How many hours are in a day?

I would like to thank all of our friends and family that helped make Team Chunky Monkey such a success this year. We have raised almost $4000.00 and I still have donations to drop off at the March of Dimes office. We are so blessed and thankful that our money will be part of the nearly 3.6 million dollars Houston raised this year!

WOW! How many hours are in a day? Don’t worry, I DO know the answer to this question…it just seems like I lived a whole week in the last three days! This weekend was eventful to say the least and it has left me exhausted!

I spent Thursday at the spa enjoying a massage, manicure and pedicure from my husband for my big 3-0! It was relaxing and I enjoyed getting lost in the silence. I actually found myself thinking to myself that I wasn’t really thinking about anything! That is bizarre for me because my head is usually spinning every second of the day about something. I realized that I would love to do that more often…we’ll see how that works out!

Friday, I went over to my mom’s house to pick her up. My family was meeting for dinner to celebrate my birthday that evening. I came home and got Ellie Grace ready for her Grandmom. Ellie was in rare form that evening and I actually felt terrible leaving her behind. I forgot about all of the home “drama” when I walked into the restaurant and saw my friends and family waiting for me…Brandon had planned a surprise dinner with my greatest friends and family members present! I kept asking everyone what our plans were for after dinner and they cryptically answered, “Can’t say…!” Now, if you know me and my type A personality, you know that I need to be in control and have everything planned out perfectly. To not know where we were heading after dinner was driving me crazy!

Dinner was great! My good friend Jocelyn brought my FAVORITE cake in the entire world and I have been enjoying it for the last few days! We exited the restaurant and there was a beautifully restored trolley waiting for us. We loaded up and headed out for a very exciting and eventful evening in downtown Houston. At about 11:00 I noticed that my younger brother had gone missing. I started to worry that we had left him behind until I noticed him walking up the stairs with two friends of mine that I hadn’t seen in over 5 years! Brandon’s last surprise to me was having Josh and Ashley in town from Dallas to visit and hang out with us! It was the icing on top of the cake and I honestly couldn’t have asked for or planned a better birthday myself! Way to go Brandon, mom, Connie, Dave and all of my friends that “lied” to me for the past week! I love all of you and thank you for taking so much time to plan a wonderful evening just for me.

Friday night was long and actually lasted until Saturday morning with Josh, Ashley and I talking and catching up. Brandon let me sleep in and after only 5 hours of sleep it was time for total Ellie Grace duty. You see, Saturday was the NFL draft and that day is sacred to Brandon. Honestly, this is Brandon’s favorite day of the year and he looks forward to it all year long! Uncle Chris came over and made salsa and the boys drug in the standing dry erase board and got down to business as the draft began. It really is cute to see how “into it” they are. There is a lot of planning that goes into that day on their part…it’s actually kind of obsessive!!! Ellie and I spent the day at the park and shopping at Target for a new digital camera…ours didn’t survive the surprise party night! We were in bed early because Sunday was the March for Babies and it was going to be an early morning.

I couldn’t sleep at all on Saturday night. I was up almost the entire night thinking about our baby boy. Most people wouldn’t realize that events like the March for Babies is excruciating for Brandon and me. Yes, it was for a great cause and it will no doubt help other families avoid the heartache we have suffered. However, half of the reason we were walking is in a cemetery rather than in our twin stroller. It is beyond description the pain and anxiety days like Sunday drum up. By this point in the weekend I was sure I had been awake for at least 72 hours. Between the out of town guests, the long day alone with Ellie Grace and the stress of the March for Babies I was hanging on by a string. We were so proud to see all of our friends come out and show their support for Team Chunky Monkey. We had a very generous family friend donate all of the t-shirts for the day, and they turned out perfect! It was awesome to see everyone in their shirts and gathered ready to walk. As the walk began (with THOUSANDS of people) we got separated from most of our group. We know what changes to make for next year, because we plan to have another big crowd and we want to make sure we can all walk together! The last few miles were LONG because Ellie Grace woke up and either wanted to be held or wanted to walk on her own…seriously! The best moment of the entire day was the moment we crossed the finish line. Imagine this…there is a band playing…thousands of people are all walking and cheering for you and they announced our team name over the loud speaker as we crossed the finish. “And coming into the finish now is TEAM CHUNKY MONKEY”…It brought tears to my eyes. It has been a long haul and there are very few things I can do for Bennett to honor him and celebrate him with all of you. This was one of those moments and for a split second I felt complete happiness and joy.

We met our team back at the tent and decided to go to lunch with our families. We had about 20 people heading out to eat as we left the stadium. One minute we were driving and the next minute we were slamming into the back of a car! OH MY GOSH is the next thought that ran through my head…my baby was in the car! I immediately checked Ellie out and she was fine…talking as a matter of fact…no tears…no discomfort at all…THANK YOU GOD!!! I was shaking like a leaf on a cold fall morning, but my instinct to comfort Ellie was the only thing I could think of. As it turns out, I was the only one that needed comfort after this fender bender because everyone else was just fine. We made it to the restaurant and joined our families to celebrate the last of this VERY LONG weekend. Once we were home, Brandon had to pack and head to the airport for a trip to Chicago where he will be until tomorrow.

As I was thinking about this weekend I couldn’t help but think that God had added a few hours to each of the days!! It truly felt like I lived a whole week in a matter of days. I hate that the stressful/eventful times seems to drag by and the wonderful/intimate times seem to vanish in a flash. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could decide how many hours were in each of our days? I think I would like to cut the bad ones short and make the good ones last forever!


Crawfish boil news:
We are hosting a thank you crawfish boil at our neighborhood clubhouse on Saturday, May 3rd, for all of you that supported Team Chunky Monkey in any way. We would love to have all of our friends and family there to help celebrate our success as a TEAM! The party will begin at 3pm and we will have the mudbugs and all the ‘fixins’! Bring yourself and a cooler with your favorite drinks…and maybe an outdoor chair to sit in! Please email me through babysites.com or leave a comment on our blogspot to let me know if you will be able to join us. I will be placing the order for crawfish on Thursday. Thanks again for all of your support ~ you are the world’s best and we are blessed to have you in our lives!