Pink Hair!

You guessed it, I got pink hair! I have always wanted to do this and well I only live once. So yeah baby! If anyone needs a hairdresser, Amy at the Body Botique is awesome!

Love STory

An incredible love story has come out of China recently and managed to touch the world. It is a story of a man and an older woman who ran off to live and love each other in peace for over half a century. The 70-year-old Chinese man who hand-carved over 6,000 stairs up a mountain for his 80-year-old wife has passed away in the cave which has been the couple's home for the last 50 years.
Over 50 years ago, Liu Guojiang a 19 year-old boy, fell in love with a 29 year-old widowed mother named Xu Chaoqin.. In a twist worthy of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, friends and relatives criticized the relationship because of the age difference and the fact that Xu already had children. At that time, it was unacceptable and immoral for a young man to love an older woman.. To avoid the market gossip and the scorn of their communities, the couple decided to elope and lived in a cave in Jiangjin County in Southern ChongQing Municipality. In the beginning, life was harsh as hey had nothing, no electricity or even food. They had to eat grass and roots they found in the mountain, and Liu made a kerosene lamp that they used to light up their lives. Xu felt that she had tied Liu down and repeatedly asked him, 'Are you regretful? Liu always replied, 'As long as we are industrious, life will improve.'
In the second year of living in the mountain, Liu began and continued for over 50 years, to hand-carve the steps so that his wife could get down the mountain easily. Half a century later in 2001, a group of adventurers were exploring the forest and were surprised to find the elderly couple and the over 6,000 hand-carved steps. Liu MingSheng, one of their seven children said, 'My parents loved each other so much, they have lived in seclusion for over 50 years and never been apart a single day. He hand carved more than 6,000 steps over the years for my mother's convenience, although she doesn't go down the mountain that much.' The couple had lived in peace for over 50 years until last week. Liu, now 72 years, returned from his daily farm work and collapsed. Xu sat and prayed with her husband as he passed away in her arms. So in love with Xu, was Liu, that no one was able to release the grip he had on his wife's hand even after he had passed away. 'You promised me you'll take care of me, you'll always be with me until the day I died, now you left before me, how am I going to live without you?' Xu spent days softly repeating this sentence and touching her husband's black coffin with tears rolling down her cheeks. In 2006, their story became one of the top 10 love stories from China , collected by the Chinese Women Weekly. The local government has decided to preserve the love ladder and the place they lived as a museum, so this love story can live forever.

Luck O' the Irish

So this blog is dedicated to one of my loyal readers....Miss Kathryn, you know who you are. I love getting feedback from people and she has been gracious to give it. I too think I am hilarious.

Right now, the girls are watching Garfield the movie. Already this morning I have learned a new song on the piano (for Bubba), given a girl a bath, cleaned the carpet, changed a bed***the last few things are all because you guessed it, someone puked. I dont exactly know if she puked or just spit out water from her nighttime cup. I took the extra step and made sure to dissinfect everything just in case**** and did some laundry.

You may think that the background to my blog is just cute, that is my life. I have at least three loads to do everyday. That is if no one throws up, pees in their pants, or declares it to be clean bed and towel day. So basically five loads a day. Plus the specialty laundry. Chris requires an underarmour load a week. Dress pants and shirts to be washed and dried seperately and hung immediately and usually wears three outfits a day. I basically just do laundry all day. What a drag!

I was born to ride

A couple weeks ago, I got the opportunity to ride a horse. Not on a trail, not with someone else holding the reigns, but really ride a horse. His name is Hank (Spanky) and he really wants me to come back and ride again, or so his owner tells me. I knew that when I went to ride him I would get the full shabang as far as safety, care and instruction from my friend Stacia. She is very organized and I would have expected nothing less from her. I thoroughly enjoyed cleaning the horse shoes, brushing him and just being around. I even got the confidence to move Hank to a trot. I later paid for that with my rear end being horribly sore. I know I was not doing it right. I was bouncing up and down in the saddle. Hopefully I will have more opportunities to get better with that.

During the ride Stacia asked me what I thought. I told her, " Have you ever done something and then realized that you were meant to do that?" That is what it felt like to me. Not that I would ever be a great or professional rider, but this is something that I have always wanted to do and now that I have gotten to do it, it just felt right. I had a perma-grin on my face that evening and it was amazing to ride all over these 56 acres and watch the beautiful sunset. Thank you God for the opportunities that you bless me with and the people you put in my life!

Catcher in the Rye

So, I am compulsive about some things. I have known it for a while. I have wanted to blog it for a while, but when I sit down to do it, I have forgotten about the topic. So here it is. In the 90's there was a movie called sling blade. If I remember it correctly (I could be confusing this with another movie) the main character had several quirks about him. One of them was that he could not walk past a copy of the book, "Catcher in the Rye" without buying it. I am that way about paper and pens. I love the back to school shopping sales because I can indulge myself for a cheap price. I went and bought 16 spiral notebooks for myself to last me until the next year. Of course I dont use all of it. Some will get used by the kids. Some will be used as a birthday gift coupled with back to school crayons or markers (cheap but effective) and inevitably I will misplace some. Today I also got a pack of pens for .09 cents, some highlighters for .49 and legal pads for .19. I know I am easily amused. When I got home the girls and I got all my stuff out and I showed them how to write things and highlight them with my new colors. Ink first and then highlight. Chris may not have married me had he know about this quirk. But let me just say that I can induldge myself for about $5 a year. Not a bad obsession to have.

New Bible study

Chris and I are getting ready to kick off a new Bible study for Crossview Community church. We are really excited about this and have spent much time in prayer about what we should study first. We really love the Mark Gundor series, "Laugh your way to a better marriage" but not sure if we should lead with that. I think that the benefit of leading with that would be that it would give all members of the group a comedic take on marriage and might break the ice for this very sensitive and important topic. The downside is that I dont think there are a lot of scriptural references in all the segments. We might need to supplement the study with Bible verses that apply. I am happy to do that, just need to get prepared if that is what we are doing. ** Sidenote, for anyone out there that has not done the Mark Gungor series, do it, lead it, benefit from it. So great!***
We also just celebrated our 10 year anniversary on the 1st. It was a fun night as Chris won a free night at the Red Lion and it was a suite none the less. It was beautiful and definitely bigger than our first apartment. Also, we had our own balcony with a hot tub on it. I just sat there and thought, we dont deserve this, but thank you God. We had a living room, dining room, kitchen, two bathrooms and a seperate bedroom. So cool. Also, we got breakfast for free the next morning and that always tastes better when it is free.

Weiner

Yesterday I had a playdate with a friend who has three boys and a little girl. As most of you may know I have three of the opposite. So, while she was changing her youngest son Leilani meandered over and watched. My friend made some comment about her being confused by the weiner. Leilani said, "Weiner, can I see it?" Being the straightforward person she is, she said sure and undid the diaper for my daughter to get a quick peek. Not the approach I would have taken, but effective and I guess innocent. The mother continued with, if I have my way you will marry my son someday and be seeing a lot more of that. So funny!!! So our word for yesterday was weiner.

I got some pictures I thought you might enjoy. Leave me a comment...please.