Cocomong

Oh Cocomong, we've learned so much about your sausage monkey being and your robot Robocong.  I assumed that you were a Chinese being but you are Korean.  You have a villain named Virus King and he tries to get you to eat sugar and not brush your teeth.  I am not sure how you were found by Caitlyn on Netflix but here you are.  I wonder who else is watching this in the U.S?  I looked up getting a Cocomong toy but there isn't any in U.S. except a car seat belt plush toy.  I think you have done some good.  Every time Robocong eats carrots to gain power or Virus King rots someone's teeth, there is a lot of vegetable and teeth brushing going on in this house.

"Did you know that Virus King did this......"

"Did you know that Cocomong did this....."

"Mold Capow Wow, Mold Capow Wow" With the head shake.

Ocean Life

I don't know why this had popped up in my head the other day but I have been meaning to write it down here.

I think that life is like swimming in a pool/lake/ocean.  Even if I don't know how to swim in any of these bodies of water, I am going to do whatever it takes to keep my head above water.  I can't imagine getting to the point where you wouldn't want to keep swimming.

Space Lord Mother Mother

 I've been stuffed in your pocket for the last hundred days

When I don't get my bath I take it out on the slaves

So grease up your baby for the ball on the hill

Polish them rockets now and swallow those pills

And say oh................Space Lord mother mother

I think of this song every time I've put lotion on our babies' skin after a bath.

Short But Sweet

 I don't have much to say this time but I have been feeling very happy lately.  I love our family that my wife and I have made together. We have three little girls.  They all have their own personalities.  We have been blessed in so many ways it's really hard to express it completely.

KC Visit

 8/23/2020

This weekend we traveled to KC for Steph's baby shower.  All 5 of us and Maybelle made the trip down after dropping Joe and Josh off at the airport.  Joe and Josh were visiting for a couple days and stayed at our house a couple nights.

I spent most of the weekend hanging out with Rick, Rachel's dad.  On Friday we picked up his boat from storage and brought it home. we got it ready for fishing up at Mozingo Lake.  Rick had fished this lake a few times and was excited about it.  We woke up at 5:45 on Saturday and made the voyage about 1:45 to the lake.  There wasn't much traffic on the lake which was surprising to me.  We launched the boat and tried a few areas but didn't catch any fish.  We decided to load the boat up and travel back to Smithville Lake where Rick stores the boat.  Since the girls were having a party at the house and it was going to be too girly we wanted to stay away.

On our way back to Smithville we saw a guy raking hay in a field and that got Rick talking about his dad and live on the farm before and after his father passed away.   It started with stories about how they used to bale and store hay in the 2 barns that they had on the farm.  His dad said that you just need to get the hay in the barn and worry about stacking them on a rainy day.  This led to the talk about working on houses with his dad.  His dad passed away from a heart attack when Rick was 16.  His dad was 57 and had a heart attack on the roof of a house they were working on.  He kept working through the day and eventually had another during dinner that evening.  He ended up going to the hospital that evening.  Rick and his mother got a call the next morning that they should come to the hospital.  Rick said that he was clocked with a tripod speedometer going 135.  The cops starting chasing him and his mom thought they were trying to escort him to the hospital.  This was not the case.  He ended up stopping and was arrested by the police and lost his license for 90 days.  His father ended up passing away before Rick was able to see him again.

Rick went on to describe what life was like after his father passed.  He started to work at night at a factory to help earn income.  It sounded like the little money the family had was held up in the bank because his parents had a joint account with an "and" and not "or".  They needed to have 2 signatures of both his mom and dad to pay bills and since he had passed that they couldn't get the money.  I assume this was sorted out later.  They had about 100 head of cattle and hogs.  That was where the majority of the assets were.

Rick described that he got behind on neutering the hogs.  They grew to about 90 lbs and were difficult to neuter once they were that big.  He had to make a station out of wood to hold the animal while they did the process.  They had a missed attempt before making the station.

Once we got to Smithville Lake we went out for a couple hours fishing, we again didn't catch anything.  The lake was very busy.  We saw a few bait balls of minnows that were interesting.

We loaded up the boat and stored it at the storage facility.  On the way back I noticed a boat on the boat landing by the trailer.  The boat was on its side.  It was obviously a boat launch fail.  I looked it up today and found another story of a truck ending up in the lake yesterday too.  No details of the boat on the ramp yet.  I hope that neither happens to me.

Today we left Caitlyn and Clarie with Rick and Marcia.  It's always hard to leave them.  I think we hugged like 3-4 times before we left.  Minnesota goodbyes.  They didn't seem to care that we were leaving.  All they could think about was the fun they were going to have with grandpa and grandma.

Carly goes back to daycare tomorrow.  I'm sure that will be an adjustment for her.

Rachel goes back to work tomorrow.  With all the COVID stuff, I don't think she's excited.

It's Been A While

I haven't done this for a very long time but I have been meaning to for some time now.  Rachel gave me the book "My father's story" and Rachel's mom was recently talking about her mother's journal and how it gave them some insight into her life.

Since it looks like it has been 5 years since my last post I'll start with what is going on now and hopefully, I can fill in the gaps as we go on.

8/20/2020 - Rachel and I have 3 beautiful girls, Caitlyn Rose now 6, Claire Marie now 4, and Carly Elizabeth now 1.  They are all blonde with blue eyes just like their mommy.

In October of 2016, Caitlyn was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  It was successfully removed and she has made a full recovery with some minor impairments to her hearing and swallowing.  We are blessed that she has made a great recovery.  There definitely was some trying times.  Her now yearly MRI scans still make me worried to the point of being physically sick.  I'm not sure that will ever go away.

In the spring of 2016, we moved from my house in St. Michael to home in Otsego.  It is a 2 story home that was completely finished.  We added a fenced in backyard and a swing set/kids play area that summer.  Duke loved the back yard until he passed in the summer of 2019.  The backyard was easy to get to from the basement walkout sliding door, with only a small portion of tile flooring that Duke for some reason always hated.  Too much spent out on the ice when he was a pup I guess.

I finished my Mechanical Engineering Degree in the spring of 2016.  It was a long road and I am glad that I did it, but can't imagine doing it again.  I did a distance program with UND in Grand Forks ND.  I think that a lot of programs will be going this way.  Especially with the Covid-19 stuff going on.

There is plenty more to talk about but I need to go to work tomorrow!

Thanksgiving Eve

It is the night before Thanksgiving 2015.  It's 11 pm and my family is sleeping soundly.  I can 't help but write down some of my thoughts.  Thanksgiving gets you thinking about all the things that you should be thankful for and maybe not complain about the small stuff.

Updates:  I have always enjoyed reading my old posts, gets me back to my thought process at the time.

Caitlyn is an awesome little girl.  I love that munchkin more than I thought was possible.  I was able to spend a lot of cuddle time with her last night since her mommy was sick.  She brought me all the stuff animals that she could find, and once I was pilled up with them, she wanted to climb up and cuddle.  She is such an amazing girl and I am very blessed to have her in my life.  She is begining to talk more, she loves to read you books out loud, lol.  It is really cute.  I had a few thoughts run thru my head yesterday about what my life is going to look like in 10 years with a 11 year old girl, having conversations about her day, and what makes her happy.  She is truly a gift, and I need to cherish my time with her more.

Rachel is doing ok.  She had a late miscarriage on labor day.  It is something that is hard to go thru but I couldn't imagine now, knowing the process, how people just have it cut out, like it is a thing.  I felt it was more like a birth and that it was a baby.  I didn't know how I felt until I saw it in the toilet bowl, I knew right then that it was not right to "flush it" like I had told Rachel.....That would  have been horrible, and I am glad we didn't.  We were able to get it buried in a house plant.  Since we don't know the sex of the baby, we named it Alex.  This was one of the hardest things to deal with, much harder on my wife.  She made sure I knew that too.  I wasn't as supportive as I could be, but I don't deal with death that same as most people, I get distant and take a long time to process.  There was for some reason a difficult time for this baby, the doctors didnt give it much of a chance from the get go, we fought on and things seemed to be good, then it passed away.  We went to an ultrasound together and confirmed that there was no heartbeat....I can't help but day dream about how life would be if Alex had made it.  It will be something to think about for ever.

On a different note, Rachel is pregnant again about 7 weeks.  We are on high alert, and have already had some illness scares with "slapped cheek" and flu.  Rachel has an appointment in about 3 weeks to check in.  Hope all looks well.

I am getting tired now, but I have plenty other stuff to talk about.  My job stuff changed recently and school is winding down finally.

I will have to get back and update this too.