Vacation Over

This morning, aswe were sitting out front of our hotel at 4:00am, I decided we were suffering from a Disneyland hangover. Jay's nose is running and he's sniffling, Cade woke up with a sore throat, and my eyes are very blood shot. They are the same color red as my hoodie. We are exhausted. We went hard yesterday with the other 70,000 at Disneyland. It was well worth it though. It was a great vacation. Sad to see that's it's over. I'll update over the next few days and include some pictures.
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Things I've Done Once In My Life...

And Don't Plan to Ever Do Again

Drive a Mustang in a snow storm

Let a tour bus drop me off at Legoland at 10:30 am and not pick me up until 7:30 pm

That pretty much covers it.


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Does it get any cuter???

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Still at the airport

We are still at the airport. We missed our connecting flight in Houston last night by about 5 minutes. So we are still in Houston and our luggage is floating around the airport in Orange County. Yeah, I'm not a bit nervous about that.

Continental put us in a hotel last night so at least we could shower. It's going to quite some time before I'll want to wear this shirt again! I'm looking pretty right now...no makeup, no flat iron and no perfume. I will be so happy when I finally get my hands on my luggage!


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At the airport

Cade is a bundle of nerves. He's afraid we are going to miss the plane, even though we are 10 feet from the gate. He's pretty funny. He's asked at least once every 5 minutes if it's time to get on the plane yet. He's already looking like a seasoned traveler...


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Getting ready to leave

We are in Sheldon now getting our stuff together.  We had Christmas with my family last night.  This morning Mom and Dad watched Cade open up a few of the presents we brought for him.  It was stuff for him to take on the trip.  They also got to listen to the special phone call we received from Mickey and Goofy inviting Cade to Disneyland.  Our flight leaves KC at 6:05 tonight.  We have a 55 minute layover in Houston and we should be in California by 10:30 pm their time.  Tomorrow and Friday we'll be at Disneyland, Saturday Legoland, Sunday Universal Studio and Monday we'll go back to Disneyland.  Our flight  leaves Tuesday morning at 6:45 am. 

You might say a prayer for us for safety and nerves the next few days.  We didn't want Cade to see the news this morning because of the plane crash in Jamaica, but he saw it and it has him worried.  I think knowing he's worried has me nervous.  Jay's in for a wonderful time!

I'm hoping to keep this updated as we go along today to have for our own memories.  This is Cade's first time to fly so I want to have a record of it.

10 Years Today...

  1 Wonderful Husband
+1 Happy Wife
+1 year of dating
+ 3 month engagement
+1 beautiful wedding
+1 Great Little Boy
+1 Obnoxious Dog
-2 not so lucky dogs
-6 even unluckier cats
+2 different home loans
+1 old house that made us appreaciate our newer home
+2 different trucks
+4 different cars
-1 totaled Buick
-1 tree that fell over and landed on the Monte Carlo and our fence
+3 different church families
+4 different jobs
-4 grandparents lost since 2004
+9 major trips together
-4.5 years of infertility
+3 years of an adoption journey that's taught us a lot
-1 police report for stolen tools 2 weeks after our wedding
-4 surgeries
+4 because the surgeries were for very minor problems
-6 of the longest months without a dishwasher in 2005
+1.5 Hereford Embryos and the excitement thats gone along with that
-1 Call to the fire department
-1 Opossum stuck in a Wal Mart sack in our garage
-2 roof leaks from a hole in our roof
+1 husband willing to dress up like a Wisemen (complete with paper crown) and sing We Three Kings because I needed the part filled
=10 wonderful years full of excitement, ups and downs and a whole lot of laughs and love

Happy Anniversary, I love you!!!!

Christmas

Christmas preperations are in full swing around our house. This year I'm in charge of the church's Christmas play. Which in turn means that Jay is taking a very active role in the production. We've spent several nights at the church digging through costumes, preparing the stage and fixing the lights. Our house has also suffered due to the play. Last week I had angel wings strung all over the kitchen and family room. I thought they were going to be the death of me, but I got them finished Friday night.

This year our church play is the traditional nativity. It's been a few years since our church has done this. Our other plays were nice and I enjoyed them, but I really love the simple nativity productions.

I got a copy of  my Aunt Helen's play that I grew up with. As I told Jay, I'm taking my Aunt's play and tweaking it some to make it my own....Since it is really impossible to improve on the KJV Gospel of Luke I've changed some other things. I added O Holy Night because it is my favorite Christmas song, added Mary Did You Know because we have a lady at church that sings the best version I've ever heard, changed the last line to put in Isaiah 9:6-7 because those are some of my favorite verses AND the big change... I've painted the angel wings metallic gold.

Yes, big things have been in the works around the Shepherd houshold this week. The play is next Sunday. I'll just be happy if the shepherds make it down the aisle without using their staffs as swords.....or more specifically that one "shepherd" would behave himself......I'll let you guys guess which one I'm talking about.

I love this time of the year!

Right now I can't even think of a good title for this post. It's probably going to be a mixture of whining and expressing our frustration. I don't know it it's this time of year getting to us or the realization that we contacted our agency 3 years ago the end of this month or the fact that in 6 months we will celebrate our 5 year infertility anniversary. Five years…can you believe that?

Adding to this is the fact that every time I turn around I'm getting hit with baby something or other. I think things started bothering me about a week ago when I looked at a blog that I read on occasion. They, like us, were going through infertility and had several failed treatments. They were told their chances of conceiving on their own was very slim. You probably know where I'm going with this….yup they managed to get pregnant without assistance. Then to really add to it, they've dealt with 2 years of infertility and they still haven't been married as long as we've been trying. That was somewhat of a defining realization for me.  This is really taking much longer than I ever anticipated.

Then again last week I looked at a blog that I hadn't looked at since this summer.  Their situation was very similar to ours.  Their daughter is Cade's age, they had been waiting since February 2007 and they were placed with a baby in August.  I'm very happy for these families because I know the pain that they have been through to get to this point.  I'm just ready for it to be us for a change.

Car Update

Jay cleaned my car out last night and he's declared it to be rodent free. He said he was also pretty grossed out by the whole thing, he just tried not to freak out as much as I was. We left it parked out side last night so that the cold would hopefully kill it….as long as it didn't die inside the car. Jay put several traps around the garage and he moved Charlie's dog food out of there. He's also going to set some traps in the house just for my piece of mind. We don't think it's in the house, but I don't want to take any chances. I drove the car this morning and nothing climbed up my pant leg. I'm considering that to be a wonderful start to the day.

I did ask Jay how he'd feel if he found a big fat possum sitting in his truck.  I did get the reaction I had expected....totally grossed out.  Just a little insight in to a couple of our phobias.

Not the Way I Planned to Start My Day…..

Jay was a substitute bus driver today. He had to be at the school by 6:30 this morning so we both got up early. He got ready and then helped me finish getting the house in order. We had kind of destroyed it Wednesday night. We still had some time to spare so I decided to wrap some Christmas presents. I got two wrapped for Avery and then decided to get Cade's out of the trunk of my car.

I bought three things for him the day after Thanksgiving. Two of them were not a big deal – a fleece and the traditional pair of PJ's. The third thing was a little bigger deal. It was a really nice vest that I got at Gymboree (that's a picture of it). The tag said $32, but since I was at the mall at the break of dawn that day, I was able to purchase it for $15. I thought it was a pretty good deal. Sunday, when we got home from church, I popped the trunk so I could show Jay everything. I like to make sure my clothing purchases are "boy appropriate". Everything appeared to be fine. I held up the three items and nothing struck me as being weird or out of place.

Fast forward to this morning (before 6 I might add!) and I'm sitting on our family room floor. I had just brought in my sack of goodies so I can wrap them while Cade is still asleep. I grab the wonderful, cozy vest and give it a little shake. I hear things hitting the floor. I look down to see these brown pellets pouring out of the vest. I froze for a minute and tried to think back to what my car had been used for the past few days. Had Jay hauled something? Was it dog food? Had we even bought dog food recently? All the while I knew what it was, but I was trying to think of every possible thing except what I feared the most…..I had a mouse IN MY CAR. Not just any mouse….a mouse that loaded up what appeared to be at least of cup of Charlie's dog food, hauled it to the trunk of my car, climbed inside a Gymboree sack and made itself at home inside one of the best of my Black Friday Deals.

I was so grossed out and mad. I HATE MICE. I think they are the nastiest creatures on the planet. They absolutely tick me off. They chew up things, ruin what ever they get their nasty little teeth on and then leave their filthy calling cards lying around. Then the stupid little thing didn't touch the fleece and the PJ's it chewed on the vest.

So at around 6:00 am this morning, if you had been our neighbors, you would've seen Jay and I carefully taking apart the trunk of my car. We also discovered the mouse had chewed a hole in the cover that goes over my spare tire. Jay put on gloves because he was afraid there might be a nest around the tire. We didn't find a nest, but we found 6 inches of water around the spare tire. I guess I have a trunk leak? I was so ticked off…and grossed out.

Jay drove my car today because I couldn't. I don't know what I'm going to do. He thinks the mouse is gone, but I'm not as confident. Our next dilemma is what do we do? Do we put poison in my trunk but then risk having the mouse crawl somewhere unreachable and die? Do we put the poison in the garage and take the chance it will still get in my car and die? Do we do nothing and risk having the mouse crawl up my pant leg while I'm driving down I-44? I knew I should've traded off the car when I had the incident in Cassville this summer. This was the car that was supposed to last me for awhile. I was going to drive it for years after it was paid off. Having a mouse loose in the car may change that plan. Jay just shrugged off my rant this morning about the car grossing me out. He doesn't quite share my hatred for mice though.  I need to ask him how he'd feel if he found a big fat possum sitting in his truck.....