Lindsay gets married!

To start off our summer, Lindsay got married on June 10.  It was a great location and a fun wedding.  Lizzy was beside herself excited to be a flower girl and Paul would never admit to this, but loved getting dressed up in his little pink vest and bow tie and suit to be a ring bearer.  Lizzy managed to park herself directly next to Lindsay in every single pictures and Lindsay happily accommodated her.  I was really grateful Lindsay was more concerned about how all the little flower girls felt about getting to be flower girls and stand next to the bride in her beautiful white dress than making sure her dress wasn't crushed, etc.  Her dress was beautiful and the pictures turned out great, and it meant a lot to Lizzy to be able to stand by Lindsay and be in the pictures.  The kids loved playing with Hannah and Brynn has gotten so big since we saw her even two months ago!

Lindsay had a tea party bridal shower.  Super cute idea and Lizzy was totally into it!

Lindsay at the bridal shower.  I took two pictures and my camera died.  When Lindsay started opening gifts, Lizzy parked herself on the arm of the couch to "help" and didn't move.  Lindsay was so gracious about it and Lizzy felt so special and honored to help with opening the gifts.

Lizzy was so excited about the wedding, we had to make a chain to countdown to the activities.

(My phone keeps cropping pictures that I have taken, and I can't figure out why our heads are always cut off!)

Lizzy and Paul and Hannah all got to release these giant balloon bouquets at the family BBQ.

Lizzy, Hannah, Aunt Amy and Paul all dancing at the rehearsal dinner at Taverna.

Lizzy watching the breaking of the plates at the rehearsal dinner.

Lizzy's darling little flower girl dress

I braided my hair for the wedding, and Lizzy wanted to take a picture.

The wedding went smoothly, as far as weddings go.  Randy got tongue twisted as he spoke to the officiant to "give away the bride" and Paul became very concerned that the flower girls were dropping their flower petals on the ground.  Luckily I was sitting right behind him and was able to get him to sit down without causing a scene.  We got to see Cori's aunts and uncle and some cousins that we don't see often, so that was fun.

Last Day of Work!!!

As summer approached this year, I started looking for summer camps/daycare for the kids.  I didn't find anything that really impressed me.  I wanted an educational component-the most anyone had was a "book corner and the kids can read whenever they want."  I also wanted pretty strict supervision-we work really hard with the kids on appropriate behavior and they are both followers, so I really wanted close supervision to continue through the summer.  In addition to not finding a program we liked, it would have cost over $2000/month to send the kids to these camps where they were 1 of 25 kids.  Add in a super stressful work situation, and Cori and I decided that I would ask for a leave of absence from work for three months, then go back in September and work to the end of the year.  I requested the leave and one of the three supervisors on my team did an awesome job creating a coverage plan.  We were all confident that the plan would be approved (especially considering one month prior I had gotten a caseworker of the year award, and I have over 9 years of experience, which is pretty hard to come by in the CPS field) and so at work we didn't really consider other possibilities.  The way that things worked out, management met the day before my leave was to start to make a decision about whether or not to approve it, but to everyone's surprise, the answer to my request was no.  My supervisor and I were shocked and I really didn't know how to respond.  I had previously told management that if my leave was not granted, I would be resigning.  So I did.  While I was really nervous about cutting our household income in half, and losing insurance benefits, I was so happy to be walking away from that job.  In the preceding nine months, I had investigated one child death and three "broken babies" as I called them-babies with serious, life-threatening injuries caused by their caregivers.  These weren't accidental situations, they were situations where parents had intentionally and repeatedly hurt less than 2 month old babies, and I was just done.  I no longer had the ability to handle it and the toll it took on me was too much.  In addition, I had filed numerous court petitions and removed several other children and it all just piled up on me.  It was just too much to expect from any one person.  I wasn't doing a good job at work-I was always behind and scrambling to catch up, and I wasn't doing a good job at home.  My kids were neglected, my poor hubby was left to fend for himself and take care of the kids with little help, and let's not even talk about the state of the house.  Let's just say the kids knew to check the dryer if they couldn't find any clothes.  It just wasn't working for our family.  All the other families I was providing services to were getting more of my attention than my own family that Cori and I had waited so long to have.  Add in a new restaurant opening in April and Cori working seven days a week over an hour away, having four different caregivers/plans for the kids during the week, trying to juggle vision therapy, etc.  We decided that the cost of all this on our family was too steep.  I keep writing that it was "too much," but I really have no other words to describe how difficult of a time period it was for us.  My supervisor and her supervisor both told me to have no hesitation to re-apply for a position if I wanted to return at the end of summer, but that I would lose my vested time, have to start over at the bottom of the salary schedule, etc.  It was super frustrating to know that they would not have anyone hired, trained, and ready to take a caseload by the time I would be back, and that they thought so little of the last six years I had invested there that they would not work with me around my family's needs-especially when we were in the business of serving families in the community.  Hopefully this is the last time that I work in this particular position-I have served my time and I feel like I'm ready to move on!

My former cubicle:

Lacey-my friend and co-worker for the last 4+ years, Cathy's mom in the middle, and Cathy, my supervisor for the last 6 years, on the right.  This was at an awards banquet where we got Paired Team of the Year for the third time in the last four years!