Off to the beach...

Ahhh, we're leaving tomorrow afternoon for Tybee Island. I'm soooo excited. We haven't gone since April when I took Patrick for his birthday. This time we're going with some other people and I think it's going to be a blast. Plus, I've bought myself a few bikinis and this is going to be my big reveal of the new me. :) It only took me over 6 years to get back (almost) to my pre-baby body but I've gotten there and I'm thrilled about it.

My kids are going to spend the weekend with their Uncle Tyler and Aunt Stacy. It's the first time they've kept them and I hope so much that my children behave themselves. I know Addyson will love having them there, I just hope my two choose to get along with eachother. I also hope that Hunter keeps at least his underwear on at all times. I never imagined when I was pregnant with a boy that I'd have so much trouble getting him to stop being so fascinated with his penis. I had to literally BEG him to put on underwear for bed last night and then he still ran around the living room for 20 minutes naked before he went upstairs. When I finally went up to check on him before I went to bed, he was laying there asleep in his old karate pants so I carefully peeked under the waistline - still no undies. Imagine that. It must be a boy thing.

I met with my nursing advisor today at U of L. I should be all set to finish school with my Master's Degree and be a Nurse Practitioner in 2012-2013ish. It all depends on if I want to go ahead into the whole Doctorate thing (which is a new requirement starting in a few years). I'm sure I will. I wonder how that works... what do you call a nurse with a doctorate degree?

Anyway... I really do need to go clean the house up some. We have some realtors coming to look at it tonight. We want to sell it and Patrick wants to pack us up and move out west. I'd be happy moving across town to Lake Forest. We'll see how our luck goes with trying to sell this time around.

Oh, the pain...

I'm really slacking on this blog lately. It seems my life has been going 100mph since we left for our vacation a month ago. While we were gone on vacation I turned 26. I now feel like I am officially on the slippery slope toward 30 and that's somewhat depressing. It's all downhill from there, right? ;) We came back from vacation and the kids started school. Now I have a kindergartner and a 1st grader. Hunter is SO excited about kindergarten that he has woken me up before the sun comes up on two occasions asking me if he could get dressed. He has a girlfriend named Skylar. And, good news, Katelyn and her on/off boyfriend Shane have decided "to give it another shot". Thank goodness for that. What would we do if two six year olds couldn't make it work?

I managed to go back to work for 4 days after vacation and then I had surgery. Nothing huge, just some woman issues I've been having but the recovery has proven to be quite painful. I can't go back to work for three weeks and I'm stuck in the recliner until my one week followup. Patrick has been wonderful. I kind of like having him wait on me. I might have to be confined to a chair more often if this is the kind of treatment I get. He's out buying me magazines to read as I type this. I've been getting a lot of attention.

Speaking of attention, Hunter HATES it when I get attention from Patrick. My son has the worst Oedipus complex I have ever seen. If Patrick hugs me, kisses me or really even touches me Hunter freaks out and yells at him. He made a new rule on vacation that it is Patrick's turn to cuddle me and love me on "every tomorrow". Clever, huh? He's only 5 but he has the logic to know that as long as daddy's day is every tomorrow then it's never really his day today. :) Funny. Now whenever Patrick touches me Hunter just tells him that it's not his day.

Well... my magazines have arrived. I'm going to skip my pain medicine for long enough to read a little. Otherwise all I get accomplished is sleeping and not remembering anything.

Backpacks & Lunchboxes

Well... we're back from vacation clearly. It was a nice trip and, of course, it was action filled as are most days in the Collins household. On one of the last days of the trip, we were talking about going to a bookstore to get a coffee and use the wireless and this conversation happened:

Me: No, let's skip it because I just bought the kids an expensive book yesterday and I don't want them to ask for more today.
Katelyn: I won't, Mommy! I promise I won't ask for anything!
** long pause while Hunter contemplates the situation **
Hunter: Uhhh... I will.

At least he's honest and wasn't putting up any fronts about it, huh? Yes, as a matter of fact, I WILL ask for something. So there. Love my kids. :)

Since then, I have been to Lewis County for a few days visiting. I stayed with my sister one night at her apartment in Morehead and that was... really something. It made me feel incredibly old but also let me know that my sister cannot hang with me even when she is making up the rules to some card game I've never heard of.

At the end of my quiet and relaxing weekend, I got a phone call from Patrick. As soon as I answered the phone I heard Katelyn in the background "I didn't mean to! It was an accident! I didn't do it on purpose!". Great. That sounds promising. If you are a follower of my blog, you're aware of the fact that some months ago Katelyn knocked one of Hunter's front teeth loose and he later pulled it out. Well... guess what? He now has no front teeth, hence all the "it was an accident" crying coming from my dear daughter when I answered the phone. Hunter, for some unknown reason, was chewing on a baseball cap and she took it upon herself to rip it from his mouth and with it came his remaining front tooth. So he's down to zero out of two. He's 5. He will probably have no teeth for two years.

And here's where I do some shameless promoting of a blog that I follow. Not long ago, I sent my mother a link to a website http://www.monogramchick.com and she ordered the kids each a monogrammed lunchbox. We got them in the mail while we were gone on vacation and the kids were so excited to open them that they fought over the package. They turned out absolutely adorable and they LOVE them. Thanks to Sarah at monogramchick.blogspot.com!

That's all... the kids start school Thursday. My baby starts kindergarten and it's just gonna be me and the dog during the day time. I'm kind of sad. I also start back at work on Thursday and I'm not entirely sure I'll remember how to do my job. We'll see, I guess. :)

How I'm missing my wireless!!

Picture this: You are sitting in a nice pizza and pasta restaurant on your wonderful three week family vacation. Everyone found something they want on the menu – even your two picky children who eat the same things over and over. Dinner arrives and it tastes heavenly and everyone is enjoying one another’s company. All is well. You feel generous, so you share your fabulous calzone with your child. Well, karma hates you. The next thing you know, your daughter is clutching her throat and your husband is all but shoving you out of your chair (you… the nurse) in order to do the Heimlich Maneuver because your darling daughter was a little over-zealous and choked on some cheese. It turns out that she’s fine and the adrenaline rush dies down. You pay for your dinner and you get up to leave. Wait… hubby and son need to go to the bathroom. Hubby and son take a ridiculously long time in said bathroom so you call hubby’s cell phone and this is what you hear “Hunter peed his pants. There’s pee everywhere. We’ll be right out.” Wonderful. I know, I know… you’re all dying to know how you, too, can get in on such a wonderful experience. So allow me to let you in on a little secret: Just follow me around for a while. Trust me, it’s a laugh a minute. You won’t be disappointed. Promise.

So here we are in Carbondale, Colorado. We just had that dinner adventure at a little place called White House Pizza. Luckily, we are still operating on Kentucky time and we went to dinner at 5pm. As it turns out, 5pm = Happy Hour and Happy Hour = 2.99 margaritas. Nothing is too overwhelming after two margaritas. We have been in Colorado since yesterday. I LOVE Colorado. There’s nothing that compares to the Rocky Mountains coming into view on the horizon. It’s the end of July and some of the peaks are still snow capped. Amazing. I can’t wait to move here. I know it will happen eventually. Patrick and I are both in love with this area. It just doesn’t seem to be happening fast enough.

Since the last time I managed to blog we have been to Mount Rushmore. It was incredible. You can spot it from the road but it is absolutely worth the $10 parking fee to go in and actually see it up close. It’s not something I can describe, really. I’m so glad that we went and that our kids got to see it. The attention to detail in the sculptures is amazing. It took 13 years to finish and you can tell the sculptor put his heart into it. That’s not the best part, though. The best part is that Patrick took the kids up some trail and disappeared for 20 minutes only to come back with two kids who had handfuls of what appeared to be a hairball that was possibly coughed up be a very large cat… with really coarse fur. Apparently, they scraped a buffalo hyde and got to keep the disgusting results…? I don’t know. I’ve just been trying to avoid touching the things since then.

And here I sit… I just finished sweeping out the camper for the 1436th time. Thank god for camping out in the mud. If I couldn’t do housework on my vacation, I would just be lost. Check back, though, I’m sure I’ll have more to report within the next two weeks!

South Dakota is action packed!

Okay... so South Dakota isn't really all that action packed. Nonetheless, hello from South Dakota! You are officially reading the blog of the only family in America who takes a vacation to somewhere like Minnesota and South Dakota instead of the beach. :-) We have been gone since Wednesday and we've had tons of fun. We water parked it in Wisconsin Dells for two days, camped behind the county fair in Blue Earth, Minnesota for a night and now we're happily set up in Rapid City, South Dakota. We're waiting for Patrick to get back from a mountain bike ride so that we can go check out Mount Rushmore.

We've had so much fun. First of all, Wisconsin Dells is THE place to go if you want to spend a few days going to gigantic indoor/outdoor water parks. The place is crawling with them. And if you're lucky enough to have a scaredy cat 6 year old girl, you might get to hear such jewels as "No! I'm going to die!" and "You're trying to KILL ME!" as she claws frantically and tries to get out of a family intertube on an arguably calm and pleasant water slide. It was definitely an entertaining two days.

Patrick was SO excited because he'd found a free campground in this little place called Blue Earth, Minnesota. As an added bonus, there was a huge statue of the Jolly Green Giant. That pretty much sold me on the idea... Anyway, the campground was actually at the county fairgrounds and you could camp free for 48 hours. Of course, that applies 51 weeks of the year when the fair isn't in town. What are the odds of us pulling up in the middle of the fair? Seriously? We camped free anyway and I can't decide if it's #1) because they were gracious hosts or #2) because they thought it would be hilarious to park us directly behind a big barn where they were later going to be having a dance with music so loud I'm convinced you could hear it in Kentucky. On the bright side, Patrick finally started snoring and then - out of nowhere - abruptly woke up singing along with Sweet Caroline.

Now we're in Rapid City. We stopped at the Corn Palace and Wall Drug on the way through South Dakota. The Corn Palace has fabulous popcorn balls and I don't know if you can order them online but if you can, I suggest everyone buy a box. Wall Drug was a neat old west style town. The kids really enjoyed it. Griffin enjoyed peeing in the parking lot. So it was a win-win for everyone. I'm busting at the seams to go see Mount Rushmore. It better be as amazing as I imagine it will be or I'll be down the rest of the day. I will post some pictures from the trip with my next post.

I think we're off tomorrow to finish our trek to the ultimate destination: Colorado! I am in love with Colorado and if I could find a job while we were out here and get a relocation package, we'd probably never come home. :-)

To be continued...