Unfortuntately, Heather...

I got this idea from Mindy, who got the idea from someone else. You type "Unfortunately, followed by your name" into Google search engine and see what comes up. I was very entertained by this and probably found to many. But I sit here at work on a Friday night waiting for another 1 1/2 hours before I can go home, so what the heck, I had fun!!! And just as Mindy found, some of them are actually true and some are just hilarious!

1. Unfortunately, Heather was only able to pass the reading component of the tests (probably true)
   
2. Unfortunately Heather figured out the ruse and is now pressing charges against the paper (no idea)
   
3. Unfortunately Heather has surfaced on our screens in Scrubs; ads for L’Oreal & the short lived LAX (Wouldn't that be awsome)
4. Unfortunately Heather's early releases are no longer available for purchase (how sad)
5. Unfortunately, Heather forgot to follow the most important advice: Stay out of the path of runaway police motorcycles (yes because that would be bad)
6. Unfortunately Heather will never go away (sorry!)
7. Unfortunately, Heather's caseload is currently full (if that means that I am working, then yes, that is true)
8. Unfortunately, Heather and her pal were too busy to stop and chat (hmmm, me not chat, probably not true)
9. Unfortunately, Heather did not win (probably true)
10. Unfortunately, Heather is extremely beautiful and gets hooked up with guys that are equally beautiful but cheaters (true about the men, not so true about me ;) Love ya, hon!!)
11. Unfortunately, Heather's Mom is not too bright (sorry, mom that is definitely not true :)
12. Unfortunately, Heather's first job didn't work (neither did the 2nd job through the 10th job)
13. Unfortunately, Heather's mother is too busy getting established as the local veterinarian and her father too obsessed with his new sailboat (not so much about mom, but dad does like his boats ;)
14. Unfortunately, Heather's story beyond 'Black Jack' is something we can't go into detail about (my husband might get jealous, until he found out he could meet him in person :)
15. Unfortunately, Heather is married (true)
16. Unfortunately, Heather hates the winter — it is too long (but most people who live here hate winter, too!) (sooo, true)
17. Unfortunately, Heather will turn 20 fairly soon and no longer be eligible to shoot as a junior. We're looking for replacements! (If only it was my 20th birthday coming up ;)
18. Unfortunately Heather isn't quite making that much yet. (soooo very true)
19. Unfortunately Heather thinks of herself as another Judge Judy!!!! She is always right, and everyone else is wrong. (mostly true :)
20. Unfortunately, Heather was not able to make it to the studio but has a perfect home studio of her own in Germany (if only I had a home studio and one in Germany would be cool too).

And my personal 2 favorites of all and I think they speak for themselves:

1. Unfortunately Heather has to work as a hooker to pay for her retro fashion obsession
2. Unfortunately, Heather lost the ability to transform into Sasquatch
   

Riding on 2-wheels

I can still hardly believe it myself, but Josiah is officially riding a 2 wheel bike with no training wheels. Unfortunately the reason for teaching him how to ride the bike with no training wheels involves running over the bike with the training wheels. Uncle Mike had given Josiah this very cool, all chrome, "boys" bike. Josiah loved that bike! But one day he parked it in between Daddies truck and trailor on the passenger side. There was no hope for the bike and the training wheels were crushed as well. The reason for the cool bike was because he was riding this pink and purle girls bike that I had picked up at a garage sale for a $5 and Uncle Mike thought he should have a cool, boys bike. Well now with no cool bike, and the pink and purple bike with no training wheels. Daddy decided that he would try and teach him how to ride. We worked with him for a few days in our yard, but it is just to hard to learn balance with ruts and whatnot. So Dan took Josiah down to our church parking lot and within 2 days, Josiah was riding with very little help at all. He had trouble starting and stopping, but within a week he had mastered (well almost anyway, since he still falls once and a while), riding a bike with no training wheels. We are so proud of our 3 1/2 year old little boy!!!

Family visits from Texas

My brother Doug, his wife Dawn and Samantha and Nathan came for a visit a couple of weekends ago. We went up for the weekend so we could visit and Josiah would get a chance to hang out with his cousins. Josiah and Nathan have such a good time. Samantha too of course. But it was really great to see them all. Wish they didn't live so far away :)

Fun with Toads

One day, Josiah and I were playing outside and all of the sudden we found a couple of baby toads. Then there were a lot of them...then our entire yard became loaded with them. They are everywhere and a ton of fun. We have been catching them and lettign them go for the past 2 weeks. Josiah has been catching them, putting them in his bug cage and taking them to daycare. They showed us how to create a little habitat for them, but we never did figure out what they ate, so we had to let them go. But there are still hundreds of them. Dan is afraid to mow, because he says it was be baby toad genecide. Every time you take a step you wonder if you are going to step on a toad. What a fun time for Josiah and since Dan and I joined in, we had some good family fun catching baby toads.

Be a Tourst in your Own Town Day

Grandma and Papa Weaver came down for the day and joined us in "Be a tourist in your Own town" Day. For $1 you could go to any number of attractions in Lansing and E. Lansing. For $0.50 you could ride the bus all day. A big hit for Josiah!!! We were whipped by the end of the day, but we had a great time!

"I got canoed," said Josiah!

We went canoeing this past weekend and it was an adventure that none of us will soon forget . The boys planned the trip, the first mistake of the day. We didn't actually put our canoes into the water until 4:30pm. 2nd mistake. As we were pushing out, Dan was going to put OFF on, but forgot and in turn forgot to zip up the dry bag. 3rd mistake. Dan, Josiah, Buster and I were all in the same canoe...4th and biggest mistake. We tipped our canoe 30 minutes into the trip. It was out of nowhere and at the fastest point in the river. I panicked, but was able to grab a hold of Josiah and Buster. I didn't realize that he could swim, so I was trying to hold onto both of them, which was fine until the bottom of the river disappeared. That is when I totally panicked. I finally let go of Buster and hoped that he would be ok. I was then able to hold onto Josiah and grab onto the canoe that Dan was able to grab when we tipped. The water was freezing to boot, which is probably what made the tip so much scarier, because it took time to get our bearings and what not. The river was moving so fast that it was very difficult to get to the side bank, but we finally did. Everyone was ok :) However the dry bag that didn't get closed up, tipped over and all the keys dumped out along with all of our towels and dry clothing. Luckily we were canoeing with 2 other guys and they were able to rescue Buster and all of our stuff. They even had two semi dry towels. Once Buster jumped in their canoe (which he really didn't want to have anything to do with, but finally jumped in), a whole bunch of water came with him and got a lot of their stuff wet too. But we were thankful for the dry towels. Dan made a campfire in record time and we were able to dry off a bit there and eat our food, which thankfully was in the other canoe. The guys went over to where the dry bag had tipped over, because it had floated upright down the river quite a ways until it hit some branches and tipped over and capsized. After many attempts and 3 guys looking for the keys, all 3 pair were recovered. After we mostly dried out, we headed down the river, but by this point it was 6:00 and we still had 3 1/2 hours to go. I was freezing and pissed off by the end of that trip. The boys had to keep stopping to go pee. Their crotches were soaked and kept having the feeling to pee, so every 15 minutes towards the end we were stopping and by that point, I was so cold I couldn't feel my fingers. I was wearing only my swimsuit, because everything else was wet and I gave Josiah my t-shirt so that he didn't have to wear the life jacket cold against his body. He also got both towels, because we needed to keep him warm. The rest of the trip both Josiah and Buster whimpered and were scared. I was pretty scared too actually. Every time we leaned a little I tensed up. I tried to be brave to keep Josiah calm, but by the end, I had very little energy left in my: P It was 55 degrees out by the time we pulled in at 9:30pm We completed our adventure all very cold, but intact and we only lost a few things. Never again will I go on a canoe trip that 2 boys planned :)

If you ask Josiah about the trip, he will tell you that we tipped. His original response to that question was that we got "canoed". I thought that was hilarious and thought we should make him a shirt that says "I got canoed on the Manistee River" If you ask him if he ever wants to go in a canoe again, he will tell you NO. We were all pretty tramatized to say the least. But we had a great time on Sunday, spending a leizurly day by the water. Dan's friend invited us up to stay at his Aunt's cabin. And it was such a nice cabin, I kind of wish we had just stuck around and hung out at the cabin all weekend, instead of driving all over creation to go canoeing. But that is life! The adventure has happened and we have a story to tell. I wonder how long Josiah will remember that adventure.

Picture update

It has been quite a while since I posted any pictures, so I thought it was about time. The first slide show is from our trip to Kentucky. The second slide show is from the past month or so. Our boy is getting so big so fast! I can hardly believe it!!! Enjoy!

Garage Sale Season

I know it has been a very long time. Feb was the last time I posted. I just haven't had much to post about. But garage sale shopping has begun and I have done well already this season. Anyone want to guess how much I spent on all these clothes?

In case you can't see very well, this is the tally of stuff:

1. 11 short sleeve t-shirts (3 are in the laundry already :)
2. 12 Long sleeve t-shirts
3. 1 MSU Jersey (in perfect condition)
4. 2 tank tops
5. 3 short sleeve dress shirts
6. 2 long sleeve dress shirts
7. 1 Fleece coat
8. 13 pair of underwear
9. 1 swim suit (my favorite colors)
10. 8 shorts
11. 4 sweat pants
12. 1 sweat suit
13. 3 dress pants
14. 5 jeans
15. 5 winter pajamas
16. 1 summer pajamas
    

And all of this for $28. So anyone out there that says they don't have enough money to make sure their kid has clothes that fit or just clothes in general has not discovered the power of the garage sale, because for under $30, I just clothed Josiah for the year. Yes he needs shoes and socks, but that is about it. I also bought his winter coat for $10 (the most expensive item, but well worth the money). The coat is in great condition and again I love the colors (orange and blue).

So, have a great garage sale season this year!!! My daycare provider has already hit me up for looking for stuff for her. She has given me an envelope with money, so that I can pick things up as I see them!! I love to garage sale, so if there is anything that anyone is looking for, I will keep my eye out for it and let you know!!

But the best purchase I have made by far is an old Samsonite beauty case. The hard case ones with a handle. Josiah found it and brought it to me and I asked him if he was going on a picnic. And his face lit up. Yah, I am going on a picnic. I then found some plastic plates and a plastic cup to add to the box and wala, he is going on a picnic and is having a blast. I think I might have paid $1.50 for all of it. Well worth the money!!!

Winter in Michigan

Random pictures

Financial Peace University

Dan and I started Financial Peace University (FPU) a couple of weeks ago. The premise for the class is to get out of Debt by 'living like no one else today so that we can live like no one else later" The class was designed by Dave Ramsey and we are taking the class through our church. It is a 13 week class that teaches us how to control our money so our money doesn't control us anymore. The class starts by putting together an emergency fund of $1000. We were very fortunate that Dan had just worked a boat load of overtime and we were able to fund it very quickly. After the first step it was time to start paying of debt, but we had to start by putting together a budget, which we kind of had one from several years ago. I put in our current paychecks and updated it a little bit. The next step was to get both Dan and I on board with the budget which meant that Dan had to have input on the budget or cash flow plan as it is called at this point in the class :) We did that and Dan had some good input...but we still didn't know how to put the cash flow plan into practice. The following week was the best for me. It provided the forms that allowed us to figure out how much we had to spend each week so that we could go to an all cash system. this was the difficult part for me in the past that I could never get a handle on.

So we started the cash only system last week. And right away we were faced with a decision about whether to spend money that wasn't in an envelope or not. We were in Target and the new movie "Madagascar 2" came out. Now in the past I would just buy the new movie that I wanted regardless of whether the money was there for stuff like that or not. I was so torn, I was even going to borrow from my spending money for the following week to buy it, but after some deliberation, I made the decision that we did not need that movie and that we could rent it through Netflix to watch it. Three days later we got a package in the mail from Dan's mom for Josiah. It was a Valentine package and guess what was inside...yep, Madagascar 2. I could hardly believe it.

That same day that we were faced with buying the movie we decided we wanted to buy a 3rd controller for the Wii. Josiah has turned out to be catching onto the games very quickly and with a 3rd remote we can all play as a family. But once again we were just starting the FPU program and we didn't have any money to go buy the controller. So we figured out how we could pay for it. We decided to sell back a couple of games that we never played anyway and then Dan suggested we take back bottles. So together as a family we gathered up all the bottles in the house and we were off. We had enough money to buy the controller plus Valentines cards for Josiah to take to daycare. And the best part, we felt accomplished that we didn't just go buy the controller because we wanted it, not caring where the money came from.

This past week we learned about something called a debt snowball. It makes so much sense that I am not sure why everyone doesn't do this. The whole idea is that you pay minimum payments on all of your debts. Once you pay off your smallest day you role that minimum payment into the next biggest debt. So if you were paying $50 on a $100 debt, once that debt was paid off you add $50 to your next biggest debt. And you keep doing that until all of your debt is paid off. At any rate, we were able to put our debt information into a calculator and if we stay on course we can have all of our debt paid off (besides our house) in less than 3 years. Most of our debts wouldn't come due for 7-10 years. So we are pretty excited about this. We know that life happens, but we are determined to get out of as much debt as we can in as short of time as possible.

We have a great support system at our church, yet one more reason that we are loving our new church. I hope to come to you all with good news to our debt pay off.

Josiah learns his ABC's

The first part of this video is of him laughing, eating and trying to sing all at the same time. Once he stops laughing, swallows what he was eating and then tries to sing, it is much better. But the whole video is cute and funny regardless of the food ;) So enjoy all you grandparents who haven't seen him in a little bit, this kid is growing right up!!!

A New Look

I finally got things situated on my background. The one thing that I don't like is that the Picasa picture slideshow with the background. When I make the slideshow smaller then you can't see the pictures very well, but when I make it bigger half of the pictures are cut off. Not sure which I will choose. But if you click on the slideshow you can go to the actual website and see the pictures that way too.

But I had fun getting the background beyond the holidays! Hope you like it :)

Things are going very well for my family and I. We are all healthy, our jobs are going well and we are living life to its fullest. What more could we ask for...we are truly blessed.

A trip to the Science Museum

Snowy Day