Evolution of Hair

This is me on Friday at 3:15 PM. Going in for a hair cut. When I went, I was not 100% sure what I was going to do with my hair.

This is me Friday evening. Not too sure about my hair. I was at the beauty shop for over an hour & I finally had to leave & my hair lady had another client. So I left, not 100% happy with my hair.

Now this is me Saturday afternoon.

After another 30 minutes at the beauty shop, I think I finally like it. One of the reasons it took so long & multiple trips was because this was such a drastic cut. Another reason was because this is a new style & I was not sure how I wanted it or how it would look. The final reason is because when I show people how short I want my hair, they do not listen. I had to tell my hair lady like 10-15 times SHORTER. But every hair lady that I've had has been like that. They all are afraid to cut my hair.

In case you haven't heard...

In case you do not watch the market all day or watch the news 2-3 hours a day like I do, you might have some concerns about the market. And if you have watched any news at all, it sounds all gloom & doom but DO NOT PANIC about the market. Almost everyone reading this blog is young enough to ride this out.

I have pretty brochures and graphs that show lots of cool information about the market. But I am probably one of the only ones that think it is cool so I will not go through the trouble of posting them, but here are some facts & tidbits for you (disclaimer: no one can predict the future, all this info is based off the entire HISTORY of the market):

1. After a major decline in the market, the market has always rebounded better than the decline.
2. There has never been a 10 year period of time that someone has lost money in the stock market.
3. If you are saving for retirement, which I hope you are, do not stop.
4. Do not reallocate unless you are not being risky enough (unless you are going to retire in the next 5 years).
5. I would say that now would be a good time to invest (mutual funds though not individual stocks & bonds).
6. The "market" is for long term investors that can take the ups & downs of the market.
7. Always consult a professional for a personal recommendation, do NOT listen to just general plans on the news, they do not know your personal financial situation.
8. Never react to the market out of fear or emotion.

I guess that's all I have for now. Good luck.

One last summer image

Man Kills 2 . . . [Joe Horn - Full Tape]

This is crazy. The man on the 911 call Joe gets aquited too. I believe in protecting yourself, but I think he went looking. The robbers are not even on his property. This is serious but I did laugh out loud in a couple a spots.

Out of the mouth of babes

Today I volunteered at Brayden's school. This was the first time that I have ever just volunteered in the classroom. Usually I go for special events & for lunch. Both of the boys are very good about complimenting me and showing me their appreciation. I have really great boys. Cody tells me that his friends always say nice things about me too.

Well today I was sitting with Brayden & this other boy in his class told me that I am a great mom! I thought that was just so sweet. Not that he complimented me & that I needed to hear that, but that a 7-year-old was so nice & complimentary to an adult. That just showed that there are still "nice kids" out there.

Reborn

Last Sunday at the age of 13 1/2 Cody was baptized. He had made the decision the week before so I do not think that he was TOO nervous. But Brayden & I both cried. Someone from church took pictures & they put them together on this book mark for us. It was very nice of them.

It's driving me crazy...

Doesn't Joe Biden look like an actor that plays the roll of some type of politician? This is a serious question. Isn't there an actor that play the roll of some type of political figure that looks just like Joe Biden. I cannot think of a particular movie but I know he looks like an actor - not a major one, but one none the less. I looked online & could not find the answer. HELP!

Please Vote!

You Never Know

You never know what's going to happen when you have kids. Last night we went to Silver Dollar City with Holly & her boys. They had this great marketing scheme of Midnight Madness. They opened form 4-10 PM so you could ride the rides at night. FIRST ever Midnight Madness. True, so I was excited & we decided to go. Once the night came I realized this is not very different from when they are open during the Christmas season. Warmer, yes, which is better, but no lights which is worse and NOT the first time they have run the rides at night. So, basically their marketing scheme works on people like me that just get so excited about the FIRST time ever thought without thinking of what it really means!

ANYWAY - the real point of my posting is what happened at the end of our visit to SDC. We decided that Powder Keg would be our last ride. So we headed over there around 9:30. Cody & Brayden went first & then Holly & I were going to ride (someone had to stay with Trevor & Carter). Well when Brayden & Cody came back, Brayden was crying. He had hit his mouth on the ride during the lightening speed of the ride. I looked at him, no blood and everything looked fine. He said that he broke his tooth, but his tooth looked fine to me. Well Holly & I get on the ride & they announce that we all have to get off & they have to close down the ride for a safety check. So they closed the ride for like 20 min. They had to get the picture of Brayden from the ride to "inspect it" and keep for their records, they had to get maintenance there to inspect the ride & they called the medics to check out Brayden. He did in fact chip is tooth. But just a little bit on the edge of his adult front tooth. They ended up running the ride again and running 2 more rounds & then shut it down for the night. We did not ride though.

Brayden did a really good job giving the medic all his information, name, age, address, phone, DOB & mom's information. And we are off to the dentist this afternoon to see what they can do about his tooth.

Kiddos

I have been an unmotivated person. It seems as though I can only be motivated in one area of my life at a time. So I choose to be motivated with work recently. Which means I have not blogged much, worked out much, cleaned my house much nor have I really done much of anything else.

I did manage to finish my Family Reunion 2007 scrapbook. And have a birthday party for Brayden. He turned 8 on Aug 9.




He wanted cup cakes instead of a cake. We celebrated at his Great Grandma Isenberg's house.

And since I am not motivated to do too much, the boys are outside right now washing my car!




I wondered how long it would take one of them to spray the other. This is the first time they have washed my car together. I think the 2nd time that I've had Cody do it. It took about 15 minutes & of course it would be Brayden to initiate. I think they are finished now & have moved to water guns.

Me, Myself & I

Yesterday I had a first. It was the first time for 24 hours that I spent it all by myself. I did run errands and go to the gym. But I really did not talk to anyone and I did not socialize with anyone that I know in person.

I ate by myself - one meal out, cleaned my house, did laundry, played on the computer and watched TV. I thought about scrapbooking but I did not feel too creative & honestly I thought it was more work than I cared to do yesterday.

Amazingly, I was ok with the day. It did not bother me. I always wondered if I could do it. I have never done it yet & had typically done all that I could to avoid it. But I did it by choice yesterday & it was nice.

Weekend Recap

This past weekend I went to OKC with Ashley. She went on to Elk City but I was dropped off at Matt's house. We had dinner with Krista & Jason on Friday - first time I met Jason. Then we were off to a birthday party for a friend of Matt's.

Saturday was a relaxing day of sleeping, shopping, swimming and going to the end of VBS cook out at Ryan & Katie's church. And lots of eating I might mention. I had two dinners that night. We ate hot dogs at the church & then came home & Matt cooked for the two of us. Matt had a couple of friends over. Happily I knew the two couples & one guy that came over. So we had a nice visit. But I was a party pooper & went to bed before the last couple left.

Sunday we went to church with Ryan & Katie & then Matt & I had brunch with Terra. I had some super yummy ravioli. And another day of lots of food this day too. Then Ryan & Katie picked me up so we could go see Batman. I had not really wanted to see that but everyone else had seen it & I did not want to be left out. Since Matt had already seen it, he passed & went home to do things around the house. I really enjoyed the movie & was happy I went to see it. I did not enjoy the guy next to me laughing weird & a lot during the movie. The theater that they took me to is really cool. Katie has blogged about it before. The movie is digital so the picture was so super clear. And I really did not enjoy Batman's voice.

When I got back to Matt's house we had a "cousins family dinner". Ashley came back from Elk City with Cody Bonser & Neviah & we ate dinner before coming back home. It was kind of cool because there was at least one child represented from each of our grandparent's children.

Debby's Teri's Sandi's Rick's

Rest of vacation

I do not have pictures to post right now but by the time I did this there will probably be other news & other pictures to post. But the 2nd part of our trip was hampered by rain. Saturday we just went to the mall & the boys went to Ridemakerz. That is like Build-a-bear but you build a car. The boys LOVED it. I will try to post the pictures of their finished product. Then we ate at Rainforest Cafe.

Sunday we hung out at the pool. Then we came home on Monday. Pretty relaxing trip.

The boys are off to Orlando with my mom & Marvin. They will be back on Wednesday.

I am in Oklahoma City visiting Matt, Ryan & Katie. I rode down with Ashley & Neviah. They went on to Elk City to visit. We will have family dinner on Sunday & we are bringing Cody Bonser home with us.

Vacation Day 2

I guess technically Day 1 of our little family vacation was spent driving to Chicago. I had to stop in St. Louis for work, so it took about 10 hours for us to get there. But we did. It was almost a year ago that the boys & I came to Chicago and then went to Oregon. This year we are just spending the time in Chicago.

So, we started the day by going to the mall. I needed to look for a couple of things that I could not get at home & lucky me, I found them. Then the boys found this virtual interactive video game on the floor & it was pretty fun. They really enjoyed playing soccer & jumping through the balls.

Then we headed downtown via the train. The L that is, not the Metra.

I'm not sure if you can see, but Cody's eyes look really cool in the picture above.

We went to Navy Pier and went to the Children's Museum. It was totally cool. I thought that a couple of hours would have been plenty of time. I thought that they boys would get board with it, but it was really fun. We spent 3 hours there and we were rushed. You can see above that they played life size chess. They also bowled, dug for dinosaurs, went through a rope tree house of sorts, played with bugs and much more...

In this water area, they were able to play with water pipes and water transportation systems. We did this family finger print thing & it shows if members of your family have the same finger print patterns. It was pretty cool. We all have loops but on all of our ring fingers we are the circle pattern and on all of our thumbs we have double loops.

We also made a book of us building a skyscraper. I have not been able to view this yet but click the link HERE & use the code k2a9u8 to view. That was fun.

We ended our day at PF Changs for dinner! Today off to the beach!

Sneaky, Sneaky

So, Saturday the boys and I went to my grandparents house for a little visit. We were all sitting around the table eating lunch. They have this clear glass vase on the table that has a bunch of flower heads in it. The vase is short & totally covered with flowers. Brayden mentions that he sees some pills in the flowers. I look & sure enough there are several little pills the in the bottom of the vase. I jokingly say, "it looks like someone is stashing their pills!" Grandma says, "oh those are my eye drops from the eye doctor." The boys & I look at each other like, what? Then grandma says, "speaking of pills, Brayden will you go out to the car and get my pills." So we move on for the moment.

A couple of minutes after all of this Grandma gives Grandpa a pill & says to take it. Grandpa inquires what kind of pill it is. Grandma tells him that it is anti depression medication. At that same moment, Brayden says, "those look just like the pills in the flowers." I pick up the vase, look closer & point the vase at Grandma & Grandpa. At that point, Grandpa tells me to put the vase down & mind my own business. Grandma realizes then that Grandpa has been putting the pills in the flowers. After going back & forth about the pills & the cost & Grandpa saying that he has felt better since he stopped taking them she asks how long he as been doing it & he says that there are about 2 months worth of pills in there!!

I was cracking up. I felt bad that I gave Grandpa away but shame shame on Grandpa! Grandma said that she is telling the doctor! A lot of good that will do, anyone that knows my Grandpa knows that he is only going to do what he wants to do!

Week Recap

Here are some pictures from last week. After seeing Vanilla Ice, I did not do a whole lot during the week. Jeremy & his dad went to a car show on Sunday & Noreen (J's mom) and I went to a craft show in Evanston. Then Jeremy & I went to see Love Guru. Not the best movie of all time. But there were some funny parts. Speaking from the girl that loves Austin Powers.

Then on Thursday we went to the Taste of Chicago. That is like most tastes where a variety of restaurants come & you can sample food. Between Jeremy & I we had a rib sandwich, a ribeye steak sandwich, choco covered strawberries, corn, coconut shrimp, Italian Ice, Italian fries, crab legs, cheese cake and nachos. Yes nachos. Here is a picture of me eating nachos. There was a mini "situation" while we were there. We were walking past some security guards and over the walkie talkies someone announced "shots fired". They took off running & then a couple of seconds later, a huge crowd of people cam running at us from that direction. I almost had a heart attack. Apparently nothing had happened at the moment. But I did think I was going to get crushed by a herd of people. And after the fireworks there was a shooting. One person was killed and 3 injured.



This is us later that night watching the fireworks. It was SO cold. Absolutely the coldest 4th of July that I have ever had. And I think the temp was like 60. But after 90 days, 60 is cold. And a bird pooped on my arm.

This was the only picture of the fireworks that I got.

Jeremy & John. We watched the Taste fireworks in Chicago on the 3rd. On the 4th we went to his parent's town of Morton Grove & watched from there after week cooked out.

Jeremy & Noreen.

Me with a sparkler before it got dark. Fireworks are illegal to buy or shoot off in Northern Illinois. So I bought them at home & brought them. At first John was not too please about the idea. But people all over the neighborhood were shooting them off so I was not too concerned about us getting in trouble. And soon John got into it too. We did have some big ones that I was a little concerned about but all was good & Jeremy was like a little boy shooting them off. He had a blast.

Then on the 5th we went to the Naperville Ribfest. It was fun - SUPER hot. We ate a lot of ribs & more corn. We ate corn on the cob 3 days in a row. But I have had better ribs at Famous Daves & a local place here.

Now back to work.

Ice Ice Baby

Jeremy & I went to see Vanilla Ice on Friday. I was super excited. Jeremy was not so much. His stage looked like a Halloween set up. It was odd. The concert was fun but he is not the same. He had a deeper voice and sounded, ummm angrier in his tone. Kind of like Eminem, which he mentioned he "paved the way" for. See pictures below & the video on my myspace.

Top 10 of Weekend

Here are 10 highlights from the past weekend - not in any particular order:

1. On my way to Chicago Thursday I was supposed to fly from Springfield to Memphis to Chicago on NWA. But my plane from Memphis had to go back so they re-routed me to American and on a direct flight to Chicago from Springfield. Nice.
2. I had a lot of one on one time with Jeremy's condo.
3. Jeremy's mom called me his ex-girlfriend's name. Nice.
4. My boy's got a new step mom. Surprise!
5. I saw Sex in the City & for $4.00. Score.
6. I saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Ummm can we say male frontal nudity.
7. I went to 2 restaurants that I like, PF Changs & Davis St. Fish Market.
8. I went to 2 new places, Jamba Juice & Pita Pete's. Yummy.
9. I bought a $3.00 bottle of wine that seriously was yummy!
10. On my way home I flew Delta so I came home via Atlanta & that was my first time in Atlanta!

So based off those 10 highlights of the weekend, you can see not too exciting.

I Spy...

Can you spy Brayden doing the Cha Cha Slide? A gym full of first graders - approximately 120. They were so cute. But I cannot even spy him. He is somewhere in the middle of the photo. I was amazed at how well these kids could bust a move. This was the last day of first grade & they sung a song to their teachers & Brayden cried the whole time. He loves his teacher, our neighbor. She really is great. He is off to 2nd grade in a new building with 3rd & 4th graders!

Cody had a rough 7th grade year. Puberty and all - finding his place among boys & girls. Hopefully 8th grade will be better & hopefully he will not be mean to the incoming 7th graders.

Funny Kids

I hope that everyone had a great Memorial Day. It is funny when kids first learn about the holidays and their meaning. They kind of remind you of the meaning. Last week Brayden asked me if I was going to go visit Al Lasiter, a friend that died recently. I told him no that he had passed away. He said I know but it is Memorial Day. Then he asked me if I would go see my Grandpa Goss & I told him that he was in Oregon. Finally he just asked if there was anyone here that I knew that had died that I would go visit and I informed him that there were not, but I did think about my Grandpa & Al on Memorial Day.

Below is a picture of Neviah, my cousin. She is a funny girl. I really do not know what she is doing. She kept playing with the blinds & I told her no then finally I raised the blinds & she decided to play with the cords. And I guess she thought it looked like something that she should put in here ear. She tried to get the other one in the opposite ear, but could not get it to work out.

Oprah Church

Jeremy has been giving me a hard time about Oprah for awhile now. He thought that I received most of my information from Oprah, which is not totally true but I did receive a lot of my relationship information from Oprah. And since he does not like Oprah, that was not a good comment. But she is a good source of information. So I had gone about 3 months without watching Oprah, until last night. Sam was over fixing my sink when he saw that I was watching Oprah & he called it something like Oprah Church. Men, they just don't understand Oprah.

ANYWAY - yesterday on her show she had a bit about spiritual cleansing probably one of the most ridiculous things that I have heard in a long time. But one of points that this lady who is a vegan made about the reason she was a vegan is because she is eating as the type of person she wants to be, a kind, caring person. I just think that is ridiculous. I wanted to ask this lady if she has ever heard of the circle of life. And are the lions out in the jungle being so kind to the animals they are eating. And the main thing is that God him self gave us the animals to eat so how is NOT eating them, cleansing us spiritually? Good for anyone that wants to or can do it, but for me that argument was not persuasive enough to give up beef, pork, fish, chicken, dairy & all other animal products.

But I am trying to go off of fried foods for 21 days. That is one cleansing that I can and should do.

Today on Oprah - OCD Boot camp with Dr. Oz! I am totally excited about that one.

Sophia

This past weekend, I headed up to Chicago for my 2nd Christening. The first one was for Sophia's sister, Jeremy's nieces. Sophia is the baby that was baptised Saturday. Jeremy is the Godfather for Sophia & her sister Amelia. Which I find funny to call him the Godfather all the time because he is Italian. This Christening was better because we did not go to mass with this one. Sorry to all the Catholics out there that might be reading this blog. But I have been to enough masses to last me for a while. And Jeremy is glad that there was no mass too since I had a little spaz session about mass right before we left for the church.

Anyway here we are with Sophia. She really is just adorable.

Mother, Father, Godfather & Godmother with baby.

After the Christening, Daniela's family cooked us a wonderful lunch. Then Jeremy & I left & went to bed like at 9 PM. I was a really lame Saturday night date. Friday night we just went to dinner & to see Baby Mama, which we both really thought it would be. Anyway, we had somewhat of an early, quiet night so we could go out Saturday night, but I fell asleep at 9 PM instead!

Happy Birthday to Holly

Happy Birthday to my bff Holly. This is a picture from last year when we went to Oprah. Sunday was her birthday, but we spent yesterday afternoon together. We went to a Japanese steak house. Yummy. No one thought that I worked there, that is always pleasant. Then we went to see Maid of Honor. I thought it would be a little cheesy. But SOOOOOO funny. There were to other older ladies there & the two of us. We were laughing so loud and so much I'm glad there weren't more people there. We had a really good time.

The Butcher, The Baker & The Candlestick Maker

My Aunt Teri owns a candle shop & they make their own candles. Here is my first attempt at a cut & curl candle:

Notice the right side, the candle piece broke off. Notice the white swirls are coming apart from the red swirl. And the thin little white stripes are supposed to be curled pieces of candle too, but they broke off as well. This is what it is supposed to look like:




Close, right? I know not really. Well, Aunt Teri did tell me later that there was oil in the water that was causing the layers to separate and that I did not warm the "core" enough & that is why it was breaking off. So not too bad for my first try.

60 Years

My grandparents have been married for 60 years!! We celebrated last weekend & here are some pictures from the celebration.

Me and my grandma, doesn't she look beautiful!

OHHH, so cute!

My family! 4 Generations.

Long Lost Blogger

Long time no blog...

Between school, work, Cody's track, Brayden's soccer, Jeremy, houses, 60th Wedding Anniversaries and family in the hospital I really have not had too much time to blog. So I will make up for lost blogging.

I finally sold one of my houses!! I closed on it last week! I have a contract on my other one. And people are already living in it. Jeremy still has his 2.

5 years ago Cody was diagnosed with Kawasaki's Disease. He recently had is last appointment

with the cardiologist which involved a stress test. It was pretty amazing. I'm not sure if you have ever seen a stress test, but I had not. They started him out at a pretty slow speed but at a 10 incline. Every 3 minutes the increased his speed and his incline. He last for 17 minutes. The doctor said that he did great. Most teenagers that are athletic last about 15 minutes. He was very impressed with Cody's effort on the treadmill. He said he did well above average. Needless to say he passed with flying colors. Now he is officially released from doctor's care and has no more follow up visits. He had not had any restrictions since he got sick anyway.

Kiremy

In an effort to keep up the blended name theme like the stars, MrT & I decided that Jeremy & I needed a combined name. So I came up with Kiremy. As many of you know from my myspace. Well I decided to buy Jeremy a Beta Fish or a Japanese Fighting Fish. And I suggested to Jeremy that he name it Kiremy & since he had no other ideas, the fish became Kiremy. Kiremy lives in Chicago with Jeremy. I think that he will take better care of it than I would. Just because he is annal about stuff like that & I get lazy. Hopefully Kiremy lives for a little while. Jeremy went out of town last weekend and Kiremy made it through that too.

I have a teenager?

I can't believe it but 13-years-ago during spring break, I was giving birth to Cody. He turned into a teenager earlier this year. With a little attitude and talking back. He started wearing deodorant, too. I'm glad he doesn't read this. He would be so embarrassed.

Saturday apparently was a busy day for most of his friends so we had a light turn out for his bowling party but it was fun anyway. We had some family, some friends and some friends that are like family.

In the picture below, is Christian, his friend from church.

Sunday we went to a new Japanese Steakhouse for lunch. It was good but not as good as my favorite, Hinode. But we ordered Sushi & I think Cody might be allergic because Monday or Tuesday he developed a rash. Bummer! All in all I think he had a good birthday weekend.