Brief Life Update

This week, while it has been nice to have some new features to post here, I feel like I haven’t really told you what’s been up our way. It’s been a pretty busy week or so.

I had the chance to spend the day with my daughter this week. We went to lunch at McDonald’s (her choice). We went to one of the big public libraries that we had never been to before. They had all kinds of cool things for the kids to play with there. I could hardly get her to leave so we could go to the Children’s Museum.

At the Children’s museum, we did our normal stuff: the big water table, the indoor treehouse, played on the indoor ambulance, and went down the big slide. We took a detour and walked through another part of the museum which has old cars, old uniforms, an army tank, and other neat stuff. She was really fascinated by the cars, an old sled, and the old logging stuff.

We had a couple nice days where we got to sit outside and play. Both kids were excited to get on their scooters.

Daisy was loving playing fetch with her ball. I swear, she could play this all day. The school kids who play ball on the baseball diamond behind our house must have fouled a couple into our yard, because Daisy was chewing the cover off a couple of them.

She eats everything! Sam made the mistake of leaving one of the canvas laundry bags that hangs on our hamper on top of Daisy’s cage while we were gone the other day. We came home and that dog pulled the whole thing (including the metal rods) into her cage and chewed/ate it! Urgh!

It was actually nice enough last weekend that I was able to mow the grass for the first time. I am overdue to change the oil on my riding mower, so I hope to be able to do that before the next mow. It’s probably a guy thing, but I love the look of a fresh mowed lawn (even if there are spots because of the moles!).

The kids and I got to sit down and watch the new Bluey episodes. There were three of them – the third one being a “bonus” that no one said anything about. This little cartoon is something that I absolutely love. The extended 28 minute episode was to be the Season 3 finale and it was just amazing. It was so well done.

My buddy from work has a little girl and I was asking him how she was doing. He was talking about how they watched the new Bluey together and before we knew it, there we were – two grown men – talking about how great the show is. We joked and said that the show is an adult cartoon that kids can watch, too. It isn’t odd for my wife and I also find ourselves talking about the show.

The biggest thing from this week is that we took Andrew in to get more genetic testing. He is still having some issues and they wanted to dig a bit deeper. They are thinking there is a possibility of Muscular Dystrophy. Nothing is 100% yet, and we are certainly praying about it. We’re hoping that the results will help give us a few more answers and some direction.

I guess that brings you up to speed. Thanks for reading.

Master of Questions (and other Nonsense)

Trivial Problem

I’ve been asked by my boss to act as Emcee for Holiday Trivia at our Christmas Meeting/Gathering. There will be some training before hand, catered dinner, and Holiday Trivia.

I’ve never been to a Trivia night at any local bar or pub. Because of this, I really have no idea how they play. I know a few bloggers who have and some friends who go, but it seems that every place does it a bit differently. Getting questions for this is no issue – all I had to do was go into my folder of Christmas trivia I used when I was on the radio. It is the execution of the game itself that I don’t know.

The basic gist of the thing is that there are 2-5 rounds of questions. Teams write their answers to the questions on a piece of paper or on index cards. There are points for getting the right answers. Some places wager on questions based on the topic. I really am clueless. I plan on doing some sort of search online to see the best way to do this.

Have you ever been to one of those trivia nights? Any suggestions?

Our doc is probably sick…. of us!

Over the past 10-11 days, every one of us has been to the doctor. Today, I had both kids in the office again because their coughing sounded awful. We were worried that the gunk we all got was in their chest and might lead to pneumonia.

I swear, between in office visits, ER visits, telemedicine calls, and messages back and forth through the office portal, our doc has got to be sick of seeing our names! On the other hand, she might just thank us for making her house payment this month!

Chilly Fun

Daisy finally got to go outside in the snow. She wasn’t really sure what to make of it. She was biting at the falling snow for a bit and really didn’t know what to think about walking on it. It didn’t take long and she was running round and rolling in it. She was even eating it off the ground.

The kids were insistent about going outside when the snow fell. Neither was feeling great, but they wanted to see the snow. We bundled them up real good and we were outside for 10-15 minutes. In that time we started to build a snowman.

At first glance, in the above photo it looks like Andrew is putting the snowman’s head on. That, however, was not the case. He has actually removed it and about 2 seconds later, he threw it on the ground. Then he and his sister jumped on the rest of the poor snowman. Sigh.

Elfin’ Around Again

The Elf on the shelf is back and once again, I have to be creative with it. I’ve been lacking a bit, but the kids still get a kick out of it. Two nights ago, I just put it on top of the TV looking down. The laughed at that more than the Elf and Barbie looking at Christmas lights…

Last night, I printed some pictures of the elf and made it cover all our faces in the pictures on the wall…

Perfect Gift

I’m not sure who might read this, but this will be a bit cryptic. My wife’s Christmas present is on the way. All I will say is that I may have mentioned something about it in a past blog. I have seen some pictures and I cannot wait to see it in person. I truly believe that this will be a BIG surprise for her and I hope that she will love it!

I’ve had to tell her that there is a package arriving and that she cannot open it when it comes.

Heading into the Weekend

Ah, Saturday! A day of rest and relaxation, right? The weekend is here and there is nothing to do, right? Well, not for me. It’s gonna be a pretty busy weekend.

This week was full of events for our family. Big changes and some stress (no need to talk about my wallet anymore!).

The biggest news was the addition of our dog, Maizy. If you missed that blog – here it is:

We’ve Gone to the Dogs!

I’m happy to say that she is fitting in quite well. She’s making the place her own, and getting up on the furniture …

She loves to cuddle up to us. She and Sam seem to be getting along nicely.

And Ella loves that Maizy will sleep in her room with her at “quiet time”.

Andrew just gets really excited to be around her. Especially when we’re outside. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure who is harder to get to come in – Maizy or Andrew.

Maizy loves to run around in the yard. She especially loves to play fetch with a ball.

She waits with baited breath for me to chuck it out in the backyard.

I don’t mind being outside with her. The baseball team has been outside practicing and getting ready for the season. One of the best things about our backyard is the free admission to watch a good game –

Of course, Maizy LOVES when the kids are eating. There is NO shortage of food that falls on the floor, unless it is peanut butter. That peanut butter pretty much gets worn by the kids….

Maizy became a member of our family from the onset. What a blessing she is to our home.

The rest of the weekend is loaded with some projects. I’m hoping to finish painting the nook we built and then we’re grabbing one of those playscapes from a friend of Sam’s and moving it to our yard. In between all of that, we’ve got people coming to give us estimates on what a fence is going to cost. Busy Busy!!

Have a great weekend!!

We’ve Gone to the Dogs!

We’ve talked about getting a dog for some time. Sam has always wanted a dog, but there were so many things that we needed to do first. We don’t have a fully fenced in yard, for example. We also were concerned with how the dog would react to the kids – not to mention our cat. We always knew that at some point, we’d be getting a dog. However, I don’t think either one of us thought it would be … well, today!

Here’s the scoop. Yesterday before Sam left for work, her sister texted. She asked if we would be interested in a four year old lab who is good with kids. The story behind this is that her friend’s daughter had diabetes and epilepsy. It was recommended that they get her a service dog. I guess the dogs didn’t really get along. So her owner wanted her to have a loving home.

Her owner said that if things don’t work out, she will gladly take her back and try to find a home for her. They obviously love this dog a lot. I think we both figured that it would be a trial run, but we knew pretty quickly that this will be her new home.

This is Maizy. Coincidentally, Maizey is also our cat’s name. She made herself at home after sniffing around a lot. The kids were MORE than excited to have a “puppy friend” of their own!

I guess by the look on my face, I was pretty excited, too.

The one thing I worry about is that when the kids are at my mother in law’s, they can lay on top of their golden retriever. They climb all over her and she takes every bit of it. I’m not sure Maizy will be as happy about it. So we have to tell the kids to be very careful with her and to use nice hands.

After she got used to all of us, we piled into the van and headed to PetSmart. We had to get food, food and water dishes, a lead for her to run around in the backyard until the fence goes in, and a pet bed. It was an expensive trip, but we expected that.

She is making herself at home and at one point curled up in front of me and fell asleep … and so did my leg!

The only one who is still not too sure about our newest family member is Maizey our cat. That hasn’t stopped her from sneaking up on her while she is asleep to check her out and make sure she is ok …

I laughed when I told Sam, “Well, one thing is for sure. We won’t have to worry about cleaning up food on the floor anymore ….”

We are all looking forward to having our new puppy friend living at our house!