"Get this taken care of before softball season!"

Hello to all of you co-frozen people (except for Doug & Jen in Arizona),

It was minus 8 this morning and no I didn't take this picture but it represents a Midwestern day today.

Here are the highlights from today:

1. We've enjoyed the Super Bowl talks today surrounding the Colts win! yeah!
2. School was cancelled today. Madison spent the night at B & P's. Pakka picked Quinn up this morning.
3. The kids and Beppe & Pakka came and had lunch with me at the hospital. That was fun. I think it's been about a year since I've actually sat in the hospital cafeteria. What a nice break for me.
4. Madison had her left wrist x-rayed again... check-up on Friday.
5. School is cancelled for tomorrow too (Midwestern wimps!).
6. Madison is spending another night at B & P's. Do we need to pay some rent?
7. Quinn is a homebody so he's cozy in his own bed tonight. He's going to play with Nate tomorrow and give B & P a break (my choice, not theirs).
8. Tonight I worked with my neighbor, Darlene, on planning the food for the parent-teacher conference meal next week. A little tricky since neither of us are going to be there but so many parents are willing to help... it's been easy to get another 20 people involved. We are good delegators! : )
9. Madison managed to slip "Dog Obedience Class" in to her busy evening with Karla and Katie. She went along for the sheer joy of it. : ) (with their dog)

I'm a little concerned about Madison's wrist. For your refresher... a year and a half ago (yes!) she fell off her scooter and sprained her left wrist. We had it x-rayed and she was in a splint for a few weeks and that was pretty much the end of the story. Well, very occasionally, or may be I should say, "rarely" she would comment about how it would still bother her sometimes. She was usually trying to do something like a hand-stand or something else kind of rough so I just dismissed it. As of lately, she's made more comments about it hurting in situations that shouldn't cause pain, like pushing up and out of bed with her left wrist on the bed to push. I thought we need to at least get it checked again (hypochondriac mother?). I took her to Dr. Wagner, an orthopod in Goshen who has a special pediatric interest. He found her left wrist to be weaker than the right, gave her PT exercises to do and ordered another x-ray with the hint of possibly an MRI. Well, she can't even do the exercises because they hurt too much. It's simple stuff like squeezing a ball... I had her try it tonight and she quit because it hurt too much. I gave her a 3# weight for her just to use with range of motion exercising of her wrist. I seriously thought she would laugh at these exercises but she actually quit and said she couldn't do them! OK, now I'm really the hypochondriac mother. She goes back on Friday. We'll see what he says. I'm praying that this is nothing but tendonitis or something simple. Here is Tony's concern after I told him about the latest attempt at wrist exercises..."Well, we have to get this taken care of before softball season!" Ha! Leave it to the dad/coach to worry about her catching hand! Anyway, sorry, that was kind of long.

I'll let'cha go. Good-night and stay warm.
Love to all, Leah

"Souper" Bowl and Soup

Hello from 1 degree Goshen! We think it's pretty darn wimpy but they've cancelled school tomorrow because of the cold. Goshen and Elkhart cancelled first which means Concord follows because of peer pressure. Tony and I think it is ridiculous and the real reason is because of some wanting to stay up late for the super bowl tonight. Who knows, may be we'll get the call that says it's too cold for Rollpak to function tomorrow, and may be it's too cold for the hospital too. Anyway....wonder what they are going to do for the rest of the week which is supposed to be just as cold.

Today after church we went to Beppe & Pakka's house for lunch. Terry, Karla, Nathan & Katie joined us along with Darren M. and Rae Ann. The kids and the dads went sledding for 2 hours in the backyard in the afternoon. I think the temp was around 5. (Kids can go sledding for 2 hours but it's too cold for school tomorrow?...sorry). Anyway, it was a fun afternoon and was a great meal. The sledding ended with Rae Ann and Tony sledding into the river. That was quite icy and ended the sledding right away. Nothing that some hot cocoa and smores didn't fix.

So, tonight is the big super bowl. There hasn't been something this exciting around here in a long time. There are MANY fans for the Bears and the Colts in Indiana so the rivalry is intense. It's half-time and for all of the turn-overs the Colts have managed to be ahead at the half. Hopefully they hold on.

So, the potato soup "problem" from Friday night (read back if you are clueless) has generated quite the conversation with my blog readers so I thought I would just give you the recipe and let you decide if Quinn was right to say that "even when I look at it it makes my stomach hurt". Make it yourself and give me some feedback. The other 3 of us thought it was delicious! I've changed it just slightly from the original but I'm still giving Karla all the credit for it (even though she doesn't remember the last time she made it!).

Potato Soup

8 slices bacon, crumbled
1 cup chopped onion
1-2 T butter
2-3 cups cubed potatoes
2 cups water
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
1 3/4 cup milk (more for thinner soup, less for thicker)
1/2 tsp salt
Dash of pepper
2 cups of cheese (like Colby-jack)

Microwave the bacon until crisp. Drain the fat and crumble bacon and set to the side. Saute onion in water and a little butter until soft.
Add potatoes and water. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer until potatoes are soft (about 15 minutes or to your liking). Stir in soup and sour cream; gradually add milk. Add salt, pepper, bacon and cheese. Heat to a comfortable serving temperature. Do not boil.
Yield: About 7 cups

The Colts are back on. See ya!
Love to all, Leah

A busy Saturday

This morning was spent at Upward Basketball games including team picture day. We were there by 8:20 this a.m. and the day was a good one! Madison's team, the Lady Tigers, played the Lady Hoosiers and won 24-22. Madison scored 12 points including the winning basket. This picture of her was taken right at the beginning of the game... she was shhhhh'ing Tony so that he wouldn't coach her from the fan section. : ) If you dbl click on the picture it will enlarge but it's also pretty grainy because of the lighting in the gym. Quinn's team, the Sharks, played the Cobras and also won 30-16. Quinn had 6 points and played well defensively. It's amazing how much they improve from year to year.

Madison had Flames soccer practice from 12-1:30. It's now on Saturdays and off of Thursdays. There will be some Saturdays when basketball will conflict but I think it should be OK most of the time. She and Peyton actually weren't looking forward to going today. They were worried about all the running and sprinting they've been doing lately at practice. Ha!

Quinn had a bowling birthday party from 3:45-6pm tonight for Nicholas and Alex Reverman. They turned 8 and he's been buddies with them since pre-school and their mom took Quinn to preschool. He had a good time and said the boys were happy with their skateboards.

Madison and I worked on her Science Fair project this afternoon. Both of the kids are now done... but we have to get them on their display boards yet. She tested several different types of ear plugs to see which ones blocked the sound the best. She also decided to test a cotton ball and a little marshmallow too. We used a sound meter and guess what she found out?? The marshmallow actually lowered the sound level by the most decibles out of all of the ones tested. Soooo, save your money on ear plugs and just go for the marshmallows! That was a fun and very unexpected outcome.

It is still FREEZING and BITTERLY cold! They were calling for more snow but I honestly think it's too cold to snow. Right now it's 2 degrees outside and they say the windchill is around -30. Tony took the recyclables in today and thought he got frostbite on his ears (I guess he forgot his hat?). It's a good evening to stay in and sit by the fire. I made a chocolate cake for lunch/dessert at Beppe and Pakka's tomorrow. The Slabach's are coming for lunch and also Darren Miller and Raeann. The kids are hoping to go sledding in the back yard but I don't know how long they'll be able to stay outside. We'll see...

Well, that's all for tonight. The day went fast and we kept quite busy as usual.

Love to all, Leah

Brrrrrrrrrr!!!!

It is so co-co-co-co-COLD! (That was supposed to sound like my teeth chattering). Wow!... with the wind chill it is well below zero. The high tomorrow is supposed to be 10 but the wind will make it seem like -30 I guess. Didn't stop Madison from playing outside after school though!

Today was my day off from work. It was a busy day. I took the kids to school this morning because I delivered Beppe's party potatoes to Quinn's classroom. They just finished reading "Stone Fox" and part of the setting involves a potato farm. If you don't know the story it really has quite a sad ending and I had to hold back the tears just listening to the re-telling of it at supper last night!! The students had to write down their favorite potato recipe and if they brought a sample in they got $25 extra in mini-economy money (pretend money). So, Quinn quickly called Beppe up to ask her to whip him up a batch for 22 students to sample. (Notice that he didn't even contemplate asking me to make them). I guess they had 10 potato dishes and Quinn had 5-6 "sample" helpings of his own potatoes. He was quite happy with the whole thing.

After that I went to Panera Bread for coffee with Lisa, Eliza, Karla and Angie. It's always good to catch up to them. Then I went back to the school for 3 hours to volunteer in Madison's classroom. I graded their math and spelling papers and took time out for lunch with Madison today. I told her teacher I would come for about 2 hours on Fridays. I'll have to take turns with who I have lunch with. Madison had to buy my lunch today... I had NO money, except for some coins! Luckily she scratched some up in her back pack. Ha! She found that to be quite amusing. It was Colts/Bears Spirit Day today. The kids were to wear their favorite team colors. Wow... there was electricity buzzing today. I think the teachers had to be more disappointed than the students when it was too cold to go out for recess today and all that energy had to stay inside!

Tonight I made Karla's recipe for potato soup. Tony, Madison and I thought it was really good. Quinn on the other hand threw a big fit and "just looking at it made my stomach hurt."... that lead to one irrational statement after another and pretty soon he was saying that, "I should just go live in the homeless center" and that his "heart was broken," "no one loves me" etc... Madison found this conversation quite amusing from her bedroom but we were quick to remind her that she used to throw the same kind of fits in 2nd grade too!! Then, we did some quiet giggling with her. Poor Quinn. He was so tired ("I am not!") and after 1 little pathetic taste he got his precious quesdilla instead and went to bed! Whew!

The kids have basketball and pictures in the morning. We need to leave around 8am so it will feel like a week day. I better go tell Madison to close her book for tonight. Have a good weekend!

Love to all, Leah

Snow

We have a couple of inches of snow on the ground but nothing like some of the surrounding communities which have gotten a lot. It is really, really cold though and the kids haven't even been allowed to go out at recess. It doesn't stop Madison after school though. She was right out there for over an hour... I would have been frozen solid but she and Heather shovelled off the driveway and played in the fluffy snow. We had a quiet evening at home tonight... Tony got home around 7:30, that's better. I'm still working at the laundry and of course supper and dishes. I'm tired... not back on schedule yet.

Short and sweet tonight.
Love to all, Leah

PS... Mom and Dad, using the GPS in AZ was great! We highly recommend it for everyone. We didn't pull out a map once and now we think we need our own (great).

Arizona travel details

We had a great time in Phoenix and Tucson last week! I’ll try and give you the highlights. The purpose of our trip was for Tony to attend some meetings with the Farm Bureau Credit Union board members and some of their executive management. He is a volunteer on their supervisory committee… that’s really my full extent of knowing what that all means!

We flew out on Tuesday night and got to Phoenix around 1:30am (our time). On Wednesday we went out for brunch to the Cracker Barrel and then Doug and Tony went golfing and Jen and I went shopping. It was a beautiful sunny day in the low 70’s… perfect! It was so good to see Amanda (12) and Jay (8), although for a very short time. Jay just couldn’t understand why Tony couldn’t just leave me in Tempe with them and he could go to the Tucson meeting himself! Amanda has grown so much since the last time we’ve seen her. She’s only about ½ inch shorter than I am! The next time I see her I’ll be looking up at her. We had a delicious grilled steak supper with their family and before you knew it our evening was over.

Tony and I left on Thursday morning to head for Tucson. We picked up Sanford and Mary Lou at the airport. We were soooo hoping we could get to the Karchner Caverns that Jen and Amanda told us about but we ended up just not having enough time. The guys’ meeting time ended up earlier than we expected… they needed to “report in” by 4:30. After their meeting the whole group (about 30 or so with spouses) went to a steak house for supper. They had everything very well organized and coordinated.

Friday Angie (yes Angie and Mary Lou were both ther!… how awesome!) and I went shopping at the mall. Friday night we went to this awesome Mexican restaurant. They had mariachi singers walking around and a huge menu selection.

On Saturday afternoon we went to Old Tucson Studios....it was an old western town with a “gun fight” show and all. We didn’t have much time there but we sure drove through some beautiful scenery on the way home through the mountains. We have come to appreciate the variety of colors we have in the Midwest though. Being in the desert reminded us just how many shades of TAN and BROWN there are! Saturday night we went to another steak house and then to see the broadway style production of “Two Amigos” at the Gaslight Theatre. It was a late night… getting back to our room around mid-night or may be a little later. We packed up our room for an earlier departure in the morning. It's been such a great trip though!

We left on Sunday morning at 7am for our long trip home. We flew from Tucsan to Denver to Chicago to South Bend. I had just thought to myself about how smooth the day was going, the flights were on time, thanked God for such a good day… when the day took a bit of a small twist. We sat on board a plane that must have been 85-90 degrees inside for 1 hour before they made us de-plane and get on a different plane. That all set us behind by about 2 hours but I appreciate their detail to safety! : ) …something about a piece of metal that wasn’t secure enough and was near a tire and could possibly rub against it… tires are good things when you have several 100 tons trying to land on them! We arrived back to South Bend to weather that was 50-60 degrees cooler and with snow.

We really had a great time though. The hotel (which I decided really was more like an “inn”) was beautiful and really pretty small... only about 30 or so rooms. I would definitely go back and do recommend it. If you haven’t glanced at it you can find it at http://www.hacinendadelsol.com/ Tony enjoyed learning more about the credit union and I enjoyed the rest, relaxation and shopping! The kids did great with Beppe and Pakka and they said the time went fast. The first full day we were gone Quinn instantly had a stomach ache when I talked to him on the phone which I think instantly improved when we hung up. Tony asked, “Did you get a stomach ache because you were talking to Mom?” and Quinn had to admit with a little homesick sounding “yes”… like I said, I’m positive he forgot all about our separation when he hung up the phone!

So today it was back to the real world. Too bad we can’t go on vacation about once a month to recharge the batteries. It was a busy day at work but not crazy so that’s good. I still have about ½ hour of dictations to do but I’m hoping I can find the time tomorrow.

Well, I need to finish up some laundry. I have a small mountain of it now.

Love to all, Leah

Home safe and sound

Just reporting in that we arrived home around 8:30pm yesterday...about 2 hours later than planned. We had a great time but 6am this morning sure felt like 4am... Tuscan time. Ha! I'm heading out the door for work and will write tonight about our adventures.

Love to all, Leah

Arizona bound

Well, we all made it for full days at work and school today so that was good! Everyone seems to be feeling much better.

Tony and I are leaving tomorrow evening for Arizona. He is a volunteer member of the advisory board where we do our banking... Farm Bureau Credit Union. They are having a planning meeting over the weekend in sunny Tucsan so I'm going along for the ride. We are going to spend a day with Doug & Jen in Tempe (late Tuesday night to Thursday sometime) and then on to Tucsan for his meeting which starts Thursday evening and then we return on Sunday. We are staying at www.haciendadelsol.com which looks pretty spiffy. We are both looking foward to the break. The kids are staying with Beppe and Pakka for the next 5 days. It was a big packing job tonight!

That's all I have time for tonight. I really need to finish packing a few things and get myself to bed. I must remember the last minute things in the morning... one of them being Madison's basketball T-shirt. They have their first games on Saturday. After she went to bed I looked high and low for that thing...needing to pack it. I finally glanced at her as I'm combing through her room and realized that she wore it to bed!! Well, at least I found it!

I'll try to report in from Arizona. I'm not sure how the Internet access will be once we get to Tucsan.

Mom, the GPS came today. Thanks for letting us borrow your Christmas present. We'll let you know how it works!

Love to all, Leah

Homebound

Quinn and I were homebound today. He never got out of his PJ's and went through the variety of fever and sore throat and then feeling good while the meds were working. We played another game of Horseopoly... I was waving the white flag after 2 hours of playing on the floor. He beat me again and so he enjoyed that. I got all of the week's laundry done and put away as well as spent time "puttering" around. Quinn fell asleep in my bed tonight around 8:30 while watching TV. I was really hoping we could all go to church tomorrow... our SS class is really good but I don't think that will happen. Tony is running the sound booth so it looks like tomorrow will be a lot like today for the Q'ster and I. He started Amoxil today so hopefully in another 24 hours he'll be much better.

Tony had a basketball game at 10am today and Madison went along. She spent most of the afternoon with Karla and Katie in Mishawaka... shopping and playing some games at the putt-putt place. I'm glad she had a good day at least! : ) Quinn and I had a long day and he also added "and hard" to that comment earlier. Tony went to work around 2pm or so and is actually still there. Oh.... these new hours don't work very well for our family. : (

Well, that's it. Nothing really even worth mentioning today.

Love to all, Leah

Quinn's turn...

Today is usually my day off but since I missed Monday and Tuesday of this week and I also had a meeting at work from 7-8:30am I decided I should work at least until noon and plow through the stacks on my desk. Those were good intentions anyway. At 10am the school nurse called and said Quinn had a fever of 103.7 so I left to go rescue him from school. What a week we've had indeed! We got the ibuprofen started right away and while that was working he actually acted pretty normal. He went through his baseball cards and we played a FOREVER long game of Horseopoly (just like Monopoly only with the horse theme). When the medicine wore off he had a bad headache and fever right away which knocked him down to the couch. Poor guy. He was awfully delighted to hear the doorbell ring and for me to discover that it was his buddy Nathan delievering a fresh box of popsicles to cheer him up! Are they fast or what??!! He was sooo happy because we were clean out of popsicles and of course "I was just getting ready to ask you for a popsicle Mom". : ) Soooo, I don't know exactly what his troubles are. We'll see how the day goes tomorrow.

Madison had a better day today, her cough was better. She was a huge grump after school though because she had a lot of homework and "homework is always miserable" according to her. Oh, when does the true love of learning finally occur? After you are done with the intense learning years I guess. Her music class is now learning to play the recorders.... oh, my. All I can say is THANKS to my mom and dad for putting up with the practicing and many mini-recitals I must have also given!!!! Well, she has now accomplished the first few bars of 3 Blind Mice and I'm ready for a different song!

So tonight I went grocery shopping around 7:45 or so.... I didn't get that chore done today and I hate to go on Saturdays, it's SO BUSY! So, after Tony got home I went to Meijer and it wasn't busy at all so that was really, really nice. I guess Friday nights are the nights to go! Check that off the list.

So, this weekend looks like it will be a fairly quiet one afterall. Quinn won't be able to go anywhere tomorrow... no friends over to play... what is he going to do all day??? I see lots of Yahtzee and more Horseopoly in my future! We've played so many games of Yahtzee I think I could play that game in my sleep.

Tony is working again tomorrow. : ( Boy has he ever worked a lot this week. I bet he worked at least 60-70 hours this week. He said he didn't bother to keep track of the hours. I think he really can't count that high. Ha! I hope that slows down.

That's all from our home front. Let me know what's going on at yours...

Love to all, Leah

Madison is back in the game of life!

Madison woke up without a fever on Wednesday morning so I guess the antibiotic finally kicked in. She went to school and said she had a pretty good day. She had an allergic reaction to the Puffs-Plus kleenex(es) that she used for 2 days straight and she broke out with a fine rash all along the sides of her nose. She said a couple of girls made fun of her but she turned around a walked away. Girls can be so mean to each other. I just don't get it. Anyway, after some hydrocortisone cream her nose looks much better today. She wasn't as self-conscious about it I don't think.

Anyway, I'm trying to get myself out the door for work. I can use every single minute I'm there. I had to leave about 20 charts on my desk yesterday so I have my job security waiting for me. Ha!

More later!
Love to all, Leah

How it all turned out...

Madison went to Rollpak with Tony today, after they dropped me off at the dentist. Don picked Madison up after his morning bus route and brought her back to our house. I guess he got initiated to the Playstation. Isy came over after her school bus aide duties were done and she was initiated to the car racing game as well. Tony picked me up at the dentist around noon and took me home (I couldn't drive because they gave me some sedating meds). I slept the whole afternoon away while Madison "watched herself" and made sure to welcome Quinn home from school. It was a weird mixed up day that took some ochestrating. Quinn said he didn't have a good day at school because he missed Madison and on the bus he just imagined that she was there in her seat and it made him sad that she wasn't. Of course I thought that this is all sweet and good but when Quinn wasn't looking Madison made the cuckoo sign to me! Ha!

Madison continued her fever and facial/eye pain today (symptoms of the sinus infection) but overall I thought she was a little better today. Like, I really didn't even see her much though. Her fever did get up to 103 though. Isy is on stand-by for tomorrow morning. If she wakes up with a fever she can't go to school. She's been on the antibiotic for 24 hours now. I guess if this is viral, the antibiotic won't matter and it will just have to run it's course. That would stink! I would hate to have her miss another day. We'll just see how it works out. She is hoping to go to school because she's tired of being sick. Can't blame her!

Tony got home around 8:30pm or so, just in time to finish up watching Iowa lose to IU in BB. Nathan S. called Quinn just to tell him that he was watching the Iowa game too. I thought that was so cute. He's one of Quinn's brainwashed Iowa fans. : )

Remember those 4-10inches of snow promised last night? None, nada, zero, zilch!

Here's to hoping we all have good days tomorrow...!
Love to all, Leah

Change in plans

Well, this Monday sure didn't go as planned. Madison woke up with a 102.5 temp this morning so I stayed home with her and she proceeded to feel rotten pretty much most of the day. (Remember yesterday's fore-shadowing?). When the Motrin is at it's peak she felt much better... temporarily. She pretty much warmed the couch all day (literally and figuratively). I'm certain she has a sinus infection so I started her on antibiotics late this afternoon. Quinn played at Nate's for most of the day which was great and allowed Madison to rest more without his busy commotion going on. ...Actually, her ears are plugged and so I was repeatedly asking her to turn the TV down! She said, "but I can hardly hear it!" She took a 2 hour nap which I was so hoping would help but it didn't much. We read some books together and other than that she didn't want to do a thing. She still had a temp at bedtime so we have to figure out how to connect all the dots tomorrow. I have a dental appointment for some work to be done and if I miss it, they will charge me $200 per HOUR! Boy am I ever in the wrong business!! She may end of going to work with Tony until I'm done at the dentist's office. We are promised to get 4-10 inches of lake effect snow tonight. That would throw some more issues into the morning I'm sure. We've been promised snow many other times though and haven't gotten it so I'll believe it when I see it!

Tony and Quinn had Upward BB practice tonight. Madison wasn't very happy to have to miss her's. That's about all the news for today. I hope to report on a happier note tomorrow. In the mean time, say a prayer that she'll get over this soon. It's hard to see them feeling so bad. : (

Love to all, Leah

Science Experiment

In my last post I mentioned that Quinn started his science experiment (read yesterday's post). Well.... Quinn's mother ended up monitoring the thermometer until 12:30am! It took that one can of pop exactly 4 hours and 4 minutes to get to a cold 37 degrees! Obviously we started it too late. I thought is would be only a couple of hours at the worst... boy was I wrong! Quinn wasn't too happy to go to bed and leave the timing to me but there's no way he could stay up that late! We have a couple of more methods to try yet so I've learned a lesson... start early in the day! Ha!

Today was church in the morning and then the youth had a Haystack Dinner for a fund raiser followed by the annual congregational meeting. After that we were home for the rest of the day. It's rainy and cold outside. It didn't stop Quinn and Nate from playing football outside... Quinn in his Vikings jersey and Nate in his Colt's jersey. Madison is getting the cold that the other 3 of us have had already so she laid pretty low today and said she didn't "have the energy" to even go up and down the steps. : ) You know she isn't feeling great when she sits down and watches football with us!!! The colds were relatively mild... although annoying for a few days.

Tia!!... so good to hear from you and great to know you are reading along! For those of you that don't know Tia... we went to college together at Olivet although we didn't know each other, except for may be being acquaintances, until we found ourselves working at Elkhart General together. She quickly became a great friend. We ended up working in pain management together and shared our lives inside and outside of work too. She moved to Indy but we've still kept in touch. So far those years of my nursing career have been my favorite. We were easy to remember in the hospital because we were the only nurses in our dept. and our names rhymed! : ) Her first of 3 little boys used to be a toddler and now he is a freshman in HS. How did that happen??

We are supposed to get an ice storm tonight. The kids are off of school for Martin Luther King day so that's probably a good thing. They are already going to Katie and Nathan's for the day. I'll slide my way in to work and if the roads truely are bad, some of the morning patients will reschedule... that would be an OK way to start out a Monday. : )

Have a good week! Love to all of you, Leah

Happy Saturday

I hope you all had a good ending to your week. Today was a rare day when the kids and I actually had nothing planned! It almost felt "weird". I did "umpteen" loads of laundry today and got that all caught up. Nate was over for most of the afternoon to play with Quinn. Tony worked this afternoon but he's not working tomorrow so that will be a good thing too.

Quinn and I started his science experiment tonight. He is trying to find the fastest way to cool down a can of pop from room temperature, to a chilly 37 degrees. So, right now we have a can of pop in the refrig with a thermometer in it. The digital read-out is outside the refrig and we are timing the process. He is also going to check how long it takes by putting it in the freezer, and sitting it in a cooler of ice, ice and water or ice,water and salt. He thinks it will the ice and water that will cool it down the fastest. Both of the kids love the science fair. It's a pretty big thing out here and they love the experiments.

I really don't have much more to report.... for now all is quiet. We are supposed to get rain, sleet and some snow tonight and tomorrow. We are ready for the snow... the other stuff can hold off.

Love to all, Leah

doctor's appointment and random question

Today started out with a doctor's appointment for Madison at 8am. She sprained her left wrist over a year ago and occasionally she says that it still hurts her. She seems to be mentioning it more lately so I took her to see the new ortho doc in Goshen. He is going to get another x-ray (the first one after the injury was normal) to check for a hairline fracture. He said it could be a tendonitits or a type of arthritis (I'm not really worried about that). Her left wrist is weaker than the right so she has some PT to do with it. We'll see what happens. The kids were very disappointed that I was able to get them to school just in the nick of time not to be late. : )

It was another busy day today at work. It sure makes the day fly by. The kids and I went for coffee at Don & Isy's house. John and Evelyn were there too. We stayed for about an hour and a half then were home after that. Tony didn't get home until 9:45 tonight so he was out of the picture. : (

Here's a strange random question for you... Quinn was real sleepy and almost asleep and he said (out of the blue, without any known conversation to plant these ideas), "what happens if you don't pass your first year of college, how many more years do you get to pass that year?" ...like, why would he be worried about that now? : ) Anyway, made me laugh.

That's all for tonight. Love to all, Leah

Basketball Begins

Happy Monday to ya (ha-ha right?).

Just to update those of you that are interested... Saturday night Madison played at the half-time of the Concord girl's varsity game. We went out for supper first with Don & Isy to Chili's to use a gift card that I had (and forgot at home). Then we headed to the game to watch the varsity girls lose by 30 points, their record is 0-13. : ( I would love to post a picture of Madison at half-time but I forgot my camera at home (0 for 2).

Sunday brought church in the morning and then Tony went to work in the afternoon until about 6:30. We watched the movie "Invinsible" for our family movie night. It was good but a little slow moving.

Today was Monday and the first day for the kids to go back to school after their Christmas break. Neither one of them wanted to go... Quinn had his stomach ache and all. They ended up having fine days and I think it's good to have them back to a routine. Going to bed earlier is a harder transition though. Madison is much more of a night person than a morning person (like her dad) so it's especially hard for her to get to sleep at a decent time and then it's painful to get her up.

Tonight they had their first Upward basketball practices. Tony is coaching Quinn's team. It is such a great program! If you haven't heard of it before, it's worth checking out at www.upward.com to see if there is a program in your area. We highly recommend it! So, the kids were excited to see who is on their teams. Madison is on the same team with Peyton, Raeann and Erin (Gordan and Cynthia's daughter). So, she was happy to know half of the team very well. Quinn and Nate are together which isn't a surprise since we requested each other with their "car pool link" request. He didn't know anyone else. They were happy to get their uniforms, CD's and magnets for the van.

Well, the Ohio State vs FL half-time is over with... better get back to the tube. : )
I threatened Ohio State that if they don't play better, I'm going to have to go to bed on them. Why can't the Big Ten play better in bowl games? Anyway...

That's all for now. Love to all, Leah

Night at the Museum

Good Morning!

Yesterday afternoon we went to see the movie, Night at the Museum. It was a great movie! It's family friendly (although not perfect) and entertaining for kids and adults too. So, I highly recommend it! We also went to the grand opening of our new Cold Stone Creamery. It was quite expensive... $10.50 for nothing fancy for the kids and I. We decided that Ritter's or Culver's is better. It was a fun way to spend an afternoon though. We went with Karla, Katie and Nathan which of course made it even better. : )

Last night we just relaxed at home. Tony's good friend and co-worker, Dave, is leaving Rollpak. His "last day" was yesterday. That's in quotes because both Dave and Tony are working this afternoon and I'm sure they'll be talking lots over the phone during their work days. Dave is hoping for more time with his family and took a job with a plastics company in Elkhart. We wish him only the best. Tony has been feeling some of the stress of needing to pick up some of Dave's job and figure out how to do his own as well. God is in control and it will all work out!

Today Quinn has Nathan's birthday party to go to. He got him an Iowa t-shirt so I hope he doesn't get kicked out of the party! : ) It's a lego theme and Karla has fun games planned for them so I'm sure he'll have to be dragged home. Madison and I need to do some running around during that time. There's always errands to do!

Tonight Madison is going to demonstrate her basketball skills at the half-time of the Concord girls varsity game. I'm sure she will have fun with that. It will be interesting to watch the girls play too.

Well, that's all for today. Enjoy your weekend! I'm sure going to!

Love to all, Leah

Happy New Year!

Well, by now you've all gotten off to a start on the new year of 2007. I hope this year is a great one for all of you. We spent our new year's eve at home with a little party which included family... AJ & Bonnie, John & Evelyn, and Don & Isy. We played lots of card games and some played Horseopoly which is basically the horse version of monopoly. We were in a tough game of Shanghi Rook which took us until almost 2am. I can't remember the last time I stayed up that late! Of course when I went to bed I couldn't immediately fall asleep. The kids stayed up until 2 as well. They thought that was pretty cool. We got up around 8:30 to go out for breakfast and sent Bonnie & AJ off for their 10 hour trip back to MN. The rest of the day we spent "recuperating" from our late night. Nate came over and played with Quinn for a while.

The kids were at 3 different homes this week because they are still out on break (thanks Karla, Lisa and B & P!). They were happy to play with their friends. Katie and Madison made pots on her new Christmas pottery wheel, Beppe gave the kids their first art lesson, painting an apple scene (I'm so impressed!) and Quinn went to a basketball camp with Brock this afternoon. They definitely haven't been bored. I'm so thankful that I had their first week of their break off to share in the fun too.

It was a rough jump back into work this week. I was served a subpeona on Tuesday at 4pm to appear in court to testify on behalf of a patient going through a divorce... this Friday!... the kid's last day off! Boy was I ever mad! To make a long story short, I had a meeting with the hospital's lawyer in the afternoon today and she got me out of it... because they didn't give me 30 days of a notice! I was so thankful!!!

Well, Madison had Flames practice tonight. She hasn't ran like that for 2 weeks now so she is already saying that her body is aching! It's amazing how fast you loose what you work so hard to gain.

I hope things are going well for you. We've enjoyed reading many of your Christmas cards and letters this year.

Love to all, Leah

Merry Christmas!

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone! We hope your celebration was a good one. Well our famiy has joined the ranks of "gamers" I guess with our first game system... a Playstation 3. Tony & I were quite thrilled to be one of the few families to find one at Target about a week before Christmas. This is a picture of the kids while opening it. They look like they've won the lottery don't they? Anticipating their excitment was just as much fun as giving it to them. Quinn said, "I knew one of these Christmases we would FINALLY get a Playstation!" They each got jerseys as well... Quinn a Vikings jersey and Madison a pink/white Iowa jersey. They've deemed this "the best Christmas EVER" and according to Madison she "wondered why we didn't have very many presents under the tree... now I understand!" : )

We enjoyed our trip to Iowa over Christmas although it was much to short and basically just 3 1/2 days. We didn't get to see as many people as we would have liked but enjoyed spending time with my family and Grandma on Christmas day. We got back Tuesday night and celebrated our family Christmas on Wednesday morning and then with Tony's family on Wednesday night. That was the first that their family has all been together since AJ and Bonnie's wedding a year and a half ago. Michelle, Archie and Jade leave tomorrow for a weekend in Iowa but we get to enjoy AJ and Bonnie until New Year's Day. This week is really going by way to fast!!

That's all for now... just wanted to check in and tell you I haven't forgot you all. I have this whole week off and Tony has most of it. He just ran into work now for a little while to get the paychecks out and then he is working tomorrow and Saturday, doing inventory. We might go bowling this afternoon. We'll see! More Christmas stories later.

Love to all, Leah

Jade Isabella

Here is an updated picture of our neice Jade, isn't she soooo cute??!! Tony gave her apple juice with a straw tonight and she was quite delighted with the whole straw thing. Tonight Michelle, Archie and Quinn took Madison to her indoor soccer practice. They picked up Jade and then came to our house for homemade chocolate chip cookies and spent the rest of the evening with us. We've enjoyed spending time with them each evening this week. I spent a little of that free time this evening racing into Wal-mart (which has consistently disappointed me lately) and then to Meijer. I keep thinking of these "last minute gifts" ... I thought I was done but keep thinking of more. Now guess what, I have to run out tomorrow again too!!! Does anyone need anything while I'm out there with the pack? I'm really not a last minute shopper... it's just these last minute straggler gifts (like a grab bag gift for Christmas day).

I finally made it to my vacation time.... ahhhh. It feels good! Tomorrow will be spent packing and doing laundry (you know it's bad when Quinn tells me it's time...). It's amazing how much time the process of leaving takes. We are leaving for Iowa tomorrow around 5 or 6pm and returning on Tuesday. It looks like there will be rain but thankfully no snow. We are all looking forward to our trip and Christmas in Iowa. We are planning on going to the Iowa basketball game on Saturday so that will be a treat. Hopefully we won't get beat too badly.

Well, I really need to get to bed. The alarm will go off too early in the morning!

Love to all, Leah

coffee and koeke

Tonight the kids and I had coffee and koeke (pronounced ku'-ka) at Beppe & Pakka's house along with Michelle, Archie, Jade, Cindy and Johnnie, John and Evelyn and Jim and Sandy. For those of you that don't already know, koeke is a quick bread that Isy's dad made up and the Vander Werf's serve it at all their little get togethers. The recipe is in the newly released Silverwood cookbook. We all enjoyed listening to Archie's Iraq stories. I can't even imagine 157degrees plus a heavy uniform! He could talk for hours and the stories are so fascinating that I could listen for hours! : ) "Coffee" on Wednesday nights starts around 5 or 5:30... whenever you can get there. Tonight it broke up around 7:30 or so and then Bep, Pak, Mich, Arch & Jade and the 3 of us went to Buffalo Wild Wings and Tony was able to join us for supper. The evenings sure have been fun but I sure haven't gotten much accomplished at home!!! Tony's been working a lot of hours so he has had to miss out on some of the fun. : (

Work was busy as usual however I had Randa, our "casual" RN there today to help me! Boy does she ever improve my quality of life! I even had a lunch break today for a full half hour! WOW! Let's see.... the last time that happened was... hmmm, I would guess sometime in November. Tomorrow is my last day before a full week off! I'm so excited!!! We've all been exposed to sick people lately so I'm praying that none of us gets sick for our vacation time!

That's all for tonight... I need to head to bed. Gu-night.

Love to all, Leah

Michelle, Archie and Jade are here!

Hello Everyone, Hope your week is going well.

Michelle, Archie and Jade got to Goshen at about 4am on Monday morning. We've gotten to see them last night and tonight so that's been fun. It makes the week go fast to be gone in the evenings. Jade's hair has lightened up and gotten long. She can wear is all pulled back in a ponytail now and looks so cute! She's 18 months now. Madison and Quinn are just dripping over Uncle Archie. The poor guy has one of them hanging on him at all times! They've played tether ball for hours in the driveway at Beppe & Pakka's house.

Yesterday afternoon the kids and I went Christmas caroling with Karla, her kids, and some others from Silverwood. We met at 4:30 and it took us about 2 hours to get to 3 people, one in Goshen and two in Elkhart. It was a good experience. The kids enjoyed it and the "shut-in's" seemed to enjoy it too. Another group was going tonight. They have a colder evening than we did. We sang to Jonell and she mouthed the words along with us.... There are questions that will probably never be answered for me on this side of heaven.

That's really all the "news" for now. I'll see if I can snap some pictures of Jade and post them so you can see how much that little pumpkin has changed.

Love to all, Leah

Weekend highlights

Hope you all had a good weekend. Ours was a good one. Friday night we went to the Concord basketball game where Quinn demonstrated his skills at half-time of the JV game... skills he has been learning at the BB clinic on Saturday mornings. The picture is of him giving us the peace sign, up in the stands. : ) He's pretty excited to have met Darice Gary who is a senior and has already signed to play at Iowa next year. He even had his picture taken with him. Madison loved "the game" which meant she ran around with a pack of friends the whole night.

Saturday night was the Rollpak Christmas party. I told Tony "that was fun... as fun as a party gets when you aren't the employee and hardly know any one." It was very nice and over the years I've gotten to know some of the other wives, so it really was kind of fun. It was a Jimmy Buffett ~ Cheeseburger in Paradise theme.

Today after church the kids each had a friend come over... Peyton and Tyler, so the day was filled with laughing, chasing, hiding, sneaking, coloring, scootering, footballs and computer games. Tonight is our "movie night" so we are watching "Fly away Home".

Michelle and Archie left around 7pm tonight for Indiana so we'll get to see them tomorrow, after we go Christmas caroling. Well, those were the highlights of the weekend. Have a good week everyone!

Love to all, Leah

"your school nurse is on the phone"

I got the dreaded call at work today... "your school nurse is on the phone." Ahhhh, that was me screaming as I see 100 obstacles pop into my mind. Madison wasn't feeling good with an upset stomach and feeling dizzy. Guess what? ... It was Beppe to the rescue!!! I'm so excited because it is soooo wonderful to have someone to call in the middle of the day!!! Thank you Beppe!!! However, Madison was assuming that she could still make her soccer practice tonight but we had to put the ca-bosh on that. I think it was just a temporary thing so that's good.

Tonight after work the 5 ladies from work went out to Hacienda for a little Christmas celebration. We decided it was a girls-night-only. It was a lot of fun! I'm thankful to work with such nice, Christian women!

Tony went over to Don & Isy's and retrieved the kids after he got off of work. That was pretty much our day.

For some reason the picture from yesterday looks dark on line. If you double click on it, it enlarges. Does anyone else think Quinn looks like a mini Jim Tressle? I guess you need to see him in this outfit in person. : )

Love to all, Leah

"I just can't resist Him!"

Hello Everyone,

Here is a picture of the kids before their program tonight.

So far this week has just flown past me! Sunday night's Christmas program went very well. The kids did such a good job! Tonight was the school Christmas program and it was also excellent! Quinn found out yesterday that he had a few sentences to say tonight by memory and boy was he ever nervous. His stomach was upset... he wasn't hungry for breakfast this morning, the whole thing. He said he did fine at school today but for some reason he was "doubled over" with stomach pain at the dress rehearsal. Oh brother!! He did just fine. He had to get a "cue" twice from the director but with less than 24 hours to memorize and with his nerves, I thought he did great. How many video copies do I need to make for all of you? : ) Madison's evening started out "exciting" after she sprayed herself directly in the eyes with her new can of "body spray" (AKA deo). So, Quinn's waiting in the van and I'm doing an eye lavage at the kitchen sink, trying not to get her hair or outfit wet. Whew! She can still see so I guess it turned out OK. : ) She did a very nice job tonight too. She played the xylophone on one of the songs and did great, all memorized as well. The performances are so much more "professional" than when I was a kid! Another neat thing is that the kids all color the programs to be handed out and they sign the back. Out of at least 500 programs, we were handed Quinn's! How cool is that?

Let's see... what else?.... 3 out of our 4 fish died this week. The 4th one is on the way out and the kids refuse to just let me flush him. They really have taken this quite well. I know it's hard to be too attached to fish but leave it to Madison to be attached to a pet like this...! She's thankfully been fine. Quinn decided it was for the best anyway... since they are going to a better place... a place where they will have eternal life and live forever. "OK, riiiight...now time to get out the door for the bus!" He's talking about replacing the fish with a "bull frog" instead. I don't think so.

Are you tired of hearing about cute things that the kids say and do?... just stop reading then. After reading one of Quinn's favorite Bible stories tonight (Jericho's walls falling down) he told me that his truely favorite story was the one about how Jesus died to save us from our sins, so we can go to heaven. I said, "you love Jesus don't ya?" and he said, "Yep! I just can't resist Him!" I thought that was precious.

Amy, yes I read the comments. If you leave them here Blogger automatically emails them directly to our juno address. Most of my readers prove to be shy because they just click on the "email us" link and send us an email directly.

Check out my new link... it's a great site that reviews movies from a Christian perspective. The link is located in the right hand column of this web page. Tony and I have used it for a couple of years now and find that it's very reliable for the content info.

Love to all, Leah

Christmas celebrations

I hope you've had a good weekend. We've sure had a fun one. It started out Friday afternoon... as soon as the kids got off the bus I took them sledding at Don & Isy's house. They have a great hill in the backyard. The kids sure messed up their beautiful white field of snow! Madison is ready to practice some more on her snowboard which she got for Christmas last year and only used once (if that) because we hardly had any snow last winter! We stayed for supper and made Christmas cookies and the guys watched the Iowa basketball game.

Saturday morning the kids had their program practice, Quinn had basketball and then Madison had a birthday rollerskating party to go to.
Saturday night was our small group's Christmas party at Chad & Eliza's house this year. That was a lot of fun. It's good to see everyone at the same time and watch the kids as they open a gift that they exchanged. The "highlight" of the evening came when poor Brock's forehead somehow collided with the edge of the couch which resulted in about a 1 inch long gash in his eyebrow. It needed stitches but luckily a family practice doc lives right next door so he came over with his medical "glue" and patched him up. That put a different spin on the evening! The foyer was turned in to an Urgent Care Clinic. : )

Tonight is the kid's Christmas program that they have worked so hard on and spent so many hours on. They practiced during Sunday School today too. I don't see how it's possible that they not be ready! They have to be there over 1 hour early tonight to go through it again. They are really quite ready for it to be overwith! Afterwards is a cookie fellowship so yet another opportunity for sweet treats!

Well, it's a sunny afternoon and I think Madison and I are going to go on a walk. I've had my 30minute nap and so am ready to go for another few hours! : )

Love to all, Leah

Truent officer...

Hi,

Tonight the kids and I went to the Dollar Store so Quinn could purchase his gifts for the Greencroft residents. He's been working quite hard for extra money the last month or so. Yesterday he told me that he completely picked up Nater's basement while Nater played and watched him and that his mom wanted to pay him $5 because it was such a big job but he didn't want to take her money so he wondered if I would pay him instead! I of course I paid him the $5 and told him it would be OK to take her money if he explained what he was saving it for! I'm sure she would have been delighted to help out! I wouldn't want him to take it for his own piggy bank. In hindsight... I think I got the raw end of the deal! : ) Anyway, he was quite happy with his savings and he felt good about picking out double the requested amount of supplies for the residents (we had a list to go from). He enjoyed paying too.

After the store, I took them to church for the Christmas program practice and when we walked in I thought it was a little strange that I didn't see any kids around. Come to find out, they practiced this past Monday instead of tonight. Why? I don't know, but I completely missed that one. The kids said, "oh yah, they did tell us that at the beginning of practice last week." Guess the message didn't get passed on! That's the second practice they've missed and I even got an email today asking if they were really going to sing in the program this Sunday night?!!! I didn't think we were that bad! I'm waiting for the program truent officer to knock on the door! Wow, they run a tight ship I guess. They've been practicing since November 1st!

Tony got home from Indy around 8pm tonight. I always worry about him traveling with his truck. It's definitely a "beater" of a vehicle. It's a '95 and sounds terrible. I asked him one time why he doesn't get the muffler fixed... he told me it was the closest he would ever get to driving a Harley and so he was keeping his sound! Ha!

That's all for tonight folks. Tomorrow is Thursday! Yipee!
Love to all, Leah

What's for supper at your house?

Hello Everyone,

Hope you are all well. Tony went to Indy tonight for a meeting all day tomorrow so the kids and I just "hung out". : ) It gets dark so early... by 5:30! The cabin fever months are here! The darkness makes such a huge difference. When it's 7pm it feels like it should be at least 10pm. Oh well... I'm never happy am I?

I've got most of my Christmas cards done and mailed them today. I'm just ahead of schedule this year so that feels good! The kids have their little trees in their rooms. My secret... just kept them decorated from last year and pulled them off the shelf! Actually, Madison re-did her's and Quinn is planning on redecorating his on Saturday (?)... we'll see if that ever happens.

That's all for tonight. Sorry, nothing exciting the last few days but Mom "yelled" at me through email for not posting something! Mom, FYI we had tator-tot casserole tonight-with FF instead of tator-tots! (I told her I had nothing to write... unless she wanted me just to report what we had for supper!).

Love to all, Leah

1st Sunday of Advent....

Today was the first Sunday of Advent. I hope it was a meaningful day today for you. We have 3 advent calendars to keep up with. We have a wall hanging and then Aunt Michelle sent each of the kids their own calendar with chocolate surprises. After church we went to Don & Isy's for lunch and then spent most of the afternoon there. The guys watched football and the girls did some crafting (Quinn was in both activities every other 15 minutes).

Yesterday Madison rang bells for the Salvation Army at JC Penney's. Other than being cold, it went fine and she's so hot blooded she wasn't even cold! Anyway, the people walking in/out were very polite and lots of people dropped something in the pot. This was a 4th grade project from school. They donated their gift of "time" to our community. Quinn's 2nd grade class is donating "goods" in the form of toiletries and then they are going to distribute them to the Greencroft Senior Center. His class does a basic economics portion and they talk about goods and services a lot. One night he even prayed and thanked God "for all of the goods and services that we have."

Friday night we went to Goshen College's Christmas concert. It was excellent! I would highly recommend it for next year. I guess it is going to be on our local network, WNIT, on Christmas eve. Both Tony and I really enjoyed it. The GC president's son, Quinn, who must be around 9 or so, sang a soprano solo. He did such a good job. We've never met another Quinn before so we'll have to catch up to him one of these days.

Well, tomorrow is Monday. You probably know how excited I am about it. I'll think optimistically... last Monday wasn't bad at all so may be I'll get 2 in a row like that. Hope you all have a good week.

Love to all, Leah

"the usual..."

Hello Everyone,
I hope you had a good week. Our week was filled of "the usual"... the kids had their Christmas program practice on Wednesday evening and Madison had Flames indoor soccer practice last night. Today (Friday) has been a rainy, dreary, cold day. Our Indian summer is over! Tonight Tony and I are going to Goshen College's Christmas program and the kids are going to spend the evening with Don & Isy. Madison and I are ringing bells for Salvation Army tomorrow at 11am at JC Penney's. I need to remember my ear plugs! I hope it stops raining!!
Well, it's short and sweet for tonight.
Love to all, Leah

A new type of reindeer....

Hello Everyone,

I thought I would include this silly picture of Quinn pretending he has antlers with pine branches. This was taken on Saturday after we got our tree. I don't know where he got the idea. He always makes me laugh. Tonight I was folding clothes upstairs and he saw Illinois playing basketball on TV and he noticed that they were playing "MD" (the little score box) but he didn't know who that was... "Who is Illinois playing Mom?... Middlebury?" Don't worry, I didn't laugh at him, I just gave him the correct answer... Maryland... and then laughed inside!

Tony put the blue and white icicle lights up on the house last night and they look really nice. The blue Christmas lights are a "family thing" I guess... Don & Isy have always decorated an outside tree with blue lights at Christmas time in honor of Don Jr. We are supposed to get really cold weather by the end of the week so it is good to get this done. We decorated our Christmas cookies last evening. I think I'll freeze some of them for Christmas get togethers... boy are they ever good though! Yum!

That's all for now. Not much goin' on and that's fine with me! : )

Love to all, Leah

Annual Christmas tree hunt

Hello Everyone,

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving weekend. We had an AWESOME weekend! It was so much fun. We crammed as much as we could into 4 days. Mom and I went shopping on Friday, on Saturday we went on our annual Christmas tree hunt and cut down our tree and then made Christmas cookies. Today we got the tree decorated. It was such a beautiful weather weekend... near 60 or so. We went on walks, I took a nap, the kids played outside and just had a great weekend. Dad fixed some of the kitchen chairs that had spindles loose so that feels good too. Tony worked outside and got caught up with the yard work.

Tonight we are enjoying the Christmas tree and the kids are enjoying their weekly movie night with Star Trek VI by the light of the tree. (They don't exactly go together do they?).

Only one month until Christmas! Can you believe it? I'm looking forward to more vacation time. I hope you all have a good week.

Love to all, Leah

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

What a great day to celebrate the many blessings God has given us in life! We've enjoyed having my mom and dad here today. We enjoyed a feast and have enough food left over for several more meals! The turkey breast turned out really well although Madison sat for quite a while before finally giving in to eat her one bite of turkey! "How come whenever there is a food that is good for me... you MAKE ME try it???" hmmmmmm.... She finally gave in when we announced we were going on a walk right after lunch, before we cleaned up. She'll do anything to get outside! Usually she is not a picky eater, at all... but for whatever reason today she had her mind made up that she didn't care for turkey and didn't want even a bite. Enough of that...

Tomorrow is "black Friday" ... Mom and I have taken a look at the ads and will probably be out there with the rest of the masses but we decided there wasn't anything that needed to get us out of bed before sunrise. We'll get there when we get there!

We enjoyed playing a game today, Tony played football outside with M, Q and Nate (do any of you think that we secretly have another son?), watched football, went on a walk, ate and just enjoyed being home together. Grandpa even worked on some of our rickety kitchen chairs... putting his carpentry skills to work. I hope you had as nice of a day as we had. We couldn't beat the 55 degree weather. It was perfect... that only thing that would have made it better is if YOU would have been here too!

Love to all, Leah

Turkey plans...

Hi to my family and friends,

Is your turkey thawing? My mom and dad are coming to our house for Thanksgiving this year so I actually have a turkey to thaw out. I'm excited to do the hosting. I've got quite the menu planned. I remember growing up with Thanksgiving dinners at my Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's house, eating off of her fancy red dishes. I'm privileged to have those red dishes now. May be I'll pull those out for this special occasion. Madison made placecards for each of us... all 6 of us. : ) We are a small but mighty group. : )

The kids had their Christmas program practice tonight which they tell me was "so boring!"... Kids think they have to be "entertained" all the time I guess. That drives me crazy.

I "survived" the dentist today. That's it though.

During the kid's rehearsal I ran around trying to get digital prints printed out. After going to Wal-mart and Meijer I gave up. There is no such thing as a "simple thing" any more. Everything has to be a big production. I've decided to forget the Goshen "resources" and send them to Winkflash. The Internet is too handy and driving from store to store is a waste of my time.

Here's a joke from Quinn tonight... "Where does Batman take a bath?"... In the bat-room!
Well... until next time... Love to all, Leah

A thanksgiving joke for you...

Hello Everyone,
Hope your week has started off well. I had a really fun weekend. Isy and I went to her church and scrapbooked on Friday evening and then I went shopping all day on Saturday with my small group ladies from church. What a fun time! I'm nearly done with my shopping... pretty much just need to buy gifts for my immediate family. Tonight Madison and I even did some wrapping! I think that's got to be a record. Yesterday was the all-church Thanksgiving meal. It was awesome! So you can see that I was out galavanting around and not at home to update my blog. I'm sure you can understand my "situation". : )

Tonight Katie, Nathan and Nate were over for awhile. The kids had fun playing hide and seek and drinking hot cocoa. Tony left for Indy. He has a meeting tomorrow but will come back tomorrow night. Don & Isy dropped in for 10 minutes. It was a busy but fun evening.

Tomorrow morning I have a dentist appointment (you should hear Darth Vader music right now). It is something I DREAD but has to be done!! I'll just get it over with. I can think of a whole lot of other places I'd rather be at 8am tomorrow! ... like WORK for one (yes, I'm serious).

Well, that's all for tonight. Here's a Thanksgiving joke for ya... "If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?" .... Answer... pilgrims!

Love to all, Leah

White-fish cake

Hello Family and Friends,

We enjoyed supper last night at Don & Isy's house. John & Evelyn and Johnny & Cindy were also there. We especially enjoyed a new cake brought by Evelyn. We called it the white-fish cake because that is what we thought it was... a white fish... and she even threw in a secret ingredient. Family, it will be worth your phone call to her to hear this story in person! I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Friends, I'll tell you about it when I see you next! We didn't get to stay as long as we would have liked, the kids had their Christmas program practice to get to.

Tonight Madison had indoor soccer practice. When I went back to pick her up she was the last one there and asking what took me so long! Apparently her practice ended early when her coach (possibly) blew his knee out. It's not often that Madison has seen a grown man cry so it sounds like it must be pretty serious. That's really too bad. She said the whole practice field got totally silent. I hope it's not as bad as it sounds.

Nate was over for about 1 1/2 hours to play. They enjoyed hot cocoawith marshmellows on a rainy cold day and played indoor baseball around our "circle".

Tony is still at work, it's currently 8:45pm. He has a bunch of things to get done and tomorrow morning I have to leave for work (a meeting) by 6:30am so he can't really go into work early. He is more of a night owl anyway but it's no fun to be at work for 14 hours out of your day.

Well, that's all for tonight. I need to go tuck the kids into bed. Take care!
Love to all, Leah

"Chores"

Hi!

Tonight Madison trimmed 4 bushes outside, washed the base boards of the upstairs and main level and also swept the kitchen floor. Quinn performed the 2nd-grader version of washing the kitchen cupboard doors and he picked up the trash. They are still asking for "chores". It's great! Of course I'm going to be broke by the end of the week but it's worth it! : ) Quinn agreed to 50 cents for picking up the trash but when he realized that meant cleaning out the litter box, he raised his price to $1. : ) The kids also had homework to do and so after the chores, homework and some play time, the evening was pretty much over. Tony is putting Quinn to bed and Madison is working at her 20minutes of independent reading. I really miss reading out loud to her this year. That's a bummer I guess. She has to do the reading herself... she can read out loud to me but she is much slower this way so it works better for her to just read to herself. Yes, I know I could still read outloud for awhile myself but we don't have much time for 40-45 minutes of reading at each bedtime. We are reading "A League of Their Own" together when we have the extra minutes.

Aren't you glad to be reading about something else other than soccer games??? However, Madison did have soccer in her top three things on her Thankful list this past Sunday during Aunt Amy's children's church time. #1 God, #2 parents, #3 soccer.

Tomorrow night we are going to Beppe and Pakka's for coffee and then supper at 5pm and then on to church for the Christmas program practice. So far the week has gone pretty fast. Hope it's going well for each of you!

Love to all, Leah

Kids for hire...

Hello Everyone!

The kids are both really into earning extra money for their "projects" at school. They are now happily asking to do chores around the house and want even MORE chores!! : )Quinn's project is to raise money for toiletry type items for Greencroft residents for Christmas. Madison has started saving for a big overnight field trip that the whole 4th grade takes to Indy in May. Social Studies for this whole 4th grade year is focused on Indiana history. Something I should be learning about too I guess! She is hoping that Tony and I will both get to go with her because "this could be my once in a lifetime chance to go on a trip with just you and Dad." We'll see. Tonight she vacuumed the basement and the steps, folded laundry and vacuumed out the van. She was delighted to find a $10 bill on the van floor. We don't know who it belonged to but it's in the Indy bank now!

Hope you all had a good Monday today. We decided at work today that while it was a busy Monday it was not nearly as WILD as the last several Mondays so that is good news! I only wrote 2 discharge-from-our-practice letters today. : )

Well, I'll let you all go. Thanks for reading.

Love to all, Leah

"Thank you God for a really, really nice mom who gave me her Iowa ticket"

The title is from Quinn's prayer tonight (so sweet). So yep, he got my ticket and even though Iowa lost (again) he had a great time. Grandma gave him $5 to spend at the game (on food) and he came home with an Iowa jersey... after Dad threw in some (a lot of) money too! See what happened with $5 burning a hole in his pocket? I had a great day shopping at Iowa's 2nd largest mall with Mom and Amy and 4 young girls! I'm amazed at how well Mikayla is getting around with her broken leg and cast. She just zips around with that walker like it's nothing. What a trooper! (OK, Amy is probably even more of a trooper to keep her sanity with that whole story... did I write about that in my blog? 5yr old Mikayla broke her tibia after falling off the monkey bars at school.) I found a few deals and am prepped for Christmas shopping with my friends next weekend. So, it was a really fun weekend although very short. We got to Iowa at mid-night on Friday and got home tonight at 8pm. Quinn is trying to earn some extra money to purchase supplies for nursing home residents (a school project) so he already has my first load of laundry in the dryer for me. He said that all of his work tonight was probably worth at least $2 but he would let me off for just $1. What a bargain! : )

OK, need to go. Hope you all have a good week!

Love to all, Leah

Heading to Iowa...

Hi Everyone,
We are headed to Iowa tonight for a short weekend. We're going to the Iowa vs WI football game. Because we will drive all the way there, we will probably lose. Quinn is trying to talk me out of my ticket and I think I just might give in this time. Shopping with my mom and sister just might persuade me. : )

We've had beautiful weather this week but that looks like it's going to change. Cold and wet is on the way. Nothing else new to report.

Have a good weekend!
Love to all, Leah

Lia Sophia

Did that title interest anyone? That is the name of the jewelry party that Madison and I went to tonight. I haven't been to a home party in YEARS and Eliza hosted this party tonight so I thought I would go. Lia Sophia is the name of the company and they have very nice jewelry... a little pricey but nice stuff! Anyway, it was nice to do something just "for girls" tonight. : )
www.liasophia.com

Work and the party pretty much took the whole day today. Really nothing else too exciting.

Love to all, Leah

A better day...

Happy Tuesday!

Hope you all had a good day today. Mine was much better than yesterday so that was good! Never a dull moment though. This morning I read this Bible verse, which I wished I would have read yesterday... Romans 15:1, "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak" .. God knows that not all people are easy to deal with but asks us to "bear with" them! Anyway, I don't have much to share tonight so I thought I'd share that verse that made my day better today. It just seemed so appropriate for working with some of the patients that I work with each day. I also had a patient bring in a big beautiful plant with a nice card about what an asset our office is to our community etc... See how much better of a day I had?

Tonight we enjoyed a relaxing evening at home. It was great. Nothing fancy. I really don't have anything exciting to say today.... send me an email to say hi. I always love to hear from you.

Love to all, Leah

Scrapbook heaven...

Hello,
The scrapbooking weekend was a lot of fun and I got 41 pages done! WOW! I think I need a weekend like this a couple of times this year. It makes me want to work on my albums at home more but that probably won't happen... at least on a regular basis anyway.

Tony, Madison and Quinn had a good time in Iowa even though our pathetic Hawkeyes let us down yet again. Tony and Quinn went to the game and had a good time in spite of the game. However, Quinn told me on the phone, "We drove all this way for nothing!" Madison and her cousins went to a movie instead... t'was a good choice for them.

Today was a typical Monday at work. I tell ya, what happens over the weekends that make some people totally act like fools on Mondays? I'm convinced there must a full moon every single Monday. I think I better start taking vacation days each Monday. It's pathetic. There are too many stories to even tell you about here. Surely in heaven there won't be any Mondays! ...One more thing to look forward too... the hope of no more Mondays!

Tonight Corinne took Madison out for her birthday. She got to chose from all the restaurants in existence and she chose.... Taco Bell!... and even took her free-tacos-for-good-grades coupon with her. I told Corinne that she got off pretty easy tonight. : ) They had a good time together.

Quinn and I stayed home and played Yahtzee, Guess Who?, and Scrabble Junior. I love the cooler weather... we get to play more games. Tony did some yard work and then left to work on a home-improvement-but-not-our-home project tonight.

Well, I hear Quinn's foot pounding on the tub's floor upstairs... that must be the hoof sign for "I need a towel"... Have a good week everyone.

Love to all, Leah

Weekend plans...

Hello!

We had snow today... it accumulated just enough for Madison to build a "small snowball" and bean Nater in the forehead. I had to MAKE Madison take a jacket to school today. She just thinks she can run around without one... even at 29 degrees while waiting for the bus!

Last night the kids started practicing for the Christmas program at church. It's hard to believe that Christmas is around the corner... hearing Away in a Manager brings the realization that Christmas is only 7 weeks away!

Tonight after work I spoke to the cancer support group about pain (what else?). I didn't get home until after 6:30. Madison had indoor soccer practice for 1 hour at 6pm and Tony and Quinn went out for supper during her practice.

This weekend I'm going to a scrapbook retreat... a bunch of Silverwood ladies are going to Camp Amigo in MI. I had a dream last night that I didn't even get one page done all weekend!!... distractions kept getting in the way! Tony and the kids are going to Iowa. Tony and Quinn are going to the Iowa football game. It's going to be chillllly. I'm sure they'll have fun. I've had a sore throat and earache the last few days so I'm hoping I didn't catch Quinn's presumed strep throat. The antibiotics whipped him right into shape so I suppose I should just give in and get started on some too.

Well, we will all be gone over the weekend so I probably won't write again until Sunday night some time. I hope you have a good weekend! Stay safe!

Love to all, Leah

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