Student Achiever

Sarah brought home a letter last week saying she was being honored by the Brewers as a "Student Achiever" with a certificate and two tickets to a game for her academic achievement. We got a list of games to choose from, and while the seats aren't great, I will be upgrading and taking the whole family along.

Anyway, Sarah has he name published on the Brewers website here. Scroll down to page 60.

Congratulations Sarah. Your mom and I are very proud of you.

Poor Spider

This weekend I opened opened the grill for the year. When I removed the cover though, it was covered with cobwebs, and dead spiders from the fall and being wrapped up for the winter. There was one spider however that was walking across the lid. I happened to have my butane candle lighter since my push igniter isn't working. I fired it up and torched it. Ali happened to be outside helping me and yelled at me saying it was cruel. I'm sorry. I HATE spiders. Whether I crush it, or burn it makes no difference to me. But it do go up pretty nicely and made a nice popping sound. haha.

Silver Award

On Monday Sarah received her Silver Award for girl scouts along with three other girls in her troop. We had a dinner at Serb Hall followed by an award presentation. Sarah got her name announced and her leader presented her with her award. It was for the entire GSWISE service unit, so there were girls there from all over the area. Video of Sarah getting her award is below:

Silver Awards from Dennis Hahn on Vimeo.

Spring Cleaning the Junkyard

Last week was spring cleaning time. No, not for us, for the next door neighbors. Of course it was all piled in front of our windows so when you walked into the living room from the kitchen you got a good look at the pile of junk. I had to run upstairs to take a picture:

Of course it was a rainy day, so that as soon as it was all emptied out under their little tent, it began to rain. So what would a normal person do? Probably start throwing things away, putting things away, etc. Nope. They got in their car and left. They take off leaving everything piled up outside in the rain.

So then when they got back, they just left everything stacked up there. Parked their other car in front of our window and called it a day. We ended up looking at the pile for another day before... wait for it.... they piled everything back into the garage. I thought they would actually throw things out, arrange things so they could park their cars inside, but nope. It all got stacked back inside just as messy and cluttered as before.

So now that it is getting warmer I am prepping for the infestation of mice from that hole next door. I am convinced that the mice I had running around the outside of the house last year were coming from next door. And now that they've roused them from their winter abodes, I am sure I'll be seeing some soon. The poison is already out, but I still need to lay some traps.

Still Here

Well the rapture was supposed to start an hour ago. Kris, the girls and I are still here. I guess that means we are in trouble? It really is ridiculous to think the the world was going to end today though. Everyone knows the one true sign the world is about to end is the Cubs winning a World Series.

Second Opinion

Thursday Alison had a doctor's appointment with an ENT to have a look at her throat and tonsils. We thought she shoudl get checked out since she has had strep throat three times in the last year. This last time wasn't a diagnosed case, each strep test she had came back negative, but as soon as the doctor got her on antibiotics for strep everything started to clear up.

The doctor said that he thought things were fine. Apparently there are guidelines for wen to have tonsils removed, and Alison hadn't met those. He said that if we wanted we could have them removed, but at this point he didn't think it was warranted. So that is good news for Alison, at least for now. Hopefully she'll stay healthy now for a while.

Night Out

Kris and I finally had a night out to ourselves. Sarah stayed home babysitting Alison and We drove downtown to see Rick Springfield. I don't know if it is a regular thing for him or not, but the last few years it sure seems like he does a week's worth of shows at the Potawotami Northern Lights Theater.

We had seem him at a free concert eleven years ago when Sarah was a baby. I remember the day well because Sarah threw up in the car and it was almost 100 degrees outside. This time was much different. The Northern Lights Theater was a very intimate setting, very different from where I am accustomed to seeing a concert. It had the feel of a VH1 Storytellers show.

The show was very good. He started with a couple of his hits from the 80s and then played his last album (or rather CD) in its entirety, Venus in Overdrive. He actually wrote several of the songs in a hotel in Milwaukee (Room 804 of the Pfister). If you didn't know it, you would have never guessed the guy is 62 years old. He sounds the same as he did 25 - 30 years ago.

One other thing about Rick Springfield, apparently, no two shows are alike (at least when he does the 5 nights in a row). Kris thinks we should go see him every time he comes back now just because he does different things every time. The night before we had heard was a ½ electric - ½ acoustic show and he was actually taking requests.

The audience was also 95% women. It was funny to just watch all these women swooning over Rick Springfield. At one point, he had removed his shirt and went into the crowd. I was expecting someone to actually faint.

But all in all it was a good night. Something we need to do much more often.

Getting Better Slowly

Well, as of tonight, Alison's throat is doing much, much better. She has three days worth of antibiotics in her and the fever is gone, her throat isn't nearly as painful (according to her) and it looks much better as well. Her tonsils are still swollen and there are still a couple of white spots, but they are not nearly as red. In fact, if it were not for the size of her tonsils, the color of her throat looks almost normal. So obviously the antibiotics are working.

Kris did make an appointment next week for Alison to see the ENT at the clinic. Hopefully they will tell us whether or not Alison tonsils should come out or not. Her regular doctor didn't seem to think they needed to come out back in February, but the fact that she has had strep throat now at least three times in the last year (I seem to recall it being four times, but I could be wrong). Hopefully we will get this all solved soon. I hate to see Alison sick (so does Kris).

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to my wife, Kris. She is an awesome mother! I am blessed that I have her to help raise our girls. Not a day goes by where she does not give her all to the challenges of motherhood. As a man I am amazed at just how much energy she can put into mothering. It seems like such a never ending task. Just like trying to climb a sand dune, the steps appear to not make much ground, the piles don’t really go away, they just move from here to there. It appears that her diligence is rewarded with yet more piles o sand. So on this Mothers Day I just want to say to the entire world…

I love you Kristine Hahn, I couldn't do this without you. Happy Mother's Day

Update on Alison

So here is the story....

Alison was still complaining that her throat hurt on Friday. Kris called the doctor when she got home from school and while she couldn't get in to see her doctor, they notified him that Ali was still hurting and that her throat had actually gotten worse, so he wrote an order for another swabbing of her throat, all we had to do was show up to lab first thing Saturday morning. Well by the time I got home from work, Ali had developed a fever on top of the sore throat now. I was going to get her in the shower and get her cleaned up so she could just snuggle under a blanket for the remainder of the night, and as she was getting undressed she pointed out a slight rash she was developing on her arm. I started looking at the rest of her body and it was starting on her feet and legs too. She started crying thinking she was getting chicken pox. I knew it wasn't chicken pox, and from our experience with Sarah, I had a pretty good idea it was scarlatina.

Kris and I discussed it and we decided to call the doctor first thing in the morning and see if we could get her in to see the pediatrician on call. I went in to work early with the plan of being home a little after 8:00 so I could go along to the doctor. I called Kris at a little past 8:00 since I got a little hung up and she said she had called and got an appointment at 10:15. They told her to take Ali to the lab and have her throat swabbed ad they would do the rapid strep test and then the doctor would let us know what the results were when we saw her at 10:15.

When we got there we let the nurse know everything that was happening, and she had a look at Ali and thought the same thing we did, that is sure looked like strep throat. Then when the doctor came in we went over it all again with her, and showed her the rash, and her first thought was that Alison had scalatina, however the strep test was negative again. I don't know how that was possible, but it was. The doctor also couldn't believe it since all the signs were there for strep throat.

Luckily, she decided to treat Alison as if she had strep throat. She gave her a prescription for antibiotics and said they would continue to grow the culture and would check it Sunday and again on Monday and would call if it turned positive. If after the first couple days Alison didn't show improvement to call and get back in on Monday to see Dr. Sabnis and they would probably run a test for mono. She didn't think it was mono because it isn't typically seen in children as young as Alison, but since it presents very similar to strep throat and the strep test kept coming back negative it was the only other thing she could think of. So we'll see how things are on Monday,

Good News.... So Far

Ali's trip to the doctor was ok yesterday. He looked at her throat and said it looked like strep, but the rapid test came back negative. They were going to grow a culture and we should have the results by Wednesday.

Ali is complaining that her throat really hurts and it looks even worse than yesterday morning. I have a bad feeling that we'll be getting a call today or tomorrow saying the regular test came up positive.

Another Trip to the Doctor

Last night Alison was starting to complain that her throat hurt. This morning, she was doing the same thing so I took a look at her throat and her tonsils were swollen and there were deep red splotches on her uvula. SO instead of going to school, we are going to the doctor. With Ali's recent bouts with strep throat, I am worried that she has it again. Unfortunately we couldn't get in until 11:00. The doctor's office is apparently down one physician, so I had to take what we could get. With any luck it'll just be a a result of allergies or something. I would hate to think she needs to be on antibiotics again. I asked her doctor back in February after she caught strep throat if he thought that her tonsils needed to come out since she had had so many problems over the last year or so, and he didn't think it was warranted. Maybe this will make him change his mind.

I Missed It

After the long weekend, I went to bed early last night. Then I wake up this morning, turn on the news, and what do I see? The Seals popped Osama Bin Laden. People are celebrating in the streets of New York, in front of the White House... I totally missed it! A day that will go down in US history, and I slept through it. What a drag.

Yardwork

Luckily, we had a window of opportunity over the weekend to do some work outside. I was finally able to rake the back lawn. It just doesn't feel like spring until I get all that dead, matted grass cleared out. Well that and some temperatures above 50°. It took about 5 hours Saturday, but I got it done.

While I was doing the raking, I noticed quite a bit of creeping charlie getting right up to the lot line (and even a little bit getting into my grass). Last year I didn't do any fertilizing, so I made sure to get some weed and feed this year. As soon as the raking was done, the fertilizer went down. Hopefully that will help. I also decided to finally try out something I had seen years ago that supposedly takes care of creeping charlie... a water/borax mixture. I looked up the recipe and actually found a gardening website that said the best time to kill it was in the spring when it was pulling in nutrients to start growing. So I mixed some up, cleaned out my sprayer, then went to town. Hopefully it won't kill the grass. The info I found said it wouldn't as long as I didn't go to crazy and over-apply it. Now we'll just have to wait and see what happens. I wonder if I could get in trouble for spraying into the neighbor's grass.

Kris and I were planning on finishing the fence along the back lot line this year too, but with how wet the lawn is, I don't know when that will happen. When I had someone come out last year and take a look (or was it two years ago) he told me he would probably wait until at least June to do it so he wasn't pouring concrete into a puddle. I'll have to do a little research into that.

More Car Trouble

We got Kris's car back from the body shop on Thursday. We'll have to see how long it lasts this time. But I had it scheduled to get the rear tires replaced on Saturday. They were worn from when we had to have the alignment done on it back in December (or was it November?). Anyway, there had been a squeaking noise coming from the rear of the car when we were just driving along, so I asked them to just do a quick inspection of the rear brakes as they were changing the tires.

So I get a call Saturday morning right after I get home from work to tell me that there is a little problem with the rear brakes. Apparently, one of the sets of pads was stuck in the caliper so that it wasn't releasing fully when you took your foot off the brake. This is wear the squeak was coming from. It had also caused premature wear of the rotors. So they could have refaced the rotor so it was drivable, or they could put all new ones on. The difference? About $100. So I just went with the new ones. Then I also had them flush the brake fluid because when they checked it it apparently showed that it was contaminated. I don't know if that is something they just tell you to justify flushing and replacing, or if it was legit. But I had them do it anyway. Apparently the recommended maintenance schedule says it is supposed to be done every two years anyway. I know that I haven't had it done since we bought it, so at the very least it was plausible.

It always seems like it is something. I take it in for one thing and end up fixing three or four.