Drug busts and Busted immune systems

Oh so much happening in January!  The New Year started off with a bang...and Cade being really sick.  I mean really sick.  So sick he ate nothing but cherry yogurt and fruit for a week and a half.  Which caused runny diapers, which caused a whole host of other issues.  You get what I mean.  It started with me taking him to the Dr. on Christmas Eve and then going back on the 27th because he finally got the ear infections I knew he was going to get on Christmas Eve.  Seriously, why can't ears co-operate.  I knew he would need to go on antibiotics but we have to wait until he is beyond being cooperative to take medicine and refuses any food or drink before we attempt to give him the antibiotics.  Oh well...other than still not eating very much or anything healthy at all, he is fine now.  We are slowly getting him to eat better again.  Funny thing, the first real food he ate after the week and a half....a bowl of Japanese Rice!  My little Nihongo baby :0)

For our New Year's Eve party a bit late (we celebrated the Friday after due to all the illnesses).  We invited two families over from church.  They are great people and we really enjoy them.  Both are American families and both have 5 children each.  So, we had 6 adults and 14 children here for the evening.  We had waffles for dinner (thank you Liechty's for a new tradition) and watched as the kids splashed and played in the pool (I LOVE that thing!)  A great time was had by all!

Also the first week of January, Isaac had a good friend over.  We will call him T.  T and Isaac went into the woods behind our house to walk on the trail (which I didn't even know there was a TRAIL back there, nor did I know that each of us leaving our blinds up on the back side of the house could possibly be seen by those passing in the woods behind our house.  We leave them open because in this country of CONSTANT rain and depressing clouds, any iota of light is necessary for plants and for the humans inside the house to not shrivel up and die.  Because no one was back there, or so we thought, we kept them open for convenience sake.  I do however apologize now to any neighbors that either myself, Bryce, or the children may have offended with bare bums, etc. getting out of showers, getting dressed or running to the laundry room to find clean clothes.  Guess we should have made sure that our house backed up to deserted woods WITHOUT a walking trail running through it and not assumed.  I guess assuming this time really did make an ........) :0)

Anyways, I digress.  So T and Isaac went on the trail and I always send Isaac with my iPhone should he need to call me or should he get lost (or apparently, should he see that our windows CAN be seen from the path...ugh).  He calls and is all excited..."MOM!  We just found a backpack on the path behind our house with cool stuff and we took pictures and we are coming home to show you.  We can see our house from here so we will be home soon"  Of course, the blood is draining out of my face and ears after he says he can see the back of the house from where he is that I am not even concentrating on the rest of his story.  "OK, bubba, bring the pictures and come and show me."  He gets home and shows me the pictures which consisted of a Jansport backpack and gas masks with long colorful tubes on the end.  Uh....looks questionable to me.  So I tell the boys to go play and go into Bryce's office where he is on an important call.  I shove a piece of paper in front of him saying..."I need to talk to you ASAP."  Well, his ASAP is as soon as he hangs up the phone....this is not my ASAP unfortunately.  I got online and started typing in search terms for the items that the boys found.  Lo and behold, the first thing I typed in showed up with a picture of the exact items the boys found.  And ended up being used for drugs.  Yep, drugs.  In our neighborhod which is gated, etc.  Wow!  So now I am really panicked and go back and shove another note in front of Bryce's nose that says, "I am going to have to call the police, I need to speak to you!"  Thankfully he was off the call very soon after that.  We called the police and they came in a little over an hour (during this time, I also called T's mom...thought it was a much better idea for her to hear it from me before she heard the more exciting story from our boys).  Police came, Isaac and T and Bryce took them out to the woods to show them where and to lead them to the items.  They ended up bringing in a K-9 drug dog which did smell Marijuana because he got all excited.  Bottom line, the police thanked the boys for being diligent and letting me know, they assume it was some kid hiding his "stash" in the woods to keep his or her parents from finding it, and my kids now know what a gas mask bong is (and so do their parents, now, too).  Both boys were the TALK of the town on Skype (that is how they socialize here these days).  By Monday morning at school, they were being called 008 and 009.  Of course the story got a bit exaggerated but we are just glad it is over and it was handled.  Hopefully we won't find anything like that again.

Oh and by the way....the blinds at the back of the house are ALWAYS kept closed now when anyone is not clothed properly, thank you very much!

Brynn at her cheerleading clinic

Snow storm that came through and dropped enough snow to enjoy and even a bit more to cancel school!

Cade's first time in the snow.  Loved it!  but hated that he couldn't join in the fun of throwing snowballs with the lack of being able to use gloves.

Brynnie and her little baby snowman.