Only 1 Day Left of January

January marks the very official opening and start up of BSquared26 Photography. I registered my Assumed Name with the State, applied for a Federal Tax ID number, and brainstormed on marketing, so I'm really official!

I entered some of my travel photos in a Frommers Cover Page 2010 contest. They were scenic photos of the San Diego, CA area, Wyoming, and one of downtown Minneapolis. You can view them at www.frommers.com, click on the camera where it says "Photo Contest", and search for BSquared26. Recommend my photos if you go there.

January also included talks of vacations for 2010,some home renovations (new couch, new kitchen floor, and window work), and plans to help out with Ken's parents cabin that we will get to use from time to time. It's been a slow process and it's a fun place to go, so Ken and his parents talked and decided to get things done, so we can all enjoy it more often.

Kevin was super busy with Lego Robotics practices for his team to prepare for the state tournament that was today. Apparently, the high school kids accidentally took their robot, and the kids made a new one. After they finished making & reprogramming their new robot, the high school kids returned their old one too them. The kids were laughing about it today, but they were frustrated at the time. They were missing one kid from the team for the tournament today, so they had to adjust for that as well. Turns out the kids didn't do so well, and they didn't place in the top 10 or get any awards. We were pretty proud of them though, as this was everyone on the team's first year doing Lego Robotics and they made it to the state tournament. I think the kids were so excited, nervous, and frazzled that their robot was acting up. At least they got the experience of working together as a team under pressure.

The last week of January has been hard on everyone. It's been very cold and not much sunshine. We are all getting a case of cabin fever. We're glad January is almost done with.

Hopefully Feb brings some warmer weather so we can go out and do some fun things!

ABCs of 2009

Algebra - In 5th and 6th grade math. Yikes!

Braces - Kevin got braces at the beginning of the year. He's doing really good with them.

Cats - We added a new cat to the house. All 4 of our cats have been truck driver rescued cats.

Devil's Track Lake - Ken and his parents started work on the family cabin.

Elementary School - This is Sam's last year in Elementary School. It is hard to believe the kids are getting so grown.

Football - Kenny is really happy Brett Favre is helping the MN Vikings Football team win.

Girls Trip - Bonnie took a girls vacation to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico in February.

Homework - It's harder for us to help the kids with their homework. They bring home some pretty complex work sometimes.

Ignore - Our kids are getting really good at ignoring their parents.

Juggle - It is amazing how we juggle all 4 of our schedules.

Kickball - Bonnie made a proposal to the city athletic board to add youth kickball to its venue of sports. It was passed and 2009 brought the first organized youth kickball league to Eagan, MN. It was a very proud accomplishment for her.

Laguna Beach - Ken & Bonnie took a vacation with out the kids to California for her niece's wedding in California.

Middle School - Kevin entered Middle School in 2009.

NaNoWriMo - Bonnie finished her National Novel Writing Competition challenge of writing 50K words. 2010 will bring edits and trying to get it to a publisher.

Ocean - How we love to see the oceans. Bonnie saw the Caribbean & Pacific. Ken saw the Pacific.

Photography - Bonnie opened a Photo Studio in our home. She built it on her own, built a portfolio, and had 3 clients by the end of the year.

Quilt - We had a lady in MT make us a quilt using clothing from our kids when they were toddlers.

Robotics - Kevin's 6th grade Robotics team took 3rd place at their Regional tournamet, which qualified them to compete at the State Tournament in Jan 2010.

Softball - Ken continues to play softball with his brother. This is something they really enjoy.

Thanksgiving - We hosted Thanksgiving at our house. Bonnie got out all the old fancy dishes and we had quite the feast.

Used Piano - We got a free used piano (in very good condition) from Freecycle.org. Now we just need to learn to play it. Perhaps a 2010 venture?

Vitamin D - Bonnie was diagnosed with severe Vitamin D deficiency. She controls it by taking 3000 units of Vitamin D suppliments daily and tanning.

Weddings - 2009 was the year of weddings. We attended 5 weddings. One was in
California and Bonnie was a bridesmaid in one in MN.

X-Box 360 - The kids got X-Box 360 for Xmas. We haven't seen much of them since.

Youth Camp - Kevin went to CYC again this summer for a week. He really enjoys that week of summer.

Zoo - Bonnie saw her favorite actor Kevin Costner play in his band at the MN Zoo.

My Poor Neglected Blog

Dec was a busy month for me. Aren't they all?

My home photo studio officially opened in Oct. My website was built and my portfolio. Oct and Nov I didn't see any business, which is ok. But in December I did 3 photo shoots. It was lots of fun, and my clients were happy with their results. It was pretty neat seeing the photos I took of their kids on a Christmas card they sent me.

We also attended a benefit for a friend of ours. He almost lost his life in November, but the doctors were able to save him. He somehow had infectious tumors in his neck and throat. He had 3 long surgeries in 5 days. He has about a 4 month recovery period. Needless to say his illness and recovery time has forced him out of a job. His baseball friends all got together and held a benefit for him. It was a really good time. You paid a cover charge to get in, and got free food and beer. Then they had a silent auction. We won/bought a Margarita/Mexican bag. It has chips, salsa, a chip bowl, 2 margarita glasses, and margarita mix.

I've also been working on my book edits. I finished my book on Tulum, Mexico and the Maya, so now it's editing time. Edits are going pretty good.

Kevin had a Lego Robotics tournament at the end of November. His team did a really good job, and they are moving onto the state tournament at the end of January. It's a really busy and fun day for the kids, but it's a very long and boring day for the parents. Lots of sitting, and even more time spent between performances. His team is made up of 5 sixth graders, 4 boys & 1 girl. They are all pretty excited about going to the state tournament. They have practices scheduled twice a week to get ready for it. I hope they do a good job at the state tournament.

This year for Christmas I only set up a small tree. It's about a 1 foot tall tree. With all the Dec happenings, I just didn't have the energy to go all out. Plus, with our new kitten, I don't trust her enough to stay out of it. I don't feel like coming home to a destroyed tree every day. Not to mention taking it all down. I usually never get my tree taken down until around Easter time. February if I'm lucky. It's such a big project.

So I put up the little tree on a table and next to it put a snow man snow globe, a nativity set, and a nut cracker. All small pieces. It's a nice little decoration, and the cat has only knocked it off the table 3 times. Not too bad.

I got all my Christmas shopping done. I did most of it online, and just hoping it all gets here in time. My mom and grandma's present is going to be late, but I get her the same thing every year. Not really a lot you can get a 72 & a 101 year old that they don't already have or haven't already given to you. But they will always need a calendar, and that's what I get them. Each month has a photo of us in some way or fashion. They really enjoy it, and it's a good way to show off their grandsons.

Our new kitten had her claws removed and spayed right before Thanksgiving. The little stinker was healing fine over the weekend that we were home, and then as soon as we all left for school and work, she tore out a stitch and managed to get her tummy surgical cut infected. So everyday, I had to clean it out, put antibiotics on it, and give her oral liquid antibiotics. Good thing she liked it. I had to put a cone around her neck and she absolutely hated it. It took a while to get rid of it, and I didn't dare take off the cone until it was all healed up.

Christmas is just a few days away. We plan on spending time with my husbands parents and family. That is always a real fun time. The kids have a real good time with their cousins.

This Christmas we are starting new traditions. My kids have reached that age where they know Santa isn't real and they want more expensive toys. The annual tradition of visiting Santa just doesn't cut it anymore. So we will spend time with the family, got to midnight mass (now that they are old enough to sit through it), open gifts on Christmas morning (as usual), and then we are going to a movie. I'm also going to make a nice Christmas ham. So as the kids grown, we form new fun traditions. I remember as a kid at their age, our mom would load us all up in the family car and we would drive around town and look at all the Christmas lights in town. We'd get home and before bed, we got to open one gift from an out of town relative. It was always so fun to get a sneak peek. On Christmas morning, we'd open gifts, and then go to Christmas mass.

This year also marks a first that my kids are old enough to understand the spirit of giving gifts. They took me shopping with them so they could get their dad and me a Christmas gift. I was just along for the money. It's always so nice that I'm so needed. It's the thought that counts, and I'm pretty proud that they wanted to do that all on their own. They are such sweet kids. They were able to hide my present from me, so I have no idea what I paid for. I'm excited to see what they picked out.

Merry Christmas to Everyone!!

November Happenings

November turned out to be a very busy month.



I finished my novel! I started the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in November, and I did it in 15 days. Whew, talk about brain marathon! My novel isn't really a novel persay, it's a guide book to the Maya and the ruins in Tulum, Mexico. I'm at the editing stage of it now. I have it printed out and just need to go through everything and figure out which paragraphs go where and what I can delete out of it. 50,000 words equates to 98 single spaced pages of text. I plan on including photos and have assigned Ken to do some illustrations. Once I have it all edited and put together, I plan on getting it out to a publisher.

I'm glad I finished so quickly. I spent a week getting my house in order to host Thanksgiving at my house. I haven't hosted a holiday meal at our house in about 8 years. It was just me, Ken, the boys, and Ken's parents for Thanksgiving. Ken's mom has done the Turkey Day meal for a long time, and all Ken's siblings were out of town this year. We decided to give his mom a break.

I went all out. I made a feast fit for Kings and Queens. It was very tasty. I even made my own cranberry sauce. That was super yummy. Much better than from a can. We had the works, lots of appetizers, the main meal (turkey, homemade stuffing, real mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, squash, dinner rolls...the works!), for desert Ken's mom baked a blue berry pie, and I had 2 pumpkin pies from Trader Joe's (yummy goodness). I bought whipped cream and vanilla bean ice cream to go with it.

I also broke out the good dishes. Not my every day wear. I got out my great Uncle Elmer and Great Aunt Marietta's flatware. I had a floral center piece, and used my great grandmothers, and grandmothers silver and glass serving dishes.

I'm Declaring War!

On my body fat that is....

Today at work a group of nurses came to our work for health checks. It is for health insurance discounts. You get a discount for normal blood pressure, normal cholesterol, and a normal Body Mass Index.

I filled out the paperwork, and went with nurse number 1 for my cholesterol check. I sat down and told her that I hated getting my finger pricked. She informed me that the pokers are not like the little razor blades that they used back when I was a lab tech. Ok, that sounded good. Wouldn't hurt too bad at all. So, I stuck out my finger, she stabbed it, and I yelled "OW!. The nurse lied! She pipes up and asks me if I've ever had babies, and that I should put it in perspective. Blah, blah, blah...you just stabbed me in the finger. Of course it hurts. It's stabbed and it's bleeding. She put a big band-aid on it.

Then I waited in the hallway for the next step. Getting weighed and measured, getting my blood pressure checked, and my BMI result. An older nurse came to get me. She said "Who's next?" I told her that I was and she said "No, you're not, your the nurse." WHAT? I'm not the nurse. She argued that I was. No, clearly I'm not your co-worker nurse. Not me. I'm here to get poked and prodded. So she took me back to the room and ran into the nurse she thought I was. "Oh, see you two look just alike!" That made me a bit nervous that she couldn't tell her patient apart from her co-worker.

I got on the scale and I swear it yelled "Hey chubby, get off me!" I did not like that number that I saw. No, I'm not telling what number that was, but it was not a good number! Then I got measured. Yep, I'm still 5 foot 2 inches tall. Then she asked my age and punched all my numbers into a thing that looked much like an X-box remote. She told me to squeeze the handles. So I did. "Squeeze harder!" So I did. Ok, she got the number. I missed the cut off for the discount by just a few points.

Then she took my blood pressure. The nurse puffed that blood pressure cuff so tight, I thought the spot where I got my finger poked was gonna pop open and squirt blood all over every one. Yikes, I've never had a blood pressure cuff pumped up that high before. She gave me my result and it was a much higher number than I normally run. I figured it must just be from running around in the morning and having the cuff so dang tight. Plus I'm not sure if she could really read the numbers right because she thought I was the nurse, and she had to check the BMI machine a few times, like she couldn't make out the numbers. Oh well, my blood pressure was still with in the range for the wellness health discount, so no big deal. My finger poke didn't pop open, and all was well.

While I was getting told my blood pressure was higher than normal and I'm too chubby, I got the results of my cholesterol. Yay! Passed those numbers with flying colors! So I qualified for the cholesterol discount and the blood pressure discount, but flunked the BMI test, so no discount for that.

The nurse gave me some informational sheets on BMI. It's a chart that tells you how much you should weigh for how tall you are. Hmmmmm......I need to grow a foot to catch up to my weight. How can I grow? Dang...I guess I'll have to lose weight. No more harvesting fat for future medical technology to start asking people to donate their fat. But hey! I have good cholesterol!

After a while I took my band-aid off my finger as it was too big and it was hard to type with it on. Guess what was there? A big fat bruise! Oh how, I hate getting my finger poked.

For lunch I went out and had a big fat juicy bacon cheese burger, some yummy french fries, and cake & ice cream for desert. Gotta celebrate having such a good cholesterol.

Tomorrow the diet starts...

Oh What A Night!

Last night Kevin decided that he was going to stay late after school. I really love the fact that my son likes to stay in after school study hall. So the night before he & I discussed that I had to work until 5:00 and then I would pick him up, so I'd be a tad bit late, but he could wait for me. Ok, sound plan!

Well……yesterday I could not find my cell phone. So I had no way for the kids to get a hold of me. Well, they could call my work number and get me. I got done working at 5:00 and drove over to the school to pick up Kevin. I waited, and waited, and waited, and then suddenly all the kids who had stayed after school were all gone. They had waited for their ride to arrive. I thought to myself….maybe he changed his mind and went home after school, or maybe he decided to walk home, or maybe he caught a ride home with someone else. No way to check my cell phone though because I didn't have it on me. I drove home and no Kevin. ACK! I lost my kid and my phone!!!

I run around frantically to try to find my cell phone. I can't find it. So I tell Sam that I'm driving back to school to see if I somehow missed Kevin and if Sam could try to find my cell phone. I ran down the stairs and when I hit the bottom step, I stepped on one of Sam's shoes, twisted my ankle, fell down, and hit my head on the front door. Now, I'm crawling around telling Sam NOT to leave his shoes right in front of the steps, where's my cell phone, and where's my kid!!!

I hobbled back out to my van hoping I had not hurt my ankle worse than just a twist, but it sure did hurt. I drove back to the school, rubbing my head hoping it didn't leave a mark. I get back to the school and there are absolutely no kids there. Hmmm…where did the little shit go? I can't find my cell phone. Back home I go ready to call everyone I could think of where he might be.

I walked in the house & there is Kevin…."Where were you mom! I tried to call you & you didn't answer cuz I found your cell phone in the couch cushion, so I took the activity bus home & when I got home, you weren't here! I was getting worried about you!! "

Oh good grief!

Happy All Saint's Day, Let the Writing Begin, & What an October!!

November is here. Happy All Saint's Day!!

Today is the start of the NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. I participated last year, but did not finish. Then the editor inside of me killed the novel & decided I would start over on it, at a later date though.

This year I have decided to write about the Mayan Ruins, in Tulum, Quinta Roo, Mexico. I visited the Ruins in February, and was amazed by the place. Such fascinating history. It was gorgeous and amazing. It is the most visited ruins, yet the least is written about it.

October was a busy month! It started out with my birthday. The following week Kevin was sick with a nasty cold. He missed a whole week of school. He's been busy catching up at school, and even goes to an after school study hall on Tuesdays. He is enjoying Robotics. November will be busy with practices for him and his team prepare for their Robotics tournament.

October also brought us a new little kitten. She is the cutest thing! So yes, I think this officially deems me as the crazy cat lady. We have as many cats as we do people. Kenny says "it's a good thing she's so cute". Hahaha....The kids named her Cali which is short for Calico. They fell in love with her right away. She is quite the little fearless frisky kitten. She chases the other cats around and pounces on them. She definitely keeps the other cats on their toes. The first few days they didn't know what to think of her and they all ran away and hid from her, but now they have learned to just swat her back. She is relentless though, and keeps trying to suck them into playing with her. It's pretty funny to watch.

My friend Kathy & her 18 month old came to visit us for a week. They made the drive from Montana. It was so good to have them around. I took a couple days off from work so we could have some fun. We sure did. We went out for dinner a couple of nights, we went shopping like crazy (definitely stimulated the economy), went to the Como Zoo, and just hung around at the house visiting.

A day or two after they left Kenny came down with a head cold & I had picked up a cough. Ken had his cold for a little over a week and he felt miserable. My cough was more annoying than anything. Kenny got over his cold and my cough got worse. I ended up with a viral bronchitis. I stayed home for a week feeling miserable. I went to the doctor's office and when I walked from the waiting room to the patient room, I must have walked to fast and got really winded. It was difficult to breathe, and I felt as though, I had run a marathon. The nurse said "let me go get the doctor". She came back to the room with three doctors, they had the blood pressure cuff, the finger oxygen reader, and were checking my pulse right away. They were asking me a million questions at once and I was just trying to catch my breath. They did a chest X-ray and an EKG. They said "we'll have to see what this shows before we decide what to do with you, sometimes virus' like this can attack the heart and require hospitalization." Yikes! I don't have time to be sick in the hospital! I'm the mom! Well, the chest X-ray and the EKG both came back clear and normal. So they concluded that I had an influenza related viral bronchitis and I was to go home, get plenty of rest, and drink lots of fluids, and ride it out. They gave me an antibiotic just in case there was some bacteria, but they really doubted it. I guess they were covering their bases and didn't want to see me back? They also gave me an inhaler to help me breathe better. That worked but only temporarily, but it still came in handy. I'm feeling much better now, and am ready to get back to the real world and back to mom-normality.

I had the Kickball Awards Parties in Oct. I wasn't feeling very good, but I pulled it off anyway. I don't think people realized I was feeling as miserable as I was. Which is good, but I came home exhausted.

Halloween was great for the kids. Sam's school had their Halloween party a week early. I missed the memo on that one. Sam came home & told me he wanted to be Godzilla 2000 and the party was tomorrow. TOMORROW! Who has Halloween a week before Halloween? So off to the fabric store we went. Wal-Mart has removed their entire fabric department, so we ended up in St. Paul. Sam found the material he wanted and we found what we would make the spikes with. I ended up staying up until 3:30 am putting together the Godzilla costume. I ended up burning my index finger on the glue gun about 5 times. You think I would have learned not to touch hot glue after the first time, but no. I guess it was too early in the morning for such lessons. The costume got finished in time for school party. The costume was a hit with Sam and his friends thought it was a good costume too. So the numb feeling in my index finger and the sleepless night was worth it. I definitely earned my mom badge.

Halloween I took the kids to St. Paul and the kids went trick-or-treating down Summit Ave. Summit Ave is known for it's candy and highly decorated houses. The Governor's mansion is also on Summit Ave. and they usually give out pretty good candy. One house had the smoke going in their yard and porch. They had people dressed up as scary characters from movies. They stood still and then would move as you got close to them. I have to admit it was pretty creepy. They left the little kids alone, but scared the older kids, and even me too. I'll admit I jumped and let out a scream when the smoke on the porch came screaming out of the machine. The kids just laughed...hahaha...mom got scared.

And now here we are in November. Kenny is heavily wrapped up in the Vikings Football team and the Wild Hockey team. Both teams are doing good, and he loves that Brett Favre is helping MN win. He also likes that it makes the MN-WI football rivalry more intense. He is really excited for Vikings-Green Bay game today. We are hoping that Wisconsin's Golden Boy will have a Vikings win on Green Bay territory.