Well, I had the best intentions to stay up to date on this blog. I am sure my mother-in-law would be grateful. I am sure some of my distant friends would as well. I’ll have to try harder.
February
I can’t remember what happened in February. I customized this here blog. I’ll have to think about this one. I can’t remember. Bad memory.
March
March brought us 2 birthdays. I turned another year older – a whole 31 years old. Kyle turned 7. Well I take that back, 3 birthdays. My niece turned 3. March is a busy month, but you’ll only “think” it is busy once we get to April.
My husband was super nice to me and bought me a brand new 15″ MacBook Pro for my birthday. I spent a couple of weeks feeling totally out of my element – clumsy only begins to describe it – but after the initial transition period, I am in LOVE! We also got the One on One training for a year. I am afraid that I am not the kind of Mac User that they planned on having as “students” for this particular program. I surely keep them on their feet as I am quite computer savvy and move from program to program. They are struggling to keep me there for an hour.
April
April is another big birthday month. Ben got to celebrate another one. My little brother gets to celebrate the same day. My little sister. My father. My cousin. Busy busy busy. Party! Party! Party!
May
May brought the end of a stressful semester for me. It wasn’t so much the course work. It wasn’t even entirely the professor. I am sure a lot of it was simply that I was busy. Computer Illustration really got the better of me. E-commerce just irritated me. One the professor didn’t make a whole lot of effort. The other (Comp Illustration) the professor was there and really demonstrated a desire to share her knowledge in the industry. She was a LOT of work, but the work is tolerable if you feel you are learning something in the process. I am certainly less scared of Adobe Illustrator.
Andrew and Kyle finished another year of school. Kyle is going to 2nd grade. Andrew is going to 5th grade. It is hard to believe that I have a 5th grader already! Where did the time go?
June
June brought Andrew’s Black Belt test. He tested June 1st. He passed June 1st! Andrew is officially a 10 year old black belt! I am so proud of him. He has come a very long way from the 5 year old that could not stand on one foot or even kick without falling over. He certainly has a long ways to go to refining the skills he has learned but he has many more years to work on perfection. He says that he wants to go at least 4 degrees in black. He can do anything he wants with karate at this point! He was delighted to receive a sword after his test!
I was diagnosed as being Insulin Resistant. Wrapping your head around that can be rough. There are times when I just want to eat without thinking. Adjusting to the medicine was rough the first couple of weeks. It slowly improved after that. I still get awful side effects from it, but they are random. Awful when they happen, but random. It was recommended to me to follow a 40-30-30 diet. It is just a good well balanced diet. I was also told to lose 30-40#. That in itself wasn’t a blow in the gutt as I had already been trying to lose the weight, thought not super diligently. I had lost 10# and gaining it all back plus more was what sent me into the doctor’s office in the first place. It is a lot to take in. Fortunately, mom had the 40-30-30 diet books for me to read. She also had other Insulin Restance books for me to read. I slowly began wrapping my head around things and slowly making changes. The good news is that I started to feel better after just 2-3 weeks.
July
July took us on a road trip. A long road trip. Wisconsin is a long ways from Texas. My grandparents are celebrating 60 years of marriage this year. The perfect reason to throw a party and/or family reunion. So we all headed to grandma’s house. We attended my cousin’s wedding reception. We attended my grandparent’s 60th wedding anniversary party. We even went to church with grandma and grandpa. Yep we increase the attendance when we’re all there.
We drove to Chicago for a day trip (me and my hubby and our 3 kids, my sister and her 3 kids, my other sister). We went to the top of the Sear’s Tower. We had authentic Chicago Style pizza. We went to the Shedd Aquarium. It was fun, but Lance wasn’t being very tolerant of it all. He was exhausted and just fed up by the time we got to the Aquarium.
Dad had emergency kidney stone surgery. We drove him to Wisconsin with a newly diagnosed kidney stone. He even puked in my car on the way up.
Ben and my older sister took her 3 kids and our 2 older boys to the cheese factory. I didn’t think Lance would sit through that.
We took all the kids to a working dairy farm where the kids got to help milk the cows (by machine). My father was so in his element there.
Ben got to blow up an area, clearing for a new road or something or another.
We took the kids to mine for gemstones in The Dells at the mining company there. That was was pricey. They don’t tell you ALL the costs up front. Fortunately, you aren’t obligated to get things cut and polished. Let us just say that the kids’ gemstones are very much still in the rough. Emeralds, Garnets, etc.
Ben and my cousin, Josh, road the ejector seat. Basically reverse bungee jumping. They strap you into a seat and harness, and pull down and let you go. . . up up up! Ben was thrilled.
We even took the kids to the Circus Museum. They got to ride on an African Elephant. They got to see a camel from from the Spy Kids movie. They got to see Chinese acrobats. They even got to ride a real carousel.
It was an awesome family vacation! We had a blast! The boys were amazing on the drive. Not once did we hear “I’m bored.” We only heard “Are we there yet?” on the way home as we’re just a couple of miles from the Texas border!!! Jumping up and down with excitement here! It was our first SUCCESSFUL family vacation. I got to see the funny side of my husband I had not seen in the 8+ years we had been married. The kids all want to go back to Wisconsin!
July also brought us lice. That is one thing I could have done without. It was our first bout with them and hopefully it will be the last. I can tell you from personal experience that dealing with lice is certainly NO FUN! We’ve done an insane amount of laundry and used an and even more insane amount of Tide laundry detergent.
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