Back Home Again!

Happy New Year everyone! I started the new year with vacation, so that put me in a good mood. :) We had a good time back home. I was able to spend time with my family and even went out with my friends a few times. It was great to just relax -- no alarm clocks, no time clocks, no customers, no managers, no schedules, no nothing except what I wanted to do. After October, November, and December, a week like that was bliss. But, by the time the week started to wind down, I was ready to get back to my own home, my own schedule, and, yes, my job.

Anyway, 2009 is here. There's going to be a lot going on this year. My cousin is getting married in April. I'm supposed to be an honorary bridesmaid. My sister graduates high school in May. My aunt will probably come to see us in August and will probably make one more vacation in August or September. My plans for this year are:

1. Finish my career diploma
2. Eat healthier and get in shape. The holiday season has put me back on 2-3 soft drinks a day whereas before I was hardly drinking any.
3. Make a vast amount of progress on my novel
4. Take some more art lessons
5. Organize everything pertaining to myself
6. Make something. I haven't made a quilt, cross-stitch sampler or anything else this year.

So, those are the things I would like to do, the first two in particular. But I don't know what this year will hold. It could hold some pleasant surprises that throw my plan awry in a good way or trials that mess up my plans in a way I didn't want. But 2009 belongs to the Lord. He has a plan for it that will work out for good for me and all His ways are perfect. I hope that it will be a good year, full of blessings and happiness, not just for me but for everyone.

Pr 16:9 -
A man's heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.
Pr 19:21 -
There are many plans in a man's heart, Nevertheless the Lord's counsel--that will stand.

More vacationing.........

Well, Aunt Sherry is here and Aunt Bett and Uncle John. I had to work over the weekend, so I was really tired at first, but now I am free to relax as much as I like. :) I'm not sure what we are going to be doing. Today, I think we're going to the mall. It will be nice to see the inside of another department store for a change.

Aunt Sherry has already done quite a bit of movie watching with us, with both Gods and Generals and North and South over the weekend. I've already made a post about how much I love North and South, but I could go on and on about it. As for Gods and Generals, it is a very long movie, and there are a lot of battle scenes that might bore someone who isn't a history enthusiast like me, but the faith of Stonewall Jackson and the sight of the bloodshed and tears will move anyone. It gives the viewer such a good look into the Civil War. They were real people, facing the real, agonizing choices to take sides in a war against their brothers. They were real women and children, alone at home while the men were at war. The soldiers were real men that got shot down by the hundreds in every battle. It's definitely a thought-provoking look at the past.

Tennis!!

Well, we're back!! We had a great time. The first day was overcast and not too hot. The tournament has the large Center Court which seats thousands. You have to sit in your assigned seat to watch a game played on that court. The next biggest court is the Grandstand court which seats several hundred, but you can sit anywhere you want. We got to sit front row through a couple of games there! There are also some smaller courts where you can sit anywhere and several practice courts. We spend the majority of our time at the practice courts. These courts look like tennis courts you would find at the park with just a wire fence around them, but the top professional players in the world warm up on these courts before their matches and you get to stand next to the fence and watch them. When they leave, the nice players sign autographs, take pictures, and talk a little to people, even though they are being all but knocked off their feet by hundreds of fans waving tennis balls and cameras in their face.

We have lots of players that we like a lot, but our favorite player is Marat Safin. We already have his autograph :), so Gabrielle was so hoping she could get a picture with him. Let me tell you, the crowd around the practice court was the worst I had ever seen it. It didn't help that he, and the number 2 & 3 players in the world were all practicing on courts side by side. I have to estimate that at least five hundred people were crowding around the fences. We crowded around him (with everyone else) and tried to get a picture, but it was impossible.
The next day, we tried again, and again the crowd was impossible. I never realized I was so short until all those people kept jumping in front of me and shoving me out of the way. So, Gabrielle was disappointed, but we went up to center court to watch number 1 player in the world, Roger Federer, play a match. The game was really interesting. First one was winning, then the other, so we were paying attention to the game. The seats were empty beside us. A woman came and sat in the seat beside me and I overheard her say to her friend, "I just saw Safin at the practice court." Gabrielle and I grabbed our camera and ran to the practice court. Because he wasn't scheduled to practice, there was hardly anyone around him compared to before, and, when he left, he took a picture with each of us!! :) That day, the second day, was sooo hot. For the first time, our seats at center court were in a shaded area, but even that didn't help much. I sunburned a little on my nose, but nothing too bad. I bought several of my favorite lemonades and some rainbow sherbet to cool me off!
This is the US Open Road Trip bus with all the top player's pictures on them.


We had a great time, saw lots of the tennis players and got a few autographs. Hopefully, we'll be able to go back next year!

Tennis Tomorrow!!

We're off to our annual tennis tournament tomorrow for two full days of watching the professionals compete. We'll get to see Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick, Marat Safin, and so many more! We're so excited. Last year we got lots of autographs, so hopefully we can do the same this year. I have to make sure my camera is charged and ready to go for LOTS of pictures. And I have to figure out what I want to wear. :)

Spring Vacation

This vacation was all I could ask of a vacation -- totally relaxing. I had just enough to do to keep me from boredom and just little enough to do that I could feel completely rested and unhurried. I checked a stack of books out from the library before we left, laughing at myself because I knew I would never read any of them. However, I haven't read as much since I started my job and I was absolutely starved for hours of uninterrupted reading. I finished two books that week and got halfway through a third one! So fun! The first two were lighter, children's books that I enjoyed a lot. No matter if you are two or twenty-two, it is always great to read a a simple children's story and just -- enjoy it!! The third is one of the best suspense/mysterious novels I have read in ages. And I had never even heard of it until I saw it recommended by someone on a message board. It's not on any of my classic book lists, even though the author was a contemporary of Dickens and the back of the book cover says that it outsold Dickens when it was published. The name of it is The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins. I am about three-fourths finished with it now, and can't wait to see how it ends. I hope there is a good movie version of it.



As you can tell, I took lots of pictures on vacation -- probably over a hundred, so now I have the fun/aggravation of uploading/editing/printing/organizing them in my free time. But, I ask for that problem when I take that many pictures.



One day when we were there, Aunt Sherry took me, Gabrielle, and my cousins Kristin and Emily, to the mall shopping. That was a fun day. We went out to eat, then shopped the entire mall. We didn't really buy that much, of course, I think each of us ended up with a new shirt each, but we went in lots of shops and had a good time. We came across one store with gorgeous prom dresses, so we went in and tried on one. The store also bridal gowns that were stunning. I didn't try on a dress there, but in another store, Aunt Sherry insisted that I try one on. So I picked out a long rose pink one with silver sparkles. It was fun to play Cinderella. Kati (my six year old cousin) would have absolutely loved it if she had been with us.




We're back at home now and back to our own routine. It's good to back in our own home but we still miss our "other" home and our family and friends there.

Vacation pictures....

The dogwoods and all the other spring flowers were in full bloom when we first drove in. Our first weekend there was so cold, though! I didn't take any pictures when the blooms were at their best. The second weekend was much warmer, but the flowers were beginning to die.

This is the pond at my aunt's house. And these are her azaleas.

This little dog would be my aunt's dog Mallory.

And here is Gabrielle at Grandpa's house. She doesn't care for this picture of her, but I think the lighting turned out really neat.

Vacation!!

Tomorrow, we leave for a week long vacation to visit family. I am really looking forward to it. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to post while I'm gone, but if not, I'll be back in about few days!!

Thanksgiving

As I mentioned earlier, the drive through the mountains was absolutely beautiful. I am certain I have never seen the leaves turn such brilliant colors.
In some places, like here, the mountains were all red and oramge. Just stunning.
On Thanksgiving Day, my dad, Gabrielle and I went to my aunt's house for dinner. My mom had to stay behind at Grandpa's house because she was cooking a Thanksgiving supper for her side of the family. So, after eating a great dinner at my aunt's house, we went back to Grandpa's and ate another really large, really delicious meal. Saturday night, we also had a Thanksgiving dinner with our church. It is nice to be able to go back home for Thanksgiving. We don't travel back for Christmas anymore -- the holidays are too close together and it's so much trouble to deal with packing presents -- but I enjoy being able to spend Thanksgiving with all of our family members and the friends from our home church.


For the first time in my life, I went Day-After-Thanksgiving shopping! My mom has three sisters, so they, their daughters, my mom, sister, and I went to a big mall shopping. Nobody really got any shopping done, but it was fun to go out and look around. The mall had great decorations in it, too. The mall here hardly puts up any decorations. There was a big crowd, of course, but it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be -- unless you wanted to buy something. Then the lines stretched for what seemed like miles. :) So, even though it was fun, it's really more practical to wait for another day to get real shopping done, for me, anyway.

While I was on vacation...

I cut my hair! This is the shortest I have had my hair in about ten years. For once it wasn't a hard decision, either. My hair was so long that I couldn't style it well anymore and the ends were really damaged. I decided it was time for a new style. I think I ended up getting about seven inches cut off. I really like this length, too. It's easy to straighten, like it is in the picture, and I can also use curling gel and bring out lots of curl.

Home Again!!!

We just got back from our Thanksgiving trip today! We really enjoyed our visit home. The trees were absolutely brilliant when we drove down. I was glad that I had my camera in the car with me, because the scenery was so beautiful. I'll have to post more about our trip and some of my pictures tomorrow.

Thanksgiving Travels

We're leaving tomorrow to go to visit our family for Thanksgiving. It should be fun. We always spend time with our family and friends and we have three Thanksgiving dinners -- one with my dad's side of the family, one with my mom's side of the family, and one with our church on Saturday night. We're also planning to go shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. That should be a big headache and a lot of fun. Hopefully, I'll be able to update a few times on my aunt's computer while we're away. Just in case I don't get the chance, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

What Happened On Vacation

This trip was a lot more relaxed than the last one. We spent the first Sunday afternoon with my dad's side of the family to celebrate my grandma's 84th birthday. They had a nice dinner and we spent the afternoon looking at pictures from Lesley's wedding.

Thursday was really fun. Gabrielle's sixteenth birthday was in July during our last vacation. Even though we did take her out to eat and give her presents, we never did anything really special to celebrate because we were so busy. Our Aunt Sherry decided to throw a little surprise party for her. I met Aunt Sherry and my cousin Kristen at her office and we went to a town an hour away to go buy decorations and pick up her ice cream cake. The ice cream cake was the most important part. Gabrielle had specifically requested an ice cream cake for her birthday, but we forgot that they have to be ordered a few days in advance so she ended up with a flavor she didn't like as much. This time, we were going to make sure she got the cake she wanted. First, we went to the party supply store and picked out a bunch of Sweet Sixteen stuff, then stopped at the mall to buy her a present, then went to a store to pick up chips and candy, and then finally rushed to the ice cream parlour to get the cake. It was ready for us, decorated in her favorite color as requested, and they spelled her name right. Then we were worried that it would melt on the hour-long drive home so we rode all the way back with the air conditioner on freezing. As soon as we got back, Kristen and I started putting up decorations. Gabrielle had been at our Aunt Johnice's house all afternoon, so we called and told her we were ready. When Gabrielle walked in, she didn't even see the sweet sixteen banner on the doorway. She didn't even notice that Kati kept asking "What's that on the door?" over and over. When she finally looked over, this was her reaction:

She was totally surprised. She hadn't even suspected anything. And she loved the orange cake.

Friday night Aunt Sherry took Gabrielle and I to the mall, then to a movie and dinner. We spend a day doing fun stuff like that every time we visit. The next Sunday my mom cooked dinner for her side of the family and all my aunts, uncles and cousins -- twenty-six people altogether!-- came over. Yesterday we came back home. Thanksgiving is the next time we're supposed to travel back and it's not very far away.

Lots of Tennis!

Cincinnati was a lot of fun this year. We spent a lot of time, as always, going between watching games in the stadiums and the practice courts. The practice courts are small, fenced-in courts with a few bleachers outside them so you can watch the players warm up before their games and try to get autographs. We saw Andy Roddick on the practice courts the first day, but the crowd around him was so bad that we didn't stay long. Someone else who draws a crowd is Roger Federer. I really wanted his autograph, but the first day we saw him at a practice court, the crowd was too thick to even get near him.The second day, we waited for Federer on the practice courts and again, the crowd was incredible. He came out and practiced, then sat down to rest before he left. Everyone who wants an autograph always waits at the fence and he walks across and signs them. So we waited there with our books over the fence, and he came across and signed mine and Gabrielle's first! He signed them really neat too. You can almost read them. It was really impressive the amount of time he took and the good attitude he had about signing autographs. We watched him play a really great game that afternoon against Marcos Baghdatis. It was so close. Definitely one of the best games we've seen in person.
We've found out that watching a player on the practice courts can totally change your opinion about him. My dad has always been a Federer fan, whereas I had some other players I liked better. He was so nice and not in the least bit arrogant when he was on the practice courts that he made a fan out of me. Other players can have the opposite effect. :( Most of the top players have pretty good attitudes, though. I managed to get autographs from all the players I wanted to this year, so my autograph collection is finally complete!

A Vacation At Home

Our family left us today. It has been a good visit, but so busy. Everyday we have gone somewhere or done something. The highlights were definitely going to the Creation Science Museum and the Newport Aquarium.

The Creation Science museum was about a two-hour drive from our house. When we finally got to the museum, we found out that all that planetarium tickets were sold out, which was a disappointment. I had really been looking forward to seeing that. The museum was so crowded we could hardly get through it. I can't even imagine what it must have been like the week it opened. People would stop in front of exhibits for ten and fifteen minutes at a time holding up the lines. The first exhibits were gardens with dinosaurs, then we went into rooms with mostly written displays and fossils. I wasn't able to read much of those. The crowd was too thick to do more than glance over them. Then we came into beautiful garden rooms for the Garden of Eden and a room of all wooden rafters that made you feel as if you were inside the ark. There was one theater after the ark, but we skipped it and decided to go upstairs for the special effects theater. We had to wait in line for about twenty minutes to get in. It was a mini movie featuring two angels talking to a young girl about believing in God versus believing in evolution. My favorite parts were the Garden of Eden and the ark. They were so beautiful.

Newport Aquarium was also about an hour and a half away from us. It has a great view of the Cincinnati skyline, which I posted above. Kati was so cute going to all the exhibits to see the fish. She had been a little frightened at the idea of being near a shark tank, but once she saw them, she was too excited to be afraid. The aquarium wasn't anywhere near as crowded as the museum was, except for one shark tunnel. Lots of people crowded into one shark tunnel to watch a diver feed the sharks. For a long time there were so many people we couldn't even see the sharks, but we finally worked our way forward until we were able to see what was going on and I was able to get a fairly decent picture. One of the best parts was the penguin exhibit. Kati loved watching them because I took her to see Happy Feet last year. It was so neat to see them waddling around.

We spent lots of time on the other days going shopping, eating out, and watching movies. It was a really great week. We always look forward to having them here.

A Trip, A Wedding, and a Birthday

I am finally back from my trip. Even though it was fun, it was so rushed we are completely exhausted. There was something to do every single day we were there. My dad couldn't take off from work last week, so my mom, sister, and I drove ourselves 600 miles to our hometown so we could see my cousin Lesley get married. We knew things were going to be rushed, but we had no idea just how hectic things were going to get. The day of the wedding was so rushed. We were planning on getting there about an hour early. My Aunt Sherry was going with us, so we had to be ready an extra thirty minutes early to pick her up and then we had to drive two hours to the place at the beach where the wedding was held. It was a very pretty setting. The wedding was held at a nice community building with a deck that overlooked the sand and river. When we got there, Lesley and her groom John were rehearsing in casual clothes with the preacher.

They waited until only about twenty minutes before the wedding was supposed to begin to go change. While we waited, I took family pictures and enjoyed looking out at the beach. I hadn't been there in a long time. When the wedding began, I took a seat where I hoped I could take a few good pictures and waited. Lesley hadn't wanted a formal wedding with attendants. She just had our cousin's baby Ellis toddle up the aisle as ring bearer and a little girl who was related to John scatter petals as flower girl. Then she walked out onto the deck with her dad. The ceremony was really sweet and simple. John's brother-in-law sang a song and did a beautiful job. He had a great voice. They just repeated their vows and that was it. The building was very nice and decorated really pretty. They had rose petals scattered on the tables and bowls with floating candles as centerpieces
The bride and groom danced their first dance and they did a father/daughter mother/son dance as soon as the bridal party came in. The food was delicious -- potatoes, green beans, squash casserole, salad, fruit salad, prime rib, apple pie, banana pudding, lemon pie, and of course, a beautiful three layered wedding cake


I was happy for Lesley. I only have three cousins on my dad's side of the family, all older than me, and of them she was the one I was closest to growing up. Her dad was blinking back tears through the ceremony, though he tried to cover it up with sunglasses and her mom got a little emotional too. Lesley was very happy and everyone was happy for her.

Saturday was my sister's sixteenth birthday. She didn't want a big party, so we took her out to eat at her favorite restaurant, Red Lobster, that evening and shopping for new clothes. I gave her a necklace and earring set. She was planning to have a combined party with our cousin Emily at the lake that Monday, too.

The rest of the week was busy, but nice. We were able to spend time with family and friends and go to the lake for the girls' birthday party. When we left to come back on Thursday, my Aunt Sherry, Aunt Johnice, and her two kids Emily and Kati came back with us to stay at our house for a week.