Wordless Wednesday - This is a house!!

True Story Tuesday

Mike and I haven't flown anywhere together except to the Caymans to see his mom. Our first visit to see her was also the only time we have been out of the country.  The first time we went down, no problems, but on the way back, we had to change planes in Miami.  That, my friends, is a totally different world.  So anyway, going through immigration, we got called in to secondary screening, meaning we were carted off to a room full of non-caucasian folks.  I'm not going to make any assumptions about who they were, where they were from, etc. because I really don't know.  I'm not going to say they weren't "American" because I don't know.  What I do know is being hauled off to that room caused us to miss our flight home. Once you are in that room, you can't leave until they let you out.  You have no rights, American or not, in that room.  Sarah was 3 at the time and she had to potty, they reluctantly took me and her back to a locker room with a prison toilet in it, stainless still with a sink on the back.  I should have let her pee all over the floor.  Mike explained that he was a cop for crying out loud and showed them his badge to no avail. The won't tell you why they've pulled into that room, they won't tell you anything except that you are free to leave. 

We went about three months later and flew back through Atlanta, same thing happened, they still wouldn't tell us anything except that Mike could file a complaint with Homeland Security a/k/a the government.  Yeah Right!!!  So Mike filed a complaint and after nearly a year, he a got a letter full of gibberish.  About a week before our last trip, a girl in his office ran across an article about a guy with the same exact first, middle and last name, born the same year was a skinhead who was on the terror watch list, so now we knew why he was being pulled into secondary screening every time we came back into OUR OWN COUNTRY!!!!

The skinhead guy was arrested last April (a month after our trip) and he was at the hospital with his wife who was having labor induced so her child could be born on Hitler's birthday (nice, huh?) and he was in jail until September when he hung himself in his cell.  For once the government did the right thing and updated their records and we got through immigration without a hitch this time!!! We were soooooooo relieved!!!! 

Go ahead and head on over to Once Upon a Miracle to read other true stories!!

Spring Break - Part One

Mike's mother and step dad live in the Cayman Islands.  We are very lucky to have gotten to visit 3 times in the last two years.  This trip was going to be our longest (9 1/2 days) and we were all very excited as you can imagine!  We were heading to Atlanta on Friday March 12 to spend the night to catch an early flight on Saturday.  Well at 4:30 a.m. on Friday, Sarah woke us up crying and I knew something was wrong, because she never wakes up like that.  She was throwing up everywhere.  Luckily Mike was home for the day becasue we were getting new garage doors, which are quite nice by the way.  I got ready for work, Maggie got ready for school and we headed out.  I worked 1/2 day so when I got home, Sarah was still feeling puney, but had not gotten sick in several hours.  Mike said she can't go on plane with a stomach virus and I said oh yes she can!  Besides I knew she would be better by Saturday morning. 

We finally got on the road to Atlanta around 5:00 pm, stopped and ate dinner at Chick Fil A on the way and Sarah gobbled it down so it she must have felt lots better!  We got stuck in horrendous traffic before we even got the Georgia state line and we never knew was caused it.  We FINALLY got to our hotel and FINALLY went to sleep around midnight.  The alarm went off at 4:00 a.m. sharp!!  UGH!!!  We got up and dressed, drove the van to the place where it was going to live for the next 9 days and we loaded up in a bus/taxi and headed to the airport.  It was quite chilly in Atlanta that morning, but we were anticipating much warmer weather, so we dressed for it. 

We checked in online with Delta on Friday so all we had to do at the airport was check our luggage and we were good to go.  At least until we got to security!  Nothing happened, it's just a pain in the butt to having to keep getting out passports and have everyone's open to their picture, taking off shoes, getting undressed and having to put all of our clothes in the buckets so they can be scanned...I'm exaggerating, but sometimes that's what it feels like. We eventually made it through security, immigration, customs, cavity check and went to find breakfast at 6:30 a.m.! 

We took our time eating and making our way down to our gate.  By the time we got to our gate, we only had to wait about 45 minutes before they started boarding so that was fine. The kids looked out the window at the planes coming and going and played with the DSs while Mike walked around and I did a few word search puzzles and took a few pictures.  Imagine that!  Taking pictures on a trip! 

Valentine's Day

I CANNOT believe I forgot to blog about this....I secretly long to be June Cleaver.  Crazy I know......but that's not going to happen anytime soon, so I got the next thing closest to being June Cleaver...

I CANNOT wait to redecorate my kitchen!

Thank you Mike!!!  You are the best husband EVER!!!

Night of a Thousand Stars

As you may or may not know, a police officer that works with Mike, was killed in the line of duty about 3 months ago.  The outpour of support from the community has been unbelieveable.  There has been fundraiser after fundraiser for his wife and two babies.  The most important one is a committee of local businessmen have been raising money to pay off her mortgage and the goal was made on Friday night. Workplay, which is a venue for local and "semi-famous" artists and bands to perform. It's an awesome place.  American Idol winners Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard have both played there! So, we had a star studded night at Workplay.  Randy Owen from the group Alabama was the headliner. He really put on a good show. He got some of the policeman on the stage to sing Dixieland Delight. 

This is a bond like no other!