London here we come!

Yesterday my husband's band was extended their official invitation to go to London in 2011 for the New Year's Day Parade, the Lord Lt. to Her Majesty the Honorable Lord Bramble flew to Corning for the ceremony and a performance by the band. Woohoo!
http://www.the-leader.com/news/x1073706944/Parade-organizers-visit-West-High


http://www.wetmtv.com/mediacenter/local.aspx click on West High School Receives Royal Visit to see my husband on TV!

Super excited about going to London - must update my passport!

In other news, Open House for Eric tonight, drumline and choir for me on Thursday, Performance at the stadium Saturday night....isn't life interesting. I was in bed by 9 last night and sleeping by 10 and I still didn't want to get up this morning at 6:15. I'm usually a night owl but I was so exhausted last night!

Genni news - how can I get my previously potty trained now 3 year old daughter to stop having accidents every day? every single day - we have hit a new low. I thought it was the apple juice but she hasn't had any in weeks. Last night she almost made it but it's always a rush to get her pants down and half the time it's just not in time....what now? I've been angry, I've been disappointed, I've threatened, I've time-outted, I'm really not sure what to do next other than hope this is just another phase I have to wait out. They never tell you there are so many phases a child goes though...I thought I had till the teenage years for that....hmmmm.

Life just keeps getting more interesting! :)

3rd Birthday Party

So this Saturday we had a birthday party for my girl Genni, Laurie showed up with face paints for the kids and they all seemed to have a great time, the adults relaxed and visited. It was as always hectic to get everything cleaned up and made on time, but it all came together in the end. My parents were a big help cutting up food for salads and my friend Deb came over early to help clean. Eric's parents stayed late and helped us clean up so now it's Sunday afternoon and I'm not going to clean a thing today! Here are some pictures of Genni at the party, I know Eric's dad and Mike both got photos and video of the cake and singing and presents so I'm hoping to get some more pictures up soon.

Then today we wore one of our new outfits to church and painted this afternoon. I put a little bit of each color on the paper plate and Genni thought it would be great fun to just mix them all up into one big color....and who am I to stifle such creativity? Haha, so here are the pictures she did today, one has stickers on it too.

Catching up again

Well I have been fairly unreliable lately, but things have been uber busy the past two weeks. School during the day and something almost every night - Eric has London meetings, I have drumline and choir, we have football games - it never ends. This weekend is Genni's birthday party and after that is over I'll feel slightly less stressed. It's all stuff we like to do, it just gets a little pressing sometimes when everything we are into wants us in the same week. Next week I have drumline Monday and Wednesday, Auditions for the Fall Musical Monday and Tuesday, Eric has the Lord Leutenant of Greater London coming to formally invite the band to the parade, Thursday I have choir, Saturday is a competition for the band, Sunday is church. Luckily Genni is good at tagging along to most things - I don't know about auditions but everything else she will be at with me. Oh yeah, I think Eric has another London meeting on Monday too. Fun times for us!

So here is interesting news, Kevin called me today and told me he saw my cousin Edward Savoy (not my brother, my cousin, different person) again and that side of the family is trying to connect with me. He gave Kevin a name for me of his sister Mary who lives in Florida but uses Facebook and now we are connected. Her father was my father's brother, and she has three brothers and her mother is still alive too (her father, my uncle it would have been, died a long time ago, I think before I was born even) - so I'm looking forward to meeting some of my father's family and connecting with them.

Well, I'm keeping it short tonight, I'm exhausted and have cleaning to do tomorrow after work as well as cooking for Genni's party. My bed is calling me!

Wow has it been awhile!

I'm starting to get yelled at for not having a post up in a long time! Well it has been over a month, so I'll try to catch you up on the high points of August...

August 6th we went up to Susan and Dan's in Buffalo to work on their house - resided the garage, hung and painted doors and painted the basement with Duralock after scrubbing. It was great to see the two of them and take advantage of Dan's cooking (Eric ate like 7 pieces of fried chicken....amazing!!) while making it a little nicer financially to get through the summer. There was a great park within walking distance from their house and Genni had a great time there at the sand box, playsets and wading pool. There are some benefits of living in a more populated place!

The 13th we drove home after dark and the 14th we took off to NH for the Family Reunion. It was great to see everyone and spend so much time with them. The 16th we went to the beach with Tim and Sandi and Emily, Genni's first trip to the beach! She had a great time. I also got to catch up with my roommate and friend from college Lisa, it was great to see her and catch up too. The 17th we drove home...Genni did particularly well in the car! The rest of the time before band camp was basically spent at West cataloging instruments...it was a long process. My husband is lucky to have such a talented and patient wife to help him with such things! Oh yeah and we also had a morning photo shoot with Mike for some family pictures and another less eventful trip to the library for more books to read. Now we are on our last vacation day before school starts....and somehow can't really believe the craziness is about to begin!

What a day!

I want to start out by saying the next time I post I will catch up on what has happened the last few days, but this post st all about today - or this morning really. There are quite a few more pictures from other days on the boat and fish for dinner...

Anyway, today we woke up early because I had to play the guitar for VBS at First Baptist and lead the kids in song - so we were there by 8:30 and done by 9:45...then we took mom to Healthworks for PT and where on our way to the library for some books for Genni (and me:)). Once Eric got his card I found about 9 books for Genni and then went to look for some for me leaving Eric and Genni at the computer in the kids section playing Green Eggs and Ham on the screen. When I returned we were waiting for Genni to finish the book on the computer so we could check out and go when I realized that there was something going on on the other side of the stacks from us. I had noticed a women in the children's section with 3 kids, well more like young adults, with special needs before, but now the boy (taller than Eric and bigger too) seemed to be hitting the girl (a worker from wherever he was for the day). I said to Eric "honey I think he's hitting her" so Eric walks over to get a better look and to step in if he needed to and the boy grabs the worker's hair and starts pulling and won't let go. By this time you can see that the worker is scared and there is noone there to help her - I heard her call for backup on her phone but it was quite a while before anyone else came. In the meantime Eric has the boy restrained, but the boy is not happy about it at all. He seemed Ok for the moment so I walk over to see if the worker is Ok since she looked so shaken up and Genni is still occupied with the computer. Well I see that the boy bit her on the hand and she is in tears so I give her a hug and we all think it's over and he is calming down...not so. He grabs hold of her hair again and mine - I am not quite so patient about asking him to let go since I know he didn't the first time and muscled my hair out of his grip and then Eric and I helped the worker free her hair - I'm not sure what all happened next but we ended up on the floor holding him so he wouldn't bite himself or us and on the way down quite a few books went flying. Oh I forgot at one point he took off his glasses and literally crushed them. There was quite a bit of yelling - but I had his legs and one worker that came over to help had one arm and Eric the other arm (the first worker left with the other two people in her care). Eventually another worker came and took over for me (Meanwhile the receptionist at the children's desk was with Genni at the computer cause she could see we were busy). Well after about 15 minutes he finally chilled out enough to leave the library so we checked out our books and left. All feeling we had had quite enough excitement for the day and just a tad shaken up from the experience. Our adventures for the day did not seem to be over though. Eric walks to the driver's side door to unlock it and all of a sudden the three dogs in the car next to us go absolutely and viciously bonkers - the windows where half down so it got it's head out and the window looked like it was about to break! We didn't dare approach the car from that side and that was the only way to unlock the car...so then we had to call the police. When he came he unlocked the car for us, pepper spray at the ready and tempting fate as the dogs threatened the windows yet again and rocked the car alarmingly. It doesn't sound bad when I write it but it was seriously scary.

Well that was all before lunch, after lunch was much less eventful and boring, including a nap for both of us - but we did not need any more excitement today! Who knew going to the library was going to be so eventful!

Sunday on the Lake

Went fishing with Grandma and Grandpa on the boat this Sunday - Genni loved it! Then she fell asleep on the way back...

Summer Lovin'

I love summer - warm weather (although the weather was warmer in April!), time with my family, a cleaner house, catching up with friends, sleeping in...

Well most of that at least. Also worrying how to pay the bills through the summer, but I promised myself I would stop focusing on that so I could relax since it is summer...

Anyway, youth camp is over - and was successful I think. We were in Mansfield a little longer than we expected on Saturday because our friends Becky and Ryan lost their keys and after a two hour search....they were in Ryan's cymbal bag - hahaha - so we had a very late lunch at Papa V's and when Sunday came I just slept in and did nothing. We all need those days!

So back to swim lessons every day - signed Genni up for tumbling and very excited she gets to go on Wednesday - and planning on going to work half an hour early tomorrow so I can work out a bit. Speaking of work - I bought a bathing suit today, $30, speedo - why so cheap? Cause it's a kids suit. Kids must be getting fatter because it fit me and was half the price of a women's speedo suit so I bought it! Women love getting a good buy so I had to share:)

Oh! I forgot to post pictures of the playset we got for free that Eric restained and painted - it looks awesome!