They come in groups of three.....

So, the joke in my family is that car accidents and tickets come in groups of three. Someone better look out: two down, one to go.

Wednesday I went to my parents house to pick up The Monster after work, and when I pulled down to the end of the driveway, my Daddy-Do was there looking pretty pissed off with himself. In the course of loading his bike onto the trailer, he had managed to scratch his bike up pretty good. One of those, you only have yourself to blame but incredibly irritating just the same, moments.

SO! This morning I go to drop Alex off at my Mom's and.......... I pulled down to the (now cursed) driveway.........I open my door to get out, I open Alex's door to get him out, and I open the trunk to get out his stroller for my Momma to use. Close all the doors (or so I thought), got in the car, and proceeded to back down the driveway. Well, I missed a door, and as I back down the driveway, I ran the passenger side rear door into a crepe myrtle. Poor tree was just sittin' there minding it's own....

I would like to point out that this is the 2nd time in my life I have mangled some poor tree with a motor vehicle. First time was Colorado with a snowmobile when I was 16. BUT! I digress......

So from the second I hear the damage being done until the time I hit the brakes, the tree and my car had a major disagreement about who was going to move, and it looks like the tree won since the tree is still standing and my car door is bent so far back the other way, I can't close it. (If ONE more person calls me Tommy Boy today I swear to God...............)

After a few loud expletives and a moment to breathe, I calmed down enough to take my Mom's car to work. Isn't that brave of her!?

So when I come back from work to pick up the boy after work today, I get to watch the tow truck load up my poor Murano and drive off with it. Props to the husby for making sure they used a flatbed instead of a regular tow. I don't even have to ask him....I know that is his doing.

The scene when I came home

My handy work.

Bungee cord holding the door together

On another note, I heard it was good to start reading to your children early. So, since I am going for parent of the year, I was looking for the below books. Can't seem to find them in my local bookstores. Anyone know where I could get "Horton Hears a Ho" or any of the other great books shown below?

Happy Halloween all. I bet I don't forget this one.

I know I am tacky! I could not resist.

Boredom - tag. You. are. it.

I copied this off Amanda's blog so here we go:

1. Where is your cell phone? iPhone. I am now screwed for life. In my purse
2. Where is your significant other? at work doing Lord knows what.
3. Your hair color? brown
4. Your mother? my mother what? What a stupid question.
5. Your father? same response as above. What on Earth?
6. Your favorite thing? fall. When the weather gets alittle drier and the temp drops at night and we sleep with the windows open. Other than that, my favorite thing is Alex's smile.
7. Your dream last night? something about gift baskets. What?
8. Your dream/goal? make it through another day!
9. The room you're in? office
10. Your hobby? Shopping
11. Your fear? losing close loved ones, bees, and needles.
12. Where do you want to be in six years? in a different/better/bigger house in a better school district. Always keep looking up right?
13. Where were you last night? in the library, with the candlestick
14. What you're not? quiet
15. One of your wish list items? health and happiness (and since money DOES by you happiness, by default, I wish for lots of that too)
16. Where you grew up? Irving, TX (try not to be jealous)
17. The last thing you did? lunch, a salad............how specific do you want?
18. What are you wearing? a dwess.
19. Your T.V.? TVs off (Shut up Dad. It really is off)
20. Your pet? 1 - large, the other - smelly
21. Your computer? uh, a Dell?
22. Your mood? blah.
23. Missing someone? I miss my brother a lot.
24. Your car? Murano. Loves it.
25. Something you're not wearing? No sir! Even if I wasn't wearing them I wouldn't tell you!
26. Favorite store? SuperTarget, I could spend hours there. (Obviously I mean more hours than I already do)
27. Your Summer? Too hot
28. Love someone? I love sometwo. Or Somethree. I love somelots.
29. Your favorite color? brown
30. When is the last time you laughed? at lunch with my friend Leigha (and by "lunch" I mean, the mall)
31. Last time you cried? I haven't cried in a bit. Um.....I really don't know. I cried at work the other day when my boss made me laugh and I had water in my mouth and I was trying not to spit it out and my eyes got all watery. So a crying laugh. Last week.

Gee Amanda, since half your answers worked for me, I have renewed confidence in our compatability as friends! xoxo
Thanks for the something to do.

BIG NEWS!!!!!

So my brother called me on Monday to let me know that he and Laura are PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am going to be a mommy and and Auntie all in a little over a year!

Obviously my family and I are over the moon! Laura is currently 10 weeks pregnant and is due May 22nd (???) I believe.

So I just wanted to spread the good news and congratulate Alex and Laura!

Alex sent me this on Monday as well.....

Sorry Alex! You said I could tell whoever I wanted!!!

Took my camera to the reunion, didn't use it once.

Allen and I had our 10 year high school reunion this weekend. Wow...never a dull moment. I did actually have my camera with me but......most of the time, it seemed like a better idea to end the conversation quickly and walk AWAY! There were three groups of people as far as I am concerned:
1) the people you were close to and, for some reason, just lost touch through the years. You are genuinely happy to see these people and catch up.
2) the people you were not close to, but obviously, they were unaware of this fact, and continue to hug and talk and talk and talk.......You are genuinely confused by these people and want to back out of the corner they managed to get in in imeeeeeediately.
3) then there are the people who you look right at while you are intending to walk by because you have no recognition of them at all. In fact, you are assuming this must be the spouse of someone who graduated in your class. Then there is a moment when you realize, that not only do you not recognize them, but they FULLY recognize you and proceed to hug you and call you by name and ask you about things that you didn't think anyone there knew about. You are immediately concerned that your memory is failing, and wonder what it was you did that these people remember you for.


When typing this email, I was worried I might offend some of the people in group 2, but then again, they obviously are unaware what group they are in so......no worries.


My favorite moment of the evening was when Travis Endsley told me that for a good 9 years or so, he truly believe that Allen had written the song "Amazing" by Lone Star for me and then got lucky enough to have it picked up and published. Now, I do have a story about that story (if that makes sense!) so the accusation/compliment really threw me. Besides, they have obviously never spent ANY time with Allen................ ;)

I do know that there is at least one picture of Kathryn, Patrick, Allen and I on her camera, which is funny since I have tons of pictures of us together and they are the one couple I got photos taken with at the reunion! I'll post it as soon as I get my hands on it. It is after all, a good photo for the record books.

In other news, my friends Kristie and James had their baby girl this weekend. She and Kristie are both fine. Just thought I would post the pictures she sent me of her since she looks so lovely!
She was 6 lbs. and 14 oz. and was a pretty tough cookie to her very tough mommy.

Her name is Piper Marie Miksch

Congratulations Kristie and James!

Vegas and "stuff"

So Allen and I just got back from Vegas! We had a great time. The trip was only from Friday through Monday morning but honestly, that is enough time in Vegas. On our first night there, we had tickets to O!, which is one of Cirque Du Soleil's shows. It was pretty amazing. The stage alone must have costs millions to customize. They are pretty serious about cameras not being allowed in there, so I could not take any pictures!

On Sat. night, we met up with my long lost friend, Julia Chien. It is pure coincidence that she found me a month before we were coming out to Vegas where she is a casino host and Ceasar's Palace. It was so good to see her. We went to 'Social House', an amazing sushi place in Treasure Island. Julia, then took us to a club called Prive. It is in the Planet Hollywood Casino and it was awesome. I missed Justin Timberlake by a mere 24 hours. Damnit. With Julia leading the way, we skipped right past the huge line to get in and went to our table. We had table service and....well.....I am not quite sure what he was, but a guy that basically stood there like a body guard for us. No one could get too close to us, and if someone lit a cigarette, he was right there with a lighter. So we had table service and......that. Him. Whatever. He was very nice though.

We stayed out until the wee hours of the morning that night, and Allen drank way too much, so we slept in the next day. On Sunday we had tickets to another show called Zumanity. This is another Cirque show and I highly recommend it. You won't find anything like this in Dallas. It was very crude, and very funny. Lots of naked acrobatics. (And how can you go wrong with that!?!) Again, very sensitive about the cameras in there, so no pics of that either. I didn't do so well taking pictures on our trip!

There was a lion display at our casino, which was the MGM Grand. It had a glass tunnel in it, and when the lions were laying on top of it, I snapped a shot or two. They are so huge and impressive. They could not have cared less if we were there.

To sum up Vegas: fun, smokey, don't stay at the MGM - try somewhere else. Now that I have done it, I'm glad I did, but Shreveport will do.

Julia Chien and I at 'Social House'

One of the lazy lions at the MGM

I stayed home today to hang out with The Monster (because I missed him) and catch up on laundry and things I needed to get done. So, what better to do with Alex than play dress up! I kept the Halloween costume simple this year since I will have to carry him everywhere we go.

Anyone have any Halloween plans? I would love to take Alex out but he is so young, I am not sure it would be worth us going by ourselves since it would look like and obvious attempt to just get candy for myself. If anyone is trick-or treating, let me know. I would love to join you for a bit.

BOO!

Just for fun

The Patio and The Pond

To follow up on last week's post:



I DID go to the doc. I let her know of my symptoms and she gave me two very comforting pieces of news. 1) I want to stress that what you are telling my is NOT normal and 2) I'd like you to go to a cardiologist and have your heart looked at. So I left that visit all warm and bubbly. I have not made the appointment for that but I will this week.




On the way home, Allen called me to let me know I needed to pick up The Monster, because he had ALSO been to the doc and received some bad news. Allen has been having some pain in the ball of his right foot. This was going on two months so he finally went to see the doc. It's not certain yet, but the doc thinks Allen stepped on something and his body rejected it. By rejecting it, he meant, his body basically encapsulated it inside Allen's foot. Eww. ;( So Allen left the doctor's office with an M&M sized chunk missing from the ball of the bottom of his foot. It has been a week and he is still in pain!

I will continue to update on my condition. I am actually curious to go to a heart doctor. A stress test could prove interesting.



On Friday night, we grabbed Joe and Teresa and went to the patio on Ozono (on Greenville). We had Alex with us and the weather was so nice, we stayed quite a while and enjoyed ourselves. Joe was very hurt to find we had a blog and he wasn't on it so, I promised that I would put a pictures of Joe and the boy up. BUT since I took the picture with my iPhone, and Apple makes sure that most processes outside of iTunes are very difficult, I can't seem to post those pictures. (sorry Joe). But they were VERY cute I promise.



On Sat., Allen and I got up and spent some time during the day with Alex. I feel like I barely get to see him during the week. So we played on Sat. and napped and played....... It was my Dad's rugby alumni weekend and I always make it to see some part of the game and festivities, but the day just kept moving on and in the end, I went to see him for about 15 minutes. I would have liked to stay longer but we already had other plans!



We dropped Alex off at Nan's and went to meet Brady and Katy on the patio at Ozona (AGAIN!) It's a great patio and the weather has been so nice at night. I certainly didn't mind.We went to Sherlocks for a bit after that and headed home at midnight.




This morning, since Nana had Alex, we took advantage and got up a bit early to get a few things done before we go to Vegas next weekend. The Koi pond needed some work so Allen went outside to work on that. The filter was leaking and well, the plants are in sad shape. Allen fixed the filter so that it works like a geyser! Or less dramatically - so that it works properly.

The Geyser!

The new filter (and the installer!)

We put a beta out in the pond. He, surprisingly, holds his own with the Koi and is certainly not scared of us!

The big boys

We call the yellow and black one Skeletor. He is the most outgoing. The fish will come up and let you "pet" them (like in this pic) but Skeletor is certainly the dominant one out of the group. He is also the biggest, and the youngest.

Beer, Baklawa, and Blood Work - The Weekend Update

This weekend was busy with bachelorette parties and birthday celebrations.

On Sat. night, we went to Chris and Stacy's bachelor/bachelorette party. I have never been to a joint one before, but this one was super fun. Chris and Stacy went all out and rented a party bus to chauffeur us all around for the evening. I personally could have hung out with everyone in the darn bus all night. I loved it! Chris and Stacy are getting married in Mexico this month and we wish them the best! (Even though I a sure they don't need it. They are a match made in Heaven!) For obvious reasons (ahem ahem) I will not be including too many photos from the party! But I can share a few!

Amanda and I in the bus. Jason and Amanda, goofing off!

Annnnnnnnd, as I just now spotted the very subtle middle finger in the background of Amanda and I's photo, I am going to halt any more sharing about Sat. night right now! Leave it to Allen to ruin every photo ever taken by always succumbing to the apparently irresistible urge to stick his middle finger in it. Allen, don't act as if it could be anyone on the bus who did that. That ring (and that finger for that matter) looks awfully familiar.

On Sunday, we went my with my parents to a Lebanese food festival in Lewisville. It was hosted by a small church. The weather was perfect, so we sat outside and enjoyed our kabobs and tabouli. And afterwards we had some balawa and other things I can't spell, much less pronounce. When we were done, I could not wait to get home and nap off the night before. The Monster was over at Nana's house and although I missed him, it was a much appreciated break. I needed that nap. (How did I get so old!?!?)

On Sunday night, it was time to get together to celebrate Bobbie's birthday! We went to The Flying Fish over off of Northwest Highway for some casual seafood. Since the weather was nice we sat on the patio. Stacy, Scott, and Allen shared oysters on the half shell. Ick. And then we all had some form of battered and deep fried goodness.

Pleh.

The Monster. He is so big. He is almost 6 months old but I am having to buy 12 month old clothes for him.

Bobbie so rarely lets anyone take her picture, I thought I would document my accomplishment here. (Sorry Ma)

So in the past few weeks, I have been dealing with some strange issues. I have been getting headaches, fatigue, and more often than not, when I stand up from sitting or lying down, I have to pause for a moment so make the dizziness go away and my vision come back. (This poses a particular problem when my boss asks me to come into his office and I get out of my chair and just stand there. I couldn't see anything and when my vision returned, he was standing there giving me the strangest look......) Allen and I have made the medical observation (Board Certified thank you very much) that I seem to be anemic. I have my annual doctors check up tomorrow, and I am going to ask him to do some blood work on me. Now, most of you who know me are probably quite shocked that I would make such a request since it's fairly obvious I would rather go fishing with Scott Peterson that volunteer to get stuck by any type of needle for any reason, but that is how bad it is getting. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. I have a strong feeling that I am either anemic, or do not have enough iron in my system. (Or is that the same thing?) I'll keep you posted.

XOXO