Countdown...

The countdown to Vacation - 2010 is on! I have a little more than 9 hours left to work today and then I am free for 10 days. We don't really have a lot planned...going to head to Fredericksburg for a few days, but just the time away from meetings and deadlines and projects is wonderful!
Since April, I have had both grandparents a.)in the hospital b.)in hospice care and finally c.)at their final resting place. Bay had a strep and staph infection that lasted almost 3 months. I had to complete a HUGE project at work documenting all assigned gear by date (for 330+ firefighters). And we are now preparing for the grand opening/ribbon cutting ceremony for the 3 building complex we moved into in January. Can you say STRESS!!!???
School is just around the corner, starting fifth grade in t-minus 18 days. How did that happen? I would swear he was just born twenty minutes ago, but indeed he turned 10 years old last month and he is acting so mature...seriously!
Not much for an update, but I am a bit limited on time for now.

Even the Playing Field

Yesterday, I had the wonderful privilege of being with my sister and brother-in-law for an ultrasound to find out the gender of the new baby on the way. This was a new road for us since I did not find out what Bailey was and they had not found out what Natalie was in their first pregnancy. So it was very exciting to be there and suffer through all the other stuff that the sonographer has to do before getting down to the business at hand. It was previously agreed that the grandparents (who couldn't be there)would dial in to a conference call and hear it all LIVE! But once we got in the room, the gal asked us all to turn off our electronic devices. So the moment of truth came and we found out that Natty will be getting a little brother, Todd a little hockey player, and Lauri a sweet little mama's boy. I say that only because I think boys and their mother's share an incredible bond...one that I absolutely cherish daily with my son. And as much as she loves her first born, her little girl, there is just something about a boy...
Now I can't wait to do some shoping!

My April Fool

April Fool's Day for many is a day for trickery and jokes. For me, Dan, and Bay it is our anniversary. We didn't purposely choose to get married on a silly day like April Fool's, but it was convenient to what was happening back in 2005 and it turned out to be a perfect opportunity.

Unbeknownst to one another, Dan & I had been attending the same Methodist church a couple of years before. We were attending different services; he was going to Celebration Service at 8:30 with some golf buddies and then hitting the course and I was attending the Traditional service at 10:40 which was the closest thing to my Episcopal upbringing. We were pastored by a wonderful guy, Brother Bob. Bob Johnson and his family left and moved to a much larger church near Houston a little more than a year later and we rarely got to even see him.

So in 2004 Dan & I began dating and in early 2005...he proposed at a neat little hotel in Grandbury called the Nutt House. We knew that on April 2nd, his oldest daughter would be getting married down in Houston and that we would be there that weekend for the big shindig. That kind of got us to thinking about tracking down Brother Bob to see if he might be able to do us a huge favor while we were there. I should probably clarify my idea of a wedding...

I never was the little girl who dreamed of the big wedding. And especially after my dad died, I couldn't even think of having a traditional type wedding because I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to walk me down the aisle. So since I had a son and Dan had three daughters, we just wanted it to be us, all of us. So after some e-mails and phone calls, it was official...we would get married on Friday afternoon at the same resort where our oldest would marry on Saturday and would get to have our ceremony performed and blessed by the pastor who had made such an impact on our "single lives".

So I shopped for some very casual wedding wear. My hubby to be didn't like suits and ties and after all...we were on a golf course! The guys had shorts and sandals and I had a skirt set and sandals. And then...the wind blew 40mph and the temperature dropped 15 degrees and we froze our tails off. The wind blew so hard that the pages of the Bible were flipping! It was a really interesting April Fool's joke...but we perservered anyway. We had a wonderful party a month later with all of our family and friends to seal the deal.

It has been mostly a great 5 years. We have had some rough days and we have had some of the best days. I hope that the best is yet to come. We enjoy the life we have built together. And my son very early on became "our" son officially! Those two are a match made in heaven, and remind me daily of how lucky and blessed I was when my own Dad took me as his own after he and my mom married. The two of them are the absolute loves of my life and today we all three celebrate a Happy Anniversary!

Hey, it's 2010!

Yeah so I really do stink at blogging consistently. But in my defense, I have been truly swamped and it looks a little bleak for the rest of January. We have some huge stuff going on within the fire department including the opening of a brand new station that I got to buy TONS of stuff for and the moving in and opening next week of my new office and warehouse space. We have been short one person in our division for most of the year and have been trying to cover extra duties and I am just plain worn out. All the time.

I am suffering again from this never ending chest cold (been lingering since Thanksgiving) and Texas is seeing some of it's coldest temperatures in my lifetime that unfortunately have not produced snow yet for Bailey. unless you count the flurries on Christmas Eve...which he does not!

Christmas was a dream... Dan and I had 10 days off together with the kiddo and we did a whole lot of nothing! I highly recommend that kind of vacation. We decorated the house, did some baking, shared with neighbors, and hosted the family on Christmas afternoon. I made a huge beef tenderloin for the first time and did surprisingly well with it. It was a much needed and appreciated break from the craziness at work.

I have decided to accept a challenge from one of my favorite bloggers, MoJoy, and choose a word of the year. You know, something that will appropriately cover all the different facets of my life. After a lot of pondering, I have chosen FINISH as my word. I think it speaks for itself. There are so many piddly things that only need a little attention to be done and I want to do that this year. Wish me luck as I now FINISH my first post of the year. Maybe it won't be the last!

Another Busy Weekend

So I am not completely on top of the blogging thing quite yet. I did write a post last week and pushed the wrong button, so it didn't actually upload. And I was too lazy to retype it, so it is lost in cyberland never to be read again!

It was a busy weekend AGAIN...
Thursday evening when I got in from work I had scheduled a hair appointment to try to squeeze in before Dan and I had to be at a play downtown at 7:30. Not much wiggle room there, so we ended up eating a grilled cheese from Sonic on our way to the play. Very romantic dinner! Went to the play and since it wasn't over until late, Bay spent the night with his Maw & Pops. Neither me or the hubby had to work on Friday, so we got up early and went to Oklahoma to the casino. Casino + us = not productive :-(
Came home and got all our cold weather football gear and went to enjoy some Friday Night Lights. Again, our team fell a bit short but it was fun to be out in the cool night air with friends. We got up early on Saturday and I did some housework while the guys worked in the back yard and then packed up the kiddo for a camp out birthday party.
The hubby and I plus our friend from next door spent an incredibly fun evening volunteering for Country for Our Country - a benefit concert for Wounded Warriors. It was held at the Villa De Felicita outside of Tyler and it was GORGEOUS! The weather was perfect, the music was great, the entertainers were very personable...a lot of fun. I even learned how to be an impromptu bartender when the bar got so busy they were practically begging for help! We got to see Kacey Musgraves (from our hometown of Mineola, TX), Derek Scholl, Heidi Newfield, and Joe Nichols. Got home late, slept in late on Sunday and then hubby treated me to breakfast at Cracker Barrel and we wasted the day away being lazy and watching football.
I spent the evening trying to do as much cooking for the week as I could. I have all my meat portions cooked for our different meals, just need to add veggies and or side dishes. Tacos, stir-fry, and Mexican lasagna are all on the menu. We'll see how this works!

Parent / Teacher Conference

Our schools, for some years now have started a mandatory report card pick-up that is easily translated into Parent/Teacher conference. It is a day that the kids have off from school, that the parents must line up a sitter, and the teachers have to meet with each child's parent(s). I suppose there are parents out there who have nothing to do with the school system and this is an effort to have some face time (or phone if it is more convenient) with them.

Let me preface this entire story by saying that Dan came into our marriage with three beautiful grown daughters. The eldest had the honor of being valedectorian of her class several years ago. And then there is Bay...

Bless his heart, he is as smart as a whip, but he is 200% boy and has very little use/time for the classroom. Luckily this doesn't leave him with any failing grades, but mostly B's with a couple of A's thrown in are the norm for him. I have already told Dan not to hold his breath for a repeat family performance at graduation. So, I sit down with his teacher yesterday evening. She also happens to be a good friend of the family, so it is a very laid back meeting to say the least. She starts with a giggle that turns into a full blown laugh and the first words she says are, "I just love Bay, he is going to make someone a great husband one of these days." Huh? The report progresses and she tells me how he lacks a little focus, because his wheels are constantly spinning the next tale he wants to lay on her. She ends up having to spend a lot more one on one time with him in math especially. She says that he grasps the concept almost every time she works one on one with him. She also reports that he rarely leaves her side when they are headed somewhere like the cafeteria, the gym, the playground, and he is always telling her a tale.

Are you following this? It is true what my husband said several years ago...the boy is going to be a man whore. He is manipulating the system and of course his natural attraction for the women and their undying love for him makes his dad proud. Me, I'm a bit perplexed. I know that the last thing that a teacher wants to do is re-teach a lesson. So last night after dinner, Bay got a stern talking to. Will it change anything...who knows?

Breakfast...it's what's for dinner!

So Bay told me he has been craving hamburgers. On the grill. Now please! But because of the neverending rain I have been able to hold him off on that. Last night I made an executive decision to cook breakfast for dinner and that dictated a trip to the store for more eggs and juice.
Imagine my surprise when Dan walked in almost an hour later wondering when the burgers would be ready. ????? See the rain sir? Do you want to grill in this weather? Here, have a biscuit and some turkey bacon.
After an evening full of supper, laundry, and a school project that included glue, tape, and glitter - I settled in for maybe 30 minutes of the tie breaker MLB game. It didn't take long to retire to the bedroom and listen to the 4 legged yapper in the next yard for a few minutes before slipping into dreamland. It was there I dreamt that Dan woke me up before the alarm to "snuggle" only to be interrupted by the boy. Only in the dream he was a little toddler - like 6 years ago. Very weird.