My last entry before going back to college

Well... today was a hard day!!! I knew it would be before it even came. I tried to prepare myself before it came but I don't think I did a very good job at all! Today was my last day with my nieces and nephew... talk about hard. But before I talk about today, I want to talk about yesterday. Yesterday was a VERY FUN DAY!!! We left at 5:00 am to go to Portland to ride the train to Boston. All the kids were very excited and I was even excited, too. :) It was a 2 and a half hour train ride. The train was HUGE!!! And it was mostly empty, so that was nice, We got to sit back and relax a little as the kids stared out the windows. Then Kelsey and Kaylee started running around so there went the relaxing. Oh well. We got to Boston and then we had ride a couple of trains to get to the Boston aquarium. We got there around 10:00 am I believe. We first went to the Jelly fish exhibit. That was really cool. It reminded me a lot of Finding Nemo. (I love that movie!!) Then we went and looked at some penguins. They were so cute- I thought so! Kelsey was excited because she told me before that she wanted to see penguins. Then it was around 11:00 am so it was time for lunch. We ate at their cafe. The food was good and wasn't that bad priced. Then we went back to looking back at the animals. We went back to the penguins. Then they have this circular walkway with a huge tank in the middle. In that tank they have sharks, sting rays, sea turtles, a bunch of fish, and other cool sea animals. It goes around maybe 5 or 6 times and they have windows where you can look at the animals. Then at the top they have some stairs. If you go up the stairs you can look down into the tank of animals. It was fun to see them swim up at the top of the water. I was at the top with my niece Latoya and she yelled, " Hey, Auntie, there's a really big sea turtle at the bottom of the tank!" I looked down. it took me awhile to find it because it blended in with the rocks. It''s name was Myrtle. I forgot how old it was but the sign up top said it weighed almost 500 lbs!!! There was also a few sea turtle swimming on top spitting out water. That was cool. After we were done looking at the animals, we went to the Imax theatre. I was really excited about that. I've heard a lot about them and have been wanting to go for a long time but just never have gone. We went to the 2:00 pm show about sea animals. I was sooo cool. It made it seem that everything was right in front of your face. i jumped a few times and screamed when a shark came out. It really looked like it was gonna eat us! The kids all got scared and hid their faces most of the time!!! The had a preview for a dinosaurs movie which looked like fun. Even more jumpy which I love to go see sometime. We got McDonald's for supper and rode the train back home. I stopped in at my Grandma's house to say bye to her real quick. Then we headed home and got here around 10:00. All the kids slept over for the last time with me since I'm going back to college. I gave them all a shower this morning and we were all ready by 10:00. What a accomplishment!!! Then I taught Sunday School in cubbies for the last time. Then we all hung out at the house until church. Then after church I went to get Kelsey and Kaylee from cubbies and that was when I started crying. then they all came to the house to say bye to me and I cried some more. It's so hard leaving them. But I'm okay now. I am excited to see my friends. I called 3 or 4 of them tonight and I felt better. Then I get to see my bus kids and my Sunday School girls this weekend!!! Yeah! I'll try to update my blog as much as possible while I'm at college but I'm not sure how often I'll be able to do it. I'm hoping to do it once a week on my day off of work. We'll just have to see how it works out. But I'll keep you posted some how. Anyways here's some pictures from Saturday. Enjoy them!!!

Updates on my blog entries

If you want updates on when I add something to my page, put in your email address in the space provided. It's under my favorite sites that I read. I got the idea from my sister Stacy and I thought it would be good to do since I'm going back to college. I'm not sure how often I'll get to do new posts so this is perfect for me. Anyways, I hope you add your email!

Wow... it's been forever since my last post. I've been really busy with work and getting ready to go back to college. I can't believe I'm actually going back. When I graduated last May I thought about going back but it wasn't a definite thing. It depended a lot on how my summer went and if I could earn enough money to go back. Well, I have earned enough money so I'm going back for one more year-- my last year for real this time!!! :) I'm kinda excited, though. I get to see all my friends in about four days!! I have a lot of friends at H.A.C. and I've really missed them. Then next Saturday I get to see my bus kids. Yeah!!! I have really missed them soooooooo much! Then next Sunday I get to see my Sunday School girls and teach them. I've really missed them, 2! As excited as I am to go back, I also am very sad. I have to leave my family yet once again. It's hard and it never gets easier either. The hardest ones to leave are my twin nieces, Kelsey and Kaylee, my nephew Jordan, and my oldest niece, Latoya. It's hard to leave my Mom and I can't forget my dog!!! :) I love my dog Copper. It's hard to leave everyone actually and the comfort of home. Oh well, I really think I should go back for one more year so I'm going to but after that I'm done!! Yeah!

My week and a gigantic cucumber

Well... my week has been okay kind of boring. My parents left for North Carolina last Tuesday afternoon. Last week was also when I had the problem with my mouth and I couldn't hardly eat. I waited until Saturday to go to the doctor's office to see what was wrong with my mouth. It's been interesting staying by myself in my house-- it's too big for just one person to live here. I go to work at 6:15 am and don't usually get back until 4 pm. I had the Latoya and Jordan sleep over Wednesday night and they spent the day with me on Thursday. (my day off) After work on Friday, Stacy and the kids picked me up and we went to Augusta. We went out to eat at Red Robbin... Yummy. Except for the fact that it still hurt like crazy just to open my mouth half a inch!!! I got a banzai burger. All their burgers are huge so I could not eat it. I ate about one fourth of it by taking little baby bites that still hurt my mouth! We also went to Walmart and Kohl's. Saturday I was supposed to work but I didn't. I made a doctor's appointment for 9 that morning. Stacy brought me over there for my appointment. We also went to Gray Animal Farm that morning and that night we went to the balloon festival. Sunday was church and then we went to the balloon festival that night which I already wrote about. Monday I worked. Tuesday after work, I was watering the plants and I picked her cucumbers. There was one 9 inches long and 3 inches wide. I couldn't believe it... it was huge!!!! My mom's cucumber's are usually about half that size! Anyways here's a few pictures of it so you can see how huge it is! Well... it's gone now the kids ate it the other night-- they love cucumbers!!!

The Balloon Festival again!!!

Well... we went off to the balloon festival again tonight. Hoping this time to actually see some balloons! (Up in the air would be nice, too!)We got there right before 6:00 p.m. when they were to launch. They didn't start on time so we were getting kind of worried they might not launch them again and our trip would be a waisted trip again! :( They didn't start getting the balloons out till about 6:30 or so. Then it took them a few minutes for the balloons to fill up and then stand up. It was pretty cool to see the balloons fill up and then go up in the sky. They were going up fast! I tried to take pictures of them all and I think I got most of them. I might have missed a couple since they went up so fast. The last one to be blown up was the beagle, Maximus. I was really excited and so were the kids. They didn't let it go up in the sky because it was too windy for the beagle but at least we got to see it and take pictures of it. It was a really good day to see the balloons launch. The sun was out and it wasn't freezing like last night. It did get kind of cold towards the end but not that bad. Here's some pictures that I took of the balloons. It was the first time I had been in awhile so I wanted to take lots of pictures. Enjoy!!!

Cubbies this morning & my "head butt" accident last Sunday!

Cubbies this morning was pretty normal for the most part. Nothing too weird happened this time. Last Sunday I got head butted in the nose by one of the boys! Can you say OUCH!!!! I haven't been able to eat much this week because of it. Just to eat toast hurt! I could only open my mouth about half a inch and it was very painful! I finally went to the doctors office on Saturday morning. He said the trauma caused me to stretch a muscle right under my jaw when I jerked my head back after I was head butted. There wasn't any medicine for it. I've been taking Tylenol and using icy hot. Then I massage the not under my jaw to loosen it a little. Well, the good news is I'm doing a LOT better. The pain is pretty much gone now. I still can't open my mouth all the way yet but it is slowly getting better. And I can eat!!! Yeah! Oh...I took a picture of the twins today because they looked soo cute! They had dresses on that looked like sailor outfits! And below are a few pictures of Grayson that my mom has sent me while they are enjoying him while in North Carolina. If you ask Kelsey or Kaylee where Meme and Bumpa are they say Carolina. It's so adorable! Enjoy!

The Balloon Festival

Tonight I went to the balloon festival with my sister and her four kids and our cousin Sue. We ate at McDonald's for supper and then went to where they would launch the balloons. They were supposed to launch them at 6:00 pm. Well, 6:00 came and went. They then made a announcement that it was too windy to launch them. I wasn't too surprised because it was a very windy COLD day! They said at 8:00 they would do a fire launch or something like that. We thought they would let the balloons go up a little but not launch. We decided to wait. The kids played at a park nearby. We then went to Grammy Keene's house which was around the corner. We stayed there for a little bit and went back so we could see the balloons. We went back about 7:30. We got fried dough and we waited for the balloons to go up. I and the kids were really excited about seeing the beagle balloon. I have a beagle named Copper and the kids have a beagle named Gaby. Well, they had all the basket thing set up in a big circle. At 8:00, all the people started lighting it so it would make fire and competing against each other. Then someone over a microphone started counting them off the baskets and when he said that number, that basket would light their fire. It was a very, cold depressing night. We never even saw one balloon at the balloon festival. Maybe someone should tell them to do it earlier in the summer so they could actually launch their balloons and people could actually enjoy them! :)



Below are some pictures from today. Some are from Gray Animal Farm and some are from the park that we played in.

Kaylee on a tree stump! Kelsey playing in the grass! Latoya jumps to another log!

Jordan on "HIS" tree stump! Toya & Jordan on a tree stump. Latoya and the girls!


Toya and Jordan petting Kadie! Jordan's crazy hair!!! Toya goes down on her coat!


Tired Kelsey and Silly Kaylee!

Cubbies again

Once again I taught cubbies this morning. Cubbies is for 2 and 3 year olds so they parents can go to their own classes and not worry about their little kids. I teach it every Sunday morning for the Sunday School hour and then I help out during the church hour when my mom teaches. I love it-- they are a lot of fun! Never a dull moment! Well, today during the church hour the kids were playing with the toys after story time and snack was finished. Conner, my favorite boy in cubbies, was hiding in a play fridge they have in there. Every time I would open the door, he would start laughing. It was so cute. I had to take a few pictures of him hiding so I could post it on my blog. I also am going to post some pictures I've taken of the kids during cubbies the last few weeks.







Latoya, Caleb, Jordan, Molly, Joy
Conner, Kaylee, Kelsey, and Austin




Caleb and Molly




Kaylee and Kelsey

Welcome Baby Grayson Cole!

Well... as everyone else probably knows by now my nephew Grayson Cole was born early Friday morning at 4:04. He weighed 7 lbs and 11 oz. and was 21 inches long. What a big cute boy he is. I haven't seen him of course since they live in North Carolina but the pictures of him sure are ADORABLE!!! I'm so excited for Sarah and John-- I'm sure they were anxious for the baby to finally come and to find out what he was, an adorable baby boy. I can't wait to see baby Grayson Cole and finally hold him and spoil him and give him kisses!