Finally blogging again

It has been quite a long while since I have been able to sit down and post. Lots has been going on. There are lots of things that need to be updated.. so here we go.

First of all, the move went pretty smoothly, we are pretty much settled in and falling back into a routine. Some things won't be "back to normal" until we get our own place and get our family back together, but we are doing the best we can. Maddison seems to be adjusting very well. I wasn't sure how things were going to go since she is old enough now to "understand" what is going on. But she seems to be doing fine. She is loving having all of her family so close by. It makes me happy to get to see her interacting with everyone. It is really good to be back in Alabama. I have missed it, especially over the past couple of years. I am really enjoying getting to spend time with everyone. Although, I am missing Beaufort pretty badly too. It helps that most of my friends moved before me.. but there are still a few there that I miss. Beaufort was a beautiful and interesting place and I hope to go back and visit many times in the future, but it is time to move on, and I am looking forward to a "break" and hopefully getting to spend a few years back in Alabama.

Which brings me to my next update, Brandon. As most of you know, he is currently deployed. This deployment is pretty hard, being the third in 3 years, but surprisingly we are making it really well. It is helping a lot to be back home, but Brandon and I are at a place where we are very peaceful. We are doing great, probably better than we have ever been. We are extremely happy, although very sad we have to spend this time apart, we know it must be done, and we are both very anxious for shore duty. Maddison is having a lot of trouble grasping this deployment, she is old enough now that she really misses him when he is gone. Almost every day she has a little melt down of "I really miss my daddy". It breaks my heart and some days I just cry with her, but she will be fine, I am sure this time will go by pretty quickly for her. She is coloring him pictures and mailing them, and we are awaiting boxes so that we can get the first care package in the mail. I will keep her busy, and vice-versa.

Brandon has had a lot of ups and downs over the past year. They have had crazy working hours so he has been exhausted, just to tip the iceberg. Many of you were wondering about the Blue Angels package and the Warrant Officer package. . well unfortunately both are a no go. Both were disapproved to submit his final package by his chain of command on the grounds that they could not release him from the command early to go to either program. He was too "needed" for this deployment. He took it very hard at first because he was very excited at the prospects of either program, but he has moved past it now and is worrying about the future and not the past. He did what he needed to do to prepare for both of those programs, but the final verdict was out of his hands. He now is trying for recruiting duty, back home. He is in desperate need of a change of pace. He was at a place where he was ready to throw in the towel and hang up his Naval career because of the enormous amount of pressure with no pay off that he was under. But he feels now that if he can get a change of pace for just a few years that he can hang in there, he really would love to stay in and retire, but at the pace he was going, he knew he wouldn't make it. So we are keeping our fingers crossed right now for recruiting duty. He also with take the Petty Officer First class exam next month for the 2nd time. Lets hope he makes it this time. . if so, he will still be a very young First class. The quota for advancement has just been so low lately it is very difficult for anyone to make it. But I am sure if he does make it I will post a very happy blog about it, lol.

Well, I think that is all I have to update about right now, at least all I can think of. Thanks everyone for all of your support! Love you all bunches!!

A What?

So yesterday evening we had a maintenance guy come out to fix our garbage disposal.. he isn't able to, so he says he will be back in the morning and leaves. About 30 seconds later he knocks on the door again, I open it and he says "Ma'am, there is an alligator in your front yard!" I say "Brandon!" lol. We go out and sure enough there is about a 2 1/2-3 foot alligator hanging out about 3 feet off the porch. Well the poor guy wouldn't touch it. . and one of our friends, Nate, was here hanging out. So of course him and Brandon decide to wrangle it. lol. The ultimate Redneck show, Nate is barefoot and all. It was pissed. . it was hissing and snapping and probably could have taken off a finger if given the opportunity. Finally, Brandon pinned its head down with the rake and Nate grabbed him, then Brandon taped his mouth shut with electrical tape, because that is what they do on TV.. LMAO. Our neighbors and half the squadron came over to see the show as well. Then we were like "what the hell do we do with it?" They decided they were going to take it to the boat launch to release it, but I wanted to call animal control so they would take it somewhere else, and not release it next to the park where our children play. Even though he is little now, he will be big someday you know. So I got the number for base animal control, and got no answer so it transferred me to the MPs. Well, they get here all freaked out and not wanting to touch it. .lol. Finally they took it and I asked what they were going to do with it, and they said go release it at the boat launch. UGH. If I would have known that, I would have let the guys take it so we didn't have to deal with police reports and all that. Anyway, I guess the good news is that when he gets big enough to eat a small child we won't be living here anymore. Although we did see at least a 10 foot one down there a few months ago. . scared the BeeJesus out of me! Anyway, it was fun excitement for the evening. . and now Nate is a certified Gator Wrangler. . lmao.

Day 3 of

Operation: One Hott Momma

and things are going well. I am hell bent on making it work this time and I need support from you people. Harass me. Don't let me give up. I have to do this, if not I will be out of hope for sure. When I look in the mirror all I can think is "how in the hell did I get like this?", it disgusts me. But I am such a "right here, right now" kind of person that when I don't see results in a couple of days I give up.

I feel like I have more motivation right now. I am currently only using the Wii Fit. I freaking love it. And it harasses me, which I need. And if nothing else the motivation of spending $150 to get it will keep me going for a little while. After I start getting more flexibility and cardio strength I am going to start going back to the gym again and so on, but for now, this thing is actually kicking my butt.

This is my routine so far: I start out with Yoga to stretch and get centered (so far I have unlocked about 9 poses), then on to aerobic exercises to get the heart rate up (so far I have the hula hoop, super hula hoop, step class, and jogging unlocked), next is balance games to try and work on my posture and center of gravity (I have about 7 of these unlocked), lastly is muscle training (I have about 11 different exercises unlocked). The game measures how long you spent doing each thing and tells you if you were doing it properly, how balanced you were and so on. . as of now all of this stuff is about a 51 minute workout. Pretty good. I don't believe in weighing yourself every day, but the game wants you to do a body test daily to determine your standings and it weighs you. So far on day two I lost 0.9lbs and today I was up 0.2lbs. (water weight I am sure, I drank about a gallon before I started today). But I don't consider any of that to be accurate. I will see what it says in one week and we will go from there. It also measures your BMI and mine went down a good bit since day 1, I can't remember off hand how much though.

But yes, if you have a Wii I totally recommend the Wii Fit and if you don't have a Wii, go buy one! lol. I think that I will be able to stick with it and do it every day. I have also been eating SUPER healthy over the past few days, no junk food at all (I even passed up strawberry strudel and coffee cake at mom's morning today. . GO ME!). I am realistic though, so if I am not able to eat perfectly one day or I have to miss a day of work out then I am not going to freak out and give up! I really hope that when I get back to AL I can join WW again too. . that will help a whole lot!

So thanks in advance for the support that I desperately need, and by this time next year I am hoping to be well on my way to ONE HOTT MOMMA!!! :]

Tomorrow's Forcast. .. 73 and Mostly Sunny

I'm thinking BEACH DAY!! I am in some serious need of ocean therapy. Looking forward to laying there doing nothing, possibly reading a book, as the waves crash and Maddison builds whatever her imagination creates for her. Sounds lovely. Now, hopefully it is not extremely windy and miserable. . we shall see.

On the other hand. . Saturday's forcast 75 with a 70% chance of Severe Thunderstorms. . here we go again.

Pic of Maddie Lou from Yesterday. . LOL

Proud Momma!

Brandon got his diploma in the mail today! Now it is official! LOL. Too bad he wasn't here to get it! :[

My Monthly Update

I haven't written in a while, so thought I would give it a shot. For some reason I haven't felt like I have had much to write about lately. Well, other than bitchy whiny "my hubby is leaving again" posts, and I know you guys don't want to read that all of the time so I refrain. lol. Anyway, on to the updates.

Well, Brandon is gone again. He is on a boat det.. around a month long, dunno where they are going, somewhere out in the wide blue yonder. He HATES this boat so far. He thought it would be a million times better than the Big E, but he was wrong (well at least so far, things still have time to change). The boat is nicer and the amenities a little better (not that they get a lot of those! lol), but the rules seem to be a lot more stupid, the high ups total assholes, and so on. He says that it will be a long deployment if shit stays the same. I feel bad for him. On a happier note. HE GRADUATED!!!! WOO HOOO!!! He now officially has his associates in Professional Aeronautics (well not physically, he is still waiting on the diploma in the mail . ha ha). But he did it! I am proud of him! He is going to be taking about a year off from taking classes due to the fact that the will be gone so much this spring and then deploy this summer, he doesn't really have a choice. But he will be taking that time to get a huge qualification for the Navy that will help make his evals look really good. Then after that he will hopefully be able to start back to work on his Bachelor's. Getting this finished has made him 100% eligible for the flying warrant officer program. . however the navy has not put out their NAVADMIN for it this year yet, it was supposed to have been out already. . so we are hoping that they didn't decide to cancel the program for some reason. Wouldn't that be our luck? Well, as soon as that comes out he will be able to put his package in and then the waiting starts. But if he doesn't make it, we have plenty more opportunities that can be taken. Also, in about 2 weeks he will be taking his First Class Petty officer exam again. So we will be keeping our fingers crossed again that he makes that. . even though once again it is a long shot. He just hasn't been in the Navy long enough and they are not promoting very many people each cycle. . Last time it was about 13 out of 400 that got advanced. . but we can still hope! ha ha.

Not much new going on with me. . I will not be moving in March like we had planned. Still not sure if I am going to move, but if I do it will be in July. So there is still a lot of time between now and then, I will figure something out. haha.


Maddison of course is growing like a weed. I am so proud of her. She is now recognizing all of her letters, sometimes she has a little trouble with some of them, but she gets them other times. She is also learning her letter sounds. I think she will be reading before she starts school. Who knows? She is a smart one! I am anxious to see how she is going to handle this deployment. She is not doing so well with the det so far, and he hasn't been gone very long! She keeps crying and saying "I want my Daddy". I know it will be hard on her, it will be hard on me as well, but we will find our ways to cope with it.

Well, can't think of much else to talk about.. I just haven't had a lot to say lately. And nothing interesting is going on around here.

Some recent pictures from Charleston & Stuff

I am bored so I thought I would do it too. .

I got this from Ashley. . everybody's doing it. . LOL

1. Where were you when you first found out you were pregnant?
In the bathroom at my first apartment in Virginia Beach

2. Who was with you?
Ashley Kay was in the bathroom with me. . Brandon was in the living room

3. What was your first reaction?
HOLY SHIT! Then denial, then shock, then acceptance. . lol

4.What was your husband's reaction?
Well, he was playing a video game. .and Ashley and I walked in and I handed him the test. He looked at it and said "that sucks" and went back to playing the game. I almost broke down in tears and Ashley hit him. He said "Holy shit, I thought it was hers (Ashley)!!" lol. . after that he was in denial, then shock, then acceptance. . oh and I took 5 tests. . lol

5. Who was the first person you told?
well, Ashley was in there. . so she saw. . we told Brandon, and then the first person after that was Nanny. lol. I wasn't sure how my mom was going to react and I knew Nanny would be happy. And before I even said anything to her she just out of the blue said "Are you pregnant?" I was like "what??? Why do you think that??" And she said she just had a feeling. . and then I told her I was. She was very excited. . and so was my mom when I finally told her. .lol

6. Were the pregnancies planned?
NO

7. Was everyone happy for you?
I believe everyone was. . if they weren't they didn't say anything to us.

8. What was the sex?
Girl

9. What was the nursery theme/colors?
Pink, Green, & Yellow. . butterflies/garden stuff

10. Did anyone throw a shower for you?
Yeah. . Brandon's mom and Aunt and some other family did. . and my mom, aunts, and cousins threw me one as well! It was very nice. :]

11. Did you get any outfits you wouldn't use?
Yeah I got a few. . lol

12. How much weight did you gain?
34lbs

13. Did you get stretch marks?
yes :[ On the top of my stomach and on my boobs

14. Did you crave anything crazy?
ketchup (which i used to hate).. funnel cake (lol and when Brandon got it I took 2 bites and didn't want it anymore). . chicken McNuggets from Mickey D's (I usually hate that place).. and ICE (I was so anemic), Brandon would go to 7-11 and buy huge bags of it so I could eat it a bag at a time. . lol

15. Who or what got on your nerves the most?
Brandon. And stupid people at work. ERG.

16. Where were you when you went into labor?
In the hospital. . I was induced

17. Did you have any complications?
none during my pregnancy until the last 2 days. Then all hell broke loose. . I had pre-eclampsia so they decided to induce. . then long story short. . the cord was wrapped around her neck twice, they broke my water too soon so I got an infection, she passed meconium, my first epidural dislodged so I had to get another one, I had a 4th degree tear, I ruptured 2 arteries. . hmm. . should I go on. . lol. . the main thing is that after 35 hours of labor we were both okay in the end.

18. Did your water break?
The doctor broke it. . way too soon.

19. Who drove you to the hospital?
Brandon. . mom was in the car too.

20. Did you go early or late?
Induced the day before my due date. . had her the day after my due date.

21. Who was in the room?
Brandon, my mom, and a bunch of dr's and nurses and corpsmen.

22. Did you video tape it?
No

23. Did you have any pain medication?
Yeah, I had and epidural finally.. then it dislodged because they kept making me roll over to make Maddison move around. . then I got another one. .but by the time it kicked in I might as well have not had it.

24. Did you have a c-section or natural?
natural. . but it should have been a c-section

25. What was your reaction to the birth?
I don't really know.. It wasn't that happy "OMG we just had a baby" thing. . because they took her straight to the table to start working on her because she wasn't doing so well. . I think her first APGAR was a 2. And they were calling in a surgeon to stitch me up because I had torn so badly and ruptured 2 arteries. . so I was bleeding really bad. So it was quite chaotic. After everything finally settled down I passed out. . I was so tired. I had been in labor for 35 hours, I couldn't even focus on what the dr was telling me. I slept for a while and when I woke up and really got to spend time with her it was amazing.

26. How big was the baby?
7lbs 11ozs (it is because I went to 7-11 almost every day when I was preggo.. .lol. . had to get my snacks for work)

27. What was the baby's full name?
Maddison Harlee

28. Did your husband cry?
I think so. . but I wasn't all there. . so I dunno. I know he had to leave because he was so upset. He thought that we were both going to die and it was too much for him to take, so yeah, I am sure he cried.

29. When is the next one coming?
Ha. . who knows. . At least 2 years

30. If you could, would you do it all over again?
Yes, it is totally worth all the mess and pain. I just hope next time things go a lot more smoothly. . or I have a c-section. . lol

Another Step down. . a few to go. .

Brandon just told me that he passed the Pilot Aptitude Test!! He passed it by quite a bit and he didn't even study once! I am so proud! That is one more step finished in the process to submit his flying warrant officer package. Now he has to get his Associates (which he finishes his last 2 classes for that next week!), get his physicals done (he made the appointments today!), and get the rest of his paperwork in order. YAY! He should have the package submitted within the next month, and then we will have to play the waiting game. The results will not come out until December. Of course it is a long shot that he makes it, thousands apply every year and they only take something like 25 or so. But hey, you defiantly won't make it if you don't apply at all right? Just help us keep our fingers crossed. This would be so great for him and he deserves it so much!


Jennifer is doing a Happy Dance!!

Yummy. .

I made my first homemade pizza last night!! I was so nervous about how it would turn out. (Mostly because the last time we attempted a pizza I was about 8, having a sleepover, and my mom decided it would be fun for us all to make a pizza. . good idea in theory. She bought a kit to do it, and in the end we ended up eating it with spoons because the dough never set.) But this time it turned out perfectly! I was so excited!! It took forever to make though, that was the only downfall. After you got the dough mixed, kneaded, and let it rise for an hour, cooked the sausage, formed the dough, put all the toppings on it and let it cook for about 30 minutes you are starving. . haha. It is so much easier to call Papa J's. But it was super yummy and we had fun making it, so I am sure I will attempt it again in the future! Next time we will experiment more with toppings. . we were keeping it simple this time since we didn't know how it would turn out. :]

A picture for your drooling pleasure. . lol

Even More Aggravating. . .

This weekend is plotting against me. Yeah, I was pissed and stuff last night, but I eventually got over it. The night was wasted. . but after he finished his homework we ate dinner and then played some Wii games for a while before heading to bed. I just told myself "it is fine.. .we still have the whole weekend".

Brandon is on duty this weekend, my Navy wife friends understand how this works. He had watch yesterday (0800-1600) and was told that was the only one he would have this weekend! We were so excited because a watch that great never happens to us. We knew we had the rest of the weekend not worrying about working around a watch.

Anyway, they also have to muster every morning at 0800 when they are on duty. So he gets up this morning to go muster, Maddison was still sleeping, because it is all dark and rainy today, so I decided to go back to sleep as well. When I woke up at *cough* 9:00, Brandon still wasn't back yet, strange. They usually only take about 15 minutes. So I figure he got stuck having to clean something really quick. Then I check my phone to see if he called. . no, but I have a text message. "I am really sorry but I had to take a watch today, they had 2 people on leave that nobody knew about so I have to cover a watch today, either the 0800-1600 or the 1600-2400, I bumped a guy off of the 08-16 so I am currently standing that" "Oh and by the way, I have to stand an extra hour since I didn't find out until an hour after he had already been standing it, Love you".

WTF???? Why does this crap always happen to us? I finally think things are going smoothly and then something happens. So now today is pretty much shot as well. He won't get off watch until 1700 instead of 1600. .by the time he gets home it will pretty much be dinner time again and another day is shot! Not to mention I had told maddison I would make her pancakes this morning, but now I am not going to because I don't want to make pancakes for just me and her, and she is all upset. Geeze. . life. . come on. . cut me a little break. . pleease.

Again, sorry about another whiny post. . I am having a rough weekend.

Aggravating. . .

First let me say I am so very proud of my husband for taking the initiative to get his college degree. He is doing so not only to better himself, but to provide for me and Maddison. I am so appreciative of that. . but, yes there is a but. It gets really aggravating when he waits until the very last minute to do his homework/quizzes/tests or whatever he has to do. He has 7 days to get the shit done and 95% of the time he waits until the day it is due to finish it. Then he is bitching and complaining about Maddison interrupting, or like today when we had plans for when he got home from work.. but NO! He didn't have a chance to take 2 quizzes this past week so he has to do those first. Well, it is almost 7 now and he just started on number 2. . so do you think we are going to be able to get out? NO!

I know I sound selfish and stupid. . I am aware of that. From the outside looking in I would be like "dumb bitch, he is working all week and going to school give him a break!". But our situation is different than that. In 2 months we will be apart for a year or longer. He works at least 5 days a week 12-16 hours a day. We have very limited time together as it is. Knowing this, and knowing that we have a looming deployment our time together is precious little. Having to use an entire Friday night to get homework done is devastating at this point. I know this post is incredibly whiny, but I just needed to vent before I had to go back into my room and cry. lol.

The only upside of all of this is next week he has finals in one class and the week after for the other and after that he will have is Associates finished!! Woo hoo! Now on to the Bachelor's. . BLAH. Maybe one day when he finishes I will be able to say that about myself. Patience is virtue.

It's fun..

So I totally decided to start making Blogger layouts in addition to the myspace layouts I do. It is actually a lot more fun than the ones for mysapce because they don't have to have as many elements, i.e a contact table and such. I haven't exactly decided how I am going to start sharing them. . but I think I will just start a new blog so I can post them there and not clutter up my blog here. . . So the new blog will be [Married to the Navy Designs Blog] I only have 2 done as of now, but I will start adding others later!

Woo Hoo!

I finally changed my blog background. . lol. My dear cousin Amanda asked me to make a banner for her awesome blog so it got me all in the spirit. We are just being bums tonight watching movies and what not so I decided to play around with it while I was doing nothing. I don't know if I am totally in love with it and when I added it to the page it cut off a few of the elements.. but oh well. Let me know what you think. Do you like it? Is it readable? Is it busy? Feed back is good. I don't know how long I will leave it as this.. but at least through Vday. . it is all lovey themed. . lol. Anyway, thanks for looking! I am about to get in my jammies and we are going to watch another movie. . it is a cold rainy night. . perfect for movies! Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Brrrr. . .

It is F*cking cold!!!! WTH?? It is not supposed to get this cold here. Freeze warning? Geeze. I haven't seen one of those since we lived in Virginia Beach. The weather people say it is the coldest temps they have seen in years. Blah.

And last night we had friends over to celebrate my bday, and we geniuses were hanging outside. We grilled out and then hung around the fire pit. It was fun. Thank goodness my dear friend Stumpy bought a handle of Captain in honor of my bday to keep us warm! lol. Bless him. Good friends, good times, indecent conversation. . my kind of evening. lol.

This morning my good friend Natalie was having a bday party for her eldest who was turning 4! It was a good time as well! It was a joint bday party so there were like 10 million kids there, but they had a good time. It was very chilly but they still played outside mostly, so that helped with the chaos. Maddison came home filthy and exhausted. . which in kid world translates as the best time ever! After a quick bath and a little convincing she crashed and took a 2 1/2 hour nap. Which is so very rare and so very welcome!

Thanks to MLK day Brandon has a 96 this weekend. . so he is off until Wednesday! Woo Hoo! So. . tomorrow we are going to go get some shopping done. . maybe one day head up to Charleston and sight see a little and maybe be bums on Tuesday. . who knows!

My plans for 2009

As promised I will update you on my plans for the year.

Last Friday Brandon had quarters and the skipper gave them their "schedule" for the year. I will not be posting exact dates or destinations here in the blog due to OPSEC/PERSEC (operational security/personal security for you non military people. . lol). But I will give you a general idea.

Right now some of the squadron is gone on a boat det (again DET means detachement). Brandon got lucky and did not have to go. . he talked his supervisor into letting him stay here because he has finals next week. But he has to go on every upcoming DET they have.

Next month and well into the next they will be gone to a boat.

The will be here for a VERY short period of time and then will be going back out west to a place they go quite often for a DET.

They will again be home for a very short period of time before returning to the boat again for COMPTUEX to prepare for deployment. They will be on the boat then for over a month. To return here and begin the POM (Pre-operational Movement) leave period. They will then deploy in July to return after the start of the next year.

Sooo all that being stated I can begin with our plans. As some of you know we have been discussing me moving back to AL during this deployment so that we can try and save up some money to pay of debt etc. (I am only considering this because we will find out this Dec. if he made Warrant Officer, and if not we will be PCSing from here pretty soon after they get back from deployment anyway, so that is why I am willing to give up my house.) Anyway, the plan was for me to move back in June while Brandon was on POM leave. But now that we know that he is not going to be here pretty much at all starting next month, we have decided that I should go back in March instead. There will be a 2 week period that he will be here in March so we are going to use that time period to get our stuff moved into storage and get me moved back.

Sooo. . yay. I will be back in AL for a while. I think it will be really good for Maddison to get to be around family and stuff for a while. It is going to be really sad though. A normal deployment for us (which is hard enough as it is) is now going to turn into over a year. I will miss Brandon terribly and I don't want to even start to think about it right now. But I can't change the fact that he is leaving, and me leaving a few months early is not really going to hurt anything because he won't be here anyway. Hopefully this is something that will pay off for us in the long run.

There is just a lot of uncertainty that is still surrounding this whole thing. . for the ones of you that know about my mom's situation. . that is going to play a huge factor into what happens with us. . so I don't even know where I will be living. It is kinda scary. But whatever. I know I can always come back here if I have to. .lol.

Sometimes the uncertainty that comes along with being a military wife is too much to take. I have been so stressed out the past week or so. We are in final countdown mode again and I don't like it. That deployment day will be here before I know it and I am dreading it with all of my heart already. We knew it was coming, but that still doesn't make it any easier. Pretty much I have the rest of this month left with my hubby and after that I won't have a whole month with him again until well into 2010. :[

Anyway, those are the plans. .things around here have been changed a lot because of all of this. I was not able to get Maddison started in ballet due to the fact that we won't be here for more that 2 more months. . so we will figure that out in AL. And there are a few friends around here that I am going to be so sad to leave. That is another thing that stinks about this life. Making amazing friends and then having to say goodbye to them.

Well, I am making myself very sad about all of this so I am going to stop writing about it now. But I am sure I will have much more to say about it in the coming weeks/months.

Happy Birthday to me. . Happy Birthday to me..

Happy Birthday dear meeeeeee. . .Happy Birthday to me!

Lol, I just thought I would sing that to myself in key. Since Ashley sang it out of key and Amanda is a meanie. LOL J/K guys.

Well, I am one year older and one year wiser (hopefully) today. The ironic thing is that I feel (and act) so much older than I really am. Oh well. It is so funny how after you have kids your birthday stops meaning anything. It is just another day. I had a pretty good day though. We slept a little late because it was raining and yucky this morning. Then, we got up, showered and got dressed and went out to lunch. Nothing special, but it was nice. Brandon made me a "cake" out of chocolate chip cookies (I don't like cake), so that was really sweet. Other than that is was just an ordinary day. I tried to get Brandon go to work and act sick so that he could come home early since it is my bday and all, but he says he can't. So oh well. He said he would try and see if he can come in after flight schedule, but I am not holding my breath. . ha ha.

I think maybe we will celebrate more this weekend. I know Friday night we are going out to dinner and I am going shopping, I have a few gift cards and such to spend. And maybe, if I can get Maddison into childcare Sat. night, some friends of ours and us may go out. Who knows? We will have to wait and see.

But thank you to everyone that called, wrote, mailed cards, and harassed me today! I really appreciate you thinking of me!!

I have an important update about my living situation as well, but I will post that tomorrow because I need to go fix some dinner. So check back!

Our Trip to Bama (Sorry it is so long. . lol)

Well, it has been a while since I have been able to sit down and blog. It has been a crazy busy month. We just got back in from Alabama last night. We had a good trip. We didn't get to do everything that we wanted to do or see everyone that we wanted to see, but we never get to accomplish all of that. . which sucks.

We decided before we got there this time that we were going to take a more relaxed approach to things and just do what happened. . and it sort of worked. It just gets so frustrating when certain people are calling constantly asking if we are going to go see so and so or when we are coming by there. DAMN!! We will get there when we do. It pisses me off that we drive 8 hours to be there. . we are only there for a very limited time. . but people can't seem to try and accommodate us. It would help out tremendously if people would all meet at one location so we can see everyone at once rather than us having to drive all around 2 counties trying to see them. Then they get pissy if we don't get to make it there, or if we only get to spend a short period of time there. Oh well.. that is my rant. But things will be changing in the future. . we have decided. . if they can't make the time to meet us in the middle on things then we will not make time to go spend time with them. And this whole childish "well are you gonna go see so and so or you never come see us" thing is just over. LOL. Anyway. . ha ha most of you know who I am talking about.

Back to the topic. . our trip was good.
**The night we got there Brandon had booked us a room at the new Westin at Bridge Street. It was so freaking nice. It was only like 20 yards from all of the cool restaurants like Ketchup, Dolce, PF Chang. . and so on. . so we had a great pick of where to eat. We got slightly buzzed and walked around Bridge Street for a while and then headed back to our very nice hotel room. Great to have a night away from the kiddo. . then we got up early the next morning and ate at Cracker Barrel. . lol.
**New Year's Eve was just pretty much another day. Mom wanted us to come out and party with them, but we didn't have a baby sitter so we chose to stay in. We hung out with Kristin and Josh and played the Wii most of the night. It was pretty fun. Nothing wild and crazy. Mom came in completely wasted. . knocking over lamps and spilling drinks everywhere.. then she got a little out of hand and I almost punched her out. . so my stepdad made her go to bed. . but that is a story for another day. lol
**New Year's day was fun. We kind of just chilled out that morning and took our time getting ready, then we decided to go see Nanny. When we got out there she was cooking and about to go over to my favorite Aunt's house. So we crashed their party. lol. 2 of my cousins and their families were there. . so we got to see them too. Maddison had a blast. . so many people to play with. We ended up eating (black eyed peas, pig, and greens of course. . lol) and then sitting at the table and talking until like 2am. . ha ha. . I am sure they were glad to see us go. But it was a lot of fun.
**We spent all day Saturday and Sunday out at Nanny's house getting lots of things done for her. I knew she has a to do list a million miles long and she isn't able to do most of the stuff on it herself. . so while I had Brandon with me I wanted to get out there and get them done for her. My mom, stepdad, aunt and uncle also came and helped out tremendously. We didn't get as much done as I had hoped but we got the main things done. We organized her entire garage, organized and deep cleaned the entire kitchen, and moved my little brother out. (FINALLY!!) They guys got the yard raked, 3 motion lights hung outside, her garden lights installed, her door locks changed so the brother can't get back in, and lots of other little things done. She was so grateful, but I am just so happy that we got some of it done for her. . there are a few other things that still need to be done, but mom says she is going to go do them as she can.
**The rest of the trip was good. Unfortunately Brandon's grandmother got put in the hospital right after we got there, after a few misdiagnoses they finally figured out she needed her gallbladder removed. She is home now and seems to be doing great.

I think that is about all of the highlights of the trip. . lol. Maddison got tons more Christmas presents. . yay. . ha ha.

It is good to be home, but I do miss everyone. I hate that we can't see them more often. I am not feeling very well today. . I seriously hope I am not getting sick. I wasn't feeling well on the trip home yesterday either. . I even took a nap in the car which is not like me at all. Last night was awful. . I didn't sleep hardly any. But I don't have time to get sick. . lol. I have to unpack today and then start getting all of this Christmas down!! I don't want to look at it anymore!!! And my hubby is not going to be able to help with any of it! GRRRR!! He has to work all day today and then he has watch tonight from 2400-0800. Then he will have to work again tomorrow. .because his lovely LPO is not allowing comp time. . nice. Anyway that is a rant for another day.