Breakfast with some big birds. This is the view from our breakfast seats at tgifridays

Waiting at the airport with figity magoo. We had to get here earlier than we would have liked so we didnt get stuck in pittsburgh business rush. So now we can't check our bags for another 45 minutes

Always something to make the plans go crazy.

So the kids flag football season ended a week early due to injury. He fell ( got run over more like it) on the field on Thursday. He twisted his ankle and landed wrong on his wrist. The dr at the hospital thought it was broken but the xrays where clean. Just a nasty sprain. Its bruised now and hurting him but its up in a splint and bandange with a sling for support. Its annoying but its hurting him less in the sling than it was without it so thats a plus. Course he has to wear it until friday at least and we leave for Disney on thursday morning. He will be wearing it til then and then after if needed to protect it from the oeople at the parks who aren't always cautious with the bumping into small humans. lol

Well the good news is we finally won a flag football game today. 28-0. The kids did great. Bad news is I am still cold. We have been inside since 7pm and I swear everything is frozen still. Lol. The kid is happy so thats a plus. Tonight should have been the last game of the season but since we have had sooo many cancellations this season we still have 3 games left. Thursday of this week and then Monday and Wednesday of next week. Team pictures are friday also. At this point we don't plan to go to the games next week since we have to be ready to leave for our trip on Thursday and the kid needs to be complelty caught up on his school work before we leave.

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This time 9 days from

This time 9 days from today we will be eating at Chef Mickey's. Yum can't wait.

Sad Day

Dreading leaving the house in a few minutes. Today is the first of two days of viewings and a funeral for my aunt. She passed away on the 13th after an 8 month long battle with cancer. She was only 51 years old. It sucks and there is no better words to explain it. She had so much left to do in life and her children have so many more years left when they needed their mom to guide them threw lifes snares and cheer them at lifes triumphs. :(

Hmm. Will it let me send pictures to post via text?

So here is yet another attemp at mastering the art of the blog via text. These are the only two reasons I am worried about going on vacation. Our new kittens. One is 10 months old and one is 12 weeks old. We lost our other furrie friends Kovu and Tigger over the summer :(

So I am hoping to use this blog a bit more in the next few weeks to keep track of our Disney vacation. We will not have internet access so the ability to text message a blog post is appealing. So trying this out to see how it works. Fingers crossed. We leave in 12.5 days :)

Catching Up

Since I have a little bit of free time I decided I should write a entry in my journal since it has been so long. Things are going well here. We are just finishing up 4th grade and ready for a busy summer. Alex has Karate Camp and Kids College planned as well as STARS reading camp through his school.  He is excited about summer and hoping to get to spend some time hanging out with his friends from both his elementary school as well as his karate school.
  Things have been busy for us running back and forth from place to place all year long and eventually we decided that the best choice for all of us was to stop doing Cub Scouts so that we could free up at least one evening in our week just to have some time to breathe ourselves.  It seems to be working nice and doesn't seem like anyone is missing not going to scouts anymore. I think our time there had run its course.
 Alex is still very involved in Karate and loves it as much now as he did two years ago when he started. He is now a Level 6 Jr. Blackbelt and if he stays on schedule should test again at the end of May. Then the end of June and the end of August. He is excited about moving up to a new belt and learning new things and also loves getting to see his friends at karate.
 I am busy working on learning how to use my new Camera. I got a Nikon D90 DSLR camera for a combo gift of many Christmases and Birthdays. Its worth not getting gifts for a while to have such a nice camera. I am looking forward to learning to use it and have already gotten many great shots that I could never had gotten with my old camera. Its definitly a work in progress as the camera has more buttons and settings than my car.
 Jason is busy working and in his free time he is taking Hapkido classess as the karate school as well. He really enjoys them and misses it a lot when work gets in the way.

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Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S.

Its 4 am and my son is STILL awake. We have to get up in less than 2 hours to take Jason to work. Then Alex has school at 9.. and yet.. At 4am. He is still laying in his bedroom calling out to me.. Mom.. I cant sleep.. 
  I was in bed. I laid down.. I tried to sleep.. he called out to me every 5 minutes.. makes it hard to sleep.. Finally I came out to the computer.. ( so that jason could sleep at least) and what does the kid do?? He comes out to..@@ Oh man.. So I said.. ok.. lets try a warm shower.. maybe that will help.. So I get the water running.. and he takes a very noisy shower.. Swear this kid has NO volume control whatsover.. lol.. So now he is back in bed... Fingers crossed that he falls asleep.. Cause I KNOW he is going to be a monster when I wake him.. and that will only be the start of a fun day.. Since tomorrow he also has a appt with the dentist at 2 o'clock.. Fun fun.. 
  Thats actually what brings us back to the stem of the not sleeping. I fight with him daily over teeth brushing.. big pain in the butt over it.. and now he is upset cause he is afraid the dentist will yell at him.. To which I point out.. YET AGAIN.. that while the dentist will point out what you havent done.. and will tell you why its a bad thing to have done that. He WON'T actually YELL at you.. Yelling is what mommy does when she has to take you to the Dentist and she only got 45 minutes of sleep.. 
 Which leads me to my question?? Why in the world is he more scared of the Dentist than of mom?? That is sooo not right. 

First Photos..

Between being busy and being sick I have't gotten to work as much with my new camera as I would like to. Even so I did get a chance last week to hold my child still and get some photos to share. Here is my favs from the ones I took last week .

Hard Work.. But Fun Work

I am very excited today because my new camera arrived. I ordered a Nikon D90 SLR camera last week and had been anxiously awaiting the arrival. Got the batteries charged and the packages opened and let the camera warm back up since it was on a cold UPS truck all day.. Now all I need to do is start taking pictures and learning about the settings and buttons ( there are a lot.. lol ) problem is.. our house is crappy bad for photo taking of any kind.. very small and the rooms all have harsh yellow flourescents in it.. So, we are looking forward to the coming months when the weather gets better to do some out door photo shoots .. As soon as I have something to share I Will put it up here.. can't wait..

Just hanging around at home today because I am trying to avoid driving in the snow until I have to. So I decided since I was home and bored.. And definatly not interested in cleaning, that I would upload some pictures to my facebook from High School. It was fun to look through them and I loved all the responses I got from my friends about how they looked 1o years ago. It was very funny.
Now I am sitting here watching Tv.. Just watched Dirty Dancing.. Patrick Swayze is wonderful.. and now I am watching the end of the princess diaries.. not sure why but I really like that movie. Course I like a large varietie of movies so that definatly serves me well.
Well, off to busy myself til Jason gets off work at 6 pm. Alex wants to watch the Football games today but I think thats only cause he forgot that its Extreme Home Makeover night ( his favorite show)

Things on my computer.. Round 2

So I was once again wondering the memory of my computer and found these pictures saved from my grandma's 80th birthday party a few years back.. The first is my grandma and my cousins from I "believe" my grandmas 70th birthday 10 years prior.. with her are from the far left.. Kayla, Sarah and Kelly Jo ( with me in the background ) and the next picture is an updated version with the same cousins who are in the picture 15, 13 and 17 ( I think thats the ages) time sure did fly.. I remember when each of them where born.. and playing with them when they where babies.. and now only one of them is under 18.. they are 18, 16 and 20 now I believe.. how did that happen..

Hanging with the Big Guy

Today was a Santa visiting day.. We had been putting off pictures with Santa cause we wanted to get Alex's haircut.. the one he chose two weeks ago just isn't working well on him and seems messy to me.. ( he doesn't mind.. but without some massive product he looks scruffy) anyway.. we gave up.. Santa was at a party we went to tonight so we got a pic there and the went to the lights to get the official one cause Santa leaves for home on the 23rd to make sure the elves are ready. So twice tonight he got Santa pics.. didnt turn out too bad and his hair doesn''t look as bad in the pics as it does in person.. lol..

The second two pictures are Santa and Destiny ( isn't she a sweetie.. she just loves him ) and Santa and John ( Destinys Daddy) he was trying to convince Santa that he was a good boy this year.. Santa was less than believing of it.. :)

Its almost here

School is finally out for the holidays. Friday was the last day. After some worry that school might be cancelled on the one day the kids actually want to go ( Christmas Party Day). Alex has lots of plans for the break. He has cookies to make and a gingerbread house to put together. He wants to see the lights over and over.. lol. and grandpap is coming to visit. So the vacation will definatly not be one where we sit around and relax.. So, while I am sitting here under my blanket .. trying not to freeze ( its like -1 out there with wind chill) I thought I would upload some pictures to share.. The first is some of our Christmas lights.. Alex's favorite ones of course since they are blue.. Then of course is Alex with a cheesy grin in front of our Christmas tree..

This next one is how Alex spent most of his first day of vacation.. wrapped up tight in jammies and a robe watchig Christmas movies.. lol.. and then there is Kovu.. the happy kitty who is just overjoyed with the fact that he is able to torture Alex for 16 uninterrupted days of vacaction..

Amazing!

It amazes me that no matter how early I wake my husband and child up in the morning.. and no matter how many times I yell at them to get their butts moving we still manage to be late because they can't be bothered to get themselves out of bed.. ARGH

Wonders of Technology!

Thanks to a link from a friend and the wonders of the people at Google.. I have spent most of the evening playing with Google map and their new Street View Feature. This allowed me to see a from the street view of the house I grew up in, as well as do something I havent done in 14 years.. Walked down the streets of my neighborhood looking at friends houses and seeing how the neighborhood changed. It was a fun and memory stirring experience. I was also able to go look at my friends house that I lived at for 3 months in 1994 as well as my grandparents house. So.. to share a picture of the home I grew up in.. In Gahanna Ohio.

Holiday Lights on the Lake

Last night we took my parents with us to see the lights on the lake at Lakemont Park. Some of the pictures came out really well. Some not soo great.. Its hard to take pictures with your hand hanging out the window in 20 degree weather and trying to drive at the same time.

Alex with Santa.. I think 2003 :) He was 4 years old