On Thursday, we took Jeremiah and Sarah on a tour of Ft. Leonard Wood. We drove around the neighborhood, the elementary school, the gyms, pool, bowling alley, movie theater, parks and mini golf course. Jeremiah got his hair cut at the PX… that won’t happen again.
We introduced the kids to a few important terms:
PX (Post Exchange) - A little like a department store or a strip mall. There’s a food court, pharmacy, Sprint store, barber shop etc.
MiniMall – This is the new location for Military Clothing Sales (uniforms). It also has a Military Pro shop (cool gear), Class 6 (liquor store), Starbucks and Taco John is coming soon.
Shoppette – Convenience Store. The one we stopped at had a Blimpie sub sandwich shop too.
Commissary – Grocery store. Don’t forget to tip the baggers.
After growing rather tired of chronic fatigue, I finally decided to get a sleep study. I checked in at the sleep clinic last night at 8:30. The bedrooms are in the basement so I never even noticed the tornado sirens.
They glued lots of junk to my head, put straps around my chest, stuck tubes up my nose and in my mouth and then told me to go to sleep… yeh. I spent most of the night dreaming that I was awake. I spent another large portion of the night actually being awake… but I’m not sure how much of my late night boredom was real and how much was imagined.
They told me that I could go home at 6:30 a.m. if the sleep study showed that I have apnea. If it didn’t then I’d have to stay all day today for further studies. [I can't hear the word apnea without thinking of the sitcom Mad about You.]
I woke up early this morning to the good/bad news that I had to stay all day long. I had to take 4 twenty minute naps 2 hours apart. Any of you who know me know that I’m generally thrilled at the idea of taking naps… the more the better. But they’re not as plesant when you’ve got stuff glued to your face and they come wake you up after a few minutes of dreaming about being in a sleep study. During my last nap, I actually dreamed that the technician came in and told me I would have to stay another two hours for one more nap test. I cried. In my dream… then she woke me up and told me I was done. Yay!
It took a really long time to get all of that glue/putty gunk out of my hair. I finally discovered that putting conditioner in my hair made it much easier to comb it out. That’s a free tip just for you googlers who found my site by searching for: hypopnea, sleep apnea or Daytime Multiple Sleep Latency Test. [Gotta get all those keywords in there.]
And now… for your giggling pleasure. I have posted photos of me looking ridiculous.
To celebrate Joel’s promotion to Captain, I decided to take him on a classic Springfield, Missouri date: Lambert’s Cafe, Bass Pro and Andy’s Frozen Custard.
Here’s a slide show documenting our Thanksgiving day celebration. I’ll be updating it through out the day and I might actually come back and write something worth reading later.
Sarah started crying within a few minutes of coming home from school. Then the sibling fighting began, quickly followed by insane whining… We HAD to get out of the house! So the two of us left for a little girl time. We talked in the car about all of her troubles. [a substitute kindergarten teacher and spilled bubbles] Then we headed to the Japanese Stroll garden. We hadn’t been there for over three years.
When we got home, Jeremiah saw the pictures and said he wanted to go too. Since I kept my receipt, I got to take Jer for free. Sarah and I took our time, looked at everything, took tons of photos. Jeremiah and I practically ran through the garden. It was getting dark so we didn’t get a lot of pictures. But we did have fun!
