awesome mistake :)

I'm on vacation! I'm on vacation!

When I picked Kaylin up from Latchkey tonight, I asked the head teacher (also the head lunch lady) about paying cash for the three lunches I owed for rather than putting $25 on Kaylin's online account. She wasn't busy so she took me over to her computer and said I could pay right then. She pulled up Kaylin's account, told me I owed (whatever) and asked if I wanted to go ahead and pay for tomorrow's lunch? Um, school's out at 9:45am tomorrow. No Susy, school's out at 9:45 on FRIDAY!!!

Seriously??? Yes, seriously. I don't know how I made this mistake, but I'm sure glad I did! Tomorrow is weed pulling project day at work. From 1-4pm, EVERYONE will be pulling weeds. Everyone but me, that is... I will be at home enjoying my first day of vacation WITHOUT KIDS!!!!!

end of school

It's Memorial Day weekend. Thursday will be Kaylin's last day of school. Logan is technically finished with preschool. Time is flying! I have two more days of work before my glorious twelve day vacation. Meanwhile, we're crazy with all the end of school year activities as well as pre-inspection preparation at work.

I must have been psychic when I signed up to have this time off work (back in January.) On top of the crazy inspection preparation, our beloved boss and best part-time keeper are both quitting at the end of the month :( Everyone is stressed to the max and I'll miss almost two weeks of it. For two more work days I'll paint and weed and clean like a maniac...

Gene and I spent our 15th wedding anniversary at Kaylin's school picnic. It was actually much better than it sounds, but not exactly the cruise or trip to Mexico my coworkers were fondly remembering for their 15th. Gene found out that the 15th is the "crystal anniversary" and thought it would be amusing to get me a crystal tiger. He found one online for $150 and wisely chose NOT to buy it. (My cheap butt would have kicked his!) He did find me a tiny "crystal" tiger (I think carved out of quartz?) for $3.50 at the fossil store at the strip mall of Kaylin's field trip. I love it!

Logan had an adorable preschool graduation ceremony on Wednesday night. He dressed up in a tie and got to wear a cap and gown and receive a diploma. The teachers spoke and the graduates performed a song. Stinking cute.

I had my final parent-teacher conference at Logan's preschool on Thursday. It lasted about two minutes and was completely positive. Phew! His teacher said he's ready for kindergarten. I assumed, but reassurance is always nice :)

yippee warm weather!

I had an interestingly boring week doing some things I've never done before. I took a shower with Pam. I mean the cooking spray, not a woman :) I found online that cooking spray will remove spray paint from your skin. My arms and legs were gray with spray paint and Pam and a lot of scrubbing with a nail brush did the trick! We moved the giant tortoise using a trailer. (He usually walks back and forth between his winter and summer homes but the new zoo construction made the walk a bit too dangerous this year.) He walked right onto the trailer and the entire move took about 25 minutes as opposed to the usual hour-and-a-half to many, many hours. He will be moving to the new area of the zoo where he will have a year-round enclosure so hopefully he'll only have one more move EVER. I can tell it's summer because I'm having difficulty determining whether all the blotches on my arms and legs are filth, paint, wounds or bruises. Hurray for shorts weather and hard work!

The kids are having a blast with the warm weather. Logan's been riding his training wheel free bike pretty much nonstop. Kaylin got a new bike on her PawPaw shopping spree adventure and has also been riding nonstop. Both kids got their karate green belts this week. They're stopping karate for the summer because they'll be taking swimming lessons. Plus, Logan's playing tee ball and Kaylin's got daycamp. The neighbor kids are over most of the time we're home. The other night I told the little girl that they'd have to go home at 7:30 because my kids needed showers. She informed me several times that HER MOM said they could stay until EIGHT. She seriously kept arguing with me that she could stay til 8 because her mom said so. I finally played the "My house, my rules" card and sent her home at 7:15. Brat!

If you have a car-lovin' little boy, take him to see Speed Racer! It was a little long, but full of action and lots of bright colors. Needless to say, Logan loved it. I loved it too!

I had a fabulous Mother's Day weekend. Work has been insane, with tons of painting, weed pulling and other extra projects on top of my already busy days. We have a huge inspection coming up and everyone's working crazy-hard to get ready. By my weekend I'm exhausted and in desperate need of relaxation. Sunday we decided to go see Speed Racer. We arrived at the movie theater to find a packed parking lot and a line out the door. Um, no. We quickly decided to put off the movie until Monday afternoon and went to Cheddar's for a double Cookie Monster instead. It was the first time we took the kids for a Cookie Monster and they were VERY impressed. We then went to WalMart and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening relaxing at home.

Monday, Logan had an early doctor appointment and then his kindergarten shots at the health department. The doctor appointment was to recheck his ears following his string of ear infections over the winter. We got right in, the doctor saw us immediately and his ears were fine! No tubes :) Logan and I then killed the time before his vaccines at Barnes and Noble. He had to have four shots and was determined to NOT CRY. The kid didn't even whine. I was quite proud! As a reward I let him choose where we'd eat lunch. He chose Chili's so he could get (eyes rolling out of my head) Kraft macaroni and cheese. Oh well, it was really fun. Logan used his crayons to draw butts all over his menu. (Is it wrong that I laughed and encouraged him to draw piles of green poop along with his butts? Yeah, I obviously don't care if it is...)

After acting so big all morning and eating at an "adult" restaurant for lunch, Logan was feeling mighty old. When we got home he insisted I take the training wheels off his bike (tra-la-la-la, finally!!!!!!!) He even let me teach him to ride in the driveway. He spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the neighbor kids. We picked up Kaylin at school and met Gene at the movie theater for the 4:30 showing of Speed Racer. Instead of suffering in a sold out theater, we were with ONE other family. Definitely worth the wait! We ended the day with dinner at Culver's. A Mary Poppins practically perfect in every way weekend!

I'll need that weekend to get me through my 6 day workweek! I agreed to work this coming Sunday because they only had three keepers. Today I had a project day and went through seven cans of spray paint and one can of latex paint in the tiger house. I also filled a garbage barrel with weeds, weighed the giant tortoise (478#), cleaned and perched an unused barn for a new quarantine bird and deep cleaned a toad tank. I CANNOT WAIT until this inspection is over!

Kaylin had her strip mall field trip today. She brought home some fossil shark teeth and polished rocks from the fossil shop and a plastic piggy bank from the bank. The quilt shop was boring, but she wants to take Grandma there because they have scrapbooking stuff. Lunch at the pizza place was good, as was the karate demonstration. I still think it was a STUPID field trip but she had a good time. Oh, she was disappointed that her group ran out of time and didn't get to go to the dry cleaners, LOL.

lame-o field trip

The school board is considering a proposal (tonight) to shorten the school day by 45 minutes starting next school year. (How many times can I use "school" in one sentence?) The cut would also eliminate two "extra" teachers from each primary school which currently includes PE, Science, Computers and Music. Parents are in an uproar and the PTO officers are fighting amongst themselves via mass emails. I have received 8 or 9 mass emails TODAY and probably more than twenty over the weekend. I had planned to attend the board meeting but changed my mind. These crazies are gonna yap on and on and on and make the meeting last 5 hours. I have better things to do with my valuable time off! (And these are just the crazies from Kaylin's school- there are many other primary schools in the district with equally annoyed parents...)

Obviously cuts need to be made. Hopefully, they can find a different, better way! One cut they could make (that probably wouldn't save significant money) would be field trips. Kaylin currently gets one field trip per year. She came home the other night and excitedly told me about her upcoming field trip that included several museums and lunch at a pizza place!!!! She then begged me to immediately sign her permission slip and get the $3.50 she needed for the pizza.

I read the permission slip and it turns out they're going to the STRIP MALL that's about a half mile from our house! SERIOUSLY???? They're going to a store that sells fossils, a quilt store, touring a Vietnamese restaurant, checking out a karate academy and then eating a buffet lunch at a pizza place. Oh wait, they're also going to a bank!!!! Huh. HOW is this educational or even interesting???? How are they going to get 75-80 kids inside the tiny fossil shop? Five at a time? I wonder why they're skipping Big Lots, the hardware store and the tire place? And the bar and the Republican headquarters?

What a stupid, stupid field trip! I suppose the fossil place could be mildly educational, though probably boring for most 2nd graders. The other places are just drool-inducing! Why not have them bring their own lunch and take them to a park for a few hours? It would be just as free and about a thousand times more fun!

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Ugh. The neighbor kids keep coming over and ringing my doorbell even though they know my kids are at school. Do their parents not watch them AT ALL???

Susy's first 5k race

I haven't posted this week because I've been sooooo nervous about running my first 5K race today. I would never have signed up for a race yet, but one of my coworkers was coordinating Run to Remember, a 5K race in honor of her brother-in-law, a police officer killed in the line of duty. (It was also in honor of all other area police officers killed and benefited a survivor's charity.) Anyway, I decided to give it a shot.

I couldn't get the day off of work, but I did get permission to go in late. My boss was also running and was very excited about my first race. (I think this was her third race in three weeks- she's into running.) Anyway, I was nervous about running outside, nervous about the hills, nervous about maybe needing to walk, nervous about finishing dead last. You get the picture...

This morning was incredibly windy, cool and spitting rain. The weather made me even more nervous. I decided my goals were to not walk and to finish in less than 40 minutes. I started at the back of the pack and stayed there. I paced myself well and had no problems until the very end of the race when I had to run uphill for the final quarter mile or so. Boss Lady was cheering me at the finish line (I don't know how fast she finished, but she generally wins her age group.) We talked a couple minutes, talked to our coworker a couple minutes and I left for work. The Boss has Saturdays off so she got to stay.

I was feeling really good. I didn't walk, I wasn't tired and I finished in 31 minutes. I couldn't have hoped to run faster than ten minute miles! I was very happy with the whole experience and very glad I went ahead and ran the race. I'm now completely confident I'll be able to do Zoo Run Run in September. The course is probably easier!

Later in the morning I was cleaning the camel yard when I got a radio call asking my location. A few minutes later, Boss Lady showed up and asked how I was feeling? I replied "great" and she said she was going to make me feel even better. She whipped a medal out of her pocket and told me I won my age group! Ummmm, was I the ONLY 35-39 female? No, all three medals were claimed. Wow. I KNOW my finish time was only impressive to me. Still, I'll take winning my age group in my first race ever! Probably the only time it will EVER happen, LOL!