Melting Beads

Our newest obsession around here is melting beads.  Little beads that you put onto a tray and then iron to fuse them together.  Hannah made this huge H.E.P. and as you can see loved it so much that I found her sleeping with it :-)

Her next project was a sign for her daddy.  Not sure if I should laugh or cry...

Impressive though, she did a great job.

I want to SQUEEZE her!

This little one.  She is so cute I just want to squeeze her!  She brought a lunch today to Bound using her new lunch box that we got her for school (starting in a few weeks- YIKES!).

She was so excited!

It reminded me of when we were little and we would get new lunchboxes.  Back then many of them were metal and the design on them was raised up.  They ALWAYS had a matching thermos (which was pretty much the best part).  The Annie, ET and Cabbage Patch kid ones were my absolute favs.  

Sunday Funday

Today we hung out with Kari and family and ended our night at Perkins for dinner.

These kids... growing up so fast.

I wonder if they even realize that the boys are going home later this week :-(

Still Broken

Went in today for a 2 week follow up to check on my broken leg.

Looks like I have not been a very good patient.  The bone is still together but it not looking much different from the first views.  Will schedule another follow up and return again in a few weeks.

Change of Scenery

The house next door is starting to come along!

There's been some action on the other side!  Our island is closing in.  We have met the neighbors that are moving into the house that was just dug (second in from the corner).  There names are Steve and Katie.  No kids.  Young.  Really, really nice.  *sigh of relief*

She's Got Legs

I usually sit in the bathroom with the girls as the shower or take a bath.  Lately I have been trying to do other things while they are washing up.  They are getting older.  They can obviously wash themselves and are getting much better at washing their own hair, etc.  Today I was doing laundry and cleaning the house and almost had a heart attack when I looked down the hall to see this.

I walked very fast down the hall to get closer and those legs started doing dance moves across the wall.  Whew!  I had every horrible scenario run through my head and for a minute started beating myself up that I let my daughter drown!   What a relief to see those dancing legs!

Holla!

Hailey saw the Ecolab soap dispenser at the restaurant tonight and HAD to show it off to Jennie.

I love that she knew right away that this is where Jennie works and could put it together.

'Bedtime'

Hailey requires less sleep than the rest of us.  I put her to bed the same time as Hannah and within 4 minutes Hannah is snoring.  Hailey on the other hand will be up for a while, sometimes over an hour past the time I sent her to bed.  Eventually she decides it's no fun playing in the dark or she gets tired, admits defeat and falls asleep.  Those days, it's always entertaining to wake her up in the am.  This particular day I came in to see Justin and his girlfriend hanging out on Hailey's bed. 

Our OCW family keeps growing

I love this scene.  A mixture of kids from different homes on our block.  Playing together, hovered around Hannah's phone while they all watch their music video that they just created.

Loriann Returns

Loriann is BACK!

Looks like I wasn't the only one who was excited to see her.

Alador spent over 8 hours in the office yesterday blowing up balloons to assure that she had the BEST welcome back ever.  Over 800 balloons. 

They would randomly pop throughout the day.  A few times Ann would be on a call, a balloon would pop and she would let out a scream, either startled from the pop or thinking someone was shooting at her- lol.  By the end of the day we had to pop a good amount of the balloons so that we could move in the walkways.

Debs and Loriann took the deflated balloons and filled the cup holders, glove box and visors of Al's car with them (that's what you get for leaving your keys out on your desk).  They then filled a rolling recycling bin with full balloons and filled his car and trunk.  He looked crazy at the end of the day sitting in his car stabbing at the air until he could get enough of them popped to drive away.

Glad to have my bestie back!  (I just hugged her instead)

Wheelin'

Tons of kids on wheels on our street today.

Four wheeler, electronic cars, and Ethan in his go cart.

At one point one of the vehicles lost power so Noah got a rope and towed it home. 

 Good thinking Noah!  It was pretty impressive watching him handle the situation.

And the hits just keep on coming......

My leg still hurts.  It's not getting any better yet so it was time to schedule an appointment with Ortho.  Summit has an Ortho-quick clinic so I called, made a same day appointment and within an hour got the news that my leg is broken.

Yeah.  Broken.

(remember how I was just in Las Vegas, walking A LOT, yup- that probably didn't help)

It's not the main bone.  It's the fibula, which is the smaller non-weight bearing bone of the leg however, my tibia (the bigger bone) is constantly knocking into it which is causing the pain.

You can see it on the Xray (left bone, the darker white part).  It was broken and is now starting to heal but you can clearly see that there's still a ways to go.

Plan:  continue to wear (or actually wear consistently) the boot

Stay off it as much as possible

Check back in 4-6 weeks to check on the healing progress

When things get tough, be thankful that you get to try again tomorrow

When things get tough, be thankful that you get to try again tomorrow.

-Eric Gilseth

This statement could not be anymore true.

Tonight while at the Bleachers concert with Beth, Nikki and Kay. our friend, Leah, was at the hospital saying goodbye to her older brother, Eric.

Eric has been battling cancer for the past few years and this weekend, while away with the family on a vacation at their favorite cabin resort, his body had endured too much.

He needed to be flown to the U and within a few days, his fight was over.

I could never say enough about the type of guy that Eric was. 

 I was so inspired by him and his story and yet I had only met him once.  

No doubt this has been a hard year so far.  A few weeks ago I lost a coworker of mine, Sara Totino, to a horrible accident (that she suffered while at her daughter's wedding reception).  

It's been a constant flow of bad news and bummer situations and although there are a million things to be thankful for, it's hard to feel 'happy' about anything right now.  Of course I feel thankful, but it's just hard to feel happy.  It's just been too much too fast.

Grey Matters

Mary coordinated the whole thing.  She knew the guy.  She informed the neighbors, collected money and delivered more than 20 grey ribbons to honor Amy and to show our support for what she is going through.  Grey is the color for brain cancer awareness.  The ribbons are grey and the lights are white.

As soon as the sun starts to set they all light up.  It'll give you goosebumps.

Happy Accidents

Chase just turned 3 and Kay and Mike asked if I would take a few pictures for them.  They wanted to take some posed pictures and didn't really want to go to a studio.  We decided to try the bridge and walking path area very close to our old house.  

It was the perfect setting and the pictures turned out great!

At one point I told Mike and Kay to go stand by him and hold his hands so I could get a picture of just their hands with him but then I zoomed out and this happened.  Kay had made it clear a few times that we were not doing family pictures.  This was just for Chase, her and Mike were not dressed or prepared for family pictures, we would do those another day, etc.

This was an accident but it worked in our favor.  I love this picture of their family :-)

Instead......

Usually we are in Pine City for the Pine County parade and fair this week.

Instead we are at the end of season Soccer Jamboree.

This was the first year the girls played soccer and it didn't feel right skipping the tournament for a parade.  The teams each played two games and then the kids got ice cream and trophies.

I didn't get a picture of Hannah's team but we were sure to get a picture with Sammy.  It was so fun playing on her team and being able to see her a few nights each week.  Such a nice family and such a great friend of Hannah's.  I can tell these girls will be friends for a long time.

We could have driven up to the cabin after soccer, we would have missed the parade but could have made it to the fair.

Instead we stayed home and I was able to take some family pictures for the Wolverts.

They haven't had family pictures taken in a long time (ever according to Amy).

I wanted to be sure they had these.  Before her hair is gone because of the chemo,  before the fight for her life begins.  She's got this.  She's going to kick cancer's ass.

But I wanted her to have something to hang on her wall to remind her how beautiful this life is.

This is it

Today is our last full day here.
We had no real plans and figured we would do a lot more of what we have already done.  Walk around, see the sites and gamble.
We had a few more things to check off of our list and decided that to kill some time we should take a bus to Downtown- such a good idea!  I think it was perfect for us the first few days to see Vegas by foot.  Now that we have done that we needed a better way to strip-hop.
We started out having lunch at Guy Fieri's Restaurant.
The food was amazing!  Best I have had in a long time.

Jennie and I split the pulled pork and the mac 'n cheese burger.  OH MY- DELISH!

And mom got her ice and water!  FINALLY she found a place with water ;-)
Seriously, this woman couldn't get enough.  I think the lack of self-serve machines was a real downer for her.  She was so thirsty.  ALWAYS

Next up- Downtown!

We got our picture taken with 1 million dollars!

We made our way back to the strip and mom finally got her frozen hot chocolate.

We took the bus all the way to Mandalay Bay, let's see if we can find a view!  Not the kind of view that Jennie was looking for but it was JUST what I was looking for!

We walked over to the Luxor and donated some more.

Eventually it was time to catch our red eye home :-(
It was such a fun trip!  Next time, and there will be a next time, we need to schedule a few shows!

Peace Out Wimps!

This morning we laughed so hard that my stomach started to hurt.

Something about Kari and I in a hotel room together brings out the funny in us (remember Jennie's wedding, another gut buster!).   

Mom woke up and proclaimed her need for ice.  She was having a good time but she just couldn't believe that Vegas doesn't have ice.  

WHAT?!  LOL- WHO IS THIS WOMAN?!

We informed her that you can get ice from the ice machine here just like at every other hotel in the country but she didn't look too convinced so Kari grabbed the ice bucket and headed out to prove that there was indeed ice in Vegas.  "Peace out wimps!"

Today we made our way to the other end of the strip.

We started at Paris and while Kim and Chris went running off to find a machine to play, Jennie, Kari and I went to explore.  We ended up finding mimosas and macaroons- YUM!

Next we were off to Planet Hollywood, the M&M store, MGM Grand, New York, New York, Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay.  Kari has to leave tonight :-(  She was nervous about leaving the boys with Grandpa Dan for too long.  I am not ready for her to leave tonight.

When we got to MGM Grand I told Kari we needed to go and see the lions.  I always liked to see them when we were here, it was intriguing to think that they lived inside of a casino and had thousands of people starring at them each day.

We walked around and around with no luck of finding them.  Sure, the hotel had been changed around and remodeled but I swear this is right where they used to be!

Well, I guess this guy will have to do.  I thought they used to be more active...

We finally ended up asking and finding out that the lions are no longer in the casino and were moved to a habitat ranch about 10 miles away.

Tonight we had dinner at Margaritaville and waved to Kari as she hopped into a cab and rode away.