Appliance Shopping

I was just looking at the last time I wrote a blog in here and I can't believe it has been that long...I guess the title of my last blog suits it well. Anyway, we went to the great Minnesota get together as they call it... AKA the State Fair on Friday. I took a day off of work and so did Adam to avoid the "weekend" crowd. It wasn't too bad especially with the threat of rain lurking around the corner. We got a little spit for about minutes, but overall it was nice. The breeze was nice too! We ate mini-donuts, cheese curds, sweet corn, foot longs, corn dogs, pickle dogs, cheese on a stick and lemonade slushies...yum! I want to go back and try some more stuff! Mikayla built a tray at the Home Depot booth and we got our family calendar at the education building. That is a yearly tradition :) We spent 10 hours walking around and I was ready to head for the car! My feet were sore, my belly was sore from carrying all that extra weight and my back felt like it was going to break in two...but all well worth it! We got home and there was this stinch coming from the kitchen. I immediately thought something was stuck in the garbage disposal, so I ran it for a minute and thought nothing more of it.

The next morning Mikayla was putting away her dirty dishes in the dishwasher when I remembered that those were clean, so I ran over there to grab hers and there was standing water in the bottem of the dishwasher. I tried to re-run the washer and it filled up with more water and then shut off. I turned the knob to change cycles to try to drain the water and nothing happened. Off to Sears we go to buy a new dishwasher. We were met by this really nice salesman, Matt. He was helpful and not too pushy wish I like. We bought a Whirlpool and he told us that someone would install it for us on Sunday. (the next day) We were supposed to get an automated call that night telling us our 2 hours window for delivery and installation. When I hadn't heard anything by 8:30 PM I called the sears number. I got pushed to the 1-800 service from the store and they told me that the installation place was closed on the weekends. The next morning I called Matt and he called me back stating the same thing and that he left a message for the installers to call me on Monday. I was also given their number.

This morning I call them to find out when they will be out and nobody would answer the phone (20 minutes after they were supposed to be opened). I called the Sears 1-800 number back again and they called them. They told Sears they had just gotten in and they got my order. They are also booked out 4-5 days for installation!!! HELLO! WTF! I said "What about your next day installation guarantee?" The lady at Sears said "well, the person you bought it from never put it in the system as a next day install/deliver". I said "yes he did! It says that on my paperwork". She said "Well, it didn't say that on the installers paperwork". Would it really matter if it said it anyway since they are booked for 4-5 days? Then she said "I can send it to a different installer if you would like". I said "yes, I need this done right away since it is stinking up my kitchen!" She said "ok, but it will take another 24 hours for the new installers to get your order so you are looking at Wed. for the soonest install. I said "WHAT!" Then she said "Well, the next day install doesn't apply to weekends, so if you buy your appliance on Saturday, they treat it like Monday and install it on Tuesday. If you buy your appliance on Sunday, they treat it like Tuesday and install it on Wed." So I guess I should have some in on Monday so I could get it installed Tuesday, then I wouldn't have had this whole hassel! Oh, and the other kicker is that there is still no guarantee that it will be installed on Wed. if that installation company is booked out too! How can you now guarantee next day installation?

Do these people really think I am that stupid? So I guess I have to call and yell and someone today which I really don't feel like doing since I am already overly tired from staying up late with Mikayla. She had growing pains two nights in a row at like 11:00...screaming in pain!

I will write the positives to the weekend later when I am feeling better about this stupid dishwasher!

Time Flies!

I can't believe it has been a little over a week since my last blog! Where did the time go? Mikayla has her 4th swimming lesson already out of 8 tonight! I can't believe it! I should start looking into the next round of lessons for next month. She is doing so great! Tuesday she jumped off the diving board by herself.. and daddy was there to watch! It was so great. She was so excited he got off work in time to see her and she was so brave. 4 out of the 6 kids jumped off by themselves. She was the first one to go.

The baby is getting more active in the belly now. He is constantly kicking and moving around. I can't believe how much of a change this is from a month ago. We need to get moving on his room. We still have boxes in there from the move and I would like to get that all cleaned out this weekend. We only have two weeks until we leave for our mini vaca. I can't wait. I think I am at the point where I need to get out of here!

Adam is coming to see me for lunch, so better get going.

A busy week!

I started Mikayla in swimming lessons and her first one was last night. I was a little nervous as there wasn't really any direction. Where to meet, what to bring (besides the obvious bathing suit and towel). I went into the girl's locker room, got her changed and ready and walked out to the pool area to wait. I checked her in and we waited. We were about 20 minutes early, so about 10-15 minutes later, I was surrounded by parents and kids of all ages. It was amazing! I didn't know how they would organize this many kids and ages. They had the parents all sit upstairs at an observation deck. It was bleachers. It was really hot! We all were sweating after 5 minutes! I couldn't wait to get out of the pool area, but I so badly wanted to watch. They took the kids around and explained the rules and safety of the pool for about 10-15 minutes. Mikayla was clearly not interested nor paying attention much. The older kids were answering all the questions and understood what was being asked.

Then they separated them all and each lifeguard/teacher took 4-5 kids. Mikayla was enrolled in the "preschool" level and I overheard one of the other parents check in their son at the same level. So I was looking for Mikayla to be in the same class. When they got called into the groups, that little boy was placed with 4 other little girls and Mikayla was placed in a different group. The kids in her group were noticably bigger and I thought "she doesn't belong in that group!"

Mikayla's group all got in the water and started bobbing up and down in the water, going under and popping back up. Mikayla wasn't having that! Pretty soon the coordinator walked over and started talking to the Mikayla's teacher. They pulled her out and escorted her over to the "preschool" group. Hello! That is why I signed her up for "preschool!" She did much better over there since they were at the same level!

When we first got there and we were waiting, Mikayla looks over at the diving board in the 10 ft. of water and says to me "mommy, are the big kids going to jump off there before the little kids?" I said "oh honey, you won't be jumping off the diving board today. You are too little for that." Wouldn't you know it....they took the group to the diving board! They had one lifeguard in the water under the diving board, and one on the diving board. Each student, one at a time, was to walk to the end. The lifeguard on the board would then come up behind them, show them what to do with their hands and then pick them up and drop them into the water. They were to grab this floatation device the lifeguard in the water was holding. It was a little nerve wrecking but as soon as Mikayla hit the water, she had the biggest smile on her face! She had no problem walking the board either. The little boy got half way down the board and didn't want to go any farther!

I am going to bring my camera tomorrow when we go back. It was so cute to watch them!

Finally Photos

From a high demand to see the u/s photos, I am posting a couple now. My printer was packed in early May, so I have one picture of the baby at 13 weeks and one at 20 weeks. I have to go back in at the end of July for another u/s because they couldn't get a good picture of the heart. The baby was in a weird position.

Here is 13 weeks:


Here is 20 weeks:

Baby BOY!

That's right....it's a boy! One of each sounds great to me! We already have our nursery stuff picked out how we want to decorate it. It is the Pro Flyer set from Babies R' Us. It is so cute! I will work on getting the ultrasound photos scanned in and on the computer ASAP! Adam is so excited to have a boy. Of course he needed one to carry on the "Gorman" name.

I have enrolled Mikayla is swimming lessons for the month of July. She will go twice a week for 4 weeks to start out. I am hoping she will become a wonderful swimmer....unlike her mommy! I haven't told her I did that yet, but she starts next week!

My real dad and his wife are coming in to town August 7th and will be staying with us for a night. Then we are headed up to Grand Rapids on Friday to spend the weekend up there. I am excited to take a mini vaca! I really need one right now. It will also be nice to spend time with the other family I don't see very often. August is the hottest month, so hopefully grandma will have the air conditioning on!

Cooking

As you all know...I absoulutely love to cook! I am always on the hunt for a new recipe that I can try once and tweak to my own liking. Yesterday I had to go to the store after work to get stuff for breakfast and lunches during the week. I started just kind of browsing around until I noticed...and completely forgot...that some products have recipes on the labels or the back of the box. My hunt began through the noodle isle. They had a lot of recipes and each different noodle box has a different recipe. Of course the Lasagna noodle box will have a recipe for...can you guess? That's right...lasagna. But some of the other noodles have different ones. I had never boughten Mostacolli before. There was an awesome recipe on the back and seemed really easy and quick. I bought up the ingredients and headed home. I made the new meal and it was really good. A couple of changes though..... First off I love cheese on things, but this was really really cheesy! Almost too much cheese and not enough sauce. I would add more sauce and cut down on the cheese. The recipe called for Ricotta which is a really thick cheese. That was fine, but then you add an entire bag of Mozarella and Parmesan to that and you are overloaded. Also, Ricotta straight from the refrigerator is not easy to spread like it asks you to do!

I typically don't like to add anything like onions or mushrooms since I don't like them, but I don't think it would have been bad. The spaghetti sauce I used was traditional flavor, so maybe something with a kick would have been better. The only other thing that might have been good to add would be some ground hamburger or ground turkey (browned). Adam liked it and he said to me "even though it is a little over cheesy, don't stop making it". He really liked it and knew if he told me that, I would make it a mission to improve the recipe.

I am an avid watcher of Rachael Ray. I love the "30 minute meal" concept. Honestly though, do you really find that those meals only take you 30 minutes like her? Not really. She is a professional chef. Of course she can peel and cut potatoes in under 5 minutes. For someone who has kids and animals at their feet and begging for attention every night, it doesn't happen that way. I also don't have time to "pre-prep" food when I get home. Maybe once in a great while I will wash up the fruit, but that is about as far as it goes. So, I look for meals that are simple and a lot of the time are mostly cooked in the oven and require little attention. This way it doesn't feel like I am cooking for an hour because the oven is doing all the work. Casseroles are awesome! They are packed with different things and usually only require one ingredient to be cooked on the stove before being thrown together in a casserole baking dish. I really need to write a book!

Another Monday

At least it isn't a "manic Monday". HA! We had a pretty eventful weekend. Saturday we spent most of the day putting stuff in storage and clearing out some more boxes. Keith and his gf Jolene came over and installed a new car stereo for Adam. He was so excited! Then they stayed for a BBQ and bonfire. We also had Jimmy and his fiance Kelley, my uncle Danny, and our neighbors Jim and Dee. It was a lot of fun. The young ones left and us old folks stayed up until 12:30! I couldn't believe it. We went to Madeline's baptism on Sunday. We got some really good pictures...

It was fun to see everyone and visit. Madeline is so cute and getting bigger every time I see her. We are still counting the days until Friday. I hope the U/S can show the gender and the baby doesn't hide it. We are excited to know!

I am sitting here at work listening to my slacker of a co-worker carry on about some stuff that doesn't even pertain to work. I wish I could get away with that sort of effort. The funny thing is he gets away with this every day and claims to be working on "diversity" stuff, which Wells highly supports. Ok, just needed to vent for a second.

I suppose I shouldn't really talk since I am sitting here blogging at work. :) Well, back to the grind.