busy, busy

sorry i have been neglecting you all!! i know you are sitting on pins and needles wondering what exciting things are happening in my world! :)

with school being out and me trying to finish my contract for the month i have had no time to blog or read blogs. kids everywhere. me trying to keep the kids from killing each other. exhausting.

memorial day hubby decided to get up in the big trees in the front yard and cut down some branches that were blocking the view from kitchen window. holy cow i was scared. that's him way up there. now only 4 more trees to go!

friday we went back to the zoo but took my mother-in-law with us. i just adore her. she is so easy to get along with and the kids love her too. it was a perfect day. and we went a few places we didn't get to see when we were there before. we went to the aviary and saw the flowers and the birds.
amazing!! we could have stayed in there all day.

today we are off to big c's old school. they are having their awards ceremony and he wants to go. we are going to pick up logan, drop monkey off at his house to play with jeremy and head out. afterwards we are going back to logan's to play slip and slide!
it's been so cold here this week that today is the first day it's been warm enough to get into the water. (which is fine with me!)

oh and i had to get a new camera. i just got mine the day after thanksgiving and it's broken. i thought it was the battery and got a new one. nope. just dead. and it would be $80 to fix it and i only paid $84 for the thing!! so i just decided to get a new one. it's a casio. (like my sister's! i copied her.) never again will i buy a kodak. that's 2 camera's in 3 years.

oh and we got digital cable this week! with a DVR. man. my life will never be the same. big c knows how to operate it and i keep finding stuff like the suite life of zack and cody on there. but it's awesome. and hopefully i will be able to get to bed earlier b/c i can zip thru all the commercials!!

have a great weekend!

WW

wedding #1

the week of weddings is finally over. man. all that disco and finger food can get to you!

the first wedding was jill and brian. jill and i have gone to church together and been in bible study together for about 7 years. she is very sweet and i was just so happy for her. but she can be a bit of a blond. (no offense to blonds, i've been one too!) so none of us thought it too surprising when the groom came out 20 minutes after the wedding was SUPPOSED to start to tell us that jill had locked her wedding dress in the trunk of her car and then lost the car keys. thank goodness he is a fireman and got one of the trucks to come and get the trunk open.

we knew lots of people at the reception so that was fun. and only one of the people we didn't want to see was there. made it easy for hubby to keep his cool. it was a very nice wedding. not too fancy and very relaxing for us.

sis and i are off to wedding #2. busy week trying to get everything together. i will post about weddings #1 and #2 when i get back. oh and monkey graduated from pre-school last night!! will have pix of that too when i return! so excited!!!

ww

sister shoe rebuttal

today my sister posted that she had found the most comfortable shoes EVER. and i have to say once again sis you are wrong. i purchased a pair of FitFlops last week.


and i have to say that THEY are the most comfortable shoes EVER!! i never wear anything except Birkenstocks and have for over 20 years. and i love those shoes like nothing else. but they are very pricey and the soles of mine are totally gone. so i needed something else and found the FitFlop. not only are they super comfy but they give you a workout while you walk. walking in FitFlops is like walking barefoot, but a little bit better. and they are not crocks.

the week of weddings

first let me say that i love weddings. i ALWAYS cry. i love the bride's dress. i love the flowers. i love the ceremony. but i HATE to dress up. if you know me at all you know i love t-shirts, jeans and sandals. and that's it. i even wear that to church. so for me to have to get dressed up for a wedding is a big deal. but this week i get to go to TWO weddings! my friend jill is getting married today. it is a daytime wedding so i can get away with pants. i actually bought 2 dresses but i took them both back. then i found a really cute top and remembered that i had some "dress-up" pants at home. so i went with it. but the wedding i'm going to next weekend is a night time, formal wedding. keep your fingers crossed that i can find a dress that i actually like!!

the wedding today is going to be at our old church. i still go to Bible study there but my hubby hasn't been back since we left. it may be ugly. he still harbors some anger at the people who chased us off. i'll let you know how it goes.

the wedding next saturday is going to ROCK!!! caroline and her sister elisa were best friends with my sister and i during middle school. then they moved to chapel hill. we stayed close and spent summers together. we were the Hubba Hubba hiney girls. i just love them. caroline is getting married in chapel hill which is only about a 2 hour drive from charlotte. my sis is flying in thursday. monkey is graduating from pre-school that night. and friday sis and i are driving to the wedding. i am SOOO excited!! no kids. no hubby. and a hotel room! i can sleep late!!!

The gift of attention - in a world as busy and distracted as ours is - is a huge gift.

sorry it has taken me so long to post these. i could not find my ubs cord for my camera. uggh! anyway. what a great day to go to the zoo. we went with deborah and her 3 kids. logan is big c's age, jeremy is 8 and monkey ADORES him and amelia is 4 and wants to marry monkey. we got there and it was cold! and we were all wearing shorts. but hey, i'll take cold over hot any day! we took a stroller for the little guys because this zoo requires lots and lots of walking.

"Located about 75 miles west of Raleigh in Asheboro, the North Carolina Zoo is nationally recognized as one of the nation's finest zoos. It was the first American zoo designed from its inception around the "natural habitat" philosophy--presenting animals and plants in exhibits that closely resemble the habitats in which they would be found in the wild.
The zoo's animal collections includes about 1,100 speciemens representing about 250 different species of mammals, reptiles, birds and insects. Among the most popular exhibits are those that display polar bears, sea lions, river otters, alligators, elephants, gorillas, baboons, rhinoceros, giraffes, and zebras. The 37-acre African Plains exhibit alone is as large a many entire zoos. The Sonora Desert, an indoor recreation of the famous desert of the American Southwest, is alive with fascinating denizens of that hot, dry climate. The N.C. Zoo is the nation's largest walk-through natural-habitat zoo. Its African and North American exhibit regions span more than 500 acres with more than five miles of walkways. At N.C. Zoo, you will see some of the world’s rarest wildlife.

well we got out of the car and monkey immediately jumps into his stroller. he loves that thing so much he will sometimes roll it out of the shed and just sit in it in the driveway. strange child. i could hardly get him out of it. amelia would not even go near it. she walked the whole way. we had packed snacks and lunches and water to save on the $$. and we had a time limit because deborah had somewhere she had to be at 6:30 so we needed to leave no later than 3:30. we started walking. we saw





the polar bear was asleep but we got to see the sea lions. and you can go underneath their tank and watch them swimming. so cool! and the otters were adorable! they were nuzzling each other like cats. to sweet.

they have a great play area that is all made out of recycled materials and we stopped there to let the kids play and we all got ice cream! we have been to this zoo 3 times and every time we go i get a picture of the boys eating ice cream. check these out!
big c...



monkey...



it's about and hour and 1/2 drive so we really felt like we had taken a mini-vacation. and even though we were tired we really had a great day!

we're......