Snow Day!!

Today is the first snow day of the school year. David & Nathaniel slept in till about 7:45 am, much to my delight. They wanted to go outside right away, but I've been making them wait a little while. They do need to eat breakfast, and they have a few chores to do before heading outside to play.

In the meantime, here are some pictures just to show how much snow we've gotten since yesterday afternoon.

This is Stormy, up to her chest in snow, but she loves it.

Our poor grill is covered.

Stormy again.

And somewhere, under all that snow is our red car. Oh, right. There it is.

We've gotten over a foot of snow so far, and it just keeps coming. The wind is starting to pick up too. I'm guessing when the kids finally go outside, it won't be for very long.

In other, non-snowy news, Richard has bronchitis. He went and saw a Dr on post yesterday. So he's on drugs for the next 10 days. Poor guy. I'm still not feeling great, but I am feeling much better compared to a week ago. I still don't have my appetite back, which is good for the waistline.

Monday evening was our last FPU lesson for this class session. I'm going to take a break until the end of February, and then start another one.

Have a great Snow Day!

I Have a VERY Good Reason....

for not posting anything for an entire week. In my previous post, I mentioned that David was sick. Well, he was running a fever all last weekend, and then Monday afternoon, while Nathaniel was out with Richard, he got sick as well. But not just throwing up sick. Out the other end as well. So I made a Drs' appt for David on Tuesday, and of course had to bring Nathaniel along. Turns out it was H1N1. Yep. Both at the same time, just a couple days apart symptom-wise. So we didn't go to Iowa for Thanksgiving. So up until yesterday (Saturday) we were all doing fairly well. Until about 2:30 am, when it was my turn. So I spent all day yesterday in bed, while Richard held down the fort. He called the Dr for me and a Rx for Tamiflu was called in for me, so he and the boys went and picked that up. The highest my fever was all day was 101.9, and its down around 99 now. I'm feeling much better now that I'm not throwing up every 30 minutes or so like I was early yesterday morning. Richard is such a good hubby, he even ran a bath for me yesterday since my back was hurting from laying in bed all day.

I did get some Christmas shopping done on Friday, the craziest store I went to was Old Navy. There was a line to check out almost all the way back to the back of the store. I was out of there quick. Not wanting to fight crowds.

See? I did have a good excuse for going so long without a post.

Only 25 shopping days left til Christmas! :)

This and That

Let's see... what has been happening around here?

Oh yes, Richard finally got a buck a couple of weeks ago. It was the 8th of November, to be exact. A little rack, but he doesn't usually go for trophy bucks, just something to put meat on the table (or freezer). That one he shot with his bow. He just shot one yesterday, another buck, with his rifle. Actually, with my rifle. His buddy talked him into doing a European mount of the head/antlers, which translates to a bare skull & antlers. Much, much cheaper than a full mount. By about $400-450 dollars.

Richard took the boys with him yesterday up to his buddy's house to cut up the deer. He called me about a hour after they left to tell me to come get David. He threw up in the parking lot of a gas station. I talked him in to letting him rest and see if it was just motion sickness, but he kept throwing up. So I had to drive an hour and 15 minutes to get them (all 3 came home with me). I left at 7:45 pm, and we all got home about 11 pm. We, of course, had to stay and visit for a little while, which is why we got home so late.

Oh, and I celebrated my 30-something birthday this past Thursday. Richard and the boys took me out to eat at Famous Dave's in La Crosse. It was a lot of fun. That day I also went to help out in David's class, and I brought in birthday treats for the kids. There was a substitute teacher, and she was helping the kids make a giant birthday card for me when I arrived. It was really sweet. And they sang Happy Birthday to me and I got hugs from several of the kids. They kept asking how old I was and I told them I was older than 30 & younger than 40. They were a little disappointed with that answer.

David's Picture

For those of you who asked, here is a picture of the picture David drew for the Hometown Heroes Coloring Contest that he won (see November 6th's post). I jokingly asked him last night if I could throw the picture away. With a look of panic on his face he said, "NO!" To which I answered, "I'm just kidding!" What a look of relief!

Among other news, Richard is out hunting this morning. He left the house around 5:30 am. I still haven't heard anything from him, and I'm not going to call him either. Hopefully he'll get something today.

I'm also taking David to the eye doctor this afternoon. He started complaining on Thursday that the words in a book we were reading were fuzzy, and when I mentioned it to his teacher, she said that he said he couldn't read the words on the board at school. So we'll see what the Dr. says.

A Difficult Few Days

I haven't posted anything for a few days. Wednesday I had no excuse, but Thursday & Friday, I had other things on my mind. Richard's dog, Midnight, who is 12 1/2 years old, began having trouble walking Thursday afternoon. I took her to the vet on Friday, and after X-Rays, the vet had some bad news. Midnight has a degenerative spinal disorder. She's lost some control over her back legs, and can't feel much in her feet. Its not going to get better, it can only be controled with pain meds. She's on the doggy equivalent of Tylenol and Codine, so she's spent a lot of time the last day sleeping. She is walking a little better, but we can tell she's still hurting.

Richard & I slept on our hide-a-bed last night, since she's not supposed to go up/down stairs anymore. Neither of us slept well, and I woke up with a migraine.

The boys know that she's not feeling well, and tonight, as gently as we could, we explained to David that Midnight isn't going to get better, and eventually we'll have to have her put to sleep. The poor boy. It breaks my heart that we had to tell him, but we felt we needed to prepare him. Please keep us in your prayers, as the next few days will be very difficult as Richard makes the decision whether to put her to sleep or keep her around for a while longer.

David asked me if we had pictures of Midnight. I looked through a bunch of pictures, and found the ones below. Most of these were pre-Nathaniel.

David & Midnight, February, 2005

Midnight (laying down) & Stormy, June, 2006

David & Midnight, December, 2003

David & Midnight, July, 2003

Fevers and Coughs and Sniffles....

Oh my! I took David to the Dr today, along with Nathaniel. Without making Nathaniel sleepy, there isn't a lot we can do for his motion sickness, except try things like crackers, or peppermint candy. Oh well, it was worth a shot. The Dr can't do anything for David, either. Although he did say that if David is still running a fever on Wednesday that I should bring him in for some tests. Tests, I'm guessing, that include checking for the H1N1 virus. We'll just wait and see, I guess.

Richard is going bow hunting after work tonight. Again trying for a deer. Every time he's gone, his buddy has either seen one or more deer, or has shot one, and Richard has seen none. Hopefully tonight will be the night.

More Fresh Salsa!

Ok, so my friend Lynna posted a comment that I should roast the peppers before I add them to any fresh salsa that I make. So I searched the internet & found directions, and gave it a try this morning. I did it on our gas grill, as I didn't want to turn our oven on, since it was pretty warm today. Anyway, the peppers roasted fine, but even after leaving them in a plastic bag to sweat, rinsing them in cold water & cutting off the stems, I still had trouble peeling them. I ended up leaving a good portion of the skins on, since they wouldn't come off anyway, and chopped them up and added them to the tomatoes, cilantro & red onion. In total, it was 6 roasted garden salsa peppers. I did not sample it, as I wanted Richard to taste it first & see how hot it was. So he tried it when he got home, and said that it had a kick, but not too bad. So I tried it. Too much of a kick for me, but I don't like hot stuff.

Richard & the boys spent a little while outside this afternoon shooting their bows. David and Nathaniel are doing pretty well. Not very accurate, but they're having fun. Richard shot an arrow. With another arrow. Seriously. It doesn't happen often, but when it does..... he split the shaft of the arrow about half way down, and was not happy. Arrows aren't cheap.

I got a call this morning......

from the bus barn. Nathaniel threw up on the bus, somewhere between David's school & Nathaniel's school. Its only about a 5 minute drive, even in a school bus. I think he just got motion sick because he's not running a fever, he hasn't gotten sick again and he's acting totally normal. But because some other kids in his class have been sick, I took him home just to be on the safe side. He took a bubble bath (cause he really smelled) and then laid down on the couch to watch Tom & Jerry. He fell asleep around 10:00 & slept till about noon.

While he slept, I took the opportunity to continue cleaning up my computer/scrapbooking room. As I type this, I'm sitting at a totally clean computer desk. Yippee! I filed papers that needed filing & sorted through a bunch of papers & threw a bunch away. I had a bunch of stuff to burn, and Nathaniel helped with that after his nap.

Richard is in Chicago right now, awaiting his 8:00 pm flight to La Crosse. He's thinking he'll be home about 11:00 pm. I'll be out cold. The nice part is he has Thursday & Friday off.

David starts soccer tomorrow. He's really excited.

Its Only Tuesday??

It feels like it should be Friday! Today was pretty uneventful. Our lp tank (liquid propane) was filled in preparation for cooler weather & turning the heat on. It was a pleasant suprise when the bill came to only $365.40. It was $1.40 a gallon. This time last year it was around $2.00 a gallon, in the winter of '08 we paid as much as @2.30 a gallon. Hopefully the price per gallon will stay low.

One thing I forgot to mention that I did yesterday was that I went and helped in David's class in the morning. It was fun, and I started learning everyones names and started getting a hint of the different personalities in the class. David was so excited he could hardly stand it! I'm going to be helping on Mondays & Thursdays, so I'll be going back in a couple of days. I'm really looking forward to it.

Only 1 more day till Richard gets home! He's been down in Mississippi since Labor Day for training. Tomorrow is his travel day home. Unfortunately he won't get home until around 11:00 pm. His flight gets in about 9:00 pm, but he has to drive from La Crosse to Ft. McCoy to take a buddy home, the come back to the house. He does have Thursday & Friday off, however.