roller coasters.

I hate roller coasters. Always have, always will. The anxious ride to the top, my fear of heights, and let's not forget the gut wrenching, stomach dropping, I think I'm gonna puke, plunge to the bottom. This 2nd semester of nursing school has been one, awful, roller coaster ride! It started out great, and then came week two and all hell broke loose. There have been a few meltdowns (and they didn't come from the kids) which I assume is only natural when you have 3 tests within a week and a half, plus 2 papers, a surgical assignment, and what seems like a million other things due within a very short time frame. By no means am I trying to complain, after all it was my decision to to do this but holy crap can I have a  moment to breathe?! One minute I'm panicking and the tachycardia has set in as I put off clicking the submit button at the end of the exam (as long as I possibly can), next I'm relieved and feeling pretty good that I passed, and 2 minutes later an overwhelming amount of even more work is dropped on us, and that feelin good moment is long gone. To sum it up, it's been a total love/hate relationship this semester. But this weekend, this weekend I took a break (okay not entirely, but as much as I can).

This weekend was girls weekend, plus Max.

Josh headed south to hunt and Grandma Jean and Great Granny ventured north.

We hit up some rummage sales, took a drive up the north shore, made a pit stop at the candy shop, and enjoyed lunch at New London Cafe. It's been fun, but more importantly it's been RELAXING. It was much needed.

The husband and kids are holding up well, putting up with me and my mini meltdowns as best they can. They've been GREAT! And me, well I'm doing my best to keep it together and vowing that this program will not make me cry anymore.

Due to the chaos of school (again refer to paragraph 1) we agreed that it would be best to only have the kids involved in one activity. Lila chose dance and Max decided to join Boy Scouts, so goodbye hockey! To be honest he wasn't that upset about it and neither were we. Farewell to 2 nights a week of practice, plus weekend tournaments, scrimmages, multiple volunteer commitments, oh and flooding. Sorry, but it will not be missed. At the age of 6, it's a bit much. I've enjoyed the one night a week dance class and Josh and Max have enjoyed their night of Tiger Cubs.

Josh has also been enjoying his fair share of hunting now that duck hunting is in full swing. We headed south last weekend to Grandma and Grandpa Buck's for opener and Josh headed to WI this weekend  to hunt with his brother. We now have plenty of ducks to go around.

Max is enjoying 1st grade and was happy to have a lot of his friends in his class again this year, and we were happy that he has an AMAZING teacher this year. On a side note he also has two, very loose, front teeth that he is eager to have fall out.

First day of 1st grade.

Max and his buddy Connor.

Fall is in full bloom here and it GORGEOUS!! We snuck out this past Friday to snap a few pics since a family photo shoot did not fit into our schedule this year. However I quickly realized why I hire someone to take our family pics. Lila was okay but Max, ugh, you would of thought I was torturing the kid. As he stood there staring at me I had to beg him to smile, he responded with "I don't know how." So yeah, that lasted a whole 15 minutes.

Here's a little peek. More to come.

So there's our last few weeks in a nutshell. I look forward to the end of this semester, pray the stress doesn't get to me, and hope to maybe squeeze in a a few more relaxing days along the way.

Oh and I was thrilled to find out that Teavana is opening at our mall. It's almost unheard of to have anything relatively new open in Duluth so it's a pretty big deal and I for one am EXCITED!

For now I'm hoping that October flows a little smoother than the month of September did and perhaps we can sneak in a few more fall walks before the colors fade away and the bitter cold is upon us.

More posts to come.