For the moment

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Well its been almost a month since my last post. So much has changed and more events take place everyday!

So, I decided to take a little weeklong trip to Virginia with Sydney. I helped Jennifer out with Joslynn while John was away on business. We had so much fun!
While we were there, we went shopping, ate some much missed local food, and best of all we stopped by and saw the place where Rodney and I hope to be married next St. Patricks Day!
This place is small and not very fancy, but the best part about it is that it's back in Virginia where all of my family is and that it's right on Yorktown beach!
I tried my dress on for some of my family while there. A girls night in with Jennifer, her friend Melissa, Tiffany, and my cousin Jeri was the perfect opportunity to let my family in on what I've been focusing on recently. Just so you know, the dress still fits!
Jennifer and I went to Trader Joe's while I was there. I found the most wonderful thing, which I hope they will carry next year at the same time. They had beautiful shamrock plants with small little white flowers in them. I've been looking everywhere in Tennessee for something like that, to no avail. They also have my hydrangeas! Looks like I'll be doing my own flowers!
I have also found a little rental place that has table linens and chair covers and sashes for almost $1 a piece in your color! Now let's see if they will be available next March when I need tons of green and brown.
I guess that's some progress with wedding things, although technically we have put things on hold for a bit.

Rodney and I have decided that it's time to move back to Virginia!
I am so excited for Sydney to be with my family more than she has been in the last two years. That's right, she's ALMOST 2! Wow! I can't believe that my baby is almost 2! You would never believe the brain my child has-she is so smart. We are hoping that Rodney will be accepted into the fire department there and I can get a job there since I am having no luck with Knoxville. We will have a lot of help with Sydney and more quality family time. Did I mention that we get to go to the beach more often? That's a plus too!
Rodney's parents are looking for better opportunites too and it turns out that they will be following in our footsteps and moving back as well. Now we won't have to worry about whether or not we will be able to travel for holidays! Now it'll be time to split our family time between multiple houses.

I've found a few houses that we like, but they have all turned out to be scams. These same scams got the best of Rodney's parents and now they are out of a few hundred dollars. Why are people like that? Why is that these people are getting away with these scams and making money while others are struggling? It's wrong, very wrong-I'm just glad I picked up on it before we acted on any of their requests.

I got a new tattoo!
That's right, tattoo #2, on my right foot. It is very pretty! I got Sydney's name written in script on it! Rodney got one too. It's an Autobot symbol on the back of his right calf. For those who don't know it's a Transformers symbol for the good transformers. He loves Transformers so I can't really argue with it. And it actually looks good.

Sydney has 2 more teeth. That leaves 2 more to grow in. She hasn't eaten very well because of them, and has been sick 4 out of the last 7 days. I couldn't tell you how many times I've washed her, her bedding, and her favorite stuffed animal because all of them were covered in diarrhea or vomit.
OH THE JOYS OF PARENTHOOD!
Did I mention that we airdry all of our clothes because we don't have a dryer? Yeah, well when there is only one "Charlie"-her stuffed animal and he has been washed, it's hard to get her back to bed without him. I can't exactly give him back to her soaking wet.

The weather is much nicer. Sydney and I have planted some flowers in a flower pot that we painted a few weeks ago. They are sprouting quite nicely. We've already had a pic-nic at the park!

I've had a little problem with my weight recently and would love nothing more than to wrap myself in a blanket and take on the world that way. None of my clothes are fitting very well anymore and it doesn't help that I sit inside babysitting all day and can't get out to get active. It also doesnt help that when I go to work I sit at a desk all night and I get to eat food from a Steakhouse for dinner-not very healthy. I'm ready to go swim suit shopping but not in this condition. After getting down to a size 4 after having Sydney and gaining more weight, I'm not very happy. Besides, it's not healthy to not get out and do anything about it. Rodney and I used to go walk the trails at the park with Sydney. Now that was a good workout; then winter came (blah). Anyway, Kelly has packaged up some clothes that she can't use anymore. Let's see how those work out for me.

Well I think that's enough catching up for now. Back to my almost everyday routine... children during the day, work at night, then bed. Get up and do it all over again. I really wish I had enough time and energy to get my house as clean as I'd like it to be...

one day...

one day.

Let's Get Down to Business

March 9, 2010

I haven't posted anything in over a week so let's catch up shall we!?

Our Gatlinburg trip has come and gone and while we had a little trouble managing schedules around two napping toddlers and 6 adults showering, we still had a good time and took some good pictures. Rodney got to meet his niece for the first time and Joslynn liked him more than me...at first ;-) That was very exciting!

After coming back I was supposed to go to a local bridal show-all of my dates canceled on me...nothing too new to me. Time goes on and so must I!

I have very exciting news! I FOUND MY DRESS!

After many days of putting 1000lbs of dresses on and off, I've finally picked MINE!

For fear of Rodney seeing it, I will not describe it nor post pictures of it just in case he keeps up with what's supposed to be "our" blog.

We've also made some changes!

Our e-mailed save the dates went out a little while back-sorry if you didn't get one. I got an error message saying there was a problem with one or multiple email addresses. However, my dad received his....the date is set for March 17th, 2011. It is the day after we started dating. For those who are familiar with dates, it is also St. Patricks day! With that being said WE'VE CHANGED OUR COLORS!!!

That''s right, we're adding some "Davids Bridal Clover Green" and we're throwing out latte and champagne.

My latte and champagne colored dress was discontinued and after trying on another one (the one I bought) I just didn't feel the same way about choice #1.

The search for venues is on!

The best place so far is....................................................

The Waterman's Museum cottage on Yorktown Beach!

So pretty but now it's time to crunch our guest list. I'm sorry to everyone who is not immediate family/close family friend. We've decided to keep it down to a minimum and include just family in our special day-that does not mean that we don't love our friends! We love you all.

I'm looking into going to Virgina for a week this month to check out places and visit with family and friends. I also have a bridal show to attend on March 21st! Hopefully I can make it to this one. They are doing "Bridal Idol"- maybe it's my time to get up on stage and sing to someone for my wedding's sake =)

picture that!....

So excited!!!

I must tell everyone, I am so excited! These next two weeks are going to be great.

This weekend Rodney, Sydney, and I are going up to Gatlinburg to stay in a cabbin! It is the annual Valentines/February trip for Jennifer and John (my sister and brother-in-law), and considering we don't get to see them much and we are only about a half hour away, we go and stay with them! This year is going to be so exciting though! John's parents will be joining us but what is really great is that Sydney and Joslynn get to play together! They have not seen each other since June! Joslynn is now 1 and is steadily gaining on Sydney who is 6 months older.

I'm most excited that I get to spend time with my family and I get to record it on my new Camcorder-(does anyone call it that anymore?) Anyway, I get to catch all of our fun on my new camera! I am not looking forward to the drive up the hill to get to the cabbin though. I'm sure we will record out whole journey and weekend to share.

After the weekend, it's another long week at work until Sunday the 28th! IT'S BRIDE'S DAY HERE IN KNOXVILLE! I have us pre-registered to go and walk around to meet a whole bunch of vendors and get some snazzy gifts from them! I think after that we will have a better understanding of what we have here in Knoxville as resources.

We have no new wedding plans at this time. We are still working on the one's we've made already. That may be put on hold a little bit too!

Another thing very exciting is that I may have the opportunity to come home (Virginia) for a little while! This opportunity is very few and far between so taking advantage of it would be so great. I think most everyone knows that I truly miss the place that I come from and it's mainly because everthing I've ever known is there. My family, my friends, my places of work, my schools, and everything that ever contributed to who I am today is there (Besides Sydney of course). I am lonely here in Tennessee and really miss my best friend. Growing up together we've had our fair share of times where we got on each other's nerves but time apart is great for letting the people you love back into your heart even more. What's worse is that my family barely even knows Sydney. She will be 2 this July and they have seen her only a handful of times. Sadly Kelly has only seen her at 6months old and Levi has never seen her in person.

I think a trip home is much needed!!!! By the way, I miss being able to get up and go to the beach when I want to. There's no ocean in Tennessee.

So we're taking a little vacation on life and we're getting back to the things at heart!

Speaking of hearts, we took Sydney to get her Valentines pictures done.. hope you enjoyed looking at a few of them!

Strong....and Growing

February 11th, 2010

It has been some time since I last posted something on our page, but a lot is going on!Let's get you up to speed!

Sydney has been the center of our attenting for the last few weeks. She decided that she wanted to climb over the railing of her crib and has fallen to the floor. While she was not injured, she was very frightened by her incident. Since then it is a constant struggle to get her to go to sleep....IN ANY BED! It has become a full blown battle to where she is using levredge to get away from the bed or me. Sydney has now learned that the teeth in her mouth (which she has now grown her two bottom first molars in) really hurt when they are put to use on a person. Especially when that person is mommy! She has also found that when you want to pull something, you probably shouldn't pull your own hair out.

I have put her in bed with me at night and Rodney has slept on the couch. With that said, I want to apologize to some people. I now know what it feels like to have tiny little toes kicking you in the ribs. I now know what it feels like when you are up all night because if you leave your child's side they are wide awake and a little more grumpy since you tried to leave. I now know what it feels like to have absolutly NO feeling in my arm for fear of removing it from behind my childs head in order to keep her asleep. I now know the importance of lubrication-for those squeeky hinges on the door that are another factor in prohibiting you from leaving your child in the bedroom to sleep alone. To anyone who as ever been through this because of me...I'M SO SORRY!

It is really heartbreaking to go through all of that with your child. I'm finding it hard to believe that Sydney isn't tired of me by the end of the day considering I stay home with her and go work at Outback at night while Rodney comes home to be with her. We transformed her crib into a toddler bed yesterday and she has done alight in it. I found her this morning talking to herself while looking at books in her bed. I assume she was reading to herself! We will see how things go from here!

At the Outback:

We are preparing for a huge over haul in the restaurant as far as employment goes. If you didn't already know, I was given the opportunity to take my management test-and I passed! It's just a matter of time when I can actually do the training for it. Because I only work for a few hours at a time, I am at Outback everynight except Wednesdays. I spend almost all of my time in the office and working on 'busy work'. Since doing that, I was given the title of Training Coordinator for our store. That position pays more then my normal position but is far fewer hours. I put a lot of time into this job getting new employees trained and on the floor, keeping current employees up to date, and making sure our paperwork is in proper order for when we get audited.

Rodney is still the Assistant Kitchen Manager and works that position a few times a week. He has been stressed at work recently due to the expectations of his title and what follow-through is being done with the tasks he has been assigned. He has now come to the conclusion that he wants to keep trying for the fire department here. Once that happens, he only plans to be at Outback for a rare dinner (he won't want Outback food for a long time after that).

Together, we've decided that we are going to get healthy!

After watching some very interesting infomercials late at night, I have found a workout program that looks like fun to do. My goal is to tone up and his is to lose all of the weight he has put on since Sydney came into our lives almost 2YEARS AGO! He also wants to look amazing for our wedding. =) We've decided that if it is possible for us to go to Bali, we're going to skip the wedding and elope there. That's just wishful thinking after watching Couples Retreat! Funny movie.

Something interesting happened yesterday and it really got me thinking.......

We had an appointment at Sears Portrait Studio for Sydney to get Valentines Day pictures done yesterday. On our way down the road to get to the interstate, we were stopped by a loooooonnnnnnnnggggggg line of cars and police. It just happens that this spot was blocked for construction work. Thinking someone hit a construction worker and tried to flee I sat there with Rodney and Sydney minding my business. Then an ambulance comes and I'm confirming my theory that someone is hurt. Then cars start turning around on the road and the closer we get I see a man being placed into handcuffs and put into a police car while at that same moment a hellicopter was flying above us!! Here's the real scoop on why all this was going on:

It started snowing here in Knoxville with some very bad winds so school was let out at about 11:45am. About an hour later a 4th grade teacher at a school just down the road from us went into the office of the school and shot 2 ladies-both the principal and asst. principal. Two children were there waiting on a ride home and two administrative staff members pulled them under a desk for saftey. The man in handcuffs in front of us was the man that did the shooting at the school. This is the 2nd school shooting here in Knoxville in 2 years. The first was at a high school where a student killed another. WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO?! WE HAVE CHILDREN IN THESE SCHOOLS! HOW IS IT THAT AN AUTHORIZED TEACHER IN THAT BUILDING HAD A WEAPON ON THE SCHOOL GROUNDS?-HE WAS OBVIOUSLY NOT THE BEST PERSON FOR TAKING CARE OF CHILDREN ALL DAY. THE SCHOOL BOARD HAS POINTED OUT THAT THIS MAN WAS NOT GOING TO BE A RETURNING TEACHER NEXT YEAR AND THAT HE DIDN'T REALLY HAVE ANY TEACHING EXPERIENCE BECAUSE HE GOT HIS CERTIFICATION IN 2007. It terrifies me to think that Sydney could go to a school that will experience something like this.

With everything going on, we are trying to stay strong and grow from everything!

Just so you know, no new wedding plans have been made recently. We will inform you when there is more to know!