I absolutely believe that every year media and retailers bombard us with Christmas stuff way too early. Since Starbucks started using the holiday red cups on Tuesday, I have heard so many people complain about how it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet, and to top it off we are also playing Christmas music in the store. It’s very subtle, I will be working and all of a sudden I will hear a Christmas song, then 30 minutes later I will hear another one. Starbucks is sneaky in the way they plant thoughts of holidays in our heads. With the early arrival of the red cups and the obnoxious Christmas music also comes the holiday beverages, gingerbread lattes, eggnog lattes, peppermint mochas and caramel apple spices, the last two of which most people don’t know we have year round. See, Starbucks is sneaky. But by far the best drink that we have is…wait for it…CHAI EGGNOG LATTES!!! Dear God my mouth waters just typing the words. When someone comes into my store and orders a regular chai tea latte, I ask them if they have ever had it with eggnog, and when I ask them my eyes get really big, almost like I am drug dealer only I am strung out on sweet delicious eggnog instead of crack. It is quite possibly the best drink to ever touch my lips. So good in fact that on the first day we had eggnog in the store I drank three of these delicious beverages. Today I only had two, so I consider that an improvement. The eggnog will be around until January, so I’m either going to need to learn how to control myself, or start running more than just three days a week.
Did I Wish It On Him? November 5, 2009
A couple of posts ago I put up a video that I had found on another blog poking fun at what big babies men can be when they get sick. Well guess who has a big hairy sick baby in her house? That’s right, me. After Keith saw the video he told me that he thought it was pretty funny, and I guess he learned something from it too, because this time that he is sick he is taking it very well. Not once have I seen him fall asleep while pretending to read Ellie a book, or had him tell me that he’s sick without me asking how he is feeling, and using it as an excuse to not have to do anything. So while I may have jinxed myself with a sick husband by posting that video, I also now have a husband who can laugh at how silly he, and I’m sure some other men out there can be when they are sick.
Real Weekend Wrap-Up. November 3, 2009
Last weekend was a big one. Not only because of the fact that it was Halloween, but because it was also The Dickson’s (that’s me and Keith) six year wedding anniversary. The festivities began on Friday night when we went to our church’s Halloween event. Ellie dressed up as Sleeping Beauty, and Jackson was her prince. Ellie takes dressing up very seriously which was demonstrated by the fact that she insisted on us calling her Sleeping Beauty, and started crying and told on her friend Drew when he called her by her real name. So we went to the event, played some games, and then for the third night in a row we came home to a house without Keith. Keith was on a trip for work, which meant that I slept with every light in the house on for three nights in a row…I’m a little paranoid. Saturday morning came, and not much happened, oh except that Keith came home…Yea! That night we met up with a friend of Keith’s at Disneyland who was in town with his family. Now you may be thinking “But Liana, Halloween was on Saturday. Didn’t you take Ellie trick-or-treating?”, and the answer is “No”. One of the great things about having a child young enough to not really understand that certain things are supposed to happen on certain days is that we can totally mess with her brain. What I mean by that is that the church event was enough for her, and the fact that we let her wear her Sleeping Beauty dress to Disneyland on Saturday was a huge treat. She doesn’t even realize that going to strangers houses and having them give her candy that her parents will steal from her after she goes to bed was even an option. Sunday came and we went to church, followed by a picnic at the park with our lifegroup. After that Ellie went home with the Hutton’s so that Keith and I could go out for our anniversary. We even went to see a movie which we haven’t done without her since we went to see “Into the Wild”. Who knows how long ago that was. In all we once again had a pretty full but fun weekend. Hope yours was good too.
Weekend Wrap-Up. November 2, 2009
This is the post in which I would post pictures and share funny stories about what happened over the weekend. However, I don’t feel well and I am super tired. Please check back on Wednesday for some awesome pictures of Ellie and her boyfriend from Halloween…can you guess which boyfriend it is?
I Stole This From Another Blog Too. October 29, 2009
But it’s oh so true. Love you Babe. Miss you. Come home soon.
Rumble At The Chick-Fil-A. October 28, 2009
Tonight was “Spirit Night” for Ellie’s school at Chick-fil-a, which means that if you go there and tell them that you are from her school, then a portion of the sales go back to the school. So The Bean and I went and we invited our friends Mike and Beth, and their two kids Drew and Jackson to come along. For those of you who don’t know, Ellie and Jackson are practically BFF’s and if minors could get married they just might run off together. However, Ellis also has a little boyfriend on the side at school, we will call him “Mark”. So tonight we are all eating our chicken, and the kids are being wild as always, and in walks “Mark” with his parents. After getting their food “Mark” runs over to say hello to Ellie with a big smile on his face because he is happy to see her. At that point Jackson stands up and says “Ellie’s my friend”. The look on all of their faces was priceless. I thought for sure that Jackson was about to throw down in the middle of the Chick-fil-a. Drew ended up doing his brotherly duty and got up to distract the kids from the tension that was so thick you could cut it with a knife. It was like a scene out of West Side Story..I think. I mean I’ve never actually seen the movie, but that was what came to my mind as I was watching it all play out. The rest of the evening went on without any bloodied noses, however Jackson did proceed to share his ice cream with Ellie right in front of “Mark” as they each took turns licking from the cone. It just goes to show you that even pre-schoolers know how to play “the game”.
Keith Can’t Get Enough Of These Two. October 27, 2009
Plus I like to give him a hard time about having a little crush on the girl. I don’t know if he does or not, I just made that up. Enjoy.
Weekend Wrap-Up. October 26, 2009
As expected I over scheduled our weekend again causing Keith to almost freak out a little. Friday night I went out to celebrate a few of our managers who have decided to move on from the coffee giant while Keith stayed home with The Bean. I called him before I went out to see how he was doing, and I believe his response was “Not good”. It turns out that when Keith went to pick up Ellie at school she threw a fit and didn’t want to leave, then when he finally got her out of the sandbox she was in he needed to take her to the bathroom to clean her up, because as I witness on a regular basis when you pick my child up at the end of the day, she looks like she has been eating dirt for the last two hours, and occasionally has her pockets filled with sand. So he takes her to the bathroom to clean her up, and of course she throws a fit. I think she throws fits more with Keith because she thinks it’s funny when he gets mad. So long story short, Ellie is screaming in the bathroom, Keith is screaming in the bathroom, a girl in Ellie’s class runs into the bathroom and then back out again to tell everyone that Ellie is screaming in the bathroom, then they go to Wahoo’s. Back to me. I went out Friday night and stayed out too late considering that I had to be up at 4 a.m. the next morning. Got up at 4 to go to work, came home, took a little nap, ran, showered, pumpkin patched, took my husband on a date, end scene. Then on Sunday I got to go to church for the first time in weeeeeeks. Keith kept telling me that he was worried that people were starting to be concerned about our marriage since I was never around anymore. So we went to church, then lunch, then Disneyland, end scene. Tonight Keith and Ellie carved our big pumpkin, and I think the cutest thing was when Ellie was saying her prayers and she thanked God for the “punkin pouch”
Back On The Streets. October 22, 2009
Okay, I guess I could have come up with a better title for this post, or at least one that didn’t make me sound like I went back to a questionable career, but let’s face it, I’m lazy. What I am referring to is that after a week and a half break from running tonight I laced up my shoes and got back at it. If any of you have been living under a rock for the last three months, then I guess you might not know that about 12 weeks ago a woman that I work with somehow convinced me that it would be a great idea to run the Long Beach half marathon. For some reason when she asked me I said yes right away, even though I hadn’t run since junior high when it was a P.E. requirement, and I hadn’t even worked out since around the time that I found out that I was pregnant with Ellie and I took that as my opportunity to cancel my gym membership and make Chicken McNuggets and Quarter Pounders with Cheese a part of my weekly diet. That being said, I have no idea why I thought that running 13.1 miles sounded like fun, and just to make sure that I would actually follow through, I went and dropped $80 on a pair of shoes. That was when Keith told me that I had better do it. So 10 weeks before the half marathon I started training, and during the first week I had to run 7.5 miles…at one time. During that run I thought I was going to die. I think I actually saw God. So after all the training and the aches and pains, on Sunday, October 11 at 7:15 a.m. my friend Beth, who I got to join me in this madness, and I took off on our 13.1 mile run.
The first 6 miles seemed pretty easy, and it wasn’t until mile 9 that things started to hurt. Those things were, in order of uncomfortability: 1) my toes, 2) my left knee, 3) my right hip. At mile 11 I realized that due to the course route it would actually be faster for me to just run home than to finish the run, and the thought seriously crossed my mind…seriously. I still believe that mile 12 was actually 3 miles that they tried to disguise as one, because it was the longest mile of my life. My goal was to finish in 2 hours and 20 minutes, but I actually finished in 2 hours and 16 minutes. It was my plan to only walk long enough at the water stations to get a quick drink and run the whole thing other than that. A plan that sounded good to me, but I never thought I would actually be able to stick to. But I did, and I was surprised that I was able to.
So here I am, a week and a half after the run, and tonight I finally was able to start running again. It took so long because of a combination of beat up toes (which lucky for you I have posted pictures of), and not having time. Now that the running has begun again, Keith and I are training for the Huntington Beach half marathon on February 7. If any of you want to join us let me know.
Phil Wickham Show. October 21, 2009
Just got back from seeing Phil Wickham at Cottonwood Church. The show was awesome, but I must say that there were an awful lot of guys there in v-necked shirts and a male version of Kate Gosselin’s hair cut. Thank you Bridgett by the way for putting a label on that style for me. I feel the description is perfect. Here are some random photos that show none of the actual concert, for your viewing enjoyment. They are actually better than photos from the show because you get to see Charlie and Stephen doing the “lazy face”.
