Gina's Suprise 30th Birthday!

Well we had (with a lot of help from some great friends) a Suprise 30th Birthday Party for Gina. Everything went off without a hitch and we had a great party. I had managed to get her favorite singer for the party. Eric Dove and Chico "EdoChico". We were also had a special guest from out of town, Marty Phillips.

I would like to thank everyone very much for the help with clean up, set up, decorating, food/beverages, Gina's parents for distracting her for the day.

If we were those people.....

This would have been our Christmas Card.

Or this one....

or this one.

Rockin' Around....

The Christmas Tree!

This is the first tree we have had in six years. Not too bad. It only took us a week to finish. I think we both forgot how to put up a tree! Looks like we are going to have to hit the after Christmas sales for more ornaments. Works for now though!

Merry Christmas!!

Im terrible at this!

I am terrible at keeping up with this blogging business. Maybe I will make that my new year's resolution!

So I was going to go day by day about Europe, but there truly is too much to tell. I know it was only 5 days, but what glorious fun-filled 5 days it was.

So that was September. We took a little weekend trip to Alabama. Note to self, Friday, Saturday Sunday is not enough time to make that trip!

October we celebrated Zachary's first year of life. What an amazing little boy. I cannot believe the progress he has made. He has definitely exceeded everyone's expectations. He transitioned in to full fledge walking in a week. One day crawling, next walking. I have never seen a kid walk that fast. October was so busy. We ended the month at an indoor water park in Ohio. Those are so much fun and a nice break from the cold weather here.

November = new experiences. We went on our first cruise ever over the week of Thanksgiving. We were on the Disney cruise line's Magic. First Class all the way. I have never been so catered to. I highly recommend to the following people, couples with NO children, or couples with children ages 4/5 - 15. They have so much for the kids to do that you the parents get a vacation as well as your kids. No guilt. I was told by many of the parents that we met at the "adult only pool" (their kids were off having their own fun) that their kids beg every year to come back. Some only see their kids for sleeping, and one meal per day. The one meal is because the parents tell their kids that have to meet for dinner every day. It is safe and structured.

We went with parents of a 4 year old, 18 month old and a one year old. They have a nursery for under 3 that you can put your kids in. There is a cost involved, but luckily we had a hook-up on the boat! Ms. Shannon, Kim's cousin is what I called a 3 stripe (pretty high ranking for a cruise ship). April had fun, but some days it was more difficult for her. However when we departed Cape Canaveral for the Airport to come home she was saying "goodbye cruise ship, goodbye Mickey, goodbye Cinderella, goodbye goofy pool.......you get the picture. It was very cute.

A shot of our ship. These things are huge!

The Eastern Carribbean was glorious, but reality is we are back home. It is 17 degrees outside. Cold sweet cold.

Day One

So our adventure began Thursday evening. Our flight left at 5:35pm from Detroit. We booked our flight more than a month ago and picked our seats. This was a very large plane seating almost 300 passengers. It was fairly booked, however there were seats near the back that were 2 together in the middle. The plane narrowed towards the back allowing this. We were thrilled to have "Only" two seats together each of us. HOWEVER days prior a lovely friend of ours informed of us of a webiste.....seatguru.com. Here you can check your seat and it will tell you if it is good or not. So I thought ok, I'll check it out. Well to my surprise their seat diagram didn't match the one on the airline's website. So I figured the "third party" site was wrong. WRONG!! So we board the plane as I get close to my seat.....I realize we are in a row of three and who is sitting in the third seat? Why of course the largest Samoan on the planet. Literally at that moment I wanted to get off the plane. ME squished between my lovely husband (who is not small) and the largest Samoan on the planet for 7.5 hours! Kim could see the Panic in my face. She and Mark were very lucky and their seats were a set of two. What friends they are and offered us their seats, but really, how could I take her seats? So I sucked it up said, "no we'll be fine" and sat with my elbows touching for about 5 hours. The final two hours I made Greg switch with me. That was a sight!!

We landed in Amsterdam, Netherlands. We had a short layover, which was great because we had to enter through customs here. This is where we got our one and only European stamp. It isn't the way it used to be. Now because of the EU, going across borders it simple and doesn't require custom checks and the multiple "stamps" in your passport.

From Amsterdam it was a short flight to Paris. No large Samoans thank goodness!

So our plan was to sleep as much as possible on the plane so that we could hit the streets of Paris immediately. Paris is 6 hours ahead (Eastern time, 7 hours ahead Central) so we would arrive first thing in the morning. Well....

We get off the plane head directly for the 'metro'. This was to take us into one of the major train stations in Paris which happened to be blocks from our hotel. The first lovely sight we saw in Paris were armed guards, armed with AK47s. These huge rifles laid across their chests, very intimidating.

We grab our train and head into the city. Here is where we experienced our first native "Parisians". No one, NO ONE, spoke to us. I guess I should have figured that, the French hate Americans. On the way we saw rabbits on the side of the tracks. I told Greg that they look the same in France as they do in America. He piped in with a "what, no Beret and cigarette?" (with a French accent of course!). I found myself saying oh look their.....looks just like ours. I guess i didn't know what to expect!

We make it into the Gare de Lyon and out into the streets of Paris. What a sight. All of the cars are little teeny tiny cars. Nothing bigger than a Ford Focus. Many vespas and motor scooters too. It was odd to see.

Our first encounter with anyone was this little French woman and her baby carriage. Poor thing, we scared her to death. Picture Greg (6'3") Mark (6'6") with Kim and I (not short by any means) and then this little bitty French woman pushing her baby carriage. I think she almost had a heart attack. The exchange was pretty funny. Our English, her terrible broken Frenglish.

Once she realized we were harmless she got the attention of another local and together they pointed us into the direction of our hotel. Off we went to find out our rooms were ready. Here is where I have to say instead of sticking to our plans, we all took showers and collapsed for 2 hours. What a great idea that it was though. During these two hours while we recharged our batteries Paris had rain! Once awake from our naps we hit the streets.

We walked about 8 miles that afternoon. Seeing everything that we possibly could. We even took a night cruise down the Seine. What a wonderful first day in Europe!

Notre Dame

We went to Europe...for the weekend!

So we finally made it "across the pond". What a whirlwind weekend we had. It was fabulous. We were so lucky to be with our great friends Mark and Kim. Kim a seasoned European traveler, was fabulous on getting us where we wanted/needed to go so that we could just "look". What a difference it must make having someone maneuver the streets while your eyes are everywhere else. Although I did make sure that I understood the train schedules, airport and cabbie lingo and where we were in relation to the map just in case the next time we go we may not have our tour guide.

We have 1,500 pictures. I am not joking. I think it is just shy of that number around 1,470. Greg and I have sifted through the first 1,000 and forgot to delete and move good ones around. We were reminiscing already! Our initial plans were to visit only Paris and Rome, however because of Kim's savvy ways, we were able to fit in her "city" Florence. What a city it is! I totally can see why she says that the city speaks to her. While we were overlooking the city with the sun setting, I couldn't help but get tears in my eyes. It was absolutely gorgeous.

So for my two fans out there (Mom and Susan) I will do this in parts. Trying to give you my take on our fabulous trip one day at a time, beginning with the shocked look on my face as we entered the plane!! Enjoy....

To go on vacation or not? That WAS the question

Well here it is the post where i get to tell the sob story that yet again we cancelled the European vacation of our dreams. I really just think that Europe doesn't want us! Or, maybe the third time is a charm. We took the responsible path and decided since our main sorce of income was not working AND the company was in bankruptcy it might be smart to sit this one out and wait. While we feel it all is going to work out, we just couldn't stomach the idea of 3 weeks on the other side of the world and Greg's job in balance. Could you really enjoy your vacation when all you can think about is the fact that your job may not be there when you get back. I couldn't, so we decided since we had insurance and it covers "job loss" we should just use the insurance and try again down the road. All I can say is thank goodness for trip insurance. I highly recommend it to anyone planning an expensive vacation. With that said, we will see Italy....date TBD.

So with Greg at home for the last couple of weeks work has progressed around the house. We are prepping for our "Housewarming Party" as the southerns call it or "Open House" as the northeners say on July 18th. In addition we are anxiously awaiting my parents to visit. We have an ETA of "just before the party". Can't get much more than that, but I will take it. We plan to spend a few days for the 4th of July down there. So if I have to I will tie them up and throw them in the back of the truck and bring them back with us!! Who wouldn't want to come to Michigan in June? and stay through July and August. NO humidity, 75 glorious degrees and 9pm (or later) sunsets. Summers here are worth the winters we have to endure.

Ok, so on to the changes here. We have installed new interior lighting, built the downstairs bar (waiting for counter tops to be installed next week), installed new fixtures in half bath and pairtially painted it and worked on the exterior landscaping. Oh, and finally unpacked the office boxes. That was an entire days worth of work right there. Still so much to do and not enough hours in the day. I just don't know how people get settled into their homes so quickly. We have been here for nearly 8 months and still have so much more to do. Greg is more than likely going back to work on June 29th. Figures, that is the week we had scheduled to go to Alabama. But he has a job to go back to, at least for now.


Took 4 people to hang. I was a nervous wreck


Before paint and counters. Can't figure out what color to paint entire basement. Any ideas?