18 years together

Yesterday, Stan and I celebrated our 18th anniversary. He couldn't get off work since his office is shorthanded anyway, so we went out for lunch together on Saturday. We really want to go to a bed and breakfast in Fredricksberg or some place like that for a Friday/Saturday get away. We have to find someone to watch the kids though. Rachael has dance Saturday mornings, so we don't want to just leave her with the kids. We are hoping my friend Cyndi can watch them, but she can't commit to it yet.

Rachael went to ACC yesterday and took her assessment test. She did fairly well. For the reading and writing, college level was considered a score of 81 (it isn't percent, just a raw score and I'm not sure what it means). She got a 94. For the math, college level is a 39 and she got a 36. I wasn't surprised by this. She hates math and struggles with it like I did. She will have to take elementry algebra before she can take college algebra is all this means. She is planning on majoring in dance, so it isn't like she will need have lots of math credits for her major. She just has to worry about her core classes that will require math. We are going into the advisors office today to find out what she should take first, then we will get her registered. The only thing we are going to have to pay for is her books, which will be enough, but better than having to pay for the classes also. Hopefully she can get financial aid for when she has to start paying for classes once she has graduated. She will probably spend one year at ACC then transfer to Texas State University and get on their dance team.

Rachael and I went to Austin Community College today to get her registered to take some classes there this fall. They have a program where students can take college classes their last 2 years of high school. They are free of charge also, which is an even better reason to take them. We are in the frustrating paper work phase of getting ready for college. She has to go take her assessment test on Monday to see where she stands over all in her basic knowledge. I am nervous about her taking this test. I hope I have taught her well enough. I worry the most about history and science. We have been working on biology for quite a while. She is planning on being a dance major and just doesn't see the point in doing biology. I understand her thoughts, but still feel she needs to have a basic understanding of biology. I have felt so inadequate about being a homeschool mom at times. That has especially been true since I started having health problems a few years ago. I just recently got to the point where I could keep up with the kids school work. I know she will do fine once she starts classes. She is very smart and knows how to apply herself. She is not used to doing all the studying, yet on the other hand, she has to teach herself so much with her homeschooling. She is good at independent learning. I'm sure every mom goes through this nervous phase as their child transitions into college. I'm sure every mom worries if their child is ready.

Nothing else is really happening. We got about 5 minutes worth of rain the other night. I wanted it to rain a lot more than that. It was suppose to rain every day this week, but all we got was that 5 minutes on Monday. Nothing yesterday or today. We still have a small chance tomorrow. It will probably rain tomorrow because we are planning on going to the water park tomorrow with Emily and her kids. It is just my luck that it will rain then so we can't go. Andrew has a friend spending the night tonight, so it will be a fun thing for them to do besides play video games together. It seems that is all they want to do it play video games. Andrew could live playing video games. Stan is like that too, but he is really good and playing for a few minutes, the stopping to do something constructive. Andrew doesn't pull himself away from the game to do anything.

We finally got to see the new Harry Potter movie last night. It was better than I thought it was going to be. I think there was really only one scene that I could have done without. The Weasley's house never caught on fire in the book. I'm not sure where that scene came from. I would have rather seen the DA fighting the death eaters in the end and left out that scene. Other than that, the movie was really well done. Rachael's friend thought it wasn't dark enough, but I was ok with that. I wouldn't have wanted to take Jeremy had it been any darker. He got bored through part of the movie. It was just a little too long for his attention span. If you haven't seen it yet, it is worth seeing it in the theater.

My first photo shoot

I had the chance to do my first photo shoot this week. I was excited and nervous all at the same time. This is the Peterson family. I have known them for almost a year. The mother is the Young Women's president in our ward and my visiting teacher. She asked me a few weeks ago if I could do their family photos. I was flattered though. We went down to the capital and took some photos of their family. Here are the best of the bunch. In total, there was about 10 good shots.




It has been a bit of a struggle lately figuring out what to do every day to stay out of this heat and not just be a couch potato. It is just too hot to go outside for any length of time except for in the morning. Most days, we spend the afternoon at grandma's house in the pool. It is the best way to beat the heat. The pool is about 84-85 degrees. It is just cool enough for me to feel cooled off the rest of the day after spending time in the water. I also get a little bit of exercise in during our daily swims.

Today, we did something a little different. We decided to go bowling. The kids had a great time. Jeremy actually got the best score, although Rachael declared she was the winner since she didn't use the gutter guards and Jeremy did. I didn't actually bowl, I just watched. I tried bowling with the cub scouts a few months ago and only made it 3 frames before my back hurt so bad I could hardly move. I didn't need a repeat of that, especially since my back was bothering me yesterday. Jeremy really loves bowling though. Andrew says he hates it, but seems to have fun while we are doing it. Andrew really wants to go mini golfing again, but I way not until it cools off a little more. Rachael would rather bowl over golfing. Jeremy likes it all. He is so easy to please.

Random thoughts

This past month has kind of gotten away from me. There just hasn't been much to say on here. Nothing exciting has happened in our life. We seem to just be going from day to day doing basically the same things. We have been spending a lot of time in the pool lately. It is just too hot to do anything else, especially anything outside. We have had something like 25 days of 100+ degree weather since school got out. Hot is an understatement. I am so glad that we can go to MeeMaws house and use the pool. I'm not fond of public pools since I am usually the biggest person there. I get very self conscious at public pools. It has been a little better since losing some weight, but I still have some weight to lose, so I am still self conscious. I'll stick with the private pool, thank you. The pools has also been a great source of exercise. I have taken a few water aerobics classes in the past, so I am tried out a few of those moves inn the pool.. It seems to be working out pretty well.

Last October, I had the chance to go to Time Out for Women with my daughter and my SIL, Michelle. It was a great opportunity and I really enjoyed it. I wanted to go this year again, but they were in Houston in March while we were in Pennsylvania. I was bummed, but figured I would just go next year. They have come out with a great new way to enjoy TOFW. You can now do TOWF Webnars. That is another term for seminars on the web. You can go to http://www.timeoutseminars.com/index.php?p_resource=faq and try out one for free. The seminars, called "semesters", are 3 classes over a 3 month period. Each class has 4 parts and are posted once a week. The freebie is only one part of one class, but it was really good. I am going to sign up for a semester this week. The freebie was done by Sherri Dew, president of Deseret books. It is about having influence on others in your life. It was really an answer to my prayers. Since I haven't been working, I really wonder sometimes if I am making a difference by being here on earth. As a nurse, I could clearly see where I was making a difference. I have loved being a stay at home mom, but it isn't as easy to see how you make a difference in the lives of others. I know I make a difference to my children, and I know deep down that this is where it is most important for me to make a difference. I don't have to be so concerned about my health anymore, so I have finally noticed that I do miss working just a little bit. Don't get me wrong, I don't miss it enough to go back. I love being home with my kids. I think I am just going through a little transitional period. I am trying to find more hobbies and things to do with my time. I have things I want to get done around the house. I need to purge so much junk from my house. It is a cluttered mess most of the time. There are so many toys the boys don't touch any more. I'm slowly getting rid of all of those. If they don't pull them out of the box and pile, they just need to go away because they don't play with them. They don't even miss them.

That is about all I have to say. I can't promise when I will post again. I have to figure out what to post about. I don't really care to just ramble on here, which is what I just did. I'm going to wrap this up and go watch Jeff Dunham, Spark of Insanity with the rest of my family. We are big Jefaafaa Dun-ham fans. Achmed is one of our favorites. We can't say "silence" in this house without someone saying "I kill you". At least it does stop the fighting and usually results in several more Jeff Dunham lines from various members of the family.

A week at camp

Rachael and I just got home from a week at Girl's camp. We had a great time. Rachael was a JC this year. She loved being a JC. She was in charge of the 1st years. She would have loved to have her cousin, Jessica, in her group, but she didn't. She really loved her first years though. Here are a few photos of her doing JC activities/skits. In the first photo, she is doing a yoga skit. The legs are not her legs. They belong to Brittney, one of the other JCs. In the second photo, they are doing a game that is sort of like Deal or No Deal. She has her shirt and shorts on with her bathing suit over them, with socks and stilletos. Isn't that just sexy ?!?! It was a really fun game with lots of silly activities that the girls had to do. They all had a blast doing the games. It is likely to be played again in the coming years.

I was the camp nurse again this year. Rather than having an assistant, there were 2 full nurses. Since we didn't have the golf cart this year, the other nurse was the roaming nurse. She went out to the activities and treated any injuries/problems out at the activities. I stayed up at the office and in the cafeteria area. I was probably far busier than the other nurse was because a lot of the girls wait until they are up by the office to get the small things treated, like bug bites or medication for aches and pains. We have a new camp director and stake young women's presidency this year, so there were a lot of things different. The girls only did out door, non-water activities in the morning and they were allowed a little more free time. It made a huge difference. I had only 2 or 3 girls the entire week with heat related illness. I mostly treated insect bites this year. I actually got to do the crafts this year. I have never had time in the past. I still came home exhausted, but I didn't feel as worn out at camp as usual. I also didn't have any girls that needed to be driven to their activities.

Here is a photo of our ward at the end of camp. We always stop at Dairy Queen on the way home from camp and get lunch. We take a photo in front every year. It was a really good year.

I'm not really sure why I am posting anything since I don't really have anything to say. I want to start posting a little more often though. I figure something will occur to me as I start typing.

May has been a really busy month. Rachael has had her VIR show. VIR stands for Visions in Rhythm. It is a pre-apprentice performance dance troupe. They did a big show on May 2nd and now she is getting ready for her academy demo. That is what Tapestry calls their recital. They don't do frilly, expensive costumes like they did at Jackies. The teacher usually picks out a simple costume and it can't be over $15. It is a huge relief not to have to spend a ton of money on costumes, especially since Rachael is taking 4 classes plus VIR. She was in 9 dances for VIR. She has 3 performances this coming weekend. I also have to do concessions and flower sales with VIR at each of the shows. I think Stan and the boys will only need to go to 2 of the performances since several of her dances are repeated in several of the shows.

Jeremy had cross over with Cub Scouts on Tuesday. We had a picnic at Mary Searight park, then the award ceramony. He is now officially a Wolf. It looks like I will be the Wolf den leader again next year. I'm going to ask one of the mom's to be my assistant and see if we can trade off each week. It will be nice to share responsibility. There is one mom there that helps me a lot anyway.

My body sure is messed up lately. Aside from my normal MS problems, I started having problems with my stomach in the fall. I had to have an upper endoscopy and they found that my stomach wasn't digesting food fast enough and it was causing reflux and esophagitis. They started me on 2 medications for the problem. It pretty much took care of it, except I quit having a menstrual cycle. One of the medications is causing that problem, so now I have to take another medication to fix that problem. I went off the offending medication for a week, but I was miserable. I lost 3 pounds that week because I was having trouble eating and felt nausous all the time. Being off the medication for a week didn't bring back my cycle anyway. My gyn put me on a 10 day coarse of progesterone to see if that would cause me to start, but still nothing. I know this is probably more information than you ever wanted. I am so frustrated by all of this. I hate having to take one medication to treat the side effects of another medication. Will it ever stop? The endocrinoligist wants me to take this medication to treat the problem but this will make the medication for my stomach ineffective and could cause interactions with my migraine medication that could potentially be life threatening. Not fun. Welcome to my world!!!

Not a bad post for not having anything to say.

BTW, I lost another 1.4 pounds at Weight Watcher's this week bringing my grand total to 60 pounds, although only 53 since starting Weight Watcher's.

I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. A lot has been going on around here. Rachael has had her license for about a month now. It has been nice not having to run her to dance all the time. It is still nerve racking for me sometimes. I worry about her when she is on the road. On Saturday, she is driving herself and Aashlie to the stake dance. Normally, that would be no big deal, but the dance is in Marble Falls, which is a 55 minute drive from our house. I'm sure she will get out there fine, but it will be late when she comes home and that makes me nervous. There won't be a lot of traffic, so that will be good, but I still worry. I guess the worry never stops though.
Here is a picture of Rachael in her prom dress. She has some photos she took at prom and I need to get those from her. Boy, our house looks bad. We are going to be getting siding put on next spring. We need to paint and we have some rotting wood on the house. Anyway, I digress. She looked beautiful and so grown up. She went with her friend Daunte. His dad rented a limo and 3 or 4 couples shared the ride to the prom.

I have had a really long week this week. I had to have a root canal done on Tuesday. I went to the dentist Monday with a tooth ache. I had a cavity filled in December and she told me it went very close to the root and may end up needing a root canal later. It did. I couldn't eat anything on Tuesday and survived the day on milkshakes. Wednesday was a little bit better, but I still had to eat mushy food. I'm back to normal now. You can tell my looking at my house that I haven't felt well this week. It is a disaster.

The kids are all doing well. Jeremy is so funny. I was leaving the house the other day and it was just him and Rachael at home. In a very sultry voice, he tells her "now that we are alone, what do you want to do?". He is too young to be saying things like that. I'm going to have to watch him when he gets older. Andrew has been really enjoying his cooking class. He has been doing it every other week, but I think I am going to sign him up for weekly classes for the summer. Once he gets a little faster, then I will start having him cook dinner. He does a good job at baking and making simple things like pancakes. He is really slow when he has to cut things. I would rather he be slow though than have him rush through and cut himself.

Rachael had her dance show a few weeks ago. It was called "To sleep, per chance to dream". It was all about dreams. She had a dream solo about deja vu. She did a great job. The group dances were amazing. They all did such a great job. She has become an amazing dancer. She wants to become a professional dancer/choreographer as well as teaching dance and maybe opening her own studio when she gets a little older. I think she will do great.