Ahhhh...... vacation...... LOVES IT

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The latest Buzz.....

We have been planning a 2010 trip for awhile, and the plan WAS Disney. But the kids started talking about wanting to go somewhere else, and Sean somehow got hooked on Hawaii... which led to other beachish discussions and then to CRUISE discussion! Nicole has always talked about how great cruises are and I am dying to see for myself! ...and when I priced out vacations and the cruise was $1100 less than Disney's cheapest hotels for the same amount of days... I was in!!

My Cruise bug appears to be contagious! As of today I think Len and Dyan are coming along, and Mom is tossing around the idea as well. It would be SO fun to have a whole bunch of us take over the ship!!!!! And it's the PERFECT group vacation because everyone can do thier own thing... AND because the kids have THEIR own "clubs" to go to!! LOVE THAT!!

Maine State Cheering Competition

Today I took Jessi and a friend to the high school state cheering competition. Dyan, Len, and Nick also came along but the sissy boys couldn't handle the wait in the cold and took off to do errands. I had no idea what I was getting into until I turned into the auditorium parking lot and saw the line all the way past the horse track! We stood in line freezin' our arses off for over an hour!! It was all worth it though, we had a BLAST! Some of the stunts those kids do are just CRAZY... I told Jessi that she had better ALWAYS be a base and not a flyer or I may have a heart attack seeing my kid getting thrown 20ft in the air! I wish I had thought to take a pic before the end when they were judging... I forget that as long as I have my phone... I have a camera!

Hampden didn't place... Bangor too 3rd, then Lewiston, and Biddeford won. I'm sure you would have thought this blog was VERY lacking in detail had I not mentioned that ;-) ...and I am also sure you will sleep better tonight with that knowledge tucked safely away in all your little craniums :-D

Here's Biddeford's routine... gotta love that youtube..lol!

Ugh.

I feel like crap this week. I am not sick... well, I don't think I am anyway. I am just having a REALLY hard time with the low-carb thing and have not stuck to it very well. Then I feel crappy in my brain about cheating... and crappy in my body because eating a lot of carbs makes me feel really cruddy... bloated... tired...and my skin breaks out... and when I feel cruddy... GUESS what I feel compelled to do!!?? I am a sick twisted individual when it comes to food. Of course... this could all be PMS related as well ;-) (Sorry... TMI, I know) And I have a killer headache this evening, which is weird, because aside from caffeine issues, I am not a headachey person at all and this headache is not a caffiene related one.

On a lighter, less bitchy, note.... Just in case you forgot what rednecks we are up here....

If your kids can use a dead car in your driveway as a snow hill to sled down.... you MIGHT be a Maine redneck ;-)

(taken with my new celly :-D)

With Cheerleading over... we've now moved on to theatre ;-)

It's Superbowl Sunday.

Sampson and I are super excited.

;-)

I think Jessi and I may hit the mall for awhile.

We can live with 3rd place ;-)

Even if it's out of 4 ;-) LOL

It's competition day!!!

Last night they all got there hair did ;-) I don't know HOW she slept with that craziness on her head, but she claims she slept fine. They are all wearing thier jeans rolled up with long socks because... well.... because they are weirdo 13 year olds.

I am going to get there early and save seats for all my peeps.... you know much much people LOVE seat savers, right!? LOL

Following Nicoles lead... with the tofu thing anyway ;-)

Tonight I made a tofu stir fry, it was quite yummy, but I thought the tofu would be crispier on the outside since I read a bunch of recipes for crispy tofu and cooked mine the same way... but not-so-much. Oh well. I DO think crispy tofu would be just delightful! :)

...and for the record I am trying to follow lots of other things Nicole made on her list, but some of those things.... like being nice... and not gossiping just don't come easy!!! LOL

Suddenly a Saturday evening get together has formed itself!

So... Saturday night, same time same place ;-) I'll not be farming out the kids, so if you have some to bring... bring em on over!

Nicole thinks we should play outdoor winter wiffleball under lights.

Do I DARE!!??

Why YES, I believe I DO!

Jessi and I took a little stroll over to Best Buy to check out the Verizon phones today. We had Unicel, but Verizon bought them out and everyone has to switch to Verizon. I WAS going to wait a awhile since we have til March to switch, but Best Buy made me an offa I cudn't refuse, ya know?

Rick and Jessi are the proud owners of new env2 phones, PERFECT for them since they have a full keyboard and they texting fools! And I am the very proud owner of an LG Dare. LOVES IT!!

This past week has been pretty "blah" ...hence the no blogging, sorry Nicole ;) When I wasn't "blah" ..I was busy! Friday night I took Jessi and some of her friend's to Bucksport to cheer on her A Team cheerleaders at their competition and I must admit, it was REALLY fun! The girls are so cute and Sassy!! Karyn convinced me to go since she was going to cheer on her daughter who is on the Orrington team, and I am glad she did! This Friday night is Jessi's B Team competition and it should be even more fun since my kid is actually a participant! GO REBELS!!!!! ;-)

Sooo....... we got a little snow....

P.S. the day they DO climb to the top of the roof and slide down... they had better keep right on slidin' down the road and on to Texas because I will kill them dead!

Kids don't care about snot freezing cold.

If I had MY choice... I would have spent the evening snuggled up on the couch with a blanket. INSTEAD I took Sean to the pool to go swimming since Karyn was there with her son and his friends... then I stopped over at Jessi's school to visit her at her "dance-a-thon" (and I use that term VERY loosely since I saw no dancing when I was there...lol. They should have just called it a "hang-out-a-thon" and asked the parents to donate money to get the kids out of the house for the evening...lol!!) and take some photos. The girls even decided to show off thier routines so I could take photos. Who would of thought that teenage girls like to get their photos taken!!?? SHOCKING....LOL!

SNOT FREEZIN' COLD!

And I am NOT even kidding. This moring I walked outside and it was so cold that the air made me cough... and then I sniffed... and my nose stuck shut because my snot froze!

Sometimes... ok LOTS of times... or even MOST of the time... I HATE MAINE!

The current temperature is 19 degrees BELOW ZERO!! Which means it has "warmed up" a few degrees since we left for work and school this morning.

Look what _I_ FINALLY HAVE!!!!!

We are 95% there! The shower and toilet are up and running, but the sink isn't done yet because Scott's glue was frozen. (Don't ask, I have no idea!) I still need someting for over the toilet. I really want some black shelves or a cabinet to go with the towel bar on the opposite wall, but I haven't been able to find something that I really like. SO EXCITED to pee in my own ROOM! ROFL

P.S. It's kind of hard to tell, but the walls are a creamy white color- not yellow, "Linen white" to be specific ;-)

FINALLY DONE!

I have been working all week on my "book of 2008." I had been agonizing with my perpetual question lately of to scrap or not to scrap and if NOT to scrap, what the hell am I going to do with all the bazillion photos that I take!!?? Then I made my mom a "book of Sean" for Christmas at her request because I made her a scrapbook all about Jessi before Sean was born and she had nothing like that for him. But.... I REALLY didn't want to make a scrapbook, nor did I really have time to make one since she didn't ask me til December ;-) THEN I got an e-mail from clark photo that they were having a sale on photo books and the lightbulb went on over my head! So I made her one and when it came I wished I had ordered one for myself too because I LOVED it!

Then this past Monday I got an e-mail from Winkflash that they are having a flat rate book sale til Jan 26th. All books up to 100 pages are one flat rate. Lightbulb again!! A book of all my 2008 photos!! And I used every one of those 100 pages! I can't WAIT til it arrives!!!! I reallllly hope the Winkflash ones are as good as the Clark one was!

You're gonna LOVE my nuts!

Well I told him

After reading a couple articles that Kristie sent me... and the comments from all my fabulous peeps (THANK YOU!!!!!), and since Rick was in the truth camp, I decided to go with the truth. Especially since we have some time to wrap our heads around the whole thing. It would be a LOT easier to lie... buy Sean is really inquisitive and clever and Nicole was totally right on with the abuse thing, Sean would definitely pick up on that. Plus too many people would have to remember "the story."

So.... I talked to him about it a little bit just now...

"Remember how we brought Sampson to live with us just for a little while to live the rest of his life, right?"

"Yeah. He's way old."

"Yeah... I think we may be getting near that time to take him to the vet to be put to sleep." (I know the experts say use the word 'die' ...but since Sean has already BTDT... he knows what getting put to sleep is)

Sean's head pops up and he says... "Can we get a new dog when Sampson dies!!!?"

So... I think he'll be ok ;-) We talked awhile more and I asked him if he thought he would be as sad as he was with Nicky and he said... "Well... probably not since I haven't known him as long... but I still want to keep his collar if I can."

Hindsight being 20/20... I'm not sure if I would do this all over again. Maybe?

Oh yeah.... and.... did "oh my god that kid is going to grow up with a collar fetish" cross anyone else's mind or am I truly one sick puppy? LOL (I should add to that, that Sean cleaned under the couch in the den the other day and found Lucy's baby collar that she had outgrown and I told him to throw it away since it didn't fit any of our dogs and he vehemently refused and chose to keep it.)

Input needed.

So…. We all knew Sampson’s days were numbered. What I HADN’T factored in was Nicky’s health going downhill so quickly. Now I am faced with a yucky decision. When Sampson had his first vet visit back when we got him, the vet and I noticed a mass inside his nose. The vet said that canine nasal cancers were quite fast and aggressive, and they are. At this point Sammy has one blocked nostril, sneezes a lot, and shakes his head a lot. (Which is what made me notice the nose thing, I thought maybe he had an ear infection and that’s why he was shaking his head so much) I think Sammy’s days are very numbered. He already has pain from his arthritis and fused hip… so I won’t let discomfort go on for long with the nose thing. He has had enough I think. It’s just so hard to tell with him because he is SO stoic and is still up and around and happy to see us when we get home and getting up to greet visitors… all the doggy good stuff that the vet said to watch with him. He said when that stuff starts to fade away, then it’s probably time.

My question is… when it is time to take him to the vet, do I tell Sean the truth? He still gets teary about Nicky sometimes. Still has Nicky’s collar in his room and takes his dog tag off the shelf it’s on a lot to hold and look at. A big part of me thinks that it would be better to just tell him that the people who had Sampson got a new house or something and really miss him and want him back. Everyone at work is QUITE split on the issue.
Needless to say… even though everyone in the house wants to… we won’t be going to see ‘Marley and Me.’

Back to school!

The kids are back to school today. This vacation seemed REALLLLLY long! Not because the kids were bad or drove me crazy, but because it almost seems like Christmas was ages ago and all the new clothes the kids got for Christmas already don't feel new... and our old morning routine feels like our new morning routine. We are all ready to go right now and we don't even have to leave for 15 minutes! Because I wanted to start the new year back to school out right, I made them do EVERYTHING last night, make lunches, lay out clothes, pack bags, and I did the same. I REALLY like this more laid back morning and I really hope that we stick with it!!!!