Med Flight training

Monday was a long day for me and I was pretty tired.  Dinner was in the in the crock pot all day and I was ready to eat and hit the bed.  Roger had plans to go to the fire station and the kiddos were discussing going with him.  Once dinner mess was all clean, the tones went off to let the guys know about training... Med Flight training... suddenly I felt better and we all got ready to head to the fire station.  I had a bit of trouble adjusting to the lighting, but here are a few pictures of the copter:

Coming in...

C130's in the shot

Back of the copter with C130's

Propeller close up

Inside the copter

Sam in the night goggles

Riley in the night vision goggles

Down the end of the propeller

Time to lift-off

Destination Disney ~ the letter *I*

I
this one was a bit tougher than the rest have been so far... here is what I came up with:
Ice Cream... yep, that's all I could find... sad, huh?

2nd Annual Cardboard Boat Race - Girl Scout style!!

We headed to Lake DeGray for the Girl Scout's Second Annual Cardboard Boat Race... this year Riley was able to participate in it as well... lucky for him, one of the scouts dad stepped in to race with him!

Concentrating hard...

Riley in his boat

tying the balloons on HOT AIR

More concentration

a few of my favorite tweens...

Ry's boat

HOT AIR sinking fast

FIRST PLACE in the odd boats

even though they dumped before I ever got out of the water from pushing them off! 

Destination Disney: Matching Shirts

When we went to Disney the first time with a group of eight... this turned out to be an AWESOME idea!  I think anyone going - especially with a larger group - should match.  Yes it's cheesy, but it was so nice to be able to look up and SEE and KNOW where the rest of the group was.

Heidi frequently comments on our matching tshirts.  I am not sure where we got them... Mom ordered them from a company that sales wholesale & we got the red ones & the flag ones pretty cheap.  Here is our week in matching shirts...

Animal Kingdom:

MAGIC KINGDOM:

(yes- we were wearing Razorback shirts! WPS!!!)

And EPCOT: 

To check out other ideas on matching shirts, visit Heidi at Heidi's Ramblings, Reflections and Reviews!

Destination Disney: The Letter *H*

This week, we are going to check out our Letter H pictures!
Let's start with...HUGE Shark!

And Hula Hoops!

(Check out his feet!)

What about..

HERE we are! (we had two rooms at our resort - my finger is on my room, Sherrie is pointing to their room - yeah - we just met in the lobby each day!)

And, unfortunately, HOSPITAL - yes, ER trip because of staff in Sam's leg - it was an infected bite right at her sock line that rubbed until it was swollen and required an ER trip..

Then we have HOKEY-POKEY

We got caught up in Woody's Round-Up Parade - it was super cute - this picture doesn't show much of it, but I was going for the Hokey pokey H!

Oh, wait.. here's one - since I missed Bullseye on the B, here we have a Horse:

 We will end this one with HANGING in the pool...

Lupus update

Doctors.... when will they ever end?

I have been participating in a drug study since February, which requires monthly visits, my Rhuemetologist is bound and determined to get to the root of my lung/breathing issue and get things fixed!  

So, the past few weeks, I have been visiting Pulmanologist number 5!  She did an initial exam, ordered some more (of the same) tests, had follow up visit, with more test and I have a scheduled follow up visit for mid September.  In the process of all of this, I will end up at the cardiologist next week!  Pulmanologist has ruled out pulmonary embolism, most recent test (sorta) ruled out interstitial lung disease/lupus pneumonitis & wants to rule out pulmonary hypertension. The Cardiologist visit will rule out the hypertension - which will leave me with the Lupus Lung dx - which I have thought all along... how to treat it? That's the question...

The (original) first day of school -

according to the public school anyways!!

Since today was the first day of public school, we had our Annual *NOT* Back to School Donuts & playdate...

We meet at the local donut shop right after classes get started and munch on donuts with our homeschool friends until all (32 this year) kiddos are hyped up on sugar and then we let them burn that energy while we moms continue our chatting!  Last year, we were able to get the skating rink, this year - we headed to a local park!

We did do some school work before we went for donuts and we came home and did a little more...

Then we ended up at a GS friends house (they homeschool also) to swim for the afternoon... for more mom chat time...

If that wasn't enough, I wrapped the day up at US Pizza Company for a MNO!

Man, that was a tough first day of school - or 11th in our case!

Watermelon Crawl

The opportunity for volunteering at Scott Watermelons to help pick the *unmarketable* melons to feed the hungry came up for the Girl Scouts.  I didn't think I would physically be able to participate in it, but I put the word out to the group anyways.  I had one mom step up and offer to take a couple of girls.  Samantha and her daughter were the only two that ended up going and they said it was HARD WORK! but it was for a good cause.

Eco-Lab

Arkansas Department Environmental Quality came out to a local church and put on a presentation for our homeschool group.

They have several programs to share, but this specific one was WaterCycle and the life of a water molecule.  There was a little *in class* type discussion about the water cycle and then some directions about what we were going outside to do... I apologize, I didn't get any photos, I was *LAKE*!

There were 9 stations -glacier, lake, groundwater, cloud, ocean, animal, soil, human & stream - an adult at each one.  Kiddos were told to start at whichever station they wanted to start at and get a sticker (sticker was a photo of what the station was).  Then, they rolled a cube and it either told them to stay or sent them to another station.  If they stayed, they went to the back of the line and waited to roll again.  If they went to another station, they rolled  a cube there and did the same!  So, they were allowed 20 rolls and then we went back inside.

The instructor explained that they were each a water droplet and these 21 stickers were their life cycle.  VERY visual for those who are visual!!  I even learned something!

They brought their sticker pages home and I am going to have Samantha and Riley write up their story and will post it when they finish it.

Destination Disney: The Letter *G*

Joining Heidi for Destination Disney

We are going to start off our Letter G Week with Goofy:

Goofy: 

 And more Goofy:

Followed by Gorilla Room:

 And finally, Green Army Man: