weeeee hoooo!

I just fixed my comment problem! Watch out, I'm going to be plastered all over your pages now! LOL.

Just Stuff...

Lets see...

I got to spend the whole day with my Dad one day last week. It was a great day. I don't get to spend that much time with him just the two of us. I really appreciated that day. It was one of those days that when my parents are gone....that day will still be with me. Good memories.

Macy turns 2 next month and that is freaking me out a little bit. My children are growing too fast. It only goes faster every day. I have cherished every moment of my unemployment with them. LOL. The 3 of us needed this time together. Caden finishes his first year of preschool on Friday. I can't believe he is such a little man. He's got killer dance moves too! If you haven't seen them you gotta ask him next time you see him. He could teach us all a few good moves. LOL. I love my children. They are God's most amazing gift. I was born to be a mother and feel complete now that I have little someone's to call me Mommy. Although they are going thru a phase where they are calling me Sara and it's driving me completely insane.

We are healing slowly after the death of our friend. Derrick was a best friend. It's going to be a long journey. The whole group of us are trying to make it thru one day at a time. I went to visit his mom yesterday. She needs prayers. She has a long hard struggle ahead of her. I still haven't slept a night without seeing him in my dreams. We all talk about him alot. He should still be here with us. Eventually we start to forgive and find a way to miss him without the tears and anger and denial. I hope that day is soon. So pray for us. Pray for his parents. I hope this is an experience that makes my group of friends stronger. I know we will certainly do our best to take better care of each other from now on. We all carry a guilt with us that is hard to let go. So this is me reminding everyone to tell your friends, your kids, your parents, your pets, whoever....just say I love you every chance you get.

On that note I vote for a Sanders family picnic soon. Didn't we bbq out at a park a few years ago? Whatever happened to our lake reunions. We should still do that. Seriously. I like my family on non-holiday days too. LOL! Leave me some comments. I need to know I'm not talking to myself on here. LOL. Seriously I have some blogger problem and it will not let me leave comments on anyone's pages.I don't know what the deal is. I'll buckle down and figure it out soon. But I do read everyone's blogs nearly every day. I think you are all hilarious, insightful and interesting. I love the internet. LOL. God forbid I pick up the phone and call one of you.......ha ha ha!

Laura, your baby is beautiful. Welcome to the most incredible journey of your life. You are going to be an excellent mom. I don't know your husband, but I say save the worst dirty diapers for him! LOL. It'll build character. JK. Congratulations Phil and Jackie on grandbaby #2!

Macy's bday is July 6 and I'm going to plan something for her. I don't know what. We don't really know any other kids, so poor Tristian has to be the cool older kid for mine to follow around. He seems to deal with that okay though! More details on that later!

Oh, and my 10 year high school reunion is next weekend. I went shopping. Specifically bought a dress that says, "Why yes I can still wear a size 6 after having two children. Thank you for asking." LMAO. I know. I'm a jerk, but it is a little funny, right?

New Family Pictures

Just venting...

We have to be aware of so much around us every day. Driving we have to be aware of everything going on around us. Raising children you have to hear every sound and see every move. Going through every motion every day attacks every sense. It gets too easy to switch to autopilot. So easy most of us don't even realize we aren't running the controls. I am turning 28 this weekend and I have had more friends my own age die than I have fingers. On some level I believe that is abnormal. But at the same time it's a jolt back into reality every so often. I think that most of us tend to be more aware of the time we have left with the older people in our lives. Young people "aren't supposed to die" (yeah, whatever), so it feels like time with them is infinite. If there is something that I need to take away from the events of this last weekend is that I need to be more aware of my time with everyone in my life. Not just grandparents or older friends and family. My friends....we are closer than family. We know things about each other we hide from parents or conveniently omit to family. Which is not an invitation for anyone to go asking what I'm hiding because trust me it can't be that interesting. But this group of friends I have, we take care of each other. We need each other. I mean, that's why we have family and friends. We network because we need to relate to other similar people. We need to feel connected. So now, I look around at my friends and we all look and feel so guilty. What could I have done or said differently that could have changed things? For so many years when Chris and his friends left their parents homes and got out on their own I instinctively took care of everyone. Not because I decided to. It just happened. I have a natural mother hen inside of me and if you stick around for too long you are bound to be mothered. That is just how God made me. I know that in reality there is probably nothing anyone could have said or done to change the way things happened. But there is a process to this awful grieving thing and right now we are all stuck at mad, confused, and guilty. I'm hanging onto a little denial myself, but I'm sure that will change once we see our friend lying in state. Things like this change who people are. I already feel different. I don't want to autopilot. I want to notice everything around me. Pick up on the little things. Notice if a friend is hurting however quietly. The only inspiring thing I can say about death is the number of people that surface once someone is gone. You might think you only have a few friends, but when the service starts there is standing room only. We all touch more people in our lives than we could know. I just want the people in my life to know how much they are loved while I still have the chance to tell them. And the only people who have this blog link are people that I love. So if you are reading this it means I love you and you have touched my life. So forget that I need to go to the grocery store or pick up some things at Target or give the kids a bath or whatever. I want to make more time for the people in my life. I suppose that I have the next several thousand years to lie down and sleep. I should use the moments I have to run and walk and play and laugh to the best of my ability.

Poop on this week...

One of our very closest friends died this weekend. The whole situation is really f'n messed up. I'm sure that I will vent out and elaborate more later. But we are sad, angry, confused and I can't sleep without having nightmares. I can't remember the last time someone had to remind me to eat something. My love affair with food is on a hiatus this week. This whole situation can only be explained with many explitives and phrases that would offend anyone with working ears. But, grief aside, Derrick we will always love you and never forget you.

To Beth and Brandee.....

For some reason this stupid blogger will not allow me to leave comments on anyone's blog. So here are my comments.

Beth, maybe you or someone could explain to me what the deal is between grandma and I. I only remember bits and pieces mostly from when I got older. It's really important to me that I have some kind of relationship with grandma while she is still here. Maybe if I understand what happened I will be able to repair some of my heartache. I have this horrible feeling that I am going to live with a hole inside me forever for not having known my grandma. I would like a chance to salvage my relationship with her. Grandma is getting older and we already almost lost her once. I would love a chance to talk with her about it all before it's too late. Or if she didn't want to talk to me about it, at least I would understand. I'm just kind of sitting over here feeling like I got picked on for some random unknown reason. I'm sure there is a reason out there. Mom and Dad are not so good at explaining this to me.

Brandee, I think that we must go out for coffee or ice cream soon. I would love to compare notes with you on our family. You are a step ahead of me in life and have a good perspective. I think we could have a very interesting time! Remember I am just a mile away from the college, so if you ever have a lunch hour to spare call me up! And BTW your last blog was worded far more eloquently that I could have. I would have probably just flown off at the mouth and said unneccessary things. You did a good job.

We Had the WORST Vacation Ever!!

This past weekend was the Cox fishing tournament. We have been looking forward to it for months. Chris and I love to fish every chance we get and this was a chance to fish for money! What could be better? Well, I can tell you what could be worse.........our whole weekend! It started bad, ended bad and only had a glimmer of hope in the middle! For one thing we waited too long to make reservations for a hotel room. We wanted to leave on Thursday so we could get up early Friday and scope out the lake for good spots. However, I called every hotel in Atoka, Oklahoma and there were no rooms for Thursday night. Finally I found a place we could check in on Friday. Basically we got the last hotel room in town. Friday we were supposed to get on the road about 6 am. That would have given us plenty of time to still check out the lake and fish awhile before checking in for the tournament at 6 pm. Chris has poured his heart and soul into this dinky little aluminum boat of Dad's trying to get it ready to go. Last year we took it out there and it worked in the driveway and wouldn't work once we got there. We were determined to avoid that fate this time. I can't even tell you the hours and hours Chris has put in and the hundreds of dollars Dad has shelled out to make this boat work. Anyhow, Chris was installing seats on the boat and didn't get finished by Thursday night. So we decided we could get up early to work on it and if we left by 9 or 10 we could still check out the lake a little. Well it took three times longer to fix the seats than anticipated. Then when we finally started loading up the truck a massive thunderstorm rolled in. We were running around in the rain drenched to the core trying to load up. Eventually the storm let up and we didn't leave until 1 pm. It was a 4 hour drive there. We barely made it there to check in at the hotel and get to the lake. So we didn't get to put the boat in the water at all. Not even for 5 minutes to make sure it was going to run. The funny thing was that on the drive down Chris and I were talking about how everytime we try to do something special together or special with the kids it always ends in disaster. We were motivated during the drive and decided that this was the weekend that we break the curse! We really needed a few days out of town with each other. Away from the kids, work, cell phones, friends and family. Just the two of us! It was a nice road trip down there.

A nice surprise was the hotel. I didn't know what kind of hotel room I had booked or what kind of place it was in. All I knew was that I managed to get the last room in town by calling every single hotel so we had to take whatever we got. It turned out that the hotel was really nice and close to the highway that lead to the lake. That it about the last positive thing I can say.

At some point that weekend driving back and forth I thought a rock hit the windshield but we didn't see any chips or marks to prove it. So we forgot about it. We had drawn launch number 5 which is good if you know your boat is going to work. Last year we only had 30 boats in the tournament. This year we had almost 60. So that is a lot of people to get embarassed in front of if your dinky little boat won't run. Everyone there has nice expensive new bass boats. We, of course, were the only people there with a hundred year old tin foil boat. I had almost wished I had drawn boat 60! We felt pretty confident about the boat being able to run. Chris had worked so hard and it ran in the driveway the night before for almost an hour. On the other hand we were both "waiting for the other shoe to drop" as disaster is always present for our events. We got up at 3:30 am and got to the dock at 5:00am. It was too freakin early to even deal with disaster! And what happens? Sure enough.....we get on the water and the boat mocks us. Amongst the sputtering and clouds of smoke I can hear the motor laughing at us saying, "You fools! You have wasted your time with me!" So here we are in front of 60 boats of 2 man teams and countless volunteers with a broken and useless boat. Everyone just went ahead and launched onto the lake while we sat there cursing the boat and trying to figure out what to do. Our only option was to use the trolling motor and head over to a little cove close to the docks. Which, may I mention, is the most fished out area in the whole lake. So we kissed the $1500 grand prize goodbye and tried to just enjoy the day on the water hanging out with each other. Chris ended up catching 4 fish to my 0. First time in 7 years Chris has ever out fished me! I guess I have to let him win every now and then though! We had a nice time out on the water but it was so frustrating just knowing that for the 2nd year in a row we were stuck with a broken boat. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if Dad and Chris hadn't spent so much money and so much time preparing the boat. Dad even took his free time to find maps of the lake and study them so we would know the lake well and find the best fishing spots. In the end we placed 20th out of 60. Which I guess is okay. But there was no prize for place 20. :(

We stayed Saturday night even though most of the tournament participants went on home. Everyone else there had shown up a day early like we had wanted to. There was nothing at all to do in this little town. The only thing open past 10 (besides Walmart) was a little bar up the highway called Joyce's Bar in Lane, OK. I was scared to walk into a little townie bar. It was obvious that all the people there were long time residents and very close. I wasn't sure how accepting they would be of strangers. Turned out they were some of the nicest people I had ever met but we came about an inch away from witnessing a bar brawl. It was like something out of an old western. Luckily the guy causing trouble got ushered out before any punches were thrown. I would not have wanted to see the results of any kind of fight in there.

Sunday morning we get in the truck to head home. The windshield was cracked all the way from the bottom up. I guess that rock I thought may have hit the windshield did do some damage after all. With the heat and the windows rolled up it took no time at all for the whole windshield to crack. Wonderful. The boat didn't work and now we have to come up with a bunch of money to replace the windshield. I'm just thrilled. So that made the drive home a little grumpy. We were making great time and were eager to see the kids. I hate being away from them for very long. We were nearly home and the wheel flew off the boat trailer, bounced off a passing truck and landed in a field! We pulled over and the left side of the trailer was just sitting on the axel ( i assume that is what it's called). I looked around and we were on i-40 between the Dale exit and McCloud exit. Which means I was about 1 mile and a half from my grandma Irene's house. You can take either of those exits to her house. I guess if it had to happen at least we were close to a relative's home. Which means I had to call my Aunt Jeanie. My Sanders family doesn't know much about my relationship with my mom's family, but it's strained at best. Esp with Jeanie. Jeanie and I have been in a few shouting matches and I've nearly punched her in the jaw a few times. Which isn't much like me. I try to behave like a lady as much as possible. We always fight about my mom though. And if you are going to argue with me about my mother you better come prepared. She is my best friend in the whole world and I feel just as protective over her as I do one of my children. Anyhow, I had to swallow my pride and called Aunt Jeanie. Turns out she was really nice and took good care of us. We had the boat towed to her house (she lives with grandma) so we wouldn't have a huge tow bill. She gave us the number of the wrecker company accross the street from her house and even came out to the highway and checked on us. So now the broken boat is sitting in grandma's driveway.

To sum up......the boat didn't work, the tournament was a wash, the windsheild busted and the wheel flew off the boat trailer. I don't plan on taking any more vacations for awhile!