Nice Change

So I have worked for 2 weeks at the Y now. So far so good. I do really like it.
The atmosphere is more laid back than the doctors office I usually work at. Not so serious.

We have had our share of crabby people yesterday. 3 to be exact.
Psychology was one of my favorite classes. It is so interesting to see how different people are. Some people get really worked up and in front of their kids show exactly how NOT to behave in public. Some try really hard not to take it out on you but clearly are mad beyond belief. Thankfully I haven't had anyone vent specifically to me yet. But I am learning a lot. This group really seems to stand up for each other.

Whenever we have a chance we are to be folding towels and doing laundry. I really like that. I am glad it is not just a sit down all day job, like my other one. I like that I am burning calories while I am working.
I picked up my first paycheck yesterday... I would love to cash it but it was wrong. I only make 7 bucks per hour. It showed that I worked 42 hrs. So it was over 200 bucks! I only worked 4 that week.

Saturday was Kidstage at the High School for Reece. It was very cute. He put on a skit with a girl from his class. He played a boss to a Happy-go-lucky girl selling oranges. As he started out he sat on stage and she stood near the oranges. Customers kept coming up to her asking her questions...
1 question.. A customer asked...What is on sale today? Her Answer: I don't know. Cue Reece to explain that Oranges are on sale and she needs to say Thanks and Have a Nice Day to all who leave.
2 question.. How much are they? Her Answer: I don't know. Cue Reece to explain the oranges were only 2 cents each.
3 question..Are they fresh? Her Answer: I don't know. Cue Reece to tell her they are very, very fresh.
4th question was from a police officer that asked her if she was getting fresh with him and she said 'Very, very fresh' so the police officer took her off stage.
Reece then grabbed a Help Wanted sign and put it in front of the stage.
It was cute.
Then they played a game called 'Hey, What are you doin?'
Your supposed to silently sit and pretend to do something and when you are asked, you tell them something else then they are supposed to pretend to do that suggestion. Reece asked a kid what he was doing and he said "Pretending to be Elvis", so Reece had to pretend to be Elvis. At first he didn't know what to do but he quickly recovered with a hip gesture and with his hands pointing to the side he said "Thank you very much" in his best Elvis way. He got the entire group laughing. It was cute. Afterwards he was worried since they were not supposed to talk, but he did great.

Job Status

It is 7am on Saturday and all are sleeping so I finally am able to post something!
I can give a little more detail regarding the job issue. Ok, Duner's work is trying to recover from the 3 years it was owned by a company that didn't really know how to manage its money. They had employees work INSANE amounts of overtime, and missed a few payments to the bank and had to get sold to a company called Kohlberg & Company, an investment company that buys companies in financial trouble, reorganizes them and fixes the problems and gets them on track.

This new company has cut out the overtime completely. Dropped orders that were not at least X % profitable, Shut down all 3 shifts at times only to work 2 shifts for weeks at a time and asked for volunteers to take weeks worth of unemployment. They forced everyone to take unemployment the week of Christmas.

You think, gee, that is not so bad?
Sure, if you don't have a second job.

Duner has a 2nd job. He has worked part-time for YEARS at a restaurant. The way 'Unemployment compensation' works is they see the second job as income. So they do not give you benefits since he was 'AVAILABLE' to work at the second job. Or if they do it is minus what you made while you were off of the other job. But you wait about 1 month while they 'investigate' your claim...

We learned that nugget of knowledge a few years ago. So we didn't even bother. We were able to get by without a paycheck for that week.

So, now he had began applying at jobs around the area. I just rolled my eyes and thought- Why are you doing this? He has been at his job almost 6 years already. He has 2 weeks vacation. Some seniority. Why?
Then they offered the job. Almost the same pay. Cheaper Dental, Union Dues, and stable employer. (They make belts for the other industries) No vision insurance, no vacation and no more free paper plates but maybe some overtime. It has given us LOTS to consider. It was a really tight race until...

They decided this week to eliminate 4 jobs at Duner's position. Thankfully NOT Duner's!
At the end of April they are going to cut those peoples pay by $3 per HOUR.
That, my friends, is what you call a deciding factor.

We have been though a previous 'mill shut down' and been forced to be unemployed once before. It does make you more aware of things.
When they did that move, that just showed us what they could do for us. His current job does have a few other plants in the area and rumors are flying high in the plant about his plants work being transferred out to those other plants. I used to not believe those 'rumors' until one turned out to be true, when the shut the mill down.

Now the kicker is we are going on Vacation in March for 9 days. The new employer says, if you go on vacation you will have to take 'points' for those non-worked days. Ok. Not good. Duner usually doesn't call in, but at his current job they allow up to 9 points before 'corrective action' is taken. It would really only be 6-7 points he would use, but we don't want that to effect any raises later.
We asked if he could start the job the day after he comes back? They said maybe, but they suggested a different position on a different shift, BUT that job has to be offered to internal employees first. We have to wait a week to see if they have any takers. That job would be a straight nights position. The other would be 3-11 shift. We prefer the Nights, only because his second job and his golf league in the summer. It would be nice to be on a solid shift to plan you life around.

So wish us Luck this next week!

No Time

I can't believe it is Friday already! Where did the week go?
I still don't have much time right now, but I wanted to let you know I didn't go missing. I have been so busy!
Sunday I had to rescue my husband and kids up at the cabin, where my husband had accidentally locked the keys in our RUNNING truck. I was in training at my new job, so by the time I got the message it had been running over an hour. I made it up there just about 3 hours after it was locked. He insisted it was some mechanical problem and it wasn't his fault. But finally he said "Maybe my finger hit it, but I don't think it did!".

Ok. Whatever. (but it hasn't magically happened since)

I did more training on Tuesday for the Y- also had a sick kid at home, Wed I was back to work and working out, Thursday I worked both jobs, and now it is already Friday...
We are in the middle of refinancing our mortgage, for a better rate, finding a kennel for our dogs for our upcoming trip, and entertaining a possible job offer for Duner.

Yikes! Busy, busy, busy!!

Finally, FREE TIME!

It is amazing how much extra time gets eaten up by shoveling, working out, and jobs. I can't believe a whole week went by already. Geez.
Early on in the week we had a bunch of snowfall. It apparently wasn't enough for them to call off school or a 2 hr delay, which would have been nice since I would have liked the extra help clearing the driveway. My neighbor and I began clearing our driveway's about the same time. It was really lite fluffy snow, so it wasn't too heavy, it just flew around easy. Making it extra work for you. In the time it took him and his snowblower to do his ENTIRE driveway, I managed almost a THIRD of mine. He felt sorry for me, so he came over and did the rest of mine for me. So NICE of him! Since I had extra time I made him some Merry Berry Cheese Bars with Zebbies help. Zeb didn't want to share too many of them, since they are his favorite, so I waited until Zeb was at school and ran a plateful over to them.
That was the day I stepped back into the swimming pool for the first time since July. Yikes! That kicked my butt! Duner asked me the other day if I ever get winded anymore. He didn't see me try to get 20 minutes of lap swimming in. I can run at a 6.5 mph pace on the treadmill for 10 minutes and no be as winded as I do swimming. So when the neighbor was able to help me out on the driveway, my arms were very grateful.
The rest of the week FLEW by... between working, eating, working out, I really didn't have much time this week. Thursday was quality night with the kids we took them out to eat. We hadn't really taken the ENTIRE fam out for a long time. It was a good lesson in manners. I found myself saying things like...
'Don't touch your brother.'
'Chew with you mouth closed.'
'Don't play hog! Only one thing on your plate at a time!"
'Get your FEET off the bench!'
'Sit up please'
When we are at home, and they chew like horses, is one thing. But they need some courses on how to act in a public place. I think I will check out the courses they offer at the Y while I am there.
Friday was a half day. We need this really cold weather to LEAVE!! The kids are getting sick of being house bound all the time. I picked up some movies on my lunch hour and ran into two other neighbors at Family Video. They must have the same problem. I rented the boys 3 movies. That was supposed to keep them entertained until I got out of work. I still got a phone call from Reece. Brock was acting like a snot nosed brat instead of a babysitter, so I had to set him straight.
Saturday Duner took the boys and snowblower up to the cabin for the night! Yeah!! I was alone with the dogs. Which I gleefully volunteered to take care of, in order to stay here. So I was alone with NO kids for a whole 24 hrs. I spent the time shopping. I first went to an outlet mall in Oshkosh, to Vanity Fair store. They have some good deals on Lee and Jansport clothes, then I went Gap Outlet Store, got a coat for 18 bucks and two long sleeve t's, Then on the Mall in Appleton.
There is a store in Appleton called Steve and Barrys. It has a huge sale going on right now, EVERYTHING is 9 bucks. So I bought 4 pants, 3 shirts, and a jacket. Yep, 9 bucks each.
I spent 4 hours shopping Saturday, without anyone asking if we can leave now... or asking to use the bathroom,... or screaming how HUNGRY they are! (Which I heard from another girl while I was in Target, and I just smiled)
I came home, tried on some of my purchases and decided which ones I will keep (some I didn't try on) and figure out which will be going back. Scrubbed the boys toilet, (it really needed it) Watched a movie and went to bed!
Ahhhhh...pure bliss!

Weekend Events

Friday I had the luxury of being Alone... Ah, to be by myself. To do what I want, when I want it. So what did I do?
Shovel in frigged temps for an hour and a half. What fun. Not really but it was nice to not have "Mom!" Shouted in my direction for an evening. I really wanted to make it to the gym.
(Ok, deep down I did)
I was SO COLD by the time I was done, that I just sat in my living room with my fireplace going and under a nice blanket and my laptop for warmth. I didn't warm up fully until the next day.
I didn't quiet make it to the gym that night, but I did get my entire driveway snow free.

So Saturday I woke up and braved the cold to head to the gym. 30 minutes on a treadmill and headed out to get the kiddies. They had spent the night with Grandma Z. Brock loved it, Reece not so much. Zebbie had seen them a lot this last week so he was ready to go when I got there.

Earlier this week on Monday, Duner was getting into the Camry when the door handle broke off. Hmmm. Must not like cold temps either. Duner was sick of putting so much gas into his hunting truck (aka- the Durango) So he was itching to get a new truck. I wanted to get rid of the Camry. Due to the $500+ it will take to fix the muffler, the broken window washer, broken CD player, broken center console, broken and leaky tail light... you get the picture.
I love the car, I love how cheap it was, but now it is beginning to nickel and dime us.
So, Duner says to me "Lets go check out cars tomorrow" (that was on Friday). Gee. He wants to do that on the coldest day of the year!? Why not.
After doing some research it was decided we are probably going to be looking for a Saturn VUE. The gas mileage for them is the same as our Camry, yet the ground clearance is better. We were looking for a 4x4, but as long as we have the Durango, we should be ok with only one 4x4. The most important thing is the gas savings.
We did find a few prospects but we don't really want to jump into anything right away.

Sunday we were invited to a neighbors house for the Packer Game. They had just finished their basement and the kids were really excited at the possibility of playing on the Wii game system they had gotten for Christmas. Duner had to work till 5pm and rushed home to quickly change, and leave to make it to their house in time for kick-off. They have done a great Job on the basement. Nothing that I can afford to copy any lifetime soon, but it was a fun place for the kids. I was doing great until about half-time when I suddenly came down with a MEGA sinus headache. I have never had migraines but I think it was close. I have heard of people 'tossing their cookies' due to them and that is what happened to me. Thankfully I was able to sneak away and go home. I was afraid to take anything for the pain, so I just came in, and crawled in bed with the heated blanket on waiting for it to go away. I was able to lay there for about an hour before I had to go back and pick up the kids and husband, but it sounds like they had fun. I just hope the lecture I gave them about manners paid off.

Now for some strange reason, It is 12:50 am and I can not sleep. But I was able to take some Advil liqui-gels and my sinus headache is gone and no more cookies in sight. Yay!

Souper Stress

We have a patient at work that insists on bringing us the recipes every month from a local radio station. It is very sweet of her but we usually don't want them, since she wants us to make copies and give them to everyone... on company time, with company paper and machines... not high on our priority list. We like to stay employed.
Well, this week was Super Soups. There were two that caught my eye, so I made myself a copy. (only ONE!)

Stuffed Pepper soup and Reuben Soup.

I made Stuffed pepper soup on Tuesday. 1 lb ground turkey. 6 cans tomato soup. 2 cans tomato sauce, some green peppers, rice and onions... and wahla! It was magical. It worked! The kids liked it, the husband liked it... AND it only made it 2 days.

Ok, next up... Reuben soup...
It sounded good, all ingredients I like.

Red and Green peppers, onions, half and half, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and butter. Sounded good to me!
So I had all the ingredients and began to throw it together. Everything was text book, saute' this, blend that, combine a, b and c. It looked GREAT! I left it sit for a few minutes to finish 'cookin'.

That is when I began to look at my darn Scrabble game on Facebook.

by the time I finished making my move... it was BURNT. ARRRRRGGGHHH!! Cream soups hate me I swear.
Maybe it is a hint. I didn't need those calories anyway. Grrrrr. All of the cheese turned chunky, and it looked more like broth soup than a cream soup. *sigh* Oh the time I spent cooking that!!! All Wasted... all for nothing! Whaaaaaaa Wha! snif... snif.

Ok Change of menu, Hot Dogs and tortilla chips...

Never Ending Snowfun!

It has been snowing daily here lately...



Shoveling snow seems to be a daily chore around here...



So we turned it into fun..




Managed to get the dogs out and about too!

I'll Take a workout, oil change with a side of Pink Stuff,Please!

I had to squeeze in my workout, quickly before an oil change. While I was getting my oil changed I get a phone call from Z's school. He had a fever. 101 (underarm). He had been coughing for a few weeks now but he didn't have a fever.
Today he wasn't acting abnormal. He woke up with a aching head this morning but said nothing else all morning, so I sent him to school.

I picked him up, he was not happy. He really likes school and did not want to go home... until I told him I was going to take him right to the Doctor's office. I was still in my workout shorts, hair back in a ponytail, even water bottle in hand yet. One of the perks of working at the Doctors office is I can pretty much come down whenever I need to, which is nice.

After registering, we weighed him at 46 lbs (with his shoes on yet). He kept asking to go home. He was on the verge of tears the entire time. I think he was in so much pain from his head. The nurse gave us some samples of Advil Chewables to take for the pain. He loves the grape flavor Advil. The doctor was in quickly and he was diagnosed with an nasty ear infection. We got the yummy pink medicine Z likes.

He was so tired he fell asleep on the way home, We tried to get him to eat a Tuna melt but only a few bites made it in.
We managed to give him at least one dose of pink medicine before he fell asleep again.

Now, per doctor's orders, he will be off school until Thursday.

My Son, The Plumber...

My oldest has his heart currently set on becoming a plumber.
*Sigh*
He doesn't want to go to a 4 year school after High School. We were viewing some other possible options, like architect or engineering but nope, I couldn't get him to change his mind. It said, either, he had to be good in math and science or had to write reports. He didn't like that.
*sigh*
His favorite part of the job?
The plumbers crack.

I am going to help him out whatever he decides. I can only wish he aims a bit higher. I think computers are more his thing. He is not exactly an active kid. He likes to use my building program on my computer. I hope the Trio program at school knows of something that will help him find a job he will truly enjoy.

Happy New Year!!!

So here it is 2008.

Welcome everyone.

Some reflections? It was a pretty good year. Lost some weight. Kids are old enough to stay home alone. YES! Kids are old enough to know what I expect from them.

Brock has in some ways become a young man. He is beginning to realize when to kiss up. He has continued to kick some major butt with his grades!! (All A's and B's for the first Semester!)
He is still painfully shy. He plays more with Reeces' friends than kids his age. I believe it is because he doesn't read cue's real well and can come off as VERY annoying at times. Maybe we can work on this with him.
Reece has discovered food is fuel, not just something to do when you are bored. I continue to try and work on burning energy for him instead of "Here, eat this...", like it seems was the case when I grew up. He did a triathlon. Ran a few miles for me. He has done some push ups. His teacher at school even has a 2 minute drill every day they do 2 minutes worth of exercises. Reece has discovered how well he can do push ups. I think next summer I will add something like that to his chore sheet.
Zeb has grown up so much this year too. He loves school especially the bus ride with his friends. He doesn't want to grow up. He said he would like to stay five forever. He doesn't want any more birthdays. Today he asked for Star Wars Lego 2 video game and I suggested he ask for it for his birthday but he said, 'No, I don't want any more birthdays". Hmmmm. Maybe I will have to work on that with him. Right now I will settle on him learning to tie his shoes. That would be nice.

Last night, for my birthday, we took the kids out to eat at BJ's to eat and to the movies, Enchanted and I am Legend, then went home to play some games of Apples to Apples and Sorry Card Revenge. Reece was be big winner of the evening. As you can tell we partied HARD!

As it came to 11pm (midnight in New York) We opened the sparkling cider and the fancy plastic champange cups and went around talking about our goals for the year.

Brocks was to do better in school and get more friends. And do better at hunting. (that was just for Dad I think)

Reece's was to do 'more' with girls??? He would not elaborate, and get involved more in sports.

Zeb's was to get more lego's and cars. He doesn't quiet understand the concept yet.

Mine is to drop 20 more lbs. Win some money. Kick some triathlon butt. Simple. Just not easy.

This what greeted me the other day when I came home from work.
Guess who found a scissors and felt the need to cut his hair?

I quickly returned the gesture with my own scissors and trimmer.







He doesn't quite look like the same boy....

I got some shoes!

I will be starting the new year off right with my new Brooks Axiom running shoes. Thanks to an error with purchasing a left handed golf club for my husband, we had some extra funds that I was able to buy me some new shoes! It took 2 trips to Oshkosh but a very helpful young man (that runs an insane 90 miles per week!) at Run Away Shoes, researched for us to find us some size 11 shoes for my HUGE feet. I am SUPER excited.

In the sport of triathlon BRICKS are what they call it when you do one exercise block immediately followed by another. Such as biking and running or Swimming and Biking.

Today I did my first training Brick of the 2008 season. (I am beginning early) I am hoping to get 3 workouts a week and one Brick a month. Gradually getting longer on each brick.

I can tell the 'Resolutionist's" are starting to come out in full force too. (Hey Julie- Jason is back at the Y again, just in time for the new year) When I arrived just about all 20 of the ellipticals and Arc Trainers were full. There was only a handful of treadmills open.

But... the bikes were just about wide open.

I signed up for the bike and the treadmill. Just as I was finishing up on my bike, whad do you know... some one was on MY treadmill. Luckily many more were open than when I arrived, but Geez, Did nobody explain the theory of signing up for the machines to this guy??? It's not even the new year and I am getting shorted on my treadmill!

Today's workout was only a 20 min bike and 20 minute run, but total it was 40 minutes and that was hard enough.

Will I ever come out on top?

Aunt Sara is the Best. I don't know how she does it. She just has this knack for gift giving...
She seems to tower over me.

I asked the boys how they liked Christmas this year they said 'Great.'

I asked them what gifts were the best... Here they are...

Brock
1. StarWars Battlefront 2- Aunt Sara
2. Civilization Computer game (Thanks Aunt Jill!)
3.MP3 player- from Me

Reece
1. Lego Airport-Aunt Sara
2. Helicopter (Thanks Grandma W)
3. All the other gifts

Zeb
1. Airport play set (At least 1 got one right!)

Zeb didn't have any others. He just began naming everything he got. (I think he said the airport toy because Reece named a different airport toy, but I will take it)

Maybe it is the stigma of the 'Parent'.

Money, Money and More Money!!

So I had purchased this MP3 player from the internet.

I had thought about the IPOD and the Zune. Both expensive.

While working out these days I see all kinds of music players on the arms of fellow YMCA'ers.
I thought there has GOT to be a way to put music on those non specific machines.

Bzzzz!

Wrong! Not an easy way, at least.

Walmart.com is BAD for songs. Any songs you BUY WILL BE DRM PROTECTED. Meaning you can not use them on any other system. Even though you PURCHASED IT!

Rhapsody.com is also bad for songs. Any songs you will BUY will be in .RAX format, also is DRM protected. Great.

So far Zero for two.

Ok. Enter in the google search for WMA converter to MP3 and Convert DRM protected music.
I found many websites willing to sell my a DRM converter for the low price of $14.99. I was able to find a very helpful website called SWITCH that helped me convert some WMA's to MP3's but was useless since I needed to remove the DRM protection. I tried another one called tunebite (I think) but it only let me do a 60 second download??? Who wants sixty seconds of music? That really helps... Not! So, I tried looking up NERO.com, again "pay me". No thanks!

Mind you I PAID FOR THE MUSIC ALREADY. Why do I need so much grief to play MY music on my son's IPOD?

Ok. So I was VERY tempted to download one of the DRM protectors that I saw, but it was the principal of the deal. I had already paid for the music. They didn't need anymore money.

It took SO LONG to download the tunebite software and so many of those VISTA flags kept popping up I am thinking with have a good chance of having some spy ware on our computer somewhere now. I will fix that later.

Ok. On with the story, I finally decided to see if I could convert my I tunes to MP3's.
I stubble on this wonderful site that describes how you convert a song to MP3 format by burning it to a disc and importing it back as a Mp3, Now I will have 2 of the same song, but at least one will be in the correct format. Sheeesh.

Needless to say 3.2 hours later, I have downloaded 1 song on two the Mp3 player.

Yippeee!

A New pet? I dont think so!

Saturday night I was awoken from my sleep by my family to tell me that we acquired some new pests, er... I mean pets.

Duner went out to the Fridge we have in our garage to get a beverage, when he heard a noise. The kids soon joined him and located the source of the noise.

Our Dogs food bag.

We have 2 labs that stay mainly outside or in our garage, in the winter. We keep their food near the coop. We do have a storage container for it, but that is more effort to use in this cold weather than any of us want to fumble with, so we just open the bag and dig out their food when needed.

We feed them twice a day. Once in the am and once at night lately.
I had given them the usually nightly feeding that night. I noticed nothing.

The mice must have an internal clock and know when to hide out and wait.

It was 2 mice.

Both in the bag. Duner grabbed a empty milk gallon and tried to coerce them into the empty gallon. No takers for the first one. The kids said his butt was too big.

Need a bigger opening. Ok, so he grabbed the container we use to give the dogs water and gets one in. He actually got him to go right in!
The next one was a little more involved. The second mouse had fallen between the wrappers of the bag.

Those of you that don't know large dog food bags frequently have multiple layers of paper to keep the food contained. The second mouse had a hole in the bottom that they must have been using to negotiate a trail to and from the food source. He didn't want to come out of the layers but Duner squeezed the layers to make the mouse go in the correct direction.

Once both were in the water bottle the boys found a cover and sealed them in the container (since the mice were just about jumping up the 9 inches of the container!), to figure out what to do with them in the am, since they woke me up to ask me what to do with them and all I could say is 'I don't want them here. I don't care how they go away, just not here.' They were trying to tell me how cute they were. Did I mention it was around Midnight? Yes they are CRAZY.

No pets.

My thoughts briefly flashed back to my own experience with a mouse when I was 6 yrs old or so, I picked up a mouse that I thought was my neighbors hamster. It didn't appreciate me and bit me. It was squashed with a broom, so we were even.

Anyhoo, The next morning I woke and asked the kids about the mice.
Reece explained how Brock was worried about them so he put some water and food in the container so they would be ok overnight.
Yes, Brock was FEEDING the pests.

Reece went to go check on them shortly after that.

They were dead.

The water that Brock put in the bottom was a little much and they were FROZEN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE CONTAINER.

Great! Problem solved.

Thanks Brock!

Ventilation, Time to exhale...

I work at a doctors office. We get crabby people somewhat frequently.
But today was a extra special.
What people don't seem to realize, yes, they only see the Doctor for X # of minutes, but they don't realize the work on the back end. Lab testing, possible x-ray testing, calling in med's, and the dictation the Doctor will do on you that with recap the ENTIRE visit. Not to mention the phone calls, and faxes from pharmacies, nursing homes and hospitals. *that do usually need to be signed or replied to in some way.*

Then add in the time spent making specialist appointments or testing that will need to be done.

Not to mention any prior auths for the meds that were called in!! (Gotta LOVE medicaid)
A 'Prior Auth' is when your insurance says 'Uh huh! We like this med, use it first." or 'Patient had to have tried and FAILED on X, Y AND Z before we will CONSIDER your request'. Even with that some STILL get denied.
Doctors do make a LOT of money. I agree. But on days like today. NO Thank you!
Oh yeah, I almost forgot the perks like going to go deliver a baby after the office closes or having to spend the night in the hospital just in case the woman delivers since your home is 30 minutes from the hospital.

We saw over 30 people. Between 8am to noon and 1pm to 5pm.
Basically 15 in the am and another 15 in the pm. That is 4 people per hour on the average. Not bad. BUT WHEN YOU ADD PEOPLE IN THE ALREADY OVER BOOKED SCHEDULE TO HELP THEM OUT....
DO NOT COME TO THE OFFICE EXPECTING TO BE SEEN WITHIN AN HOUR!!!! You are the exception. We are STUFFED! We tell you that when you call. We are WORKING YOU IN!!! No whining allowed!

My personal fave is the patient that asks to speak to the Dr because 'US STAFF' are useless, or the person that calls the Dr a 'Quack' because he won't prescribe pain medication. How old are we? 5 or 8?

I like to go to work to not have to listen to the whining!!!

ah, hm...

Thank you for listening to my small tirade. Carry on...

Brother Power

We finally were able to make it to Target to make use of a gift card and some money Reece received from his birthday.

We HAD to have everyone with to help him pick out a gift, of course.

We head right away to the toy department. Specifically Lego aisle. After much pondering, it was decided to not get Lego's and buy a R/C helicopter. We stopped over at my parents house and he immediately asked for batteries, it worked Great! We left the batteries there, and headed home, since I had some at home.

He played with that for a good hour or two, then....

...the driving gear shifted. It wasn't working right. It couldn't fly. Reece, (AKA- Drama King), immediately began the tears and sulking.
... and more tears.
... and more tears...
Sigh...


I told him we can see if with can exchange it tomorrow. He was better. In the meantime Brock, who desperately wanted the board game Risk, was bending Reece's ear about what fun the game Risk is. Brock is not one to mention something only one time. You can expect to hear things over and over and over and over, again. Poor Reece probably had Brock whispering that in his sleep!

The next morning we took the kids sledding at a local park. They had fun. Zeb was all by himself on an super tube. He loved it. He would put his belly on the edge and leave his feet drag behind him and that was how he went down. Over and over again. He would use his legs to direct himself. He was quite good.

Brock and Reece went down together, Brock had taken off his coat he was too warm, he got knocked off the tube, but Reece got some 'Snow Burn' and out came the 'Drama King' in him. He was Waaaaaaaayyyy down at the bottom of the hill and we could hear him just fine. Kids on the hill were stopped looking at him to make sure he is ok. Brock was fine and he walked up to Reece and stood there trying to get him up. We knew Reece was fine. Brock would have tried to get our attention right away, but he just kicked the tube a few times trying to get Reece off to bring it up to the top of the hill.

After 10 minutes of ignoring him, Reece realized that no one was going to come to him and walked up making Brock carry the tube alone! Brock should have left Reece down there to carry the tube up by himself! We let the boys continue for 30 more minutes or so after Reece had some time in the truck to regain his composure.

After that we dropped the boys at home and brought in the helicopter.

They let us return it! Yay! We tried to get a new one but they were out. Reece was bummed. He tried to find something else to buy, but everything he thought he wanted was more than he had.

We happened by the game of Risk just happened to be on sale. After a quick phone call to Duner and Aunt Sara (got voice mail), to figure out if that was the game she had gotten him, I realized I must have deleted that email so the boys wouldn't find out what she bought them. Argh!

I think she had gotten that for Brock for Christmas, but after much discussion I couldn't talk him out of getting it. (Sorry Sara!)

So he brought home the game Risk and some Lego Clone Troopers.

Where is it all coming from?

I don't remember a December that we had so much snow within a week!
Granted, we didn't get it yet but wow! I love it!
Yes, the roads are bad and it is so much work to clear up... but we are heading to a WHITE Christmas!!
Talk about holiday spirit.
Yippee!

The boys got some gifts from St Nick last night, much to Brock's Dismay St. Nick did not drop off a game boy Pokemon game. Bummer. Considering Brock suggested it the night of St Nick visiting I told him right out; "GOOD LUCK, but it wont happen."
They each did get a mini Lego set, PJ's, Hershey kisses, mini peanut butter cups, an ornament, a flying saucer toy and a lifesaver holiday book.
Brock was showing me the life savers he has left, I was amazed to find out he hates CHERRY!! YUM!
Those are my favorites! His favorite is GREEN! I told him I hated those I used to throw them away.
Geez, Kids these days!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

The weeks are flying by.
I am barely able to get the 'normal' stuff done! Then add to that decorating, Christmas cards, tree trimming, baking oh, and why not toss in the volunteering at the school!
We came home from the water park and Duner had the house picked up and looking great, so all we had to do was unload and put away our stuff.

I can not tell you how happy was on Monday to find a lost video game and card that we temporarily misplaced!

Reece school needed some school supplies for kids in a foreign country, Zebs needed food for the local food pantry and if Brock's needed something I don't know. He hardly drops me piles of paperwork like the elementary schools do. Thank Goodness!

I did manage to grab the kids gifts and wrap them safely without them around. That is one reason why I love school for them. Yay!
I was just finishing wrapping Brocks when Reece and Zeb came home. Brock can't wait for St Nick to come tonight, he was begging me to fill the stockings last night. He said "If we can open presents on Christmas Eve then we can have St Nick come one day early too!".
Nice Try buddy!

So far, SO GREAT!!

So, What do you do when there is a winter storm warning on the horizon?

Why not head to a water park? We did. Especially when you son's birthday was the occasion, Not like you can really say 'lets do a rain check on this ok?'

It was a little over an hour away, but the drive went quick as the snow began to fly. The kids were occupied as they played their game boys. As we got closer Brock was our navigator. He did a good job since we made it directly to our location.

As we pulled in the kids were in awe of the mere size of the place. Enormous. We pulled in to check in to the place. As we walked in some valet's acted as Doormen for us, the kids were impressed with that. The lobby was impressive. 3 stories tall, with a huge staircase going up to the second floor. It was decorated with trees and garland all over. In the center they have a neat fountain with dolphin's the kids liked.

Thankfully, We were early to check in but we were still able to get a room. Our room was on the 4th Floor, it had a vaulted ceiling, a small living room area, two queen beds, small fridge (but nice size, bigger), microwave, granite counter tops, and 37 inch TV with Nintendo Game Cube. The kids loved it. Reece said he was in heaven. After changing we head down to the water park. The have 7 water slides. Two that you use with an intertube, 2 body slides and 3 kiddie slides that Zeb LOVED! I think I spent an hour watching him go up and down those alone.
They have a huge tank that holds 1000 gallons of water and dumps it every 10 minutes or so. By 4pm Zeb was ready to take a break at the room. We headed up an let Reece and Jake play one more hour. There were lifeguards all over and they were mainly playing with the slides and the water toys. They were having loads of fun.
We ordered Dominos pizza and one hour of playing time from the Nintendo game system to give time while we waited. When our pizza arrived, I had to go down and get it. But they had about 10 drummers from a local school in the lobby doing a small show. It was packed. It was neat to see but I didn't even know it was going on! The room was quiet. It was neat to see. Zeb helped me bring the food up to the room. Thankfully I had brought the laptop and the free internet was a help for giving us quiet time before we go swimming again. By 6pm they were ready to swim again. I wasn't going to get into my wet cold swimsuit, so I just staying in my clothes. I knew Zeb would probably be using the slides mostly anyway. There was not a lot of people in the Water park this time. It was very nice.
We were able to see some snow lighting and hear some thunder, even over the noise of the water park.
Zeb was being chased a lot by this one little girl that he didn't appreciate. He kept running up to me to ask her to leave him alone.
By 8pm, we headed back to the room. In my search for a water machine, I learned they had Milk and cookies for the kids and they were reading them a story on the steps of the lobby! I quickly grabbed 4 cookies and a big glass of milk for the kids before she was putting it away.
I noticed they had an ice cream and dessert shoppe, so we headed down there for some ice cream. Reece picked a vanilla cone, Zeb had bubble gum ice cream in a dish, Jake had orange cream dream in a dish and Brock had Maple Nut in a dish. I just got a bottle of water. I knew Zeb wouldn't finish so I just waited for him to give it to me.
After the ice cream, we checked out the arcade. Zeb's first choice was a driving game, no surprise there. The chair you sat in actually moved when you hit a wall, It was neat!
We headed back to the room and the kids played more on the internet, and watched a Harry Potter movie that happened to be on TV. Zeb was tired but he had a hard time drifting off to sleep with the boys talking and the lights on.
Currently we are waiting for the time to pass until they can go into the park this morning. This morning's breakfast consisted of leftover pizza. I had thought about getting room service, but I figured we will just get a nice lunch instead.
Well, the toilet had been unclogged- Thanks to Brock and Maintenance (later...), and the boys are ready to go, so I better change myself and head down to the water park.