Before the cruise

I must start out my series of blogs with the "pre-cruise" fun... Trevor went out of town with the guys on Friday for a "guys weekend" off the coast of Houston. I came home from work on Friday night to relax and finish up on my last minute packing before flying to Houston Saturday morning. The flight to Houston was rather uneventful to say the least. We took off, we landed, I read about 4 chapters in my book!

Once in Houston I spent an action packed afternoon and night with Bill and Liz. And ANYTIME spent with Bill and Liz is fun!!! We went to this neat furniture store called "The Dump" and then to the "world's largest" liquor store! It was really neat! The store had different cheeses and deli stuff, as well as products from all over the world. Not to mention tons of alcohol of every variety!!!

Sunday we got up to head to Galveston where I was to meet Trevor and get on the cruise ship. This didn't quite happen to our plan... there apparently was a wreck AND road construction on the causeway into Galveston from Houston, which is one of two ways ONTO the island by car... the OTHER way onto the island is on the OTHER side. Go figure! We sat in traffic and barely moved for almost 2 hours. During this time, I took some pictures of the cars in front of and behind us... as well as the cars exiting the highway by backing up (on the highway) and going down the steep incline to the onramp, then either making a sharp turn on the onramp or driving in reverse back to the service road!!! We finally made it to the ship, and before they stopped accepting people on board! That was quite a relief!!!! I wasn't too worried since Jason, Belinda, and Jason's parents were on the Carnival shuttle just a quarter of a mile ahead of me in the traffic!!!! At least we would all be left behind together!!!

The view of the ship from a few blocks away! Isn't it big! I was so excited to finally be close enough to see the ship!!! It was sorta a bummer that it was an overcast day as the pictures from the deck of the town are very murky feeling. You could almost feel the humidity seeping from the pictures.

Our room was on deck 1, otherwise known as, Riviera. The Carnival commercials lie about the "Carnival Comfort beds" that are so plush and comfortable... the beds are hard as rocks!!!! I LOVED the comforters and the pillows though!! I slept with at least 3 pillows and sometimes 4!!!! They were great!!!!

Back on DRY land...

We made it back from our exciting cruise in one piece! Although if I stand still too long I still feel like I am swaying with the ship!!!! There will be more blogs posted with pictures and stories from the cruise...

Things to look forward to:
- the Jamaican wedding pictures
- Grand Cayman - the pirate and Senor Frog pictures
- Scuba diving pictures
- Snorkeling pictures
- the story of the boat almost leaving without us in Cozumel...
- the formal night pictures

I am glad to be home, I like my bed... however, I do miss the pillows and comforter that was on our bed in our stateroom. Not to mention having someone else clean my room AND cook all my meals for me! Did I mention it was torture to have to look out at crystal blue water all the time and to have beautiful sun shining down on us???? Yeah right, torture... hahahahahah!

Come back for more pictures soon! I am working on uploading all of the pictures to a photo album which some people will be lucky enough to receive, other pictures will be on my myspace sight in a week or so!

Cute Kenzie sayings...

Here are some of the cute things that my littlest niece, McKenzie (age 6) said to me today on the phone:

T: Whatcha doing Princess?
K: tasting grapes
T: Which one you like the best?
K: The purple ones...
T: What about the red ones?
K: Ewww... they are sour...
T: Not all of them... just some...
K: I don't care... that one was...

No arguing with that point... if one is sour, then they are all sour...

A little bit later in the short lived conversation while at the grocery store...

T: What do you want the Easter Bunny to bring you in your Easter basket?
K: I dunno...
T: You don't know what you want to find in your Easter basket?
K: I don't know what he wants to bring me...
T: Oh... do you want Aunt Tracey to come home for Easter?
K: YES!!!!
T: Why?
K: Cause...
T: Cause why???
K: Cause I love you!!!

Ok... I was driving in Friday pre-5:00 traffic at this point, coming to a stop for the slow moving cars on the off-ramp from 820N to N 35W... I almost cried! That was sooo cute and sooo sweet!!!!

On the road again...

Well more like in the air again... then on a boat...

I am getting ready to fly to Houston tomorrow before heading to Galveston on Sunday for the cruise!!!

One of my close friends in Tulsa is getting married on the cruise, which is why I am going on a cruise in the middle of the school year! I think it is quite an honor to be asked to stand up as the "BEST GIRL" for my friend Jason at his wedding! To think, when I met him 9 years ago he swore he was never going to get married, let alone have kids... and yet, he is getting married and gaining two precious daughters!!!!

Hopefully this trip will be a blast!!! If it isn't... I'm gonna ask for a refund!!! :) Keep posted as I will be putting up pictures from the cruise after we get back in April!!!

Home sweet home

Home sweet home! I am very thrilled to be back home and sleeping in my own bed! I loved being in Germany, please don't misread what is written here... it is soooo green and pretty there with awesome winding roads and tons of incredibly tall trees and hills and mountains and narrow roads and fast driving... but there is something special about being at home... the monotany of everyday normal life...

Which is what I am attempting to recreate today, my first day back in the states! I am unpacking, putting away stuff, doing laundry and oh yeah, repacking for the trip that I will leaving for on Saturday...

I am going to try to get my pictures uploaded to my computer at some point today and hopefully I will get a photoalbum sent out to my family and friends within the week!!!

Thanks for all the prayers for a safe return!

some pictures from Germany

Here are a few pictures from my trip:

This is the base that Jeremy is assigned- we have been here a few times... to get gas, groceries... to just drive through!!!!

This is in Trier. This is a roman ruin... actually it is the Porta Nigra, one of the four city gates. It is the only one remaining. Kinda cool huh?

Once again in Trier- this is the Dom... or Trier Cathedral. It has been built in different segments from something like 1200 - 1500... for more information before I get home and make a kodak photo album go to www.trierer-dom.de I haven't found the ENGLISH option, so it is only in German. But it still has some cool pics!!! Also try this link: http://www.dominformation.de/internet-de/servlet/broker_uMen,ba460a2f-70d6-c7f0-eb30-bd8bc1d2b31b,ts.html It has a list of some of the different cathedrals in Trier. We also went to St. Paulus, St. Gangolf, and a few others that are not on this list.

Deutschland days 5 & 6

Gutentag!!!

Tuesday was an interesting day! After going on our little adventure to Essen and Koln (Cologne) on Monday and getting lost and detouring/touring the countryside, we slept in... really, really late... as in Jeremy got out of bed at noon and Teresa when he woke her up at 12:30! I woke up at 7:45 and read my book until almost 10:30 when I realized that no one else was going to wake up, I just went back to sleep myself! I figured if I couldn't beat them, I might as well rejoin them! I guess I needed my sleep... I have this natural tendency to wake up here every night about 1:15 or 1:30 and stay awake until about 2:00 am... then I sleep great until about 8! So anyhow, we left the house about 1:45 pm to go to this mysterious location... Jeremy wouldn't tell us where we were going. He wanted to take us to this castle in Malberg. But we got turned around in Kyllburg and visited an old catholic church, took some pictures then went back down the road, around the turn-about (again) and went a different direction! We finally made it to Grundsanierung Schloss Malberg (Malberg house). We were unable to tour the premises for reasons unknown, we didn't understand what the lady was saying from the wall and I honestly don't think she understood what we were asking of her! We did take some pictures of what we could see them we hiked over to this cemetery and up to the top of the hill that the cemetery is built in. After we finished with this adventure we stopped at this THAI restaurant to eat dinner. Yes, I ate Thai! I must say that I only agreed to eat there because Brian had already introduced me to some Americanized Thai food! I had some fried rice with chicken dinner. It was alright... I think that I like the noodles that Brian gets a little better, but I couldn't find what I wanted in the menu and it wasn't a buffet... Then finally we went into Trier to find this statue of a Roman on top of a hill. We drove up to the top and attempted to take some pictures of the nightlights of Trier. I did get a few pictures of the statue and the cross that is up there.

Wednesday (today) we slept in some... then got up and around... we went back to Trier to see the sights there. Trier has history dating back to the roman ages!!! Go to www.trier.de for more information! This town is incredibly awesome!!!! I could have spent several days in the roman part of the town just looking at the different sites and going through things! I bought some souvenirs for the girls, and managed to remember to buy something for me!

My picture count is now up to almost 200 pictures! When I arrived I had about 1250 pictures available on my memory card and now I am down to about 1000 pictures left!

Upcoming events: tomorrow we are planning on going into Luxembourg, a country that is smaller than the state of New York... there are a kazillion things to do in this country! Check out this website for some information about the country: www.ont.lu We are definitely going to be visiting the American cemetery where General Patton is buried... as well as touring some castles! YEAH!!!!!

Deutschland day 4

Well it is day four of our trip... we didn't do a whole lot today. We drove to a town north of here called ESSEN (north of Cologne or Koln) to go to a horse show... apparently this is a big deal horse show... and it is also in the states... We had quite the adventure getting home!!! It took us about 2 hours to get to Essen, and about 5 getting home! I was following the "directions" from the computer, just in reverse, only problem was that most of the signs that we saw going to the place were not the ones we were needing to see on teh way home... go figure... I did get us back to Cologne, I just managed to get us a little further to the east than we needed to be... when we stopped (cause I wasn't 100% sure where we were) we were almost to Bonn... which is between Cologne and Euskrich and to the east... We retraced our steps, went back to Cologne and tried again. We still missed the exit that we needed but that is alright we found another city on the map that we recognized and that got us home. THe problem with driving here in Germany is that the autobahns aren't labeled like our highways are in the states... Example to get to my house in Justin you would exit I-35W at exit 76 Argyle/Justin... not that way here... you have a sign with city names (which are long and hard to pronounce) with some random numbers either in a box, a circle, or in some other shape within a box that are supposed to mean something but they don't... you don't always exit the highway either when your directions say to exit...sometimes you just stay straight... yeah... it was an adventure.

I am hopeful that tomorrow we will actually do some sight seeing and get out of the house. I am DYING to see some of the castles and cathedrals and roman ruins that are in this area!!! Things that I can't see in the states!!!!

Can anyone believe that I have only taken like 6 pictures since I left my house on Thursday? Yeah... a few on the plane and one of a windmill in the sunset... shocking huh?

Deutschland days 1, 2, and 3

Gutentag! Greetings from Germany!

My friend's mom, Teresa, and I left DFW on Thursday afternoon to fly out to Luxembourg (it is a separate country, it is not part of Germany). The flight from DFW to Zurich, Switzerland was pretty boring... just cramped in a tiny space and trying to figure out how to sleep during the 10 hours we were going to be on the plane! Then in Zurich we almost missed our flight! We found our gate rather easily and went back up stairs to look around some more and decided to go back to our gate only to find out that our plane was boarding!!!! We gave our ticket to the lady, boarded a bus and drove out to the plane and left!!! This smaller plane was much MORE comfortbale than the bigger plane that we flew over on!!!! When we got to Luxembourg we realized that Teresa's checked luggage did not arrive with mine or with us! We were told that they would call when it arrived and they would bring it to us... uh huh!!! We went home, took brief naps, then went to Spangdahlem AF base to get some stuff. Mental note to everyone reading... always carry your passport with you, or at least two forms of picture ID when attempting to get on a military base!!! I finally found a second form of picture ID... my COstco card!!! When we got home we realized that the airline had called us... so I called back and was on hold for over 30 minutes when I finally hung up! I kept trying to call back but it was busy... go figure! Then I finally got through about 15 minutes from their closing time and was put on hold again for more than 20 minutes! We just decided that we would go get the luggage ourself on Saturday!

Saturday we all woke up around noon and drove into Luxembourg to retrieve the missing luggage... woohoo!!! Now we all have fresh clothes! We went onto Bitburg AF base today! The bases are neat little communities! We grilled steak and potatoes for dinner and watched a movie. From what I saw, "The Illusionist" is a good movie. I really should watch it again so that I can see the ending!

Sunday was another relaxing day. Most places in Germany are closed on Sunday so we hung out at the house then went to Bitburg again to buy a necklace for Teresa. On the way there we saw a cute old church... when we stopped to take pictures of it we saw these wooden signs that said something on them so we followed them down this muddy trail and saw what I think is a bathhouse and a little church/prayerhouse... I will have to have Jurgen translate for me and I will let you all know what we saw when I post the pictures!

Other than our few adventures so far, it has been good. Friday is was drizzly and cold!!!!! Nothing like the warm weather we have been enjoying in Texas!!! Yesterday and today were sunny and in the mid 50's! My allergies are going nuts since all the grass is blooming as well as the flowers and the cat in the house! :) Spooky (the cat) and I are friends though... I give him water from the b'dai (dunno how to spell it correctly...)

Keep checking back as I will try to post every day with our adventures in Germany!

March fun!

For most people, March is a fun month because of March Madness (need I say more) or because of spring break... For me... it is going to be fun because I will be doing a lot of travelin!!!

I will be leaving for a trip to Germany with Teresa, my best friend's mom to visit my best friend Jeremy! We will be flying out from DFW and going to Zurich, Switzerland then onto Luxembourg! We will be in Germany for 8 days!!! While in Germany we are going to be taking mini-excursions to different places in Germany to look at the old castles and cathedrals, back to Luxembourg for some sight seein there, and even to France to Paris and hopefully Normandy beach!!!

I come back and will be in the states for a week- just long enough to unpack all my stuff, upload all my pictures to my computer and burn a cd, do laundry and repack... I will be leaving on a cruise on the next Sunday... the cruise will take us to Jamaica, the Grand Caymans, and to Cozumel. My friends Jason and Belinda will be getting married in Jamaica while we are on the cruise! This trip should be a lot of fun! I have never been on a cruise before!!!!!

Keep checking back to see updates from my travels!!! I will try to post pictures from Germany as I can... and the cruise, well you will have to wait until I get back to see those pictures!!! Of course, you know that I will probably send you photo albums online to view all of my pictures!!!

Birthday Flowers

These are the beautiful flowers that were delivered to my school on my birthday! Goes to show that... guys are trainable!!!! :)

Then again it is hard to miss the hints that I left... work address placed in the Entertainment book where the flower coupons started...

I am thinking that the giver of the flowers is a pretty smart guy! Then again... maybe he is just trying to make up for never sending me flowers before and sending his sister flowers in years past!!!!

This one is for IDA

This one is for a very special Tulsa Police Officer... one whom we hold dear to our hearts... We love you very much and pray for your safety every night!

Kenzie said that she liked this shirt better than her fireman shirt...

We missed you at skating. Kenz was even skating all by herself! And even trying to skate backwards on the carpet! You and Jennie should come out instead of going to the city!!!

Happy early birthday to you!!! I have something for you when I come home in April! :)

Birthday in T-Town- pt 1 (skating)

So for my birthday weekend, Brian so sweetly set up a game night at his house with some of our friends. We played the kids version of 20 Questions, which was funny since none of us are between 7 and 12... then we moved on to more mature games, like TulsaOpoly... I chose to be banker/real estate agent since I had taken Nyquil and knew I wouldn't be able to focus very well with all the coughing I have been doing as of late... So TulsaOpoly turned out to be a riot! We had so much fun! As a non-player, I ended up having almost $2000 and one piece of property! The night was a blast, even if the ratio of girls to guys was 1:7... and none of the other girls showed up... their loss!!!

Saturday it was his idea to take my nieces skating... I invited my Ana Rae and Blake to join us along with some of my other friends from Tulsa, he also invited some friends to join us. Unfortunately, Ana was unable to join since she has been sick... :( Maybe next time I can get her and the cousins together!!!!
Look at Kenzie skating all by herself, with no help!!! She actually did a good job of skating all by herself on the carpet and even tried on the rink!!! I am so proud of her! This was only her third time to go skating!!!
Look at Syrina go! She skated on her own the whole we were there... she is too big to hold her Aunt Tracey's hand!!!
Kenzie loves Davie!!! Today she had to share him with his girlfriend Brandi! But there wasn't too much competition there, Kenzie stole Davie's heart long before Brandi entered the scene!!!!
Me and Syrina sitting while they were doing something on the rink... I love my girls!
Kenzie joined us only after I fell!! Go figure...

See the next blog for the station pictures!

Birthday fun in T-Town pt. 2 (station)

So the other day while I was out shopping with Jen, I found these shirts that said "I (HEART) FIREMEN" on them... so being intrigued I looked and much to my surprise, they had tiny sizes in them! Perfect for the girls!!! So being the good aunt that I am, I had to buy them for my nieces!!! Why you might be asking???? Well cause we love the firemen that are in our lives!!! Here are the girls at my parents house before our festivities!
Here we are at the fire station with our FAVORITE fireman of all time, PAPA!!
Even puppy got into the picture action!!!!! He is hanging out on the siren on front of the ladder truck!
Here Kenz and Syrina are posing with puppy on the front of the ladder truck. We like taking pictures at the fire station!!!
Here I finally get my picture with the little princess!!! I love my nieces soooo much!!!!

I hope you enjoyed seeing my birthday weekend! Brian did such a wonderful job of planning fun activities for me while I was home! Unfortunately he only got to participate in some of the activities that he planned... see previous blog...

100th Day

For those of you that have children that are school age, you know that the 100th day of school is a big day to celebrate... I don't remember us having any big party or lessons that revolved around the 100th day of school, but alright... As a teacher, we usually worry about getting what our students bring to school in terms of illnesses... I am very proud to say that I managed to make it to the 100th day of school BEFORE I came down with whatever CRUD that my students brought with them to school! So I called Trevor to have him come pick me up from work (I car-pooled that day and didn't drive) only to have him tell me to "suck it up" and "unless you are throwing up, I'm not leaving work..." Gee thanks! Friends like him who needs an enemy right!?!

Well I stayed home on Friday (the 101st day of school) to rest. What a big day Friday turned out to be! I received a phone call from St. Francis Medical Center about a job opening they have in one of their inpatient rehab units and was able to set up an interview for next Saturday morning while I am home!! Then not even an hour later I had another phone call from Hillcrest Medical Center about a job opening they have in their LTAC unit!!!! I set up a phone conference with them so that I can talk with a few of their SLP's on Monday and then if that goes well I will more than likely have an interview with them on Sunday before I drive back to Texas!!! Then I talked with one of the SLPs in the central office for SoonerStart and she gave me the contact information for the lead clinician for the Tulsa County office... I have an email in to her as well!

For those of you that are confused about me looking for jobs in the Tulsa area... I have been doing some serious thinking and praying about moving home, for good... I know that I love my job (most days) here in Texas and I love my friends that I have made here... but there are so many wonderful things that I am missing out on in Tulsa. Like Kenzie's t-ball games, AnaRae's recitals, meeting lil' Miss Maggie Rae... watching my "girls" grow up in general! Please continue to keep me in my prayers as I continue to look for jobs and housing in the area as well as makin the transition. Leaving my friends and Trevor behind here in Texas will not be easy for me... but time will only tell what my future holds.

Photo Fun

The other night one of my good friends here in Texas and I went to have some pictures taken... we thought of having GlamourShots taken, but then decided to go with a different studio. Our requirements for the pictures were to be fun, flirty, and cute. My first set of pictures were the cowboy hat pictures. I figured that Trevor would love these pictures, only to find out that he (like myself) didn't like the fact that I had a black backdrop with a black shirt. But the pictures look good! We had a lot of fun that night, and hopefully the girls at the studio had fun as well!!!
This is one of my favorite pictures. Kinda reminds me of senior pictures! :)
This is me and Jen. We had pictures taken individually as well as together. We both liked this picture... this is how we usually are when we are together, heads together with smiles that make the guys wonder what we are planning next!!!!

ICE world

Well the meteorologists were right when they said we were going to get ice... and lots of it... ANY OTHER TIME when they predict a "wintery mix" nothing happens... I was banking on that when I drove to Tulsa Thursday night to spend a long weekend with family and friends. A long weekend it turned out to be... I didn't leave Broken Arrow...
Here Brian is posing by my car... showing how excited he is about the ice... that means I get to stay a little longer!!!
This is the ice on my back window after we chipped some off... it was at least an inch thick on the back window!!
The front of my car... the ice was at least 4 inches thick! In order to get through it all Brian used the back side of a hammer to chisel his way to the bottom of the ice, then I was able to use my ice scraper in conjunction with the defroster to find my window! You are probably asking yourself why we didn't put my car in the garage on Friday when it started to sleet and drizzle... answer to your question... we dunno... we didn't think about it! Now my baby is warming up in the garage... there is still ice on the top of the car, but it is much better than it was!!!!

Starting 2007 like I ended 2006...

Everyone sends out holiday cards that somewhere in them say, "May your New Year be filled with love and happiness..." or something to that line... well my 2007 is starting out to be a repeat of the end of 2006. My mom called me tonight to tell me that her dad had passed away. I had already been prepped for this earlier in the week when he went into the hospital for severe abdominal pains... and when he left the hospital they gave him 3 months to live... that was on Friday afternoon... I don't think that we ever got the official results of the biopsy that they did on him.

Right now I am feeling very numb. I am still reeling from the loss of my grandma in October and sorting through those feelings, now I have lost yet another grandparent. For those of you that know me really well know how I have felt toward my paternal grandfather... you know that it is because of his alcoholism that I wasn't allowed to have much of a relationship with him or my grandmother... it is because of his abusive behavior that my mom did not have a relationship with him... I grew up hating this man for what he did to my family... yet I still loved him so innocently. Why you may ask? Because he was my grandpa. In my eyes, even though I knew the things that he did and had done, he was still my grandpa and I still loved him.

I am very glad that I was able to go to dinner with him and my grandma Christmas Eve. He was relatively happy that day. I will always have that memory with me.

Please pray for my mom, her sister, and my grandma during this time. My mom is doing alright, as is my grandma... my aunt on the other hand has a lot of things to deal with as she didn't know her father very well and once she had the chance to get to know him, she didn't really take the opportunity to do so. She was just in Tulsa a few weeks ago and she didn't even call him...

Thank you for your prayers. I will hopefully be back in Tulsa this weekend to be with my parents. I am hopeful that my grandma will move in with my parents so that we don't have to worry about her living by herself in that neighborhood.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Hello family and friends! I was attempting to do a "year in review" blog but had too many pictures and got too fed up with the upload process... I have yet to upgrade to the new and improved blogger... maybe I will do that soon!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year holiday season. I had a great time with my family- good thing too since I probably won't be back in Tulsa for a while...

Here is a picture from my stay in Tulsa, this is my good friend Brian... :)

We had a good time at Rhema... it was a little chilly... but we survived!

For those of you that had read the previous posting and were actually concerned about my "missing friend" - fear no more... he wasn't really missing, just working way too hard... We saw him on Kenzie's 6th birthday!

Fun times in T-Town

NOTE: Pictures are not necessarily in the order in which I uploaded them... maybe some of my "high-tech" friends in Tulsa can help me with this problem of mine when I go home... (hint hint Annie...)

So we had a lot of fun baking goodies the night before Thanksgiving. Here is a picture of Syrina helping to clean out the pan that the fudge was in... she somewhat looks guilty!

McKenzie was the official fudgemaker and boy did she do a GREAT job!!!! She measured and poured the ingredients into the pan, and even managed to stir the concoction from the start until there was only 4 minutes left to boil! Then after that, she wanted to stir it all together with the chocolate chips and marshmallows... she had some difficulties stirring on the countertop so we moved the bowl to the floor as seen here...

Here McKenzie is riding a horse for her very first time! I offered to ride double with her, but she did not want any part of that idea!!! She is definitely a cowgirl! Now if only we could convince her papa that she REALLY NEEDS a horse out at his house!!!!

AnaRae and Kenzie Ann FINALLY got to play together after asking to play for the last two months!!! These two girls are like two peas in a pod! It is so funny to watch them together- Kenzie is usually quiet and reserved and Ana is often a little bossy... but Kenzie will stand up to Ana and tell her NO and Ana will (most of the time) compromise!

Finally, Syrina and Kenzie eating the little remanents of fudge that were left in the pan.

Just remember... I'll be home for Christmas... You can count on me... I can't wait to see my girls (all of them!!!!) and even the random boys in my life that are in T-Town... I just hope that I can manage to find the time to see all the cousins- there is a new baby in the family that I haven't met yet!!!