All of the reasons why not having a seond job is good

We've been living our flurried life the last few weeks. It's been really tough to take the time and relax (well at least relax and blog or do "my relaxing stuff").

So what have we been up to?

The older kids came to Take Your Child To Work Day again with me. I actually got to go on the field trip this year - we took a tour of all "Large Engineering Company's" projects around Omaha and then had a really neat tour of the Holland Perrforming Arts building.

Building a bridge out of gumdrops and toothpicks and then testing the load with pennies - they got over $1.00 into the container!

We celebrated Easter with Mr. S's family. The kids had fun, although I think JrMrS was upset that they were hard on him when they hid his eggs. It got to be late and it wasn't the kids that I had a hard time getting out of there - it was Mr S because he was too busy watching all the ins and outs of the Royal Wedding. Seriously? He doesn't even remember what our vows are or what my dress looked like, but wants to know ALL about that? Grr...

God, she's so pretty

Looking EVERYWHERE for his eggs.....

We finished soccer season and then began baseball and softball and swim team.

(05/14/11)

(06/02/11)

School finished out with  several performances by the kids.

LMS's spring concert (also the twin's)

JrMsS and MrS's first band concert (JrMsS in front row playing the flute and JrMr S almost right behind her playing the alto sax)

5th and 6th grade musical - JrMsS on top far left - next year they'll get parts being in 6th grade

They also went on their last field trips of the year. I got to go on LMS's trip to the Henry Doorly Zoo. Sad, but these sort of activites really make you happy to have the kids you do. Exhausting day!!

Yeah - these girls (and boy) are going to be a handful in 4 years if not already :)

We did a few family night activities like fishing at De Soto Bend, golfing and grilling out

We celebrated Mothers Day with MrS's mom and sister. Her son is SO adorable. What a nice mothers day grilling out and visiting.

As much as he doesn't want more kids - he's SUCH a good "baby" dad - gives me baby fever everytime I see him like this :)

Oops - dumped all the bubbles :(

My baby girl turned EIGHT! She's such a big girl now :)

She had so much fun making her birthday dinner - spaghetti and meatballs!!

Yum!!

Then the month was COMPLETELY gone and we were at Memorial Day weekend!!

Kids playing in the rope sprinkler (TS being a 'little brother' and teasing JrMsS as she tries to run through it)

LMS sunbathing on the lawn - god she's so much like me!

Sadly, MrS has had to work out of town for the last week-and what a rough week it's been! The hardest thing was having ALL the kids - ALL by myself ALL week. We survived and I hope that they had fun, but it wasnt easy. Especially with all of the other hard things and activities. The AC went COMPLETELY out at my Omaha house and needed a new one bought. JrMsS caught lice (so gross!!!!!!!!!!!). We had 4 baseball games,  1 softball game, 1 swimming practice, vacation bible school, an orthodontist appointment - and SO many other things going on - on top of having to work!!! Ugh!

Probably the cutest thing though was that on Friday the boys really wanted to talk to their dad and after they got done - LMS just HAD to talk to him too. Then JrMsS HAD to talk to him - he was so sweet to include them too. I was so surprised by how much they missed him - I mean I know I miss him tons - I just hadn't thought the girls would feel the same way. When he finally was able to get home today they were sure to greet him just along with the boys and squeezed in for hugs from him too! Aww...

Anyway, after our SUPER long week, I decided to do something fun with the kids Saturday and we went to the zoo. We went to several exhibits as well as went to the IMAX (free this year with our membership) and saw Tornado Alley. We also got to see the actual TIV2 and meet the guy that is the meteorologist on the Storm Chasers team.

We really do have the most adorable kids :)

I hope that even with the busy week and me against 5 kids all week, we've been able to bond more - I don't have that oppourtunity very often. TS2 was saying something at church today about how both his mom and dad were gone this week and that doesn't normally happen. I made the comment that "poor him - he got stuck with me" and he replied yes, and after a pause said he had a lot of fun though :)

MrS isn's allowed to leave again though.....

So our next impending disaster is that we're about to flood! Like really bad - apparently the USACE is about to start releasing 150,00 cfs of water on us for like the next 3 months. This will equal 4-8 ft of water at MrS's rental house (the one we still haven't completed fixing from the tornado!) and 6-8 ft of water covering our access road. Um, yeah, one reason living in the middle of nowhere is bad...grr...It's so HARD to imagine though - I just can't even picture that much water where we live. Our house will be fine - but we'll most literally be on an island!

The sad thing is - it's not getting ANY coverage!! Weird huh? Maybe they're not doing it so people will come for the College World Series and other major events Omaha has planned this summer (even though they're not going to flood - they may not want that kind of publicity)...just really odd...

Anyway, everyone is gearing up for it to get REALLY bad. I guess we'll just have to see what happens. In the meantime - they're "suggesting" people evacuate and they'll begin dismantling some of our substations in the area this week - which will put more load (and more risk of losing power) on the rest of us. Guess we'll have to wait this out and see what happens...

Some are trying to ride it out by sand bagging and building bearms around there homes.

Turner Bend - half a mile from the actual river!

Road is washed over...

So, I guess we'll see what happens - it'll be an interesting 3 months +