Throwback Gala

Gala's theme this year was the "Casual Cavalier".  Jeremy had his old football jersey to wear, I wore Sam's and then we both had old Neumann jackets.

Benefit dinners are not my preferred way to socialize but we had fun!

Julia's First Broadway Musical

Julia and I got tickets to Les Miz for Christmas!  (Jeremy went too.  Why wasn't his ticket a Christmas present?!)

I'd seen it three times before.  Once in early high school at the Lied with the music program, once in college with friends at the Lied again (I have little memory of how or exactly when this happened.  Jeremy says he didn't go so probably early college.  I started a text thread with the likely suspects who might have gone too but although there was some fun old-friend banter, no one remembered any more than me) and once with Jeremy at the Orpheum.  That was probably late college or very early marriage, we didn't have kids yet.  So it had been 20-some years since I've seen it. They did restage it since then (for the 25th anniversary I think) and the rotating stage is gone.  Since that is so firmly in my memory I was a little sad but still, it did not disappoint. Julia even said it passed up Hamilton for her! (Although she's only ever seen the film version of that.)  We went out to dinner in the Haymarket and then headed to the Lied.  It was opening night and since it was a random Tuesday in January before spring semester started the Haymarket and campus were pretty quiet.  It was a fun evening!  Here's to more shows with Julia!  She enjoys them more than Jeremy! ;)

20 Years!

Jeremy and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary!

We went on a nice date, chocolate store in Greenwood, winery in Ashland, movie in Elkhorn and dinner in Omaha.  It wasn't quite as much driving as that sounds like!  

So glad to be your wife, Jeremy!  Looking forward to the next twenty and beyond, love you!

So We Saw Garth

At 7:30 the morning of the concert my friend Robyn texted:  "Darren got 4 Garth tickets for $25 each.  Want to go?"  And so we joined our 90,000 closest friends and went.  Other than being packed in like sardines, it was great.  Turns out Garth makes me nostalgic for high school (and let me tell you, not much makes me nostalgic for high school!).  Melissa and I may have listened to her Garth tape in the Citation 90,000 times on our many high school adventures.  And who doesn't feel at least a little pang for their high school love during Unanswered Prayers?  And although the experience cemented that I am not really a live concert person, I'm glad we went.  Thanks for the once in a lifetime experience Robyn and Darren!

 

Covid Comes to Town

Well, we've had a small turn with Covid and we're all just fine.  It was actually two separate occasions that overlapped by one day.  Which turned out to be good.  But I'm ahead of myself.

Jeremy and his mom rode together to watch Samuel and Thomas wrestle On Friday Jan 8th.  Two days later, Raleen tested positive so Jeremy had to quarantine.  He stayed in our bedroom and I bunked in with Julia.  He tested negative five days later so he could be done with quarantine on the 14th.  

In the meantime two kids on the wrestling team tested positive but they were lighter weights so Samuel and Thomas were not in direct contact with them and did not have to quarantine.  Then the morning of Thursday Jan 14 Sam took his temperature before heading to school and it was a little high.  It didn't go down in the next half hour so he stayed home and we signed him up to get tested.  At school they started to realize more wrestlers were feeling sick and the whole team was put on quarantine until the following Tuesday.  And that night we got Sam's positive results.  That put all of us but Jeremy in quarantine.  Since Jeremy had been isolated all week he was not exposed to Sam.  That was super helpful because he could run to the grocery store and cook.

And just to keep things hopping, I had woken up with a sore throat a couple mornings that week but I often do because of allergies.  By Thursday after school it was clear I wasn't feeling right either.  I started isolating, Sam was isolating and we wanted Thomas away from the three littles because he'd had the highest risk exposure since he'd been with Sam and the other wrestlers.  Complicated.  

Friday there was a big snowstorm so we had a snow day which was nice.  Our test site doesn't test on weekends so I tested Monday morning. Negative. I did a telehealth with my doctor who thought I might have gotten a false negative and advised me to continue isolating until 10 days from when my symptoms started.  That put me back to real life Jan 25.  My symptoms were mild, I seemed to have a different one off the list each day but only one at a time.  Sore throat, headache, body ache, chest congestion, cough.  I feel fine now but it sure would have been nice to get my "get out of quarantine free" card for testing positive!

Tuesday all four of the other kids tested negative, praise Jesus!  They could go back to school on Friday.  

Wednesday Philip threw up twice and slept all morning.  I thought we were back in quarantine for sure.  I contacted our school nurse, who relayed the information to our health district and they said since all he did was throw up, everyone, including the now totally recovered Philip, could return to school. So off the four of them went on Friday.

Sunday morning Julia woke up with a 99.1 temperature and a headache.  We isolated her to her bedroom right away.  Since she's still in the 14 day window from her exposure to Sam she'll need to test again.  But it blizzarded Sunday night so they weren't testing yesterday.  We'll take her today (assuming it's not cancelled again) and are praying she is still negative.  After a couple hours Sunday morning she's been fine, so here's hoping.  And we had snow days yesterday and today so that helps some.  If we get her results tonight we'll know if we're back in quarantine or good.  I'm hoping since I was isolated I won't have to quarantine even if she is positive.  

Samuel is done with his ten days and is feeling fine again too.  He had congestion, headaches and lost his taste and smell.  He's slightly annoyed about the snow days.  He won't have to quarantine if Julia's positive since he is now in the "can't give or get covid" 90 day window.  That will get us almost to the end of the school year!

Stupid Covid.

A Happy Mother's Day

I had a really nice Mother's Day this year.  Julia painted my nails, Thomas, Philip, Julia, Nicholas and I played Labyrinth.  Samuel and I had a nice game of Canasta and Jeremy made all the meals! It was a good day!

Always Fun

We had an L street reunion the other night.  Robyn and Darren were kind enough to host but turns out it's our turn next time because all of us make their house and yard just about burst!  Unless Fr Lee wants to host in his school's gym. ;)

Three of six girls, three of many boys who lived on L St. (For the record there were two houses, a boy one and a girl one and we didn't all live there at once.  People moved in and out.)

Four families, 20 kids.  This is all the kids except Nicholas.  He did.not.want. to be in the picture.  I think most of the adults had a Godchild there, we have lots of name buddies, at least one set of birthday buddies, all sorts of ages and tons of loud, energetic fun.  

Robyn posted on Face Book that she was glad we "grew up" together and I second the sentiment.  I couldn't have asked for a better college family and I love that we are still making memories together.

Cleveland

Jeremy and I took a trip to Cleveland. Why Cleveland?  There's a headache clinic there we visited.  The doctor had a couple ideas for Jeremy to try for his face pain.  Why did no one in Nebraska think of these ideas?  I don't know.  But we made the most of it and had some fun too.

We took a dinner cruise on Lake Erie.  It was a beautiful night.  80 degrees so perfect on the water.

This lifting bridge was cool and had to go up for us.

We saw the botanical gardens.

 This chandelier was just a block up from where we stayed.

 We flew home through a storm so it was a bit bumpy.  Glad I took my Dramamine!

We did some other stuff too but didn't take many pictures.

Odds and Ends

Every once in awhile they play together nicely with no help from me.

Jeremy recaulked around the bay windows and I washed the outside of them for the first time in 13 years (plus however many more before we moved in that they weren't washed). It's so bright in the dining room!

My friend Jessica and I had a table at the craft fair just for fun.  I sold 14 loaves of bread, 3 batches of fudge, some caramels and a few bags of dried tomatoes.  Jeremy made and I decorated some wooden snowmen, trees and this pumpkin.  Due to lots of similar stuff at the craft fair none of the wood things sold but I was happy to add this to my decor instead.  :)

Nicholas made this necklace on N day at preschool and then gave it to me.  I had to wear it for three days before he forgot about it.  Except to Mass.  He didn't think I should wear it to Mass because the bells would be noisy.

Family Fun

As I've mentioned, we aren't a big vacation family due to many who have a tendency to get motion sick and the general stress of a big vacation.  So this week we enjoyed three family days nearby instead.

We started of with a funeral.  Not what we had planned and our sympathy and prayers go out to Jeremy's good friend Doug, his family and for the repose of his dad's soul.  But it was really good to see them, even if the circumstances were less than desirable.  

After the funeral we biked the new trail from the lake, under the bypass and into one of the parks in town.  Nicholas diligently pedaled almost the whole 1.9 miles.  However, as we rode I noticed we were going mostly down hill and the way back was not going to be fun.  Then a gear popped off Samuel's bike.  In the end while Jeremy pushed the broken bike and Samuel rode his, I biked back to the van, drove to the park, picked up the littles and the broken bike and Jeremy and the big boys rode back to the truck, Samuel on my bike.

The next day we visited the art museum.  Or more accurately we visited the children's area of the art museum, walked through a few halls of art constantly reminding the kids not to be too loud, run or touch the art and then called it a morning.  :)  The kids weren't bad, it's just the actual art part of the museum is not that interesting to them.  The kid area was awesome though!

That afternoon we visited the big zoo.  We sprung for a pass since it's only $20 more than our family going once and we haven't had one for a few years.  Each kid chose one place to go and everyone was happy with their pick.

Wednesday the kids and I did lots of errands including the dreaded shoe shopping and we did pretty well over all.  Thursday we stuck around home, did a Julia/Abi, Philip/Thomas swap, labeled school supplies and stocked the freezer with good school breakfasts.

Friday we went to see Pete's Dragon which was pretty good although drastically different from what I remember of the old one.  (Well, I really only remember the song Candle on the Water and something about drunk guys in a bar from the old one now that I think about it!)

We checked out a new-to-us water park for the afternoon.  Grandma Raleen and Aliza joined us for the fun.  The three bigs were tall enough for the yellow slide, Samuel and Thomas were big enough for the blue one too.  Philip and Nicholas enjoyed the little train slides.  We had lots of fun and wore out Nicholas so well he fell asleep at 6 on the way home after dinner out with Grandma and Aliza and slept until morning!

Saturday we continued the fun with my side of the family for Augustine's birthday party.  My cousin Rachel and her boys were visiting from Milwaukee so they were able to come.  It was great to see them!

Then Logan gave us a guided tour of the new Newman Center (he works there).  The old one was knocked down in 2013 to make way for a new, wonderfully beautiful church.  It's been open for a year but we hadn't made it there to see it yet.  It's gorgeous and I am so happy that they have built such a wonderful place for students to love and grow in their Catholic faith but I will always miss the old, simple, blue church where we were married.  I felt at home every time I walked through the orange back door of the old church, even 13 years after graduation.

It was a great stay-cation!

Our House- In the Middle of L Street!

My old college roommate Robyn hosted an L street reunion this weekend.  (Six of us over 3 years lived together on L street about seven blocks down from a house full of guys where Jeremy lived.) I  don't think we've ever done an official reunion with both houses before.  It was so fun!   All four of us girls who aren't now nuns were able to come and two of the boys as well.  Fr. Lee was supposed to join us from the boys' house too but he didn't end up making it.  Since most of us still see each other fairly often I decided I needed to do a couple of L-streety things to make it a little bit more special.  I dug out my all time favorite Newman shirt to wear and made Jeremy wear my second favorite.  I made Hamburger Helper for the pot luck (which was darn good eating in our college days) and made a Joyce (Newman's rectory cook) specialty dessert, Rocky Road Brownies or, as Joyce affectionately called them, Rot Your Teeth Out Brownies. Best of all I brought out the college pictures- such a hoot to look at!  Since I was in college pre-digital camera I'm pretty sure I took more pictures this July than I did in all of college but that's okay they're still super fun to look at, especially with old friends.

Robyn, me, Jessica and Stephanie (sheesh, that old college shirt makes me look frumpy)

 

Jeremy, Robyn, Adam, me, Jessica, Stephanie

 

All together we have 23 kids and two on the way.  We didn't even attempt a picture of them.  These are all the T(h)eresa Roses with Julia Rose.  Apparently the night we made the pact to name a daughter Teresa Rose I was only awake when we chose Rose as the middle name and the other girls didn't realize I was sleeping when they picked Teresa so they didn't tell me that part. :)

I would go relive a college week in a heartbeat.  We had so much fun together-then and now!  Love you L street girls!  ...And you too boys.  I have to say that.  I married one of them.  ;)

JPII We Love You!

I'm celebrating my new third class relic!  Okay, so really the canonization of JPII who is so special to our family.  But my wedding ring touched JPII so it is a relic.  If you don't know what I mean by relic and are interested here's a link that explains them.  But in a nutshell a relics are ashes, bones, clothing or possessions of a saint or something that touched the saint.  Catholics of course don't worship them, just use them to remind us of the particular saint, their path to holiness and how we can imitate that holiness in our lives.  Having one from John Paul the Second makes me happy.  (and my dress?  Did my dress touch him?)  

The Gift of the Babysitters

Have you ever read Gift of the Magi? Here's our version.
On Tuesday Raleen called and asked if we wanted her to watch the kids so we could go out for our anniversary. I asked Jeremy and he said he'd rather go out over the weekend so I called Raleen back and asked her if she'd feed the kids at her house Wednesday night so I could make a nice dinner for Jeremy and I.
On Wednesday the kids and I met Raleen at the pool and she took them home from there at 5. I got home thinking I'd have an hour before Jeremy got home. The door was unlocked which was strange and there were two pairs of purple shoes in the kitchen. Then Jeremy came around the corner and said, "I have two girls in the living room to babysit the kids!" Luckily he'd figured out my surprise because I set the table for the two of us before I left, so he'd already called his mom and she brought the kids over so we wouldn't have to send the girls home jobless.
We went to Fleming's and had a delicious steak dinner. The kids had a great time with Grace and Anne and everyone was sleeping soundly when we got home.
And to top it off my hair is still the same length and Jeremy didn't even have sell any heirlooms. :)

Happy Anniversary Jeremy!

Here's to 9 wonderful years and, God willing, many more to come! Love you Jeremy! I think a new picture of Jeremy and I may be in order, this was the most recent one I could find...

Happy Birthday Jeremy!

We love you!Thanks for everything you do for us.

Una Vacaciones Buenas

One of the few perks to having a husband who works in the business world is incentive trips. Every couple of years Jeremy has the opportunity to earn a week long trip. This one was sponsored by the company that owns his dealership. So thanks to Uncle Deere and wonderful family members willing to watch the kids, we got to go to Puerta Vallarta, Mexico last week! It was beautiful.

We did get off to a rough start. Due to being sick all week, we hadn't even started packing Friday. Our flight left at 6:30 am Saturday, so Friday morning I looked through the desk for our passports. Mine (with my last name newly changed on it) was there, Jeremy's was not. No problem, I thought it's in the safety deposit box. I stopped by later in the day to get it and some cash. Not there. Still not overly worried I went home and started searching. Jeremy arrived home from work and I guiltily admitted I didn't know where it was. We both started searching. After about an hour he went to look at work and started calling around to see if we had any options if he didn't find it. No options, no luck finding it. After two hours I was dejectedly sitting on the floor of the kitchen honestly thinking we wouldn't be going and praying for a miracle when Jeremy got home again. "I'm going to look in the truck," he announced. No problem, except that the truck was already half an hour away at a body shop waiting to get some rust removed while we were gone. "Why don't you call and ask them to look?" I suggested, not wanting to face another hour at home by myself feeling guilty for accidentally throwing away his passport. He called. It was there, in the glove compartment. Praise the Lord! I would have hated him for making me think I lost it if I hadn't been so relieved. The kids were amazingly self sufficient during this whole ordeal. I told them to pray because if we didn't find it we couldn't go and Samuel was upset because his plans with Grandma Raleen might be messed up. He's so compassionate.

Anyway after that things went fine. My mom and Beth had it a little tough with Julia and Philip because they were still getting over the flu. Both their fevers broke Monday night and things got better from there. The older boys were both pretty much well so Grandma Raleen had it relatively easy.

Jeremy and I enjoyed the ocean, beautiful weather and all-inclusive resort. (Really, all inclusive is the way to go! We only paid for things we did outside the resort and it was wonderful.) We were actually about half an hour by taxi from the town of Puerta Vallarta so we only left the resort twice. Once to go to Mass at the Cathedral on Sunday and then shop around downtown and once to go on a pirate ship show boat, which was fun, if a little cheesy. Jeremy even read a book for fun! I read two and a half. It was great, I haven't read that much in awhile.

Mostly though it was wonderful to enjoy a week with just Jeremy, remembering why I love him and how much we enjoy being together. I guess we could have done that anywhere but being on a free trip to Mexico made it even better!

A Weekend Project

So when Jeremy told me Menard's had shelving and asked did I want some for the living room closet I assumed he meant pre-made shelves that you just assemble and put in. So I said yes and Saturday morning before he went to work I asked him if I should clean out the closet. He said yes. Here's the before:Turns out what Jeremy was talking about was just pre-made shelves, you still have to cut them to the right length and build supports. So it wasn't quite the Saturday afternoon project I'd envisioned but we got it done by Sunday night with only one major fight. Pretty good I guess. Here's the after:Ahh, that's better.

Stockings

My mom has made special stockings for each of the kids. Here's the newest one, Philip's. Mine was made by my Great Aunt Annie and Jeremy's was made by... hmm, I guess I'm not sure. His mom? I think so but I'll have to find out for sure!

Jeremy

Jeremy brought me these flowers the other evening. He was in a rather
crabby mood and we managed to have a fight later that night. "See?" He told me. "I brought you flowers as a preemptive 'I'm Sorry'." I guess didn't know it worked that way.

Also he must not be getting enough sleep. He told me the other day that when I came back to bed after feeding Philip at 3am he thought to himself, "Why is Lisa in my room? Am I married to her?"
Glad the last 8 years have been so memorable!

A Blessing to Remember

Eight years ago today Jeremy and I were blessed by Venerable Pope John Paul II. Amazing.