Thursday, September 28, 2006

It's been awhile

Boy it has been awhile since I have updated and there hasn't been a dull moment.

Autumn did stay home the rest of the week and went to the doctor on Thursday. He gave her penicillin and by Saturday she felt better. She went to school Monday and today Thursday I had to pick her up again. That's our fault for not fighting with her more on the penicillin. Autumn is getting an award tomorrow. I find it funny because she hasn't made it a full week since school started it seems. It was so sweet. One of her friends was worried about her and her mom called us Sat to see how Autumn was doing.

Kelsea's team is still undefeated-go Kelsea!! She is doing real well in all her classes!!

Kylee tried out for Honor Choir and made it-I think I mentioned that, She started the school choir this week.

Amber got her braces off on Friday! Woo HOO! I need to take an after braces picture. Then we had to go back to meridian on Friday to get her retainers. On the Thursday game Capital won by one point. Amber's band has a little ways to go to make their marching piece better considering it was the first time on the football field it wasn't too bad.

Kylee had a Hawaiian luau party on Sat. We made hula skirts from streamers. Gave the girls leis. We played music from Lilo and Stitch 2. We made up a funny hula dance and the girls all got to decorate their own cupcakes. That has been the biggest hit at our parties I have found. We have put sprinkles galore and once we had a variety of candy. The kids will almost always eat the cupcakes too. Kylee had a nice party. On Tuesday we had our family version and she got to go to build- a -bear and made a monkey. I have 3 kids in double digits!

I may get a computer. Here's to hoping and crossed fingers. We are looking at an HP computer with the AMD processor. If we get that then it will be possible to get DSL and updating won't be such a pain in the rear.

I have been exercising so my rear already hurts.

Lee Joe is working like a crazy man still and his back still hurts.

Cat is up to 7 kills and one unconfirmed. She took it back outside. The discovery of #7 will not be disclosed due to graphic nature and is been dubbed Top Secret. She is probably finding them in our garden.

MaryAnne and Thomas will be getting their pictures soon that I promised them. I cleaned half my desk and found them and they are so far as being in envelopes I just need to find their addresses and I actually know about the area to find them. I think paper in my office has learned how to reproduce.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Grandpa Lay?


Blurry camera phone picture but Kelsea said this monley reminded her of Grandpa Lay. What do you think?

Thursday, September 21, 2006

the week and my dilemma

Tuesday was exhausting. I believe I am still ill with something. I still can't tell if it is stress induced or what is floating around right now. But I sent Kylee and Autumn to school. I gave Autumn her anti nausea medicine before she left. I went to the school 3 times that day. One to bring her backpack to school( she must have an illness indeuced vision problem since it was sitting on the floor in her room in plain sight and couldn't find it). She looked kind of funny so an hour later I brought her medicine. She took it at lunch. In the meantime I had a list full of errands since it was pay day. I was loading the car at Costco and I got the call she was feeling bad. She has missed school the rest of this week. I took her to the doctor again today. We are treating her for strep now. And if she is not well next week we go back again. I took Kylee to her first audition for Honor Choir. She made it. If you can believe this though I have secret to share. We think Autumn is tone deaf. We secretly hope she doesn't want to go that route because we don't want to see heart get broken. As it is she is one of the loudest singers in Sr primary and it's cute right now. But shhhh, it should not be repeated.

Tuesday night was Amber's open house. She had band practice and had to hang out with me since Lee Joe decided to work after work late in the day and I couldn't get her home. Here is my dilemma. I see a huge difference in the city high school and my small school education gives me no clue how to keep up with or how to handle what Amber is going through and how best to help her. I am overwhelmed by what I see and just feel kind of lost in how navigate our way and have her prepared to go to college. She is very smart but is slammed with homework for it. She has always loved basketball and has decided in order to keep up with her classes she won't pursue it this year. Band is making things challenging as it is and it isn't everyday. She came home from the open house exhausted and in tears because she still had homework. I was upset at the end of the day with Lee Joe because all I needed from him was to bring her home at 6 so she could eat and do her homework. And the worst part is I have years and years of this ahead of me yet to go!! At least she is the best one to go through as the guinea pig. Anyways we will all be going to the game tonight and the band will be officially marching their piece on the field for the first time.

Kelsea's JV team is undefeated so far and none of the other volleyball teams(8th V and 9th JV&V) are doing that well. I couldn't make her game on Mon.

Lee Joe has done something to his back. I think he has some stress going on too. It went out real bad this afternoon. He is visiting a chiropractor as we speak. Maybe he needs to take days off where he does less. I was joking about how when we travel with Lee Joe it is exhausting. He crams so much in day and he says "if we don't eat we should be able to do it all" and then it takes 2 or 3 days for the rest of us to get over a trip with him. I wonder where he got that from? He is going to the game tonight so there is some down time for him.

Monday, September 18, 2006

On the sky diving pictures on the airforce web site. Use my e-mail address(aol.com) and my birthday 9-30-1971 in order to see it. SO now you know the truth. I am just glad I don't look my age and I am glad I don't get mistaken for being a teenager anymore

What We did this weekend

You want to know what I got done this weekend? A big fat ZERO! Well you got to throw one weekend down the toilet every now and then.

Lee Joe left with Amber, Kylee and Hannah on Friday afternoon. I was home with 2. Friday night I got us dinner at Taco Bell and then Kelsea told me I could play her rollercoaster Tycoon game. All I have to say is, I am easily addicted to that game. Melissa and David had the same problem with Zoo Tycoon months ago and now they are hooked on another Tycoon game. So this weekend I worked on 3 parks, got some extra sleep, Went to Lee Joe's company picnic with Autumn, and had a unwelcome visitor for over an hour sat night. In spite of all the quiet time, I still am coming down with something. Lee Joe got home a 4am Sunday. I woke up at 5 having had a nightmare that Lee Joe had been in wreck and Hannah was in the hospital needing surgery on her foot, and nobody knew where Kylee was. I was glad when I woke up that Lee Joe was home. Kylee woke up sick and Autumn is still having a hard time. Lee Joe went to church with Hannah(one hour late), I went later with Amber(1 1/2 hours late), Then LeeJoe went home picked up Kelsea dropped her off for the last hour and he stayed home with the 2 sick ones. Silliest Sunday comings and going we have ever had.

This morning Kylee and Autumn still aren't well and neither am I so we are all hanging out here at home and already I have done more that I did all weekend.

And on the air show weekend, they had a good time. Thanks Uncle Thomas for the hospitality. THey went to breakfast with him at Denny's. Kylee came home with a bunch of stuff and Hannah had some stuff too. They were given free tickets at the door. And Kylee and Hannah came home with some free t-shirts.The KIA made it there and back great. I guess Kylee and Hannah sky dived. CHeck it out at airforce.com/photos. use these IDs to see it-A3FWE 3AKG6----ADTGK DX37Y

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Whats up

What's cool-Our weather-high of 70 today. Our air is MUCH cleaner. Zyrtec and Flonase are like gold when it comes to allergy medicine. I can BREATHE!!

What's hot- The BSU football team. The BSU football team walking across the side lines of the Capital Football game and the crowd cheering like you wouldn't believe as they walked by(they were hot and looked hot too)That's hot. The BSU blue turf that Amber and the Marching band marched and played on. Kelsea played very well in their first Volleyball game. She served the first 6 points of the first game. And in the 3rd game she was instrumental in scoring the final point of the game. By the way, they won all 3 games.

What's not- the band teacher was not impressed with how they played. Amber's presentation didn't work like we hoped. Problems with their version of powerpoint and no music.
My neighbor was in the hospital with West Nile Virus. He is over 80 and it tends to be fatal for the elderly. But he is back home. Autumn has some symptoms of West Nile but for her it is not so bad. Unless she gets worse we aren't having blood work done. She has missed some school already.
Zrytec and Flonase are priced like gold when you don't have insurance.
My computer, dial-up, my delete key(I must use it too much) and trying to get blogger to come up sometimes.

What's funny-Amber has been playing piano for seminary with another girl. They played a Christmas song one day and had everyone sing Sister's in Zion one day and the next they had to play a priesthood song. There was more funny I just can't remember it right now.

Up and coming-Lee Joe is going to take a whirl wind trip to Reno for the Reno Air races. He will be taking 3 girls. He is taking the KIA. I am staying home with 2 and hoping to get my office painted(window and bookshelf) and put together the rest of the way. Oh yeah, master the mess.
Kylee is about to turn 10 this month. I need to get on the ball and plan her birthday. She wants a Hawaiian luau theme. I will be celebrating the _ anniversary of my 29th birthday. The blank is for me to know and every one else to never mind,I am 29 I tell you!

The tally on the cat's war with mice. She is up to 5 kills now, one prisoner. I wish I knew where she was finding them since she can come and go when she pleases.

Maybe I will try to post some pictures again.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Blurry Camera phone pictures



I can see the sky!

A little of the smoke blew out last night. It looked cloudy and foggy all day yesterday but there wasn't acloud in the sky. Again at 5 I had a major allergy attack in my eyes. Today I still can't breathe. But I read in the paper how even athletes right now are going to the doctor thinking they are developing asthma and it is just the awful air. I want to go downtown to Art in the Park but I want to be able to breathe too so I haven't decided whether I will go today or tomorrow-tomorrow's air should be better.

I guess they are still going to have the football game tonight. Amber's marching band practice was only allowed to be outside for an hour last night. But they will be performing tonight. Another thing I want to do but wonder if it's worth it for me. Amber didn't get to present her project yet.

Kelsea's coach worked with her after practice yesterday on setting and spiking. He has made her a setter. So at least there has been a little pay off for her phone call and she has decided to play the season out.

Kylee had her first dance class. I was thinking about making her go on the same night as Autumn and Hannah to make things easier but I think that individual time is helpful for Kylee.

Yay! The weekend is almost here and it will be as quiet as we want to make it. Hooray!!

Hannah told me the other day that she didn't want to have anymore birthdays because she didn't want to grow out of her clothes because she likes them so much. She is a funny kid. I wouldn't mind if she stayed 4 forever.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Horrible Air

I have never seen Boise like this for so long. There are so many forest fires that in the valley here all the smole has accumulated. We are in a red air alert. The whole Boise school district cancelled all out door sports yesterday. Valley View brought all the kids in at recess and I didn't see any kids on the playground this morning. I have had the worst allergies ever the last few weeks. I had an attack last night that was awful I wasn't really outside. My eye looked pretty gross. The prescription eye drops didn't help much. I took Benadryl and it knocks me for a loop. Amber Kelsea and Hannah are also having problems. I can't mow the lawn until this clears out. Last week I had a major attack after I mowed and couldn't breathe either. The sun was very red this morning. They could cancel Amber's marching band practice today and we will see what they do about the football game scheduled on Fri.

We spent hours last night trying to figure out how to get Amber's powerpoint presentation off my computer and saved on something she could take to school. We tried saving it on the usb memory stick. My computer wouldn't recognize it. We tried e-mailing it to my sister. It was to big and I guess my winzip only unzips files. We had to break the presentation down into 3 parts to email it to my sister,that took an hour for it to send the e-mail, and then at her house we had to put it back together. Then we had a problem because her powerpoint is different version than mine and Amber had to rework every slide again. She has become a powerpoint expert after this project. She was determined to have music on her slide show so we spent another hour trying to figure out how to get the music to play through the whole show-between the three of us we have had very little experience on Powerpoint. I figured it out! And she had U2's Beautiful Day that played through pictures of Amber and our family and things that told about herself. It was very well done. I told her she had better get an A on that project for the sake of us all. I am frustrated with the English class though already. It isn't even the end of the second week of school and this is the second project due and for some reason she also needs to bring in a jar of playdoh soon. SOmething was clarified to me last night. Next year she will be taking college english AND getting college and high school credit for the class. wow. Hopefully she won't develop an ulcer by the end of the year. Her back is in serious spasm from stress already and last night she said she wished it was summer already. poor kid.
I was trying to tell Lee Joe how much time was wasted last night because my computer is so ancient. His solutions(which makes me crazy because he still has no clue) is to ask his boss for his cast off computer and to buy a CD-RW burner for Amber's computer. The 2nd solution might help but she doesn't have the programs on her computer yet to make that sensible either. We JUST NEED A NEW COMPUTER LEE JOE!

Kelsea had a set back this week too. She was on the Varsity 1 team last year. There were 4 teams based on skill level last year. And she played very well in the games. This year there were 45 girls trying out for Volleyballand they only have a varsity team with 12 girls and the rest will divide into to JV teams. Kelsea didn't make varsity. She is devastated. The varsity coach is a 19 year old girl and they put a girl on varsity that wasn't even there on fri. that had quit. and then they bumped another girl up that lounged around yesterday not participating. Kelsea got the courage up and called the JV coach last night and asked him what it would take for her to get on varsity. I am very proud of her speaking up for herself. He said there might be another spot opening up and she is part of group up for consideration. She plays so well and I think the varsity coach sounds really clueless. I am not being partial to Kelsea, If I thought she wasn't that good I wouldn't be so bothered. She was practicing in tryouts with a friend who can't play well and that is probably what made Kelsea look not so good. Enough of that one. I just hate seeing Kelsea so depressed but am I trying to get her to work for what she wants and I am trying to let her fight that battle for herself. It's hard!

Last night we had piano, Amber's project, Kelsea had volleyball, YW, Autumn's open house and more of Amber's project at Melissa's house until after 10.
Tonight I have to take Amber out to Meridian to a dentist appointment, she has a band practice (maybe), and Kylee has her first dance class.
We will see how long my full tank of gas lasts.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

I don't know if things will ever be easier to get a handle on.

We had a nice weekend but we stayed busy and made it a Labor filled weekend. On Friday Hannah saw a puppet show at the library and then I came home and emptied out the game/medicine closet so Lee Joe could insulate the attic on our 2nd floor. Devanie, do you remember there were things trying to escape because it was so full? Anyways, it was long over due and I thought I had cleaned it out not long ago but judging by the expiration dates on some of the medicines in there it was much longer than I thought. Sat started with an attempt at insulating but the early start was not as early as Lee Joe had hoped and it was already hot. So he fixed the sprayer on the kitchen sink and then I dicovered everything under the sink was awful wet. As I started pulling stuff out and throwing it away we discovered the pipe under the sink was no longer attached to the sink and you could see water going from the drain into the pipe. THe wood is in bad shape and Lee Joe spent several hours buying tools for the house and then dicovering the pipe had been damaged, more time finding the pipe's replacement. Good thing he was home for the weekend. I was so glad he was home for 3 whole days. Sunday was normal. But we had the missionaries over for dinner. New curiosity about the missionaries from my 2 oldest. Oh dear. And then Lee Joe found out over the weekend that the guy who was suppose to have fixed his shot gun had moved so I was telling him he is not prepared for scaring off the boys anymore.

Monday we started out with insulation again. Lee Joe Amber and Kelsea and I all clothed ourselves and got busy. Then It got too hot again but most of the insulation we had was up in the attic. Lee Joe took all the girls down the Boise river with the raft we still had in the back of the van. I was the transport. we made dinner and he took the girls to see Cars at the dollar theatre since he hadn't seen it yet. Everyone was seriously exhausted by the end of the day. It is hard to keep up with Lee Joe sometimes.

So anyways this week I have this fantastically clean closet that looks like it lost half it's contents. I was so thrilled by how clean it was and Lee Joe just thinks I am weird. And the cabinet under the sink is clean and under the stove is clean too. Woo Hoo! I have cleaned the family room on Sat. It is Weds and it is still CLEAN!! Wow. I have long way to go still. The days this week aren't busy like last week but from 4pm on is just nuts everyday.

Right now, the dated nature of my computer is about to interfere with Amber's homework abilities. We are trying to figure how to get a powerpoint presentation saved on a Cd-RW disc. Melissa is going to try and get it off my computer with a USB port thing. I have tried e-mailing it to her. It didn't work. Hopefully we will get it off because Amber has worked hard on it and it is well done and she doesn't have a backup plan. Her English class is senior level work and next year she will doing college level work.

The run around is about to begin and I have yet to figure out what's for dinner.