Here's whats new

1. Frankie was cooking some chicken nuggets on the stove and failed to turn off the stove (electric) and went outside to play. The neighbors called the fire department and they came in and turned off the stove. The condo had quite a bit of smoke damage and we are just grateful we still have our house and everyone was safe. We continue to clean up the mess. We may need to bring in reinforcements. 2. My friend took me out to Olive Garden for my birthday. I turned another year older last Sunday. Frank took me out to dinner for my birthday and purchased me a bread maker. 3. The family headed down to Tennessee to see the Grandparents and Aunt Jenny. I took a week off from work to spend some time with my family before they leave on their mission. We are hoping they will join us once more up in Chicago before they officially leave for Africa. I would like to have them here to celebrate Savannah's 2nd birthday and see the house that we are in the process of purchasing. 4. Frank and I drove all night long to get to my parents house. We made it just in time for church and afterwards we celebrated my birthday with a nice ham dinner, cake and ice cream. 5. We took Savannah down to the Hands on Museum. She had a blast and was a little timid at first but quickly felt comfortable and was running all over the place. We stayed there about two and a half hours and she past out in the car. 6. The family went bowling together and I managed to win both games. Frank, Frankie and Jenny went to the video arcade and played laser tag. There team won the game of laser tag. 7. We headed down to Knoxville and went on a Lost Sea Adventure. It was a really cool cave that was formed by an underground lake and there was a boat ride at the end. We saw a bunch of rainbow trout that were trapped inside the cave. 8. Grandma and I took the baby down to Knoxville again to go to the zoo. Savannah was quite tired but really enjoyed looking at all the animals. The weather was cool and we enjoyed the time we shared together. We enjoyed watching the baby monkey at the park. 9. Frank and I took out our parents out to lunch at the Super China Buffet. They had really good food and then we said our goodbyes and headed back to Chicago. 10. Sarah is on spring break this week and joined us on Saturday. We attended the "We Believe" broadcast and YW recognition. It was a good broadcast however I thought it was a bit long (2 1/2 hours). 11. We had ward conference today. Savannah was a handful and very difficult to handle today. I will need to work with her on getting back on a normal routine. 12. Update on the house...seller's bankruptcy is finished and we are in the process of getting the short sale approved again. We leared that she has two mortages and we are hoping that it will go through this time. We are shooting for closing sometime in May. Pray for us that the bank will approve the short sale. 13. Filed our income tax refund and are expecting a really nice refund this year. This is going to be a good year for us financially. We are already off to a good start already and it is only March. We are planning on paying off our debt. 14. We purchased a new 42 inch plasma TV and brought it home yesterday. Our old TV was dying and wasn't going to last much longer. We also purchased a new DVD player. Frank is excited to transfer his old VHS tapes onto DVD's. 15. Sarah is looking forward to getting her drivers license soon. She has completed all herdriving requirements and just has to take her driving test now. 16. I just found out that I will need to find a new babysitter starting on June 6th. I'm hoping to be moved by than and will miss our current babysitter. I just hope I can find a new babysitter that is going to work out just as well. I really dislike having to find child care :( 17. Frank is hoping to open up a new office in Johnson City, TN. He recently opened up two new offices in the Chicagoland area. His business is starting to expand and really take off. 18. The weather has turned cold again in Chicago. We were a little spoiled being down in Tennessee with all this warm weather. 19. My 6 month checkup went well and it will be my two year mark next month. That is definately a relief and cause for celebration. The doctor gave me the green light for having more children. We are looking forward to baby #2.

Knoxville Zoo

Now thats a big bird

Savannah loved playing in the play area at the zoo. It took us about 30 minutes to pull her away from this section alone.

Savannah riding a tractor trailor



Mommy and me admiring some zebras from a far

Looking at the Meerkats

Grandma feeding the camels

Someone failed to take a nap in the car ride over and didn't make it till the end.

Fire Department to the Rescue

Tonight I received a very disturbing call from our landlord. Frankie came home from school and was cooking lunch for himself. His friend showed him how to fry chicken nuggets on the stovetop and apparently left two nuggets in the pan and spilled some oil on the stove top. He swears he shutoff the stove before he left to go outside play. I think he forgot to turn off the burner. Needless to say he nearly burnt down our house. We have a ton of soot and smoke damage in our house. Luckily our house never caught on fire which I am grateful for. One of our neighbors called the fire department and the landlord. The firefighters disconnected the stove and opened up all the windows. The screens were removed off the windows when I came home. The house is a mess literally and will take forever to clean up. We have to repaint the house and probably clean the carpets after its all said and done with. Frank and I both came home late from work. Frankie was quite shocked and amazed when he came home to see what had happened. He told me he heard the fire trucks coming and even saw them turning onto our street and thought it was for someone else. Crazy Huh!

Thankfully we have all of our possessions still and are all safe.

Ten for the Week

1. Frank had his hernia surgery last Friday and spent the whole week at home trying to recover. He watched Savannah two days for us to help save money on a babysitter. He is still a little sore and will take 6-8 weeks to fully heal.

2. I managed to mess up the date of my doctor's appointment on Friday. I orginally had the day set for the 18th and than a few weeks later the doctor's office called me back and told me that they had to switch my appointment to the 25th. To make a long story short I had forgotten to change the date at work . I worked a half day yesterday and on my way home I realized that I never received a reminder call and and realized that the mistake had been made. I was grateful that I went home first and didn't drive all the way out there for no reason. I had to re schedule my appointment for March. It will work out good since I have another appointment for my ultrasound/mammo next week.

3. Frank was a little surprised to see me at home. It was nice to have some time off and I was able to sneak out of the house while Savannah was napping. I managed to get a lot of little errands done. I forget how easy it is to do things without a child stuck to your hip all day long.

4. I managed to run down to the DMV to replace the license plate for my car. Apparently there was a recall quite a while ago on plates because the paint was starting to chip off. All I had to do was call a number and they will ship me a new one in about 90 days. It was so easy that I don't know why I didn't do it sooner.

5. I had to work in the morning and my friend Wendy had come over to watch Savannah. She took her to a basketball game. I had some more time to kill. I had plenty of time to clean the house and get all my errands done. I even managed to do some shopping for myself.

6. Frankie had a basketball game at the church today. It was against the two best teams in the stake. We were playing against our old ward in Elgin. Frank and I were not in attendance unforunately. Apparently we missed a great game. It was a close game and even went into overtime. Frankie played most of the game and got a steal in the end of the game which assisted in them winning the game. It went into overtime and at the final seconds of the game our ward shot a 3 pointer to win the game. I was a little concerned because our best player was out of town this week and another one of our good players had sprained his ankle. Our young men came away with the victory and now they are going to play in the playoffs and will compete in the championship game.

7. Frank has been helping me watch Savannah for a few days while they babysitter took some time off. I still need to cover babysitting for over spring break. It has been a real blessing that Frank has been able to spend some qualiy time with her.

8. On Wednesday night Frankie had to be dropped off at church early. The boys were going over to Motorola for a tour of the facility. It ran longer than expected and I had to wait for him to return back to the church. It would have been nice for someone to call me. I had to wait 30 minutes.

9. Frankie recently purchased an I Pod Touch with his birthday and Christmas money. He has loved playing with it ever since.

10. Frank has been busy with the tax season and getting back to work.

Cookie Monster

Snowmageddon

Here is the view from the house this morning. All the cars were buried under a foot of snow and it continues to fall down around us. Some poor guy tried getting out this morning and was stuck on the side road. As far as I know we still have work although I hope that will be changing soon. I will call into work if needs be but there is no way we are getting out of here.

Blizzard 2011

Here is the view from our back porch. We are experiencing high winds up to 60 mph, thundersnow (flashes of light), and hugh snow drifts. We are still awaiting the heaviest snow within the next 24 hrs. The weatherman is predicting the Chicagoland area will get between 12-24 inches of snow. I was able to leave work around 4pm and went to pick up my daughter. It took me one hour to drive home which normally takes me around 30 minutes. Tomorrow I am supposed to report into work around 11am and work until 5pm. I'm really hoping Honda will cancel work. I have never seen work close before but maybe tomorrow will be a first. You know that is BAD when the Chicago office closes for bad weather. The snow plows have not been down our streets all night long and there is no signs of any cars on the road. It is truly a ghost town. The grocery and hardware stores were running out of food and winter supplies. This is the worst snow storm that I have ever seen in my lifetime. This is the 3rd worst blizzard in Chicago to date.