I almost forgot what today is!

I can't believe I almost forgot what TODAY is! Today is Safin's 3rd Birthday! And I should know since I'm the one who "gave" him that birthday. The first time I took him to the vet they "guessed" he was about 4 weeks old, so we looked back and it meant the last week of July or first week of August. I picked July 31st so he too would be awesome and have a July Birthday :)

Happy Birthday Safin!!!

Full House ...

It was a full house this weekend in West Palm as everyone managed to make it down to see Uncle Henk and Aunt Valerie from South Africa. Pat picked up Sarah Friday and Phil and I flew down Thursday afternoon. Mom and dad were sick with a virus and "quarantined" themselves for the whole weekend so that no one would get sick. I barely talked to my mom the whole weekend, which was weird because we usually do a lot of stuff together when I come down. Phil and I were loaded with Vitamin C and Airborne the whole weekend, but it worked and we still remain virus free. Thursday night we went to La Fogata and had some Mexican food and beers, then Friday night we went to Chili's with Pat and Sarah. The Chili's in West Palm has 2 for 1 drinks (on everything!) For some reason I thought the 2 for 1 wouldn't count for my Pina Colada's but I was wrong ... darn, ahh they were fabulous and I felt lovely after dinner. The four of us went to the movies and saw Introducing Chuck and Larry which was a pretty funny movie. Saturday included a trip with Pele to the beach, a tennis match, and some mouth watering ribs! Sunday Phil and I were supposed to depart West Palm, but after sitting at the airport for 6 hours our flight was cancelled. Phil managed to skip the line in the terminal and went straight to ticketing to get us booked on the early flight leaving Ft. Lauderdale Monday morning, what a stressful day! After waking up at 5 am, we finally got back to Atlanta around lunch yesterday to a very vocal Safin, lots of Young and Restless to watch, and no food in the house.

Here's to a nice weekend with family :)

2 for 1 drinks ...

Phil got Pele a UGA toy, but Zorro was the one who claimed it, I love this face he made when I asked him "who likes the GA Bulldogs"? ...

Tennis Anyone?

Saturday afternoon all the big guns showed up to play some tennis. Even though this was only Uncle Henk's second or third time ever he was actually very good for just learning how to play and we all had a fun time. Even Pat made an appearance to blast some forehands and serves. We started off playing some doubles, phil and I vs. dad and uncle Henk. Yes even Phil played with wrapped up knee and everything! My mom snapped a picture of him goofing off playing left handed. Phil sat out after a few games (not to overdo it) and Pat took his place for a little DeJong vs. DeJong's. Pat then paired with Sarah when I retired and they took on dad and Uncle Henk. It was a fun time and we all got our exercise in before stuffing ourselves with dad's famous ribs ... yum!
Here are a few of my favorites :)

Dogs Day at the Beach ...

I'm starting with Pele, even though this is "out of order" from our trip to West Palm this past weekend. Taking Pele to the beach is always one of the fun things I like to do when I go home, and I know Phil enjoys it too! Pele LOVES the beach!!! All you have to do is say "do you want to go the beach" and his ears perk up and he starts to run around in circles like what kind of stupid question is that! We wanted to go on Friday but it rained on our parade, thankfully Saturday was beautiful so we finally made it and had a great time :)

Is it Thursday yet?

I don't know where the day went yesterday, I was in and out of the office and got so much accomplished, while today is a totally different story ... is the clock going backwards or is it just me? For some reason I've decided to be completely stressed out, about what? Well what am I not stressed out about!?!?!?! I have a laundry list of to-do's for work and for life in general and it just seems to be getting longer and longer with no end in sight and no motivation to get anything accomplished. I have to apologize to my wonderful husband who's probably inadvertently been feeling the brunt of it ... sorry :( Starting now ... well after this blog I'm going to start tackling it all ... one check mark at a time!
On the bright side I'm looking forward to a half day on Thursday and a trip to West Palm. Although sometimes the weekends home bring drama and tension, but I'm looking forward to seeing my dads relatives from Holland and also to just escape Atlanta for the weekend. Hopefully Phil's knee will be feeling alright for the airport, if not we'll have to get a wheelchair and then I think you get to go in your own special security line ... sweet :)
So until Thursday I can only think back to the last time I was totally and completely relaxed ...

Cheers!

Calling Nurse Melissa

So today my wonderful husband had knee surgery! eek! I was nervous all day for him, even though he seemed so calm and casual about it all. I guess just the word "surgery" makes me nervous because of all the major surgeries my mom has had. Phil's was nothing like my mom's massive re-builds, he was in and out in a few hours and if it were up to him he would of been out sooner. They kept him in "recovery" longer than he would of liked. Apparently he kept badgering the nurses to "release him" because his awesome wife (moi) had got him NCAA Football for x-box and he wanted to go home and play, he was also demanding Kani House our favorite Japanese place for dinner ... ahh take out - my specialty! Then I again if I hadn't eaten all day I would of demanded that meal too. yum. Anyways should be a relaxing weekend of recovery (for Phil at least) ...

The knee ...

And the x-box game with the custom GA cover Phil printed out:

And Safin who always has "relaxing" weekends on his scratchpads ...

Why didn't I think of these?

I found these online today and they really made me laugh. I have to say when I initially wrote out my Thank you list for my mom's party I dreaded having to write all of them (only 30-something). I almost wished I could get those "fill in the blank" thank you card's that little kids write:

"Dear ___, Thank you for the ___. It's awesome! Love, ____"

Well apparently they do make Wedding Thank you cards just like that, and if I would have had the big huge wedding I might of seriously considered these. Also I think Phil could of handled helping me fill out some of them ... maybe :)

Click on the image to make it appear bigger so you can actually read the check marks:

South Africa

My Aunt and Uncle from South Africa are finally in the United States (for the first time ever)! Well of course my dad's brother isn't "from" South Africa, he's from Holland but his wife is from South Africa and they moved to Capetown a few years ago. They live a few hours outside the city in a town that escapes me right now, but from the pictures it looks just beautiful. I'm so excited to see them next week, its been almost 7 years since our last trip to Holland and I know my dad was missing his family a lot. With all the health issues with my mom isn't been almost impossible to bring up the words "vacation". I hope this visit will stir the pot and get a return visit (from us) in the works. I could def. go for a trip to Holland or South Africa right about now. I'd love to show Phil Holland and all the wonderful things (and food) that I love about the country. I also think he would like to see our friend, Alex (who lives there) one day again too. But then on the other hand none of us (my family included) have ever been to South Africa so that would be a totally new adventure. For now I can only dream that 2008 will bring some major traveling and an excuse for me to buy a super nice digital SLR camera :)

Some images of South Africa, including Victoria Falls *not in south africa* but I would def. want to check that waterfall out!

Party People

What can I say ... I have amazing friends! Like amazing friends that will drive from different states to come to a party just to hang out for a night. The kind of friends that drive 8 hours through traffic and the rain and then turn around and drive home the next day. Phil and I are truly blessed to have such awesome friends from little old Gardner-Webb. And I kind of laugh when people question my college experience, like because it was such a small school maybe I didn't have as much fun. I often think I had more fun, and after one night of reminicing and a little bit of tarnishing my "angelic" reputation in front of the few people who didn't know me back when ... I just have to smile.
Thank you to everyone who made Saturday night so special. I can't remember the last time we were all in one place at the same time! For Lori, Molly, and I ... I think its been at least 3 years or since Lori graduated and that's probably the last time Lisa, Amber, and Brandy saw her too. Bryan (B-shoc) re-arranged his schedule and called in some favors just to surprise us and come. I couldn't believe my eyes when he walked through our front door!
We had food, beer, mugs, and awesome friends ... the night was perfect and I think everyone who came really loved our house too. So thank you again to everyone who came to celebrate with us, and for the awesome gifts too, but the real gift was just everyone being together!

Here are a few of my favorite people:

Brandy got distracted by some beer ...

and some cheese dip ... which was a HUGE Hit!

The Party Hosts: