Winter Weekend...

So this weekend I spent Saturday working the 9 Cares Colorado Shares food drive. Between 5 sites, we collected more than 230 TONS of canned and dry food, several semis full of clothing, several semis full of toys, and several semis full of bath goods. It was so fun, and so neat to see so many people give so much. Everyone there had an awesome attitude. You really would not believe how many people came with their car filled to the rim, some after just going to Costco or King Soopers, and just pulling up, opening their doors. This was probably single handedly the most inspiring thing I've ever done. If you ever have the opportunity to work at this kind of event do it. It was freezing outside, and wet as can be, and

we had to be there at 6 AM, but it was SO WORTH IT! :) We danced, and made boxes, and filled boxes, and met new people, and networked. Many of the professional sporting mascots showed up as the theme for our location was sports, and even Santa Claus showed up wearing his Bronco's jersey!

As soon as we left the food drive, we came home to nap for a while, 5 AM comes early, especially on Saturday morning. Standing out in the cold for several hours takes its wear on you too! After a long nap, I woke up to see LOTS of snow.... and it didn't stop then.

The snow came in on Friday, but didn't really STICK until Saturday afternoon, but then it really started sticking... and just came down and down and down. Its just now really stopping (on Sunday afternoon). I ended up with about 15 inches of snow... AGAIN. Ugh. I'm so over the snow already. But... the boys LOVE IT! So I took a few pics of them playing in it! :)

Catch Up...

It's been quite a while since I've been on here, life gets crazy sometimes, but I've got lots of news, pictures, and great experiences to sum up on here. :)

I'll start with Septemeber. In the first part of the month I took a long weekend and traveled to Maryland to Celebrate Olivia's 1st birthday! :) She is such a beautiful baby! :)

This is a ball pit she got for her bday... Oh goodness!


Livi and Daddy taking a nap together! :)


And finally, the birthday princess at her party! :)

I spent the bulk of September (and part of August and part of October) looking for a house to purchase. In the middle of Septemeber I finally found a house I loved! It was a little bit further away from my work than I was hoping to purchase, but it was a PERFECT house for me. I put in an offer and was "under contract" on the house, but it was a short sale, so the deal was still awaiting bank approval. For some reason after a few weeks fo waiting, I suddenly had second thoughts, and my gut insitinct told me to pull my offer. I'm still sad thinking about it, I really did feel like that was a perfect house for me. :(

Near the end of Septemeber, I took another trip, but this time back home to Indiana for my friend Amanda's wedding. Randi (my best friend) and I decided to meet up in Chicago a few days before the wedding, and, we went out one night, it was awesome! :) We pretty much just went to dinner, and then went bar hoping, and back to the hotel to sleep! Here's a few pics from that leg of my trip:

The next morning, we rented a car and drove home to Indiana for Manda's wedding. It was a weekend full of fun. Seeing Family, Friends, and and catching up was soo good. It was the first time in almost 10 years that ALL of use girls in my group of friends had all made it to one destination at one time. AMAZING!

Once I returned home, I came back to an incredibly hectic work schedule. I had worked only 1 Friday in all of the month of September (between a holiday and two long weekends), I'd had a few very short weeks one after another, after another, after another. On top of already behind as a result of all of this, I returned to the office to do two jobs for the next 3 weeks. My coworker (whom is solely responsible for the entire companies payroll, took a vacation through Europe. The third day I returned, my boss (the only other employee in the accounting department at this point in time) came down with H1N1. So... the next few weeks were EXTREMELY stressful for me.

On the Monday of the 3rd week back, we learned that our company (whom I've worked for for almost 3 years) has decided to relocate our corporate office to Cheyenne, Wyoming. For those of you that do not know, Cheyenne is about 100 miles north of Denver.

I'm so bummed. Cheyenne is just not where I saw myself and my life going. But, in this job market, it is hard to give up a great job.

So, I am still undecided as to what I am going to do. There are so many variables effected by my decision, and no matter how much I think about it and try to weigh my options, the decision just doesn't ever seem to get easier. :(

None the less, I am required to decide by 11/23 weather I will relocate to Cheyenne, or give up my job to remain in Denver.

If Doni ever sees this, she'll kill me, but I couldn't help but post them... :)

My oldest sister emailed me last week and asked if I could scan in a few pictures of her as a baby. I guess they are doing some thing at her work where they have to guess whose baby picture it is.. etc. So, I started looking through all kinds of old pictures we have, and boy oh boy do we have a TON of pictures.

In doing this though, I realized that Olivia really looks a lot like Doni... the light eyes and dark hair... awe so cute! So... I thought I'd share a few pictures.

Let me remind you, Doni was born in 76, so some of these pictures are pretty old, as you can tell from the outfits/wallpaper/blankets, etc. :)

When I get more time, I am going to scan in a lot more pictures (not just of Doni), but older pictures, that are fun to look at! :)

Here we go again....

Today I had the sudden realization that I have less than a week before classes officially start again.

I hate that I am not excited for the semester to start. I want to be excited, but instead I feel like there is a huge dark cloud looming overhead. Going to school is so much work when I'm already working full time. I literally feel like it drains the life out of me sometimes. Last Spring, I took a course load that overwhelmed me beyond belief, and now, only 3 months later, I can't even exactly remember what classes I took. Needless to say, I don't feel that I'm taking a lot away from some of these classes, which only makes me resent them more.

All of that being said, I want my degree, and I know that as much as I hate this right now, in the end it will be well worth all of the hard work, sometimes its just hard to see that. It seems so far away. But.... like I've always said, somehow, someway, I'll get there, and I'll find a way.... no one can stop me, including myself. :)

As I finally went to purchase my textbooks this morning, I realized just how much I benefit from my job here. WOW. My tuition for three classes was nearly $1000 per class.... my text books were almost another $500...
On top of already liking my job quite a bit... and all of the other benefits I receive... I almost have to consider them paying for all of that every semester like another $7000 a year in income! Just another reason to be thankful and count my blessings!

On another happier note, I have an interview with the Big Brothers Big Sisters group on Friday, and I am very excited to be involved with the program. :) The process of becoming a "big" is a lot longer than I'd imagined, but it will likely be a good thing. Last week I attended a group "training", really it was just a session where they tell you about the program, what is expected, what is prohibited, etc. And, even that was fun for me! :)

I met a lot of like minded people there, and I hope that I'll get to see more of them at future events with our "littles." In addition to that training, I'll undergo a 1-2 hour interview on Friday, undergo a background/driving history check, and they will contact some of the references that I listed on my application. I kind of feel like I am interviewing for a job, LOL. But, I think its a good thing, it keeps people from getting involved with the program for the wrong reasons, and kind of protects the kids from being hurt in the process.

In other news, one of my best friends ever found out on Friday she's having a little girl! :) I can't freaking wait to meet her! :) Kind of scarey to think we might have another "Susie Homemaker", I mean Kellie, running around! Then again, there are a lot worse people I could think of having 2 of! :) Only kidding, I love my Oscar, and I hope her little girl is JUST LIKE HER, I can't think of anyone else I'd rather have 2 of!

Here is a random Melody of pictures from the last few weeks.... :)

Can you find Mars? :) He's become obsessedwith pillows, he loves to sleep in the pillows on the couch, on the bed, anywhere he can find pillows really! :)
Milo will hang out anywhere, as long as I'm not far away... he's quite attached to momma!

Olivia has learned to crawl! :) At 11 months old, she is officially mobile! I can't wait to see her for her first birthday next month! :)

This is my friends baby, Calvin. And I just had to include him because he's just so stinkin cute!

A few weeks ago, Amy and I played Dance Dance Revolution (on Wii) until 2 in the morning. Seriously, I haven't laughed so hard in years as I did this night! :) If you haven't tried this out yet, definitely do... yeah you can make a fool of yourself, but its 100% worth it!

And Finally.... Kate. My other, lesser known, niece. On August 3rd, Kate turned 5 years old! :) What a beautiful little girl she has become. I wish more than anything in the world I could see her, but none the less, I'm happy to at least be able to see that she is thriving, happy and healthy. :)

Why is it that fall always becomes chaotic for me?

With Summer not really feeling like much of a summer this year, I'm starting to wonder why everything I do always seems to be in the fall. It always seems like my life is so boring for long periods of time and then all of a sudden its like I hit the gas and everythign happens at once.

I guess a lot of it is just the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, September/October Birthdays: Me, mom, Doni, Amy, Olivia! That and it seems like I tend to travel more and have more events that time of year.

September last year I had planned everything out just right, including a trip to Maryland to help with Olivia and the house after Kristyn had a C-section. But.... Olivia decided to come 2 weeks early! It was a wonderful surprise, but also unexpected. Don't get me wrong I loved going out there. But, she also just so happen to come just a a week before Kellie's wedding, which made the timing a little more difficult in addition to needing to change my flight and re-arrange my work/dog schedule as well! Then of course I had Kel's wedding! In the midst of this time period we sometimes celebrated a few birthdays here and there too. Did I mention that I'm also going to school full time and working full time somehow?
Then came Thanksgiving, and Doni's decision to move to Ohio (which meant she was traveling back and forth and I had her dog as well for almost 2 months). Holidays in general are just stressful in my family, and last year definitely was no exception.
In December, Eric and Kristyn and Olivia came out for 11 days, which also was fun, but it was a bit more stress, in addition the usual holiday stress. Then January came, and I had kind of dumbly and inconveniently planned a trip to see my best friend in Florida. Don't get me wrong I love her, but the trip didnt' turn out the best. Unfortunately the humidity coupled with her cats shedding was very dangerous for my breathing! Which made me miserable for the majority of the trip.
The week I got back I was already in the process of moving, and starting new classes for the semester. Which also means that in the meantime of all of this, I had been looking for a place to live, re-registered for classes, and had a going away party for my oldest sister whom moved to Ohio.
By the time February rolled around I was redy for a break and to relax and try to catch up both at work and at home (unpacking), and on school work. And just 2 weeks in I decided to buy a new car too! LOL.
Since then, things have calmed down, thank goodness, I don't like that much stress!
But... .now I'm looking at my schedule for this fall, and I'm worried it might turn out similar!
Already in September I have a wedding in Indiana, and Olivia's first birthday family bash in Maryland. In October, I have one week where I will be doing 2 jobs at work, one of them being payroll which I have never done by myself at this job! I am supposed to go on a girls trip the week after that with my mom and sisters, but have still not really decided if I am going to end up doing that or not. A friend from California thinks he might come out here the last week in October just to visit for the first time. Randi, my best friend is likely coming out to visit in November, maybe with another friend as well. And then I start the Holiday season with my family all over again! Oh and of course I start new classes in August again... can't forget that!

YIKES, looking back at last year, I don't know how I made it through that 3 or 4 months!!!!

WOW.... Long Day.

It is going to be a long day.... my office normally consists of anywhere between 8 and 15 people depending on the day. There are 3 of us in the accounting department. 4 people in the in the Engineering Department. 2 Administrative assistants. 1 Environmental Health/Safety Specialist, 1 HR Executive, and the President of our company.

Today... it is ME and 1 Admin assistant. This is a very bizzare, and probably going to be a very LONG day.

The States I've Visited

In Red are all the states I have visited... in Grey are those that I haven't made it to yet...


I was thinking I'd been to a lot more states than this...

I need to get traveling some more.

I want to someday visit EVERY state... :)

Anyone want to go on a road trip?