Family Adventures Family Adventures When my children are grown and gone, I hope that they will look back on their childhood and remember the sound of their mother's laughter. Sometimes that is easier said than done. Articles
Are we there yet?
2007-11-29 05:02:00 Does anyone have any ideas for a blog post? This is excruciating. How many days left in November? Why do I always wait until the last moment?One of the things I love most about being a stay at home mom is the fact that I am never in a hurry or running late. I like to live my life at my own pace. It is peaceful. Someone taught Lily how to tell time. She is driving me crazy. Every day we have the same tentative schedule, we do things in the same order and most likely at about the same time. I don't really look at the clock so who knows. I wont bore you with the details of our mundane schedule today. At breakfast Lily has started asking me what time are we going to do this, that and the other. I tried to tell her, whenever. She did not accept that answer. I tried making up approximate times. She is now holding me to those arbitrary times. All day long she is like the rabbit with the watch, telling me we are late, we are late. I am going to have to read her Alice in Won...
Assisi
2007-11-28 05:05:00 Another of our day trips while living in Italy was to Assisi , which is also located in the Umbria region. Assisi is the birth place of St. Francis. We went to Assisi on a tour bus instead of driving there ourselves. We discovered on this trip that we preferred to travel with our own car. Tours are nice, you get to sleep instead of drive and you get a guided tour. Jeff and Mandy do not like the guided tours, too much talking, and I don't like to ride on buses so much. We arrived in Assisi on a very cold, rainy day with extremely cold and strong winds. The town of Assisi is full of hills, so imagine us walking up steep hills in the rain with 100 mile per hour wind blowing toward us. This is how I remember Assisi. Whenever we got to a location of interest and took shelter inside. We got to see the church that St. Francis attended as a child. We got to sit in the pew and look at the cross he was looking at when God spoke to him.My favorite part of the day was at the church bu... More About: Adventures
All quilted out
2007-11-27 05:10:00 I have spent the last few days doing almost nothing but quilting. Trying to complete my very first quilt. It has been a long road. I have found that I am not very good at measuring, not very good at cutting, not very good at sewing a straight line...All that and it was still going pretty good. But, today I found out that you should actually read all the directions and not just assume you know the rest. So I am not very good at following directions. I made a huge mistake and spent the rest of the day trying to fix it. I am a little disappointed but the end result is ok. I still have a bit of fixing to do tomorrow and then maybe I will take a picture or two.Lily helped me with the whole thing. It is a new quilt for her because she has outgrown her baby quilt. She loves it tremendously, I guess that is all that matters. I really learned a lot and I can now say that I can thread the machine, fill the bobbin and sew a very straight line.In other news Trent Lott resigned but I ...
The Christmas Tree
2007-11-25 22:01:00 We still haven't gotten the lights outside put up, I guess the turkey still has us in a fog. It is almost gone, back to having to cook I guess.We own a fake white Christmas tree. You can go here and watch a video I made last Christmas of Lily singing her ABC's next to our Christmas tree . Ok, you only see a little bit of the tree, but isn't Lily cute? We originally bought this tree because I am allergic to the real thing. Jeff went to the store and bought the cheapest tree he saw, he didn't notice that it was white or that it was only about 3 feet tall. The picture on the box was of a green really tall tree. We had the little white tree for many years. The first few years we covered her in Christmas lights that had a green wire, we finally found a white strand of lights last year and our tree looked almost respectable. The thing about fake trees is that through all the moves and all the time spent in boxes the tree starts to look pretty bad. This year when we took it ou... More About: Tree
A perfect day
2007-11-24 19:13:00 While I should be doing homework, we are sitting around watching the Virginia vs. Virginia Tech game. Go Virginia. My belly is full of leftovers. Don't have to cook. Another perfect day.I follow comments. Leave a comment and I will come visit your blog. More About: Perfect , Perfect Day
Nice Matters
2007-11-24 05:01:00 Dixie was kind enough to give me the Nice Matters Award that I would like to pass on to some of my blogging buddies. Of course you are all very nice!Lynn, one of the nicest people I have never met, always kind on her blog and on others, always finds something nice to say. I hope I can be more like Lynn someday.Shelia,is a great combinations of nice and smart. Always giving good advice and thoughtful blog posts and comments.Lorelei, OK so she is a bit of a Yankee, but still sweet underneath it all. I bet if I ever needed anything Lorelei would be there, stand by your friends thick and thin kind of girl. And it is nice to have someone who always makes you laugh and tells it like it is. Angel, Can't ever have a list without Angel. Not only are you nice but you are fun. Where is the Moscato.Kimberly, I know you are out of town and wont even see this, still I would feel bad not putting your name down. Laura Capello, We have been blogging buddies forever now. Always nice to ge... More About: Meme
Jumping the Fence
2007-11-23 00:50:00 Our dinner went well. I cooked the whole thing on my own, with a lot of help from Wal-Mart. Nothing was perfect, I actually forgot to put the mashed potatoes and stuffing on the table until we were done. I made everyone sit back down and eat some. Most years my turkey gets done a couple of hours past the time I estimate, this year it was a couple of hours earlier. Is that Karma? Otherwise it was a perfect meal. Everything tasted great and we were all happy and thankful. The only thing Lily will eat today is carrots, raw sliced carrots. The rest of the food she wont even taste.We played football in the yard. It was a crisp fall day. We are not terribly athletic and Lily was not having any fun. She said, "Excuse Me Everybody, I want to play hide and seek". So we did. We were hiding in our neighbors yards, crouched behind garbage cans, jumping fences, laughing our butts off. I am surprised we didn't get shot.After dinner, I took a lovely nap. Then we had the outdoor ... More About: Fence , Jumping
happy Thanksgiving
2007-11-22 04:23:00 I hope y'all have a lovely turkey day.I follow comments. Leave a comment and I will come visit your blog. More About: Thanksgiving , Happy , Hank
Turn that frown upside down
2007-11-20 16:24:00 This post is brought to you today by the word SMILE, lol-I crack myself up-too much Sesame Street I suppose...We did eventually make it over to Pisa. It was a bit of a drive from our home in Pordenone. If memory serves it was a 5 or 6 hour drive? We left our house at 0'dark early and arrived at around 10AM. We were of course hungry, but there is no food served in Italy until 12:30PM therefore we stopped at Camp Darby, an Army Post, and grabbed a quick bite at the Burger King. When we arrived at Pisa I was very disappointed. The whole thing is a courtyard with the tower and a church and I think there is another building? We did not have a reservation to climb to the top of the tower and it was very expensive if memory serves. For some reason we didn't climb to the top. We walked around, went in all the buildings and an hour later we were looking at each other like, what now?I had noticed on our way to Pisa that we had driven past the city of Vinci. I looked it up in my tr... More About: Meme , Adventures , Turn , Upside
Walking
2007-11-20 04:14:00 Jeff and I are doing a walk your way to fitness through the holidays thing with the base. We got pedometers and we have to keep track of our daily steps until Jan. 1st. Jeff and I are competing with one another to see who does the most steps between now and the end of the contest. We haven't decided what the winner will get. So far he is beating me, big surprise. We did go for an evening walk together. I am amazed to see how sedentary I really am. Hopefully I can kick it up a notch. Any ideas what I should ask for when I win?I follow comments. Leave a comment and I will come visit your blog. More About: Walking
Pixie the wonder dog
2007-11-19 01:02:00 Last night our dog was out in the back yard barking up a storm. Jeff opened the back door to call her in, but she wouldn't come. He put on some shoes, went out into the yard and tried to get her to come in the house. I was in the house listening to Jeff yell, "Pixie" for quite some time. I finally went out to see what was going on.There was an enormous opossum on the top of our fence. At least that is what we are saying it was in actuality it was dark and it was huge, it had a bald tail and that is about all we know. We were afraid to get between Pixie and the opossum so we were trying to call Pixie away from the fence. Of course she wouldn't listen. Jeff has this habit of standing up with his full six feet and yelling, "Pixie" and wondering why she never listens to him. I always just squat down and hold out my hand. I don't even have to call her she just comes to me when I do this. This is especially helpful when she runs out the front door and down the street at the ... More About: Daily
Mean Girls on MySpace
2007-11-17 15:50:00 Have you heard about this story?A 13 year old girl killed herself after being targeted on MySpace. Someone from her neighborhood who did not care for this girl pretended to be a boy named Josh. "Josh" spent a month sending messages back and forth with this girl. One day "Josh" told the girl she was cruel, and a slut, and fat. The girl killed herself.I remember when I was 13, I remember when Mandy was 13 sometimes I wonder how we ever got through it all. Even now at nearly 17 Mandy sometimes gets her feelings really hurt by her girls friends. When I was growing up we didn't have MySpace, we had the school bus and the playground. People were still mean, they found a way. Is it worse now with the anonymity of the Internet?I follow comments. Leave a comment and I will come visit your blog. More About: Girls , Myspace
Gubbio
2007-11-17 06:01:00 One weekend not long after our trip to Salzburg, we decided to go to see the leaning tower of Pisa. It had just re-opened and they were allowing people to climb up to the top of the tower again after having been closed for quite some time for renovations. Just as we were about to leave, we found out that in order to climb to the top of the tower you needed to have a reservation. They only wanted a few people per day to climb up the tower and it took awhile to get a reservation. So we decided to go another day. What is the point of driving all that way if you are not going to get to climb up the tower. Jeff and I couldn't decide where we should go instead. Our gas tank was full, we had snacks we wanted a trip. We decided to give the tour book to Mandy and let her pick where we would go that day. Mandy picked Gubbio.Gubbio is a little town in the middle of the Umbria region. Italy is broken up into regions like we are broken up into states. Each region has differing charac... More About: Adventures
The Concert
2007-11-15 15:44:00 Last night I stayed up until midnight waiting for Mandy to come home. She went to a concert on a school night. Aren't I a great mom? It was called the Carnival of Chaos and there were four bands: Red, Three Days Grace, Seether and Breaking Benjamin. I have never heard of any of them. Mandy says I would recognize their songs if I heard them...A boy invited her, he paid for her ticket, he picked her up, he brought her home (actually he doesn't drive either so it was his parents). She says this is not a date. I wonder what a date is? She had so much fun, she was bouncing off the walls when she came home. I imagine that she is sleeping in class right now.There was another concert in town this week one featuring Rick Springfield and Eddie Money, now I have heard of them.I follow comments. Leave a comment and I will come visit your blog. More About: Daily , Concert , The Con , Cert
Salzburg, Austria
2007-11-14 16:02:00 We actually went to Salzburg twice, you can read about our first trip here. It is also a funny story where I make fun of Jeff and there are a few photos.Our second trip to Salzburg was with some friends, we wanted to go visit the famous Christmas market. Our friends had a Dodge Durango, an enormous vehicle, we had a lot of people in that vehicle and a lot of room. The drive from Italy to Austria was a lot of fun with a SUV full of fun people. It was snowing that day, and our driver was a bit of a daredevil. I was scared we were all going to die, but I tried to keep it to myself. I always like it better when Jeff drives, he is an excellent driver and not one of those guys who feels the need to push the limits past what is safe.Driving up through Austria we pass by beautiful mountains, and castles, the whole drive is almost as fun as the destination. In the summertime what I really love is the crops growing on the sides of the mountains. Like a patch work quilt the smaller gre... More About: Adventures
Happy Anniversary
2007-11-14 04:13:00 I had a lot of fun reminiscing about Italy yesterday. Today our seventh anniversary, Jeff and mine. Jeff took the day off from work and then when Mandy got home from school we went out on a date. It was a lot of fun. We even went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. We strolled through town. Browsed the antique shops, the art shops, the toy store. We love it here. We go out on a date every year for our anniversary, we usually talk about our dream home, this year, we own our dream home.Anniversary story year 6Anniversary Story year 5I am married to a man who is honest, not in the...you look fat in those pants...way but in the...does what he says he will do, is where he says he will be, never hide things...kind of way.I am married to a man with integrity. He would rather do the right thing, than do the thing that would be in his own best interest.I am married to a man who loves me and our girls. He shows it every day, in every way.A month ago Jeff saw through a store window t... More About: Family , Happy , Happy Anniversary
In fair Verona
2007-11-12 18:55:00 Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona , where we lay our scene-William Shakespeare from Romeo & JulietOne of my favorite trips was to Verona. We were only there for an afternoon, still it has been with me ever since. Maybe because we got some great artwork and I look upon the scenes from Verona every morning. Maybe because this city is the setting for Romeo and Juliet. Whatever the reason, Verona is my favorite city in all of Italy, maybe in all the world.This trip was one of the first trips I took with Jeff after we got married. One of my very first adventures. Jeff, Mandy and I drove from our home in Pordenone to Verona. I think the drive was two or three hours, not far. We arrived in the down town section, the older section of town and found a place to park our car. We then found a newspaper stand and bought a book about Verona. The thing about Europe that makes travel so easy is that they take care of the tourists, the bumbling Americans who have no ... More About: Fair , Adventures
Eatin' Well
2007-11-12 05:00:00 Jeff, Mandy & Chad went to The University of Southern Mississippi to see a football game. This was Jeff & Mandy's second time going there to see a game. They had a blast. Jeff took pictures and complains that I do not post stories of the things he and Mandy do or post the pictures he takes on my blog. He thinks this blog belongs to our family and I am just the gatekeeper. Now I understand why others don't tell their husbands about their blogs. It always surprises me when Jeff reads my blog and has a differing recollection of events.After the game, driving home, Jeff and Chad decided that they wanted The Shed for dinner. Mandy does not like bbq at all and took a pass. She offered to take care of Lily so I could go to out to dinner with the boys. How sweet is that?They didn't get back until almost 9PM. We went straight to The Shed and had the most fabulous bbq in the world. There was a live band and a bon fire, the temperature was perfect. We had a great time. B... More About: Daily , Well
Eight Things
2007-11-11 02:36:00 My new blogging buddy Marion, a fellow blog villager tagged me some time ago for a meme. Marion's blog Herbal Connection is wonderful. She is such a wonderful writer. An ordinary trip to the story is told with so much personality that I feel such a connection to Marion. All those things that run through our heads as we lead our life, she has a magical way of capturing life, that makes me feel like saying, yes-that is just what I think. I strongly recommend that you add Marion to your daily read. Sorry it has taken me so long to do this meme. I am supposed to tell you eight things not generally known about me....I have zero grace. I am incredibly envious of people who have grace. I just bumble through things, always in a hurry, always efficient, never graceful. I took ballet as a little girl, I can only imagine what that looked like. I still have bruises on my legs from bumping into things.I have a brown thumb. I buy plants, I plant things, they all die. I want to be a ga... More About: Meme , Things
Are you sure?
2007-11-09 15:31:00 My luck is changing, everything is coming up roses for a change. Knock wood.Here is a fun story. I may have told it before, forgive me and my addled brain if you have read this before...October 2004. We are in Hawaii. Everyone in the family got to do a couple of things that they really wanted to do. Mandy got to swim with dolphins and ride out in a boat into the ocean and see hundreds of dolphins frolicking in the surf. I got to go for sunset walks along the beach, boogie boarding, and an afternoon sunbathing on a lovely beach. All Jeff wanted was to hike to the top of Diamond Head Mountain. On our way there, we got into a heated discussion about which way to go. Jeff had been there before, he thought he saw something on a sign, I was reading a map, he wouldn't listen to me. I wouldn't listen to him. It got ugly. For some reason my sweet easy going Jeff turns into a monster when he is behind the wheel. I just hate that. I feel like he is not trusting me. I think that... More About: Adventures
one of those weeks
2007-11-08 14:46:00 Poor Little Miss Lily is still sick. What a week. She really hates the diarrhea, she cries, and says, Mommy help me. She doesn't want to let it out. It is traumatic. We get it all done and I comfort her. Poor thing. She is quite upset that she is unable to will herself better.I had Jeff go around the hospital, where he works, and ask all his doctor friends for advice. Like is there a medicine that I can give her? Or am I doing the right things? When is it time to take her to the doctor? Each doctor, each nurse, had completely different advice. Very frustrating. Some say no milk, some say yes milk. Some say give her medicine, some say no medicine use clotting foods. They give me a list of foods and drinks to give her and none of those things are things Lily eats.I am proud of the fact that Lily is not dehydrated and she doesn't have a rash. The germy house is being kept hospital sterile. Mandy hasn't gotten sick.My Lily is such a energetic little girl, it is hard ... More About: Weeks
Picasa
2007-11-08 03:18:00 This posting everyday thing is rough. How y'all doing? Today I thought I would tell you about Pica sa web albums.If you have a blogger blog you are going to love this. The photos that you have uploaded to your new blogger blog are all stored over in a web album at this site. You can even go there and upload whole folders of photos all at once, instead of one photo at a time. Once uploaded you are able to post those photos to your blog with the click of a button, you can post them as a slide show, post them as an album or post them one at a time. It is very easy to use and convenient. You are also able to download the program Picasa to your computer. This program organizes your photos and enables you do to some simple photo retouching and a whole lot more. Best of all it is all free. I personally do not like Picasa because I use photoshop and because I have a really slow computer. Picasa is always running in the background making my computer even slower. But, if you do not... More About: Blogging , Icas
Mama don't work
2007-11-07 04:10:00 Last night as I felt the cold coming on, Lily woke up feeling poorly. I had to stay up for a couple of hours and help her with the squishy poopy and overall feeling poorly. As I was rocking her back to sleep I was flicking through the channels on the TV. Not yet ready to put Lily back to bed. Holding her tight, worried, and incredibly tired myself. I came upon a young woman, a TV anchor who was voicing her opinion on mothers. This young woman, said something to the effect that while she herself was not yet a mother, the moms she sees who look at their children as work instead of as gifts disgust her. This woman feels that caring for her future children will be the greatest joy of her life. It ain't rainbows coming out of my sick babies butt. Maybe it is because I am bone weary. My husband took a day off work to sleep when he got this crud, me I had to stay up all night and all day cleaning stinky poopy and stinky puke. Anyways, this attitude that what we do isn't work. Of... More About: Work , Mama
Everyone is sick
2007-11-05 19:46:00 Even my laptop. The cord that plugs into the wall and re-charges the battery broke. Mandy didn't tell me until the computer went dead. I ordered something on the Internet, hope it is the right thing. Jeff came home from work sick. Lily is sick. Mandy and I are sick with sadness about the computer. At least I have old Betsy the desktop. I spent the morning trying to load all the programs I need to do my homework assignment. Now I am sorta doing my assignment.The lady with the furniture called, she is supposed to have movers there today. We shall see. She said they were going to come last week but she forgot she didn't have a key. I think she is mental. She offered to come to my house and pick up the key so I wouldn't have to wait for the movers. I (hopefully) politely declined. However, with the homework and sickies, this is not going to be a fun day. Hope your day is going better.I am however, learning JavaScript. Maybe I will learn how to do something cool. See ... More About: Daily , Sick
Where are all the travel stories?
2007-11-04 23:12:00 I promised you all stories from my travels. I have not been able to put something together in my head. They all go something like this, we went to ___ we looked around and we left. Jeff and Lily are coming down with colds. Just a little bit, nothing serious so far. Still they are needing some tlc. I have been resting up after all that work and eating yesterday. Reading romance novels and napping instead of doing homework.I have been waking up at about 2AM lately. Doing a bit of homework and going back to bed. How weird. Hope I wake up tonight because I seriously need to get it done by midnight tomorrow. Hope your weekend is great.I follow comments. Leave a comment and I will come visit your blog. More About: Daily , Travel , Stories
A Watch in the Garage
2007-11-04 01:17:00 First thing after breakfast today we cleaned the garage. Our Chad is coming next week. Jeff was sure that cleaning our garage would take 2 hours tops. It took about 10. We didn't even stop for lunch. Our Chad will be living in our garage off and on for the next six months. We are attempting to make it nice for him. He is taking a leave of absence from his construction business to come and build homes for people who are in need. We have a whole lot of need here in Mississippi. He is doing all this with his church and we are offering him a place to come and get away from it all and regroup when he needs it.Mandy had to work today from 4pm-10pm. I woke her up at 1PM today and asked her if she would like to go out to dinner with us, before she had to go to work. She said she would rather sleep. Jeff, Lily and I planned on going out to dinner after we dropped Mandy off at work, Mandy was distraught that we would be going out to dinner while she was hard at work. She was sle... More About: Garage , Watch , Daily , The G
The best laid plans
2007-11-02 11:54:00 Jeff and I recently agreed to become property managers for a friend who owns a house locally and lives far away. He was unable to sell his home in the current market and we are taking care of trying to find a renter. Turns out I have actually been doing all the work. It has actually been a lot of fun. I get dozens of phone calls a day, I have shown the house a few times, no renters yet.There have been all kinds of drama. Being involved in other people's lives so intimately. We have the previous renters who got divorced and sold their furniture to a local lady. This lady keeps putting off getting her furniture out of the house. She is a sweet little old lady who gives you a real good sob story and show, but the furniture, she bought it 6 months ago and still hasn't picked it up. Jeff and I flip coins over who has to call her next. While the house was on the market, the real estate agent was unable to get her to pick up the furniture. It seems that she bought this really ... More About: Family , Daily , Plans
A night to remember
2007-11-01 12:32:00 I was able to get Lily to take a nap. Things were going quite well. We walked out our front door at exactly 6:00PM, our community trick or treats from 6-8PM. No one was about. I live on a street with dozens of children, I saw none. I saw the neighbor across the street getting into his car and asked him if his (four kids) were going trick or treating and he told what was going on. My neighborhood has no street lights or sidewalks, so most of the people take their kids downtown. We have a quaint little downtown area that is quite often used for festivals etc. The area was blocked off to traffic and all the store owners decorate the street and hand out candy. It was packed with people. There was a live band. There is always a live band in Mississippi, Mandy says that her school cafeteria has a live band on Fridays. As it became dark, the street filled to capacity. People of all ages dressed in adorable costumes. It was a lot of fun.As we were pulling up to our parking spa... More About: Family , Night
Happy Halloween
2007-10-31 14:46:00 Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I like the way the neighborhood comes out together, it is a night of neighborly love. I have high hopes for meeting neighbors and having a lot of fun. I am busy working on getting Lily worn out enough to take a nap today. She really doesn't do naps well anymore, but then she has grouchy evenings. Hopefully a very busy active day will wear her down enough to take an afternoon nap and then be extra perky for a night of fun.I follow comments. Leave a comment and I will come visit your blog. More About: Daily , Happy , Halloween , Allo
New Pants
More articles from this author:2007-10-28 18:01:00 The weather here has been on the chilly side this past week. We have had to unpack our long pants. Turns out that Lily grew quite a bit in the 7 months we have been here. Like about a foot. Her pants are up to her knees. I hadn't noticed. Wish we could wear shorts all year long, save money.I follow comments. Leave a comment and I will come visit your blog. More About: Daily , Pants 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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