Focht Family Blog

After Easter we drove to Atlanta so Nathan could move the servers to their new home. While in Atlanta we decided to stay a couple of extra days and visit with my brother. One of the days my sister-in-law and my nieces joined us at the Atlanta Children’s Museum. It was a bit hectic considering there were three adults and five young children. We had to park at a garage a block away and walk all of them in downtown Atlanta to get them in and then of course everyone wants to go in different directions. There were also multiple school groups there that day so I think it was the busiest Children’s Museums I have taken the kids to so far.

Here is a picture of Timmy sitting in the barnyard with the chickens.

Here is a picture of my two nieces, Meghan and Ashleigh…

Timmy enjoyed the chicken nest so much he took his aunt back with him. Here is Andrea sitting in the nest with Timmy.

At one point I took Samantha off to do some of the bigger things while the other children were in various other spots. Here is Samantha lifting levers on a crane to move balls.

Then she decided to plant some vegetables in the garden and they needed to be watered…

While Samantha was busy doing these things my mom had the boys in a section for smaller kids that was fenced in. They were having fun playing in water. It is always their favorite spot in any museum…

After the boys were done playing in the water they joined Samantha and Ashleigh playing in the sand…

Next to the sand area was a large white board area where the kids could paint on the walls and then they just washed the walls down for the next group. Here is Josh surveying his masterpiece and Ashleigh and Samantha painting.

I know I am seriously behind…. but I am starting to feel like I can get caught up a bit.

We went back to Statesboro after the rally. Easter weekend started out with a egg hunt at my in-laws on Saturday. Here is a picture of the kids running around looking for the hidden eggs.

My mother-in-law gave them each tags to wear for their age group and Josh got to start first followed by Timmy and then Samantha and then she gave them special prizes for gathering the most eggs in their age groups. After the hunt the kids played with their new toys and we had dinner with them. I also gave all of the boys a haircut that day so they would be trimmed up for Easter morning.

Easter morning came at the RV and the kids woke up to their baskets and another egg hunt. Here are their baskets this year.

They each got a book and a special toy along with the candy from the eggs. After the hunt we got everyone dressed and headed to church with my in-laws. Here is a picture of the kids before church.

The reason I mentioned the haircuts is that during Nathan’s trim I accidently cut a groove in his sideburn. Nobody would have noticed but it bothered him so Easter morning he shaved his beard off. This is only the third time in 11 years that I have seen his cheeks.

Misty started to get grumpy a couple of weeks ago and would just give us an occasional yip of that hurt, leave me alone. At the rally it was getting to the point that she was snipping more and would cry out in pain while she was getting up. We called her breeder to see what she thought and we found out that 3 of her siblings have auto immune issues so we were afraid that she might have something like that since she also has a problem with her breath getting bad within 6 months of a teeth cleaning.

We took her to our old vet in Pooler and she drew some blood. Upon physical exam all that she saw was some arthritis. Her blood turned out perfect and the vet gave us some medicine that would help with the pain and swelling from the arthritis. After two days she seems to be back to her old self. She is playing again and she hasn’t cried out at all in the last two days so I guess she is just dealing with arthritis. We are now trying to find someone who can clean her teeth. We wanted to get her the new vaccine that is supposed to help with bacteria in the mouth and I cannot find any vets in Savannah that have it. Our vet said she could get it for us but we would have to buy the whole tray of 25 shots and she will only need 2 shots. I called my brother and got the name of his vet in Atlanta. They have the vaccine so we can get the shot there but they want a lot more money to clean the teeth.

Our vet is already booked for surgeries next week so maybe I will call and see if they can just clean her teeth in Atlanta without doing all of the fluoride treatments and coating her teeth with extra. They said that we could just get the vaccine from them so if I can find someone to clean her teeth around here next week we will do that and then arrange for her to get the vaccine in Atlanta.

Other than that not much is happening. We are in Statesboro this week and next. We will spend Easter with Nathan’s parents. I did get rid of our old comforter yesterday. It was getting worn looking. I found a nice set on sale at JC Penneys. It wasn’t the color I would have chosen but I am stuck with the fabrics on my windows and headboard so this is what we found to go with them.

Well… now I am caught up. We took the kids to see Horton Hears a Who this afternoon. It was a cute movie although Nathan felt it would have been better if it were only 30 minutes long. Tomorrow we will be doing an egg hunt at Nathan’s parents house and then Sunday we will celebrate Easter with them.

We decided now that we are fulltimers that we would have to do at least one rally to see what they were all about. This is The Rally and it is held once a year on alternating coasts. We checked in at 7:00 and parked. We were told that there were almost 4,000 RVs parked for the rally plus all of the ones that dealers brought for people to look at. Nathan took a picture on top of our roof overlooking our parking lot. We were in parking lot 2. There were 5 lots all together and ours was relatively small in comparison to lots 4 and 5.

I called my friend Claire who lives near Perry and she came and picked me up Friday night to go to dinner. She took me to an Indian restaurant where she knows the owners. One of her favorite belly dancers was dancing that night. Here is the dancer while she is dancing with fire.

After we were done with our dinner (which was delicious!) Claire got up and did some dancing with a lady that was sitting next to us. Apparently Claire does this often since she had her own jingly skirt and jingly head thing (she gave that to the other lady).

The next day I took the kids to a magic show that was at the youth center. Samantha was asked to come up and help with one of the tricks. Her brothers got up to help her as well.

One of the other things they had for the kids was a daily Oreo stacking contest. The kid and the teen who stacked the highest each won a $250 gift card to Target. They also raffled 4 bikes on the last day. Here are Samantha and Timmy stacking Oreos.

The second day while we were walking around you were supposed to look for a matching number from a number you were given while registering. Since we had 6 people with us, we had 6 numbers. Nathan and I were both walking around with 2 numbers each. We were talking about finding our matches and Nathan spotted one of mine. I walked with the lady to another area where you get either a hat or a tote for finding your match and then get to register for a drawing for gifts from Camping World. As I was walking back to Nathan I found my other match so I put in another entry. We finally found one of Nathan’s matches one hour before the drawing for the raffles and Nathan ended up being chosen for a $500 gift card from Camping World. I didn’t win anything.

We were going to stay until Tuesday morning but Misty was crying and was starting to get snippy so we left on Monday morning so we could get Misty to the vet.

We are back in Statesboro. We made it back on Friday. Nathan washed the RV on Saturday. The dirt and salt were driving him crazy!! It now looks brand new. It had a wonderful bath and wax from Nathan and his father. We took his parents out to dinner on Saturday to thank them because his dad helped him clean the outside and his mom watched the kids so I could clean the inside. It was gorgeous for one day… however now that the kids are back in here it doesn’t look like I did much! :)

Monday my mom and I took Samantha in to get her throat checked to make sure her strep was clearing up. I can’t remember if I said it before but her pediatrician called in antibiotics for her because I emailed him with her symptoms and pictures of her throat that I took. I love that he helps us out like that. He is a wonderful doctor. I wish I could find a doctor that good that took care of adults! After her appointment we went to my mom’s father’s nursing home. She was having problems with them getting their checks for his care in a timely manner so she left them checks dated for each month so they have them in the file and can deposit them monthly. They want to write my grandfather up as a success story because they now have him up and walking. That man is going to live to be 110!

This is the same grandfather that we rushed home for in August because he was dying in the CCU. We had them pull everything when we got there because that is what his will states that he wants. They said he was still going to die because he had infections and couldn’t eat. He got well enough that the hospital transferred him to hospice. He was only on a liquid diet at hospice and again they said he would die within a few weeks. Mom got rid of his TV and clothes. Then he became so healthy while at hospice that he wasn’t allowed to stay there anymore because he wasn’t declining. He was transferred to another nursing home, mom bought him new clothes and a new TV, and he is still going strong. He seems to be getting nicer to everyone and the nurses all like him.

After the nursing home I drove by Samantha’s old school. I was going to see if they could test her with their national standardized test that they do. They were actually testing this week so I thought maybe she could sit with her old class but when the principal checked with the person who runs the diocese schools they said she wasn’t allowed to test someone who wasn’t a student. I have been having such a hard time finding someone who can test her with a test that covers more than just reading and math that I finally ordered the testing supplies myself for one of the national tests and I will just give it to her. However, we managed to get to the school just as the classes were heading to lunch so the principal allowed Samantha to stop in and say hello to her old classmates. She also got to say hi to her old teachers. She was very happy since she has missed some of her friends.

We then stopped at Houlihans and had a nice girl’s day lunch. Here is mom and Samantha at the table. The waitress tried to get a picture of all of us but she didn’t do something right with pushing the button and the flash didn’t go off so the picture was too dark to see anyone.

As much as I love my boys it was nice to have a little time with just the girls. Samantha has been having some problems with attitude lately and we have a deal that for every 7 days that she is attitude free that we will do something fun that is girls only, like getting our nails done. In two days she has 1 day that she was good. The pediatrician actually recommended that we write a contract with her of things we expect of her and consequences if she doesn’t do them and then have both of us sign that way the consequences are already set.

Tomorrow mom and I are taking a little time for ourselves and we are going to a spa in town to get a massage, a facial and a pedicure. I can’t wait. I haven’t had a facial in over 5 years and it has been over 3 years since I have had a massage or a pedicure. My last pedicure was a couple of day before Josh was born because I wanted my toenails to be pretty at the hospital. :) Wednesday I have doctor’s appointments in Savannah and Thursday Nathan has meetings in Savannah and he is also going to take all of the stuff from my mom’s trailer and put them in our storage unit so her trailer is empty when it is dropped off. Friday is Josh’s eye appointment and then we are headed to Ocala.

Unfortunately I had a bit of bad news today. My other grandfather has suffered from Parkinson’s for years. He decided to have a stomach tube a few months ago when he lost his ability to swallow. They tried to rehabilitate him but he has had a few set backs and had a few bad infections. He has now decided to have his stomach tube removed. He is tired of fighting. He is in a hospital in Ocala and we had already planned on visiting him on Friday. He will be moved to hospice on Friday so we will visit him there instead. They figure he should be coherent and awake for at least 24 hours but maybe as much as 3 days. Then he will most likely fall asleep and not wake up. The whole process could take a week or more. They are not planning on having the memorial for him until some time in April so I don’t know if we will make it back for that or not. Personally I would rather visit someone while they are still alive then to go to a funeral. My grandfather has lived an exciting life. He was a christian psychologist, he wrote books on marriages and family, he traveled around the world speaking to people. He out lived two wives. My grandma died of cancer when I was a child and his second wife died of a cerebral hemorrhage when I was a teenager. I had just returned home from a two week trip with them when it happened. He remarried again and she is by his side while he goes through this final journey.