forgetful

so, yeah. I forgot about my blog! no surprise to me as I forget everything these days. thank goodness for my phone, it's my calendar, alarm clock, text machine, internet, etc. gotta love that! if it weren't for my alarm that tells me when I have an appointment, I would forget. so, before i forget, let me tell you about my weekend:

Friday night:
photo shoot with Randi (boudoir) -- don't expect to see any shots on my Sunkissed Photography blog with these pictures!

Saturday:
canoe trip cancelled :( the only good thing about this was that I was able to sleep in. I have been treasuring my sleep lately - oh, who am I kidding...I always treasure my sleep!
we went to a friend's house instead and had a shrimp boil (I brought 6 pizzas for the kids - and me!).

Sunday:
slept in again, missed church. I have to catch up on the last three sermons on iTunes via the Northstar site. I feel horrible for missing three weeks of church. instead of church I went grocery shopping and had lots of help from Addison. the boys stayed home. Jim pressure washed the house and started laundry and the boys hung out with friends. I went to a friend's house to visit as well before coming home and making a cheesey chicken dinner.

That pretty much sums it up. Pretty boring and uneventful - well, that's not totally true, but I'll leave the drama for another time - I have to let the smoke settle before giving up this little ditty.... REMIND ME to tell you about it, though! ;)

ANOTHER NOTE:
I am beginning to count down the days I have left at work. today marks day 2 of 15, so 13 more days of work left!! I'm counting work days, not weekends - :) after this I'll start counting down the days I have left before the big move!

vent

what is wrong with people these days?

I dropped off our boat seats to a company who gave me the best price to re-upholster (warning....don't do this!) the seats, AND on top of that he told me he could have them done by the end of the next week. When I didn't hear from him at the end of that week, I had Jim contact him to ask about the status of the seats. They weren't done. (list of reasons to follow) We were promised the following week. Then we were promised the following week. THEN we were promised the following week. Between calls from myself and Jim, here were his excuses:

- "I just got the material in" (on the day that he first promised they would be done)

- "I had a family emergency, I'll have them done by 'next week'"

- "I thought I was having a heart attack, I went to the hospital and the doctors told me to rest for a few hours, so that's what I'm doing. I will have them done by 'next week'"

- "A part on my machine broke. I just got the part in and it's being fixed now. I will have them done by 'next week'"

- "My machine broke and I had to get it replaced. I will have them done by 'next week'" (yesterday actually)

Mind you, this man NEVER made a courtesy call to tell us with the status, why he had to put off getting them done, etc.

I pulled up to his building yesterday without warning, opened my hatchback, put the backseats down to make room for the seats and told this man I'm here to pick up my boat seats. Well, guess what? They aren't done!! Surprise, surprise! I told him I want the seats and the material I paid for. He told me, "Mrs. Eckert I will have them done tomorrow afternoon." I told him that I heard that story five times already, I want my seats. He again tried to pursuade me into letting him keep my seats. I was hell bent on getting those dang seats, though. I had to repeat myself about three times before he gave up. He brought the material to me and told me it was worth more than I paid for it. I took it from him and put it in the car. His 'employee' then loaded my unfinished (not even started) boat seats in the back of my car. At that point I stood directly in front of the owner of this place and told him, "Randy, if you would have just made a courtesy call to let me know what was going on, I wouldn't have a problem working with you. I come from a family of business owners and have worked long enough in my life to know how important those short calls can be for your business." At that point he told me that he was sorry but he had just spent $1800 on a new machine, blah, blah, blah....I don't care! That's how a business works sometimes! In hindsight I should have told him about the $2800 I just spent on photography equipment for MY business (lol). OH...and get this...he told me that the material he gave me was more than I needed and more than I spent to have him purchase it in the first place. I told him I would be happy to bring back whatever is leftover. He told me if I didn't he would bill me for it. HAAAA!!! HAAA!!! I highly doubt it. That man didn't even get my information other than name and number when I dropped them off in the first place. He's not seeing that fabric again. I could have had that boat sold by now. DB.

If you made it this far, thanks for listening to my vent :) After getting the seats I did go to two different places for qoutes. I should have them back no later than 2 weeks. Ahhhh.....I feel better now :)

weekend review

it was a great weekend. what weekend could be bad when there is no work involved? well, at least work beginning at 6am and ending at 3pm :) Jim was sweet enough to let me sleep in both days....he's awesome!

ON THE HOMEFRONT
Friday evening was spend with me sitting in front of the computer, again. I have to admit that as much as I love photography, sitting in front of the computer sorting, posting, etc. has really taken its toll on me. it hasn't been that great for the kiddos either. they don't want to play with "mom" but I had no opportunity to spend any time with them. this has led to me missing out on a pretty significant event, which I found out about a day later....

Tyler was at his friend's house and, as boys will be boys, a great idea came to mind - or what seemed like a great idea at the time. Tyler's friend apparently has a moped. are you getting a visual yet? well, the first incident happened when Tyler's friend was driving the moped, rope tied to the back of it somehow, and Tyler holding on to the end of the rope while "riding" his rip-stick. now, if you aren't sure what a rip-stick is, let me explain....it's similar to a skateboard, only it has two wheels, not four and in order to make it move you must move it back and forth with your feet and using your hips (I think....I can't ride the dang thing lol). .....CRASH...... the second event happened as Tyler was riding the moped and bit it. according to Tyler he was going 25-30 mph, but I'm doubtful about that. so what does all of this boil down to? LUMPS and bruises all over his shins, arms, and a side. I hope CPS doesn't call me today.... ......boys....wow!

I've also listed several items on craigslist last night. within the first hour of posting I had my recliner sold :) the hardest thing to sell will be my Canon XTi with all the goodies. my fingers are crossed that it will sell within the month. I love craigslist <3

SUNKISSED PHOTOGRAPHY
I chased down the UPS lady Friday afternoon in order to retrieve my new camera and equipment. little did I know that overnight deliveries arrive to your home before noon the following day. I was home from work shortly after 3pm - figures. luckily, the UPS lady was still on base delivering packages. gotta love UPS for letting me run up to the truck and ask for my package with no problem! so, I got my camera BEFORE moving to AZ :) hip, hip, horray!

ready for the weekend

literally words that could not be truer - I am so ready for the weekend.

no plans for the weekend except for sleeping in and photography work. I am working on my site currently, but have yet to master my Mac's photo software - I mean seriously, is it really that hard to add text to a picture? surely the software could handle that, but not me, nope, I can't figure it out! my hope is that after a good night's sleep and refreshed brain I can jump this hurdle with no problems at all. after that, my days should go much smoother.

maybe an angel will fall from the sky and install photoshop on my computer :)

......technical difficulties......grrrr.

whirlwind of a weekend

this is what I hope to have by the time we get to Arizona :) ->

wow what a busy weekend! I had so much doing the Brooks family pictures on Friday that I took more shots Saturday morning, this time with the American Flag ~ patriotism!

Saturday afternoon Tyler celebrated his birthday with his friends. this was probably more choreful for Jim than for me ~ love you Jim! Jayce and Addison had a birthday party to attend and although I thought they should have been home to help celebrate with Tyler, it was Tyler who said that they would only annoy him anyways -ha! I guess it was a win-win situation for all! and it's not a big deal because we did give Tyler his birthday celebration (short lived) on his actual birthday.

while Tyler was running around with his friends I was able to sit down and order the pictures for OpLoveReUnited. those should be here this week and I can't wait to see how the book of 40 pictures turned out!

Sunday was a long and exhausting day, but it certainly was fun and challenging! I drove to Pensacola for a 5 hour photography workshop where I had the opportunity to shoot 4 professional models. wow! what an experience! I have approximately 700+ shots to go through today. and tomorrow are family pictures with the Allen family who have two gorgeous daughters. I may as the very protective dad to allow me to use his oldest daughter as one of my models to add to my portfolio....my fingers are crossed!

Operation Love ReUnited

Operation Love ReUnited is a non profit organization that I recently volunteered with as a photographer. The idea of the organization is to provide military families with pictures prior to, during, and after a loved one has deployed. My first shoot was with the Brooks family. Dee is already deployed and won't be returning until August, so I was only able to shoot his wife and their two children. We had a blast at Lake Caroline!

My job as the photographer is not only to take pictures, but to create an album of some of the best shots and send them to the deployed soldier. This gives him/her hope, inspiration, and excitement of what he holds back home in the States. I will not be here for Dee's homecoming due to our own PCS, but hopefully the family will take advantage of another photographer's goodwill and have them onsite for the homecoming. Those are where the true emotions shine ~ they are priceless. Please visit the site and spread the word!

back in the game

thanks to my friend Diane, I'm back to blogging ~ with an entire year gone and not recorded I think it's due time, don't you? the best part is I think it was wise to skip the year 2009 as it was a very difficult year for me and the family ~ some good things did happen last year, like: Jim and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary (we made it!), God blessed us with the strength it took to stick together, and my mom has progressively gotten stronger physically ~ so what's new in 2010? LOTS of things!

* we are moving to Tucson, Arizona

* Tyler begins middle school

* Jim prepares to test for MSgt

* Sunkissed Photography gets BUSY

* full-time college will be a reality for Jim and I in the fall

* we increased our family size by one dog


I'm sure there's more, but as my head aches for some peace and quiet (and the kids will be home in an hour) I will post some pics of some of the highlights of 2009....

jim and i learn to scuba dive

10 year anniversary c/o a beautiful Caribbean cruise

i will defeat the slide for life!

they grow so fast!

the family learns to scallop

heading back home

I leave to head back up to Michigan this Friday. I will be up there until the 8th of February...just over a week. I am going to stay with my mom and help take care of her and make sure she's settling into her new life okay. I'll also be there for psychological support, taking her shopping and out to dinner and the movies ;) She told me that she's having shopping withdrawls! Who am I to turn down shopping and deprive this woman of something she loves so much!??? (Can you feel the sarcasm?)

I should be bringing home a friend, too. My bff Carla is expected to travel back with me and stay down here for a while. I hope we can make that happen!

EMERGENCY!

It's Saturday night....10:30pm and the house is finally dark. The kids are asleep in the living room having a "camp out." Jim just fell asleep and I'm struggling to fall asleep. At about 11:00pm, give or take a few minutes, I hear Sadie barking up a storm. It's not her typical bark like there's a lizard on the window, but the "someone's here" bark. So I jump out of bed and poke my head around the corner of the window to see if there is someone outside. Sure enough, the police is knocking his flashlight against my house. Jim and run back to the bed room to quickly throw on something decent and go back out to the front door.....

The police officer proceeds to tell us that there is a gas leak coming from our meter outside and that we need to evacuate our home, and he has contacted "fire" and they are on their way.

Holy cow! Jim was upset b/c he had JUST fell asleep and I am trying to get the kids up and dressed so they can get out of the house. I swear if there were a fire in our house they would have burned to death! They didn't wake up with Sadie barking, they didn't wake up with Jim and I 10 feet from them talking to the police officer, they didn't wake up when the lights were turned on, they didn't wake up when we tried the 'gentle wake' approach, and they didn't wake up when they were shook! When they finally woke up Jayce was the first to get dressed and out the door, Addison was next but fussed about what she was going to put on to go outside (such a girl!), and Tyler had to be yelled at and told "do you understand that the fire department is on their way to our home!?" before he even sat up on the couch.

....continuing with the story......we went outside to find all of our neighbors standing in their driveways. We all gathered and were told that they had been woke first. There were also two other women standing around us. They told us that they had been walking around the block and smelled gas the first time they passed the house; after they passed the house a second time they smelled the gas even more...thus their call to report the suspicious odor.

After 20 minutes the fire department made their way down our street...lights twisting and shining, alerting the whole neighborhood that they were there. Mind you, this is now about 11:30pm. It was kind of funny to see them jump out of the fire truck all geared up and running to/from our gas meter as they were grabbing different items from their truck.

The cheif - or at least the oldest of the firemen - confirmed that he found a leak at the meter. He told me he turned off the gas and that we would now have to wait for housing maintenance to come and "fix it" - ok....I'm thinking that it would have to be the GAS COMPANY who would fix the problem, not the handy man...but who am I?

Anyhow, we waited another 1/2 hour for the very upset mainenance man to arrive to our house just to tell us that there was NOT a leak. He turned the gas back on and we went to bed. Here's a couple of pics I took....I knew I had to write about this!

Addison is wrapped up in her blanket on the sidewalk as the firemen chat with the police officer

Here's #7 in front of our house. Jim is standing in the sweatsuit along with some of the neighbor kids running down to see what all the excitement is about! Tyler is hanging out on the basketball hoop's base.

HOW THE STORY ENDS........

Jim called housing maint Tuesday b/c of the conflicting stories about this "leak" - they sent someone from the gas company out to our house to tell us that we did, in fact, have a gas leak. It was caused from a defective something or other (I didn't pay close attention to be honest). He replace the defective piece and now we are safe.

The funny thing about all of this.......the AF has rules they are supposed to follow....during a situation like this they are supposed to evacuate EVERYONE within 500' of the leak, JUST IN CASE. See how close we all are? OMG.....it was a loooong night, to say the least........but we are all ok and that's what matters most, right? :) As my dear friend told me, it's close calls like this that make us realize that we should appreciate what we have while we have it!

I miss the snow, so....

Ok, I don't miss the snow, nor do I miss the cold weather - OR falling on my butt after slipping on the ice.... never-the-less, I will be back in Michigan two weeks from today. My mom will be getting out of Mary Free Bed next week Friday. She will need 24/7 care for several weeks, or until she can care for herself. She has asked me to come help her for the second week that she's home - of course I am more than willing to do anything to help her - so I'll be flying back up on the 30th. The first week my mom will have help from her friend and her husband's brother and his wife.

When the kids caught word of this they immediately thought that I would be gone for a while, like last time. It's not my plan. I actually have a flight back the following Sunday. But....if she needs me longer, I will be there for her. I don't foresee that, though.

Although I am so grateful that my mom actually asked for my help (I offered to come back up there before and she declined my help saying that she wanted to prove she could do it herself), I am very nervous about staying in the same house as her husband. I have called on my cousin/bff to stay up there with me and I also have a friend who said she would stay up there with me as well. Thank God for friends! Friends are good therapy :) - not to mention they have your back if anything happens ;)

I am going to purchase a Wii for my mom, too! I'm excited about that. The kids got one for Christmas and they love to play it! It's going to be great exercise and therapy for my mom - they actually use them at Mary Free Bed as part of the rehab process and my mom loves it....bowling is her favorite.

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In other news....we found a new church that I absolutely LOVE! And I begin a small group February 11th and I'm excited about it! We came across the church through friends. We invited them to our church for their Christmas Eve service and they told us that they would go if we went with them to church with them one Sunday. My friend tells me "they have a band with smoke and lights and everything!" My first thought was, great....I don't like contemporary services and this sounds like a contemporary church for sure. Well, turns out that the band is more like an alternative rock band that plays the same music that we sing at "our" church, but with a twist! It was so cool! And they have a cafe' with coffee, hot chocolate, donuts, and bagels - the kids LOVE this. It's such a laid back church and seems to cater to our age group even though there are people of all ages who attend. It's FABULOUS! I look forward to waking up on Sunday to go to church now :)

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Also...Jim and I have decided that we are NOT going to extend his tour another year here in Panama City. We think it's time to move on. But where to? We would love to go overseas, but the problem with going overseas is that Jim will be gone 6-8 months out of the year. This means being isolated in a strange place. The experiences would be so great, but not having support (initially) will be hard. So....even though we are going to try for overseas (Kadeena AFB in Japan), we think that we will end up (or request) Scott AFB in IL, or Whiteman AFB in MO. Each base is on either side of St. Louis. Whiteman is a little further from home, but it has my favorite plane...the B2 Bomber! Escentially, we are trying to move closer to home.

You have to follow through....

I feel so bad for Tyler...he's been trying to grow his hair out for a long time now. And b/c we know how important it is for him to have long hair, we've been threatening that if Tyler continues to disobey and disrespect, he will get it cut. Well, the day has come and the threat no longer became just a threat...it became punishment.

Personally, I like Tyler with shorter hair, but the skater look was growing on me - I have to admit it. He took it like a trooper until it was almost over.......

The BEFORE pics....

The AFTER pics......

You can see the teary eyes as he doesn't want his picture taken. Look at all of the hair on the floor! Clippers were only used to trim around his ears and shape the back of his neck.

Yes....sad eyes...but you have to follow through with your threats!

He looks so handsome!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

KIDS IN A CANDY STOREJim loves him some Jelly Bellies....for real!

Anika's $3 Peanut Butter cup - she LOVED it!

Anika & Tyler....silly

Tyler was bum-rushed into this picture....I love it!

After dinner the stilt walker made the kids balloon hats

Jayce picked the shark hat

This hat was originally made for Addison, but she's picky and wanted a plain ole pink doggie, so Khiya enjoyed the flower hat instead!

Tyler's viking hat

Anika liked the flower hat, too!

During dinner pics.......Anika & I

Self portrait...Addison wanted me to take a pic of her kissing my cheek

Who's that bird?

Who's this bird?

And this one?

Why does this bird have to show off?


The highlight of the night at Pier Park....the kids rolling down the hill. Seriously, a $50 meal, some candy from the candy store, and THIS is what their favorite this was to do! Next time I'm just getting cardboard boxes and clothes hangers and calling it a night!




HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Girl Time & Friends

Kate's getting her hair cut! She's first to go under the scissors of the pro!

Getting my hair cut by a pro!

Not sure I'd recommend doing "at home" waxing with girlfriends...too much laughter can cause damage! Trust me....I know firsthand! I still love you, Kristie!


Trouble.....and the three passengers on the bus to !#))

Kate, Kristie, & Me

Kate & I

Ray's wife Melinda & I during our midnight bowling extravaganza

Wade & I

This is how I secretly felt most days....I only showed it at night (Ray's in disbelief)

Big Wheel (aka Michael) & I

...Michael is my BF Carla's brother...

My high school bud, Ray & I

Carla & I = trouble (but not this night)

Family

My Cousin Katie & I

Katie & I again @ the Beltline Bar

@ the Stefans' traditional "Christmas Eve" playing the "lapdance game"

Kristie, Nicole & Jason (my cousins), Aunt Patti, Uncle Bob, & Jason

(the boys HATED this game, which made it SO much more fun for the girls!!)

Kristie & Gracie

My brother Chris with Addison & Jayce

Our Thanksgiving Dinner was spent in the ICU waiting room.....

Aunt Patti, Grandma & I

(laughing at Aunt Patti's "I am we Todd it")

Uncle Rick carves the Turkey

(my eyes look SO tired....oh my goodness....)

Chris squared

(Chris & Kristie...get it?)

Ally & I

Liv & I

Gracie & I -- I think I only taught Gracie naughty things..... ;)