illguthlife: First 10 days of summer!

School's been out for 10ish days now. In some ways it feels like the kids just finished school and in some ways it feels like they've been out forever. Either way these last 10 days have been pretty eventful. There has been fun, there has been food, and there has been a trip to the emergency room.

But before we get too far we need to talk about the kid's last days of school.

Derrick's was on Tuesday May 24th. His special needs pre-school class has been the very best thing for him this year. Going to school and interacting with teachers and other kids has really helped him learn how to act appropriately in social settings. It's helped his attention span with non-train things. It's helped him learn that he can get around in the world without me and without his security blanket. He's also learned to wear shoes without putting up a fuss. Seriously it's been so great.

Derrick qualifies for a little summer school program that he'll go to later this summer. And then this fall he'll start another year of special needs pre-school. He'll go all 5 days of the week next year. I'm hoping that now that everything is familiar he'll really take off social and academically.

Charlotte and Lydia had their last day of school on Wednesday, May 25. (This would have been Derrick's last day too if he went to school on Wednesdays.)

Charlotte has loved school and learned so much. I feel like she is always defining words and explaining things. She is very excited for Kindergarten in the fall. (Side note: Veronica now wears the pants that Charlotte is wearing in her first day of school pic.)

Lydia was so sad to say good bye to her teacher - she wouldn't even smile for her last day of school picture. She has loved school. Her favorite center was Art Center. It seems like she'd bring home a masterpiece every day. She is excited for kindergarten, but she is sad that she wont see her Pre-K teacher every day.

We made a big list of things the kids and I want to do this summer. One of those things was the On-Post VBS. VBS stands for Vacation Bible School. It's a BIG deal in the south. Every major church down here hosts a days long event for kids to learn about Bible topics. I'm a member of the LDS church which doesn't do a VBS class; however, since VBS is such a big part of the local culture I wanted my kids to participate.

I found out that the on post chapel's theme for this year would be all about Joseph in Egypt. I LOVE that story so I really wanted my kids to go.

Charlotte and Lydia are old enough to go to VBS on their own. So I knew I would sign them up no matter what. Derrick and Veronica weren't old enough to go on their own, but they could attend if I was willing to go along with them. That presented a delema for me. I knew I would have fun going with Derrick or Veronica, but going with both of them at the same time would just be annoying. I also knew Derrick would really struggle with all the crowds of people.

Fortunately there was a third option. I could volunteer with VBS and then Derrick and Veronica could go to the nursery provided for the children of volunteers. That sounded a lot more fun for everyone. Plus it was nice to have a chance to give back to the on-pot chapel since it's programs have done a lot for me this year. Brandon and I were able to take the Financial Peace class for free through the on post chapel, I've had free childcare every week for an institute class, and I've gone to monthly P-31 meetings (again with free childcare) all school year long. So yeah it's nice to give something back.

At first I thought I'd just help with the crafts or something, but when I called to sign the kids up I decided to go all in and volunteer to be a tribe leader. I'm so glad I did because it sounds like its going to be a lot of fun.

One of the things I needed to do was decorate our "tribe quarters." Brandon and the kids came with me to help me move some of the decorations into my room. The girls found the chapel's nativity decorations and had fun playing with Baby Jesus.

Brandon goes to PT every morning at 6:00 and is back home around 7:15. He doesn't have to check in at "work" until 9:00 so that gives him some time to hang out with us. We all went to the park and from this picture it looks like we had a lot of fun. In reality Derrick wanted to go home as soon as we got there and Veronica screamed every time I pushed her because I was doing it wrong. Eventually everyone calmed down just in time for Brandon to need to go home to change his clothes. So then half of them cried again as we left the park. Good times.

A long time ago I decided it would be so fun to turn some of the receiving blankets that we got when the twins were born into quilts. So I cut them into squares and then sewed them. I had big plans to put batting on them and make them all fancy, but we didn't have money for that at the time. And by the time we had money we also had Derrick and Veronica. So these quilts tops have spent the last 4 years just hanging out in a box. Now that Brandon has free time again I also have free time so one night I decided to just finish the quilts. They aren't as elaborate as my original idea - but at least they are done!

Charlotte and Lydia were so excited about their quilts. They decided that they had to clean up their room so the blankets would look good. Here is the before picture.

And here is the after. (Wow, I know)

And here are the quilts on the beds. I'm so glad these are finally done.

The housing pool opened on Saturday and the kids were so happy. Charlotte in particular had been looking forward to this for months.

My friend Kelli gave us some hand me down water wings for Veronica. Which was good because this girl has become very daring and wants to be out in the water with her sisters.

We'll probably get some water wings for Derrick too, but for now he's still being pretty cautious.

About halfway through our swimming trip Derrick got really cold and so he and I sat on the pool chairs to get warm. He sat there for a long time before I eventually talked him into getting in the water. He didn't seem to enjoy the water that much the second time, but I thought that was because it was still kind of cold.

But on Sunday he was really listless and didn't seem to be feeling well. I debated staying home from church with him, but ultimately decided that we would still go to sacrament meeting and then go from there. There didn't seem to be anything "wrong" with him, and Brandon and I thought that maybe he just got too much sun at the pool. Lydia was also acting a little sick, but we figured she was just trying to stay home from church.

Sacrament meeting was one of the easiest sacrament meetings we've had in a long time. Derrick was so listless and he sat right next to me the whole time. Usually he's climbing back and forth between me and Brandon and trying to get toys from all the kids around us. Brandon and I had drove both ars in case I needed to take Derrick home after sacrament meeting. But when the meeting was over Derrick wanted to go to primary. He walking in there, looked at me, and said, Bye.

He did really well for the first half, but later one of the teachers brought him to me when he started crying. I sat with him in the foyer and he fell right asleep. When we got home from church he continued to be really sleepy. I debated taking him to insta-care, but I was still thinking it was too much sun or something like that.

We had the missionaries over for dinner and before they left I had them help Brandon give Derrick a blessing. By this point Derrick was running a fever and seemed to have a hard time swallowing. We also noticed that his breath stank. After the missionaries left I called the nurse advise line and asked what I should do. The nurse recommended making sure Derrick was seen by a doctor in the next 18 hours. Since the next day was memorial day they gave me a list of urgent care clinics I could go to.

All the urgent care places were closed for the night and Derrick seemed comfortable enough so I decided to take him to urgent care in the morning. I oiled him up with every essential oil I could think of. (peppermint for his fever, metaluca on his throat, oragano on his feet, (I would have had him gargle it but I figured it'd be too hot for him) and on-guard in the diffuser. I didn't think the oils would make him all better, but it was nice to feel like I had some way of helping him feel better during the night.

But oils or no oils, by morning Derrick wasn't feeling any better. So off to urgent care we went. He was diagnosed with strep and given a shot of penicillin. He came home and took a long nap.

Brandon and I were left with a tricky decision. We'd planned a casual BBQ with about 6 other families. We didn't want to outright cancel, but we also didn't want to expose anyone to the strep germs. So we let everyone know that we'd still be eating and having fun, but that we understood if they didn't come. Every one cancelled - except for my friend Melissa and her family. What's ironic is that her husband is an Army doctor. Of all the people I thought they'd be the most germ a phobic, but instead they really weren't phased at all.

Melissa's family was in the middle of getting ready for a move so they were a little late. The kids were all hungry so we got out the food and started the party on our own.

We'd cleared off our patio for the party. It was fun to hang out there as a family.

Brandon was happy to be barbecuing.

We got out one of our water sprinkler toy thingies and cooled off with that.

Being wet felt so good.

Melissa's family showed up and we pulled out the food for them. Then we got out Brandon's rocket launcher that he made for his cub scouts. We had fun shooting off rockets for a while.

It was really fun and we'll have to do it again.

I was hoping that Derrick would get a good nights sleep and feel better in the morning, but he and Brandon ended up staying up most of the night. When I woke up at 6:00 Derrick seemed worse that he had the day before. His next was still swollen and it looked like his tongue was swelling too. He also couldn't swallow his medicine and was drooling a lot. It was time to go to the emergency room. So Derrick and I took off for Dothan while Brandon stayed home with the kids. Brandon actually had a little work assignment for the morning, but thankfully he was able to get out of that so he could be home.

Derrick was taken back to a room right away. But it was a while before an actual doctor came in to look at him. She proscribed a steroid for the swelling - along with some Tylenol with codeine for the pain. The nurse gave those to Derrick. I knew Derrick was feeling better when the Doctor came back in to look at him and the first thing he said was, "I want Thomas."

After we left the ER we went to a pharmacy to get Derrick's prescription filled. While we waited for that we went to McDonalds and Derrick got fries (And I got a big Mac). He was pretty happy about those and ate almost all of them. Which was good because that was some of the only food he'd eaten all weekend.

By the time we got home he was feeling better. And he kept improving over the next few days. It wasn't until he started talking and asking for things again that we realized just how quiet he'd been, And how much we'd missed the gibberish and broken English that he's usually uttering non-stop.

Tuesday evening I ran over to the on post chapel and finished decorating my VBS home room. I wanted it to look like a courtyard inside a city and thanks to a lot of great materials I was able to pull it off.

Here are just some random pictures from the last few days. This is an outfit that Veronica was especially proud off. She loves that hat and those boots.

And Derrick wanted me to take a picture of his train shirt.

Charlotte and Lydia being funny with the snuggy.

Veronica balancing precariously.

Honey being cute.

I've started to have an increase in traffic on my travel blog thanks to summer starting. I decided to help that traffic along by holding a give away on Facebook. So I did that and it was fairly successful - though Pinterest continues to be my main source of traffic. Charlotte helped me pick out the winner of my giveaway.

We woke up to rain on Saturday so I decided to work on some crafts. The first thing was to adjust Charlotte and Lydia's VBS shirts. We'd bought them big T-shirts at Hobby Lobby because they were the same price as little kid shirts. I knew there was a way to make them into cute dresses.

So we started working on those. But then I realized that I probably should wash the shirts first.

So while we waited for the laundry we did another project that I've been thinking about for two weeks. We made this GIANT bag to hold all our towels, sunblock, water bottles, water wings, googles, and other pool/beach gear. I made it from an old sheet and the nursing cover that my sister Lindsey made me. I didn't have a pattern, but it turned out exactly how I hoped.

Then I got back to the T-shirt dresses, which also turned out exactly how I hoped.

The weather had cleared up so we decided that we could still do an activity that we'd planned for the evening. The South Alabama Speedway is about 40 miles away in Kinston. They were doing a night where all you had to do for admission was bring canned goods. I figured Derrick would like to watch the cars and it would be fun for all of us. So we decided to go.

It was a different culture than we are used to, but it was still really fun.

I had another reason for wanting to take Derrick. I figured it would be good therapy. I knew he would be overwhelmed by the crowd and the noise. But I hoped that his interest in the cars would win over the sensory issues. Derrick was crying before we even sat in the bleachers. And I had to put a blanket over his head to cut down on the noise and visual stimuli. But within 5 minutes Derrick was peeking out of the blanket and looking at the cars. And within 15 minutes he'd forgotten all about the blanket. He kept telling me things like "Race Car" and "Fast"

Veronica liked the cars too. (She loves everything Derrick loves)

At one point Derrick turned to me and said something like, "Take picture of race cars." So of course I did.

They did a little meet and greet between some races. I knew Derrick wouldn't like the crowd of people so we didn't go to that, but we did go down to the fence so he could get a better look at the cars.

Brandon took Lydia and Veronica down to see the cars.

Derrick got comfortable enough that he would walk down to the fence by himself. Here he is one time when Brandon was already down there.

Derrick did get tired when it was time for the long 75 lap race. He went back under his blanket for that whole race. I was kind of bored myself until the 5th place car started edging up on the competition at about lap 65. Those last 20 laps were really interesting to watch as that car eventually made it to 2nd place.

We left after that race because the kids were all pretty tired. We changed them into their pajamas at the car and then put them in bed as soon as we were home. It had been a really fun night.