Just RK

Cards WIN!!!!!!!!!! What a crazy game, and what a SUPER walk-off homer for Freese!!!!!  Haven’t been this excited about baseball in probably 15 years!!  Game 7—bring it on!

If you’re a local around StL, you’ve probably been watching the coverage all day. If you’re not around here, you might have heard a mention here or there. The St. Louis metro area was beaten pretty badly by a very persistent tornado. There are still official reports to be made, but it appears to be one tornado, bolstered by some of the craziest and roughest storms full of hail the size of softballs and inches upon inches of rain. The airport, Lambert-St. Louis International, was hit and is closed. That’s new. And strange. But more upsetting are the dozens of houses all the way through the area, in a line West to East, damaged severely. Many, people are displaced from their homes today. People in the city always seem to think that these storms don’t happen in the suburban and urban areas. It’s always in the rural areas. It’s always somewhere just outside of our area. It can’t happen IN the metro. But it did. Over and over and over. ( Link to many photos.) We’re o...

If  you’re in the Midwest, or the other areas that are getting ready for this big winter storm at our doorstep, you’ve probably prepared for being home tomorrow and Wednesday.  At least I hope so.  If you’re in the StL area or most of MO, you’re seeing the first round show up this morning. My light post in the front is already showing the freezing rain in action… 10:45am I’m going to try to remember to take some pics every hour or so to see how the icicles grow.  They already have since this picture was taken.  In fact…. hold one moment please… Here ya go. Up to the minute… 11:15am.  See how the little cute frozen drops are longer? This is a better angle with the tree behind.  So fun. (IF you get to be inside, thank goodness for that!) We get a little pause in the action this afternoon, then the big punch comes. More sleet followed right behind by a big load of snow. No better combination than that to bring our city to a ha...

M called a bit ago to tell me he had a little celebrity sighting/chat at work. He now works for a city government that has lots of influential and well-to-do St. Louisans living in or near there. It’s a financial center in St. Louis County and is not short on money at all. It’s like a little mini-downtown, luxury condo high rises and office towers in the middle of nothing else higher than a 2-story houses for miles. But celebrities? I didn’t much think about the possibility. He was at a place doing whatever computer guys do and was approached by a guy and his family who needed assistance. Unfortunately, all M could do was send them off to someone who worked there (this is one of many city buildings he services), but he was pretty bummed he couldn’t have helped him. Because it was Joe Buck! (If you need me to tell you which one is Joe, I sure hope you don’t fool yourself into believing you’re a football fan! That’s Troy Aikman, SuperBowl Champ Quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys...

A year ago today, Tom and Sharon said goodbye to their precious son Seamus.  Jodie did a beautiful tribute post to him and to his very special parents.  Please don’t miss their story and some gorgeous pictures. I’m so thankful I got to meet these new friends . Jodie collected some wonderful little mementos in honor of Seamus, for Sharon and Tom, and this was what I contributed. Today, families still in the NICU at St. Louis Children’s Hospital will have the opportunity to have beautiful pictures of their children and families taken in honor of little Seamus.  What a marvelous way to give them the gift remembering, their babies, the struggles, and the victories that are often celebrated quietly while their little ones sleep.  Some of these babies will come home, some may not. I don’t know any of the families.  But I know they will love the photos that result from this day, and I’m so thankful for Jodie and Kim and for Sharon and Tom for making this pos...

I wish I could give you all the details, but I can’t put some of it on the world wide interweb.  I can give you a basic rundown of some of it, though, including the parts that involve Braska’s health concerns. If you’re caught up on posts, you know that my day started at 4:30am. If you follow the Twitter box on the right, you might know some of this, but I’ll include it anyway.  By 9:30am, I had talked to Braska’s pediatrician and were on our way to her office to pick up orders for blood and urine tests and a chest x-ray.  After a much longer wait than necessary, due to wrong response by the reception staff, (This is a huge peeve of mine…probably from years of hiring and training people in these positions.  I have trouble with people who lack listening skills but work on the front line in medical practices.) we finally saw the nurse, who is great, and she got us what we needed and she placed the urine bag on Braska. Not a fun task.  I pushed in a few ounces of...

Today was the annual Walk in the Park for the DSAGSL . We had a great team for what little effort we put into it. (We’ll do better next time! It was kind of thrown together on our part.)  Most of the family was there with us, and we really appreciate them coming out on a windy, chilly day! We’ve got a bunch more pics, so that’ll come soon.  Our buddies from C-U also came down for it, so check out Jen’s post at ReJenerationS to see pics from their perspective.

In the previous post, I talked of when I went to college, 18 years ago this past week.  That first weekend, during orientation events, I met Melanie.  We can’t seem to remember exactly when it was or how it was that we met, but she and her roommate, A, became my best buddies right away.  Mel and I had MANY an adventure, some side-splitting hysterical, and some not as much fun, but all of them were priceless in their own way. That first weekend we coined a phrase for which we now just use OTW.  I won’t go into a whole explanation, but suffice it to say it was all about boys.  Anyone surprised?  I was 17…what else was there?  Several years ago,  Mel, A, and I went on a trip together, then another a year later, then another.  We called them OTW trips, and they were so much fun. In between then and now, we’ve lived a few hours apart, but now we’re only 10 minutes from each other, so we’re enjoying getting to hang out more.  I’m loving be...

I want to put up pics and stories and update all of you who have been so great about supporting us through this crazy fast move. But I'm so darn tired. I'm trying to balance working, keeping Braska somewhat entertained (which is seriously getting harder), and finding time in there to actually unpack and organize this place since I'm here now. So far, it's not left alot of time for blogging. Sad, I know. For now, here's a couple pics. This is where we are now. We moved in Sunday afternoon. Monday morning I was up at 5:30 am ready to get to work, at least for the few hours I had before it was time to head out again. This was my view out the sliding door when I opened the vertical blinds. Not bad, really. It was so peaceful. Then a couple hours later when the sun had risen, view from the little deck. It's actually pretty quiet and peaceful, at least the little bit I've been here. That is, with the constant low interstate noise of I-70 just 1/4 mile or ...

It's big news time--We're moving to St. Louis. Well, actually St. Charles, just NW of St. Louis. It's where I lived before we got married 7 1/2 years ago and I moved to Champaign. It's where M got a new job, just finalized yesterday after a whirlwind process that only began late last week. It's a bittersweet time, as we will miss Champaign a whole lot. This is the longest I've lived anywhere in my life, and that's something. It's been very good to us, and sometimes it's been a little cruel to us, but that's life in this world. All in all, I will think on my time here very fondly. We are excited about being close to family, close to friends in that area, close to Braska's doctors, eliminating the trips down for appointments and such, trading a 3 hour drive for about 30 minutes to downtown. The new job is very good, and it seems like it will be an easy transition for M to slide right into. He starts in 2 weeks, so the chaos will be overwhelming...

What a crazy trip this was! And what a rude way to introduce Zoey to our road trip adventures! No, we didn't have any legal problems, auto breakdowns, or accidents. It was just kind of a comedy of errors for 36 hours straight. I will spare you the details of all the little frustrations. Be very glad. We started out at 9 am on Wednesday, stopped at one of my offices on the way out of our area so I could take care of an install that needed to be done, and headed to St. Louis. Braska had her blood drawn at Children's (not even flinching, no tear, no pout, no whimper...amazing), we had some good taco salads in the cafeteria, found out we'd not be seeing the dietician as hoped, and moved on. At St. John's, we got Braska's back-up pair of glasses and had her main pair repaired, complete with new ear pieces for a better fit. Then we headed out to Lake St. Louis for a quick stop at my brother's house and a hug for Braska from Auntie Skye. We took off for Columbia, Misso...

~We had a great Easter...friends Cory and Mary came to visit! The first time we've ever had friends come from far away to JUST visit us (mostly...there were a couple other lucky people to get to see them.) We felt very very special! ~We're headed to St. Louis in about 10 minutes. Picking up glasses, doing labwork, maybe seeing the nutritionist, and making a quick jump to Columbia for a drop off of Braska's too-small clothes and meeting two new babies...Lillie and Millie...not twins, both friends of ours, but they don't know each other. And they live like a mile apart! We'll have to orchestrate a meet-up! ~I have so many post ideas I want to deal with, but I'm even worse with time lately than ever! Maybe when I get a chance to be home for more than 10 days straight! ~And the best news....I've found a little "travel assistant" named Zoey who is a total God-send! She's traveling with us to help occupy Braska in the car and give me extra hand...

As my friend Kari at Chanelle and Tristan likes to measure things by how many sleeps are left before something happens, it appears that we have one more sleep til we go home. The temples for her glasses didn't come in today, at least when I called for the third time this afternoon to check before coming back to the house from Children's, they still weren't in. So here we are again, one more night. Thank the Lord for in-laws willing to share their empty nest with open arms. They might not admit it, but it's only because Braska's with me.

A full night of sleep is a beautiful thing. Man, I'm so spoiled with this usually good sleeper kid I have. Last night was back to the norm, down peacefully and out for the night. And that was both of us, thank goodness. Today we head to the GI for a g-button check-up and then check in to see if the parts for her glasses are in. If they are, we're done with this trip to StL. I'm really praying we get to go home today. I'm ready to be home.

If you're in a hurry...today went better than yesterday. Thank you, God! Braska's take on things, complete with pics, will be up later today when she gets up from her nap and is ready to tell her story. For you detail addicts... We got up, fed, dressed, and headed out for the 40 min drive to Children's. On the way, I debated, sometimes outloud with myself, whether or not to call again to tell them I was coming. I weighed the element of surprise with catching a possible open appointment slot if I talked to them first thing. I decided to call for an appointment, so I did, and waited on hold for just long enough to change my mind. Then I called back, bypassed the appointment option, and got a hold of Debbie, the same girl I talked to twice yesterday. I told her I hadn't gotten a call back, and that I really needed Braska to be seen today, so I was already on my way. I told her I would see whoever was free if Dr. S wasn't available. She said calmly that Dr. S...

If you haven't seen Braska's admission , the girl is in the princess dog house for breaking her glasses. So last night we got to my in-laws' house (St. Louis) at about 9pm. The idea was to be here in town so that we could either be seen by the optometrist to get an updated prescription or get the ok from him to go ahead and get a new pair of glasses with the same one. The reason the prescription is in doubt is that she has been crossing even with her glasses on over the past 10 days or so. This has been described as an indication that her prescription might need to be updated. So I was planning on trying to see them this Thursday when we were already scheduled to be at the hospital for appointments. Her disabling of the glasses simply exacerbated the need for an appointment, or at the very least, phone contact. This morning we got up, I called the Eye Center at 9 am, left a message for Dr. S, the optometrist we saw two weeks ago. I wanted to know if he had done an exa...

This morning we packed up our stuff (6 trips up and down the stairs to the car...ugh), vacuumed the carpet to look spiffy for when Rachel returns, and headed out. Well, not out exactly. I took Braska to get her glasses adjusted, amazing what such a little person can do when yanking off her glasses with one hand. Then I decided to go down to my in-laws' place to pick up a few things we forgot when we left Tuesday. And since I was down that way, I went by a hair place I found when we were there last weekend. They had time to get me in, so I dropped Braska at her grandma's and went back to get all fixed up. Here's the goofiest face ever, I think...mid-foil processing. Here's a few afters...it didn't really work to take one straight on, in order to get the full effect of the color outcome. There's a bright red and blonde going on in there. An interesting thing about the stylist who did my hair...she asked about if I had kids, etc. I chatted about Braska and her st...

I don't live in St. Louis. I used to, and I hope to again someday. But I do receive email newsletters and such from the Down Syndrome Association of Greater St. Louis as a resource and to familiarize with what they have going on. Today I got the Friday Blast email, and it had a note about St. Louis Life . St. Louis Life is a new residential facility and program for young adults (18 -30) with developmental disabilities in O'Fallon, MO. I just finished looking through their website and watching the video tour of the site. It's beautiful! What an awesome place and program! I have no earthly idea or way to know where we will be, where Braska will want to be, or what will be happening in our lives when Braska gets to this stage in her life, but I just love that something like this is out there, providing a great place for people to spread their wings a little. That's encouraging to me. Check it out. ALSO, in the info from DSAGSL was a link to some pics from their Youn...

I try not to repeat post titles, but this one is destined to be a fave. I can't believe I've circumvented it for all this time already. We are headed for St. Louis again today. We're going to aim to do a one-day trip which means 3 hours down, get glasses at St. John's, then to Children's for swallow study and visit with Dr. R to check on the g-button. Then we'll race home to try to catch the Bears/Redskins game tonight. (Yep, that's right, we get NFL Network. Sorry to those of you who don't.) God give us travel safety, good visits, great people to work with, and help Braska be in good spirits. Amen.