Busy, But Thankful

I hope this blog finds you enjoying the remainder of the holiday weekend. My weekend, which was supposed to be very relaxing, wound up being full of the unexpected.

Wednesday afternoon, I got a call from my wife. Her dad had passed out at the doctor’s office. His blood pressure was up and down. They rushed him to the ER, and admitted him for a couple days. No heart attack, no stroke, and they didn’t find any blockages. There were a few things that neurology is going to look into in more detail. He is home now and relaxing.

My mother-in-law was at the ER for Thanksgiving and when she told us that she was going to drive through McDonald’s for dinner, we told her to go home and I’d bring her a plate. I packed up turkey, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and rolls. Andrew and I drove over to bring her the food. At the end of their street is a guy who goes all out with holiday lights. Andrew loved looking at them.

That’s not even his whole set up!!

Ella and Andrew haven’t been feeling all that great and when we woke up Thanksgiving day, we all felt a bit under the weather. We spent most of the morning and early afternoon battling fevers with Motrin and Tylenol. We watched a disappointing Detroit Lions game and had dinner. After that is when everything got scary.

Ella did not look right. Her nose and eyes were watering all day and her fever spiked again. She was far from herself. There was enough going on that I packed her in the car and made the trip to the ER.

They checked her out and said it was viral, which we kind of knew. It “has to run its course.” So we weren’t there too long. I was just relieved it wasn’t pneumonia. Her cough was awful.

We were supposed to go to the Detroit Zoo for their Wild Lights, but we were all under the weather. Thankfully, they had my order and were able to switch days for us. I’m grateful, because I would have hated to have not been able to use them.

We got our Christmas photos back and there were more good ones than bad ones. We sat with them and picked the ones for our family Christmas card. This is one of my favorite family ones:

Being inside has been driving the kids crazy. Sam had bought a few games on Amazon for Ella’s birthday, but decided to bring them out to help keep them (and us) occupied. It’s been a while, but I can honestly say that I still can’t win playing Hi-Ho Chery-O!

Today, I had to take Daisy to Puppy Training. I swear, I gave her a bag of treats during this class. We worked on Sit, Watch Me, and Touch today. The trainer started off the class with what was going to happen over the next 6 weeks. All the pups were given a bone to chew while she went over this. Daisy, of course, broke off a tooth and probably swallowed it. She was bleeding on the bone.

As embarrassing as that was, at least she didn’t pee during the class. Another dog, however, peed like three times. As the class drew to a close, Daisy started to get antsy and began to bark at the other dogs. She was pulling and trying to get off the leash. She was happy to finally leave and get in the car.

I put it on after I took this picture, but I bought her a name tag at the store. They engrave them there for you. It hangs off that loop where the leash goes. It hangs down a bit and “clangs” when she walks. It is making her crazy. It is funny to watch her try to chew at it.

The kids are feeling a bit better today, and I hope that continues with more rest. I’m hoping for some rest too!

Hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving 2022 Recap

The holiday weekend is winding down and I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was a good day filled with great food and family.

The day started with a quick game of hide and seek.

We watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The kids loved seeing Josh from Blue’s Clues and Bluey in the parade!

After breakfast, we prepared the deviled eggs to bring. Sam said she didn’t have paprika. She chuckled when I told her I never liked when my mom put it on the deviled eggs! Then we all started to get ready to go to Sam’s mom’s for dinner.

The loss of my sister-in-law, Grace, is still very fresh. It helped to have family together. There was a lot of love and great conversation throughout the day.

We had an amazing dinner, prepared by my mother-in-law: turkey, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and so much more. There was no shortage of desserts either!

The Detroit Lions actually gave us a good game to watch, despite losing in the last 23 seconds. It would have been nice to see them win their fourth in a row.

I got to finally meet my newest niece, Arabella. She is a little cutie! She’s only a few months old, but she’s almost as big as Andrew!

I dropped the ball this year and didn’t really take many pictures. My sister in law snapped a candid of the family as we were leaving which I just love.

I love it because it is typical chaos. It looks like Sam is asking me something and I am oblivious. Ella is waving and Andrew is like, “can we just go home now?”

We came home and relaxed the rest of the night, just enjoying family time.

As I turned off the lights and headed off to bed, I reflected again o just how thankful I am for my wonderful family.