Getting Married the "Right Way"

In the last couple of weeks, there's been some postings on Facebook from people about their impending marriage.

For days leading up to their special day, the bride posted about how excited she was for the big day, how she couldn't wait to spend the rest of her life waking up beside her soon to be husband, and other statements like that. One bride put as her status the morning of her wedding that she felt like a kid on Christmas morning.

Those are all very touching and meaninigful statements when you're embarking on the adventure of marriage. I know I said the same statements. However, in my opinion, those statements loose something when you've already been shacking up and already sleeping together. Really, what's changing, beside the fact that you'll now have his name, and have made a life long commitment to one another (which in this day and age, sadly, we know for a lot of people isn't really true). You're already living with each other, already having sex, already waking up to the man. Not much is going to be different, aside from the titles and such.

Steven and I were both excited to get married. Our lives, once we said those vows, were forever changed. I had still been living at home, with my parents and brother,  it was AFTER we were married that I moved in to Steven's condo. We hadn't already been sleeping together, we were saving that until AFTER we were married. There was so much for us to be excited about.

Over the weekend, we were sitting and chatting, and I was telling him about my Facebook friends and their statements and how it made no sense to me, he told me about this article, Getting Married the Right Way and it hit the nail on the head, it was a really great article for those of us who've gotten married the "Right Way."

Helloooooo Out There!

It's been a very long time since I've updated this blog, or any of my three blogs for that matter. I've missed writing, I've missed keeping a journal of what life has held for me, for our family.

It's been well over six months since I've last updated and so much has happened in that time. I have been putting off blogging until I could go back and write 'catch up' posts from everything our life has held for us since my last posting in January. But I've come to the conclusion, that if I want get back into blogging, I need to just start afresh and not try to go back and write posts from the past. However, I will highlight some of the big things of the last 8+ months.

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My position at school kept me very busy. In addition to my duties as PTA President, I was the chairperson for Teacher Appreciation Week, headed up the Year Long Perfect Attendance Lunch with the Principal, and many, many other little things that definitely kept me busy. As for this current school year, I am once again PTA President, but know the role better this year and have learned to really delegate and not overextend myself. I'll be honest and say I've lost some of my steam as two of my closet PTA girlfriends have "abandoned me". LOL. One left the school completely, and the other was just fed up with all the drama and isn't a part of PTA at all, I don't blame her one bit.

The beginning of May found Steven scheduled to go to Maryland for a week on business. The company in which he is employed with, is located in Maryland. This company bought out the old company last October and have expressed interest in him coming out once or twice a year. May was his second time in going out. There's been several times through the years that he's been scheduled for business trips and he always suggests finding a way to have me join him, etc. But it's just never worked out due to finances, the girls ages, their school schedules, and just life in general. But this time, it was looking like I'd be able to join him! And I was beyond excited!

He flew out early Monday morning and I would join him Thursday and together we'd spend the weekend touring Washington DC!! I flew out Wednesday night and took a red eye flight, my air travel coming to an end around 9:00 Thursday morning! I picked up my rental car and found my way to the hotel in which Steven had been staying. I had all of Thursday to relax, nap, and unwind from what had been an extremely busy few weeks, while he worked his normal work day.

On Friday, I met a dear, dear girlfriend for lunch. She lived a little over an hour and a half from where we were and there was no way either of us was going to miss the opportunity to see each other. We met for lunch and spent hours talking. That evening when Steven was done working we made our way to our hotel in downtown Washington DC. We had booked a room on Priceline.com that landed us just two blocks from the White House! We dropped our bags in our room and set off to see the first thing on my list...The White House!

There are no words to express the emotions of seeing something you've always seen in pictures, on the TV, heard about. I was truly in awe, and couldn't believe I was actually in Washington DC!!

Saturday morning we hit the ground running. We spent the next 12 hours INTENSELY sight seeing!! You name it, we probably saw it. We packed days of sightseeing into that day, as well as the few hours on Sunday morning we had before flying home.

We flew home Sunday afternoon (Mother's Day). I am so incredibly thankful for the opportunity to have had this trip. The girls stayed with my parents, and I had a girlfriend pick up the girls from school along with her daughter and drop them off at my parents house the two days they had school while I was gone.

To see our Nations history left me speechless. Seeing the White House and the Lincoln Memorial brought tears to my eyes. And all I can think of is I cannot wait to go back! There is still so much more to see of our Nation's history. I loved traveling, I'd never flown by myself but enjoyed it, and I LOVED the red eye experience and having an entire extra day on that end. I can't say enough great things about those four very full days. I will say that within weeks of getting home, we'd opened up a credit card that gives you points that can be applied towards traveling - hotel, airfare, etc, and I've started using it EVERYWHERE I can to earn more points! THAT's how much I wand to go back. And in my mind, it's not a matter of "if", it's "when", because as long as Steven works for this particular company, there's always the chance he'll be going back!

Once the girls finished the school year, we had 8 1/2 weeks of summer break and we tried to make the most of it! We took day trips to the beach with friends, went to Hollywood, to the movies, and so much more! Including a week long of VBS where Steven and I were both very much involved.

We also spent a week camping at our favorite beach campground! Normally a large group of people from church go, but no one got reservations this year, which meant, there'd be no kids there to entertain our kids. But I had the bright idea of taking our nieces with us for the week and that worked out wonderfully! The four girls had a tent to themselves and got along all week and had a blast....all the while making memories!! It was a great way to end our summer break, as Rachel started school the very next week!

The school year started with a bang....Rachel fell and hit her head and sustained a concussion and couldn't go the first day of school! But she went the second day. Hannah started Jr High a week later, which gave her and I some mother/daughter days....shopping, shopping with a friend and her daughter, lunch, etc. And then once she started school....my taxi services started right back up, however, now I go to two different schools. I think I'm finally used to it, however, it's the afternoon pick up time that's starting to really wear me down. Rachel gets out of school at 1:55 and Hannah at 3:00. There's no since in coming home for such a short time, so Rachel and I have to find things to do in that hour between schools letting out. I created a homework basket that is stocked with everything needed for doing homework (pencils, crayons, scissors, gluestick, etc) and we've gone to the library, gone to my parents house to visit Gramma, we've run errands, and this week, with the temperatures cooling down a bit, we've been able to go to the park. But there's two hours every day that's taken up with pick up, waiting, and then pick up again. Once the weather cools down even more, I can have Hannah walk to my parents house some days and she can spend time with my parents and come home after dinner.

There's so many more things I can think of to write about, but we'll save those for another day. I'm happy to have written this post and look forward to blogging again!

A Special Project

Thursday evening, we attended a reception for participants, and their families, of a recent project done at Loma Linda University Medical Center, the place where Rachel has had all of her surgeries, where her team of doctors practice.

The special project was that of a makeover to a major hallway on the 1st floor of the hospital. It's the hallway that leads from the elevators to the cafeteria as well as connects the Medical Center with the Children's Hospital. So it's a highly traveled hallway. The project name is called the "I Am Hallway". And in this hallway, now hangs about twenty pictures, up and down the hallway. These pictures are huge, maybe three feet by three feet?? If not bigger. The individuals chosen for the project have each been given an "I Am" statement. For example, "I am a Survivor", "I am a medical marvel", "I am Loved", and the list goes on and on. In the corner of each of these pictures, there is a paragraph that tells the story of the person and how it is that they represent their "I am statement".

Rachel's "I Am Statement" is "I Am Beautiful". To read and see pictures of it, visit her blog, Rachel's Journey, and read the post titled "The I Am Hallway".

So back to Thursday evening, this reception was attended by all the amazing people that participated in this project. There were young (one little girl was younger than Rachel), there were not so young, there were men, there were women, there were perfectly healthy looking individuals, and there were some that weren't. But every participant had a story. And as we got into the car after this event, I felt exhausted, emotionally and physically exhausted. I'd been fighting tears back most of the evening.

When Rachel was born with undetected birth defect, we were devastated. Deep down, we knew things were going to be okay, she had a long road ahead of her. But it was still hard nonetheless.

The evening represented a few different things in my mind.

For us, it was a celebration of how far we'd come with Rachel. That picture that now hangs on the wall in a major medical establishment, is a testament to God's unfailing love, His unfailing concern, and of answered prayer, many, many answered prayers.

The evening also made me think about people's outside appearance. To look at quite a few of those people, you would have no idea what things people had gone through. Others, it's obvious what people are going through, or gone through, - the boy in the wheelchair suffering from muscular dystrophy or the little boy about Rachel's age walking around the room with a walker and a tracheostomy, living his life with Spina Bifida, but just as happy and outgoing as he could possibly be. Every person has a story, some stories just aren't obvious. I need to take more time to learn people's story, who they are, how far they've come in life, do they know Jesus.

This week, one morning while the girls are in school, I want to go back to the Medical Center and stroll down the hallway, looking at every single one of the pictures, reading each and every one of the stories. The few I did read the other night were touching, I'm sure the rest will be too...

Happy New Year!

Happy 2012!

It hardly seems possible that Christmas has come and gone and we are almost a week into the New Year! Growing up, I always felt as if it were a lifetime between Christmases and now that I'm grown up, it just doesn't seem that way.

The last month has been a busy one with lots happening.

The last week of November/first week of December had me living the Single Mom life, as Steven went to Maryland on business for a week. I was up really early most of the mornings, and staying up late most evenings. I don't sleep well when he's away, which isn't very often. And life around our house is very different when Steven's gone. He works from home and very rarely leaves the house with the exception of Bible Study every other week and a meeting here and there. So to not have him home, is strange to say the least. But we all survived. :)

The early part of December, our school district and the teachers were struggling to come to an agreement on their contract that was time for renewal. Upon returning to school from our Thanksgiving break the teachers were working only their contracted hours (7:45-3:00) and nothing extra. There was so much going on, and for someone like me who is always at the school, involved, I had no idea. So at for our December 6th PTA meeting, I invited the Superintendent to come speak and give the district's side of the feud. When opening the meeting, I said that PTA was not endorsing one side or the other, but were acting as a means to getting the word out. Sadly, the responses following that meeting that I received, as well as other PTA board members were not good. Some of the teachers became bullies and told PTA we needed to pick a side, and it should be the side of the teachers. It became a huge mess that resulted in myself, the Vice President, and the Parliamentarian having a meeting the very next afternoon, whereas all but six of our thirty three teachers were present. They gave us their side, and we were able to share how we'd felt after being treated the way he had in the previous 24 hours, and defend ourselves. In the end, for the most part, things are okay between the PTA and the teachers, but upon going on vacation, there were some teachers who still were not speaking to us. Time will tell how things are next week when we return to school after a three week holiday break.

The final week of school, both the girls tried out for our schools musical production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. And after four days of auditions, letters went home on that Friday letting the students know if they had or hadn't landed a spot. I was very skeptical of my girls trying out. I know the commitment for this production is HUGE. And I was praying that both the girls got a spot, or neither of them did, so as to not mean so much running for me once rehearsals start (next week!). I am proud to say that both the girls were accepted and will be performing in this grand production. Dates are April 12, 13, and 14th.

On Monday, December 19th, Steven and I went into Hollywood to the Pantages theater to see WICKED! He bought me the tickets for my birthday as I absolutely fell in love with the production when we saw it for the first time three years ago. It was amazing. I loved it and of course left wanting to see it again, just like the first time!!

Christmas was very different this year as it fell on a Sunday. Not only did our church have our usual Sunday morning service, but we also did a Christmas Eve service. We attended both. We had a good Christmas. And again I'll say I can't believe it's come and gone. Every year, I say to myself that I want the season to just slow down so that I could enjoy it, and while I did enjoy it, it wasn't quite slow enough for me. LOL. Picture taken on Christmas Eve
With the way the holidays fell this year, and the need to take a personal day from work, or he'd loose it, Steven had two four day weekends! We did several fun things as a family.

On Friday, December 30th, mid morning, we headed into Hollywood to the Pantages Theater to participate in the matinee lottery for $25.00 Orchestra seats for WICKED. With the girls getting ready to embark on their own broadway-like adventure in performing Beauty and the Beast, we wanted them to see something big and spectacular. And with the months and months of being subject to the listening of my soundtrack, as well as viewing a recorded show on DVD, Hannah was interested. Unfortunately, not one of us won the lottery, but following the ending of the lottery, the Pantages offers discounted tickets for $45.00. We decided that price was still a great deal and got in line to purchase tickets. Originally they had announced these discounted tickets were for the Mezzanine seats. But upon my purchasing the tickets, we were given seats for not only the Orchestra floor section, but it was the 9th row, four seats on an inside aisle!!! I was so excited to discover the location of our seats, and for the price!! We paid $45 a seat for seats that normally go for $163.00!!! The show was just as amazing as it had been eleven days earlier. Although this time we were close enough to see a lot of detail you miss when you sit in the balcony, even if it is first row balcony. This time, not only did I leave loving it just as the times before, so did Hannah, and before we were even out of the theater, she was stating the fact that she'd love to see it again! That day will forever be etched in my memory of a wonderful spontaneous adventure!!

The consolation adventure, had we not scored tickets in the lottery for WICKED, was that we had free tickets to the Long Beach Aquarium that were expiring on the 31st. When Rachel learned that we would not be going to the Aquarium that day, we promised we would take her the very next day. Which was the adventure for New Years Eve Day. We hit the road by 8:30, stopping at McDonalds for breakfast and got to the Aquarium an hour after it'd opened. Steven and mines goal was to get there and get home late afternoon/early evening before the craziness of New Years Eve set in. We met up with our good friends who also had tickets for the Aquarium. We spent the day together admiring the beautiful creatures that God placed in the sea and ended our time together with a late lunch / early dinner. We spent New Years Eve home, just the four of us. It was a quiet evening and relaxing for me as Steven worked on church work on the laptop. It was a nice way to end our two days of great adventures!

The New Year is off to a good start. I hope do get back to blogging more regularly in 2012. The girls go back to school on Monday, so it's back to our school routine. The next few months are going to go by rather quickly I have a feeling. And before too long, we'll be attending our daughters promotion ceremony from Elementary School!

This and That

The girls returned to school on Monday after having had a two week break.

It was a nice break from the regular routine of getting up and out the door so early every morning, from homework, and for me, the busyness of being so involved at school.

While we were off, I didn't touch my black PTA bag once! I vowed to finish up all my little projects on the last day of school and then put my bag away for the two weeks and I was able to do just that! Yea Me! LOL.

I had every intention of catching up on my blogs while we were off, but I never accomplished that. I'm such a slacker. I do miss blogging.

We had a great time off. The girls and I got one trip in to Disneyland, in addition to the private annual passholder party that Steven and I got to go to one weekday night! The girls spent the night with my parents and Steven and I went with some good friends of ours. It was a great date night and we had a great time! I love Disneyland this time of year!!We had a nice Thanksgiving. I cooked this year for the four of us, my parents, and my brother and sister in law and two nieces. It was a quiet very low key day with lots of yummy leftovers!

This is the second year in a row that I've pulled an all nighter for Black Friday shopping! And boy, is it ever fun, especially when you go with a couple friends! I scored some amazing deals and think this very well be my new tradition of literally shopping til I drop. LOL.

We went back to school on Monday for three weeks and already I'm back to the busyness of projects. The PTA recently sold See's Candy for a fundraiser and that arrived yesterday, which required it to be sorted and bagged for all the orders the kids brought in. Today is pick up for the candy. So I'll be at school a few hours today for that. Next week is Hannah's Christmas Choir performance and the teacher has already cornered me into video taping it and processing it, there's the December PTA meeting next week. The following week is our last week of school before going off for three weeks for Christmas and the New Year. And that week holds a field trip for Hannah to Medieval Times, musical auditions that Rachel is participating in, and Christmas parties for each of the girls classes. This busy and this is just my school projects. LOL. But I love it and I love being able to stay home and be so involved...

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

For most of my life, I've always had long, long hair. But at the beginning of summer, two years ago, I had ten inches taken off and I donated my hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths.

I donated my hair on behalf of three women. My longtime friend Diana, diagnosed with lung cancer in the summer of 2008 and went home to be with the Lord in January 2010, and for the sister-in-laws of my friend Amy, both who had been diagnosed with breast cancer earlier that year.

You can read about it and see the before and after pictures on the post I wrote "Taking a Load Off".

Who would ever have thought that as my friend Trudi cut my hair that warm summer evening, that less than two years later she too would be diagnosed with breast cancer.

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This afternoon, I went to "Dancing for a Cure", a dance recital put together where all proceeds go to breast cancer research. This afternoon, and at the show this evening, Trudi got up before two almost sold out audiences, and told her story.

She told her story of how one weekend morning, as she rolled over in bed, she found two lumps and how she put off going to the doctor until weeks later when she couldn't lift her arm up to get something high out of the cupboard without pain.

She told of the day she and her husband were told that the biopsy revealed, "it's Breast Cancer".

She told of how she thought that having only 9 of the 31 lymph nodes testing positive for cancer was a relatively positive thing, while her doctor thought otherwise and upgraded her to Stage 3.

She told of the two rounds of chemo. The effects of loosing her hair. The five weeks of radiation, five days a week.

She told of the booth at opening day of our local town soccer club. They were taking pledges for an upcoming walk for Breast Cancer. Trudi signed up to walk. A year ago, breast cancer awareness wasn't as close a topic as it had become in the last nine months.

I'll never forget the morning she told me. It was at school, kids were running about on the blacktop, waiting for the bell to ring to begin their school day. She wanted to be the one to tell me before I heard it from anyone else. Her news hit me hard.

I've known people who knew people diagnosed with breast cancer, or so and so's Mom, or the friend of so and so. Or so and so. But never had I had a friend who'd been diagnosed with breast cancer. Now I personally KNEW someone who had breast cancer. She's my age (a couple years older, but close enough). She had two kids the same ages as our girls. I remember calling my mom once I got in the car and tearing up upon telling her. Trudi's cancer has touched many a hearts.

This is Trudi with her eight year old daughter. Trudi is a Breast Cancer Thriver. The last eleven months have been horrible ones. Filled with doctor appointments, Chemo appointments, radiation appointments. But she's alive. She's thriving. And she's an inspiration to many....

It's been a Busy Month!

October has turned out to be a very busy month for me. And slowly, one by one, I'm checking things off my list!

Myself and another Mom were in charge of the 6th grade fundraiser that ran the last part of September into the first week of October. The kids sold raffle tickets and are raising money for Science Camp in April. There were three different deadlines for the kids with and each deadline meant a trip to the classrooms to pick up any tickets that had been turned in. And then there was the counting of the money and the raffle tickets, etc, etc. The buying of the prizes to be raffled off, etc. I spent countless hours working on the record keeping and making sure everything would be easy for the teachers to stay informed of the students who paid, who still have a balance, etc. Last week, myself and the other Mom were finally able to turn over all the money and the balances to our office manager and to the teachers in preparation for parent conferences to be held this week. I was sure happy to hand all that over!

On October 13th, our family attended our first Fall Ball at the school. In the six years that Hannah's been attending the school, we've never once gone to any of the dances. But this year, rather than the traditional Monster Mash that's been done in recent years, our Fall Ball Committee did a Country Hoedown! I had the best committee chairmans overseeing and planning the entire thing (Thank You Letti!!!) It was a fun evening of line dancing, face painting, food, and a country photo booth! We had all kinds of props that made for great and fun pictures! I've heard nothing but wonderful things about the evening and how much fun families had and what a great change it was from years past. I think we may have a new tradition!Members of the 2011-2012 PTA
In addition to to 6th grade fund raiser, and the hoedown, I also had a school wide Box Tops contest come to an end last week. Which for me, means counting all the Box Tops that have been held on to until the last minute and then verifying the count and ready them for shipment, and then printing up notifications for the winning classes, etc. We collected almost 20,000 Box Tops!This is what 15,800 individual Box Tops looks like. 316 bags of 50!
The other thing that's been on my plate this month is a project at church. October is Pastor Appreciation Month and for the second year in a row, I've taken on the project of collecting donations and special cards, etc, and then purchasing gift cards and putting together a gift for our Pastor and his family. Numerous emails having gone out, as well as printed copies of the letter handed out at church, proved very successful and we were able to bless our Pastor and his family by presenting them with a package of beautifully written cards, gift cards for dinners out, as well as a Visa gift card to go away as a family for a few days. That was presented to them yesterday, and thus another project finished for me for the month...