Summer Time!

I can't believe I've been on summer break for almost three weeks already. I feel like we've been so busy, but haven't accomplished much at the same time.

I think we've been to our local zoo at least twice, checked out a different zoo with cousins, been to the pool twice, set up our own pool last night, and are doing Anna's last session of swim lessons before she moves up to the "big kid" class. We've signed up for two summer reading programs and continue to keep track of Anna's 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten (just finished 500!). We've played and visited with friends a lot and even have gone to a couple "mini camps" at our local nature center.

Anna's at such a fun age this summer! She understands a lot more and is so curious about everything. It's been fun keeping busy with her, but still having some lazy afternoons in between. With the heat we've been taking it easy and staying inside a lot, or in a pool, because I can't stand the heat. Anna doesn't mind to sweat and get dirty, but Mommy's not a fan.

We don't have any huge plans for the summer, not vacations this year. I'm sure most of our summer will be consumed by the above-mentioned things, which is totally fine with me. There are a few things I want to do with her specifically this summer, so we're slowly working on checking things off of that list. Our local moms group also has a town "summer bucket list" of local activities, so we're working on that, too. I love that our town as so many cute little fun things to do for the kids.

I'll definitely be soaking up every minute with my little lady this summer before we both have school in the fall. Since we'll be in the same district, we both start on the same day, meaning I can't bring her to school on her first day! :( Although, I will be able to pick her up! I can't believe she's going to be starting preschool in just two short months, but I'm so excited for her. As much as I know she'll love it, I don't want to rush this summer along any faster than it's already going! :)

I'm Still Here!

I haven't posted a blog in over two months...oops! I'm kind of glad though because it means I've really been too busy enjoying my summer! :)

Unfortunately, there's only one more week of summer vacation left for this working mama. I go back to work on August 15th and the students come back on the 17th. But I'm getting ahead of myself...you must be wondering what I've been doing all summer...

Anna and I have been keeping busy! We have been trying to get out and do something everyday. We've spent many hours at two local libraries, completing the Summer Reading Program at each of them. We also started "1,000 Books Before Kindergarten" through one of the libraries and are currently on 188 since starting at the end of May. (I wish I would have learned about it sooner because I'm pretty sure we'd be close to done by now!) We've attended many play groups and made some new friends. We've been in many, many pools and Anna is becoming quite a confident little fish.

At the end of June we took our first family vacation with Tim's sisters and their families, and Tim's Aunt & Uncle. It was SO fun!! It was our first family vacation, and Tim & I's first vacation since our honeymoon almost six years ago.

July flew by filled with more trips to the libraries, pools, parks, museums and play groups. And now, unbelievably, it's August already! August has mixed emotions for me. It's a little sad because it's the end of my time with Anna, but the excitement of starting a new school year balances it out a little. August is also an exciting time because we celebrate Anna's birthday! I cannot believe she is going to be TWO next week! She's grown up and changed so much just this summer! I'll be doing her two year post next week, so I'm not going to put too much in here, except to say that she is potty trained!! I'm so proud of her and I love the little person she's growing up to be!

Health-wise I've been feeling really good this summer. I haven't had any chest infections. I'm just starting up my round of Cayston today, so that should get my lungs in tip top shape for my CF appointment next week and the beginning of the school year. I definitely haven't exercised as much as I could/should have this summer, so there's always that to improve on, otherwise things are going really well here.

Well, that's all for now. We're really busy at home right now preparing for Anna's "blue birthday" party tomorrow! :)

Summer

Wrote this last week & forgot to post, oops! :)

This summer is flying by! Sadly, I'll have to report back to work in just under a month, and to top it off, we're starting an hour earlier this year. But until then, I plan to soak up every minute with my growing baby almost one year old! We've had our fair share of lazy days mixed with busy, fun days this summer.

Anna and I have gone on many walks, stopped at the park numerous times, sang the Itsy Bitsy Spider and Wheels on the Bus (among others) more times than I can count, read many books, gone swimming, played with sidewalk chalk, gone to the zoo, and visited friends & family. Having the summers off being a mom is going to be the best!

Health-wise, I've been feeling much better! I just finished up a round of Cayston which always leaves me feeling good. I have my clinic appointment next week, so I really hope the numbers reflect how I'm feeling. Even though I haven't exercised as much as I probably could/should have, my lungs are feeling clear. And best of all, I haven't had any episodes of hemoptysis since the beginning of June! Yay! I still have no idea why all of those episodes happened, but I'm so glad they've stopped and I hope they stay away for good!

Life in General

It's been too long since I've posted a non-pregnancy related post, but it's pretty hard when that's constantly on my mind! Last "normal" post was in February, I think...oops!

Anyway, we've been keeping extremely busy over the past few months. I'm pretty sure Tim started

nesting as soon as we found out I was pregnant. He's been a working machine! He completely refinished all of the hardwood floors in the house which look fantastic. He redid the ceiling (scraped the popcorn, sanded, added drywall and painted) in the living room and added a fireplace and mantel to the living room, as well repainting it all. The nursery is finished construction-wise, but still has lots of organizing and decorating to do once we get more baby supplies/furniture from our showers in June. We just had a new roof put on our house last week. Tim's also planning on adding a patio and pond to the backyard, as well as repainting the ugly blue siding on our house. And if he can get all of that done before August, I know that the kitchen is next -- which includes repainting the cabinets, extending our pantry, laying new hardwood floors, installing a new countertop and knocking down a wall...and he says there's not much to do in there... :)

I've tried to help out as much as possible but with being pregnant and not super handy, I've only done some of the painting, helped scrape the ceiling and helped move things when I could. Tim has been excellent at getting everything done even when he works full time doing the exact same stuff for work everyday...I don't know how he has the energy!

This last weekend we had our second Great Strides walk! Our team has raised around $1,200! We had gorgeous weather and had a great time visiting with all of Tim's family for the weekend. I did one of the opening speeches about my life with CF and how I had to kick my butt over the last few years to get my body ready for a pregnancy. The speech was a little scattered (pregnancy brain!), but I always enjoy sharing my story with others. Afterwards, I went to join my family and our almost 4 year old nephew gave me a high-five and said, "that was awesome!"

My biggest fan :-)

In other news, I've been pretty busy wrapping up the end of the school year with my little boogers and preparing for maternity leave in the fall. I recently learned that next year I'll be teaching Kindergarten again, so I'm really looking forward to that. It'll be much easier coming back from maternity leave to a grade that I've taught before instead of third grade like it was before. We're down to ten days of school left! This school year has flown by, thankfully, because my class has a couple (four to be exact) handfuls that I'm am definitely looking forward to getting a break from....lol. This summer I'll be moving rooms, again. Thankfully my principal and custodian are wonderful at accommodating all of the pregnant teachers who have to move this summer and doing our rooms first. I'm hoping to have all of my bulletin board fabric and boarders up the day after the last day of school. Then all I'll have to do when I come back after the room is cleaned is arrange the furniture, hang posters and organize. Anyone willing to come down this summer to help me out with that is more than welcome!

Speaking of summer, ours is full! Between baby showers, friends' weddings, family parties and a weekend trip to St. Louis for a Cardinals game, Tim and I will be super busy! Luckily I'll have still have weekdays to put my feet up and relax, :-), but my poor hubby is going to be going non-stop! Hopefully he'll get a few relaxing weekends this summer before the sleepless nights begin in three months! :-)

Positive Thoughts Thursday: Friends, Family & Kalydeco

Each week I've been trying to spend time reflecting on the positive things going on in my life and/or the world around me. I know I've been slacking lately, but I'm really hoping to get better. What are some positive things going on in your life right now?

This is a picture Tim sent me while
I was away for the weekend at Catie's
wedding. He's made a lot of progress.
I'll do before & after pics later.

• I am so grateful for my husband, Tim! He has been working non-stop since the day we have moved into our house! Between working his normal job during the day, driving an hour home and then going straight to work on the bathroom remodel until about nine each night, I don't know how he hasn't taken a day off! He is such a perfectionist which really helps when he's putting tile in the bathroom, and his work always looks good. 
• My friend, Catie, got married this past weekend!!! She couldn't have asked for a better day to get married, it was gorgeous outside and everything went very smooth. The ceremony was beautiful and the reception was a TON of fun! They had a Motown band which was amazing & had the dance floor packed the entire night!
• I'm so happy to have had this summer break! It was really nice to be able to spend time with a lot of my friends and our family this summer. Unfortunately, I did not stick to my exercise/eating routine like I should have, but I guess I'm not really surprised. So I am really looking forward to getting back into a routine next week. My first day back to work is Monday, and the kids' first day is on Wednesday! I'm a little nervous about teaching first grade this year because I've never worked in this grade, but I have two wonderful teacher-partners who I know will help me along the way. :)
• My doctor and I have decided to start the paperwork process on Kalydeco now instead of waiting until October. The more I thought about it after I left my last clinic appointment, the more I starting thinking, "Why wait?" The paperwork was submitted Tuesday and they said it typically takes about two weeks for the process, but depends entirely on insurance. So there's a very good chance that I could be starting Kalydeco in September! I'm looking forward to it and I'll keep you posted as I know more!! :-)

Enjoying My Summer

Linda & I after the musical :)

This is the first summer that I haven't worked since I was sixteen, and I'm loving it! I love that I'm able to create my own schedule (even though I'm pretty good about sticking to the one I posted about) each day and really do whatever I want. For example, I was gone from Wednesday-Sunday seeing friends and hanging out. Tim's aunt Linda & I went to see The Book of Mormon musical in Chicago on Wednesday night - hilarious! Then on Thursday we stopped by the sidewalk sale at the teacher's store to pick up some things for my classroom. Thursday evening I was able to hang out with my great friend Jessie and her fiance Jeremy (who has CF), who we met in college and Jessie was one of my bridesmaids. On Friday, I was able to see another one of my bridesmaids and great friends since middle school, Amanda! Her and her fiance just closed on their first house last week so I helped them remove some wall paper and help prep their home for lots of painting. Finally I finished up the weekend Saturday with my maid of honor, Catie's bachelorette party! :-)
It was so much fun to be able to see all of my awesome friends and spend some time with each of them! That's the hard part about living at least three hours away and the fact that we're all teachers.

This coming weekend is also going to be filled with fun and family. We're heading up to stay at Tim's grandma's house with his sister and her two little boys, and Linda & Roger, Thursday through Sunday! I'm so excited to be able to spend more time with our nephews this summer.

Then next week I have my next CF clinic appointment, where I should be able to try out the TOBI podhaler for the first time. And the week after that I'll be gone for another long weekend with my friend Karissa, at Country Thunder! Then...if all goes according to plan, the following week (the last week in July) we should be closing on our house and moving!

Looks like this month is going to fly by! I cannot believe that pretty much as soon as we close on our house, I'll have to get back into "school-mode" because I'll have to go move my classroom down the hall and start setting up for first grade! I cannot believe there's really only about 6 weeks left of my summer break...which sounds like a lot, but with how busy we'll be, I know it's going to be over before I know it.

Oh, and to follow up from my previous post, I finished the first Walking Dead compendium (issues 1-48) in about three or four days. It was awesome! Totally different from the show, but still wonderful! I'd recommend it to anyone...not children though, it's pretty graphic and raunchy at times. Now I'm on to Compendium Two (issues 49-96) which I started last week Wednesday when I got it from Linda. I had been reading it all weekend while doing my treatments and I have one more chapter to go which I'll easily finish today. Anyone know when the third one is coming out?! I think I have a problem...

Summer Schedule?

Woo hoo! No school! Summer break! I can do whatever I want for the next 2 1/2 months! True...but honestly I'm struggling without a routine/schedule. It's so easy for me to lay around all day watching TV without keeping track of time and how much I may or may not have eaten throughout the day. Currently, I'm really trying to gain weight and keep my lungs as healthy as possible, so to keep that up this summer, I've decided to make myself a daily schedule. It's nothing set in stone, there are no times attached to each thing, but there are certain things I need to accomplish each day - this is what I've come up with so far.

• TREATMENTS
• EAT (breakfast)
• 30 MINUTES EXERCISE
• Shower
• EAT (snack)
• Run any errands for the day
• TREATMENTS
• Housework 
• EAT (lunch)
• TV/read/etc
• EAT (snack)
• Hang out with Tim
• EAT (dinner)
• TREATMENTS
• EAT (dessert)

*I'm going to try to fit an extra treatment in the middle of the day - why not, especially if I'm sitting at home all day. 

*I'm going to try to get at least 30 minutes of exercise in everyday - whether its just walking around the neighborhood, going for a run, doing a workout video, something...anything!

*I'm really trying to eat/snack all day long. Sounds glamorous, it's not. I stocked up on protein bars on Monday to help me with snacks throughout the day.

*Now if I have plans for the day, then I'll just make sure that I get in my two required treatments a day and eat as much as possible. This schedule is for my lazy, nothing to do, days...which will probably be a lot of days this summer! :-)

*I tried this yesterday for the first time and did pretty well. I got in three treatments, 35 minutes of walking & running and ate several snacks on top of breakfast, lunch and dinner. It also gave me something to look forward to when I got out of bed. I knew that I had to do my treatments, but I was also mentally prepared to get outside and walk/run around the neighborhood. I like having a plan/schedule/routine. I don't do well with the 'unknown' as much. I think this is really going to help me make the most of this summer! :)

Keeping Busy & Staying Healthy!

The past couple of weeks have been busy, but very good. We have been able to cross off a few more items on our summer "to-do" list. I celebrated my 23rd birthday, Tim and I visited his sister Katrina who lives near St. Louis, summer school ended, we finally painted the last room in our house/apartment, and we went to Starved Rock. We didn't do too much for my birthday this year, which was fine with me. Tim bought me a hammock for the yard (which we have yet to get out there) and we went to dinner with a couple of friends. A few days later we were headed down to southern Illinois to visit Tim's sister, Katrina. While we were there for the weekend, we all went to the St. Louis zoo and on the Anheuser-Busch Brewery Tour.
There was also lots of baby talk (which I'm sure Tim loved) because in a couple weeks Katrina will be finding out if she's having a boy or a girl! Personally, I'm thinking a girl, but we'll see.... Summer school ended last week on Thursday, so now I have more free time to do who knows what. I still have my Spanish class Monday-Thursday afternoons, but that's it. I found a few empty collage picture frames in our basement, so my goal is to get those filled, hopefully with some honeymoon pictures. Now that we finally have our last room painted, as of Saturday, I want to get the walls filled with pictures and things to make it feel more homey. I love the way all of our rooms have turned out with the paint, so I'm excited to get some more decorating done - that's the fun part for me.

Inside a canyon - click on the picture
to enlarge it.

Yesterday, Tim and I met our friends Amanda and Neil, and their friend Eric at Starved Rock to go hiking. Of course it was about 90 degrees, 95% humidity and a heat index of about 102, but we survived! For those of you who don't know, I hate hot weather. My ideal day is about 75 degrees, so this 95 degrees with lots of humidity is definitely not my thing! But I love going to Starved Rock because it's not too far from where we live and it's beautiful (we actually considered getting married there, but for some reason decided against it - probably too expensive). It's fun to hike through the trails and see the different cliffs and canyons. Luckily for us yesterday, there is a lot of shade there. I packed a water bottle and bought a Gatorade for myself and brought lots of snacks to stay hydrated and to keep replenishing body's salt. (Click here to read about why salt is so important for CF patients.) We also decided to start our hike in the morning, hoping that we'd get out of there before it got too hot. We probably hiked for a good three hours and went about 6 or 7 miles, we think. It was fun, even if we were all soaked with sweat. It was great to catch up and hang out with friends without having to spend any money! (Except for lunch afterwards).

Looking out over "Lover's Leap" at
Starved Rock

I'm so glad to be keeping busy this summer, even though during the week I have a lot of down time. Tim's finally working regular hours now, so that makes planning things so much better! We have lots of family things coming up over the next few weeks, so that will be keeping us busy. This weekend I'll be heading to Wisconsin with one of my awesome friends for a four day country concert event which I am VERY excited about!
And even with keeping as busy as I am, I've been feeling really good! I've been trying really hard to keep up a routine to make sure that I get in both sets of treatments each day (much easier said than done) and I plan on lugging all of my equipment up to Wisconsin with me this weekend. I have definitely learned that I need to get over the embarrassment and awkwardness of doing my treatments in front of other people. For example, when Tim and I (or just me) go out of town for a weekend or more, I never used to bring my treatments with me because it is a lot to bring, but I also didn't like doing my treatments in front of other people. I guess I was just afraid that they would judge me or look at me differently because in the back of their mind, they knew I had CF, but now that they are seeing all of the treatments I had to do, it was a reality to them. (Obviously, no one has ever said this to me - this is just what goes through my head.) I've learned that people understand that I need to do my treatments, even if they may not know exactly why it's so important, so I just need to suck it up and do them. I'm getting to the point in my health, where I can feel a difference with my lungs if I miss several treatments in a row, so I know that it's very important that I keep up with everything, even if that means lugging everything around. When I do go to Wisconsin this weekend, here's a list of everything I'll need to bring (just for my treatments).
- Vest machine (plus it's bag, both tubes, power cord, and the actual vest.)
- Nebulizer machine (plus the tube)
- Three nebulizer cups and all of their parts
- Eflow machine (and power cord) for TOBI
- Eflow nebulizer cup with all of the parts (and a cup of alcohol to soak the filter piece)
- 8 Albuterol vials
- 4 Hypertonic Saline vials
- 4 Pulmzyme vials
- 8 TOBI vials
- Cooler to keep Pulmozyme and TOBI cold
- Bag or something to carry all of it in
- Bottle of enzymes and weekly vitamin organizer (not for breathing treatments, but I wouldn't be able to eat anything without my enzymes and I'd feel like crap without my vitamins)

So on top of whatever you would have to pack for a four or five day trip plus everything above, and I think I'll be good to go! Good thing I have lots of space in my car! Hope there's space at Karissa's family cottage for me and all of my belongings!!
This post got to be a lot longer than I thought it was going to be originally, but I like to tie in my CF whenever I can and here it just kept going....Here are a couple pictures with Katrina's dogs Champ (yellow) and Oscar (black) with me while I was doing my treatments down at her house last weekend. They don't judge! :)

The Next Step

This past weekend we spend our time with Tim's family celebrating our nephew's first birthday, which was a lot of fun! Throughout the weekend, I got asked several times when we were going to start having kids, and told that 'we were next'. Tim's oldest sister is pregnant with her first child, due in December, and the birthday party was for his middle sister's first child. He's the last one (youngest) of his siblings, so I know that everyone's waiting and expecting us to have kids one day, too. We both want to have kids, so it's not stressful or annoying when people ask or make comments about us having kids - it actually gets me more excited because I know that they are all very supportive. It's one of my ultimate goals in life to become a mom and I can't wait for that day! Note: I am not pregnant. There's so much decision making and things to think about before even trying to get pregnant: finances -especially!, work, our schedules, living arrangements, support system, and so much more. It makes me so thankful that Tim and I have such good communication to talk about all of these things.
Another big topic of discussion for us is me having Cystic Fibrosis and wanting to get pregnant. Most men with Cf are infertile, but women with CF are fertile and can have kids. Hopefully for me it won't be too difficult to get pregnant, but I just need to make sure I stay healthy. My CF specialist and my OB/GYN are both on board with me getting pregnant, whenever that may be. Typically, they suggest that women don't get pregnant when their lung function is 40% or lower and mine is in the mid-80s, so that's a good thing and they don't think there will be any problems with that.
Along with me having Cystic Fibrosis, the baby could have CF, too. That all depends on whether Tim is a carrier of a defective CF gene or not. If he is not a carrier, than our children will just be carriers - meaning that they will not have CF, but they could pass it on to their own children. If Tim is a carrier, our chances increase for our children to have CF themselves. That is something I go back and forth about - I don't want to see my child go through some of the things I have with CF because I know what it's like. Even though I know they are so much closer to a cure now than they ever have been, there are so many more treatments, medicines and therapies, and people with CF are living longer, healthier lives; it's not something I would want for my child. I just think it could get pretty tough, especially right after the baby was born, to keep myself healthy and take care of an unhealthy child, but I know that Tim is going to support me 100% and that we have so much support from family and friends that we could totally do it. But then I don't know if I'm being selfish because I'm taking that chance of my child having CF because I want to have kids so bad.
Tim hasn't been tested to see if he's a carrier because he has always said that it doesn't matter to him whether our kids have CF or not (which I think is the sweetest thing - he's going to be such a wonderful dad!). I still go back and forth because on one hand, if he is a carrier I don't know if it's going to impact how I feel about trying to get pregnant, but if he is not a carrier, I think it will give me a little sense of relief because they can only be carriers. It's obviously something that we need to keep talking about, but it just goes to show you how much more there is involved with us trying to have a family than I think there is with other couples. That is what I wanted to get out there with this post. As much as I would love to have kids right away, there is so much to consider normally, plus with all of my health issues on top of it. Another huge factor, for me especially, is the finances. We are doing fine with the two of us and our jobs, but having CF definitely gets expensive. Between every prescription and multiple bottles of vitamins (hundreds of dollars a month) and doctors visits (little over hundred dollars for the visit - just to see the doctor - getting PFTs, x-rays and blood tests just add more, plus gas for 150 miles round trip every three months) things can definitely add up if we add a baby in the mix, especially if he/she has CF, too.
I'm not trying to say all of this to get your sympathy, or for you to feel bad for us, or to make it look like we're struggling because we're not. I just want people to know how much extra thought goes into this (on my part - I'd love to know what else Tim's thinking!) when I think about having children. Having a baby in a family where the parents don't have severe health issues is tough, so I know it'll be tough for us, too. I just think that sometimes people maybe forget that I have CF when they ask about us getting pregnant, and that's okay! I just want people to realize what's on our plate and that I'm still trying to make the best decision for us. Like I said before, it shouldn't be too hard for me to get pregnant (hopefully!), but it's a huge decision for us and I just hope that we're making the right one if we do get pregnant. I don't want to sound full of ourselves, but I think we're going to be awesome parents whatever does happen. :-)

Hola!

Not too much has been going on since my last post, but I thought I'd give a little update. The school year's officially over now and summer school has begun. I did get an official note, in writing, that I will be an assistant again next year. That's definitely good to know if I am unable to find a teaching job for the fall, at least I'll still have my job at the school I was at this year, which I love! For summer school, I am working in an Early Childhood classroom, so it's a change of scenery for me for sure. Early Childhood is like Pre-K for students with disabilities (physical, developmental, etc). The students are three and four years old, and not really my favorite age of students to work with, but I enjoy the adults I'm working with so that's a plus for me. Summer school is only twenty days long, Monday thru Friday from 8-12.
Then straight after summer school, I am going back to school myself. I've decided to take Spanish 101 at the local community college because the school I work at is turning into the ELL (English Language Learner) hub for the district in the fall, so I figured I better start learning some Spanish! This means that there will be at least one bilingual classroom at each grade in our building; so a much different population of students than we had this year. My Spanish class started on Monday, and so far so good. I haven't taken a Spanish class since 7th grade, so in about ten years (I don't even feel old enough to say that I haven't done something in ten years!). So it will definitely a learning experience for me, but the teacher is really nice and it's a pretty small class of about 10-15 students.
Besides summer school and my Spanish class, I haven't really been doing too much else. We haven't done anything else on our summer "to-do" list, so there's nothing to update there. Tim actually added golfing and fishing to the list, so we'll see if we get to those this summer. We've set a date for our trip down to see Tim's sister near St. Louis, so I'm looking forward to that in a few weeks. Otherwise to kill time I've been reading and watching TV mostly, nothing too exciting. I've made a couple trips to the library - once on my bike to get in some exercise. Our next big plans that we're looking forward to is next weekend, which is our nephew Cole's first birthday party, so that will be fun!
Keep you posted. Adios! :)

Checking Things Off the List

It's definitely felt like summer this last week, especially weather-wise. Tomorrow is the last day of school and it's only a half day! :) The staff is supposed to be there all day, but we have a "staff meeting" at a local restaurant at 1:00pm.

Tim and I are now able to check our first thing off of our summer to-do list after this weekend. Saturday, Tim spent the whole day at a concert with his friend Chris while I attended my cousin's high school graduation party and my friend's college graduation party. It worked out well because everything was in the same area pretty much, so I was able to drop off and pick up the guys from the concert. They both got pretty burnt, and also very wet as it rained, well poured, for about ten minutes on them, but I know they had a lot of fun. We stayed the night at Chris's house and played Apples to Apples with his family that night (so hilarious!). This morning we came back home to drop off Chris (and check on Archie) and then we headed up to Rockford for the AirFest! 

We loaded up with sunscreen, but of course I still got burnt, but not too bad - it was about 95 degrees and very sunny all afternoon. Next year I'll have to remember two umbrellas for shade (only had one this year), to bring a backpack instead of a purse (easier to carry) and to pack a cooler full of Gatorade for the ride home! A side effect of cystic fibrosis is that my body cannot move salt in and out of it's cells, so it exits through my sweat glands. So when I sweat, especially a lot on a day like today, my body releases salt with the sweat. My skin was covered in salt today (you literally could see it all over my legs) from being so hot. It's much better for me to drink something like Gatorade when I'm outside and sweating because it has salt in it, so it helps me replenish the salt that I'm losing. Obviously, it's still good for me to drink water too, to stay hydrated but anything with salt is good too. So anyway, we went to the nearest gas station as soon as we left the airport to get some Gatorade and they only had one left, and unfortunately it was grape (yuck!) but I had to get it...I survived. Here are some pictures and a quick little video from our day! Enjoy!

The cockpit of the huge helicopter below.

Heavy Metal Jet Team

Heavy Metal Jet Team

Trying to stay cool -- thank goodness we brought that umbrella!!

A retro plane from 1947 called a Cessna.

We're back now and I'm fighting to stay awake. Our show, The Killing, is on tonight at nine, so I have to stay awake to watch it! I think it's time for some dinner and relaxing. Last day of school tomorrow, woo hoo! :-)

Summer Plans

With today being 90 degrees and sunny, it definitely has me thinking about summer. A week from today is the last day of school where I work, so then it'll officially be summer for me. This summer, it seems like we have a lot of family events going on between graduation parties and birthday parties which will be a lot of fun. Tim and I started making a list of things we want to do, or already have planned, for the summer on the fridge. He is going to a concert this weekend and I'm going to Country Thunder in July. We are going to the Rockford Airfest this Sunday. We used to go to Starved Rock a lot, but we haven't been there in a while, so we'll definitely be making a trip or two there over the summer....hopefully. I added St. Louis to the list for wishful thinking. Tim's sister lives close to St. Louis and we'd love to go down and visit her, but since she recently found out she's pregnant and her husband will be returning from overseas (finally!), we think it might be hard to find some time that works for us, so again...wishful thinking. And the other day, Tim added a cook out to the list. Since we finally are in a house with a yard, it would be really fun to get all of our friends over sometime this summer to grill out and hang out at our house.
On top of all of these wonderful plans and ideas, we'll both be working. Tim will be working full time and hopefully not on weekends (more wishful thinking). I'll be working as a teaching assistant for summer school for the first half of the summer. It's only Monday-Friday from eight to noon for about 4 weeks. This will still give me afternoons, evenings and all weekends off, so I'd really like to find something else to do. I would like to find a part-time job or something that can bring in income, but I honestly have no clue what I could do (suggestions welcomed!).
One of my plans to fill up some of that time is to start exercising. This is where I really need some ideas and suggestions. I am not a runner, so I am planning on riding my bike around the neighborhood maybe a few times a week, or even everyday would be nice. I would really like to do something that I enjoy. I'm not doing it to lose weight or anything, but a person with CF really should exercise to keep their lungs healthy. Raising my heart rate makes me breathe heavier, which in turn, makes me cough (which is a good thing) to get everything out. I also just want to get my body in better shape and to just be healthier overall. I'm looking for any suggestions for fun things that I can do indoors and/or outdoors - maybe mix it up a little bit. I'm all about listening to music while I do it too, because I think that will give it more enjoyment. I don't have much endurance, so whatever I do will have to start off pretty light and easy and hopefully I'll be able to lengthen whatever I'm doing throughout the summer. I'd really love for this summer to be productive for me health-wise since I'm really wanting to get my lung function in tip-top shape. Any and all suggestions are appreciated. It really seems like we're going to have an eventful summer, and I'm very excited to start! :-)