First Day of School & A Missing Child

Yes. My daughter was 'missing' on the first day of school. She was fine and actually turned out to be in a safe place, but I didn't know this for about an hour and a half!!

I am a teacher at an elementary school, but my children go to a different elementary school. Their school has before and after school care right there at the school run by a daycare conglomerate in our county. I can drop them off in the cafetorium as early as 6 am and pick them up as late as 6:30 pm. Long time, but they are NEVER there that late.

My son participated in this program last year and LOVED it. They play on the playground, have parties, do homework, have barbies and hotwheels.

So I dropped the children off there in the morning and they get breakfast and go to school. After school, my daughter doesn't show up. The director of the after school program calls me on my cell, as does the principal. I literally run out of my school on the way to theirs, the longest 20-minute drive of my life. While driving back, the after school director is driving to my house, the house where we used to live (just 4 house away) and our neighbor's house. Our neighbor says my daughter was in the car rider line with them and her and her twin daughters waved good-bye to her as they left.

I get there and there are about 8 people in the office and they all look at me as I was in. The principal has me sit in her office after explaining what went on. They are calling the staff that was helping the children in the car rider line, since that's where my neighbor and her twin daughters saw my daughter. The staff doesn't recall seeing her.

Soon after, they say they've called 9-1-1 and I have to stay there until the police arrive. Sometime in the midst of all this they ask me for a picture of her. I had to run out to the car to get the camera, as I took pictures that morning of the children. When I return, there are about 20 people in the office. One of our neighbors walks in and asks if there's any word yet. She's still dressed in her airline uniform from work. I tell her no and she turns around and heads back out the door.

The principal starts downloading the pictures onto her computer and the bookkeeper was calling off-site daycare centers that had picked up children from the school. This was at the suggestion of one the ESOL staff members that was in the car rider line.

That's where she was....at a daycare center. Apparently, the line for the daycare vans is right next to the car rider and my neighbor actually saw her in the daycare van line. She wasn't even supposed to leave the school!!

We had a neighbor on a four-wheeler, our pastor and his daughter on bikes, two neighbors in cars, some neighbors on foot all looking for her. Wow! What a mess, but I think the entire school knows here now, as well as that she is supposed to STAY at school after school. :)

Tristian

Tristian is a unique child. I've been told that he is helpful more than once. He got the award in Kindergarten for the most helpful. I've also been told he has "an old soul". I truly believe that. So, this blog is about him and may be ongoing, if I can remember to keep it up.

By 1 year old, Tristian...
had flown in a plane from Indiana to Florida twice.
could clean up his toys into his toy box with very little help.
could drink from a cup.
had been walking for over 2 months.
had been swimming in a pool.
had been camping, sort of, but hated it, so we returned home before falling asleep.
had rode a horse with Mama.
had tubes put in his ears.

By 2 years old, Tristian
had been to his first amusement park, Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN;
.... and spent the whole day in the water park part.
moved houses for the first time.
slept in a real bed, not a crib.
went camping, for real, in a tent (on the hottest week of the year, so we ended up in a hotel).
visited Squire Boone Caverns in Southern Indiana.
had his first febrile seizure and scared Mom and Dad to death.
...which led to his first ambulance ride.
went to his first of many RV shows.

By 3 years old, Tristian
could look at one side of a truck or trailer and tell you the TOTAL number of wheels on it.
could help dad set up the pop up camper. His job was to put the legs down. Although, he was was caught trying to "hook up" the camper to his "Flintstone-type" car!
had his 2nd febrile seizure in the baggage claim of the Orlando airport. Mom remained calm.
had another tube put in his right ear and came out of the surgery smiling, being carried by the recovery room nurse! Such a church baby!
knew the names of all the types of campers: 5th wheels, travel trailers, pop-ups, class A, class C.
had been to Dollywood and Splash Country in Pigeon Forge, TN.

By 4 years old, Tristian
became a big brother.
"fixed" a bottle for his baby sister by pouring water in a new can of formula.
got his sister out of her crib, strapped her into her car seat and declared her "ready to go"! (I immediately called the pediatrician and she assured me that babies were more resiliant than I thought, but watch her for a couple of days anyway. She was FINE!)
was finally potty trained! (closer to 3 years old, but not before)
had a new job on a new camper: legs on the camper again, but also helping Daddy back up the van to the camper hitch. Dead on, every time!
had seen the arch in St. Louis, MO.
had been to Six Flags in St. Louis, MO.
saw over 3 feet of snow fall in less than 24 hours!

By 5 years old, Tristian
was learning to read.
had learned to ride a bike without training wheels.
wanted to be a Wal-mart truck driver.
had been to Magic Kingdom, Gatorland, Busch Gardends (Tampa) twice, Sea World, Florida Aquarium, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.
had been to the Air & Space Museum in Dayton, OH.
had been to the Newport Aquarium in Newport, KY - other side of Ohio River from Cincinnati.
had been to the Children's Museum in Indianapolis, IN.
had been on a real train ride (Amtrak).
had rode the Tri-rail (South Florida) to the Metro rail (Miami) to eat dinner in Miami at a Cuban restaurant.

By 6 years old, Tristian
had been on a rode trip, without a hotel stop, from Avon Park, FL, to Seymour, IN!
had spent 7 weeks in South Florida with his grandparents! A long stint without parents!

By 7 years old, Tristian
had played drums in a choir concert at school.
had received the "Most Helpful" award for Kindergarten.

By 8 years old, Tristian
had saved enough money to buy his own bike.
had rode on the Metro into DC to see "the city" and visit a Smithsonian.
saw the White House, the Washington Monument and walked around DC.
was being evaluated for the gifted program at school.
had gone to his first indoor water park.
learned how to send a text message.
moved from Indiana to Virginia.

House Renovation Complete

Well, a lot of time has gone by, over a month. I was not in town for the house renovations, so I could not take pictures. The contractor had his workers start demolishing the house inside before I could get in there with a camera. I have some pictures that have been taken with a camera phone, so they are not of the greatest quality. I will post these later.

All in all, the renovations went well and were completed within a month! Our contractor rocks!! He'll be back when we replace the carpeting with bamboo flooring. That will be in a few years. He'll also be changing out the linoleum in the baths and kitchen. We went on the cheap side just so we could move in.

Right now most of our stuff is still in our basement, where we moved it while in transition between houses. We have most of our furniture upstairs, though. There are some minor pieces downstairs still, but nothing heavy that we can't handle. A lot of clothes are still downstairs and we continue to say, "I think that's in the camper", as Fred was living in our camper for 2 weeks. So, as I upload pictures from my camera and phone, I will post them on here.

Still trying to close

Yes. We're still trying to go to closing. We've heard everything from 'one more signature' to 'one more person' to 'there's a condition'. UGH! We're so far into this, we don't feel like we can walk away. Our original closing date was May 21st and you can see the date (June 14th) and we've still not closed. We have a packed moving truck in our driveway and boxes within the house. We're living on the bare essentials and not having fun.

Our landlord asked us to be out by June 15th, but I asked to be able to finish out the school year until June 20th to give us time to clean and get the carpets cleaned, as well. Now, it's like we won't even make that deadline!

We'll be living in our camper, or, at least, Fred will. My hope is to go to Florida for a significant amount of time while the house is getting renovated. My sister, at this point, has arranged for us to get into Disney for FREE on June 24th. That's 10 days and, with all the delays we've had so far, doesn't seem possible. I would like to start driving south by this Saturday, the 20th, but who knows. As of right now, movers come on Thursday, the 18th, and carpet cleaners on Friday. Hmm...wonder if we'll make it. Wonder if we'll have to postpone those dates, too.

BTW, the first offer that was written on this house was March 29th. It's been 2 1/2 months!!!

New Home Purchase

It's been so long. I'm a slacker, but I'm also working on my master's and just tired of 'writing'. Sooo, here's an update.

We weren't really looking for houses and stumbled across a foreclosure just 4 houses down from where we live now in our rented home. What makes this house so desirable for us is the location. We went inside and saw a lot of cosmetic things, nothing major. This was on a Saturday.

We went for another visit and decided to put in an offer. It went back and forth and we ended up with a good deal/offer/acceptance. Now we're in the process of picking out the details of our renovation. The kitchen is going to be the biggest and costliest project, so I'm highlighting that. The kitchen is a galley, so not much to do there. However, it is getting gutted. One day, I will add before and after pictures. Right now, I just wanted to get this started.

I will take pictures of other rooms and the outside, but the baths and kitchen will show the biggest changes. We are also going basic on floor coverings due to costs. We plan to make our 'dream renos' in the future when we won't have to finance them into a 30 year mortgage.

Stayed tuned. :)