Hello everyone! It's Kristi. I told Mom yesterday that she needed to update her blog, but she said she didn't have anything exciting to say. I told her that I would update it for her, so she sent me her login and password and said to go for it. Hmmmmmmm......does anyone think that she's going to see the error in her ways and regret sending me her login and password? I now have the power. You'll have to bear with me, it's been a while since I have updated a blog. Things have been pretty busy for us lately. It may not be anything really exciting, but we all have seemed to be running around like crazy people daily. We've had birthdays and trips and conferences to plan and school to go to. So, we'll just take this one step and person at a time. What is it they say about age before beauty? Alayna.....Alayna is doing very, very well. She is really thriving lately and seems to amaze me everyday with the things that she picks up on and learns. Her preschool is trying to shove a lot of information into her to get her ready to go to kindergarten and she seem to be picking it all up very nicely. We've been blessed with new songs and she constantly tries to figure out what letter every word she hears start with. I guess due to the fact that it has been so long since I have had to worry about doing that, I didn't realize how confusing the English language really is. I've obtained a new appreciation for the ins and outs of the language. I found out recently that I have to register Alayna for kindergarten on the 14th of April. I was, and still am, not ready for that. Even though I know she could have gone as early as last year, I'm still not ready for her to be that old. Brian......Brian made it safely back from the trip to Geek Fest 2009 (as it has been commonly known in our house, sorry Brian.) in Cincinnati. He had a really great time playing computer games and was even offered a job by one of the guys there. The group of gamers are already starting to plan next year's trip. I'm really glad that he had the chance to go and do something that he really enjoyed. We all took a family trip to Lowe's (say "Thanks" Lucas) to pick up Brian's belated birthday gift last night. He ended up with a new grill just like dad's and all the necessities that went along with it. I'm not sure if he or his roomies are going to enjoy this present more. Me......The next couple of weeks are going to be really rough for me. I have a conference to put on next week in which the Directors from each of the 35 Nationwide campuses come to Columbia. It takes a ton of planning and long hours to pull this off. Doing this on top of the already heavy work load at this time of the month takes a lot of balancing and a list for almost everything. I also officially started classes here at Columbia College a couple of weeks ago. I was really worried that these classes were going to be a lot tougher and that I wasn't going to be able to hang on to my 4.0 grade point average. As of right now though, I am feeling pretty confident. I am kicking Accounting's butt. Health wise, I'm doing pretty well. I don't go for my next appointment with the oncologist until June, so we'll know more then. Mom....Mom's allergies have been extremely bad this year. She finally bit the bullet and went to her allergist to convince him to allow her boss to give her the allergy shots since it's so hard to get into the office to do them. She took her first shot yesterday, so we'll see how that goes. I have been trying to convince Mom to apply for one of the positions open at the college, but so far no luck. I think she'd be alot happier, which everyone knows would make us a lot happier, and she would be able to make use of the MBA that we are so proud of her for and she worked so hard to get. There are some really good options here for her. Dad....Dad has somehow hurt his back and is in a lot of pain. We aren't sure how he did it, but 800mg IBuprofean seems to be his best friend right now. Work has been busy for him the past couple of weeks ago and even more so yesterday with April Fool's Day and the virus that was threatened on that day. IT guys can never been too careful. Oma....Oma is doing good also. She finally went and had the shot in her back and seems to be moving around a whole lot better now. We seem to be keeping her pretty busy with everything we've had going on, but she's really taking the challenge well. She turned into my own personal hero last week when she offered to keep Alayna before and after school starting in the fall, which means that I will no long be forking out $800 a month in child care. WooHoo. It's only going to be for an hour or so in the morning and an hour or so after school, so hopefully Alayna won't wear her out too bad. Well, I guess that's it. Sorry for the very lengthy blog, but I had to prove to Mom that she could actually find something to write about if she tried. Just goes along with that Love/Hate relationship we have.