Amsterdam

For work I am on a project with a company called " Wärtsilä " (pronounced vert-silla) - maker of very huge engines used in ships, power plants, oil rigs, etc. Their headquarters are in Helsinki, Finland. I left at 7:00 pm last Sunday, and arrived in Helsinki the next day at 11:45 pm. The flight was 10 hours long to Amsterdam where I had an 8 hour layover before flying the last 2 hours to Helsinki.

While I was in Amsterdam, I was lucky enough to meet up with a co-worker for a late lunch. He threw out his back so we didn't hang out for long, but he pointed me in the right direction and I took some great photos:

This is a picture of what Amsterdam is famous for. I did not inhale...

... seriously, I did not even go in, but I had to at least get a picture!

Check THIS out! I had NO idea Anne Frank lived in Amsterdam!

This next photo sums up Amsterdam very well. Every other street it seems is a canal, and everyone uses bikes as a mode of transportation. Outside of that, It's just a darn cool picture!

Here's another picture showing you just how crazy the whole bike thing is!

This is some government building I think. I ca't read Dutch, so I have NO idea... hahahaha! It was just a big, old, cool building, so I took a picture!

This is the train station in Amsterdam. The place was huge!

Getting to the correct platform was a challenge. I had to find the ONLY train that went to the airport, there were 25 tracks, and not a single English sign or schedule anywhere!!!

I get to go back through Amsterdam when I leave Helsinki on the 4th of July. It was raining a lot when I was there last week, so hopefully I will be able to take more pictures. I am going to try and take a canal cruise too!

Kayliegh's First Horse Riding Lesson

On Saturday, she had her very first Horse Riding lesson! She did GREAT! She brushed the whole horse down using a variety of combs and brushes, and she even picked the dirt out of the horses hoofs! She had a great lesson, and can not wait to start taking regular lessons when she comes back from IL this summer.

Here are some pictures of Kayleigh with "Stick" the wonder horse:

She's already addicted! She says her favorite color is still green... but, she might be switching her favorite animal to horses. BUT she still loves frogs too! Ahhh... to be a kid again!

Kayleigh Graduates 4th Grade!

On Wednesday, Kayleigh graduated 4th Grade. In Texas, they move out of Elementary at 4th Grade, and into "Intermediate School" which is 5th & 6th Grade. After that, she will go onto Jr. High for 7th & 8th, then finally High School.





Here is a picture taken on graduation day:


We are SO proud of her! She had 7 awards on her graduation certificate: 1. Spelling Bee, 2. Most Improved (in Math we think), 3. Citizenship (for being fair and well-behaved in school), 4. High honors in state testing for Composition, 5. High honors in state testing for Reading, 6. High honors in state testing for Math, 7. A-B Honor-roll the whole year.

After moving (again) and getting used to a new school, with a new curriculum, we really couldn't ask for anything better. She is such a wonderful, amazing kid and I'm SO proud of her every day!

Kayleigh's Weekend

Since Kayle will be leaving for IL soon, we invited her BFF, Paige over to stay for the whole weekend. Needless to say, WE HAD A BLAST! Actually... We really did! We went to NASA here in Houston! Here are some of the cool pictures we took during our trip:

Kayleigh & Paige haging out at the blaster vent:

I couldn't let them have ALL the fun!

The whole gang - in space suits:

Kayleigh & Paige inside a mock communications center of a Space Shuttle:

Kayleigh & Paige standing just outside the Astronaut training facility!

Challenger park - on the NASA grounds:

After NASA, we went to see Shrek the 3rd. In a word... HYSTERICAL! We all loved it!

By the time we got home, the girls could barely make it to bed. They passed out cold. On Sunday, we went to Build-A-Bear! The girls bought matching Monkeys. Kayleigh named hers "Paige" and Paige named hers.... You guessed it... "Bob" JUST KIDDING! Yes, she named it "Kayleigh." Here are some pictures from their fun day:

Here's Kayleigh & Paige with their freshly stuffed and bathed, naked Monkeys:

Kayleigh didn't buy this outfit, but I had to get a picture of it. It cracked me up!!!

Here they are "Hangin' Around" with their Monkeys:

The Monkey's after a long hard day...

Thanks to Aunt Sara & Uncle Steve for sending Kayleigh the gift card to Build-A-Bear. We had so much fun!

Kayleigh's Week

Kayleigh only has a week and a half of school left, and last week we had lots going on with her class. She was selected to be a Co-Master of Ceremonies for her school Talent show. She did GREAT and she looked SO darn cute!
Here's a picture with her teacher, Ms. Winski and the Boy she M.C.'d with (Connor):



The next day, she was in the school spelling bee! She had to take a spelling test against the entire 4th grade. Only the top 20 spellers were able to enter the final competition. Kayleigh did so awesome! She tied for 4th place! I could not believe how exciting the spelling bee actually was. By the time we got to the end, everyone was on the edge of their seats. It was a great competition. Kayleigh's BFF, Paige got 3rd. Here's a picture of the girls together enjoying a snack after the competition:



I volunteered to record all the events this week, so I got prime seating for everything!

Our 2nd Anniversary

Wow! I almost do not know where to start! For our Anniversary, Matt made reservations at a place not to far from us - The Woodlands Resort & Country Club. The place was huge and had several buildings spread out accross thousands of acres. We stayed the night and had the "Honeymoon" package, which included Champagne & Chocolate Dipped Strawberries, Rose-petals, and breakfast in bed!

When we got there, we were immediately happy with the resort. It was AMAZING!

Our room was not quite ready yet, so we went to the poolside bar and had some fruity refreshing drinks and reminisced about our time together. The weather could not have been better! It was about 83 degrees with a nice cool breeze.

We got into our room and they delivered our first amenities:

Matt went a little crazy with the rose petals!

We went to dinner at this cute little Italian place at the resort that over-looked the courtyard where there were two more pools, then headed back to our room and hopped in the Jacuzzi. It was so nice, we decided to invite Matt's Dad and Kayleigh out the next day. The pool area by our room had three pools, two huge water slides, volley ball, waterfalls and some other stuff.

This is the water slide tower

Here's Kayle - happy as a clam to be swimming!

Kayle in front of the Waterfall

After our fun day at the country club together, we decided to go see Spiderman 3. It was pretty lame, but the fight scenes were good. Kayle really liked it.

On our official anniversary, (Monday, May 7th), Matt made us an awesome dinner. We had steaks on the grill, twice-baked potatoes, artichokes, and croissants. He also had flowers delivered to the house. He was so thoughtful! He got purple Iris because I love purple, and red Tulips because he's "Red."

Best of all... this picture was taken with my NEW CAMERA!!! WHOO HOOOO!!! For our anniversary I got a new digital camera. I was going back and forth for a while on which one to get. We had an OK one, but it was so sloooow it drove me CRAZY! Matt bought me the Sony DSC H9. It totally ROCKS!

Here's an awesome close-up of Kayle:

An awesome close-up of Matt:

It has 15x zoom. I took this picture from at least 30 feet away:

One of my biggest requests was fast shutter speed for action shots. Here's a shot Matt took of me while we were messing around with it - I was mid-air:

Kayleigh made us an awesome anniversary card too, and Grandpa and Kayleigh had a special "Date night" on Saturday while we were gone. He took her to Olive Garden, and gave her chocolate cake! I have the BEST family!

Catching Up

I haven't posted in ages! I spent that last couple of weeks in Orlando, then flew to IL with Kayle for Sara's baby shower. We had a blast! When it was time to leave as we were pulling out of the driveway, Kayle gave a big sigh and said, "Man... that was a GREAT vacation!" It was wonderful to spend time with everyone, and very hard to leave.

My foot is feeling better. I have not used my boot once since I got back from IL. I managed to shove my gym shoe on, and we even went out to dinner! It still hurts off and on. Sometimes it REALLY hurts and it nearly takes my breath away, but the doctor said this was normal and would happen for the next few months while it heals.

Since I got behind, I have a few new pictures to post:

Dave Sherri and Hailey came to visit. Here is Kayle and Hail together after almost a year apart!

Here is a picture from Easter:

I never realized Kayle had a bunny on her shirt until now! hahaha! Funny!

Joke of the Week

Monday's suck... and since I have such wonderful friends and family that send me humorous things all week long, I have decided to designate Mondays on my Blog for the Joke of the Week. Every week I will sift through the funny emails I get and post some of the funny ones to help cheer us all up! Here's one I thought was pretty good - HAPPY MONDAY!!!

BLIND MAN IN A BIKER BAR

A blind man wanders into an all girls biker bar by mistake. He finds his way to a bar stool and orders some coffee. After sitting there for awhile, he yells to the waiter, "Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?"

The bar immediately falls absolutely silent. In a very deep, husky voice, the woman next to him says, "Before you tell that joke, sir, I think it is only fair -- given that you are blind -- that you should know five things:

1. The bartender is a blonde girl with a baseball bat.
2. The bouncer is a blonde girl.
3. I'm a 6 foot tall, 175 lb. Blonde woman with a black belt in karate.
4. The woman sitting next to me is blonde and a professional weightlifter.
5. The lady to your right is blonde and a professional wrestler.

Now, think about it seriously, Mister. Do you still wanna tell thatjoke?" The blind man thinks for a second, shakes his head, and mutters, "No... Not if I'm gonna have to explain it five times."

Soooooo Tired!

OK, so this whole walking thing... Completely exhausting! You should see me. I'm walking around like Egor from Frankenstien. I had to stop at Target on the way home. I don't think I've ever gotten in and out of there as fast as I did tonight! It's the most I've walked in over two weeks. I'm dead tired! Good news though, the stonger pain meds worked today and I was almost pain-free all day. It was also nice to get around without crutches!

Stitches are out and crutches are gone!

I went on site with my customer today for the first time since the surgery. The doctor gave me some new pain pills that would allow me to function during the day. They are so strange! It's a tiny, almost perfectly round white pill. You take one at night before you go to bed, and it's a time-release formula that lasts for 24 hours. Unfortunately, it was NOT strong enough for me today. Within one hour I was clinching my fists and gritting my teeth through the pain. It was awful. I made it through the day and went to my 4:00 appointment to get my stitches out, where the doctor inflicted more pain! He moved my toe!
Everything looks good though. He said if I can stand the pain, my foot is healthy enough to walk on without crutches so long as I wear my fracture boot. I have decided to stick with the heavier drugs and start walking. I actually feel a lot better with the bandages off. I think the compression was part of what was causing so much pain. Luckily, the customer is great. They set up an extra chair for me so I can keep my foot up, and everyone took really good care of me. The people here, and on my team are incredibly nice.
I go back to the doctor for an xray on April 16th. I'm hoping to be moved to a smaller shoe for my trip to IL the following weekend. The boot I have to wear is G I N O R M O U S ! ! !

Surgery Update

It has been a looooooong week! I've been to the doctor 3 times since surgery to have the bandages changed. Yesterday they finally figured out what was going on with my skin irritation. It turns out it's not an infection. It's called a "Fracture Blister." When you break a healthy bone, or in my case... have it broken for you, your bones oooooze some stuff. The stuff, like a bruise, comes to the skin's surface to leave the body. The blistering and irritation is my skin reacting to this "stuff." It basically feels like I have a severe sunburn on top of my foot. The risk in this is that it is more prone to infection, so keeping it covered is important.
The swelling is also still pretty substantial, so they re-wrapped me from my toes up to my knee again in a soft cast. I was feeling pretty good, but it was SO tight after they wrapped it that it started to hurt all over again. You know that feeling when you tie your shoes too tight and you get that aching-burning sensation on the top of your foot? THAT is what I dealt with all night last night! It's enough to drive you CRAZY!!!
I will tell you one thing... I have a whole new respect for people that do not have full use of their legs - or any extremity for that matter! I no longer feel sorry for them. They are much stronger then I will ever be. When I'm healthy, I'm going to start running and never stop! I've always wanted to run a marathon - I definitely have the inspiration for it now!
Matt has been ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL! I've been an emotional wreck through this whole thing! I have gone from being happy (drugged), to frustrated, to angry, to balling over stupid things. I'm sure he has wanted to strangle me a number of times, but he's been very patient and wonderful with me. Kayleigh has also been awesome. She comes home after school then comes to my room and hangs out with me all night. We work on her homework and read together, then chill out and watch a little TV before bed. It's been nice spending time with her. We are looking for a barn now, and plan to start taking riding lessons together when I get better. We are both very excited!

Ouch!

I had surgery on Monday. It was a Chevron Bunionectomy. I think it means you feel like your foot has been hit by a Chevron Gasoline truck.... 27 times... Well, it looks like it anyway. If you have a weak stomach, do NOT scroll down to see the pictures!

The day of the surgery was pretty good. I came out of it OK, and had no pain what so ever. By tuesday the local anesthetic was wearing off and I started with the pain meds (vicoden). Unfortunately, they were not working, and by midnight I was doubling up on them to try and get the pain away. I was not sure what was happening because the pain was so bad, but I started iching like crazy. At 3 am I took 2 more because they were still not working and I finally passed out. An hour later I stopped breathing! It woke me up and I caught my breath, but from that point on I was super sick. I was either sick or passed out all day on Wednesday. I was not able to keep any liquids or food down at all. Finally, when I woke up on Thursday, the vicoden was out of my system and I was able to keep food down and get some strength back.

Thursday afternoon I went to have the bandages changed. When they took off the bandages my foot was swollen more then it should have been, and was bruised but also very red. Apparently it's infected! Instead of smaller lighter bandages, I'm now in a soft cast wrapped up to my knee!

Now I'm on two different antibiotics, and a new pain pill. Things are getting better, but I think I'm allergic the surgical tape they put over the incision. They took some off yesterday, but then put a new one on - a bigger one in fact - and I feel it under there burning and itching. It's driving me nuts! I left a message for the doctor but I haven't heard back from them yet.

Scroll down if you want to see the nasty pictures...

A Kayleigh and the Bee

Last week Kayleigh's class was tested for the spelling bee. Kayleigh did not think she did all that well, a few days later she came home all excited! 10 of the kids from her class got enough of the super challenging words correct - and she was one of them! The school sent her home with a crazy booklet with words in 5 different languages that she may be asked to spell in May, when the spelling bee is scheduled to take place.

Another fun thing Kayleigh got to do this week was to particpate in a program for Black History month. Her teacher, Ms. Winski puts on the "Oprah WINSKI" show (hahahaha!). She plays the part of Oprah, and interviews each of the kids, who are playing the roles of different African Americans who have had an influence in American History.

Kayleigh was the famous Jazz singer Sarah Vaughn. We did her hair in pin-curls from the 40's and 50's. She looked stunning! Here are some pictures:



At home in the Library.



A close-up of that fancy doo!



Getting ready for the show!



Kayleigh with BFF - Paige (she's also in the spelling bee!).

Muffins with Mom

What a cute idea!

Kayleigh's school had Muffins with Mom a couple of weeks ago. Moms and Grandmas were invited to the school for breakfast with their kids. Here's some pictures from our morning together.




Kayleigh and Grandma with HUGE smiles!





Kayle and Mom - One last hug before heading off to class.

Really Cute!

Chan sent me this link:

http://members.shaw.ca/anabw/grease.htm

Check it out - make sure you have your speakers on!

Very Good News!

They are taking me off my current project at the end of February and moving me to another project that is 7 miles from our house! That means very little travel for me for the length of the project, which is expected to last quite a while! If I do travel, it would be to Dublin, Ireland. Gee Darn! Also, even though the project is close, I will still be able to work from home a couple days of week! I AM SO EXCITED!!!!

Also, to clarify... We are not actually trying for a baby, but we are not preventing it either. With less travel and a more normal schedule, who knows what will happen!

Note to Self...

Do not take an E.P.T. Pregnancy Test when you have thrown away the box and do not know how to read the results...

Yeah. Laugh it up. I know you are!

It was negative, by the way. I had to go to CVS and look at a box on the shelf to get my results. I was in the store no longer then 30 seconds. Now there's a warrant out for my arrest in Texas because they thought I was "casing" the place. Dude... I'm late, and NOT pregnant... Do you have ANY idea what my hormones are like right now? I don't think the Texas cops would want anything to do with me!

January Update

Howdy Y'all! Things are cooooool in TX. The ice storm chilled us last week and even shut down Austin for 3 days - which was great for me because I got to work from home for a change! It is a busy time in the project and I worked a lot but it was so nice to spend time with the family every night.
Tonight we will go roller skating again. Matt and Kayleigh broke in their Christmas presents last weekend for the first time and we had a blast! The rink even did something special for us - an "Adult" race. Me, Matt, Some dude on blades, another lady on blades and an old-school roller skater all went out there. I did not have stoppers in, so the start was quite interesting, but instict kicked in and I kept on the tail of the dude with the inline skates. We were supposed to complete two laps, but they blew the wistle after one. Everyone started to slow down, but I kept going a little. Once they figured it out, I'd passed the guy on the blades and he had to rush to catch up to me. In the end we tied! It was so much fun! I got a free 12 oz. soda. ha ha! The next couple of days, however... NOT so much fun. I was a little on the sore side! I will try to snap some pictures tonight when we go and post them next time.
Matt had two interviews this week. One was with a recruiter, and the second was with a Network Consulting company. Both interviews went VERY well. He has final meeting on Monday with the company - a casual lunch with the guys. He hopes to start right away. He said it's perfect work, and he will get to focus on more Networking and Cisco stuff.
Keep your fingers crossed for him!

Happy New Year!

It's been a rough start to the New Year, but I figure if we get all the bad stuff out of the way now, the rest of the year should be smooth sailing... right?

I left for Austin... again... on Tuesday night. Matt was starting to get something, but didn't know what and by the time he got to Kayle on Wednesday at the airport, he was sicker then a dog. His parents left for Vegas on Thursday and he went to the doctor with 101+ fever. He had some un-named throat infection and an ear infection. They gave him tons of steriods, a decongestant and an antibiotic. Kayle was great at taking care of him while I was away. He was still pretty sick on Friday when I got home so neither of us slept well. On Saturday, Kayle woke up with 101+, which quickly rose to 103.7. We had to take her to urgent care where they said she had strep throat. Now I remember how my Mom felt when Steve used to get it. I was up all night with her trying to manage the fever and at least keep it below 102 - Drs. orders. We had to use cold packs and lots of Motrin. It's still not breaking, but luckily she's responding well to medicine and is taking a nap now.

Hopefully I will dodge this one. I had to alert work to let them know there's a chance I could end up out this week. Unfortunately, it's the last and most important week of the project! Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Disney World Pictures

Hey All! There are 92 pictures for your viewing pleasure on my Yahoo Photo site which can be found here:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/amymildren/album?.dir=/3976re2

We had an absolute blast - Kayleigh especially!

Happy Holidays to all - will post Christmas photos next!