Family adventures

 Just some simple family happenings in this post! I dyed my hair :)

Alex found a recipe that involved using a cinderella pumpkin to cook a curry inside. After scooping it out I decided to double the amount of rice and liquid so we'd have a little more to eat, but then the rice didn't cook, even after two hours in the oven. It's too bad because the rest of it was tasting great, but uncooked rice is not fun to eat. Instead we had Whataburger for dinner and watched Remember the Titans.

I finished another puzzle.

The boys had fun holding it as long as possible :)

Dan and I did a Costco run and got their hotdog and soda deal, but they only carry pepsi and I was wearing a Coca-cola shirt!

I am very aware that if Covid hadn't happened, our fall would be very different. Dan has been home for nearly 7 months straight, the kids activities stopped and so did all of my work and musical pursuits. Even though school is in full swing, a lot of the activities aren't so we have still tried to do things together in our 'borrowed' time. 

Cade picked our weekend activity, which was a place called Green Acres Golf and Games. His big draw was go-karts. We did some go-karts, mini-golf, water wars and a little arcade time. 

I rode with them on the first time around. Dan told the boys that if anyone passed him, he'd buy them another round on the go-karts. That gave them some racing momentum! Here's a time-lapse of their second time.

 

We were in a different area of San Antonio which turned out to be close to a restaurant Dan had heard was really good. It's called Pollos Asados Los Nortenos- basically a really yummy chicken place! The boys wanted nothing to do with it so we got them some Whataburger and we took a chance on a new place. We also drove to a park to eat it since most places you still can't eat inside.

It did NOT disappoint. That chicken may look bold and scary, but it was some of the best chicken I've ever had! We split a whole chicken with sides and had plenty left over for another lunch.

By the way- we made both boys try the chicken and they admitted that it was really good!

It was General Conference this weekend as well, so Alex put his baking skills to good use with these delicious M&M/chocolate chip cookies. He even made enough to deliver to his deacons quorum :)

Guess what? Live music is slowly making its return! My friend played flute with the Heart of Texas Band this weekend. Despite being drained from our other adventures, I really wanted to hear live music and support her. Some things are just good for the soul. I don't know the next chance I'll have to perform again, but it was great to see one group setting the precedence!

We got dinner at Tycoon Flats afterwards- yummy burger selections in a nice spacious outdoor environment.

Last bit of an update is that Cade found out on Friday that he'd be returning to in-person school on the following Monday, Oct 5th. 7 months since his last in-person school day! Crazy! We had to kind of rush out the door this morning due to some miscommunication, so here's our impromptu picture session, lol. I thought the first was a classic Cade look of, Mom what are you doing? And the second was a little better.

Cade admitted that he normally doesn't get nervous on first days of school, but this time was totally different. Even though he's been online for about 6 weeks, he's never actually been inside the school. As a freshman having no idea where anything is, I'd be nervous too. Hope you have a great first day of in-person school Cade! Slowly but surely, getting back to familiar things, right?

Alex attends a different school than Cade and did not get a seat in Phase 3, so he'll be home at least another 2 weeks. If I'd had my choice and only one kid could return, it would've been Alex first. He's really really struggling with virtual learning. He's not best left to his own devices to get the job done, he needs some accountability and in-person follow up. We all learn in different ways. I just hope he can recover his grades a bit through the rest of the semester. :)

It's Fall Y'all!

Soon after school started, Dan was finally able to request and receive time off! He took advantage by participating in a group ride at the Tail of the Dragon in the Appalachian mountains in North Carolina. 

Getting back into the routine of school, even virtual school, can be exhausting. Here's what Cade looks like a lot of the time.

I finished yet another puzzle. I have done mostly White Mountain puzzles, but found this one at Hobby Lobby and really enjoyed it. If you look really closely, the titles of the books are are joke titles like "Planet of the Grapes" and "Great Speculations". Fun!

And after Labor Day, Cade started having in-person marching band rehearsals. Unfortunately the very first rehearsal got rained out, but now they're getting ready to play for football games in October. Not sure how much they'll actually get to move around the field given they'd usually have rehearsals every day for a lot longer, and right now they're only allowed twice a week. 

Alex continues to grow his cooking repertoire and is a huge help to me. I told him to start keeping a log of all the things he knows how to cook! This is a picture of him with his biscuits and gravy breakfast casserole he made for dinner one night. He legit does these things all by himself! It was delish!

He even wanted to make his first cake from scratch for my birthday! I helped just a little by getting him some good cake pans and asking advice from my good friend Teletha. I wanted to have a spice cake with cream cheese frosting, and it turned out amazing! I'm sure if he wants to improve his decorating skills, other frostings would be easier to work with. But I'd call his first cake making adventure a huge success! Thanks Alex for working hard to make my birthday special!

And thank you to my friends and family for reaching out and making my birthday special too! It was definitely a time of reflection for me, turning 39 and feeling 79, lol!

The day after my birthday the boys (mostly Alex) wanted to go to six flags, so we dropped them off and tried out a Korean restaurant on that side of town for a birthday lunch. It was yummy, but we prefer the one we first found on the east side of town, Kim's Galbi!

Dan got some octopus to fry up at our table. No thanks!

Last Sunday we had our first in-person church meeting since the pandemic! It had been over 6 months. Isn't that crazy? We just had a brief sacrament meeting, and that was our only meeting for the month of September, but in October it looks like we'll be going every week. We've really enjoyed our time of church at home and having weekly zoom meetings with Grandma Kathy and Uncle Kevin, and they boys sure learned a lot of hymns! Here's a picture of us in our Sunday best, which mostly still fit the boys after their growth spurts. I think Cade needed a new shirt and shoes, lol.

And I just love this picture of Alex we took for his piano teacher. Such a great smile!

And lastly, mostly as a means of documentation, I've continued my search for what on earth is ailing me. My primary care doctor changed, again, and the first time I talked with him in late August he asked for more time to study all the things we've previously tested to see if there was anything else he wanted to look into. We talked the next week and it was at that point that he put in a few more tests, but felt that at this point we could consider my lingering symptoms to be Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. There's a standard set of questions doctors can ask to help decide if a patient has CFS, but there are no other tests or way to confirm it other than the patient's description of symptoms. A diagnosis by exclusion they call it, meaning they've ruled everything else out and that's what you're left with basically. 

It's not a shock to me, but it is not what I wanted to admit to. I've been in such a strong mindset of finding what's wrong so we can fix it and get back to how I was nearly 6 months ago. Instead, a diagnosis of CFS leaves very little hope for any sort of treatment or hope of progress. 

I am still following up a few last tests that my pulmonologist and primary care doctor want to look into. I'm not terribly hopeful, though, as every avenue I've gone down has yielded 'normal' results. For example, one of my main symptoms besides fatigue is the tightness in my chest and respiratory issues when exerting myself. I FINALLY got into the pulmonology clinic (after two months of trying) and they did a Pulmonary function test and an O2 desaturation test. And even though I left with my lungs burning and wanting to die, my oxygen levels never dropped below 98% and my lungs appear to be functioning normally on paper. Every test comes back like I'm fine, but I'm far from fine. That's that hardest part for me.

So what it comes down to now, is trying to limit my physical exertion to hope for low and slow healing, or to not further advance my fatigue at least. I thought by pushing myself to keep going that I was doing myself a favor, but that's the difference between someone with CFS and someone without it. Normally when you've been sick for awhile and you try and get out and get some exercise by taking a walk or running some errands you are glad you made yourself get moving because you feel better. When I did things all summer, I was mentally glad to be doing something different, but I was crashing and burning after doing these things. And slowly it was not just an outing like a hike or a river adventure that was too much, it was grocery shopping, and now even vacuuming or sweeping the floor. Very simple things are wiping me out for the day. I don't necessarily want to sleep, it's not that kind of tired. It's like pure, tangible physical and mental exhaustion where I just can't go on. So, I've divvied out my household chores to my kids and husband and I'm in mode of just trying to figure this new normal out. I'll finish these last few tests with my doctors and then turn to........ i don't know, maybe more holistic approaches.

I'm just so glad that it has started to cool down enough that I can go outside again, even it is just to my back porch on my hammock. :)  Happy Fall!

 

Labor Day camping

Way back in May when the Texas State parks finally allowed us to making camping reservations again, we searched for availability at our favorite spot- Garner State Park. They had nothing during the summer, and one spot had enough days for us to stay for Labor Day weekend. Had I known that I'd be feeling worse, not better, I wouldn't have booked it, but we decided to go anyways and make sure everyone really pitched in and helped.

Since Friday was work and and school, we arrived in time to set up as it was getting dark, and make a dinner and s'mores over coals. 

Check out this sunset!

Hot dogs, spiral sliced with a cheese stick wrapped around it and held together with refrigerated biscuit dough. A pain to put together, but a tasty camping dinner!

Saturday we had a slow-moving morning with some breakfast and hammock relaxing. 

Then we made our way to the Frio River. We picked a spot that we were familiar with where we could just swim and relax, not necessarily tube and travel. We stayed there for a good 3 hours, even when it rained a bit on us! (Good thing we had packed up camp in away that was conducive to rain)

While Dan was looking for rocks to skip, he came across this teeny tiny frog! Cade found one too. Isn't it the cutest?

A few pics by the river!

We were hungry so we headed back to camp for lunch. Right as we got there it started raining again so we all made our lunches super fast and booked it into our tents. It was perfect timing for lunch and an afternoon nap. The rain cleared up around 4:00 so we played some games, relaxed and then got ready to make some more yummy camping food. 

This meal was made almost wholly by Alex. Before we left home he prepped some pizza rolls. French rolls cut in half, spread with cream cheese, pizza sauce, pepperoni and mozzeralla cheese. Wrap those babies in foil and keep in the cooler until ready cook on the fire. Success! 

Dessert was a chocolate dutch oven dump cake. Buy a devil's food cake mix, a can of sprite, chocolate chips and some mini-marshamallows, and you've got yourself a yummy camping treat.

The boys got this fire going all by themselves!

I think it's safe to say that hammocks are our favorite part about camping.

After it got dark it started storming a bit so we packed up camp again. At about 9:30 it rained for a few minutes so we thought it was time to head to our tents for the night. After a few minutes, though, it stopped so we decided to play a few more games either until it rained again or we got tired. At about 11:00 the skies opened up and we headed to bed. Thank you rain, for raining at convenient times! You kept our whole weekend nice and cool and didn't ruin our plans!

Sunday it was clear that I had zero energy left. We had another low-key morning and dropped the boys off higher in the river and set up a spot at the end for them to meet us and hang out. Dan even found a way to set up the hammock over the water!

We hung out by the river for awhile, had lunch, the boys swam a bunch and I hung out in my chair. Dan even did some rope swinging!

After that we decided to pack up camp for good and head home so we could have a day to rest and recuperate from all the packing and unpacking that camping brings. It was nice to have a change of scenery even though I still couldn't exert myself very much. And I think Dan and I might be reaching the age of RV camping vs. tent camping. Our neighbors were very loud each night and even though we had an air mattress, it's just not a very good night's sleep. We need our beauty rest! ;)

Now we're back into virtual learning, Cade has in-person marching band rehearsals this week (yay!), and Dan went back into work this morning. He's been home from the office since Spring Break too. What crazy times we live in.

So it begins

 Today is the first day of school! 

It is the much anticipated school year taking place during a global pandemic. I think it will be interesting when we get to the end of this school year, to look back and see how much these kids and teachers have gone through.

For now the boys are online for at least 3 weeks. We spent yesterday setting aside a place in their rooms to do school work and getting them all connected to each teacher on Google Classroom

Here's our FRESHMAN, Cade! What a way to start high school!

And here's Alex, all set up and ready to go for 7th grade!

They've already had to show plenty of patience and flexibility since there were district-wide outages making logging in a bit spotty and inconsistent. Cade even had to trade out his laptop and now the new one has the right charging cord, but doesn't seem to like certain websites. I'm glad I'm able to be around and help. I escaped and got some groceries and now they're getting going for their after lunch classes.

Good luck boys, and my prayers and good vibes are going to all those in education this year. You're being asked to tackle the impossible. Stay healthy and safe and sane!