Summer fun

Hey there!! Long time, no see.

We've been having an eventful summer. The girls got out of school around the middle of June, and all 5 of us got on a plane out to California. The girls stayed with our in-laws, and Jeff and I had our 1st vacation with no kids in almost 6 years. We went to Vegas...it was awesome. So much fun. We were able to see Ka' and Penn & Teller. We can't wait to go back.

The girls had a fabulous time with Jeff's parents. Their cousin Ariel was there, too, for the majority of the time, so they had a bunch of girly fun. Played dress-up, got in the spa, played with dolls and Barbies, and generally ran amok for 4 days straight. Needless to say, my worry that they would miss us while we were gone (as this was the longest we'd ever been away from them) were unfounded. I doubt they noticed we weren't there. In fact, I think we got a passing "Hi mom, hi dad!" after we came in the door. They were too busy.

Emma got her ears pierced with Auntie M & Aunt Kammie. I'd been asking her for 3 years if she wanted to get them done, but she kept telling me no thanks, because she knew it would hurt. Ok fine. But, as soon as mom's gone, and her aunts suggest it, SURE! LOL

As soon as we got back to Michigan, Emma started PEAK. It's a day camp that runs for 6 weeks during the summer. They have water days, do arts & crafts, go on field trips. Just the thing a kid like Emma needs. Not to mention the fact that most of the kids go to her school and she needs to make some new friends. Her best friend is switching schools next fall and making friends can be hard for her.

Sarah & Katie are doing well, having fun running around like banshees at home. Katie's doing really well with the potty training. Sarah we're still working on. Hoping to have her almost 100% trained before school starts. They're getting along pretty well, with only a few screaming matches a day. Otherwise they're like peas in a pod, best friends, partners in crime, the whole thing.

Jeff is doing well. Traveling for work. He just got back from Ithaca, NY. He & a co-worker did a presentation @ a conference at Cornell for a software product they use. I got a nifty Ivy League school sweatshirt. Yeah, you're jealous.

We also went to visit our friends in Tennessee for the 4th. Fun drive, all 14 hours of it. But it's worth it because they're our oldest friends, and our kids actually get along pretty well. We're the "Brady Bunch": they have 3 boys, we have 3 girls. The logistics are going to start getting a wee bit uncomfortable, as our two oldest are only 2 days apart, and they call each other their "boyfriend/girlfriend" when they're apart. Ahem They're 9 1/2. Oh boy, not looking forward to the teenage years.

This coming semester is Jeff's last. It's going to be hell, not looking forward to it, but then it'll be done and he'll have a degree that he's been working towards for 5 1/2 years. I'm so very very proud of him. Between going to school and working full-time, not to mention getting a promotion in between there and having to travel constantly for work. he's done extremely well. He'll be graduating with honors, which is hard enough for some people to accomplish without all the responsibilities that he has.

That's pretty much the rundown of what's been going on with us. Not a whole lot of excitement, but then again, I'm not sure I want a ton of excitement.

Update from our neck of the woods

We've had quite the goings-on around here lately, so here's a wrap-up.

I flew to San Diego a couple weeks ago to attend my sister's college graduation. It was the 1st time in almost 2 years that Jeff's been alone with the kids for longer than 12 hours. He did fabulous, which makes me think I should leave him alone more often. :D

I had a really nice time seeing a lot of my dad's family. I hadn't seen any of my younger siblings in 2 years, and I hadn't seen my dad or step-mom since my mom's funeral. I was able to spend some time at the beach, which I miss, terribly. Did a little shopping and generally had a wonderful time.

Both Jeff & I finished the spring semester about a week before that, which we were both happy about. I ended up getting A's in all 3 of my classes, finishing my math class with an 102% on my final exam. I was quite pleased with myself. Jeff also got straight A's, solidifying the fact that he'll be graduating in December with honors! Woo hoo!!

The girls are all doing great. After having some struggles making friends in the beginning of the year, Emma's made a really good friend in a girl named Paige. She's in 4th grade, which means she'll be leaving this school at the end of the year (the schools here are K-4, and then 5-6) but I know she'll keep in touch, and I'm sure we'll be having sleepovers & playdates all summer.

Sarah is having a blast in school, with the last 2 weeks of preschool wrapping up. She's headed to K next year, which I know she'll do great in. We've have K Round-Up, and last night we went to a Parent meeting at the school, where we toured all the classrooms. She didn't want to leave! We have her transition IEP tomorrow morning, where everything for her placement will get finalized. I'm pretty sure her therapy times won't change much, and I think the agreement was that her and another little boy will share an aid, who will travel to the different classrooms with them.

Katie is doing great! Since I got back from California, we've been working on the potty training. She's had a few mishaps, but overall she's caught on really well! I decided that I couldn't handle training 2 kids at once, and Katie, although she was really hesitant to use the potty chair a month ago, started initiating it on her own, so I decided to start with Katie. I know once Katie has it down pat, that Sarah will want to emulate her and she'll be along shortly. :D Katie's biggest hurdle was she really liked the design on her pull-ups and didn't want to wear anything else. But, I convinced her with some new Minnie Mouse undies. Now, she only wears the pull-ups at nap and bedtime. I can't yet have my "ritualistic burning of the changing table pad" yet, but it's close! Unfortunately, I don't think Sarah will be able to go to the speech camp this summer (funding is non-existent) so we'll have the whole summer to work on it! I'd love to send both girls to school in the fall completely pull-up free.

Katie is still my little talker. The things that come out of her mouth have me in stitches at times. Another blogger I follow said that kids at this age are so literal. I can definitely see it with Katie. She picked up Sarah's pants from the floor of the bathroom and asked,"What's this mom?". I told her,"Those are Sarah's jeans." She said,"No, it's a flower." Apparently she had been talking about the design on her jeans, not the jeans themselves.

As for us, Jeff and I are looking forward to traveling to CA in 2 weeks to visit his family. The girls will get some quality time with Nana & Papa, and Jeff & I will be taking a well-deserved vacation to Vegas for 4 days. This will be the 1st trip without kids in almost 6 years. I can hardly wait. But first we have to get through the last couple weeks of school, and Jeff has his final ACSA exam to take. Oh, and then there's the little thing of actually flying with 3 kids cross country, which is always fun. But, they're older now, and hopefully will be a little easier. And please let there be NO exploding diapers @ 35,000 feet.

Oh blog, I have not forsaken thee...

This poor blog has taken the proverbial back seat for the last month or so. I have numerous things that I want to blog about, but most of them are going to require vast amounts of uninterrupted time and energy, neither of which I have at the moment.

Just a few notable anecdotes:

* Jeff & I both got through our finals/last papers with our sanity (mostly) intact. We just got our grades: 2 A's for me, an A & a B for Jeff. I'm so very proud of him!!! This has been the hardest semester to date for him and he did fantastic!

*Emma turned 9 last week. Instead of a birthday party, she decided she wanted to go to Great Wolf Lodge for a couple days. So we leave for there next Monday, which is Jeff's birthday. So we'll be celebrating 2 birthdays at once. This is Jeff's 30th, so it's a big deal. :)

*The little girls are doing great, aside from neither of them being able to take a nap due to their constant playing when they're supposed to be sleeping. In fact, I just had to put them in separate rooms and lay down with each of them in order to get them to sleep this afternoon. They were both exhausted, but were playing too much to notice. It only took 5 minutes each for them to fall asleep.

There are lots of other things going on, but this will have to suffice for right now.

Am I ready for this?

Last night we were discussing what to do for Emma's birthday that's coming up in a few weeks. Her, Jeff, and I were running ideas around, when Jeff had the idea of Emma going to visit her Nana & Papa for a few days. She loved that idea, since it's been a year since she's seen them.

Nana & Papa are in California...We're in Michigan. This presents a problem.

This trip would entail Emma, my soon-to-be-but-not-yet 9 year old, to fly...on a plane..by herself.

...breathe...

She's old enough (heck, I flew by myself numerous times from the time I was 5, but that was from Sacramento to Burbank & back), and I know she enjoys flying, so it's not like she'd be having a panic attack at 20,000 feet. She doesn't even require (by the airlines) that it be a direct flight, she can have a connection! (I don't want her to though.) We're trying to work out the details, and I know she's excited. She loves her Nana & Papa, and the chance to have them all to her herself for 4 whole days?? It's enough to send her over the edge. We'll see how Mommy & Daddy fair.

A Tough Decision

So, after numerous hours of wracking my brain and stressing about too many unknown factors, I've come to the decision that I just can't make this trip to North Carolina. I'm bummed beyond belief, but my car is acting up, my kids are starting to act sick, and as much as I'd like to spend time with my family, the trip there and back by myself would probably stress me out way more than the trip is worth.

I still need a vacation...

You Tube

Video's up. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuAucIgWUsc

The last great hurrah

Of the summer, that is.

Since the last few months (ok, who am I kidding, the last YEAR has been super hectic/stressful/pick your choice of adjective) have been busy, we decided we needed a family vacation that didn't involve weddings, funerals, or illness. We needed something relatively cheap, close, and extremely family friendly. The Great Wolf Lodge fit the bill.

It's a very nice hotel that has an indoor waterpark, an outdoor pool, a mini golf course and an arcade. Plus it's only 2 1/2 hours away. So we packed up our swimsuits and waterwings and headed out for a 3 day vacation.

We took a lot of video, which Jeff is working on editing, so hopefully it'll be up soon.

The kids had a blast! Whenever we walked inside the waterpark, we basically didn't see Emma for the next hour or so, lol. She would come back and ask if either Jeff or I wanted to go on one of the big slides with her. We took turns playing with the little ones in the kiddie area. Katie was in her new-found element. Apparently this child is a waterbaby. She was absolutely wild about the little slides and would go up and down, and up and down...for ever. She would also walk to these white tiles that were in the ground which had the depth of the water on them, jump along them (there were about 6 all in a line), pretend to jump off at the end and then put her arms up, like she was jumping off the balance beam. ROFL You think we've been watching too much Olympics?

Sarah was content to sit on the sidelines and play in the water. She was relishing in having daddy all to herself, with both sisters occupied. She was also being very friendly, talking to everyone within reach. She would go down the slides with Katie every once in awhile, but when she did attempt it, she would mostly just sit at the top of the slide and block everyone's path.

Emma was my little phantom child, showing up every once in awhile, to tell us what she'd been doing, to introduce us to a new friend. The hotel also had this interactive game called MagiQuest. It's a medieval role playing game that has the child going on quests for different items that were scattered around the hotel using a computer-chipped wand. Emma had a blast running around searching for the items she needed. It's a very long game so she didn't get to complete it, but she gets to keep the wand, so when/if we go back, she can play again.

Emma and I also were able to go get a manicure together. Well, she was in the kiddie spa area, and I was in the other area, but we did it at the same time! The kiddie area has an ice cream parlor type of atmosphere, which was cool. Emma got sugary sweet smelling hand lotion and pinky sparkly nail polish. This was the first manicure I've had in ages, so it was nice to just relax and be pampered for a bit.

Jeff was able to get away and work out for a little bit. That's his version of stress relief. I wish I had his determination. LOL

All in all it was a nice vacation. We were all sad to leave, but we know we'll go back sometime in the future.

On our own again

Jeff left early this morning for a business trip in Salt Lake. I feel so bad for him because we both got such a lousy night's sleep, but I was lucky enough to get to sleep in a bit after he left.

A quick recap of the last few days: We had fun during our 1 night "stay-cation" at the hotel. As soon as the girls got out of speech camp, we went home, finished packing up our overnight bag, and checked in. We immediately changed and went to the pool. The indoor pool was heated, so it wasn't completely refreshing, but it was better than nothing. Plus it started raining outside (go figure) so it would have doubly sucked if it had been an outdoor pool.

The girls had fun, although Sarah kept wanting to go into the spa, which was a lot hotter than she was accustomed to. Whenever we go to Nana & Papa's (who have a spa) they cool the water down to about 98 degrees, but I'm betting this spa was at least 103-WAY hotter than I was comfortable with. Sarah is still kinda iffy when it comes to water in general, but Katie was a fish. She absolutely loved it. She didn't mind if her head got dunked (although after reading about dry drowning, I was a bit nervous and kept checking on her after she went to sleep) and was happy as a clam jumping off the edge of the pool into my arms. We put Emma's pink water-wings on her and while she doesn't have the coordination to keep herself upright (her body keeps wanting to float on it's back) she WAS confident enough to jump towards me from the steps of the pool when I wasn't looking.

Emma is slowly getting more comfortable with swimming. I REALLY need to get her into swim lessons. I think with her being my first, I've been a bit too protective and was perfectly happy doing everything for her and not really noticing if she didn't know how to do something when her peers probably did (such as riding a 2-wheeler and knowing how to tie her shoes). I think I've been so focused on her school work and speech & the little ones, that I've kinda neglected that part of Emma's upbringing. Either that or I just assumed she'd learn how to do things on her own. I don't remember going to swim lessons as a kid, I just remember knowing how to swim. But, I was at the beach every summer, and had family who could take me all the time because I was the only child/grandchild that was around until I was 8. *This is the part when I get all pouty over the fact that we have no family nearby.*

Anyhow, the girls had fun, and it was a nice reprieve from the heat of our house.

Speaking of the heat, it is really affecting how Sarah & Katie sleep. Last night was just awful. We tried to get everyone to sleep in the basement (which is probably about 10 degrees cooler than the main level) but no one would settle down. So we put the little ones in their room on the floor with a box fan blowing right on them. Jeff went in their and tried to get them to fall asleep, but it took awhile. Then at around 2:45am, they took turns waking up and being restless. So, Jeff and I took turns trying to get them settled back down to make sure they didn't wake the other one up. We opened all the doors to let the cooler air flow through the house, but all that did was open the door for the girls to get up and walk around the house. They were each found asleep in the living room, at the side of our bed, at the door of the pantry after getting into it, in Emma's room, under their bed, and IN our bed. Needless to say, none of us got much sleep. Except Emma, who sleeps through anything.

I tried to put the little ones down for a nap this morning, to try and help them catch up on their rest, but it took almost 90 minutes for them to settle down. By that time, it was close to the time for Sarah to go to camp. I decided to let her sleep instead. So hopefully they'll both wake up refreshed and ready to give me a run for my money. :D

Quick post

We are retreating to an air conditioned bunker hotel somewhere nearby due to the constant bombardment of heat. The children are wilting as we speak. We are hoping that a night in a room where the inside temp is LESS than the outside temp will help to refresh us. That, and a dip in a pool that isn't inflatable.

Will update tomorrow when I won't be sweating buckets.