So this is going to be my catch-up post for the past week!  lol  Get ready, it’s going to be a long one!

Last weekend was the BP-MS150.  Day 1 was cancelled as previously reported.  We spent Saturday waiting around for instructions and then carting a team to Schulenburg where they were staying.  After that, Jack and I took a side trip to Waelder to see M&S’s new place out in the middle of nowhere!  lol  Sorry, M… it really is!

Day 2 was interesting, fun, stressful and everything you can imagine!  If you’re reading this and you rode in that ride, I’m going to say the same thing I said inside the van to other cyclists… We try REALLY hard not to hit you guys, but some of you are just nuts and make it really difficult!  I mean, riding on the wrong side of the yellow line?  C’mon people!!  Anyway, I didn’t hit anyone, and I only got yelled at by one cyclist and one DPS officer!  A good day!  lol  The coolest part of the day was after the last rest stop.  At that point, if they’ve made it that far, they’re making it to the finish.  Well we picked up one very emotional lady who was devastated when her bike had a catastrophic failure.  She’d worked so hard, and this was her first 150.  Well Jack and I broke all the rules and a couple of barricades and got her to the finish line where she was able to walk her broken bike across the finish line!  THAT was a very cool feeling!

The Monday after the MS150 was Cyclists in Suits day.  A lobbying day at the Texas Capitol for bike safety laws.  We visited the House and Senate chambers, then went off to visit our lawmakers.  I had appointments scheduled with both our Senator and our Representative.  Our Senator didn’t bother to show up that day.  I still have issues with that, and the fact that he didn’t show up for the vote on the bike legislation, but that’s another issue for another day.  Our Representative however… his office was awesome, and he even came off the House floor to meet us and hear what we had to say.  I was TOTALLY impressed with him!

We came back home, and I was in super solder mode to get a bulk custom order done by Friday for an event.  In the midst of that we had the Rest Stop captain training for the DFW Sam’s Club MS150, which is this next weekend!  It’s already here believe it or not!!

Jack and I both had doctor appointments this week.  He’s lost about 60 pounds as a result of his surgery, which is fantastic!!  I’m so proud of him!  He rode in the Muenster Metric Century bike ride this weekend.  He did the 65k route, which is about 40 miles.  And he’s been riding to work everyday when the weather or wind isn’t nasty.  He’s my studmuffin cyclist! :o)

Friday we had a bit of a scare.  I was letting the dogs out when Angel stumbled, fell and then had a seizure.  We took her to the veterinarian, who did bloodwork and reported that she has autoimmune hemoglobin anemia.  Basically her body is attacking her red blood cells.  We’re starting her on some steroids this week, which will compromise her immune system, which means no more dog park for her.  I’m going to call the vet and see if it’s ok to still take Spaz, or do we have to worry that he’ll bring something home.  He’d be devastated if he couldn’t go to the park anymore!

So it’s been pretty eventful around here.  We’re getting ready for the Sam’s Club MS150 this weekend… Jack is a HAM operator in a SAG van again… I’m helping with rest stops on Day 1, and captaining a rest stop on Day 2 (If you want to come help… I need the help!  Sunday from 8am until around 2:30 pm… you get a shirt, and I’m really desperate!!).  I’ve got to do some charms for that, and we have the last committee meeting this week.  Plus I’ve got a couple of events that I’m working on, so it’s going to be a busy, busy week!!

I’ll post some photos soon!

~Heather

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I’ve decided that I’m not going to call it “busy” anymore… just active! lol

Last weekend was the celebration of my grandfather’s 97th birthday.  I made him a cake that looked like his cowboy hat that he wears to church every Sunday.  I’ll post a photo soon.  Most of our extended family came up for it, so it was a great time of visiting and catching up with everyone!

This past weekend Jack rode in the Tour of Dallas bike ride.  20 miles!  I’m so proud of him!  I’ll post photos later once I get them off the camera.  I was supposed to ride too, but had some mechanical issues.  Instead I was his personal SAG vehicle. :o)

Later that day we took the dogs to the off-leash dog park (which is becoming a daily thing), and since I didn’t ride that morning I decided to walk them to the park!  It’s 2.05 miles… gulp!  Cool thing though, I bought the Nike+ sensor thing that you can put in your tennis shoes and it feeds information about your walk to you iPod.  I don’t have the Nike shoes, but there’s all kinds of ways to use it with other shoes too.  When I plug my iPod into the computer it uploads my walk/run information and keeps track of it online.  Cool, huh?  Even cooler is the little avatar thing that I can put on my blog so that YOU can see how far/fast/etc. I’ve walked/ran and keep me accountable!  Right now she’s on the right sidebar, down towards the bottom.  Check her out, my mini me is pretty rockin’!

This month is going to be super, super ACTIVE!!  Next weekend is Easter and we’ve got family egg hunts, and more.  The next weekend we travel to Houston and Austin to drive a SAG van in the BP MS 150 bike ride.  Monday, April 20th we’ll also be in Austin for the Cyclists in Suits lobbying day at the Capital.  Then there’s a soldering class I’m helping out with.  Then the next weekend (the first weekend in May) is the Sam’s Club MS 150 in Dallas/Fort Worth where Jack is HAM’ing, and I’m helping with the rest stops!  Whew!  So basically, if you don’t see me, don’t get responses to emails, etc. during the month of April, don’t send out a search party just yet!  lol

Today, I’m chilling out at Panera Bread, taking advantage of their free wi-fi while waiting to go to my doctor’s appointment, then heading to the office after that.  Also working on a new website for Jack, but more on that later.

Lots of stuff for “later!”  So I’ll definitely be posting again real soon!
~Heather

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One week from tonight we’ll hopefully be asleep (since we have to show up at the hospital at 5:30 AM, which is 4:30 AM thanks to the time change!), but we’ll be looking at a new challenge, a new day, a new chapter, and another new normal for our little family of two.

We had lunch today with my parents… my dad had LapBand surgery about 2 years ago… and they had much advice for us.  I had seen my dad go through it, but there was so much that I didn’t see that I learned about today.  Oh gracious!  But we can do this!  Jack is uber excited and anxious to get it done.  Me, I’m cautiously optomistic.  But that’s us!  lol

This week is crazy!  I’m visiting a bunch of different venues to try to nail down a place for our annual company banquet, we’re delivering lots of coinage to the MS Society from our coin drive at work (it’s MS Awareness Week, by the way!), and Jack has his pre-op appointment at the hospital, plus a bonus appointment with his plastic surgeon to take a last look at his leg before surgery.

Tonight we had dinner at a great mexican place for a friend’s 30th birthday (happy “getting older” Grant!).  We gave him nicely wrapped Geritol and Hemmroid cream!  lol

I took the plunge and signed up for Twitter this week.  It’s interesting.  I just wish I could merge Facebook, Twitter and my blog all in one place!  Then I’d actually be able to keep up! :o)  So if you’re interested, I’m at twitter.com/jackandheather.  I’m still learning though!

Ok, time to head to bed, start another week, another month (can you believe it’s March already?!?!), and get on with it!

~Heather

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If you don’t know, I have another blog that I’ve kept up with off and on (surprise, surprise!) for over three years.  It’s a chronicle of our journey trying to conceive a child.  I’ve updated it with our saga from this past week, which kind of gives you an idea of what’s been going on around here lately!  lol  http://build-a-family.blogspot.com/

Other than trying to make a baby, I’ve been swamped with custom charm orders (see http://sweet-and-charming.blogspot.com).  Luckily I’m finishing up the last of my outstanding orders tonight.  The rest of the week I’ll be working on a cake for a party on Saturday.  It’s going to be a challenge, and I can’t wait to show you pictures… if it turns out ok!!  lol

So that’s my quick update.  I’m fully expecting the next couple of weeks to be crazy! My last craft show of the year is Saturday,  and my custom order deadline is the 19th, so maybe it will calm down after that!!  Maybe!

~Heather

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We had a special surprise tonight after dinner. well sort of at dinner. lol For his gift, we gave my dad tickets to the Mavericks game tonight! I kind of cheated. our gift limit was $5, and these were $150 seats, but I kind of didn’t cheat because my boss gave them to me from his season tickets! :o) I’m such a cheater!

Here’s a few shots from the game… me and Jack, my guys (Jack, my dad and my brother), and a panorama of the game.

The panorama shot is actually four shots merged together (which is why you see players at both ends of the court! lol). If you have any version of Photoshop, go to File -> Automate -> Photomerge and Photoshop will automagically merge together photos that have common pieces. So it will put your panoramas together for you! Cool, huh? Now you can never say you didn’t learn anything from this blog! lol

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Here it is, the birthday cake for six people, and yes, that is over 240 candles on the cake!! I’ll try to post another picture with them all lit!

EDIT: Here’s the photo of the lit candles…. well as many as we could get lit before we started getting scared that we’d burn the restaurant down! And we had lots of tables around us watching us carefully! lol  Jack started lighting one side, and the candles were so close together that they began lighting each other, which is why there’s a big flame on one end!  And we didn’t have a lighter so we were doing this all with matches… YIKES!  We fore-went the “Happy Birthday” song and just went straight for blowing out the candles!  Whew… if you ever think that covering a cake with candles is a good idea because it will be funny to see them all lit… think again!  Or have a fire extinguisher ready!!!

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Wow, this weekend seem to FLY by!

Saturday was the Advanced Soldering class taught by the fabulous Heather Ales.  Afterwards we hung out at her house for workshop time.  I got quite a few charms done.  I’m hoping to get some up on Etsy sometime this week.

Today I spent most of the day finishing up a freelance graphic design project.  This thing has been an absolute BEAR!!  I swear I’ve been working on it for a month!  But it is DONE!!  Woo hoo!!

And now, we start another week…
Yes, I have another cake class this week.  We’re going to learn about fondant!
An intermediate soldering class on Saturday.
Then Saturday night we have a family birthday dinner… all the adults in our immediate family have birthdays in October or December (except Jack, whose birthday was at the tail end of September).  So we are celebrating them all with one dinner… which I’ll make the cake for, of course!  lol
As far as the week is concerned, lots of work stuff getting me stressed out, and I need to get focused on scanning my grandmother’s photos so I can take them back to her at Thanksgiving!

Whew!  It’s gonna be a week, people!  lol
~Heather

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This week had just been exhausting!  I love watching the summer Olympics.  But this schedule is just killing me!  I swear every night that I’m going to bed at 10pm regardless.  But then something happens, and I’m on the edge of my seat, and I look up and it’s after midnight!  Ugh!  And the alarm goes off way too early!  But I love the games.  The heartwarming and heartbreaking stories… the dreams that are realized…. it’s just an exciting time.

Yes, we’ve been following the saga of Michael Phelps.  Believe it or not, Jack was a competitive swimmer in high school, so he’s been watching it closely.  And of course no race is complete without his post-race analysis!  lol

Speaking of Jack, everything is looking good with his leg right now.  The doctors expect this latest treatment to give him 75%-80% coverage of the remaining open wound.  Most likely they will try another round of this treatment once it’s done to get complete coverage, so it’s looking good.  A lot of people have asked why Jack still has an open wound almost 3 years after the accident.  No, he’s not diabetic.  He lost 2 out of the 3 arteries in his leg, so the blood flow is extremely compromised.  And the open portion is in the back, where you have lower blood flow anyway.  Add to that the scar tissue that fights the progress of skin growth and you’ve just got everything working against growth. 

On my end of things…. I went and saw the fertility specialist on Thursday and things went well.  Everything looks good.  Even though it’s late in my cycle, we’re still going to do the drugs and see if we can make something happen this month.  So I’m scheduled to go in on Friday of this week for a sonogram to see if things are cooking.  If they are, then probably next week (the last week in August), we’ll look at doing intrauterine insemination (IUI).  So we’ll see what happens.  Keep us in your prayers… if it’s meant to be, it will be!

~Heather

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So as most of you know, we’re trying to start a family… and we have been for a while.  Well I guess our journey has come full circle. 

Three years ago I saw a fertility specialist, Thursday I’ll see him again.  So we’re back to where we started from and are taking the step forward that we tried to take back then.  I actually have another appointment in September with a different fertility specialist too, so we’ll see which one I prefer and who we’ll be taking these steps with.

I don’t know how many people even read this blog anymore, but if you do, please keep us in your prayers.  It’s an unpredictable emotional roller coaster, so maybe you should pray more for Jack!  lol

~Heather

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So Jack had his bone scan and white blood cell tag this week… very interesting how technology works and what it can show us about our own bodies… anyway, so the good news – there is no osteomyelitis in Jack’s leg!  yay!  That was the infection he had right after he got out of the hospital, resulting in 6 weeks of daily IV antibiotics.  So… what IS there?  Well, we don’t know that so much at this point, and the infectious disease doc is out of the country until after the first of the year (oh to be young and wealthy! lol). So we wait, and see, and pray really hard.  God is in control!  We believe that completely!

Fantastic news at the doctor this week… he recently changed my meds and they are now working properly!  Yay! Hence the 15lb weight loss in the past month!  Double YAY!! It’s nice to feel healthier.

Did Christmas with the family this evening before everyone heads off in their own directions. Presents, lights, singing, and good Mexican food.  That’s what Christmas is all about folks!

Other than that, we’ve just been busy, busy, busy.  Jack’s off to California for work stuff in a week or so (we just found out yesterday!), and I’m super busy at work with tradeshows, websites, brochures, and all that other fun stuff.

Happy Holidays!
~Heather

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So can you believe that next week is Thanksgiving?!?!  I mean, seriously, where did the year go?!?!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  Why?  Because it’s the holiday that everyone on my mom’s side of the family gets together in this little town in South Texas where my grandparents live.  This is a huge deal… we now have over 60 people in our family from my grandparents on down to all the great-grandchildren!  I joke that the town’s population doubles whenever we all come to town (but not in front of Mamaw…. she’s very sensitive about people insulting her town! lol)

My uncle has a ranch there, and he recently built a lodge for hunters.  Luckily it’s big enough to house all of the men in the family, and all the women and children are split among family and friends’ houses.  Older women get beds, younger girls get blow up mattresses and pallets on the floor.  Jack and I are the exception… because of his medical equipment for his leg, we get our own room!  :o)  Trust me, that’s a big thing!  lol

So we usually drive down Thursday morning (it’s about a 6 hour drive), and get there around noon.  Another uncle owns a barbecue restaurant in Corpus Christi, so he caters the Thanksgiving meal – and really, with over 60 people, you need a caterer! lol We usually plan to eat around 1:00, but don’t actually get the food out until 2:00 or 3:00, but it’s all good because in the meantime everyone is visiting, catching up, etc.  The kids are usually running around getting dirty, much to the chagrin of their mothers (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “Can’t you stay clean for just 10 minutes?!?!”)  lol

When the food is ready, we all sit at what has to be the longest Thanksgiving table for a single family.  It stretches the full length of the front porch of the lodge.  My 95 year old grandfather prays over the meal, and the family. And then we spend what sometimes seems like hours at the table.  Not eating the whole time, but just enjoying each other’s company and telling stories (sometimes more like tall tales!).

Afterwards you’ll find some people in front of the TV watching football games, some out on the porch visiting, some taking off to go hunting (usually with several little boys in tow!), and later in the evening, some sitting around a fire. There’s no place to go, no time to be there, no traffic, no rush, rush, rush… it’s awesome.

This is the only day of the year where I really feel like I have nothing else in this world to think about or worry about. I’m surrounded by the people I love most in this world, good food, and God’s creation. We all get along for the most part (hey, everyone has a tiff now and then), but it’s not like a lot of families I hear about who can’t stand each other… we all love getting together and spending the holiday… so much so, that most people bring along friends or other family members who were going to be alone for the holiday.  So our number easily climbs above 70!

I truly feel so very blessed to be a part of this awesome family. I was devastated when we missed it two years ago, after Jack’s accident.  On Friday night everyone went to my grandparents’ church for a “family music night.” Some played instruments, some sang, but the best moment (for me at least!) was when my dad called us at the hospital, over 500 miles away, and put a microphone up to his cell phone and I hear my entire family yell “We love you!” I bawled that night… both from feeling so loved, but also knowing what I was missing. We made it last year, and you bet we’re going to be there this year and every year from now on. I can’t help it… it’s my favorite holiday!

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My brother and his family were in town this weekend for Easter, so we decided to do the annual bluebonnet pictures on Saturday.

We found a great patch of bluebonnets, but there was one problem! It was 40 degrees outside, and SNOWING!! So the girls huddled up for the group photo, and while we took the individual ones, the other two were huddled under a blanket with mom and Grammy! Sheer craziness!

This one was a little… shall we say… moody. :o)

This one never seems to take a bad photo!

And when this one gave me a real smile, it was gorgeous! Such cute girls!

This one was Sunday morning after church. My sister in law made their dresses, but with the chilly temps, there was a mad dash for matching sweaters on Friday!

The beautiful family.

And the dash for the egg hunt!

Sorry it’s been so quiet lately… just busy, busy, busy. Jack had an appointment with Dr. Kelton today (the plastic surgeon, remember him? lol). He basically cleared Jack and said we don’t have to go back unless something goes wrong. Woo hoo! No more trips to Baylor! (Not that we don’t love the place, but you know how it goes!)

Other than that, I’m just knitting away. I’m working on a pastel bag for myself, then I’m going to start knitting baby caps for donation to a local hospital. Just want to do something to give something back.

Oh, congratulations to my buddy Heather and her hubby on their new house! So excited for them!

~Heather

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My family is amazing. Our Thanksgiving consisted of over 60 people… my grandmother kept telling my 95-year-old grandfather that this (indicating all of the people) was his fault. He reminded her that she had something to do with it too! lol Too cute! They just celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary this past September, and are truly an inspiration to all of us.

So many people, so many memories…. here’s a few photos to share from the weekend. I think we win the prize for the longest Thanksgiving table! The first photo is the whole brood. It’s not often that we get everyone in one place for a family photo! My grandparents are in the center. Their five children are sitting, along with their spouses. Thirteen grandchildren are standing behind, with their spouses. Twenty-four great-grandchildren are all sitting in front (or on laps!).

See… I told you it was long! :o)

Happy Thanksgiving!
~Heather

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