Date Night with Obe Wan

Well, my social J-Bird got invited over to a friend's house to spend the night. Obe Wan WAS not going to sit his bum in front of a computer all night. I decided we should go out for a date. I cleaned up---hard to do as NONE of my clothes fit. I found something and he even said I looked nice. I decided to take him to his favorite restaurant--Texas Roadhouse. We do love the delightful rolls there (and I wonder why I'm a fat butt....) Obe Wan knows this is his Portland Aunt's FAV restaurant, so he decided we needed to send her three pictures of him there!

Clue # 1: What restaurant am I enjoying?

Clue #2: Endless Peanuts

#3: SODIUM overload on cheesy, bacon fries!

After our french fries were delivered Obe Wan proceeded to knock over his COMPLETE DRINK! A guy across the way jumped up and helped pick up all his ice, wiped off Obe Wan's seat with his napkin and was amazing. Needless to say, we bought his dinner. What a great guy. You forgot that nice people are out there. More times than not we see something and turn our backs saying, "Well, that sucks." He came over and gave us money towards our tip as it wasn't necessary for us to buy him dinner. WOW. He still was nice.

We went to Wal-Mart after our dinner and bought us a POOL. A big 10 foot pool. Look at us go. We'll have that pool I want after all. Sweet.

Book Reviews ROCK! (Even if you are a rude cake....)

So, J-Bird and I reviewed a book and the author responded! How cool is that? Ms. Beth is also using his email in a tweet today! I'm so excited to be a part of things in the book world. So blessed to know such talented people!



We read:


You can find the full review at Books & Whatnot....Here is half of my review--or more like J-Birds:

My eight-year-old son approached and asked what I was doing. I told him I was reviewing/reading a book for Ms. Beth at Books & Whatnot. He informed me he would like to read it as well because it looks amazing. He is right. The cover does hook an eight-year-old, especially with the word "Rude" in large letters on it. So I let him read it.

From the eight-year-old after finishing Rude Cakes by Rowboat Watkins:

"This book does a great job of explaining how people can be rude and not have any manners. The cake doesn't even listen to his mom and argues with her at bed time. It has a one-eyed monster who does listen and is very nice. I really liked the one-eyed monster. He looks friendly. Mom, the cake learns to be nice to the crumbs because of the monster's example. Some of the people in my class need to read this book.

I couldn't have said it better. Thanks, Mr. Watkins. I will be sharing Rude Cakes with my son's classroom.

Tasting Cough Syrup aka Kentucky Bourbon Trail

Okay, so I promised the Gym BF when he comes to visit the Knob, Prince Charming and I will take him on the KY Bourbon Trail. Well, unbeknownst to me, this was also a bucket item list for my stepmom. She arrived on Wednesday and has now visited 7/9 of the Bourbon distilleries. Prince Charming and I joined her and my father on Memorial Day. I know where I will take the Gym BF and I know what I will not be drinking after the tour....

It goes down nice and smooth....and then you want to vomit after you have actually swallowed it. YIKES. That stuff is nasty.

We went to Jim Beam and Maker's Mark. My Dad and Step Mom had gone to four other ones as well. There are a total of nine Disterilliers on the tour. I will have to say after just two I am full of knowledge about Bourbons. I also know I don't ever need to drink the stuff again. Did I mention how nasty it was?

The main ingredients of a Bourbon is Rye, Wheat and Corn. It is anywhere between 8-135 PROOF. It is some strong stuff. I will say the Maker's Mark tour was the best of the two. You walk into the room of barrels and, according to our tour guide, it smells like the entrance to heaven. He was not far off. It was the most amazing smell. It was truly heavenly. I could stay in the barns forever. The Bourbon sitting in the charred White Pine barrels is the most heavenly sent this 36 year old has ever smelled!

Happy as a lark on his 43rd Birthday!

One of Prince Charming's favorite Bourbons is the Basil Hayden. It is made by Jim Beam. I think he would have just sat there and drank Basil, but there were so MANY options! At Maker's Mark we were given four glasses of whiskey. We were allowed to try up to 2 ounces of Bourbon. We were given the full proof stuff that hasn't been drowned in water all the way to the aged stuff.

Papa Jeff and Myra sampling
 at Maker's Mark

We were not given the Pappy kind. A bottle of that goes for upward of $60! WOW.  Prince Charming turned 43 the day we toured, so I let him dip his own bottle into wax at Maker's Mark. He thought he was pretty cool stuff!

We were allowed to stick our finger in the mix of yeast and grain. We could taste it. (It was still nasty!) It is a cool process of heating, vaporizing and aging this horrible tasting stuff. I have discovered I am a lone ranger. Most people enjoy drinking this stuff.
Okay, whatever works.

A self dispensing Bourbon machine! 

Cheers! Prince Charming drinking with the Father-in-law

The next tour gave us a credit card and allowed us to select whatever Bourbon we wanted. It was kinda cool.

I will complete the KY Bourbon Trail! You get a FREE t-shirt when you go to all nine distilleries. I do love a free t-shirt!

Memorial Day Visitors

THEY'RE HERE....I couldn't help but post a YouTube video from Poltergeist. It sums it up. The Wichita Nephew turned two, but he is still a hand full. (I believe all 2 year olds are hand-fulls, he just happens to be related to me!) 

The four cousins at dinner on Saturday!
I had a reason to use the dining room! WOO-HOO!

Wichita Niece

Wichita Nephew

My Dad and his wife arrived on Wednesday and left on Friday. (They would return on Saturday and leave for Kansas on Tuesday.) My Wichita Sister and fam showed up Friday evening and left early Monday morning. It was so wonderful to have my house full of my people. It was just like old times minus my other two siblings. The same, but different! Right?

We had fun showing them around the new house, the new town and the overall life on the Knob. It seems pretty boring most of the time, but with a house full of people it was wonderful!

I even talked my sister into giving my boys a haircut. The weather in KS was rainy ALL weekend, but up here in the Knobs it was beautiful. We couldn't have asked for better weather. It was so beautiful outside we couldn't keep little nephew inside.

Just last week Obe Wan was telling me he was moving back to KS after high school because his nose hasn't stopped running or not running since we got here. The allergies in the Knob are horrible.

So....what happens to the little nephew? Yep, a strong allergic reaction to who knows what in the air/grass up here that landed his his happy buns in the ER on Saturday night for a breathing treatment, a prescription for Zyrtec and steroids. I don't believe my sister will EVER travel anywhere again without an inhaler and the little guy's breathing treatment AGAIN. (DUH!)

Visitors to the Knob over Memorial Day weekend....

There's No Crying in Baseball!

Wichita Nephew is saying "Cheese"

Wichita Sister and Wichita Nephew
He was double dipping his nacho and trying to feed it to his Mommy.

YEAH! Visitors to the Knob is the best part of moving far away. It is like a little piece of Kansas floats my way. Wichita Nephew was back at my house and it was like the kid hadn't missed a beat. For adults time passes, but when you are two, February to May is just like it was yesterday! Little Wichita Nephew ran around here like it was yesterday! Too much fun. I had plenty of activities planned and all they wanted to do was HANG OUT at my house. HA! I will always be a tour guide to however comes to the Knob, but if all the guest wants to do is hang out, who am I to stop them?!?!?

I knew my brother-in-law was a huge Chicago Cubs fan and adores baseball, so I had to take him to see the home of the Louisville Slugger bat and to a baseball game at the Louisville Slugger Field. It was a great game! There was tons of good food, fireworks and awesome people!

Prince Charming had to be drug to the game.

Papa Jeff and Myra

The kids enjoyed going to the bouncy houses! On Sundays kids eat for FREE and they provide FREE entertainment. We brought my neighbor who is at my house more than his now....These four kiddos had a blast jumping around! 

Before the game, we did go to the Louisville Slugger Museum where Wichita Niece became her own baseball card. She enjoyed being the only kid on the tour. The two Jedi Knights didn't want any part of doing the tour again. It doesn't have a lot of glammar to it if you don't know any of the players. In this household they only know Colts football, so the Slugger Museum went amiss on my two. 

Wichita Niece

Obe Wan's Doctors Appointment

We went to Kosair Children's Hospital Thursday--six weeks after our initial visit to the Nephrologist. (This is a Kidney doctor.) We were told to change our diet to a no/low sodium diet, complete a 24 hour urine analysis, have some ultrasounds, some X-rays and blah, blah, blah. I had taken both
boys out of school for the day as my Dad and StepMom were coming into town and we were going to spend the day with them after our doctors/hospital visit. Easy as pie. I had simple plans. They were going to go on the Louisville portion of the Bourbon tour and we would go to the doctor/hospital. We would meet up later at Churchill Downs for some horse racing. I called the nurse on Tuesday to double check the times of all the appointments and get the address for the hospital. She told me she was glad I called because the doctor wanted to leave town for Memorial Day weekend and asked if I could move my appointment up an hour. We were the only appointment he had after lunch and if we could come as soon as our "stuff" at Kosair was done it would really help the doctor! SUPER. We could enjoy the family that was in town AND the boys were already out of school for the day. A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

If only it were that easy. It started out swell. We got to Kosair--a really cool children's hospital with interactive Kid stuff!

 The boys had with the mirrors! It was amusing to watch them.

We get to do a sonogram. I asked Obe Wan if he was having a boy or girl. He did not think I was funny. At the same time Aunt Ree texts me asking the exact same question. I read Obe Wan the text message. He starts crying. He does not think this is funny. I apologize as I don't want him upset as we still have several more tests to run and we haven't even seen the doctor yet.

We get everything done the doctor asked me to do. We go to the doctor's office. Mind you these places are two blocks away. We parked where I thought we would end up. He makes us wait--for ONE HOUR AND 36 MINUTES. After an hour I walked back out and reminded the nurse we were in the room. Man, was I hot to trot. I had rushed the boys through a snack because we didn't have time for lunch. I wanted to help the doctor get out of town and help us get on with our day. WHY, oh why, was he making us wait? I would have stuck to our original 2 o'clock appointment instead of arriving at his office at 12:50. I will have to say the boys were super. At one time they asked me to read the books in the office. I read all three--even the princess one. LOL!!!

So, he finally comes into the room. The first thing the doctor asks me is where are the test results for the blood work? What?!? I pull out ALL my paperwork and show him this is what I gave Kosair. Sure enough. There was the script for blood work. Well, darn it! He spends less than five minutes with us. He presses on Obe Wan's belly and back to have him tell him, Yes, In FACT it does hurt. The doctor tells me there is no calcium and no protein. Kidneys are working fine. You need to see a urologist as there is still a significant amount of blood in his urine. He tells me we need to go back over to Kosair and have the blood work done and another urine sample. (He had us give one at 12:50 when we arrived as well....) And you need to come back in 8 weeks. WHAT?!? Why the heck am I coming back to you--Mr. let us sit and wait for-e-ver. If my kiddo's kidneys are working fine, than no, we will not be back. Thanks, but no thanks. 

We went back to Kosair to have Obe Wan give another urine sample. (His 6th one since December.) He also had the blood work done. This will be put in the system so the Urologist will know the results. I have yet to hear from the Urologist (it is Monday, appointment was Thursday) and it is up to them to refer me on. 

Sigh. 

1. We will go see a Urology soon. (This Mama bear will be calling and reminding them to refer us on....)

2. We still don't have definitive answers.

3. Obe Wan was very upset as he doesn't know why it hurts to potty and he is ready to eat sodium!

4. I'm glad there is nothing seriously wrong with Obe Wan's kidneys.

5. We still made it to the race track.