Once in Galveston

Once we got to Galveston they cleaned her burns (first giving her a sedative) and determined that she would need surgery as there were 3-5 places with 3rd degree burns.  Needless to say, Thursday night resulted in almost no sleep for us.  One parent is allowed to stay in the room with their child - I think this must only apply to ICU of children.  When Mark was in the ICU visits were limited to 15 minutes.  This picture was taken Friday morning pre-surgery.  Thankfully they let her have her bear Fuzzy with her all the time (even going into surgery :)

Micaiah's First Day

Micaiah is a big girl now and going to daycare/school in momma's old room.  She was excited to be going out the door with a backpack just like her big sisters!

Snuggles!

It's been a big adjustment for mom and Micaiah to go from all day every day together to mom working full time.  We needed extra snuggle time today!

5K/Mile

Another 5K/1 mile run

Eliya, Gabie and I have all continued to run since the Run for God.  Although Gabie likes to sleep in!  So when I asked her if she wanted to do another mile run with Eliya while I ran another 5K she had 2 questions - Is it early in the morning? and Is it a Run for God?

The answers were yes and no and therefore she declined and spent the night at Stephanie and Travis' house.

Eliya got second in her age group for the run and I got 1st in mine!  We both improved our times by a couple of seconds - God is good!

1st Day of School!

 1st Day of Kindergarten!

 1st Day of 1st Grade!

 Our big 3rd grader!

Lunches packed and ready to go!

Pintrest

This is the only project I accomplished from a pintrest board this summer, but I think it will work great for school!

Bikes!

School time already?

It must be school time because my summer break officially ended today.  I thought about blogging yesterday and catching up on all our vacation pictures yesterday but instead I spent the day reading and playing with the girls, holding Micaiah through her nap and snuggling.  It was a great day!  Today I started teacher in-service and the girls will be headed to school on the 22nd.  I guess what they say is true, the older you get the faster time flies.  Here is the break-down for school this year:

Me (allison) - teaching 4th grade.  This will be my first year in 4th grade at a new school!  I'm excited and nervous, mostly excited.  The people I've met here are just amazing and wonderful and I feel very blessed by this new adventure.

Eliya - 3rd grade (in the room right next door to mom!).  She will begin Latin this year.  She is so excited that there are a lot of girls in her class. 

Gabie - 1st grade, very jealous that Elie gets to do more subjects then she does (no Latin).  Last night she had  swimming party to get to meet some of the other familys and kids in her class.  We were excited to find out we already know a few people! 

Rachel - starting Kindergarten this year!  Wow!  How is that possible???  She is a little nervous and mostly excited to start school.  She's really grown this summer and will hopefully continue to thrive in school.

Micaiah - gets to go to school with nana at Faith Lutheran.  She has become so verbal in the past couple months.  When her sister's were doing memory work the other night Rachel's verse was "God is love." Micaiah immediately started singing  "Jesus Loves Me".  So precious. 

That's all for school.  Mark continues to work at 1st Choice Hospice, which he enjoys.  I will slowly catch up on the vacation pictures over the next week.

Meeting New Friends

Some parents of the first grade classes at Alpha Omega organized a back-to-school pool party.  What a great idea!  For those of us that are new to the school it gave our kids a chance to meet some kids that would be in their classes - and Gabie realized that she knew a few of the kids that would be in her class! 

 Micaiah being her ever clutzy 2 year old self (aren't all 2 year olds like this?!)  This one was from practicing her olympic dives in the bathtub - *sigh*

Olympics!

Micaiah's favorite sport to watch in the Olympics is the diving - she would practice her dives anywhere!

Free Haircuts!

All 3 girls got free hair cuts at JCP at the same time - it was great!  We were in and out in 15 minutes.  What an awesome promo!

Library Fun

This summer the girls joined the summer reading program at the library.  It was a great way to keep track of all the reading we were doing anyway - and a great excuse to get some new books to read.  The end of the summer party was today and we were excited to go.  Unfortunately we were running late and while walking in Eliya got her toe cut by the door somehow (apparently she wasn't the first one this happened to) so we ended up making quite an entrance with her foot bleeding all over the place and being a little late, but the librarians were very helpful and we were able to enjoy the program.

The Long Drive Home

We love a nice Sonic playground to run around and stretch on the long drive home!  Thankfully other then the long part the drive was completely uneventful - we are so thankful for God's protection on the long drives we make.

Hair Cut

We knew we couldn't break up the trip home quite as well as the trip here due to work schedules we had to get back for, but we did at least break into 2 different days and drove as far as Iowa this afternoon. 

 

Mary taught me how to cut Mark's hair with a clippers - (I've even done it now once on my own and did pretty good!) Thanks for the lesson!

Quilt Auction/Family Day

We went back to camp Saturday morning to enjoy the beautiful weather and the quilt auction!

 Aunt Amy and Eliya

 Aunt Karen with all 4 girls

 Micaiah got bored I guess :)

 After the quilt auction we enjoyed family time back at grandma and grandpa's house

 Uncle Dan giving rides

 

 Grandma reading stories after bath.

 

 More stories with Aunt Karen

 

 

 Uncle Kyle teasing Rachel

 

Friday at G&G House!

Right after camp we drove to Grandma and Grandpa's House in Long Prairie.

 

Enjoying some surprises from Uncle Dan and Aunt Amy.

 I washed all of our camp clothes (several loads!) and with the beautiful, very windy day I used the clothes line to hang up the clothes to dry.

 We had to take down and put up several times and it had 4 long lines - that's a lot of laundry!

 Playing ball outside.

 We even enjoyed a family game of soccer and got a bit of a workout in!