Bappy Hirthday!

Happy birthday to the most special little brother in the whole world.


God knew what he was doing when he put us together.


You are the best gift mom and dad ever gave me.


I am so blessed that 28 years ago today, you came into my life. Because of the relationship we have, I keep fighting to give my daughter a sibling so that she might know the joy you bring me. If I could give her just one thing, it would be a little brother just like you.


Thank you for being my best friend through thick and thin. For always being there for me. For always loving me no matter how horrible I was. For always reminding me that life is worth living, if only to spend time with you.


I love you just a little more than you love me. ;)


Happy birthday baby brother!

Thank a Veteran

If you live in U.S.A. and are enjoying your freedom today, take a minute to thank those who fight for that right.

This is for my little brother and my high school chum, Ken, who selflessly give in the name of all that is right, fair, and good every day of their lives. Thank you for doing what you do.

All of the pictures in the following slide show are from my brother, taken during his travels around the world, to war and otherwise, in the name of freedom.

P.S. I had to recycle this post, so if you see you already commented on it, it is because I originally posted this video for Memorial day back in June. I'll explain myself later. ;)

What bow? And was that your head?

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you constantly felt like a complete jerk regarding one person in your life? That was me last week.

Sunday was my little brother's birthday. I had sent him a gift and a card in the mail, but then I forgot to call him on his special day. When I realized this the next day, I felt like a total jerk. I sent him a text message telling him I was sorry, I felt bad, and wished him a belated birthday. As are all text messages to my brother, this one was filled with much joking. He gave me only a little bit of grief and then forgave me.

My birthday is coming up in the next few weeks. My husband was planning on buying me a food storage rack for our garage, but Tuesday of last week offered to fly my brother out for my birthday instead. I jumped on the opportunity. I would so much rather make memories with my brother than enjoy stacking food storage on a rack in the garage.

Long story short, my family got in on him surprising me by flying out for my birthday. My husband and brother told me they couldn't find flights cheap enough, so he couldn't come out after all. I wouldn't take that sitting down, so I went out and found a cheap flight that flew in and out at the perfect times. I'll skip the details, but my brother told me he had duties with the Guard every weekend we had tried to get him to come out, which meant he wouldn't make it out.

But as is the case with me, I wouldn't let it go. I wanted my brother out here. At one point I figured they were planning a surprise, but everyone was so good with their lies, I finally decided he really wasn't coming. Then I got frustrated and upset with him. Here I was, offering to give up a great birthday present to get him out here. We had initially offered to pay for his ticket, but my brother's excuse was constantly that he couldn't afford it, which really started to grate me. I never once asked him to fly out on his dime.

Finally by Thursday night I had come to terms with the fact he wasn't coming out, but I wasn't going down without a fight. I called him up and started the conversation with, "Let me tell you why I am so frustrated with you right now, and if you interrupt me while I'm talking, I will hang up on you." I then proceeded to rip his head clean off, but I did it in the most loving way I could under my frustration. When I finished there was a moment of silence, and then my brother said, "I couldn't book the ticket you found because I already booked one, so screw you." Then he hung up.

Toward the end of my tirade, my husband had gotten up and started walking into the room where I was ranting to tell me to knock it off, but he got there too late. He came in just after my brother had hung up. "He told you, didn't?" I shook my head and said, "Yep. I'm an @$$ hat." Holy deuce did I feel bad!

That was twice in one week that I felt like a total jerk regarding my little brother.

I called him back, and we eventually smoothed things over. I still went to bed feeling pretty bad, but promised I would be nothing but happy the next morning, and I was.

The morale of the story to me is to learn how to let things go before I rip bows and heads off of future surprise presents.

Thank You Birdman

This Memorial Day I would like to thank my very own soldier for his sacrifices: my little brother, whom I affectionately call "Birdman."

When I was only a few years old, I was blessed with one of the most wonderful gifts God has ever given me. I have told my little brother that for years, and constantly tell him that God knew what he was doing when he put us together. We're to peas in a pod who should have been twins, yet were born almost 4 years apart.

When Birdman was only 16 years old, he had the burning desire to serve his God and country. He begged and pleaded with my parents to let him join the armed serves. They relented on one condition, that he not sign up to be a sniper. In honor of their wishes, he signed up to be a field medic.

The summer between his junior and senior year of high school, he headed off to boot camp. The summer after his high school graduation, he completed his advanced individual training as a field medic.

Birdman, the day he shipped out to training for Iraq.

It was 5:00 in the blessed A.M.

In the summer of 2005, I got engaged to my lifelong companion and sweetheart, while my little brother was away serving his two weeks a year. The news came as a blow to him, and after he got my call, he headed off to his bunk to be alone while he swallowed what felt like a sour pill. A week later, he was called up to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was gone to training before my wedding day two short months later. While I was walking down the isle, he sat all alone once again in his bunk at Fort Sam Houston, unable to leave the base to attend. It was hard for both of us. My dad had called my little brother on his cell phone during the ceremony, but the signal was too weak and cut out. It was a bitter sweet day for me. I love my brother very dearly, and it was hard to not have him there on such a special day.

A month after I was married, my faithful and beloved canine companion's life was cut short. It was a shock and incredibly painful. I had spent a week in tears when one night there was a knock on my apartment door. When I opened it, I saw my baby brother standing there. Because I had just been through so much loosing my pooch, my brain had a hard time figuring out what it was seeing. I just stared for what felt like an eternity. Was I dreaming? I had to be. Birdman was in Texas, getting ready to ship out to Iraq in a week's time. Then I realized he was really there! All I could do was cry and wrap him tightly in my arms.

This was taken the night of my pleasant surprise.

I couldn't believe he was really there.

He had come home to surprise me and everyone knew but me.

I was completely elated! It seems like eons ago now.

Then when he shipped out I would go painfully long weeks without hearing from him. Wondering if he was safe. Aching to talk to him. Willing my phone to accept a text message from him that never came. Every now and then, he would pop up on my instant messenger and my world would come to a halt while we quickly got into conversations while his Internet signal held up. There was more than one time he had to hurriedly tell me goodbye because he had to run to a bunker due to the fact there were mortars being fired around him. Those moments were tense. I begged and pleaded with God for his safe keeping. It was such a relief when he popped back up on IM later to tell me he was safe and sound.

While he was away, he had the option to come home for two weeks or go to some foreign country on the military's dime. I selfishly begged him to come home with promises of taking him to see foreign countries another time on my dime. A promise I have yet to fulfill. Yes, he came home. It was fantastic and a relief to see him. He also got to meet the new addition to my family, Maggie. They bonded right away. Mags knew right off how special Bridman is to me.



As of right now, my little brother is signed up for two tours of duty in Afghanistan. He will ship out some time next year. It pains me for so many reasons. The biggest one of all being that I haven't been in as good of a sister to him the past year as I should be. I haven't been as good about talking to him every day like we used to.

I promise when you call from now on that there will be nothing more important than you (unless Baby Bean is screaming, in which case I won't be able to hear you or vice versa anyway lol). Bird, you have given up so much of your life for the military. While some of your reasons may be selfish, the rest are always for the greater good. For people who take your sacrifices for granted. For people who would spit on you and mock you. You give them the gift of freedom. The gift of freedom to mock, spit, and take for granted. You literally put your life on the line and you do it whole heartedly.

I hate that you have signed up to go back. It pains me, and it makes my heart ache. But I also realize this is your calling in life. This is what you were born to do. You are a most amazing individual full of light, hope, love, wisdom, and an innate goodness, despite what you think. I am so proud of you. I love you with all of my heart, and I thank God for putting us together.

We all thank you for your sacrifices, and we all love you very, very much.

With all our love,
Me, Hubs, Baby Bean, Mags, and Sades

P.S. I will give you $300 for any plane ticket any time you want to come down. You just let me know when. :) You're worth it to me.

Yay for Weekends

This weekend was a crazy fun weekend. Saturday morning Hubs and I got up and went up to my parent's house where we picked up my dad and headed to the chiropractor. After the chiropractor I rushed back to my parent's house to get Maggie to the vet by noon for her yearly shots in the bum. Even though she didn't like being checked over and getting shot in the butt, she got a clean bill of health. Once we got back to my parent's house again, we went out to Famous Dave's for some birthday BBQ (for my b-day). After lunch was over, Hubs packed up Mags and headed home, while my little bro and I went to do some retail therapy.

This weekend's retail therapy session included a trip to the pet store to spoil Mags with some new toys, a new pet bed, and a new case of canned pooch food. Up next was Target. My little bro and I had a mission to find PEZ candy without the dispenser because I love the candy and could care less about the dispensers. We were unlucky with the PEZ mission at Target, and I mentioned to the checker girl that we were on a PEZ mission and that Target didn't have any, so she told us about a local candy store she frequented that had a whole PEZ section. The next stop was, of course, the candy store! Sure enough, upon finding the PEZ section we found a whole basket of loose packets of PEZ. We cleaned the store out, 49 in all at .20 cents a piece. We gleefully skipped back to the car with $10 worth of PEZ candy. The last stop of our retail therapy was the medical store to buy bandaids and a device for my dad.

We rounded out the evening spending some time with my dad, and then heading off to a hockey game. My little bro and I used to love to go to hockey games and have had plans to go to a few this season, but everytime we had plans to go, it would snow. Normally snow would not be a big deal, but I live 35 minutes away from my parents and the drive includes a nasty moutain pass that I do not brave when it snows. So we made it to our first hockey game of the season. Of course hockey games mean you have to get some combination of goodies including, "a game dog", some nachos, ice cream, cotton candy, soft pretzels, candied almonds, and soda. This game saw us with a plate of chicken nachos, a soft pretzel, ice cream, and sodas.

"Want more Nachos?"

"Is there a fight going on behind me again?"

After the second quarter when our team was one goal behind (since shoving an opposing team player into the goal net didn't count), we decided to head home. Our team just wasn't playing well and we didn't want to sit through the third quarter just to be faced with parking lot traffic. My little brother drove me home and spent the night watching movies with me.

The next morning we all slept until noon and spent the day just taking it easy. Needless to say, the weekend went by way too fast, and before I knew it, I was landed back at work this morning. All I have to say now is, "Is it Friday yet?"

Wonderful Weekend

This past weekend my little brother came down for an entire weekend visit. He headed down Friday afternoon after he found out I had left the office for the day. I layed around while I waited for him to get here, and for Hubs to get home from his business trip. After a rough week, I decided that I deserved a little bit of shopping. So once my brother got here, we headed to Best Buy to exchange some software, then to the mall where I spent $80 on eye shadow (yeah, its worth every penny, but that's a post for another day). After the mall we headed back to my office to pick up my office's corporate ski passes so my guys could spend the next day skiing for free. We rounded out our shopping adventure with a trip to the pet store, where I spent $35 in doggie products for Mags, including shedless shampoo (to help curb Maggie's obsessive shedding problem lately), some special paw pad pampering soap (because her paw pads are dried out from the cold [kind of like my hands]), and a bit of ginger doggie cologne. Spoiled pooch? Oh yeah. Later that night my little bro's girlfriend came down, and the three of us set out to buy the best tasting pizza we could buy before Hubs got home.

My baby brother, the morning he headed out to Iraq.

The next morning my guys got up and went out for a day on the slopes. While they were gone, Mags and I went for a walk to the park where Maggie proceeded to not only sniff every bit of yellow snow left by other dogs, but to lick it as well. Once we got back home, I took a shower, and then Mags got her first ever in-home spa day with her newly purchased Dog Spa goodies. (She gets bathed on a regular basis, as she is an inside dog, but she'd never had a spa day anywhere but the groomers.) After our respective showers, we commenced cleaning the house until the guys came home, tired and starving. We headed out to our favorite local burger joint and ate until we were in food comas.
.

Bird and Mags watching TV at our old apartment.

We spent the whole rest of the weekend watching movies, playing video games (Lego Star Wars), sleeping, eating lots of PEZ, and just plain relaxing. It was an awesome weekend.