the horizon.....

big-fun-exciting-new....things on the horizon.................................................


i'm an official DISD substitute! i gave my two weeks notice at the baby store today and will hope to start subbing full time in about 2 weeks. now don't worry....my new career will not be substitute teaching.....this is just my foot in the door for a counseling position.

i am considering going back to school to get my teaching certification so that i can be a counselor in public schools.....i am also going to sub in private schools in and around Dallas.....hopefully they will see how great I can be in their school home and give me a counseling job!

as i am sure you would assume....orie has been exceptionally wonderful throughout my career dilemmas.....hopefully this is the last step in the right direction and i will be back in a school soon....wish me luck!

babies, parties and babies

I have had so much fun lately with all the special occasions going on... Last weekend I headed to Shreveport for my bestie's baby shower and my sister's wedding shower. What more could a girl ask for on a Saturday?

Carie's shower was perfect.....we had such a great group of hostesses and I really think everything turned out great. I so wish I had pics to show but oh well....go on FB and I am sure you can find something! She got some adorable presents....many of which I totally approved of....!!!!! Lee and Pink Slip Gourmet did an amazing job with the food and presentation. We hope to steal some of those yummies down the road!

That evening I celebrated with Kat and Josh and some of their friends at a couples shower. It was such a fun evening and obviously another wonderful reason to celebrate. No pics of that either....:( We did have some delicious food and great new party recipe ideas...I am sure I will share some of those later too!

Orie had to stay with Grace in Dallas for the weekend while she is recovering. We missed him but I am sure he enjoyed having a little alone time. I am also sure that he got in a little computer gaming time as well!!!

This weekend I celebrated some more! Carie drove over to Dallas and we went to a baby shower for Kaysie. It was lovely as well and so fun to see some old TCU friends. She got some great presents....of course I don't buy off registry since I have so many wonderful "pretty" baby gifts at my fingertips.....hope sweet baby Emily enjoys spitting up on beautiful bibs and burps - cause I love to give them!

After the shower Carie and I went full force to finish off Charlie's nursery and baby gear. I would say we did quite well. She saved a ton of money with coupons because we were smart shoppers! We only had to stop at the glider section one time for a break and didn't even need a coke until our 2nd to last stop.....I would say that is pretty impressive! It was really hard to shop all day with someone and not buy anything though...I tried to sneak in a sweater and hat set for Charlie but Carie said he has plenty.....boo....I tried Charlie!

Orie was a good sport putting up with our nonsense....he helped move gear from my car to Carie's car....grilled some fabulous yummies for our Friday night dinner....rented our movie Saturday night from Apple t.v. and again enjoyed some computer gaming time while we ran our errands Saturday.....I am sure he was not complaining about me being gone!

We hope your last few weeks have been fun....what have you been up to?

Red Sox

Wow - what fun our Red Sox weekend was! (a little behind on the post.....)

We had fabulous tickets to the Red Sox vs. Rangers on Saturday, August 14th. We were in the Lexus club level seats and it was FABULOUS.....thanks dad for the awesome hook up!

Orie's mom headed over Saturday morning for the big game. During the day we stopped by Children's Medical Center to see where Audrey works....very impressive. It is a beautiful hospital for children and she seems to really love her job there. Go nurse audrey! We grabbed some lunch at Highlands Cafe....hit up Stein Mart (one of our favs) and headed back to the house to get ready for the game.

It was H-O-T but that didn't ruin our fun. We stayed the whole game and cheered on Lester and the whole Red Sox team. They even pulled out a win which was the only one of the series....I guess we picked the right day to go. What a fun night....enjoy some pics!

walking in to the game

our seat area....right in front of the press boxes....

getting ready to go....

the field....

my fav....Big Papi

Red Sox dugout...

Party Pic....

orie and di....

a thought from 6 years ago.....

Six years ago today I lost a dear friend after he gave the fight of his life against cancer...I never really thought it could happen which shows just how precious life really is. Let his life and death remind us to live each day to the fullest....and never have any regrets.

May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face. And until we meet again, until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Random...a glimpse of our world....

I eat peanut butter sandwiches for lunch....I only like them if they are cold....

Our mail doesn't come until after I get home from work.....

Our dog has more toys than I have shoes....

We love soft light energy efficient light bulbs.....much better than bright white....

My dog's cone head has given me more bruises than any athletic sport I have ever participated in....

Orie steels my pillow from me every night after I fall asleep....

We give our dog three different eye drops, six times a day....

In my house, the bed has to be made for me to feel complete....at my parents...it's never made

Orie has more laundry in one week than Diana does...

Our entire house is painted the same color....skyline steel

I will search for at least fifteen minutes to find an online coupon code....

Orie could care less about a sale....

The Office is our all time favorite t.v. show to watch together....

Orie can't sleep without a glass of water before bed and on his bedside table....

I hate overhead lights....would much prefer lamps.....

On the flip side....I hate dark rooms....need great light...

Our washing machine is Energy Efficient...there's not enough water to clean stuff properly....bummer....

Orie loves candied figs....

I have "quiet time" from 9:00 a.m until 9:25 a.m. where I check my e-mail, internet, banking and get ready for the day....

Orie makes fun of said "quiet time"

Orie has a hard time coming up with these random glimpses into our world....

Gift Wrap

I love gift wrap.....especially my new favorite wrapping paper from Hobby Lobby. I bought some last year for Christmas and another generic roll for gifts....well it is almost out. I have been calling Hobby Lobby for the last month hounding them about when their gift wrap would be out on the floor (I bought it last year in July!). Finally, the girl said that it was out on the floor. I immediately went out to our local Hobby Lobby and bought up all my favorites. This year we are going lime greens, hot pinks and turquoises for our Christmas gift wrap....and I am so excited!


I still have to go back and get a generic roll and ribbon for year round gifts....that's how amazing this wrapping paper is! So head over to your Hobby Lobby and get your gift wrap soon! Don't forget your coupon!!!!

Happy gift wrapping!

Weekend Fun.....

Wow....we have really had a lot of fun over the last several weekends! Let me back up to the last weekend of July......

The V. family headed to the Big D for some shopping, some kid time and some adult time at Javier's. They headed over on Friday and we hit the ground running.....towards Snider Plaza at least. We popped in HHH and N&D for Jen to take a peak and for the girls to meet those sweet nephews I speak about. E was shy at first and C held tight in his daddy's arms! We had fun walking around to a couple of shops in the 100 degree weather! After that we headed home to play a little bit and then get ready for more company. Amy brought the boys over to play a little bit and have some mommy vino time. CJT and E had snack time and played a little bit....everyone else enjoyed having some sweet CWT time. Kat and Josh came over that evening and Orie finally made it home from work. We had a great dinner....and our first at the dining room table - it was so fun! Central Market prepared some great chicken breasts on the grill....I made the infamous hash brown potato casserole.....grilled vegetables (which were almost forgotten).....and a Central Market prepared spinach salad.....delish.....I also had a freshly baked bunt cake for dessert. What a fun evening!

e...slam dunking on our goal....

Don't worry....the fun did not stop there....Saturday morning we were up and ready to head to the Dallas Aquarium. It was amazing.....for kids, adults, everyone! E and C had a great time with jungle animals, swamp animals and ocean critters.....there was really a wide variety of critters...and tons of mammals (that is for the REV)!!!!!

After the aquarium we had to Baker Brothers for lunch and then home so the boys....little boys....could nap. Rod and Orie went to the mall....yes the mall....to do a little sunglasses shopping and then came back to relieve us girls. We then booked it to North Park and it was a very successful trip! Jen found several dresses for some upcoming events and even got some great deals. It was a killer sale....just wish we had known about it sooner:(


That evening we beautified ourselves for an evening at Javier's (a fav of Jen and Rod). Amy and Joe pretended that they were part of our sisters weekend and joined us too....it was perfect and so much fun. Don't worry....we did leave the boys with proper child care!

di and orie

jen and rod

amy and joe

kat and josh


kat, jen, di.....sisters

jen and amy....look at their fun orange shoes!

the v and t family.....former dallas neighbors....life long friends

The next day we woke up and started getting ready for everyone to head home:(

Jen made a final run to Whole Foods for some organic goods and we mellowed at the house with everyone until the final moments of fun. It was such a great weekend full of fun, family, friends and lots of laughter. We love company....so come back any time!

lazy sunday....e, kat and snoozing josh

Our next weekend was fabulous as well. A few of my high school girl friends got together in Dallas for a girls/husbands included weekend! Carie and Travis drover over....Amy and Andrew were in the south for their summer visit....and the rest of us gals/husbands.....Lee and Brad....Frannie and Mark..... live in the metroplex. We met Saturday for lunch at Baker Brothers and just talked and talked and talked. We laughed and told some really fun stories. We did have to leave because we had a shopping mission.....Carie was looking for some cute dresses to wear for some upcoming baby showers.....We headed over to a few maternity stores and then the mall. Let's just say we weren't successful in finding the cute dresses but did have a successful shopping trip to the LV store! Such fun!

The boys spent their afternoon at Top Golf.....from what we know....they had a blast.....not sure they can tell all of their stories!

That evening we beautified ourselves again and headed to McKinney for a fabulous evening at Frannie and Mark's house. Frannie had cooked an amazing spread and had the house all set up for a fun night. The boys played ping pong, beer pong, the guitar, you name it.....us gals reminisced, watched videos, flipped through pictures and remembered moment after moment and told story after story. It was amazingly perfect and I think we decided we should make this an annual thing. It was so refreshing to get together as girlfriends and have your husbands all mesh so well....perfection!

the only party pic of the night.....amy and frannie

Again, we watched our sweet visitors pack up and go home on Sunday....the worst:(

Thanks for coming to Dallas friends....I loved every moment!

Now don't worry.....we have visitors again this weekend and can't wait. Orie's mom is headed over shortly for a fun Dallas weekend. We have a Red Sox game tonight....amazing....and then the rest of our time is up for whatever. More to come on that.....

The Recovery

I promise....we do have other things going on besides sweet Grace....I will get to those posts a little later on this week. We have had some fabulous visitors lately and lots of fun weekends.

For now....Grace's recovery....

I picked her up yesterday and basically had to carry her to the car. She was so drugged and out of it. Her sweet little eyes were shut most of the time and she just plopped down wherever and slept. It was quite sad. Her eye drop schedule was in full force and she squirmed the worst ever when we gave them to her (3 drops....both eyes....6 times daily....). She was definitely a sad little girl to watch. We think she slept well but we surely didn't. Every time we heard her "cone" aka Elizabethan collar move we got so nervous that she was trying to "paw" it off.....which she probably was of course! The vet said that if she gets out of the collar and rubs her eyes that she could do serious damage and ruin the surgery in a matter of 30 seconds. Since our little mischievous pup has gotten her way out of several of these types of collars in the past, we are a little edgy about it.

Today Orie took her back to the clinic for her follow up visit. She will stay all day again and they will monitor her and make sure she is reacting as expected. All in all, the doctor said everything went great and she was looking good. We even think that she was able to see a little bit today. She walked outside pretty well and ran straight towards me when I got her peanut butter out with her medicine. We are going to call that progress!

Have a happy Tuesday......

Sweet Grace (part deux)

Grace is a candidate for cataract surgery and we will take her Monday morning bright and early. We are so grateful that there was no retina damage and that they had a cancellation in their schedule! Surgery on Monday is way sooner than we ever expected her to be seen.....I think this sweet doctor knows how much we love her and how if we have to watch her wander around blind any longer we are just going to fall apart.....maybe it helps he's an LSU alum too....I guess I should put on all her LSU gear for her surgical debut!

Thank you again cyber friends and real friends for all your thoughts and prayers.....

Grace

Sweet Grace is having a hard time right now and would love it if you said a prayer for her.

Her right eye has been a little fuzzy since about March/April and so we thought hmm....I guess we'll let the vet know when she goes in August/September for her check up. We would do vision tests and she always followed our hand so we really didn't worry too much about it.

Well, this Sunday Grace came back to Dallas from her vacation with Katie and Annie and Orie said she had trouble getting in the car. His mom had noticed that she couldn't find a treat that day when all the dogs had treat time. Orie's mom said the day before though she had been chasing a squirrel up and down the fence line all afternoon (very typical Grace....) Strange....it was almost like she had lost complete vision overnight.

When Orie got her home to Dallas and she immediately had trouble. She was very disoriented in our backyard, had trouble going up the doorstep into our house, was running into furniture and walls.....she barely recognized us and was really using her nose to get around. It was devastating. We then noticed that her right eye was completely cloudy and her left eye was getting bad as well..... We think that her right eye had been losing vision for a while and she was relying on her left eye to get around. With the combination of being gone from our house and her surroundings for three weeks and losing vision in her good left eye....she just couldn't get around anymore. It's one of the saddest things I have ever watched....she just isn't her playful self at all...she can't jump in our bed and she can barely get off without falling.

Orie took her to the vet yesterday and they immediately recommended a trip to the opthomologist. She does not have glaucoma or diabetes....they are thinking cataracts. If the retina is not too badly damaged then she will be a candidate for surgery which is 95% successful in restoring vision. So, cross your fingers for no retina damage and an opening in the schedule for surgery.....I just don't think we can stand to watch her like this for much longer:(