Mark The Family Man

Mark & Jen

It was so good to see Mark again and to meet his family. It's been a very long time and he really wanted to talk with my husband. After dinner, the two of them went for a walk and did a lot of talking. Mark mentioned he was tired of the Ohio cold and was thinking about moving our way. My husband told him to make sure to complete his schooling prior to making that move. Their children are adorable, very polite and both have a great disposition. The visit was short and I'm sure we'll see them again soon.

Aurora

Carter

Where's Mark?

I met Mark a looong time ago, in fact, it feels like a lifetime. Mark is about 2 years older than my daughter and the two of them used to babysit for my family and a bunch of friends when we had our group evenings out. We'd have everyone bring the kids to one house and the 2 of them would watch the little ones. One day we came home to find a stinky diaper on the kitchen counter, toys everywhere and a couple of slices of pizza's on the ceiling and on the rotating fan. Needless to say it was a very bad nite for the sitters which they had a lot of cleaning to do after the other parents took their children home.
Mark is now a grown man with 2 children of his own. While we all (my husband & his brother) moved to Florida, Mark, still lives in Ohio, we all love Mark as if he was blood family. Mark and my daughter still remain friends till this day and we all can't wait to see him.
Mark bought a one way ticket for his wife to Florida while he and his children drove. He'll travel through the rest of Ohio, through Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and half of Florida. What would normally take 13-16 hours of driving, will take him longer because of the children. He left Wednesday evening, as of last night, he was in Macon GA that's still another 6 hours or more of driving before he reaches us. Poor Mark I don't know what possessed him to drive alone with 2 small children. I'm hoping to see him sometime today if not tomorrow and will be sure to take lots of pictures.
Until then laterz..

To & From The Hospital

The one thing about traveling to & from the hospital this past week was taking the back roads in the country. It was a relaxing start & finish to our long day.

My daughter was finally released yesterday and is relaxing in the comfort of her own home.

The one thing my husband and I have learned and will never question, is her husbands love. We knew my son-in-law loved our daughter but what we didn't know how deep his love for her was. Now we know. We love him more today than we did before this all began and know we never have to worry about my daughter in regards to her and her husband.

Enjoy the country scene we passed through on our daily run.

How Not To Deliver Bad News

It's 8:00 AM and my son-in-law calls. The first thing out of his mouth is "don't worry she's fine but Chantel is in the ER. " I'm not the type of person who swears but I wanted to say WTF. It all began last Monday when she started to feel sick. She had called off of work every couple of days that week and had even gone to the doctor.
Friday night, her husband gave her the bed and slept in the living room, he doesn't know what woke him but at 3:30 AM he did and went to check on his wife. She was shivering really bad and he had noticed her lips turning purple. Lucky for them, they live about 10 minutes from the nearest hospital.
When he brought her in with the chills, they placed about 8 heavy blankets on her, in less than 20 minutes, she spiked a fever of 104 (this went on for hours). It took them 12 hours to finally figure out what was wrong. They found a kidney stone when they did a cat-scan. My daughter has chronic back pain and told them that so they never thought about her kidneys when she complained about her back. Apparently, the stone had been there a while and the toxins started to build up which affected her kidneys and then her blood. After the surgery and medication, she is still in the hospital fighting off the infection along with low white cell count, high blood pressure, fever and various other ailments.
The hospital food taste like crap so between my husband and I, my sister-in-law and niece, we've been bringing in home made food for her meals.
Well, I have to sign off and head to the hospital. I'll check in a bit later... Have a Great Day all:)

He Now Knows The Secret In Death

As I sit hear watching Michael Jackson's memorial on CNN, I'd like to share my thoughts with you regarding Michael. Regardless of what some people may have thought about him during his hard and personal life regarding "the incident" Michael above all was an entertainer who we all grew up with no matter what our age. Michael was a person, a human being who cared and had feelings like you and I, he did much, not only for our country but others as well. Who cares how many surgeries he had, that was his thing not ours. He is gone and he will have to answer to the man up stairs. Only God can judge him and his life be it good or bad. I pray he is at peace and my thoughts and prayers go out to his family, friends & loved ones. Michael is where he is, he now knows the secret in death.

Fireworks

It was a great ending to a beautiful day. I hope y'all had a great 4th of July whether it be with family, friends or just by yourself. My husband and I spent our day separately but hooked up later that evening to watch our community firework display. As we were parking our car, the show just started. I changed the settings on my camera because I didn't want the conventional look. Here's what the setting changed did. Enjoy!

That Darn Cat

I was feeling so bad for Tiger this morning and thought about him all day till it was time to pick him up. If you remember from a prior post, today was the day that we scheduled Tiger to be fixed. I had nothing to worry about, the girl who brought Tiger to us said they were lucky cats didn't talk because if they did, they would have gotten an ear full from my cat. They said she was making it known very loudly that she was not happy. Sure enough, we brought her home and let her loose in the spare room (once we kitty proofed it) she went to the bathroom, drank some water grumbled a bit then went to sleep. Such a male:)
I live in a city called Lakeland, all around the town they have sculptures of swans with different logos, pictures (themes), below is the swan in front of the SPCA where Tiger was fixed.