Homer

This is a long overdue update... A ton has happened in just the few months since I last wrote. I'll try to make this as chronological as possible:

Patti came up to visit in mid-October. She spent 9 days here, and for the first time she got to meet my other best friend who lives here. They got along great (of course they are practically the same person, so why wouldn't they)...

So right on to November... the first weekend of November Patrice, Brian and Megan all came up for the Boston College/Florida State game. We had a blast and we got to see FSU upset the #2 team in the country! Woohoo! I felt a little bad for the BC fans, but it still felt great over all... Patrice was absolutely miserable because it was in the low 40's and pouring rain and her feet got wet on the walk over the the stadium. Megan had a blast though!

For Thanksgiving I flew out for a week's vacation at my grandparent's lake house in Homer, Louisiana. Lots of my family also went which was awesome. I was feeling really homesick at this point. Even more exciting though, was Mike, one of my best friends while growing up, decided to fly out and spend the week there as well. His sister Tatiana also drove in from Tallahassee. It felt great to catch up with him. It's always fun to hang out with Honey and Papa as well.

On to a very sad and depressing thing: my friends lost their baby Wesley so I only had the title of god father for less than a day. The whole situation has really brought me down during the last few months, so to avoid thinking about it, that is all I'm going to say... at least for now. On the brighter side, I'm flying to Australia in May for their wedding! 9 days in Sydney and 4 days in Fiji. I'm extremely uberly excited about it!

Now, in December I flew home for the holidays. My PTO expires at the end of the year, so with the combination of holidays, I was there for almost 2 weeks. While I was there I got to see my god daughter Ashlyn! She makes me happier than anyone on the face of the planet! It is so hard not being there while she grows up. I spent 2 days with her though... Man, those were two very tiring days.

During the holidays my dad, my grandma and I decided to do a three way car swap. My grandma got my car, my dad got her car, and I got his car. It's been a major ordeal, but it is finally working out. I was tired of paying $400 a month in car payments when I was only driving 30 miles a month.

Dmitri was kind enough to drive my dad's car up to me, and my car down to my dad. Of course, he got a free trip to Boston out of it. He spent a little over a week here, and during that time we went skiing in New Hampshire with my neighbor's brother Doug and my co-worker/friend Josh.

Of course, not everything is wonderful... I have horrible elbow pains from too much computing (of course, I'm using the computer to write this, which probably isn't the best idea). I've been to a Dr. who says I need to see a specialist... I also talked to her about my knee pain that I've had for nearly 3 years now... It hurts a ton to run/ski/hike/walk/ride my bike, etc. It most likely is going to require some sort of cartilage manipulation surgery, but hopefully not.

For new years I quit soda again... I drank no Dr. Pepper all of 2005 and absolutely no soda for 2006, but then I rewarded my self with a Dr. Pepper to ring in the new years 2007... well, that was a bad way to start a new year... so after getting in the habit of drink way to much soda again, I am forcing myself to quit it... for good this time... I'm 32 days sober... go me!

Well, I think that covers everything, although extremely briefly... but I'm suppose to stay off the computer, so that's all I'm going to write.

Labels: allie evans, ashlyn pinner, best friend, boston, boston college, brian and patrice mankowski, dmitri sokgobenzon, florida state university, homer, josh kolash, megan folts, mike smith, mike treffehn, papa and honey, patti botero, tatiana treffehn, wedding

Over Christmas break I went to Homer LA for my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary. It was great to see all my family again, and it was very relaxing after a never ending, extremely stressful semester. Two of my cousin's announced that they are getting married! I am really happy for both of them. It looks like my sister will also be getting married this year...

Anyways, I know it is pathetic, and I swore it would never happen to me, but I am addicted to Facebook... I use to hate the thing and thought it was stupid, but now enough of my old friends have joined to make it interesting... I have talked to many people that I haven't talked to in years. My first "girlfriend" is one of them that is finally on, Deanna Tobin. I put quotations around girlfriend because we "dated" from kindergarten to 6th grade (when I dumped her to date Maria Wilkins which lasted 3 days). I just found her on there yesterday so I haven't been able to contact her yet, but I think it will be very interesting to see what is up in her life. Kathy Zischka also now has joined and so I can finally communicate with her again after loosing contact for quite some time. I found my good friend from elementary school Brandon Bert a while back and found out that he lives only two hours from me (on the Gulf Coast) so we are going to try and meet up sometime. Anyways, these are just a few that I was excited about, there are many, many more that I am waiting to be "confirmed" as a friend on that will also be interesting to see where they are in life...

School this semester is going to be really really really really boring as I finish up my required courses. The only positive to this semester is that I only have class on Tuesday and Thursday, so I get four day weekends. Well, I guess another positive side is that my work schedule changed too and it is much better then the previous year which is hard to imagine possible.

Labels: brandon bert, brian and patrice mankowski, deanna tobin, facebook, family, grad school, homer, honey folts, kathy zischka, maria wilkins, papa folts, tara polly, work

My friend Megan and I weren't sure if we were up to the long drive to my Grandparent's lake house (I wasn't because I had had 9 hours of sleep in the 3 days before) but finally we decided it would be good to get our minds off things... so we both hopped in our cars and headed there... right before leaving I got my car its first oil change, which turns out to cost me extra because it is difficult to do... so that cost me $45 because I didn't know of any cheap places to get it done... hopefully in the future it will be cheaper... anyways... About 200 miles into my trip as I approached Dallas the sky turned pitch black, and it was noon... The clouds were nearly touching the ground and the winds were blowing hard... the horizon had a green tint and it began to hail... I was freaking out because I was still 20 minutes from Dallas and I had to go about 10 miles before I found a good place to stop to let it pass... I swear a tornado had to have passed within a mile because that was some sort of storm... that is exactly what you see when you see it on the weather channel... Luckily it only lasted like 20 minutes until it cleared up enough for me to get out on the road... so I jumped in my car and started to drive... the highway was flooded after the quick storm and I was in a construction area and the construction dust had combined with the water, making it white... yeah, that was scary...

Once I finally got there I greeted everyone and then played basketball... I pitched one over my head, without looking, all the way across the court, and made it! That shot almost let me win in horse... but, when I was about to win, Megan pulled up and I was sweaty and covered in dirt so I gave her a big hug... aren't I nice... When she got there we ate dinner and then I think we went kayaking for the first of many times during the weekend... Then we just chilled and talked about stuff that was on our minds... the next morning I woke up early, Papa and I went outside and talked while he had his morning smoke... he is hilarious... by 6:30 I was bored so I went to see if Megan looked like she was in a deep sleep and she did, so I stayed talking to my papa for another 30 minutes and then checked on her again, this time she had an angry look in her face and her hand was over her eyes so I knew she wasn't sleeping soundly (the sun was beaming through the window straight into her eyes)... I went inside and tickled her arm pit to wake her up... We just chilled most the morning and went kayaking, swimming in the middle of the lake and ate... then sometime in the afternoon we both passed out in each others arms... I don't know if it was her breathing that calmed me, but for some reason I was able to relax and get things out of my mind and sleep for a much needed hour...

Once we awoke, the Fourth of July celebration started (yes it was the 2nd, but that is when they start on the lake) with a parade of all the boats decked out in red white and blue... this happens as the sun sets and once a full circle around the lake is complete, the boats gather by the dam and watch a fireworks display...

The next morning was much like the first, just chilling... We tried to take a nap on the hammock but just ended up talking for 2 or 3 hours... in the afternoon we went inner tubing, but as soon as Megan got on the boat ran out of gas, so I didn't get a turn and her's was a short one... after a jet ski towed our boat back to the dock we talked to the neighbors (the Browns who are the parents of my Dad's childhood best friend) until dinner was ready... on the way to dinner Megan pushed me into the lake where it was only 2 feet deep so she had to run like crazy before I got out and tried to drown her... after dinner it was time for more fireworks! We were all out on the dock and my uncle tried to push me in but barely missed so then, when he was trying to push Tina in, I ran up behind him and pushed him instead... Everyone was so happy I did because they love picking on him, mainly because he is constantly picking on them...

The next day Megan had to leave really early in the morning because she worked at 6:30 AM on the 5th... I decided to stay though, and played scrabble with my sister, watched karate kid, and stayed in my pjs all day even to watch the fireworks... (I knew I couldn't go down by the lake or my uncle would have pushed me in) After the fireworks, we all played Scategories, which was really hard because we had around 9 people playing so it was hard to be creative enough to get any points...

At 4:45 the next morning I headed back to Austin with my sister so that I could make it back in time for my appointment where I got my wart removed... hopefully it won't grow back, I got it removed before and it did, but this time they cut it off, then burned it, so it didn't bleed, and also so it might destroy it at the root... oh well, we'll see...

Labels: best friend, family, homer, honey folts, kelly folts, megan folts, papa folts