Goodbye May......I need a nap.

The month of May has been quite exhausting......cheerleading competition, trip to Newport News, Camp LuCK, and this past weekend Phil's parents came to visit. For many reasons I am looking forward to going to work Tuesday. Mostly, I think, is just to get back to normal everyday life. We did have a nice visit with his parents and I was......the best way I can tell is.... very proud of Phil. I can't go into great detail about it, but he reminded me this weekend why I agreed to marry back in 97.

Due to the fact it was to rain most of the weekend, I mowed the grass Friday and I was so glad I did. Between the rain and the hose being left on overnight the back yard needed an ark.....badly. We found a sitter for the kids, Thanks Heather, and went to dinner, Saturday. I have to say that is the most I have ever laughed with Phil and his parents. It was a great dinner. The kids, Phil and his parents went to the bookstore Sunday and had a ball. They came home with their new books and spent the afternoon reading them.

I did promise the kids I would take them to the park or schoolyard to play so before today was a total washout....literally....I took them up to the school to play on the playground. Did I mention Madelynn likes to swing, Kaitlynn likes the monkey bars, Jack just runs back and forth between the slides and swings. Suddenly we heard big rolls of thunder and decided it was best to go home. It rained small children, cats and dogs, you name it it fell out of the sky today. I was really glad we went this morning.

Before we left the schoolyard to avoid the rain I did get some pictures.

If nothing else I hope everyone was able to just enjoy their families this weekend. To those service men and women that could not be with their families this weekend......from our family to your we THANK YOU very much.

TTFN~

New World Record

I am sure it isn't really but I could have sworn I set the record for the longest projectile of a liquid this evening. We are about to have some house guests and we were in need of our monthly grocery shopping. Except for bread, eggs and milk I try to only go to the grocery store once a month.

My theory is if we run out we didn't need it or it can wait till the next shopping trip. It is an exhausting trip to BJ's stocking up and then trying to manipulate the pantry to make it all fit. I was moving things around and a very large jar of spaghetti sauce committed food-cide from the top shelf. It hit the floor like a bullet and about scared the pee out of me.

Standing on a stool the plastic jar didn't break but it hit the ground with such force it shattered the lid right off. This wasn't just any jar it was a GINORMOUS jar from the bulk food store. It was all over the floor, walls, doors, appliances, half way across the room in the kitchen sink and easily 25 feet away on the wall. Talk about some powerful sauce. I was SO MAD!!!

I had not eaten much today and was hungry, had not seen the kids all day and wanted to hang out with them, and still had half my groceries to put away after I cleaned up the sauce. I felt like I was on one of those science shows testing projectile objects. The best part was when Phil walked in the door and I told him what happened.

He looked at me and said, ''How did you manage to make such a mess in the kitchen and not get one drop on you?"

There was no answer it was just one of those strange phenomenon, I guess.

So what did I learn today?

I know how to launch a full jar of spaghetti sauce at least 25 feet.....wanna see???

Happy Middle of the week!

TTFN~

1st Annual Camp LuCK 2010

Shown below are just a few of my personal photos from Camp LuCK. It is not a typo it is to represent Levin Cardiac Kids (LCK). We had the glorious pleasure of taking all of our children to Camp Cherokee in Kings Mountain for the weekend for the first ever Camp LuCK for heart kids, siblings and parents.

The whole experience was Great!! We stayed in a cabin and the kids depending on their age were able to do all the regular camp experience fun. We made new friends and bonded with existing friends. It is a weekend I will treasure forever. We did crafts, stories, hiking, songs and tons of good food.

There are a few people that deserve a huge THANK YOU Jay "Bird" Thompson, Kim Jackson and Dr. Rene Herlong for undertaking this wonderful family time. There were "retired" camp counselors that came back just for this event. Some of them travelled as many as seven hours one way just to make sure we had a great time and they did not disappoint. Our children may have special hearts. However, those that made this weekend special have HUGE hearts.

Probably the best story of the weekend was the first five minutes we arrived. From turning off the highway into the campground it was a drive that took you deep inside. As we parked and started to walk to the mess hall and common area Kaitlynn started crying, really crying. I asked her what was wrong. "Mommy I don't want to sleep in the trees with the animals I want to go home."

It took a lot of reassuring in between the giggling and the tour of our cabin to prove to her that we were sleeping indoors and she would be safe. Once she acclimated herself to the campground she was bringing me frogs, looking for crickets and spiders all with her cow flashlight that moos every time you turn it on.

What a wonderful family time we had. Some moments were a little stressful as the kids are still pretty young. But we had fun and will be in line to sign up next year.

Enjoy the photos.

TTFN~

A sister's bond can never be broken..............

Well this morning I woke up at our last day at Camp LuCK and have so many stories to share about it. However, I want to go through my pictures first before sharing our camping adventure.

With all that said, I have another story that must be shared. It is a memory I never want to forget. So not that long ago I was in the doctor's office with Kaitlynn and Madelynn. They were each there for very different reasons but ended with a similar result: The dreaded SHOT.

Something I have never done with my children is lie to them about anything to do with the doctor's office, most importantly I have never told them something wouldn't hurt when I knew darn well it would.

But Kaitlynn and Madelynn are two very different creatures. Madelynn knew when she saw the shot, it was for her and she started crying and saying, "No, Mommy!" I wanted to cry. She has been through so much and I just wish I could take some of her pain away. Instead, I just have to watch it happen because it is in her best interest to keep her healthy.

They had to confirm Kaitlynn's weight to do her shot so they left and came back with Kaitlynn's about 10 minutes after Madelynn got hers. When the nurse walked in Madelynn recognized what it was, looked at the nurse and said, "NO, NO, NO!" I quickly assured Madelynn and told her the shot was not for her. I asked her to sit in a chair and wait while Kaitlynn received her shot.

When it comes to shots Kaitlynn is a screamer. It usually takes three people to hold Kaitlynn down to give her a shot and you can hear her through the entire office. Trying to calm her I promised her ice cream after dinner if she took her shot. It still took two of us to hold her down. Madelynn had felt the shots before but never seen anybody else get them before. She never flinched from that chair (I didn't know she could sit so still) and I have never seen her eyes so big before.

All I could think of was, "Great now that she has seen Kaitlynn scream as if she were in a horror flick she will never take another shot again."

But I was wrong.

As Kaitlynn got down from the exam table and I helped her put her pants back on Madelynn very quietly removed herself from the chair she was sitting and walked up to Kaitlynn and said, "Here Katie, Here Katie."

When I looked down Madelynn was giving Kaitlynn her hand, she wanted to hold her hand and walk her out of the doctor's office. So as we walked down the hall to the treasure box of toys they held hands and helped each other pick out a toy from the treasure box and then walked hand and hand to the elevator.

It is one of those moments I won't have captured in a photo but I will never forget.

TTFN~

"I'd like to report a break-in"

This is how I started my day yesterday. After Kaitlynn and I dropped Jackson and Madelynn off to the neighbor we went to the car. I used the clicker to open the car and it was already open. I was a little alarmed. I looked in the van to find stuff scattered all over the place. Someone had broken into the van.

I called 911 to report it and then just stood there dumbfounded. My van was at the end of the driveway under the streetlight. My driveway sits right next to the neighbors driveway and he drives his patrol car home everyday. Yes, I live next to a sheriff deputy who drives his patrol car home every night. Talk about no fear.

I looked around, all the DVDs and most of the Cd's that were in the van were gone. My old cell phone was in the car along with my car charger, gone. The rest of our life in the van just flipped upside down. So I filed the police report and Kaitlynn was terrified. She wouldn't let go of my leg, she asked me if they were going to come back and if they could get in our house. I had to give her hard answers. I had to tell her I didn't know if they would come back and as long as we locked our house they could not get in. I was angry that I had to tell my 6 year old that.

After dropping her off at school I was thinking about the whole thing we were very lucky. There was no sign of forced entry so I could have left the van unlocked, so not like me. There was no damage to the van that I would have to pay for. There were a lot of things they did not take. The garage door opener to come back later and rob the house, my prescription sunglasses that are expensive to replace. There were a lot of compartments they did not know were there that were never opened. There were some expensive things in the back of the van they did not get. So over all we were very lucky.

Thinking about it later, there was no item that could not be replaced or that I will die without. What they did take was my daughter's security. That I will have to work on. But maybe it will be to my advantage to remind her, there are bad people in the world and listening to Mommy and Daddy will help keep you safe.

More importantly I learned a few things I felt I should share:

-If your car is broken into the damage to the car gets claimed on your car insurance, and personal items stolen are to be claimed on your home owner's or renter's insurance (renter's make sure you have insurance).

-If your cell phone and charger are stolen make sure you report it to your carrier but did you know that your charger has a serial number on it? I didn't.

-Every once in a while my kids play with my keys, get in the habit of using your clicker to lock your car one last time before you go to bed. No excuses the clicker works from inside your house.

-If you have a Nextel did you know that both your phone and sim card have separate serial #'s on them.

After talking it over with Phil there were a few movies that were just the cases and not the movies so the thieves got just the empty cases. The Cd's they stole were mostly burned Cd's or empty cases. They left my Christian Cd's and the burned Cd's they did steal were mostly Christian music on them.

The part about the break in that made me smile the most was when my four year old son said, "Ya know what Mommy I hope the bad people that stole our stuff like it as much as we did."

I can't take it heaven with me anyway so they can just keep.

TTFN~

My camera............

................I love my camera............I will never have even a smidgen of the talent that my father does................But I love taking pictures nonetheless.

However, for the past week things have been different. As Kaitlynn completed her first year of kindergarten there was the end of year performance. I was so excited about it. But the more I talked to Kaitlynn about it she kept telling me she doesn't get to get up and talk. I didn't understand it at first.

The four kindergarten classes total about 80 students and only twenty had speaking parts, five from each class. Kaitlynn always wants to do well and thought because she did not have a speaking part she did not do well. We assured her we wanted to hear her sing even if she didn't have a speaking part. As we walked into the gym, I realized I left my camera at home. We only live a half a mile from the school. But I did not want to go back and get it.

I wanted to watch the performance with my own eyes instead of through the camera lens.

It was wonderful. We stood in the back and waved to her and blew her kisses. She sang really loud and we could hear her from the back. She loves to sing. Although it is a memory I will never have a picture of I will remember standing in the back of the room, watching her face light up when she found us and blowing her lots of kisses.

Even though I was really mad at myself I had too many other things to do to worry about it for very long. I had to finish laundry and get us packed to leave for Newport News, VA. Phil's nephew Bayley was graduating from college. We have a special place for Bayley as he spent part of a summer with us one year.

It was somewhere between 5 - 6 hours to get there. Two hours into the trip there I realized I forgot my camera. I was really mad then. Twice in three days what was wrong with me. This is where the moping thing would come in. I could have let it ruin the trip and just be mad about it or spend money on a disposable of some kind. I did none of those.

Two hours after we arrived we were sitting in the hotel and I asked Phil what were we going to do. He said he was waiting for Jackie. All of the sudden I said, "No we aren't, we are going to pack up the kids and find a beach."

Phil looked at me as if I had two heads. I reminded him his sister was busy we would see her later lets take the kids to the beach. I found a free map. He asked how do you know where the beach is. I simply told him I don't lets go find one.

As we pulled into the beach parking I was regretting not having my camera, once again.

I didn't regret it for long.

When my feet hit the sand it was if timed stopped. I could tell you that the vibrant orange-blacked-eyed susan's were breath-taking as they lined flower beds between the sidewalk and the sand. I watched the waves crash up against the pier and rocks. I remember the feeling of the air through my hair as I buried my feet in the sand. I watched Kaitlynn, Jackson and Madelynn try and jump the waves and make instant friends with other kids in the water. I watched Madelynn run through the sand with pure joy beaming from her face.

This pure bliss only lasted about 90 minutes and I don't have a single picture of it. But I saw it with my own two eyes instead of through my camera lens. My kids will remember walking the pier with Mommy instead of having to stand there while she gets one picture of everyone smiling. They will also remember just being able to play instead of having to look at Mommy so she could get just one more picture.

Don't get me wrong I love my camera and taking pictures and I am sure there are many that take much better pictures than I. But for a brief few days I was just able to enjoy life and watch my children sing, play in the ocean, laugh, walk on the beach and just have fun without a care in the world.

Wishing the trip could have been longer, we had fun anyway and many treasured memories buried away forever.

TTFN~