Off With Her Pink Leg

The Bear had her pink cast removed today. Hallelujah! The Bear is used to the little women nurses at her pediatricians office. All the nurses working at this pediatric orthopedic office were large muscular men. I guess orthopedics is a very popular career for ex athletes. The Bear doesn't exactly like strange men. Large strange man completely freak her out. When we first went to this office to get her cast on a few weeks ago, The Bear clung to me for dear life because of all these big men trying to talk to her. This time around she remembered how these men gave her stickers and lollipops to try to make her smile so she was super happy and talkative. I had warned her that when they removed her cast it would be really loud. The nurse gave her ear muffs to where and he let her touch the saw before he started removing the cast. She giggled the whole time. She said it tickled. We got more x-rays taken. They showed that her fracture was all healed. However, The Bear has a pretty ugly bruise on her heel from the cast plus her knee and ankle are a bit sore from not being able to bend for 3 weeks, so she is walking with a pretty heavy limp. The doctor said if she is still limping after 3 weeks to come back. I'm praying that once the bruise on her heel heals, she will be a lot more comfortable walking and there will be no need to return.

Sweet Aunt Shellie, sent The Bear a little teddy bear with a leg wrapped in a pink cast. The Bear kept calling it her "very special special bear". It was such a cute idea and very special to our pink legged cutie. Aunt Shellie also made some pretty bows for Curly which she LOVED. Thanks Aunt Shellie!

Curly decided to wear all the bows Aunt Shellie made for the picture. The Bear is holding her pink legged bear, Julia.

Waiting to get the cast off

Free at last!

Toomer's Corner

I, like all the whole Auburn Family, am very saddened by the poisoning of the beautiful oak trees at Toomer's Corner. I like what this Sports Illustrated reporter wrote about the Toomer's poisoning in an article titled " Toomer's Corner Poisoning Should Enrage All College Football Fans".

I could go on and on about how this is NOT a typical rivalry prank. This goes above and beyond silly pranks. This is hurtful and not fixable. Hearing people cheer and applaud what this man did to our beautiful campus is so sad. I am thankful we got to take Curly to one Auburn game and to Toomer's afterwards. We are still holding onto a slim hope that some miracle cure will develop and the trees will be saved but the outlook is extremely grim.

Here are a few pictures of when we took Curly to Toomer's as well as a few more pictures.

Toomer's the morning after the National Championship

The Belle of the Ball

Tonight our church hosted a Father/Daughter Valentine's Dance. Last night was a dance for older girls. Tonight's dance was just for 4 year olds through 3 grade. To say Curly has been excited about this dance ( or ball as she call it) is the understatement of the century! She has been over the moon ever since I told her about it. I had her try on dresses in her closet last week to see what she would like to wear. Surprisingly her flower girl dress from Aunt Lauren's wedding a year and a half ago still fit. WOO HOO! It was just a few inches shorter on her but it was still plenty long enough to wear.

Yesterday Daddy came down with a sinus infection. He quickly got on antibiotics. He still felt awful this morning and stayed home sick from work. I was praying hard he would fell better by tonight. Curly was confused as to why Daddy was not at work and still asleep at 8 this morning. She walked into his room and said "Daddy when are you getting up?". He replied " In just a little while. I need a bit more rest.". To which she reasoned "Oh right, you need to rest up for the ball tonight". Yes Curly that's exactly why Daddy needed his rest. Thankfully he did feel much better this evening and he was able to escort his little princess to the ball. On their way home, Daddy mentioned to Curly that next year at the ball she will be too big for him to pick her up and dance as much he did tonight. She excitedly replied "You mean we go AGAIN next year!".

Ready for the Ball

So excited

Daddy and his little girl

Hanging out with her best friends at the dance

Dancing with Daddy

Curly and Claire

Dancing the night away

Injured

So our girls have been a bit accident prone lately. Curly got a black eye after colliding with a boy at preschool. She was fine and the bruise was gone in a few days. However, our sweet dramatic Curly milked this injury for all it was worth. She begged for sympathy from anyone who would listen. Have I ever mentioned that Curly is dramatic, extremely dramatic.

Little Rocky Balboa

I told her to toughen up

The Bear has always been our tough little girl. She can fall down and scrape both knees and not shed a tear while bleeding. She tends to cry and get upset more when she's being bossed around by her big sister than when she is physically injured. Last weekend, Daddy was in school and I had a girl's weekend up at Big Canoe in the north Georgia mountains, so the girls spent the weekend in Augusta with Gran and Papa. At some point The Bear fell in their playroom and hurt her leg. She insisted on being carried the whole weekend. When she did try to walk she did so with a very heavy limp. When we got her back on Sunday afternoon she still wasn't walking. So Monday morning we took her to the pediatrician who then sent us over to the pediatric orthopedic doctor. After taking some x-rays, the doctor determined she had a fracture in her tibia right below her knee. She was put in a full leg bright pink cast. The Bear was so brave through the entire process. She didn't cry when they drew blood to test her white blood count at the pediatrician. She didn't cry when they took x-rays. She didn't cry when they put on the cast. She was a brave little girl through the entire process. I cannot even imagine how many tears Curly would have shed in the same situation. The Bear has to wear the cast for three weeks. We are very thankful it's not longer. She's been doing great scooting around on her bottom. Hopefully these three weeks will go by really fast.

Pink Leg

Curly is a bit jealous of the pink leg

How many Haynes does it take to put together a trampoline?

Just about all of them! For Christmas the girls got a big trampoline from Aunt Katie, Aunt Jenna and Uncle Prem. A few weekends ago they all came over to our house along with Gran and Papa to put it together. The ice and snow was almost completely melted and it was a beautiful weekend to be outside and enjoy the backyard. The trampoline is the perfect size for the girls. It can hold up to 100 lbs, it only about a foot or two off the ground, and has a net that goes around the whole thing. They decided to put it together in our driveway and then move it already assembled into the backyard. The deal was since they gave it to the girls as a gift, they wanted to put it together. We were just suppose to sit back and watch all the hard work. I of course took pictures because that is what I do =0)

Reading the instructions

The bottom

The middle

Waiting eagerly

Uncle Prem pretending to throw The Bear

The Net

Moving it to the backyard

Jump around! Jump around!

High five for Aunt Jenna

Auburn Love

For those that don't know, my husband had no intention of going to Auburn. It wasn't on his radar. He grew up in Augusta, Georgia where the majority of his friends planned to go to UGA from birth. He intended to follow. His parents, not being from Georgia, encouraged him to look at other schools and not just to follow his high school friends to UGA. When he visited Auburn, he instantly fell in love. He loved everything about Auburn, the people, the campus, the entire atmosphere. He was completely sold. He knows it was totally a God thing that he was forced to explore other options. I on the other hand, had known for years that Auburn was where I would go. We both became part of the Auburn family in the fall of 1996 as incoming freshman. We met at the end of our junior year. Our first date was to an Auburn v Ole Miss game (which we lost). We got engaged in front of Samford Hall. We got married at Auburn United Methodist Church. We were season ticket holders for many years (budget cuts aka: kids). We still travel to games when we can. Auburn will always and forever be a very special place for both of us.

Needless to say nothing was going to stop us from going to Glendale to watch our beloved Auburn Tigers go on a Duck hunt. We flew out on Sunday morning. We are so thankful that we had a morning flight since Snowmageddon slammed Atlanta Sunday night. Our flight out was fantastic (well except for the fact that we were in the last row of the plane). It was completely full of Auburn fans. The crew even played band music over the speaker. It was a mini pep rally in the sky. When we landed Lauren and Luke picked us up from the airport. They live in New Mexico and were able to drive to Arizona. We headed straight to Scottsdale to try and catch the Auburn pep rally. We knew we were cutting it close and we did in fact miss it but we got to walk around Scottsdale, eat lunch and soak up the Auburn atmosphere. And it really was an Auburn atmosphere. The "Auburn Family is ALL IN" motto was taken extremely seriously. The Auburn fans outnumbered the Duck fans probably 5 to 1 maybe more. We enjoyed our afternoon in Scottsdale and then headed to our hotel and then an evening out at West Gate. This is an area around the stadium with lots of restaurants and shops. It was really nice. Auburn was sponsored by Under Armor. They went all out for us. Auburn had a huge billboards, commercials running, and a tent with Auburn Under Armor merchandise. Nike sponsored the Ducks. They had nothing around. Not one sign. I almost felt bad for them. Almost.

We just missed the pep rally. War Eagle anyway!

Lunch in Scottsdale

Don't worry Under Armor, we will Protect This House!

Free cotton candy

Ridin' LD Style (see my previous post if you missed it)

Tailgate time:

Lauren and Luke were in charge of the tailgate since they had their truck and were able to bring a bunch of stuff from New Mexico. Monday morning we drove around and picked up all the food and drinks for the tailgate. Apparently Arizona doesn't really care for tailgating, the rules stated that we could not park until 12:30. That's just absurd. People just drove around the stadium causing more traffic until they were allowed to park. It was dumb. Once we FINALLY were able to park we got all 4 or 5 of the cars in our group spots right together. Lauren and Luke did an awesome job setting up the tailgate. They thought of everything we needed. Thanks y'all!.

I got to touch the Heisman Trophy

Setting up the tailgate

I met up with two of the girls who lived in my freshman dorm, Marjorie and Heather.

The Stadium

Lauren drinking some Cammie Cam Juice

Lauren and Luke

Game Time:

Two hours before kick off we headed into the stadium. The security at this stadium was in one word AWFUL! It's like they had no plan for this many people. Yet they hosted the Fiesta Bowl just the week before. We didn't get it. It was slow, inefficient, and annoying but we finally got through and made our way to our seats. I was so excited. My heart was beating so fast. Tears were forming in my eyes. I thought I was going to pass out. Literally. Auburn fans dominated that stadium. I've watched the game on tv and the cameras did a good job of making the stadium look equally divided. However, I assure you Auburn owned 75% of that stadium. We had great seats except of one large, blaring, rude, annoying, mean Oregon man sitting unfortunately right next to me. We were in the corner of the Auburn endzone (the game winning end zone. Woo Hoo!). We had a great view of the field. The Game Day crew from ESPN sat right next to our section. We could have reached out and touched Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Nick and Urban. Well maybe not literally but we were very close. The game was hard to watch for many reasons, but the main one being how slippery the field was. It was down right annoying and painful to watch players slipping everywhere. My favorite moments of the game were:

1 - The Kodi Burns touchdown. I absolutely love Kodi and was beyond happy that he got the first touchdown of the National Championship game.

2- Our goal line stands. Who leaves Nick Fairley unblocked? The Ducks deserve to lose just for that reason alone.

2 - Michael Dyer. Michael Dyer. Michael Dyer. He is freshman and he is awesome.

3- The game winning field goal (obviously).

I'm pretty sure I lost about 10 years off of my life during the game. When it was over, I cried out of pure joy and exhaustion. We stayed in the stadium for a long time celebrating with fans, the team, the coaches, and the band. I didn't want to leave. When it was finally starting to clear out I walked down to the first row and asked a very nice security woman if she would get some of the confetti from the field for me. She did. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with it, but I wanted it anyway.

Pregame

Our neighbors

It's Great to be an Auburn Tiger! Let the celebrating begin!

Auburn Love!

After game press conference

Waiting for my confetti

We got up bright and early Tuesday morning to catch our flight back to Atlanta. A lot of people we talked to had their flights delayed. They all had connecting flights through northern cities though. Ours was a direct flight to Atlanta and was on time. We enjoyed another Auburn filled airplane ride back. The airplane crew even sported Auburn hats for the ride. We landed in Atlanta early. We couldn't wait to get home and get some sleep. Wait what's that, no one can come get us? What do you mean our flight landed just fine? Really no one can come get us? That's right, no one can come because of Snowmageddon. We were finally able to get a friend to meet us at the Dunwoody Marta station and drive us home. The ice hung around for a few more days and then finally decided to melt. According to weather reports we may get more snow next week! Craziness!

Ridin' LD Style

I know I haven't done a post on our Glendale trip. I totally plan to. It will be a lengthly one and I've got to block off some time to do it. I just haven't yet. However I am going to share one part of our trip now. Our very own Lauren Dorman decided to try and win $500 in a bull riding contest. There were only about 15 or so others trying as well so her odds were pretty good. Each contestant got two tries on the bull. Lauren's first try didn't go so well. She only lasted about 3 seconds. Her second try was much better ( or maybe entertaining is a better word). She would have won the $500 prize if it weren't for a tiny little blonde girl who went first. She rode the bull very well and for over 15 seconds. Lauren gave it her all but a few seconds too short. Enjoy the ride...