Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all have safe travel, eat tons of food and watch lots of football. Be thankful you're not a turkey, especially this one!

We'll be traveling to Waterloo to spend the holiday with Scott's family. I'm bringing 4 pies down - 2 apple, one pumpkin and a mystery pie. I haven't quite figured out what the mystery pie will be yet. Something easy and delish! Our plan is to stay there a couple of days and then leave our girls down there overnight on Saturday while Scott and I head home to put up Christmas lights and possibly do some Christmas shopping. Then we'll meet halfway to pick up the girls on Sunday evening. We'll see if that works out though. I think Clare may have an ear infection so I'm taking her to the clinic today so that if she does have one, we can get the antibiotics working and get her out of her misery.

Attley had his 2nd chemo treatment yesterday and seems to be more perky than after the first one. They also did an examination on his back left leg. He's not been as active as we think he should be and I've noticed him favoring that leg (as much as he can favor it considering he has hip problems on the other back leg and only one leg in front). They didn't find anything that warrented an X-ray which is good. Scott and I were a little worried that maybe the cancer was showing up in another bone. We'll just keep an eye on him in the meantime.

Can I just say, that I'm really happy that I'm not a workaholic! I've had two discussions in the last two days with workaholics. Being a workaholic has very adversly affected their lives. I made a decision when I had Cate to cut down to 3 days a week at work. It's been hard for me watching other people climb the ladder faster than me and to be getting smaller bonuses than everyone else. But the payoff is incredible. I do not want to become either one of these people who are having relationship troubles and health issues. My pride is nothing compared with spending time with my kids and husband, and being healthy so that I can be with them for a long time. That being said, I don't really think I'm in any danger of being a workaholic considering I really don't like to work that much. What, you say? You're not passionate about staring at spreadsheets all day crunching emission calculations and responding to last minute urgen client requests?? Um. No.

Well that's about it for this post. Remember these important words as you're imbibing this weekend: "You can't say you've been drinking all day if you don't start first thing in the morning." Thank you very much. I'll be here all week.

North Shore Getaway

Split Rock Lighthouse Split Rock Lighthouse is the North Shore's best known landmark.
© 1999. Minnesota Office of Tourism. Courtesy of www.byways.org.

Scott and I had a chance to get away for a little weekend retreat without the girls last weekend. Scott's parents came up to watch the girls. I'm not sure who got more of a treat, us or them. They absolutely adore all their granddaughters and relish every opportunity to spend time with them. Its so easy to leave your kids when you know that the people watching them love them as much as you do. Anyway, we didn't really have a plan. Well, we HAD a plan to go to Las Vegas but then the whole cancer thing with Attley happened and Vegas went out the window. So we were left without a plan.

We decided on Friday to head north, Scott called and got us a reservation for that evening at Bluefin Bay in Tofte on the north shore. We took off from home around 2:00 and headed north (after Ken and Cheryl almost kicked us out the door). We stopped for some ice cream on the way up and headed for Pizza Luce in Duluth for dinner. Mmmm. We had already decided that we didn't want to drive the rest of the way to Tofte that night (we wanted to keep drinking beer) so we moved the reservation to Saturday night and booked a room at the Hampton Inn in Canal Park. We stayed at Luce for a bit then walked around Canal Park looking for a fun bar but somehow decided to just buy more beer and drink it in the room. We were having a really great time just talking and laughing (plus we were fed up with the smoke - we are getting SO old!!).

Saturday morning we got up (late!!) and ate the continental breakfast before heading out to shop. Scott usually hates shopping unless its for outdoor-type stuff or for antiques. So that's where we shopped. But he was very accomodating if I wanted to go into another store. We walked around Duluth's skyway system and came upon some curling matches which we watched for a while. It looked like fun - we should try it sometime. We had a late lunch at Hacienda Del Sol (again, mmmmm!!) then proceeded up the north shore. We got to Bluefin Bay around 5:30 that evening and explored around a bit.
We had a yummy dinner at the Bluefin Grille (does the "e" at the end make it a more hoity toity place or what??!) then went down to the beach where they had a good bonfire going. But the wind off the lake was pretty strong so we called it quits fairly shortly and went back to our room to drink more beer. We got another good nights sleep with the sound of the waves on Lake Superior splashing against the rocks. The only bad thing about both nights was that the rooms were way too hot. We couldn't get the temp right - mainly because you couldn't turn off the heat. Scott and I are both very hot sleepers so I was a little restless. Scott can sleep through just about anything so he barely noticed.

Sunday we had lunch at the Coho Cafe (very yummy pizza) before heading back towards Duluth. We had a chance to see our friends Carrie and Matty who live in a very nice old house right in Duluth before making the final trek home. We called when we got within an hour away to see how everything was going and to make sure they kept the girls up so that we could see them before they went to bed. Turns out the girls had caught a bad cold that weekend and had been up quite a bit the night before with bad coughs. This, of course, made the last hour of the trip seem very long because we both just wanted to hold and hug our little sickos. Turns out they weren't nearly as bad as we had thought which is good. The girls were happy to see us and we them. Sometimes it takes a little time away for everyone to appreciate each other a little more. Grandma had managed to make them about 7 different baked good throughout the weekend so they maybe weren't super excited to see her go. But all in all, it was a great weekend for everyone. The girls got some good old fashioned spoiling by grandma and grandpa and Scott and I reconnected and remembered that, "Oh yeah, you're kinda fun to hang out with!"

Halloween happenings

Life has been cruising along. I can't believe we're into (well into) November already! Halloween was an event-filled day for us. Besides having Cate all excited to be a chicken and go trick or treating, it was also Attley's first round of chemo and Scott and my 4th anniversary. Busy day.

The day started out with an hour and a half commute in heavy traffic to bring Attley to the U of M and for us to consult with the oncologist about the chemo and how the day would go. Attley was very nervous (understandably) and stuck very close to us the entire consult. They went over the different types of chemo medication and what side effects we could expect with both. We decided on one and then asked a few more questions before we left. Attley would stay there the entire day, they'd do some bloodwork to make sure everything was kosher and then they'd administer the medication over 10-minutes by IV drip with two vet techs hanging out with him, loving him up and making sure he was comfortable. They would then watch him for a while to make sure he was doing okay before calling me to come and get him. They called at about 3:30 that afternoon so I wrapped up my day and headed out at 4:10 with hopes of getting home in time to take the girls trick or treating. Scott had taken Cate the two previous years so I wanted to take them this year. It wasn't meant to be. I didn't get to the U of M until 5:20. Attley and I left at 5:30 and didn't get home until 6:40. Scott already had the girls out so I turned on our porch light to hand out candy to the neighborhood kids. I only got one set of kids before Scott got home with the girls. They were so cute!! I took a bunch of pictures, allowed them both to gorge on some candy then took them up to get ready for bed. By the time I got back down, we only had one more group ring our doorbell. That was it for me for halloween. Bummer.



Attley was pretty cashed that night and the next day his appetite wasn't too good but he did eat when we spiced up his food with some table scraps. They told us that if he was going to show side effects, he would likely have them (nausea/diarrhea) 3-5 days after chemo. Days 2 & 3 he was laying a little low but was still totally interested in eating and begging. Days 4 and 5 he perked up and tonight he actually played fetch and tug with me - he hasn't played like that since this whole thing started. We take him in for bloodwork tomorrow to make sure everything is going okay and then his next round of chemo will be in a couple of weeks. They told us that the way he handles the first round of chemo will likely be how he handles all of them. If that's the case, then this will be a breeze for him.

Scott and I went on a date on Friday night to celebrate our anniversary (thanks to Mom and Dad who volunteered to babysit for us!!). We started out at Floyd's in Victoria, but sadly we are just too dang old or something. We couldn't take the smoke! So we left there and went to the Narrow's - a bar in Navarre. They had a good band playing, we got some good food and drank some good beer. It was a fun night out - we need to do more stuff like that.

Saturday I was fortunate enough to go out again with Karyn, Amy and Sarah to celebrate their birthdays (all within one month of each other). We went to Ichiban's. MMMMMM. Go if you ever get the chance. Its a fun place for groups and the food is so yummy.

Other than that, it was not a super exciting weekend - I worked about 10 hours on an unexpected request from a client late on Friday. Not fun. But the weather was gorgeous and I managed to get the Silver Bullet completely clean, inside and out. (That's our minivan, by the way - Schwake came up with the name.)

That's about it. Don't forget to VOTE!!!