Back to Schooly Ooly

 
The school year has begun! It's nuts. It's such a huge transition to go from nothing to everything overnight. I think my kids and I are all in shell shock. It's fine, it's fine, everything is fine. Piper and Ryan are going to a new school so there's been a learning curve there. I'm sure that learning curve will last for a bit. Their school seems intense. Ryan's 6th grade online orientation about threw me right over the edge. I hope I'm smart enough to help them. Could I download Ryan's assignment? No. Am I a teacher that has to deal with my fair share of technology? Yes. Ryan barfed on the first day and had to get sent home. I think he was just nervous starting a new school because he definitely wasn't sick. I had to call my brother Hart to go pick him up. Over the past few years their dad has been 5 minutes from their schools and works from home and it was pretty easy for him to do stuff like that. Now that he has moved to Nampa I won't have that convenience anymore. It will be an adjustment for sure and I will need more help. It takes a village!

Gabby and Corbin are still going to Centennial and didn't have too much change to deal with. Figuring out the commute from Nampa will be a challenge but they have another week with me to adjust to school before we have to figure that out. 

My classes seem pretty good. My bar last year was just not get fired so I'm trying to raise the bar a little this year and I'm very underwater. I'm sure I'll go back to just don't get fired soon enough. Well, that's all we are exhausted and not adjusted to our new normal yet. Wish us luck!  

Piper, 8th Grade Gem Prep!

Corbin, Senior at Centennial!

Ryan, 6th grade Gem Prep!

Gabby, 10th grade Centennial!

Cute Charly

John is in a band (bass guitar) with his college buddies and they had a gig of sorts yesterday. They played 18 songs. That's so many songs to memorize! They did good!

Gum Graft Fail?

My last two weeks of summer break were not awesome with my gum graft recovery. I took pain killers every 3 hours for 6 days and then I got over that and just quit cold turkey. I was still in pain but bearable enough. The worst part was the stitches irritated my mouth and made canker sores all over the inside of my cheek and that hurt the most of all. I finally got the stiches out and that helped my canker sore situation a lot. My gums are still puffed up and I will need to be careful for the next month still. My graft in the front of my mouth was successful but the giant graft on the side was not. I'm still unclear how sucessful or unsuccesful it was. The doctor was pretty unclear about it. I have a follow up appointment in 4 weeks and then maybe he will have a better idea how well the graft took and next steps. I'm pretty depresssed about it because it was an awful experience and it sounds like I will have to do something again, I'm not sure when. I'll know more in 4 weeks. Boo!  

I started work last week. I'm really glad we go back a week before we have students. It helps ease me into the schedule and get ready. I'm pretty preemtively tired and stressed thinking about the next few weeks. It will take me a bit to get used to doing ALL the things again. It's a lot. Oof.  

Hart's climbing gym opened up a ropes course. We were invited. I just watched, I did not feel like participating with my mouth sitaution. It was so miserable. 

John loves his Hutchy so much!

I tried to get a picture of my canker sores. It's hard to tell. It hurt!

Blood and stitches. My mouth looked like the corpse bride for the most part.

Shelly loves to play my game Barbie Queen of the Prom when I go to her house. Her cat Ginger likes to get involved as well. She's super helpful!

Update

It was another great week. We finally went to Roaring Springs, that place is a racket but a summer must. I was so happy to not be pregnant this year. I unfortunately had to end my summer with a surgery. I needed 2 gum grafts. Boo. I needed one 20 years ago and it was super awful and I've been dreading it since January when I found out I needed to get one that turned into two. The procedure itself was MUCH better. They gave me some anxiety pills and laughy gas and I was just peachy. It went so fast, it was great. The recovery not so much. It's to be expected to not be my super best self. I have two areas of stiches and a retainer covering the roof of my mouth where they cut the tissue for the graft. I have been on top of my pain meds taking them on schedule but I woke up to pain and a bottom mouthful of coagulated blood. It was very gross and unsettling. I thought the graft came out and I was chewing on it but I was just chewing on thick blood. I didn't sleep great the rest of the night waiting for morning to check in with my surgeon. He let me know that there must have been some disruption during my sleep but that the stiches looked good. Fingers crossed I won't wake up to a blood nightmare again tonight. I hate eating just soft foods and feel like I'm starving to death. I will survive. I have my first work meeting this Friday and then work begins the following Wednesday. It's a bummer to end my summer in recovery but at least I was able to take care of it before work starts. I really hope it can heal quickly and nicely. I'm trying hard to follow post op instructions. 

We watched Coraline, Piper is pulling her I'm tormented face.

Seriously? Cuteness alert!

It's cute when they play together.

I love that Ryan loves to cook. I helped him make some homemade whole wheat pancakes, don't worry that stack is not just for him. LOL

Pineapple Dolewhip!

Cutest

Hutch and Charly do pretty well together.

Yum!

Atomic Days

 
Another week gone in a flash! We went to Atomic Days for the Beal reunion this past weekend. Corbin went a day early with Gabe which made the drive a little more roomy for the other kiddos. John came with us. This was our first trip together with my kids so that was interesting. They were typical preteen/teens and listened to their airpods on the drive and John and I just chatted. We did the usual festivities which mostly consist of gathering on a camping chair and chatting and eating. John was a good sport and my family all liked him. We had breakfast in the park and then watched the parade. It was extra long (for Arco) this year. The kids had a great time getting candy and that is always fun to watch. I should have taken more pictures, oh well! Keaton and his family came all the way from North Dakota. All siblings were there except for Lance. It's a lot, even with a lot of missing people, it keeps getting bigger and bigger! Everyone but Keaton left on Saturday so we decided to leave Saturday night as well since we were planning to leave early for me to get back to work today anyway. It was short but sweet! I get my kids again this week, yay! We will see if we do anything fun.

We met for Mary's birthday!

Charly turned 3! She's so so so cute. We love her to death.

Dad, all brother siblings minus Lance, and Corbin, Benett, and Spencer.

Update

This summer is flying by. With scheduling rearrangements I haven't had my kids for 2 weeks and it feels like forever, it went by fast though so that's good. I only have 3 more weeks before I go back to work so I'm going to try to fit in some summer festivities with my kids. The summer goes way too fast. For the 4th John and I crashed my cousin's BBQ we didn't stay for the fireworks so we could get back to Hutch and also because I had to get up at 3:00 in the morning to go to the airport. I went to Florida for the FCCLA National Conference. I'm trying to figure out FCCLA more. It's a part of my job that I don't like worrying about. It's a lot of extra work and stress but I'm trying my best to wrap my brain around it so I don't hate it for the next 20 years. It was nice to go somewhere and have little vacation time along with work. I went to SeaWorld by myself just to practice doing things alone. It was not great but I was glad I did it. A work colleague was at the same hotel as me and it was nice to have someone to go to dinner with and hang a bit with. We went to some outlet malls one night and that was fun to check out. We tried a few local restaurants and I had some really good fish tacos. It was nice to have chill pool time and it was great to have my own hotel room.

Cute buddy.

I'm trying to get better at standing up on the paddle board. I was pregnant last summer so I couldn't do that.

My paddle boarding buddy Shelly.

John, Hutch, and I went paddle boarding.

My trees are growing nicely. I'm glad I haven't killed them!

Heidi trying to nap with our very long delays. We were supposed to get into Boise at 5:40 pm on the 10th and got it at 1:30 am on the 11th. Not a fav!

Out to dinner.

The sky was so pretty at the outlet malls.

The one ride I was able to go on only once. It was fun though.

My room buddies for the Early Childhood Competition. It was helpful to be involved in that. I will be creating an assignment in my classroom around it.

4th of July.

Cute buddy.

Update

There's not much to talk about. This summer is going by fast and I don't feel like I have anything to show for it. We haven't really done anything. Oh well. Haha. I went to Pocatello for a few days for a work conference. I wasn't looking forward to it but it ended up being a lot more fun than I thought it would be. It was 2 days of workshops with other FCS teachers from the state and I clicked with a few teachers and had a great time. I had my kids last week and we didn't do a lot but they like to chill so it's not like they have been complaining. We went swimming at Gabe and Christy's and they also went to Roaring Springs with their new step family and had fun doing that. My job with Shelly is going well. I'm so glad I have it. I got my first paycheck and it makes a huge difference. I was trying to be so strict with the grocery budget last month and this month we doubled our expenses because I felt like we could. It's so nice to be able to buy a damn watermelon. My Israeli family is doing okay. They are hopeful that this will be a good thing for Israel, who knows, it seems that Israel is not a place that will ever have peace. Shahar is practically crawling. She's getting so big. It was John's birthday on Wednesday so he came over and we had homemade pizza and cobbler. I need to get out and do a few more summer things. I'm going paddleboarding tomorrow so yay for that!

I found a Ted Lasso game! John was a good sport and played it with me.

 

Gabby's Driving!

Gabby officially has her driver's permit. She has to drive 50 hours over the next 6 months before she can test and be official, official. She is doing well. Poor Corbin being the first always gets the worst from me  I am more calm this round AND I do think Gabby is a bit more cautious than Corbin was. I did some real yelling and had to apologize after some Corbin some of his drives. Haha. Driving is so dangerous, it's stressful! 

We had a pretty chill week and didn't do anything much. We went swimming a few times and went and got pineapple dole whip. I had John come over and eat dinner with us for the first time. We also played some games just to help break the ice a bit. Piper wasn't quite ready so she hid out in my room, which was fine. 

The caretaking job is going well, I'm super happy to have it, life is expensive! Corbin got to go to McCall with Gabe, Spencer, and Benett, he loves that!  Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.  

She's growing up!