It's been a long time...

Hi Y'all! It's been a long time since I last updated this blog. I apologize. It's been a long several weeks with lots of snow and shoveling. About all we seem to be doing is eating and laying around and not much else. There are not a lot of interesting pictures you can take when you are in the house waiting for the snow to melt. We've watched a lot of TV and movies. I'm not much of a cold weather person any more and apparently neither are Kayla and Brandon. We tried the whole playing outside in the snow but that lost it's fun after the first couple of snows... ya know... when the back aches kicked in from all of the derned shoveling! Anyhow beyond all of that, I realized that even though we have gotten so much snow and it feels like normal life has ceased - we are still living and playing the game (of life). Let's see... the one thing that both of the kids seem to never run out of is homework! Brandon comes home nearly every night with at least an hour or two of homework. He is a hard worker and is doing well in school. Kayla manages to get most of her schoolwork done in her home base class at school but occasionally has projects or tests to study for. She got straight A's for her semester grades! Woohoo! I am so proud of both of them! She was working for straight A's so she could get her nose pierced but has since decided that she is not quite ready for that. But she always has the option to go for it if she so chooses. Brandon is 4 months away from finishing Elementary School and moving on up to Middle School and Kayla has the same before she moves on up to High School - (GROAN!!!) I guess I shouldn't groan because they haven't given me any reasons to worry YET. I'm very grateful for that too! Have I told you all lately that I have really great kids! Well on a side note... Tucker had some company for a few days and really had a blast! Her name is Emma. She is from the family that originally had Tucker so she is pretty much family. Her and Tucker hit it off immediately and were the best of buds through the entire stay. Her buddy Peace (the dog) was here too. He kind of felt overwhelmed with all of the cats running around the house. Emma makes four! (Yikes) Peace tried to keep all of them in line but it was a lot of work. Emma and Tucker were constantly running through the house chasing each other at all times of the day and night. (It was a lot of fun watching them!)

Then the time came for Peace and Emma to go home and Tucker is being extremely needy now. I think he needs a new cat - ain't happenin' here! He'll just have to tough it out and wait for Emma to come back and visit. On Friday night we got to go over to visit Heath, Marcelle, Ethan, Cody and Murphy. We had such a good time. Ethan has gotten to be a big boy! I forgot how chunky babies can get... big surprise since mine are 10 and 13 years old. We brought pizza over and Marcelle made chocolate covered strawberries... Mmmmm YUM! (Thanks Marcelle!) Kayla played with Ethan. He desperately wanted Kayla's phone. What a ham! Brandon played with Ethan's toys ... and Cody. We sat around and looked through one of their old photo albums and laughed our butts off at some of their old stories from high school and college.

The next morning Brandon and I tried to dig out the basketball hoop from the snow (in the driveway). This proved to be quite a bit of work but somehow we managed to get it out and I got more of the snow off of the other half of the driveway. Leo sat inside and watched!

Time for the game! Brandon's basketball team - The Wolverines. These guys have been working their behinds off at these games and although they haven't won one yet they all are showing great improvement since the season started. Brandon wasn't sure he wanted to play this year but decided at the last minute that he would. He has a great coach that works with him and the kids really well. He is very supportive and sure knows how to keep the kids motivated. And the last thing on the agenda this last weekend was the clearing of the remaining snow on the other half of the driveway. Dave toughed it out and took on the project himself... actually he wouldn't let me do it and now who is suffering with low back pains... not me! Shoulda let me do it Dave! But Thank you! Now the driveway is officially cleared and that means as long as the weather holds out, Brandon and I will have some hoops to shoot. Come on over if you wanna play! Until next time... take care!