All I can say is YUM!    One of the ladies at my stampers group made this a few months ago and I fell in love with it.   She gave me the recipe and Jason and I tried it out today.   It is so light and refreshing, perfect for the summer heat!

Here's the recipe:
Fruit Salsa
Ingredients:
1 c. finely chopped strawberries
1 medium orange, peeled and finely chopped
2 lg. or 3 small kiwi, peeled and finely chopped
1 8oz. can crush pineapple, drained
1/4 c. thinly sliced green onions
1/4 c. finely chopped yellow or green bell pepper
1 T. lime juice
1 jalapeno pepper, finely diced

Combine all ingredients and chill for 6 hours.  Serve with cinnamon crisps.

Cinnamon Crisps:  Cut 12 8-inch tortillas into 8 wedges.   Spread wedges on a baking pan and brush with melted butter.   Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.   Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until crisp.

I finally got around to making cards this weekend.  Here are a couple of them:

I know, it has been a while...   Many things have been going on down this way, but nothing really to report.    The garden is growing.   My class is finished.   I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.    Still missing our boy.  

I think trying to divide myself into too many blogs got to be too much so I'm going to go back to posting just on this one.    If you don't like recipes, ignore those posts.  The pictures of cards bore you, scroll down.    Unfortunately, my life isn't exciting enough to fill up 3 different blogs.    I wish I could be posting pictures of an 21-month old, but that isn't going to happen, at least not anytime soon.    If anyone has an extra $30K just sitting around and would like to donate it to our baby fund, we accept cash, checks, or credit cards.  

Now for some pictures:

The apple tree has two apples on it this year.   Last year we had one and it ended up staying about this size.   We are curious if these will grow into real apples...  

Jason picked these two last night.  We only planted one zucchini and one squash plant, but both are doing good so far.   Hopefully we'll have a squash to show next week.

Here's our dinner from tonight.   I was in a lazy mood and didn't work on making it all pretty, but it was tasty. The burgers were lean meat (beef for me, chicken for Jason) with some pepper jack cheese, avocado, and tomato on whole wheat buns.   The potatoes were a lighter version of Pioneer Woman's crash hot potatoes.

Please be sure to go vote in the Pepsi Refresh Everything contest.   Both SMA charities are in the top 10, but have to do better than that in order to win any money.    

There is another chance to help win $250,000 for SMA research through the Pepsi Refresh Everything campaign.   Be sure to vote every day if you can!   Just click HERE to vote!  You can either vote through your Facebook account or create an account with your email address.   You will be voting for Sophia's Cure; to read more about Sophia and her amazing family, you can visit their website at http://sophiascure.com/sophiascure/index.asp

There is also a chance for $25,000 and you can vote for that HERE.    It is the same contest, just a different category.   This vote will be for Stop SMA and you can learn more about them at http://www.stopsma.org/ 

You have up to 10 votes, so you are able to vote for both organizations each and every day in May!  

Be sure to check back and vote every day!!!!!!!!   We need this money so any help is appreciated!    

Thanks!!!!!!!

More pictures of spring!

A somewhat better shot of my boy's rose.

One of our other roses.  

A yellow rose is a must-have in Texas!  :)

Today's harvest of strawberries!

Eli's Roses

Just a couple of quick shots of Eli's roses.   I'll try to switch out lenses and get some better shots soon.   I can't believe how many HUGE blooms are on there.   They started blooming out on the 14th and haven't stopped.  

It is always amazing to know that Eli remains in the thoughts of my friends.   These pictures were taken by my good friend Sara in Hawaii.

Spring is here!

The corn is up!

The crab apple tree survived last season's bag worms and is in full bloom right now.   It is amazing!!

Our first rose of the season!   For some reason, it looks like a different color than the flowers on it from last year.  I'm curious to see what the next one will look like!

Here's the cauliflower plant we bought from Lowe's...I think someone put the wrong label on it.   We love broccoli, so it will be fine.  

The strawberry plants are full of berries, but something is already eating them once they are ripe.  :(    I hope we can figure out what it is and treat the garden.  This is the first year we actually have some decent sized berries!

Vacation

This was the view from the living room window of our suite.  It was such a relaxing place....it was our 3rd trip up there and I can't wait to go again.   I always leave feeling rested and pampered.  Our room was beautiful and the bathroom was AMAZING.   I fell in love with the heated tile floor in the bathroom.  It was my favorite part, while Jason liked the steam shower with the waterfall showerhead and body jets.

I was so happy that the bedroom area was decorated in two of my favorite colors!

The zoo in Ft. Worth was great!   We spent 5 hours there yesterday and took lots of pics.   I was so excited to see so many animals I'd never got to see before, including a kangaroo!

Another picture from the zoo.   If you want to see all the pictures from our vacation, I hope this link will work so you can see all 130ish of them!

We had a blast at Fossil Rim today.  We had so many zebra and giraffe heads in the truck with us!   It was so cool to be able to touch them!    It is one of my favorite spots and I could go every week!

Today I'm feeling very sorry for myself and having my own pity party.   This week I've missed having friends.  I have plenty of casual friends, but I miss the type of friendships I had back in my college days.   I miss hanging out at someone's house or having friends over for no reason at all.    It didn't have to be someone's birthday or a holiday; we just enjoyed being with each other.  There were several points in my life that I probably spent more time at a friend's house or apartment than my own.   I don't know how many times I ate dinner or colored my hair sitting in someone's living room.  It was just life spent together, enjoyed TOGETHER.

I miss that.   I also miss having a best friend.  I want someone who will sit on the couch and laugh with me, who can cry with me on my bad days, or who will just drop by to say hi and have a coffee.    For me, that type of relationship left when I moved to Texas.   I think that's a huge part of why I'm always so discontent here.   It's good to have friends you see a once or twice a month, but I always find myself longing for so much more than that.    I suppose seeing someone other than family every few days is more like codependency at this point in life and I should just get over that whole idea...  Jason is a wonderful husband and friend, but he doesn't gossip or drink coffee.  :)  

So, that's where I am this week.  

I saw this on PostSecret today.   I hope I never feel like that.  :(    I wish I could give this person a hug though.   It sucks when nobody understands.   I don't think I could have handled the last 14 months without the help of my friends on Facebook.    They DO understand.   As much as my friends or family try and are there for me, they don't totally understand than pain...and for that, I'm grateful.  

I love that people have an outlet to share secrets.   I'll never forget seeing this when we got home with Eli after his diagnosis.  I knew I wasn't alone in the world.

Be sure you are voting for the Pepsi Refresh Everything!   You can vote every day this month.   We've moved up from 16th place to 5th place, but only the top two will win $250,000!  

Happy 2nd Birthday Baby Owen.   I wish your mommy and daddy were able to celebrate with you.  I know  you are so proud of your mom for all the awareness she raised by running a marathon in your honor.  I see how hard she works for votes when we have a chance to win money to help find a cure.   I haven't had the pleasure of meeting her, but I love her and I love you.   Happy Birthday beautiful boy. 

The past few weeks have been a pretty down time for me, with last night and today being the worst.   Jason and I were talking about Eli and the last few weeks of his life after we went to bed and we both ended up a bit melancholy before sleep took over.   That time can be a bit of a blur for me, but every now and then I'll remember some details and it breaks my heart all over again.  I see other friends who had babies around the same time as Eli posting pictures of their now 18 or 19-month olds and I can't even begin to imagine Eli at that age.   It makes me sad to think about what he'd be doing right now.

Today has just been one of those days where everything seems to go wrong.   I don't handle those days well on a good day, but the lingering sadness of last night has amplified the effect today.  I don't think I've had a major pity party for a while, but the celebration is in full force today.

Sometimes when my pain is so great that I'm not sure I can survive another minute, I think about all the women on Facebook who feel the same hurt every day of their lives too.   One day I'll do a count, but I know I've met so many families who are struggling to live with a big piece of their family missing.

I was trying to come up with words to describe those dark days and I can't because they are all so different.   One day it almost feels like a physical hurt, like the pain has built up so much inside that my skin can't hold it all.  It takes all my energy not to claw my skin open to find some relief.   Another day, the pain is emotional, cutting almost.   Those days I want to go to outside and just run down the street screaming.   The worst day is the one where all hope is lost and getting out of bed seems like too much of an effort.   The physical and emotional pain are a picnic compared to hopelessness.    The only days worse than those are the ones where I have to go in the nursery to make sure he wasn't just a dream.

Thankfully the bad days aren't every day now and we find days where we laugh and almost enjoy the day.   Even on those days, it always feels like something, someone is missing.  I guess that feeling will never go away.   We'll always be missing a part of our family.

We were watching Criminal Minds last night and it was about child kidnapping.   It was a crazy, sad episode, but they showed parents who still held out hope that their children were alive.  When asked how they could deal with that, especially for so many years, one mom said something that really spoke volumes for me.   I don't remember her exact words, but it was basically that when she first woke up, for a few seconds, all was well and normal.   I still have moments like that myself where I wake up thinking Wow, that was an awful dream.   It never lasts long before reality comes crashing back down, but for those few seconds...

Another voting opportunity!

This time we have a chance to win $250,000 for another SMA charity, Stop SMA.   You can vote once a day for the entire month of March, so be sure to come back here to get the link or bookmark it on your computer!

http://www.refresheverything.com/stopsma

We are currently in 10th place, so vote and ask others to vote!  

Mercer Arboretum 02/28/10

Just a few pictures from our time out yesterday.  It was such a beautiful day in Texas.   You can see the rest of them here.