Sunday, February 27, 2011

Checking in

Just dropping in, with not much new to say. Life is a little stressful right now...having our house for sale with so little luck and our window to build closing in is making me a little worried. We looked at another existing home in Pekin today, which was okay, but I can't even wrap my mind around moving with no one remotely interested in purchasing our home. After working a 70 plus hour work week this week, I just feel like we NEED to be closer to my work for my family's sake. I truly believe that God's timing is perfect, and that while it rearely coincides with MY desired timing, it is always right. I keep trying to remember that...

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy V-Day

Happy V-Day!

Today I finally bit the bullet and booked our summer vacation. We've been holding off because we couldn't decide where to go and because we don't even know where we will be living come summer (if our house sells, that is). For us, the stipulations on the family vacation were pretty simple: it had to be easy enough to do in one week because I will start a new job July 1st, and it had to be fun for the kids and for us. Now, the kids immediately suggested Disney, but having gone there the last four years in a row, I am all Disney-ed out. Plus, when I think of "fun for adults", Disney just doesn't do it. We will take the kids back there before too long, but not this year. After spending a lot of time researching online and then talking to my travel agent (thanks Jessica...haha) we settled on an all inclusive resort in Mexico. Keeton has never been to the ocean and Ella was so little the last time she was in Florida, plus she hated the sand...absolutely hated it. Poor thing--we had to sit her on a towel and if the sand even touched her toes, she freaked out. This resort offers lots of activities for the kids so we can have adult time, plus tons of family activities, so I think this will certainly be the best of both worlds. Being that it is freezing in the midwest right now, Mexico is sounding pretty good!

Saturday, February 12, 2011

3 points for mom of the year

Earlier today I had a, "I need to blog about that" moment, and now for the life of me, I can't remember what it was. I guess that summarizes my week nicely!

The kids had dentists appointments today and Ella had another cavity (score 1 for awesome mom award). Keeton has one starting (score 2). We also got the, "prepare your finances for orthodontic bills out of this world" talk. In scheduling Ella's filling appointment I could not remember when my spring break (or hers) is other than that they are not at the same time (score 3). I'm pretty sure the receptionist thought I was crazy. That is what happens when I don't get coffee in the morning... So, I win today, if not for Mom of the year I at least get the Least With It Mom Award!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Blizzard, 2011, part 2

“Success is determined by those whom prove the impossible, possible.” - James W. Pence

With more than 14 inches of snow, and massive snowdrifts, "impossible" would be what Jeff and I saw and thought when we opened our garage door this morning and saw what had become of our driveway:

I would estimate that we had a good three foot drift in front of the entire drive, about 10 feet down, across all three stalls. In addition to that, the City plows dumped at least 5 feet of ice-packed snow across 1 1/2 of our driveway...needless to say, after an hour of digging we were feeling pretty helpless. The kids LOVED the natural sled hill, however.

After standing in the drive just muttering to myself, I decided to go in an call in reinforcements (the kind that drive big trucks with plows on them). I was feeling desperate and was willing to pay for someone else to dig us out. After having no success finding anyone I came back out to find several of our neighbors helping Jeff...we have awesome neighbors. Truly, I will be so sad to move from this house (if it ever sells) because we do have the best neighbors in the world. So, six of us with two snow blowers got to work trying to break through, even enough to get one car out. Eventually, we were all feeling defeated and Jeff, after spotting a snow removal truck on the next street took off to ask him to come by our house. It took him awhile to trek through all the snow, but he managed to catch him...first success of the day!!

Unfortunately, the guy told Jeff there was no way he was going to tackle our mess--his truck would get stuck, he said. So, without anything else to do we kept shoveling. Eventually, the guy with the truck rounded the corner and we all started jumping up and down, waving at him...maybe he made a mistake and he could do it after all?! Truly, we had to be a sight--six grown adults standing next to snow up to our shoulders, waving down snowplows...

The guy obviously felt bad for us, but once again affirmed that he couldn't do a job that big. He told us we could wait until tomorrow when a front loader could come...and then, we must have looked pathetic enough that he agreed to take a few passes at the end of the drive to, as he said, "give us a little hope"...

His little bit of "hope" wasn't all that much, unfortunately. An hour later we finally cleared enough snow to get the cars out. On the bright side, I think this counts for both my cardio and strength workouts today!

Blizzard, 2011

By now, I think most everyone knows that the much of the US was hit by a massive snowstorm--ours came in the form of a blizzard yesterday. As I started taking pictures of the storm's arrival yesterday afternoon, I was a bit surprised at its quiet, spiralling decent on us. By the end of the evening, the wind was blasting our house at more than 40 miles per hour and lightening bolts highlighted the fury of the snow which had been coming down at 1-2 inches per hour, all day. When we woke up this morning, we were amazed to see the dunes of snow that in some places, stood more than 4 feet tall. I have a friend who says that if she squints her eyes just right, she can imagine that the snow is actually the white sands of the ocean. If were to do that today, I would believe that we were in the Sahara Desert.

Yesterday, 12:30 p.m.