Catch Up

- March 11, 2014

Since I've had no less than 3 family members in the last 24 hours question the lack of blog posts, I feel like I might be in trouble if I don't give a quick update so here's a brief (or not so brief) rundown of what we've been up to. It's not exciting, so don't hold your breath!

I didn't blog Thursday, because it was snow day #4, and, well, I thought I might complain if I blogged, and I did not want to complain about having my family all home under the same roof. It was actually the first day the kids weren't super thrilled about being home. We made an emergency trip to the library (saw a wreck happen in route), and those books carried them (and me) the rest of the day.

The kids had school Friday, and even though Brian had been off the previous 4 days, he had already scheduled a personal day to go to a doctor's appointment with me. We spent the day in Nashville just browsing (as in, we spent a ridiculous amount of time in World Market, TJ Maxx, and Marshals), ate lunch at The Cookery (if you're keeping track, that's twice for me in 7 days), and then met with the genetic counselor at Vanderbilt. With the exception of the appointment, it was a leisurely, sunny day with my husband.

I've been tested twice before for the BRCA1 and 2 genes (negative both times), but Vanderbilt wanted to run their own tests. After I tested positive for a BRCA2 variation, they did a full panel of 24 tests which would show a propensity to additional kinds of cancer. Thankfully, those all came back negative. The geneticist was disappointed because she was sure they would find a reason for my ovarian cancer diagnosis in those tests. Of course, it's a good thing to be negative because it means the rest of my family doesn't need to worry about further genetic testing.

After 4 snow days, Saturday was a pretty long day at home with the kids. Brian worked all day at church, and I have to say that it made for a boring day for the rest of us. You can only play so many games of Uno. Addison came over and spent the night. If it tells you anything about my mood, I didn't even drag out my camera.

Sunday was church, then I drove straight from church to the Nashville Children's Theater to meet a friend for the 2:00 showing of Number the Stars. Headed back home and collapsed onto the couch for some family viewing of The Amazing Race. Did I mention it was Daylight Savings weekend?

I also made the crazy decision to cut out coffee over the weekend. The caffeine hangover is insane and certainly not conducive to patient parenting or happy blogging, if you know what I mean. Last night my sister talked me into just cutting back instead of cutting it out, and I think that might be a better idea.

This will be an uneventful week for us until Thursday when the kids start spring break. The following couple of weeks are pretty busy so instead of lamenting all these ~~boring~~ slow days, I should probably soak them in.

A few pics from Friday/Saturday.

I am telling you, The Cookery is so delicious. This spinach dip with homemade tortilla chips is amazing.

I had the coffee-rubbed pork lettuce wraps. So good.

Brian had some kind of Aussie burger that had everything but the kitchen sink on it.

There is a new Jeni's near the hospital so we kind of had to go there after our appointment.

The winter flavors all based on trees - I do love Jeni's, but these were not my favorite. I ended up choosing Askinosie Dark Milk Chocolate and Savannah Buttermint.

They were laughing because I told them to scoot closer so I could take the picture and they refused because "we're not a couple!"

Liz and I didn't mind to scoot closer.

The 4 Hale girls ovoo'd (a.k.a. video chatted) for almost an hour Saturday morning. As you can see, my mom is the only one dressed and ready for the day.