Winter 2025

I seem to have gotten VERY behind. Let's bring it all the way back to January. We went up to Ball State to visit Bella and drop off the van. Unfortunately, we discovered that Bella's Santa Fe had engine issues that were too expensive to repair. We still had our old 2001 Honda Odyssey as a spare and we brought it up to her so she'd have some wheels to get around in. While visiting with her, we took her out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant.  

Dorm hallway selfie!

The boys were recognized at a school breakfast for being on the Honor Roll for first semester.

It was a  cold day, but the sun was out and I needed to take a walk. There are a few ponds near us and these ponds attract a lot of geese. 

I caught them walking on the ice.

Mabel started acting funny again in early February. We were concerned that she got into something she shouldn't have again, but her appetite wasn't as impacted as it was when she ate all the Kit-Kats. She was just moving slower. She'd jump onto the couch, but was afraid to go down. Same with the stairs - she'd walk up without a problem but was hesitant to walk down. 

I took her to the vet and they said she slipped a disc in her back. We have now idea how. We were given some pain medication and instructions to have her take it easy. They said it would take over a month to heal. We brought her crate down and blocked the stairs for about six weeks so she wouldn't be tempted by them. I tried to keep her off the couch because getting down was so difficult, but she seemed to keep forgetting.   

So I put a plastic tote by the couch and covered it with a blanket to make getting down easier.

The only good thing about her not feeling well is that she is super chill when that happens. The bad thing is I can't enjoy her being super chill because I feel worried about her. 

After our trip to New Orleans and the delicious Bloody Mary I enjoyed at The Ruby Slipper, I decided made myself one as my Super Bowl beverage. 

The theme for our Random Acts of Kindness Challenge at school was 'Helping Hands: Spreading Kindness'. I had all the kids in our school color a "quilt" square and then hung them up in our specials hallway. This was just one section of them. 

Curtis's team played their last game of the season. 

Some highlights from the season.

The water here is pretty hard. Here is Andy putting together and installing our water softener. The water feels so much better now (and so does our skin). 

I liked how the sun added this warm glow to the living room one morning. 

Andy bought me some flowers before heading up to Wisconsin for a family visit. These lasted for a couple weeks - probably the longest I've ever had flowers last.

The boys had a band concern that first week in March. Bella was home for spring break that week, so she was able to attend. I wonder how many photos I have of the boys like this from concerts past? 

We treated them to McDonalds after. 

A big storm rolled through. We were woken up in the middle of the night to the whole house shaking. The pounding of the rain on the roof was so loud and it looked like a hurricane outside. Afterward, I learned that our winds were in the 50-60 mph range. Unfortunately, the storm ended up bending our garage in. Andy was able to push it back out. You can hardly tell that it happened now, so it wasn't worth replacing at this time, but I was (and am) still pretty bummed. When you have a new house, you just want things to stay new-looking for as long as possible. 

We also had some siding that came loose. Thankfully, we have a kind neighbor with a tall ladder who helped us fix that. All in all, it could have been way worse. 

Even though Curtis's basketball season ended, our Varsity team entered into its post-season. They ended up winning Sectionals! 

Curtis doesn't play on the varsity team, but since he is still part of the basketball program, he got to ride the bus with the team and participate in the victory celebration. Here he is with some of his other freshman teammates. 

He also got to cut down a piece of the net.

The next day, my sister gave birth to our newest nephew. Introducing Michael Benetti Donovan! (He is named after our dad and I love that so much!)

My spring break was the following week, so I drove up to WI to meet him. I ended up meeting him even before some of my in-town family, a fact I feel pretty proud of. :)

The two Michael Benettis!

Conrad was super sweet and helpful. He made me my morning coffee!

Patiently waiting.

Thank you, Conrad!

Since our basketball team won Sectionals, they were sent on to Regionals. And they won!

Some more hardware and another net to cut!

Our town knows how to show up for occasions like these. There was a parade when they won Sectionals (I didn't get any pics of that one) and another when they won Regionals. One of the team parents even rented a nice bus for the team to travel in. 

The cheerleaders were in the school bus.

Curtis is in this photo, so I took a screenshot of this article.

When I got back from WI, we didn't do anything major for spring break, so on the last night before going back to school, we at least took the boys bowling. It's something. 

Since our basketball team won Regionals, they were on to Semi-State! We had a big pep rally at school on Friday, even the elementary students attended. Graydon played in the pep band.

That evening was the elementary school's annual Staff vs. Students Basketball game. Since I don't like to publicly humiliate myself, I always volunteer to be a cheerleader. One of our teachers had a baby last fall and she joined our little squad too!

All the students and staff who participated.

The next morning was Game 1 of Semi-State. The winning team from that game would play for the championship that evening. Andy's parents were in town, so we decided to stream the game from our living room and, if they won, then just go to the one game that evening. It was such a good game. We were neck and neck the first quarter. By half time, we had taken the lead. At the end of the third quarter, I think we were up 10ish points. But we had a rough 4th quarter. The game was tied up with less than a minute left and then our opponent made a basket. We weren't able to get another in time and ended up losing the game by 2 points. It was a heartbreaking loss. This team has been so fun to watch. The team we lost to ended up winning the State championship the following weekend. I took a photo of our TV screen because I saw Curtis sitting right behind the players just before the start of the game. 

Mabel is back to her old self. 

Bella came home for Andy's birthday weekend and Sam came over. I snuck a photo of them when we were all hanging out in the living room. They are so cute together.