Aaaaccchhooo!

Bless you, or as C.J. used to say when he was little "flush you". Poor Chuckie has been sneezing so bad this past couple of months. It's driving Kyle crazy! And it's thanks to all these beautiful flowers in bloom. Sad that something so pretty could tickle your nose so intensly! These tulips are on my front porch and the African daisies are covering many of my neighbors yards. I just had to post a few of the flowers around our place, they are so pretty and last such a short time. I'm enjoying them, but . . . ah . . . ah . . . whew!

Brandee's Birthday! (woohoo 19 Big Ones!)

Just some cute pictures of our beautiful Brandee on her special day! She celebrated with friends till long after midnight, then after a few hours of sleep, went with a friend to watch the sunrise on her special day! (sounds like college age life to me - no sleep!) Later we'll have Crab & Steaks (her favorite) and Cake & Ice Cream!
A cute story about Brandee. She loved crab from about 5 years old. (THAT was our mistake - letting her taste it!) She'd talk about it all the time, wanting us to make it for her. We couldn't really afford to have it be a regular dinner item, but we decided on her 7th birthday we'd take her to a fancy seafood restaraunt, Laundry's, and then go see Beauty and the Beast at Gammage.
We got to Laundry's and couldn't wait to see how much she was going to love this birthday dinner. Well she decided she was not in the mood for crab that night, so she is one of the rare few who has had a corndog at Laundry's. From then on she decided she loved Corndogs rather than Crab! However, she wouldn't go for corndogs for dinner tonight! (DARN)

What brings home the bacon

I realized I've never written about our company. The other love of my hubby's life. We've had our company, C.B. Contracting, Inc. for over 13 years now, and started a sister company called K-12 Defense Consultants. I put that logo on cuz it looks cooler than C.B.'s logo. I know it sounds like something education related, but it is the highest crash rating system for a barrier which is pretty much what we do now; install barriers at different government facilities. We have done work at military bases, federal reserve buildings, FBI, court houses, dams, police stations, car rental places, etc. It's amazing to think of how our business has grown and changed, from cutting concrete, to doing curbs & gutters in the 80's & 90's and now to anti-terrorist security. From our office being in our laundry room, then bedroom, then home office, to a real away from home office. We have really been blessed by God with work to keep us busy, great employees who work hard, and talented office staff. Stephanie at the office is working right now on our website, which you can link to at the right top corner links. I'll have to post some pictures of our staff on here too. Just over a year ago it was only Danny, Josie and I in the office, while Chuck and the other guys were working abroad (Japan, Guam, England, etc.) We were so crazy busy and understaffed I thought I'd loose my mind. I've been doing the bookkeeping for a long time now, and we've just grown to where I needed some serious help. Along came Stephanie, and "she completes me", or at least lets me focus more on the accounting (which BTW Paul is studying in school & which I hope he'll take over for me someday)
We also get to share the office with Curt, Chuck's brother and his company. They've got a great bunch of people too. Sometimes we all re-enact scenes from "The Office" and have great laughs. Josie plays jokes on Brenda (she's Jim), Stephanie has wadded paper she throws at Danny, and Danny has hidden my cell phone in the past. I didn't punch a hole in the wall though. At times we all watch Chuck when he falls asleep in his chair, and laugh when he starts snoring! No he really works hard, and we appreciate him so much. He was really inspired to get into something more specialized. He's a genius when it comes to thinking up how to do things. I just love his engineering mind! Chuck has been pretty excited lately because they are working on changing the operations of the barriers in a way that will save money in maintenance on the systems as well as be more environmentally safe (GREEN is in!) Hopefully it will make us some GREEN, and keep us in operations through this tough economy.

Incredible (edible) Snow

Okay, this maybe a very "flakey" post, but I just have to say that snowflakes are an amazing miracle! We just got back from visiting Paul and Skye in Utah, and I could not help being fasinated by the snow! I was hoping to see it fall from the sky (something I've only seen a few times in my life) and Heavenly Father did provide that tender mercy for me. (I know, I know, what about all the Utahans that are sick of it? Well that extra snow was for me!) Skye even said she couldn't believe it was snowing this much. I stood on their back porch yesterday gathering snowflakes on a black kitchen towel and inspecting them, then scooping up the soft white fluff into a cup and eating it. (I sure hope their neighbors weren't watching) We have to pay for "Snowies" in Arizona. (I just wish they'd have had some syrup to go on it) Chuck did it too! He really got into some snowball fights. I'm glad the little neighbor boys came around, I was tired of getting hit in the head! Anyway look at this picture! How can you not know there is a God in Heaven when you see this intricate detail?

Ode to My Love

On this Valentine's Day I must tell my love Thank You for putting up with me for all these years! I know at times I can be a pain. (to think of someone who wouldn't just love roses on Valentines Day or a trip to Hawaii! BTW I get roses on our anniversary and love it) I think back at all the years, 26 to be exact. In some ways I can't believe it's been that long, in other ways it already feels like eternity. I've lived with him longer than I ever lived without him, and the years keep going, faster and faster. How blessed I am to spend them with you! You make me laugh, you take good care of me. You genuinely want me to be happy. You work hard, and you play hard. You help me to play too. I see you now as a grandpa and it warms my heart. You are so much more relaxed with Charlie than you were with our babies. Yet I remember one time in the delivery room, you snuggled close to my face and said "this is the greatest moment. I love this moment, and want to do it again!" Right then I just couldn't quite agree with you, but now I do. . . not . . that we'd ever be there again now, but you know what I mean. There have been many defining moments and will be more.

Grow Old With Me, The Best is Yet to Be!

What a Game!

That was an amazing game! Charlie thought so too. He got so into it, as you can tell by the video. Kinda like his dad and papa. (sorry it's sideways, if anyone knows how to change it leave me a post) This is when he was happy before Papa scared him with his yelling! Here's how much I know about football; when we were ahead with like 2:45 left, I'm thinking "yah, we just gotta hold em for 2 more minutes!" I had no idea they could do all that in 2 minutes! And that was NOT a fumble at the end! We were exhausted after watching the game. Would have been a good exhaustion if we'd have won, but oh well, it was fun!

Obama has begun

I just have to say a blip about this big inauguration week! It was a proud moment for the US of America. Even if we didn't vote for him, nor want him as Chief Executive of our great nation, we must stand behind him now, and pray for the best. I watched at the office on the CNN online (thanks to Steph) which streamed it in conjunction with Facebook. That meant anyone with a Facebook account could make comments throughout. There were 1000 messages a minute coming on the screen, and it was interesting to see some of them. I was a little worried about those people who seem to think he is a God "Obama, Obama, He will save us!" Also sad were all the people saying rude things about Bush. But all in all it was neat to see that as a nation we had a lot of patriotic pride for that day. I was amazed at how many people were there and glad that no terrorist decided to pick on Washington DC right then. Also very happy that they still had an invocation and wonderful patriotic, "God in the lyrics" music. I believe there are still a lot of good people in this great nation founded on Christian principles, and we'll do our darndest to hang on to them!

Charlie Meets Gavin & Jaydon

Nikki & Shaun were here with the boys last weekend from Seattle (for those who don't know Nikki is Jenny's birth sister) We had the best time and finally got all these grandbabies together! Brandee says "Charlie this is Gavin" - "I'd rather look at pretty Aunt Nikki" says Charlie

"And I'd rather look at my puppy feetie jammies" says Gavin (held by Aunt Stephanie)

"Hey, those are cool, I gotta get me a pair"

"So this is your brother Jaydon? He's big" -"Yah, hey, both of you check out my feeties again?"

"I gotta help these little guys out - Let me tell ya how to handle these adults always takin pictures"

Just a side note . . .

Okay, I want to acknowledge that I love my girls with all my heart. After that last entry you could be wondering. They are beautiful, and strong and have good hearts. They both care a lot about other people (and some day they'll care about my sanity - who wants a senile grandma for their kids?)My hats off to you guys with many girls (Camette, Curt, Clint, Derrick, DeeDee, etc.) How do you do it?

Girls #!$^#%&!!!!

Why are girls so hard??? I really think they have a plot to drive me insane! It's not that what they do is so bad, it's that they make no sense, they raise my emotions to enormous levels, and I just can't figure them out! . . . I don't know! I ask my mom if I was like this. She said I just cried a lot. I could handle a crier. I could just hug and comfort till the cows come home! . . . . (the Lord must want me to learn more than that)

You know, snakes and snails and puppy dog tails sound gross, but Sugar makes you fat, and Spice gives you heartburn!

We're goin to the Superbowl!

Can you believe it?
Last night we went to Trey Bashas house to see Vai, (this is Jill with Vai) and you shoulda heard all the bantering between Cardinal fans and Philly fans (Vai's whole camera crew was there) They kept chanting the Eagles fight song. Now Vai is here on official business for NBC from Philadelphia so he had to be that way, although I heard in his interviews he was teasing about being for the Cardinals. Well I wonder how he's doing this afternoon! It was so fun to see him again. He's such a great guy and introduced us to all his friends. It was neat to meet the Bashas, and I told them we know Don Grace, they love that guy (he's our neighbor who has worked for Bashas forever!) They were such down to earth people. We got talking parenting, gospel & politics. I wish his dad would run again. It was a good time. . . . Well I gotta go settle Chuck down, he's like a little kid on Christmas, he's so excited! I must say I was proud of him. He got all the way through priesthood opening exercises before he left for home. That's more than I can say about some of my beehives - 3 of my girls didn't show up cuz they left for the game!

Simon & the 3 Wise Men

I have to admit I'm sad to take all the Christmas decorations down. I am really dragging my feet on it. See I haven't even changed my background yet (never mind that I can't remember how, and that blog background site is down) I have friends who can't wait to get things back to normal and have them down the day after New Years (and that's even painful for them to wait that long) but I know there are others, like me, who hate to take it down. It means the festivities are over, and back to normal life. I did refrain from playing that song "I cry the day I take the Christmas tree down". That really is a song.
I came across a few scriptures though that have helped me get through this. Simon in the temple waited all his life to see the Christ child, but he wasn't there that Christmas night. He was days, weeks or even months after that. He had Christmas rejoicing in his heart when he finally saw that baby. And then there were the wise men. We know they didn't see the Christ child for like 3 years. They were probably riding those camels, singing Christmas carols and drinking eggnog that whole time! I think we should leave it all up and celebrate Christmas for 3 years at a time! (that would give me a lot longer to shop)