Mini-golf rematch with little man.

Over my birthday, Terence wanted a rematch in putt-putt. Lucky for me, little man (Cartier) was with us that day and got to come along. Terence's cousin also came.

He was feeling the golf equipment. It was so cute...you could really tell he felt like part of the group :-) LOL

 Because Cartier thought putt-putt was played by placing the ball as close to the hole as possible, the two of us stayed a hole ahead of Terence and his cousin so that he wasn't interrupting their (very serious) game. And I'll admit it, I did not win. But I also had the kid interfereing ;-) I still like to remind Terence I'm up 2-1.

He's a sports lover, all the way. ALL boy. Hoopin in his Jordans. :D

Mini-golf pros.

We had too much fun together when we went to the beach over midterm break.

 We are suckers for a friendly (sometimes) game of putt-putt. Two rounds. And I dominated both. And got 3 holes in one. I was on my A-game that day. And the mister was a good sport :-)  And didn't mind when I got a little cocky. I've got a good man on my hands.

Our hotel was right on the boardwalk, so we took some nice strolls down to the main part. It was so nice to get away and relax.... even though we didn't get to ride the ferris wheel. :-) We spent a lot of time in the pool, lazy river, and hot tub which is always one of our favorite parts of vacation. We also made friends with the owner of a local corner diner and went almost every day. We went shopping at the outlets and both got new shades.

One of the best parts was the stormy day when we decided to relax at the hotel and watch movies. If you know Terence, you know that he does NOT like to go out and about in the rain... especially in his Trans Am. (He's all boy.) So when Scooby Doo came on and I told him about the tradition my sister and I had growing up (making oreo shakes at Grandma's to eat when Scooby Doo came on Cartoon Network), I was a little puzzled when he picked up his keys. Then he drove me right to the ice cream shop for an oreo shake. :-)

Short recap, but I'd like to be able to look back and remember.

Boys will be boys...

After a stressful week of school, I spent some time tonight going through pictures from my spring break and birthday. Last week I had to turn in a first draft of my single subject multiple baseline research design proposal: The Incidental Learning of Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence in Pre-school Age Children. That took up most of my week. Studying for a major anatomy exam took up the rest.

I have been playing around with GIFs lately and made this one for fun because the actual event was so funny. It's Cartier farting on me and thinking it's hilarious. Mind you we had just been cuddling. Sort of like this:

When this transpired:

You should have seen the look of pride on his face. He was cracking up. :-)

More later,
XOXO

Midterm break & the birthday.

Hello, hello. :-) This week is my first week back to school since midterm break and it's a doozy. The mister and I had a wonderful time at the beach and I'll have a post coming up on that once I get my pictures loaded on the computer. This weekend I'm headed out of town once again to visit the mister and his family to celebrate my birthday on Saturday.

Growing up so far from my exteneded family made me appreciate the few times we could all be together, usually during the summer. Now that I live across the country, I rarely get to see any of my family. The past few years I have only seen my mom, dad, and sister once a year around Christmas.

Mom!

Living so close to Terence's family has been such a blessing and I am lucky to have them. And I'm even more blessed because they all actually consider me part of the family, and I, them. And really, I'd rather spend my birthday relaxing at the house surrounded by family than any over the top party, anyday. Here's to growing older & wiser!

Mom #2!

Where you live shouldn't determine whether you live.

A few years ago I learned about the Invisible Children and in 2009 a group of friends and I went to The Rescue in Charlotte, NC. Cities all across the US and world participated at the same time, vowing to stay and be seen in a public arena until enough awarness was raised by receiving acknowledgment from a certain number of people of power in each city. We abducted ourselves in order to represent the tens of thousands of children abducted in Africa for Joseph Kony's LRA. They are abducted in the night, given guns, and forced to kill for the LRA--sometimes even their parents. Watch this for them.

Have you ever been to Disneyworld?

I work in the speech and hearing clinic here at the university on Monday afternoons. The audiologist here has two little girls who hang around the clinic after they get out of school and I recently accompanied them on their walk over to Subway while their mom had a client. Not only are they adorable with the blondest hair and most pouty lips you could imagine, but they are hilarious.

Last December the youngest sat in the matierals room (where graduate clinicians check out therapy materials/toys and diagnostic exams) and wrote her Christmas wishlist. Hilarity ensued. She decided she LOVED Miss Piggy from the Muppets, even though she had never seen it. Everything on her list was Miss Piggy-- Miss Piggy sheets, Miss Piggy Chair, Miss Piggy Bunk Beds, Miss Piggy posters-- also 13 pairs of jeans and 7 pairs of UGG boots. What can I say? She has good taste.

But I digress. Tuesday is our last day of class this week because we have Midterm Break and on our mini Subway trip I asked if they were doing anything fun. Then, you can't even imagine the amount of jealousy that I felt when they rang out in unison with great excitement: "We're going to Disney!!!"

Here I am, clearly enthralled about being at little Six Flags Amusement Park.
(That's my sister in the front, looking a little high--I think it was just hot.)

Let me tell you about me and Disney. When I was little, my dad told me that on my 3rd birthday, we could go to Disneyworld. Obviously I thought about it everyday until my 3rd birthday. I woke my little self up the morning of my birthday and packed my mini suitcase (I'm pretty sure it was Barney themed)--and when I say packed, I mean I probably threw 2 mismatched short and tshirt sets in with 10 pairs of socks and maybe a swimsuit. I toted myself down the hall to my parent's room and woke them up with a loud and proud, "I'm ready!"

...crickets... Apparently I was the only one who remembered this Disney trip was supposed to go down that day. And since that day, it never has. And yes, I'm still scarred. So everytime I hear someone say they're going to Disney, a little resentment comes back. (Not really, but really. LOL)

And here I am again, circa age 3. How could you say no to a face like that?!

The eldest of the two girls left me with this glimmer of hope: "Well, hey, you can just take your kids one day." And I think I will do just that. And probably be just as, if not more, excited as them.

I've returned!

I don't know if yall know Gina over at "pebbz blog", but if you don't-- go visit her page and leave her some love. I took quite the hiatus from blogging when I started graduate school and I've honestly been going back and forth on whether I should just throw in the towel. Just when I think I may call it quits, Gina checks up on me on twitter. And it reminds me why I started blogging in the first place: to make connections with the women I keep up with via their blogs. So I'm back. With a fresh look. What do you think?

I can't promise a post everyday, but once a week at least while I hop back to it. I've missed you all! I've already got a post in the works for this coming week. So stay tuned.

Love,
Lauren