Too funny...

I got this on e-mail today, and thought it was pretty funny! Enjoy!

How to use Your IRS Rebate check...
As you may have heard, each of us will be getting a tax rebate check to stimulate the economy. If we spend that money at Walmart, all the money will go to China. If we spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs. If we purchase a computer it will go to India. If we purchase fruits and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala. If we purchase a good car it will go to Japan. If we purchase useless stuff it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy.
We need to keep that money here in America. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it at yard sales, since those are the only businesses still in the US!

More pics from April 2008

04/02/08
Sunset 04/26/08 (Chris took this one!)
04/26/08 (I took this one!)
Self-portrait! We LOVE these! :-)
Chris goofing around... I took several shots, but didn't want to put you through having to look at ALL of them! So - this one reminds me of Barney Fife when he breathes through his nose as he hikes up his pants... :-)

Pictures - April 2008

Some pics from this month:

D in his doctor scrubs from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital"Doctor in Training"

D with a flower spinning on his drill

D at the park (he is terrified to go down the slides, but likes to look up or crawl up!)

Here's proof that our grass (in places) REALLY was almost 2 feet long!

Hot air balloon... for the Derby Festival, they have a "Balloon Glow" on a Friday night, where all the hot air balloons are lit up, and then they have a race the next day. Here is a pic of one of the balloons we saw flying when we were headed to work on Friday morning.

Chow Wagon25 foot screen and inflatables

I can't believe...

... I forgot to tell you about a MAJOR occurence that happened here in my last post. On Friday, April 18th, at 5:37am, Chris and I were awakened by a VERY loud ROARING sound, accompanied by our whole house shaking so hard that I felt like I had to put my hands out on the bed to steady myself! YES - IT WAS AN EARTHQUAKE!!!!



Chris flipped over in bed and looked at me and asked, "Did you FEEL THAT?!?!?" To which I replied... "Yes!" Of course, he then asked me what that was, and I told him that I thought it had been an earthquake. (Since I am very experienced and have been to a lot of places, and know these things! **wink, wink**!) Actually, and seriously, I was in another earthquake once. At that time we lived in Montana, and I was very young... somewhere between 5-7 years old maybe. I remember that my mom had a set of those old iron decorative spoons hanging on the wall, and all of the sudden, they started banging against the wall.



All of that said, when we got up for work, Chris turned on the news, and sure enough, it was an earthquake. We live in southern IN, and the epicenter of the quake was 100 miles west of us in IL. It was a 5.2 on the Richter scale! Chris said he felt the aftershock later that morning, but I didn't. Earthquakes in the Midwest (for those of you who didn't know) are not very common, although we do live on a fault line (which I didn't know until we had the earthquake!) So - now we have another great story of something we've experienced! Thankfully it wasn't bad enough to cause any damage to our house!



In other news... after a lot of drama with our lawnmower, we finally did get our lawn mowed last week. The mower wouldn't start because the carburetor was "filthy"... though how it got that way with us only using it once, I don't know. The lawn now looks very nice and manicured, as Chris took the weed whacker and edged the lawn as well. I got tired of sucking up huge, nasty looking spiders in our house with a vacuum cleaner, so I got some spider/ant/bug spray that is supposed to keep all those kind of critters out of the house for up to 12 months! Hopefully I won't have to kill any more spiders with my bare feet! :-)

The weather was beautiful this past week, so I took the opportunity to take my exercise outside in the sunshine (rather than in a darker gym) and went rollerblading around our neighborhood. It reminded me of my college days when my friend, Joy, and I would rollerblade from campus up around the Watertown High School, and then back down the hill holding our arms out and singing, "I believe I can fly" at the top of our lungs! I also got to take D to the park a couple of days. I'm working on getting him to LISTEN and OBEY when I tell him to "come here" or "stop." It's hard when he doesn't have consistent discipline, but I would hate for him to get hurt because he doesn't obey. He didn't do too bad at the one park. He also got to feed the ducks, which he loved, since he has quite a fascination for them.

Also, this past week, I got a knot in my left armpit which ended up being an infected sweat gland (sorry if this is TMI!) I was hoping it would go away with some of my treatments (I won't go into detail here :-}), but it didn't. The pain was starting to move down my arm and into my chest, so I finally gave in and went to Urgent Care. I was quickly diagnosed and given a prescription for antibiotics (pill and cream) and narcotics! I didn't fill the narcotics script, since the pain wasn't THAT bad! :-) Anyhow, they called my prescriptions in to the pharmacy, and I went to pick them up. When I went to pay, the lady asked me if they told me how much they would be. I told her that they hadn't, and she proceeded to name the cost of $142 and change! I about choked, I was so surprised! EXPENSIVE meds! I put them on my credit card, since we didn't have the money in the bank at the moment, and went home. I checked the mail when I got home...(can you see where this is going?)... and in the mail was a VERY unexpected check for $139 and change! I immediately said, "Thank you, Lord! That is a blessing!" So, in all reality, I only paid about $3 for my meds! THEN I was telling some of my friends about it, and they told me that I could have gotten the antibiotics at Meijer for FREE! Wish I would have known that before, but I'm thankful to have them paid for in any case! :-) I'll definitely remember free antibiotics for next time!

Sat. night, one of the guys Chris works with invited us to go down to the riverfront for the "Fest-a-ville" Chow Wagon. It's part of the Derby Festival that takes place the 2 weeks before the KY Derby. We had fun, but I'm not sure that we would really go and spend time there on our own again. One area is all a big music stage, beer garden, and food vendors. The other area is another music stage (a band was playing... they were girls ranging from 9 yrs - 13 yrs old, singing oldies), more food, some alcohol, and inflatables for the kids. That night they had a 25 foot inflatable screen up showing an Indiana Jones movie. We mostly just stood and talked to Chris' friend and his wife and nephew, but were pretty uncomfortable when they decided to drink beer. NOT something I think we'll do again... it's just an awkward situation. They are nice people, though, but we don't want to get used to being around people who drink.

Well, that's about it for now, I think. We go to St. Louis on Sat. for a Cardinals/Cubs baseball game. This is our 2nd annual trip to St. Louis on Derby Day! :-) Then the following Tues/Wed, we take a QUICK trip to Pensacola for PCC's graduation. My SIL is graduating, as well as the last of Chris' siblings... his bro, Jon, with an undergrad, and his sis, Tiffany, with her Master's. We also get to meet our newest niece, Jacquline, who will be almost 9 months old at that point. We can't wait to see parts of our family... we also get to see another 2 nieces and a nephew (and their parents, of course!), and I get to see my bro&SIL.

Have a fantastic week, everyone!

Is it me?

What Heather Means

You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out. Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia. Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person. You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life. You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home. You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble. You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You're always up to something. You have a ton of energy, and most people can't handle you. You're very intense. You definitely are a handful, and you're likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

So, what do you think? Does this describe me? :-)

Busy, busy, busy...

Wow - our lives have been busy the past couple weeks. So - here's the rundown of what has been happening here, and I have just linked words to pics so I don't have to download them...

The first week of April, D (the little one I take care of) was in Cincinnati, OH, for pre-surgical testing. Thanks to all of you who prayed for him. Thankfully, he does not require throat reconstruction surgery. He only needs his tonsils/adenoids removed, and some minor eye surgery to correct a muscle condition resulting from prematurity. This condition causes his left eye to drift in toward his nose when looking at things close to him. Other than that, things are going pretty well for him. His mom is hoping to get her doctor to authorize him for nursing at least through the surgeries, and hopefully for another 4 months until he can get his feeding tube out and recover from surgery. We'll see...

Anyway, in the few days that he was gone, I was able to visit 2 of my good friends here. I spent over 5 hours at my friend, Beth's house. She is such a blessing to me. Her hubby, Luke, was teasing me when he came home... asking me if I was working on another calendar. I printed out the date pages for the family photo calendars at their house since we didn't have ink in our printer. (We now have ink for our printer... we've gone without it since we lived in MD)! I worked on it for several hours I think 3 or 4 different days, so now it's a standing joke that I only visit when I have to work on the computer. It was nice change to be able to spend a few hours visiting and not having anything else to do.

Tuesday of that week, I stayed home all day waiting for an overnight package that was supposed to arrive at 10:30am. Apparently all the FedEx planes coming here from Memphis were grounded due to severe thunder storms. Chris called them around noon, and the person he spoke to assured him that the packages were being trucked here, and would get there sometime in the afternoon. When the package STILL wasn't here by 6pm, Chris called again, only to be informed that the earlier person had misinformed him, and the package would be here 10:30 am the NEXT day! I did get a bunch of stamping done, though! It's just difficult to be waiting all day, and thinking of all these things that you could do if you could just run down to the ___!!

Wednesday, the package showed up at 10:15 am! YEAH! I then went and visited another friend who had been having a difficult time the past few months. I was glad to be a blessing, and amazed at how I could share with her what God has been doing in my heart & life through IVF, even though her circumstances are completely different - God's word still applies! :-) (DUH!)

I then got to take Chris' package to him and we ate lunch together. That's always a nice surprise. He got a new watch... it's REALLY nice! He was going to resell it on Ebay, but he liked it so much that I told him that he really should keep it. It's not very often that Chris finds something that he REALLY likes/wants, so I was glad that he found that and I believe he is keeping it. Now, if only he could have waited until his birthday... :-)

I also joined the gym again! My chiropractor finally OK'd me to do cardio workouts again, as long as I don't over do it! I'm excited to be able to be active again!

The Friday night of that week, I was at the gym just getting ready to work out when Chris called me. After he asked me about 20 questions, he asked me if I could get changed back into my normal clothes so that we could meet Jeremy, Misha, Tommy & Corey Frazor for dinner! They are close friends of ours that travel in evangelism, and we don't get to see them very often. However, they manage to travel through Louisville every once in a while, so they usually call and we meet up for a meal or something. Anyway, we were able to meet them for supper and then they came over to see our house for a little bit. Although the time was WAY too SHORT, we enjoyed seeing them again. Last time we saw them they came through on Chris' birthday last August. They are great "iron-sharpeneth-iron" type friends, and they are also the type of friends that no matter how long it's been since you've seen them, you pick up the friendship like you saw them yesterday! What a blessing to have friends like that!

The following week (the 7th - 10th) our church hosted the Revival Fires conference. With that, the choir sang every night for the services, so it was a busy week! I was busting my tail just to get home from work and then rush off to church in order to sing and attend the services. It was a blessing, though.

Early that Friday morning (the 11th) Chris and I headed north. We stopped in Indianapolis to visit some friends of ours... Jeff & Colleen McQueary (and kids, Cole & Sage). We were able to enjoy breakfast with them before our friends, Steve & Joy Francis met up with us. They came over from Cincinnati, and we left one of our vehicles at the McQueary's house. Steve, Joy, Chris and I then drove up to Chicago for an overnight "double date." Steve is a big Chicago Bulls fan, so for his birthday, Joy bought him tickets to a Bulls game (vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers). Well, they bought the tickets in October... and put them in a safe place. So safe, in fact, that they couldn't find them for that weekend! We all decided to go ahead and go up there anyway.

For lunch, we went to a Brazilian steakhouse called Brazazz. It's all you can eat - meat! It was SO DELICIOUS! They had little discs sitting beside each plate. One side is orange and says, "Yes, Please." The other side is black and says, "No, thank you." The waiters, all dressed in authentic Brazilian outfits, come around with these long skewers of all different kinds of meat (and roasted pineapple). If you want some, they cut you a slice and lay it over toward you. You then take a little pair of tongs, and put it on your plate. Joy is a missionary kid and she grew up in Brazil, so she was talking to the waiters in Portugese and stuff. It was pretty cool. I felt like I didn't have to eat for about 3 days after that! We enjoyed it immensely!

From there, we went to the John Hancock Building, and went up to the Observatory. We had fun with some of the photo ops (Window washers, & construction workers)! Of course, Chris and Steve were being silly. It was pretty cool. When we got on the elevators to go down, Chris and I were by the doors that would open when we got to the bottom. Just before the doors opened, we stood really close to the doors and made funny faces. The doors opened, and there was a man and his family sitting on the floor facing us, waiting for the rest of the family. He cracked up laughing when he saw us, and we were laughing hysterically! I wish we could have gotten a picture of his face when he saw us... Priceless!

From there, we wandered down Michigan Ave. for a little bit. I was extremely tired and not wearing the best shoes for walking, so I'm afraid I wasn't super good company! I tried not to complain, though! It was really cold and windy, too, so not a GREAT day to be wandering outside in the city. Chris had a little fun in the Disney Store... I think he'd make a GREAT Pirate! On the way back to the car, we had to stop and take some more silly pictures with a statue of a man with an umbrella hailing a cab in front of the Four Seasons Hotel. The placard on the statue said, "Allow Me!" Chris took a little too much liberty with that statement, see the pics here and here! Joy figured she could get up close, too, but not that close! :-)

We left after that and headed down to the United Center to see if we could get tickets to the game... again! We did, and got pretty good seats! It ended up being a good game... the Bulls actually WON! The highlight of the game, though, **insert sarcasm**was the Swinging Seniors!
Actually, Chris and Steve both got free T-shirts, and since the Bulls scored 100 points and won, we all got free Big Macs! Chris also got a free coffee at Dunkin' Donuts since his character won the race on the JumboTron! All in all, it was a good game (even though I was so tired, I almost fell asleep!) We even got to see a BUNCH of dunks, and Joy even managed to get a great picture of one of them!

The next morning we got up and went to Navy Pier. It was rainy, so we stayed indoors. We left around noon and headed back to Indianapolis to go our separate ways. Jeff & Colleen had an all-nighter youth activity Friday night, so we didn't get to see them. However, we did stop at the Edinburg outlets on the way home, and Chris let me get two pairs of shoes. I really needed them... the only real shoes I had were a pair of black, ankle high boots, and brown clogs. I got these two pairs of shoes for a really good deal:

I love them! I wear skirts or skorts most of the time, and they look really cute with them. Chris found some really nice basketball shorts, too, that he needed. It was a profitable stop! :-)

Oh, yeah...I mentioned here that I got new sunglasses... here's a pic of my new shades!

That Saturday night, we arrived home, bundled up, and headed out again to enjoy Thunder over Louisville. Thunder is the 5th largest fireworks display in the world, according to the travel channel. We missed most of the air show, since we didn't get home until after 7pm, but the planes were flying right over our house! We joined a bunch of our college kids and friends of ours to watch the fireworks. It was very cold out, but we were pretty well dressed for the weather. The only thing that we didn't like is that we were so far away, we could see the fireworks alright, but we didn't get the full affect with the sounds and vibrations of the fireworks as well. We enjoy that part, too! The other thing is that we had 4 or 5 rude kids that put their chairs up in front of us... so we moved to see around them. They then moved again, partially blocking our view. I was highly frustrated at this point. Then, on top of all of that, right in the middle of the show, 2 of the girls stood up right in front of us so we couldn't see at all. I had had enough, so I loudly said, "There are people behind you who would like to SEE the fireworks!" They turned around and gave me nasty looks, but I didn't care! People should be more considerate of those around them! You can see my pics of Thunder here.

Since then, it has pretty much been life back to normal for us. Chris let me buy these vases for our living room (I've been waiting to buy them since we bought our house last July, and they went on sale this week, so Chris let me get them):

It's hard to tell in the picture, but our paint color is beige, and the vases are red, but not as dark as they appear in the picture. I LOVE them, and they fit perfectly in those niches. I'm finally almost ready with the family photo wall, too, just waiting for pictures from a couple of family members still. I'll post pics when I get them up, too.

We got our lawn treated by company called Weed Man. The weather has been mostly beautiful lately, so I've been able to take D to the park, and the sunshine has also helped our grass to grow like crazy. Chris hasn't been able to mow it yet, so it's almost a jungle out there! Seriously, some of the grass is almost 2 feet tall! He was going to mow Sunday afternoon, but couldn't get the mower started. :-( He was rather frustrated, to say the least! Here's some pics:

Well, my hubby is home, and I think I've pretty much filled you in on everything recent that I can think of, so I gotta go! Hope you all are doing well!

Oh, wait, one more thing... another niece or nephew is on the way in our family... this makes the 3rd one that is expected this year! Two of my brothers & their wives are expecting babies, and we just found out that one of Chris' sisters is expecting a baby, too!

How does THIS happen?

Chris and I have this discussion all the time. For some reason THIS happens EVERY DAY:

If you are totally confused and wondering why you are looking at pictures of our bed... THIS is what happens. We have sheets, two queen sized blankets, a quilt, and two football blankets on our bed. (We keep the heat WAY down at night!) Every morning when we get up, the sheet and bottom blanket are touching the floor on MY side of the bed, while all of the other blankets are touching the floor on HIS side of the bed. I'm a little confused about this... I mean, if one or the other of us was stealing blankets, wouldn't you think that ALL of them would be one way or the other? Oh, well, we just make the bed so everything is where it belongs... at least at the BEGINNING of the night! :-) And one or the other of us isn't freezing to death with NO blankets!

I know this is kind of a silly post, but the phenomenon cracks me up, and I thought I'd share! Does anyone else out there have a problem with this?!?!?

Have a great day!