A Special Visit...

...to Stacy & Ruby!

We have been trying to make arrangements for a visit since Ruby was born, but you know how life gets!  Finally we made it happen and I am SO happy that we did.  It was so great to visit Stacy, but plus I got to hold her sweet baby.  What a beautiful little lady!  Stacy took a picture of me holding Ruby, but here are a couple I took.

We had a really nice time.  I can't wait to visit again :)  I also got a tour of all of Ruby's cute things.  Her room is so cute...Stacy did a great job painting the jungle on the walls.  Plus she showed me a couple of super cute bathing suits for Ruby...adorable!  I can't wait to have little girls to dress!! 

I also got to play with Stacy's dogs, which was so fun!  She has a beautiful Great Dane, Drake, and a maltese, JJ.  They were great!  I love dogs, as you all surely know, and so I always enjoy anywhere that I go where I get to play with a dog (or two!). 

Drake

JJ

Stacy has told me stories of JJ and his obsession with plastic, squeaky balls...so it was so hilarious when I had been there like 5 minutes and JJ come running up to me with his red squeaky ball in mouth!  haha!  Stacy was worried about how the dogs would adjust to the new baby, but she said it was gone well.  They are getting used to Ruby and Ruby is getting used to the dog hair and slobber already too :)  I hope you're reading this Stacy, because I'm gonna come over again!!  You can't stop me ;)

Comcast

I just need to vent for a minute about how much I hate Comcast these days!  I have had Comcast for a LONG time...in lots of different apartments and in several different states.  I have NEVER had an issue with them until we moved to Chicago!  Since we have lived here I have had one problem after the next.  Now...the worst one has arrived.  The full digital conversion has made our TiVo obselete...so we either have to buy a new TiVo box that supports the digital transition (which would cost another $150 on top of the one we already have that we paid $180 for only a year and a half ago) or we switch to Comcast DVR.  We decided it would be more cost effective to switch to Comcast DVR because they are giving us the DVR service free for a year...but it sucks!  We have only had it for 3 or 4 days and I have already had to call Comcast about it 3 times!  Plus it just doesn't work as well as the TiVo and it isn't as user friendly!  Oh well...I guess I can tolerate it but I am not happy with Comcast.  At all.

Heat Wave

If only the heat wave I am referring to was outside...but no.  It is at work.  I swear it was 85 degree inside the NICU last night!  I thought I was going to pass out, and you all know how I sweat!  I honestly can't believe I have to go back tonight and live through that heat and still be expected to work!  It was terrible!

Spring is here!

Yay for Spring!

Ok...so it is supposedly spring now and if you can forget about the horrible day of snow we had on Saturday then you can almost believe it!  The only reason I am sure it is spring is because my allergies have been giving me a terrible time!  I never had seasonal allergies until a few years ago and now do I get them!  It is horrible!  I can't stop sneezing...my eyes are itchy and red and even my throat and ears are itching (and you can't really scratch those!).  Oh it sucks!  But on the otherhand I was able to walk to the bank and to The Children's Place (to buy something cute for Baby Richardson...hehe) and it was beautiful out.  Just a little bit chilly but almost perfect in my opinion...except for the sneezing.  So...I guess spring made it to Chicago as promised.  We'll see how long it lasts though!

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day is one of my & Shawn's favorite days.  We always enjoy going out to Irish Pubs, drinking green beer, drinking the Kryptonite shots Shawn makes, and just having a good time. This year we decided to dedicate our fun to my Grandma Lach.  She always loved St. Patrick's Day, which is appropriate seeing as she is Irish.  So today is for Grandma.

Last night my family got together to cook out and sort through tubs and tubs of pictures that Grandma has collected through the years.  We found many many pictures of ourselves that we wish could have never been found, but we also found many pictures that we love!  Grandma kept everything...she even has an original wedding announcement from her parents wedding!  Wow!  They were married in 1921!  She has pictures that are even older!  I am looking forward to having more time to go through all those pictures.  I did find a few pictures of Grandma Lach with Mimi and I that I wanted to share.

This last picture is from Grandma's 80th Birthday Party.

The shirt Grandma is wearing is her favorite shirt...her poker shirt.  She loved this shirt so much that she wanted to wear it to my wedding!  Thank goodness Aunt Mel took her shopping, but it was her first choice.  So Aunt Kathy, Aunt Mel, and my Dad all decided that it would be appropriate for this to be the shirt she is buried in...with her bingo bag.  If you knew her then you would completely understand why this is what we're doing :)  The wake will be tomorrow evening with the funeral Friday morning.  We also will be getting together Saturday to celebrate what would have been Grandma's 86th birthday.

Mourning

Considering that I have had very limited experience with death within my family, these last few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind of emotions.  Being a nurse you'd think I'd be better at dealing with death, but it is never something that you can ever get used to.  I hope I never do.

Dad just called to let me know that my grandma, Anna Elizabeth (Bette) Lach, just passed away this evening.  She had been placed on a morphine drip this morning and Dad said that when she did go it was very peaceful.  She never wanted to be kept alive with machines and her poor body just couldn't fight the infection that had taken over.  It looks as though her wake will be this Thursday with the funeral on Friday.  St. Patrick's Day has always been her favorite holiday, seeing as she is Irish (maiden name Rooney), so the family didn't think it would be a good idea to have her services then. Plus my Grandpa Lach passed away on St. Patrick's Day years ago (before I was born).  Unfortunately, her birthday is this Saturday and she would have been 86 years old.  At least she was surrounded by her children and family that love her as she passed tonight.  She had a very full life and I am sure she has no regrets.  She had a huge family, even one great-great grandson.  She will be missed.

Mimi and I were talking earlier today and remembering many of the funny things about her that we remember from throughout our lives.  There are SO many!  One thing I know we'll never forget are her delicious french pancakes.  Those were always the first thing we looked forward to on our visits to Dad's.  I remember the summer she tried to get me to stop biting my nails by paying me to stop...no luck but at least she tried.  She taught us how to play Rummy and Mimi and I still love to play that together.  If I listed all of my memories it would take way too long, but they are all in my heart and will be there always.

Andrew leaves California

Our friend Andrew is leaving California.  His parents are bringing him back to Indiana for the rest of his recovery.  Indiana is their home and this will be much more convenient for them, even though Andrew isn't thrilled to be leaving California.  He really enjoyed being out there.  His parents had a big farewell dinner for Andrew and a bunch of his friends.  Our friend Albert made this video for him and I wanted to share it.

Albert's Slideshow for Andrew

Grandma Lach

This has not been a good month for Grandparents in my family.  A couple of weeks ago Grandma Lach's confusion started getting significantly worse (which is saying a lot because her dementia was already getting pretty bad).  They discovered that she had severe urinary tract infection (UTI) and she was admitted to the hospital for treatment.  The infection had been untreated for who knows how long because she never told anyone she was having problems.  She was so dehydrated and weak that after the infection was better she transferred to a nursing home for rehabilitation and then the plan was to move in with Aunt Mel & Uncle Glenn.  A few days ago she started getting worse again and was readmitted to the hospital for what they thought was the same UTI come back.  Turns out she has an infection called C. diff, which is very difficult on the GI (gastrointestinal) tract especially in the elderly since they are already so weak.  Last night and early today she started complaining of severe abdominal pain.  A CT scan revealed that there was a perforation (tear) somewhere in her GI tract.  The physician's were unsure where exactly, but they had planned to take her to surgery to investigate and fix the problem because you cannot survive with a perforation.  Unfortunately the infections of the last two weeks have left Grandma septic (full blood infection) so she was unable to go to surgery.  At this point she is in the hospital alert and as oriented as it is possible for her to be.  She is still having pain, but she is being treated with morphine and Aunt Mel is staying with her tonight, then Aunt Kathy will be arriving from Oregon early tomorow morning.  Tomorrow they will meet with Grandma's regular family physician to make some plans.  Grandma already has a living will that states she doesn't want anything that will artificially extend her life, so my dad and his sisters are struggling with what they should and shouldn't do to help her through what seems like the last bit of her life.  She is a fighter though so we don't really know how much time she has left.  Hopefully tomorrow her doctor will be able to give us a better idea of her overall condition and prognosis.  I will keep posting information as I find out.  She looks so tiny and frail right now though...it is definately a tough time for our family.  Especially considering that this time two weeks ago she was still completely independent, living alone and everything.  This coming Saturday will be her 86th birthday.

Grandma & Grandpa Lach...a long time ago.

Grandma Lach with Me and Mimi back in 1981.

Grandma Lach with Shawn and I at our wedding last September.

Grandpa Manning

My Grandfather, William Manning, passed away late last night.  He had been battling with COPD & CHF for many years and was diagnosed with a brain lesion (unconfirmed cancer) a few weeks ago that left him with the symptoms of a stroke.  He had been struggling to breathe for so long and it just finally got to be too much for him.  Although I will miss him terribly, I have many great memories of him from throughout my life.  I don't ever remember a time he wasn't a part of my life, even before we lived in Indiana.  When we lived in Florida he wrote me letters, and then once he got a computer he wrote me emails and we chatted on AIM.  I will never forget all the chats we had on AIM.  He was always watching out for me...harrassing my boyfriends :)  He loved his family and he grandchildren so much and I know he knew how much we all loved him. 

From Grandma & Grandpa's 50th Wedding Anniversary Party

The weekend of my wedding...Grandpa wasn't well enough to make the trip to Indy for the weekend so we all made a trip to Muncie to see him!

Waking Up

When I wake up in a few hours Mom & Eric will be here!  Yay!

Now...off to bed for a few hours of blissful sleep :)

Physical Therapy...

is a miracle!

I started physical therapy today and it was so great!  The therapist is really nice and I am really optimistic that it will help my neck.  He gave me some exercises to do at home 3 times a day that should help a lot and he thinks that in a month or so I should have tremendous relief!  I am so freaking excited!  We did some measurements of my range of motion (ROM) so that we can track my progress.  He did one thing that basically lengthened my spine by him kind of pulling my head...I can't really describe it but OH WOW!  I felt an instant relief of my pain.  Plus, my ROM was increased immediately afterward with only minimal pain.  I really think this is gonna work!

Let's Go Hawks!

As you may know, Shawn and I have become huge hockey fans since we went to a game when we were in D.C. (plus living near my dad, who is a HUGE hockey fan, has helped this habit along quickly).  The Blackhawks had a great season last year and are doing even better this year.  We went to the game last night at the United Center and, as usual, it was AWESOME!  We just got cheap standing room only tickets, but that made it so we had extra money to buy beer and other random stuff :)  It was the first home game since the Olympics so the Hawks had a special recognition at the beginning for all 7 of their players that had the honor to be Olympians.  3 played for the Gold Medal winning Candadian team, 2 for the Silve Medal winning USA team, and 2 that played for Slovakia. I was a bit irritated with the fans at first because they boo-ed the Canadian players...and that isn't right!  They are still our Blackhawks and they are amazing atheletes that played great hockey for their country...just the same as the American players.  Anyway...the boo-ing was short lived.  The players were wearing their Olympic Medals...it was pretty cool!  We had a great time and I can't wait to go again!

Hollywood & Santa Monica

Thursday was our second day in California, and we were gonna make the most of it!  We started out the day with breakfast at iHop then headed to the Paramount Studios for another studio tour.  The tour was not nearly as good as the WB Studio tour, but it was still interesting. 

This is the original main gate of the Paramount Studio...called the Bronson Gate.  This is the gate that Charles Bronson got his name from, not the other way around.

This is the actual bench from Forrest Gump...awesome!  We both got to sit on it!  The back lot of the studio was pretty small compared to the WB lot, but there were a lot of sound stages.  There was a section that used to be owned by Lucy & Desi that was created to look like her LA home and her NY vacation home so that reporters could make it look like she actually had a home life and wasn't such a workaholic. 

After the studio we went to Hollywood & Highland.  There is a pretty cool outdoor mall there as well as the Kodak Theatre and Grauman's Chinese Theatre.   We made sure to look at all of the footprints and handprints.  There were quite a lot...although some of the people who have a spot were surprising.

Across the street is the El Capitan Theatre, which is the Disney Theatre.  There is an old fashioned soda & ice cream shop there too, so we decided to stop in and have a sundae.  It was yummy...and I found the Disney Vault that hides all of the Disney movies that we aren't allowed to buy right now ;)

We also wented to the Hollywood Museum, which was pretty cool but not great.  There were 4 floors of movie props and costumes, as well as movie posters.  It was pretty cool.  There was a cool statue of Marilyn Monroe outside though.

We also went to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, but I will discuss that later :)  We have more pictures that I need to sort out..  Thursday night we went to Burbank to have dinner with a friend of Shawn's named Brandon.  They grew up together in church and Brandon has been living out in the LA area for a couple of years I think.  We went out to dinner with him and his girlfriend, Cambria.  We went to a place called Barney's Beanery.  It was pretty good, huge menu, but we had terrible service.  It was nice to have the extra time to chat though.

Friday we decided we wanted to go to Santa Monica.  Bryce didn't have to work so he came with us.  It was a terrible gloomy day...raining off and on and pretty chilly.  We still had a great time though!  Shawn had to touch the Pacific Ocean of course!  We walked around for a bit, found a comic book shop, then went to Happy Hour at a Mexican place.  It was a good day. 

We went to bar that night near Bryce's place, which is just by UCLA.  Shawn drank too much.  That was our last night...and we ended our trip to LA with a bang!

Andrew

Thursday evening we picked up Bryce in LA and then Albert in Reseda and drove to Downey to visit Andrew.  We drove all over the city!  Bryce hadn't seen Andrew since he had gotten out of the hospital, so he was pretty excited to get to see him again too.

We took some of the pictures from the wedding and honeymoon to show Andrew.  He as basically the star of our reception so I thought he might like to see some of the great shots of him dancing!  His parents really enjoyed seeing the pictures and Andrew looked though each of the albums.

He looks pretty good.  He has put some weight back on since he got out of the hospital and his parents said that he hadn't gotten sick at all since he's been home with them.  They take him to different kids of therapy everyday.  He goes to Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech Therapy.  He is getting stronger everyday.  He has a lot of strengthening activites his parents do with him as well.  His left side is strong and has full movement.  His right side is coming along slowly.  He doesn't have any movement on the right side of his face, and only minimal movement in his right arm and leg.  The hand and foot still have no feeling.  But they are seeing improvement, which is promising.  He seems to understand what is going on around him, but he has difficulty speaking and he can only concentrate on one thing at a time.  He laughs at Albert of course!  He enjoyed having us all there for awhile.  We got pizza and watched a fight on TV (he loves that stuff).  He still gets tired though and all that excitement was a lot for him.

His parents are planning to head back toward Indiana at the end of March.  They are worried about the drive for Andrew, so they are going to drive back slowly, making it a bit of a vacation with a lot of tourist like stops.  Being back in Indiana will be great for them...although Andrew isn't very excited to leave the nice weather and his friends.  His family will be glad to be home though.  Shawn and I promised that we will come down a lot over the summer to visit at their lake house north of Ft. Wayne to visit with Andrew.  It will be great to be able to see him more often!

Warner Brother's Studio Tour

On Thursday afternoon we headed to the Warner Brother's Studios in Burbank.  We were going on a two-hour studio tour. Before the tour started we just relaxed for a bit in the courtyard of the WB Office Building.  The day was beautiful so we layed around and enjoyed the sun for awhile...making sure we had plenty of time to tour the Studio Gift Shop and play on the statues :)

We really enjoyed the tour!  Our tour guide, Emily, was awesome!  She knew a lot of information and was really nice and funny!  We were taken through on a golf cart so we could cover the whole lot, which is huge!  We drove through "the jungle" on the backlot.  WB is the only studio in town with a forested portion of the backlot so a lot of other studios shoot there when they need outdoor stuff.  She pointed out a lot of movies that have shot back there, plus she said lots of the police shows that shoot on the lot (Cold Case, The Mentalist, etc) find their dead bodies out there a lot.

Also on the backlot are a ton of houses...well sort of.  The insides of the houses are pretty pathetic and the houses have no running water or electricity.  They are made of thin wood, like particle board.  Just enough for them to remain standing to shoot in.  We couldn't see the whole backlot because Cold Case was shooting on the lot and they won't let tours around their set (shocker).  We did get to see the house that was the visual for the Seaver's house in  Growing Pain, we went into the house that was used for the Gilmore Girls, as well as many houses that had been used in old Westerns.  We also got to go into the house that was used throughout Friends as the Goeller's house.  I got to sit on the very staircase that Ross did in the prom video flashback.

Most of the sound stages on the lot were closed, but we did get to go on the set of Two and a Half Men as well as The Mentalist (which was super exciting for us!)  They took us to two sets because the set of a 30 minute comedy, which is filmed with an audience, is totally different from a 1 hour drama show, like The Mentalist.  They wouldn't let us take any pictures though, and we couldn't touch anything.  Shawn and I wanted so badly to lay on Patrick Jane's couch and take a picture...but they said no.  Boo.  It was still awesome to see!

They also took us to a building where they store a lot of the cars that have been used in WB movies and shows.  They are all working cars too...but we weren't allowed to drive them.  Here are the ones that we thought were most memorable for us.

They also have a museum on the lot with stuff from their movies.  We also weren't allowed to take pictures in there, but the whole second floor was Harry Potter stuff!  It was so cool!  They had the actual petrified Hermione from The Chamber of Secrets!  Lots of the costumes were on display, as well as the Quidditch set and...well I can't possibly name everything that was in there.  It was really cool though!

They also have a building that is all full of props that different productions can use.  In that building they set aside a small area where they store the set from Friends of Central Perk.  Emily told us that with a set like that, one that is so recognizable all over the world, no other productions want to use that stuff.  So instead of destroy it, they just set it up exactly like it was on the show in a corner of the building so excited fans like us can see it!  They even let us get our picture taken on "the couch".

We only had one star sighting on our trip to LA and it was on the WB studio.  The guy that plays  Chuck on the show Chuck was hanging out on the lot.  They shoot his show there on the WB Studio lot, so Emily said it isn't unusual to see the stars hanging around drinking coffee or whatever on their breaks or during downtime.  He waved to us and said hi.  It was pretty cool.  They also shoot the show The Big Bang Theory on the lot, but Emily wouldn't take us into their set.  Darn!  It wouldn't been so cool to meet Sheldon and the gang!

Overall, we had a great tour!  I would highly recommend the Warner Brother's Studio tour to anyone visiting LA.  It was awesome!

Los Angeles Zoo

Shawn and I arrived in L.A. last Wednesday afternoon.  After we got our bags, took the shuttle to the car rental place, waiting for a car (because they were all out and there were 7 other people waiting for their car reservations), and drove to the Farmer's Market to pick up our GoLA Cards...we finally arrived at Albert's.  It was SO GOOD to see him!  The three of us went out to dinner and then Shawn and I crashed earlier (it had been a long day!)

We started out Thursday with a trip to the L.A. Zoo.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the zoo.

It wasn't the greatest zoo I'd ever been too, but it was nice that all the habitats could be outdoors.  It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed wandering around...even though the zoo was completely overrun with small children on school trips!