Finally!... A "Sunshiney" Day!!!

Whoo! This is finally the first day without snow flurries, snow accumulation, blowing snow, etc. However, it is frigid outside to say the least!!! It was -17 degrees this morning when I came to work, and that was the actual temperature, not the wind chill! BRRRR!!!! After the snow we got yesterday, I think we ended up with a total of 12 inches over the last three days. It is going to take forever to get rid of this stuff now. Today, the sun is shining and it is really cold, but the weather forecast says it should warm up into the 20's and 30's by the weekend. That will seem warm compared to today!! CJ had trouble getting his truck started this morning because it was so cold... I didn't even attempt to try to start the car I usually drive to work. I went ahead and drove the Trailblazer... even this tried to "hesitate" slightly before actually starting up! We can see if the car starts when we get home from work tonight.

Will It Ever Quit Snowing???

Geez... another snowy Monday... guess we can't seem to get enough of these. Yuck! I just listened to the news reports at lunch time and we seem to have gotten 7 inches since it started snowing yesterday afternoon. The worst of it was over sometime early this morning, but it is still snowing little flurries out there. Seven inches!... just when we were getting the other snow melted and starting to see the brown grass again! I guess Zach has some scooping to do when he gets home from school!! I sure will be glad when spring is here!!!

Eczema: The Story of Zach's "Itchy" Life...

Zach has had a battle going on with a skin condition called Eczema since he was 18 months old. Eczema is a very severe dry skin condition that breaks out in a rash on certain parts of the body such as the arms, legs, shoulders, or back. It can be triggered by allergies (nature and food), asthma, or changes in the weather. Even a family history of allergies or asthma can be reason enough for someone to get eczema. Apparently this is the case with Zach.When he was younger, the doctor had hoped he would grow out of it, as most people do. In the last 3-4 years, his skin has been doing a lot better. He used to get a lot of flare-ups on his face, arms, and legs. These flare-ups were usually small -- no bigger than about the size of a 50 cent piece usually. Now that he is older, I was hoping that he was growing out of it, since he didn't seem to have too many of these flare-ups anymore. Of course, I also don't see as much of his body now that he is older, too! We noticed that he was scratching his leg and back last weekend, and when we looked he was broke out with a few small rashes in several places. We put lotion on him and told him to be sure to use the lotion a lot until it goes away. The doctor used to have him on Elidel, which is a steroid cream, however he had to discontinue using that about 3 years ago or so because the FDA determined that it was made with a cancer-causing agent and took it off the market. There was nothing else to use that would work, so we had to resort to expensive lotions that were labeled as "extremely moisturizing". Luckily, we hadn't had any real problems until now. After several days had gone by since he first showed us his back, he came up to me one night after he had his basketball game and said that his back was really hurting bad. When he showed it to me, I almost fell over! The eczema had flared up so bad, that he actually had red welts and bumps covering almost his entire back!!! He said he had been itching it , which he is not supposed to do because that can cause the sores to break open and become infected. We gave him a cool bath and really moisturized him up good that night and I put a call in to the doctor in the morning. When we had his appointment that afternoon, she took one look and said that his skin was infected from itching and she prescribed an antibiotic cream for that. Then she gave us the REALLY GOOD NEWS!... She could put him back on the Elidel that worked so well for him a few years ago. When I asked about the cancer-causing agent, she said that the FDA seemed to have made a mistake about that, and they have returned the medicine back to the market as safe to use. She gave him a prescription with about 6 refills, and he is to use it every day to heal this up and then keep in under control in the future. His back is already starting to heal nicely. The dry skin bumps aren't gone yet, but at least it doesn't look like he is trying to sprout a set of wings out of his back!

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year everyone!!! Wow, I can hardly believe that 2008 is here! Hope everyone finds this year prosperous, healthy and happy! As for resolutions... well... I will just resolve to "try to keep up" with everything and everyone!!

We had a nice New Years... Sioux City used to have a big family event called FunFest on New Years Eve down at the Convention Center, but they didn't have enough sponsors to put it on this year. It was an all day long event for $10 per person. You could go to movies, go ice skating, roller skating, swimming, bowling, go on a treasure hunt, see a magic show, go to a carnival, etc. All these events were housed in different locations throughout the city at different times all day long. You would just pick the things you wanted to do and be on your way! It was a really awesome event so we were really disappointed that we wouldn't get to do it this year.

We thought we would try to get tickets to the hockey game, but they were sold out way before New Years. So, we took the kids bowling instead! It was a lot of fun! Of course, it was busy, too, since it was New Years Eve, but the kids had a blast! We came home about 10:30 pm and watched Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve on TV while having grape juice in wine glasses to celebrate the New Year at midnight. Brianna took a couple sips of hers and decided she didn't like it, so we gave her a little pop in her glass!! About 12:10 am, both kids were asleep on the couch!!

Since we only got to go bowling last night, we decided to go see a movie today. We went down to the big Riviera Theatre downtown where a movie is only $3 per person. Today, they were only $2 per person!! At that price, we can afford to buy pop, popcorn, and candy for the movie!! We chose to see The Game Plan with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Madison Pettis. It was a really great family movie!! We all loved it and will definitely be buying it when it comes to DVD!!

The original plan for supper tonight was going to be potato soup and pie. With all the freezing cold weather we have had the last couple days, soup sounded really good. However, by the time we got out of the movie, it was already 7:00 pm, so we just stopped at Wendy's on the way home. Speaking of freezing... their heater was out in their front dining room and they had a sign asking you to sit in the enclosed dining room on the side.... while we were standing there ordering our food, our hands and noses were freezing! Zach saw the thermostat on the wall and went over to read it... 40 degrees!!!! Once we walked into the side dining area, it felt like walking into a sauna at first, but it was so good!!! Especially after freezing out front...

Well, I will sign off for now! Talk to everyone again soon!