Adios, Carle!

September 4, 2012

My days as a nurse at Patient Advisory are over. Wish I could say I was upset, but I'm not. I just got a new job at Kirby Medical Center in Monticello. No more traveling 40 minutes to work. I am in town, 5 minutes from home. I am working the night shift 1900-0700 in the Emergency Room and on the Med/Surg floor occassionally. The hospital reminds me a lot of Mount Ogden Surgical Center. It's a smaller facility, there are only 200 employees, eight ER rooms and 16 Med/Surg inpatient rooms. The closeness of the staff reminds me a lot of Mount Ogden Surgical Center too. I'm looking forward to brushing up on my skills and becoming a real nurse again, and so far I love it.

Pork & Apple Festival

September 29, 2012

Clinton, IL has an awesome Pork & Apple Festival. If you like pork and apples this is your place to spend a Saturday afternoon.

First Day of School

September 2012 I've got both of the kids in preschool at Kairos this year. Charlee goes Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. Van goes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. This picture was taken on Van's first day of school and I wanted a picture of him by the sign. I was planning on taking Charlee's picture the following day on her first day of school day. Well............

Someone was upset that it wasn't HER school day.

Grandma Sandy here to play!

September 11-25, 2012

Grandma Sandy is here to play. She was a HUGE help to me with decorating the house. There is no way I could have done it without her. I have a hard time with decision making. I suppose I can partly blame that on my Dad. He can spend all day, driving from store to store to compare prices and products and leave for home completely empty handed. This would drive my mom absolutely crazy. More times than not I am the same way when it comes to shopping. It was great to have Sandy here to help me get down to business, make decisions and get it done!

The kids, Grandma and I drove to Chicago to meet up with Aunt Jill. She happened to be in Chicago for business and had nothing scheduled for her last day here. We were able to go on an Architectural boat tour of Michigan Avenue that took us out to Lake Michigan to see the skyline. It was actually very interesting and informative.

We MOVED... AGAIN!

Ok, so I am late writing about our most recent move that occurred almost six months ago now. Why have I put off writing about it? Maybe because moving sucks, and I figured if I had to write about it I'd be re-living it. That might be it. We have moved four times in seven years. That's a lot of moving. This most recent move was a short distance from our rental home in Monticello to another in home in Monticello that we decided to purchase. It was a big step up for us. We had been living in 1100 square feet. Our small garage was not actually being used as a garage. It was packed with boxes, drums, bikes and at one point a piano... don't ask. We were pretty much on top of each other. So, needless to say I think Joel and I were excited to move. To be honest I don't know how we stayed in the rental for as long as we did. We were there for an entire year!! Anyway, this new home is pretty nice. For the first time ever we have a garage that is being used for a garage. We can park both cars there, and as a bonus it is attached to the house. We also have more than one bathroom... our bathrooms have drawers and closet space. We have an unfinished basement and a large backyard for the kids to play in. I feel incredibly spoiled and very fortunate at this point in our lives. We have great neighbors that haven't completely shunned us because we are Mormon... (I find absolutely no relation among the fact that we are Mormons and the fact that our backyard neighbors put up trees along the property line, our other neighbors putting their house up for sale and our other neighbors calling us, "the black people of the neighborhood", and others asking Joel, "Do you have more than one wife?" All within 3 months of us moving in). But seriously, we really do have great neighbors, it's a great neighborhood for kids and I think it's a good move for us... for now.

Champaign Fire Department Field Trip

September 6, 2012

Love Letter from Charlee

This drawing is for Grandma, Grandpa, Sydney and Tommy. The far left is Grandma with her "bumpy hair", next is Grandpa with his mustache (look closely). Tommy is in the center with his red hat on, Sydney is on the right and she is "brushing her hair" she CLEARLY has a comb in her hand.

Fair Oaks Farm

August 2012

Fair Oaks Farm, Fair Oaks, Indiana.

Sometime in April or May of this year Charlee's school had an auction to help benefit the school. I, being the sucker I am, bid on this Fair Oaks Farm basket that included a giant sized stuffed animal bull and 8 passes to the Fair Oaks Farm. We finally had a free Saturday and figured we go check this place out before the weather got too cold.

We were able to see a calf being born in the "birthing barn". We were told that an average of 8 calves were born a day. They had a giant traffic light on the outside of the barn to indicate what was going on inside. If the light was red a birth was not in process. If the light was yellow a cow was in labor and if it was green, a cow was having a baby. The look on Charlee's face was priceless as that little calf was born. She could see the hooves hanging out but didn't quite understand what was going on. She was convinced that this cow had pooped out another cow. She would say, "That cow had a baby cow come out of his butt."

We were able to see the giant milking process which I thought was pretty fascinating. The cows line up and patiently take their turns walking on the giant rotating turn table, to get strapped to the milking machine and have their utters pumped for an entire rotation before being let go to wait for their turn again. What the life! Having nursed my kids (at least for a short while) I could feel these poor cows' pain! Having the life sucked out of me every two hours day and night. Oh, I could feel their agony! The looks on these poor cows' faces seem to show their true emotion. I could relate.

Mani Pedi

July 19, 2012

Monticello Pool

July 15, 2012

The best purchase of this summer would have to be pool passes to the Monticello Pool. I honestly don't know how we could have survived without them. We went to the pool nearly every day. By the end of this summer Charlee was jumping off of the diving board and swimming by herself to the side of the pool without ANY help. She wouldn't even need to come up for a breath along the way! And of course Van wanted to be like big sister and he was making every attempt to swim like her.  I am glad that both of my kids love the water and that they have both are learning to swim. So proud of my little fishies!

Sister Stark

July 29, 2012

In less that 50 days now, my little sister, will be a sister missionary serving in Spain. I am super excited for her.  I love talking to Carly just about every night as I drive home late from work. I can count on her still being up, and I am always interested in hearing her stories. Her life is way more interesting than mine. I always think back to when I was her age and what I could have been doing before I got married and had children. I don't have any regrets about how my life is, or has turned out, but I think I live vicariously through her sometimes. This mission will be no exception. I'm going to miss her but at the same time am SO proud that she has the ambition and the desire to go.

Wall Art

July 20, 2012

When it gets too quiet.... Charlee's drawing on the walls. With Sharpie marker. On the new walls. In the new house. 

Family Pictures

July 1, 2012

Before we left we had to get family pictures taken. Thanks Carly! 

Willard Bay

June 29, 2012

Willard Bay. The most awesome quote from the day came from Charlee while on the tube with Sydney and Grandma as Grandpa suddenly picked up the speed. She screamed, "What the hell?!" Sydney and Grandma could be seen laughing and smiling on the tube, we didn't know what they were laughing so hard about at the time, but found out later that's what she said. 

I snapped this picture just a little too late. Too bad you can't see Tommy and Joel in the air. They really launched off that tube. 

I thought this was a darling picture of Mr. and Mrs. Hunt.