Farewell to the Farm

Saturday morning my sister and I got up early and headed to Odessa, MO (which is just east of KC) to spend one last night with my nana at her house before she moves to Winfield in a few weeks.  There was still a little bit of packing to be done and a few boxes that needed to be labeled. 

The land where the house sits is the same land my nana grew up on as a child and where her mother lived until she passed away.  Then in the mid-70’s my nana and papa retired and moved from Independence, MO to the farm.  This is the house they built.   

I took my camera so we could have a few pictures of the house and surrounding land.  I’m hoping to put together a collage to give to her for Christmas.  I tried to take pictures of things that would be meaningful like . . .

the old trash can she has used to burn her trash

the laundry line where she has hung all of her clothes to dry over the years

 

the old well                                           

the cellar                                

her mailbox                                   

and I couldn’t leave out a picture of the newspaper that she throws out by the road every day for her neighbors to pick up and read when she is done with it.

We had a great “girls” weekend and even managed to go out to dinner and do a little shopping.  Even though it’s going to be hard to say goodbye to the farm it will be so nice to have nana closer so we can see her more often.

Bored

We finally have a quiet night at home and Grant is bored. All of the neighbor kids seem to be busy with fall sports and homework so there is nobody outside to play with. I suggested a few ideas of some things we could do together but none of them interested him. So I dusted off the camera and took a few pictures of what he is doing to occupy himself.

So far he has practiced some fancy footwork with the soccer ball in the backyard.

Shot baskets . . .

and practiced a few tricks on his scooter.

Spiro is having a rough night too. He's been laying in his cage since we got home. Poor guy had to go to the vet earlier today (which is always a tramatic experience) and get a few shots. He's got some serious allergy issues right now and has been scratching himself to death. Hopefully the new meds and the steroid shot he got today will make him feel better soon.

Grant’s Birthday

It’s so hard for me to believe that my baby boy is 9 years old today.  He started out so tiny . . ..  . . and look at him now!!!  Last night we got together with almost all of our family to celebrate.  Jeff made homemade meatballs and spaghetti sauce and we had chocolate birthday cake.

There were lots of presents too!!!

 

I can’t decide who liked this gift more, Grant or Daddy or Uncle Nick???

 

Tonight we went to Target to return his Guitar Hero 5 game that wouldn’t work and they were out so he exchanged it for Call of Duty , which he and daddy are happily playing together as I type.  We also let the birthday boy pick where he wanted to go for dinner so we ate at Shorty Small’s with Granny.

Swine Flu????

Believe it or not we may have a case of swine flu right here in our house.  It all began when Grant woke up on Thursday morning running a fever of 101 and he was coughing and sneezing.  Luckily Jeff was in town this week so he stayed home with him.  When I called his school to let them know he would be absent they asked what his symptoms were and then told me I needed to call our family doctor and get him in because all of his symptoms were conducive with the H1N1 virus.

Jeff loaded him up and took him to see Dr. Scott.  After a negative strep test he said that Grant most likely just had a virus and told us to give him Mucinex to break up the congestion in his chest, over the counter cough medicine and Tylenol to keep his fever reduced.  We did that all day on Thursday and he woke up on Friday morning fever free and hardly coughing so I went ahead and sent him to school.  Now that I look back that probably wasn’t the best idea.

After school on Friday he was coughing quite a bit when he got to my classroom and it continued to worsen throughout the evening.  He also began running a low grade fever again.  With the help of Robitussin and Mucinex he finally fell asleep around 12:30 am and got a good nights rest.  He woke up this morning saying he felt great but I could tell in his eyes that he wasn’t 100% yet. 

There’s one more part to this story that I haven’t shared yet.  Grant’s birthday is on Monday and we had a camp out party planned for tonight in the backyard with 7 of his friends.  He knew that if he wasn’t feeling better that we wouldn’t be able to do the party.  After looking at the forecast this morning, which called for rain all evening and night, and seeing how puny he was Jeff and I made an executive decision to cancel the camp out and just have the kids over for a bbq and ice cream sundaes like we had planned and then take them all to see a movie and then home.  That way Grant wouldn’t have late night and he would still get to celebrate with his friends. 

So started the task of calling everyone to tell them the new plan.  After 3 calls I spoke with Nick’s dad, who is a doctor in the same office as our family physician, and he explained to me that Grant most likely has the H1N1 virus.  There are so many cases now that the state is no longer even sending swabs to the offices to be done on patients.  As long as the patient is not running a 102 fever and having chest pain with their cough there is nothing that they are doing other than the course of treatment that we are doing on Grant.  He also told me that his two nephews who were in town last weekend were given a probable diagnosis with the virus earlier this week (although they were not swabbed either) and since Grant was with them last weekend he had probably been exposed. 

After hearing all of this news Jeff and I decided that even though Grant would be upset it wasn’t a good idea to have all of the kids around Grant.  Plus, what parent would want to expose their child to swine flu???   So we ended up postponing the party for tonight and we will try again in a few weeks.  Hopefully by then this nasty virus will have run its course and Grant will be able to enjoy his birthday party.

He’s obviously been watching the news lately because he’s pretty sure he needs to wear a mask so he doesn’t get anyone else sick.  I picked him up a package of these while I was at Wal-Mart today.

We feel awful about him missing out on all the birthday fun he was expecting tonight so we let him open one of his gifts a little early.     

 

It’s a new padded NERF case for his DS.  I was shocked at how excited he was!!!

Labor Day Weekend

What a fabulous three day weekend. I wish it didn't have to end!!! We had a great time with friends and family and even managed to get a few things done around the house.

Friday night we met up with our friends the Stephen's at The Alley out east for some pizza, beer and bowling. Grant and Alec are the same age so it's always lots of fun when we get together. It was also an exciting night for me because I bowled 5 strikes in our first game, 3 of which were in the 10th frame. Jeff tried to take my picture but it was a shot from behind so I'm obviously not posting that!!! Somehow with all my strikes I still came in 3rd place. How does that happen???

Here are the boy's being silly.



















Saturday morning we headed to the tennis courts in Goddard and hit the ball around for a little bit and then came home to do some yard work. Grant has been begging to mow the yard so Jeff decided to let him try with the push mower.

























































































I couldn't resist this shot. Check out the lines. Needless to say, Jeff had to go over the backyard with the riding mower once Grant was finished up. I think he's going to need a little more practice for he goes into the lawn mowing business.



















Sunday afternoon we spent the majority of the day helping my grandparents pack. They are moving to Winfield next week to be closer to my parents. I don't think they understand that they are downsizing because they are having alot of trouble getting rid of stuff. We were supposed to be working on a pile to go to good will and one of the few thing that actually ended up in the pile was this hat . . . which Grant took a liking to.
























We also got to see Jeff's uncle Bob and aunt Kathy who were in town this weekend visiting from Topeka. We ended up hanging out over at his dad's house Saturday and Sunday night. Somehow I forgot to take my camera both nights.

Well, that about wraps up our weekend. Thank goodness it's only 4 days until next weekend!!