Happy Valentine's Day!
I hope everyone has had or is having a wonderful Valentine's Day. Mine was ok considering my valentine is on another continent. Corey arrived in Amsterdam about 1:30am ET and will be there until Friday morning. He called from the hotel (about 4:30am ET) to let me know he had arrived ok. We chatted online about 2 hours ago and he told me that he visited the Van Gogh museum, took a nap, went to dinner, a pub and took a canal ride. He starts meetings tomorrow but hopefully can get out a little more. We miss him, of course, but are doing good.

Today Morgan had her art class. They talked about Kevin Clarke and his red couch photos. At his web site click on portfolio & then red couch to see a few pictures. And then the kids created pictures of their own placing a red couch in whatever type of background they wanted to. Morgan placed her's in the mountains. The kids all traded valentines while at art class. Then we headed to a nearby park and spent several hours with some friends from our local pagan group. Several of us are homeschooling so that makes it fun too. The kids traded more valentines, decorated cupcakes, decorated bags to keep their valentines in, created bead bracelets, played all over the playground and had their share of plenty of sugar!

Tonight, my neighbor let me know that I had a delivery while away. Corey sent me flowers. :-) I jokingly pointed out a bouquet of tulips the other day online and he got me some! A dozen red and white tulips were delivered from him with the sweetest card. So even though he can't be here he still did something special. Isn't he just wonderful? No need to answer...I know he is and that is all that matters. LOL!

After a couple days of running around I'm hoping we can have a quiet day of learning tomorrow. Maybe I can get a few things sorted & packed (or donated or tossed). Wish me luck.

We had a pretty good weekend. On Saturday the kids & I went to a birthday party for a homeschooled friend that was turning 4. The kids had a blast with the bouncey house they had for the party & all the crafts. The time was pushed up a few hours because of a big band of storms & the cold front heading towards us. We did good though & managed to get about 1/3 of the way home before the rain arrived. Definitely a good thing to bump up the party or the kids wouldn't have even had an hour of fun before the onslaught began. Corey got some pre-trip stuff taken care of (special adaptor for his laptop, hair cut,etc). We headed out for a nice dinner & picked up a few things we needed to make the Valentine treats and have handy for the upcoming week. Alex went to bed a little early (misbehaving & tired) and Morgan stayed up with us watching some of the Olympic coverage. She's really interested in the figure skating & pairs. Although she thought the luge competition was cool because they went so fast.

Today we spent hanging out together enjoying time with Corey. He was goofing around with Morgan, tickling her & rubbing his trimmed, short goatee/beard on her. She was laughing & broke free and I noticed hives on her shoulder and when I started checking her out you could just see more hives popping up. Within a minute she had them all over the right side of her face (hairline, by her eye, cheek, ear lobe, down her neck & on her shoulder). The only thing we can figure is that the cat had been snuggling with Corey earlier and somehow his beard rubbing & scratching on Morgan irritated her enough to cause a reaction from the cat. We gave her some Benadryl & got her in the tub to get her washed off. It took a little while but they started going away. Then the Benadryl kicked in & she crashed out for 2 hours on the couch. LOL! Corey has been busy packing and we made some apple muffins for our service project tomorrow. Our Camp Fire group is taking Valentines and homemade goodies to the Veteran's nursing home near us. The kids made Valentines last week. We take Corey to the airport in the morning, then some school and then our service project. At some point we will be making some treats to take with us on Tuesday when we meet friends at the park for some fun and friendship.

We talked to my mom several times this weekend. She got snow off & on over the weekend and was sharing with the kids. Our trip is less than a week away and we are all getting excited.

My iBook is still at the Apple shop and they are certainly taking their sweet time on fixing it again. We will continue with the Macs we have but I can tell you the transition & experience has been a disaster and something we will not repeat. Our family buys approximately a computer a year (maybe every 2 years...at most) and we will NOT be returning to Mac. Both are less than a year old and within a few months we had to have the logic board replaced on the iMac and still have some issues with it and now the screen has gone out (Corey thinks the back light?) on the iBook. Well, when he took it in Corey paid to have them back it up because EVERYTHING is on there & we haven't backed it up at home yet. I haven't figured it out & since we had trouble with the iMac we didn't want to back it up there. So, we just wanted the extra protection. They told us a week to 10 days. Well, apparently they had trouble backing it up and it took them 6 days to even get that done & get it sent to the repair center. We talked to the repair center (because the online status showed it still at the store waiting to be sent!) and they say they've ordered a new logic board & are waiting for it to come in. The customer service has really been lacking. I don't see me getting my iBook when they said...we dropped it off at 11am on the 1st and it is already the 9th. Hmmm....

For other news...Corey is going to Amsterdam on Monday for a week! Eeek!! We just found out about the whole thing yesterday afternoon. He returns on Friday night and on Saturday morning we leave to go to TN for a week. LOL! I'm so excited for him but hate the short notice. The kids and I have no trouble with him travelling...we just go about our business of daily life but I'm not looking forward to getting ready for our TN trip by myself. We are planning on taking some boxes,etc with us to store at my mother's house.

Now some kiddo news...Alex's membership to the Picky Eater's Club is about to be revoked. Woo hoo! LOL!
Now remember this is the kid who's only meat is chicken nuggets, loves fruit but not veggies, doesn't eat
cheese,etc.

About a month ago I convinced him to taste a bit of meatloaf & now he asks for it every week. A couple weeks ago,
out of nowhere, he came & asked us for a carrot. Trying not to faint from the shock we gave him a baby carrot and
off he went, happily munching. He ate carrots at dinner one night after that. Then about a week ago I was preparing
veggies for Parker and he asked for a small piece of broccoli. Raw broccoli mind you. Again, away he goes
munching happily. A few nights later I got him to taste a sloppy joe by telling him it was similar to meatloaf. He asked if
it had "that sauce" on it and I assured him it was fine & he ate several bites declaring he liked it but only if it was like mine
and had no sauce on it. LOL! One night we went to Mellow Mushroom (pizza place) and he was asking for the broccoli off all the slices of pizza..not eating the pizza mind you, just the broccoli! We had stopped to get him chicken nuggets before
we went knowing they don't have a kid menu. The following night we had baked chicken breasts, stuffing & roasted veggies. The veggies were peppers, carrots, broccoli & asparagus. He ate the chicken (UNbreaded...gasp...not a nugget!), a couple bites of stuffing (another gasp...he has refused the same food EVERY Thanksgiving), and roasted carrots, broccoli and asparagus!! We are so shocked...but delighted! To top it off last night we had shrimp scampi and after I asked him to taste a shrimp he proceeded to ask for his own plate of it and gobbled up about 8 shrimp & linguini (he rarely eats pasta of any kind). My goodness....he is certainly coming into his own!

On a different note he has been waking up at 5-5:30am (thankfully not waking *US* up then) and is back to having to take a nap (and is actually doing it!).

Morgan is Morgan. She is really into her art class and has been looking for books & DVDs on various artists at the library each week. Her dance class is another favorite and they have just started working on their dances for the end-of-the-year recital. She is starting to get excited and I can just imagine as it gets closer. We've recently made Valentine's cards for friends and as a service project for Camp Fire. We will be visiting a local Veterans nursing home and taking them homemade cards from the children and baked goods to share.

As an update on previous family news: my uncle is doing well & is settled into a new place, and my sister surfaced a few days after her disappearance with her abusive ex & a bogus story, picked up her daughter and returned to Lafayette. Everyone is deeply saddened by the whole situation. I'm personally over her choices. I talked to her during our visit and she honestly doesn't get it that NICE, DECENT people do *NOT* do this for any reason whatsoever. I think she is ruining her daughter's life and setting her up for this kind of future. I personally think this qualifies as child abuse. And I wish there was a way to legally get her daughter away from both of them since obviously she won't stand up for her child and do what is right and loving by her. I can't even begin to state just how mad I am at my sister and what she is doing to her daughter.

Enough of that. We are 9 days from our TN trip, the realtor my mom used is already scouting around for properties for us to look at. She sent us an email with several possibles listed. Yea!! Ooh...and with more good news....my good friend, Indigo (not her real name) is coming to Orlando to go to Disney with her family and they will be here in May...BEFORE we move!! I will finally get to see her again. We've met once in person for a very short time and at a very sad time for her. I'm beyond excited knowing I'll get to meet up with her again. Wooo Hooo!! You can visit her at her blog Thoughts Outside My Head .

My goodness what a weekend. My uncle was released from the hospital after his bypass surgery but is in between places to live. I found out when he asked me a question about my maternal grandparents house. After emailing with my dad about it he got social services involved at the hospital. The limit of their involvement was to give him a list of places to call. Now forgive me if this is a stretch but a 55yo patient just had open heart surgery & you find out he has no home to be released to. I'm thinking there is a little more you can do for him than to give him a list of numbers to call knowing he can't drive to check out these places,etc. I wasn't expecting them to send him to rehab or anything like that but wow, I thought social services helped make the contacts. He found a place & needed some help from my dad so I was sending messages back & forth. It was okay until his girlfriend got involved and I just really didn't want or need to be dealing with her. I think we've got it all worked out but it was getting a little stressful there.

Then I found out that my sister is missing. She's in the process of leaving a bad situation so she and her daughter will be safe & can start rebuilding their lives. My niece is staying with one of our brothers and my sister went back to get their stuff & arrange for school records & medical records to be transferred. Monday she left Lafayette on a Greyhound bus. She made a phone call from a borrowed cell phone on Monday night while in Mobile, Alabama. Some of her bags arrived in Ocala but she did not. No one has heard from her since that phone call Monday night. We've made reports to the various police agencies to get the ball rolling and we've talked to the person that let her borrow the cell phone in Mobile. The number was on caller ID. The waiting and speculation is just horrible. I'm just so hoping that we hear from her soon & she's okay.

In other news, the kids are doing good. Something was up with Alex today as he woke up for the day at 5am! My goodness. I'm not sure how he can be my child some days. LOL! I'm just not a morning person. He doesn't wake us up though until around 7-8am when he's getting really hungry & needs a grown up. Morgan went with Corey to get donuts & coffee and came home announcing Daddy said she could have some coffee. Now they've both had sips & "shared" coffee with him before, do drink soda that has caffeine and such so it isn't like we are strict about the caffeine. Well, she had her little cup with Daddy and *OH --- MY --- GOODNESS!!!* You could SEE the caffeine affecting her. She was bouncing around from one thing to another...not distractedly just very active & quick paced. She was completing each thing but just immediately going to another. It really cracked me up when she asked to clean the toilets (we just did them a couple days ago). I told her she could wipe down the bathroom counters & mirrors. She did & then asked to dust..did that and then asked to swiffer the kitchen & their bathroom. And she was talking so fast. It was actually cute. But the coming down attitude we ran into was SO not cute. We handled it well knowing what it was from & kept redirecting her. Afterwards we explained a bit about WHY this all happened and WHY kids don't get to have stuff like coffee. She's back to normal but this all occurred over several hours. She picked up HP 6 from the library yesterday and is already several chapters into it (6 or so). So she's reading, Alex is doing a language arts CD on the other computer and we are watching the Super Bowl. I'm not totally into it, obviously I'm posting while watching, but none of our teams made it so we are just watching not really rooting for either team. LOL!

Take care everyone. Please say a prayer or think good thoughts for my sister that she is safe & contacts her family.

Ugh, what a day! It had rained a bit starting in the early morning but we woke up to an announcement that we had a tornado watch/warning until 3pm. We had science class today at the nature preserve and needed to stop by the library because a book came in that Morgan had put a hold on. Well, that was all off. It rained & rained in bands worse than we get with some hurricanes. Morgan kept trying to count the seconds between thunder & lightning to see how far away the storm was and it finally sunk in that it was right overhead. She didn't realize that it was all happening at the same time. LOL! The power kept flashing off & back on which kind of freaked out the kids a bit. Then it flickered and we heard a popping & saw flashing outside. Well right outside our apartment at the side entrance to the complex a pine tree had fallen over partway and was on several live electrical lines! It kept popping & sparking and then with a final pop everything went out. I was worried about what could happen & wanted to let the electric company know. Unfortunately we only have cordless phones (well, we have a regular phone but it is packed away with hurricane supplies). I grabbed my cell phone & the darn thing was dead. Ack! So I ran out to the van where I have a charger and used it so I could call Corey at work and have him contact the electric company. Goodness gracious. LOL! They came within a few minutes and took care of it...the kids thought it was cool watching the men work to resolve the problem. We didn't get much schooling done and Morgan was frustrated that science was cancelled. It took a little explaining to get her to understand that it was very dangerous driving in the conditions as they were today. This was brought home to me while watching the 11pm news tonight and saw a Bed, Bath & Beyond that had a roof collapse due to the rain, motorists stranded everywhere, a young mother & her baby had to be rescued from their quickly flooding car when she drove off the road into a drainage ditch. Nope, we didn't *have* to leave the house so we weren't going to!

Last night Corey, Morgan & I watched "The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants"....good movie. We really enjoyed it.

Take care everyone. More later.

Ugh, what a day! It had rained a bit starting in the early morning but we woke up to an announcement that we had a tornado watch/warning until 3pm. We had science class today at the nature preserve and needed to stop by the library because a book came in that Morgan had put a hold on. Well, that was all off. It rained & rained in bands worse than we get with some hurricanes. Morgan kept trying to count the seconds between thunder & lightning to see how far away the storm was and it finally sunk in that it was right overhead. She didn't realize that it was all happening at the same time. LOL! The power kept flashing off & back on which kind of freaked out the kids a bit. Then it flickered and we heard a popping & saw flashing outside. Well right outside our apartment at the side entrance to the complex a pine tree had fallen over partway and was on several live electrical lines! It kept popping & sparking and then with a final pop everything went out. I was worried about what could happen & wanted to let the electric company know. Unfortunately we only have cordless phones (well, we have a regular phone but it is packed away with hurricane supplies). I grabbed my cell phone & the darn thing was dead. Ack! So I ran out to the van where I have a charger and used it so I could call Corey at work and have him contact the electric company. Goodness gracious. LOL! They came within a few minutes and took care of it...the kids thought it was cool watching the men work to resolve the problem. We didn't get much schooling done and Morgan was frustrated that science was cancelled. It took a little explaining to get her to understand that it was very dangerous driving in the conditions as they were today. This was brought home to me while watching the 11pm news tonight and saw a Bed, Bath & Beyond that had a roof collapse due to the rain, motorists stranded everywhere, a young mother & her baby had to be rescued from their quickly flooding car when she drove off the road into a drainage ditch. Nope, we didn't *have* to leave the house so we weren't going to!

Last night Corey, Morgan & I watched "The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants"....good movie. We really enjoyed it.

Take care everyone. More later.

Nothing like spacing out posts. LOL! Sorry. The weekend was okay, just hanging out with the kids & getting a few errands done. On Monday my dad called from Saudi Arabia to let me know that my uncle was in the hospital and was scheduled for bypass surgery at noon. He gave me the room # and asked if I would give him a call for support & reassurance. I did so and then called my mom & brother to let them know. Later in the evening I called the hospital to check on him to see how surgery went. Thankfully it went well & he would be in open heart recovery over night. I contacted several family members to let them know. Monday evening I met up with some friends at a local coffee house called Sacred Grounds. A nice little mom's night out.

Tuesday morning my dad called again & we updated each other a bit and then got off the phone. The very second I hung up I smacked myself on the forehead because I didn't wish my dad happy birthday! Ugh....between trying to make sure the kids were getting dressed, fixing breakfast for them & talking to my dad on the phone about my uncle apparently my multi-tasking ability was at full capacity. Also, I hadn't had any Diet Coke yet so I contribute *most* of it to that. I don't function well without my Diet Coke. I felt horrible but couldn't even call him right back because I don't have his Saudi phone number. So I sent a Happy Birthday email. Morgan had art class Tuesday morning and she had a great time. They started a project that will span 2 classes... a mosaic with beans. They will finish up next week. Afterwards we went on a "Target Mission" for my mother. It took 3 Targets (I had already checked 1 Monday night) but we finally found what she needed and will be bringing it with us when we come up to visit. Tuesday evening I talked with my uncle on the phone. He was in his own room, overlooking the river, sitting up and getting ready to have a sandwich. He said he was bored & feeling like he had been split wide open. I jokingly reassured him that he was on the right path then & must be fine because that is how you should feel after a quadruple bypass! So late last night while on the computer my iBook dies! Well, not the whole thing but suddenly the screen did a wiggle jiggle thing with vertical streaks of black and then went all black...never to come back on. Oh boy was I freaking out. Corey made an appointment at the Apple store with the Genius Bar. If I lose everything I will be beyond upset. :-/ Corey thinks it is just the back light. *fingers crossed*

Today Corey had the day off...comp day for having the pager last week. So he very sweetly takes my &#%! broken iBook into the Apple store and the kids & I get ready for a library trip. My iBook is still under warranty so the fixing is covered but it might take a week to 10 days before it is ready. Eeeek!! How will the children deal with having mommy sharing their computer? We shall see...

We made a family decision about the theatre class Morgan was involved in. We have decided that the travel time & distance, the timing of the classes & such is just too much for all of us right now. We knew this might happen when we went into it but felt it was worth a shot. Morgan was okay with the whole decision. We will focus on her dance class and our other educational & fun activities.

We are working on packing up some things to take with us when we go to TN that my mom will be storing for us. We will be bringing back lots of packing boxes & bubble wrap that my mom has saved from her recent move. We are getting excited about this trip...down to 17 days. Yea!

Morgan has been working on writing a story about what it would be like to be a 1 celled creature and living amongst amoeba, euglena and paramecium. She has learned about them at science class. She's doing really well with her math facts now and so is Alex...just soaking it up. We are going to be moving on to the next step in math. She's doing great still with reading, language arts, history,etc.

Ooh and final tally...she raised $223.80 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital doing the math-a-thon. Thank you to everyone that supported her!! She is so happy and we are so very proud of her.