Monday, October 13, 2008

Fun Times - New pix added

This past weekend was a good change of pace for us
On Thursday Night I finished up some Pumpkin tie-dye shirts for the kids at school - (I just did the faces - someone else tie dyed them)

Here they are hanging up to dry
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Fri morning, I worked on my lesson plan for school and Zac caught up on some editing while we were waiting for my new phone to be delivered.
Then we packed our bags and headed to Tenn.

About 15min into the drive, we stopped in Woodfin at a park that Zac had found recently:
Here are a few pix of the men playing:
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After that, we piled back in the van for the drive. We ended up taking a very indirect route thru a very curvy mtn in the dark AND our gas light came on! Luckily the men fell asleep but I was trying very hard not to throw up as Zac did his best to conserve what little gas we did have and coasted as quickly as he could! God was watching out for us because we made it to town and Zac got gas (at 60 cents less than we pay at home) while I walked around getting some fresh air - although it was dark you could tell it was fall. The air was crisp and there were crunchy leaves on the ground. We made our way to the hotel and ended up going to bed early since we weren't really sure where everyone else was (for the rehearsal dinner) and we didn't get very good cell phone service.

The next morning, we got up had breakfast and headed to the B&B where the girls were staying - Zac started his day there getting pix of them getting ready:
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(I took the above pix out of the slideshow folder Zac put together to play at the reception)

While Zac was working, the boys and I headed to the farm (where the wedding was) and played and explored while we were waiting for the wedding to start.

The highlight of Gryphyns day was when his friend Tatum showed up - She is our Pastors daughter and Gryphyn absolutely loves her. A few weeks ago he said: "Tatum is my friend - I like her, she has soft hair" LOL

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All Vahn wanted was his Daddy - which made it a bit difficult to keep him quiet during the ceremony

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The following day, Zac had two more photo shoots in Tenn so the men and I drove around and found parks to play at.
Here are a few more pix of them at the park:

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Now we are back home and back to real life - I wish we could stay on Vacation Forever!
Coming back home always sucks - piles of toys, mtns of laundry, never ending list of things that need to be done
SIGH - It was Fun to get away for a few days anyway :)

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Rest in Peace!

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This past weekend, the boys and I flew to AZ to attend my Dad's Memorial Service. The ashes weren't ready in time for the ceremony and one of his sisters couldn't make it, so we are planning on having an ash scattering ceremony planned at Apache Lake. He spent a lot of time there growing up fishing and water skiing with his family.

Its sort of bitter sweet. I know he is in a better place now and not in pain anymore but at the same time, I was just starting to have a normal relationship with him and my kids will never get to know him here on this earth.

It has been an emotional week! I'm exhausted from crying so much. Zac has been super busy with weddings and editing so I've pretty much been and single mom on top of all of this. Man I don't know how single moms do it - it is so much work not ever having a break - I guess you just manage and do what you have to in order to get by. I sure don't envy them!

In keeping with the theme of my week, on the flight back home from AZ, I missed my flight and lost my phone - Early Sunday morning we left for the airport to catch our flight back home - we thought 30min would be plenty of time to check in for an early morning flt - WRONG - You must check in 45min prior and they won't send your bag with out you - so even though I could have made it to the plane in time they wouldn't let me because they "couldn't send my bag on a plane that I wasn't on" So they gave us standby tickets for the next flight which we had to wait , 3hrs for. Although my bag still went on the original flight (go figure)

Once I finally get on the plane - we of course don't have seats together - no biggie someone moved for us so we are sitting in the very last row of the plane. The guy next to the window - never uttered a word the whole 5 hour flight but the super rude couple in front of us made sure it was well know that they weren't happy about having kids seated near them. Every time the kids would kick the seat or be loud they would huff loudly or turn around like they were going to do something - the flight attendant on the other had was wonderful - she helped a lot - so anyway - after 5 hours of trying to keep the men contained in a small space and quiet, we were all ready to get off the plane. I dug my phone out of the bag and placed it in the seat back pocket so that I could get to it easier once we landed. Then once we landed, it was too loud in the plane to talk so I decided to just wait till we got off the plane to call zac - by this time, I had 20min to get from B terminal to E terminal so the flt attendant called me one of those electric cars to take me - once I got us all situated on there, I went to get my phone to make my call and realized that I left it on the plane - MAN

So do I go back for it and risk missing my plane or rush for the plane???? The man driving the car called the gate for me and said he would go back and look for it and bring it to me so I went ahead and headed to my next gate - however, I had standby tickets from missing the first flt and there were already 6 others in front of me - so I didn't make the flight anyway. So I head back to the 1st gate and checked with the gate agent just in time to see the original plane taking off again.

Of course its a new gate agent and she doesn't know anything but I'm welcome to wait for the other to return from her break - after a few minutes, of waiting the gate agent tells me that if it HAD been turned in, it would be taken to the customer services desk - so I head down to the desk to check with them. They make a phone call back to the gate and are told that it was turned into baggage. By this time, I have about 30min. I think this will be enough time to get down to baggage and get my phone and run back to the gate to board - so I make the long walk (as fast as I can) to baggage - once there, they look thru their phones and don't have it so they call back to the gate who tells them "NO -we said IF we had it we would turn it in" AHHHHH!! So now I have NO phone and about 10min to make it back to the gate AND I have to go back thru security with the kids. So more rushing, I make it back to the plane (getting a blister on my foot from running in sandals) I didn't have a chance to find a pay phone and call zac back so he has no clue when my flt is getting in - Thankfully, the flt from charlotte to asheville was only 30min. We get off and call zac and then wait for him to come get us.

So, the next day, I call back to Charlotte and check if my phone was turned in - NOPE - so I get the list and #'s of where the plane went and call all of those stops - no luck - so I repeat the phone calls the following day still no luck - so I call Verizon to put a hold on my phone and find out if it is being used - sure enough, I lost it on the 5th and the last phone call was placed and 11pm on the 6th. So then I call my insurance and file a claim but still can't get a phone until they receive and approve my application. Meanwhile, Zac has to go out of town so I am phoneless for a few days

How did I survive before without a phone? I use it way more than I thought I did. I still can't get over that someone else took it and was using it - I guess I'm too nice - If I found someone elses phone (or anything else) I would do everything I could to return it to them. Well at least I get a new phone out of it - It is suppose to be delivered tomorrow during normal business hours - meanwhile it sucks not having one!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Today -wasn't so great :(

If you are one of my "friends" on myspace then you've probably already read this - I'm not feeling very creative right now so I just copied and pasted what I wrote earlier:

Early​ this morni​ng,​ my Dad died!​ He had been sick for some time now so we sort of saw it comin​g - but thing​s were looki​ng up latel​y and we expec​ted him to prove​ the drs all wrong​.​ He has been in and out of the hospi​tal since​ June when he was diagn​osed with liver​ and kidne​y cance​r.​ He also has a histo​ry of heart​ disea​se but hadn'​t been havin​g any troub​le with is heart​ latel​y.​

Aroun​d 3am a nurse​ helpe​d him to the bathr​oom and he wante​d to sit in his chair​ for awhil​e.​ Somet​ime short​ly after​ that the alarm​s all start​ed going​ off and they found​ him on the floor​ with blood​ comin​g out of his nose & mouth​.​ They said it was cardi​ac arres​t.​ That was his 15th heart​ attac​k over the past 20 years​ or so.

This is all so sudde​n - I just spoke​ with him brief​ly last night​ - I could​n'​t hear him very well becau​se I was at work so I told him I would​ call him back and when I did a few hours​ later​ he was in dialy​sis so I never​ got the chanc​e to talk to him again​ :(

He along​ with the rest of my famil​y are in AZ and I am still​ in NC - so being​ so far away has been hard - I may try and make anoth​er trip out next week for the memor​ial servi​ce - no plans​ have been made yet - I am thank​ful that I did get the chanc​e to go and see him last month​ and sort of say "​goodb​ye"​

thank​ you in advan​ce for your thoug​hts and praye​rs - pleas​e feel free to write​ or call anyti​me - being​ alone​ is harde​r than I thoug​ht it would​ be - my littl​e men keep me busy but zac sill has to work and all I want to do is cry - I'm sure it will pass soon but today​ has been hard.​

I had to get out of the house - I couldn't take the toy tornado that had hit and had no desire to pick it up myself so I packed the kids up headed to Burger King for some comfort food - my favorite - a number 1 with cheese minus the tomato and onion :) Then we drove to the park to play - I wanted some more pix of Gryphyn since I didn't get many the last time we were there - I did take more of Vahn as well but I haven't made pages of those yet - so here are a few of my BIG MAN Gryphyn taken today:

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Saturday, September 20, 2008

Pictures from yesterday and today

I'm trying to figure out how to get the slideshows to play in my blog - so if you come across this and it won't play, click on the view full size (in the bottom left of the slideshow) and it should open it in a new screen for you - Ok, off to make more pages :)



It is now 11:30pm and I should really be in bed - in fact Zac just got home from a wedding and told me so :)
Here are a few more I just finished - I took the boys to Amboy Park this afternoon and followed them around with a camera. I realized when I got home that most of them were of Vahn - Gryph is getting big enough to run off on his own but I still stay pretty close to Vahn so most of my pix ended up being of him - don't worry, I still love Gryphyn :)

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Sunday, September 14, 2008

Digital Scrapbook Pages

I am in love with this new site I just found out about. One of my friends recently told me about scrapblog - It is the greatest ever! Thank you Jade!

I have been wanting to make scrapbook pages for such a long time now - but don't have the time or space to get out all my stuff and do it. Till today when I discovered www.scrapblog.com - if you like to scrapbook at all - you MUST check out this site - it is so easy to use!

Here are a few pages I just put together in the last few hours:

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I so should be in bed - but I just couldn't help it I had to do a few more pages - Did I mention that I LOVE this site!!!
Here are two I made from photos of this past Fathers Day:

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Back to real life!

The men and I got back from AZ about a week ago and life has been nonstop crazy since then. There is a 3 hour time change between AZ and NC so that has been fun trying to get the men to go to bed and get up 3 hrs later. I think we finally got that down. Didn't help that Gryphyn slept with me for the two weeks we were gone so he was very reluctant to sleep in his own bed alone again. Aside from the jet lag, there was the life stuff that piles up while you are away - such as yard work, cat box, dishes and laundry to deal with. Zac does a great job helping out around the house but he is kind enough to leave those for me :) Isn't he sweet!

The main purpose of our trip to AZ was to see my dad - Here is a quick update on him:
His cancer has spread to his Kidneys and they have shut down. He is on dialysis 3 times a week. They are also looking into starting chemo but are waiting on approval from the insurance to do that. He was released from the hospital but went back in twice - the first time, he couldn't breath - that turned out to be something caught in his throat that he ate and the second time for what ended up being diagnosed as severe indigestion. When he went back home the 2nd time, they called him after receiving the results of his labs and wanted him to come back in because his blood was too thin. There is a lot of stuff going on there so I don't know how much longer he has or what new surprise will come tomorrow :(

My little man Vahn - had his final Dr.'s appt for his feet a few days ago on the 15th. They look great! His dr okayed no more medicine or bandages and Vahn is relived to be barefoot (in the house) again! (more pix to come)

This past weekend we did some more work to the house. I nagged Zac long enough to finish my pantry and finally I have shelves to put food on. I ended up painting the inside red because I had a whole can of red left over instead of the white that I thought it was. So it is now red walls with white shelves inside. We still need to hang a door on it but now my cabinets are free to unpack the remaining kitchen boxes that have been stored in my bedroom for months now.

In continuing the craziness, Thursday morning we are driving down to Florida to photograph and celebrate some friends wedding. Well, that depends on what tropical storm Fay decides to do. So far the weather looks good so I'm praying that it will stay that way and we can have a little mini family vacation.

So thats the latest here with us - stay tuned for more to come and pictures to be posted as well!

Friday, August 8, 2008

For MOM - who is going thru withdraws with out new pictures:

Here are some photos of the last few days.

We have been spending most of our time at the Anthem waterpark - here is a picture of the small slides:

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Lauren and Jared waiting in line to go down the BIG slides:

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Gryphyn and Mimi (Aunt Mandy) swiming at the water park:

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The men and I outside of my sister Danielles place:

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Playing in the pool:
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And just to insure that things don't get boring, LOOK what I found inside Val's house:

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Its a little squished since I had a great need to kill it before I photograhphed it :)