Nineteen - Father's Day 2010

Today we spent the afternoon and Silver and Vinny's. We had a great time, like always. Rowan and I made Thane a father's day card. It was a "D" with arms, legs, googly eyes and monster teethies. Haha. We also bought him a headset for his xbox, so now he and Vinny can talk to each other while playing video games. I thought it might put a stop to Vinny calling late all the time. Nope. Haha. I'm kidding. It doesn't bother me. I swear, though, the guys crack me up. The other day Vinny put Thane on speaker phone and then talked to him while he was in the shower! Hahahaha.

Today was also Silver's sister, Karina's birthday, so I made cupcakes. I got to meet her parents and both of her sisters. She has a really nice family. Their teasing banter is cute and it was nice to see a family cooking together and then just being together, happily. My family gets together a lot for holidays, but not very often "just because". I can't get my mom to come over here and hang out. It's frustrating sometimes.

I really can't say enough how much I adore The Rosato family. Gracie asked me today if I loved her and I said yes. Then when we left she said "I love youuuu", even though she likes to call me every name in the book besides my own. Haha. Madalyn gave me kissies and brushed my hair. Rowan and Gracie didn't even fight today! Rowan fell asleep on the car ride home so we put him in bed. After 15 minutes we heard him crying really hard. "Madalyn and Gracie!!" Thane went in there and was like, "What's wrong, Buddy?" and he said, "Where's my Madalyn and Gracie? I need them" and it was so cute. My heart hurt a little bit. He really does love having them as friends.

This coming Wednesday and Thursday I have my school orientation. I'm sort of annoyed that they're actually making me attend the whole thing. It's silly. I'm 26 years old. I'm not going to befriend some high school senior/incoming freshman. I just want to meet my advisor, get all the last minute details straightened out and get my schedule. Not do workshops in which I have to introduce myself and play some childish game. Ha.

I'm downloading an 80's movie pack. It has like 50 movies in it and is 57 gigs. Holy. I can't believe how many I have never even seen! I'm super excited. Haha.

Seventeen - Lately

Thane and I have been hanging out with Silver and Vinny quite a bit. We really, really like them. I'm glad Thane and Vinny get along so well. Thane needed a real friend. Another family guy. A guy who works hard, is nice, and funny, and into things that he is into. They like each other so much that they called and talked to each other at 6am this morning. Hahaha.

Rowan really loves Gracie and Madalyn. He always asks to see them and talks about them when they're not around.

We're going to be going camping with them soon, for the weekend of July 4th. It's going to be so much fun. I'm excited because A. we'll be getting away from home and B. we'll get to spend all day with the four of them and then they'll be there when we wake back up in the morning. Haha. I love them.

Seriously, I have no idea how Silver and I haven't been friends before. She's a really amazing girl. (Quick sidenote: I've always hated calling females "woman" or "lady" if they're my age. I mean, I know we're adults now and keep getting older, but I refer to myself as "girl" and I like everyone else to be too. Whatever) Anyway, it's kind of nice to be friends now, because now she's an "adult friend". A real friend. Like I feel like we could be real friends for a long time and that's nice because I have been needed an adult friend. Make sense? I don't know.

I changed the living room around today. It took me 3 and a half hours. Haha. Our furniture is heavy! Plus Rowan was being a terror. I hope Thane will be suprised. :]

Fourteen - Memorial Day Weekend

I think this was the first memorial day weekend that we didn't attend one cook out or BBQ! No one in my family wanted to/could get together. So we were expecting to just sit at home, board, and hungry for yummy family picnic food. This is essentially what ended up happening, but with a couple of activities throughout the weekend. Thane had a three day weekend. Normally he works most holidays and then banks the hours for a later day off of our choice, but this time his work made all of the employees to take the day off. No big deal.

So Friday night we took Rowan to watch the fireworks over the lake here in town. He loved them. He kept saying there was "booming in the sky". Saturday morning we got up and walked to the parade. Rowan wasn't as interested in it as he was last year. There was a lot of "boring" stuff this year and I think he's just at that age where things need to be "exciting!". About halfway through we decided to abandon ship and walked to the war memorial where they were serving food. I got a grilled burger and homemade fries while Thane got a grilled chicken dinner with salt potatoes and Rowan had a hot dog and shared my fries. So we sort of got our cookout food (though it still wasn't as yummy as it would have been had my family done it). We didn't have any cash on us and there was no ATM machine close by, so Rowan wasn't able to ride any of the rides at the carnival set up behind the war memorial. We thought maybe we'd bring him back on Sunday to ride some, but he forgot all about it and that was fine with us.

Other than that we spend a lot of time in the backyard. We got Rowan a big plastic pool and filled that up for him. He really loved that.

I got my new camera lens in the mail on Friday! I experimented with it and took some pictures of the fireworks, parade, and Rowan playing in his pool. I'll make another post with pictures in the next couple of days after I sort through them all.

Thane's classes start tomorrow. That means I have to start helping cook meals. Haha. I just hate cooking! Thane is good at it and he likes to cook, so we've just fallen into a pattern where he's the cook. We get picked on all the time for it, but whatever. Who says women have to cook? Dumb.

Thane has a dentist appointment this afternoon. Then when he gets home we're heading to Rowan's first t-ball night. I hope he likes it. He'll be the boy who stands on the field singing/dancing/doing anything but paying attention to the game. I know it. Haha.

Eleven - Not Wanting to Give Up

See? I'm slacking off here already. I really don't want to give up on this. I could feel myself starting to. I'd sit down to write and I'd tell myself something like, "Meh, it's not important, you can always update later."

Anyway, the wedding was nice. More than nice really. It was gorgeous. Denise, the bride made all the decorations herself. They were unique, tasteful, and classy. She did things like cutting up tissue paper circles and circles cut out of dictionary pages as her "confetti" to throw at them when they walk back down the aisle. She also created these hanging flower poms that hung from strings all behind where they were married (it was in their backyard). Oh! I think my favorite was where she took pictures of her and Chuck and attached them to twine that she roped around, from the ground up, on a tree in the yard. So cute and creative. I wish my new camera lens had arrived in the mail so that I could have taken some really good pictures. :[ Oh well. The reception was nice too. It was in a local cafe/coffee shop. Very, very nice. Besides Juanita, Connie, and Abi being there, but that's a different story.

We have our meeting with the special education committee next Thursday, June 3rd at 10:40am. I'm nervous. What if they don't approve him for receiving special education? I'm still trying to understand how they can even turn children away when they're evaluated and deemed in need of help. I know it comes down to money and funding. But by denying a child who needs help, what does that mean for them? For their future? I just don't want to be in that boat.

Hoping to set up Rowan's pool this weekend. Thane has a three day weekend. Normally he just works his holidays and banks the hours, but they're making all the employees take this one off. We're not complaining, 3 day weekends are nice. It just would have been nice to be able to save the time towards taking our possible trip to Harrisburg, PA in August.

I'm going to go see about uploading some pictures from the wedding now.

Ten - Grandpa Dennison's Birthday

Today is a busy day. I don't have much time at all to write. I have housework to do before Jenn comes over. Then later when Thane gets home we have to get ready to go to a family get together. My Grandpa Dennison's birthday is today and we're going to their house for dinner and dessert. He turns 82 today! He's an amazing man.

Last night was the Grey's finale and I wanted to die. So so so so sooooo sad/shocking/scary.

Thane, Rowan, and I might be taking a little trip to Harrisburg, PA in August. It's one of the places on our potential future relocation list. We're thinking of going for 3 nights, 4 days. If we do we're going to stay in the Hilton that's right in the middle of downtown, 2 blocks from the river, and within walking distance to the pedestrian bridge that will take us to City Island! We want to make sure we experience it the right way, so we would know for sure whether we'd like to live there. If it makes the cut, we'd like to move there and rent a condo in the heart of downtown, maybe even on "restaurant row" (hehe, I'm learning the local lingo). The major downfalls on paper for Harrisburg are that it is far from the ocean (3 hours?) and we wanted to live closer to the coast, and it is also far from NYC (3.5 hours?) and we wanted to be within commute (less than 2 hours) to the city. :/ But if this place is as nice as what we've researched about it, it might be worth it. Three and three and a half hours is still a lot closer than we are now.

Sunday we have Jenn's graduation to attend in Auburn and then a wedding Sunday evening in Fairport/Rochester. Geez travel! It's going to be a longgggg day.

Eight - Good Morning

I've updated my profile on here. Added my interests (though I need to update it with real interests), books, movies, all that stuff. I'm trying to stay away from Facebook today. Thane and I didn't watch the Idol results yet and someone always posts a status about it and spoils it, so I'm trying to avoid that. Lame. Haha.

Yesterday, after Rowan's evaluation, we went to Daddy Ed's in Mexico. Love, love, LOVE that place. Their french toast is seriously the best around. Nick and Jenn got ahold of us and wanted to hang out, so we made plans with them for mid afternoon when Jenn was finished with a meeting. Around 3, the four of us took Rowan to the bounce house at the mall. He loves it there. We do too! It's only $5 for an hour or $6 for two and you only pay for your children. This time there was a boy for him to pal around with and a little girl who wouldn't stop giving him hugs. Too cute. After our hour was up we headed home and made cheeseburgers for dinner. We capped the evening off with a game of Balderdash. I won because I'm awesome, duh.

I need some new books to read. Well, I just ordered four new ones, but I fear that I'll be disappointed with them. See, about a year ago I had a streak of good finds where I read some of my current favorite books. Now I'm in a rut. I like thrillers. Not those awful Dean Koontz (Admittedly, I have liked a book or two of his) or James Patterson novels. More like psychological thrillers, disturbing family drama. Orrrr I like stories about families whose children are kidnapped, or murdered, or where one parent goes crazy and ruins everyone's lives. Hahaha. I can't help it. I like suspense and emotion both, and these types of stories seem to house the perfect balance. The author also have to be intellectual, philosophical. The words have to move me or catch me. Make me think. Every time I go to Amazon and look up a book, the other recommended books listed on that book's page are all books I already own! Haha. I have so many books. I'm thinking about purchasing a Kindle sometime, but I kind of like my large library of books. Ha.

Anyway, Rowan is finished with breakfast, so I'm going to go play "Iron man" with him.

Two - Stress & The Future

So I gave up my first attempt at this, which means I can't promise any commitment to this next go at it. I also gave up job hunting. Instead I applied to, and got accepted into SUNY Oswego, where I will start in the fall. I will be going to finish my bachelor's degree in Adolescence Education, English. A lot of other things have happened. I've been really stressful lately. I know it's only temporary, but there's always that chance that it's not. Things really could go wrong and stay wrong. Why not? It happens. Right now we're facing a furlough that would affect Thane's job, thus in turn affecting the whole family/household. He already lost his raise because of the economy. We were denied health insurance through a state program (that we qualified for based on income guidelines) because Thane is a state employee. Now we pay $180 a month just to belong to an insurance plan, instead of the $50 we were paying. Rowan has an evaluation tomorrow morning. He may need speech therapy at the least. I'm trying to keep my head up, I am. I just have days.

One of the things that has us still clinging to and believing in hope is that our financial aid awards are ridiculous. They're generous and we expect about a $22k-24k refund for the 2010-11 school year. That's from both Thane and I going to school. Some of it is loan money we are borrowing from the government, but we'll do what we feel we need to do to make it to this next level. Everyone is in debt. It's part of the American way. If Thane graduates before I do with his degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management, he'll search for a job to get his feet wet in around here while I finish up. After I graduate, we are getting out of here. We mean it this time. We have a list of places we would like to visit and explore. Potential new hometowns. Places with thriving streets/communities. With shops and restaurants galore. With live music and excellent school systems. We can do this.

Now, what will keep me motivated to update this? I have a wonderful husband with whom I share every single thought with, a beautiful, perfect little boy who fills up my days with laughter and kisses. How am I so uninspired, in this sense? Maybe if I start simple? Update with a little bit every day? Maybe a picture and a few words? We'll see. I'd love to stick to this.