Snow Days, flute lessons, the Auto Show, and "almost" Pneumonia!

ah, another eventful week here in the lives of the Herman family. We had a nice little snow/ice storm earlier in the week, so Karl was off school on Tuesday and Wednesday. I actually got permission to work from home on Tuesday, so I was THRILLED I didn't have to drive in that stuff to the office. On Wednesday, our kids didn't have school either, but I had to use a sick day to stay home then (which I don't think was fair, but whatever, kwim?). So I was only in the office 3 days this week....just like old times! I thoroughly enjoyed it! And of course the kids enjoyed their snow day:

I think we got about 6 inches of snow and probably a 1/2 inch of sleet underneath it. It made getting out of our driveway darned near impossible (our driveway's pretty steep), but i've learned the lesson to just floor it coming out of hte garage and pray really hard nobody happens to be coming down the street at that moment. :P Otherwise, you can't get up the driveway. Seriously. :P So that's the excitement. I still say all that could be avoided if the hubby would go SHOVEL it......but he won't. and I won't either.....so it stays there 'till it melts (which is almost always the next day or so around here). And that's as exciting as winter gets in these parts!

Wednesday night, we finally ventured out to take Alaina to her first flute lesson. She's been SO excited to start this, we didn't want to postpone it another week. A very accomplished musician from our congregation is giving her lessons, and Alaina is loving it. I hope she still loves it in 6 months, but for now, she's having fun and that's all that matters!

Thursday night, Zach was NOT feeling good......He's had a fever off and on for about a week and a half.....and as parents with their 3rd kid, we're like, "eh, it's a virus, it'll go away".....vs. when it was Alaina at that age (our first child), we'd have had her to the doc's office PRONTO. So we didn't think too much about the whole cold thing with Zach. But Thursday night something was just not 'right'.....he was up ALL NIGHT LONG......and I was up with him....he finally passed out around 1 or 2 in the morning. He was coughing his head off and was burning up with fever......I had to get up around 5 and go to work (blah) so karl called in sick and stayed home with him and took him to the doctor. And the diagnosis? The early stages of Pneumonia. lovely. Poor thing. Glad we didn't wait any longer to take him in. When I found out about that, I felt SO guilty for not taking him in sooner to see the doctor. :( I left work early to come home to be with him. Poor little Zach. They gave him a breathing treatment at the hospital and some pretty strong antibiotics and some medicine for the cough and he's doing SO much better now. Whew! I hate it when little ones are sick. You feel utterly and completely helpless. But he's on the mend and will probably be fully recovered by tomorrow. YAY!

Friday at work, before I bailed out early to come home to a sick toddler......a former co-worker, Mary came by and we went out to lunch together at our beloved Thai Kitchen. it was so nice to just sit and chat with her for awhile. I really miss working in a group that actually has FUN at the office. She's in a new group now too, so she feels my pain in missing our old group. It's a bummer. But the yummy thai food was excellent as always, and it was a nice break in the day.

Friday night my parents came out to visit again, so we were up late chatting with them. I crashed since I'd been up most of hte night before......then on Saturday morning we had swimming lessons for the kids. We opted to NOT put Zach in the water since he'd been so sick.....so we just watched Alaina/Matthew's classes. Then after a quick lunch at home, we all headed downtown to the St. Louis Auto Show.

My dad LOVES cars. LOVES cars. My family is a car family. More specifically, my family is a Ford family. I don't know why exactly, but my dad just loves Ford cars. So that's what we all drive for the most part (my brother the rebel has a Dodge van though...shame on him!). It's not like he'd disown us for driving something else (obviously as my brother's still alive and all!), I think we just do it in homage to him, kwim? So when we got to the auto show downtown, there was no question where we were going to spend the bulk of the afternoon! :P

As bad as my Dad's health is (and it stinks, trust me), being around all those cars put a lot of spring into his step yesterday! He ditched his wheelchair AND his cane to stick his head under hoods and climb into driver seats for hours. It was too funny to watch. The kids had a blast too, climbing into and out of cars. I think they loved it mostly because they didn't have to sit in carseats! Silly kids! We even scored some Ford t-shirts (I'm not much of an athlete, but compared to the old guys around me, I can outjump them, so I nabbed the 2 shirts our family got).

When we figured Dad had had enough, we left and headed out to dinner at one of his favorite restaurants: the Olive Garden. So after waiting an hour for a table (BAH!), we had a pretty yummy dinner. Then on the drive home, we stopped at a Baskin Robbins to get Dad his favorite ice cream. Along with scoops for all of us too, duh! So it was a fun afternoon/night.

Today, we all got up and headed to church....then had lunch at Steak n Shake with my parents and Barry and Jeanne....then Jeanne and Alaina had their pre-baptismal class, Mom, Matthew, Zach and I went grocery shopping, and Barry, Karl and my dad took communion to a guy in the congregation that just got home from the hospital and is unable to come to church. So that was the afternoon. I guess I can't say I was shocked at the crowd at Walmart....I was actually kinda laughing at the mass of humanity in the soda/chip aisle. Lots of superbowl snacks in the making!

Which reminds me, I need to set my TiVo to record it so we can check out the commercials. I know this is almost anti-American of us.......but since neither Karl nor myself give a hoot about football, we never watch the actual game. We'll watch a movie or something and then when that's over, go check out the commercials and fast-forward through the game parts of the superbowl. Nobody invited us to a party this year, so it'll just be us here hanging out. We DO indulge in the fatty snack foods though.....hot wings and potato skins anyone? :P I'm all over THAT part! :P I kinda wish they'd make that a tradition for the World Series, as we're more of a baseball family around here!

But anyways, here's the layouts I did (since I never got around to posting the pictures like I said I would) of us last weekend at the St. Louis Science Center......if you're ever in town, check it out....it's free to get in and kids just absolutely love it!

Here's Alaina playing in the teepee and with all the native american stuff in the kids' Discovery room:

And probably the highlight was seeing Sue the t-Rex. You had to pay to see her, but it wasn't much (I think it was like $3/person...woo), and it was very cool:
And the rest of the afternoon:

Just FYI, that's my big foot standing in the footprint of Robert Wadlow, the tallest man ever.....he was from Alton, IL, which is just south of where we live, so we know all about him. I just had to show off the fact that there are/were people with feet bigger than mine (and my feet are pretty big!)

Alaina/Matthew LOVED running around that hampster wheel....it was so funny to watch them! That was a very fun day....I'm sure we'll be back very soon!

Here's a couple from our cruise.....I was so angry at this......we somehow missed the embarkation photo op as we were getting on the ship! I don't know HOW we missed it, but neither of us saw any backdrops anywhere or saw a line or anything that would make us think they were taking pictures. Obviously they DID....we just never saw it. I was quite bummed, as I LOVE my staged photo ops! My only guess is that we bypassed it by taking elevators and such because we were pushing the stroller, etc......but anyhoo, on our first night, I insisted on this family picture to make up for it:

And this other one from our cruise, of the kids with Santa.....it was just too funny because Zach kept ringing that bell the entire time. He loved that thing!

My blessing for this week is our dear friends from church, Barry and Jeanne Murphey:

Journaling reads: We’ve known Barry and Jeanne Murphey ever since we moved out to the St. Louisarea. Initially, we only spoke to them at church, but as the years have gone by,we’ve developed a closer relationship with them and now come to think of them as family. Our kids consider them surrogate grandparents and Karl and I value their opinions and seek out their counsel on many things in our personal and our spiritual lives. They’ve been through a lot of the same things we’re currently going through, so they are a wealth of experience for us to tap into. They have been confidants and shoulders to cry on during difficult times and a source of fun and fellowship during the good times.We enjoy their company and value their friendship dearly. They are a huge blessing in the lives of our family.

So that's it for now......and even though I won't be watching.....Go Cardinals! (since Kurt Warner used to be a St. Louis Ram and all, I'll root for them as I'm watching something else!)

Have a great week everybody!