Ok, so there's a new blog now! The new address is on my facebook page--go ahead and add it to your reader list :) If you don't facebook, or just need an excuse to email me: carolinabond at yahoo dott ccomm.
The new blog is already up and running! Come visit :)
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Summation
Ben and I got married and moved to Las Cruces less than 2 weeks later. We affectionately refer to our wedding/reception/moving time as the "five state nightmare." We had an engagement party in Utah; we got married in Oklahoma; we had an open house in Kansas, a reception in Texas, and then we moved to New Mexico. It was slightly insane. I can freely say this now since 6 years have gone by. Yep, six years! A lot happened in those six years.
*We learned how to be married :)
*I taught middle school for a couple of years.
*Ben started and finished his masters and phd.
*My parents served their mission in Vanuatu.
*We became parents...We had JAMES!
*I taught p/t for the community college.
*We served in church callings.
*We made some very dear friends and we miss them terribly!
*Etc, etc, etc.
Las Cruces will always be near to our hearts. I can't say enough about the dear friends and experiences that made our time there so sweet. It was hard to leave. I imagine I will feel sad everytime I think about it for quite some time.
I think this is a good time to have this blog made into a book and call it done. I'll be starting a new blog and I'll post here soon how to find it! Until then, vaya con dios :)
*We learned how to be married :)
*I taught middle school for a couple of years.
*Ben started and finished his masters and phd.
*My parents served their mission in Vanuatu.
*We became parents...We had JAMES!
*I taught p/t for the community college.
*We served in church callings.
*We made some very dear friends and we miss them terribly!
*Etc, etc, etc.
Las Cruces will always be near to our hearts. I can't say enough about the dear friends and experiences that made our time there so sweet. It was hard to leave. I imagine I will feel sad everytime I think about it for quite some time.
I think this is a good time to have this blog made into a book and call it done. I'll be starting a new blog and I'll post here soon how to find it! Until then, vaya con dios :)
The End
Well, you know that I am now posting in new job land. I'll talk about that later. What I want to do now is to finish up my Las Cruces posts. This might be boring, but once again, this is more for me than anyone else :0
The day after graduation was Mother's Day and I can barely remember anything...we were so exhausted from all the graduation celebration/last minute visits to important LC places/parents in town/goodbyes/packing/cleaning/etc. I do remember James going up to sing with the primary and ahead of time I thought it would really make me cry, especially considering the imminent move. I didn't cry; I laughed! He just stood up there with a goofy look on his face. I think he sang 2 or 3 words and then the rest of the time he looked around to see what everybody else was doing or looked out at us in the congregation. I was happy :)
Church ended and I proceeded to cry like a baby. I tried to take a route that would involve me seeing the least amount of people possible since I was a wreck. It mostly worked. I cried at various points during the next 4 days...and then some. On Monday some wonderful guys came over and loaded up the truck for us. We had to give away a desk and a chair so that everything else would fit in the truck. Note to self: A sixteen foot truck was not sufficient! Some lovely friends came over and brought food, drinks, snacks, and love. I kept telling everyone to knock it off so that I could stop crying already! Several lovely ladies came over and helped clean out our "darling" student family housing apartment. YOUR NAMES ARE REMEMBERED IN HEAVEN! Seriously, I pretty much think cleaning someone else's oven, fridge, windows, walls, etc qualifies you for heaven. Anyway, we checked out of our apartment at 5pm. And then I cried... probably more from relief this time. Meanwhile, James was living the good life being spoiled by granny and papa. Shopping, movie, lunch out, etc. After check out of the apartment and check in to the hotel we all went out to dinner together and then crashed hard.
The next day, Ben and James left the hotel early in pursuit of green chiles, dry ice and styrofoam ice chests. Yep, we drove across 13 states or whatever it was with 2 coolers full of chile! We were successful! Granny and Papa and James had a flight out of El Paso that morning and I really really really wanted to be HAPPY so that James wouldn't freak out about leaving without us. The tears started leaking out...but at least I wasn't sobbing, yet. As we were saying goodbye in the parking lot, James saw me crying and said in his full-of-himself way, "Mommy, it's ok if you cry. I know you're going to miss me." That just made me laugh and we quickly hastened our goodbyes. They drove away and THEN I started sobbing. Ben put his arm around me and walked me through the hotel lobby where no less than 12 people thought we had just faced some horrible tragedy. The management looked especially concerned.
We went up to our hotel room and I calmed down. We packed up our stuff and headed out. The management looked at me very carefully as we checked out. I think they wanted to make sure they didn't need to call the police or anything. Ben got in the moving truck, I got in the car and we drove away. And then we drove and drove and drove and drove and drove. Although we had to drive by ourselves, the walkie talkies were a LIFESAVER! We drove for 4 days straight. I temporarily suspended my ban of soda to consume large amounts of dr pepper and coke to keep myself awake. I was sooooo happy that our new car has free satellite radio. I did talk on the cell phone a few times to wake myself up. I barely remember most of the trip. That's somewhat scary. I saw the St Louis Arch and drove over the Mississippi and Ohio rivers for the first time. But the awesome part was that we drove over 2500 miles and only saw 20 minutes of rain; we didn't have any car problems; neither of us got a ticket or had an accident; neither or us fell asleep and for the most part all of our directions were accurate and we never got lost. We were very blessed.
We got into new job town at exactly 5pm on Friday night. We checked into our new place and went out to dinner. I think I cried in my pasta. We slept on our air mattresses that night and the next morning several awesome guys from our new church congregation came and helped us unload the truck. We bought some essentials and spent the rest of the day unpacking a bit.
The next day I flew back to Houston to my family's house. I was so happy to see James and sooo happy that my parents kept him alive! We stayed there for another week and then flew back together. James was happy to see that new job town had all his required happy places: McDonald's, Chuck E Cheese, a movie theater, etc. He decided we could stay.
The day after graduation was Mother's Day and I can barely remember anything...we were so exhausted from all the graduation celebration/last minute visits to important LC places/parents in town/goodbyes/packing/cleaning/etc. I do remember James going up to sing with the primary and ahead of time I thought it would really make me cry, especially considering the imminent move. I didn't cry; I laughed! He just stood up there with a goofy look on his face. I think he sang 2 or 3 words and then the rest of the time he looked around to see what everybody else was doing or looked out at us in the congregation. I was happy :)
Church ended and I proceeded to cry like a baby. I tried to take a route that would involve me seeing the least amount of people possible since I was a wreck. It mostly worked. I cried at various points during the next 4 days...and then some. On Monday some wonderful guys came over and loaded up the truck for us. We had to give away a desk and a chair so that everything else would fit in the truck. Note to self: A sixteen foot truck was not sufficient! Some lovely friends came over and brought food, drinks, snacks, and love. I kept telling everyone to knock it off so that I could stop crying already! Several lovely ladies came over and helped clean out our "darling" student family housing apartment. YOUR NAMES ARE REMEMBERED IN HEAVEN! Seriously, I pretty much think cleaning someone else's oven, fridge, windows, walls, etc qualifies you for heaven. Anyway, we checked out of our apartment at 5pm. And then I cried... probably more from relief this time. Meanwhile, James was living the good life being spoiled by granny and papa. Shopping, movie, lunch out, etc. After check out of the apartment and check in to the hotel we all went out to dinner together and then crashed hard.
The next day, Ben and James left the hotel early in pursuit of green chiles, dry ice and styrofoam ice chests. Yep, we drove across 13 states or whatever it was with 2 coolers full of chile! We were successful! Granny and Papa and James had a flight out of El Paso that morning and I really really really wanted to be HAPPY so that James wouldn't freak out about leaving without us. The tears started leaking out...but at least I wasn't sobbing, yet. As we were saying goodbye in the parking lot, James saw me crying and said in his full-of-himself way, "Mommy, it's ok if you cry. I know you're going to miss me." That just made me laugh and we quickly hastened our goodbyes. They drove away and THEN I started sobbing. Ben put his arm around me and walked me through the hotel lobby where no less than 12 people thought we had just faced some horrible tragedy. The management looked especially concerned.
We went up to our hotel room and I calmed down. We packed up our stuff and headed out. The management looked at me very carefully as we checked out. I think they wanted to make sure they didn't need to call the police or anything. Ben got in the moving truck, I got in the car and we drove away. And then we drove and drove and drove and drove and drove. Although we had to drive by ourselves, the walkie talkies were a LIFESAVER! We drove for 4 days straight. I temporarily suspended my ban of soda to consume large amounts of dr pepper and coke to keep myself awake. I was sooooo happy that our new car has free satellite radio. I did talk on the cell phone a few times to wake myself up. I barely remember most of the trip. That's somewhat scary. I saw the St Louis Arch and drove over the Mississippi and Ohio rivers for the first time. But the awesome part was that we drove over 2500 miles and only saw 20 minutes of rain; we didn't have any car problems; neither of us got a ticket or had an accident; neither or us fell asleep and for the most part all of our directions were accurate and we never got lost. We were very blessed.
We got into new job town at exactly 5pm on Friday night. We checked into our new place and went out to dinner. I think I cried in my pasta. We slept on our air mattresses that night and the next morning several awesome guys from our new church congregation came and helped us unload the truck. We bought some essentials and spent the rest of the day unpacking a bit.
The next day I flew back to Houston to my family's house. I was so happy to see James and sooo happy that my parents kept him alive! We stayed there for another week and then flew back together. James was happy to see that new job town had all his required happy places: McDonald's, Chuck E Cheese, a movie theater, etc. He decided we could stay.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
She's baaaaaack
Holy Cow it's been a long time! You can't say I don't have a good reason...I'm coming out of the fog now and have to say that the main reason I haven't been blogging is because our desktop died right before the move and I HATE typing on a laptop. Anybody want to send me a keyboard to plug into the laptop as a house warming present? Anyway, time to play catch up. Also, I think that once I catch up with a few Las Cruces posts...I'm going to make a new blog. It won't be private, but it's an effort to be a little safer online.Without further ado....
Ben GRADUATED!!!!!!! Yayyayayayayayayayayayayayay! It was a great day! I LOVE graduations, maybe just as much as weddings.(Except don't get me started on Preschool and Kinder graduations!) It's geeky, but when I'm at a graduation, I think about all the effort that all those students put in over the last years and it is AWESOME! I am so proud of him :) I thought my heart was going to explode when I saw him walk up and get 'hooded'! It was very emotional, and kinda funny. They should have provided a step ladder for his professor!
James fell asleep during the ceremony. Who can blame him? There are only so many snacks and diversions. He was leaning against papa who was trying to get him more comfortable. I tried to adjust him, the movement woke him, he was startled and YELLED, "HEY, THAT'S NOT FAIR! DON'T TOUCH ME!" Yeah, right in the middle in the graduation. My dad couldn't stop laughing and I was mortified. Granted, it was in the middle of a basketball arena, but still, all the people around us were wondering what the heck was going on. I have to thank Marie with the AWESOME camera for getting shots that I never could with my sad little camera.
After the ceremony we ran home and continued to pack. We took a break that evening to honor the graduate with one last dinner at La Posta. Yes, we had to wait 1 1/2 hours but we enjoyed our time in the Mesilla Plaza. We went home and you guessed it, packed and packed some more.
Ben is squatting as much as possible so they can reach over his head to put the hood on.
Ben GRADUATED!!!!!!! Yayyayayayayayayayayayayayay! It was a great day! I LOVE graduations, maybe just as much as weddings.(Except don't get me started on Preschool and Kinder graduations!) It's geeky, but when I'm at a graduation, I think about all the effort that all those students put in over the last years and it is AWESOME! I am so proud of him :) I thought my heart was going to explode when I saw him walk up and get 'hooded'! It was very emotional, and kinda funny. They should have provided a step ladder for his professor!
James fell asleep during the ceremony. Who can blame him? There are only so many snacks and diversions. He was leaning against papa who was trying to get him more comfortable. I tried to adjust him, the movement woke him, he was startled and YELLED, "HEY, THAT'S NOT FAIR! DON'T TOUCH ME!" Yeah, right in the middle in the graduation. My dad couldn't stop laughing and I was mortified. Granted, it was in the middle of a basketball arena, but still, all the people around us were wondering what the heck was going on. I have to thank Marie with the AWESOME camera for getting shots that I never could with my sad little camera.
After the ceremony we ran home and continued to pack. We took a break that evening to honor the graduate with one last dinner at La Posta. Yes, we had to wait 1 1/2 hours but we enjoyed our time in the Mesilla Plaza. We went home and you guessed it, packed and packed some more.
Ben is squatting as much as possible so they can reach over his head to put the hood on.
Monday, April 19, 2010
My handsome boys
I tried to get some normal pictures of my good looking guys on Sunday...James wearing his first dress shirt and tie. Not so normal, but still cute.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Friend Birthday
EVERY year on James' birthday, the wind blows approx. 45-60 miles per hour. I'm not even kidding. Last year at his party in the park, the wind blew the giant city garbage cans over, it blew the cake off the table, etc. This year we went indoors. Although Mcdonalds no longer throws parties for kids, apparently they have no problem if you bring your own party to them. We had a GREAT time :)
He wanted Spongebob cupcakes for this party.
Happy Meals can really make you happy!
I think James knew I was concerned that we'd get busted for using matches inside Mcd, so he blew candle out before the song was through.
Then we saw a lot of these blue-iced faces:
Then he opened presents...
But mostly we saw a lot of this, as the kids ran off to play again and again...
It was a great celebration!
He wanted Spongebob cupcakes for this party.
Happy Meals can really make you happy!
I think James knew I was concerned that we'd get busted for using matches inside Mcd, so he blew candle out before the song was through.
Then we saw a lot of these blue-iced faces:
Then he opened presents...
But mostly we saw a lot of this, as the kids ran off to play again and again...
It was a great celebration!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Family Birthday
The birthday boy wanted Spiderman cupcakes for Preschool.
He got his first ties and dress shirts from Granny and Papa.
Here he is loving the money from Grandma and Grandpa. He ran and put it in his bank and said it was only to be used for Chuck E Cheese!
Opening presents from Mommy and Daddy. (Thanks Walmart after Christmas Clearance Sale!)
At his Birthday dinner
Leftover Spidery cupcakes double as the 'birthday cake'. He was quite concerned about the fire.
We LOVE the birthday boy!!!!!
James' not-very-exciting reading of Grandma and Grandpa's card :)
He got his first ties and dress shirts from Granny and Papa.
Here he is loving the money from Grandma and Grandpa. He ran and put it in his bank and said it was only to be used for Chuck E Cheese!
Opening presents from Mommy and Daddy. (Thanks Walmart after Christmas Clearance Sale!)
At his Birthday dinner
Leftover Spidery cupcakes double as the 'birthday cake'. He was quite concerned about the fire.
We LOVE the birthday boy!!!!!
James' not-very-exciting reading of Grandma and Grandpa's card :)
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Somebody had a birthday!
Turned 4! Eating peanuts at his choice of birthday restaurants. When we asked him where he wanted to go he said, "Does this town even have a PF Changs?" :) Yeah, so his 2nd choice was Texas Roadhouse even though he's only been there one time.
Turned 3! I am admittedly really bad at picking out presents for this kid. Most of my "big gifts" turn out to be really bad ideas. He's only been on the bike 3 times in a year.
Turned 3! I am admittedly really bad at picking out presents for this kid. Most of my "big gifts" turn out to be really bad ideas. He's only been on the bike 3 times in a year.
Turned 2! Here we are at the park on his birthday. Hard to believe he actually needed a jacket. It is NOTORIOUSLY windy on his birthday here every year. This year I decided to have his party indoors, and yep, it's been calm all week.
Turned 1! He wouldn't eat that cake! He ate a few bites of frosting if it was fed to him, but otherwise, he was content just to smash it around.
Sweet baby just born! He had a GIANT head and GIANT feet. All the rest of him was giant in no time!
Friday, April 09, 2010
Easter Fun
This child is going through a "I can't smile normal" phase.
James and Lilly got together for some egg coloring fun...
Easter morning: Once again full of strange smiles-this time a bit sleepy, too.
James and Lilly got together for some egg coloring fun...
Easter morning: Once again full of strange smiles-this time a bit sleepy, too.
Ben's Easter Basket for me...A nest made out of a new body pillow, a new book, a booklight, a duck and some "eggs" that the duck laid. I'm a lucky girl :)
James enjoyed playing conference bingo while we watched on TV. It was funny because even when we weren't playing bingo, everytime I heard a new topic come up, I shouted it out-in my head!
Friday, April 02, 2010
Another day of fun!
Ben and I went out to dinner to celebrate the end of the phd!!! We had a wonderful time!
To celebrate James' upcoming birthday, we all went to Sesame Street Live today. He was sooooo excited and we had a great time. It is a super fun show!
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