Back to business

Well it's been far too long! With Michael's return from Iraq in December 2008, I spent the last year and a half getting used to having him back in my life full time and it has been great!

Since my last post I have been super busy with finishing my second masters degree in counseling. I am now one class, a major standardized test and oral interview away from having my LAC or licensed associate counselor license! At that point I would be able to practice the mental health counseling that I have spent the last three years in school studying for...and the rest of my life preparing me for that schooling. :-) For now I have no desire to quit my wonderful job at the UofA but I would like to still

be able to do some counseling on the side, but before any of that can happen I still have to complete this class, take that test and sit alone in front of the board of examiners!!

Michael has been super busy with his new favorite pastime - gardening! He is not only a great chef in the kitchen but now he is able to cook those veggies in our backyard for the family enjoyment!! He has a new position at Walmart but all I really know it that he works with peoples budgets. :-) He is still in the National Guard and will be gone for a month of training in June to Fort Sill. Normally I would dread this time of training but this time it will give me the time to finish this independent study course! When he gets back he will meet me in Orlando, FL for a few days of R&R at the happiest place on earth.

We have had a lot of events in our families over the past two years. Both of our Paw Paw's are now with our Father in heaven, Michael's mom Saundra has been diagnosed and cured of colon cancer, my father just yesterday had a close scare with his heart and had his third stint put into one of the back arteries that was 95% blocked, cousins have graduated, Michael's younger brother graduates on Thursday, Mom and I just got back from an amazing mother daughter trip to Las Vegas

and the list could go on and on!!! We are so blessed to have family and friends that we love an that love us too!!

I will hopefully be better at keeping up with this now that I am almost done with school for good but be patient with me. :-) Well that is enough for now. Have a great night!

Happy Anniversary Week to me!! And Michael too! :-)

So last week was soooo eventful! I have my three yeary wedding anniversary with my wonderful husband Michael and my two year anniversary at the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences Advising Center. WHOO HOO!! The only way things could get any better would be if my beautiful husband...um I mean handsom husband was home with me!!!
This weekend Mom came up and we played all day Saturday and some on Sunday! My pups Brinkley and Gabby love her sooo much. I know that they get excited when ANYone comes over but when Mom gets here...WOW!! It's like she is there second mom and Gabby will not leave her side. (unless she has a bone) ;-) We got mani/pedi's, ate some Taco Bueno, walked the dogs, took an hour nap, returned things at Bed Bath and Beyond, watched The Dark Night, returned some more things to Home Depot, went to Target, got coffee for Mom's friend at Starbucks, walked the dogs again, and cleaned the house (room by room) unitl 1:30 in the AM!! And that was just Saturday!!!
I am always sooo happy to see my mom and it makes me sad to see her go...but I was just as tired after she left as my pups were. She can really wear me out!
So lets get it over with...I love Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Series!! Yes that is right I am lovin me some vampire love story!!! This weekend marks the release of the fourth and final book in the series...Breaking Dawn. Me and three lovely ladies from work are going to the midnight release party at Barnes and Noble. We even have shirts that we bought or made for the event!! Then they are all coming to my place for an all night reading marathon!! It's gonna be AWESOME!!!! Here is a my favorite picture which has nothing to do with the book...but is still super great all the same!!!

In real life I am also over half way done with my second summer school class and that is GREAT! I have loved this class eventhough I was super scared that the professor wouldnt' liek me. Thankfully she does and I hope to still get a great grade for yet another supurb counseling class! My buddies Jason and Erin and I have a big project that we have to have finshed by the end of this week and we don't feel that we are all that close so keep your fingers crossed that all our thoughts and ideas will come together and that we will rock our professor's face off!!

Well that is all for now...check back with me later and hopefully it won't be a month inbetween posts!

It's FINALLY over!!!

ORIENTATION IS FINISHED...well at least until August but that one doesn't ever seem to count anyway since there are no classes for anyone! 15 days straight of orientation sure makes it go by but I don't think I could have made it one more day. :-)

Today is Monday and we are off to a busy start! Our secretary is out for the week so that means some quality time with the front desk!! This morning it's me up front and half of the freshman class for our football team just walked in! They are getting advised for some classes that are starting today. :-D

The rest of this week should be super fun for me. I am going to get to go to my class for a change. I will get to hear two presentation on diversity counseling and then on the last day we have a cultural pot luck. I am bringing cornbread because no matter what the meal was they always had corn bread. As a matter of fact when the dogs ran out of dog food they got to eat cornbread too! Now the big deal is that I have never made cornbread! I will make it on Wednesday night so that I can make it again if I need too...and chances are I might!

Because the 4th of July falls on Friday this week we will get a wonderful 3 day weekend and I am going to go to the beautiful town of Brinkley to see my family. I will be highlighting Mom's hair and practicing a song with my Dad for my cousin's wedding. :-) Fun filled times in the Delta.

Well better get back to work...

Glad you're having fun!

The slide show is pretty cool.
I don't know how pictures with that much back light came out so well.
I am glad Wal-Mart opened up the concerts to the public so more people could go.
But I think you could have gotten in with your discount card
since I am an associate, if it had been associates only.
I am surprised they did not have Journey perform since they
have an exclusive Journey CD/DVD that was released just the next week.
But then again, I would have bee upset to miss that.
Lots of dust storms here again.
The last one lasted for about 3 days, took a day off and then hit for another day and a half.
The fish don't want to bite during a dust storm! ;o)
Oh well, I guess I HAVE to work some of the time.

WAL-MART Rocks!!

Last night was the first real night of the Wal-Mart shareholders concert series and this year they are all open to the public. :-) Here are some of the wonderful picutres that courtney was able to take while we were there!
WE are going to go see Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban on Thusrday too so that should be lots of fun.

YEA Wal-Mart!! :-D

I hope you didn't wear those vests the whole cruise

As usual, the pics are great.
The one of you at the railing is another example of how beautiful you are
and how you were made for a camera.
I HAVE to hear some stories about the Arkansans your were "fortunate" enough to meet.
Idon't think I could have kept a straight face when the teeth came out.
IF you ever feel like "cruising" again, we will do it at a time when there won't be
high school grads everywhere, or else we will go to Alaska or someplace they won't be.
While your were busy not winning anything at slots or bingo,
I actually joined a couple of poker games here,
Broke even one night and doubled my money the other night.
And each game saw me play for 5 hours!
I definitely think I got their money's worth. ;o)
Things are really getting busy for us here, so I have been putting in a few long days.
I got an "off day" for the first time in 3 weeks the other day...
I had to work for 3 hours and by the time I could go fishing,
my 2 favorite spots were taken and the fish had already stopped biting.
Needless to say, no new fishing pics.
I hope you have fun digging for rocks with my Mom and little bro!

I love you x 1,000,000
M

Ships and Mexico

YEA!!! I am back on solid ground!!

Mom and I had such a good time but there is no place like home. :-)

Here is a little rundown of our trip...

This was my first trip to New Orleans and since we were early we walked down to the French Quarter...don't need to visit there again!!

We got on the ship and for the first 8 hours I wasn't sure if I was going to make it...the Mississippi is one windy river!! Once we were in open water I did much much better.

The first night we tried to do a little Bingo...found out really quick we weren't that lucky. We had a hamburger at 4 and decided that we wouldn't do the formal sit down dinner for the first night. We then had another hamburger at 11!! :-D

The next day (Sunday for those who are already lost) we read our books, slept, ate, and Mom went to some seminars on where to shop for the best deals in Cozumel. That night we went to formal dinner and WOW were we in for a surprise. We were at a table with people from Arkansas. Paragould to be exact. It was a mother, father, daughter and her husband. During the first dinner we heard stories about the mother puking in the kitchen sink while her girls were in the other two bathrooms, the origin of Loushauna's name (nope mom was not named shauna with a dad named lou...just the name of a lady that did ponds cold cream commercials) and got to listen as the family played the water glasses. Now disclaimer...i too placed the water glass for the first time because I didn't want to be rude. After that Mom and I went back to the room and decided that we might not do formal dinner again. We also saw a comic and he was funny, and the dancers danced and the singer sang.

Monday was our first day off the ship. We spent 5 hours on a bus and 2 hours at the Chichen Itza ruins in Puerto Progresso

So glad we went but 100 degree temps with no shade made for some of the hottest two hours of my life. I was sooo happy to get back into the air conditioned bus. This night is a blur...I know I slept through the regular sit down dinner and mom went to hear something important or read (I can't remember) and then we watched all the Monday night season finales. We relaxed and loved it. The only down side to Monday night was that Mom got stuck in the elevator and then when it finally opened she got off and on her next elevator she met a man, told him about getting stuck and he said "well I just lost $40 in the casino" and Mom was like " I guess I can't top that".

Tuesday came and we didn't have to meet on shore until 10:00 so we were a little more relaxed with breakfast...even though we ate the same thing every morning! We went to do clear kayaking and snorkeling...both were a HUGH letdown. The description we saw was much nicer than trip we actually did and thanks to all that we didn't get to spend much time at all shopping. :-( Speaking of shopping though...while we were waiting to get back on the bus to go back into Cozumel Mom showed her superb bargaining skills when she paid $3 for a 6 in purple kids comb...if this was any inclination of her buying power in Mexico we should have never left the boat. We watched a fight almost break out at Margaritaville...a clear display of why you shouldn't drink before lunch...or take 5 shots at lunch for that matter. Because there were two Carnival ships docked at the same time getting back on the ship was a pain! AND we ran into the young couple from dinner and they said they missed us and Loushauna said "we thought we scared you away" soooooo we HAD to go to the big dinner that night. Not to our surprise they were in rare form this night too! The mom spent several minutes showing my mom her new dentures and how great her K-9's were. She also cut pieces off of Earls plate and had all of us at the table try it. Shortly after that I got to see Early digging in hid gums with his fork...I asked if everything was alright and he said it would have been if I had let him finish. WOW!!! After dinner we retired to our room to watch the two hour finale of American Idol...YEA DAVID COOK!!! After it was over she went up for some fresh air and some of our "thug wanna be's" were singing behind her ...wanna get a white girl, gotta get a white girl..." she was getting really worried they were singing but as she slowly turned around they darted into a room. Since I left home she doesn't listen to rap as much but she was guessing it's one of the new hits. :-D

Our last day was our day to lay out. It was overcast and the perfect temp for me and Mom to sit out and read. We probably spent 4 hours on deck and got only a little burnt so that was great! I even saw one of my students Rusty Jester from Ashdown. He was on a big trip with his family. Mom was excited because she was worried that would be the first place EVER that we would have gone that I didn't know someone. We took a break in the middle of our baking to try our hand at a slot tournament. Like I mentioned earlier we are not that lucky but we thought what the heck...We both got our card for $20 and the whole game was to just keep spinning for 5 minutes to see who got the biggest score. While I was watching mom I met Rusty's grandmother that looked to be around 45. I don't know what is in the water in Ashdown but I want some of it!!! She told me that Rusty had won $1000.00 the day before on the slots. Needless to say, Mom and I didn't win the tournament but I did play with $5 on Rusty's hot machine for like 45 minutes...I didn't walk away with anything but $5 for 45 minutes was worth it. For old times sake we had another burger for dinner and tried to take a picture or two for Michael...I think this was the best one.

So as the sun set on our last day I couldn't wait to get back home to my pups but all in all we had a blast...when we filled out the survey of when we planed to cruise again we both put 25 months or longer. :-)