It's been a while!

I didn't realize it had been so long since I blogged.  Well in the two weeks I have not blogged I had a date night with my husband, had our taxes done, and planned a family vacation to Yellowstone National Park.  Of course there were still the usual things like laundry, vacuuming, and dishes.  Oh, I also had a phone interview, which I think went very well.  I'll find out this week if I made the cut for a face to face interview.  I hope so.  I would really like to have a job.

Last week was a brief heat wave for us in SD.  I took advantage of that and chiseled away at our packed snow hill in the driveway.  Alex helped a bit too.  We sure did get some really big pieces of ice.  Alex and I had lift them up and drop them on the driveway just to break them apart.  I should of taken a before and after picture, along with some pictures of the big ice pieces, but I didn't.  It sure was nice though to have that warm weather come through!

Now we have ice!  This happened late Saturday through Sunday morning.  Then we had some snow, but not much, however it did drift a little in our driveway.  I went out today to shovel the drifts away and soon realized I was shoveling on complete ice.  It was definitely challenging and also provided a fall on the ice, which was painful!  I hurt my back a little more.  The fall happened when I was sprinkling ice melt around the driveway.  Jason went back to work tonight and I really don't think he'll be able to get back into the garage because the driveway is sheer ice.  I'm hoping the ice melt will help.  I'm also wondering if I should try and sprinkle another coat of ice melt tonight.

For our date night we went to Royal River Casino.  We went in with $20 a piece.  I came out with $25 ahead and Jason broke even.  It was a short stay but the casino was really busy.  It took about 10 minutes just to find a machine to play.  It was fun!  Then last Saturday we went to a Sioux Falls Stampede Hockey game.  We all had a blast.  It was the first time we have gone to a hockey game.  They were behind 1-3 but scored three goals in the 3rd period winning 4-3.  It was so much fun and the kids did so well, sat really good, no wandering, and very attentive to the game!  The best part was the wiener dog races at the first intermission.  They were so adorable!

Till next time!

Cleaning

The day started off with getting the kids ready for school and dropped off.  Once I returned home I went back to bed for a nap.  I finally rolled out of bed around 1pm, watched a little bit of television, then was off to pick up the kids from school.  Once we got home it was time to get to work.  We cleaned house.  The children helped out as much as they could, picking up toys, cleaning the coffee tables and dining rooms chairs, while I did everything else.  I pulled out the fridge and cleaned behind it and the side of the fridge.  I washed, dried, and pit the dishes away, with the help of Alex.  I swept and hand mopped the kitchen floor, vacuumed, and cleaned up the boy's room.  I also made some banana bread, a different recipe than I normally use.  I have not tried it yet to know what it tastes like, but it smells good.  We really needed to get rid of those banana's, they were pretty brown.  The recipe made two big loaves though.  Then I made a smoothie with peaches and banana's, which was really good.  Anyway, we got a lot of cleaning done, but there is still more to do as it is a never-ending chore!

Yesterday we rented and watched the movie "Secretariat".  I loved it, but you all know I really enjoy those true to life stories.  It's a great family movie and I would definitely recommend it to any family looking for a movie to watch together.  There was no cursing, pretty clean language, and no violence.  After the movie we googled Secretariat and watched the actual races on u-tube.  Pretty amazing!  You really wonder if there will ever be another horse like Secretariat.  My parents are avid horse racing watchers.  They got me hooked on it a few years ago, back in 2003 or so.  So every year we watch the Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont, wondering if this will be the year for a triple crown winner.  No one has done it since Secretariat did back in 1973, nearly 40 years ago.  We might of had a triple crown contender with Barbaro a few years ago, but coming out of the gate at the Preakness he hurt himself, which eventually led to him being put down in January that next year.  I think most American's remember that story.  Sad!

Jason seems to be on the mend from back surgery the other day.  He's moving around more and more every day.  My parents head down to Mexico this weekend for a few weeks of  R & R.  Wish we were going with!  We look to have our own little heat wave this weekend though, with temps close to 40 out.  I am looking forward to it, so we can get out and start chizzling away at our icy driveway.  There is also a noon dismissal on Thursday and no school on Friday.

Till next time!

Another long day.

I think I said a few days ago I would post a picture of the drift in our backyard.  Well, here's a picture, actually two of what it looks like.

It was sure nice out today, nearly 34 degrees, enough to do some melting.  I took advantage of it briefly by trying to break up the ice on our driveway.  I didn't get too much done cause I was really tired and the task, honestly speaking, looked too daunting.  Maybe tomorrow.

My husband had surgery on his back this morning.  We were up super early to get him to the hospital by 6am.  Getting up at 5am when you go to bed around 3am, isn't easy.  I've made it through the day so far though.  His surgery went well and I really hope this helps him because he's been in so much pain with it, for nearly two months now, poor guy.  He's resting now, but he's doing good so far.  The Doctor thought he should see almost immediate relief.  He's in pain, naturally, from surgery so we'll know more in a couple days definitely.  The Doc said the more he can walk and move around the quicker things will heal.

We're both beginning a journey to shed some pounds, which comes at a great time for him with having this surgery because now he'll be more mobile to be more active, after healing of course!  I rejoined Sparkpeople.com the other day.  I was a member last year, but was inactive for several months, so my membership must have automatically been cancelled as a result of that.  It's really a great site for anyone on a weight loss journey.  It helps you keep track of your fitness and nutrition, but also provides you with online support, recipe idea's, meal plans, exercise plans and anything and everything else you could possibly think of to help you along in your weight loss.  Here's that website again: http://sparkpeople.com/.

Oh, and my youngest lost his first tooth yesterday!  The tooth fairy brought him $2.00 this morning.  Back in the day I got a quarter!  He made his eyes like that because of the flash on the camera... :o).  We took several pictures but this is the only one that really showed the space from the tooth that came out.

And here's a recent picture of my husband and I, taken the night we went to the comedy club this past Sunday.  He doesn't smile much, so I'm thrilled with this picture.  He should smile more because he has a great one!

And this last picture is of our dog Daisy Mae, a Basset Hound.  Our daughter propped her up on the couch one day this week and it was so hilarious!  I had to take a picture, rather take a few pictures.  The second one is with our three children.

So there you go.  Till next time!

Long Day

I didn't get much sleep last night, in fact, I don't think I really slept at all.  I'm kind of used to that happening every now and then, but it sure makes for a long day.  Kids were done with school at noon too, so I couldn't really get much "nap time" in.  Jacob and Aidan had their conferences tonight and both are doing very well.  Aidan has a little catching up to do but with some work at home I feel confident he'll be there in no time.  When we got home I read a book to Jacob and while the boys were bathing I read more of the Bible to them, since we are about two weeks behind.  We read about four days yesterday and three today, so we are definitely making progress.  After his bath, Aidan and I worked on some flashcards with shapes, numbers, colors, and letters.  He did pretty good and was very cooperative the entire time!  He lost his first tooth today too, rather it came out.  He's all excited about the tooth fairy coming tonight and made sure his tooth was under his pillow ready for them!

Once the kids were set away I went to work picking up the house, cleaning the dishes, finishing up the laundry, which feels like a never ending process with five people, and picked up.  We still have some reorganizing to do around here and I am looking forward to having everything in a place, a permanent place vs. a temporary one!

And tomorrow is Friday with temps on the rise for a few days.  What could be better?

Coming back to life.

So school was cancelled yesterday and today because of blowing snow and the bitter cold temperatures outside in the negative twenties and thirties.  We ventured out last night to town, but not without an interesting start to the journey.  In trying to get out of the driveway we got stuck.  So Jason gets out and revs up the snowblower, makes a number of sweeps around the car and driveway, then gives the car a push while I step on the gas.  It worked and we got the car out of the driveway.  Jason took the snowblower to the part of the driveway where the car got stuck to clear that out.  Then it was off to town.  One note, we got stuck Monday night too!  Thanks to the wonderful policeman for stopping and helping us get unstuck then!  We live on the western edge of town so there is quite literally nothing between us and the open country.  We have a corn field literally across the street from us to the North and to the West.  And since the wind generally comes from one of those two directions, we have a lot, and I mean a lot, of drifting!  I'll take a picture tomorrow of our backyard drift, it's already over our eight foot fence!  But our driveway gets pretty nasty too, and it doesn't take long at all for it to drift back in once you've cleared it, which completely sucks.  Next year, if we remember, we're going to get a fence put up to try and block the wind so it doesn't drift so bad.

We rented several movies recently, since we were kind of stuck indoors, from the redbox video thing.  One of the movies was "The Haunting in Connecticut".  I'm not a fan of any kind of scary movie at all.  I have nightmares and other stuff when I watch them, but I braved up enough to watch this movie.  I refused to watch it at night, watching it in mid-afternoon.  Great decision.  Jason and I watched it, and although creepy and scary, especially since it's based on true events, we both found it to be really good!  This kid, Matthew Campbell has cancer and apparently they have a long drive for his treatments, but they find a place to rent so they don't have to drive so far.  Anyway, this place was a funeral home many years ago, along with some other things happening there.  So the boy more or less gets possessed by this spirit and things start happening in the house, dead bodies appearing suddenly and disappearing just as quick.  They find some information and pictures as to the history of the house.  So to make a long story short, there were dead bodies in the house, their bodies were removed from the coffins and replaced with sandbags, so the funeral director could do some more things to them.  It was the spirits of these dead people that were haunting the family.  The boy was haunted by a good spirit who was trying to save the family and find a way for the other evil spirits to pass on.  Well they find a way, they burn the house.  After all this, Matt Campbell's cancer completely disappeared!  The house was rebuilt, restored, and resold with no other encounters reported.  It really is an interesting story, so if you can sit through the suspense, I would highly recommend watching it.

We also watched Ghost Writer last night.  This was another good movie, although it was kind of long-winded in some parts.  Oh, and then we rented The Social Network.  This movie was alright too, another interesting movie, again since it's based on true events.  I never knew all the legal struggles facebook had in it's beginnings.

Then the most dragging moment of the past few days...I stepped on the scale to see how much I weighed.  I won't give the number here, but I was not happy.  I have gained more weight.  Since the summer of 2009 I have gained 50 pounds and Jason has also put on some pounds too.  So the two of us talked and we both want to get serious about losing all this excess weight we have put on.   I looked online and found a way to lose one pound a day for a month.  It hasn't started off too well, but I was hoping to put that in place for this month, losing 28 pounds in 28 days.  I'm not where I want to be for eating, but the past two days I have cut back more and more.  I started a food journal, recording everything I put in my mouth, hoping this will help me.  The big thing I need to do is start exercising, doing something everyday.  Right now I do nothing.

We caught up on our Bible reading today too, reading five days worth.  We are quite behind on that, so we'll be playing some catch-up for a little bit.  I wanna read that to the kids everyday, but there are days when you just don't get to it.  I don't want it to be like that, I want it to be front and center, a priority, because that is exactly what it is!

Today we went into town and I tanned, first time in nearly a month.  I need to get in and do that more, but again, when you are not in town that much, it seems more of a hassle than not.

I'm still job hunting and I have been in a rut for a few months.  The past few days I feel like I've been catching up on things and coming back to life so to speak.  I hope it continues!