Yes, I'm still alive...

I suppose I should post so that you all do come back and visit my blog! Things in the Stein household are moving along well...we are both busy as usual at work! The kitties are getting along pretty well, although Max still spazzes out and jumps on Chloe once in a while.

Skip and I spent last weekend in Tacoma because our goddaughter, Katrina, was in the PICU for respiratory problems. She has been sick for a few months, but it took a turn for the worse last week. We arrived on Friday, and I was shocked to see that little girl laying there with tubes and IV's hooked up to her. Skip and I spent 11 hours with her Friday night into Saturday morning so her parents could get some much needed sleep. Our job was to make sure she didn't move around too much if she woke up so that her respirator tube didn't get pulled out. The second night we were taking over the night shift again, and Katrina was waking up so much that they decided to take her off of the respirator. It was so awesome because then we could hold her!! By the next day she was sent from the ICU to a regular room!! So in the few days we were there, Katrina got SO much better! We left Sunday feeling very good about our little girl!! We are hoping to see her again soon for her 1st birthday in just a few weeks!!!

Compared to that, my medical drama is pretty tame! For the second time in my life, I broke my pinky toe. I got home from work one night and had JUST taken my shoes off when I walked into the vacuum cleaner as it sat in the hallway. The first time I broke it was when I was in junior high and I walked into a couch! Anyway, I was pretty slow going for a few days. What's really funny is that Skip hurt his big toe, so when we walked together we were both limping. I'm sure we looked pretty pathetic :)

Chloe has arrived!

The phone rang at 9:30 this morning and it was the humane society! Our little kitty wasn't well enough to get spayed today so they wanted us to bring her home to get better. (She has a bit of a cold!) So this afternoon we went up and rescued her from her 2'x2' cell! Skip and I knew the challenge would be introducing our cat Max to the new addition. After much caution the two met, and I must say Max was less than thrilled! (See attached pic) He follows Chloe around everywhere, and has basically been a big wuss! So now we are a little family with two cats, which will be our limit so that there aren't more cats than people living here. (MOM & DAD!!!)

Dumpster Diving for Cell Phones

So, funny story this weekend! Saturday morning Skip and I woke up and were getting ready to head out the door to run some errands. I looked all around for my cell phone to take with us but I could not find it anywhere. I called it from the home phone to hear it ringing but all was silent! So Sunday rolls around and still no phone. My mind starts turning, wondering where it might have gone. Then the idea came to me. I had taken the trash out Saturday morning, and with the trash was a Burgerville bag that was used to bring dinner home on Friday. The bag had been sitting on the floor next to our coffee table, and I thought that maybe my phone accidently got knocked into the bag. On Sunday morning Skip and I went down to our garbage room and he called my phone. And what do you know, there came a familiar ringtone from the depth of the dumpster. Skip grabbed a flashlight and we spotted the Burgerville bag. I let Skip reach in to get it and dump out the contents, which included my phone! After a quick dusting off and wipe with an antibacterial cloth it was as good as new!! So moral of the story...check the Burgerville bag before taking it out to the trash!!!

As if this wasn't exciting enough this weekend, Skip and I adopted a new kitty!!! She is black with green eyes and is one-year-old. She's still at the humane society because she's getting fixed tomorrow. We're still working on a name for her because she was a stray and the humane society named her Pineapple...yeah, we're not keeping that name. I like Chloe and Skip likes Emerald (for her eyes). She is such a sweetheart and is a very loving cat! More pics to come!

Happy New Year!

Vacation is officially over and it was back to work today! The kids were wound up and I was ready to go back home and take a nap. Luckily it's only a 3-day week!

Christmas was excellent this year! I feel so spoiled and lucky to have such a wonderful family! Santa was especially generous this year, bringing an espresso machine, a Nintendo DS, and my purse!!! We had a great time over at my parents house and enjoyed a delicious dinner and dessert.

Happy New Year to all! I hope 2008 brings you lots of health, happiness and good times!

And the winner is...

ME!!! The Survivor finale was on tonight, and I was feeling a little defeated when Denise was voted off. Looking at the final three, I DID NOT want Amanda to win. I would have been okay with Courtney because she's a smart-ass and was funny to watch. But what do you know, my dear Todd won the million dollars! So I'll be collecting money at work this week, just in time for Christmas vacation! Maybe that purse at Macy's will be mine a little sooner than I thought!

It was a great ending to a not so swell weekend! Skip got food poisoning from Boppin' Bo's restaurant and was very sick over the weekend. He's doing fine now, and even made it to work tonight. All I have to say is thank goodness for earplugs! Okay, sorry, that was probably too much information! Have a great week!

Go Denise! Go Todd!

I was sitting here wondering what I could write about today so I could add a new post to my blog. What's exciting in my life right now? Sadly, it's the fact that my two people in my work's Survivor pool are still in the game. A few months ago I randomly chose Denise, the lunch lady, and Todd, the gay flight attendant. I felt doomed immediately. But to my surprise they are both in the final four. Normally I wouldn't care because reality TV isn't on my priority list, but I could potentially win $80 next week! I did have a dream a few weeks back that Denise won it all. Maybe it's that school connection that we share that's bringing me good luck.

Apple Cup Victory!

Can you believe it? The Cougars won another Apple Cup last Saturday in Seattle. I watched the game from the comfort of my living room, but would have loved to have been there! The fourth quarter was so intense, and I'm not embarassed to say that I did my fair share of yelling at the TV!

A great thing about being a teacher of little ones is that I can influence them to make good choices, like being a Cougar fan! Every Friday during football season, we would be lined up at the door ready to go home, and the whole class yelled "Go Cougs!" I think we'll have to continue this tradition through basketball season too.

I also like to decorate the room with little Coug things here and there. On our alphabet strip, there is a cougar for the letter C, which I altered a bit by adding a Cougar head collar! For the Christmas season I also have my Cougar stocking hanging right up front next to our daily schedule.

And to add to all my happiness...none of my students are die hard Husky fans! I had a few last year who liked to give me trouble, but this year the Cougars reign in Mrs. Stein's class!

Is it Christmas yet?

As a teacher, one of the great perks is getting nearly three weeks off for "Winter Break." At my school we still can say "Christmas" and even dress up for Halloween. But back to the point, I am so ready for vacation. This year I have 27 darling little seven-year-olds depending on me to educate them. Unfortunately with this large number of kids I feel more like a referee than a teacher. Instead of spending 15 minutes on proper nouns, it's 10 minutes getting 54 eyes looking at me and 270 fingers out of their noses. Not to mention all of the "So-and-so hit me" and "so-and-so called me a name." (By the way, my kids do have nicer names than so-and-so, just keeping my hynie covered.) So that leaves 5 minutes learning about proper nouns. And in just a year these kids will be taking a state standardized test that is supposed to reflect on how effective my teaching is. I guess what this all really boils down to is that there are too many little darlings under my wings. I love each of them for their own little quirks, but man am I drained at the end of each day. So as I look at the calendar and count down the days, I can't wait for that Christmas vacation just for the sheer fact that I can re-energize! And shop :)

Our visit up north

This weekend Skip needed to go to Tacoma to do some scuba diving. He earned his first scuba certification and did four dives in the chilly waters of the Puget Sound. But the exciting part of the weekend was staying with the Cahill's! While Skip was diving on Saturday the rest of us went shopping for Katrina (Skip's God-daughter.) Scott and Staci are working on baby-proofing the house because Katrina is starting to scoot around on her own and will be crawling soon!

It was a fantastic weekend with our dear friends and the cutie Katrina!

I've had so much fun looking at all the blogs out there that it's time to start my own. Since there are no little Stein's, I'll keep you updated on how my cat, Max, is doing. Enjoy!