hmmm...

I've been feeling like I should blog, but nothing spectacular has been going on around here. We have just been busy with life.

The kids finished up their soccer season on Saturday. Due to all the rain, it was a short season, but the kids had fun.

School will wrap up for us on Friday, and the kids have finals on Thursday and Friday. School doesn't actually end until next week since swine flu extended it 2 days, but we already had plans to head out of town this weekend, so we are finishing up early.

Speaking of heading out of town, we have a busy week ahead of us getting ready. Not only am I packing all of us to go, I am also finishing up wedding stuff. We are all getting very excited to get on the road. Our plan is to leave on Friday afternoon, and Barry (who has Friday off of work and can sleep all day) will be driving all night Friday night. I will drive on Saturday, and we should make it to Ogden, Ut. by Saturday night, where we have hotel reservations. It will be a nice place to stop, and we will let the kids play in the indoor pool and we can all stretch and relax for a bit. From there, it is only a 4 or 5 hour drive up to my sister's house in Idaho. Barry will be flying home on Monday morning (he has to be back at work on Tuesday), and then we are in a marathon race to get a wedding/reception together by 1:00! Should be lots of fun!!!

It has been a scary week, medical-wise, for both a niece and a nephew. My newborn niece, Bella, has been hospitalized. She got a nasty bacterial infection that she has had to fight off with the doctor's help. Thankfully she is home now and doing much better. My grown nephew, Travis, was in a nasty car accident late Friday night. He was not wearing his seat belt, and as a result he had to have recontructive surgery on his face. He is so lucky that he didn't lose an eye. I thought that he had been thrown from his car, but he wasn't. He did fly up over the airbag, though, and his face left a nice impression on the top of the car just above windshield. He has been in ICU, but is hoping to go home today. I am very grateful that they both are ok. Trav will require more surgeries on his face, but he is alive. It could have been a different outcome so easily.

Kayti and Josh finished up seminary last week, and both of them acheived "Master Scriptorian"... that means they memorized all 25 scripture masteries, and read their scriptures for 200 days consecutively. Kayti also had perfect attendance. I am so proud of both of them!

So... maybe I had more to blog about than I realized! ;)

Mother's Day

First of all... happy belated Mother's Day to all you wonderful moms out there!

Now that that is said, I have to be brutally honest about something... I had almost gotten to the point that I hated Mother's Day. Yep, you read that right. I usually came away from church feeling just awful about myself because I failed in comparison to all the wonderful mothers talked about during Sacrament Meeting. Then I faced uncooperative children at home. Like I said... not the best of feelings. This year I almost dreaded going to church, and really wanted to just cover up my head and stay in bed all day. I know... terrible attitude I had!

Anyway... as it turned out, yesterday was a wonderful day. Great talks and lessons, cooperative and even appreciative children! Sweet Kayti made me both lunch and dinner. Barry and the kids got me a book that I have been wanting, then let me stay in bed all afternoon and read! The kids even made me a very special book... one filled with wonderful pictures and words of love from them.

I love being a mom. It's really all that I ever wanted to be when I grew up. I had always wanted 6 kids... and got made fun of in high school for sharing that with others. When Barry and I got married and started having kids, I still wanted 6, he wanted less. I remember going to the temple once when I was pregnant with Josh, and praying about how many kids we should have. I left that day knowing that we would have 4 - 2 girls and 2 boys. They are the best thing that I have ever done with my life, and I love each of them dearly. They bring me the greatest joy, the deepest sorrow, the most aggravation, and wonderful contentment.

I can't speak about mothers without mentioning 2 other wonderful women... both my own mother and my mother-in-law. I love and appreciate them both very much. Thank you, both, for being such wonderful examples not only to me, but to my children as well.

Hope everyone else had a great day! And thanks, Barry and kiddos for making my day great!

SO HAPPY!!

So, thankfully, elementary schools are back in session tomorrow!!!

No word yet on make-up days, but even if they do have to make them up, not enough days for us to worry about missing, so we can go ahead and continue with our plans to leave for Idaho on the 22nd!! Just so dang happy!!!

Idaho, here we come!! (In 17 days!)

Swine Flu and the Waiting Game

So, I had a brief freak-out moment this week. Megan came home from school on Wednesday afternoon with a killer headache and a low-grade fever. She came home and went to bed, hoping that she would feel better by the time YM/YW Activities rolled around so she could go. She got up declaring that she felt better, so we all headed out the door for church. Barry was working late, so I decided to just kill some time in town and run some dinner over to him at work. While I was in Michael's, one of the cashiers mentioned that there were now 2 probable cases of swine flu in Huntsville. I didn't think much of it, until she said that the kids who were sick just happened to attend my daughter's elementary school! I immediately thought back to her feeling awful, and the fever, and tried NOT to panic. I said a quick prayer, felt at peace, but decided that if she was still running a fever the next morning that I would call the doctor. So, sure enough, she woke up Thursday morning still running a fever, and it was a bit higher than it had been, so I called the doctor. They got us right in that morning. As a funny side note, I should tell you that it was the first time EVER in the history of doctor's visits that we have been able to skip the waiting room entirely! We walked through the door, and they took us straight back to the room. The nurses came in our room, gloved up, took her vitals, and headed back out. Thankfully, she was given a clean bill of health... just a mild cold. I felt that she was fine, but I felt like I should go ahead and get her checked, and I was glad that I did. A third child from her school was reported as sick with probable swine flu yesterday, and now children from 3 other elementary schools in the district are also sick. Her school had been shut down for 7 days, but now with the other new cases, all elementary schools will be closed until May 14th. We are waiting until tomorrow to hear what decision has been made for secondary schools. Those were shut down for 2 days, and were scheduled to go back on Monday, but we will wait to see if that will still be the case or not.

Thus brings me to the "waiting game" portion of this post. We are waiting to see if we will go back to school... we are waiting to see how the missed days will be made up, or if they will be made up. I am NOT a very patient person. I HATE waiting around for stuff. We have plans to leave for Idaho on May 22. Barry is driving us out there, then flying home on the 25th. We have a non-refundable ticket for him, and it would cost us almost as much to change it as it did to purchase it. Plus, one of the reasons we are going out in the first place is for my nephew's wedding on the 25th. I have been asked to decorate for it, and so I HAVE to be there... we HAVE to leave on the 22nd. If only 2 days have to be made up, that is still doable. I can just use my personal days to cover being gone (as long as my principal will ok it), and the kids (hopefully) can take exams early. If Megan has to make up 14 days of school, I don't know what we will do. I know that there are a lot of families in the same boat. School is supposed to be out in 3 weeks, and lots of people have already made vacation plans. UHG... I HATE all this waiting around! Like I said... I am not a very patient person! 

We are taking Megan up to the farm to spend some time with her grandparents while she is out of school. This was actually all her idea, and we think it is a brilliant one! She is old enough to stay home by herself, but we were really worried about her being bored out of her mind. She had asked if she could go to school with me, but no children from her school are being allowed in any of the other schools right now. So, now she can be grandpa's shadow, and both of them will be happy as can be!

Green Mountain, Soccer, Sunburns and Panoply

*Warning! - I still have NOT found my charger, so I just bought a new one. Now I have lots (AND LOTS!) of pictures to share!

Barry's work schedule has been so topsy-turvy the past month that it has been hard to plan on much. When we think he will be home, something comes up and he has to go in early or stay late. So, imagine our surprise on Friday, when he actually got off work when he was supposed to, and it was early in the afternoon to boot! I have been wanting for all of us to go to Green Mountain for a while now, but either the weather wouldn't cooperate, or something else would come up. We had nothing on the calendar Friday evening, and the weather was beautiful, so as soon as we all got home from school, we loaded up and headed out. This was the first time that we have been to Green Mountain, but I've seen pictures and heard such great things about it, that I was really excited to go. I was not dissapointed! We got up there around 5:30, and off we set on one of the trails. We saw lots of beautiful flowers, odd looking trees, an awesome covered bridge and even some cute ducks...


Josh has become our "typical teenager" around here, and would rather spend his time shut away in his room by himself than be with his family. He was not happy that we made him go with us, but soon he laughing, and have fun with all of us. I was recently chastised for not posting pictures of my boys like I have my girls. There is a simple answer for that... the boys are BEASTS to get pictures of. They hate it. I have lots of pictures of Josh with his mouth flung open wide, or making a goofy face, or giving someone rabbit ears. I also have lots of Kyle doing the same. Try to put the two of them in a picture together, and any hope of a "decent" picture is pointless. Nevertheless, I tried to get some of them, just to prove that I am not partial to my girls. Here are the results:


And finally... a pretty good one...


We had lots of fun, then, coming up with goofy pictures. Here are a few of our favorites:


"I'm camouflaged... can you see me?"


"Catch me, I'm falling!"


"HELP!"


"I am 'He-Man!"


"I beat-up my daddy!"


"oomf... tripped over my own feet!"


I did manage to get a few wonderful shots, too.


We had such a fun evening! The park closed at 7:00, and we made it back to the van with 4 minutes to spare! This will be a spot we will go back and visit again!

Josh, Megan and Kyle all had soccer games yesterday... and they all won! Some of us came away from the games sunburned, despite the fact that we put on sunscreen. My legs and feet are pretty bad, and somehow I got a really stupid stripe across my neck! Still not sure how that happened. Megan has sunburned stripes across her knees! Barry has red arms and his face got it, too.

Saturday evening we decided to head to downtown Huntsville for Panoply, the annual arts festival. We have been for the past few years and we have really enjoyed it, to we were looking forward to this year. I have to say, we left really disappointed. It was way too crowded, there weren't any new activities for the kids to participate in, none of the performers interested us and everyone seemed to be in a grumpy mood. The final nail in the coffin came when we went to the food vendors to grab some gyros (a mission favorite of Barry's, and the highlight of the Panoply trip), and they were out of lamb! You can't have a gyro any other way, so we just walked away. The one highlight (for the kids, anyway) was the funnel cake! So, we left the festival and walked to another park closeby. It was nice and peaceful there, and Barry pulled out the camera to take some pictures. I will let him share those on his blog, if he chooses. We ended the day grabbing some ice-cream and heading on home. We were all beat from the long day, and no one complained when bedtime rolled around.

So, there is our weekend in a nutshell. Today has been a wonderful day of rest... the perfect way to end the weekend!

Fun Family Night

*Sorry... no pictures will accompany this post. All of my rechargable batteries are dead, and I can't find the charger, so my camera is of no use to me right now... and I refuse to buy disposable batteries!!*

I love my husband, but he has never been one to be able to sit still through much. He can sit through a movie because it is pretty fast paced, but sitting through church about kills him! Even at work he has to get up and walk around a lot. We blame it on ADD, although he has never officially been diagnosed with it. This has caused me to attend a lot of functions by myself... not that I have minded (much). I would rather go and have fun by myself, than have him there being miserable. So, imagine my surprise when he wanted to go see the BJHS production of Footloose with the family last night! I have been going to see the musicals for several years now with one or two kids in tow, but we have never gone as a family. I had bought tickets a few days ago, and I was so excited to go. Barry started having back problems a few nights ago, and he had to come home early from work yesterday because it was really bothering him. I was a bit disappointed with the thought of him not going, but having had back problems myself, I understand the pain. As the kids and I got ready to go, Barry came downstairs and said that he still wanted to go. So, we all loaded up and headed out (except for Josh... he is going on Monday with his class to see it, and so he stayed home and caught up on some chores. We missed him, though!). We had the best time. Several of the youth from our ward are involved both on stage and behind the scenes, and their talent is simply amazing! They did a great job, and it was fun listening to all the great songs. At one point Barry leaned over to me and asked me if we have the Footloose soundtrack. We have the movie, and I think at one time in my life I owned the soundtrack on cassette tape, but don't ask me what happened to it. I may have to see if I can find it on CD, though, because those are some great songs!

Thanks, honey, for stepping out of your comfort zone and going with us last night! Now... if I can just convince him to go to that wedding reception with me tonight. I know, I know, baby steps! ;)

'Nother update

Megan and I headed back to the doctor today for a check-up. She is feeling much better, and her cough isn't as persistant as it was, so we were hopeful that the doctor would give her the "all clear" today. Her peak-flow (breathing test) wasn't as good as we had hoped for, but it was improved, and the doctor pronounced her "healed" today. We will keep the nebulizer for a bit longer, and use as needed, and she still is taking the higher dose of her Advair until the disk is used up. She was given the ok to play soccer, and couldn't wait to get to practice tonight. We will probably have to give her a treatment when she gets home, but she is just thrilled to be outside, doing something. She has been a very good patient, and not given us too much grief as we have made her hang out inside until she was well enough to get out.

Once again... feeling very thankful for modern medicine, and knowledgable doctors!