I haven’t written much about my new job in the daycare center but I come home absolutely exhausted. I’m sure those of you with kids can completely understand too since I run after 2 year old’s (and a couple of 3 year old’s) all day long. I’m in the “potty training class”, which actually isn’t as bad as it sounds. It’s mostly 2-1/2 to 3 year old’s who are attempting to potty train. Once they turn 3 and are trained they get bumped up to the next class.

Right now it’s me and another teacher and we typically have anywhere from 12-16 kids total. It’s not that bad in the mornings but the other teacher leaves around 2:30 everyday and I’m pretty much left to handles things (though sometimes they send another teacher to help me). Can we say CRAZY? Yes, that about sums up what it’s like.

I have a couple of kids in the class who are just obnoxious and are always in time-out.  The rest are great though.  I love coming in the classroom and hearing one little boy yell out “HI MISS ELI!”.  It’s an awesome feeling being able to make them laugh and listen to them all sing the ABC’s or another song.

So yes, I’m exhausted, but it’s a good exhausted.  I finally feel like I have a rewarding job.  It may pay next to nothing, but the smiles on my kids faces make it all worth it.  :)

You know you’re a mom when you go climb up in a small twin sized bed with your 3 year old knowing that you will more than likely be puked on in the near future.

Anna came into our room around 5am this morning and tossed and turned for a bit before throwing up all over the place.  After getting her cleaned up, I went back and got in bed with her in case it happened again.  It did.  Several times.  Luckily, after the first two times, we got a pretty good system going and no more messes were made.  She threw up about 7-8 times over the course of the morning but now it’s been a couple of hours with no getting sick, and that’s even after having a few bites of a waffle.  So hopefully it was just a quick bug.  She was so pitiful looking there for awhile.

I’m sure she got it from us, as Dan and I were both feeling pretty queasy a couple of days ago.  We were fortunate not to get sick ourselves, but Anna was not so lucky.  Hopefully it has passed for all three of us though.

We got to wear jackets today…and long pants!  I thought for sure I’d be leaving Houston still wearing shorts.  It was absolutely gorgeous today.  I don’t think it got out of the 60s…maybe low 70s, but it was awesome!  It was only mid-50s when I left the house this morning.  I had to actually search for a jacket for Anna to wear.  I just love it!  I can’t wait to start wearing pants and sweaters and cold weather stuff.  I’m so over the hotness of Houston.  Over it.

I’ve uploaded a bunch of pics to my photo gallery lately.  Be sure to check them out!

Anna’s loving her new scooter.  She picked it up pretty quickly and can scoot around quite fast now.  She rides it all over the house mostly, but I did take her to the park the day after her birthday so she could try it out outside.

I found a really cool park about a half hour away from us that we went to check out on Dan’s day off only to find that it was mostly closed due to damage from the hurricane.  We did find a playground that seemed to be in working order so Anna did get to play a little bit.

And then we decided to go to another park (actually the same park that we went scootering at) and go for a bike ride.  Well, Dan and Anna rode bikes and I walked.  Anna did great.  She’s had her bike for several months now but really hasn’t done much riding outside other than around the neighborhood a bit.  It has just been too hot here.  But now it’s FINALLY starting to cool off.  She loves riding her bike around.  Afterwards we let her play in the water spouts since it was still warm enough for that.

So we’ve been out and about doing stuff which has been nice.  I’m leaving tomorrow to head back to Chattanooga, without Anna this time.  I have an interview on Wednesday for a job I really hope I get.  I’ll be there until Friday most likely and then will head home.  Wish me luck!  :)

Wow, I’m just really a bad blogger I think.  I keep thinking about writing but then find something better to do.  I’m just not a writer so the thought of sitting down and making a big update post just doesn’t always seem all that appealing.

Anyway…  Anna and I are leaving Chattanooga tomorrow.  We’ve been here almost a month.  We still have yet to see any of the damage from Hurricane Ike, but I’m sure there’s still plenty left to see when we get back Thursday.  Dan was here for a little over a week until the power came back on in TX so that he could get back to work, but then he had to leave.  Anna definitely misses her daddy so it’ll be good to get back.

We’ve had a really good time here on the farm though.  Anna LOVES running around and swinging on her big swing that we put up for her.  We’ve gone to the local Children’s Museum a couple of times, Ruby Falls, lots of parks and other fun things.  We’ve been busy pretty much every day.  It’ll be sad leaving but we’ll be back at Christmas.  I’m hoping that we’ll be able to move here at some point but I don’t know when that’ll happen.  It would be a perfect place.  We’d have our own house and everything.  We’ll see how things pan out I guess.

I’ve taken so many pictures while we’ve been here so be sure to check out the photo galleries.  I completely re-did my photo site and I think it looks a lot better.  I really like the new software I’m using better than the old one…though it doesn’t link into this blog like the old software did, unfortunately.  But I like it enough that it’s worth it.

So that’s that.  We’ll leave in the morning and head to Arkansas where we’ll stay with a friend overnight and then head the rest of the way to Houston on Thursday.  I’ll try my best to be better at this blogging stuff…but we all know how I am.  :)

This link shows a bunch of good photos of the hurricane and it’s destruction.  Photo #8 is not too far from where I work.

Well, we got lucky. The house didn’t suffer too much damage. There is a section of shingles missing from the roof and it looks like water leaked in just enough to leave a water mark on the ceiling. The siding “skirt” around the bottom of the house is completely gone too. That’s pretty much it for the house itself. There is some of the wood decking that is gone, including the steps that lead into the backyard. Also all of the fencing around the house (and in most of the neighborhood) is gone. I was told that my in-laws’ dock is the only one that remained fully in tact. The rest in the neighborhood are damaged or gone. Apparently most of the houses in the neighborhood are unlivable, so we were very lucky.

Anna and I are currently in Chattanooga staying with my parents. It’ll probably be 2-4 weeks at least before electricity is back on; there’s no clean water and the sewage system isn’t functioning…so it would definitely not be a good environment for Anna to be in, so my parents flew us here to stay until it’s safe to go back. I’m not sure how long we’ll be here.

Here are a few photos that Dan took with his phone and sent to me. They’ve been taking a lot of pictures but, even though they have power from running on a generator, the internet is not working so they can’t send those. Anyway, the first two photos are looking right and left from the back of the house. There’s tons of wood and other debris everywhere. All fencing is gone between each house’s yard. The third photo shows the missing siding on the house.

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Well, we were evacuated due to Hurricane Ike that should be hitting the Galveston area pretty soon.  Dan’s parents live right on the water, the ship channel, in Baytown and we were part of the mandatory evacuation area.  We left late last night, around midnight, and headed to Dallas to stay with Dan’s cousin.

This storm is looking pretty bad.  As of right now, the eye looks like it’s going to go pretty much right over Dan’s parents’ house.  They’re calling for a storm surge of 15-20′…..and since the house sits about 12′ above the water that’s very much NOT GOOD.  We got a lot of stuff out of the house and packed it up into three trailers, two of which are stored at Dan’s dad’s work north of where they live…but now we’re getting a little concerned that the storm surge could affect those, and we’d lose pretty much everything we brought down here to Houston with us.  We only brought a couple changes of clothes with us to his cousin’s house, along with our laptops, camera gear and some toys for Anna.  We do still have a good majority of our stuff in a big storage unit in Seattle, but most of our everyday stuff is either in those trailers or still in the house.

This storm is so big that we’ve got tropical storm warnings all the way up here in Dallas and they’re saying we could still lose power way up here.  Ugh.  This is just all so stressful.  I just want it over so that we know what the damage is and can figure out what we have to do.

Anyway, if you’re the praying type…please pray.

While on vacation with Anna my 8 year old mini-dachshund Zoey passed away. About a month or so ago she had a false pregnancy that wouldn’t clear up with medication we were given. We had her spayed hoping that would help her heal (yes, we should have had her spayed a long time ago). Apparently that along with the false pregnancy left her immune system very weak. Sometime along the way she was bitten by a tick which made her very sick. She’s been in and out of the vet quite a bit in the last month but this last time the treatment wasn’t given in time…well, I think the tick bite wasn’t really caught in time due to her other ailments…and she passed away at the vet on the night of July 31st. I had talked to the vet earlier that day even though I was out of town and was told that her platelet count was really low but “not critically low”, so when Dan called me the next morning and told me that she had died it was quite a shock. I knew she was sick but I didn’t think that she would die from it.

I’m just so sad. She was our second baby (we have a 10 year old mini-dachshund, Oscar). Dan buried her in my in-law’s backyard next to their bassett hound who passed a few years ago.

Anna doesn’t know yet but we’ll tell her after we get home on Tuesday. I don’t think she’d really understand it while we’re gone.

Rest in peace Zoey.

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November 13, 1999 – July 31, 2008

I am sitting in my parents’ RV riding down the road as I type this. I just love technology. We’re on our way to Gaffney, SC where we’ll stay the night and then head towards Myrtle Beach tomorrow. (We’ll actually stay somewhere maybe around Florence, SC tomorrow night so we won’t actually be in Myrtle Beach until Saturday.) I can’t wait to get to the beach and relax for a week.

The trip getting here, however, was no fun. No fun at all.

It’s just Anna and me on this trip. Dan had to stay home and work. We left Houston Tuesday around noon to fly to Lexington, KY. We had a 4 hour layover in Atlanta, which I knew about and was ok with. We were scheduled to get into Lexington around 8:30ish (I don’t remember exact time).

We got to Atlanta around 3:20pm had a pretty nice layover. We had a nice lunch at Houlihan’s and then Anna met a little 4 year old girl who kept her entertained the whole time we were there. I talked to her parents (well, actually her grandparents, but they’re raising her and they seemed really young…I was surprised that they weren’t her parents) quite a bit while we were waiting.

About an hour before the flight a big storm hit Atlanta with thunder, lightning…the whole nine yards. Planes that were already loaded and on the runway were allowed to take off but nothing could land and no new planes could load. So it backed everything up. Our plane ended up having to divert to Charlotte to refuel after circling the airport. We heard later that ours was one of the last to divert and therefore one of the last to leave Charlotte to come back to Atlanta.

So we wait and wait and wait and keep getting update after update with the departure time getting pushed back and back. At around 11:30pm, after Anna had FINALLY fallen asleep (in my arms) and had been asleep for maybe 45 minutes, they told us we had to change gates…and go to the complete other end of the terminal. Luckily, the family we’d made friends with was there to help me and carried my carseat while I pushed Anna (now awake) in her stroller. Things seem to finally be looking up.

At around 12:30am they tell us that our plane is here and we have our pilots. We’re just waiting for our flight attendants to land. Finally, we get word that the flight attendants have landed and will head to our gate after unloading their plane. Not two minutes later the gate guy comes back on the speaker and says “Well ladies and gentleman, I’m only the messenger. Our pilots are out of time and this flight has been canceled.”

THE PILOTS ARE OUT OF TIME?!?!?!?! What does that mean??? They couldn’t wait 5 minutes for our flight attendants to get to our gate??

Ugh.

So we were told to go wait in line (with the rest of the airport since most flights at this time had been canceled) and find out what flight we’d be put on the next day (Wednesday). I called Delta while in line and was told that I’d already been put on another flight. It would leave at 4:45pm and take me from Atlanta to Huntsville, AL, then from Huntsville to Cincinnati, finally from Cincinnati to Lexington. Keep in mind that a typical direct flight from Atlanta to Lexington is only an hour (maybe even a bit less) in duration.

I pretty much told the Delta rep that she was out of her mind. I tried to get on another flight with no luck. I tried to tell them to put me on another airplane but since this was a weather issue all other airlines were pretty much in the same boat and had to help their own customers. I tried to get them to put me on a direct flight to Cincinnati or Louisville but there was nothing.

I was tired, frustrated and just couldn’t do three more flights the next day with all of our carry on stuff, a big carseat and a two year old after we’d just sat in the airport for more than 10 hours. So I had Dan book me a reservation for a rental car. I decided to drive from Atlanta to Lexington. It’d be much less stressful and I’d get there well before my THREE flights would get me there.

So. The couple that we were hanging out with have a son that works for Marriott and were able to book two rooms in a hotel downtown Atlanta (because all of the airport hotels were full). We were going to take a cab but I figured since I was getting a rental car that we could all just take the shuttle there and then all pile in the rental car and save cab money.

We get to the rental car place and they will only take a credit card, no debit card, for a one way rental. I didn’t have enough room on my credit card. I called Dan and had him make a payment online to clear up enough room and it told him AFTER the payment that it wouldn’t clear until the next day. Well, not ideal but I would just come back in the morning. The couple decide to get a rental just to go to the hotel and back so we get that and head to the hotel.

It was 3am before we were in bed and we had to leave at 10:30 because they had to get back to the airport for their flights (which were better than mine….go figure the woman with the toddler gets the crappiest flights available.)

So we head back to the car rental place in the morning and they drop their car off and leave. They were such great people and really I was so lucky to have met them. They helped me tremendously while we were stuck there.

I get in the rental place and call my credit card company and the payment has STILL not posted even though it said it should. They said it would post on Thursday. So I go up to the guy at the counter and see if there’s any way I can get a car and he pretty much says nope, I need a credit card. I broke down crying at that point. I’d just had enough and couldn’t keep it in. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to get back anymore flights. I was just done. Luckily, the guy took pity on me (he later told me it was because I looked like a nice person and was going to Lexington…guess he has family there) and went to talk to his manager and was able to make it work. I GOT A CAR! He even gave me a free upgrade from a compact to a not-so-compact.. ;)

We got on our way around noon and got to Lexington around 6:30pm. Luckily we had no further incidents.

It was such a frustrating and tiring experience and by far the worst travel experience I’ve EVER had….and I’m a pretty seasoned traveler. I wouldn’t wish the experience on anyone and I really really hope that the rest of my trip goes smoothly.

I took a bunch of photos today at Kentucky Horse Park before we left Lexington but I think this post is long enough. I’ll post some pics on here in the next day or so.