We're Still Here!!!

I know it's been forever since there has been an update, but they're not nearly as much fun when it's just "Everybody is busy doing their own thing." But, we have managed to do a few things in the OVER A YEAR since I last updated. It really is all on me. I've had a lot of people try to get me off of lazy and update here. Sooooo, here goes:

Wyatt is still busy with school. He's finishing up his junior year right now.

Abigail is still working as a flight attendant and enjoying it.

Kirsten has come to work with Dax and I. We'll make an accountant of her yet. Her resistance is futile!

Addison is still working in a preschool and enjoying the kids.

Wyatt drug invited us to a symphony performance on campus.

 

I think Dax and I get invited so that we'll pay for the tickets. I don't have any solid proof, but I'm pretty sure I'm onto something here.

Addison bought her first car last summer. After much looking around and test driving, she settled on a Volkswagen Tiguan. She's happy with her choice.

After all of the excitement (read: stress) of car shopping, Dax and I got away for a long weekend in New Orleans. We visited some neat places in the Quarter and found some great places to eat. But, really, how can you not in New Orleans.

Dax found this pearl in some oysters he was eating. Should have made him keep eating until I had enough for a bracelet. Ha!

We had our annual trip to the Texas Renaissance Festival. It's always a good time and makes for some great people watching.

 

Then, just like that and with no warning at all, the kids turned 21 in November. TWENTY ONE!! 

We took them out to dinner on their actual birthday. 

Those 'first' drinks at 21 probably cost more than the meal. LOL It was all good and we had a great evening together. It gets more and more difficult to get everyone together as they get older and have their own things going on.

But, dinner out for their birthday wasn't enough celebrating of 21. So when Dax and I were out in Las Vegas for our annual conference, we had the kids come out over the weekend to celebrate. I think a good time was had by all.

 

A good time and food. Lots and lots of food. These are from my favorite place while we're out there. Hash House A Go Go. Do yourself a favor and eat there if you are near one. You can thank me later.

 

 Oh, and you'll probably want to share. The servings are huge. Just the pancakes are 14 inches.

 

We felt like we barely got back home, before Christmas was already upon us. We had a good time with everyone and had our annual gingerbread house decorating contest.

 I have to say, we're getting better at it.

We didn't even have time to recover from Thanksgiving, birthdays in Vegas, and right into Christmas before we headed up to Dallas to the hockey Winter Classic.

It was crowded and cold, but it was fun. And the Dallas Stars won, which made it even better.

So now Dax and I are back into tax season and it may actually feel like rest after the busy holiday season.

So that's pretty much the fun stuff we've been up to. We've had all of the not fun stuff to deal with, too. One of our dogs has signs of dimentia and has lost his hearing. We hate to touch him when he's sleeping because it scares him, but that's the only way to get his attention.

In October, another one of our dogs had a stroke. She's been slow to recover, but still gets better every day. She started out not being able to do anything but blink her eyes, but she's recovered all the way back to her back legs. She still can't stand up, but is trying and continues to get more movement in her legs. We've gotten her a doggie wheel chair, but that takes a whole lot of work on its own.

.........and on it goes.

I know I say it every time, but I'll try not to go quite so long without at least some kind of update.

A long overdue update

It has gotten to be the new routine around here that I post, apologize for having been so long in between posts, think I'm going to be better, and then don't post in forever.

So here goes................

Sorry it's been so long.

I'll try to do better.

Wyatt has finished his first semester in college. He did quite well, As and Bs. And because of that he received a substantial amount of funds from the Texas State Guard. That makes all of us quite happy. being a part of the State Guard has been a really great thing all the way around. It's been a terrific confidence builder as he learns leadership, a time for Dax and Wyatt to do things together, and has now helped fund his education.

At the end of his first semester, he decided that sports medicine was not going to be the right choice for him. He's now switched his major to History with thoughts of law school later. Truthfully, I think after growing up with three sisters and finding himself outnumbered in most disagreements, he's looking to use all those pent up arguments. What better way to do that than as an attorney? At least that's my theory.

Abigail got her braces removed at the end of November. She's the last one so we are DONE! Now that's cause for celebrating!

At the beginning of December she headed off to spend the holidays in Canada. At the same time Dax and I headed off for our annual continuing education classes in Las Vegas.

Busy Weekend

We interrupt this vacation blogging to recap the weekend.

Dax and Wyatt played in a charity golf tournament on Saturday. They played golf, got fed lunch, and won a trophy. What more could you ask for, right?

Except, this is the trophy they won.....

.........because they came in 'dead ass last'. But they did have fun and it's the first tournament outside of school that Wyatt has played in. I think that's good practice for him.

Meanwhile, miles and miles away, Addison was in a Watermelon Festival Parade in McDade. It's a very small town but there were lots of entries into the parade. The parade route was only three blocks long and I know there were over 70 entries in the parade.

And honey was it hot out there!!!

We spent the rest of the afternoon inside trying to escape the heat and then we all went for snow cones after dinner.  It was a kind of long day but it was a fun one.

Sunday we met up with their grandparents for lunch and then the kids went home with them for the week (or more, who knows). They always love to go spend time with them. I would say that it gives Dax and I a break but not so much because now we have their dogs to take care of. lol

Ugh.....not again.....

Well, Wyatt is back in a knee brace and back to physical therapy.


He has dislocated his right knee and this time managed to chip the knee cap.


And you'll never guess how he did it.


Go ahead.


Guess.


I dare you.


Give up?


He dislocated his knee and chipped the knee cap by rolling over in his sleep and hitting the wall!!


Bet you didn't guess that did you?


I mean, WHO DOES THAT?!


Even the doctor and the physical therapist both laughed when we told them how it happened this time.


So.....now it's physical therapy for who knows how long to get everything good again. You just can't make this stuff up, life is crazy sometimes.

OK, that's better....

This week, although crazy busy at the office, was better.

It will be nice for tax day to come and go so that Dax can come home every night. I think he only slept at home three nights this past week! We've been that busy.

The kids are, as always, busy with school and all that goes with it.

Kirsten and Abigail are still working with the kindergarten kids two mornings a week to help them learn to read. It's nice to see them involved and helping, and the fact that they enjoy it is just icing on the cake.

Wyatt started golf practice last week. I haven't seen the schedule yet so don't know when his first tournament will be. Sometime soon he and Dax are going to go shop for clubs for him. Right now he's using the clubs that Dax used in high school! (And we're not even going to get into how old that makes those clubs -- let me just say that technology has changed a little since then.)

Kirsten and Abigail are both playing tennis and have practice several afternoons a week. They have their first tournament coming up on Saturday. I won't get to see it (but Dax will be there) because Addison has a pageant in Austin. She had mercy on me and held off on entering any during tax season.

I took Abigail and Kirsten to the tennis courts to practice one weekend not too long ago so I'll leave you with this quick video of Abigail.

She's a juggling genius!!! You're going to be blown away!

Easter Fun

We had a good time this Easter. Our family came enjoy each other's company and to eat too much food.

The Easter Bunny didn't hide eggs this year, but he did leave baskets for Dax and the kids.

But, the Easter Bunny did me one better. I got all the left over candy!!

And this year I was actually able to catch the Easter Bunny on camera
.

I have to be honest here. That's really not what I had ever pictured the Easter Bunny to look like!

Wordless Wednesday

A star is born!

A few months ago Wyatt decided to sign up for theater with his friend Nate. They've had weeks of practice 5 nights a week and last week was performance time.

The play they did was a regional play called A Tuna Christmas and they did a great job. Wyatt played a midget that was standing behind a counter placing an order so we couldn't actually see him. LOL

The kids (junior high and high school) did a great job!

We were really surprised that Wyatt decided to do this because he is usually pretty quiet and keeps to himself around other people.

We are even more surprised that he's loved it and will be doing another play in the Spring.

Looking forward to it.

A good time was had by all

The kids had a great time celebrating their birthday (I'm still not over the fact that they're fourteen already!!)

I bought Krispy Kreme doughnuts for them for breakfast (mostly because Addison is obsessed with them) and put a candle in the middle and sang happy birthday to each as they got out of bed.

 The girls were the only ones that had doughnuts.

We gave them each a cell phone for their birthday and did that the night before so they could have plenty of time to get over it before we went shopping on their birthday. But before we left the house, they opened gifts from Grandma and Grandpa. They got lots of good stuff, but I think Wyatt's favorite was this Texas Longhorns watch.

Their class at school went to visit the UT campus (the PTO does it to start getting the kids thinking about college) and all four of them are smitten with the school now.

Then we headed up to Austin for a long day of shopping and dinner out.

It was a good day and I know they enjoyed it.....they keep texting me to let me know.

A day with Buster

My boys spent some time on Saturday working on Wyatt's truck (Buster).

They decided to start with the brakes. Figured once they get the truck going, being able to stop will be important. OK, being able to stop will be important if it's just rolling and not actually running, so brakes first.

Sunday we dropped the kids off with their grandparents for one last hurrah before school starts.

Wyatt's first car

Wyatt got his first car!!


It's actually a truck and it arrived at our house earlier this week. We had to have it towed.


Or, I should say that the guys at my house have a new project.

Looks to me like this will be a long term project. What do you think?

I believe the truck's name is Buster. It was given to Wyatt by one of friends with a couple of stipulations. He's not allowed to try to do some kind of restoration to make it a show truck and he's not allowed to sell it. (In its current state, there's no problem with either one of those. lol) Our stipulation is that Wyatt has to earn the money to fix it up and he has to help work on it. Looks like he's going to be busy.


But, I can say this. The boy is excited!!

We're done!!

Wyatt had another appointment on Monday with the orthopedic surgeon. He said that everything looks good and released him. We're all done with that!

Woohoo!!

I don't want to sound mean, but I hope we never see him again.

Addison and Abigail also started cheer practice on Monday. They were pretty tired when they got home (it's 8 hours a day) but they said that they had fun.

Kirsten is visiting her grandparents and loving being an only child. Well, she probably was until yesterday when she shut her finger in the car door. It's not broken but there's a pretty good chance the nail is going to come off.

I have to go on Friday morning and have a little procedure done. Because it has been scheduled so early  in the morning, Wyatt told me that by the time he "rolls out of bed" I should already be back home. Kinda' touching, isn't it?

Even though it's summer, I feel like we're even busier than we were before.

Round Two

Wyatt had his second knee surgery (on his left leg this time) on the 19th of April. Everything went well once again.

He went for his follow up appointment yesterday to see how things were healing and to get the stitches out.

The doctor said that things look good and that he's a fast healer. He gave Wyatt a smaller brace and gave him the okay to get back out to golf practice.

He goes back in three weeks and hopefully he'll get the final release and we can be done with this.

Training Day

During our busy tax season, Dax took some time out to train the next generation.

Here he is teaching Wyatt how to input a tax return.

It's great for your kids to know a little more about what you do for a living.


The down side of that is that he gave Wyatt a VERY simple return to input so now Wyatt thinks Dax's job is easy and doesn't understand why it takes him so long to get the returns done.

Recovery Week.......but not really

This week we're trying to recover from the chaos that was last week.


Only, it's still chaotic!!


Last week Wyatt went for his follow up appointment and to have the stitches removed. The doctor said that things are looking good. He gave Wyatt some new exercises to add to the ones he was already doing. He goes back in two weeks for a check up. If, after six weeks, his muscles are showing enough improvement then there won't have to be any physical therapy.

We've got our fingers crossed.


Dax spent the better part of the week in bed with the flu.....despite getting a flu shot months ago.


It was terrible! The first day he got sick he could barely be out of bed without passing out. I was afraid to leave him alone for even a little bit of time. And since we're full-on into tax season right now, it was a terrible time for him to have to be out of the office.

Thankfully, he's feeling much better now.

This week, in addition to the usual activities, we've had to add in cheer practice every day because try-outs are on Friday. All three girls are trying out this year.

Wyatt has had band practice because he made the band that go to UIL competition tomorrow.

Kirsten and Addison signed up for tennis last week. Addison already quit. Before the first practice even. Tennis practice is almost every day after school.

Now that they have things going on after school that means that we're going to have to rearrange our mornings so that they can get to school even earlier so that they can go to morning tutorials.

That hasn't happened yet because my alarm clock died and I haven't gotten up early enough. But, never fear, I got a new one today.

If we actually survive this week, next week is spring break and the kids will be heading to spend the week with their grandparents.

Update

Wyatt had surgery on his right knee yesterday.


It all went well and once again he handled it like a real trooper. While the doctor was in there, he shaved off a soft spot on the knee cap so I think he might be in a little more pain that he would have been otherwise.


His knee is still all bandaged up so I don't know swollen it is or anything like that. I know they cut on each side of his knee, but I think the cuts are supposed to be relatively small.


I'll take all of the wrapping off this evening and he'll have to wear the compression hose on both legs. I'll also put the brace back on locked in the straight position and he'll have to wear that also until he goes back to the doctor next week to have the stitches removed. Then I guess we'll see where we go from there.

Missing

One of our dogs got out a couple of days ago and we haven't been able to find her.

It's Daisy and she's Wyatt's dog.

Poor kid is having a pretty sucky start to this year.

The drums are an even bigger blessing to give him something to be excited about in the midst of the not-so-fun stuff.

Surprise gifts

My parents came to visit this weekend.

They had a surprise for Wyatt.

I don't know what I did to make my parents mad at me!!!

Just kidding.

Wyatt was saving his money for drums and my parents found this set at a great price.

Lucky me, right?

He loves them and was so excited.

See!

The noise is freaking the dogs out a little, but they'll get over it.


Not sure if Dax and I will or not. :0)

Nothing good

I took Wyatt to the doctor today.


He didn't have anything good to say.


When I told him that Wyatt was just running and his knee cap just slipped out of place, instead of looking at the hurt knee he went straight to the one that has already healed.


When he moved Wyatt's leg around and making him bend it, he showed me how Wyatt's knee cap is still moving out of place every time it's bent.


Apparently the tendons on the outsides of his knees are too tight and pulling on the knee cap every time he bends his knees. If nothing is done about it his knees will continue to dislocate and the constant movement will wear down the under side of the knee cap.


On February 23 they're going to operate on his right knee (since it's already sore and swollen). Then after that is all healed up the doctor will be doing the same thing to his left knee.


Needless to say, none of us are too thrilled with today's appointment.

Same Dance, Different Song

Wyatt and I made a trip to the emergency room on Saturday.

He and Kirsten were outside playing and his knee cap slipped out of place.

As if that doesn't suck enough, this time it's his right leg!! (He dislocated the knee cap on his left leg in September.)

Once again he handled it like a trooper.

They put the knee cap back  in place, we put it in the brace, and he sees the Orthopedic doctor tomorrow morning.

Once again Dax was gone to State Guard drill and something happened. What the heck? He's going to be afraid to leave the house soon.