Mad Babble

Moving...

2010-02-11T08:29:00.002-06:00

Wow it has been a long time since I posted anything! My live is jut boring I guess... but I do have some news, Lisa and I will be moving to Bossier! We are both really excited! We finally get to live by family and have some help! I got a new job and start my new work on February 22nd. The whole process went really fast and all of a sudden.

On Thursday, January the 28th I just decided to look on CareerBuilder.com and see what jobs were available for the type of work that I do (Why I looked I have NO idea, because I LOVE my current job). I looked through the postings, and saw one for a this company. I thought to myself, "hey why not apply what could it hurt?" So I applied sent my resume, and a hour later I received a phone call from their HR rep. She asked if she could do a mini interview she asked the normal interview questions. Then the next day Friday, she called me back and asked if I could come in for a formal interview with the managers on Monday, Feb 1st. Lisa and I were already planning on being in Shreveport for the weekend to celebrate her and her mother's birthdays, so we just stayed an extra night. So on Monday I went to the interview at 2:30. The interview was over at about 4:00. At 4:30 I received an email from the HR Rep asking me to fill out the formal application. I filled it out and faxed it to her Tuesday morning, Feb 2nd. She then began calling my references. Then on Thursday Morning, Feb 4the they offered me the job. Lisa and I discussed and prayed about it all weekend, and decided that we would accept the job. I called the HR Rep Monday morning Feb 8th and then Lisa and I both told our current bosses that we would be moving.

It all happened really fast, but we are both really excited about this new adventure. Pray for us as we try to sell our house and purchase a new one!

Crawfish and Fellowship

2009-05-18T07:16:00.002-05:00

Wow it's been a long time since I have blogged. I guess I just feel like I really don't have anything to say. Well this past weekend we had two Sunday School fellowships. Saturday night our COED-1A (Young Married) class had a Crawfish Boil fellowship. We ate and sat around and talked to class members while the kids ran around playing. Liam was everywhere. We had to keep an eye on him the whole time. He really wanted to play with the big kids. He keep running after them and trying to catch them.

As some of you may know Lisa and I have started helping out with the College and Career Class now at our church. We now go to that Sunday School class so that they can get to know us better. Well this Sunday was our turn to make breakfast for the class. Lisa and I decided to make the "Brunch Cups," thanks Ashely!!! They were a BIG success!! They loved them.

After church we also had a College and Career crawfish boil fellowship. We ate our crawfish and then afterwards we played a game called "Battle of the Sexes." The guys won big time. The girls didn't have a chance. This is pretty much all that we did this past weekend we had a great time fellowshipping with friends!

Busy

2009-03-11T07:02:00.002-05:00

Wow, I haven't written on here in a long time. I have been extremely busy, and not thing really has been going on in my life at the moment. I have been really busy with work these week and last week. Last week I work over 50 hours. We are putting in updates to the software that we created for the Baptist State Conventions. A lot of that time that I put in last week was getting ready for the roll out of the update.

Lisa, Liam, and I went to Shreveport last weekend to see her parents, and her grandparents that were in town from Arizona. The spent the weekend with us. This was the first time they got to see Liam. He was really enjoying himself this weekend the weather was wonderful. Lisa's sister Laura also came over for a while to hang out. Laura and I decided to go to walmart to pick up a few things, and while we were there we found some stuff for a dollar that we thought we could have fun with, just to give us something to do. So we went to walmart to get bubble bath, and came back with two kites, bubbles, a ball, a game called in a pickle, and sidewalk chalk. Liam just loves to be outside, so when we got back to Lisa's parent's house we took Liam outside to play. It was really windy on Saturday, and the kite flew great! Liam had a lot of fun outside playing with all his new toys. I hope to post some pictures later.

Update and Welcome to the World

2009-02-09T15:11:00.002-06:00

Wow it has been a whole month since I have posted anything new! Nothing really interesting has been happening in my life I guess. Let's see what has been going on with us. Lisa and I have joined the College and Career Sunday School class to help out more with them, and that has been a lot of fun. We have been going to the bible studies also on Thursday nights.

Lisa and I traveled to Shreveport and Longview this past weekend for the birth of my new niece Allie Madison McLeod. Lynette was planning on have a planned c-section on Friday morning at 7:30, but Allie had other plans! While on our way to Shreveport on Thursday I got a call from Lynette at about 5:15 saying that her water had broke, and she was on her way to the hospital. Lynette ended up having the Allie at 8:20pm. on Feb. 5th. Lisa and I decided to stay in Longview and then just go in the morning to Longview, because there was no way we were going to make it in time, and get to see the baby, because it takes 3 hours of processing before you can hold the baby. Lisa's sister was going to babysit for us while we went to Longview to see the baby. Lisa and I drove to Longview the next morning and went to the hospital. We got there and the only people there were Lynette, Robert, and Allie, so we got to hold her right away and didn't have to share. The best part was that we actually got to hold her before my parents even got to hold her. My aunt and grandmother also came up for the birth. Lisa, mom, meme, mawmaw, and I all went shopping that day to let Lynette have some rest. We ended up have a great weekend visiting with family, and being able to welcome a new addition to the family.

College and Career

2009-01-09T08:18:00.002-06:00

Last night Lisa and I hosted the College and Career bible study for our church at our house. There were about 15 people, and Lisa prepared a meal. Lisa and I have been wanting to get involved with the college kids at our church for a while and we were asked to host one of their TNT meetings, so we agreed. The guys that came really wanted to watch the football game, so that's what we did, and during the half-time we had the bible study. It was a lot of fun hanging out with the college kids, and just getting to meet them.

Jennifer and Warren Byrd who are kind of the organizers of the class came and they brought their little girl Mallory who is 28 days younger than Liam. Liam and Mallory had a good time playing with each other. I think Liam liked all of the attention from the college students too!

Lisa and I both enjoyed ourselves and can't wait for them to come back next month!

Christmas with the McGee's

2009-01-05T08:47:00.010-06:00

The McGee Family celebrated Christmas the weekend of New Years. We all went to my Sister Lynette's house, because she is 7 1/2 months pregnant, and she can't travel anymore. We got to Lynette and Robert's house at about 1:30 and then just hung around playing games and talking. I think that's all we did the whole time. One day we went shopping for the day.

Family Picture (Me, Mia, Lisa, Liam, Marcell, Debby, Lynette, Aiden, and Robert):
We decided to open presents on New Year's Eve here are just a few pictures of Aiden and Liam, and a picture of Lisa, Lynette, Robert, and I with a present that my parents got us!

Aiden and his shopping cart that Lisa and I got him:
Liam's Learning Farm that Lynette and The Bert got him:
I brought my Wii, because Lynette wanted to play my Guitar Hero. Lisa never likes to play any of my Wii games, and my family knows this, however she does like to play my Guitar Hero. Well Lisa and I had decided that we were going to play a trick on my family. Lisa had been playing, and getting really good at playing "Eye of the Tiger". We told my parents, Lynette, and The Bert that she has never played it, and wouldn't play it, and we pretended to talk her into playing it after a while of watching Lynette playing. We she got on there and played "Eye of the Tiger" and smoked it!!! My parents and Lynette were just blown away that she was doing so good. They keep saying WOW I can't believe that you not missing any of the keys!! It was really funny, and then after a while we let them in on the joke.

Lynette and I talked my parents into playing as well. We had my dad playing the guitar and my mom singing (She is tone DEAF). Lynette also had some wigs that she made them wear. It was the funniest thing. I think they got booed off the stage like 5 times before they finished the song!
Liam and Aiden played well together for the most part. Aiden would try to take the toy that Liam had, and say MINE!! He got in trouble a lot for that. One of the funniest moments was when Liam started to play with Aiden's little toy mop, and Aiden ran over there to try to take it from Liam and they were both were pulling on it, Lynette started hollering at Aiden to "Drop it". Then Aiden while still pulling on it turned and looked at Liam with this serious face and said "Drop IT". Then Lynette spanked Aiden, and he had this look of confusion on his face, it was really funny.

These are some pictures of Liam and Aiden together:

Christmas with the Coys

2009-01-05T07:57:00.014-06:00

This year was the Coy's year for Christmas, so we traveled up to Shreveport to spend a couple of days there with Lisa's family. We had a good visit, it was very busy and relaxing at the same time. We didn't do much but visit. Tuesday about 4:00 and just visited and talked. Wednesday (Christmas Eve) Lisa's sister Laura came over, and she played with Liam, and that Night we had snack foods. Christmas Morning we all got up and got dressed and Lisa's sister Laura and her Husband Robi came over that morning so we could open up Christmas presents and have Christmas Lunch with Lisa's Grandparents. The rest of the week and weekend we just did a little shopping and hung out not doing too much.

Family picture (Mr. Danny, Mrs Jeannie, Robi, Laura, Liam, Lisa, and Me).

We all got a lot of stuff that we wanted.

After we had lunch that day and Liam went down for his nap Mrs. Jeannie had us all make Gingerbread House. Mr. Danny and Mrs. Jeannie made a Gingerbread Tree:

Robie and Laura made a Gingerbread House:
And Lisa and I made a Gingerbread Train:

Ho Ho Ho Santa Came Early!

2009-01-05T07:36:00.009-06:00

Ok so I have a lot to talk about. This is going to be my Christmas blog!!

Lisa and I decided to do our little family Christmas the Saturday before Christmas, because we wanted to do it at our house and didn't want to bring all of Liam's toys to Lisa's parents house. When Saturday morning came Liam walked into the living room like it was Christmas morning. We decided that he wouldn't know that it wasn't Christmas, so we just played a little trick on him.

Lisa and I got Liam a Slide, because he loved to slide down the one at church.

We got him a Little People Nativity; which he loves to play with, Mr. Potato Head Zoo Keeper, a Movie, a play cell phone (because he always wants ours).

Liam and I got Lisa the Willow Tree Nativity set that she has been wanting for about 5 years. That makes the total of Nativity sets that she has to 15.

Liam and Lisa got me Guitar Hero for my Wii. It's a lot of fun, and Lisa even likes to play it, which is funny, because she never wants to play any of my Wii games that I have.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na BATMAN!

2008-12-23T08:32:00.004-06:00

Lisa and I got Liam some Batman PJ's for Christmas, and we just think that he looks so cute in them. He was so funny running around in them.

Lafayette Shopping Trip

2008-12-16T11:21:00.004-06:00

This isn't a very interesting blog, just what we did on Saturday!

Since Christmas is getting closer and closer, and we have yet to finish our Christmas shopping we thought it would be fun to go to Lafayette and shop there. Since Alexandria has nowhere to shop except wal-mart, and Lafayette is only an hour away.

Saturday morning Lisa, Liam, and I got up and made our way to Lafayette. We still had Liam, Aiden, Laura, Robie, my mom, my dad, Lisa's Grandparents, Mrs. Jeannie, and Mr. Danny. Basically everyone. Of course when we get there Lisa wants to stop at a Scrapbook store that she always wants to go to. We stopped there and she bought something so she can scrapbook our Disney vacation and Christmas. Then we made our way to the Toys-r-us store. We have been looking at all three wal-marts here for a fold up tunnel for Liam. It was crazy in there!! We could barely move. We couldn't find the tunnel, but we were able to find one of Aiden's presents.

We left Toys-r-us and went to the mall it was lunch time now, and Liam was getting hungry, so we went and got something to eat. Then looked around the mall and found my mom's last present that we needed for her!! She's done yay! One down a lot more to go! We also got something for Lisa's dad. Then we left the mall and went to the Bed, Bath, and Beyond! We got Laura a few things from here, and now we have her finished up too!! Then we went to Target to look for a few more things, didn't find what we wanted from there, however we did get Liam a pair of jeans that he looks really cute in.

We then found wal-mart, and got some things for Liam's Babysitter, Lisa's Principle and assistant Principle. Then called Stacy and asked here where she got Garrett these little wooden food that you can cut, and she said that they had them at toys-r-us, which we couldn't find the first time, so we decided to go back by there and look. Before we made it back to Toys-r-us we stopped at Hobby Lobby and got something for Lisa's Partner teacher. Then went back to Toys-r-us and got the other gift for Aiden. We finished with Aiden for his birthday and Christmas.

After all that it was time to have supper so we decided that we would eat at Olive Garden, because we don't have one in Alexandria and we both like it. Liam did really good. He just sat in his high chair and ate the food that we gave him. After that we made our trip back home. We both had a really good time. It was nice to just get away and spend the day together.

Santa I Want...

2008-12-09T07:19:00.006-06:00

Saturday Lisa and I decided to take our family Christmas picture, and once we finished with that ordeal since Liam was dressed in his Christmas outfit we decided to take him to go and see Santa at our mall. We got to the mall at 6:10 and as we walked up to the gate to see Santa we noticed that there was no Santa in sight. There was a sign up saying that he would be back at 6:30, so we decided to do a little ornament shopping for Lynette and Robert. We got their ornament and walked back to where Santa was. There was a line now, so we got in line to wait to see Santa.

We still had about a 5 minute wait for Santa. We are standing there and then I notice the two heavy women??! standing in front of me with a little boy who is about 4. First off they were mean to the little boy who was just so excited to meet Santa. Since we still had some time left to wait Lisa decided she was going to go look in one of the stores close by. As I'm in line with Liam I started listening to the two Lesbos’s conversation. One Lesbo ( I think who is the real mother of the boy) says to the other Lesbo (Who looks like a man) "I don't know which one of you is worse you or him (the little boy)". As I'm standing here listening to this tiff between two lesbos I'm thinking, "why did I have to come back to the line at this time, why couldn't I have come earlier?" When the "mother lesbo" said this I guess it struck a nerve with the other "man Lesbo", because she turned and walked away. Then the "mother Lesbo" screams out to "man Lesbo" "see that's why we fight!"

Finally Santa arrived, and now we won't have to stand by these people much longer. We are standing in line waiting and we are looking at the price list for pictures which is outrageous! For one 5X7 it was $14.99. I brought my own camera to take pictures, when they open up the line to go in the helper lady says that you can take pictures with your own camera, but you have to be outside of the gate area by the store next door, and you can only take two pictures. I got out of the line so I can stand by the other store to take Liam's picture, because we weren't going to pay that for a crappy looking picture that they take. Lisa told me later that while she was waiting in line "man Lesbo" leaned in to kiss "mother lesbo" and "mother lesbo" turned her head, and said that she had a headache. GAG ME!!!!

Finally it was Liam's turn to take his picture, and I actually took like three pictures, because the lady wasn't around. The Santa wouldn't look at me for the picture. Liam was very interested in Santa he just stared at him, and tried to pull Santa's beard. We thought it was very cute. Here is one of the shots of Liam with Santa.
These other pictures are of Liam yesterday he found the cereal box on the floor and opened it up and just started eating out of the box. We thought it was really funny.

1st Birthday!

2008-12-02T13:55:00.013-06:00

Today Liam Turned One today! I can't believe it. This past year just went by so fast. We had Liam's First Birthday Party this past Saturday.

The theme for Liam's birthday was Trains, Planes, and Automobiles. We have been getting ready for this party for like months. Lisa has been planning and preparing everything and having me do different little jobs. One of my jobs was to create an invitation for the party. This is the invitation that I designed and created to send out:

One of my other jobs was to create a backdrop scene to take pictures and this is a picture of it with Liam in it as well:
This past Friday Lisa, Liam, and I left Toledo Bend where we were spending Thanksgiving to go back home to get ready for Liam's Birthday Party that we were having that Saturday at Lunch.
We got back in town at about 6:30 and went straight to Sears to pick up Liam's Pictures that he took, so Lisa could finish his scrapbook with those pictures. Then we went home and started getting the house ready for a bunch of people coming for his party. We had to pick up all of your luggage from Disney and Toledo Bend. We had to clean all the bathrooms, sweep and mop all the floors. We couldn't do any of that while Liam is awake because he is into everything and we have to watch him. While Lisa was watching Liam and unpacking and washing clothes I was baking sugar cookies for the party. Once I finished baking the sixty cookies we had to let them cool. We put Liam to bed and started cleaning the house. Then Lisa and I started Icing the cookies with butter cream icing dyed blue. We were up until 2:30 in the morning getting everything ready.

We got up the next morning at 6:15 and started working again. I started by putting the cookies in bags and tying ribbon around the bags to give out as favors. Then I ran by SuperOne to get the balloon filed with air, and to pick up the two cakes. One for Liam and one for everyone else. Pictures of the cakes:

After I got back with the cakes I put up the Scene and put the tables and chairs up under the carport while Lisa cooked Shrimp Soup and Taco Soup. We also had chicken nuggets and macaroni for the kids.

Then everyone started showing up at 11:30. We all ate, and I took everyone's picture with Liam in the scene. Then it was time for Liam to open his presents. He had so much fun. He liked looking at everything that he good. He wanted to play with everything. Here are a few pictures of him opening up some pictures.

After he opened all his presents we sang Happy Birthday and we had cake. We let Liam have his own cake and he thought it was really good. We had a really great day celebrating his birthday, and I still can't believe that he is one today.

Giving the Thanks!

2008-12-02T07:53:00.002-06:00

This year was the McGee family's year for Thanksgiving. We rotate it every year between my family and Lisa's family. So this year we have Christmas with Lisa's family. Well for Thanksgiving we had decided a long time ago that we were going to send it at my sister's house in Longview, Texas. Since my sister is pregnant now my parents decided that they didn't want to travel all the way up to Longview for Thanksgiving because they will have to travel there for our family Christmas because my sister will not be able to travel by then, and then they will have to travel back up for the birth of the baby. Well my sister said that they were NOT going all the way down to Houma, so I came up with the idea to have our Thanksgiving in Toledo Bend where we spend all of our Thanksgivings when we were kids. They all liked this idea. So we decided to tell our other family members to see if they would like to join us for old times’ sake. My grandparents, Aunt Melinda (Meme), Uncle Sammy, Cousin John and his wife Angele, Cousin Jenna and Husband Hunter all decided to come too.

Our Plane landed Wednesday at about 11:00 in Shreveport from our trip to Disney World, we picked up Liam from Lisa's parent's house, and then we headed to Toledo Bend. We were all very excited about seeing everyone and having a good time playing games. That night for supper we went to my grandparents camp and we had a bonfire, made Hotdogs, and roasted marshmallows, and made s'mores (Yum). Well my grand paw wasn't feeling all that well he had been sick that day with stomach issues so we didn't want to stay that long with the babies, so we headed back to our camp we were staying at. We played canasta which is a card game with my aunt, uncle, and cousins.

Thanksgiving day all the adults were cooking, and Lynette brought a outside game that we all really liked it was called Redneck Golf. What you do is throw these ball things tied together by rope at this thing with bars. It's kind of like horseshoes, it's a lot of fun. We all like playing it. I think my mom and I played it all day. My grandmother woke up sick like my grandfather was, and was getting dehydrated, so my aunt and grand paw ended up taking her to the hospital for a couple of hours. That night we were all sitting around and Liam decided that it would be a good time for him to start walking. He was taking about 6 or 7 steps. yay. That night we played a fun game like cranium it was called pop cranium. We were laughing so hard. One funny thing was Lynette had a celebrity card and it was Ozzy Osbourne, and she decided to act it out. She made this really funny drugged up looking face and was acting like she was trying to mess with a remote. All the guys were on the same team, and we knew who she was suppose to be because we looked at the card. We were cracking up. The girls had no idea what she was doing.

The Friday that we were there it just rained all day, and Lisa and I left that day to get home to get ready for Liam's birthday party that we were having on Saturday. We hung out until about 4:00 and then we left to make it home.

We had a really good time see and playing with family. It's been a long time since we have had a chance to hang out like that, and it has been missed. We had a pretty good Thanksgiving holiday with family.

Disney Trip

2008-12-01T10:43:00.013-06:00

Lisa and I took our 5 year anniversary trip to Walt Disney World, and had a really good time this is just a little of what we did while we were there:

Saturday: We went to Hollywood Studios because it was the extra magic hours that morning, and we walked on and rode tower of terror and Aerosmith first right when we got there, we walked right on the rides no wait at all. Then we just went and did all the other stuff there watching the shows and riding the other rides, and just taking it all in. We finished everything there at about 5, and got on the boat to go to Epcot. We did a few of the countries, and ate in Japan we had to have true Sushi, I took a picture of the Sushi and the time card for Epcot with my cell phone and sent it to a coworker of mine, because I told her that I was going to have sushi in Disney and she didn't believe I would have sushi there. We did Test Track, Mission to Space (felt a little sick after that) I keep burping up the funnel cake that I had right before, not a good feeling!! I had a bad headache before I went on Mission to Space, so it got worse, then we rode Spaceship Earth. I think I fell asleep on it hehe. We watched the fireworks here. Then we went on back to the hotel when the park closed at 9.

Sunday: We got up and went to Magic Kingdom. We did everything!! Rode all the rides and watched all the shows. We stayed here all day the park opened at 9 and closed at 11, but it was magic hours in the evening, so it was open until 2 am. We left about 12:30 we were tired. We watched both Parades the regular one during the day, and then the light parade. They were really good. We watched the fireworks, and the Cinderella’s Wish show, and Mickey’s lighting of the Castle of the Christmas lights. We rode the Haunted Mansion four times HAHA. Pirates was updated too it was good. We rode a lot of these rides three or four times, because we had the fast passes. Magic Kingdom was Lisa’s favorite park.

Monday: We got up early for morning magic hours for Animal Kingdom. We rode the Yeti ride, then went and did the safari ride, watched the Lion King show, and did the 3D bugs life really good! We did other things at this park, but we were done at 12 at this park. Animal Kingdom was our least favorite park. We left animal kingdom and went back to Magic Kingdom and stood in line to meet Mickey and Minnie, and did a few other things, then went back to Epcot and eat supper in a country I think Mexico. Then we went back to Hollywood Studios for Evening Magic hours, and rode a couple more rides that night. So on Monday we went to all four parks.

Tuesday: We got up and did morning magic hours at Epcot, we did Soaring, and a couple of other rides and shows and spent a lot of time in the countries, because before that day we didn’t see them in the day time. We both really liked Epcot. We did the American show thing there, and they had people singing before the show. Lisa fell asleep in the movie show of America we were so tired. She said, “I can’t believe I fell asleep in that I teach History!!” We ate in London that day. When we did everything there we decided to go back to Magic Kingdom and do a few more things mostly to get our free picture, and to do some shopping. I think we stayed out until 10.

Wednesday: Then we had to get up at 3AM to catch our 4 am bus back to the airport, which was 2 o’clock Louisiana time. EARLY TOO EARLY.

We had a really good time at all the parks. Our parks in the order as we liked them were:
1. Magic Kingdom
2. Epcot
3. Hollywood Studios
4. Animal Kingdom

The weather was great. Cold in the mornings and late at night. I was so glad that I brought shorts. I wore shorts and a hooddie jacket every day, and was comfortable. On Tuesday when we went to Epcot it started to do a light drizzle for like 5 minutes, and that was it, so the weather was nice every day. Some days it was hot, so we would definitely wouldn’t go in the summer, I think it would be really hot. Think if we would go again it would be during Mardi Gras. One of the bus drivers said that it is really slow that time of year.

And finally the picture that Lindsay requested.

Picture of the Sushi we had in Epcot that I sent to my coworker.

Sushi

2008-11-20T07:31:00.002-06:00

Just recently, I would say in the past four months, I was introduced to the world of Sushi. Now I can't get enough!! For a while there I was having sushi almost three times a week. Sometimes more than three times a week, I've had it twice in one day a couple of times.

As some of you know I would update my facebook status saying that I enjoyed my sushi today. Well a few of my church friends would make comments and ask if I eat it every day, and I would be like almost. They also like sushi a lot too, so we decided that we would have a sushi lunch event. Yesterday was the big event. There were six of us that got together at one of the local restaurants to have sushi. It was really good, and we had great company.

So far my favorite kind of sushi is the Spicy California Roll, the Dragon Roll with Eel, and the Crunch Roll. The best part about it is that it's pretty good for you too. It's not fattening! It's a lot better than the other things that you could have for lunch. The Kroger's that is a minute away from my work has a sushi bar in the store that is made fresh for you, and it is CHEAP. I really think that it's the best too. I even got Lisa liking sushi!

I think everyone should try it at least once, but if you're going to try it, DO NOT try it at a Chinese buffet!!!! It is completely gross! So don't let that be your sushi experience. If you have tried it at a buffet, and that it the reason you will not try it please try it again at a different place. I suggest trying the spicy California roll, or just the California roll. The California roll is a good way to ease your way into the whole sushi experience.

Party Like It's 1999!

2008-11-11T08:05:00.002-06:00

It has been 10 years since I have been in High School. I graduated in '99. Last Friday I made a trip back to high school, except in a different roll. I went as a teacher, well not really a teacher, but a substitute teacher. There is a big difference between a teacher and a substitute, for the most part students listen to a teacher not so much a substitute.

My work has decided to try to go to a four day week and working extra during the week and having Fridays off, so I decided not to waste my day off by doing nothing and make a little extra money at the same time. So I came up with subbing. I subbed at Lisa's school once as the Special Ed teacher, and I subbed for an English teacher last Friday at one of the high schools in the area.

I walked into the office Friday morning to talk to the Assistant Principle and to find out what class I would be subbing. She was talking to another teacher and told me that I would be in an English class. She said, "She has a pretty good class, Except for her last class!!!" The other teacher was like, "Oh yeah her seventh hour is bad!" Great you know that is exactly what you want to hear the first time you sub. The principle said, "but the good thing is that today is pep rally day, and the end of the day is short, so you won’t have them very long!"

It was pretty easy, the teacher had the class’s assignments on the board, and all I had to do was tell the class their assignment was on the board, check roll, and sit back and make sure they didn't get to loud. Well kids haven't changed much since I was in high school, and I remember that every time we had a sub we didn't do what we were supposed to do. So, I wasn't expecting them to do the work that was left for them.

The teacher left a seating chart for the class and asked to check roll by the seating chart. I thought this was funny, because when the kids came in they were like "oh a sub", and I could tell that they didn't know what to do about where to sit, because they would first go to sit in their assigned seat, then they would get up before the bell would ring and go sit by a friend. Well I noticed this, so when the bell would ring I would say, "Your assignment is on the board, and I will be checking roll by your assigned seats, so if you are not in your right seat you will be marked absent." It was fun watching them all get up and return to their right seats.

I had two English III classes, which the teacher left them to read a book and take notes. Yeah, like that was going to happen! You expect a whole class to sit there and read a book. Of course, they just sat there and talked the whole class hour. I didn't mind they were pretty good, I also let these classes get up and change seats. I mean really they were going to talk anyway to their friends, either by screaming across the room, or just sitting next to them quietly talking. I also had a Creative Writing class, their assignment was to working on some forum writing. Not going to happen. This was a very small class of like 10, and she said there wasn't a seating chart for them, so they could sit where ever they wanted. This class was pretty good they just talked the whole time.

I also had three, I say THREE ENGLISH I CLASSES!!!!!! FRESHMAN!! I don't like Freshman. There is something about that age group I just don't like. Kids are just stupid at that age, and of course her last class was an English I class. Now she left them more work to do which was great they had to read out of their book and take notes in outline form at least three pages to turn in at the end of class. Well the first English I class did the assignment and was very quiet and worked. The second English I class worked, but they talked to much, and some of the kids just didn't do it. Well the last class, "The Bad Class" I think one person did the assignment. They had some really aggravating kids in this class. One especially, she was irritating. She wouldn't shut up and she was loud. When the bell rang for that class I was thinking, “thank goodness that girl was getting on my nerves.”

The day was over, and the Assistant Principle said they always need subs on Fridays, and that she would call me again. The only thing is that this Friday I can't sub because Liam's baby sitter has a doctor’s appointment and she will not be keeping, so I have to stay home with him and then the next Friday I will be on an airplane flying to Disney World so I can't sub that day. I hope she calls me again even if I have to turn her down two Fridays in a row

Tech Homecoming

2008-11-04T13:30:00.008-06:00

Saturday was Tech's homecoming!! Lisa and I have decided when we graduated and left school that we would try to make it back every year to Tech for Homecoming. We don't even go to the game. We just go to ABS (Association of Baptist Students) to visit with our friends from college. Well this year we almost didn't make it. We didn't know if we were going to go until we got up that morning. Liam had been sick all week, so we didn't know if he would be feeling good enough to go. We woke him up that morning, and he seemed to be feeling good so we decided to make the trip. We had a really good time visiting with our friends from college. We miss them all so much! There was great food, and great conversation.

We rolled into Ruston about 10:30 and we went straight to Brooke's to drop Mia off, well when we got there Brooke said that Layla was sick, so she said that we can bring Mia to Jennifer's house. We went to Jennifer's and dropped Mia off at her house. Then Lisa and I wanted to take some pictures of Liam on Tech campus. Lisa need to go to the book store to find a bear for her mom. When we walked into the bookstore the first thing we see was Robert's big head. Then I turned and saw Jody, Lindsay, and Janie!!! We looked around the bookstore for a while and then we went to see if we could find our brick on campus. No such luck the haven't put out any bricks since 2000.
Then we went to go take some pictures on campus.

After we took pictures we went to the ABS to see all our friends. The Alumni also talked Mrs. Karan in to allowing us to get "Tech Blue" Hoodies!! YAY. Can you believe that the current Tech Students didn't want "Tech Blue" Hoodies. The students at the ABS now are so sad! They don't do anything!! When we were students we did everything for homecoming to help Mrs. Karan out. These new students don't do anything.

After we visited a while with everyone we also had a baby shower for Jennifer. For baby Eli Lee. We played a game of knowing the Watsons.

After the shower Lisa and I had to leave to make it to Shreveport for the night we were getting Liam's picture taken in Shreveport for his first birthday.

We had a great time at TECH, and we can't wait until next year.

Pumpkin Carving/Halloween

2008-11-03T11:13:00.012-06:00

Well we waited a little late to carve our pumpkin for Halloween because we were just so busy this past week, and Liam has been sick, and not in his normal good mood. We ended up not carving our pumpkin until Friday, Halloween day, when Lisa got home from work. I had the day off, so I got everything ready for the carving event. Then when Lisa made it home we started carving the pumpkin. Liam had so much fun. He loved every minute of it; he liked sticking his hand in the pumpkin and pulling out all the junk. He wanted to eat it too.

After we carved our pumpkin we dressed Liam and Mia in there Halloween costumes, and started out for our walk around the neighborhood to do some trick-r-treating at the houses of people that we know. We also have some friends in the neighborhood who always have a Halloween Party, and they invited us to join, so we decided that we would go back home to drop Mia back off and then go back to their house for the party. When we went back to our house, Lisa stayed outside with Liam in the stroller, and I brought Mia back into the house to put her up. She said that while I was in the house a bunch of rude teenagers (only wearing a mask) started coming down the driveway to get some candy. Lisa turns around, and says that she wasn't handing candy out, and one of those teenage boys said to her very rudely, "then why are you standing in the driveway?", She said right back to them, "Because we are about to go Trick-r-treating!" She then told me when I came out what had happened, and I said well why you didn’t say, "You seem to be too old to be trick-r-treating anyway". She said she would have if our neighbors weren't walking over to see Liam in his costume. It was pretty funny seeing teenagers walking around trick-r-treating.

We made our way back to our friend’s house to have some yummy food. They had a big pot of gumbo, and another big pot of Chili. They both were sooo good, and they had all kinds of cookies and candy. The food was really good, and we had a good time visiting. They have been inviting us to their party for years now, and we just never have gone, just because we have had other things to go to, but we said we are going to their party from now on. These are the people who Lisa has taught their little girl in first and second grade, and then tutored her thought third, fourth, and fifth grade, and now Lisa is teaching her again in Sixth grade, and they go to our church. Lisa also brings her home from school everyday too because they live in our neighborhood. The mom is a lactation consultant, and really helped Lisa out when we first brought Liam home. They also have baby sat for us. They are just a great family who we can count on if we needed anything.

Weekend

2008-10-21T07:59:00.005-05:00

This past weekend my parents, Sister, Brother-in-law, and nephew came to visit. On my parents way up here to see us we had them stop at ever walmart and K-mart looking for Liam's birthday present from me and Lisa. The item that we wanted to get him we couldn't find it here in Pineville/Alexandria. Our three walmarts, Target, and K-mart didn't have it. I would have just ordered it from walmart and had it shipped site to store, but they didn't sell the item anymore. The target site shipping and handling was too expensive. My parents two walmarts, and Target didn't have it either. So they said that they would stop at every walmart and target that they come across on their way up to our house. Well they stopped at a few and finally the K-mart in New Iberia had it, so they bought it.

My parents got here about 4:00 and we went out to eat at a seafood restaurant called Fant's that night. It was really good. Aiden was invited to a little kids birthday party so they didn't get to leave Longview until after 6:00 that Friday. They got to the house about 9:30 or so. We all stayed up for a while talking.

Saturday Lisa had to go to her school because they were having their Fall Carnival that day, and she had to work it. We thought it would be fun for the boys too, so we decided that we would go up there and let them play and have lunch there. First, mom loved the pictures that we made of Liam at the pumpkin patch so much she wanted to take pictures with Liam and Aiden at the pumpkin patch, so we went there first and took pictures. We then went to Lisa's school and walked around the carnival. The boys got to pet a rabbit, baby chicks, goats, and a cow. Liam loved the rabbit. I signed up for some raffles to win a flat screen TV, and an IPod Touch. (I didn't win). We said there about until about 12:30 and then we went back home so the boys could take their naps. They were so tired they both fell asleep in the car on the way home.

We had a early supper that night so everyone could get back on the road to go home. My dad had to be a church on Sunday. My dad boiled Shrimp and Crabs. YUM. It was really good. Then they all left and went back home. We was a good but short visit!

Boss' Day

2008-10-17T10:57:00.003-05:00

With yesterday being Boss' Day we decided as a group to have a breakfast for our boss. Wednesday on my way home from work I stopped at SuperOne to buy the ingredients. Since Kavita and I are the ones that have to do everything for the office, because no one else volunteers to do anything, we decided what we were going to have and make. We are also the ones that make the super snacks. We decided that we were going to have hash brown casserole (Cracker Barrel recipe), french toast, and bacon. We have our hot plate grill that our boss bought for us a couple of months ago so we wanted to use it to make the french toast and bacon.

I got up at like 5:40 yesterday morning, and started making the hash brown casserole at home. It took a whole hour to make it. Thank goodness I got up early. Once that finished cooking I left for work, and to go pick up Kavita, she needed a ride to work. Our boss gets to work at like 5:00, so he was here in his office just working, so Kavita and I started working on making his french toast and bacon. We made his plate, and gave it to him. He was very appreciative, he said that he didn't even know that it was boss' day. He is a really good boss, and he does a lot for us, so we just wanted to do a little something for him. He buys us lunch a lot, and he lets us do a lot of things that other bosses wouldn't go for. We then made breakfast for all the other employees too.

It was getting close to lunch time, and we still had a little money left over from everyone paying me back for the breakfast, so Kavita and I decided that we wanted to get him lunch too. We knew that he liked sushi, and that is cheap, so we went and picked him up some sushi, and some dark chocolate kisses. He likes dark chocolate too. We gave that to him for his lunch. He was really surprised. He was like, "wow, sushi and dark chocolate, I love both, man this is great."

So, I think he had a good day, I know everyone else enjoyed the breakfast too. It was really good if I must say, and I'm not just saying that because I made it all hehe.

Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-13T13:23:00.007-05:00

Saturday we decided to take Liam to the Pumpkin Patch, to get some pictures of him with the pumpkins. We decided to go at 3:30 after he got up from his nap, and we thought this time would be good because it wouldn't be so hot. WRONG... It was so stinkin' hot!! We took a lot of pictures, but I don't know if Liam is looking at us in any of them. He was so interested in the pumpkins, and not us trying to get his picture. We had a lot of fun watching him play. I decided to share some pictures with yall. Hope yall enjoy.

Super Snack Recipe: Smores on a Stick

2008-10-10T08:32:00.003-05:00

Ingredents:

1 (16 ounce) bag large marshmallows
1 (16 ounce) bag chocolate chips
1 (16 ounce) package graham crackers

Directions:

1. Crush graham crackers in a big zip lock bag until they are like bread crumbs.

2. Place crumbs in a bowl.

3. Melt chocolate in the microwave stirring often until smooth.

4. Stick a toothpick in a marshmallow and dip in chocolate all the way then in graham cracker crumbs half way.

5. Set on wax paper to dry (we put them in the refrigerator to get the chocolate hard).

Check Engine Continue

2008-10-10T08:18:00.002-05:00

I have an update to Check Engine post that was made about a week ago. Well I tried my dad's suggestion on disconnecting the battery, and then reconnecting it after about five minutes. It worked. Well, it worked for about 2 days. I disconnected it on Thursday when I got home from work, and then the check engine light came back on mid day Saturday. GREAT!!! Good thing I didn't cancel my scheduled appointment at the service department. I brought it to the service department yesterday, and told them about my issue with the warranty expiring because I was 3000 miles over the warranty.

I left the car there and got a ride to work. I got a call about 12:20 saying that the car was ready to pick up. I got a ride from another co-worker to the dealership to pick up the car. I was worried about how much this was all going to cast me. I walk up to the counter, and the lady told me that they needed to replace some valve, and that she put the mileage down as 35,700, so that it will still be under warranty!! I was like thank you, thank you. Since she did this I had to pay NOTHING!!! She was like well you should get a survey in the mail, and I hope you will give me a good review. I was like no doubt!!! You are going to get the best review.

My Ears are Bleeding

2008-10-07T09:16:00.003-05:00

Today is *Mrs. Mary's music day so you know what that means, Ear Phones here I come!!! I usually like everyone else's day of music, because we all pretty much have the same taste, except Mrs. Mary's. She likes to play elevator music. Not only is it elevator music but she turns it all the way up, because she is in an office and she can't hear it very good in her office, so everyone else has to suffer. I mean really she shouldn't have a day, because she is in an office, with her own speakers for her computer. She can just listen to her own music in her office, but no she makes us suffer. The music that plays for everyone is pointing in our direction.

I usually get to work early before everyone else, except the boss, and I will start the music, because I like to have something to listen to in the morning, and then when everyone else gets in if it's their day they just change it no big deal. Well when it is Mrs. Mary's day I don't turn it on, because I hope that she will forget about the music and not turn it on. Well it didn't work today. About 9: 15 the music started!! At work we all use Instant messenger to talk to each other, and as soon as the music started I got like three instant messages! This is how they went down:
Me to *Kate.
Me: "Oh Crap"
Me: "Mrs. Mary's Music"
Me: "Ear Phones here I come"
Kate: "Hilarious"
Kate: "Hilarious"
Kate: "Okay that's loud"
Me: "wow, that is loud"
Kate: "I slowed it down one"
Me: " you SLOWED it down?"
Kate: "yeah"
Me: "How fast was it going? LOL"
Kate: "Lowered the Volume"
Kate: "Shut up"
Me: "HAHA"
At the same time I was having that conversation I was having another with *Travis.
Travis: "I left my headphones at home!!!!"
Travis: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
Me: "lol lol"
Travis: "I even did the fist pump at the sky, but you couldn't see that"
Me: "I was just telling Kate OH crap, Mrs. Mary's Music.
Travis: "This is like my Favorite CD"
Travis: :
Me: "I thought I saw this on your playlist"
Travis: "What are you talking about? This IS my playlist. LOL"

I really think that it is really funny how we all have pretty much the same reaction when her music starts. If I look around the room everyone has their earphones in. Well except Travis, because he forgot his. HAHA.

She cranks the music up so load that it is blaring us out, and we can't hear our own music in our earphones, so one of us will usually turn it down. Then in a few minutes Mrs. Mary will realize that she can't hear her music, and turn it back up. Then we turn it back down. It's a continuous cycle.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent!!!

Shopping in Shreveport

2008-10-06T08:03:00.003-05:00

This past weekend Lisa, Liam, Mia, and I took a trip to Shreveport to have a birthday party for Lisa's Grandmother who was turning 75. We left Friday after work and made it to Shreveport at 7:00 PM Friday night. We ate supper and let Liam play around before we put him to bed. We made plans to get up on Saturday and go shopping. Yay. Lisa and I wanted to get some new clothes for our trip to Disney.

Saturday morning we got up, and then Lisa's sister Laura and her husband Robie came over to go shopping with us. Lisa's dad was going to come with us also, but then Robie and Mr. Danny decided that they were going to go to the Bass Pro Shop, so we all split and went different ways. I didn't go with them, because I don't hunt or fish, and there is nothing for me there. So, we all headed out our different ways. Our first stop was Michaels. We wasted to much of our time here just standing around. I really think this is where we went wrong!! So Lisa and I got 101 cookie cutters at Michael's, and then it was time for lunch. So, we decided to meet Mr. Danny and Robie at McAllister's. We ate lunch and then we were off again.

I wanted to go to Kohl's because the last time I went to Kohl's I got a pair of jeans for 5 dollars. So we went to Kohl's, and I got two pairs of Khaki pants for $3.99 each, awesome, and a pair of shorts for $5 and a shirt for $5. Lisa got two jogging suit pants and jackets too. Then we went to JCPenny's and I got three shirts for $6 each and Lisa got two more jogging suit pants and jackets for our trip to Disney. We did really good.

Then we had to go run by Laura's house to go pick up some stuff for supper. This is another place that we wasted too much time, because I wanted to go to the Boardwalk to do some more shopping. So we left Laura's and head to the boardwalk, we only had like 30 minutes to shop there because we needed to head back home to start cooking supper. I got some wind pants for our trip to Disney, and that was it. We when home and started cooking fried shrimp, fries, hushpuppies, fish, and grilled shrimp.

Then Sunday Lisa's mom's, brother and his kids, and her Grandparents came over for lunch, and to celebrate Mrs. Brown's birthday. We ate lunch and had cake, and then just sat around and talked. Then Lisa and I headed back home. It was a long weekend, but it was also short. This has been a pretty boring post, and I'm sorry you had to sit here and read it. Hopefully I'll have something better later in the week.

Check Engine

2008-10-02T13:02:00.004-05:00

I get a call this morning on my way to work from my wonderful wife saying that a little light came on in her trailblazer. At this point I'm thinking great that's just what we need. I asked what light was it, and she doesn't know what the symbols mean, so I ask her what it looks like, and she says it looks like a little video camera. I'm thinking a video camera, I have no idea what that is. Then I start looking at my little light indicators. OH the check engine light kind of looks like a video camera I guess. So I ask where she is at and she is on the way to her school, so I told her I would meet her there. Sure enough it's her check engine light. So I take her trailblazer and leave her my truck. I'm thinking I can call the dealership, and they can take a quick look at it and let me know what's wrong. No, the earliest appointment they have is next Thursday a whole week. So then I'm thinking "I wonder if I should take it somewhere else". Wait I think it's still under warranty, it's a 2006. So I go to the truck to see what the date was that we purchased the trailblazer. 11/1/2005. Yes, still under the 3 year mark. Then I think, I think miles have a play in the warranty too. The warranty is for 3 years or 36,000 mile whichever comes first. Well, wouldn't you know the trailblazer has 39,005 miles. Dangit!!!

Well I don't know what to do, so I call the person that I always go to when I have questions on things that I should do. Who else... My Dad. So, I call my dad and tell him all this and he says hold on let me ask Doug (Dad's Mechanic friend). My dad just so happened to be getting his tires rotated by Doug at that time, and he use to work for Cheve in Houma. Great luck right! Doug said to check the oil and make sure there is oil in it, and then to disconnect the black wire to the battery for a couple of minutes. He said that sometimes things go a little crazy and they just need to be reset. Then to check to see if the light comes back on, if it does then there is a problem and I need to get it looked at. He also said that I should take it to the dealership because they should still honor the warranty, Awesome. So, while I was still at work I went out and check the oil, which is fine. So, when I get home I'm going to do the battery thing. I hope it works, wish me luck.

Super Snack Recipe: South of the Border Mix

2008-10-02T09:52:00.000-05:00

Ingredients:
6 Tablespoons Margarine or Butter
1 Package (1.25oz.) taco seasoning mix, dry
1 tablespoon Vorcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
8 Cups Rice Chex Mix or Wheat, or combination of the two
1 Cup Peanuts
1 Cup mini-sized pretzels
1 Cup bite-size cheeze crackers

Directions:
Microwave: In large microwave-safe bowl, melt margarine on HIGH. Stir in taco seasoning, Worcestershire sauce and pepper sauce. Gradually add cereals, peanuts, pretzels and cheese crackers; stir to coat evenly. Microwave on HIGH 5 to 6 minutes, stirring thoroughly with rubber spatula every 2 minutes and scraping sides and bottom of bowl. Spread on absorbent paper to cool. Store in airtight container.

Photo Shoot

2008-09-30T08:40:00.006-05:00

Since Saturday was such a nice day we decided to have a photo shoot for Liam. We decided to have a photo shoot for two reasons. One, Lisa's mom has a calendar that she puts a different picture of Liam in for each month, so she likes to have a new picture before the new month starts. Second, we just like taking pictures of Liam.

With this next month being October we decided that we wanted to take his picture in his Halloween costume. He is going to be a pumpkin, and I have to say the is so cute. hehe Mia is also going to be a pumpkin too this year.

Lisa had a class all day Saturday, so it was just me and Liam, I decided to take his picture after he ate lunch he normally is very happy after lunch. Well he is happy all the time. So I got everything ready for the photo shoot outside. I put his costume on him and brought him outside. I took a few pictures, but it was getting so hot and he just wanted to play in the grass, and he wouldn't look up at me. I decided that I was going to need someone else there the help me to get his attention. I packed everything back up and put him down for his nap, and waited for Lisa to get home. Lisa came home and when Liam woke up from his nap we dressed him back up in his costume and tried it again. This time it went much better. We got some really good shots I thought. After we took some outside we decided to take some more inside and with Mia dressed in her costume too. Liam loves Mia he keep trying to kiss her the whole time which was hard trying to take his picture. I'm including a couple of pictures of our photo shoots. Hope you enjoy.

Super Snack Recipe: Caramel Dipped Apples

2008-09-30T08:34:00.003-05:00

Ingredients:

5 wooden pop sticks

5 medium apples, washed, well dried

1 pkg. (14 oz.) KRAFT Caramels (about 50)

2 Tbsp. water

Directions:

1. INSERT pop stick into stem end of each apple; set aside.

2. PLACE caramels and water in large saucepan; cook over medium-low heat until caramels are completely melted, stirring constantly.

3. DIP apples into melted caramel, spooning caramel over apples to coat. Allow excess caramel to drip off, scraping bottom if necessary. Place on sheet of greased wax paper; let stand about 15 minutes or until caramel is set.

Makes 5 apples

Use Your Microwave: Microwave caramels and water in large microwavable bowl on HIGH 2-1/2 to 3 minutes or until caramels are completely melted, stirring every minute. Continue as directed.

Special Extra: Prepare as directed, rolling bottom of each freshly dipped apple into one of the following: 10 OREO Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, coarsely chopped; 1-1/2 cups JET-PUFFED Miniature Marshmallows mixed with 1/4 cup sprinkles; 1/2 cup PLANTERS COCKTAIL Peanuts, chopped. Or, drizzle dipped apples with 2 squares BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate, melted.

Hi, My Name Is Keith and I Have An Addiction!

2008-09-25T10:13:00.004-05:00

I am ADDICTED to the Sarah Palin Facebook Message Board!! (Thanks Lindsay) I am a very conservative person. I have been upset about some of the things that were said on this board. Americans need to stick together and be a strong hold for our country!! I am very worried about the outcome of this election, but I also do have Faith in McCain and Palin that they will prevail! It's really funny, because before now I have not been a "Political" Person. I just never really cared. I mean I always voted for the person that I believed in, and had the save views as, but never got into the whole political scene. The way that I got into this is kind of funny. It's because of Lindsay, as you all may know I am a facebook stalker. Yes, I admit it I stalk people on facebook. (That's a whole other addiction.) Lindsay has posted a lot of things on the board, and I would just read all of her posts, and the comments from the liberals. I then became very active in making comments myself, because I just didn't agree with their statements. Now I find myself sitting on the board almost every day, all day, reading and making comments. I now listen to Rush and Sean Hannity on talk radio during the day now, and read articles from conservative websites. I have also become friends with a few people from that board, just by sharing some of the same worries that they have. I also believe that if Obama does win this, heaven forbid, we need to be strong for those that have lost all Faith.
So, I come here today to say, Hi, My name is Keith and I'm addicted to the Sarah Palin facebook message board...

Praise

2008-09-22T10:00:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was my first day back on rotation for our church praise team. It went great. Singing in the morning services brought back so many memories! It was a blast being able to be back up there and being a minister to our church. Just being able to be up there and using my talents for God's well was awesome.

It was really nice being back up there with the original praise team members. The morning services were amazing. You could really tell that God was in that place, I could truly feel his presence in that place.

We practiced for the morning services on Wednesday night, and then Sunday morning before the services started. We then went back at 4:00 to practice for the Sunday Night Service. It was also an amazing night. I really enjoy being able to sing in our church's praise team. I missed my praise team friends so much. We just have so much fun together joking around and just singing. It was just great being able to fellowship with them all again in a small group.

Interpretive Movement

2008-09-15T09:49:00.002-05:00

My Praise Team rotation has started again. We had our first practice last night, and we have practice on Wednesday nights after choir practice and practice on Sundays at 4:00 too. I'm really excited I have been missing my praise team friends. We always had a lot of fun at practices joking and just having a good time.

I sent the following video to one of my friends on the praise team, and the music minister suggesting that we do this song. I told them that I would be willing to do the male part. We had a really good laugh about it. It actually ended up getting passed along to the whole team and to others. Please watch it, it's really awesome, and I'm excited about doing it. I think it is going to be a lot of work, but I know that I am up to the challenge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7myO3imGy0

Hey Mickey!

2008-09-11T09:10:00.003-05:00

Well Lisa and I finally booked our vacation to Disney World!!! I can't wait to go! Since this November will be our five year anniversary, we decided that we wanted to go on a big trip to celebrate. Where better to go then Disney? It took us a while to decide where we wanted to go because we wanted to go somewhere that we haven't been together before. Even though Lisa has been to Disney a couple of times I only went once when I was four, and I don't remember anything from it except that I lost my Mickey balloon coming out of the castle. We also figured that we should go now before Liam got to big because of course we want to take him one day too, and we wanted to be able to do all the grownup things when we went, so we thought go now by ourselves then later bring Liam and do all the kiddy things with him then.

Lisa booked our flight and our rooms and tickets to the park this week, so we are set to go. I am getting really excited. I have been wanting to go to Disney since I was a kid, and I think we are going to have a really good time. We got park maps in the mail the other day so we can map out our routes, and things we want to see. We are going the week of thanksgiving so I'm sure it is going to be packed but I hope it's not going to be too bad. We actually know a couple of families from our church that are going that week also, and Adam and Tricia Raney are going that week for their anniversary too. I think it will be kind of funny if we run into them.

Super Snack Recipe: Fruit Sushi

2008-09-10T09:34:00.004-05:00

We are really excited about today's Super Snack. We think it is going to be a lot of fun to make, and we are not telling people what is in it.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups Rice Chex® cereal (gluten free)
1 cup white vanilla chips
4 rolls Betty Crocker® Fruit Roll-Ups® chewy fruit snack in favorite flavor (from 5-oz box), unwrapped
12 candy worms

Directions:
1. Place cereal in resealable food-storage plastic bag; seal bag and crush with fingers to 3/4 cup.
2. In medium microwavable bowl, microwave white vanilla chips as directed on package until melted and stirred smooth. Add crushed cereal; stir until well coated.
3. Unroll fruit snack rolls. For each sushi roll, spread 1/4 of cereal mixture on snack roll to within 1/2 inch of one short side. Arrange 3 candy worms, side by side, on cereal-covered short side.
4. Starting with short side topped with candy worms, roll up each snack roll tightly, pressing unfilled short side of roll to seal.
5. Let sushi rolls stand 5 to 10 minutes or until firm. Cut each roll into 4 slices.

Huge Male Sibling

2008-09-10T08:13:00.002-05:00

For all those Big Brother fans. Lisa and I are Big Brother fans, and have watched almost every season. We normally get really into each season well this season wasn't really that great. We really didn't like any one that much. There was a lady from New Orleans on the show, and we didn't like her at first, then we started liking her towards the end, she was pretty funning. We couldn't stand Jessie he was soooooooo stuck on himself it was crazy. Well last night Memphis evicted Keesha, and it was really sad, because I liked her. I know why Memphis did it, I probably would have done it too, but it was still sad. The really sad thing about it is that Jerry is still in the game. Jerry really needs to go I can't stand him, he is just a big floater. I felt bad for him at first because he is the olds person 72 years old, but he is worse than the 20 some things on the show!

My all time favorite person in Big Brother history is Janelle!! I loved Janelle she was the best competitor and the best player. She was awesome at Big Brother. Her season was the funniest.

Housekeeping, Come to Fluff Your Pillows!

2008-09-09T10:17:00.002-05:00

With Hurricane Gustav and then the possibility of Hurricane Ike hitting Louisiana my mom has been staying with us here in the "Armpit of Louisiana" AKA Pineville. My dad went back to Houma Thursday Morning to help with disaster recovery, and told my mom to stay, because they have no water, electricity, cable, or phones. Well everything has now been restored, and it looks like Hurricane Ike is going to miss them, so mom headed back home today.

While Lisa and I were at work yesterday mom washed all of my clothes, Lisa's and Liam's and then she swept the floors and vacuumed the carpets, and cleaned the bathroom she used. When Lisa and I got home from work she had supper ready for us too. It was like coming home to having a housekeeper. It was really nice to just come home and relax and not have to worry about anything. It was sad seeing her go, we had the chance to enjoy the feeling of having family around. She spent 9 days with us. That is one of the worst things about living in the "Armpit" we don't have any family around. No one to call on for help or a free babysitter. Well we do have some friends here that we could call if we needed anything, but it's not the same as family. It wasn't so bad when we first moved here, but now that we have Liam it's a little sad that we don't have family here that he can grow up with and see all the time. All the traveling sucks.

September is Here

2008-09-08T11:23:00.003-05:00

Lisa and I both get really excited when September comes because that means fall is just around the corner. We like the fall because we decorate our house with all of our fall decorations, and we think that our house looks really good in the fall. Well our living room at least. We have three Rubbermaid containers of fall decorations, and every year we add more to it. So this past Saturday I got up in the attic and pulled down all the fall decorations, and when Liam was taking his nap we decorated the house with our fall decorations. We have the fall leaf garland all around the house with pumpkins and pinecones.

For some reason Lisa and I get really excited about this. About a week ago Lisa and I were walking in a store and I said, "Lisa guess what? It's almost September!!" and she said, "Yay we can put up our fall decorations!" We are such nerds. Now the hard part is trying to keep Liam out of the decorations. When we brought him into the living room when he woke up from his nap we could see the little wheels turning in his head, "Let's see, what do I want to destroy first?"

You Pick It, I Stick It!

2008-08-29T09:36:00.002-05:00

At my office our boss bought this really cool music system that can connect to the internet, and we can connect to it through our network to add our own CD's. There are about 10 people that work in our office, and we all get a half a day to pick what we want to listen to. The Speakers go throughout the office. Every day we get to hear someone else's music taste.

I usually select my Pandora account through the internet to play when it is my day. On Pandora you select an artist, and it will pick other artist that are like that one and play the ones it thinks you will like. You can create this quickmix playlist where you can select these different stations that you created and it randomly selects music from one of the stations. I have a wide variety of music in my quickmix. Music from the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, Christian, hip hop, and today's pop. The best thing is that it randomly selects from any of those, so one minute you will be listening to hip hop, then a Christian song will come on. It's pretty cool.

The only down fall is the day that one of the lady's in here picks. She created a pandora station too, but her quickmix if full of music from Kenny G, Michael Bolton, and Celine Dion!!!! Shoot me now!! Talk about put you to sleep. There is also another guy that always picks elevator music. So normally on those days I simply plug in my earphones into my computer and play my own Pandora station. Well guess what today is, today is the day for the elevator music, and guess what I did, I FORGOT MY EARPHONES AT HOME!!! CRAP!! So I'm counting down to 12:00 for when the station gets changed to someone else's (who's music I like), and trying desperately to stay awake.

My Prayer Request is Better Than Yours!!

2008-08-28T09:33:00.002-05:00

Ok so this is going to be a rant!!

Every Wednesday Night I have choir practice at church. I enjoy choir practice, because I love to sing, and I like the fact that we sing really hard songs. I'm weird like that! One thing about choir practice I don't like is that after we practice we do a prayer request time and then we pray. I usually get up and leave at this point. Don't get me wrong, I don't do it because I don't care about people, and I don't want to pray. It's just that I turns into a session of my prayer request is better than yours. It's like people feel like they have to say some sort of prayer request during this time. Not only do they think that they have to have a request, but they have to go into great detail about how their tooth hurts. With the whole choir feeling the need to have a request and going into great detail, it ends up being a 45 minute prayer request time, and not to mention they haven't prayed yet to dismiss. So our choir practice starts at 6:00 and we sing until 7:30/7:45. Then it's Prayer request time. I sorry, but I want to go home! I haven't seen my wife or child all day, I want to spend time with them before it's time to go to bed. And I'm not joking about the tooth thing that has been a request before!! I also love the ones about "Oh I stumped my big toe today, please pray that it will stop throbbing! What happened was this, I was walking in the living room by the couch, and I bent over to pick up a towel and when I started walking again I hit my toe. I didn't have shoes on because they got muddy when I was outside watering the yard. It has been so dry here lately, Please pray that we get rain soon" BLAH BLAH BLAH... then the next person starts, "Well I need to go to the dentist, My tooth has been bothering me..." and so on and so on. Or when they mentions someone's name and then they go into who they are related to, married to, who their children are, I mean we get a whole family tree, and who all their neighbors are.

The funny thing is that I sit in the middle in the very front, so I have to get up and walk in front of everyone to leave. HAHA I'm sorry I just can't take it. If I happen to stay, because I can't escape and I do have a prayer request. It's short and sweet, "Please pray for me I start a new job on Monday." No other details are mentioned. If they want to know more they can ask me when it's all over, one on one.

Ok, I'm done. I know Lisa will get a kick out of this, because we talk about it a lot. I would also like to say that I am not the only one that think that people just share to much, because I'm friends with the pianist, and we look at each other and she waves her hand in the motion to wrap it up to me.

Super Snack Recipe: Chex Muddy Buddies

2008-08-27T12:54:00.003-05:00

Today's super snack recipe: August 27, 2008

Ingredients:
9 cups Corn Chex®, Rice Chex®, Wheat Chex® or Chocolate Chex® cereal (or combination)
1cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Into large bowl, measure cereal; set aside.

2. In 1-quart microwavable bowl, microwave chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter uncovered on High 1 minute; stir. Microwave about 30 seconds longer or until mixture can be stirred smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. Pour into 2-gallon resealable food-storage plastic bag.

3. Add powdered sugar. Seal bag; shake until well coated. Spread on waxed paper to cool. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.

Rooms Occupied/Vacancies???

2008-08-27T09:21:00.005-05:00

Well it is starting to look like our house will be open to family and friends next week at this time. It's that wonderful time of year again Hurricane Season. As most of you know my family is from Houma, La. and it looks like Hurricane Gustav is heading straight for them. The projected path has it going to Morgan City, which is not good for Houma, and especially not good for my parents in Dulac. With the hurricane hitting on the left of Houma that means that it is going to push the tide in, which means flooding!! Katrina didn't affect Houma that much because it hit Houma on the right. All of their damage came from Rita. The water was 6 inches from getting into my parents house (which is off the ground already).

Please pray for my family and friends. Especially for my Mom. She is getting really upset. For Rita her school flooded, and she lost 20 years of stuff, and a lot of personal things in her classroom that belonged to Lynette and me when we were growing up. For over two years they were so busy trying to help the community re-grow. She was just completely tired. Hopefully the hurricane will just die down.

Work, Work, Work It Out!!!

2008-08-26T08:35:00.002-05:00

So since I quit working at Cleco, I no longer have a free gym to workout in. That was the best thing about working at Cleco!! In March I joined the YMCA, and I really didn't like it all that much. Anytime Fitness just opened up on the main road to my house, and they were doing a pre-open special for new memberships. No registration fee, and only $34.00 a month forever, (which is cheaper than the YMCA and if you join after they open) and free tanning!!! The cool thing about Anytime Fitness is that I can go anytime duh, and I can go to any Anytime Fitness in the country.

So I have been going and working out in the mornings on my way to work for two weeks now!! This seems to be a good time to go, because there is only like two people there in the mornings at the time that I go. I do my work out. Treadmill and then the elliptical for a couple of miles, and then I get to do a little tanning. I'm trying to get back to my normal color. Since I got a real job I have really faded, I don't think I have ever been this white before. The best thing is that they are planning on opening an Anytime Fitness in Alexandria too, so I will be able to go during my lunch hour too pretty soon.

Super Snack Recipe: Winner's Circle Treats

2008-08-25T15:25:00.001-05:00

Ingredients:
Graham Crackers Half
Caramel Topping
Miniature Marshmallows
Chocolate chips
Peanuts

Directions:
1. Place graham cracker squares down.
2. Drizzle Caramel topping over graham crackers.
3. Sprinkle Marshmallows, chocolate chips, and Peanuts on the Graham crackers.

Super Snack Recipe: Easy Ice Cream Sandwiches

2008-08-25T15:23:00.001-05:00

Ingredients:
Vanilla Ice Cream
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Spinkles or Chopped Peanuts

Directions:
1. Spoon about 2 tbsp. of the ice cream onto bottom side of cookie; cover with second cookie, top-side up.
2. Roll edges in Sprinkles or chopped peanuts.
3. Freeze 1 to 2 hours or until firm.

Super Snack Recipe: Quick Ice Cream Cobbler

2008-08-25T15:21:00.001-05:00

Ingredients:
Apple Breakfast Bars
Vanilla Ice Cream

Directions:
1. Crumble 1 Breakfast Bar into each individual Microwave-safe bowl.
2. Microwave each on high for 30 seconds or until hot.
3. Top each with a scoop of ice cream.

Super Snack Recipe: Kisses Candy Twists

2008-08-25T15:16:00.002-05:00

Ingredients:
1 Bag small Pretzels (twisted)
Hershey’s Kisses (Special Dark are the BEST!!)
Decorative garnishes such as: Reese’s Pieces Candies, Sprinkles, and etc..

Directions:
1. Remove Wrappers from Chocolates.
2. Place Pretzels on paper plate. Place 1 unwrapped chocolate on top of each pretzel.
3. Heat in microwave for about 1.15 minutes. (Watch)
4. Remove from microwave; gently press decorative garnish on top of the soft chocolate pieces.
5. Cool and Serve!!

Super Snack Recipe: Chocolate Cinnamon Quesadillas

2008-08-25T15:09:00.003-05:00

This recipe was the first one to used the new hot plate.

Ingredients:

Chocolate Chips (dark chocolate better),
1 tablespoon granulated sugar,
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon,
2 medium flour tortillas, plain or whole wheat,
1 teaspoon powdered sugar

Directions:
Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of chocolate, 1/2 tablespoon of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon over half of each tortilla. Fold tortillas in half to cover ingredients.

Set quesadillas on hot plate or skillet and cook over medium heat until speckled with brown spots on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. Sprinkle each with 1/2 teaspoon of powdered sugar; serve.

This was one of my favorite recipes, it was really good.

Super Snack Recipe: Chocolate Popcorn

2008-08-25T15:05:00.002-05:00

This was our first Super Snack!!
Ingredients:
1 Pack of 100 Calorie Popcorn
Chocolate Chips (preferable dark)

Directions:
Pop a bag of the popcorn;
Immediately upon opening pour a handful of chocolate chips into bag and shake bag (really hard so you can get a good mixture of the chocolate onto popcorn)

Quick Fact: Incredibly messy snack so have tons of napkins around….

Super Snack Wednesdays!

2008-08-25T14:37:00.003-05:00

At my new job one of my co-workers and I decided that we would start Super Snack Wednesdays. It all started because I was telling my co-worker about this really good popcorn snack that my friend John Paul had invented, so after talking about it we decided that we were going to make it at work, because it was her birthday. So, we made the snack for ourselves, and then decided that we were going to share it with the other workers. Since there are only nine of us in our company it wasn't a lot of trouble. Well one of our co-workers enjoyed the snack so much, and asked what kind of snack we were going to do next, we decide to make this a weekly thing. Which is how Super Snack Wednesday was created.

Since I am trying to create this blog spot I have decided to post of these quick and easy recipes that take about 10 minutes to make at the most. We were very limited on what kinds of snacks we made because all we have is a microwave to make our snacks in. My co-worker and I finally worked up the nerve to ask our boss if he would buy us a hot plate. By the way, he loves the snacks too. He immediately said yes and handed me the company credit card, and off we went shopping for our hot plate. We have been able to make some really awesome snacks, and I would just like to share some of them with you all. I hope you enjoy.

Trying this Blog thing out!!!

2008-08-25T14:23:00.003-05:00

Ok, so I have never done this blogging thing before, and I would really like to get into it. Well, here it goes. Let's see... Well, I have nothing to talk about, I guess that's why things like this tend not to work for me.