While I was having the time of my life, I was never so grateful to have an intermission as while it was a beautiful day, the 85 degree weather with no clouds and very little wind, sitting in the stands made it a tad on the HOT side where I was dying to get in some shade and drink some water.   After cooling off a little I went back and sat down and while talking with Paul we felt so sorry for the corp members to be out there in the hot sun wearing their full gear, marching (even running, doing push ups, and squats).  I can’t help but think that doing that all summer long would have to be a great weight loss/ lower ab workout if I had ever seen any.

If you have never been to a DCI Competition you really have no clue what you are missing!  I know most of you have been to high school football games and you are probably thinking it’s a lot like a high school marching band, but honestly they don’t come close to being anything like a drum corp.  It’s like saying a Moped is a Harley Davidson.   There is just no comparison.  I wish I could of video taped some of it for you last night, but the rules are no video taping so I didn’t dare.  But if you YouTube DCI, you will some what get an idea of what it’s like, even though it’s 10 times better in person!   So until then, here are some more pictures from last night. I hope you enjoy them, because I sure do!

I’m not quite sure what job would be perfect for him.  I do know he would do great in sales as he does have a knack for that, but since he doesn’t have any experience in it (besides working on a farmers market) that where could he even get a job selling?  Cars Lots?  Houses?  Insurance?   That’s not what I can see him selling as for him to sell he needs to believe 100% in the product, if he doesn’t he can’t and won’t sell it.   I just can’t see him say selling life insurance, while he does believe it in, I can’t see him out there begging our friends and family for any life insurance leads of people they might know that are looking for it.

What he truly would love to do would to be a hunting guide as he has just as much fun doing the scouting and taking people out hunting for the first time.  He got me a bow and spent the time with me practicing so he knew I could shoot good, then he sat me in the perfect stand and low and behold here came that 10 points buck!  (The one I had told him I would get for our wall)   Then he did the same for my Dad, except for deer hunting, he took my Dad Turkey hunting for the first time and that will be a hunting experience both Paul and my Dad will never forget as they had many laughs and my dad has a great size beard & spurs to remember it all!

I just wish I could find that perfect job for him where he would love going work instead of dreading it.  Until then I’ll just keep my eyes open.

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This was the message Kevin had wrote for me this morning.

Hapi Brftda Mom  (Happy Birthday Mom)
Luv Kevin  (Love Kevin)
I luv You Mom  (I love you mom)

Katie making me my Birthday Cake
Kevin’s turn to mix the batter

After Daddy helped them decorate

Lighting the candles

The cake Kevin decorated

The cake Katie decorated

The muchkins & I!  Oh how I love them. 

I was not really nervous for marrying Paul as I knew he was the guy.. I was just nervous to have to talk in front of all these people as I hate speaking in public and would I be able to hold everything together since the night before at rehearsal didn’t go as planned.  I was an emotional wreck of course I still think most of it was due to my Dad being sick and wasn’t able to be there.  I’m such a Daddy’s girl it was killing me. He ended up feeling a little better the next day and was able to walk me down the aisle, but sucked on a lot of cough drops to keep him from coughing. (What a trooper)

Our reception was right at the church. I picked that location just because living in Michigan you never know what March weather might contain. We could either have no snow and in the 40′s OR we could have a huge blizzard. In case there was a blizzard I didn’t want for my guest to have to drive somewhere else in that bad weather if they didn’t have to.

The only oops at the reception, which I didn’t know about until later, was one of the cloth napkins by the food ended up starting on fire, but thankfully the caterer’s caught it right away. Wouldn’t that of been something to of had the Church caught on fire. I would of felt AWFUL!

So what’s has changed in the last 9 yrs for us? We bought a house and are now living in Hudsonville, MI. (Which isn’t new for Paul as we only moved 1/2 mile from his parents house) We went from both working to now Paul being the only one working outside the house as I’m a stay at home mom to 2 wonderful, yet busy, kids. I swear this job is the hardest one I’ve ever had. Kevin is in Kindergarten and Katie is in the 3 yr old preschool program so I can have 5 hrs a week to myself! 

Now I sit back and wonder… how different will my life be another  9 years from now?!?   Kevin will be a freshman in high school (Yikes) and Katie will be in junior high (double yikes)!    I think I better start doing what everyone says to do.. sit back and enjoy the time with the kids when they are little like this because they grow up fast!

Anyways…  Here are a couple pictures of our wedding day.  I hope you enjoy!

Paul and I at the reception.

This is our wedding cake and yes.. that is a Buck & Doe as our cake topper. (We both were deer hunters at the time.. since having kids my deer hunting has come to a stop for now)

 Finally.. I thought I would share with you the song we played when we lit our unity candle.

Even though he was able to fix that, I guess he did find some more things that are wrong with it, so we will still be taking it in Monday to get fixed, but at least it won’t be as much as it could of been.  Wish us luck that whatever else needs fixing won’t cost us an arm and a leg.

Then what else I find interesting is reading things like accutane reviews.  Thankfully I don’t have to take any of that medication, but reading the reviews and especially what the side effects are you sure would know what to take and what to stay far away from. 

Because reading online what the side effects are from the sleeping pills Paul has been taking I’ve been able to start weaning him off of them.  Did you know that his ever so precious Ambien causes 3 different kinds of cancer in animals and all the other sleeping pills seem to cause some kind of cancer?!?  After watching our friends wife, our neighbor (who they both are our ages) and our friends son all battling cancer right now it sure made him think twice about popping another pill.  Since then he has been trying to do other things to get a good nights sleep (like taking the hot shower when he gets home from work).  So far it seems to be working a little bit.  He still wakes up tired, but he did on the sleeping pills too.  Of course this week he has only been working till 11pm instead of 1am, so maybe that has something to do with it too?   Who knows.. all I know is I’m glad he isn’t popping those pills anymore!

At first Paul thought what am I going to do with these, but before long he realized how useful they were!   What Paul used them for was… hanging Christmas lights outside in the trees, working on cars, wrapping up excess cords, attaching tree branches to his tree stand… etc.

Paul’s advice though… when buying some, find a container with all different sizes in it like my parents did because you never know which size you will need.

So for our small Thanksgiving meal here at home we decided we would have Venison wraps, snicker salad (hey.. I had the stuff to make it, I might as well right?) Sweet potatoes, corn and apple pie for dessert.  Things were going great… Paul made up the venison wraps while the kids & I organized the living room as we would be putting our Christmas tree up later that night.  Since it was getting closer to lunch time Paul thought he would start grilling the wraps and outside he went.  Then not that long afterwards he came back inside with excruciating pain.  He kept saying something wasn’t right and had a sharp pain on his left side.   At that point he was knealing by the couch, but before long he was on the floor moaning really loud. 

I asked if I should be taking him to the ER (I know he has a low pain tollerance so I wasn’t quite sure how bad it truly was) and he said not yet.  Well, a few minutes later he told me to call someone to come here so they could watch the kids.  I knew my parents would be over at my aunts house (10 minutes away) so I called them to see if my Dad could come over and watch the kids so I could take Paul in. 

My Dad hurried over and Paul and I jumped in our car and off we went.  Thankfully the hospital is only 10-15 minutes away from our house and when we arrived Paul walked to the ER door, but as we were at the window signing in he ended up falling to the floor in pain where the receptionist started hitting the button under her desk to get a nurse out there ASAP.   We (the nurse and I)  got him in a wheel chair and off we went to the ER room and as soon as we got in the room, the ER doctor walked in and told the nurse he would put the IV in if she would go get the pain meds.   

The pain meds weren’t working fast enough for Paul and he was still moaning when they wheeled him away to get a cat scan to verify what they were thinking (as we were) that he was dealing with Kidney stones.   As I sat in the little room I realized one thing I should of done before my Dad came over was put the book I was reading in the car.  It would of been a perfect time to get caught up on my reading.  ~wink~    I lucked out though as there were some  magazines in the hall so I grabbed the AARP and really, it wasn’t as bad as what I thought it was going to be.

Before long Paul was wheeled back and I could tell the pain meds had kicked in as he looked so relaxed as if he could fall asleep.  What a difference 5-10 minutes could make!  Needless to say we sat around waiting for the results and when they came back we found out that yes he did have a 2mm size kidney stone that was about to drop in his bladder.   Since he had to urinate before we could leave (they wanted to make sure he didn’t also have an infection) we were stuck there for awhile yet. 

We finally we able to leave and were given 3 different prescriptions that we needed to get filled.  Of course with it being a holiday we had no clue what would be open so the nurse looked it up on their list and supposedly the Meijer pharmacy by our house was suppose to be open until 6pm, which gave me time to drop off Paul, go inside to Thank my Dad for watching the kids and then head out with 1-2 hours to spare!  So that’s what I did and after I found a nice close parking spot and started walking towards the store I could see that the pharmacy looked quite dark and when I got to the door there was a sign saying they were open, but until 2pm.. not 6pm!  So I went across the street to Wal-greens to find out their pharmacy was also closed, but there was one about 20 minutes away that was open, so off I went.  You could tell they were probably the only pharmacy open in town as they were quite busy and I didn’t end up getting home until 6pm, but after we ate and before Paul decided to hit the hay I did talk him into bringing our Christmas tree up from downstairs and the kids & I spent the night decorating it! 

As you can see, it was quite a crazy day for me (along with the days & week before) so needless to say you will now understand why I might end up talking about how excited I am for this upcoming Saturday when I get to go to Birch Run with a couple friends and will even be spending the night!   Let alone when it gets closer to my Las Vegas & orlando vacations!!   Needless to say I can’t wait for next year as I have a feeling at least the beginning of it will be the year of travel for me!