Wow I have really been neglecting to blog lately.. Summer just seems so busy.. Wait I think it's just my life.. So what have we been up to lately??
Well Allie left for girls camp today.. She has only had 1 sleepover away from home thus far in her life so she was pretty anxious for this trip.. She is alot like I was at that age.. Tends to get homesick very easy.. She was a little booey when saying our goodbye's but I think she handled it well.. I just hope she has a good time there.. We are missing her at home.. It just feels diffrent when one of your kids are not here with you..
Austin and Jessie are still going to summer school.. I think they are enjoying it alot more then when they first started.. We still have long days with all of Jessie's homework and vision therapys and earobic therapy for her brain. It really is frustrating for her to have to do all this work when it is summer and she wants to play and she doesnt understand why she has to do all this work and the other kids dont.. We have to carefully explain that she needs a little more help and work to keep her brain exercised and to make her eyes learn to read better.. It's hard at this age to fully understand why she has to do all this work.. I think I would be mad too..
We are getting ready to go to Nauvoo, IL next week to meet my parents and go through some of the church sites and learn of the history back there.. I cant wait.. Then my parents will be coming home with us and spend a few weeks with us.. We are planning to get a camping trip in and go to Mackinaw Island and spend a couple days then go site seeing through northern Michigan and see the great lakes. It will be alot of fun.. Then the next week we will be getting all our school shopping done so the kids can start up school again.. Man it seems summer just began and now they are already getting ready to go back to school.. Where did the Summer go?
We were hoping to get in some more camping trips but being new here and not really knowing where to go and then with the kids's crazy summer schedules we just didnt get the chance to get out.. Such a bummer!!
I got this crazy idea that I wanted to become a paramedic.. Well I have been actually thinking about it for a few years now and have just waited for my kids to get older so I could go to schooling and training for it.. So I put my application in here for the fire dept.. Here you have to be both a fire fighter and EMT. You cant choose one or the other. So Sat I had to go take the physical agility test with the fire dept which consisted of 6 or 7 diffrent tasks you had to complete in a given time.. The hardest one is the rescue task where you have to carry a 120 pound dummy 50 feet to a set of stairs and make your way up the stairs into a little room where you turn around and then come back down the stairs and back the 50 feet to the starting position in about 2 mins I think the time was... This is the hardest most physical part of the test.. I had gone up a couple days prior to the fire station to do a practice run to give me an idea how it would be.. They didnt have the stairs to practice on so I just practiced carrying the dummy about 100 feet and back.. I was able to do it but it was really hard and that was without the stairs.. I was really worried about getting up the stairs with that much weight and my knee..
So my firefighter friend reccomended doing this task first since it would require all your strength.. So I choose this task first.. Of course what I wasn't prepared for was that also on this task you have to wear a 60 pound oxygen tank on you back which had a big plastic square case that straps across your chest and the firemans hat and gloves.. So I was carrying 180 pounds of extra weight on my body.. This added a huge diffrence to the way I carried the dummy.. The big plastic case on my chest really limited the way I was trying to hold the dummy out in front of me and I was trying to drag it backward and up the stairs and I kept hitting the oxygen tank on the stair rails which kept knocking me down. So I was forced to try and drag the dummy up the stairs as I tried to drag myself up the metal stairs.. I only got 3/4 the way up the first attempt and had only 1 more attempt left.. I had pulled all my lower back muscles the first attempt and was really hurting and I just knew there was not going to be a way to make it the second time around.. It would have been so much easier if I would have had the upper body strength to lift the dummy up onto my shoulders and carried it that way.. They say most women cannot do it they just dont have the upper body strength.
The second time around I tried a diffrent strategy and tried to drag the dummy by the legs under where the knee's would be.. The dummy is made out of a burlap sack type of material with little rivets connecting the arms, legs and head. I did a little better this time I actually made it all the way up and half the way down but ended up running out of time. I needed about 50 more secs.. I literally could not grip the dummy anymore my forearms were just swollen and had no grip what so ever in them. my back was just screaming... I was so dissapointed and embarrased because I was the first one to have to be escorted back to the station and sent home.. I ended up with scrapes all along my forearms with cuts in the shape of the rivets imbedded into my arms.. I had scrapped ankles where my ankles kept hitting on the metal stairs as I was dragging the dummy up. Both my ankles turned black and blue and were swollen.. I have spent the last 3 days in bed not being able to walk because of my back and have been on pain killers and muscle relaxers hoping that it would heal quickly.. They are going to have another agility test come november so maybe I will try again after I heal and forget how bad it was.. What was really bad was I never even got the chance to experience the other tasks you have to pass so I have no idea what they are like and if I can do them.. Obviously it wasnt the right time for me to do this.. It actually ended up for the better because they wanted to start the school next week dring the time I had all these vacation plans and my parents coming out so I was really stressing how I was going to go to school and still be able to go on vacation.. Guess it ended up working out for the better....
Hey you can even see my black toenail that is in the process of falling off due to my running....
I am a little bummed because I have also started training for a half marathon in sept. I havnt registered for it yet because I am still trying to talk myself into doing it but I have been training for it none the less and so with this back injury it has ceased my training for this week.. I am hoping I will be back out running by the end of the week or the first of next..
So thats what we have been up to lately..
.gif)
