September 11th, 2001, 8:46 a.m. ... Let's not forget.

Woke up this morning, not really thinking about much other than what I need to pack, and how much I need to get done today. I woke up this morning to my precious little girl, Gracie, laying her head on my stomach, jabbering away, trying to stand up in my bed, and just going about her business of waking up her mommy. I got up... went to the bathroom, then changed Grace's diaper and headed out to the family room as usual. I got Grace a bottle and sat down at my computer to see what was going on today with my friends and family. Of course... in the background, I had Curious George on, and still... it hadn't dawned on me. I opened up my browser... and this is what I saw:

It wasn't until I had turned the channel a few minutes later, did I realize what day it was. I mean... honestly, it was a good 10 minutes after I had changef the channel, did it even dawn on me. I don't really know what I am getting at, but I think that it is important that we remember. I am not trying to be weird or anything, but it just seems strange that, for nearly 45 minutes, browsing the internet, listening to the tv, and just being awake, all that I could find on my homepage was this tiny blip on the screen:

No pictures.... not much other than that tiny link on the main page.

Where were you? I was at work... I had just gone into the bathroom at my work, Trinity, and when I came out, no one was at their desks, and for a split second, I thought that maybe the Lord had returned and I was in Left Behind... now, I am saved and I know it sounded silly, but your mind works that way sometimes. Anyway.... I got to my desk and that is when I saw everyone standing in the break room and that is when I heard the news.

Let's never forget....

2975... this is the number of people that died on this day.... just 7 years ago.

2751 alone... in the World Trade Centers.

It doesn't matter when you are reading this, please take a moment to say a prayer, not only for the families that are still dealing with this painful memory and changed their lives forever, but... for our country. You know... I am not trying to be politcal, or anything like that, but we have a very important election coming up and living in a post 9-11 world, who is going to keep us safe? More importantly... who is going to keep our children safe?

Thanks for indulging me!

Vacation...

Hello everyone! I am so excited.... I am on my way to Florida in just 2 days! Yeah!!!! Destin... here we come. It is just me and my girl and my mom and 10 of my wonderful cousins! This is going to be such a cool girl trip+1 boy... Tyler, who is just 6 months old! I will have a ton of pics when I get back, and will bore you all with them asap! So... I might try to post some old pics from my past trips before I leave, but if not, then I will talk to you all when I get back!

Love ya's!
Gracie's momma!

No... I do not have too much time on my hands!

Ok, so I know that I have bombarding my page with collages, and edited pics lately, but I have been so enthused the last few days, so please just bare with me! You ever have one of those moments, when you want to say one thing, but you can't think of that word at all, and then you have to say something else entirely! That just happened to me... actually it is still happening to me. I want to say ______, but the only think I could think of was, bare with me. That is totally not what I want to say... anyway... Doug said that it is indulge me, but I am not sure that is it either. Oh well... the brain of a momma, I guess. Anyway... my newest creations....



These are some collages, edits that I have done from Doug's cousin Michelle's wedding a few weeks ago. Let me know what you think!

More fun with Editing...

Ok, so now that I have figured out how to do this really fun editing trick.... I am going to use it til it is so old and am sick of it. But, until that time... here are some more edits that I have come up with! :) My favorite is definitely the one with Grace and me... that background was a complete accident! LOL! Enjoy!

I saw this somewhere... so I tried it.

Ok, so I was browsing this website of a photographer... which I often do, and I decided to try to copy what they did. The first couple of times... I didn't really get it. However, finally after brainstorming and finally figuring out my program... I did it! Now... I am slightly addicted to doing this to the program. Let me know what you think! :)

In the dog house(literally!)...

OK, so seriously... Doug went in there of his own accord. I didn't make him, and actually... I found him in here like this.

He told me yesterday that he was bringing in all the dogs, so I just figured that it was because of the severe heat. When I came out of the bathroom, he asked me to watch Honey, our yellow lab, and Gracie out in the family room. So, I said sure, no problem. Needless to say... I came into the family room. He said that he was going to put the flea treatment on them, but seriously, I was not expecting that! I still can't help but chuckle at these pictures. Anyway... if there is one thing I can say about Doug... he loves his dogs!

In Loving Memory...

This is an article posted on my old school's website... I didn't have Mrs. Spahr, however, I remember that she was an amazing teacher and wished that I had her when I was in second Grade. She will be missed.

In loving memory.....
We are all mourning the loss of our beloved Elementary teacher, Mrs. Charleen Spahr. She lost her battle with cancer on Monday, September 1, 2008. Charleen taught second grade at CNE Elementary for the past 28 years. She was a CNE graduate and community member involved in many activities. She always put the kids first and everyone loved her. In her honor and memory Spahr's Stars will be walking in the Susan G. Komen "Race for the Cure" 5K Sunday, Sept. 14, in Mason. For more information about the walk and what you can do please read the Community Press article here. Counselors and teachers are available to help students deal with their grief and loss.

Please, do not think less of me after you read this(or hold it against me or Terah... we can not help ourselves!)...

So, tonight is the night that we have been waiting for. I would say that we have been waiting months and months, but in all honesty, we have truly been waiting 15 years for this night. Now... again, I must caution, please, remember on the outside, yes, I am 31 years old, am married, and have a one year old child who is safely tucked into her bed. However, on the inside, I am still that 13 year old girl that has a crush on 5 guys that sing, and dance. So, again, I ask that you please do not hold this against me. Please... do not think less of me. The only thing I can ask, please just take me as I am... a big silly teenage girl(on the inside!).

Tonight... we began our adventure at 11:40 pm. Yes... we actually left my house at 11:40 and set out to retrieve a very important piece of merchandise, the new New Kids on the Block CD, "The Block"(and, yes, we listened to it all the way home, and are still listening to it as I type this very post). Of course, before we left my house, I was trying to get things in order here, and decided that, even though it would be very unlikely that I would run into anyone that I knew at Wal-mart at midnight, I needed to put some makeup on. When asked by my sweet, loving, patient and understanding hubby why I would actually need to put makeup on at this time of the night, I of course responded with... "we are taking pictures, that's why." Duh...

So... to start you off, here is the first picture of the night. We had just entered Wal-mart, and let me tell you, this is not Terah and my first Midnight adventure to get an important CD. We have done this for 3 previous CD's... Backstreet Boys of course. We now just consider those adventures as a trial run for this important and monumental CD search. Now, we have very seldom had any luck at Wal-mart(even though my friend Tracy says that they have everything... it just isn't usually available at Midnight!).

As soon as we got there, around 11:55 pm, we headed back to the Entertainment/Media section. We circled the department twice, just to be sure that we hadn't missed anything and when we came up empty handed, we realized that we would, once again, have to ask someone if they actually knew the whereabouts of this precious piece of merchandise. So... being the outgoing chicken that I am, I shoved Terah toward the closest Midnight worker we could find, and to our surprise(actually... I am being sarcastic... this really didn't surprise us at all!) we were laughed at! Yes... the lady actually could have been our mom and basically said, "I hated them when my kids loved them, and I hate them now..." She did however find someone to help us. The person that came over to help was actually nice, and said that she had had quite a few calls about this CD and when it would be arriving. We were happy to know that we weren't alone in this! :)

The girl that we talked to actually said that it would be about 15 minutes before someone would be there, but they would have it out as soon as they got there. Terah and I both got giddy with excitement... so what else could we do, but shop.

We started out at the shoe section, where Terah found her a nice pair of gym shoes for work. Now... when she is at work, she will be Gelling! (yes... that is a plug for Dr. Scholl's! LOL!) Then, of course I could not go to Wal-mart without checking out the little girl clothes. I found Grace a nice pair of jammies for our vacation in 2 weeks, and also some more rubber bands. Did I mention... I can put Grace's hair in piggy tales now? Ok... Candace... Focus, back to the subject at hand.

Anyway, so after that, we decided to head back to the CD section and they still didn't have it out. By now, it was way past the 10 to 15 minute timeline we had been given, so... we decided that we would go once around the store and if they didn't have it out by the time that we reached the back of the store, we would head to our backup store... Meijer, and we just didn't want to do that. So, we headed up to the groceries, where I found the new Fiber One Granola bars in caramel... yummy! Anyways... we then headed to our other favorite isle in the store, the shampoo and hairspray isle. We stood there for about 10 minutes smelling these really yummy conditioners... and I know you are asking... Yummy? But, these smelled like chocolate, coconut, and shea butter. We were in love! After that we headed on back to the CD's again... by now, they had to have the cd out. Well... they didn't have it on the shelves yet, but it was there. There was a different lady in the isle and when we stopped... she gave us a smile and said... 'let me guess'... and pulled out the cd. Of course, it was the regular edition and we wanted the deluxe... thankfully, she had that too! :) So... it was nearly 12:45 a.m. when we had this masterpiece in our hands. Of course, you would think that we would have gone straight to the checkout counter, bought the CD, ran to the car and slapped that sucker into the non working cd player in my car, only to remember that my Cd player was not working, then rip it out of there, and put it into Terah's Cd player and make a way for both of us to listen to it. But... instead we decided to stop in the middle of the store and have a photo shoot of us with our newest prized possessions. Here are the results of that glorious first few moments....

OK, so this is the first photo we took with our CD.... however... when Terah started to take my picture... we saw someone coming and didn't want to be embarrassed(yes... at this point I am still not embarrassed), so we ducked into the nearest isle and it happened to be the flowers... of course, the photographer in me said, "ooohh... cool backdrop!"

So... here I am with my really pretty backdrop! LOL!
Of course, then I had to take some of Terah in front of the pretty flowers...
Then, some of us together....

Then... a few of us... should I say.... EXCITED?

Finally... we realized that it was time to head up to the checkout. We excitedly made our way up there, trying to make it look like we actually had other reasons to come out and pick up a few things, but looking into the cart, I don't really think that is truly believable. Here is a picture:

However(yes... I know I say however a lot... but this is the last time, I promise!) there is actually more in the cart than you can see. Here is what I see: 1 pair of 3T jammies- $3.00, 1 package of baby girl hair rubber bands, $2.92, 2 boxes of Fiber One toaster pastries-$1.98 each, 2 boxes of Fiber One Granola bars- $2.50 each, 2 packages of Bonne Bell lip gloss-$2 each, 1 pair of Dr. Scholl's Gym Shoe's-$27.00, 1 package of Always pads-$5.54(we had a hard time deciding if Terah was getting the CD to cover up the fact that she was buying pads, or buying pads to cover up the fact that she was buying the CD... you be the judge...JK), 2 New Kids on the Block CD's-$14.88 each. 2 friends... who had one heck of a time laughing, reminiscing.... and just hanging out like in the "olden days".... PRICELESS!!!!

The end... well, not really... here is one more example of why I hope you won't stop being my friend.... Watch this:








See... I just beg that you don't show this to our mom's! Love ya's!
Candace and Terah!