Another Update

Hello - it is now the end of April. I have lost a total of 31 pounds! I love the Saturday morning meetings that we go to with the most awesome leader ever - Tammy!

We have had our house on the market now since March. We have a contract on it and if all goes well, we will be moving on June 30th. Closing for our house is scheduled for May 31st, but we will be renting back for one month. We are leaving this Wednesday to go look for a house in North Carolina!

James and Randall will be getting their tonsils out on June 9th, and Jeremy is turning 3 on May 13th. We are having a Monster Jam party here at our house for him. It will be bittersweet since it will be the last "get-together" while here. We have made a lot of good memories in this house, but I am sure we will make even more in our new one!

Lots of Love to everyone!

Update on Weight Watchers

I've been so busy with school and packing up the house, that I haven't updated this in awhile. Just to get everyone up to date....I changed to another Weight Watchers. This one is closer and on Saturdays instead of Thursdays...but Tammy is such a great leader (motivator). JC has joined with me and the whole family goes every Saturday morning. I have now lost 23.6 pounds.

The house is on the market, my next two classes start on Monday, and I just joined the eTools for Weight Watchers. Hopefully I will have more time to come and update this as the time goes!

House Hunting Information!

It's been a long time since I posted about what has been going on in our lives. It was super busy throughout the Christmas season, so I do apologize. The biggest news that I have is that we are in the processing of House Hunting in North Carolina. This is a big for us, especially me, because I have lived in Virginia my entire life (29 years). It is beautiful down there and we hope to be able to get a little bigger house with a room for each boy so nobody has to share. We are also holding out for a pool. I have made an appointment with a realtor in the Charlotte area to meet during the week of April 10-14, as well as a lender (which has all ready given me a pre-approval - WOOHOO). I have a realtor coming on Saturday to check out this house and to let us know when and what to start doing to get this place ready to sell. We are all very excited, and I will keep you posted on what we find.

Weigh Watchers - Results are In!

Hey everybody. I joined Weight Watchers 5 weeks ago. I feel good about it, and was actually exercising daily (until I hurt myself. I am getting my knee stronger though and will start going back to the exercising real soon. We got weighed in last nigh (every Thursday at 5pm) and I have lost a total of 13.4 pounds. I am very exciting even though I wish it was coming off faster, I know this is the healthiest "life style" change I could make. I will post again in a month to let you know how I have been doing!

Letter to the Editor - Winchester Star 9/8/05

The lady that works for the Red Cross and accepted James & Randall's donation last Sunday, wrote a letter to the editor in the Winchester Star in yesterday's paper - 9/8/05. I couldn't be more proud of my children, so I am sharing the article on here for everybody to see!

Generosity of Spirit

Reporting in for the Sunday shift to man the phones at the Red Cross building in Sunnyside for the disaster relief effort, I expected the time to go quickly, given how busy everyone had been all week.
An hour into my time there, I looked up and greeted a family of two boys, their parents, and an infant son asleep on their father's shoulder. The two boys came into the office proudly holding out a small cash box full of bills and coins.
With the prompting of their parents, James and Randall Beatley of Middletown declared that they had collected this money "to help the people in Louisiana" and had done so the day before in four hours time.
All of us at the Red Cross were so impressed with the young men's efforts and declared to them that we were very proud to accept the cash donation, helped along with the fine baking of their mother and their Dad's contribution of that weekend's beer fund.
It's a privilege to be a Red Cross volunteer, and in times of crises we get to see the very best qualities of our fellow citizens. James and Randall wanted to make sure that their friend, Kyle Koller, also got credit for raising the donation monies.
This Red Cross volunteer wants to make sure that these three young men and their parents are recognized for their generosity of spirit, selflessness and as role models for others (no matter their age or gender) in helping fellow Americans in need.

Helen Lake, Frederick County!

Thank you Helen for acknowledging my children for a deed so small in the scheme of things, but so big in our hearts! I hope your letter of encouragement makes them always remember what they have done and helps them to want to do more like it as they grow older!

Hurricane Katrina Relief

I am so proud of the boys. We cleaned out our vacation fund that we just started saving after we got back from North Carolina and got $30 and then JC gave me his last $5 from his wallet. I also got a donation from my co-worker Patricia of $5, so we had a total of $40 before this morning. The boys had a bake sale at their friend, Kyle's mom's yardsale, and earned $91. We are going to the Winchester/Frederick County American Red Cross tomorrow to donate a little bit more than $131. They did wonderful, set in the hot sun for several hours, and even went door to door knocking and asking for donations. How proud I am!! Also, much thanks to Patricia for her donation and to Jennifer for her donation and also for letting us come and have a great place to sit up the snacks and lemonade. There was also a girl in the neighborhood on skates who skated up and down the road with the sign asking for donations and in some cases even delivering the baked goods after they were purchased! Our hearts and minds are with the good people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama!

HTML Project

1. The name of the original Weblog template was Thisaway (Rose) by the designer Dan Rubin. The URL was www.superfluousbanter.org and was dated Feb 29 2004.

2. The changes that I made:
a. I added the following links to “My Links” in the sidebar – Mothers of preschoolers, National Do Not Call Registry, ING Direct, Anywho.com, Meet you at the Poles and Sesame Place
b. I added new sections in the sidebar – My Goals (and added 5 items in a list of goals that I have for myself) and Quizzes (which includes my results to quizzes from quizzilla and links so people can take the quizzes as well)
c. I changed the color to green for the titles Goals, Links, Previous, Archives and Quizzes in the sidebar.
d. I have added several posts over the past 2 months and updated my profile today to reflect my change in my Bachelors Program.
e. I changed the template design from Thisaway (Rose) to TicTac-Blueberry

3. Templates are used to easily change or update the content without manually changing HTML files. They are embedded characters that are replaced by dynamic content and can sometimes contain snippets of programming. They are used to make changes to content of a web page easy and quickly.
CSS or Cascade Style Sheets enable the web designers to define the “look and feel” of a page in a different format than HTML. The CSS can be embedded or linked to a page and you can have one CSS file for an entire site. Most contemporary sites use CSS for the design elements of a site.
Both CSS and templates, in my opinion, play an important roles in E-commerce and content management because it enables stores to quickly change and update content on their site, for example, retail items, as well as changing the look and the ease of shopping online. Being able to find what they are looking for on a site is most important to a consumer and if the shopping experience is good, they will be back for more. If they aren’t able to find stuff at ease the developers of the site have an easy way to quickly change the design and/or content
The separation of content from design is important for several reasons. By having the style information recorded separately, it allows the information to be presented in different formats, based on the viewing mechanism, rather it be on a computer, mobile phone or printed. It also makes it easier for different web designers, authors or programmers to work on different parts of the site without interference. The bigger the website, the more people who need to work with it. It also helps to ensure if the website needs to be redesigned it is easier to use than straight HTML files. The separation of content from design helps to make the workflow easier and run smoothly.

Gracey and her Teddy 

Rascal Flatts Concert

Well - we went to the Rascal Flatts concert at the Nissan Pavillion last Friday. It was nowhere near as good as the Toby Keith or Lonestar shows. They seemed to want the audience to sing most of their songs for them. The boys had a good time, but so not worth the 1.5 hours spent trying to get out of that mad house. On a good note, I ran into my cousin Nikki which was pretty cool. I hadn't seen her since Grandma Freda's funeral so that was good. Next up is Brooks N Dunn and then Alan Jackson, and I just found out that Montgomery Gentry is here in October so I am going to try and get JC some up close tickets.

Home from North Carolina

Well - we made it back. We had a great time and visited a lot of race shops! We met some really nice people, but also ran into a few not so nice. The hotel was not the best, but cheap and had a pool, so it served its purpose. I think all of the boys (all 4 of them) had a great time. We met Kevin Harvick at an autograph session at the Charlotte Nascar Speed Park. I also bought some scrapbooking stuff from the Scrap Shack in North Carolina. It is so cool especially since Dale Earnhardt Jr's sister is part owner of it. I am on the mailing list - how cool is that?? It was very cool, and I will try to add a couple pics shortly!

On our way to North Carolina

We leave tomorrow morning for North Carolina. We will be back next Friday. I will post when I get back to let you know how things went. I am very excited - we will be going to Nascar Speed Park, touring the race shops, and even to see a Kannapolis Intimidators game. Have a great week!

Updated Links - woohoo!!!

I am very excited! I was able to go into what I call the BACK END to update this site. I changed the title Links to My Favorite Links, and added several of my favorites. MOPS is an organization for mothers of preschoolers, there are links for Strayer University and for online Christian Courses. I also added ING Direct - a great online savings plan and Earth Foundation, which the boys' school uses for a fund raiser that helps to save the Rain Forest. As I learn more, I will continue to update, but for now all I can say is WOOOOO HOOOOO!!

Toby Keith Concert!

The boys and I went to see Toby Keith in concert last night at the Nissan Pavillion. We met up with Sandi, Jerry & Crystal. I also saw Christy and Dave there. Shooter Jennings and Leann Womack opened for him. He did an awesome show! We had a great time, although, I wish the kids that go, wouldn't use the concerts as a reason to get wasted and act like fools. I know concerts are more for adults, but my kids love Country music, and they have the right to be safe at a concert. There was a couple of really nice people sitting behind us, but there were also some very roudy, obnoxious people around as well! Anyway...the show was great. The 5 mile walk to the car, was ok, the hour and half wait to get out of the parking lot....so uncomfortable. All in all, it was a good time!

What I know about BLOGS

I have heard the word BLOG before while listening to the news....but have never done anything with it before. We discussed it at work the other day after I told a co-worker I needed to create one. Basically it seems that people can use it to keep in touch with family members....a cool idea...I absolutely love! I also understand that some people abuse it and have gotten in trouble for stuff that has been written. I don't plan on posting anybody's secrets. The main reason for this BLOG is for a class...but I have tremendously enjoyed playing around with this and am looking forward to learning how to change some stuff. Look for updates during the next 10 weeks as I learn more about this type of thing! I think I am going to like this E-Commerce class. Meanwhile...enjoy the pics of the boys. I would have put more...but you would have gotten bored since I have 175!! Thanks for visiting. Let me know if there is anything you would like me to add or how to create your own. It was so super easy to get this far! Have a great week and I will be talking to you!

Randall during baseball - 2005 

James during baseball - 2005 

The boys first roller coaster ride. 

In front of the Rocky statue in Philadelphia. 

Standing in front of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, PA. 

Our recent trip to Sesame Place in PA