My Preschool Daze

You are going to get so used to pictures on my blog. See, I downloaded all the pictures from my camera and they just happened to be ones that I could blog about. At least, I'm getting the blogging every day thing down :) So here's me class. Don't let their cute pictures confuse you. They're all little demons inside, every last one of them! 

Back row: Cayleigh, Bobby, Jalen, Gabby, Noah

Middle row: Charleigh, Maggie, Brandon, Rana, Tanner

Front row: Brenna, Julie, Jaden, Nicholas, Anton

This one and the one below are their silly faces. They just all *happened* to bring them to school that day.

These are my boys, Jalen, Tanner, and Brandon. Yeah, Brandon is picking his nose, Tanner is...playing with a spiderweb...? and Jalen is doing good smiling.

I didn't really teach teach, although it sounds a whole lot more professional to say it like that. I just did daycare, oh, and nap time. from 1230 till 530. Every day, the kids were like, "Tomorrow are you coming after nap time?" Cause I'd come in after nap time started, all the kids were usually asleep or getting there, and I was still there when they woke up. But you should have been there on days that I didn't work. Actually, the days *after* the ones I didn't work. All afternoon long I'd hear, "why wasn't you here yesterday?"

One more thing, Notice my shining hair? That is the result of trying to get my highlights "professionally" touched up. I hated it, but thankfully, I was able to get the shining covered with a nice golden brown before the wedding pictures. One side of the shining is beginning to show through, but not anywhere near as bad as that.

De-bachelorizing the apartment

Since I don't have any pictures of how the apartment looked before I cleaned it up, you'll just have to trust me when I say that it was a MESS! I'm not going to blame Mark, cause it was mostly my stuff. Like boxes of my stuff. The week before the wedding, my dad and I brought down a car load, and a truck load of my stuff and my wedding shower presents. The floor was covered, literally covered, with stuff. We had to dig paths through the boxes and bags to from room to room. I cleaned it Monday while Mark was at work. I was worried that he might come in from work and decide that he had went into the wrong apartment. But he didn't. Although, he did come in and say "Whoa! You've been a busy wife!" But I enjoyed it, mainly because it was my stuff in my apartment. And I didn't have to worry about anyone coming in and saying, "Where's my stuff?" In addition to cleaning, last night we hung pictures and curtains, and our clock, too! But I don't have pictures of that yet. But here's what I do have. Enjoy!

Our bedroom went through quite a change. Instead of the bed being in the middle of the room, the dresser being surrounded by clothes and suitcases. My parents gave us that dresser and night stand. Too bad it's the only dresser we have... :)

Oh, this is my favorite part of the apartment. Those boxes are all empty of useful stuff. There's only trash in them now. It used to be a very unstable pile, but I condensed and made it all fit nicely.

Our beautiful furniture. The top one is the clock Mark's cousin Marilyn and Karl got us for our wedding. It's hung up now, right above that love seat.

Our Christmas tree sparsely decorated. Isn't Mark just the greatest husband to go buy it and set it up for us. 

There, isn't that much better? I think we got like 6 Christmas ornaments that say something like "our first Christmas." Oh, this one, I looked closely at, and the date on it....2006 :) but it's small and unnoticeable. And I like the ornament, so I'm keeping it anyways :)

These are our new dishes, fresh from Target (tar-zhay'). We got like a million bucks in gift cards to Target and Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We went out and got some dishes so that we didn't have to keep on using 1) Christmas dishes, 2) a handful of plastic dishes I "borrowed" from my parents' house, or 3) a few glass dishes from Mark's parents' house. I mean, all together we had plenty of dishes, but only if we washed them right after we eat. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing with washing dishes 3 times a day, but why wash 2 cups and 2 plates 3 times a day when you can put 6 cups and 6 plates in the dishwasher once a day?

Do you like our dining room? How about that lazy susan? My sister-in-law, Susan (who, by the way, was our first official guest since moving in. They stopped in on their way back from Charleston to Annapolis from visiting her mom) gave it to us as a wedding present. 

And that's that.

"On Top of Old Smokey...."

So, maybe, the pictures aren't in the same order as we took them, but that's ok. They're all here. We just *had* to pick one of the coldest days to go up into the mountains. We tried going on one of the trails, and we did, for a while. But I didn't have on the right kind of shoes (I had clogs, not really mountain climbing shoes). All the while we were going up, we kept passing people dressed in mountain gear. Think hiking boots, climbing poles, big coats, back packs, and anything else that comes along. 

Ok, we're good. Dan and Susan took Mark and I out to eat. We went to Chedder's. It was good. Back to pics....

View from the top of the park at the NC/TN state line

 See above comment.

Mark obviously had the camera. I was videotaping with commentary.

This tree was on that trail we took, as were the following several pictures. The middle of the roots, were hollow, like there was a hard clump of dirt that it grew around and then the dirt eroded or something like that.

 See how cold it was??

For those of you with bad eyes the sign says 

"THE AREA BEYOND THIS SIGN IS CLOSED TO PUBLIC TRAVEL

Since 1988, Park Rangers have conducted 51 rescues in this area involving 17 injuries and 1 fatality. The total cost of these rescues has exceeded $20,000."

Oh, this picture is out of order. It was at the top of the mountains.

Those past four pics were on the trail. The bridge we passed over was kinda rickety. Well, one was, one wasn't too bad, and I don't remember the third one. The below picture is why.

I was on my honeymoon and more interested in that man than the scenery. And, yes, my eye was being squished by his cheek ;)

Swimming with the Jellies, dude

While we were in Sevierville, we went to Ripley's Aquarium. It was pretty stinking cool. Here's the pics we took. Well, some of them, if I put them all here, it'll take me all day. You can go to my facebook page and look at them there (in a while, that is).

I got to pet these stingrays. They're soft and slimy, almost like those vinyl pools when you've kept the water in them for too long.

Mr. Leopard Shark was swimming with the stingrays, and the guy that was saying we could pet the stingrays was like, make sure you don't touch the shark. He can still hurt you. Like, duuh!

He looks tough, but I bet he's a real pushover

Swimming with the jellies, dude!

He looked really fuzzy, but you can't see it here. See what happens to you when you just lounge around all day long?

Do you see the tunnel in the background? It's really a tunnel, not just some clever illusion trick. It's called the shark tunnel, and there were a ton of sharks, almost like being with them. About halfway through, there was a bunch of scratches on the water side of the plexiglass with a sign. The sign said that there was a shark attack in 2000, but no one was hurt. I can't imagine what it was like...shudders... As we were coming out of the tunnel, a photographer was standing there and said that lots of people get their picture taken here. She took one with her camera (that we later bought, sucked in by tourism...), and volunteered to take one with our camera.

That lady must have been bored, cause she offered to take our picture here in front of this wall of fish. They're kinda creepy with their eyes all shiny...

Hi, I'm Dori.

strpied-spiny-fish

Last, but not least, an amemenome, anenenome, anemonone....whatever.

Wedding Day Bliss

For those of you who were at my wedding, thanks :) as you know, it went off well with basically no noticeable flaws. The few I know of, I'll just let you keep on thinking it was perfect. It really was, I wouldn't have changed anything. The reception part was a bit sketchy, but I wasn't in charge, and it didn't matter any more, I was married!! We've been staying in Sevierville (severe-ville) at a condo/resort. It's nice, like we have a bedroom, bathroom, washer, dryer, kitchen, dishwasher (automatic, not named Mark :D), living room/dining room combo. It's nice. There's an indoor pool, out door hot tub (we saw some people swimming in it, in 40 degree weather!!), a few tanning beds, free wi-fi in the main lodge, an 'activity room' (for activities, I'd guess). The staff here is very friendly, and cheerful (I guess it's their job :D), but it makes it even more special. I'll write more about what we did around town, later.
We're headed home tomorrow about 7 am, because we need to make a little stop in Richmond before 3.
TTYL

Thankful for too many beans...

It all started with too many beans....then it progressed into a little bit of chest pain, and dyspnea (not being able to breath easily). So Mark's mom took his Dad to the hospital. They did a few blood tests and stuff like that, and discovered his enzymes (the ones mainly for heart attack) were too high. Still his blood work wasn't too, too bad. But upon having more chest pain and dyspnea from going potty, they decided not to let him out of bed any more. This was Friday nightish...
They kept him over night for observation. Saturday, his enzymes were not normal, so they transfered him over to the heart hospital in Wausau. "They" told him that he would probably not make it to our wedding on Saturday. As you can imagine, Dad Mc didn't take the news very well. But "they" said it'd be better to miss one event, and live, than to die and miss the rest of his family's lives. "They" also decided that, in order to see what was really up with his heart, they would do a heart catheterization either Sunday or Monday. "They" couldn't fit him in Sunday, so they did it today.
Conclusion: (viewer discretion advised)
One major artery was 100% blocked, while the other two major ones were both 50% blocked. The only thing keeping him from having a major heart attack was one vessel that was completely clean. Praise God for a network of arteries. They put a stent in the vessel that was blocked, but "they" also decided that Dad Mc needed a triple CABG (coronary artery bypass graph). "They" are going to it in about 4 weeks.
Because of all that goings on, Dad Mc has to be on 'rest' until his surgery, which means no flying. Thankfully, I have an awesome almost brother-in-law-in-law, who is going to be staying with him. We're trying to figure out a way to broadcast the ceremony live up to Wisconsin, so he can at least see it as it happens (well, maybe a few seconds behind). I heard that they're planning (not "they,") their own little party up there. Hey, maybe Mark and I with ditch our party and join theirs... :)
But just imagine...what if Dad Mc had not had all those beans, had not had bad enough gas to cause his arteries to constrict to cause his angina (chest pain), to send him to the hospital, to diagnose these blockages. He might be in worse condition than he is now. So, I'm thankful to too many beans.