A Visit from Family

My grandpa and Aunt Diana came from NJ to meet Keagan. It was a great time! We did a lot of hanging out at the house, and eating too. :)

Mom came in Wednesday, Aunt Diana and Grandpa came in Thursday, then Maria, Jayme, Charles, and Nikki came in Friday. It was nice to see everyone and have Keagan get to meet Grandpa and Aunt Diana. Keagan was rather good the entire time. All smily and loving Nikki.

We went to a "pumpkin patch" Saturday.


They sold ridiculuously expensive pumpkins. They went up to 25$ for a large one. But we wanted to carve, so we went to Walmart and got huge ones for 3$ each. Yes, 3$ each.



We were gonna go to Livesay Orchards, about 1 hour away. But it was rainy and 1 hour away. We didn't figure it would be worth the drive. This place is less than 1 mile from out house.


Everyone still seemed to enjoy themselves. And we got a bunch of cute pictures.


That night we had chili and carved the pumpkins. It was fun. Aunt Diana said she hadn't carved before. Below are the finished products. Shannon carved a Halloween Powercat, I carved a normal distribution. Mom carved a witch, Jayme a crazy face. Maria made a snowboarder, and Aunt Diana a girly face.


My mom bought Grandpa a netbook for his birthday. We were worried he'd not like it at all. But quite the opposite! He loved it! The goal is to get him wireless at his house and then he can Skype with us and see us. So, hopefully that all works out.

Sunday Aunt Diana and Grandpa left in the morning, then Maria in the afternoon. We went to Hunter Park and Pei Wei before Jayme, Charles, and Nikki left in the evening.


Mom left Monday afternoon. Now it's back to just the 3 of us. I had an awesome weekend! It was so great to see family! And for my birthday, too!

Football Season Begins

Well, college started already, and K-State had a good win. And actually, NFL started last night, too. So Football Season is underway! Awesome!


Last weekend, we had a visit from Jenette, Chris, and Cassidy. That was fun. They spent the long weekend with us playing Necromunda, eating sushi, and hanging out.


We watched the K-State game on Saturday. Cassidy and Keagan (as well as the 4 adults) dressed in purple gear. It was quite cute.


We started a new Necromunda campaign, and played 10 games.


We played Wasabi, ate some sushi, ate some Siegi sausages, and split up the Just Between Friends sale clothing.


Keagan plays with her feet lots. She can get them to her mouth now, too. It's pretty cute. Sometimes she is able to roll her self onto her back in the morning and then she just plays with her feet, allowing us to sleep a little longer.


I've been doing Etsy stuff. I have about 1 sale every 2-3 days. Keagan has been getting extra upset at night again. She seems like her gums hurt, or her tummy sometimes. But she's been great still. What a cutie. She's good in her car seat, which makes trips to join Shannon for lunch even better.

Meeting 37 People

Last Tuesday Shannon and I took Keagan on her first long trip. We drove through Wichita to Garden City. Driving time was about 7 hours. And she was good for all but 30 minutes of those 7 hours. She got hungry but we were close to my mom's so we just drove through.

So what did we do? Well, Tuesday we left around 3:00 and ate dinner with Mom, Jayme, Maria, Charles, and Nikki at Hanger One Steakhouse. It wasn't bad. The knives to cut the steak sucked a lot, though. After dinner, we headed to Garden City. We got there around 2:00 am and met Gary, Michelle, Jenette, Chris, and Cassidy at IHOP. That is significant because Michelle got back from England the day before. We hadn't seen her in about 6 months. And it was the first time we got to meet Cassidy! She is a cutie! (Number of people met: 4)


Wednesday we went to a funeral reception for one of Rhonda's friend's father. We knew him also from church and hockey. It was nice to see people we havn't seen in a long time (and some I've never met before). (Number of people met: 5 + 4 = 9)


We did a lot of hanging out. We had food, watched World Cup soccer, did some shopping at Sam's Club, played games, went on a walk to a garage sale, and other such things. My mom worked in Dodge City last week, but had a hotel in Garden City. So, she spent the evening hanging out with us too. :)


Friday, Grandma and Grandpa in Lakewood came down! They brought with Randy, Jonathan, and Major (Randy's beagle). That was awesome! So they ate dinner with us and and hung out on Friday too. (Number of people met: 4 + 9 = 13)


Then Saturday was the main event, Grandma Fuller's 91st birthday party. We went to her house around noon and were there till around 11:00pm.


There were a lot of people there! I'm not going to try listing them all, but Rhonda and all her kids and their families were there (1+1+3+3 = 8 people), Marsha and all of her kids and their families were there (2 + 6 + 3 + 10 = 21 people), Grandma Fuller, my Mom, some of the Dick family (3 + 1 + 1 = 5 people), and a bunch of Grandma's friends that I don't know! So, there were about 40-50 people? (Number of people met: 21 + random + 13 = 37)


We had lots of food and cake. More games were played. And I got to meet Mason! He is a cutie.


We put together the pirate kite that we got from Newgen a while ago and tried to fly that. The kite is sweet, but the wind was not good enough for us to fly it very well. Shannon got it up a few times, but it wouldn't stay up long.


We had a party of people go out to fly it and had some come out to Grandma's driveway to watch also.


Then Sunday (yesterday) we did our last day of hanging out. It was Father's Day and we had two first time dad's with us, Shannon and Chris, and 3 other father's too (Grandpa Dick, Gary, and Kevin). So we ate at Lone Star and they did a great job this time. Which means it will likely suck next time, that's how they roll. But it was really nice to eat a meal with everyone (there were 15 of us there).


I'm so glad that I am a part of two great families and that these two families basically act like one big family. I am very lucky to have been close to my mom's family growing up. It stinks that we are so far apart now, but I always feel loved by them and going back to see them never feels like I'm a foreigner. And now, I have Shannon's family to be a part of (and have for the last 9ish years). They are all great people, too!

I'm glad Keagan gets to have so many great family members!

10 gone

This week at work, we have about 10 people gone for a company cruise/presentation trip. Shannon and I are not part of that 10. But that's okay. We get a nice week at home. :)

Good news... Tara and Dan have their baby boy! Isn't that awesome! You can see a picture of the happy family here. Cool.

Also, Michelle is in England!? Crazy. She left Friday from Garden and got there safe. I hope she has a super time there! When she comes back, Jenette and I will both have babies! Crazy.

And I worked on the quilt for Chris and Jenette's baby while they worked on the nursery. They painted it a muslin color (instead of the green that was in the room) and are putting up a blue and brown paisly/victorian/fleur-de-lis type border. We only recieved a phone pic, but it looks nice so far! Shannon and I plan to have Mom come up sometime in February/March and work on the nursery then. The later we do it the better, because it requires a moving of my craft room. :( But we will rebuild it in our bedroom!

News

Today Jenette and Chris should find out whether they are having a boy or a girl. :) I'm excited. Then in about 2 months Jayme can tell us too!

Christmas was good. We spent some great time with Rhonda, Michelle, Jenette, Chris, Gary, Dave, Grandma Fuller, Steve, Margo, Adam, Morgan, Brooke, Judah, Tate, Caleb, Jaxon, Boaz, Tara, Dan, Bobbie, Jeff, Brendan, Trevor, Macy, Grant, Marsha, and Kevin (that's a lot of people, and by next Christmas the list will have at least 3 more names). We played games, ate good food, went to church, opened gifts, drove home, saw my mom, saw Newgen and Andrea. All sorts of goodness!

The only part of the drive home that was hard was in Oklahoma. Yes, KS has basically no snow, but OK had a good deal. The construction on I-35 sucked. The only partly plowed the road so we went 40 through the construction and still slid a bit. Then in Tulsa it was even worse! Again only part of the roads were cleared, the rest were icy and lumpy. Shannon drove well and we got to our house only to fail at driving up our driveway into the garage. So, at 2am Shannon shoveled and salted the whole driveway while I slowly unpacked the car parked on the street. Then he drove it in and we went to bed. Guess what was clear the next morning... our driveway.

Geepers! If they would plow and salt they wouldn't have the problems. Or even just plow. Or even just salt! But no. We don't have those luxuries here. If you recall, this was an issue last year as well... post 1 or post 2 or post 3

Winter Dance

We went to Manhattan on Saturday to watch Michelle perform in K-State's Winter Dance. It was entertaining. But that was only part of the weekends mentionables. Also in the list:

• Getting to see Gary and Linda. They flew in from CO earlier in the week and we got to see them Saturday and Sunday. That was nice. We saw Gary in March (?), but I haven't seen Linda since May of 08. Jeepers!
• Really slow, some-what crappy service from Houlihan's. That isn't normal. That place is usually really good. Also, my chicken was super-dry and practically rosemary-free (it was Grilled Rosemary Chicken).
• The roads were REALLY icy from Salina and about 20 miles south. I was driving and could feel it getting bad, so we slowed down from 70 mph to about 50 mph. But then we saw a wreck (a big one, like 5 cars) and slowed down some more, maybe about 40 mph. Then we went over an overpass, which was super-slick. I almost lost control of the car, but luckily I didn't nor did I hit anyone. So, I slowed down to about 30 mph. And drove between 30-45 for about 45 minutes. It was crazy. I could feel the car slide on each overpass, which I just coasted over. We saw another wreck, a pick-up rolled onto it's side, about a mile after the first. It was pretty nasty.
• We have our car back!
  

We got home around 7:30. That is really early for us. We planned to stop in Wichita and see family/friends. But we didn't want to get stuck in the weather, so we just kept on driving. At home we put lights on our tree (no ornaments yet) and ordered some pizza. This was the first time in the past four months it didn't feel gross to eat it. Maybe we won't toss an entire pizza in a week.

Weekend Adventures

*I had this posted last week, but with fooding with family, I decided to take it down until afterwards. Now that that is done, here is the post! again*


I enjoy having fun-filled weekends. Since the work week is always the same thing, day after day, it's nice to spice things up over the weekend.

After spending time at Riverdance and dealing with our car last weekend (by the way Jenette, Chris, Newgen, and Andrea, I belive we were in the wrong seats b/c someone else was in ours), this weekend we stayed home and spend time with Maria.

This was the third time she's been to our place. She helped us move in, and spent the night when we went to New Jersey last November for Teresa's wedding. So it has been a little over a year.

She came in Friday and we showed her around work. Then we used her Durango to pick up our tv stand. We brought it back and set up our new tv on the new stand!! It's wonderful! The tv is nice and now the cable works* and our room is so useful! The couch is marvelous the tv is great. It's nice!

We watched movies, hung out with Hendrix, played games, went to the park, ate out, cooked at home, and just kinda chilled. She left Monday morning because she had work. No fun.

Well, even more no fun. I was making Shannon and I some Maple Malt-o-Meal for breakfast after she left. It had been cooking in the microwave for 3ish minutes. I went to take out to stir, and spilt it. All over my left wrist. It. Hurt. A. Lot.


I cried (and I don't cry often over pain). It sucked. I soaked it cool water for a good while. Shannon went to the store to buy me some gel to put on it. When he came back, I put it on and put some lose gauze over it. Then I layed down on our new couch with Shannon and watched some tv. Trying not to think about the burning pain on my wrist.

Eventually the pain stopped and we made some gingerbread for houses on Friday. Then we make a huge list for Thanksgiving and went shopping. We got almost everything we need, it ws 300$. :) That was a lot. But really, Figure it'll be around 375$ with everything (turkey and bread and all) for about 3 meals worth of food. We got stuff for lunch on Thursday and for Thanksgiving dinner, and for dessert, and for breakfast on Friday and for making gingerbread. (6$ in molasses!).

I am SO looking forward to seeing family and eating food and having off of work and making gingerbread houses! I love the holidays!

*The cable would have worked when we first tried on Friday evening if the cable guy who came out when we moved in turned on ALL the cable and not just one of out connectors... Oh, Oklahoma.

Today I went to the doctor for my burn. He gave me some ointment to put on it. I'll go back in 1 week to make sure it's all good.

Okay, the picture below is kinda gross. So if you don't want to see my ugly blister (that is now HUGE) don't scroll down. If you want to be grossed out, then go ahead. It's quite huge. (like 1" by 1.75"...







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really, you don't have to look.














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but if you want to.....












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here it is!!

A Visit from Jayme, Charles, and Nikki

Last weekend Jayme, Charles, and Nikki came down. They got in late Friday and stayed till Sunday afternoon.

We had a good time. We played games (Pandemic is still awesome), ate foods (including waffles and custard and Hideaway), went to a baseball game (where Nikki bathed in a snow cone and the Drillers lost 0-9), tried on a dummy wedding dress (fit pretty good), bought the fabric for Jayme's actual wedding dress (for 60$), bought flower centerpiece stuff for Jayme and Charles' wedding (also about 60$), and just hung out!

I had a really nice time. It's good to see family. Now, Michelle is here and my mom is coming in this evening! I'm excited! This will be possibly the first time my mom has come to Tulsa to just hand out and not do something to the house.

S'mores

Well, we own a house. We closed on Friday the 6th and had a lot of people there this past weekend. Me and Shannon, and Rhonda, Michelle, and Anthony, and Jenette and Chris were all there Friday night. Then Mom, Jayme, Maria, and Nicki joined us Saturday night! We all slept in our new house and it was awesome!

Above is the S'mores Michelle and Anthony ordered at Cosi for lunch-dessert.

Christmas Part 2

While in GC, we didn't take many pictures. We had a great time with extended family. Christmas was fun at Rhonda's. Then we headed to Grandma Fuller's for lunch and family. There was ham loaf, rumors of undercooked ham loaf, doodle bears, Wii, dog piles and more!


The kids are all getting so big. It's fun to talk to them and watch them play. The next day we went to Bobbie and Jeff's for some chili and some more games. There were many games to be had in Garden, on the Wii and off.

We left of Friday and headed to Wichita for one last Christmas celebration with my mom and sister this time. Oh, I almost forgot!! For the Christmas Eve service, Shannon wore his black suit from Rhonda and Dave's wedding. He hasn't worn it in a while so, we checked to make sure it still fit.

It did.

To New Jersey and Back

I went to New Jersey to visit may family about a week ago. It was great fun! Everyone looks really good and seems pretty happy. I finally got to meet my cousin's son, Tommy. He's a pretty cool kid. He's almost 2, and a cutie.


My cousins threw a birthday party for Nicole. That was cute. Half-way though singing to her, she started to "sing" with us.


My grandpa looks good. My cousin Kat is having a baby boy in about 2 months. She looks pregnant, but good.


It was a good time. I have a lot of pictures from it, but my internet connection is quite slow so the pictures are taking forever to upload.

Saturday I go here. Not because New Jersey cool, heavens no. But because I have basically all of my mom's side of the family there. I haven't been to Jersey in about 3 years! I've never even met my cousin's son, Tommy, whom you may recall. He's almost 2! Jeepers.

I'm glad I'm going. I look forward to seeing everyone!