Ahoy Mateys!

We had so much fun dressing up for Halloween this year. Not to mention visiting the giant pirate ship Kevin's neighbor built in his front yard.

Final Post of the Year

I've recently switched from my old desktop (now residing in my closet) to my laptop. I forgot to switch over some pictures so it looks like some events will go blogless. I'm sure we'll all survive. ;)

Here are the pictures I have.

John is out of cub scouts and into boy scouts. This was his first Court of Honor:



I absolutely love John's scout leader. He does such a good job teaching those boys real scout skills and running the program the way it's supposed to be run. John has always been an enthusiastic and diligent scout and he's carrying that through to boy scouts. He's earned his Scout rank and is two requirements away from Tenderfoot. He went on his first Camporee in December and had a blast. And mom managed to not freak out too much about him being away from home. It helped me to know he was in good hands.


The next pictures were taken at my work. The company just renewed a 10-year lease at this location. Part of the deal was getting some renovations done. New carpeting, new tile, new paint, new wallpaper, new countertops and splitting the phone room into two so we could have a second multi-purpose room.

When did all this lovely work occur? On evenings and weekends? Oh no. During working hours. It was interesting to say the least. Most of the work was done in stages and the contractor was good about doing his best to work around rooms we needed due to studies going on or clients in town or whatever. For the most part, it wasn't as bad as I'd feared.

Then, the perfect storm.

The absolute worse day of renovations, in terms of chaos and disarray, was the day before we had a full house, in terms of studies and clients. This was carpeting day. It was NOT FUN.

Here's one of the two client lounges at 2:00 pm, which had to be ready to receive clients by mid-morning the next day:



Here's the other one:


Yes, that's a chair upside down. Don't ask me how these kinds of things happened. I'd rather not know.

This is the multi-purpose room, which also needed to be cleared out and set up by the next day.


This is the view from my office. See our desks in the hallway? Isn't that a lovely location for them? Beyond the hallway is the lobby. It also needed to be put together before clients arrived.



This is my office, in the process of being disassembled so the carpet layers could get to it. I hadn't yet moved out my computer.



Literally every room in our entire suite looked like this. Every hallway. Every kitchen (there are two, one of which we needed for clients the next day). Every everything. When I had to empty out my desk and clear out my shelves, it was hard to know where to put stuff. I found a blank spot of floor in the multi-purpose room.

In the middle of all this, with all three offices torn apart and dysfunctional, we were supposed to get ready for clients. You know, the normal work that has to be done prior to a study. Without working computers, that pretty much came to a halt.

By the time the movers started hauling out my desk it was time for me to go and I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

And here we get to delight in the joys of being an hourly worker who gets to walk out of the middle of all this. The two managers stayed late and arrived early the next day to put things back together, direct the moving crews and cleaning crews, etc. By the time I walked in the building the next morning, the place looked beautiful.

It was amazing.


In other December news, the boys had their Winter Sing at school.

Goof balls.

And Christmas. This year I hosted Christmas Eve at my house, which I haven't done in a long time. It was so much fun. Instead of my original centerpiece, I used the gingerbread houses we made.

The boys had a good Christmas, in terms of handling the changes this year. Ben struggled off and on in the week leading up to Christmas, but the actual holidays were really great. They got to spend time with me and Brian both, along with their two extended families, and they had a great time. I had a great time too. :)

So, that's the end of this year. It's been quite the year too. While it hasn't exactly been easy, in all honesty it has been much, much easier than last one was. The Lord has really been with me and my children through this whole thing and we have been greatly blessed. I know I've healed much quicker than I would have otherwise and I'm so grateful for that. I've been feeling really great for awhile now and I'm looking forward to a new year. We'll see what this one brings. :)

A Few Things

I took a little excursion to California a few weeks ago. I pulled my camera out on the very last day just so I could prove I was there, LOL. It was when I'd walked down to the beach for a few last minutes with the ocean, but it was the only time I'd been alone. This was a mini girls' trip with Lynn, Polly and Leeann. Can I just say what generous, selfless friends these are?

Christopher lost his front tooth. Which I think is adorable.

The boys' at their desks on Meet the Teacher Day:

And ready to go on the first day of school:

I'm absolutely loving the normalcy and routine now that the boys are back in school. When they're not in school, they're home with me and that's just how it should be. I'm feeling more settled, which is nice.

I took the boys on a hike the other day. Afterward we drove out to the Superstitions for a closer look.


That was the first time I shared that special place with my kids. It was awesome.

This is from the pack meeting tonight.

John's in a tan shirt because he's officially a boy scout now, but he came to the meeting to get his Webelos award. He'll get his Arrow of Light next month (hooray!). He's already earned it, but they'll do the ceremony next month. I really didn't know if he should wear his cub scout shirt or his boy scout shirt. I still don't know.


Here is something John's Webelos den made over the summer. It was quite the project and I heard a lot about it as they were working on it. But it was a surprise so I didn't know what it was until tonight.

It's a hovercraft.



It actually hovers.

How cool is that?


So that is the extremely short version of events over here lately. It's time for bed! :)

Girls Weekend - May 2010

Hello from Scottsdale!

Another fantastic, fantastic weekend. It can be summed up like this: lounging by the pool, eating, talking, laughing, eating, shopping, lounging, eating, dancing and eating. I'm already ready to do it again. I just love these ladies.

I'll apologize in advance for all the pictures. Steph collects all our pictures and combines them into one album on Picasa. There were over 200, so just be glad I'm not posting them all. ;)

We stayed at the Doubletree this time. I really liked this hotel.

June took a ton of great pictures, including shots of the flora and fauna around here. There was something about it that made me see things with new eyes and appreciate the unique beauty that can be found here.









This is the view from our balcony.

I spent a grand total of 18 hours by the pool. I do not understand why I didn't get more color. LOL.

Actually, I was so paranoid about getting burned like I did last time that I used practically a whole bottle of sunblock and hid in the shade from time to time to top it off. Maybe next time I'll get it right and manage to just get a nice tan like a normal person. (FYI, I read an entire book over the weekend too - The Girl Who Chased the Moon. I really liked it!)

We all really wanted Steph to model these crazy pants. She's such a good sport!

Who's the man?

Steph looks like a movie star!

My favorite group picture.

Lynn's classic pose!

Cute!

Our new friends. (Okay, okay. Polly's new friends.)




Okay, you gotta zoom in for this one. This is a picture of what Polly used to look like. The first time I saw this (on one of our trips long ago) I could not believe it was the same person. I gotta say though, Polly may have changed her hair to black but that sweet smile has stayed the same and truly shows the girl within. She's such a sweetheart.



Can you find the hidden tattoo?




Shake your groove thang!

You go girl!

Get on down June!

Rock on Jack!

Until next time girls...