Fun Fun and lots O wine~

Ahhh How I love this dessert..it may not look like much but let me tell ya when you get past that top part it is ewwwy gooey brownie goodness. Did I mention their steaks are yummy too?

Heather Weatha and I decided to keep celebrating my birthday at a great steak house here in Austin my Favvvvvvv Sullivan"s..Yummy Yummy Tummy (as my little Boy says). It was so much fun I don't think I have literally sat in a restaurant for 4 hours and laughed and laughed some more...the wine was great the desert was even better. The funny part to the night any one who knows me my motto has always been "don't follow me I get lost going home" well guess what? WE DID.. we were staying downtown for an event an had walked over and sure enough got lost "turned around" going back. Maybe a little to much wine mixed up or GPS system. HA :0) Never fear we rocked it on out found our way and went out with the littles around town and man do they make ya feel old.. thought I was going to have to go ahead and buy stock in Depends Under Garments. lol... its ok I can still hang better than most I guess and always in for good times and lots of laughs with great co-workers and great old friends. thanks for making my birthday great and a month long event.

It's My Birthday..yeah yeah yeah

Whelp, I have said it before and I will say it again, I start a new year over on the day I was born. After all that was my grand entrance into this great big world not Jan 1st..DUH!! I like to reflect back on all the things I learned and and the great things I got into thru out the year. So here are just a few..
I learned from my wonderful hubby that mayonnaise NEVER expires
I learned that a 2 hour flight can turn into ETERNITY.
I learned that In home daycare just isn't the place for my kids
I learned that it really is true negative energy IN is negative energy OUT
My kids have taught me that snakes really have bones :o)
I learned that some close friends really do move on and it is OK
I have learned our parents are really getting older.. and not so fun accepting those things that come along with that :0(
I have experienced life long friends all the back to grade school that I love dearly and what a great feeling.
I learned there are some CRAZY Bitches that blog out there...
I have learned that hard work pays off..SOMETIMES
So a few more things I have to share.. I have been on this weight loss journey for a little over a year now and have been looking thru pictures for a project at work and noticed I am the only one holding the camera 24/7 and well probably cause I was a fatty fatty 2x4 for a few years. I was never ever big before it was just thru the stint of having kiddos and I guess everyone goes thru it but sheww I can see where people get into depression mode over that stuff.. UGH. Anyway, I found a few pictures I wanted to share to show how far I have come keep in mind they are mostly head shots.. silly me. Not anymore!! :0)
I have had a pretty good year lots of crazy things have happened but for sure looking back have made me stronger. I flew out to Oregon and visited with my childhood friend from kindergarten and went gambling we had so much fun..CraZZZyyy Thelma and Louise trip I do say... I went to Dallas for 2 weeks for the NBA playoffs was quite a different experience. I walked beside my best friend loosing her dad this year and that was quite a journey. I also have met the sweetest little old man along that flight home. Along without even knowing boarded the plane with him again after getting phone call to fly home in response to a heart attack with my own father. Funny how God watches over us. We are now very good friends and probably will be for life. I am blessed with a wonderful family and great friends. I am now counting the days roughly 730 days from today I will have my mommy make-over and laying on the beach with my life long girl friends from grade school we have all pinkie swore we would Ya Ya Sista on a beach for our 40th.. No one is taking a MILF.. bahh Haaa Haaa. ahhhhh getting old and having more insurance and slidding sideways is feeling quite nice I do believe...and who said getting od was a bad thing??

Proud to be an American~

Sometimes a picture just says it all.
As the Statue of Liberty stood there 10 years ago today and watched our freedom being taken away do you wonder what she thought? This day forever changed all of our lives. Where were you on the day of 9.11? I have to say it is a day,a month I will never ever forget. It is a day that forever changed the world for us all and continues to change the world.. in my opinion it is for the worse.

I worked at IBM in Austin, Texas and walked into work that morning of 9/11 and everyone was piled up around a TV. When I heard the news and as it soaked in I was panic stricken. First thing that hit me was I WANT TO GO HOME. Well guess what all flights are shut down I was going no where...It was kinda scary cause no one knew if it was over or what was coming next. Eventually, it was under control but I remember watching day in and day out coverage just sitting on my couch and crying and crying. My heart broke for those people and their families and made me just want to be home with mine. Just an average day for the average Joe and out of no where corruption hit. Freedom taken.. people came together like never before, people prayed for strangers, people had more faith in God, it was a great thing to see but for sure a bad situation and a lot of innocent life's lost.

I will say it is an HONOR to be an American and an privilege to be FREE and we are all blessed to have the military men and their families out there doing what they do for us every single day. GOD BLESS you all and godspeed to those of you who lost loved ones 10 years ago today.

Animals..and More Animals....

I don't know who enjoyed the animals more my kiddos or myself. I was so amazed by the Sloth I had never seen one in real life and wow.... ugly ugly ugly so ugly it is almost cute. Slowest animal in the world. So this animal sleeps anywhere from 18 to 20 hours a day and can fall asleep eating. Always is upside down its insides are even upside down..so that means its everything is reversed on the inside. the Sloth lives in trees and comes down from the tree once a week to potty and when it does it can loose up to 5 pounds. Crazy huh?? Anyway enough about the Sloth you can see I get carried away we saw all kinds of different animals a black Scorpion, a Porcupine, snakes, Tranchela, Lizard, Hedgehog, "blue" from Rio. It was so cute as well that my oldest held his little hand up and ask a question or told a story for every animal... sometimes the animals got 2 stories.

HillBilly Handfishin

Here is our catfish .. doesn't look like it would be that hard right??

My oldest has been hung up on this new show Hillbilly Handfishin and we are all goin... want to join us?? the idea is you get yourself in a creek stick your hand under a rock and wait on the cat fish to bite your hand and then someone strings hims for ya. In Oklahoma where they film this show they call it "noodling". We took the kids to a "resort" ,as my oldest says, for the holiday weekend. Walaaa guess what they had... yep you guessed it a catfish pond. We sat out there and watched them and watched them.... and watched them. I also got tickled at my son leaned back crossing his arms and looked so much like my dad when another kid would walk up. He would start conversation with "I am going Hillbilly Handfishin.... know what that is??" " My PaPa is going to go too but he is scared... " I'm not scared.. I am going to catch one that is 50 hundred pounds"

WAY too close

As we pull back into town this is the sight we see...fires have broken out all over Austin. How scary? My husband begins to then find out his side of the family has been evacuated and affected by the fires. 2500 acres have now gone up in flames and it is still not under control. Several other fires have broken out around town. Some set by carelessness and then of course some set by kids having no idea what the implications would be . It got our family to thinking what exactly would you take if you really had to pack and leave...so we actually did the fire drill. Call me CRaZZZyyyy (as my little boy says) but heck you never know. So here is what we have a fire safe packed with passports, my original wedding bands, my moms rings, my pearls, old pictures, I copied all of my photos and music off of both computers and bought 2 hard drives and they are now in there. I also have back up money in there just in case. I put wedding license, insurance papers, wills, my hubby's release papers from the military and all the other basic junk.
My hubby and I talked if we get a chance to go back in for anything I want my wedding dress and the box of my kids baby clothes. I am actually thinking hard about buying another fire safe to put those items in... it isn't alot but for sure things you will never ever be able to replace. I just know as I am now older I have really appreciated the fact that my mother is a pack rat and saved all that stuff from when my brother and I were kiddos.
I feel so bad for the families that have lost everything and have to start all over from scratch. I am sure words can't describe what they are enduring. It is amazing that with all the acreage that has burnt only 5 lives have been lost. Godspeed to them all.