A Much Needed Break

On Tuesday, I flew to Chicago for the Blue October concert that Mike gave me tickets to for our anniversary. It's been a long 3 month wait, but it was well worth it. Mike worked it out so that I would stay with Emily while I was there. It was so awesome to actually spend a little time with her. Okay, so 2.5 days. :) Mike, for Valentine's Day, made us reservations at The Signature Room on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building for dinner before the concert. The view was amazing. These pictures were actually taken from my seat at the table.

Navy Pier

Lake Michigan

Emily pointed out my fear of heights, and I was actually okay because I didn't feel like I was going to fall. Stupid, but true.

After a wonderful dinner (I've honestly never had this swanky of a dinner in my life), we headed over to the House of Blues for the Blue October concert. Yay!

The stage
Balcony
One of the opening bands had some of the Blue October members come and play with them. The guy on the far left is Ryan from BO. The next day, this opening band (Hurricane Bells) blew out their engine in St. Joe, not far from us. I would have gone to pick them up. LOL!

And then, Blue October took the stage...it's a small venue, so we had a good view.




I've actually got this one up as my FB profile picture. LOL!

Anyway, the concert was amazing. The average age was probably around 35 and we were all acting like college kids. I think that annoyed the college kids that actually were there.

Wednesday, we drove to the suburbs to visit with an old friend, Amy. Amy moved from Peoria when we were in 5th grade but up until that point, she and I would walk home from school together. I haven't seen her since 7th grade, about 22 years ago. Wow. It was awesome to catch up over lunch. What was really nice is that it wasn't awkward and we've vowed to make it, at least, a yearly thing.

I also made a stop to see Bobbi and Ed. We couldn't stay long, though, because of the wonderful Chicago rush hour traffic.

That night, Emily and I grabbed a bottle of wine (or two or three...I don't remember) and stayed up talking until 4 am. It is so amazing to have a friend that you can go forever without talking to and when you do, it's like nothing at all...there's no "why haven't you called?" or anything like that.

The trip length was perfect, but I was sad to go back home on Thursday. However, it was really nice to get back to the routine and my own bed. The kids gave Mike an excellent report and Mike did the same. I really think he liked being "in charge." LOL!

Such Love and Support

I can't even begin to say how grateful I am for everyone that has offered love, support and prayers for Daniel. I've had so many people come up and ask how we are and have been telling us that they've been praying for him. It's overwhelming. It's also been interesting to find out how many people out there actually have epilepsy. So many people have told me that either they have, or know someone that has, epilepsy and that they are doing well. So encouraging.

The principal, counselor and school nurse have been so helpful with helping me out as well. They're locked and loaded for after Daniel sees the neurologist. I just wish I could figure his teacher out. I don't exactly know what's going on with her. She's acting weird and strange. Almost like she's trying to protect herself. Huh.

I was at my soccer game last night and we were warming up when my friend, Debbie, asked me about Daniel. She hadn't heard that we got the EEG results. My neighbor, Katie, only heard the word, "epilepsy," and looks at me, panicked. "Who has epilepsy?" She asked me. "Daniel," I told her. "Oh my God, Barb! I am so sorry!" She tells me as she gives me a big hug. I told her that it was okay. Really, it was going to be fine. That's when another girl on our team, Renee, comes over to tell me her mother has epilepsy and she's doing really well on medication. It was very nice to hear.

Children's Mercy has been running these commercials, both on radio and TV, where they talk about the Million Reasons Mosaic The line goes a little like, "there are a million reasons to choose Children's. What's yours?" Then, they show the picture of a child made up of a bunch of photos of other children. It always made me a little misty but now, I flat out cry when I see or hear those commercials. (I'm welling up just typing this.) I don't know if I'm going to be able to listen to the radio-thon my radio station does every spring. The whole idea of needing Children's is overwhelming. I think a lot of it is that I feel guilty for not catching this before now. That he's had to struggle all these years and I let him down. I know it's silly and we've got the diagnosis now, but...

I Was Beeped At...and other thoughts

I took Hannah to her usual Monday gymnastics class and as we were walking in, I hear a horn. It was one of those that makes you jump...not a little beep but a HONK!!!!!!! I whipped my head around and saw my friend, Bree, waving furiously from her huge Yukon (good to know that they don't have a wimpy horn...that would have been funny). After I realized she was waving at me, I put on a big smile and furiously waved back. It's been a long time since I've been beeped in public (get your mind out of the gutter...I know you all went there). It made my day.

Last night, I remembered that it was my MOPS table's turn to bring breakfast this morning. I had signed up to bring a warm dish and some fruit. I went through my potluck cookbook while the kids were in the tub and asked Mike for his input (I tend to overthink things like this). I decided that I would just wing some egg and hashbrown dish (which also ended up having mushrooms, bacon and cheese...and turned out very tasty) and some fruit salad that has the marshmallows and fluff (who knew it had vinegar and eggs in it as well?), but had to go to the store to get the ingredients. While at WalMart, I remembered that I had to get something for my secret sister and decided to make her an Easter basket. However, I couldn't bring myself to get her an Easter card just yet, and my table found that very funny.

Anyway, on my way home, I noticed that it was not only incredibly windy, but snowing as well. I really need winter to end. Now. I need to get out and into my garden. But I digress...

This morning, I pop the egg casserole into the oven (I put everything together last night) and showered. I got the boys up and went through our normal morning routine. We left a little later than normal because I wasn't able to closely watch the time since the oven was on (we really need another clock in the house). Daniel's mad at me because I asked him to put his shoes on and don't I know that he's busy reading a book? I seriously never thought I'd have that problem. LOL! Anyway, we pile into the car and head to school.

The roads were fine, except for around certain corners where the sun hadn't been able to melt the ice that had accumulated last night. Luckily, I've driven this so many times that I'm pretty aware of the usual spots that get icy. Most of the time, I have to make a loop around the school to get into the carpool line. I turn onto the street before so that I don't have to turn around. Anyway, the car in front of me was doing the same thing, so we both slowed down on the main road to turn onto the side street. The intersection was heavily iced over, but I (and the car in front of me) could clearly see it and slowed more than usual (almost to a stop) to make the right onto the side street. Halfway through my turn, I looked in my rearview and I was more than a little amazed. The car behind me didn't slow at all (nor did it appear to swerve) and should have rear-ended me. Seriously. I can't see how he didn't. Both lanes were completely full and he was moving right along, in his lane (there is no turn lane), at the same speed as the rest of traffic. He really should have hit me. I can't stop thinking about it. I shared it with my MOPS table this morning and Shanna leans over and says, "Barbara, you had an angel with you this morning. Most of the time, we never even notice...and you probably wouldn't have if you hadn't looked in your rear-view mirror. What a blessing to have witnessed." There is no other explaination for it. It's still giving me chills just thinking about it.

It's Good To Have Friends

Mike invited Stephen and Roxanne (and their boys Jett and Quinn) from Tae Kwon Do over for dinner last night. Roxanne has been telling Mike that she wanted to get the boys together for some time now and we thought that this would be a good way to do that. We asked them to bring a bottle of wine and maybe a little desert. I had to laugh when they showed up with 4 bottles of wine (they couldn't decide which one to bring so they brought them all) and a French Silk pie. (For a visual of Stephen, Jett and Quinn (I don't have one of Roxanne, though), look here http://mbjdh1999.blogspot.com/2007/10/jacobs-photo-post.html )

The kids immediately ran off to play...Jett and Jacob (they're both in third grade) desperately tried to keep the younger kids out of Jacob's room. Who would have thought that Quinn and Hannah would have become a pair. She told me this morning that Quinn told her that he was going to marry her when they're older. Ahhh...if arranged marriages were still around. LOL! It was nice that the kids all got along so well because we got to chatting and completely lost track of time.

Several hours, and two bottles of wine (hard to believe it was only two) later, it was time to call it a night. Hannah had fallen asleep on the couch and Jett and Quinn were hiding from their parents so they wouldn't have to go home. It seriously didn't feel like they were here until almost midnight.

It was so nice to have people over again. I really missed having friends over for dinner. This is really the first time we've done it since we've moved here. Friends used to come over all of the time in Virginia. Having friends definitely makes Barb a much happier person.

Fun With Old Friends

I got an e-mail from Emily last week saying that she'd be in town visiting a college friend this weekend, was I free to get together some time? (For those of you that don't know, I've known Emily since I was 4. We went to grade, middle and high school together.) I hadn't seen Emily in about 4 years, so I told her that I would be happy to block out some time. She said she'd call when she got in. Fast forward to yesterday when my phone rings and Em's on the other end. How does breakfast and coffee somewhere sound? Great! The plan was that I'd drop Daniel off at Sunday School after picking him up from his sleepover and meet her. Oh, and was it okay that she invited Amy (a friend of mine from high school who recently moved here but I had yet to see)? Absolutely.

So, this morning, I dropped Daniel off at the synagogue and left for Panera. As I was driving over, I remembered that Emily was always consistently late and I probably could have hung out with the kids for a little longer, and, I discovered, that she hasn't changed. LOL! I was waiting in the lobby, checking over my calendar for the week when a family walked in. I looked up and thought that the mom looked familiar. They walk past and once I hear her talk, I knew instantly it was Amy. I looked up again and, kind of quietly, said, "Amy?" She turns around and says, "yes? Barb? Are you kidding me? I thought that might be you!" She introduces me to her new husband and stepdaughters (we've already decided her oldest stepdaughter and Jacob are going to get married...LOL!). A little later, Emily and her friend, Karen, come in and we all sit to chat.

What's kind of cool is that we did less reminiscing than I thought we'd do and mostly shared stories about our lives now. Amy has some very interesting stories from her days of being a police officer (she still is but she's more in ballistics and forensics now), and Emily had some interesting stories from working in the psych ward. We all thought our lives were pretty boring to us but there was a lot of laughter and interest when we shared them with each other. Emily told me that it was strange that I was such a grown up. When did that happen?

All of us did try to convince Emily that she needed to move out here. Her oldest friend (me), her high school best friend (Amy) and her college best friend (Karen) are here, and apparently, she's the glue friend since she got Amy and I to finally get together. It was obvious that she'd like to move out here but probably won't.

Anyway, after almost 3 hours of catching up, we decided it was time to go. Amy and I decided that we were going to start doing a couples' night and would try to get the kids together the next time they had them. It is so nice to have friends!

Happy Hump Day

First, I need to apologize for not posting this yesterday, but a big (late) HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to Bobbi and Ed who celebrated theirs yesterday. I really didn't forget!

I've decided that what makes somewhere...anywhere...a nice place to live is the friends you make. I hated, HATED, Iowa because I had no friends. That's not to say that I didn't know people, because I knew a lot of people, but I didn't have anyone to lean on if I needed to. Virginia was filled with friends. We had a neighborhood full of people who really cared about us, as well as friends scattered around the area. It wasn't unusual to get phone calls from friends asking if we wanted to meet at the mall because someone needed to get out of the house and they figured I did too. I could always count on the occasional call from Michelle asking if I wanted to meet for coffee. 9 times out of 10, I'd run into someone I knew at the store, and usually get sidetracked chatting (for some reason, we could never talk and shop at the same time!) Or I'd get a phone call from a neighbor, late at night when Mike was out of town, because they saw my lights on and wanted to make sure I was doing okay. Virginia was a very special place and I made friends there that I will have for the rest of my life. That's one of the reasons it was so hard for me to leave (it also didn't help that it was so darn beautiful there!).

As soon as we moved to Virginia, it was instantly 1000 times better than Iowa because I had nothing there. Moving here, I compared everything to Virginia (and still do) and it's a hard place to equal.

Things are definitely looking up. My MOPS table is full of such wonderful women that I can see becoming strong friends with. We've already started a weekly playgroup and are planning a couple's night out soon. The way we've clicked is much like how my playgroup a few years ago just clicked (you know what I'm talking about, Sara). I love that!

With the addition of the MOPS Bible Study every other week, I'm able to meet women at the other tables as well, and they're all becoming good friends too. Yesterday at our MOPS meeting, they did a spoof on the game show The Price Is Right...they called it The Mom Is Right. Shanna (our MOPS Coordinator and she sits at my table too) brought up 4 girls from different tables to answer some questions for prizes. One of the girls she brought up was Bree. Bree is a riot. I found out at the last Bible Study that she's from some suburb of Chicago (Naperville or Downer's Grove, I think) and we were chatting a lot about the area. Well, here's what went down yesterday...

Shanna: Our next contestant is Bree
Bree: Whoooo!
Shanna: Bree...tell us where you're from
Bree: CHICAGO!!!! WOOOOO!
Shanna: Do we have any other Chicagoans in the audience today?
Bree: (pointing to me) BARBARA! I know you are girl! WOOOO!

Now, for a second, I'm thinking "really, I'm from Peoria and not Chicago, but the boys were born there." What came out of my mouth was this...

Me: (arms up in the air and pointing back to Bree) YOU KNOW IT BREE!!!
Bree: WOOO!

I just finally feel like I've found a direction here and that makes me so happy. Give me another 1 1/2 years (our average time in any one place) and I probably won't want to leave here either.