Memories Are All I Need

Hello Blogger-Boos! I have been sitting in front of my computer literally ALL day long and I'm ready to rest my eyes. I did, however, take an hour break to watch a new episode of One Tree Hill and it was Grrrreat! I love that show. It's my FAV! I'm so sad there's only a few episodes left. What will I do without it?

Anyway, I've been working on a mother's day gift for my mom (of course) all day, hence the reason I've been in front of the computer all day. I'm making her a photo book from Shutterfly. Sooo I've been looking through ALL of our family photos that I took from my mommas house on sunday. I've been scanning them to my computer and it has been A LOT of work. But it will be so worth it. So tonight, I thought I would share some pics from my past with you all. It's been fun looking through them. Ahhh sweet memories...

My big bro (Phillip) and me Me, Phillip, and my dad at Stone Mtn. Park, GA Me, Phillip, and my mom on a camping trip Can someone please tell me why I'm sporting a GA Tech shirt? We are great friends at this age Loooved our ET pool... definitely grew up in the 80's Phillip putting sunscreen on my back. Takin care of his lil sis! Phil and I with our Nan... I miss her so much! Me with my beautiful mother! Me and my daddy taking a walk in the mountains

I hope you all have a wonderful and peaceful night!
Much Love,
Kel

Stormy Nights Keep Me A Fright

It's 1:15am and this storm is keeping me awake. Thunder scares me. That's a random fact I should probably mention. I don't know why, but I'm terrified of storms. I hate every single thing about them. Thunder, lightning, strong winds, dark clouds, and the mention of tornado's makes me shutter! And the fact that our house is completely covered in windows doesn't make me feel safe. There is not a single room in this house without a window in fact... even the basement has 3 windows. So we have to safe place to go in case there was a tornado. And tonight we are under a tornado watch until 3am. I can't stay up until 3am so I just hope those things sound like trains like people claim! ;-)

On a positive note though, I had an amazing day with my mom and my cute hubby. We went to the big CC last night to stay with my mom (my dad didn't get to come home until tonight so I didn't get to see him, so sad.) Brad went to take a Firefighter exam in Knoxville bright and early this morning so I had some quality time with my lovely mother. She made me her famous Chocolate Syrup and Buscuits for breakfast, YUUUUMMM!! This evening Brad, mom, and I watched at movie before Brad and I headed back to JC just in time to drive in the pouring rain. That's another thing I hate... driving in the rain! Now I'm sitting here watching Tori & Dean while my darling husband is snoozing next to me. He's so cute. I wonder how I got so lucky and how in the heck did I land someone so handsome?! And not only is he super good-looking, but he's seriously so nice and a gentleman. We've been together for almost 3 and a half years and he still opens my car door, even when I drive. Yeppers, I'm one lucky lady!

I went on my first run in seriously over a year yesterday and I can barely walk today. And now I remember exactly why it's been so long since I went on a run! My right hip bone hurts so bad!! Yikes! But I will not give up, nope, I won't! I will run again tomorrow!

Okay, my internet service is starting to go in and out (probably due to the storm) so I'm going to call it a night! Night!!

The Cheese Tastes Like Plastic

Wow, I'm really bad keeping up with blogging. And I try so hard to keep on it. The past two weeks have been eventful to say the least... mostly why I haven't blogged. There's so many things to tell, so I guess I'll just start with camps.

Spring Enrichment camp was a long, cry-baby, terrible week. In fact, I don't really have any funny stories to tell you like I thought I would (well except two that shouldn't be funny, but yet I laugh so hard... but I will tell you about that here in a bit.) The kids were little devils- not all of them, but most. We only had 8 kids at camp, but they were worse than the camps with 20 kids. We had 4 girls, and 4 boys. 3 of the girls cried about every single little thing. One girl would cry if somebody looked at her the wrong way or for no reason at all. I would look over at her and she would be crying so hard for nothing, and when you asked her what was wrong she would blubber something you couldn't even understand. And 3 of the boys were attitude city! The oldest boy, 12, comes to every single camp we have. I had to deal with him for 2 whole summers and I can't stand him. He is so mean. He argues with you about any and every thing and you just want to hit him (which of course I would never do.) I fought with him all week. Brad refuses to work camps anymore just because of this kid, if that tells you anything. Which leads me to my funny stories... Okay, well they aren't really funny but if you knew this kid you would truely understand... On Thursday of camp, the evil kid had been at his worst from all week. He was his meanest so far and I had enough of him. His sister was at camp too (the crier) and he was picking at her all day long, making her cry even more. Well, when it was time for them to get picked up, evil boy and cry baby got into their car. My back was turned to them and all of a sudden I heard a scream like no other. When I turned to see what was going on, evil boy was yelling "open the door!!" and I looked and all of his fingers were slammed in the car door. At first I was horrified, but then I think I smiled a little because he deserved it so much for all the days and years he terrorized everyone. He cried, his sister cried, I smiled to myself and laughed inside. His mom is a x-ray tech so she knew his fingers weren't broken. So on Friday, I expected him to show up to camp with a cast to his elbow, just because that's how he is... But nope, he was completely fine. Not even sore from it. I was a bit disappointed that he wasn't even sore. Friday he acted even worse than thursday. So my boss gave him time out at play time. So he thought he could teach karate to the other boys while he was in time out and he tried to do a hitch-kick and kick off the brick wall. Well when he kicked the wall he stubbed his foot really hard and he looked like he was about to cry and turned to the boys and said, "Okay I'm not doing that again, that hurt." And he turned and walked off by himself. LOL. That time I did laugh out loud. Little punk. But with all that said... I LOVED the field trips we went on!! We went to the Bristol Caverns, Toured Bristol Motor Speedway, Went to Rocky Mount (where John Sevier lived during his term as governor.), and went to Warriors Path State Park. I think I enjoyed the field trips more than the kids. My boss, Angela, and I played a game from the 1700's for about an hour while we were at Rocky Mount. That was one game I was actually good at! And I loved the crafts we did all week too. That's always my favorite part... You should see the amazing sock buddy I made! And my really cool sharpie tye-dyed shirt!

Sorry, I wrote more about camp than I had planned. But camp wasn't the only bad thing about last week. Brad's truck broke so we had to take it to the shop on Monday. So on Wednesday when he was on his way to pick his truck up from the shop, he was in my NEW car and stopped at the bank to get some cash. While he was PARKED in the parking lot, a woman in a big truck ran into the back of my car while Brad was sitting in it. Then the police officer said that they don't fault parking lot accidents so we are probably going to have to pay the deductable for getting my car fixed (insurance is working on fixing that), then I get a parking ticket at ETSU on Thursday (which I will not be paying, I already got my diploma stupid ETSU!), then this Monday Brad's truck broke again because Advanced auto parts gave him a junk part that had a crack in it so his truck is back in the shop, THEN I recieved a letter in the mail from my student loans informing me that my SSN, Name, DOB, and Address had been stolen from their system so they gave me a free year of identity protection. Let's just hope that next week is better!!!

On a better note... Last saturday, I had a much needed girls day out with my mom and sister-in-law Lydia. We went to see The Last Song, which I loved! And we went to the mall. I had so much fun with them! I can't wait to move back closer to them so I can spend more time with them both. That was the first girls day I've had in forever! I don't even remember the last girls day I had actually. So sad.

Sunday, Brad and I went to Roan Mountain. It was a perfect, beautiful day! But the top of the mountain was FREEZING!!! I wasn't prepared for that! But we had a blast and I can't wait to go back in warmer clothes (or warmer weather). I love hubby time!

Well, I'll leave you with a random fact and hopefully my next blog won't be so long! I've gotta stay on top of this thing!

~Random Fact About Me~
I went to Boston in July 2005, and while I was there we went to tour Fenway Park (Go Red Sox!) The Red Sox were playing the Yankee's that day. Well while on the tour, we were standing in a big crowd of people waiting to go into the park. There were big guys in nice outfits standing in the crowd with us, but I didn't really think anything of it. I mean, the guys were right next to us. Then after the guys walked on, the tour guide lady said to us, "Are you really going to stand here with the Yankee's and not 'boo' them?!" Yep, was standing with the Yankee's and didn't even know it. We ended up getting tickets to the game that night. It was AWESOME!!! Got to see the Red Sox play the Yankee's at Fenway Park... What could be better than that?! Yankee's won in case you were wondering.

Slacker is My Middle Name

It's been a while, AGAIN, but I have no excusses this time... only that I'm a slacker! I can't get motivated to do anything these days. This no job thing is killing me and making me lazy, and I don't like it. BUT thankfully I'm leading the ETSU Spring Enrichment camps next week, yay! I'm not going to lie though, I'm a bit nervous about it. I mean, I've be a counselor for the ETSU camps for 2 full summers, but I've never led the camps. I'm always up for an adventure though, so hopefully it will be a good one! I'm super excited about the fild trips we are taking with the camp kiddos, woo-hoo! The down-sider of the camp though is a certain kid that drove me nuts this past summer, haha! He attended every single camp that he could, and he's evil! The worst part is that he knows he drives me nuts. So this time next week, you may be reading about him A LOT! He actually gave me some pretty funny stories to tell friends though, so at least I can laugh about it.

Well, after living in Johnson City for 7 years... I'm finally moving back near Knoxville!!! YAY!! I am super duper excited about it!! It will be so nice to finally be back around family and friends. Sure, I'm gonna miss JC and my dear friends here, but it's time to move on. Brad and I have prayed for reasons to stay in JC, but God is telling us it's time to leave. We really have no reason to stay here anymore (other than a few friends) so it's time to move on and start some place new together. On the otherhand, I'm not so excited about finding a new place to live. We looooove the house we are in right now, so it's going to be hard to find a place even close to this one. We have a HUGE private yard, no close neighbors, freedom to paint, GREAT landlords (our friends), and it's our first home together. We don't own it, but it's the next best thing. But we can't stay here forever. I'm just going to pray that we find a place just as great until we can buy our first place. We actually want to build our first place... on the lake!! Dreaming BIG, I know!

Okay, so if you need a good book to read, I highly recommend Kirk Cameron's autobiography Still Growing. It's such a good book! It was fun reading about his life. I laughed a lot while reading it, which I didn't expect to do. But anyway, it's a good one!

I know I'm being completely random tonight, but things keep coming to mind. Well, right now it's more my body that's coming to mind. I'm getting old and my body HATES me right now. I played 2-hand touch football last night at the Holt Easter get-together. It was a BLAST, but I can barely walk today. My hips hurt. I mean seriously, I'm 25 and my hips hurt from running... I feel like I'm 75! It was my first game, and I of course sucked but I DID catch the football once and scored us some yards. I was proud. And my hubby was a football playin machine... who knew?! A funny story I shouldn't tell, but I'm going to because it's one of those stories you can't not tell... At the end of the yard we were playing in (the end zone) there was a sewage leak, so it had lots of poopy water built up LOL! So if you were running too hard to stop or just simply wasn't paying attention, right through the poop you went! It was hilarious to see people (mostly the boys) run into and yell "I ran through poop!" I haven't laughed that hard in sooo long! I was happy the poopy water was there, brightend my spirits. Brad's cousing Jordan ran into it and the poo water splashed on his leg and he threw up in the yard, bwahahaha! I'm laughing out loud just thinking about it right now. I really wish we would have video taped the game of football-poop dodge. I'm positive it would make you happy too! And of course I had to yell out the quote from Joe Dirt to Jordan "I've got the poo on me!" Oh happy Easter days! (I wish I had the pics to share with you, but no one has posted them to FB yet!)

I had a much cleaner Easter at my parents house with my sis-in-law Lydia and my darling niece and nephews. It was so much fun Easter Egg hunting with them! I love them to pieces! :-)

Well, my pretty pup Macie is staring at me... so I guess that means she needs to go outside. I hope you all had a great Easter!

Night Bloggers!

~RANDOM FACT ABOUT ME~
When I was between the ages of about 5-8, my FAVORITE band to listen to was Creedence Clearwater Revival. Favorite song they sang was 'Cotten Fields'. I seriously played the cassette over and over and over again on a daily basis. My brother makes fun of me til this day saying "You are probably the only kid in the world that grew up in the 90's, whose favorite band was CCR." Haha! What can I say, I have always had great taste in music. I NEVER listened to New Kids on the Block, but ALWAYS listed to CCR. :-)

Shooting Stars

So it's been a while. I actually just got up the courage today to finally write again. I've been afraid to write because I know once I've written it, then it makes everything even more of a reality. My last blog was about my Nan... and since then she has gone to be with Jesus. It's been so hard to say the least. It's been hard to say goodbye, hard to believe she's gone, hard to smile, hard to talk about, and mostly hard to remember she's no longer here. More than once I've picked up my phone to call her only to remember that I can't. I miss her so much. She was the only grandparent I have that I've ever been close to. I never had a grandfather growing up, and my other grandmother lives so far away that I only see her like once a year. My nan was so, so special to me and I wasn't ready to say goodbye to her. We had no idea she was to the point of dying. It was so unexpected. And so fast.

Nan got sick on Friday and was sent to the hospital by ambulance and place in ICU. Was still sick on Saturday but improving. Got waaay better on Sunday and got moved into a room, but by Sunday night she got a little worse so she got put back into ICU and then moved to UT hospital to recieve better care. At UT they placed her in critical care, but had promise of her getting better. So on Monday Brad and I left for our trip to Charleston, only because they told us she would be fine. We arrived in Charelston around 3:00pm and it wasn't 15 mins after we checked in that my mom called me to tell me they were sending Nan home with a hospice nurse so she could be more comfortable because they didn't expect her to make it. So we immediately checked back out of our hotel and drove all the way back to Knoxville. It was the longest drive back of my life. I prayed the entire way back that I could make it back so I could say goodbye. We made it to the hospital around midnight monday. I sat with Nan for a few hours and told her how much I love her and how much she has meant to me and I thanked her for being so wonderful. She couldn't talk back, but she responded to me by moving her eyebrows. Brad and I then went to my moms to sleep for a few hours, we'd been on the road for 15 hours monday. We went back to UT around 7:30am. She had gotten a lot worse and the doctors said they didn't think she would make the trip home so we decided to leave her at the hospital. We were by her side the whole day. The nurses said she could probably hear us talking so we talked to her nonstop. (Nan had talked to me a few weeks before about how if she got sick she didn't want everyone being sad or anything. All she ever wanted was for people to be happy.) Nan held on all day long, she fought so hard to stay with us. My mom and my aunts kept talking about how they had so many regrets and they just kept talking about how bad they felt about not doing more for her and things (which of course they did so much for her, everyone has regrets in these kinds of situations) and Nans heart rate kept going up. She didn't want to hear them being sad. So at about 10 til 12 that night I finally said to them, "Nan wouldn't want us to be talking about how bad we feel and she wouldn't want us to be sad, so we should talk about our favorite memories of her and happy things." So that's what we did. We told her it was okay to go and we would be okay and We started sharing memories and laughing and instantly her heart rate started dropping and her breathing got slower. It made her peaceful to hear us laughing and she finally let go. That's all she wanted was to hear us happy. She was so sweet like that.

One thing that really got to me was that I never personally asked her if she was saved. I knew she believed in God and that she read her bible and listened to gospel music, but I never came out and asked if she was Saved. But my family asked her and she said she was. And I talked to my brother and he said she definately was, they had talked about it many times. But I never got to talk to her about it and it was eating me alive. I wanted to hear her say it. I needed to know for myself. So that night that she died, when Brad and I pulled into my parents driveway, I got out of the car and looked into the sky. They sky was so dark, and so clear, and the stars where so bright. I cried out to God that if she was in Heaven with him to please let me see a shooting star. I stood there looking and looking for what seemed like forever(but really is probably more like 3 mins). That's all I needed for comfort. I never asked her, but I knew God would tell me. I kept looking, but saw nothing so I looked down at the ground and Brad told me to go in the house. I looked at him and said "I have to know" and at that moment, I looked up and there it was... A shooting star shot across the sky above my parents house. It went so far across the sky. It was beautiful. At that point I didn't know if I should laugh or cry, so I did both. I about fell to the ground. That moment was the single most amazing thing I have ever witnessed. If that shooting star doesn't prove that there's a God and Heaven, then I don't know what it will take for nonbelievers to believe. I see that shooting star every time I close my eyes and I smile. I know she's in Heaven and I will see her again.

Nan

Tonight hasn't been a good night. It's been a very bad night actually. My Nan (grandmother) was taken to the hospital by ambulance tonight and now she's in ICU. She has really bad emphysema and she's been really sick lately. But today she got worse and can't breathe at all. She's in really bad shape, so please keep her in your prayers.

So tonight I will blog about her... My nan is a very sweet lady. Nan is short for nanny (when all the grandkids got older, we just dropped it to nan.) I have so many great memories of her from my childhood. She was so much fun!! She would build us tents in the house with sheets and would play in them with us. She would sit out in the gravel driveway and make "roads" for our toy cars with me and my brother. She played basketball with us. She played dolls and barbies when I had no one to play with. One time, her neighbors kids had a pool and asked me to come swim with them but I didn't have a bathing suit, so she made me one (and it was super cute! She's handy that way.) And this is the best part of her... SHE HAS HER OWN SUPER NINTENDO!! Yup, I said it, her very own super nintendo! And she's good at it. It's so much fun to watch her play mario kart, haha, because she moves her arms in the direction she wants her car to go. And on super mario, when she wants her player to jump, she throws her arms up in the air (like that's supposed to help.) She makes the best chicken and dumplings in the WORLD and I was going to ask her to teach me how to make them... So I need her to get better so she can. I just love her so much. She's the greatest!! She's my friend and I always know I can go to her and talk about anything. She's really cool. Nan has a tatoo of winnie the pooh bear on her ankle, haha! She's a young grandmother (65!) I hold her dear to my heart.

I feel so guilty because I don't make it out to visit her very often. I should see her every single chance I get. And if anything, I should have called her all the time! I hate living so far away!! When Brad and I visit home, we never have enough time to see everyone. We need a better plan. I can't wait to see her tomorrow!!!

And to top off a bad night, my mom and I couldn't get ahold of my dad on his phone for more than 4 hours. We kept calling, but he wouldn't answer. I was about to have a panic attack. But no worries, he was just sleeping. ;-) Shew!

Please remember my Nan in your prayers and my family. Have a good night! God Bless.

RANDOM FACT about me: I have a birth mark on my forehead, between my eyebrows, that you can only see when I'm sick. When I'm sick, my birth mark turns read in the shape of a check mark. But that's the only time you see it. I was never able to fake being sick as a child to get out of school, because my parents always looked for my red check mark. My daddy has the same thing.

Mellowed

So I know I said I was going to post a list of random things about me tonight, but I was thinking about it and no one wants to just sit and read a list of stupid information about a person... SO instead I'm just going to post one random thing about myself every time I post a blog. On that note...

RANDOM FACT ABOUT ME: *When I was in Kenya, a man wanted to trade a cow for me and another girl that was in our group. It's a tradition in Africa to trade a cow to a father to get his daughter. And they liked what they saw and thought I was worth a whole cow. Yikes!*

I had a great night tonight! The hubby and I went out to eat with our friends, Erin and Brandon. We went to dinner at MELLOW MUSHROOM... yum! I'm not a huge fan of their pizza, but they have amazing hoagies! My belly was haaaappyyyy! I mean... yeah we had to wait for 45 mins to get a table, and then probably another 45 mins to get our food but it was totally worth it! Plus I wasn't complaining because I got to catch up with good friends. Lots of laughs were exchanged. (the photo above of Erin and I was obviously not from our dinner, I just had to use what was on my computer. Don't you love my maggie simpson t-shirt? Got it when I was 5 and I still rock it all the time!)

After dinner, I had a nice relaxing night with my wonderful, sexy, sweet husband! Then he grampa'd out and went to bed. So here I am at 1a.m. writing this blog. Oh how I wish I could go to sleep at a decent hour. Insomnia is not my friend.

My gal pal Leah gave me the best idea for an anniversary gift for Brad this year (I can't believe we've been married for 2 years coming June! I say it all the time, but I still don't believe it.) I'm not gonna tell you what the idea is right now in case Brad reads this, but I will share with you when I can! :-) I'm super excited about it. THANKS LEAH!!

Well, it's that time to force myself to get some zzz's.

And just for fun, I'll leave you with one more random fact...
I love potato chips... Love them... I've never been a cake or ice cream eater, my love has always been chips. And Cheese... Love that too! In fact, as a kid, when we would go to the store and my mom told my brother and I we could buy something, he would get candy, I would get cheese. Every time. I mean I was a young kid with a chance to buy CANDY, but I chose blocks of chedder cheese.. and sometimes chips. Does this make me a weird person?
Good-night blogger boos!