Hope You Had a Great Thanksgiving...

I sure did! Here are some of the high lights:

• No work from Wednesday afternoon - Sunday afternoon (horse euthanasia, only took 20 minutes)
• Cousin in since week before Thanksgiving - love having another woman around and so fun to catch up.
• Other cousins/aunt and uncle in Monday - my kids love playing with the cousins and we had an overall blast!
• Gabby's 8th birthday was Monday - we layed low and did dinner and presents. You'll never guess what Steve got her - a hampster! Not my first choice, be he gets dad-of-the-month because she absolutely loves it. It was evil at first, but now it's getting much more friendly.
• Tuesday gym night at Gull Lake Ministries - fun playing bball, v-ball, and pickleball with highschoolers.
• Wednesday prep for Thanksgiving food. I actually think all the cooks in the kitchen got along. Maybe it was the "drink and cook" philosophy?
• Yum and Yum for Thanksgiving dinner! It was so good. I don't know why we don't have turkey more often, I love it. I have so much to be thankful for - that could be its own post so I won't go into details, but lets just say I feel very blessed for sure.
• Thursday night bonding with some special ladies (aka crazy ladies). We ventured out into the world of late-night shopping with a midnight run to ToyzRUs. Needless to say, we waited in line an hour b/c they were only letting in 10 people at a time. Ugh - Dumb! But we had fun shivering in the rainy, windy, cold night air. And we got a few good deals, too.
• Shopping, AirZoo, and more shopping on Friday. After getting home at 2am, I didn't venture out at some ungodly hour of the morning, but still did some power shopping.
• Blind Side - great movie!! Recommend for anyone who hasn't seen. Plus we went to the "Dutch" movie theater - $5 large popcorn and 2 large drinks!
• Saturday celebrated Gabby's birthday by going to Craig's Cruisers - go carts, games, laser tag, etc. We had lots of fun!
• Saturday night let our hair hang out at the local "barn" - actually had pretty good live music. Had plenty o' fun with fam and friends. Even got to dance with my hubby which is pretty rare. Need to do this more often.
• Sunday church and veg.

So you can see, there was no short supply of fun around here. I'm a little tired, but hey, "You only live once!" Right? Pics to come.

Happy Birthday C.J.!!

I am no Ace of Cakes, but at least it resembled a tractor. I used 2 loaf pans for the body of it, then chocolate muffins for the wheels. He blew out the candles without even spitting on the cake - way to go!

Yum, it even tastes good, too! He barely ate any dinner because all he could think about was "tractor cake." It was worth it to save those calories.

A dump truck he can ride - fantastic!

It is always so much fun when a big box comes in the mail - and this one had a present too!

As a special surprise for his birthday, we went to Walnutdale Farms (one of my clients), for some real tractor time!! You should have seen the smile ear to ear when we got out of the car and he stood next to the huge combine!! He was not as thrilled when I lifted him up into the cab - it was high up and pretty noisy. But after a few minutes sitting with him in the buddy seat, he warmed up to it and started talking with Farmer Ken about the corn and the combine.

Rylee went first to prove that it was o.k. That's her role in life I think - to be the guinea pig, first-to-try. She loved it and said it was safe, so then C.J. decided it would be alright to go, too. No pics of that because I was up there with him. He loved watching the corn fill up the bin and the combine "fingers" picking the corn off the stalks.

Then we made a side trip to the dairy to go visit the baby cows. They're always a hit!

Here is a birthday conversation with the little champ:

Person: What day is it?

C.J.: C.J. birday

Person: Oh, how old are you?

C.J.: TWOOO!

Person: What do you want for your birthday?

C.J.: Dump truck, tractor, monster truck, combine

Person: What kind of cake do you want?

C.J.: Tractor

Person: What else do you want?

C.J.: Candy!!

So we tried to live up to all his little aspirations of a special day - a tractor cake made by mommy, all sorts of trucks/tractors/combine, a big dump truck, and a trip to the farm!

H1N1

I get annoyed by the littlest things sometimes. I'll admit it. I've ranted about them before I'm sure, and I will again. Like right now I'm annoyed with H1N1 (more specifically with all the local people who are convinced they have it but most likely don't). So our kids were off of school from Tuesday thru Friday - 4 days - due to too much sickness in the schools. This was all the snow days we are allotted before we even had any of the white stuff accumulate! I blame the media for much of this because without their constant drumming of how awful this flu bug is and how it's a worldwide pandemic, life may be better. How many people kept their kids home just because they had a runny nose or a little cough, but because everyone is all up in arms about swine flu they felt they couldn't send them to school. My friend got a call at work on Monday from the school secretary to send home her daughter because she was sick. Said friend is a nurse, so she asked if there was a fever, vomiting, symptoms of any kind? Her eyes look tired. Nice.

So then all the news is covering this stuff and talking about how schools need only to have a certain percentage of students out sick before closing down. It doesn't take a moderately intellegent middle or high schooler long to figure out if enough of you are sick, school will be closed. I heard stories of perfectly healthy kids calling home claiming to be ill to help increase the "sick" percent.

Then all the sick people of course are flocking to the emergency rooms - after all, isn't swine flu an emergency? That's a great idea, lets spread this bug to all the people who are sick/dying of other stuff. I can see if H1N1 was a serious condition, but it's not. According to our local infectious disease doctor (who was pleading with people to stay out of the ER), it is milder than the average seasonal flu that we deal with every year. Really the only people who might need to be concerned are those with pulmonary issues (lungs).

So that brings me to the vaccine. Being a medical professional, I'm rather sceptical of a vaccine for a disease that was just identified 6 months ago. Animal vaccines take years to develop what with safety and efficacy studies. We just got a new cow vaccine on the market and it took like 2 years even though it was exactly the same as the old one, just one new ingredient, they had to re-prove the efficacy and safety of all the old ingredients plus the new one. So how did they do that in 6 months? Then the whole "forced vaccination" of medical workers - I won't even go there. You probably know how I feel already:)

So when our kids are in school on July 4th, you'll now know why.

Of soccer and sweatshirts

Ok, officially someone forgot to remember we need fall before winter. Crap-o weather in Michigan most of the time. I know I seem to always be mentioning weather here, but remember, I work outside. I should have titled "soccer and winter coats, hats and mittens." Oh well.

Soccer - what a blast we are all having!! I should have played soccer more than just the one year in high school - it's a lot of fun! Gabs and Ry are both on the same team (Rylee's playing up - it's just easier to keep track of one team and she was ready) and I'm assistant coaching. Mind you, I play soccer with the philosophy of a basketball player, just using feet instead of hands. The team is doing really well - we're like 4-1-1 I think. Both girls are playing great on all ends of the field - I admit my pride in them swells every week.


What else is new? Not much exciting - Steve has gotten one doe thusfar. House still not sold - we're considering taking it off the market, selling property, and remodeling current home. I've taken on a "boarder" horse - I'll have to post a pic for you to get the true picture of how badly he was injurred.

I will post pics when I can find the correct camera. I swear that thing is always lost!

Proud Blogger

So I must admit...looking at all your amazing blogs with great pics and interesting and/or witty stories made me feel bad about being an absent blogger lately. So instead of proudly letting you know what I'm up to, I'll post a picture that about sums it up. In case you need explaining, this is my freezer.

Q: "What is the blue/red/other colored stuff?"

A: Mostly blue moon ice cream, but it has some other fantastic freezer items melted into the goo.

Q: "Wow, what happened, did you lose power lately?"

A: Nope. We lost power about 3 months ago and about 6 months ago before that. Yep, it's been there that long.

Q: "I bet that took some effort to clean up."

A: I wouldn't know. It's still there:)

Full Circle

So I've now come full circle I guess.

Some were surprised when I announced that I was going to become a vet - "We've never heard you say you want to be a vet before." - and this was true. It never dawned on me that this would be the career path I would choose. My mother should have known, though, for way back in my early childhood days one of my favorite things to do was dissect any dead animal I could get my hands on - in her garage!! Early anatomy lessons.

So yesterday when my mom found my on my hands and knees in her garage with bloody towels all over, it was only natural. I finally got to fix one of my own, in her garage of all places:) My dumb dog once again figured out a way to injure herself out in the pasture. I swear she was out less than 10 minutes and somehow got a 4-5 inch laceration on her front leg. Thankfully only skin deep and no tendons, muscles, etc. damaged. 18 stitches later and she's good to chase horses once again.

Thanks mom for a nice clean garage floor to perform my life's calling on! You really are a trooper about all the guts and gore and smells! Love you!

She looks a little guilty, no? Maybe this time she'll think twice, but I doubt it. Speaking of guilty faces - this one definately is!! This is what happens when you give a boy a chocolate pudding to eat on his own. Usually his sisters referee this type of outlandish behavior, but since they were busy elsewhere, he took full advantage of my back being turned while making salsa. I obviously wasn't too surprised - I did take his shirt off before letting him go at it.

Day Off

So excited to go pick blueberries this afternoon!!! YUMMY!!! I have several recipes rolling around in my noggin and I'm psyched to try them out. We have new neighbors recently, and my good friend and prior babysitter, Hannah, just moved in down the road, so I have some home-welcoming to do! I'll try to post some pics of the event - no promises because my small camera took a crap and my good camera needs batteries (I think I can handle that one).

Happy Beautiful Day!