Public schools can just piss me off.....

Joel has been my more adventurous one when it comes to school, as in he hates to go and begs to stay home. So over the years we have had this love/hate for school. Upon finding the right medicine to help with his attention, Joel has learned to love school more and more. Let's face it I have really smart kids and now Joel is getting straight A's for all his hard work and learning. 

I make my kids go to school, no little cough or sniffles is going to let them stay home. I have to go to work and they have to go to school. One of the great things my parents taught (beat...lol) into me as a child so I am doing the same to my kids. 

There are 3 trimesters for our kids school system and the school makes money for every child in school every day. So the kids have to be really sick to be sent home from school and there are LOTS of germs floating around. For the 1st Trimester, Joel only missed 1 day of school, because he had to have a tooth pulled. For the 2nd Trimester, Joel did not miss a single day. In fact he came home today with a Certificate from the Principle on having perfect attendance the 2nd Trimester. (the same day I got my letter, see below)

SO, when my kids missed 2 1/2 days for our trip to Alabama. I was not too worried about their education. Those two days were also right before spring break and again 1/2 days. 

After returning from spring break, Joel became sick, the school sent him home on Tuesday with a fever of 100.7. Clearly he was sick and feeling bad. This led to 4 more days of missing school with a fever of 103.5 most of the time. For a total of 6 days this trimester and 7 all year!!!! 

At NO point did the school call or check on Joel thru the family or Cori at school. They did send me an email everyday (the blanket one to all parents) for when your child is not in homeroom at the beginning of the day. 

Joel went back to school on Tuesday, turning in all homework, asking for missed work, taking time out of recess and before classes to get with all his teachers to get "caught up" on what he has missed. Most of which is already done, as he has been working on it the last 2 days. And he has all A's and 1 B! 

Today I get a letter from the Vice Principle stating that my child has missed 5 un-excused days (only 2 since I sent a DR's note for all the other days) and I must call the school to set up a time for Joel to attend Saturday school to bring his excessive absences back down. BULL S............

I don't care if my kids missed 10 days I am not sending them to Saturday school to make your school numbers look better to the state or to give the school more money for my kids. Saturday school is a punishment to ALL, parents, teachers, students......

So everyone say an extra prayer for the VP tomorrow morning as I give him a call!!!!!!!

2000 to 2013

On April 19th 1995, My husband and his siblings lost both of their grand parents in the OKC bombing. Nate and I had not even met at this time. I was sitting at home watching the news, glued to the tv. I have never been one who watches the news or paid attention to what was going on around the world. I was glued to the tv. My mom kept asking me why I thought this was so interesting or important that I watch it all day long. I told her that I did not know the reason but I felt like my life depended on me watching this story unfold.

2 months later in June of 1995, I met Nate at Winn Dixie. In the next few months I learned that his grand parents were killed in the bombing in April. Years later I look back on those moments and realize how much that day changed my life and the lives of my future family. 2 People I never met taught and raised 4 Godly women who would raised 12 wonderful kids and many grandkids, nieces, nephews, cousins and in laws. I am so thankful every day for those two people. Dr Charles and Jean Hurlburt.

Here are some pictures of the memories we have made together!

April 19th, 2000 5th Anniversay

These Wonderful Parents Dr Charles and Jean Hurlburt now have 4 daughters, 3 Son in Laws, 12 grandchildren, 9 grand children in laws, 11 great-grand children....and more on the way. 

I am so thankful every day for these people and they way this family has changed my life. God Bless! 

I can't wait to meet these wonderful people in Heaven one day! 

Just the 16 of us!

Trying to get us all ready for the photo

The 16 of us!

This week we (Nate, me and the kids) just came back from our first family trip back to Alabama. We had a great time (and I will get into the trip details in another blog).... This is our family. We started as 2 loving parents and 4 tolerating siblings......to this group of 16!

There is Nate and Val, with Cori (14) and Joel (12). then My parents, then Daniel and his wife Leigh, with their 3 boys Lucas (5), Alex (4), and Davey (3). Dawn and her husband David, holding their daughter Alice (18mths) and on the end, Christie and her husband Jason.

This picture is the only one of all of us in years....always a spouse or sibling missing. This will be the last of its kind for 3 years as Jason and Christie are on their way to live in North Pole, Alaska.

We had planned to all have breakfast with our grandparents and go to Easter service together, but the rain and stomache bug kept that from happening. We still had a fun morning of eating, talking, picture taking and watching the kids find Easter eggs.

I am so glad we were all able to get together this last week. Memories were made by all and many stories to be told over the next few weeks about our crazy group of 16!

2013 goals and plans

Instead of doing a whole bunch of resolutions that I will never keep I am making a list of 12 things I want to do or accomplish in 2013.

In no particular order of importance....

1. Meet my 2 nieces, Alice and Olivia
2. Visit 5 different places or cities I have never been before (Vegas is first the end of Jan)
3. Read a book a week
4. Take vitamins regularly
5. Finally get a California drivers license (shhhh, I know I should of already done this one) 
6. Turn 35!!!!!!
7. Take more family day trips with Nate and the kids (which I can do with my new schedule at work)
8. Help the kids be more active and involved in church/youth group
9. Cook dinner for the family at least once a week (right now it is maybe once a month) 
10. Blog More!
11. Enjoy each day and be thankful for everything God has blessed our family with!!!!

I'll let you know how this all goes!
Happy 2013

Ringing In the New Year 2013

It is now the 4th day of 2013 and we have so much good news....

Nate was offered a new position at Blizzard. He is now a Scripting Engineer with the battlenet automation team. This is an actual programming job and a lifelong dream being fulfilled. I am so proud of him. He starts the new position on Monday!

As for my job, I have been offered the Assistant Accounts Manager position at Maggiano's. This means I am moving into the office, less weekends, more day shifts, evenings home with Nate and the kids. My move will have more of a transition period over the next month and will still be in charge of training. This position will let me use my accounting, organizational, and business experience to good use.

Cori is trucking along in school, she is almost half way thru her last year in middle school. Making straight A's and lots of new friends at church and school.

Joel will be starting some medication for his ADHD. This was a long time coming as we were not sure if we wanted to go the medication route. After weeks of praying, crying and researching, we are starting his medicines this weekend. We hope this helps his focus and he is able to get more of his schoolwork done in a normal amount of time. Right now he is in school 8 hours and then he is spending another 4 hours a day on homework and unfinished classwork. Joel is very smart and makes great grades when able to focus and apply himself. I hope thru all of this he will realize just how smart he is and it will also raise his confidence level.

Like I said, we are only a new days into 2013 and God is already blessing our family in many ways!

October Recap 2012 (might be kinda long)

I seem to be getting further and further behind on my blogging and general update on all things Barber! My goal through the next few crazy holiday months is to do a monthly recap...So for October here we GO!!!!

October started great with Nate and I celebrating 14 years of marriage....add on the 3 years of dating and we have been together more than half our lives....Man that seems like a ling time, then it seems to just be flying by. We had a great weekend with mini golf, line dancing, Venice beach (and some crazy pot heads), and Mexican food with a quiet walk on the beach to end the weekend.

In addition to our anniversary, My youngest nephew, Bryce turned 2 and loves him some batman. My middle nephew Davey turned 3 and was bombarded with little people toys. I hate missing the birthdays but the pictures and sending of gifts is fun too.

This month Nate finished his schooling and now has a Bachelor's Degree. So proud of him for finishing school in 4 years while working full time, being a father and husband.

Cori is now officially off Facebook, if you had not noticed already. This new social networking with a teenage  is pretty hard. So many new rules and ones that Never applied to when I was a kid.

Joel had a rocky month with grades and some lying issues. He has been grounded for 2 weeks and counting.... Grades are coming up and I WILL break him of the lying or he may not make it to enjoy Christmas!

The kids were able to trick or treat with friends this year. First time we did not take the kids out for Halloween. I had to work so the kids found other friends to go with. I have to say I did not miss the trick or treating at all. Kinds over the whole things after 13 years.... I did take the kids and a friend to Blizzard where they got to trick or treat around the different buildings through spooky corners and mazes.

Life for me is LIFE! Not a lot of changes just living at the restaurant and taking care of the family and watching football on the weekends, all weekend. On the medical side, it has been 3 months since my surgery and I am doing well with very little pain, thankfully!

We have found a home church for now. We are not members and with my crazy schedule, we are not in a small/life group yet but that is okay with me. I can't work one more thing into my schedule at this point. The kids get to go on Wed nights for the most part and are really enjoying it.

And finally the best news of the month, We are planning our first visit home! We are planning to be in Alabama the first week of April. I know it sounds like a long way off and it is, but we have to plan and save as well as work it into the kids spring break. There was no way we could pull it together for the holidays and I am not ready to go back for a Cold Alabama winter. So on that note I will say Happy October, See you again after Thanksgiving!

Anniversary Vacation Staycation!!!!

Nate and I celebrated 14 years of marriage on Wednesday.....Add 3 years of dating and we have been together 1/2 our lives! Thats some craziness  We are best friends and love each other more each year....So this year we decided to take a few days off work, plan some stuff to do around LA and enjoy 4 days together. Some stuff with the kids and some without! The weekend turned out a little crazier than we thought!!!!

Wednesday night on our anniversary we went to dinner and ate mexican food. We both worked the early shifts on Thursday. When I got home from work at 6pm, there was a guy on my patio, my patio closet door was open, half my closet was on the patio.....I ask the guy what in the world he was doing on my patio! He was wiring the new Verizon internet and tv to the guys upstairs. I go inside where the kids sitting on the couch playing cards bc they had no tv or internet. I walk to the patio to tell the guy about my cable and that it had to be fixed ASAP! and before Grey's Anatomy comes on! He did not even know he had cut the line to my house. Nate and I had planned to go to Knott's Scary Farms (an amusement park) that evening. By 8pm, we knew we were not going because the guys were still trying to get our tv back up. At 8:45 the guy upstairs came and apologized, ordered up pizza and let me watch Grey's upstairs because of what had happened to us. He felt really bad. The tv was finally back on around 10pm, it took them 4 hours to get ours back up!

Friday we went to the Vera Bradley store (which is in LA) and then the Venice Beach (which we have never done). Venice beach is crazy with lots of weed and crazy people walking around. We saw a guy in his underwear, with a boombox on his shoulder, singing. They have a skate park and muscle beach. We saw a couple of street performers, and I danced with them a little, (I was not very good).

Saturday we went to Camelot Golf and played some mini golf for a couple of hours, then we took the kids to see Batman! Nate beat me by 1 stroke on both games of golf!

Saturday night we decided to take Cori off facebook. If you were friends with her and wonder where he page is, we deactivated it. She needs to learn a little bit more about what to and what not to put on the internet. That was stressful and NOT a fun conversation.

On Sunday, We took the kids to church. We have found a church that we all like going to. We are able to go most Sunday mornings with my schedule and 1 Wednesday night a month I can take the kids to youth group. Sunday afternoon Nate and I were watching football and on the computer when we heard a crash and saw a shoulder and arm come thru our living room window. The same people who made us lose our cable have now broken our window. So we help clean up the glass and board up the window. The guy is coming late Monday night to fix it. Then we went to Knotts Scary Farm and went thru mazes, scary houses and rode rides thru the haunted park.

  Monday we are resting around the house, hitting the beach and enjoying dinner while watching the ocean. This has been a great weekend of fun and crazy memories!