Hi everyone!  I am wishing you all a WONDERFUL THANKSGIVING holiday!  I hope all is going well with everyone. 

All is good here.  Kids are growing up so fast and I hope to have new pics for you all soon! 

Hubby is still working hard and soon will be laid off for the winter, but its all good! 

School ROCKS!  It is tough, but I am managing to get through.  I got all B's so far!  If you know me, that is GOOD.....better than high school!...............but that was a LONG time ago!!  LOL

Just wanted to let you all know I am still here.  Just dont hardly have time to update since I have my nose in the books all the time.

Loves and hugs to you all!

Hi everyone!  Today I woke up with a HORRIBLE COLD.  Went to work anyway, because that is the way I am, I dont miss work for NOTHING!  I left work with plans to come straight home and take meds and go straight to bed!

Well the mailman arrived....................

I had a letter in the mail from the school I applied to go to nursing school................

IM IN!!!!!

Now, just wait till August and I will be going back to school! 

I AM SO EXCITED!!!

Loves and huggs to you all!!

HAD TO SHARE WITH ALL MY FRIENDS HERE!

Good Morning!  This is the beautiful view we see in the mornings.  I love this!

I hope everyone is doing well.  A lot has happened around here lately.  For starts, I have been promoted to an assistant manager at the little convenience store I work at.  BUT, they dont know that I am looking for different work to do.  I just want to do something else.  Dont get me wrong, I enjoy working there, I love seeing different people everyday, I love the people interaction I have everyday, I really like the people I work with too...I just have PLANS!  The new position has me working a lot of different hours, and with having kids I am sure you all know.......Kids strive on ROUTINE!  So, our routine has been a little crazy lately, but I am PLANNING on fixing that.

I have a job interview today at a hospital as a weekend Transcriptionist.  I hope I get the job!  I need my foot in that door!!  Reason being......I HAVE APPLIED TO GO TO NURSING SCHOOL!  Yep that's right......I am 42 years old and hoping to go back to school!  It is a 1 year program and I will graduate with my LPN license in nursing!  I go for my entrance exam on the 13th of February!  I am so excited!  It begins in August this year!  OH I HOPE I GET IN!  So, if I get this job today, it will pave my way to have a weekend job while I am going to school AND possible nursing position when I graduate, since this is the hospital I am wanting to work at when I graduate!  Hoping God has his hand in this one!

Here is a funny!  My daughter was at school the other morning having breakfast....PANCAKES....and lost 2 teeth while eating her pancakes!  I had NO IDEA she had those two teeth loose, I knew she had one loose on the bottom, but those two on top were a surprise!  So now she has one of those great goofy smiles!  LOVE IT!

Turkish Coffee Anyone??  YUMMMMM.......what a wonderful coffee it is!  My mother in law sent us some from Albania for Christmas...what a great gift, I think of her everytime I make a cup!  If you get a chance to enjoy any please take advantage of it!  REMEMBER though......it is STRONG!!!!  You gotta love you some coffee to really LOVE it!

NOW FOR THE EXCITING NEWS!! 

This is my beautiful Niece!  Is she adorable or what??!!  She has changed so much in just a couple days!  She was born January 26th, 2009!  6 lbs 15 oz, 21 inches long!  My brother is 39 years old and this is his first child!  He went through a divorce after 15 years of marriage, and now he has met an AMAZING woman and she has given him a BEAUTIFUL daughter!  Her room is adorable!  And how appropriate they have a little saying above her crib that says:

...Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life,

Love gives us a Fairy Tale...

Well to my surprise, my husband sprung a BIG one on me last weekend.  he called me at home on Monday and told me I needed to take off from work on Sunday because he had plans for us.  So I got arranged to be off on Sunday.  Then Saturday when I got home, he said..........take a shower and pack a bag and HURRY!  So I did so with a big smile and lots of unanswered questions.  Then we rushed out the door and got in the car and  he hands me an envelope with 2 tickets to the St. Louis Cardinals game!  OH MY GOODNESS!!!!  I was so happy!  I have never been to a game there and I have wanted to go for a long time!  He never out does me on gifts but this time he definitely did!!!  Here are some pics from the game!  We were only 10 rows from home plate!!!

Then he takes me to a really great hotel on the other side of the Mississippi river in Illinois.  We stayed the night for the second part of my surprise.  We woke the next morning had a great breakfast together and we headed back to St. Louis to the ARCH!  I have not been there since I was a KID!!!!  It was a great day.  The river was still flooded and we got some incredible shots of the arch that day!  I will share. 

Here is my adorable husband!

Here is me!!  This is also a shot of me after losing a total of 78 pounds!  Still on the down side too!  I am up to working out 2 times a day 4 days a week, I think it is showing!  I am getting addicted to working out I think!

This is Flory having a conversation with the man who started this whole idea of building the Arch.  Not sure what they were talking about, but looks pretty intense!

This is from the top of the arch looking down into St. Louis!  The center is a pic of the old courthouse.  Isnt it beautiful!

This is Busch Stadium, we were just there yesterday!

looking down the arch

we were up 630 feet in the air!  WOW!  you could feel it moving some too!

Me and my incredible hubby!  A little blurry.

looking up the leg of the arch!  I love this pic!

This is the statue that was put at the edge of the river symbolizing the gateway to the west!  He is a little wet at the moment!  That is actually the street we were supposed to park on to get to the arch.  Now it looks like he is waving his hat for HELP!

And we ended our wonderful weekend with an AMAZING dinner at an Albanian restuarant in St. Louis called Arber.  It was incredible!  It made me feel like I was back in Albania with all the people in there talking Albanian, having coffee (espresso), salad, Byrek and Qofte!  All Albanian style!  The Albanians have one thing that I have not seen in any other place we have ever eaten, and that is SERVICE!  They dont use waitresses like we do, they use young men, dressed in white shirts and black pants!  And their service in AMAZING!  I hope we go back there again soon!  Flory felt right at home there!  I only could understand some words they were speaking, but he filled me in on the conversation later on the ride home.  They also speak English, but they talk their native language when they can!  I love listening to it, it is so beautiful to listen to! 

Well I hope you all enjoy the new pics of my wonderful weekend.  Sending loves and huggz to you all!   

Well I have been working really hard this week and it is paying off!  I have had a huge boost in my energy level and have been cleaning this house like CRAZY!  You would think I was pregnant and going through that NESTING phase!  (I still remember those days!)

I have gone in my sons room and we went through all his clothes and got 2 bags of clothes that dont fit him anymore and are donating them to a place here in town.  We rearranged his room and hung things on the walls and he LOVES his room!  He is into John Deere, so he wants everything John Deere........and wants me to paint his room GREEN..........NOT HAPPENIN!  I will paint it for him, but NOT Green. 

Today we are working on making our little family room downstairs that we dont really use, into a workout place for MOM!  I need my little space too!  I have a little TV down there and going to take my stereo down there, I have my gazelle and my bike in there too, just need to clean it up and make it "physical friendly"!  Looking forward to having that space just for me to go hang out!

I am so happy to be back in gear again, I really feel great, not only physically, but emotionally.  I feel HAPPY more than before.  I love this feeling.  I will keep you all updated!

Sending out loves and huggz...........

Kimi