California 2011

California 2011. I know, It's about time. Here are a bunch of pictures from the proffitt family vacation this year. I didn't get even 1 picture of Bryce and I. 

Ike and booker

Mitchell, Miranda and Seaver

Ike, Miranda, Mitchell, Seaver and Andria

Same group plus booker

Seaver, Miranda and Andria

Zanya and Mitchell

Jan with Baby Asher. He was a crown pleaser. 

Booker and Ike

Sherry and Abbigail AKA Queenie

Hanna and Queenie. She just got right off her moms lap and right onto Hanna's

My mom and Ron. I must say Ron did really well for his first year. It takes everyone who marries into our family a while to get used to our kind of vacation. We literally just sit on the beach all day. 

Laney, following her mom. I got her to talk to me once. But only after I started making animal noises. 

Baby asher. 

the teens and Dan

Brandon in the hat. He dug holes. The kids loved it. 

Lexi and Addie are always the best of friends. Laney jumped in the picture too. 

funny story about Lexi and Addie.

While at the campground walking together and chatting..

Addie- she just took my kitty. It's okay for now but I want my kitty back. I like my kitty. She's a cute kitty. I take her with me all the time. Abbigail stole her though, that's why I don't have her.....

Lexi-(flailng her hands for emphasis) Addie, forget about the kitty

It totally cracked me up. Loved it.

Bryce and some kids. Dax and trigg trying to play one of the big kid games together. 

Hanna and Danica working on their tan.

Joy and Dave

Wendell. Ha Ha

Cassie and Laney

The kids in one of Brandons sweet holes.

My awesome new beach bag at work. Breazy usually carried it to the beach which made it that much better. 

Sand dollars that seaver found. We're a sand dollar family. It started with my mom. She used to collect them. Now all the kids search the beach for them and then show them off. There were a ton this year. 

Daves sand sculpture this year.

A "sand"which. Get it. Funny.

Kinsey doing Tates hair. It was a dare. One of my nieces found a truth or dare app, so we played. 

I love this trip. It is the perfect vacation. You don't have to be anywhere or do anything, you just get to sit on the beach with the ocean air, a good book and entertaining children. It was a great time. So glad Bryce could make it this year.

My sweet Pepper and Izzy

I have one friend form high school that I still see regularly. I hope I continue to see her regularly for the rest of my life. She is one of my favorite woman and somehow I think she will always be able to put up with me.  Her name is Ashley and she recently gave birth to beautiful identical twin girls. Today they was their blessing. Their father, Corey, did a beautiful job. I will have those blessing typed up soon Ashley and Corey. I promise. 

Anyways, Here are their gorgeous girls. Izzy and Pepper. Izzy on the left, Pepper on the Right. 

Izzy. She's a little smaller and she has two little dimples on one cheek. 

She's a little bigger and I hope I can always tell these sweet babies apart. I'm afraid I'll only be able to when they're side by side. 

Proud grandparents. Ashley's mom and dad. 

Pretty Grandma

Handsome Grandpa. He always has a look of pure joy on his face when holding one of his sweet grand daughters. 

 Happy mom and dad withe their wonderful babies. 

I fed Pepper and then changed her out of her blessing gown. She was wide awake and enthralled as I told her how pretty she was. 

Me and Pepper. 

When I talk to them I tell them I am their aunt Callie. Not by blood maybe but I love these girls and their mother as much as my sisters and nieces. I hope I can spoil them and can do their hair for prom and tell them fun stories about their mom and I. I love you Izzy and Pepper. 

POTS-Please watch

Lately I have been feeling more down trodden then normal about my disorder POTS. So I decided to see if youtube could lend some support. Sure enough I found these amazing videos. I can't tell how often I have felt %100 of what these people are saying. It made me feel so much better to watch these videos. I'm not gonna lie, I totally cried a couple times feeling the comfort of understanding, I urge you to please watch these videos. Not just for me but for the people in your life who may have this disorder and are still not diagnosed. It took me 2 and a half years of tests that came back odd or wrong but with no explanation. 2 and a half years of doctors telling me that maybe I just need to switch my birth control or consider the fact that it's all in my head. 2 and a half years, no I lied, this part still goes on and I believe it will go on forever, of people, some who are supposed to love me,  thinking that I'm lazy, crazy, too emotional, wanting for attention or depressed instead of being sick. It was eventually a coworker who has a sister in law with the same disorder that suggested POTS to me. Tender mercy. If more people knew about this it may have only taken 6 months to reach a diagnosis.

Best video about POTS part 1

I know they aren't short but please, I beg of you, watch them all. 90% of my friends and family still have no idea what is wrong with me and I feel like you don't care. You can't see anything wrong with me so that must mean it's not that big of deal. There is nothing further from the truth. I say these things and put them in writing so that if you have POTS and you are reading this, you know that you are not the only one who has felt that way.

part 2

During my tilt table test, they only raised me to 70 degrees. My resting/laying down for 20 min, heart rate was 80 BPM. It took only 4 minutes to reach 182 BPM. That's an increase of over 100 BPM, I an a very severe case of POTS. When you hear them talk about 20% or 30% etc of of POTS patients suffering from certain symptoms or related disorders, I always fall into that percentage. To those of you out there who also fall into those ranges, you are not alone. After about 12 min at 70% elevation my heart rate started to enter the 200 BPM ( heart attack range). My doctor who was awful still wanted to see me lose consciousness. Needless to say, I didn't like him very much. Fortunately he was not the one performing my test. The doctor in the hospital decided I was too much at risk and lowered me without actually seeing me pass out.

Part 3

Please know this is not a plea for sympathy. It is a plea for you to educate yourselves a little about POTS so that, hopefully, you can be someone else's tender mercy.

Thought that I can't post on facebook.

What most people consider as a problem with women I think of like this. Most of us, women, can't not contemplate things further. Someone does or says something hurtful (on purpose or not) and it keeps us up at night, makes us sad, angry or hurt. Then we're tired and frayed. Emotionally and mentally. Then we are emotional and bring things up that matter to us but maybe not to you. And you push it and us aside as crazy, irrational or overly emotional. But God made us that way on purpose. So that when our kid scrapes their knee, we remember to get neosporin in the morning. so that we can understand and empathize with others. So that we can teach our children not to do things that keep others up at night.

For those of you  who will read this and automatically relate it to my husband or something that he may or may not have done, please don't. There are other people in this world who can have an affect on m thoughts.

Saturday evening Bryce and I decided to get off our tired sick butts and take Bigby to go sit y and play in the river. I grabbed our beach blanket and put of my swimsuit and we left. 

Bigby loved it! He loved the water. He soaked my blanket though. I wouldn't go again without taking chairs.  

Where we were there was this little barge of sticks.

Bryce was proud of Bigby for figuring out how to get on it. 

He's such a good retriever. At the dog park, if someone throws a ball in the fake lake and their dog won't go get it, I can point to it so Bigby see's it and say, "retrieve", and he'll go get it for me. He's so smart. 

Good boy. The work mark can get his attention no matter where we are or what he is doing. When I first started teaching him, "retrieve", he didn't quite get it so I decided to start with, "mark". When I say, "mark", he's supposed to look at me and find what I want him to focus on. He can be all the way across the park playing with other dogs and I can say, "mark", and he automatically stops what he's doing to look at me. It's nice. 

He loves the lake. He takes his ball into the shallow water and like plays with it by holding his ball under the water and dunking his head to get it. Like when I make him retrieve under water. I'm amazed he likes doing that so much. I'm not going to lie, about 3 days out of the month he drives me crazy but most of the time I love him. 

Totally awesome beach bag!

I was doing laundry the other day and my beach bag went through the loads. When it was nice and clean. I decided it was time for a new beach bag. See, every year my family goes to California for a week. Every day we pack up lunches, towels, blankets, chairs, etc. and hit the beach all day, every day. So, I wanted a really big beach bag. One that would make it so all I had to carry to the beach was that one bag. So my hunt began.   I finally came across one Here but I didn't like the fabric. So I copied the pictures and sent them to my sewing  genius sister and asked her if she could make it. She said sure and I went fabric shopping that day. 

Here's the totally awesome result! I think I'm swooning. Over a bag.

Lined in the cute patterned fabric. I bought outdoor, thick, cotton fabric rather then just plain fabric so it would be more durable. Especially since it's lined. 

There are 7 pockets on the outside of varying sizes. Couple small ones for keys and cell phone and then some medium and large ones for books and water. 

My 1 liter bottle and my book to give you an idea of size. Dimensions- 22in long by 17 in wide and 12 in wide. Fabric was 48 inches wide I think and I bought two yards of the patterned fabric and 1 1/2 yards of the plain fabric. My sister used just about all of it. Did I mention that I am in love with this bag. 

My husband and I are taking my sisters 2 children with us until they can join us on Wednesday. With this bag I can carry all our towels, our water, our beach blanket, our books, our everything. All in one bag. My sister even padded the straps. And Not shown is a longer strap so that I can carry cross body over the shoulder as well as the 2 short straps. 

Thanks again, my sewing genius sister! I absolutely adore my new, huge beach bag.