BEST. MONDAY. EVER!!!!!

So, this week has been so amazing, and believe it or not, MONDAY was the best of all.  Monday!!!  Crazy right?!  Who in their right mind likes Mondays.....  Wanna know why?

It's because my nephew was born on Monday!!!!!! :-D

His name is Jackson Lucas (Last name will be left out for obvious privacy reasons :-P ), and he was born via emergency c-section at 7:29am Monday morning.  He's 43cm long (19"), and was 5lbs 3.3oz, and about 5 weeks premature.  If he'd gone full term, one doctor said that he would have been like, 9 pounds and 2 feet long!  My sister went into the hospital Sunday night because of her heart condition and some cramping and bleeding.  Naturally, they were like 'Hey, lets check out the baby while we're at it.'  So they hooked up monitors around her belly and such as well, and kept an eye on him.  At about 6am his heart rate dropped from 150 to just 50 :-S  So out he came!

We later realized that if my sister hadn't gone in on Sunday night for her heart condition, something totally unrelated to the baby, they wouldn't have caught Jackson's heart rate fluctuations, and we would have lost him.  There were tears over that one.  :-(

He's such a trooper already though; within his first day, he was breathing on his own, and by yesterday (his 2nd day) he was out of the incubator and in a little bassinet.  And by this morning he was already having full feedings.  He's still in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), but as soon as he's able to breast feed properly and learns to breathe without swallowing air, he can go home!  I reeeeeaaaaaally can't wait for him to get out of the NICU though, because I haven't even met him yet!  I've only seen pictures :-(  Kids 14+ are allowed into the NICU, but my little sister is only 11, so to be fair I cant go in if she can't go in.  I'm dying here, I just want to hold him and cuddle with the little guy! :-)

I'm going to call him My Sweet Babboo....  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z80P-zFJ2U

Here you are, I'd like you to meet little Jackson!  He's 2 days old here -

This has turned into the best summer :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MggNFU0_4Fs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGEe_zpddNI

AWSI....Sigh

Yes.  Yes that did rhyme.  It took me 5 whole minutes to come up with that too, so you'd better appreciate that :-P

I got back home from camp evergreen on Saturday, and man oh man...  in the nine years I've been there, this was the best week ever.  I am so on fire for God now!!!!  I've had such a dormant relationship with God this school year, and I'm so glad He uses evergreen to constantly regenerate me.  I'll write more all about it in another post, probably on Saturday...... because all I'll be doing this week is AWSI!!!!!!!!!

Assistant Water Safety Instructor.  People have told me its a walk in the park, especially for us homeschooled kids who rock at paperwork.  BUT I AM SO OVERWHELMED!!!!!  I think it depends on how your teacher presents it to you, because this is sounding to be pretty intense.  My teacher doesn't sugar-coat anything, so right off the bat she was like, "This is all you'll be doing for the next 5 days; eat, sleep, AWSI, AWSI homework.  You will be up all night sometimes trying to do this homework!"  I just finished day one, and I've already finished my two written assignments and gotten the things I needed to buy and gather together, but I still have seven chapters to read in the manual.  SEVEN.  CHAPTERS.  Facedesk/

And I'm the oldest in my class, which is definitely a first for me.  Everyone else is going into either grade 10 or 11, while little old me is already gearing up for grade 12!!  But that's for another post ;-)

I did meet a fellow sister in Christ though, I can't tell you how HAPPY I was!!!!!!!!  I noticed that she was wearing tons of wrist bands, and in reading them I found out that they were all from bands like Toby Mac and Skillet!  Turns out she was at Creation Fest too this year with her youth group.  Which happens to be a youth group I've been thinking of checking out for a while, but I've been to scared to go by myself!  God works in mysterious ways :-)  He opened a door in a way I could never have imagined, YESS!! :-)

So, AWSI has had it's benefits as well, but your prayers would still be welcome :-)

~ Caitlin