Eventful Week

Well, wow, this has been an eventful few days. Because so much has happened, I’ve decided to divide the story up into segments. Pictures will come later when I’m not on 28.8 dialup in the middle of nowhere.

Graduation
Last Thursday morning I drove up to Dallas. My brother was graduating (yay! He’s headed to UNT in a few months) and my grandmother was in town until Monday. She’d never met Ari. I made it with plenty of time for me, Ashley, my cousin Kelsy, my mom, my dad, and my grandmother to make it to the graduation.

It was a good ceremony. One of the speakers told a ridiculous story about a kid who “made up” a new major: criminal psychology. I guess he didn’t realize how idiotic he sounded to be so high up in the world of education and not know that “criminal psychology” is actually a field.

We were going to go out to eat but graduation didn’t end until about 9:30 or so, so we just went home and my dad made shish kabobs. I have no idea how to spell that word. Thank you, Spell Check.

We’re Still Alive
Because we didn’t get to go out to eat after graduation, we left on Friday night to eat at AW Shucks, an outside seafood restaurant in downtown Dallas. My mom, dad, and grandmother piled into my mother’s Lincoln, and me, Ashley, James, and Ariana were going to follow in the Matrix I was borrowing from a friend.

As we were driving down the highway, I was in the lane to the right of the far most left lane. I needed to merge right, so I checked behind me. No one was there, so I began to merge. At the same time, a teenage boy was in the lane to the right of the one I was trying to merge into, and he was trying to merge left. He was behind me, but apparently hadn’t seen me. I veered to avoid him, but overcorrected and ended up in the far left lane. At this point something must have happened to the alignment because, try as I might to keep the wheel straight, it kept swerving right to left like a piece of luggage too big for it’s wheels about to tip over. Ariana was screaming and everyone else was quiet. I kept saying, “I can’t make it straight! I can’t make it straight!” I also yelled for my brother, who was in the backseat, to watch out for Ariana. After not hitting anyone going back and forth through several lanes of traffic a few times, we finally crashed into the median. It may have saved our lives, because it straightened out the wheels enough for me to drive us to the side of the road. I leapt out of the car and ran to the back seat. I was shaking but Ari was fine and giggled when she saw me. The left back wheel was twisted underneath the car. Though I was stoic for a few minutes, I eventually broke down sobbing. The car was barely drivable at a few miles an hour, so my brother drove it cautiously back to our house and switched it for his car, then met us at the restaurant.

AW Shucks
This place was really cool. It was across from The Granada downtown and served the spiciest, best seafood EVER. My dad and I shared a plate of crab legs, shrimp, and sausage. I got hot peppers in my eye. My sister screamed at me to wash it out before I burned off my cornea, and my mother offered to call an ambulance. I rinsed it out with ice water and was fine. The food was fantastic, and I really enjoyed the whole evening.

Weekend
Saturday and Sunday we basically just hung out with my grandmother all weekend. I bought some cloth diapers on Saturday (Ariana is getting so big!) and enjoyed a lecture from my grandmother about how cloth diapers are not only bad for babies, but inconvenient and more expensive (yeah, try that one on for size). I’m trying out a couple of new types of diapers and so far, I am a HUGE fan of Thirstie’s All in Ones. I might just get all of that type next time I buy.

The Butlers
On Monday my grandmother went back to Lubbock and I went to figure out how much it was going to cost to fix the car. I was planning on getting back to Houston by Wednesday so that I wouldn’t miss Toby’s obedience class. That wasn’t in the stars. It’s gonna cost several thousand dollars to fix, so I parked it in my father’s driveway and my mother in law drove me and Ariana to her house, where we planned to stay for the next few days since we had spent so long with my side of the family.

Sewing
We had SOOOO MUCH FUN at the Butlers! Linda took me shopping for fabric and patterns and over the course of the four days I was there, we sewed three dresses for Ariana. I say we. She sewed two, I sewed one. It was so much fun, and the dress I sewed for Ari is really adorable. I’m quite proud of myself and plan on doing more of this in the future. J I’ll put up pictures of it later. The dress Linda sewed for her was a cute blue and white polka dotted vintage 50s looking dress with a bit of a modern twist – it’s very cute. I can’t wait for a Sunday we’ll actually be going to church. ;)

Teeth
Ariana started to cut teeth while we were at the Butlers! I noticed that her chewing on my hand started to be a little sharper than usual, and when I looked, sure enough, there was a small white peak inching through the gums. Now you can definitely see the beginnings of a tooth, it seems to have finally poked through Saturday.

Oklahoma
On Friday afternoon, Ariana, my parents, and I all headed up to Oklahoma to visit my grandparents, who love to see her. We’ve had a really good time so far. My grandfather has always been a fun loving guy, and that hasn’t changed even though he now slips between dementia and lucidity. He confuses my father for his (my grandfather’s) brother sometimes, and once thought Justin was Mexican because he speaks Spanish. But in his periods of clarity (which are often) he says some extremely hilarious things reminiscent of his sense of humor.

For instance, just today, my parents and he were talking about how they plan to move to northern Dallas because that’s where all of their friends are. My grandfather was wondering what they would do with their current house. “Well,” my dad said, “we’d probably sell it. What would you do with it?” With all the seriousness in the world, he looked at them and said, “Well, I’d start a whorehouse.”

So it has been quite a busy week for us. Justin had to stand in for my class on Wednesday and take notes for me, but it looks like I’ll actually be back by next Wednesday to finish out. He is currently driving up to Dallas in a van he borrowed from a friend so he can take me down to Houston tomorrow. He’ll meet me in the morning and we’ll be on our way! Though it has been exciting and fun, I am really looking forward to going home.

Back :)

This past Mother's Day weekend was a big event for us; we hosted both mine and Justin's family in our apartment for the weekend to celebrate Mother's Day and Ari's baby dedication. In preparation, I laid off blogging and any other "extra curriculars" for over a week to prepare. But now I'm back!

Justin had a "social" at his junior high last weekend. I went for moral support ;) and it was pretty fun. Not a lot of Jr. Highers showed up, but the few that did looked like they were having a blast. I caught Justin on video dancing with his daughter. :) We're having technical difficulties right now, but I'll upload it later.

"Uncle Jerd" (Justin's brother, Jared) loved playing with his "fluff" (Talsi). He really just needs to take her home with him. Except I think she might go insane without Toby around. She really does love Jared, though. Goes crazy whenever she sees him. I mean, look how happy she is!

This IS her happy face. I promise.

Toby was pretty hyper the whole time. He gets REALLY excited when he sees my inlaws...so we "short leashed" him. (I.E., tied him to the couch.) He was very confused.

On Saturday, my brother James head butted Justin. You can see the bruise on his left eye lid. The kids at his school kept asking if he was wearing eyeliner because it really looks like he is! Not the cute girl kind, but the punk rocker kind. You can't see it well here, but it's pretty funny. In response to his kid's questions about eyeliner, Justin said that he says, "No, my brother [in law] head butted me." I told him I was glad. That's a much more manly answer than "Yes."

My brother is morally opposed to Senior pictures, so the fact that we were able to get even five minutes out of him for a few shots was a miracle. I think I'm going to be able to convince him to let me take him on an actual photo shoot while I'm in Dallas for his graduation. I'm looking forward to it, it should be fun. :)

Ari's baby dedication went well, the video is on Facebook and YouTube. My mom took over a hundred pictures, but the camera is BRAND new and she wasn't used to working it. (Anyone who has ever switched to digital from film will know what I'm talking about!) Anyway, there was a technical malfunction and we don't have any of the pictures, but we do have a few to make up for it. :) This is me and my pretty newly-dedicated baby. The bib may be off-putting, but it's better visually than the puddle of saliva that had already collected on her dress from picture taking. ;)

Here is Grandma Linda with her grandbaby. I think Ari was a bit sick of being passed from person to person and was making sure we lodged her official complaint.

Here's her Grandpa Joe singing to her. It's the first and last thing he always does around her. She has no hope at NOT being a musical child. ;) She really loves some of his songs (and really hates others! ;)

After everyone had gone and the bustle had died, me and Ari settled down to put her to sleep. Her bedtime story tonight was "The Secret Garden." She was a bit worried at the part when Dicken was introduced, but she settled down after she found out he was okay. :)

Today I put her to sleep in her bassinet. I promise she was right side up when I left her!

No story with this one, I just love this picture.

Tonight I made homemade pizza with mozzerella, pepperoni, green peppers and a whole wheat crust. It was absolutely fantastic.

And THEN, I remembered why I don't cook like that very often. This was only one table! It's clean now...after an HOUR!

Well that's all for my update for now, I'll be posting more about the past couple of weeks of my haitus as it comes to mind and as media becomes available. In the meantime you can check out my YouTube or Facebook accounts for more. (Though my Facebook videos are set to "public," my YouTube videos are private, so email me if you want permissions to view them.)