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- We officially started school this week – Kindergarten!! I guess it didn’t quite feel so “monumental” to me, but then I looked back & compared this year’s photos with last year’s “first day of Preschool” photo and OMIGOODNESS!! Suddenly it seems like: what happened to my babies?!
- So yes, we went to bed Sunday night: all excited for a fresh Monday morning. I set my alarm – had the best intentions about getting up early, exercising, & having some time to myself in the morning (which I did every single day for 7 months, but the last 6 weeks have been crazy with traveling, so I fell off the habit). My alarm went off Monday morning & I looked over to see Derrick still in bed next to me. Either he slept thru his alarm or something was wrong (he typically would have been out the door way before I woke up). I poked him & said, “What’s wrong?” He responded, “I need you to take me to the emergency room.”
Let’s back up a few days: Derrick has had back/hip pain for months (years?) and recently started going to a physical therapist instead of just a chiropractor. He’s been making great strides in the right direction, but last week, something happened to make all his steps forward dissolve & he slipped backwards into “worse than ever” status. He struggled thru the weekend with the intention of just making it to Tuesday – his next PT appointment. But he woke up Monday morning & literally could not get out of bed. Worried that it might be something more than just his back/hip, he wanted to go to the ER.
My Mom came over to watch the kids & off we went. Thankfully, he was the only person in the ER at 7am on Monday morning, so altogether (after x-rays) he was only there for a little over an hour. They diagnosed him as having a pinched nerve, told him to take more ibuprofen than he’d been taking, and told him to get to his PT appointment the next day.
Thankfully, since then – he’s been feeling better! Still not better, but he can at least walk now. - My Mom gave us a monarch chrysalis she had found this week & we eagerly watched it every day. Yesterday morning, we woke up & it had gotten all dark, so we knew our butterfly would be emerging soon & sure enough, less than an hour later she was out!! We took her outside & put her on our flowers – watched her stretch out & sun her wings & then eventually fly off (it’s a long process, after watching her for about 30 minutes, we came inside & just kept running back out to check on her throughout the day until we saw her fly away!) That process (of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly) will never cease to amaze me!!
- Kennywood announced this week that, unlike rumors we had heard, they would be open this weekend, next weekend, and Labor Day weekend & that would be it for the year. No Halloween event & no Christmas event (which was especially heartbreaking since we’ve gone to Holiday Lights every single year since 2016 – it’s our little Christmas tradition). So, we ran off to Kennywood on Thursday. We’ll probably only get one more trip in (how is that even possible?) so I took my camera & took a bunch of photos – I literally don’t know what we’re going to do with ourselves post-Labor Day when Kennywood isn’t open. We have gone at least once a week since they opened this year & it’s definitely going to be a huge whole in our time!
- Anyways – we had an “incident” as we were leaving Kennywood Thursday night: if you’re unfamiliar with how Kennywood is laid out – in order to exit the park, you have to walk thru a tunnel that goes under the road, and then up a ramp in order to exit out the gate to the parking lot. In other words: the parking lot & the park are split by the road & the tunnel is how you get in & out.
So, we were walking up the ramp after walking thru the tunnel – us and hundreds of other people – and about the half-way point, I felt someone bump into the back of me. At first, it felt like a stroller wheel had bumped me. Only, it didn’t stop. It continued ramming into me – pushing me forward. I turned around to see an electric wheelchair literally running me over. And the only reason the lady stopped, was because she hit the edge of the wall & it stopped her from continuing to push forward.
It was quite the incident. I was half-terrified to look back at my leg because I figured it must be bleeding – but somehow, it wasn’t. Thankfully, there is a bench right there, so I hobbled over to it & sat down. The back of my ankle & calf were throbbing – she had hit me at full speed & then continued to push me forward. Turns out – the lady hadn’t actually been driving at all – her 3 year old granddaughter had been driving & the Grandma hadn’t been paying any attention at all to where they were going, how fast they were going, or who they were running over along the way.
That was Thursday night & it’s now Saturday morning – my leg is still sore. A really nice bruise is developing, but thankfully it’s only tender to the touch – I can walk just fine (can you imagine if she’d hit Derrick with his back/hip problems? or Braelynn?! she would have literally hit Braelynn, pushed her down & run her right over). - I’m extra thankful that it wasn’t worse than it was though because today is a wedding day!! I’m off to shoot Ashley & Brady‘s wedding this afternoon with ELLEN! I’m so excited to have my little sister along with me today – it’s going to be the most amazing day!
[…] she’s in first grade!If you’d like a mini stroll down memory lane, here is last year’s “first day of Kindergarten” photo & the year before’s “first day of […]