This Summer.

While right now is incredibly stressful, and will be for the next couple weeks, the light is growing ever brighter at the end of this tunnel. We have a lot of plans for this summer, and I can’t WAIT to have the freedom (most the mental freedom from stress) to get to them!

The best part of my babies not really being babies anymore (which I hate, I just want them to stay little), is that they are basically easy now. Heh. When we get in the car, we don’t really have to worry about the diaper bag and snacks and drinks for a quick trip to Lowe’s anymore. And they CAN be rational and understand the concept of waiting now (sometimes they choose not to of course, they ARE still 1 and 2, but still…).

As a result, this opens up a world of fun and exciting activities that we haven’t been able to partake in for years now.

We are going to start the summer by heading over to Seattle on our first real road trip since Lila was a little baby, for my cousin Hannah’s graduation. I am still skeptical that they will sleep in a strange place, and with anyone else in the room, but they will work it out and we will all be a little unrested, I am sure, but I am excited!

Then, we have decided Lila is probably old enough that camping won’t be the hell it is with a little baby, so we want to plan some camping trips this summer. With me being the only one in school, and even that is so limited (squeeee!), we will definitely have more time to do things that are actually fun.

Toward the end of the summer, we will head up to CDA for the annual pig pickin’, which we always look forward to, and we will get to see “Beebee Keegan” (who is also NOT a baby anymore!), and Aunt Justiney and Uncle Kemer.

THEN, my Dad is taking Justine and I (since he took the other two last year) on a Hawaiian vacation! Woohoo! At first I had totally talked myself out of it when he asked. I told myself there was just no way I could swing it, that I am a Mom and wife and I can’t just abandon my family for a week to go lay on the beach… I have work obligations, and school… there was just no way.

Then I thought about how much I’ve sacrificed for my family, and what it has taken to get through the last three years, how I never have the time to just be with my Dad and my sister (or myself for that matter) and just truly enjoy the time and moving slowly and taking things in, and dang it, I deserve a vacation (pffft, and a medal)! My Dad doesn’t have the best of health and when will I ever be offered the trip of a lifetime again, let’s freaking do it! (I still feel fully guilty btw, but I put on a good front. :))

So Steen and I talked and talked, and talked with my Dad, and worked out a time that works for all of our insane schedules, and we are doing it! We are going to Oahu (I know very little about Hawaii) for a week. I am so excited, and have been using it as an “end” focal point, to just get there and something to look forward to at the end of the summer and to start the last semester of my undergraduate career. Which is also going to be a crazy time. Here’s what my August looks like: Weekend class on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, immediately leave for CDA, pig pickin, drive home with Stu and the kids, pack, Monday meeting at work for our annual statewide meeting, leave on 6 AM flight the next morning for Hawaii, vacay for a week, fly home on an 8:45 PM red-eye with two layovers, get home mid-day, start class that night at 6 PM. WHEWWWW. It’s going to be busy, but hopefully amazing as well. :)

Failed.

So, I unequivocally FAILED at my super awesome plan of writing every day for a year. It has been almost TWO WHOLE MONTHS since I have written a post! Wow! At least when I fail I go for the gold. But, I do still want to keep up blogging because when I do and when we can all look back and read the things we were doing, it is freaking awesome.

So, fair warning, I am about the make a bunch of excuses:

I really WANTED to write every day, but I missed one day and then that turned into the whole weekend, and suddenly it was a week and the thought of catching up on a week's worth of blogs sounded so daunting.... well, alas it has been two months. 

BUT, Stuie is going to graduate in 2 (!!!) weeks! I can't believe it is finally here for him, and it sure has been a difficult couple of months getting here. We have been busier than we have ever been, which sounds improbably, but I assure you, we somehow managed to fit even more into our lives. 

Couple that with some seriously fucked up mold and bathroom tile contractor issues, (which I am not going to discuss now because it both makes me sick, exhausted, and decidedly cynical about the whole of society, AND because there is likely a lawsuit in our future), my trying to finish up my biggest project of the year for work, and trying to finish classes and prepare for finals, and I have had it up to here (insert hand gesture). 

I feel like all things considered, I have been handling everything that is going on pretty decently. I'm no saint, but geez, how much can one person be expected to handle at once? So I have been literally counting down the day until this is all over. 

Also, there are two very positive things that have come out of this. First, my bullshit capacity has been reduced to nearly zero (this is the cynicism). I do not care, nor WANT to care about any level of bullshit, and my detector is in prime shape. As a result, I am more efficient, more rational, and worry about much less. These are all good things. Second, and this is my favorite: Because I had to take one class this coming Fall (my waiver that I get from the university for discounted class fees maintains that I cannot take more than one class during "work hours," regardless of how much time I am willing to make up early in the morning or late at night. So, this summer, both of the final two classes I needed to graduate were offered during the day (and during different sessions, I might add), and as a result, I had to pick one or the other and not both. The other classes I was registered for were at night, so they were moot and unaffected. 

BUT, because I couldn't graduate until December, I had to switch my catalog year, which expires this coming August. Switching to a new catalog is tricky because it can change the requirements you need, and can results in suddenly having to take more classes to graduate. So I switched to the newest year, which did waive some of the new requirements (foundations classes) automatically, but the math I took didn't count on the new year because it is no longer even offered anymore. Crap. So, I worked with my awesome Department Chair (not my adviser, lol. He always sends me to the chair) to get an academic adjustment, which is where the dean of the college I am graduating under says, “sure, we’ll accept that as an approved class” and I don’t have to retake math.

All of this means that I have 8 fewer required classes on this catalog than my old one, so I got to drop two whole classes this coming summer! Woot woot! So, I will have one measly little class (senior seminar, which is not a measly class and is condensed into half the time normal people take it) this summer, one one-credit weekend class (a single weekend, on the Isreali-Palestinian conflict and movies), and then I will take ONLY Statistics this fall and I will be done!!! Oh my goodness, ten years in the making, I cannot believe I am but two classes and a weekend away from that piece of paper. So stoked.

But before that, we do need to get Stuie all graduated, so there have recently been a lot of late nights for him, and just generally a lot of stress in the house in general. I talked to Kaden’s teacher on the phone last night for an HOUR, chatting about everything that is and has been going on, and actually giving her some advice about her own son, and it is nice to be reminded that my kids ARE little and they will have few if any memories of this stressful time. For now, I am encouraging my super awesome and ever supportive family to take one or two kids with them when they do fun things, just to give the kids a break and have a good time. This weekend, I am pretty sure Marcia and Mimi and going to take the boys to the dinosaur exhibit at the Expo. They will LOVE that, and I can work on my final presentation for Research Methods, and Stu can finish up the 3 (!!!) huge papers he’s working on.

Then it is all up-hill from there, but I will save that for a second post. :) 

Here's some pics of the babes. :)

I showed Jackson how to blow a dandelion and he thought it was SO COOL. (I will probably regret this decision when my whole yard is yellow, but it was worth it at the time. :))

Jack and I watching Duck Dynasty, one of the top 4 greatest shows on the planet. :)

Kaden man, waiting for Mimi and Papa to pick him up for school. 

My beautiful Princess Lila, enjoying the sunny day in the swing.

I seriously have the cutest kids alive. :)

Miss Lila and I, after a long, stressful day, hanging out and spending quality time.