Happy Halloween!

Hello Family and Friends,

Here is a picture from trick-or-treating tonight. Friends Katie (the gypsy) and Nathan (Yoda) joined our nurse/surgeon and Storm Trooper along with Nate (Darth Vader, not pictured) for the 1 1/2 hour trek around the subdivision. Boy we sure had a lot of fun but it sure got cold! The kids would run between houses so they stayed pretty warm but Tony and I felt cold and I had numb fingers by the time we were done. It was nice to come home to a crock pot of hot chili that had been simmering all day. Beppe & Pakka (Don & Isy) stayed at our house and handed out our candy for us and then we celebrated his birthday in between the doorbell ringing and phone calls. It was another busy night! The kids sure had fun and Quinn tried his best to trade everyone for Reeces Peanut Butter Cups. I think he ended up with 11 or something ridiculous like that. Quinn says this was "the best trick-or-treating EVER!" WOW! That was pretty much it for this evening. It was fun and they have enough candy to hold them easily until next Halloween!

Love to all, Leah

A "lively" day

Hello Everyone,
Here is a picture of the pumpkins that we carved tonight. Madison's is the cat and Quinn's is the smiley face. We had fun. Madison likes to dig in with her hands and get messy. Quinn used a spoon and gingerly picked out about 4 seeds at a time. We have a surgeon (Madison) and a Star Wars Storm Trooper (Quinn) ready for trick-or-treating tomorrow night. I'll try to upload a picture for you tomorrow night. Katie and Nathan are coming with us. Terry & Karla are on a cruise... "for work"... riiiiight. : ) Don & Isy are coming for supper some where in the midst of all of this evening to celebrate his birthday.

Today work was a challenging Monday... let's see, somone spilled all of their Oxycontin down their garbage disposal... another patient just CAN'T come in to be seen because she moved to Detroit but called 4 times today to find out if we would refill her meds (haven't seen her since April) and now is suddenly making a trip tomorrow from "Detroit" to Goshen after realizing we wouldn't refill her meds until she was seen again. Oh... and let me not forget about the lady who completely passed out in the exam room... totally unresponsive... thankfully I got her laid down first. Remember my rampage for urine drug screens... well, I discharged a patient today because he was positive for marajuana. Anyway, it all made for a "lively" day in many ways. Remind me why I stay at this job again....???

Well, it's another big day tomorrow and since we changed our clocks on Saturday night, it still feels 1 hour ahead for me. It feels like 11:30, instead of 10:30... I'm sure it will get better over the next week or so. Good-night!

Love to all, Leah

Pumpkin Time

Hello Everyone,
Today (Sunday) was a beautiful day! It's about time. It was chilly and brisk but DRY for once! We went and got our pumpkins after church today... cuttin' it a little close huh? Now, tomorrow night we need to get them carved!

Last night was supposed to be the bonfire at Don & Isy's but it was soooo windy we were afraid we'd start a forest fire so we settled for the grill. The food still tasted good and it was a fun evening. It was good to visit with Ed, Eileen, Jeremiah and Jacob (Joshua was working)... we haven't seen them all together for a little while.

We have another busy week coming up. It makes the weeks go fast... and the weekends just fly by of course.

Well, that's all for tonight.
Love to all, Leah

Rain, rain, go away...

Hello Everyone,

Rain, rain, go away, come again another day! I only recall seeing the sun one time this week. I love Fall but this day after day of doom and gloom is another thing. This picture obviously was taken about 2 weeks ago. It reminds me of what Fall is supposed to look like so I thought I'd include it for you.

Quinn was pretty much back to his normal self today. Amazing what antibiotics can quickly do. He asked for Motrin twice and that was it. No fever. Peyton and Heather spent the day with us today as there was no school. It was kind of a bummer because it was too cold and wet to be outside so all 4 kids were cooped up all day and by the end of the day I think they were starting to feel it. It was a good day though. I just love being at home with them. Quinn beat Madison and me in Yatzhee... thank goodness it wasn't more Junior Monopoly today... it takes a long time just like the adult version! We made a trip to Deals today (dollar store) and all 4 kids picked something out. They feel like they are getting something big and it only costs a buck. I gave them each $1.10 and set them free. Of course the girls all bought matching stuffed animals. Quinn on the other hand got a rockin' bow and arrow set which he played with for hours. He was constantly sneaking up on me, shooting down a pyramid of cups, getting the suction cups to stick onto the windows... he loved it. I'm pretty sure he's never had a bow and arrow set before.

Well, that's all for tonight. Tomorrow is basketball in the morning and then in the evening we are supposed to have Madison's bonfire hotdog roast at Don & Isy's... which was already postponed once... last weekend was nasty too. I doubt that wood soaked in rain for 10 days or so will burn. Oh well, I guess we'll have to settle for microwaved 'dogs. Instead of gifts, Isy's family was asked to consider bringing a material donation for the Elkhart Humane Society. I guess only Ed & Eileen's family can come now... last weekend would have worked well except for the weather.

Well, that's all for tonight. Stay warm and dry.

Love to all, Leah

Strep Throat

Hello Everyone,

Quinn woke up with a fever, sore throat and saying "my brain hurts". His tonsils are so big that his voice is different now. Poor guy. We stayed home together and while the Motrin was working... had a good day together. We played games, read books, puzzles, ate popsicles (3)... it was kind of fun to have the one on one time. However, I knew he didn't feel well when he put himself down for a nap... without my suggestion! He slept for 1 1/2 hours and woke up feeling like a hot potato. Everything points to strep so he started an antibiotic today at noon. I guess things didn't go very well at my work... I feel bad about that but what can I do? A sick boy needs his mom.

Madison was one of five students in her class (not her grade... there were others in other classes) rewarded for not having any late homework this quarter (can you believe that low number?). Anyway, she got to take a snack, pillow and watch a movie today instead of sitting in silent reading time. I guess the other students read for the whole 2 hours or whatever. Ouch.
Tonight she is at Flames practice... indoor soccer at the Sports Center. No games... just practicing. There is no school tomorrow so Peyton is spending the night and staying all day tomorrow (she had strep this week too so don't worry). Heather will be coming in the morning for the day and according to Quinn, "Great, now I have to be surrounded by girls again!". Oh, the problems he has... so big.

Well, I hope you all had a good day today. We've had clouds, rain, fog and cold... yuck! Hmmmm this would be a good time to take a cruise or something to the sunny Caribbean...hmmmm, Karla can I sneak in your suitcase???

Love to all, Leah

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Hello Everyone,
I hope you are having a good week. Ours has gone fast so far. Last night Madison had a Flames pizza party... really!... not a practice! Of course she had a great time hangin' out with her soccer buddies. I had a Care Commission meeting at church, Tony went to Victory Construction for a few hours and Quinn hung out at Nate's house. So, we were all separate places last night. Weird.

Tonight Tony and I went to the parent/teacher conferences. The teachers only had good news to report. They are both doing very well. They brought home A's. That's what we thought but it's always good to have verbal affirmation of that from the ladies that they spend most of their days with. M & Q have 3 half days of school this week and then they are out of school on Friday. I'm off on Friday so we are looking forward to that day although we don't have any plans (awesome).

Well, that's all for tonight... nothing too "newsy" I guess.

Love to all, Leah

Enjoy your Fall day

Hello All,

Blogger was down yesterday so it wouldn't let me post. Boy have we had Internet troubles lately.

Madison's birthday party on Friday was great. She had 7 girls over and had a lot of fun with the American Idol theme. We borrowed a kareoke machine and they played and sang with that for at least an hour. Oh, you are wondering about the cake?.... well, I guess it was "acceptable" but for some reason the bakery decorated it vertically... instead of horizontally. I'm doomed. It was quite strange to have a vertical cake... didn't know I needed to specify. I hate learning the hard way.

This weekend has actually been a fairly quiet weekend... the definition is relative to each family... but by our terms it was quiet. Madison's Flames team lost 0-7 in the tournament against the #1 team. Could have been worse. Iowa lost... that was a bummer. I spent several hours scraping 15 year old wallpaper off a wall. That wasn't much fun at all... it came off pretty much measured in inches. Oh... I'm so done with wallpaper. Paint is the only way to go. Anyway, I have probably another 10 hours or so to go on that project. Finding those hours is the question.

Well, I guess that's all for now. Enjoy your Fall day!
Love to all, Leah

Happy Birthday Madison!

Our daughter is now offically in the double digits after her birthday yesterday. We can hardly believe it. She was delighted with a pair of Heelys shoes... they have a wheel in the heel so it's kind of like a rollerskate with only one back wheel built into the heel. She has to practice a bit more until she can wear them out and about. Apparently they are the latest craze with kids. Yesterday I took cookies into school in the afternoon for her little celebration. If you recall from the last post, I ordered "Big Ten" cookies... well, when I picked them up they said "TEN" in BIG letters!!!! I'm so sick and tired of being disappointed in the bakery department of life! At least they said just Ten and not just Big! I'm holding my breath for her birthday cake tomorrow (her American Idol party is tomorrow night). Anyway, it wasn't what we planned but we didn't tell anyone differently and so it was fine. Everyone sang happy birthday to Madison last night at church, after the meal, she was quite embarrassed by the whole thing.

Tonight is soccer for Madison... yes the Flames are still practicing. They have a tournament game now on Saturday morning at 10:15. They play the #1 ranked team. It's going to be a thrashing.

Love to all,
Leah

Back in gear!

Hello Everyone!
Well, after about 10 days without the Internet, I can honestly say I don't know how people live without Internet access. To make a very long and unpleasant phone story short... we are back in service!

A lots has happened. A brief summary... Madison's CYS team won the championship in soccer and she happily walked away with a trophy. Tony and I went to Bloomington to watch the Hawks' upset from Indiana. What a bummer. We're pretty sure that we've cursed the Hawks on the road. Nearly every game we go to away from home, they lose. We've been busy with homework, finishing soccer seasons and basically keeping everyone and everything running smoothly. Tomorrow is Madison's birthday. 10 years old! She is taking cookies to school tomorrow... that says "Big Ten" on them. ....get it? The colors are gold and pink.

OK, more tomorrow. I'll get back in the groove of writing each night.

Love to all! Leah

Internet / Phone problems!

Hi, Just a short note from work. Our home phone/internet service has been out of order since last Thursday... thus no post. If you've tried calling your call may very well have been forwarded to another family. It's a big mess. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. I'll write from home as usual when we are back in service!
Leah

Short and Sweet

Hello Everyone,

We've almost made it through another week! Everyone hang in there... the weekend is around the corner. Not much to report tonight. Work was better today. The day went by in a blink of the eye but not as crazy busy. I yawned through the day today... must be the weather... rainy and chilly. Tonight was CFN and that was pretty much our day today.

Short and sweet tonight,
Love to all, Leah

Madison scored the winning goal!

Madison scored the winning goal tonight in overtime! Yeah for her! We played Peyton and Alexa's team (for the 4th time) and of course ended the game in a tie, 1-1 (what's new?). They played 2 five minute overtime quarters and Madision used her body to deflect a corner kick into the goal. One thing she said on the way home stuck with me, ... she said, "I hated it when I looked at Peyton; the whole game she was smiling, but after we scored her smile turned to a frown." She hated that that meant her team would lose and hated making her feel bad. That lead us to a conversation about the importance of good sportsmanship etc... I was proud of her for putting herself in someone else's shoes. Quinn was so delighted in his sister's win that he went and bought her a popsicle at the concession stand. That's our Quinner.

Well, the bicyclist's insurance company called me today and tape recorded a statement from me of what I saw that day. She wanted every little detail. That wasn't too fun to relive. It's gotten a lot better but I've still thought of it every single day. After the recording part ended she told me that the other witnesses were experiencing pretty much the same thing. She said that every one has said that it was the bicyclist's fault, not the driver. She said that "Elaine" was recently discharged from the hospital and sent to a nursing home. Wow! Hopefully she will have a good quality of life after all of her injuries.

We were sooo busy at work today! I think I finally opened up my computer, email and voice mail around 1:30 or so. I like to be busy but not to the crazy level... that's what today was. ...Hospitalized-patient add-on's... doctors who wanted their patients seen right away (as in yesterday)... waiting on insurance companies... orders to be written, pharmacies to be called... an equipment rep luncheon that wasn't written on my schedule (I don't have time for this!), behind on my dictations (hiccups don't help)... a new patient 25 mintues late and demanding to be seen and then crying and storming out the door. CALGON... TAKE ME AWAY!!! That's a fairly normal day except that it doesn't usually happen all AT THE SAME TIME!!!

Well, I think I'm going to take just a 1/2 hour or so before my 11pm bedtime and RELAX! I've had to practice this.... but it is needed and does help.

Love to all,
Leah

Long time, no blog

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all had a good weekend. We loved our weekend in Iowa. The Iowa game was A LOT of fun... at least the 1st half anyway. There was so much energy and excitement in that all-gold stadium, if you would have lit a match, it probably would have exploded! : ) It was so LOUD that I had to plug my ears at times! The outcome was plain and simple, Ohio State played better than we did. It was a night game and it was a LONG day of waiting. I guess I would prefer a late morning or early afternoon game. On the way to Iowa the traffic was HORRIBLE... the whole way! You would have thought it was Thanksgiving weekend or something. We saw quite a few Ohio cars and buses and lots of cars from out of state with their Hawkeye loyalty showing. We forgot our Hawkeye flag so we had to make an emergency stop at Game Day Iowa to get one for our window. Isy about had a fit that we looked too "Indiana-ian" I guess! : )

During the day on Saturday our family enjoyed going to the Kalona Fall Festival with my mom and 3 of my nieces (Amy's girls). They enjoyed the pony ride and we all enjoyed the good food. It was fun to run into people we haven't seen for awhile... like my childhood friend, Lauri E.! Wow... it's been almost 20 years since we've seen each other! We also talked with Jeff S.for awhile. He was at one of the entrances, collecting money. It was strange to see him in a Kalona Rotary Club polo... and he wasn't afraid to show us his Notre Dame t-shirt underneath it!!! Somehow he hasn't converted to an Iowa fan yet. Give it a little more time Jeff.

We went to Mom and Dad's house for a few hours in the afternoon (we stayed overnight at Jeff & Amy's house, they were gone to Myrtle Beach so Mom stayed there with the 3 girls). My poor dad.... ever since he's retired it's been one thing after another! His fractured ribs are finally on the mend and now he has a torn meniscus in this right knee!!! Unfortunately surgery is in the future. He was worried about the last hay cutting that lay in the field but some experienced neighbors came to the rescue.

We traveled back to Indiana on Sunday. The trip home wasn't as anticipation-filled as the trip out. The kids traveled great though.... and Don & Isy traveled well too. : ) We got home at 7:30 or so and made good time. Today it was back to work and school.

For those of you that are following the soccer games. Madison's Flames team lost 0-7 on Saturday morning. Her new basketball team lost 2-14 and Quinn's team tied 1-1 (surprise-surprise!). We are learning lessons in humility this season! Tomorrow is Madison's tournament game and she plays Peyton and Alexa's team... for the 4th time this year!! (1-0-2). Her CYS team ended up in 4th place out of 6. Quinn's tournament game is Saturday am. His team ended up 5th out of 11. One thing is for sure... no more ties!!! YEAH! They will have over-time and also a shoot-out if need be. Quinn and I practiced in the front yard last night for such a situation (he's ready). : )

OK, that's all for now. Thanks to those who have commented to the blog. A lot of you have told me in person that you are reading. Thanks for the interest!

Love to all, Leah