a little vacation

This is not a baby anymore.... look at my toddler.
The picture below is shayla in my laundry basket. Alysha tied a belt to it and pillow-ed it up and she pulls shay around in it. so cute!!

I am going on vacation. Well, the girls and I are going to a condo on the beach for a week. Jon is going to California. Of course, he is going to a school for the USCG. Not a vacation for him.

I am going to relax and tan. I am hoping Shay will LOVE the sand.

We will not have internet access.
No checking my email.
No facebook
No blog stalking

whatever shall we do without our technology?

see you next week.......................

My honeymoon weekend - part 1

FRIDAY:

We headed back to Florida from Alabama.... no kids. I was driving my new-to-me 2005 Ford Freestar that we purchased right before we left (I will blog about that later). Jon in our Honda.
We decided to stop at a few places along 19 that we never get to because we are either in a hurry or because of the kids. First we stopped at Fanning Springs state park. I have always wanted to go there. It costs money, so we just got a map and walked around the Fort Area, but one day I would like to do a family fun day there, swim in the spring and lay out on the "beach". lol.
Then we stopped at this winery I have always wanted to go to. Unfortunately, they had just closed. :( Oh well, at least we tried.

By now it is five o clock and we are hungry. (remember we left late cause I had a hard time leaving the kids... it was lunch time before we left. ) Since we have lived here, there is this restaurant that Jon talks about. Apparently, whenever they get underway, they always stop and eat at this place... it is the Burger House. It is only open weird hours, so it NEVER open when we are traveling by. This time it was!! I was so excited!! I took a pic from the truck.
It was good. It is a little mom and pop h-burger place. Much better than any fast food place could be. Really greasy. Jon and I sat outside on a bench and ate our greasy burgers and fries and had a great time. How relaxing not to have a schedule. No where to but and nothing to do, but enjoy each others company.

We got home after six o-clock. We decided to look up the local fireworks displays and see when they were scheduled. The one in Inverness was that night, so we decided to go. We just got up and went. No diaper bag to pack, no teenager to wait on, just us. We just got in the car and went. It is amazing how I was not worn out from the trip when all I have to worry about is me..... this pic is from my camera phone. pretty good!


Saturday, we got up and went to the first Saturday Festival they have every month in Dunnellon. I have lived here three years and I have always wanted to go and never have. It was really fun, not much to it.... kinda like a big antique yard sale. I did get some great Birthday week presents - cheap. We had a really good time, just walking around holding hands, looking and talking. Then it was off to walmart to buy the food for our dinner. We got steaks, baked potatoes, and the stuff to make a Greek salad. We grilled out for the 4th and really enjoyed an intimate dinner - just us.


Two pieces of turtle cheesecake. Yummo!!

We were sitting down to eat and Jon jumps up and goes to get the camera. He comes back and takes a picture of his food. I just watched and I asked him why he did that. He answered, "For your blog". OOOHH yeah, i got him trained..... for the record, he has never read my blog once. But the sentiment of it touched me because he knows that keeping the blog is important to me. What a sweet man! It really is the small things in marriage that we do for each other that speaks volumes.... don't ya think?

I almost took a picture of my food, just to show the personality differences. My plate WAS NOT pretty. I hulled out my mashed potatoes and mix them all together. I am not all about presentation.... his looked like it does when you are served at a restaurant. That is so funny.

I have really enjoyed our quality time - just us. This is just part one... I will blog Sunday soon... it includes a sea world trip and a Nilla Wafer visit.

PRE - 7 year anniversary honeymoon

I am home without my babies. It is just me and Jon for a whole five days!! I left them today in alabama with my mommy. It was hands down one of the hardest things I had to do - leave them behind.

Our anniversary is not until August 10th, but this is technically our celebration. Simply because we will not have a babysitter that day. We will celebrate that day as a whole family. This weekend is a private celebration, just Jon and I.

Tonight we went to a fireworks show and tomorrow we will grill out steaks and Jon will make his famous greek salad. :) We are also going to the first saturday festival in Dunnellon - something I have always meant to do since we moved here.

HAPPY FOURTH TO EVERYONE!!!

shay 14 months

My piggy is growing up so fast!!

She is not a baby anymore, she is a toddler

Some cool things about her are:

1. She walks everywhere now. She is all over the place!

2. She eats the food we eat. This is the awesome. We were traveling to dothan the other day and stopped at Mcd's for food and Shay had her first happy meal. (I know, SO unhealthy!) Still so cool that she can sit at the table and eat whatever I cook or eat.

3. She copies everything ya do. this is good and bad. For example, alysha thought it would be funny to stick her tongue out at her while shay was eating. So, of course, shay sticks her tongue out - with food in her mouth. Bad big sissy. One the other hand - when I feed her something hot, I blow on it first. She copies me and puts her finger near her mouth and "blows", while I do it. Haha!!!

4. She talks and communicates so awesome. She repeats things we say. Alysha hurt herself and said "ouch". So shayla started saying that and repeating "ouch" over and over that whole day. She "sings" with her toys that have music with words. When they sing the alphabet, she "sings" along and it is pretty unintelligible until she hits G. The "G" is perfect.

Ck out that belly.
Shay and Alysha share a room. We have a curtain covering the crib side of the room. That is so Shayla cannot see alysha laying in the bed. Shay will lay in bedfor over an hour playing, but only if she does not see us. Once they see ya, they want out. She managed to get the curtain and poke her head through a hole. hilarious.

One year ago today.....................

........... I was the passenger in an awful car accident. We were driving along 231, heading back home from a day at PC when a little old lady in her BIG old Cadillac decided to shoot across the street to the median from a side road. Unfortunately, she could not see us because we were in the inside lane.... long story short, the driver expertly swerved to avoid t-boning this lady - which saved her life -and we went for a little joy ride. We went airborne for what seemed like eternity, but in reality was only seconds. We landed on the concrete and the sound of the crunching metal will never leave me, it was awesomely horrific. We proceeded to flip three times and stopped facing oncoming traffic on the opposite side of the road. It sounds like I am talking about a story I heard on the news, not something I lived through. It is surreal. The driver and I are blessed to be alive and with our families, all in one piece.

I will not go into detail about the rest of that awful day because I do not like to relive it. Although there is one memory that always stands out in my head. I am strapped to a stretcher laying in the median and there is a girl holding my hand. She was in the car right behind us and saw the whole thing. We are waiting for the police to use the JAWS to get the driver out, her door was crushed shut. (did you know they actually tape your head down to the stretcher?)Anyway, the girl says to me "Man, you guys were in the air for a LONG TIME." Yeah, we were....

So, here I am in the picture below in my traction unit. What is wrong with me? From that experience I walked away with two bulging discs in my neck and WHIPLASH. I have been in physical therapy this whole year. I have had acupuncture, craniosacrial massage, therapeutic massage and chiropractic care. As of June 1st, they suspended it for two months, to see how I would do.

I learned ..

• You have neck muscles that go all the way to the middle of your back. when I say "my neck hurts", I mean all the muscles starting at my shoulder blades and up to my neck, all the muscles on the top of my shoulders and all the muscles in my chest, down to my "tata's". It is awfully painful.
• what referred pain is. When they work on my muscles, I have pain in other parts of my body.... referred pain... nice.
• whiplash is a real injury. It is an unseen one, so you really get no sympathy. Kinda like a paper cut, it really hurts, but nobody feels sorry for you. I am in pain everyday of my life in one of the many muscles that surround my neck, but because it is not "visible" my family does not really understand. Now, if I had sling or a cast... then that would be something.
• It is very easy to re-injure yourself after you get injured. Two or three times I have gotten better only to over-do-it a little and be back in ultimate pain again. Then I have to up my physical therapy to three times a week.... it totally sucks.
• I learned how to sit, stand, drive and hold my baby. When you have an injury, your body changes to fit that injury. So I have to constantly think about how I sit, stand and lay. Basically, posture. If I dont sit a certain way, I start to ache after ten minutes. When I go to bed, I sleep on my side with a pillow between my legs and a pillow under my arm. That is all to keep my neck and shoulders in line. When I don't I wake up in the night in terrible pain. I mean, it is a constant thing to think about your alignment, trying to "retrain" your body to adjust itself. But it has become a way of life for me.............

How am I really doing now? Not so good. I am doing therapy at home, that is basically all that happened when they suspended it, cause I am still in pain everyday. Of course, it is nothing like the pain I was in for the first six months after the accident - nowhere near that level. I just HURT in some of those muscles at some point every day. I have three things I can do to relieve it

1. I use "wet heat". Apparently it is not good to use heating pads.. something I learned in therapy. I have the kind of pad you heat up in the microwave, and it is cloth, so you wet it.
2. I take a hot shower. That is a quick fix, it really only relaxes my muscles. They tighten up to the point that I just cry sometimes. So, a quick hop in the shower will help.
3. I get Alysha to massage it. She has become an expert at massaging out the knots. That is my biggest problem and causes all my pain. The KNOTS. Alysha has gotten really good at massaging them out - unfortunately she thinks it is gross. My muscles get so many that it tightens up to the point that I cannot handle the pain. Which is what my therapist always took care of it.
4. When all else fails, I get in a hot bath. That will relax them even more. But I only do that once a week, it takes to much work.

That is me sitting in the traction unit. It is supposed to pull my neck up so that my discs will pop back in place.

more tubing photos....

I found some cool photos of us tubing down the river... I did not know jon took these. I forgot he brought the old camera.

This is an otter. I did not enjoy seeing a big animal in the water, really really close to me - harmless or not.... Hey, Hila, do you think it will bite me.... (private joke, but OH SO FUNNY)


That is me in the pink tube, alysha in the green and another little girl that went.
Me and alysha
Jon rode in the boat with his shipmate.

Fun on the River

As I posted previously, we are trying to make up for lost time and do some of the fun local stuff before we move. So, we got together with one of Jon's shipmates and Jon, Alysha and I went floating down Rainbow river. It is a big thing around here and we have never done it. Sometimes I wonder what in the world we have been doing for the last three years we have been stationed here....

It was fun. It is a four hour float. That is another reason we took the boat, in case we got tired, we could all get in and speed down the river. I really enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It is a clear river, more like a spring. You can see to the bottom. I just lay out on one of the floats, Jon tied me to the boat and floated and suntanned for hours. There is a natural current that just pulls you along, at a nice leisurely pace. After two and a half hours, we got tired so we tied all the floats to the boat and Jon drove us to the exit. We had a blast!!

There were two casualties: Nick ran over his phone, before we even got in the water and Jon took his phone on the boat and it got soaked. (I was the only one with sense, cause I left mine at home.) Still, we had a great time.

This is Jon and his friend Nick tying up all the tubes and floats into Jon's Little jonboat. Jon is still pretty bad off since his shoulder surgery, so he got to ride in the boat, while everyone else floated. :)

This is me and Nick's girlfriend, sitting on the tail gate waiting for the men to get it all tied down.

This is all the girls. Look how tan Alysha and I already are. We look like sisters in this pic!! We took this right before we left.