The "Powers" that be....

Sorry for delay everyone. We’ve been a bit busy, plus it’s just not a convenient computer/internet situation. It couldn’t be much more uncomfortable of a place to sit a computer. That is both bad and good. Bad because I don’t get things like this done but good that I don’t sit surfing the web for mindless reasons. Enough of the whining, on with the blog…..
We were back in Michigan last weekend for an extended time as Jo had Thursday and Friday off, so I took them off too. We got a chance to do a few things while home that we both needed and wanted to get done. Also my parents came home from their Russia trip that Friday night and that was very cool to hear about. They also brought back a few things for us all which were very cool as well. We’ve been back to Michigan two times in two weeks and now we won’t be back until turkey time. It’s a long drive for the boys and they have been troopers but it’s time to slow down a bit for them at least. We also are moving houses this next weekend into a 4 bedroom two floor home on Lake Champlain. It’s only about a half mile up the road but is a much nicer place. So we are looking forward to that. We did move just over half our stuff this past weekend to another storage facility that is half the cost. We’ll have to move the rest as well, but some of that we’ll get some people to chip in. This time I loaded a 24 foot truck all day Friday and Jo helped me unload it all at the new facility. It also gave us a chance to go thru many of the 250 boxes to see where some things are that were missing, like winter coats!
Next weekend Zack has a big cub/boy scout verterans day parade he is walking in somewhere in southern Vermont. I guess this is a big to-do as I think the entire Vermont scouting groups are invited. My understanding is that that is all that’s in the parade is scouts and veterans. Sounds very cool. On the subject of the boys, we have two Transformers(Sean & BJ) and one Harry Potter (in quidditch outfit)(Zack) for Halloween this year. I’ll try and post some pictures for you. We went to a locally sponsored Halloween party last night that the rec department puts on for kids. It was really nice and they had fun stuff for the guys to do. Oh yeah, I totally forgot, BJ broke his left hand pinky two weeks ago, right above the second knuckle. No displacement so nothing had to be ‘set’ which is always good. It was very close to the growth plate and there was disagreement by the doctors whether or not it was at the growth plate but regardless it’s stiff treated the same way. So he’s had a big old bendy splint on his fingers which is usually bent in some origami looking thing by the end of the day cause he can’t leave it alone. He also turned 6 this past month (11th).
Jo and I are doing well, we are both busy at work, which is good. We are making some friends and they have been very good to us inviting us over often for Friday nights. Not much to report on that front. I did get my new taillights for my Mini Cooper. Zack, Sean and I put them in today. Really easy! I know most of you don’t care but they just look more snazzy, yes that’s right snazzy! See for yourself.

A quick story for you all about how we came home here last weekend after driving 12½ hours. It was about 6:30 Sunday night and was just past dusk. So visibility was not great but not total night either. It was dark enough to not be able to see which of the windows in the house was unlatched before I ripped the screen out to gain entry. Yes I know, it’s not the preferred method of entering a house but you see when we have the house key on the key ring that is sitting in the house we are attempting to enter, you must resort to some drastic measures. So I thought, ‘no big deal I’ll just get my trusty flashlight from the camper….which…is….in….the…..house….damn! foiled again!’ Alas a solution presented itself that allowed me to identify a window that was unlatched. Before I tell you my solution and how I came to be in possession of the solution keep in mind I’ve just driven 12½ hours in the car and am not totally grumpy but nor am I in a cheery mood. Moving on….So I’m somewhat pissy with the situation and then I remembered my good friend Craig Powers….No Craig, being pissy does not make me think of you, I was just trying to think thru some potential solutions and I remembered that I had just been given one of those pocket tools that folds up and has pliers, screw drivers, etc. But this one had one extra trick up it’s sleeve, it had an LED light on it that was surprisingly bright. Boyaah!, from pissy to ecstatic. And where, you ask, did I get such a unique, situation saving item such as that! You guessed it, Craig Powers! He gave it to me the night before back in Grand Haven. So thanks to Mr. Powers, I did find a window that was unlocked, I did successfully break into our rental house, and I was able to calm down and have a reasonably peaceful night after that. So to you Craig, I tip my hat, for without your need to give away your collected trinkets in an effort to lighten your load prior to heading on your next life adventure, I believe I would have ripped down as many as four screens in the house prior to finding an unlocked window and therefore have four screens to repair prior to leaving next weekend. We all extend our thanks!

I’ll leave you with tonight’s activities……

And These Are The Days Of Our Lives.......

And These Are The Days Of Our Lives……….

It’s Friday today. The Friday that I work. (For those of you who don’t know, I work a 9/80 schedule which means I work 80 hours in 9 work days which gives me every other Friday off.) No major plans this weekend for once, although it is Apple Festival on South Hero this weekend and from what we hear it’s pretty big. Well, big for Vermont! Jo is becoming more at ease and comfortable in her job and I am still enjoying mine. I am also enjoying my new-to-me Mini Cooper and have been online looking for upgrades/add-ons. I’ve got my eye on buying the checkerboard mirror side mirror casings to match the roof and also a much cooler rear tail light assembly. Other than that I don’t know what more I’m going to do. I don’t want to put too much money into it and the things I am going to do are pretty cheap.
The boys are doing well and have been riding the bus home with classmates a couple times this week and hanging out at their houses, so they are definitely making friends.
I started playing at an indoor (gym) soccer pickup league this last week. Wow, am I out of shape!!!! I thought my heart was going to explode. I also strained a calf muscle that hasn’t really improved yet so I’ll have to watch it this next Monday. Getting old sucks! I am going with a friend of ours, Danielle. She’s pretty good at soccer and we have kids the same ages. She’s the one who started the kids soccer program that Jo and I have been helping with, and the boys have been participating in. I am hoping this off season we can sit down with some neighboring towns and expand the program.
Zack is in full Cub Scout mode now and since we have no idea where his uniform is right now we are going to have to buy him a new one. He is a wolf this year and we are very proud of his enthusiasm for the scouts. His den leader lives on a big farm and so he is going to get a great education about farm life this year. I’m toying with the idea of getting into scouts because I think they need a tiger leader. Zack is also in his popcorn drive so we’d love for you to order something from him. Click here for a link so you can see what he is selling. I’ll have to supply prices some other way. Zack would really love to have your support with this as he can earn a patch for it and it really helps their funding for the year. So call with questions or for prices if you’d like. 616-402-4652. Zack is also really developing an athletic zest. He loves soccer, but also football. He really likes all sports but has latched onto these lately. Know for the engineering geek side, he likes to watch Modern Marvels on the history channel with me and just recited some fertilizer facts to BJ yesterday after watching the Modern Marvels on fertilizer a couple days earlier. That’s just darn funny to me! He also really liked the one on the building of the Mackinac Bridge.
Seany is also making friends at school and already has his favorites. He is doing great and they love him there. We have had a few notes about how he has been a real example for the rest of the kids. For those of you who haven’t seen him lately or interacted with him, he is very in control of his body language and facial expressions. Well beyond what BJ and Zack could do at that time. I don’t know how to explain it, but if you spend only 5 minutes with him he’ll have you laughing.
BJ is doing well also and academically doing well in school. He’s struggling a bit socially but that is because he is overdue for a meds increase. He is big into catching frogs right now and I think he really likes living in the sticks out closer to nature. He too is finding friends, and doesn’t know it yet but he has a girl friend. It’s a little girl from his class, a real spitfire, who has a big crush on him. I guess she’s been writing her name and BJs with hearts all over her house. Of course he, like his dad, is clueless about that stuff. I’m not clueless now but back then I was.
We went home last weekend and got to see everyone. The only downside of the trip was that Pete & Mandy have had a pretty major setback to their pregnancy and their bid for children. I don’t want to go further into that as I’m sure they don’t want details broadcast over the internet. We did get to go to the symphony with June and Dawn as well as out to dinner at Arboreal. Both were great and we were very thankful for the night out with adults and also to my parents for once again answering the babysitting call. Every once in a while you do something as an ‘adult’ that makes you feel, well, like an adult….The symphony was one of those things and I found myself not only enjoying the music but also people watching. The majority of people were older but they all looked like they were enjoying themselves and I realized so was I. Go figure, an uncultured beast like me enjoying the symphony. What’s next, cats and dogs living together? Britney Spears getting a clue? The government actually getting something done? A presidential candidate that we can actually vote FOR instead of the least of two evils?........Sorry, got side tracked there for a moment. Damn near got up on a soap box. Back to the symphony thing…….So here is your hypothetical question to ponder for the week. Is it best to make your kids go to things like the symphony when they are young and totally disinterested therefore risking that they grow an aversion to such things until they are much older, or is it best to give them much smaller snippets thru some other way hoping they’ll show interest by themselves or at least not get an aversion and therefore be open to it much younger in their adult life? (I am contacting Guinness to see if that qualifies for the longest sentence in history) Regardless, talk amongst yourselves……Oh yeah, if I just sparked off a spousal argument…….it was Joeys idea, yeah right, Joeys idea!
June is doing alright but finding this round of chemo a bit more taxing than the previous round. It was good for not only Jo but all of us to get to see her. Obviously we are all concerned about the future and where things are going to go. On the subject of Jo’s parents, we continue to get cards from people showing they are thinking of us, both in concern for June and in memory of Dale. It’s greatly appreciated.
Jo is getting more comfortable in her job but she has also has some major challenges that are not normal to an incoming new principal and they have kept her from adapting as quickly as if she had come into a previously decently run school. It has been interesting to watch her truly become a more confident, stronger person. She certainly takes less crap from me. Oh well, it’s easily worth it. She works hard and is learning to adapt to a different schedule. Maybe I’ll have her add onto this herself.
I think that’s it for now, feel free to leave feedback to this, I think there is a link below. Also, you may be able to subscribe to this blog so you know when it updates. I don’t know for sure though. Check around on this site and let me know. Lastly, for all you Michiganders, I just wanted you to know what it’s like to cheer for a winning football team. By that I mean consistently winning. It’s Fantastic! It’s Great! BooYah! Go Patriots! Doesn’t that sound like fun? I still cheer for the Ly-Downs, but now I can cheer for a team I know has a chance to win consistently, it certainly is nice.

PS. Please forward my ‘blog update’ e-mail to anyone you think might be interested. When you do, also send their e-mail to me and I’ll add them to my ‘Blog update’ email group. If you do figure out how to ‘subscribe’ to the blog and get automatic notification of a blog update from the blog site, let me know and I’ll take you off the ‘blog update’ email group. If you’d just like to forget about us and live a normal life without these pestering e-mails……tough, your stuck!!!! Just kidding, let me know and I’ll remove you in a year or two.

At The Edge Off The Cliff

It’s been too long since my last update which was about July 20. I believe the last you heard was our house was about to sell and we had put an offer in on a nice country house here. Well, on or about July 25, we got word that the house deal in Grand Haven was about to fall thru. TWO DAYS before they were scheduled to close! We were absolutely angry, frustrated, and flabbergasted! That’s right flabbergasted!!! Of course this meant our house deal here had to fall thru as well. We were not happy. Keep in mind we had moved out of our hotel on the 22nd and were living in our camper. So we had no house, Jo had no job, and we just felt overwhelmed. So I get home that night and Jo had to go to an interview for a principal on North Hero Island in Lake Champlain. She really didn’t want to go but it was the second round and she was one of three candidates. She was also pretty crushed about the house issues we had that day and was probably not projecting the normal happy JoJo that we all know and love. Well she went and I was in the camper with the kids all grumpy about the house. That was not a happy couple hours that Jo was at her interview. She went and got home about 9:00pm feeling like she had at least presented herself well but also pretty confident that she didn’t get the job. It’s 50 minutes from Burlington to that school so we weren’t all that depressed that she was not going to get that job. 10 minutes later the phone rang and she was offered the job!!! We lived many emotions that day and while it wound up positive, I never want to do it again.

Keep in mind Jo wasn’t at all sure she wanted to do this principal thing because she thought it would keep her from the kids too much, and it might, but she decided to give it a try. Thus begins her frequent trips ‘To the edge of the cliff……’ Figuratively speaking of course. She would come as close to panic attacks as I’ve ever seen. Literally day to day. Keep in mind there were several other things going on too. We were living in the camper, her dads health was not great but he was staying relatively even, and her mom seemed to be getting sick again and had scheduled a doc apt to find out what was going on. I on the other hand was in charge of talking her back from the edge of the cliff every other day. Really no big deal in comparison. So things seemed to be looking up, and I think we even said that. Whoooops! Was that the wrong thing to think.

On July 29 Jo drove home with the 3 boys, the long way below the lakes, to be with her mom who had found out her cancer was back and was going to have surgery that Tuesday the 31st. The trip went fine and she was able to hang with her family as June had surgery. The outcome was not good and nor was her prognosis. They were not able to get the cancer out and she was given a limited amount of time left to live. This was very hard to take because she had conquered so well in her previous round. I joined Jo at home for Coast Guard weekend and also to help her drive back, this time thru Canada because we’d gotten copies of the boys birth certs because the normal copies were in storage.

This too would not go as expected. We got to Port Huron and upon entering Canada, we found that the County Clerk had made a mistake and given us two for Sean, one for Zack and none for BJ. Turned out not to be a big deal and we figured we would have time to deal. Wrong again. We drove all day Sunday and got home on August 5th. It would be only 4 short days later before we’d be back in Grand Haven but not for June’s health but for Dale’s. We got a call that Wednesday saying he’d been found collapsed at his home. We figured it was just another episode of his ammonia levels being too high and he’d come out of it. Turns out it was much more than that. He had pneumonia and many other problems and his body could no longer fight. June was released from the hospital in time to say good bye and everyone else was able to as well. He passed away that weekend and his memorial service was August 16. Sometimes life just slaps you in the face and for Jo, this last year and a half has been one big slap. Ups, downs, then more downs, and some ups. It’s made for a lot of days ‘at the edge of the cliff’. (I’ve barely touched on this phase, not because I don’t feel it’s significant, but because it’s still pretty hard for all of us to deal with, especially Jo.

Well we got back and Jo started work right away. We were still in the camper and shortly after getting back we had a communication problem with the office and they gave our spot away. So with less than 24 hrs warning we had to move our camper to god only knows where. We found a place and it turned out way better than the previous place and it was also on South Hero Island which was closer for Jo. We still needed to find a rental for school time though. We finally found one and right on the water. We’ve been here just over three weeks and it’s been great. My parents and brother Brian came out for Labor day week and it was great to have them here and they are excited for us being here.

So, all things said and done we are actually doing very well. We took the boys to the top of Stowe and the view and ride was awesome. We also stayed at Smugglers Notch with my parents and the kids are amped to go skiing and boarding after staying on the mountain. Frankly, so am I!!!!! We are budgeting to get season passes to Smugglers Notch, or as we locals call it – Smuggs. The leaves are turning already and I can’t wait for my first fall in New England. We still are concerned about June, and hope she can get healthy enough to come out and visit. We will be coming home sometime in October for our annual pilgrimage to Glen Lake to go canoeing. That is if we can find our canoe carrying equipment in storage…….That is our life right now, ‘Storage’, but, we’ll keep plugging and hoping for that one thing that needs to happen, the house sells. Once that happens we’ll be in a much happier place.

I’ll try and get some pictures with the next update, but we are on dial up now and I don’t know how many weeks it takes to upload a file the size of a picture J.

Finally, to everyone who has shown us tremendous support through everything and especially Dorothy & Carroll who have gone above and beyond, we say a huge, and I mean HUGE thank you. So, from the edge of the cliff, I’ll sign off for today.


It’s a few days later now…..Saturday September 22. We didn’t start out to have a big day but we finished that way. First, soccer practice. It’s growing every week. There was no real program here on North Hero but a great mom from Jo’s school started one and Jo and I volunteered to help coach. It started with less than 10 kids and today we about 30. That’s a great turnout and we have fun. So, an hour and half of that and then it time to go into Burlington. We found out the South Burlington High School has an annual ski swap, much like the YMCA from back home. So I was geeked to get there and see what we could do for the boys. I was not disappointed. We got 3 sets of skis, boots, and helmets for under $400. That was great! So it was on to the next stop, BK. Ate lunch, then headed by the used car shop that had the Mini-Cooper I wanted since I’ve been here. It’s been too high a price and I have been able to hold off even though I really want it. We’ll today it was listed at my threshold price. You know, the price you set that says you wont buy it until it drops to such and such a price. So, today I became an ex-gas guzzler and the owner of a red mini-cooper with checkerboard roof. It’s an 03 and I’m pretty excited to get it Monday. I guess I’m getting tree huggery crunchy…….blech! What really sold me was that I took about a 20 minute test drive and 8 minutes into it Seany fell asleep. So he was sold. Lastly we went to Cosco. Enough said about that!

For those of you who don’t know our SBC email is kaput! So Jo and I both have gmail accounts. jimbennink@gmail.com joeybennink@gmail.com Will try and get pictures up soon of the car and the kids ski stuff.

So long for now……….