Catchin Up

Sorry it's taken so long. Here's what's new with the Graves:

You may wanna grab a snack and go to the restroom before you start. Sorry it has taken so long. And that it is so long.

We closed on our house in Nacogdoches. It was a bittersweet day. We were excited and relieved to finalize it; but, at the same time, we were sad b/c it meant leaving a lot of great friends behind.

We have all of our stuff...er crap...in storage. Thankfully a few of the guys on the team helped us move everything into storage. So even though we have moved, we are by no means settled and basically have another move on the horizon when we move into our house. I'm glad I work with the football team and have eager and able helpers, well I don't know how eager they are; but they probably didn't feel like they could tell me no when I asked them this last time so I am gonna hit em up again. Give a few bucks, feed em a little food and they are happy.

Living with my parents (Corey's in-laws-in case you couldn't put it together quick enough) has been going...knock on wood...really well. Corey is doing a great job of trying to make it all work so she gets most of the credit. The only source of tension is our dog, Oskie. My parents aren't exactly "dog" people (I don't know why I used quotation marks, I hate it when people do the quotation mark sign with their hands when they talk and I think typing it is borderline just as ridiculous). Anyway, back to the dog at Mom and Dad's house. (You ever wonder why you refer to your parents house as mom and dad's instead of dad and mom's? Dad's are usually considered the primary provider for the household. I guess it's b/c mom's run the house!) Sorry, back to the dog again. Anyway, my folks house is not dog-proofed so there is stuff all around their backyard and Oskie has found a way to get into all of it, and destroy most of it. So we spend a lot of time cleaning up the backyard every few days. One particular day, Corey spent a good hour picking up six 200 count bags of craft beads that Oskie had scattered all over the yard. You know the ones...those little ones that Hobby Lobby sells in mass quantities to vacation bible school directors. When she was done and mentioned to my dad what she had done, he thought that was hilarious. He laughed and said, "You should have just dug a hole and raked them all into it and buried them instead of picking them all up." Typical man, but oddly enough, Corey wasn't laughing.

When we left SFA, our insurance ran out. I couldn't convince the administration to keep paying that for me. JERKS!!! We decided to not continue coverage through Cobra b/c we would have all had to break 3 limbs, contract the bird flu and break out in the mumps for us to justify paying what that racket costs to maintain our coverage. We got a supplemental plan that was half the cost but only covered major medical. You know, breaking limbs or contracting rare viruses. Well we did a pretty good job of staying healthy except for the last week of March (our new coverage kicked in April 1, no joking). Drew started running fever and coughing up pieces of lung. Actually, hacking would be a better description. It wouldn't go away with ibuprofen, tylenol and chocolate milk. So we bit the bullet and took him to the doctor. So we got to pay 100% of a new sick patient doctor's visit and THREE prescriptions. Of course, there wasn't one generic catch-all drug we could give him. I know it could have been worse, but I wanted to vent...

Baylie still loves her school. Her new best friend is Kennedy Preston, the daughter of our LB's coach and one of the second grade teachers (Mrs. Preston for any of our slow readers). Mrs. Preston told Corey--in front of Baylie--that whenever Corey started work that Baylie could hang out in her room with her until Corey got off work. Well Corey and Baylie were driving down the road, and out of nowhere, Baylie said, "Mom, when are you going to sign up for some work so I can go to Mrs. Amber's room?" If any of you know where she can "sign up" (I did it again) for some work please post it in the comment section. Or Call. Now. Right Now. Seriously.

Speaking of Baylie's school. Corey went to pick her up from school one day. The date is irrelevant, it was just one day. Anyway, she got there a little early and decided to turn the car off and leave the radio on. She ought to write commercials for Guiness Beer, b/c she is "Brilliant!" (there are those damn quotations again). Baylie came out, got in the van, all the kids were buckled and ready to go. Only one problem...do you really need me to tell you? With a line of cars backed up to the corner, she needed a little help. Well thankfully there was a dad there with jumper cables and a little compassion. He came over and helped her out. So Corey got jumped by one of the dads. Wait...she got a boost...hold on...you get the point.

Two nights ago, we were lying in bed and the tornado sirens started sounding. Corey turned the television to local news and found out that there was a tornado warning or watch or alert or whatever is serious, really serious, for Texarkana. She woke me up just in time to hear Ron Young declare that there was a threat of a tornado hitting the downtown area of Texarkana. Well, dad and mom's (shout out to the dad's) house is just about 1 mile from downtown. So I jump up, look out the window and guess what I saw??? A light was on in the van. So I run outside to turn the light off...don't need my wife needing to get jumped from anymore dads. I ran back inside and within about 30 seconds, literally 30 seconds, lemon sized hail started falling. It broke out one of the windows in the bedroom Corey and I are sleeping in. We got Baylie and Drew up (Casey was in Ashdown with Corey's parents) and put them in the closet. They fell right back asleep and never knew what was going on. The next morning as I was leaving I noticed the back glass of the new (used) car we have (was Corey's PawPaw's car when he passed away) had a softball sized hole in it and the glass was shattered. Corey took it to her folks to park it in their garage until we can get it fixed. She had Drew in the car and every bump they hit, a little bit of the glass fell into the back hatch (no it's not a station wagon, it's a Mitsubishi Outlander and IT IS COOL). Once Drew realized what was going on, he was oohin and wowin and thought that was the coolest thing he has seen. It doesn't take much. He said, " I wish your Paw Paw was here to see this, he would be mad. But, he had to die so he could go to heaven." I don't really have anything smart to say about that. Pretty matter-of-fact.

Quick hits:

We have visited 3 churches and have liked something about all of them, but we are still visiting and looking for that "something" (Again? I am a tool).

Corey interviewed with a dentist today. Well, an orthodontist, and they typically don't have hygienists and I am not exactly sure why he is hiring one. Something about brackets and scraping sealant and patient education and David Cook is my vote for American Idol. Sorry, my mind wondered like it did when Corey was telling me what the job consisted of. I understand about half of what Corey says when she talks about what she does anyway. I'll let her tell you about it on our other blog, www.blahblahblah.boringblogs.com. I love you baby.