July 28, 2009

Since my honeymoon in October 2007 I have waited patiently to travel. This year was Eric's family reunion in Grand Haven, Michigan. The Griffin/Meyer reunion is once every 3 years so you have plenty of time to plan and you better be there! When the people I work with discovered I was using my vacation time for my spouse's reunion, they laughed and felt sorry for me! I explained to them that this is something I actually look forward to and enjoy more than anything, being part of something great. We stayed in the main cottage right on Lake Michigan. The weather was comfortably warm during the day and crispy cool at night.

Here are some of the family enjoying a fantastic meal...



Eric (aka EGG)

Me
Following the sunset

Enjoying a fire on the beach


Following the weekend, we celebrated the life of Eric's mother, Mary Anne, who passed away in February of 2008. Her ashes were sprinkled in Lake Michigan where she had always wanted.

Eric's brother Mark is holding her urn, when out of nowhere, a beautiful monarch butterfly flew up to greet them. It flew back and forth from Eric to Mark. In my head I heard Natasha Bedingfield's song "Pocket Full of Sunshine" in my head.

There's a place that I go that nobody knows
Where the rivers flow and I call it home
And there's no more lies, in the darkness there's light
And nobody cries, there's only butterflies

It was quite an emotional day so we hit the beach for some fun. Boys will be boys!

Group family photoOn the same day that evening, we took a sail boat ride on Lake Michigan to celebrate the lives of Eric's Aunt Bonnie and her brother Frank, who had passed recently as well.Eric and his son Drew

A glimpse of Grand Haven from our boat


Leaving the channel that goes from the Grand River to Lake Michigan
Another view of Grand Haven from the boat

Eric hoisting the main sail

Drew plays captain

Eric's brother Mark and his wife Carla

I don't recall ever seeing the sunset so mesmerizing.

Bonnie's grandchildren sprinkle her ashes

Returning to shore

On the plane returning to Texas...
Undoubtedly, a piece of my heart was left in Michigan.
For Mary Anne, Bonnie and Frank, TTFN.

July 1, 2009

My Day Off...

I decided that today would be a perfect day! Have you ever woke up on the RIGHT side of the bed? It was my own Disney movie. Birds were sitting on the windowsill singing Chim Chim Cher-ee from Mary Poppins. My chihuahua slithered out from under the covers with alligator legs and burrowed into my neck with delicate snarls. My toes went exactly into my house shoes and I twirled around the bedroom in my white satin nightie like Cinderella.

I poured myself a superior cup of coffee, did a heel kick and turned on Regis and Kelly. I recorded The View and rushed to our neighborhood swimming pool hoping to outsmart all the housewives that wouldn't come out until The View was over. As I pulled up to the pool, I saw a mini-van and began to tense up for fear that my perfect day was going to be sabotaged by fun noodles, Marco Polo and shrill screaming. Fortunately, the four children that were swimming around were not completely rotten and actually quite entertaining. One child screamed, "I'll cut your throat and stab you with my gun!" while his opponent declared, "You can't do that! I'm a zombie ninja!"

The best part was when one of the boys took off running around the pool (without scissors for the love of God) and wiped out over a folding beach chair and his mother glanced at me and busted out laughing. The boy was trying so hard not to cry and then yelled at his mom, "Stop laughing at me Mom! It's not funny!" After they left I had the pool all to myself for about an hour. It was pure Heaven.

So now I'm going to curl up on my giant red chair with my chihuahua and a good book while digesting the perfectly steamed asparagus I had for lunch, and relish in life.

June 28, 2009

For good health, watch this every day.

UPDATE

Just found this in the news... apparently the idiot driving on the wrong side of the road put 2 people in the hospital (including himself) in a head on collision. Here's the link:

http://tinyurl.com/maogtl

Now that I know he's at Parkland I'm going to send him bouquet of poisonous bananas loaded with tsetse flies.

June 21, 2009

Around 2 AM this morning Eric and I were driving home from Doug and Terry's house on the Dallas North Tollway. We were tootle lootle looing along in the middle lane when suddenly a Ford Explorer went flying past us going in the wrong direction approximately 70-80 miles an hour. When you see something out of the ordinary like that you tend not to comprehend it, however, Eric was lucky to have his drunk wife sitting in the passenger side that screamed, "LOOK OUT!", so he quickly swerved to the side of the road and called 911. As he was on the phone with 911 they informed us that a cop was already in pursuit whom we witnessed speeding down the correct side of the road. Needless to say, we were Monster Java Mean Bean awake the rest of the way home. We were so, so lucky. I wanted to turn the car around and release 31 years of pent up anger on his idiot ass. Instead, we just went home and hit the sack. There wasn't anything on the news this morning of any crashes. In the last few months there have been several deaths by people driving on the wrong side of the tollway. I can't imagine how this happens since you have to enter the tollway through toll booths. A chipmunk could do it.

So, on a happier note, I leave you this photo from last night without any explanation.


PS. Don't my teeth look nice? heh heh

June 20, 2009

I just realized that I'm on my 6th cup of coffee in an hour! I'm watching The Princess Bride, blogging, doing push-ups, rebuilding the engine in the minivan and milking a cow all at the same time.

This weekend is Eric's 30th high school reunion. Last night everyone met at The Flying Saucer which is the same place my group met for my 10th reunion. The Flying Saucer is my home away from home so hanging out with a crowd of people I didn't know was not a problem. In fact, I made a lot of friends!! I indulged in my favorite Belgian raspberry beer, Framboise, which is a total chick drink and makes you look completely sophisticated. So if you wipe out on the floor at the bar and you're drinking Framboise, everyone is like, "Oh, it's alright. She's not a lush. She drinks Framboise!"

Anyway, here's how we dolled up for the night:

You can't imagine how much I enjoyed myself when someone asked how we met.

"Well, we met earlier this afternoon when he cut me a check for $600..."

I love this shot of long time friends uniting. Here's Enrique, Doug (aka Bubbas) and Eric (aka EGG).

I tried to squeeze everyone in for the group shot. Eric the beanstalk in the back.

Now for some lovely sunset shots after some terrible storms we had here last week.



Our humble little rental house.
It's 2:30 and I'm still in my dedgum pajamas. Guess I'll get my arse in the shower and doll up for tonight's events...

June 10, 2009

Yesterday my chihuahua bit me because I tried to put leg warmers on him. I guess I'd finally gone too far. It wasn't a bone splintering, blood spraying, tendon shredding bite though- just a warning bite. Later on he wanted to have a bite of cheese that I was eating and I told him no because he wouldn't wear the leg warmers. We're still at odds with each other this morning...

I participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure this past Saturday and it was fantastic. It was difficult to take photos at my hastened speed of 3 miles per hour.

Olympic gymnast Nastia Luiken shot the gun that started the race.

Here's the reason you could only walk 3 miles per hour.

It was humbling to see how dedicated some of the participants were. I saw people in wheel chairs and crutches walking in honor of someone they loved. This couple was in front of me and held hands the entire time.

She was so young to have already lost her mother.

Inspiration was everywhere.

All of the VIP's were there!

Here's our group photo.

I look forward to doing this again in October!