Hello (Taps on screen), you there?

Howdy, my name is Sharon. You may remember me from some snarky posts way back when, but I am finally back! Seriously. No, really, I am. So right after school ended, I taught a summer school class for 3 weeks in June. It was fun and all, but I was definitely ready for my official summer to begin! Now I have NO obligations and complete freedom for the next 6-7 weeks! Whohoo!

We have officially booked our San Antonio trip as well! We are so excited! You may remember me telling you how much Makayla is into sea animals right now, so this is gonna be so awesome for her! As a little preview, we took her this past weekend to the Downtown Aquarium, and man did she have a good time! We actually got to pet stingrays! STINGRAYS PEOPLE!! It was so awesome!! They are so soft! I couldn't believe it!! We also got to see tigers, sharks, sawfish, an octopus, and lots of other animals! By the time we left, poor Makayla was exhausted.
I even bought a new camera for our trip. My other digital was starting to get really slow when taking pics, even if I had an empty memory card and my pics are also getting blurry! So I bought a newer version of my old one and it is nice! I will definitely post some pics when we get back!

So we are 2 days away from July 4th! I love this holiday! We are getting together with all our friends to grill some good food, swim and watch some fireworks! What are you all doing for the 4th?

Out of the mouths of babes...

I have learned that as my daughter gets older, her speech and understanding also get more advanced, but not only that, she gets funnier and funnier as the weeks pass. Makayla has always been a ham of sorts and loves to make us laugh. Up until recently, she would mostly resort to funny noises or faces to accomplish this goal, but this week she has taken it to a whole new level. Here are some things we have heard come out of her mouth just this week alone:

"Look Mommy, I snort when I laugh!" (Starts laughing then stops to purposely snort, then resumes laughing.)

Before I tell you the next one, I do have to explain the back story. We have a mocking bird that lives in our backyard. They are notoriously territorial and our neighbor lets her cat run free about 90% of the time. So anytime that cat is out, that bird just goes nuts and squawks and dive bombs that cat until it leaves the area. All this occurs unfortunately outside Makayla's window since her bedroom is in the back of our house. So early yesterday morning, as Phil and I are laying in bed, we hear over the monitor-
"HUSH YOU BIRDS! YOU'RE MAKING TOO MUCH NOISE AND I AM TRYING TO SLEEP!!"
I think Phil and I laughed no less than 15 min. straight....

"Jumping jellyfish, look at all these sea animals."

"Oh fish paste."

"Mommy, I need to talk to you. Outside."

"Look Mommy, the sun is going to sleep and the moon is waking up!"

So yeah, that is what is going on in our house right now! Ha! We love the fact that we just never know what might come out of her mouth!
Hope you all are enjoying the beginning of summer!

I'm Baaacckk!!

Well hi there! (waving) How are you doing? You remember me right? RIGHT?! (Sigh) Oh good.. I have officially returned my friends! This month has been a roller coaster of events that have literally kept me busy ALL THE TIME! But school is over and we got through my brother's wedding and now I am FREE! I have the whole summer to relax and enjoy my precious little girl and family! That is a great feeling! Since I know you inquiring minds want to know just what kept me from you this last month, here goes:

My brother and his now wife (Hi Chris and Jen!!) got married on May 2 down in Galveston! It was a beautiful wedding and lots of fun too! We spent the whole weekend down there and a good time was had by all! We got to take Makayla to the Aquarium for the first time and I swear, I thought she would have a heart attack. Did I mention that she is REALLY into sea animals right now?? She got to see sharks (her favorite thing of the moment) and sting rays and just lots of other sea life.

Mother's Day was also this month so there was lots of spending time with Moms and Memaws.

2 weeks before school ended, my computer decided to rebel against me. Let me explain...every year my end of the year gift is to make every parent a DVD of all the pictures I have taken throughout the year and I set it to cute music. This year however, the program I use decided to not cooperate which caused the following:
- Went out and bought a new external DVD/CD burning device
- Had to install a new movie making software on my computer
- Successfully burned a CD, but computer refused to burn it on a DVD
- Had to go out and buy a new DVD player for the house because I broke ours in frustration
- Tried to play the successfully burned CD on new DVD player only to have it say
"Disc Error"
- Had a meltdown due to the stress
- Went to neighbor's house and the CD did play on her DVD player! REJOICE!
- Finally burned the rest of the CD's and gave them to the parents! Whohoo!!

Went to a wedding the weekend after my brother's for a coworker of mine. It was beautiful and again, a good time was had by all!

1 week before my brother got married, we had a really nasty torrential rainstorm here in Houston and lots of homes got flooded. Ours did not, but my parents whole first floor was under water. It was a mess. After we got through the wedding and they had someone come out and take a look, they decided to basically gut the house and renovate it! It is going to look completely different! So for the last week, we have been helping them move everything out into a rent house. (Which has a pool! YES!!) Yesterday they started demolition... crazy.

School ended and it was an emotional event. We had a really great group of kiddos this year and some will not be returning to the school next year, so it was very hard to say goodbye.

So that has pretty much been my month! I have missed you all dear readers! Now I want to know what your summer plans are this year!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's Day everyone! Especially to my momma, who has always been my friend, disciplinarian, chef, driver, my biggest fan and supporter. I love you Mom!

Give a little.. take a lot

Ok, I am about to scream. I went to my Dr. this morning and I am just SO frustrated. Basically what has happened is that since he takes blood EVERY month to check my thyroid levels, my insurance only pays a small part of the blood work bill and I have to pay the rest. Well in Jan. I went to my Dr. and they informed me that I had some HUGE balance due. Yeah, $1100 worth! It was from all the blood work from Aug. 08 to Dec. 08 and they just decided to tell me about it! UGH! So I have been on a payment plan with them paying off a little each month. Well, I go in this morning because of course, my Dr. wanted me to fast last night and he was going to be doing some blood work this morning. I get in there and the receptionist is like, oh, you know you have a big balance right? I was like, yeah, I am paying that off each month. She says, No, something else just came through and it's like $900!!! I was like, what?!?! She says the billing lady wants to talk to you. Double UGH. So I go talk to Sandy (billing lady) and she is like- well because you are already on a payment plan for the other balance, I can't add this new amount to that. So I asked what my options are and she says, well I can't allow you to see the Dr. again until this $900 is paid off!!!! I was about to explode right there. So basically I told her that I taught summer school and it pays pretty well and that I could pay it off in June, but not before then. So she says, well, I will let you see the Dr. today, but then you can't come back until you pay that off. UUUGGGHHHHH. So I paid a little on the balance today and then I told the Dr. everything that was going on. I told him exactly what Sandy had told me and he was like, "But if your levels still aren't straight, you really need to come back and see me." And I was like, well Sandy won't allow me to. And the Dr. responds with, Well, I would hate if you had to start seeing another Dr. WHAT? So now they are just gonna drop me after all this??? I am so MAD!! Basically we left it that he will let me know what all my blood work reveals next week and we will go from there. If the levels seem ok, then he will just wait until June to see me again. Can I just tell you how much I hate all this insurance CRAP?!?!?!?! So freaking ridiculous!!

All I am trying to do is get myself healthy, but of course the politics of it all gets in the way. What in the world is the point of health insurance if when you use it, they make it so expensive that people can't even go to the Dr. to fix themselves?! Ok, I will stop now. If you need me, I'll be drowning my sorrows....