The Big "O"

No, not that! :) Overwhelming!!! That's the word to describe our life the last couple of weeks. Overwhelmingly busy, to be exact. More so than usual. It seems like every day is a "crisis" that needs to be handled that day -- the invites needed to be ordered quickly (the holidays set me a bit behind on that), the contractor doing our new tile kitchen floor had a job cancel so he gave me one day's notice that he was ready to start our job and I hadn't even looked at tile, so that had to be done THAT day, Harrison and I have spent hours and hours sorting pictures for Bar Mitzvah stuff (decorations and slide show montage) and we're almost done but not quite there (we'ver literally gone through thousands of pictures!!!), and just a bunch of other stuff that seems like it has to be done NOW. I try hard to prioritize, but it's hard to do that when everything seems to be top priority!! Mix all that in with trying to work, exercising 2-3 hours a day, and the kids having an extra busy schedule, plus just normal stuff and what do you get? You get OVERWHELMED!

Anyway, I'm doing my best and know that everything will get done at some point! :)

We had some unexpected excitement last sunday at Harrison's basketball game. The game was practically tied and there were two minutes left in the game. harrison stole the ball on the opposing team's side of the court and was running full speed towards his basket. An opponent either tripped or pushed him (accidentally) and he went flying, landing with a huge thud flat on his face. He falls a lot in sports and gets right back up. This time it took a second and when he got up, he was covered with blood. There was soooooooo much blood. All over his face, running down his chest, running down his arm (b/c he was holding his face.) We couldn't even tell what was bleeding and first. Blood all over the floor and everything. I was very good and didn't panic. We calmly put my sweatshirt on his face to stop the bleeding and left the game to head to the ER. Turns out it was a very straightforward cut right on his eyebrow line (which is good, won't scar much) but it was deep - needed SIXTEEN stitches! He was fine by that afternoon and resumed sports again less than a week later.

Speaking of sports, Harrison's sports stuff is keeping us more than busy. Usually he plays one sport at a time with just a little bit of overlap. Well, this year isn't working out quite that way. It's basketball season so he's knee-deep in that with two practices plus one game a week. Then, he was nominated for basketball allstars (nomination goes to the top two players on each team, so an honor!) So he went to those tryouts and we'll see if he makes it. It would be great if he does, but would make the next couple of months even busier, so it wouldn't be a bad thing if he doesn't. His soccer season was supposed to end in November, but they're still going strong and playing in a regional tournament in two weeks. if they win that, they represent our region at teh state level up north! Then, baseball season is starting up, with those try outs last week. They are doing one "coach select" team in his division, where that coach gets to hand pick his whole team first, and then the other coaches do a draft where they alternate picks. He got picked for the coach select team, so his team will be a bit more competitive and will play higher level teams from other cities. A good thing, but just a bit more intense. And THEN, to add to it, he's trying out for the Maccabbi games, which is a huge thing for teen jewish athletes, where they compete against other Jewish teens from all over the world and they stay in "host" homes and there's all kinds of other cool stuff going on. A year and a half ago it was here and we were a host family. He is trying out for basketball and baseball and we'll see which one he makes. Baseball goes to New York, basketball goes to San Francisco.

Anyway, between sports, Bar Mitzvah preparation, band, his mitzvah project and school, he is keeping busy, but is happy and still has time for friends and got his progress report a week ago and has straight A's, so i can't complain.

Jacob and Michela are doing well and are busy as well with school, hanging out with friends, dance and sports. Jacob has a big dance competition coming up the second week of feb. (of course it's the same weekend as Harrison's big soccer playoff tournament, so we'll need to divide up much of that weekend) so he's busy getting ready for that with a lot of extra rehearsals and working hard on his tap solo. Michela is playing basketball and her team is undefeated so far, so that's exciting. She also recently had her softball tryouts and did very well with that. And they're both of course still going to hebrew school and doing youth band and band at school.

Marlon and I are just trying to keep up with everything spinning out of control around us.

There, that's a pretty good update for now. More another time!!! Hope you are all well.