The Swine Flu....

can kiss my booty!

AND STOP calling it the Swine Flu.... It is the H1N1 Virus. It is not contracted by eating pork. In fact, I plan on eating lots of pork this weekend at our local bbq festival (as long as they don't cancel it with all this hysteria running around)! I love pigs. Don't blame your problems on them.

I am not okay with all the crazy people running around trying to scare the rest of us normal people into hiding behind a mask. It is the FLU people. Get over it!

Look! I nursed a pig and don't have swine flu!

Schools are closed, hospitals are overflowing, activities are cancelled, people are urged to stay at home.... total hysteria!!!

Just practice some basic hygiene, people, and go back to your normal lives!

And News People - quite it with your scare tactics. 1 person (a Mexican baby, right?) in the United States has died with the H1N1 virus... more people have probably died from the regular flu in the past week. So QUIT IT! If you really want to panic about a deadly epidemic why don't you focus on drunk driving or smoking or overeating? Those things kill a lot more people here than H1N1. ARRRGGGHHHH..............

Go Fetch!

We had a great weekend (despite the 6 hours of yard work Saturday morning) and I wanted to tell you all about it on Monday - but that pesky thing called work got in the way. I've been really busy and haven't blogged since Friday (Note: I'm going to ignore the 1100+ unread blog posts in my reader).

And I don't have much time now - I'm off to play tennis for the third night in a row and Wednesdays are Mexican nights with friends! But I wanted to share some cute pictures of our little Rafa from this weekend.

We went to watch our friend - The Rookie (he has been wanting a tag since forever ago and I keep telling him he'll get one but never pull though... today is your lucky day, BC) - play tennis. We took Rafa along to watch...

He was being a good boy and cheering The Rookie on!After we watched a while, we took Rafa over to the ballfields to play fetch.
Rafa loves getting off his leash and running all over the place. Crazy dog!!
Problem is - he doesn't always bring the ball back....

He had a lot of fun but was definitely ready for some rest and relaxation afterward...

What a life!

How I Love Thee, Let Me Count the Ways

That is pretty much what the government is asking us to do. I am drowning in a sea of paper work right now to appease them. Couples with a spouse who receives residency within the first two years of marriage have to re-file paperwork two years later to show evidence that the couple is still together in order to maintain residency permanently.

This is their attempt at weeding out all of the illegal people who try to fraud the government by marrying only for a green card and make this process harder for the rest of us, law-biding citizens (and residents). I HATE those people! Seriously. HATE. If you are one of these people - I hate you. If you know one of these people - I hate them. Please tell them I said so.

Anyway, I'm busy organizing all the paperwork we need and gathering any 'evidence' I can. I happen to have a wonderful piece of evidence here at my fingertips.

So, say hello to the Dept. of Homeland Security on the comments b/c

I am submitting my blog as evidence.

The process only gets more fun. We'll be applying for citizenship in one year. Joy!

Beach Trip Celebrations

Back in the college days, we would celebrate Spring Break in the typical old fashion way....

BEACH TRIP!

Spring Break 2004 - Gulf Shores

Spring Break 2005 - Panama City (in true PCB fashion)

Spring Break 2006 - Gulf Shores

As we are getting older (and there is no longer any such thing as a Spring Break), we find new things to celebrate in the same old fashion way...

In 2007, we celebrated a graduation...
and a bachelorette...
with what else but a

BEACH TRIP!

And now - in 2009 - this girl...

this tiny, little girl

who was then a bachelorette...

is now a mommy-to-be!

And we will celebrate with a

BEACH TRIP!

And this beautiful girl here in the middle...

is GRADUATING! AGAIN!
This time with her Masters Degree from some big, fancy D.C. university!

And that's not all (no, we have a lot to be thankful for in our group)....

This girl -

is getting married!!

We are celebrating all these things and more with a

BEACH TRIP!

In one month, we'll be lying on the beautiful white sands of the Gulf of Mexico!

I can't wait to celebrate with such a beautiful group of girls that I am so proud to call my friends. Congratulations on all of your accomplishments girls!! Get ready!!

Hola, Cleo!

Deseo escribir mas en español pero es un poco dificil. Perdon por los errorres. Lucas y yo estamos muy ocupados, pero estamos muy bien. Lucas trabaja mucho, y yo juego mucho al tenis. Lucas tambien juega tenis, pero prefiere jugar al futbol con su equipo. Nuestros amigos Chris and Aida estan embarazados con un niño, su nombre sera Landon Cole y nacera Septiembre 1. Les ayudamos a perara el cuarto para el bebé. Estamos muy felices que usted y su amiga nos visiten pronto. Compraremos muchas cosas baratas. Te extranamos mucho!

Abrazos y besos

La Familia de Linares en Colombia

Note: Lucas's mom visits our blog occasionally to see the pictures of what is going on in our lives. But she doesn't understand all my incessant English babbling. So I have wanted for quite some time to write a post in Spanish - maybe even make it a semi-regular thing. This will help me with my Spanish, too. With the help of my limited knowledge, online resources to help me conjugate the verbs correctly, and an edit from the husband, I have actually written a short update in Spanish. If any of you know Spanish, please don't judge mine too harshly. I am trying here.

Musical Monday (on Tuesday): High School

Hosted by Jori and Diane

I had promised you some good stuff and I'm afraid I'm not going to pull completely through on that promise. I'll explain more later... In the meantime, walk with me as I stroll down memory lane...

Freshman year... Wow! I look really young here.

I never quite had the right look on these picture days. I am hoping it was just bad luck that I was looking so bad on picture day. Yes, we'll go with that...
I was a late bloomer I suppose....
But by senior year, I was starting to get the hang of things...

And then there was senior prom. I think I could've lived forever in that dress. I loved it.

(Yes, we were an eccentric couple. Notice his argyle socks? I think this was one of the only formals to which he did not wear Converses. I liked it. Hehe!)

One thing that stayed constant throughout the years was tennis...

freshman

sophomore

junior

senior

Went to the State Championships my sophomore through senior year.

Semifinalist my senior year, after an undefeated regular season.

I went wit the guys my junior and senior year because
they qualified as a team and I qualified individually.

Now to the fun part of high school, right? The boys....

There were a couple early on...

Then one for quite a while....

And he pretty much shaped my musical interests for a good three years. You see: he was in a band - Zero Space. And I was the lead groupie. Wow. Yeah. That was me!

I was hoping to have a few of their songs today for my post but my c.d. must still be at my parent's house. Included on that disc is a punk rock cover of 'our song' (Don't all high school relationships have to have a song?) and a song he wrote especially for me. Now - after our break-up I learned that he wrote a not-so-loving song in my honor, but I guess we all have to take the good with the bad.

Anyway, through those years we went to see several concerts. It started off with Creed but eventually became more like Blink 182, Weezer, Saves the Day, MxPx, and the Vans Warped Tour.

That's right... I was a punk rocker. Well, not really - more of a punk rock wannabe. But I did enjoy the music.

So I leave you today with a few of my favorites from high school days past...

Screaming Infidelities
by Dashboard Confessionals (not really punk but they were a really good group)

Let Go
by Midtown (they were all tall, skinny guys wearing tight, skinny jeans and I thought they were just the hottest things)

Motivation Proclamation
by Good Charlotte (before they were so big - it is uncool to be popular in punk rock)

Then, I graduated, went to college, and life changed.
Sometimes I think it would be cool to go back to high school with the knowledge and self-confidence that I have now.

Naaaaaah....

But those
high school days were fun!

New Hair!!!

F.Y.I. - I'm saving my Musical Monday for tomorrow. The theme is "High School Memories" and I don't think I can do that topic justice without some pictures and just the right tunes that I'll have to dig up. It should be worth the wait though.

My Wild and Crazy College Days

I'm blogging from home tonight and have all my old photos here on discs. I thought I would go through some of them and see if I could find anything ya'll might fight interesting.

Here is a glimpse of my younger self who could pack up at a moment's notice and go wherever the cause called me.

Here is me with my car in my homemade shirt before we left to meet the bus.

And the bus... before we picked up some Auburn students in Montgomery

Candice and I - nasty and sweaty after a long day of canvassing

And then Kerry got us pumped up for that day's activity....

Protesting outside of a Bush speech...

Four things to tell you about this:

1. They vetted everyone who attended the rally. They were made to sign a pledge of their support to W just to enter. Hmmmmm..........


2. Protesting really was thrilling. I was secretly hoping that Bush would have us all thrown in jail for daring to defy his power and his evilness would be revealed.


3. Showing us your flip flops really wasn't that creative.


4. You people who were showing your children how to flip us off were really quite ignorant. Are those the same hands you teach them how to pray with???
   

Sorry I had to get all political on you but I saw these pics and knew I just h ad to share my former life with you!

P.S. After Kerry lost he became a raging lunatic. I still love him but I just delete every email I get from him!

P.P.S. Hair cut tomorrow!! Hopefully I'll have some good results to show you!