Balch Family Blog

Yes that is right! We are moving up! At Christmas we got an upgraded and top of the line computer from dad! We also upgraded our internet connection speed to the fastest available (we had the slowest) and last Saturday we finally got a flat screen HD TV! The best happens today when the installers come to hook up Direct TV and we get an HDDVR for the family room and a DVR in our room. Yes we will be able to record shows without video tape! WOW!! I know most folks have had Tivo or Replay, not us. We have depended on good old VHS VCR for missing our shows. I must confess, we never taped anything and often miss shows because they are on too late or compete with the other show we are watching. Today…that all ends and we step forward into the new tech savvy world!

Our weekend was filled with LOADS of fun with the boys. The laundry had to wait and the grocery shopping skipped, but boy did we have a blast! On Saturday we went to a birthday party at a park in Anthem where we fished and played at a great playground! The boys even dug for dino bones! We fished there but didn’t catch anything. The water was so clear you could see the hundreds of small fish swimming around. After church on Sunday we went for lunch at Amazing Jakes with the Reed family. That was fun. While there we played mini golf and went bowling. Camden even got a spare! We are now beat and just got the kids to bed but it was all worth it!

…until our cruise. We are all very excited about it and as it comes closer we will begin shopping and getting lots of great stuff for all our adventures! Things are going around here. It has been rocky with Camden going back to school. He was not happy to return and he has been having trouble listening in class. Carsten continues to use the potty but we seem to have many accidents. Each day is different, some days many some few, it evens varies from morning to afternoon. We are going to just keep trying and hope that it is second nature come cruise time. Mark’s work has slow days and busy days but the company is preparing for some slow times ahead and preparing the staff. Thankfully, Mark is the PT with the most seniority and that gives him more stability. Things are good for me. I went to a great conference on assistive technology and I am very excited to implement what I learned and share it with others.

Our fish, Seveta, passed away today. He had been looking sickly the past few days. He would not eat today. I even changed his water for him today. Mark and I could tell that his end was near. We got him 1 year and 5 days ago. Even though he was just a fish, we will miss him.

I have heard that if you call your family a team and create a team feeling your children will be less affected by peer pressure to smoke, do drugs, make bad choices. The idea of a team standing behind them gives them courage to say no, because they are not alone.

Team Balch does not smoke.
Team Balch does not do drugs.
Team Balch is nice to each other.
etc.

So in the car on the way home we created a team cheer/chant. Here it goes:

We are the mighty, mighty – TEAM BALCH

We are the mighty, mighty – TEAM BALCH

We are the mighty, mighty – TEAM BALCH

and we stay together to win–TEAM BALCH!

That is where we are headed tomorrow. We had a wonderful break filled with family and fun. Along with all the hustle and bustle of Christmas and New Year’s we managed to take the boys fishing and to see R/C Airplanes fly.

We also potty trained Carsten, reupholstered the dining room chairs (4 out of 6 of them), saw the Tale of Despereaux, and battled the winter cold bug! Very productive 2 weeks!

Is what we can call Carsten! He has done a great job! Both yesterday and today he has had one pair of undies each day! Yeah buddy! We are sticking with diapers at night because he got so stressed about wetting the bed. We have had two big outings and success! We are so proud!