1st day of 1st grade

Here is Jackson today heading out the door for the 1st day of 1st grade.

Now, for comparative purposes, below is the picture I took of him heading out the door for the first day of kindergarten last year.

Take a look at the door behind him and check out how much taller he is. My goodness, it's like he never eats anything but it almost looks like he's grown 5 inches!

He gave very conflicting reports about his first day of first grade today, one minute raving about how wonderful it was, the next minute he complained about it. By the time he went to bed tonight, he was looking forward to going back and said he couldn't wait because "first grade is awesome". At one point this evening, he was whining about school and said: "I'm too little for first grade....(drastic change of voice tone).....well....actually.....I'm the second tallest kid in class." There's classic Jackson for ya.

whew!

It's been awhile...again. And last time I put something on here, it wasn't even a real post, but instead a photo display. I guess that means that I have some catching up to do. Only I really don't feel like spending much time documenting what we have been doing over the last 3-4 weeks. Instead I have the urge to comment about other stuff.

Before I do that, though, I do want to post a picture I took at Colts camp a week ago. You know, it is just a weird but cool feeling to be like ten feet away from a group of people including Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Adam Vinatieri, and Tony Dungy. So close that you can actually heat just the normal football conversation between them. But that is what it was like at camp, where we were seated on the ground right along the sideline of their practice field at Rose Hulman. Here is a picture of what I am talking about. Oh, and I just have to put on here the picture of Coach Dungy looking at me like he is about to come over a kick my butt!

OK, here is mostly what I had the urge to post about. Does anyone else out there with FT jobs and small children feel like it is a real challenge to make time for nurturing your relationship with your spouse? Kim and I are doing a horrible job of this. We, us, our relationship and marriage are always on the back burner - and we are very aware that this is simply not good at all. I mean, we are doing OK and all. I don't want people ready this and thinking that were are in trouble or anything, because that is not the case. But my goodness, we have grown accustomed to this being the norm and we don't like it. We try to make time after the boys are in bed...but with daylight savings and all by the time they are finally down for the count we are absolutely wiped out and just want to veg out or sleep...usually sleep...or just not be bothered by another human being, no matter who it is. We have planned out what we want out morning routine to look like this school year and we are going to set aside 20 minutes between 6:20 - 6:40am to sit and have coffee/breakfast together. Maybe that is a start. We also are looking to hire some trustworthy teenage girl that he can utilize as a somewhat regular sitter, so that we can actually go out on a date. It is a sad fact that I have to sit here and think real hard about when the last time the two of us went out to eat just the two of us.....we did not even do this for our anniversary....our 10 year anniversary and that was more than three months ago....I'm still thinking......I honestly do not know when it was or where we went... So that is pathetic and I am embarrassed about it. We might start doing some "babysit swapping" with our friends the Hubers, where one weekend we watch their kids and the next weekend they watch ours, giving us the chance for both couple to have some non-kid, husband and wife time. I am all for this idea. Does anyone else out there have any great suggestions for what has worked for them? I am all ears.

Well, I better go...Carson is yanking on my shirt sleeve hollering "bite, bite, bite!" Apparently he is interested in some sort of snack.

vacation photos

PreVacation

We are going on vacation next week. It took us forever to make a decision where we were going to go and what we were going to do. This is something that takes some careful analysis when you are going on vacation with kids aged 6 and 2. You know, the trip to Vegas will have to wait. DC? They are too young to appreciate….Disneyworld?…not yet! So we decided to keep it simple and just head up north of Chicago so we could go to the Lake Michigan Beach and hit Six Flags Great America. We also are planning to make a stop downtown to see the Shed Aquarium and maybe Navy Pier. We are also taking advantage of the opportunity being “up north” to see our friends the Hochstetlers up in Nappanee. We have not gotten our families together for 3 years this summer! We will visit with them and then head to Chicago.

So we are ready. Not so much physically ready, but mentally ready. I still feel like we have a lot to do to ready ourselves for the trip. We are heading to Wal-Mart tonight with our list.

Before we go…some thoughts.

Jackson got stung by at least one wasp a couple of night ago and his left hand swoll up like an inflated oven mitt. At first we were worried that he might be having an allergic reaction, but the swelling stayed localized.

You know, I absolutely hate dealing with doctors and insurance. It is easily one of my least favorite things to do or even think about. I did this reasearch and discovered this fact: Three of five (62%) of all adults with medical bills or debt problems said they or their family member were insured at the time the debt was incurred. Our lousy insurance, Humana, refuses to pay any money whatsoever for “diagnostic tests”. Doesn’t matter if your doctor (within the network, mind you) declares the tests medically necessary. Humana just says, “we ain’t paying nothing”….because it is “diagnostic”. I am sorry but that is totally asinine and there is no way that insurance companies should be permitted to get away with crap like that. THE DOCTOR DECLARES THAT IT IS MEDICALLY NECESSARY AND EVERYONE INVOLVED IS “IN THE NETWORK”. Doesn’t matter….insurance companies can do what they want and they do. We also will have to switch Kim’s allergy doctor because the doctor refuses to fill out a simple form so that they will join the Humana network. All they have to do is complete some simple paperwork but they are too lazy and now Kim has to find a new allergy doctor even though they have treated her for 10 years. I emphasized how unfortunate that this is to the doctor’s office but they couldn’t care less.

I like how our president can just overrule the legal system and allow convicted criminals who are buddies of his and Dick (Mr. Excitement) Chaney to just skip their prison time and go home without serving a single day in the joint. Yeah, that’s great.

Colts training camp starts in 17 days.

My next digital camera will probably be this one.

I heard on the radio today that you should not buy gas when it is real hot outside because the gas expands when it is hot, so you actually do not get as much for your money as you do when it is more mild.

One more thing...Carse has not demonstrated his ability to take a leak in the potty chair since his one successful event 5 days ago.

TINKLE

Guess who pottied in the potty chair for the first time ever last night after bath? I guess that is a dumb thing to say given the picture above...It might be awhile before he does it again, as so far today he has shown no interest in it whatsoever and proclaims "NO!" every time we ask him if he wants to sit on it. But we just want to celebrate the small victories since it seems we see very few victories at all!

4 Sport Weekend 2007