Busy Day Yesterday!

So we dropped Ashlyn off at school, and headed to the beach! Picked up my cousin and her baby and went to Newport. The water was warm and the air was humid. But perfect beach weather. We played from 10am to 12:45pm and then off to golf practice and picking up Ashlyn.

After that we came home cleaned up and then off to the Norco Valley Fair. I got good pictures but the time spent there wasn't all that great! I spent $80 and nothing to go home with, other than buttons and a parking pass! We didn't even eat there. So frustrating! It was very disorganized and sometimes I think we live in the ghetto, lol! I love moms who smoke while holdin their brand new babies,or the grandmas smoking and drinking around their 12 grand kids! Whatever!

The boys are heading off to camping tonight, so the girls and I will be back to the fair all weekend! We are up for a fun weekends.

Bad blogger

So there are lots of reasons I haven't blogged since July 12th! One of the reasons is I hated my template and was too busy to fix it. But the main reason was because we were just so busy with Summer!

We went to the Orange County Fair...a new tradition that was started years ago when I only had 2 kids. I love the OC Fair. Food, animals, rides. James and Shane braved the ZIPPER this year, and I almost cried through their ride. They looked scared as all heck. I felt terrible but the were proud of their accomplishment. Ashlyn also tried some of the bigger rides too! We saw her friend Emily there and they rode a few rides together. James came home from the fair and was convinced he was going to be a juggling unicyclist! I just said what ever makes you happy! LOL!

We got Ashlyn hearing aids finally. That was a struggle because we had to pay out of pocket for them and lets just say hearing aids are not cheap!

I went to Utah with my girls for 5 days so we could attend the SOTO's syndrome association conference. It was awesome. I drive their in 10 hours, one day, and we stayed at a friends 'second' house there (a house that was better than mine!). The house was great, I loved being able to stay in a house with no chaos that a hotel can bring! I have a friend in Utah that I meet years ago when Ashlyn was first dx with Sotos. And we have stayed in contact thru the years. She was the one putting on the conference. Conference was great, we meet new friends and learned lots. Especially how to deal with some behavior issues...like having a 'hug list' for the child whois overly loving and cannot read social cues!!! We also went to the Temple, you cannot go to SLC and not visit the Temple. I learned a lot. I love religious history and was so glad my girlfriend who is LDS was able to explain and give me lots of history. It is beautiful and serene there. She took us up to the Garden Restaurant (on the same block of the Temple) for dinner and it was awesome. It is on the 10th floor and it was an open roof so you just see the sky and get a breeze . Awesome! Utah was beautiful. It really made me not want to live in CA anymore (I have had that burning desire to get out of SO. Cal for a while now) . The drive home was good, and guess what you drive thru Arizona! (I won a HUGE bet with hubby about this one...ask me in person what was the bet!!) That is what the ROCK picture is of! The drive home was good, but seemed longer than the ride there!

After that August has been busy with Retreats and appointments and just hanging out at home!! Ashlyn and Shane also started soccer, which has kept me busy most nights! James has golf and katie is just a mamas girl! My MOMS Club is Also new things have come full circle in this house. Things are changing and God has the ONLY hand over this! I walk for Him and I let him lead. And right now that is what he is doing. James and Shane will be entering Private School in one week, can you believe it? I love homeschooling, and I would do it forever! But things just fell into place and they will be attending for 2nd and fourth grade! We also have new adventures that we (Marshall and I) are pursuing at this current moment! Stay tuned!!

I will post first days of school pictures later...as well hearing aid pictures.

Don't Tear Me Down - Widget

Fourth of July

We had our annual 4th of July BBQ here at the Hirt house. A few friends with kids and food, what could be better? We didn't go anywhere for fireworks, because once everyone left Marshall was just to tired to be any fun anywhere else but home, lol! So we watched the local fireworks on my balcony and we could see them well, I just missed that LOUD sound of them popping! You know what I mean! I don't have many pictures because it is getting time to retire my camera...does anyone else go thru a camera a year or so? Geez!

The above pictures are from yesterday, but they're just too darn cute to leave out!

Bake Sale and BMX Outreach

Our church had a big Outreach on Sunday from 3pm-8pm. So all Saturday I spent baking and making! We made cupcakes and sprinkled rice crispy treats.

Aren't the pig cupcakes just the cutest!

The kids had fun on the bounce houses, getting painted and eating lots and lots of goodies (snow cones, pop corn, cotton candy!)

After all that fun, they had Extreme BMX'ers show their stuff and share their testimonies. It was pretty awesome. Too bad James missed it. He is in Washington for a few weeks with Grandma and Grandpa!

Creation and Animals

Last week I took the kids to a museum in Santee called the Creation and Earth Science Museum. I looked at reviews and they all seemed to say very little. The drive was about 2 hours, and so not worth it! Very tiny and lots of reading. It is definitely more geared to adults...hence the lots of reading part. So after that we headed off to the Wild Animal Park in Escondido. I love this place, well worth the money we spend in passes. So here are some pictures.

Pictures since last blog posting

I have been having trouble unloading my memory card onto the computer but I have fixed the problem, So here is our last month in review.

Homeschool Fair in Ontario, CA.

We had so much fun here. Next year I will bring lots more money to have fun with.

Norco Ranch Tours

Gotta love our town! Every year there is a Ranch Tour and this is our first year attending. The boys were camping so we had a girls only weekend. My girls love horses and the horses love the smell of their hair. All in all a fun, tiring day. And what a better way to top off the day then going to Polly's Pies for dinner and boysenberry pie!

End Of The Year Banana Split Party

Ashlyns' class through their annual ice cream party. She has 2 more weeks left of school then off for summer break. I love the ice cream party because there is always a video played of all the kids in the class. It is funny to look around the room and find all her stuff just from her 'dots and lines'. Too cute!

So that's just the fun stuff. The unfun stuff is all Ashlyn drama. Her ears are terrible even after just having surgery. We were getting hearing aids no matter what, but we still expected some improvement of hearing after surgery.. This is not so at all. It is just the same. I could scream with frustration. Oh...but... wait...there...is...more!!! After seeing Gi 2 weeks ago they asked how everything poop wise was going I said perfect same as before, 2 poops a day and they look nice (love describing poop with someone in a white clean coat!). She basically says great, would you like to do an xray to make sure colon is clean and intestines look clear. I hesitate but say yes because I just want to satisfaction of knowing poop is gone and we are well on way to having the cleanest colon in the world. A week passes and I get a call from Urology...saying they want to move our Sept. appointment up to NOW, because doctor finally got the MRI (remember that one?) and is concerned so we need to get in asap...guess what asap is to the medical profession...6 weeks! 6 stinkin' weeks. I sit here and wonder what have they seen, what is so urgent. Anyway I left a voice mail for dr and am waiting to hear back or get a new sooner appointment. So then get this...GI calls results from xray were filed and tha tis what took so long to hear back from them...and GUESS WHAT? She is more impacted with poop then they thought. I was crushed. Dr ordered another 'clean out session and make sure you continue to give Ashlyn her Miralax everyday'. I felt like being mean but I just thanked the doctor, hung up the phone and cried. I do not know what to do? Gi is saying nothing about how we solve this problem...don't they love poop and intestines? Or what about Urology, they keep saying follow up with GI! Now don't get me wrong I love all of our doctors, truly I feel blessed and feel that God hand picked each one. But I am still frustrated at all this wait and see, or go see another specialist. I even asked Marshall the other night if they give children colonics...he about thought I lost my mind...you wanna do what to my daughter???

Enough ranting, hopefully I will know more soon. I am off to bed, we have a fun day at the Creation Museum in Santee!