Hm, what to say. Both Eric and I have been very busy with work and school. Also, I have an internship with Arizona Children's Association three times a week. We are holding up well. Cloee is doing well in Kindergarten; I think she is settling in and finally getting in to a routine. She finds a lot of the work easy because it is what we have been working on with her for over a year now, so she tends to get board and cause a distraction to the other children.

We have decided to stay in our rental home for now. We were going to move in to a nicer neighborhood/home, but then decided that the money we will spend to do that we could just save and use to buy a home in three years after we graduate. I think that is the best decision for us now, but it may change. Who knows where life will take us.

I'm struggling with my decision to continue working for CPS while obtaining my Master's degree. The stress of CPS is just completely overwhelming and I don't know how I can continue doing this while trying to get the most out of my education. I want to enjoy my internship and not rush through it. I'm currently looking to possibly take a slight pay cut, while staying within the social work field, but in to something that is not as stressful. We will see, I'll keep you all posted on that.

In the mean time, we are surviving. Cloee continues to grow at a crazy speed and is keeping us on our toes. We will get through all of this and will be better on the other side...we just have to GET there.

Semester's left to date:
Cassie: 3.5 semesters to Master's Degree
Eric: 2.5 semesters to Associate's, 4.5 semesters to Bachelor's


Our motivation:

Cloee's first day of Kinder

We survived!!

Welp, grades have posted! We both did very well.  Eric got 5 A's and 2 C's (both in Math classes) and I got 7 A's! We both got through very well and are moving forward in our college careers. 

I have been very busy at work and with Cloee.  She starts tap dance as well as continues her second year of ballet in three weeks. She's very excited. We are also in the process of getting emotionally prepared for Kindergarten (eek!!).   Cloee has been doing amazing in pre-K. Many of her behavioral problems have vanished since she started play therapy about a month ago. 

No fun pictures right now, but may be tomorrow. I am just so excited about our final grades being posted! It makes the semester actually...well, over.

:)

Tough week.

Well, I survived finals in graduate school for the second semester...only four more to go. :(  Eric is still in the middle of his finals.  He is going to Pima, and it seems that so many of the instructors are so under qualified. I could probably say that about ASU too, but anyway..we won't get to in to that. 

I'll hopefully have all my final grades by mid-next week. I'm just happy to be done. It was a really tough year. Right now we are hoping that Eric did well on his algebra final today. He has two more math classes to get through, and the teachers he is having to deal with is not making it easy.

I had to climb over two really big hurdles this week with two family members. Both had to be confronted due to substance abuse. I don't know, out of the few that read this, have a family member or members that have a substance abuse problem, but I can tell you that it is the most difficult thing to overcome.  After over 5 years of going back and forth with one of the people about their struggle with drug use and their refusal to do something about it, I finally had to make a decision about protecting my family by going through the court.  The other family member is something I'm trying to separate myself from, but that is just as difficult as confronting the issue.  The real question is, how much do I need to do to make sure I support the person, but don't enable?  At this point, I would rather not have anything to do with him.

Anyway, despite that drama occurring all in one week, we also had some good things happen.  I celebrated the end of the semester last night with two amazing friends/schoolmates/co-workers. I don't go out often, so it was a nice break. Also, Cloee had her final ballet class of the semester, so I got to come in to the room and they performed for us. It was really fun.  Her actual recital is next Saturday at the U of A.  It will be amazing. I will load a video of it afterwords.  Here are some pictures:

She loves her ballet :)

I will update everyone on our final grades (!) and with pictures of Cloee's ballet recital this upcoming week (they are dancing to Pink Panther...so cute!) I hope everyone has a great week.

Cas

Semester from Hell!

So, the last couple months have been difficult, mainly because of school. This past semester has been insanely hard and I'm not sure how I have survived it so well (well, probably because I have amazing friends that are also in school with me AND work with me.)  Right now, as I procrastinate on my blog, I have open on my computer the worst "paper" I have ever had to write: a single spaced, 11 point font, (up to) 20 page,  pseudo grant proposal.  This gem of an assignment was dropped on us by our teacher about two or so weeks ago.  It has taken at least 15 hours of group-study time to get it to where it is now, and it's not even completed yet. Oh, and did I mention that it is due tomorrow (with a 20 minute power point presentation she didn't tell us about until last Tuesday??)??  So, needless to say, my sanity is gone.  May 5th is the magical day this semester that all of this will go away and my brain can rest for a while.

If it weren't for Eric caring for Cloee while I am at school/work for at least 15 hours a day, three days a week, I don't know what I would do.  Yesterday she flew her first kite and did an amazing job :) I can't wait to have a little break to spend time with Cloee.  I know she is only young once, but I also know that all of my hard work in school will make her life better in the long run.  Only four semesters left, and then I'm DONE!!!

I gotta get back to the paper.....blah.

First Post

Hello everyone who chooses to read our blog! I decided that I would like to try to document our adventures over the next two years.  Eric and I will be completing our last two years of college in Az, and then we'll see where we go from there.  For those of you who don't know: I'm working on my Masters in Social Work and Eric is working on his Associates in Biology (for now, we'll see if that changes once he take's his first Chemistry class:). We are both expected to graduate in May 2013.  We will be making a big life change then. A move, new job(s), who knows.  Cloee starts Kindergarten this August.  She will be staying in the same school she has been in since she was two.  They have a charter Kinder and 1st grade.  We got lucky with that, because we will not have to look for a new school for her until May 2013 as well.  It all comes together then, so we will have to wait and see what happens.

So, we do a lot of zoo trips, hiking adventures, and drives through the mountains. We also do an insane amount of college work, ballet dance recitals, and remedial training on how to raise a child (hey, I'm new at this!)  All of these things, I'm sure, will be posted in some fashion on this blog.  I hope to keep a record of what could be the most difficult time in our lives, so when we are where we want to be, we can look at this and say, "if we can survive that, we can survive anything!"  I'll try to post at least once a week.  We always have something interesting going on.

Will post again soon...I'm off to try to get Clo in to bed (wish me luck!)