How I know a little bit of my Grandpa is always with me....

My Grandpa Harry was an awesome man and I miss him tremendously.  I got a glimpse yesterday into just how strong my family genes are ( I mean besides the fact that my 90 year old grandma looks like she's in her 60's and my mother and aunts look like they are in their 40's and I, of course look like I'm 18......) but even stronger than the gene of eternal youth..is the gene of LOVE for Heavy Duty TAPE! :-)  I may be joking about the eternal youth gene...but the Duct tape gene is serious business...just ask my brother Andy.

My grandpa LOVED duct tape....duct tape could fix anything in his world...and did.  My aunt Sally recently posted on facebook that Grandpa would have called up BP and said, "fix that oil spill with duct tape"!!  I mean he fixed EVERYTHING with duct tape...I'm almost sure that there were things that needed suturing that he said, "come over here hon, let's just put a little duct tape on that gushing wound"..and it worked.

The reason that I bring this up is that yesterday Zach came to me with a dilemma...his very favorite Indiana Jones Action Figure (gotta put the Action in there) had "somehow" (read Madalyne threw it there in a fit of angst) ended up in one of our basement egress windows...and they are deep.  I was getting ready for work though and told him that he would have to wait for his dad to get home and help him.

Egress window..see it's deep and I didn't want him to fall in:

Not even 10 minutes later I look out the back window to check on them and Zach's PLAYING with the Indiana Jone's Action Figure that was recently in the egress window....!!!!????

How did my 9 year old little man manage to get it out you ask???...

With this contraption;

What is that thing..you ask???

Well..it just happens to be...

Two tents stakes, rope and HEAVY DUTY TAPE!!!!

He put the tape on one of the stakes "so that I could guide it to Indy Mom, and then when the tape stuck to him, I just pulled him out"..."sheesh, what's the big deal, are you really crying mom....I didn't fall in...what's the big deal??"

Yes...Yes I was crying...just a little.

I love you Grandpa and I miss you and I love that Zach loves heavy duty tape as much as you did.

Love Always,

 

Wendy

WE DID IT!!

Background story:  We have a Hitachi projection T.V. in our living room..huge beast of a T.V.  Two weeks ago everything on it started to look like we had switched it to 3D...we didn't.  So...Brian called a T.V. repair shop and we were told that it was going to cost $150.00 just to come out and LOOK at the dang thing and tell us what we already knew was wrong with it (the convergence was out...thanks be to Google for once again enlightening me).  $150.00 just to look at it??!!!??  So...Brian tried another place, same answer.


I decided to spend some time researching on the computer and came up with an awesome site called TVrepairkits.com.  They had a repair kit for our T.V. for only $50.00 but we would have to teach ourselves how to solder and desolder...so we decided...why not give it a shot.


So here are some pics of the "Sage to fix the T.V."...also known as "Brian stop talking to me through clenched teeth...we'll figure it out...Gosh".


First we had to wait for the kit to come in the mail..which turned out to be two small pieces and 12 really small pieces and NO instructions...just a password to download the instructions!


The first instruction was: buy a pencil thin soldering iron, desoldering iron, solder (as thin as possible..of course), a soldering board and a little piece that you use to practice soldering...well needless to say, it quickly became apparent that I would be reading the instructions, unhooking the small parts, etc and Brian would be doing ALL the soldering and desoldering.  This became apparent when I soldered myself to the kitchen counter....solder by the way...is freaking HOT!


The next instruction was to open up the back of the T.V. and remove the  convergence board;..this is what we saw....what we thought was..."oh hell"....

actually in the above pic, we already have it out..it went in that big empty space to the right.

That's what it looked like in the T.V.  all those wires had to be removed, all the clips removed and bolts removed then CAREFULLY remove the board...see those little green things with the strippy colors???  those are what we had to replace and the converter chips which are bigger pieces that each required 18 solders!!

Brian is desoldering all the little parts here (48 parts)..and I'm watching....apparently too closely..I believe I was asked to take my camera and leave....

So.....I did. I went outside to find this picture of Queen of the little pool..and below you will find the smartest member of the family...hiding.

Poor baby...He was also tired of being talked to through clenched teeth...

Daphne took it all in stride though...she just wanted her big T.V. back.


But...Look...I didn't slack the whole time...here's me and Bootsie..hard at work.

I'm putting the converters back in because they were kind of delicate and Brian was not in a delicate kind of mood.

So...this is Brian soldering all those little things into place, honestly...he's amazing and it was really delicate and time consuming work...I think the Coors light may have helped.....


So at this point...we put it all back together....turned on the T.V. after 4 hours of work....


and....


IT WAS WORSE!!!  arghhhh!!


So...we took a couple of days as a break...got a nasty email back from the company telling us that we were supposed to use "certain, specific values of resistors"...hmmmm...interesting..since this was NOT in the instructions.  We waited until they got the values and emailed them to us and then we did it ALL over AGAIN!!


Only this time...

IT WORKED!!  Woo Hoo!! I got my T.V. back and look who's on it!!!


No more 3D and no more bowing out on the edges and it only cost us $70.00!!  


So far in the last four months, we have fixed our T.V., our washing machine, our air conditioner and our P.C.  all by trying to do it ourselves and with the internet....LOVE you internet!!!  Especially you Google..you know you're my fav.

Sitting at work, Thanking God for air conditioning.

Yesterday night was not on my favorite list of "best nights in e.d. ever"...of course we had that big storm race through Goshen, which I hear now had more like 4 tornados in it!  Then we lost power in the e.d...not our emergency power obviously...but apparently the things we "don't really need"...like air conditioning.  I beg to differ...Bootsie and I sweated our you know what's off...for 10 HOURS!  10 looonnnngggg hours.  Plus, I will save you all much nausea and vomiting by NOT describing the smell that occurs in 10 hours of no cool air and no air movement in an emergency room...not pretty.

Then I got home, couldn't wait to get in the air conditioning..and again, Thank God we did not lose our power.  So I go in the house, think I'm still just warm from work...take a shower..think I'm still just warm from work..get in bed..think..OK..I can not possibly still be this hot from work..and what the heck...I'm glistening (read- sweating like a pig).  So, naturally I go downstairs and check the thermostat...it's 85 degrees in the house!!!  I call Brian at work, "oh, I guess the air went out again with the storm, you need to go down into the basement and flip the breaker"...ok..I have no problem doing this..just one question?  "you seriously did not notice it was 85 degrees in this house??!!??"..."No, I was sleeping"....well then again, so are both of this man's babies...so I guess I'm the only princess in this family! :-) 

Speaking of my sleeping babies...this is what is so hard about working overnights...(there are also numerous advantages, trust me..I'll list them sometime)..but this is what sucks the most.  I sleep late the first day I work, then I get up a couple of hours before I need to leave, at this time of day the kids are playing with friends or in a pool, etc...then I leave for work at 5:30pm...the kids go about their nights with their daddy...I come home at 6:30 in the morning...they are asleep or I see them for a couple of minutes before I go to sleep...then I get up for my second night of work, see them for a bit (maybe)..then I leave for work (today Madalyne wasn't even home to give a kiss too and Zach was asleep from being in a pool all day..sad me)..then I work, I'll go home in the morning and sleep till noon because I don't work tonight and then I'll get up and see them for 8 hours before bed.....it is entirely possible (especially if it is over the weekend) for me to actually miss them at all points and to not see the kids for 2-3 days!!!  That's hard.

So...this is another reason why I am really looking forward to our small vacation at the end of July.  I can't wait to spend time together as a family and get a break from those "ships passing in the night" days.
Well....I suppose I should go work..I'm in triage tonight...it was very busy early so right now I'm getting what I feel is a much deserved break! :-) 
Plus..I'm sort of dreading tonight at home..we are in the midst of a huge DRAMA with trying to fix our own projection t.v.  story and pics to come later..it involves: soldering, desoldering, small pieces, stress, many emails back and forth to tvrepairkits.com and for some reason, Brian seems to need to keep talking to me through clenched teeth.....
W

Workin' and Fishin'

This blog post is going to be sort of a hodge-podge of stuff...

First let me tell you about Madalyne's "near death" experience.

Imagine yourself talking with your husband and all of a sudden you hear a blood curdling yell for help from your baby girl...around here...we aren't moved much by this, due to the fact that Miss M has just cried wolf a few too many times.

I was lying in bed resting up for the next two days back at work with Bootsie...so Brian went to check on her just in case this was the one time a limb was hanging off or teeth were missing, etc.

I hear this, "Oh my Gosh, Oh NO, Oh I'm going to die, Oh daddy daddy save me!!"  seriously... verbatim. Only read into that a lot of panic and hyperventilation.

Apparently Madalyne had decided to throw all of the stuffed animals out of a tote that is in our basement, its one of those totes with a lid and two latches to hold the lid down...so naturally there is a warning label to not place actual babies in the tote.

Well...Madalyne had decided to get into the tote to throw the rest of the animals out, then she looked up and saw the warning sticker and in a typical Madalyne reaction, she decided that meant she was going to DIE...later....she wasn't sure when because "the sticker doesn't say when, it just says I'm going to die!!" (insert lots of tears and hyperventilation, not to mention Brian and I choking back our tears of laughter).

After we gathered our senses back together...we explained that she wasn't going to die and what the sticker meant.  I wish I could say this was a rare thing with her, but it's almost every day....she's a tad dramatic.

So then later that night, the big storm hit, all those stuffed animals were on the basement floor instead of in their tote (because Madalyne was simply too traumatized to put them back)...guess which side of the basement flooded.....yeah.  The next day we had a whole backyard of drying stuffed animals like some kind of crazy art exhibit.

The next two nights Bootsie and I went back to work..it was rough, that's all I'm going to say.  Luckily I have two days at home to recover :-)

Sunday was Father's day and Brian and the kids went out to his dad's house to fish...or in other words, they all went out to watch Madalyne catch fish after fish.  (fish must be attracted to angst)

Fish 1:

Fish 2:

Fish 3:

"Oh yeah Mom, I was THE fisherwoman out there"

Brian says she caught 6-7 fish, Zach caught 1 and Brian and his Dad didn't catch any!!

They all had a great time though...and I got to sleep in a peaceful house!!  

One last thing:

Murphy says, "hello!!  Look at me, I'm actually chewing on a TOY!!" (instead of everything else that I'm not supposed to be chewing on)

Haven't quit blogging...just working.

I've worked the last two nights since the "big storm of 2010"...that was a lot of wind last friday.  We were lucky and never lost power...Mom and Andy not so much...they STILL do not have power!! 
I'm at work now and triaging...so of course, patients just walked in...those darn sick people who think they deserve my attention..gosh!
I'll blog more later today...
;
Madalyne's daily words of wisdom:
"Dad needs to stop using 'forever' all the time...I know I'll get to have ice cream and candy again someday, I'll be an adult and can buy my own ice cream and candy and if it makes me hyper...I'll just get stuff done faster..."

Gramma comes to visit...

Yesterday was an AWESOME day with my mom (Gramma).  We all love when she comes to visit and I enjoy having someone to talk to that doesn't say, "mom, momma, mom, momma, mom, mom, mom...before every single sentence".  Gramma was here at 8 a.m. with flowers, doughnuts and gummi butterflies and we kept her busy from that moment on!
FYI,  it's always nice to show up on someone's doorstep with flowers and doughnuts in hand...especially if it's my house...
First we went to Zach's last football camp day, he had such a good time I'm sorry it's over.
Everyday when the boys walked on to the football practice field, the varsity football team from Goshen would line up at the gate entrance and clap for them....it was so cute;

Then the boys would all go out and throw the football for a while and then they would do drills.  Gramma, Madalyne and I were having a great time watching Zach work his butt off during drills, practice corners and then some more "Razzle Dazzle"...luckily for Gramma, Zach was on the "skins" team again...I mean, she really didn't want to miss out on that experience!

This is Zach working on his drop kick in a practice corner;

and this is Zach catching;

And this is the camp picture of the 3rd graders, each boy got a t-shirt that says "Goshen Football" on the front and "Be A Good Teammate" on the back:

So that was the beginning of our day...we are only 1.5 hours into this extravaganza folks!

Next we headed to Target, Kohl's and then Applebee's for lunch.
By the time we got to Applebee's, the kids and mom and I were starving and sooo thirsty from being out in the sun all morning.  I felt sorry for our waitress, I think she filled my ice tea and Madalyne's water 12,022,00 times at  least.  Plus the kids just wanted to go home and play with their "prizes" from Gramma!!

Then I had to go to the dentist so Mom stayed home with the kids...God bless her. (and the giant teddy bear we call Daphne who would not leave her side and the puppy who she was "not allowed" to show even one iota of attention to).

All I want to say about the dentist is, apparently my dentist likes to have his patient's heads 2.5 inches off the floor with their legs approximately 4 feet up in the air!  Let me tell you how great that felt with Bootsie along for the ride.  Pretty sure that dental chair was lateral and they both (dentist and hygienist) looked at me like I was strange for being unable to feel my feet afterwards!!

By the time I got back home it was almost time to take Madalyne for her try-outs for Goshen Stars, Mom picked a good day huh?  It's true that she got to see both of her grandbabies doing their thing..but it was a busy day!

Goshen Stars is a traveling soccer league, the kids have to try-out for the league every year and this is Madalyne's first year.  They have to be pretty serious about the game and they have to LOVE IT..because they are going to be playing A LOT...which means...I'll be driving...A LOT.    So here's a glimpse of her try-outs:
The kids are getting instructions from one of the coaches about each of the 5 areas they will be tested on.

Here she is kicking and has to get each one past a cone, then the had to dribble the ball back and forth as many times as possible in a small amount of space, then she was tested on passing the ball, shooting goals and then she had to actually be timed sprinting across the length of the field.  The sun was brutal and she just kept on going!  We were soooo proud of her.

See how brutal the sun is..Zach wouldn't even be out in it!  (ok, really he's playing his DSi..but still)  Please note that Brian wears jeans at work, where he works out in the sun all day...that's all I'm sayin'.

Here's a shot of Brian watching his baby-girl get through her tests, he was guarding her like a hawk (did I mention that she had to test out in a group of all ages? There were some much older girls and boys out there)

Poor baby was HOT HOT HOT...but she never quit.

And Zach had " extra water here" for her..I believe there may have been a small fee though....

THEN they scrimmaged...seriously, it's now 7:30 pm the kids are all exhausted and HOT HOT HOT..so hey, let's play a GAME...ugh.  Did I mention that our little Madalyne was out there with BIG girls???  She not only kept up..she managed to actually steal the ball a couple of times...she amazed us all out there!

Now the poor angel was HOT HOT HOT HOT out there!!

Put she kept going and her team finally scored, won and we got to head out.  Now we wait for the phone call or email to tell us if she made the cut. If she does play, she will be on a U8 team and she will start games in August.  I'll keep you posted.

So now we've gotten to 8:15 p.m. and after much debate we decide to go try out Peterson's Steak and Seafood restaurant.  It was pretty good.  To be honest I was happy the moment I had more ice tea and air conditioning, so the second she brought me out homemade blue cheese dressing, I was in heaven.

Behind us they had tables all set up for a rehearsal dinner for the next night...Mom and I spent most of the dinner having to tell Madalyne, on one of her 10,999,999 trips to the bathroom to, "stay away from the pretty tables"!!

Then Madalyne left us to pursue her dream of becoming Mennonite:

So we were back home around 9:30pm and poor Gramma/Mom now had to drive an hour home!!!  I'm so grateful for her for coming out to spend the day with us.  I needed it badly!!!  It was a great day and I'm not sure how long she slept, but I didn't get up until almost noon today! :-)  I'm using the excuse that I have to switch my hours back to getting used to work hours.  I go back tomorrow...wish me well please.  I'm hoping that Bootsie and I can make it through those 12 hour shifts in the emergency dept. without swelling too badly.
I'll let you know how it goes.

Picture of B.B.B.B. as promised and other stuff...

So...I am now calling B.B.B.B. "Bootsie" it's just easier to say. So first off, I have to point out that the minute the very nice nurse at Dr. Rao's office slapped Bootsie on me, I thought, "I wonder if this thing can be bedazzled or something...wow, that's ugly". So tonight, I very briefly saw Steph for her birthday and the first thing she said was, "you want me to bedazzle that for you"...I love my friends! :-)
Here's the lovely Bootsie:

Gorgeous ain't she!  

Zach had football camp again today, he did really well.  I have a great picture of him just about to catch a pass...but the stupid camera won't give it up...argghh.  Towards the end of camp today, they split all the boys up into teams and played, "Razzle Dazzle" (which as far as I could tell, meant we are now scrimmaging but you are not allowed to tackle each other)  They played "skins" against "shirts"....guess which team Zach was on...yep.."skins".  At one point he came running over to Madalyne and I and said, "This is soooo cool, I don't have a shirt on, did you notice, no shirt" :-)


This was all well and good till later this afternoon when Madalyne and Zach were running out the back door to "throw the pigskin around"  (seriously...where do they come up with this stuff) and I hear Madalyne say, "Let's play teams, I'll be SKINS....uhhh WHAT??  Picture me and Bootsie making a beeline (slowly) down the stairs and out the back door to make darn sure that my baby GIRL STILL HAD HER SHIRT ON!!!  Then we calmly had a talk about why girls are NEVER on the "skins" team!

Here's one last picture;
Some of you know that we have a new addition named "Murphy", he's a Borador (Border Collie and Lab mix) we were worried about how he and Daphne would get along....seems they are just fine.   

Mixed Up Kind of Day....

So...last night I could not sleep at all..one of those nights where you really, really want to sleep and are so obsessed with falling asleep that you seem to sabotage your own ability to actually shut up your brain already and.."GO TO SLEEP".
Anyway, so I feel asleep for about 2 hours and then got up and convinced Zach that he really did have Football Camp today and that he really was going even if he felt otherwise. "Mom my head feels wrong and well, my throwing arm is off"....I looked all over the place and didn't see his "throwing arm" laying around, so after dragging him forcefully out of bed, off we went to Football Camp at Goshen High School.
This was his first day at the camp and he LOVED it!! It was the first time I've ever seen him smile through an entire sporting event and he ran his little heart out. To be completely honest though, its amazing to me how a kid who can solve and finish a video game in a matter of minutes, apparently has absolutely NO control of his limbs! They do these complicated crab sideways runny-walky-jumpy thing that was hilarious to watch. Judging by the actual football players out there helping them, they eventually will all "get it". So needless to say, since 10 am this morning, Zach has been practicing the run-walk-jump thing and hiking the football (this is the most I've seen of his backside since he was in diapers). I'm just so grateful that he loves it and that the coaches think he should try out for the Goshen Junior Football League a year early! Woo Hoo!
So, then we came back home and I went back to sleep (tried anyway) I had a 2:30 appt. with the family doctor to get "cleared" to go back to work tonight. She took one look at my ankle, moved it just enough times to send me to the ceiling and then told me she was calling the orthopedist right now. great.
So, then we drove over 0.2 miles to the ortho office (convenient, huh?) and I filled out all the paperwork, waited awhile (God bless Grandma's who buy their grandbabies Nintendo DSi's) and then Dr. Rao came in the room, took one look at my ankle, said, "Ouch" and then preceded to move it just enough times to send me to the ceiling, and then a couple more for good measure. Dr. Rao, "I really wish you would have broken it, instead you somehow managed to tear every single ligament in your right ankle...they don't heal or grow back you know". Hmmmmm...NO...I didn't know. Apparently if I am really lucky after 1 MONTH of wearing the lovely ortho B.B.B.B. (Big Butt Black Boot) I may be lucky enough to have formed enough scar tissue to support my ankle so that I only have to wear a lace up ankle brace...for the rest of my LIFE!!
What an awesome day. Oh well, we are all alive, Murphy hasn't chewed up anything vital in a couple of days, Brian is working many hours and Zach loves football...so it hasn't all been bad.
Picture of B.B.B.B. to follow...

Today is our 10th Anniversary!!

It seems impossible but today is the 10th anniversary of the day that Brian and I got married....WOW...ten years!

Although we noticed yesterday that we seem to follow "a rule of two's". We dated for 2 years, lived in 2 apartments, 2 houses, have 2 children, now...2 dogs and it all started with just the 2 of us :-)

I'm feeling very loved and privileged to have had these awesome 12 (10) years with Brian by my side...we make a good team and we are very lucky. Oh..and the dozen white roses and favorite dinner don't hurt...good move honey...good move.

Ok...now back to WATCHING the kids (and dogs) throw themselves down the slip and slide!

First Post!

So, we'll see how this goes. I've decided to try blogging...scary thought. But here's the deal, not All of our family and friends are actually on Facebook and you can't really tell a whole story on Facebook or even in a quick email or even show the crazy pictures or kid's expressions or whatever in a phone call.
This way maybe I can keep family posted from all over the place and you can join Brian and I in watching the kids (and the dogs) grow up...especially because it seems to be happening all so fast and furious.

I looked up a bit about swallows today and learned that swallows are actually so busy flying around and getting stuff done that they even have to eat in FLIGHT, which sounds exactly like us, if we aren't rushing off to work/school/soccer/football/basketball, etc....we are gardening/mowing/cooking/baking, etc....seems like we are always going, going, going...so if you are interested you can watch all this unfold and see where this "flight" we call life takes us.

-Wendy, Brian, Zach and Madalyne