Happy Birthday Kelly!!

Hey Kel,

I hope you see this.  I'm going to try to send you an e-card, but just in case it doesn't go through or something, here's a note for the whole world to see...

HAPPY 35th BIRTHDAY TO MY FIEND, KELLY!!!

Now, go have some drinks! 
(If your old and withered body can handle it that is, lol)

Have a Wonderful Day!

I wasn't prepared enough ahead of time to order a cake and have it sent to you (nor do I have the funds, lol) but I did some online searching and I found the perfect one.  Consider it my gift to you!

<3
Suz

Second Wreck in 6 Months

Billy is only 6 months old, and has already been involved in 2 rear end collisions.  The first one happened a couple of months ago (you can probably find it on my tags), and the second one happened just today (well, yesterday now). 

We were sandwiched in the middle of a 5 car accident this time.  The truck in front of us had stopped, we stopped, the truck behind us stopped, and a Grand Prix behind that truck stopped.  But (according to a witness that was further back) someone came up on the line of stopped cars rather quickly and instead of trying to stop they swerved into the other lane, leaving the young woman behind him no choice but to crash into us all.  I was furious.  I didn't see the crazy swerver, all I knew is that we and the trucks in front and back of us were completely stopped and somewhere behind us were heard "screeeeeech, crash, crash, crash,crash!" and we where hit.  Billy bawled immediately, but did not take long at all to soothe, so I presume he is okay since he has no visible injuries and the impact didn't even SEEM as bad as the one a couple of months ago.  After we were hit and came to a stop, Zeb put the car in park and shut it off and I jumped out of my seat to check on Billy.  He didn't appear injured so I took him out of the car seat to calm him.  Then, I walked down the line in back of us to see where it all started.  When I reached the rear most car and the young woman was getting out of her vehicle, I screamed at her, "You stupid bith, you hit my baby 4 cars up!"  The witness who was further back approached me and was saying it wasn't her fault, this one ass hole had swerved out of the way.  Well, according to every officer there, she's the one at fault because it was her responsibility to be traveling at a safe speed and distance fromt he car in front of her to have stopped after he swerved out of the way.  No matter what I know it's not the fault of us or the trucks on either side of us. 

Luckily, no one in our vehicle seems to be injured and we have current insurance.  Our liability policy has lapsed, but just a month or so ago, our car loan company sent us a letter that they had obtained full coverage insurance for us because all that was on file was a liability coverage and under the contract of our loan agreement we have to carry full coverage while there is still a balance due on the account.  That's the only reason we let the liability policy lapse in the first place.  So, even if this stupid girl wasn't insured, we are taken care of.  She had insurance documents in her hand so as long as her payments are up to date, it should be covered by her.

Here's the front of our car (the window fell off track a few weeks ago and we had this plastic taped up there until we got a chance to see if we can get it back on ourselves).  The ball hitch on the back of this truck was imbedded into our front bumper.  Here, the truck owner is surveying the situation with one of the firemen tha arrived on the scene.

Here's the truck behind us, right up against our trunk.  It dented the back of the trunk pretty badly and even caused it to bow upward on the top part of the trunk lid.  The rear was pushed forward a little, causing both rear doors to stick when trying to open them. 

Here's the back end of the truck behind us and the Grand Prix that was behind him.  The man in the red truck was moderately injured and taken from the scene in an ambulance on a back board.  The bridge of his nose had a cut on it that was bleeding and he seemed dazed and confused.  The paramedics on the scene assured us that he would be okay, he just had to be evaluated right away.

And this is the woman who caused the initial impact.  I'm not sure if according to the police report that she was at fault or the car that swerved out of the way, but that vehicle was not at the scene and I wasn't aware of it until the witness lady approached me after I bitched out the lady in the rear car.

Ironically, Zeb was wearing THIS shirt.  Need a closer look?....

Hahahahaha!!

The ball hitch was imbedded pretty good.  The truck owner tried jumping up and down in the bed of the truck and trying to drive away, but it wasn't budging.  The fire department tried using this tool to pry the two of us apart, but that didn't work either.  What finally ended up happening is that the wrecker service driver blocked our front wheels, set our park brake and got behind the wheel of our car to manually press down the foot brake while he had the owner of the truck in front of us back up slightly, put it in low gear and take off from us quickly.  It broke loose alright, it ripped our front bumper completely off of the car!  lol  Our car was drivable from the scene of the accident though, so I guess just body and possibly frame damage.  I'll be getting in contact with the police, our insurance company and the girl in the back's insurance company first thing Monday morning to try to get this handled as quickly as possible.

I have good news to share also...

Billy now sits completely unassisted for several minutes in a row.  I'll update more about that (with pics and possibly video) tomorrow or the next day.  Right now I need to get some sleep so that we can go into the doctor  and attend Mike's parade in the morning.

Thanks for reading,

<3 Suz 

Billy's first SOLIDS!

Billy has been eating cereal, stage one baby food and samples of mashed up whatever we are having for a full month now.  Well, he recently had his first solids.  A couple of weeks ago, this guy we know named Zane gave him a little maple treat.  I wasn't too happy about it, but I figured one couldn't hurt as long as we watched him and he didn't choke on it.  Zane held it up to Billy's mouth and didn't let him take it in, so it was perfectly safe.  It was a dry cereal treat.  Kind of like a cheese puff only maple flavored and shaped like a HoneyComb.  Anyway, he sloppered on that until it was completely dissolved.

About a week ago, I gave Billy a cheese puff.  Not the ball kind, the finger shaped ones.  He held it in his hand and slobbered it down to nothing.  He put it in his mouth a bit, but if he ever swallowed any bits it wasn't noticable.  I watched him very closely and he never seemed to have anything in there when his mouth was closed.  He never struggled or seemed surprised either, so I think he just worked it down to the goo that was left in his hand rather than actually eating it.  LOL

Yesterday, he had 1/4 of a banana cut into 2 long finger sized pieces.  I helped him with most of it.  He was finding it very difficult to keep hold of that slippery ol' thing!  lol  It was mostly a learning exercize.  He had already eaten his cereal that had baby food bananas added to it and he was acting like he was still hungry.  I gave him the spoon to play with, but he kept gagging himself, so I grabbed the banana pieces for him to play with instead.  He probably actually ingested only half of one piece, but he had a great time working on it.  I saw him get bits into his mouth and chew on them several times.  Words can't begin to describe it, so here's some pics.

LOL, hope you enjoyed that.

Thanks for reading,

<3 SuZ

Halloween Update

Last night didn't go exactly as planned, but it was still a lot of fun.  I had planned to dress up as Ellie May Clampet (so I could carry around one of my critters, lol) but I got a late start on getting ready and Mike had plans to meet up with friends for a party, so we didn't really have the time unless I had rushed.  Plus, I'm getting over some kind of crud and I just wasn't into it.  This is the first year that I haven't dressed up at all.  Even though we didn't have Mike with us for Halloween 2007, I still dressed up and went to the town fair that was going on.  Zeb didn't dress up, but I did.  Last year, the family did a matching theme and we all went as characters from House of 1,000 corpses and Devil's Rejects.  We all had a plan for this year, not a matching one, but everything changed when it came time to get ready.  Mike was going to be "The Crow", but he decided he didn't want to wear face make-up and he didn't have a wig or the hair length for that character.  So, he saw the 4th of July/Captain Spalding hat in with the stuff and thought of being Uncle Sam by wearing his most patriotic clothes and using the grey wig to make a beard.  Well, we reminded Mike that Uncle Sam's beard is more like a Colonel Sanders style goatie, but he could easily put stuff together to look like one of the ZZTop guys.  As we started putting everything together (and after realizing we didn't even have a TOY guitar that would pull it all together) it looked much better as a biker.  In fact, we all joked about how he looked a lot like Will, his step-grandpa (grandpapa).  I grabbed my things for my costume, but I couldn't find the jeans that fit me the best and I didn't want to be walking around town being uncomfortable.  Plus, it would have taken quite a bit of time to get the wig to look right and I simply didn't want to mess with it.  Zeb was going to be a mummy, or even just throw on the "Jason" mask we have, but I didn't want to be the only one not dressed up, so he didn't dress up either. 

So... after we got everyone ready, we first took a few pics in the yard with the fall trees in the background.  Here's a couple....

Zeb, Billy and Mike

Tucker had to get in on a shot too.  See how he's eyeballing Mike?  Tucker didn't seem to like the costume at all.  lol

Our first stop on our "Trick or Treat" route was Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Here's Billy and Grandma playing.

Here's Grandpa, and Billy being much more interested in the dog than anything else.  lol

We took Mike over too, and he met up with his friend Justin.  From there, the two of them were meeting at a church with a girl and her family and other friends for a party.  Dad had agreed to take them over so that we could do our trick or treating with Billy.

Here is Justin holding Billy and Mike acting like he's gonna give them a beat down.  lol

We only went to about 3 other houses after Grandma's.  There weren't many houses in the neighborhood with their lights on and we had candy at home for ourselves already.  Billy certainly wasn't going to eat any of it.  LOL  We just wanted to commemorate the occasion with him in some way.

After "Trick or Treat" we had plans to go bob for apples with some other friends.  Well, when we got there, Billy was already asleep and the party guests were already mostly drunk, so we didn't do any fun games or even pass Billy around and take pictures.  We hung out for a short time, Zeb had a beer and Billy slept then we went home.

Billy stayed asleep even through transferring out of the car seat onto the couch coushion next to me.

We piled this candy around him to make it LOOK like he was crashed out from a sugar overdose, but he was just worn out from all the traveling and excitement around him.

awwwww...  lol

We didn't do our close of the evening prayers and picture session either.    I just completely forgot about it.  I guess I just wasn't into the holiday this year at all.  I was a bit drained and as I mentioned before, still recoving from some illness.  So, you'll just have to see spirit photos the next time I get one.  hahaha

All in all, we had fun.  We ate candy after we got home and Billy slept most of the way through the night.  I woke him up to take him out of his costume and get him in his jammies and he barely even noticed.  He stirred a little, but 30 seconds in the rocker and he was out cold again.  He woke up one time around 3am and I gave him some milk and he was back to sleep before he even drank enough to build up a burp.  I put him on my shoulder and patted him anyway, but he was completely zonked.  lol

It was a fun night.

Thanks for reading,

<3 Suz

Edit, added around noon, CST...

The party I mentioned Mike going to was a sleep-over... a co-ed sleepover.  However, from talking to the parents and the fact that they weren't supposed to wear any "scary" costumes and met for transport at a church... I'm sure it's wasn't the kind of co-ed sleepover parents are scared of.  Mike is only 14, and I wasn't sure if I should let him go or not, but Justin's parents are fairly protective and they allowed him to go, so I took my cue from them.  Mike and Justin are best friends and the girl who was hosting the party has a twin brother and therefor has many more male friends than females.  Only one girl was invited (other than the host) and something came up where she would not be able to make it.  So it ended up being all boys at the party except for her.  Mike still isn't home yet.  I just got off the phone with him and we are double checking with Justin's parents to make sure the transportation plan is still the same.  I may have more to comment about that later, but for now, I just wanted share that Mike went to his first ever co-ed sleep-over.  lol 

Spirit Photo?

Anyone who's read my blog for a long period of time will know that I believe in the existence of spirits around us and that I celebrate "Halloween" as a "Day of the Dead" type occasion.  Sure, we dress up and go trick-or-treating, but I often include a prayer at the end of the night that says something about helping "trapped" spirits to "go home" and thanking them for their watchful guidance and protection.  I will be doing the same this year and will try to capture some spirit photos (if they aren't camera shy, lol) but I have one to share now...

See the orb above Billy's head that is a little larger than his head is?  This is NOT a flash reflection.  Flash reflection has a specific pattern that often includes bright streaks, but even the circular flash reflections are much brighter than this is.  I also have several other pictures taken within seconds of this one, under the same lighting, and also using flash where no orb shows.  There is another with a bright spot in it, but it very clearly reflection from the wall.  This is different.

Here is a copy of the same picture where I have cropped it to make the orb the main focus.  It is even more clear here that this is NOT a flash reflection. 

I don't have any particular speculation as to "who" this spirit is.  Our whole family has lost many loved ones in years past, all of who would probably have an interest in watching Billy grow and protecting him.  This picture was taken on October 15th and I can't think of anyone that the date would be related to.  Then again, I don't many of their birthdays or other dates that might be significant to them.

I don't really have anything else of significance today, I just noticed this when uploading pics to my Facebook albums and wanted to share it. 

Hope you enjoyed this, thanks for reading!

<3 Suz