At the time...

It did seem like a good idea at the time. How long has it been since we've been camping, Dan? The kids are starting school, we should go. Great idea, or...

The last time we went camping was an overnight ward campout in ND, three or four years ago. It was August and the temp dropped into the 30's that night. After that the moves, various trainings, and deployment just got in the way.

So we decided to start off small, just an overnight camping trip at our favorite lake spot. We did have a good time - hiking, fire, smores, tent, etc. It was a little hot but I'll take it over 30 degree weather for a tent. It all happened at the end.

We are packing up camp and getting ready to head back for swimming one last time before going home. The kids are off bush-whacking in the distance when Punx comes limping and crying back. He has been stung by a wasp in his leg through his pjs. All the kids come back and I go up to him when all of a sudden the wasp decides he has not proven his point. He flies up Punx nose, lets just say Punx starts freaking out, and it stung him inside his nose. Dan takes him to the bathroom to get some cold water on the stings and calm him down. A couple minutes later, Bug just starts screaming, one has stung him and flown into his shorts. Dan takes him into the bathroom and finds the wasp and kills it. DD runs to the girls bathroom and won't come out. I make Punx sit on a curb with a wet paper towel on both his stings and try to get Bug to do the same but he won't turn his back on the forest and, "I'm not going anywhere near a forest." I finally talk the boys into retreating into the truck although it does take some coercion since it involves going back to our campsite. Once they are safe in their refuge, they won't come out and freak if someone opens the door. It took 20 minutes to get DD out of the bathroom to run to the truck and they just sat in there while Dan and I packed up camp.

We had to drive to the other side of the campground to use the toilets before going home, and we have to work hard to convince them that the wasps had not followed us. We went home, we did not do one more swimming trip. Punx had a bloody nose this morning and it was the same side as the wasp sting and he was sure it was connected, five days later. Poor kids.

In other news, my class ends tomorrow and I get my two week summer vacationand the kids have already started, woo-hoo. Take final, finish paper, AC upstairs broken. I feel so behind in my to-do list I think it might lap me.

Juggling

I have never been able to juggle. Once at a parent-thing at the kids school, they taught us to juggle handkerchiefs, I sort got the hang of that. I have tried to learn how to juggle quite a few times, just cannot get the hang of it.

Now to my life, there are too many balls in the air. This has been a very jugg-ly kind of summer for me and I think I have dropped a few balls. I was recently released as cub master, I have never been sad to be released from a calling before but I was very sad to lose this one. Now I am in the Primary Presidency which while less fun than scouts takes up way more time. I am still in my philosophy class, and if any ball is going to be dropped it tends to be this one, I think right now I'll be lucky to scrape an A in the class. There was a lice re-occurrence just as I started to feel better about the whole situation. DD is so sick of me treating her hair and sitting still for hours. And I couldn't be more sick of cleaning the house.

There are some stresses coming down the pipe, also. Good and alright. For fall semester I am taking my first full load, half in class and the other half online, still working toward the Dec. 2010 date. I really need to stick to that date, that is pretty much the only date I have guaranteed to still be here. Dan recently got word that he will be taking command of a company here and it is a very demanding job, about 15-18 months. The great news is that the company just got home from deployment so it looks like Dan will not be deploying the rest of the time we are here at Campbell.

I think that I will be very busy and kind of anti-social for quite a while. I think my regular posting days are on hiatus for the time being.

Breakdown

I wanted to have a nervous breakdown today but then I took a real good look at the to-do list and decided it wasn't a priority. I bumped it to number 47 on the list, maybe I'll get to it later in the week.

My top priority contenders:

Exam today that I didn't know I had. I've been so busy with everything else that I haven't checked in on my philosophy class in about six days, that's really bad. I haven't read the past two sections and now test today. So right now is my study/reading break before I take the first of only three exams in this class. By the way, I am not a philosophy fan. All this debate on whether or not my body exist, what is reality. Are you kidding me? I know I exist because I hear my children whine at me everyday about something. I know I have a body because it is bone-tired by the end of the day. And if reality didn't exist why I am having an exam on whether or not it exist or not?

Next, finish putting the house back together from two disaster this past week. One, we decided to exchange the boys room for ours and when we were just about done we realized that our box spring wouldn't go up the stairs. Two, DD got head lice from who knows where and I have since been cleaning everything and anything in the house. I have treated her head twice with the one-treatment only stuff and been a groomer monkey on her everyday. There is nothing in this world to freak a person out more than lice.

Last contender, trying to appeal for a refund for a class that I registered to take and completely missed. I didn't read the fine print of the registration that said it was a two-week course that would be done before summer semester started so imagine my shock when I logged onto school the first day of the semester to discover that I had already missed an entire class. Dan and I also pay for school completely on our own, this class cost about $800 plus the $80 book. And its a class in my major so I have to take it. I am trying to appeal for a refund to not have to pay for the same class twice.

So between all this, the breakdown had been resceduled for a later date.

Two bright spots. I took the kids to their first day of Y-camp today and I found my emergency snickers last week that I had hidden from the kids so well that I couldn't find it. I don't expect it to last the week.

Coming to grips with...age

There has been a lot on my mind lately and age is one of them. I turned thirty last August and really didn't have a problem with it. Now that thirty-one is not to far away, I'm thinking a little deeper on the subject for a few reasons.

I went to the doctor for my woman's appointment. It had been three years and finally the post hospital actually called me to set up an appointment. A few things came to me about this. First that it had been three years and I didn't even notice. Then while I was doing the maintenance to get ready for my appointment it seemed harder than usual. Something about going to that appointment makes me need to shave my legs. Besides needing to be a master at yoga to succeed at this feat, I also need a riding mower to get at the back forty acreage. While I am shaving the back of my legs, way up there, I notice a dark patch that would make a hobbit proud if only he had it on the tops of his feet. Just one patch on each leg, not only am I grossed out but I am now distressed by the thought of the rest of my leg hairs turning dark.

Anyway, I survived the trimming of the hedge and I get to the doctors. She used terms like, "you're at the age where..." and they weren't followed by anything complementary like "you could seriously injure yourself surfing and recover just fine." No, this was supplement talk. Calcium, bone, you don't want to break a hip, now do you, talk.

Also, recently I started taking fiber, since nothing works anymore. So now I've added calcium to the regimen. Vitamins, Vitamin C, Calcium with Vitamin D, and Fiber. There are so many ways one vitamin can stop the absorption of another so they all have to be taken at separate times, with food or I feel like puking. Now all I need is one of those plastic pill separator boxes with a calculator watch with the alarm set for every four hours to remind me to take my pills to help along the transformation.

Then to complete the picture: Punx and DD have passed the swim test at the Y so they get a bracelet to wear that means they can swim anywhere in the pool and without me being there but Bug isn't there yet. The other day, DD went swimming while I was working out and when I was done, Bug and I joined her. The day camp was also in the pool. All three of us were at the deep end side when the day camp was starting to get out. That's when the lifeguard finally noticed Bug at the side of the pool, throwing things in for me to dive down and get. She walks up to him and starts telling him he can't be at this part of the pool and must go. He doesn't go. I finally manage to swim over and look at her like, what? She looks at me and says, "He doesn't have a bracelet." I say, "He can't be here with me?" She replies, "He doesn't have a bracelet," I say with more feeling, "He can't be here with ME?!" Something in my tone finally got her to stop and look at me. She just stared and me and finally goes, "Are you the mom?" I'm like, yeah, I didn't add that the older girl next to him was also mine and that the oldest was at cub scout day camp, that stuff never seems to help. She looks at me and goes, "I thought you were with the swim camp. I thought you were like 13 or 14."

There are many things wrong with this to me. While I don't mind being thought younger, heck, even half my age, that's great. How sad that someone with my body type, ie big fatty, can be confused with someone that young. And the cut-off for Y-camp is 11. Whatever, I'll take it, once it stops, I'll be sad.

It's just really hard to reconcile all the differences between still being mistaken for a teenager, still acting like a child a good portion of the time, while my body ages just to spite me.

Whoa! Tons of Stuff

We've crammed more stuff into these past couple weeks than I would've though possible. It is a time of transition for all of us here. Another semester down for me, A's in both my classes. The kids have completed another year at school. And we are gearing up for all our summer activities. But here we go for all the fun we've crammed into the past month or so.

The big one:





DD waiting so patiently for her baptism. She turned eight in December but we decided to wait until Dan came home, then we learned than my sister, Jenny was getting her Master's degree in May so to save my Dad the burden of two trips in a couple months time we pushed it back another couple months. She took it like an angel. The baptism went well. And I even got the chocolate stains out of her dress that it took her all of ten minutes in her dress to put in. The day before her baptism was Jenny's graduation so it was just a super-fun busy family weekend.



I totally forgot how boring college graduations could be until we went to this, with all the kids. However, they can also get really interesting when the Provost conducting the ceremony passes out towards the end. Everyone started paying attention then, and she was alright, I am not heartless.

Earlier in the month, Punx got his Webelos:



That is Punx pinning on the parent pin and that is me in my super-snazzy uniform. Punx is really loving Webelos, getting those pins is very exciting to him. I love seeing him so enthusiastic about scouts. We have the best Webelos leaders, which makes all the difference in the world.

We ended the school year, with all the normal hullabaloo, those awards ceremonies that the kid's school does every quarter and that every grade has their own. That is twelve award ceremonies this year. I miss the first quarter because of my classes so I only went to nine, but eight last year. And we all know how these go, they say the same thing at every single one. That is seventeen times of explaining perfect attendance their particular way, what this award means, what that award is. I could do the whole thing myself now but way faster. (Can anyone tell that I don't like these things? But if I don't go the kids get all sad.) I have finally figured it out though. I sit in the corner and put my book/magazine under the sticky cafeteria table when one of the kids is up front and can therefore see me. It helps.

This year, all the normal crap, I mean achievements. The kids did really well, honor roll, Bug got the award for knowing all the sight words, my kids never get perfect attendance. I am just really glad that they didn't do a kindergarten graduation, I think that really would've put me over the edge. The only things that does bother me about this state is the grading system. The cut-off for an A is 93%, for B is 86%. Punx this year, all four quarters only had two grades that were 88%, all the others were in the 90's but he never had all A honor roll because sometimes his grades were in the low 90's. I think it's weird. I tell the kids if it's in the 90's it's an A in this house. Rant about elementary education over.

Now we move onto summer, yeah, trips to the lake, pool, stream, splash park, what else has water in it, the drinking fountain. We are taking a break from swimming and gymnastics this summer and doing track, just to shake it up. Don't forget the free movie festival. It is really amazing how different I feel about this summer compared to the last two, without Dan here now that he is home. I feel all excited and happy. I feel a little of the freak out feeling but that is just about trying to juggle my classes and keeping them happy. If I have to do it when Dan is home from work, then that is what I'll do. Wow, options and parental help, it's like it will never get old.

Blurbs

I am feeling a little disconnected lately, besides being on the computer for my school work and deleting emails that I don't want to take the time to read, my computer time has been very limited lately. I am so glad that I finished my finals this week and have so much more time. But to start fresh I wanted to put out there all those little things that have been floating around in my brain that I would have posted about in a normal way.

1. We cut off our satellite TV. We are a TV-free household, and by that I mean that we set-up Dan's laptop to the flat screen and watch hulu.com for all the shows I watched before. But the kids watch way less now, which means that I haven't heard them quote Spongebob in weeks. I'm liking that.

2. I lived up to my side of the bargain to not do something crazy to my hair during the deployment so I gave Dan a couple months and then chopped it all off, because what I did to it after he came home wasn't apart of the deal...



3. We are having a fun time with Bug right now. Honestly he is driving me crazy. We have had rain pretty much everyday for two weeks and I think that is a small part of the problem the other part is he has the tendency to think the word "now" means at your earliest convenience if you don't mind. The mornings have been particularly tough. Staying on task isn't something he is terribly interested in, like getting dressed for school.



That would be a pair of his tighty-whiteys on his ceiling fan.

4. I actually have a graduation date. It is hard to trust it, I have been going to school off and on for 12 years, it doesn't seem possible. December 2010. I keep thinking that there has to be something that my adviser forgot about. That is one reason why I am targeting graduation for December so that when I find out that there are classes that he forgot about I still have another semester to get it in before it's time to move. So maybe May 2011? And I had to take on a minor with my history major so I choose Political Science, which was one of the first majors I ever considered so best of both worlds here. My first poli sci class is this summer, I am excited.

5. Punx is recovering really well. His ear is almost all the way healed and his physical restriction will be lifted next week. He is really ready for that one. I will post some before and after ear pics later. I think there is some spoiling going one though. He getting a little more bent than usual when he doesn't get his way. Maybe I overdid it right after the surgery with taking care of him.

6. Dan started with his new unit and is back to normal work hours, boo. The month or so after the deployment when they just have them work a couple hours if they ask them to go in at all was really nice. As with all new jobs, they are working him. But, Dan is one of those love to work guys so he likes it. He'll probably only be with this unit for a couple of months and then he'll get moved again, but we'll see.

Well, that is a good amount. I have a couple of weeks off before the next semester starts and before the kids start their summer, I am going to enjoy it.

Mexican Cruise Pics, finally

I am feeling good right now. I am on top of school work, only a couple weeks left of the semester. The house work is on that good predictable schedule. I feel like I am finally getting a firm grasp on things again. Just in time for school to get out, right? Although, I already signed the kids up for Y camp, yeah!

So, the point of this one, is that I finally have the time to sit down at the computer and upload the pics from the cruise. And try to empty my email inbox, boy that was not pretty.



Here we are after a good full day at Cozumel. I did all the good shopping there. We had some real fun there. We didn't do any of that tourist excursion stuff that they try to sell you on the boat. We totally winged it all day. We walked off the boat and looked for the first place that we could find to rent a moped. We then drove around the island. Stopped at a beach that looked promising. That's where there was this guy that rescued animals and he let us play with his monkey, so cute. Then on the beach were these couple guys who had a boat and they took us out snorkeling. It was really beautiful, we saw eels, rays, and a ton of reef fish. While we were out we saw one of the excursion snorkel boats, it was like 25 people all in one spot, all having to wear life vests. There are very few things less appealing to nature than a whole boatload of white overweight Americans trying to commune with a reef en mass. I really liked the way we did it, it was just Dan and I and the local guy occasionally pointing stuff out to us. Without the jackets we could also dive down whenever we wanted to. After that beach, we continued to drive around the island and then found some completely empty beaches and enjoyed walking and exploring there. Then drove back to the boat with one fun little romp through the downtown area that included us driving the wrong way on a one-way street. We did Cozumel up right, let me tell you. The rest of the pics to go with the story...











The next stop was Progresso, that's when we did do the tourist thing and bought an excursion to Chichen Itza, which is the thing we were the most excited about. We were a little bummed to find out that you can no longer climb up it. Later in the day at another part of the ruins there was this thing of steps, maybe like six or seven, and climbing it burned. The climbing down part though was so scary. The steps are small and steep. I know that I would not have gone up to the top, I would have gone about ten steps up, freaked myself out and called it quits. It was really cool to look at though. We got to walk around the almost the whole grounds. We saw the arena where they play that game with the sideways hoop, you can sort of see it in one of the pics. There is this one thing called the cemetery, I'm standing there in the front of it, its a rectangular block thing just with skull after skull in relief, totally awesome. There is one picture I have near the arena with a little Mayan women selling handkerchiefs, she is normal size for her people. It was a really amazing place, even if we didn't see any drug lords.









That's about it, I don't really have any pics from when we were on the boat. We didn't really do anything but sleep and eat. And I mean eat. I am still paying for that one. Here we are a month later, I am just getting back to the gym, I need to work off about 8 pounds from these past couple months, totally worth it.