November already!

Every week just seems to fly by! My goodness. We've been busy with the start of High School bowling. We've been getting everything we need to do with Dev done. I can't believe that in less than one year she will be in college. We are sending off applications next week. I wish I knew what we were going to be doing before she has to have the applications in. Here are the schools I want her to attend in the order I want her to attend:

• Farleigh Dickerson-its in Jersey, my Aunt Lyda attended for a class or two there and they have a great women's bowling team
• Delaware State-another top 5 bowling team in the country
• Maryland-Eastern Shores-top 5 bowling team
• Arkansas State
• Univ of Arizona
• Central Missouri

The whole application thing depends on bowling. She's going to be offered, if not a full ride, close to it. I want her to go to the school in Jersey because she can get to my Aunt Lynda's or Aunt Marilyn's house easily if we are in Germany. In case of emergency. It's on the East Coast so a flight home is not far OR we can come see her. Right now we are just waiting on her senior pics to come in to mail off with her bowling video, her recommendation letters and her bowling resume.

Wanna see her senior pics?? I love them. Go to www.shop.prestigeportraits.com user name is aloharev1 and password is seniorpics

Work is going good. I'm in my last two days in communication. I have Mondays and Tuesdays off right now but that could change come Thursday when I finish up my 2nd phase of training. This training has been tougher. It's major multi tasking. Answering emergency calls, dispatching, printing criminal history's for detectives, entering stolen guns or missing persons into a nationwide database. My trainer is hard. She's to the point, abrupt and not so soft and while I appreciate it because I'm learing how to do my job the right way it's difficult because she makes me nervous and when she's not there I do my job with ease and when she's there I feel like a deer in the headlights. I have two more days with her. I just hope I can get through okay. I'm moving to the front desk next. It's a lot of report writing. Not looking forward to it.

What I do enjoy is on my day off going for a ride with Shane. I tried being stubborn and refusing to ride because I didn't want him to have a bike. BUT I ended up loving it. I love the vibration, the wind, the sun, the open air, and holding on tight to my man. One thing my job has done is put more pressure on us as a couple. It's the adjusting period. I think if I came home tomorrow and said that I was quitting he would thank his lucky stars. He misses me being home. He does do most the daily cleaning and I still cook dinner. I do the laundry, he folds it. I do the deep cleanings on my days off and he does touch ups that need to be done to a home you've lived in for a few years. When I start working the 2pm-10pm schedule we will be on the same schedule but in the meantime I get up at 5 and go to bed early. He gets home late and sleeps in. I've never slept so soundly since working. My job has affected all my relationships. I never hear from those I love. Weird how that worked. I just never thought it would affect that. Was willing to retire in a place not home to me just to be near and now it seems that idea is not so good anymore. Sad. Miss it but no matter how I try I can't change it. And I know I need to be a better niece. Flying to NH in April to be a better one.

Well, I'm going to curl up with a bowl of ice cream and cheer on Drew Brees to pull me ahead in Fantasy Football. I need to scrap too.

OCTOBER!

Cooler weather, pea soup, bike rides, pumpkin patches, pumpkin seeds and a big bowl of banana flavored laffy taffy. Good stuff. So I turned 38. Weird cos I still feel 20 except I look a tad different. Drake turned 16 and goodness I can't for the life of me stay calm when he drives. I try. I try to let him drive "his way". It's hard people. He cuts corners so fast. He takes chances. I'm hoping he lasts a while before his first fender bender.

Bowling news. Last weekend the kids had a tournament and all three of them won. Dev beat everyone with her scores. Luckily for the boys she was in the girls division cos she stomped all the boys too. Dev took first, Drake took 1st and Justin took third. The tournament was not in our town. I heard people say, "who are all these Killeen bowlers?" It was cool and we walked away with 1200+ in scholarship money. Dev had senior pics that day. OMG. Heart breaking. She looked so grown up. So. Grown. Up. and adorable. They won't be in for 4 weeks but I cannot wait.

Work. I'm still on the 6-2 shift with weekends off. Normally you have to go to a new trainer every three weeks but I managed to stay with mine for 6 weeks. Comms is something not my fave. I probably answer 300 phone calls a day. I dispatch probably 25 of them. I transfer 175 of them. I listen to stupid people on 100 of them. People who take Viagra and then can't get out of their vehicle cos IT won't go down. Or someone wanting to report a wreckless driver and at the end of the call stating that the she "may have been in the drivers blind spot." I've had two where a person was threatening suicide and another who had just been beat up by her sister and was hysterical.

We've started HS bowling tryouts. We've narrowed down schools that WE want Dev to apply to. Saw the movie Law Abiding Citizen and loved it. Damn clever movie. Drake's dating a girl. He took her to lunch the other day. Coped a feel of her boob. He didn't buy her lunch. I've arranged for a few officers to pull him over and give him the business about it. Life is good.

braces are off!

after two years of having a metal mouth, not being able to gnaw on corn correctly and trying to stay away from sticky candy he can eat whatever he wants. i love his new smile. beautiful. no more monthly ortho visits are nice too! he does have a permanent retainer. a small strip of metal that sits behind his front four teeth. you can't see it from his smile.

i've been scrapping! cleaned up my scrap room. i have boxes and boxes to donate. i've already given a ton of paper to an elementary school. still have some more downsizing to do and i'll always be getting rid of stuff since i'm always buying more. geesh. it's a cycle. i'm used to it. i'm so glad the survivor challenges are back at tally and product is coming in. =)

the rest of the month we have senior pics to take, two big bowling tournaments, high school try-outs, drake's turning 16!

did i tell you we are in the process of adopting justin? his mom seems to be on board. i am hoping so. he got dropped off in 2005 and hasn't really left. since i'm responsible for him i'd like him to have our medical care. have had some teary-eyed discussions with his mom and it's what he wants so we're going to go for it. i will keep you posted. i think i was always destined for three kids. i have been signing all school documents with my name, i go to his parent-teacher nights and hear things like, "i was wondering where justin got his looks and now i see he's a cross between you both." to which i reply, "he gets his red hair from his grandpa." he's got a debit card and cell phone under us, we give him allowance, he vacations with us...but most importantly he needs us. i'm not sure where he'd be if we hadn't opened our door to him. it's really no surprise because i was raised in a home where we always had extras. time for this to be official.

the kids have their first golf tournament tomorrow. they're thoroughly enjoying it. i think they'll do it next year too.

dev got good news at chuck e cheese. she's been working there for over a year. she has a raised and moved into a bigger role there. her hours will be set and she won't have to work weekend nights unless she fills in for someone. proud of her for doing so well. she's never called in sick nor has she ever been late. that's our girl.