Gypsy Woman

Hey, I just wanted to state that I am alive and somewhat breathing. At any rate our lives consist of living in and out of a hotel that is the size of my old bathroom, staying at my all to generous friends house, and I'm seriously considering taking up drinking coffee at this point. Okay now, don't be apauled.... I said I'm considering it. Not that my caffine addiction to Coke is much better. Anyways, we are holding up considerably well, besides the fact that I almost cry...or do... everytime we drive by the old house. I wonder what the new owner would think if he came home to us just hanging out on the couch. Allegra is always telling me she wants to go home. It's sad.
Joel's class is very time consuming and hard. But I am proud to say that he is getting high A's on all of his tests this far. He'll be done March 13th. We can hardly wait to be done!!!! And get back to a normal life style!!!!

Gianluca's birthday is this coming Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday again! That is when he was born. The Super Bowl where Janet Jackson exposed herself on national TV. Awesome. I was sitting in the hospital room recovering thinking "Did I just see that??" Good Times, good times.

So this post is very Random and no I don't have any pictures to post right now as my camera is at the hotel. But that will come soon enough! This is random, I know... I'm sleep deprived!!!!

I'm Feeling a Little Vaclempt! (Don't know how to spell that!)

I have less than a week in my beautiful little home and I am terribly sad about it! I just hate to leave here and leave all of my memories and friends. But I know that this is a good move for us and that it is a huge blessing for Joel that he loves his job finally after all of these years. To do something you love is a blessing indeed! So anyways, Here are some pictures of the first home we really made together. We moved here in June 2006 one month before Allegra was born and have created memories and friends to last a lifetime! For that I will always be grateful! To my friends and home, You will be missed immensely!!! I love you!

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A little break from the mundane...

So I'm up to my ears in packing, one of the things I hate most in life! And I thought I'd write about one of my biggest loves in life... my kids. I seriously think I have a major crush on Gianluca (not a sick and twisted one okay! I'm his mother!!!!) He has been so funny lately from his booty dance to just the funny things he says. So I wanted to write a few out before I forget:

1) (note: this day was a crazy day and The Dude was not listening what-so-ever! I had to tell him repeatedly what he was supposed to be doing to the point of raising my voice before we had to go, here is what he said in the car-ride following)

G) Mom, did Jesus make everything?

Me) Yes he did (proud he was even thinking of Jesus)

G)Why did Jesus make mom's that yell?

Me) (in shock!) Why did Jesus make little boys that don't listen to their mommy's?

G) Well you yelled at me at the house!

Me) Well if you'd listen, I wouldn't have to yell at you to get your attention....


AAAh, it's a vicious cycle isn't it! Once you get started on that, it seems the whole day is that way! But that sure made me laugh! I swear he is 4 going on 14!

2)

G) Mom when you leave me I get so sad that I cry. It just breaks my heart! But when you get back, POOF! I'm happy again!

3) Why is it that anytime we go to the store the Dude feels the need to go #2?? Almost without fail. And he is a man for sure because he takes his time! I'm always like, "Gianluca, are you finished?" While Allegra is running around touching every possible thing in the bathroom. And he always says, "Mom, You have to wait for your poo poo to come out!"

4) Yes, I've been known to curse now and then... maybe a bit more. But upon finding Gianluca making a disaster out of something I usually say "Dude, what in the hell are you doing????" Now, he likes to use that term every once and awhile and always in the perfect context. "What in the hell!!!" When he sees something crazy or what have you. I'm not proud of it, but I sure think it's funny. And I really don't consider hell a swear word. Maybe I'm just rationalizing, but there are a few others I'd like to add to the list as well.....

5) Mom can I have to some chocolate? Can I get it from your secret mustache? (secret stash :)

6)After leaving Chick-Fila, the Dude was really wound up and acting crazy. I told him he wouldn't be able to go to Aidan's house if he didn't chill out. So he looks at me w/ a big sigh and says "Mom, Can we discuss this later?" The little shi%^&!!! I almost could have killed him!!! And then it was pretty funny! He started laughing and told me he got that line from BEN 10!


There are a million more, but I can't think of them being distracted by boxes half packed and what not!!! Anyways, every mother adores her children I know, but I am definitely enjoying the age he is. He's a little person and really thinks about the world around him. At this age they are so full of passion, curiosity, very forgiving... I think I really understand what Jesus means about being more childlike. Gotta love these munchkins!!!

NYC.... And We Sold Our House!!!

So First off the big news... which I'm not completely thrilled with (sigh)WE SOLD OUR HOUSE! I'm not sure if that is meant to be excited or scared! So after 4 showings and all of the family members, dogs, uncles mouse saw our house and so forth, they put in an offer. We went back and forth a couple of times and they excepted it on Saturday. So now we will be officially homeless as of Dec. 19th. I'm really sad I won't get to decorate for Christmas! Joel thinks I should put that Michael McLean song "Homeless" from his Forgotten Carols album on the blog. It's quite fitting. We still need to show the house for the next ten days in case the inspection doesn't go well, which is super annoying. Today at 1:30 they called to see the house from 1:30-2:30! Are you kidding me!!! I have a toddler taking a nap and they want me interrupt my quiet time! So I declined it. I am so sick of showing my house I could scream! GRRRRRRR!!!

On a lighter note, Joel's parents are flying in this Saturday and Joel will be coming on Monday for Thanksgiving. We will be busily eating turkey and packing. FUN FUN FUN, but the funnest part of this week will be watching TWILIGHT!!! Can't wait! Then I will be on my own for a couple more weeks and back to Idaho for Christmas! It will be so nice to have a white Christmas!

NYC
At the beginning of this month we went to NYC for a long weekend. It was amazing! I've never been and have always wanted to go there in the fall. We stayed with Joel's amazing cousins from Argentina (Gustavo) and Uruguay (Rossana). They live in an apartment in Manhattan and were just blocks away from all of the sights. We went to Magnolia Bakery, Time Square, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (incredible! We didn't have enough time to see everything), Wicked, SoHO, China Town, Little Italy, and part of Central Park. The NYC marathon was going on so we couldn't really walk around and didn't have enough time. I have to add a funny story about Wicked. I've really wanted to this play for awhile. All of the tickets were $120+ so we weren't going to go. We were at the ticket hub in Time Square and what seemed to be a homeless woman with 2 teeth came up to us w/ tickets for wicked. She was hilarious! She said she would give them to us for $80, so we walked across the street w/ her to an ATM. I kept saying, "How do we know these tickets are good?" and she said "come meet this hot dog stand guy, he's known me for 20 years." So the hot dog guy says in broken English " Buy the tickets, is good." that made me feel a lot better! So we tell her we want to talk about it, and she paces back and forth and finally offers them to us for $60. We're still not sure so she introduces us to another guy who looks a lot more official and we decided to get the tickets. The tickets were good and the show was AMAZING! Loved it! So did Joel, so go see it. Gracias Rossana y Gustavo para todo! Era muy lindo!

This is getting super long, so I'll just add a few pics from our trip and go to bed!

Visits and Halloween

Well, as you can see I am kind of tired of blogging. Or maybe I'm just plain tired. But at any rate I've been really fortunate to have my mother come visit me for 5 days towards the end of October and then Joel and his mother came last week. To tell you the truth I've been getting the hang of this single mother thing and it isn't as bad as I expected. I love my little munchkins to death. Although there have been numorous occasions where I needed to put myself into time out and have gained a major addiction to caffine, it hasn't been all that bad!

Everything is going well with the house.... we've had 30 viewings. One offer, who then retracted that offer, one that wanted to put in an offer, but couldn't because it was too far away from her job; and hopefully one offer this Saturday for a person who's looked at the house twice already. I guess we'll see....

I really had an amazing time w/ my mom here and now with Joel and his mom. Halloween was fun and lots of carnivals to attend. Gianluca couldn't decide which costume to be, so I think he wore everything out of his costume box every chance he got. Allegra was the most adorable little kitty I've seen. It has been a crazy month, but very fun! Joel and I also got back from NYC recently, so I'll put pics of that up later!

Hurricane Ike Survivor AND Daddy Came to Visit!!!

Well, since my last blog, we had a hurricane and Joel came to visit!! Yeahhh!!! So, about the hurricane, I was lazy and didn't take any pictures, but I have friends that did and as soon as they e-mail me some pictures I will put them up. Basically the night before Hurricane Ike, we had a neighborhood block party at my AMAZING friends, Matt and Kristin's. We just sat outside and visited w/ all of the adults on their street while the kids ran wild. (Seriously, Allegra was trying to get naked the whole time, so remind me to lock her in her room when Spring Break comes along). It was really fun. Friday night the hurricane hit our neck of the woods around 1:00 AM. Mostly just fierce winds (75-110 mph) and a lot of rain. I couldn't sleep all night because I kept having crazy dreams about tornado's sucking us all up into them. I woke up and looked out the window and the trees were blowing like crazy and looked like they were about to crash into the window. Oh did I mention I slept at Matt and Kristin's house. It was a blast!! Cause staying alone would not have been fun. Although I did have several other invites (thanks to all of you who offered!!!) By the next morning it was just a ton of rain and debree everywhere. There were hundreds of trees that were blown down here in the Woodlands. The only damage to my house was that a tree fell through our fence. Thank goodness it wasn't onto the house. I stayed w/ the Burgons one more night, and because of lack of power and no phone service I decided to go party w/ my girlfriend Karen from college up in Dallas. It was a blast! We stayed for 5 days and they graciously took the kids and I in. We really loved seeing Dallas and going to Ikea for the first time. We also went to the zoo on my b-day (Yep, I'm the big 29!) and then out to dinner that night w/ Karen, her sister Emma and my friend Nicole (who lives down the street from me). I was happy to have my Hurricane Ike refugee w/ me. It was a little sad because Joel had planned a big deal w/ flying in on my b-day and surprising me. But he cancelled the trip for two weeks later.

Joel flew in last Wednesday and we surprised Gianluca by picking him up at school. He was so excited to see Joel that he just rushed over to him w/ a smile from ear to ear. He kept saying, "Dad, I am so happy you are here, I missed you so much!" Allegra and Gianluca were all over him the whole time he was here. He also gave me a girl's night out to celebrate my b-day w/ my girlfriends in The Woodlands. It was so fun! We really enjoyed having Joel around to play and fix the fence and just be a family again. I really have a new respect for single mom's. I totally miss Joel. He is such a good man with a good heart! He's my BFF, what can I say. :) Anyways, he left Tuesday and now I'm back to the same old same old.

It looks like there's a couple interested in our house. So Please keep us in your prayers. We are dying to sell the house and be back w/ Joel!!!

A big thanks to all of you who have come to my rescue and invited us over for dinner or to hang out. You have no idea how much that means to me!!! It has kept me from the going on the verge of insanity! You are true friends!!! I love you!

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Life of a Single Mom!!!

I need to apologize first off to any of you who have e-mailed or called me and I have forgot to respond. See, what happens is I respond in my head after listening to my voice mail or e-mail and then I think I've answered the question... Apparently it doesn't work like that in the real world, but as I am on the verge of craziness, I have a valid excuse. Two Small Children and no hubby = memory loss!!!!

The kids are going crazy w/ lack of male influence right now. They went to having Tio Christian and Daddy all the time to nada! So every time we hang out at a friends house and the dad is at home, it's an all our wrestling match. Sorry for anyone that has had to endure that! Anyways, we miss having Daddy at home. Just yesterday as I was cleaning out the 1/2 roll of T.P. that Allegra dumped in the bath tub; subsequently clogging the drain, I really missed Joel. Can I tell you that picking up quickly disintegrating soggy T.P. out of the bathtub is hard and gross. I kept thinking of overflowing toilets and was dry heaving half of the time. Luckily my new BFF Drano did the rest of the trick!!! Where was I when Allegra did this might you ask, passed out on the couch! No I was helping Gianluca. Oh the things kids can do in a few short minutes.

I also had a fun weekend w/ my college roommate Karen this weekend. Her and her fam were here and we played all weekend long! It was a blast!!! I love Karen and how upbeat she is! We had a great time reminiscing!!!

Other than that, We've been playing w/ a lot of frogs lately in our yard! I guess all of the tadpoles around here grew some legs and migrated to our yard because we have TONS of frogs. I think the top amount that GL has caught is in the upper 20's in one setting. Pretty impressive if you ask me! Allegra loves them to but is afraid to touch them... Just like her mom!!!

P.S. Just wanted to add and give a big shout out to my amazing friends who are taking great care of us!!! I love you guys!






Joel we miss you!!! Come visit us soon!!!!!!!