Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Labor Day Weekend

I picked the picture of Abbey and Brandon up last night. It turned out great. I will take a picture of it tonight and post for everyone to see. Dennis is going to love it. He has the perfect spot in his house to hang it. I can’t wait to see how it looks. I also bought him two buffet lamps to go with it.

I am so glad that the holiday weekend is almost here. Dennis and I are going to the MSU football game tomorrow night. It is probably going to be extremely HOTT, but it will be good to go back and see how much the school has changed since I was last there. It has been about 2 years since I’ve been to a game. I am really excited about it. I am off work on Friday. We won’t get back until late Thursday night so I went ahead and took off so I would be exhausted all weekend. Hopefully I will be able to pick Brandon up from day care and we can meet Dennis for lunch on Friday. I will get Abbey from the Courthouse early as well, but she has to get out of school first. She wanted me to check her out early, but I told her she need to stay in school if it wasn’t important for her to leave. We are also off on Monday. It is going to be great to have a 4 day weekend. I am in need of one bad.

Saturday, Dennis is going to a Fantasy Football draft. He will be there most of the day so the kids and I are going to try and do something fun. I have no idea what yet. I will let them decide what they want to do. My boss said that Dillard’s is having a big sale. She is a shoe fanatic so I want to go by and see what they have. I hate buying shoes and never do it. They may have something I want. If you don’t know me very well, I LOVE to shop. I do it as often as I can.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Labor Day weekend. I will post pictures from the game and our weekend on Tuesday.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Chloe's Party at Ma's

On Sunday, Ma had a birthday party for Chloe. Pictures are below.

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Chloe's 5th Birthday Party

Chloe had her 5th birthday party on Saturday night at her house. The kids had a great time. She had a real pony come and the kids got to ride it. The loved it. Brandon thought he was a real cowboy. He had his gun with him. Below are tons of pictures that were taken. As you can see from the pictures, everyone had a great time.
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Friday, August 25, 2006

Happy Late Birthday, Chloe!

Dennis's neice, Chloe, turned 5 on Wednesday. She is having a surprise birthday party tomorrow night at her house. It is a western theme and there will be a real pony. The kids are going to have blast. Happy Birthday, Chloe!
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Pictures of Abbey and Brandon

I took some pictures of Abbey and Brandon a couple of weeks ago at Rebecca’s house. I was having it enlarged and framed for Dennis for his birthday in December. I know it was kind of early to take them, but I needed a back up plan in case they didn’t turn out the way I thought they would. Dennis figured out that I had taken some so I went ahead and showed him. I took the picture to have it framed this week so it should be ready hopefully next week. The frame is so pretty that I picked out. It is going to look great on his wall. I was glad that he figured it out because I was worried about how I was going to keep it from him for so long and that the kids might change a good bit before December. The second picture is the one that I blew up. I will probably have some of the other pictures enlarged and frame them as well. I will post a picture of the finished product when it is framed and I get it back.
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Tuesday, August 22, 2006

A New Look!

The look of my blog has changed. I love the way it looks now. My sweet boyfriend changed it for me last night. He is so talented when it comes to computers. I would have never figured it out. Thanks so much Dennis. You are the best!

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Abbey and Brandon loved Lucy!

Abbey, Brandon, and I went to Rebecca's house on Saturday for a little while. They had the best time playing with her new little kitty, Lucy. Brandon also enjoyed riding the golf cart and seeing all the deer. Thank you Rebecca for taking time out of your Saturday for us to come over.

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A couple of Sunday's ago, Dennis and I washed our cars. Brandon and Abbey helped us. We looked up and Brandon was washing his John Deere tractor. It was so cute. He really loves his tractor.
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Monday, August 14, 2006

This is sad, but very Sweet!

> This Father does it all just for the purpose of seeing the smile on
> his son's face. If you want to see the most profound reflection of the
> Father's love for us that you've ever seen....watch.
>
> Read this and then watch the video (the website link is at the end)
>
> Strongest Dad in the World
>
> I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay
> for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots. But compared
> with Dick Hoyt, I suck.
>
> Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in
> marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a
> wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and
> pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.
>
> Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back
> mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes
> taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?
>
> And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
>
> This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick
> was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him
> brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. ``He'll be a vegetable
> the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy,
> when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''
>
> But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes
> followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the
> engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was
> anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told.
> ``There's nothing going on in his brain.''
>
> "Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out
> a lot was going on in his brain.
>
> Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by
> touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to
> communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school
> classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a
> charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''
>
> Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran
> more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still,
> he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was
> sore for two weeks.''
>
> That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were
> running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''
>
> And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving
> Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly
> shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.
>
> ``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite
> a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a
> few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway,
> then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they
> ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston
> the following year.
>
> Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''
>
> How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since
> he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still,
> Dick tried.
>
> Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour
> Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud
> getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you
> think?
>
> Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says.
> Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick
> with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
>
> This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston
> Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their
> best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the
> world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things,
> happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a
> wheelchair at the time.
>
> ``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the
> Century.''
>
> And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had
> a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his
> arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,''
> one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.''
>
> So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.
>
> Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in
> Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland,
> Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the
> country and compete in some backbreaking race every > weekend,
> including this Father's Day.
>
> That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really
> wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.
>
> ``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad would sit in
> the chair and I would push him once.''
Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjPrL3n63yg

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Abbey and Chloe started school today!

Abbey started the 3rd grade today. She changed schools this year and now she is going to Flowood Elementary. The summer has flown by. I couldn’t believe that it was already time for school to start back. This year has gone by fast. It seems like just a few months ago she was starting the 2nd grade. I guess when you have a great year time does seem to fly by. I hope she has a wonderful day today and likes her new school. Brandon will start big school next year.

Chloe, Dennis’s niece, started her first day of school today. She is getting to be a big girl now. I bet she will be the leader of her class.