Update - Part 1

It's been another eventful week and everytime I wanted to blog something we were offline. Our internet seems to be back finally - I think it's because Sassy Neighbor called and yelled at them :o) . Supposedly they've been upgrading our service - but after two weeks of upgrading (and a lot of down time) so far I'm not impressed.

I fell down about 5 stairs last week, but we're pretty sure I tripped on something and it wasn't an MS-related thing. Fortunately I didn't go through the plate glass door at the bottom of the stairs, but I was amazingly sore for a few days.

The Boy and Younger Daughter started soccer this week. We weren't impressed with the organization or communication! I had to email them to find out when it started and I later found out that the coordinator gave me the wrong time. Sassy Neighbor was never contacted, either, so it's not just me. Anyway, we have soccer Tue and Thurs until mid-October.

Our kitchen tile has been inexplicably cracking - particularly in front of the refrigerator. When I cut my foot on a piece of tile I decided it was time to pull it up and investigate. The subflooring was wet from water dripping out of the freezer. So I pulled about 12 tiles and we're planning on moving the fridge so I can pull up a few more then replace them with cheap tiles until next year's tax return arrives and we can put down Pergo.

The next day as I was working on the tiles some more, Older Daughter wend downstairs to reboot the laundry and came back with the news that the basement floor was wet. So I headed down to investigate. I located the leak (or so I thought)in a pipe above the dryer. I went upstairs to try to figure out if the leak was coming from higer up the pipe. In order to accomplish this I had to pull out the stove from it's corner and cut a hole in the wall. Fortunately, this was one of the few drywall walls in .the old part of the house (the rest is plaster). At this point The Husband returned from work and was greeted by children gleefully bounding out of the house with cries of "Hi, Daddy! Mommy's cutting holes in the kitchen wall!".

This story is so long I'll have to post more later... All you need to know right now is that we have no hot water - but it's much easier to deal with now when it's 90 degrees out then it was when our water heater broke on a Friday night during a blizzard.

Unplugged

It's been a fun week so far -- our phone line is out so they're sending a repairman on Thursday (so call our cell phones in the meantime), and our Internet has been sporadic (first available appointment is August 1st, but we ascertained that the whole neighborhood was out so they had it fixed today - as well as Sunday. Hopefully this repair will "take"). So I've felt a bit disconnected for the past few days.

Monday morning we took the kids to swimming lessons only to find out that it isn't swimming lessons.... Instead it's the summer recreation program. So they're doing that this week (9-12 every morning - yay!!) and two weeks from now and we still have to find swimming lessons.

There is yet another thunderstorm rolling in. Last night we lost power for 10 minutes and had a brownout later on (necessitating once again resttting all the clocks). I hope this storm will break the humidity, but somehow I doubt it. Sunday we actually had 100% humidity - I didn't think that was possible unless it's raining.

Is there a VW Bus Renaissance going on that I'm not aware of? [yes, I know I ended that sentence with a preposition, deal with it!] I hadn't seen a single one in years but all of a sudden I've seen about eight in the past week. Weird.

Anybody want a dog?

I hurried the kids through supper tonight and then ran out the door to get them to VBS at 6pm (I still haven't decided if I like it in the evenings or not...). In the rush there was no time to clean up the table.

When I returned there was half a bratwurst missing. And the macaroni salad looked like it had been rifled through.

As I cleaned up the kitchen Shadow wandered in and stood at my feet (he likes to watch my feet when I'm in the kitchen in case I drop something). I looked at him and asked, "Did you eat my dinner??". He looked back and burped.

Home!

We survived the annual extended family trip to Knoebel's Grove Amusement Park. At first we were afraid of what the park was going to be like as they were flooded by a tropical storm a week before we left. Here are some photos taken by an employee of the flooding.

The floods happened on Wednesday and by Friday night they reopened. We were there the following Friday and if you didn't know there had been 4 feet of water over the entire park you wouldn't have guessed! They did an amazing cleanup job. One Kiddie ride was out of commission and the big pool was still muddy, but you could barely tell what had happened.

The campground we usually stay at was flooded as well but it didn't recover as quickly so two days before we left we had to find another campground with enough room for the InLaw's Fifth-wheel trailer, which meant being an hour away from the park. But it all worked out well.

Wilma came with us for her first camping trip (she did well in the tent and at the Amusement Park) and the other two dogs went to my sister's house. Wilma also got to visit with her previous family (my SIL's family who raised her) and was very excited, but she seems to know that she belongs with us now.

At the moment it's really icky out - 90 degrees and there are thunderstorms on the way (I know - you Arizona gals would kill for only 90 degrees!). I've been trying to do laundry from the trip but it's so humid that nothing will dry.

Making Stuff

All 3 kids have made or helped make something this week. Older Daughter made Lemon Chicken for dinner tonight (yummy) from a recipe she found in one of her magazines. Earlier in the week, while we were looking through 'Taste of Home' magazines, Younger Daughter found a recipe she wanted to make - Cheesy Chili Bean Bake - or something like that - which was *really* surprising since she won't eat chili or beans and that's what it was for the most part. She had a blast helping to cook and she loved the food (so did Daddy - both dishes are in permanent meal rotation now).

Then earlier today The Boy handed me a pair of earrings and I told them that they weren't mine they were Older Daughter's (she had been making jewelry earlier in the day). He informed me that he had made them for me! And they're beautiful! I'll upload a pic soon - Blogger's being stupid about uploading and we have yet another thunderstorm coming and my connection is getting intermittent.

Edited to add picture:

Update on The Boy

For all those who asked in the comments - his face is back to normal after the line-drive, but the first day of baseball camp he was playing first base and got run over by a high schooler (he's 9). He came home with an ace bandage wrapped around his waist to hold the bandage on the 2" square abrasion on his waist. But he kept playing and has been practicing sliding along with everyone else all week. He's much toughter than his little sister who needs a band-aid if she even thinks about blood!

Slowly....

Very slowly getting back into the swing of things. It's been such an mild spring then last week summer hit and my MS took a hit along with it (causing mostly tiredness and "bugs" - random itching all over).

The boy had baseball camp this week and Older Daughter has been taking a babysitting class at the YMCA, thus leaving Younger Daughter more bored and whiny than usual.

We've also made several trips to the vet - Holly had to go to the Animal ER after she and Wilma got into a tussle. We're positive that Wilma was trying to play and Holly didn't want to , but it's happened 3 times and it sounds fierce! Wilma flips Holly over on her back and then Holly snarls and yaps. That first time Willy sank a tooth into Holly and the vet wanted to put in a drain to prevent an abcess. We declined and instead kept it clean and put warm compresses on it every 3 hours for 5 days and it has healed well. Shortly thereafter a cyst on Shadow burst - another trip to the vet and an estimate for surgery (and more gross wound cleaning that Older Daughter handled amazingly well.

Next week is planned as Quiet Week -- the only trip planned is to the Library, otherwise we're going to hang out in the backyard and splash in the pool and have picnics for lunch. Come join us!

Guess who caught a line drive?

With his face!!

They took him out of the game to stop the bleeding and ice his face but he refused to stop playing, so he finished up the game playing first base.

The worst part of the experience was when he got home ( I wasn't at the game) and his mean Mom kept making jokes that made him laugh (ow!). He had soup for dinner but by the next morning he felt fine.

comic

Blogger *refuses* to let me upload the comic strip I want to - so here's another one.

Little Boys and their Toys

Today is my sister's birthday. She has two boys and the 3 year old has always had a fascination with trucks to the point that you had to correctly name the truck before he would relent (lest you go insane). Now he's getting into trains - just try to remember that *that* black train is the Pennsylvania 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive! Fortunately for him his Grandpa runs a train store and can actually name them for him. I'd link to the shop website, Dad, but it doesn't seem to be live at the moment. Here's the link to the "Made in Maine" episode in which the shop was featured.

Anyhow, the reason for this post was to upload a relevant comic strip but Blogger won't let me so I'll try again tomorrow...

This is the Sport that Doesn't End...

...Yes it goes ON and ON my friend...

We have gotten some much needed rain during this, the last week of baseball and softball. However, it has also caused several games to be rained out and postponed until this weekend or next week.

Blogging has been and will continue to be light until next week. MS has knocked me down and I'm sleeping 12+ hours a day. The hours that I'm conscious I've been wrestling with my laptop which is going to be getting a clean install of Windows this weekend - just as soon as I back up 25 GB of data....

In other news, Merck's cervical cancer vaccine was approved by the FDA

All-Star Games

The Boy was voted onto the Baseball All-Star Team. There are four All-Star teams at his age in the league. Yeaterday The Boy's team got off to a rough start. I missed the first 2 innnings but evidently the other team (Blue) did some damage early on. But The Boy's team (Red) hung on and pulled ahead in the 5th and 6th innings (they play 6 innings)to win 17-10. The boy pitched the 6th inning.

Today's game was between the Red team and the winner of the other game yesterday (Brown). I stayed home with younger daughter, who's feeling icky, and just picked up the phone to check in. It's been cold and rainy - they had taken a rain delay around 4pm and at one point they were behind 7-0 - and I was wondering how things were progressing. It was the bottom of the 6th with 2 outs and bases loaded. The winning run was on first base. Now my ear is bleeding because of all of the yelling into the phone when the winning run was batted in.

Go Red!

Goings on

Bought a treadmill that needs to get moved upstairs. Bought a big air conditioner for the bedroom so the aforementioned treadmill can actually be used in the summer (and so that we don't melt...) which needs to be moved upstairs. Are you seeing the trend here?

Planted two of the garden beds finally and I have the sunburn to prove it :o( The dumb bunnies ate half of the peas and most of the spinach. I tore out the peas to plant tomatoes but the spinach is rebounding. Tomorrow I want to find some eggplant seedlings (which the dumb bunnies also ate - before I even got them in the ground!) and plant the sage that I bought today. I also have some jalapeno peppers that I'm going to plant in pots on the upstairs deck - it gets so hot that they did great the first year when I grew them up there. Last year I planted them in the garden and got 3 whole teeny peppers.

We spent Saturday installing 900 feet of radio fence wire for the dogs. We haven't tried using the collars on them yet but I suspect Shadow is going to need the "Stubborn Dog" collar. I accidently shocked myself with the regular collar and I doubt he would even be annoyed by it.

The Boy will be playing in the baseball All-Star game next weekend (he's *slightly* excited about that) and both he and Younger Daughter got signed up for soccer which starts in July (ugh!).

Only 3 more half days of school left. Pray that I don't go insane before August 28th...

Oh, and I'm playing around with HTML...

Awwwwww!

My studly husband

Here he is showing off one of his many talents - catching quarters off his elbow. He's such a Potsie [bonus points if you get that reference!].

Fortunately I am not related by blood to this lady...

A children's trowel is not the choice that I would make for moving 6 cubic yards of topsoil. But to each his own....

Tonight

The Two-hour LOST finale starts at 9pm AND we have no ballgames to get to. Woohoo!

Quick! Get me a padlock!

Report Card Time!

The kids will be getting their report cards on the last day of school which is (gulp!) June 2nd!

But guess who recently flunked out of Seeing Eye Dog School? Wilma! So we have yet another addition to our Menagerie (and we have reached animal saturation!).


The Husband and his sister went to get her yesterday and last night we let her up on the bed with the other two dogs. Now she thinks she owns it and doesn't wait for an invitation. She woke me up this morning by sitting on my head (she thinks she's a lap dog...and a head dog).

Everybody is getting along just fine. Willy and Neo really like each other but Willy is a little too exhuberant for a 2 lb. bunny so until she calms down a little she stays on a leash when Neo is out of his cage.

Anyone want to come over and help install radio fence wire???




Does anyone else see the resemblance?