My Weekend Away

Hello!

Checking in from Arizona! I think it's 99 degrees outside. (All together now:) "But it's a DRY heat..."

Somehow the "dry" part negates all discomfort. If it's not humid, it must be lovely.

I have actually been quite comfortable, mostly in air-conditioning, mind you, but it's been so long since I've been warm and even (gasp) HOT, that I get into a stifling hot car here, and just bask in it. Let me soak it in until I start to perspire. I'll take it.

I'm visiting Mom and Grandma (99 years old!) in the Tucson area. I could be here, visiting and relaxing, indefinitely. Unfortunately my plane ticket says "June 16" on it, and that means I go back tomorrow. :)

No photos to post this time, just mental images of my early-morning walks. The sun wakes me up around 5:30 or 5:45, so I start the day with a walk around their subdivision/town. 5000 homes should make Saddlebrooke its own city, right?

Anyway, I have seen a deer, birds, quail, rabbits, a desert rat and a king snake (road kill still counts, I believe).

Mom and Grandma and I chat over breakfast, on the way to church and stores, and over dinner. We went to Kris & Jessica's house (very cool), and saw Trent (4) and Avery (1). Mom and I went to see "Killers" yesterday afternoon, and to a Mini Museum today. The Celtics play tonight, game 6, and will hopefully wrap up the NBA Championship with a win.

I got a few more memories out of Grandma, and we found all the paintings in the closet that she had not signed. They have signatures on them now.

It has been a grand trip! I left Frank alone at home to deal with kids' schedules, work schedule, a painfully unfinished basement/garage/drainage catastrophe, and Kara in a cast. He is a prince for doing it all while I am here.

I'll check in later! Love, Kari

Memorable Memorial Day

Hello!

My last post started with something like "I'm a little dry on exciting topics for the blog." Well can I tell you, I like it that way. Nothing dramatic. Just normal life. I like that.

Too bad for me/us! It was a Memorable Memorial Day last Monday. We have all kinds of construction junk in the basement and the garage. We had sheets of 4X8 drywall, 7 to be exact, leaned up against the wall in the garage. They are 60 pounds each. You do the math.

Kara was putting away an extension cord, whose hook was above and behind those drywall sheets. She couldn't quite reach the hook, with those boards in the way, so she pulled them from the top corner a little, so she could reach. They moved, but instead of just a little, it was enough to keep them tipping forward and then all of them fall to the floor. She tried to get out of the way but wasn't fast enough. 400+ pounds of drywall came down...they clipped her leg, breaking the tibia AND the fibula of the lower leg.

Wow. Long story short, ambulance to 1st hospital, painful xrays, ambulance to Children's Hospital in Boston. They set it and splinted it Monday night at 11p.m., then looked at it again Tuesday. (Here it is only in a splint, bruised but straight...)

Fixed it up a little more, then a monster cast--it almost reaches the top of her leg! For the first 3 weeks, she has the thigh cast, then to a shorter one below her knee. She was released from the hospital Wednesday.

She was on the same floor, just two doors down from where David was, 3 months ago for his back surgery! Nurses recognized us. Actually, the doctor who set Kara's leg, who "happened" to be there all night that night, was also one of the doctors who worked on David's back.

Here is one of the volunteers: he comes in to draw the kids' caricatures! It was fun.

Kara is learning to use crutches. She takes rides, both self-propelled and friend-propelled, in a wheelchair. We have such good neighbors, and her 4th-grade friends are so concerned about her.

Tonight she showered with a BIG black plastic bag on it...the stuffed puppy on her lap came from the hospital.

(Frank emailed a few co-workers on what had happened. This was after last month's lyme disease, basement flooding, and our son's back surgery the month before. His co-worker emailed him to suggest that we hire an Exorcist to rid our house of evil..."What is with you guys??")

Here are x-rays of the broken leg. (You can click on them to enlarge.)

Better boogie. Have a great week! Kari

The Calendar Keeps Going!

Hola!
I have been a little dry for "exciting topics" for the blog! So I decided to just give an update on the regular day-to-day. Nothing earth-shattering, just days of normalcy.

We have been making baby steps of progress on getting drainage work done in the basement. The garage and the laundry room were the worst, so we've had a group chopping up concrete and digging trenches, laying pipe and filling it all back in with gravel. Then covering it up with cement again. Here is the laundry room before...

















Here is the laundry room right now...


















...and the garage floor now...















Frank put down some new mulch in the front yard last week. Now he wonders why there are so many tiny plants coming up through it? Maybe he didn't read the label, and instead of "mulch" it was "weed fertilizer?"














Teresa (7th grade) has had a few track meets. She runs the 800 meter dash (2 times around the track), and is learning the high jump. Here is an action photo of the high jump this past week.










And, David (9th grade) is making dinner for us tonight. Ham and cheese and scrambled egg in a pita, plus pasta salad and a vegetable. Here he is, studiously examining the boiling water with the pasta.


Our long weekend will involve a little more jack-hammering of cement, sealing walls in the basement, framing walls in the laundry room, choking down more dust and shouting over lots of noise to go along with it!

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend, Love, Kari

May, May, May

May is one of my favorite months in New England.

I've decided that May and October are the very best and most beautiful times to be here, so if you can swing a visit during those months, it is WORTH your WHILE!

Flowers, flowers everywhere, new growth on trees and bushes, and just enough rain to keep things fresh but not too hot or humid yet. Excellent.

I'm sure we did a million things this week. I wish I could remember just one!

While the rest of the country finishes up their school year, we still have about 5 weeks left. We didn't even have any snow days this year, and we are STILL in school until June 21st. Go figure.

I'm drawing a blank on excitement: I drive every day more than I thought was possible. The school, sports practice, orthodontist appointments.

I still go to the grocery store more than I'd like (note: I'd LIKE to go ONE time a week. It never seems to happen). I still spend more money there than I'd like.



Oh, here's a good thing: they've finally started digging the perimeter of our house foundation: jack-hammering up concrete, digging-digging-digging, and laying gravel and pipe so in the future, water has a place to go, easily flowing to the sump pump in the other corner of the lower level. It's loud. It's dusty. My house is still a shambles and I can't find anything...but we have been dry--! :)


I'll leave you with an image of the great cake that Grammie D made for Kara's birthday party a few weeks ago. I promise you, it totally looked like a dish of spaghetti! So much so, that the girls at the party were NOT too sure they wanted any or not! Very funny. but the noodles are frosting, the meatballs are frosting, and the reddish sauce on top is strawberry jam. It was awesome!

Have a great week, Kari

The Hair Donation

Hello!

Teresa (12) has had this idea for a long time that she wants to donate her hair. It's kind of a cool thing, where you grow out a ponytail and donate it to be made into a wig for cancer patients. She got the idea from her cousin Mandy, who had a new haircut last summer and she had just donated her hair.

It takes quite a few ponytails to make a wig, and it has to be tied together with rubber bands before you cut it, so they won't be all straggly.

Many places require a 10 inch minimum, but we found one with an 8-inch minimum. (Pantene Beautiful Lengths is the program, if you want to click for more info.)

The other part was, she didn't want a REALLY short haircut. So she grew it out a little longer. (She could keep a little more that way.)

You can click on these to enlarge them. Here are the "before" pictures.

Then me cutting the ponytail...

And the "final look" after we went to a friend of ours who cuts hair professionally.

Teresa donated 9 inches.

Now. Before you think she's "turned over a new leaf" with a BRAND new look or anything...she came home, we took these photos, and she immediately put it up in...what?? -- of course a ponytail, which she wears every day except maybe Sundays, when I can convince her to do something different with it! It's just a shorter ponytail.

Have a great week! Kari

Spring Break #2

Hello!

One small oddity of living in New England is the fact that the Public Schools have TWO spring breaks. One week in February (I guess that can be referred to as "Winter Break"), and one week in April.

Months ago, we planned to visit Florida this break. Here's a synopsis of the trip.

MILWAUKEE. "Wait," you say: "Isn't Milwaukee in Wisconsin, not Florida??!?" Well. If you research and study the Internet long enough, you can find yourself a flight from Boston to Ft. Myers, Florida, VIA MILWAUKEE, and save your family hundreds of dollars. Just ask Frank. He did it!

We had a full day "layover" in Milwaukee, and since none of us had been to Wisconsin before, we rented a car and explored.

JELLY BELLIES. We took the tour of the Jelly Belly factory, and of course they spit you out in the store, with a free sample counter to try the new flavors. Along the tour we saw amazing masterpieces of Jelly Belly artwork, from Queen Elizabeth, to the famous farmer & his wife.

And of course Ronald Reagan, who made Jelly Bellies popular in a BIG way, by eating them on his Presidential campaign. (Truly. I'm not making this up. Ronald Reagan made Jelly Bellies famous in the late 70's, and they dedicate a whole wall to him.)

HARLEY-DAVIDSON MUSEUM. There's a Harley museum in Milwaukee, believe that or not! I'm not even a big motorcycle fan, but the museum was pretty cool. They have a statue guy doing a wheelie in the front, and inside they have the history of motorcycles, including really old ones and motorcycles during war time, and a whole room of seats and engines they have used over time. You can get on them, and hear the different engines revving up.

I was very pleasantly interested and surprised.









OKEECHOBEE. Ok, we DID finally make it to Florida! If you look at a map of the state, there is a huge lake in the middle. That's Lake Okeechobee, and Frank's parents live right on the western edge of it. They have a lovely house that David (Frank's dad) practically built by himself, and the garden is chock full of yummy vegetables.















FISHING. The kids spent time fishing off of their dock in the backyard, in the canal behind their house.









Teresa caught not only fish, but a turtle too! Of course it was all catch-and-release. Kara and Teresa got pretty good at taking the hooks out quickly.











FLORIDA KEYS. We could not go to Florida without visiting the Keys. After a few days we drove down to Key Largo, with warm temps and sunshine. They had just finished a busy couple of weeks of the traditional "spring break" around Easter weekend, so it was pretty quiet for us. One day, in fact, we had the boat almost to ourselves as we went...

SCUBA DIVING AND SNORKELING. Aaahhh, THIS is why people come to the Keys! We could not have asked for better days for these two activities. Sunshine, 80 degrees (not too hot yet), and the water was around 76 degrees. We use wetsuits regardless of the water temps; for whatever reason, we get cold in ANY water. But at least if you start at 76 degrees, you have a fighting chance to stay warm longer in a wetsuit.



Day 1 snorkel/scuba trip had absolutely calm waters. Fish, more fish, and more fish. Day 2 was a little choppier, but still only 1-2 foot waves. Heaven.

THROWING UP. Ok, lest you think that we only have bliss during our vacations. We still had puking. (I didn't take any photos of that, sorry to disappoint...) Poor Kara had her antibiotics without a meal one time (yes we are still working on the end of her lengthy prescription to fight off the Lyme Disease). Made her sick to her stomach.

And then I, too, was nauseous between dives on the second day. Please just let me die, I am thinking to myself. "Get back under the water," the divemaster tells me. "The seasickness will go away." Right. I SOOO did not believe him, but figured I could not possibly feel any worse than I did at that moment. He was right: as soon as I got down under again, it went away.

KAYAKING. The next morning we took turns kayaking around the bay of the resort where we stayed. Very pretty, very calm. The kids did pretty well.

All in all, it was a very nice escape!

(Now it's back to reality, and BOY is it hard to get back to work after a vacation!)

Have a good week! Kari

Number 3??

Hola!

"They Say" that adversity always comes in threes. I have the third one for you!

Let's re-cap; details are in previous blog posts.

#1: David's spinal surgery for scoliosis . OK, I admit, we planned that one. It was not a surprise. But it has been a big deal to work with David's surgery, hospital stay, and recovery.

#2: Torrential rains causing our basement flooding...twice. 10 inches in 3 days the first round, then 5 more inches in 2 days the second round. Everybody keeps saying "I've lived here 20 years and I've never seen water like this!" For approximately 3 weeks now, we have had varying (large) amounts of water in our basement.

Now for#3: Kara has been diagnosed with Lyme Disease. (Well...it's really not as bad as it sounds. Anything with "disease" at the end sounds frightfully bad.) It's a New England thing, passed along by infected deer ticks, for Pete's sake! These may be as big as a pinhead. You're supposed to check your kids for ticks all summer, especially if they've been playing in the woods where they may pick up ticks. Often there will be a bullseye rash: a ring with a dot as one symptom, or maybe flu-like symptoms. Or maybe they won't have those symptoms! It varies. Then it goes to their joints. I took her to the doctor with a swollen knee--no injury, no reason for the swelling. That was the cue, for the doctor. They did a blood test and it was positive for Lyme.

She has probably had it for weeks or even months, they say. The treatment is 28 days on an antibiotic. (Thank you, thank you for medicines, I say!!!)

So, if I may make a request, I would like that to be our #3. And that's all for awhile.

Here are some pictures of the flooding--you can click to enlarge. Our intersection 1/2 mile away is still closed (the one the kids are wading through).

We have a never-ending swimming area in the driveway...

Here are the yukky water-logged wallboards...

And what would we have done without the wet/dry vaccuum...

There is still water coming in the basement, but it's really slow now.

It's a beautiful Easter Morning! Maybe we'll focus a few minutes on that today. :) Kari