Back on Skype

Max asleep in his new snowsuit

So I fixed my problem with skype and was able to talk and see dad, bob and sarah, and lori. It was fun to be able to see them in person since it has been so long. I am glad i was able to fix the problem myself since i don't like to bug steve with all my computer problems, especailly when he has just gotten home from a 16hr work day. He is on vacation this week which is nice, although he almost had to go in yesterday because of work problems and he is actually on the phone with work now. This is usually how his "vacations" go, but at least he is at home working on it as oppossed to in his office. We had a nice relaxing christmas and it was fun to see the kids get sooo excited about their gifts. Max got alot of train stuff so he was very happy. Steve and the girls are off til January 4th and it has been so nice being able to sleep in late. Hope everyone had a good christmas and have a happy New Year!!!!

Gingerbread House

Lori wanted to see some pictures of the ginger bread house that syd and i (mostly me) made. I think it looks more like it was done by a 1st grader rather than 7th but oh well. Steve and the girls are headed out in a few mins to get our tree today. Yes mom our house is still on the market and will probably stay on til the spring at this point! I admit i am happy not to have showing right now though.

Alright already i will post again

I know it has been a while so i will fill you in. Where to begin, well first off i am typing this blog with my brand new Sony Vaio laptop that steve bought for me. I brought it with me to NH on our last trip and i had only had it for 1 day at that point, while we were up there i kept it on my MIL's table and a glass of wine was spilled near it and it sat in the wine for a little while before i noticed. Thank god it was fine! I didn't know weather to cry or throw up or both but i held it together. We put our townhome on the market 3 months ago and have had good feedback but no offers. Sydney had her big cheerleading comp in sept and they came in 3rd, she was pretty disappointed. Then she had the second comp last weekend and they placed 3rd again, she doesn't want to go to the next one but she doesn't have a choice! She is starting a tumble class next week that she is excited about because it focuses on backflips. Maegan made gingerbread houses with her girl scout troop last week that she thought was alot of fun and of course they got to eat candy while making them. Max has started speech lessons and he is improving with each session. He is still into Thomas the Tank Engine, BIG TIME! he can tell you what colors the trains are we are still working on the names. Steve is getting better since he went to the new herbal doctor and is happy to be able to breathe again and not feel like passing out because he climbed a flight of stairs. I am just thankful that he is getting better because i was pretty worried there for a while. other than that not much else going on here. i will try to keep this blog more updated from now on.

The Wilson's went camping.....YES again!

So as most of you probably know our first camping experience was eventfull to say the least! However this did not deter us from going again and this time we didn't have any problems to speak of, which is fine with me! We left friday afternoon and headed to the Poconos which is about 2hrs north of here. We were the first of the five families that we camped with last year to arrive. We set up our new teepee tent and the screen tent and then steve started a fire. we had dinner and then socialized a little bit then went to bed around 10pm. Max did great sleeping in the tent he didn't wake up once either night. I had a hard time sleeping as i could not help but think of snakes getting in my sleeping bag. I finally did fall asleep around 4am and was kinda tired the next day. I got up and started the fire and made the percolated coffee and made breakfast which was sausage patties and french toast made with texas toast. we hung around the campsite most of the day and the girls played with the other kids. Our teepee tent drew some onlookers and one guy even came over to ask us where we got it. It is really big so we had plenty of room. It did leak some on the seams but we also didn't waterproof it either. It rained pretty much all day saturday. Three of the five families left because there tents leaked and all their stuff had gotten wet. They hung around most of the day on saturday but left before dark. Sunday morning was my favorite part as i got up at 7am because my body couldn't handle sleeping on the hard ground any longer. It was really quiet(all the loud kids left the night before) and cloudy just the way i like it. I chopped some wood and started a fire and then made the coffee. So i was able to sit and relax, sipping my coffee and watching for bears! Steve and the kids got up around 8:30am and i made breakfast. The girls went on a hike with our friends and their kids as steve and i started to break down the camp. As you know Steve was hospitalized last weekend and was doing better during the week. He started having pain again on thursday night so i wasn't sure if we were even gonna get to go camping but he toughed it out and took loads of Tylenol! i will post pics as soon as i can figure out how to download them of my new phone. I remembered to bring my camera but forget to take the battery out of the charger!

Steve's Hospital Visit

So this morning steve was sleeping late which i like to let him do on the weekends because he gets up early during the week and works long hard days. However i needed to go to Home Depot to get supplies to paint the girls room and i didn't want to take max with me therefore i needed steve to be awake. At 11:30am i went to see if steve was awake yet and he was stirring but not really awake. He saw me so i asked him how he was doing and he was NOT WELL! He had a bad headache, back pain,bad chest tightness,sore throat and the chills. I took his temp and it was 100.4 which is high for him. Since he has been on prednisone for 2 years i didn't want to take and chances so i told him that he needed to go to the hospital. We got there about 12pm and i stayed for a while then took the kids to Mcdonald's to feed them and then back to the hospital to see if steve had been seen yet, but of course he was still sitting in the same spot and had not yet seen the nurse. So we waited a while longer and finally the nurse saw him, his blood ox was a little low and his fever was 102. because he was having the chest tightness they did an EKG to check for problems. Then from there they took him to a exam room, at this point i took the kids home. Since i had not heard from him by 6pm i called the hospital to check up on him. Of course he didn't want to spend the night but they admitted him anyway. We went to visit him or i should say we went to bring him his laptop! He was feeling much better and his fever was gone. They are giving him fluids and IV meds to take care of what they think is some sort of virus. So instead of painting the girls room today i spent the day worrying about steve!

House Repairs

While I am waiting for the spackle on my living room wall to dry i figured i would post a picture to show our new kitchen faucet that i put in last night. I did most of the work myself except for the hard part which was getting the old mounting nuts off of the faucet. Steve had to help me with that because no matter how hard i tried i couldn't get them to loosen. Once that was done i put in the new faucet, with a sprayer which is something we didn't have before. It was pretty easy to do and it looks so much nicer and is easier to use. I told Lori yesterday that Steve and I are looking for a new house, we really have started to outgrow this one and since it is a buyer's market right now we think we should take advantage of that. So that is why i have spackle drying on the wall in my living room. This house is in pretty good shape it just needs a few minor repairs, spackle, paint, carpets cleaned, etc. We are really hoping to find a house with at least an acre, we have lived in apts and now with this townhome which is basically a big apt we would like some land of our own! Maegan recently had her "bridging ceremony" for brownies now she is a Girl Scout. so this picture was taken before she walked over the "bridge" it rained that day so we had to do it inside and they walked over a makeshift bridge, which was a shame because they have a nice bridge at this farm.

Steve's Penn appt

So steve had his Penn appt yesterday at the Penn Lung Center and the drs there seem to have a better idear(did that for steve)! a better idea of what is going on with him. They think that it is being caused by exposure to mold at his office. The office has flooded a few times and steve said that it smells musty there. they have seen alot more cases like his then his pulmo dr has. they want him to take 4-6 weeks off to see if things get better. He just found out today that his boss is going to let him work from home for the month of june, which is GREAT news! i was a little nervous about him taking an unpaid leave for that long, but his health is more important and i am sure we would have managed. Now i am trying to track down his lung biopsy slides, neither the lung center or his pulmo dr have the slides. they were sent to the lung center in january and were signed by someone at the front desk but they went to the wrong place. now UPS has to try and track the package to see if they can find them, very frustrating. hopefully he will be off the prednisone soon and start taking an anti mold medicine? not sure what he'll take but hopefully it will actually improve his lung function. he goes again in 8 weeks so i will keep ya posted.

Max's B-day party

Well we had max's party on saturday and it went pretty well. I picked up the cake on friday and he was with me so when we got home he got out a fork and was ready to eat some cake! He loves the fire house toy that we got him and our friends got him a dinosaur folding chair, which we will take with us on our camping trip next month. The weather was really nice and the kids all ran under max's fire hydrant sprinkler. He was very excited when it was cake time and he ate most of it. I am going to try to add some photos so hopefully it will work.

Blog title

Ok, i will title them from now on, i didn't really notice that. Mom the CCIE is a Cisco Certification, it is extremely had to get and involves ALOT of studying. there aren't that many people in the world who own this certification.

I just wanted to mention how proud i am of the fact that Steve passed his first CCIE test! It was a VERY hard test and he has been working 16hr days and then coming home at night to study. His next goal is to pass the lab which is an 8hr test and costs 1400 just for the test so hopefully he will pass on the first try.

Yeah mom you are right i do have the gift of gab, although i am not sure steve sees it as a "gift" persay but anyway, sydney is marching in a parade tommorrow morning with her cheer squad to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Downingtown, PA. Then on sunday Maegan is going to a birthday party at Bounce U which all kids love to go to. Next weekend we are having a birthday party for Max with some friends of ours since max has no friends yet. It is a pretty busy month for us since school gets out in june they always have alot of school activities for the parents to go to at this time of year. Sydney had a field trip last weekend to the Hershey factory for a tour and she was SOOOOO excited but when they got there the power had been out all night and they still were trying to get it back on. So they decided to go to the Hershey Zoo instead and syd said it was a complete bore! The first thing she said when she got off the bus was "i had a horrible day"! Maegan had alot of fun on her trip to High School Musical, they chartered huge tour busses which was a big surprise because we figured they would use school busses. She bought alot of candy at the candy and nut shop that they stopped at and even shared with her sister and brother. Oh well, just got off the treadmill and i am done sweating so time to hit the showers!

My sister has convinced me to start blogging and since i enjoy reading her and bob's blogs i decided to give it a try. not much going on right now so more later!