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End of vacation blues

Posted on May 15, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

By the time you are reading this, we will be spending our last day at Walt Disney World. I will likely be twitching a lot from internet withdrawal, but family time with Mickey Mouse is well worth it. Of course, Saturday will be the plane ride home and by the night I will be mostly unpacked and ready to do tons of laundry on Sunday.

So my question to you is quite simple this week:

How do you ease end of vacation blues?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. This is our first family vacation since we have had the kids, so it is going to be hard to remember how to deal with this after the fact.

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #48

Categories:
Aloha Friday Disney family travel vacation

Change within hours

Posted on April 20, 2009 9:33 am by TheAngelForever

Last week Kindergarten Kid was on Spring Break. We spent a lot of time outside enjoying the nice weather. We even went to the park a few times

Who would have known that with these smiles on Saturday morning, so much would change in a small amount of time.

Not even two hours after these photos of the boys were taken so much happened. We had an uncontrolled fever with JSL and my FIL called with the horrible news about Grandma. Saturday night and all day yesterday we fought to keep JSL’s fever down. Thank goodness last night as I sat on a bed in my old room, JSL was covered in sweat. I am pretty sure we are now fever free. It looks like the 3 doses of the antibiotic may be kicking the nasty ear infection. Now we are just waiting to see when we need to go for a follow up check. Pretty important since the infection was so bad and our Disney World trip is just around the corner.

Now I am off to see if the little guy will eat something that is at Nana and Papa’s house. JL took the train yesterday and is with his family. Grandma’s funeral is this morning and he will be coming home tomorrow afternoon. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes and condolences that you have left. Sorry I am way behind on replying to everyone. I think you all understand that a lot is going on right now.

Categories:
bad news family jl jsl nhl photos sick kid weekend

We love you Grandma

Posted on April 19, 2009 8:21 am by TheAngelForever

Yesterday afternoon just before 1:30 the phone was ringing. I was on my cell phone and told Aunt M that I had to get off because I thought it was the doctor calling back about JSL. Then my heart sank. I saw the phone number and it was my in-laws. My in-laws NEVER call during shabbos.

I answered the phone and my FIL asked me to guess why he was calling. I immediately asked what was wrong with Grandma since I knew she had been sick and to Urgent Care the othe day.

A little history: JL’s grandmother, my FIL’s mother, has been living with my in-laws for several months now. She had not been doing well at her new complex and went to stay with them temporarily. That changed when they realized she needed assisted living. Rather than put her into a nursing home she moved in permanently with them.

My father-in-law floored me. He quickly told me that Grandma had passed away. I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I put JL onto the phone to talk to his father briefly. The details were sketchy. Apparently my father-in-law had gotten home from shul and had my mother-in-law make sure Grandma was up for lunch. She went to the table to eat some lunch. Suddenly she told them she didn’t feel good. Those were the last words from her mouth as she passed away at the table with them holding my mother-in-law’s hand.

Grandma was 94 years old in October, the last time the boys and I saw her. We went to celebrate her birthday with the entire extended family. JL saw Grandma when he made a trip alone to see her at the start of February. He wrote about seeing her on his blog.

Grandma’s funeral will be tomorrow early afternoon. We are still trying to figure out the details of JL getting there. Right now we are battling a very high fever with JSL. We went to Urgent Care yesterday afternoon and he has a raging ear infection. With Motrin and Tylenol in him last night we were struggling to keep his temperature below 102. Scarry range since it was exactly three weeks ago that he had two febrile seizures in a 30 hour span of time.

JL will be at his Grandma’s funeral one way or another. I also know that NHL and JSL will have all of our beautiful photos to remind them of the times that they saw and spent time with their very special Great-Grandma M.

Hamming it up with Great Grandma

Grandma . . . we love you.

Categories:
bad news decisions family jl looking back photos sick kid

Views from Passover 2009

Posted on April 14, 2009 1:06 pm by TheAngelForever

Each year Passover preparations begin long before the holiday is actually here. We are religious enough that we change out our pots/pans and from pure laziness use disposable silverware/plates. We put all of our chametz into one area and use certain cabinets that have been readied for Passover. This year we thought about what to make for Seders in case we had them at home. It was a good thing since we found out the Sunday before that we would be doing them at our house. Our boys have no clue what is done behind the scenes for Passover. I have to admit that I did not realize much of this until I met JL. Sure, my relatives did all of these preparations, but I only recall going to their homes for the Seders with the rest of the extended family.

When all was said and done we were ready to go for both of the Seders last Wednesday and Thursday. We made chicken, sweet and sour turkey meatballs, oven roasted sweet potatoes, cauliflower and the traditional items for the seder itself (hard boiled eggs, gefilte fish, and charoset). We ran out of time to make matzah ball soup, but added an amazing quinoa dish for the second night.

Now I welcome you to our table to see how my family celebrated at our Passover Seders last week.

Here are two views of our table.

A closer look at our Seder plate all set with the tradiational items:

The boys are lucky. Aunt S and Uncle M bought them some amazing fun items to have during the Seder. Check out NHL’s place at the table and a closer view of the kid’s Seder plates.

Check out all of the extra items that they also received. There are the Passover Ten Plagues Finger Puppets (great to go along with the 4 Question Finger Puppets that we already had), Passover counting book (adorable for JSL), Passover Memory Game, Bag of Plagues, Flip Frogs, and 10 Plagues masks. More about the 10 Plagues Finger Puppets coming tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday.

The boys enjoyed trying most things. Here they are eating the celery dipped in salt water.

While NHL was busy getting the 10 plague finger puppets in order for their part in the Seder, JSL had fun playing with the 4 Questions. NHL even started singing in Hebrew showing us that he has learned a lot at Hebrew School already.

Our only little glitch in the Seder was when JL got quite ill. He had a little too much horseradish along with his wine and turned quite white with massive hot flashes. We finally turned on the fan and he felt better. Of course this photo taken earlier is a little funny looking back at it.

Overall, we had two nice Seders at our house. It was great ,having our boys, Nana, Papa and Aunt T here with us. Still, it will be nice in the future to be able to celebrate with more of our extended family.

Categories:
family holidays interesting jl jsl nhl photos

Afikomen fun time

Posted on April 11, 2009 11:42 am by TheAngelForever

Dear NHL and JSL,

Thank you both for being sources of joy and entertainment during the Passover Seders on Wednesday and Thursday night. It made Daddy and me smile seeing both of you enjoying yourselves with Nana, Papa and Aunt T. Of course, you were both extra busy with all of the special items that Aunt S and Uncle M sent for you to have during the Seder (photos of those coming later).

JSL, you wanted to do everything that your big brother was doing. If he closed his eyes while Daddy was hiding the Afikomen, you did the same thing (albeit while looking out the cracks in your fingers). You gobbled up gefilte fish and were not too interested in anything else until the goodies came out after dinner.

NHL you helped to read from the Haggadah and even sang part of the four questions in Hebrew. You were brave and tried the bitter herbs and kept trying to figure out when it was time to taste more of the traditional items from the Seder plate.