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Ok, no, we are not having a baby, but pretty much every other female I know is!
I want to give a shout out to Megan and Gabe Bock who just had their daughter, Gabriella on Monday (a week ago). And also, Gabe and Stacy Neal who just had their daughter, Maeve, today! We also have several other friends who will birth children at any moment and several with little ones on the way.
So welcome to the world little babies!
Summer is Here!
I love the summer! I love the sun, the heat, the outdoor activities, the long hours of daylight and tan lines and icy cold beverages. I also love that the kick-off to summer is our anniversary. On June 10, Michael and I will be celebrating the three blissful years that we have spent and The Waters. This year’s celebration is yet to be determined, but I’m kicking it off tonight by giving Michael a really cool, surprising gift. He thinks he knows what it is, but I think he has no idea. You all know that I love giving gifts too, so I can hardly wait to get home tonight to give him his gift.
I’ll update you this weekend on his reaction and what the gift actually is…but it’s gonna be good, so hold your breath! It won’t kill you and it’s totally worth the surprise!
Vacation – Day 1
Here are some pics from day 1 of vacation in Port Aransas.
The view from the condo looking out across the ship channel.
Broken Bill, the pelican. His bill is broken so he can’t pick up scraps off the dock, and probably can’t really feed himself since fish can escape when he tries to strain the water.
Here’s Old One Foot, the seagull. He only has one foot, and a stub. He uses the stub to balance.
Uncle Larry and Captain Steve. Uncle Larry likes to help sort the shrimp and picks through some of the bycatch for bait.
And here is the end result. 4 keeper Redfish. Disclaimer: I did not catch any of these necessarily. I caught others that were too large or too small to keep, but it was a good time anyway.
A front moved through last night, bringing a strong northerly wind with it. The water is pretty choppy right now, but hopefully we can get out again later this afternoon.
The Way it Really Happened
In the previous post, “The Great Furniture Rearrangement Debacle,” my dear husband told a story of furniture rearrangement in our bedroom. He also said, and I quote, “I won.” In this post, I will tell my version of the story and you will see my genius!
As Michael mentioned, the original furniture configuration of our bedroom included our king-sized bed begin centered on the long wall, flanked on either side by our night stands. My side is the left side of the room, Michael is the right. So, to the left of my nightstand was Michael’s mess, I mean desk. This desk is HUGE and never tidy. There is also a chair that doesn’t quite fit all they way under the desk to it is always protruding. This narrows the space between the edge of the nightstand and the mess to a big goose egg and from the edge of the bed to the mess, only about 2 feet. Because of my limited space, I often resorted to using the mess chair as a place to store things…my purse, etc. And I also added to the mess. What Michael didn’t mention is that although we have this enormous mess (by now you should have picked up that mess=desk) he rarely uses. RARELY. Then on the occasion he wants to use it, it is a disaster. Covered in his “tinkering” business and often my accessories, mail that needs to be filed, etc. Needless to say, I HATED this desk being on my side of the room. I mean it had been the bane of my existence.
So, it just had to change. I tried to come up with different furniture arrangements, all of which originally included leaving the bed where it was, but moving the desk to the opposite side of the room which actually has more space. According to Michael, the desk absolutely had to stay where it was because of the internet jack. However, we have WIRELESS internet and the computers (yes, we have multiple and when I say multiple I mean like 10 in our house) that require “hooking up” don’t even work!
So because the mess could not move, my next choice was to angle the bed in the opposite corner. We had done this in our old house and it worked beautifully. Michael is over angling though so option 3: put the bed under the windows on the right side of the room, flank it with our nightstands. Move the dresser to the long wall and leave the desk as-is. From a space stand point, this is actually and ideal set up. And as Michael quoted from Step Brothers, it left us room for activities like karate (also known as playing with the dogs). Activities…very clever husband. However, as Michael also correctly stated in his post, the air vents in our room (we do have a rather large room) are all located in the center of the room…all three of them, and we apparently don’t get great air circulation. So the new furniture rearrangement was hot and altogether uncomfortable. The dogs didn’t like it either as we were now really far away from them.
Result: no one could sleep. Not us or our four-legged family members. I always woke up hot in the middle of the night and the dogs were always pacing around at night. For two weeks, we were zombies. Then, that was it. We had to move the furniture back. However, that mess still could not stay where it was! I refused to chare my sanctuary with computer parts other than my husband. (Side note: what was the name of that TV show where the girl was a robot? Small Wonder or something like that? I think Michael might be part computer. Like a transformer, but instead of becoming a car he becomes a laptop). And Michael knew my utter disgust for the mess! So I told Michael that I would agree to moving the bed back to its original, full air-vent exposed location if the desk could move to his side of the room and the dresser to my side. And that was that. So now, the bed is really where I originally wanted it, the desk is moved where I wanted it and we are all sleeping well at night.
The Great Furniture Rearrangement Debacle? Debacle indeed. If by Debacle you mean Erika is a genius!
Disclaimer:
Ok, so Michael and I really do get along and kind of did this post for fun. Neither of us really manipulated the situation at all, but we have fun angling the outcomes and results so that in each of our opinions, “I win.” This situation actually worked to the best of both worlds and we are really happy with our current furniture arrangement. But just for good measure, “I win.”
Oh and my current Wii Fit age is 20! Boo-yah!
The Great Furniture Rearrangement Debacle
Over the last few months, Erika has been kindly pestering me. She had grown tired of our bedroom arrangement. My desk, which is a perpetual mess due to my electronic tinkering, was on her side of the room, and limited the space she had. The room felt cramped to her, while my side of the room was very spacious. She was determined that if we could move the bed to a different wall, everything would be so much better.
I was not convinced. I fought a long time to leave things the way they were. I lost. 2 weeks ago, we completely rearranged the furniture in our bedroom. The desk and tall dresser stayed where they were, but everything else moved. Erika had her additional room, and there was plenty of space for activities (anyone seen Step Brothers?). It was glorious.
Then we went to sleep. For the last 2 weeks, I have slept horribly. You see, our bedroom is like a large rectangle. The bed used to be on the long wall, which put us in the path of the air vents, and underneath the ceiling fan. When the bed was moved, we were now on the short wall, out of the path of the air vents, and not under the ceiling fan. The air was stale against the wall. It was hot and uncomfortable.
Enter the Great Flood of 2009. We received about 9 inches of rain overnight on Tuesday morning. The rain was extremely hard and the lightning show was amazing. Unfortunately, Erika doesn’t like storms. Neither does Dixie. In fact, whenever it storms, Dixie feels like she can’t be farther away from us than 2 feet. So she had to get into bed with us. It stormed from at least 2 a.m. until at least 5 or 6 a.m. With the already stale air and now 2 dogs cozyed up right next to us, I could not sleep. I had had enough.
Tuesday night, Erika agreed that I was right all along. We immediately moved the furniture back. I did agree to move my desk to my side of the room, giving her at least a feeling of having more space. I have slept so much better the last 2 nights. While I wish I would have won the Great Furniture Rearrangement Debacle the first time, my ultimate victory is still sweet.
Adventures on the Wii Fit
Michael and I purchased a Wii Fit a couple of weeks ago. Honestly, I couldn’t believe that anyone could get a workout on the Wii Fit. It’s a joke right? Like something to get shut-in gamers and old people to exercise? I did play it at my friend’s house a while back, and I will admit that I was a little sore the next day from hula-hooping. But I am also sore after vacuuming my stairs some times, so I didn’t really give it a second thought.
When we purchased the Wii Fit, I thought it would be something fun to play rather than the normal Wii sports. I didn’t realize the potential that the Wii Fit has! I have only missed one day of “working out” since the purchase of this clever little contraption. And can I tell you that it really kicks my butt? Now, although I’m not a gym rat or even consider myself a fitness enthusiast, I am always doing some kind of activity…running, biking, walking the dogs, pilates–things like that. And though I can be tempted to eat just about anything, in general I feel like I have pretty good control over my diet, portion sizes, etc. In general…I think I’m in relatively good shape for living in the fattest city in the nation. I didn’t think that the Wii Fit would be a challenge, but boy was I wrong.
As I mentioned in a previous post. my Wii Fit age was 33 
at first attempt. I am proud to report that my age is now 29! Only 3 years off so not bad. Michael continues to clock in as younger than he is…whatever! He is really good at step aerobics. I can’t even seem to come close to his score. We have discovered that I have a hidden talent for hula-hooping–1782 spins in 6 minutes…booyah! And apparently I’m a good down-hill slalom skier…hahahahaha! Sondra Hoffman can testify to the reality of that. On second though, Chris Foley can also testify to my limited skiing abilities. In fact, now that I’m really thinking about it, it was dear friend Chris and sweet husband Michael that told Sonda and how how much we would enjoy this particular run because of the scenery at Keystone. They failed to mention that half the run was moguls! Funny thing…I managed through without falling, but once I got to the end, I was so excited, I threw my arms up in celebrations, was thrown off balance and fell. Into the wet, cold, sticky January Colorado snow. Yuck! Have I ever mentioned that I don’t really like cold weather and the associated activities?
Easter Treat Update
Ok, so I went to the grocery store yesterday because I was cooking dinner for some friends last night and forgot the key ingredient! I thought that while I was there I would take a peek at the Easter treat aisle and see if I couldn’t find my snicker’s eggs. No luck! They had these snicker’s cream eggs, but that just sounded gross to me. I did find mini Reester bunnies for Michael (and me too). They are perfect…like a little bigger than a hershey’s kiss and shaped like cartoon bunnies. Ha!
Yesterday was a busy, productive day. I really enjoy long weekends! We re-arranged furniture, I did some touch up painting around the house, Michael is almost finished installing the speakers in our bathroom, we hung some picture and sconces in the bathroom too, I did some laundry, cleaning, cooking…all sorts of activity! It was a great weekend to hang out with Michael and just be home around the house. Oh yeah, we also got a Wii Fit this weekend. Hilarious! It’s really fun though…we’ll keep you posted on our Wii “fit”ness goals. It will at least be nice to add some variety to the schedule now.
This morning I played flute at my dad’s church for the Sunday service, then we came home and made lunch…Jason came over too to hang for a bit as well.
Now on to the normal Sunday activities…napping, taking the dogs for a run, cooking dinner, Brother & Sisters, then to sleep! Happy Easter! What a beautiful day it is today!
My Favorite Easter Treat
I will say that for the first year in many, my mother did not send me an e-mail with Peeps in precarious situations. Little Peeps. My mom had some joke with her friends one year and they did silly things with Peeps. We found out that year that you can smash a hammer on a Peep and it will not break apart…or something like that. Peeps are flammable however. Ha!
So, earlier this week on the radio, a nutritionist was talking about several Easter treats. Now, I am not a HUGE sweets/candy person, but I do have a soft spot for Snicker’s Easter Eggs, while Michael enjoys the Reece’s eggs. It dawned on my that we have had either this year! In fact, I believe it is our first Easter without baskets. I haven’t seen my mom every year since I left for school, but in those off years, I have usually supplied treats for Michael and the puppy dogs. One year we had a Nascar theme which was great fun! Anyways, I have to go to the grocery store tomorrow and I think I might look for our favorite Easter treats. Oh yeah. I heard that Snicker’s eggs only have 140 calories (something like that) and Reece’s have like 250 (or something crazy), so I will mostly likely only purchase one of each. Especially since our Wii Miis are looking a little pudgy.
What’s in a Name
Today is Good Friday. And as such, I was off of work in observance of the Holiday…one of the first times in history that I was off from work on a day Michael wasn’t. He took off anyway though and we spent the day visiting my grandmother who is visiting my dad from Ohio and running some errands.
When we got home this afternoon, we decided to download some new music. We sing a lot of great worship songs at church that we weren’t previously familiar with, so we searched and found several of them. We’ve been enjoying listening to them all while cooking dinner and trying out the Wii Fit. One song came on that I’ve heard on the radio as well as at church called Your Name.
“Your name is a strong and mighty tower.
Your name is a shelter like no other.
Your name…let the nations sing it louder.
‘Cause nothing has the power to save, but your name.”
Now that I’m writing this, I actually think that this very song may have inspired a blog post at some point last year. But listening to this song and singing along today brought to mind the many people we know who are really going through some tought times right now, and we took a moment to say a prayer for them.
I started thinking about the power of the name Jesus. Scripture tells us that when the demons hear that name, they shudder. That is a powerful name. And then, I started thinking about Good Friday and all that Jesus did on this day. I recently read a medical account of the crucifixion of Christ and it brought overwhelming tears to my eyes. The pain, the agony. Isaiah 52 tells us that he was beaten beyond recognition of a man. And he did it for us–giving us access to the throne of God and a hope for eternity and resurrection.
No matter who you are, I believe there comes a point in all of our lives when we are faced with the truth of Jesus’s death–atoning for our sins. And when we faced this truth, we are forced to respond. The moment Jesus breathed his last on the cross, the earth responded. There was an earthquake that ripped the veil in the temple and cracked boulders, the sky turned black at noon, a blood moon rose. All of these things happened in response to Christ’s death. The first time I truly came face to face with the truth of Christ was Easter Sunday when I was eight years old. I remember sitting in church, crying as Dr. Cunningham talked about Christ’s death and glorious resurrection, and I couldn’t help but respond and say I would commit my life to follow Jesus–it was like a force compelling me to.
The power of the one who forever changed religion, and history, the power to save, to heal, to unite, to restore, to provide, to love, to give peace, to give understanding…all that power is in His name, we must simply call upon it and respond. I hope that this Easter, among the business of life, that you take a minute to reflect on the sacrifice of Christ, and how that changes you. I hope you respond to that truth in some way–either fully believing for the first time, rededicating your life to follow him, praying for some one, trusting him with your burdens. However you respond, know that there is power in the name of Jesus.
Here are the words to one fo my favorite baptist hymns we sang growing up in church:
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there’s just something about that name.
Master, Savior, Jesus, like the fragrance after the rain.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let all heaven and earth proclaim.
Kings and kingdoms will all pass away but there’s something about that name.”
A little of this, a little of that
First of all…I’d like to recognize that today is my sister-in-law’s birthday. She has two adorable boys (Westin-4 and Reid-2), she looks great always, her blog is pure entertainment and she is only like 12! Ok, 19…ok ok ok ok…so she’s 21 today…happy birthday:)
Next, what is it with the cold fronts? Don’t get me wrong, humidity free days mean cooperative hair, but I really am not into wearing winter clothes in April! I am definitely a warm weather person so the winter blasts are not my favorite thing!
24. What is up with this show? I have been a LOYAL watcher, and addicted watcher even. Last season was not quite up to par and this season doesn’t even compare. Michael and I have figured out every “surprise” “you didn’t see that coming” moment in the whole freakin’ show! It’s getting old quick and I have a feeling this is the last season. I remember watching this show in college with Michael’s room mates. We would get the complete seasons on DVD and literally stay up almost all night watching them. And we were always shocked and left thinking, what the heck!? 24 used to thrive on the cliffhangers. There hasn’t really been one yet. Maybe its the fact that we all know Jack Bauer can get out of anything but really? Bringing Tony back from the dead? These writers are desperate for something creative and catchy and haven’t found it yet…and the season is almost over. The 2-hour 24 Redemption special was really good and gave us high hopes for the season that the show has not lived up to yet. Hate to be harsh, but I may end my 24 days at the end of this season.
Finally, I am proud to say that our little Dixie is no longer the dumbest dog we’ve ever met. Ok, you all know Dixie—the lights are not all on upstairs we don’t think. We have been trying for over a year to teach her how to shake. My brother succeeded in getting her to do it a couple of time this Christmas, but she has not done it since…and even then it wasn’t consistent. She now will shake on command! I’m working on getting a video uploaded so you can see her in action…stay tuned!