UGHHHHHH.....

If I keep writing about our car problems maybe somehow the universe will hear it and amazingly let me win a new car. Whadda ya think? Probably not.

Today I was in a super great mood. The car was fixed, the weather cooled off, I got a ton of things done... Then 6:00 rolled around and I decided that I would wait out front with Chloe and Bailey for Chad to come home. As he pulled up my mood changed drastically within seconds. The car was making this NOISE. Are you kidding me???? We just put out a ton of money to get several things fixed!!!!!!!!!!! It has been in and out of the shop for 2 months now. We got the flex pipe fixed, then the computer worked on, then new sparkplugs, then new o-rings in the fuel injectors, and finally we had a fuel injector replaced. What now???? This car is sucking the life out of my bank account.

Tomorrow my post will be about how we drove the car to an abandoned field and lit on fire! Is that illegal? Because that is really what I want to do right now.

Time Out

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just haven't been up to blogging over the past few weeks. Several events have just knocked me on my head and I haven't been able to catch up. I am hoping that changes over the next week or so.

It all started last month when we got word that Chad may be getting offered orders in Memphis, Tennessee. We discussed and discussed and discussed some more until we came to the conclusion that it would be a "good thing" to take these orders. Chad called and happily said "we accept." They said "Great, but we need to ok it with the NEW boss who will be here in a few weeks." We waited and waited and nothing, so finally Chad called and it was confirmed. WE GOT ORDERS!!!!! Happy Day. We are really looking forward to this move. We are heading out to TN next weekend to look at houses and check out the area. We expect to move in December, but haven't worked out the details yet.

Amongst the anxiety of waiting on orders, our lovely car decided to give us some HUGE trouble. It has been in and out of the shop for about 2 months now. We think it is finally fixed, let's just hope it holds up for a while. We were uncertain if we were going to get it fixed, so we have also been going to look at new cars in our free time.

Then, on top of orders and car trouble, Chloe has a few teeth coming in and hasn't been a happy camper (especially at night). The poor kid seems to be getting 2 or 3 teeth at the same time. I can see them just under her gum trying to work their way up. Motrin seems to be helping a bit.

On top of all that, Chad has been working really LOOOONG hours and has had many overnight duty days. I also started an online class once a week that is requiring reading and studying, which I haven't done in a long while.

Thank God tomorrow is the last day of August. I am really ready to start a fresh new month. I hope September brings some cooler weather and a calmer times.

Chocolate Pudding

Chloe attempted to feed herself. Chocolate pudding and chcolate covered marshmallows are her new favorite dessert choice.

AJ's Jungle Cake

Yep, I did AJ's Jungle Cake. This one was the biggest cake I have done yet. 2 layered, 11x15, 3 cake batters and a whopping 15 cups of icing. It was a doozie!

AJ's Jungle Party

AJ Moore turned 2 yesterday at a jungle themed bash. Check out the photos.

JT aka The Happy Tiger

Chad aka The Unhappy Pink Elephant

He was the only one with a girl so he got stuck with pink!

Shane aka The Hungry Alligator eating Everett

Tony aka The Grillin' Giraffe

Susan and AJ blowing out the candles

Chloe was in love with AJ's new playhouse

Lab Results

I just heard from Chloe's G.I. Doctor and he had some good news about her lab tests. The results showed no allergy, infection or injury of any kind. After this test and G.I. study, we have it narrowed done to a muscular problem. This means that the muscles that help you keep your food down have intermittent relaxations that allow the digestive acids from her stomach to come up into her esophagus. Dr. Sullivan said he feels fairly confident that she will outgrow this. Please pray that is the case. At the end of the year we are going to try again to take her off her medicines and see what happens.

Unfortunately there is bad news, which is that if she does not outgrow this she would require a rather serious surgery. I pray we don't have to go that way and I am trying to keep that thought out of my head right now.

Thanks for all your concern.

Captain George's Seafood Buffet

The Wissmann Clan consisting of my Uncle Dave, Aunt Shayne, Connor, Colin, Chris and their buddy Charlie took a trip to Busch Gardens/Williamsburg. They invited us to come and have dinner with them since it is only about 45 mins away. We went to Captain George's all-you-can-eat seafood extravaganza (or buffet). All nine of us sat down to catch up over some great seafood. I got Chloe a plate of fried shrimp and mac & cheese. She wanted none of that. She went right for my crab legs and didn't stop. She ate her body weight in crab meat. Everyone was shelling them and passing them along.

More Crab Please!

Just take the shell off, and I will do the rest!

Connor is holding Chloe, Colin, Chris, and friend Charlie

Uncle Dave, Connor, Chris, Colin, Chloe and Me

You can't tell from this photo, but my Uncle Dave is 6'8". I brag about this all time. It goes something like this "I have tall genes, my uncle is 6'8"." Chad also brags about it, but his goes like this, "my kids are going to be tall, Jamie's family is huge, her uncle is 6'8, I feel short at her house."

We had a great time and wish we could of spent more time together. Thanks to Dave and Shayne for treating us to a great meal. It was a great evening.

Chloe is doing well.

Chloe had her endoscopy done this morning and she is doing just fine. I was very nervous about it, but the doctor assured me it was a quick and painless procedure. But I was still very uptight. We arrived at 8am this morning and we went right in, no waiting. Several nurses and the anesthesiologist greeted us right away and got everything moving. I was dreading the I.V. being put in, but they were so fast and good at it. As soon as it was in, they gave Chloe a muscle relaxer. That had to be THE FUNNIEST THING I have ever seen in my ENTIRE life. I did cry today, but not because I was scared, but because I laughed so hard. Chloe was awake, but totally stoned. She kept looking at us with lazy eyes, opening her mouth a bit, and gave us a HUH HUH HUH. Almost like, "ha ha ha, your so funny looking right now, I see 3 of you." She had all the assistants laughing as well.

So then we walked out and headed to the waiting room. Afterward they told us that she was a fighter and they had to give her an extra dose to get her asleep. I could of told them that! Chloe never goes down without a fight! The procedure was very quick and the doctors and nurses involved were all really great.

The doctor told us that he doesn't think there is any type of infection which is good. He did see that her esophagus wasn't in very good shape from all the acid production. He took a biopsy and sent it to the lab and that will tell us if she has some kind of allergy that could possibly be causing this. We should hear something in about a week and then we'll go from there.

The worst part of the whole thing was Chloe coming out of the anesthesia. She was not happy as she was waking up. It took a good 30-45 mins or so for her to wake up and then she was really, really cranky on and off for the rest of the day. It was fun!