Recap of my birthday

Ok, so I just wanted to tell you how the rest of my birthday went - it was probably the best birthday I've ever had. Once Martin and I got to the office, he proceeded to tell everyone that it was my birthday that day. I just kept shaking my head at him - he's never done that before. Then he got rolls and invited the carpenters from their office and the guys from the shop over too, to help celebrate! By the time the day was over, everyone at Bargen Inc. knew it was my birthday. Some even got my age out of it. Some of the guys (bless their hearts) truly thought I was still in my 20's. Now, to be honest, I don't know if I really look like I'm still in my 20's, or if they were simply being nice. Not that I look old, cuz I really dont' think I do, but you know how guys are - especially ones you work with - if they can suck up somehow, they'll do it. Martin asked Brad if we could get off work at 3 so we could head to Mankato for supper and Brad said "sure". So we were off at 3 to go out for supper. And yes, I still wanted to head to Jackpot, but with going to Mankato, we can kill 2 birds with 1 stone and get groceries while we're there too - thus saving us a trip there this weekend. Martin said it was my choice for supper and that was hard - it was between Timberlodge and Chinese. We had about $35 to save at Timberlodge because of a gift card we had and a $10 coupon I had for my birthday, so only because of that, I chose Timberlodge. I love Timberlodge, don't get me wrong, but Chinese is wonderful too, and we all enjoy both places. Josiah was disappointed I didn't choose Chinese, but he immediately asked if we could eat there for his birthday and we agreed that we would.

Ok, so on to Timberlodge. Our waitress, Kirstin came and Josiah blurted out that it was my birthday and that I was 38 today. She smiled, laughed and said happy birthday. We ordered our food and later on, Martin asked her if they sing for birthdays. She said no, but she could probably find someone. I told her no, that's ok. Then Josiah came back from the bathroom, and Martin asked him if he would start singing Happy birthday to me. His response? "sure!". So off they went, singing to me at Timberlodge. I was embarrassed, and apparently they had a crowd watching them, cuz the couple waited to leave until the guys were done singing to me. Others were staring too. So I got a free cheesecake out of the deal, and Martin told Kirstin that Isaac had a birthday 2 weeks ago, and Josiah will have a birthday in 2 weeks, so she got them both 1/2 slice of cheesecake for their birthdays as well. That was very nice of her!

After supper I was ready for a nice nap, but we had groceries to get, and off we went to Sam's club and Walmart. We had a nice time in Mankato getting home around 10:15. It was a good thing the boys didn't have school the next day or we probably wouldn't have been apt to go to Mankato during the week. Anyways - it was a great day, and I just wanted to share that with you guys. Oh yes, and one more topper for the day was knowing Kevin, Michelle and Travis made it to Houston to see Krystie and Mike ok. They left early to miss the snow we were suppose to get. I knew they were there ok when he posted a comment on Krysties' facebook page teasing me about my age. Only a brother would do that! And reading that comment totally made my day. Kevin has always been one to call and wish me a happy birthday.

So to all of you that wished me a Happy Birthday - thank you! It was a great day and all of you made it even more special by being in my life!!! :) :)

Love to you all! ~
Michelle

It's my birthday! :) :) :) :)

Hello! Well, today is a day that I love to have. Not that I like the fact that I'm getting closer to 40 every year (I'm 38 today), but its a great day! :)

Isaac and Josiah got me a beautiful plant - not sure what the name of it is (I'll probably have to google it or something), but its an orangey-peach color and really pretty. And they got me a card too. (both were with help from Grandma and Grandpa who had them yesterday after school for me). They sure do love their Grandparents, and I wish we were closer to Lubbock for the boys to enjoy Grandma Josie and Bubba the same way they enjoy my parents. Don't get me wrong - the first time we visited them in Lubbock, Josiah was crying on the way home because he wanted to stay with Grandma Josie. We had to call her and tell her that because we thought that was really sweet. Family is very important to me - always has been and always will be, and that's the biggest beef I have is that Martin's family is so far away from us. I love them all and wish we could be more part of their lives and them with us. They are a great family! :)

but anyways - then Martin felt guilty when he got home last night and he hadn't got me anything so he quickly ran to Pamida in Windom to find something. I told him not too, but secretly I was happy he was doing something. So many times the day goes by without anything from him, so I welcome his thoughtfulness! He ended up getting me one of those long body sponges to use in the tub (the kind where it has the long handle and you can actually wash your entire back with it!), and a hair brush. We had planned to go to Jackpot Junction tonight for their seafood buffet (my favorite), but with the weather we got, we'll probably just opt to go to Mankato this weekend with the boys and go out for supper. That will be fine too, but that seafood buffet is something else! :)

oh yes, and we can't forget Mom and Dad either - they always get me something. Mom ordered me a skinny scarf through Avon - its teal and gold - really pretty. I wanted to wear it today, but I need something to go with it, so that will be my next project! (wink wink) Mom and Dad are the greatest parents around too - they are so willing to help with the boys afterschool, and the boys love playing games with them (Isaac and Grandpa play battleship and Grandma and Josiah play connect four). Its so cute watching them interact - I love it! :) They are the best!

Its true what you hear - that over time you appreciate your parents more. I see my Mom every day. I don't see Dad as often, cuz I usually stop at Cenex to see Mom during my lunch hour and sometimes Dad is there - just depending on what he's doing that day. But Mom and I are really close and I love it. I have counted myself very lucky to have Dad around since his heart attack. That he was able to walk me down the aisle at my wedding and now to see our boys grow up and have the chance to get to know them better. After Dad having his heart attack, and me having 2 miscarriages (1999 and 2004), I certainly have come to appreciate the little things in life like LIFE itself. After having the miscarriages, I came to appreciate the "normal" pregnancies of having a healthy baby at the end of those wonderful 9 months. And with Dad - I have learned not to take his life for granted either. And I think that was Gods' way of telling him that he needed to slow down too - time to stay home and be closer to the family. Those are just my thoughts though.

Must get going. I have work to do, and a day to celebrate LIFE!!!!!!!!!

Love to you all - may your lives be richly blessed today and everyday!

Michelle Denise

an Easter picture

I'm sure many of you can say too that when you were little, your parents got your Easter outfits to wear to Church. Well, I was the same way. I remember getting dresses, hats, etc. especially for Easter. That tradition is no exception in our house for the boys. They each got to pick their own shirt to wear, and got flip flops to go with the outfits, but of course living in MN, it was too cold to wear them yesterday. But they sure looked handsome in their new outfits going to Church!

Hope you all had a great Easter!

It was a perfect rainbow

It was a perfect rainbow. I had just dropped the boys off at AWANA and it was drizzling. Enough to keep your wipers on. I happened to look on the East side of town and saw the perfect rainbow - the entire rainbow! So I drove over to that end of town (not that it took that long to get there, but still), and I could see the entire thing. It looked like it was ending in a nearby field, so I quickly went home to get my camera. In a matter of those few minutes, the arch of the rainbow had disappeared and all I could get were the ends, which is so typical of seeing rainbows. I was so disappointed. I was so anxious to show it to Martin and the boys when I got home, but all I could show and tell of it were the ends. Maybe next time?!. . . . . .

What an amazing day!

Ok, so I meant to update this on Sat., but I just forgot. Julie and I had a wonderful time shopping! We found some great sales at Maurices and Kohl's and of course had to make the usual stop at Walmart for the basic stuff. We wanted to see a movie, but there were no chic flicks playing, so we opted to do that another day. We ate at TGIFriday's, which I haven't eaten there since I lived in New Jersey! That was so good! I have not found the recipes for their amazing fried green beans as appetizers and wasabi dip and the zen chicken pot stickers I had for lunch. I know, they sound like something that would definitely stick to your ribs, but they were SOOOOO good! There were only 5 of them and they were served with soy sauce and they are really like wontons. They were so good, not filling, but just right. They were actually listed in the appetizer section, but they sounded so good, that I had to have them. Julie had a strawberry lemondate slush and I had the wild berry lemonade slush. YUM YUM

Last night we had our Cub Scout pinewood derby races, and I'll have to get a picture and try to post it on here. Of course I didn't bring my camera along, and I should have. Isaac got 1st place for the Bears, so he now goes on to Districts on April 12th in St. James. He was so excited! I have to be there too because that day we are having training for leaders and the kids have an action packed day of events - rock climbing, tomahawk contest, swimming, etc. All for the cost of only $3 per child. Not bad. The key is to get the boys involved in scouts.

Anyways - had to tell you about my shopping day and of Isaac's grand night last night at the Derby races!! Hats off to Isaac!!

Have a great day! We're having some real slushy snow here and the ground was just getting nice and hard and ready for spring. Hopefully this stuff won't last long - the boys are SO ready for spring its crazy! (but then so am I! - I actuall got my capris out one day last week!)

Love,
Michelle

A shopping day!

This is a day that I have looked forward to for a while now. My friend Julie and I are going to Mankato today to have some fun! We're gonna go out to eat (don't know where) and do some shopping. We tried to do this a few weeks ago, and things didnt' work out, so now we're finally making it happen today! I'm excited about it. Julie and I used to work together, but now the past 3 years or so she's been at a different place of employment and we don't see each other too often. She was my maid of honor at our wedding, and we were very close at work. I've known her for the past 13 years. Her youngest daughter is in Isaac's class.

Its funny how time flies - when I first started work at Bargen, she had just had their first child. And now Janessa will be 13 years old next month. Then I had Isaac a few years later, she had Lexia the next year and then we had Josiah. We're both in different stages of child rearing, but that's ok. They are almost in the teenage years and we've only begun the double digits in our house. Her girls can stay home by themselves good, our boys can't yet. Although Isaac is mature enough to handle things, Josiah is too wild to want to listen to his brother! (imagine that?!)

Martin talked about taking the boys to Mankato too. We need groceries bad. Martin has finally returned to work so he can now get a good check instead of drawing unemployment. That got to be a real drag having him all the time. With me working, seemed like all he had was time on his hands to think about the things he could be doing if he were working. ARGH. And now we don't have to worry about that anymore - thank goodness!

I also added a map of sorts on the right side of this site. I got it from my cousins' wifes website. Mitch and Kelleigh live in Oregon and Kelleigh is an awesome scrapbooker! She displays awesome layouts on her website - I'm afraid to say that my pages are very simple compared to hers. Not that hers are full of stuff on them, I would say they are elegant and easy. I just don't know how to do the "elegant" part of scrapbooking. Anyways, I'll put their site on here again - I took it off cuz I didn't have it typed in there right and I could never access if anyways. But she put that map on her site to see where all her readers are coming from and I thought it was cool too, so I copied it (hope that's ok Kelleigh!)

Must get going. J asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich so I better get that for him.

The weather here has been wonderful, although snow/rain is suppose to come here on Sun - Tues, but then warm the rest of the week next week.

Talk later!
M

another day

Ok, I am over my harping and won't do that any time soon!! thank you for listening to my grumblings! The days here have been so nice. Today it was in the 40's again, yesterday too and tomorrow will be as well. Then we're off to some snow/rain for the weekend and down to the 30's, but hey, who's complaining about the 30's?!

As for me now, I am fighting a cold. It started yesterday as an irritating runny nose and this morning I woke up to a full blown cold, but only in my nose. Now tonight as my day quil wears off, I feel the pressure in my sinuses. That is where it always ends up going. Why, I have no idea. So tonight will be vicks and nyquil and hopefully a good nights rest. Am staying away from the boys - no hugs or smoochies at bed time. Martin, well, he's another story. He's got his own cold, and not from me. He's been outside roofing in this lovely weather and Im positive that's where he got his from. These days are so nice that you forget that you should still dress warm for them. He's doing ok, but guys need so much more attention when they are sick then when we do. I don't know why, but all my friends say the same thing on that one. The world practically stops when they are sick but when we're sick, we're still expected to do all the things we normally would and then they wonder why we are crabby? Why don't they figure that out?

Oh well. Such is life. I won't go on rambling about that one either. Will go for now. I was going to download a beautiful rainbow that was outside tonight in the nice rain, but by the time I got my camera out, the full rainbow wasn't there. All you could see were the ends of it, where when I saw it the first time, it was a complete rainbow. The boys would love to have seen that one, but they are at AWANA. I got the ends of it so I'll show them those pictures, but it just isn't the same!

Have a great night! hope everyone in your home is well and enjoying this beautiful weather we are having!

Love~
Michelle

Hospital bill from Josiah's ear surgery

Ok, so at this point I am absolutely infuriated!! I just went online to BCBS to see if they had processed the bill from the Hospital from Josiah's ear surgery. Well they have and you better be sitting down when you see this! Oh my word, I can't believe that 1) the hospital has the audacity (spell?) to actually charge that much for us being there for only 3 1/2 hours!!! and 2) we were there for only 3 1/2 hours!!!! I would hate to see how much they charge you for an entire day. My friend figured it out to be $765.00 per hour that we were there!!! That's like 8 times the amount that Dr. Janning's charged us for the actual procedure!!!!

The bill they were trying to charge us for was $2,801.25 and thank goodness we have insurance, because they picked up a measily $124.86 so we have to pay the rest!!! - $2,676.39!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did I mention that we were only there for 3 1/2 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am just livid about this whole thing. I can't believe this! And then people wonder why we can't afford health care! Start telling those Doctors and Hospitals to charge reasonable costs for their services! They are needed - yes, but not to the point where they have to charge outlandish prices for their facilities or services!!!!! Up until now we were only left with paying around $600 for all the Clinic visits we had (3 to be exact) and the 2 appts. we had with Dr. Janning's. And here I was afraid of the cost of Dr. Janning's procedures!!! Those were nothing compared to this bill!!!!!!

Boy, if I had 1/2 a notion I'd call the hospital up and complain about this, but I know it wouldn't do me any good. But man would I love too!!!!!!

Need to run - this is way too negative to keep writing about!

Love to you all! ~

M

Happy 10th Birthday Isaac!!!!!

Isaac, our baby, turned 10 years old yesterday on March. 7th. 10 years ago he was born at Windom hospital. I can remember the day like it was yesterday. Martin and I were at Mom's house washing clothes. I was already past my due date of Feb. 28, and was set to be induced that coming Monday. March 7, 1998 was a Saturday. Until that day, it was a perfect pregnancy - no contractions prior, no problems, everything had been going great. That afternoon Martin and I were sitting on the couch watching tv waiting for the clothes to get done. I started getting contractions about 4 - 6 min. apart for an hour. I quietly asked Mom for the phone number to the hospital and they both looked at me strange. I called in and told the nurse was had been going on and she said to come on in. That was around 4:30pm. So Martin and I headed to the hospital. Mom was set to go out for supper with her friend, Laurie and my Dad if I remember right was in Texas still driving truck for Marten Transport.

We went to the hospital and they immediately hooked me up to the monitor to check my contractions. Yep, I was in labor. But being this was our first child, they weren't expecting to see any miracles in having the baby come soon. So Dr. Taber took his time coming in. Finally about 7:30 they broke my water and it went fast after that. By the time I hollered for some pain medication they said I was dilated to an 8 and it was too late for that. So Isaac was born all "natural". Isaac was born at 8:38pm that evening. He came out reaching for Dr. Taber's shirt and the rest was history. Mary Minor was our nurse that evening and she said Isaac was the most beautiful baby she had ever seen! We named him Isaac Nathaniel Quintero. He weighed 7lbs. 7oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long.

From then on, we've thought that 7 was our lucky number (not that we believe in luck), but every now and then it pops up for us. Like last night for instance, Isaac's score on his first game of bowling at his party was 77. Isn't that a little ironic?!

I'm posting a picture of Isaac's birthday cake, a picture of his friends that he had over (Tommy Kraemer, Jacob Suess and Sam Hirsch) and Josiah invited his friend Bileigh Anacker over too. And the picture of the monitor showing the bowling scores isn't very good, but Isaac's name is first with the score of 77. As you can see, Jacob Suess was the best bowler - for both games. He did some major kicking butt on the rest of the boys, and it was fun. We went to Springfield Lanes in Springfield, MN for the night out. They have such a nice bowling alley there and then we had pizza too after we bowled. We were all tuckered out after the event, except for the boys who talked the entire way home?! Man were they noisey. They were so excited to be here for Isaac and that was really cool to see. When I picked them up from school, they were singing Happy Birthday to him in the hallway. It was really cute. Isaac had a big smile on his face and was just laughing like crazy. It was a good time!

Someone asked me yesterday if I felt old becuase Isaac is 10 now. I told them no, cuz I don't. But what I can't believe is that 10 years have gone by already for Isaac. People always tell you how time flies after you leave High School, but you just don't have a clue until it starts happening! Which reminds me - I'll be celebrating my 20 year class reunion this summer! Now with telling you that, I do feel old! (but who's counting those years anyhow?!)

Love to you all! ~