quickly... Played Bunko Monday night. It was fun and I had a few drinks and a couple cigarettes. It's been so long! Anyway, I didn't win any money but I had fun anyway.

Tuesday night Mike's slow pitch team "Mid Life Crisis" played. I took the kids to watch. They did okay considering they played Fed Ex, a much younger team.

Wednesday night I began the first phase of my obsessive-compulsive ritual of cleaning my house before leaving on a trip. It drives Mike crazy, but I cannot leave for vacations unless the house is as clean as I can possibly get it. Last night I dusted and vacuumed the bedrooms and started in on the 10 loads of laundry. Tonight I will have to clean the living room and kitchen, finish the laundry and iron. Oh, and pack. Oh, and I have RCI class. I just called Sister Susan to see if I could miss. She said sure but I'd have to make it up somehow because it's an important one. Not sure what to do yet!

Anyway, this is just a quick little recap since we're leaving for Nebraska early in the morning. We'll be gone until the 4th. Ta ta til then...

father's day and baptism... We had such a special weekend. Mike's parents came in Friday night. Although they stayed in town at the Hampton Inn, we had them out for pizza Friday night. Saturday we had brunch at Dwaye's Cafe - a dive of a place but they have good, cheap breakfast. We then ran some errands and went to the hotel to use their pool. Unfortunately, the pool was freezing cold and the only person brave enough to jump in was Mike. Macy didn't even want in. Mike and I sat in the hot tub for awhile while Macy ran around and Nicholas hung out with Grandma and Grandpa. We went home to clean up and then we met the grandparents at the Texas Roadhouse for dinner.

Besides being Father's day, Sunday was also Nicholas' day. He was baptized at St. Mary Magdalene. It was such a beautiful thing to witness. They first ribbed chatechumin oil on his chest to prepare him and then later in the service they baptized him. He was awake for the oil and did okay but by the time they were to baptize him with the water he was fast asleep. Father Kelly is well know for using a lot of water in his baptisms and he didn't disappoint. Poor Nicholas was awoken to three big handfuls of very cold water being poured over his head. Yes, he cried. But he got over it pretty fast. Father also poured oil all over his head and rubbed it in. He kinda liked that. My favorite part, though, was when Father took Nicholas and held him up for the congregation to welcome him and everyone applauded. Nicky looked so cute just taking in all of the applause. I was proud.

After church we mingled outside for awhile and then went home to relax and spend a little time celebrating Father's day. Mike and his dad opened gifts. Mike got a framed picture of he and Macy fishing, a Texas Rangers hat and two tickets to a Rangers game. He was very pleased.

At 4:00 we had a small dinner and that was that. It was a nice day. I'm looking forward to the next couple weeks. We're taking off Friday for the long drive to Nebraska. We'll be there for a week and hope to spend a lot of time with family and friend. My sister Monti and her family will be there from California so I'm excited to see them, too. They haven't even met Nicholas yet!

the week in review... Even though there has been a lot going on, the week has passed slowly for some reason. Today, especially, seems to be dragging on and on. Probably because it's Friday and I'm really looking forward to the next few weeks.

We are having Nicholas baptised this Sunday. Mike's parents are on their way as we speak. It will be nice having some family at the ceremony. His baptism is very special to me. Besides the obvious reasons, it's meaningful because of my own spiritual journey of the past few months since decided to do the Catholic conversion. Although there are aspects of Catholicism that I don't necessarily feel are essential to being a christian; after competing almost 3 months of classes and learning so much, I do feel that the core beliefs and doctrines are similar to my own values and the values on which I was raised. I am, however, on the liberal and more accepting side of things. Also, I'm reading the DaVinci Code presently and find that reading that story's depiction of Christian history, be it truth or fiction, have made classes a lot more interesting.

But enough! I wanted to jot down this week's happenings before I forget...

I got a call from Ms. Connie (daycare) at 3:30 on Monday saying Nicky had a temp. I left work an hour early to pick up the kids. He did have a temp but no other symptoms so I just thought it was teething or something. He had a low temp Tuesday morning but I took him anyway. Connie kept him but said he had a temp again in the afternoon. He seemed to be fine until the afternoons. I took him again Wednesday because he woke up okay. Connie said she wasn't supposed to take him until he was fever-free for 24 hours but she would try. When I picked him up Wednesday, he was still hot! I stayed home with him Thursday and took him to the Dr. He could find nothing wrong and chalked it up to an elusive virus. All of Thursday he was fever-free so hopefully we're back to normal today.

Tuesday's placeware call from the CEO went flawlessly and, in fact, I did nothing but dial in and introduce Jacksonville to all attending. I also had a staff meeting in the morning and lunched with Sallie, Cindy at Mark at "Chubby's." That night Mike had his first softball game. Since Nicks wasn't feeling well, I stayed home while Macy went with daddy to cheer him on. They lost 8-9. Not bad for their first game!

Wednesday was uneventful.

Thursday, like I said, I stayed home with Nicky. Besides getting all of the laundry done, sending off a father's day package to Johnnny, returning a dress, and taking Nicky to the doctor (just to make sure), I also spent a lot of quality bonding time with my little baby boy. And something very special happened. I was holding him and talking to him and he was looking at me quite intently. All of a suddden he got a big smile on his face, reached out with both hands, placed them on my cheeks and pulled my face to his mouth. He was trying to eat my chin, but I like to think of it as his first mommy kiss. It was so sweet!

And here we are at Friday. As soon as this work day finally ends, I'm looking forward to enjoying company and baptismal celebration this weekend and have challenged myself to keep my diet intact. dum.......da-dum-dum-dummmm!!!!

Weekend recap... Saturday we attended my company picnic at Nichols Green Park in Jacksonville. It was also tomatofest 2005! Apparently, Jacksonville Tomatoes are world-renown. Anyway... It was hot, hot, humid, hot!!! We arrived at the picnic at 12:30 - at some yummy, scrummy DJ's bbq, took Macy around to the bounce houses (too hot to bounce on!) and basically sat in the shade and listened to the DJ and sweated until 2:00 when they had the drawing for some neato prizes. But we did not win anything and left. It felt so good to feel the air conditioning in the car. We had stripped Nicky down to nothing but a diaper and had him chew on a cold water bottle the last hour or so. He is very hot-blooded.

After we returned home and got settled in, I headed to the mall for a quick shopping spree. It's the first time I've had a spare couple hours to go spend my paycheck money. I desperately need new work clothes and shorts and everything else for that matter. But you know how it goes, when you have the money, you don't find anything and when you don't you do! I got a few things but was generally disappointed in my lack of findings.

On Sunday I went to 8:15 RCDI class. Mike had softball scrimmage at 2:00. He took Macy with him and Nicky and I went to Target to return some things. Then we went to the ball field to watch. It was hot but we found a nice spot in the shade so we endured.

And here we are on Monday morning again. I actually just finished up a couple projects and have a few more sitting on my desk. I'm nervous because tomorrow I'm supposed to lead a live placeware call from one of our CEO's and our entire supervisory staff. Luckly, I've enlisted the help of our two IT guys to help me with the technical stuff. I hope it goes smoothly!!!!

weekend recap... On Saturday we took the kids to Tyler State Park for "Kids Fish Day." Mike had bought Macy her first fishing pole last week, and not one of those little Barbie ones, either... A real big kid pole - red. She started out really interested but soon lost her interest as there was too much going on. She did the fish painting table, too. But for the most part, her and daddy fished and Nicky and I sat on a blanket and watched. We left right when it was starting to get hot.

And later that night Mike and I went on our first real date in a very, very long time. We had a wonderful steak dinner at Texas Roadhouse and followed it up by viewing Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith at the brand new Carmike Theatres. I must say I absolutely loved the movie!!! I think it's my favorite of the whole series!

Sunday we went to Church and Mike smoked pork all afternoon and we had Geoff & Edie and Nathan & Ashley over for dinner. Ashely asked me to sing in her wedding! I'm honored.

So on to my fourth week of work. Sallie will be back so things should be much less slow.

PS - Nicky's 4-month check up was last Thursday. 19.5 lbs - 26 inches. My big boy!!!

so quiet... My boss is still in Dallas. I've been pretty bored at work, but in some ways it's nice to be in a peaceful setting. They day goes pretty slow though. Yesterday I worked out over lunch and I plan on doing Pilates with a couple of the girls here today. I once again started a diet. I really need to get rid of these last 10 pounds. 15 would be even better. I'm unofficially doing the weight watcher's Points thing and have created a separate blog to track my points at www.myfriggindiet.blogspot.com. I'm hoping that publishing them will help me stay on track.

Monday, May 30, 2005
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happy memorial day... The family went for a drive to try to find a big Lake on the Texas/Louisiana Border but ended up disappointed when there were not major entryways to it. That's something we keep forgetting about Texas - Everything is SO COUNTRY! But it was a nice drive and we got to see parts of Texas that we haven't yet seen. The kids slept for most of the ride. We were all excited to stop at DJ's BBQ in Jacksonville on the way back but they were closed for the holiday. So we went home and had jalepena/cream cheese pizza.

Saturday, May 28, 2005
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my little man... Nicky had his first haircut today at the Green Acres Barber Shop. He sat so good on his daddy's lap and really seemed to enjoy it. He smiled and giggled most of the time, and, at one point, looked as if he was going to doze off. It was pretty darn cute. I got pictures and video. Now - he looks just like a little man.