Monday, January 27, 2014

It's a very important day!

January 28th, 1989 -- seems like an eternity ago!!  I was pregnant.  I was huge.  And I was ready to meet this little bundle of joy.  I was 2 weeks overdue (luckily, I don't think that happens much anymore LOL)  I loved walking into a friend at Walmart them asking, "When are you due?"  My reply caught them off guard!  "Ten days ago."  It was like I shouldn't have even been up walking around or something.  But for me, sitting down and waiting on a baby that I was beginning to think would never arrive was just something I couldn't do. 

It was business as usual -- well that is until January 27th, 1989.  See my husband Dennis (or Dino as more affectionately called) has a best friend named Richard.  Richard and Mandy were pregnant too!  Mandy and I shared our pregnancy together and just knew that our kids would the best of friends.  She was due after me.....but of course, God had other plans.

On the morning of January 27th, I got a call AT WORK (remember I said I couldn't sit and wait) and was told that Mandy was having her baby today.  I must admit -- I was upset, sad, mad, jealous -- I think I went through the whole range of emotions.  She wasn't due yet, and I was 2 weeks late.  It just wasn't fair.

Luckily for me, I had a lady at our church that worked in labor and delivery.  I called her crying like a baby myself.  It wasn't fair!!  I was supposed to go first.  She called me back in a little while to tell me that Mandy was the only person on the floor that day and that my doctor was laid up in the hospital himself.  He was going to have an emergency surgery on his knee, and to top it off, it was the weekend.  She asked me if I was having any pains, which of course I had been having for weeks -- false labor.  She told me to just go on down to the hospital with pain (which wasn't a lie) and see if they would just induce me.

So I called Dennis at work, told him he had to leave and come by my office and take me to the hospital.  He thought I was joking -- "you're at work, but now we're going to the hospital"  yeah, it sounds funny coming out of my head, too.  But he came, and we went.

I got there a little after noon.  About 7:30 or so, labor was induced and we were well on our way to having a baby.  Now, remember I told you that Richard and Mandy were there, too??   They had had their baby that morning -- a girl named Kristen Taylor or K.T.  Well, the guys thought how great would it be if our babies were born on the same day.  So I was "encouraged" to hurry up before midnight.  Sadly, it didn't happen.  Just after midnight, Dennis and I welcomed a beautiful baby boy, full of black hair and screaming lungs into the world.  He was named Gregory Thomas.  Gregory because that's Dino's middle name and Thomas -- well, it just went together :)

I was wheeled into my room -- one that I Mandy and I shared.  She was still pretty sedated from her C-section, but we laughed all night because she said she could hear me screaming down the hallway (I was just a couple of doors down) and she kept covering up her head.  And I was STARVING!!  Back then, there were only a couple of places that were open that late at night, with Old South being one of them.  Dennis' dad went out and got me a burger at 2:00 in the morning.  Best burger I had ever had!  Finally, sleep and rest would come.....for a while anyway.

The next day, Mandy and I compared babies, talked about their future, wondered if they would like each other, ever date, ever marry -- so many questions about the future.  Luckily for us, Dino and Richard enjoyed holding the babies as much as we did.  That night, they shared their first Razorback basketball game -- in the same room being held by their dads.  I have a picture of that somewhere I have got to find for the kids.  And my dad, who always laughed and had fun in everything he did, thought how funny it was that they spent their first night together.

After that, they seemed to be inseparable and our lives were never the same -- never boring, full of laughter and tears. 

So happy birthday K. T. and Greg!!  

Dressing up for his first wedding.  Such a cutie-patootie!!



Best friends -- last day of high school


I look bad -- it was midnight LOL


 
Dennis' dad - grandson to carry on the family name.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

New to blogging...

Well I'm going to try my hand at blogging.  I'm not a great writer, although I do it for a living...irony at it's best :)

I'm a pretty simple person.  I love my family, enjoy my job and love to cook and go camping.  I'm hoping that I can use this blog to share with my friends and family or anyone else who thinks I might have something fascinating to say :)

I'm hoping that most of my posts will be about my camping trips, my dishes from the kitchen and of course, bragging on my kids, kids-in-laws and granddogs.   I don't have any grandkids yet....but we're hopeful some day :)

So here is my family:   We have Dennis, me, our son Gregory, daughter-in-law Jessica, daughter Whitney and son-in-law Jeremy.  We are one big happy family! 
Well, I hope to start posting more.  Thanks for taking the time to read!!

God Bless,
Jannie