The Omaha area has been hit hard this winter with extreme amounts of snow mixed with a little ice and sometimes even rain. Because of this the Papillion-Lavista school district has implemented a plan to make up a few of the snow days that caused the kids to miss out on a lot academically. Beginning Feb. 1st and running through the end of the school year, the elementary schools will be letting out at 3:15 instead of 3:05. Kindergartners are always let out 5 minutes earlier than the older kids. So for Cecelia this means that she will get out at 3:10 instead of 3:00. I'm sure the kids won't even notice the extra 10 mins. and it doesn't bother Aaron or I that classes will be running a few minutes extra so I'm all for it.
This semester unfortunately put Aaron and I in a tough position. For the first 8 weeks of the semester one of my classes runs just a few mins. longer than what I was hoping it would. Because of this we needed after school care for Cecelia for less than an hour, 1 day a week for the first 1/2 of the semester. This has caused us to have to enroll Cecelia in the Kids Club after school program, and pay the full time afternoon rate of $79 twice a month! Kind of frustrating. I tried to get them to charge me a daily rate but since the district is having parents pay online with this program called tuition Express there was no way they could do that for me. Since she only has to be in the program for 8 weeks it's only going to cost us a little less than $240. I really don't mind paying for it because she loves going there because a few of the girls from her class go there too and Cecelia says they have great after school snacks. I may even let her stay a little longer on the day that she has to be there or let her go 1or 2 days a week that she doesn't necessarily have to be there because she likes it so much and it will only be for a few weeks. I'm glad that we have never had to utilize daycare on a full- time basis. Daycare can be very expensive after all.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Vaccination time:(
Cecelia's pediatrician's office finally got enough flu shots in. Usually the country starts seeing the seasonal flu sometime around late October or early November. However this year there have been very few cases of the actual seasonal flu. Instead we got hit with H1N1. Epidemiologists aren't quite sure why we haven't seen any seasonal flu yet, but they speculate it has something to do with H1N1. Whatever the reason is, I'm glad it hasn't hit us yet because I have been calling Cecelia's pediatrician's office every few weeks wondering when the vaccines were coming in. Finally, yesterday I was able to make an appointment. In addition to the seasonal flu vaccine Cecelia also needed to receive her H1N1 vaccine. Although we are quite sure she had it back in the fall. Since her doctor only tested her for influenza A and not specifically H1N1(it's far more expensive to do, and they were not offering it when the epidemic was at it's peak in the fall), I decided it would be best to get her vaccinated just in case. I did this because we are not out of the woods yet. Pandemics usually occur in a "W" formation...3 "waves or peaks". H1N1 hit the globe hard in May and June, then we had a brief period where infection rates slowed(July-August), then when the kiddos all went back to school we got hit with another "wave" of high infection rate, and now we are in a period of low activity again. If history proves to be correct, we will in fact get hit with another wave of high infection rates:( Hopefully it doesn't happen but it's always best to be prepared.
Anyways, we went to the Dr's office immediately after Cecelia got out of school today. We didn't need to see the doctor, just the nurse. Thankfully we got an amazingly patient nurse. Last summer when I took Cecelia to get her last round of shots before kindergarten began she freaked out in the office when they came at her with the needles. She was screaming and begging us to "please, wait, just wait!" Of course 2 seconds after she got the shots she was just fine. Because of that incident I really tried to prepare her for the Dr.'s office this time. Reminding her last night and this morning before school that we were going to be going to get the vaccines, explaining why she had to get them, and reassuring her that it might hurt for a minute but it would feel better right away. I was sure that we wouldn't have a repeat of last summer. She didn't seem to have any anxiety about the situation, until we got to the office. At which point she got VERY quiet.
Once in the office Cecelia employed every tactic she could think of to delay or completely get out of the shots all together, asking questions, changing her mind between the flu mist and the shot, blatantly refusing, blowing the mist out of her nose instead of breathing it in (which doesn't matter anyways, it's already up there!), crying, I mean she tried everything! She really had the nurse and I chuckling every time she came up with a new tactic. Unfortunately we have to go back in 30 days for the 2nd dose of H1N1...this should once again be interesting! Cecelia never fails to suprise me and make me smile:)
Anyways, we went to the Dr's office immediately after Cecelia got out of school today. We didn't need to see the doctor, just the nurse. Thankfully we got an amazingly patient nurse. Last summer when I took Cecelia to get her last round of shots before kindergarten began she freaked out in the office when they came at her with the needles. She was screaming and begging us to "please, wait, just wait!" Of course 2 seconds after she got the shots she was just fine. Because of that incident I really tried to prepare her for the Dr.'s office this time. Reminding her last night and this morning before school that we were going to be going to get the vaccines, explaining why she had to get them, and reassuring her that it might hurt for a minute but it would feel better right away. I was sure that we wouldn't have a repeat of last summer. She didn't seem to have any anxiety about the situation, until we got to the office. At which point she got VERY quiet.
Once in the office Cecelia employed every tactic she could think of to delay or completely get out of the shots all together, asking questions, changing her mind between the flu mist and the shot, blatantly refusing, blowing the mist out of her nose instead of breathing it in (which doesn't matter anyways, it's already up there!), crying, I mean she tried everything! She really had the nurse and I chuckling every time she came up with a new tactic. Unfortunately we have to go back in 30 days for the 2nd dose of H1N1...this should once again be interesting! Cecelia never fails to suprise me and make me smile:)
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Change for Haiti
Cecelia came home earlier this week and asked me if she could bring money to school. I of course said "no" because you can't really trust a five yr. old to take money to school and not lose it. In fact before Christmas she asked me for a few dollars to buy candy canes for her friends and teacher. Well, Cecelia bought them on Monday then came home and said she gave the big kids her money and they didn't give her the candy. Poor kiddo, she basically thought that they took her money, she was kind of sad about the whole situation! Turns out that the 6th graders were selling them during the week and delivering them to the classrooms during the Christmas parties on the last day of school. She just didn't understand what was going on and she didn't speak up and ask anyone after she gave them her money and didn't get anything in return. So, after that scenario I'm a little hesitant to send money with her. So when she asked me if she could bring money to school I just said "No, I don't think that's a good idea honey". Well, she explained that they have a jar set up by the secretaries office and that they are collecting change to send to Haiti. She said that she wanted to fill up the whole jar so it was over flowing from the top. She was so excited and enthusiastic about the whole thing. She asked me for all the change from my purse and I obliged, next she emptied out her piggy bank, and then she emptied out my piggy bank (which is basically just a jar of coins on my dresser). She was so proud of herself. And I'm proud of her too. In the initial aftermath of the earthquake I watched a lot of CNN coverage from Haiti so she was well aware of what was going on. I couldn't help it, it was just so engrossing and tragic! I wish I already had my BSN and was done with school. I would have gone to help in a heartbeat if I was given the opportunity. At some point I would really like to work for a local or national organization where I could go with a group as a first responder for emergencies like tsunamis in Thai land, earthquakes in Haiti or floods like Katrina. I know we all wish we could do more. Just when you think to yourself "what is the world coming to" something tragic like that happens and everyone around the world opens their hearts to help in whatever way they can, and once again I am humbled by how much good is in the hearts of people. I just hope that after all of the emergency relief is completed that people don't forget how much there will still be left to do in order to help Haiti; it is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. The people there are condemned to die young and live a really hard life while they are alive. No one should have to live like that! I just hope that the support continues once all the camera crews leave.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
1st Day @ Open Door Mission...
Yesterday was my first day at the open door mission. We spent a little bit of our time there touring the brand new 5 million dollar Lydia house. It was absolutely beautiful. What a blessing to the community. On any given winter night the open door mission would shelter 90 families and have to turn away over 120 more families. The new shelter can house up to 360 families. For many people during this economy, becoming homeless is as close as missing a few paychecks. And with more and more layoffs happening every day, the cost of access to health care growing to astronomical prices and the cost of daily necessities on the rise, it's a very real possibility for many people.
After we toured the buildings we had an opportunity to speak with several key people at length about how and what we can do to help. Myself along with 2 other students have an opportunity to hopefully make an impact in the lives of those effected by homelessness. We are going to be putting together an educational seminar about eating healthy and exercising. Many of the people who live at the shelter receive government assistance in the form of food stamps. I know it sounds unfathomable but many of those same people have never been taught the basics about the food pyramid, reading labels and simple things like making sensible healthy food purchases, and budgeting for groceries. Since the new facility has a state of the art gym as well we thought teaching some basic exercise ideas would be helpful too, since eating right is only one component of staying healthy. We will be teaching the clients basics of staying active, because most likely when they leave the shelter, they will no longer have access to a gym and equipment. At first I thought to myself..."these people are just trying to eat and shelter themselves right now, I'm sure the last thing on their minds are exercising and eating healthy". However, the unique thing about the Lydia house is that the "shelter" is actually comprised of apartment type rooms, complete with a bedroom, bathroom and mini kitchen. So it really is a great place for people transitioning into long term housing to stay at. Once they are back on their feet and working, saving money and moving into long term housing, they will be able to take the knowledge they learned from the staff and volunteers at the shelter and apply it for the rest of their lives. Plus, since the majority of families at the shelter have children and the childhood obesity rate and the correlating diabetes rates are climbing to epidemic rates in this country, we thought these topics were actually vitally important. Although I'm sure that all careers in public service are rewarding, I especially think that nurses and educators (teaching is part of the nursing process and one of any nurses primary jobs) have such rewarding jobs. You get to see your efforts play out when a patient makes leaps and bounds in progress toward their goals. There are so many important things that we could have chosen to do, but as practicing students and not practicing nurses yet, plus with our time constraints (we are only there for a limited number of days), we had to come up with something that would be within our parameters but still be beneficial to the clients.
After seeing and hearing some of the many sad stories at the open door mission, it's just reinforced to me that I am so truly blessed in my life. The things that I complain about are so minuscule in contrast to other's problems. It makes me want to do so much more for the community
This whole opportunity comes at an ideal time for me because with Aaron's help I have made drastic changes in what I buy and prepare and my own exercise regimen. I'm doing cardio atleast 3 times a week at school and am eating 5-6 small snacks or meals throughout the day (no more than 1500 calories a day) to boost my metabolism in order to reach my weight loss goal. The funny thing is after only 2 weeks of this, I can already see and feel the difference! It's amazing. And I'm NEVER hungry, but yet am taking in just enough calories to keep me energized, and speeding up my metabolism but still able to lose weight. I think back to last summer and remember days where I would forget to eat all day...until almost 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon because I was busy or forgot to eat. No wonder I was gaining weight when I was trying to lose it for the wedding! I am slowly adapting to these changes so that hopefully they will be lifelong habits and I will never fall into my "old ways" again!
After we toured the buildings we had an opportunity to speak with several key people at length about how and what we can do to help. Myself along with 2 other students have an opportunity to hopefully make an impact in the lives of those effected by homelessness. We are going to be putting together an educational seminar about eating healthy and exercising. Many of the people who live at the shelter receive government assistance in the form of food stamps. I know it sounds unfathomable but many of those same people have never been taught the basics about the food pyramid, reading labels and simple things like making sensible healthy food purchases, and budgeting for groceries. Since the new facility has a state of the art gym as well we thought teaching some basic exercise ideas would be helpful too, since eating right is only one component of staying healthy. We will be teaching the clients basics of staying active, because most likely when they leave the shelter, they will no longer have access to a gym and equipment. At first I thought to myself..."these people are just trying to eat and shelter themselves right now, I'm sure the last thing on their minds are exercising and eating healthy". However, the unique thing about the Lydia house is that the "shelter" is actually comprised of apartment type rooms, complete with a bedroom, bathroom and mini kitchen. So it really is a great place for people transitioning into long term housing to stay at. Once they are back on their feet and working, saving money and moving into long term housing, they will be able to take the knowledge they learned from the staff and volunteers at the shelter and apply it for the rest of their lives. Plus, since the majority of families at the shelter have children and the childhood obesity rate and the correlating diabetes rates are climbing to epidemic rates in this country, we thought these topics were actually vitally important. Although I'm sure that all careers in public service are rewarding, I especially think that nurses and educators (teaching is part of the nursing process and one of any nurses primary jobs) have such rewarding jobs. You get to see your efforts play out when a patient makes leaps and bounds in progress toward their goals. There are so many important things that we could have chosen to do, but as practicing students and not practicing nurses yet, plus with our time constraints (we are only there for a limited number of days), we had to come up with something that would be within our parameters but still be beneficial to the clients.
After seeing and hearing some of the many sad stories at the open door mission, it's just reinforced to me that I am so truly blessed in my life. The things that I complain about are so minuscule in contrast to other's problems. It makes me want to do so much more for the community
This whole opportunity comes at an ideal time for me because with Aaron's help I have made drastic changes in what I buy and prepare and my own exercise regimen. I'm doing cardio atleast 3 times a week at school and am eating 5-6 small snacks or meals throughout the day (no more than 1500 calories a day) to boost my metabolism in order to reach my weight loss goal. The funny thing is after only 2 weeks of this, I can already see and feel the difference! It's amazing. And I'm NEVER hungry, but yet am taking in just enough calories to keep me energized, and speeding up my metabolism but still able to lose weight. I think back to last summer and remember days where I would forget to eat all day...until almost 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon because I was busy or forgot to eat. No wonder I was gaining weight when I was trying to lose it for the wedding! I am slowly adapting to these changes so that hopefully they will be lifelong habits and I will never fall into my "old ways" again!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Spring 10'
The spring semester of school started last week. I LOVE it. I'm in my community health and mental health rotation. Since I'm in community health for the first part of the semester I get to see my client for about an hour, 1 day a week. Then the rest of my day is open. Then my other "clinical " day during the week, I spend no more than 4 hours at "enrichment" sites. My first site is the open door mission. I've never been there before so this should be interesting. I'm excited to learn more about the under served and vulnerable populations in our community and take away from my experience the knowledge of the available programs, support systems and referral agencies here in Omaha. I have no doubt I will be able to apply what I will learn in this semester through out my nursing career. The best part of this semester is that there is so much "down" time during my clinical days. So far, I have been able to do all of my homework and studying with this time, so I have very little to bring home with me to work on outside of school hours. Which is great for Cecelia because almost every evening we are reading together, working on sight words, or playing games. Cecelia is beginning to think that everynight is "game night"; thanks to that Wal-Mart commercial! With all the free time at school I even get to work out at the gym on campus! The gym is awesome and there is rarely more than 1 or 2 other girls working out at any given time. My New Year's resolution was to get in shape. I only weigh 145 so my goal is to lose 15 lbs. Not unrealistic at all. One of my best friends, Stephanie, lives in Florida. She is moving back to Omaha for the summer. A few of us girls (Karissa, Summer and I) are going to be taking a one way flight to visit Steph for a few days in May and then we are all going to drive back to Omaha together...girls road trip! I'm so excited. I can't wait to have a few relaxing, lazy, kid free days on the beach. But, I really want to wear a 2 piece. Last summer I just bought a tankini and then a 1 piece bathing suit. Although they were both really cute, I would ideally like to get into a bikini again! Aaron has been a great inspiration. He works out almost daily. And since he found out he had high cholesterol his diet has gotten so much better. We love planning healthy meals together. Every week we sit down together and make our shopping list and decide what we need to buy to make the healthiest meals for the following week. This also is beneficial for sticking to a budget. It really helps too that Cecelia practically refuses to eat anything unhealthy. All the munchkin wants to eat is fruits and veggies. Seriously, she never wants to eat McDonalds or burger king...she would rather have Subway or Blimpies. Shes such a good girl. Were definately doing something right in that department
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Henry Doorly Zoo
One of my patients had told me earlier in the week that Henry Doorly was rated the #1 family friendly vacation spot in the U.S. I don't think I knew that. That comment sparked my interest and since the zoo has so many great indoor activities I thought it would be a perfect place to go to get Cecelia out of the house and burn off some energy, regardless of what our Nebraska weather was deciding to do outside! Plus, since we have our membership, it really is an inexpensive activity. We invited my cousin Megan (who is 35 weeks pregnant) and her daughter Tealynn, who is just 1 year older than Cecelia. Note to self; when deciding to take the kiddos to the Leid Jungle, leave that till last. Unfortunately we decided to do the Leid Jungle first:( The ground floor of the jungle ended up being very muddy! Cecelia got muddy and wet, so much of the afternoon was spent whining about being wet. The sleeves of her sweater got muddy and wet too,so she begged me to buy her a sweater from the gift shop, so I did. Then the Desert dome ended up being closed for maintenance...bummer! Apparently the zoo likes to do lots of maintenance during the winter season since the attendance is drastically reduced. I have also decided that I'm going to start bringing the stroller with me again. I really miss not needing the stroller because it was so great for putting my purse,jackets or sweaters, drinks and snacks or lunch in, and of course being available to Cecelia for when she decides that she is tired. This trip proved to be one of those times when I really wished we had brought the stroller. Cecelia complained repeatedly that her stomach was hurting after she decided to practically inhale her Subway that we got the kids for lunch. The zoo wasn't a complete disappointment though there were brief moments where the girls did enjoy themselves. They really enjoyed the aquarium, the butterfly and insect pavilion and the upper level of the Jungle too. I can't wait to go back when the weather warms up again. Which at this point, I'm not sure if it ever will! I think they are forecasting yet another snow storm next week...we have had enough already!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Cece is learning to read!!!
Cecelia is learning to read! I swear it wasn't that long ago when I wondered if she would ever master her ABC's...where does the time go. I try to read to her as much as I can and then we work on her sight words frequently and she loves her tag too. However up until recently when we would practice reading, she would get frustrated after a few words and would give up or want me to read to her. Lately I've been reading to her and every few pages I will let her read a page. I do this because it takes her a VERY long time to read. Last night after we read The cat in the hat together she read Five little bunnies all by herself...although it took her 35 mins. It may take her longer but she has the basic ideas of reading down. Following from left to right, following each word with her finger, sounding out each letter, breaking up the big words into two or three parts, etc. I'm actually happy that she got a DS for Christmas because it is proving to be an incentive for her to sit down and practice with me without giving up...we set time limits for the playing and won't let her play it until shes practiced reading or has done some work in her workbooks. Cecelia has mastered all of the kindergarten level "sight" words. Which are basically like high frequency words. Since she can now read and write all of them, her teacher is sending home the 1st grade sight words to start working on. I can't believe she is doing it. I'm so proud of her! Hopefully she makes good progress on those.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Happy New Year!
HAPPY NEW YEAR: A recap of 2009 for the Culver family:
We had a great year! Where do I begin?
In February we headed to Denver to see Kiley for a 3 day weekend. Omaha to Denver is about an 8 hr. drive. I really don’t like driving long distances and would much rather fly, but seeing Kiley is so worth it! We were fortunate to find a great hotel (thanks to Aaron of course). While in Denver we went to Red Rock amphitheater, The Cheyenne Zoo, the downtown Denver Aquarium, The Hard Rock Cafe and much more. We really got in a lot of fun activities for such a short period of time.
In March we moved from our 2 bedroom apartment into a 3 bedroom, 3 bath condo. We love having a garage where we can park during the snowy and cold winter months. The girls and Stanley have especially loved having a big backyard to play in and Aaron enjoys having a home gym since he works out almost daily. Although we are just renting, we have decided that we will renew our lease in the spring for another year. We would love to stay in this home until we purchase our first house together next year! Cecelia also started soccer in late March. The season only ran from late March till early June. Her team never won a game and only scored 2 goals during the season, but Cecelia made one of those lucky goals! Cecelia showed great ability and played every game for the whole 50 mins.! We will be putting her in Soccer again this coming spring.
In April I celebrated my 24th birthday! Another year older, another year wiser. Aaron has always said that he wanted to experience Las Vegas before he got married…so in April, while I was on spring break from school we headed to Vegas with about 10 of our friends. We were there for 5 days and had an awesome time! We are tentatively planning on meeting a few friends in Vegas for a long weekend in September to celebrate Aaron’s birthday this year.
In May I successfully finished another semester of nursing school at Methodist. I was planning on taking clinical in the summer, however Methodist didn’t offer the particular clinical that I needed to take. Because of this my graduation date got pushed back from August of 2010 to Dec. 2010. I was very frustrated with my school but in hindsight it was probably better that way because I was trying to plan a summer wedding after all.
In June my sisters threw a bridal shower for me. The bridal shower was held in the great room at my work. Lots of family and friends from out of town were in attendance which made me so happy! The following week my best friend Karissa threw me a bachelorette party! We celebrated by going out to eat downtown at Old Chicage, heading to a few bars down town and ending the night in a suite at the Downtown Double Tree. It was such a fun night! Stephanie Nobbs who now lives in Florida and Rachel who lives in California were both in town for not only the shower but the bachelorette party as well. The celebrations wouldn’t have been the same without my best friends. Aaron took the training wheels off of Cecelia and Kiley’s bikes in June, and they almost immediately learned to ride without training wheels. After that we were taking them for daily bike rides.
In July we celebrated Cecelia’s 5th birthday!!! My goodness, where does the time go? My mom made a beautiful slide show for Cecelia which we played for her at her parties. Of course, I cried like a baby watching all the pictures of her birth and first 5 years. She is such an amazing kid! We are so lucky to have beautiful, healthy, happy kids. On July 31st Aaron and I finally were united in marriage! We had a small, intimate, perfect ceremony at Mt. Vernon rose gardens. The same district judge who married 2 of my older sisters, united Aaron and I. Cecelia and Kiley were of course our flower girls. My sister Nikki was my made of honor and Aaron’s long time friend Mikey was his best man. After the wedding our limo took us to Vivace Restaurant down town where we had our dinner reception in the party room, we ended the night celebrating with friends and family downtown before heading back to our suite at the Double tree (we love that hotel). Our wedding was amazing. Just us and 30 of our closest family and friends, I wouldn’t have changed anything! I have to thank our families for contributing so much towards our wedding in order to make it perfect.
In early August we took our honey moon. We flew to Tampa and spent 2 days with my best friend Stephanie before we boarded a cruise ship and traveled to Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands and then to Cozumel Mexico. In Grand Cayman we went snorkeling, had lunch at the hard rock and of course went shopping. While in Cozumel we took a speed boat to an all inclusive private island where we enjoyed authentic food and drinks, and white sand beaches. The island was so beautiful, quiet and relaxing! I spent a good portion of our day there laying in a hammock reading and resting. Wow, just writing about the warm weather makes me sad… the high today in Omaha was a sizzling 6 degrees! I love, love, love the warm weather and ocean and can’t wait for summer and our next vacations. Just a few days after coming back from our honey moon we had to get in gear for Cecelia to start Kindergarten and me to return to clinicals! Lots of shopping for clothes, shoes, backpacks and school supplies. What a bitter sweet milestone in a child’s life. Cecelia actually has 3 girls with whom she attended 2 years of pre-school with in her kindergarten class with her. Plus, she got an awesome teacher. She has learned so much over the first semester of Kindergarten and we are so proud of her accomplishments!
In September we celebrated Aaron’s 27th birthday. Cecelia started Cheerleading/Pom. She enjoyed it a lot, but has decided now that she would like to return to gymnastics next fall. Cecelia is really outgoing but it seems like every time things get a little tough, she wants to give up...that's not a characteristic we would like her to have. On the other hand, do you force your child to be in an activity they thought they would like and didn't end up enjoying? Oh, the joys of being a parent. Sometimes I wish they came with a manual.
In October we did the usual activities…Vala’s pumpkin patch, carving pumpkins and trick or treating on Halloween. This year Cecelia was a witch and Stanley was the incredible hulk, it was too cute!
In November Kiley turned 8! To celebrate we headed out to Denver again. Aaron once again found another great hotel. This time we brought my niece, Mercedes with us. Since we were out numbered by kids we decided for this trip to be much more low key then our March trip. We brought presents, and cupcakes and spent our first night in the hotel eating pizza and swimming. The next day we took Kiley shopping and skating and out to her favorite restaurant to eat. We had to head home early on Sunday because Denver got almost 6 inches of snow and we were afraid the roads were going be terrible and dangerous. Fortunately, the roads were fine after we got outside of Denver. We hosted my family at our house for Thanksgiving…lots of family and lots of fun! I thought we could easily host it since our house has a lot more space. I’ve come to the conclusion that no ones home is large enough for my family. I have 5 sisters, then add their husbands and kids and our parents and it starts to get really chaotic. I'm so happy we have such a big family though.
In December I finished up another semester of nursing school. At this time next year I will have my bachelor’s degree in Nursing. I’m so excited to start working and making a significant contribution to our household. I'm so over having to work part-time and go to school. When you combine the time I spend doing both, it's really like I'm working over time...but not getting paid. Kiley was with us over the holidays. We had a really great Christmas and everyone got everything on their wish lists. It was our best Christmas yet! We finished up the new year by enjoying a nice dinner out with 12 of our closest friends and a small party at our house. It couldn't have been more fun. I loved it!
2009 was very busy. Hopefully we will continue to be blessed in 2010!
We had a great year! Where do I begin?
In February we headed to Denver to see Kiley for a 3 day weekend. Omaha to Denver is about an 8 hr. drive. I really don’t like driving long distances and would much rather fly, but seeing Kiley is so worth it! We were fortunate to find a great hotel (thanks to Aaron of course). While in Denver we went to Red Rock amphitheater, The Cheyenne Zoo, the downtown Denver Aquarium, The Hard Rock Cafe and much more. We really got in a lot of fun activities for such a short period of time.
In March we moved from our 2 bedroom apartment into a 3 bedroom, 3 bath condo. We love having a garage where we can park during the snowy and cold winter months. The girls and Stanley have especially loved having a big backyard to play in and Aaron enjoys having a home gym since he works out almost daily. Although we are just renting, we have decided that we will renew our lease in the spring for another year. We would love to stay in this home until we purchase our first house together next year! Cecelia also started soccer in late March. The season only ran from late March till early June. Her team never won a game and only scored 2 goals during the season, but Cecelia made one of those lucky goals! Cecelia showed great ability and played every game for the whole 50 mins.! We will be putting her in Soccer again this coming spring.
In April I celebrated my 24th birthday! Another year older, another year wiser. Aaron has always said that he wanted to experience Las Vegas before he got married…so in April, while I was on spring break from school we headed to Vegas with about 10 of our friends. We were there for 5 days and had an awesome time! We are tentatively planning on meeting a few friends in Vegas for a long weekend in September to celebrate Aaron’s birthday this year.
In May I successfully finished another semester of nursing school at Methodist. I was planning on taking clinical in the summer, however Methodist didn’t offer the particular clinical that I needed to take. Because of this my graduation date got pushed back from August of 2010 to Dec. 2010. I was very frustrated with my school but in hindsight it was probably better that way because I was trying to plan a summer wedding after all.
In June my sisters threw a bridal shower for me. The bridal shower was held in the great room at my work. Lots of family and friends from out of town were in attendance which made me so happy! The following week my best friend Karissa threw me a bachelorette party! We celebrated by going out to eat downtown at Old Chicage, heading to a few bars down town and ending the night in a suite at the Downtown Double Tree. It was such a fun night! Stephanie Nobbs who now lives in Florida and Rachel who lives in California were both in town for not only the shower but the bachelorette party as well. The celebrations wouldn’t have been the same without my best friends. Aaron took the training wheels off of Cecelia and Kiley’s bikes in June, and they almost immediately learned to ride without training wheels. After that we were taking them for daily bike rides.
In July we celebrated Cecelia’s 5th birthday!!! My goodness, where does the time go? My mom made a beautiful slide show for Cecelia which we played for her at her parties. Of course, I cried like a baby watching all the pictures of her birth and first 5 years. She is such an amazing kid! We are so lucky to have beautiful, healthy, happy kids. On July 31st Aaron and I finally were united in marriage! We had a small, intimate, perfect ceremony at Mt. Vernon rose gardens. The same district judge who married 2 of my older sisters, united Aaron and I. Cecelia and Kiley were of course our flower girls. My sister Nikki was my made of honor and Aaron’s long time friend Mikey was his best man. After the wedding our limo took us to Vivace Restaurant down town where we had our dinner reception in the party room, we ended the night celebrating with friends and family downtown before heading back to our suite at the Double tree (we love that hotel). Our wedding was amazing. Just us and 30 of our closest family and friends, I wouldn’t have changed anything! I have to thank our families for contributing so much towards our wedding in order to make it perfect.
In early August we took our honey moon. We flew to Tampa and spent 2 days with my best friend Stephanie before we boarded a cruise ship and traveled to Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands and then to Cozumel Mexico. In Grand Cayman we went snorkeling, had lunch at the hard rock and of course went shopping. While in Cozumel we took a speed boat to an all inclusive private island where we enjoyed authentic food and drinks, and white sand beaches. The island was so beautiful, quiet and relaxing! I spent a good portion of our day there laying in a hammock reading and resting. Wow, just writing about the warm weather makes me sad… the high today in Omaha was a sizzling 6 degrees! I love, love, love the warm weather and ocean and can’t wait for summer and our next vacations. Just a few days after coming back from our honey moon we had to get in gear for Cecelia to start Kindergarten and me to return to clinicals! Lots of shopping for clothes, shoes, backpacks and school supplies. What a bitter sweet milestone in a child’s life. Cecelia actually has 3 girls with whom she attended 2 years of pre-school with in her kindergarten class with her. Plus, she got an awesome teacher. She has learned so much over the first semester of Kindergarten and we are so proud of her accomplishments!
In September we celebrated Aaron’s 27th birthday. Cecelia started Cheerleading/Pom. She enjoyed it a lot, but has decided now that she would like to return to gymnastics next fall. Cecelia is really outgoing but it seems like every time things get a little tough, she wants to give up...that's not a characteristic we would like her to have. On the other hand, do you force your child to be in an activity they thought they would like and didn't end up enjoying? Oh, the joys of being a parent. Sometimes I wish they came with a manual.
In October we did the usual activities…Vala’s pumpkin patch, carving pumpkins and trick or treating on Halloween. This year Cecelia was a witch and Stanley was the incredible hulk, it was too cute!
In November Kiley turned 8! To celebrate we headed out to Denver again. Aaron once again found another great hotel. This time we brought my niece, Mercedes with us. Since we were out numbered by kids we decided for this trip to be much more low key then our March trip. We brought presents, and cupcakes and spent our first night in the hotel eating pizza and swimming. The next day we took Kiley shopping and skating and out to her favorite restaurant to eat. We had to head home early on Sunday because Denver got almost 6 inches of snow and we were afraid the roads were going be terrible and dangerous. Fortunately, the roads were fine after we got outside of Denver. We hosted my family at our house for Thanksgiving…lots of family and lots of fun! I thought we could easily host it since our house has a lot more space. I’ve come to the conclusion that no ones home is large enough for my family. I have 5 sisters, then add their husbands and kids and our parents and it starts to get really chaotic. I'm so happy we have such a big family though.
In December I finished up another semester of nursing school. At this time next year I will have my bachelor’s degree in Nursing. I’m so excited to start working and making a significant contribution to our household. I'm so over having to work part-time and go to school. When you combine the time I spend doing both, it's really like I'm working over time...but not getting paid. Kiley was with us over the holidays. We had a really great Christmas and everyone got everything on their wish lists. It was our best Christmas yet! We finished up the new year by enjoying a nice dinner out with 12 of our closest friends and a small party at our house. It couldn't have been more fun. I loved it!
2009 was very busy. Hopefully we will continue to be blessed in 2010!
Bowling
Whenever Kiley is with us we really try to make the best of the time we have together and we try to take the girls out to do fun family activities. The girls both agreed that bowling would be fun...after all they love bowling on the Wii. Aaron's mom and sister Christina and her daughter Alayna joined us too. All the girls really enjoyed it. If I remember correctly Cecelia beat everyone but Aaron. We finished the evening with Godfathers Pizza, so good! We decided that next time we go bowling we are going to try cosmic bowling. Aaron and I have of course experienced cosmic bowling and we think the girls are going to love it!
Sledding
So during Christmas break it was brought to our attention that neither Cecelia or Kiley have ever been sledding. We decided we HAD to go. Actually, once the girls thought of the idea they really weren't going to give up. We ended up having a blast! That was until Kiley took me out! First Aaron had gone down, then Cecelia had gone down the hill, then I did. As I got up, I would have gotten out of the way but I noticed that Cecelia needed her snow pants and boots adjusted, before I could even do anything about it, I'm laying on my back. Seriously, everything went black and I saw stars. I really thought I had a concussion because I got an immediate headache. What happened was, Kiley had come down the hill behind me and ran straight into me. Aaron thought it was the funniest thing ever. He said it looked like something out of the movies. His exact words were..." you looked like an upside down ostrich for a minute". It makes me chuckle just to think about how funny the event appeared. Poor Kiley, she felt really bad about it. Especially because after I fell down I had to take a break and return to the car for a few minutes to warm up and pull myself together. Aaron also took a few tumbles too. Of course, after his fumbles he just got back up and laughed it off. I'm so happy we got to experience the girls' first sledding trip as a family. What a fun memory for the girls to have. Hopefully, we will get to take Cecelia sledding at least one more time this winter...if the weather ever warms up!
Stan the Man
Stanley is such a character! He is so adorable, hugable and love able. No, we didn't make him wear the new years eve hat all night long...he really didn't like it! He's usually such a good sport when I dress him up for the holidays or in his cute little outfits. On Christmas, Aaron's sister and I tried really hard to get a picture of Stanley with his Santa hat and beard on with her dog Charlie wearing her Mrs. Clause outfit. That was fun -insert sarcasm-. As you can tell from the pictures, the dogs generally won't sit next to each other for very long. If they are sitting next to each other they are looking in opposite directions ready to run.
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