May Concert Recap

Since we're going to another concert tonight, I figured I better catch you up on the ones we went to at the beginning of May. Yes, yes, yes I'm a little behind in that department.

First up, on Thursday May 7th we went to a Little Big Town concert. Every year our local country station participates in Country Cares. Country radio stations and musicians team up to raise money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital. This year, as a bonus to all who signed up to be Partners in Hope on our radio station, Little Big Town agreed to perform an intimate concert. There were probably less than 150 peeps there and I'm thinking it was because it was a Thursday night. We actually got front row seats for the concert and then a meet & greet afterward. It was amazing! I love it when artists sound the same in person as they do on their CD and the radio. That tells me they are the real deal!

hubby took this picture and we shook hands and talked to all of them. they are so nice!!!

they played more than was on the list. there were lots of requests and they were happy to oblige.

Then on Friday May 8th we went back to the same place to see Jason Michael Carroll. He has a deeper voice in person than on the radio and he is HILARIOUS! He told a bunch of stories and was a really personable guy. For his last song he brought his 4 year old son up on stage with him to sing. Through the whole thing he talked about his kids and it was obvious how much he adores them and then when the little guy came up to sing my heart just melted. Jason obviously is over the moon for this kid. And he was super cute! There were a few more folks at this concert, but still less than 250. We got to meet Jason afterwards and he signed a CD and hubby's ticket. We were the last ones in the autograph line so he talked to us for about 10 minutes! Very cool guy! I just kinda wish he'd cut his hair....

Tonight we're off to see Zach Brown Band and Gary Allan. We don't get to meet anybody, but the concert is ON the beach. I'm talking about I'll be sitting in the sand with the waves rolling up listening to awesome music. I can't wait! I've packed our picnic dinner, our blanket and beach chairs are in the car and we're off!

sock wardrobe

I bought these for Aaron yesterday...
Aaron is super hard on socks (I argue that it has something to do with not tying and untying his shoes) and gets holes in his socks incredibly fast. I'm talking about a month or 6 weeks. Pretty much, when he gets a haircut, he needs new socks. But I've been very slack about updating his sock wardrobe lately and he CERTAINLY won't do it, so all of his socks were in BAD shape.

Case in point...

*Please note - Aaron had been chasing the dog around in the garage in these socks before the pic. My housekeeping skills are no where near professional, but our floors aren't quite that dirty!*

My question of the day...

Why, for the love of holey socks, did he wear these old ratty socks today instead of the brand new ones that were sitting on top of his dresser this morning?

Wilson

Our newest foster got here last week. He is a one year old great dane. Wilson got kicked out of his home when his owner's pet friendly roommate moved out and her mom moved in instead. The owner's mom thinks that dogs belong outside and never in the house. She called him "devil dog" (and not in the funny, joking way that my husband calls our dogs names, but in the serious/annoyed way). Having Wilson there was causing a lot of tension and arguments in the household. The problem was that his owner needed her mom to move in with her in order to pay the mortgage after her roommate moved out. I can tell his owner really loved him though. She took good care of him and even took him to the vet and updated everything to the tune of $200 before she turned him over to rescue. (Big dogs sure are expensive!) Most folks don't care enough to do that and all the updates become an added expense for the rescue.

Wilson is a sweet boy, who like all puppies is a little rowdy at times. He loves toys and can play with them all by himself. He doesn't even need you to throw them or play tug with him. He was hit by a car in December and has some kinks in his back leg. He can still run and play but when he lays down he sticks that leg out straight instead of curling it around. He does like to bark at almost everything, but we're working on that! Wilson gets along great with my girls and loves having playmates.

Without further ado... here he is...

a stolen moment on the favored dog bed... Clover and Dolly Llama must have been busy elsewhere.

he's sucking on his blanket/bed here. pretty darn cute! :)

See his back leg kicked out? That's the one he had lots of surgery on. It sure doesn't slow him down while he's playing though!

Happy Memorial Day

The military has a huge presence in my area. And I love being so close to so many brave, selfless folks.

• There are 7 bases within 30 minutes of my house.
• A large majority of the students at my school are associated with the military in some way.
• I can sit in my back yard and watch Air Force jets practice.
• Traffic is noticibly lighter on off days for the military.
• Deployments and Homecommings make headline news on T.V. and the radio.
• There are tons of parades and services on holidays like Memorial Day & Veterans Day.
• Almost every store/resturant has a special discount for military members.
• I see a man or woman in uniform atleast once a day.

Having such a military presence in this area is a constant reminder that these men and women are putting their life on the line every day to protect me and my family. The families of these men and women also deserve our deepest respect. They stay behind and keep everything running smoothly so that the service members in their family can concentrate soley on their mission to protect America. I am in awe of the selfless way that members of the military put their country first. I am sincerely greatful for everything that I have because of their dedication.

To all of those past, present, and future members of the United States Military :

THANK YOU!

Baptism

We had our 3rd Sunday in a row of Baptisms today. First it was a group full of confirmands, some of who needed to be baptised before they could officially join the church. Next up, a 6 month old little boy. And today a 7 month old little girl. (We've had quite the baby boom at our church over the last year.)

I love seeing the families stand up with these little babies and commit to raising them in Christian love. The parent's are so proud and full of hope and love. The pastor walks the baby down the aisle and up to the choir so that we can all welcome this little person into our congregation. While the pastor and the baby take a stroll we all sing "Jesus Loves Me." Its a sweet moment and I ALWAYS tear up.

These last two baptisms have made me even more emotional because I had already planned when we would have our baby Spud baptised.

Today at the end of the service we sang, "God Will Take Care of You" and I found a lot of comfort in the lyrics, the reminder that I'm not alone, and that God certainly has a plan for my life.

summer plans are coming together

I choose, booked, and deposited money on a cruise for this summer. Hubby is super thrilled. His exact words, "I really needed something to look forward to."

Neither one of us has ever been on a cruise so I can't wait to experience this first with him. We also get to fly down to the port we leave from. I LOVE flying and can't wait to be on the plane.

All of this makes me even more excited to be out of school in 16 days!

coming back on board slowly

• My google reader was broken for over 2 weeks and now I have 347 blogs to read! ahhhhhhhhhhh
• I'm getting back in slowly. I feel like I have nothing to say, but want so very badly to connect with people in the blog world after feeling like I've been stuck in a dark cave for the last 14 days.
• We got a new foster tonight. His name is Wilson. He is a 1 year old black great dane. He was hit by a car in December and one of his back legs is a little funny, but otherwise he is perfectly healthy. My girls love him. So far, so good.
• My grandparents (on my Dad's side) and my uncle (my mom's brother) are all in town this week. Sadly, I haven't seen my grandparent's in about 8 months and my uncle in about a year. Family reunions are making me happy this week! :)
• There is fresh pineapple in my refrigerator. YUMMY!
• There are only 18 days of school left for this year!
• I got an invitation for this summer to watch the best 2 boys on the planet... in my humble opinion. You won't believe this, but they are so cool that I have ask hubby to move our vacation so that I can watch them this summer. Hubby thinks I'm crazy, but I love 'em that much!
• I won't stay gone so long next time... promise

the good & bad of why I've been silent

Sometimes, something so wonderful will happen to me, that I just want to sit with it for awhile and let it be alllllll mine before I share it with anyone else.

After all this time, weeks - months - years, of waiting I got a positive pregnancy test in April! I was completely shocked. That sounds weird to me because I've been wanting it and waiting for so long, but believe me when I say that I did NOT believe it at first. SHOCK! Being selfish, I managed to keep it all to myself for over 24 hours. (I had a special way I wanted to tell hubby, and I couldn't make it work the day I found out.) Once hubby knew he wanted to tell everyone right away, but I still liked the idea of keeping it just to ourselves. But he absolutely could not hold it in, and I thought it was adorable that he was so excited, so we told our parents, siblings, and best friends. But we swore everyone to secrecy until at least mother's day. I didn't want to spill the beans on the blog yet either, but I couldn't think of anything else to post about, so I just took a break for awhile.

Monday (5/4) we went in for a routine prenatal check up and it didn't go well. I've typed it into an email I sent to our best friend, so I'm going to copy that here instead of write it all over again.

"I started writing this email last night, but it gotten eaten by cyber space, so I figured that was a sign that I shouldn't jump to conclusions, and I should just wait until I had answers. Now, I've got answers.

On Monday we went to the doctor at 8:30. The NP {nurse practioner} did an ultrasound and as soon as the picture came up I felt like something wasn't right (see what I get for too much internet and too much book reading). Sure enough, she measured and even though I should have been 8w1d, I was only measuring 6w0d. She ask about my dates and if I could have been off by two weeks, but I'm positive of when my LMP {last menstral period} was and of the day I got the BFP {big fat positive}. She then found a S...L...O...W heartbeat, so she said not to worry tooooo much.

I went ahead and got my glucose test and all my blood drawn. Then when we went to check out she had marked "threatened AB" {miscarriage} on the paper and requested that I come back for another ultrasound that same afternoon at 2:30 with an "expert" and then come in to see the MD on Wednesday and have my HcG levels retested to see if they were doubling. The "expert" was much more optimistic than my NP had been. She said that there could be many reasons to be 2 weeks behind and that since she saw a heartbeat she felt pretty good about everything. She even gave us an ultrasound picture with "Hi Mom and Dad!" written on it.

Monday after the 2 invasive ultrasounds I had some spotting that was heavier that I had been having, but they said not to worry it was probably from the ultrasounds. Wednesday morning I had more heavy spotting that I told the MD about at my afternoon appointment. That appointment was useless... he was neither reassuring nor gloomy, I had to tell HIM why I was even there, they did not even have my numbers back from Monday's blood draw. He said to call the NP today to talk about my bloodwork and determine when she wanted to see me again.

So when I called this afternoon, of course they had to call me back. And when they did the nurse was very nice and helpful as she gave me instructions to page the MD on call this weekend if my bleeding gets heavy because my numbers have indeed fallen. So it looks as if there won't be an addition to our family in December after all.

On an optimism scale of 1-10 (1 being low, 10 being high) I had fallen from a 10 to a 2 after everything on Monday. Poor Aaron was/is still so hopeful that it's breaking my heart. We all know he's not the optimistic kind to begin with. When he heard the numbers had fallen today, I could just see his heart sink. I didn't know how excited he really was until that very moment. He already wants to know when we can try again. He really has turned a corner on this parenthood thing :) I'm sorry to dump that all on you in an email. I just can't say it right now, and I didn't want to completely ignore your text from earlier this afternoon. Thanks for asking though! :)"

I just wanted everyone to know where I've been and especially to remember and honor the women who's children are not with them this mother's day.

Happy Mother's Day to EVERYONE!