Good-bye, Phone.

As you can see in this picture, when it comes to my husband, I have no room for complaints. The man is clearly dressed to work. Meanwhile, he’s also wearing a kitchen towel on his shoulder. He’s trim and fit, helpful, kind, funny, and a wonderful Christian example for all.

My grandfather gave me only one piece of advice my whole life: “April, never marry a man who doesn’t work.” Good advice.

Alan does work hard. I wouldn’t even mention this at all. O wait. I mentioned it on both of my last blog posts.

The Mommy Reality Challenge this week is “What’s broken?” I’m co-hosting this week, so I can’t just not participate, and there is ONE thing around here that is very much broken.

Not Caleb’s teeth anymore! Those were fixed up quite nicely. So that just leaves my smart phone. 🙁

Alan broke my phone. Was it his fault? Not really. He borrowed it, and it stopped working. Now I’m sad.

Do you know what else is broken?

Joshua. His face became so swollen by poison oak today that we had to take him BACK to the doctor. She gave us a fresh, 15 day supply of steroids. Hopefully, we can still enjoy our upcoming vacation!

But do you know what is not broken?

Everything else. We have a great life. I feel guilty even complaining about the phone thing. So what if I don’t have good internet access on my phone right now? So what if I am not very good at working this old phone from the Stone Ages. 😉 (2012. It’s from 2012. It’s important to play up the drama so that Alan will help me get a new phone.) Does anyone have a recent phone they’d like to sell me that’s more like from 2014?

I can’t say all of my kids are exactly healthy right now, but I will say that they are all happy. Praise the Lord.

Here are a few more photos of the great time we had at the aquarium last week…..before Alan broke my phone and before Joshua rolled in the poison oak:

Joshua asked, “Excuse me. May I touch this?” I was so proud I wanted to hug him, but 9 year olds prefer that you not do that in public, so I refrained.

Daniel petted the sting ray. (Petted will never sound like a word to me, but apparently it is.) Yay, Daniel!

Leopard sharks!

This computer gives you a stingray’s view of the aquarium. Pretty nifty!

I’m horribly ashamed to admit that I was so busy tracking JD, I did not find out what kind of fish this is. Anyone?

Daniel is checking out another fish that I do not know the name of. Oh, the shame.

Everyone that visits the Monterey Aquarium should eat there and enjoy this view. It was worth the extra dollar I had to run out and put in the meter.

blurry otter

JD was super excited about these fish. He said it over and over again. Fiss! Fiss! Fiss!

And one last funny……Only in California, will you run into CVS and be greeted by this:

cat on the Easter aisle…play it cool? No way. I’m taking a picture of this.

Apparently this cat also has his own Facebook page. Sorry, I don’t know the name of it.

Gotta love California. 😉

Hope you all have a great weekend!

“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you;

Never will I forsake you.”

Hebrews 13:5

The post The Broken Phone, The Aquarium, and the Cat appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

This is a sideways panoramic photo of The “Candelabra Tree” at Henry Cowell State Redwoods Park. (No, this is not in my neighborhood. We did visit it this week, though!)

A couple of months ago, a new neighbor moved in. They have a boy Caleb’s age, and a girl in kindergarten. We’ll call this little boy New Friend and his sister New Friendette. Creative, I know.

New Friend and Friendette have a glorious treasure of elementary school childhood right in their backyard. A thicket. Actually, it’s a large thicket that runs down our street a piece, so we call it “the woods.” Joshua, Caleb, and their new friends have spent hours over the last few weeks playing in the woods. Their joy has just been overflowing.

My joy level was pretty high the other day, too. I stepped out on my balcony, and I could have sworn that I saw someone move in the woods. I stood very still for a long time, just thinking and praying. I love looking that way, because beyond the woods, the elevation slopes down, so there’s a small glimpse of ocean.

As I stood there, perfectly still, a “lots of points” buck rose up out of the bushes in the woods. Then his whole herd rose up around him, and I just stood there in awe. I HAD seen something move!!  It was the deer, ducking out of sight, at my sudden entrance onto their scene. They just stood there, munching on leaves, or whatever they eat, probably poison oak or something.

I can’t tell you how that uplifted my spirits that day!

And then Wednesday came. On Wednesday, Joshua and Caleb stayed in those woods, building, imagining, and socializing for two hours, which I hope they will look back on fondly some day.

On Thursday morning, Joshua woke up with a red rash on his face and itchy arms. Thankfully, he was not having breathing difficulty at all, so we didn’t have to rush off to the Emergency Room. We weren’t sure if he had poison oak or a mild reaction to nut exposure Wednesday night. We fed him lots of Benadryl, and we kept a close eye on him.

Friday morning he woke up broken out on both sides of his face. 🙁 I started researching poison oak a whole lot more.

Did you know it takes 3 weeks to get over poison oak exposure?

Did you know that it may not show up until up to 72 hours after your exposure?

Did you know that you don’t need to seek medical help unless the poison oak is in your eyes, private areas, or covers more than 1/3 of your body?

I found a bottle of Prednisone with about 3 teaspoons in it, left over from his great cashew reaction of 2014. I gave him a dose of that on Friday.  That took care of the left side of his face pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, by Saturday, Joshua had poison oak on the corner of his eye, all over his right cheek, forehead, and chin, and little red dots popping up all over his body. Off to the ER he went. He now has a good, two weeks’ supply of Prednisone. He still looks pretty rough.

I feel sooooo badly for him. He’s handled it really well, though.

Did you know that unless the oil from the actual plant is still on your skin, a person with poison oak is not contagious? I did my research on this.  However, the sight of Joshua would probably scare most folks, so he will be staying home with Nonna tomorrow.

By the way, we have had some great field trips/adventures this week to the Redwood Forrest and the Monterey Aquarium. That aquarium has found a new fan in me! Alan and DaddyO got to go kayaking too!!  I can’t wait to get all the photos uploaded to share on my next post!

The post When Playing in the Woods Turns Ugly appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.