Teeny Tiny Penises and CUPCAKES!

I had been busy planning the wedding and the closer it got to the big day the more stressed I became.  My friend Heather asked if she could throw me a bridal shower and bachelorette party.  I immediately said no, it just wasn't necessary.  I felt I was too old, I don't have any bridesmaids to help out and I didn't want my friend to take on this burden alone.  She insisted and convinced me to have these gatherings.  Boy am I glad I listened to her!  What fun they were. My girlfriend put together the nicest parties I could have asked for.  I also really needed the "me" time because I hadn't done anything for myself in months.

The bachelorette party was pretty low key, at my request.  We had my favorite...pizza! There was a game of pin the kiss on the shirtless guy and penis shaped swizzle sticks, (because she couldn't find penis shaped straws at the last minute).  We did have fun with the penis shaped swizzle sticks.

Another wonderful day was my bridal shower.  I couldn't have asked for a nicer time.  Heather and her girls really went all out.  The food was amazing and she came up with such clever games.  Everyone there had a great time.  There was only one slight mishap.... we had to search for safety pins in a bowl of rice, blindfolded.  When it was my daughter Heidi's turn we placed a frosted cupcake in front of her instead of the rice... let's just say I ended up with cupcake all over my dress from a hostile shower guest.  It was great! At the wedding expo I signed up to register at Presents of Mine and I'm so glad I did. I got a lot of really beautiful items for our future home together. 

I felt so blessed and so loved after this amazing weekend of a girls night out and then an afternoon of great food and laughs.  I don't feel I could ever thank Heather enough for everything she has done for me.  What a wonderful start to the wedding I've been waiting a long time for.

Seven Posts of Past

Thank you Sarah @ The Ex-Pat Bride for nominating me to participate in this. I don't usually go back to my old posts and it was fun and enlightening for me to read past posts. I can't believe I have had this blog for over a year and I'm amazed at how much I've learned. I value the friendships I have made and the camaraderie amongst other bloggers. Most of all it has helped keep Vernon and I close over the 3,500+ miles that we have to face every day. Vernon enjoys my posts, and so do my family and freinds. I also hope I have given encouragement and hope to others in long distance relationships. Well, enough babbling, on with the meme.
The rules of this meme are as follows:

To unite bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint endeavor to share lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again.

Rules:

1) Blogger is nominated to take part

2) Blogger publishes his/her 7 links on his/her blog - 1 link for each category.

- Your most beautiful post

-Your most popular post

-Your most controversial post

-Your most helpful post

-A post whose success surprised you

-A post you feel didn't get the attention it deserved

-The post that you are most proud of

3) Blogger nominates up to 5 more bloggers to take part.

4) These bloggers publish their 7 links and nominate another 5 more bloggers

5) And so it goes on!

6) The site Trip Base will be sharing the best posts from participating bloggers on their blog and everyday on Facebook and Twitter at #My7Links

1. Most Beautiful Post:  A Castle, Shopping and a Baby! 
During my most recent trip across the pond I got to see my first castle, go shopping with one of my dearest friends and a baby was born. I couldn't have asked for a better trip.

 2. Most Popular Post:  Happy Father's Day!
I was actually surprised at how well this one is doing. It is my most popular post and still going strong. I guess this is the day of the dad. I find Vernon's dedication to his children very endearing and very sexy. He's a wonderful father.

3. Most Controversial Post:  Are You Crazy?!?!?!
I don't really write about controversial topics, but this one was full of venting. I guess I can't expect everyone to understand or accept our relationship, but I don't like being made to feel like there is something wrong with it.

4. Most Helpful Post:  Dear Kimberly:
Someone from the Loving From a Distance site reached out to me asking advice about her long distance relationship. I replied and then turned it into a blog post. She and I are now friends and she is still in her LDR. It's a bit wordy, it's not a popular post, but if someone is looking for advice on LDR's this is the post to read.


5. A Post Whose Success Surprised Me: Monthly Milestones - June
This is another meme that I participate in and is sponsored by Sarah @ The Ex-Pat Bride. I'm surprised it has done so well because it is really short and basically consists of a to-do list for the month. Nothing exciting or earth shattering.

6. A Post That Didn't Get the Attention it Deserved: Three Very Special Children
Nobody likes to read about sick kids, but I was hoping this post would have done better than it did. Two of the three children have long journeys ahead of them and they come from such amazing families. The third had had his journey and has thankfully started kindergarten. I felt like I didn't do enough for these kids, like I didn't write the article well enough to catch the interest of readers or other bloggers. But then I thought if I got them at least one donation or caused a reader to donate their money or time to a charity of their choice, then I guess I succeeded.





7. The Post I am Most Proud of:  I Have Been Featured on "The Ex-Pat Bride"!
I was really excited when Sarah @ The Ex-Pat Bride contacted me asking if I would guest post on her blog. At first I was like, "why?" I don't have many readers, I'm not special. I don't even know what I'm doing half the time as I'm trying to post these blog entries. She is one of the sweetest people that I know and was really flattering and excited to see what I came up with. I decided to write about how technology has changed in the last 11+ years and how it has affected our long distance relationship. I figured Sarah's readers are pretty young and would find this article interesting. It was more of a structured researched article as I wanted to provide Sarah with a quality post. My posts are usually random and unorganized but I want my blog to be somewhat candid.

The bloggers that I am nominating are:

Sarah @ Crafting with Sarah
Christy @ Castles, Crumpets and Craig oh my!
Betsy @ Betsy Transatlantically
Yvonne @ Welcome to my World of Poetry
Brittany @ Tales From a Sailor's Soul Mate

Monthly Milestones - May

May has been a very difficult month for me; full of pain, drugs and feeling useless and bothersome. My being forced to sit for hours on end cooped up in the house has caused me to dive deeper in this thing they call blogging. It all started over a year ago with my friend Ali’s blog. If you check it out, you will see that she is a very creative and talented photographer who has three of the cutest kids you’ve ever seen. I would visit it every so often and thought this was a clever way to keep loved ones up to date on how everyone was doing. Then my amazing friend Kim introduced me to her blog. It’s just simply about happy thoughts, crafting and friendship. It was those two that gave me the inspiration to 1. Start writing again and 2. Create a blog! So, I went out and picked up Blogging For Dummies and began to think.

My blog was going to be a rant. Simply about stuff that pisses me off. I played with a few topics and then came to the conclusion that this world is already full of negativity. I should follow in the footsteps of Ali and Kim and write of positive happy things. Then it hit me… VERNON! It can be a simple blog about us, how we manage a long distance relationship (LDR) and advice for those in an LDR. I also post about our two cultures, travel, entertainment, pop culture and anything I can think of pertaining to our relationship. It started out kind of slow, I really didn’t know what I was doing. Now, for the month of May I have reached 18 followers and just this month I have written 6 posts. I’ve been trying to think of ways to make my blog better and visiting several new blogs a week, introducing myself and making comments. I’ve managed to pick up a few followers this month and it’s so exciting!

I have a basic goal for June. I hope to have at least two more followers and I will continue to follow new blogs and introduce myself and leave lots of comments. I also thought of a really cool idea to improve my blog that I know Vernon will love, but I’m not going to spoil the surprise right now. You all will see in good time.

What were you doing one year ago?

Vernon and I chat several times a week.  I was going through our chats from 2010 and thought it would be interesting to see what we were talking about a year ago today. I wonder if all our chats are like this because boy do I look like I have some form of A.D.D. because I jump around from topic to topic.

One year ago today:

• I synced my Outlook calendar with Salesforce.com. Vernon's response, "You know how to have fun."
• I told Vern about the awards ceremony at Heidi's school, how she was going to get presented with her scholarship to WMU and that my Aunt and Uncle would be there too. (Turned out that they don't present the big awards on award night, they save those for graduation so we sat through that entire thing for nothing.)
• I was very angry. Didn't know why. I couldn't focus. Had a bad case of road rage on the way to taking Heidi to school. Vernon said, "It's good to be angry every so often." 
• A certain co-worker was annoying the crap out of me quite frequently and did something specific that day that really annoyed me. This year I don't have to deal with that person anymore. WOO HOOO!
• I was worried about seeing the Ex next week. I'm thinking that was for graduation. I'm actually shocked he showed up. Was never good at following through with commitments to Heidi.
• Vernon had 46 parcels (packages) for one house. He didn't mention it to his manager because he would have taken them off of him and given him 45 more packages to different houses. That is what my dad would call working smart, not hard. Then I went on to talk about my FedEx days. Oh such good times... (not really)
• Vernon's work got a new computer system and it broke down... is an expensive new system and it breaks down. Frustrating.
• I took my lunch break at home and thought I'd surprise Vernon with a phone call. Of course no one answered. Vernon's reply, "although as I look across to the phone, I see someone has called. Sorry Darling." (I love when he calls me Darling).
• I'm training a new girl, they hired someone yesterday to help me out. She's very tall, young, eager to learn and very nice. 
• Heidi just called, she and her friend are going to study at the park. She's got an Economics test and her friend has a Government test. (Wow, seems like yesterday she was in high school)
• It was a beautiful sunny warm day but I was freezing my boobies off? Vernon's response, "Be careful where they fall!" Apparently it was warmer in the U.P. than in Somerset that day.
• I had an odd dream last night... A Watertown firefighter, my friend NM, Heidi and I were in some unknown living room watching TV. I was only wearing a towel. NM and the firefighter were my ride. I wanted to go home to get dressed but no one would take me.
• I was looking at Vernon's photos in Facebook. He had a picture of the place where we had our dinners during our trip to Copper Harbor. 
• We say goodbye the same way nearly every time. Vernon: "bye sexy"; Me: "bye".

Romantic Proposal and Dream Honeymoon!

My good friend and fellow blogger is a finalist in a contest where she and her fiancée can win a fabulous honeymoon!  All it takes is to CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR SARAH AND CHRIS! and then you hit the "LIKE" button under the video. I have watched this video over and over again and I tear up at the same spot every time! Help these two great people get their honeymoon.

They have been enduring a long distance relationship just like Vernon and I; and I only wish them the very best. Please take the two seconds to hit that like button.

THANKS! <3 <3 <3 <3


UPDATE:  They won and went on that fabulous honeymoon!

A Castle, Shopping, and a Baby!

I have recently been to England to see Vernon. It was only for 2 weeks and I wanted lots of family time. Well, I got what I asked for as his sweet little granddaughter arrived in this world during my visit there. She is so very beautiful! I think he's going to love being a grandpa.

I told Vernon that I wanted to see a castle. He took me to Corfe Castle and it was breathtaking! It was extremely windy, but it was sunny and clear. There was lots of walking and hiking and now that I'm 35lbs lighter, I was able to enjoy all of that walking and hiking.  It was also my birthday the day we came out here. I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate my 40th birthday!

I am not only blessed to have Vernon in my life; I have a wonderful girlfriend named Victoria. She didn't have to be my friend, but from the first moment we met I think we hit it off. She is loving, caring, generous, supportive and understanding. She is a very good friend to me and it is so wonderful having a girlfriend to hang out with during my trips to England. Yes, I love spending every waking and non-waking moment with my Sweetheart, but a girl needs her girlfriends and I really love and appreciate her. I also have to mention our shopping trips. She knows where all the great stores are, especially the ones that carry clothes in my size. I've picked things up from Peacocks, Bonmarche, and Marks & Spencer. 

Yeovil, Somerset is my favorite place in the world, obviously because of Vernon, his family, and everyone else there that I love. Secondly, I love it for all the SHOPPING!

Vernon and I had such a wonderful time sight seeing, spending quiet time together as a family, welcoming a precious new life into the world, and spending quality time with good friends. I love the way I feel when I am with him, and I love knowing that he will be there for me forever. I really miss him.

 
  

The end of a fabulous shopping trip

The stupid alarm clock is buzzing and buzzing so loudly! I can't find the snooze button no matter what I hit. It took me forever to set the alarm the night before so that I would wake up with the soft gentle sounds of music in the morning and not wake up Kim, well, that didn't happen.  I felt terrible. Last night I asked her what time she wanted to wake up and she told me 6:30, so I set the alarm for 6. Stupid ass alarm clock. Well, we got an early start, had breakfast although from the way we stuffed our faces the night before, I wasn't hungry for much. Now is when I start thinking about how much fun I had, and it wasn't where I was or what I was doing, it was who I was with. I really wasn't looking forward to taking her back to Grand Rapids but I really couldn't kidnap her could I? The drive back was fun, again we didn't run out of anything to talk about. We also got to pass through the Village of Vernon. Kim and I stopped to take a pic and couldn't stop laughing.

The entire time I was with Kim I could be myself and we talked about all sorts of topics, topics we agreed on and topics we didn't agree on and it was all good.  I missed her before actually meeting her in person, and now that I've met her I miss her so unbelievably much. I hope that she had as much fun as I did and that she felt comfortable around me. I owe a lot to my sister for helping me make this a super shopping trip for Kim, and it was awesome seeing her and my beautiful niece.

My blog is mainly dedicated to my long distance relationship with my best friend and partner Vernon, but these last three posts are dedicated to Kim, my wonderful dear friend with whom I have had a long distance friendship for a little over a year.  She's been on the second half of her vacation here in the states so I haven't heard from her since I dropped her off last week, but I'm so excited to see her online again and to see photos and hear about the rest of her trip.

I had the pleasure of meeting her boyfriend, and he is simply charming. Very nice looking, great smile, and obviously so good to Kim. It was fun sitting in our hotel room with our bottles of Mike's Hard Lemonade talking about "boys". We are both very lucky girls.  I look forward to the day when she can meet Vernon. I know he will just adore Kim and vice versa. Kim, I'm really going to miss you, I've got tears in my eyes writing this but I know we'll be friends forever and that makes me really happy!

Frankenmuth, Fairies and Fudge

Day two of my visit with Kim was even better.  We went down and tried out the complimentary breakfast. It was awesome! Biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, grapes, doughnuts and juice.  I tried to convince Kim that biscuits and sausage gravy was super yummy, but she couldn't understand the concept of gravy for breakfast. I guess when she puts it that way it makes sense.  We went to the gas station to fill up the truck and my genius friend suggested that we pick up some liquid refreshment for tonight, and yes, we picked up a 6pk of Mikes Hard Lemonade.  Now we are ready for our day of shopping and fun.

My sister Liz and her daughter showed up. My sweet niece made a card for Kim reading "Welcome to America" so cute! Then Kim taught her how to count to 10 in Dutch. She did a great job!

Frankenmuth is amazing! What a neat little tourist trap of a town.  I wanted to take plenty of pics to remember this very special day with Kim, and I wanted Vern to see how much fun we had. Kim said she wanted to take pictures in all those character cut outs so we did. We had so much fun sticking our faces in those things.  Total silliness, something I don't do very often.
There were shops for everything, socks, frogs, crepes, purses, toys, creepy looking dolls and souvenirs. Last but not least... there were shops for FUDGE AND ICE CREAM! Wonderful stuff.  I fell behind while in a shopping center because I was buying cookies for later. I made my way around a corner and was startled by the most hideous thing I've ever seen. I looked at it, gave it a second look and really couldn't believe someone made something so ugly and freaky looking.  I looked at Kim and said, "Did you see that?" She laughed and said, "I got a picture of it!" Well, she read my mind because I had to take one too. I can't describe it so I'll just post it here.  What disturbed me the most was that the beard was drawn on, like with charcoal or something. Looks a bit like Prince but with wings.

We all had lunch at the Brewery. It was awesome. Got free hors d'oeuvres because I was a smart cookie and found coupons on the Frankenmuth web site.  The very first stop we made was at Bronners, the Christmas store. Wow, it was absolutely amazing. I really want to go back. They had ornaments for everything, and all sorts of Christmas stuff. I had another coupon for a free item so I let Kim have it and she got an ornament with a picture of fruitcake on it.  It was that or an ornament shaped like a clove of garlic. What's that all about? The fruitcake ornament made us laugh for a while, and now when she hangs it on her tree every year, when she sees the fruitcake ornament she'll think of us. Ha ha ha.

We were totally worn out after all of that walking and shopping. Liz and the munchkin went home and Kim and I went back to the hotel. We immediately changed to go swimming. The cool water felt so good on my overworked feet and legs. Then, in walk a bunch of kids, ranging in the ages from 13 to 17 and a girl that looked like she wasn't a day over 13 was carrying a glass bottle of what looked like champagne. They sat around the hot tub drinking whatever was in the bottle, thinking they were hot shit. I was annoyed because the bottle was glass, dumb asses, don't these kids have parents that teach them anything? It wasn't much longer when an older gentleman in blue coveralls wanted to take the suspected alcohol from the kids and they forcefully stated, "This isn't alcohol". Thinking they were off the hook, like I said, they were dumb asses. He told the kids they couldn't have glass in the pool area. They didn't understand that concept and reluctantly left.  They came back later on and the two girls who were 12 and 13 had the tiniest bikinis on and lots of makeup. They looked so trashy. I'm glad I'm the kind of mother I am and that I taught my daughter class and respect.  These two girls are teenage moms waiting to happen. Where the hell are their parents????? Oh well, not my problem. More kids were showing up and Kim and I really weren't in the mood to deal with other peoples rotten offspring so we left the pool and ordered pizza, cheese bread and mozzarella sticks. It was so very good! Hardly touched the pizza though, our eyes were bigger than our stomachs. We ended the night with Mikes Hard Lemonade, a fabulous pizza dinner and cookies from our day out shopping.  

I really needed this day out with the girls. I was relaxed, stress free, and enjoying the company of my friend, my sister and my niece. It was tough saying goodbye to Kim. Now that we've spent time together, I'm really going to miss her. Maybe next time I see her it will be in Europe. That would be fun.

Smirnoff Green Apple Bite and New Slippers From Holland

I have recently spent two days in lower Michigan. Frankenmuth to be exact. I drove all the way down to the Grand Rapids area to pick up my friend Kim who is visiting the States from Europe.  If you read my last post, my truck is ok. I think it was misdiagnosed by the first mechanic who only looked at it a little because of paying jobs that were coming in that day. I took it to another one who didn't really have time for me either but they squeezed me in and said I had nothing wrong.  I do need a new muffler though. It completely went during my drive down. Anyway, before leaving for our destination, Kim and I had dinner with her boyfriend and his grandparents.  What sweet people, and what a nice dinner consisting of the best hot dogs I've ever had.  The break was nice considering I had been in the truck for the last 8 hours.  I did make a couple of stops to take pictures. The reason for this is that when I go on a trip, I take Vernon with me. I think of him while I'm driving, I see places that I would normally stop at if he were with me, and try to keep my eyes open for places to go with him and the kids in the future. I appreciate more of what Upper Michigan has to offer and its beauty because I try to see it the way Vernon would. It would have been nice if he were with me, but that would take the entire purpose out of our girls getaway. 

Meeting Kim was weird at first. I've only seen photos, chatted, sent/received letters and gifts and talked on the phone.  She was in 3D! Once we began talking, it was like meeting up with an old friend. We had an hour drive ahead of us. We never ran out of things to talk about. We got to the hotel and were greeted by a tall young guy standing in front of the counter. He was smiling at us. We thought it a bit odd and started giggling. He went around behind the counter and proceeded to check us in, gave us the low down on schedules, amenities and stuff and we went to our room.  I freshened up, and the second I came out Kim was pulling gifts out of her bag. She's so cute when it comes to presents. She can't wait! I got the most awesome slippers! They are shaped like wooden shoes.  They are soft and comfy too.  She also brought over a ton of Dutch chocolate. I can't wait for Heidi and I to give it a try.

Everything was wrapped in that cute white and blue Dutch paper with the little windmills that she likes to use.  We were both dying for a drink so we went down to the bar and had trouble deciding on what to have.  The bartender suggested Smirnoff Green Apple Bite.  Holy crap is that stuff awesome! We both had two and that was enough.






We were tired from a long day, me especially, so we went through a stack of coupons I brought for shopping tomorrow and we talked till about 1am and then finally went to sleep.  Tomorrow is going to be a blast!