The little man's 9 month check up was June 17th. He weighs 19 lbs. He is right on schedule with all his milestones and then some. He is doing really good, he is pulling him self up on stuff and falling a lot, of course. We are starting to get him to eat more "people" food. Kiki can play with him a lot more now since he is mobile.

Well, recently I was diagnosed with Strep. Not fun at all!! It started with a migraine for a couple days then went into a sore throat. I was fine until Thursday night and all of a sudden it hit me, I could not stand up or walk for more than 2 minutes without feeling like I was going to get sick or just pass out right there. Of course, that was my volleyball night so I had to ask the hubby to sub for me. About 6:30 that night I got a fever of 102.6. After that it was hell. I started getting really weird symptoms that are not usually affected with strep. I got sick (threw up) 3 times that night, I lost my appetite and didn't want to eat (even taco bell), I had really bad chest pains- when I would breath in or out it would burn. I figured it was just a 24 hour thing and it would go away. It was so much worse on Friday. I decided to go to the dr.s office and get checked out. I told him all my symptoms and he went straight to a culture (strep test). After he gave me my prescription he told me to take them right away and he said "if u still cannot swallow your own spit go to the ER." Well, that scared me a little. By the time I got home it was after 8 p.m, so I didn't take my last medication until 9:35 p.m. I didn't know how long it would take to take affect so I just waited until Saturday.

Saturday wasn't any better. I was a little worried about this whole ER thing so I went to a second Dr. for a second opinion. Well this Dr. said the reason why the other Dr. wanted me to go to the ER was because if my medication isn't helping then little air pockets will form in my throat causing an abscess in my throat which means they have to go in and drain fluid from my throat. Kind of sounds like little cists. The second Dr. gave me a shot and said "if your sore throat does not dissapear by tonight you should go to the ER." For two Dr.s telling me to go to the ER it really sounds worse than it is. It still hurts today but I can eat and drink. I am just going to wait until I can get an appointment with my regular Dr. on a weekday.

The hubby, kids and I went to Colorado Springs and Denver for vacation for about 4 days. It was a very awesome trip!!!! The kids were fantastic!! Not just in the car driving, they were awesome every where we went! The little man got a little restless a couple of times when he couldn't get down and run around in the restaurants or other places that we went. I am a very impatient person and I get stressed out easily so when I say the kids were fantastic, I mean it!

It took us about 9 hours to get there, we stopped a couple times to stretch, potty, and feed the little man. When the little man wasn't sleeping in the car him and Kiki were laughing at/with each other and talking. We brought Kiki a portable DVD player that she only watched maybe 3 hours of the 9 hour trip. The hubby and I didn't know what to expect on the road trip there, but we knew they would do good because that's just the kind of kids they are. This is our 3rd time going to Colorado Springs to visit family. The time before this one we had Kiki and I was pregnant with the little man. Every time we have made this trip it has been raining or storming.

We got to Colorado Springs about 5:30 p.m Friday evening (6:30 Nebraska time). It was raining and storming pretty good on the way there. We got about a 1/2 hour away from Colorado Springs and it started hailing (golf ball size), it sounded like it was going to go right through the windshield *of course, I was freaking out*. There were cars pulled over on the side of the road. When you looked in the rear view mirror it looked like it just snowed a couple of inches.

We actually went up for the hubbys' uncle's 50th surprise birthday party and decided to make a vacation out of it. We were supposed to have a surprise party at a park, but his wife decided to tell him about the park early, so we decided to surprise him with family members each day. Friday he got surprised with us, and one of his brothers (Wayne) and his mother, Saturday he got surprised with another brother (Dale and family) and niece (Christy, sp?).

We stayed with some family for 2 days (Friday and Saturday). The kids were very good there and slept really well. We decided to get a hotel the 3rd night (Sunday). We thought the hotel would be hectic since there would not be a separate room for the little man to sleep in incase he woke up in the middle of the night and woke up Kiki, but it turned out fantastic again!!!

We did some site seeing (Kiki calls them the "red mountains") on Sunday before we went to the room, we said we were all going to go swimming when we got back to the room but the little man fell asleep, so Kiki and daddy went swimming. When daddy got done swimming it was mommy and the little man's turn so we went for a little bit, but the water was too cold for the little man so we went back to the room. When I got back to the room Kiki was laying down in her bed ready for bed, (it was 10 p.m by that time) the hubby decided that I should go to the hot tub and relax, so I took him up on the offer and relaxed for about 15 minutes. When I got back it was the hubby's turn to relax for a little bit. When I got back to the room both the little man and Kiki were out!! The hubby said it only took them both about 5 minutes to fall asleep. They both slept all night and everyone slept very well.

We went to the Denver Zoo on Monday with some friends that the hubby knew and decided to start driving back that afternoon. We left the zoo about 3 p.m (because it was raining, *imagine that*) and stopped in North Platte where there was a tornado warning, ate supper at Applebee's and stayed in another hotel (this was already planned we didn't just stop because of the tornado warning). By this time we only had a 3 hour drive left to go home on Tuesday. Oh I forgot to mention, it was raining and storming every single day we were there, even at the zoo!

It was good seeing the family again!! I hope they can come back this way some time and we can return the favor and they can stay with us for a couple of days. Now we are looking forward to other family members coming to see us next month. The sister- in- law and nephew are coming out for a couple weeks in July. We always look forward to see family we don't normally get to see.