The last 2 Weeks in Review

It all started on Saturday, September 13th when we left for Chicago. The 6 hour trip was uneventful, just how we like it. Saturday night Dan and I went on a date. We ate dinner at Braxton a seafood and steak place. We had the best crab cakes ever. I don't know if I will ever eat another one again unless it is there. They were that good. After a fantastic dinner we went to a movie. We saw Dark Knight at an IMAX theater. Dan and I enjoyed the movie; however, I have to say that there were too many young children at that movie, which was not appropiate for them to be watching. I hate to admit this but the last time I was actually at a movie theater was to see Star Wars Episoide III. I believe that the Eekhoff's watched Bella for us. Dan has actually been to a movie theater in the recent months as that is what the guys do for their Guys Night.

Sunday, September 14th

Dan left for O'Hare Airport at 6am to go to Anchorage, Alaska for the week. Chicago had flooding rains. The kind that even if you have a big umbrella, you still get wet. The kids and I went to church with Grammy.

Monday, Septemter 15th: Our Anniversary

This is the only picture I could find of us. I have the rehearsal dinner pictures, but none of the wedding. I guess I need to scan some. Anyway we were married on Saturday, September 15, 2001 at 10 am at Wheaton Bible Church, Wheaton, IL. Most of our friends and all of our family will never forget our wedding, the Saturday after 9/11. We were working in DC when the planes hit the World Trade Towers and the Pentegon on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. When we finally made it out of the city we packed our stuff and left for Chicago that night. Our wedding day was perfect which was good considering the chaos leading up to our wedding. The moment the planes stopped flying some of our friends and family had to decide whether or not to come. Those who decided to come had to drive riduculous distances to see us get married. I don't need to rehash all the changes we had to do last minute. Needless to say in the end we got married and now it has been 7 years and 3 kids later. We wouldn't change anything.

Monday, September 15th: Trip to the ER

Bella had been weezing for at least a day and of course, I forgot to bring her inhaler. She doesn't need it all the time, so it is not always on my list of things I need to bring. When I do bring it she doesn't need it. I called the peditrician's office and talked with a nurse to see if I could get a prescription sent to a local pharmacy in Chicago. She recommened, based on my comments as to Bella's breathing, that I seek medial attention. That means the ER. During the conversation with the nurse, I come to find out that what was hurricane Ike had come through the Dayton area and knocked out our power, damaged roofs, downed tree limbs and trees. At this point the power had been out for at least 24 hours. After a trip to the ER, a chest X-ray, a 2 hour process and $75.00 later, I got want I had asked for: another inhaler. Crisis averted. Now that I have I blog, I wished that I would have brought my camera to the hospital. As for our house I tried calling everyone I knew but with the power out I couldn't get a hold of anyone to find out the condition of our house. Our wosest fear was that the basment was flooded.

Tuesday, September 16th

I finally go a hold a friend who said they would go and check out the outside of our house and reasured me that the storm did not produce any rain only high winds. So our basement wouldn't be flooded. Her report was that our house was still stand with not visible damage. I finally got another friend on her cell phone and she suggested that someone go into our house and check if our freezer had leaked water onto our floor. Our freezer is on the bottom and our fridge is on top. At this point our power was still not on. She said that she would be willing to go in and check as well as empty our fridge and freezer since we would not be home for another week. I told her I would call the security system company and make sure that it was not armed. The company assured me that with the power outage that the back-up battery would not be working after 6-8 hours. The power was out for 48 hours. I overnighted our house keys to her office, so she could go to our house on Wednesday.

Wednesday, September 17th: Our Alarm System

Christina, who I sent our keys to, went to our house, opened the door and our alarm started beeping. The alarm company told me this would happen because it need to be reset after the outage. After passing the sensor in the dining room, the alarm goes off. Now I didn't give her the code to disarm it because I was told it wasn't armed. The phone in our house starts ringing and how Christina heard it is amazing because the alarm is very loud. I am glad we have caller ID because she saw that the caller was the alarm company and answered the phone. Then she gave them her name and called us on her cell phone while the alarm was blaring in the backround. I gave her our password and the alarm stopped. I told her not to bother setting it again before leaving. At this point we know our house still standing, there was no water in the basement, the freezer didn't leak and the fridge and freezer are cleaned out. Now we can rest easy.

Wednesday, September 17th: Visit with Popo & Mamu

Popo and Mamu our my grandparents on my dad's side and my kids great grandparents. They came to my mom's house to visit with the kids. Xander was napping.

Friday, September 19th: Going to Minneapolis

Friday morning Dan's flight came into O'Hare Airport at 7am and my mom dropped Xander and I off at the airport around 7:30am and our Flight to MN was at 9am. This was Xander's 2nd flight. His first one was to Houston in July, but I didn't get a picture of him then. It's amazing what you can do on a flight with only 1 child. Dan and I did a crossword puzzle and enjoyed the flight while Xander slept. Friday evening some of my college friends got together for a BBQ and had a great time remembering our college days.

Sunday, September 21st

We returned from Minneapolis on Sunday evening. The girls had a great time with Grammy. They went to the aboretum and the petting zoo. Bella told me that maybe next time we go to Minneapolis to visit, she could come with us and Charlotte could stay with Grammy. We celebrated my mom's birthday with a cake after dinner.

Monday, September 22nd: Return to Ohio

Home again, home again jigity jig. Like our trip out to Chicago, our trip home was uneventful. After 9 days it was good to be home and see for ouselves that our house was no worse for the ware after the storm.

Tuesday, September, 23rd

The time had come to start Xander on cereal. He is not quite 5 months yet, but needs a little extra food to keep him going. He looks like he is enjoying the new taste, but his consecutive meals with cereal have not been so enjoyable. Now I add juice to it so he will eat it without crying and making faces. Xander don't you know it is not polite to show people your food. Mama what are you doing taking a picture of me with my mouth full of food? Ok, it's a cute picture of a baby doing it with cereal, but not older children with real food.

Friday, September, 26th: Xander rolled over

Xander rolled over for the first time tonight. I didn't get a picture of it because I wanted to get video of it. I will post a picture of him rolling over when I get one.

Saturday, September, 27th: Renaissance Festival

We went to the Renaissance Festival during pirate weekend with our neighbors. Bella is posing with Evan.

Charlotte posed with one of the Renaissance ladies. Bella thought her dress was pretty but wouldn't go near her. Evan asked if she knew any pirates and she said, "No, I'm a lady" in a British accent.

Dan wanted a turkey leg for lunch. He went to the counter to buy it and the guy working it asked, "How big do you want it?" Dan replied, "How big do they come?" This is what he got.


After eating some of the turkey but not all of it he commented,
"This is my meat for the week." Evan wanted to try some and Megan his mom explained that he has a facination with eating meat on the bone.

Charlotte wore fairy wings just like Bella. The girls' souvenir was a parasol.

Popcorn Festival

This morning we went to the Beavercreek Popcorn Festival. It seeed to be like many of the other festivals we have attended where vendors are selling arts and crafts, and carnival food, politicians promoting their next elections, and representation from county organizations. Being the Popcorn Festival there were a few more than usual kettle corn vendors. I have to say that I have tried Oreville Rednbacher's Kettle Korn and I didn't really like it. Today's homemade kettle corn was excellent with just the right combination of sweet and salty.

Bella decided she would drive the fire truck and Charlotte was along for the ride.

Since we were at the Popcorn Festival, we had to get some popcorn. Xander wanted to hold it since he couldn't eat any.

Charlotte enjoyed her popcorn.

Bella liked the popcorn, but what she really wanted was the cotton candy. Charlotte had about 3 bites of the cotton candy and was done. Somehow in those 3 bites she managed to get it all over herself, even in her hair.

Xander is 4 months

Xander was such a happy boy this morning while we were waiting in the doctor's office. Little did he know what was to come. As it is with all the visits in the first year, there are multiple shots he must recieve at each visit and this appointment was no different.

He is not so happy now that mama striped him to his diaper in a very cold exam room and laid him on a very cold and hard scale. He weighed 12.85 lbs. That's almost a 2 lb. gain from his 2 month visit. He is now 26'' long which puts him in the 85%; however, his weight is in the 12%.

Bella's Allgery Testing

As most of you know, Bella is allergic to peanuts. We found out when she was 15 months old and had her tested last year at the age of three. Still allergic. We went yesterday to a pediatric allgerist here in OH recommended by our pediatrican. The doctor suggested that we not only test for peanuts but tree nuts too. This included almonds, walnuts, Brazil nuts, and coconut to which she tested positve. Seasme and cashews were fine. This being said, peanuts was my far the worst reaction which I expected. Now we know. No peanuts, no tree nuts. Speaking of peanuts, one evening after VBS Bella told me that she thought that there was another girl in her VBS class that was sick of peanuts too.

I love living in a smaller town!

This morning Dan was reading the paper to get an idea of what we could do today. The Holiday at Home parade started at 9:55am and attendance was predicted to reach 100,000. Without too much planning we decided to go and left the house at 9:15am. We drove to Kettering and parked in a neighborhood about 10 blocks from the parade route. When we arrived at the parade route we were able to park our stroller up front and next to the grand stand. Not only we were next to the grand stand but the announcers, the speakers and the TV crew were not too far. However, with this being a last minutes decision we didn't bring any chairs or a blanket to sit on or our camera to take pictures. We left after watching the parade for an hour, walked back to our van pulled out of our parking space and went on our way without any trouble. I don't know were the 100,00 people were that the paper predicted would show. I guess they could have counted the participants in the parade? Now Bella wants to be a cheerleader after seeing lots of them in the parade. I love living in a smaller town.