Vacation Pictures and Tim

Well, first of all, since we came back from vacation Tim has been having a lot of pain in his shoulders and arms and numbness radiating down his arms. Today it was bothering him so much that he called his neurologist and at first they said there were no appointments available until September. Then they called him back at lunch and said COME IN IMMEDIATELY. His dr. is very concerned and scheduled him an emergency MRI tomorrow morning at 9am. He said if it gets any worse to go to the ER immediately so they can do an MRI right away, because he is concerned about permanent damage. Tim has a herniated disc in his neck at the top of his spine and it's likely that it's become aggravated. The MRI tomorrow is to check the disc and also to check his brain to rule out Multiple Sclerosis. I'm not freaking out yet, just because there's no point to it. Tim is supposed to call his neurologist tomorrow after the MRI so the dr. can read the MRI and decide what to do next. He gave Tim a prescription for darvoset three times a day to take the edge off the pain. I just hope that this doesn't lead down a path where Tim is taking lots and lots of painkillers all the time and is always out of it. That would suck for him :(.

Ok, onto happier things. Vacation pictures! I have about a million, so if they take forever to load, that's why. I'm going to try and do this in order, but Blogger has issues with my picture uploading for some reason.

We started out our first day at the Zoo!


Savino is not too pleased to be in the stroller, but he doesn't fuss too much.


Everyone is ready to go!


This is what you get when you tell Tim to smile. Uh thanks hun.


Haley is excited and ready to go!


Haley and the giant golden frog (well, part of it). The Zoo's theme was Year Of The Frog.


Savino says "Eh. Whatever.


The Extinction Bell in the Asian animals part. We didn't get to see the entire zoo because we had too much to do in one day, so we started with the Asian exhibit.


I think these were supposed to represent extinct animals. I don't really know. I just thought they looked cool!


Monkey!


Haley taking a picture. I love this picture.


Very. Large. Bats. They are the largest species of bat and they were HUGE. The picture doesn't do them justice!


And an extremely large snake as well. It was enormous. I have no idea what you feed a snake that big and I'm not sure I want to know!


Mom pointed these out to me, I would have missed them otherwise! Paper cranes lined the top of the covered bridge.


They were actually really cool.


Goats!! I was not surprised at the spots these goats got themselves into. Having owned a goat, we learned quickly that they can scale ANYTHING.


The babies were so cute! They made me miss our Billy. :(


Tim and Savino were ready to move on I think.


Haley goofing on the hammerhead statue.


And getting in the obligatory drumming picture!


In the "Shores" section (which is part of the Aquarium), this ray was extremely friendly and just chilled out pressed up against the glass, occasionally eating some lettuce.


Tim checking out the manatees in the back of the tank.


Giant tortoises. They were really really big! I think Tim could have ridden on the back of one!


Savino was just about done with the zoo. It was too hot! Poor kid, he was such a good sport about it all too.


He was about to be done with it all though. Fits were coming!


Haley clutching "Star", her new Build A Bear on the way to the hotel.


The next day, after some serious bickering and getting lost in downtown Columbus, we made it to COSI!


Poseidon means we are in the "Oceans" exhibit! (The water you can see shooting is from water cannons that are activated by your hand passing through a laser beam)


Haley is loving it!


Savino is giving Daddy the Look for messing with his hair.


A submersible the kids could climb down into. Haley chickened out at the last minute and I didn't blame her! It was so cramped inside that I was getting claustrophobic looking at it.


The floor of the "Oceans" was so pretty, there were sparkley specks all through it. I am a big dork and had to have a picture of it.


Tim is playing with this rocket that zoomed overhead in the "Spaces" exhibit. Savino was entranced.


Mom was watching as Haley climbed into a spaceship simulator.


After a minute, Haley proclaimed the simulator "Boring".


I was playing with the bottle rocket launcher.


It shot a 2 liter soda bottle twenty feet into the air with a huge explosion!


You're getting verrrry sleeepy... I don't remember what the scientific name for one of these things was, but it was cool to look at.


In the "Gadgets" area, Tim is playing with a laser table, and Haley is mugging for the camera!


Watching people hoist themselves into the air in the pulley chairs.


Savino and I take a break in the nursing room. They had a really excellent infant/toddler area that was totally safe for the kids to roam around and play, and a really nice private nursing area that we took advantage of. Savino loved playing with all the toys and I appreciated the leather glider rockers!


The "Progress" exhibit took you through two different time periods, the first being an Old West sort of street.


The street lamps flickered just like old school gas lanterns.


I thought this street sign was pretty cool. One side of the street was Hope Street and the other was Fear Street, I think it was a commentary on how people view change.


The other time period was the 60's!


Haley will dish you up a 25c ice cream sundae!


I played (and lost) a 10c game of pinball at this working pinball machine.


Last up was the Science Park outside where you could roll a 5 ton marble sphere that floated on a bed of water.


Haley is excited to get on the centripal (?) generator aka The Gravitron. Tim and my mom both thought she was gonna freak on it, but she loved it!


Even though she said she was fine, I still made her sit down for a minute afterwards.


She wanted to go on it again. That's my girl!


The giant lever! You could lift an old Cadillac, I thought it was very cool.


Tim is not amused at me taking his picture, we went on a picnic to the local park.


Cheyenne just wants someone's scraps.


Savino is having fun just banging anything he can!


Mom was probably tired of me and my camera by this point!


Grammalynn getting love from Savino, cuddling in the rocker


Savino says "Let me get that tongue for you Gramma!"


Now Gramma is getting his tongue! Silly!


I took advantage of having everyone in matching shirts and took some portraits while my mom was here. This is one of my favorites.


Aw, I like this one too though!


Savino says OK, I'm done!


Grammalynn and Haley


Giving Savino some kisses!





Whew. That's all of them.

Well, it's been awhile! Savino had an up and down night again last night so I am feeling it today. Tim has spent the last four days out at the Little House working but it is going so slowly. *sighs* We were hoping he would be done by now, but he still has to finish the baseboards around the bottom of the new kitchen floor, put down the peel-n-stick tile, reinstall the kitchen sink and cabinet, relocate the dishwasher, put a new threshold in for the kitchen door, and move two couches out of the house. I have to vaccuum and steam clean the carpets and put up curtains in the bedroom, but all of that I can do once Tim is done and I can go out at night and do it after the kids are in bed. Actually I might go out and do some tomorrow. Tim had the a/c running today with the doors closed and it wasn't too hot for the kids, though they were both excruciatingly bored after a little while. Poor Tim. I hope he is able to finish enough up tomorrow that our renter can at least start moving stuff in. At least the floor is down, that is a huge improvement over bare dirt and concrete.

Ok, so pictures. Misc. pictures, some from a picnic we went on to the park, some from portraits.



Haley and Savino, who won't look in the right direction!




Miss Haley




Savino banging with his cup.




Tim, giving me his usual "Must you?" look. Thanks hun!




Cheyenne! The dogs were pleased to be included in the picnic.




Savino, giving Cheyenne's leash an experimental tug.




Swinging and watching Haley who was on the tire swing next to him.

So. Yeah. My days have been pretty lame lately, we have breakfast together and then Tim leaves for the Little House and we hang out and then we go to the store after lunch and take Tim some lunch and then come home and make dinner and I get the kids into bed. That's it. Scintillating. Well, you do what you have to. It's just not been much of a vacation for Tim. I think he is kinda looking forward to going back to work where at least he will not have to do brute manual labor. He is so irritated by all the work he has to get done, but this is what comes of him putting it off and off and off. I am highly doubtful that he will get everything he needs to get done done by tomorrow night. I don't know, maybe it will go faster now that he has the floor done, but I doubt it. At least it is getting closer to being done.

Savino is beginning to shun the baby food. I have mixed feelings about this, on one hand I think he is a little young to start really eating table food, on the other I am ready to be done with baby food myself. He is almost 11 months old. I am kinda in denial about this. Soon he will be a YEAR OLD. He has started cruising around holding onto things, he can go from side to side on the couch and along the inside of his play yard. He will stand and just hold on with one hand so his balance is starting to get a lot better, soon enough he will be standing unaided. He has one molar starting to break through the gums, his back left one year molar, part of it has already erupted but it is taking its sweet time about coming all the way through. He is constantly chewing on his fingers!

Our summer is already half over, it seems impossible. I am ready to get back to our summer schedule though, now that Tim is going back to work in a few days, we can get back to going to the library and the pool and bowling. We only have about five weeks left so we have to cram it all in!

Hm, I think I hear the baby stirring so I better wrap this up. I suppose things are finally starting to get back to normal. I'll have to do all vacation pictures soon. And I did a DITL but I haven't even had a chance to edit it yet, and it's been literally almost two weeks. Oh well.

They Were Doing It In Texas

It was a pretty low key day. The most exciting thing we did was go to the grocery store. Woohoo. Tim was on call and was called in NINE times. Yay for the money but boo for being gone all the time. On the bright side, that means his next check will have the pay for 12 calls on it. Which is good because I will need that money to buy his birthday/anniversary presents.

T-minus 3 days and counting until VACATION. All two and a half days of it hehe. I probably shouldn't be getting all excited over it, but I am nonetheless. We made reservations to rent a minivan to drive for those two and a half days and got a sweet discount because Tim asked for the hospitals discount and it saved us like $70. Gotta love that! At least the hospital is good for SOMETHING. We are supposed to be able to get a discount on our AT&T wireless bill, everyone else at the hospital does but Tim has been unable to get AT&T to figure it out and give it to us. That sucks because it's a substantial savings, it would be like $30 a month off. *shrugs* Oh well.

I have so much cleaning to do that it's ridiculous. I need to sweep and mop the entire downstairs, dust, take the recycling to the dropoff, de-cat fur the house, vaccuum the downstairs and upstairs again, wash and fold and put away about ten loads of laundry, clean and organize the guest room, clean Haley's bathroom, pack for me and Savino and Haley (including packing baby food, diapers, wipes, formula, bottles, etc.). I am leaving something out too.. Oh, do the dishes and clean the kitchen. Make arrangements for someone to feed and let out the dogs (probably Eleni). The litterboxes need cleaned and the mudroom could stand to be organized as well, but it's not as immediate. I have like two days to do all of this in because we are picking up my mom from the airport on Wednesday afternoon and will be gone most of the day and then we leave the next morning. Yeah. Good times. Just shoot me now!

I have become the crazy coupon lady. I have a coupon organizer STUFFED with coupons. I am resisting the urge to go buy something just because I have a coupon for it. On the bright side, I haven't bought groceries or anything at CVS without using at least four coupons in a week or two and I have saved a good bit of money already. I have managed to actually make money at CVS and have about $30 to spend over the next month in ExtraCare bucks. They have diapers on sale this week, so I don't have to worry about buying diapers for awhile. That rocks. Tim is entirely bemused by my coupon mania, but he asked me today as we were leaving the store how much we saved on our groceries ($5). If only you could use a coupon for gas.

I have become addicted to the Green channel. I watched a show today while nursing Savino that tested a hybrid truck vs. a gas Silverado and I was surprised that the hybrid was actually pretty decent. While 24 mpg or 30 or whatever they get is hardly impressive, it's better than 10. I'd still rather have a 4 dr. Prius. I saw one at the gas station about a month ago and it was easily the size of my Malibu and it looked cool too. I should have asked the dude who was filling it up how often he had to fill up. I think I would be able to stretch it out if I had a hybrid, I can get pretty good gas mileage in the Malibu just by driving smart. And lately I've been not driving much at all, we don't run around very much. It still SUCKS to fill up though, I put in $15 and didn't even get half a tank the other day. *sighs* Once we have the Malibu paid off, maybe then we can get a hybrid.

Savino and I fell asleep on the couch this evening and it started really storming. I mostly just dozed, but Savino passed clean out. I put on the Boobahs and at first he half sat up while nursing so he could watch it, but then I managed to convince him to lay down next to me on the couch and he could see the top half of the TV past me while he was nursing, so he just slowly passed out and then fell asleep hard. He slept for about an hour but I woke him up when it was almost 7 and time for dinner. I think he woke up even more tired than he went to sleep, he was looking mighty sleepy at the table. Hopefully he will sleep well tonight. I am definitely definitely tired.

On that note, 9 pictures for you and I am going to bed.



My handsome boy!



My moody girl.




Therron!




Feed. Me. NOW!




4th of July, Family style




Haley and Tim




Eleni and Therron




My MIL's hooch! Wild Cherry!

I Say A Little Prayer For You

Just a brief one, my eyes are slamming shut, it was a long day.

I am celebrating tonight because, with the help of a very easy to understand tutorial, I figured out how to replace the broken zippers in the five pairs of jeans I had sitting at the bottom of my closet with broken zippers. I am SO HAPPY. Two of the pairs of jeans I have never worn. I bought them at a sale at my favorite discount clothing store, they sell seconds and end of the season lines and irregulars, etc. from lots of different stores. The clothes are great, but sometimes there's some small thing wrong with them, a snag or stain or slashed tag or broken zipper. I bought two pairs of jeans at one of the summer sales before I got pregnant with Savino and didn't check the zippers. Yeah, mistake. I held onto them though in the hopes that one day I would find someone who knew how to replace the zippers, or figure it out myself because I got the jeans for such a steal, I didn't want to throw them away or donate them. Well, thank god for my inability to part with clothing because I just literally doubled the amount of jeans I have by spending $5 on zippers. I don't have to go shopping for new jeans! It seems like a small thing, but I am so so so happy. I haven't finished putting in the new zippers, I still have a few pairs of jeans to go, but it only took me maybe an hour to do the first one because I didn't quite know what I was doing and had to stop and check the tutorial a few times. Now I know how to do it, it seems so easy.

Part of what took so long with the first pair of jeans was in trying to figure out which one of the feet on my sewing machine was a zipper foot. Um yeah. I plead ignorance. I have never used anything but the foot that was on it and didn't know what was what. I had to sit and Google for a bit to figure out which one it was and how to use it. At least now I know!

Our town. So dumb. They had their fireworks display TONIGHT. And here I was planning to do the whole fireworks thing on the 4th. You know. When everybody does. I think there's been some sort of collaboration with the other towns around here so that everyone's is on a different day and our towns happened to be tonight. I'm kinda pissed because had I known, we would changed our plans for tonight to accomodate them. Fortunately, we could see the fireworks just fine from our front yard and Tim went upstairs and woke Haley up to watch them from her bedroom. It seemed like it was much shorter this year than last year, but it was alright. So now I don't know what we are going to be doing for the 4th other than going to Tim's moms.

Ok, too tired to keep my eyes open. I am for bed. Me and my newly zippered jeans!