Still a Lot of Madness!

 In the middle of last week, Victoria was rear-ended in my car on the way home from a walk. She came to a stop at the light of one of the hills in our area, and the lady behind her, who was probably on her phone due to the force she hit her with, since she obviously had no idea Victoria was coming to a stop, rear-ended her with a lot of force. She hit the person in front of her, but that part wasn't too bad. I'm just glad she had the sense to pull over and call 911. She thought she was okay at first, but has had many days of head and neck pain, as well as soreness where the seat belt was. The dispatcher asked her if she needed an ambulance, to which she responded in the affirmative. They took her vitals for 30 minutes, and the police got the information needed from the lady in the rear, so we can more easily take care of the damage, for which she is fully responsible. They declared her okay to drive home and the vehicle okay to drive, if she wanted. She did, and Jason was on his way home in the meantime. By the time I heard about it all, I was almost done with my shift and met them at the ER, where we decided she should go to get more thoroughly checked out. After the MRI and xrays, they determined that she just had soft tissue damage and would recover in a decent amount of time. They gave her muscle relaxers and told her she would feel worse the next day, which she did. She is still not 100%, but is much better. We'll see about the car. It's not too bad, but it's getting old. We were told to clean it up so it looks better (the car mats are still covered in salt from the winter roads), and then they would determine the cost of repair vs. the value of the car. Never a dull moment around here!

March Madness Continued

 A few days after I returned from LA, my mom flew in to be with me for my birthday. She had planned it before her husband fell and broke his femur, but luckily, he was starting to begin a good place of recovery and his daughter stayed with him to help him navigate with his walker and make sure he stayed safe. 

The day after my mom arrived was my 48th birthday. We went to work and then to lunch with Kade and Victoria at Mezcal, one of Kade's favorites, and in Dearborn, which is a fun place to visit. The tacos are definitely some of the better street tacos in the area. A few doors down from there is a cute little Japanese sweet shop where Kade bought us some mochi donuts that were delicious and so cute! That evening, Jason ordered out Mediterranean food from our favorite Levant Kitchen, so I was spoiled with many different cultural cuisines, just how I like it!

Japanese sweet shop!

Kade's masterful creation!

The next day after work, my mom and I went to see Austin in his orchestra at a festival at Stevenson HS. They performed extremely well; in fact, it was some of the best I had heard the concert orchestra perform in a while. 

When we returned, it was time to pack up the car and take Erik to Cincinnati for his weekend soccer tournament. Jason had other weekend obligations and wasn't able to go, so it worked out that my mom could attend with me. 

The tournament was the Spring Thaw and the first of our games outside for the season. Two of the games were actually in Kentucky. Our hotel was about 4 hours from our house, and it turned out to be pretty good weather and a fun little road trip.

Erik has been playing defensive mid recently. On his rec team, he was a goalie quite a bit and always did well with that, but when he moved over to the club team, he decided he wanted to phase out of being goalie. Well, for some reason, his club team's goalies kept not working out. Since no one on the team is a committed goalie, we were going to use one of the 3 from the team above at various games. I don't think we've seen them, so our coach started doing what the rec team was doing and rotating different players to play goalie at different games. A few games back, some of the parents took note of how good Erik actually is at goalie; his coach probably did too. At a game just before the tournament that I didn't attend, but Jason did, the coach took out the player who was the goalie and put Erik in for the majority of the game, and while they didn't win, they picked it up and made a comeback. 

Two of my birthday gifts came in very handy for this first game. A blanket that holds in heat and a heated vest!

It's hard to get good goalie pics.

Break between games!

Near the 2nd game venue.

Here's a good goalie shot before the game with some individual help from his coach.

Before the 2nd game.

Out in the field in the 3rd game.

Cincinnati!

We had to cross the Ohio River to get to the Kentucky games.

Needless to say, I wasn't surprised when Erik played goalie for most of the games in the tournament. Watching him play goalie is very nerve-racking as his mom, but also fun. He is pretty good at it. I also really love watching him play in the field, though. He plays with no fear. He just gets in and keeps going for the ball. Not a ball hog, either. And he communicates so well on the field!

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, we lost the first game by 2 points, and the second game we tied, which was pretty incredible because they were a very good team and they were the ones who actually ended up winning in our age group, and we lost the third game by 2 points. Our team is still on a losing streak, like last year, but they're getting better, and they were sure happy about that tie!

We went to a team dinner Saturday night, which was after the game that we tied. It was fun to see the kids together outside of a game and to get to know the parents better. The last game on Sunday morning was hard to lose, but now we only have one way to go- up!

Team dinner!

They got free ice cream to share at the end of the dinner!

March Madness

 Just two minutes ago, Jason was telling me that he has decided that March Madness is more exciting than the football playoffs, which would normally be surpring since he's such a huge college football fan, but with all the changes in the playoffs that he doesn't apprciate, and the fact that Nebraska just beat Vanderbilt last night in a very close March Madness game, this makes perfect sence.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, this post isn't about basketball, but about the beginning of the month of March in my life.

I took off a day of work on the 6th, and flew to LA to celebrate my step-mom Mary Lou's 80th birthday with my siblings and all 4 step-siblings. Some of their children were able to attend, too. It had been a very long time since I'd seen many of them, and the ones who were able to go are now all young adults. It was so fun talking with them about their lives and jobs as adults. 

Catching up!

I got to pick citrus fruit from my dad's orchard, and soak in some California sun in their yard, though that particular weekend wasn't hot and was actually pretty windy. Either way, the weather was much better than in MI! It was nice to be able to visit with siblings/stepsiblings a little at a time as they all arrived, as well as with my dad and Mary Lou, my aunt Karen, and uncle Bill.

Every type of fruit is growing in my dad's orchard. (From r to l: Cara mandarin, naval orange, Valencia orange, red grapefruit, white grapefruit, avocado, lemon)

This one was left out of the previous pic, a tangelo. 

Karina, Derek, and I shared a hotel room when they arrived on my second night. We had way too much fun at our adult sibling slumber party! The next morning, we all worked out in the hotel gym together before our dad picked us up (we didn't rent a car because of the cost, and we had to pay to park at our hotel). He took us to see our childhood home, which he had built with his dad about 50 years ago, with the input of my mom for their future dream home. Since my grandpa was in the construction business and built many homes, some of which my dad owns and manages, my dad still rents out this home of ours, and it is currently unoccupied as he renovates it. This is the first time I have seen inside it since I was about 8 or 9. It's a pretty awesome layout with fantastic storage areas. The yard is tiny, but what do you expect in Woodland Hills, CA? 

We still love the skylight in the hallway.

Master bedroom. One of the closets.

The vanity: discussing what to do with the light fixtures here.

We continued down memory lane as our dad dropped us off at Western Bagel, a childhood tradition of walking with our mom to get the best bagels of all time. We got extras to enjoy later, before dropping off our dad at his home, so we could finish our workout with a hike in the hills. We walked for hours and almost got lost on our way back while trying to take a shortcut. Luckily, we made it back in time to shower and get to my dad's house in time for the big party.

Bagels!

My step-brother, Bryan, and his wife, Gina, planned the party. They catered Chipotle, prepared a cute birthday video recorded by all the grandkids, and played a trivia game about Grandma Mary Lou. Kevin's wife, Toby, made a beautiful cake, and we ended the event with group pictures, the real birthday gift for Grandma Mary Lou.

Zach, from Vermont, and Grandma Mary Lou, ready for the video. 

Cake time!

The whole group!

After some more visiting, we parted ways. Karina, Derek, and I met up at Bryan and Gina's Airbnb later for a post-party party. Derek and I stayed up way too late for our very early flights home, and the fact that the time changed that night. I didn't even want to think about the lack of sleep I got! 

We all made it safely back and somehow caught up on our sleep, though I actually don't know if I really did, since a few days later, my next March adventure began...