Never A Dull Moment in LA-LA-Land

When You Need a Laugh...

2012-01-04T18:00:00.001-05:00

I know I've said it somewhere before but Emi is definitely the comedian in the family. She will do anything to make you smile and get a laugh. Well almost. Her temper tantrums certainly don't make us smile but thankfully they only happen a few times a week and are mostly tolerable.

Two days after Christmas we got the snow I've been ~~praying~~ begging for since the beginning of December. It would've been much nicer to have it on Christmas Day, but I took the 2-3 inches that fell anyway. We spent the better part of the morning in PJ's that day. The week before Christmas had been a flurry of activity and starting on the 26th, I wanted to spend a few days being a bum.

I was sitting on my bed doing some after Christmas research on my laptop when Emi ran in and started her antics. She was super excited about something. I asked her a question and she responded with, "I don't know!' Lane was here too as he had followed her up. That was the first time we had heard her make a coherent sentence like that. I was floored. Most of her responses have still been via ASL and 1 or 2 word utterances. But clear as a bell it came out. She said it a few times more and so the i.Phone came out and the video started rolling. Her gestures with her response told me that she understood. Lane and I spent the next few minutes giggling with delight. She found something to make us laugh and kept on rolling with it.

Enjoy seeing it for yourself!

New Year's Resolutions

2012-01-03T21:42:00.001-05:00

I used to make them when I was in my teens and early 20's and then I stopped somewhere around the time Eriks was born and they always get broken anyhow. What was the point of I didn't stick to them?

I'm not making any this year either. However, I am making goals for myself this year and am going to do what I can to stick to them. As outgoing as I am, I have very little self-confidence in accomplishing things. I get frustrated and give up. Then I get ticked at myself for getting both frustrated and giving up. Not a very healthy relationship with myself in that sense.

My cardiologist has a stress test scheduled for me in just over 2 months. I have never done one and I'm EXTREMELY nervous about it. I don't exercise and I'm about 30-40 lbs overweight. I carry my weight well but my pants size is about 6 sizes bigger than I want it to be. So one of my goals starting next week is that I'm going to spend 20 minutes exercising 3 times a week and making healthier food choices. Part of my issue is I tend to skip breakfast because I'm not a breakfast eater. I hate eggs and often eggs/egg whites is what people who eat healthy have for breakfast. I can't stand the texture, the taste or the smell. So I've got to look at other filling options. I'd like to be at least 10-15 lbs lighter in 2 months and be able to handle the stress test better. I also think that if I blog about it, it makes me accountable. So expect to be hearing about it here.

Another goal is patience. Especially with my children. A horrible quirk of mine is that I have pretty bad OCD issues on certain things. I am meticulous about where things sit or are. When my kids move things on end tables or wherever they are, I flip about them not being where I put them. Lane gets to deal with this too. More often if he puts something back on the wrong place and I go to find it and it's not there. I hate disorder. This stems from the the fact that so much in my life has not been in my control - my health, my husband's military job...that I've taken other things to the extreme. I got better for awhile. I used to clean house at 10 pm and it drove Lane crazy. So much so that he'd take stuff out of my hands and tell me enough. I haven't gone back to scrubbing the bathroom and toilets late at night but I'm definitely doing other things instead of unwinding. I lose it when stuff isn't in its proper place. So I'm going to work on not doing that.

My last goal (because I think 3 is enough) is to find a love of something. I don't do anything for myself. It's all about taking care of my family. I need to get myself out of the house at least once a week and do something for myself. Pottery, painting, photography...something. I think if I did more for myself, I'd be a better wife and mother. I wouldn't resent all the other things I do as a wife and mom if I did something that makes me happy. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be looking for something that gets me time for myself and makes me happy.

So do any of my readers have an goals or resolutions they'd like to share?

Christmas

2012-01-02T21:39:00.003-05:00

We spent both Christmas Eve and part of Christmas Day at my parents' house. We went to Mass with my mom and sister while my dad went to his church service where he attends church. Afterwards we headed over for heavy appetizers, games and just spending time with the family. We had a good time and the kids got to open a gift that my great-aunt sent over to them since she and her family decided not to spend Christmas Eve with our family this year. We were able to get some very good photos of the kids together. Last year and the year before it wasn't such a great experience but as they're getting older, they seem to be getting a little more cooperative. My parents were very pleased with the outcome of the photos. Maybe this spring we'll try to get some good outdoor shots of the 3 grandkids together.

Christmas morning the kids thankfully not up at the crack of dawn. They got up at 8 am and I got up 30 minutes later. I was up until around 1 stuffing stockings and required a few more minutes of sleep. It took several hours to get through our gifts. The kids took time to look at their gifts and we also opened gifts from Lane's parents and Lane's sister's family that she had sent for the kids. The kids enjoyed their gifts but have yet to play with some of them. We didn't get them that much but they got a lot from everyone else. Eriks still has boxes that haven't been opened yet. Much of Em's stuff was put away because it was stuff we asked for that went with other stuff she already had (ie more stuff for her American.Girl Bitty.Baby doll, furniture for her Loving.Family dollhouse, etc).

Lane did well this year when it came to getting me gifts even though I yelled at him for procrastinating. I procrastinated a bit this year too which I never do and I regretted it. It will not happen again. I'm just going to start picking up stuff on clearance for all the kids I know if I think they'll like it through the year and stash it away. I was miserable and completely exhausted by Christmas Eve and although as I said it was relaxing, I didn't enjoy it as much if I hadn't been out running errands earlier that day trying to finish up. So back to the 2 really cool gifts he got me. He and I are going to go see Shen.Yun the Chinese Performing Arts show. I have friends who have seen it and say that the majority of the show is beautiful but there is one very controversial part that they wish was not included. I still want to see it for myself. We are also seeing Ron.White perform too. We are huge comedy junkies. We love it, especially good comedians. Unfortunately with kids and the fact that it can be expensive, we don't do it as often as we'd like. Granted we could go to our local comedy club and see stand-up instead of the big name comics. Both performances occur during Lane's spring break in March so we'll have a busy week.

Christmas Day afternoon we headed back to my parents' house for dinner and opening gifts from my parents and siblings. My mom and dad are so generous and honestly should've not gotten everything they did. I got a bunch of the Rachael.Ray stuff I wanted since some of my cookware is starting to become unusable as I've worn it thin. I actually had to throw away a beloved non-stick pan a few months ago. I also got my badly wanted blue Colts sweatshirt. The kids got more stuff than they know what to do with. The dinner was fabulous as always. I was blessed with a mother who is a fantastic cook and has done a very good job teaching me. For dinner we had beef tenderloin, hassleback potatoes, Caesar salad with homemade dressing, roasted asparagus and rolls. I was stuffed but managed to eat a piece of to-die-for Red Velvet cheesecake.

It was a very good Christmas this year. Albeit a little weird since this is the first time we spent it with family without having to travel more than 8 hours to spend it with them. One of these days we would like to get back to San Antonio to spend Christmas with Lane's parents but driving is not an option as with my health I don't do well in cars for long periods of time anymore (edema aka swelling in my legs and very poor circulation) and Emi hates being strapped in a car seat for more than 3 or 4 hours. Currently the drive between here and there where they live is about 20 hrs. While Lane is in law school, we just can't afford to put 4 people on a plane. I'm hoping that the year he graduates we'll be able to do it because I fell bad that we can't do it anytime soon and I'd like to visit with family and friends down that way.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah depending on which you celebrate! I still can't believe it's 2012!

Latvian School Play

2011-12-30T23:06:00.002-05:00

It's that time of year and I've had no time to blog. Please accept my sincere apology. Over the next couple days, I am going to work on catching up on the events of the past few weeks and I am going to work hard in the new year to blog more.

So nearly 2 weeks ago Eriks had his last day of Latvian school before Christmas break. Latvian school is once a week. In the fall and spring it takes place on Friday nights and during the winter it's on Saturdays. In the younger grades the kids learn Latvian songs, Latvian folk dances, reading, writing and grammar. When Eriks is older, he will learn Latvian history and geography. I am a Latvian school graduate and although I hated the homework and giving up my Saturdays as a kids, I am very thankful I had that kind of opportunity to learn about the country my family came from.

On the last day of Latvian school the students put on a Latvian Christmas play. As a kid the majority of the time they include animals, elves, evergreen trees...typical Christmas stuff. Eriks was an elf this year in the play. He had one line to deliver and did it with style. The kids also sang some Latvian Christmas songs and did some dancing. It was very cute and we enjoyed it. After the play Santa made a visit to the kids and gave them presents.

My little goofball!

Christmas music being played on traditional Latvian instruments.

My niece L was a rabbit in the play.

My other two school age nieces B and A were also elves like Eriks. B is standing right next

to Eriks and A is in a dress that matches her sisters (second from left).

This is the photo I took of the kids and used for our Christmas cards this year.

Random Thoughts

2011-11-29T21:34:00.001-05:00

Not a whole lot going on right now. Gearing up for a 3 hour drive to Columbus, OH on Thursday for a Cardiology appointment with the new doctors. Wish they weren't that far away but I've been told they are some of the best around and when there are no specialists in the area that take your insurance, you have to go where you can, even if it's 3 hours away.

Thanksgiving was very good. My mom is a wonderful cook and did a fabulous job feeding her kids and grandkids. I am so thankful that she is in my life not only because she still takes care of me, but because she has taught me how to cook and I'm figuring I may be doing Thanksgiving at my house next year for everyone. I did make the chocolate bourbon pecan pie that my family, especially my sister loves so much. Good grief was it good. We finished it off last night.

I did do some shopping online Thursday night to get in on some early Black Friday deals and did some shopping on Friday as well. My nieces L & B both had their birthdays on Saturday - sisters born exactly 2 yrs to the day apart. I had to get them their birthday gifts. I didn't purposefully wait until the last minute, I just had way too much going on over the past few weeks. They loved their gifts which I'm glad and now I need to worry about Christmas gifts. I've got Emi finished and Eriks has one more gift that needs to be bought for him. All but 1 of my nieces has been bought for. When my in-laws drove back to TX on Sunday, I sent back with them their gifts as well as our nephew M's gift. I still have to buy for Lane's sister, Marla but she's so hard to buy for because she has what she needs and says she'll appreciate whatever she gets. I'm going to have to bug her for ideas. Lane is another person that I'm going to have a terribly difficult time buying for. He has pretty much everything he wants or needs other than Starbucks gift cards and gift cards to buy stuff for his e-readers. He has both the Kindle and the Nook. I bought him the Kindle for Christmas last year and he won the Nook in a raffle this fall. I'm just glad I've made a good dent in my shopping.

Not much else has been going on with us. Lane is studying for finals and going back and forth between, "I can handle this," and panic, "I'm never going to learn and remember it all before the exams!" His first final is next Monday. On the bright side, he is looking forward to them being over with so that he has a month to relax before Spring semester starts.

On that note, I'm going to share a video I took of Emi with her cousin L at my mom's house last Wednesday when we went over there to hang out so Lane could have some quiet study time in the house. The girls has a blast! It's only about a minute long but enjoy it anyway!

I Am NOT Super Woman

2011-11-15T21:05:00.001-05:00

But gawd how I wish I was. You know how they say you are your own worst critic? They're right. I'm having a hard time accepting that I can't do it all. I blame my mother for this (sorry mom). Not only did my mom work a full-time job, she took care of the house, the laundry, the cooking, the yard work and us kids. And she rocked it! In my opinion at least. She wasn't always in the best of moods at the end of the day. Being an inner-city school teacher and all - dealing with parents who sent their kids to school because it was the law but cared less if they actually got an education and kids who knew this. Granted there were a handful of kids she had through her teaching career who were good students, hard workers and were taught to treat others with kindness and respect, but this was not the majority. I'm getting off track here. She still managed to try and muster enough patience with us to help us with homework we couldn't figure out on our own while making dinner.

I'm very much overwhelmed, overworked, overtired and under appreciated right now. Not to mention I've been sick for almost 2 months and because of my responsibilities, I've really put taking care of myself on the back-burner. Some of what I think I'm dealing with is now allergies not the sickness I had. Moving back to Indiana there's something in the air my system just doesn't like. Less than 2 weeks ago I started a 2nd round of antibiotics to get rid of the gunk that wouldn't go away with the 1st round and I ended up getting pink eye to boot. It's been lots of fun. Thankfully, I'm the only one dealing with it. Emi has had a runny nose off and on too but so have all the kids in her class and she's never complained that she feels bad. I'd ~~like~~ love to get over this and feel like myself again. I think that would drastically help because I'd have the energy I'd need to get most of my stuff done. It doesn't help that my 3 kids (it includes the hubby) aren't helping any by leaving their stuff all over the house no matter how often I ask them nicely to pick up after themselves. So then my work becomes double.

I know Lane is doing what's best for our family but how can part of me not be jealous? I know it's not all fun and games. There's a lot of hard work he's putting in on a daily basis, but it's been a passion and fascination for over 4 yrs ago. He doesn't even stop talking about law when he's away from it. That's the kind of person that really deserves to be a lawyer. I don't like the fact that I can't work a full-time job outside of the home because I can't be on my feet all day long and I just don't have the energy to work all day and then come home and take care of all the at home responsibilities. I am envious of anyone who is able to do this.

I've all but given up on crafting or anything else I love doing. I just don't have the time or energy to. Not completely true but by the time the kids are in bed and asleep, I'm wrapping up stuff and then moving myself towards bed because I'm just that dang tired. It drives me nuts!

I know, I know, I know. I need to make time for myself. My mom in a conversation earlier today asked me if I was depressed because I was crying about not having enough time to get stuff done and complaining about life in general. The answer is a firm NO! I'm just a bit lost right now. I look at my husband, my adult friends and family members and see that they are doing things they love and want to be doing with their lives. I love being a wife, mother & caregiver but I'm by no means content in that defining who I am. I know there are people out there that are OK with that defining them, but I'm not.

I have a fire in my belly telling me that there's more to who I am than just that.

I just need her to show up.

If any of you see her walking down the street tell her I'm looking for her.

Oh, and if you see Super Woman and she's available, tell her I'd like to hire her for a few days.

Indiana Wine Trail Fall Haul

2011-11-08T20:58:00.000-05:00

Saturday was a beautiful warm Fall day for Indiana. It was a perfect day to head to Southern Indiana for visiting some wineries. There are 6 wineries on Indiana's Wine Trail (although there are about 50 total wineries in Indiana) that do special events periodically throughout the year. In the Fall, they all do something called Fall Haul - they feature wines either in recipes or pair them with recipes. They feature the food and the wine. It sounded like fun and a good time for Lane and I to have some adult time without the kids.

We invited my sister, Edite along for the ride. In all my years as an Indiana resident before I moved away, I have spent very little time venturing to other areas of the state. Besides spending time in Bloomington during college and the Indiana metroplex, I haven't seen much of Indiana. Completely disappointing since I'm proud to call myself a Hoosier. Upon moving back I made the decision that I wanted to take more day or weekend trips to areas undiscovered.

In our adventures on Saturday we found that Indiana tends to produce wines that are either on the semi-sweet or sweet side or are fairly dry. Not that I mind sweet wines, but they are not necessarily my first pick. There were some wineries that we really liked, others we'll never buy wines from. One thing I'd like to see is some Indiana wineries maybe import some grapes to blend with the sweeter grapes. I think one of the reasons Indiana wines are sweeter is because the soil is more conducive to growing a sweeter grape variety. By far my favorite Indiana winery is still Oliver Winery. Their wines are sweeter but unlike the majority of the wines we tasted on Saturday from the 5 wineries we visited are that they're not overly/sickly sweet to me.

We came home with 4 bottles of wine. There were others we would've liked to have bought but it just wasn't in our budget right now. So we'll start looking for them in local groceries. One winery we visited that was my 2nd favorite of the day doesn't sell in stores because they can't keep up with the demand. So we'll have to get in touch with them directly to ship to us or make another trip. We're hoping to visit other Indiana wineries and maybe even start making trips to Illinois since they have quite a few wineries there too that I've been told are pretty good.

Some of my photos are from a few of the wineries. Unfortunately, the wineries around here aren't the typical wineries with tasting rooms in California that we encountered. And yes, one of the wineries had already started decorating for Christmas but their decorations were pretty cool. A few of the photos are from downtown Madison. I wish I would've had more time to walk around and take photos of the amazing older buildings and homes. I guess that's one thing I love about this state - the smaller towns have so much history and character. My other slight disappointment was that I had hoped So. Indiana still had quite a few leaves on their trees but most of the color was gone. Actually, I think more trees were missing leaves there than up here in the Indy area. Oh well, might just have to see Fall down their earlier next year! I can't wait to keep exploring around the state.

Grandparents Come for a Visit and Halloween

2011-11-04T12:34:00.001-04:00

Last Thursday, Lane's parents came into town to spend some time with all of their Indiana grandkids. With our house being about 98% put together we had the guest bedroom all set up for them and were very much looking forward to them spending a few nights with us.

The kids really enjoyed their time with Grandma and Grandpa. Emi and Eriks got to read with Grandma Thursday afternoon.

Later that evening my nieces came over with their parents and we all hung out together eating pizza and watching the World.Series. There was also a skit that the girls and Eriks put on for us that involved Medieval knights and sword fighting.

Friday we headed to the Children's Museum for the haunted house. We walked through with the lights on because I knew none of the kids would've enjoyed it with lights out. They would've been too frightened. I don't know how many of the adults would've enjoyed lights out either. The person in our family who really likes haunted houses is my sister-in-law Marla. Eriks was a little scared even with the lights on. I think he was afraid something was going to jump out at him. The two smallest girls going through, Emi and my niece A were the least scared and enjoyed it a lot.

Grandma and Grandpa left for TX Saturday afternoon. It was a short visit but we were glad they were here with us. We'll see them again at Thanksgiving.

The weather for Halloween couldn't have been more perfect. We ended up going over to my mom and dad's house for dinner and the kids put on their costumes there. That way they could trick-or-treat at Omi and Opi's house before heading home to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. I even got a chance to take a picture of my niece Laila in her panda costume which she at first refused to put on, but after my brother took her next door to visit a neighbor for trick-or-treating and she got candy, she was happy to have the costume on.

Our jack-o-lantern. I did a quick carving. Usually I use a pattern but this year I had no time so I free-handed. We still got a lot of compliments on it from our neighbors.

Eriks and Emi with their candy loot.

Tomorrow Lane and I are heading to Southern Indiana to take part in the Indiana Wine Trail's Fall Haul. Six wineries will showcase wines for tasting as well as used them in cooking. They will share the recipes for the food they make using their wines. We are so looking forward to this. The fall colors in Southern Indiana should be amazing and we can't wait to try some more Indiana wines. Best part is we are going without our kids (although we will miss them dearly). This is some very much needed adult time!

Stylish Blogger Award

2011-10-24T10:08:00.001-04:00

I was awarded my 1st blogger award by Liene over at Femme au foyer for my honest, positive blogging style.

I have to admit that there are times where that is not so easy to do. Life has thrown us quite a few curve balls this year - Eriks' diagnosis being the big one. His doctor was put on bed rest due to her pregnancy and is still finishing up the report so that we can start OT which he desperately needs and likely medicine to keep him at an even keel through the day.

All the rooms in the house have now been painted with the exception of some touch up work. This is a very good thing since Grandma & Grandpa are going to be in town from Texas later this week and are staying with us. Now it's just a matter of finishing up putting stuff on the walls and away in the storage room. I am desperately trying to find a china cabinet that I can paint black and put in the dining room. I have boxes of china and crystal that I would like to start using again.

We had an uneventful weekend. Put together a desk for the office which Lane is currently using (no class today). I have not stamped or crafted anything since before we moved up to Indy and I have been itching to do stuff. Now I have a desk I can sit at and work at during the day. Watched my Colt$ lose miserably last night. The head coach needs to go. Made a fabulous pot roast for dinner last night and had my parents over for dinner. My dad was over here putting up insulation in our garage where there wasn't any. I figured I could give him a good dinner for his work (thanks Dad).

Have a good week and I will have some photos of Grandma and Grandpa's visit over the weekend!!

ER Visits - CHD Post

2011-10-16T16:00:00.001-04:00

I'm fine. I have made NO visits to the ER in almost 3 1/2 yrs thankfully. It's been awhile since I posted something about CHD to all my CHD blog readers and after being woken up at 2:30 am by red flashing lights from an ambulance next door, it made me think about my ER visits. I found out Friday afternoon when I saw our neighbor's wife outside that he has atrial fib issues and the doctors had made a change to one of his medicines and he didn't deal with it well and went into an A-Fib episode and took a trip to the ER in the middle of the night. He is fine and she hopes the meds will start working the way they should.

Anyhow, while standing at the window watching the flashing lights, I thought about my 1 ER trip in an ambulance when Lane and I were living near DC. I was being seen at Johns Hopkins. Lane was out of town and I was supposed to go pick him up at the airport sometime that evening. Well, my heart had different ideas. I went into a pretty bad A-Fib episode that would not go away. When I was having A-Fib episodes, my doctor told me to take another dose of one of the meds I was on in attempt to slow down the heart rate which would allow it to convert on its own and return to a normal rhythm. Well it wasn't happening and it was getting bad enough to the point where I had to call 911 and have an ambulance take me since I didn't have anyone else around to do it.

Thinking back on it, it was kind of funny because although our dog at the time Sydney was harmless, I was told by the 911 operator that I had to lock him up when the EMT's arrived. I felt so bad for him being locked up because he was going to be locked up for quite some time. But he handled it like a trooper when all was said and done. It was also fun calling Lane and telling him that he was going to have to take a cab from the airport to the hospital and then a cab home from the hospital. Those were some expensive cab rides. After I was loaded up in the ambulance I got the lights and all ride through town. It was kind of exciting! Out the back window I could see the cars that had to pull over to let us go by. The EMT's thought it was pretty weird too that I was in such high spirits considering my 120-150 heart rate and the fact that I looked terrible. All the color had drained from my face and they told me I looked pretty white. I told them that A-Fib was no longer anything new to me and I'd learned to take it with a grain of salt. I knew I was going to be dealing with this for a long time.

After pumping me full of Cardizem/Diltiazem, my heart converted. I spent the night in the hospital just in case and then Lane got to take me home.

Then there was that one time, Lane was busy with work. I think he was flying actually. I did have him called to return because I had another A-Fib episode but instead of calling an ambulance, I drove myself to the ER. I don't recommend this. I wasn't feeling that bad and figured I didn't want to deal with an ambulance and the 20 minute drive wasn't that bad. My mom had a cow. I swear if she could've, she would've reached through the phone and strangled me for doing it. I'm sure she tried.

So what's the real purpose of this post? I guess it's learning how to deal with this stuff as an adult when you have to deal with this when you're no longer living at home. I had a small handful of ER visits as a kid all for broken bones or sprained ankles, but I never made an ER visit for my CHD. So when I started having the A-Fib issues, I had to decide when it was time to go to the hospital and how I was going to get there. Luckily I was married and had my husband around the 1st time I had to make an ER trip because of my CHD. It wasn't too bad before we adopted Eriks. Lane was around 99% of the time and could take me to the hospital. When Eriks came into the picture it became a bit more complicated. When he was a baby we just took him with us. As he got older there were times he still went with us and other times we scrambled to find someone to take care of him so that we didn't have to worry about Eriks having to go with us. Being a military wife, never having family around when I had to go to the hospital was bad. I highly recommend to other CHDers and parents of CHDers, if you move away from home, make sure you have a strong network of people you can count on if you need help and have to make an unexpected trip to the hospital. I wish we would've had a long list of people to count on in all the different places we lived.

If any CHDers reading my blog or parents of CHDers have questions to ask me, please email me. I'd love to do a Q & A blog post sometime.

Apple Orchard

2011-10-15T15:37:00.003-04:00

Emi had a day off from school on Monday because of Columbus Day so my mom and I took her about an hour south of where we live to get apples. We had hoped to pick apples, but we waited too late in the season to do that. All they had were apples in bags for purchase. Next year we'll go mid-September instead of waiting. Unfortunately, with schedules and other stuff going on, we had no choice this year but to wait this long. Doesn't matter because although we didn't pick apples, we bought them and they are some of the best around.

My mom was introduced to Anderson Orchard by her aunt and uncle years ago. While driving down my mom and I were talking and she was trying to figure out how the heck they found this place. But they were notorious for getting in the car and taking drives. My best guess is that it was either a word of mouth, they saw it on TV, or read about them in the paper. Uncle Albert loved going to the orchard. He looked forward to it. My mom said he would also pick the biggest and prettiest apples he could find. I miss them both terribly.

Monday was a warm beautiful day. The weather earlier this week was truly Indian Summer weather. Low 70's for highs and sunny. Now it's cold and windy and I'm not liking it much. The orchard was surprisingly busy but I'm thinking that had a lot to do with the weather. Emi loved the apple she sampled and made a complete sticky mess of her hands. She also loved the apple cider we shared. We came back with apples, cider and mums for the yard. It was a good day!

Ballerina Emi

2011-10-04T22:44:00.001-04:00

A few Saturdays ago while I was cleaning house, my bedroom to be exact, Emi went into her dresser and found the leotard handed down from her cousins and a ballerina skirt that came with a pajama set. The leotard is honestly too small and I need to get her a new one because she loved that thing and refused to take it off. The music was going via our satellite TV and she began dancing around. Unfortunately she was moving so fast that some of the pictures I got were blurry and I wasn't happy about that. But she makes one stinking cute ballerina and I would like to see how she would do in a dance class. Maybe when she turns four we will give it a whirl.

Wedding Weekend

2011-10-03T22:45:00.004-04:00

I am able to take a deep breath again after much craziness helping my parents' goddaughter with her wedding. I loved every minute of it but, doing it while taking care of 2 kids, a house and a husband who's in law school is ~~hard~~ impossible!

The bride and groom left for their honeymoon this afternoon and I hope they have a very enjoyable trip. Eva picked a really great man for her husband and since she is very much a part of our family, we couldn't be happier for her.

The kids are exhausted from the weekend and one of them is actually ill. I picked Eriks up from school this afternoon and he slept the entire way home. I took his temperature and attempted to give him a snack while he watched some cartoons on the couch. As he was getting ready to take a bite of his snack, he dropped it and tried to bolt for the bathroom but didn't make it and ended up puking all over the rug - twice. Poor kid. Needless to say, I have one child who will not be attending school tomorrow. I am praying that he does wake up feeling better and there is no more puking to be had. I'm battling a cold. Part of it is the crazy up and down weather and part of it the nonstop running recently (see paragraph 1).

Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the kids this Saturday at the wedding since they wouldn't stand still. I can't blame them, it was a rockin' reception. You'll just have to enjoy some of my favorite wedding photos. I loved taking and editing every one of them!

Finally Breaking the Silence

2011-09-22T12:55:00.000-04:00

I've had the official answer since the end of June even though I knew before then what I've known for quite some time. It's still really hard to talk about it because most people don't understand it. And I'm not comfortable talking to people and saying, "Emi is deaf and Eriks has Asperger Syndrome." Although this is a fact, I don't like labeling them or want it to define who they are. However, I feel more and more like I have to explain the above to people all the time.

I'm sure my regular readers remember posts where I've talked about Eriks' behavior issues and trying to diagnose him. Originally Dr L diagnosed him with mild AD/HD and then starting seeing behavior that made her change her mind. So she got a bit more aggressive on testing him and even giving us a fairly intense questionnaire to answer. When a bunch of our responses starting pointing in one direction she chose to give Eriks an IQ test. But a different type of IQ test that wouldn't only gauge his intelligence level but also give answers to his behavior patterns.

To make a long story short, his diagnosis was handed down at the end of June. Eriks has an autism spectrum disorder called Asperger Syndrome. If you take the time to go to the link, especially if you know him, you will see that many of the behaviors typical of AS, Eriks exhibits. The ones I see most are: lack of social and emotional empathy, impaired nonverbal behaviors such as eye contact (you can't get him to look at you when you are talking to him if you paid him), engaging in a long-winded and one-sided conversation (he can go on and on about things like you've got nothing better to do than listen to him), fixation on certain topics (he will ask you 10,000 questions about a Star Wars character you know nothing about until he gets the answer he wants to hear), repetitive motor behaviors (he has a pattern of tapping on his fingers over and over again with his thumbs that either starts with the thumbs hitting his pinkies and going to his index finger or vice versa. It almost mimics a nervous twitch), sensory issues (needing to touch things constantly), light and sound sensitivity and sleep problems are the big ones. He also has a very exaggerated laugh for things he thinks are absolutely hilarious but the majority of us would think are dull or dumb.

I'm glad that we finally have an answer but I am an OCD person, just ask Lane, and Eriks' AS conflicts with my OCD. I've always lacked patience because of my OCD and when I am doing something, I don't deal with interruption/disruption well. Eriks doesn't understand because of his lack of social & emotional skills that there are things that are more important than the story he is telling me. Another common trait among AS is easy frustration and anger, especially when what the person with AS is trying to articulate is not being understood or there is something that takes priority over their story. Eriks also gets frustrated when things don't come easily for him, especially school work. He is very smart. Based on his IQ test results, he has an IQ of 112, but Dr L also said that because of his lack of long term focus (also common among AS), she honestly thinks that his IQ is probably 118 or 120. Eriks knows he is smart so he assumes everything needs to come easy. If it doesn't he gets mad and calls himself dumb. As a parent this is so hard for me to see because I know it is so untrue. But you just can't make him understand that. I easily get frustrated with Eriks because I expect him to understand rules and directions and there are times he just doesn't.

The hardest part is he is socially isolated, especially at school. Not because he chooses it, but because kids just don't get him. It breaks my heart when he gets in the car some days and says, "No one wanted to play with me today at recess." I know sometimes it's because of his AS he expects kids to do what he's interested in and when they want him to join what they're doing and he's not interested then he gets left out and sees it as being rejected by his peers. There are kids at school that I know really do like him, but probably as I said, just don't get him so in his little mind thinks that they don't like him.

I'm going to wrap this up soon but Dr L was telling us some of the questions on the IQ test she gave Eriks that is given to kids who likely have AS or autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and this one still makes me laugh. She told us going into her testing of Eriks that you can't give kids you suspect are AS or ASD a typical IQ test the rest of us would take because their brains don't process the info the same way. One of the questions showed a man sitting on a tree limb with a saw facing the tree getting ready to cut down the limb. Kids without AS would answer the question by saying that if he cuts the limb off the tree the way he is sitting, he will fall with the limb. Eriks answer was, and I can't quote it verbatim, was along the lines of, "He shouldn't cut the tree because the tree will die. Trees make oxygen and people need oxygen to breath and stay alive. So cutting the tree is very bad for the environment and for people." Dr L said that was a VERY typical AS answer. It wasn't so much that the guy would end up falling and hurting himself but what was more important was how he was damaging the tree.

One of the best treatments for AS is OT (occupational therapy). It helps kids with AS become more sensitive to others. I'm not 100% sure what other benefits it has because we're still trying to get the final report from Dr L's office and recommendations for specific types of OT.

Living with Eriks puts a lot of stress on me since he demands so much attention due to his AS. He physically drains me daily. I know a lot of who Eriks is isn't because he had a choice in it, but ~~at times~~ all the time, I don't understand why he's refuses to accept my answers or argues with me. He has it in his mindset that he can make his own rules. He doesn't think before he does things, also a common AS symptom and disruptive to my OCD ways. He'll get on his bike and head to a neighbor kids house before he would ask permission or even say, "I'm getting on my bike and going to so-and-so's house." This goes back to the social insensitivity to others. This has happened several times when he's gone out to play in the backyard and I peek out the window to check on him and he's not there. I go out and call for him but there's no answer and see the open gate and know he's wandering the neighborhood. I have gone into a panic not knowing where he is because it's difficult for me to drag Emi all over the neighborhood looking for him. It's scary and I don't wish this for anyone.

OK, I could probably write pages and pages about this so I need to save some for later as the OCD me tries to deal with understanding and learning to deal with Eriks and AS. Besides what I've read about AS, I have no clue as to how to be a parent to a child with AS. Someone recommended a book to me written by another mother of a child with AS. I need to get my hands on it.

It's going to be a long journey for us as we learn how to deal with Eriks' behaviors and I hope that those who know him will begin to understand him better now that the news is out in the open.

Coming or Going???

2011-09-21T13:29:00.001-04:00

Yeah, I haven't figured it out either. I have been a bad blogger because my life is utter chaos right now and I'm hoping to have it back under control in a few weeks.

It all started when Eriks went back to school about a month ago. After we got him in school we were in a feverous pitch to get Emi where she needed to be. That did not come easy. Although I spent a few years of my K-12 schooling in public schools, I can clearly see why my parents chose private schools when they could and why Lane and I from the start decided we wanted our kids in private schools. I'm going to condense this as best as I can. We found out when Indiana.School for the Deaf started classes and went directly to them to get Emi registered for their Pre-K program because we found out that there is no program like what she had in GA in any of the county schools. We were told by I.S.D. that we had to have permission from our school system to send her there. Seriously??? I was beyond ticked off. So we set up a conference with Westfield.Washington Schools to discuss what would best meet Emi's needs even though I knew exactly what she needed. We spent nearly 90 minutes going back and forth. The school system was convinced they could accommodate Emi even though they couldn't guarantee the intense speech therapy she needed nor was there anyone who could sign to her. If it weren't for her BCA (bone-conductive aid) she would be completely deaf. There are times where she will be unable to wear it - bathing, swimming, etc and she will need ASL for communication. Lane and I couldn't get that across to the school system. They were so in the mindset that if she has a hearing aid now, she's fine and needs to be in a regular classroom. We held firm and said that what they had to offer Emi was not good enough. They finally let us have our way. It was frustrating and infuriating. I am not happy with our school system at all and thankful Eriks is in a private school. I pray that Emi never has to go to a public school in our school system so long as we live in this house. Anyhow, Emi finally started school on Monday and loves it! It's amazing that just a few days of signing and speech again gives her the motivation to start signing and talking again. Not to say she wasn't doing it at all. But she loves school and has wanted to go back all summer. I know she misses Jenna, Karen and Lauren so much, but is enjoying her new teacher.

I have gone through medical h-e-l-l trying to set up specialists for myself. As much as I liked the cardiologist and nurse practitioner at Emory, I hated Emory itself. I wouldn't recommend anyone seek medical services there at all. I'm sure there are many wonderful Dr's there, but the support staff and administration stinks! I needed more test strips for a machine I use to check my blood. Similar to a glucose meter but it's to check the thickness of my blood. My CHD followers will understand INR levels. The clinic there would not approve more test strips since I no longer lived in the area even though until I see the new cardiologist, I'm still a patient there. I could choose to travel there, but I'm not going to. I called my new cardio's office and explained the situation and we're working on getting it taken care of. So very, very thankful. It has definitely been stress I don't need. I was in tears over this last week. If I don't check it every 4 weeks I could be putting myself at risk for a stroke or a bleed.

Lane's crazy busy with school leaving me dealing with pretty much everything. This is so not what I signed up for but the 1st year of law school is the hardest. We had the water heater replaced today. It's the 3rd one this 13 yr old house has had. Why the previous owners didn't have an expandable water heater before, we have no idea. Thankfully most of it was covered under the home warranty we insisted upon when we bought the house. Our fridge broke last week. Yeah, after 2 months the fridge went out. Repair guy came out Monday and yesterday to replace one of the 3 motherboards that control it and it's not a motherboard issue. It's an internal issue that probably occurred during manufacturing. So now I'm waiting on Sam$ung to approve replacement even though the fridge is under warranty. Meanwhile I'm going to the store almost daily because it's not in fridge/freezer in the garage. Thank gawd for the backup or I would've lost a lot of groceries. I have always loved my Sam$ung electronics and appliances but this really bites. It's a brand new model they recently rolled out too!

When it rains, it pours!!!

I know there's more stuff that I should talk about but I'm out of time. Too much to do and kids need to be picked up from school in just over an hour.

Hopefully I'll be back soon with some photos, etc.

No Fear

2011-08-29T17:30:00.001-04:00

My daughter may be deaf. At 3 1/2 she may hardly be able to speak because of the combination of deafness and the repair of her cleft lip/palate but nothing, I mean nothing keeps this kid away from water. Since moving back to Indiana we have spent our fair share of time in my parent's pool. Last year was Emi's first real swimming experience in a pool. The year we brought her home, we didn't get in a pool at all. She was a little apprehensive last summer. She pretty much just hung out on the steps and absolutely disliked the baby float. She was somewhat OK in our arms but we needed to stay where it was shallow. Towards the end of last summer she got more brave and we were hopeful. This summer she is crazy in the pool.

As a matter of fact, just yesterday she was wearing her water wings and decided to take them off and jump straight in. Mind you she can't touch the bottom. She's still too short. Eriks was in the pool so he helped her but she is well on her way to learning to swim. After jumping in, she did shoot herself back to the surface and was trying to kick to stay afloat. The problem is she doesn't want to use her hands to help her swim forward. With the water wings she is jumping into the 8 ft deep end of the pool and loving every minute of it. Jumping into the water is her thing.

So here's praying she'll be swimming by next summer without water wings. Enjoy the photos from Emi's water fun this summer.

A Week in Paradise

2011-08-27T21:14:00.000-04:00

It's been more than a month since our trip so I figure it's about time to blog about it. I've been busy this week with sending Lane off to law school and Eriks off to his new school. Both of them seem pretty happy with their new surroundings. Although Lane is concerned about balancing family, school and studying but I think in a few weeks he'll have a groove going and it'll be fine. Eriks really likes his new school. Although it's a haul from our house (luckily it's close to where Lane goes to school so he can take him in the morning), he is in a very small class. Only 9 second graders total. I think the whole school only has about 70 students. So I'm happy that he's happy. We'll see how things are in a few weeks when he's got a bit more school work to do.

So mid-July, Lane and I took an early 15 yr wedding anniversary trip to Riviera Maya, Mexico. We stayed at a very nice all-inclusive adults-only resort. It was pure relaxation. Most mornings we woke up between 9 and 10. And most mornings we skipped breakfast and went straight down to the pool. I often started the day with the non-alcoholic beverage of the day. Of course it wasn't long after that I'd move on to a pina colada or some other fruity beverage with alcohol. At some point we'd wander to one of the restaurants at the resort and have lunch. Then it was back to the pool. Lane and I would hang out at the pool until about 5ish and then head back to the room to get ready for dinner. It was humid enough while we were there that the majority of the time I actually wore my hair curly. So in the photos I will post you will actually see my curly hair.

Some of the restaurants at the resort were really good. Others I wasn't too impressed by but the food was edible. Our favorite was the Japanese restaurant. We ate dinner their twice. Usually we'd have to wait for a table so they give out pagers that work to my knowledge all over the resort but we'd sit at the martini bar and sip cocktails until our table was ready. I found a love of lemon drop martinis and both Lane and I found that we like gin martinis as well. Every night the resort had entertainment of some sort as well. A show, a band, etc.

Some of the interesting parts of the trip were seeing an interesting naked guy standing on his balcony at the resort next door while we were eating lunch one day. Another highlight was that the resort gift shop actually sold Via.gra. I guess in Mexico you don't need a prescription for it. And a waiter that looked like he could've been Obama's twin brother. Lane and I actually joked that being a waiter was Obama's real job. He was just moonlighting as the president.

We loved every bit of our vacation. We relaxed, we got to catch up on some sleep. I can't wait to do it again. Enjoy the photos!

Super big lizard on the sidewalk across from our balcony. His tail must have been close to 18 inches long.

Pool view from our balcony. There were tons of pools to choose from.

On the left is a gin martini and on the right is my lemon drop martini.

See, I have curly hair.

Drinks poolside. We kept them coming all day! Loved it!

Cool fountain they had on the grounds.

President O.bama doing his real job.

Tequila shots the last day before we took the shuttle to the airport. It was very yummy! Should've had another one!

And finally, the Via.gra in the gift shop.

15 Years Ago Today...

2011-08-17T21:54:00.000-04:00

Lane and I exchanged vows in a chapel in Las Vegas. The elopement wasn't completely planned. It happened when I found out my insurance company would not pay for the heart surgery I needed. We were engaged to be married and planned on getting married in May of 1997. My health wasn't exactly where we wanted it to be and knew that surgery was necessary. So sometime in July, Lane and I decided my health was more important and his insurance plan would cover me. So we semi-quietly got married. Our immediate family knew and a few close friends but not anyone else. We had the wedding we still wanted to have in May as planned.

It's still hard to believe that after only knowing Lane for 8 1/2 months, I married him. We met at a wedding in December of 1995 and started dating in February. He proposed in June and we got married in August. Lane and I dated long-distance our entire relationship. I'm one of those few people that can say, "He proposed on our 3rd date." Lane is one of the best things that has happened to me and has a person with a serious CHD, he has been the rock I've needed through all the ups and downs of this disease. My parents were good supporters when I was younger, but as I got older, I think they felt as though they still had to protect me like they did when I was a child. Parents of CHD patients are always so fearful when it comes to their special kids. With Lane, at the age of 27, I rode my first roller coaster. My parents would've never allowed me to. Even after I told my mom what I did and how much I loved it I got a lecture. Lane has let me decide what I want to do unless of course he thinks it's a serious danger. Unfortunately my roller coaster days ended 5 yrs ago when I had my ICD placed. I'm still bitter about that.

Fifteen years passes in the blink of an eye. There is no better person for me to spend those 15 yrs with than Lane. I am truly a blessed woman to have such a wonderful man willing to take care of me when I'm at my worst. Someone who time and time again has held my hand as I'm a tangle of wires and IV's and have a breathing tube down my throat. He has put up with my OCD ways and my craziness. He even loves me when I'm angry with him. And I love him for all that he is, all that he has, and all that he has sacrificed for me. Love you Lane! Happy Anniversary!

Pool Playdate (from June)

2011-08-05T09:58:00.000-04:00

Back in June, just about a week before life was turned upside down by Lane's retirement and our move, we had to have one more friendly playdate with Miss Bri. Oh, how we miss her and her mom! We headed over to their awesome pool and spend a very hot afternoon trying to keep cool. Eriks was off on his own jumping over and over into the deep end. Bri and Emi stayed in the shallower end while Lisa and I had some adult conversation.

It was such a great way to close our time in Georgia with friends like them. I know Eriks misses Miss Bri because she was his first friend there. Hopefully we'll be able to convince them to come for a visit some time so I can show them some Hoosier hospitality.

Lane's Retirement

2011-08-04T10:42:00.000-04:00

So much for being on top of things. We've been in our house a month and we are still trying to get the last few boxes unpacked and things situated right where we want them. Parts of the house are still being painted so it makes it a little difficult too. School starts for Eriks everyone but me in a few weeks. It would be nice to have everything done by then.

Lane had a very nice retirement ceremony even though it was lightly attended because it ended up falling on the Friday that Lock*heed employees have off and the crew of guys he worked with were out of town doing mandatory training. Still it wasn't a horrible turn out but had the other stuff not been going on there would've been a heck of a lot more people.

The night before his retirement ceremony I cried - a lot. Lane was trying on his uniform to make sure everything was in place where it should be and it hit me that the day of his retirement would be the last time I would see him wear it. Everyone who knows me well (and I'm sure I've said it before), knows I have a love/hate relationship with the military. But when you've been with someone for 3/4 of his career and put up with all the ups and downs, the day they retire is bittersweet. I was thankful that he was no longer having to take orders and that he could do as he pleased. I didn't have to worry that the military would tell us, "Hey by the way, we're moving you to Timbuktu tomorrow." But I was sad about all that too. You grow accustomed to it. It becomes second nature to know that you have no control over your life and where you live.

Lane's entire family came to town for his retirement. It meant so much that his parents and siblings were there. My mom & dad made the journey from Indiana to be with us. I was sad that my siblings couldn't make it but my sister had to travel for work and my brother also was working. They were there in spirit.

The day of the ceremony we had cake & refreshments. The following evening we had a dinner for our family, close friends and several of the people Lane worked with closely. We all had a really good time. Part of me didn't want the weekend to end. Lane still isn't officially retired. That doesn't happen until Sept 1st but he had about 60 days worth of vacation/permissive leave from the military that he took in order for us to have time to get settled in Indiana. It's kind of nice that he's been on paid vacation for just over a month and has 3 1/2 weeks to go.

I don't have the official photos of his retirement. Just a few that I took with my camera.

Catching Up

2011-07-21T15:08:00.000-04:00

Moving took me out of the loop for awhile and I'm still not completely unpacked in the new house. There's still a fair amount to be done and the fact that it feels like 110 degrees outside doesn't help anything. It's too hot for Eriks and Emi to be outside and they're driving Lane and I crazy because for some reason they just aren't content enough to play in the playroom with all their toys. That's part of the reason there's more stuff to be done around here than I'd like. Every 5 minutes I'm being interrupted and distracted.

Anyhow. The move went fairly smoothly. Part of my frustration though is in all the times the military has moved us the boxes have been labeled properly. This time not so much. Some boxes are labeled properly, others we open to find not what the box says it contains. We still can't find our silverware, coffee grinder, bakeware and other stuff that we need. I pray that we find it all soon. Everyone is adjusting pretty well. Eriks has found that our neighborhood has lots of boys about his age and with only about 40 homes in the neighborhood, I know he can't be too far away. He is in heaven having all these kids his age to play with.

Before we left Georgia, Lane had a final physical at a military base a few hours away. Lucky for us we had friends who were stationed there. So we made some time to see them too. My friend Jen, suggested we go to Lane Orchards. Hands down the best peaches I've ever eaten in my life. They were to die for good! We definitely bought some. We also bought peach wine. It was a fun little trip with Jen to see the process of how they clean and get the peaches ready for packing. Plus we did get to see them packing peaches to be delivered out. The kids also loved the peach ice cream. It was seriously refreshing on such a hot day.

Look for more posts to come soon as I will be working hard to catch up on everything that's happened in the past 4-6 weeks. In the meantime, I'm going to see if I can go find my silverware!

Lego Creations

2011-06-21T21:25:00.000-04:00

About 10 days ago when I needed some time to get a few things done, I ~~asked~~ begged my children to go build some really cool stuff with Eriks' lego*s. I think it's a written rule in kids' handbooks to bother their parents when they are on the phone. I had been trying to make phone calls for awhile that day and I absolutely needed to get things taken care of. I also promised Eriks that I would take photos of the things he and Emi made and post them on my blog. So I'm living up to my promise and posting. Eriks is really great a building things. The creations he built were pretty cool but he's created some even cooler things. But my mission was accomplished by getting them to do this and most of my phone calls were made.

Changes Are a Coming

2011-06-19T12:42:00.000-04:00

Since I am blogging on Father's Day I want to say Happy Father's Day to the love of my life and the father of my children, my husband, Lane. He has done a great job with our kids and there are many days that all the extra stuff he does goes unappreciated. As a woman with a CHD, there are days where I am not feeling as well as I should and he does a great job doing his job as dad and even my job as mom. He has become pretty good at laundry since our laundry is downstairs and I physically cannot haul it up and down the stairs. Can't wait to move into the new house where the laundry room is upstairs with the bedrooms!

I also want to say Happy Father's Day to my own dad who has overcome lots of challenges in his life, most especially beating cancer 3 yrs ago and getting through a hip replacement just last month. You have shown that with perseverance, all obstacles can be conquered.

Now onto the rest...

I still can't believe that in less than a week, Lane's military career will be complete. I've been a part of it for 15 1/2 of the 20 1/2 yrs of military service and it still seems like yesterday that I threw myself into this roller coaster life. I've been looking forward to the day that it's over but just this past week I was ready to put the breaks on it. I'm still not quite sure I'm ready for it. Lane sent me a text message on Thursday letting me know that his career as a military pilot was complete. They had finished flying the current airplane and there weren't going to be any planes to fly until after his retirement. As soon as I read the text, I started to cry. I'm still sad about it. I didn't think this transition was going to be easy but I never thought it was going to be this hard either. I feel like I have 2 personalities right now. The Liene that is jumping up and down for joy that my kids will have the opportunity to stay in one place for more than 3 yrs and that I have a say in my life again and will be near family. Then there's the Liene that's screaming no at the top of her lungs not sure she wants to give up this nomad lifestyle. Moving has giving me the opportunity to live in some pretty cool places and some not so cool places and meet some great friends.

The packers come a week from tomorrow to pack up all our belongings and then load them on to the truck to haul up to our new house in Indy. There's so much to do before then. We're still weeding through our stuff and reorganizing. We have to figure out where we're going to pack up the stuff we don't want the movers moving because we are going to do it ourselves. There's not much but enough to probably fill up the back of my minivan. I'm thankful my mom is taking the kids back to Indy on Monday so Lane and I can deal with the movers without having kids in the way.

And I'm finally going to show a photo of our new house. It's been sitting empty for the past 3 weeks and I didn't want to show it since we weren't living in it yet. But now, my family is over at the house every day painting and doing stuff I've hired my brother & father's company to do. The kids love the house and the yard.

The picture was taken in early spring before the leaves started to bloom. I actually pulled it off the MLS listing when we found the house and wanted to look at it. We've got some landscaping to do. There are a number of bushes that we'd like to take out and the lawn likely needs to be treated to keep it pretty. And I'm hoping I can still plant flowers when I get there to add some color to the landscaping. Slowly but surely we'll get the house to completely suit our taste. But it's in a small, quiet neighborhood and the best part is that unlike the neighborhood I'm living in now, the houses have space between them and are not stacked one on top of the other and we have no neighbors behind us.

New House & Memorial Day Weekend

2011-06-06T09:00:00.000-04:00

A week ago Friday, we became Indiana homeowners. It feels really weird owning a house that I won't move into for another 3 weeks. I'm so ready to move out of the cheaply made tract house that I'm living in now and into something bigger, and more well built. The people we bought the house from were the only owners. They built the house. If you include the finished basement it's at least 800 sq ft bigger than what we live in now. I'm so glad we decided to rent when we moved to Atlanta. Very little in our neighborhood is selling but based on the house I live in, I can see why. It's poor construction and the asking price of houses in our neighborhood are about the same as what we paid for our house in Indiana. We my brother has lots of painting to do. The majority of the house on the inside is original paint and probably hasn't been touched in the 13 yrs the house has been standing. Plus it's just not our taste. Also there are gold door handles and a few light fixtures that need to be changed out. All in good time. The painting is the big thing. I'm hoping they can get it done before we move in. My father & brother's home repair and remodel company has a lot of work currently lined up and since we get the family discount we aren't priority. So we'll see. But the kids love their new house. They are looking forward to having a yard again. They are looking forward to being 5 minutes from my parents and their pool. They're looking forward to being near their cousins. It's going to be an adjustment after spending the last 15 yrs moving but it'll be nice to be settled too.

We had a good time in Indiana last weekend. My cousin had her confirmation into the Lutheran church and I got to see cousins I hadn't seen in awhile. Including my cousin M and her daughter B who are moving from Angola to Laos. She and her husband are teachers at international schools although I think she may have transitioned to SAHM. They met in Latvia. Moved to Angola and now are going to be on their way to Laos in August. It's not very often that my dad and his 3 siblings are together but I think as they get older, they're trying to spend more time together. It was a really nice time and the weekend went by way too fast. I definitely didn't get to spend nearly the time I wanted to with family. We were just so wrapped up in all the house stuff. We ended up going out and buying a fridge just hours before we headed back to Atlanta. Went back and forth on a French-door fridge and decided that the extra $300-$400 was not worth it so we got a side-by-side that was on sale and got an extra 10% military discount. It was worth it.

The next couple weeks are going to be complete chaos. I'm hoping to blog a few times this month but we'll see. Lane's retirement ceremony is less than 3 weeks away. The moving company comes 3 weeks from today to pack up all our worldly goods to move to Indiana. I've got a million and 1 phone calls to make. A garage sale to hold to get rid of the stuff we won't need in the new house. Dr's appointments, etc. Like I said - chaos. I'm banking on not knowing if I'm coming or going in about 10 days. This week alone is going to make me lose my mind.

With that being said, it's time to get to my list of stuff to do. Enjoy the photos below!

School's Out for Summer

2011-05-31T08:15:00.000-04:00

The kids got out of school last week and it was a crazy week in general. That's the reason there hasn't been a blog post from me for 10 days. Emi had her last day of school on Wednesday and Eriks' last day was Friday but because we had to travel to Indy, his last day was Thursday. It's kind of a bummer for him because he missed his class party but that's about all he was going to do at school Friday had he gone.

I'm not really sure what's going to happen with either kid as far as school goes next year. I don't know if where we are moving to is going to have a program to accommodate Emi. Talking to a family friend this past weekend when we were back in Indy, she didn't think that there was a class like what Emi is in now. She is currently in a class where it is both oral and ASL combined. If there isn't anything like that for her there, then she will have to go into an oral class and we will have to demand an interpreter for her. She will not survive in an oral only class. She will get angry and frustrated and won't learn anything. I wish I could force her to talk more but it just isn't happening. If we try and force her without sign, she shuts down and there is no communication. I would love for Emi to walk up to me and say, "Mom, I want a glass of water please," but that isn't happening any time soon. You have no idea how frustrating life can sometimes be with a minimally verbal child who still has a lot of sign language to learn. I hope we'll find out soon what our options are for her.

As for Eriks, we've got him on the waitlist for one private school. There are either 4 or 5 kids ahead of him for 2nd grade and they don't think there are going to be anymore openings for the upcoming school year. There's one other school we need to call this week that we'd like him to go to. My cousin sends his 2 children there and it's another good private school. If we can't get him in there, I'll likely end up homeschooling him. Not really what I want to do since I really should be working and pulling in extra income while Lane is doing his 3 yrs of law school. We'll see what happens.

Emi's teacher uploaded photos of her over the past 3 1/2 months that she was in school that I wanted to share. Unfortunately, I don't think a whole lot of photos were taken of Eriks over the school year so I don't have any of him to post.

Parent Appreciation

2011-05-20T22:43:00.000-04:00

Today at Emi's school they had a Parent Appreciation lunch for us with pizza and ice cream that both Lane and I were able to attend. Lane wasn't sure he would be able to get away from work but it was a slow day at the office so he did get to join me and Emi.

I need to say (as most of my close friends and family know) I was extremely apprehensive about sending Emi to Pre-K full-time 5 days a week. She was extremely attached to us and my fear was that she was going to be totally ticked off at us for leaving her from 8 am to 2 pm with complete strangers. In the beginning she wasn't too happy about it and my heart broke every time I left her screaming and crying. She did not want me to leave her. However about 2 weeks into school she was cool as a cucumber about it. And now, she is a completely different kid from 3 1/2 months ago. She's bigger and more independent. Plus she's signing up a storm and saying words and letters I never thought I'd hear from her sweet lips. For some of those new to my blog, Emi was born profoundly deaf and can only hear with a hearing aid. Without it she hears nothing. She was also born with a cleft lip and cleft palate - both of which have been repaired. The struggle has been training her mouth and lips to do what we know they can do. In just 3 1/2 short months of school she can say the letters H, F, S and G which are very difficult for cleft palate/lip kids to get. We're getting words and sounds that we struggled to get over the course of a years worth of in-home speech therapy. I don't blame the therapist but I strongly believe that a classroom environment and seeing other kids do it has given her the motivation she needs. Plus the therapists at the school are awesome. They've even said on the last day of school when I come pick up Emi on the last day of school they're going to tell me they have no idea where she is. They all want to keep her there. And they have been a godsend to her. I'm not going to miss life here but I am going to miss the DHH (deaf and hard of hearing) staff at Still so very, very much. I could not recommend a better group of teachers, therapists and para-pros for kids with Emi's needs.

Her teacher, Miss Jenna, made a great slideshow of pictures of the kids throughout the year. On Monday I'm going in with a thumb drive to upload a bunch of photos of Emi to have and to post here. It was such a great slideshow. She's had a ball this semester.

In the photos above it is Emi signing I love you. It was so sweet. I love it!

Overwhelmed By the Response to My Last Post

2011-05-11T21:38:00.000-04:00

Wow! Yesterday's post lead to over 250+ hits on my blog. Some of the credit I have to give to a FB friend, also a fellow CHDer who linked my blog on her FB page. I'm sure from there it got passed to others and so on.

I never in a million years thought my ramblings would lead to the response I received. I am humbled and honored. It's always been important for me to be an inspiration to my children but I never thought that I could make such an impact on the life of another CHD patient or the parent of a CHD patient. I never thought I (yes, little 'ol me) could give hope to parents of children with CHD that their own children will live fairly normal lives. When I was younger I was determined that I was going to be a wife and mother even if it meant adopting my kiddos. Reading these words has really touched my heart and caused some joyful tears. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Here are some words of wisdom that I received via email or via reading them on fellow CHD friends FB page. I hope they don't mind that I'm posting their words here.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW AWESOME IT IS TO SEE YOU DOING SO WELL AND SO HAPPY? I love it!! It was so inspiring to read your blog and you are exactly the way I hope my *J* will be."

"My daughter is going to be 2 next month and has HLHS...People like you give me such hope for her future...I have to be honest, you are the 'oldest' person I have ever found with HLHS."

"Stories like that give me hope for my daughter's future."

"Reading this blog I can't tell you...I'm in tears."

"Thank you so much for sharing this...It really means a lot to me to read her blog."

I also wanted to add an important piece of info that I left out. Not on purpose but it just didn't cross my mind at the time. With my HLHS diagnosis, among my other heart problems, I was never a candidate for the Glenn or the Fontan procedure. I have unrepaired HLHS. I have 3 shunts, only 2 of them are currently working. One closed off when I was about 21 or 22 yrs old after having been functioning since I was 8 days old. That's one of the reasons I am so puzzling to congenital cardiologists because I never had the typical HLHS repairs done. They can't figure out why someone so anatomically incorrect, without the major heart rerouting/reconstruction is functioning so well. I can only thank God for that. He knows what he's doing when it comes to me.

I'm going to be blogging a lot about my kids and hubby still, but I plan on adding more "me" content. I have lots of good childhood stories to tell other CHD patients and CHD parents. I'm even thinking about a Q&A blog post. CHD parents or patients who want to know my life's experiences, limitations, etc. I'm willing to give you first hand experience. Granted each CHD patient is different but we have so many similarities. So if you have a question, send me an email and I'll compile them and put together a post for sometime in the future.

Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading my blog.

Adult Congenital Heart Association Conference (LONG Post)

2011-05-11T10:50:00.001-04:00

I haven't talked much about my health. Not because I haven't wanted to, but because I've never wanted to make a big deal of it. I just want to be "normal". The truth is, I'm not "normal". At least not physically and anatomically. My heart is not normal. It will only be normal if and when the time comes to have a heart transplant.

Why am I discussing this now? Because from April 28th - May 1st, for the first time in my life, I truly felt normal.

I went to Los Angele$ for the 6th annual ACHA conference. My whole life I knew there were others like me. Kids who were born with heart defects that would keep them from being "normal". When I use the term - what "normal" means to people like us - are people who can walk multiple flights of stairs without getting winded, run multiple miles on end, swim laps like they're being chased by sharks. Does that make sense?

I'm going to try and give you a little lesson on CHD anatomy. People who have CHD (Congenital Heart Disease) have limitations. Our hearts and lungs can't keep up because they don't function the way anatomically correct hearts can. Many of us are missing chambers to our hearts. A normal heart has 4 chambers, most CHDers have 2 or 3. My heart has 2. I have a ventricle and an atria. Most of you reading this have 2 of each. Due to the lack of the 4 chambers that a normal heart has, my 2 chambers have to do twice the work. Our blood doesn't circulate properly and get the full amount of oxygen it needs. People with normal hearts have O2 saturation rates of 97% - 100%. CHD patients average 80% - 85%. Like I said that's average. There are those with lower and higher rates. My "normal" saturation rate runs between 83% and 87%, which is really very good. With that being said, too much higher and it could actually be bad. I could continue typing for days and still not cover it all but I figured I had to give you some basics to understand. My actual medical diagnosis is as follows - Mitral Valve Atresia, Multiple VSD (ventricular septal defect), Hypoplastic Left Ventricle (aka Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome or HLHS), Transposition of the Great Vessels (TGA), Pulmonary Atresia, Atrial Fibrillation. Quite a mouthful isn't it?

Now that I've given you a little lesson on CHD, back to the conference in L.A. As I was saying, being there made me feel normal. How many conferences can you go to and get compliments on how pretty your chest incision scar is? It's totally different than being gawked at by people trying to figure out why I have this huge scar that starts at the top of my chest and goes down. At the conference we all knew why we had those scars - heart surgery. Simple as that. And to us it's no big deal. It's just a part of who we are.

I met some awesome, awesome people. Some very inspiring people. I've never felt sorry for myself but I've had way too many occasions where I have felt very frustrated having a CHD. Seeing some of the accomplishments of others has made me realize that despite my limitations, there is so much more I can do. One of the CHD doctors at the conference is a CHD patient himself. It was his own heart condition that gave him the drive to work in medicine. One of the CHD patients that I met is in med school working on becoming a pediatric cardiology surgeon. Another patient I met biked 20+ miles to raise money for CHD. The list goes on and on. I didn't even realize that CHD patients could do this kind of stuff.

There's one couple I met in particular that really gave me the drive to want to do more as a CHD patient and in the CHD world. Jeni is a CHD patient who like me has HLHS. Nick is her husband and so in love with Jeni. It was so cute the way he looked at her. Both have this incredible passion about CHD. They both volunteer/work at a camp specifically designed for kids with CHD. Many of the younger, and when I say younger, I mean in their early to mid 20's CHD patients went to these heart camps and in turn have volunteered their time as adults at these camps. Some of them are still involved with heart camps. I didn't even know there were camps for CHD patients out there. I don't even know if they were around when I was a kids because I so would've wanted to go. As a kid I think it would've made me much more comfortable in my skin. One of the most mind-blowing things that both of them are doing this summer is they are biking from San Francisco to NYC to raise money for CHD research. Nick is actually doing the majority of the biking. Jeni said she was just biking out of the big cities with Nick. The rest of the time she was going to be in a support vehicle. They will be biking through northern IN at the beginning of July not long after we move back and I'd really like to be there to cheer them on. Plus, I want Lane to meet them and I want them to meet our kids which they loved seeing multiple photos of.

There are things I didn't expect from this conference. The first is how emotionally draining it was. Not in a bad way. I had so many conversations that involved tears. Tears because we have dealt with so many of the same issues. Not being able to have biological children because it could kill us. Short hospital stays that turned into longer hospital stays. One of the big ones is how much our "normal" friends take all the stuff they can do and their lives for granted. Don't get me wrong, I complain about things and I know there's some stuff I take for granted. It's just our human nature. There are days I complain a lot. But there are 2 things that really bother us CHD patients. The first is milestone birthdays - 30, 40, 50... If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone I know complain about turning any one of the above ages, I'd have a condo in the Caribbean I could escape to. For us CHDers, hitting milestone birthdays is a BIG, BIG deal. I was thrilled to turn 30. In 4 yrs I will be turning 40 and can't wait. Not many people get excited about turning the big 4-0 but I am. It means that those doctors who told me I would likely not live to see my teens were wrong. I'm still here and I'm a wife and a mom and I'm still breathing! There are other things I want to be that I'm working on. Photographer is one of them. It really makes me sad that people don't look forward to getting older. We CHDers celebrate it. It means we've been given one more year of seeing the sunrise. Smelling the flowers. You get it. A small FYI, it's fine for you to complain about milestone birthdays to people who don't have major health issues. It's not OK to complain to us! The other thing that really bothers us is you'll never be faced with the likelihood of a heart transplant. I'm jealous that it's not a weight on your shoulders. I can almost guarantee you that most CHDers when we go to see our cardiologists are worried that we're going to be given the news that our hearts aren't functioning as well as the last time and the prospect of surgery or transplant is on the horizon. A few of us CHDers at the conference actually joked though that you can put us under the knife, but don't bring a needle anywhere near us.

I also didn't expect that I'd have so many instant friends. There is no judgement in the CHD world. We all have different types of defects, but we all have hearts that are sick. I didn't have to worry about what someone was going to think of me. I didn't have to impress anyone. As I said at the beginning of my post, I felt normal. I also fell in love with the CHD community. This group will always have my back and I'll have theirs. Their support is amazing. I am so thrilled to be a part of it. We compared surgeries and medications and how both made/make us feel. Normal. To a non-CHDer it would've been boring and over your head in about 30 seconds. We talked about this stuff for hours! Conversations didn't want to end. I don't think any of wanted the conference to end either.

My one regret about the conference is that Lane wasn't there. I was happy to have some time to myself but it would've been an awesome experience for him to meet other spouses of CHDers and to learn many of the things I learned. It's one thing to be there physically and hear all this information. It's another thing to try and regurgitate it to someone who wasn't there. It's very difficult. I still haven't been quite able to wrap my head around it all and it's only been 10 days since the end of the conference.

The next conference isn't for another 2 years and I'm already looking forward to it. That's just how incredible it was for me. I didn't take a lot of photos but I want to share the few that I did. I miss my new CHD family so much. To my CHD friends who will read this post, thank you for being like me and becoming my friend and sharing your lives and stories with me.

My new friend Jeni. She is so amazing and I want to be more like her.

CHD patients and their spouses.

Downtown LA skyline from my hotel room w/ zoom lens. After living here for 3 yrs and how typically smoggy it is, I was surprised that I could see it that well. Some of the locals I met at conference said that LA has been working on the air quality.

Manhattan Beach Pier

On the Hollywood Strip. The famous theater was advertising the new PoC movie coming out.

For those of you who want more info on Nick and Jeni's ride from Frisco to NYC, here's the website. They would love your physical or monetary support. The CHF would love your support.

Bike4theCHF

Here's some CHD facts:
Approximately 40,000 babies are born every year in the US with some form of CHD (that equates to approximately 1 out of 125 born are born with CHD).
There are approximately 35 different types of CHD.
CHD is THE #1 birth defect among babies born in the US. More than any other birth defect.
There are approximately 800,000 adults and children in the US living with CHD.
CHD research is drastically underfunded, ie. very little money goes to research to make life better for those living with CHD.

Disney Part 3

2011-05-09T12:52:00.001-04:00

Time to wrap up our Disney adventure. We spent our final full day in WDW at the Magic.Kingdom. We weren't there the whole day. We did the park in the morning, went back to the resort for the afternoon and then went back and nearly closed out the park when we left about 11:30 pm.

We started the day with breakfast at Chef Mickey's. I used to love this place for breakfast but this time I was extremely disappointed. The kids however, loved it. What made this trip to Mickey's not so good was not the food, although for what we paid, it should've been better but it was a lot of other little things. First, we were seated in an area of the restaurant that was freezing cold. Second, we had a horrible server. It took forever for me to get the Diet.Coke I requested. I had to get up to use the restroom and when I came back, the server had cleared my plate. The plate that was still half-full. She didn't even bother asking Lane if I was finished. She just took my food. I was ticked to say the least because I didn't want to get up and stand in line all over again. Towards the end of breakfast, Emi decided she had to go potty and Lane took her. After my plate clearing incident Lane said, "Don't let her take my plate." Well when she came around, she actually asked if she could take Lane's plate. I told her he was still working on it. Two minutes later she came back again and asked. I told her no. Seriously! You just came by and asked. Lane was still with Emi and I got busy with Eriks. The next time I looked up, his plate was gone! I recounted the tale to Lane when he got back with Emi and he was not happy. Needless to say, I don't see a return trip to this restaurant in the future. Huge disappointment. I did get some great shots of the kids with the characters.

With bellies full, we headed to the park. We rode the train around the park. Emi fell in love with trains on this trip. She couldn't get enough of the monorail so getting on the train and riding around the whole park was awesome for her. I'm sure she could've ridden the train all day.

We briefly caught up with our BIL & SIL who were there with my SIL's mom & SIL's younger sister and her family. It would've been great spending time with them but they were wrapped up in chaos of their own with a party of 12 going all over the park. The older kids were on a mission and the parents were at their mercy.

After splitting from Lane's brother and his gang, we took the kids on a bunch of rides. We wanted to try and do what we could before heading back to the room for the afternoon. The kids got to meet Rabbit from Alice_in_Wonderland. I got one of the best pictures. It was so sweet and Emi couldn't get over signing and saying, "rabbit," about a bazillion times.

About 6 pm, after dinner, we headed back to the park to ride more rides and watch the Electric_Light_Parade. The near sunset that we saw after heading back into the park was beautiful and I couldn't help but take a photo.

The nice thing about going back to the park in the evening is that although it's still busy, it's not as busy as it was during the day. The other nice thing is that it starts to cool off and it's not as hot. The wait for the rides is shorter. We got to ride a ton more rides than during the day. We got to ride even more while everyone was watching the first parade and the fireworks. We did catch the end of the fireworks as we were going to start scouting a place to watch the parade.

Here are a few photos from the parade.

Emi actually crashed before the parade so she missed the whole thing. Eriks really enjoyed it but he was so tired afterward. When we got them back to the room, they both crashed hard.

The next morning we had some time before check out and decided to enjoy the pool for a few hours. The afternoon before we packed up most of our stuff so we would have the morning to let the kids have a little bit more pool time. We definitely have water babies and the kids will likely spend every sunny and warm day this summer in my parents pool. We could not get them out of the water. We finally did get them out and went back to the room to change and check out.

Well, that's it in a nutshell. Trip was fabulous but we are going to lay off Di$ney for awhile. At least trips with the kids. It's fun but very draining and I'm ready to spend more vacations at the beach chillaxing!

Disney Part 2

2011-05-06T09:18:00.001-04:00

I, in no way intended to go this long between posts. I had planned on posting early last week and then the dreaded stomach bug hit me and I was done for the next 48 hours. All of us got the bug, but Eriks started it and of course, I got it the worst! I was so very, very sick. My mom flew in on Tuesday to help while I was away and her first day here she ended up taking care of the kids because I was still sick from the night before and Lane got sick that afternoon after picking her up from the airport. My mom was a lifesaver that day! After 48 hours of feeling like death and fear it would never go away, I was packing for a trip out West and then hopping on a plane Thursday morning. Jet leg kicked my butt after getting back earlier this week. I think I'm finally to the point where I feel almost normal again. Almost.

So continuing on with our fun Spring Break trip...

Tuesday morning it rained all morning. It was also quite cool that day. We watched TV in the room during the morning. There really wasn't anywhere we wanted to trek to in the rain. We knew the rain was going to be there all morning so we decided that was going to be our 1 day not hitting the parks. Once the rain let up late morning, we headed to Downtown.Disney for lunch and some shopping. No pictures taken at DTD that day.

Wednesday we went to Epcot. The weather was sunny and the temps got very warm that day. The kids had a great day. We started out in The Land. Checked out the Nemo ride and watched the dolphins swim. Emi liked that. She thought it was funny watching them. Rode Living with the Land and then had lunch. We ended up getting fastpasses earlier that day for Soarin' because that ride is always packed. Emi's too little still to ride it so Eriks got to ride it twice. He first went with me and then once we got done, he went with Lane while I hung out with Emi. When Eriks and I rode it, we ran into a family from our school. The kids recognized Eriks and started talking to him.

Once we were done with the Land, we wandered over to Future World. Wandered around looking at the flowers since the Flower and Garden Festival was going on. The kids got their faces painted and then wandered back into World Showcase. Rode some of the rides back there and then it was time for our dinner reservation. After dinner we decided we were done and ready to go back. We had been on the go since before 9 and it was already after 6:30. We sat on the balcony for awhile and then got the kids ready for bed.

I'll wrap up our trip in the next post. We only have 1 more day of our vacation and we wrapped it up in the Magic.Kingdom (aka. the Happiest Place on Earth).

Enjoy the photos!

I need to backtrack a little bit. I forgot that in my Disney Part 1 post we ended up at Epcot after spending the day in DHS. I think the reason I forgot is because I hadn't yet uploaded the photos from my other camera. Our dinner reservation was at Chefs.de.France in World Showcase. One of the highlights of dinner is we got to see Remy from R@tatouille. The kids loved it! So here are the photos I didn't post from that part of our day. Sorry!

Eriks imitating one of his favorite villains!

Remy is animated! He moved and looked at the kids and interacted with them. He squeaked when he was talking. It was really cute. I wanted to take him home!

Emi and her ice cream! Actually this was raspberry sorbet but this is her addiction. She'll take ice cream over any other dessert you offer her.

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T21:48:00.000-04:00

This isn't going to be a long post. Just wanted to show some Easter photos. We went to church this morning. It was a crowded house like it usually is on holidays. They had to put church over-flow into the school gymnasium and video feed into the gym. We got to church 30 minutes early so that we could get an actual seat in the sanctuary and have to stand or watch in the gym.

After church we found a restaurant for brunch. However, by the time we got seated which was after noon, Lane and I were in no mood for brunch food and neither were the kids. So the kids got mac 'n cheese, Lane got a burger and I had salmon. It was still good. They were packed and very busy. I think the kitchen was having a hard time keeping up. Thank goodness we decided to get an appetizer or we would've waited over an hour before our food came out. It was after 1 when our waitress delivered our food. It was after 2 when we left the restaurant. But it's not like we were in a huge hurry to get home. The kids on the other hand wanted to dive into their Easter baskets.

The rest of the day we didn't do much of anything. I took a cat nap. The kids watched a movie. Hope my readers had a good Easter as well!

Disney Part 1

2011-04-19T09:27:00.000-04:00

We left for FL late Friday afternoon and hit horrible Spring Break traffic just about 25 minutes south of ATL. It easily took us 1 hr to travel 5-8 miles. I was not looking forward to the drive. Anyhow, we were going to stop around 10-11 pm and get a hotel and then finish the drive in the morning. Well, I guess everyone else had the same idea and we ended up driving all the way to Orlando and finding a hotel room there - at 3:30 am. Note to self and everyone else - don't do what we did. Stop sooner. Lane and I only ended up getting about 5 hrs of sleep that night. The kids however fell asleep sometime between 9 and 10 pm and woke up perfectly refreshed.

During our week at Disney we stayed at Bay.Lake.Tower. It's one of the Disney Vacation Club resorts. We rented someone's points for our stay. It worked out cheaper this way to stay there than it would've to get a regular hotel room at one of the Disney resorts. Plus we had a small kitchenette and a fabulous view of the Magic Kingd0m. This was the view from our room.

Our first full day was spent at Magic Kingd0m. We took it easy that day. We actually went to the park late morning because Emi decided she was going to make up a code for the in-room safe and lock it shut. So we had to wait for someone to come and take care of it so we could use it. We had planned on starting our morning earlier. Not much to tell about that day so I'll show you the photos.

Our 2nd day was spent at H0llywood Studios. We had fun but it was a hot day that day. The park was not all that busy which surprised me. I'm glad it was on the quieter side. We didn't have much of a wait for anything except for ToyStoryMania which we ended up not riding. Oh well. It's not going anywhere and will be there the next time. We got to see a few things we haven't seen in awhile or ever. We ended up leaving the park around 4:30ish to make a dinner reservation. Here's the day in photos.

Well, that's part 1 of our trip. Should have the next installment up either tomorrow or Thurs. Looking at all these photos again makes me wish I were still there. Can't wait for our next vacation which won't happen until July when Lane and I have an adults only trip.

Spring Break Sneak Peak

2011-04-18T10:13:00.000-04:00

Here are a few photos of our Spring Break trip to FL. We've been super busy trying to get life in order since we got back. The house we're under contract for is at the forefront followed by planning Lane's retirement. I would love to spend more time blogging but with the above and trying to sort our lives and decide what we will take with us and what we will get rid of, I'm massively overwhelmed. I really wish I had family around to help with all of this. My mom is queen of organization and although I strive to follow in her shoes, it just hasn't happened much and it's very frustrating because I am massively OCD about some things. Lane can vouch for me. We've accumulated 15 yrs worth of stuff not sure what we'll need or not need at the next place. Well, now that we now the next place is indefinite, it's time to discard of all the stuff I don't want in that house. And there's enough of it.

I'll probably be blogging about Spring Break in 2 or 3 posts. Look for the first blog post in the next few days.

Month in Review

2011-03-21T09:53:00.002-04:00

Not sure how long of a post this is going to be. There hasn't been a ton going on over the past month but it hasn't been dead around here either.

Over President's Day weekend we headed to IN for our niece I's baptism and to do some house-hunting. I's baptism was very nice. Our niece, I was baptized by the same priest Emi was. Just like Emi, niece I screamed and cried the entire time. We joked that it had something to do with the priest if he was making them cry.

Lane and I also got to check out about 10 houses that weekend while we were there. None of the houses were a fit for us. There were a few that might have been possibilities but decided that we didn't want to settle for something we didn't love. More houses are coming on the market every day now that Spring is here. We've actually had my parents look at a few houses and there is one that might be the one. I am hoping to head up this Saturday to get a look at it myself. There are a few others they've also looked at that they think we might like so I'll check those out too but there definitely is a front-runner.

While I stayed in Indy with Emi I went up to visit Lane's grandma with his siblings and their kids. The only grandkid missing was Eriks because he had to be in school in GA. We had a nice visit with Grandma Wolf at her retirement community. She hadn't seen Emi in over a year. She hadn't seen my SIL Marla's son, M in a long time and this was her first time meeting new great-granddaughter, I. I'm hoping it wasn't too overwhelming for her having 6 great-grandkids around.

I started taking an ASL class at the local community center. It's only once a week and for 8 weeks. I wish it several times a week and longer than 8 weeks. I am loving it. It is so important for me to learn ASL because Emi is and because she will need it to communicate. There are times she will not be able to wear her hearing aid and will need to communicate using her hands. My hope is that when we move, I'll be able to take ASL classes at one of the universities in order to become fluent.

Emi is doing well in school. It's still weird being in the house for about 6 hrs a day without any kids. I am amazed at what she is learning and love how excited she is at the end of the school day when she proudly shows me what she did at school that day or signs she's learned. She really enjoys it. Every morning she gets up and signs school. I say, yes and she smiles. There are only a total of 5 kids in her class, one teacher and 2 parapro's. Three adults to 5 kids in my opinion is awesome. I really like all 3 of them and think they are awesome with the kids. I will definitely miss this for Emi because I don't know yet what is available to her in Indy. I am working on finding out.

Emi on St. Patrick's Day. She had a blast with her class and they did so many fun little activities. She came home looking like a little leprechaun.

Eriks was diagnosed with mild AD/HD in February. The doctor treating him for it doesn't believe it's bad enough for him to be on medication. She's actually not of the belief that unless it's severe/clinical that kids need to be on meds for it. So I'm waiting on some natural supplements she recommended to arrive in my mailbox so we can start giving them to him. Some days are better than others. We're curbing things in his diet more than we used to and the poor kid doesn't understand why. I'm going to have to start buying more sugar-free goodies so that he's not completely deprived.

I think that's about it for now. Spring break is just about 2 weeks away and I can't wait to get out of dodge for awhile and relax. I am so looking forward to it.

Slacker

2011-03-16T16:25:00.000-04:00

Yup. That's me. At least when it comes to blogging and following other blogs. I don't do it on purpose. I have 2 kids in school and now with the "free" time I have while both are away M-F, I'm trying to get stuff done around here. Lately it has involved lots of doctors appts, countless hours on the internet looking for somewhere to live. We are moving in 3 1/2 months and I am NOT living in my parents basement. No way. No how. As much as I love them... There's also a retirement to plan and organize. House to clean. Right now it involves lots of purging of stuff to give to charity or sell on e*Bay to make money for the new bedroom furniture we're buying for the master in the new house. Nothing super fancy, just I.K.E.A, but very contemporary and pretty. And there is stuff we've moved for years that I don't want move again. We're at the point where we really want to simplify our lives and live with less.

I've been thinking about stuff I want to post but finding the time to actually do it, is another thing. See above. I'm hoping that Friday I can make some time to discuss something interesting and something that has become very important to me. Hang in there. I'm not gone. Just occupied.

First Day of Pre-K and Valentine's Day

2011-02-17T12:12:00.001-05:00

This week really has kicked my butt. I'm not used to being up and moving at 6 am and going all day long. The kids have had multiple doctors appointments this week too. I spent all day Tuesday in the car running kids to and from school and doctors offices. Tuesday truly was as follows: take Emi to school - get breakfast - pick Eriks up for his appointment - take him to doctor - return him to school - grab super quick lunch - get Emi from school - get Eriks from school - take both to Emi's yearly checkup - go home and make dinner. Note to self, never, ever schedule a day like that again!

So Emi is a big girl and in school. She's doing well but dislikes it when I leave. Because of her separation/abandonment issues I have spent at least the first 30 - 40 minutes with her at school in the morning. On Mon & Tues when I left, she was fine. Yesterday and today, not so much. She cried. I'm thinking because her little body is not used to this routine and she's not really napping at school, yet (she has a 1 hr nap time but has not fallen asleep during it) she is tired. When she's tired, she's super clingy and this whole school experience is new to her. She also is just getting to know her teacher and the para-pros that work in the classroom. With that being said though, in 3 days, I have seen how beneficial this is for her.

On Tuesday we got home after the insanely busy day and Emi was wearing jeans that had an owl on them. She tapped me, pointed to her jeans and said, "owl". After that she made the sign for owl. She can say apple clear as a bell. She is actually working hard to get clear b's pronounced. In general she's just making these amazing yammering sounds. Sounds you can tell she's trying to turn into letters. Driving home from Eriks' dental appointment yesterday afternoon, she "talked" non-stop. Her favorite word of the drive was apple. She's also learning new signs at school so I'm having to keep up and that's a very good thing. It means I'm moving in the direction of becoming trilingual.

As Emi and I are learning more sign (hoping Lane and Eriks catch up to us) it's amazing how much more I'm watching people staring when I'm communicating with her. I guess it is pretty fascinating to watch people talk with their hands. One of the things Lane and I told Eriks is that if he learns ASL, he will be able to talk to Emi without other people knowing what they're talking about. I do speak to her out loud as I sign. She needs to hear the words that go with the sign in order to learn to talk. I can't wait to see how different she's going to be in a month.

Valentine's Day was no big deal in our house. It never has been. Lane and I didn't even exchange gifts until 11 pm that night. We had a date planned on Saturday but our babysitter canceled on us about 2 hours before our big date. It really stunk and put a damper on our night. We were looking forward to getting some time away from the kiddos. We'll make up for it this weekend with a new date night and some family babysitters.

So here is a photo from Emi's 1st day of school and Valentine's Day. I could not get her to pose for the photo. She just wanted to dig through her new backpack and lunchbox. Forget looking at mom. The kids also enjoyed the giant cookie we got.

She Turned 3!

2011-02-14T12:30:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday Emi hit the big 3! I looked at her today and wondered how this little creature who was placed in my arms 1 day shy of 17 months, has become this big girl. She's still a tiny, petite thing and likely will be her entire life, but she's not a baby anymore. She can dress herself. Loves to button and zip and put on her shoes (all velcro fasteners for now). She has become so independent and wants our help less and less.

We didn't do anything super special for her birthday. With it being a school night, we decided to put off going out to eat to Friday. So I made a dinner of chicken, roasted potatoes, and green beans. We also didn't do a traditional cake. For the 4 of us it's kind of crazy to buy or make a big cake. I had heard about this bakery in Marietta and decided to give it a whirl. Emi had a very yummy strawberry shortcake. Eriks wanted New York cheesecake. Lane and this mousse cake and I had a to die for red velvet cake. I told Lane for my birthday, I wanted a red velvet birthday cake from this place. It was so crazy good. We all sampled each others desserts. Emi got some more Ameri*can Girl doll stuff for her birthday. She loves, loves, loves that baby doll her Aunt Marla & Uncle Corey got her.

Her vocabulary is growing and today, she started a pre-K program for kids who are deaf/hearing impaired. Getting up at 6 was very HARD. Emi and I would snuggle in bed watching Playhouse Di$ney in the mornings until about 8:30ish and then eat breakfast and get dressed. To be more exact, she'd watch while I snoozed some more. School starts at 7:50 and we have to be out the door at 7:10 because it's about a 20-25 minute drive to the school. We do have the option of bus but she has to be on the bus like at 6:45 and that's just way too early. I'd rather drive her. It was kind of hard this morning for both of us. She was so excited this morning to take her backpack and lunch box. She yammered in the car the entire drive there. But once we got there, she wasn't so sure. She got super quiet. I stayed for about an hr. She kept looking back at me to make sure I was there. But when they stopped learning to have some center time, that's when I left. I watched her in the kitchen/house area with a vacuum and sneaked out. I just hope she didn't cry when she noticed I was no longer there.

Luckily her day is only about 6 hrs long with a 1 hr nap time which should be starting right about now (12:15 pm). School ends at 2 pm. Again, this is so good for her because she's not only learning ASL, but they are encouraging her to use her voice and with her vocabulary growing, that voice needs to grow too. I'm hoping that by the time the official school year ends, she'll be starting to talk to us in more complete sentences. Or at least 3 - 4 word phrases. She has the opportunity for summer learning which, while we are here still, she will do. She has so much catching up to do and I want her expressive language to be closer to a 3 yr old's and not a 12 month old's. She's behind in receptive language too, but not as much as expressive.

Time to show off some photos from the birthday girl's big day.

Sydney

2011-01-25T15:33:00.001-05:00

I spent about 5 minutes trying to come up with the title for this post and finally went for simple. Why did it take me 5 minutes? Well, I didn't know how to title a post about what I'm about ready to talk about. I'm still not handling it well. There's a piece of my life that's gone. Missing. And I won't ever get him back.

On December 23rd, our beloved black Labrador retriever, Sydney, died in his sleep. We knew his time was coming. Life was getting more difficult for him. After all, he was 13.5 yrs old. If we do the calculations as to how old he was in dog years, he was almost 108. He lived a long, full life and for that we are thankful. However, we had hoped that he would've waited until after the holidays to die. We are also thrilled that we did not have to make the decision to put him to sleep and take his life from him. I couldn't imagine having to be in the position to do that. I have to give kuddos to those of you who had to make that very difficult decision.

I cried until I was exhausted. And then the next day, I got horribly ill and was sick for the next few weeks. What a way to spend Christmas.

We got Sydney when he was about 12 weeks old. He was the dominant dog in his litter and he showed that throughout most of his life. We were living in Mississippi when we received him from the breeder. When he arrived at the airport he was actually very, very sick. The airplane made a stop that the breeder was not informed of and was unloaded onto the hot tarmack and given a bucket full of water. The heat and the water made him very sick and when I met him at the airport, he was having seizures. I found out where the nearest vet was and took him there. The vet didn't know what was going to happen to him. The doctor informed us that he could die. He could have serious brain damage. He could have seizures the rest of his life but they were going to do everything they could. They started an IV and were administering fluids. I ended up going home to wait. Later that afternoon, I got a call from the vet. He said something along the lines of, "Ma'am, I've never seen this before. He was seizing and we tried to do what we could. We finally made the decision to try a dose of glucose. Within minutes his seizures stopped. He stood up and started looking at us like, 'Hey, what's up?'. It's as though nothing was wrong with him. We want to monitor him overnight. But you can come get him in the morning." Syd never had another seizure and had absolutely no brain damage. He was so excited when we came to pick him up. Life with Syd went on from there.

Syd was a dumpster diver as we called him. Even up until a few days before he died, he'd stick his nose in the trash can looking for goodies. One of the funniest memories I have of him was when he was about 4 months old. We had a wooded area behind our house and all of a sudden we see this puppy dragging this 8 foot long tree limb by his mouth across our back yard. This limb was about 5 times his size but he had no problems bringing it to us. It's almost as if he was trying to say, give this one a toss for me!

Syd was always a gentle easy going dog. When Eriks was a baby he'd climb all over him and Syd could've cared less. He always had this, "meh - whatever" look on his face when Eriks was messing with him.

Life is so weird without him. Almost wrong. I walk by the stairs and look up in hopes of seeing him laying there at the top. He loved having a bird's eye view of the house. I miss the sound of his tags clinking together when he scratched or shook himself out after standing up. I miss his bark. I miss the way he'd cock his head when you asked him if he wanted to go for a walk or if he wanted food. I miss his smell. The sound of his breathing. It's amazing how attached we get. When he died, it felt like a piece of me died.

We got his remains back from cremation about 10 days ago. He sits on our mantle for now. We might find a different place for him when we move. For now though, it's nice that he's in a prominent place and I can look at him every time I walk by. Getting him back in his wooden box really made his death final. After we took him to the vet for cremation, I did spend about 30 minutes saying goodbye to him there. I so badly just wanted to get up on the table with him and lay down and hold him. The next day, I felt guilty. Weird I know. But I felt like I didn't spend enough time saying goodbye and I felt a little bit like I had abandoned him.

Gabby our other dog has been quite mopey since his death. She's lost her companion. When we leave the house she stands at the door between the house and the garage and has this horrible look of disappointment on her face about being left alone. She's getting better but I know she's wondering why he's gone and why he's not coming back.

Syd, wherever you are, we loved you so very, very much. You will always be a part of us. You were one of the best things that happened to us and we will cherish every memory we have of you. You endured so much with us including 5 moves and always easily adapted to your new surroundings. Thank you for the 13.5 years you were with us. You made our lives more complete with your companionship and unconditional love. We will meet you again one day on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge.

"Blizzard"

2011-01-10T14:05:00.000-05:00

I will get back to catching up on things that happened over the past few weeks but had to blog about the 5 inches of snow we got last night and the fun the kids had in it earlier today.

Snow is such a rarity here in the South. And usually if we do get it, it's just a dusting. Nothing to write home about. However, the snow we received is a completely different story. It came down hard and fast. It's been a long time since I've seen that much snow fall in that short of an amount of time. It was breathtakingly beautiful even though it was dark outside.

The entire metro area has shut down for the day. There are virtually no cars going in and out of my neighborhood. There have been a few people on ATVs going here and there. It is seriously like a blizzard has hit. I know all my northern friends are cackling in disbelief that 5 inches shuts down the city. I know if I were home in Indy, I would be out and about and school likely wouldn't have been shutdown for the day. Possibly delayed, but not closed.

I am going ot be so sad when it melts. The kids have loved it. Emi did not want to come in for lunch and it wasn't easy getting Eriks to stop asking this morning when he was going to be able to go out and play. I called my mom and said a big 'Thank You' for the snow pants she bought the kids. They came in handy and kept the kids nice and dry while they rolled around in the front yard. And I'm truly my mother's daughter. Lane and I cleared the patio out back, the walkway, driveway and sidewalk of snow. I don't want to have to trudge through it. Nor do I want other people to have to do it either. Plus adding it to my front yard means that the kids have more of it to play with.

Hopefully the kids will get more play time before it all goes away.

I love this photo! She decided to pull a typical silly Emi face while we were getting snow clothes on before going outside.

Eriks was doing some serious snow lounging. He tried to make snow angels but it wasn't working because he couldn't break through the light layer of ice on top of the snow.

Had to throw in the obligatory photo of me.

Eriks' Birthday Party

2011-01-04T13:09:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year Everyone!! We had a very rough end to 2010 but I will discuss that in another post in the future. Eriks went back to school today after a little over a 2 week break from school. I'm happy but sad that the winter break drew to a close. Our Christmas decorations are still up and will come down this weekend. They haven't even been up a month and I'd like them to hand around a little bit longer.

Eriks had his birthday party the weekend before his birthday. The reason we decided to do this is because his birthday fell on the Friday winter break started and my guess was that many people were going to start their holiday traveling that weekend and/or preparing for company. We decided it would be best to not have his birthday party then for fear that a number of his friends would not be able to come. Even on the weekend we did have his birthday just over 1/2 of the kids Eriks invited attended. Mid-December is not a good time to have a birthday. I'm thinking in the future we may start having 1/2 birthday parties in the summer when kids are out of school and more readily available for parties. Plus it will give Eriks the opportunity to have a birthday party when it's warm!

Eriks chose to have his birthday at a bounce place. The staff there was fantastic. They did all the set up, clean up, running the party, etc. All we had to do was show up, provide cake and pay for it. So worth it! The 14 kids in attendance had a blast. They were all drenched in sweat after bouncing their little hearts content. They then gobbled down pizza and cake and watched Eriks open presents. In my opinion this is the best birthday party Eriks has had. He couldn't stop talking about it. Here are some photos of the event.

Eriks wanted a Ben_10 cake so he got it!

I tried to get a good photo of all the kids but it's impossible

to get 14 kids who have been bouncing for 1 hr and 20 minutes

to sit still enough for a photo!

A very sweaty birthday boy!

Will Start Catching Up Soon

2010-12-30T20:29:00.000-05:00

It's been a VERY hectic 3 weeks that I've just begun to wrap my head around now that life is calming down a bit. It started out with Eriks birthday party and ended with Christmas. There's quite a bit that happened in between including a visit from grandparents, loss, our own trip...

I'm hoping tomorrow I can post about Eriks birthday party. Thanks for being patient. My New Year's resolution is to be a better blogger. Among other things.

Christmas Funk

2010-12-10T13:05:00.000-05:00

I used to never feel this way. This is the 3rd year running that I have not been excited for the holidays. I blame it on the move to Georgia 1 week before Christmas in 2008. We showed up here around the 16th of December. The house was filled with boxes that would not be unpacked in a hurry. As much as I wanted to get unpacked, we had to pack suitcases to go up to Indiana for the holidays. Even once we got to my parents house the spirit wasn't there. The past few weeks prior had been a whirlwind of Lane leaving his job in Arkansas, Eriks finishing the semester at his school, packers, movers, etc. Life was a complete blur. I was also having a hard time leaving my home. A home that I actually still own. It was so warm and inviting. It smelled fantastic every time I walked in the door. The walls were painted warm, happy colors. The house we live in now has this bland doctor's office beige on ALL the walls. We could have painted but it's not our house. We rent it and it would mean we'd have to paint the walls back when we move out. No thank you. I wish we had had more time to look for a rental but also in the winter, there's not much to pick from so we picked the house that we thought would be the best for us. The house has some problems that the landlord is in no hurry to take care of - including the roof that leaks above our master bedroom. The roof needs to be replaced but he's trying to figure out ways to just limp it along. I don't get that considering the landlord is planning on moving into the house after we move out so I don't know how long he's going to put up with a leaking roof if he doesn't take care of it before we move out. I've spent the past 2 years trying to make it feel like home but it's not. It never will be and it hurts that I never could. We have 6 months left in this house and then life takes us down a whole new road.

At this time last year I found out that the battery in my pacemaker was almost dead and I would have to have a new one put in so right after the New Year I went and had it replaced. I was worried and couldn't look past the worry and get excited about Christmas. And I should've been. My daughter was finally home from China after a long wait. I had may kids and my husband, what more could I want, right?

This year we've dealt with a lot with Eriks. We're still waiting for answers and if I talk about it, I'll get angry. So I will leave it at that. My pain issues over the past few months have made life on certain days absolutely miserable. Today is one of those days. I'm hurting a lot today. I spent 2 hours waiting to see my doctor on Tuesday to be told, "We'll do some blood work." Well DUH!!! I could've told you it would take blood work to figure it out. I was furious I waited 2 hours and wasted my time. In the 14 years I have been married to Lane, this is the 1st place I've ever lived and had to wait more than 45 minutes to see doctors. Seriously, if you have medical issues and you want good health care and short waits, don't move to Atlan.ta. I have seen specialists at Johns.Hopkins, M@yo Clinic and U.C.Los.Angeles which are 3 of the top medical facilities in the country. Not a single wait over 30-45 minutes at any of these facilities. I'm always waiting here. I end up wasting half my day or more going to the doctor here. With my pain issues getting things done has been difficult. When I'm hurting I don't want to do anything. And we all know how crazy things are this time of the year. Not only do you have all your normal tasks to complete you have about 1000 more on top of that!

Lane got strep throat almost 2 weeks ago and wouldn't go to the doctor until 5 days after he started complaining about it. By that time, he had shared it with me and last weekend I spent my Sunday morning at the urgent care clinic rather than at church with my family. It's going to be awhile before he gets to live this one down since he knows that when I get sick, I get really sick. That's why it's important to go to doctor ASAP. I don't need to contract it.

I realize my life as a military spouse is about to come to an end. Not that I really care. I think I'm actually feeling relief that my life won't be controlled anymore by Uncle.Sam. But I'm worried about Lane going to law school. What if it's not really what he wanted to do or he finds he doesn't like it? I'm concerned about living on less money and making sure all the bills get paid. What do we do if after 3 years of law school no one wants to hire Lane? Lane knows I feel this way. This is really the only thing about life after the military that scares me.

I was also dealt some blows with a few of our animals this year. Syd, our 13, almost 14 yr old lab was diagnosed with laryngeal paralysis this fall. We can't travel without him because it could be so severe that it could kill him. I don't want him dying in a kennel while I'm off on vacation. I could never live with myself if that happened. Luckily the episodes that cause the paralysis aren't happening too often but there could be a day when they do happen frequently. Then the day before Thanksgiving we got the news that George, my 13 yr old kitty is in the early stages of kidney disease (kidney failure). We had to put him on this expensive prescription food so his kidneys don't have to work so hard. The vet is optimistic that he'll live another 3 yrs but there's no guarantee. We'll have to do routine blood work every 6 months to check his kidney function. Those of you who know me well know George is my baby. There are days I love him more than Lane. I think it has to do with the fact that he doesn't argue back. I could have the worst day in the world and he'll curl up into my lap and make it a little better. And he's super weird. An oddball, just like me.

The tune "Where Are You Christmas?" by Faith.Hill has been running through my head. So where are you? Why can't I find you? This has always been my favorite time of year. I love Christmas more than my birthday. I'm praying that next year my Christmas spirit will be back in full swing. I'm hoping the move does me good. I will miss those who I met and became friends with here but it's not home. My heart doesn't live here. I'm hoping it lives in Indiana.

Giving Thanks

2010-11-30T20:39:00.000-05:00

It was just a quiet Thanksgiving here at our house this year. I cooked for the four of us but made enough food to feed 14 or more. The leftovers were good while they lasted! The kids watched a little bit of that big parade in NYC and decided to make up a marching band of their own. It was stinking cute watching them build instruments and then march around the house.

Around 2:30 after hours of cooking, we sat down to eat our delicious meal of turkey, dressing, potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls and homemade cranberry sauce. Not really trying to toot my own horn but I was proud of myself for making everything from scratch. Well, except for the rolls. I was not going to take time to do bread. I thank Pills.bury for doing the work there!

We spent the rest of the day watching football, talking to family on the phone and eating dessert. It was nice to spend our last Thanksgiving as a military family by ourselves. It's hard to believe that this time next year we will be back in Indiana having Thanksgiving with family there.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving with your families!

Pain

2010-11-22T22:58:00.000-05:00

I haven't been myself lately. It started about 3 months ago or so and has progressively gotten worse. I brushed it off at first and when it began to get worse, I chalked it up to the changing seasons. The weather was getting cooler and thought my stiffer joints was weather related and once I got acclimated to the cooler temps, I'd be OK. How wrong I have been. I'm still hurting and the pain is getting worse.

So let me rewind a little bit. A few weeks after we returned home from our 2 1/2 weeks in IN visiting with family, friends and Eriks attending camp I started to wake up with sore, stiff feet. At first I kind of thought maybe my plantar fasciitis was back since it hurt to walk. But the pain wasn't in the muscle(s) on the bottom sides of my feet where plantar fasciitis occurs. The pain was more in my toes, my ankles and the tops of my feet. After a week or so, the pain subsided so I thought it was gone, whatever it was. Then on random days I'd wake up again with stiff feet. Then I began to think that maybe I was positioning my feet in weird ways while I was sleeping. I am a rather awkward sleeper who puts herself in strange positions while I sleep because for me they're comfortable. Also after having my sternum cut in half twice to have heart surgery, finding positions that support my chest while I sleep have been key. It's amazing how not being able to put weight on a rib cage that has been wired shut when you sleep has you finding interesting and comfortable ways to sleep. I still can't sleep full on my chest it hurts and the wires are still wrapped around my sternum. It will take years and years for them to disintegrate. I actually use a small travel-size pillow to support my chest when I sleep.

Not long after that I started waking up with a stiff neck, shoulder and back pain. Luckily this has gone away for the most part so I'm not really sure they are correlated. However, there are days from time to time that I wake up with back & neck pain so severe it causes migraines. Luckily it's been a few weeks since the last time I had the back & neck pain.

Fast forward to 3 weeks or so ago. The foot pain has gotten worse. At the end of October or early November there was about 2-3 days straight where the pain was so intense in one of my feet that it was radiating up my leg to my knee and my hip. I was hobbling on it severely. Sleeping was nearly impossible and after 2 days of very little sleep, I just broke down. It got a bit better but in my left leg the pain is constant in my foot, ankle and knee. Sometimes my hip gets bothered. It varies from day to day. The right foot and ankle are sore but so far, no extensive radiating up the leg. When all this happened I also began noting pain in my hands when I woke up. It was stiffness and not easy to grasp my fingers into a fist. Well the stiffness in my hands has not gone away at all. I'm trying to spend less time on the computer but it seems as though almost everything I do requires me using my hands. Opening things with lids has become difficult. And of course my husband has to close everything tightly so there are times it's really difficult for me to open things. I'm finding when Lane is home, I'm handing off more and more for him to open. Why cause pain when I don't have to.

Since the pain has gotten worse and I'm realizing it's not going away, I finally called the doctor. Bad news is I can't get in until Dec 7th. So I have about 2 weeks until I can get seen. My best guess is that I've developed arthritis. But that's just a guess.

Being in pain really stinks. I don't think anyone, Lane included really knows how much I hurt. I've been hiding it. Unfortunately, the pain has caused me to become really impatient. Especially with the kiddos and I hate it. I don't want them to see that I hurt. I don't want them to see me wince as I go up and down the stairs. I'm really cursing the 2 story house we're renting because of the stairs and because the idiot who designed the floor plan made the stairs extremely steep. I've always cursed the steep stairs but even more so now.

When I have my answers, I'll post them. Just send lots of patience my way so I can get through the next few weeks.

Been a Few Weeks

2010-11-15T14:46:00.000-05:00

Not much has happened within the past few weeks so that's why I've been MIA. The weather for early November has been glorious. Our temps have been in the low to mid 70's for the most part. Today however it's 55 and rainy. But I can't complain about the rain. We have a severe shortage of rain for the year. From what I know we're in the neighborhood of 8-10 inches behind in the precipitation department. The rain that will fall today and tomorrow is very, very welcome.

Emi is getting more into role playing. She's spending more time cooking at her kitchen, rocking her babies and playing with her dollhouse. It's so cute to see her cover up her babies and put her finger in front of her mouth in a shushing gesture. Then she makes the sign for sleep. Emi is also into everything! Her latest is she's gone onto our desktop computer and renamed a bunch of files that we now have to figure out what they are. The result is that our computer is now password protected so she can't just climb up, jump on and start clicking away. Never underestimate the intelligence of a 2 yr old. We didn't have this issue with Eriks so we didn't think Emi would cause trouble either. WRONG!

We have one really great piece of news to share. It involves this:

On Saturday, Lane received his acceptance letter for law school. He'll be starting next fall. We're moving back to Indiana next summer definitely now. We were about 95% sure but of course nothing was final until we got word that he got in. Now we're house hunting. Scary! After a 15 yr absence, I'm going home next June. It's definitely weird to know that we won't be moving every 3 yrs anymore. In the 40 some years Lane has been alive he will no longer be a nomad. He grew up a military brat and then joined after college. Even in college he was a nomad because he was in a work study program splitting his time between TX & NM. The kids, well at least Eriks because Emi doesn't quite understand yet, are excited. He's ready to be with his cousins and grandparents.

Can't believe Thanksgiving is next week. Emi's up from her nap. Time to go get her!

Halloween 2010

2010-11-01T22:04:00.000-04:00

Emi & Eriks had a blast this Halloween! Last year Emi was just about 20 months when she went trick or treating and really wasn't super sure. This year she started out slow and wasn't super sure what to do for the first 2-3 houses but caught on super quick. It was funny to watch her chase Eriks up to the door. No matter how much we told Eriks to slow down and wait for his sister he wasn't having any of it. So Lane had to go to the door with her. My mom came down this weekend so she stayed at our house passing out candy while we took the kids around the neighborhood. It was nice since it was the 1st time EVER we've both been out with our kids. Next year we'll be back in Indy and we'll be able to take the kids to my parents house for trick or treating.

Digging through her treats for more candy!

Searching for a Pumpkin

2010-10-28T22:36:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday we had glorious, nearly 80 degree weather. We still had yet to get our pumpkins for Halloween so we took the kids to a local pumpkin patch to find the perfect pumpkins. It was really busy but still really fun. The kids liked looking at the farm animals and especially the hayride to and from the actual area where the pumpkins were. We only found 1 pumpkin there that we really liked that wasn't too small or too big so we had to find more elsewhere.

Enjoy the photos from our outing!

Expect the Unexpected

2010-10-26T14:07:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday night after putting Emi down I was getting myself comfortable for the night. Changing into pj's, etc. While I was doing so Lane came in and said, "Go peek at your son." My first reaction was, great, what is he doing now since a fair share of his activities include naughty behavior. When I peeked out of my bedroom into his, I did not expect to see what I saw. It made me feel guilty for thinking the worst. So what did I see? This.

For those of you don't know, Eriks is saying the Rosary. As most of you know or now know, we are Catholic and that Eriks attends a Catholic school. We began teaching Eriks how to say the Rosary when he was about 3. He's now saying it on his own in English & in Latvian no less! I was very proud of him when I saw the above photo. I'm hoping his godparents are proud too.

Eriks does have his fair share of missteps. We're still waiting on a diagnosis on his behavior. I'm not going to get to into it because it's going to make me mad. His doctor has been unable to reach his teacher to speak with her. The doctor says she's calling his teacher several times a week without being able to contact her and she's not returning Dr. L's calls. His teacher is married and a mother so I'm trying to figure out why she isn't returning the docs calls. If this were her kid I'm certain she'd expect her child's teacher to respond to the doctor. It has been 2 months since Dr. L started trying to contact her. What even baffles me more is that Dr. L also wanted to talk to his kindergarten teacher from last year and she was able to speak to her easily. By the way, his K teacher is a single mom of 2 boys who are very active in sports. Eriks talked about all the sports they played last year. Before the school year I had talked with some 1st grade parents who were not impressed with her. I'm not getting a warm fuzzy feeling from her either. Eriks likes the other 1st grade teacher much more, but he adores his classes' parapro. We have parent-teacher conferences on Friday so we'll find out why she's not responding.

Emi's First Haircut

2010-10-17T22:38:00.000-04:00

I have been letting Emi's hair grow since she came home from China last summer with the exception of trimming up her bangs myself to keep her from looking like a shaggy dog. While in Dallas we took Emi to get her 1st haircut. It was an adventure to say the least. She can't hear without her hearing aid so trying to get her to do what she needed to do via signing was not going to cut it for her. She was OK the 1st couple of cuts but after that she wanted none of it. So she ended up sitting in my lap while I tried to keep her head straight to get her hair cut. I also thought a hair cut would do her good in helping her hair grow faster. She was really happy after it was all over with and liked her haircut. Hopefully the next haircut won't be as big of a chore as the 1st one. I wish I would've been able to get a better picture of the back of her hair because it was pretty long. The sides were short but the back was long. It's almost as though she was sporting a mullet!

She looks so cute her in her little flippy bob.

Texas State Fair

2010-10-12T09:37:00.000-04:00

Emi and I just got back from a girls' trip to Dallas. Lane's sister and her husband adopted their son, M in March and I had yet to meet him. They also moved into a new home last year that I had yet to visit. So we left the boys at home and jetted to the Big D.

It was a very busy visit but I enjoyed every minute of it. The temps in Dallas were unseasonably cool. Only in the low to mid 80's. Usually this time of year it's still hovering around 90. Our 1st day there we headed off to the Texas State Fair. This was Emi's 1st time at the fair. Period. She had a blast. If you've never been to the Texas State Fair it is HUGE to say the least. It is an all day excursion. Marla and I tried a fried margarita. It wasn't as good as we expected. It was pretty much a strong margarita poured over a fried piece of dough. We thought maybe it was going to be some margarita flavored dough that was fried but it wasn't. I would've been happy with the margarita without the dough in it.

Emi loved everything that was going on. Unfortunately there weren't that many animals left at the fair as the judging was pretty much over and people had taken their livestock home. That was a huge bummer. But Emi loved seeing Elsie the cow and her baby Beau.

Emi and M both crashed on the drive back to the house from the fair. They had a good time.

The Kids in Pictures

2010-10-03T17:17:00.000-04:00

It's been awhile since I've posted photos of the kids. I have been swamped over the past 2 weeks. Last week I had to have the brakes replaced in my car. That was an expensive trip to the mechanic but it had to be done. Emi has a cold this week that she has shared with both Lane and I. Although hers is far worse than ours. I'm hoping that I am nearly over mine but I have been coughing up junk and I sound like a frog.

Emi and I leave the boys on Tuesday as we jet off to Dallas for 5 days. We're going to visit Lane's sister, Marla and her husband and their son, M. I have yet to meet M and he is nearly 7 months old!! Eriks & Emi met him in early June while Lane and I were having a ball in New York. They also bought a new house last year that I haven't seen either. So the girls are going to leave and have some fun for a few days. Grandma & Grandpa (Lane's parents) are coming up from San Antonio next weekend so we'll get to see them too!

Eriks only has 2 more soccer games this season. Right now they stand at 1-2-2. I'm hoping the last 2 games are wins. But if not, that's OK too. Eriks has grown as a player so much more this season that he did when he was playing in the Spring. We're proud that he is doing so well in soccer. He's doing well in school too. His reading level has grown a lot as well and is now requesting to read Magic Treehouse books by himself!

Emi is doing well. She is signing more which means we are having to learn more signs to teach her. Speech is still slow but at least it is progressing. There are definitely more sounds coming out of her mouth, we just wish they were more recognizable. After we return from our girls trip, we will look into doing speech therapy 2x's a week rather than just one. It will be better for her if we do. Emi is getting sassier by the minute. I've tried to get her attention while she has been engrossed in other things and will look at me and sign and say, "No". I also scolded her for not listening and she pointed her finger at me and gave me a lecture back in her babble. It was so hard not to laugh at her.

Cheese!!!

Reading the Sunday paper with daddy after church last weekend.

He has such a sweet face. I just wish he would stop thinking the world was always out to get him.

I have no idea what happened here. I was doing something and I turned around and saw this. Luckily, my camera was out and she was more than happy to continue posing. She is so stinking silly.

When Will Adoption Ever Be Portrayed in a Positive Light?

2010-09-23T22:20:00.002-04:00

A fellow adoptive mom that I am friends with on FB linked this on her FB page. I am raving mad! I'm a little annoyed that time after time, the media keeps bringing these stories to the forefront. It gives adoption naysayers fuel to say adoption is a bad idea. Why doesn't the media do story after story of positive adoption situations? Because it doesn't draw viewers in and nobody cares about those of us who have had happy endings to our adoption journeys.

I think what I'm most ticked off about is some of the comments I read posted by others on this news story. Let me share some of them.

"This is a wonderful story. Now this child can grow up with his real family and real father. He is a lucky little guy. Now he will be with who he truly belongs with. I was apalled to read the adopters comment of, "once he was born I new he was mine". That baby wasn't hers. How absurd. And the adopter father coming out and saying that the real father should have decided he wanted his son before he was born. Where do some of these adopters get off thinking that people have to decide if they want there children before they are born? This isn't there place. Do they think they have rights to children that aren't even born? They are not in charge of other peoples families. So happy that these judges are finally get it. Real family is always the best. Every human being deserves this."

This one above made me the angriest. He truly belongs with a guy who has a history of violence and has been arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia. So much better than parents who according to the law in order to adopt had to go through a criminal background check in both the state of Indiana and in the state of Ohio as well as an FBI background check. How do I know this, I had to do it on more than one occasion in multiple states including - Maryland, California, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Georgia. Every state requires it in order to adopt. Sure, "real" family is always the best. Who cares if they're violent, abusive, do/sell drugs, steal, etc. So mad I could scream!

"Wow. So the family knew the biological father wanted the baby 17 days after birth and then refused to give him his child all of this time? This is so terrible for the child, but it looks like it was caused by the family attempting to adopt. I can't believe they said the problem was that the biological father filed before they did. The child was rightfully his - not just a prize up for grabs for the first people to file legal papers. The real problem is that they've been keeping someone else's child all this time against their wishes."

"To anyone who feels that Grayson shouldn't be returned to his biological father is crazy. For one there's nothing that states he left a pregnant woman on the side of the road (lookingout) and the story states that he was arrested not convicted. and SO WHAT IF HE WAS, does that mean that he shouldn't raise his son? We don't know the whole story. Why did the mother chose to give Grayson up in the first place? When the father came forward after 17 days the Vaughns should have done the right thing. The only thing to do was to give Grayson back to his father. I pray for the Vaughn family that they will find a way to come to terms with what has happened. However if they wouldn't dragged this out for three years they could probably have anotheer child by now. This was an awful thing to have happened, but think about what Grayson father was feeling."

I am so sick of the misinformation on adoption. In one of the comments someone actually said this boy was SOLD to the adoptive family!! I get annoyed that people think we buy our children. Not annoyed, angry. Furious. If they only knew what all that money is really used for. We don't pay for our children. We pay for all the paperwork to get done correctly and LEGALLY!

I'm sick of all those people out there that don't think my kids are my real kids because I didn't give birth to them. Biology is the least of what makes me a parent. I'm leaving it at that because I'm not in the mood to go off on a tangent about "real" parents. I've met my fair share of "real" parents that are not deserving of the kids they gave birth to.

In the case of this poor little boy, the state of Ohio and his biological dad failed him. The state of Ohio failed because if he (birth father) filed a petition of paternity why did it take the state so long to reunite them? Seems to me, once paternity was established they should've started the process of making sure the biological father could truly care for this child and require contact until placement. Instead the boy is now 3 years old and without any sort of transition is being taken away from the only family he's ever known and placed with a stranger. If the biological father was so gung-ho on getting him back why didn't he attempt any communication with him? If anything the biological father is treating this boy like property and staking his claim. How tragic for this boy who was loved by a wonderful family and is being forced into the arms of a stranger staking his claim all in the name of biology.

I'm stepping off my soapbox now.

Complete Chaos

2010-09-09T12:08:00.000-04:00

That's my excuse for not blogging and I'm sticking to it. Eriks started school almost a month ago and my to - do list is getting longer and longer and no end in sight. So here's what you've missed.

Eriks is doing awesome in the 1st grade. He really loves it and his reading is getting better. He did a computerized test recently to see what his reading level is and for a 1st grader he's average. Doesn't surprise me since we never pushed any summer reading. I kind of regret it. But he's getting better and better every day since his homework requires him to read 20 minutes a day and we're sticking to it. We're also getting closer to a diagnosis for Eriks and his issues. We've got it about 90% nailed down but there is yet some further testing the psychologist wants to do. We're doing gymnastics again once a week and Eriks is really kicking butt in it. His natural talent and ability to throw himself into multiple cartwheels, round offs, handstands continues to amaze me every day. His movement is so beautiful and precise. Like he was born for this sport. Friday night and Saturdays are taken up with soccer. Another sport he really enjoys and he always wants to be in the game. He doesn't want to take a break for anything. His athletic ability period makes me envious. Eriks was under the weather for 4 days and thus instead of having a long Labor Day weekend had a Labor Day week and was home for 6 days! His private school had an in-service day on Tuesday and he just went back yesterday.

Emi is definitely a 2 yr old. She's into everything and is definitely testing the boundaries. We do the 3 strikes and you're out with Emi as we did with Eriks at this age. We ask you the 1st time to stop doing it, the 2nd time we tell you to stop and if we have to say it a 3rd time it's punishment. Emi's learned the game so well that when we get to the 3rd time, she giggles and runs away as you go to get her for timeout. So frustrating and funny at the same time. Emi is still doing speech therapy once a week and is becoming less and less of a compliant student. She wants to do it all on her time and has started pouting when she doesn't want to do therapy. Talk about frustration! She just doesn't understand the benefit this has for her. Our signing is moving rapidly. I learn a new word and she picks it up quickly. I'm afraid that soon I'm going to have a hard time keeping up with her. Her spoken speech is also coming along but slowly. We're guessing she has the vocabulary skills of a 10-12 month old. There are only a few words she says but she is progressing and that's the direction we want to move in. The words that she can say with us understanding her are "dog, no, up, more, Eriks, mama, cow, moo, amen, hi". That's all I can think of right now. She can sign way more than she can verbally say. She got used to having her throat open to her nasal passages and thus isn't closing off the back of her throat when she talks. We're going to see the Speech Pathologist next month to figure out how to get her to do what she needs to be doing. At times it is frustrating for her to not be able to say what she wants and it's frustrating for us to not understand her. Emi was recently featured in our adoption agencies newsletter. You can go here to see her photo. She's in the Fall 2010 newsletter. We were honored to be asked to have her photo featured. The only bummer is that I wish the would've used a more recent photo. The one in the newsletter is about a year old and was taken a few weeks after she came home.

I'm hanging in there. The kids are keeping me super busy because Lane is working a lot. I'm definitely hoping for a bit of time away soon to unwind. Hoping for a weekend getaway soon by myself. I'm looking forward to just getting a pedicure right now. I also turned my hobby into a part-time job. I became a demonstrator for a company called Stampin' Up! whom I adore. I've been a user of their products for 12 yrs now. My motivations were to get some time away from the house. Lane gets 8-14 hours a day away because of his job so why can't I get 2-3 hours away for something I love? The other motivation is the extra money. Lane will be starting Law School next Fall (God willing) and to have a little bit of extra income besides what we'll get from retirement and living expenses from the GI Bill would be a nice bonus. I have a website set up at Stampin' Up! where you can shop with me. Here's the link if you're interested in taking a look at what the company has to offer.

Lane is crazy busy with work. He's getting to the point where work is a huge PITA. Lane doesn't like waiting around for things to get done and unfortunately, this goes on a lot at work for him. Production has been ramped up this Fall and there's a lot coming off the line so he is going to be super busy. I think it was a blessing in disguise that he turned down starting Law School at Georgia State this Fall. He has a new boss and I don't think Lane would've liked saying, "I have to be done by 4 so I can leave by 5 to be in class 3 days a week." That so would've not floated. Lane's working on his application for Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis. He's doing the early application so that if he for some bizarre reason doesn't get in, we can go to plan B. Whatever that is! We're hoping to hear by December if he got in or not. So keep your fingers crossed that it all works out for him.

Syd our 13 yr old lab isn't doing so hot. On Tuesday he was diagnosed with Laryngeal Paralysis. This is the definition of what it is:
Laryngeal paralysis is a disorder in which the nerves that control the muscles and cartilage that open and close the larynx (voicebox) do not function properly, causing voice changes and difficulty with eating or breathing. The larynx is located in the back of the throat. Air moves from the mouth or nose through the larynx, and into the trachea (windpipe). Normally, the laryngeal cartilages (also known as the arytenoid cartilages) are pulled open during breathing. In laryngeal paralysis, these cartilages do not open and close properly, making it difficult for the animal to take in air normally.
He's had what we call breathing episodes for months now. Unfortunately, they've gotten worse. He's had more than 1/2 a dozen in just the past few weeks alone and 2 on Tuesday. It seems like he's having an asthma attack because he's wheezing and just can't get air into his lungs. The problem is those flaps are not opening to allow the air into his lungs. It is so painful to watch him have an episode. Surgery isn't an option at his age because there could be complications. The biggest one being if they tie back the flap(s) then he has the possibility of getting serious pneumonia and dying. So we're in the process of getting him on steroids to help. The problem with the steroids is that he has to be taken off of the arthritis medicine because it doesn't mix well with the steroids and can cause deadly stomach ulcers. So instead of the arthritis meds he's on pain meds which pretty much knock him out most of the day. The goal right now is making Syd as comfortable as possible for however long he has left. As of right now, our plans to travel over the holidays are non-existent. With these issues, it's just not safe to kennel him anymore because the paralysis could cause asphyxiation. I know someone out there is going to think I'm selfish for putting my dog ahead of visiting our families for the holidays but it is what it is. If I kenneled Syd just so I could go visit my family and he died, I'd never forgive myself. He is a part of my family and I have to take care of him.

That's it for now. Sorry I've been MIA for so long. Hopefully things will settle a little and I can get back to some blogging.

Swimming Fun

2010-08-12T10:58:00.000-04:00

While away for 2 weeks the kids spent a lot of time in my parents inground pool. They love, love, love the water. Eventually when the time is right, we too will own a house with pool so the kids just have to go out the back door to get to the pool. Both kids are fishes. After watching Emi this summer I am seriously going to be looking into a toddler swim class so she can learn to swim. At my parents house she was crawling along the edge. She also kept stepping off the last stair to touch the bottom. The problem was the water was over her head if she stepped down. But did she care? Noooo! She thought it was hilarious. We also had a get-together one day with the kids' cousins and friends. And about the time we were wrapping everything up, a thunderstorm hit. It was a great afternoon and I'm looking forward to next summer when I will be home for good spending more time with my family and friends.

My mom swimming with the kids.

My cousin Rob's kids S & E. They are really cute kids. S looks like his Grandfather (Rob's dad) and E is the spitting image of her father. I always tell Rob that E is him in a dress!

Laila's 1st Birthday

2010-08-08T20:31:00.000-04:00

While up in Indiana the kids and I were able to celebrate my niece, Laila's 1st birthday with her. In all honesty it was planned that way. I wouldn't miss Laila's birthday. It's hard to believe that a year has flown by. My parents within 2 weeks or so last year had 2 new grandchildren. Laila loves cake and couldn't get enough of it. We loved watching her eat it.

Week in Michigan

2010-08-06T16:07:00.000-04:00

With the exception of last summer we have spent at least a week up in Michigan at my parents "summer place" up on Clear Lake. It's nothing fancy. Just a permanently parked trailer with a very nice deck in a great setting. Eriks attends camp for a week at Garezers, the Latvian Camp there. We love it there and are waiting for our own trailer space to open up so that we don't have to room with my parents anymore. Cell phones rarely work there and forget about internet. It's a very peaceful and relaxing place to spend a week unwinding. Eriks has a great friend also named Eriks that he has gone to camp with 3 out of the past 4 years. They would've been together again last year if it hadn't been for Lane's adoption trip during camp. Next year they will be together again and they can't wait.

Eriks has a 1st while we were there. The Friday afternoon after camp was over, my uncle M who has a boat took Eriks tubing for the first time. He is hooked. He loved it and I loved watching him have so much fun. Unfortunately, the silly mommy forgot her camera and has no photo proof. I'm still kicking myself. There's always next summer!

Here are some of the photos from our week in the woods.

Emi found a woly worm and loved it. She loved having them crawl on her hand and up her arm.

Eriks and the woly worm climbing up his arm. If you look back at my old blog you can find a similar photo. It's a tradition we've done every year up there.

Her future's so bright, she's gotta wear my cousin's shades!

Singing at camp with some of the other kids and counselors.

Eriks and his friend Eriks and K.

Being silly with Eriks's sister A who is Emi's new buddy. A is 4 months younger than Emi and they will be at camp together next summer!

Dancing in the rain. We actually ended up stripping the kids down to their birthday suits, grabbing the shampoo and soap and giving them a shower! They loved it!

Pool Play Date

2010-08-04T17:10:00.000-04:00

The Thursday before we left for our vacation which was 3 weeks ago we had a pool date with Miss Briana and Lisa. It was a great day as the sun was shining and the temps were perfect for staying cool in the pool! Lisa and I bought our girls the same swimsuit without each others knowledge. When Lisa posted some photos of Briana wearing the suit either on her blog or Face.book did I notice that I had bought Emi the exact same swimsuit. Guess we both have good taste! So we both (without discussion) put the girls in the same suit that day. I'm sure there were some people at the pool that thought that the girls were sisters.

Emi had a blast. She loves the pool and it is impossible to keep her out of the water. Once school starts I'm going to have to look into some sort of Aquatots swim lessons for her in hopes that she might be swimming by herself next summer. Briana has become a great swimmer! She's been taking lessons this summer and her teacher is great and it shows.

Here are the photos from the afternoon. Enjoy!

Emi has the greatest facial expressions. You never know what she'll do next with it!

I'll be playing catch up so look for lots of posts over the next few days!

Last Day in NYC

2010-07-12T14:57:00.000-04:00

I realized looking back in my blog that I totally forgot about blogging the last day of our trip. I'm blaming the heat. It's gone to my head and fried my brain.

So here's a quick summary since we had a very laid back day. The first thing we did Friday was we went down to the National Archives to find out some of my family history. I wanted to know exact dates of when my mom and her family came into the US through New York. I was able to find the ships manifest with the names of my mom's family that came to the US on that ship. I also got photocopies of the manifest with all the typed up information showing my mom's age, passenger number, ethnicity, date of departure from Bremerhaven (Bremen, Germany) and date of arrival into NYC. It was super cool. This was a great addition to the family history my aunt had already gathered.

From there we took the subway to the Upper West Side to buy some H&H bagels to take home. These are the best bagels in NYC. They're always hot and fresh. It was unusual to be handed a bag of fresh, warm bagels. They're long gone now but they were oh so good. We wandered around a little bit but knew we had to get back to Times Square. We decided that we really wanted to see one more Broadway show while we were there. After the awesomeness of La Cage Aux Folles, I was hungry for more. Being big fans of Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth and hearing the rave reviews about Promises, Promises, we decided that was how we were going to close out our NYC trip.

After a long afternoon of all of the above, we dragged ourselves back to the hotel for a few hours of R&R before heading to the theater. The show was really good but La Cage was still way better. Sorry. I think that my reasoning for that is that I was laughing though about 90% of La Cage where it was only about 60% laughter through Promises, Promises. I'm so ready to go back to NYC for another trip just to do more Broadway shows. So here is the last bit of photos from our trip.

Admitting Life's Imperfections

2010-07-09T12:10:00.003-04:00

I try to spend as much time focusing on the positive as I can but it's not always easy. I think it's easier to try to bury the things in our lives we can't fix than deal with them head on. This is one of my big personal flaws. I take on more than I should. I burden myself with things I cannot control. I'm pretty sure it's genetic.

Where am I going with this you ask? The purpose of my blogging when I started it was to talk about the journey of adoption. International adoption to be specific and the ups and downs of getting to the goal - our daughter. I knew there were going to be lots of unknowns - birth parents, birthdate (Emi's is a guesstimate), health history, etc. What I failed to realize is that this isn't just an international adoption issue. It's an issue even in domestic adoption. We are finding that out first hand.

Eriks birthdate and birth parents are known. What gets tricky is medical history. Even his birth mother doesn't even know her full medical history even after trying to get help from her mother.

This is where the admitting imperfection comes in. Let me start out by saying this - Eriks is a very bright, articulate, athletic, sensitive, caring and beautiful child. I love him for him. When Lane and I adopted him, we had no idea what to expect and we are dealing with that now. Eriks has always had a tendency to be impulsive - doing things and saying things before thinking them through. This has gotten him in A LOT of trouble. But after his teacher at school said something to us a few weeks into the Spring semester, did we consult with our pediatrician who referred us to a behavioral specialist (Dr. L). This is interesting because he had a great Fall semester without any issues. We're not sure what changed over Christmas break, but something did. The pediatrician did not believe he had ADHD based on her observations. After having Eriks tested, she was right. He does not have ADHD. But, what Dr. L. is seeing is behavioral problems and is beginning to lean towards an impulsive behavioral disorder. She wants to speak to our pediatrician before she makes any accurate diagnosis. In addition to doing and saying things without thinking about it she notices that there are 'twitches' he has which are common among people who have impulsive behavioral issues. Dr. L. asked us about the other children Eriks' birth mother is raising. Lane and I both said that they have been diagnosed with ADHD but we don't know details. Dr. L. believes that the children likely have the same issues Eriks does and have been misdiagnosed with ADHD. This is where the medical history becomes tricky. We have a relationship with Eriks birth mom but not much. It's definitely not one where I can call her up and ask her questions about the other boys to give information back to Dr. L. This is frustrating because I don't have the answers and I want to make sure Eriks gets exactly what he needs to help him.

I also have to admit that this entire adventure has been emotionally and physically exhausting. You can't reason with a child who doesn't emotionally connect to consequences. Don't get me wrong, he has a cow when he loses privileges or has some consequences to his actions but 5 minutes later, he's forgotten and doesn't care. There are times he even says he doesn't care.

With all this being said, I am glad not only for myself, but for Eriks that we are going to find a way to deal with this. Dr. L. has said as parents, we are doing everything right and that we are putting Eriks first. She has had patients whose parents aren't doing what they should be doing for their kids.

I'll likely be blogging about our progress in the future. I decided to share this because I know that Lane and I are not alone. There are other parents like us. Not only to adopted children but biological children. If I can just share with one parent what we are going through, then I'm happy.

Peace and love.

4th of July

2010-07-06T17:50:00.000-04:00

This was Emi's very first 4th of July not only here in the U.S. but also as a citizen. We laid low around the house most of the day and weren't really sure if we were going to go watch fireworks anywhere. The prospect of finding parking and dealing with the crowds wasn't super appealing. However, in the end, we decided what the heck. This was going to be our final 4th of July here in GA. This time next year, we'll be calling Indianapolis "Home Sweet Home."

After having dinner at McDonald's (not our 1st choice but most of the places we wanted to eat decided they were going to be closed for the 4th), we drove over to Acworth and proceeded to walk from near downtown to Lake Acworth to watch the fireworks.

There were a ton of people there but it wasn't as crazy as I thought. They had a band playing some pretty good music so we were having fun on our blanket as we waited for the show to start. Eriks and Emi did a bit of running around and playing. The lady sitting behind us gave the kids small American flags to wave. Pretty soon it got dark and they shot off one firework about 5 minutes until showtime. What was funny about this is that a few blankets over from us this guy was laying down and had obviously dozed off. Upon hearing the one ka-boom, we hear from the guy, "FIREWORKS!!! Holy Sh*t!!" When Lane heard the outburst he started laughing and continued laughing for about the next 2 minutes. I don't really know why he thought the guys reaction was so dang funny but he did. I started laughing at Lane.

The show was pretty good. Not the best fireworks I've seen but still entertaining and worth keeping the kids up late for. We trekked back to the car and luckily dealt with no traffic because all the cars leaving were going the other direction! Score!! Put the kids to bed and had a beer.

Hope you all had a great 4th of July!!

One Year Ago Today...

2010-06-29T22:44:00.000-04:00

Emilija was physically placed in Lane's arms and this day is known at Gotcha Day. Emilija was no longer just a picture we had posted on the refrigerator and looked at a thousand times a day. She was no longer the little girl that played in my dreams. She was ours and safely in her daddy's arms.

I still can't believe that a year has gone by. It went by oh so fast. Emi has changed so much in that year and I still feel like she's always been here. Her entire life. I love her smile when she greets me every morning. I love that when I leave her at home with her daddy she races to the garage door with her sweet little lips puckered to give me a goodbye kiss. I love when she charges toward me arms wide open in anticipation of a great big hug. I love her curiosity and love of animals (she has become obsessed with the cat and looks for him all the time). I love how even though her language hasn't developed she in her own language will tell me a story. I love her sweet feet that I kiss on every day. I love how she giggles when I put lotion on her after bathtime (she's so ticklish). There are so many more things I could say I love about this girl but it would take forever! What I love most is that she's ours and will be for always.

I am so grateful her birth mother chose life for her even if she could not provide one for her. I'm so grateful that the Peoples Republic of China allowed us the opportunity to adopt this wonderful and precious little being.

Happy Gotcha Day, Emilija!

Gotcha Day 2009

Today 2010

New York City Day 4

2010-06-26T23:03:00.000-04:00

This was our second to last full day in NYC and this was one of the hottest and busiest by far. We got up a little earlier than usual so that we could head back down to Rockefeller Center and have a shot at seeing the Today show cast and the possible chance to be on national TV as the cameras panned the crowd. I was a little afraid that it was going to be a zoo down there because both Crystal Bower.sox and Lee De.Wyze were going to be on the plaza performing. It wasn't too bad. Although there was a line already forming for the Today Show Concert Series Friday performance featuring Justin.Bieber. I couldn't believe it.

It was really cool to see them perform. It was even cooler to get to see one of them up close in person. Crystal went the other direction to greet the crowd but Lee wandered down to where we were and I got some pretty good photos of him.

This was a picture of Lee performing and me using my nice zoom lens.

This was not taken using a zoom. I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to. He was really nice and humbled that there were so many people there supporting him.

Unfortunately, we only got a brief glimpse of Meredith.Viera and Ann.Curry. I think Al was off on assignment and not sure where Matt was. Maybe he was there. The bummer is that I didn't get any photos of the Today Show morning crew. I was hoping. The good news is that thanks to a group of girlfriends that were there and their sign, we made it on TV. My mom and Eriks both saw us. They didn't think it was going to happen. The bad news is that Lane and I at the last minute the night before decided not to set our DVR via internet to record it so we could watch ourselves if we in fact made it on TV. Still kicking ourselves for that move. Oh well. I guess it means we'll have to go back to NYC and try again!

After the concert was over, the crowd pretty much left because that was the end of any outside activity. So we then headed to the American Girl flagship store and bought some stuff for Emi's Itty Bitty Baby Doll and then headed to drop it off at the room before going to the subway station and heading down to Battery Park to head out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

The subway has changed a lot since I last rode it 15 yrs ago. The subway stations are cleaner and I felt safer. Granted I'm sure there are areas where that isn't so but I had been in the same places as last time and I wasn't so scared. It did help that I had a man with me too.

As I said, it was really hot in NYC that day. I thought I was going to melt. Once we got to Battery Park we saw a mounted police officer and I just had to be the typical tourist and take a photo. I also got to pet the horse. He was really sweet.

Both Liberty Island and Ellis Island were pretty cool places to walk around and thankfully there was shade! One of the real reasons for heading to Ellis Island was to see if I could dig up family history. My mom told me that when her family came to the US they came through New York City and possibly through Ellis Island but she wasn't sure since there was no documentation in any of the papers my grandparents held onto. So my search was on. The problem I ran into at Ellis was that their archives only documented arrivals up until the 1930's or 40's. I forgot which. The staff there pointed me in the direction of the National Archives in the city - which was on the agenda for Friday as it was nearing 5 pm when left Ellis Island.

After the very long and hot afternoon at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island we headed to Star.bucks when we got to dry land. We needed a cool air conditioned place, some water and a place where we could use WiFi to figure out how we were going to get to dinner.

We decided to go for Chinese. I had watched a show on Food.Network called "The Best Thing I Ever Ate..." and featured said Chinese restaurant. So after several subway trains and a few blocks, we made it. The trip was well worth it. Everything we ate hit the spot. I would like to return when we go back to NYC again. Here are a few photos of Lane and I at dinner.

By the time we got done with dinner, the sun was starting to set as we walked back to the subway station. And it was definitely dark by the time we got back to Times Square. We hung around there for a few minutes but headed back to the room. We were hot and tired and wanted some time to relax after spending the entire day on our feet.

She's C-R-A-Z-Y, But I Love Her Anyway

2010-06-24T11:34:00.003-04:00

Emilija is definitely sticking to the stereotypical spiciness of girls from Hunan Province, China. With Emi, you never know what she's going to do next. Hence the inspiration for the title of my blog. There is very rarely a dull moment around here. I've neglected posting photos of the kiddos. So this is my update on them but more specifically about Emi because she's done some interesting things lately.

The first recent Emi craziness was nearly 2 weeks ago. We went to dinner with our dear friend Liz. That was the night Eriks got sick during dinner and slept in the booth almost the whole time. The next day we found out he had strep throat. Upon returning home, Eriks was immediately put to bed. After Emi got dressed for bed way past her usual bedtime, she became wild! She ran circles around her room. Falling down several times on purpose and laughing every time she did. Of course how could Lane and I not laugh either. Then she pulled this:

She got into her American.Girl doll bed and tucked herself in for the night. She thought it was hysterical. It was funny. We finally got her to settle down (sort of) and put her in her real bed.

A few days later she found Eriks karate gear and decided to play dress up. Eriks took a hiatus from karate at the beginning of the year and hadn't done it since then. Just this week he decided to give it a try again. But what was amazing about all this was that she knew, without prompting what to do with it all. She put the vest on, the foot protectors, the headgear and she even knew that the mouthpiece was meant to go in her mouth. It was really cute and how could I not take photos of her in her martial art glory.

In recent weeks Eriks has decided he no longer wants to sleep by himself. Why? We're not sure. He doesn't think it's fair the dogs and cat sleep with us in our room. So we try and encourage the dogs to sleep in his room but it doesn't always work. And Sydney if he's not sleeping in our room will sleep in Emi's. He's always been the protector. Especially of the babies. As soon as Emi came home from China, he was almost on a constant basis in her room when she was sleeping. Whether it be at night or at naptime. He was the same way with Eriks when he was really little. I love that about this dog and will miss it when he's no longer with us. The first night Eriks decided he wasn't going to sleep by himself I went into his room to put something away. This was hours after his bedtime. I looked into his bed and realized there was no one there. So a frantic search of the house for our son was on. This is where we found him:

This has happened several times since then. He gets put back in his bed because Emi's crib is just not big enough for the both of them. But it is sweet that he wants to be with his sister and not by himself.

And the last bit of recent craziness came from Emi last night. We were finishing up coconut creme pie from Father's Day. Emi decided that it wasn't only delicious, but made for a great facial. We took out the video camera too. Hopefully I can get some stuff uploaded and posted here. I'm behind in video posting. It was funny watching her smear it on her face and then lick her fingers. Of course she was promptly given a bath afterward.

We're just waiting to see what our kids will do next!

New York City Day 3

2010-06-23T16:48:00.000-04:00

No excuse for the absence. Just laziness.

So back to our wonderful trip. On our 3rd day in NYC we headed down to Rockefeller Center after the Today show was over. We were headed to the Top of the Rock for a view of the Manhattan skyline. Had a bite to eat on our way there. We chose to do the Top of the Rock for a few reasons. First, the waits at the Empire State Building are notoriously long to get to the top for a view. Second, I wanted to take photos of the Empire State Building from the top of somewhere else. It was really nice!

We walked by Radio City Music Hall on the way there. Conan O'Brien was doing his comedy tour there but it was sold out. We had no idea but it would've been fun. Oh well. We also had too much other stuff we wanted to do instead. We wandered around Rockefeller Plaza first. Checking out where the ice rink is. During the summer they cover it up and turn it into a cafe area. Found the Latvian flag among all the flags on the plaza.

There was absolutely no wait to get to the Top of the Rock and the observation deck was very quiet. Sweet! At first I was a little nervous. I kind of have a fear of heights. It takes me a few minutes to get over it and get comfortable. The view was amazing! We were able to take lots of great shots of the city and the Empire State Building.

After we were done at Rockefeller Center we strolled over to the theater district. We had tickets to the 2:30 performance of La Cage Aux Folles starring Kelsey Grammer and Douglas Hodge. We had lunch at this little French Bistro before the show. I had an onion tart which was to die for good. Lane had this gross (in my opinion) club sandwich. I thought it was gross because some of the toppings I just don't eat. We hurried through lunch because we actually thought the show was at 2pm. Should've checked our tickets sitting at the table. Oh well.

The show was FABULOUS!!!! So far out of all the Broadway shows I've seen in my lifetime, it's the BEST!! I want to see it again so badly. If anyone is planning a trip to NYC soon this is a MUST SEE show. If you live in the NYC area, ditto. Lane and I laughed the whole way through. I did not want it to end. After the show we waited outside the theater door to see if any of the performers would come out and sure enough some of them did. Including Kelsey Grammer. He is a very, very nice person and I got some photos of him which you will see below.

We then walked over to Junior's Cheesecakes and had a late afternoon snack of what else?...cheesecake!!! Lane and I have had Junior's on several occasions. In the past I have ordered them for desserts. I figured if I had the cheesecake in my home, I had to have it in the restaurant. Lane had the raspberry swirl and I had cherry. They were so yummy and hit the spot. We actually sat on the patio outside and people watched as we ate our cheesecake. Once the cheesecake slices had been devoured we walked the approximate 5 blocks back to our hotel. I had been on my feet all day and needed a bit of reprieve.

Around 9pm we headed back out to find a bite to eat. We found a great Irish bar called the Perfect Pint about 1/2 a block from the hotel. I kind of wanted to go somewhere I could watch the Stanley Cup. But I also wanted beer. So it worked out. I had an amazing dish of Shepherd's Pie. Lane had some sort of Irish chicken dish which was a bit spicy but not bad. After a few hours of eating, talking and watching TV we went back to our room to head to bed. Tomorrow was going to be yet another busy day.

New York City Day 1 & 2

2010-06-14T14:26:00.000-04:00

Lane and I took an adults only trip to New York City 2 weeks ago. It was HEAVEN!! We took it easy for most of the trip and didn't run ourselves ragged all over the city. We'll just have to see other stuff the next time we go back which for me won't be soon enough. I've always loved NYC. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Broadway. I could sit in a theater there every single night of the week and not get bored. There are shows I know I could see over and over again. Unfortunately, my pocketbook would disagree with that since it is expensive!

So we flew into LaGuardia Monday the 31st of May in the afternoon. We got to our hotel in Times Square and decided to spend at least an hour unwinding. We then decided to walk around Times Square and get a bite to eat. Ended up at TGIFridays. Nothing exciting but oh well. It was food and at that point that's exactly what we needed.

We were out and about in Times Square until about 12:30 am. We stopped again at around 9:30 to have dinner at the ESPN zone and watch the Chicago Blackhawks game (they won that game - yes!)

Tuesday morning started out with a trip to the big Toys R Us store in Times Square to get some goodies for the kids. The nice thing about it was that it was right next door to our hotel. So after some shopping there Lane ran our purchases back up to our room and we set out again. This time it was from our hotel down to Macy's at Herald Square. It was about 10 blocks or so. This is by far the biggest department store I've been in. It's 7 stories tall and takes up an entire block. It literally would have taken me hours and hours to cover every floor. But I didn't do that. I looked for shoes and found nothing. Bummer. I however did find Emi a very cute Guess outfit for next summer on clearance. Unfortunately, Macy's was in the process of changing out their windows so the shades were drawn but in May they had cars borrowed from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum on display in the windows and in the stores. You could see Indy 500 car tires below the shades in the windows and they still had cars parked inside the store. It was kind of cool since only 2 days before we were at the Speedway watching the race.

After Macy's we found a deli to have lunch and had some great sandwiches. Thus far, I have never had a bad deli sandwich in NYC. You can walk into pretty much any deli and get a good sandwich. So after finding some lunch, we continued on to the Empire State Building. We went inside the lobby but did not go up to the top. I had heard that especially in the summer it is extremely busy and crowded and the wait just to go up to the top can be very long. Lane and I decided that if we wanted a view of NYC from somewhere high above, we were going to go somewhere else for the view. On the way back to our hotel we stopped at the NYC Public Library. Lane wanted to stop so he could see the big lions outside. That was the only reason. They were cool though so it was worth the stop.

We got back late in the afternoon and after being out in the heat most of the day, I decided I need to kick my feet up for the night so Lane ran to a pizzeria and grabbed us some slices. My ankles and feet were severely swollen and I just needed to get off them. I'll cover day 3 & 4 in my next post!

Indy 500 and My Birthday - May 30, 2010

2010-06-12T22:40:00.000-04:00

We were out of town for about 10 days starting the 28th of May and just returned home a week ago. I've spent the entire week doing laundry, organizing, cleaning and getting back into the routine. However, today we took Eriks to urgent care and found out the poor kid has strep throat. I am hoping our friend's daughter, Briana does not get it since we had a play date with her yesterday. I'm also hoping Emi nor anyone else gets it. Only time will tell.

So for my birthday this year, we headed back to the Indy 500 with extended family and friends. There were 16 of us there total. It was Lane and my 2nd time at the race and Eriks got to go for the very 1st time this year. Emi stayed at home with my parents. We had a great time but it was super hot. They said it was the hottest Indy 500 race on record with a high of 96 degrees. My sister-in-law and I actually spent the first 90 minutes or so of the race out of the sun. I was starting to feel sick I was getting so hot so she and I took off for shaded and slightly cooler pastures until the section we were sitting in was finally covered with shade. Even with the heat we had a good time. After we got back to my parents house we had dinner and celebrated with cake. One of my aunts and uncles as well as a cousin came over while we were at the race. My cousin who was there is named Emily. Our daughter, Emilija fell in love with her and couldn't get enough. It was really cute to see the two of them together. Emi spent the day in the pool with my family while we were gone and as soon as we got back, Eriks suited up and headed back to the water with Emi and Lane.

So without further ado, I will post some photos from the race and my birthday.

Emi's First Trip to Michigan

2010-05-24T12:03:00.000-04:00

While Emi and I were in Indiana for a week while the boys were at home going to school and work, we went up to Michigan. My parents have a summer place in southern MI which is about 3 hrs from their house. In the summer you will find them there from either Thurs or Friday to Sunday or Monday. As the weather gets warmer, they start taking things up there and getting it ready for the summer. While we were in town, they decided to take a load of supplies up and show their granddaughter where we've spent part of our summer for quite some time. The weather wasn't bad, but it wasn't super cooperative either. It was in the 60's and cloudy with some scattered showers.

Needless to say, Emi loved it. She couldn't get enough of the place. We found a toad near the walkway by the deck and she was fascinated by it. The first time Eriks was shown a toad he went running the other direction screaming like a girl. It freaked him out and took him a long time to get over it. Now he thinks they're cool. So this summer, the kids and I along with my mom will spend about 10 days up there. It is so peaceful there. They have a gorgeous view of the lake. I'm so ready for the trip in July/August.

Jimmy Buffett & L's 1st Communion

2010-05-20T20:54:00.000-04:00

I'm back!!! Surprised?? I need to blog more often, I know. I love it but lately with chaos always around the corner it's been increasingly more difficult to find the motivation to do it. When the kids are in bed, I want nothing more than to fix a drink or a glass of wine and relax instead of do other things including blogging. And then I end up playing catch up.

Almost a month ago Lane and I went to see Jimmy Buffett in concert. It was the first time for me and the second for Lane. He saw Buffett in the late 80's while in college in Austin. Yeah, I just revealed that Lane's a dinosaur because he was in college in the late 80's while I was still...younger.

It was freezing that night. Of course a cold front had to come through that afternoon and whip up the wind and drop the temperature. I went to the concert dressed in a turtleneck, sweatshirt and my winter parka and I still froze. The temps during the concert were in the low 50's but with the crazy cold wind, it felt like the low 40's. Not very tropical for a Buffett concert. I can't believe how many people were in tank tops and shorts. I was colder just looking at them. I had a blast even though I was freezing and still getting over my sinus infection. When I got home that night I was actually running a fever again but it was gone by the morning. I'm sure being out in the cold weather like that for nearly 5 hours while fighting the infection brought on the fever.

Jimmy was great and can't wait to see him in concert again. The treat was Jimmy's special guest. I never thought that I would see Zac Brown walk out on stage. That was way cool. I'll admit that it's only been within the past year I started listening to the Zac Brown band but really like the music. Jimmy and Zac sang one of Zac Brown Band songs (Where the Boat Leaves From) and Zac joined Jimmy for A Pirate Looks at 40 and Margaritaville.

A few days after Jimmy we left for Indiana to attend our niece and goddaughter L's First Communion. It was a promise that Lane and I made when we accepted the role as her godparents. I remember the day L was baptized. I remember holding her in my arms as the priest poured water over her head and baptized her "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." And now 8 years later she was receiving the body and blood of Christ for the first time. Watching her reminded me of my own First Communion. This might be hard for non-Catholics to understand what this is like and even harder for me to explain what it's like to actually receive Holy Communion. Not only did we get to see L at her First Communion, we also saw my cousin's daughter receive her First Holy Communion as well. After L's First Communion Mass we went to her reception at her house. Marc and Dzin put on a very lovely party for L. The food was good and we really enjoyed the company too. By 8 pm the kids were tired and Emi hadn't napped all day. She actually crashed in the car on the way home and slept through the night.

Testing...Testing...Anyone Out There????

2010-05-17T22:08:00.000-04:00

I am alive. My problem is I've been very busy. Too busy to blog, to read blogs, to have a life really. I don't like it one bit. I've got weeks of pictures that I need to find time to upload too and blog about. The sinus infection I got in Vegas kicked my behind. Then I went out of town for over a week, came back and life has been non-stop. I'm ready for summer and not having to worry about a kid in school or extra-curricular activities. Luckily soccer ended this past Saturday. Gymnastics ends next week. So does school and then we're back on the road again for Memorial Day weekend and an adults only trip to NYC. My parents are taking time out of their schedules to take care of our kids while we reconnect and get some R&R.

Lots to catch up on but for now I wanted to say hello again. I am praying that in the next day or two I'll have photos uploaded and stories to tell.

Until then...

What Happens In Vegas...

2010-04-25T22:05:00.000-04:00

doesn't stay in Vegas. At least not this time. On Tuesday I flew out to Vegas to visit my friend Sal. I met Sal in 2003 while stationed in California. I love this lady to death and really wish we closer. She's a native NY that speaks her mind and doesn't care what you think. We have A LOT in common. We've both had health issues, fertility issues, I did the adoption thing, she and her husband are currently doing the adoption thing (and I hope it happens for them very quickly), we've the the military thing and our personalities are similar. We only went to the Strip twice in the 5 days I was there. I wasn't there to party. I was there to visit my friend who I haven't seen in 4 1/2 yrs. I needed to relax and unwind. I was perfectly content sitting around at her house talking. And we talked. And we talked. And we talked some more. It was great to have some me time with her even though I did miss my kids and husband. We ate out most of the time. Sal cooked for me once. A delicious penne in vodka sauce with prosciutto and a salad. Sal's Italian and she is a very good cook!

On Friday we met up with our friend Sadie that we were stationed with in California who was now in Vegas with Sal for lunch. We started our lunch around 11:45 and finally left the restaurant at 4:15. Seriously! The 3 of us would just not shut up. Oh how I miss all the girls I became friends with in California. I think one of these days we will have a big reunion somewhere (hopefully in the Caribbean without the hubby's and kids) and have a good time. It was so very good to see Sadie.

I got home last night on a flight that was dodging thunderstorms in the Southeast. The ride was honestly not very bumpy but you could tell that a few people were not liking it. I also come home ill. On Wednesday night/Thursday morning I was feeling off. I thought it was the jet lag. Vegas is 3 hours behind Atlanta. We went to bed after midnight the night I got there which was 3 am eastern time. I had been up for 21 hours! Sort of. I got on the plane and took a 3 1/2 hour siesta. I was barely awake when the airplane was taxiing down the runway for takeoff. Still, it was way late. And pretty much every night we were up late and I was going to bed after 3 am eastern time. The weather was crazy cold Wednesday and Thursday in Vegas. Highs only in the upper 50's which is completely unheard of this time of year there. So I was wearing turtlenecks and sweaters on those days with jeans. Then on Thursday it was back in to the mid 70's. I figured the crazy weather was making me catch a cold. I felt good during the day but at night, I felt really icky. So I bought some Tylenol.cold and started taking it. It helped but not really. So by Friday night the entire left side of my face was in massive pain. It felt like someone was trying to drive a nail between my upper teeth and my cheekbone. I came home and immediately got online because I knew that feeling was not something that accompanied a head cold. Lane said from experience it sounded like a sinus infection and sure enough, the symptoms I looked up for a sinus infection was exactly what I was feeling. I decide there was no way I was waiting until Monday morning to call my Dr in hopes of getting an appointment for that day so I dragged myself into Urgent Care. I walked out with a prescript for antibiotics because I sure did have a nasty sinus infection. I'm hoping the antibiotics kick in soon. I've got a busy week ahead of me!

I didn't take photos in Vegas. I was having too much fun to bother. Plus it wasn't like I hadn't been there over a dozen times already. Although it has changed since I had last been there about 4 1/2 yrs. More hotels and casinos. I promised it wouldn't be another 4 1/2 yrs until I made another visit.

Some Photos - Air Museum, Dr. Emi & Lane's Birthday

2010-04-14T13:00:00.002-04:00

WARNING: This blog post contains LOTS of photos!

The first few pictures are of our trip down to Robins AFB last Tuesday. My friend Jen took us to the Air Museum there which is really, really big and really, really neat! The kids had a lot of fun. We did have a hard time keeping Emi away from the airplanes on display. There were quite a few dashes under the barriers around the airplanes. And I'm sure she was thinking, "Gee Mom & Dad, I just wanted a closer look!" So Lane was having to duck under and give chase to Emi who also thought it was hilarious that daddy had to go after her.

I put the photos in black & white because inside the air museum it was pretty dark and if I turned off the flash the photos came out dark. If I used the flash, it washed them out. In black & white, you can't see any of that. Eriks & Emi especially enjoyed sitting in the cockpit as you can see from above.

Sunday before church Emi pulled out medical play equipment. It was so cute watching her. She used the play shot like the little syringes the drugstore gives to administer liquid meds to little kids. It looked similar so why not? It was so cute to watch her put the stethoscope around her neck. She has changed so much in the 9 months she's been home. I'm still in shock that we are approaching a year of being a family of 4.

And lastly, Lane celebrated another birthday on Monday. The weather was beautiful and we went to a fairly new Mexican restaurant nearby called Mojave. I started out with the steak & lobster enchilladas and Lane had fish tacos. However, halfway through, I couldn't handle the saltiness of mine and asked to switch. I have to watch my sodium intake so I'm not fond of really salty things. Lane's fish tacos were delish and had some sort of yummy slaw that had a cucumber/cilantro/wasabi sauce. Next time I go back I'm getting the fish tacos. We came home and had a very yummy cake from Cold.stone Creamery. Lane has a weakness for ice cream so why not get him an ice cream cake. He was really, really happy about my choice.

Obviously in the last photo, Emi was excited Daddy was doing an awesome job blowing out his candles.

All is quite on the home front for now. Emi had speech therapy this morning and slowly we are progressing. The focus right now is just teaching her to move the air over her lips. We actually got her to say the word 'on'. We're really trying to work the 'Bs' and the 'Ps'. We've gotten a 'b' sound a few times, but more than not we get lip smacking instead. But the therapist said that's a move in the right direction. Just need to keep encouraging her to blow things - bubbles, pinwheels, cotton balls, etc.

Things I Need to Say

2010-04-13T02:30:00.005-04:00

As I start writing this blog post it is 12:38 am. Yes, A.M. Why am I up so late?

1. I've always been a night owl. Some might consider me a vampire. I'd rather sleep all morning and be up all night.
2. My beautiful daughter who has been dealing with teething and a really, really horrible allergy season slept until 10:15 this/yesterday morning. This allowed me to sleep until about 10. So all that extra sleep has made me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed way into the night.

Now back to the "things". To some of you this might be mindless, middle-of-the-night rambling. Whatever it is, it is what it is!

The first topic is something that happened in my hometown "hood" over the weekend. For the whole story, you can go here. It's all over the headlines. Technically it isn't really my hometown "hood". What I consider my real hometown is a quirky place inside the Indianapolis city limits called Broad Ripple. I spent the first 15 years of my life living in this yuppie/artsy funky-ness/skater punk, i.e. eclectic area of town. I loved it. I spend the last 6 yrs of my Indiana life in Carmel. However, my parents and my two younger siblings have called Carmel home for the past 20 yrs. So, anyway...over the weekend two 15-yr-old boys were killed when the car they were traveling in and driven by another 15-yr-old left the road after a chase, crashed into a utility pole and exploded into flames. The driver got out alive - before the car caught fire. One of the earliest articles at the newspaper's website included a comment from a mother who also has a child at the HS there. I don't have the exact quote but she said something along the lines of - the police should've just taken down the license number instead of pursuing the teenagers. I may make some people mad when I say this but, yeah, right. That's real logic. Well, I think I need to give a bit more background story. The police officer was on patrol and the teenagers were clocked doing 13 miles per hr over the speed limit. The police officer then attempted to pull said car over for the traffic/speeding violation where the chase then ensued. I don't think the police officer knew they were teenagers and if he did how was he supposed to know they were unlicensed? The comment made by the parent definitely pushed my button because she is pointing the blame at the police officer who was just doing his job. If he had left them alone and just run the license plate number, they still might have been in an accident or even hit another car and killed someone else. Also, there have been comments left about the article putting blame on the police officer as well. Not all comments but enough to irritate me like sand inside your bathing suit. It is a tragedy. I totally get that and don't disagree with it. I have a cousin who is in the same freshman class as these boys were. She may have even had classes with them. But, these kids had some idea of what the consequences could be if they got caught joy-riding without licenses. It happened to a friend of mine who was out driving with a permit, not a license and was pulled over in the same city because she had a burned out tail light. I'm pretty sure she got a warning that if she got caught again, she would not be able to get her license until she was 18. Her dad had to come get her and the car. Where was she going? To my house to pick me up. We were going to cruise over to someone else's house and hang out. I'm sure if as my parents and my in-laws read this they will be mortified. I never said I was perfect. I did plenty of stupid things as a teenager. I'm guessing most of us did. And if you didn't, well good for you. So what was the entire point of the story? I'm utterly fed up with parents of irresponsible kids putting the blame on someone else instead of saying the kids made a horrible mistake. And the 15 yr-old driver will have to live with this the rest of his life. His two friends died because he decided not to pull the car over and face the consequences of his decision to drive a car without a license. The consequences would've been far less severe if he had done the right thing and pulled over. If I had been with my friend when she was pulled over, one of my parents would've had to come get me and I would've been ~~punished~~ never allowed to see the light of day again. But we would not have led the police on a chase that could've left one or both of us dead. I attribute that to fact that both her parents and my parents taught us that when we choose to do wrong, we accept the consequences of our action rather than try to run from them. Mom & Dad, I thank you for that and I was in the wrong a lot as a teenager no matter how many times I thought I knew better than you. But because of your teachings, as an adult I realize that what you taught me and the consequences I had to face when I chose wrong, made me a better person and definitely a better adult. Not to mention a better parent. As I stand in your shoes raising my own kids I still learn plenty from you and will until God takes you from this world. I am so very sorry for all the times I hurt you not only as a child/teenager, but also as an adult (I'm sure there will be times in the future I will too) and know that when Eriks screams nasty things at us (I'm sure Emi will as well) when they get in trouble, as an adult I pray that they too are thankful for us teaching them what is right and what is wrong and can apologize for the things they thought they knew better than Lane and I. I also want to thank you for being my PARENT instead of my friend. Most parents are way better role models than your friends are anyway. By the way readers, that last part was very emotional to write and as I get ready to jump to my next topic I'm blowing my nose and wiping my tears.

Next mindless ramble now that it's 1:12 am :-)

I love my hubby and kids (most of the time). I have put up with military move after military move for about 14 yrs now. I however, after 16 months, am still not fond of Hotlanta. This is not where I expected to finish out my career as a military wife. To be honest for the past 2 assignment cycles, I had been hoping for a place closer to home (aka Scott AFB). It's 4 1/2 hrs from home. The closest we've lived to home you ask? Eight hours by car. Now that we have 2 kids, it is about a 9 hour drive because of extra stops needing to be made. We are not on a military base. Lane is working a contract job. That is code for, a military person has to be doing said job amongst civilians. I'm sure you're wondering why am I having such a hard time. Don't get me wrong, I know plenty 'o people here, but no one I spend time with on any consistent basis. I like regular companionship with people that are not my husband and kids. I NEED a life outside of the one I have with them. I'm partially to blame for my situation. But in my defense, since bringing Emi home from China last summer I have been overwhelmed with testing, surgeries, Dr's appointments, speech & hearing therapy, soccer, gymnastics and karate to name a few that when I have 5 minutes time to myself, I'm trying channel my creative outlet or decompress so my sanity returns.

I'm assuming that most civilians know that the military moves people around. A lot. When you're on the move every 3 yrs and you get moved to a place that has maybe a dozen military people working in one place it's hard to get into a circle. I'm finding a lot of people I'm meeting have been friends since their kids were itty bitty or since at least preschool. We're here for another 14 months and then retirement. My son won't go through grade school with all the kids in his kindergarten class. He'll have to start over in another school next fall (2011). In many ways I'm thankful that we didn't have kids until almost 8 yrs into our marriage because our kids won't have to deal with making friends for a few years and then having to move and make new ones over and over. And they won't have to deal with the changing schools every 3 yrs and trying to fit in...again. I know kids are resillient and have an easier time transitioning and making new friends. I can tell you with near 100% certainty that it isn't always the case. Although Eriks has some friends, he has had a hard time fitting in. He's actually said on numerous occasions that he really does not like living here. He either wants to go back to where we lived before or to live with my parents in Indiana. We are renting a house in a neighborhood where there aren't many kids his age. We are lucky to have 2 little boys his age across the street. One of whom is in is class at school. But they too have their own goings on. They have lots of family and friends here and Eriks doesn't play with them all the time. But I am glad that they are there and he's not completely lonely.

The conclusion that I am coming to is that most civilians, and please don't take this personally if you are one reading this post, have no clue what military life is like and therefore may not know how to relate. When you're military and you move to a new base the first few questions usually asked are:
"Where did you move from?", "What group/organization/squadron does your spouse work for?", "Do you have children?" The one's I've been asked when I've met new people here are: "Do you have kids?", "Do you live near by?", "What does your husband do?" And usually when I utter these 4 little words to answer that last question, "He's in the military," I either get one of two responses - "Oh." or a semi-blank stare. As a military wife, when you end up at a new base, it's a lot easier to fit in because you can bet your bottom dollar that you'll find more than one person who is in your shoes. They completely understand what your life is like. Here in the civilian world, not so much. They don't understand when your husband calls at 3:00 in the afternoon on a Monday and says, "I have to go to (fill-in-the-blank) tomorrow (there are times we'll get 2 days or more notice) and you just have go with the flow. Even when your cursing the military under your breath because there's something you really wanted to do and can't because you have to take care of the kiddos while your spouse is gone. A decent chunk of military life is lived on the fly. You never know what tomorrow will bring. You just pray that on the days your hubby has to be away, you can survive without needing a straight jacket upon hubby's return. In my case, my kiddos know when daddy is away they will be extra ~~rotten and emotionally draining~~ good. I dread those days. I also dread the days where hubby would normally work reasonable hours but ends up putting in a 12 hr day and comes home as I'm putting kids to bed and lusting for a glass of wine or other alcoholic beverage to cap off my chaotic day.

Being a military wife in a civilian world also has its good. It's shown me that life after retirement is going to be seriously different. I'm experiencing ~~a bit of it~~ most of it now. I have no base to go to. No wives group to be a member of. No squadron get togethers. It's just me having to figure things out on my own without a group of gals I can complain to about how military life can suck sometimes and get what I'm talking about.

I have made some ~~good~~ GREAT friends along this bumpy and ever changing game called life. One of them I will be seeing for the first time in 4 1/2 yrs next week when I visit her in Vegas. That is one of the greatest gifts this experience has given me. We may change addresses every 3 or so years, but we stay in contact with one another as time goes on and when we do get together again, we pick up right where we left off. Almost as though nothing has changed since we saw one another last. Well, almost. There might be a few more kids in the picture. A few fine lines on our faces and a few gray hairs in our heads (from all the grief our kids give us and the stresses our husband's job puts on us). Other than that... So if you're a civilian out there and you're reading my post. My very LONG post that you very well could've just skimmed through and you meet someone like me who won't be around for long, we still need friends. Us military wives can sometimes be the best friends you will find because we've been through the whole "been there, done that" A LOT and we learn how to make friends for life no matter where the road may take us next. We're talented like that.

And now that it is WAY, WAY, WAY past my bedtime, I'm saying... so long, fair well, auf wiedersehen, good night!

Ultimate Blog Party 2010

2010-04-10T20:44:00.001-04:00

A blog friend is participating in the blog party. She's participated in the past and I finally decided I would do it as well. I'd really like to get more traffic to this blog and my crafting blog. So if you hop on over there, you will see the above banner as well. Every year the Ultimate Blog Party has some really, really fabulous prizes the give away. Plus it's really nice to get to know new bloggers all the time!

These are my favorites this year. Of course I would love to win the Grand Prize - The Toshiba laptop. Not because I need a new computer, but because my parents do. Within the past 6 months my dad started his own business and the current processor he has is a hand-me-down from my sister and it is extremely S-L-O-W. So I'd love to win something I can give away to someone who really could use it. The others on the favorites list are the Buds to Bloom Photo Tile Necklace, the Hilton Garden Inn 2-night stay, the Scentsy Warmer & wax scents, Build a Bear $50 GC, Silver Sweethearts necklace, Shutterfly $25 GC, $50 Visa GC, $50 Target GC and the $200 Apple Store GC (I want an i*Pad). But to be honest, I would be honored winning any of the prizes in this years giveaway. So if you're interested, hop on over and take a peek if you're a blogger.

If you're new to my blog(s) here's a little background:

I'm an Indiana grown girl who met her husband and one of her best friend's weddings. Eight and a half months after we met, we were married. We're going on 14 yrs of semi-wedded bliss (sorry, can't lie, marriage has it's moments. It's not always smiling and holding hands). We have 2 adopted children. Our son was adopted here in the US in a semi-open adoption. Our daughter was adopted last summer from China. We're a military family nearing retirement and a life without the military. Yippie! Can you tell I'm just a little bit excited?? As much as I have loved living all over the country and making great friends, I'm over the uncertainty of life and want some stability for my family and especially my kids. Most of all I miss my family and friends at home in the Hoosier state.

Tomorrow I should be putting up a new blog post about our visit to the Air Museum at Robins AFB. There are only a few photos I took, but they're still really cute!

Feels Like Summertime

2010-04-07T23:12:00.000-04:00

It's been super warm here. Above average temps. It started last Thursday with highs in the mid 70's and the past few days it's been 80 degrees or more. However, there's a cold front on the way and we're supposed to drop down to temps in the mid 60's for the next few days and back up to the 70's after. I am so thankful Spring has shown up. It took forever for it to get here.

With the weather being so nice we went out to dinner on Friday night and ate outside on the restaurant's patio. It was so nice sitting outside. They have a playground so the kids played while we waited for our table. The problem came after we were seated and it took over an hour for us to get our dinner. We were not happy but we weren't complaining. I think the server noticed that this was ridiculous and that our kids were cranky and went to speak to the manager about the huge wait for our dinner. The manager came over and she said because of our wait and how unacceptable that was, she was going to give us our entire dinner on the house. I still need to sit down and write a letter of thank you. We so weren't expecting it and we gave our server a trip larger than 20%. I'm sure she appreciated it! I got a few photos of the kids playing on the playground. Eriks was running around so much I only got a couple of him. Emi loved it. She especially loved going down the slide. It was actually her 1st time ever going down one.

Emi took "see-food" a little too literally. We were actually at a seafood restaurant for dinner and she decided to show it off. Yummy, right?

I unfortunately did not get ANY Easter photos on Sunday. This really bit the big one. The kids were not compliant at all that day in front of the camera. I'm thinking I might be able to get them dressed up on Saturday and attempt "Easter/Spring" photos.

The other day we were all outside while Lane was mowing the ~~grass~~ weeds. The kids pulled out bikes, trikes, scooters, push cars...they were having a blast. Took photos of them at play.

Nothing much else going on with us. We're hoping Lane can do something fun with us this Friday - the last day of Spring Break. We didn't go anywhere this year. Eriks wishes we had gone to FL for vacation. We're definitely going away somewhere next year although not sure where. We went to visit a friend stationed at Robins AFB yesterday. Lane had to have his yearly physical for work so we got out of the house and went with him. It was fun seeing her and she took photos of my kiddos. She's getting her photography business up and going. You can see a few of the photos of the kiddos here. She's mailing me the disk of photos she took. She's making me want to get better at my photography too!