The Arnolds

If you are reading this, the chances are good that you have heard me talk about Katie, my dear friend from work.

I hate to call her my "work friend" because the truth is she is more than just a work friend. Katie has become one of my best friends and I really don't know what I would have done without her.

She and I have spent countless hours chatting about the people we work with, our families, our jobs, our marriages, our friends, our weekends, our personalities, recently Christmas music and of course babies!

And while we are on the subject, Katie's last day of work is tomorrow (today if you are reading this on Friday) because she is having a baby! She is 38 weeks pregnant and not returning to work after her maternity leave.

Out of pure selfishness I am sad. I have had this day on my calendar for months and been dreading it since Katie told me she wasn't coming back. However, this is a great thing and she will love spending all the time in the world with her daughter.

Katie and I will be friends for a long long time and I thank God for bringing her into my life. I don't bond easily with girls but she and I hit it off from the very beginning.

To Katie: I am so excited for you and JT! You are going to be an absolutely fantastic mother and I can't wait to see your cute family together. I remember the moment you told me you were pregnant and I can't believe it is already here! Thank you for letting me ask you countless questions about your pregnacy and for being so open with me about everything. I will miss you (at work) but expect to still have lunch dates :) I am so glad we are friends!

PS. I hope this doesn't embarrass you - I know how easily you turn red!

Here are a few pictures I had!

This is at our work bowling thing and the day Katie found out she was having a girl!


This is a typical day at work. Sitting around and chatting.

I absolutely love when my parents come to visit!

I love showing them our stuff and how we live. They are 4 hours away down in Houston and so when they come up it is like "look! we made it mom and dad!" It sounds so dumb but that is really how I feel.

My parents got in around 5 on Friday night and I showed them our house. They had seen it before but hadnt since we had work done to it. I was texting with my dad about where we should eat and he suggested a steak so I immediately made reservations. Lane had to work a little later so he met us at Hibiscus for an AWESOME steak dinner. I swear, that place is amazing. It is quaint, and fancy and oh so good. Then we came home and fell asleep.

Saturday my mom and I went shopping around while Lane and my dad went to the Verizon store (my dads phone was acting up) and then they watched football. Saturday night we really didn't do much but rented Maid of Honor on our Pay Per View and ordered pizza from another one of our favorite places Piggy Pies.

Sunday we got up and ate breakfast at this little diner Lane sees on his way home from work. I forgot what it was named but it was old fashioned breakfast. Really good! After breakfast they dropped us back off and they went home. :(

Oh yeah! We were also babysitting our friend Adolph's dog Gus. So he will be in some of the pictures.

I always hate when a great weekend comes to an end. I love my parents so much and wished we lived closer. They have always made me feel special, pretty and so great about myself. Here are some (very few) pictures.

Sure. I am a little late here. But it's better late than never. Right?

This Halloween was our first in our new home! I had the most fun out of everyone I think. I'm pretty sure it's because the good Lord has given me a child like brain. I don't know how it happened but I get the most joy out of the smallest things. I don't even really like Halloween but I got excited because of the candy and the dry ice that I stopped by after work to get.

I got 2 kinds of candy. One was "good" candy which consisted of chocolate products. That was for the cute kids. The second kind was the kind no one wants to get. It was tootsie roll pops, dots and some other mess. That candy was for the kids too old to participate in Trick or Treating and the ones that had a million kids come up. Sorry kids, make it cute or you get the gross candy. The End.

The dry ice was awesome! But boy is it a pain. I thought I could just drop it in a bucket and it would "smoke" for hours. WRONG. It lasts a few minutes at best. I am going to do more research next year to see how to do it correctly. I put it in a big pot and put it by the door so that the front porch would be spooky!

We had a decent crowd of Trick or Treaters but not as many as I had hoped. Well not as many of the cute ones as I had hoped.

Adam and Eddie and their friend came over after a few hours of handing out candy. We ate some pizza, hung out for a few and then that was it. Here are some pictures from the evening including a few of our (err my) cute little bumble dog!

I am so tired of all this election stuff.

I just heard an hour long debate in my office between a white woman and 2 african americans and I almost started crying.

It is a president. Is it a big deal? Sure. But it really isn't going to have any MAJOR impact on my daily life or yours.

It is politics. There is a lot of talk and no action. So just because they say they will do one thing doesn't mean it will get done. Look at our situation now. Bush sure promised a lot of things.

I would have to say the 2 african americans won the debate I just heard.

The white woman's only reason for voting for McCain was because she doesn't believe in killing babies.
**** NEWS ALERT ***** NO ONE WANTS TO KILL BABIES!!

I ask this, would you want the choice if you were raped by an uncle and got pregnant? I sure would want the choice. That is what it is all about..choice, not killing babies.

I am just so over hearing about it. Guess what, Barak won and that is it. You can't change it. It's done, over.

I am actually really proud of Barak and of the historic nature of yesterdays election.

And I voted for McCain.