Keeping busy

We have been MIA for the past 2 weeks or so. Sorry about that. 

We had a quiet Valentines at home. Kyle's homemade bruschetta, escargot and stuffed mushrooms.

No restaurant can compare.

Actually, I need to confess. At the end of this post, I have posted a picture of my calendar. 

I am super OCD about my calendar. I check it multiple times a day and have a hand written calendar, as you will see in the post, as well as one on my phone so Kyle can easily see what is happening on any particular day. When the kids get their school calendars, I put all the dates into both calendars. I hate being late to anything and try to squeeze everything into each day. 

Now that you know one of my OCD things, you may be surprised to hear I received Mother of the Year award on Valentines day. Don't crack open the wine yet. 

I worked the Thursday night before Valentines. I got home Friday morning, got the girls ready for school and dropped them off. Bryson is off on Fridays. 

Bryson and I got back home and I decided to take a little nap, make lunch and visit Kaiden at school during her Valentines party. I had my alarm set for 11:30. I was just waking up and was headed for the shower when my phone rang at about 11:50. It was Kaiden's school. 

Me: Hello?

School: Hi Mrs. Wood. Are you going to pick Kaiden up today?

Me: What?

School: The kids had a half day today. They got out at 11:30

Me: WHAT!? Your kidding me, right?

School: No. She is waiting in the office. 

I swear, I checked the emails, calendars, everything. I have no idea when they decided to add in this half day. I have no record of this…anywhere. It's one of my biggest fears…leaving my child someplace. My poor Snowball. Luckily, she was not the only child who was not picked up. There were others, but still. So after I had my heart attack, what was a mother to do? I took my kids out to lunch..at Culvers.

Then we had a nice relaxing evening at home.

The kids sat and went thru all their Valentines. Bryson thought it was the coolest thing.

Friends giving each other candy and cards.  He read thru each one and even saved a few of his favorite.

The nice thing about Valentines this year was that it fell on a Friday. 

Not only was I off work but Friday's are our only day without activities for the kids

Snowball and Bryson have started Spring softball and baseball.  

Sophie's art club has also started up again

Snowball is excited that Kyle is one of the coaches this year. It's new new group of girls and most of them have never played before. 

Games started this week and we are looking forward to watching these girls learn and grow as softball players. 

Bryson is also excited about his team. He has moved up to Coach pitch and is on his friends team. 

We are looking forward to his opening game this weekend.

Sophie is busy with school. Her grade continue to improve and we are no longer doubting our choice in moving her into this school. 

She is looking forward to joining dance again in the fall and is thinking about joining the all-star dance group thru her studio.

One last big thing we have going on is that I was just accepted into the Master's program for Family Nurse Practitioner at Grand Canyon University. 

It's been a long process that started back in December. There were applications, interviews, sample research papers and lots of waiting but I finally received the news this past Thursday.

It's been fun and games talking about going back to school but now that I'm in, the nerves have set in. 

I should be starting in March. 

Now, I'm sure you are wondering what happened to ASU. 

I was at ASU working on my bachelors of nursing. Once I got my job at Scottsdale, I found they offer tuition reimbursement…after 1 year of employment. 

I put my schooling on hold so I could get my 1 year of hospital experience under my belt and have the hospital pay for my school. During this time of waiting and working, I realized that it's silly for me to get another bachelors degree and then work towards a Doctorate when Nurse Practitioners are only required to have a Masters. It would be a lot of time and money. Instead, I found a program at Grand Canyon. If you have a Bachelors in something and your RN, you can bridge into a Masters program. I will need to take about 5 Bachelors classes and then I will transition into the Masters program without skipping a beat. The whole program will take about 3 years to complete but be almost half the price if I would have stayed at ASU. I have so much support and resources thru work and at home that I can't pass this opportunity up. Might as well do it while I can. 

I thought you might enjoy a peak at what my calendar looks like. 

This is March

As you can see, there's only 1 day with nothing scheduled. Don't worry, I'm sure something will be scheduled before that day actually arrives. Oh wait, it's a Wednesday. Girl scout day. See? No day makes it by without being booked with something. 

That's okay. I enjoy staying busy and getting the kids to and from sports and activities. They grow up too fast and before I know it, my calendar will be empty and their calendars will look like this.  This right here is the good life!