Out of school for the summer

Latest scrapbook page! I did a tutorial from Vinnie Pearce....love her!

Credits: Vinnie Pearce walkthrough, Papers and Elements from Vinnie Pearce and Viva Artistry

Woohoo! The kids are out of school for the summer! They did fantastic on their last report cards. Kinzi made 90's club all 5 grading periods and Nathan did absolutely fantastic on all his comprehensive test and final grades! We are crazy proud of these kiddos!


Our current news is that Scruffy has been sick. He came down with some serious ear infections a week ago and had to have a bit of surgery. So he's had surgery for that and is on antibiotics. Scruffy has also had just about 1 seizure per month for the last six months. They felt it was time to put him on seizure medicine. The blood work also shows that his kidneys were having some problem and his calcium levels were crazy high. So now he is on a special kidney food diet. He now has an account at our regular pharmacy.

We went to the Gaslight theatre this weekend and saw Harley's Angels. It was quite good. We go to the theatre about 5 times a years with my best friend Diane and her family.

Chuck's foot is mending well. He's in physical therapy...thank goodness....maybe he'll have more function this time around.

Kinzi bought a mini hamster with her A money and he's adorable. She named him Bibbles.

Not much else going on...

Last week of school.....yeah!

Yeah! I'm on a new roll, at least two weeks in a row. First, my family is ecstatic because this is our last week of school!! They get out a 1:00 every day this week!

I thought I'd show you a picture of Chuck's Frankenstein Foot....bless his heart...it's just always going to look funny. The iphone photo was taken at the doctor's office moments after them taking off his cast. He has 30 staples in that foot. It was so swollen that you couldn't even see his ankle nubs. He's much happier now that the plaster cast is off and he is in a walking cast/boot. He will have physical therapy this time.

As I mentioned above this is the kids last week of school. Nathan finished his comprehensive exams on Thursday. Next year Kinzi will take comprehensives as well. Their last 6 days of school are just fun projects. Nathan signed up for an engineering project. Below he is making a bridge. The teacher gave them each 6 1-ft long sticks, a box of match sticks, nylon cord, glue gun, tape, mesh and sandpaper and told them to go build a bridge. This is the beginning of Nathan's bridge.

While 6 - 12th grade are taking comprehensive exams, the 5th graders went on a couple of field trips. They went to Colossal Cave and a ranch this day. Kinzi is sluicing for minerals.

This was at the ranch, I thought it was kind of funny.

A month and a half or so ago Mackinzi competed in Latin competition at the Uof A. She won the top award in her category. She recited a story....much like Romeo and Juliet....but in Latin. These are kids from our school.

Kinzi attended her 2nd Irish dancing competition this weekend. The competition is called a Feis (pronounced a feeeesh). The next two pictures are from today's competition. She won 1 5th place medal, 3 4th place medals and a 2nd place medal. She was thrilled. It is a huge competition. There are tons of girls competing. We didn't know how popular it was but we sure know now!

The last photos are from Mackinzi class feis two weeks ago. She won 3rd place twice and honorable mention once.

Darren runs the dance academy. It was the first time any of these girls competed in a feis.

Most of the dance academy where she attend class.....see if you can find her....look in the middle.
Big hint!

2008 Family Pictures

Hi all! We had our family pictures made in record time this year (yeah us) and just got them back. Apparently the kids don't want to give up the tradition of black on black pictures....they have always called them "Our floating head pictures". So we continued our tradition!

School Updates and Scrapbooking pages

Hi everyone! It's been a busy few weeks here at our house but I'm going to do my best to keep this blog updated.

We geocached this morning and logged our 100th find. I'll be posting a video and pictures in the next day or two.

The kids had a really great week at school this past week. They seem to be doing really well. This is such a big change from their last school but I think in the long run we will be very happy with this choice. Nathan and Kinzi both have 9 classes. Nathan's classes are Art, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, History, Algebra2/Geometry, Latin, English and Economics. It is not unusual for him to have homework in 6 of those classes a night.....sometimes I think yikes...but he's handling it really well. Kinzi's classes are: Art, Language Arts, 7/8 grade Math, Music, Kemp(Karate), Latin, Science, Classics and Geography. She has struggled with taking some of the tests but we are slowing working through that. Kinzi will be getting 5 report cards throughout the year and Nathan is on a trimester schedule so he will be getting 3 report cards.

I've re-worked some scrapbook pages of the kids soccer season last year. (They didn't want to play this year.)







Credits: Papers/elements by Lindsay Jane Design, Soccer Inc.

Nathan doesn't have a tumor

Hi all....sorry it's been a while since I posted. The kids go to school in town now and it's about a 45 minute drive one way...some days I go back and forth twice taking almost 3.5 hours out of my day just driving.


I think we've talked to most of you but we're thrilled with the MRI test results. Nathan doesn't have a tumor, yeah!!! He will be taking growth hormone shots but that won't be for another month after we get pre-approved by the insurance and they order the hormones. Anyway, Nathan is beyond thrilled that nothing else is wrong.


The kids are doing well in school. Nathan's is going pretty flawless and Kinzi is only having minor blips when it comes to the classes where she has to learn tons and tons of facts. Other than that, everything is going great.



I made this scrapbook pages as I was learning to use some of the different tools in Photoshop. It says:



What a face!



What a face you are making in this picture! While I am sure your asking, "Why did mom make a scrapbook page out of this picture?", I can assure you I had my reasons: 1) Your hair is as it usually is ....messy 2) Your gorgeous green eye show up beautifully 3) Those freckles....need I say more 4) You love to look this way....evil, but you never act that way....ok...maybe you do for your brother 5) It shows you how you are naturally....a goof 6) It shows you how you were in 4th grade 7) You can almost see a smirk as your posing and finally 8) It's cute...just like you.



Credits: Paper by petit morneaux, font: impact and Susiehand, Brush: Hipster Plumes Mega Pack

Funny mistake

I looked at my blog several times over the last week and new something was wrong but I just couldn't put my finger on it....today it dawned on me what it was. The pictures in the header were from two years ago not last year, hahahahahahaha! I've since updated the header with last years pictures. We'll be having new family pictures made soon so they'll be updated again in the next few months....silly me.

Nathan has his MRI this afternoon. I'm sure it will be several day before we know anything but as soon as we do we'll let everyone know the details.

Kinzi broke her big toe last week at school during Kempo (like Karate) class. It's getting better this week but it's very sore and a lovely shade of purple with some swelling.

This week we really saw a turn around with the kids socially at school. Nathan has 3 boys that he's made friends with that all eat lunch together. Kinzi started making friend this week as well and has even invited someone over. I hope we can get that arranged for her.

Scruffy got 70% of a haircut. He gets grumpy about it after a while.

Chuck is busy as usual. He going through Air War College and as a part of that has to take Spanish. He's using the Rosetta Stone series. He's el loco when he chit chats in spanish...hehehe sorry honey. He's playing lots of golf in the afternoons in this terrible heat but it's tons cheaper so he just makes the best of it. He's also been working out like crazy and he's in terrific shape.

We have had some crazy thunderstorms the last couple of nights. Sahuarita is a mess, some of our tiny levees broke and debris is everywhere.

My time isn't my own all the sudden. Depending on the day, I spend 2 to 4 hours on the road getting my kids to and from school in town. We have high hopes it will all be worth it.

School Started

The kids started their new school last Monday. The first week went very well. We're still happy that we made the move and as we expected the only "bla" part is the drive into town. Once we get into a groove it'll be better. The kids schedules are pretty rigorous. Nathan has Algebra II, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Economics, Art, Social Students, English, and Latin. I may be forgetting something but right now I don't remember. Kinzi has AP Math, Language Arts, Science, Geography, Latin, Kempo for PE, Art, Music and a class called Classics. They study Greek and Roman culture....perfect timing since we were just in Rome. They are busy but not horribly so. I think Kinzi is planning on trying out for the theatre group.

This weekend they both has miserable colds to end their first week of school....poor kids.

They spent the weekend playing game and having fun. Kinzi made an animation that I can't wait for you to see.

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My best friend, Diane and I went to see Mama Mia for the second time this weekend. We love that movie. If you haven't gone to see it take a bunch of girls and go have a good time. It's really good!!!

Weekend in San Diego

We just got back from our yearly trip to San Diego this past weekend. It was beautiful weather and we had a lot of fun. All we did was play on the beach and geocache.

Kids going out to boogie board.

This is pretty much what they looked like all weekend.

Kinzi not wanting to pose for a picture.

Nathan not knowing he is having his picture taken.

When not in the ocean........

Self portraits of the kids......

Anyone shocked by Kinzi making a mess?

New swim shirts after a sun burn the day before.

More fun riding the waves.....

More later....I have geocaching pictures....we found 17 geocaches on this trip.

Adjusting to being home

Well...we've been home just over a week now and well it's bloody hot here!!!! We are waiting for the monsoons to arrive. We've had a little rain but not much.

The day after we got home, I ended up with a miserable sore throat, cold and cough for about 7 days....I'm on the mend now. Nathan however is not, he came down with it two days ago and feels miserable.

Nathan started "kid" sitting two boys across the street this week. They are twins who are going to be in 2nd grade. Nathan enjoys earning money now, hehehe!

My kids have been hugging their computers since we've been home. One of their favorite things to do now is make videos for Youtube. Nathan makes Youtube Poop videos...let me explain what that is...it is a random remix of cartoons...put together to make some random video...it doesn't always make sense....and it's not necessairly suppose to but generally they're funny.....certainly if your in your early teens they're funny. Kinzi does some Youtube Poop ones but found some tools she can use and now she upload her drawings...they are very cool.

If you are getting this via a newsletter you'll have to go to my actual site to play the videos. These are my kids current favorites they have uploaded. They've uploaded many....

Here's Kinzi video:
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Here's Nathan's video:
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Chuck and the kids walking

Here's a few more pictures taken during our trip to Baton Rouge. I added the one of Nathan and Chuck from 10 years ago to see how much they have changed.

Chuck 41, Kinzi 10

Chuck 41, Nathan 13

Chuck 31, Nathan 3

Baton Rouge Trip

We had a great weekend in Baton Rouge. Chuck's brother, Drew, graduated from LSU on Friday. Chuck, the kids and I flew up on Thursday (we took the kids out of school for two days). While we were in Baton Rouge, we went to Drew's graduation, went to the LSU bookstore, viewed the LSU mascot... Mike (a tiger), went to Drew's graduation, went on a swamp tour, and geocached. We had no fun getting home...more on that later!

Drew's graduation was nice....a typical long graduation but nice. It's good to see him finish college. We sat by Edie and Chris (Chuck's mom and sister) and Chris's 9 month old baby, Riley. Riley is a cutie!

Holly and Drew had a party that evening. A bunch of their friends were there as well as Holly's family, Edie, Chris and all of us. They had the biggest BBQ and craw fish boil I've seen (I don't see many craw fish boils but it was big!). Toward dark we took the kids geocaching by Holly and Drew's house and all of us were eaten alive by GIANT SWAMP MOSQUITOES....crap they grow them big there!

LSU's mascot died last year and they have a new tiger this year along with a beautiful new habitat. I think Holly told me it was about 1 Million bucks....I may be dreaming that but I think that is what she told me.

On Saturday, we all met up with everyone and went on a Swamp Tour. It was very cool. We learned that Henry Ford used the moss from that swamp to stuff his upholstered seats. Henry Ford also used the cedar that the moss was shipped in for the running boards on his cars. It was interesting. The swamp was very high so we didn't get to see any alligators even though they live there. The crazy cajun guide was looking for them.

We spent a lot of time on Saturday geocaching around the city. We found some caches that were smaller than a fingernail. It was a lot of fun. We were able to fit in seeing the new Narnia movie as well!

On Sunday, our flights started out well. We made it to DFW without problem but from DFW things started not going well. We got on a plane to come back to Tucson only to learn they had a problem. We sat on the plane for a hour or so then they made us get off. They had us wait 45 more minutes to see if they could find another plane and of course they couldn't. They just cancelled the flight. We were able to get back to Tucson via Delta only because Chuck is a gold member because of all the traveling he has done. We were suppose to get home at 1:00 in the afternoon instead we got home at 10:30 at night. American had our luggage and we managed to be part of a handful of people that made it back to Tucson on Wednesday....over 200 more pieces of luggage from our canceled flight were waiting to be claimed.

Having a canceled flight is not a big deal except it was my turn to host Bunko on Monday night. We came home to find out that my best friend, Diane, had cleaned my house and got it ready for me....Holy Cow....that was an incredible thing....Not only did she clean my house, they had Scruffy over the weekend and let Scruffy sleep on the bed at their house. What a spoiled puppy we have!

Here's some pictures!

We're at a lake geocaching by the capital.

Kinzi is using the GPS to search for a cache.

A duck protecting a cache we found!

A river rat? beaver? sea creature?.....same lake

Kinzi pointing to river rat.


Nathan driving tour boat.

Riley driving tour boat.

Swamp

Swamp



LSU mascot sleeping

Our group on the swamp tour boat.

Crazy cajun and tour guide.

Kinzi driving tour boat.

Geocaching More geocaching
Geocaching

A train near a geocache we were searching for.