"Where's my wife?? And who is this person that takes over when we get ready for vacations??"

Apparently this past week I have disturbed my husband immensely. As I write this I check my handy ticker and we have 7 days 17 hours 36 minutes and 50 seconds until we make our escape to...





Yes!! We're going back!! Anyway, I have been driving Keith crazy this past week...we're mostly packed...and he doesn't get it. All I have heard is, "Can't we just pack the night before??" In my head the dialogue continues as "Sure babe, if we do that we'll only forget about 10 imperative things." I have a plan, I have diagrams, I have lists, and we don't forget anything...knock on wood!! All my prep work is apparently freaking him out. We've only been married 4.5 years and taken several vacations, and he decides to voice this now?? Weirdo...and his input stinks, lol!! I was trying to work out in my head how many swimmers we would need for the little man so I asked Keith his opinion and this is what he does...

Keith: MAJOR eye roll, deep sigh, "Egh, maybe 3 or 5."

Me: "Seriously?? We won't be swimming every day??"

Keith: "I don't know honey, it's just to soon for me to say."

Me: "Well, when should I start asking your input and get logical responses?"

Keith: "You're doing fine, just ask me again the night before."

Me: Glaring daggers...

Right, and not 10 minutes before he's asking me why I packed a particular shirt and I explain that we have one nice dinner to go to while we're there and no, he can't wear a t-shirt. Men!!

Oy, well, things are coming along swimmingly, I should finish everything up this weekend and can hopefully relax going into this. I keep telling Keith that he should love the fact that I only plan the "getting us out the door" and the "returning home" portions of trips. Once we make it, I don't care what goes on. :)

Choo Choo's Coming Down the Line...

We've had a wonderful weekend. Keith had four days off and it was fabulous! It was the first time in weeks that we were able to get more than one day together. Due to our new heating and a/c system Keith has been pretty much working 6 days a week. Finally he got a break and we were able to have a great time as a family.

Thursday was the "big" day we had. We took Chris and visited daddy's work and got to ride the firetruck...we were a little hesitant at first, but by the end we loved it and didn't want to leave!






After that, we crossed the bridge over into Brunswick, MD to go and see the trains. Just FYI, our son is a choo choo addict and this was very exciting for him! We got to see three different trains that were all carrying coal. We were able to get really close and is was so funny to see how big Chris' eyes got. He couldn't believe how large they were. The only disappointment came when he couldn't ride them...we fixed that problem later...






Looking at all those trains built up quite an appetite so we decided to try a mom and pop joint recommended to us by the guys at the firehouse called King's. It was FABULOUS!!! If you want authentic New York pizza you must, must, must check this gem out! Chris had a great time here too. He made pals with the owner and helped mommy get their sauce recipe! :)





After lunch we headed to the Dulles mall and rode the choo choo they have, and then did a little shopping. We had to wave at everyone as we rode past them! Chris and mommy tried on different hats and had a ball making each other laugh. Chris became fascinated at the music station and daddy had to show him how to use it. Needless to say, he had a ball!








It was a very eventful day and boy were we tired! We made some great memories and had so much fun together!

Pathetic Puppies..."Mommy you're so mean to us!"

I figured that I would kill two birds with one stone today as it was time to clean the bathroom again. After saying, "You stink!" to our pups for the past two weeks, they finally had bath time...and boy were they not happy!

Here they are lounging before the awfulness took place. Aren't they adorable?? I have to laugh because I can see the question marks popping up in their heads as to what is going on. I have very suspicious dogs!



I always do Little One first. She's pretty easy, except for lifting her up into the tub. She turns into a block of cement and you have to hoist this heavy, unmoving pain into the tub. Once she gets there she does quite well though. Look at those sad eyes...you'd think I took her favorite toy away...poor baby...





Me thinks she might be just a pinch embarrassed!



Diesel is a pain in the tush to get clean. He HATES getting wet. It doesn't matter how routine this has been since he was a puppy, he is going to make this as miserable as possible. Thankfully, he's a lot lighter than Little One and is easier to toss around (gently)! Poor fella, he shakes sooooo bad. I have no clue why. Something must have happened to him before we got him.








Both of their expressions do crack me up! Little One is all about the big ol' Bambi eyes and the loving up on you so you won't do this awful thing. Diesel just makes me giggle because he gets this look on his face, and I believe it makes him look constipated...needless to say, they're both just plain mad, and I'm a traitor to the cause.

Once it's over the fun begins. They tear it up in the backyard until they are pretty dry. I'm not sure if it's just our dogs or not. After bath time it's like they get the hubba-hubba's and lose their minds. Thankfully after many treats and sucking up I am back in their good graces...lol, and I'm happy cause they smell fabulous!! Just like their grape shampoo :)






Oh, and this is Little One thinking she's cute enough to be let back inside all wet...yeah right!

They Call Me Hopalong...

We had our post-op appointment today and things are looking good. This was the first time I got to "see" the actual inscision site...gag...I didn't realize how large of a cut this was. No wonder it is so tender! I will be in a soft cast for another week, and then I will get my stitches out next Monday and be back in comfy shoes!

My parents have been a huge help the past couple of weeks with this whole foot issue going on. Chris has been having a ball spending extra time with them. He got to stay over there on Friday and Saturday nights. I have to smile and do a fist pump on the inside when they tell me that he would wake up in the middle of the night and ask for mommy. That's my boy!! He was very disappointed that he didn't get to see "Ho Ho" on Sunday in my parent's ward at church. Apparently the Santa from Tyson's Corner is in the same ward. He's hystarical!

I got so spend some quality time with my mom today and it was fabulous! I always have such fun with her! She has been so kind taking me to all my Dr's appointments. We went around looking for a few things for us to take to Disney for Halloween this year. It's coming very soon and we can't wait!!

We also found out today after almost three weeks of waiting that the drunk driver that hit us a few weeks ago did indeed NOT have car insurance...I knew it! Talk about the runaround with the insurance companies. Thankfully there is a law in the state of Va that allows my insurance company to fix my cehicle with no charge to me. Thank goodness! Hopefully we will get that taken care of in the next week or two.

Well, hopefully things will continue to keep looking up...

Surgery

Well, I had my surgery on my foot this morning. Everything went pretty smoothly. I was pretty anxious about having this done. The past few days have been a little rough. I've been so worried that last night I called my Dad and had him come over to give me a father's blessing. That helped - I knew it would. I still didn't get very much sleep though. I know it's just my toe and it's not that big of a deal, but anything where I have to be put completely under gives me mad anxiety,

Every was fine though. They ended up not putting a pin in. Once they opened me up, she realized that it would be easier to just take out the piece of bone causing the problems. It ended up being more of a day event. I was there by 8:30am and didn't get back home until almost 2pm.

I am hurting a little bit. They had to give me some meds for nausea. I was so sick when they pulled me out of it. Talk about the room spinning. They gave me some delaudid to take the edge off and that did help thankfully. I've had to create a time sheet for my meds so I can keep track of when I take them because I am out of my mind!! I have never been this loopy!

Well, here's to 3 days of rest and relaxation. Gonna sit back and put the feet up...literally. :)

Family Prayer

Last night little Chris made us smile from ear to ear. Religion is very important to our family and every night we try to get together to have family prayer. The way we wind down our evening is as follows...

"Chris, it's time for bed..." - enter huge crocodile tears...

Hugs all around and we go take a bath, brush our teeth etc...

We pick a book and Chris decides who he wants to read it...that is usually followed by, "I need one more..." as he holds up one finger...

We read one more book and then say, "Chris, who do you want to say prayer?" Normally he will say either Daddy or myself and we proceed. Last night he piped right up with, "Me!". This was a first for us and oh so cute. I helped him and he got about 85% of what I said correct. We were so proud of him...absolutely precious!!

Life Update

It has been ages since I posted and the little voice in the back of my head would no longer allow me to avoid it. I figured that since I'm pretty much immobile for awhile it would give me a good opportunity to catch up.

The saying goes that bad things come in three's and we have finally had our third.

It all started several weeks ago with the first. We had planned our very first party in our "new" home. We'd been living there almost a year and figured that a housewarming was in order however late it may be. The night before, our air conditioning unit completely died. Man was it hot! Thankfully we had a friend that was willing to come out on a Saturday and check it out for us. Unfortunately, it was going to be a major repair. We could either buy the part or get a new unit. Either way, we were looking anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000. Talk about crushing...Fortunately, we were blessed that my Dad had a buddy that he's known for years and we were able to get a new unit for the cost of the bad part. Granted, it's still $3,000, but definitely worth it. Finally after three weeks we will finally have air conditioning this coming Saturday. Believe me, we are counting down the days!

In dealing with having no a/c we invested in a lot of fans to help us survive and for the most part, it has worked marvelously! Unfortunately, last Thursday morning around 12:30am, our town had a big power outage and we lost the fans too. It was unbearable! Finally, I called my folks to see if we could come stay down with them. Of course they said yes...hooray!! Keith decided that since it was already 1:00am that he would go ahead to the firehouse since he had to be up there at 5:30am anyway. Mom, Chris, and myself piled into the truck and made our way down to my parent's. On our way we realized that the power outage was bigger than we thought. A light on Route 7 (three lane highway) was out and it was very dark. There were about 10 cops out there with flares making sure everyone made it through ok. As we were about to go through the light, where all the cops are standing, we are suddenly sideswiped by a car. I immediately pull over...and the person who hit me KEEPS GOING!!! The phrase that kept shouting over and over in my head was "They're getting away you fools". Some sort of variation from the phrase in Meet the Robinson's. LOL. Needless to say, the cops went after this person. I was disappointed in the fact that, if you are actually going to attempt to "flee the scene", go above 40 miles per hour. Especially when the speed limit is 55. They caught the kid. He was driving under a suspended license and was drunk. Not his first DUI...oh, and he was a minor. That shocked me a bit. The truck got scraped up pretty good, but thankfully he had insurance. And we were all very blessed that night as none of us were hurt.

And finally we have our third. This past Tuesday I really got in the zone and was working around the house as the weather was finally decent and my house was relatively cool. I did really well. The last thing I had to do was take the laundry downstairs before I could start dinner. We were having the missionaries over this particular night and I was super excited about making burritos. Anyway, I had a big ol' basket of laundry and I made it down the first flight and onto the landing. As I took my third step going down the second flight I came down squarely on one of Chris' toy tractors. Everything went in slow motion at this point. I started careening head first down the steps, but my toes got stuck at a funny angle. The rest of my foot kept going and I knew I was in deep trouble when the tops of three of my toes touched the top of my foot. Thank goodness Chris was asleep because he did not have to hear me screaming. Mom came running and after a few minutes I hobbled back upstairs to call Keith and figure out what to do. I ended up calling 911 because the pain was just excruciating. I think I gave the medic and assistants a good laugh. When I am in a lot of pain I tend to get slap happy. Our quick ambulance ride to the ER was quite fun...especially after the drugs were administered. After x-rays it was determined that I had indeed broken my big toe. Unfortunately I broke it right along the joint so I ended up have to go and see a podiatrist yesterday. I am going to need to get surgery asap and will be laid up for about a month. I loved this doctor though. She (and all the other staff) had a great personality and were so nice. If anyone needs a good podiatrist, I can offer a great one!

That has been our life this past month. I will try to do better on getting on here. We will just have to see where the future takes us. At this point, the only way to go it up! :)

Goodbye My Daisy Girl...

Last night was a hard night for us. We had to put one of our beloved pets to sleep. She just wasn't doing to well the past few days. She was the first dog that I had ever had and she completely converted me into a dog lover. She had just turned 14.

We were both having a hard time when we had to say goodbye, but it is such a blessing to know that we will have her again when we return home. I can just see her running with her big floppy ears smiling from ear to ear as she's running. She hasn't been able to do that in awhile.

Keith and I were remembering the funny memories we had of her while we were going to sleep last night. She loved to be flung, gently of course, onto the sofa (or bed, or anywhere soft). Her little legs would go into skydiver mode and she would literally be laughing. She figured out a quicker way to go down steps that was hysterical. She would push her back legs back and put her front legs forward and toboggan down the steps on her belly. I remember when my dad had her outside without a leash because "she is old and can't move to fast" and in one second she was gone chasing a rabbit. My poor dad was in a panic.

She lived a great life and we are surely going to miss her. We will never forget you Daisy Girl!! Thanks for the memories. We love you!!

The art of picking teams...

So my wonderful hubby took me out for a date last night, and it was wonderful. We don't get to see much of each other alone anymore. :) We ended up going to see Eclipse...yes, I am a Twilight Mom, and very proud of it! It was pretty good. I'm not going to spoil it for anyone though. If you like Twilight, go see it!

Keith had my mouth gaping open in shock at one point on our way home. We were discussing what we liked and disliked about the film and he said, "This movie made me feel that Jacob was better for Bella, and I want her to end up with him. They should just alter the book a little bit..." After I picked my mouth up off the floor, I realized that my darling husband has become a Twi-nerd, and picked a team. I was laughing so hard, and he was so adorable defending himself with all the reasons he felt Jacob should be with Bella. He had a fairly long list. This makes me realize that I married a wonderful man, that knows a good story when he sees one...but I will forever give him a hard time about picking his team.

Hubby note. Keith here.

Just for the record, it is the same team that my wife has chosen. At least there is no animosity in our house over Twilight. Thanks.

GO TEAM JACOB!!

Easy 4th of July T-Shirt Craft

I know it's pretty late to be putting this up, but I just though of it yesterday. Enjoy!!

What you will need:
1. One clean, freshly ironed t-shirt
2. Blue and red fabric paint
3. Smaill star cookie cutter
4. Masking tape
5. Small and large sponges
6. Some type of cardboard to slip inside the t-shirt to keep the paint from bleeding through

*This is a very inexpensive project and that makes it fabulous if you need to do more than one. :)



First, go ahead and put your cardboard into your t-shirt. You want to use two strips of masking tape.Put the first strip across the shirt and have it sit where the underarm seams are. Put another piece of tape directly under the first piece. Remove the first piece and discard. The reasons I did that was because I felt that more blue was needed to I just added that extra piece of tape to give me almost another inch. It's totally up to you whether you want to do that or not.

Also, because I am a tad OCD, I covered up the color and around the sleeves with tape. The oddest little things bother me.



Then take the star cookie cutter and figure out where you want your stars. Here's where the pencil comes in. Mark where you want your stars to go. Then, take the cookie cutter back to wherever you want to start from. Use the small sponge and work your way around the cookie cutter with blue paint. When you are painting, you do not want a lot of paint on the sponge. You want to "dab" everything. If you use the cookie cutter, you get much cleaner stars. Continue until all stars are complete.



Next are the stripes. Once the paint up top dries, take another piece of tape and line it up over the stars to where the blue will meet red. This gives it a good crisp line. Figure out how far apart you want your stripes and mark them with masking tape. Again, dab away with the larger sponge with the red paint.



Once this is complete you can embellish any way you want. I used a little bit of glitter puff paint and outlined everything.

Hooray, finished product!! Quick and easy!! Here is how adorable Chris looked in it!!

A journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step

Well, we are taking our first step into blog world today. My hubby came to me and said that it might be fun to have our own family blog. We have so many friends that have one and it's a fabulous way to keep up with one another. I should have realized at the time that "We should start a family blog" really means "You should start a family blog". He cracks me up and yet I never see it coming!

I figured that the best way to start a blog is to get a little bit about ourselves out there. Keith and I met and started dating in the late summer of 2005. Her purposed on New Years Eve, and we were married on April 1st, 2006 in his volunteer firehouse. At the time the Allen Jackson song, Living on Love, was the perfect song for us as we had nothing except for each other. Thankfully, everything has been uphill since!!



I work for our local school district as a substitute. I strictly do high schools. I also help my dad out with his real estate company. I love to do crafts, read books, play music, cook, quilt, and pretty much do anything that sounds fun.

Keith was in the military (National Guard Army)until 2007. He was deployed to Afghanistan for a year (I met him the week he came home). He has been working in public safety with our county's fire/rescue group since January 2007. Yes, I married a pyro :)! He loves his job dearly and loved getting up at 4:30 am to get to work. I think he's out of his mind...I do not function at all before 7. Keith also is a great father to our little boy. There are some days they both end up going into time out because Mommy can't take it any more. They truly enjoy each other and love to cause plenty of chaos.



Christopher is our wonderful baby boy (who's not really a baby any more). He is a huge water fanatic. We have been swimming several times a week since he was 3 months old. He also has an obsession with dirt and digging in it, but he has to stay clean at the same time...sometimes he makes me wonder. He loves all things machinery.



Our furbabies are also considered our kids. Daisy, Diesel, and Little One bring us so much joy. Chris loves them too. Little One is his guardian and helps us keep track of him. Chris knows all our dogs names except for Diesel. He refuses to call him anything but "Shame". I think he caught me disciplining the poor dog one day and it's stuck ever since.



Our old gal Daisy



Chris and "Shame"



Little One

That is pretty much "us". Hopefully this will be a great outlet for me to express myself, share some craft ideas, update our friends etc. We look forward to getting to know everybody in blog world.