My Baby Brudder

Haha I don't really call him that, but still. He is one of four of my "baby brothers". He graduated from high school on June 1st and I'm just now getting around to posting photos of it all. 

I suck.

So! Here are some photos from his big day-

And I kidnapped him and took some more "posed" (so not my thing) photos-

I'm still kicking myself that I didn't remember to tell him to put his class ring on. 

Yay, Tyler! Oh and just for kicks- here he is for Kindergarten graduation...

He finally grew into his ears.

Five Years

Today it's been five years.

A little over five years since I've heard your voice. Since I've watched you walk across a room. Or had you ask me to listen to a speech you'd written for our speech class that we took together. It's been five years since we made a Sonic run for cherry Dr. Peppers.

Exactly five years to the day since I've spoken to you... 

And asked you to wake up, because this was the last chance you'd have because we had a decision to make.

You never did listen to me. Not even when I begged you not to get that tacky tattoo. Or leave my dad. 

Damnit Mom.

If you would have woken up, what would have been different? 

Days do get easier. But, thinking of days to come, a wedding, a birth, all of those milestones, and knowing you won't be right here to go through them with me? That sucks.

And I miss you. 

I'm Not Freaking Out

I'm really not. It's Christmas Eve for pete's sake. 

I'm not freaking out.

Yesterday I went with Chris to the doctor. He's been having some issues with his blood pressure being high off and on the last couple of years. We mainly have documentation of that when he was going through chemo. We're trying to figure out if the chemo had something to do with it.

So, we wanted to get that under control. Of course, when he had is BP taken yesterday it was perfect. Of course. 

So we'll just be monitoring that for the next month and if it gets high he'll be taking a diuretic.

And then he mentioned to Dr. N. about the headaches he's been having... Which he's been having basically since I've known him (nearly 6! years). They come a couple of times a week and hang around for a couple of days. I was just assuming that the headaches had something to do with the high blood pressure we thought he had. That would have been the easy answer right? 

That's not looking to be the likely case now.

And so he's having a CT scan of his brain on January 5th.

Oh. My. God.

That's how we found out about my mom's brain aneurysm. After she passed away I had to have one myself. Everything came back normal for me, and I can only hope that Chris has the same results.

I'm telling myself that this is just the way they weed out this big things that could be wrong, and that they'll end up diagnosing him with migraines. Not that those aren't a big thing, but an aneurysm is way bigger. 

I just want this to be done. It brings back way too many memories for both of us.

I do always jump to the worst possible conclusion with everything, but how can I not in this situation? He'll be fine. He better be fine. 

Merry Christmas Eve. Go hug the ones you love. And even the ones you don't.

High Tech Grandma

My grandma celebrated her birthday a couple of weeks back. This lady, I'll tell you, she's becoming more high tech than me.

Really? My grandma has an iPhone now?

So, we celebrated her birthday with a big bang. There were even babies on tables.

She enjoyed it.

Yay! blurry phone pics.

And then she took all of her birthday cash and went and bought herself this-

Now, every time we go visit her, she has a million questions on how to operate both things. It's pretty funny.

Things I Learned At A Football Game

I scored tickets last minute to the UT vs OSU game for this past weekend. Chris had never been to a college football game, so I knew if I passed the tickets up again that I'd hear about it later if I told him.

So some things I learned at said game.

Don't forget the sunscreen. CHRIS! Just kidding, apparently I should have listened to my own advice. I assumed my makeup had enough sunscreen in it for me to be okay. Wrong. We both currently look like racoons. But only on the right side of our faces. Thank you sunglasses...

Don't wear crap shoes. Also known as flip flops. We had to walk a good half of a mile from where we parked, to the actual game, and back. My calves still hurt.

If you make plans to walk around downtown Austin after the game, be sure to watch your back. Really. After dinner, we were walking back to the parking garage to get our car and we were chased by a crazy dude wearing a kimono, waving paper guns in the air. Only in Austin? Maybe. Maybe that's why my calves really hurt. Now that I think about it, I was kind of run-walking.

Back to the game.

We had so much fun. We got there way to early, because that's how I roll. So, we had plenty of time to check the whole place out. We both came to the same conclusion.

We both want to go back to school. ASAP. We both knew this before we went to the game. Duh. But now it's really in our heads.

This post is all over the place, no?

Moving on.

If the awesome parents of a baby in your class offer you free tickets to a game again, take them. And run. The seats we had were AH-MAZING.

That picture is not zoomed in at all. It was awesome. Said parents have season tickets so the seats are always in the same place. Lucky them.

Which brings me to the next thing I learned...

Get rich really fast and buy season tickets to at least one college and NFL team.

Even though UT lost, we didn't care. It was all about the experience.

And? If I told you how much we spent all day (including dinner) you'd laugh. We seriously stayed on budget. That made the day even more enjoyable for Chris.

Last Wednesday

It was just after dinner, and I had just sent Chris to put gas in my car since I had to be at work at 6:45 the next morning. 


As soon as I sat down in front of the TV, they interrupted with a special announcement. That someone had passed away. I automatically thought of a previous president or something like that, so I continued on checking in on Twitter and whatnot.


Then they said Steve Jobs.


And I couldn't find my phone fast enough.


I had to be the one to tell Chris. I didn't want him to find out in the car on the radio, or via text or Twitter from someone else.


I called twice and he didn't answer either time. I also tweeted him and still no answer.


Lucky for me he, "Had the windows rolled down and no radio on."


So he walked in the door and I said, "OhmygoshSteveJobsjustdied." 


"Wait, what?"


"He died. Just now, it's on the news."


So he ran upstairs and we watched the coverage throughout the night.


Chris has worked for Apple for the last 2+ years. He and nearly everyone else he works with wore this shirt the next day.

There are a lot of people who had no idea who Steve Jobs was. I admit, I've known for years. But only because someone in my family has always worked for Apple nearly my whole life.


Chris posed a good question too, how many other CEO's can you name? What names pop into your mind when I say CEO? The only ones I could think of were Steve Jobs and Lance Armstrong. That's it. Maybe I'm sheltered or something but unless I thought about it for a while, I couldn't think of anyone else.


So maybe you didn't know who he was when all the buzz started on Wednesday night. I'm sure you know now.


And if you haven't heard clips of the commencement speech he gave at Stanford in 2005, here it is. Around 9 minutes in is when it hits you.

If You Take The Boy To A Wedding...

He'll have to get dressed up.

And since he's in charge of passing out the beer tickets. He'll have to have a beer. Or four.

Then after said beers he might bust a move or two on the dance floor.

After showing off all of his moves, he'll need to take a rest.

After a quick rest, he'll finally pose for a pic with his date (that's me!).

And then it's back to the dance floor.

haha, busted.

Then he'll be ready to throw the bird seed and go home.

But of course when he gets home he'll want to take a bazillion pictures in the bathroom mirror because he's silly, exhausted, and maybe still a little ya know...

And so what if the pictures are a blurryoutoffocusawfullightingmess?

We had fun.

Happy Birthday Mom

I'm not gonna lie, today snuck up on me. I mean, I realized today was Halloween but it nearly slipped my mind that...

Today would have been my mom's 43rd birthday.

She never got to see 40, but that's okay because I can't imagine my mom as a middle aged woman anyway.

Halloween was one of her favorite holidays, I don't think it was just because it was also her birthday. I remember her decorating the house just as much for Halloween as she did for Christmas and even Easter.

When my brother came to visit this summer he brought me this picture of my mom and I-

I wish I had more recent pictures of my mom. I don't know why she's not in any pictures we have.

*All you moms get out from behind the camera and get in front of it now!*

It feels like just yesterday we were having lunch, just her and I, and talking about school and our future. In actuality that lunch took place two months before she passed away. When I recall some of the conversation that we had it's eerie because she talked about some things that actually happened after she passed. Like she knew she wouldn't be here, but she knew who would end up where/what the outcome would be. Like, she wanted me to know how things needed to be in case something happened.

It's hard to explain without details. But those details are mine. And hers. I don't want to share them yet.

So, today Chris and I are laying low and if we happen to catch The Rocky Horror Picture Show on TV then we'll watch it. She watched it every Halloween.

And just for good measure, because I know my brothers/family will read this, here's the last family picture together with my grandma before my parents divorced.

One of my favorite pictures!

Happy Birthday Mom! We LOVE you and we MISS you!

Oh The Horror!

It's mid October and I figure this is a fitting subject right now. Chris and I were talking earlier about movies that used to scare the youknowwhat out of us. His short list of tear inducers? Dumbo* and Alice in Wonderland.

Growing up, my parents didn't really care what we watched on TV. I don't remember watching movies with my dad much, but my mom, aunt, and even my grandma made me sit through a few doozies. Now that I'm older I realize some of these movies weren't even meant to be scary...but the things I remember about them make me never want to watch them again. Here's my list of the movies I remember that scared the crap outta me-

Tremors- Clearly I was four years old when this movie came out but I remember clearly the night my grandma and I watched it. Hello?! Underground creatures with massive teeth who popped up and ate people. My grandma isn't the type to watch this kind of movie, much less have me in the room watching it with her! I didn't know then that it was also sort of a comedy. Who knows how long I tip-toed around after watching this one.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs- The magic mirror creeped me out. Thank goodness talking mirrors don't really exist. The seven dwarfs were pretty cute, I vaguely remember that...but that is the only positive thing I can think of. Whoever used to turn this movie on while I was resting for nap time when I was little must have been trying to scar me for life. Apples aren't my favorite fruit. I could list many Disney movies that I didn't like but if I could only choose one, this would be it.

Young Frankenstein- Everyone knows this movie is a comedy. Everyone but me. This was one of my mom's favorite movies, when we would watch it she would laugh so hard. Now that she's gone, my uncle, Nick, most recently tried to make me watch it. It's not even the "monster" that's scary to me. It's Igor. With his crazy eyes. And his hunchback. Ohmygosh. Then there's Frau Blücher, every time someone in the house mentions her name, the horses outside neigh in terror. It's in black and white and my silly self tells me that that means the movie is even scarier. "Put the candle back."

The Rocky Horror Picture Show- Can I just say this is not a movie for kids. Like at all. But every Halloween up until my mom died, you could guarantee this movie would be playing somewhere in the house. Once again, it's a comedy. Are you seeing a trend here? I'm a wuss. This movie isn't scary (it's a musical for goodness sake!), I mostly remember being creeped out by the men dressing as women. And the make-up. I do have to say that the songs are catchy and I could probably recite any of them if you asked me to. I guess that's what happens when you watch it, but you aren't really watching it.

Salem's Lot- This movie is not a comedy. It is easily the scariest movie (to me) I've listed. It's got creepy vampires who scratch on the bedroom windows at night wanting to be let in. It's not scary because it's full of gore, what makes it creepy to me is the way the story is told. It was made in the 70's and they did a good enough job on the "scare factor" for me. Poltergeist ain't got nothin' on this one. Oh and the ending...right before the credits? Yeah, it's nightmare inducing.

Beetle Juice- Comedy. Again. Ghosts trying to scare people out of their house. I guess when I was younger, just looking at Beetlejuice was creepy enough. Then I remember something about a front door that was up really high and if you walked out of it you'd just fall...

Arachnophobia- Let me end this list with another comedy that I thought was scary. I haven't tried watching this one recently, and I have a feeling it might be kindasortafunny now...but it's not worth the spider-filled nightmares. The scene I remember most vivdly was the spider crawling on the toilet. Yeah. I don't like spiders to begin with. Maybe this movie is one of the reasons why?

I think when I was younger I just wasn't mature enough to appreciate dark comedy...since most of these are comedies and not horror films. I'm sure there are even more movies I didn't list on here that used to creep me out.

I just asked Chris if we would monitor what movies our kids watched...he basically said yes.

Which movies used to scare you when you were younger?

*Thank you IMDB for all of the links!

Bucket List

If Chris had an actual "bucket list" this experience would most definitely be on there. Thankfully for him, he could have marked it off last weekend.

One of his friends from work, X, had an extra ticket to the Titans/Cowboys football game in Dallas. Chris loves the Titans. Like, luuuurrrvvveesss. So, when he told me that X had invited him to go (thanks X!!), I only pouted a teeny bit that he was leaving me all weekend to go watch football, and take pictures with half naked chicks (no really, I can show you).

Anyway.

He said the stadium was awesome and there were big screen TV's everywhere, even outside the stadium, so they could keep up with all of the other games that were going on while waiting to get inside.

It's the little things people.

X was rooting for the Cowboys and was brave enough to still hang out with Chris.

Lucky for Chris, their seats were in the visitors section. He said he was still definitely one of the only ones in a Titans jersey. And he may or may not have been called a "little girl" by a Cowboys fan after the Titans beat them!

Here's the view from their seats. Pretty good seats I think.

He said the game was good...not too much of a blowout. And the cherry on top was that the Titans won.

I'm just glad that during all of his excitement, Chris remembered to take pictures. Because let me just say, even when he got home nearly four hours after the game, he was still excited. Like, takeabreathwhileyourtalkingsoyoudon'tpassout excited.

I'm glad he got to go and have the experience.

Even if the beers were $8 a pop.

And even if he took pictures with random dancer barely clothed chicks.

He had fun. And these days, that's all that matters.

Happy Birthday Sean!

Today, my little brother turns 23. 

And just for fun:

Happy Birthday Sean!

Hope it's great! We love you.

Oh and can I just say that having a birthday on 10-9-87 is the coolest thing?

It's Been Nearly A Month...

...since we went down to the coast. I've just been in a blogging rut lately, and haven't been in the mood to gather all of the pictures that were taken and then blog. I should mention that halfway through our vacation, my camera was DROPPED! and that was the end of that one. So, I had to gather pictures from multiple cameras. One of my brothers, Tyler, went with us to the beach. So when I say "the boys" I mean Chris and Tyler.

Better late than never.

To start off the day, the boys had to! wanted to drive down the beach and just park near the water. I said no, but it was two against one. So drive down the beach I did. I should have known to turn around when I saw this-

and this (if you can't read the sign, click on the picture to make it bigger)-

Needless to say, I followed advice from the boys after seeing those ruts, and I got stuck. Somebody told me to drive up on the loose sand. So I'm sitting in the drivers seat crying because we are stuck, and Chris is yelling at me to punch the gas. I was just digging my hole deeper. Thankfully after a few minutes, a few nice people saw us and helped dig us out. Then I got chewed out from some older guy who told me to, "stay off the loose sand!" Duh. One of the guys who helped dig us out let us follow him (in his hippie van) to where we were going.

At that point we were only halfway to our destination so Chris drove the rest of the way. I was done. We finally made it...just in time for someone to tell us we needed a beach parking pass in order to park there. I snapped a picture and told Chris to drive my car back to the condo because I wasn't getting back in that car already. There was a path leading to the beach (where we were) from our condo so it wasn't too bad for him.

Just as I was about to get into the water, someone yelled, "He's got a shark! Go look!" What the heck?! My day was steadily getting crappier. Of course, I ran over there and asked to take a picture of the shark he caught. Yes, the shark he CAUGHT. Genius was trying to catch them...and not too far from where we were all swimming. He caught more than just this one...

After seeing that, and the stingray that was chasing after Chris the day before, I wasn't going more than knee deep into that water. Instead, I stayed near the shore and took pictures of the cutest cousins ever.

Oh, and after going to the aquarium (and seeing jellyfish and stingrays) the day before, my brother wasn't too keen on going too far into the water either. We are weenies. So what?!

Chris on the other hand, was fearless and went way too far out into the water, way too many times. I nearly had 15 heart attacks. Then after taking 23,487,600 pictures in the water, none of them even turned out good! What?! This is the best we got.

The sunset (that was behind us!) was pretty though...the mosquitos that chased us back to the condo were not.

The morning before we left I actually went out onto our patio and saw that you could see the beach from there. So, here's a picture of that-

Even after getting stuck in the sand, seeing multiple sharks, and watching a stingray swim right by my leg, I had a good time and I can't wait until we can go again. We did a lot of other things while down at the coast, but there is no way it would all fit into one post. More to come later...