Well things have been busy so nothing out of the ordinary :) Here's our family happenings of the last 9 days.
Last Monday was not a very good day. I got a call early in the morning (which is never a good sign) and it was Aaron. Let me preface this story saying that after we got the green truck's fuel pump fixed the gas gauge didn't work so you had to keep track of your mileage so you didn't run out of gas. Unfortunately, Aaron didn't keep very good track of his mileage and ran out of gas about a quarter mile from his work building about 6:30 am on a very windy and chilly morning when he had only worn his jacket instead of his coat. Brrrr! He had to walk the rest of the way to work and find someone to help him out. For some reason last year they don't let Department of Defense Employee spouses on base anymore so I couldn't go and help him. Luckily, he found someone to tow the truck into the parking lot and to take Aaron to pick up some gas. Aaron called me after the ordeal to tell me about it. Not the funnest way to start off a Monday for sure. However, when he came home from work it got worse. About a mile away from our house the truck overheated and Aaron had to pull over on the side of the road. He got out and saw there was antifreeze all over the road. When he tried to poor in more antifreeze it poured straight out of the bottom of the truck like the truck wasn't holding any of it. BOO! He wasn't quite sure what the problem was, but it wasn't going to be a good one. We think that truck is cursed! We have only had it for about two months, but have had nothing but problems with it. We can't blame the previous owners because there was no way they could have foreseen these problems. We just gambled on an older vehicle and lost with this one. Aaron and I seem to have the Un-Midas touch where everything we touch turns to crap. Oh it can be so frustrating! Anyway, we ended up towing it back to our house with the suburban not knowing exactly what to do with the un-driveable truck. Good thing I got good at towing things when I was a teenager and had crazy cars and a boyfriend with a clunker where we got lots of practice with towing! Who knew that would come in handy later in life?! Anyway, Aaron had a few ideas of what the problem could be and none of them were a cheap fix. Aaron called Grandpa T to talk about it and he agreed that it wasn't an easy fix. The next day I had to work, but Grandpa T came over to take a look at the truck. Later that night Aaron and he also looked at it and decided it was beyond fixing because it most likely had something to do with the engine. It was sad because it was in good shape when we got it. The engine only had 155,000 miles on it which is really low considering it was over 20 years old. The Suburban is only 7 years old and it already has over 136,000 miles on it which is crazy since when we got it, it only had 18,000 miles on it. Anyway, we had given up hope on the truck and were looking at unloading it at a scrapyard when we got a chance. However, when Aaron went to work the next day the guy who had helped tow it when it ran out of gas told Aaron he was very interested in the truck and wanted to buy it. Aaron went on to explain all the things that were wrong with it, but the guy was still very interested in buying it. The guy had a brother that had an auto mechanic shop where he could fix it up. Again Aaron told him all the problems with the truck, but the guy was still really interested so Aaron agreed to sell him the truck. Maybe running out of gas the previous morning was a blessing in disguise?...Anyway, the guy came and picked it up Wednesday afternoon. Aaron helped him load it onto his trailer, but then he had to go because he had to do Pack Meeting for Cub Scouts that night. Since the truck was loaded Aaron took all the kids to Pack Meeting with him since I was at work. Unfortunately, the truck still seemed to be cursed in some way because when the guy finished strapping the truck down he got in to drive away when his trailer tire blew out. Aaron wasn't home to help him change it so the poor guy had to knock on our neighbors doors until he could find someone to help him with borrowing some tools. Luckily we have some pretty great neighbors who were able to help him get that dang truck out of our hair. We are looking to purchase a car to replace it, but not until after the New Year because I am done messing with cars for right now. Aaron has been driving the old blue truck to work and it has been working out perfectly. Even though the blue truck's gas gauge doesn't work either, Aaron has been keeping better track of how many miles he has been driving so he won't run out of gas again especially since it has been really cold, windy and stormy as of late. Gotta love car problems...
I have had to get up super early for work Aaron has been harassing me about it. Since it is usually him that gets up early he thinks it is really funny when my alarm goes off at 4 am and he can roll over and go back to sleep. When it was him getting up early I would show him this meme and smile.
He now does the same thing back to me--haha! Not all of my shifts are morning ones, though I do a few afternoon/evening swing shifts, too. However, I finish up my last shift of the semester this week so he won't be able to laugh at me until I start back up again in March.
Let me tell you about my job....I get to the skilled nursing facility early early in the morning and greet the CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) students as they get there for their 8 hour clinical. I take them on a tour of the facility and then pair them up with real CNAs from the facility that they will spend the shift with doing actual hands on learning. After making assignments I round on the students every 45 minutes to make sure they are working and learning the things they need to learn in addition to make sure they are getting along with their assigned CNA. I am also responsible to make sure they all get their lunch breaks in as well. While they are on their lunch breaks we practice their manual blood pressures skills. Then the last 40 minutes of the shift we gather together again and I teach them and go over different topics to make sure they understand them. In between teaching and rounding I hang out and work on filling out the students evaluation forms. In between doing all that I can read or do whatever until it is time to round again or teach. It has been a pretty fun job that I have enjoyed. There are 7 facilities that the students do their clinicals out of. I get sent to each one different times so I am not always at the same facilities for each clinical. Most of the time things run smoothly. There have been a few hiccups, but nothing bad. For the most part the students do really well. I also work with their high school instructors, too. They try and round on their students once a shift, however, they don't always make it so they text the clinical instructors to see how things are going. Yesterday I got the text from one of the high school instructors which just made my day. She was checking up on her students and then let me know that the students had enjoyed working with me. Wahoo! That made my day!
This last week I was sent to a facility for a few shifts. Where they have me hang out in between doing rounds is a private dining room. For some reason the heater does not work in this room. There was no thermostat, but I am sure the temperature was in the 50s inside the room and it didn't help that it was surrounded in windows that let in even more cold air from outside. It was SOOOO COLD!!! I had no idea the room would be so cold so the first time I was there I didn't have a coat or anything but my flimsy nursing lab jacket. I froze all that day. Once we are at the facility we cannot leave so I couldn't do anything about it. The next shift, though, I was prepared. I wore a long sleeve shirt under my scrub top as well as my nursing lab jacket with my winter coat on top and I still froze all day long. I texted this picture to Aaron that morning saying that I was so cold.
He was so mean and texted this picture of him still in bed under the warm covers and said, "I am so warm and comfy!" Isn't he mean?!
However, since we like to tease I am sure I would have done the same thing had our roles been switched--haha!
Aaron had the morning off since he was going on a field trip with Daniel's class as a chaperone. They went to see an 3D IMAX film about the Galapagos Islands. Aaron is so glad to have a flexible job where he can do these fun school things with the kids. They got to get a drink and popcorn:
They got to wear some sweet 3D glasses, too:
After the movie Aaron went to work and Daniel's class rode the bus back to school since this was only a morning field trip. They had fun spending time together.
I had a big surprise this week. I went to get the mail when I noticed there was a letter from the First Presidency addressed to Matthew.
Even though it was to Matthew I opened it up to read it. Yep I am one of those moms!!
You can click on the picture to enlarge it to read the letter. It was really sweet. I asked Matthew about it when he got home from school. Matthew said in his special needs seminary class the teacher all had them write thank you letters to people they are thankful for. Matthew chose to write President Monson. His seminary teacher even addressed the envelope and put a stamp on it. When Matthew got home that afternoon he had his after school program staff take him to a mailbox so he could drop the letter off in the mail right before Thanksgiving. I had no idea any of that had even happened so I was really surprised to see a letter from the First Presidency in our mailbox. I was happy that Matthew got a response back. He was so excited to take the letter to school to show his seminary class.
Yesterday Daniel was at a friends house when he came home with a dog. I guess this dog had been wandering around the neighborhood so he decided to bring it home so I could find the owners. Hmmm. I had no idea whose dog that was. Besides he didn't like Sophie. She was trying to play with him he would just growl at her. I ended up calling animal control to come pick him up since he didn't have any tags or even a collar. There was no way to even find out who the owner was. Luckily, animal control was in our area and about the time I called them, the dogs owner had called animal control to report their dog as missing. The animal control officer brought the missing dogs family along and they all had a reunion in our front yard. Wahoo! Party at our house.
He was a cute dog, but Sophie was so sad he didn't like her. She just wanted someone to play with. Oh well, maybe in the future we can get her a friend, but hopefully her friend will want to play with her and not just growl and nip at her.
Aaron has a few hoodies that I LOVE wearing. He doesn't mind for the most part, but I thought this was pretty funny so I showed him and he laughed, too:
We got our new 2015 and the first part of 2016 blog books in the mail this week. The kids were so excited to see them. They like reading those as their daily reading homework. That makes me happy and gives me more incentive to keep blogging since the kids love reading about our family history. The year of 2015 had too many pictures so we had to break it up into two books. The same with 2016, but we are waiting to print the last half of 2016 until it is actually finished--haha! So does this mean I am a published author--haha?!
2015 Part 1:
2015 Part 2:
2016 Part 1:
This past week was a bit hectic so we were looking forward to just vegging Friday night after the kids went to bed. That lasted all of about 30 minutes before Noah had snuck out of his bedroom because he needed lubs. He crawled up in my lap and Aaron and I started watching a show. About 20 minutes into the show I looked over to see Noah and Aaron were fast asleep. What exciting weekenders we are. At least I got to watch my show uninterrupted except if you count the snoring....haha! What you can't see is a sleeping Sophie curled up by Aaron on the couch, too. Another exciting Friday night at the Mancil house:
The next morning Daniel started basketball. He only had a practice that morning so we were just going to drop him off and go down to Farmington to get my phone fixed. Our neighbor saw us and took Daniel to the basketball practice with her son since they are on the same team so we could not have to drop him off. It was so nice. They even brought him home since they were done fixing my phone by the time the practice was over. I love awesome people who are willing to help!!
As for my phone it will randomly shut off even though it says I have 40+% battery life left. This kept happening at random times, but it was happening more and more often so I really needed to get it fixed. I needed to have a reliable phone. Luckily, Apple had just released a statement saying that phones that were bought at the same time we got mine were having battery issues. Since it was Apple's problem they fixed the battery for free which was nice. Hopefully, I won't have any more issues with it. I think it is all related to the Un-Midas touch again--ugh!! Oh well it keeps things interesting...
Noah started basketball this week, too. Good thing a lot of the 6 year olds weren't very experienced with basketball so Noah fit right in. He is the one in the gray shirt standing right under the basket goofing off if you want to know which one Noah is. He will be the comic relief of the basketball team for the season ;). At least he enjoys himself, right?!
Saturday afternoon our family went to the Clinton Creche Festival. It is where all the people in the Clinton area (which was quite a few) lend their nativity scenes to be set up and enjoyed by anyone and everyone who wants to come. Throughout the two day event they had ongoing entertainment like harp players, choirs, etc. in addition to the nativity scenes. I let out three of my nativities for them to use. It was amazing to see all the different scenes everyone has. Here are the kids looking at just a few of the nativity scenes that were set up:
I was emptying out Matthew's back pack when I came across this 'Gratitude Gram'. I always worry about Matthew and school. Since I am not there with him I just hope he isn't teased to badly or made fun of. I really do worry. However, when I see small things like this it makes my heart happy. It is a gratitude gram that was given to Matthew from a kid named Dalton. It says, "Thank You for being a friend and always talking about the gospel all the time. Hope Sophie gets Better. Your Friend Dalton" I am assuming they did these around Thanksgiving, but Matthew didn't say a word about it. I was really glad to be able to see it, though. I am glad there are nice people for Matthew at school!
Last night was Josh's band concert. As we were waiting for things to get started Noah laid down in my lap and his shirt lifted up a bit and I saw something weird. I lifted his shirt up the rest of the way to find that Noah drew all over his stomach with a pen. I have no words. Oh well what can you do?! Hopefully he is not aspiring to be a tattoo artist is all I can hope for...
Josh's concert was great. He is the 4th trumpet from the left side. Daniel ran upstairs to the balcony to get this shot of Josh's band concert. Josh really does enjoy band and playing the trumpet. I am glad he has improved from last year if you know what I mean ;). It was fun to hear the Christmas songs from all four of the bands that played last night.
We were in the front row so I couldn't get a very good picture of Josh from where I was sitting. At least he is tall so I could get a head shot, though:
It was all fun and games until we got home from the concert and then Josh told us his Science Fair Project poster was due the next morning. Are you serious?! Aaron and I were not happy about that. So we got started at 9 pm making the poster. Grrrrrr. Why do all kids do this?! He knew it was due a few weeks ago, but put it off until the very last minute. Oh well with a team effort he got it done. His science fair project was on measuring which antacid worked best on neutralizing hydrochloric acid. Using Litmus Paper he measured baking soda, Maalox, and Tums to see which one worked the best. Baking Soda seemed to neutralized the acid the best which was interesting. Here's Josh showing off his last minute Science Fair Poster--grrrrr!
When Josh got his braces off the orthodontist told him the importance of keeping his retainer and case out of a dogs reach. Well finding his chewed up case this morning I don't think he really listened too well.
Good thing Sophie is cute because she is such a chewer! We should have named her Chewy! Luckily, she didn't get to his actual retainer inside the case, but I am sure there is some dog saliva that got inside it, though. Icky!! Hopefully, this will be a wake up call for Josh to keep it out of Sophie's reach.
Speaking of Sophie we got a message from our neighbors about her. I had completely spaced that our neighbor works graveyards and tries to sleep during the day. Unfortunately, whenever we let Sophie out to potty she tends to be a bit yappy and it was interfering with our poor neighbor's sleep. When we got the message I felt horrible. I know what working graveyards is like especially not being able to sleep the next day. We quickly got Sophie a bark collar to try and curb the barking, but I don't know how much it works. It supposedly gives off a warning beep before it shocks the dog, but that hasn't always worked. I know it sends a warning beep when the kids are yelling at each other, but Sophie wasn't barking. Sophie will just look at me like what am I doing wrong?! She is afraid of the shocks--poor thing. Hopefully it will work just enough to get her to stop being so yappy then she won't have to wear it anymore. Oh crazy dog!!
