To which he replied, “I’m not a nerd, I’m a computer geek!”

Ahhh… at least he knows who he is

I think it’s safe to say that we’ve been through the best and the worst of times, but we’ve always managed to do it together. Someone asked me last month how we manage to stay happy together and it’s not an easy question to answer. I think the big thing is that we laugh together – a lot. We laugh at ourselves, each other and at our own inside stupid jokes. If we are angry, we usually say what we have to say and move on – agreeing to disagree. We argue, but usually about stupid stuff.

More importantly, he lets me win a good bit. Hey, he’s not stupid, right?

Happy anniversary, Tom. Love you, babe!

But this… this was COOL. At 7am, I was picked up by a friend, we were going to go downtown to a meeting and come back before it started getting nasty. Heh, Yeah, we made it less than 5 miles in 45 minutes so turned around and had breakfast together, where we sat by a window and watched the sleet turn into big fat snowflakes.

I think that was the coolest thing, I didn’t realize that snowflakes get that big, it was like fluffy quarters falling from the sky.

The kids were allowed outside a few times yesterday, but well… as you see, I went and got them a couple of hours early. The snow was looking melty and well, I wanted to play It snows here once every 8 years or something, I doubt they missed much.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Poor kids, we made them come in every 20 minutes or so, their little hands were red. We simply don’t have winter gear here. *laughing* We put socks (went through a LOT of pairs too) on their hands, but it was wet snow, so it only helped a little. We did find some gloves for Cassie eventually, but they got wet too. Jamie insisted on wearing shorts after his pants got wet from snow. Cassie even got to make a snow angel. How fun is THAT?

Anyway, some photos… I have more, but my card reader won’t turn on and I can’t figure it out (where’s my tech guy???)

After the kids and I got home, I took a quick call (while the kids made a mini snowman and played), we had a snowball fight (which I lost MAJORLY), Cassie and I made a little snow person family on my windshield

The kids HAD to eat snow too. Just required. Nope, not yellow

By the time Tom made this with Cassie and the girl next door, it was mostly sleet bound together with snow and a little melty, but they did it! We also weren’t prepared for snowmen so the hair was from Halloween a few years back, the scarf is one a friend made me (thanks, Dy!), the mouth and nose were cheetos, the eyes were hershey’s kisses and the buttons were M&Ms. *laugh* Hey, do what you gotta do!

The school started 2 hours late this morning, so we got up 30 minutes late (Jamie has TONS of homework/corrections to do before Friday, poor kid). Tom made eggs and bacon and we enjoyed watching the snow start to melt.

It’ll be 55 today and 60 tomorrow. Ahhh… Austin.

Took kids outta school early for… Uh… Doc appt?

One quick client call and them I’m totally in on the snowball fight (we can actually make a few!)

And yes those are socks on their hands… we don’t have mittens cuz ya know… it’s Austin, for crying out loud!

That noise is water in the rain gutters… lotsa sleety rain this morning before the purdy snow hit.

Update: Took another one when it started coming down harder… wondering if I can sneak out with my camera…

It says:

February 12, 2010

Dear mom,

Happy valentines!!!!! I love you so much. You help me make my lunch. You are my hero always.

Love,
Cassie

I won’t tell the whole sorted story (no, I wasn’t pregnant, that came 7 years later) but we got married the day after I turned 18 and a few days later got on a plane and moved from South Carolina to Hawaii. How my mother didn’t smack me and tell me I was the stupidest child on the face of the planet… well… I don’t know. Obviously, it wasn’t a mistake, but I think back to how badly it could have turned out. I mean, I was a kid, he is just a few years older than me. WHAT were we thinking? Oh yeah, we were in looovvvveeee… *laugh* And yes, we were. Yes, we are. But still… I wonder…

I am the luckiest woman I know though. All these years later, and we’re still together, still in love – moreso I think, still write silly little notes (although instead of paging 143, I text it to him now and then), we still argue (never about big stuff like, always little stuff – like brands of mustard – you’d think we would have figured this out by now, right?), we still laugh, we still cry…

But I also look back over the past 17 years in awe. How much our lives have changed, how things morphed several times over the years. We went from being nearly dirt poor living in Hawaii, to being pretty well DINKs living in Hawaii, to being happily living DINKs living in Austin, to having two of the most beautiful and wonderful children in the entire world, to… well, where we are today. And everything in between. I remember his face when I told him I was pregnant (no screaming “but you were on the pill!”) the first time. I remember supporting him through the closure of his business and him supporting me through the treacherous growth of mine.

I remember my mom telling me when I was kid that I am so darn independent. She’s right, but I’m also very dependent on my husband, who really has been through everything with me. In some weird way, we kind of grew up together. I mean, I was 18, he was 21 when we got hitched. We made some really stupid mistakes, but we managed to get out of them together. We made some really wise decisions (and let me take credit for them) *laughing*

My point? I do look back all those years ago and wonder… what would be different if I hadn’t decided to get married? Would we still be together? Would we have grown apart? Can you even have a relationship that spans 6000 miles? I honestly don’t know. We were probably too immature to have made it work, if I’m being honest. I don’t regret even a second of it though. Tom is the love of my life and I don’t know what I’d do without him.

To you, Tom, thank you. Thank you for being persistent (3 months just to get a date!). Thank you for making me feel special, for making me feel like I am the most important thing in your world, and for making me laugh (gosh, I hate this part!). Thank you for sharing in our own little weird private jokes, for always being there when I need a shoulder, for always chipping in when I think I may be on my last ounce of sanity, and for always supporting my weird “yeah, let’s do this!” ideas. Thank you for picking up the slack when I drop it, for fixing things when I break them, and for laughing with me when we both screw up. Thank you for being you, for who you were, for who you are and for who you will become. I promise I’ll be right there with you for the rest of our lives.

(okay and to make a sappy post even more sappy, I thought about tacking on Have I Told You Lately That I Love You by Rod Stewart since that was closer to 1993, but Stand By Me… well, always makes me think of my hubby)

(Oh, and this is a good version of Stand By Me too. Love John Lennon’s version and this video is so well put together, check it out)

So, a very very big happy birthday to my little girl.

The the past month, she’s been talking about getting her ears pierced. Every day for about 10 minutes she’d come to me and she’d go back and forth about if she wanted to do it and what would happen and if it would hurt and she’d decide yes or no… yes, it was exhausting. I told her on Monday that we could do it that week if she wanted but it was her decision and I wasn’t going to make her or forbid her to do it. If she wanted it, she had to take the initiative to get it done. Either way, we had to go to the mall on Tuesday to get her a new necklace chain because the old one broke and I wanted to get her a nice one since she’d proven she could take care of it. We visited Icing (a Claire’s knock off and the only place I could find that could do both ears at once) and Cassie backed out. The lady said someone else would be there so they could do both ears at once at 4pm, but that was 45 minutes away.

We left, her saying she didn’t want to do it. About 3 minutes later she proclaimed she wanted to go back at 4pm because she wanted them done. So, I figured we’d finish homework, spend an hour in the store and get or not get her ears pierced and eat dinner at the mall. I was pretty sure she’d back out again. But she said she wanted to go and wanted everyone with her.

So we did home work and off we traipsed. She got in that store, found the pink sparkly daisy earrings and proclaimed she was going to do it. That was it. She sat in the chair, gripped her stuffed turtle and… started to meltdown. I kept telling her we could leave and she didn’t have to do it if she didn’t want to, but she was hysterically crying “I want to! I want to!” but the lady was telling her that they couldn’t do it if she didn’t hold still and she was hysterically crying that she wanted to but wouldn’t hold still. She then decided she wanted just one ear done at a time and then started crying that she wanted to, but wouldn’t hold still. I was about ready to leave, but the lady behind the counter was AWESOME.

Oy vey. 30-60 minutes later… she finally held still, crying the whole time… that is, until they actually pierced it and she stopped and kinda looked at me like “oh”. She let them do the 2nd one and it was done. Serious drama, people. She looked at them, smiled and hopped down to find some earrings she can wear when she gets to take these out. That was it. Yeah, I know.

Her ear was red for about 30 minutes and she’s had no problems with cleaning or turning them.

I also want to know when they got all these pretty piercing earrings! I had some boring gold ball things when they did mine! She insisted on wearing barrettes yesterday to school so that everyone would see her new earrings. Show off much?

Today should be crazy, I have a meeting at lunch, then I have to rush back, take cupcakes to her class, come home, do their homework, then she wants to go out to dinner at Mesa Rosa, but we’re going to have to go insanely early because she has violin lesson tonight. Plus she has a gift to open from Jamie yet. Oh and I have clients that actually want me to work. *gasp* How dare them?

Oy.

BUT… Happy Happy Birthday, little girl… you are the bestest little girl in the whole wide world. Your mom and dad are very proud of you!