I'm here...

Been a busy week, but I'm here. Sure glad it is Friday although I do believe it will be another weekend that flies by and doesn't feel like a weekend. I've been working on a new project for a la mode so that has taken a lot of my time but in a great way. I'll share more later... I've also been printing pictures like mad - I'm going to a weekend crop next weekend and can not wait!!! It's Friday night to Sunday afternoon and I am in desperate need of some scrap time. My goal is to have my 2007 pics scrapped by the time the baby arrives so I've been trying really hard - not to mention that several of you think it's not possible so I'm all about proving you wrong! HA! I'll need to remember to pack my Ipod so I do more scrapping than talking. I've also been working on planning Cade's 4th birthday. We are actually doing it on his birthday which is a Tuesday yet again due to schedules and to my surprise almost everyone we invited is coming. He has just recently gotten into the whole birthday party thing and begged for one this year. I've been lucky in that I haven't had to mess with it and we decided that when he started to care is when we would do the whole invite friends, goody bag deal. In the past we have always had just family over and had a meal (and then had a mini party with the daycare kids during the day really quick) so this year we are looking at like 30 some people!! He is beyond excited and driving me crazy with "is it my party yet?" Ohhh to be almost 4 again... HOWEVER, I must admit that I'm counting down till my birthday this year as well.... we get to find out the sex of the baby that day so only 2 1/2 weeks left!!! Oh and in other super fabulous news Byron passed his EMT test so I am a proud wife!!!! I know it's not an east test and he didn't feel like his class was all that great so we were worried he might not pass it the first time, but he did. His memory is unreal so I'm not really surprised. So he is almost on his way to being able to qualify for a "permanent" position with the government system on the fire department (a system that is entirely too complicated for me to understand, but basically he's in right now but as a temporary position and then he has so much time complete certain things to be eligible for a permanent position). He will go to Chicago sometime soon and do the training for ARF (airport fire fighter) and I think that will be about it. It's funny how I get so proud of him (and defensive at times as well) you know like he's my child or something....

I'm headed to Indy this weekend for a meeting and some friend time and HOPEFULLY to see a new little someone (we'll see if things time out right) then I'm going to try and be back in time for a going away party for my friend's son this Sunday. Byron and Cade are headed camping for the weekend and Cade is so excited. He has been asking to go for awhile now and we just haven't had the time. He wants to hike and fish - that's our country boy. I KNOW stuff like that makes his Daddy super proud... they are such great buds!

And in picture news I have totally been terrible in my picture a day goal... no surprise here really. So I'll leave you with this one that I haven't shown yet.

Anyone need some 'maters???.. it's out of control here. Poor Cade has eaten them with every meal it seems and is still crazy about them. I guess there is something to be said about growing your own food and the appreciation that comes from it. Maybe we should start growing things like beef strogganoff and other meals that he won't eat.

Let's see Stefani is having a contest on her blog that you should check out - not that I really want any more competition, but I just like how she did it... this chick knows how to write and has said so many things that have made me think about my own life and my parenting... Thanks Stefani!!

I guess it's pretty bad that I didn't post on Sept 11th. All this week I kept thinking I've got too much other stuff to do AND what would I talk about anyway... It's amazing how that date has become so significant. Everyone knows that date and what went on that day. Me and Shelley were talking about how September 11, 2001 has become OUR equivalent of when other generations talk about the JFK shooting. We can remember exactly where we were and what we were doing. The other things we realized is that I never saved anything from that day. I DO have pics from when we went to visit our friends on Long Island in December of 2001 but haven't even scrapped those. A year ago I DID do the journaling for this so at least it was halfway fresh in my mind. It was such a monumental event and how could I have overlooked it... in my defense I wasn't scrapping then so I guess we'll stick with that. As I was saying... I had just begun student teaching and was in my Kindergarten class when someone came down the hall and said to turn the tv on. We saw that one plane had hit the twin towers and I kept thinking how does that happen and something must have been wrong with the pilot or the plane was messed up or something. AND then as we were standing there watching another hit. At that point I believe my heart sank - it totally occurred to me that it was on purpose. We stood there dumbfounded.... who would do this and why?? Most of the children in the class kept doing their school work but one boy next to me was entirely too into it. He just stared and stared and asked me if a plane was going to come hit us. I felt like we should turn the tv off since a few of the kids were actually watching but it was just one of those things that you couldn't NOT watch. As the day went on and we learned more about what was happening it just seemed so unreal... we have friends that live on Long Island and one of them commutes to the city for work. I thought about Keith and wondered was he in all of this mess. We later found out that something had happened to delay him that morning and he was on the train when it all happened. I give the credit of that "something" to being a God-thing.... Keith's wife Kelly taught school and I know several of the children in her class lost parents that day. It's amazing how sometimes things can feel so far away from you and unreal and then something as simple as her students being affected made it feel closer to me somehow. I remember having this unnecessary fear of Byron being called back up for the Navy since he was still in that time frame of the military owning you. Whatever it's called - he had only been out a few years and there was still time left. Although he wouldn't have been called back up he DID have this huge desire to re-enlist and we spoke about, probably that night knowing him. Even after visiting in December and they were just getting ready to open the overlook up and standing there next to some of the rubble was still hard to believe. The pain that people went through that day and the pain that some still feel today totally tugs at my heart. Yet, it makes me grateful for what I have and that I wasn't personally affected by it. It's almost a guilt thing at times though - you know... why did all of these people have to suffer and here I am not feeling that loss that so many people still do 6 years later? I tell myself that we each carry that loss for something or someone in some way or at SOME time will.... each person's trial is different yet significant in it's own way.

These are pictures we took at Ground Zero December 2001. This was the overlook that hadn't opened yet.

This was on top of the Empire State Building - the bright glow in back is Ground Zero.