Can't sleep. Honestly, I have't tried.... the wind outside is too loud for me! It is howling like crazy, sounds like it is growling sometimes. Earlier when the gusts from "Sandy" were just starting to pick up, our play house/climber in the back yard went soaring 1/2 way across the back yard. OOOPS! :/ If it wasn't for the fence, it would have been in the road. It was one of those things I didn't really think about when clearing up the back yard for the storm yesterday. It's pretty heavy, and has no roof, and has lots of holes.... guess I figured the wind would whip through it. Guess I figured wrong!
My pretty mums went for a roll across the front porch, got them situated in the garage nice and safe, hanging with the patio furniture now. Pumpkins are out there, they are pretty snug against the house on the covered porch. Wonder if they will be there in the morning? I hope so!
Our power has played tricks on us all afternoon/evening. I actually made dinner and put it in the oven at 1pm this afternoon (just in case!) Figured I would just keep it warm till dinner. A few times tonight the power blinked reeeaaaal sloooowwww. Faked us out big time! Thought we were goners for sure! I haven't heard anything on school for tomorrow.... they cancelled last night for today. However I'm pretty sure we are the only area in our district that does still have power. A few others might, or it has gone off and on.... but for the most part, it is out. My guess is there will not be school, although you know how my guess went with the playhouse....  :/ so we shall see!
Getting everything charged up just incase, and we stocked up on flash lights and batteries. Feels kinda funny, I mean usually when we are waiting to hear on school being cancelled and we are "prepping for the storm" or we are in the middle of one... it is snow. I keep thinking, "oh, big storm, we will wake up to a ton of snow"... Nope, not this time. just wild and crazy rain! Did I mention how LOUD it is!!!!

ok well.... at some point I will try to sleep. have a good night!

It has been a long 2 1/2 weeks! At least it is only 2 1/2 weeks and not 3 full weeks like we originally thought. Ryan is headed home today and should be flying in late this afternoon and be home for dinner tonight. (He has been away at his annual training)
Thank God he is flying in tonight and not Tuesday like we thought. It looks like this storm coming up the coast could potentially slam us pretty good!! He will be here to enjoy it with us ;) haha
There are so kids here who are very excited to see daddy tonight, and a VERY happy mom!!! Like I said it't been a long 2 1/2 weeks... this week has felt like one long Monday..... one long Miserable Monday :( Everyone has been waking up on the wrong side of the bed (including me) It doesn't help that most of my girls have ended up in my bed every night. Uggg! Today seems to be going a bit better, but we all know it's the end of the week!

Im hoping we don't have a repeat of last years Halloween here. Last year we had to reschedule trick or treating because of a snow storm that knocked the power out for a few days. Looks like it could be similar without the snow. Maybe even some snow mix depending on the way the two air systems meet.

we shall see........

beautiful poop (haha)

Bryn's had enough of the Dr's. Well, for about a month anyway until she has to go see her regular pediatrician for her 3 yr. check up. Then a few weeks after that it will be time for her 6 month cardiologist follow up again. It just never ends for her. Today we had an appt. with her G.I. specialist, the one that performed her endoscopy procedure. Good news is, her biopsies came back looking good, no signs of Celiac Disease at this time. Which is obviously great, however her Dr.'s exact words were "We can not rule it out completely down the road, her blood tests pointed us here, and you never know if and when it could start to show up."

More good news however, she has (in the past week and a half) had some good normal solid poops! **applause please!** and the best part is, she has been doing more and more of them on the potty!! You know your over excited about poop when your almost 3 year old holds up her hand and says "STOP looking at my poopies Mommy!" haha :) I can't help it.... after 9 months of diarrhea, it is a beautiful site!
So the plan now.... well, we aren't supposed to go changing her diet. We did discuss possible slight Gluten intolerance... maybe? Her Dr. wants to wait and see if she is really turning over a new leaf, or if these "beautiful poops" are just a fluke. Either way.... we will be re-doing blood work in about 8 months to see if the levels have gone back to normal or not, and of course see where we are at in the poop dept. (let's hope it will be back on track!) In the mean time we will not torture her with anything else unless absolutely necessary!
She also had her follow up eye appt. with her eye specialist, this past Monday. Good news on her astigmatism.... it has gotten slightly better! YEA!! We like good news. We pray that in another 6 months, at her next follow up, it is still going in the right direction. We do not want any lazy eyes with bad vision.

Other wise, Bryn's still Bryn... spunky, crazy Bryn. Climbing up the exam table in the office today and trying to take flying leaps off of it, while grabbing tweety bird who was hanging from the ceiling. Of course doing all of this in the sweetest little cupcake dress, trying to keep everyone believing she is shy and Innocent. That's our baby girl! :)

A big top surprise!

Before I start talking about the "big top" surprise.... a quick note on Bryn's procedure. We have an appointment this week to meet with her Dr. and discuss results and what we do from here. At the moment (since I haven't actually spoken with her Dr. personally) that is all on that. Update to come.....

SO... yes, we surprised the kids with tickets to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus! We didn't tell them where we were going until we were actually walking into the building! ;) It was great. We are horrible.... we actually told them a week in advance, that we were going to be doing something SOOOO fun this weekend... and we refused to tell them or give them any hints. It was great! :) Oh they guessed everything under the sun... we just kept saying.. "Guys, we are going to Walmart!" ;)

The show we went to was on Sunday (yesterday). I bought the tickets online about a week in advance. There happened to be 6 seats together in the front row... and they were the same price as all the rest available... so obviously I got them! We were on the corner of the ring and it was perfect. We were at just the right height and it was so much fun! What an amazing show! Even Ryan and I were in Awe through most of it. The show began at 3pm... however we got there at 1:30 and were able to go back and see the animals up close and then go in to the arena and watch clown acts and all kinds of little "mini" shows right on the main floor. The show went until about 5:15. That might sound long... but there was an intermission and the show was entertaining from beginning to end, there was never a dull moment and the kids (and adults) loved every single second of it!

 up close and personal before the show

The entire show was great, but I always love seeing the animals. Talk about having some "balls"... the guy in the cage with the tigers sure has some courage!!!! Man what a beautiful animal... but seriously, you wouldn't catch me in a circle like that surrounded by THAT many tigers.... no matter how pretty they are!

And elephants... who doesn't love elephants!? What an amazing animal! I love watching them walk around the arena holding each others tails. So cool! Yes the one closest to us in the photo below decided that while doing a "hand stand" was the perfect time to take a HUGE crap all over the arena floor. Haha. Can't miss it, the tail is in the air and he is ready to go :) The kids of course thought this was absolutely hysterical! Classic :)

These guys were pretty cool... I mean seriously, how fun would it be to bounce around on pogo stick legs night after night and get paid for it!?

I got a few more pics but I can't share them all... and I got some fun ones of the clowns, but those were on my cell phone and I haven't added them to the computer. So you will have to use your imagination. Im not typically partial to clowns. Not that I don't like them, they are just "odd" characters. However last night they looked like they were having quite the time, and I thought, Man.... that wouldn't be so bad. HAHA.... for a little while. Come on... they were having a ball. Who wouldn't want to have that much fun!?!

So our surprise was a success! Kids said thank you over and over as we were leaving (and a few times during the show) I love to watch their faces light up with excitement. It isn't every day we do something like that, and it was so worth every penny! A great family memory!