Signs you've been on a (good) Float Trip:

You are now the owner of a flotation device for your sunglasses and your beer.

Tan: face, arms, chest, fronts of legs. Pasty white: back, butt.

Part of your party doesn't remember part of your trip.

You have cool new t-shirts

You and your family had more fun than Colt McCoy and his friends did seeing Aaron Watson at Gruene Hall.

And your sister totally knew Aaron Watson, and recognized her and talked to her (she's so cool).

You were more tired when you got back than when you left!

Meredith and Robin had the cameras on the trip so they will have to post the pictures. Maybe that will happen in the next year or or two. We had a fabulous time! Happy Birthday Robin!

Reasons I'm excited this week!

It's that time of year where I have to come up with reasons to get up in the morning. You know for example, today I'll have a Diet Coke, or today is ice cream day or if it's Tuesday or Thursday no 5th and 6th grade PE. Well, it's actually been like that for me all year this year but that would make for a REALLY long blog post.



This week is exciting for one BIG reason: FLOAT TRIP! We are going with Meredith and Ryan and Robin and Koby to New Braunfels this weekend to Float the river eat, talk, drink, and be merry! The best part is it's not going to be 73* like it's been for the last few weekends in Texas. I'm super excited!



Another reason I'm excited is I should be wrapping up Field Day plans this week, big load off my shoulders when letters go out to parents, schedules are copied, volunteers are called, etc, etc...



Can I be excited that I have a purse coming in the mail, just a little? I'm calling it my I survived this year purse, it wasn't expensive, but I did survive.



Today something happened that made me literally do 4 jumps of JOY! A bully(mean, mean, mean) got in trouble in my class today and imagine my happiness when I saw him leaving school with a school officer...bully no more hopefully.



Last weekend Jonathan, Laine and Bowen were stars in a movie! I will post more information later so I can give proper props. It's called Hello Sunshine! Pretty cool...

Numbers

1: call from the Tarrant County Health Department



1: Internet search to look up the bacteria, Shigella



2 :cases of it in our house



4 :the number of weeks one can be contagious after contracting above bacteria





127: times I've cleaned my bathrooms, doorknobs, light fixtures, remotes, etc...to try and keep everyone well.

5 million: times I've said Jeez in the last two weeks.


On a happier note I had a good Mother's Day considering we had a sick kid in the house! I went and got a pedicure, bought some flowers for my pots, went to church with Bowen, it was a good day.

An exchange of words

Dear Eye Drops:

Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh! Why do you have to in my eyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeees? I'm going to throw up.

I hate you,
Bowen


Dear Bowen:

We were sent to Earth from the plant Zorg to eat your eyeballs out with our acid, sorry we have to do our job.

Love,
Pink Eye Medicine


Dear Eye Medicine:

Oh? Daddy is going to put you in my eye? OK!

Bowen

Dear Bowen:

Don't let them trick you, I am BAD. Inside this little white bottle are daggers and poison and scary monsters. Your eyes are going to fall out, I promise, especially if your Mom puts the drops in.

Love,
Meds

Dear Stupid stuff in the bottle:

AGAIN! NOOOOOO! You are going to make my eyes fall out! And that evil woman even promised me a toy if I would sit and let her put that poison in my eyes! She is on YOUR side! Therefore I must scream every time she comes near me with the bottle or even mentions the word "eyedrop" in conversation! AAAACK! I'm going to DIEEEEEEEEE!

You STINK,
Bowen


Dear Bowen and Pink Eye medicine:

You guys are both killing me and we have 7-10 days of this crap.

Love,
Mom

A Birthday to Remember...

Happy Birthday Bowen! Hopefully, the magical 4 button has been pushed and 3, along with it's whining and crying, has been kicked out for good!

Well this weekend has been eventful to say the least, although not in the way you would hope a Birthday weekend would be eventful...

Let's see...Friday afternoon started out with Bowen having the runs, I mean I was pulling into a Wendy's on the way home from school for him to use the bathroom.

Then...he ran a 102 fever and I called the Doctor's office because you can't be too careful right now with everything that's going around (oink) and I didn't want to go around infecting the world if he indeed had something sinister.

More runs, more fever, told by Dr. to wait and see if he developed any other symptoms.

Saturday morning we added blood to his stool and I don't mean his chair. We ended up in the ER that afternoon over that because he was having stomach pain and we just had a really pitiful little boy...

We in the meantime obviously postponed our family party, found out he may have a bacterial infection, or maybe just the ever popular "virus".

Throughout all this he has continued to eat and drink, amazing. Another amazing fact is that we were in and out of Cook's in 2 count them TWO hours on a Saturday afternoon. I was expecting to be there a really long time. Thank the Lord for small blessings!

I knew he was on the mend this morning when he came into our room and exclaimed "I'm feeling better!" When all weekend all he could say is "I feel bad". Poor boy.

But wait! When we got to Mere and Ryan's house for his party we noticed his eye looked kind of red...hmmm. Now he has pink eye! Great! Can you say immuno suppressed?

We had a great party over at Mere and Ryan's! Ryan cooked some awesome burgers, we opened presents and ate cake and Bowen got to play with his presents till his heart's content! Thank goodness we hadn't planned a big party on Saturday that I would have had to cancel because Bowen got sick! Whew! I worked out great and I loved having a family party, it was perfect.

Here are some pictures of our 4 year old boy!

Hard

Sometimes stuff is just hard...

you know like when your dog can't stop peeing all over your living room hardwood floor and carpet because she is old.

when you're sitting outside and your cat runs across the street to greet you and then the neighboor drives up into his driveway and gets out of his car and your cat then runs back across the street, runs up to your neighboor and then, to the shock of the whole family, goes inside the house with him...at least he got booted out about 30 seconds later, but still. Jeez Pumpkin Batman, cut us to the bone will you?


Learning your child was unkind and had to sit in Lunch Detention.

Punshing your child for being unkind even after she had already been punished at school.

Pearland. Hard on the husband, which in turn, is hard on me.

I promise I really am not having a bad week or really even a bad day. Those things are just weighing heavy on my heart, well, except the cat one he's just a moocher, I hope he doesn't really love the neighbors, OK maybe I am worried about that a little...

This weekend Bowen turns 4, he will officially be a big kid! We are turning to family parties this year. I can't say we will do it every year but I was just dead dog tired of "big" birthday parties! They stressed me out, it got to where I didn't look forward to my own kids birthday's, that's just terrible! Jonathan and I want our kids to feel super special on their birthday without it being a circus.

These are a few of my favorite things...

I couldn't get Picasa to load all the pictures I wanted so I made a collage to get them all on here at one time! I love seeing everyone Else's favorite things here are a few of mine some are old and some are from yesterday, really!

I'll start in the middle.

Piper Sandals. Tricia and Audrey wear them and I always thought they were so cool and comfy looking. Yesterday we were at the Main Street Arts Festival and they had a booth, I tried on a pair and bought them right away. Not cheap, but totally worth it...can you teach PE in sandals? These sandals are hand made and mold to your foot bed after a couple of weeks. You can get new straps for free and have them resoled for $60. Awesome.

On top.

Stila smudge pots. I have oily eyelids and for forever my eyeliner has wound up in the crease of my eyelid by mid-morning. This is a gel liner that stays put all day, I think it's splendid, especially since it lasts forever.


On the right.

My new hair cut and color! Yeah! My hair was looking scraggly, hooray for new hair.

On the bottom.

Hope in a jar moisturizer. I use this stuff and it keeps my skin just right in terms of moisture. Not greasy, not dry, just right. In the summer I switch over to hope in a bottle since I tend to break out more in the sweaty, sweaty DWF heat.

On the left.

Multigrain Cheerios. I eat these almost every morning without fail with strawberries and blueberries. It is my favorite cereal since I had to give up Fiber One Honey Clusters because it has almonds in it.

And those are a few of my favorite things...

(are you guys singing the song in your head like I am?)

Easter Beast, I mean Best

I think someone had just said "say wiener" to try and get Bowen to smile and look at the camera. Will he ever take a normal picture again?

Williams Family looking dapper on Easter: (again Bowen with the weird pic)

Paco's centerpiece for Easter lunch:

Cascarones are always fun for Easter:

Drawn at Church this morning...

Hallelujah Christ is risen!

34, Here I come!

All the girls after brunch at Blue Mesa on Sunday:

Really good picture of Paco and Bowen:

Today is my Birthday and I was really bummed that I had to go to Open House tonight. Until I went to Laine's class and saw this:

Nice Boobs Laine!

Pictures from Abilene

Blake ridin' dirty

Two cute moms:

Bowen being mean:

Two cuties on a swing:

I went back to the Headache Clinic today and met with the P.A., I thought she was totally awesome. I love people who shoot straight with me, I don't want any beating around the bush. Here are my three main question and a synopsis of her answers:

1. Why these bad headaches now? Headache or Migraine is a disease just like Type 1 Diabetes or high blood pressure. You have had this disease all along, your body just decided it was time for it to show up big time.

2. Will I take this medicine for the rest of my life? Yes. Most likely, again Migraine is a disease just like you would keep taking blood pressure or insulin you will most likely keep taking meds for your disease indefinitely.

3. Will I ever be able to drink a Diet Coke again? Don't tell Dr. Herzog I told you this but yes, you will once your medicine gets your headaches more controlled. :)

And you know I feel really peaceful about what she had to say. I think it was because I've seen improvement in the last few weeks and with an increase in my medicine it can only get better. As long as I don't have any unrealistic expectations about these headaches just disappearing, that it's really out of my control, it's a disease not something I am or am not doing that is making my head hurt, I feel OK about taking a couple of pills a day to keep from hurting. I still believe God can heal. I'm still on the Headache diet, I'm OK with that too. It's not going to be forever, I can do anything for a little while.

Trip to Abilene

The kids and I took a Spring Break trip to Abilene last week, Mere, Blake, Robin, Linda and Reegan met us there! We took the kids to the park, went shopping, visited, the kids rode big wheel tricycles. They were completely worn out by the end of the day. Reegan was so cute with her curly hair and wanting to be a big girl like Laine. Bowen was just Bowen, most of his time was spent making sure Blake didn't get his toys (he is such a toot).

Happy, Happy, Happy!!!

As you can see Laine lost her first tooth over Spring Break! She still looks in the mirror and exclaims how excited she is that she lost her first tooth! I think it made her look even cuter if I do say so myself...

Happy Birthday Baby! Or Jonathan sure is Old now!

Today marks 36 years for Jonathan Ryan, that means in 8 days I will be 34. We celebrated last night at Central Market with Meredith, Ryan and Blake and our friends the Reinkes. I surprised Jonathan with a totally cool leather ithacus (fish, is that even the right word?) bracelet from James Avery, it's a man's bracelet I promise! Today we had Birthday lunch at Jason's Deli and will end up having cupcakes with our small group tonight at View 242 worship.

To further celebrate my favorite husband here are some things I love about him:

he can always make me laugh

he smells good

he has made some major sacrifices for our family

he is a great player with our kids

his spirituality has grown leaps and bounds and not just up, out of the box too! I love that!

he's not scared of hard work

he thinks I'm hot

we have the same views on the importance of family

As you can see I have a pretty great guy!

I have lots of stuff to post about! We had a great Spring Break!

Just a couple of Random things:

1. Since I've changed my diet I've become more aware of extra "stuff" that is put into our food. Now I'm now going to go all health nutty on you but in addition to my current diet changes I've decided to switch to Organic Milk. I felt God talking to me the other day about what is going into my kids' bodies and one thing I can switch is milk.

2. Today in church we were sitting down singing a song about standing in front of God. I can't remember which one it was now, but my natural inclination is when you sing about standing in Awe or rising up is to actually stand or rise...that's what I did. I didn't even think twice about it. I happen to glance around, I am the only one in the auditorium standing up. Come on people, you are worshiping GOD! The song is saying STAND, finally, on the second round some others joined me. I wasn't embarrassed, just amazed that no one else felt the urge to worship like the song said.

Putting our best foot forward

Let me start off by saying, this Spring Break is already better than last year by about 1,ooo% since we're not at home with Bowen helping him recover from having his tonsils and adenoids removed. I think poking myself in the eye would be a better Spring Break than that.

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from the district that the Stars were doing a Teacher Appreciation night and we could get tickets half price, awesome, I got my order in for the cheap seats of course. I received conformation from the guy that handles the special events that my tickets would be at Will Call and gave me a reference number in case my tickets weren't there at the window.

Fast Forward to last night. We rode the train over to Dallas got to the AA center extra early and made our way over to Will Call to get our tickets. Of course we went the wrong way and it took us forever to get over there. I walked to the window and gave the lady my ID and my name. She didn't have my tickets. Thankfully, I had my handy dandy reference number. She left with it and was gone for a few minutes. I wasn't worried, I just didn't know what the hold up was. All of a sudden she walks up with my tickets, and we were on our way! I looked at the tickets and this is what I saw:

OK section 220. Right. So we head to section 220, we notice that we're on the floor that has the really nice seats on it, and we show our tickets to a employee who points us off in a general direction. We see we're by the box seats and we conclude we are definitely in the WRONG place. So we take the escalator up a level and walk down a ways and go back down to see if we can get to section 220, the cheap seats because we totally don't belong with the nice seat people. Well we wind up right where we were the first time. That's when I take a closer look at our tickets:

DO you see the price tag on that ticket? Do you ????? That is exactly $100 more than I paid for it. And there were three more of those ! People pay that much for tickets! So we really were in the right place. In situations like that, my motto is just pretend like you know what you're doing. So we marched through the fancy restaurant. We found our black curtain, the nice lady held it open for us. We found our seats, they had programs on them already. We even had our own waitress. It was too much fun!

Sensitive

Today I had one of those days where I spent most of the day dusting feelings off my shoulder. Normally, I don't have issues with hurting feeling and needing to deflect them. But today was one of those days. A comment about the clothes I wear to school for my job mixed with my jewelry, actually a whole conversation about me and my clothes and my jewelry. My jewelry is cute, my clothes are what I wear for my job, I put them together and make them cute. And it wasn't even a bad or mean spirited comment, it just hit me the wrong way. Then it was feeling weird at a baby shower at a cross town school. Then it was thinking about some changes happening at my school and how it was making some people feel worried. And people who did not ask me about my ENT appointment that I had yesterday even though I had probably talked about it way too much in the days before. All this stuff usually rolls right off my back but today it stuck and hurt my feelings. I don't like having hurt feelings.

Speaking of my ENT appointment, it was not what I was hoping for. I was hoping for a quick fix! I was hoping the Doctor would look at the CT scan and exclaim "jeez, look at that HUGE cyst! We must remove that thing at once and your headaches will be gone for good!" Instead, the cyst was wimpy and as an added bonus I have a deviated septum! Oh JOY! So the dude only added to my list of issues, I don't think that's allowed at this point, subtracting only please.

Besides all that downer stuff, my head has really felt lots better the last few days! That really makes me happy! Getting my hair cut tomorrow makes me happy and my birthday coming up in a couple of weeks also makes me happy! So. I'm done with hurt feeling I just needed to get that out and over with...Oh and Spring Break makes me EXTRA happy.

Weekend in Big J

We had a great weekend in Jasper, they always go by too quickly though! As usual, Jonathan and Justin stirred up some fun by making a sled out of plywood, an old plastic pool and a rug. A sled not to be used in snow obvoisely but to be pulled behind a 4 wheeler of course!



I had a great time talking to Leslie about wedding stuff, I'm SO happy to have someone to hang out with and talk to when we go down to visit now, it's super great! Leslie told me I I needed to step it up on the blogging (not in those words so much, but you know) so here I am!



I got my MRI results back on Thursday! I know it took for-ever. My biggest fear was that they were going to call after that much time and say, "Ms. Williams, everything on your MRI looks great, no problems, we'll see you at your follow up appoinment". Because that would mean my head would be hurting for some nebulous reason still. That, however, was not the case. It seems I have a Maxillary Retention Cyst. It's a cyst in one of my sinuses that COULD be causing my headaches. I'm going to an ENT on Wednesday to get a CT scan and meet with the Doctor to see if that might be the case. If it is then I might have sinus surgery and my headaches might be cured! I'm feeling really hopeful...



I will leave you with some pictures from the 4 wheeling adventure:


NEVER MIND! STUPID BLOGGER WON'T LET ME UPLOAD PICTURES AAACK

Haircut City!

BEFORE:

ANOTHER BEFORE: note the dazed and spaced look in Bowen's eyes in all these pictures, he's not even taking any medicine right now.

DURING: Jonathan has been cutting his own hair for about 8 years now. Bowen looked like a ragmuffin and I was tired of paying too much money for a so-so hair cut just so he could watch TV while they were chopping his locks. Voila, home haircut!

AFTER: Now, he's stylin'! Still looking spacy, not on meds.

BTW, if you live near a Papas Burgers, right now Tuesday nights they have the basic Papas burger 1/2 price! Our whole family ate there tonight for less than $15!!!

I think I'm going to get better

I could write a REALLY long post on what I've learned about migraine headaches in the past two days. But it wouldn't make much sense because it's all still swimming around in my brain and it's not able to come out my mouth or my fingers and sound like I'm smart and I like to sound smart.

So a synopsis is what you're going to get:
I have had migraines all my life and not known it. From headaches around the time of my period in college to headaches from allergies and what I thought were sinus headaches, all were actually migraines. It seems some people have very low tolerance for migraines and also have lots of migraine triggers, that seems to be me. Something, we're not sure what (I have an inkling that it has something to with construction on my gym) triggered a migraine at a time what I had all sorts of other triggers in my system so my headache has not gone away because my body can't handle all that is being thrown it's way right now.

So,
Right now I'm taking a steroid pack to hopefully "reboot my brain" as my doctor told me. He is keeping on my same suppressive medication and I will see him in a month after I have an MRI which he says will show I have a perfectly normal brain. I also have to read a book called "Heal your Headache" because he does not want me to be dependant on medication to be headache free. That makes me happy, I already take enough medicine as it is. It's kind of a diet, but not a diet because you are cutting out foods and additives that are common migraine triggers. Here are a list of things that I eat or drink everyday that I have to stop eating or drinking:

All caffeine
artificial sweeteners
citrus fruits
yogurt
cheese
chocolate
peanut butter and all nuts

So I drink two diet cokes everyday, a grapefruit and and a yogurt and peanut butter toast. So, that right there tells you I am going to have to change some of my menu items, aack. But, if it means no more headaches I can give up every single one of those things. The whole list is lots longer but those are the ones that I had to stop cold turkey because why drag it out? Will I have to give them up forever? No, just until my brain stops freaking the heck out over every little thing, I think the book said 4 months.

There you have it! I hope I'm on my way to recovery, I am determined to get better. I've been a horribly frustrated, grumpy, sad person the last few weeks it's time to see a change!

On a side note I'm home with Bowen today, he caught a bit of a tummy bug he has recovered nicely. Hopefully we will have a super healthy weekend.

The Head of Headaches

I'm going to see him tomorrow! If you remember I've been having horrible problems with headaches since December, I've been on two suppressive medicines, no relief.

I finally cried about it last night and I hate it when I cry about things when I can DO something about it instead. So, I researched a doctor last night and prayed. I prayed that God would make this easy for me because I didn't think I had the strength, patience, heart, to fight for something that took months. So, I called the clinic this morning fully expecting to get an appointment sometime in April and the receptionist said "the head of out headache clinic has an opening tomorrow at 9:40". It was like the angles were harking and heralding and sun was beaming down on me! I took the appointment and tomorrow I will be talking to someone who knows a lot more about headaches than I do. Ya. Hoo.