First we had the 4th of July.

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So, as normal, the end of the school year is fast approaching. Only what, 6 more day?! Eeeks!

Wednesday, Derric had a picknick with his Autism class. The Summer School teacher also came by. This lady will be making a daily (Mon-Thurs) trip from Ramstein to teach our kiddos! Wow. Ramstein is a good hour and 45 away. She will have two hours with the elementary level kids, then I am not sure how long with the high schoolers. She will see a total of 6 kids daily.

The picknick was fun. It is amazing to see Derric actually spend the entire time playing with other kids! He was on the swings when they were, he was running with them. It was just amazing. After school I let him play at the school park with classmates. Over half the time, he was alone. He would just wander away from the others, and find something solo to do. So watching him at the picknick, I wondered how he will grow.

Today is a busy day. I have an 8am IEP meeting with Kauchana’s teachers. Then I have to head up to the high school for Field Day for the elementary kids. I hope to get several hundred good pictures of both Xavier and Derric. They will have three hours of play, then a BBQ. So I should have the time! But lots of walking involved! I need a good pedometer! Since my Nike+s don’t want to work still!!!!

Friday should be a slower day. Rest Sat and Sun since Kevin will be working, then back again for the last week.

Derric will have one week off from school, before starting his summer school. It will last from the 22nd of June to the 24th of July. Then mid August the kids head back to school. Kevin will also be on leave from the 2nd of July to the 31st. A whole month of family time! Of course his parents and brother will be here too for two weeks, but still, we will have time before and after their visit for just us as a family. That is the nice part.

I will be spending these last frew slower days fine tuning our Family Summer Center, I really hope this will be something good and not end up in fights. But now off to shower since we have an early morning!

left of the school year.

Wow, only 9 active school days left of the year! Next week, we have lots going on, mostly at the elementary school.

The kids and I created our own Family Summer Center today. I got the idea from a daily Buzz at CafeMom, which linked over to the Craftzine blog, that included instructions on making one. So today, the kids and I headed up to the BX and did some shopping. Spending about $28, we bought a lot of supplies we figured we would need to make our own. (turns out we didn’t use half of them) Then we set to work, wipping up the creative board and the calendar. We had a lot of fun doing it too. I gave the kids three simple rules and ask they come up with some summer goals, within the rules. They got creative! I then made up some “I’m Bored” ideas, for when the kids come up and ask what to do, I can tell them to pull a card! I thought this was a nice idea to add.

I pulled out the Panther’s Paws book and flipped through it for ideas of places to “see/seen”, got my book list of books to read the kids nightly to add to the “read/read” section. I have a third pocket, but not sure what to do for that.. The kids wanted Foods to “try”, but reall, I would prefer something else, just don’t know what yet. I took a picture of our ‘center’ and will upload it when I can get it from the camera.

I still need to sit down and write up my goals for the summer, and haven’t decided yet if I am going to sit down and do goals for Derric. Not even sure what they would even be…

In other news, I have a new family photo site. It is over at Shutterfly. They have a really cool new feature, share sites, and I will say, I wish I had known about it before. I am thinking of downgrading my server to the cheapest one avaiable and just use shutterfly for my picture hosting needs…

Well, not much else to write about, so I think I shall get going.. Have a great weekend.

….since I updated…

I have been sick with allergies. My seasonal allergies have kicked into sever mode. Meaning I have not been able to breath since last Friday! But lets do some updates.

Easter Weekend was ok. Saturday we did a BBQ, and also got groceries. Not much really happened. Sunday, rolled the last child out of bed around noon, sent them on a walk with Freya to get all the kids out of the house while Kevin and I hid chocolate filled eggs. Of course non of the kids took their cells with them, so when I wanted them home, I couldn’t call them, and with them out walking, no real clue where they were. So I sat on the patio to wait for one to come home to ask if they were all allowed to come back. I said yup, and off Kauchana went to get the others. They actually weren’t that far away, so it wasn’t long before all the kids were home.

As soon as they walked into the living room, they saw their Easter baskets. Kevin had picked them up last month, and they had been hiding in the truck. Kevin got them all outside baskets, they had different kind of balls for the kids to play with. They loved them! (I want to get a bin to put in the hall closet that will hold skates and balls for the kids!) Then we gave them some ground rules and sent them around the house to find the hidden eggs. They really liked that part, of course Kauchana and Dokota found their amount really quick, but had fun helping Derric and Xavier find theirs. Then it was out onto the patio to dye eggs. I had bought two dozen for the kids to dye, thinking that would let them each dye 6, giving them some fun ideas. Kevin did take three eggs and hallow them out for the three oldest. That way they can keep those.

All of it was still a little advanced for Derric, but he had fun.

Monday it was back to school. I thought Derric would give me a rough time, but he didn’t really. The only thing that gave me a rough time was my allergies. Walking the kids to school took my breath away, and by the time I would get home, I was gasping for air. I kept myself in bed or in the bathroom steaming. I wasn’t getting any sleep at night because as soon as I would get comfortable, I was hacking really bad.I kept hoping it would get better, but when it kept getting worse, I finally made myself a dr. appt. All he said was I had sever allergies and gave me some meds. gee thanks…

The meds have been slowly working and with the help of tylenol PM, I have been getting sleep at night.

Friday, Derric woke up crying. Went down to check on him and he was burning hot. Took his temp and he was at 103.1 again! Took him upstairs and got him some motrin and tylenol. He finally went down in temp. Dokota made Derric a bed on the couch so I could keep an eye on him. I sat down at the end of the couch, to sit with him, but he curled up on my chest and fell fast asleep. With the help of Kevin, I was able to get out from under him. Kevin stayed up to watch over him while I got some sleep. And sleep I did get. But I woke up worse for ware. Everything I was normally hacking up during the night just sat there, so I was in a good amount of pain upon waking.

Derric was feeling better, and Kevin wanted to get me out of the house, so he took me to the Spring Bazzar on Spang. It was just like the Fall Bazzar, 90% of the same vendors, so it was a quick walk through. He did show me one new vendor. A Family Crest guy. That was really neat. We ordered one, it should be here in 4-8 months. Will go into more detail about that later.

Today, it looks like we are going to head to Manderscheid and see some castle ruins!

I slept pretty good last night, getting to sleep before midnight, didn’t have a Derric crawl into my bed until 6:30, which was very nice. I didn’t really want to get out of bed, and Derric was being ever so cute, currling up on me, telling me to scratch his back, and “no get up, it sleep time”. I gave in for a while, at least until the alarm went off at 6:55. He got 25 minutes of me scratching that back of his…

So I get up, I get the kids up, and I check my email, and a couple favorite websites. Kids still weren’t up and active, so I head back down to tell them yet again to get up. This time they stired and got to moving around. I head back up and check my emails again, finish reading a few posts on a couple groups, get Derric his breakfast and start my day.

Kauchana wanders up and asked if the schools were delayed 2 hours. I asked why and she said she heard it on her radio. Interested, I check the Commander’s Channel. Sure enough, RoadCon Red, Schools and Buses 2 hour delay. At this point, Dokota is out of his shower, my water is ready for hot chocolate, and the other kids are eating… Me, I am wishing I had listened to Derric and stayed in bed. So I call up Kevin to let him know I will be running two hours late to meet up with him, which he said was fine because he had things to do. So we agree to meet up later.

As soon as I hang up the phone, I get email bombed from the Spangdahlem email group. There was a post about the 2 hour delay and and several replys.. Uhm.. why was I getting them late? So I read through and answer a few. The kids are now done with their breakfast and wondering what they can do, so I say, Wii Time. They jumped at that and started playing Mini Golf.

Then, school got canceled… Again, I hear NOTHING about this (and yes, the schools have my email). The Commander’s Channel still was tickering that they were only delayed 2 hours. I can’t hear the channel in my office, so I have no clue what is being said. If it wasn’t for the email group, I wouldn’t have known the schools got canceled. Gee….

So I worked on my blog header. I FINALLY got the header to feel right. I am very happy with it. Worked on food for the kids, helped the kids with a little mini golf (since it is only up to 4 players, I really can’t play with them unless one of them sits out), helped Kauchana with her school project, and cuddled a Derric.

Kauchana had a dentist appointment today. She has head gear to correct a series overbite. The Ortho said it was looking really good.

Showers are done, kids want to mini golf with me (wonder who is going to be left out), but I think I am going to sit with Derric and get him to do some math work. I hope everyone has a great Wednesday!