2013 - Week 15

This week brought us lots, and lots, and LOTS of Sprinter! Lame.

Well, everybody was back to reality today. Work for the grown-ups, my in-laws for the kids. We have a pretty low-key week/end coming up, and I'm really looking forward to it. Everything has been pretty chaotic these past few weeks, so it will be nice to just have NOTHING going on for a while. The only downside is going to be the loooooong 5-day work week I have head of me after the long weekend. Never easy. Today did fly by though...spent pretty much the entire day going through and respondign to e-mails and voicemails, and going through everything that came back while I was out. Always such a task when you're gone for a couple of days. As I was balancing our checkbook this morning, we realized that Christian had received his "annual when the boss feels like it" raise this check, and I had received both my step increase, AND my cost of living raise. Awesome! I work for the state, so raises are pretty few and far between in recent years, so this was pretty exciting! I stopped in to do a little grocery shopping after work, and restarted my diet/exercise program. This time, is for good! I'm really excited, and super motivated.

Tuesday was a pretty low-key day, not much to report. It started pouring rain just before bed, which was set to turn into SNOW overnight. As of this evening, we were under a WINTER weather alert for the next few days. Unbelievable! No, snow is not completely unheard of in April...even a dash in May has happened from time to time. But significant snow, is not common. I played softball my entire life - our games for school always started up within the first two weeks of April, and I never once had a game canceled for snow. By the sounds of it, there isn't going to be much outdoor sporting in the coming week(s). It's crazy!

Wednesday morning, sure enough, we woke up to a decent coating of snow, which continued to come down throughout most of the day. The snow was completely gone from our yard - everything was brownish/green and ready to spring into action. Not anymore! The girls were pretty upset when I opened the garage door this morning - both exclaiming that winter was NEVER going to end, and they want summer! Oh man do I feel them! Today the swimsuits that I LOVE were featured on kidsteals, so I combated the winter blues by buying the girls their new swimsuits! YES :) But, Spring 2013 officially sucks. And it's making me REALLY wonder what kind of summer we're in for...is it going to be cold and crappy because of this crazy weather, or is it going to be even more hot and humid than these last couple summers? What a mystery we're in for...

This is what we woke up to today. Goodbye green grass, hello SPRINTER!

The girls were not happy about it! LOL

Thursday brought us even more snow, and some crazy traffic. I guess it's either winter traffic, or construction traffic at this point. And, another lovely tidbit - I'm supposed to go in this weekend to get re-sized for my rings, but I still have a HUGE indent in my finger. I sure hope they'll do it...I guess that's what 4+ years of a ring being stuck on your finger will do though. Ouch! And, a funny for the day. The girls have become obsessed with gum lately - I don't know why, Christian is the only one who chews it on occasional, and against my wishes, he gives it to them once in a while. Well, they have discovered where their stash is, and think they're pretty sneaky. When we arrived home tonight, I got right to making dinner. As I was walking into the living room, Olivia came running down the hall, un-provokingly exclaiming "we aren't doing anything, we didn't do anything in mommy and daddy's room!" Umm, that's not suspicious at all. Next thing I know, Amelia's running down the hall, pointing to her back pocket, singing a little tune, "I got gum, we got gum, ha ha ha ha ha". Wow - what a pair! At that point, all I could do is laugh, shake my head, and walk away. They are going to be nothing but trouble, but at least Amelia has a habit of ratting them out. LOL

Friday, you guessed it, the snow continued off an on. We are officially above average for snow, and there is still plenty of it in our forecast. Not cool. But, the fact that it was FINALLY Friday made everything seem a little better. Though, I will say the week flew by. As we get close to the State's end of year (June 30th), things really pick up for us (even more than usual) with everybody trying to use up the last of the money and get their projects done. Christian has been crazy busy with their building addition and they've scored some new, HUGE accounts, so business is really booming for them. The girls were still passed out when I got to my mom's to pick them up tonight, sleeping until we finally woke them up around 5:00 - lazy bums! We made our way home and settled in for the night. It was a leftovers for dinner kind of night, and I took the day off from my workout plan. I was BEAT, and decided to make it up on Sunday when all I have to do is yoga. Christian and I settled in with a couple drinks, some popcorn and some movies once the girls went to bed - we watched Flight, which we both really liked, and House at the End of the Street, which was actually better than I expected. Great way to end the workweek!

We tried a different approach and attitude towards the weather tonight. Then it started snowing like crazy. I blame them.

Olivia has become obsessed with the animals lately, particularly Rico (probably because for some odd reason, he puts up with it). Every day when we get home, she seeks him out and won't leave him alone...she carries him around, puts him on the table to trace his paws with crayon, tries to feed him. It's pretty hilarious. I don't think he'd agree though.

Saturday was a fairly busy day, but much less chaotic than usual. Christian had to work, so it was just the girls and me for the morning. We had some breakfast, and they played downstairs while I did the dishes, did some dusting and picked up around the house. Then, we were off to Olivia's swim class. Class went MUCH better this week. She participated like nothing had every happened and did really great. I could tell the teachers could notice she had a little experience (she's in the same level as her last class, so she has at least tried most of the stuff they're working on before), so hopefully now she'll start growing and getting better and better. After class, we made our way home for lunch and naps. I got my workout in as soon as they went down, and Christian was home from work not much after that. We relaxed and watched some TV while the girls napped. Once they woke up, we went out to play in the snow for a while. We planned on building a snowman....but ended up building a whole family! The girls had a blast making the snowmen and playing on the swing set. Once we were all night and cold, we headed back inside for dinner and had a pretty low-key night.

Pics from our Sprinter fun!

Sunday was another busy day. The weather is still horrible - it was freezing today (literally, it was 29 degrees, but felt like 21 - gross!), and it rained, hailed, sleeted and snowed on and off throughout the day. I did a little picking up and got my first workout of the day in (making up for Friday). We all showered, got ready and were off. We stopped into Perkins for breakfast, YUM! Then, we were off to the jeweler so I could get sized, FINALLY! It's pretty crazy...my rings were a 5.5 when I got them. I currently weight about what I did when I got pregnant with Olivia, and at that time, I could get them on and off no problem. About mid-pregnancy, I noticed they were stuck, and they never loosened up. My new size....7.25 - WHAT??! Yeah, I don't think those bad boys were coming on their own any time soon. That's crazy. We made our way back home so the girls could go down for their naps. Olivia came out of the room about an hour later - clearly he hadn't taken a nap. Just after that, Christian was off to get his haircut, and bring Chuy to the groomer for a bath and nail clipping, so Olivia and I snuggled up on the couch together. Amelia ended up taking about a 4 hour nap again today - man that girl loves to sleep! I spent the day doing laundry and some light cleaning, but skipped most of my chores for the day. Christian started feeling pretty crappy, thinking it was from his breakfast, so we just had a pretty quiet night. The girls played some games together (once Amelia finally decided to wake up - Olivia was getting very impatient with her, ha) and we watched some movies. Christian was off to bed just after the girls went down. I got in my yoga for the night, watched a little TV to wind down, and called it a night.

Somehow, she got a hold of Chloe today. I have no idea why, but I know Chloe was probably on the verge of a heart attack the entire time.

So, there goes another week. Nothing too exciting, but nothing horrible either. I made it through the first week of my current program, and feel pretty great. I've decided to pack the scale away for a while, because when I don't see the results i think I should, it throws me into a downward spiral. So, for now, I'm going by how I feel, and how my clothes fit. I'll probably weight in every month or so though, just so I can see where I'm at in that regard. But, I'm feeling really good after this week.

2013 - Week 14

This week brought us the beginning of April, a dash of spring weather (short lived, but whatever), our 2013 trip to Wisconsin Dells and a tragedy of sorts.

Monday started two days of pure chaos at work. This week is my Friday off, Wednesday and Thursday I'm off for the Dells, so two days to get as much work as humanly possible done. Yup, chaos. But, the day did fly by. I love my job and what I do, but the one downside is that nobody can really fill in for me when I'm gone - and, in our "line of work", EVERYTHING is a rush, so when we're gone, your stuff pretty much comes to a halt - much to the dismay of many. But, that's just the way it goes I suppose. I stopped at Walmart to do our vacation grocery shopping and checked that off my list of things to do. While Christian picked up the girls, I made my way home to get dinner going, get some laundry done and start putting together our vacation packing list. Once the girls were in bed, Christian and I settled in for the Walking Dead season finale. So sad it's over (for real now), but at least we're caught up with the rest of the world!

Tuesday marked our Friday at work! WOOT! It was another chaotic day, tying up every loose end possible before clocking out for the day. Then, it was sweet, sweet freedom for 5 whole days! Such a relief walking out the door before a "long weekend". My mom watched the girls for us today - since they weren't going to be there 2 of the 3 days this week, we decided to pull them all week so we'd only have to pay 1/2 of their tuition (score!). So, I picked up the girls after work and we made our way home. I just about finished our laundry, did some cleaning around the house and we just took it easy the rest of the night. Gearing up for all of the vacation excitement.

Giving Chuy some love before we send him off to Grandma and Grandpa's.

Wednesday was a busy morning. I finally finished the laundry and did some dishes and final cleaning (so we wouldn't come home to a disaster). We ate some breakfast and FINALLY started packing up. It sure takes a lot of stuff to travel for a couple of days, dang! We all got showered, cleaned up, loaded up the truck and hit the road.  We dropped Chuy and all of his gear off at my dads, and finally, we were on VACATION! It's about a 3.5 hour drive for us. We made pretty good time, only stopping once to grab some lunch on the road. The girls colored and chatted just about the whole way there...until Amelia finally passed out about an hour from the Dells (Olivia was not very happy about losing her traveling buddy to the sandman). We ended up arriving at the exact same time as our friends from Indiana (clearly, we're kismet!) and so the reunion began. We checked in, unloaded the vehicles and immediately got our swimsuits on. The resort we stayed at had several locations, and 4 indoor waterparks througout the resort. On the first night, we hit up the waterpark at the location we stayed at (which, ended up being everybody's favorite anyway). It was so amazing to be spending time with our friends again, it was like we just saw them last week. Olivia was in heaven, reunited with her love, Spencer. Amelia was back in her element, the water. Everything was off to a perfect start. After we got some swimming in, we made our way back to the condo to dry off and get comfy. Dawn and I started dinner while the men ran to the store quick to pick up some forgotten items. We ate, relaxed, one by one sent the kids off to bed, and took it easy. Day one down, and a wonderful one at that!

Packed up and ready to hit the road!

Hanging tough, refusing to nap. Such good roadtrippers though!

Day 1 Pics

Thursday was another great day at the Dells. We spent the morning hanging out around the condo, eating breakfast and catching up. Once everybody was up, ready and raring to go, we hopped on the resort shuttle and hit up two more waterparks. The main attraction at the first park (other than a couple slides and the kids splash/slide zone) was the lazy river. We took a few trips around and it was so relaxing. Loved it! The next park was the "waterdome" - it's a glass ceiling park, with a huge wave pool and the floor almost looks like a sandy beach. It was so awesome! We put some life jackets on the girls, grabbed some tubes and made our way into the wave pool. They were SO EXCITED to finally be able to "swim", they had a ball. When the waves started up, we hopped in a family tube and the girls thought it was hilarious. Such a fun experience. Everybody started getting hungry, and tired, so we made our way back to the condo for some lunch and down time. Amelia and Christian passed out in our room. The other dad, Tim, passed out for a while. Dawn and I watched some TV and inhaled some popcorn before anybody could notice and steal it from us, and the kids played for a while. We finally got everybody up, we got back in our suits, hopped back on the shuttle and made our way to the last waterpark. This one was basically just slides and kids zone's - probably our least favorite, but we still spent a good amount of time there, and had a blast. It started getting pretty late, so we made our way "home" for the night. Dawn and I made tonight's run to Walmart, while the dad's gave the girls their baths and started dinner. The kids were all pretty exhausted tonight and went to bed fairly early. We watched Dawn's movie - yes, she's a celebrity - whoa! :) - had a couple of drinks and tried out the Jacuzzi tub on the lanai and chatted the evening away. It's hard to believe we'll already be saying goodbye tomorrow, but we have another great night under our belt!

Day 2 Pics

Friday was our final day of vacation. We spent the morning playing, chatting, eating breakfast, and packing up the condo. We checked out, loaded up the vehicles, then hit the waterpark one last time...this time, just staying at the one in our hotel. We spent lots of time in the hot tun, relaxing, the girls swam their hearts out in the pool and wore themselves out on the slides, and we finally called it a day when everybody was starving. Everybody dried off, changed and we said goodbye to the resort. So sad! We stopped in to Pizza Pub for a late lunch, dragging it out as long as the crabby toddlers would allow, and finally had to say goodbye and part ways. Not a good feeling at all. I can't explain how much it sucks to click so well with a family, but rarely be able to spend time with them. She did mention the possibility of coming back to stay with us this summer, so hopefully that comes to fruition! The girls passed out about 30 minutes into the drive, and slept the entire way home. Sweet silence. Much to our surprise we ran into some snow shortly after we crossed into Minnesota - and ALL the way to our house. Snow, in April. WHAT?!?

Day 3 Pics

Then - the tragedy struck. As I was sitting there, enjoying the peace and quiet, starting to doze off myself, I started twisting and playing with my wedding rings, like I often do out of habit. As I grabbed my ring, I notice that it felt different - something wasn't right. I looked down, and sure enough - there was NO diamond in my engagement ring. It was gone - my beautiful, perfect, shiny diamond, gone. A symbol of us making the decision to become one and start our family, gone. I couldn't believe it, immediately started panicking, and, of course, crying my eyes out. We pulled over to look around the truck - I knew it couldn't have been gone for long - it wasn't loose, and I play with it all the time, it would never take me long to notice it was gone. But, we found nothing. We finished our drive and got home around 6:30. We carefully unpacked all of the luggage and the cooler, checked everywhere to see we could find it - still, nothing. We knew it was gone, hope was lost. At this point, I knew we didn't have it insured through our homeowners policy, so I was just holding out a small bit of hope that the jeweler would do something for us. I knew it was unlikely though - when he bought the ring, their policy was that you needed to come in every 6 months to get the ring inspected to keep the insurance valid. Well, my rings have been stuck on my finger since I was pregnant with Olivia, so clearly, it has not been inspected. But, there's no harm in hoping for a miracle!

My Sad, Diamondless Ring. So Depressing...

On Saturday, we were definitely dragging. Post vacation exhaustion was in full effect, and being emotional over my ring wasn't helping. But, we finally got up, had some breakfast and got ready for the day. Olivia started her new swim class this morning. It did NOT go well. Even though I signed her up for the same day, same timeslot - all of the teachers were different, and she was not happy about getting new teachers. She started crying and didn't want to participate. We finally got her into the pool and she slowly started doing what they asked and participating - but she was not happy about it. We had a LONG chat about it after class - it's one thing to be afraid of the water or something, but to throw a fit because of the teacher - no way that was going to fly! After class, we made our way into the city. I wanted to have lunch a delicious little hole in the wall Italian place where I grew up, but they weren't open. LAME! So, we stopped at a Chinese place in town that we hadn't been to forever. Then, we were off to meet my friend from work and her family at the circus! FUN!! We got there right after they opened the doors - walked around for a while, got the girls' faces painted, grabbed a "necessary" light up toy and settled into our seats. The show was fun and much different that the show last year, which was nice. The girls loved it...they sat through the entire thing, watching in awe. So fun :) It was raining when we left, so we parted ways with our friends and booked it for the truck. off to our next destination....my dad's, to pick up the dog. We stopped in to visit for a while, but the girls were getting tired and whiny, and Amelia was still terrified of their dog, so we headed home. We watched some TV together, and it wasn't long before the girls were off to bed. Christian went out with his friend from work for a while, so I settled in with a few episodes of Dexter. Some quiet, alone time with Dexter was just what I needed after this busy, chaotic week!

Starting her new swim class.

Lunch...their first trip to House of Wong. YUM!

Circus Fun!

Chuy, grateful to be home...even though he's spoiled rotten at my Dad's. What a baby!

Sunday was definitely our day of rest. We were pretty lazy all morning, just hanging out around the house, not really doing much of anything. We finally made our way to the jeweler at lunch time to see what they could do about the ring. Sure enough, it wasn't covered. Our initial plan was to just get the rings cut off and separated, and get my wedding band resized so I could at least wear that for the time being. Christian was pretty insistent that we at least check out some diamonds and see what they have to offer. In the end, he talked me into getting a new, at least temporary, diamond. We ended up going with one that was about the same size, but not quite as good of quality. They were offering no interest financing, and the amount we purchased can go towards an upgrade in the future, so we decided to splurge and go for it (but, it's nothing SUPER spendy or fancy, just enough t get us by for a few years, so I can hopefully get my upgrade at 10 years still, as planned). They did cut my rings off, but I have to wait a week or so until the swelling on my finger goes down to get them resized. I'll be without my rings for a few weeks - ugh, it sucks! After checking out, we made our way back home, and took it east the rest of the night. The girls weren't happy about our boring day at home, but after all of the excitement and running around, they needed a break.

The girls snuck out of bed this morning, hopped on the iPad, and helped themselves to a sleeve of girls scout cookies. Wow.

With that, we ended our week. Lots of chaos, tons of fun, some sadness, but over all, a fantastic week. It sounds like winter is making a comeback this coming week, and we're not looking forward to that AT ALL. This is going to be one hell of a spring!