Life as I know it.

My nephew Jay has decided to attend WSU and came over this week for the freshman orientation. He had a coupld of friends tag along with him for a road trip and possibly to go to Silverwood. At the last minute they decided a hotel was too much so we had 2 of his friends, stay here Wed night, 3 stay on Thur night and all 4 of them are here tonight. It has been a neat experience having them here as it looks like Bug is going to turn into a teenage boy some day, it's been very educational. In all reality though I feel like my nephew sold the other boys a bill of goods. While he is off enjoying Freshman orientation, the other boys have spent all of there time running up and down the road to where Jay is (an hour and a half away). 1st on Wed driving him there and then coming here to spend the night, then on Thur, they drove back down there to pick up the 3rd friend, who flew into that airport instead of this one, then came back to spend the night and then finally today heading back down

Bug was excited to have his friends E & G over for a sleep over last night. The boys got dropped off around mid afternoon and got to play for awhile before movie night. We watched the original Ice Age movie, which I had never seen and decided wasn't too bad. The boys thought it was hilarious. Between the movie, the popcorn and the ice cream they had a great time and actually got to bed at a reasonable hour. We then got up this morning and went to an Adventure kids playdate at the park. We had a water balloon fight and played around the park. It had a really good turn out and Bug had a great time. E & G got left out a little bit but still seemed to have a good time. They spent the rest of the afternoon, playing outside and playing on the Wii, until a family friend came and picked up the boys. Then Bug and I ran out and did a couple errands including getting my TB test done, basically the last thing on our list of things to get done to get our Foster Licence.

Well our new little girl's room is officially finished, it is definitely pink. But I think it is cute and I hope that whatever little girl(s) we have in our house enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it. As you can see the walls are all pink and the castle bed I found turned out perfect. I went with the princess theme and have on one wall the saying "Once upon a time, there was ..... a Princess" In a darker pink than the walls and surrounded by pink stars. Then on three of the walls, I did flowers with butterflies, bees, ladybugs and the such. Along the baseboard like a fairy garden. Then above the bed it says "DREAM ... Fly with the Angels ... Dance with the Stars". Also in dark Pink with pink stars. Very cute and VERY girlie.

Well today (technically yesterday) was my 35th birthday. I can't believe I'm 35, that is officially old to me. I ended up having a pretty nice day. Though going into it I was feeling pretty bummed. Originally my mom was supposed to take me out for a girls day of shopping and lunch with my cousin Jamie, but she found out she had to work. Then Don was supposed to take me out to dinner, but he had to go to the fire dept. So I started out the day with nothing to do. So Bug and I went to Adventure Kids (the school age playgroup) for our MOMS club, it was nice to hang out and visit with friends, around noon we headed over to a local restaurant that gives you a free steak dinner on your birthday and Don met us there. The lunch was good and Don gave me my birthday present, a new ipod Nano. I have been really wanting an ipod so was very excited to get this. I can't wait to learn how to download music into it. After lunch Don headed back to work and we went to my friend Brenda's

Bug woke up this morning still in pain and wanting to put the cervical collar back on. I told him if he had the collar on then he would have to spend the day in bed. He said OK I'll lay in your room and watch TV. I said "Oh no, there will be no TV." So he went back to his room and was out with in 5 minutes dressed and without the collar, ready to go for the day. You can tell that he is really stiff, but he seems OK overall, we are supposed to give him ibuprofen every 6 hours for the next 2 days to keep down the inflamation.

Bug getting into his room having his head taped down so he can't move. Today instead of enjoying a friend's birthday party and relaxing in the afternoon and going out for an early birthday dinner. Bug and I spent the afternoon at the local Children's Hospital. Bug was jumping in a bounce house at his friend's party and apparently decided to do a somersault and missed and hurt his neck. Bug being who he is (our own little drama king,) got out of the house just fine, walked over to where I was sitting climbed into my lap and then started screaming his head off. We ended up sitting at the party for 45 minutes with me trying to decided if he was actually hurt enough to justify taking him somewhere to be looked at, or if I should just take him home. I tried call Blue but no luck, so I called the urgent care to get their opinion and they said I should take him in, but not to them. That I should take him to the hospital so they could run some tests. At this point Bug is still

Bug with The Wiggles in the background. Tonight we got to go see The Wiggles. My friend Meegan took us, she got free tickets through one of her Foster family connections and invited us to go. I was really excited to go. Bug is getting older and will soon be past the age of wanting to see them and we haven't been since he was about 20 months old. He didn't even know who The Wiggles were the last time we went, having never seen the show. We all had a great time, and it was so much fun to see him shouting and dancing along. The Wiggles arriving in the 'Big Red Car'. The Cast up on stage. Bug shouting "Wake up Jeff!"

The office is now officially downstairs. Yeah Don! As I wrote last week I moved everything out of the office except Don's desk and computers. So last night Don disassembled the desk and moved it downstairs and today he got all the computer stuff out. Now I just need to get in and get the room painted and assemble the new bed and Viola a little girls bedroom. I'll take a pic and post it after I get it all done. BTW we didn't end up getting the camper I found last week after all. We went out and looked at it on Sunday, but Don decided it was more work than he wanted to take on. So we passed on it. We did sell our camper this week though. So we either need to find something new, or we'll be tenting it the rest of the summer. We have a trip planned in 4 weeks, so we will see what happens.

See I told you I need someone watching over me, the neighbors even think so. I have been getting things done around the house today and running in and out taking stuff out to the garage or car. Anyways I am downstairs putting stuff away and I hear a hello coming from upstairs and I figure it's Kent, (he has a key and tends to come in and yell for us). So I come upstairs to find a local cop standing in my kitchen. Apparently a neighbor or someone called them concerned because I had left the doors open on my car and to the garage. While I'm visiting with the cop another neighbor stopped by to make sure everything was OK, because a woman had stopped by a couple of times looking at a desk I have out front. I guess it's just me but if you leave something out front with no price or anything on it, I assume it's free. Anyways after the cop and neighbor left I went and shut all the door and put a sign on the desk that says FREE, hopefully that clears up any confusion. I can'

OK it's been long enough I am starting to really miss my family. Also apparently I need someone to watch over me, after all the other things that have gone wrong this week, yesterday I fell down the stairs and hurt my foot. At first I though I just scraped it up good, but after working on it all day it had swelled up pretty good. So I wrapped it up and left my shoe off to go to Bunco last night. Every time I talk to Don, he has horrible reception so I can barely hear him and he never has Bug around his so I haven't talked to Bug since Wed morning :( Bunco was fun last night, though there was definitely more gabbing than playing. We only ended up getting through 3 rounds (instead of 4), before it got to dark to play. I didn't win anything but it was still a lot of fun. Also we had a best food competition last night, so the food was even better than usual. Today I have been working on finishing up things around the house, getting our room reorganized and getting the last few

I found our new foster daughter's bed. I have had an idea in my head of the kind of bed that I wanted, but just hadn't found it yet at the price I was looking for. I wanted a bed that you would walk into her room and go "yep, this is definitely a girls room". So I finally found the ultimate little girls bed. As you can see from the pictures, it is a castle with pink side and it even has a little built in table for tea parties. I even got pink Disney princess bedding to go with it with valances for the window and a Little Mermaid storybook pillow. I can't wait to get the room finished and wee how it looks in there. Also I think I found our new camper today. It is 11 ft long and should fix all the problems that we have with our current camper. 1st it has a queen size bed that goes the long way so I won't have to step on Don in the middle of the night to go pee. It has a full bathroom with sink and shower, a refrigerator with separate freezer and a built in ice

Today we had our 2nd home visit with our foster care licensor (Yong). I say we but it was actually just me since Bug and Don left for camping early this morning. I thought about rescheduling the appointment, but the last time I talked to Yong she said we needed to have everything done by the 1st of Aug. So today we got through a good portion of my personal history interview and she inspected the house and checked off most things. We have a few odds and ends things left, like the bed (which I still haven't found yet). Locks on the cupboards under the sinks, outlet covers, showing her our 1st aid kit, fire extinguishers and flashlight. Then I still need to schedule our fingerprinting and get out TB tests done. I have given up on Don ever getting the office done in time. So after Yong left I went and cleared out the office. When Don gets back from his trip, he will come home to an empty office with only and empty desk with the computer sitting on it. Everything else will be downstairs

Don and Bug are headed out for a camping trip with Mike and his boys and some of Mike's other guy friends and their boys to the Lake. So we have spent the last 2 days getting all his math done for the week. Getting the laundry done and his stuff packed. Getting the camper all ready and all the other little things that need to be done so they can go. We also went and saw Surf's Up at the theater on Mon and went to a pool party at a friend from MOMS club on Tue. It's a good thing I've been so busy so that I don't have time to think about the fact that they will be gone for 5 days wwaaaaaa! On a good note I think I found a buyer for the camper after they get back. Now hopefully I can find something to replace it with.

We had a nice forth of July around here. I got up extra early to get the yard picked up and looking it's best. Don went fishing with his buddy and mom helped get the food ready after she got up around 11. We had a nice BBQ with about 18 people. It was supposed to start around 1:00 but I had told people we would eat around 4 so most people didn't come until around 3:30 but that worked out good, it gave me a chance to get more things done around here. And Brenda came around 1:30 with her 2 little ones So my Bug got to play with her son and she and I got to visit. The BBQ went smoothly, usually I feel like I run around like a chicken with it's head cut off at most of my parties and I was very relaxed and just got to sit around and visit with friends. Everybody hung out till 5:30-6 and we ended up keeping Brenda's son a little while extra, so she could take her daughter home and put her to bed and Bug would still have someone to play with. After we took S home, Don started

My niece K headed back home today. I will miss having her around it was a great visit. We didn't do to much this week. Bug had swimming lessons all this week in the afternoons, so that had priority over other activities. On Tue we had our MOMS club end of the year picnic. at a park right by my house. This picnic was wonderful, very well organised, lots of food, nice thank you gifts for the coordinator and the retiring president gave us all really cute pens with the MOMS club logo on it. K had a good time eating and tanning, I got to visit with Brenda and the rest of my MOMS club friends and my Bug and her Bug got to run around and play together. On Wed, Bug went to a play date for most of the day and then Don picked him up and took him to swim lessons. K stayed home by herself the whole day, just laying around in bed, playing on the computer and texting her friends. I didn't get off work until late and when I got home and asked Don about dinner, he said he had sent his friend K