Oww!

I went to the doctor's office yesterday to have my hand looked at. I hurt it sometime on Thursday. Doing what, I'm not sure. Anyway, it hurt on Friday but not bad enough to warrant an appointment. That and Brian was coming home from Gulfport that day and I needed to be home so that I could pick him up. I decided to give it the weekend and see how I felt. By Sunday, it was pretty bad. I thought about getting permission to go to the ER, but in the end thought that would be a bigger pain than trying to get seen on Monday. Boy was I wrong! The appointment line opens at 7am for dependents. I called at 7:02 and was nuber 10 in line. By the time I got through all the appointments were taken. The did manage to get me seen off base though that afternoon. By this time, gripping things and turing my hand certain ways were very painful. I honestly thought that I had either broken something in my hand or at the very least had a stress fracture. The doctor felt and manuvered my hand for a few minutes and didnt' feel anything to warrant an X-Ray. He said that I probably just had some tendonitis. So I can use my 800mg montrin (very sparingly since I am nursing) ice and a brace for the next two weeks. I'm supposed to take the brace off a few times during the day to do some range of motion. So later today I will be taking it off to do dishes. No dishwasher and Brian works mids so he is sleeping. That leaves me to do dishes. Anyway, here is a lovely picture of my brace.

Then and Now

I figured that since Brian has been home for a while and since Paisley is so healthy now, I'm going to post what I call the "Scary Picture". Just so you can see how far Paisley has come. This is her on the vent in the NICU and Big Baptist and then her at four months old.

What a cutie!!

Make Way For Ducklings!

OK, so there are no ducklings involved here. But it's still really cute! When mom was here, I finally got around to taking the kids to the Peabody Hotel. I thought that it was about time that I actually took mom somewhere while she visits. So we went to the hotel because the Peabody is home to the World Famous PEABODY DUCKS! That's right folks, these ducks live in the hotel. Everyday at 11am they leave there $90K "duck palace" and the Duck Master marches them down the red carpet to the lobby fountain where they play there until 5pm. Then the march is reversed. This has been going on (uninterrupted) for 70 odd years.

Here's the story: The general manager of the Peabody Memphis was going duck hunting with his buddy in Arkansas. At the time (the 40's) you could use live ducks as decoy ducks. It was an unsuccessful hunt. After drowning there sorrows, they snuck there ducks into the Peabody's lobby fountain. The next morning, when they had sobered up, there were not only surprised to see the ducks still there but also surprised at how much they were already being loved by the public. So a marketing scheme is born! They hire an animal trainer from Barnum and Bailey and the ducks are taught to march along the John Phillip Sousa's King Cotton March. The ducks are direct decendants of the original Peabody ducks.

These pictures are from the Little Rock Peabody.

Marriage Tag

Marriage” Tag--to be completed about my husband

•What is his name? Robert Brian Crow...he goes by Brian so as not to be confused with his dad who is Robert

•How long have you been together? This August 4 will be 7 years married

•How long did you date? We started dating May of 2000 and got engaged Feb 2001 and got married August 2001. So that would be one year and three months of dating

•How old is he? This year is his "golden birthday". He'll be 29 on May, 29

•Who said I love you first? I have no idea!

•Who is taller? He is, by 3 1/2 inches

•Who sings better? Me

•Who is smarter? Depends on what where talking about. Brian is much more mechanically minded than I am. I am very smart about children, and I would say we are split in other areas

•Whose temper is worse? His (he likes to hold it in and then 'splode all over the place)

•Who does the laundry? Me

•Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I don't know. In the past 5 years, around 90% of the time we don't sleep together. Either he is deployed or working mids or swings.

•Who pays the bills? Nunya!

•Who mows the lawn? Brian. I only mow it if I have no other options.

•Who does the dishes? Me (most of the time, although Brian does do his fair share every now and then)

•Who cooks dinner? Me

•Who drives when you are together? Most of the time me.

•Who is more stubborn? Me

•Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? ???

•Who kissed who first? ??? Probably me. Brian is shy.

•Who proposed? Brian. In the Wasilla Mart-Mart parking lot. We had just finished going snowmaching with Dad and Jeremy out on Big Lake.

•Who is more sensitive? Me

•Who has more friends? He does. His buddies from work.

•Who wears the pants in the family? Nunya!

Now I get to choose someone to tag: Mommy!!!

Old Pictures

This is going to be a really long post. Mainly pictures, though. So hopefully it won't be too boring or tedious to look at. We found the old digital camera the other day. (The only that Alan and Jen gave us a few years ago). There were still pictures on the memory card! Here are some good ones and the stories that go with them.

Story #1. Everyone remembers when we had rats in our attic. We finally go rid of them only to get some new tennants. Squirels. Yuck! They are way noisier and more destructive then rats. We ended up having to take part of the underside of the eve out to get rid of them. We have to fix the hole the made, too.

Here is Brian with a rake pulling down the wood after all the nails were taken out.

This would be the really nasty dead squirel.

This is the baby that we had to drive out. We got rid of him by putting up new boards and vent hole and leaving one way out. Remember, this was in the middle of the summer (I was pregnant with Lorelei at the time) and we drew him out with a bowl of water.

Here he is in Brian's duffle bag. We spent about 30 mintues chasing him around the house and then finally trapping him. We knew he was a baby, but we weren't sure if he was big enough to make it on his own. So we captured him and called animal control. They came and looked at him, said he was old enough and let him go.

Story #2. When I was preggo with Lorelei me and Houston went to Nebraska for a week. We got a good deal. Since Houston could still sit on my lap, our one ticket cost us $208. We went to Nebraska so that we would be out of the house during the worse of the bathroom remodel. Here are some before and after pictures.

Nasty! Nasty! Nasty!

Still pretty nasty.

So pretty!

This is Houston and Grandma while the bathroom was being worked on. He was just shy of 19 months. And when we were there it had been about three weeks since he had first started walking.

Story #3: Poor Houston! The pretty new bathroom and barely gotten down and Houston christened it. With his face. We were getting ready for bathtime and we was over-eager. He slipped and smashed his face just above his eye on the rim of the tub. There was a massive goose-egg within seconds. We took him to the ER. They x-rayed him to make sure that he didn't break is occipital bone. (The "technical" term would be the "eye-socket bone") No breaks, he just bruised the heck out of it. Here are some great pictures of his black eye.

Story #4: (Man! This was one busy summer for us!) We went to visit Brian's folks and went to the new Cabella's in Ft. Worth. I think that it had been open for around a month when we went there. Here are some Cabella pics and pics of Houston and his PaPa being silly.

Yes, I do realize that I am making some derranged alien face in this picture.

Have A Giggle!

With all the shopping and talking about Ikea that Jenn does, this made me giggle and think of her.

I love you, Jenn!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yeah, I know that it's only January 6, so techinally it should read "Happy Three Kings Day" but they don't make a blog layout for that. Besides, I figure that if Wal-Mart can tear down their Christmas stuff and have Valentine's Day stuff up on Dec. 26, then waiting until Jan. 6 to change my stuff to Valentine's Day isn't that bad by comparison.

Oh yeah...after Christmas sales rock!! We outgrew our little 3 foot tree. (too many ornaments), so we found a 5 foot pre-lit tree with pre-lit garland with pre-lit wreath at the BX. If we paid full price it would have been $59. We were happy to pay the advertised price of $14.95. I went to pay and it had been marked down again. So we only paid $5.90. Not bad!