Pirate Party

Here's a belated post about our friend down the street Andrew. He turned 8 recently and had a pirate party on the Santa Maria downtown.

The kids all got dressed up as pirates and went to the boat for a private party, it was loads of fun and included a treasure hunt and sword fighting

Another year away

Josh left last Sunday, ironically on September 11th, for active duty in the Army. He's National Guard unit will be attached to a unit in Afganistan in a few months and he'll be there for a year. It's really hard having him go, he is such a help with the kids and frankly being a single mom sucks... but it's more than that... I will just miss him...

On Monday we went to a wonderful closing cermony, the speakers (and there were plenty) did outstanding jobs. Tanya (Josh's sister) and her kids came up too and after the ceremony we all went out to eat. It was a lot of fun sitting there laughing and talking.
And as I sat there and looked around trying to take my own mental photograph, a thought came to my mind, I was going to be OK this time. My kids are a little bigger, and that small difference will be huge. When Josh left for Iraq the kids were 2, 4, and 7 and now are 5, 7 and 10. That's a huge difference...


It won't make him being gone any less painful, but easier? Maybe, I don't know yet... I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Collin

My baby turned 5 today!! We are celebrating his birthday until his daddy comes home from training but I am so excited for him. Everyday for the past 2 weeks, he would wake, put both of his chubby fingers on my face and say "my birthday is today?", so when I woke him up this morning and told him today was his birthday, he was beyond himself with joy, he screamed and squeeled for a good 5 minutes!!

The cutest thing he did today was as we were sitting in church, he says with news bent down, I look like a 4 year and then he would pop his legs back to normal and say, now I"m a 5 year old... a friend suggested I should put him on a chair and say now your a 13 year old... but I don't think he would get the humor..

NCLEX

When I graduated nursing school I knew the journey was not complete yet, I knew I had to pass the state boards before I was a "real nurse". Unlike many of my friends, I didn't take the boards right away, I really wasn't in that big of a hurry to find a job, but wanted to spend the summer with the kids and Josh. We did a lot this summer, beach twice... King's Island ... and numerous trips to the movies... but one thing I consistently did all summer was study.

I felt if I had a spare minute, I should be studying. If the kids were by the pool, I should be studying. If the computer was on and I'm on facebook, I was also on a website, taking practice quizes... all ...summer... long....

The day finally arrived, I had a 2pm appointment. The minimum number of questions are 75 and the max is 265, you have up to 6 hours to take the test. And because it is computurized, the questions will get progressively get more difficult the better you do.

SO I go in, take the test and come out in 45 minutes! I got the minimum amount of questions and a lot of EKG strips and select all that apply questions. I felt there was a slim chance I actually passed... but here's the thing - this whole summer, I never would study a particular part in my books, I just couldn't get it.. I couldn't grasp the content, therefore, I skipped it... the day before the test, as I sat with a friend, I specifically said let's go over this, I feel like I really need to know it. She and I went over it but said it probably won't be on there when I couldn't get it after several times of going over it...I still felt prompted to study it, so I did that night and the day of the test...
THE TEST WAS FULL OF THAT MATERIAL! Thank heaven I listened to the still small voice prompting me to study the particular information! I would have not done as well, but I did do well and now I am a NURSE!!

Don't mess with an abscess..

Clay started complaining about his tooth on a Friday night, he had a friend over so I thought at first it was an excuse because he was overly tired. As the night progressed on later and later, I realized two things, 1. he was in pain, and 2. he had a good set of lungs... after pain meds, he finally fell to sleep. The next day, we got numbing stuff and temporary filling stuff at Kroger and I hoped I could fill the suspected lost filling and he's pain would subside until Monday.
But here's the thing... there was no lost filing... oh jeez.. it was a cavity I thought, well, he was going to have to wait until Monday with a cavity and brush better. So we had meds on Saturday every 6 hours and went to bed, around 3am Clay came into my room complaining about his mouth and it looked like this....

I kinda freaked a little bit and wondered what to do... gave him meds, and waited for a decent time to call my friend who's brother in law is a dentist. He (the dentist) saw Clay at church 1st thing on Sunday and confirmed it was an abscessed tooth... we started antibiotics and got his tooth pulled out the next day, what a mess...

Apparently when you get a cavity and then a loose tooth, that infection goes into your mouth and causes a lot of pain, it can be serious and go systemic too, scary, scary, scary....

Emerson

Both boys are at Emerson Elementary this year, and although I'm totally psyched about it, Clay needed some convincing that this was for the best. Clay has been going to his elementary from grade K and had a lot of friends. But I knew this magnet school was better academically and that the school was smaller so there is a lot of opportunity for more fun.

Cregan went to Emerson last year and I couldn't believe how much homework he had in comparison to Clay's 3rd grade. Having written that though, Cregan was reading and doing math that Clay wasn't doing until 2nd grade. Plus, my friends Sophie and Missi have there kids in school there and I love that if I need a backup, they are there for me.

Clay, met his teacher and looked at his class and still wasn't convinced, that was until the teacher said, oh and you need a flash drive for all your projects to do at home... wow, he's face lit up and he was eager from then on... plus the 1st day of school the 4th graders beat the 5th graders at football...

Clay turns 10

10...double digit's! I can hardly believe I have a 10 year son!! Where does the time go? This year Clay wanted to have a Captain America party, he also wanted to have a sleep over with some of his friends.
The day came, we had ordered the cake, got all the supplies, made the Captain America shields, pool was cleaned out, Josh was bringing home the pizza...everything was planned...
Then the kids came....and they all jumped into the pool...then the thunder came and they all jumped out of the pool...and then Josh called and says he's going to be late...and I can't put 9 kids in a van to get pizza, in the rain...OH NO!!


All was saved though, ordered pizza, sun came back out, kids ran and played and still didn't get to bed before midnight...but had a BLAST! And now I have an emotional, sensitive 10 year to deal with

Outerbanks

This year we were truely blessed we got to go to the ocean twice.

On our way back from Virginia Beach, we were already planning our next adventure to the beach. We planned this time to rent a house on the beach and go with Josh's brother and his family. It was a long trip down to Avon but once we got there we knew we had made the right choice in locations!

This town had 1 tiny hotel, a dairy queen and a food lion, everything else was locally owned and operated. The house we stayed in was in a cul de sac and we were about 3 house away from the bridge to the sand. So we were so close to the beach, we went early in the mornings and looked for shells which we found TONS and put our chairs and umbrella out, we'd go back in, have breakfast, hang out and then go to the beach, and then Josh and Ryan would fish in the evening.

One of the most relaxing vacations ever!

Virginia Beach

The Friday of Memorial Day weekend around 3:30pm, I ask Josh if he wants to go to Cedar Point the next day, "it's free." I say (for military). He says "do you have anything going on this weekend??"

Nope, nada, nothing planned.... this NEVER happens for us, one of us has something planned ALL THE TIME. He says "let's go to the beach", hmmmmm...."OK..."

We get on the horn, start calling hotels for the next night, we finally find something on the ocean and start packing. We drove until it got to late, stayed in a hotel and started out the next day. Traffic was AWFUL! everyone and their brother had the same idea I think! But we wrestled through and finally got to the beach, it was magical (as it always is). I love the ocean, the sand, the waves all of it!

Here's a view of the hotel to the right and down the beach -


The boys had NEVER BEEN to the ocean, had NEVER knocked over by the waves, had NEVER tasted that salt water, had NEVER built real, honest-to-goodness sandcastles, had NEVER seen a sun rise on the ocean or seen dolphins in the water but that weekend we rectified all of that! We played for hours that first day and then went to an ALL YOU CAN EAT seafood buffet. It was mediocre, but that didn't even matter because we walked the beach after in the dark, and then walked the board walk.


The next day we did it all over again.... and the last morning we were up at 5:45 like everyother day, but this day we actually didn't go in for a while after the sun set, we stayed out in the ocean and played and played.


There was sand EVERYWHERE! and the kids were THROUGHLY BURNT! and the trip ride home was very, very LONG!! But it was worth every second, every moment to take them to Virginia Beach

Pinning

Well after many, many, many years, I finished Nursing school. It was a long, long, long road one that if I'd known from the beginning how hard it would be I wouldn't have taken it, but totally worth it!

The pinning ceremony was a really neat experience, it was more like a "mini" graduation with just the CSCC nursing department and family and friends. There were talks from the head of the department and the student presidency and then there was the actual "pinning" of the RN pin onto all the students and then the lighting of the ceremonial Florence Nightingale lamp.

Josh and the boys along with Leah (my mother in law) and Helen (my grandmother in law) were there. It was special to have them in the circle of all the nurses when we passed the Nightingale lamp. (both Leah and Helen are nurses). The boys were generally well behaved but to head off any nuisance I packed IPODs, Itouch, and Ipad and DSI and snacks!

Along with the family, I had 2 good friends come. It was wonderful to have Megan and Crystal there!

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