In 1999 we had Jasper neutered. But we didn’t do it soon enough because just a few weeks later our other cat (the female, Pepe) gave birth to three kittens. One looked just like Jasper.

We gave the kittens away. And year later, after the twins were born, we gave away Pepe too because we were worried Spencer might be allergic. Spencer had really bad eczema and it seemed to get worse when he was around the cats. We got rid of Pepe first because she had long hair and shedded more. We ended up keeping Jasper and Spencer seemed to be just fine.

Jasper was a big part of our family. None of the kids can remember not having Jasper (and most of them were born after Jasper came to our family). Jasper even had his own stocking at Christmas time.

He usually got some catnip toy stuffed in his stocking for him to enjoy after Christmas.

As he got older, Jasper was less playful and more lazy (like the rest of us old timers.)

Recently his favorite spot was snug in a blanket on the couch in the family room or on top of the folded towels.

And like most cats, he liked to stay warm by sitting in window sills or patches of sunlight on the floor.

Keaton was particularly attached to Jasper. They practically grew up together. Keaton always hunted Jasper down at night so he could take him to bed with him.

About an hour after we got home last night, Justis heard Jasper meowing. He and Keaton went looking for him and found him laying on the cold cement under the stairs. That was odd for him…not his usual hang out place. Justis crawled under the stairs and pulled Jasper out.

Right away it was obvious something was wrong. Jasper couldn’t even stand. They called Lee in to look at him. Lee brought him in to my office so I could see him. He didn’t look well.

Lee and the boys took him upstairs and tried to get some water in to him, but they were unsuccessful. It was obvious this was something well beyond our own personal animal care experience so I called the animal hospital. They told me to bring him right in.

Keaton had wrapped Jasper in a blanket and was snuggling with him on the couch in the living room. When I reached down to grab Jasper I could see that Keaton had been crying. He knew the worst was about to come.

We rushed Jasper to the animal hospital, filled out the paperwork, and waited for the doctor. The vet came out and took us to a small room to give us her diagnoses. She said she could tell he was jaundiced just by looking at him from across the room. He was also cold. His temp was only 92 degrees and normal for cats is around 102 degrees. Plus he was very dehydrated. She suspected he had fatty liver disease. She told us he likely hadn’t eaten in 3 to 5 days.

Our options were to get him warmed up and hydrated and then put a feeding tube in for several weeks. We would have to feed him by hand until he learned to eat on his own again. We also talked about having an ultrasound done to make sure he didn’t have cancer before we went to the effort of putting in a feeding tube that wouldn’t help him. We also talked about putting him down.

When I was a child, two of my cats died. Our Siamese cat, Misty, died when I was in elementary school. He was actually my stepmom’s cat and he was already pretty old when she and my dad got together. I also had my own cat that I named Paw Prints. Paw Prints had a rough life. He once got string wrapped tightly around his tongue and almost choked on his swollen tongue. He also got acne after being stressed when we got another cat. Eventually Paw Prints died from cancer. I remember being upset about it, but I got over it quickly.

However, having to make the decision yourself is so much harder. We got Jasper on our own. He lived with us throughout our whole marriage. Throughout almost all of the kids’ whole lives to this point. He was a member of our family.

I have heard of people spending thousands of dollars on an animal and I always thought that was just crazy. It’s an animal. But last night I was willing to spend big bucks to see if we could nurse Jasper back to health. It’s totally different when you are sitting there looking at your beloved kitty suffering. You want to do everything you can to help him.

We decided to see how the night went. I plopped down a few hundred dollars to have the vet get Jasper back to healthy. They covered him with blankets and put hot water bottles on him to get his temp back up. They inserted an IV to get some fluids in to him. And she was able to draw a little bit of blood for blood work.

Lee and I went back to see him before we left. I scratched his neck and head and told him it would be ok. He would be ok. What I didn’t realize is I was totally lying to him.

A few hours later the vet called to give us an update. She said she got enough blood to do a couple of tests, but not all the tests. All three of his protein levels were very low. This is consistent with blood loss. Jasper had blood loss due to fleas, thanks to our other two stupid cats that won’t stay inside and are now outside only cats. We’ve been battling these fleas for several months now; giving the cats a pill, dumping Frontline on their backs, scrubbing them with flea shampoo in the bathtub, and bombing the whole house with bug bombs. But we still have fleas.

The sort of good news was that Jasper bilirubin (?) was up so the vet didn’t think it was liver failure. However, he wasn’t showing any improvement. He was still pretty lifeless and cold. She told me she’d call me in the morning to give me an update so we could decide our next move.

An hour later she called again. As soon as the phone rang, I knew what it was about. She said she was working on another patient when Jasper stopped breathing. She came over to listen to him and his heart had stopped. We asked her not to perform CPR on him if he passed away. We figured, at his age, if his body gave up then it was his time to go.

The vet told us we shouldn’t feel guilty about being gone the last 10 days. She said she suspects there were some pretty major things wrong with Jasper and this same scenario likely would have played out even if we had been home. But we can’t help but feel guilty. The last few days of his life were spent alone, lying on a cold cement floor. How can we not feel guilty about that. If we had been home we would have seen him deteriorating. We would have been able to cuddle him. We would have been able to get him to the vet sooner. There are a lot of “we could haves.” But it’s not going to bring him back.

Instead we will remember all of the good times we had with Jasper. All of his purrs and his snuggles on the couch during family movie night. We’ll remember the funny moment like when we sneezed and snotted all over us (ick). We will remember the love we have for him and the love he had for us.

We’ll miss you Jasper!

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I have a couple of early movie memories.

When I was eight-years-old, I remember standing in a really, really, really, really long line to go see E.T. Did I mention the line was long? That’s about all I remember about that experience. [Aren't I just a fabulous story teller?] I do know I loved the movie and we actually saw it in the theater more than once. I even had a little stuffed E.T. that I loved dearly. I also think this was the start of my girl crush on Drew Barrymore, who I still love to this day.

Oh and when my mom lived in California we went to Universal Studios and they had this E.T. exhibit with a bike and a green screen. They picked somebody out of the crowd to ride the bike and then we could see them flying on the green screen. I was so pissed I wasn’t picked to ride that bike.

In other news you couldn’t care less about, I just discovered E.T. was released on my birthday in 1982. Interesting.

Then when I was nine-years-old, my mom’s friend, Tree (which I believe was short for Theresa), took me to see Staying Alive.

This was memorable because we brought out own food. But not just a little food. We brought a lot of food. We brought our own popcorn in big brown paper bag, some candy, maybe even some grapes and our own cans of sodas. And somehow we snuck it all in to the theater. I remember we had to be quiet when we opened our cans of soda so they didn’t make too much noise when the top popped. That Tree was a crazy one.

About thirteen-years-ago, I went to a party at co-workers house. It was a bunch of us girls (and one guy) and we had a John Travolta night. We watched a bunch of Travolta movies, including Staying Alive (and Saturday Night Fever and Urban Cowboy). Good times.

Then when I was 11, we went to see Follow That Bird, a Big Bird movie. I was way to old and mature to be at a Big Bird movie, but we brought my Aunt Candy’s, friend’s son (wow, that was a mouthful). I can’t remember the boys name, but his mom, Laura, was (and I think still is) one of my aunt’s very good friends.

This movie was memorable because of what happened in the theater. It was this big theater somewhere near Daly City, California. Like many theaters the floor slants up. But in this theater the seats didn’t start until halfway up the floor. In other words, there was a huge gap between the screen and the first row of seats. There were no seats to crimp your neck. We sat in the front row. Some time in the middle of the movie I accidentally kicked my soda. It fell over and spilled all over the floor. I spent the rest of the movie watching my soda slowing roll down the cement floor towards the screen. I was so bummed.

Read about others (more exciting) memorable movie memories:
Assertagirl
Frances
IrishKat
Izzy Mom
Oh The Joys
Mamalogues
Mrs. Flinger
Parenting Toys
Posts From the Playground
Sweetney

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This week’s theme is “what story about yourself would you never tell you child?” Oh I have so many. It was hard to me to come up with something since I’ve already told you about taking my mom’s car out by myself, shoplifting and assaulting a guy with paper. Surely there couldn’t be anymore secrets.

On a side note, it’s posts like these that keep my mom and dad coming back for more on this here blog. Ever since my mom heard I took her car out before I had a license (and then yelled at me because “I could have lost my insurance” even though it was fifteen years prior) she’s been reading religiously. But this post? This one’s for Dad.

For this week’s embarrassing story, which will make my dad squirm I will never tell my children, let’s go all the way back to 1989 (back in the time of disco according to my teenager…and he wasn’t even kidding) when I was a fifteen-year-old high school sophomore. My best friend Rachel (who is no longer a friend at all, but that’s another story) and I lived just a few houses from each other. On this dark and starry night I was hanging out with Rachel at her neighbor’s house…a boy named Jay (but that has really nothing to do with this story). The neighbors across the street (older boys) were having a party. One of the boys, nineteen-year-old Bob, came over to apologize for being so loud and to tell us we could come over and party if we wanted to.

Rachel and I were intrigued so we decided to head over for a bit. There had to be at least thirty to forty people at this party. There were a lot of older kids from our school (because the younger brother, Jim, was a junior at our school) and a lot of young adults who were friends of Bob. We felt pretty darn special being lowly sophomores at this upperclassmen and adult party.

As with most parties where parents are out of town, the alcohol was flowing. I was throwing back wine coolers like they were strawberry milk. But I tried to pace myself since I had to be home by curfew; 10pm.

Just before ten we left to go back to my house. Rachel was going to spend the night.

After my parents went to bed (around midnight ’cause they were old ), Rachel and I snuck through the hall, past my parents bedroom, down the stairs and out the patio door in the back. I left the door open just a smidge because even back then I had paranoia about everything and was worried that somehow the lock that is hard to lock when you are trying would miraculously lock on its own and we would have to ring the doorbell when we came back. Then we would have been totally busted.

We ran back over to Bob and Jim’s house. By this point, everybody was pretty drunk and we had a lot of catching up to do. Being just fifteen, I had hardly ever drank in my entire life. So (1) I thought it was really cool that we go to drink with these older kids and (2) I got drunk easily.

After several more wine coolers and some very stiff mixed drinks along with a few glasses of beer, I was pretty hammered. For some reason some of the party guests were lighting the stove to light their cigarettes. The electric stove. Who knew that would light a cigarette? Not me who had also never smoked before that night.

After somebody lit their cigarette and turned off the burner they said, “Get back. It’s still hot.” They were talking to my drunk ass because I was dangerously close the hot stove. Like any good drunk does, I said, “It’s not hot” and proceeded to place my hand right on the burner for a good couple of seconds.

It really didn’t feel hot. But that was the alcohol playing a cruel trick on me.

After a few minutes my hand started to hurt a little bit. I looked down at it and there, on my hand, were the curved lines from the burner. I had a pretty nice burn on my hand. And now it hurt like hell. Bob got me some ice and held the ice on my hand for me. I continued to complain about how my hand hurt. All night long.

And that’s how Bob and I started dating. It’s amazing that relationship didn’t work out since we met under such wonderful circumstances.

Check out some other great blogs who also spilled the beans:
Her Bad Mother
Mrs. Flinger
Izzy Mom
Mamalogues

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I’ve decided to participate in this week’s Friday Flashback, along with Sweetney, Mrs. Flinger, Whoorl, Her Bad Mother, Mamalogues and Oh the Joys.

Where were you when…? Our parents’ generation can recall exactly what they were doing when JFK was shot – it’s a cultural moment that defines a generation. What big cultural event occurred during your childhood/youth that you recall clearly, if juvenile-ly? What was its impact on you?

I remember where I was at when the Challenger blew up (in my fifth grade class when it came over the loudspeaker). I remember when the Berlin Wall fell. I remember OJ’s long drive in the white Broncho. I remember where I was at when I heard the verdict (the computer room at work). I remember watching the first television footage of the car accident that killed Princess Diana when Lee and I were out to eat on a ‘date.’ I remember when Clinton gave his “I did NOT have sexual relations with that woman” and “It depends on the meaning of is” speeches. I remember first hearing of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. And I remember the fear in my heart when I heard of the big blackout in New York because my mom was back working in NY.

I was a junior in high school when Operation Desert Storm began. Just that year my high school had installed televisions in every room. The TVs were supposed to be used for Channel One, but we could watch other things if our teachers allowed us. It was rare for the teachers to let us watch TV. I guess they figured Scooby Doo would interfere with their daily lessons or something. But when the Gulf War started the TVs were on all the time. We usually turned down the volume while the teacher was talking, but we would always spend the last few minutes of each class catching up. I think we were all just shocked to be in the middle of a war. War was something that happened in our grandparent’s time.

During the war I remember telling my mom that my generation was really seeing a lot of historical events happening right before our eyes. In my teenage everything-revolves-around-me mindset I truly thought no other generation had experienced so much history. But then my mom told me about the JFK assassination and the first man on the moon and I realized we all have our history.

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As I read the section on forts, it brought me back to when my friend, Cammie, and I used to make big, complicated [at least they seemed complicated when I was 12 years old] snow forts when we were in junior high. And I was all set to tell you about it. But I already did.

So instead let’s talk about the first time I learned to ride my bike.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit I was in junior high before I learned to ride my bike. Most kids learn to ride a bike by the time they’re six years old. I was twice that age.

My friend (Cammie, again) knew how to ride her bike. She could ride circles around me. I couldn’t even get two feet without falling down and scraping my knee. But I was determined to ride my bike as well as she could.

So one day my dad took me out to teach me how to ride. He had tried several times in the past, but I wasn’t truly ready any of those times. This day I was finally ready.

He took me to the top of the hill in our apartment complex. I got on the bike. Took a few deep breaths. And then he let go. I flew down that hill with the wind whipping through my long hair. I had my feet firmly planted on pedals and I was pumping them up and down. I thought I was finally riding a bike. All on my own.

But as I got to the bottom of the hill I realized I was sadly mistaken. I was so not riding that bike on my own. It was just gravity keeping me moving. And a small miracle that I was staying upright.

At the bottom of the hill was a fork in the road. If you went to the right you would go in to the parking lot of the apartments. If you went to the left you would go in to the garage area. I went straight.

Straight took me right in to a big wooden fence. A splintery wooden fence. Especially when you plow in to it on a bike. I slammed in to that fence, flew off my bike and landed in the grass on the other side.

That was enough of a lesson for one day.

Eventually I got over the whole fence incident and got back on my bike. This time my dad kept me on level ground. And I finally figured out how to stay upright and pedal at the same time. Within months I had it down pat. I even attempted that hill again. And this time I steered clear of the fence.

Go read my review of The Daring Book for Girls and then rush to Amazon to get your own copy.

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So I decided not to move out East, but to at least move out. My dad, stepmom and I spent a couple weekends looking at apartments and finally settled on one. It was a small one bedroom which fit me perfectly since I was just one person and broke.

My dad paid my deposit and first months rent and then I moved in with Lee and his friend’s help.

The apartment had a door that led to the parking lot. [And by that I mean it didn't have a door for the apartment building and then a separate door to my apartment. I just had one door that led outside.] I was on the second floor so you would come through my front door and then immediately go up a flight of stairs.

At the top of the stairs was my kitchen. Look at how enormous that thing is. We were lucky if two people fit in there at once. But it did the job.

If you came up the stairs and took a right you were in my bedroom. If you look hard you can see a door to the left in the picture below. That was the bathroom. You had to go through my bedroom door to get to the bathroom.

If you came up the stairs and took a left you were in the living room. Here are all the buff boys that helped me move in. Check out that awesome plaid couch my dad let me have. I don’t know why he wanted to get rid of that fine piece of furniture.

Just a week after I moved in, my friend Joy [THE Joy who introduced Lee and I along with her [then] boyfriend, Andre, who is the guy flipping us off in the photo above] turned nineteen. We decided to throw her a little party in my pad.

So we stocked the fridge. Nothing says party like a fridge stocked with hot dogs and beer.

We fit around twenty people in to that little apartment for her birthday. Some people had to stand or sit on the floor, but we all fit. And we even had room to move. We played some crazy game that literally had people dancing with lampshades on their heads and dropping their drawers. Sometimes at the same time. And I have the pictures to prove it. [Today's word of the day is....blackmail. ]

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A couple years ago I went digging through that box just to see what was in there and I found my very first book. The very first book written, typed [on a typewriter 'cause that was back in the old days before we all had computers in our homes], illustrated and bound by me. I can’t find a year anywhere in the book, but I think I was in fourth grade when I wrote it.

The title of my story is Growing Up Isn’t Easy and it is a compilation of two true stories from my childhood. So sit back, get some popcorn and enjoy the wonderful, captivating story with the beautiful illustrations.

Playing With Shawn

Once when I was little, my friend Shawn came over to my house to play. We played so quietly that my Mother thought we must have fallen asleep. But we were not sleeping — we were having FUN!

My Dad was at work and my Mom was busy with the housework. Then my Mother’s friend came over to our house. She asked where I was. So my Mom came to check on us.

Wash she in for a surprise! We had put hand cream all over the walls and mirror in the bedroom. Then we covered the cream with baby powder. WHAT A MESS!

I do remember I did get into BIG trouble.

A Bus Ride Home

On the first day of school I found out that my best friend was in my class. That made me happy.

After that everything went wrong. I got on the schoolbus to go home, or was I to go to the daycare? I was confused.

My best friend told me I was not to go to the daycare and that I was to go straight home. I believed her.

When I got home no one was there, so I started to cry. A neighbor saw me crying and took me to her house. I told her what I had done and she told me how worried my parents would be if I wasn’t at the daycare.

She took me to the daycare. Things like that are scary when you are only six!

Don’t you just love my nice use of exclamation points? Too funny!

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This reminded me of our own daycare horror story. When Keaton was just a year old I had to take him out of the daycare center I loved because I lost my job. I was going to college so I put him in the daycare center at the college I was attending. I figured that would be a safe place because it was a state college after all. Surely he’d be safe there. Yeah, not so much.

After just a few months I was getting some clues that this was not the place for him. One day I came to pick him up early. The rest of his class was playing outside, but he was inside with the babies. When I asked about this they told me they didn’t have enough teachers per children so he had to stay inside. WHAT?!?

But I was young [21] and stupid and continued to take him there.

One day, just a week later, when I picked him up from daycare, his teacher told me he’d been real quiet all afternoon and kind of moping around. I’m all “ok?” because that so wasn’t like him. But I gave them the benefit of the doubt and figured he must be coming down with a cold or something.

As soon as I got him home I could tell something wasn’t right. He had just learned to walk a few months before and was loving every moment of being mobile. But that night he refused to walk. Instead he was crawling and he was favoring one leg. “Hmmm..weird,” I thought.

I put him in his high chair to feed him. My mom was tickling his feet and he was screaming bloody murder. Usually he loved having his feet tickled. We knew something was up.

I took him to the ER. They x-rayed his foot. It was fractured. He was barely 18 months old and had a fractured foot. How does that happen? And, better yet, how does that happen and the daycare doesn’t know about it?

I went in the next day to gather his stuff and ask them how they could not have known he had fractured his foot. Were they not aware he was favoring his foot because they didn’t have enough teachers per child? I was pissed. And the more they made excuses and tripped over their words the more ticked off I got.

The director told me I couldn’t just pull him out. I had signed a contract and I was required to give two weeks notice. I told her the contract also stated they would care for my son and they broke that promise. The contract was null and void in my eyes. I told her she could shove that contract up her ass and gave her my lawyer’s name and number in case she had questions.

Within days I got a “bill” from the daycare center for the two weeks I hadn’t given notice for. I was young and didn’t know what to do. So I asked my mom for advice. She was livid. She called the dean of the college and ripped him a new one. She told him he better take care of this “bill” or Child Protective Services would be making a visit to the daycare center. He quickly remedied the situation and cleared up my bill immediately.

It’s been almost twelve years since this happened and it still boils my blood. I think back to how I would handle this situation today. I sure as hell wouldn’t be as naive as I was back then. Back then I was scared and ended up in tears in front of that bitch. She knew she had the upper hand. You better believe, if she was dealing with me today there wouldn’t be tears. And she certainly wouldn’t have felt like she was the bull dog in that conversation. Plus I would have called CPS right there on the spot, in front of that pathetic excuse for a director.

Luckily, once I started working again, I was able to get Keaton back in to that great daycare he was in originally. After Skyler & Spencer were born I was able to find somebody I really trusted to care for them. And then, of course, Lee stayed home for the last four years. So, other than that college daycare, we’ve been really lucky. Finding quality child care for kids is just so difficult these days. Why does it have to be so hard?

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I thought we’d celebrate by viewing some old photos of Justis. I’m going to try to make sure I don’t use the same photos I used last year.

Here’s Justis as a baby. He was just one month old in the photo.

Here’s Justis giving us his best Dopey the dwarf impersonation. This is something he learned from his father. He’s about one and a half in this photo.

In 1998, Lee and I renewed our vows. Keaton and Justis were a part of that ceremony. And following the ceremony we headed off for a vacation to Disney World. Here are Justis, Lee and Keaton waiting in line for a show at Animal Kingdom.

I couldn’t decide between my two favorite pictures from Disney World in 1998, so here’s another one of Justis and Keaton sporting their new hats.

And, lastly, here he is yesterday as he opened his presents with his friends looking on.

Keeping up with my slacker mom duties, I waited until the last minute to plan a party for Justis. I’ve just been so busy with work and school [mostly school] I kept procrastinating. And then I realized his birthday was in just a few days. So he invited three friends to come over and spend the night.

They played Xbox and computer games. They also played hackysack outside and a little game of shoot the cans and bottles with the paintball gun. We grilled hot dogs and had some potato chips. For desert we had birthday cake, of course. Still in slacker mom mode, there were no candles for the cake. I swear we have a bunch of candles somewhere in this house, but I couldn’t find them anywhere.

So instead Justis pretended to blow out his fifteen imaginary candles. I think he blew them all out so his birthday wish should come true.

Happy Birthday Justis!

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1. Where/How did you meet? We were introduced by mutual friends. My friend, Joy, was dating his friend, Andre. They set up a meeting at Andre’s house where we grilled, played cards and got in the hot tub.

2. How long have you known each other? Almost 14 years

3. How long after you met did you start dating? Lee asked for my number the night we met, but he never called. A few days later he was eating pizza with Andre at the restaurant that Joy worked at. She gave him my number again and he finally called. But we still didn’t go out on a date until we ran in to each other again, a week later, at a party at Andre’s house. So I guess our official first date would have been around two weeks after we met.

4. How long did you date before you were engaged? It was a year and a half after we started dating, but it was technically only about eight months since we broke up for almost a year when I was pregnant with Keaton. And were were barely back together when we got engaged. We’ve never done anything traditionally.

5. How long was your engagement? A little over two years.

6. How long have you been married? Almost nine and a half years.

7. What is your anniversary? November 14th

8. How many people came to your wedding reception? We didn’t really have a wedding reception. We just went out to dinner with all the family and friends that joined us for the wedding…so that was 15 people.

The next year, when we renewed our vows, we had over 100 people at that reception.

9. What kind of cake did you serve? Um, is it bad that I can’t remember? I know it wasn’t chocolate because I don’t like chocolate.

10. Where was your wedding? At the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas, Nevada.

11. What did you serve for your meal? Umm….I don’t remember. We ate at some restaurant at the Flamingo Hotel in Vegas. I think it was the Tropical Breeze Cafe, but I’m not positive. Lee’s bio mom paid for the meal. I think we had a choice between two entrees, but I don’t remember what those were. Maybe prime rib or chicken or something like that. Jeez, maybe I should have done this meme years ago when I might of remembered some of this stuff.

The next year, when we renewed our vows, we served small deli sandwiches and other finger foods.

12. How many people were in your bridal party? Two, Necole, my best friend, and Dave, Lee’s best friend.

The next year, when we renewed our vows, we had twelve people in the bridal party. On my side, I had a Matron of Honor [Laurie, childhood friend], a Maid of Honor [Necole, best friend], a Bridesmaid [Tana, Lee's sister] and a Junior Bridesmaid [my sister]. On Lee’s side, he had a Best Man [Dave, childhood friend] and two groomsmen [Chad and Dustin, childhood friends]. Then we had three ushers [Trent, Troy and Jason, Lee's childhood friends]. And, of course, we had two very handsome ring bearers [Keaton and Justis].

13. Are you still friends with them all? Yes, they are all childhood friends except for Lee’s sister. However, we don’t keep in touch with all of them as often as we should.

14. Did your spouse cry during the ceremony? Like a baby.

15. Most special moment of your wedding day? It would definitely be seeing Lee cry.

16. Any funny moments? I can’t remember anything hilarious that stand out about the wedding, but our “rehearsal dinner” was at the Tournament of Kings show at the Excalibur Hotel. We ate with our hands and cheered on our jousting knight. It was a lot of fun. We still talk about it to this day.

17. Any big disasters? One of our wedding guests forgot her dress and had nothing to wear to the wedding. Luckily I had brought a couple of dresses so I let her wear one of mine. It wasn’t exactly a wedding dress. It was more of a clubbing dress, but she looked fine.

18. Where did you go on your honeymoon? Well, we were in Vegas, but the day after our wedding there was a big computer conference so the hotel rates skyrocketed. So instead of staying in Vegas, after the wedding we stayed in a FantaSuite for a few days. We were in the Grecian Garden room. It was a little cheesy, but it was fun.

After we renewed our vows we took a family to trip to Disney World.

19. How long were you gone? In Vegas for around 4 days, in the FantaSuite for two nights.

We spent 10 days in Florida at Disney World.

20. If you were to do your wedding over, what would you change? I’m really happy with our wedding, but I’d love to get married at Disney World in Cinderella’s castle and ride in the big Cinderella carriage.

21. What side of the bed do you sleep on? If I’m laying in the bed, it’s on right. If I’m standing at the foot of the bed, looking at the bed, it’s the left.

22. What size is your bed? Queen, it’s not too small and it’s not too big. It’s just right.

23. Greatest strength as a couple? When we face hard times we tackle them together. And we don’t ever give up. Lee has taught me a lot of lessons over the years that have helped us grow as a stronger couple. And, of course, how can you not love a man who does all this for a girl?

24. Greatest challenge as a couple? A lot of people didn’t think Lee and I would make it. And we’ve been through some pretty turbulent times. But we proved them all wrong.

25. Who literally pays the bills? This is a weird question. Since Lee is a stay-at-home dad I’m the one who brings home the money. And I’m also the one who literally writes the checks [or pays them online as the case may be].

26. What is your song? Um…I don’t think we really have one. Although I guess if I had to choose one it would probably be How Do I Live by Leann Rhimes since we chose that as the song for our bride and groom dance when we renewed our vows.

27. What did you dance your first dance to? I so don’t dance. And in Vegas we didn’t have a reception per say, so there was no first dance.

When we renewed our vows we danced to How Do I Live by Leann Rhimes.

28. Describe your wedding dress: It was white. And form fitting. It had no sleeves, but came up around my neck like a mock turtleneck. And it had tons and tons of beads all over it. It was quite heavy. Oh and it had a long detachable train. My description is so not giving it justice. It really is a very pretty dress.

29. What kind of flowers did you have at your wedding? I suck at naming flowers. I have no idea what kind of flowers I had. But they were pretty. And when we renewed our vows, our florist tried to make those flowers look just like our Vegas flowers [only they were silk flowers this time].

30. Are your wedding bands engraved? What do they say? No. In fact Lee doesn’t even have his original wedding band. It was a really nice ring with three diamonds in it. Within the first year he lost it. He had to take it off at work because he didn’t want to ruin it and one day he checked his pocket after work and it was gone. So when we renewed our vows we each got new bands. Those aren’t engraved either.

Now pictures, you ask? I’ve already posted a bunch of pictures. You can see some on my eight anniversary post and my ninth anniversary post and some more from my Love Thursday post especially for Angela.

Now, since it’s a meme, I need to tag some people. I tag Lance, Angela and Necole.

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