Hayley

Today I really miss Hayley. I'm not sure what the deal is. I think it's just because this time of year always reminds me how Emily was getting so close to giving birth to Hayley and everyone was so excited.

I remember better than anything that night. Everyone was there. To see this little person, FINALLY come into this world. 

That day, the day she finally came out I'll remember for the rest of my life. 

And I still don't understand why things had to happen the way they did. I miss her, my little Hayley girl. 

Holiday's

Well this Thanksgiving was quite lovely. I had to basically beg my Mother to have a Thanksgiving because she was hoping to go out for the holiday. No offense, but the idea of going out for the biggest holiday of the year seemed somewhat sacrilegious to me. Her idea was to "skip Thanksgiving and have Thai food on Friday". 

Yeah. 

No.

Ok, call me old fashion but Thanksgiving is the best holiday because that's the time I get to spend with my family. We've never really been much of a Christmas family, just a big breakfast and then screwing off the rest of the day with our 'new gifts'. 

Unfortunately Dan will be gone for most of the holiday's this year, which sucks. All of Kodi's "Firsts". But she's really too young to know the difference anyway. I think he's here for her 1st birthday, and our anniversary so that's awesome. Next year he'll be here for Christmas so that's nice.

Anyways I'm officially rambling. Thanksgiving was nice, we had Mom, Dad, Nathan, Aaron and his family, myself and Kodi. Heather also managed to join us later on in the dinner. Dena ended up being needed for her extended family as a second, short order cook so they were unable to make it to my Mom's house.

Pumpkin Pie

I could kill for some pumpkin pie right now. Know anyone that delivers? Pumpkin pie that is?

Seriously people.

Serious.

"You know you're a Mom when..."

You're sitting on the toilet doing your business and going.....

*singing* "There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name OOOOOOOOOO......B-I-N-G-O....B-I-N-G-O.....!!!!!!"

Hmmmm.

"You know you're a Mom when..."

To "start" or not to start

Ok. So I had an auto start installed yesterday on my truck. I was SO happy that they were able to squeeze me in so quickly. Problem is, I think they were rushing...you'll see why in a minute.

So I pick up the truck and automatically smell gasoline in the interior. Couldn't figure out what the problem was for the life of me, even called both my Dad and Brother to help me determine what the issue was. Nothing doing. Guess I was using the wrong terminology.

So...I parked the truck for the night last night and went to bed. Started it this morning with the auto start, and once I was putting Kodi in her seat noticed the AWFUL stench still in the vehicle. I looked at the open garage door, back at Kodi, to the thermometer....

-20 below. Sigh. I did not want to put her in the car because I just knew that she would get sick from that awful smell and wouldn't be able to live with myself if that happened. But then I remembered what my Dad and Brother had said and figured they  must be right. But were they?

I drop her off and head to work. At work I realize I had an important meeting all the way across town and would have to re-start my car and head back across town to meet with my friend. As I passed by the car again, I smell this horrible gas-like smell and know that something had to be wrong! I get in the truck, and sure enough, the smell is twice as bad and I feel like it's giving me a headache. I run the car over to the dealer and come to find out that when the dealer had put in my auto start they had pierced the injector and there was gas just running out of my truck onto the concrete floor! Of course by this time I'm super pissed....I had been driving around with those fumes in my truck (windows rolled down, -20 below!! come on people!!) with my baby in the back seat! My freaking truck  could have caught on fire, or the fumes alone could have gotten both of us sick.

So. We call the dealer and tell them that it's their issue to fix and to deal with it. They come over and inspect my car and tell me that they "don't believe it's their fault, they've 'never done it before' but we'll fix it" type of thing. *ARG* So now I'm like 2 hours late for my meeting ( i did call...) I try to call her to tell her I'm on my way, but she doesn't answer. I have my Dad drop me off, and low and behold, she's NOT even here!!! So now I'm sitting here "waiting for her" and I have to pick  up baby in like 1 hour and I don't even know when she is supposed to be back. A little pissed off at this point and time. 

And yet it gets better. So Aaron is picking me up to pick up Kodi, and yet I still have no idea if I'll get my truck back today or if I'll have to get a rental.

They are so paying for a rental if I need one. 

funny stuff

Ok. So are we allowed to write about stuff that happens to other people? If so, I have a seriously hilarious story to tell everyone.

Demi called me tonight busting a gut she was laughing so hard. I couldn't figure out what the deal was and at first I was thinking something was wrong. As I'm hearing the phone ring (and I was on the phone with Dan) I thought,

"Well, I'll just call her back...."

But Dan insisted I answer the phone incase something was wrong with her car. She goes on to tell me the most hilarious story. 

Apparently she pulls up next to a state trooper who has a woman in the back seat. As she is sitting there (Demi) watching what was going on, she sees the woman real back and BARF all over the back of the policeman's seat. 

With a horrified look on the poor mans face, (i'm making this up of course, since I really have NO idea...) and a foul smell in the air, he flips his lights on and speeds away toward the station.

She, of course was laughing so hard she could barely breath. And I, myself, thought it was pretty ironic as well.

Poor dude, he probably got barf all over his suit. (*bet the lady felt better though*)

GRIN

An amazing gift

You ever stop during the day and go,

"Wow! What an amazing sunset!" or "Wow that person was really nice to me, and certainly didn't have to be!"

Etc...

I believe God puts people in our paths, or in our lives, or gives us gifts at times when we least expect it! When we feel like our day can't get any worse, to have someone bless us, or smile at us or to view an amazing sunrise or sunset, or to be shown mercy when we least deserve it.

It's times like these when I realize that without Him my life would truly suck.

Sorry there is no other eloquent way to put that.

I had the worst day today. Had to drop Dan off at the airport, and after almost 1 month of being home we never really had any good quality time to our selves. Stress with the baby, traveling, my new job and everything has really been a bad thing for our relationship. I miss him. I really do. And I wish there was someway to connect with him and get back what I feel we have lost.

He's such a good guy, patient, kind, and puts up with all my junk. I guess I'm lamenting the fact that we had been so much more closer in the past and it's just that much harder connecting with each other with a new little person and all the other things going on in our lives.

I was hoping today would be a  good day to get work done after I got home. But, Kodi had other things in mind and just would NOT go to sleep for anything. I know it sounds trivial, but it's very difficult getting things done when my "little person" didn't want to be anywhere but crawling around RIGHT next to me, or in my arms. 

DON'T PUT ME DOWN MOM, I NEEEEEEEEEDddddddd you!!! *sigh* Which is fine. Just very hard to get anything else accomplished.

I finally put her on the bed (for the 7th time) and pinned her down, wrapped her up in my arms and fed her. She struggled, cause she wanted to crawl around, but I could tell by her eyes that she was in agony and begging for me to put her to sleep. I finally got her down. And as I looked at her peaceful little face, the sun streaming through the blinds and the peaceful Celtic music in the background, I thought to myself,....

"What an amazing gift!!!" 

DC

Well it's 6am and I'm awake. Surprising eh? Considering it's almost 10am there in DC, not so much I suppose.

We had an eventful trip to the nations capital this past week and a momentous one at that.

My purpose of going to Washington DC was for a NCURA (grants managment conference) that was going to last about 5 days. Dan and I decided to go down a day early and over night in Seattle and on the way back we did the same because the flight times and layovers were just too much for Kodi. So that went alright.

Once we got to DC, the training started and we thought out what we wanted to do. Due to our political standing we tried to not talk about politics as much as we could because DC is a very liberal community and very passionate about their stands. So we just stuck to vacation talk and had a great time.

The first real day that we had, we visited the Washington Monument, Lincoln, & Veterens Memorial amoung other things.

I had 5 days of training so with some days having shorting schedules than others, we were able to visit more things. We even took a "tour" and got some great history out of it.

Kodi was a TROOPER! We carted her ALL over that city in her little back pack, she slept in it, ate in it, pooped in it! :) You get the idea. The only thing she really had a hard time with was some of the flights were too long for her. We got very lucky and had rows to our selves for the majority of flights, so that helped a TON! And we were blessed to have some really great flight attendants that helped us get through the whole travel process.

Dumb Jacki, managed to lose (ok, "leave" is a better term") her purse in a resturant the night before we had to fly home. OF COURSE, i didn't realize it was missing until 1.5 hours before we had to fly out! SO PISSED. SO.....I hoped that someone would be honest enough to turn it back in without completely raping us financially. They did! So I'm waiting for my purse to get here, and hopefully (*fingers crossed*) my cash is still in there as well.

So all in all it was a great trip. Dan was a bit stressed out, and has to leave tomorrow for work. So it's back to the grind stone here at the farm. : )

If you think of it, pray for me for my job. It's pretty over-whelming and I'm struggling to get what I need to get done. So let's just say that it is a work in progress and I need to really buckle down now that I'm home, and no more traveling to get in the way of things.

Talk soon.

Quick Blurp

Well I just got back from DC a few hours ago. I'm so tired and jet lagged!

It's Demi's 21st birthday today so Dan was stuck with the pleasure of staying up after having traveled all day to take his daughter out for drinks.

Kodi on the other hand was SO tired, I fed her, laid her down, and she didn't make ONE-PEEP, she simply rolled over and passed out! Pretty funny really...I guess she's just as exhausted as we are.

So real quick, had a good business trip and a good time down there with Dan-o and the Kod-Miester and some great pictures! I'll post more later definitely.