Almost Halloween!

So here in Italy, the kids don't really go door to door like back home so it saves money on candy but I totally miss out on the cuties in costumes!

So anyways, got the above cartoon (among others) in my email and thought it was too perfect not to add to my blog!

Happy Haunting!

Have some scrappin' to do!

So now I have a few baby picts of SGF and Schmoopy's lil bundle of joy I have a bit of scrappin' I can do! Yay!

So I figured I needed a little inspiration so thought I'd post a few cute scrappin' blogs.

Jellybean Toes, Cheerios and a Scrapping Hullabaloo: http://cdmuckosky.blogspot.com/
Unincredible Thoughts: http://unincrediblethoughts.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Eclectic Scraps: http://www.eclecticscraps.com/makesmehappy/

Happy Scrappin' all!

Congratulations!

So I just wanted to post that my BFF had her baby yesterday! Baby girl! I bet mommy was surprised as she was sure she was gonna have a boy!

Thanks to my other BFF's husband too for calling long distance to tell me the good news!

Welcome into this world little Brenna Rose!

Love Antie and Uncle!

Thought I'd update everyone...

School Time!

So Kirsten and I got together to try to get registered for school... but it took us 2 days to do it!

First, we met on an afternoon to go to the school we were going to before but the lady we needed to see wasn't there. We were told to come the next morning around 9:30 a.m. That was ok because we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon just hanging out.

The next morning I had to catch the bus at 8:15 a.m. (cuz there was no bus closer to 9:30) and meet Kirsten at the school. Well, we saw the teacher and turns out the classes we would be taking were full (or full of just 15 and 16 year olds so she didn't want us taking that class). There was room in the basic class which we were willing to take but one started at 8:30 a.m. and the other was at night (no good for me cuz there's no bus after 8 p.m.-ish.)

So, she told us to try this other location, well, we had to make yet another appointment for Monday, Oct. 9th at 9 a.m. Well, we found the school and then figured, hell, lets do the touristy thing again today! So we hung out all day till Jeff got home. It was getting time for me to catch my bus so they drove me (in the car Jeff just got like and hour before) to the bus station. While waiting, a girl came up to the lady behind me and said something about a bus strike. Well, the word "Tempi" caught my attention cuz that's my bus company! So I asked the lady if it was Tempi on strike also and she said yes, there's no buses. GREAT! G is away and I'm stranded in Cremona... but wait!

I called Kirsten right away (it had only been 10 minutes since they dropped me off) and asked if they would mine taking a tour to my big town... They were planning on testing out the car a bit I guess so she said "No probs!"

Thank goodness for Jeff just getting his car.

So anyways, let's get back on track, Monday morning came and we met at the school and got all registered but the classes are being held at another location... so off we were to find it. We had a city map from the other day but all those streets going this way and that, and also not all being markd, we finally found it. Hopefully Wednesday will go more smoothly! So we're registered to go Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9:00-11:00 a.m. I'd prefer 10:00 a.m. but oh well. Saves the rest of the day for us to hang out or for me to go home and do some grocery shopping and stuff. We'll see how the classes go Wednesday.

This Is Inspiration!

So I got this in an email from a friend and all I could say after reading it was, "Wow!" It's such an inspiring story I wanted to post it here so you could read it.



Strongest Dad in the World
[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles inmarathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in thesame day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his backmountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike.Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save hislife.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rickwas strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctorstold him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. "Put him in an institution.''

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyesfollowed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there wasanything to help the boy communicate. "No way,'' Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain.

"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor bytouching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that.''

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still,he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. "Dad,'' he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed withgiving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

"No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren'tquite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the raceofficially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made thequalifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way,'' hesays. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of thesethings, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

"No question about it,'' Rick types. "My dad is the Father of the Century.''

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago."

So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

"The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, "is that my dad sit in thechair and I push him once.''

Here's the video.... http://youtube.com/watch?v=ryCTIigaloQ