October Happenings

Rather than do a few small posts I decided to just do one big one to get caught up.

First, I am almost over the flu... finally. I have never had flu as bad as this was. It was awful! Last week, one of the boys I watch on Mondays ended up having a fever the day he was here. Two days later, Erik and Lily were both tired and had fevers. Erik's stayed between 99 and 100, but Lily's went up to almost 102! Luckily, after some Tylenol, a good night's sleep and taking it easy the next day they were better. The next day I started having a sore throat, which progressed to fever during the weekend, which made it all the way up to 102.8. Monday evening I finally started feeling better and Tuesday it felt just like a cold with a cough, so I went to the zoo with Erik's class. Wednesday the cough got worse and Wednesday night the fever returned. Thursday morning got even worse (I didn't think that was possible) and when we took Lily in for her preschool physical they found a doctor who could see me. My fever was now 101 and they thought I might have a bit of pneumonia. After an x-ray and some second opinions, I was prescribed Tamiflu, which we were lucky enough to find, and the Z-pack, just in case. I was told I'm the kind of person they worry about because I had the flu, it seemed to go away, then came back. Apparently these are the people that can end up in the hospital quickly. I left and slept the rest of the afternoon. Friday morning I woke up, no fever, not lethargic and just had the cold symptoms again. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that: 1) I don't get worse again and, more importantly 2) NO ONE ELSE GETS THIS, ESPECIALLY DREW!!!

Here are some highlights of what was happening while I was down and somewhat out:

1) Dad came to visit for a few days! The kids were sooo excited about this, as was I. I'm just bummed I didn't get to enjoy him as much as I wanted. He, Scott and Debby moved up my grandparents things because they are moving up here (this weekend actually). He stayed with us Saturday through Monday. He was great! He even took Erik and Lily to church since they had practice for their program and I was sick. Daniel had to work. Come back and visit again. I didn't get any pictures since I was kind of out of it.

2) We received a few blessings/answers to prayers. We've been trying to get Lily into a preschool since we moved here, but they are all way too expensive. So, we gave up for the time being. Thursday afternoon a woman from the preschool department of Boulder Valley School District knocked on our door and asked if I had a preschool age child I wanted to put in preschool. When I told her I couldn't afford it she told me "I've got it for free!" I was all ears. Turns out, it was the same one we looked at back in the spring, but we were told we didn't qualify for any tuition help because we don't get free lunch. Apparently that's incorrect. Since we qualify for reduced lunch we qualify for preschool scholarships. I filled out the paperwork and online enrollment, took everything in on Friday, got a call from Lily's teacher Monday, took her in for a visit Tuesday and she started on Wednesday! She loves it! She just doesn't love having to get up and get dressed quickly in the mornings. We'll keep working on it. She's already missed one day because she wouldn't go get her shoes on. Hopefully she'll learn. I'm so glad I was home to open the door.

Lily loves to have her nails painted.


Getting ready to leave on her first day.


After her first day. She's still smiling, so that's a good sign.

Also, my substitute stuff is finally done! The only thing I have left to do is take a two hour orientation class, which I am doing on Wednesday. I was hoping to get in to an earlier class, but they were all full. I hope to be able to start working as soon as possible after that. I've already talked to a few different teachers at a few schools and they have said they'd keep me in mind when they need a sub. I'm going to take some letters to a few other schools explaining my teaching experience in the hopes that a few more teachers will want to have me sub in their classrooms. It will be so nice to have the extra money. Subs here make $95 a day. That's better than any part time job I could find, so I'm pretty excited. I don't even have to work everyday, which is awesome!

3) I went with Erik on his first kindergarten field trip. We went to the Denver Zoo. Now, as many of you know, the zoo is NOT one of my favorite places! I like to visit once a year, then I'm good. It just doesn't change.... animals lying around or walking around in their cages. The other problem is that it's sooo much walking for little legs of 5 year olds. We got there around 10 and had to leave at 12:45, so less than 3 hours to try and see everything?? I don't think so. As soon as we got off the bus we started hearing "I'm hungry!" "When's lunch?" "Can we eat now? I'm hungry!" We were trying to make it until 11:30, but we gave up at 11 and had lunch. The kids enjoyed it, until the last hour. Then they started dragging their feet. We did get to see the sea lion show and the elephants getting a bath. They did like that, except for the smell. :) Little kids are so funny. I'm glad I was able to go and spend time with Erik. I had a good group of little boys.

Giraffes. The little boy on the left is Erik's best friend, Cole.


Bath time! Erik is in the camo hat.

4) Drew has learned to climb and now tries to climb everything! He tries to climb up into his high chair, onto the couch, onto the coffee table and even onto our bed. He gets angry and screams, loudly, until someone helps him. He's very stubborn. He must get that from Daniel. :) He sure is cute and we love him to pieces. If only these teeth would hurry up already. I also wouldn't mind if he'd learn a few words to help him better communicate... that would be so much better than pointing, grunting and screaming/crying until we can figure out what he wants.

Cheesy, nose-wrinkle grin.


Upside-down Drew

We've been trying to find some pumpkins so the kids can carve their jack-o-lanterns. In Utah, we were used to stores selling pumpkins by the pound. We thought $.20 was a lot, so we'd wait until Macey's had them for $.07 per pound. Well, around here stores just sell them at a flat rate: small-$3.99, medium-$4.99 and large-$5.99. I'm sorry, but I refuse to pay $6 for a pumpkin we're going to cut up and use for a week!! I would be happy to pay $.20 per pound now, but I can't even find that. Thanks a lot all you stupid people who thought paying $4 for a pumpkin was a good deal! (I know that's no one in our family so I don't feel bad saying that on here.) If you would've just stopped to do the math you would have realized you were NOT getting a good deal. Oh well. Hopefully we'll find some this week. Can you buy clearance pumpkins the day after Halloween? Just kidding.
Keep your fingers crossed for us and keep us in your prayers that we'll all stay healthy and we won't have to deal with this crappy flu again! We'll do the same for all of you.