Tom and I don't get nearly enough alone time. Brittanie and Katie fight so much that we don't like to have Brittanie babysit much. Randy had the day off yesterday and I knew he would be with Brittanie if she babysat Katie. Randy is MUCH more patient than Brittanie is. So date night was set! Tom and I went to The Crab Shack in Lexington and it was delicious....as always. He offered to take me to a movie that I have been wanting to see (The Ugly Truth) but Tom is not really a movie person and this was a chick flick...which definitely wasn't his thing. So I told him I would rather just ride around and talk. I am so glad we did that. It was so nice to be able to talk in peace. We love Katie but she is so hyper that she drains your energy and when Tom gets home, she is so excited that she is stuck to him like glue. It was nice to have him all to myself. We ended up driving down Highway 1 all the way into Aiken (passing The Big Mo in Monetta along the way!!). When we got there, we started a hunt for Bruster's Ice Cream. When we finally found it, it was closed and for sale. So we just went to Sonic for ice cream then took the long way home.
I just love Aiken. It is such a pretty city. I wish Tom's company had more IT stuff in Aiken. It would be a great place for us to move to! I don't know what their public schools are like but I know there are good Christian schools in Aiken and Augusta to choose from....as opposed to where we are now having a horrible public school district and only one affordable Christian school to choose from. Oh well I'm dreaming but we scoped out a couple of places to eat on our next date night!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Katie's first trip to Carowinds!!
Tom took Katie to her first trip to Carowinds today. Brittanie and Randy went with them. Katie has been begging to go to Carowinds for 3 years but we knew she wouldn't be able to ride anything big, which is what she was dying to do, until she was 48 inches tall. Well this year, she is 49 inches and begging to go!
She road Thunder Road 3 times, the Hurler 3 times, Carolina Cobra twice, and the Carolina Cyclone once....as well as alot of other rides. The wilder the ride, the more she liked it. Tom said her first adult coaster was Thunder Road. It was also Brittanie's first adult coaster when she was little. Brittanie got mad at Tom back then because he told her it wasn't bad but she found it really scary. Tom was looking forward to seeing what Katie's reaction would be because she is naturally braver than Brittanie was. When Thunder Road started moving, Katie grabbed onto the bar and stared wide eyed in front of her....and that's how she stayed the entire ride. Tom said it was like she was in shock. He had trouble getting her out of the car after the ride was over because she appeared to be catatonic. Walking away she initially refused to go back on it. But after she got 10 to 15 feet away, she told Tom she loved it and wanted to do it again. So back in line they went!
She had a great time and can't wait to go back. When they got home, I looked down at her shoes and noticed that they were on the wrong feet. We have been letting her do her own shoes since she learned how to tie her shoes. Tom even tied one of the shoes this morning that she was having trouble double knotting. He didn't notice anything different. She had been complaining that her feet were bothering her. Brittanie and Randy were laughing at the way she was walking but none of them thought to check to see why because she is a drama queen so they thought it was just Katie being a drama queen again. Nope.....her shoes were on the wrong feet all day! Tom felt bad that when he realized that but she has no blisters or anything and it is her own fault for being so whiny butt all the time. If she never complained, they would have taken this complaint seriously. But I think when school starts I'm going to paint each big toe a different color and put that color under the shoe that corresponds with the foot, that has the matching toe, that it goes on.
Tom now has a new roller coaster buddy to ride with him since Brittanie is older and has Randy to ride with her. Next on the agenda is Hershey Park to ride their newest roller coaster. Brittanie has been dying to go and Katie is excited at the thought as well!
She road Thunder Road 3 times, the Hurler 3 times, Carolina Cobra twice, and the Carolina Cyclone once....as well as alot of other rides. The wilder the ride, the more she liked it. Tom said her first adult coaster was Thunder Road. It was also Brittanie's first adult coaster when she was little. Brittanie got mad at Tom back then because he told her it wasn't bad but she found it really scary. Tom was looking forward to seeing what Katie's reaction would be because she is naturally braver than Brittanie was. When Thunder Road started moving, Katie grabbed onto the bar and stared wide eyed in front of her....and that's how she stayed the entire ride. Tom said it was like she was in shock. He had trouble getting her out of the car after the ride was over because she appeared to be catatonic. Walking away she initially refused to go back on it. But after she got 10 to 15 feet away, she told Tom she loved it and wanted to do it again. So back in line they went!
She had a great time and can't wait to go back. When they got home, I looked down at her shoes and noticed that they were on the wrong feet. We have been letting her do her own shoes since she learned how to tie her shoes. Tom even tied one of the shoes this morning that she was having trouble double knotting. He didn't notice anything different. She had been complaining that her feet were bothering her. Brittanie and Randy were laughing at the way she was walking but none of them thought to check to see why because she is a drama queen so they thought it was just Katie being a drama queen again. Nope.....her shoes were on the wrong feet all day! Tom felt bad that when he realized that but she has no blisters or anything and it is her own fault for being so whiny butt all the time. If she never complained, they would have taken this complaint seriously. But I think when school starts I'm going to paint each big toe a different color and put that color under the shoe that corresponds with the foot, that has the matching toe, that it goes on.
When they got home, everybody took showers and Katie hopped up on Tom's lap to tell him goodnight and thank him for taking her to Carowinds. She had a great day and was worn slap out! (You can tell by this picture that she adores her daddy!!)
As you can see in the pictures, Katie had sunscreen on today....Tom did not. He thinks sunscreen is for girls. Have mercy!!
Here they are being silly!
As you can see in the pictures, Katie had sunscreen on today....Tom did not. He thinks sunscreen is for girls. Have mercy!!
Here they are being silly!Tom now has a new roller coaster buddy to ride with him since Brittanie is older and has Randy to ride with her. Next on the agenda is Hershey Park to ride their newest roller coaster. Brittanie has been dying to go and Katie is excited at the thought as well!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Catchin up...again
I absolutely loved having my sisters here. I miss them so much now that they have gone back home.
The day after we went to Savannah, Jeannette, Jessica, and I went to Greenville and ate at Joe's Crab Shack.
It was fun but just a tip....don't order the Orleans. That is NOT what crawfish is supposed to taste like. It was awful. I ate mine anyway with ketchup and Tabasco because I haven't had any crawfish in over 2 years and who knows when I will have some again. But Jeannette lives down there and knows she can have good crawfish anytime so she didn't eat hers. I also am not at all a fan of seasoning sprinkled on the outside of the shell. All that does is burn your lips and makes it impossible to taste the flavor of the seafood you are eating. But the shrimp were really good. I just peeled all of my shrimp, then wet napped my hands and ate them with a fork to avoid burning my lips off with that cayenne pepper. The service was great. I enjoyed watching them dance every 15 minutes to the music and the disco lights. That was really neat. We stopped in the gift shop on the way out and Jeannette bought Brittanie a T-shirt that said "Joe's Crab Shack." I bought Brittanie a black shirt that had HUGE letters that spelled out "CRABBY" and little letters under it that said "Joe's Crab Shack." I wanted to buy Katie a shirt but the only kid's shirt they had displayed a peace sign on it. I have my own personal beliefs about the peace sign and thus I skipped the shirt and bought her a beach towel since she is swimming so much this summer.
For dessert, Katie got a crab shaped Rice Krispie treat and caramel, chocolate, and strawberry sauce on a palate with a paint brush for her to paint it. She loved it!!
The next day, we went to northeast Columbia and took pictures at Portrait Innovations. The pictures came out great. I am going to take Brittanie and Katie there for Christmas pictures. The whole thing took an hour and a half and we left with the pictures in hand. It was great!! Here is the picture of my sisters. 
Nope not putting my picture on here. Sorry!
Thursday night, we met up with Frank, Lynn, their daughter, Rhiannon, and my friend, Jenn, at Catch 22 in Irmo to eat and watch Jenn's husband, Red, sing.
We had a great time. Between Red and Jessica, we were laughing all night long. Here is a video of Red doing Elvis and Willie Nelson at the same time. It was pretty funny!!
Jeannette and Jessica were feeling REAALLLLYYYY good by the end of the night. I don't know who did it (my guess is Jessica since she was sitting behind me) but one of those nut balls braided my hair while I was driving home.
I was sad to see them leave Friday morning but I know they had to get back to work and we had to get back into our normal routine. It was way too quiet after they left. We had had someone visiting in the house everyday since June 9th. When the last two left on July 10th, it was kinda lonely. But you can't stay on vacation forever!
The day before my sisters went home, the washer finally died and the dryer was starting to need two cycles to dry our clothes. So Tom ordered a new front loading washer/dryer set from Sears. It came this past Saturday. Unfortunately, the dryer has two dents in the side so they are going to have to replace it. In the meantime, the fluorescent light fixture in our kitchen went out. I was thrilled. I have been wanting to replace it since we redid the kitchen but Tom was putting it off. Saturday he went to Lowe's and bought a new vent hose for the new dryer and new track lighting for the kitchen. I LOVE IT!! Now I'm looking forward to getting rid of the ceiling fan in the kitchen and replacing it with hanging track lighting over the table.
We are down to just a month until Brittanie and Katie go back to school. Katie is going to miss jumping in the pool everyday.
I have no idea why she ALWAYS has her mouth open. She's a nut!!
She tans so easily (even with SPF 60 on her). She has very white tan lines. It is amazing how fast she tanned and never burned! I know Brittanie is going to miss all the free time. Won't be long before she is going to be glued to her Chemistry book!! In the meantime, she is just enjoying her puppy, Jasper, that Randy gave her. 
We love Jasper....even though Tom would never admit that he likes Jasper. Tom has never liked small dogs...only big muscular dogs like Rotties. But Jasper is so adorable, it is hard not to like him. Jasper loves Katie's knee pads and elbow pads that she wears to rollerblade. Here is a video of Jasper and Katie playing with them.
The biggest news is that my wonderful godson, Jonathan, is back in Iraq. This is his 3rd tour. It was soooooo hard to say goodbye to him when he left on June 29th. I wanted to freeze his face in my memory. Actually what I really wanted to do is lock him upstairs forever so he couldn't go. But he is a true soldier. He would never go AWOL....no matter how much I beg. So all I can do now is pray and ask everyone to pray that he, and all other deployed soldiers, come home safe and sound. The one silver lining is that his time in Germany is up in December so as soon as possible after he gets back from Iraq, he comes back to the states! *HAPPY DANCE* I'm very excited!!
Even though he hates being called a hero, he will always be a hero in my eyes!!
The day after we went to Savannah, Jeannette, Jessica, and I went to Greenville and ate at Joe's Crab Shack.
It was fun but just a tip....don't order the Orleans. That is NOT what crawfish is supposed to taste like. It was awful. I ate mine anyway with ketchup and Tabasco because I haven't had any crawfish in over 2 years and who knows when I will have some again. But Jeannette lives down there and knows she can have good crawfish anytime so she didn't eat hers. I also am not at all a fan of seasoning sprinkled on the outside of the shell. All that does is burn your lips and makes it impossible to taste the flavor of the seafood you are eating. But the shrimp were really good. I just peeled all of my shrimp, then wet napped my hands and ate them with a fork to avoid burning my lips off with that cayenne pepper. The service was great. I enjoyed watching them dance every 15 minutes to the music and the disco lights. That was really neat. We stopped in the gift shop on the way out and Jeannette bought Brittanie a T-shirt that said "Joe's Crab Shack." I bought Brittanie a black shirt that had HUGE letters that spelled out "CRABBY" and little letters under it that said "Joe's Crab Shack." I wanted to buy Katie a shirt but the only kid's shirt they had displayed a peace sign on it. I have my own personal beliefs about the peace sign and thus I skipped the shirt and bought her a beach towel since she is swimming so much this summer.
For dessert, Katie got a crab shaped Rice Krispie treat and caramel, chocolate, and strawberry sauce on a palate with a paint brush for her to paint it. She loved it!!
The next day, we went to northeast Columbia and took pictures at Portrait Innovations. The pictures came out great. I am going to take Brittanie and Katie there for Christmas pictures. The whole thing took an hour and a half and we left with the pictures in hand. It was great!! Here is the picture of my sisters. 
Nope not putting my picture on here. Sorry!Thursday night, we met up with Frank, Lynn, their daughter, Rhiannon, and my friend, Jenn, at Catch 22 in Irmo to eat and watch Jenn's husband, Red, sing.
We had a great time. Between Red and Jessica, we were laughing all night long. Here is a video of Red doing Elvis and Willie Nelson at the same time. It was pretty funny!!
Jeannette and Jessica were feeling REAALLLLYYYY good by the end of the night. I don't know who did it (my guess is Jessica since she was sitting behind me) but one of those nut balls braided my hair while I was driving home.
I was sad to see them leave Friday morning but I know they had to get back to work and we had to get back into our normal routine. It was way too quiet after they left. We had had someone visiting in the house everyday since June 9th. When the last two left on July 10th, it was kinda lonely. But you can't stay on vacation forever!
The day before my sisters went home, the washer finally died and the dryer was starting to need two cycles to dry our clothes. So Tom ordered a new front loading washer/dryer set from Sears. It came this past Saturday. Unfortunately, the dryer has two dents in the side so they are going to have to replace it. In the meantime, the fluorescent light fixture in our kitchen went out. I was thrilled. I have been wanting to replace it since we redid the kitchen but Tom was putting it off. Saturday he went to Lowe's and bought a new vent hose for the new dryer and new track lighting for the kitchen. I LOVE IT!! Now I'm looking forward to getting rid of the ceiling fan in the kitchen and replacing it with hanging track lighting over the table.
We are down to just a month until Brittanie and Katie go back to school. Katie is going to miss jumping in the pool everyday.
I have no idea why she ALWAYS has her mouth open. She's a nut!!
She tans so easily (even with SPF 60 on her). She has very white tan lines. It is amazing how fast she tanned and never burned! I know Brittanie is going to miss all the free time. Won't be long before she is going to be glued to her Chemistry book!! In the meantime, she is just enjoying her puppy, Jasper, that Randy gave her. 
We love Jasper....even though Tom would never admit that he likes Jasper. Tom has never liked small dogs...only big muscular dogs like Rotties. But Jasper is so adorable, it is hard not to like him. Jasper loves Katie's knee pads and elbow pads that she wears to rollerblade. Here is a video of Jasper and Katie playing with them.The biggest news is that my wonderful godson, Jonathan, is back in Iraq. This is his 3rd tour. It was soooooo hard to say goodbye to him when he left on June 29th. I wanted to freeze his face in my memory. Actually what I really wanted to do is lock him upstairs forever so he couldn't go. But he is a true soldier. He would never go AWOL....no matter how much I beg. So all I can do now is pray and ask everyone to pray that he, and all other deployed soldiers, come home safe and sound. The one silver lining is that his time in Germany is up in December so as soon as possible after he gets back from Iraq, he comes back to the states! *HAPPY DANCE* I'm very excited!!
Even though he hates being called a hero, he will always be a hero in my eyes!!Tuesday, July 07, 2009
This n that
As you can probably tell by my lack of posts, I have been really busy in the last month. Jonathan flew in June 9th for block leave and left June 29th. I LOVED having him here. I have missed him so much. It was so hard saying goodbye because he is deploying for his 3rd tour in Iraq in just a couple of weeks. I'm never more close to God than when Jonathan is in Iraq. I pray for him numerous times a day when he is there. I can't wait till his tour is done and he is back home. If he never saw combat again, I would be the happiest person alive! On June 28th, my little sisters came for a visit. I am really enjoying their visit. I don't get to see them nearly enough.
That's Paula's husband behind the buffet bar!
Yesterday, we went to Savannah, GA. I have never been there before. We got there at 10:30am and went straight to Paula Deen's restaurant, Lady and Sons, to put our name on the list for a table. If we had gotten there any later, we wouldn't have been able to eat there. We got the last time slot of 2:30. I have only watched bits and pieces of her show and am not a fan of country cooking but my sister, Aimee, was real excited to go because she is a huge fan of Paula Deen. We had 4 hours to kill so we rode around Savannah soaking in the atmosphere. Savannah is like a combination of Charleston and Aiken....both beautiful places. Jeannette dropped us all off and Jessica went to get the card to get into the dining room but since Aimee was in a wheelchair and I was pushing her, they let us in without the card to wait in the waiting room. While sitting in the waiting room, Paula Deen came out of the kitchen and walked just a foot away from us and said "Hey yall!" to everyone in the room, then went to her cut out and said "I like this picture! Don't yall like this picture?" Call us dorks but Aimee and I got VERY excited! Well Jessica came in and got us to go to our table with Jeannette soon to follow as soon as she got a parking place. While we were sitting at our table soaking in the atmosphere, Jessica spotted Paula's husband at the buffet. She grabbed her camera and asked him if she could have her picture taken with him. He was very nice and said yes. 
Jessica must have gone around there 100 times and even saw one of the sons! It was so cool. Aimee got fried shrimp. Jessica and Jeannette got the buffet. The buffet was just country crap so I didn't want any of that. So I ordered a crabcake burger. I love crabcake and have had it at many different places. I have to say this was by far the best crabcake I have ever eaten and it was HUGE! I couldn't stop going "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!" while I was eating it! For dessert, we had a little bowl of chocolate chip ooey gooey cake. That was awesome too! 
Paula looked like she had been cooking all morning in that hot kitchen.
We had such a wonderful time in Savannah. Jessica kept us laughing and on the way home, she was bouncing off the walls hyper in the van and was taking pictures of everything. There is never a dull moment with Jessica! Ya gotta love her!!
Jess and my lil sister, Aimee (above)
Jess and my little sister/our chauffeur, Jeannette.
Fort Jackson
I hate suspension bridges. This is the suspension bridge over the Savannah River. It looked like a big scary bird to me!
That's Paula's husband behind the buffet bar!
Jessica must have gone around there 100 times and even saw one of the sons! It was so cool. Aimee got fried shrimp. Jessica and Jeannette got the buffet. The buffet was just country crap so I didn't want any of that. So I ordered a crabcake burger. I love crabcake and have had it at many different places. I have to say this was by far the best crabcake I have ever eaten and it was HUGE! I couldn't stop going "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!" while I was eating it! For dessert, we had a little bowl of chocolate chip ooey gooey cake. That was awesome too! 
Paula looked like she had been cooking all morning in that hot kitchen.
We had such a wonderful time in Savannah. Jessica kept us laughing and on the way home, she was bouncing off the walls hyper in the van and was taking pictures of everything. There is never a dull moment with Jessica! Ya gotta love her!!
Jess and my lil sister, Aimee (above)
Jess and my little sister/our chauffeur, Jeannette.
Fort Jackson 
I hate suspension bridges. This is the suspension bridge over the Savannah River. It looked like a big scary bird to me!
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