Abra-Cadabra

We went to our first magic show as a family. How fun! We had the best time and the kids really loved the tricks. I think we have seen the old Houdini trick about a million times but we can never figure it out. It must be one of those things that we will never get. His jokes were funny as well. He has performed for millions of people all around the world. He is a christian guy, told us his life story which was amazing. He got his first magic box at 9 years old and then he began practicing and by the time he was 16 he was making a six figure income. He was living the American dream. He did shows all around the world until one day he was asked to pray with a family. So he did, he sat on the dirt floor with them in his expensive suit and the family prayed and thanked God for all of the things that they had. What they had was NOTHING, he thought. Then he realized that, that was all they needed. As long as the family was there happy, and healthy that is all that they had ever wanted for. So he came home and told his family that he was going to sell all of their belongings. He then asked the entire crowd to pray with him. Amazing, to have to guts to stand up there and ask the crowds to pray with him? Simply amazing. You can check him out at http://www.harrisiii.com/

Did someone order a SNOW cone?

It has been snowing here like crazy. It seems like every other day there is another snow storm coming through. I would blame global warming if it was not for oxymoron of the temperatures being in the teens almost daily. Ana has yet to be at a full day of school for at least two weeks. I like to tease her saying that Trista and Lani will be in the same grade as her pretty soon. Poor Ana has school on Saturday to make up for the snow day on Monday.

One Saturday that yes, I had to call in to work because I could not get out of the driveway, the girls were out playing in the snow since it was just warm enough to play outside but cold enough to keep the snow there on the ground.

Jim and I were putting the groceries away when I had this great idea. I sent the girls out with some of the ice cream cones we keep around. (I keep these around because my step-mother Karen taught me to put whipped cream in the cones and the girls could pretend its ice cream. With less of a mess of course, and an awesome idea).

Lani did not want to play with them anymore and she takes everything very literal so when I give ice cream cones, there had better be some ice cream to come with it. The other two girls are not as hard to please. This is what they came back with. It was hilarious!

Worst blogger ever.

Perhaps I have nothing to blog about. Perhaps the 60 hour weeks at work are so boring that even I do not want to talk about it. Its that time of year again..Tax time. Everyones favorite time as long as they are getting a refund. That is what I do. Prepare taxes, fix problems when other people prepare taxes and screw them up, then I get to come home and do it all over again the next day. This time of year....SUCKS.

So here is what has been happening the last month. My dad informed me that he will be moving again, this time closer to the grand kids. That's right not HIS grand kids but the grand kids that know him better than I do. The same grand kids that he has been able to watch grow up, go see awards shows at school, watch games with, play in the yard with...and yet his grand kids have never met him. He told me that he was going to finally come visit. After five years of being back on the mainland now he is coming to visit. Oh but wait, this may not happen. Since he is moving he will be changing jobs, since he is changing jobs he may not have the vacation time so once again, no visit.

(Edited to include at a later time) Not to blame my dad for no visits. I totally can come to visit them once and awhile as well, I just cannot take the time off of work because we cannot afford a trip for five people. The farthest that we could afford is Florida and only that because we have family there to stay with. However, he makes enough money to buy a new home while keeping the old one? You can afford some time to come and meet the children you have never met.

Now since that is off of my chest. My kids are awesome. Ana got an award in school the other day for Math and Reading. She loves math and reading her two favorite subjects. She must get it from her grandfather.

Lani is now potty trained for the most part. Sometimes she forgets. She can't wait to start school and this summer she gets to play in the soccer league.

Trista is getting bigger. Poor thing was sick on Monday but she was over it quickly. She is also potty training and doing very well I am impressed since she is only 2. Lani and Ana were both 3 before they did it. She is also going to be the mean one I think because she does not take any crap from anyone and LOVES to pick on her sisters.

This book is over. I have another 9 hour day of work tomorrow...On a Saturday...Ugh.

My New Year Resolution.

Normally, I do not make resolutions simply because I am no good with keeping them and I hate disappointment. This year I have changed that, well, just a little anyway.

I resolute...

1. To remain calm when all three girls have covered themselves in their dinner and spilled the last of the milk.

2. To no longer holler at my children for a slight misbehavior.

3. To try to be a little nice to everyone that I meet, no matter how I really feel about them, or how easy it is to forget them.

4. To stop considering text, IM, facebook, twitter, and blogspot, are sufficient ways of communicating with friends and relatives.

5. To put myself in timeout at least once a day.

Geocaching 12/29/09

Here is my second Geocache that I found. You can read about my first one here. It is an outlet cover made of metal and there is supposed to be a magnet on there but I think it may have fallen off. Either that or the guy who placed this cache did not do a very good job. Robert, my son, came with me so that we could find his 50th cache. We almost gave up on this one since we at first could not find it and it was about 27 degrees outside. Just as we were leaving to get warmed up again in the truck I said, "I checked over here already but lets look one more time." Robert came with me and as I was looking up he was looking down and there it was. On the ground. He asked me, "what is that on the ground?" Mad, I kicked that piece of metal and then picked it up. You got it. This was it. We signed the log and put it back where we found it then it was off to the next one. This second one was a lot easier than the first one. Robert had seen this kind of hide before (what we call camo) so as soon as we pulled up to it he told me to go and pop off the top the of fence post. The cacher had glued the tube to the underside of the fence post top with a twist cap that holds the log to sign. This is what it looked like, this is what we call a micro cache because it is small and does not hold any swag. We did not freeze to death but my toes stayed cold all the way home.

Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas everyone. I haven't posted in a while because we have been awesome busy with 25 people around for the Christmas holiday. How wonderful it was to have most of Jims side of the family here to visit. I love it when they come.





Thanks Gram and Pepere for this little gem. Its the cutest apron and chefs hat that she just LOVED. She wore it all day and refused to take it off to go to bed that night.

Ana has a terrible habit of pulling really stupid faces when she is getting her picture taken. Until I can break her of the habit even the stupid pics will get posted of her. I cannot wait until she is old enough to be embarassed.

Here is Krystal and Lani. She started off with a shirt on, but randomly got "something" on it and had to take it off.

And finally, mom with her new "redneck" wind chimes. Just imagine it and you are probably right as to what it looks like.

I hope everyone got the Christmas they wanted and have a happy new year!

Geocaching at a glance.

- You are familiar with acronyms like "TNLNSL", "TFTC" and "TFTF."

- You know the zip codes of all your out-of-town relatives off the top of your head, and you actually look forward to visiting your in-laws.

- You no longer talk to your friends or relatives about geocaching ... none of them will allow it.

- You find yourself having to explain to your significant other why there is a never-ending shortage of Tupperware containers in the kitchen.

- You begin making grocery purchases based on the items' usefulness as cache containers.

- You will willingly hike through wet woods - and ford a stream - in the dark - in your "business casual" attire to bag a find.

- When you tell your spouse you "have to work late" or "run a quick errand" you're not fooling anyone.

- You travel everywhere with a flashlight and tweezers.

Christmas Tree Ornaments

This year for the Christmas tree I decided that I no longer will allow the breakable ornaments to be put out. Mostly because I was getting too lazy to pick up all the little broken pieces every single day either from the kids or the dogs or the cats.This left the tree a little scarce on the amount of ornaments that were allowed to be hung.

Apparently the kids thought so too. Trista left me this nice little ornament this morning.

7 Years Married

I have been married to this wonderful man for 7 years and one day as of today. How awesome its been. In that time we have had three beautiful girls, moved four times, done two overseas deployments, retired, and even have grandbabies now.

To celebrate our time together Jim and I took a minivacation to Atlanta, GA which is about two hours away from the house I guess it would be called a "staycation". On our way we stopped off to visit with Robert and Kristen (Jims son and his wife), Isabella and Jacob (the grandbabies), Nate and Kim (Kristens brother and sister-in-law) along with their two kids Sean and Taylor, and Cliff and his wife (Kristens dad and step-mother, forgive me but I just can't remember her name right now!).

Here is a cute picture of Jacob covering his ears while we shoot the new M-4 Grand. The gun is pretty loud and will make your ears ring like mad if you are not wearing the proper protective equipment...You know those high tech things they call EAR PLUGS!

Here is Jacob and Uncle Nate learning how to shoot the M-4.

Here is my smiley faced little grandbaby Isabella. She is beautiful and deserves all things beautiful! He big brother Jacob just loves all over her and I am sure that mommy and daddy have nothing to worry about with him as her protector!

This is an interesting place that we stopped at on the way that is really not that far from the house but we have never been there. It is a nice little gift shop with some dust collector items, homemade jams and jellies, and even a fire pit in the front. Do you see the real goat on the roof? They have a whole playground up there its really neat!

So after making our meet and greets we made our way to Atlanta. We checked into the hotel which was very nice. They had a happy hour but we missed it since I wanted to head off to eat then to the Hockey Game. We ate at Olive Garden which is my favorite place to eat of all time! Then it was off to the Thrasher game.

Our seat were pretty high up which was a good thing because we could see the entire rink and all the players. It was a bad thing because the seats faced almost straight down and if you tripped it would be a long fall to the bottom.

My camera is okay at taking pictures from far away so I thought I would take this one while no one was on the rink.

Luckily we were right behind the team so I grabbed this picture while I could. All vowels in those Russian names!

Here they are getting ready to score the last goal of the game. With one minute remaining in the period (we ended up losing) they score a goal to bring the score to 5 for the NJ Devils and 4 for the GA Thrashers. It was a great game NJ played better though.

Goal tender getting ready for the Devils.

So all in all we had a great time in Atlanta and cannot wait until we get to do something like this again. Without the kids of course!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Geocaching x2

Hey everyone. I found my first geocache tonight. Yes, without the use of a GPS system. I will have to wait to do another one but I was so excited to do this one tonight! I dragged Brian (my best friend) to the site with me and oh what fun! He thought we were about to be arrested since there was no one there but us and we were on the property...at night...with flashlights. No, we do not look suspicious at ALL!! I will have to go back to that spot so I can take pictures and I plan on taking pictures for all my new hobby caches.

I will not spoil any fun and tell you where they are but I promise to take plenty of pics (maybe you can guess if you live here in NC!)