HAPPY BIRTHDAY APRIL!!

Yesterday, June 29, was April's 30th birthday! Seth and BK watched all 4 kids so that us sisters could go to dinner! It was so nice to be able to spend time with my sister's without having to worry about how the girls would behave at dinner. We ate at Chili's and after dinner did some shopping!! Kristi and Anitra went to Hobby Lobby to get VBS stuff, April and I went to JC Penney's. By the end of the night, between the 4 of us, we closed down each of the following stores: JC Penney, Hobby Lobby, Marshall's, Creative Teaching, Target and last but of course not least....Dairy Queen! :) We didn't get home until after 11:00pm!

So - both my sisters are in their 30's and I am the only one of us not in the 30-club yet...it's close though. So, since it's April's birthday I was just going to write about some things that I remember from growing up with her.

April LOVED school. She thought everything that she learned at school, I had to learn when she got home. I was in Kindergarten when she learned how to spell "Encyclopedia". She came home and we would play school. We had the little desk and everything. That day she told me, Addi, you can't go to "recess" until you learn to spell Encyclopedia! I remember I had the paper that you get when you first start writing. The kind that gives you the little dotted line in between two solid lines so you know how big to make the capital and lower case letters. I sat there writing it over and then she quizzed me...with no paper to look at to cheat. As adults now, she tells me I should thank her for that...it's why I can spell Encyclopedia so well today! ha!!

When I broke my finger in basketball my freshman year of high school, they made me run laps the entire practice. April convinced me to run track with her, she was a senior, since I had already been running so much. At 4 feet 11 inches, they had me as a distance runner! ha!! I wanted to quit so bad, but April told me to stick with it. I got last place every single race. I hated it, but stuck with it! April called me the next year when she was at Tri-State. The track coach had talked her into running distance too. (April was a sprinter) She wanted to tell me sorry for making me stick with track b/c now she knew how hard it was! It was nice of her to call and tell me that, but even though I hated it, she helped to teach me perseverance and how not to quit!

My sisters have taught me so much about life and there are days I really want them to mind their own business, but there are far more days where I am so thankful for the life lessons they have taught me. They are my best friends!

Happy 4 month Anniversary

Today is Brian and my 4-month wedding anniversary! :) Last week was a great week...we thought we would be a little sad about coming home from our honeymoon, but it was a wonderful week. Thursday when I got home, I was suprised by a house full of candles. How romantic!! There were candles and sweet notes all over the house...kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom. My husband is amazing!

Ty Philip

Our little boy....well, he is growing like you wouldn't believe! Senica and Ty have both been a little under the weather, colds and such. So Seth took them to the doctor today. Senica just has a little bit of a cold, but Ty has the beginning of an ear infection. Anitra was glad that she took them b/c she wants to make sure they are healthy for our upcoming trip! My whole family is heading to Pokagaon for the 4th of July week. We planned this trip 2 years ago, so we are all looking forward to it! Mom and Bobby are staying at the hotel. Anitra, Seth, Senica and Ty are staying in Mom and Bobby's camper and also taking a tent. April, Brian, Janae and Brenna are staying in one of the cabins and Brian and I are staying in a cabin too. Anyway...we want to kids to be healthy so we can all have a great time!! At the doctors office today they weighed Ty and he is up to 18 lbs!! He is in the 100th percentile for weight! He is such a cutie though, so tonight I am putting up some pics of him!!

Janae...the beautician

Well, my first niece, Janae, took the "craft scissors" and performed her own haircut (just like her mother when she was younger) and I had to post the following pics...

April took Janae to Serena and she did an AMAZING job at salvaging "the chop".

New Car!

Well, we did it!! We traded Brian's truck in for a new (used) car! I took pics tonight, but since it's 10:36pm right now, I will have to post them tomorrow. :)

When we were at the car lot, I asked him if he was sad and he said not yet...but when we drive away I will be. Well, as we drove away - I kept waiting for the sadness to hit. It didn't. He wanted to take the bypass home so he could "run it", ha! We ended up getting a Pontiac Grand Prix. It's silver, has a sunroof (like he wanted), leather seats (like he wanted), seat warmers(like he wanted) and a 6-CD changer (bonus). Oh and he is excited that the car has a front plate that he can put something on the front. Oh the small things in life! :)

Shoes

For those of you wondering...I did not take 15 pairs of shoes on our trip. For those of you who REALLY know me, you know I had to take more than 3! I ended up taking 9 pairs and wore them all except one pair...my tennis shoes. Guess I didn't really need those at the beach.

Here is a picture of my new summer sandels that I got for the trip. Aren't they the cutest?? :)

Magens Bay

Thursday night we had dinner at Agave Terrace. It is a restaurant that sits up on a bluff overlooking the water. It was very romantic! We made reservations...and when we arrived they said, "Good Evening Mr. and Mrs. Cominsky" Ha! Yes, we have gotten that this whole vacation, but it was still nice. They had a gentleman sitting in the one area playing music and singing a bunch of love songs. I had the lobster and Brian had jerk chicken and Coconut shrimp. It was delicious!! The view was amazing and the atmosphere was perfect for a honeymooning couple. ;)

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and got in our jammies...full bellies, we were ready for bed.

Friday - our final full day here in the islands. :( We got up in the morning and took a taxi to K-mart. Brian's "suitcase" AKA duffel bag, had split right down the middle when we arrived here in St. Thomas, so we decided he needed to get some "real" luggage. They K-mart was the first place that really felt like home. There was a McDonald's right next to it. There was a little mall that was connected to the K-mart and there were 3 Foot Lockers and 5 Beauty supply stores. So, we headed back into K-mart and got my man some suitcases! We took them back to the hotel, changed clothes and headed to Magen's Bay. I had read up a lot on places to go and things to do, and everything and everyone said Magen's Bay was a great place to go to. We got there and had lunch...2 cheesburgers, 2 fries and 2 sodas! They had a real nice place to sit and eat, just steps from the beach. We rented a blue raft to float on and found a good space to "park" at. The best place to lay is right by the trees, so you have some shade from the sun. Trust me, you need the shade!! It was so hot, we spent most of our time in the water. Magen's Bay is one of the longest beaches of soft, white sand and crystal clear waters. At the one end of the beach, there were dolphins swimming with some peope who were snorkeling. Just right there in the middle of everyone....dolphins. It was awesome!! We really enjoyed the beach and suprisingly it wasn't real crowded.

We left the beach to go back to the hotel and shower to get ready for dinner.

We went down to Red Hook and had dinner at another highly reccommended restaurant, Off The Hook. Fresh Lobster was one of the specials, so I again had lobster. (I do love my seafood) and Brian had the jerk Mahi Mahi. :)

Honeymoon updates...

Tuesday started with a "downpour" according to the locals. Really it was about a 5-minute shower. They haven't seen the rainy days in Indiana. Anyway, this amazing rainbow had just come out when we were boarding our boat. What a great way to start the day - being reminded of God's goodness!


We took a catamaran to Jost Van Dyke. It was a beautiful day and we had such a great time! We went snorkeling at Caneel Bay - St. John. We snorkeled up to the beach and sat and watched the waves for awhile. There is a resort here and it cost between $1000-1200 a night. It really is beautiful and very secluded. From there we headed to Jost Van Dyke and had lunch at Foxy's...the Foxy's that Kenny Chesney sings about. The food was amazing and there was a great little shop there too. Brian bought a shell necklace and I got a cute t-shirt. We had lunch and then headed over to White Bay for some more snorkeling. We were there awhile and snorkeled some more. The coral is just awesome...you can't get enough of it! :) On the way back to customs, the crew put up the sail and we sailed back to St. John. It was beautiful and when we get home, I will post some pics. Beautiful...that's all I can say!

Wednesday, we got up and ate breakfast...took the ferry over to St. John and headed over to Hawksnest beach (at the recommendation of Mrs. Kim Mast). Of course, she was right. It is gorgeous there and the water is soooo clear! The beach was not crowded at all and it was a nice relaxing afternoon. We headed back to town with a stop at Woody's. After Woody's, we did some shopping....Brian got a new watch and it's pretty sharp! ;) We caught the ferry back to St. Thomas and showered and we to dinner at Tuscany, an Italian restaurant at our hotel. We came back to the room and we were out! A long - but relaxing day! :)

Today - we were to be at the dock at Off The Hook at Red Hook Bay to depart for another day on the Atlantic. We headed out past Caneel Bay, Hawksnest, Trunk Bay (where Kenny Chesney married Renee) and Cinnamon Bay.We stopped in Spanish Town in Virgin Gorda to check into customs. We stopped at the "grocery store" there and bought some Pringles and vanilla wafers. Out of curiosity, we "comparison" shopped...the states v. the islands. Milk at Meijer in Mishawaka - $2.19 Milk at the local mart in the BVI - $8.65!! From there we went to the Baths. Now let me just tell you....this was one of the most incredible things I have seen in my life! The Baths are these amazing granite boulders. We snorkeled from our boat to the shore and our guides took us through the "maze" of the Baths. We crawled, swam and climbed through them. There are many different "rooms" and they cover such a huge area...there is no way to see it all. We climbed up the rock with no assistance from anything but the actual rocks. When we got to the top of one of the areas, you looked down and could see the other islands. Then we climbed down and swam through another area to climb up on a rock which we had to lay on and roll down to "fall" into the pool of water. It was scary and fun at the same time. We then had the option to go back to the beach with one of the guides or take the "challenging" route to climb to the top of another area and then jump off the boulder into the bay. Of course, Brian and I both wanted to jump off the cliff! I was so proud of him...being scared of heights and all...he did an amazing job! You have to always keep 3 pressure points when climbing through the rocks, which was a little challenging for me with my short little legs...but it was so WORTH IT! :) We then swam back to the boat and went to Cooper Island for lunch. We saw such amazing places today...Fallen Jerusalem, Broken Jerusalem, Round Rock, Ginger Island, Cooper Island, Salt Island and Dead Chest all along the Sir Francis Drake Channel. What a day!! :) We had so much fun and Rick and Katie (our guides) extened the trip an extra hour! Our very last stop was to snorkel again and we saw a shark! It was just a reef shark and probably about 3-4 feet long! I told our guides I was going to tell everyone at home...It was 8 feet long and showed me its jaws! ha!! This was the best day for snorkeling and we really saw a lot of different kinds of fish. We also swam to the drop-off point. That was also fuscary (my new word for fun and scary). One second, you are swimming and can see the bottom of the ocean and then you feel the water get cool and just like that....straight down and so blue you can't see the bottom anymore! But the fish were amazing!!

We had a great dinner - but I will write more about it tomorrow....this is already as long at a short-story! :)

Sorry if this bored you - I will try to post more often so they aren't so long! :)

Honeymoon!

Finally...our honeymoon! After 3 1/2 months of marriage, we were more than ready for our honeymoon!

We arrived in St. Thomas yesterday afternoon and met the Apple rep. at the airport. We boarded the shuttle to the hotel and began on our journey! I am glad that someone else was driving us. They aren't kidding when they say the roads are narrow...and they drive on the left side of the road. The only place that is US owned to do so. We went up on top of the island, to head back down to the northeast side to our hotel, Wyndham Sugar Bay! We were told to leave our luggage outside to go and check-in. We got up to the desk and our room was not ready. So the lady (Eva) told us that we had an ocean-view room and the All-Inclusive plan, so we could get a drink while we waited and to check back in 15 minutes. We checked back about 20 minutes later and it still wasn't ready. We looked at some of the books that they had out for you to look at that had menus listed in them. We checked back about 10 minutes later and she said the room was ready. I told Brian we weren't supposed to have AI, so we better check. Eva said - yes, you are AI! He said, are you sure? And she said yes...wow!!! I was shocked!

We got up to our room, unpacked and headed down to the beach. It is absolutely GORGEOUS here!! The pools are huge and the water is amazing!! We headed back up to the room to get ready for dinner. We had not eaten a meal all day and we were really hungry. We had dinner at our reception....showered at mom and Bobby's hotel and headed to the airport. When we got to the airport, we checked in and Brian went to McD's to get something before we boarded...I didn't want something that greasy, that early (5:30am). So really, we had crackers on the plane and Oreo cookies. That was about it! So anyway, Brian took a shower and I said I wanted to rest before we went to dinner...just 30 mintues. When I woke up...5 hours later at 12:30am...I looked over and he was sleeping too. I said, I guess we missed supper! ha! We were so exhausted though, so we needed our rest too! We got up at 6:10 this morning and have been on the go since.

We ate breakfast at the hotel...met with the Apple rep at 10:00am, booked 2 excursions. 1 tomorrow in which we go to Jost Van Dyke! Just like in the Kenny Chesney song...and one on Thur. to go to the British VI! :) We are so excited!! After we met with Joanie, our Apple rep, we came to the room to get our suits on. We went down to the beach...swam some, went out on a kayak...and laid in the sun. We decided to go to the gift shop to get something to put our money in while we swam (all of the money was soaked) and then headed back down to the water. We rented some snorkling gear and snorkled for about an 1 1/2 hours. I had never snorkled before...it was so much fun! We came back up to the room and Brian showered and is now sleeping as I type this! :) We are going to take the ferry to St. John for dinner tonight.

I know this is long...I will try to update more often so it's not a book each time I write. It is just so amazing here, I want to write about it all!!

Oh...and you will never believe this! I am always told that you can't go anywhere with me, that I won't run into someone I know....well, it still holds true to this trip....an ocean away from home!! While at the pool today, we saw my old roommate's uncle!! I could NOT believe it! But yes, sure enough...there was Kevin. Brian was like..."Addi, what was Jamie's uncles name b/c I think that is him over there!" Sure enough....honestly people!

Well, anyway, I was going to post some pics, but the internet is too slow...so it times out. More to come later! :)

Colds and Flowers and Haircuts...oh my!

Well, here I am still fighting this nasty cold! Yuk!! Hopefully this amox will really kick it in. I am a little nervous about not feeling better and flying this weekend. Please keep me in your prayers. And even though I am not feeling the greatest, of course, life and deadlines still continue.

Our flowers were delivered today! Whoo hoo...one more deadline met. :) They are absolutely GORGEOUS! I ordered them straight from the grower. The first time I have ever done this and actually I don't know anyone personally that has done it either, but I researched it and found a company that I kept finding good things on. 200 roses, 168 gerbera daisies. Opened the boxes, cut the stems, went to the hardware store to get 10 of the 5 gallon buckets, Brian filled them with water for me and away to work I went. The gerbera daisies are the hardest because the stems aren't strong like roses are and the flower needs to lay flat. But, we put 2 buckets next to each other and hopefully they will keep ok until Saturday. :)

Anitra and I were both in desperate need of haircuts and so Seth was going to watch the kids so we could go to GreatClips! :) Nothing like a cheap haircut.

Well, when little miss Senica heard she wasn't going, the tears began to fall. So, Anitra told her, that she could go with us, but she had to get her haircut. Well, reverse psychology didn't work to well for Anitra. Senica-1, Anitra-0. HA! We told her she would have to sit in the chair by herself...they'd pump the chair up and spray and snip, snip. She climbed up there like such a brave 2-year old! Sat there, still as can be. I was so PROUD! Her first "professional" haircut.

My little Senica...

Tonight on the way home from work, Anitra called. Seth was recruiting again tonight so I asked if she wanted to bring the kids down for dinner. Brian grilled brat burgers and hot dogs. Anitra got Senica's plate, made her own and waited for Brian and I at the table. Anitra "snuck" a green bean and Senica scolded her..."Mom! Put that green bean down, we haven't prayed yet." HA! Senica of course wanted to say the prayer and prayed for everyone, BK, Daddy, Mommy, Ty, April, Uncle Brian, Janae, Brenna and the list goes on and on. I was the one left off the list tonight. :( My little Senica forgot me. Sniff, sniff! After the prayer I said, you forgot to thank God for our food...and for me! She said, "No, I prayed for you" with all of the conviction in the world. OK, so she thought she prayed for me. That counts for something.

A little while later, Brian was cleaning the pool, Anitra was watching Wheel of Fortune and Senica was laying on the couch. She wanted me to lay with her...

Senica: "Lay your head here"!

Addi: "Here"?

Senica "No, here...that's right, ok. You tired Addi? Close your eyes!"

I close my eyes....open them

Senica "No, close your eyes" (while she plays with my hair and then rubs my ear) Of course, this has come from our family...playing with her hair and "tracing" her ear to get her to go to sleep.

She says, "Addi, I love you" then gives me a kiss. Suddenly, I forget I was left out of the prayer.

Diabetes...yuk!

All I have wanted this past week is ice cream....everyday! It has been so warm outside and I love ice cream and have been really craving it! When I got groceries this week, I found one of my favorite childhood summer snacks, Jell-o pudding pops! :) So, I bought a box. I of course, checked the box first and each one is only 15 grams. Just one unit of insulin...yeah!

As most of you know, I am going into my 11th year of this yucky disease, diabetes! I was diagnosed on Christmas eve 1996, I was 16 years old. Since it was Christmas, I didn't get a lot of training and to this day, I have never been admitted to the hospital for anything related to my diabetes. Actually, I have never spent the night at the hospital as an in-patient. For the first 9 years, I was taking insulin shots. In the beginning a 70/30 mix, then onto Lantus and Humalog....now (drum roll please) Humalog only, via my insulin pump!!

Christmas 2005, Merry Christmas to me...I got my pump! Before I received my pump my A1C was 11.3!!! Today the doctors office called with my most current labs...7.9. Not the best #, but I was not expecting a 6.0. I have been having high mid-morning blood sugars. We are working on getting that fixed. After a really busy Jan-May (married on the beach in Fl, a week later - we moved into our new house, planning our reception for June 9th, planning our honeymoon, working full-time....) I was happy that my A1C was still under 8.

I am posting some pictures of my pump and also my "port" where my insulin is delivered. I have to change my infusion set and port every 3-4 days. It's pretty small (you can see...that's a quarter that I am holding next to it) and really nice to not have to pull out the syringe in the restaurant at dinner! :)