Family

I’m sure by now, wherever you are in the world, you’re hearing about the deep freeze here in the U.S.  It’s COLD out there!  We had a quick visit to Iowa to visit TheFirstChild and SweetiePie and managed to drive home in the snowstorm.

The snow got heavier the farther east we drove and, surprisingly, we have more snow at home than anywhere along our route.  It’s surprising because we seem to be just barely out of the lake effect snow belt and it’s rare for us to get this much snow in one storm.

You’ve seen the view out our back window before and here’s how it looks tonight.

It’s SO beautiful and I LOVE it!  It could be a little warmer though — I think we’re currently at -15 F and depending on which version of the forecast you read, we’ll barely clear 0 degrees F tomorrow.  Brrrr!

Oh well, enough about the cold (and just how thankful are we for heating tonight, hmmmm?)  One of the reasons we went to see the kids was to see the new baby.  I’m a grandma.  Sort of.  Meet Winston!

Isn’t he a cutie?  He’s a goldendoodle puppy and at only 11 weeks, he’s pretty big already.  He’s such a sweet little puppy and he sure loves his “parents”.  Here he is teething on his mother’s fingers.

There’s some intense puppy training going on there.  He’s already housebroken (such a good boy), can sit and shake hands,  and he’s working really hard on confining his chewing to one of his 5,000 toys.  He doesn’t like having his picture taken very much, but here he is, showing me his good side.  (We know this because the other side was blurry.)

And, of course, I had to show him how to knit.  It was hard to get a good picture of him — he was always on the move.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time with him — it made me miss having a dog around.  I came home and puppy-roughed up on the Scruffster and he bit me.  Cats are no fun!

Oh — hey — did you notice those cute HOT pink boots in the first picture?

SweetiePie got new Hunter boots while I was visiting and she taught me a clever new trick for boot buying — order your boots in kiddie sizes! They’re a LOT cheaper and just as cute. We went shopping with the hot pink hunters and you wouldn’t believe all the comments she got. I thought the girls in the LuLuLemon store were going to come unglued! That little trick will work for other brands of boots too {cough}Sorel{cough}.

Ok Peeps — Stay Warm. When I come back I’ll start some Christmas super secret sewing project sharing (say that 10 times fast) — better late than never!
XOXO,
Anna

I hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend, especially if you’re in the US or Australia or other places where it’s Mother’s Day weekend.  We’ve had the very best Mother’s Day Weekend, courtesy of this:

TheFirstChild is now Dr.FirstChild and it’s been a fun and emotional weekend.  We all gathered for the looong graduation ceremony and then SweetiePie treated us to a wonderful lunch back at their apartment.  She did such a great job preparing all the food and cute Dr./Graduation decorations.

She served Ham and Turkey Croissants, veggies and dip, ugly bean dip, a hot chicken dip, mini cinnamon rolls, oatmeal raisin cookies, and a decorated cake.

She thought of everything — right down to a champagne toast to celebrate the new graduate.  It was all delicious and hit the spot.

At the beginning of Med School, just after the white coat ceremony, I posted the picture below of SweetiePie and TheFirstChild.  It was the beginning of their journey and I love that picture because I’d inadvertently caught the construction sign in the photo.  It hardly seems possible that the construction phase is now over.  SweetiePie and TheFirstChild probably don’t share our disbelief — it was long and grueling and I’m sure they’re glad it’s over.  They’ve taught our little family a lot about hard work and perseverance and it’s been amazing (if not painful at times) to watch.  A few days ago, TheFirstChild posted on his facebook page and said “As of this very second, I AM DONE WITH MEDICAL SCHOOL! The first thing that comes to mind is that it was slightly more difficult than I first anticipated.”  He’s a funny guy.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how proud we are of our little chicks.  And, after last fall, how lucky we felt that all of our local family was together to celebrate the reward for all of their hard work. I sure do Love these boys.

I am One. Lucky. Mom.

Happy Mother’s Day!
XOXO,
Anna

Phew!  It’s been awhile since I’ve posted — thanks to all you sweet invisible friends who have checked in on me.  They say, “Into every life, a little rain must fall” and here in ThimbleannaLand, we’ve had a Monsoon.  We’ve been on a roller coaster ride through Hell in the last two weeks and I’m hopeful and cautious to say “Every little thing’s gonna be alright.”

On October 11th, I took BigDaddy in for a little procedure and his heart stopped — which landed him in cardiac intensive care for two weeks.  If you’re a long time reader, you know that BigDaddy is the heart of our family.  He’s funny with a huge heart and we all adore him.  The first week was up and down and full of tears and after 30 hours off of the vent, he ended up back on it.  Then, the second week was even worse — capped off by calling the kids home and being assigned a palliative care doc.  It seemed that we spent a lot of time trying to convince medical staff that just because you’re in your 80’s, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have some life left in you.  MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I decided we should write a book about the experience — I’d like to title it, “Bucking the System When They Already Think You’re Dead”.

BigDaddy is finally out of ICU and making slow, but sure progress. We couldn’t be more relieved — and thrilled. MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I spend all of our time either at the hospital or eeking a few hours out at our jobs. We were sent an angel in the form of Aunt Annie.  She’d had an already planned trip and her plane arrived just two hours after BigDaddy’s ill-fated procedure.  She ended up extending her trip and we absolutely couldn’t have done it without her.  She was such a huge help and support to MeMum.  She left yesterday and we miss her already.

Anyway, there hasn’t been any time for blog reading or posting.  There has been hospital room sock knitting though.  Maybe I’ll take a picture of new socks on a hospital bed LOL.  The next few weeks will still be sparse on-line — we’ll be concentrating on helping BigDaddy get well and back home.    I hope you’re all having a beautiful fall (or spring if you’re down under) — it looks like it was gorgeous here — as viewed from hospital room windows!  ;-D

XOXO,
Anna

Whew!  I hope you’ve had a good weekend.  We’ve had a great weekend here in ThimbleannaLand.   Yesterday we did The Color Run.  It was Super Duper FUN!

Here’s the motley crew before the race.  Looking all clean, happy and innocent.  Ignorance is Bliss.

It was a perfect weather day.  A little cloudy and breezy and not too hot.  Here’s a shot about 2/3rds of the way through the run, looking into Indianapolis.  You can see how crowded the run was.  The red flags on the bridge are where they had a color station.  Every kilometer, they had people positioned to spray color on you as you ran by.  See the dust cloud?  It was dusty at those color stations!

Then, at the end of the race, everyone throws their color packet into the air.  Here’s SweetiePie giving her packet a toss.

And here’s the crowd.  SweetiePie took this picture — my shots of the final blowout didn’t turn out — (so sad!)

It’s a big, fun, messy business.

Here’s the aftermath.  Everyone is still really happy, but no longer clean.

As usual, CrazyBIL kept us entertained.

He’s such a goofball.

There were 10,000 runners.  The race was amazingly well organized.  They had water for everyone at the half-way point and again at the end.  I tried to make a water fountain like CrazyBIL, but I ended up with water all down the front of me.

If you ever get the chance to do the Color Run, you should do it.  You don’t even have to run — I was amazed at the number of people who walked.  We all ran, some WAY faster than others LOL.  And, sadly, TheFirstChild wasn’t able to run with us, but he photo-bombed us instead.  That’s my boy!

Now, I’m off to finish a birthday cake for BigDaddy. (Btw, we named our team Color Me Bob — in honor of BigDaddy. He’s the original runner in our family and today is his 81st birthday.) Happy Birthday BigDaddy!!!
XOXO,
Anna