Snow in Florida??

We FINALLY had our first real blast of cooler air develop over the last several days, Tuesday being the coolest of them all. Here the temps never got above 62-63, and Wednesday morning as I left for school it was officially 40. Fourty is pretty low for us south Floridians, especially since we typically don't see these temps until late January or even February. This was, as they said on the news, "Unseasonably cold temperatures" for this time of year and record lows for that day in November were broken all over the place.

I know, you northerners say, "That is NOT cold." But I must correct this statement to say that, yes it is cold. It is NOT freezing cold, but it is still cold. It is not considered Hot, Warm, or Cool. I would tend to think that it is still technically considered "cold", however it is just A LOT colder up north. When I watch the news and I see its 40 or 50 somewhere up north, they do NOT show people walking around in shorts and tank tops. There are people shown in jackets and sweaters. Why? Because it is cold. Anyway, this blog isn't meant to complain in any way, shape or form, because I like cold. I love cold. It makes me happy. Just ask my husband who thought I was strange the other night when I would not stop smiling. He thought something was wrong with me. This is just to make a point that while I enjoy the weather I think we are allowed to say its cold. This comes from a girl who laughs at the weathermen on TV when they say to break out the jackets for 60 degree weather. This is 20 degrees below that. Cold. (Oh and for the record, when I woke up yesterday morning, I checked weather.com and it said it was only 8 degrees warmer here in Florida than in Minnesota at 8am eastern time, so there.)

Now onto something more interesting and since I have heard about it Tuesday night I have been almost obsessed with this fact: Tuesday night it snowed in central Florida. Thats right, it was reported that the rain was mixed with snow flurries, and even though it wasn't full blown snow sticking to the ground, I think its pretty darn interesting that it was cold enough for that to occur. The last time this occured in the central Florida region was in Jan 2003. Last time it happened in south FLorida was in Jan 1977, although I have seen one report claim it was Feb 1978. It has also been reported that in the Great Blizzard of 1993, a.k.a. '93 Superstorm, Florida's panhandle saw snow. Which I have to say, any reports I have found on snow in Florida have all occured later in the season, not in November. Man, if this is just a taste of our "winter" this year, I am totally stoked. This is great! Yay El Nino!

Here is the link if you're interested in reading about the snow flurries in central Florida, or if you just don't believe me :)
http://cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_326102037.html

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Sick and Tired

Let me first explain the above picture. This picture was taken in Florida. This picture was taken in SOUTH Florida, no less. It looks as though it were taken some place else.......some place more northerly. Truth is, the "hills" you see in the background is none other than good ol' Mount Trashmore, as we south Floridians call it. But I will just look at it and pretend that it is not FLorida, that it's Tennessee or Kentucky or something.


Well, I haven't posted any blogs lately, because I have been a little sick and tired. No, I haven't been sick and tired of anything in particular, I've just honestly been sick and tired. On Sunday evening, I started really feeling tired. Thats not unusual. However, I also got very cold, and had to ask for a blanket over at Ray's parent's house. Now THAT is unusual. The most bizarre thing: NO ONE else needed a blanket. Anyway, so Monday rolls around, and I can't remember exactly what part of Monday I started feeling bad, but it was pretty early on in the day. I started to run a fever, I had a MAJOR headache (that did not go away) and my body ached all over. Yuck. And that was pretty much how Tuesday and Wednesday went as well. Finally Thursday came and I had no more fever. No more body aches. No more headache.....ok well no more major headache, I still had a little one until late Thursday, but compared to the one I had, that was nothing. So that was that. Grace has also been a little sick. She actually started this cough of hers a good few days before I ever got sick, but she's been progressively sounding worse and worse each day. So Thursday I brought her into the dr's ofc and lo and behold, Grace has bronchitis! Poor Grace. So far, Nate and Ray haven't caught any of mine or Grace's germs.

In other news, Grace is signed up to start soccer in January. It will be 8 weeks long, with a game once a week. Cute. I'll definitely keep you posted with info and pics, once it gets underway.

Man, is the weather NICE or what???? Well, that question was directly to the south Floridian blog readers. Obviously, the weather is not nice in Minnesota. But its nice here. I was finally able to open up my windows today. First time since April or May I think. The forecast for the week is Sun: high of 77, Mon: high of 69, Tues: high of 66 (YAY!!), Wed: high of 71, Thurs: high of 77. I'm super excited about this week's weather, although it would have been neat for it to be cooler on Thanksgiving, but I will NOT complain. I'm grateful to get the cooler days, no matter which days they fall on.

Well, I think that's about it. So, as they say in Looney Tunes, that's all folks!

Blurbs and Pics

I have been trying for a few days to post some pics, but I was having a problem with my browsers. I was using Firefox but had recently switched to Netscape, plus I had Internet Explorer. Well, everytime I tried to sign into the blog, Netscape would autmatically shut down. Then, when I went into IE, I would sign in, click on my little icon to upload pics, and IE would freeze. So, I finally fixed my IE yesterday and uninstalled my Netscape for the time being, and here I am trying again. I have a lot of them, so this should be fun. Anyway, some other things going on:

• Nate is now a walking kid. Yup, thats right, at the tender age of 10 months old, he walks. Technically, he was 11-12 days shy of turning 10 months. He beat Grace, who also was 10 months old, but was technically 5 days away from turning 11 months old.

  

• Nate is now getting tooth number 7, and tooth number 8 is on the way out. Yes, he beat Grace in this area, too. Grace had just started getting her first tooth when she was 7 months old. By the time she was 10 months old she was only on tooth number four or five. Just to recap, Nate had 4 teeth at 7 months old. Oh and by the way, tooth number 7 and number 8 are where I think the first molars are. To see the dental chart, click here. He has not yet had the lateral incisors or the cuspids, however, the cuspids are due to come after the molars. The lateral incisors are running a bit late. Hmmmm.
• Grace needs some prayer. Or is it maybe I need some?? Her behavior has been trying lately, and its been very hard on me, to say the least. I'm not sure what's going on, but I think we might all need a little prayer. She's four, I know, but her behavior has become worse than usual, and its different for her.

  

• I got a 76 on my Chem test. I know, I know, I already ranted on this, so I won't go into it too much, but it still stinks. I know you might say, "Well, a 76 isn't bad," or, "That's still a C," or, "At least you passed." But, when you are striving for the best grade possible, it doesn't seem good enough. Also, the nursing program at BCC places you in a ranking, so-to-speak, so that when you apply for a seat in the program they look at how many points you have, and however many seats they have, the top amount of people get in. Points are based on your grades in the prereq classes, your nursing preadmission test, and any gereral eduaction classes you might take before getting accepted into the program. And even though I may not be in the program anytime soon, the classes I take are for the program and are counting towards those points. So, keep me in your prayers that I can do better on the next two exams.
• Grace may start soccer in January. Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale has a Youth Soccer Program that starts in mid-January and lasts until mid-March. 8 weeks total I think. And for $40 you get shorts, a shirt, and socks, and your child gets to play. This has been the best soccer deal I could find as far as amount of money goes. Although, right now, she said she didn't want to play, I may sign her up anyway and see if she changes her mind. She had, in the past, seemed interested, but I think I may have caught her in a bad mood. So, stay tuned. Currently, ballet is going well.
• Christmas is coming! Only 1 month and 20 days until Christmas. I love Christmas. I love the cool weather and getting together with the whole family. I wish we lived closer to all of them.

And I believe that this concludes my rambling. Now onto pics:

This was a tree I found on my excursion in Stuart. It made me feel as if I was up north somewhere, since south Florida does not believe in any other tree other than a palm tree. So, I took a picture of it. Pretty.

Here's the pumpkin patch. It looks as if Grace is saying, "This here, folks, is a pumpkin patch."

Grace with a scare crow.....and some bales of hay.

Grace getting practice for the tractor life I hope to provide for her one day. Grace, get that grass cut!!

Grace hard at work again.

One of the two cutest little pumpkins in the patch.

Here's the other one.

Grace finally found her pumpkin. She didn't think the tractor was all that bad either.

Phew. Pickin' pumpkins is hard work!

Grace at Glory Nite, an event that the church where she goes to preschool puts on every year right around Halloween. She's getting ready to get on a BIG slide.

Grace going down the BIG slide.

It took a while, but Grace FINALLY got the idea that you couldn't just go straight to the front of the line and that you had to go to the end and WAIT your turn.

Here are the kids from the preschool. There are four different classes, however, not all the kids from the preschool showed up to sing.

Here's Grace holding some leaves for a song.

Isn't she cute?

I think this song was about a squirrel. They're doing the hand movements.

Here's Grace last Sunday at a park nearby in Coral Springs. It was originally made out of wood by people and parents from the neighborhood some years ago, but during Hurricane Wilma last year, it was destroyed. The city decided to build a new one and it is awesome. Its pretty big, with a rubber floor (my favorite) and I think its also supposed to have a huge canopy over it for shade (awesome idea for a Florida park in the summer). However, we aren't sure about the canopy yet.

Here's another pic from the park. I LOVE this pic of her....I think the green from the playground brings out her eyes.

Ok, off subject, but here's Nate sleeping. He has three blankets in his crib and he took them all and snuggled with them. We straightened out the one on top a little, but this is pretty much how we found him.

This was Grace at school on Halloween. All the kids were to dress like someone from Noah's Ark. Here's my little lion.

The lion again.

The class got to have some cool snacks after the costume parade.

Ok so here is Grace at the Boca Town Center Mall. We took her trick-or-treating. This was her first time. The years before, she never really cared. But this year, she asked and we decided it would be ok. She wanted to be Cinderella, go figure. Who'd a thunk it?

Here's me and the princess and one tired little Nate-dog. It is currently his bedtime and he was wondering where his bed was.

It's Been A While......

It's been a while. I think a week or so, to be exact since the last time I blogged. Well, I have a perfectly wonderful excuse for this- I was BUSY!!! Yes, I, Gabbi, was of all things BUSY! I was a busy little bee, quite frankly.

WARNING: About to be a long post and a lot of school babble ahead!

I had my third chem test to study for, and a research paper to work on. My research paper is actually due tonight, however, all the research for it was to be brought in last class so that the professor could make sure we were on the right track. The actual gathering of the information was the hardest part for me. Actually, maybe it was coming up with the parts from the research that I wanted to use and then outlining it all. See, I am usually better at writing on whim. If you ask me to organize my thoughts first, I am lost. Plus the assignment was not very fun. I had to research the definition of a word, any word I wanted. I picked Star. Then I had to reseach all the different definition types that was required by the professor, and write about them. I had to basically do my outline, and do my bibliography cards and a few other minor things and show them to her last week. Like I said before, the organizing of the info was the part that was the hardest for me to get started with. I also had changed my "word" I think like three times before sticking with "Star". But once I finally got going, I just wrote the whole stinking paper, because quite frankly, that was easy once I did everything else, and since I am the QUEEN of procrastination, I needed to do it "the sooner the better." So I was freaking out because I could NOT get to the library until Tuesday, the day before class. I only had the assignment for 5 days, but it took me 5 days after getting the assignment to get there. Anyway, busy with that, and busy with studying for the Chem test kept me, um, well, busy.

So I studied my booty off. I went to the tutors they have at BCC for FREE (my favorite price) twice. I may have told you before, I found out I have the WORST chem professor BCC has to offer. I found this out on a website called www.ratemyprofessor.com and you can go there yourself and check out my professor if you do not believe me. (His name is Nycz at Coconut Creek campus). Anyway, I studied and studied and I was really hoping for a B. I got a C and I am pretty bummed about this, especially since I made a few small errors that could have boosted my grade closer to an A. But I am especially bummed about one question, which I think was intended for you to get wrong. A little background, which most of you might know: All matter has energy. Right. However, the energy is either Kinetic (motion) or Potential (Not moving). A boulder at the top of a mountain has potential energy, but once the boulder starts heading down the mountain, it is now kinetic. Okay, so the question was: TRUE or FALSE All energy has potential energy. Logially, this question, to me, asks if all matter has "POTENTIAL" energy, in which I think "No" because some matter has kinetic. If one thing in the universe is moving, that enregy is kinetic, therefore, all matter cannot possess potential enregy. Its broken down one way or the other, but it cannot be both. Well, I answered False based on this and it was incorrect. I went to the professor after class and explained this and even through his explanation that if a pencil is sitting still on a desk, it has potential energy and if it rolls off the desk it has kinetic energy, he still said I was wrong. I believe in this case that I am correct. So therefore I am mad. This question, if I was given the points, would have given me a B. Anyway, I could really use anyone's input on this being as I am mad. Come on, I need someone to back me up here. If I am wrong, and someone could fully explain why, I'll take it, but the professor and his explanation of pencils only further seemed to prove my theory. So please, help me.

Okay, so enough school. I am mad about that right now. Oh wait, one more blurb, I know I'm not like the smartest person ever. Thats a given. I'd be pretty rich if I were. But I think I am like a 5 on the smartness scale. I'm definately NOT a good test taker, and I definitely don't know everything, but there are certain areas that I feel I am very smart in. Getting a C really hurt my ego, not that I am egotistical by any means, but I suppose a more correct word to use would be my confindence in myself, which is why I am super bummed. Yeah, I honestly can say that I didn't do very well in high school. I didn't challenge myself and I was lazy. I am a "hands on" learner and if you show me, then I can almost guarantee you that I will get it. This brings me to the point I want to make: college means a lot to me. The grades I get now reflect who I have become. I'm trying hard and if I feel I get anything less than an A, well then I'm just not smart. This C could potentially cause me to now not even leave the class with a B. I have two more exams, one of which I can throw out if it is lower than the 76 I just got, and the last (my biochem exam) which cannot be thrown out. If I can get a B on these next two, I am good. If not, well, then I will just end up with a mediocre C. I squeak by. Yay.

Okay, now I'm done babbling about school for real. Amongst my paper writing and studying, I have had a slew of other things going on. On Friday Grace, Nate and I went up to Stuart, which is about an hour and half from here. Like I told Grace its halfway between home and Disney. Ray, his brother Matt and his dad were working up there, and Ray's Mom was going to up to clean, and I wanted to explore. I like driving around new places. So the kids and I went to lunch at Panera Bread, then we went to find a pumpkin patch for Grace, then I actually ran a few errands, and then we ended up at Barnes and Noble for Grace so she could play with the train table they have set up. I left home at 9:45am and didn't get back home until about 10:30pm. It was a fun day. Saturday night, the church at Grace's preschool had their annual Glory Nite, they bbq hot dogs and invite the whole neighborhood and all for a worship concert and bounce houses for the kids. The preschool was going to sing some songs, and so we went to see Grace sing with her school. Last night we took Grace to the mall in Boca for trick-or-treating. I don't like Halloween, but Grace really wanted to go and I feel that if she isn't dressing up as anything scary or evil (and once shes older and understands more about Halloween and why we don't celebrate the holiday) I am fine with it. Right now, she has no idea and just thinks that you dress up like Ciinderella and you get candy for it. I will be posting some pictures of these events soon.

I guess I should end this blog before I start talking about school again. Its already gotten too long. Sorry for the book, the babble, and all the school talk. Tune in soon for some pics.