Who knew

Whoda thunk a brain fart could snowball into a huge fiasco...but it did. Luke started summer school yesterday. He's one of my kids that hates to get up in the morning so I was happy to see him up and about before I came out of my room on Wednesday. Today though...not so lucky. I crawled out of bed at 6:15, talked to Tom for two minutes before he went out the door, decided to let Luke sleep another 15mins and then got busy. I forgot WHY I was up (besides being unable to sleep) until it hit me at 7:11. Luke's suppose to be at the high school to catch the bus at 7! A bunch of us little districts do summer school together and classes are held two districts west of us. I yell for Luke and he's flying down the hall dressed and ready to go in a minute. Not knowing exactly where it is, I google where the middle school in the district is and we take off. We're flying driving down the road at 7:14.

I had a slight problem in that I was racing the clock. I had to have Luke to school by 8 when classes start so he's ok. BUT I had to be home by 8 because Michelle is due to work at 8:30. I MIGHT be able to do it but it'll be close that's for sure. My original thought on where to get off the main road is wrong....district's in the next town over, so we turn around immediately. We get to the town the school's in and go into the village. Luke says nothing looks familiar and I'm getting frustrated. Finally I see the road that google said the middle school's on. We find the school quickly but it doesn't look like there's anyone there. Luke sees it's the MIDDLE school and reminds me school is held at the ELEMENTARY school (suppose to be at the high school but it's under major reconstruction). We turn around, see some kids who look to be waiting for the bus to summer school (I suggest Luke climb out and try to hitch a ride but he's pretty sure their driver won't allow it...he's probably right so I don't push it).

We ask the kids for directions (back to the main road, further west, a certain road, past the high school and down the road) and are on our way, backtracking to the main road and even further west...further away from the house. We see another school and drive to it but realize it's not it. BUT we find the road that the kids mentioned we needed to be on and drive down it. It comes back out to the main road! I'm fit to be tied! We're still not at the school and I need to head home if I'm going to get Michelle to work on time. So I tell Luke he's not going to school that day and he's fine with it. (he's only allowed to miss 2 days) We start heading back east on the main road and I have a sense of guilt hit me...we're SO close. It would be terrible for us to get so close only to make him miss a day. So I have Luke call Michelle and inform her she either needs to call in late to work or find a ride. We turn back around and wouldn't you know it, there's a sign for the high school...we'd just needed to keep going on the road we were on! We find the high school ok and keep driving down this country road. It seems to go on forever and I start declaring there's NO WAY the town WAY BACK THERE would have elementary school WAY OUT HERE! We must've passed it or got lost. I'm about to turn around at the next 4 corners when I see a school bus approaching from the left with it's signal light on to go down the road we're on. So it is still ahead. I drive down the road with my eye on the bus behind me incase it turns off our road, but it doesn't and eventually the elementary school appears. Although Luke's still not sure it's the right one. I drop him off, tell him to follow the kids who get off the school bus and he'll be fine. Then I start to race home to get Michelle. About half a mile down the road I see it...Luke's spiral notebook on the dashboard. OH that poor kid, not only is he frazzled, he's unprepared too. I hope he knows where to go since his schedule and room assignment is in the book. I say a little prayer for him and continue racing down the street. I arrive home at 8:20, pull into the driveway and honk. Michelle's not quite ready, so I run in the house, grab Sean, change his diaper, throw a clean shirt on him, throw him in his car seat and we're on our way. She gets to work about 25mins late. I drop her off, turn around and head back home...pulling into the driveway at 9:25 and ready for a nap! At least I have 4.5hrs to relax before I have to do it all over again.

Tom and I have to talk. I NEED to get my girls driving!

Sorry I meant to get on and share more pictures. Guess I needed to let off a bit of frustration. I promise to share cute, cuddly and nice things next time. :o)

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Well she's gone!

And I didn't even shed as many tears as I thought I would. I miss her already. :o( The hardest thing was watching her say good-bye to Danielle and Sean. Danielle's going to be lost without her best friend. So now I'll have to become one of those crazy facebook addicts and stalk her.

And now the next day....

Liz should be at her new place in Norway. They were due to arrive at 4AM. Or at least her temporary new place since I'm not sure if they have her permanent placement yet. I was laying in bed with Danielle this morning listening to her "dumb" dream (she meant bad) and I mentioned that Liz was at her new house. Laughing, Danielle insisted...NO! She missed her airplane and she's at her old house. She runned home! Danielle has actually been pretty good about all this. I know she misses her. I think it helps that she doesn't fully understand how long Liz will be gone.

Getting Liz packed took some doing. We rolled, we stuffed, we space bagged (thanks to Allison), we weighed, we tucked, we redistributed, we weighed, we ran to Walmart, we repacked and started all over again. Yep, at 12:30am I decided the broken zipper on the bag we'd borrowed from my parents was too hard to deal with and that she needed a new bag. That meant a run to Walmart with Michelle while Liz stayed here and did some things she needed to do. The new bag wasn't as deep as the original one but was bigger in size so it took some finangling. It also came with 4 other bags which proved to be nice as the carry on had a LOT more room then the backpack she originally was using. We were wishing there wasn't a 17 pound limit on carry ons since she had tons of room in that thing. I'm not really sure they're so picky on the carry on weight as they are with the checked baggage. Still we didn't want her to have any problems and have to decide what to dump (since her checked bags were JUST at the 50lb limit and had no extra room for things). I'm already starting a list of things to send to Liz when I can. I found at least 3 of the 4 socks she had in her carry on, so I'm guessing she has none in there now. Must've fallen out in the shuffle/repacking. Hopefully they didn't lose her luggage and she has her other ones.

LOL! I just got a text from the mom of one of the other girls traveling with Liz. Seems they already had a training class and are scheduled to start work tomorrow. Welcome to Norway (and the real world) girls!

Having only had a few hours of sleep I was exhausted Monday. Unfortunately life wouldn't stop or slow down for me. I took Luke over to school to sign up for summer school, he starts on Wednesday. Carrie and Sean had a 1:15 doctor appt. All I wanted to do was take a nap. Carrie begged me to cancel and it's all it took. I called and canceled. Then I took 2 naps. I also worked on my crochet which I've been dying to get to. On top of my naps, I dozed between stitches. Luckily Michelle had the day off and I didn't have to drive into the city (another reason canceling the dr appt was so easy).

Today is a more relaxing day. Drew is borrowing the van and taking Michelle to work so no going out the door for me. We have plans to do some things around here. Much to Liz's chagrin we are moving rooms around. Carrie doesn't need the huge upstairs room to herself so we're moving her into the little bedroom that's used for toys and the treadmill. Luke and Jake are moving out of the library and up into Carrie and Liz's old room. The toys, books and treadmill (and Liz's things) are moving into the library. Eileen and Olivia are staying put but they are getting their room painted. It's never been repainted before and I've been promising them it'd get done for way too long. So it's at the top of the todo list along with getting the pool swimmable again. It was neglected and turned into pea soup.

Well I'm NOT letting this sit around another day. So I'll end it while I can.

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I drove all day long

It was an insane day Saturday. Michelle had to be at work at 8:30am. Liz and I realized that we never stopped at the eye glass place so she could get her frames fixed (lens keeps popping out and the arms are loose). So I grabbed her glasses before running out the door and added it to my list of things to do. It shouldn't be too hard, I just have to get my dad something for his birthday and I already knew what that thing was. Problem was, it was impossible to find! I ran to Walmart, Payless Shoes, and then Marshalls without getting him what I was looking for. I HAD to be home because Tom had to go to the dump and I still had some running to do before the graduation party at 1. I almost forgot to stop at the optical place and had double back, but they got fixed.

I ran home, Tom had the garbage all ready to go. He popped out a seat, filled the van and ran to the dump. He then had Luke and Jake load it with my the table and chairs we borrowed from my parents. I really should've returned them yesterday but I never got to it. They needed them for my dad's birthday cookout and I wouldn't be there until late because of the graduation party. So into my parents I went, unloaded the van and then immediately back home. I jumped in for a quick shower, threw some things in a backpack/diaper bag and back out we went. Next thing I knew it was 3:30 and I had to leave to pick up Michelle. The two hours I was there seemed like minutes. I left Tom and the kids at the party to enjoy themselves, no sense in all of us missing out. I got Michelle and we ran back to Walmart for a few things and then dollar store. We got back to the party about 5ish. I gathered everyone up while Michelle jumped out and said a few hellos. As I was heading to the van I had a sense that I was forgetting someone. It quickly hit me who I was missing...TOM! I had no idea where my husband was and had almost left him there! I finally found him hiding in the kitchen talking military experiences. I managed to drag him away and get him into the van. Then we were back on the road to my parents' house. We got there just before 6 which was a good thing since the firemen's field days parade was about to start. It passes by my parents house so we'd have been blocked from my parents' if it had started.

We watched the parade, had more yummy food, sat and talked. Liz said her good-byes and left with Pat and Alex to go in their hot tub for a while. I think I finally pulled back into our driveway around midnight. Needless to say, I was more then ready to go to bed. But as you can see I'm still not sleeping, don't ask me why. I'm as dumbfounded as you. Maybe I'm stressing because Liz still hasn't packed. I think my head is just so full of things that it can't shut down.

I decided that since a chicken dinner is very rare in Norway, and it's Liz's favorite meat, we'd have it for dinner tonight (Sunday). I'm going to grab a 50pc box of fried chicken from Walmart. There's also been requests for mashed potatoes. I was thinking it might be nice to try to get some ears of corn too. I already have a watermelon that we didn't eat at my dad's party. The boys are going to come over and we'll have a late dinner after Michelle gets out of work at 8.

When we were talking about Liz trying to pack everything in her two suitcases, Patrick had a brilliant idea. He suggested I get the space bags! It'd help a lot with her bedding, winter coats and hoodies. I'll try to get some when I drop off Michelle at work at 4.

Oh and did I mention we still have church in the morning with another graduation party immediately following church. I know I don't plan on sticking around the party for very long. But it's going to be hard for Liz to drag herself away from everyone so she can come home, do laundry and PACK. I'm hoping things will be cut short because the graduate who the party is for will have to leave so she can pack too. lol

I really should try to get a tiny bit of sleep before the day starts again. It's almost my wake up time!

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And the week just keeps on going

Talk about last minute planning. I didn't really think through Liz's money situation in Norway until the last few days. On Thursday I decided she should probably have a bank account with a debit card so we could get her money quickly if she needs it. So Friday afternoon we were off to the bank. I wish I had my camera to take a picture of her as she walked out of that bank...she was beaming. Guess it's official now, she's an adult, she has her own bank account. :oD We ran to the store to pick up a few last minute things and then rushed back home so she could get ready for the graduation ceremony. Michelle was nice enough to stay home with the little kids so that Luke and Jake (who originally were babysitting) could go see the new transformers movie. So it was Liz, Tom, Carrie and me. Val and John came on their own a little later.

The ceremony was crowded, hot and boring like always but still, it was great to see all those kids. They were so nervous walking up to their seats on the stage. I kept thinking...they're just little babies! All the scholarships and awards were given out. I was amazed at how many of the recipients were girls. It's safe to say at least 80% of them were. I'd say it was more like 90%. All through the ceremony there were two people in the row behind us that kept having conversations. Not just comments or small tidbits but full blown, mouth running a mile a minute conversations. The amazing thing was...they were faculty! I know who one of them was, I'm not sure about the other. If I'd been sitting directly infront of them, I'd have said something. (they were behind Carrie and Val) As it is, I did shoot them a few really nasty looks. I'm thinking I may mention something (without naming names) to the principal or guidance counselor (although he's not the type that'll act on the complaint) on Monday when I take Luke in to sign him up for summer school. As much as I think they owe the parents of the graduates an apology. What I really want is for them to be reminded of proper ettiquette in those types of situation. I realize it has to be unbearable for them to have to sit through those each and every year. It's hard enough for me and I have a personal interest in it! But still, it was so rude! They could've easily slipped out into the hall...no one would've noticed or cared!

Ok...enough ranting...onto the pictures. I didn't get too many during the ceremony because my batteries were dying.

Liz just before she walked down the aisle to her seat


Liz and my nephew Pete (had another nephew graduate too but he didn't attend)


Liz and her friends...(left)Page who's going to Norway with her, (right) Jen who wishes she was going to Norway. Hopefully she'll get there in December.


Tom and I with her
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Val and Carrie with her


John, Liz, Val and Carrie


Liz and one of her favorite teachers, Miss McD


After refreshments and getting pictures taken, Tom and I headed home. John took the girls to get ice cream. They then stopped home before heading back out to the movies. They went to go see the new Transformers movie too. I guess they all got in pretty late. I don't know how Liz isn't freaking out by now. She has nothing packed and she leaves in a few days! At least she knows she has everything bought that she needs.

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Day at the Beach

We couldn't make the beach trip on Wednesday due to Michelle's work schedule and graduation rehearsal which Liz had to attend if she was going to walk across the stage on Friday. So I decided we'd take a trip up to the lake on Thursday. It was going to be 90 and really muggy. I HAD to pay attention to the house before we went so departure time was set at noon. We didn't do too bad and left at 12:20. Most of those 20mins were spent applying sunscreen to everyone. lol Michelle had to work, Luke was at Della's and Jake was at a friend's house so it was only my niece, us girls (me, Val, Liz, Carrie, Eileen, Olivia and Danielle) and Sean.

The beach was busy but I've seen it a lot worse. Unfortunately it was also stinky thanks to a huge section of unused beach covered in seaweed. It was so bad that we had to move out of our perfect shady spot. The kids still had a ball though. Some of Val's friends ended up showing up and hanging out with us.

Sean and all the girls



Danielle doing her fish impersonation


Cowboy Sean


Olivia and Danielle on the seesaw


Sean and Val's friend Ashton racing on the slide


Eileen and Olivia having a peaceful time on the tire swing


And then in motion


Big kids playing with Val's beach towel (it's a real game of Candy Land)


Danielle as I was trying to get her out of the car

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