Nauvoo

I am so excited we are leaving tomorrow to meet my parents in Nauvoo to see some of the church history sites. I cant wait.. Then my parents will be coming back with us and staying for a couple weeks. We will be going to Mackinaw Island and seeing some of northern Michigan.. I hear it is just beautiful up there..

Allie came back from girl's camp on Sat and said she had the best time ever up there.. It was so fun the whole time.. I am so glad that she had so much fun being the first time going to girl's camp and being away from home that long.. I was a bit worried.. Now she is really looking forward to next years so that is good. But man I tell ya girls camp sure isnt what it used to be.. They got to sleep in cabins and had their meals catered.. (say what!!) You are kidding me.. What about roughing it like when I was in young womens. Boy how times have changed..

We took the whole family out Sat night to go see the new Harry Potter movie.. It was good. I was a little confused though.. I am going to have to read the books.. It has been storming here for the past few days and it has gotten so humid and foggy and hot!! crazy thunder and lightning storms. and the amount of rain we have gotten is unreal.. in 2 days we filled a 5 gallon icecream bucket clear to the top so about 7 inches I would say.. We had alot of people in our ward who live about a half hour away loose power and had their basements flood. It was pretty sad.. Crazy weather!!

Well I finally comitted and registered for the half marathon in Sept.. so now I am stuck and have to do it.. I am already nervous.. I just hope that I can stay with my training with my parents here and all the traveling around we will be doing.. That makes it pretty hard but I will just have to do it so I dont loose my progress.. I am also going to do the firefighter/EMT physical agility test again in October.. I know I am crazy!! I am hoping to get my back stronger by then and really focus on my strenght training in the mean time to help with the upper body strength it requires to do those tests.. I am also going to be practicing the tests with one of the firefighters in our ward and another girl who is going to be taking the test.. I just hope that during these practices I dont end up screwing my back up again... Anyone have some good back strengthening excercises they wouldnt mind sharing?

Anyways thats it for now.. I will post on our trip to Nauvoo when I get back.. Have a great week!!!

Summer Vacations, Aches and Pains

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..

Giveaway Contest

We all love giveaway contests.. Check out my friend Shauna's blog here to enter her contest for a really sweet prize!! Plus she is the sweetest person and her blog is a very good read..

One Lucky Girl

Oh my gosh I am such a lucky girl.. I just won my friend Jodi's Pamper Me Give Away Contest!! Yeah I am so excited!! Oh ya Oh ya uh hu uh hu!!! Woo hooo Yipeeeeeeee.. I so needed this...I cant believe I won. There were so many entries for this.. this is the 2nd time i have won a contest of hers.. I must be living right!! Thank you to all those who went in and voted and said I sent ya... Muah!! We are still waiting to hear if she won her sego lily day spa contest.. She won popular votes so she is just waiting to see if she won over the management teams votes.. Good Luck Jodi!!!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks.. We had Steve's mom and dad and brother and wife and their 5 kids come visit us for the 4th of July.. It was great to see them.. It had been 2-3 years since we saw his brother and his family.. We hadn't even seen their 2 youngest so it was really good to see them again.. We took the kids to a near by lake to go fishing and they had the time of their lives.. As soon as they would cast out they would start getting bites.. That is the best fishing for kids.. They dont get too bored that way!! We did some BBQing in the afternoon and since we are still pretty new we didnt know where all the firework shows were so we just got a few and did our own show.. The pickings were very slim out here. They only had a few to choose from so it wasnt all that exciting, but I think the kids still had fun just playing with their cousins..

Jessie and logan started swimming lessons last week and have been having a blast doing that and this week Jessie and Austin will start summer school.. They are not to happy about that but I think it will be beneficial for the both of them.. Jessie is back in horse lessons and loving every minute of it.. She is such our little cowgirl.. Her very first lesson she got to do some jumping which she never has done before and that just put her on cloud 9.. She has been riding Western for the past year and now has taken an intrest in english style so we will see how it works out..

Steve is still very busy with work as always and I am trying to make some major decisions right now on top of being a mom still and running kids everywhere.. I have once again been pondering on the idea of becoming a Firefighter/EMT.. I really only want the EMT part of it but out here it is all 1 job.. Where my kids will be in school full time starting this fall I will have more time so I have been seriously considering going back to work part time.. I have my medical assistant degree but wanted to expand a little.. I have thought about going back to school and getting my RN but am not to thrilled on the going back to school part and the waiting list to be accepted.. Plus the money it would cost.. With doing the firefighter position they pay for your training so I am really trying to decide if this is something I could handle.. I am very strong so I dont think I would have any issues there but I dont have great knee's so I worry about the work causing problems in that area.. I have already had surgery twice on 1 knee and am still having problems with them... I dont mind seeing blood and guts I have always been into watching the er shows and medical stuff on tv so I dont think that would bother me either but I do worry about some of the scenes I may see on some of the calls I would go on.. Having to see a child who has been run over or who has died in some way may hit a little too close to home and I worry what effect it might have on me.. I heard that it is a very rough and stressful job. I definently dont need any more stress in my life so I am really torn on what to do.. Does anyone have any opinions advice or experience that would like to share?

Also I have started up regulary running again (no wonder I am having knee problems) and have been seriously contemplating on running a half marathon in Sept.. I only ran a 5k last year and have had many problems since then with running and injurys.. I just love running and my goal is to run a marathon someday.. My knees and shin splints in my leg have really been a problem and ends up taking me out of the game alot, plus I am so chicken when it comes to new experiences I'v never done before. I have no clue where the city the race is in. I'm not familiar with the area or how to even go about doing it and wish I had someone who has done this before that could kinda show me the ropes.. I dont even really know how to prepare.. But I have read some running books and have done a little research and just started today on a training schedule to help prepare so now all I have to do is make up my mind on whether to do it or not and hope that my body will cooperate with me..

Decisions Decisions..

So anyways that is what we have been up to lately..