Weekend Recap: Looking at the Silver linings

 Oh buddy! 

It was kind of a tough one in the DeMoss household this weekend! 

Do you ever have those days where once something just starts to go wrong, it ultimately tailspins into pure and utter chaos? Well let me tell you, this past weekend was one of those moments! 

It all started Friday afternoon while at work. Lately we've been having CRAZY weather in Iowa and Friday was no exception. I was sitting at my desk going through my typical duties when all of a sudden the weather radio we have located at my desk in reception up front started going off. It all started with a severe thunderstorm with the mixture of hail in there. Fun. Hubs checked the radar and all looked well until it wasn't. 

It was wild! 

All of a sudden, little pellets of ice just started falling from the heavens, mixed in with golf ball sized chunks! It was insanely loud as it hit the awning, and all I could do was stand at the window of my office building and watch as my SUV got pelted with hail. Fortunately none of the ice made it through my windshield, but unfortunately like many in my state I will be filing an insurance claim since my roof looks like a golf ball now and piece chipped the paint all the way down to the primer. 

In addition to that I found out I was part of a security breach at my old eye doctor's clinic and had information compromised. It was all underneath my maiden name, so the notice got sent to my parent's home address that had information on the identity protection the clinic was offering. Which is fine, I often have things mistakenly sent to that address often; however, the post office misplaced my letter and I had to jump through some hoops to get information to the identity protection company, so I can have my monitoring for the year they are offering it for. 

When it rains, it pours....am I right? 

Luckily the storm cleared up in time for me to safely drive to pick up Liam at baby school and Hubs went to get stuff for dinner, and I was greeted with a bottle of my favorite wine. The perfect accompaniment to our 'lazy' dinner we had(grilled hot dogs-we've been on a HUGE kick lately!). 

The next morning Liam and I woke up fairly early for his first tumbling class! 

I decided to enroll Liam in a toddler Mommy and Me summer program class at a nearby dance studio to get him out and about and meet more kids. I thought it was a good way to see if it was something that he might be interested in the future, and if anything I was getting him out of the house for a bit of exercise. 

It honestly was a great program, and they had A LOT of little obstacles for the kids to go through, but I think I might have underestimated my toddler's patience. We ended up spending the first 10 minutes of class in the bathroom for a little bit of quiet time before we were able to return to class. Which to be fair, it was new, exciting and had A LOT of fun things to climb on and jump....it was practically sensory overload! 

We get to go back on Saturday, so I'm hoping we do better at class number 2. 

Once class was over, Liam and I headed home to shower up and get ready for Uncle Charlie's birthday party a few towns over. He was celebrating the big 3-0(welcome to the club, bud!) and we got to see a lot of people we hadn't in a very long time. We ended up having to leave earlier than we wanted to due to a very grumpy, tired kiddo, and it was a good thing too since we were heading in for another storm! 

Hubs ended up running to the store real quick to get a few supplies we were dangerously low on, and we decided on a quiet evening filled with frozen pizza and watching The Sandlot(which I hadn't seen before!). I noticed that Liam wasn't eating a lot that evening and usually pizza is his go-to(even for a picky toddler), but didn't think much of it until later on. About 3/4 of the way into the movie our power started to flicker on and off a couple of times before we heard a big BOOM and then.....DARKNESS. 

Great. 

Just Great. 

We gave it a little while before we began to get our puck lights that we use for power outages and checked with my in-laws that live in town to see if they had power. Liam and I ended up heading over to their house while Hubs waited for the power to come back on. While Liam and I got settled in at my in laws, I noticed that he started to feel a little warm, so I decided to take his temperature. Little man had picked up a bug, and luckily I had kept his medicine bag in his diaper bag so was able to get him something to help him sleep through the night.  Needless to say I didn't get a good night's sleep that night and neither did Hubs. 

Our power ended up coming back on at 1 AM and I ended up spending the night at my in-laws with Liam. 

The next morning Liam woke up still having a slight temp. He really wasn't eating, but he was acting a little bit better. I decided to gauge it for a couple of hours and if he still had a slight temp I knew we probably should bring him into Urgent Care. 

Now I know what you are going to say. 

"Why take him into Urgent Care for such a low grade fever?" 

Unfortunately, Liam's had some bad luck with some pretty nasty ear infections and Hubs and I were suspecting that that was the culprit for Liam's elevated temp. The last ear infection he had had had started out exactly out just like this, so figured we should just bite the bullet, take him in and get some antibiotics in him before it got worse. 

Three hours.

We ended up waiting to be seen in urgent care for THREE hours. 

I couldn't check in early, and two of those three hours were spent in the car waiting for our name to be called in. I'm happy to report that Liam does not have an ear infection, but instead he had picked up a virus(tested negative for strep throat).  Needless to say? I was a little bit of a mood after waiting all of that time to find out our suspicions had been for naught...especially since Liam was acting perfectly fine and running around the clinic like a crazy person. 

Liam was hungry and cranky. 

I was hungry and cranky

 

And our grocery store trip was miserable. 

I ended up picking some of those Uncrustable sandwiches for Liam and gave it to him frozen(he likes them this way and probably felt good on his throat) and I picked up some Triple Meat Pizza Rolls and a bottle of wine. I've been trying to make better eating choices and sticking to a 1600 calorie deficit(and drinking less), but after this weekend? Mama needed a bottle of wine. 

Hubs ended up having a bit of trouble himself with a little project he had started whilst Liam and I were away. We ended up getting a brand-new door to help with security and our energy bill. Our house is actually over 100 years old, and we are starting to find little....quirks to it that are making remodels a little bit of a pain. The new door was put in, but still needs to be capped and sealed. 

We ended up finishing the night with a late dinner of smoked ribs and baked beans and I FINALLY got to finish The Sandlot(and we started watching The Mighty Ducks). 

It was a wild, whirl wind of a weekend, and I'm honestly happy this one flew by with how insanely chaotic it was; however, I had to look at the silver linings out of this crazy, stressful weekend. 

1. The damage on my car could have been WAY worse. 

2. I was warned about the security breach and was able to take preventative measures before it got REALLY bad. 

3. Liam was excited and really enjoyed his tumbling class. 

4. Our house was safe, and we had somewhere to wait out until the lights came back on. 

5. Liam was okay and nothing serious was wrong with him. 

At the moment it all felt awful, but now that I'm looking back and reflecting on it all I can do is just shake my head in laugh. 

Fireworks & Lions & Tigers Oh My!

It was a wild and crazy holiday weekend for the DeMoss family! Liam got to spend a lot of grandparent time due to day care being closed the majority of last week and got his first multi-night over stay down at my parents. For those of you who don't know, I'm from a rural town in Southern Iowa, and when I say rural, I mean RURAL. My hometown is one of those that if you blink you'll miss it traveling on a main highway and oftentimes growing up I would have to find the next nearest, biggest town to tell people where its general location was. 

Although I'm totally a city girl now, occasionally I like to go back and spend a good, long day there enjoying the open, country fresh air and see the livestock and of course have our annual Fourth of July celebration at my parents house. I remember growing up it would very much be a huge event my parents would put on. My dad would grill, and my parents would invite our neighbors and closest friends and their families to come and celebrate. It was kind of like a potluck, people would bring side dishes, chips and BYOB, and they'd swim in my parent's ginormous above ground pool(RIP). There would be sparklers, snakes and other 'kid friendly' fireworks and once it got dark the real show would begin. 

At the time fireworks weren't exactly.....legal in Iowa, but somehow the trip to Missouri would always be managed, and my dad would put on a good show. 

Then all of a sudden it stopped for some reason or another. I imagine people got busy, lives changed and people moved away from home until a few years back I pleaded for my mom to bring back the family tradition and I would help her host it(with the help of my best friend) and now here we are. 

I didn't mange to take any photos that day after chasing around a two-year-old and helping set up, but it was an amazing time. My cousin Travis made a brisket and his brother Jeff made pulled pork. There were chips, salads and lots of other goodies to graze on. Just right before the fireworks Hubs made a fire, so the kids could make Smores, and then it was time for Hubs and Ben(my Bestie's husband) to start the show. 

My Bestie and her husband LIVE for the fourth of July, so much so that they have a yearly budget allocated to splurge on fireworks. Needless to say, they did not disappoint this year, and even Liam enjoyed them as we sat up on my parent's upper deck and watched them. After the fireworks were done it was bedtime for bonzos, and we tucked Liam in before heading back outside to help clean up after the party. 

We ended up spending the night at my parents house in my old bedroom(one of them, at least) and woke up fairly early to head back home. The rest of Sunday was spent basically hanging out until later that evening when we went over to a friend's house to grill hamburgers and shoot off more fireworks. I think by that time Liam was done with fireworks and wanted to be in his dad's arms because he was starting to get a little scared of the noise(to tell you the truth I  really don't care for the loud ones). I ended up taking Liam inside and he cuddled on the couch with a blanket to watch Scooby while Hubs and K-Bear finished shooting off fireworks. 

Needless to say, after two jam packed days of running around, we were ALL ready to go to bed. Liam had no trouble going right to sleep, unfortunately our dog was a little too anxious from all the big booms going on outside, so we spent at least a couple of hours snuggling her and letting her know it was going to be okay. That's the only downside about the Fourth of July, each year animals and soldiers who suffer from PTSD have to bear through the festivities. I would like to say people are respectful with shooting off fireworks, but like most situations there's always a few bad apples that shoot off way too late or aren't courteous enough.