Niece Reese :)

Happy 1st Birthday to this little cutie pie!! She is sooo happy ALL the time. She is a mover and a shaker too...always investigating. Got to celebrate this past weekend with the family. We love you little Reesey!

Tried

We had a guest over at our house last weekend. His name is Cashew and he is a white hamster and belongs to the same lovely lady who gave us Bubbles. Rachel was okay with helping us out in our endeavor to try and allow Bubbles to have babies. I have to say, the endeavor was not pretty. In fact, Bubbles didn't want anything to do with Cashew. She was in fact, pretty mean to the poor fella. Instead of risking Cashew's life, we gave up and sent Cashew back home. We may try again some other time, but for now we have to be happy with Bubbles. She is such a sweet hamster. I remember when I was young-we had the opportunity to have baby hamsters and guinea pigs. It was a cool experience and I thought it would be neat for Gabi to see as well. Oh well, she is happy with just having Bubbles for now.

Prom 2009

This year's Prom was held at the Mishawaka FOP. Trenton and Tyler both went. Trenton with his girlfriend, Alayna and Tyler with his girlfriend, Abby. Both beautiful, sweet girls. Although they both were going they had different plans. Trenton's plan was to meet up with his buddy, Dustin and his date, Kelsey. Their dinner plans were at Lunkers!!! Afterwards the dance and after dance plans at Kelsey's house for a couple of hours. Tyler's plans were to meet up at Abby's with their big group, take the limo to Beutter Park for pictures and go to Carraba's for dinner. Of course, after dinner, the dance and after dance plans at Abby's house for a couple of hours. I was very disappointed with my camera . . . not sure if a button or setting was off or if it was just the lighting. It seemed to be taking great pics at Alayna's house but once we got to Abby's the camera just didn't want to take good pictures. I have to apologize, especially to Tyler and Abby for not getting very good pictures :( My favorites are posted below and you can see all of them here.

"Bucket Handle"

Tyler is now home and recovering from his arthroscopy today. Our decision to do it was exactly that...it was more exploratory because the MRI basically just showed a bone bruise and some signal indicating some trauma. Tyler's symptoms were not too severe to where he couldn't walk, etc. and it was pretty much a "take your chances" kind of surgery. Dr. may have gone in and found nothing. Well, come to find out, we are glad we decided to do the surgery. Doc Graham found a Bucket Handle Mensical tear that he had to repair. He came out after surgery and described the damage as a "very very bad tear." He said that Tyler must have twisted his knee and slammed it to cause some of his cartilage to shatter and actually float around his knee area. Doc Graham was very surprised at what he actually found after looking at the MRI and knowing Tyler's symptoms. Good news...Dr. Graham cleaned it up. He repaired the meniscus the best he could. Bad news...Dr. Graham had to take most of his cartilage out. Tyler will have immediate short term results. Long term he said Tyler will probably have problems and pain when he gets to be 40 or 50 years old. For now Tyler is relaxing with his Game Ready equipment that was prescribed and still plans on going to Prom on Saturday :) Please continue to pray for a speedy and easy recovery for him.

Meniscus X-Ray

We have scheduled surgery for Tyler on Thursday morning. Dr. looked at his x-rays and MRI to conclude that he really didn't have a conclusion. His MRI showed high signal...and if you are as smart as me when it comes to that stuff, you can read this to understand "signal" more. It didn't show a tear on the outside but Dr. said there very well could be a tear inside. He also said that Tyler showed a bone bruise so some of his pain could be coming from that. We had two options...wait a few weeks to see if symptoms subside or go ahead with an arthroscopy to see if there is a tear inside the meniscus. If he found a tear, he could fix it then and there. After weighing those options we decided 1. If we put it off, it is just delaying the inevitable considering he has been in pain since February, 2. It would only push our recovery time back even more into football and other wrestling opportunities this summer. Unfortunately, Tyler is going to Prom on Saturday - this could pose a problem, but considering he has a few more years to enjoy Prom to its fullest, we decided asap was the best way to go. Please say a prayer for Tyler on Thursday.

MRI and Dad Reinoehl

Spent most of the day with doctors....

Doc Graham with the hunch Tyler has a torn ligament in his knee...

Open and Wide MRI getting pictures taken...actually spent three hours there. They were a bit behind (to say the least). I am whooped. Should know Monday if Tyler will need surgery. Prayers please!!!

Gabi is at an overnight...gets to go see The Hannah Montana Movie while the boys are with their respective girlfriends for the evening. Ben and I enjoyed a quiet dinner at Cracker Barrel. Now home for some R & R. Beautiful day. Happy Birthday to my father in law. He sounded very tired tonight on the phone. Has been doing some landscaping. I am sure he is looking forward to fishing tomorrow with Ben...should be another nice day.

What's in store for this young man????

The Time Is Near

When I am not working in my office I have been busy with other things...namely someone's graduation coming up! Oh wow...I still can't believe it is coming up sooo fast! Still no final decision on college...North Central still at top of the list though...Trenton really wants to wrestle in college and we think this would be a good fit. We have some other options we are exploring so we haven't solidified anything just yet.

Happy Easter!

Gabi was excited that the Easter Bunny brought her some goodies in her Easter basket...a mermaid doll to play in the pool/bath, a gift card to Borders, a tiny stuffed elephant and plenty of chocolate candy. The boys even got a basket. Their eggs contained money...their favorite gift now a days along with their favorite candy...Reese eggs for Tyler and caramel cadbury eggs for Trenton. We attended church for a very good message..."From Empty to Full" and then had a yummy feast at my parents' house very similar to Thanksgiving this year! Turkey, stuffing, cranberries, mashed potatoes, noodles, corn, biscuits, peach and strawberry pies. It was so good! The Easter bunny always leaves goodies there also where Gabi got a Jasmine Barbie and the boys got, yes, you guess it, more money.
The kids (Gabi, Presley and Addy) enjoyed an egg hunt outside. It was a beautiful day to do so! After cleaning up and eating some pie we headed to grandpas, where the kids LOVE to hunt for their baskets. He even gets the adults in on the action also. I am always the worst one at finding mine and am usually the last to find it. This year he made Ben's the hardest to find and I was loving every minute of it!! HEE HEE! We all enjoyed the evening at home but the boys headed off to see their girlfriends for the evening. They (Abby and Alayna) just got back from Spring Break in Florida...the boys were anxious to spend some time with them. Good weekend, good Easter. He is Risen!!! Thank you God for all you have done for us and for our family.

Coloring Easter Eggs

Break From Spring Break

Is there such a thing??? We didn't have anything planned so this week has been moving quite slowly...especially with "bored" kids. Luckily, Trenton has a roof to do the next couple of days so he will be busy there and Ben has some work for Tyler at his work. Unfortunately, Gabi has had to "hang out" with her friends earlier this week because alot of them have family coming from out of town or are going away for Easter. I have been able to get quite a bit finished as far as getting things organized for Trenton's graduation party...which is going to be the end of May. I have gotten all our invites stuffed with his senior pictures, printed his party invitations (have to stuff those), started going through his sporting pictures for the party and collected all our printed photos to be used for display for the party. Shew! Alot going on for me! I plan to do some spring cleaning next week when the kids are gone again. Today I took the kids for lunch at Taco Bell and went on a short walk at Battell Park. Got some nice photos of all three of the kids together.

Productive Weekend

We got alot done this weekend...in fact, it was very productive. Ben and the boys went fishing on Saturday morning but caught nothing but grass pike. Must have been too cold...Ben blames it on the cold front coming through. They were home by 3 pm and we got on the yard as a family. Tyler power raked while Trenton and I raked the yard by hand to get piles of dead grass. Ben worked on pulling out 2 large bushes that basically swallowed our front sidewalk to our front door. He also trimmed up many bushes and helped everyone else out where he could. 12 bags of dead grass and trimmings later and exactly 3 hours later, we finished. Sore and tired, we ordered a couple of pizzas from Papa Johns and relaxed all evening (the boys watched some basketball). I must say the yard looks better and the front of our house...wow, opens it up alot with the bushes gone. We enjoyed Sunday church by watching Presley sing for Palm Sunday and grabbed Slumdog Millionaire to watch. Trenton and his girlfriend, Alayna, saw the movie a few weeks ago and came back with rave reviews. I must say, I was impressed. Good movie. I can see why it received many awards. Sad, because if it hadn't have received the awards, I wouldn't have known anything about it. Anyways, if you haven't seen the movie...worth watching. So, now the rain has arrived...snow to come. Not excited about that one.

Cardinal

Gabi was soooo excited to go to school this morning. She was actually looking forward to doing her first oral presentation on Cardinals. She got 100% and did an excellent job! She was so proud!!!
In other news...LOVED LOVED LOVED the series finale of ER last night. Made me cry...touched on death, new life, and teen drinking. Did a great job with most of the original cast members. I haven't watched the show since a couple of years ago and the magic was still there! Loved it.
Also trying out this twitter craze. Saw it on the today show...Kathy Lee Gifford was talking about it so I thought I would see what it is all about. Definitely for texting fanatics but could be fun...I can see where it could get annoying though. Anyways, check it out.
Definitely ready for the weekend...not much planned for Spring Break and not looking forward to the cold weather.

April Fools!

This little stinker has been waiting for this day all week...she had her joke all planned out and it worked on Tyler this morning! She begged me to have cereal in the morning on April Fool's Day with the boys. She took the plastic bags out of the boxes and switched them all around. Sure enough...Tyler poured fruit loops when he thought he was pouring cocoa puffs. Lots of giggles!!! April Fools!!!