June and July 2013

June 9, 2013 - "Babysitting and Scrapbooking - the most excitement we've had since China"

We don't usually babysit on Friday's, but a friend of Amy's and Whitney's was having their wedding shower on a Friday night so Joe and I carpooled to work and then headed over afterwards.  The boys are getting so big now.  They are talking a lot more and learning lots of things like colors and shapes and numbers.  They seemed to be okay with us being there and played with us, but when they left, Bryson, seemed really sad.   I didn't think much about it, but every time I would ask him if he wanted something, he would just respond, "Mommy."  Do you want some fruit?  "Mommy"  Do you want to put on your pajamas?  "Mommy"  When I did change him, I thought he felt a little warm, so I texted Amy and asked if she had a thermometer, but she told me not to worry about it, that she would check on him when they got home.  At any rate, while I was changing him, these 2 big, crocodile tears slid down his face, but he never wailed.  He even rallied a little after that when Joe turned on their favorite TV show.  But he was asleep in about 5 seconds flat once I put them to bed.  The next day Amy texted and said he did have a fever - about 100.  He never really got sick and did better the next day, so Amy thinks he was just teething.  Poor little guy!

On Saturday, I was up and out early as Debbie Lou Hoo and I had signed up to attend the Great American Scrapbook Convention - renamed Stitch Craft Live this year.  We signed up for 2 classes.  The first one was "scrapbook in a day" sponsored by SEI.  We didn't complete the whole book, but we did learn some new techniques and had such a good time.  After our class, we did some shopping and had lunch.  Then we did some more shopping before our afternoon class.  It was just a technique class, but we got several layouts even though we only worked on a few.  It was fun and it really got me itching to scrapbook again!!!

June 30, 2013 - "Another DDY show - in TEXAS!!!"

Things have been really quiet around here since our busy weekend of babysitting and scrapbooking.  Joe took a day trip to Charlotte for work to visit USAir's regional operation.  I took a day trip to Denver to attend an A4A (Airlines for America) meeting about revenue.  But, this weekend, we got a special treat - the Zadra's came to Texas to visit.  Sheli (Michelle) and the girls came in on Wednesday to spend time with her family.  August came in on Saturday after playing in Nashville with the band on Friday night.  Joe and I met them on Saturday afternoon at their hotel.  Shortly after we got there, August and the band arrived, so we waited and we all went to lunch, along with Jimmy Leahy - the other guitarist from the band.

After lunch, August headed back to the room for a nap, and Joe and I went to Best Buy to upgrade my iPhone.  Best Buy was offering a free upgrade to those of us with an iPhone 4 or 4S.  The catches were that we had to be eligible for an upgrade and we had to sign another 2 year contract.  Okay and no problem.  The catch for me was that I waited until the last day to do this so, of course, they were out of the 16GB phones, and I had to upgrade to a 32GB phone.  My "free" phone ended up costing me $88.  Still a good deal, but not free.  AND, I would have been perfectly happy with a 16GB.  The other hassles of getting a new phone are setting everything up again, but slowly and surely I have managed to get that done.  I only ended up losing 1 thing - my "to-do" list.  I have an app for it, but when I backed up my phone, it didn't save the list.  Oh well...  I know what I need to do, I just love to mark things off a list!

After that, we met the girls over at the outlet mall for some shopping.  Actually, Kennedy was the only one shopping.  Sheli and I were talking and catching up.  Brooke was hanging out.  And, Joe, went out on his own - too many girls for him!

Finally, it was time to head to the show.  The show was at Celebration Park in Allen.  It was outdoor, which I was a little worried about, but the temperature wasn't too bad - especially after the sun went down.  The band was great, as usual.  After the show, they had a fireworks show and it was a really good one, too!

So, that was our busy Saturday.  We got home way past our bedtime, but we love seeing the Zadra's and really don't get the opportunity to do that often enough.

July 4, 2013 - "Happy Birthday, America!!"

4th of July really couldn't have fallen on a worse day for me - Thursday.  That being because it made Friday the 4th workday, the busiest day of the month for me.  So, instead of taking the day off, I opted to work and trade it for a day off later.  Still, we managed to watch the Southlake fireworks on the 3rd from the dentist's office on the hill.  And, we made our annual trek to Lake Grapevine for the fireworks display on the 4th.  So proud to be an American!!!

July 12, 2013 - "Babysitting the Boys"

So, when Joe and I babysat the boys a few weeks ago, that was for the wedding shower.  Tonight was the wedding.  This time both boys were feeling good and were so much fun.  They talked non-stop, jibber-jabber!  I could understand most of what they said, but some of it, I struggled with.  They loved it when Joe swirled them around like helicopters in their little cars and also when he tossed them in the air.  They watched You Tube on their iPads and Grayson even asked me to sit by him.  They seemed perfectly comfortable with us and we had a good time.  The funniest thing was that those boys probably have $5K worth of toys, but what did they play with?  My purse!  Not only played with it, but fought over it.  We figured out that Mommy sets a timer to teach them to share, but it didn't really work too well when it came to my purse.  They both would yell, "My Purse!"  "My Purse!" and when I would tell them, "you know it's really MY purse" they would just laugh and laugh like I was crazy.  So cute.  We were upstairs trying to get them to bed and my phone dinged just after 9:00 (I was supposed to have them in bed by 9:00) and I said, "Uh, oh, it's Mommy...we're in trouble!"  But when I looked at my phone, it was actually Debbie.  When I admitted it wasn't Mommy, Bryson asked me, "is it Uncle Randy?"  For some reason, that just cracked me up.  I said, no, it was my friend, Debbie so then they ran around saying "Debbie, Debbie, Debbie!!!"

Overall, it was a really fun night with the boys, but Joe is paying for it.  His back is hurting and he's having trouble walking around.  Hopefully, he'll fell better by Thursday when we leave for our next vacation!!!