Midnight Water Balloons.....

At midnight on August 25th Annah participated in a big event at the University of Kentucky. She attended with her friend and her friend's older sister. What was happening? It was  "The World's Largest Water Balloon Fight"  In a crowd of 11,000 people and with 200,000 water balloons the University of Kentucky still holds their title in The Guinness Book of World Records for The World's Largest Water Balloon Fight! 

 

The actual "fight" only lasted a few minutes (as you can see on the video links) but in that few minutes Annah was hit in the eye with a water balloon! We didn't know about it till she sent a text message the next morning saying that she had one green eye and one brown eye....what?  We didn't even know what that meant until messaging with her a little longer and then we got "the rest of the story".

 

Her green eye turned brown because she was bleeding inside her eye!  Her vision was blurry and cloudy and she had pain behind the eye that had been hit. We went to Lexington, where she had spent the night, and got her and took her to the doctor that very day and Annah spent the next 7 days on bed rest and being in a reclined position (never laying flat). During that week she was on steroid eye drops hourly, dilating drops twice a day and eventually, because the pressure in her eye was increasing, we had to add a third kind of drop twice a day to help lower the pressure. And we were at the doctor DAILY for the first 5 days, got to skip one day and went again the following day.  

Annah was cleared to go back to school after missing 6 days but was still on the three different drops every 4 hours so that meant I had to go to the middle school after I got done at work to give her the drops and then she was set until after she got home from school.  She still cannot run, swim, or jump but she can finally sleep laying down -- something she was most anxious to do! She was going stir crazy on bed rest as she couldn't read or do her iPod or any close up work. 
 

Looking at her you can see now that the blood has cleared from her eye but upon the doctor's exam that looks at the back side of her iris and cornea he can see there are still spots of blood. She continues on the steroid drops and the pressure drops and has more doctor appointments to look forward to because the pressure in her eye remains of concern. Perhaps when her eye is completely healed it will no longer be a problem but until then they are keeping a close eye on her....hahaha, no pun intended!  The dilating drops were ended a week and a half ago and although the size of her pupil has come down a little it is still pretty big! When her pupil was fully dilated she looked like the cat from Puss 'n Boots.... in one eye! :)

 

 

This is what her eye looks like now.....



 

So, who knew that water balloons could be such a dangerous thing?  Surely not us!  If she ever attends The World's Largest Water Balloon Fight again it is GOGGLES for her! That would pretty much guarantee she won't go! ;)  

What I Did on My Summer Vacation.....

My summer vacation officially began at the end of May and here we are already back in school as of this past Wednesday! I am having trouble believing that we have entered yet another school year but the time has come. Early mornings are hard to begin again but slowly we are working our way back to our routines.   

In all the things I did this summer (although not impressive by any one's standards but my own) there are a few things I did NOT do. 

1) I did NOT write on my blog (except about Jacob's graduation from high school...a wonderful, wonderful day, I might add!) 
2) I did NOT plant a garden
3) I did NOT go to the pool 

But, don't feel sorry for me.  The things that I did do this summer gave me so much satisfaction that I don't feel like I have missed much but rather I feel uplifted and motivated by my choices.  So what did I do? 

1) I celebrated 27 years being married to the greatest man I have ever known.

On June 20th Tim and I celebrated 27 years married. That day began by bringing Abigail and Annah to Girls Camp and after dropping them off we went to Cumberland Falls (somewhere I had never been) which was not far from where Girl's Camp was. The Falls were lovely and we even saw a rainbow in the mist of the Falls. :) 

The pictures might have been better if I had remembered to bring the camera.

The only thing we had was Tim's iPhone so it had to do. But, there was nothing to be done about the bright sun blinding us while we tried to take a picture of ourselves in front of the falls! :) 

After the Falls we found a place to eat lunch called Bubbie's Barbecue and we decided that it is a place that we want to go to again -- no matter that it is about 2 hours away from where we live! Yes, it was *that* good! :) Once home we put in a movie we had rented. That was short lived as we must have had the name wrong on what we were trying to rent because it was NOT what we thought it was. So, we scrapped that movie and picked one from our own collection that we hadn't seen in a long time. We watched the movie, had dinner and enjoyed a quiet evening at home.

 

2) Sent kids off to Youth Conference (Abigail and Jacob), Girls Camp (Abigail and Annah), EFY (Abigail), Scouts High Adventure Activity (Jacob)

The kids spent a lot of the summer packing and unpacking but fun was had by all in their various adventures! 

3) Celebrated Abigail's 15th birthday (my, my, my, where has the time gone?) 

In anticipation of her birthday Abigail had asked if we could attend the Liberty Branch on the Sunday of her birthday so we headed an hour south of home to grant her birthday wish. :) No birthday is complete without cake of some sort so we brought with us an assortment of cheesecake squares (compliments of Sam's Club) to share with the branch members after church. Abigail's friends Isaac, Jessiah and Jacob sang Happy Birthday to her in the kitchen and then we dug into the cheesecake. :)  I must be slipping in my old age as once again I forgot the camera so we had to take pics with the iPhone!  

Oh Yeah!  She's 15 now!

Abigail with Jacob

Abigail and Jessiah

Abigail and Isaac

And the birthday serenade! :)

4) I headed up one of the most fabulous of events in our family history -- The Great Valenta Clean Out!  :) 

I knew the great clean out was coming.  I could feel the ripples for a long time and as school came closer to ending I could feel the shift from ripples to swells and by the time school was officially out it was more like a huge wave far out at sea but definitely headed for shore! 
I think the tipping point came for me when I finally reached the end of my rope lugging around other people's stuff. It began 25 years ago. Yes, you read that right...25 years ago. That was when we lived in New York and Tim's mother lived in Arizona. She passed away somewhat unexpectedly from breast cancer in January of 1987.  Within days of her passing away we had to go through her apartment and pack what, at first glance, appeared to be things that should be kept. Because of the time constraints we boxed and shipped somewhere around 42 boxes of her things! Yes, I know that is a lot but in the interest of time and sentiment, we packed and shipped all that stuff! Over a period of time we had whittled down much of the stuff but we were the keepers of what remained and should have been gone through years ago. What remained was pictures (lots and lots of pictures), papers (lots and lots of papers), journals (LOTS of writing in those babies!) and family history information and research that was done. It was truly time for a serious look into those old cardboard boxes with crushed sides and dusty contents.

Included in the category of "lugging other people's stuff around" were things from my parents' home that we cleaned out nearly 3 years ago when my parents went to reside in a nursing home together. I had gone through a lot of their boxes but there still remained boxes that held pictures (lots and lots of pictures), papers (lots and lots of papers) and family history information and research. (Are you sensing a theme here? If not, you should be!) :)
So, when I no longer had to think about my work schedule and each of the kids' school schedules and Jacob's graduation and all the other things that are in full motion during the school year, I knew it was time. 

I forgot to take a picture of the room when I began but picture this room with many, many more boxes -- boxes piled on boxes, piled on boxes and THAT was my starting place!

As I inched my way through every box, every paper and every picture, I kept only the best of the best. That went for Tim's mom's things, my parent's things and even our own childhood pictures and mementos and even that of our kids! 

I sorted every picture and threw away pictures that were blurry (Why do we keep those? We don't want them in an album because they aren't good yet we hang onto them like they will magically come back into focus the longer they lay in a box getting covered with dust! Whatsupwiththat?)

I threw away pictures of people who had cut off heads. (gross!)
I threw away pictures of people we couldn't identify. Face it, if *we* dont' know who they are how will our kids ever know who they are? They won't. They were out of here.
I threw away pictures of people who were a quarter inch high -- you know, the ones you need a magnifying glass to figure out who it is?  I don't want to strain my eyes to figure out who is in a picture. I was looking for quality, flattering pictures of our loved ones. It was like looking for buried treasure (quite literally) and that is what we found! 

In pouring over the pictures from both Tim's mother and my parents, we had many pictures that we wanted to share with family members. We got together 8 packages of pictures and sent them off to various family members for them to enjoy. We heard from many of the recipients of the pictures that they were as happy to receive them as we were to share them. 

These were the empty containers that I advertised on Facebook that were free to a good home! Every one of them found a new place to live, much to my delight!

This made us laugh....we gathered up every Nauvoo brick we had in the house -- 14 of them to be exact! Why, why, why did we have so many when we've only been to Nauvoo like 3 times? Who knows but now we have O-N-E. :)

 

So, over a period of about 6 weeks we cleaned out the nooks and crannies of this old house and parted ways with so much dross that it still gives me a thrill to think of it! :) Nothing was left untouched except for the garage which still needs to be done but due to our extremely hot summer we have avoided that area lest we succumb to heat stroke! We went through books, CD's, knick knacks, magazines, video tapes, DVD's, files, office supplies, craft supplies, pictures, slides, negatives, dishes, childhood memories, kid's artwork, shoes, clothes, family history papers, the list goes on. Whatever we had we gave it a hard look and made decisions. Some decisions were harder than others but so far we have not regretted one thing that was given away or tossed! 

So that is what I DID on my summer vacation but I also FOUND a few things.  I found freedom from owning things we don't need, peace in clearing out our spaces, and a sense of wonder at why we didn't do this all sooner. That is what I FOUND on my summer vacation. :)

A picture of my kitchen after the Great Clean Out...don't pay attention to the crooked "V" at the top of the cabinet. It has since found it's way into the giveaway box. :)  

6th Time is a Charm!

With 4 out of 6 kids graduated can we get a big WOO HOO?  I know, I know, there are two more to go but we weren't really sure that we were going to survive Jacob's school career so we are celebrating even though we're not quite through! 

Back in November 2011 Jacob had his senior pictures done.  We knew that he was going to have to have a re-take because on picture day Jacob had sunburn pretty bad but in order to get retakes done he had to have his picture done that day.  So he had his picture taken and when they came back we scheduled the re-take.  When the re-take pictures came back we chose the pose we wanted and placed the order. By the time the re-takes were done and the pictures got to us it was February.

Now I don't know how well you can see it on this scanned picture but under Jacob's right eye (left eye if you are looking at the picture) there was a purplish shadow that made it look like he had a black eye. We had paid extra for touch ups so it really should have been fixed before they sent it to us.  I called the company and they agreed to fix it and mail us another package.  Pretty easy. :)

 Picture #1 purplish right eye

A few weeks later I was excited to get the pictures in the mail. I could hardly wait to see Jacob without a black eye!  I opened the package only to find that while his purplish eye was gone, now was a light brown splotch the size of a pencil eraser on the right side (looking at the picture it would be on left) of Jacob's face where his smile line is! (It's hard to see on this scanned picture but trust me that it is there!)  Boo-Hiss.... :( So I called the company again and told them the black eye was gone but there was now a splotch that wasn't there before.  They agreed to re-do the pictures again. :)

Picture #2 with brown splotch

A few weeks go by and I get another envelope in the mail.  Do I dare to hope they got it right this time?  I was sure they did since this was the THIRD time! :) I anxiously open the package and this is what I see....

 Picture #3

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  I laughed out loud!  Seriously? I waited two week for that?  So I called the company again and try not to laugh when I tell them that this is time #3 in trying to get this order right.  They apologize (again) and say they will re-send the pictures.  I am seriously doubting them at this point but it was pretty funny.  I am just glad the kid didn't have a December gradation!

Imagine my surprise when this time we get the package back in ONE week instead of the usual two weeks it had been taking.  Dare I hope???  I open the package and what to my wondering eye should appear but.........

Not the picture we had ordered at all but instead it was the ORIGINAL photo of Jacob when he was SUNBURNED!!!  BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Not only was he sunburned but he had a goofy grin on his face...maybe because he knew he was getting a re-take anyway, I don't know.  But seriously?  Not even the right picture!!!  So that would have been picture #4 if I wanted to embarrass Jacob on my blog. :) 

So I place ANOTHER call to the company to tell them what we've been surprised with this time. Now we are going on 6 weeks in trying to get the right picture.  They say they are sorry and they will get the right one sent out right away!  Sure they will......  :) 

Two weeks later the anticipation builds again as the next package is delivered.  This is getting pretty humorous so I wonder if it will indeed be right this time.  I was hoping.  What do I find?.............. 

A practically LIFE SIZE picture of Jacob's head!!!!! BWHAHHAHAHAHAHA! It was a great picture -- no black eye and no brown splotch but I'm just not wanting a life sized head shot hanging on the wall!

 

Picture #5

I could hardly wait to call the picture company and tell them my latest picture problem. :)  I was seriously laughing!

So I place the call and to the best of my ability try to explain what my problem is this time. I told the lady that if it wasn't so funny I would be mad but it was hilarious that they just couldn't get this right! I told them that I thought that they probably zoomed in on the picture to remove the brown splotch and forgot to un-zoom before they printed. :)

 



So once again the order is placed, they apologize for all the trouble it's been and I anxiously anticipate the arrival of the next package of pictures. :) (I am getting quite a collection of pictures by now!!!) I asked them if they were sure they could straighten this out in time for when we had to send announcements since it had been 2 months in trying to get the right picture and it was now late April.  They assured me they would be, said they would put a rush on them and thanked me for my patience and sense of humor with the whole situation. 

I waited the typical two weeks and no pictures came.  Hmmmm...what to do?  I decided to call my friends at the picture place just to check up on what they're doing.  They tell me the most hilarious thing....they say that the pictures have been sent to the school and that they don't send them to the home address.  Really?  So why have I had -- count 'em --  FIVE PACKAGES of pictures delivered to my house so far?! I agreed to call the school and check on it but I said that I was sure they were not at the school since all the other packages came to our home address. The lady must have been skeptical (or felt sorry for me!) about telling me they went to the school because she then agreed to place a new order and send it to the house. Ummm, thank you but should I be worried we are going to start from scratch with all of this?

In a week's time we got our 6th (and final) package in the mail with the right picture, no black eye and no brown splotch!  YAY!  

Picture #6...Perfection!

So the boy is graduated. I wish I could say it was with a little less drama than the senior pictures but that is another blog post for another time! ;) 

Jacob on graduation night.....

"Anything else to add to the list?"

Jacob's drawing ~ love the foot for an eye on the right! :)

The school year is quickly drawing to a close.  School is out one week from today! Woo! Hoo! Party at our house when it's over! :)

While we are all looking forward to it, I am sure no one is more anxious than Tim and I, but Tim maybe a tad more than me.  Each and every morning we tag team it to get these kids up and running but Tim gets the job of dealing with the two out of three groggy, incoherent, non-morning kids we have remaining at home (who shall remain nameless, but they *know* who they are!!!) :) 

I leave for work before Tim leaves to drop kids off at school so he is the one that gets the brunt of the forgotten lunch money, the unsigned papers that they've had for a week but are suddenly all important TODAY, the going back up stairs 2 or 3  4 times to get things they need for the day, etc. It seems like he is forever telling someone to hurry up before they are all late.  It happens every. single. day.

Today in the midst of getting ready there were a few things that needed to be added to the never ending grocery list and as Tim and I talked about what we needed I was making a note of the needed items.  

As I wrote I called to him, "Anything else to add to the list?"

"Yeah," he replied.  "Can you pick up some On Time? We seem to be out of that. And could you pick up some Care because there isn't any of that either!" 

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA! :D

So taking care of the needs of my family I will see what I can do about finding some on time, some care and in general, some "give a crap"!

Come on next Friday.....you can't come soon enough! :)

Spring Things.....

Have you ever have times when you stay really busy but then looking back you don't really know what it was that kept you so busy?  Well, that is where I am.  My days are booking by and I am seeing them in the rear view mirror wondering just where they went and just what has kept me so occupied!  So once again I play bloggy catch up with the events over the last few weeks.

We had a lovely spring break doing nothing more than being home.  It was good to lounge, to putter, to relax, with nothing pressing to do. One day we did go to see The Hunger Games.  Annah read the first book about a week before we saw the movie and she was desperate to have the second one to read so we got that for her.  In the meantime Abigail wanted to read the first book before we saw the movie.  So Abigail devoured the first book while Annah devoured the second book and both finished their books about 30 minutes before we went to the movie!  Of course, with the book so fresh in their heads they knew EVERY place that the movie varied from the book and they were sure to tell every last detail of what the movie left out! :)  And the girls thought it was hysterical that I thought the boy in the movie was named Peter when it was really Peeta. (I didn't read the book) During the whole movie I thought Katniss called him Peter but she was saying it with an accent! If nothing else, I *am* good for a laugh! :)

Then it was Easter.... The girls got us ready by coloring and decorating the eggs with their friend Elizabeth. They did a wonderful job between the lovely colors and the drawings on the eggs.

Elizabeth, Annah and Abigail with their handiwork!

What lovely shades you both have!

She's getting sleeeepppy...

A bowl full of fun! :)

The day after Easter (April 9th) Jordan came home from BYU-Idaho for his spring break.  The bummer factor was that while he was on spring break, we had just finished ours so during the day we are all gone!  But in spite of that, Jordan enjoyed his time home as much as we enjoyed having him. :) 

When Jordan came home from Brazil (October 2011) he brought with him a handmade hammock. While home with us for his spring break he got out the hammock and jumped over the back fence that divides our yard from a big field that has seen everything from tobacco, to horses, to cows.  In recent weeks there hasn't been anything back there so Jordan wanted to go find a place to hang his hammock. 

Jordan jumping the fence...

With his hammock hung, he laid in it and played the guitar. :)

 

He laid out there for a few hours resting, playing music and napping.

 It was a good thing that he did that the first day he was home because a day or two later these were in the field very near to where his hammock hung! :)

It's a lovely start to the day to look out our window and see a field of cows with their babies trotting behind them trying to keep up. (One day we counted about 15 babies!) Ahhh, springtime in Kentucky...gotta love it.

ADHD for Dummies....

Ahhhh, spring break.  I love it.  The weather is good, the grass is getting mowed (thank you Jacob) and I am working on my "things I want to accomplish over spring break" list.  Does it count that the first thing on my list is to do nothing? :)

I took Jacob to a doctor's appointment today.  Anyone who knows Jacob will not be surprised to know that he's on medication for ADHD. He doesn't so much have an issue with the hyperactivity part as he does the attention deficit. It's not a family secret or anything so he's okay with me talking about it.  

Today he had to go back to his doctor for a check up to make sure he's doing okay and that he's not having any side effects from the medicine, etc. 

They checked his blood pressure and his pulse.  93/61 for BP with a heart rate of 55.  We were questioning if he was even alive!  The doctor said he had the vitals signs of a runner.  I laughed and told the doctor that was very funny because Jacob doesn't run a-n-y where, at a-n-y time, for a-n-y thing! :) 

As we were leaving the room to go check out Jacob saw a bookshelf and he stopped look at what books were there. With his eyes scanning the books he said, "Do they have an "ADHD for Dummies" book?"  I laughed and said that I didn't think anyone had written that book yet but that he should write it!  We laughed and told the doctor what we were laughing about and he agreed that Jacob should write that book and he added, "Just don't make it too long because they could never sit still long enough to read it!"  BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!  

Jacob playing the piano. Surprisingly he was quite good for having his head under a blanket!

As we checked out the lady at the desk, who heard our whole conversation, said what a great idea she thought it was for Jacob to write a book on that. As we were leaving the office she called out, "Good luck with that book!" ;) 

Laughing Out Loud....

I work at an elementary school as a teacher's assistant.  This year I work with first graders.  The joy of the job is that almost everyday I hear something that is laugh out loud funny.

A recent field trip to the Explorium (a children's museum) in Lexington so the kids could learn about taking good care of their teeth was good for some laughs.  My favorite quip of that day was when the "tooth fairy" came into the room wearing a long, flowing white gown with spaghetti straps and to complete her outfit she had wings and glittery wand.  She was a very pretty tooth fairy who had, for some reason, decided to wear a camisole under the spaghetti strap dress so it ended up looking like you could see her bra straps.  Noticing that, one of the kids shouted out,

"Hey, the tooth fairy doesn't wear a bra!"

BWAHAHHAHAHAHAHA! 

Today I was in a classroom working individually with kids on reading while the rest of the class worked on writing a paper about what characteristic most describes them.  I heard bits and pieces of conversations between the teacher and the students as she tried to guide them and encourage them in their writing assignment. I totally lost my focus when I heard the teacher say, in a moderately exasperated tone, as she looked at a child's paper,

"Honey, crazy isn't a characteristic!  It's a mental condition!" 

BWHAHHAHAHAHAHA!   :)

A laugh out loud day is a must....everyday. :)