2017: Interesting So Far

 2017 started off with our furnace having trouble keeping up and then totally going poo.  We were without heat and our house got down to 50ish degrees.  We thought we might try to stay and just use space heaters.  But I couldn't take it so we ended up heading to Renssy and staying at my parents' house while they were away.

Even though we were in Renssy, we still came back every day because Tommy had a birthday party on Saturday.  His buddy Cooper was turning 6 and they were going to the trampoline park.  This was going to be Tommy's first big boy birthday party where we leave him and come back to pick him up.  I was excited for him.  He actually said on the way to the party, "I have a feeling like I'm scared to go to this party."  I figured it was just excitement/anxiety.  Well, maybe he knew more than we realized...

 There were just a few of them and they had a great time... until... Tommy ate the cupcakes at the party. I had talked to the birthday boy's mom about how Tommy can eat vegan cupcakes as long as they are nut-free.  She was really excited to order them for him because she knows he never gets to have the cupcakes at the party.   There was some sort of mix-up in communication either between me and the mom or the mom and baker.  I don't know what happened but the cupcake he ate started an allergic reaction.  We weren't there but they said he started sneezing and getting really phlegm-y.  Then he got really quiet.  He wasn't acting normal.  He didn't say anything to anyone.  They opened presents and then they went upstairs to play.  It wasn't long after that when he started vomiting all over their house. They called us and we raced back there.  He was done vomiting by the time we got back but he was still a mess.  The mom was crying and everyone felt so bad.  I felt especially bad for Cooper. :(  Tommy couldn't stop blowing his nose and feeling awful.  He still wasn't quite right but I was hoping he was recovering.  We packed up everything and headed out.  Since we were staying in Renssy, we decided not to leave town and instead we just headed toward hospital because he still wasn't acting normal.  His mouth was open like the last time when his tongue swelled but he kept saying he was totally fine.  By the time we got to the parking lot of the ER, he started vomiting again.   Ah yes, time to go inside.

We checked in very quickly.  You can still see how he does his mouth weird when he's in the middle of a reaction. I don't know if it's his lips or tongue that bothers him but he can't shut his mouth.  I kept asking him questions in the car about how he was feeling and what his mouth was doing to try to figure out if we needed to use the epi-pen or go in the ER.  At one point, he said, "Which one is the right answer?"  Poor kid.
For a Saturday evening, there were not that many people there.  We got room #1! They gave him anti-vomiting medicine, benadryl and a steroid.  No epi this time AND no shots! Whoo hoo!! It was a great ER visit, if you can call it that. Ha! He really recovered very quickly and they sent us home within a couple hours.  Awesome!

 Middle fingers up to food allergies!

Since he vomited all over his clothes and Andrew took Charlotte home to clean up the car and get new ones, he had nothing to wear.  So while we were waiting for them to come back and pick us up, I put him in my coat and hummed the Imperial March while we walked around. He just needed his Vader mask and he would have been complete!

So we learned a major lesson with all of this.  We should never let anyone be responsible for feeding our kid like that.  We can't put that liability on them.  It's just too complicated.  Plus everyone thinks it's gluten because that's the new big popular thing.  So now we know we should just continue to bring our own food for Tommy so we can be sure it's safe.  Lesson learned.

Back to our furnace issues... we came back to Lafayette on Sunday because the kids needed to go to school on Monday and we needed to meet the "furnace fixers" as the kids called them.  So we used Andrew's points and got a room and the Ho-tel, Mo-tel, Holiday Innnnn, say what? Check out our gorgeous view! 

 The kids were totally stoked about using the pool.  Too bad when we went down there, our key wouldn't let us in.  We know the pool is open, folks, so let us in! The manager finally let us in and swim we did!

 Pool time selfies! The pool was so warm.  It was awesome! We called and they said they warmed it up for us.  AWESOME!

Family pool selfie! Sweet goggles, Dada! 

 It was finally time to get out.  The kids were not excited to stop swimming but we had to eat dinner. Do you like our workout room mirror selfie? Ha!

We finally had a working furnace at 6:30 on Monday night.
I couldn't get close enough to the fire.  So cold. I sat in the living room in my winter coat drinking hot tea.  What a wimp! :)
But our furnace is working like a champ now! It actually heats the whole house and not just the downstairs.  I guess they are normally supposed to do that.  Good to know. :)
January 2017 is definitely the time we made lemonade out of the many lemons we were given this month.  Here's to the rest of 2017! It's gonna be great! :)

Polar Vortex of 2014

The Polar Vortex was coming and Andrew was going to be gone all week so the kids and I packed up and went to my parents.  I didn't want to be stuck at home by myself with two littles during this disaster.  It was a good thing too, as you shall see… 

 The kids moved into my parents house and pretty much took over the place right away. :-)

 Grandpa fell asleep watching Robin Hood for the 4 billionth time with Tommy.  Yay Netflix!

 Charlotte was so tired but she still wanted to see if Robin Hood ended up with Maid Marian.  Must. Not. Fall. Asleep. Must. Watch…

 Grandma got out Uncle Adam's old toys and Tommy had a ball! Teenage Mutenant Injun Tuttles!! Batman! Legos! Jets! Planes! Cars! Where does Grandma have rooms for all these bins of toys???

Mama got to play with toys too.  Grandma got out my old American girl doll collection.  So cool.

 We spent a lot of time under blankets watching movies.

 Charlotte did too! Only she learned a new trick which you will see in the next post.

 Grandma risked the SUBZERO TEMPERATURES (Liar, Liar) to take a super cool picture of the Sun Dog.

 We took baths! (I seem to remember a similar picture of someone else we know from 3 years ago… )

Here's Tommy taking a bath at Grandma's from 2011!

 Here's Tommy taking a bath in 2014! My, how he's grown!

We all did a lot of lounging while we were stuck snowed in the house.  

Tommy spent some quality time going around and sitting on everything in the shop.  The four-wheeler is the perfect size!

 We also checked out the boat!

Then after the snow emergency was lifted, we headed back to our house.  I wanted my parents to come back with me just to make sure the house was in good shape after the awful weather.  I had a feeling something was going to go wrong (because something usually does when Andrew leaves).  I was right!

During the extreme cold, our furnace had a wire come loose. The house hadn't been heated in who knows how long.  The temperature in the house when we walked in was 40 degrees.  It was like we were still outside.  Everything in the house was freezing!!! The countertops were so cold, you couldn't leave your hand resting on them for more than 5 seconds. I couldn't take off my shoes because the floors were so cold.  My dad was able to fix the furnace and get it running again.  So my parents, the kids, and I all left for two hours hoping the temps would rise quickly.  We got back to the house after 2 hours and it was 44 degrees.  It was going to be a long night.  I got out the space heater and electric blanket for Tommy's room and put him to bed. We had a fire in the fire place.  But man, it takes the house a LONG TIME to warm up from 40 degrees.  In the morning, it was 59 degrees.  Are you kidding me?? Sheesh.

 Charlotte didn't mind.  She wore layer upon layer and was perfectly happy.  Phew!

Something else I discovered before I went to bed were these water stains on the ceiling in the kitchen.  Oh shizz.   I shut the water off and went to bed.  What else could I do?

The next morning, it got bigger. :(
We called a plumber assuming it was a burst pipe and then spent the night in a hotel room.  (Turns out, a lot of people had plumbing issues after the cold temps so we had to wait a day for them to come out.)

The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel. They had individual TVs for each of the tables.  Tommy LOVED watching Mickey in his Star Wars jammies in the restaurant.  I'm sure people got a kick out of that. :-)
The plumbers came out and said they believed it was only a leak and they were able to fix it right away.  We were extremely lucky that there wasn't more damage.  We can do the leftover repairs, thank goodness!
So even though it seemed disastrous at the time, it turned out the problems were not that bad and we survived! Whoo hoo!

All I have to say is thank goodness for my parents! Mom and Dad to the rescue! AGAIN. :-)  Thanks Ma and Pa! I seriously can't thank you enough!