gross, gross, gross

So the Encampment Elementary School went caroling to the Senior Center after lunch today. Since I'm in charge of all the carols, I went along. Everything was fine until about day 7 of the 12 Days of Christmas and one of my 2nd graders puked right in front of me. GROSS, GROSS, GROSS. I felt so bad for the kid. But all I could think of was when I was in 1st grade, we did a musical, "A Walk with Mr. Peeps". I was on the "stage" and the other kids were on the risers singing, and I hear this girl go, "UGH! HE PUKED ON ME!" Sure enough, the boy on the risers behind the girl threw up all over her hair, the back of her dress, everything. That's about all I remember of that program, and I don't even remember who the boy and girl were, but 20 years later, that yell of disgust still sticks with me!

the dumbest question I've ever heard!

So I was at the post office today, waiting in line to buy stamps so I could mail my Christmas cards. The lady in front of me was trying to mail something and the post office lady was trying to figure out how to ship it. She asked her supervisor and the supervisor said, "Where is it going to?" The lady mailing it said, "South Korea." The supervisor then said, "Is that in the United States?"

You've got to be kidding me! I almost died right then and there.

another new baby!

Last week on Dec. 13th, Josh's cousin Summer had a baby girl. Welcome to the world, Anna Rachelle!

christmas in cheyenne

We had a nice Christmas this weekend in Cheyenne. We went over Saturday morning after dropping the dogs off at the kennel- we went down through CO to get to Laramie though. It had started snowing pretty hard and I do NOT trust those truckers on I-80 in the snow. We went up to Riverside (Encampment), and took that highway down towards Walden, CO, and up through Woods Landing to Laramie that way. Josh goes that way quite often on the ambulance. It was a really pretty drive through the mountains.

Brecken got some fun presents- Karlee helped him open every single one of them. She helped hand out presents but couldn't read any of the names so Jeff would tell her who to bring it to. But she got to Brecken's, and she goes, "THIS ONE IS FOR BRECKEN!!" We asked how she knew that, and she goes, "Because my mommy wrapped it." :) Trevor had Brecken's name this year. He gave Brecken some polar fleece slippers and a fleece blanket with a puppy on it and if you push the puppy's head, it squeaks like dog toys!! Then from Craig and Lennie, he got a set of 3 emergency vehicle toys- an ambulance, a tow truck, and something else, I can't remember. From Josh's Aunt Barbara and Uncle Keith, he got a foam book about cows (all the kids got one) and a Glo Worm that not only lights up but plays lullabies too. Then from Josh's Aunt Bev and Uncle David, he got tiny little tiny Croc shoes! They're so cute. Brecken's are navy blue. Trevor's are blue swirled, and Parker's are camo colored. Brecken's are too big, he'll have to grow into them.

Saturday night our hotel had a swimming pool so the kids went swimming with Joel and Jeff and Josh. Annie gave me a swim diaper to put on Brecken but Brecken did not like swimming. It was too cold. So I took him out and wrapped him in a towel and he fell asleep watching the kids play in the pool. I had a severe migraine so Josh and I and Brecken went back to the room and fell asleep while the others went back to Brady and Stacey's and played cards. Don't know what time they got home- it was plenty after midnight, that's for sure.

Sunday morning we got up and it was snowing. In an hour, it snowed several inches. We went and had breakfast with everyone and then tried to leave town, but didn't make it far. We knew I-80 was closed from Laramie to Walcott Jct., but we weren't going to go that way anyway- we were going on the same highway we came over on Saturday. But one mile down the interstate in Cheyenne still, we came across a bad wreck. So we went back to Brady and Stacey's. After a while, we went to the nursing home where Josh's Great Aunt Lucile is recovering from a broken leg. She hadn't met Brecken yet so we took him up there for a little bit. Then we came back and checked the roads again. All of a sudden, it stopped snowing in Cheyenne so we went for it- had to go slow but we made it. On I-80 about 15 or so miles from Cheyenne, there was an overturned semi blocking all the lanes going West, but we were all routed down an off ramp to a semi parking lot, where there was a frontage road. Most everyone took the frontage road and went around the wreck and back onto the interstate. Then we were able to make it to Laramie and over highway 230. Sure was a pretty drive, and driving 30 miles an hour gave me lots of time to look at things! We saw several deer, and even a yearling MOOSE! He was running on the road right smack next to us!! I tried to get a picture but it didn't turn out. We killed a big huge rabbit, too. :( Ran right over it. There were several rabbits out last night.

Got home at 7:00- took 4 hours to get home from Cheyenne. Jeff was driving behind us and stayed the night at our house- called in for a sub for today. He figured if it took that long for a normally-driven 2 hour trip, he didn't want to drive the rest of the way to Lyman. He wouldn't have gotten there until early this morning, I bet. Plus, I-80 opened up again and he would've had to fight all those impatient truckers. I hate those truckers. Always in a hurry.

We didn't make it home in time to get the dogs but I called the kennel when we got to Laramie and the nice lady told me "the kids will be just fine until tomorrow!" Josh went to get them this morning during his prep hour. She said we weren't the only ones that weren't making it back to pick up their dogs yesterday. Several people must have gotten stuck.

This morning it was 0 degrees with NO WIND on my way to work, but really heavy fog. I could only drive 40 to get to Encampment. We prolly have 16 inches of snow here- I can't remember the last time I saw so much snow in 2 days. I took my ruler outside this morning and right outside my classroom, there is 20 inches of snow! Holy moly!

So thanks, everyone for the great gifts! We enjoyed our weekend but were glad to get home.

josh's birthday

Yesterday was Josh's 28th birthday. He's an old man. :)

We had an early out from school yesterday for a funeral yesterday afternoon- a longtime rancher whose kids go to SHS (well one of them does- the younger one goes to a boarding school back East.) died of cancer last week. He was also our state representative. The funeral was at SHS yesterday afternoon so Enc. and Saratoga got out of school at 1:30 so people could go to the funeral. Josh started JH girls' basketball yesterday afternoon at 1:30 at the middle school gym. So I got Brecken from Dana's and brought him to see basketball for a little bit- he actually liked it! He was really watching the girls go up and down the court. He thought that was pretty neat.
Then last night we went to the Saratoga Inn for dinner. Brecken wasn't having any of that. He cried most of the evening- I'm glad we were the only people in the restaurant. (We went at 5:00 since Josh went on-call at 6:00.) So one of us was walking around trying to calm him down while the other one ate. Wasn't exactly the ideal birthday dinner, but it was OK. :) Josh got a free dessert so we took it to go. :)

This morning Brecken kept waking up after 3:30- his nose was stuffed up and he didn't feel good again. The same cold is being passed back and forth between the kids at Dana's. Hopefully over Christmas everyone can get healthy again. Brecken slept in his swing while I got ready for work, and was sleeping pretty good, so I put some clothes in his diaper bag and took him to Dana's in his jammies. I'll put the humidifier in his room tonight to see if that might help him. Poor guy. :(

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3 months old

I seriously cannot believe that 3 months ago today, we were in the hospital with a newborn.

Brecken is 3 months old today so I swung by the clinic this afternoon to see how much he weighs and how long he is. He is 11 pounds exactly (up 14 ounces from a month ago) and has gained a half inch- he's now 23.5 inches long. According to percentile charts, he's slipped in the weight percentile. He's only in the 5-10th percentile for weight, but in the 50th-75th percentile for length. I guess we have a tall skinny guy on our hands.

He's been pretty crabby today, don't know why. Deb said he didn't ever take a good nap today, so maybe he'll sleep good tonight?!?! :)

i'm a master!

Holy moly, it's been a long time since I posted. Sorry about that!

I had my graduation on Friday night. I got my Master's diploma several months ago, but went through the graduation ceremony Friday night in Laramie. I got hooded, but you have to give those back with your gowns, and that makes me sad. I really wanted to keep that hood- I worked long and hard for it! :) My friends Erin and Kris also graduated, so that was fun to see them again. It was also the first time they got to see Brecken!

Anyway, graduation was LONG. Longer than my undergrad one, where there were 3 times as many people graduating! They had lots of speeches this time. Only one of them was good. It was the University President- he was funny. The others were just really boring. One seemed like he was just promoting the war (that was the dean of A&S), and the other was some retiring professor that talked about Earth Day. VERY BORING. AND, they had the Snow Dance from the Nutcracker in the middle of graduation since they had just finished putting that on, the weekend before. It was nice, but I've never been to a graduation with a ballet in the middle!! Brecken did a great job through it all. We went to dinner afterwards with Craig and Lennie and Kristen, David, and Ryan, and Brecken got one heck of an acid attack so I didn't get to eat with everyone- I was walking around trying to calm him down. Finally he went to sleep, slept until we got home (didn't stay overnight), ate when we got home and went back to sleep until 7:15 yesterday morning! Granted, we didn't get home until 12:30, but he slept for a good 6 1/2 hours!

Brecken has new Christmas jammies, and he wore them for the first time last night. I hope he still fits into them for Christmas- they aren't any too big, that's for sure! He woke up in the happiest mood this morning. I was singing Christmas carols to him and he was grinning and laughing and trying to sing along. His favorite this morning was "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"- I think it was because of his jammies:

baby's first Christmas

We got our Christmas tree set up tonight. Brecken has 3 Baby's First Christmas ornaments so far. One from Josh and I, and two from my mom and dad. I put them up next to the two Baby's First Christmas 1979 ornaments that I had from my first Christmas. It's kind of a neat collection.

Brecken has not slept well for the past 4 nights because of his cold. I am completely exhausted. It is now 8:45, he's in bed (HOPEFULLY for a long time. But now that I said that, he'll be crying in 10 minutes, I bet!!) and I'm on my way right now. Even if he gets up in a little while, at least I'll have had a LITTLE bit of sleep. I have some serious sleep catching-up to do this weekend.

i'm a real choir teacher now!

This is my second year of teaching choir. I've been in choirs all my life, but never had taught them by myself until last year, my first in Encampment. This year, I had a freshman boy try out for the Wyoming All-State Choir. He has a wonderful voice and I was really hoping he'd make it. Today, the results were posted, and he made it! I feel like a real choir teacher now that I can get choir students into All-State! :) I always had some make it while I was in Torrington teaching band, but those were band students. This is my first choir student to make it. Hooray for Tyler! I didn't get the results until after school today, and Tyler was already gone for the day, so I get to tell him tomorrow morning. He's going to be so excited.

my poor, sick baby. :(

Brecken is sick. :( Friday night/Saturday morning, he was up at 1, 2, 3, 5, 5:45, and 7:00. He ate each time, but he didn't seem himself. He was sneezing and coughing and sounded like he had lots of boogers. We loaded him up to go to Loveland and furniture shop, and he did alright all day... A little fussier than normal, but not bad. I figured he was super tired from not sleeping well.

Well, last night, he went to bed at 10 and was up again at 11:30 and was just crying, crying, crying. A really raw sounding cry. He was super stuffed up. I tried to suck the boogers out with the bulb syringe and he wanted nothing to do with that. He ate some, but couldn't hardly breathe. I would put him back in his crib and he'd cry and cry and choke- the drainage from his nose was choking him in his throat. The only way he would sleep was on my chest, since he was on his belly. Josh listened to his lungs with his stethescope and thought they sounded a bit wheezy, so he called Dr. Noton, who was the doctor on call last night. He knew she was still up because the ambulance was called out about a half hour before that and they took the person to the clinic first. Listening to all the symptoms, she thinks it might be a little case of RSV. She said to let him sleep however he wanted (which for the most part was on one of our chests and sometimes he'd be OK sleeping on his side next to us) and to keep an eye on it last night and if it got worse, to call her again. He didn't get worse though. Thank goodness. He was still really stuffy and coughing and sneezing but it didn't get worse. He was up crying for a lot of the night though. Poor guy, just didn't feel good.

Dr. Noton called us at 7:00 this morning to check on Brecken- that was really nice of her. She said she was going to call in a prescription for him to the pharmacy in Rawlins since our pharmacy isn't open on weekends. Josh went to get it. She said it would dry him out and get the gunk out. Josh has been suctioning a lot of gunk from his mouth and his nose both this morning.

So, hopefully this is the worst of it and after getting some medicine he'll begin to feel better. I'm glad tomorrow's babysitter is a nurse whose husband is our PA, so she can keep an eye on it for us too. And hopefully tonight he'll sleep better because after 2 nights of no sleep, I'm a little beat. :)

so scary

I just about had a heart attack this morning while bringing Brecken to the baby-sitter's. When we get there, I always unlock all the doors so I can open the sliding door on the van when I get to Brecken's side. I leave the car running so it's still warm when I get back in. Well, this morning, I hit the unlock, or so I thought. I got out, shut my door, turned around and saw that my door was LOCKED. I freaked. I didn't know what I was going to do with Brecken locked in the car. In my panic, I grabbed the sliding door on my side of the van and pulled it- and it opened. I've never been so relieved. I have no idea how my door got locked and all the other doors got unlocked, when the doors lock automatically when you start driving. I don't care- I was just relieved that Brecken wasn't locked in the van!!

Phew.