Happy Memorial Day

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe Memorial Day!  Today is my last day at work and then I'm free for the summer!  Well, not exactly.  I have to cart my kids around for summer activities and appointments but that's better than working any day. 

Are you kidding me?

My youngest daughter, Tiger, who just turned 11 was invited to a birthday sleepover and then a trip to a local hotel water park last weekend for a classmate who turned 11 also.  I was a little leery about letting her go, as I always am, but mainly because she had never been at this girl's house before and I really don't know her parents.  But I told her she could go, can't keep her locked up forever, right?

Then we dropped her off at the house.  You ever just not feel right about something but can't quite pinpoint why?  Well, I had that feeling after dropping her off.

Turns out I was right.  The next day I was working so of course didn't have my cell phone on me.  At 1pm when I was done I saw I had two messages so I listened.  They were from some other mom that I don't know saying that the sleepover mom had gotten sick and this mom had picked up my kid.  Excuse me?  What?  She just handed my kid over to some other mom without me knowing?  I'm sorry but that's not how I do things.  You call ME and tell ME what's going on and I can decide what to do with MY kid.  What ticks me off even more is I purposely gave them both my cell and hubby's knowing that I would be at work the next day so they'd have both.  My husband received no call.

At that's not even the best part.  I found out Wednesday night that they allowed the girls to watch Orphan, an R rated horror film.  I haven't seen it but from what I gather online it was not at all appropriate for 10 and 11 year old girls.  Which is beside the point.  To me R rated = my 11 year does not see it!!  Though my daughter claims these other girls have all seen it.  Am I living under a rock?  Are all parents that irresponsible.  No wonder this world is F'd up! 

I was concerned about showing Twilight the last time we had a couple of her friends over here for a sleepover and asked all the moms if that was OK.  What was I thinking?  That's only PG-13!

Needless to say my daughter will not be going to that house anymore!  And now I'm going to be even more overbearing and protective of her than I already am.  I think I need to start some type of screening process for her friends and their parents before I let her go anywhere anymore, ha!

I Quit

I did it.  After months of debating with myself over what to do, I finally decided to just do it.  I quit my part time job and plan to focus more on my photography.

Ya, I know, most people say "Don't quit your day job until you have money coming in from it."  But that just wasn't working for me.  I think the fact that I had a job and knew I was making regular money (little that it was) was keeping me from focusing.  That combined with how great I am at procrastinating!

I also think the fact that I didn't like the job so much was working against me too.  To most people that would be an incentive to work harder to get out. To me it just caused me stress, coming home in a bad mood time after time, taking it out on my family, dreading having to go get up early and go in on days my whole family was home.......I focused too much on that and wasn't able to get other things done.

I'm nervous and scared about doing this and how things will go.  But I'm also looking forward to it, having the summer to spend with my kids and more time to do the things I want to do.

Hubby has been super about supporting my decision and encouraging me to take that leap.  I know I couldn't do this without his support!

Vacation.....all I ever wanted!

Jeez, why does is always take me so long to blog about things I do?  I've been back from vacation for two weeks already!  I'll try to make this as short and sweet as possible.  We didn't cram a whole lot into the vacation so it shouldn't be too hard.

• We left on Wednesday morning and drove down to TN which took us most of the day.  We got in around dinner time and the town we were staying in was so small we had to cross back over the border to Kentucky to find a place to eat!
• Thursday we didn't do all that much.  Just kind of hung around while waiting for other family to get in and then met up with them.  I met with the bride, groom and the other photographer to discuss our game plan.  Then we went over to the brides home/farm to meet her family.  Took a walk around the farm.

• Friday morning we took a walk around the little town our hotel was in and I found this cool truck to photograph.  We went to lunch with my aunt and uncle from Washington and then got lost trying to find the church where we were all meeting to set up the hall and then have the rehearsal.

• Saturday was the wedding!  Very nice, but a long day for me.  I even got hubby to dance with me!

                                 

 
• Sunday morning hubby and the girls left for home while my mom, aunt and I headed to Pigeon Forge.  My other aunt and uncle had rented a couple condos for us to stay for the week following the wedding.  That afternoon we drove to NC to do a little gambling.  We didn't stay as long as we planned because our money didn't last that long. Which was good because on the drive back through the Smoky Mountains we hit the lookout we wanted to stop at at just the right time as the sun was setting!

• Monday was the day mom got sick
• Tuesday we walked around a section of Pigeon Forge called the Old Mill Square that had a bunch of cool little shops and we ate at the Old Mill Restaurant for lunch.  Mom stayed back at the condo to rest.  Also went to the Beef Jerky Outlet.  One store, all beef jerky!

• Wednesday was Dollywood day.  My aunt and uncle really wanted to go so my other aunt and I went along.  My mom stayed at the condo again.  It was OK, but not really my thing because I'm not really a Dolly Parton or country music fan.  But my aunt and I made the best of it.  My uncle really enjoyed the shows they saw and had fun.  They have a cool habitat there where they rescue injured wild birds and eagles, then breed the eagles and release the new birds into the wild.  So we saw the bird show.

• Thursday we visited Gatlinburg.  We basically just roamed around the main drag and shopped.  Ate at the Hard Rock there and made sure we visited Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.  Run Forest Run!!

Then on Friday we headed home.  We spent most of the day in the car headed to WI.  My one aunt joined us and spent a couple days at our house before heading home to MA.  Nothing exciting once we got back here.  Just spent time together, went to a movie out to dinner and watched some good ole TV!

Mother's Day #15

Wow, I can't believe yesterday was my 15th Mother's Day as a mom!  And I love my kids more than I ever imagined.  Well...........most of the time ;) heehee

It was a nice Mother's Day weekend.  I was surprised to have the entire weekend off from work considering I had just been off for 2 and a half weeks for my trip. 

I started the weekend with a girls night out on Friday.  I met a couple friends to go see our man Rick Springfield!  As usual we had a blast.  And you know I can't mention a Rick show without sharing a least one photo!

When I got home from the show I found these on the kitchen table..

My kids snuck out with my mom while I was at the concert to get them for me for Mother's Day! 

Saturday we went to Dave and Busters for lunch to celebrate Tiger's 11th bday and we also treated hubby's mom.  Later on that evening after dinner my kids kept whispering to hubby when they thought I wasn't paying attention.  Turns out they had also gotten an Oreo Cake for me the night before and were trying to decide when it was time for cake!

Then yesterday they all made breakfast and we just spent the day at home.  They all did yard work while I slaved away on the computer finishing up the wedding photos.  Seriously, my hand is sore today and I swear it's from all the photo editing!

Here are a few of those...

You can click on any of the wedding photos to get to the gallery to see more.

Hope all you moms out there also had a wonderful Mother's Day!!

Vacation curse?

My vacation is just about over.  My aunt, who drove back home with us from TN leaves for home today.  She still lives in MA, in our home town.  I still have at least two days off of work (need to call and check on my schedule today) but it will pretty much be back to normal after she leaves.  I don't want it to end, I want to be on permanent vacation.

That is as long as everyone stays healthy!!  I'd like to know what's up with our family.  Seems like every time a bunch of us get together lately someone gets sick.  It's getting ridiculous!

This time it was my mom. We ended up spending the entire day last Monday (April 26th) in the emergency room.  She had been having some stomach issues for a couple weeks prior, thought it was just constipation or something and that it would go away.  Well she woke up at 5am that Monday in extreme pain and could barely do anything.  So around 10am we took her to the nearest clinic, who then told us she needed to get to the emergency room.

Turns out she had an abscess.  After hours of being in pain and a few choice words with the emergency room doctor they finally gave her pain meds around 6pm.  They then prescribed some antibiotics and we were able to leave around 10pm.  Long day!

But the good thing is the medication has helped.  She is feeling much better.  Saw her doctor yesterday and based on the blood work the infection is clearing up.  She still needs to go for a CT scan and a colonoscopy to make sure everything is gone.

But this is the fourth time now that someone has gotten sick when our family members get together for vacation.  We all joked about not getting together again because we didn't want to be the next one to get sick.

Other than that we had a nice time.  The wedding went well and I'm relieved it's over.  I have a ton of photos to edit so I need to get to work!  I will definitely share some of the wedding and some other adventures over the coming days.  Stay tuned.