Hormones Gone Wild

Ok, so if you are a guy you can skip this entry if you want. It is about female stuff so no need to read on unless you want some insight about how your wife is or will act at some point in your lives. For the past 6 months or so I have been crying at nothing, yelling at nothing, feeling down in the dumps for no reason, feeling pains that I've never felt before, remembering partial bits of nothing and not remembering important things. Headaches I am used to are no longer. Now I have weird headaches that come and go but not all the way, and linger and make me especially irritable! What is going on? I mean I felt normal at some point, but now I am all out of whack!
So I go to the doctor and he says, "You are going through something very normal" Yeah right normal for Psycho lady! So he proceeds to tell me about something called PMDD - Premenstral Dysphoric Disorder. Yeah, I looked it up and it exists! Basically it means PMS gone horribly wild! Thus the title of this entry. So with hormones going all over the place, what is a woman to do? Well, lets see....something I did after Carl and I were married....NO, not that! Get your minds out of the gutter! For those of you who thought Birth Control pills, I apologize for the outburst, but some of you, you know who you are, were thinking something else! Anyway, we don't really need the BC pills but if it will even things out, well by golly it will be soooo worth it!
So, hopefully I won't be tearing up every time someone says "hello" to me! That was the most annoying symptom, I mean I am an emotional person, but this was ridiculous! So that is that.

Big Tooth from a Little Girl!

Today Kaleigh went to the dentist. We needed to go in because she had a loose tooth that had the new tooth below and beside it. I wasn't sure what the dentist would say but I wanted it taken care of before our next vacation. Well, as you can see there are two teeth in the photo and well the tooth I was talking about is the one on the left. Because these teeth don't normally come out until the age of 10 or higher, if you remove one, the other has to come out too, otherwise you have the teeth below growing in leaning toward the empty space. Kaleigh doesn't have that much room to begin with so this would be a major problem. She had already lost the four baby teeth on the bottom with only room for 3 to come in. So when he told me he was going to pull both today, I was somewhat relieved, but more worried. Kaleigh is a lot like me, very dramatic!
So I was expecting the worst. Of course if there is no fear of the dentist already, usually there isn't a problem, I found that out today. She did great! First he explained what was going to happen (he had told me if there is fear then he gives them a little "strawberry sniffer"), then she had some "strawberry sniffer" then the novacaine and then the extraction. She came out looking a little worse for wear, with gauze in her mouth, but ok. He told me she was a perfect patient and that it was a good thing we did it now, as her bottom teeth were collecting not only plaque, but also calcium deposits. At that point she showed me the teeth, holy cow! The one that wasn't loose was so long! Now I understand a little better why tooth get loose and come out so easily! They don't have that long thing keeping them in! Sheesh! So we will come back in about a month for the teeth cleaning.
Hopefully this will improve brushing and help with the sudden bad breath we have had to deal with lately! YUCK! Everybody Brush Your Teeth !!! I mean it!

PHASE 10

Now I don't know how new this game is but it is new to us. We played this card game with our friends in Colorado and really had a good time. When you are up late it is nice to play a game where there is not that much strategy but enough thinking to make you sit up and take notice.
phase 10 is like that. You have 10 phases that you have to get through to win. Each person works on the first phase and if you complete the phase before someone goes out(gets rid of all their cards) then you move on to the next phase. If you don't complete the phase, the next round (when others are on phase 2) you are still working on phase 1. It is interesting because each phase is different from the last. For example the first phase's goal is 2 sets of three of a kind. So 3 3's or 3 4's etc. You have to lay them all down at once. Then you try to get rid of the rest of your cards. The next phase is something like a set of 3 and a run of 4 (1,2,3,4) like that. There are also wild cards and skip cards where you skip whoever you want to (usually the person winning) or if someone skips you you skip them right back! : )
So we ended up purchasing the game so we can take it on our next trip to play with the families.
Should be fun, so look out!

The Summer of Travel


Well, this summer our time is pretty much spent on road trips. We went to Vegas (just Carl and I), we went to Colorado, driving thru California, Nevada, a bit of Arizona and Utah. And we will be leaving again soon on yet another road trip up to Canada, to visit with mom and dad and sister Connie. Dad has been feeling poorly and we hope he will be better when we get there. It will be difficult since we haven't seen him for a year and he has lost a lot of weight and has no hair anymore. But we will get to see everyone, including Tina and Fam on the way up and back and then we will be spending a week in Lake Tahoe with Carl's fam. We try and do the little family reunion thing every other year or so, but we see each other at least once a year, but not always all of us together. So this trip will be really neat, because the kids will see all of their cousins within two weeks of each other! Pretty cool.
For a change we will be staying with Lee and Tina on our trip home and I hope that works out!
My kids get up pretty early! I know it will be ok though. The nice thing about staying with someone is the visiting after hours, when the kids have gone to bed. We can play games and talk and laugh, which is the most fun of course! So Tina, and Lee, look out for some fun and good times! We are bringing a new game!

Last Interview....Done


Well, for those of you keeping up on my happenings, last word on the job front was that I had one more interview with the school board. Well, that was yesterday evening and it seemed to be fine. I was told that they deliberate and then 24 hours later I would hear. Well, it has been 24 hours and so far not a peep, but I didn't really expect them to call right away. I know I pretty much have the job unless I said something that was totally bad. Don't think I did. Oh well, I am definitely NOT on pins and needles waiting. Just updatin the old Bloggeroo. So I will most likely get a call tomorrow from my boss saying that I have the job. If not, well then that would be a surprise. Now, all I need after the call is to get my classroom in order. That will be interesting since they haven't yet moved anything out of the room from the previous occupants! Hmmmm, interesting indeed. Oh well, I will figure it out eventually. Hopefully before school starts? Let's hope.

< Our families on top of Rocky Mtn Natl Park

^
^ Our Friends Lovely Home



< Fireworks Over City Park











Really Fun Trip to Fort Collins, Colorado



Many moons ago (15 years I think) I worked at the Magic Kingdom Club. A Disney company that gave out discount cards. I worked there for about 4 years. Along with me was my friend Angie. We made friends right away and stayed in touch even after we both left Disney. I was engaged the day before Angie started work and she was engaged shortly afterward. We had a great time working together and after I had Kaleigh, 11 months later she had her son Jared. Then I had Cole and 3 months later she had Cambria. We stayed in touch when she was in Laguna Hills and then she decided to move to Colorado of all places! It was tough, but we still kept in touch through e mails and Christmas cards. For the past 3 years we have been talking about us visiting her, but with our annual trips to Canada and not enough time each vacation we have put it off. Well, this year was the first year Carl got 4 weeks vacation time so we finally did it! They live in a really nice area called Fort Collins, which is about an hour north of Denver. It has all the charm of a small town but with a lot of the things we have here in the bigger cities, (movie theaters, large grocery stores, plenty of businesses. ) There is however, something lacking....crime. So it is really a very nice place to live and they love it there. A few things we did while we were there:
There is a community swim/play park, which was great for my non-swimming kids. The pool is like a beach that only goes to about 2 feet in most part and then other areas that are roped off are deeper. There are play structures with hoses and valves to play with, and even a lazy river innertube ride. There are also two rather large water slides that the bigger kids were enjoying.
We also went up to Estes Park, a nice little resort town in the mountains, where we had a nice lunch and then we went for a drive up to the Rocky Mountain National Park. That is where this photo is taken. That is our two families together. We also saw a blue starling and a chipmunk, which was very exciting for the kids. That was on the fourth of July. We then came down the mountain and I guess everyone in Fort Collins watches the firework display at the City park, where they do the fireworks show over the lake. I mean everyone goes! It was really crowded but fun. We also did some shopping, Carl did a brewery tour and we played games after our kids went to bed until the wee hours. Definitely a fun time! So Thank you Angie and Chris for the wonderful time!

Creme Brulee - Vegas Trip Highlight

Ok, so no drooling please. Last thing I posted was my purdy toes, that was for our trip to Vegas that my hubby and I went on. We stayed at the Luxor a nice older (10 yrs +) hotel that uses low rates to keep the folks coming. I also booked online and got a few 2 for 1 deals. Nothing major, but we used the 2 for 1 buffet ticket for breakfast and that was pretty good. The photo is from our "Fancy Dinner" night. We choose one really good restaurant and splurge, right down to the dessert.
This time we actually ate really good twice. Once was a bit of an accident. We had decided to see Le Reve at the Wynn Resort. Very pricey place. We needed to get there early and we took a taxi to avoid traffic. Well, we hadn't had dinner because it was too early before we left. So we ended up looking at some of the bars to see if we could just do appetizers. Well, neither of us wanted to eat what was on most of the menu's and they don't have any non-smoking sections in the bars so...
To make a long story short, we checked out the restaurants and they were all very high end and pricey. I had seen one on the internet that was supposed to be really good Japanese, with Tempura and stuff. So deciding to bite the financial bullet we checked it out. It was pretty small and hardly anyone was there. But then it was only 5:30 at the time so no rush yet. We were seated right away and the first thing we noticed was that the prices were VERY reasonable. So we ordered vegetable Tempura and also something....ack, I forgot what it was called! Something like Robitiaki (in any case it was marinated meat that is grilled) We both tried some. Carl had Sea Bass and I got the filet) I also got one of the best tasting appletini's I have ever had! It was truly a wonderful dining experience! Anyone who goes to Vegas should check this place out. They also have a really good sushi bar (from what I have heard, Carl and I don't do Sushi) Very nice and quiet and wonderful service and food!
Ok, now for the picture....
The next night was our fancy dinner and we ended up "settling" for the Luxor Steakhouse. I had looked all over online for the different steakhouses in Vegas. They were either too high end with weird things food wise or they were just too far away for us to walk. We didn't really want to drive anywhere. So the Luxor Steakhouse was actually on some of the best of the best lists so I thought "fine, we will try it". Best decision I ever made. Apparently they had just changed their menu and chef, and the food and service was fantastic!
Carl and I both had the Filet Mignon and grilled asparagus, with Yukon mashed potatoes (which for a non mashed potato person )that were sublime! And of course last but not least was the dessert. I am a fanatic about Creme Brulee', I really like it if it is done well. And this was done....WELL! The presentation as you can see was very nice but the flavor was to die for!! YUMMY! So we really enjoyed our trip and we will go again next year. We have now tried a few restaurants and may return to one we have already been to. The Fiore Steakhouse at the RIO was a really good one too. So that was our trip and we had a blast.