My Birthday!

I had a wonderful birthday and want to THANK everyone that e-mailed, called, or facebooked with birthday wishes!

I have such a great bunch of friends and family! I love you all!

Inauguration Day!

What an exciting and historic day for America! Congratulations Mr President!



Photo from the WhiteHouse.gov site! Learn all about our New President and his family and his cabinet! This site is great for kids and adults who want to learn more about all of our 44 Presidents!

Christmas Eve!

Every Christmas Eve we spend time as a family and I know I have very fond memories of these times. This year we had great food and enjoyed spending time together. Here are a couple of photos that I took. One of Shawn's favorite presents a robotic dog which broke when Uncle Joe and Shawn were horsing around. Samantha's one items she just had to have a North Face Jacket! Shawn and Samantha both got a pair of Converse shoes that they picked out with Gran and Papa!
Our Christmas Tree 2008 with Holly in her chair!











Shawn came in and the first thing he wanted to know was is that big present his. Well Uncle Joe and I love to mess with him and told him no that the present was Aunt Christie's and it was an Umpaloopa - you know from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We even had him looking for the air holes that were on the present. Below is a video of when he got to unwrap his Umpaloopa or was it a gaming chair?

Monday before Christmas!

The Monday before Christmas I had a Doctors appointment to see if I really needed to get my tonsils out. I had seen someone in Sandpoint but wanted to make sure before going through all the PAIN! Since I had Tonsil Stones the answer was yes and the Doctor said we can take them out tomorrow. I said to him if you take them out tomorrow I will not be able to eat Christmas Dinner so how about the day after Christmas! Great the date was set! Now off to finish my Christmas shopping. As I was shopping and waiting to see if I could get my hair cut I decided I would go get my Niece and Nephew and spend time with them and get the remainder of the shopping done.
I meet my sister in law, Kim at Weigles to pick them up and off we go to get Holly's cheese crackers to put in her stocking. Holly is our family dog.

After ordering the treats to be picked up we drove to The Cupcakery to get a treat for us. Below are a pic of Samantha who had just finished her cupcake and then Shawn who had chocolate all over his face and we gave him the box so the crumbs would not be all over the place. We ate in the car since the all the tables were full. Everyone enjoyed their cupcake!


After our cupcakes we made a couple of more stops for Christmas gifts and then ended up having dinner at Mimmi's then off to drop them off at Lowe's where Kelly, my brother and Kim were doing some Christmas shopping for my Dad! I have to say in true Aunt fashion they were loaded up on SUGAR before they were dropped off!
I love spending time with Samantha and Shawn!

Trip home to Knoxville!

Did someone order snow? On December 18th I was suppose to go home to Knoxville however, mother nature dropped 20 inches of snow in 24 hours the night of December 17th! What was she thinking?

Did she not know I was trying to get home. So even though it snowed I got up on the 18th to leave the house at 8am to make my 1:30pm flight. I did sit down right before I left to look at the airports site and the airlines only to find out my flight was cancelled. How could they cancel a 1:30 flight at 8am I just did not understand so I called the airline to get my flight rescheduled to only have some RUDE man on the other end say I am sorry we have nothing until Saturday. At this point that is 2 days from when I was suppose to be home. I even had a doctor appointment on Friday! Great I told the guy and asked him to look on Delta but he still insisted we have nothing. OK I will take the flight on Saturday. Instead of wasting vacation days I went to work on Thursday and Friday!

On Saturday I set out around 8:30am for my 1:30 flight. I got to the airport around noon to find out my flight was delayed an hour so I grab something to eat since I knew if I was any later I would not be getting any food between my flights.
Photo is from the Spokane Airport

After I ate I found out that my 1:30 flight was now going to be leaving at 3:30pm which would leave me almost zero time to get from one flight to the one that was going to take me home! Well my fears came true and I missed my flight by 10 minutes!! Yes 10 minutes! So the realization came in that I would have to spend the night in the Minneapolis Airport or I could try to get on a flight to Nashville and drive 3 hours home which did not happen!

However, while I was waiting to see if I could get on the Nashville flight I saw Katie Kruyer from high school walking by who was so nice and asked if she could get me anything as I would assume she could tell that I had finally had enough of the traveling and had been crying from my long day of travel which did not get me home. Did I mention the ladies who told me I missed my flight by 10 minutes and who I asked about getting on the Nashville flight were not the nicest people in the world!
Ok now I am faced with finding food and a place to lay my head which was hard! The only place in the airport open 24 hours a day is McDonald's and with the line I stood in you would think it would be fresh hot fries, etc. Think again - I don't think they cooked them all the way so they were BAD! Ok so now a place to sleep since I have been rebooked on a flight to Detroit and then to Knoxville! So hopefully my 6:30am flight will take off to Detriot but did it? No it was delayed as well! At this point I am suppose to be home on Sunday around noon. Finally we take off in Minneapolis to Detroit which is where the bad weather is headed.


Ok so I land in Detroit to find out my flight to Knoxville is delayed by about an hour. No problem since at this point I just want to get home! The arriving flight finally arrives so we are ready to board in about 10 mins once everyone is off the plane! GREAT I am finally going to get home! We all load on the plane the nice flight attendant - Joesph gives the usual flight info and we push back. However, we had just pushed back and I see Joesph walk to the back and then come back up front to talk to the pilot about a lady not sitting down. I guess she was in the bathroom. I did not even turn around as Joesph walks back to where the lady was and then once again walks up front to talk to the pilot again. At this point the plane starts to move forward! I know I stated "Oh my goodness, you have to be kidding". Joesph stated to us in the front that the lady got sick all over the floor and it is considered hazardes materials so the EMT team has to clean it up. I was thinking could she not hit the toilet?? Well, at this point what is another 2 hours a total of 3 hours from when we were suppose to leave! Once we got to Knoxville the people waiting for our plane looked mad - well at least they had not tried to start their journey on Thursday and finally got home late Sunday! Since Blogging is so popular this couple who were as in much disbelief as I was said they had just updated the lady getting sick on their tweeter account so their friends could read all about it!

Knoxville, Tennessee in site from the plane!
Bags one would think my bags would be with me since I spent the night in Minneapolis! No I only got one bag which was not the one with all the Christmas presents! I made sure they entered my request since they had a stack of ones they needed to enter which was not going to be me! Got to love NORTHWEST - not! I called for 2 days and finally a I got a live person who said they sent my bag to Memphis and it should be in at 5:40 in the afternoon. When I went to the airport in Knoxville and asked the Northwest agent to get my bag he said are you sure it is here and did you look in the room that we hold them in? I said no I did not look but your agent tracked it and it was scanned at 5:40 today. Well that does not mean that it is here he states. You have got to be kidding me and when he opened the door there it was! HA HA Mr. Northwest agent! Lastly, I received an e-mail survey on how was your trip with us! I did not even answer as when I went to change my flight due to a DR appointment change I let the agent (supervisor) know how my trip was and how I would find a way not to use Northwest in the future!
Once I was home I had a wonderful trip even with getting my tonsils taken out - more to come on getting my tonsils out!