Vacation

I know that I have been back from vacation for a while now but I am just now getting the chance to sit down and write about it.

We went to the Fort Fisher Aquarium first and that was a major let down. So there are not many pictures of it. First thing when we got there, more than 2 hours from home, we locked the keys in the car...I should have taken it as a sign that this vacation was not meant to be. Here are some pictures we had done of the boys.


Notice in both pictures Nate has quite the face. After the aquarium we were headed to the USS North Carolina Battleship. But first we had to call a locksmith to come let us in the car. Once we got to the battleship we were just in time for closing. This was not the plan obviously. We were to see the ship and then head out to Beaufort and stay so we could start the next day off where we needed to be.
We instead got a room across the river. This is the view of the battleship from the hotel pier. By this time it is dinner time and we are in historic downtown Wilmington. The nice guy at the hotel desk said we should go try the food at a restaurant within walking distance called Paddy's Hollow. This is on the way to the restaurant. It used to be a street at one point.

It was very cool and old looking. The bricks we not even so you had to watch your step or you would fall down like both boys did at one point in time. There are lots of little shops around there also. Needless to say we will be going back there at some point. The food was great also.

In the morning we got up and were the first people on the battleship and had the whole thing to ourselves ( minus the workers ) for a while. I also found out that I think Drew has a little bit of clostrophobia. He did not really like being inside the ship and was very worried about finding light and not getting lost. That is something I will need to keep an eye on and remember in the future. He still had a good time. Poor Nate some of the doors that he had to step over were just as big as his legs were. It was funny to watch. Once we finished with that we drove to Beaufort where we were going to take a boat ride out to an island called Shackleford Banks. It is inhabited with wild ponies. But the when we got there it decided to start raining and get windy so they were not doing any more boat rides that day. It was only 2 in the afternoon so we went to the beach and played in the waves, collected shells, got dirty, and then it started to pour on us. But who cares about getting wet when you are at the beach?! Not my kids. Drew loved running from the waves and watching some people try fishing from the shore.

This is after Nate was told to not get to wet and be careful. He tried running at the waves and one came up, he ran but it caught him and down he went! I don't think you can tell in this picture but he is soaked. And this is before it started to rain on us. After getting yet another hotel room for the night and more clothes from Kmart, we went back to the boat place hoping to get to the island that day. It was still yucky out and we had to wait till 11, it was only 9. We walked around Beaufort and watched the water, saw some of the big historical houses, and a really cool cemetery.

I will for the life of me never understand people that throw trash into the ocean, lake, side of the road, wherever they may be. The boys were very angry that someone would throw trash were it could get in the water and hurt the fish. This is not the first piece of scenery that was trashed up. We did get out to see the ponies and then went on to see 3 of I believe 6 lighthouses. The ferry ride to Hatteras was very scary. I don't think I ever want to drive onto a ferry for the rest of my life. We missed the seasonal opening for Hatteras lighthouse by one day but it was very cold and the wind was blowing at I believe the radio said 30mph, so I probably would have lost a kid way up there anyways. The camera quit working at this point also. We went to the Wright Brothers Memorial and since it was Wilburs Birthday we got in free and the were handing out and making kites for all the kids. It was really cool but another place we will have to go back to since I don't have any pictures. All in all it was fun but there was something that went wrong every single day that we were gone. Now that we know how far it is to all these places and what there all is to do out on the Outer Banks we will be spending a lot of time out there this summer I believe. It is good to be home!

Spring Flowers, Pollen, and Boys

This is the smaller tree in the front. I think it is some Japanese ornamental tree of some sort. Could be wrong. If you know for sure let me know. It has beautiful flowers on it but no smell.

My mother did not believe me that there is piles of pollen just laying around. This is what I had in the back yard after a little rain shower one day. My van sits under the big tree in the front so this time every year it is yellow. I am not going to bother washing it though cuz it will rain soon enough and then just get dirty some more.

More Pollen

This is a birthday card that I did for a friend of mines mom. I love the way it turned out. I know you can't tell from the picture but I did layering on this one. The white, then maroon, then the circles, then the strip across the front topped with the little square piece with stamping on it.

I saw something a few weeks ago about something called fairy doors. I thought people are crazy but I guess it is kind of a big deal to some. I think they are kind of dumb but people buy these things for something like $30. I got this one at the craft store and then painted it myself. I like the way it looks. Made it for my mother who thinks they are the coolest thing ever but it to cheap to buy one for herself and not crafty enough to paint one.

The boys and I found a nice little park here in town that has a bunch of trails to walk along and a little waterfall. It was a nice time but we all had to potty so it was a very short walk that day. We might go back later this week when they are having a hike about all the wildflowers along the trails. That could be interesting but I don't know if the boys would like it or not. We will see.

And here is the little waterfall. Not nearly as cool as the ones we saw last year in the mountains but Nate still liked it. He is a nature kid through and through even if he is allergic to it all.

Spring Break started today at noon so we will be home the rest of this weekend and then probably Monday maybe Tuesday we will be heading out to the coast. We are planning on visiting the Aquarium and NC Battleship, taking a trip out to see the Shackleford Ponies and see if we can't find some cool shells. We might see some of the wonderful Lighthouses NC has to offer. It depends on how I am feeling since I am the only adult on this trip and I have to do all the driving. So that will be on here next.

My Favorite Funny Postcards-From Grandma

Yes, I collect postcards, only from the U.S. so far. Since I am going to start with the Postcrossing project I thought I might do a little bit on the ones that I already have. That is if I can find them all. The majority of these have come from my Grandma Erma in her travels across the United States, or as I like to say when she was out galivanting around. She did make it to 48 states but I don't think that I have one from every state. As I go through them though and someone sees that I don't have a state please if you are ever there please send me one. I would love to collect as many as possible.
I thought I would start with these three since they are my favorite funny ones. They did come from Grandma.

Check this out!!

http://www.postcrossing.com/

I signed up for this as a way to teach the boys about other places around the world, languages, etc. I am going to take the post cards to D's school and share them with his classmates. I think this is a great idea. Wish I had found it sooner. I love postcards and have been collecting them for many many years. My grandma started me on them when she would be out traveling around the U.S and would send me a card from every state she stopped in. I am still short a couple of states but not many. Just thought I would share.

What a couple of weeks it has been...

We have definetly had a rough couple of weeks around here. It all started last Monday after D got home from school...The boys were supposed to be watching tv in my room being quiet ( I should have known what a bad idea that was) a little while later they both come out and sit nicely down beside me on the couch looking rather innocent. I was then informed that they had somehow knocked the tv onto the floor. As I calmly, well as calmly as possible, walked into my room I found that my mattresses, both the box and top mattresses, had been pushed off the frame across the room and then hit the tv stand which knocked the tv onto the floor. Now I know they were both in the room at the time but N was not the master mind behind this mess. I cleaned it all up, spanked some boys and sent them to their room for the evening.
The next afternoon when D got home it was nice enough for them to go outside and play finally. I sent them out and continued to do dishes. A while later in they came and I was informed that some of the gutters had fallen off. Sure enough when I went out to inspect the damage a huge chunk of gutters was indeed laying in the middle of the yard instead of being attached to the house and a piece was still hanging on but barely. I can not fix this however because the downspout needs to be reattached to the side of the house and my house is made of brick. That will have to wait for the husband to get home.
I am now thinking that my week can not possibly get any worse...WRONG! A couple of days later N decided that he was going to make waffles for himself. He got the toaster out and toasted them just fine, put them on a plate, thank the Lord, put the plate in the living room on the area rug, he has to watch tv while eating breakfast, and then dumped 3/4 th of a bottle of syrup on them. The plate didn't have a chance. I still have a sticky spot on the carpet.
I guess for some reason N believes that he needs to fend for himself or he will never eat. So I believe it was Tuesday this week that I went to do laundry in the garage and during that 5 minutes N decided that he wanted Peanut Butter, not a sandwich, just the Peanut Butter. So instead of getting a spoon or something he used his hands. When I came in he was laying in his bed and I didn't see anything wrong until I walked by their bathroom. There was PB on the toilet, the mirror, the counter, the soap bottle, the sink...Everywhere! I am just thinking, well at least he tried to clean himself up before he went to lay down. I finished cleaning up the bathroom and then went to check on him and found that he indeed had not gotten himself clean at all. So now the PB is all over his bed and bedding. I got him up cleaned him off. We then went to WMart to pick up a few things. While there he wanted Chocolate milk and some Jello.
When we got home I opened the milk for him and was still in the process of putting away groceries when out comes the dogs from the bedroom and they have milk all over their backs. Down the hall I go to find N spitting mouthfulls of milk on the floor, walls, just about everywhere. I spank that bottom and start to clean up that mess. Throw, not literally, the dogs outside, and the boy in his room. Now I thought that I would be able to go to the bathroom by myself without incident since N had gotten into so much trouble today. WRONG! When I came out the boy was still in his room with his door closed so I go about doing what I needed. When I went to get N so that we could go get his brother from the bus stop...I found he had gotten himself a cup of strawberry Jello and taken it to his room. I guess he didn't like it because he then threw spoonfuls of red staining jello all over his room. Big globs falling down the walls, on the door, all over toys, the carpet, and his bedding. Thank the good Lord again that I had not yet taken it off to wash. The carpet is not in good shape anyways since last year when he tried to help his daddy paint the bedroom with a golf ball. So I am not to terribly worried about the carpet but man what a mess. I am still finding spots on the walls that I missed.
OH also the Maggie, my little dog, she is supposed to be my angel, ate a chunk out of the couch within the last couple of week also. I am so taking a HUGE vacation when the husband gets home!! Just think two more weeks and then it will be spring break time!! A whole 10 days of D not having school. YAY!!!

Spring has finally Sprung!!

I feel sorry for those of you still waiting for spring to hit your area. But since I am in NC spring has already started to touch some of our trees. This is the tree in my front yard that I absolutely love. It smells as wonderful as it looks. Well until the flowers start to fall off and it looks like it has snowed again.

I know you can't see it but there is another tree behind this one and it still has not even developed buds on it. However my neighbors have the same tree and it is starting to bloom...so that might not be good for me but we will see later this spring.

I believe this is a Camellia Bush. I am not completely sure, however if you know please let me know. It is by my front door but not for long. I don't like the way it kind of blocks the entrance to the house so I am either going to relocate it or just do away with it. More than likely just do away with it. It seems to be sick or have something eating it, not sure which.

My boys playing with bubbles and other summer toys finally outside and loving wearing short sleeves, feeling the sun and air on their skin, the wind in their hair, well you get the picture.

This is our wild flowers that grow up in our yard every year bloom for about one week and then die away. I guess I could move these to the actual flower bed but I really dislike working outside. Thus would be the reason to just get rid of the Camellia Bush thing rather than move it. Then I can just list it on Craigslist and someone else will come dig it up and move it themselves. We are supposed to reach about 70 today so I should really get the kids together and head to Lowes. But probably not. I would love to plant flowers in the flower bed however since we will be leaving for a while in July, when it is the hottest, they will all be dead by the time we get back home and that would just be a waste of money.

Anyways that is all for now. Love to all!

Hello Again...

It was recently brought to my attention that I said I would let you all know how the doctors appointment went and had yet to actually do so. I am here now to tell you that D is fine. He probably had some sort of infection but we will take a closer look at his hernia at the next appointment. His tests all came back completely normal and he is still as healthy as a horse.

We are currently trying to plan our spring break vacation. We will be staying close to home since we have two dogs that I really would not like to pay to have someone take care of them. Well that and the only place that we would like to go is TX to see Daddy and it is to expensive to fly with two children and would take around days to drive there. So we are going to the coast. We have been here for about a total of years and have only been to the beach once. Yes I know. So we will be going to Kitty Hawk and the aquariums, lighthouses, and there is a battleship that we saw on Ghost Hunters at one point that we will be touring as well. We will not be going on that trip until the day after Easter though.

N is doing fine. He loves to paint with watercolors so I am trying my hardest to feed that love for art. D hates anything having to do with crafts, art, any of it. So maybe N will be my crafty baby. That would be nice to have someone to share that passion with in this house.

Other than that not much going on...loved having weather that got into the 80's but we are now in rain and cold again. My tree in the front yard has completely bloomed and the little bush by the door has a lot of flowers on it as well so I will be trying to post pictures of that on here soon.

I believe that most of you got to see in one way or another the music video I did of the boys. If not please let me know. I really like hearing the feedback on things like that. Well it is late here and even though N is not going to sleep anytime soon I should still try while he sits and watches tv quietly...yeah right. Love to all!

Health Care in the Military

When D was in the hospital sick he developed a hernia which made his scrotom swell up to about the size of a softball. It of course went down and when he went into remission they decided that since the hernia was not casuing any problems to just keep an eye on it. Well around the 14th of Feb. he was getting out of the shower and I noticed that his scrotom was swollen, not to the same size but still swollen, and bright red. I checked and there was no bite marks from something like a spider or anything like that, he had not scrathed it and he kept saying that it hurt. I gave him some medicine for the pain and by the morning time he was complaining that it was hurting to sit down on the couch. That Monday was a holiday so the hospital clinics are not open, going to the ER would do me no good because I would be told he needed to see his regular Dr. So on Tuesday morning I called the Ped's clinic as soon as it opened they of course had no appointments available that day. So I called on Wednesday morning as soon as the clinic opened and again they had no appointments available. Now so you know I can make appointments ahead of time but they need to be made about a month in advance! Anyways so by Wednesday I knew I just needed to get him in so we did a walk-in appointment. We sat in the waiting room with the other really sick kiddos for 3 hours before we got called back to see a Dr. The Dr. came in looked at him and said ok. It could be an infection so we are going to put him on anti-biotics. I explained that I thought it could be his hernia and I believe just to please me he went ahead and ordered an ultrasound as well. We went to radiology and had the ultrasound done, picked up the meds and went back to the clinic to give a urine sample. As we were walking out I saw the doc and asked if he would please call me and let me know what the results were for the tests. Given D's medical history I don't think that I am asking to much for someone to take 5 minutes out of their day and call me one way or another. I never heard a word!! My husband called his friends in the lab the next morning and found that the urine test came back normal. So probably no reason for him to be taking anti-biotics. But I still have no clue about the ultrasound. I am hoping that they didn't notice anything wrong but then what was the problem in the first place?! I hate our hospital, doctors, anything having to do with that place! It is so frustrating!

We have an appt with his oncologist on Tuesday so I will be asking him about it. His oncologist is in another hospital but D will be having another ultrasound done with that appt. I will keep you all posted.

School Improvements?!

In schools they take something like state tests every year just to make sure students are where they should be. A kind of way of keeping the teachers in check if you will. Just kidding. Anyways our school took their tests about a month ago and we recieved what is called the Report Card for our school. What I read has me greatly concerned about what my child is learning at this school. The link to check out the report card is http://www.ncreportcards.org/src/servlet/srcICreatePDF?pSchCode=348&pLEACode=260&pYear=2007-2008

Now when I recieved D's Report Card for this nine weeks it said that he is on 'Grade Level'. However according to the school report card our 3rd-5th grade students are well below the district heck even the state level of 'Grade Level' in both Reading and Math. So is D really on grade level and what exactly does that mean to the teachers at this school. I for one would like to know. It's not like as soon as they hit 3rd grade they all of a sudden get stupid. Some where along the lines our children are falling behind before getting to third grade. That or else our standards for 'grade level' go up considerably by 3rd grade.

Now we have some great teachers at our school. His Kindergarten teacher last year for one. She was great well her and her assistant. D was behind when he started school and they sat me and my husband down and showed us the extra steps they were taking in school and what we should be working on at home to get him up to 'grade level'. But the teacher this year it is like pulling teeth to find out what I need to be helping with at home other than his handwriting. He is a boy! His handwriting is never going to be great! It definetly needs improving but are you really telling me that is the only thing that I can do to help further my child along in his education?!

Now our school is under some kind of School District Improvement thing. I got a nicely typed letter saying we missed our yearly adequate progress targets for 2 years in a row!! Not 1 but 2 times now this school has been behind the curve. I didn't get a letter about this last year. They didn't have a school board meeting about this last year either! So what we just ignored it and hoped that the testing would go better for this year?! The letter also states that they will be revising the Improvement guidelines that are currently out and we will be in Impovement status "until all target goals in reading and math in grades 3 through 5 OR 6 through 8 or high school for two consecutive years". That to me says they are only going to worry about and work with the students in those grades but something had to have gone wrong somewhere along the way! Why would we not put things in place at an earlier age while we are trying to improve our schools? Does this not make sense to anyone but me?

Sorry about the ranting but thanks for listening or reading I guess. You all have my e-mail address let me know what you think! Love to all and God Bless!!

Winter 'Storm' in North Carolina

Well I know it has been a while and my Aunt Tanis reminded me that some of you do like to read this. I know sob, sob. I believe that I have sent most of you the pictures through snapfish.com. We did have a few days off of school due to our winter 'storm'. We only got around 2-3 inches. The boys absolutely loved playing outside even though we were not able to build a snowman.

What you can't tell from this picture is the fact that they flew down the street with their flashers on. I love Carolina drivers!! Also about 2-3 hours after taking this the streets had already melted and were clean and clear but they still cancelled school for the next day. North Carolina only has two snow plows...one for the mountain region and one for the rest of us suckers. I am betting that guy was wishing for another job that day.

Other than that not much going on here. Waiting for Andy to graduate and come home. Waiting to see if we are really staying in NC or if I am getting my way and we will be moving to Colorado Springs. Whatever happens, happens though. I am also trying to find the motivation to start working out and losing weight. The boys are doing great. N is working on workbook pages during the day and he loves feeling like he is doing homework. D is having a rough time with his handwriting. His report card was great except for his handwriting. So we are currently working on that. He is also having a rough time with spelling tests but I think most of that is hurrying and his messy handwriting. Well I hope this finds that all of you are healthy and happy.