Catching Up

Apparently, time just gets away from me. I've had so much going on lately between, kids and jobs, that I hadn't realized I hadn't posted in about a month. So, let me take this opportunity to give you an update.

My vehicle. I'm sure you all remember the great debate between Traverse and Trailblazer. Well, after weighing all the information we found out, the deciding factor was the Trailblazer was only going to be worth about 23% of its current value in 3 years, while the Traverse would retain 48% of its value. So, I am the proud owner of a blue Traverse. I know some of you thought the Trailblazer would be best in the snow, but let me tell you, the Traverse has been awesome on these icy back roads. Andy has done his best to whip it sideways on the ice, and the thing won't even fish tail. We drove it down past Lansing on one of the snowy days recently where the roads were nothing but slush, and it handled better than my Trailblazer had. I love it.

The kids. Lets just say they've had their share of sickness. Drew has had issues with respiratory infections and Anna has had issues with ear infections. The most recent one called for a strong antibiotic, which really messed with her system. Let me just say, I've been doing lots of laundry because of accidents that are not her fault. I think today may be the first day in over a week that we may not have to deal with that. We have taken her off the medicine because we tried changing it once, and that still didn't help the situation.

My job. I resigned from my job at the college, because I was offered Andy's old job at Tendercare Clare. Yes, my new position is Business Office Manager at Tendercare, and this was my first week. Pretty much I am in charge of approving the financial end of all admissions and collecting all outstanding money, whether it be from insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid, or private pay. How I came by the job is a bit of a long story. When Andy was originally promoted the person he replace was demoted, to his old position at Tendercare. Needless to say, she was only there about a month or so. When the job was posted I applied and was selected as one of the final two. From what I understand I was actually the first choice, however, the administrator felt she should include her boss in the decision, so she was told to hire the person from within the company that I was up against. Needless, to say, that didn't work out so swell either. He was in the position from September until the beginning of February, and Andy was pretty much doing all his work for him. I have been helping Andy at home with things for all of his facilities, so when the administrator decided to get rid of the other guy, she called me and offered me the job. I wasn't sure if I would do it at first, seeing as I wasn't good enough the first time, however, it really was an offer I couldn't refuse. I've wanted to use my accounting degree since I got it, and being a secretary just wasn't cutting it for me. I'm ready for the new challenge, and let me tell you, it certainly will be. There is so much to learn when it comes to Medicare, Medicaid and all the different insurances, that it's not even funny. But I think I'm up for it.

So, I may still not be able to update as often as I'd like, but I'm sure going to try.

Pictures

Well, I'm sure all of you are dying to know what vehicle I picked. I've decided to keep that to myself until I can post a picture, which should be sometime this weekend. We're going to pick it up Friday night, and I'm very excited. Andy has spoiled me with new cars every few years, but I do enjoy it.

I know everyone else has pretty much posted their Christmas pictures, so now I'm going to add mine.

My beautiful family. Darn, they sure are cute!


Here you can see that Drew is not thrilled with unwrapping presents, he just watched most of the time.
However, once the presents were open, he was all about playing with them.


And of course she got her first bike from Grandma & Grandpa Adsit.


Hmm. Another Care Bear. Don't we have about eight more of these floating around somewhere. No, that's right, Anna has to sleep with all of them every single night. And let's hope none of them ever go missing or get left somewhere, not a good scenario.


Christmas morning Anna was very excited to open her gifts from Santa. However, I must have been blessed with great children. They didn't wake up until after 9:30. That would probably be because they were up until almost midnight the night before though.


And here is Drew Christmas morning. Apparently, he still wasn't ready to get out of bed yet. He did cheer up after a while though.


And here are all the kids later on in the day. Unfortunately you can never get all of them to look at you at once during a picture.

Well, there is our Christmas in a nut shell. The kids definitely enjoyed it, and that's all that matters to me.

Decisions, Decisions

Hello all. Yes, I am still here, just not posting as much as I would like to. One of my resolutions for this year is to try to update more often.

I will include some Christmas pictures of the kids, but first I need some opinions from all of you.

I need a new car. We currently lease my 2007 Trailblazer which is due to go back to GM by the end of March. However, I'm about to go over my miles, so we are going to turn it in this month. As we are within three months of the end date, there is no penalty for this. My dilemma is, do I purchase another Trailblazer or, do I go with the new Traverse? I really do love driving the Blazer, but have test driven a Traverse and really like that as well. The Trailblazer would be four wheel drive, while the Traverse would be front wheel drive, but with the new Stabilitrack. This stops you from sliding at all. We tried it out on some icy back roads and Andy couldn't even come close the to sliding or even fishtailing. Also, I really like the look of the Traverse. I have included a picture of both the Trailblazer and Traverse below.

A new 2009 Trailblazer
A new 2009 Traverse

Another difference, Traverse has third row seating which makes it very easy to fit 8 people. And I do mean 8 Adult people. We did get in the back and you can easily fit three full sized adults in the last row with plenty of room. Probably the only down fall is it makes the Traverse a little longer than the Trailblazer and there are more blindspots because of the way the windows are set up.

So, I need each of you to vote on which one you would purchase. I'm hoping this will help me decide what to do. Andy has pretty much left it mostly up to me because it's my vehicle.

In conclusion, I'll add a few pictures of the kids around Christmas time.

This picture took about twenty minutes to take because of course they wouldn't sit next to each other.Here is Drew being oh so cute. This ended up being our Christmas picture for the year.

Here is Anna's Christmas picture for the year.

And just as a bonus. Here is a picture of Hannah and Mom at our Christmas party.