Warning!!!

Don't try and talk my girls into staying or moving back to Indiana this weekend!!! They plan to leave in the morning. It was kinda weird this afternoon when Les, Brooke and Ethan came down to see us before they leave in the morning. For 10 years it was the opposite, they were crying and telling us bye for several months. I had to actually tell Les how to get to Washington by way of 257. Guess Rob was always driving and she never paid attention to which way they were going. Amy says she knows the way except for where to turn off before Jasper. I made them a map.Amy and Brooke have decided to pass the time texting each other with snide remarks about Les while she is driving. Should be an interesting trip altho I predict Heidi will entertain them while Paige and Ethan pick on each other.Jay leaves tomorrow afternoon for the Cincinnati area to do his 10 hour Continuing Ed class. He has to be checked out of his room and in class at the motel where he is staying at 6AM Saturday. He won't get done until 5:30. That makes for a long tiring day so he is driving back 45 minutes to his best friend Ernie's house (one of our paraplegic hunters) where he is staying the night and coming home on Sunday.I have 3 blueprints to get figured and faxed in before Monday so that will keep me busy Friday night and Saturday. Jay should be home shortly after I return from church on Sunday. So love on my kids all you want. later

Kelsey and Kaleb enjoying the food

Ethan enjoyed his "hunting" party

Happy Birthday Ethan!!!

Due to his b-day being on a school night and also Rob working evenings, we had his "hunting" party tonight. It is so wonderful being able to have the whole family here for such gatherings after 10 years of not being able to. is nice to have Leann added to the mix too.She is just in love with life and is so funny that you usually go away holding your stomach from laughing. She is just what Bob needs.The big date is June 12, 2010. We went from 80* last weekend to down in the 20's this week. Is raining today. I am sooooooooooo ready for spring which means landscaping and mowing which I love doing. Nothing smells better then fresh mowed grass. Have a lot of plans for Rob and Les's place for landscaping too.The good Lord continues to bless us with all the work we can handle. I have been able to stay home on the bitter cold days which I am thankful for. Last winter it seemed like I was out in it all winter. We have some big projects that will start as soon as the weather permits and then I will be back on the jobsite with my sexy red hardhat on. I decided to do one last check on the family directories before boxing them up and discovered I had misspelled a name. So I reprinted that page and then had to take them all back apart to switch out. As the note I placed inside the cover says "this book was made with love and is far from perfect" so please excuse any mistakes. I am sending them over this weekend. Brooke will probably post pics from the party so I am just going to post a few. Also say a prayer for Rob tomorrow as it will be the 1st anniversary of him losing his mom and I know it will be a tough day. You can enjoy my kids next weekend but you have to send them back. Later

Where did you all come from?

When looking up info in our outdated family directory I realized it has been quite a few years since it was updated. So, since I don't get to do as much for the family as my siblings being 6 hours away, I decided to make a new updated directory. It has been an experience to say the least but very educational. After several e-mail requests for info I finally got it all compiled. There are 27 books with 22 pages in each book. My poor printer about blew a gasket til I got all 594 pages printed. For those of you who don't know me that well-I am an organizer and when I start a project I don't quit until I am done.Example- when I decided to make Jay a scrapbook of our 36 years together I did it all in less then 2 weeks and there ended up being 37 very detailed pages. Anyhow it is all printed and now I am putting them together and will send them over with my girls who plan to come some time in March. Hope they are helpful to all of you in some way. Les is back to running and feeling good. It is amazing the advances in surgery today compared to when I had my gall bladder surgery 35 years ago. I was cut from one end to the other and in the hospital for 5 days. It was months before I could hold Les and take care of her. We may get 3 inches of snow again tonight.BRRRRR!! So anxious for spring and warm weather as I have new landscaping ideas I am excited about both here and at Les's place. Even looking forward to mowing my 5 acre lawn. I do my best thinking while riding on my mower for hours.Later
PS: Congrats to my dear lifelong friends Mark and Billie Sue from Georgia (originally Washington)who were blessed this past week with their first grandbaby, a beautiful little girl named Peyton Elizabeth.Now they will know what unconditional love is as that is what you get from your precious grand babies.

Update on Leslie

I was talking to Les a few minutes ago and she was telling me about all the people in Daviess County who evidently read my blog and had asked about her. So I decided I would give you an update on her. First of all I am not going to answer the phone after Les see's that I posted this pic but I couldn't help myself. She is doing good but still sore which we believe is from the unnecessary "exercise" she went thru post surgery. Her surgeon and our friend Dr. Mike left orders for her to be dismissed a few hours after recovery. The Dr that admitted her during the night was "politically" to be the one to sign her out and she refused. Due to having an IV flowing at a pretty good rate she had to get out of bed and maneuver her IV cart to the bathroom probably 14 times. After a phone call to Dr. Mike they were running circles to get her dismissed. Her nurse call button was pushed several times and they never ever responded. I went to the nurses station to find 8 nurses drinking pop and laughing. I asked if they could please come and fix her beeping IV and the response was "in a minute". Well the minute never happened. Can you tell by now that I was still in the "mom" mode? Gotta tell you some funnies tho. When Les was in ER and could not get her breath the Dr told her she was hyperventilating and that was the reason she couldn't breathe. Les looked at her like >DA!< and in a stern voice informed her that she was a runner and she knew how to breathe. The Dr just grinned and asked how much she ran. Les started to tell her but the look on her face was saying "what the heck does that have to do with anything?" The other funny was the next day after she was home I went to stay with her when Rob went to work. When the kids got home from school you could tell tough and ornery Ethan was visibly upset and worried about mommy. He cornered me in the kitchen and wanted to know exactly what mommy could and couldn't do.I told him that she couldn't lift anything,would be kinda sore a few days so he needed to help Brooke around the house if she needed help. I also told him mommy shouldn't get too stressed (hoping that would keep him from being his naturally ornery self unnecessarily). He instantly with an ornery grin on his face said" why did you look at me when you said that mama?" He did real good tho. On another subject, the power companies had just gotten everyone's power back on from the ice storm when the tornatic wind storm came thru here Wednesday evening. We had 70 MPH wind gusts and out went the power again due to downed trees. We had service changes rescheduled for this week that had been cancelled due to ice storm and now they are cancelled again til next week as all the crews are out on power outages.Our clients are not too happy but we can't change out their service unless the power company is there to disconnect and reconnect us. I sure will be glad when spring rolls around. It has been a tough winter. If anyone wants to post a note to Les I will be glad to pass it on to her. Other than all the trauma in the past week and a half we are doing great and praising God for our many blessings. Later

PS:Les just read my post and after yelling "MOM" on the phone(she loves me) she said I should have told you that she was under the influence of Diluidid when educating the Dr on proper breathing methods. Ha! She would make a bad druggy altho i think she was kinda enjoying it. Once when they injected a syringe full in her IV she rolled her eyes back and said "Oh -nice feeling". That was one of the few moments that Rob and I laughed in the ER.

Leslie has emergency surgery

You never know what the end of a day will bring. Was in my PJ's last night, had just finished posting when Leslie called in excruciating pain. I suspected gall bladder( been there ,done that 35 yrs ago) as she had had a short episode about 3 days ago. Since the kids were in bed and Rob had to work tonight and needed to get at least some sleep I went to take her to ER for what we figured would be just some relief for the night.They live about 3 mile from the hospital and by the time I pulled in things had gone from bad to worse. She was having severe back pain, chest pain, couldn't get her breath and her arms were going numb.(She was hyperventilating)I pulled up to the ER door and then went into the "MOM" mode. I ran in to get help only to have the receptionist tell me that I needed to fill out paperwork first. She very quickly realized that I meant business when I demanded that she get me some help very quickly outside. 3 nurses and a security guard managed to get Les into a wheelchair as she was trying to pass out. I parked my truck and when I got inside they wouldn't let me in with her as "they were working on her". Needless to say the next few minutes were horrifying. I called Rob and had him come out and Amy came also. Once we knew it wasn't her heart, Amy took Brooke and Ethan to her house. They quickly put Les into la la land but it didn't last long. The Dr suspected a stone had blocked her duct so they ordered a CT scan. It was finally confirmed early this morning that she had a blocked duct and it was very infected. She had surgery before noon. We were very blessed and thankful that the surgeon and anesthetist were friends and members of our church. The surgeon is actually Les's neighbor. Mike(The surgeon)brought us a pic of the gall bladder and he said it was swollen almost 4 X its normal size.She was feeling good this afternoon and Mike said she could go home as soon as the Dr who admitted her this morning signed her release papers. Finally at around 3 I was getting delirious and decided I had better get home while my eyes were still open. It is just after 6:30 PM and Les just called to say that the nurses just realized the Dr they were waiting on was home asleep. So they are trying to get another one to sign her release papers. So thanks for your prayers this morning and I sure won't have any trouble sleeping tonight. Pray for a quick recovery for Les.

Heidi turns 2

Heidi turns 2 tomorrow. We had her party tonight.

Miss Leann

Just wanted to introduce you to Bobby's girlfriend Leann. We love her and she fits right in with our crazy gang. She unconditionally loves Bob's kids and vice versa. Don't be surprised to hear wedding bells soon.

Happy B-Day/ Happy Anniversary

Since tomorrow and the next few days will be busy I decided to wish my hubby a happy b-day and anniversary tonight. His b-day is tomorrow and our 36th anniversary is Tuesday. We are having a party for him tomorrow shortly after church. He knows about the party but doesn't know that his best friend Ernie and Ernie's brother John from Cincinnati are coming to surprise him. Ernie is a paraplegic (since he was 19)and is an awesome guy. He doesn't let his disability keep him from enjoying life and always has a smile on his face. He was one of the first 4 disabled hunters we hosted for deer season back in 2001. He and Jay immediately became the best of friends and usually spend at least a couple days each year turkey hunting and deer hunting.He has 4 children including twin boys and it amazes me how he takes care of them while his wife works.He is a bass fisherman and has been ranked #1 in the disabled Bass Masters Association. Like I said nothing gets him down and his favorite saying is "Life Is Good". He is a true inspiration to be around and it makes us appreciate all we take for granted in life. We are certainly glad God brought him into our life. So honey, I hope you have a great b-day and may it be a little more special with your buddy here. Love you!!!

So far so good!!

So far we still have power and no trees on the house altho some are really leaning. Jay has been out since early morning cutting up and removing trees from roads. The 911 dispatcher called early with reports of downed trees. Being a trustee is hectic during these kind of situations. He came home to change into dry clothes and then came another call and off he went again. We ended up with with 6" of snow , then 3/4inch of ice followed by rain/freezing rain and then another quick 4 inches of snow today. The real problem they say will be in the morning when all the slush freezes. There are several thousand people without power. The creeks are full and close to going over the road near us. The sun popped out a little while ago and I captured some beautiful pics to share with you.

ICESTORM!!!

We woke up this morning to 6" of fresh snow on the ground. It continued to snow until shortly after lunch and then turned to freezing rain. Freezing rain is still coming down and we are under an ice storm warning. We are in the middle of the area with the highest prediction of heavy ice. Our home is total electric and we have no backup heat. When we were on the farm we had a gas range and furnace. You could hook a generator up to run the fan on the furnace. We also were on American Electric Power which had a pretty good record of not experiencing power outages. Here we are on a C0-op which has a bad record of major outages. A few years ago when there was a major ice storm some people were without power for 2 to 4 weeks. Another thing that makes it worse in our area during an ice storm is the hilly terrain and trees that break down. We leave in the middle of a woods and are surrounded by trees. Makes you appreciate all the luxuries you take for granted during normal conditions.The weatherman says when this all melts then we will be under a flood watch. Until you see the mighty Ohio River go over its banks you have missed an amazing force of nature. We are pretty much stuck until it goes down. Ther is nothing but water from us to the state of West Virginia. Please pray that the weatherman is wrong and we don't get all they are predicting. I will update you after all the drama calms down.later

Winter Wonderland

It snowed all night here and we are under a Winter Storm Warning thru Wednesday morning. Expecting around 6 inches with some ice mixed in. No school today and most likely none tomorrow. Jay left early to deal with the roads . He is a township trustee and it is part of his job. I took some pics this morning that really show you how deep in a hollow we live. With the snow on you can see the heights of the hills that surround us. I also stuck in a pic of my "Cool" hard hat I talked about in my prior post. Being a "female" I have to be color coordinated so I have a red trimmed in black Carhart hooded coat and black Carhart bibs and I wear a white turtle neck under it. I have to be careful if and when I take my hardhat off at the jobsite as a lot of the guys on the construction crews have threatened to steal it. I rarely take it off once I put it on cause it leaves me with hard hat hair.I am not vain just self conscious. Can't wait for the comments on this post!! Love ya later

Time for a break

I have been up to my eyeballs the past couple weeks in year end paperwork. Unless you own your own business you can't appreciate how much bookwork it involves. I am not complaining tho especially when it seems every day I see on the news where another business is closing and more people are out of work. I am thankful for the type of business we have as everyone has electric and sooner or later it needs repaired. Locally the commercial building sales have remained steady and we have been blessed with getting a lot of contracts. As soon as the weather breaks we will be swamped and probably have to hire temporarily in order to keep up. That also means that i will have to leave the comfort of my warm house, put on my hardhat(which by the way is pretty cool looking) and be hands on at the job site. I kinda enjoy it if it isn't bitterly cold. I have taken breaks from my paperwork to work on a scrapbook for my hubby's b-day and our anniversary. I made him one for his 50th and it was about all his outdoor adventures since he was a child. This one is about our 36 plus years together and ended up being 37 pages long. It was fun going thru pics and it gave me the idea that when I catch up I am going to put together a slideshow of all my family from years ago so be prepared. I'll be sure to put captions on them so you will know who is who. Brooke tells me I have to post a pic with my post and I really didn't have anything lately so I am posting one I took from the deck last weekend of Jay ice fishing on the pond. He slides the boat out and fishes out of it on top of the ice. Not me!!! Later