I found this news story the other day. The city is what caught my eye because I grew up there and went to the high school the article is about. 

Masked police chief sparks brief school lockdown


Sep 20, 2009 8:43 AM EST

MONTROSE, Mich. - A masked police chief planning to surprise Michigan high school students in a forensic science class ended up sparking a brief lockdown after being spotted by a cafeteria worker.



The Flint Journal reported Montrose Police Chief Darrell Ellis and another person from the department were seen Thursday putting on stocking masks outside Montrose High School for a mock robbery.



Ellis said the lesson called for students to write descriptions of the suspects and do interviews.



Principal Jim Ply said about 180 students eating lunch were evacuated to the gym and the school went into lockdown for about 10 minutes. The mock robbery at the school went on as planned.



A mock robbery has been part of the class for about 12 years.

Information from: The Flint Journal, http://www.mlive.com/flint
The Associated Press

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Today kinda sucked. I had to register my 4 and 5 yr old for school. If I have to fill out 60 pages of paperwork to register 3 kids every year since we keep moving I may just hang myself. It is dreadful all the things they make you fill out and sign. I had the kids with me and the minute we got there they started whining. "I am hungry, I am gonna die, I am going to throw up if I don't eat, I am freezing, can we go home." And they wouldn't stop for anything.

I find out that since the time they were in school last year they needed some vaccinations. A.J needs one and poor Matthew needs four! We don't have a Dr here and since a new patient office call for 2 kids would cost more then it was worth we went to the health department. OMG... There must of been 100 people waiting for shots. No lie. We would've been in line for 6 months had we stayed. We left and decided that dh would take the kids and be there tomorrow at around 6:30am for their 7:30am opening time. The schools registration is only till 11:00am so he can't sit around there all day.

Then I had to go get the kids some more school clothes. Their school shirts need to be plain, but I thought a plain shirt could at least have a stripe on it. Well it can't....blah

So tomorrow we start over and hopefully it will be more productive then today.

Busy as a bee lol. School starts next week, finally. My kids have yet to be registered but at least now I know when I can register them. A.J.(K) and Matthew (pre-K) are going to be registered Monday morning. And how cool is this? A.J. will have all day Kindergarten. Matthew will still be a half day but that will give me at least 3 hours a day all to myself. Mind you, I really do love my kids, but time alone is nice too. Also I am not one of those who get all emotional over my kids starting school. It just isn't me. As for Alex, who will be starting high school has to wait till the 3rd day of school to get registered by appointment. I do find it a bummer he won't be able to start with everyone else. I just think by not attending class until the 3rd or 4th day of school it will make him stand out more as "the new kid".

I have also been crazy busy doing designs (yeah, that is a good thing though). I am done with everything I had going on with them. Just a few things I need to help people out with to get new sites/blogs up and running. I am slowly getting pics loaded into my "gallery"

Right now it is pouring ran and the kids are nowhere to be found (inside where I am). Needless to say they are out getting wet. Do you think I should lock them out so they can't make a wet mess of the RV? (hehe) Don't freak, I would never really do that.

Did you know I have a younger sister? Well she has a blog and she is a fairly new blogger. She has been making these really cute burp cloths since she has a baby due in about 20 days (my first and only niece, I am sooo excited). Go check her out and say hi. I bet she would be thrilled.

Oh, and I have something exciting coming up on Monday (giveaway) and it is huge, so please check back with me soon.

He is finally starting preschool. Yay!!! Matthew has speech issues and we started his IEP (Individualized Education Plan) months ago. But between every holiday between October and now it all takes time. He has almost the exact same speech issues as A.J. Funny thing is, when he first started talking he talked better then A.J. So maybe he just picked up A.J.'s speech problem from listening to him? The rest of us speak fine so why not pick up ours instead? No matter now.

I do worry about Matthew going to school. He is a bit of a (dare I say it), a brat? He picks on his older brothers and he is the instigator of many things around here. I worry he won't listen to his teacher and he has a tendency for anger issues. I am probably just worrying that he will be my first kid kicked out of preschool. He already knows the teacher because A.J. goes there and I have given her plenty of warning about Matthew (LOL). They are going to be in separate classes too. I think if Matthew was ever in the same class as A.J. then A.J. would insist on never going back. So one will be going a.m. and one p.m. It will only be till mid May or so because they get out for summer early here but here is hoping all goes well for my little bugger.

No seriously!! I expected this, deep down I knew it was going to happen so I don't know why it shocks me at all. Maybe I just didn't expect it to happen so soon.

Guess what folks, dh called this morning from work. He tells me there is massive layoffs going down and doesn't expect to be at the job he is on past Friday.

What does he tell me?? Pack your bags baby, your headed back to Arizona!! ( I am paraphrasing here). He means like NOW. Today or tomorrow!!

What does all this mean?? Well for one the kids won't be starting school here on Monday. They will be starting school at their old school district that has already been in session since August 4th. We will have to live with my sister and her boyfriend in their (MY former) house that we had them take over the rent on and sign a new lease in their name.

I again will have to take back Alex's school clothes (see previous post) since they don't wear uniforms at his old school.

Did we (my entire family) not tell dh this would happen?? Oh, yes we did!!

I am in shock and now don't even know where to start or what to do.

HELP!!!

Friday I did school shopping for my oldest ds. This is never a pleasurable event. He is a boy, he hates shopping and has no option what-so-ever on clothes of any type. As if liking a shirt or pair of pants is a bad thing.

I get him a bunch of shirts, t-shirt type. The stuff kids wear nowadays. However 90% of the t-shirts out there have skulls on them and I wasn't going to buy those. Buying pants for him was a true ordeal since he is too big for boys size and the men size he wears the just don't have. Go out and just try to find a pair of 29X32 guys jeans. If your not there the day the truck comes in just forget about it.

So, today I go to register Alex for school. Well, well, over the summer they decided to go to uniform dress!! Now I am all for uniforms. I think they are great but I just wish they had updated their website BEFORE I went shopping, arrrgh.

I had a limited budget to begin with and since Alex wore shorts all summer he still needed jeans and some shirts for after school and weekends. It was like buying a double wardrobe. I was able to squeeze out 3 pairs of pants and 4 shirts for his uniform attire.

Honestly I think it will be nice to see Alex in a nice pair of pants and a polo shirt everyday. Thankfully they have a semi-lax grooming standard. No purple hair obviously but if Alex had to cut his long curly hair we would need to find a different school.

Of course Alex is less then thrilled about the whole thing but I think he'll live lol.

Finally all my kids will be in school this year. I now have a preschooler (Matthew), a kindergartner (A.J.) and an 8th grader (Alex). Now I just have to work around Matthew and A.J's schedule. A.J. will most likely ride the bus but he and Matthew have close to the same schedule since Kindergarten is a half day and I need to be there when he gets on and off the bus. It will be hectic in the morning here now being as there is only one very small bathroom in the RV.

Knowing Matthew I can only pray that boy doesn't get kicked out of preschool. He has a lot of learning to do to survive in a group of kids and not get his way.

Now it is time to school shop for three!! Wow, that is going to be expensive. Good thing I don't have three girls, that would really hurt the pocket book lol. Luckily school here doesn't start till the 25th of August so we have some time to get everything done and in order.

So at some point during the mornings, I will have a whole three or so hours to myself. What will I do? What will I do......? Oh that is right, I'll be here on the computer, however shopping sounds good too. Shopping without the kids? Not sure I remember how to do that. Practice time!!!!

Am I a bad mommy for not being sad my kids are growing and becoming more independent and my last one is starting preschool?? I tend to get sad when my kids won't kiss me in public anymore, ow well.

I guess I should say I hate "going" to the dentist. I don't mind my dentist at all, as a person anyway. I have teeth issues and always have. I take good care of them but it is just in my genes for my teeth to be a problem. Within the past year or two they have really gone down hill. Last fall I went to a dentist that said I needed $10,000 worth of work (I don't think so). So I started going to the dental school in Mesa, AZ. They are good and I like my dental student that is assigned to my case. Of course I have since moved to Vegas, but decided I didn't feel like starting over at the school in NV. Therefore I come to AZ for my appointments. It isn't bad really because with my dental student's schedule sometimes it is four to six or even more weeks between appointments. I just take a long weekend and bring the kids to see grandma and have my appointment. Oh, and the beat part is the dental school is about half the cost of a regular dentist. I can get everything I need done at the school for $3,900. Still a chunk of money, but more realistic in my world.

Yesterday was one of my appointments. It was a fun one too (NOT). I had to get a fractured tooth extracted. So now my face is semi swollen and I have a semi toothless grin lol. You really can't tell unless I smile really, really big so I am not looking too red neck, thank God. Nothing like missing a tooth AND living in a trailer (um, RV that is). My attempt at humor must be lacking due to my Vicoden intake. la la dee da....

Do you ever know if the decisions you make are right? Maybe you know right at the moment you make it, or maybe only later you find out if it was the right decision or the wrong one. We are talking big decisions here, not the "what's for dinner" types.

Because of dh's work we are now full time RVers. It is hard for people who are not in our situation to understand it, especially my family. The kids and I were living in AZ and dh was here working in Vegas. We were apart for eight months. People wanted to know why he couldn't work in AZ? Well, for one there needed to be work in AZ. Yes, there are buildings and houses going up everywhere but that doesn't mean it's union work as dh can only work for a union. And well, the most important thing for dh is to be able to "support" his family of five. The difference between AZ and NV is the union here pays $17 MORE an hour then they do in AZ. Hmmmm, which would you pick??

So why don't we just get a house here in NV? At some point the job dh is on will end as all "contract" jobs do. Then we either hope there are only a few people on the union book so he can get right out on another job or we wait on unemployment. However there is usually work somewhere but more then likely it isn't where you are right now. That means dh leaves again (chasing the $$$) and me and the boys would be right where we were when we were in AZ. I would be playing the single mom while dh was working in another state. Which really sucks by the way.

By living in an RV there are no rental leases to try and get out of, packing, moving expenses and all those headaches. There are some things that really scare me though. What about the kids??? Are we doing a disservice to them by them possibly having to change schools every couple years? Is it the same as if we were military and moving around? Or is a bigger disservice to my sons not having their dad around when they need them? Now I have trivial fears too. We have to sell everything we own, our furniture, excess things that we as people have accumulated in our life. I am 40, I have accumulated a ton of shit!! But what happens years from now and we decide we have had enough and want to settle down in a house? It is hard to just set up shop and we wouldn't have any furniture and the things that are common place in a house. It takes time and MONEY to get all those things. The things that, like I said earlier accumulate over years.

I really tried to dissuade dh on our moving here and doing the RV thing. However, he is my dh, am I suppose to say no? I am not some mindless wife who does "what dh tells me to do" by any means. We have talked about this extensively, the pros, cons and everything in between. I just happened to fall in love and marry a man with, albeit a great paying job but a screwed up one at that.

The RV we are looking to buy is really nice. Sure it is way smaller then a house but the boys would have their own bedrooms. A.J. and Matthew would share a room as they would be doing in a house and Alex our teenager would have his own room, as he would in a house also. We would have our own bedroom as we would in a house. If we wanted to go on vacation we wouldn't need the expense of a hotel and such. We can just hook up the house/RV and go. How easy is that?

Right decision? Wrong decision? I guess only time will tell.