Just A Little Moment For Myself

Never fear Amalia the silence is nothing more than my personal, professional, and mental selves colliding. Nothing bad, it just seems like this month has been one for the books. August is usually pretty busy, but this one has been trying really really hard to make me say "uncle".

Let's discuss, shall we?

We won't even go back to the cancer walk, or my 6 month check, that's old news. Let's just talk about the past 2 weeks or so. We had a mini vacation, which I came home sick. Luckily that went away pretty fast. This past weekend we made the 5 hour trek to my in-laws house with the girls. It was a good weekend, just a lot of hustle and bustle since my brother in law and fam were visiting from Utah. They also have two girls so here's how the breakdown went....

Claire: 4 (almost 5, just ask her)

Winter: 3

Nadia: 3

Kristy: 2

So, four kids 4 and under. Yikes! They all got along really well and played and played and ran and ran, and they even got a "game" of boccie ball in.

Somehow the drive home was a little over 6 hours, but to be fair we did stop at a Mc D's that had a play land so the girls could run around a little bit.

I have put in almost 20 hours of comp time at work. Now that the summer program is coming to an end, we need to get ready for the school year. I ran our registration last week, and this week I have to be at both grade schools to represent the program for their open houses. Another 3 and a half hours of comp. I have hired new staff, so there's been quite a bit of training going on, plus let's just discuss on how it is SO time for the kids to be back in school. Speaking of, also this week I have two open houses for Claire and Nadia's preschool. I had to get school supplies last night to be ready for those.

A while back, maybe 6 or 7 months, we offered to let my niece to live with us while she goes to college. There's a lot of yadda yadda yadda in there, so to make a long story short, she is moving in this weekend. This means that I had to somehow convince Claire that the little bedroom would be awesome. All she said was that it had to be painted. No problem. She picked light blue for the past week, until yesterday when she changed her mind to light purple. So purple it is. Dion and I started painted it last night, knowing that we have to get all of Claire's stuff out of her room to get ready for Kelsey. We have a little bit left to do tonight, then we are golden.

On to the house situation. Yes, we were disappointed that we lost that house, but it opened up the floor for some serious discussion. We have decided to stay here for a bit, as money is tight, selling a house is tight, and even if we finally got an offer (or how about even a looker?) I don't really want to move in the winter. We have begun to change some things in our house, and so far I like the way things are going. We have a lot of work to do, but when don't we? The girls are going to have the whole basement to themselves as a playroom, which will be nice. I talked to our neighbors last night and they were pretty happy. Also, I would feel horrible taking Claire away from Dewey, who she says is her brother (they live next door).

So that is where we are at. It has been a whirlwind and will be for the rest of the week, but that's what keeps us young, right? Or, wait....did I mean insane? Eh, either one.

Bitter Sweet

We had a wonderful time up in Hayward WI. I think we will look into spending more days there next time. The girls had a blast, minus the fear of every bug being a bee. Actually, Nadia freaked out more than I thought she would. We played at the playground, in the lake, Dion took them kayaking, we went to a Wilderness Walk place where they had animals just strolling around for you to pet, and wild animals that you could look at but not touch.

The bitter part was that I got sick after we got home with sinus crap and body aches (nothing a little leftover Vicadin couldn't cure) and we lost the house we wanted. They asked us to remove our contingency, which we did. We are now re-evaluating what we are going to do. We have been talking about some things we want to change in the house, but time will tell. Anyway, here's some pictures for all to enjoy. The picture of them sleeping if after we got home. They slept for 3 hours. The picture of them in the car was when we were getting ready to go. They sat in there waiting for us to pack everything for at least a half an hour.

The First Time

I am kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I will. I am really just that kind of person...no holds barred, if you know what I mean.

Tomorrow, we are heading up north to the resort that Dion's company owns and lets employees use. We will be spending 3 days/2 nights there as a family. A family mini-vacation. I can hardly believe that we have never gone somewhere by ourselves, together. Now, I have many times WANTED to go somewhere, but it seemed like chemo, cancer, radiation, surgeries (mine and Dion's), work, etc have gotten in the way the last 3 and a half years. In fact, the last trip Dion and I took was when Claire was about 6 months old and we went to FL to visit my parents. We gotta get out more.

So I am looking forward to spending time away from all the crap at home, with my loving husband and my little ones. We will be boating, swimming in the lake, walking in the woods, we might even break out the kites I bought a few weeks back. It will be awesome. Pictures to come.

The Shuffle

The only pictures I am posting this year are of the Luminarias from the cancer walk. This year was a lot different then other years for a few reasons. Last I had heard, we had raised over $140,000 for the American Cancer Society. There were over 7000 Luminaria bags, which is what the pictures are of, even if they are hard to see. Our team raised a little over $2800, which is pretty good. Dion and I walked the path together, talking about how the past three years have been, how it seems so long ago, but at the same time, seems like yesterday when I walked my first survivor lap. It is such a bitter sweet event, and I can't say which is more prevalent.

We had our tent set up and thankfully it had cooled down a little so we weren't sweating all night. We crawled into our tent at about 1:30am for a quick snooze. A few hours later, our team mates were telling us that a rather large storm was rolling in...hail and 65 mph wind. This was the first year in all of the years I have been doing this that we left because of the weather. And it was just in time too. About a half hour after we left, the police came by and kicked everyone out as the sirens went off. This is the first year since my diagnosis that I haven't taken my Luminarias home. What is odd, is that this is also the first year, when walking the path, that I felt like I didn't need to take them home. Thankfully I came to that before the decision would have been taken away from me.

We have spent the rest of the weekend nodding off here and there. Dion's mom came up Friday night to help with the kids. Unfortunately, Claire came down with a bug and is just now starting to recover, although her eyes still look like she's sick. So we weren't able to do much of the fun stuff we normally would.

So, I guess that's it this year for the walk. Thank you so much to Mom & Dad B, Mom & Dad F, Kathy M, Paul & Cindy, Patsy Poopyhead, Brandy, Shari K, Susan H, Ben O, Fran J, Keri U, Jeff & Heidi, Kids Junction Kids, Gemini, and I hope I didn't forget anyone else.

Just a little side note.....Red Wing is the #1 raiser of money per capita in MN for the Relay for Life, and #7 in the nation. Not too bad for a little town of 16,000 eh?

Idol

So here are some of the Idol pictures from the concert. I have come to the conclusion that we need a better digital camera, as most of the pictures came out kind of blurry. But you can see how close we were to the action. It was a lot of fun, and they really gave a good performance. Sanjaya shocked me! Out of all of them, he was the best entertainer, very funny, very comfortable on stage. But, Blake will always win my heart because the talent he has will get him far, I'm sure.

I Take It Back

While I was so busy enjoying all of the good that has happened to me this week, I left out something that happened that is by all means, not good, but in fact, dreadful, horrific, and sad.

This goes out to all of the people who were hurt or killed by the collapse of the 35W bridge in Minneapolis, a mere 45 minutes from where I live. It is hard to put into words the feelings one has when you think that it could have been me. I have been on that bridge many times. The udder destruction that has occurred with that bridge is out of my comprehension. I feel terrible for the people who had to ride the bridge down, the people who landed in the water and swam for their lives, the kids on the bus who I am sure will forever have a fear of going over bridges for the rest of their lives.

Here's also to the people who once they were out of their cars, went back to help others get out. Can you imagine the bravery? The stamina? How everyday average Joes, saved life after life? May we all strive to be like them, to help each other, to live. God bless.

A Very Good Week

Let me tell you the numerous reasons why this is one of the best weeks of the year.

First, my Mayo check up went well. Everything is A-O-K...minus my triglycerides, but we will be working on that one.

Second, we have had our offer on that house that I posted before accepted, contingent on selling our current house.

Third, I am going to the American Idol concert tomorrow, where we have 4th row tickets and might be getting backstage passes again.

The only thing that would make this the ultimate week would be if we sold our house. Any offers? Huh? Huh?