What a fun day in Florida...

I slept in late today, and I also took a nap in the middle of the day.. great start to my vacation!

I got some cute (of course) pictures of my nieces Savannah and Violet! Here's Savannah's new school uniform for Kindergarden this fall!

Here's Savannah showing me her "guns"... she gets those from her auntie Katie...

Here's a series of Violet putting on a pair of sunglasses...

Here they are being sweet...And then the girls wrestling...Here's Savannah and me...And then Violet and me...Then Misty and Nick took me to their brand new house... literally brand new! They will be the first ones living in this house... here's some pictures... here's Nick standing in the middle of all his greatness with the girls running around him...Here's Nick running WITH the girls...Here's a view of their kitchen...More of the girls running around, Nick said he's happy to have his own house cause the girls could never run around in an apt, but now in their own house....

Then Nick and Misty took me out to the Olive Garden... YUM!! Then we hit Starbucks... what a great day!

I've taken alot more pictures mom, just putting the best in the blog!!

Also, I love and miss you Jade, Kenton & Jeromy!! Can't wait to see you guys on Sunday!!!!

I made it to Florida...

We all know the airlines are having their "issues" lately... well... just a word of advice... don't fly Delta!

I left Seatac to Atlanta, the flight as a half hour late, then when we got into atlanta we had to circle in the air for 25 minutes because they had no place for us to land.... where was the planning? Then my connecting flight was late, we finally boarded, and took off. After about a half hour in the air, the captain came over the intercom and said they were having some kind of technical difficulty with the plane and they we would be heading BACK to Atlanta. I've never been on a plane that had to actually turn around after already taking flight. Anyway long story short, they fixed the problem when we landed, found ANOTHER problem (flat tire) so we had to de-board the plane and wait another hour, and then we took off for Florida. I'm thankful though that I didn't have to stay the night in Atlanta!!!

Anyway, Nick, Misty, Savannah and Violet all met me at the airport. When we got to the apartment, I gave Savannah and Violet their present... here's Savannah...

And Violet...Violet was really digging those clothes... she'd try to put them on herself...They are so adorable...At first Violet wouldn't really look at me, but she seemed to warm up real quick. And then I had ice cream...Well, I know not alot of writing tonight, but it's really late. It's midnight over here, but 9pm for all of you back home, but I have been up since 2:45am... lame!

I know Jeromy will be keeping busy with the SATCAHR stuff. He had an appt today, I think he said he has 2 things tomorrow, and then he preps for a house painting job friday, and then when I get back we'll paint monday!

I miss you all already. I love and miss you Jade and Kenton if you're reading this. You're cousins Violet and Savannah are adorable. And I miss you, too, Jeromy, of course DUH!! I love being here visiting with family, but I hate being away from you... we're still practically newlyweds!! Ok, ok, I'm sure my family is thinking "gag me with a spoon already".

One last picture... I got Savannah this painting thing, were you can finger paint onto the paper, but it doesn't mark on your clothes or anything. So Savannah painted a picture!

It is time...

... To pack! I fly out to Florida EARLY tomorrow morning. My flight leaves at 6am, so I have to leave about 3:30am, which means getting up about 2:45am... lame! But worth it to see those girls!

I did a little shopping this morning to get them some little surprises...

I go into work today at 12pm, and get off at 8pm, then I'll do a little packing and then try to get some sleep before the alarm wakes me up at 2:45am....

Jeromy is on Bainbridge Island doing a counter top job at the moment. He went into the Shipyard office last night and told our boss he was giving his 2 week notice. The supv took it pretty well, he was really surprised and said it was unexpected, but that he had thought of doing the same thing of going into business for himself. But when he called the General Forman last night to tell her, she wasn't as easy going, she said that there's a contract that if you leave the shipyard after graduating the apprenticeship before giving them one year of work, you could have to pay back the $3000.00 in schooling the shipyard paid for. But we knew that. If the shipyard pursues that, then we'll deal with it then. $3000 isn't worth Jeromy's happiness to move on to a better opportunity.

So, when I fly to Florida tomorrow, I may not be able to blog for the next 5 days, but I'm going to see if I can do it from Misty and Nick's house. Just not very good with computers, but I'll give it a try, it would be cool to report from Florida with some awesome pictures of Savannah and Violet!

Later Gators!

Today is the day...

Today Jeromy is giving the shipyard his 2 week notice. Kinda scary but pretty exciting at the same time.

We had a new realtor come by the house this morning and she showed us some things we'd need to do to help our chances in selling this house, maybe after christmas some time.

There is alot they wanted us to do :o( but it will help us get more for this house when we sell. So more cleaning......

While working on my craft room, I came across a bunch of old coffee punch cards.... how many punch cards does somebody need???We want to have a garage sale the end of august so we're piling up stuff for that...Jeromy is making some headway in the office area...
And look at my craft room...
Now we're going to work on some paper work and then start getting ready for work. Have a great day!!

More cleaning....

Today started out with church. We didn't just GO to church we HAD church! Pastor Raney is awesome!

Then we went out to the Pancake House again. We keep saying we won't go to save money, but after church, we are HUNGRY, and the Pancake House is so good!

Then we came home, and took a 2 hour nap, that NEVER happens, and it was so nice!

Angela (the kids' step-mom) sent some pictures of the kids while they were in Vegas, but I couldn't get them transferred over to the blog :o( but trust me, they were cute!

Then Jeromy and worked on some more cleaning. We are still going to try to sell this house and free up some more money!Another more recent one of my craft room. I know it looks like the other pictures from yesterday, but there really was some progress made....So that's about it, I'm still working on the cleaning, just wanted to get this blog out before it got much later! We're having a realtor come to the house tomorrow and see what she has to say for us...

Good night and GOD bless!

Getting tired of the word "busy"

Or am I just tired????

Well, we had a pretty cool busy day today. And I took alot of pictures, so here goes...

First of all, this morning we had a SATCAHR appt in Tacoma with "Cindy", to do several misc. jobs in her home. Who wouldn't want to see this vehicle pulling up to their house??

She wanted new weather stripping put on all of her doors (Jeromy showed me how to do that). She also wanted a dead bolt fixed...She also wanted some drywall repaired around a window. A thermostat relocated on a different wall, and the hole patched, and her bathtub recaulked. I removed the old caulking (tedious work I tell you, but it was my first time), and then Jeromy did the recaulking...

We finished the job a couple hours earlier than we thought so it cost alot less for the client and she was VERY happy. She was having a dinner party at her house later tonight so Jeromy gave her some business cards to pass out!

Then since we were in Tacoma- remember Jeromy's originally from there- we thought we'd stop by and visit his grandparents. They are so sweet, they were happy we stopped by and we visited for about an hour and a half. Jeromy's grandma kept wanting to offer us stuff, reminded me of my own SWEET grandma Shield who's always trying to feed us- LOVE you grandma!! Jeromy's grandpa is 79, and his grandma is 87!So, then after that, we thought we deserved some Outback...I am so full right now as I write this... I think the next time we go there we will have to share a meal, we even brought home half our dinners. American portion sizes are so outrageous, no wonder we all struggle with our weight... but it tastes soooo GOOD!!

So then on the way home, we thought we'd stop by Verizon and get Jeromy's new phone upgrade. It's a really cool phone, that is blue tooth capable. Here's the blue tooth...It looks so futuristic, but he's on the road and on the phone alot so we had to get it, it's the law you know... the part about not talking on a cell phone and driving! His phone is a "Voyager". Here's kind of a blurry picture of the phone...And here he is trying to figure out all his stuff he got....Also, when we got home, on our door step was the new Dex phone book for the next year, which Jeromy has an ad in. He's actually listed in 2 places in the phone book. Under "Handy person" and "Home Improvement"... and yes it cost more to be listed in 2 places (lame).So that's our day!

On another note... are you ready for this??? Take a deep breath.... Jeromy is putting in his 2 week notice on Monday. It's true. We've put alot of thought into this. Weighed the pros and cons, along with figuring out how much he'd need to make with the SATCAHR business, at a bare minimum, for us to survive, and ALOT of praying.

During alot of this praying I came upon more scriptures to help me... again what's in blue is what spoke to me specifically....

In my anguish I cried to the Lord, He answered by setting me free. The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.

Psalms 118:5-6

Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice. Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever. He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.

Psalms 112:5-7

FRIDAY!!!

First of all, I have to say Happy 27th anniversary to my parents. 27 years and going strong. I came across this picture when my parents were recently married... I remember my dad saying he thought my mom was pretty cute and thought he had to snatch her up right away before she got away! My mom is pretty cute here don't you think? Here is what I think my dad is thinking about in this picture..."I don't know, that Katie looks like she might be trouble just waiting to happen..."And still getting frisky after 27 years...When I was over the other day, I almost had to tell them to get a room cause I could "hear" the kissing from the other room... no child wants to hear that, even if I am 33 :o) but I am happy that they are happy! Here's one more picture of the happy couple!So after work today, I decided I was going to work on cleaning/organizing (throwing alot of junk away)... here's a start...Well over an hour later, and 3 garbage bags filled and taken out to the trash, here is where we stand...Well, I guess it's true what they say: "it gets worse before it gets better", or something like that. I was hoping to take an after picture tonight, but I don't think that's happening!

Enjoy the weekend!!

Stealing my essence...

Remember the movie "The Dark Crystal"? And the little pod people that were kidnapped and had their essence stolen by the dark crystal? Well, that's what working day shift does to me.... But when I got home, Jeromy had some flowers on the counter for me...Much better...

Jeromy also refilled Dynamite's water bowl, and he said she seemed pretty happy in there...That first picture looks like a pretty content turtle...Not much else going on over here. Jeromy had another estimate appt today just before he came into work. So there are ALOT of estimates out, just waiting for someone to say "yes".

Miss my kids...

Let me tell you how painfully honest Kent is. Well, one of our last phone calls we were finishing up talking and I said "I love and miss you Kent." And Kent, my sweet little baby said "I don't miss you yet mom, but I do love you." My jaw just dropped. A few second went by and I told him he could say he misses his mom. So today when we talked again, Kent said he had talked it over with his sister, and he doesn't want to lie, so she told him he could say "I look forward to seeing you again mom". Is that funny or what? And Kent was so worried about hurting my feelings but he wasn't going to lie "cause that's one of the 10 commandments, mom" Is what he told me. By the end of the phone call today, he finally conceded. He said "alright I miss you mom". And I told him that was not a lie!

Good night, I gotta go to bed so I can replenish my essence!