More unhappy News in the newyear.

As it turns out my Aunt Betty in Georgia has also passed on. Her funeral is this weekend. I am not going.. It's quite a ways out there, and I can't miss the work. Not to mention, I promised a dear friend that I would come and visit her for the weekend. Hopefully to raise her spirits a Little. There has been a little bit of drama in her life lately.... we'll who am I kidding, there's been lots of drama for a good long while now.
I have put together what I think to be some good ideas to make her life a little easier, and some ideas to make things fun again. Some of the ideas I have are ...

-Start a online calendar - so she can keep her and her kids appointments and special events in order. I think if I use a email calendar like Yahoo, I can have it remind her too.

-Which brings me to - getting her up to date on the Internet... emails, picture, blogs, and games of course.

-I also want her to set up an "ICE" folder (or 'incase of emergency' folder). Here she can store important medical information such as her doctors, medications and diagnosis'. That way if anything every were to happen, all of the important information would be easily accessible. She can put the kids information there too.

-I want to help her set up a daily plan... including outings for her and the kids, chores, and visits to Nana's house.

-I also want to figure out some personal goals she has for herself, and help her to archive them.

These are just some of the ideas I have thought of to get her out of her rut that she's in. I will post another blog to let you all know how it all works out. Let me know if you can think of anything else.

January's unhappy events bring families together

January came with quite a blow. The same night that I was at the concert I found out later, was the night that my dear cousin Tony left this world. I had gotten a phone call at the concert, but it was so loud that I wasn't able to hear. I got the news the next day. It came as a shock, I didn't even kmow he had been in the hospital, not many people did. They are still trying to find out what happened.
The funeral was held Jan 5th 2009, luckily I was able to take off work to visit with my mourning friends and family. Even with such sad events to bring us together, it was good to see everyone come together. And as with the normal tradition on my moms side, we all decided on a meeting place to enjoy each others company and convers about the good times with our already missed family memeber.
With our tears wiped from our faces and food in our stomachs we soon found each others uplifting personalities to be helpful to manage our troubled thoughts. Our evening ended well, and there were laughs and smiles.

... part 2

My friend Nicky came into town for Christmas. We hung out allot, and visit mutual friends and family. The first couple days he was in town we went to D's house. I took my gifts for the kids out there with me. The kids loved them, but D said I broke the first rule of gift giving - you see I got John Wayne a (learner) guitar. Apparently i wasn't supposed to get them anything that made noise? Ha ha .

Regardless I figured a kid with a name like that needed a guitar, and a nice plaid jacket too. The kids loved their gifts and D loved hers too. I swear I spoil that dear girl every year. Nicky it seams had just as much fun with the kids toys as any child would. Momma Oakes stopped in for a quick visit too, but just to drop off the kids gifts that D couldn't fit in the car the day before.
Nicky and I said our goodbyes to the kids that night as they took off for their dads house all the way down in South Carolina.

Nicky and I caught a show at the 930 club in DC, together. It was a favorite band of Nicky's that I had gotten him tickets to for Christmas. "CLUTCH" was very interesting, kind of redneck meets rock with a really good beat. Their fans were awesome, mostly long haired tough guys with tattoos and Amish beards. If you have every been to the 930 club you probably have seen this huge bald guy with gigantic gauged ears (I totally want to meet this guy by the way)... this guy was singing along to the Clutch lyrics word for word, as he lifted crowd surfers off of the crowd and broke up fights between overzealous moshers. I'd say it's very addicting music - in fact we are going to go see them again in February I think.

A new year- missed events re-caped

When we last left our hero she had gone on a cold camping trip and was getting ready to face yet another. That thanksgiving camping trip has come and gone, with some interesting stories that ... lets just say should be kept quiet.

The Thanksgiving... family camping trip was one of intoxicating humor. I don't have may pictures from this one, as Witt wasn't able to attend, and I as usual forgot my camera. But the ones I do have give you a general sense of the merriment had by all.

The weekend before the Camping trip, I set out on a walk in DC to raise money for the homeless. My work pulled together a bunch of people who were interested and paid all of our entry fees. The experience was heartwarming, but the day was very cold. By the time we all got back to our cars we had walked almost 4 miles i think.

Somewhere around the 11Th of December I went with Jason to see "Manchester Orchestra", who was awesome. We drove all the way out to Maryland to see them and a few other bands play. We heard this awesome up and coming band "all get out". Jason bought their CD, and we both hope to see more of them in the months to come. My favorite part of this concert was the very last song- by almost all of the performers of the night. The did their own hilarious version of the theme to "The Fresh Prince", and as everyone and their mother knows that song... the audience sang along. It was GREAT!

... to be continued.

Camping in November

Jason has been planning this November camping trip since the last time that we went camping back in July. I didn't have much to do with the planning process, nor did I realized how cold it was going to be... but It turned out nice in the end. The nights were a little on the chilly side but the hike during the day was worth it I think. The company made it one of the best camping trips I have ever been on.

The following pictures were taken by Witt.... I forgot my camera once again, but I wasn't worried since Witt takes his everywhere.

Note Witt's interpretation of camp dinner. Almost commercial-istic isn't it.

Beleive it or not we have another planned for the weekend after Thanksgiving.... more people tho, less hiking, and definately more blankets!

Halloween fun

Who says adults cant have fun on Halloween. My office held a Halloween costume contest. Unfortunately they didn't tell me until I had already decided on a boring lame costume... I tried to dress it up a few days before Halloween, but I couldn't beet my offices Secretary, though her costume was not expensive, she sure blew us away. She dressed as a cowBOY, and had leather fringe as a beard and mustache. My friend Katie was a Vampire prom queen. I will have to get copies of the office pictures that they took.

Here I am as a fairy... sitting at my desk. I got fairy dust everywhere... I'm still finding it in my paperwork.

PARF- was bust

So, after MRDF was over we decided to hit the PA renfestival since they were open one weekend past MD's. It was a slow start as we all got up late, and then proceded to get lost on the way up their. THere were some really cute amish faces on the senic route tho.

Once we finally got to the faire we bought our 'overproced' tickets and proceded into an almost empty faire. We've been here before, and in the past we have noticed a lack of 'dressed' rennies, but too see next to no Rennies at all was horrible, and on thier 2nd to last day, wheres the love people?

After an hour of misty, light rain and a little bit of window shopping we had to find shelter, as the rain started in heavier. And thats when it all went down hill. We tryed to enjoy ourselves, and brave the cold wet weather... walking from shop to shop ... until the shops started closing.

Once we ralized that all but like 2 shops were boarded up and the food venues were packing up shop we headed to the front angrily.

At the front they were ginving out tickets for the next day- unfortunately we had no intentions on coming back... this was supposed to be a rain or shine faire, we were no less than irate when we stepped past the workers at the gate.

While waiting for mom and dad to show up ... we sampled and bought some wine, well Jason and I did. And funny thing- Jason and I ended up with all the same wine I guess our tastes are one in the same.

I only have this one picture I took to leave you with. It's gives the horrible experience a lighter less vicious appeal. I bought this umbrella while we were there... as a early christmas present to Stacy, and I let her have it early on one condition.... she shared her new found semi-dryness.