Weird day

I was almost done teaching class on Wednesday when I heard someone yelling in the hall. At first I thought it was kids. Then the yelling was "CAROL, HELP ME!" I ran out in the hall and someone was leaning over the lower counter. I pulled her back and it was Claudia. She was screaming that she was going to die. Blood curdling screams, help me, help me, I'm dying, help me. She told me she was going to have a seizure and she thought she was having a heart attack. Margaret came out in the hall right after me and I asked her to call 911. Linda came out from the back classroom and I told her to send the students home. She sent them all out the back door so hardly anyone saw Claudia. I got hold of her sister Lynda and she met her at the hospital.

Claudia's been planning a trip to Europe for a year. She is supposed to leave on Monday and she still plans to go. She doesn't have trip insurance. I think she's crazy, but that's nothing new. She was in an unorganized cardiac rhythm when the EMT's got there. The one little EMT was a jerk, all the others were very nice. He was the kind of EMT that knows everything. "Stand back, I'm going to expose her breast so I can take a picture of her heart. What the heck, did he have a camera. A picture of her heart. I wanted to say, look smuck that's a strip of the electrical activity of her heart. Claudia said when he had her in the back of the ambulance he asked if we'd been fighting at work. Good grief. At the ER they did a CT scan of her brain and gave her magnesium for her cardiac arrhythmia. Now she's in bigymany. She needs an ablation but doesn't know when she's going to do it. I hope all goes well for her in Europe. On a more humorous note when I was talking to the students today they said they thought it was some sort of drill and we were creating an emergency to test them. That would be pretty twisted.

For my own health problem Wednesday I had to go the the doctor to get my recurring bartholin cyst taken care of. Oh bother. I go back in two weeks and we are going to schedule surgery. I am tired of this stupid thing. On Wednesday our insurance was UHC and tomorrow it switches to Cigna with Don's new job. I went ahead and went to my old gyn office because we hadn't met the UHC deductible so it didn't really matter where I went and I wasn't going to wait until next week to get it taken care of.

Swimming

The kids have done lots of swimming. Mostly at the condo and once at the rec center when they had the FitBit toy. One night we were at the condo and someone noticed a fire. It was the patio above Carter and on the other side of the stairs from him. I ran over and banged on his door. He didn't answer (he was at the gym) Then I pounded on the guy who's patio was on fire and screamed fire. He opened the door and said "WHUT?" I said "YOUR PATIO'S ON FIRE." The patio door was OPEN. He looked over and said "F&^%" I agreed. I went back over to the pool. The fire department was on their way. He poured water on his grease fire which made it worse. By the time the fire department got there someone had put it out with a fire extinguisher.

Sometimes Khloe and Valley meet us at the pool. Khloe loves the water but she gets so cold. No fat on that girl.

Keeping busy

Khloe and Valley spent the day over yesterday so we walked to Chick Fil A. Khloe pushed Valley in the stroller the entire way there and back.

Sean told me I couldn't show this picture to anyone outside family. I'm figuring my private blog is safe.

Khloe has excellent vision. She saw this praying mantis in the grass. She kept saying "what's that Grandma?" It took me forever to see what she was talking about. It was a baby. She wouldn't touch it.

She will however fill her hands with meal worms and feed the chickens.

I thought one of those chickens was going to steal a graham cracker out of Valley's hands.

That face! Oh my gosh. AJ says I'm prejudice but I don't think so.

All that walking made Khloe tired.

All that being pushed made Valley tired.

Alika's 27

Alika wanted to go to Benihana's for her birthday so off we went. I haven't been there in decades. I think the Teppenyaki in Layton is so much better.

Alika pondering something. Garret had never been to a teppenyaki style steak house. Alika was taking him to Yellowstone for her birthday. He'd never been there either.
 

As You Wish Pottery

In an attempt to have Sean and Nate do something other than watch youtube and play video games I took them to a painting class. They painted watermelon bowls. Sean wrote the word BACON on his. Good grief.

Final project. They painted on Monday and we picked up on Thursday. Today they ate cereal out of these huge bowls.

While we were picking up the bowls we stopped for dinner and played 20 questions while we ate.

Jaclyn's blanket

Jaclyn brought over her blanket for repair. It's actually blanket 3. Mom made her one that wore out when she was a teenager then mom made the one pictured above for Catherine and another for Jaclyn when they were teenagers. When Jaclyn's second blanket wore out Catherine gave her hers. It was nostalgic to repair a blanket that my mother had made over 30 years ago. Mom would be pleased to know it's still being loved.

I got the closest fabric I could find and used solid for the rest. Jaclyn was most interested in preserving the ruffle so I removed it from one side covered the worn fabric and sewed the ruffle back on.

Home again, home again

Autumn's Larkin is so stinking cute and funny. He is in to everything and has the most mischievous smile. At one point he was on the back porch filling his mouth with old fish gravel from an empty aquarium. He was munching away. I said "really Larkin?" He laughs and sprays it out of his mouth then fills it up again and repeats. Disgusting but funny. Autumn ran out to pick up Lisa and I as watching Larkin. I walked in the kitchen and he'd gotten out the ice cream and was sitting on the floor sharing it with the dog. Generous kid.

Nate and Sean sat behind me on the plane. Sean has had diarrhea the entire trip and had an incident on the plane. I could smell it from where I was sitting. Sean was crying and still the man sitting next to them did not offer to switch seats and I had a window seat and the middle seat was empty. Sean was crying and I was standing in the aisle trying to find something in Nate's carry on for him to change it to. I said to the man "I need you to switch seats with me please." He was put out but did it. Really what kind of idiot wants to sit next to two children, one with explosive diarrhea. I'd been offering to switch seats the minute I realized the parents was on the next row.
Our plane was also delayed 4 hours so we were late getting home.  We got updates before we got to the airport so we waited at Autumn's house. Steph had dropped us off at the airport so Don picked us up. I was glad I didn't have to haul our stuff on to another shuttle to get to the parking lot. Look at Nate's poor face. Today Sean's started to peel so he's got a Michael Jackson look going on.

Back to Autumn's

I was a picture failure today. Here's Sean not liking Bojangles. By this point he was sick to his stomach and had a fever. I went over to Autumn's to drop off some stuff and put a load of clothes in the wash. Then I took the kids over to Steph's so I could drive to Hillsborough to see Shari's new baby Kestrel. I didn't get a picture of her! Sad aunt. She's a cute little thing. Shari looks good. I wouldn't have recognized the house even though I've seen Shari's pictures of the upgrades she's done. I also didn't get any pictures of Art and Char at the beach or Autumn's kids and this is the second night I've spent at her house.

Sean is ready  to go home. He misses his room and his dad and his computers and his friends. And we both missed father's day

Day 3 in the sun

When we first went out on Saturday Sean and Nate weren't having it. They were both too sunburned and sand burned. Sean's legs and face were hurting. In the afternoon after Steph and Dan and the other kids left they wanted to go back down. Art and Char got in on Friday. I told Steph they needed to be up and out Sunday by 8 so we had time to clean or leave on Saturday. I knew there was no way I could clean with that many people there so they left Saturday after our minimal beach time. About 5 the kids went down to play on the beach but I told them they couldn't go in the water. They weren't wearing suits. After 45 minutes I got worried and went looking for them. They were sitting where we had been before building a sand castle. Just as I walked up the sandcastle got knocked down with a wave. Once they saw me they all ran in the water.

They were wearing clothes and Nate had on long pants.

Eventually the shirts and Nate's pants came off. I was looking at that white chest thinking this isn't good. They had on no sunscreen. I was sitting there with my sunglasses over my lips. I decided 30 minutes was probably 30 minutes too much. It was around 5:30.

Here's my Angelina Jolie lips. Now they are just big white blisters. Poor Nate's face. I'll have to take a picture tomorrow.

Wrightsville Beach

Yep, I made it all the way to Wrigthsville Beach without getting lost. It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive. I had Sean, Nate and Penny with me. We stopped at the Walmart in Wilmington to get supplies. Penny was so cute she kept saying "this is too much food. This is going to cost $60." Hm, it cost $205. The kids were so hungry, Penny especially that I drove through Smithfield BBQ, again and ordered a chicken and BBQ family pack to go. The kids ate the french fries in the back seat before we got to the beach house. The beach house was OK, pretty small 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. I was a little neurotic because Steph and her family are hard on houses and make a mess. So I felt like a super bitch running around behind them telling them to clean up and not to eat on the couch or in the rooms. I really didn't want to lose my deposit. There were a bunch of college students staying above us partying like college students. Throwing beer bottles and weed off the balcony. Yelling at girls to come up for tequilla shots.

The kids played hard in the water. The first day they went out for a couple of hours. The second day they were out for 6 or 7 hours. I got burn blisters on my lips. Nate has burn blisters on his nose. Sean got burned and I had to give him Ibuprofen. Nate and I had sunscreen on but I didn't have any on my lips. Sean didn't have any on. Levi and the baby got some burns too but I think Nate and my lips got the worst of it.

Penny made lots of sand castles.

Levi was boogie boarding like the big boys.

Nate and Sean had so much fun boarding. They made me kind of nervous because the ocean was rough but they just kept going They'd get ground in the sand under the waves and pop back up.

Sullivan AKA Little Art smearing a twinkie. That kid tries to breast feed everything.