Whew! Finally, I'm here! It's been a long, long week.

I don't want to sound like an old, old lady and go on and on about all the physical ailments of the family lol. But the last 10 days has definately been dominated by illnesses, and it appears it's still not over. Tanner had the flu last week and missed pretty much the whole week of school. His fever got up over 104 several times and he was just MISERABLE. I took Tyler to the doctor last week for a follow up visit on the asthma ER episode and to have her look at something weird his foot is doing. (He needs better running shoes and is wearing a temporary ankle support thing.) And, as of today, Rusty has come down with something. We're not sure yet if it's the flu or just a sinus infection kinda thing. But now HE is miserable. So far, I have come through it all just fine. I guess I just don't have time to get sick lol.

Lots of other stuff happened last week too. Probably nothing entirely interesting, but lots of stuff lol. Rusty stayed home from work Wednesday to be here when Home Depot installed our storage building out back. He is very proud of it, and it is indeed very nice. Michael came yesterday to begin helping him run some electricity out there. He wants to install shelves and other things as well. So, check out these photos of 208.5 Signal Hill Drive - Rusty's new dog house! lol

Wednesday morning I took both cats to the vet and left them there to get the total works done on them. They were given shots, spayed/neutered, and declawed all at once. Man, were they PISSED lol. But they are doing fine now. They are still lazing around a lot, but they are coming back around to themselves again. Here is a picture of Jack with his bandages on. It took Tanner and I several hours to get them all removed.

Over the weekend I started a "purging" project around the house. Getting rid of clothes and general STUFF that we don't use or need that is just taking up space. I finally bit the bullet and did something I've not been looking forward too. I parted with the toy box and the baby bed mattress. It was difficult to do. Because it is admitting that not only do I not have babies anymore, I don't even have SMALL children anymore lol. Tanner really needed the space in his room for his drum set, and he hasn't touched anything in that toy box in I don't know how long. So we went through it (removed all the Star Wars toys and boxed them up, of course), and kept a few little things he wanted. But it really wasn't much. The mattress is getting real brittle feeling and probably wouldn't last long enough to be any good for my grandkids anyway. Especially considering that it's going to be AT LEAST 20 YEARS before I have any grandkids, ya know. lol. We are getting rid of the swing set also, just as soon as we get it torn down.

Let's see, what else. I did the taxes last week and got that over with. We didn't get to hang with Cheryl and Mike at all because of Tanner being so sick. Ken and Heather came by to visit and help Tyler with his algebra.

I took Tyler for his permit test on Friday and it took 3 HOURS of waiting in line. He passed the test, but they won't give him his permit until he has some papers filled out by his doctor about the narcolepsy and cataplexy. So we're going back to the doctor this week to get the papers filled out AND to request that 2nd medicine that's supposed to stop the cataplexy.

I only made it to the gym on Tuesday for yoga. All the other days I was running around with a sick kid.

Cheryl and I went to see a play on Saturday night called "God's Favorite". It was kind of a modern day story of Job.

The Super Bowl was just not that exciting because we hated both teams. But, the team we hate the LEAST ended up winning so that was great in the end lol. Keith and Jenifer came over to watch it, and Drew, Dale, Michael, and Mandy were here also. Sucked that we didn't get to play any though.

Tyler went to a Super Bowl party at the church. He and his friends had decided that since nobody liked either of the teams, they would all dress as the team they WISHED was in the Super Bowl. He wore a Redskins shirt and painted his face yellow and maroon. I only got the aftermath of the face paint, but this is him lol. They also had a Guitar Hero championship contest at the party and he WON! He won a $15 gift certificate to Subway, he was thrilled!

Thursday Tyler personally handed me his jacket and asked me to wash it. I threw it straight in the washer. When I put it in the dryer, I noticed it was knocking and banging around. Then I just KNEW. And sure enough, the $250 ipod was in the pocket and it's dead now. But! By some MIRACLE! I remember seeing the receipt for that thing recently at work. We bought it Jan.31, 2007, and sure enough I still had the receipt in my desk at work! And by yet a 2nd miracle, I had purchased the extended service plan on it! Thursday was the EXACT one year anniversary of the purchase of the Ipod. So, if I had not purchased the extended service plan, our regular service plan had ended that very day lol. So, I found the receipt at work today and went to Wal Mart. They told me I had to call the Apple Co. so I still gotta do all that. But I'm hoping they will at LEAST fix it. And he's hoping they will give him a brand new one.

Saturday Rusty and I got up early and began going through junk in the garage. He has started to agree to let some of it go.........thank goodness. There is just so much. And when he sees that he either has to put it in his beautiful new wonderful guitar workshop at 208.5 Signal Hill Drive OR let it go to the dump...............he decides to let it go lol. Once we went through most of it, we then tore out the cabinets that are in the garage. That was a job. They were pretty darn nasty. And once he pulled the bottom of it out you could see that a RAT (or as he says, a "mouse") had been living there and was partial to eating pecans. There were pecan shells for DAYS. And there were even a few bones from I don't know what. Probably stolen dog bones.

I picked out the front doors yesterday. And Rusty and Mike's dad are going to order all the stuff we need for the job. Then, God willing, we will be enclosing the garage THIS WEEKEND. I'm excited!!!! I'm sure we'll still have lots more work to do once they've done the enclosing part. (running duct work, putting in carpet or tile, painting, etc etc. But the most of it should get finished in a weekend, so they tell me. Time will tell.

I'm enjoying mom's blog, the old pictures as well. Keep up the good work!