We miss grandma

I wonder what Jacob is thinking?

Well I guess Thanksgiving is over. It went by to fast - my mom was visiting from Cali and we had a ton of fun. Doing what you say? I don't know..:) It snowed the day before she got here - Jacob was so excited - he was literally jumping up and down. Seeing it through the window wasn't enough, he had to go outside to see it. He called grandma to let her know and then made her a card telling her. Excited much?

Grandma coming back with Pence after taking Jacob to the bus stop

Having fun with my mom is easy - it could be as easy as talking - A LOT.. The boys would ask when we were going to be done talking (we would sneak onto my bed and talk). Spencer would come and find us to let us know we were "talking for a long time". We rented movies of course. We watched Transformers (my 3rd time and I still love it - I am in love with Optimus Prime - weird I know). We watched Wild Hogs, TMNT (teenage mutant ninja turtles - my 2ND time and I love it too), and Nicholas Nickleby (it was good and sad - Dickens). We put up the fake awesome tree -it was all free except for 1 strand of lights I bought (I am cheap - I am not saying it looks amazing, but beautiful to me). We went shopping a little, decorated cookies, played games, etc.. Moms are awesome!!! Khuong was on call Thanksgiving day, but he was home by 4pm and didn't get anymore calls, and he had Friday and Sunday off - excellent. As we were saying goodbye to mom we wanted to know when she would be returning, she couldn't say. She is probably tired, poor grandma - every morning in her bed were 2 extra little people.

This is why my mom loved to lay in my bed and talk. When you are laying in my bed this is your view. We have a window seat under it where Khuong likes to lay down and study, aka sleep.:)

Tag your it

I was tagged so I am suppose to admit to 7 things about me. Kam tagged me - this will be interesting because 7 seems like a lot of things to think of. Lets get this party started - FYI this will not be as good as Kam's party.

#1 - I am a HUGE TOMBOY!! Sad but very true. If you know me you know it is true. Here are some facts about me that support that theory.
a - I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE TOOLS!! That is right - especially power tools. Good thing we don't have any money - I just borrow my neighbors. Brian (our neighbor) teases Khuong that I will be calling him every week when Khuong is done on advice for what tool I should buy next :)
b - my dream car is a TRUCK - that's right - my favorites are the Tundra,
F-150, or the Lincoln Mark LT(a truck with some bling). I am trying to convince Khuong that he should drive a truck (in like 10 years), but he is resisting.
c - I love projects - when your husband comes home from work - and where there used to be a door there is now a framed, drywalled, and puttied wall - you know something is wrong with you(in my defense, the door was ridiculous and unnecessary). Khuong just laughs - he seriously thinks I am crazy.
d - I love to mow the lawn because it is a riding mower - it is addicting. I start in my lawn but I have mowed both my neighbors lawns because I didn't want to get off. I have asked Khuong if he wanted to mow the lawn, and he said "no" - his loss. The song should be "he thinks my tractors sexy".. I posted this picture of me to show that I can be a serious girl - I am sure that dress is pink, and my hair is curled. That was before I controlled my own destiny (feel bad for my mom).


#2 - I WILL try almost anything that is physical. I usually am the one encouraging it. I am getting really old now so I at least think twice wondering about how I will take care of the kids if I break something. I remember the first time I jumped off a curb with my skateboard or jumped off a ski jump - both of which I landed on my back - knocking the wind out of me. I remember riding on top of a car. Then there is the infamous story of when I was six and I broke my leg. I had a cast up to my hip pretty much, but I wanted to ride that big wheel down the street. We had a plan - I got up the street on my crutches and then my brothers helped me with the big wheel. I only got decent speed going down the hill because the pedal kept hitting my cast - then it happened. My mom came out - she wanted to kill me. (I had broken my leg riding a bike she told me not to) MOMS KNOW BEST!! My brothers and I still laugh about stuff like that.








Now that I have kids I enjoy safe activities with my family. This last summer we had lots of fun in our neighbors driveway. She thought I was crazy because I was out there trying it all. I was either riding the neighbors bike, razor scooter, pogo stick (i suck but khuong is pretty good), jumping rope or making a whirlpool in their pool.(opps don't forget sitting and gabbing) Here we are in Costa Rica (2006) zipping. The kids loved it and so did we.

#3 - I HATE to workout. Very sad, but again very true. There are those people who love sweets, but love to workout. Then there are those that don't like sweets and don't like to workout (khuong). It all works out for a good physic. I on the other hand LOVE sweets and HATE to workout. I do it but only to try and live a little longer and be here for my kids. Kam I can't say I like kickboxing that much - it does make me sweat, but I look DUMB doing it. I currently try and do a spinning class twice a week, but as he says 20 second push, I think WHY?!! Tangible proof that I don't like working out is that my favorite song of every class I have done more that once is the LAST ONE - my psyche must be telling me something.

#4 - I am crazy about movies!! I like pretty much all movies, and I am not critical at all. Bring it on - Dumb and dumber, Transformers, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Up at the villa - but please no girly cartoons. Recently I have found that I prefer the home theatre experience to the movie theatre. Mind you we do have a 1980something 52" screen, and some bought out of the back of a car surround sound, it is seriously GHETTO FABULOUS!!

#5 - I HATE ENGLISH!! Not the language necessarily.. i just hate punctuation, run on sentences, grammar, sentence structure, so on and so forth.. i also don't like to capitalize or really make any sense... i dislike it because i am not good at it (vain much)..i took ap english in high school so i could avoid an english class in college.. i am more of a math/science person

#6 - I have no sense of style or taste. I don't want your pity, I have come to terms with this. That is why I ask other people for decorating advice, and why I dress like I do. For all those who lived in Ecuador with me, remember "the uniform" it was AWESOME!! Simpler days.. When my mom asked me what colors I wanted for my wedding I said "all of them" - I really think I made her crazy.

#7 - I don't give a hoot!! I have this shirt that I wore to a pajama party here(PA). I had only lived here for about 7 months but everyone thought it was "me". It had an owl on it with the words "I don't give a hoot" written on it. I must give off this, I don't give a crap vibe because this is not the first time people have thought that of me. I began to think - do I need to change this - is this bad?? Nope - it is good for me. Plus I care about some things, I just don't remember what.

I am suppose to tag someone, but everyone I know has been tagged. I hear there are some gamers out there who would like to play again - you go girl!! I tag you..

Being cheap etc..

We have all been there - livin on a tight budget. I have decided that it really makes you do CRAZY things. Here is the provider of my family up in a tree we are trimming. You ask why it wasn't me up there - obviously I am the rational choice since I can stand to break something. (I am confident that Pence and Jacob would be awesome nurses) The reason I wasn't up there is... hmmm... it would really mess up my hair?! The lumberjack in the lower corner is my neighbor - he convinces us we can do it, then he helps.




These pictures are from Jacobs school skating party. He did quite well for his first time. If you must know the truth we totally ditched him for a while to go out and be back in Cali when we were 17. Khuong, Seng (an old "friend"), Spencer (brother), and I used to go out at night rollerblading. We did some insane things, I am surprised we didn't hurt ourselves. Khuong did break his collarbone like a month before the MTC being crazy on blades - that should tell you I am the better skater (or the bigger chicken - you decide) :) Don't feel bad for Jacob we ditched him but left him with fries - he was tired of falling anyways.

Interesting part of the night was the squirrel that felt left out. He too wanted to skate - so he ran in from the cold to dance to the beat of "solider boy", too bad he got a little freaked with all the screaming. He tried to rest under some arcade games, but in the end the beat got to him again and he came out to dance on the floor. He danced right by Jacob and I (between another moms skates), until the ref with the big dice, used the dice to push him out the emergency exit. Oh the excitement.

The last bit of fun of the night was the race. 13 years old and up, including moms, I could not resist. PATHETIC - really I could have lapped everyone (OK there were only 3 in the race). I couldn't bring myself to beat them - although the "free slurpee prize" made me think twice. Khuong agreed with my polite gaming, but my neighbor was disappointed that I didn't crush them. Maybe next time!! I really had to much fun - and let me tell you skating is definitely a cardio activity.

BAD DAY!!

We've all had them. I think sometimes my life is really brought back into perspective. I sometimes have bad days - some reasons for such an event might be:

1 - going to the gym :) jk but I might suffer at the gym more than I wanted to
2 - my children might whine or fight a little to much, you know the whole he touched me thing
3 - just cause

Sometimes I get a little stressed out with things like plumbing problems, or I think about school debt, or I think about work that needs to be done on the house, etc.. Mostly I just have to decide what's for dinner; besides the rice part :).

This whole last month Khuong has been at Hershey Medical (a different hospital than normal) doing SICU (surgery ICU). It was a fairly nice month. Today he went back to CGOH (normal hospital) and what a welcome he had. He forgot his pager and didn't realize he forgot it until like 3 pm (he was in surgery all day before that). I guess a surgery consult came into the er and khuong was paged a couple of times. He did not respond so the er doctor called the head honcho - I mean the head over all of general surgery (for khuong there is not a bigger man). He was called while he was in the operating room performing surgery. He got SUPER TICKED to put it mildly. Khuong said he heard he threw an instrument in the OR - so he called the chief resident and chewed him out. The chief then conducted a search and destroy mission aimed at khuong of course. Anyways, WELCOME BACK KHUONG!! I told him he should have been a dentist - he is starting to agree with me.. His bad days always make mine look amazing!! I don't know how he does it - but I am confident that he will be one of the nicest surgeons ever. I am so blessed to be able to stay home and pretty much do what I want. All because Khuong works like a dog on crack. Khuong you are my HERO!! We all love you!!

FYI - one good thing that came out of this was I got to take Khuong his pager. My neighbor had the kids so we had dinner at the hospital together. That makes for an excellent meal. During our conversation Khuong said - "I don't know what I would do without you Lauren" then he laughed and said "I would probably be drinking" isn't that the sweetest thing you ever heard.. hahaha Got to love that man..