SHOUT OUTS

Hey there bolggers. What is going on?? Well life here is always a blast. I have to give a few shout outs. First to Sylvia. She is expecting her 5th little one in March 2008!! Sylvia and her family are the ones who watch Derrick for us while we are at work. Second shout goes to Baby Derrick, he is starting to scooch himself across the floor. Not quite a crawl but getting there. Dad gets the next shout. He had surgery on his knee last week and on his eye on Monday. He is doing great. Andrea, a friend of ours just had her first dose of Chemotherapy. Last month she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Best wishes Andrea we love you and we are praying for you. It is late so I will cut it short. I hope to get some pictures up soon. I need new batteries in the camera again. It seems like every month I need new ones. See you soon!!!!!

Lemonade Anyone?

My reign as acting GM while my boss was on vacation has come to an end. This was the first time in who knows how long it was free from catastrophe. Nobody quit. Nobody was fired. The building is still standing. All my numbers were great and so far no guest complaints!!!!

Monday Applebee's kicked off the Alex's Lemonade Stand fundraiser. My Staff was a huge help getting the store decorated for the big event. "What is Alex's Lemonade Stand" you might be thinking. It is an organization that raises money for children's cancer research. please check them out at http://www.alexslemonade.org/ and see Alex's story. Here is what we did!



The first stand was placed in front of the bar service window.

The second stand is in the entry. I have the banner hanging off the ceiling by fishing line and the stand is a broken booth and a painted cardboard box!!

The entry is nor very wide so I had to get 2 pictures.

The pictures really does not do it justice!!

Jo'Elle, Destiny and Regina man the stand to help get donations!

The first day we raised $117 smackers!!!

I did not want to spend crazy amounts of money on the decorations. A few bottles of paint, sponge brushes, yellow construction paper and crepe paper went a long way. We have paper lemons all over the front with stats regarding childhood cancer and the web address. The kids hung the crepe paper all over the place!! I was so stoked when out marketing director came in and said that we had the BEST decorations she had seen!! Yea for US!! For every $5 donation we get we give our guest a coupon for $5 off their next Carside order! Different Applebee's are doing different was of fundraising. Check out your local Applebee's. I know most of you have one or two within a few miles of where you work or live. Heck there are over 1,900 locations world wide!! Oh and we are not selling the Rootie Tootie Fresh and Fruity.

Moving????

Not just yet. We will stay here in Vallywood for a while. There is house up for sale in my old hood that we are gonna check out this week. We are getting the house ready for renters. See our house is just a hop, skip and a drunk stumble to all the bars. Prime location for the undergrads at VSU! The school once again does not have anywhere near the housing for all the incoming freshmen so we hope to take full advantage of the situation. This year they are demolishing my old stomping ground Hopper Hall. Oh the memories!! My first year at VSU they had rented out 2 hotels to put up the students. Other years, they had students living in whole buildings at apartment complexes. That is it for now. I am acting GM at the store while boss man is on vacation. I am beat!!! Hell is it 2:42 AM now. Hope to check your blogs soon!!!!

Construction Has Begun

OK my darling husband believes he can get the house ready to put on the renal market in the next few weeks.
Things do do:
Put the wall up between our room and the nursery.
Paint the new wall.
Paint our bedroom.
Have a fence installed on one side of the house.

Here is what we have had accomplished so far.

First the before shot.

You are looking at the view from the door going into the nursery. As you can see the previous owners knocked out the wall and made one large master suite. The floors are tile and have French doors leading to the neighbors house. The owner's sister lived next door. The set up has been super great with da baby and all.

First all the framing was ripped off and some of the dry wall too.

Next the frame was installed.

Derrick and his buddies are doing all the work themselves. Good luck Boys!!

Yet another road trip

Another Road Trip??

Yea! I love to hit the road with the folks. Who are we gonna see this time???

Friday morning we packed up the trusty Dodge and headed south to Tampa. While we were heading down we saw a couple of things that made us laugh. I was not able to snap shots but I have to tell you. First, there was a car pulled off the side of the road and a boy about 3 or 4 was just making pee on the side of the road. His little naked butt and a stream of pee was a big laugh. Just after that we saw the FedEx truck get pulled over by the FHP.

Our, first stop was to see Derrick's future wife Rylee. Rylee's mom, Melissa is a friend of mine from high school. Rylee is very important to us. Last year we drove to Tampa for Melissa's baby shower. Needless to say, we came back with one of our own, and dis not even know it. Rylee is now 1 and absolutely adorable. Melissa is a hottie for a mommy!


Melissa and Rylee

Rylee just can't get her hands off of my little hottie!

The final destination was to Jenna and Jamey's place. The first night we went up the road to a restaurant called Mangrove's. WAY overpriced food and drinks. $14 for a glass of house wine and $9 for some crappy soup. Saturday we drove around Tampa looking at some property for some possible investments in the future. DAMN is its expensive as hell there. We looked at a neighborhood that folks were flipping houses. Cute houses the same size and smaller than what we have here in Vallywood and they were wanting $300,000!! What the crap??

After the tour of crazy priced homes, we the cruised through downtown. We saw the Carnival ship preparing to set sail and wished we were on it. For all you IDOL fans, the big Idol concert was playing. It was the top story on the news!

That night, Jamey mixed us up some Margaritas is his new Margarator. YUM YUM. Ritas and some Coronas reminds me of Cinco de Mayo!!

Check this machine out!!

Jamey mixing it up!!

While the adults were warning up with ritas, Derrick was warming up to their dog Daisy May.

Derrick, Jamey and Daisy May

Derrick and Jenna

Jamey just could not keep his hands off of Derrick's hair. I think it is hair envy!!

Thank you Janna and Jamey for having us crash at your crib.

Up next, home improvements.

Happy 4th of July!!!

Happy Fourth of July from the Derrick's

He is proud to be an American
My little FIRE CRACKER!!

I have to say I am sorry for not taking a picture of the baby with an alcoholic beverage. My friend Kevin will send me one soon enough. I had to spend the night at the old job. I had to have had the most boring shift EVER. The big fireworks show was on the other side of town (yes Valdosta has more than one side of town) so no one came out to eat at my store.

The boys and I hung out in the morning. Derrick packed up the kid and headed over to Kevin and Lisa's for the evening while I was doing all I could to stay awake at work. I hope all of you normal folks who get NATIONAL holidays off had a great one.