Ten Years Ago: 9/11

Ten years ago I was in the 10^th grade. Ten years ago I moved to Texas. Ten years ago I was 15 years old. Ten years ago I didn’t have Facebook, iPod or a digital camera. Ten years ago life changed forever, as 9.11 to on a new meaning. The world had no idea of what Twitter was.

Tuesday, 7:30 a.m., Sept. 11, 2011: KPLX is blasting from my radio in my bedroom as I prepared for English Class via phone in Maryville, Tennessee.

I hear one of the radio personalities say, “A plan just hit the World Trade Center in New York. If you can get to a TV go and turn it on.” I quickly run to the living room TV and turn on Fox News. There were the images. Smoke is coming out of the building; people running down the streets of New York. I yell to my parents to tell them. Moments later another plane hits the other tower. Then word about the Pentagon and empty field in Pennsylvania were two other planes have crashed.

The images played all day. I watch. I was scared. I prayed. I thought Dallas might be next. I held my scriptures close at night.

When the paper came out, I got an edition.

I knew this would now be a day written in the history books. Something I would tell my children and grandchildren one day.

Days would go by as the news scroll the list of the dead/missing at the bottom of the screen. The world as we know it had changed.

In the days, months and even years to come, movies, pictures, books, stories of survivors, and even songs would tell of that day.

Ten years later, we still fight the war on terrorism, some of the leaders of it now dead. Airport security has forever changed.

Life lesson have learned.

One thing is for sure we will never forget. Our colors don’t run. United We Stand, Together as one.

The Weekend

This week certainly has flown by. Last time I check it was Monday and now its 11:45 p.m. on a Saturday night.

I guess all the excitement happened Wednesday night when we got home from work. I am calling my sister to confirm that I am watching her stepson, Cole on Thursday morning. John checks his phone and sees he has a voice mail and it's the Dallas Temple calling us asking us to meet with someone from the temple presidency. Thursday morning John calls the temple and makes an appointment for Friday at 2:30 p.m. So after work on Friday we head over to the temple and leave with a new calling. We will be working in the Temple one shift a week. The calling is typically for two years but they know things can happen such as circumstances like having a family or work or moving that would shorten your service.

I feel such an honor to be able to something like that. I know the Lord will truly bless our lives with it. John is very excited about the chance to serve in the Lord's House.

After the meeting I went to Aldies(a grocery store) and went grocery shopping, while John was on the phone with his mom telling her the news. And was reminded that night we had our Girls Night Out with, Carolyn, Jan, Mini Mama, and John's Mom. With all that had happened this week, I had totally forgotten about it. We headed to a place called, "Let's Art Party" where you can paint a picture with 2-3 hours. Pictures are with in the post, they were taken at Let's Art Party, by our teacher who taught us. There were some other women there having their own girls night out too, so it wasn't just us in there. It was a lot of fun, we are all planning to go back.

Today is Saturday we went to my Team Outing from work. We all meet up at a place called Main Event, we went Bowling and played glow in the dark miniature golf. It was a lot of fun. I didn't do too well with my bowling but John on one round got his score over 100! The we did our Walmart shopping and amazingly for a Saturday afternoon it wasn't too bad. Let's just say that we are good on food for a good two weeks. With the exception of maybe need more Milk and Eggs later on. We ended the night by going and play games with some friends in our ward, who don't have children yet. (Young Couples) It was a lot of fun.

Surprisingly I managed to get our house clean, laundry wash.. just have to fold it.

The best part was the news about the temple...

The Year..

Right now on facebook there is something going around in friend's status. Where they are given a year by a friend and their friends like the year and in turn that friend gives them a year to post somethings about themselves. One my friends gave me the year 1998 and it got me thinking about where I was in 1998 and what I was thinking. Below are some answers to that year

The Year was 1998.
Age: I was 12 years old.( Facebook has another age, :) )
Live: Lousiville, Tennessee
Pet: Friskey the Cat
Best Friend: Samantha Thompson
Dream Job: A school teacher
Show: It really ranged from ER to Early Edition to Dr.Quinn Medicine Women.
Random: This was my first year a girls camp at church. I also got into 4H.
School: I was HomeSchool the start of my 6th grade year, I think I nickname our school Karma Middle School
Crushes: Really didn't have any

My time certainly has flown by. Thinking back that long ago was really mind blowing. Next time I will have to go to my journals and see what I thought. On that side note I have kept a journal from 12 years old until now.

What happened to July?

Hard to believe that summer is nearly over and John heads back to school. The summer has been a good one. Going swimming at our apartments, hanging with family and seeing my sister, Brittany M. :) and one of the best part of it all: going to Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL with my parents and going to the beach! John even went fishing with my dad and caught fish and then threw them back in the ocean again.

We had soo much fun at Disney, I can't wait to go back. We had orginally planned to just spend two days there but we ended up going for 4 days! I am glad we did that. I can't wait to go back. It's such a happy place!

This weekend we went to two malls after work. On Friday, we went to Grapevine Mills Mall and walked around and even shop some. One of the stores we went to was from Lego Land, John felt such like a kid in that store. We ended up buying some legos. Yes, we are married and playing with legos. There's nothing like acting like a kid again.:) We even ate a place called Rainforest Cafe and end the day going to the candy store!

On Saturday we went to Stonebier Mall. It was very crowd. People every were, of course school does start back here in a week. We looked in some stores, I even got a new book called: "Farewell to Manzanae" so far its a really good book! And then we went to Toy R Us, John decided that he need some more Legos.

Well that's all for now. In this post I have included so pictures from Diseny and the Beach







.

June Already?

Hard to believe the year is half way over!

What happening with the Deans you ask? Well, feels like the same old, same old. Expect now its summer with close to triple digits outside. John and I have been taking advantage of our Swimming Pool where we live. It's really nice to be able to just hang out at the pool. And even get my pre-tan on. John and I will head to the beach to see my parents and we get to go to DISNEY WORLD! And then at the end of July my sister, Brittany M. comes for her Mary Kay convention. I will be excited to see her!

In other news, I am now teaching the 4 years olds who are turning 5 this year at church. CTR 4 they call the class. I really enjoy it because I get to go to primary with them. Oh, how I miss going to primary. I love teaching my class. I taught them for the first time last Sunday. They all have such sweet spirits.

Well thats all for now folks!

NF and Me

I couldn’t let another year go past without passing on some thoughts about Neurofibromatosis (NF).

The first piece of information you should beware of is that May is NF awareness month. So I am using two forms of media to pass on NF awareness, one through my Facebook messages and then through this post. In May of 2007 I wrote a commentary for my school news paper about NF. I will post the link to the article at end of this post.

When I was two years old I was diagnosis with NF. Throughout my childhood I was treated like any normal child, expect I wore a leg brace. Because my right leg is curved like a bow and arrow and if I were to break my leg it would have to be removed. Once a year I went for check-ups for my NF. There were years that I saw 7 doctors in one day! I typically saw a geneticist, neurologist, psychologist and some others that I know I am forgetting.

I was once told in my pre-teens years that I was stupid by a psychologist and that I wouldn’t go to college all because I did poorly on a test that she gave me. But I was also very sick that day with the flu when I took that test. But in December 2009 I proved her wrong, when I graduate from college.

I may have a learning difference but that didn’t stop me. I just had to learn to a different way to study.

When I was a teenager I was told that when I choose to have children there would be a 50% chance of me having a child with NF and my NF worsening during the pregnancy. A chance I am willing to take because I know that it is in the Lord’s hands. (When this happens I plan to write a blog about it.

I wore a brace until I was in the 5^th grade. Now I know longer wear the brace and I think that my leg looks stronger and perhaps a little bit straighter.

I have two friends that have NF.

I have gone to an NF camp with my family before to be with other families with NF!

Neurofibromatosis affects many people and everyone is affected differently. There is no cure, but hopefully one day there will be.

http://thevoice.uamont.edu/archives

It's been a month since I last wrote. Hard to believe the year is nearly half way over.

At the end of April we went to our first Rangers game for the year. It was a lot of fun. We had great seats and the weather was perfect. The only down side was they had to cancel the firework show because of the strong winds.

John is almost done with school for the spring. :) And this summer we are going to Florida for a week to see my parents.

Our Hamesters are doing great, now that they live in different cages. Sometimes we will get them out of the cage and put them next to each other and they will start fighting. It's kinda funny to tell you the truth.

That's about it for now!