Monday, August 13, 2012

Poor Truck..... Poor Us!

July ended with a bang- literally. Ouch. 

We had just stopped at a stop sign (corner of Mary and Milner for you locals) and it was our turn to go, so my husband proceeded through the intersection, going South- we were heading to our church that's south of town early Sunday morning. 
The lady who hit us did not stop at her stop sign, and hit us- all 3 of us were in the truck. She must have been going 30-40mph. We did NOT see her coming.  Little guy was in the middle in a booster seat, and ended up with a bloody nose, and a fat upper lip. I bumped my head and had a minor concussion, and my neck hurt right away, so the emergency crew took me to the hospital. On a back board, in the ambulance, with a neck brace. Sorry, no photos of that one- also, not something I want to remember! Hubby has had back pain and ankle soreness since the event. 


That's our 'new' 2001 Ford Ranger, after the accident. 
We had just switched vehicles within the last 3-4 months, so we weren't carrying enough insurance on this newer one. The old one was a 1998 Chevy S-10, but it was a rust-bucket, so it wasn't worth much. So, no, insurance couldn't help us with repairs- lesson learned, the hard way! 


Broken axle. Not that I know anything about trucks, or axles for that matter. I was able to get the door open  and climb out of the truck after the accident (I was hyperventilating- and needed some air). Once I got out, I looked at the tire. This tire was originally under the truck. 

The lady who hit us has no insurance. Or a job. Or anyway to pay us. 

Broke the wheel hub, flattened the tire. The repairman has been able to save this tire!  


Not the rim, though. 


That's not how a tire is supposed to look, right? 



Not. Good. At. All. 

Hopefully we will be getting it back sometime this week, or so the repairman is telling us. Thank goodness, it's hard to stay at home all day. I know that's my job, but my job is also to run errands, go grocery shopping, keep doctor appointments, occasionally take my child to the park, etc. Having one vehicle makes that hard, especially when hubby has to take it to work. I have been able to 'get' the car when I needed, and one Friday my son and I jumped on a city bus to go downtown to the library (thankful they run by our house). That was an adventure that I'm not sure I want to repeat. 

Since the accident, our family has been going to the chiropractor- almost everyday. 

I think I'm a more cautious driver now. I'm looking two or three times, making sure other people stop before I venture into an intersection. I've gotten over the fact of freaking out at major intersections. I make sure hubby is NOT driving distracted. 

Several things to Praise the Lord about: 
1. We choose that morning to drive the truck, not the car (could have been worse).
2. The lady could have hit the door (where I was sitting).
3. There was no glass broken!
4. CAT scan came back negative on my head and spine- they let me go home the same day, no overnight stay.
5. God has provided the money for repairing the truck- without taking out a loan from the bank (which we DID NOT want to do.)
6. The truck will be fixed soon, yesterday marked the 2 week mark.
7. Our son has since stopped talking about accidents and being afraid of getting into another one while riding in a car.
8. Due to a friend of the family wedding the day before, my hubby's whole family was in town (both siblings and spouses). They were still in town and were able to be here and support us, get stuff out of the truck for us after the accident and of course, pray for us.  
 

ps. Our church was having Bib Overall Sunday that day, so you can guess what we were all wearing. We think little man hit my buttons on my bibs. We didn't make it to church. We didn't make it to the picnic after church at a local county park. 



Monday, August 6, 2012

Letter F

This week's letter is the Letter F

Fish. Frogs. Firemen.
I'm using some curriculum downloads from Homeschool Creations and 1plus1plus1equals1.

We've been using Totally Tots In My Heart Bible verses and my 4 year old loves doing Calendar from 1plus1plus1equals1. Actually, not so much the calendar part as changing the weather and the color of the day. When he does go to Pre-School it might be hard for him not to change the weather or the color every single day. He misses it when we forget to change the weather for one day. But the good thing is I'll still keep my Calendar at home, so if he doesn't get to do it at school, he can always do it at home.

We'd like him to go one year to a 'traditional' classroom, and we've chosen the local Christian School. We are trusting God in the fact that the money that needs to be there will be there- and we also applied for a state grant, but as of now, we aren't sure if we got it yet.







Friday, August 3, 2012

Summer Movie Nights


Thanks to all the hard working Main Street Ottumwa volunteers who put this on! 
(I should know, I'm one of them)
 This summer has been hot- serving concessions has not been easy in this heat! 

 My son enjoying his flavored ice- at $0.50 a cup, you can't beat it! 

 
The movie was The Cat in the Hat, 
Click on the link to see the poster design I did.

Want to come? Afraid you missed out? One more movie showing- next Saturday night! 
The movie is a classic: E.T.
Saturday, August 11, 2012 at 8:30pm or dusk- Free
Yes, I designed the poster for that one. 




Thursday, August 2, 2012

Letter E is for Elephant

Our letter of this week is Letter E, and I scoured the internet looking for other great mommy-blogs who have made letter E packs and activities for their kids. I just love 1+1+1=1, don't you?
But I couldn't find what I needed, or it all related to Easter, which is fine, but why do I always have to have my child study these letters when it's nowhere near Easter-time?
So I made my own.

Elephant


Elephant 2
My son has to know how to write the letter 'e' because it's in his name. At the end, and granted he only knows the first 2 letters of his long name (it's 11 letters long), but we are getting there.

Our other object we are studying is 'eggs' for this week. I love the ideas that Mom to 2 Posh Little Divas has over on her blog to do with Easter eggs. Who says I can't pull them out to use them as a learning tool? Great ideas!


We played a game with the letters, matching them and finding the big letter and the small letter. Some of the eggs were the same colors and made it easy, but a few of them were mixed, which made it hard for him to figure out. I also made him find the letters on the ABC Chart. We took turns, but I was still able to help him learn the letters by helping me find mine on the chart. I put the eggs in an empty Tide Pods container and kept it with all of our homeschooling supplies and games. We'll play this game again!

Here's a photo of my son at a wedding we went to this weekend! He's so handsome!




Wednesday, August 1, 2012

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday- Smokey Row



Just because sometimes you have to have nothing but ice cream for lunch in the summer! 

2 scoops- Mint Chocolate Chip and Chocolate Fudge



Thursday, July 26, 2012

4-H Expo 2012

There were a TON of things to do this year at the 4-H Expo: 

 Face Painting..... 

 A lion with sharp teeth.... 

 Roar..... 

 Train riding.... 

Dollar Dog....  

 Crafts..... 

 Shooting..... 

Down range.... 

 With a real gun.... 

 B.B. Gun reloading.... 

 Shooting again... 

 Loved the big mirror..... 

 Plus the tractors.... 

 What an exhausting day..... 

A lot of 1st this summer: 
1st time getting his face fully painted
1st time shooting a real gun (mommy was more nervous than he was)
1st time re-loading a gun
1st time in a kiddie tractor pull- (we think he was in the top 5 for his weight category)
1st time mommy let him go to the boys bathroom all by himself - although I'm still leery of doing this all the time for obvious reasons, I was at the time occupied and couldn't take my 4 year old to the girls bathroom. 
1st time doing a craft all by himself
The 4-H Expo was fun when he was 3, but it was a blast now that he was 4, old enough to do most of the stuff the big kids were doing, if he chose to. 

 He's growing up so fast!