we travelled to Niagara Falls through Canada and stayed on the Canadian side. We saw the Falls twice. We just had to go back and see them after dark when they light them up. Monday we travelled to PA. We thought we were going to see the Flight 93 Memorial but there were no signs on the highway to get to it. We were told later there isn't much of a memorial yet so we didn't miss much. It was then on to Lancaster. Wednesday we went to Gettysburg in the morning and then to the Sights & Sound Presentation at the Millenium Theatre. We saw their presentation of "In the Beginning". It was really spectacular! They had angels wearing "Heelies" so that they could glide down the aisles and across the stage. They also use real animals and robotic ones. It is really had to describe the awesomeness of this production!
Today we head back to Niagara Falls and view them from the American side. We will spend the night back on the Canadian side then head back to GR tomorrow.
To add to the normal confussion before a trip, Mark has spent this week in Austin, TX. He had to have 4 days of training there for his new job. Friends of ours from church have had the 3 kids this week. It sounds like things are going well there. I even got an email from Stephen's teacher saying he is doing fine this week. Only 2 more days to go so hopefully it will keep going.
The weather & scenery has been nicer than we dared hope for. We even started on this "Creation Extravaganza" with a deer running in front of our bus less than a 1/2 mile from the church. We didn't get near hitting it but it was really something to see running along the road.
Well, the bus is starting to load and we don't want to be the last ones. (That has only been once.) I'll get this posted so we can get on there.

Last Day!

2007-09-29T09:27:00.000-04:00

Today is Mark's last day to work at Camp & Cruise! He starts at URS on Monday! The last 2 weeks at C&C have been rather interesting. His boss has been pressuring him to stay, at least longer than the 2 weeks notice he had given. She even made him a rather substanial counter-offer but it wasn't worth continuing to work there. We really felt that Mark couldn't turn down the chance at URS.
It is amazing how quickly Mark came back to being himself as soon as he saw an end in sight to working at C&C. It is good to hear him laugh again and have him back to clowning around with the kids again. He is still taking the antidepressant but is sleeping just fine without any meds.
It has added some complications around here though. Mark will have to dress much nicer then the jeans & tshirts he wore at C&C. We went shopping and had to get him some more dress slacks. Of course, this also adds to my schedule as I get to hem them to the right length for him. I'll also have to do more ironing again. (I think I remember how.)
The kids are all doing well in school. Rachel has even qualified for the Midwest Academic Talent Search. They achieve this by getting a score of 95% or higher on a standardized computer test in the areas of reading, language usage, science, or math. She qualified last year but we didn't do anything about it. We're going to look more into it this year and see what all our options are. She probably qualified in the math area as she is actually doing 8th grade math this year while in the 7th grade. The Talent Search is only for middle schoolers or else we would probably have 2 qualified. Through testing they have determined Stephen is able to read as high as a 10th grade level! Not too shabby for a 5th grader! Joshua is loving school! His teacher says that he is doing very well and is really easy-going and happy all the time.
I am doing lunch duties on Mondays. I am also headed to Klackles Orchard with Joshua on Tuesday. Then they were short moms to help with the popcorn fundraiser for the 5th grade trip to Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum so I'm probably going to help with that 1 Friday per month.
The schedule is rather crazy to keep up with especially with 1 car and we did make a mistake this week. I let Mark take the car on Thurs. because he had a 4:15 appt. I thought I told him to get the kids from school and then pick me up when he dropped them off. Somehow we goofed and he didn't leave C&C until 4 and the kids were still at school. I ended up taking him to his appt. then going to get the kids (over 1 hr late), dropped the kids at home then went back to pick him up!
I'm rather hoping that it won't take him long and maybe he can find someone at the new office to carpool with. Even if we have to give them some money every week it would be easier than all the driving. Keep praying that God will provide another vehicle soon.
Well, I have to get moving around here. Somehow, I haven't been able to blog while the kids are at school. Maybe I can soon.

HE GOT IT!!!!!!!!

2007-09-17T10:01:00.000-04:00

Mark had his second interview this morning at URS Corp. They offered him the job on the spot and he accepted it! We had already talked through all the pros and cons most of the weekend so he didn't need to think more about it, he took it. The pay isn't a lot more then currently but the benefits are better and so is the chance for advancement. We are really thrilled!
By the way, Nate, is EG&G who you work for? That is a part of URS Corp and they have military work at Hill AFB.
Mark is also rather nervous about the next 2 weeks at Camp & Cruise though. He doesn't expect his boss to take the news very gently. We did up his letter of resignation before he went in this morning. He plans to start at URS on October 1 so he had to give notice today. Mark has seen his current boss try to hold people's last pay check and other things just to try to be bothersome when someone is leaving so we are expecting some struggles. The good thing is that we know that his time there is coming to a close. I think he will miss the people that he works with but not the frustrations that he has there.
Well, busy day ahead as I have lunch duty on Mondays and I have been doing shopping on Monday plus I have catalogs to get out. I just had to share our good news though!

Interviews

2007-09-15T14:05:00.000-04:00

Good news! Mark had an interview on Friday with a huge company called URS Corp. They then contacted him later in the day for another interview on Monday morning. It is for a position called a project accountant. It wouldn't be a giant jump in pay but it would be some also the benefits are better then where he is now. It would also be a place where he might possibly be able to move up in the future. It would also be straight 8-5, no evenings or weekends.
He is told that it is a rather high pressure position but we feel that it would be a "better" type of pressure then where he is now. Some of his problems where he is now is that one boss basically has made him a "whipping boy". It doesn't matter whose mistake/problem it is, Mark is to blame.
This company is so big, that the employment application asked if we were willing to move internationally. Then it went on to list 8-12 different companies where they have offices. There are at least 6-8 different offices right here in the state of MI.
Things are basically improving here. We are sort of settling into a routine now that we have 2 weeks of school under our belt. Mark's deppression seems to be improving. Either the antidepressant is working or by using the sleeping med to get better sleep, he is better controlling the depression. His counsellor was even a great confidence booster for him prior to his interview. He has a lot of experience with human resources in companies and offered some great tips.
Last night we went out to the Berlin Raceway and got to see some more school bus races. Stephen & Joshua had free tickets for completing the library reading program this summer and then we were able to get 1/2 price tickets for the rest of us through their school. We absolutely FROZE but it was fun!
We are in that tough time of year where it is in the 80's one day and then in the 60's the next. It is hard to know what to where from one day to the next. Yesterday's high was 61 but that was at 7 a.m. and it dropped after that and the wind was bitter. I have to get more warm clothes out for the kids this weekend.
Rachel went rafting with the 7th graders on Thursday. It was quite an experience. Maybe I'll try to get her to write about it. Some parents were an example of a practical joke gone too far and crossing the line.
Well, I have to keep moving around here. Kids don't like doing chores when they think I'm just playing around on the computer. I'll let you know about the job as soon as we know more.

School's IN!!!!!!!!

2007-09-04T08:54:00.000-04:00

Well, the children are all off to their first day of a new school year! This will be the first year that they are ALL in school ALL day! Now I just have to figure out where to start at. Note that I didn't say "What to do with myself". I have plenty to do. It is just what order to do it all in. I'm also trying to arrange my priorities so that on days I don't have to pick up kids, I don't need the car. That will save on gas as well as time. Getting this family around with 1 vehicle is a real trick sometimes.
Rachel has her first "real" babysitting job starting tonight. It will be every other Tuesday evening for a little 6 yr. old girl and 3 yr. old boy. They are niece & nephew of some good friends of ours. It is only a few blocks from home and the kids will actually be in bed almost half of the time she is there. She is really excited about it.
I made her start "weening" herself off the crutches starting on Sunday. Her ankle is much better but did start bothering her when we did some last minute school shopping yesterday afternoon. She was able to start school without them today, except she did wrap her ankle for a little support. I think she rather likes the extra attention she gets with it.
Well, today is only a half day so I better get busy and not waste this time. But I also had to take a minute and enjoy the peace and quiet.

We're here, honest

2007-09-01T08:55:00.000-04:00

I know it has been forever since I have blogged any. Rest assured we are all home and doing ok. It has been a rather rough summer though and sometimes Mom says I focus too much on the negative when I blog. I guess I was looking for positive to write about.
Stephen & Rachel both spent a week at Gramma's in Alpena. Whether they show it much or not, they really enjoy it. Rachel experienced the Brown Trout Festival this year and she had quite a bike adventure with Aunt Bette. Stephen was there for the car show again as well as getting to watch Watkins Glen at Aunt Marlene's.
Rachel then had another good time with Gramma going on vacation with her to Ohio. They stayed at Pete & Deb's for a couple of days then went over to see Mark & Barb. Tony & Angie were home as well & it was at Seth's court hearing so it was all quite exciting. Every now and then she still has new stories to tell of things they did down there.
Now it is back to school for them on Tuesday. Rachel will be in 7th grade, except she is taking 8th grade math, Stephen is in 5th grade, and Joshua starts 1st grade. We have met all their teachers and are pretty much all set. Joshua was a little disappointed before he met his teacher because it is the "new" teacher at school. But now that he has met her, he seems fine with it.
One of the big struggles this summer has been Mark's health. He had bronchitis just after the 4th of July. After that, he had a sinus infection. Throughout those times and continuing since then he hasn't been able to sleep. This makes life miserable. He also has a feeling in his throat as though something is stuck. We've made numerous trips to several doctors. The hardest thing has been not knowing if the lack of sleep has been causing different symptoms or if the symptoms were causing the lack of sleep.
Finally last week, he was listening to a radio program and called me and said this is describing exactly what he has been feeling. If you go to www.familylifetoday.org, you can listen to or get transcripts of the programs on Monday and Tuesday that talk to Pastor Tommy Nelson and his wife about his battle with depression, including an explanation of the biological causes of depression. This week Wednesday we got Mark to a counsellor and he confirmed that Mark is in moderate depression. It has been brought on by lots of different stress factors around here but I think not knowing what was happening to his body was adding on even more stress. His PCP had mentioned needing to deal with his stress and had even prescribed an anti-depressant but hadn't actually called it depression. Mark didn't like the way the anti-depressant was making him feel so he stopped after 2 weeks. Now that he understands all of it more, he is trying a different anti-depressant and is going to be working with the counsellor too. He is also using a sleep med that his starting to help. He was very fearful of using it to begin with for fear of addiction but now knows that it is needed to get him started back to getting better.
A lot of the stress here was probably caused by money problems. They aren't all gone and we still face some hurdles but we are making it through and God is providing in some amazing ways. Totally out of the blue, a family from our church said they wanted to buy the kids' school supplies this year. Not only did they buy them, the lady took each of the kids out individually to spend a day shopping together. She did her best to fulfill all their wishes for supplies including some extras that they hadn't even considered. Another family just handed Mark some cash after a morning service. We have had checks (refunds) show up just when needed and even some reward programs give us just a bit of encouragement when we needed a ray of hope. Mark was able to get a raise which is his first in 3 years. It wasn't much but every bit helps. He also had a man offer some accounting work that he needed done on the side. Once Mark gets the system up and running like the guy wants it, I'll be able to do most of the inputting to keep it going. It will bring in a little bit more each week.
One major hurdle we have yet is that we are down to one vehicle. The van didn't completely die but the best way to describe it is that it is in critical condition and we are being advised to "pull the plug" and that advise if from our friend who does the work on it for us. The latest thing that we believe to be wrong is the water pump and/or (lost it now). Anyway it is something right in the engine which isn't too bad on most vehicles but in a van like ours you almost have to pull the whole engine to get to it. Otherwise, you have try to work both inside and outside the van at the same time with very little top clearance. The van is out at Mark's work right now and we need to figure the best way to dispose of it. We will probably get $100 from a company that will tow it away for recycling.
So that is where we are and what we have been up to. Mark is working today so we didn't go anywhere for the holiday. I may take the kids to a park for a while this morning. Oh, forgot to mention that Rachel is currently on crutches with a sprained ankle. Hopefully, we will start getting her off of them today. She slipped off a curve last Friday playing kickball in the rain. I waited till the dr. was in on Mon and since it was still swollen took her in. After the xrays confirmed it just a sprain, she said to do RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, & Elevate) so it has been an interesting week.

Stephen @ Grandma's House

2007-08-09T13:30:00.000-04:00

Stephen's trun to be @ Grandma's. He is having a lot of fun. Well that is what he said yesterday when they called. Not much is going on around here. On Tuesday I took Rachel and Joshua to the city pool. We stay for two whole hours. Rachel wanted to have Joshua try the big water slide at least once. So I took Joshua up to the top and he sat on my lap and we went do together. He thought that was awsome! So the next time he went up with Rachel and they asked the gaurd that the to tell the gaurd at the bottom to catch Joshua. He had so much fun that. He would not stop. All he did for the rest of the time was the water slide. He can't wait till next time that we get the time to go.
Well in two weeks, we get to go out to the school to meet the kids' new teachers for this year. Rachel got her science teacher from last year, Stephen got Rachel's 5th grade teacher who does half of the day and the other half of the day is a different teacher, and Joshua got a new teacher @ the school who just graduated last December. The resean that Stephen has two teachers is because they both have kids, but they still want to be teachers. So one teachs in the morning and gets time with her kids in the afternoon, it is just the oppiste with the other teachers. But by doing this they get paid, time with their kids, and save money on daycare.
Well have to go. I have to put in this order today!

Rachel's @ Gramma

2007-07-19T09:32:00.000-04:00

I guess Gramma is keeping Rachel too busy to blog from Alpena. I thought maybe she would have time to tell tales of camp and Alpena from up there but she must be having too much fun! Although Rachel has been on the computer and you should no longer see the Campbell Soup boy wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving every time you get an email from Mom. Rachel is getting pretty good at technology and even learned to create powerpoint presentations last year at school. Now we just need a computer capable of keeping up with her abilities.
Well, I am staying busy with all the usual plus an Avon booth at the Berlin Fair. Van's overheating. We've been overheating too with the weather outside; although, this week isn't too bad. Gotta go.

Quiet 4th

2007-07-05T09:31:00.000-04:00

We had a rather pleasant, & quiet 4th of July. We had to do Rachel's Advance Newspaper route and some shopping. We then did quite a bit of cleaning before we had a new family from church over. We spent a quiet (only intermittent neighborhood fireworks) evening getting to know this couple and their 4 kids. We had a simple picnic and lots of conversation. I feel a real easy friendship growing with this family. They are just 2 years moved down from the UP and he does accounting for Children's Bible Hour. They are a real blessing.
What I can't believe is how quickly camp week is flying by! I haven't gotten hardly anything done that I wanted to with only one child at home but I have had some offers for some babysitting of him today and tomorrow so I can get some work done. I just have to call and make arrangements.
We also plan to have the couple who "co-camp captain" with Mark on Friday evening. We do this each year to discuss the camp scholarship and other ideas for promoting camp. Then on Sunday, our church is having something called "F.I.S.H." (Fellowship in someone's home) in place of the normal Sunday evening service and we are hosting some other families here. I need to make contacts for that and plan out a menu. At least the house should stay fairly clean between the 3 different entertainment situations.
Saturday, Mark and I will be going to pick up the kids at camp and bring them all home. We have to be at camp at 9 a.m. so it means an early morning for us. Last year I didn't do pick up so this should be interesting. Now everyone should know the camp songs better then they did on the way up.
What Rachel failed to mention in her blogs is that we also have been to several park parties and she is also now a Red Cross certified babysitter. She spent a day taking the class with several of her friends and now even has a backpack full of supplies to take on babysitting jobs.
Well, I better get busy with phone calls.

Gone

2007-07-03T13:04:00.000-04:00

Rachel & Stephen are off for the week to Lake Ann Camp. Mark & I took them and 25 other kids from church there yesterday. We will return to pick them up Saturday morning. If you would like to send them an email you can go to www.lakeanncamp.com. The emails are printed and given to them each day at lunch so Friday at 10 a.m. is the last chance to send them emails.
I have lots to do as we are still cleaning up from a yard sale last week and we have plans to have people over 3 times in the next week. Hopefully, though, I will have a chance for more blogging this week while I am down to just one child at home.

HOT!

2007-06-26T09:40:00.000-04:00

It is sssooooooooooooooooooooooo hot here in MI!!!!!!! It has been 92 degrees outside!! HELP!!!

Well on Monday July 2, Stephen and I along with kids from church, will be going to Lake Ann Baptist Camp for a week. It is going to be alot of fun!!! Poor Joshua has to stay home:(!!!! Here is what he thinks he will do while we are gone.

The fisrt thing that I will do is probally go to the pool.
Joshua!!

The engilsh reading is "The first thing that I will do is probally go to the pool. Joshua!!" He is weird sometimes. Well maybe ALL the time.

TTYL (after camp)

Rachel

Summer

2007-06-20T12:12:00.000-04:00

The things we have done so far this summer:

Went to the library
Got to see Grandma Joyce
Went to the park to do a LifeWalk
Had a birthday party for Stephen
Went to a WhiteCaps baseball game, which they lost 9 to 7
The only person who has gone swimming is me and only at youth group.

That is about it for this summer. I hope that we can have more fun this summer then what we have had. Will blog later.

Rachel

Upset

2007-06-14T10:14:00.000-04:00

Our NASCAR fans here are most disappointed with the news about Dale, Jr. To be teammates with Jeff & Jimmy is not what was wanted here. I think they were all pulling for him to go to RCR instead. We'll have to see if Rachel sticks with Jr. after this year. She just may switch drivers. She was already bummed that he is no longer a Gillette Young Gun especially when they came out with the show Fast Cars & Superstars.
Well, I'll try to write more about what we are up to soon. Or maybe I can get the kids writing since they are on summer break now.

Where to start?

2007-05-26T11:53:00.000-04:00

Here it is a holiday weekend and we have so much to do. House to clean, groceries to get, summer clothes to unpack, and companies coming. I also have to work this afternoon and the kids, especially Stephen, have homework to do. How's that sound for an exciting holiday? We have promised Stephen a round of frisbee golf down at the park but haven't decided when yet. The weather is cloudy and we had rain this morning. Hopefully that will help to get us busy working so when it clears we can have the fun.

All better

2007-05-21T13:26:00.000-04:00

We seem to be finally mended around here. No ER visits in the last 5 days! Joshua even went back to school today!
Rachel & I went on the field trip to Mackinac Island last Thursday. Mom met up with us and we had a good time. The weather was beautiful--much warmer than I expected! Time just flew by and we had to leave much too soon.
Friday, Joshua had a follow up visit with our dr. and she gave him the "all clear" to get moving a bit more and told him "no more visits this summer". We'll have to wait and see if he listens to that instruction.
Saturday was booked solid with stuff and I really wasn't comfortable leaving Joshua with a teen babysitter since they might have to give him medications so Mark asked his mom to come and give us a hand. She came over Friday evening and stayed with the kids on Saturday then headed home as we left for church on Sunday morning.
I was registered for a table at a home business expo show at a local library on Saturday. I really didn't want to pull my Avon booth out of that. It was from 9:30-3 but we had to set up at 8 a.m. The day went rather slow because it was first year but not too bad either. It is still sort of a wait and see situation.
After the expo was done, I went straight to Meijer to work 4 hours decorating cakes. It was the first time I had been there in over a week. I guess rumors were starting to fly as to whether I had quit or been fired. They were really glad to see me.
Mark also had to work at Camp & Cruise on Saturday and he no more than got home when the guy he is doing work for on the side called and wanted to meet. So they met most of the time I was gone to Meijer.
Yesterday, it was rather a normal schedule as we had church in the morning, I worked at Meijer in the afternoon, and then back to church for evening service. Mark asked the photographer to bring her camera so I could still get a picture done even though it wasn't Mother's Day so we did that. Mark also borrowed a truck for the afternoon to go to Newaygo to pick up a snow blower from a guy he works with. This one is in better condition than ours which only starts part of the time. Rachel was also happy with this trip because she got to visit a little with Jackie.
I have lots to get caught up with around here. Fortunately, I don't have to worry about laundry as Mark's mom did that while she was here. Avon has suffered though and needs lots of attention.
I do have a cell phone again and with the same number as before. We checked everywhere for my phone that I lost last Monday and it didn't turn up and since that is the number I have on all my business info I couldn't be without it for long.
Joshua made it through his first day back to school today. He does have a bit of a headache this afternoon though. So it is a calm rest of the day now with plenty of rest again.

Unbelievable

2007-05-16T11:26:00.000-04:00

The last week has really been rather unbelievable. We have made 4 trips to the ER in 5 days and the one day we didn't visit the ER, we were actually upstairs admitted during that time. We have even been in the same room in the ER 3 of those trips. I think we should have our name on a plaque pretty soon.
You know about 3 of the trips already. The 4th came yesterday. It was Joshua again. His headache pain was uncontrollable. I had given him all the pain meds that I had here for him. It was so bad it was making him vomit and then we have the threat of dehydration. Mark and I took him back to the ER and they gave him something for the nausea and then also morphine. Lovely drug...really does the trick. After observing him for a while, they sent us home with him again. We were told to do more meds when we got home and then to keep him rather well medicated all day today. I really hate to give him so much meds but it is better than another ER visit and more morphine. We are also to keep him on the couch pretty much completely inactive today.
On the way home last night, we had to pick up Stephen at the friend's house where we had left him and he had his fever back again. We got home and Rachel had spent most of the evening dozing in front of the TV. She had a headache and hadn't even gotten anything to eat. Checked her forehead and sure enough, she had a fever too. So I actually have all 3 home today from school. I'm pushing the vitamins and echenachia today. Rachel is scheduled to go on the main field trip all year tomorrow. We are to leave at 5:00 a.m. for Mackinaw Island. Right now, we're saying she is going to have to be much sicker to stay home and miss this.
I have also managed to lose my cell phone during all of this and have not gotten any AVON done in the last week. Oh, and Meijer's called today. Seems the cake decorator scheduled for today called in sick. They wanted to know if I could come in. Well, I would rather be there then home right now but that isn't a possibility and that's what I told them.
Let's see, what else...oh, Mark was contacted over the weekend by a man that he has done some accounting work for on the side. He had been trying to start up a business and Mark did the work on his planning for investors. Well, we haven't heard from him in over a year and we thought that he had pretty much given up on the company. Turns out that he had a new potential investor and needed some changes to the charts that Mark had done. So Mark has been trying to do some work for him over the last couple of days too. We are all so tired that Mark was falling asleep in the ER last night.
I think that is about all our news for now. Might not be very good news but it is what is happening. Except the extra work for Mark is good news because we could use the extra income since I have missed my last 2 days I was scheduled to work.

More hospital visits

2007-05-15T10:26:00.000-04:00

but first I should tell you all that we had a wonderful visit with Mom last weekend. We even ended up with 2 mom's here since Mark's mom wanted to surprise him for his birthday and came to visit for the weekend. The kids loved having 2 grammas here for the weekend. Saturday evening, we went out to Berlin Raceway in Marne and watched some school bus races. There were other super stock races too but the highlight that took us there that night was the school bus races. It was really fun to watch. I think Mom took some pics and if she sends them to me, I'll try to post them. In a way, I guess you could say we had Mother's Day a week early. Of course, then we didn't bother with much of one this weekend and here's why:
Friday about dinner time, Joshua started complaining of a headache. When it didn't settle down shortly, I gave him some tylenol. He sort of laid around a bit Friday evening but we were all watching a video so it didn't seem strange. Then at bedtime, he complained more. I gave him some motrin and put him to bed. He was still crying almost an hour later that his head hurt so I took him to the ER. It was busy there so it took 4 hours for them to say he was simply dehydrated and send us home. We slept downstairs the rest of the night and I pushed him to drink every time he stirred. Saturday, he seemed to be improving so we thought they might have been right. Then around 1 p.m. he started having a fever and it went over 103 very quickly. While I was waiting for phone calls from the nurse at our dr.'s office, he vomited and that made up our minds that we were headed back to the ER which we did around 2. This time they did a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) and determined it was meningitis. All signs were pointing at viral (aseptic) meningitis but the cultures to determine that for sure take 48 hours to develop. As a precaution, they admitted him (us) and started him on IV antibiotics. They were also able to give him better pain medication to keep the headaches and fever under control.
The plans for Saturday had included a Gaither Homecoming concert that Mark's Mom had gotten us 4 tickets to. We felt Joshua too young to go but knew the other 2 would really enjoy it. When Joshua became sick and had to be admitted, we didn't want the tickets to go to waste. Mark took Rachel, Stephen, and a good friend from church to the concert. They did really enjoy it! Rachel was able to meet and get autographs from 4 Signature Sound members (only not meeting Ernie Haase). Stephen was also excited that he got to meet Ben Speer. They all stopped by the hospital to see Joshua and I afterwards. They even brought Joshua 2 Gaither's Pond DVD's.
Sunday, Mark took Rachel & Stephen to church before coming to spend the afternoon at the hospital. He brought me up clean clothes and other items I needed to spend another day & night at the hospital. They also brought my mother's day presents including a painted flower pot that Joshua made at school and had a flower planted in. He was really glad about that because he was upset thinking he wouldn't get to give it to me on Mother's Day. This was the first year that I can remember in the 12 years of being a mom that I didn't get a picture of the family done at church so that was a bit disappointing but Mark asked the photographer to bring her camera next weekend to get one for us.
Mark & I had to go over what needed done to be ready for the week and I sent them home mid-afternoon to work on some things before evening service. They came back for a visit afterwards and then one of our pastors came too. It turned out to be a second late night for Rachel & Stephen.
Yesterday, we had to wait for the results of the tests to come back at 4:30 before we could be released but as soon as they came I was ready to go. Mark and the kids came and got us and then we had to grab a quick dinner and I took Rachel and Stephen out to watch Stephen's spring program for school. Mark had some other things to do at home so he took his turn staying with Joshua who actually fell asleep on the couch as soon as we got home from the hospital and slept till 10:30 last night.
Stephen was really dragging after his concert and complaining of a headache. We had to stop by the store and get some stuff before coming home and he just was wiped out. By the time we did get home, he had a fever and said that it hurt to put his head to his chest (oh, boy, here we go again). I called the dr. afterhour care for advice and they said that he needed to be seen so back to the ER we went at 11:00 last night. It took till 1:30 for them to tell us that they thought it was just a virus and not the meningitis that Joshua had. My main concern was pain management and had been hoping that they wouldn't hospitalize him even if it was meningitis since Joshua's was not bacterial anyway.
So today I am home with both boys. Joshua is doing rather well, still some headache though. Stephen is rather miserable. He has been sneezing for over an hour straight. He has taken a claritin but it is slow in taking effect. He doesn't have a fever at this point yet but it is early in the day. We will have to see how he does at night. I did get a list of just how much of both tylenol and ibuprofen he can take at a time to help him with that. I'm even keeping a list of exactly who is taking what medicine when because keeping it straight for 2 is hard enough when you are thinking clearly but I am basically on fumes today with lack of sleep. Mark is too but he gets to go through it at work. Sometimes I think that would be easier because around here I have chairs and beds that would be so easy to curl up in but he doesn't and also has people needing his input and needing him to keep on tasks.
I just keep thanking God for his timing in all this. If this had happened a week earlier, Mark would have been out of town, Mom would have been here (she doesn't need exposed to viruses), Joshua would have missed Awana awards, and I had to spend a lot of time the first part of last week putting together the picnic for the last night of Awana and would have not been able to do.
We basically have a couple of down days right now anyway and the next big thing is Thursday. Rachel & I are going to Mackinac Island with the other 6th graders from school. Well, Mark has requested the day off so he will be here with any boys not able to go to school. If they both make it, he then has lunch duty and carpooling to deal with as well as a kindergarten ice cream social in the evening. Our biggest question there is getting Rachel & I back and forth to/from school at strange times but there are others that live nearby that can probably help.
Needing help with transportation should tell you that the van is down again. It worked for all of a day before having more trouble with getting fuel and for some reason (I wonder why...haha) we haven't had time to look into it.
So that has been our weekend around here. The picture of Rachel as Carrier of the Month finally came out in the Advance last week. We thought she was getting it for April but I guess it was for May. I'm going to try and get it scanned in later and posted but will have to get some other things caught up around here first.

Mom's coming

2007-05-03T12:47:00.000-04:00

and my house is trashed. I have an Avon order due today, the kids have dentists appointments at 3, & Mark has left for a Men's Retreat at Lake Ann Camp this weekend. I worked at Meijer this morning and then had lunch duty. Sound busy enough for everyone. So much to do and so little time (and sometimes energy)!
As bad as my house looks, I'm still glad Mom is coming. It is nice to have her for a visit and we either completely blow off working or do it together and either way, it is enjoyable.
My hubby's birthday is tomorrow so I decorated a cake at work this morning and I'm sending it to the retreat with a different vehicle then he rode it. It should be a nice surprise for him tomorrow.
Well, I better get to that Avon order. It was due an hour ago and I have quite a bit to do before it goes in.

ER Visit

2007-04-23T09:56:00.000-04:00

Well, we had to make a trip to the ER last night. After the evening service at church, Mark was talking with people about the camp program or the upcoming men's retreat & I was in a meeting planning a luau for the last night of AWANA. We were both interrupted with reports that Joshua was hurt outside. Turns out that he had been running a race (obstacle course) with 2 other boys along a stretch of sidewalk and took a spill. He says he was in a rocky area where they removed some trees (but not stumps) from last year when he fell. Mark had brought him into the nursery and had guaze taped to the wound by the time I got in there. We had several nurse or paramedics that had looked at in before he covered it and said it was going to need stitches. So after leaving Stephen & Rachel in the care of our friends, Mark & Lisa Ellison, we raced to the ER with only a momentary stop home for his pillow buddy, Diego.
The ER doc ordered xrays to check for any additional damage or foreign objects but all was fine there. He then had to clean and stitch up a "corner" gash. It is about 1 1/4 inches horizontal under his knee and then 3/4 to 1 in. vertical. They gave Joshua some nitrus oxide to help him relax and not move while they worked on it. He still did quite a bit of crying while they were injecting the site with numbing med but after that did quite well. It took either 9 or 10 stitches. There are only 8 visible from the outside but I am sure that the dr. did 1 or 2 under the skin first that are not visible now because I know I saw him with 2 different color sutures.
They said that Joshua could go to school today but it was after 10 when we left the ER and none of us had eaten dinner yet. We swung by Meijers for fresh bandages, Wendy's for dinner, and then picked up the other kids before we go home around 10:45. We was about 11:30 before we headed to bed. Joshua's leg hurt pretty bad and so we put him in bed with us for the night. That worked till his meds wore off about 3 a.m. I gave him more pain meds but he just won't settle down so he and I came downstairs. I laid him in a chair in the living room so I could clean off the couch for him to sleep on but he got rather comfortable there and didn't want to go to the couch. So he and I spent the rest of the night sleeping downstairs. I felt it was too much for him to go to school with that little bit of sleep and not knowing how it might feel when the meds wore off again. It is rather a good thing I didn't send him. He is having quite a bit of pain still this morning. The wound looks fine but I think it might be some soreness to the knee or muscle around it that is hurting. So he is just resting with his leg up and watching his Go, Diego, Go! DVD.
I forgot to mention something a little strange that happened at the ER. They have this nurse who comes through and explains everything to the kids and helps them understand what the doctor is going to do so that they aren't scared. When she walked in to the room last night, by the time she got done with the introduction she said that we looked familiar. She was the same one that saw Stephen the last time he was in for stitches. That was several years ago though and for her to recognize us I thought rather amazing. She is now buddies with both boys because after Joshua's procedure last night she brought him a slushie and also a "Huggable Diego" toy as a prize for being brave and following the directions we had for him. She gave Stephen a little block set but he makes friends with all the ER workers.

Taxes

2007-04-17T09:01:00.000-04:00

Our taxes are done! I finished them up about 6:00 p.m. last night! With 2 businesses they get rather tricky and I am not much of a paperwork person. Next year should be better because I am no longer a licensed daycare so that takes part of the complications out of it. Also, our house is a wreck right now because serious organizing is underway. That should help make taxes easier next year too.
Now, I have to get busy catching up on Avon that has been put off so taxes could get done.

Sorry...

2007-04-11T14:13:00.001-04:00

I know it has been way tooooo long since I blogged. I've had numerous phone calls telling me so. I've been as busy as can be but not much I felt notable enough to blog about.

The Awana games have come and gone. Both Rachel & Stephen were on the teams this year. The T&T girls took second place and the T&T boys took third. This was the first year that we have had 2 separate teams other years they have had a coed team.

Weather...we have seen about everything recently. We had a beautiful spring in March but now we are back to winter. My hyacinths look pretty pitiful covered in snow. Right now we are under a winter weather advisory expecting 4-8 inches of SNOW by tomorrow morning. When I left for work at Meijer this morning we were forecast 1-4 inches but had changed by noon. A lot of things are cancelled for tonight and I am anxiously awaiting to hear about our church services. I am usually one of the first to hear because of being in charge of the email prayer chain. They will either call or email me so I can put the announcement over the email. Personally, I am tired and have a lot to do so an evening at home wouldn't break my heart too much.

Spring break...the kids all had spring break last week. That was the reason I knew lousy weather wasn't done. Around here, it doesn't matter how early it turns spring, the weather for spring break is always lousy. We had plenty to keep busy with and didn't even get to do all the things we wanted.

We had a nice quiet Easter, however the rest of the week was rather crazy. Joshua turned 6 on the 6th which happened to be Good Friday this year. We decided to let him have 2 friends over for a little party on Thursday because he wanted to go to a Griffin hockey game on Friday (which we could do because our church didn't do an area Good Friday service this year). It was a fun time and I even got to visit with a mom I hadn't met before. The problem was that they sold out of hockey tickets before we got ours for Friday. He was disappointed but now he & I are going to the final home game of the year this coming Saturday instead. Both he and Stephen had earned free tickets to games by a reading program through school.

Saturday, I had an Avon booth at a local craft show. It was from 8:30 till 3 and there was set up and tear down time too. Rachel went with me and I had 1 other rep working it too. It was a worthwhile day I felt. Then after we unloaded the car, I changed clothes and worked at Meijer for 4 hours. I got done about 9:30 and still needed some groceries for Easter dinner. It was a long day!

We had a nice visit with Mom a couple of weeks ago too. It was good to see her. This was her first trip down since the heartattack. She took Rachel out for a belated birthday breakfast on Saturday and then took Joshua out for an early birthday breakfast on Sunday. They both really enjoy that.

Report cards came home just before Spring Break. All is looking pretty good. Rachel is back up to an A in band so I bought her a new sax book with Disney songs in it to practice on. We have been assured that Joshua is plenty ready for 1st grade and Stephen's teacher commented on how he is doing much better since Spring Break.

Update: Wednesday evening services at church are now cancelled. I don't think that has happened very often in the month of April but I remember one year that we missed 3 of them in Jan. & Feb. Now I can focus on getting things done here at home. The only thing is that now I have to make dinner. Our church offers dinners on Wednesday before the other programs and boy do I get spoiled. With the weather the way it is, I'll take fixing dinner over having to go out in it again.

Rachel will be home shortly and she has to deliver the Advance Newspaper in this. At least she can have some help since Stephen can do his homework later with no church tonight. Actually, the other exciting news is that Rachel has been named carrier of the month for the Advance. Usually they put the kids picture in the paper but they haven't called to set that up but she got a gift card to the movies which is all she cared about any way. Her supervisor says she hasn't had any complaints with Rachel's service which is pretty good.

So that's some of what we have been up to. I'll try to do better at getting on here more but no promises.

Regional Grand Prix Results

2007-03-01T10:33:00.000-05:00

I have had an email asking about the results of the Grand Prix last Saturday. Unfortunately, my family came home rather disappointed. They didn't place at all. Mark was a little bit encouraged because he did manage to come in ahead of the car that took first place at our church races. He finished 7th and she came in 12th. Other than that, things didn't go too well. We learn a little more each year and I figure by the time Joshua is through T & T, we'll probably be able to bring home something.
By the way, we all seem to be on the mend around here. Joshua was able to go back to school on Tuesday but was rather worn out by the time he got home. They are all still doing a lot of coughing but since that could last 4-6 weeks, I'm not keeping them home for that. Rachel did get herself into quite a coughing fit last night at AWANA while running in the games. We pulled on our coats and stood outside for a little bit. The cool air seemed to calm it down but everytime we went back in, she started up again.
We are in the middle of a fasinating MI storm here. Not often we have thunder and lightening with snow, sleet, & freezing rain. It is now almost all rain at least till tonight. Overnight we are to get some more accumulating snow. That should make this slush real fun to deal with.
This weekend we are camping at church Friday night. It is the T & T campout. At first, Mark was going to take Stephen & Rachel while I stayed home with Joshua since he isn't old enough for T & T yet. Then last night they were saying that they are short handed, especially on female leaders so I guess Joshua & I are going too.

Joshua's turn

2007-02-26T10:59:00.000-05:00

Well, Rachel is better. She started feeling better Friday afternoon and was able to go to the Father/Daughter Banquet at church. Then on Saturday, Mark, Stephen, and Rachel went to the Regional Grand Prix in the morning and to watch a Griffen's game in the evening. (I won tickets to the game from our radio station.)
However, Joshua started with a fever Friday afternoon and has been sick ever since. He had most of the same symptoms that Rachel had except his fever was lasting over 3 days and getting higher each time the meds wore off. When it hit 104.2 Sunday afternoon, we called the dr.'s office. The nurse there recommended we take him to the ER to be checked out. The dr. ordered up some xrays and decided probably pneumonia but also gave him a steroid because the coughing sounded "croupy". By the time we got home and them Mark went and got the Rx of amoxicillian filled, no one made it to church last night.
Since starting the antibiotic and having the steroid, he seems to be improving. His fever is down and he managed to sleep through the night. I was awake at 5 a.m. checking on him because the last 2 nights we were up between 2-3 a.m. when his ibuprofen and cough meds wore off. I'm going to call our dr. office for follow up shortly.
The good news is that this hasn't affected my working at Meijer's because I ended up with this whole week off. I didn't plan it that way but it is nice of the timing. Besides Joshua being sick, I need to spend some time down at my Avon upline's house sorting through and bagging up $6,000 worth of Avon for a fundraiser that we have been doing together. Now I just have to get Joshua back to school so I can get to this work.
The reason for the time off at Meijer is because corporate is being a stinker and thinks that our bakery has been going over budget on wages. After 3 weeks of getting in trouble for overscheduling, my "team leader" decided to give them what they ask for and let them see what the bakery looks like after a week. As it is we haven't been able to keep up with everything. I couldn't believe how crazy Valentine's week was! This schedule is going to leave them completely without a cake decorator for at least 2 days. I'm going in to go shopping just to watch the cases go bare! The team leader also told everyone that they are to walk out the minute their shift is over and they have to take all their breaks and lunches. She isn't going to stay over either. I know corporate may think they know how things work but hopefully they will learn a little something from this. Our store is actually closest to corporate and we are having remodeling done so a lot of "big wigs" are in regularly. This should be interesting!
Well, Joshua is well enough to be bored with TV but not well enough to play much by himself. I better tend to him.

Still Sick

2007-02-23T10:16:00.000-05:00

Rachel is still down sick. She has now officially missed this whole week of school. We took her to the doctor yesterday and the official diagnosis was influenza. So the "flu" has hit and is making her miserable. She had been fever free since late Tuesday but it is back today. The doctor said that it could last 7-10 days from the start but the cough could actually last 3 weeks.
This is a real bummer around here. Rachel was supposed to go with Mark to a Father/Daughter banquet at church tonight. We have already paid for the tickets and a corsage is ordered to be picked up this afternoon. Also, Rachel qualified for her car to race in the regional Awana Grand Prix tomorrow morning. I don't know now if she will make it to that or not. Hopefully, they will let someone else race her car even if she can't be there.
The good news is that I haven't had to keep dragging her all over to get things done that I need to do. Since she is old enough, we leaver her for short periods of time like when I have kids to pick up at school or this morning when I had to take Mark to work because the van wouldn't start when he was to come home last night. It gives her a better chance to rest.

New link

2007-02-21T13:13:00.000-05:00

I'm putting a new link on the side panel of the blog. This will be to my personal AVON website. Everyone is welcome to visit it and place orders if you like. If you are in the GR area, I can personally deliver the order. If you are not in the area but would like to help my business, you can do that too. Just choose delivery and the order will be shipped directly to you. I think I saw that the shipping charge is just $3 but you'll have to check into that more. Let me know what you think of the new site.
Rachel is still home from school today. The nurse at the dr.'s office says that this is probably the virus that is hitting our area. Right now, there isn't much that they can do for it but it has been leading to strep in some kids and pneumonia in others. We have to give it a few days to see where it might go from here. Too soon in and we will just have to make another trip in a couple of days. She has to be improving by Friday because there is a Father/Daughter banquet at church Friday evening that she and Mark are attend!

Sick

2007-02-20T12:49:00.000-05:00

Well, the kids have taken turns being sick over the weekend only Rachel waited till their 5 day weekend was almost over to get it. Stephen started it with a fever and headache on Wednesday. Thursday & Friday everyone was pretty much fine except for a few sniffles. Then on Saturday, Joshua ended up with a fever and sore throat. He missed a family outing to see a Griffin hockey game Saturday evening. I also kept him home Sunday morning. We did all go to church Sunday evening but then he had another low grade fever by the time we came home.
Rachel started complaining that she felt like there was congestion in her chest yesterday. She had a little coughing but not much till last night. She is really miserable today - sore throat, fever, headache, and coughing. I am waiting for a return call from the pediatrician's office to get her seen later today. The good thing is that she is now old enough to stay by herself so I was able to work at Meijer even though she was home. She just got a couple of vaccinations last week and I am almost wondering if these have led to her being sick. One of the side effects say that it, on rare occassions, can lead to pneumonia but we will have to wait and see what the doctor says.
Hope all of you are doing well. We are in the middle of a February Thaw. It has hit 40 - 2 day's in a row now! That is really amazing when you consider that we haven't even hit 30 in about 3 weeks at least!

Prix Results

2007-02-17T08:51:00.000-05:00

Well, the Awana Grand Prix was Wednesday evening. Stephen & I had to stay home because he had a fever and didn't feel well but he had his sister race his car for him. Turns out that all 3 cars are going to the regional's next weekend. (The last post said that regional's is March 24, actually that is the Awana games. Grand Prix Regional's is Feb. 24.) Stephen finished with a third place in design in the 3rd & 4th grade boys. Rachel had third place in both design & speed for the 5th & 6th grade girls. Mark placed second place in both design & speed among the leaders. This is the first year that our church has divided it up in the different ages but that is how the Regional's do it so we now do too.
I will try to update more soon but Stephen is doing fine now. Still a few sniffles but no fever anymore. We are headed to see the Griffins play hockey tonight and have a lot to do before then.

Cars in Progress

2007-02-10T23:18:00.000-05:00

Ok. I took some digital pictures of the grand prix cars that the family has been working on the last couple of weeks. Hopefully, I will be able to post them here. Rachel's wheels are on but not glued in place yet. The guys still have to finish weighting theirs and then put on the axles and wheels. We have followed most recommendations. Rachel's design is at the suggestion of Nate. It made one pass down the track during pit time last Wednesday and worked well but that was just one heat. We have also buffed the axles and have a tool for alignment and graphite to help with speed.
The races will be this Wednesday night. They had to delay them because of the blizzard last week. If they finish well enough at our church races this Wednesday, they will get to go to regionals on Sat. March 24. Rachel is really hoping to get a ribbon or trophy this year because this is her last year in AWANA. Next year, she joins the "youth group" (is that really possible?).
Well, it is late and there is no reason that there won't be church tomorrow so I better get to bed. Besides, I'm sore from going with Rachel to a Middle School bounce party last night but more about that later.

Cancelled again

2007-02-06T13:39:00.000-05:00

Schools are closed again today. It seems that the crews have gotten most of the snow off the roads; however, that has left them down to the layer of ice. There were some major accidents this morning. I love some of the ways that people are finding to keep warm. I'm going to try posting a couple of pictures. If that doesn't work then check these out at this link: http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6029303
Hey, I got one to work, I wonder if I can do a couple more. It worked! but not in my preference of order but I'm not good enough to try to change them around.
These are about my favorite but there is one more amazing one. There is a picture of someone's outdoor digital thermometer that reads -26 degrees. The picture was taken in Rockford at 7 a.m. on Monday. I think Phil was playing a cruel joke in PA last week.
Well, I have to figure out how to get some cake mixes from the store so I can get them baked for tomorrow evening. At least it will be nice having on the oven for a while.

Cancelled

2007-02-05T09:59:00.000-05:00

Everything has been pretty much closed/cancelled all weekend. Yesterday was even a snow day from church. The cancellations started Friday evening and continue on through today at least. Saturday, banks, libraries, and even malls closed early. What was really amazing and as far as I know, completely unheard of was that they shut down the Grand Rapids city busses. But Meijers, stayed open the whole time and, being the only thing open, were very busy. Busses were up and running again yesterday but area churches were all pretty much closed including ours. Now there are over 400 area schools and businesses still closed today, including the kids'.
The sun is out and it really looks nice out side. Problem is that the air temp is -8 and wind chills are running -15 to -25. Even though snow plows have been working continously all weekend, the wind didn't settle down to stop the blowing and drifting till today. The temps are so cold that salt is useless to help with clearing the ice. Most of our roads are covered with packed snow and a layer of ice underneath. Even the interstates are only moving at about 25-30 mph. The closings of highways because of multicar accidents has been numerous, including on Saturday, a 10 mile stretch because of 2 different accidents--one involving around 25 cars and another involving 30. Fortunately, the accidents have not included much for injuries.
I did venture out for work on Saturday and Sunday, but other than that the family has pretty much hibernated for the weekend. Today, it is Mark's turn to venture out. With no heat in the van, Mark is even doing our errands on his lunch or on his way home from work. I'm not taking the kids in that van any where. I don't even know if the van would start right now. We haven't started it since Thursday.
I seriously considered calling in on Saturday but they were pretty desperate for workers. Then I made my team leader's day on Sunday. Since we were so far behind and since our church was closed, I offered to do an 8 hour shift instead of just the 4 I was scheduled. She jumped at it! The extra money will be nice too.
Since the schools were already closed for Monday, we let them stay up and watch all of the Super Bowl last night. Mark actually let the Super Bowl for them start at around noon with all of the football specials and pregame. I told them it was a good thing that I was at work or else it would not have started till at least 5 p.m. Stephen was cheering for the Bears so he was a bit disappointed by the game. The rest of the family was going for the Colts, however. I said that I had to go for the Colts since they were lead by Peyton MANNING. I know that there were Mannings on the Bears too but, somehow, I think we have a better chance of being related (distantly) to Peyton than the ones on the Bears.
Well, there is a lot to get done around here. And I have some children with lots of energy and no way to burn it off. (They did go out and shovel for a while yesterday but can't have them do that today with this windchill.) I think I need to find some productive ways to harness it. Somehow, I don't think they are going to appreciate the ways I can find to take care of energy.

Blizzard

2007-02-03T10:48:00.000-05:00

Well, we aren't officially in a blizzard yet...we are just in a blizzard warning. Want to see the latest on our conditions, go to www.woodtv.com. We could be in an official blizzard by early afternoon or evening. Which is real nice since I'm supposed to go decorate cakes at Meijer this afternoon. For those who plan to watch the Super Bowl tomorrow in sunny Miami Florida, check out the sight and see how we are doing.
I don't have much time for an update right now but will try to get back on soon. If any of you hear unexplained laughing, I'm sure it is Dad rolling on the floor at his house looking at the pictures of our area.

Roughing it

2007-01-27T09:51:00.000-05:00

Well, we are having a bit of a "Survivor" experience in our own house. Thursday evening we got home from running some errands to find that we had no water. Mark called a friend a few blocks away and they were without water too. I called a neighbor and they too were without water. By this time, I decided we needed further investigation and checked our local news website. Seems that there was a watermain break that was leaving 3,000 customers without water for the night. The city hoped to give us water by 7 a.m. the next morning. Sure enough they actually had it on by 6:30 a.m. but now we were under a boil water advisory. Now we are told that the advisory will last at least through the weekend and possibly longer. We are glad to have the water back for bathing and flushing but the everyone is still struggling with not using the water to brush teeth or drink. I keep boiling water and trying to keep a full pitcher in the fridge but that just adds to the crazy schedule.
I mentioned lots of things coming up in our schedule and haven't gotten back to writing about them. Now we are actually part way through them. Rachel started volleyball try-outs last week. She has them again this week through Wednesday before she finds out if she makes a team. They have 2 teams and there are 12 girls per team. Right now, there are only 31 trying out so she has a pretty good chance, I think. But this also means someone going back out to the school at 5:30 to pick her up after practice. The good news though is that our neighbor girl that rides with us to the school and a friend from church are all trying out too so we have broken up the extra trips. Now, we sort of hope that either they all make it or none of them do to keep the trips to a minimum.
Rachel didn't quite get all the info right on the AWANA grand prix cars. We did have pit day a couple of weeks ago but we are having another one next weekend to finish them up so we are still open to more suggestions if anyone has any for us. Mark even made a car this year since we are working with the program. Rachel's is going to look like a offering plate and she is using real money for the weights. Stephen made is basically a slim triangle painted red. He plans to put a white Coke symbol on the front of it. I don't think there is any question what Mark's looks like for anyone that knows his love of Nascar. Rachel is really hoping for a trophy or ribbon this year since it is her last chance. I think she might make best design if nothing else.
The kids had a 1/2 day of school yesterday since it was the end of the marking period. Joshua went on his second field trip. This one to the local children's museum. Then in the afternoon, there was tubing at a place called Pando Ski Area. It was sponsored by the school although no school supervision was provided. It was for 3rd through 8th graders so Joshua mainly got to watch. It was a beautiful day for it! Boy do these guys have it easy! The worst part of going sledding was always the trip back up the hill. Now, they just attach a tow rope to the line and sit back while they are pulled to the top of the hill again! It looked like lots of fun! There were even some teachers that joined in but only towards the end since they had to stay at school till all their grades were in the computer.
Stephen's class is in the middle of a series of water safety lessons. Rachel never had the opportunity to take these but I am really glad Stephen is. Each 4th grade class takes turns being driven to a pool of another school system and spending an afternoon learning water safety. They did it back in second grade too so this is more advanced. There are 5 classes and they have done 3. This week they even have to take an extra set of clothes to get wet and they will be jumping in fully dressed to work on how to stay afloat using the clothes. I used to teach the same thing back in Alpena only we only demonstrated and didn't have the kids do it too.
We also have the AWANA games that Stephen and Rachel both want to be part of. Practices are twice a week starting the end of Feb. and running through March. The area games are on a Saturday at the end of March. Last year is about the only year, I don't think that our team has placed with Rachel on the team. This year, we hope to have enough to take 2 teams to the area competition which would give Stephen a better shot of making the team. Last year he was an alternate and everyone showed up so he didn't get to compete.
Mark's also swamped at work. They had their FNI (finance) person quit at the first of the year and the bosses are dragging their feet at hiring another person. Now they are into boat show season and wondering why Mark can't keep up. He is really frustrated because the main show he will have to spend the entire show at is Daytona 500 weekend.
We have our car back! It is running good. It needs an alignment yet but other than that it looks and runs good. Our friend was able to get it going for just $450 in parts which leaves enough from the $500 to cover the alignment. Our next car adventure is to get heat in the van again especially now that the garage door is broke so we can't keep it in the garage at night and no heat means no help clearing windows.
Well, I have to get these kids motivated around here. We played yesterday, now everyone has homework to do today but while I'm at the computer they don't think they have to do it.

Tips

2007-01-12T17:51:00.000-05:00

I need tips. Rachel here, and I am about to make a Grand Prix Car. I remember that I need to cut it so that it looks like upside down car. I can't remember were you put the weights. If you have any tips please tell me. I need them by tomrrow morning. Hope to hear from you Uncle Nate ir any one.

Back to school

2007-01-09T14:32:00.000-05:00

The kids are finally back to school and we are working back into a routine. I'm so glad. There is always so much to do and so little time to do it and I seem to get everything done faster when I am doing it solo. With them back to school, I can at least focus on projects better and think through them more. I am glad that Rachel blogged during the break but she left quite a bit out so I'll try to bring you up to speed.
We survived all the programs during December. I think that I had previously mentioned 3, I don't remember putting anything about the 4th which was a puppet program that both Rachel & Stephen were part of. Rachel has been part of the church puppet team for almost a year now and Stephen decided to join in October or November. The team performed on Wed. Dec. 20 for our AWANA program. I'm told they did well. I was busy cutting cakes and didn't get to see the performance. It's on tape though and I'll watch it later.
Also, Rachel failed to mention that after the band concert the director had each child perform a piece in class. He then assigned them "seats" and Rachel is the second seat for the saxophones. Not bad since most of them have been on that instrument for 2 years and she just went to it in Sept.
For those that did hear, I had quite a surprise for my birthday. Dad managed to find out what Meijer I'm decorating cakes at (There are only about 8 in our area.) and called and talked to my manager. He placed an order and paid for it over the phone. I was a bit surprised when the main decorator handed me an order and it specified that I was to decorate it. I sort of thought maybe someone from church wanted me to look good to my manager. Then I looked at the name (Roger) and it had a 569 area code and it was a Pooh cake. I figured out it was for me by then but then I was wondering if he was coming to pick it up! He didn't but I got paid to decorate my own birthday cake this year!
For Rachel's birthday, we went to see the Santa Clause 3 on Saturday the 23rd. She brought 2 friends from school and all had a good time. She didn't like the idea of a store bought cake even if I did decorate it so I had to do hers at home.
We had very pleasant, relatively quiet, holidays. We were right here and didn't even have any family in. Usually part of Mark's family will come for New Year's but that didn't happen this year. We were so busy with things this fall that we didn't go anywhere except his family party for the day of the 16th. For New Year's Eve, we went to a church family's home and played games till the ball dropped. We then hurried home as I had to be at work at 7 a.m. on the first!
As for the car incident, we have been able to get $500 from the girl that hit us! She didn't have insurance so we really didn't think we would get anything without a trip to small claims court. It took some doing but I was finally able to reach her by phone on 1/3. She claims that her boyfriend was to have paid it and she didn't know that he hadn't. Anyway, I told her that all we were wanting was the $500 we would have gotten from her insurance company if she had had insurance. She agreed and came over with a personal money order the very same day! This should cover the parts needed and so we have moved the car to a friend's house who has a barn to work in. He also has a son & son-in-law to lend him a hand on the repairs. He's also the same one who has loaned us his Neon to use until our car is back up and running!
We were also able to go see Charlotte's Web over the holidays thanks to Nate. The movie was really cute and we all enjoyed it. Since we were at the theater the weekend before for Rachel's birthday, I picked up the tickets without the kids knowing it. I then put them in a popcorn bucket under the Christmas tree with the card that Nate had sent. After most of the presents were open, they saw the bucket and couldn't figure out what it was doing under the tree. As Stephen picked it up, he saw the tickets and the whole family was excited. They just couldn't figure out how Uncle Nate had gotten tickets for our theater all the way from Utah.
Our Christmas is all packed up just not put away yet. It is hard to do things in our attic after dark and Mark fell asleep Sunday afternoon while I was at work so the tubs are still in the living room. Of course, I have found several more items that needed put in the tubs since Sunday so I guess it isn't all bad.
We have a lot of things coming up so maybe I'll try to make my next post a look ahead but that is all the time I have for now. Time to pick up the kids.

I Have Been Part Of HISTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-01-04T16:57:00.000-05:00

This is Rachel here and I have been of HISTORY!!!!!!! We waited 3 whole hours to do a 30 sec. thing. But I guess if I if I was part of history ok it was fine. Most of the time I had a hold of the tail of the wolverine on the back of Daddy's sweatshirt. It was really crowded in there. I hope that if I do something like that every again that they make it so that we are in a single file line! My legs still hurt from that night.

I just got back from seeing the movie Night In The Museum. It was sssooooooooooooooooooooo
funny! I hope that we can own it on DVD when it comes out. You should go see it for yourself.

Hope to type soon!

History

2007-01-02T18:11:00.000-05:00

Part of our family is proudly being part of history. Mark, Rachel, & Stephen are in line with thousands of other people to view the casket of former President Gerald Ford down at his presidential museum in downtown GR. I am home with Joshua as we felt him too young to understand and appreciate the experience (not to mention standing in a long line of people for who knows how long). If you want to see the news from our local perspective, we use www.woodtv.com. There is a lot of pride as Ford was a well-loved local hero!
It has been interesting to find out how the details have been worked through for many years (basically since he left office). We knew the city was wanting to pretty things up a bit because we would eventually be in the national spotlight, but we didn't know just how extensive the pre-planning was. This has been a really touching experience for us. Maybe I can get one of the kids to blog more about the actual experience tomorrow.

The New Year!

2007-01-01T15:35:00.000-05:00

It is me again, Rachel. Mom and Dad are sleepping so I guess I should type. Stephen has been in front of the tv waiting for the Michigan vs. USC at 4:30, I think?

I am glad to say that I sayed up until 1:30 this morning. It was fun last night. We were invited to go to our babysitter's parent's house. We played a lot of fun games, ate some really good food, watch at lest 1 movie, and watch the ball drop in New York! I was hoping to stay up later but oh well.

Hope to type again soon for I have nothing elas to write about.

Different Person?

2006-12-28T16:16:00.000-05:00

This is written by Rachel, NOT Mom! I guess if I want to not have to clean my room I better type. I don't were to start? Hmmmmmmmm...????????? Ohhhhhh! I know were how about the car? Did you know that it hit the tire were I was at? That was scary!! I hope we get the money, fix the car, and the forget the whole thing. It doesn't look like that will happen. When we called her insurance company they said that she canceled out her insurance on 10/24/06! That is bad! Really bad! I hope this is done soon!
We had a very nice Christmas together with just our small 5 people family. It was fun! I got something that was too young for me so I got a tamagotchi that is pink! My favorite color! I also got a safe little thing to help it not from being all scrached up. I also replaced something that I am not going to use that much and I instead got a DVD of my favorite singing group. Hurray!!!
I need to do something before I forget.
Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!! And A Happy New Year!!!!

Everyone's ok...

2006-12-20T12:37:00.000-05:00

but the car isn't. I don't have much time to write but wanted everyone to know that we were in a car accident yesterday. I was in the left turn lane when a car in front of me decided they were turning left too. We were side-swiped in the front quarter panel. It didn't want to move so I left it where it was till the tow truck got there. The other driver was able to pull into a drive way. I had all the kids in the car but everyone is fine. A shop owner must be used to accidents there. She let the kids come into the back of her comic book store to stay warm while I dealt with the sheriff and everything else. I then had a friend from church come and get them. Mark came to the scene as soon as I called and almost beat the sheriff there. The other lady was ticketed for failure to yield the right-of-way. The sheriff said that it was clear that I was in that lane and she should have looked better before pulling out.
Unfortunately, we both have just PLPD insurance. Looks like we'll be able to get $500 from her insurance to pay for repairs. The question is just how much the repairs are going to be. We had the tow truck take the car to the recommended shop and we'll hear from them later today. Of course, we can't pursue the money from her until I get a copy of the accident report which could take 5 business days, which is even longer with the holidays.
Depending what we find out on the estimate, we have a friend with a heated garage and lots of experience. He may be able to keep the repairs under the $500. He has also loaned us his Neon to use till we get this mess worked out.
It doesn't help with the budget or the Christmas spirit, but we are just very grateful that we are all fine. Cars are replaceable, kids aren't.
Gotta get busy now though. I was doing 3 large cakes for AWANA at church tonight but that got rather messed up with the "excitment" of late night.

Mom's home & more

2006-12-11T13:33:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post to make sure that everyone knows that Mom was able to be released from the hospital and go home on Saturday. She is glad to be there and says she is doing her best to not do anything.
This is going to be quite a busy week for us. Joshua has a school holiday program this evening, Rachel has a band program on Thursday, Mark's family party is Saturday (in Detroit), and both boys are in the church program this coming Sunday morning. Of course, this is all thrown on top of the normal routine of school, homework, AWANA, chores, and work!
That won't leave much time for blogging this week. It also won't leave much time for fixing my Haloscan comments. Oh, well. Bloggers will have to do for now.
I'm also putting in my final AVON order before Christmas. I'll switch the link (if I haven't already) as soon as I post this so you can see the latest books. Just let me know if you want anything.

Changes

2006-12-07T13:13:00.000-05:00

Well, I went and did it. I changed around my template...but I also managed to goof up my Haloscan comments while I was at it. Help, blogger brother Nate! It said that it would be saving my old template but I don't know how to get to it.

Mom's being released...soon

2006-12-07T10:22:00.000-05:00

I went back to TC to see Mom this Tuesday & Wednesday and they are saying she could be released on Friday. At first, they were saying either Thursday or Friday but they also said that she had to be off the oxygen for 24 hours first and she was still needing it on Wednesday afternoon. Her oxygen levels are doing better but still are borderline. They are still doing breathing treatments too. Actually all she has left for extra attachments are the oxygen in her nose and then the central line in her neck. She isn't letting that port out till she is ready to go out the door. Her poor veins have really had a rough time of it and this makes it so much easier.
Mom called Uncle Mike early in the week and said to come on Thursday but that they might not leave till Friday. She also said she didn't care if he brought his truck or her car but he had better be there when they say that she can go. She told me she feels like a kid waiting for Christmas to arrive. She really did look so much better this week!
Well, there is a lot more going on around here but no time to blog about it now. Hopefully will be able to soon. I also want to get some time to play with this new version of blogger to see what type of changes I can make to this site.

Medical updates & more

2006-11-21T15:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, Mom has once again been allowed to leave the hospital. I talked to her late on Friday and she said they were sending her out again. I just haven't had time to blog since then. She also told me that she didn't have to go in now this week for the pre-op tests she was scheduled to have since they did all of them while she was in there last week. Now we have only 1 week till the surgery.
As for Mark's nephew, Nick, he is also making a rather remarkable recovery at this point. They have moved him to a rehab ward for teens with head injuries. (The scary thing is that there are so many of this injury they require their own ward?!) He does answer questions and can get up and walk around with some assistance. He seems to recognize people; however, he wakes up very disoriented as to where he is. Each time it might be somewhere different, including the army. This seems like a rather good recovery for such a short time.
This Thanksgiving, we have so much to be thankful for. It is amazing that we have had 2 close calls to losing people who mean a lot to us and yet we still have both of them. God is definitely answering prayers around here!
I think we are staying home for the actual Thanksgiving day. We have a gift of food from someone at church. Everything but the turkey. Then Mark called to say that a guy he works with has the turkey for us! It may even be a wild one, I'm not sure.
We are working on making arrangements to visit Mom over the long weekend though. If Mark can get Friday off, we will go up then. Since Tammy's place is rather small and Rich isn't much into company, we have asked if we can spend time visiting at Lake Ann Camp which is less than 5 miles from Tammy's. This way the kids can play in a different room or run around outside while we visit too. It is supposed to be in the mid-50's (that is up 40+ degrees from late year) so they may even play a few holes of disc golf while we are there. We don't know yet if we will go up on Thursday and stay with part of Mark's family that is up there or if we will make it a 1 day trip.
I also need to contact brother Mark and see what his plans are for next week. We are still making plans. We are thinking of my Mark and I going up Monday afternoon and then he would return to GR after the surgery. I would then be able to stay till Thursday as I am scheduled to work on Friday. Of course, if she isn't doing well, I'll stay longer but will make that call when the time comes. We have friends who are willing to help with the kids we just have to tell them when we need them.
For those who come by for Nascar talk, it was a pretty sad day around here on Sunday. Not only the disappointment of Jimmie Johnson winning the championship but also for the coverage that NBC had where you would have thought Johnson was the only in the race and in contention. My husband is not the least bit sad that NBC will no longer be covering Nascar so that cars not driven by Hendrick Motorsport drivers will get their fair share. Stephen's major disappointment was 10 weeks ago when Tony didn't make the Chase but he was a bit impressed with the Chase anyway. Now that Kevin & RCR are getting things together maybe next year for him which would make Mark happy. Of course, Rachel would prefer to see the 8 car in the winner's circle more often. Just can't please everyone in this house, no matter who wins!

Mom's back in the hospital

2006-11-17T09:01:00.000-05:00

We received a call last night that Mom is back in the hospital. She was having trouble breathing when she got up yesterday morning. Aunt Marlene drove her to the hospital because Mom didn't want her to call an ambulance. It seems her oxygen level was low, her blood pressure was low, and her heart rate was low. They gave her oxygen and she seemed to improve quite a bit. She seemed good when we talked to her last night. We don't know what this means for her surgery, whether they will move it up or not or whether they will just keep her in the hospital until the surgery. Everything is all up in the air again.
As for Nick, he has been moved out of intensive care to a regular room. He is eating and doing "some" talking. They say that they still don't know how much damage or how permanent the damage was. Still just need time.

Comerica Park is done!

2006-11-16T10:00:00.000-05:00

Well, Stephen (and I) has finished building Comerica Park. It isn't what I would call great but then again it was Stephen's project and his work. Once we got the basic structure of the park down and convinced him it was going to take a posterboard of pictures to actually show most of the details, I let him do it all from there. He was up way to late last night finishing it but hopefully it made it to school safely. Tonight will be Michigan Night for us to go see what all the other kids learned about and how many parents did the work on the projects. When we went to Rachel's 2 years ago, her's looked a little pathetic because so many of the parents had done the work on the other kids. It gets a bit frustrating but we have also talked to some of the teachers about it and they know. They take whose work it is into account when grading the projects. I know that it is really hard as a parent to step back and let the kid do it, but how else are they to learn.
Rachel is headed to her science partner's house after school again today. They are going to finish working out any kinks to a poem that they are presenting by way of a puppet show tomorrow. They had a third girl join their group on Monday after most of the work was already complete so they need to do some adjusting. We'll pick her up on our way to Michigan night.
I'm still doing all I can to push my Avon business. I will be working a craft show booth on Saturday. I'm also working to make sure that customer's have books to order from while I am gone around Mom's surgery. 2 more orders before Christmas and I really want to take advantage of them. I hope to have both sets of books labeled and ready for delivery on Monday so that I have them out before Thanksgiving. I do have someone else that wants to sub-sell for me so maybe that will help.
I think the most exciting news this week is that our church is planning on breaking ground next Monday on our property for phase one of a project. This phase will only be clearing the property, paving a drive and parking area, and building a pavillion to bring in all the utilities. We hope that we will be able to hold lots of different activities there in the next couple of years even though our church building is 1/2 mile away. Hopefully the ground won't be frozen by Monday. We approved the plans back in June or July but it has taken a ton of red tape to get through so that the work could actually start happening. We received a letter yesterday that they are planning a special dedication and ground breaking ceremony for Sunday afternoon after the morning service.
Well, I have lots to do. By they way, "no news is good news", right? We haven't gotten any news on Nick yesterday so all must be as good as can be expected.

Mom's Surgery

2006-11-14T22:38:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that they have now scheduled Mom's surgery. It will be on Tuesday, Nov. 28th. She doesn't have to go in until that morning. They say that they won't know exactly what all they will do until they are in there. They are looking at possibly replacing the mitrial valve, at least one bypass, and then repairing the hole if they still need too. It is healing well and may not need much work by then.
She said that they only let 2 family members in the surgical waiting room so there is no since in me coming until a couple of days after the surery. Yeah, right, like that is going to happen! NOT! I plan to be right there. I had already warned Meijer that I might need some time that week and the way it is currently scheduled, I work on Monday and not again till Friday. I haven't got it all worked out yet but I only learned about it about 10 till 5 this afternoon and I had to spend most of the evening making Comerica Park with Stephen.
P.S. - Mark's nephew, Nick, has been brought out of the coma but is still rather out of it. He will attempt to respond when told to squeeze a hand or something else but not consistently. He is off the ventilator as well. If things go well, they will remove the pressure monitor from his head tomorrow as well as the chest tube. These are all encouraging signs but he is still far from healed. They really haven't even been able to determine a lot yet about any permanent damage. Mark's sister has another chemo treatment tomorrow. She went home this afternoon which is the first time since Saturday. Mark's mom stayed at the hospital. Geri plans to go back if she is up to it after her treatment tomorrow.

Family news

2006-11-13T12:30:00.000-05:00

I've talked a lot about Mom and what is going on with her. I believe I also mentioned Mark's sister is currently undergoing chemo for her second bout with breast cancer. Now we have something else to add to list.
On Saturday, Mark's 16-year-old nephew, Nicholas, was struck by a full-size van on Van Dyke in Detroit (actually Sterling Heights). He is currently in critical condition at Children's Hospital of Michigan in downtown Detroit. He has a severe head injury, broken collarbone, cracked ribs, collapsed lung, and an ankle injury. They have drained some fluid from the brain because of the swelling and fixed the collapsed lung with a chest tube. He is currently in a medically induced coma because of difficulties when they try to bring him out of it. They also have removed his ventilator at one point but decided it best to put it back to let his body just focus on healing and not any extra work. The do think that there is some central nervous system damage but really don't know much until he comes out of the coma but for now they can't let him come out. It could be a quite a while before they know much (with Mom's heart it was the first 48 hours but with the brain, it can continue swelling for up to 72 hours before starting to heal).
Mark went over early Sunday morning and returned late last night. He was only allowed in the room briefly and not until just before he was leaving. He said that Nick has more tubes and monitors than Mom did! He spent most of the time supporting his mom and sister. His mom is taking the blame on herself which she does often even in situations where she had no real control. Mark's sister is holding in there. It is tough because she also has 2 more sons at home to think about as well as her own health. Because Nick's dad died almost 5 years ago and Mark's mom lives with Geri and the boys, they have granted Mark's mom full access to Nick as well as Geri. This will help a little because then when Geri is gone, Ruth can get in yet. They are very strict about any visitors at this time and either Ruth or Geri has to go in with the visitors.
The kids and I stayed home as we had a busy day scheduled at church as well as the fact that I was scheduled to work at Meijer's. Our kids know what is going on with Nick. We have tried not to be too graphic yet honest. Rachel seems to be taking it the hardest at this time. She went and found some picutres of Nicky from 7 years ago and has been carrying them around with her. She was going to put one up in her locker as a prayer reminder. The boys seem to understand it is serious but are doing fine. I also notified all their teachers in case there was any problems at school from the stress of the situation.
We know that God is in control. All we can do is pray and wait. We have seen a miracle recently in the fact that Mom is still with us and now we are watching for another one, if He sees fit. So that is the news from here. I'll try to find something more encouraging to write about soon. Maybe I'll get a digital picture of Stephen's Comerica Park later this week that I can post (after he gets it built that is).

No school...again

2006-11-10T13:35:00.000-05:00

Well, the kids are all home from school again today. This week it is for Parent Teacher Conferences. Joshua was home both yesteday & today but the other 2 had to go 1/2 day yesterday. Rachel went to another student's house for the afternoon as they have a project to do together. This student lives in Rockford (which is quite a drive from here) so the mom picked Rachel up when she picked up her own and then brought Rachel back to the school around the time we were finishing up with all the conferences. This saved us all a lot of driving.
The conferences went well. Stephen's was probably the best conference we have ever had in his school career! This teacher really seems to understand him and they get along great. We are so thrilled with her work with him. Joshua is having a slight difficulty understanding that when the teacher or a parent assistant want him to do something he needs to do it whether he wants to or not. He is just being stubborn and wouldn't count past 10 for them when he was being assessed. Last night, though, he counted to 100 for us at home. Rachel is doing well too. Her biggest struggles are with Spanish and the fact that she missed 2 &1/2 days of school during a busy time. The strange weekend of us going to TC probably didn't help any either. She is doing so well in band on her saxophone that the second year students are a bit ashamed of their playing. The director told them they could either quit or practice harder if they didn't like that she was doing better then them.
Now, this morning has been spent with me helping Stephen work on a history project--Comerica Park. This is due on Thursday, Nov. 16 so this is the final weekend we have available. It is quite a project. So far we have the field itself made up. Now we just need all the seating and walls as well as it's extras, such as ferris wheel, carousel, and statues. It's going to be a long weekend.
The latest on Mom: She had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday and the doctor was rather pleased. The only vital sign that they are having to keep an eye on because of a couple of poor readings is her oxygen level. This week she saw the cardiologist, next Wed. she sees the surgeon, and then she sees this doctor on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving again. She is still getting lots of company. Aunt Marlene is there with her all the time but Uncle Paul & Aunt Bette say they are staying in Alpena until her surgery is over and they come spend at least a day a week with them in TC. She also had a visit from her friend, Fran, who just moved to the UP in the last year or so. They spend time reading and doing puzzles. She sounds rather encouraged and content with the situation which is better then she was doing with her stay in the hospital.
We voted on Tuesday but are a bit disappointed with the outcome but we know that God's in control.

Mom update

2006-11-02T14:49:00.000-05:00

It is my turn to post the update on Mom. She is being released in just a little while to go stay at cousin Tammy's house. The doctors looked over their test results today and were willing to let her go as far as Tammy's but she is to have constant supervision. Aunt Marlene is there and plans to stay with Mom as long as is needed. Mom will also be having weekly doctors visits to keep an eye on her condition. Mom assures me that she won't hesitate to speak up to Marlene if something doesn't feel right (we'll have to see on that one). As you can imagine, Mom is very happy. It isn't Alpena but at least it is out of the hospital.
Mom actually has given the nurses something to laugh about as she put on her jogging suit at least one day this week. Then she was sitting in her room visiting with Marlene & Tammy or they went to the family room and worked on a puzzle and the nurses would come in but couldn't figure out which one was the patient because they were all dressed. The nurses may have gotten tired of tracking her down and helped get the doctors to let her out! Of course, Mom may also haved headed to the kitchen to help out if they had kept her much longer too!

2 posts-1 day

2006-11-01T10:58:00.000-05:00

How amazing is that!? I just wanted to make sure that everyone noticed the new link at the side. Now you can look over the latest Avon catalog that I am taking orders from. If you are interested in anything, just send me an email and I'll get it for you. The other way to order it is to go to www.Avon.com and order the items then when it asks for your rep's phone number put mine in.
Also, I better use this chance to say happy birthday to 2 brothers, Tim on 11/1 and Mark on 11/2. It was good to see both of you recently even for just a short time. Keep in touch, guys & have good birthdays!

Catching up again

2006-11-01T10:40:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I haven't blogged in a while. I've barely sat down at the computer very long except to read the updates on how Mom is doing.
We are trying for some semblance of a normal life, all the while awaiting a phone call saying that Mom had another problem and that they are heading to surgery.
The kids did well while we were gone to TC. They stayed with a couple from church that have sort of adopted them as extra grandchildren. I'm told that Rachel was a big help especially on Sunday evening when Joshua just couldn't stop crying. There were good reports from school as well which is a big relief.
The kids are having some crazy weeks at school. This week there is no school on Thurs. or Friday because of teacher inservice. Next week, they go just 3 & 1/2 days, except for Joshua who only goes 3 days, for Parent Teacher Conferences. There will be one full week of school but then they have another 3 day week due to Thanksgiving.
For those of you that don't know yet, I am working at Meijer in the bakery department decorating cakes. I asked for 10-20 hours a week. Supposedly I was going to work evenings when Mark would be home with the kids but they asked if I could train in the mornings. I agreed and now I hope they keep me on mornings. It is really working out well for me to go in from 7-11 a.m. The only thing that they don't like is that I have to leave at 11 to pick up Joshua and can't stay late if we are behind. This schedule gives me evenings at home with my family yet or I do my Avon then. They also aren't exactly thrilled that I have been there just one month and have called in twice (one for the Sunday we were in TC & then Fri Stephen was home with a cold). They will just have to deal with that though.
I'm trying to figure out when I can get back to TC to see Mom again. It doesn't look like this weekend though. Mark has a prayer breakfast Sat. morning and then will be going to work till 2 p.m. I could get someone to cover at church for me on Sunday but am scheduled to work at Meijer from 1-5 p.m. I don't want to call in too much for babysitting favors from friends at church right now either because I know I'm definitely going to need it when Mom has her surgery.
On the other side of the family, Mark's sister, Geri, has recently gone through a second masectomy and has started more chemo. We haven't heard from them recently to know how it is going but we are praying that they have better meds now then when she had it 5 years or so ago.
So that is about it. School, work, and church--and phone calls and trips to TC. Stephen has a field trip on Monday to Lansing which Mark is going on then he also has a project to complete for Michigan night at school on November 16. I have to call for a physical for Rachel since she is wanting to try out for the vollyball team in January. There is just always something more to do.

Boys are doing well

2006-10-03T15:12:00.000-04:00

Just a couple minutes to post before I have to go get Rachel & Stephen from school. Wanted to let everyone know that the boys are adjusting well to school too. Stephen says he doesn't like school but does very well in it. He has only forgotten his homework twice and turns out that he had a substitute for the last little while of school on those 2 days.
Joshua just loves kindergarten. He was thrilled to come home on the second day of school and tell me that he raised his hand and gave the right answer when the teacher called on him. He also thinks it is pretty cool that he didn't have to tell the music teacher his name but everyone else did. (We go to the same church that she does.) There are only 4 or 5 boys in Joshua's class and the rest are girls. That doesn't bother him any because he rather prefers to be around the girls. He is totally attached to a foreign exchange student that is staying with our friends, Mark & Lisa for this school year. If I can't find him when we are at church, I just look for her and he is usually close by.
Rachel didn't make student council representative but she did have a decent turn out for See You At The Pole. It didn't go exactly as planned but it went well none the less. I don't remember if I put it in the last post or not but she is also doing 7th grade math this year. They tested all the 6th graders at the beginning of the year and if they did well enough, the teacher put them in 7th grade math. She is like 1 of only 6 in her class to be doing it!
Well, time to run again.