Crazy Two Weeks!

This has been a CRAZY two weeks for me and David! We are happy to announce that we are now business owners. We finalized everything this past Thursday. David will give notice at his current place of employment and very shortly will be running our company. The company is a cafe inside of Shelton State Community College called "Poppy's Cafe". We are definitely excited that everything has worked out so far, but we know we have a TON of work ahead of us.

In addition to running Poppy's, David and his friend have gone into partnership to start a FANTASTIC new catering busines. If you know anyone who needs a good caterer, you know one now. :) The name is "a tavola Catering" and we are all really excited to get going.

This weekend I went to Birmingham to pick up my step-sister Lindsey. She is staying with me and David for the week. I will take her back on Friday (my first off day since we went to the beach). I got to hang out with my sister, Bonnie and the fam. I always have fun with her and her kids. The picture below is one from a couple weekends ago. Aren't those the cutest kids ever! I know, I'm biased. I can't say there is much more in the world that I love more than having all three of those kids in my lap. They are the best!

This is a little video of the slip and slide fun. Sorry the feed is a little slow. Kids crack me up!

Update on the car: My poor baby had major surgery. She now has a brand new clutch. She is happy, but my wallet is not. She drives like new now though. I guess I'll keep her around a while longer.

Back from the Beach

We are back from our little beach trip now. It was very relaxing. We got to Gulf Shores around 1 am and fell fast asleep.
We had a leisurely lunch at King Neptunes the next day and then headed to Target because we realized we had forgotten our beach chairs. Wow...those boogers are expensive.

Us finishing lunch and getting ready to head to the beach.

Anyway, we spent he majority of the afternoon sunning and playing in the ocean. At one point, we saw a bunch of little, silver fish flipping and making splashes in the water all around us. We started moving toward the shore, just as a little boy commented, "That's a shark". Yes...we did swim with the sharks, well shark, on our vacation. We couldn't see it clearly, but you could definitely see the medium sized dark spot swimming just under the water. When we felt like we had baked enough at the beach for the day, we went back to the house we were staying at to clean up and get ready for our evening adventures. We ate dinner at Ribs and Reds. I DON'T recommend it. It honestly was the worst restaurant experience I've had in several years! Maybe they'll get the hang of it before the summer is over.
After dinner, we went to The Track.

Having a grand old time at The Track and killing time while waiting FOREVER for service at Ribs and Reds

The Track is a family fun park and arcade. We intended to ride go carts, but got side tracked and spent all of our time and money playing arcade games. Winning tickets is addictive and I beat David at air hockey! That is probably the only sport I'll ever beat him in. Since it was well past sunset when we finished at The Track, we decided to walk the beach along the Perdido Pass with flashlights and observe all the critters of the night. We saw some pretty big crabs skittering around and David had fun trying to catch the fish out of the surf.

On Thursday, we went to Waterville Waterpark. It is a pretty small park, but we had a lot of fun. We rode most of the rides twice and somehow I managed to get David on the Lazy River for at least four times around.

We finished our evening with dinner at Sea and Suds...an oldie, but goodie when it comes to restaurants. I don't think you can beat the view when it comes to restaurant choices.

The view from the balcony at Sea and Suds

Of course David gushed all over the condos and I know I will be hearing all about how we need to buy one for the next few weeks....NOT gonna happen anytime soon!

David's brothers, Joe and Richard, agreed to stay at our house and tend the zoo until we got back. In exchange they got to eat all of our food, do their laundry and watch free cable. Not a bad deal in my opinion. :) Richard called on Thursday evening to let us know that my car was broken....again, I might add. Hopefully we will be able to drive it to the shop for them to look at it on Monday. I think it is more likely that it will have to be towed. Something is wrong with the clutch. Ahhhh! I really like not having a car payment, but I am starting to think maybe this baby is at the end of it's life. We'll see what the car docs have to say.

Busy Bees

Boy, I am a busy bee today! I hit the ground running this morning. I have a ton of stuff at work to tie up before I leave for the rest of the week and with Larry's passing, that added more to do yesterday, so I am still playing catch up. Thankfully, my Mother-in-law graciously helped me with the dogs yesterday. She and her friend took the dogs to a wonderful vet in town, who agreed to take care of the dogs until other arrangements can be made. That saved me the biggest headache in the world! Five dogs in a house is absolutely TOO MANY! I have all my lists in place and I'm ready to get stuff done! Maybe all the exclamation points are from one too many cups of coffee this morning. :o) All we have packed so far is bathing suits. I guess that's really the most important thing at the beach, but, of course, I made a list for all the rest of the stuff we need. I have a shopping list for all the stuff we are about to run out of. I haven't had time to go the grocery store in way too long! I think we can squeeze one more brushing's worth out of the toothpaste container, if we are lucky that is. David washed all the laundry last night and started cleaning up the house. I am such a lucky girl! I am so ready to be past all the getting ready and actually BE on the vacation!

Appreciate Each Moment

This morning has been pretty crazy. I got a call from David, who heard through the grapevine that there were several sherrif's cars at my neighbor's house. My neighbor, Larry, was an elderly man who lost his wife several months back. They were from out of state and only lived in Alabama for a couple of years. I called Larry's cell phone and one of the officers answered and informed me that Larry passed away. I asked about Larry's dogs and told them I would come home and take the dogs to my house. Larry and Linda never had children, instead, they had border collies. Allie and Jesse were their babies. I think they were actually the puppies of the previous dogs they owned. The police were having a hard time locating the next of kin, so I'm hanging on to the dogs until they do, at which time, I will either give the dogs to the relatives, or I will need to find homes for them. I already have three dogs. I really can't do two more. I can't say that I'm surprised he is gone. He hasn't done well since his wife got sick and after she passed, his health deteriorated a lot more. He will be missed. He was an incredibly nice man and always had a smile and a wave as we passed. We got to talk a few times over coffee or a coke and I enjoyed our conversations.
I am sad for his family's loss, but more so, I am reminded that our time on this earth is fleeting. Every second we breathe is a precious gift from God. It can't be re-lived. Our life is not a dress rehearsal. This is the real deal. Have you told your family and friends that you love them? I don't get to tell mine nearly enough how much I value them and love them from the very depth of my heart. Please keep the family of Larry Cascino in your thoughts and prayers.

Crazy Kids

Well, this weekend was relatively uneventful. David and I worked most of the weekend. We did get to spend some quality time together Sunday morning. We had breakfast at lunchtime at Cracker Barrell and then my sweet husband took me shopping for a new bathing suit for our beach trip. We both ended up getting a new suit so we would each have two with us. There are few things worse than putting on a cold, still wet bathing suit because you don't have another one with you.

Saturday, after I finished working, I drove over to my sister's house to spend time with her and her kids. They were hillarious, as usual. They jumped on the trampoline for a while and then I got the racquets and racquetball out of my trunk. After a stern lecture about sharing and reinterating a couple times that I would take the racquets away if they couldn't take turns, they ran off and played until the ball ended up on the roof of the house. I laughed when they came to tell me the ball was on the roof because that is always where our balls ended up. It was like getting new toys all over again when my Dad fetched all the toys from the roof.

I love spending time with my sister. My Mom and Dad used to yell at us for fighting when we were little and told us over and over again that God put us to together, as sisters, because he intended for us to be best friends. Our parents were right. Just like all adult siblings, we've had our ups and downs, but I thank God that he sent me Bonnie. She truly is a best friend.

After giving and getting lots of hugs and kisses, I headed back home. It was a good trip.
Shelby wanted a picture with their dog so bad :) She was trying to make him smile.

New Beginnings

Here it is....our first blog. Well, it's my first blog really since when I told David I thought it would be fun to start a blog, his response was, "Why?". I thought this would be a good idea because we are crazy busy all the time, but I'm almost always online. So even though, I don't always have time to talk on the phone, I can keep an update available to those people who care to be updated on the goings on of mine and David's lives.
Our newest news is that we are going to the beach in 6 days! I didn't think we would be able to work out a beach trip with our schedules of late, but a very dear friend of ours offered us the use his beach house, in Gulf Shores, for a few days. We really wish they could have been there too. They are always fun! We will be leaving late Tuesday night and coming home on Friday morning. I am super excited....I love the gulf! The beauty of the ocean is the only thing I miss about living in Florida. When I would drive over the bridge from Fort Walton to Destin, the color of the water, the smell of salt and the sound of crashing waves never ceased to take my breath away. Of course, I was busy driving to work so we could afford to live down there, so it was rare to get to hang out on the beach. That is the down side of living in a tourist area. We love being back in Tuscaloosa. We have been back now for nearly five years and we are nice and settled in now. We have great friends and love being close to David's family, now that they have moved back to Tuscaloosa also. Well, I guess that is all for now.