Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Tulip adventure 2009

I've never been to visit the tulip festival in Washington, can you believe that? So my friend Steve and I went yesterday on a little adventure up north. We had a great time, got to stop for lunch at a small diner and I got to see where he use to live. It was a little bit of a "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of day, which was a lot of fun since I never get to have them anymore, and the company was good!

I wanted to narrow down one picture that was my favorite, and here it is:


It was a great way to start a fun and busy week!

Lets see what this week holds...tomorrow, Lauren, my bestfriend from 7th grade, turns 26 and we are going wine tasting in a limo this Saturday to celebrate. After visiting the winery we are going to have dinner at the Purple Cafe in Kirkland and then off to some dancing at Valhalla's for 80's night (no we don't dress the part, LOL). I can't wait to get all us girls together again, we do so know how to have a good time.

I'm having coffee with Steve on Thursday morning, but I really have an alterior motive and that is to get my hands on the rest of the tulip photos (No folks, I don't have time to right click and save all 100+ of them....) that he took yesterday. The flowers were beautiful, but he's pretty darn good with the camera!

Then Sunday it's off to the Zoo with Katy and the kids, and I imagine Ricky will tag along too :) That ought to be an adventure, a twin and a triplet stroller...oh boy.

Oh, and this weekend will also entail some studying for my test on Monday. As soon as I figure out what the heck I'm doing I'll start studying. Until then, I'll keep calling Katy for help only to have her tell me she doesn't get it either. Maybe tomorrow at work I'll track down Laura and see if she understands it any better. If all else fails Charles has offered to show us "how it's done" and tonight Steve told me he'd help me if he wasn't in the middle of burning dinner. Thankfully mark stopped by for a few minutes and was kind enough to explain it to me in a manner that made sense. Of course though, as soon as he left, I was confused again with nobody to bounce my questions off off....

that being said, i'm off to bed. Goodnight

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Kaleb's 3rd birthday

This video was taken at Kaleb's 3rd birthday party at Jungle Playland in Mount Vernon. This place was amazing and the kids weren't the only ones having fun as you can tell! I ran through quite a few times with the kids and they were having a blast. Thanks Katy and Ricky for inviting us!!!!!!!

Saturday, April 18, 2009

2-5 years left....

Pulmonary Hypertension...why do bad things happen to such good people? My mom has been short of breath for a while now, I posted a little bit about this in an earlier blog. She went to the doctor and they ran all sorts of tests on her. The diagnosis is Pulmonary Hypertension and the outlook/survival doesn't look good at all.

Right now they are trying to determine what has caused this. She did smoke in her younger years, but hasn't been a smoker for almost 20 years now. She had an EKG done on monday and the results of that show an abnormality of the heart, and I remember she was trying to explain it to me but I was so overwhelmed with the news that I don't remember everything.

My mom is so scared and I just want to make this all go away for her. She doesn't deserve this. I'm sad and scared for her, but I know I need to be strong to help all of us get through this. For those who do pray, can you please keep her in your prayers? Thank you,

Friday, April 17, 2009

Kids say the funniest things

So I was getting the kids into bed the other night and Cassie says to me, "mommy I want to see your boots" and I looked at her rather puzzled because I didn't have boots on, and I know for a fact that this child knows what boots are.

I sat down on the edge of her bed and put my foot on her bed to show her that I didn't have any boots on. However, I did have black socks on and I thought in their bedroom with the lights off, maybe they did look like boots to her.

As I'm lifting my foot up to show her she again tells me, "mommy, I want to see your boots" and then she grabs ahold of my tank top and pulls the front of it down and says, "oh mommy, I see them, theirs your boots" OMG, I fell on the floor laughing, and cassie just had this puzzled look on her face. Gosh I love being a mom, these kids keep me going every day!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Sunshine!!!

The kids were so happy to go play outside on this beautiful day!

Friday, April 3, 2009

People are SOOOOOOOOOOOO good

People are SO good and I'm not being sarcastic.

It was a long afternoon after a long week of not getting much sleep. Poor Ryland hasn't been getting much sleep either, his ear infection is keeping him up at night despite the antibiotics. After 4 days of Augmentin and his ear still draining horribly the doctor switched him to Ceftin last night. Rite aid said they'd order it and have it today. I called this afternoon to make sure it was ready and I was told that my insurance wasn't covering the name brand and that I had to get the generic. I explained to them that we had already done the generic twice and Ryland threw it up both times (2 separate ear infections mind you-months apart) so we ended up getting the Name brand because of that. They told me the doctor would have to call the ins. to get it authorized and blah blah blah. I was mad, wondering why nobody had called me to let me know as I could have sorted this all out at work, because I work for the prescribing doctor.

I decided to just pay the $302 and appeal it through Tricare later. My son NEEDED this medication yesterday, so I wasn't about to wait another day or wait through the weekend!

I got there to the drive through only to find out that the order they made yesterday hadn't arrived. WHAT!?!?!?!?!? Then I was ticked for them not calling me to let me know that, or bothering to tell me when I was on the phone with them 30 minutes earlier. Buuuuutttttttt.......really the lack of calling falls on me because I failed to update our phone number from 3 years ago. So at that point I apologized, feeling a little "put in my place" and updated my phone number.

Turns out there was a pharmacy in Stanwood (about 20 min north) that had the Name brand Ceftin and could fill it for me. So off we went on a little drive. I get to the pharmacy and go through the drive through as I've got all 3 kids with me and one who is whining and complaining about his ear hurting (poor kid, he never complains so I know it's bad). Then they tell me that I'm going to need to come in to fill this medication. WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!? I've got 3 two year olds in the car with me, do you KNOW how hard it is to get them all in and all out of the car, into the store, keeping them "contained" when there is only one of me and then back into the car. It can be a nightmare sometimes, especially with a sicky.

But I needed the meds, so in I went. We were there waiting about 10 minutes and the kids did pretty good because they had a lot of spectators and they were getting a kick out of it. I also got a lot of nice compliments about their behavior, so that made the whole experience better too. The ladies at the pharmacy, actually in the whole store were just fascinated with them.

I got prepared to pay and the pharmacist told me this Rx requires 2 bottles. And I said, "so is it $302 for each bottle, or $302 for the both of them" And he said, "$302???? No, you owe your copay of $3.00". I was much more than plesantly surprised and happily swiped my debit card. I wans't about to ask questions to screw it up, I just know someone must have been loooking out for me!

So two hours after I began the journey to get Ryland's medications, we finally had them. The kids were starting to tell me they were hungry, and I remembered I forgot to pull something out for dinner last night so I decided we'd go to IHOP.

We arrived and the server helped me get the kids all settled (it really is a wonderful IHOP, great servers who really love the kids) and got my order for them in right away. We were "playing" and coloring when a gentleman approached me and apologized for interrupting but wanted to know if they were triplets. I told him yes and he complimented me/them on their fabulous behavior. He also asked me if I was in the Navy or if I was a spouse or something (I was in my Navy PT gear) and I told him I was active duty. He lit up and told me breifly about his son who's also actived duty and living in Ingleside. We chatted for a few minutes and then he went back to sit down.

A few minutes later he got up to leave and waved bye to the kids as he walked by. He thanked me for serving my country and told me the bill was taken care of. I was speechless, but managed to get a thank you out while he was still within earshot. Then the tears came...I can't believe that people are so amazingly and incredibly generous and thoughtful, and I wish I would have said more, so he really KNEW how much I appreciated his generosity. There ARE so many good people in this world, and after a somewhat stressful afternoon of trying to get Ry's medications taken care of, his one gesture made all the difference in the world!

Pay it forward, that I WILL do!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Reunited and it feels so good

A few weeks ago one of my really good girlfriends from JR high was in town from Cali, up here to celebrate her birthday.

Lauren, Chelsey and I already had plans to go out to dinner that night, so we just simply had to ask Allie to come along with us. Allie's sisters Courtney and Erika came to dinner with us too, and we all had a great time.

We were missing one though...Jessie. So we called her at dinner and passed the phone around so everyone could talk to her.

After we had dinner we went out dancing and had a blast! Here are some pictures from the night: