Swim Banquet 2009

Tonight was Lizzy's big night, in more ways then one. Tonight she was awarded her Varsity Letter in Swimming. She knew this was happening and so I bought tickets for the whole family to be there for her big night. Dinner is always pretty good and plentiful. You do not go hungry at these affairs. Coaches give their speeches, and then award their special awards. Then they start awarding the girls according to grade, freshmen, sophmore, juniors and seniors, their JV and Varsity Letters.

Then the seniors hand out their own special brand of paper plate awards to their friends on the team. Every girl gets one, sometimes they are very silly. Lizzy's paper plate award this year was for the girl that always starts her conversations with a "Like ya...". Then the captains give their speeches. You try very hard not to get as weepy as the girls do, thanking mom, dad and siblings for all their support. They really need to start handing out a box of Kleenex to each speaker and one for each table.

Then the moment every Junior on the team has been waiting for. The naming of next years captains. At the end of the season as the girls turn in their gear they vote for captain and they are announced at the banquet. So one of Lizzy's friends name is announced. It was a no brainer, her sister was a captain before her. Then another name is announced, OK not the name you expected, but no biggie. Then the third name is announced - Lizzy!!!!! This was the big surprise for us. She wanted to be captain, but had thought that she would never get it because there were two others that she believed would get it instead. She had resigned herself to be a gracious team mate when the names were announced, and instead she got to go up to the podium to receive her captain star. She is really excited, but also feeling sorry for her other two friends that didn't make captain (thats her heart showing). Expecially since the outgoing team had four captains so there is no limit really as to how many captains they can have.

Now I really have to come up with the money for that Varsity Jacket to have the special patches put on and worn with pride. Children, they just keep costing you money. Someone better show me where that money tree is in my backyard. HAHAHA

Time to think about all you blessings

This week people will be putting up with the hustle of last minute shopping for their turkey dinner, and scoping out all the early bird sales that they won't want to miss. But, it is also important to stop and remember all the blessings that have come your way this year. Now it may have been that you also had some bumpy blessings along the way as well.

My family has surely had another rough year, but I can say that we still have many blessings to be thankful for on this wonderful holiday week. We are all still alive and in as reasonable health as can be, considering our medical problems of the past year. We still have a roof over our head and clothes on our backs. The kids are healthy and smart and funny as ever. We still have one car left (I can only hope that the person that stole my van needed it more then I did).

So I am sitting here hoping that if your year has been as trying as mine, that you too can stop and take the time to remember the blessings that you have in your life this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone and Enjoy your Turkey Dinner!

Where does the Time Go?

It is truly hard for me to believe this child is having her 16th birthday on Thursday. I, like all mom's, remember when she entered this world. She was in such a hurry, the nurse in the OB room almost had to catch her as they were setting me up to the monitors.

Now we are thinking about the colleges she will apply to, taking the ACT and SAT tests, drivers training, ordering her varsity coat and last night we wrote the deposit check for her class ring. Junior year is as costly as Senior year.

Could someone please make time stop. I have already told her I am not one of those mom's that can't wait until she is going to college. I will be the mom that is a basket case when she is gone.

Long Lost Relations

Every Family has its black sheeps, well mine reappeared this week. My youngest sister Chrissy(I am the oldest of 3 girls and 1 boy), found me on facebook the other night (Why didn't I think of that). The last time I saw her I was pregant-(my memory),not pregant-(her memory) with my third child. I remember sitting on the front porch as her and my other sister drove up (she had been gone a while) and I asked her why she had stayed away so long. No answer. I don't remember the rest of the conversation, but it was uneventful and as they got in the car to leave I told her to stay in contact better, so we would know were she was even if she didn't want to talk to anyone. Two weeks later my sister Robin called me and said she couldn't get ahold of Chrissy for a few days and had finally called some guy that Chrissy had been with and told him that if she didn't call in a few hours she was going to the police and have him arrested for kidnapping. Chrissy called her right back and told her she was in the Middle East for vacation and would be back in two weeks. That was thirteen years ago.

Both our parents passed away thinking they were going to meet her in heaven, because they just couldn't believe that she would not have at least let them know she was alive.

The other night, I was on the computer typing up my notes from the girls scout leader meeting and posting updates on the website I had made, and after logging out of there and getting ready to shut down the computer for the night, I checked my email for the last time and there were four messages asking for Christina to be added to my freinds on facebook. Seems she has been in Israel all this time, married with three boys.

Footnote: My mother and I had tried many ways of looking for Chrissy, including signing up on the search websites and all were a deadend to the last address in Michigan before she left.

Good News, Bad News

OK, so on August 22nd, I woke up at 4am and could barley move. I had pain in my neck , shoulder and hand on my left side. Needless to say, I called off work and called the doctor to see if I could get into see her. No go there, as it was not her Saturday to have office hours. I took a vicodin from Jeff's medicine and felt good to go the next day.

Now flash forward to Thursday, September 10th, 4am (don't know why these things happen at this time) awaken with major pain again, this time was not a work day, so call the doctor again and went in to she her, got some muscle relaxers and pain meds and told to take it easy for the weekend. On Monday, still no better, missed two days of work knowing that I was scheduled for the following day and not felling better. Tuesday evening had an MRI with contrast. Results came back today, I have torn my rotator cup, have two tears in the muscle and my neck vertebra are messed up. Need to see an ortho doctor and have physical therapy and will probably be off work for a couple more weeks and hopefully not need surgery. And me with no short term disability insurance.

Life really knows how to knock you down a peg or two when you least expect it.

First Day of School 2009

Today was the first day of school around here. Everyone was very excited to see which of their friends they would have in class together.

So yesterday, I took the kids up to my brother's farm to gather tomatoes and peppers. While there we also went to the local cemeteries so I could take pictures of the family gravestones. We then went for ice cream and to Lake Huron so the kids could walk in the water.

Unfortunately, the area was not dredged yet and they found out that they needed to wade knee deep in mud to get to the waters edge. Allard came out covered in mud after reaching the water only to find that the mud was deeper in the water. Evie got stuck by this picture and Allard had to help her so she could turn around and come out.

Swim Meet #2

On Thursday I got to see Lizzy swim the backstroke at her meet. This is the first year that the coach has asked her to swim this event. I had told her that I thought this was one of the easiest strokes to do. As of this year, she has been swimming in the 100 Fly, 100 Backstroke and the 400 relay. She is really hoping to get her letter this year and order her jacket. So far her team is 1-1.

On a really annoying note, I have been running the swim team website since last year, and it seems that last week my site was hacked and they put a virus on it. I have been emailing the web company every couple days, but am not getting any response back. The live chat people said they take care of things like these on a first come basis, but I should think that they would have contacted me by now. I really don't see why someone would think that a girls swim team would need to be hacked. I never put pictures on my sites, only written words, so they must have looked at the name of the site and thought they would see swimsuits galore.