Yes I am alive!!!

OK OK...I know I suck at keeping up with my blog. If they erased blogs for not being active I am sure this would have been deleted a long time ago but since the nice people at Google still kept me on, I need your help!!! I have been running trying to train for every race possible. This has become a new passion of mine. So if you were wondering why I have deserted all of my fellow adoptive parents, family, and friends it was because I have been hitting the pavement.

A blog that I have been reading (sorry...like I said new passions) is by a fellow Myrtle Beach runner and mother, Heather. She is way more experienced and better trained then myself and she is giving away some stuff to celebrate her 100th post and I want these things. . I need to spread the word on my blog. So who ever is out there go visit Heather's blog and say hi.

Heather if you read this sorry, I haven't been on this in forever. Max is home from Russia and doing wonderful so updating fell to the wayside. I guess I need to turn this into a running blog now.

Why Re-live the 1980's People???

Does anyone else out there find it extremely disturbing that the March issue of In Style magazine says that jumpsuits are back in for spring? Help me understand how we allow such things to happen in our society! Another thing, I was in a reputable department store the other day and spotted acid “pink” washed jeans WITH a matching jacket. People do we really need to pull out our old year books…I mean SERIOUSLY isn’t there enough ugly news out there with the economy and criminal investors… How much are we going to try and re-live 1987?




Now that that is off my chest… I am back home in good old South Carolina after a 10 days in Ohio and Tennessee. Max and I had a wonderful time visiting my parents. During this time we drove to Nashville to take my Dad to his appointment at Vanderbilt. I got to see my lovely friend Adrienne and her beautiful son Owen. Owen and Max are from the same baby home in Russia. Owen looked so happy and healthy… oh and he is going to be quit the heartbreaker in a few years!

I am enjoying my unemployment, a little too much if you asked my husband. I have been tossing around the idea of going back to school. My other options are moving to another television station somewhere else in the country and that of course means Cliff would have to find a job in that city as well. So as of now we don’t know what is in store for us.

This new time I have home I have been reading, and I just forgot just how much I enjoy reading books, any type of books, all books! I have also started back my running routine which honestly has been kicking my ass. You never know how well in shape you once were until you have the time to get back into shape. OUCH!!!

I am still hear!

Ok, so again, it has been a really long time since I sat down and updated my blog. I promise it won’t be such a long time again. So, what have I been up too??? Well, like millions of Americans, I was laid off. I am oddly cheerful, my baby turned 4 just in time to watched the Super Bowl, and I discovered Facebook- no help from Rachel who, introduced me to Myspace years ago (what were you hiding from me).

So before anyone freaks out over the layoff thing- its ok, it was expected, I couldn’t have asked for a better parting with the great company I worked for, and quite frankly I am truly enjoying this time I am spending on finding myself. Of course I doubt I will stay at home for good, it is great for the time being. I am sure I will be chomping at the bits soon. As for now I am traveling, reading, and cooking dinner- EVERY night!

My baby is 4 years old. I can hardly believe it. He was so excited. We had a Sponge Bob party. Max and his friend had a double party since their birthdays are together. We don’t really let Max watch Sponge Bob, so he didn’t get the theme so much, but he was much more interested in the cake and presents. We did have a clown however it seems that Max isn’t into clowns so much, which is ok, since they creep me out too.

The Richt Family's Life Long Commitment

I first saw this on my friend, Nancy's blog... I am now a Georgia fan!

Our Wedding

Warning... Its long,however if you have a few minutes turn up the volume and sit back and enjoy... these are some of the pictures from the award winning Gene Ho photographers . I had a blast that day... I truely did.

Movie Moment

So I am not sure anyone out there is still reading this blog… I have been a very bad blogger and have not updated. I was busy with the election, planning a wedding, and parenting the coolest little man. So I am sorry, please come back to me. Oh… Costa Rica was incredible (but I‘ll save that for the next post)

The wedding was great, we are now hitched, and NO it does not feel any different. Don’t get me wrong I am happy we are married, but we have been together so long now, that the “honeymoon” period wore off YEARS ago… however that is actually a good thing because I know without a shadow of a doubt this is the guy for me. We have been though the trenches and still we decided no one else will do- not even Brad Pitt whom I have held out for, and then just came to terms with the fact that I just can’t compete with Angelina… ok, just seeing if anyone has NOT given up on my blog.

One thing that my wedding planner asked me was “what was your movie moment with Cliff” and me “what???” What she meant was the moment it all came together. This was after she was unimpressed by the story on how we met which was he was passed out on a friend of mine’s couch. It was college and we were so very very very young. Back when our bodies could handle sleeping on couches.

So here is our “movie” moment. I was what I like to call “stupid in love” with Cliff. I am not sure at that time in our “very” early twenties if he was that hot for me but he seemed to hang around. I was at a turning point in my young impressionable life and I was bound and determined to see the world and I wasn’t going to wait around on some guy (even if I was stupid in love with him) So I did it… I sought out a new life and I was heading for Dublin Ireland, by MYSELF, cause I was an INDE-PEN-DANT woman.

Cliff told me at my going away party that he was going to follow me. You can only imagine the smile on my face. However as happy as I was, and as stupid in love as I was one thing that I was not was dumb. I know that the odds were against him going. He had no where to stay, he didn’t have a job, he didn’t have a passport… he didn’t have a plan. So I left the good old USA not putting too much stock on him “being right behind me” even though I wanted it more then anything.

Back when I landed in Ireland (many years ago), there was no calling home, I didn’t have a computer so there was no way to really call to see if he was still coming or not and no way to let him know where I was in the big city of “Dublin” All I knew was the day his flight came in. The day that his plane was due to come I remember being so nervous. I took a bus to the airport, which was an adventure in itself because I was on the wrong side of the street trying to catch the bus, just basically being a typical American. When I finally arrived at the Dublin airport I was standing next to a man who was also waiting on someone on the same flight. The flight was coming in from London Heathrow; I have this imbedded in my mind because I was staring at the screen for what seemed to be forever.

The man beside me and I watched hundreds of people depart the plane. Cliff was not coming out of the gate. The man beside me was waiting on his friend too. He was asking if that was everyone, and I was hopeful that it wasn’t because his friend hadn’t came out yet. Then after several minutes his friend did come out of the gate.

I felt stupid. I couldn’t believe that I even believed for a second he would be on that plane. I mean why would he want to fly all the way across the pond for me? I went to a “Starbuck like” place in the airport for some coffee and to think about if I should take a cab or a bus back home. My pride was already stomped on, why not go back on the bus which I couldn’t board before because I couldn’t figure out why they were driving on the wrong side of the road…. I mean maybe some of the people will still be on that bus and just point and laugh at the stupid American some more- at that point I didn’t even care WHATEVER!!!

Just then I turned around to see and hung over, sleepy, lost, American. Yes, it was Cliff. He was the last off the plane and held over by customs. We almost just missed each other. I just keep looking at him that day and saying over and over “I can’t believe you are in Dublin” You know if I would have left the airport and didn’t get that cup of coffee he would have never found me and I would have never known that he was on that plane… FATE, yes it was. And thankfully these days we have the internet and cell phones.

So, that was our movie moment.

As a parent I have learned that your kid can surprise you at the oddest moments. The other day after picking Max up from school he was in the backseat and I was trying to pick through his words to figure out his day. I like to hear who did what and who had pudding in their lunch box and of course who went to time out! All of the sudden I heard “put hand on heart” … “what do you mean put your hand on heart, monkey man?” (Yes we call him monkey man!!!) Right then I hear the faint whispers of the Pledge of Allegiances. I was speechless. I just let him finish and stared at amazement! He did very well. He had trouble with “under God” which he said something more like under dog and Republic was more like Replica and indivisible was indibizzzable (like it was with everyone of us) I just can’t believe my little guy is growing up.


I am very happy with his new school. Our pediatrician who got us in the school told me today that he is always happy and talking up a storm when she picks up her two kids.

The wedding is like 6 weeks away, we just registered last weekend. See I thought this part would be fun, and it was for the most part but we almost divorced before we even got married. Seems we have differences on what we want and/or need. Everything is falling into place (I think) Cheryl is everything falling into place? I did just get a message from the dress shop that my dress is in and I need to schedule my first fitting.

I do want to mention that our good friends in Houston survived Hurricane Ike however they were out of power for like a week! OUCH. Fingers crossed that all the tropical depressions out there stay off our coast and out of the Gulf.

Other then that we are ignoring the economy crisis and just pretending it’s not real, looking for pumpkins, and saying the Pledge of Allegiance a lot! Also notice the picture of the house above. The house belongs to Vanna White and is right around the corner from us. It is my dream house! I am waiting for it to come up on a foreclosure list!!!