Moving???

Well I am starting to wonder whether or not I should even contemplate moving back home to Tulsa after all... I have sent in my resume to just about EVERY school district within 45 minutes of Tulsa and even applied at most of them and have heard nothing back... the one school district that I had talked to, after talking back and forth for a month, emailed me (after neglecting to email me a week earlier with directions) saying that they felt bad because they didn't email me back to let me know that they had filled the position... I find out later that the position was filled by a recent grad (of 2 weeks) whose mother works in the building... why on earth would they talk to someone for a month, schedule an interview with them and then contact them a day before their interview to say - oops... nevermind... Then I interviewed with our Early Intervention program through the state. Once again after talkin to the clinical director, she made it seem like after meeting me we would be signing the paperwork and I would have the job. A position that has yet to be filled for the past year... I interviewed for the position, thought that it went well... got a letter today saying that the position was filled by someone else that they had talked with but that they will keep my resume on file... yeah okay... I don't understand where I am falling behind the recent graduating class. I am happy that they are finding jobs, I was in their shoes not so long ago... but at the same time, I have 3 years of experience on them, I have completed over 125 hours of continuing education in various fields, I have good references... what is wrong with me?

Weekend fun in Tulsa

This was a fun weekend in Tulsa! I drove home on Thursday to have dinner with one of my friends who is very difficult to contact and make plans with! We had a great time at dinner, and I am looking forward to many more fun nights this summer with this friend...

Friday night I picked up Syrina and Kenzie from their mom and we went home to grammy and papa's house. Kenzie had a special surprise when Davie came over!!! We played SWAP and then read books before going to bed. Here Kenzie and Dave are reading "Little Bunny FooFoo" while Dad and Syrina are reading "SOCKS"

Saturday morning Kenzie was excited about going to John and Patty's to see the new baby donkey! Lucy had a baby two weeks ago and Kenzie thought that a good name for her burrow would be Little Ricky since it is a boy. But we have now decided that isn't a good name after all. We just don't know what to name the little guy!
Here is Kenzie with lil' burrow and Lucy. The donkeys like peanuts just as much as they like carrots!!!
After playing with the baby donkey, Kenzie and Gavin drove around in her Jeep. She attempted to let Gavin drive but after he ran them into a ditch and overturned the Jeep she decided that maybe she should drive from now on! They had a lot of fun in the Jeep! Too bad the wheels are hard plastic and not soft rubber, she could really get up and go!!!
This was the first time that Kenzie has ever completely ran the battery out in her Jeep!!!

We went home from our exciting morning and got all pretty to go watch AnaRae dance at her recital! Syrina and Kenzie had fun at the recital, and enjoyed getting to watch Ana dance!!!

Zeke's day at the park

A week ago Friday I had the privilege of going on the Kindergarten field trip to the mini-train and the park. One of my friends, a former teacher at our school, brought her adorable little boy to the park to play with us!!! Here are a few pics of Zeke at the park!!! This one's for you Trish!!!

Bummer

Well I received an email this evening letting me know that Sand Springs has offered the position to someone else... they will "keep my application on file if another position opens up..." You know the drill. I still have the interview with Sooner Start on Friday afternoon. I am a little bummed because this was the ONLY school district to show any interest in me since I have started sending out my resume. However, I am confident that something will open up for me that is what God wants me to take... Keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

Updates

Hello again!!! I wanted to update everyone on the upcoming interesting events in my life... I know that I have asked for opinions as to whether or not I should move back to Tulsa or stay in Texas... I know that I am responsible for whatever decision I make. I have pretty much made up my mind, now the task is to find a job. (Does that answer any questions as to what I am thinking of doing?)

On the note of finding a job... I have an interview with Sand Springs Public Schools on Friday as well as with Sooner Start ECI... I have placed my application online to Broken Arrow Public Schools and Jenks Public Schools. I hope to fax my application in tomorrow to Owasso Public Schools. I am also attempting to contact an outpatient therapy company known as Therapy Works in Tulsa.

I am not choosing to move home for one person or for a guy... although there is someone (or someone(s) ) special that I am looking forward to spending time with this summer. My decision will be based on whether or not I find a job and if I will be happy doing. Missing out on the life events of my girls is making it hard on me to stay in Texas. I missed Ana Rae bridging to being a Brownie Scout, I missed Kenzie's kindergarten program, I have yet to get to watch Kenz play t-ball!!! My friends have had the privilage of watching Kenz play t-ball, but I haven't... I want to be able to celebrate with my girls (and when I say girls, I am not just meaning my nieces, I am including my extended Blakemore family) and boy, support them with school and in sports, to get to watch them grow, and not just through pictures on a blog. I know that I will miss my friends here in Texas, but they all have access to airplanes (commercial and private) and they are all old enough to send me messages on the computer, things that my kids can't do...

Please keep me in your prayers that I am able to find a job and a place to live. Moving home is going to mean some cutbacks with salary, but with what I will be gaining from being closer to my family money will never be able to replace...

Tulsa

Well I have been thinking seriously about moving back to Tulsa for sometime now... I have asked for opinions on my moving on my myspace blog and had some interesting responses... I asked my friends on myspace to weigh in on what THEY THINK I should do, stay in Texas or move back to Tulsa. and five reasons why I should do either... Most of my responses were that I would have to make the ultimate decision myself and that everyone would support me whatever I decide to do...

So... for you, my family and friends that read this blog- it is your turn to weigh in and tell me what YOU think that I should do and give me YOUR reasons why I should either move home to Tulsa or stay put in Texas...

I'll be looking forward to reading the responses from my extended family (yea that's you all you Blakemore family members...) and random high school friends!!!!

More details to come about the applications that I have completed online for Broken Arrow and Jenks. As well as the interviews that I have scheduled with Sand Springs and Sooner Start. I am also submitting my application to Owasso and Therapy Works. Cross your fingers and say some prayers for me. I keep hearing that there is a shortage of SLPs in the area... but so far haven't had anyone come calling me in response to the applications I have been completing online...

Formal Cruise Pictures

Note: These pictures are very much posed... they do not indicate that things are on the up-and-up... just that we had a good time on the cruise and took pictures together...

These first three pictures were from the first formal night on the ship. The second set of three pictures are from the second formal night, which happened to be after the scuba incident in Grand Cayman. Everyone thought that it was so cute that we matched both nights, the matching was sheerly coincidental as we both like blue...

Friends

Trevor and I have some good friends here in Texas. Last year one of Trev's acquantances (he is technically a repeat customer but in a different way) was going to meet up with us at this event called "Taste Addison" (kinda like Tulsa's Mayfest, only in one area, with better food and music, and not as much stupidity- then again we left rather early if I recall...). He had just started to date this girl so he brought her along. Little did he know, she and I would hit it off! Since that evening Jen and I have been pretty much inseperable! To my parents relief, he got her a CINGULAR phone so that both his minutes and texts as well as mine would be safe from going over!!!!

These guys are great! We always have fun with them. The "boys" (as we sweetly refer to them) talk shop about airplanes, avionics, boats, and their RC helicopters, while we usually talk about anything and everything under the sun! Apparently I am Jen's twin when she was my age!!!

Here is a picture of Jen and Scott from when we went to see Larry the Cable Guy in Dallas between my Germany trip and cruise.
Here's me and Trevor... He wasn't really wanting to cooperate with the picture taking process.
We always have a good time when we are out with these two, which is just about every weekend and depending on the week a few times in the week!

It is good to have good friends that you can depend on!!! :) Thanks GUYS!!!

Cozumel

Cozumel, Mexico... We had fun here... This is a picture of me with Senor Frog. This time he earned a kiss! Trevor thought it was pretty funny! Typical Tracey, hitting on guys in foreign lands! First it was the Caveman in Arkansas (and yes Arkansas IS a foreign land), then the pirate in Grand Cayman... and the othe Sr. Frog... look out guys... Tracey is SINGLE again! :)
This is a picture of Trevor standing between the Mexican Marina people. I took the picture in a hurry as our names were being called from the loud speaker on the ship. Apparently we were about 40 minutes late for boardin the ship and the ship was about to leave us behind!!!!
Our excursion was a see through kayak (that resembled a canoe more than a kayak) and then snorkeling. I had to take a picture of the coral to show everyone what to NOT bump into when scuba diving... notice all the "pretty" brown textured stuff on this rock... that is CORAL... DON'T ever touch it!!! (See previous blog) But look at the pretty colors!!!!
Here is a picture of Trevor in the ocean snorkeling. The salt water leaves quite a bad taste in your mouth! Yes, we know you AREN'T supposed to drink the water while snorkeling. You can't help the water that comes into your tube from the waves!!! I enjoyed snorkeling a lot! :)

We had a lot of fun on this stop. I had a braid put in my hair that started on one side of my head and wrapped around to the other ear. It looked pretty... but wasn't what I had requested. Maybe I need to brush up on my spanish skills before I go back!!!

Grand Cayman

Back to the posts about the cruise... In Grand Cayman Trevor and I decided that we wanted to try our hands at SCUBA diving... Of course, the ships paperwork specifically stated that if you had ANY sortof respiratory or cardiac problems that you could NOT participate in THIS excursion... we pretended that I did not have asthma... wink wink wink... not to mention that my inhaler was left in my living room floor when I did my final walk through of the house before leaving to fly to Houston... Scuba diving was really cool and fun once I got over my two (or three) panic attacks in the pool! I should probably back up here and state that in order to "maintain proper buoyancy" I needed a 6 lb weight belt on top of the 50 lb or so air tank that was on my back and however much the other equipment weighed that was attached to the vest thing I was wearing... It was kinda eery for me to hear myself breathing at first in the pool! It sounded like Darth Vader!!! I was somewhat afraid that I was going to use all of my oxygen in the tank before I got into the ocean! When we got out of the pool my adventure began! Going down the second step from the pool to the sidewalk my tank dropped down on my back... had to have it tightened. Started walking (not the easiest task as I had half my own body weight added to me on my back) and managed to get about 10 feet closer to the boat slip where we were supposed to get into the water when my tank dropped yet again... this time the instructor tightened it up and moved it higher on my back, so that the hoses were directly behind my head. In the ocean I had quite a bit of difficulty floating in the "middle" of the water space... I was either snorkeling on top of the water or hanging out with the coral at the bottom. I do not recommend that at any time when you go scuba diving that you hang out with the coral unless the wetsuit that you are wearing is a full length pant and long sleeved one... not shorts and short sleeves. I was attacked by the coral more than once. Yes, the coral attacked me not the other way around! I ended up holding on to a 2 lb weight with my life for the remainder of our dive!!!
I did manage to take a few pictures while on our dive between snorkeling and sinking... here is a picture that Trevor took of me during one of the few times I was where I was supposed to be!
Here is Trevor after we finished the dive. He looks like Scuba Steve to me! He had a blast and of course was a natural at the task!!!!

This is the oh so handsome pirate that we saw on our walk back to the town after diving. Isn't he absolutely adorable!! I think he liked me... ;)
Here Trevor decided to join me with the pirate. Guess he wanted to the pirate to know who was boss! :)
Senor Frog... what more can a girl say about Senor Frog!!!!

That night on the ship was the second formal night... I managed to not take any pictures of me and Trevor dressed up on my camera. I don't know HOW I managed this, but I did! The formal pictures that we purchased on the ship were really good, I will have to find the time to scan them and add them later! I had to stand so that my coral marks didn't show so badly in the pictures... teach me to wear a short dress with red marks on my legs!

My girls at the wedding

Jamaica...

So driving to the resort for the wedding... everyone was on a bus and the bride/groom and photographer were in a different car. Driving in Jamaica is NOTHING like the US! I don't recall seeing and stop signs, and the few YIELD signs we saw were merely suggestions I think. And who needs turn signals... they have HORNS... and who cares about right of way! I don't think I could drive there!!!! The parts of Jamaica that we saw were quite shabby. Not the way that you would think of a place that is a tourist port.

After the wedding pictures on the ship the group went off the boat to shop... we chose to stay near the ship in the little market type place that was set up on the dock and the little building that we went through for security. That was a scary adventure. I am not good at "bartering" or "bargaining" with people on prices. I had Trevor do that for me when I bought my baskets for the girls!

The market set up just off the ship... had some baskets, jewelry, paintings, wood carvings, just about anything you can imagine that could possibly have been made in Jamaica.

The lines of people trying to get back on the ship before departure...

Day 3 - the Jamaican Wedding...

My wakeup call came a little too early for me this morning! It is really hard to get out of bed when it is pitch black in the room!!!! I managed to get up, and clear the fuzz from my head before heading around the corner to Belinda's mom's room where they were attempting to clear the fuzz from their heads... I went to get Val and off we went to get some breakfast before starting on my hair. On the way back to my room we checked on Belinda. Her hair was started... whew... what a relief, it was going to take a while to get her hair all curled!!! I should have left well enough alone with my hair. It actually looked good straight, but alas... I thought it would be a good idea to curl it... as if humidity and strong winds would not knock the curl out in mere minutes!

We had been told that we needed to be down in the lounge at 10:45 precisely with EVERYTHING that we needed for the wedding. At 10:45 I was in the process of lacing up Belinda's dress, her mom was attempting to do something to her hair, and Val realized that she didn't have a second form of ID to get back on the ship. Oh yeah, the only way to get her second form of ID was to have RT's credit card to get into the safe. Where was RT you are probably asking yourself??? He was with Trevor and Jason in the lobby with Jason's parents... We got Belinda in an elevator with her mom and Val and I took off running to the other end of the ship since we realized that the elevator that we were on would not take us to where we needed. We tore down the hall at full speed (as fast as I could go in a long formal gown, flip flops, and both hands full of dress shoes) to try to make it to the lobby (on the 3rd floor, we were on the 2nd at this point) before Belinda and Marti (her mom) appeared. We made it in time to tell RT to go back to get Val's license when I realized that MY license was not in my camera bag where I had placed it! Apparently during our race down the hallway my license fell out!!!! So Trevor and Jason go retrace my steps to try to find my license. They came back without my license, but with my passport! So, now at 11:15 we are actually off for the wedding... until someone stops us as we were getting on the elevator with my license!!! They were awesome!!!

Here are some pics from the wedding:

Lacing Belinda up in her corset gown... Starting to think that a zipper would be easier and more time efficient... mental note for when I actually get married!

Me and Belinda before leaving the ship... this is while the guys were out searching for my license and retrieving Val's!

Isn't this just an amazing picture of the groom!?! And he says that I am the immature one!!!

Me after the wedding. It was a little windy, and a little humid! But it was B-E-A-U-TIFUL!

I took this picture all by myself... Not bad for an amature!!!

So after the wedding we drove back to the ship to take formal pictures with backdrops. These were some awesome pictures! I will post a few, but not all of them as I will have them in a photo album that I will send out...

Here is a picture of me and Trevor inside the ship with the backdrop. These are pics that we took ourselves, not the ones that the photographer took... :)



More details and pictures from Jamaica are to follow... as well as the story of driving in Jamaica! Congrats Jason and Belinda! It was a beautiful wedding and I was so honored to be apart of the ceremony!!! Even if I tried to keep the wedding ring!!!!

Days 1 & 2 - Out at sea headed to Jamaica

The first night on the ship was a fun one. The lifeboat drill was rather tedious and long... I had to agree with the comedian that if there was a real emergency it is guaranteed that there won't be four nice and pretty lines made on that deck! I somehow managed to not get any pictures of Trevor and me in our lifejackets... The funniest part of the lifeboat drill was when I started looking around and realized that all the other adults had a muster station label on the front right side of their lifejackets, and mine didn't... Mine said SMALL but neither of us noticed that it was a CHILDS lifejacket when we got them out of the closet in our room! At least the life jacket fit me and wasn't too big!!! We had a casual dinner in the dining room followed by a family centered comedian. JR McCollum puts on a good show- he is funny, both PG and "rated" R...

Day one of the cruise we were out to sea all day long! We actually slept in really late in the morning. It is amazing what having an inside stateroom will do for getting sleep at any time of the day or night! Those rooms are DARK!!!! We finally got up and managed to make it to breakfast before going out on the deck to watch the ice sculpture in action... other events during the day included the Hairy Chest competition, our first formal night, the first Las Vegas type show put on by the dancers/singers on the ship. There were tons of things to do on the ship today!!!

The ice sculptor at work...

The finished masterpiece!

Me and Trevor after our formal dinner. We were actually in the Toulouse Lautrec Lounge waiting for the show to begin. Isn't it cute how we matched! :)

Me after the show... I had to take one picture of myself... Thank God for self-timers on digital cameras!!!!

We went to the midnight comedy show tonight to listen to JR McCollum one more time. He wasn't too crude... Jason and Belinda said that he did some of the same material that he did last year when he was on the previous cruise...

Day two at sea wasn't as action packed as the first. We slept in a little, not as much as the day before. We did some more exploring on the ship... still in search of the mythical "topless" deck... We never found one... apparently not ALL ships have a topless deck. We took these pictures on the deck. As you can see it was quite windy outside! Check out the blue waters out at sea!!!


The show for the night was a tribute to Motown. Mr. Jerome Dabney was fun to watch. At the end of his show he brought out the legendary, Stevie Wonder!!! This is a picture of him on stage! I was trying to get a decent picture of him on stage singing, but this is the best that I could do without leaning over the ledge!

Since this is the night before the wedding, we decided to split up and have our own "bachelor/ette" parties on the ship! Apparently this was also the night that the ship had scheduled the Mardi Gras deck party... We (the girls) went into the Disco for a while to watch the "kids" (I will use that term loosely...) from Arkansas dance and pretend to NOT be drunk... We ordered pina coladas and strawberry daquiries in these cool tiki man coconut things... Here is a picture of all four of us on the deck before going back inside to go to bed.

It was REALLY windy on the deck... I promise that I am not pregnant!!! Like our TIKI MAN drink holders?

This is the picture that we had a guy take of us in the disco... his friend was not 21 and he said it was ok for him to be drunk and not 21 because it was Spring Break... ok... maybe in ARKANSAS...

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!!!!