January 2020-- Happy New Year

Aaaaand, yes it's been one year since I last wrote on the blog.  This blog is mostly for me, but also for Mom and Dad on a mission in San Diego if they get bored and have any free time.  So it's mostly for me.

Can I just say, I absolutely hate the month of January?  January is long and boring.  It is also hardly ever sunny here in Cache Valley.  Today is the first day in a long while since it has been sunny, but that also brought the wind.  There is something about the sun that also seems to pull a good stiff wind out of the cold mountains here.  When it is summer, the wind always-- ALWAYS starts up at 3:30 in the afternoon, without fail.  I have noted that fact since we first moved here to Newton 14 years ago.  If there comes a day when the wind doesn't blow at 3:30 or 4 pm, I will assume it's the end of the world.

Basketball season has been pure hell for Laura Lee this year, and consequently for her parents as well.  To sum up, she has a head coach who is vindictive and immature.  According to Rich, she also does not know the X's and O's of basketball-- the basics. Last year she mostly played on Junior Varsity, so we didn't have to deal with the head coach that much.  LL only played for varsity every once in a while.  We heard tales from previous players that playing for this coach is horrible, and we wrongly assumed that it wouldn't be so bad.  Long story short, the coach has created a team that really is a "team" in name only.  At least the girls all like each other. However, most (if not all) of the team has absolutely no respect for the coach.  It would not be fun to write down all of the details, and quite frankly we are super tired of the whole ordeal.  We are just counting down the days until she is done.  I have begged LL to just quit several times-- but she says she needs to at least stay so that she doesn't let down her other teammates who are also having a rough time.  She has come home nearly every practice and every game in tears.  I am tired of it.

Last Monday, I rushed LL into the ER.  She called me from the school crying in the bathroom.  She had a sharp pain in her side and was in the bathroom sobbing.  She said she was going to drive home-- I told her not to.  Her friend ran the car keys to Sammy, then LL started to throw up because the pain was so intense.  I took her to Instacare (wrong thing to do) and they told us to just go to the ER (which is what I knew they would say).  I just really didn't want to spend $600 for an ER visit, and held a slight hope they might think it was something minor at the Instacare.  The $600 is just for the privilege of stopping by the ER-- that won't include the ultrasounds, bloodwork, urine test, and whatever else they decide to charge us for.   By now I am guessing you were thinking "it is probably her appendix", which is what we all thought.  They didn't do a CT scan because if they do a CT scan within the first 24 hours of the onset of the pain, there is a chance that her appendix would not even show up yet.  They sent us home without any free "Thank you for Coming" gifts, and told us to keep our eyes on her.  She has felt crummy all week, with only a slight pain in her right side.  By this coming Monday, we should know if it is really appendicitis.  The doctor assured me that it wouldn't rupture in the next few days if it happens to be that.  I trusted him since he is the one who basically saved Luke's life almost 11 years ago when his appendix ruptured. 

 Sammy was so excited to get the car keys and drive herself home, she didn't even wonder what was wrong with LL.  They usually fight over the car, and since LL has basketball practice after school, Sammy rides the bus home (which according to her is pure torture.)  LL didn't want her team to know she was in the ER. Sammy was home for about an hour then she it dawned on her, "Hey where is LL? I thought she was home?"  Rich told her she went to the ER.  Well, Sammy has a best friend on the JV team so she immediately texted her the news.  This friend immediately told everyone on the team.  Needless to say-- LL was furious, but her best friend Jacie who is on the team came by to see how she was doing. Thank goodness for Jacie. 

Sammy and LL are both going to prom in three weeks.  Luke and Spencer are doing well in school.  Luke had a major case of Strep a couple weeks ago.  He was home flat in bed for a week.  He was miserable.  Thank goodness for modern medicine.  

Luke has been purchasing model tanks and spending hours working on them.  He is really good at putting them together on his own now.  Spencer got a box in the mail called a KiwiCo. box.  It was a kit for him to make his own paint spinner.  He was able to put the motor together with all the other components and now we have a lot of paint-spinning art lying around.  Spencer sort of explodes all over the house.  His stuff is amoebic-- it takes up any empty space there is.  There are socks, blocks, tape, glue, Legos, metal pieces, sticks, rocks, papers, wrappers, pants, and just about everything made of matter on tables, chairs, and sometimes most of the floor.  He also never stops moving. The kid can't sit still to watch a movie, nor can he stop talking to even HEAR the movie.  I love him to pieces or else I think I would go nuts.