After 7 yrs away from home there is a lot I want to do, plenty of people to visit.  I have several friends that know I am coming to town and all my cousins that still live in the area all want to get together.  I also want to take my kids to Six Flags Great America, plus there is a new water park…well new to me.  LOL!  We will also be in town for Father’s Day.  Tony is worried about how much this trip is going to cost.  He gets his bonus on Friday and that is what I plan on using for the trip. I am thinking maybe I need to get a prepaid visa card or something like it and just take only that.  I am a little worried we may spend more than we have on this trip.  I mean for gas alone it will be $300 for the round trip.  Now granted that is WAY cheaper than it would be for plane tickets but still.  I just need to make sure we stay within our budget. 

I just hope we get to see everyone in the short time we will be there.

As I have talked a lot about over the weeks is going home to see my family.  It is coming in the next 4 weeks.  When I left I was by no means slender.  I hadn’t lost all the weight from when I had Nicki.  I didn’t lose most of my weight until I moved to Florida.  Well then I met Tony and had 3 kids and gained an ass load of weight.  Yeah most of it WAS in my ass.  LOL!

I really had a goal in mind that I wanted to accomplish before going home and I don’t think I will.  Maybe I should take some hydroxycut and that will speed up the weight loss.  I hate to take pills but I really want to be closer to my goal.  I don’t know I will wait until my monthly friend is over and then see how much I can get to the gym and work out.

Only 4 more weeks until I go home to see my family.  I am so excited.  So my grandma’s birthday is in July.  Our original plan was to go visit in the middle of July.  I planned on making my grandma a scrapbook of all the grandkids and their families.  She has 11 grandkids.  We have all seemed to move away and probably don’t get to see her as much as we would like.  So the scrapbook was for her birthday and now we are going to visit in June.  I don’t think I will have it done by the time we go visit.  Heck I am not even certain I will have it done by her birthday.  May just end up being something I make and send to her whenever I am done for whatever. 

So I am wondering if I should get gifts for her and bring them with me or just send them in July or just try and get the scrapbook done and send that for her gift.  I really think she will like it.  I guess I should get on it.  I need to finish Nicki’s end of the year gifts for her teachers.  I will post a pick of those when I am done with them.

The town we live in.  I haven’t felt so comfortable and safe since I lived at home with my parents.  Speaking of such only 5 more weeks until we go home to visit my family after 7 years.  SO TOTALLY EXCITED!!!!

Anywhoo, I really love where we live.  No crime, most people are nice
and it isn’t too busy or big.  Kinda funny though we have lived here a year and we didn’t know it had a Park District until a month or so ago when Nicki signed up for Volleyball.  They have all sorts of activities for kids, indoor pool, outdoor pool.  That is where lil Tony will play baseball/t-ball if we live here long enough. 

It is a pretty nice place too, the Park District is in Jim Barnett Park which is right across from Nicki’s school.  There is a walking path, that is where they had Do Dah Day and the fireworks last year.  They have 2 very large play grounds, it is just a nice place.  Inside the Park District, they have “toys” for people to play if they just want to hand out.  They have a pool table and some TV’s.  Not sure if they have any ping pong tables, I haven’t really had a chance to walk around much. 

I just can’t wait until lil Tony and Isabel get in to sports and activities.  I really want my kids to take swimming lessons but at the age they are now I would have to get in the pool too.  And 2 things, I will not get in to a suit right now and I have the other 2 kids, they would be with me too so that wouldn’t work.  Next year Nicki can go in Volleyball again and it will all be totally cool.

Car insurance that is.  We pay pretty cheap for insurance now so unless we go with a “no name” company, one that may not be good on claims or whatever then we may stay with who we have.  I tried to do some searches the other day and got frustrated when my searches kept coming up with car insurance blogs.  I want quotes not to read blogs about car insurance. 

Are policy is up in a month, we paid in advance when we got our tax return so we have not had to pay monthly, it has been great.  I think we only pay about $330 for 6 months on 2 cars, that’s not bad compared to what we paid in Florida.   YIKES!

LOL, I’m just going to start making the titles to my posts ” blah”  LOL!  Some days I just want to chat and it really doesn’t have a proper title. 

I really do enjoy going to the gym, I find myself struggling to get out the door but once I am at the gym and start to work out I don’t want to leave.  I have found a new found love for the spin bike.  Oh my that is killer.  The first time I hopped on I thought I was going to die.  I rode for a total of 8 min.  Now mind you all the cardio I do in 10 min time frames, most of the time.  So 8 min was pretty good.  Well not really, I had to take a break 4 times.  LOL!  Now I can do the spin bike for 10 min without taking a break.  I am getting better.  The only thing that sucks about the spin bike is where it is located.  It doesn’t face the TV’s.  I guess that can be good because some days I forget to change the channel and have to watch infomercials.  They can get annoying when they have the diet segments and they have all these people talking about the diet pills they take and give apidexin reviews and how this pill works or that pill works but no one seems to talk about working out.  You can’t have great results without working out.  I know some people like that and that is for a whole other discussion.  I just want to watch some Fresh Prince or the news or something.  I HATE infomercials.  So glad we don’t have cable at home.  I don’t miss it. 

So now it’s that time of the month and I usually don’t work out but I really feel I need to go in the morning.  I worked out yesterday and my body feels sore, which is a good thing.  I did sit-ups and worked my arms.  I can so totally see a difference in my arms.  And my abs, oh my they are sore.  It feels great.  So I may go and just do a little cardio and then work on my arms or legs.  We will just have to see when I get up in the morning. 

Nicki has really been doing amazing!  Before a couple months ago she had never really played Volleyball.  Maybe she played in P.E at school but that’s it.  She has a couple friends on the team at school and she started to get interested.  She found out that her friend across the street was going to be playing Volleyball for the Park District and I called and got info.  I suggested she play too and she immediately sounded interested.  We signed her up, I think on the last day possible to do so and she has been playing for about a month or two. 

When she first started I will admit and I am sure she will too that she was pretty bad.  No control over the ball and barely hit the ball.  Now she has control, she has an awesome serve.  It is cool because her serves are just perfect to make it over the net but the other team ALWAYS thinks it’s going to be too short and not make it so they don’t go for the ball.  LOL!  When she serves she usually gets 3-4 points out of it.  That is so awesome.  The only thing she has trouble with is spiking and setting a ball.

I really am proud of her.  Maybe this will be her sport.  She wants to try out for the 8th grade Volleyball team and maybe she will go on to do it in High School.  That would be so cool.  This really is the first activity she has done that she truly seems happy and excited about. 

The other thing I could tell is she got really nervous during a game.  I could tell she would panic when the ball came to her.  I told her she needed to relax and anticipate the ball.  Since I told her that and the more practice she has gotten and confident she feels I think she has actually calmed down a bit.  She has control (most of the time) over the ball. 

Ah, I just can’t say enough about it.  There are 3 teams in her age group.  She is on the green team and then there is a purple and orange team.  I would have to say the orange team is not very good, then comes Nicki’s team and then the purple team.  But the other day Nicki played the purple team and they kept up with them, it was awesome.  The first game Nicki’s team lost.  The second game they won and the tie breaker game was played to 15 and it was so close the whole game but the purple team ended up winning 15-12.  They were so close to winning. 

Tonight is Volleyball but only practice.  She has another game on Tuesday!  Yippee!!!