All You Need is Love

We are feelin' the love at the Franklin house. Here's a list of things our family is loving right now!

10 new old love songs recently downloaded to Amy's Ipod:
1. Your Love Amazes Me-John Berry
2. When You Say Nothing at All-Keith Whitley
3. How Do You Fall in Love-Alabama
4. When You Love Someone-Bryan Adams
5. At Last-Etta James
6. Our Love is Here to Stay-Natalie Cole
7. I Get a Kick Out of You-Frank Sinatra
8. Come Rain or Come Shine- Sarah Vaughn
9. Chapel of Love-The Dixie Cups
10. Me and You-Kenny Chesney (Our First Dance Song)

Nine Things We Loved About Last Week:
1. Science Camp-Carson had such a great time! See the slideshow for pictures. FYI-He will be leaving for Mars soon, so make sure to tell him goodbye the next time you see him. :)
2. Great conversation and companionship with my St Louis coworkers on our Jefferson City trip.
3. The absolutely sinful Chicken Wellington and Ceasar salad I had at the Capital City Steakhouse. Yum-o-rama.
4. The fact that I lost 5.4 pounds!!! I even went to the Jefferson City Weight Watchers meeting while I was out of town. Yay, me!
5. Carson is doing so well at speech. We are so proud of him.
6. Carson crawled up on my lap and had charming conversations with me two nights last week.
7. My pants were slightly looser.
8. I made it through suspension aerobics without puking.
9. Greg got to be off all day with Carson and me on Friday.
10. Carson has made friends with the little girl next door and they had a great time splashing in his new pool.

Eight Things I Would Love to Get Done This Week:
1. Complete our Florida vacation scrapbook.
2. Get started on our 2008 scrapbook.
3. Finish "The Innocent Man" and get started on "The Other Boelyn Girl."
4. Perfect the BBQ chicken as featured on "Down Home with the Neely's" on Food Network
5. Go see "Wall-E" (Is that how you spell it? Hmmm..)
6. Swim at Shelly's
7. Go to water aerobics Monday and Wednesday
8. Take several walks

Seven Things I Would Love to Cook This Week:
1. Another yummy bluberry buckle
2. Blueberry corn muffins
3. Chicken and Dumplings
4. Honey Pecan Pancakes
5. Chicken Tortilla Casserole
6. Strawberry Salad
7. Blueberry Pretzel Salad

Six Things that I Would Love to See Happen this Week:
1. More weight loss
2. A clean house...that stays that way all week
3. Carson have fun and learn a lot at swimming lessons
4. Me not get overwhelmed by all I want to accomplish on my time off
5. Me cooking dinners out of our pantry..there's a lot of food in there
6. Lots of crockpot and grilled dinners

Five Things I Would Still Love to do this Summer:
1. Go to Elephant Rocks
2. Go to the Miner's baseball game
3. Go to The Magic House
4. Go to lunch at Giant City park
5. Visit Katie and go to The Incredible Pizza Company

Four Things that Always Make Me Feel the Love
1. Weddings-Mom and I went to another one this weekend. Mae-Cie and Jason had a lovely pink and chocolate brown ceremony and a fun reception with great music and lots of family and friends. See the slideshow
2. When Carson says, "Thank you, Momma!" when I do something small and routine for him.
3. Old love songs...hence all the new downloads.
4. When Greg calls me just to see what I'm doing during the day.

Three Options for Celebrating our Tenth Wedding Anniversary next May:
1. A party, with lots of friends, family, and love songs, of course!
2. A trip to somewhere sandy and sunny.
3. With a new anniversary band.

Two Shows I am Loving Right Now:
1. The Tudors (whew! steamy!)
2. Deadliest Catch-we've been addicted for a few years now

And Finally, to the ONE I Love:
I love you, Greg! Thanks for being such a great Dad and Husband!

I hope all of you are feeling the love and having a great weekend. Have a lovely week!

Father's Day, Berries, Workouts, and More!

I just typed a fabulous post and Blogger ate it. This laptop is really frosting my butt right now. I think it needs a trip to the repair shop. Anyway, here are the highlights of the disappearing post.

Father's day was spent at our house this year. Mom, Dad, Grandma Pat, Juli, and PawPaw joined us for a low key BBQ. After the meal, Juli and I researched cruises for our Operation Lose to Cruise reward. We are almost positive we want to go to the Bahamas on Royal Caribbean out of Miami. Any advice or comments from those who have cruised this route will be appreciated.

Last week I went to water aerobics twice and walked once. I really struggled with my walk and wanted to quit on lap two. I stuck it out, but I realized I am very out of shape and this is going to take some time before I enjoy working out again. It didn't help that I had a 5 day headache that finally ended today.

Friday was spent scrapbooking with friends. Saturday I went to Iller's Berry Farm and picked fresh blueberries with a few friends. I was home by 11:00 and went straight to work making a blueberry buckle. It's like a cobbler, but better. I froze the rest of the berries to enjoy all summer. I'm going to try making blueberry cornmeal muffins sometime this week.

We spent the rest of the weekend at home. Greg and Carson spent the day outside today. Carson has found a new friend in the neighbor next door. He and Erica are close to the same age and want to spend every waking moment outside together. I did 10 loads of laundry and finished a few scrapbook pages this afternoon.

I'm of to Jefferson City in the morning to spend the night and attend a training on Tuesday. Carson is going to science camp this week and starts swimming lessons next week. I'll be going to water aerobics and getting some walking in this week. Gotta love a fun filled summer! Have a great week!

Lazy Day

Carson and I had a lazy day today. We stayed home and played and I surfed the net for a few hours. I researched cruises for my trip with Juli, caught up on blogs, and read the message boards at twopeasinabucket.

Tonight the guys went to church band practice and I had Bunco. We had a fun time, as always! I love my Bunco buddies. I won a box of sugar free Tic Tacs, a perfect prize since I'm in the Weight Watchers wagon again.

Last night I met Juli and Leah at the pool for suspension aerobics. We wore float belts and were suspended in 13 feet of water for the entire class. It was challenging, but fun. I was pretty sore this morning.

This is the weekend of weddings for us. We have two ceremonies and one reception to atend on Saturday. Sunday we're BBQing at our house for Father's Day. Have a great weekend!

When the sun goes down...

I'll be swimming! Juli and her friend, Leah, joined me at the pool tonight for our first water aerobics class of the summer. It was great! There were a few times I felt like my arms were on fire, but just when I thought I'd have to quit, the instructor would switch exercises. There were ladies of all ages and sizes and everypne was so nice. Tomorrow we'll have our deep water strengthening class. Carson and Greg went along to swim while we had class, then we went for Hawaiian shaved ice after the pool closed. It was a good night!

I'm working tomorrow, then I'm off for 4 days. I am loving summer hours and getting to use comp time for some extra days off. I'm home all next week, then have an overnight trip to Jefferson City the following week with two of my crazy coworkers from St Louis. I always have a blast with these two ladies, so I'm looking forward to it.

Have a fabulous Wednesday!

It's Summertime!

Summer has arrived. It's the season for sunshine, sunscreen, sweat, and swimming. We're off to a great start with out summer activities and have plans for lots more fun summer activities in the coming weeks!

Last weekend we went to the first annual Franklin Family Fishing tournament at the Franklin family farm in St. Mary. Carson caught the biggest fish in his age category, a bass weighing in at 1lb13oz, just 2 oz less than Carson weighed when he was born! He reeled it in with some help from Uncle Jim and lots of cheering from me. Carson had a great time playing with all of his cousins. Greg had several bites, but didn't manage to hook any fish. I planted my butt in a lawn chair and kept watch for spiders, snakes, ticks, frogs, bugs, and all of the other icky things that I cannot stand and truly fear. The sacrifices I have to make for family. I am so not an outdoorsy girl.

On Monday I left for a three day trip to St. Louis as part of my volunteer work as a validator for the Missouri Child Care Accreditation group. I took three coworkers with me and we had a great time. The work days were very long, but we were able to sneak in a trip to Chesterfield mall and dinners at the Cheesecake Factory and PF Changs. It was a nice break.

On my to pick up a rental car for the trip on Monday, I was the ninth caller on a local radio station and won 4 tickets to see Mamma Mia at the Fabulous Fox Theater in St. Louis on Saturday. I took my mom, sister, and mother-in-law. It was terrific! We had lunch at Mama Caprese's on The Hill, then went to the matinee performance. I think I may have to download some ABBA to my ipod! Juli and I will be adding "Dancing Queen" to our karaoke repertoire.

Today we headed back to St Louis (my third trip in 6 days!) to the St Louis Zoo. We piled in my van with my mom, Grandma Pat, and Juli. We met Juli's friend, Josh, at the zoo and caught up our friend, Brittni, who is doing a summer internship in the Great Ape Habitat this summer as part of her pre vet studies. It was hot, but we had a good time visiting the animals, having a picnic lunch, and riding the zoo train, where Carson got to say, "All Aboard!" on the loudspeaker.

This week is slow at work. On Friday we'll be attending a rehearsal dinner for a wedding we're helping with on Saturday. Sunday's plan is still open for now.

In other news, Juli and I have decided that we are each going to lose 50 pounds and take a girls-only cruise in January as a reward for our hard work. We are both attending Weight Watchers and will be starting water aerobics tomorrow night. She's already ahead of me by 10 pounds, so I have to get my butt in gear. I'll be packing my lunch much more often.

I have a decent list of summer activities we're planning to do so far. If you want details on any of them, just let me know. Here they are:

trip to Farmington water park
trip to Land Between the Lakes in KY
attend a Southern Illinois Miners baseball game in Marion, IL
have lunch at Giant City Park and browse the funky little shops in Makanda, IL
attend the DuQuoin State Fair in late August
visit and stay with my friend, Katie, and go to the Incredible Pizza Company and other fun St Louis stuff with her
trip to the City Museum in St Louis
trip to Grant's Farm in St Louis
2 weeks of swim lessons for Carson
1 week of space camp at the university for Carson
hanging out at the camp ground with my aunt and uncle
trip to Elephant Rocks park in Iron County
attend a St Louis Cardinal game
Municipal band concerts in the city park on Thursday nights
attend a show at The Muny in Forrest Park
other activities as we have time!

I have a lot of things to schedule! I'll be working on that this week. Have a great week!