10intheCabin

Well this day we had no time/energy for pictures!!





We got up on Saturday around 8am to get to the soccer fields and headed out. Courtney coordinates a soccer league that has over 400 kids. She puts the teams together, orders all the uniforms and I think she has a few other things, but I can't remember now...... This was the first practice for the teams for this season and it was sunny and nice! Courtney couches her daughter's team and is co-couch on her son's team. So Sariah went with us to the field.





After practice we went home so that Sariah could go with Josh and the rest of the kids to a church activity, while Courtney and I went shopping for some last minute items! I had popped the button off my only pair of jeans while at the ER the night before and my only other pair of pants was a pair of khakis, but they kinda had an accident in the wash and were no longer wearable......... So I really needed some pants to wear in DC, I couldn't really walk around in just my dress!! Courtney needed to get a few things also.



So after getting a few things done after the kids left, we headed out! Five hours later we returned victorous!! Courtney got what she needed after trying on over 25 of them! I came home with a new red dress and two pairs of jeans!!



Then we had to blearly pack our suitcase, yes we packed one suitcase for the both of us!! Aren't you proud of us!! Or are you amazed!! Well we did pretty well, but we were 3 lbs over at the airport, so we used the extra duffle we had packed to reshuffle some of the weight. But I'm getting ahead of myself.



So the plan was to get up at 3:15 so we could leave at 3:30am. Yes I really did mean to type that!! When I made the flight arrangements, that was the best I could do, really......Courtney was NOT impressed!!! I can't imagine why!! So we went off to bed around 10pm. After the night before and being on my feet most of the day, it felt soooo good to lay down and to go to sleep. But it was short lived.....poor Cody woke up screaming in panic and could not be calmed down, in hindsight Courtney thinks it was a night terror. But that night no one really knew what was going on, did he have an ear ache, was he sick, did he want a drink.....what!! I got up briefly to make sure Courtney and Josh were doing ok, then I went back to bed so I could drive in the morning, as obviously Courtney wasn't going to be up to it.



I found out later that she had driven him around for 1/2 an hour to try to help and that didn't even work! Poor Cody, poor parents! I plugged my headphones into my mp3 player and went back to sleep, but I knew the night hadn't gone well, because when I got upat 3am, Josh was in the living room with Cody......

I was only gone for ten days, so we're half-way through my trip already!!

Friday mornings Courtney plays volleyball, so we headed off to play. I was very excited to play as I no longer play on Wednesday mornings at home. The ladies were very warm and welcoming and very, very funny. They stood around in a circle for the first 30 mins, just chatting and getting caught up with each other. They were so funny that my stomach hurt and we hadn't even started playing yet! I did have a good time and enjoyed it very much. Collin did notice the radical difference between Courtney's group and my old group, "Mom! They didn't' even starting playing for half an hour!" In Green Bay we only stand around for 5-10 mins before someone says, "Let's Play!"

Leaving volleyball, we saw a blue heron in a tree. Collin made us back up and take a picture of it. We had never seen a heron just sitting in a tree in a subdivision! It was just different. There are herons EVERYWHERE in Louisiana! We thought we had a lot, but they REALLY have a lot!


Here Matt and Collin take a look at the craw fish. Collin was a little put off by their whole body and eyes. A little too live looking for his taste.

Here the boys get instruction on how to peel craw fish and what parts to eat.

In the end Courtney and Josh ended up doing the majority of the cracking and peeling, because none of the rest of us were real enthused about that part of eating them, but the meat was good.

Here Collin takes a bite with what we call "long teeth". Where you just barely touch the food you're eating, you try to keep your lips off it as much as you can and you swallow real quick! He did end up enjoying the eating part, but never did warm up to looking at them and then cracking them open!

We did end up taking Matt to the ER, he consistently couldn't use his hand/arm normally and there was one direction he couldn't twist his wrist in. He also asked to go to the doctors, which means a lot with him. He didn't even cry when he fell, he's pretty tough!

So we were at the ER for around 5 hrs and yes, he did break his arm. But not a break that had to be set, just enough of one that you could see the line running through the bone in the x-ray. So they put him in a splint and told him to see an orthopedic doctor on Monday to get it set in a cast. Courtney asked if it could wait till Wed. as we were supposed to be in DC on Monday. The doctor told her that would be fine.

Here they work on splinting his arm, Courtney isn't laughing at her son, she's laughing at the two guys. They were very good with Matt and very funny.

Here is Matt waiting for his splint to dry so that we can leave. We left the hospital around 12:30am, I think, it's all a little blurry for some reason...... Then we had to wait for his painkiller rx to be filled, another hour, and then we had to drive 30 mins or more home.....did I mention it's a little blurry??? We had promised Matt he'd get ice cream when we left the ER, so while they filled his rx, we went looking. The first place, I think it was Wendy's, had "already" shut down their machine and the next place, I think Burger King, had a broken shake machine and everything else was closed!! Poor kid, he settled for a Hershey Sundae Pie from BK. We got home around 2:30am. We were pretty tired by then.....and we had to be up for Courtney to coach her soccer team at 9am..........

Now I'm tired just thinking about that night! I am off to bed, ready to start a brand new week, that is going to be awesome.......I think. It's got to be better than the last two weeks! It's starting off well, I don't have to leave until 7:30am to take Amanda to school, because there is no seminary tomorrow! So that bodes well, I hope.....

Oh and we're expecting another inch of snow tomorrow night!! I love the snow, I love the snow!! Did I mention that we snowmobiled for three hours yesterday!! LOVED IT!! It was the first time Brent has had unlimited time to just ride with us, and it's the first time in awhile that we've had time as a family to just kick back and relax. We usually have too much going on to take a big chunk of time like that together. Well, mostly together, Than and Amanda were at a youth church activity......

I have to admit, I fudged a little, I love the snow....AFTER the driveways have been cleared! Did I mention that the snow blowers are still broke?

Thursday we got Courtney's kids off to school, did some chores, and went off to visit with Courtney's Mom so that Collin knew who and where he would he would be staying with when I went to DC. Then we went off to get lunch and visit Magnolia Mound Plantation. The plantation was built in the late 1780s and is currently decorated in that time period, although it has changed hands many times and wasn't bought by Baton Rouge until 1966. The house was beautiful and amazing, but we were not allowed to photograph anything in the house.


Here is Courtney, Cody and Collin on the porch.

A picture of the front of the house. Obviously the pillars are to prevent flooding in the house, it was very common to see older houses built on these pillars, but not many newer houses, unless directly on a body of water.

The trees around the plantation were HUGE and beautiful.

We started on the covered porch and our docent was dressed in period clothing, she's in the center of the picture with the dress on.

This is the detached kitchen that fed the entire plantation. The tradition was for unattached kitchens because of the heat. Our docent told us that they also burned down every so often and had to be rebuilt. Of course the iron cookware and brick hearth wouldn't burn, so they would be able to be operational pretty quickly after a fire.


Another docent. He gave a very through explanation of life and cooking at the time period that the plantation was built.

Shelves and storage at the other end of the kitchen.

Spices in the background. They were kept in a lock box, in a safe in the main house, and the lady of the house would keep the keys to them. She would go to the kitchen every morning, go over the menu with the cook and dole out the amount of spices needed for that day and then return them to the lock box.

In the foreground are the tools to get a cup of coffee in the morning.... The metal box was for roasting the whole bean, then the beans were ground in the two different mortar and pedestals.

A tree in blossom!!! It was Feb. 7th, 2008 and the trees had been in blossom so long they were loosing their petals!! That day it was a sunny 65 degrees. In Two Rivers, it was 27 degrees and snow covered the ground!


Collin and I at the gate to kitchen garden, which had broccoli and cauliflower growing in it!!

Collin practicing his alligator stalking skills! This baby alligator was swimming around in a HUGE water pot that we walked by as we came in the plantation entrance.

SUCCESS!! He got it!!

Oh no! Now it's got him!! Just kidding......it's fake...... Did I fake you out??!!

We went home afterwards and had a yummy dinner of chicken alfredo! After the kids were in bed, the adults played Wii, something I hadn't played yet. It was fun, even though I was soundly beat at bowling!

Did I mention it was warm there??!! Today is 20+ degrees, which is "warm", but not quite 70+!!

Things are settling down some here, as much as they ever settle. Brent is done with his work week, which is always a stressful week all the way around, as he's usually gone for 12+ hrs a day. Between all the illnesses and his work week, we don' t feel like we've even seen each other. So now it's nice to have a weekend to ourselves!

Hopefully I'll get another post up tomorrow. But don't hold your breath!

So, I can't believe it's Thursday!! I've tried every day to post again and obviously it hasn't worked. Monday we traveled half-way across the state in a snow storm on iced roads so the older three boys could shoot in a state archery tournament. The drive took 2 1/2 hrs getting there, because we pushed it all the way. The drive home was 3 hrs because we didn't have a time to be home and the storm was still going strong, but the roads weren't quite as bad, a lot less ice, but still snowy. It was a very long day and I got dinner in the kids and we went to bed!



Tuesday, I was trying to catch up on different things, like laundry, chores, paperwork and keeping up with Max!! I also had a doctor's appointment, just my yearly exam, no worries, and then we went to the library. By the time we got home, I again just got dinner and we went to bed!



Wed. is our day in GB, so we spent the morning getting chores done and getting ready for a trip into town. Then we did that trip into town......Max melted down about 3/4s of the trip, so I was exhausted by the time we got home. Amanda was sick and I was soooo tired and frustrated with Max.....so I hardly even got the kids fed. Once Brent got home from work, I turned Max over to him and went to bed.



So now I'm typing this while I wait for Amanda to get out of her morning class before school, so I can take her to schoool. I'm sitting in our local library's parking lot, using their wireless connection. :) Today I think we're staying home......I think......Tonight I'm probably headed into GB for a Mom's Night Out with my HS group, to show off my pictures of our trip to the White House.



But for now I'll continue the story of our trip here........



We stayed at a hotel Tuesday night, we stopped around 10:30pm. We got on the road around 5:30 in the morning. We pushed pretty hard and arrived in New Orleans around 11:30am. Courtney had told me to call when we got around 90 to 60 miles out, so she could jump in her car and meet us at the rental return place. We timed it so well that I pulled in behind her at the airport!



From the rental place we headed to the French Quarter in New Orleans. I've never visited Louisiana, so I was excited to see New Orleans and the area! Courtney lived in NO for a year or so,(she moved before Katrina) so she was very familiar with the area and gave us a great tour!


We started by walking on the walkway by the river. Oh and did I mention we came in the day after Mardi Grai!! So there was still lots of green and purple all around. Here is Collin standing on the riverwalk in front of a paddle boat, that you can take tours on. This aprox. 24 hrs after he left the hospital. He was feeling great and had no problems walking around the French Quarter.


Here is a statue in the Quarter that has beads thrown on it, the horse has some on it's ears and the rider has some on his helmet. Don't forget that you can double click on the pictures and they'll reload as single, very large pictures. But be sure to use the back arrow on your browser to return to this page, don't exit out of the page with the large picture on it.

Just a general picture of one of the streets.

This is part of the open air market in the Quarter, there were hundreds of booths here, selling anything and everything, including alligator heads!! I was tempted to bring one home, but wasn't sure I could handle a grinning alligator in my house permantly. This structure is brand new and in fact part of it is still under construction, as it was destroyed by the aftermath of Katrina.

Here is a sign telling you that you're at the French Market Place, and notice the No Stopping sign, on the bottom part it has a bumper sticker afixed in a such a way that it says "To Mardi Grai Zone Anytime." Again you can click to see the picture bigger. A balcony with Mardi Grai decorations.
Street Players, there was music everywhere.
I loved the balconies on the streets!! I would love to stay in an apartment off one of these and just watch the world go by, although Courtney and I agreed it would only be fun for so long....
We ate beniegts at Cafe Du Monde, a place mentioned in the travel mags and tourist books! They are pastries covered in powedered sugar, so yummy!!
Here Collin shows off his new, cool shades we had to get to be able to see in the bright sunshine there!! Even their winter light was bright for us!! I got some shades also, mine have teeny, tiny alligators on the arm pieces.

Just a general picture of a Jaskson Square by the Quarter, I can't remember what the building was, but my guess is a church..... Notice the carriages in the foreground....
They are all pulled by mules....Courtney was told that the mules handle the heat/humidty better than horses would...which I can believe. There is a history of using mules in Louisiana, mostly because of their strength and heat tolerance. I found a document on it, but it wouldn't let me cut and paste. But the most interesting part was the labeling of the mules, "sugar" mules were bigger and stronger, while "cotton" mules were smaller and used for lighter loads. They were used for plantation work, and in the city for garbage wagons, peddlers, and pulling trolleys. Eventually they were replaced by machines, but obviously are still used for tours.

This is lookin back towards where we were just walking. The Cafe is just behind the tree on the right, on the left is the street with the long balcony and just to the front of that is the beginning of Jackson Square.
Here Collin and I pose for one last picture on our way back to the car. The river is in the background.

I had a really great time and have it on my list for Brent and I to visit someday together. We'll have tons of fun!!

A brief word on Katrina. You can still see houses tarped over, boarded up and buildings/apartment complexes who have entire banks of windows broken out. It is very moving to drive around. You can see people are still struggling to overcome the disaster and you can see the evidence of the massive amounts of destruction in all the new construction, which really sticks out. It sticks out because everything is so very old in this city, and then you have the construction that is a year to a few months old and it's very noticable. To drive around the downtown area and realize what was underwater and how people survived for days on end is overwhelming at times. It really has an impact on you. And it's been 2 and a half years..........

Having visited there and seen the city and people, I realized all over again, that there are no easy answers and that people will always follow human nature, despite the knowledge that mother nature will destroy their homes, time and time again.

After the walk around the Quarter, we headed to Courtney's home. We had to cross the causeway, which is really just one unending bridge, in my opinion, and Courtney's. Once home we had a yummy dinner that Courtney had cooked up in the crock pot and headed to bed, we were TIRED!!

I know that you've been waiting for an update, it's been a little crazy here. I got off the plane on Wed. around 8:30pm to lots and lots of snow and a throwing up child. (did I mention I left Louisiana and 70+ weather to come home to this.....) Welcome home Mom......Max was too sick to even give me a decent hug and he didn't want me, only his Dad....

During the middle of the night Jayden joined us as he had thrown up on his bed. Then Thursday I got to jump back into our routine, getting Amanda to school and feeding the animals and dealing with sick kids! Such fun. Oh yeah, don't forget the snow storm coming in!! Archery was canceled and Amanda was sent home from school 2 hrs early because of the storm.

Friday was a little calmer. The virus seems to be a 12 hr virus, thank goodness. We did get to archery practice (rescheduled because the kids have a tournament on Monday, if we can get there, another storm is being predicted) and Brent and I were able to go on a date! We also went grocery shopping, so romantic! When we came out of the movie theater it was SNOWING again! Oh and during the movie Than called to tell us that Lee had thrown up and Collin was sleeping in our room because he was sick. We came home to Collin laying on the couch, because he had thrown up in our bed....Lee also had thrown up again....luckily Lee hit a bowl both times... Collin didn't....

I'm not sure I even want to acknowledge yesterday.....two broken snowblowers (we still haven't dug out from the last week's worth of snow storms at the cabin), I ripped out a pair of my jeans, Amanda and Than got sick, the toilet clogged up, and I can't remember what else, but it seems like I'm missing something.......although that's plenty! I even took a nap to try to reset the day, within an hour of getting up the toilet clogged up! I took a hot bath and went to bed by 8pm!!

Church was cancled today because of the ice/snow storm that has literally shut down the North East part of WI. Even one of our major malls was shut down, the roads were too dangerous to be out on. That's saying something.....it takes a lot to shut down anything around here. So we relaxed and hung out. I've done some catching up on paperwork and have been trying to get this post up all afternoon/evening.

Here is our first 24 hrs in Florida. We flew into Tampa, FL on Monday the 4th, around 9pm. We left our house around noon in a snow storm, of course. We our flight was late leaving, so we flew out of WI around 5pm.

We took a taxi to our hotel. We got in so late that we ended up eating at a game/bar place called Gameworks. We walked to it, from our hotel, a very nice, touristy type neighborhood. We got to order off the bar menu.....a new experience for me.. We waited so long for the food that they gave us 1/2 off. Then we went back to the room to eat it. We got to bed around 12am. Then we got up around 4:30am to leave by 4:45am to be at the hospital by 5am. Collin was one of the first two to have this procedure done. The staff was so awesome. They were so good with him, everybody addressed him, and then me. He was made to feel very comfortable and they did an excellent job relaxing him and letting him know what was going to happen. He was away from for about an hour, during the procedure, and the rest of the time I was by his side. The procedure was 22 mins long and we were out of the hospital in 5 1/2 hrs from start to finish!



Here is Collin getting ready for his scan, he had a nuclear scan as part of the procedure. The dye makes the tumor show up on the scan, and then the surgeon uses a probe during the procedure to go right to the tumor and removes it.




To get the scan, you have to lay very still under the camera. Collin fell asleep during it, listening to his music. He was pretty tired as you can imagine after 4 hrs of sleep.

After leaving the hospital, we went back to the hotel. We had very loose plans for this part of the day, depending on how Collin was doing. He was doing so well, we checked out of the hotel and hit the road! We found a back road and followed it as far as it would go.

Here is Collin about 6 hrs after having the tumor removed from his throat. He has an ice bag hanging around his neck to keep the swelling down. We're parked on the side of the road admiring the swamp and hoping we'll see an alligator, well kinda hoping we'll see one......

More swamp...
More swamp.......
Not swamp....I loved how this trees was covered in spanish moss and surrounded by evergreens.

At the end of the road was Pirate's Cove! Here is a picture of a white heron....can't see it? Well it's there, Collin loves herons and the lower southern states are the only places you can see white ones! He was so excited we saw three on this road, we just couldn't get any decent pictures of them! The heron is between the car and the fishing rod off the green point, can't you see it?? It's white.......
You thought I was kidding, it really is Pirate's Cove, at least that's what this building is a the end of road. It's an abandoned building, it could have been an inn or restraunt or both.
The road is Pirate Point........
The sun set while we were at the end of the road....
It was a very beautiful sunset that coincided with us being gone from WI exactly 24 hrs!! What a day!!
During the ride, Collin told me he already felt better. This coming from the kid who could hardly swallow and who didn't want to walk around, just ride in the car..... His muscles felt better, they had been very sore for months. Since that day he has done nothing but improve, his anxiety is much, much less and he's just feeling so much better over all.