Good Riddance 2012!

Me... falling on ice

2012 has really been a bad year for me for a lot of reasons. It's been a year where I had to cut people out of my life, a year where I started having panic attacks, and just not a lot good happened this year.

2013 is shaping up to be a great year. I'm gainfully employed from home. We are going to Disney World in October. Todd found a horror con in Charlotte that is taking place the weekend after my birthday that has Bruce Campbell as a guest that we are going to go to. I'm also planning on going to ConCarolinas and of course Dragon*Con.

I think that 2012 might be out to get me though. Right before Christmas, I was carrying Emily to the car. I tripped and fell hard on our carport, which is made of cement. I managed to protect Emily so I took the brunt of the fall. I was very sore for a few days and my left arm was still a little bit tender.

Yesterday I went to see The Hobbit and I was walking through the covered parking garage when I slipped and fell on a tiny patch of ice. I think someone dumped their drink and it froze. I fell again on cement and now both my knees hurt as well as my left arm again.

I hope I don't fall again soon and I'm so glad that 2012 is almost done!

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Preschool Christmas Program

It's been a super busy holiday season this year, especially since this is the first year I've been back to work. So I'm a little behind on my posts.

Emily started preschool this year and she had her first preschool Christmas program. Since she goes to preschool at our church, the program was about the birth of Jesus.

I had to work in the morning so Todd and I got there right before the program was going to start. The church was packed but we managed to snag a seat on the end in the back.

Each class paraded into the church and sat down. The oldest class, which was the kindergarten class, got speaking parts and acted out the nativity. Each of the other classes got a song to sing and were dressed up as different parts of the nativity scene.

The youngest classes went first so Emily's class was in the middle of the program. They played the part of shepherds and sang "Away in the Manger" which was very adorable. Emily had been singing the song all the time at home, but I think she got a little stage fright and didn't sing much.

The whole program lasted less than a half hour but it was super cute. After it was done, the kids went back to their classrooms where we could pick them up (since we have to sign them out). Then there was a cookie reception in the fellowship hall with a special guest.

Since we had been sitting in the back, we were one of the first to get out of the church and pick up our kid. So she was one of the first kids to see Santa.

I know some Christians don't do Santa but we do and it was refreshing to see him at the reception. The kids were really excited and lined up to see him. This is the first year that Emily actually sat on Santa's lap without having either Todd or I be right next to her.

Once she saw Santa and got her candy cane, we had some cookies. Every family brought cookies (including us - I had made chocolate chip cookies the night before) so there was a ton. Emily had a really good time, especially when one of her friends came and sat with us.

She's been experiencing a lot of firsts this year and this one was great. She was adorable and so were the other kids. The local news station even came and did a story on it. You can see the video at their website if you want - Emily is shown a couple of times.

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I'm Going To Disney World

I'm going to Disney World! In October 2013 :)

Disney World is my favorite place in the whole world. I love it so much. When Todd gave me the option of Vegas or Disney World for our honeymoon, it took me about five minutes to decide.

Three months after we returned from our wonderful Disney honeymoon, I became pregnant. This was when I started dreaming about taking Miss  Emily to Disney World.

Now when we were on our honeymoon, we saw what a pain in the butt hauling around strollers was. So we decided that we would wait until any child we had was out of strollers. We also decided that 6 would be the magical age for a first trip to Disney.

Emily is currently four, and her birthday is in October. Because of the cutoff for kindergarten in NC, she will still be in preschool next year. So I talked Todd into doing Disney next year because it would be easier to take her out of school.

Last month we booked our trip and we will be driving down to Disney World on October 11th. We are staying in the newest Disney resort, Art of Animation, in a Finding Nemo family suite.

I'm very excited, though I keep crying at Disney commercials  The one on the big screen when I went to the movies last week made me sob. Todd thinks I'm crazy, but this is Emily's first trip so it's super special.

Don't be surprised at a large amount of Disney posts in 2013. I'm really looking forward to this trip!

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A Day at the Zoo

My in-laws came to visit from Michigan for Emily's birthday and one of the things they wanted to do was take her to the zoo. I did a search and the closest zoo was in Greenville, so that is were we went Monday morning.

Emily loves animals so we knew that the zoo would be fun for her. The Greenville zoo isn't super big so we were able to see it all in a couple of hours. The first animal and the last animal we saw was the elephant. The elephant was not facing us so we got a good view of his butt. Emily kept making stinky elephant butt jokes the whole day. We got a little better view on the way out, but didn't get to see her straight on.

They had a lot of neat animals from snakes to lizards to birds to monkeys to the very pregnant giraffe. Emily liked the monkeys the best because she thought they were funny!

Here are some pictures from our day at the zoo!

Monkey!

Daddy and Emily looking at fishies

The zoo had a bunch of Halloween decorations up

Emily with her grandparents

Emily loves the zoo!

Pregnant giraffe!

She loved the playground they had!

Monkey! Emily said he was in time out
because he was facing away from the other monkeys.

Big cheetahs!

Mommy gets a picture with the birthday girl

"Look mom, a goat!"

Duck!

One last pose before we left

Elephant butt!

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The Costume Party

I love Halloween so I was thrilled when my daughter was born in October. For the last few years, we had been doing park playdates, but that didn't turn out so well last year. So when I asked Emily what kind of party she wanted this year, I was so excited when she requested a costume/Halloween themed party.

Since we live in NC, the weather is usually okay for an outdoor party. We got Emily a big swingset over the summer and our yard is plenty big, so the party was going to be at our house.

Emily started preschool this year so we invited the kids in her class as well as a few other people. My in-laws drove down from Michigan to make the party complete. As the day dawn, it looked like rain and actually did rain a little so we set up the food table in our carport. I also brought out some toys for the kids to play with in case of rain.

The party started at 2 pm and it wasn't too long before the first kids starting arriving. It was sprinkling so they started playing in the carport. But once most of the guests had arrived, Emily wanted to show her friend her swing set so off to the backyard they went.

Emily was dressed as Snow White and one of her friends also came as Snow White. I also was Snow but we didn't get any pictures of me. All the kids were in costume which was very adorable. We let the kids play for a while and then we had food.

I have several Halloween themed cookie cutters, one that is in the shape of a bat. So Todd used the cookie cutter to make hamburger patties in the shape of bats. He called them bat sliders. We also had veggies, fruit and lemonade and even ice cubes in the shape of pumpkins and skulls.

Emily loved the Halloween pinatas at Walmart so we got her one for her birthday. She picked out the ghost and we gave each of the kids the change to break open the pinata. The kids didn't make a dent into it, so my husband tried. He overestimated his strength and cracked it open with one swing. Thankfully it didn't hit anyone when it fell and the kids had fun filling their bags up with candy.

Once everyone ate and we cracked open the pinata, we got the cake out and sang 'Happy Birthday'. The cake had one of Emily's favorite princesses, Tiana, on it. It was very colorful and pretty yummy.

It was then time for presents and Emily got some help unwrapping them. She got lots of lovely things but her favorite was the Disney Princess Little People Castle from her aunt and uncle.

The party broke up at the point but Emily played a while with the kids that could stick around. She declared it was the best birthday party ever and I think it turned out pretty well!

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Dragon*Con 2012 - Friday

Usually my husband and I head down to Atlanta early on the Thursday before Dragon*Con so we can get our badges. Usually the badge line takes several hours to go through and that way we weren't missing any of the con.

But this year, I had just started a new job a few weeks before so I had to work until 5:30 that Thursday. Thankfully, I now work from home so we could leave as soon as I got off work. It was about 5 pm when my boss let me go and we were able to get on the road to Atlanta.

Thursday was just the drive down to my aunt and uncle's house. We got to their house around 9 pm which didn't leave us any time to get downtown. So it was early to bed since my husband and I wanted to get down to the con early.

Now I had heard many things that badge pickup was streamlined, but my husband was pretty pessimistic about it. He still thought we were going to be in line for hours. We managed to get down to the con around 9 am and then we waited for a whole five minutes to get our badges. It took us longer to walk through the queues than it did to actually get our badges.

This gave us quite a bit of time before my panel. We headed to the Hilton to see if there was any autographs. The Celebrity Authentics line was long but we got in it so Todd could get a ticket to get Sebastian Roche's autograph.

From there, we met up with my friend Nicole. We went to the food court to have some breakfast. We chatted and people watched until it was about a half hour before the "Are You A Geek Parent" Panel.

I had worked with th Kaleidoscope track folks for months to put together this panel with some of my fellow GeekMom authors. Author and geeky dad Bryan Young also sat on the panel. When we got to the Kaleidoscope track room, the room was about half full. We actually started the panel a little early because the room was full.

My lovely husband took video of the panel until my memory was totally filled up. He left at that point to head back to the Walk of Fame. He told me later that there were about 10 people outside, waiting to see if they could get into the pane.

The big highlight of the panel was being able to meet GeekMom Ruth and GeekMom Patricia in person. And it was just a really fun panel to be involved with. Afterwards, we got a picture of the three GeekMoms, then I had a rush off.

I walked as fast as I could to the Sheraton to get in line for The Guild panel. The line was out of the hotel and wrapped around the building. It was very hot but thankfully I had stuck my Kaylee parasol in my bag. It was my original parasol that I painted and it is starting to fall apart. Thankfully it still opened and make it a little cooler while standing in line.

Even though the line was long, I made it into the panel. It was the first time the entire cast of The Guild  had come to Dragon*Con. It was a really great panel, but I left earlier so I could meet Todd at the walk of fame.

I didn't get as many autographs as I did in years past. But I got the entire cast of the Guild, Adam Baldwn (finally!!) and Katee Sackoff. Todd got several others, like John Rhys-Davies, so we have lots of new additions for our wall of fame.

I thought that the dealer'r room closed at 5, but my dear husband told me that it was open until 7 and that he also knew were the BPAL booth was.

Slight tangent here. I've been a fan of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab or BPAL since 2004. The owners of the Lab, Beth and her husband Ted, have been active on the fan forum so I've known them online for 8 years. But since they are located in CA, I never got to meet them in person. So I was really excited to finally meet them.

Todd showed me right were the booth was then headed back to the walk of fame. I geeked out at the BPAL, introduced myself to Beth, got a hug and got to smell the Halloween scents which were so lovely. It was great!

By the time I was done at the BPAL booth, I had missed the start of the next panel I was going to so I went to the food court for some food. Todd had been at wrestling but he wasn't too into it so we headed back to my aunt and uncle's house.

Next up, Dragon*Con 2012 - Saturday!

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September 30th - In Pictures

7 years ago today, Serenity was released in theaters. 

6 years ago today, I married my wonderful husband, Todd.

5 years ago today, I celebrated my first anniversary in Epcot.

4 years ago today, I was extremely pregnant with Miss Emily.

(picture from a few weeks before the 30th)

3 years ago today, I was SAHM to an 11 month old.

2 years ago today, I was a college student/SAHM

1 year ago today, I spent my 5th wedding anniversary away from my husband.

Emily and I flew to Texas to attend my cousin Sarah's wedding.

As you can see, September 30 has become an important day in my life. Though there were a few years that we didn't do much of anything.

Today is the first anniversary that Todd and I have had that we've both had the day off since our 1st anniversary / honeymoon. We aren't doing anything very exciting though Todd is going to make a turkey dinner which I'm really looking forward to.

It's been a great 6 years of being married to the love of my life. Here's to many years more!

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