Catching up

So much has happened since I wrote last. Let's see...We moved to Louisiana and bought a house.


Addie turned 2!!


We had a fantastic Halloween. This was the first one that Addie really enjoyed and understood. Isn't she a precious parrot??


We took Addie to the fair in early fall. It was fun with alot of good food to eat! (See, it's so good that Jarrod has taken Addie's sucker.)


We spent Thanksgiving in Lake Charles. This was the first time that Courtney did not go home to spend Thanksgiving with her whole family. Jarrod and I sure ate good though!! We griled turkey breasts, had sweet potato souffle, broccoli and rice casserole, and some delicious pumpkin pie! Check out our turkey!


We got to spend Christmas in Georgia with all of our family. Addie and Elisha got wooden band kits from Beth Anderson (Mott's best friend, Courtney's other Aunt Beth) for Christmas so we had a family band.

Addie and I attempted to get a Christmas card put out once we got home but to no avail. (If you were to have gotten a Christmas card, this would be it...so consider it delivered.)


We also made it home in time for Santa to come visit us here. He brought Addie some wooden puzzles, blocks, and a spinner.


We spent New Year's Eve at Toledo Bend, a huge lake that lies on the Texas-Louisiana border. It's about an hour North of us, near the Army base Ft. Polk. The cabin that we stayed in is owned by the miitary for military members to use and are really cheap. Our friends Jay and Allison and Walt and Ryan(Walt's fiancee) went with us. We cooked steaks over an open fire out back and rented a boat for fishing. We didn't catch anything but we had a great time! Our view from the front porch.


This is the cabin that the three of us stayed in.


February brought us Mardi Gras! We really enjoyed our first family Mardi Gras. My dad and Elisha came out for the weekend before Fat Tuesday. We really enjoyed their visit.


After almost two and a half years, Addie's hair is finally long enough for pigtails!!

In late March, Addie and I flew to Atlanta from Houston.

And she got her first haircut while we were there.


She was much happier after the haircut!


Easter came while we were in Georgia and Addie was ready to hunt some eggs!

She thought that she should feed her bunny the "carrot" which was really Reese's Pieces.


With Summer here, our family has been spending more time playing outside. Addie loves to play in the rocks and build castles.



And on June 2nd, I pinned Jarrod as a Petty Office First Class! I can't be any prouder of Jarrod than I am. He is a wonderful husband, father, and friend.



Also, the last of the latest news is that I just returned from another year in the field at Bonnaroo. I saw many more great bands this year as well as got to hang out with my friends.

This is my attempt at sneaking in a group photo that no one else is aware of.

This is myself, Christa, and Jessica listening to John Fogerty on what I would swear will be the hottest day of this year. You can literally see the sweat.




Well, thanks for allowing me to be a major slacker! I have been so busy here! this last year, I spent the first half of the year filling in as a Spanish Immersion instructor while the principal found a permanent solution. That job was followed by an offer to work part time in the computer lab at the same elementary school. For next year, I have been offered a full time position doing the same job in the computer lab. Hopefully the following year, I will be able to get a real teaching job because I will be finished with my Master's degree in the Spring. I can't wait!

Zoo of Acadiana

First, a short History lesson. The French came to the New World and landed in the Canadian Acadia Region. These same French were run out of Acadia in the 17th century and moved themselves to Louisiana. Once in Louisiana, the Acadians became known as Cajuns. Well, now that we are here, I have learned that our Region in Louisiana is known as Acadiana. There are 22 Parishes that are categorized this because of their similar culture. For us, this means that we get to live among the "real" Cajuns...




On our first Saturday in Louisiana, we took a road trip to Lafayette to the Zoo of Acadiana. In Lafayette, almost everything is bilingual. I don't mean Spanish, either. French is weird!!! I don't understand any of it and I sure don't know how to read it. Jarrod is so used to asking me how things are read and out here I'm not sure that I know how to read either. We had a great time at the Zoo. It was a small, non-state or federally funded zoo but it had lions, and tigers, and bears, and giraffes. I know that we will be going back over the years so I hope that it can stick around.







We also visited the Children's Museum in Lafayette. Addie loved playing with all the things there. She dressed up as George Washington, blew massive bubbles, and played pretend in the toddler section.

Louisiana: Week 1

We made it to Lake Charles pretty late Tuesday night and crashed as soon as we got here. Our day Tuesday was a long one...at each of our stops we let Addie out to play for a few minutes. It didn't matter where. We played at Chick-fil-A in Montgomery, and a few grass patches at gas stations along the way.

Wednesday we spent the day being kind of lazy. Amongst the laziness, I did find time to go apply for a World History position at Hamilton Christian Academy. I spoke with one of the people doing the hiring and he said that he would speak with the others doing the hiring and let me know either way. This would be an awesome job. It would be like teaching at Westfield. The school will not tolerate any trouble makers, they have corporal punishment, and the class sizes are around 13 per classroom.

Jarrod started work on Thursday. He didn't do much of anything except for in-processing. He did meet a guy named Dan whose wife will keep Addie with her own children for $75 a week. We went over there tonight so that I could meet Dan and so that the both of his could meet the rest of his family. His wife, Tracy, and I hit it off pretty well. They have three children; Rachael, 7, Giana, 5, and Dex, 9 months. Addie played well with them and I now have someone that I can hang out with on Monday while the men are at work! That's so exciting!

I guess this is the point where I mention that we are still living at the Days Inn in our new town. Our house won't be closing until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. On top of that, our belongings won't be here until Friday. This means that we will be living in the hotel until the end of next work week. We'll already have the keys and be able to go paint and change things to our liking while coming back and sleeping in a real bed. We did get a room with a king size bed and a fold out couch though. Addie sleeps on the fold out and we put it up during the day for a play place.

Addie and I got out of the hotel yesterday morning and went to the water park at the Rec. Department. Addie had a blast. There is a smaller kid section that is attached to the "big kid" section. It might be two feet deep at its deepest--this means that Addie can freely move about without me really worrying about her drowning unless she just falls over. She enjoyed going down the water slide and playing with some other kids that were there and there were many of them there.

Overall, our first week is going okay. I would love to be out of this hotel and be in our house but it could be worse. I could be the person that is literally living downstairs from us. And, tomorrow we're getting out of town and heading to the Acadian Zoo in Lafayette.

I will do my best to keep you all in touch since we're kind of getting settled in again! I love you all!!

Graduation Finally!!

Wow! It has been a busy month!

This week is full of forecasts of thunderstorms and gale force winds. The meteorologists are watching this storm to see if it turns into a tropical depression. It seems like it outside now anyways. It's windy and the rain is just steadily dumping on us--no thunder, no lightning. Watching the doppler, it seems to have a slight spinning and a large, very unorganized eye. Enough about the rain it has ruined the last few days and will ruin the next few too.


I finally graduated on May 9. We started the weekend out by heading up to Athens and watching the UGA Baseball team play Vanderbilt at Foley Field. Georgia ended up losing but we had fun anyways. My granny, mom, dad, Amy, Kenneth, Elisha, and Colby. This is my Granny and I at the baseball game. I love her so much!

Saturday morning, the morning of graduation, began with a breakfast of mimosas. I love celebrating with champagne in the morning. Graduation was long, of course, but we had a few interesting speeches. Representative Jack Kingston, a Georgia Alumni, gave a very humorous speech filled with snickers the new generation. Have you ever heard a politician say OMG, LOL, ROFL, BFF, etc. all in one sentence?
We were lucky that while graduation was going on on the football field the sky was overcast and saved us from a hot, humid day.

We ate lunch at Inoko's, our favorite Japanese Restaurant in Athens--for hibachi, cook-in-front-of-you Japanese. After lunch, we sent the kids home with their grandparents and went downtown to do a little shopping and picture taking on North Campus. We avoided The Arch for the day, however, because there was a mega-line waiting for their turn to have a photo taken. We had a great night downtown with all of my Athens friends and played cornhole at the bar. Jarrod and I won, of course. Overall, we all had a fabulous weekend and I am so proud of myself for sticking it out and finishing.

As for our moving, we have already packed up the furniture in our guest bedroom and have taken it to the coast and to Jarrod's dad's house in Statesboro. It has begun. This weekend we will be taking our motorcycles and some other things to my mom's house. We will also be picking up a bed that I once slept in as a child. It will be going with us to Louisiana for Addie to use as her "big girl" bed.
My last day of work at the restaurant will be this Friday and my last day teaching will be next Thursday. Thursday the 28th, will also be the day that the movers come to pack our things into boxes. They will be back on Friday to load it all up. That leaves Jarrod and I on an inflatable mattress for the weekend while we finish cleaning this place up. So it's all coming to an end down here.


Addie is so smart!! She is learning new words all the time. Our new favorites are juice, and shoes. She will go get her shoes for us and pick up her foot waiting for us to put them on her. She is a sport! This being inside is making all of us a little crazy! Addie is so used to being outside and playing in the dirt. She has begun to find things to get into to keep herself occupied though, which means that we're having to keep an extra close eye on her when she's being quiet in the house. It almost always means trouble!

Well, I love you all but I have to run...

It's been a while

It's been a while but things are kind of slowing down around here this week. I say kind of because I am working everyday this week and so is Jarrod. At least with me working, Jarrod has been able to significantly cut back on the number of hours he's working a week. He's back to working at the gas station only on the weekends and we are going to be able to pay off his bike before we move at the end of May and he's already put in his notice for the end of the month.

Speaking of bikes, the poker run was a success. At first I was worried because we had less initial turnout than I had hoped but we had late bikers meet us at the second and third stops. The best pat was that there were no complaints and everything went smoothly. Everyone that came out and rode were extremely friendly (we didn't know alot of them that morning). We had enough BBQ and prizes at the end, too. Jarrod won the $100 prize for best hand with a full house A's over 10's and a guy named Jeff won the $50 prize for worst hand with just a 10 high. Both gentlemen donated their money back into the pot. Our fabulous escorts, three men from Houston County Sheriff's Office, drove us from stop to stop allowing us to avoid stop signs, red lights, and all other traffic. We made sure to feed them at the end and tip them. They also donated their tips to Brandi! Our final money raise was the raffle and 50/50 drawing. The 50/50 is done with all of the raffle money. All money earned for the raffle was split in half and the person with the first ticket drawn would win half of the raffle money. The first person drawn was Brandi! I know she had a great time and we almost met my goal of $2000. We were only about $100 short. Thank you all for your donations!!!! We had a wonderful time!



I'm getting ready to walk out the door for work, so I'm goiing to end with this picture of Addie eating Creme Brule the other night. Love you all.

A League of Their Own

Two bits of good news today! I went to Verizon with my ailing crackberry and they are sending me a new one. It will be here in two days! This is so good to hear since I've been swapping batteries with Jarrod and with my mom while I was in Perry.

The other bit of good news is that I've been sewing all day! Well not all day, I did find time to take Jarrod out to a nice lunch to celebrate him making Second Class. Which explains the sewing--no more Third Class uniforms in this house.

I went to Perry this weekend and played in a Perry Junior League 25th Anniversary Reunion Tournament. To celebrate 25 years of the Women's program at Ochlahatchee, Dr. Stewart took his time and some of his money to fund a reunion for all the girls that have played in the Dixie All-Stars. We got rained out on Saturday but still held our banquet that night. It was great to see everyone and look at old pictures of us as young'uns. The next day, however, it was down to business.

My team was the blue team. We were the 2001 Dixie World Series Champions (we're kind of a big deal, hehe). The other teams were the red and green teams. They were made up of the girls older than us and the girls younger than us, respectively. I mostly played with and hung out with the blue team and the red team back in the day. I coached half of the green team.

We received the bye and sat out first game. The old people demolished the kids. It was pretty sad to see them take such a beating but then we lost too!! The old people had been practicing. We only lost by one run though.

The next game it was our turn to beat up on the green team. With that loss the kids were out of the tournament and it was just us and the old people. The really sad part is that out of the green team--4 of them were having runners come in for them because they were all beat up and out of shape (and losing to old people).

This put us in a position where we had to beat the red team twice in order to win the tournament. We win the first game to put us in our 4th game in a row.

This game was pretty close the entire time--mostly a 1-run difference. We ended up losing by two runs. However, one inning they miscounted our runs and shorted us two and another inning they counted a run that shouldn't have for the other team. I hit a home run in the game though!! Just a two runner--not a walk off...but still a home run!! I was pretty excited that it happened during our reunion tournament. Just reminding everyone that I've got mad skills!! he he

Our 2nd Anniversary and R.I.P. Crackberry (not quite)

So, yesterday was mine and Jarrod's second anniversary. Has it really been that long since we were in Athens getting hitched? To start off our day, Jarrod and I both had to go to work. Jarrod has to be at the gas station at 6 a.m. on the weekends so he left before I did at 8. When I woke up and went to get Addie, I found some roses sitting on the dining room table waiting for me with a card. I have such a thoughtful husband. Reading the card, I nearly cried. It was the most perfect card I've ever read. Who knew Jarrod had such a way with words?

Jarrod got off at 2 and went to get Addie and I got off at 3. We spent the rest of our day hanging out on the couch and we took Addie in her wagon to the park. She's now big enough that she thinks she need to spin around and lay down--continuously moving--while Jarrod is pulling her in it. How brave! She played all over the park; climbing most of the steps all by herself.

We really enjoyed our lazy day and leaving our phones at the house. So thanks for all of the calls and sorry that we missed them.

This morning started bad!! My crackberry didn't start this morning, leading me to believe it had died overnight in its sleep. I did CPR repeatedly throughout the morning and slowly diagnosed the situation. The two nights prior to this one, I have been woken by my phone telling me that it was dead eventhough it was attached to the wall at the time. So today when it was completely dead I really was worried. I thought for a second that the battery was dead but when Jarrod came home for lunch I stole his battery so that I could charge mine in his phone...and it worked. His battery gave my phone new life and his phone could charge my battery. Now I just have to figure out how to keep this up until I can get to Verizon to talk to them about a warranty before I actually give in and call the insurance people.

So, without a phone this morning Addie and I went to CFA so she could play on the indoor playground. It's been rainy outside all day which means we have been cooped up so I wanted to make sure she got out this morning. After (and during) breakfast Addie played all by herself. She learned how to go up the slide backwards and was thrilled with herself. She would climb all the way back to the top and giggle when she could see me again at the bottom. Then she would take off again. Mind you, this slide is a tube so I can only see her when she comes around the curve smiling at the very bottom, so proud of herself.

So, I'm content now that my phone is back in commission...but I do have to work this afternoon so I must run! Love!