What a week??

Grandma came to help out on Wednesday.

Kimberlyn found a cat walking home with Robby from Wendy's house on Thursday. After holding him for part of the walk home and loving on him, she insisted he was lost and needed help finding his house. She was worried about him. She also was in love with him. She's been begging to have a animal to call her own...I know, I know...as if we don't have plenty of animals! She'll see any tiger striped cat at Pet Smart and call it Rascal and beg for us to take it home. We've calmed her by saying "maybe when we move" -which has led her to expect a cat come moving day and not a moment later.

Wendy called on Friday to say she needed help as this cat wouldn't leave here alone and wanted in her house...she's allergic. This cat was so adorable, tiger striped with almost a marble affect on his midsection. Two seconds after being scared and growling at a dog he resumes his purring. Later this afternoon I hoped and prayed the cat was microchipped and took him to a vet...not a chance. I release him after hearing neighborhood people have been feeding him. Let him be THEIR problem...not a chance. By dinner I was saying if he comes back.... he's ours!

Saturday morning he was in our front yard... Rascal came in and was deathly afraid of dogs...not only do we have two, but Grandma's dog Tucker has enough energy to scare a dog-loving cat :) He and Smokey had a few words....what a show to each other.

Sunday, yeah, I too hoped it could pass uneventful, instead I was checking on Rascal whom was in robby's room (which is where the hamster's cage is)- he either didn't care or hadn't noticed yet. I check her almost ever morning...this morning she was not in a normal spot and not in anormal postition. I did what I do best...in my serious, needs immediate response hollar to Larry said " Larrrrrrrrrry HURRRRRRRY upstairs!" We brought Robby up first....then Kaitlyn peeked in as she knew something was wrong by this point. We had a burial before church and headed out with red-eyed little ones.

Monday morning after deciding to not waste ink on printing flyers announcing a found cat... If he really was lost and cared about he'd 1) been microchipped, 2) had Lost Cat flyers up looking for him or 3) he been fixed already! So I got on the phone and set up an appt to get him fixed the next day. I believe this is also the day he had to take a nap after having his head start spinning. Yep, see he'd been sneaking up on Prince (new bunny I still haven't gotten pictures of) and Prince walked closer to him to sniff him, Rascal just literally turned away and took a nap. After seeing him try to attack the bunny a few nights earlier it was determined why we only let the bunny out supervised and that Rascal very well may have been living on his own for some time. We're betting he's never had a wild bunny try to sniff HIM!

I think from the pictures it's fair to say Rascal knew and knows who his owner is.


This is like 3 hours after they went to bed on Saturday night, his first night here! I have to tell you, this is what really sealed the deal!

He is doing great and the vet thinks he's about 9 months old. He goes in to the base vet next week to microchipped and the rest of his shots.

I'll add Prince's pictures as soon as I take them. Believe it or not, I didn't take pictures of the burial on Sunday.

A surprise visit...

Biker babes! yes my Dad rode 528 miles on THIS!

Grandpa P. hit the road after talking with Larry about my surgery. So, yep a surprise visit from Grandpa and a surprise visit to the OR happened last Sunday!

Kaitlyn had her horse show, I posted about it, I ordered pictures online...and during the picture ordering I started feeling crampy. I just thought I was overtired, it was 10pm and needed to get to bed. After standing I realized I really wasn't feeling good.

Once in bed, I couldn't move and felt helpless. Larry came to check on me and we thought it must be gas. he ran to the store to get medicine. I took it, jumped in a hot bath and took some tylenol for my headache. I felt absolutely exhausted and decided to go to bed. Larry got the heating pad out and I slept for an hour or so. I woke when he peeked in on me. He told me everything online says gas UNLESS it's localized to the right side. I had been feeling it was just the right side...then he said what he read suggested it could be the appendix! ER there I went.

The ER nurse made a comment at check in on how she didn't think I'd leave completely whole. I asked if she thought it was my appendix, yep she said. The ER doc came to check me and said almost the same thing. I got an IV, not without doing my best to work a deal to avoid the darn thing! He said well we'll get you some pain meds. I said I'm fine as long as I don't move :) He then said I need bloodwork....it went on and on! Needless to say he was nice and patient with this pistol of a patient whom hates needles! After a few hours, drinking some nasty drink and a CT scan....I was rolled off to surgery.

I had laparscopic surgery Sunday morning, all went well besides them finding a small hernia! I need not worry about it until it hurts- I so don't want another emergency surgery ever again. This surgery made two in less than two years~ so not cool! They were all impressed with my recovery and ordered a solid food dinner for me that night! I left Monday morning about 24 hours after surgery.
Me post-appendectomy, I look hilarious!

Currently I'm almost 48 hours without pain meds and doing great. Even took a short walk last night, short compared to the 3 mile route Wendy and I do! I just have a lifting restriction of a gallon of milk or less.

Here's the kids saying bye to Grandpa before catching the bus, he left at lunch time and Larry's mom got in at dinner time. She'll stay until I get home from my follow-up appt on Monday!

We appreciate all the help offers and prayers.

Kaitlyn's 2nd Horse Show

If you recall her first horse show back in June they awarded plastic cups instead of ribbons....so let me just say this show actually awarded RIBBONS!!

Here is Tommy learning the basics of horse back riding safely!

Kimberlyn and Tommy practicing going double...

Kaitlyn mounting and excited to go in the show ring!

Kaitlyn in the show ring...
She showed in two classes English Walk-Trot Pleasure (she placed 5th out of 10) and English Walk-Trot Equitation (she placed 5th out of 9) -basically they pick the 1st through 4th places and then the rest are done being judged and "tied for 5th." Both classes were "small fry" meaning 8 and under, so everyone "tied for 5th" got a ribbon! At the same time you don't have a clue where you placed really...it's all for fun....and she had a blast!

She even had her very first FALL today! I'd been warning her and her dad that this was inevitable and it's a part of becoming a better rider...blah, blah, blah! That turkey fell, laughed and said "it didn't hurt and it was actually kind of fun!" See her and Jordan were headed to teh warm up ring to practice, well before her class and before getting decked out in show clothes, Jordan saw avery beautiful piece of grass he couldn't resist. He dropped his head and she must have gotten caught just right and she tumbled down his neck to the beautiful grass! Because she was going to practice I didn't have the camera with me....DARN IT! I think the visual memory will last forever with me! What a stinker!

Very proud....with her two 5th place ribbons!

Soccer...

Here's a couple soccer season highlights from the last few weeks.

Kaitlyn entertaining Tommy, and Tommy gashing out her eyes while holding on for dear life!

Teddy was the special VIP in to watch the game...in fact he said goodbye to us last night. He was originally taken in as a tempo


Tommy's other favorite way to pass time...stuffing his face with food!

The real reason we go to the soccer fields...

Robby has recently been playing goalie a lot...he loves it and is pretty good at it to!

Ike Wind

Pictures as promised form the kids playing in Hurrican Ike's wind before we realized how serious it was.

We're B A C K....

Didn't miss us huh?

A quick run down...

This past Sunday we had some leftover wind from Hurricane Ike stop in for a visit. YES, in Ohio we got a visit?? The news called it a Dry Category 1 Hurricane- too funny! Seriously a house at the end of our street lost about a 6 foot by 6 foot part of their roof...you could see right in the attic. Many lost shingles and some lost siding. We had no damage what so ever. Thank God! Well we did lose Tommy's little baby wading pool, the kids were devastated, you'd thought the cat flew away. We also lost a few beach balls. Hoping some other kid is having a ball with them :)

Seriously though, most of you know I'm from Florida...We never lost power so long that we lost food out of our fridge! Thankfully our friend's had room in their freezer for most of our frozen food. We lost power at approx. 2:20pm on Sunday, being naive and clueless we figured it be on shortly. Larry left at about 3pm (after losing power while trying to download IL info to his GPS)for his planned TDY to Scott AFB. The kids and I proceeded to have fun with no power. The fun started to die down after our neighbors (dirty dogs) got their power back in the wee hours Monday morning-- and after hearing the news updates from them that predicted the power outages could take 7-10 days to fix!

Tuesday morning I ran out to get a cell phone charger to use in my van...I grabbed a gallon of fresh milk....no ice could be found around our neighborhood, I would borrow from our dear friends/neighbors whom had power. Then it clicked, like alight bulb lit in my head. WHY IN GOD'S GREEN EARTH was I sitting in a dark very quiet home with 4 kids while my sweet husband was sleeping in a 2 bed hotel room with ELECTRICITY?!?!? Yep, I decided if I could fill up with gas near the house, I was out of here. After filling up I took a nice hot bath (thanks to our gas water heater) packed a few outfits for each of us and then ran to dinner at our neighbors house. We hit the road just before 7am Wednesday!

See all along I wanted to join Larry on this TDY....perfect opportunity to house-hunt or at least learn some of the area since Larry HAD to be there anyhow for work/school.

Well, got an amazing realtor house hunted for about 3 hours on each of the two days and yes, we just placed an offer on a perfect home. This is so far feeling WAY too easy...praying it'll stay easy and just all work out.

I have pictures of teh kids playing in the wind with a sheet...before the wind so strong. Look for them soon.

More Pictures...

Slave labor...actually he was one mad kid when I started it and really mowed! He didn't like Mom taking his toy away!




I promise we feed and water him....he sincerely has no need STEALING Teddy's water bottle!!!




Saying good morning to Teddy....Dad put him to bed, I thought after 4 kids he knew how to put jammies on? After snapping the picture I realized Tommy simply shoved his arm up his shirt and out the neck hole to create the new look he's sportin' here.



TOO GROWN UP! Thanks to my friend Wendy for donating a huge pile of clothes her boys have outgrown...Tommy looks entirely too grown up wearing this button up shirt!



Kaitlyn....must be a family tradition...I recall being told to get my tongue in as to reduce the risk of biting it...




A cool shot of Robby...now he's testing out English and realizing it is a bit harder than Kaitlyn makes it look!


Kaitlyn and her instructor's daughter driving Sweety around with homemade harness and buggy! I call that creative right there!