Parents

Today I want to talk about Parents. I am very lucky to have the parents that I have and on top of my own parents I am very lucky to have the in-laws I have as well.

You see my parents were only 17 years old when they found out I was interrupting their life. Their lives got insta-complicated and at that point in time being pregnant at 17 was kind of a death sentence. My grandma on my mom's side couldn't have been more beside herself about the situation and my grandpa on my dad's side couldn't be more disgusted.

My dad got a job at a factory in Ennis right away but once he came home all cut up from the work he had to do in the factory my grandma Emma (my dad's mom) refused to let him go back. God, I love that woman! My dad told me that after that whole mishap he told my mom he was enlisting in the Army because that would be a steady income for us. Wow! I can't even imagine being an Army brat! I mean I could totally rock being a brat just not an Army one!

Luckily my dad found a job at then Elk Corporation now GAF. He has worked there my entire life. He is the supervisor of the MAT plant and I can truly say he LOVES his job. I call him the work natzi because he goes in early and stays late, and has always done this since I can remember.

Unfortunately even though my parents were blessed with my grand entrance he nor my mother were able to go to college. They had to go straight to work after high school graduation and weren't able to be the average teenager like everyone else. I would say that they handled becoming parents, husband and wife and full time workers very well. I know it was hard, it had to be but they gave me and my sister anything and everything we could ever want and still do.

Over the years my dad has received some awards at work and this year my mom and dad both got two very prestigious awards. My mom received the Top 250 Latino Real Estate Agents in the U.S. award and my dad received the Raise the Roof Team Achievement Award for leading his team in successfully figuring out a safety hazard challenge.

And as this post is directly toward my dad today I want to reiterate just how much I love and respect both of my parents. They have done so much for me and still do everyday. I am nothing without them and I have leaps and bounds of respect for them. I struggle daily with the fact that they still work 7 days a week all day everyday and I have the life of a nomad and get to travel and see the world and all it's glory. They are the hardest workers and give even more than they work to others. I hope one day to have hearts like their's but I just don't think I will ever achieve that. They are true angels and I thank God everyday for choosing me to be one of their daughter's.

I will stop boring you now with my sappy story about how much I love my parents.

Jess is backing up today in Kissimee against the Astros. I will let y'all know if he got in or not.

Happy Tuesday y'all!

Love,
E

Back at it!

Friday marked the first of Spring Training games to start. Only a few teams kicked off that day and Jess was on duty for back up so I made the trip to Orlando to watch the game. Detroit was playing the Atlanta Braves and the Braves' facility is in Walt Disney World! This made me super excited because I have only been there once for Jess' cousin's wedding so I was more than due back to the amusement park!

One of Jess' old teammates from the Cleveland organization is now with the Braves so I met up with his wife before and had lunch. It had been about 3 years since I had seen her and it was so nice to catch up! She is 36 weeks pregnant and looked fabulous! I cannot wait to see baby Jose Cayden in the next couple of weeks!

After we had lunch we headed over to the stadium and I was blown away at just how easy it was to get in, park, get my ticket and find my seat. Usually it is quite a task but that day it flowed so smoothly!

Jess didn't get in to pitch for that game and then threw a bullpen on Saturday morning so didn't "back up" for the home game that yesterday. We decided to head down to Tampa for the evening and visit one of Jess' BFF's and his wife. Josh and Ashley have lived in the Tampa area for about 7 or 8 months now and we have been meaning to get over there and see their home.

We arrived around 5:30 at their place and then headed to dinner about an hour later. They took us to a little area in Dunedin Florida to a Mexican food restaurant. The food was amazing and they even had trapeze artists that perform inside the restaurant.

It was so nice to see them and we look forward to seeing them more while we are here during the Spring!

In baseball news everything is going good. So far Jess has thrown bullpens and has been pleased with them. I will continue to pray that he is guided where God wants him to be and we both fulfill our purposes in where we are at.

I hope the weekend treated all of you well!

Love,
E

Our first sighting, an engagement and a scare!

Jess had to be at the field by 1:30 today and I had to run some errands so it worked out that I take him a little earlier than 1:30. As we pulled into the facility I noticed a cool little silver car that was about to pull out. I looked to see who was driving the car (I know it sounds weird now but I just wondered if a boy or a girl was driving the cool little car and the windows were rolled down so I knew I could get a really good look at this person) and do you know what? The person driving was Justin Verlander! Scream! Haha! I was like "look Jess, it's Verlander!" He was just as astonished as I was! It is still crazy to me that Jess is playing for the Detroit Organization and that amongst others Justin Verlander could be his teammate one day!

I am sure none of you will share our enthusiasm of this slight encounter but I just had to share! It is always exciting for us to see someone that is so talented and looked up to in the baseball world.

Jess will throw live batting practice tomorrow so stay tuned for an update on that!

In the non-baseball part of my life one of my Best Friends got engaged! I am super excited for her and can't wait to help her start planning! She met her now fiance about 5 years ago through E Harmony. She said last night that they talked about calling E Harmony so they could do a commercial about their love story. I for one am hoping they do so I can be an "extra" in it! Ha!

We will now go from happiness to scared shitless because yesterday my grandpa had a mild heart attack. He was taken to the hospital because he said his chest was hurting and upon arrival they told my mom he was having a heart attack. He was then care flighted to Dallas where he had surgery. My grandparents are bad diabetics and have a lot of complications due to the severity of their diabetes and their lack of taking care of themselves so it is a blessing he made it to the hospital in time to catch this before it was too late.

It has definitely been an eventful week for me and it's only Tuesday ;)

I hope the week is going good for y'all so far!

Love,
E

1 week down, 6 and a half to go!

With 1 full week in the books down here in Lakeland Florida, I think we are finally learning our way around. Jess' schedule is different everyday so we have to adjust our days accordingly.

Jess ended up shaving his whole beard off on Friday. I had to take a couple double looks at him when he came home. He looks so different! One of his teammates that he had already met came up to him and said that he almost re-introduced himself to Jess because he looked so different!

Total baby face! Totally not looking forward to "aging" with this guy! At this rate he's going to look fabulous his entire life, while I wrinkle away. Why is it so hard being a woman? Someone please tell me!

I have expressed before that I have a love for trees and being here in Lakeland is no different. Lakeland is covered with Spanish Moss trees and I have fallen in love with the one that is in our parking lot. I just want to sit and look at it all day!

In other news, Jess has thrown a total of 2 bullpens. They have both went well and we hope that they continue to do so! Games for the big league team start on Friday which means Jess could possibly be called up for a "back up" situation. He won't know until the day of so that is exciting and something for him to look forward to if it happens.

The apartment search has begun for Toledo and this time I am doing my homework. Like hardcore! I don't want another Hotel Hell situation on my hands so I am going to dig deep! 

I hope y'all had a fab weekend!

Happy President's Day!

Love,

E

Report Day!

Our Valentine's Day was spent waking up at 6am, (5am Texas time) to report for physicals just to find out that physicals were pushed back a day. So we returned back to our hotel, ate breakfast and watched the news. Jess still had to workout at 2:30 that afternoon so we just hung out at the hotel since it was raining.

We are still learning our way around Lakeland and we are still both in shock as to just how spoiled we were when we had Spring Training in West Palm Beach. Don't get me wrong! I am not complaining at all, we just miss that part of Florida very much! I am sure once we learn our way around here we will love it too ;) After all, the Starbucks here stay open for 24 hours, there is a Moe's, Chic fil a, Tropical Smoothie and a Panera Bread so I am one VERY happy girl!

Good news! We aren't homeless tonight! The hotel had a cancellation so we are able to stay here one more night! I am ready to get settled into our new hotel tomorrow and actually unpack our things. It will be nice to have everything where I can see it. Y'all know how OCD I am, haha!

Baseball is officially in full swing now and Jess is glad to be back at it. Next week they should have an actual schedule to go by and then games start on the 22nd. I will keep you all posted on every little thing he is doing.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASHLIE! We hope you are having a fabulous day!

Love,
E

Hotel Hell??

Now I am not one to turn my nose up at hotels or motels. We have just about stayed at any and every type of hotel/motel out there in this journey we call life. One I still in particularly laugh so hard about that tears fill my eyes was in Ruston, LA. Jess and I had only been dating for a short period of time but his parents offered to let me stay in their hotel room so I didn't have to stay alone. Very nice, I know! When we checked in Tom, had to go to the bathroom. Once he was done he came out and said "That floor is so sticky, it nearly pulled my shoes off my feet!" I still die at the thought of him saying that. I barely knew them but he wasn't going to make any bones about where we were staying. We were roughing it, but we couldn't complain. We DID have a roof over our heads and we WERE able to watch Jess do his "thing". That is only one of the many stories I have of him saying things that are absolutely hilarious, that one just pertains to the situation we were in last night....

After talking to a girl who I contacted in the Tigers organization, she gave me a name of a hotel that some of the players on the team stay. I called and made a reservation ASAP and the reviews were not bad so I thought we were all good. My mother warned me that the price sounded too good to be true but me having booked hotels time and time before disregarded her comment and didn't worry about it. Well.....at about 11:30 last night when we stepped foot in the lobby, I realized I should have worried about it. Without going into much detail I will just say Value Inn wasn't for us. I saw fear in Jess' eyes that I have only seen one other time and that was when he almost fell out of his tree stand at home. Then I was laughing, last night not so much. We were both so terrified we didn't even check to see if the floors in the bathroom were sticky and got the heck out of there! We checked into another hotel but the girl working the front desk informed me we could only stay until Friday.

At this point I was frazzled and stressed! I didn't want to go to sleep with the thought of not having a place to stay on Friday and the fact that we were checked into two hotels in one night stressed me even more! Jess made it clear that we "WERE NOT GOING BACK!" to the Value Inn so I was pretty worried about our future here in Lakeland! I finally went to bed close to 1 and had my alarm set for 8am. After driving 16 hours the last thing Jess wanted to hear was that we were getting up at 8, but I wanted to get a jump start on finding a place to stay for the remainder of Spring Training before all the "snow birds" took over the town.

What's that you say? Why didn't I look at other places before now? Oh, I did! They were just all seven grand and up and in the words of Sweet Brown "AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!" But after dragging Jess around Lakeland all morning we finally found a place better yet a manager that was willing to work with us. God works in mysterious ways and he really threw us a bone on this one. Thank you Baby Jesus your timing is always perfect! The place will be staying at doesn't have any vacancy for Friday so our stay will start with them on Saturday. For now we are homeless on Friday but that is another story for another day ;)

Other than that slight catastrophe things are looking good down here in Florida. After we had lunch Jess went to the field so I walked around their complex and snapped some pictures.

The complex is very nice and I look forward to seeing Jess in his new team colors. We will probably head out here in a little while and browse the area so we can familiarize ourselves with it.

I hope everyone is having a Happy Fat Tuesday!

Love,
E

And now the time is near....

It doesn't matter who you are. Whether you are a traveling nomad like me and my husband or if you work a normal job where your off days are on Saturday and Sunday, the months of September through December fly by. Once January arrives you are still coming down from the "high" of the holiday season that it too flies by. Then we are greeted by February, the month where most of the U.S. is consumed with who their Valentine is going to be. February for this family means a whole lot of other things....

It means reporting to Spring Training for the start of the new Baseball season.

It means throwing those first bullpens.

It means packing for the next 7 months.

It means fighting about what I am packing us for the next 7 months. ;)

It means finding a place for us to live for 5 of those months.

It means making sure we have gotten all loose ends tied before heading out.

It means reuniting with old friends!

This season it means preparing to meet a whole new team and organization.

And it also means saying goodbye to our families.

While if we were both asked "Would we change Jess' profession?" Before you were even able to finish the question we would both respond with NO! This life and lifestyle we were blessed with sure it's hard! But what worth something isn't hard? I could fill cases of mason jars with the tears I have cried, over baseball but neither one of us would change it. Plus there is NO CRYING IN BASEBALL so let's just keep that secret of me crying cases of them on the DL, please. We both miss our family so very much but Jess' job is an unbelievable opportunity that very few get to do.

Even though we are saying bye we have so many exciting things to look forward to and that is what keeps us keepin' on. We hope that our families know just how much we love and miss them during the season and always look forward to seeing them when they come to visit.

Absence does make the heart grow fonder....

Love,
E

Ennis for the weekend!

On Friday I left for Ennis to spend the weekend with my parents and sister. Jess had to go out to West Texas and pick up his hunting equipment before we head out for Spring Training so I took advantage of the opportunity and went to see my fam for the weekend!

My mom stays busy so Friday I ran errands with her and helped her at her office. My sister had to work until 4 so once it got closer to her getting off I headed over to her work to do some shopping! She works at Walgreens and I'm sure most of you know how great their make-up/nail polish selection is so I headed in and picked up a few things. BB Cream is all the rage right now in the make-up world so I finally got my hands on some! I also grabbed a new nail polish, some blush and mascara. I was very pleased with my purchases and will be going back when I run out!

Saturday morning started out early! We had to hit Fort Worth and Dallas all in one day so we had a strict agenda.

We went straight to Fort Worth so I could exchange some boots my parents got me for Christmas. On our way out of the store I spotted a painting and instantly fell in love!

Meet Essie and Bessie! (Yes, I named them! Don't y'all name paintings of animals y'all have?? I'm totally normal by the way!) They will be displayed in our new kitchen (once our house is built) and I can't wait to hang these sweet babies! 

We parked by a cute little Cupcake Shop called Bella's Cupcakes so we popped in there for an afternoon snack! 

Of course I went with the classic Red Velvet! It was absolute de-lish! These cupcakes were the perfect size and I had no problem polishing mine off!

After we were done exploring Fort Worth we ventured on back to Dallas. There is a Virgin De Guadalupe shrine in downtown that my mom wanted to go to before me and Jess left for this season. She wanted to go there specifically to pray for Jess to have clarity and strength to get through the season. We lit candles for him and attended the 5 o'clock mass. I haven't been to a Catholic Mass in a while and I can honestly say I missed it! 

There is no doubt about it though, the views in a Catholic church are breathtaking!

In my book no trip to Dallas is complete without a little shopping! I had some gift cards from Christmas that in my mother's words "have been burning a hole in my purse"! I fixed that problem pretty quick once we got to the mall! Seriously, I was BORN. TO. SHOP. Maybe I will get brave enough to showcase all my new threads on here this week. Showcasing outfits on here is something I have been wanting to do for a while I just don't have the confidence to actually do it! Maybe, just maybe this week will be the week!

I ended up getting back to Kilgore around 5 this evening. I stayed in Ennis a little longer than I planned to help with some stuff on our spec house. Jess was asleep when I got in so I woke him ;) and then around 6 we went to grab something to eat so I could get back in time to watch the ever anticipated Half-Time Show! Beyonce seriously killed it! That girl can move and I had to contain myself from joining her! Beyonce and I go way back, I did a little segment of her "Single Ladies" music video at my wedding so we share a very special bond ;)

I hoped you all enjoyed y'alls weekend! Only 11 more days until pitchers and catcher's report to Spring Training 2013!

Love,

E