Heading to Lake Ann

As soon as Mark can sneak himself out of work we will be leaving for Lake Ann Bapt. Camp. It is up by Traverse City. This is their annual Memorial Day Work Bee. We spend the weekend getting the camp ready for the summer camp season. A lot of families from our church go up and it is a lot of fun. We spend Sat am & pm working at different projects (setting up teepee's, sorting food, or painting) till almost dinner time. We are fed great during the weekend and when we aren't working, we get to play games and disc golf. Sunday is chapel services and family time. Then we work Mon. am till lunch, pack up and come home. The weather is supposed to be more like July 4th then Memorial Day here.
Hope everyone has a safe and good holiday weekend.

Babysitting...contractors

As if I wasn't busy enough around here this week. The lead contractor decided he was ready to have some guys start painting here this week. And from the last 2 days, it isn't encouraging. They came Monday and started on the garage. They are supposed to "wet scrape" since it is lead paint. Well, that is hard to do if you leave the water bottles laying around the yard and you have a cigarette in the hand that isn't holding the scraper. So the paint chips that they are taking off aren't staying on the plastic very well either. They scraped the garage and spot primed it. Then they started on the back of the house. When I looked at the scraping on the garage, it wasn't done. They did some more on it yesterday as well as more on the house but were only here a 1/2 day. When something is primed, that means it is ready to paint, right? Last night there was no way that the scrapping was done but yet 3 sides of the house were spot primed! This morning I have talked to both the contractor and the city supervisor for the lead program. They both assured me that they weren't done scraping. No one had an answer then as to why they had spot primed over areas that still needed scrapped. They have only taken a few of the hardware left from the old storm windows off and only after several were spot primed over which tells me if I hadn't complained they would have just been painted over and left there. And with my complaints about the chips not staying on the plastic, they have brought a hepa vac to clean them up. Today they have stayed till 10:15 and disappeared again. My best guess is that they will be back around 3:30 to clean up and put away for the evening since the contractor usual transports one of them to and from the site. At this rate, there is no way the work is going to be done before the kids get out of school on June 8 and heat and humidity is to set in this weekend. In the mean time, I can't open windows during the day when they might be here working and the kids can't play in the yard. AAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!! I don't have time for this. I have way too much going on to have to babysit these useless....... (I'll let you fill that in). Well, thanks for listening to my rantings. I better get busy.

Profile

Trying to get this photo into our profile. It doesn't seem to want to work for me so I guess it'll have to wait. I have other things to get busy with right now.

Pictures

I'm trying to figure out how to post pictures. And it looks like I did it. These are some that Mom sent to me from when we were in Alpena for spring break. I hope that I can get an electronic copy of the family picture taken at church last Sunday for Mother's day. Then I can add that one to the profile. But I better post this and send the church photographer an email before I forget.

Gone

Well, Mom's gone home for now. I've actually been gone for 4 of the last 5 days. Mom came last Monday to lend a hand here. I earned a trip to Chicago through recruiting with my Avon business. We were getting to go on a tour of our "branch" there that does both manufacturing and distribution.
Mom and Joshua took me to meet up with 5 other reps down in the Hudsonville area last Wednesday around noon. We drove over to Chicago in our uplines minivan. The trip went fine. Even with construction there wasn't any problems. There was a pizza party at the branch Wed. evening and then some shopping as well as visiting at a Ruby Tuesday in our hotel. Thursday we toured both areas of the branch, had lunch, and headed home. Coming home didn't go as well as getting there. It took us 2 hours to go about 40 miles through Chicago. We stopped for more shopping at the outlet mall in Michigan City, IN and then had dinner before heading home. The ladies finally had to be done shopping because the van was so full we almost had to put some bags on their laps. I know that my feet were a bit squished from packages. Mark ended up picking me up at about 10:45 p.m.
Then on Friday, I had to unpack and repack. 3 other moms from church and I were taking our girls to a "Secret Keeper Girls" Conference in Fort Wayne, IN. It was a complete surprise to the girls! We pulled them from school early and were already packed and ready to leave town before they knew anything was going on. This is a conference designed for 8-12 year old girls and has to do with dressing modestly in order to keep the "deepest most beautiful part of themselves" for the man that they will marry. More info is available at www.purefreedom.org. The same author offers retreats for older girls which some of the teens went to this winter so we wanted to check this one out. It was really great and a lot of fun!
The conference was from 7-9:30 and then we had a hotel room at a Holiday Inn. It was a fun time! We had 4 moms & 5 girls and were able to travel all in 1 van. The girls were able to go swimming for a while on Saturday after breakfast. Then, since it was 1 of the girls birthday, we had cake in the hotel room before we checked out.
We only had about 2 snags. The rooms were supposed to have 2 double beds but instead had 1 queen size. The 1 mom had brought an air mattress so it worked out fine for them. In our room, we had them bring a rollaway bed. Rachel used that and I just crashed in the recliner. I was so tired that it wouldn't have mattered where I slept. Rachel wasn't too thrilled with the bar supports of the rollaway though. The second snag came when we were trying to start the van to leave the hotel and come home. It wouldn't start. The battery was dead. (We had forgotten to turn off a dome light we needed to read the directions the night before.) Thank goodness for a AAA membership. After the hotel couldn't get it jumped using their mini-bus we called AAA. They were there within 1/2 hour and since I told them battery problems they sent a van that carries them around. He was able to test the battery. It showed only 25% charge but the health of the battery was at 0%. His batteries would have been over $100 but he was able to tell us where an AutoZone was easy to get to. He gave us a jump and while part of the moms stayed at a playground 1 block from the hotel, 2 of us went to AutoZone and got the battery replaced for $50 and we even were able to get him to put it in for us.
We took our time coming home. We found a gokart place and stopped to race. Then we had to stop for ice cream before getting home. It was a good time but was 8:00 before we got home on Saturday. I was too exhausted to do much of anything yesterday.
I'm still pretty tired today but have to get myself moving. Lots to do. The nice thing is that I don't have to worry too much about laundry because Mom keeps up with that and keeps my kitchen clean. What a blessing!
Well, I better get at it.

Tough week

This has not been one of our better weeks around here. The boys finally got better on Tuesday. Not early enough that I could take Stephen to school at all but at least he could complete all his homework before going back to school.
As the boys were getting better, something outside was starting to bloom that had a bad affect on my allergies. By Wednesday, I was more miserable than my allergies have ever made me. Congestion, sneezing, headache...Oh, boy and that was while I was already on Claritin-D. The doctor thought I should add Nasonex to my Rx cabinet to try to help out.
While I was at Sam's Club being flabbergasted by the price of that Rx, all of a sudden my middle finger on my right hand had shooting pain going up it. The pain would keep coming and going. Sometimes when I would bend it, it would hurt. The next time, it wouldn't but it would hurt to open it back up then.
There was a Fine Arts Festival at the kids' school on Thursday evening. I couldn't miss that because Rachel was performing in 2 different musical groups. The art teacher also displays as much art work as possible so we had to look to see if any of the kids' works were on the walls. Trying to applaud was not a fun experience as it sent more pain shooting from my middle finger. By the time we got home, the swelling was rather obvious up the back of my hand.
I called the doctor Friday morning to take a look at my hand. The middle finger still felt as though it had been jammed in and needed to be popped back out. It wasn't the shooting pain though. The diagnosis...the start of carpultunel (sp.). Oh, joy. So I am now on anti-inflammatory and a wrist brace. By the time I got kids home from school, I was miserable. I managed to get dinner but other than that I was on the couch most of the night. Part of it, may be my body adjusting to the anti-inflammatory. I haven't taken much Naproxen before this. I know it doesn't work well for Dad but so far I was just really tired.
So that was our week. Not one of our better ones, especially for me. My allergies didn't help Mark with getting sleep this week either. He's at work today and the kids and I may try to pull off a surprise since his birthday is next week and I am even going to be out of town for it.
More on that later though as I don't want to do too much typing to aggravate this hand.

Rude Awakening

Well, my week is not off to a very good start. It is a little bit of a rude awakening when a child comes into your room at 3 a.m. crying that they have thrown up on their bed. That was my start to this Monday. It was Joshua and he had gotten it all over himself and the bed. I cleaned him up and had just gotten him settled on the couch and me in the recliner when Stephen came down. He didn't get his bed but made it to the bathroom before he was in the same shape. We snoozed in the living room till it was time to start the day (again).
Joshua doesn't seem in as rough a shape as Stephen. He hasn't had any problems since around 9 this morning. I have let him start on some sips ofwater and a few sips of clear pop, spaced out about every 15 minutes. Stephen has made a lot more trips to the bathroom. He was doing fine so I let him start on some sips of water and then pop but after about 2 sips of pop around 1 this afternoon, he lost that little bit of liquid again. I had hoped to take him to school at lunch tomorrow but that doesn't look like it will happen. They want the kids symptom free for 24 hours before they return.
I don't know what is causing this. I have tried to figure out what they might have eaten that is affecting them like this but don't know what it could be. They haven't had a fever but Joshua did complain a little about a headache once.
Looks like I'm homebound till at least Wednesday. This has postponed Joshua's kindergarten testing for a month. I also was scheduled to help a part of my downline sign up a new representative. I couldn't find anyone to cover so we rescheduled for tomorrow (this was before Stephen heading to the bathroom again at 1). I think I should be able to have part of my upline go on it tomorrow. They just were all busy today.
Hope you are all having a better Monday than I am.

Van's fixed!

We decided to ask a friend/neighbor if he could help with getting the fan off the van with us. Not only did he help get the fan off, he called a friend of his that does even more mechanical work (possibly professionally) and the 2 of them got the fan off, the water pump off, and everything put back together by about 9:30 tonight. We would still have been working at it on Sunday I'm sure. So maybe the water pump was a bit more than we could chew but at least we tried, and the Lord provided the help we needed. The guys wouldn't take anything for helping. I may have to do some cakes in the future for them but that's a small price to pay. I can handle that.
Now the next step that we hope to do over the weekend is new spark plugs and wires. I think we should be able to handle that. If all goes well, we may even do the oil change while we're at it.

Auto help

Maybe I can get more help with this problem than the ink problem. (Were you serious about the brake cleaner, Nate?)

We are trying to replace the waterpump that sprung a leak on Tuesday on our '92 Chevy Conversion van. Our problem has come with trying to remove the fan. We have removed all the nuts and bolts that we can find but can't seem to get it off. Mark pulled and banged and sprayed it with WD-40 but it isn't budging. Are there any other little tricks that maybe weren't in the Haynes repair manual that we follow so closely? On the very front center of the fan unit there is a little coiled up piece of something that appears to be rubbery but we can't get figure out if it is to be removed or is holding the the fan on at all. We have several people from church that we usually consult about our repair jobs but most of them are currently in Georgia on a missions trip. Any one have any long distance advice?

Thanks.

Home a week

I'm rather surprised I haven't heard from Dad about not blogging at all this week. Of course, he hasn't been on since Tuesday either so I guess he can't say much.
The kids and I left Monday April 3rd for Alpena and stayed there till last Saturday. The inside lead work was actually completed on Thursday and Mark stayed here that night but we stayed in Alpena till Saturday to give Mark a chance to get some additional cleaning done. (They'll be back in another couple of weeks to do the outside but we don't have to evacuate for that.) We stayed at Aunt Marlene's house though she was in Florida. Her house is just much more conducive to having children in it, especially since the weather was lousy most of the week and the kids couldn't spend much time outside. We went to see a magician at the library one evening and went swimming at the clubhouse one afternoon. We turned the clubhouse trip into a birthday party for Joshua. Cindy came and brought Emily and Damian plus Mom brought out cupcakes. It was really nice. We topped off the week by decorating colored eggs on Friday afternoon. (Good thing too because I haven't even reached the Easter baskets yet.)
We drove up in a bad snow. At times, I was following the tracks of the cars in front of me because I couldn't see the lines in the road. On one 30 mile stretch, we saw 4 accidents! The way home was beautiful! The only problem was that at times the kids couldn't see the action on the DVD screens because of the bright sunshine.
We spent last weekend helping do more extensive spring cleaning. We have actually done very little unpacking because we are trying to go through things and reorganize instead of just putting all the clutter back where it was. With the family room, I'm waiting to see what the kids ask for. I figure it is spends more than a month in the basement without being asked for, I can probably get rid of it. We'll see.
Trying to organize while trying to stay current with all the other things going on in our lives has made for a very busy week. And will probably keep me that way for some time.
Joshua felt that he needed a birthday "party" with Dad since it didn't happen on his birthday. So last night, we had just a couple of friends over after the Good Friday service. He wanted another Tigger cake. (He doesn't remember his first one since that was his first birthday.) Fortunately, that doesn't take too long to decorate.
I also have a cake to do for Sunday for a boy's birthday from church, then there are 2 showers for teachers at the school on Monday and Tuesday this week that I will do the cakes for. 1 is Rachel's current teacher (and I even organized this shower) and the other is a kindergarten teacher that had both Rachel & Stephen and plans to have Joshua next year. (I helped with her first shower when Rachel was in her class.) I also have been asked to do a wedding cake for the end of September from a family at church.
I think that about catches you up for now. The kids Saturday morning videos are done so I have to get them motivated now for the day.

Ink

Ok, family. I have a problem I need help with. On Wednesday, I had a cap come off a pen in my back pocket. I was wearing a light weight long-sleeve buttondown shirt over a tshirt and when I took it off there were a couple of big ink spots on it. I washed it out in the sink right away as much as I could. I have now washed it in a color-safe bleach and with a stain remover and neither have hardly touched it. It is now going through the washer after a treatment of hairspray and a toothbrush. What's my next option? Those are about all I know about and I'll be up to about anything. It's an AVON shirt that I really like and I don't want to lose it.

By the way, tonight we are going to a band concert that Rachel is in. Tomorrow starts spring break after a half day of school.

Buck's gone

I know I usually write about what our family is up to but just had to take a minute to make sure that everyone had seen the news: Buck Owens died on Saturday. I'm bummed. Just saying the names brings back so many memories. I can't believe it but I have actually seen that they are putting seasons of Hee Haw out on DVD. I think that would be a rather fun collection to have.

Well, I am rather overwhelmed this week and have been for a while. Mark's mom and dad were here over the weekend. Rachel participated in the Awana games on Saturday and our team took third place. (Stephen was an alternate because we had too many boys.) I'm busy with Avon, taxes, sending out info to his family about their family reunion this year, and packing. The kids and I will be leaving next Monday to spend spring break in Alpena so that the contractors can come in and put in the new windows and do the inside painting. I have to have everything in the house 5 feet from any work area, which means every window. Fortunately, they have given us some exceptions to the 5 foot rule such as our waterbed but we have lots of windows so this is a lot of work. This also means any other valuables in the house need packed and out of sight. What a major case of "spring cleaning" we are attempting to do!

Gotta run. I hope to be able to blog again before we leave but am not promising. Maybe I can use mom's computer to do an update while I'm up there. I'll have to be on her computer to place an Avon order anyway.

Survived...with help

We have all survived an extremely hectic week but only with the help of Mom. I was running so much last week that I didn't even check the email on somedays till the kids were in bed for the night.
There is a Women's Expo in town every year and my upline has a booth which she needs help manning. That also involves lots of prep work on our part. It is a great opportunity to really give a boost to our Avon businesses. That was Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But I had 600 packets of catalogs and flyers to prep before Thursday so they could be at the booth at setup. I worked the booth on Friday during the day and Sunday between church services.
The same weekend is a church ministries conference. It is on Friday evening and most of the day on Saturday. It is really a wonderful experience with lots of practical ideas to help with our church ministries. Our church covers the cost for any that want to go and I really needed the encouragement so that is where I was on Friday evening and Saturday.
Mom came down on Thursday to watch the kids so Mark and I could go to the conference. She also watched Joshua while I was at the Women's Expo on Friday. She helped with laundry and started the packing of items for us to get ready for the lead work.
It was a beautiful weekend weatherwise. Saturday was nice enough that Mom and the kids walked to a nearby park and stayed for about 2 hours. Even yesterday it was around 65 around lunch time. Then the wind kicked up and now we woke up to a light groundcover of snow. Windchills are in the teens and windter has returned. Hopefully, my hyacinths that started to come up over the weekend will survive ok.
Now, of course, there is followup to do of contacts that we have from the Women's Expo plus keeping up with the everyday work needing done around here. I believe though that I was able to earn an overnight trip to Avon's branch in Morton Grove, IL. They call it a "Queen for a Day" tour of the Avon headquarters. Even if I didn't, I have almost doubled the size of the unit I have in just the last month or so. If my leadership checks stay consistant or go up then I'll be giving up 1 Advance route soon. If I keep 1 route it will be Rachel's and we will transfer it to her name as soon as she is old enough.
No word yet as to when the lead work is going to be done. I had 1 contracter come through to get info for the bid another was scheduled but didn't show yet. I have a lot of running to do but am not looking forward to it in this weather. I'd rather stay right here.
This weekend is going to be a little quieter but not much. Rachel is part of a solo & ensemble competition with kids from other charter schools in the area on Saturday and then there is also practice for the Awana games on Saturday and this is Mark's week to work on Saturday.
Well, that's about all the news from here.

Busy weekend!

This is going to be a busy weekend, not that most of them aren't. It's just that this one actually has a lot scheduled. Most of the time it is just busy with household stuff that can happen whenever we get to it over the weekend.
Rachel and Stephen are going to be in rough shape by Sunday. I'm pretty sure of it. They are going to a "Camp Out" at church tonight with the Awana leaders. They are supposed to be picked up by 9 a.m. but they are also part of the Awana games that will be happening at the end of the month so they have practice from 10-noon. We asked if we really had to pick them up for the hour or if we could just leave them there and were told that they could just be left there. So after the camp out they will be spending at least 2 hours practicing all these running games. Then Stephen has a birthday party to go to from 2-3:45 at a gymnastics studio. They have all sorts of tramps and bungies, etc. so I don't think this will be a "sedate" party by any means.
The kids' school carnival is tomorrow too from 1-4 but I don't think we will be making it. I haven't volunteered and feel a little bad because I haven't even baked any cakes for the cake walk but just don't know when I would have found the time or money.
I'm actually going to spend the day at the Muskegon mall with some other Avon reps. We are going to be trying to sign people up to sell Avon. I have a unit underneath me that is doing rather well. Right now though there is an extra incentive to earn a trip to Chicago. My leadership checks that I get from having a unit are starting to really look rather nice but need to get a bit bigger to really help out around here. The way to do that is to increase the number of reps under me. That's the long-term incentive. A night away in Chicago being treated nicely by Avon (and all the little freebies they want to throw my way) would sure be nice though. So Saturday is a big Avon push! With Mark's work schedule, I sort of have to do it whenever these opportunities fit into his work schedule.
I think I'll be opening my own "barber shop" on Sunday. It's time to get my clippers out when both Mark & Rachel are complaining of needing a haircut and Stephen needs it whether he says so or not. I sort of like the feeling I get when I'm done. So far, no major errors in their cuttings and I always know that I have saved at least $50 when I do the whole family.
Well, I think that is about it for now. Joshua and I were supposed to go grocery shopping this morning but he started acting like his stomach was upset so I would rather not chance it. I'm going to focus my day on laundry and cleaning up around here. I may do the shopping after the kids go to the campout or just make Mark a list for their meals for Saturday and then go shopping Sunday afternoon or Monday if we can last that long.

Busy, busy!

What a schedule we have today! My first activity was cancelled which was a makeover with a friend from church. That just means that I can breath for a while. Later today, I don't think there will be time for even that.
The kids have Parent/Teacher Conferences today. Ours are in classes trying something new called Student Led Conferences. This will be a new experience for us all. Ours are scheduled for 4:30 & 5:00.
The kids then have practice for the Awana games at church from 6-7:30. I told them we are going to pack sandwiches for them to eat between the school and the church.
I am part of a small group Bible study that meets at 7:30-9 on Tuesdays. Our entire church is going through a "Season of Renewal". And most everyone is working through the "Experiencing God" Bible Study. The church was able to get the books at a discount and even had youth editions available. It has really been interesting! We even had an evening worship service "in the round". Because we have chairs in the auditorium, the pastor had the chairs rearranged between services so when we came in at night they were in circles facing the center of the auditorium. He used that night as a sharing time for what God was doing since the Bible study had started. He wanted people to be more comfortable sharing and everyone to be able to see who was talking without them having to come to the front. It was a casual atmosphere and really unique.
Well, I have Avon customers awaiting their orders. Joshua and I will be off delivering them here soon.
At least with P/T Conferences this week, it means I'll have help delivering the Advance papers tomorrow because the kids only have a 1/2 of school.

Get the Lead Out

We have been learning and working through a program here in GR called "Get the Lead Out" since last fall. Mom knows about it but I figured it was time to fill everyone else in as well. The object of this is to get lead out of older houses that could be dangerous to young children.
I had to sit through a class on the dangers of lead and safe ways of cleaning. We also had to fill out an application and give them all sorts of income paperwork, etc. I turned that in early in Dec. and waited a month. No word from anyone so I called. A week later there was still no word. Finally, the guy I was calling gave me the number of the lady he was awaiting info from and I called her. That seemed to get the ball rolling.
By late January, Mark & I had to sit down and go over paperwork with a city inspector. We received a lot more information at that time. Turns out that it is actually a loan program. We were this far into it before anyone used the term "repayment" or anything that gave indication that we would have to pay to have the work completed. This startled us some because of the fact that we hadn't heard anything and we were so far into the program already. It really isn't that bad of a program though. The city is going to write off 30%. We are approved for up to $12,000 and it would be at 0% interest for 10 years. There is no lean put on the house or anything like that. The inspector also had to look over the house to make sure that it was worth fixing if there was lead in it.
Less than a week later, we had a full-blown lead inspection done. It took 2 people 3 hours to go through the house and test lots of different areas with a special machine (XRF) which reads the lead content of all layers of paint. They had to do inside and out and even the garage. They also did dust swipes and soil testing.
This morning before Mark went to work, the city inspector came back with the official results. To no ones surprise, we have a lead problem. The good news is that most of the interior of the house is safe (just some in the basement stairway). The problems are in the window sills and the exterior of the house. So the city is proposing all new windows and repainting the outside including the garage. (Part of the outside is not contaminated, but he is going to try to have them do the whole thing.) The other place that it is, that was new for the inspector, is a bare patch of soil in our driveway. So they are talking of replacing all that grassy area in the drive with concrete. (This makes my husband happy because it was awful trying to shovel or snowblow that grass strip.)
The next step is for the city inspector to write up a report and send the work out for bids. He is hoping that it won't be a problem keeping it at or under the $12,000. I also have to take Joshua to the health dept for a blood test. (If his levels were high enough, they would actually change the amount written off or would write off the whole thing.)
Frankly, we think that the lead has possibly affected his speech development. His speech improves dramatically during falls and winters. During times when windows are open, his speech doesn't get worse but it also doesn't continue to grow and improve as it should. From what I have learned about lead, it is also a possibility that the lead has caused, or enhanced, Stephen's Asperger's Syndrome. From the class I went to, lead can affect any part of a developing child's body except the lungs.
I keep talking to the inspector about timing of having the work done at each visit. He is going to see if we can push it through to have the work done during the kid's spring break (the first week of April). We will have to move everything 5 feet away from the windows and vacate the house on Monday morning. We won't be able to get back into the house till after 5 on Friday. This will be while they are doing the windows and interior painting. The outside work won't be done till early May and we can be in the house while that work is done as long as all windows are closed and the kids don't play in the yard. We sort of figured that Spring Break week would be easiest when I can just take the kids and go stay with family out of GR. It wouldn't be too hard to find a church family to take Mark for the week so he could work but to take the whole family of 5 and deal with our crazy schedule could be rough. With this type of notice, it shouldn't be too hard for Blacks to work something out for Sarah for that week.
Well, that's about the biggest news from here. The only other thing going on is that Stephen has tested positive for strep again. This is twice in 2 weeks. They have switched antibiotics but want him tested again in 3 weeks to make sure that he isn't a carrier.

Mid-winter break?

What is this? I know we never had such a thing. Our kids are having a 5 day weekend. They have today, tomorrow, and Monday completely off school. It sure seems strange but then again. The schools scheduled to be open tomorrow may not be anyway.
Have any of you seen the pretty colors on a West MI radar today? From white to several shades of blue, pink, green, and yellow too! We have had a whole rainbow of colors all over the radar screen. It has really been strange to have thunder and lightening during February. We started this morning with snow...then hail and rain. It has really come down hard for a while too. Some people are even without power. Of course, it is supposed to go back over to snow over night which will make for fun travel to work tomorrow but that is why I said that schools that are scheduled open still may be closed tomorrow. All this precipation to usher in the coldest weather of the year! And just 2 days ago we were up around 40 and some people weren't bothering with coats. I think I have your weather rollercoaster beat, Dad!

Finally

I finally seem to have a minute to sit down and blog since I know it has been a week and I owe you an update on the AWANA Grand Prix. Rachel's car weighed in just fine which was really nice to not have to worry about. However, she didn't fair too well in the racing. They go through the racers 4 at a time with the top 2 moving on to the next round. The do this till they have the top racer and they take that one and put it in the "Trophy Round". They then go back through the racers again leaving out the fastest from the first round. They keep doing it 4 times till they fill the "Trophy Round" positions and have a final race. Unfortunately, Rachel's never came in higher than 3rd in any of her heats. We take some consolation though in the fact that there was to be a new rule this year that didn't get enforced and all the cars faster than Rachel's were not following that rule. Seems that some people took to making their tires thinner which tends to make them faster. The officials at the area race were not aware of this rule change till just prior to the start of the race so they just let them race that way this year. We all had a good time though and learned from it. Rachel can also now say that she made it to the area race and she has a pin to prove it.

Now a family update: Stephen has strep. One of my daycare girls had it after she left here on Monday. I really thought that Joshua would end up with it since he was in the closest proximity to her while she was here. Joshua started with a runny nose on Wednesday but hasn't had anything else. Stephen had a runny nose last weekend without any other symptoms so we thought it was probably allergies and he seemed to be improving since it got to be winter again. Yesterday, Stephen started complaining that his throat hurt and he had a low-grade fever before bedtime. Took him to the dr. this am and he came out positive. Now the question is when any of the others will come down with it? I'm thinking, better safe than sorry so I will have to make some phone calls and get someone to teach my SS class on Sunday. If I don't someone will definitely be sick Sunday morning.

We have actually been doing fairly well this winter and avoided anything too major. These sniffles are about it till the strep. I figured we'd get something pretty soon. I guess you could say "We were due." I was enjoying the healthiness but sort of holding my breath knowing it wouldn't last. I am starting to believe in using echenacia though. Mark was starting to come down with something a couple of weeks ago and this type of something usually moves down into his chest to become bronchitis. I started giving him echenacia right away and after about 5 days it was gone. It never became anything else and never got bad enough that he missed work.

Times up for now. I need to put the boys down for a "rest time" and then get some work done around here. Hope my big brothers are having a nice visit in UT. (Is Nate's blog goofing up anyone else's computer, especially the comments?)

Good thought

I just had to pass along the following that I received via email. I know I owe you all an update on the Grand Prix and hopefully I can post that tomorrow. Here's a thought shared by an AVON upline of mine:

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Mr.Common Sense. Mr. Sense had been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, and that life isn't always fair. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not kids, are in charge).
His health began to rapidly deteriorate when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate, teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch, and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student only worsened his condition. Mr. Sense declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student, but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. Finally, Common Sense lost the will to live as the TenCommandments became contraband, churches became businesses, and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
Common Sense finally gave up the ghost after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, then she spilled a bit in her lap and was awarded a huge financial settlement.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by two stepbrothers: My Rights and Ima Whiner.
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

Super Bowl Fun

Of course, the hype of the week around here is the Super Bowl this Sunday. This blog usually only talks about 1 sport, NASCAR, but we had to share the following to show just how much we think of our Detroit Lions in this house. (For Nate, this might require one of your liquid/keyboard spill warnings.)

What do you call 47 millionaires around a TV watching the Super Bowl?
The Detroit Lions

How do you keep a Detroit Lion out of your yard?
Put up goal posts

Where do you go in Detroit in case of a tornado?
To Ford Field-they never get a touchdown there!

What do you call a Detroit Lion with a Super Bowl ring?
A thief

Why doesn't Grand Rapids have a professional football team?
Because then Detroit would want one.

What's the difference between the Detroit Lions and a dollar bill?
You can still get 4 quarters out of a dollar bill

How many Detroit Lions does it take to win a Super Bowl?
Nobody knows and we may never find out.

What do the Detroit Lions and possums have in common?
Both play dead at home and get killed on the road!