Fall is Beginning!!!

I guess I should keep up with my blog since Heather and Jen are so actively keeping up with theirs and making me feel bad.

I can't believe summer is almost over already. Doug will be home in 2 weeks hopefully, 3 weeks at the most. We have missed him so much!



Garrett started soccer last Saturday and he loves it. Here is a picture of him getting ready to attack the ball.



We have had a lot of fun this summer going to the beach, pool, ice cream trips and Cedar Point with Grandma and Grandpa. This week my sister, Kristy, will be coming up from North Carolina to visit with her 2 year old son and her dog Harley.

Robyn starts school tomorrow and she is very excited. She was able to meet her teacher on Friday and is even more excited now. I'll be missing Robyn all day while she is at school but will enjoy not having to referee fights.

I'm so excited that fall is starting. I love seeing all the color of the leaves and feeling the crisp cool air. We love to go on hayrides, travel through mazes, go to the fall festivals and decorate pumpkins. I even enjoy napping to the sound of football in the background. I can't wait!!!

My Parents

I was looking forward to my parents coming out all summer. They came out Thursday morning and left Sunday morning. I can't believe how fast it went. I feel so sad that they have left. It was so nice to have the company and especially with people who know and love you so much. I enjoyed every moment that they were out. On Thursday we were able to go to the beach and have a quiet afternoon. On Friday we went to Cedar Point. On Saturday they had the chance to see Garrett practice soccer and we went out to eat and saw a Cruise-in. Every minute with them was fun and enjoyable, even with my kids getting sick on the last day of it for the 3rd time in a month. I just can't believe its over already. I can't believe how much I miss them.

Life Trials and Decisions

Our second week without Doug was a little more difficult than the first. The kids are becoming more clingy and I find that I am short tempered. Robyn actually cried on two out of four nights of vacation school (her 2nd VBS of the summer) and Garrett kept asking to be a baby again and for me to cuddle and carry him. Right now they both have fevers for the second time in a month so of course I'm a little concerned.

When I first found out that Doug had to travel I felt like this was just another punishment from God for poor decisions and sin in my life. Now I am feeling like this is a time to reflect on my life as an individual, to look at where I've been and figure out where I'm going. The amount of information that I have found out about myself in the last month is incomprehensible.

It seems hard to believe that you could be 30 years old and not know who you are. I think you get so caught up in life and family that you forget about the things that make you happy and events that made you who you are. I look back now at things I liked in high school and wonder why I wasn't smart enough to realize that I could have made something I enjoy, my career. Is this why depression is on the rise? I don't think I'm the only one that feels this way. I think my generation really struggles with making career decisions. Its just a hunch, but I bet the statistics for my generation show that there was the highest rate of undeclared majors up to that point. What are high school guidance counselors even there for? Was anyone even talked to or guided by one of them?

I picked my career because I knew I could make a lot of money without a degree. It wasn't because I especially liked being a computer consultant for pharmaceutical and energy companies. I didn't enjoy being around computer geeks that didn't know how to interact with humans. When you are in a career that is wrong for you it is draining and miserable. You race to get there so you can leave sooner. I know what its like and have no desire to go back there. Now I am only 28 credits away from a degree in business management. You know what, I don't have what it takes to be a manager nor do I want to be one! I don't like to delegate and always feel like I'm putting people out. I am too soft spoken and get walked on too easily. What I do have is a desire to work with people, an empathetic heart and the drive to make a difference. I want to pick something I enjoyed from my earlier days and turn it into my career. I have so many ideas of what I should have done.

What can we learn from this? I think we need to re-evaluate and re-visit the things we enjoyed when we were younger. I never saw a point in looking back before so I had a hard time learning this lesson. I started indulging myself in books and movies that looked interesting and I started learning a lot about myself. I can see why I am the way that I am. The most important part of this process is to share what we have learned with our children. Wouldn't it be great if they didn't have to learn some of the hard lessons we had to learn?

Is it too late for me? My husband doesn't think so. He is always telling me to go for it, but lets be practical, how many families with young children can afford to have one parent working and the other one going to school? Do you just suck it up, get through life and help your kids see what they excel at?

Our 1st week without Doug

As most of you know Doug has left for his training in McDonough, Georgia. He has to be there for 8 weeks for his new Locomotive Electrician position with Norfolk Southern. This was our first full week without him. Only 7 weeks to go!! We tried to keep ourselves busy so we didn't get too sad. We went to the beach, went to the library, participated in a dog show, visited Grandma and Grandpa and went to the park. Here are some pictures of our fun.

My Favorite Part Of Being A Mom

I usually spend most of my time helping my children to be independent. I pick out their clothes but tell them to dress themselves, I give them chores to do, I let them find ways to entertain themselves and I let them face natural consequences.

This week I was reminded of how vulnerable they really are. For a day and a half Garrett faced a high fever and an upset stomach. 24 hours after Garrett recovered Robyn came down with an even higher fever, upset stomach and sore throat. I spent most of my week catering to sick children.

I realized how much I love taking care of my sick kids. There is nothing more rewarding than cuddling with a child that just wants to be with you. They get so weak they need you to help them with everything. Most of the time I worry about the housework but not when the kids are sick. I have an excuse to forget it and just lay around with my kids. I love it!

Doug is amazed by my ability to race to a sick child. Before I knew Garrett was sick I checked on him after he went to bed. He was stirring a little and moving his tongue around a lot. I thought this was a little strange and out of the ordinary for him so I got a bowl ready and put it on my nightstand. An hour after I went to bed I heard a noise in his room and raced to him (with a sprained ankle) with the bowl and caught IT just in time. I love the closeness you have with your children that helps you see when something isn't right. I am the only one that would have caught that with him.

I love the bond I have with my children and now that they are growing older and more independent I need these times to remind me that they still need me.

Flooding in Norwalk

We had a rough week in Norwalk, Oh. There were a number of large storms that went through the area on Thursday night and Friday and many areas of the city became flooded. We were the lucky ones. There were parts of the city that were devastated. We only had an inch of standing water in our basement. All the other neighbors on our corner received 6-12 inches in their basements. I just kept watching the storm in amazement. There was so much lightning and such an incredible amount of water. I have never seen anything like that before. The last time they had a significant amount of rain like this in Norwalk was 1969. Here are some pictures of the basement and the street. Check out http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/2006-06-22-ohio-flooding_x.htm?csp=34 for more info on the flood.

Family Pictures

First Blog Ever!!

Can you believe that this is my first blog!! I have heard so much about these lately I felt like I should get up-to-date, especially being a former computer geek and all.

Our family is changing everyday and its hard to keep up. I get to make the great announcement that Doug has gotten a new job with the Norfolk Southern Railroad as a Locomotive Electrician. He started there on June 12th. This is big for our family because he will be working year round with regular hours. He will go to Georgia for 2 months for training and that will be the only traveling he has to do. He will complete that sometime before November. Doug is playing softball with the Norwalk Alliance Church team and they are doing really well. He also still has his motorcycle that he bought last May. Its a Yamaha R1. He spends most of his time standing in the garage admiring it. Doug and I have been riding it almost weekly thanks to our great date club that we have joined.

I have started babysitting and so far its lots of girls! I am babysitting on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I may have some other ones trickling in too. Garrett is not thrilled about all the girls but I am. I have determined that the equation is 1 Garrett = 4 Girls on the difficulty scale. I have become a Sudoku champion and waiting for someone to stop by the house and give me a huge check for mastering this skill. I have also been reading a lot lately and enjoying all the quiet I'm getting by having a swingset in the backyard and toys in the basement. I'm also in the process of training Taffy. We have the important stuff done (housebreaking, crate-training, sitting), I just have to work on the annoying stuff like nipping, jumping and stealing the remote control.

Robyn is doing well and having fun with the constant supply of friends at our house. We even have the paper boy's sister stopping in everyday for a visit. She was in Robyn's kindergarten class. Robyn finished her kindergarten year with a bang. She received E's (Exceeds Expectations) in every class except for Music where she got a S+ (Satisfactory with extra effort). We are thrilled that she enjoys school so much. She still spends most of her time reading and writing about 20 notes and lists a day. Her favorite thing to do is to create some type of list and check them off. She is so much like me!

What can I say about Garrett?? He is still very much a boy and very active. His new partner in crime is the puppy Taffy. They enjoy wrestling with each other and getting into trouble. Garrett's new hobby is to the answer the phone before anyone else hears it or picks it up, more of his trouble making. His still likes to run off and hide. His new trick was hiding in a bathroom stall at church so his teacher couldn't get him out. He is so creative I can't stay ahead of him. He does have a sweet side though and he thinks it will get him out of trouble. He likes to whisper romantic things into my ear like how wonderful and beautiful I am, how many kisses and hugs he wants to give me and how he wishes he could marry me. He is a master of the art of sucking up. That is how he made it this far.

Taffy is the newest member of our family. She is now about 13 weeks old and getting larger everyday. She is at least 23lbs now with another 60 to go (her mom was 85lbs and her dad was 94lbs). She is a yellow lab who just loves water. Whenever we can't find her we look in the bathtub and there she is. She licks any lingering drops and I have even caught her trying to turn on the water with her mouth. She is fully housebroken and crate trained now! That means I'm done, no more kids or animals for me!