A Few Things That We Did In 2010 (up to July)

Amy had a major surgery on February 8th. A colectomy. WOW!!!! What a way to start the year. The Doctor did some pathology report on 104 Lymph Nodes. One came back Stage 3 cancer. So surgery #2 on February 13th, which involved a permanent ostomy. Amy spent six weeks of recovery at her parents house to be close to the Wound Care Clinic and her Doctor. It was a slow recovery process but very successful. Ricky brought Erik & Mikayla EVERY weekend to visit. That was always something nice to look forward too. She returned back to work part-time in April then full-time the first week of May. Chemotherapy began in April and will continue through October. A few treatments have been postponed due to blood count numbers being too low and two being critically high. We have added alot of helpful foods and vitamins, and as of today, Wednesday, July 28th, she is "half-way done". YAY!!!! Due to the health issues she put in her notice at work. Her last day is Friday, August 13th. This will allow for full focus on her health and resting to keep these numbers looking good. :o) As a family we have also decided to homeschool our children this year. We are all looking forward to the new routine and Christ-based curriculum. (Especially Erik)
Well, that is a brief explanation of the huge event that started our year off.

The week of June 13-19 we traveled to Vail, CO. It was gorgeous. The mountains, the temperature, and the animals. It snowed on Monday. Snow and June do not fit in the same sentence in Missouri. It didn't snow a lot, but just the fact that it snowed was cool. (no pun intended) :o) Ricky and the kids went hiking, we all four went horseback riding. The kids swam alot and played racketball to their hearts content, and we just enjoyed some R&R for a whole week. We played cards almost every night and taught the kids how to play Hearts and Spades. It was a blast. Below are a few pictures. More will be posted soon. Hopefully, I can get a little more regular on posting to this Blog. Sorry for the delay.

Erik & Mikayla riding a horse (an iron horse)

Ricky & Erik before the horse ride

Erik & Mikayla on the Chipmunk Rock

Chipmunks at one of our stopping points

A view from our back door

Recap of 2009

It has been a very long while since the last update. Erik and Mikayla are growing faster than ever. Won't be too much longer and they will be as tall, if not taller, than their parents. Mikayla turned 9 in January. She had a blast with some of her friends at the gymnastic center. Erik recently had his crossover from Cub Scout to Boy Scout; his first Boy Scout activity is a week long camp out this summer. He is super excited.

Ricky has been busy keeping the kids on task. Amy had two major surgeries in February and has been spending the last several weeks recovering. Cancer was discovered, so she will be facing chemotherapy soon.
I have included a few pictures of the past year since it has been that long since I posted anything.

Ricky, Amy, Mikayla & Erik ~ 1st day at Disney World

Nana, Papa, Mikayla, Maggie, Jozie, Erik & Lainie at Epcot.

Mikayla chose "Wishes" for her face.

Erik as Genie at Disney World

We spent the week of Thanksgiving 2009 in Orlando, FL. Amy's parents took the whole family. It was a surprise!! Everyone had a BLAST!!

Summer 2009 ~ we took the kids to Williamsburg, VA. We visited Yorktown, Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia Beach, and so much more.
I will try to keep up with this a little better. Sorry it has been so long.

Erik & Mikayla at Monticello

Mikayla, Ricky & Erik at Colonial Williamsburg

Amy, Erik & Mikayla @ Jamestown

Mikayla at Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Erik @ Chesapeake Bay Bridge

We made a trip to Arizona and Nevada this summer.

Here are several pictures from Vegas,

The Grand Canyon, and The Hoover Dam.

It was an awesome experience, but a very long trip.

Yes, Erik and Mikayla are both standing knee deep in snow

in the summertime. We saw several snow drifts on our

way to the Grand Canyon.

Erik at the Hoover Dam

Ricky, Erik & Mikayla at the tour of the Hoover Dam.

Erik and Mikayla at one of the rooms on the tour of the Hoover Dam

Erik is in Nevada and Mikayla is in Arizona.

This is the roller coaster on top of the New York Casino

in Las Vegas, NV. It was very cool.

Erik & Mikayla with the Grand Canyon behind them. WOW!!!

This Donkey was at the point that we walked at the Grand Canyon.
It was Angel something.

This was Mikayla's favorite Christmas gift.

Meet Mikayla and her My Twinn doll.

They have the same freckles and birthmarks.

This was a really cool surprise from Santa.

This was Erik's favorite Christmas gift.

It is a Rip Stick. A skateboard with two wheels

rather than four. An interesting combination.

He was thrilled when he opened it.

This is the kids Christmas picture for 2007.

Mommy Tag

My friend filled out this survey on her blog and "tagged me." So, here are my answers:

1. How long have you been a Mom? 8 years and 6 months
2. How many kids call you mommy? 2
3. When you were pregnant did you know what you were having? Yes ~ well the Dr. said 99% sure anyway. He said he wouldn't tell me for sure until he was holding the baby in his hands.
4. How old were you when you became a mom? 22
5. How long were you in labor? With Erik I was in labor for 8 hours. I should have stayed home just a little bit longer (I was only dialated, barely, to a 4) With Mikayla I was in labor for 4 hours.
6. What’s your favorite thing about being a mom? All of their creative and unique ideas. They have such fresh little minds
7. What’s your least favorite thing? The discipline aspect of it all.
8. Do you want more kids? Nope ~ did I answer that too quickly. Two is a perfect number for Ricky and me.
9. Have you ever taken your kid(s) on a trip? Oh, yes. Texas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi (first time they saw the ocean), and the Bahamas.
10. How many times have you been peed on? Was I suppose to keep count?
11. How many times have you been barfed on? Too many.
12. Are your kids named after someone? Erik is Ricky Edward Woole III, so he is named after his Dad and Grandpa. Mikayla's middle name is Diana, like my Mom's, also Mikayla was one of my Mom's favorite names. (Dr. Quinn) I also like the name.
13. When is the last time you had a sitter? The first week of January. My parents watched the kids for a couple of days until school started back up. It was much appreciated.
14. When your kid gets in trouble, who is the bad guy? Typically, Ricky ~ not that I don't discipline; they just take him more serious ~ quicker.
15. What is the longest you have been away from your kid(s)? 7 days (Florida trip just Ricky and me)
16. Are your toes painted? Yes
17. Last movie you saw in theater? What is a theater? Oh, wait, I saw Charlie and The Chocolate Factory with a friend of mine.
18. One thing you will not give up just because you’re a mom: leisure reading
19. One thing you did give up now that you’re a mom? Some T.V. shows.
20. Favorite Cartoon: Okay, it's not my favorite, but it is on all the time ~ SpongeBob SquarePants
21. Favorite Snack: popcorn
22. When the kid(s) are napping, you are: what is a nap ~ those ended like 3 years ago.
23. Where is/are your kid(s) now? Mikayla is sitting here watching T.V., and Erik is in his room.
24. If I could do it over, I’d do this differently: I'll have to think about this one. Nothing is coming to mind right now.
25. What is a lesson you’ve learned as a parent? Let the small stuff go. Pick your fights wisely. There is not enough time in the day to fuss over every small little thing. Some things are just not worth the frustration for me or the kids or Ricky.

We made it back from Florida

We had a great time at Disney World. We spent five days in the four parks that they have down there and I feel like we only did about half of the stuff that there was to do. We started our vacation by visiting Amy's parents for Thanksgiving and having lunch with them. Then we drove to my parents and had dinner with them. We stayed the night and drove to Memphis to fly to Florida from there. It was a great flight and Mikayla enjoyed her first experience of flying.

Our first day was at Animal Kingdom. We made the mistake of going the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was pretty busy. Below are some of the pictures from our first day. Here is where we drove through the Disney World arches.



Once we got into the Animal Kingdom we went the the Tree of Life which has a show themed from "A Bug's Life". The tree has many carvings and below is one of them with my kids Erik and Mikayla.


They also had there pictures taken with several characters as you can see below.





The kids also got to pet some animals at the Animal Kingdom.



It is getting late and I am getting sleepy, so I will have to wait until later to post about our other days.

First shot at creating our family blog

Hello world. I thought with how tech savvy I am that it was time to start my own blog to start sharing what is going on with our lives to the world. It is really skimpy on content for now, but I hope to expand it as I get more familiar with it. For now I have posted a link to our church web site that I have created. We also have some of our pastor sermons online.

To get on to the purpose of a blog, we are getting ready to go on our much anticipated trip to Florida. We are taking the kids to Disney World. This will be there first time to go there. This will also be Mikayla's first time to fly. We are so ready to have a week away from work and the stresses of everyday work life.

I will end for now and post more later.