Sorry this one is SO short but I am REALLY tired and I want to get some sleep. I will write more later! SO, until then...goodnight!
I also got all kinds of goodies for the girls room! I am doing it in a horse theme, but of course the horses are pink and purple! SOOOO, we got LOTS of pink and purple goodies! We have pink and purple lamps, shelves, storage boxes, and lots more!
Before I close I need to say a BIG thanks to my Mom who helped us tonight!! She was TOO sweet!! We had fun spending our gift cards and we are going to have even more fun putting all of the rooms together! I am SOO excited. I will take lots of pictures once it is all situated!
Anyway...that isn't why I came here to post. We had an AWESOME weekend! Friday night we headed out to Crystal River, FL to spend a weekend SCUBA diving and snorkeling. Saturday morning we headed out in the boat and got in a few dives. Unfortunately it was the first time I used my gear in quite a few years and I had some difficulties...grrrr and I wasn't able to really get down. To top it off it was also very low tide and the visibitlity was extremely low. We didn't let it stop our fun though, we had a GREAT time in the boat and in the water! We saw a beautiful sunset on the water and then headed in for the night.
We met up with some of my Dad's friends Saturday night and had a yummy pot luck style dinner. After dinner Clark helped clean up while I took the girls to the room to get baths and then put them to bed because we had an EARLY morning on Sunday.
We woke up at 5:30 and started getting ready to head out to the boat! We took a tour boat out to 3 sisters springs with 25 others to take an early morning snorkel with the manatees. We had a little bit of a rough start but once we all had our wet suites on the boat we pulled them on (and let me tell you, they were COLD because they hadn't dried out yet)! Misa was such a trouper...she put that cold wet suite on, jumped right in the water and swam off to the manatees that she saw! She was SOO excited! Unfortunately we forgot the underwater digital camera, but we are getting a video of the dive on DVD really soon, so maybe I can find a way to post that!
The springs were swarmed with Manatee! I saw at least 12 if not more and I know there were a lot more that I didn't see! We kind of hung out in the water in our best deadmans float and waited for them to come swimming up! We would hold out one hand and wiggle our fingers and in no time at all the huge manatees would swim right up to us, roll over on there back and want a belly rub! It was AWESOME!
It was COLD on the boat, but once we got in the water it wasn't bad at all. Melisa made it about 15 or 20 minutes in the water before she just couldn't take the cold anymore and she headed in to get out of the wet clothes and into her sweats. Clark, Dad, TJ and I stayed in the water a lot longer snorkeling around and petting the manatees! Cali was a trouper and hung out in the boat like a little angel! She would wave at us and blow us kisses! I was VERY proud of how well both of my girls did! Melisa is already talking about trying to do it again next year! :-)
Manatees gave been my favorite water animal for YEARS and I was SO excited to get to share it with Melisa. She announced to me on the drive home that Manatees are now her favorite water animal too! It was so much fun to share that with her!
WOW! Tonight was a walk down memory lane! In just about 1 month (Feb. 11) Clark and I will celebrate the 10the anniversary of when we started dating! Tonight we went out to dinner with his dad, stepmom, sister and her family. We ate at El Matadors, the Mexican restaurant that we went to at least 2 times a month if not weekly. While we ate we laughed at all the fun stories from the years past. Oh, the stories...oh, the memories! It has been quite the 10 years, and I wouldn't trade one minute of them!
I know this will embarrass him, but after taking that walk down memory lane, I just have to pause to say that I am more than blessed to be married to Clark. He is an amazing man, husband, father, and christian! He is my best friend and soul mate AND I am madly in love with him. In fact, I think I love him more today than I did when I first married him! He can make me laugh when nothing else can. He understands me even when I don't understand myself! He loves me, supports me and prays for me! He leads our family in making God the first priority in our lives. He is an amazing God-fearing man!
In the past 10 years we have had our share of disagreements but we have grown closer through each one. We have had rough years of trials and hardships but each one has made us stronger. We have had heart aches and saddness but each one has drawn us to our creator and to each other! We have also had our times of pure joy! We have had the honor and privelage of bringing 2 precious lives into this world! We have laughed until we cried at the silliest things. We have seen the world together and shared God's word as we went! We have shared many once in a life time adventures together and there is no one else I would rather share them with!
Anyway, back to tonight...the smells and tastes of El Matadors reminded me of our first dates. Then we drove by the first apartment complex we lived in...the apartment we brought Melisa home from the hospital to. We drove by the movie theater we went to on a group date when we were both too shy to admit we were interested in each other. We drove by the Denny's where Clark helped me study for MANY tests, listened to me cry away all my stresses and laugh away my frustrations from college life. We passed the Chinese restaurant that we ate many lunches together when Clark would show up at the college and I would skip an afternoon class (mom and dad, you didn't read that). We drove past the Kinkos where Clark stayed up with me to 3:00 am making 500 copies for one of my final education classes! We drove past the Applebees where Clark and I staged a HUGE fight just to embarrass some of our friends...we had the entire restaurant staring at us! We drove past the bowling alley where Clark was sure he could beat me but NEVER did! Then we drove by the ice skating rink where Clark took me on our first Valentines day...he also told me I was beautiful that night...it was the first time a boyfriend told me that and I really believed him. We drove by the football stadium that we cheered on our North Greenville Mounties together. We drove past the former Eastside Community Church...the first church we joined together! I remembered how Clark would pull off right down the road from the school just to pray with me before we started every date! I was reminded of the park in downtown Greenville that we would take long walks through that ended with warm spring day picnics! I remember Clark driving me back to the college after our dates and falling asleep listening to him attempting to sing with Charlie Peacock! I remember watching movies in his Uncle Johnny and Aunt Inez' basement! As you can tell, my mind was FLOODED with memories! The memories listed above are just a small fraction of all that are floating around in my head right now!
It is so hard to believe that it has been almost 10 years since all of this memory making together began! I pray that the next 10 years is just as amazing! I pray that I will always remember the details of the good times and remember our life lessons from the rough times! I pray that God continues to grow us and draw us closer to Him and closer to one another!
If you are still with me, I say thank you for putting up with all my ramblings...I hope I didn't bore you too much...and Clark, I hope I didn't embarrass you too much!
When they finally woke up I had to rush to get them bathed, dressed and fed before we were out the door and on the way for doctors appointments! They went in at noon and we didn't leave until 3:00! Believe it or not, we didn't do a LOT of waiting...we were being seen by a nurse or the doctor almost the entire time. We got Melisa and Cali's medical records all transfered from the Korean papers to American papers! Then the doctor gave them both a full exam!
Melisa is a tad over 40 pouds and is 45 3/4 inches tall! She is hanging on between the 10th and 15th percentiles and looks VERY healthy! Her blood pressure was perfect as was her hearing, but we need to take her in to get her eyes checked ASAP! We discovered that Melisa never got her 5year old booster shots, so she had FOUR injections...poor baby! She was such a trouper though and didn't cry!
Cali is 21 3/ 4 pimds amd os 32 1/4 inches. She is following almost the exact same growth chart line that Melisa did! She is right there on the 10th percentile as well. Cali checked out perfect (though we need to get her to see a dentist soon) and had to get one shot. She was a brave little girl too, but she cried and cried when she got her shot...it broke Mommy's heart. We are taking her early tomorrow morning to get some blood work done...poor baby!
We celebrated a job well done at the doctors office with a trip to Steak N Shake for lunch...yes it was a LATE lunch. The girls LOVE it there and we don't let them have it often. After lunch we headed back home so Misa and I could do some school work while Daddy made some phone calls to try to find out about our crate (that is another blog another day). We worked for a few hours while Cali got in a late afternoon nap.
6:30 came and it was time to load up and head out again. This time we headed to the Cingular store. It seems my phone is dying on me and I couldn't do anything to save it. It was a hand me down phone, so it wasn't brand new or anything. Around New Years the front display screen went out and then 3 days ago the inside menu screen turned all blue. I couldn't see anything on it...my address book, my messages or anything...it was sad. So, we headed to the Cingular store to see if they could fix it. He took a look at it, saw there was no insurance left on it and said it would be cheaper to buy a new one than fix that one. I ended up with an LG phone that is adorable and has more features than I could EVER need! The bad news...I hadn't saved any of my phone numbers on my sim card (I didn't even know I HAD a sim card until today, much less that I should save my numbers to it)! Oh well, I needed something else to do right? I spent an hour tonight manually putting all my phone numbers (that I could find) in my new phone...GRRRRR! Good news is I finally got my voice mail set up...so you can go leave me a message now! :-) An hour and a half after we arrived, we finally left with the new phone in hand and ready to go.
Before I finish talking about our trip to Cingular I HAVE to mention the boy that was running wild in the store tonight. When we first walked in, I noticed him sitting quietly playing his game boy while his mom was phone shopping. He soon managed to get himself sprawled out in the middle of the floor playing his game. THEN he started rolling acroos the floor like a log while STILL playing his game. Then he got REALLY excited and started running circles and figure eights around the display area all the while not missing a beat on his game playing. Let me tell you I have NEVER seen such...it was very entertaining.
We then went out to dinner with my Mom and Stepdad (G-doug as we all call him). They introduced us to a FUN but UNHEALTHY restaurant...Moe's! The girls had a dish called Mini Me, I had a Housewrecker and Clark had a Lindy. They were all HUGE burritos! I could only eat half of mine...but boy was it YUMMY! If you have never tried it, you need to at least once...the names of the foods are worth the trip there!
Anyway, we finally made our way home at about 10:30. Clark is graciously giving the girls a bath while I finish adding phone numbers to my cell and blog for a minute. We need to get to bed soon, because we are driving to SC tomorrow morning...and I still haven't packed a single bag...OOPS...guess what I will be doing at 7 am?
Anyway...I hope you all had as much "fun" today as we did!
Create Your Own
Create Your Own
SOOO, HOW 'BOUT THEM GATORS??? Sorry everyone, I just HAD to come on and gloat for a minute or two before I hit the sack! You see, I have been a Gator fan since I was little! My Dad and I have stuck together and cheered on our boys in the orange and blue no matter what and tonight it paid off! The Gators chomped their way to a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!! GO GATORS!!!! I was even able to share a little bit of my childhood (sitting with Dad cheering on the Gators) with my girls! I got them all dressed up in the Gator Best and we sat in the living room yelling at the TV...LOL! I think I am raising two little Gator Girls and I couldn't be more proud! SO...GO GATORS!!!!!
Today we are recovering from yesterdays LONG day at Disney...but what a FUN day it was! We had a BLAST!! WE woke up at 6:30 am and got everyone ready. My brother TJ, his wife Mary Beth, and their son Gavin arrived at Dads (the place we are staying) at 8:00 am and we made the drive to Disney's Animal Kingdom. We arrived right at 9:00 but it took 20 minutes to get to the entrance to the park because of the 17,000 people strong marathon that was running RIGHT infront of the entrance. My Uncle David met us at the entrance and got us in for a day of fun!
We rented a double stroller, let all 3 kids pile in, took a look at the map and decided to head to Africa. We went on a safari and saw LOTS of cool animals. We all had a B LAST spotting animals! Melisa, Cali and Gavin got SO excited to see the elephants, giraffes, lions, and monkeys. It was fun watching the excitment on their faces! We walked around looking at some other aniumals until we were all hungry (we had all skipped breakfast). So, we ate a VERY early lunch...yummy pizza...before heading to the Magic Kingdom.
At the Magic Kingdom it didn't take long for us to make our way to fantasyland where we headed straight for Dumbo the Flying Elephant Ride. The wait for Dumbo was pretty long and HOT so we ended up hitting Ariels Grotto to get slushi's and pretzels...unfortunately the Grotto where you visit Ariel was closed for remodeling so Melisa didn't get to see her favorite princess. :-( She cheered yo when we headed to the Tea Cups. The kids giggled and screamed the whole ride!
Next it was off to Toon Town where Melisa got her face painted...Gavin and Cali weren't too sure about it, so they passed it up. When Melisa was looking like the most beautiful swan princess ever, we headed to Minnie's House to take a tour. TJ even sat down at Minnie's table and had tea...LOL...the loving sister that I am HAD to get a picture! My personal favorite was next though, a visit to Mickey's House for a tour...for those of you who don't know, he was my first love...LOL! THEN, we got to do something even MORE exciting...we went to MEET Mickey Mouse! We stood in line and got to go back and have our pictures taken with the Mouse himself. I was in heaven and Clark wasn't the least bit jealous...he knows I love him!
We headed back to fantasyland where we road Winnie the Pooh's Adventure with our fast pass tickets (I LOVE fast pass tickets). Next we made our way to Tomorrowland for a ride on Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Spin. I think the adults enjoyed it more than the kids...you get to shoot things and we had a competition going on...Clark won and TJ came in 2nd...Mary Beth and I just had fun trying...LOL! When that was over, we headed to the other side of the park to ride the new Pirates of the Carribean. Unfortunately Gavin started getting really tired durring the wait, so we decided to get out of line and walk them to the front of the park. They have anual passes and decided they could come back out any time and thought it would be best to get him on home. We were sad to see them go, but we completely understood.
We asked Melisa what she wanted to do and surprise, surprise, she wanted to go to the Hall of Fame Tent and see the Princesses! We must have waited for an hour and a half...Cali even fell asleep as we waited...but the joy on Misa's face when she saw the Cinderella, Snow White and Belle was worth it! She was in heaven! She talked to them all and had her picture made with each one. It was her highlight of the day! :-)
Next it was off to ride Snow White's Scary Adventures and Cinderella's Golden Carrousel. We then made our way back over to Adventureland to ride Pirates before we headed home ourselves! We can't believe how realistic the Jack Sparrow "puppets" look throughout the ride. They did a VERY good job. After Pirates, we started the walk back to the main entrance and along the way we came upon the show at the castle, so we stopped to watch the end of it. We always LOVE watching the shows so it was a fun way to end the day.
We made our way through the crowd and road the monorail back to the bus terminal and took the bus to Animal Kingdom and were finally on our way home at about 8:00 or so. It was a LONG but FUN day!
The girls are really blessed to get to go to Disney as often as they do. Thanks SO much Uncle David....it always is such a special treat! There is nothing quite as awesome as watching the excitement on their faces as they experience everything there is to do at Disney! I probably shared WAY too much detail, but we just had SO much fun, I couldn't help sharing! Hope you don't mind. The pictures are on my camera and I will try to get them off soon to share!
We had a WONDERFUL Christmas and the girls were spoiled ROTTEN! It was such a blessing to spend time with family as we celebrated the holidays! It was even more special knowing that a big good-bye was not looming over our heads! As I said above, the girls were spoiled rotten by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and of course Mommy, Daddy and Santa! Melisa's biggest presents were an MP3 player from Santa, a bike from Mommy and Daddy, and American Girl doll from Mommom and G-doug and a beautiful necklace from Papa. I can't begin to number the horses that she got or all the other smaller goodies! Cali's big presents were a Lil' Barbie ATV from Santa, a tricycle from Papa, a Thomas the train set from Mommy and Daddy, and a big red wagon from Mommom and G-doug. She also got all kinds of other smaller goodies that she LOVES playing with!!
After Christmas we spent the next few days spending time with family and playing with all the new toys! On the 27th we got to go see LION KING LIVE!! It was AWESOME! Both of the girls were wide eyed with wonder and loved every minute of it! It really was a spectacular show! The next morning (bright and early) we had to wake up and head to the airport and we were off to New Orleans for a planning meeting. It was a busy but fun trip! We celebrated New Years in New Orleans with our new co-workers and had a GREAT time! Melisa LOVED where we were in New Orleans...we were on the Campus of the Seminary and she got to know ALL the kids in the neighborhood and had the best time playing with them!
Now, we are back in FL for one last week before we drive to SC for a few days to gather our belongings, rent a moving van and make the final track into MS! Actually not the final. We will be there a few days and then we will drive back to FL for a special dive/snorkeling trip with the manatees! THEN, we will rent ANOTHER moving van and head back to MS to FINALLY settle into our own place again!
SOOOO....has anyone noticed the NEW LOOK of the page? Isn't it AWESOME!!! Susie from bluebirdblogs designed it and I love, Love, LOVE it!! Thank you SO much Susie...if anyone wants a custom designed blog, go check her out! I loved that she finished at the New Year because I can't think of a better way to start the New Year on my blog than NEW LOOK!
I will try my best to get back on and start posting more often again! It has just taken some time to get used to being "home"! I sure have missed everyone here in Bloggyville! I need to go try to catch up on some reading now! :-)
