It's kinda a blur

I just had a three day weekend and it's kinda a blur.....

Thursday night we had grandma come over and watch the kids while I took Jen out to Red Lobster for her birthday. Dinner went well, but remind me not to order the meal that I had again. I have a usual at Red Lobster which is the crab Alfredo, but leave it to me to go off the beaten path and try something new. I will never learn. I got a dish that had 3 different things on it. Fried fish, fried shrimp, and fried clam strips along with fresh FRIES. That's alot of fried stuff to eat. It was very tasty, but foolishly I tried to eat as much as possible since you can't take that stuff home and reheat it (unlike the crab alfredo, dang). So a stuff, fried, stomach ache later we decided to head for home since neither one of us felt like getting ice cream and exploding on the spot. We got home and put the kids to bed and tried to get to bed ourselves. We had to get up early and take William to the hospital to get tubes put into his ears and have his adenoids taken out as well. So we have to be there at 7:00am (dang), it's on the other side of town (crap), which means we have to get up around 5:30am or so to get ready. I guess I could have thrown on a hat or something, but I didn't think it was that early. I finally got to be around 11:00pm thinking that 6 hours of sleep isn't too bad. Wouldn't you know it, Andrew does one of his 1:00am crying fits that lasts for 3 hours. So by the time I get back to bed it's just about time for the alarm to go off (Son of a ). Luckily I was up enough that I got ready and didn't sleep through the alarm. We scooped up William and headed out the door when grandma got to the house at 6:30am. The procedure at the hospital went pretty good. After checking in and doing all the prep stuff, the actual procedure only took about 30 or 40 minutes. I tried to sleep during this time, but that wasn't going to happen. We sat in the recovery room with a very cranky boy for about an hour and a half. When the doctor talked to us, he told us that the tubes are in place and that the adenoids that he took out were twice as big as the 15 year old that he did after William. Hopefully that will help him with a multitude of problems. The rest of Friday I sat there with William and we just watched TV.
Saturday morning I got a hair cut in the morning and decided to work on my projects in the afternoon. The project du jour was installing the gutter guards on the second story gutters. I waited until Andrew was down for his nap before starting the project. I can deal with William helping me with my projects, but I can't be on the roof and have Andrew free to roam. Jen had to work. I tried to do this project using a ladder from the ground but the ladder wasn't long enough so I ended up doing my flying Welenda's working on the rooftop. I got the front gutters done before William fell and scraped his knee which I had to get off the roof a couple of times for different reasons. I noticed that Andrew was waking up so I decided to call it a day. William was playing in the jeep and fell asleep. Poor kid. So I took Andrew outside with me and we played in the front yard while William took a nap in the jeep.
Sunday was a lazy day. Jen had to work again so I watched the boys and got a real good nap in the afternoon. Sunday night when Jen got home we grabbed a bucket from the Colonel and went over to the in-law since they just got home from a two week trip to Alaska. It sounds like they had alot of fun and took some pretty good pictures with Jim's camera.
Fun part of the weekend is trying to put ear drops in Williams ears 3 times a day for 3 days. You think we were beating the kid for the way he screams. The even more fun part is trying to do it by myself without Jen helping to hold him down. Other fun part of the weekend is Andrew did another wake up thing Monday morning for 3 hours. We have got to find out why he wakes up and why he won't go back to sleep and then try to find out why William has to visit our room almost every night too!!!!

How cool is that????

I was reading some of the news stories on the internet yesterday and one said how you would be able to see the international space station and the shuttle fly overhead at night with the naked eye. I followed the link to the NASA website that tells you when and where you can see stuff flying over your head. It said that we could see the ISS and the shuttle at 10:30 last night and kind of gave you an idea of the direction it would be flying. I went outside to see if I could see the event and wasn't really sure what to look for, and I was expecting to see something moving slowly across the sky. Suddenly I saw two bright objects going across the sky. They were going alot faster than I thought but still you could see them clearly. I was able to watch them for just about 20-40 second before going behind the trees. They look just like bright lights of a plane, but I think I will break out the bioculars tonight to see what I can see. The ISS can be seen for the rest of the week, but the durations of the sightings only are 1 - 4 minutes a night so keep a close look out.

Link to see space stuff fly over (follow links to your local state/city):

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/skywatch.cgi?country=United+States

Other cool space stuff and viewing of planets:

http://www.jackstargazer.com/

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch

One of the projects around the house that has been nagging me is getting mulch for under the kids playset as well as some of the landscaping in the front yard that I had edged. I was trying to come up with a plan for this project this weekend while trying to work out watching kids and Jenny having to work. Thursday afternoon my boss comes to my desk and tells me that he is giving everyone a free day off since we are a little slow and there are a few bigger projects coming in that will keep up very busy. SCORE. So I decided to take Friday off to work on mulch. Friday morning I wake up with the kids around 7:30 or so and take my time getting ready. So I am heading out the door around 10:00am and Jen suggest that I take William with me. That wasn't part of the plan, since I didn't think he was allowed to be in the front seat of a pick-up truck, and I wasn't sure if he would get in my way. But Lately William is usually really good about staying out of the way if I am working on projects so I decided to give it a try. So we head to Menards for some weed barrier fabric (to put under the mulch to keep weeds down) and out to bum-pa's (what William calls grandpa) house to grab his truck. I put William's booster seat in the front seat and we head out to the Mulch place (Felgers). William LOVES ridding in the front since he can actually see everything that is going on, which is vastly different from his back seat position that he has had his whole life. The thing that really fascinated him is that when he looked out the side window he could see the cars behind us in the side view mirror. He would look at the side view mirror, say "here he comes" and then turn around to look behind us. We saw all kind of trucks, cranes, and stuff on the way to the mulch place. Even when we got to Felgers they use a huge front-end loader to do the mulch. Now I haven't been out to Felger's since I went with my dad probably 25 years ago. I just remember you pull up, talk to the guy running the front-end loader, pay him and get loaded with mulch. Wouldn't you know it's still the same way after all these years. I talk to the guy and get some cheap wood chips for the playground. I was standing outside the truck as he was loading the truck and noticed how big Williams eyes got when he dumped in the mulch with one huge scoop. Probably should have warned him or been in with him, but he seemed to take it in stride. We get the truck home and I back it up as close as I can get to the backyard and lay out the weed fabric and start dumping the wood chips. The process went pretty fast and the wood chips weren't as heavy as I thought they might be so I could load up the wheelbarrow as high as I could. While I was dumping wood chips my mom came over and took the kids home with her for a little while and Jen leaves for work. William was given the choice of staying with me or going with grandma and he chose grandma. So I finish the playset and I debate going for another load for the landscaping, but I figure it's not that late and run over to Felgers for some mulch. Just as I get home and start spreading it my mom shows up to drop the kids off. Crap. Either I forgot that she had something going on or Jen though I knew. Anyway after a little while of trying to work on mulch and watch kids (especially Andrew) I decided that it was too much of a pain in the butt so I decided to finish the mulch Saturday morning.
Saturday morning I finish spreading out the mulch and take the truck back to bum-pa's house with Williams help again. By the time I got back Jen left for work and the boys and I just spent the rest of the day watching Madagascar and playing. When Jen got home she fell asleep while I was giving the boys their baths and slept until 8:00 the next morning. I think she was a little tired.
Sunday was pretty uneventful for a father's day. We went to church, Jen went to work, and the boys and I hung out and home again. Mostly inside since it was so hot outside. During the day the Sinus thing that has been going around the family finally landed on me with both feat. Yuck. When Jen got home we went out to the Kanning residence for a get-together. Unfortunately we got there toward the end of the party so we just had time to grab a little something to eat, visit a little bit and chase down the kids. We came home and put the kids down reeaaallllyyy late from their usual bedtime.

CORNHOLE CORNHOLE CORNHOLE

Looking forward to Sunday !!

Yawn

You know.... I decided a while ago that I wasn't going to write about every time that the kids woke me up in the middle of the night since I could see it get boring and uninteresting to everyone else who reads my blog and it would become a daily blog entry. But sometimes I just gotta vent. That and when the kids read my blog in the future they can see what we had to put up with.
All week long William has been getting up at 2:30am and coming into the bedroom. Usually all I have to do is put him back to bed and turn on the light in the hallway and he is good to go (maybe some more water). He hasn't done this in a while, so I am looking for a reason. Well he has been feeling a little warm and had the sniffles for a day or two, so I am thinking that he is fighting a little summer cold. Before bed last night I decided to give him a little medicine to give him (and us) a good night sleep and to help fight the cold. He falls asleep pretty fast which is unusual for him. For a while now he has been reverting to any stall tactic that he can think of to stay awake (and annoy me) as long as he can. Needing more water, going to the bathroom, wanting his stuffed animal, needing his new matchbox cars, then wanting me to put the cars in the toy box downstairs to name but a few. Of course all of these stalls require me to go up and down a flight of stairs. Anyhow, he goes down pretty quick last night and I finally get to bed around 11:00pm or so, and like clockwork he comes strolling in at 2:30am (crap!!). So I put him back to bed with some more water.... and asleep. 3:00am he comes strolling back in and again I pick him up and put him back to bed. He did this every half hour from 2:30am until 6:00am. During one of his ventures into the bedroom, Jen gave up and went to sleep in his bed since he wasn't obviously needing it, leaving him in the room with me. Whereupon he wants to watch TV. Then He starts bouncing on the bed. Then he stand in the doorway yelling down the hall. (sigh). We figured that the medicine that we gave him was non-drowsy (crap!!). whatever happened to the good old days of medicine with a little codeine to make the night go well. I am not as tired as I thought I would be today at work, but still I could use a nap.................

What a weekend

Finally I had one of those weekends that you actually enjoy. You know the kind where you do things that you enjoy and that the family enjoys too. Yeah some of the landscaping projects around the house were bugging me that I wasn't working on them, but screw it, the landscaping will always be there.


Friday night was sad. We had to go up to Angola after I got home from work for a funeral viewing. I am still trying to figure out how I am related to the guy who passed away, but it's basically the grandson of my mom's, aunt (or something like that)... so it's probably like a 3rd cousin a couple times removed. Unfortunately he committed suicide last week. I don't know the details on events surrounding his death, and it's really none of my concern as long as he rests in peace. But it did give us a chance to see some relatives from Florida that we don't see that often. Next time I will rethink taking a 4 year old and a 1.5 year old to something like this again since all they did was run around. It seemed a bit disrespectful at a viewing to me, but it was a chance to have the kids see some more of the family.


Saturday was fun fun fun at Germanfest. Just about the only event that I will make an effort to go downtown for. We met up with mom, Dan, Rhonda, and Rhoda's mom Alta. We all had a real good time. We ate bratwurst and german potato salad with Kutchen (yummmyyy). And the beer was very tasty too. After containing the boys long enough to feed them, they were off and roaming all over the place (especially Andrew). So would let him do his thing and stay a couple steps behind him to make sure that he didn't get into anything that he shouldn't, and occasionally steer him back toward our table to top off my beer. We were able to see the Weinerdog races from the tent and that was move visible and better than last year. It still could be tweaked, but so much better than last year. After hanging out there for a couple of hours we headed for home.


Sunday we packed up the kids and headed for the Zoo. Every year we say we are going to buy a season ticket and every year we don't. But this year we had a little "rock" money laying around and bought the pass so we are good to go for the season. What a perfect day it was outside, it was a little warm, but no unbearable. We took a wagon with us to the zoo so we could transport both kids at the same time and also give us a way to carry a little cooler of water and supplies. That worked out very well even though some of the hills at the zoo are a little steep going up and was quite the workout especially with both kids in it. The boys got to pet a snake at one of the little nature stops which freaked out Jen. I didn't realize how much she hated snakes. Snakes.. why did it have to be snakes... (thanks indy). We got our first look at the new ride in the African veldt part of the zoo. Basically it's just a ski lift right now going over a construction site which my brother found out Saturday. After that we headed to the rainforrest part of the zoo which takes us by the horses. Every time we go past them William wants to look at them, but you couldn't talk him into riding them. I talked him into it and he took his first horse ride (with me right next to him) and seemed to really enjoy it.

Later as we were leaving the Australian part of the zoo we run into Jeff,Paula, and Brock. Small world. Then as we are talking, seconds later, Kevin, Lisa, and Gavin come walking up to our group as well. I thought the Shelenbachs were with Jeff and his crew and Jeff thought they were with us, but nope, just a huge coincidence that we all were there at the same time. After visiting for a while we took the kids home. Even though we didn't go through everything at the zoo we now have the passes and plan on visiting more this summer.

More pictures of our zoo adventure can be seen here :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveandjj_ii/

Monday Morning Hookey

Monday morning I had a dentist appointment at 8:00am and decided rather than just taking an hour off work, I decided to make it half a day. Dentist appointment went pretty good with no cavities or stuff, but I did get yelled at for not flossing. No matter how old you are there is still something about disappointing the dentist. I actually should say the dental technician since she is the one that does all the work where the dentist blows in looks at my teeth and blows out. I think he was in the room long enough to ask me how I was doing and everything looked good.. that's it.
After the dentist I decided that I had enough time to play 9 holes of golf. I headed to Arlington Park Golf course. I call this course my "home" course since this is the course that I started playing golf. My brother and I were the first people to play the course when it opened up years ago. We lived just off the 4th tee-off until the mid 90's. I hadn't played the course in years, but the last time I played it was around $6 for 9 holes which isn't too bad for a course that is a little rough (has a tendency to flood during hard rain storms) and has no electric carts or frills. The guy working the counter told me it would be $10.50 for 9. That's a little salty for this course, but actually not too bad considering what the other courses in town want for 9 or 18 holes. I was half expecting to play the course by myself since it was 9:00 am on a Monday, but there were a few other people on the course (mostly gray hairs). That is the other thing that I like about this course is that it's not too busy. Overall I would have to say that the course is still in pretty good condition... I played like crap... but the course is in good condition. First hole of the season I shank my tee shot to the left into a tree, over hit the green by 30 yards, and 3 putt the green. sigh. Its fun to see how trees have grown on the course making some of the "shortcuts" that we took as kids are no longer available. I think I only shot par on one hole with the rest bogey, double bogey, or worse, but still it was good to be out on the course.
After playing I headed over to Menards to save big money and then home to eat lunch and visit with the kids. The afternoon at work went very fast. I might have to look into more of those half-day getaways on occasion.