Angels among us…

I know it is unusual for me to post during the week these days, but I am so excited I am beside myself! Angels are here, in Alabama… Blue Angels that is; and I get to meet them tomorrow!

That’s right, up close and personal, on the tarmac at the Tuscaloosa Airport! I get to go out, meet the pilots, touch the planes, take pictures, etc. I don’t get to fly with them, which would be like the total ultimate fantasy, but a member of the Children’s Hospital Critical Care Transport team does. And since he flies our helicopter transporting very sick children every day, and is also a huge fan – I guess that is fitting… I’m okay with it :)

Believe me; I will have plenty of pictures to share tomorrow! I can’t even sleep I’m so excited – I’m like a kid in a candy store!!! If you are here in Alabama and possibly can, don’t miss their show this weekend in T-Town… it is incredible!! They are after all – The Best of the Best :)

Technology…

Is it really a good thing? I’m telling ‘ya – with every new “toy” I get, I spend way too much time learning how to play, ahem, I mean use it. And I learn by stumbling across things.

My latest toy is a Blackberry; a.k.a. my new work phone. How funny to use the word ‘phone’ with this contraption – you mean you can actually call people on it?? I haven’t got that far yet, lol. Which reminds me, I should probably set up a voice mail message, yikes!!

I have done many cool things on it so far though, the problem is most of them I don’t know how I did so I can’t do them again :) I’ve master using Facebook on it with the help of Emily at the office; and of course the all important site – NASCAR.com!! Next… Blogger of course!

Now the way I see it, when I start blogging from my cell phone, I’ve officially arrived into the world of technology! Either that or I’ve become the oldest nerd ever; after all… I was cool when I was young :)

~Oh and by the way, somehow I have the same icon on the front twice and don’t know how to get it off – that is making me crazy!! I’ve probably spent about 2 hours today trying to fix that!! Joooossshhhh...

Once upon a time (3-22-09)…

This is a very special story about the land called Once Upon A Time, and Nana is so excited about sharing it!! Princess Isabella got to spend the day at Nana’s Saturday, and it was so much fun. After picking Isabella up from her mommy they had lunch at McDonalds. Bella loves ketchup, a lot! She ate almost all of her chicken nuggets and french fries. She and Nana laughed so much – when she wanted more ketchup on her tray, she would let Nana know by pointing at it and saying “peese”. By the time they left Micky D’s, Bella had almost as much ketchup on her as she had in her :)

When they arrived at Nana’s house and walked on the porch, Bella wasn’t sure about the dogs she was hearing bark inside. So Nana let her stand on the porch and look at them through the door – she gave Bella a few pointers and in a matter of minutes Bella was laughing at Nana’s dogs!! She was also giving them very stern orders… “hush Kelso”, as well as “no, no Fancy” were staple phrases throughout the rest of the day. Also, in less than an hour she was chasing Kelso trying to give him love, and he let her. Precious!!

Of course pulling out all the toys was a must! Bella’s favorite thing to do was to put the pegs from the Cracker Barrel game into the little glass. Nana was also very impressed with her extraordinary coordination at such a young age – she is very good at putting the pegs in the game correctly (clearly genius) :) She also has a great dance move; she squats down and on ready… set… go… turns around and around. They did that a lot!

It was such a beautiful day, Nana and Bella decided to go outside for a while. Bella still thought it was funny to be on the porch and see the dogs through the door. She is such a dare-devil too, Nana had to watch her very close because she isn’t scared to go right to the edge or to the steps and try them on her on. She is so much like her daddy at that age (bless her mommy’s heart, lol).

They walked out to see the chickens, and she loved them. She just looked at them when only Nana was there, but later when Grandpa Cookie got home she and Nana played outside with him and the chickens. She helped him feed them and she even pet one. She loved it and did not want to go inside with Nana!

Back inside, Nana and Bella and her daddy played and played! And then they had a very special surprise!!

Princess Isabella’s cousin, Princess Ella and her daddy stopped by to visit!!

Nana was so happy to have both of her Princesses at her house together again :)

There were a lot of kisses!

And Ella was so happy to see Isabella that she even shared Bunny with her.

Ella’s daddy, Isabella’s Uncle Josh, always makes them laugh.

And still so many kisses – Bella got lots and lots of kisses Saturday from everyone at Nana’s house.

Including her very own daddy :)

YAY for a great day!! Nana can’t wait to do it again soon :)

as always ~
to be continued…

Catch-up…

It seems like that is all I’m doing lately, playing catch-up. Whether it is at work, at home or at play – I feel like I am behind in every aspect of my life and the more I try to get caught up the further behind I get.

At any rate – as I’m writing this I realize it should probably be low on the priority list when you consider my house is a wreck, laundry is piled up and don’t even get me started on work stuff. But oh well, I want to blog! I want to sit here, drink my coffee, write my stories and share my pictures… so that is what I am going to do. It’s not like the dirty house or the work is going anywhere, right?? Apparently it has all decided to wait on me anyway :)

I have started an exciting story that I’ll be posting sometime today, but I realized I couldn’t really get ‘caught-up’ in that story. It deserves to be dedicated to just itself; so here are a couple things I’ve been meaning to share…

First of all, have you ever had one of those times where you experienced about a dozen reactions in less than 5 seconds flat? Well I did the other day when I read one of Kristin’s blogs! She apologized to anyone that reads her blog from Google Reader because she had edited her post a few times. Let me start by saying I have seriously never even opened this thing in Google, I have no idea what that is like. So I read that and my face, and thoughts, went from total confusion to total realization – with all the reactions in between – in that short time period. I am so picky about how a post looks that I will edit it 20 times if that’s what it takes to make it “look” the way I want it… I had no idea people who view this in Google Reader was getting every single one of those versions!! I am soooo very sorry! Even as stupid as I felt when the full realization started sinking in, I laughed so hard at myself! But I’m gonna go ahead and tell you, if my post doesn’t look right – I’ll do it again, I just can’t help myself!!

Now on to the fun stuff - here are some really adorable pictures of a very fun day with Ella:

Much to her mother’s dismay, she loves the chickens













Much to Grandpa’s dismay, she is a little too fearless













Ella loves when G’pa lets her pet the chicken













She is Grandpa’s official ‘helper’













She takes her job very serious and *needs no help












*I added that because she caught Grandpa helping her close the gate and gave him quite the lecture about how she can do it herself!! If you are around Ella any at all, you know when she starts shaking her hand at you she means business - G'pa got the hand good that day; Nana loved every minute of it :)

What is more fun for a 2 yr old than Silly Putty from an egg? Or a Nana and G'pa who gets to let her play with it for the very first time :)













Making french fries and hamburgers out of silly putty













No, she didn’t eat it – she was pretending :)

A favor from the Blogging Community, PLEASE…

Most of you know I work at Children’s Hospital. Each year a patient is chosen to participate in the Champions Across America Program from each state by our largest CMN sponsor - Walmart / Sams Club. This year the 2009 Alabama Champion Child is Kace Lightsey – please take the time to read his story, as well as a little of the history of this program by clicking here.

One of the great things about being chosen as the Champion Child is a trip to represent the state at the Children’s Miracle Network Annual Celebration at Disney World in Orlando. Kace and some members of his family are there this week and he is blogging about his trip. He is so excited and wants so badly to have comments left on his blog – don’t we all love comments!!

In addition to this fantastic trip to Disney World, Kace and the other Champion Children will also travel to Washington, DC to meet members of Congress and the President of the United States. What an exciting time in a child's life!!

Please, take the time to at least leave this precious child a comment; and if you feel led, maybe you could even pass his blog along to your community of readers in the blogging world!! I’d love to have Kace become an “overnight” hit :) It would mean the world to a young man that has had a pretty rough life in 13 short years. Thanks to you all in advance!!

Kristin’s talent was a hit…

I had the pleasure today of giving my very talented daughter-in-law’s wall hanging’s as a gift to a co-worker at a baby shower. Click here to see the beautiful job she did on them for me!!

Jennifer loved them, and so did everyone else – including one of the other pregnant ladies I work with that Kristin is also doing a set for! A couple of the women helped her carry all her ‘loot’ to her car and they each, separately, came to me afterwards to tell me how she went on and on about how much she loved them and said she already knew exactly where she is going to hang them.

Thank you Kristin :)

Sweetest puppy...

If you are reading this on Friday, scroll down to the bottom on the page and just try to deny that is the sweetest little face EVER!! I love puppies :)

So, I’ve been thinking…

Yeah, I’ve said it before – scary, I know :) Anyway, I’ve spent A LOT of time on the road in the past few weeks traveling for work. As a matter of fact I’m in a comfy “Heavenly Bed” at the Hampton Inn-Mobile writing this.

It started February 10th – I spent several nights in Dothan for our local radiothon; two weeks later I was in Montgomery a few nights for our local radothon there. Last week I drove to Huntsville, spent the day training and drove from there to Florence where I spent one night, trained the next day and drove home that night.

This week started by driving to Montgomery Monday morning and training, spent last night there and trained there again today. Afterward I drove here to Mobile where I’ll train someone tomorrow and will then drive to Dothan. I’ll train there on Thursday, spend another night there and then drive to the office in Birmingham on Friday (whenever the hell I wake up) before going home.

So… like I said, I’ve been thinking. I used to want a job that required travel. I really wanted to travel ALL the time because I love visiting new places, meeting new people (or seeing friends), etc.

I still enjoy those things, and maybe it’s because I’m older – but I’ve decided checking in and out of hotels, spending hours on the road, missing my husband, my family, my dogs, my home, living out of a suit case, the list goes on and on – are NOT fun things!

I still want to travel “occasionally” for business, I wouldn’t miss the radiothon’s for anything – but never again will I desire a job that requires it regularly!! Did I mention I’m VERY tired???

Too funny not to share...

A little boy wanted $100.00 very badly and prayed for weeks, but nothing happened. Then he decided to write God a letter requesting the $100.00.

When the postal authorities received the letter to: God, USA, they decided to send it to the President. The President was so amused that he instructed his secretary to send the little boy a $5.00 bill.

The President thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy. The little boy was delighted with the $5.00 bill and sat down to write a thank-you note to God, which read:

Dear God: Thank you very much for sending the money. However, I noticed that for some reason you sent it through Washington, DC, and those assholes deducted $95.00 in taxes!

Snow dogs...

As an add-on to my previous post, let me also note; I do not control the weather dear dogs, nor do I have switch to flip it off per your needs...

I got this great shot of Fancy looking at the snow like "what the...”. I wasn't as lucky with Kelso because he stuck his nose out and then literally took off running away from the door to hide under Cookie's feet :-)

It took about 3 or 4 tries before they would finally go out this morning in this strange white stuff - and still I had to basically kick them out when they started doing the "pee-pee" dance in perfect rhythm with each other! *Maybe I'll put them in ballroom dancing*

When they finally did go out, they tended to their 'business' and came right back... in record time I might add! I'm not sure you can tell from this picture, but Kelso didn't like it, didn't want to do it, didn't linger in it, and although relieved - was a little ticked at me that I made him go out in it :-)