Halloween 2010

Enjoy these pictures of Sara and Cami on Halloween.  They had a lot of fun going trick-or-treat.

Camryn's First Wedding

On October 23, Jason's best friend got married.  Jason and Ryan have known each other since they were five years old.  Jason was best man at the wedding, and Camryn was one of the flower girls.  She looked so adorable all dressed up, so I thought I would share some pictures.

She didn't walk up the aisle like she was supposed to, but did go up a couple of times to stand by her Uncle Jason and then went back up the aisle to sit and play with the flowers in her basket.

It was a beautiful wedding and reminded us of how the kids are growing up.

Camryn and Uncle Jason

 

Ryan, the groom, and Jason

My three 'kids'; don't they look great?

Camryn during the wedding

Camryn with Rocko, the ring bearer

Camryn's Birthday

It has come to my attention that no pictures from Cami's third birthday had been posted yet.  We had a bunch of friends over for swimming and then burgers, brats and hot dogs on the grill.  As you can see, she had fun opening presents and eating her birthday cake.  I still find it hard to believe that she is already three.  Time definitely flies when there are young kids involved!

Turn The Heat Off!!

Okay, I like warm weather as much as the next person, but this is getting tiring.  Yesterday was our 17th day in the triple digits, and the forecast for the next seven days calls for more of the same.  At this point, all anyone wants to do is go from the air conditioned building to the air conditioned car and back again.  Of course, it is not as bad as the summer of 1980 when there were 42 days of triple digit temperatures.  I know that Rich will say that this is something he deals with every summer, but as he tells it, Vegas is a "dry" heat.  Let me tell you, Texas is not a dry heat!


You would think that John and I, and the kids, could get some relief from the pool.  Unfortunately, the pool is not very big or very deep, so the water can feel as warm as bath water.  Not very refreshing when it is 102 outside.  Oh well, hopefully this will only last for a couple more weeks and we'll be back into the 90's.

Good for a Laugh (or at least a chuckle)!

If you haven't seen this, it is hilarious!!  This was passed on by one of my co-workers who was laughing so hard she was crying.

http://m.jezebel.com/5582562/clueless-secretary-makes-for-hilarious-office-email-thread

Enjoy!

Deep Thoughts

Have you ever had a period of time when you start evaluating your friendships?  I've run myself down a little, and when I do that, I get very introspective.  I start thinking about where I am in life and the people that I've surrounded myself with.  Usually I will turn the radio up on my way to and from work and sing along as loud as I can.  Recently, though, I have spent the drive just thinking about things, especially the people in my life.  We all have different types of people in our lives - spouses, family, friends we talk to all the time and friends that come in and out of our lives.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the friends in my life and how difficult it can be to keep in touch with everyone.  I try to touch base with all every once in a while whether by phone, email or Facebook.  Most I don't really expect a reply from, I just want to let them know that I am thinking about them.  What has gotten me down recently are those friends that I consider to be really close.  I call and email constantly and don't hear anything back. I try to arrange get togethers and there always seems to be a reason why they can't make it.  Am I being too sensitive?  Do I just put it down to busy lives?  I still love these friends and will always be there for them in time of need, but how long do I still make an effort?  When do you stop trying so hard and let them take the initiative of arranging time together?

I have read articles in the past that suggest you really look at the friends in your life and consider whether the emotional drain of always giving in the friendship is worth keeping those needy friends in your intimate circle.  I don't think it is that easy to put friendships on the 'back burner', or ease friends out of your life, but I do think there is a point where you need to withdraw a little.  If these people are truly friends that care about and love you, will they sense that something is wrong and start giving a little back?

As you can see, I've really been doing a little bit of thinking.  Luckily, I have a little bit of down time coming up to be able to recharge myself.  Maybe at that point, I can re-evaluate how all the people in my life fit in.   

Travel Adventures

Those of you that know me know that I love to travel.  And for the most part, traveling has not been a problem.  Well, that did change a little bit last week; but I still love to travel.

I had flown into Atlanta on Thursday with three co-workers, including my manager, for a meeting on Friday.  The flight into Atlanta was uneventful and we even arrived about 10 minutes ahead of schedule.  We had heard that there were some storms headed to Dallas, but didn't really think about it because rain is rain.

We had our meeting on Friday, then headed over to one of our offices in Atlanta to meet the staff and get a tour.  While we were meeting with one of the managers in the office, we all started getting travel updates on our cell phones.  You know the kind - flight delayed, then flight delayed again.  Within about an hour, my manager (who happens to have Gold Platinum status) received a text that the flight was cancelled.  Normally this would not cause me any panic, but John and I were scheduled to fly to Albuquerque early Saturday afternoon to attend a memorial service for the younger sister of his good friend Roy.  For those of you who don't know, Roy and John went to high school and played football together.  John and I have enjoyed Roy and Tracy's hospitality during spring training for the last three years.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the storm in Dallas was more severe than predicted and they ended up closing the airport for about four hours causing numerous delays and cancellations.  We desperately tried to find a flight out later Friday evening, but were unsuccessful, so we ended up having to stay another night in Atlanta.

As I said earlier, this normally would not have caused an issue, but I only had clothes and other necessities for a one night trip.  As soon as Sara got home from work, she and I were on the phone so that she could pack what I needed for the trip to Albuquerque.  The plan was that she would pack for me and John would bring it to the airport and meet me at the gate.  The plan worked pretty darn good.  My flight from Atlanta got into Dallas Saturday morning with plenty of time to spare, John met me at the gate for our flight, and off we went to Albuquerque.

We landed in Albuquerque, got our rental car and headed to the hotel.  Once we got checked in, I started unpacking our things so that they could be hung up.  I got to the bottom of the suitcase and still had not seen the shoes to wear with my dress for the service.  I called Sara and asked if she had remembered to pack them, which she had.  It seems that John had decided to consolidate our things into one suitcase (not a bad idea at all), but left my shoes sitting in the bedroom.  Oh well, since we had some time, off we went to go shoe shopping.  Hard to do when one of the people shopping doesn't enjoy it.  :)

Luckily I was able to find some fairly quickly and we were able to enjoy the rest of the weekend.  We visited with Roy's family, who are great people, and attended the memorial service.  We also had a chance to visit Old Town Albuquerque and take a trip on the Tram up Sandia Peak.  It was a beautiful site.  Then up really early Monday morning (3:30am MT) to catch a flight back to Dallas and off to work for the day.

We were both a little tired Monday evening, but were really glad that we made the effort to go.  And I still love to travel.  In fact, I am scheduled to go to Florida next week, then Vegas in June and off to Michigan in July to visit with Cindy.  I know - I have a rough life!

Easter Flowers

Hope everyone had a very Happy Easter!  We had the pleasure of seeing John's oldest brother Jack during the weekend, and had a wonderful time visiting.  As a combined birthday present for Sara and Easter present for all of us, he bought a bunch (and I mean a bunch) of flowers to plant in the front.  And, as you can see from the first picture, we had lots of help with the work.  Of course, we did feed all of those boys afterward.  Enjoy the pictures, and hope to see comments from everyone.

Can you say "Attitude"?

Had to tell her little girls shouldn't show their panties.

Let It Snow??

Okay, I moved to Texas for the warm, sunny weather.  That pretty much disappeared last week.  It started snowing about 3am Thursday and didn't stop until about 3am Friday - 24 hours of straight snowfall for Texas.  We had a record 12.5 inches of snow.  It was beautiful and a little bit fun.  Some of us from work actually had a couple of snowball fights.  I had forgotten how much fun those could be.  The snow was a perfect heavy, wet snow that just begs for making snowballs.  I even saw a couple of snow forts.

Here are a couple of pictures taken that show you our 'winter wonderland'. We did end up losing three brances off one of the trees in our front yard, but I guess it could have been worse.

  

 

Time Goes By

Where does the time go? I can hardly believe that it is already February. Seems like I was just cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Work has been so busy and it doesn't look like there is any breathing space anytime soon. John is working just as hard. In case, everyone didn't hear, he was promoted to District Manager in November and he has been cleaning up his area ever since. This is something that he has worked very hard towards for a long time, and I am very proud of him.

Sara is back in school for the semester and working at the dry cleaners. We see Jason about every other week on Sunday for dinner. He likes living on his own, but it does get a little too quiet for him and he misses his Cami.

The Munchkin continues to grow. She is potty training now and doing a great job. This last week, she went all day except for a couple of accidents. Even stayed dry during nap time. She still needs the diaper at night, but I don't think it will be too long before those are a thing of the past. She is more stubborn and headstrong than her mom was, so that continues to be a challenge. I can't imagine our home without her. She keeps us young and on our toes.

I'm with Dad. We need to start doing a better job of posting again. I don't get on Facebook much because I can't access it at work, and by the time I get home and the family settles down, I really don't feel like getting on the computer.

I'll try to get some pictures posted soon, but the connection from the camera to the computer is acting up. I do believe it is time for a new, updated computer.