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Friday, November 21, 2008

LOS ANGELES — Dr Pepper is making good on its promise of free soda now that the release of Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy" is a reality.

The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. "Chinese Democracy," infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday.

Guns N' Beatles: Axl Rose and Paul McCartney Storm MySpace.

"We never thought this day would come," Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper's vice president of marketing, said in a statement. "But now that it's here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper's on us."

Beginning Sunday at 12:01 a.m., coupons for a free 20-ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper's Web site. They'll be honored until Feb. 28.

Dr Pepper is owned by Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc.

Ack! (click here for the posts)

So I just finished catching up on my blog reading. As several of you know I recently wrot emy first novel and I'm currently working on number two. I thought several times about posting on here about NaNoWriMo and why it's cool, or giving you an update on my horrible progress. In the end I decided that most of you either don't care about NaNo or already know all about it. So why waste your time talking about it. If I posted an update it would just be embarrassing (I don't recommend starting over on day five, it's not pretty).
So why am I suddenly breaking my rule about the writing talk on my blog? Because I read this: http://editorialass.blogspot.com/2008/11/crash-flow-or-what-went-wrong-in.html
It was on a blog that I like to read. She's an editor and talks a lot about the publishing industry. This post she did on all ecomonic results of October on the publishing industry made me very sad. She's very right that all of us that love book and hope to ever have a future in the industry needs to do something.
I personally plan to take my splurge money out to the book store today and buy a book. Maybe two. I just had a birhtday and there is a whole list of books I want right now, so why not use this weekend to do my part. I encourage all of you to go buy a book. Any book. Help save the future of printing! It just might help out yours truely someday too, I know I'd apperciate it!

Halloween

Wow! The last two days have been crazy! First we took Sophy to School for her class party yesterday. She had a great time with her friends and gave out her little goodie bags. Then I took Lola home to stay with a sitter (Thanks Christian!) and rushed off to FE for their Halloween Photo shoot. It lasted most the day so when I got home Sophy had already been picked up and was waiting for me with all the tales of her fun day. I chatted with Christian for a while before running off to meet Trish and Annabelle at OC for Trick or Treating in the Dorms. This is one of my favorite parts of Halloween. I remember passing out candy in the dorms when I was at Harding. I LOVED it and it's so fun to go up there with my girls and see all those college girls having fun. We took a minute when it was over to let the girls eat some of their candy and snap a picture on the bench outside.
This morning we all slept in a little because we went to bed late last night. We got dressed and ready and headed out at noon today. First we met up with Trish and Annabelle, and Nicki at TGIFridays. One of our favorites. They emailed me a coupon for free kids meal if they were in costume so I printed off three before I went. The food was great and we had a blast, except when Sophy decided to crawl under the table and throw a fit. At least it was a quiet fit and was soon over.
After Lunch Trish Took Annabelle home for a nap and offered to watch Lola too. Lola napped at Trish's house while I took Sophy to the mall to "visit" Mickey Mouse. We ran to the disney store and she talked to Mickey through the glass window for a little while until I pulled her away to get some real shopping done.
When we were through we ran by Trish's to get Lola and went to Northpark Mall for their Trick or Treating. We did it last year and it was fun. The girls got lots of compliments on their costumes. They have a really cute pet shop there that caters to dogs. Their window displays were SO cute and Lola was dressed as a puppy so I asked the owner and before long Lola was in the window. She was really tired and cranky though so we didn't get the best picture. I'll have to try again sometime when she's rested.
After the mall we ran home to eat dinner and decorate our pumpkins. We didn't have a lot of time until it got dark so I put our bowl of rasins (yes I skipped out on candy this year) out on the porch for the trick or treaters right away. When we were fed and happy again I loaded us up and we went out to do the real trick or treating. I chose to leave our neighborhood this year. We get a ton of kids on our street and lots of moms drive along and watch their kids closer thant hey do the road. With Jeff gone it made me nervous about taking them out on my own. I was afraid that they would run out in the street or get lost in the other kids when I wasn't watching.
I drove to a neighborhood nearby that was gated, but had the gate open for Halloween, and was small and quiet. They all seemed thrilled to see the girls and everyone was very friendly. When we were finished Sophy kept begging to go to more houses the whole way home. Since most our neighbors were still passing out candy when we got home I decided to humor her. I put them int he stroller and walked a few streets. I didn't even bother going to every house, but just a few of our favorites from last year. We ended up with a TON of candy this year. I even gave some of it away when our bowl ran out on the porch! I tried to take a picture but it didn't all fit in the frame!
By the time we got home and ready for bed it was an hour past bedtime and both girls were tired. I'm glad we got everything done, but man I wouldn't want to go through this week again for a long time! Happy Halloween everyone!

Long Day

Sorry these pictures are blurry, but that is just a way to show the constant motion these little ones were in at the Village Fun Fair on Saturday. I already told you about it, but I actually decided to follow through with the pictures this time around.
Today the girls went to school with their cupcakes! I think they went over well. I didn't quite make enough for Sophy's whole class so she didn't get one, but she was just as happy without it. I was suprised. She just seemed happy to get to share with her fiends. I was so proud of my little girl!
Sophy spent the evening with Kris and Nicki at their house while I took Lola to work with me. The daycare at work is only avaiable for ages 0-24mos. It won't be long unil Lola outgrows it too!
Once I got everyone home we settled in for the night. Lola had a tough time going to bed tonight. She is usally really good, but tonihgt I think she missed her daddy. She was crying with big tears and I scooped her up and rocked her. I kept asking her what was wrong. All she would say was "Da da." Poor baby. At least it won't be long until he gets home. his baby will be so happy to see him!

On the News!

They aired it at 4:30 AND 6! I haven't seen the 10pm news yet. If you want to see it you can go here: http://www.kfor.com/ and click on the 4:30 or 6pm news spot. It'll be in there. And yes the two spots are different.

Pumpkin Patch

Today we went to the Pumpkin Patch. Trish and Annabelle, and Emily and Maddy went with us. We had a lot of fun. The kids liked the petting zoo the most and we all got a pumpkin. There was a news crew there doing a story on the accident at Orr Family Farm last Friday. We went to a different pumpkin patch, but I imagine all the pumpkin patches were affected by it. It was just so sad. My prayers o out to the family of the girl and the Orr family. The story is supposed to air on the channel 4 news tonight if anyone wants to see our kiddos on TV! I don't think I did too well with the interview because Lola was trying to get away from me the whole time. Hopefully they air Trish's interview and not mine!

Super Mom

I have been super mom lately. I notice that when Jeff goes out of town I slip into one of two modes. Either a) Survival mode where I do the least possible and try to make it through until he gets home or b) Overachiever Mode, where I do way more than necessary. I notice that this usually happens when Jeff leaves over a special occasion. I did this for Sophy's 2nd birthday too.
I have already super cleaned the kitchen and laundry, I have plans for the girls rooms and a large Clothes project to sort everything out and make sure the fall/winter clothes are out.
I also made all the treat bags/ treat cups for both Sophy and Lola's classes. Sophy had a lot of fun helping me with her cups. I made mini cupcakes from scratch for Lola's class. It's 100% Dairy free. Icing and all. I then made large cupcakes for Sophy's class and Two Pumpkin cakes for the teachers.
Yesterday I took the girls to the Village Fall Festival. It was a lot of fun. They had a large assortment of inflateables and it was only $2 for a wristband to play as much as they wanted. Trish and I were sure to wear the kiddos out! After we had lunch and I made it home in time for naps. Even Sophy crashed after all the fun they had.
Wow, all that and I'm posting on my blog too! Who knew I had it in me? This is a crazy busy week, so hopefully I'll be good and post lots of pictures.

Update

Wow! I'm finally updating my blog! Don't worry blog land I'm not dead! I have returned without pictures to post a quick update of our lives. Jeff is doing very well. Work is keeping him busy and he's spending most his free time helping out around the house or playing with the kids lately. His WoW playing has been a little limited since the new expansion isn't out yet. That's a good thing for me but a sad thing for him. Sophy and Lola started Sunshine school this week. I will be sure to post a picture of them soon. After all our travels we are home and happy and working hard. As many of you know I wrote a book in July and have been spending much time editing it. I am also finally writing again and happy to be doing so. My sister and I have thrown around ideas of writing a kids cookbook, so if you have any great dinner recipes that you think a kid could cook and you don't mind sharing please let me know. I am working at the fair for FE for the next few weeks so I will be very scarce. I think that is it for us! Hope life is more exciting in your world!

wednesday

Today is going home day! Yea! We had a nice time in New Mexico but I am very ready to go home now. We can't leave till after 5 because Jeff is busy until then. Unfortunately Check out for the hotel is much earlier than that. We got everything packed up last night and loaded up this morning. Then I had to leave the hotel at 11 and keep the girls busy all day. We went to that store to get me an Ok Go Cd. I got one, but not the one I wanted. Then we went to lunch at McDonald's (of course) to let the girls play on the playland. They could have stayed there all day, but it's outside and I got very hot! Then we went to the space science center. It was neat but I didn't have a stroller and it was kinda expensive, so we looked at the gift shop and all the exhibts outside. Then we left. We went to Kmart because they have cheap clohes and by this time the girls outfits were gross! I had already changed them into the outfits fromt he diaper bag and i didn't feel like unloading the car. Kmart had tops/shorts for $2. So it was cheap. Then we went to Dollar tree because we still needed to kill time. After that I took them back to the toy train depot and we had another train ride. Then it started torain so we went tot he free (and boring) Alamogordo history museum. After that I decided I might as well get the oil changed. So we went to walmart for that. We shopped and enjoyed the airconditioning until the car was ready. After a stop at Sonic for happy hour I drove back to the hotel to wait for JEff. I still have an hour to wait, but I'm done driving around. We are currently sitting in the parking lot (running the air conditioner). They have wifi so I'm writing this and the girls are watching Einsteins on the Dvd players in the backseat. I'm telling you if you have young kids and travel much it's the best investment EVER!
I'm so ready to be home and we still have the 12 hour drive ahead of us!

Tuesday

Yesterday we had a dull day. I was planning on taking the girls to a national park and walking down the nature trails. However when I got up in the morning I decided I needed to know what was going on in the world (it happens every now and then) and I turned on Good Morning America. the very first story I saw was about a family walking down the path in a national park in New Mexico when their son was brutally attacked by a mountain lion. ON THE PATH!
Needless to say I changed our plans.
They are filming the next transformers movie here. All the hotels are packed with set designers and location scouts. The actors and stuff aren't coming till next week when they start filming so I decided to go hunting for the set. If you've ever been here before you know how impossible that really is. It's miles and miles of desert. The really could be anywhere out there.
I heard a rumor that they were building a small set in Cloudcroff, a tiny town on the mountain. So we drove up there looking for it. We didn't find it.
So that was yesterday.
Today we went to the Pistachio Tree Farm. IT was fun. Lots of trees.
We had a short nap (mostly because they rebelled against nap at all). And now they are running around our hotel room waiting for Dad to get back. I did get all our stuff packed up and ready to be loaded in the car for tomorrow. We will start the drive home and finish on Thursday.
The first picture is the pistachio tree ranch. The second is Lola being silly in our room.

Sunday

Yesterday Jeff had a free day so we drove over to El Paso. We have reciprocal rights with their zoo too, so off we went. It was a lot of fun. Not as big as OKC's zoo, but much bigger than Alamogordo's zoo. Sophy really liked the monkeys and the sun bears. Jeff though the sun bears looked like a mix between a pug and a black bear!
On the way back we drove through Los Cruces. By going that way we got to drive across all of White Sands to on the way. Sophy did great today so I guess she had a passing bug on friday!

Saturday

Yesterday evening we went out to white sands. It was cloudy and cool, the prefect weather! Lola LOVED the sand and threw a huge fit when we had to leave. I didn't get too many pictures though. Sophy got sick shortly after we got there so we had to leave. I guess I'll just have to take them back when she's feeling better.

Friday

Yesterday we didn't really do anything. We tried to go do something, but it just didn't work out too well.
Today we loaded up and drove down to the Toy Train Depot. It's a really cute muesuem about toy trains and they have a working train the runs around the very large park they have there. Luckily for me the girls got to ride for free so I bought one ticket and we were off! It was a lot of fun. The girls waved at the children in the park as we went by. About half way through the ride Sophy said "I can not believe it!". It was really funny. Even the train conductor laughed.

Later wednesday....

Here's what we got to do this morning. I guess we'll go to the toy train depot tomorrow.... Poor Lola. She has an ear infection alright and a nasty rash that the doctor thinks is allergy related so she is currently sleeping off the mass drugs that she has been given.

Wednesday

Yesterday I had just put the girls down for their nap (about 10 minutes after my last post) when the housekeeping came to clean our room. She noticed out tight quarters. We had four people, two large beds, a crib, and all our stuff crammed into our room. Several other hotel workers had commented on our room and suggested that we move to a larger room, but we were too lazy to move....that is until we saw this room (see pictures)! They gave us a GREAT deal so we could afford it and move we did! It has a full kitchen and a separate area for the kids. We swiped one of the wooden highchairs from the lobby an now we can eat in here instead of the lobby! It's so much easier to corral both kiddos alone in here. They are both enjoying all the space to play and I'm enjoying having a real kitchen sink to wash sippycups in!
On a sadder note: Lola is sick. I think it's just an ear infection but our pediatrian is refusing to send a prescription without seeing her. There's not really a emergency room here because it's a military town so we need to figure out if we can get on base for help, and if not where the closest town with a hospital is. I just don't want to have to drive over those mountains is her ear is hurting! Poor baby!

Tuesday

Last night we went to a pistachio tree farm and vineyad. It was neat to see allt he different kinds of pistachios they made. So Many flavors! Jeff liked the chilli ones and I liked the pumpkin pie ones. We grabbed a cheap dinner and at it in the hotel lobby. I sure wish we had brought out travel high chair with us, but since we didn't we'll be eating down at the lobby a lot while we are here.
Today we went to the Alamogordo Zoo. It is supposed to be the oldest Zoo west of the Mississippi river. It was small but nice. We walked around looking at all the animals and Sophy played on the playground for a LONG time! I wish we brought our lunch with us! It was such a beautiful place for a picnic. We might have to go back for a picnic sometime this week. The Alamogordo Zoo is on the reciprical listfo the OKC Zoo so I was able to get into the zoo for free! That's always nice.
We came back to our hotel for lunch and nap, I wonder what tonight will hold.

Today was a fun "settling in day". We took a trip to walmart, not so exciting, but the views around here are amazing! Then we went searching for Kid's kingdom. It's a playground nearbyt hat was a lot of fun. We didn't let the girls play long because it rained last night and everything was wet.
After that Jeff was excited to drive up to Cloudcroff. It's a tiny little town on top of one of the mountains. It's about 15 minutes away and you climb crazy high crazy fast. We stopped to take a lot of pictures on the way back. In the last pictre you see here if you look from bottom to top you see: The mountain we are on, Alamogordo, desert, white sands, the mountains, and the sky! We kept thinking we saw clouds at the foot of the mountians, but that's White Sands! We were amazed by how far away we could see it across the horizon. I am now looking forward to driving out there to check it out, but Jeff doesn't seem to intrested. We'll see who wins!

Hello Alamogordo

Today Jeff and I drove the lovely long drive from OKC to Alamogordo New Mexico. We had many stops and we even got to go to the Roswell UFO museum! I loved it. The sunset was beautiful. We were just driving over the creast of the mountians when there it was in all it's glory. Jeff laughed at me when I would yell "Stop! I gotta get a picture of that!" I hope to take many more on the way home! We planned to stay the night at Roswell but the kids were being SO good and the short break fromt he car seemed to give us courage so on we drove! Having a DVD player int he car for the girls sure did help keep them happy. We were able to make the whole trip in one day. Including stops it took us 13 hours! Can you believe that in all that time Lola only fussed for a total of maybe 45 minutes! The last 20 minute drive was the worst!
I hope to update often this week as we go adventuring around here, but you know how plans go when you're on "vactaion", so well just see what happens!

Happy Birthday Nicki!

Tomorrow is my friend Nicki's Birthday. Being that she's a Yankee baby we usually have very patriotic parties for her. This year she opted for something different, so we are having a luau for her birthday. I got the fun of making the cake. It turned out good even though I didn't get to do all I want. I am hoping to send the cake away for the night so that nothing happens to it...again. About 5 minutes after I finished cleaning up and taking pictures Sophy wandered into the kitchen (I was on the phone....sorry about screaming in your ear Courtney) and took handfuls of icing off the side of the cake. I think I fixed it ok, but boy was I mad! Sophy is now in her bed serving off her time.

Little Lola

I have a picture and a video for you this time! Lola was playing on the bed with Jeff and kept putting Sophy's Jean shorts on her head as a hat. It was super funny. We'd take them off and she'd find them and put them back on. We finally traded her for a denim hat.
The other night Sophy crawled in Jeff's lap and asked to hear music. Jeff switched to Utube and played some of his favorites. Lola crawled into he room and kept trying to dance. She would stand up and start then fall. It was cute and funny.

Cake #3

I learned something very important about roses this week. I learned that I HATE making roses! I also learned that I'm no good at judging icing consistency. I did get my ten roses made and I think that my cake turned out pretty good. I got a fancy piece of paper saying I'm finished with course #1! Yeah! One down 3 to go. I start course number 2 on Sunday. I am not as excited about this one, but that's ok because at least I don't have to make a cake every week this time. I am very excited to take course number three! I do get to make a friend's birthday cake this week and I'm thinking about making a birthday cake for all the many July birthday's up at church next week, so I might end up making a cake a week anyway.

Cake #2

I have now finished my 3rd cake decorating class. We leasrned roses and lots of little flowers. I also learned how to make a clown. I wasn't sure what to write on my cake so "eat me" it was. Hopefully all who see it will follow directions well. It is a strawberry cake with a vanilla pudding center! I kinda want to cut into it myself! I liked the flowers though. That was fun. Roses are Hard! I have to make 10 before next class and I have some work to do to get 10 good ones that's for sure!

Rose Garden Adventure!

Today I took a tiny break from working. Can you believe I've had 4 photo Shoots in the last week? Trish called to see if we wanted to go do something since we hadn't hung out in a long time. So I suggested we go to the rose garden since I have an upcoming Photo Shoot there and wanted to scope it out. I saw where all the construction was and were things are still blooming. Since we were taking the girls we packed a picnic lunch and we all sat in a little stone gazebo and ate. Afterwards we played with bubbles and walked around the garden taking pictures. I played with my new UV Filter and it seems to work well. I was really sad because at one point I was carrying Lola and we came to a bridge without good railings so I needed to hold Sophy's hand. I shifted my camera to the hand that was holding Lola and she thought it was great fun to poke my new filter. All the pictures after that have a smug in them that I didn't notice till we were on the way home! Oh well. Good thing it was just a family fun photo shoot! If you would like to see the shots I got of the girls you are welcome to click the title and type in the password: Roses. Enjoy!