Jake's crazy schedule

First I want to start off by congratulating Jake for his awesome Cross Country season. Last night we went to a Banquet in honor of the entire team. Jake lettered as a freshman and we are all so proud of him! His coach explained that at his first time trial Jake did the 5K in just under 29 minutes. By the end of the season, he was bettering his time just about every meet and ended with 19 minutes. Pretty impressive shaving off 10 minutes over just a couple months time. I cannot wait to see how he does as the years go on. By the time he is a senior, I imagine he will be even faster! A couple of weeks ago he tried out for the Glencoe freshman basketball team. He has been looking forward to this for a long time now and has been practicing and staying in shape. Well, sadly he was cut from the team and was devastated for a day or two. My heart broke for him and the mom in me wanted to rush over to the school and explain that he was nervous at tryouts, but he is so skilled, they simply cannot pass him up this year! But the mom in me also knows when to back off and simply offer him my support. So I signed him up with the Hillsboro Youth League and he is now on a team and starting practice next week. As if that is not enough, he also volunteered to be the manager of the Varsity Basketball team for Glencoe. This should be good for him since he will be at all the practices and games and will get to see what goes on at the Varsity level. He will be staying very busy between the two, but Jake seems to thrive when he is busy! I love the Hillsboro Youth Basketball league. Last year was such a great experience for Jake. He had a wonderful coach, Mr Brauer. He is the welding teacher at Glencoe and Jake is in his class this year and loves him. Anyway, he is a wonderful coach and worked very hard with Jake who had only started playing basketball on his team. He was new to the sport, but as is typical of Jake, he took it on and gave it all he could. He had a great team of boys. I went to just about every game and watching him play is really better than being front row at a Blazers game. Towards the end of the season Jake got especially good at rebounds, due to his height and newly developed skills. He would get the ball and keep shooting till he got it in there. Early in the season it might take three of four rebounds to get it in, but that improved as the season went on. He also got fowled a lot and got pretty good at the free throw line. The coach was really good about giving everyone fair play time. He rotated them out on a regular basis. His team did not win a lot of games early on. Towards the end of the season he started asking the boys if they wanted a good shot at winning. Halfway through the game he asked the boys if they wanted to leave Jake in to rebound, or if they wanted to rotate regularly. Every single boy wanted to leave Jake in. So the rest of the boys rotated around Jake and he played the majority of those last games. His coach would pull him out for about 30 seconds to get a drink and then put him right back in, when they huddled for a time out, he told Jake to sit on the bench and catch his breath. He played exceptionally well, making up to half the points for his team during the games. One game they were down by a basket, Jake made the basket, but got fowled. He made the free throw, winning the game for his team. For a mother of a boy who was so challenged early in life, this was especially incredible and moving for me. Jake became a star in the eyes of many people. My eyes tear up just remembering, so I am very much looking forward to this season and hope it can be as positive an experience as last year. I know it will be great for Jacob! My dad has been taking Jake to practice in the church gym. He was a star player on his high school team and it is a neat bond between the two of them. Dad helps Jake with things I wouldn't know a thing about! He also came to a lot of Jake's games last year. Megan and Jeremy and kids even got to come to some. Though he may not show it, this support really means a lot to Jake. Thanks guys!!

Last Years Game Pictures, compliments of Richard the photographer

He shoots, he scores!!

Look at the height Jake can get when he jumps!!

I was wrong....

I only have THREE(not six) more classes until I am officially on Christmas break for a month. That is the good news, the bad is that all three are huge exams. I have my section three lecture exam next Tuesday, my section three lab exam on Thursday of next week and then the following Tuesday is the comprehensive final.

I have found a distinct pattern to my attitude of learning. At the beginning of each new section I feel overwhelmed and I tend to mentally freak out a bit. I start to question whether I have what it takes to be a nurse, or even if I have what it takes to get through the prerequisite's. As the classes go by, I start to understand theory and how things work, and although the details aren't always clear in my mind, the fog starts to lift. By the time the exams come along, I feel fairly confident, but I study like crazy for a few days before. This has worked well for me thus far, but I do wish I could skip the panicked questioning phase. I also wish I had a bit more time between upcoming exams to study for the next. I am grateful for the Thanksgiving break and will be using a lot of that to study!

Milk, glorious milk...

Joseph has been off milk products for a couple of months and it has been really hard on him. He loves yogurt and he loves cheese and he loves just plain milk! The Dr office advised me to keep him off of milk, since it seemed to help with his hive breakouts. I decided I wanted to know for sure so this last week I took Joseph in to see the Allergist. He was tested for milk as well as milk proteins and it came up negative. He does NOT have an allergy to milk! Yippee! Apparently the hives coming and going away in relation to milk product consumption was just coincidental and not related to what he was eating. I am so relieved. So we came right home and he at a cup of yogurt, his favorite!! No more breakouts! I am so glad I did not listen to my Dr and just assume it was milk. I cannot imagine keeping him from eating dairy for an extended period of time when there was really no problem!

Veteran's Day Fun!

Ok, so Veteran's day was a couple weeks back, but I enjoyed it immensely this year. When I was in school as a child, it always meant a day off from school, yippee. Now as an adult, I understand that this day is so much more. With all the soldiers serving our country, many in other countries, and with a husband who served in the Army, I have come to respect this day far more. But this year it was special for both reasons, I also got a day off from school! Yippee! And the kids were home, as well as Richard.

Well Annalina spent the day celebrating her daddy. She made her own American flags and colored them, complete with the right amount of stripes and we made him Caramel Corn, and she made up songs about him because she truly wanted to celebrate his military service. She is very grateful that he survived being a solider. Let me explain her sweet thoughts on this subject. Last year in Kindergaren she told the kids in her class that her daddy was in the army. They asked if he was dead, and she said no. Several of them refused to beleive her because if he was really a soldier in the army he would not be alive right now. Could it be a misconception of many kids these days that to serve in the army means to give your life for your counry...ALWAYS? So it would seem. Luckily Richard went to school twice during "transportation" week, sharing both his motorcycle and Rover, so the kids could see that he really was alive!

While discussing Veteran's Day with her friends this year, she brought up her dad's service in the army, and again many kids would not beleive her. So Veteran's Day was a great reason for celebrating this year. It was sweet how Annalina made it such a special day for Richard. And we are all very grateful that he survived his military experience and we love to hear his stories!

It's been a while...

Remember my post about my bad luck? Well the T on my keyboard keeps sticking, making posting updates on our lives a little more time consuming! I keep going back and finding words with missing T's, sorry about that. Oh well. It has also been a very busy couple of weeks for us. There has been much going on, but I have had little time to write about it all. I just hope I can remember the important things now!

School is challenging, but I am still enjoying it very much. I only have six more classes, the last three of which are huge exams. Luckily I have Thanksgiving off and will have extra time to study. We are working on the muscular system. It is all very complicated and amazing! I still have an A in this class, and hope I can keep it through the last three exams. Early on I tried to tell myself that a B would be ok, but have since learned that the program is so competitive that it is really hard to get into without straight A's. So I spend a lot of time studying and so far it is working!

Tekronix has gone through another round of layoffs. Sadly Richard's group has shrunk again and the three of them that are left and now responsible for 24 hour monitoring of the data center, which lost ALL of its employees. Richard figures he has about six months of job security, which really is not very long at all. It is stressful for him at work now, and the worries do not end when he comes home at night. Big change is coming for us, but I know that whatever happens, we will be led to where we need to be. It is so comforting to have the gospel in our lives and to be able to turn to the Lord for comfort when things become so insecure. I recently read a book which said that life is full of challenges. It is how we respond to those challenges that is important. We are truly learning to see things in a better light. Rather than lamenting over the challenges sent our way, we can view them as a learning and a growing experience.

My sister Megan recently recommended the book "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey. I read it in one evening, staying up until 2am to finish it. I highly recommend this book to everyone, no matter the stage of life you are in. It is all about getting out of debt, budgeting, and being prepared for college funds, financial emergencies and retirement. I was impressed by the steps he sets forth to become financially fit. I told Richard about it and he read it too, only taking a few days to finish. Due to our current predicament, the ideas in this book have come along at a great time. Aside from our house, we are not hugely in debt, our cars are paid for, but we do not have an overabundance of savings right now, that is for sure. We have set a monthly budget, and are sticking to it. We have started making weekly menus and buying only exactly what we need for those meals. We do not go out to eat or spend money on things we don't absolutely need. We dress in layers and have not turned the heat on except for a couple of times so far this fall. Gas prices have fallen, and this has saved us a LOT on our gas budget. To build up our emergency fund, we have been selling things we don't use or need anymore on Craig's list. Richard and I are working together towards something we truly believe in and it is working. It is not always easy, but it is very rewarding to see the results even after just a few weeks.

Now that I have talked about being responsible with our money, I have to admit we splurged, Richard took me to see Twilight, the movie. I read the series last year and really enjoyed it and was very excited to see the movie. We hit the matinee and skipped the popcorn, so it was somewhat affordable. We went to Cornelius theaters, and even though it was the first Saturday after release, there were only about a dozen of us there. It was nice not to be sitting elbow to elbow with strangers! It was fun and Richard even liked the movie! He probably won't read the books, and that is just fine. I am happy to be able to share the movies with him! I have heard from a few people that they were disappointed by the movie, but I really loved it! It was worth the wait, and I am looking forward to the next few movies!

I am looking foward to Thanksgiving, which is just around the corner. We are having it here at our house this year for the first time ever. We will have 9 adults and ten kids here. We have been working hard to get the play areas cleaned up and ready for major activity! I am looking foward to the long weekend with family! Richard will be on call this week, at least we won't have to leave him home alone for the big feast!

Grandma Frederick's Microwave Caramel Corn

When I was younger my Grandma Frederick used to make us caramel corn when we came to visit. It was so yummy! I suppose since grandma was so traditional in her cooking, I was always shocked to see she made it in the microwave! She gave us the recipe and we tried making it at home. It worked for us too and I LOVED that recipe. Well its been years since I have had Grandma's microwave caramel corn and I don't even know what has become of the recipe. On a whim I googled it and what do you know...you really can find just about anything on the web. We will be making this soon with the kids and hopefully they will like it as much as I did when I was little. The only difference in this recipe is that we made the caramel coating in a pot on the stove, but I suppose you can do it this way too. It will be fun to try out!

Next time you go to the grocery store, ask for your groceries in paper bags. You'll need one bag per batch.
3-4 quarts popped corn
1 stick of butter (no substitutes!)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup Karo Syrup
1 tsp baking soda - add last
Pop the corn and discard the unpopped kernels. Put the popped corn in the paper sack. While the corn is popping, put the butter, sugar, salt and syrup in a glass bowl and bring it to a boil in your microwave. Stir after one minute, and let it boil for an additional minute. Add one tsp of baking soda and stir well, until thickened. It will turn light in color and look like taffy. Pour this mixture over the popped corn in the paper bag and shake well. Put the paper bag back in the microwave and cook an additional 1-1/2 minutes (90 seconds). Remove and shake well again. Return to the microwave and cook another 1-1/2 minutes. Shake again. Open the bag and let it cool. You can even tear the bag down the side and speed up the process.

Me and my bad luck...

So I wrote about my laptop crashing early in October. Well lucky for me it was under warranty and Dell sent out a new hard drive asap, Richard installed it and that was that. Great, except now they want the old one back! I have about 1100 photos on the old broken hard drive, many of them from our long family vacation this summer. I also did a lot of digital scrapbook pages on that computer, and no, I had not had a chance to print them up yet. We can have a professional recover the data for us, but it will not be cheap. How do you put a price on something like that? I may have to save up for a while and eventually have it done, I just hope Dell will be patient with the return of the drive! I adore my husband. When I asked him his opinion on the subject he mentioned how many potential scrapbook opportunities would be lost if we do not try to get the date back! And he was being serious! Awwww....what a guy!

My computer drama does not end there. A couple weeks ago my nice big flat screen monitor on my work computer stopped working. It just went blank and Richard checked it out and confirmed that its time had come! So sad! Luckily we had a spare small monitor sitting around unused and so I plugged it in and was back in business. Its much smaller, but at that point I was just grateful to be able to use my computer again! You might think that would be the end of it. But alas, I have a new found unluckiness with technology. This weekend while using my computer the small monitor also just flicked off. Now what are the chances? Is it really true that bad things happen in threes? If so, am I done with computer issues? Well we still do not have it in our budget for a new monitor, so I am accessing my computer with the laptop with a nifty connection my husband set up for me. It is not easy doing all my work on a laptop, but again, I am feeling very grateful that this is an option! What would I do without my computer! Perhaps that is not even a question I should be posing!

Anyway, I have been posting photos on the blog like crazy lately, you may have noticed the sheer volume of them! More than usual. Well this is because the only photos I have from May on are the ones I posted here to share with all of you, the rest are trapped on a broken hard drive awaiting rescue! I am so happy to have these at least, and while this is not the solution for data backup, its nice to know they are here, just in case! If anyone has trouble getting the pages to load due to the many photos on them, please let me know!

Halloween Happenings

It was a busy week here at the Loomis house. Lot's of fun things going on! I already posted about the Pumpkin patch on Monday, well on Tuesday evening we carved our pumpkins. Wednesday night was the annual church Trunk or Treating event with a fair in the church afterwards. Megan and Jeremy brought their kids over to join us. There were lots of games, facepainting, hot dogs and home made root beer. There was also a spook alley which Jake had a large part in. We waiting in line for about 20 minutes, and when they opened the door to let us in, poor little Nate saw the strobe light and would not go in. So Jeremy and I took the girls and Joseph through. They sent word to set the scare factor to low and so it was not too bad. In the last section Jake was sitting under black plastic bags with his head sticking out. It looked like a floating head. He really scared Annalina, but he wasn't trying to. She was just expecting the worst. She cried when we got out and I said jokingly that I was going to ground Jake for scaring her. She said, "no mommy, don't ground Jake, its ok!" So it was a fun filled evening for the most part. Sadly Richard was training at his new second job and was not able to attend with us. Next year!!

Thursday was preschool day for Joseph, he got to wear his costume and they made cookies, then went trick or treating around Glencoe to the classrooms. He had a great time and got to play at Alec's house for an hour after preschool. This was nice since I had my second HUGE test in A&P that night. I studied and studied all week long and once again I got a 92%. This was a good boos for me since on Tuesday we had a quiz and I did NOT do well at all. We get to drop the worst quiz score and that will be the dropped score for me!

It rained most of the day on Friday. I dropped Joseph off with Megan in the morning and went to open lab to study for the practical lab test on Tuesday. It felt good to have a couple solid hours to study on my own. Richard had the day off from Tek and went to Best Buy for more training. With the change in day light savings time, it stayed light much later than usual on Halloween night. It is usually dark by 5:15 or so and that is when we go out trick or treating. Luckily it stopped raining late in the afternoon and was dry by evening. But by 5:30 n0 one was out yet, so we waited until 6PM and off we went. We went to the neighbors houses and then saw daddy come home on his motorcycle and went back to get him. We went through the rest of the neighborhood with him. We went to a house that always goes ALL out with decor, a bit scarier than I prefer with a horror scene and lots of fog. Anyway, the kids were fine with that, but one of their older kids was dressed as a skeleton and as we were leaving he started chasing Joseph, and Joseph really ran, he was terrified and the boy didn't stop. So I had to grab Joseph and say, "that's enough". The rest of the night Joseph was watching for the Skeleton. He was pretty scared until Richard reminded him he was a Viking and had a battle ax. He told Joseph that if he saw that skeleton coming he could wack him with the ax. OK, I don't advocate violence and Joseph could not do any damage with that plastic ax, but it made him feel much better to know he could "protect" himself. After a while, he was asking to go back to look for the skeleton. ::sigh:: Annalina dressed up as Snow White, for which she got many comments. Her hair is dark and short right now, she looked a LOT like Snow White, especially with her pink rosy cheeks!

After a while we caught up with some of my friends from our playgroup. Joseph had fun with Jake and Abe, but shortly thereafter Annalina declared she was done, so we headed home. I asked if she wanted to stop at any houses along the way, but no, she was done and that was that. She has always been like that though. Once she gets tired she is done! When we got home Jake was watching the Blazers game and was glad to be relieved from passing out candy. Joseph decided he would take over and he sat in a chair at the front window with the bowl of candy in his lap. When kids came to the door, he would give them their candy, with me supervising of course. When we turned off the lights at 8pm, he was sad, until we told him it was time to play with his candy! The kids got to bed late that night, but it was a very Happy Halloween!

Every year after carving the pumpkins we sort the seeds and roast them. Richard gets very creative with the seasonings. We always do a batch of garlic flavored, Lawry's seasoning salt, and a lemon pepper flavor. In the past we have also tried wasabi(it turned out really good) and teriyaki flavored. Anyway, at church we have an email group for the women where we can let each other know about good deals, or request something we might be needing, or give away things we don't use anymore. Its a great way to stay connected. So I posted that if anyone had pumpkin seeds they weren't using, to let me know! Well Thursday, Jannamarie stopped by with a huge bag of sorted pumpkin seeds. She had just been to the school and the entire 3rd grade had carved pumpkins that day, so she kept the seeds for me. WOW! There were a ton so Friday and Saturday I roasted seeds! Such fun!