The Performance

Ok here's the part of our blog that I get to brag about my baby boy! Last night was his very first ever performance at school.....we were so excited! I've never been prouder of him in my life, it was the most exciting thing to see him walk up on stage and sing those (way too long) songs.

When he walked up on stage the first thing we saw him do was look for us. We read his lips when he was talking to the girl next to him asking "where's my mom?" Like mom and dad would EVER miss a performance he was in! The girl saw me and she pointed us out to him and he was all smiles after that =) They sang a song in spanish and then Feliz Navidad. He did an awesome job! Just a typical 5 year old that did great at first then got bored. I couldn't help but smile this huge cheesy smile the entire time. The best part of the performance is when he looked at us and gave a thumbs up. It was the most awesome thing in the world! We always do thumbs up when something goes good, and my baby gave me a thumbs up.

I can't get the video to load so here's a couple pics.....I'm such a Mom!

So Ready!



Looking for us


There's my baby!

A Slow Road Ahead

Well my Hunny is home! He came home Friday afternoon and.....it's gonna be a slow road to recovery. So far he's lost 20 lbs because his throat is so sore from surgery he can't eat anything. They went in through his neck and kinda moved stuff over to get to his neck, hence the reason he's sore. He's still in a lot of pain although he says the numbness in his hands is starting to go away which is a very good sign.

We were never so glad to get him home! The kids made signs to welcome Daddy home, and as Danae told Leroy when he got out "Dad, Mom was lost with you gone". She was so telling the truth. I was completely lost without him here, he's my rock.

So maybe things will turn around for us, things can only get better from here right? Here's some randomness for the day.....So I always say I can't stand this town, and for the most part it's just something to blame on all the bad stuff that's happened in the last year and a half. In this town live some pretty wonderful people. I'll call them Mr. & Mrs Kindhart. They are a wonderful, caring and genuinely generous people. I've come to see them regularly when I'm working here in Fillmore and they are so sweet. Before I took off for Leroy's surgery Mr. Kindhart asked for our address because Mrs. Kindhart wanted to bake something for us. I said you don't have to do that and gave our address. Lo and behold, today they came over with a homemade lasagna! (I've been craving lasagna for weeks but didn't want to bake it myself) Me and my emotional self cried at the true generosity of them. I can't even begin to thank them and how special it was to come over. And the lasagna was awesome! The world is a horrible place sometimes, but it's people like these that make me think we can make it here.

And....I finished my Christmas cards! Anyone who truly knows me knows I take cards seriously. There are no bought cards in this house baby, all handmade here. Hallmark gets 0% of my paychecks. I'm usually done by now, actually I was done I just hadn't put them together which is the hard part. So this weekend I sat myself down and finished. I stamped, colored, flocked and glittered every single one by hand! I love making something with my own hands, it makes me feel useful and give something that can't be bought. I know, I'm a little nutty =)
Danae decided to decorate her dresser for Christmas!

The First Step

Well, it's done, Leroy had his surgery to relieve the compression on his spinal cord yesterday! As excited as I am, I'm so incredibly scared at the same time.....

We dropped Derrick off at school and then Danae, Leroy & I headed towards the hospital (of course stopping at each store to check for hotwheels....it's tradition after all). We were to check in at 9am and then we sat until 10:10 before they called him up to the pre-op area. This is where Danae & I said our teary-eyed goodbyes. It didn't hit me until the nurse called him up and I didn't want to let him go. I don't know who was crying worse, Danae or myself. We were two heartbroken girls. Quick fix for Danae was a trip to the 99 cent store for a drink. For me it was biting off all my nails and worrying myself to an ulcer.

Danae was getting figity after a couple hours so we gave the admit nurse my cell number to call if ANYTHING happened. Finally at 1:45 the doctor called me as I was headed out to pick up Derrick from school. He said everything went well and he only had to fuse L4-L5 and didn't touch L-6. I guess 4 and 5 were worse than he thought because he didn't know how Leroy could even function with the damage that was there. He said he's very optimistic on his recovery so we can hope for the best!

After getting Derrick & making my round of phone calls we headed over to the hospital which was a mistake. I knew the kids wouldn't be able to see him but I guess they thought by going there Daddy was coming home.....um no, then I have 2 kids and mom all in tears because Daddy isn't coming home. Needless to say Wednesday was hectic.

Today we've called him and he sounds like he's doing better, he said he's still in pain and feeling weak but they do have him up and walking around which is good. I'm so hoping he gets to come home tomorrow, I'm going crazy without my other half here with me. Leroy's oxygen levels went down so they had to put him back on the oxygen which makes my wheels start turning thinking of all the bad stuff that could happen....The kids are keeping me going, I'm functioning on M&M's and Diet Pepsi, and I can't sleep. I miss my Hunny!!!! I want him home so I can see him and make sure he's ok, this is horrible! I know it's all so he can get better, at least hopefully they've fixed the problem so he's not in pain anymore.

Since I can't sleep, I've managed to scrub my bathroom on my hands and knees so it's spotless and the same with the kitchen....can't have my Hunny come home to a germ infested house, no infections here!

Black Friday....Great Deals!

We debated and discussed and we decided to go out on Black Friday, well technically it was still Thanksgiving when we went out. You see, here the Walmart's opened at midnight to let people wait and avoid the mad dash door stampede that usually happens at 5 am. So we took advantage of this and got to Walmart at midnight and found where all the items we wanted were (carefully hidden under black wrap) and waited 5 hours, with the kids to get our great deals!

It so paid off, we got a GPS which will come in really handy down here for $59, the kids needed new jammies so those were $3 what great deals! I also got a hand mixer for $4. The deal with that is Leroy said I can't burn this one up. The first 2 months after I moved in I burned up 2 hand mixers and haven't had one since. So this time I promise not to mix cookie dough with it and burn it up =) Walmart did a great job at keeping the "Hot Items" under wraps and making lines for those cheap T.V's and computers. It was so much better than I've seen in years past. The only sad thing is it took an employees death last year for them to make it a smooth day. Also went to Old Navy and got jeans for super cheap but had to wait an hour in line to pay for them.

My one confusion was people buying these huge bubble jackets down here. Seriously, it was 80 degrees on Thanksgiving and doesn't get cold down here, why do you need to get a huge jacket even if it is only $15? I'll never understand some things =) Hope everyone had a safe and fun day after Thanksgiving & got some great deals!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! Well, we were hoping to have Leroy's surgery out of the way by now. After our Thanksgiving Saturday night we all came down with a stomach bug Sunday which meant Leroy still had it Monday morning before surgery. The doctor decided that having surgery while having a viral infection wasn't the best idea so he rescheduled it for December 9th. Kinda sucks but it's better than having Leroy fight two things off. I've seen the absolute worst that can happen when a person gets an infection after surgery with my grandma, I don't want that to happen to my husband. So, for now we're just all trying to get over these horrible colds and infections we have and wait until Leroy goes in for surgery. At least we get him home for Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving on a Whim

Here we are November 21st and we decided to have our Thanksgiving dinner a few days early. We planned it for tomorrow so Leroy could actually enjoy it before surgery but he was having a bad pain day today and spent the morning in bed so around 1 we said "let's cook the turkey"! And we were off! And by we I say me because I actually enjoy cooking big meals even though it's just the four of us and I spend 5 hours cooking for 15 minutes of eating =)
We got a turkey and named it Ted. Danae wanted to be my helper so I had to explain that we needed to clean & gut the turkey, baste him and cook him. It all took a while to sink in because she was so concerned with whether or not he was being hurt while cooking. This went into the he's dead speech and very over her little head I think. But in the end her concern was that her friend was going to be eaten =( I told her we'd find her another friend and she was content with that =)
Every year I attempt to make Leroy's moms homemade rolls and every year my attempt falls very short of anything close to edible rolls. Not this year! After telling his mom about my failed attempts I told her what I was doing and she said I was killing my yeast....go figure, I knew I had to be killing something with the horrible rolls. I followed what she had told me to do and it worked. I mixed, let rise, punched, balled & let rise again....it all came out to edible rolls that are delicious!
We have a lot to be thankful for this year compared to last, we have a doctor that believed Leroy's complaints of pain and now just before Thanksgiving he's having surgery to relieve the pain! If it hadn't been for our move down here who knows what would be going on. It's so weird how things work out.

The Week in Review

I really meant to blog Monday after Leroy's pre-op appointment.....but here it is Saturday night and I'm finally sitting down. Not for lack of forgetting, simply because I'm exhaused after working split shifts since October. Up at 3am work 4 hours back home for 6 hours then back to work at 2 to finish out the day. In a way Leroy going in for surgery is a vacation for us.

On to the good stuff.....the pre-op appointment was a real eye opener. I got to see Leroy's MRI pics and saw for myself how serious this really is. There is basically no spinal fluid going past his C-3 & C-4 vertebrae. It is like the Dr. said, "black & white" there's no if's and's or but's about it. The dr answered all my questions and was happy I had questions. I'm really happy with his dr and am confident that Leroy will be out of pain soon.

According to his doctor this is all caused by nothing more than bad luck. Yup, no lifting dangers or crazy things, just plain old bad luck. Hopefully after surgery & physical therapy we can function as a normal pain free family again. No watching the time to see if it's time to take pain meds yet or making sure we have extra pills when we are out somewhere.
In other news....Derrick had his first scrape. I know he's 5 and all but my baby boy was bleeding! From what I got, he and another girl crashed on the playground. She got the worst of it and scraped up her chin.














In other Hot Wheels related news Leroy & the kids went to K-Days at KMart for their November event. Danae found her first Super Treasure Hunt. The kids are old enough now and Leroy has taught them the good cars to look for =) (Ignore the hair, it was a bad curl day) Notice the words on the wall behind Danae? It's Derrick'sword list he's almost done with #5 & only needed 4 to get through kindergarten! Yay!!!!

A sigh of relief

Well here is the much anticipated news we've been looking for for nearly 3 years......Leroy is having surgery! Here's how it all accumulated to this point.

Back in Fresno on December 15, 2006 we were driving down Christmas tree lane and all of a sudden Leroy feels this sharp pain radiating down both legs and the next day he can't even walk. We make an appt. with his dr and the dr sends him in for an MRI. MRI results say his back is rittled with arthritis. Dr sends him to a pain management dr.

Within 2 years of seeing this horrible man Leroy had injections in his back and knees. In that 2 years I don't think the doctor even believed he was in any pain. The only medication he gave him was 800 mg of ibuprofen and some gout medicine. The doctor thought he had gout! I even looked up a diagnosis I thought Leroy had and the doctor just laughed at me. (Turns out he had it all along)

We get relocated to Fillmore. Make an appt w/new dr and dr orders new MRI along with putting him on vicodin. Diagnosis is spinal stenosis (what I thought he had all along) wants him to see a neurosurgeon. Our HMO denies neurosurgeon and wants him to go to physical therapy. Physical therapy puts Leroy in extreme pain and starts to cause more numbness over body. Physical therapist tells HMO it's doing no good now he can see a neurosurgeon.

On October 14 he sees neurosurgeon for first time. Dr says the spinal stenosis shouldn't be causing this much pain (oh great here we go again!) but thinks something higher in his neck, maybe a tumor is causing it. Orders an MRI on neck. On November 3 neurosurgeon said he found the problem and is doing surgery on November 23 (our 7th wedding anniversary)!

I wasn't there but from what Leroy says there is no spinal fluid on his neck. I guess there's white everywhere else but completely black where the problem is. The doctor has done 3 in the last week so it's not a rare surgery. If he doesn't get the surgery then he could be paralyzed. Needless to say it's a bit nerve racking. Leroy is extremely nervous and I'm glad the doctor has found something.

Hopefully the surgery is a complete success and Leroy is going to be pain free and living a normal pain-free life again. We go in on Monday afternoon for a pre-op appointment and I already have a nice long list of questions. (I always have a million & 1 questions.) To get Leroy out of pain is going to be the best anniversary gift ever.

For anyone reading this just keep us in your thoughts over the next 17 days until the surgery is a success!

A reason for the M@dDneS$

Maybe there is a purpose for us moving here. No details just yet still getting all the info. But it's definitely the best news!

Haunting Fun

Happy day after Halloween! The kids had a great time, the only thing we forgot to do was carve our pumpkin. I had to work till 4:30 so our pumpkin kinda got left out. From the time both kids got up in the morning both of them were so ready to go trick or treating. It finally got dark and they got on their costumes. Derrick was Optimus Prime from Transformers. Danae was a ballerina with a handmade tutu by Mom. (It was the hit of the night!) They made a killing on candy and we only went about 3 blocks. After trick or treating we went over to the church across the street for their Harvest Festival to play games & eat. Enjoy the pics!






























































































































































Cupcakes for
Derrick's class

I'm Never Gonna Make It

I've come to the conclusion I'm never gonna make it to Danae's teenage years. I think she's 4 going on 14 with as many emotional breakdowns as we have on any given day. Just a few minutes ago she comes in crying and blaming me for her cereal getting all soggy and ruined. How is this my fault? I have no idea but apparently I forced her to go in her room and play with Legos therefore ruining her breakfast. I'm just never gonna make it at this rate. I give myself maybe 2-3 years tops before I go completely crazy and they have to lock me away! =)

Picture taken 2-15-2008

Can't Sleep

Here it is very early in the morning and I can't sleep. Mostly in part because I'm usually up at 3 or 4 am to go to work so technically I'm sleeping in =) The rest of this week has gone by relatively uneventful. Derrick went back to school from Fall break and tested his limits, he didn't get away with it and got in trouble. He did learn he's not in control at school, the teacher is. When we got his behavior report he got all happy faces, I thought for sure he'd get a sad face for listening to directions but he managed to pull it together at the end of the week!

Yesterday I once again realized I have an awesome hubby. Why you ask? Because for no reason at all he comes home and brings me flowers! Awwww he lubs me lots! And of course a little flower for Danae too =) I think it looks awesome with our wicked witch crystal ball....very spooky yet cute.

Yesterday was also homecoming here in Fillmore, complete with a band, floats and fire engine loaded with cheerleaders. I guess nothing really changes in high school. Floats are the same, same too happy cheerleaders who think they are so cool and same band (although ours was the best!). Ok now to get ready, I get a real live weekend off and we're headed to Ventura to the swap meet! Gotta love those cool finds =)

New Layout, New Store

Just noticed my new layout says Happy Thanksgiving, I guess I sort of skipped the Halloween theme huh?! Eh, at least I can pretend I have fall weather in SoCal =)

Forgot to mention in the previous post....On December 1st I'm planning the launch of my Etsy store. I will be selling my cards, frames and hopefully many more crafting goodies! Look for it December 1st. Punkydae

Ugh not again?!

What an incredibly emotional couple of weeks! My eyes hurt from crying and Leroy is soaked from me crying on his shoulder :*(

It all started with exciting new.....Derrick pulled out his loose tooth! It had been hanging on by just a thread and finally on the 10th he pulled it out and came running in at 6am to tell me! I grumbled congratulations and rolled over before getting up and making sure he didn't lose it. The tooth fairy came and he was so excited to get $2 to spend. (I figured with interest 2 bucks was a good deal for a 5 year old)

That weekend happened to to be Columbus Day weekend so we hit the road Sunday to Fresno for the day! *sniff* It was a short trip just a visit to Leroy's mom, my mom and the Visalia swapmeet. The swapmeet is where Derrick spent his money and bought 3 new cars, just what he needed. Because we all know boys need more cars!

All was going ok until Wednesday. That was the day we had waited for for nearly 3 years. The appointment with the neurosurgeon. In my mind we would go in, the doc would say surgery and we'd book an appointment. Done deal. I knew better than to get my hopes up. The neurosurgeon said Leroy's lower back does had spinal stenosis but not enough to cause the pain he's in. He's thinking it might be the upper spine and maybe a tumor or something compressing the spinal cord. Oh great the "T" word. So the doc is ordering another MRI for the upper spine this Thursday. I must say I wasn't the most supportive wife because I was freaking out! This wasn't the way it was supposed to happen.....

Doctor out of the way onto the truck. Now we moved down here a year ago. A year ago we stopped paying our truck payment because LA is so freakin' expensive to live. Each day we've been waiting for the repo company to come take the truck. It finally came to a head when they called and left a message saying they were going to garnish my wages if we didn't surrender the vehicle, as if we'd been hiding it or something (it's been in plain sight for a year). We made some calls and our truck is now repo'ed and no longer here :( another sad day.

Things are so up and down right now it's horrible but I know it won't always be like this....I hope!

On a side note-Derrick is on his 4th word list at school, which is 3 ahead of what he should be and he and another classmate will be moved ahead in reading because they are so ahead of the class!!!! Some silver lining in this dark cloud =)

Where There's Smoke, There's Fire...and a tooth fairy

Well, a week ago we had our first real run in with the deadly Santa Ana winds. On the 22nd of September it was so windy and hot down here. I was at work and I heard one of the carriers say "did you see the fire?" I hadn't been outside so of course I went to look. The direction was right near where Fillmore is. I immediately took a picture (love technology!) and sent it to Leroy saying FIRE! He looked outside and saw it was us!!!! By the time I got off an hour later the road home was already shut down. From that moment on for three more days I had to take the long way home which is and extra 35 minutes to my already 35 minute drive. That first day was so scary. Fire trucks, smoke, continuous television coverage, so nerve racking.

The good thing out of all that is the winds were headed away from Fillmore and the fire was a wind driven fire not a fuel driven fire. Apparently the area on fire had burned within the last five years so there wasn't much overgrowth to burn up. And it all started because of.....spontaneous combustion of manure! So strange.

The first pic

Just 10 minutes later

Headed home

On the outskirst of Fillmore

In Fillmore, that's the start of it all

The burned aftermath

And next on our agenda, Derrick has his first loose tooth! I noticed he had a gap on the bottom set of teeth and touched it and low and behold it was wiggly. Now Derrick is ready for the tooth fairy and keeps wiggling this loose tooth all the time. Leroy was at the dentist today and the gal there told Derrick she knows the tooth fairy personally and that really impressed him :)

365 days later

365 days ago we started our new journey here in Fillmore. In those 365 days we've met a few really nice people, Leroy has a Hot Wheels group thingy in nearby town where he's met a lot of Hot Wheel collectors like himself and Derrick has started school.

What I expected to be a fun new adventure in a new and exciting place hasn't turned into that. Southern California is filled with utterly rude and obnoxiously snobby, hurried people. I won't say everyone is horrible but the majority are. The few times we have ventured out of our "area" it's a traffic nightmare. We spent one night sitting in traffic for 4 hours and went less than 100 miles. This past weekend we went to Goleta, a small town near Santa Barbara and were flipped off so many times we lost count! Leroy was going over the speed limit and still people were zooming by weaving in and out of traffic like mad men. I now know why there are so many accidents down here.

Today I was waiting for Derrick to get out of school and watched parents basically let their little ones run around like banchees. These kids aren't held accountable for anything. Parents here are, are, I can't think of a word other than stupid that describes them. They want everything handed to them and don't even try to help their kids better themselves. While volunteering in Derrick's class, the amount of kids that don't understand the teacher because of a language barrier is unimaginable, it's scary is what it is. It's disheartening to know we are doing everything to help our kids excel and some parents are using their kids as a welfare check.

I just wanted to be happy with a relocation. This relocation has been nothing but stress. I'm constantly worried about hours, about my job, about money. The truth is I didn't realize how good we had it 365 days ago. Now we live in the middle of this crazy place with people who don't realize how horrible this way of living is. My hope is that in the next 365 days we can find a way to either make this living hell tolerable or get back to home, and by home I mean Fresno.....

Oh how I miss 115 degree weather in the summer and the tule fog in the winter! All Hail the Central Valley!!!!!

Repeating a cycle

The older the kids get the more I feel like a mother. (As if two munchkins yelling "MOM" didn't make me feel mommyish!) Tonight we had hot dogs for dinner. The kids are in a "cold hot dog phase" so I wasn't cooking theirs. Derrick was watching me put the hot dogs on their plates and add some potato chips. I told him to go tell his sister that dinner was ready. The key word "GO TELL", what did he do? You guessed it, he yelled out "Danae!!!!! Dinner's ready, you better come here!!!!!" I glared at him and said "I could've done that". All he did was smile =) this child who never ceases to amaze me has turned me into my mother at times! I find my self saying to my children what I heard when I was a child.

As if that wasn't strange enough, last week was "yellow" week at school with Derrick. He brought home his homework for the week and it had the very same stoplight poem I did when I was in kindergarten 23 years ago! Then for green week they had green eggs and ham....same as I did in kindergarten. I really thought there would be new stuff in a new millenium, I think I was so wrong. But Derrick did pass his first 10 words list!

Running on empty

Just a quick update:

Derrick passed his first 10-word test! Now we move onto the second set. He's supposed to do 4 sets of 10 to have a good start in 1st grade....he'll be reading by Christmas hopefully =)

Leroy got his referral to a neurosurgeon today, and dum dum dum dum (that was my attempt at a drumroll) it's the best neurosurgeon in Ventura County! One of my co-workers here in Fillmore was operated on by this doctor and so now my mind is put at ease knowing he will be in capable hands. We don't have an appointment until December but hopefully he can get in sooner since he's already had a current MRI done. A small glimmer of hope =)

I didn't get the job I was hoping for in Santa Clarita =( which means we have to make do and stay here for a while longer. My back is better and hopefully tomorrow I can get released from the doctor back on regular duty instead of light duty which fully sucks!

Ok I'm gonna run, not in a really bloggy mood today, just wanted to give an update =)

Getting Better All The Time

Another week has come and gone, at least with a little less excitement this time! Let's see, on Monday I did my very first volunteer day with Derrick in his class. I volunteered from 10:25-11:30, I will admit, I was very skeptical at first. It turned out to be the best thing I've done! I had such a great time, I helped out during "group time". I got to help a group of 5 make a frog puppets. It was so fun, after the puppets were done we played a game & read a book to go along with the puppet. It only made me want to finish my degree and finish what I always wanted to do, be a kindergarten teacher....anyway.

I worked in Fillmore Monday through Wednesday so I got to take Derrick to a from school for 3 days which is always fun.

Thursday was Leroy's birthday! I won't say how old for fear of him killing me! LOL j/k We went out to Olive Garden for their never ending pasta bowl which was ok but so not that great :( But at least he found new Hot Wheels at Walmart afterwards.....that always makes up for anything :)

Today Derrick got a great weekly behavior report! Only one thing he needs to work on and that's taking his time and doing his work neatly. He's just like his mother, doing it sloppy just to get it over with because it's boring. We go over and over this on homework, he needs to slow down and take his time to make it neat. And the fun part of today is I hurt my back at work :( I was lifting a bucket of mail and "snap" there went my back. So now I'm off until Tuesday when I go back to the doctor. I should be fine though, this happened a couple years ago and I was fine with some rest after a few days. The doc gave me a back brace and a back pillow which really helps. At least I have my laptop so I can surf the web in a comfy chair :)

Barking Seal

Just when things started to calm down.....Derrick's cough he's had for a week turned into the croup yesterday. My poor baby woke up sounding horrible, it was this dry hacking cough. We went out yesterday morning and cut it short to get back and take him into urgent care.

Luckily Leroy's doctor was on duty so I at least trusted the doctor. Without even seeing him, the doctor knew he had croup by just hearing his cough outside the door. The cough sounded just like a barking seal, it was awful. The doctor gave him a shot to help the swelling in his throat which Derrick was not too happy about. He begged me through tears to take him back home, it was so horrible. I held him down and the nurse gave it to him =(

The doctor also told me my boy has a heart murmur. Now that made me worried. He said it could be hereditary (my grandma had one) but it's a slight one. After talking to Leroy we wonder why no other doctor has caught it thus far. Either he really does have a murmur or maybe the coughing caused his heart to beat funny. Either way, one more thing to be a worry wart over.

1st week down

Well week one of kindergarten is down and we have all survived! It has really been a rollercoaster of emotions for all of us. Here's how the week went.

Tuesday night Derrick was so excited he could bearly sleep, going to school was the same thing, super excited! When he got out I went up to get him and he looked so sad. His teacher said he's fitting in ok but he wrote on the table and had to clean it up. Ok no biggy, live and learn. Seemed weird because he's never written on things at home, he knows better. Come to find out, the teacher wanted him to draw a picture of himself and Derrick wanted to draw a roller coaster. I'll let you in on a secret, our son hates art! He has never wanted anything to do with art, coloring, painting or anything of that nature. No big deal to us but I guess a big deal in school. Apparently 5 year olds should like art?!

Thursday we went over no coloring on the table and sent him in the gates of kindergarten. When picking him up Derrick holds up a sad face card and has a miserable sad face on him. His teacher said there was an incident with a few other boys and they weren't keeping their hands to themselves. My kids?! Oh no! I sat down with Derrick outside school and talked about what happened. After two days I've learned Derrick doesn't want to talk about what happened in school right away, you need to give him time. So being the interested parent I am I went up to the teacher to find out what happened on a one on one basis without everyone around. She said that there's 5 rambunctious boys that are just flicking and picking at each other. I said ok and said I'd talk to Derrick. Later that night we found out 2 boys pushed him and he was basically defending himself. Not wanting to cause problems, we told him to stay away from the boys and if they push, hit, or shove him to just tell the teacher. Needless to say Thursday was not a very good day.

Nervous as all get out Friday came and we reminded Derrick to stay away from the boys and pay attention to his teacher. With my heart pounding, it was time to pick up my boy and when it was his turn, his teacher said he had a much better day and he is a super smart kid! Thank goodness, now that's my boy! Still haven't managed to figure out why she said he's super smart but I'll get it out of Derrick eventually =)

After talking about it, Leroy & I came to the conclusion Derrick is just trying to fit in and he was with the wrong group of boys on Thursday. I know it's every parents duty to defend their child. In all honesty our kids haven't been around but maybe 7 or 8 kids in their lives. They don't have the mental capability to understand to be mean and spiteful. Does that sound bad? Probably, but we try our best to show them how to be nice and caring to each other.

We've already done the "switch schools talk". Private school would cost $3,300 this year and over $4,000 next year. That's not a feesable option at this time in our lives. Homeschooling is a definite option. If Derrick starts to get bored, picked on, or we just don't like the public school system, I know we could homeschool him. It's just a matter of doing it. We want him to excel and not worry about being made fun of, I spent 13 year being made fun of and won't put my son through it.

Well whatever we decide it will definitely be whatever is best for our children. My only hope is that we keep on the "doing great" path of Friday for week 2 of school.

My proud mama moment is that we've been working on sight words and he already knows "the" "you" & "did"! I'm so excited because those words put him closer to reading! I can't wait to hear my first story read by my little boy =)

Off to my last 2 days of vacation....swap meets here we come!

It all winds down to this.....

After many many many days of relaxing it all had to come to an end. My baby, my punky, my Derrick....started school today. Kindergarten-Room 16-Mrs. Fluke. Sigh.....

This kid was so excited last night, bouncing off walls and everything. Checking his backpack, getting the snack together, driving me crazy!

At 6:03 this morning Derrick comes in and says, "Psst, Mom, it's light outside, can I go to school now?" Mind you the sun wasn't even up yet and I was still tired! After trying to get him to go back to bed I got up and fixed some breakfast for him. Needless to say he was ready to go by 6:30 and having to wait over an hour to go to school was killing him! Every few minutes he was asking what time it was? Is it time to go? GRRRR

Finally time did come and I walked my baby to his first day of kindergarten. Daddy & Danae stayed behind because Danae didn't want her brother to go without her, so we diverted her attention with Daddy.

Apparently I'm not cool because the second we crossed the street to school Derrick let go of my hand. I asked what was wrong and he said, "I'm in school now mom I don't need to hold your hand". I wanted to start balling right then but I kept my head up. We walked him to his room, put his backpack away and went to the playground. I guess we raised an independent guy 'cause he never looked back. He was in kindergarten and could handle his own. I stayed around until the teacher got the class and they I walked back, lonely, on my own, back home.

It's only 3 1/2 hours a day until October but it sure does seem longer. Time goes so fast when you have kids. But at least he's a strong kid and didn't cry like some kids did. I think it was the parents hovering over them that made them nervous, my kid didn't need me, maybe that's why I'm so sad......

Enjoy the pics!

Stop #3 the Los Angeles Zoo

And we're off to day 3! Originally planned, we were going to go to the Santa Barbara Zoo. Then we changed that and said, we'll save $20 and drive to Fresno for a trip. After my car acted up we decided to kill two birds with one stone and drive to LA to the zoo and head down to City of Industry for Leroy's big Hot Wheels show we planned on going to anyway.

We got to the zoo and were very pleasantly surprised when we didn't have to pay for parking! Yay one place in LA that doesn't charge =) We got there at 9:30 and had to wait until 10 to get in. The line wasn't that long for a Saturday, we were like the 10th family in line so we got lucky. The kids were so excited when they got in and saw some animals!

I know all the experts say that TV isn't good for kids, but I beg to differ. The kids grew out of the Disney channel stuff and now like Nick Jr with Dora, Diego and my nemisis Spongebob. Spongebob is plain stupid but Dora and Diego are great. So great in fact, both kids especially Derrick knew so much about the animals it was awesome! He knew where they lived, what food they ate and what they don't like. So amazing!

The kids were so excited seeing all the animals and after 2 1/2 hours we were ready to go! Thank goodness because everyone in LA woke up and headed to the zoo because it was packed and the line was out they ying yang to get in!

Here's the fun pics!

Stop #2 La Brea Tarpits

Thursday was spend doing absolutely nothing! I crafted and everyone just lounged. We were all getting ready for Friday and going down to Hollywood and the La Brea Tarpits!



We managed to avoid any real traffic jams at 9 am on a Friday thankfully and made it down to LA/Hollywood with ease. The kids were so excited to see the tarpits. Unfortunately Leroy & I were a little disappointed seeing the actual tar pit because we've seen so many movies that make the pits look so cool, when actually it's just a tar pit with a few mastedon statues in it. Not too exciting. The kids however, loved it, which is what it was all about =)



After looking at the tar pit itself we went into the George C. Pace museum and got to explore. The skeletons kinda freaked both kids out because every 5 minutes one of them was saying that they wanted to go already, the bones were scary. We stayed and saw everything including a movie explaining they tar pits and all that fun educational stuff.



*Side note:* The movie in the theater there was the first ever movie they've seen on a big screen and we discovered they are so not ready to see a real movie yet. Both freaked out on the loudness and darkness of the theater, so, no movies yet =(



On the side of the museum is the LA County Museum of Art. Apparently the art is all around the park because at one "artwork" I thought it was someone selling cheap toys but no, it was "artwork". I don't think I'm so "up" on art but eh, it's not my thing. Also outside of the museum is Pit 91 where they have a spot that you can look at and see an actual pit of where they are "digging". This was closed until 2011 for working on another project.



The funnest thing of the day was watching the kids try to follow in the Saber-tooth Cat tracks all around the museum & tar pits. The video below is of the kids doing just that.....too funny!



After the tarpits we decided to go to the world famous LA Farmers Market! Well, tons of food, expensive stores at the Grove, no famous people spotted and not too amazing. But at least we tried =)



Also put up a picture show with pics of the day.

Vacation Stop #1

Ok I'm going to break up these blogs into sections otherwise I'll be downloading pictures all day! LOL It's official vacation officially started at 1:30 pm on August 11. That afternoon we headed over to Ventura for the Ventura County Fair and were so excited because we were going to get in for only $2 instead of the normal $20 because we were there before 3pm....or at least we thought.

When we drove over to the parking lot there was a line of at least 150 people waiting for the bus to take them over to the actual fairgrounds. Mind you, we only had 15 minutes to spare to get in the gates for the lower price. We gave up on the cheap tickets when we saw the line, then, out of nowhere a fair personnel guy started walking down the line preselling tickets for the 3pm price. HOT DOG!!! We got lucky and saved money!

After waiting for busses for an hour we finally arrived at the fair grounds. The bus ride over was the most fun of the day for the kids. It was both their first time on a bus and they absolutely loved every second of it!

I swear there had to be a million people there. I describe it as trying to fit the Big Fresno Fair into the Hanford Fairgrounds. It's ridiculously small and cramped. We went in the Gem & Mineral exhibit and ended up walking out because you literally couldn't move it was so small. We tried looking at their little aquarium exhibit and the same thing....we left. All in all we spent $10 at the fair: $8 for parking and $2 to get in. We didn't even buy a corn dog, that's how crowded and horrible it was. It was a Wednesday at 4 in the afternoon, I couldn't imagine going on a Saturday night! The picture below was taken outside of the Kid's Petting Zoo (that wasn't open), they said they just HAD to take a picture =)