Spending some time with the family

I had a really great time spending the day with my family yesterday. I went to one of my cousin's weddings. My favorite cousin Jessie was matron-of-honor. We were really close when we were little kids up through high school but now mostly communicate through email. It was nice getting to see her. She looked absolutely gorgeous as matron-of-honor. After the wedding we headed over to my brother's house. They didn't go to the wedding. My sil, well she just had a baby so didn't exactly feel up to it. And I don't think my brother's too big on going to stuff like that without her. My brother cooked dinner for us. And the best part (well second best part) my brother sang three songs to me (us) and played his guitar. The thing I miss most not living with my brother anymore (its been 22 years) is being an audience to his singing on a daily basis. Now of course the best part was getting to hold my little nephew. I kind of hogged holding him most of the time I was there. Some of my brother's friends stopped by to see the baby and he took him from me to show him off. But I got him back. I forgot how heavy babies are. Its weird how you can workout and curl dumbbells that weigh three or four times a baby's weight yet they try the muscles when you're holding one for a couple of hours. Sorry I have no pictures. My flaky camera is currently not working. And my brother has one of those old-fashioned cameras that use film. Lexie spent most of the evening playing with her cousin Kellie. Hopefully my next visit I'll get some photos to share.

Guess what? I'm an Aunt!!!! Again.

My sil gave birth to my nephew today. 7 pounds and something. I'm hoping to get some pictures up this weekend. I really can't go see him before then. I have to work and my daughter has school. And my car is still in the shop. I'm driving my mom's old car and it gets around but I'm not driving it anymore than I absolutely have to.
Anyway about my nephew, my sil was intending to name him Ronald Ethan. Most people in my family go by their middle names and another large percent go by initials so they weren't intending to call the baby Ronald but I still don't like it. My sil's dad died several years ago. His name was Ronald Bryan Matthews. Watch someone google him and tell my sil how much I hate her kids names. I don't. I just don't like Ronald. And Matt's first name is Joseph (after my dad) and Matt is short for Matthews. Bryan actually goes by his first name. So why does boy #3 have to be named after him too? So today while my wonderful and beautiful sister-in-law was busy giving birth. I was busy complaining about this horrible Hancock she was planning to stick on my poor nephew. My co-worker asked me what I like. If it was up to me to name him. I said my daughter's friend that died's brother's name is Lucas Carter which I really like a lot. I wouldn't mind a nephew named Carter. You know if it was up to me. I like Carter. I like "Lucas Carter" together. And then she asked me how Melanie died. There was somebody I missed telling. The words 'my daughter's friend that died' poured out my mouth without my being upset by the tragedy. And funny I can type this recollection without bursting into tears. But the sudden image that popped into my head of this tiny little girl with long blond hair being pulled and drug to death underneath a horse brought me to tears.

My nephew is "Nolan Spencer" I like it. I do. Much better than Ronald.

Working Out

Still no baby to report on. And its about 6 weeks until state games. Lex will be doing the same program she did for the Classic for state games. She's only competing in Freestyle for this next competition. So I figured I'd do a post on my goals. You may or may not know that our rink is being overhauled (you can see fiberglass in my latest video). We are hoping they'll have the rink renovations done soon (summer or fall). So there should be a Nutcracker on Ice this year. 2007's Nutcracker on Ice was canceled because of the renovations. And Lexie's skated in every Nutcracker on Ice since she started skating in 2003. And I've skated in every one since 2005 (the year of Lexie's first solo). Anywho, I am really excited about the rink opening back up and getting to perform Nutcracker on Ice this year. Some people think Nutcracker on Ice may be a thing of the past because the seating won't be big enough after the renovations. I really hope not. On my agenda is to get back into taking skating lessons again this summer. Maybe I can learn to skate dutch waltz and cha cha over summer. But for the time being I've been getting in shape. Over the last month or two I've been running several times a week. I ran 25 minutes today... walked 10 minutes... and jumped rope 5. And two weeks ago I started lifting weights again. I had quit lifting because I wasn't doing it consistent enough to progress any and decided to spend my time running instead. For two whole weeks I've been making the time for both running and lifting weights. I get to feel every little fiber of muscle ache. In another month or so I should be able to stand some skating lessons without getting so tired I want to quit. Its a lot more tiring when you are working on something than just skating laps around the rink. Maybe by then I'll have had some time to recover from my recent financial setbacks.

Waiting to be an aunt.....

I've been hit repeatedly over the head with the bad-luck wand the past couple of weeks. Since I hate seeing myself as a whiner I'll spare you all the details. And focus on some good news - because any day now I'm going to be an aunt. While I flail around a lot at the whole parenting thing and have absolutely no idea what I'm doing most of the time I've always thought I was a really great aunt. I have had a lot more practice. So in my toast my becoming an aunt again any day now here's an old photo of a young, loving "Aunt Renne" with my other brother's son Curtis. See I told you I had a lot of practice... and you thought I'd only been doing the aunt thing for nineteen years.



Also... when I was looking through some old photos I found a couple of my daughter teaching my now 19-year-old nephew Matt how to skate a few years ago. This is how to do backwards swizzles. I thought it was adorable - though the quality of the photos weren't so good.

Classic 2008

The video is a little small so it might be hard to see. She skated extremely well. She landed all her jumps and did well on the spins. I'm linking through youtube so hopefully you can click on it and make it bigger and see the lutz and camel at the end. It really was a great program I wish I could've zoomed in a little more.