Sunday, September 27, 2009

RIP John H. Sancken

We have lost someone dear to all of us - Travis' father, John. I don't want to go into details at this moment - just please keep us all in your thoughts and prayers. We miss you & love you John....

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Sin-free....fun times....frustrating day

Let's start with the frustrating day and then we'll end on a positive note! Last Wednesday was our court date to finalize Kiegan's adoption. I closed my daycare early, pulled Kiegan out of school early and picked up Travis from work early so that we could be at the lawyer's office who was appointed as Kiegan's guardian ad litem by 1:30. We walked into the office and told the secretary who we were and she said "Oh - that's been rescheduled." WHAT?!?! I guess they had been trying to call me all day on Tuesday to let me know that the judge we were suppose to go in front of had a conflict of interest with the case b/c she had represented Shannon during our divorce when she was a lawyer. I asked what number they were trying to call and when she showed it to me, my jaw dropped! It was the phone number that Shannon & I had when we were married 8+ years ago!!! Needless to say, we were very disappointed. We walked next door to our family lawyer's office to talk to him about this and he apologized left & right, but I just couldn't believe that as often as him & I talk that he never bothered to update my file all these years with my current phone number! So now we go on the 29th......

We finally had Maddie baptized on August 30th, so now she is sin-free for at least the next couple of years! :o) My cousin, Jill, was her Godmother and Travis' brother, Trevor, was her Godfather. Jill & her husband are also Lexi & Kiegan's Godparents (they're pretty good at this job). Everything went pretty well even when Maddie was becoming a bit impatient with the whole process. I wasn't going to bother with a fancy dress for Maddie until I came across one on Ebay for $32 brand new - it was beautiful! I didn't think it was going to arrive in time, but it showed up Saturday afternoon!!

Maddie, Travis & I went to Rossburg, Ohio the week of Labor Day for our yearly trip to Eldora Speedway. Travis had a great time and was not ready to go home when Sunday morning rolled around! We left the Sunday before and stayed for a whole week. There were 5 campers altogether in our spot. I'm not 100% sure that Maddie & I will be going out next year. It's nowhere near as fun for me when I'm stuck at the camper 24x7 and can't go with everybody to visit friends and such. But I must say that Maddie was so GOOD - she rarely fussed and everybody just couldn't believe how good she was! She really hit it off with Uncle Randy and he rocked her to sleep quite a few times. The noise of everybody talking at night didn't seem to bother her much other than the first night. The Earl Baltes Classic race was the Sunday that we got there so Maddie & I of course hung out at the camper while everybody went and we were sleeping by the time they got back. All the talking was sort of waking Maddie up, but every time Travis would talk she'd sit straight up in bed and look around for him! After that, she must have been use to the chit-chat b/c she slept right through it all the rest of the nights. Eldora's a great place for people like me that like staring at people b/c you see all sorts of different folks there and different campers too! On one side of us we'd have these run down campers or little pop-up campers and then on the other side of us we'd have these monstrous RV's. It was nice to get away, but I was happy to get home too. :o)

The kids are all still enjoying school! Patrick seems to be back to his usual ways of getting in trouble quite a bit - he seems to get a warning slip darn near every day! We're not sure what to do about that on our end since he doesn't live in our home. Lexi has joined the Art Club & Builder's Club at the Jr. High! She was going to join IMSA which is a Math/Science Club, but it meets on the same day as CCD. I was really torn on how to handle this b/c I know that CCD is important, but I also feel that Lexi's academic future is very important too and I hate to discourage her. So this year she's sticking with CCD, but next year may be different. Lexi also went to her first Jr. High dance and it sound like she had a good time! It's so funny b/c her friends are Alexis, Alexis, Alexis and Lexi (or something like that). What I've also noticed is that Lexi seems to go by Alexis at school and for the longest time she HATED being called Alexis. Maybe this is a sign of her becoming more mature?!

Our weekends are still fairly busy - tomorrow night I'm going to see Pink in concert with my friend, Nikki. I am SO looking forward to it!! Sunday morning we are having Maddie's pictures taken. Hopefully the weather cooperates so we can get the outdoor pictures taken! Next weekend I have a girl's night and then a baby shower on Saturday and the busy weekends just go on and on..... Hard to believe that it's almost October already! I've already put my Halloween decorations out - I LOVE decorating for Halloween! Maddie's going to be Piglet, but I'm not sure what Lexi & Kiegan are going to be yet. I found Maddie's costume on Ebay for $1.99!! It'd sure be nice to find Lexi & Kiegan's for that cheap, but I doubt I'll get that lucky.

Daycare is going well - DCFS is suppose to be coming through today so hopefully I can get her in/out of here fairly quickly. This lady drives me nuts....thankfully she's retiring at the end of the year!

Lexi's 6th grade picture....


Kiegan's 4th grade picture...



Awwww....Maddie was snacking on something....



Maddie & Uncle Randy - they were quite the buddies at Eldora!



Yep - I pull myself up now on EVERYTHING!





The new sky boxes that Tony Stewart had built at the race track



Race track...


More race track....


One of the fancy RV's that was parked next to us


Another fancy one...this family's son, Austin Hubbard, was actually racing in the big race and he did really well! They gave us some stickers to put on the truck - nice people!


And on the other side we'd have this!


The boys playing cards (they did that a lot)


I love this picture!


So happy!


Our campsite


Another view (it's pretty obvious which one is ours)


In the truck!


Great-grandparents


Grandparents


Our family


Godparents


Godparents and Deacon George


Maddie in her pretty dress