First Day of School

School started here last Wednesday. What a quiet day that was for me. Chuck was working all day and the kids in school all day so I actually felt like I could get something done once without any interruptions and what a great feeling it was. Charlie is in the 3rd grade this year and his teacher is Mrs. Barthel. Sydney is in the 1st grade and her teacher is Miss Miller. Here’s a picture of Charlie and Sydney from the first day:

Sydney and Charlie on the First Day of School

Eric wouldn’t hear of me taking his picture and I tried to get one anyway but it didn’t work out well. He is a junior this year. Time goes fast.

Eric's Latest Look... This was not taken the first day of school but very recently.

Updates

Eric looks so handsome with short hair. (Wish he would have smiled for this picture though.) He didn’t want a haircut but we told him if he was going to drive our car and test for his drivers license, he would have to get his hair cut so he went super short, his idea, not ours but we are all happy with it. And he took his drivers test on Friday and passed with flying colors!

School is out for the summer already. The last day was on the 28th. They were out at 1:00 pm. We haven’t seen Eric’s report card yet because they mail them out but Charlie and Sydney did great! Charlie’s 3rd grade teacher will be Mrs. Barthel and Sydney’s 1st grade teacher will be Mrs. Lund.

Chuck and I celebrated our 9th anniversary on May 27th. I can’t believe how fast 9 years has gone by. But all we have to do is look at how the kids have grown.

Happy Birthday Sydney!!!

Today my baby girl turned 6. She was born at 8:23 AM CST April 28th, 2003. She was so excited about her birthday this year. She had everything planned out. She wanted cupcakes for school. I took them right after lunch, making sure there were a few extra for some of the other teachers too. She checked the lunch menu and they were having corn dogs for lunch today which is one thing she does like so she was happy about that. Oh, I almost forgot, she wanted Cap’n Crunch cereal for breakfast too, which Dad made sure she got. When she came home from school, she wanted us all to hide and jump out and say “Surprise! Happy Birthday Sydney!” She waited outside while Charlie made sure we were all hiding. He told it was okay for her to come inside and then he ran in to hide too. She came into the house slowly while we all yelled, “Surprise!” She smiled so big. She opened presents first, then completed her homework. For dinner, she requested Kraft Mac’n'Cheese. Cake was the last part of her day. I think the best part of her birthday was the balloons. Here are some pictures from today…

Surprise! Happy Birthday Sydney!

Make a Wish!

Time for Kraft Mac'n'Cheese

Eric got his first job…

Guess where he works?!

Taco Johns

So far…  so good. But it has only been a week and he hasn’t even gotten his first paycheck yet. Time will tell….

My New Look

I decided I was due for a new look after losing 50 lbs. It took me a long time to lose those 50 lbs but it was really worth it. I still have a few more lbs to lose but I am really close to my goal weight and really proud of myself for getting this far with my weight loss efforts. So anyway, what I did was treat myself to a new hairstyle. I am not able to do anything with the color due to an allergic reaction to my last hair color change but I did change the style to a shorter more fun style. Here’s a picture (not my best picture as I wasn’t feeling 100% but it shows my new style) …what do you think?

West Side Story

Dawson County High School Drama Department performed the musical “West Side Story” on March 20th and 21st. The kids worked very hard getting ready for it and did a great job in the performance as well. Eric was Juan, one of the Sharks gang. Here are a couple of pictures to share.

Sharks are in Red

Juan (Eric) and Dora (navy dress) (center right)

The Sharks after the show...

Rise and Read Breakfast at School

Yesterday was the Rise and Read Breakfast at the school for Kindergarten and 1st Graders so I went with Sydney to the school. She was extremely tired or just dragging getting ready so we were a little late getting there. She was still eating her cinnamon roll when the first bell rang. We still had reading to do. We did get the reading done before all the kids came in for school but it sure was a close one. I love spending time with Sydney at her school. She loves having me there too. She asked me if I would pick her up after school too but I told her she would be riding the bus home with Charlie as usual. She seemed a little disappointed but accepted it.

Rise and Read for 2nd grade through 4th grade is Thursday and Charlie asked Chuck to read with him this year. Chuck did this last year with Charlie too. I am sure they won’t be late as we were but it should be fun.

When Ashley and Eric were in those grades in school, they had Muffins with Mom and Donuts with Dad which was about the same thing.

Fireproof

Have you seen the movie Fireproof? If you haven’t, you should. My brother sent it to us for Valentine’s Day this year. We watched it last night and loved it!

It was made by a large church in Georgia with a budding movie ministry and the only professional actor is Kirk Cameron. The movie is about a fireman (Caleb) who has it all together on the job but his marriage has fallen apart. He feels that his needs are not being met and he is angry and frustrated. His wife is lonely and angry. With divorce hanging over their heads and nearly inevitable, his dad comes in and offers HOPE and challenges Caleb to take a 40-day Love Dare. In following this challenge, Caleb finds that he himself was pushing away the hand of God just like his wife pushed his hand away. The faith he receives from God is what enables him to finish what he started – to finish, no matter what the outcome.

Marriage is not as easy as society portrays it. Marriage requires commitment, sacrifice, trust, communication, time and effort from both husband and wife. But if you put all that into your marriage, what you will get out of it is SO MUCH worth the effort you put into it.

Anyway, after watching the movie, Chuck and I agreed that we have that and we have experienced all of the “for better – for worse, for richer – for poorer, in sickness and in health” over the past nearly 9 years we have been together and we know that we have what it takes to make our marriage last a lifetime.

Thank you Kevin for sending this movie to us. I borrowed some of your words for this post but they hold true for us as well as for you and Rose too. We truly loved the movie.

Chuck is home today…

from the hospital. I spoke with his doctor this morning and he gave me a detailed description of what all is going on with Chuck. Apparently, he does have the PSVT, which we knew and then he said they did find a few smaller blood clots in the right lower lung (none in the heart, thank the Lord for that) and he also has pneumonia as well so he was really in need of the medical care he received. We are glad he is home and on the way to recovering. Thank you all for your prayers. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as he heals and continues to search for work.

And today the sun is shining and it has warmed up to 20 degrees here so that is actually nice for a change. It has been so bitterly cold. I, for one, am getting very tired of the cold temps and winter weather. I hope this is a good sign for good health and maybe wealth too.

PSVT

On January 13th, Chuck gave us a scare. His heart rate was up to 212 and not going down. He was not overdoing it as he was relaxing on the couch when this happened. So we took him to the Emergency Room and the doctor said that he had what they call PSVT which is short for paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia. http://www.medicinenet.com/paroxysmal_supraventricular_tachycardia_psvt/article.htm  is a website that explains more information about what it is and what the symptoms are and how it is treated. Chuck’s doctor prescribed a beta blocker for him to take. He did a followup appointment and everything seemed like it was okay but then he seemed to get more symptoms afterwards that we thought could be side effects from the beta blockers he was taking. It turned out not to be side effects however. 

On January 24th, we made another trip to the Emergency Room. He was having a hard time breathing without pain. He also had heart palpitations and a heart rate of 220 when he got to the ER. So they ran tests on him and thought at first that maybe he had pneumonia but then determined after a CT scan that he has a blood clot in his lower right lung. So they have been doing blood tests and giving him blood thinners and meds to ease the pain. They admitted him to the hospital that night and have been monitoring him closely. He is in an ICU room but not because he needed to be in ICU, simply because the hospital was full and they did not have a room for him except for ICU.

After he was admitted to the hospital that night and I had the kids all tucked into bed, I took time to look up blood clots in the lungs and what came up was “pulmonary embolism”, which after reading was really scary. I almost wished I hadn’t taken the time to look it up. What I read seemed to fit all the symptoms Chuck has had so it really put things into perspective for me but it sure scared me too. But when I mentioned this to Chuck, he seemed to think that according to the doctor, this wasn’t what he has but it would seem to me that the doctor may not want to use that term when discussing his illness and treatment with him. I am hoping to learn more from the doctor soon. At any rate, this is something that sure makes you NOT take life for granted. It makes you realize what your family and loved ones really mean to you.

Today Chuck told me that they did an ultrasound of his heart. He said it was neat seeing the colors and how the heart works.

He also said that the care he has been receiving here at the Glendive Medical Center has been really wonderful. We are hoping he will be home in another day or so.

Any prayers you want to send his way would be greatly appreciated. I know I sure have been saying my share of prayers lately, with his health the way it is and no income for us right now either. Things have not been so great for us in the first month of 2009. But we are hopeful things will improve. We are trying to stay positive through all this.