Merry Christmas!!!

Last night Ryan, Libby, and I went to Ryan's parent's house for Christmas. We had dinner together and then opened presents! :-) It was a fun night and we headed home a little after 9:15pm. We got home and Libby and I baked some cookies for Santa and then Libby took her shower. After her shower we each were each able to open one present. :-) Libby wanted us to open the gifts that were from her. Ryan went first and she had decided that he needed a new pair of batting gloves so he opened that and was pleased with what she picked out for him. Libby is always very thoughtful when it comes to picking out gifts! Next it was my turn and I opened my gift from Libby and it was a stuffed snowman. She had Ryan take her shopping and she was very insistent that she use her own money for buying my gift. It's a very sweet thought but I'm going to have to slip some money back into her wallet to refund her because she shouldn't be spending her money on me! She also made me a card and it was precious. She is so thoughtful and loving!!!! Then she opened a gift that her Aunt Arlene sent back home with us. It was a makeup kit in a pink sparkly train case. This was her first real set of makeup...I always get her sheer colored lip glosses and small bottles of fingernail polish, etc, but this one actually had real eye shadow, eye liner, lip gloss, fingernail polish, and a complete set of brushes! She felt so grown up!!!! :-) It was time for Libby to go to bed and "Santa" got to work delivering her main desire for this year - a Barbie dreamhouse!!!!! It took a while to get everything settled under the tree and about 1:00am Ryan was standing outside her door with some sleigh bells. :-) I lightly woke her up and asked if she heard the bells. She got the biggest smile on her face and said, "I think he's here!!!" and I told her to go back to sleep so that Santa could stop at our house. :-) Last year she was up at 3:00am to open her presents and I had to make her go back to sleep until 6:00am before she could open presents. :-) This year, though, I woke up at 8:00am and Libby was sleeping soundly! What? I went downstairs to wait and about 8:20am she finally came bounding down the stairs to discover that the jolly old elf had made her dreams come true and had left her a Dreamhouse! The rest of the day she spent playing with her new treasures while I kept trying to clean up (but no matter how much I picked up stuff it still looked like a tornado went through!!). I made our Christmas lunch...a turkey, stuffing, roasted red potatos, and baked cream corn souffle. We finally ate around 3:00pm and after lunch Libby kept playing. She went to her dad's at 5:00pm for her winter break visit with him. Sending her off for her extended visits with her dad never gets easier on me!! I'm now counting down the nights until she gets back home. It will be 10 long nights without her and she comes home on January 4th - the day before her 7th birthday!! I'm volunteering in her class on her birthday so I'll get to spend the entire day with her! :-)

It was a great Christmas for us and I hope that each of you had an equally wonderful Christmas!!!!

Our trip to Tennessee

Our trip to Clarksville to visit with my brother, his wife, and my two nieces went wonderfully!! We left Gainesville at about 6:45am Friday, December 19th. I had planned for us to leave an hour earlier than that but it just didn't happen. Mostly it didn't happen because I didn't get to bed until about 1:00am Thursday night/Friday morning. I had a full day of work, then I picked up Libby and we had a few errands to take care of and then Ryan had a championship softball game. The game was over around 10:00pm (the team came in 2nd place!) and then I still had to pack. So, we finally left Gainesville and what usually is an 8.5 hour trip for me ended up being a 10 hour trip because Libby had to stop every hour to go to the bathroom! :-) We finally got to Clarksville around 4:00pm Central Time. We chatted for a bit and at 5:30pm we headed out to go to the Riverwalk in Clarksville. They put up tons and tons of lights along the Cumberland River and it's always packed there at night with everyone going to see the lights. That night is was 41 degrees so it was pretty freaking cold - especially for us Floridians! :-)

Saturday morning my nieces were both performing in a play so we got the pleasure of going to watch them both perform. It was a two hour play of children performing Shakespere...so, it was almost intolerable but we made it through it. :-) My nieces have been performing for about four years so they are pretty good at it but there were also teens who just started doing this and you can definitely tell the difference between the "veterans" and the beginners. :-) After the play Libby went back home with my brother, my sister-in-law Arlene, and my younger niece Della. Meanwhile my older niece Elizabeth and I headed out for some one-on-one time time and for Elizabeth to help me pick out a Christmas present for Della. We spent about four hours out together and then met everyone for dinner.

Sunday we all went to Nashville (about 45 minutes away from Clarksville) to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. My sister-in-law decided to treat us all to the Orchestra. Both of my nieces are interested in music...Elizabeth is very focused on drama and vocals...she is in 10th grade this year and looking for universities with great drama programs. Della is very focused on playing percussion in band and she wants a career in that so she was the one who originally asked her mom about going to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. We were all psyched about going but it didn't quite turn out the way we expected - but that TOTALLY needs a blog entry all by itself! When we left the Orchestra it was 14 degrees. ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? After the Orchestra we went to the OpryMills Mall and my sister-in-law finished up some shopping and we got some dinner and then we went over to Opryland Hotel to see their lights. They put up millions of lights and it's absolutely beautiful to walk around the hotel (it's literally large enough to actually get lost in). It was great to see the lights INSIDE since it was so cold outside. After seeing the lights it was time to head back to Clarksville around 11:00pm. When we left the mall to go home it was 8 degrees outside...as in a single digit. Seriously, that is brutally cold - especially when Florida has been having 80 degree weather lately. I thought I was going to get frost bite just walking to my car.

Monday after breakfast Della and I headed out for our one-on-one time - and for Della to help me pick out a Christmas gift for Elizabeth and for my sister-in-law. It took a while but we finally found something for both Elizabeth and Arlene that I was happy with. When we got home they said that they wanted to go out for Chinese food so we all went to dinner and when we got home we watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and drank hot chocolate, ate cookies, and opened presents. It was another late night...I went to bed around 1:00am again and I was back up at 6:00am and got us ready to leave and we were on our way back to Gainesville. It was another 10 hour drive but we finally got back home and I spent the rest of the night getting unpacked and putting away everything that we brought back with us from Tennessee. It was a wonderful trip and it was great to get to see our family again...it had been a year and a half since we last saw them so the trip was very necessary. We can't wait to see them all again!!

She really should have told us at the beginning of the year!!

I picked up Libby yesterday from her daycare and she usually has at least one "big" piece of news that she can't wait to tell me. We get in the car and she's talking really fast (I don't know WHERE she got that from!!) and she says, "Mrs. Whitehead (her teacher) always tell us the truth so you have to believe this! She is an elf!! Did you hear me? She's an elf!!! But she grew too big and so that is why she decided to become a teacher." I'm smiling as big as I can and I was playing it up like, "Oh my gosh! Are you serious? I can't believe that she's an elf!" and she sits back in her seat, puts her hand on her head and says, "She really should have told us at the beginning of the year so I could have been good all year." It was hiliarious!

Letter to Santa

Libby wrote her letter to Santa a few days ago but I wanted to take her to the post office to drop it off so that she could put it in the North Pole mailbox rather than just putting it in our usual mailbox. Right after I picked her up from school we went straight to the post office and she dropped off her letter to Santa and she wanted her picture taken. :-) You may notice that yes, she is wearing pj's in this picture. At her school they had a Spare Change Challenge recently and her class brought in the most change for the entire school! Whoa! So, as their reward they had a pajama party all day today. They also had hot cocoa this afternoon and the principal came in and read them a book. We always park across the street from school in the mornings and walk over. This morning we were waiting at the crosswalk with several other students and their parents and I got a few weird looks because Libby was in her pj's. :-)

Today while I was in her classroom volunteering all of the children were sitting on the carpet in front of the teacher and Libby raised her hand and said that something was in her shoe. The teacher told her that she could go behind everyone where she'd have more room and take her shoe off to get whatever it was that was bothering her out of her shoe. She walks behind everyone and I was watching her as she took off her Eskimo boot and pulled out a folded up piece of paper and six erasers!! She had all of that jammed in to her boots!! No freaking wonder it was bothering her! :-) I asked her later why she had all of that in her boot (oh, and right now I need to add that we had some really nasty weather this morning. It was dark as night outside with the wind whipping around and rain pouring down) and she told me that it was in case there was a tornado she wouldn't lose that stuff because she really liked those erasers. My silly litle girl! :-)

Christmas lights

Last night we went to see the Christmas lights at North Florida Regional Medical Center. That is a very special place for us because that is where my little Libby Regan was born (almost SEVEN years ago!! Man, time flies! But that's another story). There is a duck pond at the hospital and they put up thousands of lights so not only is it a special place for us but it's also a beautiful place!! So, we went there last night and it was nice and chilly so we were able to put on jackets and take hot chocolate and walk around and look at the lights and listen to the Christmas music. It was quite festive! :-) In the picture above let's pretend that Ryan is looking at the camera and smiling and this would be a perfect picture! :-)

SEC CHAMPS!!!!!!!!!!!

31 - 20...that was the final score of the SEC Championship game when the Gators took on #1 Alabama and OF COURSE the Gators won! :-) I was nervous, but I knew it would happen. We are the SEC Champs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, barring some computer glitch or something retarded we are on our way to the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP game in Miami on January 8, 2009!!!!!!!!!!! Gooooooooooooo Gators!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My hands are stinging from so much clapping and my throat is sore from so much screaming (and yes, I watched it at home alone with Libby but we were still going crazy!!) but it was all worth it! We are the SEC Champs!! :-)

Little Match Girl ballet

Each year I take Libby to the ballet at Christmas time. Every year we have always gone to see Cinderella. It's a very pretty ballet but the performance is long. A ;little too long for Libby so we usually end up leaving half way through because Libby isn't one for sitting still long and being quiet. But really, Cinderella is a very pretty ballet. But the performances of Cinderella are next weekend - and Libby is with her dad next weekend. This weekend there were performances of the Little Match Girl. We haven't seen that one before but we decided to check it out so that we could continue our tradition of going to the ballet each December. I knew from the beginning that we'd only be there for an hour because the performance started at 2:30 and the Gator game started at 4:00pm. It's the SEC Championship between #2 Florida and an (so far) undefeated #1 Alabama. Can't miss something like that - ESPECIALLY when if Florida wins then that means a shot at the National Championship!! Sooooo, we go to the ballet and we LOVED it! Like I said before, Cinderella is very nice and very pretty but we both just loved the Little Match Girl. It was just so cute. I actually didn't want to leave at 3:30 but we had to because I can't miss a Gator game for anything. It was also a much shorter performance. We left after an hour and there was probably only about 45 more minutes left of it so it is about half the length of Cinderella. We had a great time! Now we can't wait to see it again next year!!

A visit with Santa

Today we finally made it to see Santa! I seem to be doing everything late recently. I can't believe that Christmas is just three weeks from today! I haven't even decorated at work yet - and I usually have that done before I leave for Thanksgiving! At least I'm decorated at home, though! So, we finally made it to see Santa after I picked up Libby from school today. Ever since she was born the Santa in our mall has been the same man every single year and I think that has always helped with the continuity for her to believe that he actually was Santa. I bragged about that fact this year and it came back to bite me because we walk up today and it was a different Santa! Either Libby didn't notice (but she's a very perceptive little girl!) or she just didn't say anything and I didn't want to probe too much because I want to keep her believing for a long as possible. Today at work Ryan was talking with a girl that he works with and she said that her son just figured out that Santa wasn't real (the son is like 10 years old) and Ryan said to her, "Don't say that to Leslie because I think she still actually believes!" :-) It's true, though. I still totally believe in all of the magic of Christmas - and that includes believing in Santa!!! But, that's about me and I was talking about Libby. So, we get there and Libby was a little shy (as always) but Santa was a wonderful Santa. He started talking to her and had her go sit in his lap and he talked to her for a bit and then they took a picture and then he asked her what she wanted for Christmas, etc. She left there jacked up because she finally officially requested her Barbie dreamhouse from Santa. And Libby knows that whatever she asks Santa for she gets. I think that's very important in making her believe in Santa so far so I'll do whatever it takes to keep that up. Luckily for me she has always asked for stuff that I've been able to actually get. Even if it was the knock-off version (the American Girl doll that she wanted last year that you may remember I found a pretty good look-alike in Target for like 1/5 of the price of that nearly $100 doll). There was also that year in 2006 when I took her to see Santa two days before Christmas and she surprised me and asked him for a Bratz pony. What?!?! That was the first that she had ever mentioned that! So, I had to freaking order one online and *overnight* it to my house. I'm sure you know that the shipping cost more than the darn pony! :-) But, anyway, I've always been able to come through with the thing that she asks Santa for so she knows that if she asks Santa for it that it will appear under the tree Christmas morning. So, now that Santa knows her request she is very anxious for Christmas! :-)

Here is a picture from just before we saw Santa. You'll have to wait to see the Santa picture in your Christmas card in a few days! :-)

45 - 15 !!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday the Gators ended their regular season with the game against Florida State. The game was at 3:30 and it was raining like crazy in Tallahassee where the game was played. That didn't matter to my Gators!! They won 45 to 15 against FSU. It's always great to beat FSU!!! This Saturday will be the SEC Championship game in Atlanta against Alabama. It looks like the winner of our game on Saturday will be headed to the National Championship game so.....GOOOOO GATORS!!!!!!!

Other than that, Libby finally came home this afternoon!!!! I picked her up at 3:30 and it was great to have her back home. We put up her Christmas tree in her room and watched some Christmas movies. Then it was time for dinner, a shower, and bed. I can't believe that tomorrow it's time for her to go back to school and for me to go back to work. I really enjoyed my brief four day vacation and wish it could have lasted just a bit longer!!

Day after Thanksgiving

I hope that everyone had as nice of a Thanksgiving as I did! Yesterday morning I got up to cook a dessert that I was taking to Thanksgiving and then at about 12:15pm we finally headed over to Ryan's parent's house for Thanksgiving. There were 14 of us there enjoying lunch together. The food was absolutely amazing!!! I hate WAY more than I intended but I just couldn't help it. The food was yummy!! After lunch we chatted with family, played ping pong, and badmitton. Too soon it was time for us to leave because I was leaving to go to Jacksonville for the night. I went to spend the night with Debs and I got there about 7:30pm or so. We spent some time working on stuff for her wedding (favors and centerpieces) and then we got out all of the sales ads and marked what items we were looking for, where they were, the store hours, and the easiest driving routes. I went to bed about 1:00am and at 4:30am it was time to get right back up and head out for our day after Thanksgiving shopping!! On our way to our first store (Wal-Mart) we found a Starbucks that was open...it was 4:45am!!!!!! We got some coffee (which was soooo necessary at that point!!) and went in to throw some elbows in Wal-Mart. :-) We ended up not having to throw elbows - but not only does it take time to make the plan of attack the night before but it also takes some planning inside the store. We needed a cart for our purchases so we'd find a spot for Debs to stand with the cart and I'd weave and swerve in and out of the crowds and search for the deals that we were there for. Um, hello, they had Hannah Montana dolls and High School Musical dolls for $5 each. That was worth getting up at 4:30am all by itself!!! We were out shopping from 4:45am until about 1:15pm and that is when we finally made it back to her house for a brief break.

It was time to leave again at 1:40pm because we had a 2:00pm appointment at David's Bridal to order my dress for her wedding. We got the dress ordered and it will be in sometime in January!

After that we went back to her house and I left at about 2:45pm to head back to Gainesville. That was a llllooooonnnngggg hour and a half drive back when I was going on just three and a half hours of sleep and shopping all day!!!

Gobble gobble!!!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

It has been a busy few days! On Thursday I volunteered in Libby's class from 7:30 until noon. I went home and started taking all of our Christmas decorations out. I went back to pick up Libby at 1:30pm and we came straight back home and started decorating for Christmas! :-) Our ornaments included the cute little snowflake above. :-) Libby is with her dad from Friday, November 21st through Sunday, November 30th for her Thanksgiving break. :-( I normally would decorate for Christmas the day before Thanksgiving but since Libby was going to be gone for so long we decorated on Thursday so that we could do it together.

Thursday is usually my one day of the week to take care of dinner but Ryan called Thursday afternoon to say that he was taking care of dinner. That was a relief because I was in a sea of Christmas decorations and really didn't have the time to stop and make dinner, anyway. He came home with turkey and all the usual Thanksgiving food so the three of us were able to have Thanskgiving together before Libby left. It was such a sweet surprise by him! I was very happy that he gave me the opportunity to share Thanksgiving with Libby!!!

Friday night we had dinner at Ryan's parents house because his grandmother is visiting for the week. We'll be going back there on Thursday for Thanksgiving with Ryan's parents, his grandmother, his aunt and uncle, and Ryan's brother, his wife, and their children.

Last night I went to dinner with my friends Karen and Kristina. Kristina went on a cruise in September with her boyfriend and thier families. Well, being the sneaky little thing that she is, Kristina and Billy decided to get married on the cruise and have it be a surprise for thier families. So, she went on the cruise and came back married!! She had a bridal shower on November 1st but that was the weekend that Karen and I were out of town for our Girls Weekend so since we weren't able to go to her shower we went to dinner with her last night. We went out for sushi and I have a very weak stomach so I turned a little green looking over the menu but I found something that didn't sound too scary (grilled chicken roll). :-)

C.O.L.D!!!!!!!

Today was cold! This morning when Libby and I left to take her to school (and for me to go to work) it was 28 degrees!!!!! Yes, I said TWENTY-EIGHT degrees. Um, this is Florida...in November. And 28 degrees. That never happens!! Libby has never had to wear a heavy jacket, hat, and gloves before in November! Don't get me wrong - I really love it! It makes it so much easier to get into the spirit of the holidays when it's cold outside rather than 80 degrees outside. It's just weird, that's all. Weird and cold. Did I mention that it was 28 degrees in Florida in November???? :-) I had to start my car early this morning to thaw the ice that was on the windshield and after I made Libby's breakfast and packed her lunch I made us some hot chocolate to take with us. Unfortunately, the weather won't stay here but it will stay cool for another few days and I'm going to enjoy every single second of it!!

Tea - with a Chinese twist! :-)

So, Karen recently discovered that there was a Chinese restaurant in Gainesville that has tea time! Since we all love going to the tea room this seemed like something that we just had to try out - especially since drinking tea originated in China. So, we went this afternoon and while it was totally different from our usual English tea time experience it was still pretty good! Most of the tea on the menu was green tea (which I've tried really hard to like but sorry, I just can't stand it) but there were a few other options. I chose to have cinnamon tea and Karen got her favorite - chai tea. The food was vegetable spring rolls, crab rangoon, a bowl of soup, tea sandwiches (where were WAY different from our usual English tea sandwiches!!), fruit, and fruit curd, cream puffs, and cheesecake bites. The spring rolls, crab rangoon, and soup were all very good. The tea sandwich was okay. The fresh fruit was good - but how can you mess up fresh strawberries, kiwi, and mango? :-) The fruit was served in these great little ice bowls...Karen's was in the shape of a boat and mine was in the shape of a leaf - how did they know that I adore autumn leaves???? There was a Chinese fruit in there (lychee) and that I would not suggest eating...I didn't like it at all!) :-)

Now that leads me to the fruit curd. Ahhh, the fruit curd. Our waitress brought it out to our table and said something (but she had a VERY thick Chinese accent and honestly I only understood about three words that she said the entire time that we were there). So, she brought out the bowl of what we later learned was fruit curd. Neither Karen nor I had any idea what it was for. Karen was pretty sure the waitress said something about it being for tea so we both put a little scoop in our tea but it never dissolved. Plus, it was a pretty big bowl of stuff for it to be for our tiny little sake cups that we had for our tea. Eventually when no one was watching we both fished out the curd from our tea cups and put it back in the bowl. :-) We finally asked another waitress who spoke English a little more clearly and she told us it was fruit curd. We both tried a bite once we found out it was supposed to be eaten :-) but it was just gross. It was like biting in to a very cold boiled egg but with a weird taste to it. Just strange.

The atmosphere of the place was nice so overall it was a really good experience. For my birthday I had intended that when we all went to celebrate my special day that we'd all go to Strawberry Tea Room (which is where we normally always go for tea - and it's my favorite!!) but instead I now want us all to go to the Chinese Tea Room so that everyone else can experience it, as well. So, January 24th we'll have a party of about 8 heading back there to see if it is just as good the second time we are there! :-)

After the tea room we came back to my place and watched the Gators destroy South Carolina in football. 56 - 6!!!!! Haa!! I love beating the snot out of Steve Spurrier. :-)

Another lost tooth!!!

So, daily Libby checks her teeth to see which ones may be loose. Her two top teeth have been a little wiggly for the past week and on Tuesday a bottom tooth started being wiggly. Yesterday that sucker was really wiggly. Today when I picked up her up from daycare she opened her mouth and her tooth was all crazy and poking almost sideways. I nearly threw up! :-) I knew that the sucker had to come out but just the thought of it made me light headed. Her tooth was so wiggly that she could barely speak because every time she'd open her mouth her tooth would move and it would pinch her lip and she said it was really hurting. She couldn't eat anything (not even bread!!) so I knew I had to do something. I had this elaborate plan on the way home that I'd put some ice on it and then I'd give her some pain medication and then I'd wait for Ryan to pull it out. :-) We got home and she couldn't wait any longer. She was in serious pain and crying. As soon as we got home she went to the kitchen and got a paper towel and said that it was time to pull her tooth. I started freaking out and I got another paper towel and wet it and told her to go in to the bathroom. She sat down and I squatted in front of her and looked at her tooth and stood up and told her that I just couldn't do it. She looks up at me and said, "You can do it, Mommy!" Oh geez. I slowly took the paper towel and put it over her tooth and without any amount pressure at all I lifted my hand with the paper towel and her tooth was in the paper towel!! After I was sure that I wasn't going to throw up I was very excited. She immediately stood up and said, "It doesn't hurt any more!" and she walked over and started eating immediately. :-) After that she told me that I really was a doctor. :-) I know that as her mom I am supposed to be able to handle all that stuff but I can't! I just hope that she never has anything worse than a loose tooth or I may end up passed out on the floor! :-)

Tennis lessons...

Today was day #3 of our little four day vacation. This morning after breakfast we went to the tennis courts and Ryan gave Libby her first tennis lesson. She did pretty well for a first timer while I played ball girl the whole time. :-)

The rest of the day was spent at home hanging out and tonight Ryan and I just finished watching The Strangers. Please excuse the way I say this but it is truly the only way to describe that movie...it was f***ed up!!!!

42 - 14 !!!!!

It's Sunday evening and I'm half way through my little mini vacation already! School is out on Monday (I think it's a teacher work day or something) and then of course we are off on Tuesday for Veteran's Day. Yesterday morning Libby and I went to Target. Debs saw online that exclusively at Target there were Pumpkin Spice Kisses this fall. Are you kidding me???? Pumpkin Spice Kisses?????? Oh yeah...I'm there!! So, we went to Target and looked but they didn't have any...they only had out Christmas candy. I LOVE Christmas but I've never been so sad to see Chrismtas!!!! :-( It's still fall - can't they carry fall candy AND Christmas candy at least until Thanksgiving???? Ugh. So, we went home without any Pumpkin Spice Kisses. :-(

After that we just hung out at home and then last night my wonderful Gators traveled to Nashville to play Vanderbilt. Whew, the Gators walked all over Vandy!!! The final score was 42-14!!! Karen came over to watch the game and Libby fell asleep pretty early in the game. It was fun to get and chat and watch the Gators dominate yet another game! :-)

This morning we woke up and Ryan made breakfast and then we went to a local park that has a hockey rink (in-line skating hockey, obviously!!) :-) and he played hockey while Libby and I played at the park. After he finished playing hockey he came over and played with us at the park for a while and then we came home.

Tomorrow the plan is to go play tennis after breakfast. Ryan used to be a tennis instructor and Libby has been wanting to learn how to play for a while so we'll see how that goes tomorrow. :-)

I voted!

Today was the big day and I did the responsible thing and got out there and voted! Libby has been talking about the elections a lot in school recently and I wanted to leave this morning at 7:00am and go by and vote while she was with me so that she could see the process. However, we didn't actually leave here until 7:20am so I had to drive by my polling precint and take her to school and then I went back and voted. I walked straight in with no lines, got my ballot, voted and that was all done within 5 minutes. I then had to stand in line for 10 minutes to turn in my ballot to the scanning station where the votes were being collected. The scanner kept jamming (hey, it's Florida so something had to happen with the votes!) and once I made it through the 10 minute line I got my sticker and I was done! 15 minutes and it was all over. I really was expecting a nasty line when I got there so it was sort of anticlimatic that it was all over in 15 minutes. :-)

Girls weekend

Well my fun weekend is now over and it's time to start getting ready to get back to real life tomorrow. To take you through my whole weekend I last left off saying that Ryan and I were about to watch the movie The Happening on Halloween night. Oh....my.....gosh - that was the WORST movie I've ever seen. It was ridiculously bad! Please, if you haven't seen it yet don't waste your time. Life is short so please don't waste even one second on that movie! Saturday morning Karen and I decided to go to the Micanopy Fall Festival. I never like that anywhere near as much as I like the McIntosh Fall Festival that we all went to two weeks ago but I still have to go to the Micanopy Fall Festival every year. It's much smaller than the McIntosh one but it's still mandatory for me to go to this one. :-) We spent some time there and then it was time to pick up our friend Tara and to make our way to Palm Coast to meet up with Debs who was coming from Jacksonville to start our Fabulous Fall Girls Weekend. We met Debs at the Tea Room at 1:30 in Palm Coast. I had never been to Palm Coast before so everything that I planned was all from looking at stuff online and hoping that the pictures of everything did justice to the places. We got to Tea Room at 1:30 and the setting was nice but the food didn't quite work out so well. Oh well, it was another Tea Room experience to add to our list and now we have several more things to add to our list of things that Debs and I won't do in our Tea Room that we open we turn 50 years old!! From the Tea Room we headed to our hotel room to get checked in. The original plan was to watch the Gator football game at a sports bar nearby but instead we watched it in our room. My wonderful Gators played the Georgia Bulldogs and beat the snot out of them! The final score was 49 - 10!!!! So, I think it goes without saying that we enjoyed the game!! The game was over a little after 7:00pm and we headed to a restaurant that was nearby for dinner. The four of our walked in decked out in our Gator gear and we had several "Go Gators" and "bet you girls are happy" comments while we were having dinner. :-) After dinner we headed back to the room to hang out for the rest of the night. Sunday morning we woke up and took our time waking up, taking showers, and having breakfast at the hotel. We left the hotel and went to Washington Oaks State Garden and walked around for some time. It was very pretty and peaceful. From there we left and had lunch together. Well, it was lunch time but we all actually ordered breafast and I had some incredibly delicious banana pancakes!! We took our time eating and when we were finished we did a little shopping and then it was time to say bye to Debs and to head back to Gainesville. It's nice to be back home and unpacked and relaxing on the couch with Ryan while Libby is sleeping soundly upstairs in her room. I just realized that I never finished that load of laundry that I mentioned on Friday night so it looks like I know what I'll be finishing up tonight before I go to bed! :-)

Happy Halloween!

Libby couldn't wait for today to get here. She was SO excited about getting to dress up like a princess at school! I took this morning off from work and volunteered in Libby's class from 7:30 until noon and I had a lot of fun. We still did our regular centers with math, reading, and writing but everything was Halloween themed and we also made two edible Halloween crafts. The children had a great time and I was happy to get the chance to help out in class. When I left at noon I had to go in to work. It was a busy afternoon but now I'm home and we are about to watch a movie. Ryan went by Blockbuster and rented The Happening so we are about to watch that. After the movie I need to finish some laundry and then get packed because tomorrow four of us are going on our Fabulous Fall Girls Weekend and it takes me a while to pack because I bring just about everything that I own! :-) I'll upload some pictures and email out the link soon of Libby this morning and some from her class. I thought it was cute that Libby dressed as a princess and Keegan (the boy who sits next to her in class) dressed as a frog. Libby didn't kiss him to see if he'd turn in to a prince, though. :-)

Chocolate apples!

Libby and I love to make chocolate apples each year before Halloween (we definitely prefer chocolate apples over caramel apples!). I had intended on us making the apples over last weekend since we were home for four days but somehow we just didn't have time anywhere in that four days to make the apples. We were at the grocery store yesterday so we got the apples and chocolate chips but we definitely didn't have time to make them last night. I promised her that we could do the apples tonight. We finally got home tonight at 6:45pm, had dinner, then started making the apples. It was a rushed process tonight so we get the credit for the experience tonight and not our artistic ability. After we made the apples Libby couldn't wait for the chocolate to set (as usual!) so she took her apple and ate the candy pieces then licked off all of the chocolate and then ate her apple. :-) After we took the picture I put the apples in the refrigerator so that the chocolate would set. We finally finished with the apples at 8:30 (which is Libby's bedtime!) and we headed upstairs and Libby did her homework and took a quick shower and finally got in to bed at 9:30pm. It was a busy, busy day from start to finish!

Libby's pumpkin masterpiece

Libby had fun carving her pumpkin!!! She drew the face and I cut it out because I wanted to make sure that she ended the project with the same number of fingers that she started with. :-) It didn't take long and that beautiful pumpkin became a glowing jack-o-lantern!

HSM 3

Well the movie that Libby has been anxiously waiting for finally opened on Friday. We were going to go on Friday and didn't make it but I knew that I had no choice but to take Libby one day this weekend before she went back to school (this was a four day weekend for us!). So today turned out to be the big day for her. My sister wanted to take her daughter, too, so the four of us went together. Libby L-O-V-E-D the movie!!! Absolutely loved it. Heck, I have to admit that even I liked the movie. :-)

Ryan's mom brought by a surprise for us today...she brought by this big ol' pumpkin for Libby to carve (I never carve my pumpkins...I'm not much in to jack-o-lanterns - I prefer my beautiful pumpkins to be untouched). So, tomorrow there will be pictures of Libby's masterpiece! :-)

63 - 5 !!!!!!!

Today was the homecoming game and the Gators played the Kentucky Wildcats. Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch most of the game because I was guilted in to attending this family thing with relatives that I haven't seen since I was younger than Libby! The Gators had no trouble with this game at all...they won 63 to 5!!

The family thing wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I didn't recongnize anyone there besides my two uncles, my grandmother and my sister and there were about 60 people there. The only way people knew who I was for me to give my lineage! There were about 15 other children there and Libby finally warmed up to them enough to play with them and she had a really fun time. So, all in all something that I was dreading turned in to a pretty good day after all!

University of Florida Homecoming

Today was the University of Florida homecoming parade. As I've mentioned before homecoming is a B.I.G. deal here in Gainesville. All schools are out, the university is closed, and half of the businesses in Gainesville close, too. The homecoming parade is today and Libby and I had all intentions on going. However, it started raining last night and pretty much hasn't stopped. It's wet, nasty, soggy, etc. outside! So, we decided to stay home. What was supposed to be a fun day of being out enjoying the homecoming parade turned in to a day of chores. :-( But I'm nearly done...all the cleaning, vacumming and moping has been and I'm now half done with the laundry. At least that gets it out of the way and I won't have to worry about it tomorrow!! Tonight our friends Jordan and Amanda are coming over and Ryan is cooking dinner for them to thank them for keeping Libby for us when Ryan took me up to see the fall leaves Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.

Dillard, GA and Highlands, NC

We went to visit Dillard, GA and Highlands, NC this past weekend. Ryan took me there for our second anniversary and it was the perfect place to visit for some beautiful fall weather and pretty autumn leaves. We had a wonderful trip. It was sooooo nice to get some alone time together!!! We never ever get that much alone time together. It was just a really, really, really great trip. Ahhh!

I've been having an amazing time since Friday which started off my long weekend of fun when Karen and Debs spent the night. Today I was back at work trying to get caught up on a few things and I'll be at work tomorrow until 2:30 and then I will go pick up Libby and take her to her ballet class. Ryan has a softball game tomorrow night and we may or may not go because it's an 8:50 game. Usually we don't go to the late games but Libby is out of school on Friday so we may go tomorrow night. School is out for the University of Florida's homecoming - which is a HUGE deal around here. Schools are out, daycares are closed, some businesses are closed, it's crazy. I'll take Libby on Friday to see the homecoming parade and she's hoping that we can score some tickets to see High School Musical 3 Friday afternoon. :-)

Pumpkin weekend!!

This has already been a really great weekend!! :-) Last night my two best friends Debs and Karen came to spend the night with me. Debs brought some pumpkin fudge and Debs, Karen, Ryan, and I all tried it Friday night and it was decadent. Absoulely amazing!!! Bright and early Saturday morning (okay, as bright and early as I want to get on a Saturday morning!) our friend Kristina met us at my apartment at 7:45am and we headed out to Starbucks for a quick breakfast. Debs and I both orderd the pumpkin spice latte (our favorite during the fall) and I got a pumpkin cream cheese muffin that was just divine. From there we headed out to the McIntosh Fall Festival - about 20 minutes outside of Gainesville. I L.O.V.E the McIntosh Fall Festival...I go to it every year and although I start celebrating/decorating for autumn on September 1st this is my first "official" fall activity. We walked around the festival for about two and a half hours and we all found some great stuff to buy. After lunch we headed back to Gainesville and had lunch at this great little place that we love - Mildred's. We had some delicious quiche and some great potaTOE soup (hee hee, Karen, Debs, and Kristina will get that because of what we saw at the McIntosh Fall Festival today). It was so delicious! Then we ordered a slice of pumpkin cheesecake for the four of us to share and it was as delicious as it looks - and you can see from the picture above that it looks yummy!! :-)

After lunch Kristina had to go pick up a birthday present and Debs had to head back to Jacksonville and Karen and I headed to Libby's school because they had their fall carnival today which is the big PTA fundraiser for the year. Each class works a booth and our class was going to have the dunk tank. Karen came with me to the carnival to help out at the booth, too. We got there thinking that we wouldn't be able to miss the dunk tank but there was no dunk tank to be found!! We found out that the dunk tank was broken so instead our class had the sponge toss. Teachers volunteered to have soaking wet sponges thrown at their face for 30 minutes at at time. Karen and I got there at 12:30 and were signed up to work until 3:00pm. Some of those children have an arm on them...they were throwing the sponge as hard as they could at the teachers and it was stinging the teachers faces. I kept trying to tell the children to just smack the teacher and not hurt them but some of those children seemed to be letting out some pent up frustration that they had with some teachers! :-)

What a great weekend so far!!

Pumpkin patch

Today we finally made it to the pumpkin patch!!! We went at about the worst time of day in regards to picture taking. I picked up Libby from school at 1:45 and we went straight to the pumpkin patch so the sun was high and B.R.I.G.H.T while we were taking pictures. That coupled with the fact that she was worn out from school and not exactly in the mood to take pictures and we ended up with pictures from the pumpkin patch but not that "perfect shot" that I had my heart set on. But we had fun there and she picked out a few small pumpkins (her favorites) and then it was time to head to ballet class. It was a busy day but a good day!

Evaluation

My performance evalutation at work was supposed to be yesterday but it didn't happen because everything was just too busy. We finally had the time to do the review today and of course mine was EXCELLENT! I knew it would be excellent but reviews always make me nervous. :-) Not one single complaint...just praise, praise, praise about how much I do, how helpful I am, and how responsible and dependable I am. Didn't we all already know that? :-)

I have to work half a day tomorrow so I don't get to volunteer in Libby's class :-( but Libby and I have plans to go to the pumpkin patch after I pick her up from school tomorrow and before ballet class. So, unless it rains again I should have a picture of my little pumpkin in the pumpkin patch tomorrow! :-)

Columbus Day

Today is Columbus Day which is a federal holiday. You would THINK that since the Federal Reserve Bank is closed for federal holidays that financial institutions would be closed, too. We can only close when Fed is closed so federal holidays are very important to us! :-) However, these days a lot of financial institutions decide to remain open on Columbus Day. Ryan's bank where he works is one of those financial institutions that chooses to remain open on Columbus Day. SunState where I work chooses to close our offices but it certainly isn't a day off for us. Honestly, though, I would MUCH rather be at work all day than have to sit all day doing what we have to do on Training Day. We have our Training Day each year on Columbus Day. It is the longest most boring day of the year for me every year - and today was my 10th year attending Training Day (I can't believe how long I've been employed at SunState!). Training Day is the one day a year when all employees from all of our offices meet at once at a conference center and we go over all of our mandatory compliance training. Our attorney came to remind us how important it is to follow all the rules that are set in place by the federal gov't for us to follow...the consequences could be as stiff as a fine of 10 million dollars and 30 years in federal prison - federal prision as in no option for parole!!! Most of those rules are set in place for front line staff (tellers and member service reps) but some of those rules apply to my position in the Accounting department as well. I always follow the rules, run all saftey checks, and document all verification but it's still scary to think of a fine of 10 million dollars and 30 years in federal prison! :-) They also had presentations on I.T. security (which was nothing new at all) and a presentation to remind us that drugs don't belong in the workplace. Darn! Just when I thought of starting an addiction to drugs! :-) We are usually there from 8:00am until 5:00pm but today we got out at 4:15pm which was a wondeful treat since we were all expecting to finish with the compliance training at 5:00pm. I picked up Libby at 4:30pm and she was VERY happy to see me walking through the door early to pick her up.

Tomorrow it's back to work and time for our bi-annual performance evaluations....keep your fingers crossed that it's a good one for me! :-)

51 - 21 !!!!!!!!!!!!

My wonderful Florida Gators played LSU last night. It was a night game at home - which to me are the best games. I LOVE The Swamp at night. It is just so beautiful and the energy is always electrifying. It's just wonderful. We didn't go to the game but I just wanted to mention how amazing night games are for the Gators. So, LSU came to town ranked #3 in the country....but they certainly didn't leave that way!! The Gators ran all over LSU and won the game 51 to 21. It was wonderful!!! So, LSU left Gainesville ranked #13...ouch! :-) My beloved Gators are now ranked #5 in the nation...ahhh, how sweet it is!! :-)

The game was finally over around midnight and then we then had to drive home from where we were watching the game. We couldn't take the normal way home because I live in the area of Gainesville that is close to campus and close to where all the fans go to either get of town or get to their hotel rooms so my side of town gets VERY packed just before and just after the games. It seems that every single one of the 90,000 fans that were in attendance last night all converged near where I live so we had to take a very strange way home but I was lucky enough to be able to bypass most traffic.

GOOOOOO GATORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

October 11, 2008

Where I work we have a monthly lunch celebration and the way it works is that each person in on the committee twice a year. Twice a year you have to come up with an idea/theme, set up the room the day of the lunch, get the food ready, and when it's all over you have to clean up. It's not a bad price to pay when you get to sit back and enjoy the work of others for the other 10 months of the year. I'm always on the October committee because everyone at my work knows that October is my favorite month of the year. So, yesterday we did the October luncheon and the theme was a Fall Celebration (I'm sure you all saw that one coming!) :-) I was in charge of desserts so I made three of them (it's a good thing that we get reimbursed for everything that we put in to putting the luncheon together!!)...I ended up baking for FIVE HOURS Thursday night. The last thing that I made was finally finished at 1:15am. I finally made it to bed Thursday night/Friday morning at 1:30am and it was time to get up at 5:45am. Ugh. My the end of the day yesterday I was starting to get delirious from lack of sleep! :-)

October 9, 2008

Today when my alarm clock went off I convinced myself that it was actually Saturday and I went back to sleep. Miraculously I woke up 20 minutes later and realized that it as actually Thursday morning so I shot up and got ready and got Libby ready. We went to school and I started volunteering right away. It was a normal day volunteering and then I leaft at 12:15 to go home to get some lunch. I was back at school at 1:45 to pick up Libby and the plan had been that we would go to the pumpkin patch between the time that I picked up Libby from school and when we had to be at ballet. However, the skies were black when I picked up Libby. We made it to our car just in time for it to start absolutely storming. So, it looks like the pumpkin patch is off until next Thursday. :-(

Ballet went well and after that we came home. Ryan's softball game was cancelled because of the rain, too, so we got home about 4:30pm today. We are never home for that long on a Thursday! :-)

October 8, 2008

As promised there hasn't been anything interesting going on this week. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were all the same same day just played out three separate times. Libby is now in bed and we are watching Iron Man...we saw it at the movies but Ryan liked the movie so we are watching it again tonight.

Tomorrow I'll be volunteering in Libby's class from 7:30am until about 12:15. I'll leave for an hour to go home and then I'll be back at school at 1:45pm to pick her up. Usually we go to the park after school but tomorrow we are planning on going to the pumpkin patch so that I can get my annual pictures of my sweetie pie sitting with all of the pumpkins!!! After the pumpkin patch we are off to ballet and we should hopefully be home by 5:00. So, hopefully tomorrow I'll have some pictures to post. :-)

Tomorrow is Ryan's niece Deandra's birthday...she is turning 6 tomorrow. She is only nine months younger than Libby but about half of Libby's size! :-) The picture above was taken on Mother's Day this year. Happy birthday Deandra!

Today was our anniversary - well, one of our anniversaries. :-) Today was the two year anniversary of our first date!!! We went to church with Ryan's parents and then after church they took us out to lunch to celebrate our anniversary and his parents told us that they are ready for us to get married. How hilarious. They are going to have to keep waiting a bit on that one! :-) It will happen - eventually - so for now they just need to be patient.

After lunch Ryan went over to his friend Brett's house to watch the football games. Yes, it's our anniversary but I know how much he loves his games so he went over there for a few hours. I came home and finished some laundry and then watched one of my Christmas movies that I have on my DVR...I should be watching something Halloween-ish, but I was in the mood for Christmas today! :-)

Libby came home at 6:00 (yeah!!!) and we made a quick trip to the grocery store, came home and had dinner, gave Libby a bath, let her read for the 20 minutes that she reads each day, and then it was bedtime. Libby played for a while with Ryan but she likes to treat him like an amusement park...she climbs on him, has him swing her around, toss her around and she just loves it. She wanted to do that tonight but with Ryan's broken finger he couldn't roughhouse too much with her tonight so she was a little disappointed. Now she is in bed sleeping soundly and I'm finally finished with everything that I needed to get done so now I'm just relaxing for a bit before I head off to bed to start my busy week!

Go Gators!!!!

My beloved Gators just beat Arkansas 38-7!! The game started off pretty shaky but in the second half my Gators finally showed up and started actually playing the game. Last week wasn't as good of a week for my Gators but I don't ever talk about games that we don't win so I'll just leave it at that. I just hope that they take the momentum from this game and practice hard all week becase we play LSU next week - at home! It's an 8:00pm game and I LOVE night games at the swamp. The Swamp (our stadium) is impressive during the day but it's absolutely beautiful at night. Ryan put in to get tickets for the game next week through his job but I'm not expecting that we'll get the tickets because that is a big game!

Other than watching the game I've spent my day doing laundry and cleaning up. Always a fun way to spend the weekend! ;-)

How sweet!

Ok, one more post today and then I'll be finished. The funny thing, though? I've thought of enough for three different posts today and I probably won't have anything to say for the next six weeks! :-)

So as I mentioned in my last post, Sunday is our 2 year anniversary. We celebrate the 5th and the 19th of every month. Ok, celebrate is probably a bit much to describe it - we acknowledge the 5th and the 19th of every month. October 5th was our first date and October 19th was when we officially declared that we were dating exclusively. :-) The story goes that Ryan faxed me at work asking "Will you be my girlfriend check yes or no" :-) So, today since our anniversary is on Sunday I received a fax that said "How about 2 more years Yes or No". I got the biggest smile when I saw that...it was just very cute of him to send that. So, I printed it out, put a giant check mark in the yes box and faxed it right back to him.

How cute is he??? :-)

Broken finger

In my massive first blog I forgot to mention the news from last night's softball game! Ryan had decided that he wasn't going to play last night because he didn't feel like playing a late game that started at 8:50pm. However, at 7:30pm he received a phone call that they were short on players and really needed Ryan to play so he decided to play. He went to the game and came home with a broken middle finger on his right hand! Someone threw in the ball from the outfield and Ryan was playing shortstop and the ball hit his hand and his finger is swollen to about four times the size of his other fingers! The weird thing...he had to go up to bat at the top of the next inning and he couldn't use his right hand much since his finger was hurting to badly so he had to over-compensate with his left hand and he ended up hitting an inside the park homerun - with a broken finger! He came home and showed me his finger and I tried to get him to at the very least ice his finger but his is S.U.C.H A G.U.Y!!!!!! He refused to even ice his finger! Today he has his finger in a splint and it still looks like a sausage is attached to the middle of his hand. We are going to church with his parents on Sunday so hopefully the three of us can gang up on him and somehow get him to go in and get x-rays on his hand.

Speaking of Sunday...it's our 2 year anniversary! I can't believe that is has already been two years! :-)

Ok, so I may start blogging...who knows. :-) I really don't find that my life is that interesting but I know that I like to keep up with my friends through their blogs so there may just be people who would like to keep up with me through my own blog.

I'm not making any promises...I'm nearly certain that I will not keep up with this but for today, at least, I'm posting an entry! :-)

It was a long week. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were the usual - up at 5:45am, get ready for work, get Libby up and ready for school, give her breakfast, pack her lunch and head out to go to school at 7:10. Walk her to class and then get back to my car at 7:30 to head to work. Arrive at work at 8:00 and work non-stop until 6:00pm. Leave work at 6:00 and pick up Libby from her afterschool daycare by 6:20pm. Get home around 6:45 and luckily for us Ryan usually has dinner waiting for us just as we walk in the door. We have dinner and then Libby and I head upstairs to work on homework. Homework is usually finished around 8:00pm, then it's time for a bath, and then in to bed for Libby to start her reading. She reads for 20 minutes a night and by then it's 8:30pm and time for Libby to go to bed. I always lay down with her and she is usually asleep by 9:00pm and that is when I start doing stuff that I have to do every night...like cleaning up, going through Libby's backpack and preparing for the next day. I usually get to bed sometime between 11:30pm and 12:30am and then it all starts again the next morning. Thursdays are a little different...I take Libby in to school at 7:30am but I stay in her classroom and volunteer. I help out until noon and then I leave school and go home or run an errand or whatever I need to quickly get done and then I'm back at school at 1:45pm to pick up Libby. Libby always likes to go to the park across the street from her school so we go there from 1:45 until she is ready to leave - usually around 2:30. Ballet starts at 3:30 so that doesn't leave us much time to get anything else done. Ballet is over at 4:15pm and then we finish up any errands we may have had for that day and then we finally get to go home and Libby gets some play time before it's time for homework and dinner. Ryan plays softball on Thursday evenings at alternating times so two out of every three weeks we head to softball sometime after dinner to watch Ryan play (each third week his game is at 8:50pm which is too late to have Libby out).

Long blog for my first time but it basically updates you on our daily life. From here I will just now be able to post little blurbs about what is going on...