Our Daily Schedule

Here is our basic daily schedule now...you will see that if we get off schedule by 5 minutes it can really disrupt everything! (as we have already found out)...
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5:00 - WAKE UP! Jen heads to make breakfast and I get ready.
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6:00 - Wake up for the kids
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6:10 - Kids have to be dressed and at the breakfast table
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6:10 - 6:20 - Breakfast
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6:20 - 6:23 - Medication for those who need it
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6:23 - Bag check for students leaving on activity bus (band, choir, etc)
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6:25 - Activity bus students leave
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6:25 - 7:00 - Chores...when you have 12 middle school kids all doing chores at the same time, "controlled chaos" might be a more appropriate name
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7:05 - Bag check for students leaving on overflow bus (because our van only hold 9 kids)
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7:10 - Overflow bus leaves
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7:20 - Bag check for students leaving in the van
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7:25 - Van leaves for school (I drive...Jen stays behind and checks chores and bedrooms)
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7:45 - 3:15 - School for the kids
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8:00 - 8:30 - Administrative Time (forms, budgets, food ordering, etc)
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8:30 - 11:30 (Mon. Wed.) - Meetings and/or training
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8:30 - 11:30 (Tues. Thurs. Fri.) - Free Time A.K.A Nap Time
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11:30 - 2:00 - Free Time for us
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2:00 - 3:00 - Administrative Time (check e-mails, budget sheets, etc)
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3:00 - 3:15 - Drive to pick up students
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3:15 - 3:30 - Drive students home
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3:30 - 4:30 - Students on detention or restrictions do extra chores
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3:30 - 4:30 - Students on "homework club" (failure to complete homework sent by e-mail from teacher) has an extra study hour
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4:30 - 5:30 - Free Time (Jen cooks dinner with the "chef" for that week and I play outside with the kids)
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5:30 - 6:15 - Dinner
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6:15 - 6:30 - Prayer and Devotions
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6:30 - 6:35 - Magic Trick
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6:35 - 7:00 - Dinner Clean-up
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7:00 - 8:10 - Study Time and shower time (in groups of 3...each has 15 minutes)
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8:10 - 8:15 - Medication for those who need it
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8:15 - Bedtime for those on the lowest behavior levels
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8:30 - 8:40 - Snack
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8:45 - Bed Time for those on the middle behavior levels
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9:00 - Bed Time for those on the highest behavior levels
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9:00 - 9:30 - Administrative Time (daily notes, behavior charts, etc)...also walking the halls to make sure the kids are asleep
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10:00 - Bedtime for us
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5:00 - WAKE UP!
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***Also included in the entire schedule for all 24 hours with the middle school girls --- DRAMA CONTROL

Training is Over!

Friday we finished up our training for the new job and we will be thrown right into the action! This weekend we covered 2 girls homes, and all this week we will be in charge of a boys home (and will be in charge of different homes every day now until we are placed into a home of our own). Our schedule consists of breakfast, chores, school, recreation, prayer time, devotion time, showers, of course some magic time, dinner, and homework. Our training class consisted of 7 couples (including us)...we were chosen from a list of more than 350 couples that applied. Here is a video of some of the things we experienced...

Ignorance

We are finally in our last week of training...starting this Friday, we're on our own! I am making a video of our training class and will be sure to post it when it is done. One of the biggest things we've learned is to assume the kids "know nothing". We keep hearing stories of kids who (before coming here) have never used a fork before, kids who have never been to a restaurant other than fast food, who have never had their clothes washed before, etc, etc, etc.

As I was thinking about this, I had the opposite problem growing up --- I had everything...and since my mom, dad, grandma, and/or great-grandma did it all, I never really had to learn anything. Dinner was always waiting for me, my clothes were always washed, the house was always cleaned without me --- me and my brother and sister were pretty spoiled as we had all that handed to us!

But because of this my ignorance in household things really was embarrassing when I got out on my own. Two things I remember that were pretty embarrassing looking back:

1) During a job interview on safety instruction I was asked how often the lint trap should be emptied from the dryer. My answer --- twice a year (somehow I was still offered that job?!?).

2) OK...this one tops the cake...during one of my first grocery store visits, I bought some Hamburger Helper. When I got home, I started to make it, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why there was no hamburger meat in the box (I had no idea you had to buy it separate). My roommate Steve was rolling on the floor laughing at that one!

Thankfully I am a very quick learner so these things pass very swiftly! So what about you? What are some of the dumbest things you've said/thought/done/etc? Leave a story or two in the comment box!

Cable TV --- Discovery Health

One of the perks of living on campus here in Hershey is free cable TV! However, Jen has quickly become addicted to the "Discovery Health" channel which has all kinds of programs showing surgeries, health topics, ER reality shows, etc. I am not at all a fan of the station, but I must say I was pretty entertained by one of the shows we watched the other night.

The show is called, "Mystery Diagnosis" and it is based on true stories of people coming to the hospital and the struggle for doctors to find out what is wrong with them. So in walks this 70+ year-old man and his wife to the ER. He has a history of heart problems as well as hemorrhoids and passed out trying to go to the bathroom. The doctor determines the man is constipated, gives him some laxatives and sends him home. Half hour later, the couple is back and the man passed out again going to the bathroom. All vital signs are normal so they send him back home and say he must have stood up too quickly. So the couple goes home again and a half hour later they're back...he passed out again going to the bathroom! Everything still seems to be normal so they tell him to stick around until he has to go to the bathroom again and they will monitor him.

So in about a half hour he is in the bathroom and they have him hooked up to all kinds of machines waiting for something to happen --- but nothing happens. The doctors leave the room and are discussing the situation when the man's wife comes running out screaming that it happened again. They rush in to find him passed out on the floor with a very low blood pressure. Now they suspect the wife must be trying to out him or something for insurance money and begin to question her.

The wife explains everything she does for her husband including caring for all his medical issues. She explained that the only thing she has been doing is putting on his hemorrhoid cream each time he finishes in the bathroom. When they ask to see his hemorrhoid cream, they discover the problem...for his heart condition he was prescribed nitroglycerin cream that is applied to the chest to increase blood flow to that area. She accidentally mixed that up with his hemorrhoid cream. So all this time she was putting hemorrhoid cream on his chest, and nitroglycerin cream on his rear end!

OK, so maybe it's not all that entertaining. But hey, it sure beat the episode of the liposuction Jen made me watch on the 700 pound man!

A New Post (Finally)

Well, we are starting to get settled in...we still do not have internet access in our apartment, but they gave us access to a computer in a different section of the house we are living in. Things have been very busy...we are on a 12-day straight working schedule, and with the little time we do have off it has been filled with finding new banks, Dr.'s, dentists, switching driver's license, car registrations, etc, etc, etc. The best part so far is a local golf course owned by the Hershey Company that allows me to play for free! The worst part so far has been not having any time to enjoy all the things there are to do in this area. Hopefully that should change when we get through training (we have 3 weeks left)...then you are all welcome to come out for a visit. We found out that as employees, we always get into Hershey Park for free, but we also have the benefit of getting in up to 4 guests in for free as well...so now nobody has any excuses not to come!

I don't have many stories to share yet as most of our days are spent sitting in classes. But those of you who know Jen will appreciate our trip to the park --- we took a group of 7 boys in 5th grade to a local park called the "Castle". It is an enclosed area with a lot of play areas with the little tubes you can run through, bridges, monkey bars, swings, etc, etc, etc. The boys and I decided we were going to play hide-and-seek/tag. Jen spent the next 1/2 hour constantly running around counting kids to be sure none were missing or had tried to run away...but it wasn't easy since they were all hiding! Needless to say it cause her quite a bit of stress (not sure what she had planned to do if one of them did turn up missing?!?). Pray that she survives! Other than causing herself too much stress by worrying, she is doing a great job.

Please e-mail us and/or call us (we still have the same cell numbers) and let us know what's up in your world! I'll try to blog more often, but it will be hard to do more than 1 or 2 a week over the next few weeks.