The Wilderness Lodge trip

The spoils of a battle hard fought in the arcade...



One cool thing at the Wilderness is the indoor park that has the Wave pool. The roof is made of glass so you can tan year around, even when it is cloudy outside! In fact, they urge you to wear sunblock in the park. This is where the last 2 pictures come from.

So summer is in full swing..

Kowabunga!!!!



Here are some photos of what we have been up too. We tried to jump-start summer with a trip to the Wilderness Lodge in Wis Dells on May 29th. It was chilly and rainy, so we didn't get to use any of the outdoor waterparks and one of the indoor ones was closed for construction. But the boys had a fun time anyhow...

I hope that this works. This is my son's first bible reading. He did an amazing job, and we are very proud of him.

Thanks to Eric to get this in decent shape to transmit this over the Web. I only hope that my blogger will upload it properly since I've never had any success with it before. OOO, it looks as if it is going to work...YIPPEEE!

Our trip to the beach!

So in spite of a forecast calling for numerous T-storms and the like, the girls and I headed off to Cocoa Beach on the Friday of our trip. We were leaving to come home Sunday morning, so this was our one and only time to go. As it turned out, it was a perfect day to go. By the time we got there, the sun was peeking out from the clouds and by lunchtime it was downright blistering hot! The water was amazingly mild and we had a grand time splashing around.

Of course, we had to make a pit stop into Ron Jon's Surf shop even though none of us surf. Still a cool store to wander around in and pretend that Matthew McConahay (oh please forgive me Matthew for slaughtering the spelling of your last name, it's very late at night) may be strolling by any minute now. SIGH!!!...A girl has to have some unattainable dreams, huh?

We got back to Kissimmee and saw that it had rained a good 2 inches or so throughout the day. So good for us for getting the heck outta Dodge that day. It was a memorable day...

Saturday was spent lounging around the pool, eating up the leftover food and packing our stuff..or should I say CRAMMING our stuff back into our 1 bag we were allowed to bring. Thank goodness one of my carry-ons was a nice expandable bag to shove more stuff into.

Oh, did I mention that I remembered how much I HATE flying? Yep, it's a means to an end, but I won't be holding my breath with anticipation for the next time I get to fly the friendly skies.

Flordia trip part 2

Yes, I did survive 8 nights and 9 days without my family in Florida. Thank goodness we kept busy otherwise I wouldn't have been able to keep sane. I missed my family greatly, but at least when I talked to the boys on the phone they never broke down on me. Jerod told me later that Kieran would hang up the phone and proceed to cry for me for an hour afterwards. YIKES! Sorry honey..

We ate well, one night we traveled to Sea World to see a Luau. Our table was stage side and we got a worm's eye view for all the acts. Very awesome! I figured that I would never get to Hawaii to see the real deal on a beach, so this one was a very good substitute. Even got a pix of me and the Luau boy doing the "hang ten" sign.

So I went to Florida the end of May - SANS KIDS AND HUBBY!

OK so my bad in not putting any of my pix from Florida on here. It's been insanely busy and I haven't made the time to do it since I have been back. So tonight I am taking some time away from my sleep to get some on here. So there, Jessica! (ha, ha, just kidding about the sleep thing-thanks for getting me motivated to update this blog)

So the first is the group shot. The black sisters and I are from Wisconsin. Patti and her daughter Breanne, and my new friend Melissa. The other sisters are from Minnesota. I made some nice new friends on my trip.

The second is a shot of the front of the condo we stayed in.

The third is Breanne and Melissa sunning themselves by the pool. Breanne looks awesome in this shot!

T-Rex makes a terrifying appearance!!

Sorry about the blurriness, we couldn't use a flash and these monsters were constantly moving.
The mama T-rex reassuring her baby that she was there to protect him..

This was the grand finale of the Walk With Dinosaurs show we took the boys to this week. I'm telling you what, that T-rex roar was frightening! It shook the seats and gave me goosebumps. The boys were mesmerized! A few smaller kids were really scared and their parents had to take them out. It was that "in your face" real. We loved it.

Dinosaurs have invaded the Colesium!

This is what greeted us when we entered the auditorium. Ominous, doncha think?
Red footprints of a predator dino chasing after another dino. Cool, huh?
Two brachiosauruses ganging up against one allosaurus. The larger of the two had his head almost clipping the stage equipment up top. I was completely enthralled!!!

Wednesday night we treated the boys to a once-in-a-lifetime cool show. This was way beyond what Jerod and I thought it would be. Lights, seat shaking sound effects, a great story, and incredibly life-like dinos, made this show a delight to watch. Through lighting and sound effects, this show took you through all the prehistoric periods. (i.e. Crusteaous, Triassic, Jurassic, etc) Each period featured a few dinos from that time and showed how they interacted with each other. I was very impressed and would encourage anyone to go if they have the chance!! It was not only for kids...

Finally,......Flowers

After the LONGEST WINTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, we have signs of spring. My flowers have awoken. We had planted a ton of tulip bulbs last fall, and after the horrible winter, I was worried that they would make it. I'm happy to say that it looks like all of them have come up. YEA!

I only wish we had the warm spring weather to accompany the longer days. We've only been in the low 60s this week and tomorrow will be a whopping 55!

The boys do good playing outside. Here they are drawing with chalk on our driveway. Boy is chalk messy on pants!!!

Two teeth lost in one week...

Cayden worked really hard to get his two teeth wiggled out the week of April 17th. He was very proud of his accomplishment and says that he looks like a chipmunk now. Funny boy!!!

This is way beyond ridiculous!!!

OK, I woke up on Wednesday, and filled my gas tank at $3.55/gallon. That evening

this is what I saw at the pump. A 14 cent jump in less than a day. Geez! What a crock!

I know it's been a month since the last update...

So for the 3 of you out there that actually read this thing, I thought that it would be a good time to update you.

We've had good activity on our house. At least one showing a week. We've had 3 open houses, 2 of them were busts: no one showed up. Last Thursday we had an offer on our house. It was a pretty good offer. We countered with a couple minor changes and they rejected it. Because we are at the mercy of our mortgage company approving a short sale, and that process can take up to 45 days, it scared off the buyers because they were on a time crunch and needed to be in here by the 16th of May. I had actually gotten used to the idea of selling and moving. We even looked at a house to rent here in town that I really liked. It was a block away from the pool and Centennial park. In fact, out of the kitchen window you could see the pool. It was in a great location and had a nice backyard. No garage, but oh well. Rent was $700/month. Houses to rent in this location are at a premium. I feel that we really missed out on a great opportunity. So back to square one.

Kieran has had the stomach flu for the last 4 days. Poor guy has just been on the couch napping throughout the day and going to bed at 7 pm and sleeping 12-14 hours at night. At least he's been drinking regularly and going to the bathroom, so I'm not worried that he's dehydrated. This morning he looks and acts the best that he has since Wednesday. Hopefully he'll feel up to returning to school tomorrow. None of the rest of us has come down with it yet, and I hope we won't. YUCK! I figured I'd have it by now, with him coughing on me and me dealing with puke on my clothes and such. But the worse I have right now is stuffy sinuses and an eye infection in my left eye. None worse for the wear.

We just came through about 4 days of gorgeous weather. Highs in the 70's. The boys were out every afternoon after school riding bikes and playing baseball. Kieran has had to get the hang of riding his bike again. After several rough landings (and quite a few nasty scrapes on his arms and legs) he is a proud independent bike rider now. But this week calls for below normal temps, in fact tonight we have a chance of snow showers. YUCK! It could be worse, parts of MN, Nebraska, ND & SD had blizzard conditions on Friday. WE had a tornado touch down in Wyocena, that is about 45 minutes north/northwest of Madison. Caused quite a bit of damage. If you go to www.channel3000.com you can see pictures of it.

I gotta get ready for the meeting. So I'll let all you in cyberspace go for now. Take care!!

Our new upstairs

Cayden's newly finished room
Kieran's room: notice the new crown molding being installed
It will never be this clean again....

My hubby does good work, huh? I'm very proud of the work he has gotten done in the last 2 weeks. He has literally worked like a dog, sun-up to sun-down to get the upstairs ready to show. Now it's all done, now we sit back and wait.

Our Memorial Kids...

Candid shot in the coat room before the Memorial.
The girls in their best. And Kieran popping in at the last minute.silly boy..
Oliver with Carrie and Emily. He's getting so big.

My handsome men...

All dressed up for the memorial! All the guys had new suits to wear..I was so proud of them, they looked really sharp, huh?

Spring is coming...???

I'm going to try to note talk about the house...K?

So it has been really awesome to see the sun out for several days in a row and actually have temperatures above freezing! The ice is melting, snow piles are settling, and bare patches of ground/mud are appearing! Spring is near..

Only 9 weeks left of school. I am glad. Cayden has been having a few problems with controlling his behavior. I've had a few discussions with his teacher and it sounds like typical 7 year boy stuff, but not appropriate actions for schooltime. Nothing major-it's mainly him and another boy in his class that feed off of each other and work each other into little boy craziness. They distract each other from following directions, act silly standing in line, giggle during group time, things like that. A couple weeks ago, they were standing in line waiting to come inside or something, and Cayden put his hat on Mason's head. Mason did not like that, so he grabbed Cayden's hat and threw it and pushed Cayden. Mason has a short fuse, so it doesn't take much to set him off. Cayden doesn't know when to stop. So they are a volitle pair, like fireworks and gunpowder. I've had talks with Cayden to help him to remember how to act and when making the choice to be with Mason may not be the best decision. Both his teacher and I are going to request that those two boys not be in the same class next year. PHEW!

My folks are going to Oregon in April to visit M. Sue and Kirk. They are travelling out there on the train. I got to thinking...that would be a pretty fun trip for my family. Not as confining as a plane, nor as expensive. We'd get to see the countryside and watch movies, and play UNO non-stop which would make Kieran happy. Plus I'd love to see M.Sue and Kirk-I miss them. We could see the mountains and the ocean-which I know the kids would like. I wouldn't presume to stay at their house, that would be alot to take on for a few days! Well, it's an idea.

Kieran has become an UNO FREAK! He will not go to bed until he plays a game (or 2) of UNO and he wants to play more in the morning before bed, after dinner, and so on. The thing is...he is really good at it. He wins alot! Jerod and I stopped letting him win a long time ago, since he can do it all on his own. The little turkey has his own strategy and everything. Some of the rules have to be "bent" so he doesn't end up with 20 cards in his hand. We need to find another simple card game to teach him. Not sure what, but we'll figure it out. Maybe cribbage?

I got to do some evening track work last night. We got alot done-I haven't walked like that in service in a long time. Jerod had the boys, so it was just me. I got to work with Linda Boling and the Douglas's. I was a little surprised of the number of people that were not home at that time of the day. Perhaps some were hiding really well in the dark corners of their homes. Who knows?

Jerod has his 1 year follow-up appointment today for his back. On the 16th, it will be 1 year since he got all fixed up. Ironic that this week his back has been more sore than it has been in this whole time. The 12 ft sheets of rock he's been humping up the stairs at home hasn't helped that situation, I'm sure. But he said that if he isn't able to do the type of work he's been doing on our house, then he'd be of no use on the job site if and when a job would ever pop up. Even so, he's a million times better than a year ago. I am trully grateful for that.

I did pretty good not mentioning the house, huh?

The house is officially on the market..

So last Friday was a major workday here. My parents and Shane and Jessica came over to help, clean, paint and hang sheetrock. Alot got done-a big shout-out to all of the help we got. Nancy came over at 2 to take pictures to post online. The pix turned out pretty good, considering the dust in the air here. So now, Jerod has a ton more work to do upstairs, but my job is to keep the house in presentable shape. That is a round-the-clock job. We won't be able to show the house until after the 19th to give Jerod enough time to get the upstairs done, paint and all. It pains me that finally the upstairs will be really nice and we won't get to enjoy it. SIGH..whatever. At least my family is happy, healthy and Jerod and I are doing well together. That is all that matters, right? A house is just a house....

We had to bite the bullet

So at the beginning of this year I made a wish list. One of the first things I mentioned was not having to lose our house due to Jerod not having work. Well, such is not to be. After a conversation with our bank, we've been advised to try to sell our house before foreclosure proceedings start at the end of May. So we met with a couple realtors last Friday with the goal of getting our house listed by the end of this week.

So now my husband has to work like a mad-man to get the upstairs re-rocked and finished. As I type he is up there knocking off the lathe and plaster and carting it out of the house via 5 gallon buckets. It is a huge mess. Sigh....But it has to be done in order to get the house sellable. In fact, there are quite a few smaller projects that will have to be completed prior to selling, just things that I'm quite happy to overlook in living here, but a potential buyer may take issue with. For example, the grout in both bathrooms needs to be touched up and we don't have the right color grout to redo it. So then we will have to try to scrub out the current grout in order to fix it with new grout. Yuck... A couple of light switches/outlets need to have the plates re-screwed on. That is not a big deal.

Now to try to find another place to live....that just makes my head hurt. To find an affordable 3 bdrm place to rent is like striking oil in your back yard-impossible. I can only hope that a job will crop up for Jerod and we can avoid all of this moving hassle. I pray all the time for it. Maybe if a few of you who read this,,,does anyone even read this besides my dad and mom?,,,,can pray for us too, something may come our way.

I can now officially say that I have become a statistic..

OK, so every winter you hear of the influenza outbreak state by state, and how there is x number of cases of people diagnosed with the flu. I always took a small amount of pride knowing that I was not one of those numbers. "Flu shot? Bah, that is for wussies" I'd think.

Well, guess who has now joined the ranks of the thousands who've contracted the flu? You guessed it, me. No, no, no, not the stomach, puke-your-guts-out flu. Everybody gets that. This is the light-headed, cold sweats, fever shakes, coughing until your sides hurt and you see points of light at the edges of your eyes, head pounding and body aching so badly that it hurts to blink kind of flu. I can assure you that I have never had this extreme of flu before. I would've remembered.

Between the boys and I, we came home with an impressive array of prescriptions from the doctor yesterday. I have some pill for the flu symptoms, a very powerful and slightly scary cough medicine. By scary, I mean, the "extra" stuff in the cough medicine to help me sleep put me into a daze 20 minutes after I took it. I also was given an Albuterol inhaler to help with the coughing fits. Thank goodness. I haven't coughed too much today. I'm greatful for that. Cayden came home with some anti-fungal cream to treat a ringworm rash that will not go away and Kieran has his own version of cough medicine laced with codeine to help him sleep, since his cough is much worse than mine.

We have beeen sleeping well, so far, at least. We'll see about tonight. I've been spraying Lysol disinfectant like crazy on my pillows and on various surfaces around the house to try to to stop the spread of the germs that I have. God forbid my kids catch what I have. I can't even imagine how sick they'd be. I'd feel so sorry for them, that I'd probably have them on my lap for 2 days straight.

So, I hope by my next post, we'll all be much better. I can only hope and pray.

These boys are soooo handsome!

This pic is just so precious