Tobin Family Website

Well, it is hard to imagine, but I believe that I am done with my Christmas shopping.  This past weekend, I went out and finished off the things I still needed to get Karen.  The sales were really good, especially at Kohl’s.  This is a store that I had never ventured into prior to this summer.  For some reason, I had it in my head that it was a glorified K-Mart.  I am not sure where I got that impression, but I was wrong.  It is actually a very nice store with a lot of brand name merchandise at very reasonable prices.  I may have to make one more trip out for stocking stuff, but the heavy lifting is all done.  Now I just have to wrap!  Karen, of course, has been done for some time and the presents have long since been wrapped.  It is a sickness, I am sure!

This past week, I had to make another trip to the west coast (the second one in 2 weeks).  I hadn’t planned this trip, but program events and activities warranted some more time on the west coast in meetings.  I only spent a day and a half, but it was very productive.  My normal trips out for program reviews are usually so packed with activity that I don’t get time to actually dig in deep and work some issues.  Last week was an opportunity to do just that. 

Upon returning on Thursday night, I learned that Delaney was erupting in a full body rash that somewhat resembled the chicken pox or hives.  By Friday morning, it was spreading down her legs and arms and I decided I needed to get her in to the doctor.  Despite calling at 6AM to get in the queue for a same day appointment, we were told at 6:10AM that they were fully booked.  They offered to have a nurse call us, which we accepted.  By 10AM we hadn’t heard back and the rash was getting worse, so I opted to take her to the Bethesda Naval Hospital Emergency Room in Maryland.  They concluded that she has Molluscum Contagiosum, a viral infection of the skin.  Karen stayed home with her again today and took her back to the regular doctor to question the diagnosis from Friday, as the online research we did over the weekend did not seem to match the look of her rash.  They confirmed that she had some sort of viral skin infection, but didn’t think it was the MCV.  They noted that some kids who get a viral infection exhibit this kind of a nasty rash as the body attempts to fight it off.  They said she was no longer contagious and that she can return to school tomorrow.   

Ben went ice skating early this evening with a friend and his family.  The rink is an outdoor rink that they set up when the weather gets cold.  I think he realized that it is not necessarily easy to stay up on skates as he came home with a bruised behind and a wounded ego.  He still managed to have some fun, but was eager to tell me about his rough go of it when I got home from work tonight.  I think after watching hockey with me and playing it on the X-Box, he thought he would be zipping recklessly around the rink with impunity.  After he fell the first time, he got a new found appreciation for how hard ice can be. 

Christmas is fast approaching and we are expecting Karen’s sister and two kids to arrive on Saturday from Vermont.  They will stay with us until Tuesday before traveling to Palmyra to stay with Karen’s parents.  Her parents will be coming up and spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us, bringing the total to 9 people in the house for the holiday.  Fortunately, we have plenty of room to host everyone.  We are looking forward to it as it will be the first time since we have been married that we have hosted guests for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  If only we had some snow!  Yesterday, I made the run to Costco to load up the pantry with all of the essentials to feed the crew through their stay. 

I will be working the rest of this week, but have a 4-day weekend pass through Christmas day.  I will then be working Wednesday through Friday of Christmas week before enjoying another 4-day weekend.  It will be good to get rested up as I will have a very busy January, including a week long trip to Monterey, CA, for a conference.  It is going to be a large conference with over 600 attendees planned, and I have a short briefing that I have to give to the group.  Good thing I don’t get stage fright! 

My Hockey Blog is continuing to do well.  So far today I had over 88 unique visitors and they continue to keep coming.  It is a far cry from my friend’s cruise talk blog, Cruise Talk Central.  He has really done well and gets over 6,000 unique visitors a month (whereas my site has averaged ~900 unique visitors a month since 1 Sep 07).  I think he has found an outstanding niche market.  He just updated the site look and feel, so drop on over and take a look.  It looks really good!  He is the one that got me interested in blogging about as year ago, and you will see him commenting frequently under the name Mr. Papa.  Some day we will likely collaborate on a site when we both find the time and a topic that we both enjoy enough to blog about.  The advertising sold on the sites is not enough to quit the day job, but it pays for the web hosting and provides some extra spending cash.   

Tags: Family Update

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