Continuation of California Adventures.....

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families. I know I sure did. It was so much fun spending time with friends and family.

I still can't believe that Missy and I are home from our wonderful 9-day vacation. The week went so quickly and of course we have lots of stories to tell. You'll have to be sure to read mine and Missy's blogs so that you can get all of the stories that we have to share.

Missy just wrote a blog about our first night on the planes and the trouble with the brakes on the plane that we were in first. I still couldn't believe there was something wrong with the brakes, but God took care of us... He always does.

So, we left with our awesome Mazda 3 rental car from the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, CA and TRIED to find our hotel in Anaheim. The biggest problem with finding the hotel was the fact that the street addresses that we were looking at did not go in order. So, here we were driving down Katella Ave in Anaheim after midnight and we just keep doing U-turns because we keep thinking that the hotel is supposed to be somewhere in the vicinity. We were both getting aggravated because we had been awake for over 20 hours at this point and we wanted to sleep. So, I just keep doing U-turns to try to figure out where this hotel is. I called the hotel and spoke to a man that barely spoke english and he couldn't answer my questions. I was totally frustrated at this point. I finally decide to just keep driving one way on Katella Ave. and see what is at the other side. We finally see the hotel!! But how do we get to it?? It was sitting behind another building and I ended up doing another round of U-turns to try to get into the hotel parking lot. With over an hour of driving up and down Katella, we finally ended up finding the road that went back to our hotel. So, my lesson for the day was...do not ever trust street addresses! Keep that in mind if you ever visit Anaheim, CA.

Missy and I will continue writing blogs about what happened on our vacation....you'll just have to stay tuned. If you would like to hear specific stories about what happened, please comment and let us know. We can certainly answer your questions in our blogs.

And We're Off......

So, it's late on Thursday night and Missy and I have been packing all night long for our trip to California! I just wanted to let ya'll know that we are leaving tomorrow at 2pm SHARP! Here is a summary of our schedule of our 9-day vacation!

Friday, Nov. 14th - leave Indianapolis and fly to Santa Ana California with a layover in Phoenix

Saturday - Going to the San Diego Zoo

Sunday - Going to the Wild Animal park where we will get to experience the Journey into Africa tour

Monday - Disneyland

Tuesday - Disneyland

Wednesday - The Price is Right! (and yes...we will have special shirts made so that we can hopefully get onto the show as a contestant)

Thursday - We will be visiting the Wheel of Fortune to be in the studio audience and this will also be the day that we will get to explore in Los Angeles.

Friday - back to Disneyland to do all our favorite things

Saturday, Nov. 22 - we will be getting ready to leave, but hopefully seeing anything we missed.

This is a very busy schedule, but we have every intention of coming out alive and even though we will be getting home at about 4am Sunday morning, it is our intention to be at church on Sunday morning.

I hope you all have a great week...try not to miss us too much!

Today's Randomness

I can't believe that it's been two weeks since I've written a blog. I'm surprised some of you haven't said anything to me on MySpace! By the way, if you're not my MySpace friend and you'd like to be, you can find me at www.myspace.com/sparkles12780

So, first off....the election. As I sit here and watch the Oprah Show and see Will Smith and Oprah talk about how happy they are about Obama being the President-Elect, I wonder...what is happening to our country? I'll be the first one to admit that I don't like watching politics on TV or even talking about politics, but this is very disturbing to me. I feel that Obama is going to lead us in the wrong direction. My mom, who is all for Obama, was telling me that "Change is what we need." I guess we'll just have to wait and see......

I can't believe that I'm only 8 days away from being on a plane to CALIFORNIA!!!!!!!!!! How ironic is it that just last week at small group we were talking about things on our "Bucket List." This trip is going to be amazing. I wish every one of my friends could go with Missy and I. You know what they say....the more, the merrier. This trip includes so many things on my bucket list...like going to California. One of my life long dreams is to go to The Price is Right and see Hollywood. I'm still in shock that we are actually leaving next week!

Many of you, at church have been asking me how my job has been going. You may recall my very first blog was about feeling like there was a target over my head. Work is going better, but it still gets on my nerves. I'm just trying to be thankful for what I have, even though I can't get it done my way sometimes.

PLEASE join the Smith Small Group after the spaghetti luncheon on Sunday afternoon to watch the movie, Bucket List. This ties into our current series so well....30 days to Live. I've been thinking a lot lately about how I need to live my life differently and "live in the moment."

Lastly, I would like all your prayers and support during this next week. I know that most of you don't know the story behind my divorce, but my husband gets out of Prison on Tuesday, November 11th. I am very worried about this. He knows my address and I don't know if he will come here to contact me. The police tell me that I can't get a restraining order unless he threatens or harms me in any way...so I'm going to be worried about that. Also, on Wednesday, November 12th I have my divorce hearing. I tried to get this hearing taken care of while he was in prison, but things happened and all of it changed. I just hope and pray that everything goes smoothly and I do okay when I see my husband at the hearing on Wednesday.

I'm going to try to write blogs more often so that I don't have 50 different topics in one blog. I'm sure ya'll are just happy to hear from me.

Until Next Time......

Come on Down.......

.........You're the Next Contestant on The Price Is Right!

It has always been my dream to be on this game show, and now it could happen!! Missy was browsing around online and stumbled upon some tickets to Universal Studios Hollywood. But when she found the tickets, they were way out of our price range. A light bulb went off in my head and I said, "Missy, The Price Is Right is in Hollywood! We could go be on The Price Is Right!" So she looked into it and she ended up finding tickets to go to the show!!!!!!!!!

Not only did Missy find tickets to go to The Price Is Right, she found tickets to go be in the audience for The Wheel of Fortune...another favorite game show of mine! Not only will be be able to be in the audience, we will get to tour the building. The great thing about the building is The Wizard of Oz was filmed in the same building that Wheel of Fortune is taped in right now!!! The Wizard of Oz is one of my all time favorite movies!!! Maybe they will have movie props and stuff for me to take pictures of!!!

There are only 25 days left till vacation! It's going to be a BLAST!!!!

California.....here we Come!!!

Oh My Goodness! I just can't keep in the excitement! I have to share it with everyone! Missy and I have the trip booked to CALIFORNIA! We leave on Friday, November 14th. I have never been further west than Houston, so this is going to be a great adventure for us. I'm going to be a big kid for 8 nights and 9 days in CALIFORNIA!!! We're going to Disneyland to visit my future husband, Tigger and Missy's future husband, Mickey Mouse! I'm sure Missy or I will have the video posted of her stalking Mickey around the amusement park! And we're going to the San Diego Zoo also! This is going to be the best trip that I have EVER been on. And don't worry, I'll have lots of pictures posted when we get back!

Stress and Frustration

So, I've been debating what to write my next blog on because I have so many ideas running thru my head at once. But after the phone call that I just experienced, I now have to put all of that on hold and write about it some other time.

As many people know, I am in the process of Divorce. I thought this divorce was supposed to go smoothly because my husband is in prison. My lawyer likes to say, "Your husband is a guest of the State of Ohio!"
I didn't have the money to start divorce proceedings until June 2008. I've been separated since the end of May 2007 and I wanted to get all of this taken care of before my husband gets out of prison this November.

I have a divorce hearing scheduled for Friday, October 17th. I was asking everyone at Small Group on Sunday to please keep me in their prayers and pray that the hearing runs smoothly. Well, today I get a phone call from my lawyer and he tells me that the hearing may be canceled because my husband wrote the Magistrate and asked for a continuance. I don't understand how prisoners have rights to do that. He doesn't need to be at the hearing because there is nothing to be discussed with him. There is no real estate to be dealt with. There are no children as a result of the marriage and my lawyer tried to get the Magistrate to understand this.

So, this is the short version of my very frustrating divorce. I just need to try to calm down and not let the stress get to me. I know the reason my husband asked for a continuance is because he wants to see me. He hasn't got it thru his brain that I don't want to see him. All I can feel when he is around is hurt and betrayal.

I ask myself everyday....why didn't I see the signs of all of this happening before I said, "I do"????

Harassment!!

So...first, the harassment started with my friend Diana....those of you that know her, know what I'm talking about. Then I finally start coming to her church and then I meet other people and they are great....at first. Then my computer gets some sort of virus and I'm relying on my bestest friend Missy to fix the computer because she knows what she's doing when it comes to fixing these things. So, I have these friends at church that are trying to harass me on MySpace telling me that I haven't updated my blog in so long! I'm sorry!!!! I can't fix what is broken! Well, Missy starts shopping on Ebay for a new hard drive for my computer and so she finds one, but then she discovers that we need a Windows disc to load into the hard drive. Missy ended up finding some sort of Windows XP for cheap and that is how she was able to finally fix the computer! So, first of all....thanks Missy! You're a lifesaver! I don't know how long I could have taken the harassment from our friends. To those of you who have been on my back about my blog (you know who you are) ... I still Love you! Now you can find someone new to pick on!