Two Thousand Fourteen!

        2013 is coming to an end.

        A lot has happened to the Monaco/Nakayama family this year. Let's see...

* January*

-Dad got remarried to a woman named Karen who was is his high school sweetheart.

-I started my last semester at SAC.

-Janna started her 2nd semester at Texas A&M.

-We moved back to Texas.

-Devin got out of the Army.

-Devin and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary.

-I got a job as a home health caregiver at Visiting Angels.

*February*

- Janna celebrated her 19th birthday.

*March*

-Devin moved to Florida.

-Karen celebrated her birthday.

-Devin's mom celebrated her birthday.

*April*

-Devin started at MMI ( Motorcycle Mechanic Institute).

-Devin's dad celebrated his birthday.

*May*

-I graduated from SAC with my Associates in Pre-Nursing.

*June*

-I moved to Florida.

-I got a job at a telemarketing office.

-Devin's brother in law Jules celebrated his birthday.

*July*

-Devin celebrated his 25th birthday.

-Devin's brother Brodie and his sister Tanicia celebrated their birthdays.

-My aunt and uncle came to visit us in Florida.

-We visited Epcot.

-I got a promotion at work.

*August*

- I found out I got into Nursing School.

-We went saw my grandma and aunt and uncle in Arlington.

*September*

-Isabella, our niece, celebrated her 10th birthday.

*October*

-Gage, our nephew, celebrated his 12th birthday.

-Jules came back from Korea.

-Devin's cousin Mercedes got married.

*November*

- My mom's 2nd anniversary of her passing.

-We visited Devin's sister and her family for Thanksgiving in TN.

*December*

- I celebrated my 23rd birthday.

- I moved back to Texas.

-We got to celebrate Christmas with our families.

I can tell 2014 will be a great year with me starting nursing school and Devin finishing up BMW in March and then starting either Kawaski or Harley. Have a fun and safe New Years my friends.

Always remember to pray for eyes that see the best in people, a heart that forgives the worst, mind that forgets the bad, and a soul that never loses faith in God.

 

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Now that it's almost a month since Thanksgiving I guess it's the perfect time to talk about how adventure to Tennessee!

Wednesday, night before Thanksgiving:
 I am home about 20 minutes since getting off from work throwing clothes into a bag waiting for Devin to get home from school. I am running around like a chicken with head cut off ( per usual) making sure I am not forgetting one thing! ( Of course I made my usual list so I would be triple sure not to forget a thing.) Devin gets home about 6pm so once he changes out of his school clothes he is ready to load up the car. Now that it's about 6:45pm we are finally ready to hit the road! Stop by Wendy's for a very nutritious dinner (lol) and are ready to fight the traffic! To our fortunate deck of cards, no traffic! Wow God is definitely watching over us. We make into Macon,GA around 1am, find a lovely Motel 6 ( since they leave the light on for ya) and get ready to lay our heads on the pillow. Well..... as I am fluffing my pillow and pulling the sheets back I notice lots of black hair. Not human hair. Dog hair or cat hair either way it was animal hair. My jaw fell to the ground in amazement. The maid clearly placed the pillow strategically over the crazy amount of hair in hopes no one would lift it up. Wrongo! I was that person who looked under the pillow ( as if I was awaiting money from the tooth fairy or something).  I must have made some kind of grunt because Devin yells out, "what?!", I replied," Oh just some hair," He replies," eh dust it off you'll be fine." So I dusted it off and went on my marry way to dream of fried turkey. :) Woke up the next day bright and early, showered, changed, and packed up.

Thursday, Thanksgiving day:
We drive thru a Mickey D's before we get on the road. At the first window, where you pay, was this volumptious southern gal who told us in a very southern Georgia accent, "Happy Thanksgiving." I looked Devin in shock as we pull up to the 2nd window to get our food. The lady at this window was also very sweet and wished us a Happy Thanksgiving as well. We couldn't believe how nice they were. We pretty much decided that even though Florida is a southern state for some reason the southern hospitality ( at least in Orlando) completely skipped Florida and finished off in Georgia, South Carolina etc. Now we are on the road to Clarksville and we are enjoying no traffic on the highways and the beautiful scenery. Finally we see a sign that says, "Welcome to Tennessee!" We are so excited until we see a sign that says, "Welcome to Georgia!" Whoa whoa whoa... what? I thought we just left GA how are we back in GA? We look at the GPS and it looks like the way the highway goes you go into TN then back to GA and then back to TN. Low and behold we see a sign that says, "Welcome to Tennessee," again. I guess that's what happened then. We ended up making great time to my sister in laws, without speeding (I promise we did the speed limit the entire time because the GA police officers were out!) the whole way. It was so nice to see a familiar face and relax and enjoy being around family. So being aunt and uncle we had to bring Bella and Gage their christmas present. Since we don't have kids of our own it's game on to spoil our niece and nephew.  They got RC cars. Not the little dinky one from Walmart or Toys R Us. The ones from the RC hobby shop that they can upgrade throughout their life. No it wasn't cheap but hey they are only young once. :) They were so excited! They charged up real quick and went running outside with them. RC cars = success.

Friday, day after Thanksgiving aka Black Friday & Saturday:
 My family and Devin's family haven't really been ones to seek out Black Friday stuff. On occasion we will participate, but it isn't a tradition or a have to. We enjoyed Thanksgiving left overs and headed out to explore. We went to some RC hobby shops and went to the mall in Nashville. It was a very low key relaxing couple of days with much needed family time.

Sunday, journey back to Florida:
Devin and I enjoyed some breakfast tacos with the kiddos and Jules and Tish. We planned on leaving early, but we prolonged our departure since we didn't want to return to Orlando. We had a blast and were sad it was coming to an end. We left around 9am and traffic wasn't too bad until we hit a huge jam about an hour or so outside of Georgia. I pulled out my handy iphone and used the Waze app. ( FYI it is amazing! Shows you pretty much everything in route and you are able to communicate with others to spot out what exactly is going on.) The jam finally cleared up and then we hit another one right outside of Atlanta. This was one was worse. I fell asleep for about 30 minutes and woke up and we literally moved like a few exits. Luckily, someone on Waze suggested a different route and our GPS re-calculated correctly. Apparently, a car had caught on fire creating a huge huge mess! Even though we got home later than planned we were fortunate to make it home safely.

Overall, we had an awesome time at my sister in laws drinking, eating, laughing, and playing with kids. We are beyond blessed to have such an amazing family. So friends please remember to pray for eyes that see the best in the people, a heart that forgives the worst, mind that forgets the bad and a soul that never loses faith in God.