Anything But Gray

Now, I don't know if you have to be a parent to "get this" or a woman, or what….but I'm going to blab about it anyway.

When you fill out all these forms for your kids for school there is the "emergency contact" spot.
And as a mom when I fill this spot out, I genuinely think to who my kids would be most comfortable with if they needed to be called. Luckily we have always had Ceci around to use as the contact. And the 2nd person listed has always been my brother.

Today, Lindsay's parents emailed me and asked if they could list me as the emergency contact for Lindsay.
Wow….
holy freakin' wow….!!!

I am seriously flattered. God's honest truth. Totally and completely flattered.
And I call Zak right away.."oh my gosh, guess what?? It's so cool! I can't believe they asked us!!" and I'm babbling on and on. Zak deadpans.."Okay, this must be a mom thing because….I don't get it? What's the big deal?"
So I decide he is no fun whatsoever and I hang up. And since I got a completely lame response out of him, I go running upstairs to Ceci and JR's. I throw open the door, start running up the stairs, yelling "Guess what the FBI guy and his wife asked me!?!?" (I just love referring to him as the FBI guy…and it wasn't even him, it was Janice that asked..anyway, I really should use his name. lol.)  And I tell them. And they got it..totally got why I was so psyched. lol. So that made me feel better. 🙂

It's seriously is a cool thing.
It's like a pat on the back kind of thing.."yeah, you guys are good people"
It made me feel proud.
It just made me feel good.
And maybe I'm a dork for admitting it…
But you know what?
I may be a dork, but I'm a "Lindsay's-emergency-contact-dork"!
And damn proud of myself!
ha!!!

Tonight Lindsay is spending the night with Jaime.
This is the first time Jaime will have a friend spend the night with her.
She is very excited. lol

They are all in bed and everything is good.
They had a great night and Lindsay seems to be doing fine.
She has slept over people's houses before, so she's an old pro and will more than likely be fine.

This is just so exciting to me! LOL
I think this is one of those kinds of things that I imagined about before we had kids…
It's fun to watch Jaime with her friends and I know how excited she is about this, so I think that just makes me so excited too. <shrugging> What can I say…it's contagious. LOL

Here's some pics.

Zak soaking all 3 of them
with a water balloon.

First sleepover our house aug 2007 (5)

First sleepover our house aug 2007 (9)

Jaime & Lindsay. I wish this picture came out more clear, but I still like it.

First sleepover our house aug 2007 (19)

Just a cute pic of Lindsay.

First sleepover our house aug 2007 (28)

And a cute one of Jaime.

First sleepover our house aug 2007 (51)

They played with Ben's legos and were very proud of their creation!

First sleepover our house aug 2007 (53)

Lindsay & Jaime getting ready to go to bed.

Enjoy!!

Oh…my friend Kim told me how the bears have been out bigtime at the glacier so I think tomorrow night she might meet us here and we're going to go take the kids out there and check them out!! Wish us luck…first of all that we don't get mauled and second of all that we get some good pics!!

Night!

I'll be honest here. I censor this blog, to an extent. I have struggled over wanting to "be real" but not offend anyone. Same as my day to day conversations. There's things I only tell certain people…we all censor ourselves to an extent.  and I've done pretty good at keeping this "neutral".
Fair warning…the censor button is off tonight. (It's 1am…that still counts as tonight. ) So off it's not even funny.
Read at your own risk.

I've survived a lot in my life.
Most times I couldn't be bothered reliving it.
It's done…shit happens…whatever…show me someone that hasn't been through a lot in their life.
We've all got our sob stories and I just prefer to not dwell in mine.  I talk about them, but I don't usually let them drag me down or make me feel like shit. Most of my past is very matter of fact for me.
And quite frankly, I happen to like the person I am and that whole everything that has happened to you, makes you who you are philosophy. I truly believe that so I try not to dwell on crap. I'd say a good 90% of the time, I do okay.
But every once in awhile, something will trigger a memory or a period of time that was difficult for me or something that is still somewhat unresolved for me.
And that's when history haunts me…and I honestly can't escape it. It's overwhelming and it hits like a ton of bricks.
I have to go with it. I have to feel it and I usually grab my ipod, throw on my headphones and try to write it out…
It's not happening tonight….
at all.
I'm just stuck on this song and listening to it over and over and over…

See now if he was in MY jury pool maybe I wouldn't have complained so much.

that's one hell of a juror.

I'd show up with my Team Aniston t-shirt on and cause all kinds of trouble…
Would that be considered taunting?
Is that a crime?
hmmm…..

These are probably the thoughts that are better left in my head, huh?
ha!!

It's date night and we're seeing the new Bourne movie…YAY!!!
I can't WAIT. I hope it's as good as everyone is saying….
I hate being disappointed with a movie I've been dying to see.

So this is Jaime leaving….

Jaime 1st sleepover Lindsay's August 2007 (5)

Where is she going, you ask.
To Lindsay's. For her very first sleep over.
And she did it. No phone call for us to come pick her up in the middle of the night.
I went to get her at around 10:30am and she still didn't want to leave!!
It was so weird last night…walking by her bedroom and it's empty.
But it was a nice weird. All night I just kept thinking.."wow…just wow."
I am so proud of her. I am so amazed at how time flies.
It's just neat…there is simply no other way to describe it other than neat.
She's becoming her own person and making her own friends and forming her own opinions….and just becoming her.
And I am so lucky to be her mom, so lucky because she is such an amazing little girl.
I remember how much I loved sleep overs and I'm so happy that now I know she's able to do it, so she'll get to do that.
And the Butler's are really cool people. (Lindsay's parents)
We couldn't have picked a better place for her to spend her first sleep over.
We feel so comfortable with them and trust them completely.
Isn't it funny? We actually don't know them that well, yet. But it's a vibe, a feeling you get in the pit of your stomach..yeah, these guys are good people. They actually remind us of us a lot. They are just very down to earth cool people.
 
I am so happy for Jaime. Here's a couple of pics of Jaime and Lindsay when I dropped her off last night.

Jaime 1st sleepover Lindsay's August 2007 (8)

Jaime 1st sleepover Lindsay's August 2007 (9)

What a couple of hams, huh? They are just adorable together and they play awesome together. They get along super, super good. They never bicker and Lindsay has a little brother (Jack) too, so she plays with Ben well, too. It's just an all around awesome thing!
Here's a pic of Jack, just because he's so stinkin' cute I had to take his pic….lol.

Jaime 1st sleepover Lindsay's August 2007 (11)

Jaime is sick.
It is so my fault.
Just yesterday I said to Zak "You know we had an awful winter (because we were all sick so much) but we've had a great spring and summer. No one's been sick hardly at all."
Then BOOM..Jaime wakes up in the middle of the night with a fever.

She was supposed to have a playdate today with a school friend she hasn't seen all summer. And tomorrow she is supposed to go to Lindsay's for her very first sleep over. And she has been so excited about this all week. She is going to be heartbroken if she has to miss it.

One of Jaime's neighborhood friends had a one day bug and I'm so crossing my fingers that that's what she has and she'll be fine by tomorrow night. And if not, we can just reschedule, it's really not the end of the world. But I tell you what, it's going to FEEL like the end of the world to my baby girl…

I hate seeing her sick and I really hate seeing her heartbroken.

Of all the times she could get sick…this has got to be the worst.
Fingers crossed she gets better in a day!!

So J did this quiz on her blog and I just had to do it too. I actually did it while I was on the phone with her. I love when we do stuff like this together. It's kind of our way of "hanging out". We laugh so hard it's not even funny. Times like that make super excited for the day her and I can actually hang out together, in the flesh. I think, after we got over the just staring at each other speak part, we'd have an absolute BLAST together.
Anyway, the first paragraph is pretty right on, but after that totally sucks except for that one line…."you can wreck someone simply by enjoying him…"
THAT is so going to be my new slogan. ha!!

The Peach Random Gentle Love Master (RGLM)     Playful, kind, and well-loved, you are The Peach.     For such a warm-hearted, generous person, you're surprisingly experienced in both love and sex. We credit your spontaneous side; you tend to live in the moment, and you don't get bogged down by inhibitions like most women your age. If you see something wonderful, you confidently embrace it. Your exact female opposite: The Nymph Deliberate Brutal Sex Dreamer     You are a fun flirt and an instant sweetheart, but our guess is you're becoming more selective about long-term love. It's getting tougher for you to become permanently attached; and a guy who's in a different place emotionally might misunderstand your early enthusiasm. You can wreck someone simply by enjoying him.     Your ideal mate is adventurous and giving, like you. But not overly intense. DREAD: The False Messiah (DBLM)

Fun, silly girl stuff!
Love it!

Both Jaime and Ben look exactly like Zak. No doubt about it, those are his kids.
Once in awhile someone will say they see me in Jaime.
I, however, do not see it…at all. Not even remotely.
And Ben is actually a spitting image of my brother when he was a kid. Anyone who sees a baby pic of my brother, sees it. But it's weird because he does look like Zak when Zak was a kid.
Well my mom found this picture and she scanned it and emailed it to me.

This is the very first time I can see that Jaime does look like me.
It makes me feel good.
Like finally I can lay claim to these kids. LOL!!

Joanna&Mark

And another week begins.
The weekend was good, nothing major…
I called my sister and we talked for awhile and that's cool. She has been so busy lately that we've barely been talking, so it was nice to get a chance to talk to her for awhile. I talked to Gabby for a bit too and that was really cool. I miss that little girl so much.
I worked on cards yesterday while Zachary washed both of the cars. Jaime spent almost the entire day playing with a little girl (Ella)  that lives in the house behind us. They played over here most of the day and then Jaime went over there for awhile and had dinner there. So weird when your kids start getting big enough to have friends and they occupy themselves. It is such a good feeling to be able to get things done around the house and know your kid still had a good day. I always feel a little bit guilty if I don't spend some actual time with the kids, so it's really, really nice when they are occupied and having fun.

Kim is supposed to be back today so I want to email her and see how her weekend was.

I have so much I want to get done today. I really need to get into the office for at least a little bit and make sure everything is still going smoothly. I can bring Jaime with me and set her up with some school work while I get things done. I've been trying to keep her doing at least a little bit of school work every day. It's not much, but I just want to keep her on track over the summer. 1st grade moves a lot quicker than Kindergarten and I want to give her as much of a head start as I can. So we work on some words from her 1st grade word list and we usually do a page of math and then I have her write in her summer journal. She usually does pretty good. There are days it's a battle and on those days, I usually give her just one little thing and then let her play. I don't want to be a hard ass about it. I want to keep her enjoying it and happy and having a good attitude is more important to me than making sure she does some school work every single day…so on the days she's not happy about doing it, it's fine with me to not do it. I go through the "you can blow this off because it's summer school work but during the school year, you can't do this…"  lecture. And she seems to get it, but we'll see. ha!

I have house cleaning crap to get done, go pick up my contacts, check the mail, go to Joann's, do my banking and budgeting, grocery shop and work out at some point. I might wait to grocery shop until after I pick up Ben from daycare. We'll see how the day goes…

It's a cloudy day and I'm so wishing it wasn't. I was hoping for some sunshine to drive my nice clean truck in!
Oh well….it being cloudy doesn't make the truck any less clean….so I'll live. ha!

I am so excited for the start of football this year!!
Our team is going to be so freakin' good this year it's not even funny.
Training camp has begun and I love it!
They post pics on the website and it was so cool to see this pic….

Training camp begins

You know who that is? ( I don't care that you don't care…:-)) It's Wes Welker. That fine young man right there used to play for the Dolphins….He is now ours….all ours and I friggin' love it. How fun is that? When your team gets one of the only good things about your husband's favorite team?? I am going to "love" giving him shit about that all friggin' year….ha!!!

And here is our fearless leader….

Brady training camp

Now, I have to say….I wasn't madly in love with our quarterback. I was more of a Patriots fan, rather than Tom Brady fan. Nothing against him, by any means…the guy is amazing and I'm sure as hell glad he's our quarterback. But he doesn't have a big personality out there on the field. I watched a show on the Patriots awhile back and heard him talk about this picture….(the pic of him with his hands on his head.)

Superbowl 2001

Everyone has seen this pic a million times, but during that show was the first time I heard the story. He was standing up on the podium after wining the Superbowl and he caught his sister's eyes in the stands, he then put both arms up and pointed at them with both of his hands and then put his hands to his head, still keeping eye contact with them and shaking his head and he says he was thinking, while looking at them "Can you believe this?"
Right there…that one little story.
Sold. Hook, line and sinker…
I love Tom Brady…

I am so excited for football this year and it was cool to go to the website today and check out the pics from training camp. I can't wait for the season to start.

Now if only Asante would knock his crap off and get to camp….things would be perfect.
And really…while I hope Asante stays….what I hope more is that the team can just put it out of their heads and play ball.

Anyone remember the first play of the season last year, when the whole Branch saga was going on? Oh..something like Tom Brady fumbling and the Bills recovering it and running it in for a touch down..all within the first SECONDS of the Patriots taking the field? yeah…let's not do that again, boys!!!

Sorry for the incredibly boring post for all you non football fans….