Family Readiness Group Training- SUCCESS!

Over the weekend Zach and I both attended Family Readiness Group (FRG) training at Zach's unit. I am so excited to be a part of this because, one day if Zach gets deployed I know who I can get information from and I will have the support of the FRG...

I met a lot of really nice people and I learned a lot! I am still a little behind on a lot of Army terminology and Army stuff in general, but I will catch up...

Zach's unit, the 490th Chemical Battalion, currently has 35 (I think) soldiers deployed overseas and another unit that we (the 490th FRG) are going to be helping out with right now will be deploying after the first of next year.

I am so excited to be a part of this and to help the families of the deployed soldiers because one day I may be in their position and I would want someone to do the same for me...

An Amazing Birthday

Thanks for all of the birthday wishes last week! My birthday was such a special day this year because of all of the comments and emails and tweets and text messages!!!

With my birthday money I bought myself two chairs for my living room, they are too cute! They are navy and cream toile right now but I may eventually recover them!

Zach's Aunt Margaret made me a phenomenal cake, she is so talented when it comes to baking and crafts!

On Saturday I went shopping with Erika and Gavin and we hung out at her house for the rest of the day! That night we had dinner at her house and Heather cut some of our hair. I really like mine, Heather did an amazing job!

On Sunday we attended another bridal shower for Heather and Patrick, she got so many nice things... their wedding is less than a month away, it seems like just yesterday they got engaged!

Yesterday, was not such a good day though... When I finally got to leave work at 5:10 (we close at 4:30) I go out to my car and it wouldn't crank, it wouldn't even make any kind of noise. Luckily the credit union that I work for is a private credit union for employees of a pipe making plant and we are located on the grounds of the plant... thankfully they have security guards and one of them was nice enough to bring some jumper cables and get my car going. I made it to my mom and dad's and my dad and Zach bought a new battery and now it cranks right up. My car is a 2003 and it still had the original battery in it so it was about time for it to go out... so hopefully no more car troubles for us...

Anyways, that is all I have time for right now. Have a great day!

It is our birthday

Today is my birthday and it is also my fabulous sister's birthday as well!

Head on over to her blog and give her some birthday wishes!!!

I'm his alarm clock...

Every morning I wake Zach up before I leave for work, whether he gets out of bed or not is a different story.

This morning he actually had to be up before me so I set my alarm earlier than normal so I could get him up. Well I woke him up but he went back to sleep... luckily plans changed and he didn't have to get up anyways.

That got me to thinking what happens when he works for someone other than his dad and actually has to be at work at a certain time, will he be able to do it? Then I have to remind myself that he went through months of training with the Army and was always on time (well the last day that he was in AIT doesn't count) so I can rest assured that when my husband does indeed work for someone other than his dad he will be able to get up to his own alarm clock and be on time to work.

I was actually getting a little scared, I thought I would be his alarm clock forever!

My weekend, a summary of it at least

Saturday I spent the day with Karmen and Ava. Zach was at drill and Matt was at the lake for a guys weekend so we went to lunch and I ended up spending the night with her.

Sunday was family day at Zach's unit. I started my day off with a car that wouldn't crank at first... it finally cranked and I made it to Anniston on time. Luckily for me it cranked when I left too...

Family day was fun! Zach's unit (the 490th) played another unit that is in Anniston (the 310th). Unfortunately the 490th lost by two points and that meant 20 push ups from them... They had a lot of fun playing though! There was also a tug of war match against each other, several of them actually and both units won a few times...

I got to meet a lot of really nice people, people who may one day be my support system if Zach gets deployed. I volunteered to be a part of the Family Readiness Group and we have training for that on August 29th and 30th. I figured that this would be a good way for me to get to know the other family members in the unit and make some friends along the way!

After we got home from Anniston we met Zach's family at Chili's for dinner! It was SO yummy and SO much fun to hang out with everyone! We both have really great families so anytime with any of them is great!!!

That is my weekend in a nutshell... What did you do this weekend?

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures...

I am at Karmen's using her internet so I thought I would upload a few pictures, in no particular order...

This week Zach is with his unit making up his September drill (his brother's wedding is the weekend of his September drill so he is making it up this week) and he went to the local KFC for lunch... He pulled out his debit card to pay and a nice gentleman said put away your debit card, I've got your meal... Zach told him that he didn't have to that he could pay for his own but the man insisted. Some soldiers face ridicule (luckily my soldier has not) but this one gentleman showed me that there are still good people out there and people that support our troops.

We could all be more like this gentleman... it is nice to do things for people every now and then...

Here is a list of things you can do that may spark your own idea... who knows, your good deed may make someone's day...

*Help someone carry their groceries to their car.
*Pay for someone's lunch.
*Send a card to a relative you haven't seen in a while.
*Wash someone's car.
*Babysit a friend's child so they can go to dinner.
*Send a card to a soldier.
*Send a gift to a friend.
*Volunteer at your local hospital.
*Take dinner to an elderly neighbor.

I could go on and on... but you get the idea. I hope you have a great day and a marvelous weekend!

WINNER!

The winner of the EAH gift certificate is Domestic Goddess... She has already responded to the winner email to claim her prize... but don't worry if you didn't win I already have another giveaway up my sleeve!!!

Time is almost up!

You only have 45 more minutes to enter my contest! Click HERE to enter, all you have to do is comment to enter!!!

i ♥ weekends

I love spending lots of quality time with my husband on the weekends. I love spending time with friends and family on the weekends too but nothing beats spending time with Zach!

One day I look forward to us spending weekends with our children. I think about all of the fun things we can do, like go to the zoo, go to the park, go to the Botanical Gardens to take pictures, go swimming, go on a picnic... the list goes on and on!

I love watching Zach with Ava and Gavin and it is so nice to see him interact with them... He will make a great daddy one day!

Anyways, back to weekends... I love to sleep late and stay up late and sometimes I love to do absolutely nothing! Then some weekends I love to fit in as many activities as we can...

This weekend was a kind of busy one. We had a wedding shower on Saturday and then dinner at Karmen and Matt's and then lunch with my family after church, a birthday party Sunday afternoon and then dinner with Zach's family! It was fun to see everyone and hang out!

We really do have the best families in the world!

***P.S. please keep Ava in your prayers, she is under the weather and has an appointment at 2:30 to see the doctor!***

LONG day

Today has been a long day without Twitter... It is up and down, up and down... but I have caught up on my friends' overnight tweets so that is good...

CNN has a story on their front page that tells what is going on with Twitter... Thanks to Lindsey for telling me about it...

Don't forget about my contest going on right now... click HERE to go to that post and enter... it is super simple to enter... all you have to do it comment...

Well, I am off to see if Twitter is up right now!

what's the dill, pickle

yes I am totally aware that I spelled "deal" as "dill" so don't leave me comments about how my spelling needs improving!

what is up with Twitter today? I can't even get it to pull up... on my computer or my phone! I am having withdrawals!

Don't forget about my contest, see the post directly below this one... all you have to do is comment!

the time has come

for a head count and a giveaway...

just wondering what family members read this blog...

any coworkers...

what about friends...

or just blog stalkers...

If all of you would be so kind as to just leave a comment and let me know that you are here so I can have a head count...

And to make it even more tempting for you to leave a comment I will choose one winner at random to win an Entertaining at Home gift certificate worth $25!!! You can pick the product of your choice up to $25 and I will order it and send it your way!!! So, what are you waiting for... let me know that you are reading!!!

And to make it even more fun... to get an extra entry you can...

follow this blog- 1 (if you already follow please leave me a comment telling me that you do)
follow me on twitter- 1
tweet this contest- 1 (must include my twitter name, example: @chickie06 is having a giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment http://iloveyoutopieces.blogspot.com/2009/08/time-has-come.html!)
blog about this contest with my cutsie little button included- 3 (must leave a link to post, leave three comments if you do this)

please leave an additional comment for each extra entry! you MUST first leave a comment telling me that you read and then (only then) you can leave the additional comments! happy commenting!

(Please have a valid email address in your profile or please leave it in your required entry for me.)

***I will leave comments open until Monday August 10th at 4:00 pm CST with the winner announce on Tuesday August 11th***

This giveaway is not sponsored by Entertaining at Home. I am an EAH consultant and thought it would be fun to host a giveaway to share the EAH love!

my first follower

Years ago, when I had a different blog I would write for a while and then months later I would come back and write again... During one of the many blogging hiatuses that I took I got an email from a girl named Sara (exactly how I spell my first name)... She had been reading my blog and since I had not posted in a while she got concerned and emailed me to make sure I was ok... So I emailed her back and let her know that I was ok and that I just didn't have time to post but I would make more of an effort since I knew she was reading... My first official follower, and I was letting her down by not updating...

We emailed every single week for years... we both got married in 2006, me in September and her in November... Soon after we got married Sara emailed me to tell me that her and her husband were expecting a baby! I was SO excited for them! Eventually she found out that they were having a girl... Isabella arrived in November 2007! She was the most precious little girl and Sara was thrilled to be able to stay at home with her full time!

Over the years I introduced Karmen and Alline to Sara (online) and they fell in love too! She was such a sweet person... The four of us planned to get together (and meet in person for the first time) this football season when Alabama played Ole Miss... But last October Sara and her little family were going to Gatlinburg for a family vacation for Sara's birthday and I never heard from her again... Then the roles were reversed, I was the one emailing her asking if everything was ok... I was worried about her because it was not like Sara not to return my emails...

She wasn't ignoring my emails... they were in a horrible accident on their way out of town. Sara was in a coma and her husband and Izzy were hurt pretty badly... Sara passed away at the end of October and I didn't know until December when I got an email from her email address but it was from her husband... He was thanking us for our support through their hard time... I, of course, had no clue what was going on so I emailed back and asked what was going on and he responded back that he thought I knew and he just told me that she had passed... I didn't want to push the issue with him since he had just lost his wife... So Alline emailed one of Sara's friends and she told us everything...

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of Sara or Izzy or her husband... We were only friends online but she was a great friend!!!

So I want to take a moment to thank all of you readers for being a part of my life by reading this blog. Blogging friends sometimes are the best friends and I am thankful for each and every one of you!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Well today isn't my birthday but it is my birthday month! My birthday is actually August 20! I am wanting some early birthday presents too... I know I want these two chairs from a local antique mall and I am afraid that if I wait until my birthday they might be gone... so I think I may go ahead and buy them and then "reimburse" myself for them when I get my birthday money... how do I know I am getting money you ask? Well my mom and nanny have already told me that is what I am getting!

I am so super excited to add these new chairs to my living room!!! Ah, I do love August for so many reasons, but mainly because it is my birthday!

On a side note, how many people think I am weird because I requested that my birthday cake be strawberry cake without icing? I don't like icing so why have my mom put it on there if I am going to rake it off... Now you are asking what about Karmen, aren't y'all twins, you share the same birthday??? Well my friends we may be twins but we have never shared a cake! She has picked some pineapple something or other...

Anyways, happy birthday to US!!!

P.S. I just entered to win a set of Bummas at The Lawellin Family Blog, head on over to enter! Hurry this contest ends August 17th... three days before my birthday! Wouldn't it be a great birthday present for me to win!?!?!?!