Long time no blog. Life has certainly taken a few detours for me. I'm sure that all of the old friends I had aren't even checking on this anymore. I certainly have lost contact with so many of my old cyber mom-friends. Shame on me. If any of them happens to read this, please let me know. I would love to find out whats been happening to everyone. My son Ross is growing and almost as tall as I am. Very strange to have your 13 year old son look you in the eye, especially since I am 5'11".

Holy cow, its been a long time since I was here! I must be the most disorganized person alive. I just can't seem to get everything done that I need to get done anymore. Time has really snuck up on me this year. I think this is the first year since Ross has been born that I don't have a single Christmas decoration up yet. I have presents bought but not a thing wrapped. I haven't sent any Christmas cards either. I will try to get them done, maybe they will go out after the first of the year? Oh well, guess it will all work out, whether or not I get them done before or after.

Ross is growing like a weed. I can't keep clothes that fit the child. He is wearing size 10 slim pants, and I think I need to move up to 12's. He started off the school year wearing size 4 1/2 sized shoes, and now is in a size 6! He is just loving 1st grade. He has a terrific teacher and is pretty busy with homework, tiger cubs and piano lessons.

We went to Brownsville for our Thanksgiving and really had a great time. We went to the zoo, and then on another day we went deep sea fishing. My brother in law caught a pretty big shark, and we all caught red snapper. That was so much fun! I would love to do that again. Ross even drove the boat some, he kept asking about all the gauges, and the fish finders, etc. Then on another day we went across the border and had a tour of Matamoras, Mexico, and that was an eye opening experience too. Just, overall a really nice time.

Wow, been a while since I was here. This is the first time I have turned my computer on in several weeks. This summer has just flown by. I don't know where it went, but I guess we had fun passing the time. Ross has grown so much this summer, he lost two teeth this week, making a total of 8 teeth he has lost and is only 6 years old. He has been able to ski around the lake all by himself and is quite proud of himself too. He can get up on the kneeboard all by himself now too. But with this new found independance, comes alot of stubbornness. He thinks he knows everything and can tell us what to do and how to do it. Oh, it can be really trying around here at times. He is loving being in the first grade. I like his teacher and he has a good group of kids in his class.

I now have braces. I have had a crooked tooth all my life and when I couldn't think of anything that I truly wanted for my birthday last month, I mentioned to my mother-in-law that I had wished I had braces when I was younger. So she picked up the phone and called and made an appointment for me to see the orthodontist right then and there. I have had them for a month now and its not too bad. Only 23 more months to go......Why did I do this?? I am going to be 40 next year, this is a waste of money. I have lived with it for half my life.

Well I did get sappy at Ross's graduation. Can't help it, he is my baby, my life. He did so well saying his parts, he wasn't nervous, he even took time to adjust the microphone and just looked so casual up there, cracked me up through my tears.

Now, my nieces recital, I cried also. It was like I had a video of her first dance that she was in while in kindergarten, playing in my head. I was seeing the past and the present at the same time, and marveling at how much she has accomplished. She also graduated from high school on Saturday and I was able to give her diploma to her. What a joy and an honor that was. I was praying that no one could tell I had tears streaming down my face when I gave it to her. I was doing ok and wasn't even sappy, but when the principal handed me her diploma and I saw her name on there, I was flooded with emotions. Just so happy that she has passed this milestone in her life, happy that she is going to college and going to experience new things, new places, and sad that I am not going to see her cute smiling face nearly as often as I would like too.

We went out to dinner tonight and an older couple, whose grandson graduated with Cassie and has been best friends with Cassie, since they were toddlers, told us how cute they thought Cassie was. I told them yes, she really is, but what makes her more so in my book, is she is beautiful inside. They agreed.....good thing too! haha

Well tomorrow is Ross's graduation. I find myself thinking back to my pregnancy and what I thought this day would be like. I just knew that I would be a sappy mess, but right now I am a-ok with it. I am just so proud of him. After the problems he had right after he was born, not knowing whether or not he was going to have some mental or physical problems resulting from the complications of his birth, I am just so happy that he here and I am able to go to his graduation. All the other things become blurry..... Then on Friday, my niece has her final ballet recital, and I have been reminicsing about the hundreds of times I drove her to her dance class and the wonderful talks we had. I enjoyed that time immensely. In my heart, I know that I was meant to be available to spend that time with her and her sister after their mother divorced my bil and left the girls with him. I know thats why we didn't have Ross until the girls were old enough to handle things at home and by the time I did have Ross, my bil had remarried. I guess its just my time to enjoy my memories of years gone by. Enjoy them I will!

I am going to throw a toy in the dumpster and hope Ross doesn't ask about it. He was given two Jurassic dinasours for his birthday and they screach and roar when you push on the top of them, but all of a sudden they have started doing it all on their own. Its driving me nuts. Unless I find a battery on the thing that I can take out, its dumpster time for the dinos.

Cellular phones are such a pain. We are paying about $300 a month for 7 phones. Crazy, huh? As much as Marvin loathes his, he is lost without it. He doesn't talk long, but he needs it for our business. I have one, mostly to call him, but it is nice when I have to go out of town. I am trying to see if we can get a better deal with another company, I wish I could combine the best of both companies into a personalized plan for us. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. I don't know if we will change plans or not, but all with everything I have read about and everything the different companies have told me have me on information overload.

I am so tired today. Yesterday was a busy busy day. Ross made a couple of really neat presents for me at school. It was progressive supper and baccalaurete (sp?) for the seniors who are graduating next Saturday. I had told my sil that I would help make ice cream for the progressive supper. Well we figured that with 70+ seniors and a few parents that we needed quite a few freezers of ice cream. I gathered up all of mine and my mil had several and we borrowed a couple and ended up making 11 freezers of ice cream. Wouldn't you know it though most of the kids took off after the hay ride brought them back to my sil's house. So we have all of this ice cream left over. ugh. I spent alllllll afternoon yesterday mixing up all 11 freezers. I would get all the stuff mixed up and my mil and fil would put the ice and salt in to start it freezing. Once I finished mixing up the last batch I helped with the ice and salt too. We made 2 freezers of strawberry ice cream, 2 vanilla, 1 chocolate chip, 1 mint chocolate chip, 1 rocky road, 1 banana nut, 1 chocolate, and 1 butterfinger. The worst part is I am so dang tired, I am having a hard time getting myself going. I have a school board meeting this evening too. Ross has baseball practice too. This is his last week as a kindergartener. His graduation program is on Thursday. Things hopefully will slow down after this week..........*crossing fingers*

Its teacher appreciation week and the PTO has decorated some jars and given them to all the teachers for flowers. Hopefully the kids will remember and bring their teachers a flower. The idea is that if every child will bring their teacher one flower the teacher will have a nice arrangement. Hope it works! I bought some extra flowers and am going to go to the school and pass them out to the kiddos that didn't bring them.

Tomorrow we are going to make some desserts and take to the teachers lounge. Gosh, the morning has slipped away from me, time to get Ross up for school. Later!