Girls Gone.....

This is the front of some t-shirts Dori had made for her, Terri, Nancy & I. Back about 30 years ago we were "Girls Gone Wild". Now we have progressed to "Girls Gone Wide!" Nancy got us a room in Savannah for the weekend and today we are all wearing our t-shirts with black capris and little black shoes. It is too cute, although it has been years since so many people stared at my chest! More pictures to follow..

Barney's new theme song..

The Electric Slide... it's electric! I had intended to let Brianne ride Barney while we were all at the ranch last weekend. I was looking forward to riding their new Percheron, Lola. I usually don't get on Barney until we are all ready to go because he gets ansy when there are alot of other horses around. Well, Brian needed a new girth for his horse so we all had to wait. Brianne had already gotten on Barney & I was already on Lola. Barney started prancing and wouldn't listen to Brianne. She kept trying to get him away from the fence and he kept turning the opposite way and then backing up. I noticed he was getting more and more aggravated, so I tried to get off Lola. She had started getting tired of waiting too, so every time I started to get off she would move forward. And the more I tried to move Lola toward Barney, the more agitated he got until he backed himself all the way into the fence.. an electric fence! It took him a full second or two to realize it, and then he bolted forward, causing Brianne to drop one of the reins, which can be dangerous for both of them. She regained control just as I finally said screw it and got off Lola while she was moving. She realized while I was swinging down that I was getting off and finally stopped. I gave her to Brian and went over and got Barney. I got on him and after a minor attitude adjustment (almost running him into the pond.. he hates water!) he finally straightened up and did great. It all boiled down to him not wanting any other rider but me and not wanting me near another horse. I am having some of the staff there work with him and I will work with him when I go back up as well. I don't want him to become so solitary and posessive. He has been acting up when we are around other horses, but Brianne had ridden him before and so has Brian so I didn't think it would be a problem. This is a new issue. The only casualty was a pair of my sunglasses that broke when I got off Lola. So Barney has a new theme song!

Over a week??

I can't believe it has been over a week since I last blogged..
The Beckley house is on the market, spent alot of time finishing that up. Just a few finishing touches and I don't have to run back and forth dealing with it!
Brian & I got away to the horse ranch, got there very late Sat. night and came home Monday..Thanks Terri, Dwight & Savannah for watching the munchkins!
Brianne & Justin were at a Smith family reunion not far from the ranch so they joined us. More about that on the next blog entry!
Tristan has a couple new phrases.. "how about a snack?" or "how about a drink?".. everything is "how about". And then there is.. " whatchya got dere?" (What ya got there?) He asks about anything you have in your hand, a purse, groceries, food, drink, whatever. He will also tell me, "I'm tired, can I go night night?" Usually we are in the car. I will tell him "sure, go ahead, just close your eyes". He will actually fall asleep within minutes.
Alexa insists on getting dressed within a short time of waking up, including getting her hair combed, etc. If she messes up her hair she wants it fixed right away, then she pats her hair and asks" it pretty?" Of course I tell her it's beautiful!
Hunter is ready to go back to school. He says summer is too long for kids. They all have swim class 4 days a week for 2 weeks starting on Monday. Busy, busy!

Cricket's photo published!! ( sort of..)

Cricket takes awesome pix and she entered Jacob in this contest.. and he won! So look in your local grocery store for his pic on the label!

Bring on the Bon-bons!!

Okay.. call it whining if you want.. but it's my blog & I'll whine if I want to!
I now have 9 standing appointments per week.. Tues-Fri! How crazy is that!!
Here is a breakdown of our day today (and most Tuesdays)..
Get everyone up & out by 8am
Take the twins to daycare 30 miles from new house (Hunter chose to stay home with Chad)
Go to my 10:00am appt for physical therapy at Brooks (neck & upper thorasic spine) (15 mi. from Daycare)
finish at 11 am.
Go to Home depot for supplies for Contractor.. Beckley house..(didn't have what I needed)
Go back to Daycare to pick up twins.
Go back to Brooks for Tristan's speech therapy appt.
Stay for Alexa's speech therapy appt. (keep one occupied while the other has therapy)
Go to other home depot.. with twins.. for supplies (4 panels siding, 20 bags mulch)
go to Beckley house to unload supplies.. by myself.
(usually would have 4:00 Karate for Hunter.. didn't go today.. goes various days 2X wkly)
Go home!
Add Jackpott meetings when I can make it, plus I made another trip to the St. Augustine Home depot to get a vaccum on clearance for Chad's room upstairs..
Fridays are as crazy as Tuesdays. Then Hunter & I alternate Therapy every other week. I have mine this Thursday, he will have his next Wednesday.
It will be loads of fun when they have swim lessons 4 days a week for 2 weeks added to the mix!
I guess it isn't so much whining as agravation when some people think because I am not "working" that I have a leisurely day, and have so much "free" time! As if!
Squeeze in housecleaning, cooking, and so on, and so on.. when I am not too beat to bother..not to mention any other appointments that come up. I need to go to the school board and register Hunter for School. I have to go meet with my lawyer, I have to go downtown to the child support enforcement office because they screwed things up again. I have a garage full of stuff to go through.. it will get done.. I just don't know how anyone can think I am home eating bon bons all day!!

Busy Weekend..

My brother Tommy, & his son, Derrick came up from St. Pete to go to the Pepsi 400 in Daytona. Tommy's son Brandon, his friend Candy, & her 8 month old son, Skyler came down from Nashville to go the races as well. We tested out all our fold out couches and re-arranged a little and it worked well for the couple days they were here. Brian & I did not think the races were a good place for the little one, so I babysat Friday & Saturday nights. He was such a good, happy baby. NO, I did not get baby fever! We did Sunday Brunch to celebrate Randy's birthday and give everyone a chance to visit before they headed back home. Overall it was a good visit, I hope they all enjoyed it.
We got to pick Calypso (Cali) up on Saturday. She is such a good puppy! I am amazed at how laid back and smart she is. She turned 8 weeks old today. Alexa has a problem with her "k" sound.. but when she talks to or calls Cali, it is clear as a bell. Of course when we went to speech therapy today and I asked her the new puppies name, she said Lali!
So between people & puppies, we had a very busy weekend!

Fireworks..

I tried posting this before and it got dumped.. either the blogosphere did it, or my laptop did!
I read the community paper wrong, so we watched the fireworks at World Golf Village out of our front window on the 3rd instead of the 4th! Brianne & Justin brought over some fireworks on the 4th, so we set them off along with several people in our neighborhood. Tristan & Alexa covered their ears from the noise. Tristan got over it pretty fast, but Alexa kept her hands over her ears almost the whole time, even when we took a walk... and when she got to hold a sparkler(!) so that was nixed real fast! It will be fun to see how they do next year.. if I can read the paper right!

We have a Realtor!

After much research and much more soul searching, I decided to go with the Realtor who originally sold us the Beckley house. It is officially on the market! He wants to start showing it Monday. That gives me the next few days to put the finishing touches on it. It seems like it has taken forever to get this going, but we are on our way!! I'll keep you all updated as we go.

Calypso.. "Cali"

Calypso
Originally uploaded by mommanana

She will come home to us in about a week.. yes I am a sucker-fish! She is a Boston marked Blue Merle Great Dane. For now she gets to visit an hour or two here & there. They live right down the road from us. The twins are a bit older and she is big enough to hold her own. Celina is getting into old age and Anise is too hyper for the kids to play with due to her brain damage from when she was young. So along came Cali.. and I couldn't say no!

Brenda's New tattoo..

I saw Brenda's new tattoo yesterday. It is beautiful. It is in the center of her upper back. It is inspired by the artwork of Amy Brown. It is two faeries facing each other, one a brunette, and one a redhead. The brunette has purple wings and the redhead's are pink. Above each of their heads are branches of a tree. The brunette's branches are lifeless, barren. The redhead's branches are partly barren, with the beginnings of new growth.. how profound is that?! It touched my heart because I know what it means to her, and what it meant to me to see it. Yes, I cried. I will not post a picture of it here, and I am not sure if she will on her blog.. It is very personal and should remain one of a kind. Lucky are those who get to see it in person.. I am one.

For all the seasons of my life..

We did have a "Happy Anniversary". As happy as it can be with part of us missing. We exchanged cards, cleaned house, and spent the afternoon with family & friends.. It has been quite an adventure, and it is far from over. I would not wish to travel this path with anyone else.
I will weather all the seasons of my life with Brian. For however long that is, it will always be with him..

Dual Anniversary Celebration..

Saturday night Brianne, Justin, Brian & I went to dinner at the Columbia restaurant in St. Augustine. Brianne & I shared 2 pitchers of their premium Sangria, with champagne, orange liqour, brandy, fruit, white wine.. yummy! Of course we finished the first one before they brought any food! It was fun. I wore a new dress and we walked around a little after dinner. They celebrated 2 years June 4th. We celebrated 24 years July 1st.

Thursday was a Monumental Day!

Tristan & Alexa went potty on the toilet!! In our world that is a VERY big deal! I was spending the day moving (almost) the last of the stuff from the Beckley house and came home to unload the small U-haul I rented. Savannah was babysitting and I thought I would try to get them to go potty for me. I broke down and bought the Mega M&Ms. Yes I bribed them.. and it worked! Alexa sat but did nothing. Then Tristan tried and when I told him he would get an M&M if he peed in the toilet.. he did! Well, Alexa didn't like that we made such a big deal about Tristan doing it, so she peed a little and pooped! TMI for some people, but this is quite the moment here in the world of potty training. It is still a work in progress, but hey.. we are on our way!!
I also finally emptied the Beckley house completely. The inside looks great and now we are working on the outside. Hope to have it listed by the first of next week! So we had quite the day Thursday!!

Bri & Keeley June 26, 2007

Bri & Keeley June 26, 2007
Originally uploaded by mommanana

Speaking of rescuing!

Brianne went to the ranch with me this weekend. It was good to have some time with her. It was too hot to ride in the afternoons, so we rode in the morning, then watched movies and hung out in the afternoons. We don't get to do that very often. She got to ride one of her favorite horses and I rode my boy, Barney.
On the way home we could not resist stopping at a small humane society. I have passed it a dozen times and never stopped because I usually go home on Sunday and they are closed. They had a litter of lab/pitt bull puppies and a 2 year old yellow lab named Keeley. She is spayed, housebroken, trained, and has a very sweet nature. She now lives with Brianne. She has a weak hind leg from surgery to repair a gun shot wound, but it doesn't seem to slow her down much. Brianne wanted another dog, but the puppy thing won't work with her & Justin working so much. Keeley has fit right in. I will post a pic as soon as I get it sent from my phone to my pc. I guess the rescuing thing has been passed down to my daughter!

To rescue, or not to rescue..

I have always been a “rescuer".. Of anyone or anything that I thought needed rescuing. In ways both small & great the people around me make my life better. I often wish I could wave a magic wand and make things better for the people I love. Better jobs, better partners, better children, better lives.. better everything. I know I can’t, but that does not change the wishing.
I do the same with my children. That is not always a good thing. I want them to be independent, yet I want to save them the struggles I went through when I was young. I also want to protect them from heartache, which is not possible either. I could not save them from the loss of their sister, or the twins the loss of their mother. Life happens wether we want it to or not. I will still try to "rescue" when I can, and realize it is okay when I can't.

Family tree..

I have lived my life as part of a blended family. As have my children, and now my grandchildren. Hunter has the most complicated mix of all, and the twins will have quite a lot of extended family members as well. I don’t see a problem with that. Hunter’s biological brother and sister, Cody & Katie, were visiting Greta & Randy for a couple weeks. They spent some time with us too. There are many similarities, and many differences. Hunter has asked questions about whose tummy he grew in, and how he is connected to Nana & Pop-Pop when Brianne & Chad call them Aunt & Uncle. I have given him the basic truths and will explain in more detail as he asks more questions and can understand. I want him to know who he is and where he came from. I want the same for the twins. Above & beyond everything I want for them, I want to do what is best for them. That is part of every decision I make. That does not always make things easy.
Feeling the way I do it is hard for me to understand how some people do not put their children’s best interest first. I watch these people and the heartache it causes their families when they don’t know what to do or how they can help them. Some where in almost every family there is one or more dysfunctional members who keep every one else in turmoil. If you are lucky, you don’t have any of those family nuts in your family tree, or you have learned to keep them at a distance. It is a work in progress for me!

Powers that be..

The powers that be in the internet world would not let me post anything from out of town. No matter how I tried, it just would not post. So I wrote up some drafts and will post them in the next day or so. Sorry for the break in blogging!

The Crew 6-19-07

The Crew 6-19-07
Originally uploaded by mommanana

Tristan, Alexa, Katie, Hunter, & Cody. Impossible to get them all to sit still and smile at the same time! They were waiting for "movie night" to start. We watched Cinderella III and then the twins went to bed & the "big kids" got to watch The Fantastic Four. I had little theatre type boxes for the popcorn & everything. Listen.. hear that? You don't hear anything?? Me either! They are all asleep!!

Done with Disney!

Friday night Greta and I took Cody, Katie, & Hunter to Disney for the weekend. Call us crazy, but they had never been together and Greta wanted to share that with them. It wasn't bad. The rain stayed away, and the lines weren't as bad as we thought they would be. Over 12 hours at the Magic Kingdom was more than enough to last me a good long while! Sunday we swam in the hotel pool, shopped at Downtown Disney and then headed home. Quite a full weekend. Alot of good memories for the kids, and that is what it was all about!