Saturday Girls Night Out

Saturday was girls night out!  Charlie worked the 6 p.m.-3 a.m. shift so I had to find things to keep me busy.  Kelsie sent me a text early that afternoon and asked if I wanted to go out to a movie with her and Kasondra that night.  I couldn't pass that up.  I hate being at home by myself when Charlie is gone working.  I grew up in a house where there was always someone around and something going on, it's quite a bit different now.  So anyways, Saturday night Kelsie and Kasondra and I had sisters night out and went to the movie "Abduction."  It was a great movie.  Probably not the greatest when you're going to be home all night by yourself though.  Luckily, just as I was headed home from the movies I got a call from my girlfriend Jen.  She was bored and just wanted to get out of the house and do something.  So Jen and my other good friend Bethany came over for the night and we just enjoyed chilling at our place and catching up with each other!

Crazy Busy Weekend & Week

It's already Wednesday...man this past weekend and first part of this week has been so crazy busy.  Let's see if I can remember everything that happened.  Ok...so we'll rewind to Friday.  Friday morning I felt like crap as did Charlie as we are taking some pills in preparation for our Haiti trip in January and being that it was my day off, I figured I would just stay in bed a bit longer and try to sleep the sick feeling off a bit.  So...I slept in, woke up at about 9:30, ran through the shower and ate breakfast, tore the bed apart to start cleaning the bedding, threw the dirty clothes in piles on the floor to sort the laundry and pretty much tore my house apart so I could start cleaning really good as we were going to have a couple walk through our house on Saturday morning.  Wouldn't you know it, just as I get everything torn apart, my phone rings.  It's our realtor.  There was some miscommunication and the realtor that was going to take the couple through our house was planning on the walk through this morning.  WHAT...Ah!!! Are you kidding me?  The realtor asked if it was ok for the couple to still come and walk through this morning...as in 15 minutes.  Ya what am I supposed to say-can't turn a showing down, but really my house is literally a disaster at this point.  Ok I understand I will make it work (I said...as my mind is spinning as to how I am going to get my house picked up in 15 minutes, somewhat dusted, and myself looking decent (as my hair was still wet-not even brushed out and I had no make up on).  I'm sure I was a quite a site that morning...hopefully no one ran into me ;)  So anyways I quickly rushed out the door and told myself, hey who knows this just might be the couple that is going to put an offer on our house and it will all be worth it.  Wrong...the realtor called me the next day only to advise that the couple had placed an offer on another home in town and were signing papers that morning.  Grrr!!!  Oh well what can you do.  The right couple or family will come through sometime (at least I hope so).

Charlie worked until 5 on Friday, and as soon as he got home we decided we wanted to get out of town, relax, have some time to enjoy each other's company and just enjoy the night he had off for once.  First we headed to Craig where Charlie had some trail cams hung up on a new plot of land his parents recently purchased.  The one camera got a couple shots of a nice looking deer and the other didn't get too much of anything.  We then headed to Fairview (Pouders Pond) where we took another hike.  It was gorgeous and so peaceful walking through the hiking trails.  We put a couple more trail cams up here and then headed up to Sioux Falls for the night.  I think this is probably the best way to start a date because the hubby was all happy since he got to do something he enjoyed so the rest of the night he was cool with whatever I felt like doing.

 Can you see the two small dear?

Tracks we found on our hike

Hanging one of the trail cams

Once we got into Sioux Falls we headed to the Olive Garden for supper.  It's been awhile since we have eaten there but it was so good.  And you can never pass up the never ending pasta bowls!  Just as we were leaving Olive Garden we got a call from Kansas.  She was wondering if the two of us would like to go out for dessert with her and Danny (the were also out on a date that night as Kelsie and Jamaica offered to come up and babysit the boys).  We don't get to spend as must time with them as we'd always like so we couldn't pass up their offer.  We headed over to "Cherry Berry" and had fun putting together our own ice cream creations.  After dessert we headed back to Kansas & Danny's place and enjoyed playing games the rest of the night! 

Jorja & Zoey

Last weekend I got to have a fun night/day with two of my nieces-Jorja and Zoey.  Their dad was out of town with Charlie and some other family members, and their mom had to work the night shift at the hospital.  So...they mom dropped them off on Friday night and I got to have them overnight and into the next day.  I fed Zoey a bottle and then laid her down for bed right away when they got to our house and then Jorja and I had some alone time together for another hour or so.  I asked Jorja what she would like to do and she thought it would be fun to play Jeopardy on the wii.  Oh boy I thought...if only I knew how to figure out this complicated tv/wii/converter box/dvd player connection.  There are so many cords and way too many buttons that have to be pushed in order to get something to play.  Charlie happened to be gone this weekend, and go figure I try to call him to see if he can explain to me how to hook everything up and he doesn't answer-thanks babe...no I'm j/k.  After about an hour or so I finally got it all hooked up and running.  Thank goodness Jorja was patient with me.  We had fun playing Jeopardy and only got stumped a couple times so we thought that was pretty good.  Then we headed to bed.  The next morning I woke up pretty early as I was going to take the girls with me to a volleyball game in Lincoln Nebraska for the whole day to watch my sister Jasmyn play Nebraska Wesleyan with the Dordt Team.  I thought if I got up early I may be able to get a shower in quick and possibly get may hair and makeup done before the kiddos woke up...because I have no clue how moms do that yet-get themselves ready and two kids at the same time lol :)  I got showered and hopped out and all of a sudden heard Zoey making some noise.  I went into the bedroom and found Zoey on my bed laying with her sister Jorja laughing.  It was too cute!  Well...I got the shower.  I fed the girls, got them cleaned up and quick finished myself and was out the door by 8:15 a.m. I was pretty impressed-so far we were running on time.  We had a three and a half hour drive to Lincoln and both of the girls did great.  We stopped for lunch, I took Zoey out of her car seat and was a little surprised when I picked her up.  OH NO...she had completely soaked through her entire outfit.  Yeah...bad auntie Jamie.  I felt horrible.  We stopped once on our way up to Lincoln as I rode with my family and some of us had to stop to use the restroom.  Zoey happened to be sleeping so I stayed in the car with her.  I guess maybe I should have just tried to change her when we stopped without waking her up.  Oh well...good thing "wonder mom-Ang" was thinking and packed a 2nd outfit...she must know I'm a rookie!  So we got her changed and all cleaned up and headed over to the game.  It was long day in one building watching several matches, but honestly the girls did great!  Not once were either of them fussy.  We had fun reading books, playing with some toys and eatin' snacks together and I had a few extra hands that helped me between my Dad, Mom, sisters Kasondra, Kelsie and Jamaica.  At about 5:15 we left Lincoln, grabbed a bite to eat and drove back home.  Within seconds Zoey had crashed.  She didn't nap once the whole day, but I knew she was tired because you could tell she was fighting it all day.  They did great on the way home too and we got back at about eight thirty or so and dropped them off at Grandpa and Grandma Zomermaand's for the night.  It was so much fun getting to spend some time with the girls as we don't always get to see them as often as we'd like. 

On the way to the game

Jorja and Jamaica had fun playing together all day

 

My little sister Jamaica

Jorja

Zoey

Kasondra

Myself

Tired after a long day :)

Sinus Update...

I am happy to share that I went back to see Dr. Korver yesterday (my ENT doctor who performed my sinus surgery back in January) and for the first time I actually received some good news.  After several visits following surgery due to constant sinus infections, headaches, feeling miserable, and medication after medication, they took a culture last visit and found a medication that has worked and cleared up or at least slowed the polyp growth in my sinus cavities.  Apparently there are several antibiotics that work for “most” people, but my body wanted to resistant just about every one, except for the very last one that I was put on.  It was pretty funny because Dr. Korver asked if I noticed anything different while I was on the pills-like being hungry and wanting to eat all the time…the feeling of just wanting to go-go-go and being really alert.  Charlie just laughed and said…oh man…that explains things now…she was hungry like all the time.  We helped my sister and brother-in-law move into a new home two weeks ago too and boy did they pick the right time to move because those pills made me just want to clean, organize and sort like crazy.  It would explain the nights of not being able to go to sleep until for sure after midnight too-my body just was not ready to shut down.

Anyways, every visit Dr. Korver would put a scope into my sinus cavities to see how things were looking and time after time things did not look any better…there was polyp growth, infection and scabbing…except for yesterday.  Dr. Korver usually has Charlie look into the scope to see how things look as well and he said for the first time things actually looked pretty good.  So, the good thing is that we believe we may have found a medication that seems to clear up the infections, but the problem is that they do not want to keep me on this medication as there are several side affects that could greatly affect me.  The other problem is that my body is obviously still reacting to something as I continue to fight all of these sinus infections when not on medication.  So we have decided that it would be best for me to re-visit the allergist (Dr. Tumpkin out of Sioux City) to be re-tested and see if there may be additional allergens my body is reacting to that I might not be receiving injections for. 

This past year has been quite the road for me medically, but yesterday’s news was very exciting.  I am hopeful that we will soon get to the very bottom of this and I will feel like a “new person”.  I look forward to not as many doctor visits or trips to the pharmacy in the near future (although I have gotten to know them all so well).  Yes, Charlie has to laugh at me when I go to the pharmacy too because about every pharmacist and pharmacy tech. there knows me by name.  Oh well ;)

Anyways I know there are several of you that ask often how I am doing and tell me that you are thinking of me and praying for me so I just thought I’d give you an update as to how things are going.  I hope you all have a great rest of the week!

~Jamie~      

GUESS WHAT???

We have some exciting news....

...drum roll please...

We Are GOING TO BE AN AUNT & UNCLE AGAIN....

Yep, that's right

"Thing 5"...will be arriving around the end of March!

Kansas & Danny shared their exciting news with our family when we got together this past Tuesday at Pumpkinland.  Yes, we have know since Tuesday and have had to keep our lips sealed for 4 whole days which is way too long when you're excited and just want to share the news with everyone lol ;)  Anyways, we are very excited and cannot wait for the arrival of our new little niece or nephew in March.  Congratulations Kansas, Danny, Coyer & Kedren!

So...now that I can finally share my news, I will share the rest of the pictures from our fun night out at Pumpkinland as a family:

The "Dordt Volleyball Fans" Team

Team "Post It"

The team that won "Best Dressed" AND the "Maze Race"

Team "Thing 1...2...3...4...5"

Our team...Mr. Plug In & Mrs. Outlet

Team Grandpa & Grandma Kiel

Yes they know how to have a good time & are very comfortable in their skin ;)

Check out Jeff's hair...he shaved his head just for the night-priceless

 Checking out the animals on the farm

 Kedren loved the little baby kittens

 Coyer having fun feeding the goats

 Finding feathers

 Picking out pumpkins

 Sisters...we know how to have a good time :)

 Feelin' the love

~OUR FAMILY~