Day 36 - May 6th

We sold the car! Good bye wonderful and fabulous orange Mazda. You served us well and you were tons of fun. Enjoy your new family. You and your sunroof will be missed. Zoom Zoom.

We believe that it was a total God thing! We’ve had that car for sale for several months, and NOTHING! ZILCH! NADA!

When we did sell the car, we were going to use the extra money to go on a family vacation. We were working with a travel agent on Monday on booking a cruise. I had a few more questions and called the travel agent one more time before paying the whole trip up-front, but he didn't return my call before I left work. Russ and I talked and decided, it would be tight, but we would go ahead and plan the vacation even though the car hadn't sold yet. After the car sells, we'll pay off the vacation. But if we could just sell that car, it wouldn’t be an issue. That night is when my life changed (I can't say much yet) But our first order of business was that we needed an attorney, but how could we pay for one? I personally know they can be EXPENSIVE!! Within 2 hours of that life changing event, we got 3 emails from people wanting to see the car. Between then and now, we’ve had 7 people interested in the car, 3 came take a look at it, 2 who said they would give us cash, 1 was going to come from Tennessee to see it. We had our pick of who to sell it too. If we had sold it just 4 hours earlier, we would have put the non-refundable money into our cruise. But God knew better, now we have the money for an attorney. Praise the Lord! He is awesome!

The first picture is of the guy leaving the bank walking to his new car, our old fabulous car. The other picture is him driving away...Zoom Zoom!!

Day 35 - Cinco De Mayo!

Feliz Cinco De Mayo!! Ok, so other than a Spanish Holiday, this day was emotionally exhausting as well. The whole day. I'm exhausted. I'm preparing for so many things, still none I can share on here. My dad asked us if we wanted to go "Cinco De Mayo It" tonight. So what else? We went to eat Mexican!! Yummy Mexican at El Tequila! We all had a great time! Ginger was especially giggly and kept hugging and kissing on Daddy (Russell). This is a group picture of all of us at dinner (minus me). Going clockwise, starting with Russell. That's Russell...then Ginger...my sister Joy, her hubby Tim, My Daddy John, his wife Phyllis (a fan of my Picture of the Day), and Phyllis' niece Renee. We covered all the possible topics, jokes, whether or not my grandparents really exist, cars, embarrassing stories, work, Renee's finals and college, her boyfriend, and of course...the Swine Flu. Oklahoma's first case was confirmed today.

Day 34 - May 4th

Wow. What an emotionaly exhausting evening. Great day. The regular rainy Monday. I like the rain, so these weeks of unending rain don't bother me a bit. We had the usual gang over for Monday night, Big Bang Theory, Chuck and Mom. Just as they were leaving at 9pm tonight, we had another visitor show up on my door that changed my life. I don't think I want to share too much on a public blog. But as time goes on, pieces of it will show up on here...maybe. After going through tons of emotions, praying, and relaxing with Russell we went to bed. I remembered I hadn't gotten my picture of the day. Russ was so sweet. He knew how important it was to me, at that emotional moment of my life, it was. He got out of bed, stumbled around the dark living room and found my camera. We laid in bed and played with the settings until we got this shot of a window in our room. The shutter was open for 13 seconds. I didn't feel like taking a picture of anything else. Just the little light that was coming through the window. But I still loved it...I loved perfecting the timing and holding our breaths for 10-15 seconds over and over until we got it just like I liked it. It was a great way to relax to help go to sleep.

Day 33 - May 3rd

A lazy Sunday afternoon, just me and my girl. My guy was on another date...with my mom. They went to the new X-Men movie. Ginger and I lounged around on my bed with some crayons. We are a goal-oriented family, we love charts and graphs, and enjoy competion, and at times maybe a little too much. Today Ginger and I made some new charts. We made an Exercise Chart that will have a winner who finishes their goal first. We also made a Vacation Chart, to chart our savings for our Family Vacation. We decided to go on an Alaskan Cruise this summer. They ain't cheap, so we're putting all of our efforts together to make this vacation possible. And...hopefully start teaching Ginger the value of budgeting and saving.

Day 32 - May 2nd

It was a very special night tonight. A few days ago Ginger asked Russell if he wanted to go on a date with her for his birthday. Just the two of them. He said yes and then said, "How about Incredible Pizza?" She ran and hugged him and said, "You're a great parent!" So tonight, Ginger got all dressed up and Russ even left and came back, rang the door bell, greeted her with a rose, and helped her with her jacket. He took her to Incredible Pizza. They had a wonderful time. I stayed home and cleaned the bathroom. I got to be home alone...we all had a great time. And again, it's my blog and I can put more than one picture on here if i want too. They were just too precious not to put it on here.

Day 31 - May 1st

A failed attempt at a family game-night birthday for Russell turns REALLY fun!! Several family members came down with some serious illnesses and we're unable to attend the party. (It's not the Swine Flu) We decided to postpone the birthday family game-night. But I had already bought the cake, and Tammy had already bought dinner, so we went ahead and had a fun dinner anyway! We had so much fun, just the 5 of us. We had yummy pizza (It was Digorno, not delivery). Then we played several rounds of Sequence! My team (Me & Cliff!!) won 3 out of 5 games!! Whoooo hooooo!! Ginger played a few rounds, then got bored and had fun drawing on a dry-erase board that Tammy had bought for Pictionary. I had taken the perfect Picture of the Day, Russ and Cliff (Russ' Dad) concentrating hard on their next Sequence move. But then...Ging showed us the surprise that she drew. It's a family picture of the three of us. I loved it! So I wanted to make that the Picture of the Day. So now...there's two. It's my blog and I can do it if I want too.

Day 30 - April 30th

Full day today. We went to a funeral of a friend of ours who lost their 9 year old son. He's been crippled since birth. It's hard for me to think of their situation and I wonder if they don't feel a bit of relief?

We also went to Carraba's with Dad & Phyllis for Russell's birthday. We love the Lintle Soup - YUMMY!! Dad and Russ hit it off with a lengthy nerdy conversation. I shall quote my father now, "I found a nerd on my level."

After dinner, our friend Laura came over. She used to be in the group that "lived" with me. (I had a group of friends that came over every night and stayed LATE, and sometimes I would wake up with people asleep on my couch. Laura probably did actually live with me though for several months. She still owes me rent money.

Laura and I love to talk, giggle, and I'm not sure really what it is, but it's always fun and for some reason always ends up in my bed. We have slept countless nights on the couch, not on purpose, just falling asleep during one of our lengthy conversations. We moved to the more comfortable bed, and somehow that's just where our best conversations happen...either there or in a tent. ;o) Although, they happen a little less often now that I'm married, and Russ kicks her out of his spot at the end of the night. There have been many of bedtime converstaions that a camera has showed up. And one showed up tonight in honor of "Picture of the Day." Out of about 200 shots, we agreed that this picture with our eyes closed and heads cut off, was the best. But one thing for sure, our converstaions are always "educational".