Full Steam Ahead!

Well, this week has been crazy, and it is only Wednesday. Getting ready for school would be SO much easier if our building didn't get completely torn apart each summer. This summer it was my turn. They redesigned our office, so all my stuff is spread all over the building waiting to return to my office. Today, they finally moved my furniture back to my office, but all my materials are still in boxes all over the place. The PA system, which is supposed to be leaving my office, is still hooked up, on a dolly, and sitting right in front of my office door, so I have to walk around it. It is huge! My office got painted, but it looks splotchy in the back corner, so I guess I'll have to figure out how to decorate to mask the unevenness on the wall. They also didn't put my shelves in completely (I have one at the top, but no others), and I have no baseboards yet. So, they'll come back later to add those...........I hope. The last three days, though, we've been barcoding the district's textbooks and getting trained on how to use the tracking software. So, I haven't been around the office much anyway. Today I went by, but I could only stay a minute because they were about to wax us into the office (they are waxing all the floors and you have to let it dry for at least an hour before you can walk on it). I spent my afternoon moving textbook boxes in my bookroom instead to get ready for barcoding in the morning - tons of them @ 48 lbs. each. I'm very tired. Tomorrow I will spend my day working on books, putting them ALL back in the bookroom (about 2,200 of them) and helping arrange the main office - I'm ready for a break. I was supposed to get Friday off, but now I have to work in the morning. I'm pretty disappointed about that, but what can you do? Everyone is getting worried that things won't come together in time, but they always do. Oh, and I'm planning a presentation for staff development as well! AGH!

Jonathan survived the croup last week. He was barking like a dog, and trying to scream because he couldn't breathe. We gave him a breathing treatment and put him in the shower to get steam for about 20 minutes. It helped enough for me not to have to take him to the ER. We went to the doctor instead, and they saw us immediately. He barked for about 2 days, but he's better now. Alyssa still has a cough, but she's getting better, too. I went to the doctor Monday for a bladder infection, and they had to put me on a different medicine because they said the lab test showed the infection was resisitant to some of the ones I would have normally taken, like Cipro---which is why it came back, I guess. FUN! So, I'm taking something else that makes me sleepy, which is great for the first week back to work! :-)

The neighbors invited us for dinner tonight, so it's nice that I don't have to cook and we will get to visit. I just hope I can stay awake through dinner! ;-)

And, we're anxiously awaiting news about Richard's Dad's court date today. We are praying all goes well and that the truth will come out.

Cha-Ching!

Well, today we finally got our money. But, some of the people still have not gotten paid. Though we are thankful for our money FINALLY hitting our account so that our automatic drafts won't have issues, we are worried about some of our co-workers who may not have theirs as of yet. Richard has gotten a few calls about it, but it really seems to be a bank mistake, and not one from our district.

Also, today we had our garage sale at my mother's house. We sold almost everything, and though we didn't make as much money as Richard wanted, we made about what was expected. And, the BEST part is that all that junk is out of my house and guest room!!!! Yippee! I finally feel like we accomplished something. We dropped off the stuff that we couldn't sell at the nearest Goodwill place so we didn't bring it back into our house! Double Yippee!

So, now we REST! It was really hot out there today - between 102 and 105 degrees!!!!!

The Joy of Technology

I got up this morning, spent a little time alone relaxing before the "house" woke up, and I surfed the net. I read some interesting articles and got some good ideas for Alyssa's birthday and Richard's anniversary presents. Richard woke up and came downstairs, and he said something about paying bills today since we got paid last night.

So, I checked the bank account. And then TERROR struck - we didn't get paid! We called the admin building, and it seems that a bunch of people didn't get paid (unless they banked at the school's bank). So, now we wait for the school's bank to open so that they can figure out what the heck happened so they can get us our money. I'm just thankful that we don't have any automatic drafts that occur today. Hopefully all will be resolved TODAY!

B + D spells COOKIES!

Aunt "D" and Aunt "B" contributed to our last day of summer fun. Deborah (and Bryan, too) gave the kids cookie cutters from Williams Sonoma in various shapes (race cars, hats, dresses, planes, trains, trucks, dresses, etc.) last Christmas, and we used Beth's recipe for dough and frosting to make them. The kids had a great time baking yesterday and frosting today. Richard, Mr. South Beach, even decorated some........and ate one!

To top off our last day of Summer Vacation, we spent the day at the water park. We had a great time, got plenty of sun (but not too much), relaxed just enough, played just enough, and then grabbed a bite to eat on the way home. It was a great day. Thankfully, we only have to work two days this week, so the weekend is coming fast! And, I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing tomorrow since my office remodel is not done, the building is in chaos because the floors are being waxed, the furniture is all out in the hallways, the carpet is not done, the air is only slightly cooling the building, and there are no computers set up........hmm.

The End of an Era

Well, today Richard and I cleaned out the guest room, the attic boxes, and part of the children's retreat as part of our summer purge. It was a very emotional day for me as I opened the boxes of baby clothes, went through each one, touched all the cute little outfits again, and realized once more that there will be no more babies for us. I cried over all of that, plus the fact that my "babies" are now running through the house, reading, losing teeth, and arguing with each other! And then began the frustration of deciding what to keep as heirlooms, what to give away, what to throw away, what to donate, and what to sell at a garage sale in a few weeks (isn't it terrible that I've got enough stuff to do all five of those!?!?!?). Anyway, I think I made the right decisions - only time will tell, I guess. But, our guest room is clean except for the garage sale stuff that is on one side of the room, and the stuff we are giving to relatives. And, our van is FULL of stuff to take to the community charity - some baby stuff, some of our stuff.

My mom is currently on her cruise, but we plan to ask her when she gets back if we can use her driveway two weekends from now to sell our wares. Her area draws a huge crowd, whereas our neighborhood is not very good for garage sales. Plus, our HOA will only allow us to have one as an entire community - no single garage sales - we are limited to two pre-set dates per year as determined by the HOA. So, we don't want to wait until the first weekend in October to reclaim our home, so we may haul our stuff to my mom's to sell. I've also got a couple of things we're going to sell on eBay, just to try it out for the first time. We'll see how that goes.

The Pense Medical Clinic

......or at least that's what it feels like around here. Alyssa threw up this morning (though now she says she feels tons better), Jonathan has an issue with his knee (he's been limping around for a few days), he lost his first tooth and has a second one that is loose, Richard is still sneezing despite all the cleaning we've been doing (or maybe because of the cleaning we've been doing), and my left pointer finger and thumb have been numb since my last chiropractic adjustment and last night my wrist started aching quite a bit. I think we've all had too much summer fun! :-)

We need a vacation from our vacation! But despite it all, we're still having fun around here and enjoying relaxing together.

We're bringing sexy back........

......at least to our bedroom anyway! We spent all afternoon today cleaning it from top to bottom. Richard has been sneezing a lot lately, so we decided to DEEP clean the room. We cleaned out our cedar chest, his military foot locker, the drawers, and closet. We vacuumed under all the furniture, even the bed. We took it apart, cleaned and vacuumed all of it, and then polished the wood. We vacuumed the baseboards, the blinds, all the carpets, and dusted everything in sight. We threw tons of stuff away, donated a bunch of stuff to charity, and now we feel GREAT! It feels so good to be free of all that crap! I can't wait to attack the guest room next!


Doesn't it look nice???!?!?!?

Our Camping Adventure - Part I

The past three days at Dinosaur Valley State Park have been a blast. We hiked, cooked out, slept (sweated) in a tent, swam in a prehistoric watering hold for dinosaurs, explored the river, went on mini-adventures, learned about God's creation and His love for us through little field lessons we did, learned about dinosaurs, cooked solar s'mores, went on nighttime walks with glow bracelets, got a visit from the "camping" tooth fairy, and bonded as a family. The temperatures reached close to 100 degrees, but we somehow survived with no air conditioning. Here are a few of our favorite pictures....the first is of our hike/climb to the watering hole.

We hiked/climbed down to the prehistoric watering hole and viewed some dinosaur tracks. Jonathan got up close and personal with them. You can see the ledge. It drops off to at least 24 feet past that little piece of rock. We came back later and swam in it - it was a very nice break from the heat!

You can see two of the toes rather clearly - the other one is harder to see in the photo.

Richard enjoyed his new outdoor kitchen we just bought him. He was quite the chef!

This was after our little adventure down the river. We walked through the river until we got to the cliffs. The kids had a great time, even though we all stumbled a bit.

Walking in the riverbed.
Swimming at the swimming hole - or actually, sitting on the ledge for a photo. We also made cucumber canoes and had cucumber boat races - I think Jonathan's won - hard to tell since they eventually all flipped over! :-)

S'Mores, please! We made ours this year in a solar oven we made before we went. The kids had a fun time making it, and we had an even tastier time trying it out! It was quite a cute little experiment.

Tent, sweet, tent! Boy, was it hot at night. But, Richard had bought us a little fan, so at least we had air circulating.

Alyssa and her Doodlebug that she found. She played with it for a long time! And, though this looks gross, it was necessary. We resorted to setting a place for the flies during meals so they would eat "their plate" and leave ours alone! The funny part is that it actually worked!

Our Camping Adventure, Part II

Jonathan lost his tooth while we were camping, so the Tooth Fairy had to make a State Park visit. We left a glow bracelet by his tooth in the pocket of the tent, and she left him $5.00! He was so excited when he woke up the next morning. We put his tooth in a little blue container for him so he could keep it.

We visited DinoWorld on our little camping adventure. It was fun for the kids - lots of life-sized dinosaurs out among the trees. You could walk around and read about them. Then we got to see some fossils in a mini-museum and dig for our own. The kids had a great time.
Before we left, we made homemade granola bars to take with us. They were delicious after our little hikes and adventures. We even sat in the middle of the riverbed and had some! Yum!

Summer, Baby!

5 cups of Basil for pesto from our own garden, and you can't even tell I took any off of the plant! Yummo!

The Third of July!??

The days since Florida have been really busy! Monday we were really busy recouperating! Ha! We slept, took naps, unpacked (a bit), did laundry (a bit), and mostly just enjoyed being home. The kids played in their rooms almost all day - they missed their toys.

Yesterday, Richard and I cleaned out our closet. We have four big trash bags full of clothes to donate to the county charity. And now my closet is the most beautiful thing in the house! And, I cleaned out under the bathroom sink and organized all my lotions and potions. So, I now know all that I have. I used them this morning, and it was so nice to have it all organized and handy.

Today, we got up, worked out, and went shopping. We are making barbecue, homemade ice cream, and homemade butter (just for fun). We also got a mini pool for the kiddos, and they are waiting for the water to warm. I am going to cut a bunch of my basil later (I have two huge bushes of basil that are taking over the garden!) and make pesto for our picnic dinner tomorrow night - we're going to the harbor to watch the fireworks. It is so nice to have almost another month off with Richard - it has been a long time since we've both had this much time off!

We got Richard his anniversary present today - a bit early, but he wants to use it when we go camping later this month. It is a camping table/kitchen set. He's really excited. Have a great FOURTH!

Back from Florida!

Well, it is good to be home, though I can still hear the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. It has been fun to look at all the photos and video clips to remember how much fun we really had. Here's a taste for you to enjoy.

The Louisiana Highpoint - Driskell Mountain

Battleship USS Alabama - we stopped on the way to Florida

This is Alyssa's first time to see the beach/ocean/Gulf.

More beach/Florida photos........the kids loved the sand.

Jonathan wanted a tropical shirt to match his Daddy and PeePaw. He's such a little gentleman, and he behaved really well at the restaurant.We took a boat ride to Crab Island, swam with the jellies a bit, played ball, relaxed, and went sight seeing in a pontoon boat.

Richard tried to fight the ocean in his little green floatie boat - you can decide who won! :-)

Our first night there (below) - a family pic with the sea.

We also went to Seaside, Florida, to see the town, and get some gelato! Yum! This is where the Truman Show movie was filmed.

Everyone Together in Florida!

It was really nice to have the entire family all in one spot. The last time we were able to get together for an extended period was in 2005 for Mom and Dad's 25th anniversary at Eureka Springs. It will be fun to look back at these photos over the years to see how all of us change. Hope everyone enjoyed the vacation as much as we did.