The Loud Americans: January 2020

Friday, January 17, 2020

post holiday madness

As in recent years, vacation is just a brief reprieve form the madness.

We came home to ...

3 gymnastics meets - Kay competed in varsity in all 3 in at least 2 events and got her highest score of the year on beam - 9.15. She's been working her tail off and have mastered new skills (front walk over on beam) and reclaimed old skills (back tuck on beam and suk on bars) But 3 meets in 8 days is tough.

Sickness - Kay came down with a nasty cold that made her sound 90 years old and landed her in bed for a day. Tom followed suit a week later with a stomach bug and fever. The rest of us are valiantly battling sniffles but hanging in there

College/Football decisions - Jimmy has it narrowed down to Valpo and Virginia Military Institute, which means 2 visits in the next 2 weeks to "hopefully" finalize a decision before signing day on 2/5. Right now VMI is the clear front runner but comparing Valpo to VMI is like comparing apples to oranges - we'll see how this goes

TKD - ramping up! Black belt physical training, sparring scrimmage, tournament in Wisconsin, practice for his next section in belt level- the kid is in amazing shape and totally dedicated.

School - winter hit hard and snow, ice and cold is making getting up and going every a challenge for everyone but particularly Tom since he needs to man the play ground which ... believe it or not is preferable to indoor recess.

Concerts - Jimmy had a band concert and they played my favorite winter tune (Sleigh Bells) Billy also had a great orchestra concert and I got it all on video BUT... Damn YouTube changed their rules and settings and I can't figure out how to upload to Youtube any more. Poor Billy, the 3rd kid and always getting the shaft

Work - Tracy on a 30 houses, 30 lbs in 30 days tour. She announced a wage increase for her staff at the end of December and is now visiting each of the 33 locations to deliver the good news in person. This is extremely fun for her as she LOVES being with her team but...she is visiting during their holiday parties which means food food food. You thought the holidays was bad. Also, she's probably covering 75 + miles a day in her car in winter weather. Thank god for The Current, her favorite radio station

Poor Choices - Kay is leading pack in poor choices including getting suspended for vaping in school. this came with a 2 meet suspension and in house school suspension. She says it was the most traumatic day of her life and she's never doing this again. She wants to be captain next year and can't afford to make this type of mistake a 2nd time. Lets hope this lesson "sticks" as she is immensely talented, smart, kind and has an amazing future in front of her.

Well, that's about it and feels about enough for only being back from vacation 17 days. God Speed.

Oh, and Tracy went to Paisley Park with Michelle - it was amazing!!

Jimmy had a surprise guest at his concert, we love Melanie

Kay loves her team!

Maui got a new bed and he's a total cuddle bug that also pees all over the house and eats Nikki's poop. urhg.

The stash the school found when they caught Kay vaping - double ugh...

Billy's concert. Can you see him? he's behind the kid the 3rd row in

Kay made the paper - again!!

Friday, January 03, 2020

Christmas and Vacation Griswold style

We had an AMAZING holiday and vacation. It was jam packed with family, fun, relaxation, books, walks, good weather, amazing people and love. I hope it was the same for ALL of you!

Right before the holidays, Billy passed his learner permit and so now we have TWO behind the wheel drivers in the house. Kay used her leverage (age) to drive us to Brigids for Christmas day festivities including cousins, games and prime rib. It was so fun to just hang and relax (once we survived Kay driving 75 minutes on the highway!)

Our at home Christmas we literally full of good cheer. The kids loved all their presents (for once) and Tom got super creative with his gifts. Each kid got a folder with copies of all their letters to Santa and the Tooth Fairy along with their baby teeth. They were a bit grossed out while at the same time intrigued and a bit obsessed. He also made us matching Die Hard shirts that said "Now I have a machine gun - Ho Ho Ho". Gotta love the Christmas spirit

We were able to escape to warmer weather for a week thanks to Kendra and Molly who fearlessly agreed to watch Nikki and Maui. Mid way through our trip we got a text that said "We love Nikki. Maui is a shit". yep. that about sums it up.

This year was Tracy's parents 55 the anniversary and we decided to go BIG in Dominican Republic at a 7 bedroom castle for the family vacation. It really was. It came with 7 staff, our own pool, hot tub, pool table, movie room, etc etc etc.

Jimmy literally never left the house the whole week and the rest of us would hike down the hill each day to explore the village and get supplies (snacks and drinks). We did venture out once on an excursion to jump off waterfalls. We climbed straight up for 30 mins and then jumped and "rode" the waterfalls back down to a point where we only had to walk down for another 10 minutes. My legs were shaking with a mix of adrenaline and exhausting. It was a steep climb and the jumps were huge! Jimmy never would have made it.

The kids made everything a competition (of course) and they played pool, spike ball, charades, cards and we had a scavenger hunt.

The staff was amazingly kind and fed us breakfast and got our dinner ready so that all we had to do was heat and serve.

We even had a guard (Santiago) who sat out front of our door all nigh, guard dog (Pa-loo-ah) who was very sweet and everyone wanted to bath and take home and a handyman (Carlos) who drained the hot tub each day and then started fresh.

I finished 7 books and it was beyond relaxing. The most fun is seeing how well all the cousins get along. Pure heaven.

Some photo highlights!

Hanging out, watching the light show at the resort