Monday, August 16, 2010

Midwest adventure - Day 3

Another day, another drive... This time it was a round-trip down family history lane in Northern Iowa, just south of the MN state line. Yesterday it was Jen's maternal family, today it was the paternal family that was the reason for the drive.

A quick 3 hr drive (did I mention these Midwest trips require some driving?) south of the Twin Cities we arrived in the bread-basket of the US in between the corn and other crops, John Deere outlets, New Holland tractors and other farm-related industries. Lots of small towns, but most of them seem to be doing pretty well with painted houses, maintained lawns and kids playing in the (smaller) streets. A bit of a throw-back to days gone by that I don't mind seeing restored.

Jen's dad came from a family 10. He was the youngest boy and grew up among the farms here. He talked at lengths about his upbringing (not always easy, but kids still had food, fun and each other) to prepare us for some of the stops were we met a good number of his brothers and sisters. We drove through the places where he grew up and went to school and pointed out a number of locations where he spend a summer, had friends and went to high school.

The last stop on Algona was the most impressive, with 4 of the Abbas boys and 2 of the Abbas girls together with some of their children and grand children. Jen met up with some of her cousins she hasn't seen for over 20 years. She did found one of them on Facebook recently and some of her aunts that have some computer skills found us as well and were surprisingly well aware of our live. For some all this information can be scary but if you have family literally all over the States and on various continents it is pretty much the only way to keep everyone informed without spending every single minute on the phone telling the same story over and over again.

On our way back we drove through the towns were Jen's dad was born and went to church before heading back to the Cities again. We also passed a very impressive wind farm. We've seen a couple of those farms back in March when we took a slight detour through some of rural Iowa (actually, we later found out only about 10 miles from where we were today...). It's nice to see a new, renewable industry appear next to farming that truly fits-in with the pretty self-contained society that still seems to thrive here.

We also made a stop at another Midwest adventure staple; Culvers. If you heard of them you know why, if you haven't, look 'm up and when you get there you take one bite of your butterburger and a sip from your frozen custard and you know what we mean. Love it. It's the only fastfood place we got to and is truly leaps-and-bounds above the rest. Even the book 'Eat This, Not That' came to same conclusion.

At this time it was already closing in on 9pm so we made sure to head straight back to South St. Paul. Another day in the books, another 400 miles. The total stands at 1400 some miles... and it's only day 3. Yaiks... ;-)
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Midwest adventure - Day 2

Our trips to the WI/MN clans always come with one major downside; seeing everyone requires lots 'o driving since they live quite a distance away from each other. Case in point was Day 2 of our Midwest Adventure 2010.

The day started in Oshkosh at the Meyer residence with a superb scones-breakfast home-made by our friends. Amazing. We needed to be on the road at about 10:30am since we were expected to be at a family gathering up in the Northwoods (Hayward, WI) at 3pm. To give you an example of the lots o' driving: Oshkosh to Hayward is 350 miles and almost 5hrs... We made sure we had plenty of food, drinks and gas since we had to make it a straight shot.

So, at exactly 3pm we pulled into the driveway and were greeted my Jen's mom, her brother, gramma, aunts, uncles and nephews. One of Jen's aunts got married last Friday so we had a nice dinner topped with some awesome wedding cake. Daniel (DJ) was having a great time with his cousins AJ and CJ (...) exploring the 20 acres, the chickens, the pool, the piano, the toys found by the grammas when they went garage-saling and mooching off our dinner. He was - strangely enough - a little afraid of the dogs. Not sure why, but not a big deal when there is 20 acres to roam.

Cousins DJ & CJ
LOVE this picture of Daniel and Gramma Ann playing PattyCake
Mom and her Grandsons
Four Generations
My brother and our boys
Siblings, not Rivals
Uncle Chris and the boys
Gramma Ann with 3 of her great-grandkids: AJ, DJ and CJ
The Newlyweds, Lori & Tony, with DJ and CJ
Daniel LOVED this keyboard!
We left Hayward at 7pm to head for our final destination that day: South St. Paul, MN. Short 2hr trip, only 130 miles. Easy peezy... ;-) We were met by Jen's sisters, her brother in-law and the new niece. Jen ended-up holding her for quite some time. The picture of her holding her new niece was exactly the same image I saw last year when Jen's sister was holding Daniel on that same couch...

After showering Jen's sister with a number of Daniel's old toys and other baby-related material we talked for a little bit before everyone went down to sleep. Tired of the total of 900+ miles over the last day we actually made it in bed before 11pm. I guess that is a first for me/Jen for the last 5 days or so. Such are the blessings of the driving on our Midwest Adventures.
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Sunday, August 15, 2010

Midwest Adventure - Day 1

After a bit of a stressful week it was time to relax and take our 'annual' Midwest trip. Over the next couple days we'll be on lakes, in cities, on many an Interstate and other highways and meet many friends and family, most of them we haven't seen in a year or so.

Day 1 was the leg from home to Oshkosh, Wisconsin to see a great couple whom we last seen in Des Moines where they got married in March. The trip was pretty uneventful but there were some delays going through Chicago, even on a Saturday in the middle of August.

A little before 4pm we got into town and after a quick Target trip we got to our destination. The host is an avid Packer fan, so Jen thought it was a good idea to wear our Brett Favre Viking shirts... Always good for a laugh.

The rest of the night was filled with meeting some of the hosts' family, eating a fabulous home-cooked dinner, good convo and... upon special request... Settlers of Catan. We thought them the Cities and Knights version since it's infinity more dynamic than the original but way to hard to explain if you don't yet know the basics. The game took a good 3 hours and with some additional Q&A on a couple of marriage-related topics we all went to bed. Unfortunately, even with the time-change the clock was showing 1.30am meaning we had been up almost 19 hours.

Nite, nite...

Daniel with Anissa & Mark Meyer

Day One: still bright eyed and bushy tailed!
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Friday, August 13, 2010

Updated Online Cookbook

Niels and I were talking with a friend lately, and realized that other than when we're on the road, we can't even remember the last time we ate out for dinner. This has been our year of eating healthfully, and a big part of that has been cooking at home. We really enjoy having family dinners and I think it's important for Daniel to see us make that time a priority. It occurred to me that when I travel, I may want to have access to the recipes I've made, so I can keep cooking even when I'm not in my own kitchen.

Pasta & Grains


Chicken
Lemon Dill Chicken (04.12.10)
Chicken Diane (10.28.10)

Beef
London Broil (04.24.10)

Dutch Delights
Dutch Almond Boterkoek (03.17.10)
Dutch Letter Cookies (04.02.10)
Stampot, aka Boerenkool met rookworst (04.11.10)
Hutspot (step-by-step) (04.22.10)
Indonesian Chicken Sate (step-by-step) (05.05.10)
Bitterballen (step-by-step) (05.05.10)
Dutch Macaroni (06.03.10)

Misc. Meals
Basic Quiche (02.22.09)
Rice Pizza (05.26.09)
Bubble and Squeak (09.28.09)
Stromboli (08.08.10)

Sides & Salads

Treats
Blondies (03.07.09)
Pumpkin Roll (09.12.09)
Banana Bread (01.26.10)
Almond Poppy Seed Muffins (03.31.10)
Spice Cake (04.03.10)
Spice Cake (04.14.10)
Homemade Granola (07.30.10)
Pita Chips (08.02.10)
Anissa Meyer's Almond Cherry Scones (09.15.10)
Fresh Apple Cake topped with this frosting. (09.22.10)
Apple Crisp (10.20.10)
Baked Kale Chips (01.08.11)

Sauces and Soups
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I've been heard...

Six years after my brain injury, and three years after I applied for Social Security, I finally had my hearing on Wednesday.

Niels and I arrived about an hour before the hearing--I was a bit paranoid about getting lost! My lawyer arrived about a half hour before. He checked out the disk with all the documentation/evidence and we went into a little room to talk. Everything was current, so that was a relief. Then he talked a little bit about what to expect. He said that first the judge would ask some basic questions about myself (age, education, address, social security number, etc.), then he would ask questions about my health, then my lawyer would ask questions to bring up anything the judge didn't address, then the medical expert (ME) would give his opinion, then the lawyer would ask questions based on what the ME said, then vocational expert (VE) would give her opinion, then the lawyer would ask questions based on that. He said if the ME said I couldn't work, we'd stop at that point. If the ME said I could work, and the VE said I couldn't, we'd stop there because we won. If she said I could work, then we'd bring in my husband to talk about my meltdowns (which I don't remember).

We walked into the meeting room, and I was surprised to see that the judge, ME and lawyer all had computers to look at my file. The person running the recorder was also there. Unfortunately, the VE was not. She didn't call in or anything. I was pretty upset about that because after waiting 3 years to plead your case in person, the person who we were really looking to help me out wasn't there. I hope she wasn't in an accident or anything, but still, very, very strange that she just never showed.

Everything went the way my lawyer said it would. After being sworn in and giving basic details, i was asked a lot of questions about my prior work, my accident, my therapies, my routine today and limitations I have. My ME, who is about EIGHTY, said I should be able to work. (My lawyer said afterwards that this guy NEVER says anyone can't work). He did say I should avoid any factory work where I have quotas. The judge looked at him for about 5 seconds and said, "That's it?" and kind of smirked.

Since the VE still hadn't showed up or called at that point, my lawyer called in my husband to testify. He talked about how we work very hard to order my days, limit my social interactions and try to avoid crashes. He explained what happens when I get overwhelmed and how poorly I deal with stress (my body basically shuts down and i can appear drunk or even catatonic). He also pointed out how he could tell when I was close to crashing, and even pointed out how I appeared at that moment--eyes starting to glaze over, speech slowing down, etc.

The judge decided that he would have the VE listen to the transcript and then answer questions he would submit. Then my lawyer will have the ability to ask follow-up questions. Since she wasn't there, my lawyer said it would likely delay my decision another month, and said not to expect anything for at least two months. Sigh. My original hearing was in April, so it's a bit frustrating that I'm have ANOTHER delay. Yet another example that God is in control and I am clearly not.

So now, I wait.
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Monday, August 2, 2010

First three years of forever!

I have grand plans to go back and make some posts about the last few months, but for now, I'll give another update. Like Niels said last month (!), we've had a fairly low key summer so far as I've been recovering from my surgery in June.

July has been focused on our plans for the future. The big news is that we're prepping our house for sale. We are planning to build a new home that fits our international, spread out family a little better (read: room for out-of-town guests!) in a nice, quiet neighborhood. We found a lot about 2 miles from our current home, and have selected our builder, Charis Homes.

We have been following Charis for nearly three years, when we first viewed one of their models when Niels' parents were here visiting over our first Christmas. They specialize in Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) construction, which is extremely durable and energy efficient. They are also excited about some of the universal design elements we have in mind. We've been having a lot of fun touring homes, pouring over floor plans and taking Daniel to all the home stores in the area! We meet with our architect on Thursday so we're really getting this ball rolling! If you're a Facebook friend, you can see some pictures of our ideas.

We've been interviewing realtors as we've been getting a few pre-renovation market analyses. Our builder has also been very helpful with getting quotes for the repairs we're doing. In addition to the usual decluttering and depersonalizing, we'll be
  • renovating the master bath (removing the triangle jacuzzi and replacing it with a regular size jetted soaker tub, adding a second vanity, replacing the shower door and light fixtures, and painting.
  • refinishing the hardwood floors
  • finishing the deck (soffiting and restaining)
  • painting the bathrooms
As if that doesn't make us busy enough, we'll also be heading to Minnesota for my 20 year high school reunion!

And in other big news, after three years of waiting, I'm finally up for my Social Security Disability hearing on August 11. It's been such a long process and I'm quite nervous about it. If you are the praying kind, we'd certainly appreciate your prayers for a fully favorable verdict from our judge. It usually takes 4-6 weeks to get the verdict, so you can imagine that I'll be waiting with bated breath.

On a related note, my health has been a challenge for the last several months. I had a uterine cancer scare in the spring that thankfully ended well. Then I had my surgery, and a few complications that have made a 4-6 week recovery more like an 8 week recovery. Fortunately, my mom was able to come for 3 weeks to help out with Daniel, and Niels was able to work from home for 2 weeks after that. My stitches are almost all closed and I'm looking forward to getting back to my previous fitness routine. I've lost 35 pounds so far this year, and am 20 away from my goal. The last few weeks I've been feeling the effects of our busier schedule so my headache has been worse and I've had more bad days than good. I'm also fighting some nausea, double vision and cognitive fatigue. I always do, but it's been more challenging lately.

On that note, I'm going to take a nap with Daniel now!

Daniel, 19 months, LOVES bubbles!

Celebrating our third anniversary on July 29, 2010.
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Wednesday, July 7, 2010

More posts coming soon...

No, we haven't stopped using our blog, but we've been pretty much otherwise occupied. Facebook is a good place to follow our daily lives if you're so inclined... ;-) The short version is that we took another trip, to Grand Rapids, and prepared for Jen's surgery. We had her mom over for 3 weeks to help out after the surgery, Niels is working from home, Holland is in the World Cup final, we have an awesome Small Group and it's darn hot and sticky outside here in Ohio.

So, now you know what we've been up to. More info on the above should appear but no guarantee on timing... ;-)
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