… IS GETTING MARRIED!!!

We are sooo excited for my sister, Missy, and just had to share. Javan proposed the other day and totally surprised her in the classroom. Picture a bunch of cute 5 year olds handing her roses and then holding up signs that said, “Say Yes Miss Miller” as Javan popped out and proposed! Good job Javan!

Congrats again to you both! Let’s start planning… and exercising! (well, that’s just me… Missy already looks great!)

A few weeks ago we headed down to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor for a little family fun… and to celebrate John finishing his second class (programming, which was not a picnic!). We headed first to the Lexington Market for some famous crab cakes… John is the only one who actually ate one (remember… he deserved it!), but their fries were pretty good too so the kids and I were happy. You’ll see the little treat that was for me later.

We walked around the market for a few minutes… most everyone is selling food… when of course, the statement kids make at the most inconvenient times comes out of Lily’s mouth… “I have to go to the bathroom.” I do not recommend these bathrooms to anyone who has any sort of cleanliness standards, but if you like a lot of drunk people talking to eachother thru the stalls about what they’re doing on the toilet… then this might be the place for you! (byw, it was noon) I must say the drunk people were very nice though and let us go ahead of them in the line because I had a “baby.”

Next we headed down to the harbor. We went up in Baltimore’s World Trade Center Building. They have a bunch of offices in there,but the top floor is an indoor 360 observation deck…. very cool!

Camden Yards

The Aquarium from above

Next we walked along the harbor checking out the boats docked there…

… at the end of the harbor we headed into another market/mall type place. Here is where I got my treat! We happened upon a fudgery! It was really fun… you get to watch the workers make the fudge and they tell you what they’re doing, and they sing, and they’re pretty funny too! Caught me hook, line and sinker… we totally bought some yummy choc/peanut butter fudge. Mmmmmmm!

We did more walking and checked out the Barnes and Noble, Hard Rock Cafe and needed to get a pic of John in front of ESPN the Zone.

And to top off the trip we hit the IKEA on the way home and bought Lily a cute desk for her room. Also saw this… interesting, huh?

Lily learned to ride her bike this week!

After only a few passes in the yard I could tell she was getting the hang of it and needed more room to practice. We headed over to the soccer field next to the elementary school… flat and long! Lily hopped on and to my surprise, rode the length of the soccer field! She did it a few more times and we headed home. The next day she wanted to try again…. and after a few more times riding from one end to the other and back again she asked when she could ride in the parking lot. Luckily the soccer field is right next to the fair grounds which has a paved pathway running through it. I told her we could give it a try over there and I would run along side of her just in case she fell…

Lily quickly rode herself over and by the time I caught up with her she had already taken off down the road! To this point she had not been able to get started without help, hadn’t turned or even braked yet! She did all of these things within minutes… check, check and check! I spent the next hour and a half watching her ride around and around… it was great!

Check out the videos!

Lily riding bike from jbarnums on Vimeo.

Untitled from jbarnums on Vimeo.

It was a great day!!!
ps… just a month ago Lily was wearing this and waist high in snow! Welcome Spring!!

Whoa! March kinda snuck up on me! I was distracted by all the snow excitement and February totally got away from me!

Anyways… One other highlight of February was the Pinewood Derby. This was Tyler’s first Pinewood Derby and he was sooo excited to race. John and Tyler created an awesome car complete with a Lego driver! Check it out!

The track they had for the boys was awesome! It was all aluminum and much longer than I expected. It also had a laser at the finish line to tell who won and would show a 1 or a 2 over the each track! And they used a computer program to run the whole tournament. They just put in all the boy’s names and their numbers and it did all the match-ups! Pretty high tech, huh?

Here’s a video of Ty’s car racing… he didn’t win this one, but I had finally found a good spot to video from! He wins in the next video, but not so great footage.

pinewood derby from jbarnums on Vimeo.

pinewood derby from jbarnums on Vimeo.

Lily sat along the track and cheered him on!

They also had the audience vote on the cars. Ty’s car won “SCARIEST!” He was pretty proud of that!

We’ve decided to go private with our blog, meaning we are only making our blog available to our family members, which is who it was created for in the first place. (And don’t worry Neeley… friends of over 25 years totally get a “family pass.”) We’ll send out an email to the fam explaining what you’ll need to do since there will be a username and password involved.

And friends… if you find yourself missing us… give us a call and we can hang out!

Yup…more snow! Some of these pics may look familiar since we got close to 2 feet.. AGAIN!!

Wednesday afternoon was spent shoveling and using the snowblower… our super neighbor Larry helped again! We invited him for supper, but he wanted to take a nap… totally understandable!

Thursday we all went out to play… all afternoon!

The kids were light enough to not fall through in some spots.

John and I were not so lucky… we sank to our hips!

John made a cool fort for the kids in the huge piles out front.

Then we made paths out back so we could get around the yard easily. I went first and shovelled the first foot off the top and John followed me with the snow blower getting the rest almost down to the grass.

And what snow day would be complete without eating some of it!

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Next up for today.... making some awesome paths for sledding. :)

I’m always saying… if it’s going to be this cold, we should at least have some snow to play in. Well I certainly got my wish this past weekend! We got almost 2 feet of snow!! More is expected tonight and tomorrow… maybe another foot!!! Like my mom said… we’ll have to jump up to spit!

Here are some pics from our snowy weekend…

The view out of the front door. For those of you who have been over here, you know there is a wagon and a descent sized shrub under there somewhere!

The view out the back door… don’t be alarmed… this is one of the bottom windows!

The neighbor’s car.

Our garden box is under there somewhere!

Poor Lily… it was up to her hips!

I shovelled in front of the garage, but thankfully our neighbor Larry has a snow blower and is willing to share!

And we did some sledding this afternoon at the elementary school as our next snow fall started to arrive… way fun!

King of the mountain!

I think her exact words were, “Wheeeeeeee!”

Tyler caught some awesome air on this one!

sledding from jbarnums on Vimeo.

sledding from jbarnums on Vimeo.

sledding from jbarnums on Vimeo.

The elementary school held a Disco last Friday night for all the students and their families. Tyler and Lily were overly excited and reminded us allllll week! Finally the day came and they had a blast!

Check it out!

Yes… Tyler wore a mullet wig! And when someone complimented him on it he said… thanks, I grew it myself!

We didn’t see Tyler most of the night… he was dancing with his friends, but we did manage to catch up with him for one dance!

Disco from jbarnums on Vimeo.

So most of you know that John had shoulder surgery almost 3 weeks ago…. for the second time. Yup, same surgery, just round 2! The surgery itself went really well. Turns out one of the permanent stitches that was placed around the ligament to keep it against the bone, popped out! After talking to the doctor, it sounds like the bone never grew around the ends of the stitch like it was supposed to. See… the stitches were originally placed into the a bone in the shoulder with dissolvable anchors. While the anchors dissolve, the bone is supposed to grow around the ends of the stitches, holding the ligament in place against the bone. This was the original problem… the ligament was pulling away from the bone from too many of John’s AWESOME volleyball swings!!

The doctor said the floating stitch was probably causing 90% of his pain… just irritating things in there as he moved normally. The rest was from the ligament again beginning to pull away from the bone since that stitch was no longer doing it’s job. So this time around, he took out both original stitches and replaced them with just one this time in a new location. John will start physical therapy in a few weeks. Cross your fingers and your toes it holds this time!!!

After the surgery I got to sit with John as he was coming out of the anesthesia. I asked him if he wanted his picture taken. He was excited about it… kinda like a kid would be… said yes and then gave me his best pose and smile… like I said… high as a kite!!

I know most of you have heard the stories from last time.
John: is my career over?!
Me: you mean your job?
John: no…
Me: you mean volleyball???
John: yes, is my carrer over?!
Me: no, your church volleyball career will be fine!

There was no shortage of hilarious comments this time either! I spent the next hour laughing to myself and writing it all down! By the way… for full effect you have to imagine his voice much, much higher and extrememly relaxed sounding.

So apparently John announced to the nurses, “I just woke up! I’m awake!” when he first opened his eyes.
Then while gushing to me about how “awesome” the nurses were he told me he was making sure he smiled a lot because they get a lot of grouchy patients here! He described them as “awesome” many times and then turned to me seriously and said, “I’ve been trying to think of another word to use besides awesome.” I waited a minute, but he seriously wanted feedback. I said, “I don’t know, maybe great or super.” He says, “Yeah, those are awesome!”
The nurse had given him some saltines and he said they didn’t taste good…”it’s like they made the convalescent home smell into a taste.”
And for a while there he would kinda zone out for a few minutes and then all of a sudden perk up and state something weird, but be totally serious…like…
John: My thumb is super numb!! I like it. (giggling) I don’t want to be without my opposable thumb. I like it!
Or…
John: Where am I??!!
Me: In the hospital.
John: Oh, yeah.
Or…
John: I can’t see anything!!!!
Me: Um, you don’t have your glasses on.
John: Oh, yeah.
Or…
John: I don’t have any underwear on!!!!!
Me: It’s ok, you have a gown on.

I got a pic of his shoulder a few days after the surgery when he could finally take off the bandages… here are the 4 holes they used to do the surgery. Sure is amazing how they can manage to do all they did thru those tiny incisions.

John’s doing well now…. trying to use the arm while still taking it easy. He’s been off the heavy pain killers and is much more comfortable than he was for a while there. Next up… physical therapy!

We had a great Christmas this year. It was so much fun to see the kids surprised and excited on Chirstmas morning!

Once all the gifts were open we made some surprisingly yummy sugar cookies in the Easy Bake Oven… Lily is now in charge of the holiday baking! Tyler spread his Legos over the kitchen table and started building and Lily rode her scooter and dressed up in her dolphin costume… nice pick Auntie Sarah! And John and I tried out the games on the Wii fit! Way fun!!

Later on we had a nice Christmas dinner at Katie and Clayton’s.

And what Christmas dinner would be complete without a full on dog pile! Please notice that John is on the bottom!

The next day we took John’s parents to the Strasburg Railroad. We rode in the dining car and had some dessert as we travelled. It was fun… just wish the ride was a little longer!

And John and Tyler finished up one of Tyler’s big Legos sets… a big crane!

Neeley and Jay were up from Florida for Christmas and they came to stay with us for a couple days the week after Christmas. It was so fun to have them stay over. Usually we work in short visit and are always left feeling like it just wasn’t long enough. This time we went out to eat, exchanged gifts for the kiddos and just hung out together… and we also hit Choc World… always fun!

Say mac n’ cheeeeeese! Isn’t Cole the cutest?…

…but soon he’ll start making faces like this. Doesn’t Tyler have the pointiest tongue you’ve ever seen? Still a cutie though.

Then after New Year’s… (Happy New Year by the way!… hope you had fun celebrating!)… We headed up to my parents’ place for a nice, relaxing visit.

Hope everyone had a very, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!