Meredith is a Kindergartener!

Well, the day has finally come when Meredith starts kindergarten. I know it's a cliché, but it seems like just yesterday that we were bringing her home from the hospital!

Meredith is the child that can easily sleep in the morning until 9:00 - if I let her. And the bus will come every morning at 7:11...um, can you tell that we had our work cut out for us?!? Ever since baseball has been over, we have been slowly but surely moving Meredith's bedtime up and moving her wake up time forward too. Today I woke her at 6:30 and although she wasn't too happy to get up, she wasn't mad either. And by the time she got dressed and ready and downstairs to homemade pancakes that Kent had made, she was actually smiling. Now we'll just see how tomorrow morning goes!

Meredith was all smiles as she got off the bus this afternoon at 4. She said that she had a great time, although it was very hard for her to pin down her favorite thing for the day. One thing she was especially happy about was that they had 3 recesses ("We get 3 recesses every day, Mommy!") and that they didn't have to sleep during nap time. ("It's rest time, Mommy, not nap time!") She said that she can't wait to go back tomorrow, so I guess she had fun!

I think Meredith's backpack matches Riley's - it's High School Musical. (I think it's so funny that High School Musical is popular with everyone but high schoolers - but that's another subject...) Meredith's shirt was also high school musical. Meredith was convinced that she needed High School Musical socks to complete the ensemble, but I put my foot down and we got socks that match the color, but not HSM!

Kent's Health Scare

So most of you know that we had a scare last week with Kent. For the previous week he sometimes had the feeling as he was going to sleep that he was going to pass out. Then on Friday, he had the feeling during the day...and it just kept getting worse. He went to the doctor, and they sent him straight to the Emergency Room at the hospital in Iowa City.

He had all sorts of tests done: Cat scan, MRI, blood tests, etc. Everything came back looking really good. At first it seemed frustrating that we didn't know what was causing the problem. However, we were very very relieved to rule out major issues like a tumor, stroke, etc.

Kent had his first overnight stay in the hospital for observation on Friday night. (I guess he probably stayed overnight in the hospital when he was born, but he can't seem to recall that stay...) By Saturday morning the neurologist came by and released him. Since the doctor couldn't find any evidence of a problem, he treated Kent with anti-anxiety medication. It was, as the doctor said, "A shot in the dark," but at least they are trying something. Kent will go back to the doctor on Friday morning and maybe we'll know more then.

Fortunately Kent hasn't had any big episodes where he feels like he's going to black out since last weekend. When he first started the medication he seemed quite out of it, but his body has now adapted and he seems to be handling the medication better.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and help during last weekend. In the Emergency Room Kent expressed concern over where our kids were. It was so wonderful to know that my family was taking over the care of them - it was one less thing to worry about!

Brian & Julie's Wedding

As I'm looking at my pictures on my computer I came across these really cool photos from Brian & Julie's wedding that we went to in April. As you can maybe see from the last picture, Kent was one of the groomsmen. The wedding was in Cleveland, and after the wedding, we all rode around in a hummer limo and stopped at different places to take pictures. Here are a few...and yes, that is the Cleveland Browns Stadium in the background of the first picture!

The happy couple!

Adventureland!

On Monday Kent, Meredith and I went to Adventureland, which is an amusement park in Des Moines. It was our last hurrah before Meredith starts school next week. I can hardly believe that she will be in kindergarten, but that's another subject for another post. We had a great time in Adventureland. The problem was that apparently a lot of other people had the same thought that we had and the park was really crowded. Usually the rides for adults have long lines, but the little kids rides don't. On Monday, the lines for every ride were long. But Meredith got to ride all of the rides that she wanted to. Kent and I didn't get to ride on any adult rides, but I was OK with that. We went on a water ride and all got soaked. As soon as the ride was over, Meredith announced that we had to go on that ride again!

We Miss Baseball!

I just downloaded pictures from my camera to the computer, and realized that I never posted anything about the baseball team's last game at state in Des Moines. IMS played in the semifinal game against North Sentral Kossuth. NSK won the game 6-0. IMS played good, but they were just playing against a really good team. It was a disappointing loss - especially when they were so close to the state final. But on the other hand, it was so awesome that they got that far. IMS' final record was 31-2, which broke the previous record for number of wins. Overall, it was a great season, and while there were many moments where we missed Kent and his presence at home, we still had a great time. Here are a few pictures from that semifinal game against NSK.



In this last picture, you can tell that it was very foggy that night. But in the distance you can just see the gold dome of the Iowa State Capitol...that was cool to see it in the background.