He FINALLY made the big 4-0!

On December 22, 2016, Mike turned 40.  Mike never had birthday parties as a kid and as a result I tried throwing him one when he turned 22 or 23.  It was a disaster with the family members who were not invited (as it was a friend and brother party) and I promised myself I would never throw him one again.  Sad . . . I know.  When you turn 40 someone needs to do something to commemorate it!!  Since I was not going to do anything with family and end up offending someone, I decided to do something with his work shift.  I contacted Carmen who is one of his shift guys.  Carmen is awesome!  He talked to all of the shift and told them about it.  I told Mike that I was having a company dinner that night (which we were, but not at that location) and we got him!!  Totally surprised him!  The guys on his shift all came, some brought their wives and some brought their kids.  It was great!!  We were in a back room to ourselves and it was a great success!!  This also gave his shift a fun time together and they had been wanting to do that for a while.  He works with some great guys!!!  And they seem to respect and like Mike!!

Picture that Carmen took when Mike walked in.  This was the first point that he realized what was happening and that we were there for him and not for me.

When they brought him the birthday hat!

Front Row  L to R-Carroll, Brandon, Joe, Donald.  Back Row L to R-LaRon, Mike, Patrick "Tate", Carmen

  It was a fun time!!!  Hopefully a fun memory for Mike!!

Happy New Year!!!

I was so upset with myself on New Year's Eve when I received a text at 12:15 am, wishing me a Happy New Year, that woke me from a very good sleep. "I missed it all!" I thought to myself. Since Mike and I have had children, we typically invite another couple who has children over to celebrate with us, but this year Mike was scheduled to work New Year's Day and would be getting up quite early so we decided to skip the festivities and look at it as just another day. While I was sad then, I am really glad I got that sleep when I did.

On Friday (New Year's Day) at 9:05 AM, Mike calls from work saying he has a severe, sharp pain in his side and is going to the hospital. The kids and I get dressed and are at the hospital in record time. We find Mike laying in a room waiting to go down for a CAT/SCAN to see if they could officially identify the problem. They were leaning towards thinking it was a kidney stone, but they would not know without looking. 4 hours later the 5 of us were sent home with pain narcotics and told the size of the kidney stone was "moderate" and someone of Mike's stature could pass it naturally. They gave him directions to follow up with the family doctor as soon as he could. Keep in mind, this is a Friday and is New Year's Day--Doctor's offices are only taking emergency situations. No one ever died from a Kidney Stone so we were instructed to take the pain medication and the stone should pass in a few days.

Friday, in the middle of the night, Mike experiences a lot of pain and has waited too long to take the medication. After talking to someone in the ER we double up the dosage and eventually it relieves the pain enough for Mike to fall back to sleep about 2 hours later.

Saturday pain continued, but Mike was able to sleep some. In fact, he ate dinner with us that night and Emily did not feel like eating. We were eating some of her favorites and we thought it was odd that all she wanted to do was drink something. She went back to her room and laid down-another strange thing for her. Sure enough, about 30 minutes later her lunch came back up. Two more times in a 3 hour period and she finally fell asleep. 1:00 AM I am scared awake by Mike who is rolling in pain. We try medicine, doubling up, etc. and it does not touch it. In his decision to go back to the ER we decide not to wake the kids since Emily had been sick so the ambulance came to get him. They arrived about 2:15 AM. At 5:45 AM my phone rings saying my husband is ready to come home and I need to come get him. I put coats on the kids, carry them to the van, and we head to the hospital. Pick him up, carry everyone back inside (Mike was able to walk on his own--with his new pain medication--trying something else), and try to go back to sleep. Ryan and Lydia did not end up going back to sleep so we were up for the day.

Sunday night at 12:30 am (Monday morning) Mike awakes again doubled over in pain. He takes 4 Percocet in a 2 hour period and it does NOTHING for his pain. After checking with the ER to make sure this would not kill him, he decides he needs to go back to the ER. So, again, I put coats on the kids and I carry them all out to the van. I can't stay there with Mike because of the kids (this was hard to just drop him off). The kids and I go back home, carry them all back in the house and they fall back to sleep by 2:00 am or so. With the anticipation that I will be receiving another call to come get Mike, I tossed and turned and never really slept. I contacted the hospital several hours later to see what was happening since I had heard nothing. The Urologist had been contacted in the middle of the night and instructed the ER department to admit him--that he would be in to see him in the morning.

8:00 I put Ryan, Lydia and Emily on the bus and drive to the hospital. The Urologist arrived as I was coming in. He talked to us telling us that the kidney stone is not moving the way they expected and told us our options. He mentioned this "moderate" kidney stone was 4.5 mm. Typically, if a kidney stone is less than 4 mm they say the person can pass it on their own, but bigger than that and they don't send you home--unless it is a holiday of course :(. He told us we could wait it out or get put on the list for surgery later in the day. There is a procedure where they take a scope in to "blast" the kidney stone and "suck out the fragments." There were 8 people signed up in front of Mike so the wait was going to be quite long. I was not at the hospital 15 minutes and I received a call from the school saying Lydia had gotten sick and someone needed to come pick her up. In my panic I am not certain what to do with my sick daughter since I can not take her back to the hospital and I need to be there with Mike. My parents, who live about 40 minutes from my house, are in Florida and are clearly not available. My mom has an amazing friend, Alice, who is also a retired teacher. She cancelled all of her plans on Monday so that I could leave my sick, throwing up daughter with her and head back to the hospital. I left the hospital around 2:15 to go meet Ryan and Emily as they got off the bus. When I left, Mike still had not gone into surgery. I took them to my center where my wonderful friend, Rabia, kept them until she got off work. We exchanged vehicles so she would have access to the van, to take them home, and I headed back to the hospital.

When I arrive at the hospital around 4 he has just left. We were told the procedure would take 45 minutes to 1 hour. After he had been gone almost 2 hours I really began to panic. I contacted my sister-in-law (Destiny), who works in the OR, but her shift was over and she had gone home. I texted a million questions to her on the length of time and what was happening and why was he not finished yet, etc. In my panic I know I drove her nuts, but she made me feel better by telling me what was probably happening and why it was taking so long and that if they were having complications they would DEFINITELY be letting me know!! At 7:05 they wheeled him up from recovery telling us that he would need to stay the night and be discharged tomorrow. I contacted Rabia (at my house now with the kids) to tell her what was happening and when I would be home, etc. and she tells me that on their way home Ryan got sick in the van. "UGGGHHHH!!! What is going on!?" is going through my head. Now I have left two of my throwing up kids with my friends (at least they used to be my friends :))

I get home at 9:00 and to my children being in bed and Ryan having thrown up one more time. I end up getting sick myself prior to the night coming to an end. Whatever this crap was it was VERY contagious and I am just praying Mike does not get it!! Maybe all these trips to the hospital have kept him out of the germs.

I am happy to announce Mike's grandparents brought him home this morning around 9 AM. He is in a little pain due to his stint, but all in all is in good shape--just tired--like the rest of us. Ryan, Lydia and I are home today recovering. Hoping tomorrow will get us back to some normalcy. We want to thank everyone who helped us out, called and prayed with and for us!! You are all wonderful and we love you all!!!

To our family and friends, we hope you all had a wonderful New Year's and here's to a awesome 2010!!

2 Marines and counting

In a post on January 10, 2009, I blogged about my nephew's (Mike's sisters's oldest child) going away party the night before he left for boot camp (If you click on "Cory Ours" under my labels you can see it). Cory graduated last week and is officially a Private, First Class (PFC) in the United States Marine Corps. Last night was a welcome home party for Cory. His parents (pictured--but I could not get a good one of them) hosted a potluck dinner and invited close friends and family. Cory was dressed in one of his uniforms and looked like a completely different person than when he left. Mike and I are very proud of him--especially Mike--Mike is not only a proud Uncle, but one who was a Marine himself several years ago and knows what Cory has accomplished. We were not able to stay too late since it was a school night for the kids, but before we left we got a family picture with Cory so we have a before and after shot. Of course we can't EVER have a nice picture with all of the family. I am not sure why, but Lydia had to cry :). Congratulations Cory!! We are so proud of you and we know that your decision to be a Marine representing the United States of America was a good one! We know you will do great things!!! We love you!

Mike and my Dad were both Marines and I have always been very proud of both of them! The last picture is of Mike, in 1996, just prior to his graduation from Marine Boot Camp.

Ryan starts T-ball!

We signed Ryan up for T-ball this year and he started his practices tonight. The games will start towards the end of April. The McGaheysville t-ball league has 4, 5 and 6 year olds on the teams. We decided to wait until he was in Kindergarten before we signed him up. Mike signed up for Assistant Coaching (when he is able to be there) and started that tonight as well. They both had so much fun!! Ryan practiced a little defense, hitting and running the bases. On our walk home he kept saying "Mommy, I had a really lot of fun!" Lydia and Emily enjoyed being there as well watching "the teams." There were a couple of kids that were on his team that he knew from school. It was great! We are so excited about him playing and are hoping this is the beginning of his professional sports career:). We will keep you posted on his game schedule.

Go Fly A Kite

Yesterday was such a beautiful 2nd day of Spring! Ryan's class has been talking about the wind in March. They have been trying to fly kites on windier days. I happened to find kites that were a $1.00! Of course, we were not expecting much, but we pulled them out yesterday. Ryan started off having a hard time getting his off the ground, but after a while he got the hang of it--if his kite was not too high in the air. :) Lydia and Emily each had their own kite and had a really great time seeing them fly through the air, but they dove down to the ground quite often. Mike's parents had given him an old kite he had many years ago and was still being stored at their house. He brought that out and flew it as well. The kids had such a great time with their kites! We are hoping the $1.00 kites last a little longer so we can fly them again on another windy day!

The Circus came to Town!

This past weekend Mike and I took the kids to Richmond to go to the circus. I have a friend from High School who lives in Richmond and we stayed with her. She and her husband and two children went with us. This is the "Big One." The Ringling Brothers Circus that they always hold in some type of an arena. It was held at the Richmond Coliseum. Ryan had been once before, but he was only two at the time. Lydia and Emily had never gone before. It was quite exciting for all of them. Of course, Ryan does not recall going. They were all in awe of everything that was going on! The glitz and glamor, the animals, the clowns, all of it. Before the show, they have a "pre-show" thing on the floor that you can go down and have your picture taken with a clown or try to catch a glimpse of an animal through the mass of people that are in front of you. Since we are both short people, we ended up putting the kids all up on a wall so they could see the elephant over all of the people. They were not interested in having their picture taken with a clown (not a big surprise), but they were all about catching the little plastic noses that one of the performers was tossing out to all the children. It was pretty cool. They had such a good time, but were so very tired by the time all the festivities were over. Spending the night at my friends house was hard on them. Though the hospitality was amazing, none of them slept very well since you have a harder time sleeping at someone else's house than your own. No one had a nap, but they behaved quite well for being so tired . . . . . until . . . .:). Emily had a nervous breakdown in the bathroom upon our leaving the Coliseum. She and Lydia were washing their hands and I was trying to rush them along since we had waited for 20 minutes to get in there and a woman standing behind me in line had to tell me her twin story--like many people (I usually enjoy hearing twin stories, but hers seemed to have a "I have a harder life than you do" twist to it:).--and I knew Mike was waiting for us. I did not give them a papertowel, told them to dry their hands on their pants and come on. Emily stood their screaming "I need a papertowel!" I walked out of the bathroom with coats in my hand and Lydia following me, left my stuff on the floor in front of my friend, Becky, and went back in to drag Emily out of the bathroom. I know everyone thought "What an awful Mom, she can't even control her kids!" Funny thing is, if Lydia had done that, I never would have thought it weird, but Emily has such a level head. She was clearly tired. All three kids were asleep before we even made it to 64, which is about 4 miles from where we were parked. They slept all the way home. Turns out, Ryan had a fever the whole time. He was not feeling well, Becky was having stomach troubles while we were at the circus. Despite our bad luck on Saturday, it was a fun time!! I told Emily I was not taking her back to the circus as a result of her bathroom behavior, but I may give in one day--maybe in a year or so:).

Ryan goes Purple and Gold!

Ryan was part of the Duke Dog reading program that JMU does for the area schools. You are to read a certain amount of books over your winter break. You record what you read and the amount of pages, etc., turn it in and you receive a ticket to a JMU basketball game for the student and two adults to go with the student. This covered Ryan, Mike and myself. Lydia and Emily are young enough not to have to pay anyway. We went to the game yesterday afternoon. Each student that came to the game received a coupon for a free ice cream cone from Brewsters and a raffle ticket to potentially win a door prize. Also, they were giving out pom poms to the kids. Ryan's school, McGaheysville Elementary School, was one of the top three area schools to have the most participation. For coming in 3rd, Ryan's principal, Ms. Roadcap, was presented a plaque on the court at halftime. Ryan was pretty excited to see someone he knew walking out onto the court. The kids kept their eyes peeled for the Duke Dog mascot throughout the entire game. When he actually came up to our section, they did not want to go up to talk to him:). They had a neat halftime show with kids doing various basketball things and then there were two men who came out and had a remote control vehicle race around obstacles on the court. They announced the names of these racers and we looked down on the court to see our next door neighbor, Jerry--funny. Lydia spent a large part of the game cheering with her pom pom and Ryan's pom pom. Then each time the cheerleaders or the Dukettes came onto the floor she was completely focused on the performances. I took a movie of her cheering, but of course she did not do as much while the camera was on. Ryan saw several kids that go to his school. It was really neat and we had a great time! Neatest part of the whole game though was at the beginning--one of the players of the JMU basketball team, in uniform, sang the National Anthem. An amazing singer! Multi-talented!!

A day with Adella

Now that I figured out how to remove the pictures from my phone, I am able to blog about some of the pictures that have been on the phone since before Christmas. Before Christmas Mike, the kids and I went over to Paul and Allison's place in Charlottesville to watch Adella while Paul and Allison went house shopping. We took the kids to the "madhouse" pre-christmas shopping at Toys R Us where we ran into Jeffery the Giraffe. As he was coming up the aisle, the kids were all quite excited about seeing him, but as soon as they were faced with actually having to talk to him, they all began to freak out. Lydia was brave enough to actually walk over to talk to him, but at the last minute began to cry so we quickly removed her. (in the picture she and Mike are off to the left--the next picture we took she was starting to cry).



After our closterphobic shopping experience, we had lunch at the Wood Grill. The Wood Grill is a good place for us to go for the money. Ryan costs only $2.00 and Lydia, Emily and Adella were free. Get everyone some water and we can all eat pretty cheap. Because Paul and Allison are a little more conscious about their child eating healthy foods--and not too much of it--this was Adella's first visit to the Wood Grill. She REALLY enjoyed herself and ate a pile of food!! We had such a good time with her!

Good Luck Cory!

Originally scheduled to leave on Sunday, January 25; his leave date was bumped up to tomorrow--Sunday, January 11--he is leaving for boot camp. After catching my sister-in-law and brother-in-law off guard, they had a little going away party for Cory tonight at their house. Friends and family came to wish Cory farewell and the best of luck becoming a Marine. Cory is our nephew--the oldest son of Mike's older sister, Debbie. Cory just turned 20 in December. Mike spent much of the evening answering questions and sharing stories from his experience as a Marine. The five of us took pictures with Cory before we left. It was a fun time.

I have known Cory since he was 9 years old. He is a very special person in our lives. He is always very thoughtful, especially when it comes to his much younger cousins--Ryan, Lydia and Emily. We love you lots, Cory, and know you will make a very honorable Marine!

Merry Ho Ho from Santa

This "Christmas Morning: was the most exciting one yet! Ryan was very much into the magic of Santa this year and was quite involved in deciding how Santa was going to get into our house since we don't have a chimney:). Lydia and Emily were excited, but not quite as into the magic since they are younger.

As most of you know, Mike is a Deputy Sheriff with the Rockingham County Sheriff's Department. As a result, he has to work holidays on occasion. Every other year he hits the year in which he works the big holidays. This was the year for the big holidays. He had to work both Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year so we debated on how to handle the Santa thing. One of his co-workers "split" the day with him and came in at 10:00 after Mike had worked since 5:30am. Luckily Mike was able to spend the day with us, but that did not help our Santa situation. We decided to tell the kids that Santa came on Thursday night instead of Wednesday night. After spending a great Christmas Day with family and praying no one would accidently ask "What did Santa bring you this morning?" we had our Santa morning on Friday morning. I took a little movie that morning and have attached it--it's about four minutes long. We are not certain what the deal was with Lydia, but she ended up enjoying her presents later--after the video was over:).

Parade Time!!

Friday night was the Christmas Parade in downtown Harrisonburg. Our preschool put a float in the parade. I use the term float loosely. We had a week and a half to plan this "float" and get ourselves registered--one of these weeks was actually the week of Thanksgiving . . . so . . . there was not a tremendous amount of time to plan. Shayna loaned us her pick-up truck and Jennifer scrambled to find a large wagon to pull with the pick up. Turns out the pick up and wagon were great! We made two banners and wrapped boxes for the children to wear to be presents on the wagon (my children, however, did not like wearing these boxes:). Prior to arriving at the parade, we received incorrect information from the persons running the parade so that messed us up a great deal and we had quite a bad start. Once we got going it was quite fun! I originally put the boxes on Lydia and Emily and Lydia began to cry as we started moving. There was a parent behind her that helped her take the box off. Lydia then decided to join her family and stayed with them under their blankets. Ryan and Emily shared a blanket and rang their jingle bells. Rabia, Treasa and I walked beside the float and handed out flyers and Jennifer pulled a little red wagon behind the float with one of the kids from our center. Once we were finished we had to go back and collect our vehicles. The kids were told to hold on tight while we rode back to the parade start (at a much faster speed) while having no sides on the wagon:). The kids were all so bundled up in their super warm winter clothes on this 19 degree evening that I don't think any of them could have fallen off of the wagon if they wanted to. After the very cold parade, Rabia asked us to come to her church where they were passing out cookies and hot chocolate. All in all it was a pretty fun night.

A Great Fall Weekend

--This post did not work out the way I wanted it to:)--make sure to read all the way to the bottom . . . .
This weekend we had the priviledge of camping with our friends, Becky and Stuart Settle and their boys, Lucas and Mason. We camped at the Charlottesville KOA which is halfway in between our house and theirs (they live in Richmond). The weekend could not have been more beautiful! The nights were a little chilly, but during the day it was very warm and pretty. We hiked and biked and the kids played on the playground. We are hoping this is the first in a long line of camping with the Settles!After our fun weekend of roasting marshmellows and hotdogs, and great fellowship around the campfire; we went with Becky and Stuart to a fall festival at Carter Mountain Orchard in Charlottesville. It was just that, an orchard on a mountain. Being in our camper, we were not going to be able to drive our camper up the very narrow dirt road that goes up to the orchard. We parked our camper at a visitors center right across the street from the entrance to the orchard and unloaded all the camping stuff from the back of Becky and Stuart's van. We piled the children in the back to drive across the street and up the mountain (about 1 1/2 miles--they were very safe). All of the kids had a ball picking apples from the trees and eating apples while walking around the orchard. We all had a great time!!

The Weather is Beautiful!!!

Our beach trip was amazing!! I got a little carried away with pictures and videos, but it is so hard to decide which ones to use:). We arrived on Friday, September 5 with the predictions of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Hannah fast approaching the South Carolina shoreline. This was something we debated about doing. Do we wait until Saturday to go and miss a day on the beach if she moves though as quickly as they were thinking? We called the people who worked at the resort and they did not seem too bothered by this tiny Tropical Storm. After arriving that evening, we attempted to buy groceries and many of the stores were boarding up their windows in anticipation and were closing early. We did find a Kroger that was open and we were able to get a few staples there before they shut their doors. She was pretty strong for a Tropical Storm and could change into a Hurricane at any moment. Deciding to come down on Friday was definitely the right decision. The wind blew harder than any of us had ever seen. Mike, my dad and I all walked out on the beach during the high winds for just a little bit. I had never been in a Tropical Storm and wanted to see what the fuss was about since I knew it was not life threatening. With it being windy on a beach normally, it did not seem too different at 10:30 when we went outside. A mere hour later, the winds were crazy! We stood on our deck protected and watched the pool below us that was having the water blown out of it as a result of the winds The power lines on the street were blowing in the breeze and small trees were bent in half. The power flashed off and on two or three times, but that was it. When we awoke in the morning Hannah was long gone, the rain had stopped and the sun was trying to come out. There were a few branches down and the house behind our building had lost some siding and shingles, but other than that we saw no damage. The rest of the week was amazing!! There was a chance of thunderstorms in the forecast each day, but it never actually happened until our last day. On Thursday we were out on the beach until about 5:00 (hoping to be out until 7:00 on our last day) and it began to thunder and lightning. All in all we had a super week!! Ryan, Lydia and Emily played a lot with their cousin Adella and all 10 of us had a great time! Somehow, we managed to come home with a lot more than we arrived with:) Thanks Mom and Dad! It was great!!

This movie is of Emily dancing at the pool bar where we were staying. We stopped in for a little bit while Mike and Uncle Paul were playing Ping Pong at the game room next door.