Independence Day and other things

We did something different for July 4th this year.   Usually we spend the evening at our house, we shoot off some smoke bombs and the kind that you need to see in the daylight where they go.   Sometimes they have a parachute that comes out.   Then when it gets dark we do the pretty fireworks and sparklers.   After all ours are over, our neighbors have basically just begun and we can sit and watch theirs for the next hour or two!  We can also see fireworks being shot off all around us at our house as we sit on a hill and have a bird's eye view of areas around us.   But this year we were invited to go to Overbrook for their annual fireworks display.   It was a perfect evening for them, the weather was fantastic!  We arrived and watched some of the kids doing karaoke.   I tried to convince a couple of my girls to sing but they were having none of it!   We walked around the park area and discovered that they have a super nice park by the Overbrook City Lake and a very nice little lake!

 We had snow cones and kettle corn.   Our friends and their family arrived and we had a great time visiting with them while the girls ran around having fun.  Then when it got dark, Sophie brought out the glow sticks and the girls REALLY had fun trying to hula hoop with them and then juggling with them besides wearing them around their heads and arms!   So much fun!   And did you know if you put the glow sticks in the freezer they will still be glowing the next day?!!

The fireworks show was Fantastic!   It didn't last long, about 15 minutes, but it was worth the wait to see them.   I tried to take a few photos of them but there is no way that I can photo graph them as beautiful as they were.   Then it was all too soon time to head home.   Happy Independence Day to those who serve our country and to our children who have become US citizens.

A few days later we had a big thunder storm go through.   It had a little wind along with it that packed a punch.   That punch put our lights out from about 10:30PM till 6AM.   So we ran around and lit all the candles we had and then grabbed a few flashlights.   It was a great night to make funny faces with the flashlights!  

I was up pursing the web one night and came across someones post that they had bought a waterslide from WalMart online and how much fun their kids had been having with it.   They said that it had held up pretty well for the price and highly recommended it.   Well, in my half-asleep stupor I decided that we couldn't live without one either!   When it was delivered I had forgotten all about ordering it!  So Surprise!!   It has turned out to be fun for the girls, some work for Mom and Dad.   I guess sometimes girls just wanna have fun!!

Happy 10th Birthday Tessa Louise JiXing!!

It just blows us away that this little sparkling gem has been home with us for almost 4 years!   She has blossomed this past year so much that sometimes I wish she wasn't quite so much.   She is getting sassy in her comfort with us, sometimes just a little too sassy.   I wonder about her first family in China so much.   We are pretty sure that they did not have the money to repair her heart and had to make the wrenching decision to leave her at the bus station so someone could find her and get her to some place that could help her.   Of course, we don't know this to be true, but it is our best guess of why she was left when she was 2 years and 3 months? old.  I have asked her if she remembers her first Mommy and she says she does not, but she did say that she remembered the plane ride or bus ride when she was young???

Her choice for birthday supper was Texas Roadhouse.  She wasn't too excited to sit on the saddle but she did after much coaxing!   She really does not know what she wants for her birthday.   We spent a little time walking around in Target to see if there was anything that threw itself off the shelf at her saying "Buy me!"  She didn't find anything that she couldn't live with out, so she is still thinking what she wants.

Then we bought a Dairy Queen cake.  Yummy!   Getting all these girls to stand around and sing happy birthday to her was like pulling teeth.

We love you so much Tessa Louise JiXing!!  Happy 10th Birthday and many more!

50 years, work, vacation, chores

Now that I have your attention....50 years!  That is a very long time.   Especially when you have been married to the same person for all of those years.   Nope, Mark and I have quite a few more years to catch up to that many years!   However my half brother Jim and his blushing bride Maxine have been together for 50 years!   We were invited to the party which was in New Almelo.  They had a luncheon for family members at noon in Hill City at the Cowboy Junction.   Then we were to meet up in New Almelo at 2:30 for family photos.   Then the dance started at 6 pm after a light supper of sandwiches, chips, salads pickles, black olives and fruit salad.   There was, of course, plenty of cake to stuff ourselves on.  Then they had a dance.   We managed to get the girls out on the floor to dance to a couple of songs with lots of tugging and nagging.   They did the Chicken Dance, The Grand March and tried to dance to Otis Readings "Shout"  Then we made the long drive home.  The most fun was finding out that my cousin John had flown in from San Diego to partak of the celebration.  The girls love him!

The girls have their red belts in Taekwondo now.  Next up is red decided and then red recommended.   Then the BLACK belt!!   We are anxious to see them make it to that point, as are they.

Last Sunday evening Mark and I had one of the first dates by ourselves that we have had in a long time!  We left the girls with the Colvin's and their daughter Jaelynn and we drove to Kansas City, ate at Joe's Crab Shack and then on to the Starlight Theater to see Foreigner and Styx in concert!!  It was a beautiful night to be there.  Nice cool breeze, very few clouds in the sky and after dark a partial moon in the sky!!   Foreigner was fantastic and we were singing along on every song.  Then Styx came out and the house rocked even more.  Tommy Shaw OOOOOHHHH  what do I say about him?!  So good on the guitar and he can play many of them!   Then we drove home and I was at work by 6am the next morning.  Totally worth it but my body is getting pretty old to hang with the Big Dogs!!

Yes, I did say that I was at work the next morning!   I have taken a PRN position in Perioperative Services.  I am so excited about the job.  And the people I work with have been fantastic to work with.   I will be working just as needed and they really can't give me an idea of how frequently or in-frequently they will need me.   I really like it so far and am impressed with the people I am working with..  

The most fun part the summer so far is that as Mom is working again.  I have made chore charts!  I have been working on these for some time now.   I guess I just didn't want to "ruin" their summer.  However, as I am working again, it is also time for them to learn how to keep their apartments and houses clean when they are living out on their own.  Mom is not going to move in with them and clean!!   They have been doing a pretty good job.   The first of their chores is to read 20 minutes a day and to get that done we all are the proud owners of a library card so they can check out books they want to read.   Cleaning the toilets and walking the dog is not the most favored chores but they have been doing great at them.   I have also been teaching Jordis and RaeAnne how to cook more.   They are enjoying that and we will all reap the benefits of that chore!

Where has the time gone??

April 16th was the 3rd and 4th grades musical programs.  Both classes were cute and we were able to see their art hanging in the hallway around the school before the program.

Forever running behind on things!  The girls participated in a Taekwondo tournament in Kansas City April 19th.   It was a day of lots of waiting for each group to have a ring assigned.  It was also a day of nerves for most of the girls as they are just not feeling comfortable with their forms.   They all did fantastic on their forms and sparring.  I never had a doubt, but they had many.  I hope that if we go to more of these competitions that they will start to lose those inferior feelings and start to have fun with their sport.   The nice thing about the tournament being in Kansas City was we could drive over in the morning and be home in our own beds that night.

Next up was Kendalan's 9th birthday!  Daddy delivered cupcakes and chocolate milk to school for a snack that day.  Then she was wanting a special nail art kit.  That evening we took her to eat at her choice which was Olive Garden.  We told her that we would have to order her present and would get it soon.   What she didn't know was that we were planning on surprising four of the girls!  But back to that in a little bit.

April 26th was the PTO Carnival at the Overbrook School.  I was signed up to help out on Mrs. Colvin's game.  We bought each of the girls a $10 punch card and they started finding games to play.  The first successful game was the cake walk.  Tessa won right away and picked a cake.  Then Jordis won and picked a chocolate cake.  They played again and Tessa picked some cookies.  Soon Kendalan won some cookies too.   It was time to move on to another game.   (BTW, I have no photos of this as I didn't even think of taking my camera because I knew I was going to be busy.)  So we went to the pop ring toss.  Jordis immediately won a 2 liter bottle and a can.  So Dad spend quite a bit of his time hauling all the winnings over to our vehicle.  The girls were having fun running around with their friends and playing the games which were all one punch which equaled $.25.   Many of the games had hoaxy toys to choose from.  Kendalan chose a Chinese finger lock.  Of course, she got her fingers stuck in it and I had to help her get them off!!  She decided to put that back for a strand of green beads.  Tessa won a blow up plastic microphone on one game of break the plate.  RaeAnne won a goofy tall hat that was made of felt, was tall, yellow and black stripes like a bumble bee and had peace signs around the brim.  She loves it!   I was supposed to work at the dart game, but it turned into the Kings Toss which was a throne complete with a toilet seat and lid.  The object of the game was to throw a roll of toilet paper and have it go in the "potty".  I worked at this game for 30 minutes and basically retrieved the toilet paper from inside the toilet.  If they made at least one roll in the toilet they could choose a gift from the gift bucket.


After that the girls decided to win some more pop and we took home 4 2 liter bottles and half a dozen cans of soda.   We also won some more cookies at the cake walk.  And I entered the raffle to win a chair.   I was pleasantly surprised to have won the chair I really liked too!  It looks so nice in our kitchen!

The next week was a run of doctor's visits and tests for me.  I had my first Mammogram since the cancer was found and YIPPEE!  It was negative!  I will have to go back in 6 months to have another one.  Then I saw my primary physician whom I had not seen for over a year.  He wants to check my cholesterol and blood sugars.  They have been running a little on the high side.   And the next day I was back at his office to have his ARNP do my pap smear.  Unfortunately Triple Negative Cancer goes hand in hand with elevated odds of ovarian and cervical cancer.  Yea!  That came back normal too!  So in six months I will have to repeat that too.  Now if I could just get the neuropathy pain under control I would be doing very well.  But the foot and hand pain are still around and making their pain known.  I went to Dr. Swanson who is a neurologist and he started me on a new med that he hopes will help.  He said that it could be a very slow process to find the right meds and doses of those meds to make my pain go away.  And we might not be able to find the right meds and/or doses.  I hope they can find something as I am so tired of living on pain medications.   And the worst part is that they really don't do anything for me anymore.  So basically I take the pain medication and sometimes it helps and sometimes it is like I took a placebo.   My husband is tired of my coming home after grocery shopping or walking around the mall with the girls for a few hours and then I am crying, rubbing my feet and tell him that I want an ax so I can cut my feet off.  It feels like my only alternative to get rid of the pain.  Oh how I hope they will be able to find a combination of meds that will work!!

Friday May 2nd was the 8th grade graduation party!  It just can't be that my baby is old enough to graduate from 8th grade!!  The party was from 7 to 9pm at the school gym.  They used the decorations from the Junior/Senior Prom which makes it a lot cheaper for the 8th grade!   It was Hollywood and it came out so cute.   All the 8th graders were given a shirt with their names on it.

Saturday was the surprise party!   The girls are always saying that they want to have a birthday party. We usually just celebrate with the family.  But I came up with a great idea.  Dad and I invited a friend for each of the youngest four girls.   It was a secret even to the invited guests.   For Kendalan we invited Caroline, Tessa was Haven, Jordis was Alison and ZoraLin was JaeLynn.   RaeAnne was at a friends house from 1 to 9 pm for a Cinco de Mayo/graduation party.   Anyway I loaded up our girls Saturday morning and told them that I had to run some errands.   I needed to drop some Thirty-One products off for a lady.  So I drive to Paint Therapy Uncorked and told the girls they could come in with me.   They were looking around kind of lost.  Then all of a sudden Caroline arrived, then Haven, then Ali and JaeLynn.   The girls were kind of catching on at that time!!  It turned out to be a blast and they can not wait to go back sometime!  I have some real Picasso's on my hands.  We had a Minion cake and used one of the birthday candles from China and it actually worked this time and in fact played over and over and over many times!  Zia Joy came too, but she arrived a little late as she had broken her arm the day before!   Fortunately it was her left arm and she was still able to paint!  I know that I am going to have to make this up to RaeAnne sometime as she is our budding artist!  I already have a plan for that too!

So here we are to May 9th...8th Grade Graduation!  My baby!!  I won the battle of the wills and she did wear her dress and she looked very pretty.  We do need to work on the way she walks in a dress, but I will pick my battles.  The principal, Mr. Flax, did a very nice speech about the class and I was almost ready for tissue a time or two.  Rae didn't run but she boogied pretty quickly across the stage.  Fortunately they had taken photos before the ceremony of them receiving their diplomas so we can get a good copy of her doing that.  She was moving so fast across the stage that I got two blurs of photos :(   A freshman next year...it just can't be!!  And she will be able to start working on her learner permit!   That was also her last day of school.  The last day for the rest of the girls is the 15th at 1:30PM.   Summer is very close!!