Trip Pics, Part One

First we went to visit my friend in Georgia. While we were there, we went to the Georgia Aquarium. We took a lot of pics of the fish and sharks, etc, but I just can't post them all. I honestly can't just choose which ones to post because they are all similar. Instead, I just decided on a few pics of us.

Some pics from the Georgia Aquarium:

Then we headed north to North Carolina to our cabin in the mountains. We stopped along the way in western North Carolina to see some waterfalls before headed to our cabin in more central North Carolina.

Heading north!

Still in Georgia (near state line). Tallulah Gorge, GA

Bridal Veil Falls, NC

Dry Falls, NC

Dry Falls, NC

Ray and I actually took a pic in this
exact spot on our honeymoon.

We thought it would be great to take a pic

with the kids in the same spot

Dry Falls, NC

Dry Falls, NC

Dry Falls, NC

Walking under Dry Falls

Under Dry Falls

The river the Dry Falls flows into

Finally, our cabin in Newland/Linville, NC

Porch View

Mountain view from porch

More views from porch

More views from porchView of the back of the cabin

Another view of the back of the cabin

Side of the cabin

Living Room

Dining Area

Dining Area/Kitchen

Kitchen

Laundry

Desk Area in Living Room (near stairway)

Master Bedroom w/ king bed

Second Bedroom w/ 2 twin beds

Nate playing in yard

Nate on the hammock in the yard

Grace in the yard

Grace on the hammock

Grace and Nate playing around on the hammock
(I never saw the kids playing on the hammock,
or in the yard, the first day because I was in
bed sick with a fever)

Grace on the porch

Grace and Nate on the porch swing

On the last morning we decided to take
some family pics on the porch and in the yard.
It was around 62 degrees- Nice, eh?

In order to get the kids to cooperate with picture

taking, we usually tell them to take a serious
picture first and then we can take a silly pic.
Here are our silly family pics :)

It's Been A While......

to say the least.

Things have been rather hectic around here lately. I had a psych final to study for and had the exam on the 21st. Grace also had a sleepover birthday that same day, and we were getting ready to leave to go out of town. Because of my exam, I had not done anything in advance to get ready, and originally, the plan was to leave on the 22nd, drive to Orlando and then on the 23rd drive 7 hrs to Ray's brother's house. We had so much to do and I had a migraine on top of everything, which I just worked through because I really didn't have any other choice. We ended up working all through the 22nd, running errands, making piles, picking up Grace from her sleepover.....I even went to the school uniform store to get uniforms for next year. They had a really good sale and I wasn't going to be here later in the week to take advantage of it, so that was the only time I had to do so. Well, we didn't leave on the 22nd. We ended up packing all night and I think we finally finished, or I finally took a break, around 3:30am, and took a snooze. We got on the road at 6:30am and off we went (which was now a 10 hr drive because we were no longer stopping in Orlando).

Vacation was a whirlwind. First, we spent 3 days at Ray's brother's in NW Florida- which as of now, is no longer his home. He, my sister-in-law and my nephews will be relocating to Turkey at the end of this month.

Next, we drove through Alabama and into Georgia to a suburb of Atlanta to visit my longtime best friend, Sara, her husband Kevin and their daughter, who I had not yet met, Katie. We spent 2 days there and got to visit the Georgia Aquarium. We wished we had longer time to spend there, but the time we did have was very nice. We ate at this awesome BBQ place the first night. As we drove there, we passed this Hindu temple, and when Nate saw it, he said, "It's the biggest sand castle in the world." So funny. You should have heard the inflection in his voice when he said it. Even funnier, when I asked Sara and Kevin about it, Kevin even mentioned something about it looking like a sand castle. Here's a pic:

It does look like a sand castle, doesn't it?

After Georgia, we left and headed north to North Carolina. We had rented a cabin in Linville/Newland for 4 nights. Little did I know when we booked it (maybe Ray knew, but I didn't), his parents had been living in that area back before Ray was born when it was just his older sister and older brother. Anyway, the cabin was very nice. We had a great view of Grandfather Mountain. It was a great and relaxing time and to top everything off, we had the BEST weather ever. It was mid-to-high 70's during the day and at night it had gotten down into the low 50's, with one night getting down to 49. I even used the fireplace Friday morning to warm up the house a little because it had gotten quite chilly. Our time there was beautiful. I can't wait to go to NC again. There was nothing like sitting on the porch, rocking, listening to the sound of the birds chirping and the trees blowing in the wind in the cool weather.

Unfortunately, the first 2 days at the cabin Nate and I were at our worst with a cold we had just gotten, complete with crazy head congestion and fevers. The first day, we did nothing really. I actually took a nap because I was feeling so crummy, but even though we had plans to do stuff that first day, it ended up being REALLY nice to do nothing for a change. We grilled dinner on the grill every night which was SO nice. We took the kids in the hot tub one night (don't worry- it wasn't too hot and they didn't stay long). We went on a hike at Linville Falls. Side note- after walking up slopes my kids have never had to walk up before because of living in a very flat Florida, they seemed to be pretty tired. However, somehow, Nate finds the energy to just run around like crazy after. Where does he get his energy from? I thought he would have been wiped out after that! I swear that boy has a motor somewhere that I don't know about. Thursday we went to Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi at over a mile high, and then Black Mountain (near Asheville). Overall, it went fast, but we had a great time and I am especially glad that the kids had a great time, too. I know Grace really loved this trip because our last night in Georgia, she cried about not wanting to leave and wanting to stay longer, and our last night in the cabin she did the same thing. I wished we could have stayed longer, too. I hope they have memories about this trip forever. I know I will. It was so awesome to have the kids just go out on the porch and play while I was in the kitchen doing dishes. Or seeing them run outside into the yard. Or sitting in the hammock. Or playing with Legos by the fireplace. Or sitting on the porch swing. Or going on a hike.

I am so ready to be out of South Florida now. And I am so ready for more trips like this later in the future.

Lastly, the kids got to see a groundhog, chipmunks and fireflies for the first time while in Georgia. I think we also got see a rabbit (in FL), a wild turkey (in NC), a robin (in NC), and a cardinal (in NC).

Perhaps I will post some pictures from our trip soon. We just got back yesterday, and my house is in shambles with stuff all over the place waiting to be put away. (By the way, the kids thought it was really cool that we went to/through 5 states during our trip: FL, AL, GA, NC, SC

Before and After

Yes, it's been nearly a month since my last post, but between being busy and having nothing to say, well....I obviously just haven't posted. Here is a short, but sweet post.

This is Grace before:

And this is her after:

Nate-Dog is

sick.

Nate woke up at 7:30am this morning saying, "Mommy, my mouth hurts when I close my mouth.

At this point, I didn't really think anything of this. You see, quite often, Grace wakes up in the morning with the "I slept with my mouth open and now it hurts" sore throat thing. She drinks some water and viola- all better. Also, with Grace's appliance that she just recently got put into her upper jaw (oh.....I think I may have forgotten to blog about this....sorry, will explain soon), she has been complaining about her mouth hurting when closing her teeth/jaw. So I just thought it was maybe hurting but maybe Nate using the same excuse as his sister as to what was actually hurting. But Nate seemed to go on his merry way with no other complaints at all.

Fast forward to 1pm. Ray takes Grace and Nate to his parent's house so that I can study and he can build us a new bed frame. It's raining and Grace and Nate are inside and apparently Nate looks sick and wants to go to sleep. Ok. He NEVER just "wants" to go to sleep. Ray's mom takes his temperature and its almost 103. Ray calls me.

I immediately replay in my mind the last time something similar to this had happened. Grace was younger than Nate (actually Nate wasn't even born yet) and she had a swimming lesson we needed to get ready for. As I changed her, I could feel her body burning up. I took her temp- 104! I asked her if anything was bothering her, but she said she felt fine. Took her straight to the pediatrician's office and the doctor, who was quite surprised that Gracie had no complaints, informed me that she had strep throat.

I tell Ray to get a flashlight and take a look at Nate's throat. Nate's throat is really red, he told me. They come home and I take at look, and yes, his throat is very red. So I ask him, "Nate, is there anything bothering you?" "Yes, my throat," he says, as he is pointing to his throat. I'm just about sure it's strep throat at this point, so I get ready to take him over to the pediatrician's office (thank goodness the pediatrician's office is open 365 days a year and the office location that has the extended hours is right around the corner from my house).

So in we go, they take his temp, which has now FINALLY gone down to 100.3 nearly 3 hours after taking Tylenol. The nurse (is it wrong of me to want to say "Medical Assistant" here, which is what the "nurses" in doctors offices usually are, instead of calling her "nurse" since it correlates to the title that I am working so hard for??) asks me what we're there for. I tell her I think Nate has strep throat and she grabs the swabs to take a culture of his throat for one of those rapid strep tests. The doctor then comes in, does her thing, takes a look and says, "Yes, his throat is red." but the way she says it, it's like my whole reason for being at the office today was to confirm that Nate's throat was indeed red. I am keeping myself from laughing at this point because, while no, I am not a doctor and I don't know everything, I really didn't need the help of a doctor to interpret the color of Nate's throat. I can clearly see that it was red, AND all by myself, mind you. So, she tells me that we need to wait on the results of the strep test to see if we need an antibiotic or if its just viral and she had Nate and I wait in the chairs by the lab.

So we wait, but just for a few minutes.

A few minutes later, the lab finally puts Nate's paperwork up. Another nurse than the one we had talked to earlier (again, medical assistant) comes by and grabs it and by the look on her face, I knew exactly what the result was. The doctor, who was seeing another patient, comes out, out of the room and takes a look and tells me its positive for strep, tells me the normal things the doctor tells you when you need to take an antibiotic and then hands me Nate's prescription.

As of now, Nate is laying on the couch watching the Cars movie in his pj's with his teddy bear. He's so cute and SOOOOO calm, so you can tell the poor boy is really sick.

Now here's to the fun part of trying to keep the entire house from being contaminated, and of course, to my poor boy to feel better soon.

Spelling Bee

I had envisioned the moment my daughter would walk on stage for her very first spelling bee. It went something like this:

Grace would get up there and spell just about every word correctly. She would maybe win, but she was going against second and third graders so, they could very well win, too. But she would do well and give them a run for their money anyhow.

Well, it didn't go at all like that. She was the very first one, and on her very first word of her very first spelling bee, she was out. She had to spell the word "Form" and spelled "From" instead. Poor girl. But I am extremely proud of her, none-the-less. She was selected as 1 of 3 students from her whole class to compete and the third spot was a tie between 2 other students who had a small spelling bee of their own for the spot.....which means Grace was picked without any hesitation.

And I'm proud of her for trying to hold it together afterwards as well. You could see the disappointment in her face as she walked off the stage and back to her seat. You could see how hard she was trying to fight back tears and not a tear had been shed. But when the spelling bee was over, she turned around to Ray and me and said she wanted to just go home (there was still 30 minutes or so left of school) and started crying. "I can't believe I got out on my first word. This is my first spelling bee," she sobbed. I reassured her and hugged her and told her how proud I was of her.

She went back to her classroom to get her backpack and the other kids told her, "Good job, Grace," which I thought was sweet. She started to feel better and ended up playing with the kids on the playground for the remainder of the school day.

I was in a spelling bee once, too in sixth grade. It was my first spelling bee and I believe it was my first word, and I got out. My word was "Sense" or maybe it was "Cents" but I was so nervous that I spelled another version of the spelling then what they asked for (don't forget, it can also be spelled "Scents" as well). And just like that, I was out.

Guess the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree. Poor Grace.

Some things....

going on in our lives right now:

• I am very proud of my little Gracielu. Grace has been selected for the school spelling bee. She is one of three kids chosen from her class to compete against 2nd and 3rd grade. The spelling bee is tomorrow. While I believe that my little Gracie-pie is pretty smart, she isn't the best speller in the world. She does very well with her "spelling" lists that she is given, but spelling other words, not so much. If they use the lists given as homework for the bee, then she's got a shot. But at the same time, she's going against kids in 2nd and 3rd grade!! I'm sure their best spellers are spelling much harder words, right?? Either way, I'm still very proud she was even given the opportunity. How exciting! I'll post the results tomorrow.
• Nate. My little guy....so proud of him. He is completely potty trained and has been for quite some time, but we just couldn't get him to stay dry while he slept (never had that problem with Grace). So at night, we have been putting pull ups on him. Some days, he wakes up dry and some he doesn't. Well we ran out of pull ups and on Saturday night we have gotten home too late to run out to the store to buy more, so we took a chance. I am proud to say that he has stayed dry every night since!!! It seems like he is finally completely out of pull-ups! Some nights I have woken him up to try to go potty one more time before I go to bed, but the other nights where I haven't done that, he has still stayed dry.

So that's the update for now!