Hey everyone!

Sorry I haven't shared much on here lately. I guess I haven't felt there was much to share. It's tax season now, so Casey spends the majority of his time at work. He works really hard and I'm proud of him. I have been spending my free time after I get out of work at the gym and doing a scrapbooking project. Not much exciting to share with the family there. Haha. We've also been going to Mason basketball games, but there haven't been very many lately- although they did kick the butt of the number one team in our division the other night and it was AWESOME. And last weekend we went to a Professional Bull Riding event. It was pretty cool to see it live, although it didn't last nearly as long as we would have thought or liked. I guess the one cool, exciting (at least to me) thing I have to share is an experience I had yesterday. It's something I have been wanting to do for YEARS and thanks to my new job, I finally got to do it.

This is my target from my first time shooting a handgun. I've been wanting to learn for a long, long time and finally I got the opportunity to take a "field trip" to the PD training center with a few of the guys I work with. It made me even more excited to get knowledgeable and learn as much as I can about the components of a handgun, the safety, and how to shoot one- and shoot it well. I guess I didn't do too bad for my first try. They expressed again how much they want me to put in my application to be an officer. Haha. Anyways, this was just really exciting for me so I thought I'd share. I miss everyone lots and hope you are all doing wonderfully! Love love, Christie

Induction..

Well, it's official, I'm and Enfield/Canaan Lioness. I was inducted last Thursday evening. For those who don't know what this means, it's a group of women who do things in the community for those in need. Part of the fundraisers they do are the Enfield Family Fair and the Town Wide yard sale for Enfield. They donate money to good causes ($500 to project grad for example) and I hope to be a big part of that.

Me Again

I know I said I was done, but I figured out how to post my pictures from my phone.
This is the Frozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity.

This is at a place called the Automat where they serve food like burgers and chicken fingers out of little coin operated vending machines. It was all bright pink and kind of futuristic. The boys had a blast. This would be a sweet album cover if we were a band. This was right across from Kyber Pass.

Remember Me

Hey, it's Karen. I know I've been a stranger lately, but I've been super busy. I have a crazy semester, but it's the last one, so YAY! Well, I am mainly here to post about my trip to New York. The last weekend of break before I had to come back to school I went to NYC to visit some friends from the circus and I had a BLAST. I was there from Sunday night to Wednesday and fit about as much as I could have possibly imagined. I went to some cool places (usually involving food) like Serendipity, which is a famous cafe that serves the famous Frozen Hot Chocolate, which was delicious. We also went to the Magnolia Cafe which is also famous (for yummy cup cakes). Other places we went were a cool Japanese barbecue restaurant, Burritoville and Khyber Pass which is an afghan restaurant with hookahs, which is basically flavored tobacco. It was my first time, and it was really fun. We ended up being there for like four hours, it was great. Unfortunately, a lot of the pictures I took were from my cell phone and I'm not sure I can upload pictures from there, but I will if I figure out how. Here are a few.

This is from the Guggenheim museum, which was just ok, but we figured out this is where Will Smith chases the alien in the first scene of Men in Black, which is pretty sweet.

This is Washington Square Park, just something I thought everyone would recognize.

This is my artsy picture at Khyber Pass, the Afghan place. I had a Red Mimosa (Champagne with cranberry) which was yummy and a slice of cheesecake (we had just eaten at the Japanese place, so I was pretty full)

A good story of my trip involved being accosted by an angry Italian guy. My post is pretty long already, so I'll give the condensed version. We were walking along the street and this guy was talking to the girl in Italian. The girl said "I'm telling you, I don't speak Italian!" My friend (Toy Store, whom I adore) decides, jokingly, to say in a loud voice the only Italian word he knows, which I can't spell, but in english is the F word. Well, we keep walking and I hear the guy yelling at us in Italian behind us and next thing I know, we're at the corner of the street and he is right behind us and goes up to my friend who uttered the expletive, right in his face and starts yelling at him in his strong accent "You got something to say to me? You want to say something to me, you say it to my face!" And on and on and my other friend had to separate them, saying it was just a joke, he was joking. Finally the guy backed off because Toy Store (a nickname given at the circus, in case you were wondering) backed away. The best part was that he was SO italian. He had the black slicked back hair, with the first couple of buttons undone on his shirt, revealing his chest hair and a cross necklace. I found the whole incident very entertaining. There is one other wonderful story, which I will tell at a later time because I've so far written a novel, and I shall give you all a break, but I just wanted to check in and touch base with everyone about my life. More to come later!

just so everyone knows, I have cervical cancer and I'm going to do radiation so I wont die.





ok, it's not cancer. but it could be if I dont get it fixed. It's actually called high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions. me and mom checked it out online (if you decide to also, don't look at the images, they are disgusting). But I'll be ok I suppose. That's it.

MORE ON ME!!

Just cause theres not much going on on here and I'm pretty excited about this...
I got together with George and Luke ( vox/guitar and drummer for the band) on Monday, and we kicked our bassist out of the band. I will now play bass, and will be using one of our friends' bass until I can get one of my own. We have about 25 songs written and will be going through them to decide which ones we will use and which ones we won't. Some are from the first time around, but most of them are new. hopefully we will be practicing soon and will be able to record some so I can share with those who may be interested.

There isn't much news on the landscaping bussiness, we haven't been able to get together about that, but hopefully soon!

and well seeing how I'm eighteen now, I figured i'd say I didn't realize how big of a pain it is... I get constantly asked to buy cigarettes for people, or lottery tickets (i do neither) but It's starting to get old...

Anyhoo... That's what's going on at this point...

Are You There??

How about saying hello?

GODPARENTS!!!!!!!

Finally justin and i have come to an agreement on who is going to be our babys godparents. now honestly it was easy for the godmother who is going to be jenn. we think that she will take it seriously and i have always wanted her to be it so there was no hard decisions for either of us because i was already settled and justin agreed. as for the godfather man was that hard to choose the only reason was because justin wanted to pick but i knew that if it was either of the two he chose it wouldnt of been taken seriously they would just think it was a name and thats it. well then i threw a couple of people out to him and he choose one of them so our babys godfather is going to be kyle. i am very excited and when i asked him and jenn they both were very excited kyle even called people on his fathers side to tell them. i think that justin and i have made really good decisions and now i have to do more baby planning. oh geez so much to think about. so much planning but i say just take it one step at a time. love all of you and miss everyone!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday, DJ!

Remember when he was small?

Now he's not, he's 18 after all!

I just want to say that I love you and Happy 18th!

Love, Mumsie

home

hey guys made it back safe and sound. i was just looking at the orders the have available to me and saw 4 chances to be in virginia and 1 being in bahrain. i am gonna ask for the bahrain first, then pc crew kilo, lima,and india(all three of those are little creek virginia), then to norfolk as a last resort to CG 55 the Leyte Gulf. yes this means there is a 75% chance of me staying in the military. just figured i would let you all know.

Brunch

Well, here's a couple of pictures from the family brunch we had on Saturday morning. I thought I had taken more pictures, but I guess not. lol. And, I didn't even take one of Nathan!!! God....I'm out of my element I guess.lol. Well, anyways, I hope you all enjoy the three pictures I did manage to take! I really like the one of Mammie, she was pretty happy to see the family.

Just to keep you all updated on my life..

I am still with Erin. 2 months on Tuesday. :D
I am still doing the whole band thing. our name is The Church Street Chaps ( for those of you who don't know this was inspired by a name given to me by Danny from RCR). At this point I am pklaying Guitar and am backup Vox. My friend George ( he's been mentioned before, as he is Lexi's brother) will be lead Vox and guitar. We have a bassist Chris who may be leaving due to the fact that the drummer we want wants me to play bass instead. I am fine with this considering i want to learn to play bass as well.

Also, I recently talked to Will, (some of you know who he is, others should have heard of him before) and a couple of my other friends. We are planning to start a landscaping bussiness. it wil be P.R.B. Landscaping ( Phillips, Robillard, and Bausch). We have made a few plans at this point including our having uniforms, advertising, a website, and we will be able to get many jobs. We all know people who will put out a good word for us and will have people come to us for work.


Anyhoo....
I just felt like updating everybody on what's happening in my life.

hope to talk to you all soon!

-DJ

Nate's last night at Home

We took Nate out to Mohegan Sun for dinner at the buffet. It was his choice out of many places to go. Really it works because there is such a variety that we all had food we enjoyed, seconds if we wanted. It gives us a chance to taste something new, and if we don't like it, we don't eat it all. (My fish, for example was too salty.) You know what I just remembered, we were all going to use different colored text to tell who is posting. Should I be doing that? Hmmm.....

Here is a picture that I pushed for, I just wish I had that smiling photo camera that Jenn was playing with this morning.

All my Chickie's in a row :)

Anyway, we had a pretty good parking spot, given that one garage was full, and the one we parked in was getting there. Apparently Ozzie was in the house. :) As we left the elevator to go to the car, there was a guy unloading a bunch of folks by the entrance. He asked if we were parked too far away, and I said "No, just over a couple of rows." He followed us over, and as I was pulling out, Brian kept asking "Did you see that guy's mustache?" "I think I want to collect mustache's. Mom you should go back so we can get that guy's picture of his mustache, it was so cool." So, much to the boys surprise, I turn back at the end of the row, and we met up with him. I rolled down my window and asked him if that was a good spot, and he said "yes", then I told him that Brian wanted to ask him something, and when Brian made his photo request, the guy smiled big for the picture. It was a hoot.

I wanted to add this photo, too. It was just so sweet. I love to watch when the boys carry Ruth in. It reminds me of when I was small. I remember being carried by my sisters. I just love to watch them, and I know how much Ruth loves her big brothers. This shows just how much they love her, too.

sorry i havent put anything on the blog latley but my life isnt really that exciting but i just want to say hi to everyone anyways. christie has a good pic of us on here, but anyways hi to everyone and thats it nothing serious like i said I just live a boring life.

Aunt Kathy is a big loser.....

Hey Sam! I don't know why I missed stopping by the blog yesterday to be reminded it was your birthday!

So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! I love you! What a year it will be!

And, Beth.........one out of the teen years......one to go!

Here's Another One!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM!!!!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM!Love and miss you! (all of you!)

Just wanna say.......................Happy BirthDay SAM!!!!!!!!!

look what I found...

in the bottom of my STOCKING! Yes, indeedy, my youngest daughter found this at Newburys and knew that it had to be mine. I haven't seen it in a couple of weeks but it's definitly one of those gifts that could turn up anytime, anyplace!

It is quite disturbing, but fun!

NEW MEMBER OF FAMILY!!!

well it hasnt arrived yet but IM PREGNANT!!! im very excited and i know that it is going to be alot of work and it is going to change my life tramendusly but i am ready as i can be for it. i am very excited (even though im going to about burst for christies wedding sorry) but other than that i really think that i can do it i mean i have alot of support and everything and justin is excited to and i think that this is going to be a huge step in our relationship but i know we can do it. i have a good feeling that he wont be one of those dead beat dads (like his brother) i think that he will help me as much as possible. i know alot of you are wondering if we are going to get married and we are not really ready for that step and we are not going to get married just because of our baby but if the time comes then we will talk about it but as of now we are not going to! so that is the scoop on that and i know it isnt really a surprise about it but i thought i would just share it. oh yea i have my first baby apointment on thursday so i will let everyone know how that goes and right now the aproximate due date is august 24th. so i will keep everyone posted on that! oh and i am not smoking anymore i am on the patch witch is alot safer for the baby and i will be off the patch within about a month! love everyone and thanks for everything!!!

home

just figured i would let you all know that i got home safe friday night

Cabinets and countertops!

Casey and I went to see the condo today and it has cabinets and countertops in the kitchen and bathroom- which was very cool to see! There were other small things that were exciting too, like door knobs and the temperature control, haha, but cabinets and countertops are the best. Here are some pics!

SOLD! :)

my movie

let me know what you all think

More Family Christmas pics...

DJ asked if I could send people more pics, but rather than do that, I'll just upload them here. There really aren't many more- I guess I was having too much fun to take pictures- but here are a few. The one of Kyle and I on the sled was originally in the first post, but somehow it disappeared when I published. Love and miss you all!

And also....

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I win!!

:P


hope you all enjoy it!