Work was a breeze this week, too. I finished up with stuff from my scholarship event as soon as I got to work on Tuesday (OMG, I just remembered I forgot to pay something *makes mental note*) and helped one of my co-workers with a mail-out. We were all summoned to do it and listened to music and ate pizza :). It was fun!

I fell asleep Tuesday night as my babe and I watched a movie on the sofa. And he passed out Wednesday…on the sofa. It’s something about that darn thing! It’s so comfortable you can’t help but fall asleep!

I went straight to get the kiddos Thursday night, got home, we all played with Ruffles and I got straight to making dinner (chicken tomato/Alfredo). My babe got here, we ate, and I dropped the kiddos off :(.

Our clean-up day at work was yesterday, Friday. Most of us started Thursday afternoon and I’m so glad I did. I organized our section in the storage room…it was terrible! There was old stuff and weird decorations…my boss gave me the ok to just chuck everything LOL. Now it’s nice and neat ^_^.

My boss, myself and two other co-workers were in charge of cleaning the kitchen. It was just my boss and I cleaning, though, but it’s ok. We finished in a flash and then I started in the filing room and my filing cabinets. Another co-worker was nice enough to vaccumm for us since her desk was super clean and she wasn’t in charge of other sections :). I dusted everything before meeting my love for lunch at Kumori. I hadn’t been there in a while! The food was super good, as always, and didn’t take forever even though the place was packed. I veered away from my favorite, the Rainbow Roll and got the McAllen Roll instead. It has raw fish, too. It was insanely good!

I tossed out my recycling box when I got back to the office and we all passed inspection in our area at 2:30! I ran a few errands, got some food at HEB and came home. John was spending the night since I was dropping him off at the airport in Harlingen early in the morning. I hadn’t seen him in a long time already!

I needed detergent because John had to do laundry and I had a few coupons I wanted try out so we headed back to HEB. I got a huge bottle of Gain deteregent (stupid, expensive detergent!), 7 bottles of KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce (were on sale for $1, with a $1 off coupon=free) and buy one get one free Airwick air fresheners. The total bill was $20, came out to $10.80. I basically paid for the detergent only! Not much of a mass purchase, but the Extreme Couponing thing could actually work! John and my babe were impressed, heh. We’ll never run out of BBQ sauce :P!

We waited for my babe to get home and we headed to Weinershnitzel, John’s treat. I hadn’t been there yet; it was GOOD!

We came back and waited for the rest of our group to get here. John turned in early, Michelle left around 11pm and the rest of us stayed up. I went to bed around 2:30 and still felt pretty good when I got up.

John and I amazingly found our way to the airport without getting lost. He was super nervous. I don’t blame him. I’ll probably be shitting bricks, too, when I finally go on my first flight LOL.

I passed by the Iwo Jima monument and followed the map on my phone.

I’m driving for what seems like forever and panic when I don’t see anything familiar. Never fails: I got lost after a wrong turn on US 77. I hate that thing. So I call my babe, get frustrated because I don’t know any of the roads he’s talking about and calm my nerves so I can focus and get back on the road. I did pretty good and then came up to a signless 4-way and wasn’t sure where I was supposed to turn. I, of course, went the wrong way and stopped at a gas station to get directions…but it was shut down. GREAT! I collect myself again, and head in the opposite direction and voila!, back on 83!

I was going to pass through Dad’s city and I hadn’t spoken to him since sometime last September so I stopped by. I started to get worried when I noticed the chair he sits in outside was overturned and dusty, his car looked like it hadn’t been moved in a while and nobody answered the door. He’s always home. I called the number I had and got voicemail. My half-brother’s number was now someone else’s. I found it weird that dad hadn’t tried contacting me since that last time we spoke and I began to get panicky. I went around the house and looked through the kitchen window. There was a candle on on the counter, so that made me feel a tiny bit better. I had a feeling I should check the doorknob and sure enough, it was open. I went in and felt creeped out right away. It was super dark and there were 3 wheelchairs. It was strange. He has one leg amputated due to diabetes, but I saw no reason for the types of wheelchairs that were there. I went into his room and my heart sank when I saw a hospital bed in place of his bed…and two prosthetics, not just one. I wondered if they were there because he was in the hospital. I got freaked out and left quietly and quickly. I left him a note on the door, letting him know I’d visited and left my number just in case he didn’t have it. I hoped for a call.

I got home and picked mom up and we visited with Gramma for a while. We came home and I relaxed most of the day. Lazied around like Ruffles, our kitty. Don’t know if I’d mentioned him before. He’s been with us since about two weeks after we moved in.

I watched Lifetime movies all day while texting with John and my babe. Didn’t do once ounce of cleaning, heh, which is fine ’cause the house doesn’t really need any heavy-duty cleaning. Just gotta sweep & mop tomorrow (I’ll get my babe to help me again :P) and do laundry.

Dad called around 2:30. He let me know they indeed amputated his other leg up to the knee as well and he’s having dialysis done 3 times a week, hence the reason he wasn’t home. I couldn’t believe it. He just doesn’t take care of himself. He almost died before they amputated his other leg. He just got the 2nd prosthetic done so he hasn’t started walking around with them yet. I’m glad we got back in contact. I really was worried. Mom gave him her cellphone number and they chatted a while LOL.

I meant to finish updating this entry since around 4:30…but I sat down to finish watching a movie and crashed out on the sofa (darn thing…). Woke up, talked to my babe who was on his way home with the boys, and I started on dinner. I made some cilantro dip, and now we’re sitting down to watch “Tron”. Wish my babies were here. They’re going to the beach with their dad tomorrow. I get worried, but I’m praying everything will be fine :(.

Ok, movie is starting!

I really should try to finish updating…it’s been almost a week since I last updated and now I’m 2 weeks behind LOL. Oh well!

I brought lunch with me to work (shrimp and rice :)). I read a little and then remembered that I haven’t updated this thing.

But anyway! Details are becoming sketchy (I used to be so good at remembering things!) so I don’t remember much from Friday the 13th except that I made sushi for dinner and my babe made his awesome stuffed jalapeños!

I’m not sure if we had company over that night, but I know we stayed up late. My poor babe still had to work Saturday and I began to get up to make him breakfast but he told me I should rest and he kissed my forehead as I snuggled under the blanket and fell back to sleep :). Amazingly, I slept in till 11:30am! I never sleep in, not because I don’t want to, but because I simply can’t, ever. I felt refreshed! I made myself some coffee, followed up with the girls about when we were meeting for our movie, and got ready.

We went to watch “Bridesmaids”…super HILARIOUS movie!! I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it as much as I did :). Karina’s crazy; she sneaked in some wine coolers so we had some LOL. It was just Karina, Dayse and me who got to meet up. And after the movie, Dayse had something to do so it was just Karina, her friend and niece and myself having lunch (breakfast/lunch/dinner for me!) at Rodz.

I went home and get a text from my babe that he was getting out of work a bit late because they’d just sent him…to Rodz to work LOL. I made him some dinner and he got home and we watched one of the “Pirates” movies. We’re spontaneous…and I wanted cheesecake so we hopped in the truck and went to Starbucks at Barnes and Noble to get some Godiva cheesecake and Fraps. We looked around for a while and then went home. I love my little dates with my babe :).

We slept in again (two days in a row for me, WHAT?!) And we lazied around all day. We picked up El Pato for lunch and ate with mom. The weather was great that day. It’d been hot and humid the week before but a “cold front” had come in that morning and it was nice and cool. It would have been a great day to take all the kids to the park :(. It’s so quiet without them here, it’s almost weird. We try and watch TV or keep ourselves busy to fight the boredom without them. After we ate we sat outside with mom on the back patio. We took a walk around the yard and noticed all the neighbors’ trash had blown into the yard so we cleaned up the yard. We got three garbage bags of junk! I wish we had a cedar back fence so they can keep their junk to themselves >_<. I raked up leaves and the chopped grass my babe was weed-eating. We felt nice and accomplished :). The kiddos came by with Mary when she dropped Emily off and they stayed a bit. I had at tough time putting Emily to bed that night, which usually happens when she spends the weekend over there. Grrr. It was my scholarship event that Thursday so last-minute things were finished up that week. I think this event was the easiest I've had and this is the last one for "this year". It was pretty low-key at work all week, which is always nice, but I feel...guilty LOL. I'm traumatized from my previous job, where my old boss would say, "There's never any free time!" So when I have free time now, I LOOK for something to do LOL. We went to Jr.'s Wednesday night. We hadn't been over there since even before we moved to the new house. It was nice being over there. Of course I couldn't stay awake long enough and fell asleep on my spot on the sofa till the guys had their "guy time" and we came home. I got ready for bed and did amazingly well the next day, the day of my event. Michelle and I got ready at work and I'm so relieved to say the event went without incident. Every section on the program transitioned smoothly, there were no awkward pauses, the guitarist played beautifuly, the food was delicious...it was just nice :). I got to meet my babe for lunch the next day at Chick-fil-A :). I've been trying to keep from spending unneccessarily so I've been taking lunch to work, but I wanted to see my sweetie so we met up. Seeing him for lunch makes the day go by faster :). Mario kept the kids that night since I had the event and the kids were coming with me during the weekend and I was feeling pretty good so I met my babe and the guys at Buffalo's. I had one drink and just laughed and laughed at the guys and their jokes. We stayed in Friday night and I had all the kids get ready early so that we'd get ready fast the next morning for Jaylen's First Communion. It was awkward being near Mario's family, but I ignored it and paid attention to the Service. The "after" part--taking pictures with Jaylen--was quick and painless and we came home. We lounged around the rest of the day and I painted the girlies' nails. The kids played and had a good time. The next morning wasn't exactly how I pictured spending my Sunday; waking up and driving the kids all the way to La Joya so the boys could go to church. They wanted Jaylen there for post-First Communion things. It's ridiculous though, driving back and forth 3 times in one day. I don't get to see the boys till 2:30 and have to "return" them at 6. It totally cuts into my time with them. I already told them I'd be taking the boys to church here the weekends I have them. I made lunch for the rest of us when I got back and then my babe and I turbo-cleaned because Aunt Nora was visiting, heh. I'm glad we didn't have much to clean :). She brought us a spring wreath and we sat with Mom and caught up. I love her and wish we could see each other more often :(. The kids ran rampant through the house playing hide-n-seek and since they wanted something to snack on I made a chocolate cake. And then it was time to drop off my babies :(. The rest of the kiddos, my babe and I went to Walmart when I got back and we had a lil' BBQ. Put the kiddos to bed and then we stayed out on the back porch for a bit. We spent the next day doing stuff around the house, washing the van (finally LOL), and we went to his sister's house to pick up the TV. We spent all afternoon going to raspa and fruit cup places along the way and NOBODY took debit cards. Very disappointing. We treated ourselves to some Red Mango on our way home after picking up the TV. It was SO GOOD! Almost glad we didn’t get those fruit cups, hehe.

My babe’s friend came over to help him install the TV and then we actually got to sit down and watch TV in the living room! it was nice :). We watched “Extreme Couponing” on TLC–first time watching it and I was hooked! It’s amazing! I wish the stores in our area doubled coupons, though. Otherwise I don’t think it really works out =\. Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to collect coupons and try it out though!

Emily had a hard time falling asleep again that night, even after 2 stories and about 6 lullabies. Alaethia, however, sleeps like a ROCK!

It was a great weekend with my kiddos, however limited my time with the boys was :(. I’m grateful for all my happy memories, though. Every last one!

There’s about 15 minutes left till lunchtime and I’m waiting for my babe to tell me where we’re meeting for lunch if he’s done on time or whether I should tag along with Michelle and the gang.

–yay, we’re having lunch together!

My most recent event, the scholarship banquet, was last night and I’m pretty much between events now, other than the occassional seminar. I’m realizing I mostly blog when I’m done with an event and have nothing to do at work heh.

So to summarize where I previously left off…it was kind of a low-key weekend with the kiddos when we had them 2 weekends ago. We mostly stayed home and took Gramma her Mother’s Day gift. She wanted Delia’s Tamales so we all piled in the van and went to get some. Mom spent some time with her while the kids and I ate at home. I was pleasantly surprised that they each ate very well. A few of the kids painted piggy banks, then the boys played with toy soldiers while us girls went outside on the back porch to blow bubbles :). Once my babe got home I made dinner and we relaxed the rest of the day.

Mother’s Day started out hectic. We had to get all the boys ready and I had to take mine to church, 30 minutes away, while my babe took his to their mom. Of course, the day couldn’t start off without a dose of drama, so my morning was slightly bittersweet, but it got much better. My babe took mom, the girls and me to lunch at Chili’s and we got some shoes :). My super cute white flats came out to… $3.50. Oh yes!

Mario came to drop the boys back off and we chilled out till I had to drop them off again.

My babe and I finally had a date night on Tuesday night. I managed to finish reading “Something Borrowed” that afternoon and then we had some Starbucks before going to Carmike. It was such a good, cute movie! I usually like book-versions better, but the movie-version was even funnier. Can’t wait for our next movie night :).

Michelle’s event, the Business Expo, was last Thursday. It was fun, and I ran into Karina and Gina! Love chilling out with my middle and high school friends. I love how we can just jump back into bff-ness, even after not seeing each other for a while. Karin a and I talked a while after and planned to meet on the weekend since it would be Mario’s weekend with the kiddos. Have to keep myself busy when I don’t have them and while my babe is working.

…to be continued….