Gaga in the Hospital

While we were resting in between the morning and evening semi-state basketball games in late March, we received a phone call from Andy’s sister that their mom was in the hospital. I still don’t know if I have all the details correct, but I do know she’d been dealing with neck pain for several months. She also began having difficulty swallowing and eventually her breathing became impacted. It turns out that she was getting sufficient oxygen (for the most party), but her body was no longer properly expelling the CO2. Andy drove up to WI to see her the next day. He spent about a week up there and, toward the end of his visit, it seemed like she was starting to do better, so he came back home to Indiana. He was barely home before he got the news that her health was suffering again and that she may be nearing her final days. It’s hard going through something like this when you are several hours away from your loved one. The kids ended up having goodbye conversations with their Gaga over FaceTime. This was a screenshot from Bella’s last conversation. She was away at school, so I didn’t hear any part of this. But Laura did tell me that everyone got really emotional when Chris (Gaga) shared her sadness over not being here to see her only granddaughter get married. 

After being home for maybe 2 or 3 days, Andy drove back up to WI. It sounds like this time together was so special and meaningful. The originally Kilps 5 had lots of time together in the hospital and at home after Chris was transferred to hospice. They were able to spend precious time together and say all the things you want to say to someone you love. As a mom, I imagine this would be my favorite way to spend my final days. It’s such a blessing they all had that. 

February/March Life

I didn't take too many photos in February, but somehow thought these Valentine's Day pizzas were worth rememering. I struggled with the dough so much this year so for the second pizza, I just arranged the pepperoni in a heart. Not the prettiest, but it was the best I could do that night.

Curtis finished the regular season of basketball. Here are some photos from a few games. 

The boys had their third band concert of the school year. Graydon had an amazing bari sax solo during one of the songs and he sounded incredible. 

Back to basketball. . . here is the team at the sectional draw party where they learned the brackets for the sectional tournament.

Our sectionals were held in Milan, which is home to the famous Indiana basketball team of 1954 that the movie "Hoosiers" was about. Our team traveled out there a few days before their first game to practice in that gym.

The first sectional game was played on a Wednesday night. We had the second game of the evening, so it didn't begin until around 7:30pm. It had been raining for a few days and Milan is about an hour drive from Hope. In my almost 30 years of driving, our journey home that evening was the most intense and scary drive I have ever completed. It was a combination of dark, unfamiliar country roads, severe thunderstorms, and flash flooding. When we left the gym that night, the rain was pouring down in buckets. Looking out my windshield, it looked like the inside of a car wash. I turned on my hazards so I could drive really slow. I had a friend with me and Graydon in the back. It was thundering and lightning. The lightning was actually nice because it lit up the road and increased visibility for a few seconds - which was needed because many of the roads had curves that were hard to see. As we drove, we came upon flooded road areas, but we didn't even know we were approaching flooded roads until we were already in them because it was so dark. At one point, the GPS wanted me to turn right, but there were red and blue flashing lights and police officers directing traffic in the opposite direction. A semi had overturned blocking our road home. I was now on roads that seemed even more flooded waiting for my GPS to figure out my new route. I wanted to pull off the road into a parking lot to figure out my new route, but the ground was lower in the lots and I didn't want to get stuck, so I just pulled over to the shoulder so I could turn around. GPS eventually re-routed me, but it had no way of knowing what roads were flooded and it sent me even further into the back country roads than my original route had. As I continued to drive, I came upon another flooded area that took up the entire width of the road. The right side of the road seem to ahve more surface area underwater, so I veered to the left in order to drive through less water. But as I got closer to that side of the road, I noticed a steep drop-off and the water was flowing down like a waterfall! My focus then became to stay in the middle of the road as much as possible. We didn't make it back to school until about 10:20pm, but we still had to wait for the bus of players to make it back to school. They took an additional 40 minutes. When we got Curtis, we still had to drive the 20 minutes to our house. It was such a late night and we still had school the next day. One huge praise is that no one from our school community (and there were a lot of us who drove out to this game) had any kind of car accident. The conditions were ripe for it, so it was such a relief when everyone arrived back safely. 

We were back in Milan that Friday night and then again on Saturday night for the championship game. Thankfully, it didn't rain those nights. Plus,  Andy was able to attend those games. There was no way I planned to drive that route again regardless of the weather! Saturday night was exciting because Hauser became sectional champs!  

With that Sectional victory, the team's eyes were now set on winning Regionals. Thankfully, this game was held in Seymour, which is a shorter drive. Here is the team practicing in that gym. 

Hauser Jets: Regional Champs!

The town came to the square to celebrate the team later that afternoon. 

This took us right into Spring Break, which started off pretty chilly. 

I received a phone call from the boys one spring break afternoon. Graydon was bringing Curtis to basketball practice and then he was going on to his girlfriend’s house. Ten minutes after they left, I got a call that Graydon blew out a tire in his car. 

Thankfully, everyone was safe. Graydon’s girlfriend picked the boys up and I waited with the car for AAA to come. 

I went up to WI for the second half of spring break and managed to take zero pictures of my time up there. I enjoyed lots of quality time with my dad because my mom was on a vacation with her mom and sisters. I also had a nice dinner with several of my siblings.

But I made sure I was back to watch the Jets play in the semi-state game on Saturday. 

Graydon accompanied us to the game. He’s always been a good sleeper in a moving vehicle.

The Jets won the morning game, but unfortunately came up short in the championship game later that evening. It was a disappointing end to such an amazing run, but the team has been so fun to watch and they gave us such an exciting season. 

Hauser Homecoming

Hauser's Homecoming game was held on January 17th. Both Graydon and Curtis represented their classes on Homecoming court. Graydon's girlfriend, Kaycee, was on as well. 

The Homecoming ceremony takes place in between the JV and Varsity basketball games. That's why Kaycee had her cheerleading uniform on and Curtis was still in his game shorts. He did change his shirt since he (and all the guys) get pretty sweaty during the games 

It worked out nicely that they ended up standing relatively close to each other. I couldn't seem to get any photos of any of them actually looking in my direction. In their defense, their eyes were on each couple that was introduced. 

These were all the underclassmen who were on court. Only seniors are eligible to win King and Queen and I didn't arrive in time to get photos with the seniors included. 

I snapped this cute photo of Graydon and Kaycee holding hands. There were other people in the hallway, so I used the camera tool to delete them, but if you look closely, you can still see those reflections in the floor! 

January Life

Our pets love to snuggle. 

I believe we received 14-16 inches of snow, but the wind was so strong that it caused drifts that were a few feet high. We got quite the workout shoveling the driveway that day. 

We got a few snow days out of it which gave me some uninterrupted time to get my scheduling presentations together. 

She likes to create nests for herself out of blankets and pillows. 

Both boys earned an invitation to the school Honors Breakfast for perfect attendance and making the Honor Roll. 

Salty had been limping and it wasn't improving, so Andy took him to the vet. They x-rayed Salty's leg and there for no break/fracture. We're not sure what Salty did, but there is some damage to that leg. However, they said there's not much they can really do for it that wouldn't cost thousands and thousands of dollars. It doesn't really seem to bother him, so we're just going to let it be. He'll just likely always have that limp from now on.