It's been a while

Well, it's either been a really busy week or a really boring one with nothing to write about. It's been a bit of both. It's always busy around here....that never changes, but there hasn't been much to report as well.
I ended up not doing daycare last Wednesday because Tony woke up at about 5am and was wheezing and coughing that barking cough like croup. I took him in that morning and had Jason call the parents. Later that day, I called the parents to let them know that I would be open the next day and it was up to them if they wanted their kids here. They were already exposed anyway and all the parents went ahead and brought them. As it turns out, 3 of the daycare kids are now sick with it. One was this past weekend, and 2 of them didn't come yesterday. In fact, they won't be here today or tomorrow either. This must be a very contagious virus with how agressively it's passed between so many kids.
Speaking of daycare parents.....I got a call at 2am yesterday. Scared the heck outta me. Obviously, when you get a call at that time in the night you think something is wrong. It was one of the parents!! She said she had a huge dilema..that her daughter had that croupy cough and would she still be able to come in the morning. HUH???!! I didn't say anything for a second I was so caught off guard. Then I told her that I can ask the offer the option to the other parents of coming to daycare when one of MY kids are sick, but I can't ask them that when YOUR child is sick. Um...duh. I hung up and wondered what in the world she was thinking! Why would you call me at 2am??! I am going to say something to her on Monday when I see her again and ask her to not do that again. I don't want any calls before 5:30am. Unbelieveable.

Tomorrow we head up to Brainard for the 4th. The drive is going to be hideous with the traffic of everyone doing the same thing. I'm really looking forward to it though. I'm going to get some packing done today so that I'm not too swamped tomorrow. I want to leave as soon as Jay gets home and the kids are gone.

Belated Father's Day

We spent a day with Jay doing what I had hoped for LAST Sunday. We had sick kids, so it got postponed until yesterday. After church, we went to Perkins with mom and dad and then off to the Mall of America. I had made an appointment for him to do an hour in the flight simulator at Flying Aces. Mindy had gotten him a gift card for Christmas a couple years ago and he had never used it until now. We got him checked in and then I took the boys and we walked around for an hour. We went to the Jelly Belly candy store and I let them all pick out a few treats. That was fun since they had tons of different flavors and all sorts of candies from the past when I was a kid.....like Zotz! Remember those?! The hard candy that has a fizzy center. I didn't have one, but I got one for Jay. It's funny the little things that can bring back memories. Then we tried some samples of cheese at the WI cheese store and I bought a couple different kinds. After making a quick stop at the dollar store, it was time to get back to Jay. He had a blast and said it was even more fun than he thought it would be.

I'm more stressed out than usual these days. I have an unannounced visit from my licensor coming sometime this month. I am up for renewal by Aug. 1st, so any day now she'll knock on my door and expect everything to be in tip top shape. UGH! That never happens, so all I can do is have it at it's best and be in compliance with allt he rules. Blah!

I made a decision about something that does relieve some of the stress of all these hours. I asked Kelsie if she would be interested in being a substitute for me on days when I need to get out of the house for something. Dr. appointments, dentist, salon work meetings/classes. I can never make any of them....even the kids' field trips. With her as a backup, I can make some of these mornings out and not worry about taking kids or being stuck in the house all week. As soon as her background check comes back, we're good to go. I'm thinking twice a month or so would be so great! Ask me why I didn't do this sooner.

Don't repeat this in public

Tanner keeps walking around the house for the past 2 days saying "I really need some alcohol".......He means the ginger ale that we bought for the kids' tummy aches. HA!! I'm waiting to be in public when he says it sometime.
Innocent?? Hmmmm.....Maybe he knows EXACTLY what he's saying......Nah.

Pics from the past week

My boys..

Tyler caught his first northern this weekend. He caught a second one later that day.

Timmy's poor face...


The boys meet baby Christopher for the first time.

Home sweet home

As much as I like to get away and have a week of relaxation, there's always something nice about just being home. My own bed, my own everything. We came home Friday night since I had to work Sat. morning and that worked out best. I was able to get up at a normal time rather than try and leave the cabin at 5:30am.
Trae and Tanner weren't feeling well by the time we were leaving and within a second of walking in the front door, Tanner threw up in the foyer. Molly and Sam were sick at the beginning of the week and now 3 of the kids and myself, I think, have come down with the same thing. Kinda hard to avoid when we're all in such close contact for a week. The only good thing about catching a sickness from someone else is that you sort of know how it's going to pan out. Like we all have sore throats, but I hesitate to get strep tests for all since I know that wastn't the case with Molly and Sam. The other symptoms are all the same too. I'm thinking after a couple days, we'll all be good as new. Tomorrow will not be fun with 10 kids here.
One good thing....when I walked in the door on Friday night, between getting Tanner to the bathroom and cleaning up the floor, I remember thinking....Geez, I don't remember the house being so clean when I left. Well, it wasn't. HA! Turns out, Cindy and Erin came over while we were gone and cleaned the whole house. Jason knew all about it and gave them the key to get in. What a treat that was to come home to!! The house definately needed some work, but the things they did that I just love are those things that I never get any time for. It was one of the nicest things anyone's ever done for me.

still relaxing

Day 4 of our vacation and we're having a really good time. The weather wasn't great yesterday but we made the most of it. We headed into Nisswa in the morning and went to the shops. I ended up buying a really cute purse at the princess store. It was much cuter than the kinds I normally buy at Target. I never buy stuff like that for myself so it was fun to pick it out and get all my stuff transferred into it last night. Man...just writing that makes me realize just how unexciting my life is. Haha.
Last night, Jay and I along with dad, Pat, and Lindsey went to the casino at Mil Lacs. We didn't even get there until about 11pm. Jay and I got a rewards card cuz they had a special when you sign up, you get 10 free dollars. So, before we even began, we were up $20. I put my $10 in a poker machine and won $25 on my first hand. I thought that was good, but then Jay put his $10 in another machine and on his first hand he got 4 aces!!! It paid him $400!! In the first 5 minutes we were there. He was so amazed, he said..I'm done, let's go.
We cashed that out and then after walking around a bit, I went to play some blackjack. After about 1 1/2 hours, I got up with $325 in chips. Holy cow, we now just made enough to pay for our whole cabin for the week. We were done, we were excited..and we were hungry, so we went to the cafe and got something to eat. Thinking we were leaving soon, we went to find everyone only to see that they were still playing. Soooo....I decided to sit down at the same table I had earlier. One hour later, I got up with another $340! We just made almost $1000 in one evening at the casino. I'm beginning to wonder if I should quit my daycare and go gambling full time. HA!
We got home at 4am and went to bed happy at the night's events. It was a good time.
Today's been fun. Just chilling, making some mixed drinks, daquairis, ice cream grasshoppers...mmmmmm.
On the lightside today......Tony was telling Kaylee that all the people in his family have a name that starts with a T except mom, dad, and Trae. I told him that Trae also had a name that began with T. Tony thought for a bit and said "CH..CH..CHrae....CH..CH..CHrae?" He totally thought that his name started with a CH sound. Too funny! Two minutes after I had told Pat that story, he called Tanner into the house. "Channer, come here...Channer?" HAHA!!

Our vacation so far

Well, it's Monday and we've been at the resort since Saturday afternoon. We got up here around 3pm and got the keys to the 3 places we're renting. Two were great...but one smelled so badly of stale smoke, no one wanted to stay there. It wasn't just a little that had just been from the last people staying there..it was obvious this had been a regular thing. We spoke to the owners and they were nice enough to switch us to another cabin that is really nice and new.
Yesterday the weather was beautiful. We were down at the water most of the day getting plenty of sunburn amongst all of us. We didn't put sunscreen on right away and were paying for it last night. It's all good though, I could use a little sun.
So after dinner, the adults were sitting on the deck at our cabin while the kids played at the park behind the cabin. We heard some crying and then it turned to screaming. Jay and I got up and all the adults came around the corner...as we did, I saw Jay take off running which scared me so much that I started running too. All the time, the kids were screaming. I knew something bad had happened.
When I got around the cabin, all I saw was Timmy laying on the ground in a ball holding his face yelling "my eye". Then I saw his face. It was completely covered in blood. I yelled to the others to quick get a towel. I couldnt' tell where he was bleeding from....then I saw it. On his right cheek less than an inch away from his eye, was a gash that was open and pouring out blood. Jay picked him up and got him in the van while I ran to get my keys. We raced to the ER, he laid his head on my lap the whole time. His head was pounding and he was really hurting.
The long story short is that he ended up needing 6 stitches. It was really hard to watch and he was so scared. He got through it though and will be okay. Thank you God...it could have been so much worse.
Turns out he was on the teeter totter with Trae and when Trae got off too fast, Timmy slammed down and hit his face on the metal pipe that was used for the handle. It's interesting cuz we had all commented on that teeter totter when we arrived the day before. It was so big that the ends raised up almost 7 feet high when one side was up all the way. We had told the kids to be careful on it. Sometimes, I hate being right.
On a side note...Mike and Kristin had already gone to the ER and were there when we arrived. Molly and Sam were so sick that they brought them in. There was no one else there but our family. Not exactly what we had in mind for our trip.
On a much lighter note. When we were coming on Sat. a deer bolted out in front of the car and I had to break hard. The kids were all excited to see it and I was saying it was a good thing we didn't hit him. Tony says from the back seat.."mom, they should put a deer crossing sign there....that way we know when the deer are coming" Haha. He's so funny.
I'll post pics of Timmy's face after we get home from the cabin. OH, I forgot to mention. This morning Jay went the the owners to talk to them about what happened and about what a bad liability that was.....within 20 minutes, the guy was outside disassembling it.