Biloxi Blues

Tom and I were talking about Hurricane Katrina and how devastating it was on Louisiana. Tom pointed out that Mississippi got it much worse than Katrina. You know Tom, he has to be right and just this one time, he was right. Though Katrina caused the levee to break and caused the biggest diaster in the history of Louisiana...mainly because they couldn't get all the people out in time....Biloxi and Gulfport (and other parts of Mississippi) actually got it much worse! He pulled up the Biloxi Sun Herald's website and they have a great page to show how bad things really are for them since the rest of the media seems to want to focus only on New Orleans. There are links of different places in south Mississippi and you click the link and it will show you the picture of the place before Katrina hit and then you click "View Change" and it will show you what it looks like now. These pictures are devastating. Seeing those beautiful plantation homes and Chimney restaurant turned into kindling is heartbreaking. We lost a part of our history when we lost those places. Growing up in Louisiana, everyone wanted to vacation in Biloxi. That was THE place to go. It is so sad that Biloxi is pretty much wiped out now. We need to keep them in our prayer. It has been months since Katrina hit and the coverage of the devastation has pretty much stopped. But the people most affected by Katrina are still dealing with it. Please join me in continuing to pray for them. If you need motivation, check out the before and after pictures. Click here for the Sun Herald page with the pictures.

Slave labor?

This morning, Katie spilled her cereal all over the floor and then decided to kick like a horse to try to grind it into the carpet. Well she got sent to her room and when she got out, we made her vacuum it up. Tom decided her using the hose was too slow so he taught her how to use the vacuum cleaner like grown ups do it. She is a strong little thing but she still struggled a bit but she got it done. It wore her out pushing that heavy thing. It was so cute that I had to take pictures. By the way, in case you are wondering what's playing on TV...that's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Katie LOVES that movie. The old one came on TV the other day and she said "Oh man this stinks. I want to turn the channel." She does have good taste because the old one does stink. hehehe She made us laugh this morning when Verucca Salt got thrown down the shute by the squirrels, Katie said "oh she's dead meat!" She's too funny. She's 3 going on 30.
By the way, the newest show Katie has become interested in is Star Trek. She loves it when Tom watches it and has even begun asking us to turn Star Trek on. Good thing Tom has a season pass set up on the TiVo to record all of the episodes. She can watch them whenever she wants now. So we have a new Trekkie in the family!

Daddy's girl

When Tom is home, Katie is stuck to him like glue. Well Tom has been getting annoyed at Katie's constant wiggling when she is sitting with him in his recliner. Today he finally had enough and told her that since she won't quit wiggling, she had to get down. Well she can't stand not being close to him so she grabbed the little chair from her desk and pulled it right up against Tom's recliner. I thought it was so cute that I had to get a picture of it.

Tom also got tired of her playing with the remote and took it from her. This was the result:

By the way, don't let his mean faces fool you. His bark is worse than his bite. hehehe

Leave it to Brittanie!

Today I turned 37 and leave it to Brittanie to make me feel even older than I already feel today! I LOVE e-cards. Here is the e-card she sent me.

She's grounded. LOL (not really)

It's official

Brittanie takes her last exam this morning and she is done with her sophomore year and officially a high school junior. I'm both proud and sad. Brittanie works hard to get good grades (top 5% of her class) and strives to always do the right thing. But the closer she gets to graduation, the sadder I get because I know it won't be long before she will be going to college and moving on with the next phase in her life. She has goals set and a plan to accomplish those goals....which is better than me at her age. I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do (besides be a wife and mother) until I was 25. I know she is mature and responsible enough to handle college but I'm not mature and responsible enough to deal with her being so far away. She wants to go to either West Point in New York or Texas A&M.

Everything is just changing so much all at once. She is driving now and has her own car so she doesn't need me chauffeuring her around anymore. She can't drive after 8 but in July, her boyfriend will be able to drive after 8 and then she really won't need me to take her anywhere ever. When she goes back to school in the fall, she will be ordering her class ring. I know I'm overanalyzing everything but every milestone is huge to me. I have always enjoyed every minute of Brittanie's life and though I'm enjoying watching her reach every new milestone in her life, it is also sad because I know I won't have her at home much longer. But I know God will get me through it. Afterall, He's the one who made Brittanie the fine young lady she has become and He will give me the grace to let go and let Him continue to lead her through the next stages in her life.

Tom is leaving on June 4th to go to Ireland for at least 10 days....maybe more. We have never been apart this long in our 17 years of marriage. I HATE the thought of this. But as I said in a previous post, Zeus has been a GREAT company to work for so he wouldn't refuse even if he could. We are just going to miss him sooooooooooo much. I think Katie will be the one with the biggest problem with him being gone. She is definitely a daddy's girl. She asks me 100 times a day when Tom is coming home. He works late ALOT and not that long ago, he didn't get home till 9:30pm. Katie said "Daddy's taking too long to come home!" As soon as he walks in the door, she runs to him, screaming "DADDY'S HOME!!" and hugs and kisses him. He takes the stuff out of his pockets, takes off his badge, and then sits in his recliner and she immediately jumps in his lap and that's where she stays till it is time for a bath and bed.

Ok that's our family stuff.

On a side note, the American Idol final was last night. I haven't watched AI since Chris Daughtry was eliminated. (Tom watched in FF...he said it was boring.) We watched the finale in FF too. I loved the three cowboys singing. That was adorable. I REALLY enjoyed seeing Chris perform with Live. I had never heard of Live before but Chris is incredible and can make any group look and sound GREAT! That man has big things ahead of him. He doesn't need to win AI to be a star....he already is one! We didn't care who won last night because we were all pulling for Chris. But we did prefer Katharine over Taylor. Taylor's constipated dancing and contorted faces when he sings is painful to watch. Katharine is a daddy's girl and you can see how much her daddy loves her just by looking at him. I wanted her to win for her daddy. But as everyone knows by now, Taylor won. I just can't see his albums selling anywhere near as well as past idols but I do wish him luck....he is going to need it. I hated his confident/smug face last night like he just knew he was going to win. Katharine was nervous and humble....made you root for her even more. Anyway, the season of AI is over and we really enjoyed having those hours every week where we turned off the phones and came in the living room and all watched it together. It was the topic of many conversations throughout the week. It made our family a little closer. We are going to miss it.

tough love

I gave Katie some popcorn as a snack when she got up from her nap and as is typical of Katie, she couldn't just eat it like a good little girl. She ate a few pieces and then started crumbling it all over the floor. Well the rule in our house has always been if you make a mess, you clean it up. Obviously she is too little to push a vacuum cleaner but she isn't too young to use the hose that goes with the crevice tool. She has always been afraid of the vacuum cleaner. So this was tough love. But she didn't cry. She vacuumed up every crumb.


By the way, I added a couple of pictures to the post below...the one about my birthday celebration. So check it out if you have a minute.

Early birthday celebration

Yesterday we celebrated my 29th birthday (for the 8th time). My birthday is actually May 26th but I wanted to celebrate with our friends, Frank and Lynn Eargle, and their kids and they weren't free next weekend and the weekend after my birthday, Tom is leaving for Ireland. So we did it yesterday. We had a big bar-b-que on my new grill. We were a little worried because the day started off VERY stormy (and actually ended that way too). But in the middle of the day it was beautiful and sunshining bright. We hadn't seen them since January of 2005.....even though they just live in Irmo. We sure did miss them. We were supposed to play Pictionary, which is my favorite game, but we enjoyed just talking to them so much that we just scrapped that plan. Lynn brought my favorite.....cheesecake! It was delicious. We had a great day!!

But I have to give credit where credit is due. Tom worked his tail off yesterday. He got up early and put the new grill together (took him about 2 1/2 hours). Then when the storm finished he cut the grass and did the weedeating. He came in, took a shower, went back out and started the bar-b-que, and while that was going, he moved my van out of the garage and started cleaning the garage. While he was taking stuff out of the garage, Randy (Brittanie's boyfriend) grabbed the broom and started sweeping. He even threw the football with the teenagers too. That's alot of work for Tom. He and I both hate doing stuff around the house. We would rather hire someone to do it for us. He was dog tired last night. But I am so proud of him. Everything looked great and the bar-b-que was delicious!

I had a GREAT birthday celebration!!! But we definitely have to plan more stuff with Frank and Lynn. They are the most normal and fun people we have met down here and we really enjoy their company. They really made my birthday special!

Here are some pictures we took that day:

This is Randy and William licking the side of Brittanie's face. She hates that and of course they are boys...they live to drive her crazy. hehehe

Here is William (who Katie says is her boyfriend) playing with Katie. She had a blast that day!

Brittanie got her license!!

Tom took Brittanie to take her driver's test this morning and she passed! She is officially legal to drive alone. Isn't that a scary thought? I still think of her as my baby and now my baby is driving and is just days away from becoming a high school junior. I wanted to cry this morning when she got back with her license because it all hit me at once how close she is to being all grown up. But I refrained because she thinks I'm a dork when I do that.

But we definitely are feeling the effects of having a teenaged driver. I called Allstate to add her to our policy. Now that we have added her and her car to our policy, our premiums have jumped from $187 a month to $450 a month!! She will be working at home until she turns 16 and can get a real job to help out with the insurance.

Everybody pray that she stays safe!!

Alex

I got an e-mail from Colleen (my cousin, Brian's, wife) tonight and she had attached a couple of pictures of her adorable little boy, Alex. Obviously it isn't what it looks like but it was too funny not to share it. Alex had played so hard at a party they went to that he ended up falling asleep on the table. I wish Katie would do that. She is wide open 24/7. But here are the pictures. Isn't he precious?

Here I go...real time blogging again!

Today just keeps getting better and better! It is 11:37pm and I thought my day was done and then I was treated to a phone call.....from Jonathan!!! I was so excited. I'm sooooooooo glad I was up when he called. I would have been so disappointed if I had missed his call. Anyway, he is leaving tomorrow for his time off. He said it is about a week to travel to Washington state, where his wife and daughters are now, and then he will be there with them two weeks, and then another week back. So I can breathe easy for almost a month knowing that he is not in Iraq! I can't wait till he goes back to Germany. I wish he were back in Augusta at Fort Gordon but since that isn't going to happen for a couple more years, I am just praying that he gets out of Iraq and this time for good!

Anyway, it was soooooooooo good to hear his voice. I miss him so much. He was calling to tell me Happy Mother's Day since I'm his godmother. He is just too sweet! I just love him soooooooo much!

This is definitely one of the best Mother's Days I have had in a long time!

God is good!!

This was already a really good Mother's Day...but tonight it got even better! I have been waiting to get some stuff that I bought from Ebay and haven't been to the post office since Thursday, so in order to get Brittanie back driving again, I asked her to drive me to the post office. When we got there, there is a check in the mail for $100 made out to Swansea High School JROTC. I never knew you could get an anonymous check....but I got one. Evidently this person donates anonymously all the time because the envelope was typed with no return address. The check had NO name, address, etc. in the left upper corner and the handwriting was total chicken scratch to the point where I couldn't make out not one letter. But he printed "SHS JROTC" and the amount so it was legible and the memo said "donation." We had vandals break into our old gym, where the rifle team practices and dump all the pellets all over the floor and stomp on them. They totally vandalized our rifle team's stuff to the point where it all has to be replaced....with the exception of the rifles, as they are kept in the main school building. Well I belong to a yahoo group that is SC Firearms as well as SC Grass Roots. The purpose of the group is preserve our right to bear arms, which I'm a firm believer in. I e-mailed the group about what happened to our rifle team's stuff and here we are a few days later with a check. I can't wait to take it to the school in the morning. We are trying to create a booster club for JROTC to we don't have to beg for money like this but we are definitely grateful when God touches people's hearts to donate like this. The bank was in Lexington and the postmark said Columbia so this person doesn't even live in our district but still found it in their heart to give to this fine group of young people. God is truly good!!!

By the way, if you would like to donate, please do! Any size donation will be greatly appreciated! Just make the check out to SHS JROTC and mail it to me:

Lynette Sightler
RE: SHS JROTC
PO Box 98
Gaston, SC 29053

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's Day to all of my friends who are moms and grandmothers!!

I prefer e-cards to regular cards....always have. Here is Tom's.

Brittanie's card made me cry. I HATE to cry but in this case, it was worth the cry. This card is beautiful and soooooooooo sweet and appropriate. Click here to see Brittanie's card.

Katie gave me a wrapped flower pot that she decorated at school. She also gave me a card that says "What's a nice mom like you doing with a kid like me?" and on the inside it says "The best you can mom, the BEST you CAN. Thanks and Happy Mother's Day. Love Katie." Tom wrote "I thought this summed up Katie pretty well." LOL It definitely does!
Tom gave me a big Bar-B-Que pit (actually, we are picking it up next week). I'm tired of having to do multiple batches of Bar-B-Que because we have this cheap $20 tiny grill. I don't like gas grills. They don't give you the bar-b-que taste. I never understood the appeal of those things. I could bake it in the oven and have the same flavor. I want a charcoal grill. So Tom is going to get me this one: Royal Oak Grill

As for Brittanie, I have been seeing shows where kids give their parents coupon books that they create saying they will do this or that for them. Well that's what I asked for from Brittanie. Lisa couldn't come this week so our laundry didn't get done and Tom thinks garages are supposed to be dirty....he literally said that. I HATE our dirty garage. So for Mother's Day, Brittanie is doing the laundry and cleaning the garage for me. YAY!! That's the best gift this year!

I have to add an addendum to this post. This afternoon, Randy came by on his way back from his grandmother's house and he just stopped in for a minute. He came to give me a Mother's Day gift. It is a patriotic car magnet. I love it. I had a cool camouflaged ribbon that said "Land of the Free because of the brave." But for some reason it is not on my car anymore. I honestly think it is Katie. She is a true klepto. Brittanie had this problem when she was 5. Katie is starting early taking things that aren't hers. She was in Brittanie's room 2 minutes this morning and stole a cold tablet and a tube of Chap Stick from Brittanie's desk and came downstairs with it. Brittanie has two sets of dog tags. We had been looking for them everywhere and couldn't find them. Suddenly, Katie appears in the living room with one set in her hand and a week later, the other set magically appeared in her hands! So anyway, I'm thinking Katie stole my magnet off my van yesterday when she was outside with Tom. But Randy gave me a very nice one to replace it. He is such a sweetheart! His parents are very nice. I've never talked to his mom but I have talked to his dad a couple of times and he is very nice. Brittanie said they are both very nice and his little brother is adorable. What I love the most is that they have their time together but don't feel the need to be attached to each other at every waking moment.

They love their daddy

Tom came home really late from work tonight (shocker huh?) and he isn't feeling very well. (He and I are both sick.) Well to make him feel better the girls started fighting over who loved him more and this is how it ended up.Don't know why but there is a big shadow on this picture. But you can see the best part. That's the face of being loved to death. LOL

The softer side of Tom

This morning, Tom took Katie on a walk through of the K3 at Grace, where she will be attending next school year. When they got ready to leave, Tom picked Katie up in his arms and they looked so adorable, I couldn't resist getting a picture.Katie absolutely adores her daddy (even when he makes a goofy face....as above). While she was eye level with him, she couldn't resist giving him a kiss.
And of course he loves his baby girl too and couldn't resist kissing her too. But of course she is so bossy that she had to show him where to kiss her! Anyway, this is a side of Tom rarely seen by the outside world. But this is how he is at home all the time. He is a wonderful husband and father!!

Today's update

This morning, Brittanie came downstairs to get her clothes (we still haven't finished her closet upstairs) and found Katie laying in the hall and just had to take a picture. I asked Katie later why she was laying in the hall and she told me it was because her pull up was wet. As you can probably tell in this picture, she is still wearing the wet pull-up. Her bed wasn't wet. The pull up didn't leak. We still can't figure out why she found it necessary to get out of bed and lay down in the hall. But it did make for a cute picture. (By the way, we have a picture like this taken of Brittanie at 4 years old only she fell asleep in front of the toilet in the middle of the night. It was so funny! We are a sleepy family!)

Tonight was Swansea High School's honors and awards banquet. Brittanie got an invitation and 3 tickets to go, which meant that she had won an award. She received the award for Superior Noncommissioned Officer. It comes with an official Army certificate and medal but unfortunately they weren't in yet so tonight she got a couple of regular certificates and an Army bag. Brittanie and I are both bag freaks so we were thrilled to get the Army bag!! But we can't wait to see the medal when it comes in. Here are some pictures we took tonight. Unfortunately all Tom was able to get was pictures from behind but it's better than no picture at all.

Here is 1st Sgt. Cannon (left) and Major Norton (right) before the ceremony started. 1st Sgt. was looking around and when he made eye contact with me, I hit the button and took his picture. He laughed at me afterwards. He's such a nice guy! He's Brittanie's second daddy.

Above is Brittanie receiving a certificate from Major Norton

Here is Brittanie receiving her Army bag and another certificate from Major Norton and Sgt. Bogan.

Brittanie's new guy

I wanted to wait awhile before saying too much about Brittanie's new guy, Randy, because you know how teen relationships come and go. Thursday they will have been together for a month and it doesn't look like they are close to breaking up so I think it is safe to talk about him. Randy is a Junior at Brittanie's school and lives in Gaston. He works construction with his dad when he isn't in school. He drives a 1966 Galaxie 500 that he restored. He respects Brittanie and the rest of us. He is very well mannered and even gives Katie attention. (Justin was actually mean to Katie at times. At one point he even yelled in her face. If I had heard him, I'd have thrown him out!) Randy is good in Spanish and has been tutoring Brittanie in it. Spanish is kinda like Math. If you miss classes, you can get behind and not catch up. Well Brittanie missed 13 days of school between the tosillitis and the tonsillectomy. Needless to say....she missed ALOT. She has recovered in all other subjects but not Spanish. But Randy has been a big help in helping her go from an F to a C. She is hoping to struggle out a B before the end of the school year....which is the 25th. One of the things we (Brittanie included) LOVE about Randy is that he makes sure his priorities are straight. He doesn't spend 24/7 attached to Brittanie. Brittanie felt smothered with Justin because he clung to her like she was his lifeline and then went psycho when they fought. So far, she and Randy haven't fought but he definitely isn't clingy. He is just normal. He has a very balanced life...exactly what we wanted. Tom always called Justin "jerk face" even to his face. But he calls Randy "not a loser." He really likes Randy....so do Katie and I. I think Brittanie did a great job in picking Randy.

Wild boar

Last night, Brittanie, Katie, and I were coming home from Brittanie's tanning appointment and as we were coming up our driveway, we saw a HUGE hog with tusks. At first we didn't know what it was and we kinda freaked out, screaming "WHAT IS THAT THING????" Brittanie was driving her new car and when we saw that thing, she backed up all the way to the road because she was scared it would charge her car. I called Tom (who was in the house) and told him I think there is a wild boar in the driveway. His response was "Yeah? We have those around here." He was so calm about it. Just like a man, he isn't afraid of anything and just walked out of the garage and was looking for it. Brittanie and I were more intelligent and refused to get out of the car! Tom took Katie from us and Brittanie and I left to go to Wal-Mart. Tom never did see the boar as our dog chased it into the woods. It must have been really old because it wasn't very aggressive and was walking pretty slow. But now I'm afraid for my girls to be outside in our yard. This is the biggest drawback of living in the country. There are all kinds of critters out here. This one definitely scared us. Brittanie and I ran in the house when we got home from Wal-Mart. That was just too scary.....at least for Brittanie and I. Can you tell we were freaked out?
This is what the boar looked like....only MUCH MUCH bigger. (Photo courtesy of http://www.illinoisplantation.com/) This thing is like a baby compared to the one in our driveway. I called my mom and told her about it and just like a typical Cajun, she asked me why we didn't shoot it and put the meat in the freezer. I just don't understand people that see disgusting animals and road kill as potential meals. GROSS!!! It reminded me of when we lived in Gramercy, LA and Tom was the song leader in our church and pretty popular. One night some of the deacons knocked on our door at like 10pm and wanted Tom to help them haul an alligator to one of the deacon's house. One of them had hit him with his truck and he got out, shot it in the head, and called some of the deacons to help get him in the truck and back home. He promised meat from the tail to everybody who helped. So they were coming to our house, since we were nearby where the gator was killed, to see if Tom wanted to help cleaning him and harvesting the meat. Anybody that knows Tom knows how funny that is. Tom would NEVER EVER do that. And just like with this boar, there was no way we would have killed that big thing because we wouldn't have wanted to haul the carcass away and we definitely wouldn't have cleaned it for the freezer either. YUCK!!!