John

It's the dreaded pink eye!

I've got 3 kids who woke up today with pink eye. I noticed the baby right away cause her one eye was matted shut. I had the other two (Mandy & John) up & getting ready for school like any other usual day. They didn't have the discharge (yet) but when I finally got a good look at their face their eyes were all "pink" & bloodshot. They could not go to school. Mandy was upset cause she was suppose to give a presentation for her big science project. Although, as I type this, I think she's totally over it as she's vegged out on the sofa watching t.v. John has been on my nerves a bit as he's a ball of energy and stuck at home. That's the frustrating part, they can't go to school or anywhere else, but they are not really sick....just contagious. However considering that it could be fever, vomitting & who knows whatelse, I'd rather deal with pink eye.

My only pass out of the house today will be to go to Walgreens & their drive thru. Otherwise I think I'll find plenty to clean. It is the end of the month (ALREADY?) so I'll be stripping the beds & getting fresh linen on them. Good timing cause then I can wash away them germies festering in their beds. In fact, I just heard the dryer buzzer go off.....

Tri, tri, tri

Yesterday Jim & I participated in an indoor triathalon. It consists of swimming 1/2 mile, biking 7 miles & running 2 1/2 miles. I have done this race 8 times as an indivdual, Jim twice & we have done it together as a team twice. Racing is really my thing, but every once in awhile Jim likes to join me in my endevors.

The goal of this years race was just simply to finish. Neither one of us had given any particular effort to training for this event. Carmen's reason is obvious ~ she just had a baby. Jim, well, he's just coming off his busiest season of the year for work. However we are still very happy with our results & finish times. I completed mine in 1:08:57.72. Jim completed his in 1:15:44

We look forward to competing next year and should be more back in the game.

Family Pictures

100 years from now....

We've been remodeling our kitchen. It all started last April when we thought we would do the simple job of repainting the kitchen. We knew that what was already there was painted over wall paper. So we started to strip the wall paper which lead to tearing out the dry wall which lead to tearing out that thin brown board that covered up the original plaster. Yep, that came out too. We ended up tearing the kitchen all the way down to its bare studs. Slowly but surely we've been replacing the drywall & doing some other things along the way like rewiring the electrical.

I will give credit where credit is due & say Jim has done most of this work. I'm mostly helpful when it comes to holding the drywall up in place while Jim screws it into place. I can say I've helped some, but it is mostly Jim. He really doesn't know what he's doing. He's had very little experience in his past. Helping a friend here & there in the past is about all. Jim is a learner though. Through books, on-line help & asking friends who do know how to do this he's been learning as he goes. He's doing a fine job. Sure we could point out all the flaws that have been made, but it's not like anyone is going to walk into the kitchen with a magnifying glass to inspect our finish project. We'll just stand back & look at the finished project and I'm sure we'll be fully satisfied.

We're jumping ahead of ourself for now. The finished project is still a few months away. For the most part we've just redone what we un-did. There is one wall that we are changing. There used to be a window in the wall (what was once the outside window before the porch was inclosed & made part of the house). We decided to close up that window & make the wall solid. On the oppisite side we'll be adding some shelves for storage.

When we closed up that hole we wanted to leave something, a time capsel of sorts. Before hanging the drywall we left a bit of us, the Peterson family. The who & what we are right now as we are re-doing the kitchen. We hope in the future when someone goes to re-do the kitchen or tear down the house or whatever that they will discover our wall. Give them a glimps of who at one time lived in these walls that we so affectionately call home.

Happy (belated) Birthday Brianna!

It was not my intention to let Brianna's birthday slip by without getting it's own special post. It's hard to believe that our precious princess is already 8. I guess until baby Carmen came along Brianna always seemed like a little girl since she was in fact the youngest girl. But now, she suddenly seems so much bigger and older. We're only 2 years away from double digits with her....wow!

Enjoy the slide show of Brianna's yearly pictures we have taken. Such a beautiful, pretty princess.

Brianna