Accident Brings Austin's Wrestling Career to a Screeching Halt!

Austin has been working out very hard this month as the wrestling season began at the high school. They do drills and high-intensity workouts for two hours everyday after school. Well, last night was his first tournament at another high school. He wrestled the maximum number of times allowed ...5... since he is the only freshman in the 135 lb. weight class. Things were going ok after the first three matches. He had to use the bathroom and things were "clear as apple juice." In the fourth match, Austin was paired up with a senior who was that team's only 135 lb. competitor. During this match the guy picked Austin up sideways like something off of WWE and threw him down hard, landing on his stomach. His stomach began to hurt a little after that. He was at this tournament from 3pm - 9pm. When he got home after that he used the bathroom and said, "Mom, I think I'm peeing blood." I ran in and sure enough, even with the dilution of the water in there, it was bright red!!! I started crying and ran to call the doctor. He suggested kidney trauma and said to go to the hospital. At the hospital, his "sample" looked like dark grape juice! He looked like he'd been in a car accident. He had a black eye just from practice the day before with his own teammates, bruises all over his upper arms, a bruise along his jawline, and blood stained around his ear. They did a ct scan and (thank the Lord) they found no internal injuries which led them to believe the face-down "slam" caused bleeding in the bladder. They also found that he has an enlarged spleen (splenogomaly?), mild ilieum due to his medication, and a cyst in his left kidney. Austin STILL wanted to wrestle but I told him we would follow the doctor's recommendation. Then I told the doctor that since we'd likely never see him again, to give us his honest opinion. He said to stop immediately especially since some medication Austin takes slows his reaction time and puts him at an unfair disadvantage. Well, that settled it. No more of this wild, brutal, craziness!!! We got hom around 3am this morning, after which I had to finish up the "parent essay" page for Joey's BYU application that had to be sent off to his counselor this morning. I got to bed at 4:45am, woke up at 7:15 to get the girls off to school, called in a sick day (I get 10 a year at this interesting little job of mine) and am going back to bed now to try and recover from the stress and lack of sleep. He has two doctors, so we'll see one of them today and the other tomorrow. I woke Austin up with breakfast-in-bed (he really deserved it!) and he's back to sleep again. He has two doctors. We'll see one of them today and the other one tomorrow morning. I think he's relieved to be able to tell his peers that the DOCTOR said he can't wrestle, rather than having to say, "my mommy won't let me." I reminded him that he's good at swimming, track, basketball, etc. He could do any of those if he chooses. His final words on the subject were, "Well, you've gotta admit...I took it like a man!"

To Commit or Not to Commit? Help me decide!

Well, it's time for me to face the facts...I need to lose weight. I've got about 50 lbs. to lose to be in good, svelte shape and feel like I'm back to my normal self. When I put my mind to something, I do it. However, for the past 8 years, it has been so difficult for me to stick to counting my points and deny myself. I feel like Barbie's husband described recently when he said, "I need to do something drastic!" He is doing very well on the Optifast plan. Once I'm into counting points for a couple weeks...I'm really into it. On the days I do some serious exercise, I FEEL like counting points. The tough part comes with making myself exercise and making myself get started counting points. Here's my idea.... Since I'm probably going to wind up at CSU San Bernardino, they require that I take one semester of a PE activity. Taking it at the Jr. College where I've been going is an acceptable option for accomplishing that course. One of the classes is called "Cardio Fitness Lab". This would be a 1 unit class and requires completing 48-54 hours exercising in their "state-of-the-art" fitness center using the machines and logging in and out to get credit. When I go would be all up to me....just as long as I had logged in the 48-54 hrs by semester end. The time frame to complete those hours would be 1/14/08 - 5/19/07. I'm thinking if it was one of my required courses I would be more apt to make myself do it. That should help me trim down. The gym is opened from 8:00am to 8pm on the weekdays and from 7am to 4pm on Saturdays. Should I sign up for it? You can click on the anonymous survey to the right.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving feast today. We went to Mark's mom's house for Thanksgiving with her and his brother and family. She had the honeybaked ham, turkey from the oven, and the deep-fried turkey (ordered through the QVC shopping network). It was actually pretty good. Mark filled his mother's wish to have a mincemeat pie. She was unable to find any all over town. Mark found the ingredients and put it together this morning along with an apple pie made with apples from our tree. He's a good cook. I worked alongside making 4 pumpkin pies and 4 dozen orange rolls. I always loved how my dad's mom (Grandma Stoddart) would always bake up some orange rolls for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. I try to keep up the tradition and the kids look forward to it.

What sets Thanksgiving 2007 apart from those of my youth? Answer: Today while those of the older set are chatting and interacting with each other, one teenager at the table was seen pausing before taking that first bite and taking a picture of his plate of food set before him. (When I was a kid nobody stopped and paused in front a full plate for anything...maybe the blessing, maybe.) One uncle at the table asked, "What are you doing?" Camera-happy teenager replies, "I'm just talking with a friend....uhhh, umm, but I AM listening to you guys." Hmm. He was sending a picture-text message of his plate of food along with a "Happy Thanksgiving" greeting to many friends all at once and getting replies back right and left. (Not a bad idea! As my kinder teacher would say: "Good thinkin' Mr. Lincoln!") Times have changed, I must say. I could have sworn he sat there with his lips sealed, and yet he claims he was carrying on conversations with five people at once.....It's just lucky, I guess, that I maintained one conversation at a time and came out feeling like I'd enjoyed the meal as well. :D

In starting this job as an Instructional Aide, it has cut into my homework time, so I have gotten a bit behind in my math. I've tried to do a marathon catch-up since the teacher announced that Exam#2 had to be completed by yesterday or we'd need to drop the class. HELP! These papers you see are just two of about 10 double-sided scratch papers I've got all over the desktop from having to just plow through it. I made it and took the exam over at the college yesterday from about 2-4pm. There were only 25 questions, but they take awhile to figure out. The depressing part is that this course doesn't give me any credit. I simply tested at this level and have to take it to qualify me to take the actual "College Math" class that DOES count. I'm so motivated to get this degree done....SOMEDAY... I get absolutely no respect over at school. I've been sitting in these "Behavior Conferences" where every expert in the district sits around with parents, teachers, principal, etc. and discuss this boy that I work with. I am with him constantly, 3-1/2 hours a day. I have seen these experts come in and observe him MAYBE 30 minutes in a month. Yet they sit around trying to figure out answers to his problems. Sometimes, they sit around saying absolutely nothing. I will intervene and give a suggestion or reason something they said might not work and nobody ever makes any response or acknowledgment that I've spoken after I say something. It's so wierd. I'd be happy with a slightly audible "hmm". I'm convinced that I need that degree in order to speak and be entitled to some response or reaction or something!!?? I'm not even able to say two peeps on my opinion as to the potty-training of the boy. I'm the one with him going through this and I've potty-trained four kids so far, but only the school "health clerk" is allowed to say anything on the subject because that's closest to her field of study. It's really motivating to get this schooling done so that I can just take part in the conversations and be eligible to get a nod or response.

Joey wants to head to Kohl's at 4am tomorrow to get in on Black Friday, but... uhh, I don't see it happening. Ugh. I do want to get out the Christmas decorations and start decorating. I was so impressed with this family in Irvine I used to know that always spent the day after Thanksgiving decorating the whole house inside and out. It would be fun. I tuned in to KOST 103.5 today and felt so thrilled to hear that they already started the around-the-clock Christmas music. I just love it. The girls remembered from last year and started asking, "Are they going to play Santa cutie again?" They loved that funny song, "Santa Baby."

Good Fall Family Fun!

I have neglected to recognize all the birthdays in the blog lately....

• Ashley on Oct. 9th
• Mark on Oct. 17th
• Ressa on Oct. 28th
• Austin on Nov. 16th

Hopefully that explains a little about why I haven't written so much in recent weeks.

Here are some pictures illustrating a few things we've been up to these days.

A week ago, we had the chance to "cash-in" on a weekend at our friends' cabin in Big Bear that we won through a Boy Scout fund-raising auction. Here's Big Bear Lake:

It was so much fun and the most ideal cabin I've ever stayed at. It had a double bed downstairs and five twin beds in an upstairs loft. The cabin was decorated right out of a magazine down to the smallest detail. The cabin had no TV or cable, but that was neither a problem nor anything that we missed. The cabin was stocked with classic books, shelves filled with every board game you could wish for and even more! Joey brought along RISK and we had several marathon games that went from about 10:30pm to 2:30am a couple nights in a row!!! The first night it was Joey, Austin, and I. The next night Mark joined in. If you've got time, it's a great game. Every popular movie on DVD that a child, teen, or parent would want to see was there on some other shelves too. There must have been 100s in the collection! The family's letter to us described the large glass/wooden box up high in the tree out front. It was a squirrel feeder that they had to repeatedly raise higher and higher into the tree to finally keep nightime bears from yanking it down and eating the peanuts. YIKES!!! Joey would hate to admit it, but Melody and Ressa weren't the only ones a little afraid to go to sleep, worried about bears lurking around outside. Eventually, Joey elaborated to us all (with a burst of relief) that any bear that entered the house and tried to go up to the loft would definitely collapse the staircase with its enormous weight and never make it up there. (Oh well....so much for mom and dad being devoured downstairs....) but after making that logical pronouncement, all the kids (Joey included) fell off to sleep very quickly thereafter.

Usually it's the ducks running away from the child...but up there the ducks were chasing Ressa. Oops, we forgot to bring bread.

Melody kept her distance so as not attract the same kind of attention Ressa was getting from the ducks.

We didn't head up to Big Bear before I had a giant poster chart made up that had the six meals charted that we would eat at the cabin. The menu was listed along with which parent, boy, and girl would be on "food prep" with the other parent, boy, and girl on "clean-up". We rotated all different ways and had lots of fun and made great memories preparing and cooking out of an mini stove/oven that was just wide enough to fit a cookie sheet! There was no dishwasher, but the experience of teaching the kids proper hand dish-washing techniques was priceless. Everyone was involved in either "food prep" or "clean-up" at every meal and it went (surprisingly) very smoothly without complaint. Here are some "personal mini pizzas" we made up at the coffee table one night for dinner out of Bridgford bread dough. Yummy stuff!

Austin and Ressa had their first piano recital last week. They both started lessons in June and have been doing great. Here's Ressa playing the classical piece the teacher found in a beginning version called "Postcard Sonatina".

I feel terrible that I don't have a picture of Austin playing, but I was so into his music that I forgot to pull out the camera. Dang! He did great though and played his 4-page song completely from memory. That's better than I could ever do! The teacher is so good and gave each student a gift of a book of Christmas music specific to their level for them to play out of from now through December. She even got Austin one that was Christmas songs in a Jazz/Ragtime style...his favorite.

Tonight was "Family Night" as we do every Monday night. We usually have a lesson on some virtue or Christlike principle. Then there's a song or two sung, a game played, and refreshments. Mark surprised me tonight and called as he left work saying that he had "Family Night" all taken care of. Great! I made the refreshments out of the "World's Easiest Cookie Recipe"which I tell the kids is a boxed cake mix, 1 egg, and a small tub of cool whip mixed up together. Adding chocolate chips makes it even better. Mark pulled a story of the first Thanksgiving off the internet, along with a short skit, and a fun project. He stopped by the store on the way home and bought what we needed to put our own "pear turkeys" together with toothpicks (brown bosc pears, gumdrops, gummy lifesavers, etc.) Each one turned out to be very unique!

Something to Look Forward To...

I'm surrounded by very sweet little five and six year-olds in my current job as an Instructional Aide. However, the little fellow with DS that I "shadow" is quite challenging. The teacher of our kindergarten and the principal went out to the county kindergarten for the moderate to severe special education class and found the children to be far more cooperative and compliant there, than my little guy is here! But, the decision has been made that since the parents refuse to remove him from the traditional kindergarten class, and couldn't care less about the chaos he creates in there....the district is too cheap to go incur legal costs, so there he will remain. I'm dealing with a lot of pinching these days and him shouting Bull S_ _ _! at me. I may be barely getting paid enough to be cussed at, but I know I'm not paid enough to be getting pinched. I'm now getting up and going to help another child when he starts to do it. That has brought him to a sobbing fit of remorse, sorries, and extreme grief.....kind of funny actually... He is no longer coming on Thursdays so I can look forward to cutting, pasting, stapling, correcting homework packets, and sampling a bite or two from the teacher's lunchroom which is always filled with tasty food and goodies.

I caught up with Ruth, one of the former aides who had been assigned to him before I came along. She's still trying to recover....

Overheard Around the House...

"I was put on this earth to serve others. I still don't know why they're here." :D

Gone to Big Bear Lake---Be Back Monday Night!

More Pictures By Ressa

I had to laugh when I saw Ressa's illustrations for three of her vocabulary words this week. The words were: celebrity, experts, and rodeo.

Don't you love the scientist with the formula spilling out of the flask? I couldn't draw the rodeo fellow if you paid me.

I found this taped to the downstairs closet door the other night. The bottom of it read: "If you need to get in, ask to speak to Ressa."

The Last Two Weeks in Pictures

It started off wild and ended wild--- I hesitated putting these first two on, but just had to preserve them for posterity sake. Also had a little chat with the girls about what's desirable and what's not as far as "beauty" goes---basically, lose the oranges in the rear. Hahahahaha!

Ressa's baptism day--

The family outside of church

Then the party back at our house, with Mark's older brother Steve shown here--

Marilyn's husband Greg and baby Cooper (or Coopie, as his mommy says...)

Mark and his mom---

Super-duper Cooper

Joey and Austin

Austin kept things lively with his "Dill Pickle Rag"

Mom, Stephanie, and her little Ellie Jayne

Stephanie and Barbie, two of the three "Weight Watcher

gurus" in the family.

Steph's Mitch and Marilyn's Mark

Ressa getting ready for the candles---

Marilyn and her little "Coopie"

Marilyn's Brandon ( I think he's Spanky from the Little Rascals).

Mark and Ressa

Danny, Mom, Ressa and Barbie and Marilyn in front.

It's takes true grit as a mom to deny these guys getting to play on the bouncers at Ressa's party UNTIL the homework was done...(I got so much grief, as usual)....

But they were done and up and at 'em in no time---

Melody with her best friends from school and church.

Austin crashing down the huge slide

Ressa going up--

Ressa crashing down---

Ressa's afterschool party at the big bouncer place.

Queen for a day...I mean a week. Hahaha!

Austin catching a ball in the dark up at Steph's house. See the football almost to his hands?

Steph's Mitch and Marilyn's Mark catching Austin's pass.

Stephanie, upon receiving the news she's been nominated "Hostess of the Year", with Danny in the background.

Barbie had been through about seven shoulder massages at this point. If one more person asked her for a shoulder massage, there would have been some WORDS! (Mike is seated)

Danny having a softer moment reading with Steph's Emily.

Mike doing the same.

My Melody, Steph's Emily, and Danny, with Marilyn and Steph in the background.

Kids----

Bigger kids---- and adults alike all had fun constructing things from Play-doh

Mom (Darla)

Mike really getting into playing with the 3 and 6 year olds.

Melody

Emily

Mike, trying to get over the fact that the moms took the play-doh away and said it was making a mess. Hahaha!