Is it over yet??????

I see everyone's posts saying they can't believe it is December..... Christmas has come so fast.... Well not to be a bahumbug at all but all I have to say is "IS IT OVER YET?" Of course I love Christmas, but for the love of god they started playing Christmas music in October...... This has been one hell of a year and to be honest I am REALLY quite excited about what 2009 will bring.... Could this year just be over!!

The kids and I have been having a great time. I am still living with my incredible friends, they let me remodel a room in the basement so I have started to feel like i have my own space, it is awesome, I have the kids sharing a room and now have my own room!! I have started to slowly acquire some new furniture and rescue some old furniture from my old house........ It is weird what we go back to but as I take loads from the house I realize that the majority of what comes my way are things that I acquired long before my relationship..... Interesting how we hold on to things that are meaningful and hold a lot of memories.

I brought the kids to a party at the jail where they got to see Santa~!

I hope that hey don't think Santa lives at the jail...... I always make jail out to be a not so fun place but they sure had a great time.

Anyways, to all my friends I hope you have an amazing Christmas and YAY for 2009

The Junkie That Stole Christmas

So..... I have talked before about my amazing job. I love my job, I love my job because I don't really work for the money, and it is about so much more then that for me. I consider myself to be extremely blessed to have the opportunity to impact lives daily on the level that I do. Anyways, this post really isn't about me.... In fact, this is more about my job impacting me this week.
Every year around Christmas the clients that I work with are given the opportunity to perform a "holiday presentation". We make them aware of the idea in October and they start planning, we never know what will come of it, or how creative they may get... A reminder I work in a jail, creativity runs few and far between here. They are not given props, outfits, music. But they manage to come up with all of it. Yesterday was one of the 2 program "holiday presentations" that we hold. The ladies I work with decided that the theme for the year would be "The Junkies that Stole Christmas". Although I won't go in to every countless detail, I will say that the idea was that as a drug addict so often they cannot even hear the sounds of Christmas any more. They cannot deal with the feelings surrounding the holidays and in an effort to deal with this they continue to get high. Throughout the skit they came up with songs that were parodies from all of our favorite Christmas Songs i.e "Yellow Cells" instead of Silver Bells, All I want for Christmas is Sobriety instead of my two front teeth. Anyways you get the drift, although the experience is very surreal, it is filled with creativity. The story line ends with them being arrested and sentenced to the substance abuse program in the jail, release from jail, and the next year they can then feel and hear Christmas. My clients albeit by their own choices are at a place in their lives that they have lost any and everything that means or meant anything to them. Their choices have led to the loss of family, children, belongings, safety, a home, and most of all hope! I sat and watched yesterday as these women performed and realized....... For a moment right then they had the opportunity to experience HOPE, ACCOMPLISHMENT, ACHIEVEMENT, JOY, FRIENDSHIP, CAMARADERIE, and SUCCESS. For each women the void that simple moment may have filled for them is untouchable. My wish for all of them is that during this holiday time they finally get to remember all of those feelings, with a clear head and a clearing heart they get to be just a little more humble and spend today and everyday with just a little more hope!

The last day okay so a few more pics

Our last day has been a BLAST we spent the afternoon at the beach!! YAY for a sunny Friday in California

The last several

Well the initial excitment of the trip trickled over the last couple of days, we have still been having a great time but been doing a whole lot of nothing. The weather has been cold and a bit dreary, we have played smashball in the condo, played all kinds of imaginary games, enjoyed each others company (for the most part) and done a lot of resting. It has been really nice to just relax, I forget how it feels to relax and realize that I spend most of my life go, go going. Between two kids, school, work, the gym, and training for the upcoming marathon in Phoenix in January, I have not stopped. I was telling my dad today, I don't remember the last time I slept this much, going to bed at 9pm has been real weird!! It gets dark here at like 4:30 pm so by 9 I feel like it is extremely late! Not to mention with 2 boys in the house we have watched a CONSIDERABLE amount of football, I have been sufficiently schooled with some new football skills I think.

Here are a few of the latest pictures I have to share..

Day Four (Tuesday)

We spent some more time at the beach today!! Mostly we have been enjoying our time as a family!

Day Three (Monday)

So Monday was a great day!! We ventured out to Legoland California, it was amazing I can't even tell you the coolest things were built out of lego's. My kids were still a little bit young and after that experiance I realized they are WAY to young to go to Disneyland yet.

The evening was spent out with my bro, he and a group of Marines went to a concert and they invited me to go also. Let me tell you, a group of Marines, just off of deployment we had a rockin good time but I am still trying to feel well today, if you know what I mean! Anyways, we went to Cross Canadian Ragweed and Randy Rogers concert and honestly I had never heard of them before but they were amazing! I am definitely a new fan!

I have included a couple of pictures from our day of fun!!

Day Two (Sunday)

Day One (Saturday)