Preparing for another year of Grammar School

Okay we went shopping over the weekend for school supplies. Which with our little Madison means, it took ALL weekend. She takes her time to pick out everything that is on her little list. Carl and I take the kids to the store and tell them what is on their lists and then they can pick out, within reason what they want for those particular items. This is something that we thought would be fun for them, but Madison took her sweet ole time. It took forever for her to pick out her backpack alone. And to my suprise it was NOT High School Musical and they had them there too! I am still in shock :) She wanted a messenger bag and we had to tell her no one because she is in 1st grade not 5th and second of all she is maybe 2 foot tall and that is giving her some. She is the littlest thing and she always wants the largest things. She is growing up so fast and I feel sorry for the man who wants to marry her, bigger is better! Dylan picked out his bag rather quickly. Guess what it is? If you know Dylan, you got it...Optimus Prime. He also needed new shoes, which are also Optimus Prime. He wears those shoes all day and we have to take them off of him when we go to bed because he wants to sleep in them. He is funny. And we did not want to leave our little guy out so he got a new plastic wagon to haul his stuff around in and he got a little radio flyer tricycle. He is catching on very quick. The trick is trying to keep the older two off of his bike.

But they are all ready and we are too. When we were younger our parents always celebrated the first day of school and we didn't get it until NOW :)

Kids

Madison is getting ready to lose yet another one of her little teef, as she calls them. We are going tonight to pick up their school supplies for the 1st grade. I cannot believe that they are as old as they are. I mean it get the whole concept but I cannot figure out where all the time has gone. It seems like a year ago they were in diapers and learning their ABCs but now they are in the 1st grade and 11 more to go. We are saving for their college funds now and it is so real!

Zachary is talking more and more every day. His new thing is "love ewww". It is so precious. But nothing beats the time while in the van Dylan informed us that the sun was on fire. Carl said yeah actually it is and a little voice crys out, "OH NO". It was so very funny! We are working on the potty training since he enjoys taking the pull ups off. He knows what he needs to do BUT

he don't wanna. This is also a new thing he has learned to say, NO if he doesn't want to do something. Are you ready for night night? "NO" Do you want ___? "No" and he quickly runs off. And he runs like my Uncle Tommy with the torso of his body straight. Funny to watch (funnier to watch Tommy)!

Rollin'...Rollin'...Rollin' down the River

Okay Carl and I went tubing down the Salt River in Mesa over the weekend. It was a lot of fun. There were a few parts that I could live without, like for example, Carl and I turned a corner on the river and we happend to look over and saw this guy standing in two tubes... Well under the second tube we saw a pair of hands...and there were some movements that I rather not speak of. Now there is a time and a place for everything and that was neither the time nor the place for that activity.

We were on the river for about 4 to 5 hours in these tubes. Now there is a reason why people like myself should NOT be in the sun for extended periods of time. By the time we got home I was a nice shade of pink. It is 3 days later and I am still feeling the sting. I hope that this burn turns at least a little golden but I doubt it.

But in order to get back to our van you have to load onto the camp style buses and a driver takes you back to the parking lot. Well we were fortunate enough to get on a bus with the two dirty birdies from the river. I recognized them but they did not know that we witnessed their actions on the river. Well, we were informed that they had met only a short time earlier on the river. So not only is she a flusy but nasty too.

We were shocked at the fact not only would they be doing that so shortly after meeting but to do that on the river with people going by, disgusting. I think they should have been ticketed, but that is just me.

The monsoons have been too frequent for us to take the kiddies to the pool but hopefully we will get the chance this weekend. This weekend is also my nephew, Lance's 17th birthday party. He wants to go to the Rocky Mountain Horror Picture Show. We will see!

Well it is almost quittin time here home on the range. I am hoping to find the cord to the digital camera and add those pictures as promised.

It is a HEAT WAVE !

Okay for most of our friends and family back in Ohio, you have no idea what heat is! It has been 110+ almost everyday of summer so far, except brief moments of a monsoon that cools it down just long enough to make it hotter. So we have been trying to avoid the heat by staying cool in the pool. Maddie is now swimming with little help which is awesome. Dylan is a brave little toaster with his life jacket on. And little Zachary, well, he has no concept that the water is dangerous. He likes to jump in (we are so glad that the pool is a little ways away and that there is a fence around it to buy time to get him before he goes splash. Which brings me to another issue. I cannot believe the number of children that are dying here due to drownings. There is a drowning every day here in Phoenix or the area. I cannot believe it. And the ones that are very troubling are the ones where there are people out "watching" the children. Recently (last month) there were two in one day a six year old and a three year old. Both of the children died when there were people standing all around. And the six year olds mother was in the pool with him at one point. The other child drown during a party, adults all around. HORRIBLE. I hate watching the news and seeing the little ones whom lost their lives the day before, even the "lucky" ones that survive, are they really lucky?

That is why our children are not allowed around water without their life jackets on and an adult with them, primarily, Carl or myself. Even then if only one of us is at the pool than Zachary is not allowed to go because we do not want to half to leave him unattended if a situation would occur. But the kids are learning to swim and they love to spend time in the water.

But remember always watch children around water, not only yours but any child you see unattended around water. You may save their life. Unattended children around water? It happens everyday here, you would be suprised to see how unattended some of the kids in our apartment complex are.

Fourth of July Celebration

Well today we celebrate the countries Independence from England. As many of you know, we are from Ohio but now we live in Arizona, so we are unable to attend any family functions. Thus we left to our own creative thoughts and plans, which don't always go the way we intend for them to.

Today since we really have no family here we decided that we would spend the day at the zoo. Okay sounds good right? Uhhhh no !! It happens to be 110+ degrees outside and feels every degree of it. We went this morning at 11 am and by 2:30 pm we were all very pooped! My face is a tomato and I think that I am gonna die. The kids have recovered well. They had a blast going through the zoo looking at the animals and then there is a little water park, well fountains that squirt from the ground that they played in. It was welcomed after the morning of the scorching Arizona sun. Apparently, the Arizona sun is hotter than the sun everywhere else? And for all of you back east that says, but it is a dry heat, are on CRACK! Hot is HOT no matter what! Yes, the humidity is relatively low, but since it is monsoon season here it has been up.

We got to see a little bit of what they call Monsoon out here last night. The sky is filled with a beautiful light show, followed with a brief shower, followed with more humidity and hotter temperatures. Fun stuff, sign me up!

But we are going to go see the fireworks tonight in Mesa. The kids are looking forward to it.

We are the Lewis'

Well I guess I need to tell people who we are.

Dylan Joseph is our oldest son. He is seven years-old and is in the 1st grade. He has severe ADHD and bipolar but is the sweetest, caring child I have ever seen. He loves Transformers, what 7-year-old boy doesn't right? He likes to play and is very active. He is going to play soccer for the first time in September. And when he grows up he wants to be an ARMY man like his daddy. He doesn't get that there are different branches of the military and to him it doesn't matter because they are all "ARMY MEN".

Maddie, short for Madison, on the other hand is well a PRINCESS. She is the only girl in a house primarily male. She LOVES Troy from the High School Musical series and is an awesome soccer player. She is also in the 1st grade and is very intelligent. She just recently told us that she wants to be a researcher when she grows up so we are very excited about that. And she loves school, which is a good thing since she will be in it for a long time to become a researcher. Look at her hair, everybody loves the locks. If you ask her where she got them, most of the time she will respond with, "my nana gave them to me!"

And then there is Zachary. He is the baby and knows it. He is full of life and loves to laugh. His favorite thing to do now is play with anything with wheels. He likes to lay in the dogs bed and watch TV. He is just now starting to really vocalize himself and it is really fun to watch him grow into a fun, free-spirited little guy. His favorite thing to eat is definitely COOKIES and he doesn't care which kind.

Well those are our kiddaroos. They keep us pretty busy. Carl is 31 and works at Aspen Dental in Glendale. He is up for a Regional Position so hopefully that works out. He is a die-hard Buckeye Fan and will literally die if he misses one second of any game. He even gets the kids to root for them, for practice he says. He is training them up to attend OSU for college and of course to be Ohio State Buckeye Fans.

I work at Arizona State University in the Undergraduate Research Programs. I love it here the researchers are all pretty cool and we all give each other crap about our home teams. I love you Sean and Melissa ;0 even though your teams stink! I like swimming and soccer although it has been a long while since I have done either of them. I love to scrapbook and to shop. I need to go to Shoppers Annonymous after I leave the store tonight! Just kidding. I also attend school here at ASU in the Criminology program. Just a little while left until I graduate in the Spring :)

Well that is a little about us and what we are like. We are your average american, BUCKEYE lovin family that lives in the desert :) But we are happy and that is all that matters!

Teeth are expendable!

Maddie lost her first tooth. This was blog worthy for two reasons 1) well it is a milestone 2) Dylan tried very hard to help her get it out! Team work finally broke the tooth free from Maddie's mouth. Then she was very ready for bed; she was ready for the tooth fairy! Pictures to come as soon as I find the camera cord to download them to the computer.

Life, Love, and the pursuit of it all....

Life is anything but easy, but for some it is more than a challenge, its life or death. My life in particular was rough, I am not going to lie, there were more downs than there were ups. My mother was addicted to one drug after another and we moved often. It was not until I was in junior high school that things started getting better. I began going to church (after all it was the people in the church that kept me going up to this juncture) in Reynoldburg. I went alone and spent all the time there that I could. I attended camp, Acteens (even sat on the state's Acteen Panel for 3 years), volunteered at the Stowe Center and more. Things were good. But there were things that were missing in my life that I felt that I could not live without, love.

I would go to the services and see all the other youth my age and I was very envious of them. I was friends with them and some of us were close for a long time, but I could not see that I was on a crash course with life and that very soon, I would be left ALONE and trying to figure life out for myself. A few of the families tried including me in some of their activities and I remember that it was nice to be included. The Oates' and The Clouds were always nice to me. As were several people that did not have youth my age.

When I was growing up there was this boy, named Jason. Jason's parents (also addicted to drugs and alcohol) knew my mother and we were unseperable from the time I was 8 until maybe 12ish until we moved to Reynoldsburg. He was "my boyfriend". I was sure that he was the one that was to be my soul mate the one that God had intended for me; afterall, he knew me best. I went to Oklahoma for the wedding of his twin brother and it was there that he told me all the things that I needed to hear. That his life was not the same without me. Needless to say, I came home pregnant.

I was afraid. I did not know what to do. I had been accepted to Bowling Green State University and had every intentions of going, but even I knew that I would not be going. I told some people about my delimma and of course everybody, including Christians like a good juicy story, and all of a sudden everybody knew. I found out I was pregnant a month before graduating high school. Pamela Barlow was a person that up until that point had acted like a mother to me. We spent Saturday afternoons together. I even chose to have graduation dinner with her instead of my totally jacked family. It was there that the relationship that we DID have changed. During dinner she told me of this nice family in the church that wanted to have a baby and she thought that it was a good idea to give the baby to them. I think I was hurt, because she thought that I was incapable of taking care of a child. Needless to say I said no. After that she had very little to do with me. That hurt more than words in this blog could say. There were some people in the church that I felt were supportive. The Rausch's have always been supportive of me even though I am human and made some bad choices. Pam Oates and Carolyn Primm has too. Ginny Bennett is great. And there are others. The Clouds had me over one more time after I got pregnant, I think they thought that their daughter may catch what I had and I don't remember going over any more after that.

I graduated high school. Lost all of my friend's including the ones from church. And here I was with a baby. After I delivered this little baby boy, Pastor John came to see me and it wasn't to ask me to give my baby away, just to check to see how I was doing. Thanks. Pam Oates did too. And much to my suprise so did Pamela Barlow. It was one of the last visits I would have with her. But after that I went home with my baby and was alone. I chose not to tell Jason of his child because since getting pregnant he was into drugs and did not want the baby so I thought it was best to exclude him. I tried going to church after Dylan was born. I couldn't take the stares and the whispers behind my back. Little did I know that the woman I sat beside and thought loved me, was probably the worst one. I know that having premarital sex was wrong. And so I did ask for God's forgiveness and I went before the church and asked for forgivness, but I truely believe true forgiviness didn't happen.

I did eventually tell Jason about the baby. I felt guilty not only for making him miss out on the birth of his first child but for denying my child his father. I thought that I could change him and that he loved me enough to change, but I was wrong. I found that out a second child too late. Madison was born and I realized that he was not changing and that instead of working he was skipping work and frequenting the local bars. I threw him out after I came home one night and found that the door to my third floor apartment open and my seven month old child was crawling freely on the floor. Now if that makes me a bad person so be it, but he didn't care about the welfare of his child so he had to go.

So now I lost the man I thought was right for me, the father of my children and I had NO real friends. Man wasn't I everything but depressed. NOT. The the worst was not over. My grandfather died of cancer. Paster John was the only one, again that was supportive of me through his death. I was crushed. Then my grandmother died. The fun times just kept on rolling. But unknown to me, there was a light at the end of my tunnel. I attended services very speradically and one service we were told that Christy Lewis was not doing well and that she may pass away (ok not super woman). So I took my little girl and went to visit. We chatted and spoke of her children and I asked about Carl. I gave Christy my number and left. Needless to say Carl called and we have been together ever since.

We have a child together, Zachary. While visiting home on leave from the military, we heard that there was a rumor circulating that the baby was not Carl's. You know, this hurt too because 1) I was not promiscuous by any means. 2) why would somebody say such a thing about me and not know that for a fact. I asked several people that I trust and they say that they did not hear the rumor but the person who told me about the rumor is a reliable source.

We currently do not go to church anywhere. I think that SOME of the people in the church are impostors! They only pretend to have compassion and love for all people. At least that is what they preach. There are some very nice non-impostor families that attend church there but the few ruin it for the rest. I have not lost faith in God, just the people who go to church there.

I am hurt. I made a mistake. I am sorry for some of the decisions that I have made in my life, but I am not sorry that I kept my child. I am a good mother, ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you it is true. I work hard to support them. I try to instill in them the values that I didn't get growing up. I want them to know that they need to wait until they get married to have sex.

I remember a sermon the Pastor Steve gave about unconditional love and that there are no exceptions. Funny how that turns out huh! The youth that I envied so much still attend church there and are accepted and loved and I am where I started, outside looking in!