Dear Life.

Dear Life:

I am writing to you in regards to the fact that even though there are supposedly 24 hours in each day, you seem to only give me .25 available for use, after you have used up the other 23.75 hours by making me work, clean, sleep, cook, etc. And frankly, I feel robbed. Writing this letter has used up .05 of those hours, which leaves me with a mere .2 hours (aka 12 minutes) out of the entire 24 hour period in which I need to fit in the other frivolous-yet-necessary-activities-to-help-me-maintain-my-sanity.

If there is any way to increase that number, please do so now.

Sincerely,

A.

Happy.

Today I am jovial.

Here's why:

• It's Friday.
  
  
• Free lunch at work.
  


• Tonight I'm having a girls' night out. Woot woot!



• Tomorrow we're going shopping for bridesmaids dresses (for Ashlee's wedding)!
  
  
• I had a judge brownie yesterday and I'm still salivating.



• It's not raining and it's above 70 degrees.



• The Proposal and Year One come out today. Which means lots of drooling while watching the first movie (since my boyfriend Ryan is in it), and laughing hysterically during the second one.
  


• Did I mention that it's Friday?

What makes you happy? Or pissed off, for that matter?

Cool mom

My mom is so cool. ('how cool IS she?')

She made like 5 new headers for me to choose from for my blog. I picked this one up at top to start with, since it's so flattering. Isn't she awesome and super talented? The answer is yes, my friends. She is.

I promise you I will update with exciting new stuff, soon. I still have Hawaii pics, Kennedy's dance performance, and her birthday party. However, for now my computer at home is being a tool. Hopefully it will be fixed in the next day or so and then I can spend hours upon end updating my blog.

Until then, you can all read my mother's blog and any others you see on the side of the page over there. I promise you will be amused.

Princess Kennedy

Five years ago today, after 27 hours of labor, 3 hours of pushing, all to end in an emergency cesarean, the most beautiful baby I had ever laid my eyes on was placed in my arms. She was perfect.

For the first 3-4 months of her life, she cried. A lot. The poor thing had colic. Many of our sleepless nights were spent driving around, swinging her car seat back and forth, back and forth, back and forth... ripping our hair out... trying to get her to just stop crying and go to sleep.

But after about 4 months, she was an angel all the time. And slept through the night every night.

She learned her first sign (sign language) by the time she was 8 months old ("milk").

Took her first steps when she was 12 1/2 months.

By the time she was 18 months, she knew about 50 different signs. However, when she started speaking more fluently, she decided that was so much easier than signing, so she stopped using sign language.


She loved to "read" stories to herself, make up songs to sing, do all the cute little baby things, laugh a lot, and of course everything she did just melted my heart.

Today she turns 5. Whenever I see small babies I have such a hard time believing that Kennedy actually used to be that small. She's growing up too fast. WAY too fast.

Here are just a few things I love about her:

I love that she makes me laugh. A lot.

I love that she says "Mom? I love you." at least 5 times each day.

I love that she's still willing to give me lots of kisses and hugs in public.

I love that she skips everywhere she goes. And I mean EVERYWHERE.

I love that she still thinks I'm the greatest person in the world.

I love how smart she is.

I love how beautiful she is. Although I'm going to have to ugly her up before she hits adolescence. (Braces/head gear/glasses...)

I love that she makes friends so easily- wherever she goes.

I love that she wants to marry Spongebob Squarepants and/or Phineas (from Phineas & Ferb).

I love how wild her imagination is.

I love that she's girly, yet she loves dinosaurs, transformers and cars.

I love how polite she is to everyone (except her parents) and how well-behaved she is.

I love how nothing in the world has made me happier than she has.

I love you, Miss Kennedy Rae of Sunshine.

Fish

First of all, thanks for all your congrats and well-wishes for our family.

Second of all, read this:

So the cool thing about the place in which we stayed on Oahu is that on Saturday(s) they take you out on a boat to a sweet reef and let you snorkel for like an hour and then they take you to the sandbar, which I've told you so much about. And it's all included with your stay. Sweet, right?

So here are some pictures I just had developed from my disposable underwater camera.


Btw- the quality of disposable underwater cameras kind of sucks, just so you know. The colors we saw were actually 100 times more vibrant. The coral was gorgeous and bright. And so were the fishies, of which we saw hundreds.

See? This picture is deceiving. It looks black and white. I promise you that we saw color.

Up until this point, Justin was a snorkeling virgin. He totally loved his first time.


Me? Not a first timer. I've explored the deep blue a time or two. But this was by far the best snorkeling I've ever seen.


Fishies!


But the highlight of my snorkeling experience was when I saw this.


He was about 4 feet away from me.


And then, probably because of my stench, he slowly floated off in the opposite direction.

See ya later, little fella. I love you.

Onward and upward.

Ok. All of the Hawaiian pictures are FINALLY uploaded onto my computer. However, now I actually have to sift through them and decide which ones to put on here, because sometimes I get really click-happy and take tons of unnecessary pictures so I'm left with like a billion to go thorugh. But I guess at least that way I'm pretty much guaranteed to have one good picture.

In the meantime.

I have some happy news for you. Mostly for me. But also for you.

Justin graduated! After 4 years at Westminster College, he is finally finished and is now (well, as soon as he passes his state test, which of course he will) an RN (registered nurse)!

His graduation (the nurse's pinning ceremony) took place at the St. Mark's Cathedral, which is a gorgeous building. He was voted in by his classmates to be one of the speakers.

He did an amazing job, of course. He's a natural-born orator. I was so proud. He received many compliments on his speech, as well as many comments on how much he resembled Harry Potter.

I just kept waiting for him to pull out his wand and broomstick.

After the ceremony, his sweet parents took us out to Sundance for dinner. We each had our own $40 Filet Mignon. And there was silence while we slowly devoured our tender, melt-in-your-mouth, tasty meal. Ok. My mouth is watering now.

I'm so looking forward to having a double-income. Student loans suck.

And I have even more good news, if you can stand it. Kennedy ALSO graduated!

They had a cute little preschool graduation. They sang some songs and showed us their year's worth of art work... it was fun.

This is her dancing to one of the songs.

And here is one of the songs for your enjoyment :)

My little baby is growing up. It scares me. Kindergarten- here we come.

Small taste.

I've been busy. So sue me. I dare you. I would win. I work at a law firm. And I guess that's supposed to be threatening to people. Or something. But it's really not. So please don't sue me. I probably couldn't afford it.

I promise that I will get around to posting lots more about the trip and other goings on. But for now, here's a little taste to keep you interested and tide you over.

Remember the pic of the sandbar I posted (if not, just look at the previous post)? Well here's a picture of the 2 of us at that heavenly sandbar.

And attention LOST fans! Remember when Jin and Sun get married at a gorgeous red temple? Well Justin and I stumbled upon that very same Buddhist temple and I immediately threw myself down and kissed the ground because I knew that Jack and Sawyer had walked upon that same bit of earth at one point.

And the tastiest piece of all?

Mmmmm. Yep. Nothing better.