November in a Nutshell

Here is what happened at the Hsiao House in November.  Well, those things I can remember at least.

Seasonal Activities

We bagged our annual 30-40 bags of leaves.  Having these cute helpers and watching them enjoy their "work", makes all that leaf cleaning worth it.  The following are pictures of the leaves from only half of one of the many many trees in and around our yard!  We have lots and lots of leaf pickup every year.

Because we had our first little snow of the season, Mark also built our first fire of the season.  He tells the boys there has to be snow to have a fire!  They get so excited about both these things.

 Visit With Mandy and Brian

We went up to South Weber one Saturday to visit Mandy and Brian.  Well, Mark was going up there to go on a long bike ride with Big Brian and I decided to tag along to visit with Mandy and see Ellie and the updates on their cute house.  Mark and Brian ended up riding 37 miles on their road bikes, while I talked to Mandy and let the kids play.  Then when Mark and Brian returned, we went out to lunch and then to the Hill Aerospace Museum.  It was such a fun day! 

The boys, especially Brian, loved the museum!  There were so many neat planes to see and I am so glad Mark was there to tell them all about everything!  I can't believe that place is free!  It's amazing.

Brian was so into learning everything and I learned that Mark has a lot of knowledge about military aircraft (I don't know why I was surprised) but I was certainly grateful he was there, because I couldn't answer any of Brian's questions.

I was excited so find an airplane named after me.  Its name is Jenny.

Here Mark and Brian are admiring something spectacular and Timmy is pretending to be a plane.  For some reason I really like this picture.

This is the only picture I got of Ellie.  She has the cutest and most expressive face!

Meniere's Attacks

So for those who don't know, we think I have what is called Meniere's Disease.  It is an unpredictable inner ear problem that, for me, causes random attacks of extreme vertigo, in which I get these sudden sensations of spinning and whirling that bring on extreme nausea, vomiting, sweating, tremors, and even seizure like symptoms.  Basically I am totally fine one minute and the next I am down and out for at least a day (usually several days) with each attack.  Any movement of my head makes everything worse and standing up during those attacks is often impossible for me. I didn't have any problems for two years and then out of nowhere I had three bad attacks during November in the course of two weeks.  It was not fun for me or everyone who had to step in and help take care of me and the kids.  Mark took days off of work to take over and his mom and my mom helped out as well.  I'm so grateful for all of the help and especially Mark's ability to suddenly act as both the mom and the dad.  While I was recovering, but at least able to be at home alone, the boys spent a little extra time on the couch or in the bed with me.  I'm seeing doctors and having more tests just to rule out these problems being anything other that Meniere's, but I'm pretty sure it is Meniere's Disease.  We'll see I guess.  I just hope those attacks stay away for another two years at least!

Between Meniere's attacks we were able to make it to Scheels as a family to use a gift card Mark had.  The boys loved the bowling game!

RV Adventure

Mark flew to Oregon during November in order to buy this beautiful Rialta RV for an extremely good deal.  He drove it home and we excitedly started making grand plans for our first trip in it and I even started packing it up!  He fixed a few things on it and we drove it around and played in it for a few days.  Then one night as Mark and I were having a simple conversation about the RV, we came to the conclusion that this baby was just way too nice for us.  We do not need something this nice or this expensive, so the next day he posted it online and ended up selling it for a nice profit.  It was fun to own it for a little while at least!

The RV was pretty cool.  These captain chairs, which are behind the driver and passenger seats, turn into a bed for the boys and the dinette seats in the back turn into a bed as well.  It drives like a van and can seat eight with seat belts and sleeps four.  It has a sink, stove, microwave, fridge, toilet, shower, bathroom sink, air conditioner and heater all designed to fit into a small space.  It is pretty cool, but in the end, not for us.  We sold the tent trailer after our last camping trip to Moab, so we are back to square one on the camping/trailer/ RV front with a little extra money in our pockets thanks to Mark's buying and selling finesse. He sold the tent trailer for more than we bought it for as well.  He really amazes me when it comes to this kind of stuff.  He know the value of items and can fix them up easily to increase that value with little cost to him. I bet he knows more about Volkswagen Rialtas now than most RV dealers out there. We'll see what he comes up with next!  Stay tuned!

Gymnastics

Brian and Timmy finished up a session of gymnastics in November.  They really enjoyed it and I think it was great for them too!  We'll take a little break and maybe start up again in the Spring.

Thanksgiving was the last thing that happened in November.  I'll record those happenings in a post to come!