We refinanced the house. This in itself is not that huge of a deal but with general chaos going on, it was a true pain in the you know what to gather up all the needed paperwork. And, of course, just when you think you're done, they need even more info. That was a couple of weeks and several dozen emails back in forth before we then had to take a couple of hours to travel to the closing location and sign paperwork.
We bought a new car! If you know my car purchasing past, you know I'm the kind of gal that likes a fast, sporty car to drive. Well, my Murano, while a great family car, definitely does not fit the fast\sporty bill. Since our cars are both paid off and we had a 3rd bay of the garage to fill, I wanted something fun. However, we have to house other things besides cars in our garage besides cars (like lawn mower, trash, recycling, tricycles, stroller, etc) so it need to be pretty small to be able to fit everything in. Also, even though it would mostly be a car for me to commute in, I still wanted to be able to fit in the whole family when need be. And, if you're getting an extra car, might as well go totally impractical and get a convertible. There weren't a lot of cars on the market that fit that criteria. This is what we ended up getting:
And speaking of designing things, there was one aspect in our house I knew I wanted to change when we bought the place. The mudroom set up just didn't work for us. There's great space for storage but they essentially built a big closet as the mudroom and we need an open space. After over a year of assessing our needs and thinking of how I wanted it arranged, the light bulb finally went off and I came up with a preliminary plan. However, the final touches definitely needed the hand of a professional so I brought in a good friend of mine who has been helping us with cabinet design, layout and finishing touches. At this point we have a pretty finalized design but still need to pick out cabinet design and new flooring (I absolutely hate the tile that's in there now). So, this means we'll hopefully have a new mudroom space ready to go by the end of summer. But, before then, still more decisions to make and then the fun part of dirty\messy construction.
Also on the redesign front, there are a couple of things not working for us in the master closet. Fixing the issue had me stumped so my mudroom designer friend recommended her closet designer friend. We had a meeting with her and she gave us a total redesign at a huge cost. So, we contacted the original installation company of our closet and met with him about some more economical, less involved tweaks that could make the closet work for us more. Still waiting on his design and pricing.
In addition to the projects brought upon by ourselves, the boys have had some extra appointments taking up a good amount of time. First, Dylan. He's had a very long term issue of gagging and throwing up. After a good week of it happening daily, we decided it was time to get some help. Kind of a long story but here's the short version: pediatrician recommended specialist, went to specialist and wasted about 4 hours with no info other than scheduling, a reflux medication and more appointments made. Reflux meds was a drama to itself (gagging issues mixed with gross medicine...it was quite the trial trying to get that down him for a couple of weeks). Next appointment did barium swallow to check for blockage (nothing there) then met with a different GI specialist about where to go from here. We got a new reflux medicine (which has been much better to work with) and are still trying to determine our next step (therapy, stay\get off meds, give it more time to see if he grows out of it).
Next, Cade. Poor little Cade has had a rough month. One soccer Sunday morning I was solo with the boys and realized that Cade would not walk. Kind of disturbing to say the least. I took him on a Sunday visit to the pediatrician and the diagnosis was toxic synovitis. That means the snotty nose he'd had the day before caused his body to send out its healing powers but they sent them to the wrong place....his hips which caused fluid to build up and him to be very uncomfortable walking. Poor guy! After him having that on and off for over 10 days, we went back then were send to an orthopedic. Like taking a car to the mechanic for an issue, his exam there went fine. Whatever the cause of his walking discomfort (toxic synovitis, minor fracture or some sort of sprain), he was deemed ok to go on vacation. Oh, did I mention we traveled to a wedding in California last week? The day we left for that vacation was also the day we saw the orthopedic, went to Dylan's final day of school performance (more later) and also took Luci to the vet. It was quite the crazy day.
Also on the health front, Luci. Poor Luci. 2 weeks ago, just before leaving for our trip, Luci's eye looked strange so we needed her to get seen before we left. Her diagnosis was uveitis. We were given some eye drops and instructed to come back a few days later to have it rechecked. Thank goodness we have an awesome cat sitter that was willing to not only medicate her but take her to the vet for us. The eye was getting worse. More meds and instructions to make an appointment with an ophthalmologist. That appointment happened just after we got back late last week. Unfortunately, it's not good news. The ultrasound showed a mass on her iris which is most likely due to an underlying issue. If the eye doesn't heal completely very soon, Luci will have to go in for more tests. Next step is a chest xray to check for a larger issue. If there's no larger issue, then they'll "just" have to remove her eye! That was shocking news that really threw us off guard. Poor thing. So, it's an ongoing current issue that I'll definitely keep you guys update on.
All of this stuff has been occupying almost every second of every day since March. With the change of season, we also had to plan a few things for summer. Dylan finished up his first year of preschool and gave a smashingly awesome final performance on his last day of school. It was really great. But, on to planning summer activities. We researched a few fun things for Dylan do to this summer with his neighbors and friends and managed to even register for a couple of them.
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| Preschool Performance (Dylan, bottom row second from left) |
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| Cade enjoyed the performance and had a great time clapping. |
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| My Baby! |
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| Best Friend Isabella and Dylan |
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| They are too cute together! |
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| Cade loves playing with them too. |
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| Dylan with His Teachers: Mrs. Hamilton and Mrs. Wombolt |
To kick off our family summer season, we went (as I said earlier) to California for my cousin's wedding. It happening at Disneyland, of course we had to stay a few more days and play. While we have some wonderful memories of the trip and were so incredibly happy to get to spend some time celebrating with family, it was one of the more exhausting weeks of my life (will have much more to say about that trip another time). And, it being our "vacation" and "break" from the real world made coming back to all these things feel like getting repeatedly pummeled in the chest.
The last few months have been nothing short of hectic, fast paced, exhausting, wonderful and very trying. So many good things happening and wrenches constantly being thrown our way has definitely been keeping us on our toes (and probably adding a few more grays to our hair). Once this duplex is finished we are planning to have a (much deserved) week of hanging there and playing. The thought of that week keeps me chugging along.
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