The end of September...

I can't believe today is the last day of September. While I'm looking forward to so many things in October, we all know what's after that... WINTER. Boo hoo.

This week was a busy one. Work is controlled chaos at this point but I feel comfortable knowing in just a couple of weeks, things will calm down. I'm still transitioning between the new and old place so I'm not feeling "planted" anywhere. I strive for structure and that's definitely missing right now.

We had a wonderful football weekend. Ohio State, Wisconsin, Packers and Browns all had big wins for us. Those big wins helped ease the pain of the Brewers late season nose dive. The Cubs were literally saying, "Here, take this. It's a free pass into the playoffs" but for some reason, the Brew Crew couldn't do it when it mattered most. So now we look to next year...

The Indians start post season play on Oct 4th!!!!

The weather continues to be beautiful here. I was frantic buying Ava some fall clothes and winter pj's a few weeks back when the temps dipped, but she hasn't really had to wear any of it yet.

Ava had a fun weekend and was able to play outside today and yesterday. We went to Culver's for dinner tonight and she had her first taste of "real" ice cream, a.k.a. custard. We brought it home and she didn't let me forget for a second that I put it in the freezer. She wanted it right away. I figured we would have shared but I was only lucky enough to have two small bites.

Ava also has a new movie to watch thanks to Grandpa Tony and Nanny Vicki. They stopped over on Friday night with The Sound of Music! She has watched it a few times this weekend (not all the way through) and has shown great interest. Here she was before bedtime tonight... watching it intently.

I can't start my blog without a big congrats to the Indians!!!! Considering the Brewers recent nose dive, I'm more ecstatic than ever to know they'll be baseball in October in our household. Any of my Cleveland family reading this, please feel free to let me know if you come across any "extra" playoff tickets. I'll be there in a heartbeat...

We had a decent week here. The weather has been summer like although today was the first official day of fall. The leaves are starting to change and some nights you can smell autumn... while I'm looking forward to it, I know that we'll have 6 months of snow to follow. Yuck.

Joe's knee is healing as scheduled. He doesn't have to use the traction machine anymore and impressed the Physical Therapists with his range of motion during his first visit on Thursday. He has to go once a week for PT for the next three weeks. Hopefully he can be crutch free in three weeks as well. He's obviously bored and jumped at the chance to ride along with me to the grocery store yesterday. LOL! Ava continues to take care of daddy while he's home bound. She gets very worried about him and wants to see him the minute she wakes up.

She had a good weekend and got very excited today when Joe and I yelled when the Packers won. She woke up from her nap just in time to see them win. She also had her new favorite snack... remember those little 'snack packs' with the cheese and bread sticks? Her pack had pretzels and cheese and she devoured them. She made sure there wasn't an ounce of cheese left either; same thing I used to do! We watched Annie for the 167th time tonight. I have considered getting Ava an Annie costume for Halloween but didn't want to spend the money for the dress (that I saw on eBay) knowing she'd never complete the outfit with the red wig. Maybe next year...

We rounded out our weekend with a visit from Uncle Brian, Aunt Charisse, Soleil and Dominic. We had breakfast with them this morning to celebrate Brian's birthday. After breakfast, we compared our new minivans as we've both purchased new ones within the last month.

The Passante Family Blog, PART 2

A sincere apology to those of you who have shown interest in my blog. I can't believe I have let 5 months slip by... I'm starting a new chapter with a (pseudo) clean slate. I didn't want to start a brand new blog and lose the information I had already documented, but I also felt bad that so much time has passed. Nonetheless, it's time to move on.

There's no way I can discuss all the happenings of the past five months so I'll start with the most recent news...

I was recently promoted from Supervisor of the Community Support Program I had been at for 6 years and will now be a Program Manager at a similar CSP... it's still with the same company and just 15 blocks down the road. The CSP I had been with assisted the developmentally disabled adult population (mentally retarded and behavioral issues). The newer CSP serves the chronically (and severe) mentally ill population. I am now working full time again which was quite a difficult decision, but I realized this was an opportunity I could not pass. I will no longer be doing clinical work; my focus will be on the program itself (audits, licensing) along with building related issues. Also, I will no longer have a caseload of consumers... I will miss the daily contact but will not miss the daily visits to the ghetto, car beak-ins, flat tires, unsafe situations, etc.

Our other newest (biggest) news was Joe's knee surgery on Friday. He's had problems with his right knee forever and he finally got up enough nerve (and sick time) to get it taken care of. I don't know the medical terminology of what was exactly done, but there was something about a a completely torn meniscus, missing cartilage and holes drilled into the exposed bone to create scar tissue (and act as cartilage). Joe was hoping he'd be out no more than 1-3 weeks but the surgeon told me it was worse than they thought and he'll be out at least 4 weeks. He has "no weight bearing" orders for 4 weeks which means no driving and non-stop crutches. Ugh. He's hooked up to some sort of contraption about 8 hours a day that helps his knee bend (to precisely 110 degrees) and ices it in between. Ava is quite concerned about her daddy and any chance she gets, she runs into the room saying, "how you doin' daddy?"

Speaking of the princess, she's just about 2.5 years old now and runs the house. She is quite independent, stubborn as all heck and has quite the vocabulary. As most of you witnessed from the recent video, she is absolutely obsessed with the movie Annie. She has probably seen it about 50-60 times since we bought it less than 2 months ago. She has also seen Happy Feet and Cars, but her heart is set on Annie. She still attends daycare with Miss Ruth and is now going 5 days/ week. Her favorite activities are: watching Annie, coloring, painting with water colors, reading books with daddy and going to the park. She can't live with her "juice and a snack" every morning and is still addicted to mac n' cheese.