Ashleigh

I only have a few minutes but I wanted to post a paper Ashleigh wrote for her creative writing class, it is for her senior memory book. She has 6, I think, that she had to do but I love this one.

I AM FROM
I am from the Spice Girls, Hanson, and Backstreet Boys,
The Puzzle Place and Barney.
I am from long days at Carolina Beach
and short winter days in Marshall.
I am from the huge towering hills surrounding me;
From Barbie and Ken, Fisher Price Toys, and my Easy-Bake Oven.
I am from night lights and Lambchop,
From two stoplights and four gas stations,
Girl Scouts and seashell searching.
I am from Beanie Babies, Happy Meal Cheeseburgers and Granny's scrambled
eggs;
From hide-and-go-seek in the dark and hopscotch;
From playing dress-up and putting on Mommy's make-up.
I am from wooden sandboxes and inflatable pools;
From metal swing sets, and cut-up knees.
I am from Princess Diana and Alliyah's death;
From Polly Pockets and Furby's, milk carton-gingerbread houses, and clay pots.
I am from My Little Pony, The Fresh Prince, Are you afraid of the Dark?, Sister Sister, All That and The Little Mermaid.
I am from gymnastics and Parks and Rec. basketball;
From a close-knit family, being spoiled on holidays and the best birthdays ever.
I am from weekends at Granny's and days at my grandparents'.
From long, fun games of UNO with Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw,
and Connect four with my Daddy;
From "Spin the Bottle" and "Truth or Dare" and huge slumber parties.
I am from radios on bikes(when they were cool) and tape players;
From fanny packs, peel-off nail polish and light up tennis shoes.
And Aaron Carter, whom i was madly in "love" with.
I am from the time when boys had cooties
And when it was "cool" to have bangs right above your eye brows;
From long letters to Santa explaining that I was a good kid
and deserved a puppy or hamster every Christmas.
I am from going to Cool Springs Methodist Church every Sunday,
Guess? jeans, and stick on earrings.
From warm sunny days in the summer running through the sprinklers;
From cool fall evenings raking Granny's leaves into piles to jump into;
From rainy spring days looking out the window
wanting to go outside and jump into the puddles and from the short snowy
winter days
having massive snowball fights with my dad.
I am from Disney Movies, jelly shoes, and bead bracelets;
From when sandwiches tasted better
just because my Granny cut it into triangles for me.
I am from laughter and tears,
anger and sadness,
and from happiness.

I will try to maybe post some of the other ones, I just loved this one. I makes me cry everytime I read it.

So, where are you from?

WOW

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 51 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

ARGGGHHHH

I have tried for the last 3 nights to blog and for some reason can not get logged on at home. So what's a person to do? Blog at work. This will be short but I wanted to wish my brother Happy Birthday, his birthday was on the 23rd and my little brother is 36. Hey, Steven you're 36, your 36, kind of getting old, don't you think? ha ha ha He is going to closing on the 6th (I think) of February, what an awesome birthday present. He has found a really nice house on 2 1/2 acres. We are so happy for him. He has settled into his new job, made new friends and genuinely seems really happy. If we could just find him a girl, that would be the icing on the cake. I want him to find a nice girl, have a family and for God's sake give me a niece or nephew. I have nephews and a niece on Rusty's side but I don't have any on my side and I would really like to, so come on Steven get a move on it. My Pawpaw is doing good and he is going on a "date" today. She's a lady from his church. They are going to lunch. He talked to my Mom about it and wanted to know how she felt about it. She told him she was fine with it. He needs some companionship, you know family is great but sometimes it's nice to have friends to do something with also. It is really strange to think about him having lunch with someone other than my Mawmaw but I am happy for him and hope he has a great time. I love him and if it makes him happy than I'm happy.
Wayne is recovering wonderfully, he went back to school on Wednesday.
Ashleigh is looking forward to this second semester and getting to student teach again at the elementary school. She will be with the same class as last semester. She really loves it and she is going to make an excellent teacher. She is taking a psychology class this semester and she said last night it was really going to be hard. They don't turn in papers, everything is emailed to the teacher. This will be a challenge but I know she will do great.
Blake is all signed up for another season of baseball. He was disappointed that he will not be moving up to live pitch and will have to do another season of pitching machine but his birthday isn't until July 26 and he would have to be 9 before the season starts to move up. I think he could use this extra year, but alot of his friends are moving up so he was upset. He will always be younger than most because of his birthday being so late.
Well, I better get back to work. I will try to log on tonight, I have to tell you about one of Wayne's teachers.
Have a great day!

IT'S SNOWING!!!!

I can't believe it, we are really getting snow. It is so pretty with the mountains all around us. I took some pictures and I'm not too sure how they are going to look but it will give you a general idea anyway.

This is when it was just starting to snow. Can you see it falling, I can't but it's there, take my word for it.


It was really going good at this point and the tops of the house were covered. The roads were covered and I wasn't real sure Wayne and I were going to make it up the hill to our house. We had to run out to Food Lion and before you think we are one of those crazies that see a snowflake and run for bread, milk and toilet paper, we had already planned our trip to the store before the snow started falling. We just didn't get our start as soon as we should have.


In this picture you can't ever see the mountains because of the snow. Rusty was supposed to take Blake and they were going to visit Rusty's Mom for the day. Wayne and I had plans to pop pop-corn and watch scary movies. Well, Rusty and Blake didn't go because Rusty didn't want to take a chance with the roads, he saw an accident on the highway before he got 5 minutes from here so he turned around and came back. Rusty's been in the bedroom watching football, Blake has been in and out in the snow and Wayne and I did get in 1 scary movie. It's been a really nice day.

Wayne went for his follow up Friday and everything is healing great and he is doing wonderful.

I will be back later for another snow update.

Infirmary update...

Well, I knew that we have had some sickness here that we just couldn't kick. Poor Wayne had been sick off and on for the last 2 months, diarrhea (he would love that I am telling people that), throwing up, fever and just generally not feeling well. He would feel bad and then the next day he would be better. This past Friday he called me at work and said he was really feeling bad and his stomach was really hurting. Ashleigh was already bringing Blake to the office for a follow up on his pneumonia so I told Wayne to come also. I thought he had a urinary tract infection but when the doctor ran a culture she said his urine was a mess and she was sending him for a CT scan. Come to find out he had appendicitis. I couldn't believe it! The CT was done at 1:45 and by 3:45 they had him in surgery. He stayed one night and is home recuperating. He seems to be doing good and I have taken the next 2 days off to stay home with him. He will miss this whole week of school and I can tell you he is just all broke up about that.
I've spent the biggest part of today doing laundry and listing things for sale on ebay. I don't sell things all the time, but every once in a while we go through the closet and clean it out. I've got so much stuff I could sell and I've made really good money in the past I really should list more, but it really is time consuming.
I am headed to bed and to check the dryer for the last time tonight. Good night and have a great day!

SNOW!!!!

Okay, okay I admit it was not alot but it was snowing and it's cold. It's like winter cold, break out the sweaters. It snowed yesterday and it was snowing on my way to work today. It didn't do it for a long time but you can see it snowing on the mountains. I love that, we have this incredible view of the mountains from our back deck. Actually, we are in the Shenandoah Valley so we have mountains on all sides of us but the back deck is wonderful. Blake got a new snowsuit this year and I was begining to wonder if it was going to end up on ebay next winter without ever being worn. He is growing so fast I doubt he will get 2 years out of it.
Little league baseball signups are this Saturday. Where has the time gone? It seems like football just ended and we are already signing up for baseball.
We went back to the gym today, yea for me 2 days down and I am still walking and not too incredibly sore. Yes, Thom I will be thinking about you while I am there. It's nice to know I have someone to suffer with.
Steven found a house, Congratulations to him. It sounds really nice. I can't wait to see it. It is 5 minutes from his work, how lucky can you get, and about 30 minutes from Mom and Dad. It's on 2 1/2 acres and back up to a pond that feeds into a river. He's looking forward to doing some fishing for catfish in there. I'm looking forward to him doing that and cooking it for me. I love catfish.
Well, I am going to check on the laundry and then head to bed. Have a great day!

The Weekend

Friday Rusty called me all excited wanting to know if I would go to the gun show in Chantilly with him at the Capital Expo Center. I was so excited, I couldn't wait, I was all tingly all over, NOT! I did go because he does things he doesn't want to for me, I can't think of any at the moment but I'm sure he has. I think I was one of 4 women in the whole place. It was like Toys R Us for men. I did enjoy giving him a hard time about all of it and I wanted to punch some idiot who talked to Rusty like he was stupid. My husband's not a gun expert or anything like that but he does know what he is talking about. After we left there we did go to Kohl's and I spent part of the gift cards I had received for Christmas and then we went to Chili's for dinner. We got a gift card for Chili's from my nephew and his wife so it was basically a free night. On Saturday we met the other members of the Little League football board and had dinner. It was a thank you to the board members for all the time they put in all year long. It was at Coleman's at Bryce Resort. Rusty and I had never been there so it was nice to try someplace new. It was a very nice restuarant and we had a good time with everyone. Sunday Rusty and Blake went to visit Rusty's mom, Ashleigh had to work and Wayne and I stayed home. We went to the dump, grocery shopped and then came home and watched a movie. It was really nice to just be able to relax and not have to do anything. I get so crazy during the holidays that I don't feel like I get to slow down for the whole month of December. But then came Monday. Oh, Monday. Rusty and I started back to the gym and went back on our diet. I didn't try to push it too much, it has been since June of last year that I have been in the gym. When my Mawmaw was doing really bad and I was trying to get down there as much as possible the gym just wasn't important. Then she passed away and I didn't care about the gym. Then the holidays came and well you know how that is. So, I am now back on track, hopefully. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers that I will stick with this.
I am headed to bed, good night and have a great day!

The Infirmary

It seems like everyone has been sick off and on for the last couple months. I know it has to be the weather, hot, cold, hot, cold... What we need is a good cold snow to kill all the germs that keep lingering around. Ashleigh started complaining about her ear hurting so I made an appointment for her and told her to bring Wayne and Blake with her because Wayne had been just not feeling good and Blake started with a cough the other night. Well, Wayne and Ashleigh both have ear infections and to my surprise Blake has pneumonia. I couldn't believe it, no fever, really not alot of coughing until a couple days ago and only at bedtime. I will be so glad when this winter is over. My kids are never sick and this winter has been unending with sickness.
There's not alot going on here just getting back into the swing of things with work and school.
Have a great night.

So, what do you do for New Years Eve?

Ove the years our New Years Eve's have changed. We used to go out to a dance or a party and not get home until the wee hours of the morning. We also used to go to Rusty's oldest brother's house for a party. But then Bobby got more involved with bands and he stopped having his party. When I was growing up we always had a party at our house. Not some wild party, but a party with family and friends that involved lots of food, lots of food and alot of fun games. It's alot of fun to watch people play charades and make fools of themselves. Rusty and I started having his other brother and his wife over. We would play games and eat. Then they would spend the night. When my parents and Steven moved back they started to come also. As time went we added a couple friends and the party seemed to kind of grow on it's own. Then Gary got involved with Bobby's band and they were all busy on New Years Eve. This year my parents and Steven were in North Carolina so it was just Rusty, me and the kids. We still had lots of food, that we have been eating on all day today, and we played games. I grew up playing games but Rusty didn't. We had a really nice time but we really did miss my parents and my brother. It didn't seem like New Years Eve without them. I spend all day today cleaning and packing decorations.



Lilly enjoying the Christmas tree that we had to pull her out of too many times to count.





Blake and Grandpa enjoying the Christmas pillows.






Aspen

Abby

This is Abby (our dog) and Aspen (Mom and Dad's dog) ready to be one of Santa's reindeer if they are needed. Well, Aspen was not exactly as excited about being a reindeer as Abby.

Blake got a visitor on Christmas Eve. Our neighbor Virginia and her brother in law do this every year. I love it, there's nothing like getting a visit from Santa when you are still awake and can see him. I still remember being little and going to my Grandparents at Christmas time. We got the biggest surprise. Santa Claus came to their house and we got to visit with him. I guess that will always stick with me. I can also remember being really little and hearing Santa's sleigh bells on the roof of our house. Actually what happened was I woke up and had to use the bathroom right in the middle of "Santa" putting the things under our tree. My Mom took me to the bathroom and on the way back down the hall she kicked my Fisher Price school house and the bell rang. She told me their were Santa's bells and I had better get back in bed and go to sleep because Santa wouldn't stop if I was awake.

Our first year in our house Ashleigh woke us up all excited because Santa was sitting in the living room and our dog was barking at him. I don't think I've ever seen Rusty move so fast in my life. When we came into the living room there wasn't anyone there but the dog had been barking and Ashleigh said he went downstairs. Rusty went downstairs, with a gun, to check for Santa. He didn't find anything or anyone, thank God.

I love Christmas and I love the decorations, but when it is all over, the decorations are put away and the tree is gone, it's almost like the house seems bigger and we have more room. Maybe that's a sign that I have too many decorations. Nah, I don't think so.

Now, the holidays are over and everything is back to normal. Well, as normal as this family gets anyway.

Good night and here's to a good New year.

Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We did. There was alot of running around, as usual, but I wouldn't have it any other way. If you live in our house, you learn to find really good hiding places (which means not hiding anything in our house) and this isn't from the kids. Well, the younger kids anyway. I am on a mission every Christmas to hide presents from ..........Rusty. My biggest kid of all. This is the man who unwrapped his Mom's birthday present from us one year because he thought it was something I had bought for him. When he was a little boy he stayed home sick from school one day, snooped, found something for him, unwrapped it and was wearing it when his Mom got home. He hasn't changed much, he's just gotten sneakier about it. He also loves to get up extremely early and drag the kids out of bed to open presents. He is also the man that gets so excited about what he has bought for me that he wants to give it to me before Christmas even gets here and he's that way about birthdays also. It's not all about what he's getting, he loves to give also. He has a really big heart. And I am saying that after he pulled me out of bed at 2 am on Christmas morning. He's 38 remember and he gets just as excited now as did as a kid. So anyway, we were up at 2 am and at my parents by 5:15. We opened presents there, had a little breakfast, loaded the car and headed back to the house by 9. We unloaded at our house, reloaded the car and headed to Rusty's mom's house to have Christmas again. Rusty's mom makes Christmas breakfast for all of us. There was 20 of us at her house. It's crowded but alot of fun. We ate and ate and ate and then it was time for presents. The kids open their presents first, youngest to oldest, and then they take their stuff to another room to go through again and the adults all take turns opening our presents. It's takes about 2 hours for all of the gifts to be opened. We stayed and visited there for a while and the we loaded back up again and headed home. Rusty had been sick all day, didn't eat anything, so I dropped him off at home so he could go to bed and then Blake, Ashleigh and I went back to my parents to eat dinner. Wayne had gone to his Dad's earlier in the day to spend a couple days with him. It was an extremely busy day and like I said I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have anywhere to go on Christmas.
The kids got way too much stuff and so did the adults. Blake asked for some different kinds of things this year. He's only 8 but he really didn't ask for toys. He wanted a globe, some maps ( he has loved to look at maps as far back as I can remember. We have pictures of him when we went to Florida looking at maps with my Dad and he was only 4), arts and crafts and things like that. Steven got him a telescope and he loved that. We have taken it out on the deck but it has been too cloudy to use it yet. Santa brought him a Nintendo Wii. I wonder if you can throw out your back and shoulder bowling on that thing. I love it. It has been so much fun. In our house Christmas is the gun holiday so Rusty and Wayne both got new guns. Ashleigh asked for clothes, clothes and more clothes. Rusty said that is a boring gift but I completely and totally understand, you can never have too many clothes, shoes or purses. I love purses.
We had a wonderful Christmas, I think everyone is finally healthy, and we have all been very blessed to be able to be together. I look for the coming year to be much better than this past year, it was really a hard year.
God bless and good night.
Bridget

Welcome to our home

My talking snowman greets you as you come up the stairs and welcomes you into our kitchen.


Please step into our kitchen and enjoy some Christmas cookies.


Mom bought me the cutting board last year and I leave it out year round.

This is hanging on the wall in the dining room. I love the string of lights, they are made of wood. Mom and I found these in a Christmas shop a couple years ago. The stocking hanging to the right was bought for me when I was a baby by my great grandmother and I can tell you they are the only pair of hot pants I have ever own. I still have every stocking I have ever had.

The kids want to know where they are supposed to sit, I told them the floor looked pretty comfortable, and don't sit on the pillows.

I collect snowmen, gingerbreadmen and Christmas pillows.

This is our Christmas tree, it's not fancy but I wouldn't trade it for anything. All of the ornaments on it had alot of sentimental meaning. I have things the kids have made me in school, pictures of them in ornaments, old ornaments from when Rusty and I were first married and ornaments that have been gifts over the years. One of our family traditions is to give each one of the kids a new ornament every year. We have Bob the builder, basketballs, baseballs, footballs, Ashleigh has an ornament that was given to her by Rusty's dad, who passed away in 1994, whatever the kids have been interested at the time, we have an ornament for it. One day when they grow up and have a tree of their own I will pass their ornaments to them and they will have them to start their trees. And yes, my angel is leaning a little to the left, Wayne said she was looking down the hall and watching over us, so he didn't want me to straighten her up.

This hangs by our front door, Rusty's Aunt painted this for us about 2 years ago. It is painted on slate and I love it.

As you leave our home, you can see that we are waiting for Santa to visit. Now we can flip the green sign to let everyone know that yes we have been very good this year and Santa has been here..

My Little Girl

You know it is going to happen, you think you are prepared but BAM all of a sudden it's here. You receive your baby's senior pictures. Where did the time go, when did this happen? You think you have all the time in the world and one day you realize that time is flying by and your children are growing up. I know in my mind that she's a senior, we paid enough for the pictures and all of the "senior" things that she thinks she needs, but when you get those pictures it moves from your mind to your heart. It seems like yesterday that she was a baby and I can't remember what it was like without her. She has always been with me. We have been through some bad times (my Mom promised they would get better and they did) and we have had some great times. My Dad has been telling me for years to enjoy them being children because they grow up way too fast, and you know what? He was so right. I have a couple of pictures (you know me I love to post pictures) of her.

It's a little blurry, the real one is much clearer, but she is about 6 months old.

She was about 3 here, I loved this outfit, it was so cute. She now hates it.

The big picture is her 1st grade picture and the little one is her first day of 1st grade.

Ashleigh was 12, Wayne was 10 and Blake was 3.

This is one of the pictures we received in the mail today. I loved the flowers.

This is her kindergarten picture and her formal senior picture.

It didn't take any time to get from the left picture to the right picture. Enjoy your children, love your children and don't assume you have all the time in the world. Believe me it goes alot faster than you could ever imagine. She now wants to go to college and become a teacher. She is student teaching at the elementary school and loving every minute of it.

Congratulations Ashleigh, we love you and are so very proud of you.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Black Friday

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. A couple little mishaps but oh well, that's to be expected, not liked or wanted, but to be expected sometimes. I always take pies to my parents for Thanksgiving, 2 pumpkin and 2 pecan. I make a mean pie if I do say so myself. Anyway, last Sunday I made a turkey and left it to cook while we were at Blake's football awards ceremony. Ashleigh brought Blake home so I could stay and help clean up and not wonder what he was doing every minute. When they walked into the house it was full of smoke. The turkey had spilled over into the bottom of the stove and there was smoke everywhere. They turkey was done, Ashleigh took it out and turned everything off. She opened the windows and aired the house out. I haven't had anytime this week to try and clean it out, it's self cleaning so that's not really much of an excuse but I am a busy person, and to tell the truth I kind of forgot about it. Wayne tried to cook something on Wednesday for lunch and he said it was smoking. So, now I have to clean the stove before I can cook pies. (If you ask Rusty when I tell a story you get all the details, some you probably don't want to hear, but it's my blog and and you are stuck reading every. little. detail) I turn on the self cleaning and as it gets hotter the stove starts smoking more and more. I figured it would burn off and everything would be fine. WRONG. The house is filling up with smoke, it is burning our eyes and throats and Rusty is convinced we are all going to die from carbonmonoxide poisoning. It was horrible. He made me turn it off, I am still convinced it's going to be ok, as long as everyone sleeps on the deck. ha ha ha We aired the house, again, but now there are no pies. I was so upset, we've never had a Thanksgiving without pumpkin pies. So my brother, God love him who has helped me more times than I can count, gets in the car Wednesday night and makes a trip to Wal-Mart in search of pies for me. It was an experience I do not care to have happen again. We did have a great Thanksgiving even without homemade pies. We went to my mother-in-laws first, everyone was there and we had good food and got to visit. Then we got to my Mom's and had more wonderful food. Wayne was at his Dad's this year and Ashleigh had been invited to spend Thanksgiving with her friend Mara's family in Georgia so we were really missing them. My Aunt and her family were there and we all had a wonderful visit. My cousin was there with her 7 month old Peyton and he is so adorable. Don't you agree?

He really is a miracle, there was a real question whether Nicole would be able to have children and look what God blessed our family with.

We had a good time all of us together, but we were really missing my Mawmaw. The holidays are really hard this year for our family. I can't imagine what my Pawpaw is going through.

Sorry about the fingers, Steven put his hand up as I was taking the picture. He claimed it was an accident.

I spent the night at Mom and Dad's and Rusty took Blake and went back to his Mom's last night. Mom and I were shopping and Rusty and was hunting with his brothers. My mother-in-law was babysitting Blake. Mom and I were up at 3am and out of the house by about 3:45. We were armed and ready to shop. We had plotted our take over of Harrisonburg until we hit Circuit City about 4:15, the line was down the sidewalk with people waiting to get in at 5. I've been shopping on Black Friday for alot of years and I've never heard of people lining up at 10:00 the night before. I am sorry there is not 1 thing in any store that is worth standing outside all night to buy. We headed to Wal-Mart and had a lot of luck there. We stopped for breakfast around 7:30 and then hit the stores again. I got home about 3:30 exhausted. But there was no one home but me and I do my best cleaning when I am alone so I attacked the house and got it into order. And guess what? I got that oven clean and it is ready to cook in again. Horray for me.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and whether you stayed home or ran all over like we do, take time to stop and think about everything we have to be thankful for. We need to do that everyday of the year and thank God that we live in the country we do and that we are surrounded by family and friends that we love.

Good night.

Bridget

Another busy weekend

Well, it's been another busy weekend. Friday we dropped Wayne off with his Dad and then went to dinner at Applebee's with Rusty's mom. Saturday we had Ashleigh's powder puff football game. That was so much fun!! It was the Seniors vs. the Juniors, the Seniors lost but they had so much fun doing it. They all had shirts with nicknames on the them, Ashleigh was #7 "da Gibsonator".

Blake had a good time getting ready with her, to cheer her on.

And the seniors had their own cheerlearders. Aren't they cute? They are all friends of Ashleigh's and she talked them into doing this. They were really good sports about it and they put on a great show for everyone. Check out Donnie's white tights. They one 2nd from the left is Andrew, Ashleigh and Andrew have been friends since 2nd grade and he is like one of my kids.

Ashleigh really does have a great bunch of friends.

This is Andrew and Donnie begging me to let Ashleigh be ungrounded for the afternoon so they could go and all hand out together.

This is Blake and his best friend Christian. They have been best friends forever. Blake likes to tell people they they were best friends before they were born. We were pregnant together. Ashleigh and Christian's older sister have been friends since 3rd grade and they were in girl scouts together. Their mom and I spent alot of time together.

It really was a great afternoon, we had a hilarious announcer, someone running the time clock who had no clue what they were doing so half the time the clock wasn't even running or was running during a time out, but alot of fun was had by all the kids. As you can see our school colors are purple and white. I have a shirt that says "Strasburg, it's a purple thing, you wouldn't understand". I love our small town. If you have ever watched Friday Night Lights then you have an idea of what our town is like. The street signs are purple, not green, and our town police cars are white and purple. It's a great place to live and raise your children.

Today was the Midget Football awards ceremony and the election of the new board. They run for a term of 3 years. Rusty is a vice president and got relected. He was excited about that, he worries about everything and this means alot to him. One of the other coaches took the most incredible picture of Rusty and Blake kneeling down together. He blew it up, had it framed and gave it to Rusty. It was the nicest thing anyone, outside of family, has done. Rusty hugged him, it really touched him.

Well, I am headed to bed, good night and have a great week.

Bridget