Happy Mother's Day!

Life is good. The sun is shining. My kids are healthy. I don't have to cook today and I have time to do this.

Allie is progressing quite well with her knee. She is riding a bike now - stationary.

Baily is winding up softball at school and soccer for club. She is getting ready to start her singing project with the record company. It will be a busy summer. She needs to write some songs and they will put them on a CD to sell. I will let everyone know when so you can buy it. :)

Ryleigh is no longer homeless. After a nice visit last weekend, she is back in Utah and back to the grind. She went bike riding this weekend and had a wee accident. Nothing big, but she is a little sore.

Bret and Britt are settled in their new apartment and looking for work. Bret is getting all his ducks in a row to start school next fall.

Donna is enjoying working at the pre-school. The other things I usually do at home get put on the back burner, but it's okay.

Ray and Donna are getting geared up for summer softball with the girls. We are on the Board of Directors for the league and that keeps us busy.

Ray is happy that better weather is here so he can ride his bike.

Like I said, LIFE IS GOOD.

Wow - It's May Already

Lots has happened. I may have to write this in two sections because Allie should be home soon and we are going to get her a new brace for her knee. She is doing quite well and her therapy is on schedule. The brace they ordered for her slips all the time so we are trying on new ones.

Bret and Britt (and Olivia Ann) moved here last weekend and are getting settled in. It was a long drive back up here from Provo with three blizzards even, but we made it.

Ryleigh is here too! She came up with three of her "Utah friends" and is showing two of them, Chris and Tron, around Spokane. Taryn's parents live in Tri Cities so her mom came and got here this morning to visit with her family for a couple of days.

Baily is currently negotiating with a record company in town to make a CD and promote her singing. Please look on www.myspace.com/go4jantzrecords and check out her demo. She competed in talent show at her high school and the producers liked her enough to want to work with her.

Donna is working again at EVSD in a pre-school class. I love it.

WE FINALLY SOLD THE HOUSE UP IN 5 MILE THAT WE HAVE BEEN SITTING ON FOR OVER TWO YEARS - I THINK IT IS ACTUALLY PUSHING THREE YEARS. YIPPEE!

Live is good and we have nothing to complain about.

Yeah April!

It is so nice to look outside and see sun. I just hope it stays.

Allie had an MRI done on her knee last week. I was expecting to hear that she had a little more damage to her LCL than we thought, but I did not anticipate the news we got. The damage to her knee is much more extensive than we thought. After reading all the gibberish of medical terms, the bottom line is that she has a tear in her ACL, some damage to her meniscus, bruising to her bones and possible fractures (one or two - we are not sure yet) to her tibia. We don't know the extent of the tear to her ACL as we have not seen the doctor yet. Hopefully we can get in tomorrow. She will most likely have at least a scope done, hopefully not full blown surgery. I will update when we know.

Baily and her soccer team played a great game on Saturday. They played with 10 girls so they had no rest the entire game. They still won 4 to 2. Baily has a great battle scar on her thigh. She was hit by a ball going so fast that it left and imprint on her leg. I will post the picture we took. I feel so bad for the girls her age that don't want to travel all the way to Seattle all the time to play premier soccer. There are not enough girls left here in Spokane to have very good games. I am proud of Baily though for not playing premier ball. All the games are on Sundays and she knows that is not something she wants to do. It is really hard on her because she loves soccer so much.

I get to see my big kids in just a couple of weeks. Ray and I are driving to Utah to go to Britt's graduation and move her and Bret back to Spokane. I really, really hate that drive to Utah, but it will be worth it to see Ryleigh, Bret and Britt.

I'm not sure I should post this, but she has it on her facebook so I'm going to. Ryleigh got a mini-hamster. She went to see the movie Bolt with some friends and then decided that she needed to get a hamster (with a friend - they went in together). She has told me how she takes it to the store with her in it's little ball and let's it run down the ice cream isle. She is such a goofball. She is having fun though.

I am in the middle of prom dress season and currently have three dresses to make. I am almost finished with Allie's. Not sure if she is going yet, but we will be ready if she gets asked. If not, she will have a dress for homecoming in the fall.

Ray is happy to finally be getting to ride bikes outside.

Allie Droppings

This is an Allie dropping. The other day Ray was commenting on how you always know if you have been doing things with Allie. She usually has a string cheese where ever she goes. The problem is, she pulls off the wrapper and leaves it where ever she is. We find them in our cars, in her room, in the cabinet next to the trash can - almost never in the can itself. If we ever lose her, all we have to do is follow the Allie droppings. :)

It's raining it's pouring!

We have had rain off and on this last week, mixed with a little snow. BLAH! I guess I can't complain too much, I agreed to live here. Would it be too much to ask to live in a green part of the country without all the moisture???

My ZAGS went down this week and I'm a little sad. Ray and I are big Gonzaga basketball fans. It is always sad with the last game is over for the season. Oh well, I have my own kids to watch too. The high school softball team beat Mt. Spokane in extra innings last week. A very big win for us. Baily is doing well but needs to swing the bat more. On Friday against Gonzaga Prep she had to play first base because we had some girls gone. She did a good job. Allie continues to do well cheering on her teams (volleyball and softball). It looks like we are going to have to have an MRI to see why her knee is still having sharp pains when she does her exercises. At least that way we will know for sure the extent of the damage.

Not a whole lot esle going on these days. Work is starting to pick up for Ray if the weather would cooperate. I continue to find great deals at the stores. I went shopping with Allie the other day for a spring dress or skirt and just happend by the baby department at Kohls. Okay, I didn't just happen by -- I went there on purpose. I found the cutest little Carters yellow dress with bloomers that was originally $28 -- just take a guess at how much I paid for it -- give up, I paid $1.34 and there was nothing wrong with it! I actually bought two of them; one for a gift and one for Olivia. I also got a couple of other things too, but that was my biggest deal. I just love shopping that way.

Roo told me the other day that I don't say enough about her on my blog. She is so busy all the time that I don't really hear from her much. If there is nothing going on, she creates something. I know she is having a wonderful time in Provo. She is little miss independece - just like I was at her age. I love it! She is doing great and I am proud of her.

Spring break is here and I don't have to get up at 6:00 am with the girls for a week -- Yeehaw!

Life is Good.

We are finally having some spring weather. The girls (actually, one girl) got a few softball games in this week. They have not been able to play on the East Valley fields yet, but they did get to play. Central Valley beat them pretty bad in the first game, but we beat Ferris. U-high looked like it was going to go our way in the beginning, but no luck. We have a freshmen pitcher that is pretty good. We just need to quit making errors in the field and START GETTING SOME HITS!

Baily had WASL testing this last week. She said she got bored with it. The Superintendent of Public Instruction is getting rid of the WASL, but not before all my children have to pass it. Not a problem though, they are smart!

Allie's knee - The PT determined that it is her LCL that is sprained. Not sure if it is a level I or II though. She flew to Denver with her team this weekend and between the flying and the altitude of Denver it swelled up again and has been hurting. Poor baby. She said it is making a clicking noise too. That could mean a cartlidge problem. We will find out tomorrow if she needs to have an MRI. We want to find out for sure if she needs a scope so we can get it done and get better.

Great news this week on the housing front. We had to stop work a couple of months ago on a pre-sold house we were building because the buyers had not sold the house they are living in. The last thing we want is to sit on another house. Well, they sold their house and we can move ahead and finish their new house. Yeah!!!

Other than Allie's knee, we are all healthy and happy. Life is good.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I am so bad at keeping up with this. Between checking our (mine & Ray's) e-mail, my own e-mail from all the junk mail stuff, the Softball Association's e-mail, my facebook and then looking on my favorite sites for grocery deals, this gets put off a bit.

Last Thursday at volleyball practice Allie hurt her knee. She went up for a jump and when she landed her ankle wobbled a bit and then her knee gave out. Her coach said she was hitting really hard. She couldn't get up so they iced it and had her sit a while. She was able to drive herself home but could not get out of the car without help. She was in a lot of pain. We immediately called our home teacher to get her a blessing. She was in pretty bad shape. There was nothing we could do right then, so we iced, took drugs and sent her to bed. She didn't sleep well at all.

We were able to get her into U-District PT on Friday morning. Too much swelling to tell for sure, but the initial prognosis was not her ACL. That was good, but we still had to wait until Monday to find out more. She went in yesterday and although the swelling had gone down, it was not enough. However, the PT is pretty sure there is no damage to her ACL or MCL. He said it looks like her LCL has a possible grade I or grade II sprain. I am certain the blessing helped. Right now she is going to PT every day and we will hopefully know by next week for certain the extent of the damage. If the PT is correct, she could be back on the court in about 6 weeks.

Meanwhile, the softball coach at the high school had to find a new third baseman (girl). Guess who? Baily! Baily does such a good job anywhere she is put on the field. Too bad they are never going to get to play because of the weather. She has been complaing about things the coach does every day after practice. I told her she is supposed to be having fun and if she isn't she shouldn't play. Duh!

Ryleigh must be busy because I have not heard from her in about a week.

Bret and Britt are having a Girl!

Donna has put her application in back at the school district. They need subs and we could use a little extra - or not extra - cash.

Ray is out in this crazy weather everyday building another duplex. After about two years, we think we might sell that house up on 5 mile prairie soon. We actually have three families interested in it. Wow, that would be so great to not have to pay for two houses.

Well, I'm making rolls for New Beginnings tonight so I will try to post more often. Maybe, I'll even put some pictures.