Ideas Needed!!

Tis the season for the Relay for Life planning to begin! This is Team Joshua's 4th year participating in the event. I need some new and creative ideas for raising money....

I also need some volunteers to help. Interested?

The event is July 10th, 2009 and will be held at Allendale High School (for those of you who are newbies). It's a 24 hour event, from noon on Friday until noon on Saturday.

This year's theme is "Rope Up A Cure" and it's a rodeo theme. If your fundraising idea includes that, all the more awesome :) Or, if you have any cowboy/rodeo type stuff that we can borrow for the event (we decorate our campsite), that would be awesome too!!

If you're in regular contact with me, watch your inbox because I'll likely be sending you an email trying to solicate donations - but it's for a really good cause!!!!!! And seriously, is there ANYONE anymore who doesn't know someone who has dealt with cancer?

If you have any cool ideas or if you want to be a part of this awesome event, let me know - I'm sure I can find some place to use you!!!!!

Yikes! Been a while!

It's not like me to go almost an entire week without blogging! Just goes to show how busy life gets!

This past weekend, my dad's band (the Sons of Beaches) played the Grand Haven Winter Luau. It was a CRAZY good time! I rode in with him, helped set up, helped some folks "get lei'd for Hospice", danced my butt off for HOURS with my best gf's, did a little crowd control to keep drunk folks from trashing the stage, almost got in a smack down with a incredibly drunk bride-to-be at her bachelorette party (she didn't appreciate me telling her she needed to get down), was told I looked like Nicole Kidman, danced with a guy whose hands wandered a lil too close to my waistband (lol), helped tear down after the show, and then went out to breakfast with my dad, uncle, grandma, 2 aunts and the drummer from the band at 1:30am.

It was awesome. My feet STILL hurt.

Glad I didn't drink too much since I had to get up at 8am for church, LOL. After getting home at 2:30am. But, Rick let me take a nap yesterday afternoon, so that was good.

Oh, and the biggest news of all............................................................................

Joshua lost his first tooth today!!! And then he promptly discovered another tooth is loose!! It came out at school - I sent him an apple for his snack today and it came out in his apple, LOL. He is SO proud! He's been calling all his grandparents to share the good news.

I still can't believe he's big enough to be losing teeth......

So nice

It was so nice to have Rick home this morning. I had forgotten how helpful it is to have another pair of hands when everyone is trying to get out the door! Between getting Josh ready for school, Logan ready for the sitter's house and myself ready for work, the mornings just weren't working when he had to go in early to plow! We hadn't yet figured out the "routine" that we needed to be in for things to go smoothly. I tell ya, I was actually able to cook myself some breakfast this morning because I had so much extra time when everything was said and done!

Hurray for a break in the snow! I know Rick appreciated not having to leave so early this morning too! Our car goes into the shop today for an in depth look-over. We want to make sure it'll be good to take on vacation to Florida if we can manage to get the money together that we need to go. Fingers crossed that there are only minor things wrong that are inexpensive to fix. We're on a "self-imposed spending freeze", buying nothing but essentials in order to get everything paid ahead so we can leave for vacation on February 7th.

Hope you're watching the news today - regardless of your personal opinions, history is certainly being made today!!!

And the snow, snow, snow came down, down, down...

Rick has had to leave early EVERY SINGLE MORNING this week to plow. It's been crazy. And we're supposed to get "several more inches" tomorrow too. Some of which will be "lake enhanced", thanks to Lake Michigan. And we're supposed to go to Indianapolis again this weekend.

I think we're going to try and go down tomorrow morning and come home tomorrow night. There's no way Rick won't have to plow, so it looks like we can only go for the day. I'm bummed about that, but I understand.

When the weather warms up, we can go down for a real weekend. That will be so nice.

Just a quick one today - Happy Friday, all! Hope you have a great weekend!!!

Home Again.

Well, we made it there and back from Indianapolis safely. The weekend did not go hardly at all "according to plan", but it was GREAT. We had a wonderful visit and we're going back down there this coming weekend. We're hoping to go to the Children's Museum on Saturday - I've heard pretty great things about it!

So much for bowling, lol, but there were some computer issues that popped up while we were down there that Rick is trying to fix for my uncle, so we need to bring him his hard drive back :)

We didn't end up leaving my uncle's house until 8:15pm last night - got home about 1:15am. Made 2 stops to fill up the truck, and then 1 more stop to detour through a little town on the way to find a Wendy's to grab some food, lol. Joshua and Logan did SO GREAT in the truck. I was uber proud of them! I love taking road trips with Rick because we travel well together. We never fight in the car (where you would think arguments would pop up) and we can always find something to do to pass the time, which is nice. It was really a good time. Felt like a weekend away.

I hear there's more snow on the way, so if you're in the area, get ready! I think it's supposed to start snowing tonight and tomorrow. On Thursday our high temperature is supposed to be a balmy 9 degrees. With windchills between -15 and -20 degrees... chilly!!

So, I was thinking...

Do you guys like to bowl? We LOVE to bowl. I'm an awful bowler, but it's so fun, I just don't even care :)

Maybe next weekend Rick and I will take the boys bowling. They are always so cute at the bowling alley! They're usually good for one game and then they get bored, but that's just how kids are.

If you want to come with us, that would be awesome. I always like to go bowling in a group - it's much more fun that way! Feel free to bring kiddos if you want, ours will likely be there! Leave a comment if you're interested and I'll get you the details when they're set.

We're off to Indianapolis in the morning. The boys and I will be home on Sunday. Rick will come home tomorrow night because he'll have to plow on Sunday, but the boys and I are staying over at my Uncle Ken's house. I'm really looking forward to it! I've never been to their place in Indy and they've been there for YEARS, lol. It's pretty sad, actually!!

Have a great weekend! I'll update after our trip. It looks as though we'll be driving through massive amounts of snow going down there, so prayers for a safe trip would be appreciated!

Time Out! I need a pause button!

Yesterday, with the whole van situation, I was home for most of the day. So, I picked Logan up from the sitter's house before lunch. When we got home, I made him his "peanut butter and jelly sandwich with no jelly" - that's Logan Speak for a peanut butter sandwich (LOL - if you know Logan, you know that's exactly how he says it, too!). After he was done, he came into the living room and told me he was ready for his nap. As I was setting my laptop down to help him get into bed, he stopped me and said: "Mommy, I can do my covers all by myself". Then he gave me a kiss, went into his room, got into his bed, tucked himself in and went to sleep all by himself. Like I didn't even leave the living room!!! It was SO bittersweet! On one hand - it's so great to see that he is independant enough to do things like that himself, but on the other.... he's never "not" needed me to tuck him in for his nap when we're home. Bittersweet for sure.

And then last night, when Rick and I were picking the boys up from my mom's house (she watched them while we towed the van home), I got an overwhelming urge to check Joshua's mouth. I was just thinking he's getting to the age where he's going to start losing his teeth. As I was looking in his mouth, I saw a space between two of his bottom teeth that isn't usually there. I checked the teeth around the space, and sure enough - he has his very first loose tooth!!!!!!

I sit here today wishing for a pause button. I'm not sure HOW my babies have suddenly gotten big enough for things like tucking themselves in and loose teeth, but they have! And it's a little sad for me! I'm sure all parents go through this, but the feeling of "whoa" is just overwhelming today.

God's Sense of Humor...

If there is any doubt in anyone's mind that God has a sense of humor, let me share this story with you. It's true - it happened to me just this morning, LOL.

Literally last week, Rick and I decided to take a vacation to Florida in February. We haven't taken a vacation in far too long, and we decided that since I have a weeks worth of paid vacation from work that expires on my anniversary date (Feb. 16th, I think), we would do it then. We didn't even tell my sister yet, who LIVES in Florida because it was such a new plan and we were just starting to work on the details. Last night we were chatting, and Rick said that since we're driving down, if anything happens to the van on the way, we'll just have to leave it there, rent a car to come home in and then mail someone a title. Not a big deal - it wouldn't be worth the cost to send a wrecker down there to pick it up to fix it up here (and we only let 1 place work on our vehicles, so it would have to be done up here).

We're also driving to Indianapolis on Saturday to visit my uncle. We'll be gone for the weekend.

We currently have 3 vehicles. My van, Rick's truck, and Rick's Neon. The Neon has been "For Sale" for a while (we don't need 3 vehicles with 2 drivers, and the money would be helpful). Twice now, we've been sure to have it sold, and it didn't end up selling.

Can you guess where this story is going?

On my way to work this morning, my van suddenly overheated (I didn't even know it was running hot until the light kicked on). I was on the highway, passing a semi truck, so by the time I got around the semi, off the highway and into a gas station, my van died. JUST as I was pulling into a parking spot. We're pretty confident that the head gasket is blown and the engine needs to be replaced.

I guess we now know why the Neon didn't sell.

The van has 210,000 miles on it. It's a 98, we've had it for 2 1/2 years now, and we only paid $2500.00 for it. The only other major thing we've had to replace on it is the transmission, which we did about a year and a half ago. And now we'll be replacing an engine, but then we should get another 200,000 miles out of it. Not bad, in my opinion, for a vehicle that runs as well as this does.

Obviously, the engine was going to go. Because it happened so suddenly, I'm confident that it was just time for it to go. It's not as if it was running rough or anything lately, or ever ran even a little hot, so I know that's what happened. It just went.

How wonderful that it went today. It could have happened this weekend, when we were all (me, Rick, the boys, my mom, and my 2 brothers) on our way to Indy. Or, it could have happened next month, when we were on our way to vacation. The point is, it was going to happen. I'm so happy it happened today.

Today Rick isn't busy at work, and I have sick time, so I won't lose pay for not making it in today, and he can leave early to get the van home. Today, my mom was home, and could come pick me up from the gas station where it died and bring me up to Whitehall. Today, I was able to pick up Rick's car and bring it home and he can drive his truck home. Today, we can take the truck to where the van is, hook up a tow strap and pull the van home going 25 mph on the back roads. Today we can put it in the driveway (which is currently clear of ice and snow, even though it's winter in Michigan), and leave it here until the flatbed from our garage comes through to go to the car auction. They can pick it up on their way through, we don't have to pay a tow bill to get it to the garage. We don't have the money to fix it right now (thank you Christmas), but just knowing that we're "ok" until we can fix it is such a relief. I will drive Rick's car, he'll drive his truck and everything will be fine.

Although I was pretty stressed when it happened (understandably), now I can see how lucky we are that it happened now. If only God's sense of humor also included money falling out of the sky in exactly the amount we need to get it fixed - that would be the icing on the cake, lol :)

And yes, I do realize this is a fulfillment of God's promise to take care of his children. But the way it all worked out just makes me feel like God's having a little chuckle up there about how he always has everything under control, even when it doesn't feel like it down here :)

I love that about Him.

Rockin Out!

So a friend asked for recommendations for workout music for her iPod. I pulled up the "workout/running playlist" thats on my iPod and now that I'm listening to some of the selections, I'm totally motivated to go for a run. And it's 11:30pm on a Sunday night. And I have to work tomorrow. And everything is covered in ice outside, LOL.

Why do these urges always come at the most inopportune times?? I doubt I'll be this motivated tomorrow.... Oh well - asi es la vida (so is life), I suppose :)

I REALLY need to go to bed, lol. Have a super great week!!!!!!

Welcoming 2009!

We had a lot of fun with New Years this year. A friend of Rick's had a party, and there were other kids there, so we were able to bring the boys. They both made it until midnight (thanks to me making them nap until 6:00pm, LOL)!!!! It was fun to watch them watch the ball drop. They are not fans of sparkling grape juice, though, and neither one of them would kiss mommy to welcome in the new year (but I'm ok with that) :)

Yesterday, we took down the Christmas tree and then loaded the boys up into the van. We picked up our friends Jenny, Sydney and Nathan and we all went sledding in Muskegon. Then after that, we got hot chocolate at Starbucks, and then went to Jenny and Sydney's house for dinner. We ordered pizza, the kids got to play, and Rick got to play Guitar Hero (which I have a feeling we'll be buying because it's WAAAY fun!!).

Last night I had to work for an hour, and then it was off to bed! I got a new book at B&N earlier this week called "The Exhaustion Cure" and so I'm trying some of the tips in there to up my energy level. I'll let you know how it works out!

Oh, and by the way, the $95.00 I spent on boots and gloves was SO worth it. I stayed toasty warm sledding yesterday! It's so much more fun when you're not freezing your toes off!!

Have an awesome weekend!