House in Bath, IL

Hey everyone!

Several weeks ago, Jason and I were going to visit his aunt and uncle's house, and off in the distance, I could see part of this house and it looked really cool. Jason said it is rumored to be haunted, but he'd never seen it. So, I talked him into driving near it last weekend. I thought it looked cool, so I took some pictures of it. Apparently they have a trail behind the house that you can go to as well. It's not paved, but you can tell people have driven back there. I wanted to go on the little trail to see where the path led, but we had Shawn with us...so I just got out and took a few pictures of the house instead.

Shawn

Hey everyone!

Very long story short, when we had the kids last weekend, we were also able to keep Shawn for a week. He doesn't start school until Monday, Aug 31st. He will be in Head Start. We're not for sure when we have to take him back. I'm hoping we can take him to school on his first day, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up because my luck, it won't happen.

He's been almost a completely different kid without his brother and sister around. We've had Luke a few times just by himself, but this is the first time that we've had Shawn by himself.

Jas and Luke started school last Wednesday. They didn't really have much to say about the first few days of school, other than it was "good" when we asked. lol

Shawn has been requesting pancakes for breakfast. He asked for pancakes on Monday and I decided to make him a Mickey Mouse pancake...and he loved it. He said he'd never had a MM pancake before. We made a face with peanut butter and then he stuck grapes on the peanut butter. Then he added his syrup. lol







Yesterday morning, I was getting out of the shower when I heard him singing. He was just around the corner, lying on the floor and playing with his firetruck. My camera just happened to be where I could reach it, so I taped him. And I'll let you see the rest. Jason and I were cracking up!

I'm not sure if this is a real song or if he just made it up, but he says it's called, "You Never Knew."



Until next time,

Cole xoxoxo

Wedding Update

Hey everyone! Well, I promised that I'd update everyone on wedding details. Our best man is going to be Jason's brother, Christopher, and he is a BM3 (hope I got that right) in the U.S. Navy. With that being said, it's difficult to find a time that he will be home to have the wedding. Since we're tired of waiting, we found out that Christopher and his wife Alisha will be home next in either March or April, and that's when we're going to have the wedding. We will know approximately two months in advance on the exact time that they will be home, so when we find that out, we will let everyone know of course.

As previously stated, Jason's brother Christopher, will be the best man and Eve will be my maid of honor. Even though we have decided on the rest of the wedding party, we have not asked anyone else yet, so I won't reveal the rest of the party until then. It's going to be very kid-oriented, though.

My mom's friend, Ann, is going to be making the bouquets for me and the girls. I haven't decided my color yet, but since it's going to be in the spring, I've narrowed it down to pale colors of pink, purple, and yellow. I'm contemplating using all three colors, actually. Kind of paying tribute to my parents wedding because my mom asked all of her bridesmaids to wear pale colored dresses. But I'm not for sure...I may just do one color. I have gotten a request several months ago that my boys wanted to wear bow ties, so we're working on that one. I promised them they could wear them. lol

The wedding WILL BE IN MO. Mom and dad are looking around at some parks that might work...for inside and outside, just in case. With it being Spring, the weather could be rainy and cold. There's still a lot of things we're discussing and working out, but we're on our way.

Just wanted to let everyone know on the progress and on some of the details! I'm getting so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!

Until next time,

Cole xoxoxo :)

I'M CERTIFIED!!!!!!!!

Hey everyone!!!!


I am now OFFICIALLY a CERTIFIED Pharmacy Technician! I am soooo excited! For those of you that don't know, I have had to take the certification test three times. Within your first year of Walgreens, they require all of their technicians to be certified. I've been with the company a year and (almost) six months. My manager was able to pull some strings so that I was able to stay working back in the pharmacy (they're supposed to kick you out if you don't pass within your first year of employment), so I was very thankful for that. Walgreens pays the first two times of taking the test, after that, it's the technicians responsibility. So, I had to pay this time. Everybody at my work was very supportive and helped me out.

I had my test at 8:00 this morning at Pearson Vue testing center in Springfield, IL. It's a two hour test with 90 multiple choice questions. Both times that I took it before, I was 8 points away from passing. You find out immediately after your test if you pass or fail, but you don't detailed results until a few weeks later in the mail. The so called "detailed" results aren't very helpful though. They don't tell you what you missed or anything like that. It only tells you how you scored in the three different sections that they score on. You must get a 650 to pass and each time, I had a 642. :( But this time, I passed. I will find out what my score was in a few weeks! I'll update later. I don't even care how much I passed it by, I'm just so excited that I passed. I've worked really hard on this.

Oh and I also get an immediate $1.00 raise for passing. :)

Just wanted to share the good news!

Cole xoxox

Henson Robinson Zoo

Hey everyone!


It's Monday, August 3rd and I'm kind of late of posting about our trip to the zoo. Better late than never though, right? Last weekend, my mom, dad, and Travi came up to visit us and we all went to Henson Robinson zoo in Springfield, IL.

They brought my blazer up with them and then we all went to IHOP for breakfast in Springfield. I hadn't been there in a while and I don't think Jason or the kids had ever been there. The gentlemen that took our name and the # of our party was talking to us and Shawn says to him, "Hi! My name's Shawn!" The man thought he was friendly, so he said, "Well hi Shawn, are you ready to eat?" And then when it was time for us to be seated, he said, "Okay Shawn, here we go!"

After we ate, we went out to the zoo. I'd never been to the zoo, so I had no idea how big or small it was. It was small in relative to the St. Louis zoo, but it was still a cute zoo. The kids got to feed the goats and the ducks and we got to see monkeys, birds, a snake...you know, the usual. We also something called a Chinese Munk Jack. Kind of strange. They resemble deer. I've got pictures.

I got a lot of great pictures and I'll post the better ones. I had fun editing some of them also.

P.S. Some of the pics I tried uploading were too large...so there's not that many here, sorry.

The zoo didn't take as much time as we thought, so we took the kids to a park nearby and let them play for a little while. The kids went down by the lake (Lake Springfield) and threw rocks. They had a little dock and I took Jas and my dad took all the boys. We decided to head back to the house for a little bit before we had dinner because we weren't really hungry enough for dinner yet. So, we came back to the house and chilled for a little bit, talked, and looked at my blazer. Then we went to The Depot for dinner. Or as our kids call it, "The one with the X." They call it that because underneath the sign for The Depot it has railroad tracks, which looks like an X. lol

After dinner, my parents and Travi packed back up and went home. We all had a lot of fun, I think. Gonna upload some pics here soon.


Until next time,

Cole xoxoxox :)

Cook Out and Swimming

Hey everyone!


I hope this finds you well. Just wanted to post some pics and write a bit. It's been a week or two since I've updated anything. Well, I was on vacation last week, then I had a 6-day work week (which was a really crappy week at work) and then I had two days off. I've had more of a vacation in the past two days than I did on my actual vacation. lol

We got a call on Saturday to see if we wanted to pick up the kids. It's a week early, but we get to keep them until this Sunday. Jasmine has a doctor's appointment on Wednesday, so we're taking her home tomorrow night and she is supposed to be coming back on Friday.

My parents are coming up this weekend (Saturday) to go to the zoo with us. I'm really excited. We're going to the zoo in Springfield, IL. We're going to IHOP (International House of Pancakes) for breakfast, then the zoo and then somewhere for supper.

We were invited to a cook out at Jason's dad and step mom's house yesterday, so we took the kids to Havana with us and had a cookout. It was such a nice relaxing day. We all had a lot of fun. We took the kids to the park for a little bit while we were waiting for the food to get done. I did have my camera, but I was so tired that I didn't take pictures. And now I really wish I had. :( After I ate, I got really tired, like I always do after I eat and I just wanted to relax and visit with everyone.

Today we went to Jason's uncle and aunt's house in a town called Bath, IL. (Swimming in bath. lol) They've invited us to come out and swim whenever we want, and we took the kids over there. The water was really cold because the sun hasn't stayed out for very long. It's been partly cloudy most of the day. I stayed in the pool for probably five minutes or less. LOL It was that cold and I'm a baby when it comes to cold water. Jason stayed in there for a little while and played with the kids though. We didn't let them stay in very long because we were afraid that they'd get sick because of the water being really cold.

Their neighbor had six lab puppies and Jason's younger girl cousins brought two pups over at a time so we could see them. They had two black ones, two that were a light brown, one a little bit darker and a chocolate lab. Jas really wanted one of the lighter brown ones and Jason, Luke and I really wanted the chocolate lab. I've got some pictures to upload of the puppies. They were really cute!

Oh and Luke learned how to tie his shoes today! Yay! I'll try to post the video from YouTube. I've already uploaded it, so I don't think it will take very long. :)

It's back to work tomorrow. Then the zoo on Saturday! :) And I have the weekend off. Always good.

Until next time,

Cole