Summertime Happiness

I was thinking this morning about the fact that I've had a great summer, which made me want to list all of the reasons that it's been so fun. Plus, Elisha's been saying and doing a lot of cute things, so I wanted to write about those, too. Here we go!

1) Spending time with my side of the family in California. We went to Disneyland to celebrate Grandma's 80th birthday with all of my dad's side of the family and had so much fun together! I also realized that it was the first time in my life that I had a date at Disneyland. And not even just one date. I had two of them! I loved being able to introduce Andrew and Elisha to everything in the park. We were able to see Mickey right away when we got into California Adventure and Elisha spent the majority of the photo opportunity pounding Mickey's fist and blowing it up. The best part was that Mickey didn't even seem to be aware that was happening. He just put his arms around Eiley and Elisha while looking at the camera.

2) Going to Atlanta to spend time with the Fortune family. We had Supper Club approximately once per month when they lived in Virginia, so we continued that tradition while we were visiting. We also discovered that their 3 year old daughter, Mary Carol, has quite the crush on... Andrew? Mary Carol and Elisha have been betrothed since we found out we were having a boy, but it was, "Andrew, will you read to me? Andrew, will you play tea party with me? Andrew, will you sit next to me?" I thought it was hilarious and Andrew, of course, wasn't going to say no to any of her requests, but he was still a little awkward about it.

3) Andrew said that they were watching TV one day and Elisha told him, "I'm pooping!... It hurts!... Kiss it." Elisha's become a big fan of having his injuries kissed and made all better, but he was on his own for that one. I've also gotten quite a few mosquito bites this summer and he'll randomly go to kiss my leg, then tell me, "All better." It's so sweet, yet kind of gross.
4) Speaking of kissing, Elisha has also started standing behind Andrew and me with one arm around each of our shoulders, then he'll push our faces together to make us kiss. It's very adorable and I'll remind him of that when he's grossed out by us expressing any type of affection toward each other when he's older.
5) Elisha and I got to visit Miss Kim in Washington D.C. because she was there for a work trip. We got to catch up on life and stop by the White House to look at the outside of it. Elisha ended up falling asleep in his stroller while we were in front of the White House, so I guess he wasn't that impressed.
6) Andrew and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary while we were in California by going to the food trucks. Nothing says romance like eating dinner in a parking lot. But seriously, it was delicious and I think it will end up being one of our more memorable dates because it was kind of random. We also celebrated our anniversary in Virginia 3 weeks later by going to dinner at Dudley's (where we ate on our accidental honeymoon in Williamsburg) and going to Busch Gardens, which was the least crowded I had seen it in years.
7) We also got to see a taping of "The Soup" while we were in California. I've watched it almost every week since it started in 2004 and it was so cool to be in the audience. Everyone in the audience also got to take pictures with Joel McHale after the taping, which was incredibly kind of him, because he said that he was going to be leaving on a plane for Seattle about 90 minutes after the show ended that night.
8) Hanging out with Emmy, Grandma, Eiley, Margot, and Elisha one Saturday night while we were out there. Grandma ordered takeout for all of us from Stonefire Grill (Tri-tip! Caesar Salad!Breadsticks!) and then we mocked "Christian Mingle" after putting the kids to bed. Actually, Emmy and I mocked "Christian Mingle" and Grandma fell asleep after about 20 minutes. :)
9) We got involved with a Connect Group at our church this summer and I'm really enjoying the people in our group. We haven't been able to do a ton with them because we were out of town so much, but I'm excited to get to know everyone better.
10) I got a text from Andrew when I was at work soon after our trip. He said that Elisha had been pushing a suitcase around the house while singing the ABC's and wearing his hat and shoes. That pretty much sums up life with a 2 year old.

11) EILEY LET ME DO HER HAIR!

The Garbage Truck- Part 2

A few years back, when I was living in Kentucky and working at the preschool, I wrote a blog post about how much those preschoolers loved to see the garbage man. http://jennamissboyd.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

Then, this sweet video showed up in my Facebook news feed a few times last week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZcyXkp9Qsw

After working at the preschool, there was a part of me that hoped that my future child would get excited about seeing the garbage man. So, a few weeks ago, Elisha and I were in the backyard on a Tuesday afternoon and I heard the garbage truck in our neighborhood. I took him to sit on the front porch steps and we waited to see the truck. Once he was to our trash can, he used the arm to lift it into the truck and a light bulb came out, shattering on the street in front of our driveway. He felt the need to explain that this happens sometimes and told me someone from the city would come to clean it up. Then, he lifted the trash can again and one of the wheels fell off the side of it. He gave me a number that I could call for someone to fix that, too. In conclusion, it ended up being a slightly awkward encounter with the garbage man and Elisha seemed pretty indifferent about seeing the truck anyway. There goes my dream of Elisha becoming BFFs with the garbage man.

Bernice (and one of many reasons that Andrew Garrett is the greatest).

My computer battery died a few weeks ago, so we bought another battery off of Amazon and the computer continued to work for about 5 minutes at a time. When that happened, I realized it had to do with the computer itself and we were going to have to break down and buy a new one. Since I had a boatload of paperwork to do and zero working computers, Andrew researched some on Amazon and found one that could be shipped to us the next day. He decided that the smart thing would be having it shipped to his school. We wouldn't be getting home until around 9pm the next night (Wednesday) and it would have been terrible if someone had stolen that particular box off of our porch (for the record, no one has ever stolen anything off of our front porch, but we weren't going to risk it with a $300 laptop). Well, as we discussed this, it started snowing a little outside. Neither of us thought anything of the snow and I went on my way to work feeling relieved that I would have a computer the next day. I got to my first kid's house and it continued to snow and snow. I ended up going home at 4pm, instead of at 5:30pm because my second session was canceled due to the snow. I thought, "This is great! I'll be home at 4:30 and have the house to myself for a couple of hours while Andrew and Elisha are at the gym." Wrong! It took me 1 hour and 45 minutes to drive home because the traffic was so bad.

Well, you can probably figure out where this is going... school ended up getting canceled the next day because the snow was way worse than anyone had anticipated. Andrew called Amazon to see if they could have the laptop delivered to our house, but it was too late. They said that we could call once we received the delivery confirmation, but there wasn't anything they could do in the meantime. Andrew saw the delivery confirmation at 7am the next morning and called immediately to see if they could deliver it to a UPS store. He also called one of his friends who works for UPS to see if he had any suggestions on how to track it down. He was finally able to get in touch with someone and they said that he could pick it up from the warehouse in Virginia Beach. He went to the warehouse and they told him that they didn't know where it was, so he would have to wait until they delivered it to the school.

We had another big snowstorm that was coming in that night, which meant that it probably wouldn't be delivered until Monday (5 days later). I had a lot of things that were due the next week, so I tried not to have a nervous breakdown about having to do a ton of paperwork in the span of 2 days. A few hours later, Andrew's friend from UPS called and said that he had been able to track down the computer! They met up and Andrew was able to bring her home to me that night.

I named her Bernice because every great laptop needs an old lady name. I also just looked up the meaning of Bernice and it's, "she who brings victory." I feel like that's appropriate after everything we had to do to get her home.

Cute Elisha Story

Since Elisha is talking more now, he's also surprising us with some of the things that he knows. When I put him to sleep at night, I pray for him first. Then I say, "I love you," and give him a hug and a kiss. This was our conversation after I put him in his crib last week:

Elisha: I keeess you.
Me: You want to kiss me?
Elisha: Yea.

Then he walked over to where I was standing next to his crib and planted an open-mouthed kiss on my cheek.

I think I'll keep him. :)

2014

It's time for another reflection on the previous year. I'm kind of proud of myself because I just looked at the years that I've written these for and I've only missed 2012 since 2008. There are probably ones from earlier years on myspace, too, but I haven't looked there in forever. Onward to the list!

January: We went out to dinner with friends on New Year's Eve, then came home to watch a HIMYM marathon before midnight. When we got home, I couldn't find my purse in Andrew's car. I had left it under a coat in his car while we were out because he had everything that we needed. We soon realized that it was nowhere to be found and that someone had stolen it, which meant canceling checks and credit cards. Plus, we were completely paranoid that night because someone had the keys to our house and my car. We were able to replace most of the stuff in it, but it was a huge hassle. Elisha took his first steps on his 9 monthiversary on January 26th. I continued going to physical therapy because my back wasn't completely better after having herniated discs that were pinching the nerve. We also had a lot of snow and ice!

February: We continued with the snow and ice. Andrew, Elisha, and I got sick with the stomach flu during the same week, so that was gross. Tom, Andrew's dad, had a stroke at the beginning of the month and ended up in the hospital. We were able to say goodbye to him on February 17th and tell him that we loved him. It was incredibly difficult to get out the words, knowing that this was going to be the last time I saw him on this earth. He passed away on Tuesday, February 18th, and a Celebration Service was held that Saturday. It truly was a celebration of his life with people telling stories about the funny things that he did and family members (Andrew included) singing songs that he had requested for the service.

March: I was discharged from physical therapy because my back was finally all better. I also went back to the gym and started some interval workouts on the treadmill. We finally had some sunshine again, so Elisha and I spent some time outside and I enjoyed the fact that I wasn't in pain anymore.

April: I don't really know what happened in April, so I'm guessing that it was more working and spending time outside.

May: I studied not hard enough and took the BCaBA at the end of the month.

June: Andrew went to John Brown University in Arkansas for a training for his school. He's technically a college professor now because some of his students are taking history for college credit through that school. Elisha and I met him in California because we were going to visit my family and meet Margot. My main goal for that trip was to snuggle a ton with Margot, so I think that goal was accomplished.

July: We went to visit our friends Bess, Russell, and their daughter/our future daughter-in-law, Mary Carol, in Atlanta. We were having "Supper Club" with them when they lived in Virginia and we would basically do a potluck at their house once per month. We ate, played games, and ate some more while we were visiting them.

August: I spent a lot of time studying for the BCBA exam and I worked. That was pretty much the gist of August.

September: Elisha and I took a road trip to Bemus Point, NY, for Paul and Jordan's wedding. We shared a hotel room with Kim and Jenny, so it was fun to have a slumber party with that crew and catch up on life. Elisha contributed the words, "Oh, I seeee," "key," and "hi" to our conversations many, many, many times. It was also FREAKIN' COLD in upstate New York, which weather.com had lied about, so I bought a sweater dress and leggings from the local consignment shop. I found out at the end of the month that I had failed the BCBA exam. :(

October: We went to Jessie Overton's wedding and Andrew sang for it. I made a Halloween costume for Elisha (this was the first and probably only time that will happen). I dressed our E.G.G. up as an egg for "Trunk or Treat" at my mother-in-law's church, then we went to dinner at the Broken Egg. He crashed on the way home from dinner, so I took advantage of the opportunity to snuggle with him when we got home. I also ate most of his Halloween candy while he was asleep on me.

November: I turned *gasp* 35. I studied (A LOT) for the BCBA exam and took it on 11/25. We were going to stay home on Thanksgiving because I was recovering from all of that studying, but ended up going to the Overton's house (a family from Andrew's school) for dinner and the Wall's house (Andrew's best friend's) for pie.

December: We all got sick at various times during the beginning of the month. On one of those days, I ended up with the stomach flu and puked 9 times in 8 hours. I don't think I've ever been that sick in my life. The day after that, when I was able to move around a tiny bit more, we went to a little Winter Wonderland in Downtown Portsmouth called Coleman's Nursery. Elisha was fine with sitting on Santa's lap and basically just wanted to pull on his beard. He also liked watching the trains and the toys in the Christmas exhibits. While we were there, they told us that there was chocolate dipping in the gift shop, so we went downstairs and got to make chocolate things for free! THEN, they told us that there was a place with pretend snow at the end of the street and that it was going to be starting in a few minutes. We went down there and Elisha did some dancing as the fake snow came down. My point is- we ended up having this magical winter night on accident.

We also went to California for Christmas and had a blast hanging out with my family. And the best Christmas present of all was finding out on Christmas night that I PASSED THE BCBA EXAM!!! I don't think I've ever been more relieved about something in my life. About 15 minutes after finding out I passed, there were Christmas carolers at my parents' door. I don't know why they were there at 9:30pm, but they added to the magic of finally being done with that test for good.

That's all for 2014. It started out pretty bad and ended up fantastic. I'm looking forward to what the New Year will bring!