Our Summer Vacation 2008

Are you ready for picture overload??? You are lucky though. I took over 600 pictures. Anyway, here's our vacation in a nut shell...

We got there LATE Friday night and unpacked. Saturday, Jasmine, Jenna and I ran to the store to get food and other stuff.

Sunday was spent relaxing, making S'mores and just having fun being together.

Jamie braided Jasmine's hair.



The boys played their PSPs.



Then it was time for S'mores!!!



The aftermath....



I asked Jacob if I could take his picture which he only wanted one. Here is a nice little progression of how he felt when I took more than one.

This picture is for my friend Tracy (you know which one if it's you).



I was trying to get a picture of all 5 kids. Jamie was helping. Apparently no one told my children to look AT THE CAMERA and not the person saying CHEESE!!!



Of course they have to be goofy!



A pretty one of Jazzi



Saturday was also Jamie's birthday but we never got around to having the cake so on Sunday, we did. It's not much of a cake but the kids enjoyed it anyway.



Monday, we again didn't do much. The kids and I went shopping. They all got watches and we got some more food and snacks and such. Jamie had to go home to go to the retina specialist on Tuesday morning. (That was a wasted trip because the doctor couldn't even do the dang pressure test so they still don't know much. He'll probably have to have surgery to get the scar tissue removed. He goes back to the eye specialist tomorrow so we'll see.)

Then Jenna and Jasmine thought this would be fun.



A pic of my furry baby, Bear



Then Tuesday night, we did S'mores again when Jamie got back.



James was very proud he burnt it so well!



I love this girl.



Jenna being silly Jenna. She LOVES crossing her eyes.



Jacob is not one to be outdone by his 2 year old sister.



Me taking a little target practice with Jamie's Glock 45. Be afraid, be very afraid.



Chilling on Daddy's 4-wheeler.



Daddy and his two youngest babies



Daddy and James



Daddy and Jacob with his messy S'mores face



Daddy and Jenna



Daddy and Jazzi



Jamie and Jordan



Then another day we went to Luray Caverns. On the way down the steps, Jenna declared that it was very "booky" (spooky for those that don't speak toddler).



It's a rare family photo!!!





So then that night we get back and I'm doing my thing. The kids are out front with Jamie. This freaking beetle jumps on his shirt! Look at the size of it! It's huge. I locked the screen door so Jamie wouldn't torture me with it. Instead he tortured the kids. Nice Dad! Very nice!



We did go to the Bergton Fair twice too. It's a very small fair compared to what most would be used to but tons and tons of people. Lots of Jamie's family goes so it was nice catching up with people and meeting some the kids and I had never met. The kids rode rides. Jenna wanted to ride EVERYTHING!! Just like her mommy. The kids played a ton of games and won a ton of crap, er stuff. That fair made a killing off of us! I didn't bring the camera though so no pictures.

Then on Saturday, Oma and Opa came up for the rest of the weekend. We took them over to the home place (where Richard grew up as a child). For those that have never seen it, here's a picture.



Then we got back, started some fire works, played Uno, Jamie took people on rides on the 4-wheeler then he grilled.

Smoke Bombs
*Just so everyone knows ~ Jacob picked out his own outfit!*



Sparklers





Jacob wouldn't leave Jamie's side when Opa was doing the louder fireworks. We were really surprised that Jacob was the one that was a little bit scared of them.



The bigger stuff



We had a wonderful vacation and we are all sad to be home. But the greatest news of all from the week ~ Jenna is almost completely going on the potty!!! She only pees on it but she will wear panties with no accidents and asks for a Pull Up when she needs to #2. YAY Jenna!

I made a few scrap pages while we were gone of our S'mores fun.

Tuesday Tell All ~ Summer is Sweet

My friend, Alida, told me about this neat blog called the Tuesday Tell All. Basically you have a weekly assignment to post about the topic they have selected. Just a neat way to add things to your blog about your family that you may not normally put. So here is my first Tuesday Tell All.

Today's Topic:

Summer is Sweet

It seems like all my careful meal planning gets thrown out the window during the summer. We tend to take a far more casual dining approach.

Which often means Popsicles and fruit for lunch or hot dogs and cookies for dinner.

What are your favorite summertime treats?

Does your family have a favorite summer recipe, favorite snow cone, ice cream or frozen treat....we'd love to hear about it.

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We also LOVE watermelon....well, everyone but Jordan (weird kid I tell you).



And always ice cream. It doesn't matter if it's from the store, the ice cream man, Dairy Queen or Coldstone. We love ice cream!



We LOVE summer time treats in this house!

Happy 33rd Birthday Jamie!

Happy Birthday baby! I'm so happy we got to be at our favorite place for your birthday. I hope we can spend many more birthdays there!



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Interesting Birthday Facts


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Your date of conception was on or about 2 November 1974 which was a Saturday.

You were born on a Saturday
under the astrological sign Leo.
Your Life path number is 1.

Your fortune cookie reads:
You were born with the skill to communicate with people easily.

Life Path Compatibility:
You are most compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 1, 5 & 7.
You should get along well with those with the Life Path numbers 3 & 9.
You may or may not get along well with those with the Life Path number 8.
You are least compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 2, 4, 6, 11 & 22.

The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2442619.5.
The golden number for 1975 is 19.
The epact number for 1975 is 17.
The year 1975 was not a leap year.

Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 2/11/1975 and ending 1/30/1976.
You were born in the Chinese year of the Rabbit.

Your Native American Zodiac sign is Salmon; your plant is Raspberry.

You were born in the Egyptian month of Paopy, the second month of the season of Poret (Emergence - Fertile soil).

Your date of birth on the Hebrew calendar is 18 Av 5735.
Or if you were born after sundown then the date is 19 Av 5735.

The Mayan Calendar long count date of your birthday is 12.18.2.0.15 which is
12 baktun 18 katun 2 tun 0 uinal 15 kin

The Hijra (Islamic Calendar) date of your birth is Saturday, 17 Rajab 1395 (1395-7-17).

The date of Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 30 March 1975.
The date of Orthodox Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 4 May 1975.
The date of Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent) on your birth year was Wednesday 12 February 1975.
The date of Whitsun (Pentecost Sunday) in the year of your birth was Sunday 18 May 1975.
The date of Whisuntide in the year of your birth was Sunday 25 May 1975.
The date of Rosh Hashanah in the year of your birth was Saturday, 6 September 1975.
The date of Passover in the year of your birth was Thursday, 27 March 1975.
The date of Mardi Gras on your birth year was Tuesday 11 February 1975.

As of 8/6/2008 2:15:38 AM EDT
You are 33 years old.
You are 397 months old.
You are 1,724 weeks old.
You are 12,065 days old.
You are 289,562 hours old.
You are 17,373,735 minutes old.
You are 1,042,424,138 seconds old.

Celebrities who share your birthday:
Kate Beckinsale (1973) Sandra Bullock (1964) Kevin Spacey (1959)
Dorothy Hamill (1956) Roger Taylor (1949) Helen Mirren (1946)
Mick Jagger (1943) Stanley Kubrick (1928) Blake Edwards (1922)
Jason Robards, Jr. (1922) Vivian Vance (1912) Gracie Allen (1902)
Aldous Huxley (1894) Carl Jung (1875) George Bernard Shaw (1856)

Top songs of 1975
Love Will Keep Us Together by Captain & Tennille Fly, Robin, Fly by Silver Convention
Island Girl by Elton John He Don't Love You by Tony Orlando & Dawn
Bad Blood by Neil Sedaka Rhinestone Cowboy by Glen Campbell
Philadelphia Freedom by Elton John That's the Way (I Like It) by KC & the Sunshine Band
Jive Talkin' by Bee Gees Fame by David Bowie

Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 4.72211350293542 years old. (You're still chasing cats!)

Your lucky day is Sunday.
Your lucky number is 1 & 4.
Your ruling planet(s) is Sun.
Your lucky dates are 1st, 10th, 19th, 28th.
Your opposition sign is Aquarious.
Your opposition number(s) is 8.

Today is not one of your lucky days!

There are 354 days till your next birthday
on which your cake will have 34 candles.

Those 34 candles produce 34 BTUs,
or 8,568 calories of heat (that's only 8.5680 food Calories!) .
You can boil 3.89 US ounces of water with that many candles.

In 1975 there were approximately 3.1 million births in the US.
In 1975 the US population was approximately 203,302,031 people, 57.4 persons per square mile.
In 1975 in the US there were approximately 2,152,662 marriages (10.1%) and 1,036,000 divorces (4.9%)
In 1975 in the US there were approximately 1,921,000 deaths (9.5 per 1000)
In the US a new person is born approximately every 8 seconds.
In the US one person dies approximately every 12 seconds.

In 1975 the population of Australia was approximately 13,968,881.
In 1975 there were approximately 233,012 births in Australia.
In 1975 in Australia there were approximately 103,973 marriages and 24,307 divorces.
In 1975 in Australia there were approximately 109,021 deaths.


Your birthstone is Ruby

The Mystical properties of Ruby

Ruby is said to open one's heart to love.

Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources)

Carnelian


Your birth tree is

Cypress, the Faithfulness

Strong, muscular, adaptable, takes what life has to give, happy,content,optimistic, needs enough money and acknowledgment, hates loneliness, passionate lover which cannot be satisfied, faithful, quick-tempered,unruly, pedantic and careless.


There are 141 days till Christmas 2008!
There are 154 days till Orthodox Christmas!

The moon's phase on the day you were
born was waning gibbous.

More Big News from Jazzi

Jasmine had gymnastics tonight and it was my neighbor's turn to take the girls. When she got home, she came running in to show me her loose tooth. This was approximately 8:15 and there was barely a wiggle. The kind of wiggle that you know you have a few good days of wiggling left before it comes out. What you need to understand is that Jasmine is one of the last kids in her grade to still have all of her baby teeth. She has been on a mission for at least a year to get a tooth out of her head.

So she's been walking around the house wiggling that tooth with her tongue, her fingers, showing James, Jenna and I how much looser it's getting. At 9:30, we were all getting our PJs on and getting ready for bed.

It's 9:40 and Jasmine is in the bathroom. With that, I hear "It's out! I got my tooth out!"

Here comes Jasmine, proudly carrying her tooth with her big bloody grin.

A few swishes of salty water later, she is one proud and happy girl. She also has won the award for "Quickest Extraction of a Tooth".

Vacation tomorrow!

I am LONG overdue for a vacation. The last time we went on one, Jasmine was a baby. We are off to the mountains tomorrow after I'm done babysitting. From Friday to the following Sunday! How great is that?! Jacob and Jamie left today since Uncle Frank was going up today too.

Jamie will be home Monday night to go to his retina specialist appointment Tuesday morning. We hope to hear some good news so keep Jamie in your thoughts and prayers.

I will have tons of pictures. We plan on going to a few places like Luray Caverns and the Natural Bridge. The Bergton fair is later in the week. Oma and Opa are also coming up next weekend. So be ready for lots of pictures when I get home next week... Well that's if Jamie can pry me away from a week of relaxing.

Jamie's eye update

He's doing good. The doctor is happy with how his eye is healing. That being said, he is still on complete bed rest the rest of the week and can't lift anything. We go on vacation next week so hopefully by then, he'll be able to return to work. He must go to a retina specialist next week as he did tear the retina away from the rest of the eye. OUCH!

He's doing really good at resting and not doing much. A few new computer games have provided him enough entertainment to sit in his recliner. We are still doing all the drops, 3 times a day.

While you feel like things are going well, it just seems like he has a long way to go. I'll just hold out the cheering and clapping until the eye specialist and retina specialist both give the all clear.

Seriously, what else?

It's late. I'm tired but wired. I'm worried about my husband. I can't sleep so I blog. Bear with me.

Poor Jamie. He sends me a picture text today. This is what I get. Excuse the quality. It's from his camera phone.



After a few text exchanges, I find out that Jamie got busted in the face with something while working. He is on his way to the ER by our house. *sigh* OK, so he'll go. They'll check him out, send him home and be fine. Well, I go up there with the kids and check on him. The doctor is checking him out when I get there and wants him to get a CT scan to make sure there are no broken bones around the eye. Well I think that's what he said. I was a tad freaked when I saw his eye. This is what I saw when I got there.



After the CT scan, it showed no other damage which is great. They send him to a specialist, right next door who will see him right now. Great. So I take him over and fill out his paperwork and leave him there. I have 5 hungry kiddos that are getting restless.

A bit later, he texts me to tell me he is still waiting. A few tests and hours later, he is home. The news isn't good. He is on complete bed rest with 3 different eye drops, 3 times a day. I can't mix them. I can't let them touch his other eye, my eyes or anyone's eyes. I have to scrub down my hands after each medication and make sure the kids don't get ahold of the paper towels that we use while doing this. He has to wear a patch while he sleeps. He can't take anything with aspirin in it. He can't lay flat. He can't risk any more blood being introduced into his eye or he can lose his sight permanently. He will be going back to the doctor tomorrow, Friday and Saturday. He can still possibly be hospitalized if the doctor doesn't like what he sees by the weekend.

Tonight, while doing his drops, the part of his eye that should be white is white, which I take as a great sign. He was diagnosed as having a hyphema.

So here I lay on the couch, trying to relax to go to sleep, while he sleeps in his recliner. I'm so scared and upset but trying to remain positive. The doctor did say he will have a lifetime of having pressure checks on that eye. Jamie must follow the doctor's orders to a T or he could loss his sight in that eye. *sigh* Right now, he said it's like a fog over everything he sees out of that eye.

Thanks to those of you that have prayed for Jamie or kept him in your thoughts. We appreciate the support. I'll post updates as the days progress.