Is January over yet?

Well January has been a long difficult month and I personally can't wait for it to be over. The worst thing was that my Mother-in-law had a stroke on Hannah's birthday, well actually the day before but Michael's family failed to tell us about it until then. We had already left home and traveled to Kentucky for what was supposed to be a great family weekend celebrating Hannah's birthday and her and Lucas competing in the Taekwondo tournament there. Well the kids competed and didn't fair too well. Michael and Lucas took off from Kentucky for Pittsburgh where they spent days in the cardiac icu waiting room. In addition to the stroke, his mom needed a pacemaker as well. Glad to say that she seems to be improving nicely and is now in rehabilitation.

Myself and the other kids stayed the night in Kentucky and got a ride back with my good friend Allison and her family. We are still trying to work out a plan to reschedule Hannah's birthday parties both with friends and with family that we had to postpone to deal with the family emergency. I'm a little stressed about finding time to do that and feel disappointed to have had her birthday be such a downer. Oh forgot we went out to dinner after the tournament with some other taekwondo buddies to eat and celebrate Hannah's and another boy's birthday. To put it nicely, we had the worst service I have ever experienced in a restaurant. It took us about 2 hours to get our food once they finally took our order and then I can't even remember how long we had to wait to get the bill, etc. What a bad night!


My long planned trip to take Hannah to visit Emily was fun but had its moments too. It was cold as heck in Arizona that weekend, the coldest in 19 years. So much for escaping the dreary Ohio winter. We did have fun sitting around laughing at the strangest things. We also got to watch a dumb movie too, The Village. While there Michael's van overheated and we later discovered that the engine block had cracked. Not what we needed at this point in life but what could we do. No chance this family could be a one car family. So out with the old van in with the new orange car. The kids are so excited that it is orange. Lucas even more so then the other as orange is his favorite color. Scary thing was that we were talking that by the time this car is paid off it could be Lucas' car as he will be 16 then. Oh that makes me quiver thinking of him being 16.

So what else has gone wrong this month? Michael dropped a jar of salsa on his foot and thought for a while he might have broken it. Michael also broke his glasses in the middle of church. Don't ask me how that happens. We also had some tense moments when I was driving home from the airport. During a phone conversation with Michael he casually informed me that Mr. Squeaky, our beloved hamster was missing from his cage, something he discovered earlier that evening. He had given up looking for him and was watching tv at the moment. I wasn't sure what to do first, be upset that he was not still looking for the hamster or to tell Hannah the bad news. Mind you, we live with 3 cats, so a hamster survivability rate drops dramatically. Hannah bawled the whole 20 minutes home from the airport, no a good end to our girl's weekend in Arizona. Luckily with my insistance that he search again, Michael was able to find Mr. Squeaky unharmed under Hannah's toy chest. So now Mr. Squeaky and Mr. Bunny have padlocks on their cage to prevent the doors from being opened when they are supposed to be opened. We haven't figured out yet the mystery as to whether Michael forgot to close it all the way when he was feeding the hamster or if little brother visited his sister's room. Oh well, all's well that ends well.

Speaking of ending, I think I will end this for now and get started with the day. Too much to do today & definitely not enough time. Luckily there are only 3 more days in January. Thanks for letting me vent my bad month. Hannah might like the song "Bad Day" but this has been too many bad days in a row.

Hopefully returning from being MIA

Okay, I feel like I have been missing in action for the last month and a half.
Between holiday preparation and battle bronchitis, I haven't been on the computer much other than checking email. Sadly I can't even remember the last time I logged into SBA (and I used to go there several times a day). Well it is a New Year and I hope to get back to doing things and keeping this blog updated. Wish I could say I'm 100% feeling better, but hopefully that will turn around soon as well.

Here are pictures from our annual family celebration of New Year's Eve. We totally go crazy with poppers,confetti, silly string, etc. Actually it seemed somewhat milder this year. This year I even ventured to make my own pinata. It was an interesting project to make but it worked well and was inexpensive to make. I just need to figure out a better way to hang it. I think Michael would appreciate that as well. Michael actually took the destruction of the pinata to new levels as seen in the video.