Famous Mom!

That's right, my mom is famous!


She is in the West Side Shopper-News today talking about what a GREAT job she has done over the years as the Greenway Coordinator for the City of Knoxville! I am so proud of my mom. She is so passionate about her work and has really done some amazing projects that have benefited the city. The city is going to lose a wonderful person when she retires later this fall. I love you mom and could not be more proud! You are amazing!!!

To read the article please go here.

love always,

a concert

So back in December Jeff, Andy, Emily and myself took off on a Tuesday afternoon and headed on over to Nashville for a concert. Andy and I were both pretty exhausted and the long drive over for the concert and the long drive home did not sound like a great time. We were totally wrong. We had a great time on both the drive there and on the way home, but the concert was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!!
This is where we were headed to the Bridgestone Arena. Please note Emily is on the phone WORKING!!!!! and please ignore that I look like a giant. Not really fair that Emily is a shorty!

Andy and I waiting for his sister outside the arena.

The whole crew in the arena. We did not have the best seats but really it did not matter because...

when this guy came out the whole thing changed. GARTH BROOKS!!! He was unbelievable. He did about a million concerts in like 9 days or something and we were going to one of the last ones and it was the first of two he was performing that day. We all agreed that we were not expecting much, but we were blown away. Garth knows how to put on a show and how to make everyone in the arena feel important. He sang a ton of his old songs and Emily, Jeff and I sang our little hearts out right along with him. (Andy does not sing.)

Here he is again. Sweating up a storm.

Then this little lady came on out to sing with Mr. Brooks aka her husband.

She was equally impressive and while Garth was playing the guitar for one of her songs she walked passed him and gave him a little love pat on the tush. It was so sweet. These two were so great!

I really cannot explain how awesome this concert was. I am so glad that I was able to witness it. I hope that once his children are older that he goes back on the road because everyone needs to see him live. There is just nothing like it. He was also able to raise a ton of money for the Nashville flood victims.

All in all it was a great trip and I am so glad I did not pass it up!

love always

Hippy

This lovely little lady fell a couple of months ago and broke her hip and her arm. The following pictures were taken while she was recovering at a local rehab facility (that we L.O.V.E.D) when the whole family went to visit her for a family dinner. The good news is that she made a great recovery and was able to be home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Shortly after the entire family was in town for Christmas she got pneumonia and then fell again. When she fell she broke her other hip and has been in the hospital since the fall. She has had some complecations but we hope that they have things figured out and she is on the mend. We would really appreciate prayers for her. She is one tough lady but this will be a long recovery.

We love you so much Meme and are so happy that you are doing better. We can't wait to see you back on your feet!!

love always,

Wedding Pictures

So, my dear sweet bother-in-law and his super cute wife were married a million years ago! Well, not really a million, more like 4, but forever is forever, right! Ha!

Anyway, they got married 4 years ago and let's just say they were not totally happy with their wedding pictures. They looked so adorable on their wedding day and we were all so sad that they did not have all the sweetness, love, and bliss captured forever in pictures. Danielle was a great sport about the whole thing and has never really acted like it bothered her too much. Recently though, she had the chance to apply herself and Jeff to be models for a photography workshop and she WON! They got to get all dressed up, Danielle in a wedding dress (I kind of wish that she could have worn hers, but you can't have everything!) and Jeff in a tux. They got to go through the all of the traditional wedding pictures including feeding each other cake! The pictures turned out A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. and I am so happy that they finally get to have some pictures that they love!

So, hop on over to this website and check out Jeff and Danielle! They are so cute, adorable and such good models. If their current careers don't work out... they can always model!!! ;) Love you guys!

http://www.julierobertsphoto.com/jeff&danielle/

love always,

the culprit

I was baking my sweet husband a cake the other night. Just as I was about to ice the cake we had a knock at the door. My friend Tori stopped by to pick something up. I was so excited to see her, as were the puppies, that I got distracted as I was talking to her. I totally forgot about the cake when all of a sudden we heard a noise that sounded like the glass pan ever so gently knocking on the concrete countertops that we have. Sure enough when Andy rounded the corner this is what he found...

I will give you two guess at who the culprit was, and as a hint one of them is still a little too short to reach inside something on the counter. The short one is also to clumsy and no way she could have been that discrete.

After all that, I just iced the cake, munched out piece and all... then gave Andy a piece...

love always,

finger

Andy has been playing flag football for the past few years. Luckily for him, he has not really been hurt, until this year. I was not able to attend many of his games because of my soccer commitments but one Sunday night I got out of soccer practice and thought that I would surprise him and come to the end of his game. Well I got there just as the game was ending (they won!) but I didn't get to see them play. He walked over to me and said, "I think I did something to my finger." I didn't really think much of it because he never really complains about anything and he did not really look like he was in much pain, and he just played 2 games. Apparently the injury had occurred early on in the first game and he didn't want to sit out so he kept on playing.

When we got home he asked me to take another look at it. So with my medical degree in hand, ha, I gently squeezed it and he said that it really hurt. I told him that if he really thought it was bad that he would need to call his dad and go have it x-rayed. I said this knowing that there was no way he was going to do this, because he hates going to the doctor.

So I got a phone call the next day at work. It was Andy and he said that he was on his way to his dad's office for x-rays. I was shocked and asked him if he really thought it was that bad. He did, so he got the x-rays. As it turns out I am glad he went. Not only was it broken, but it was broken in 3 places and his dad thought that he might need surgery. So off to the orthopedic doctor we went. We saw a PA that night and he said that indeed we were probably going to need surgery and set us up with an surgeon for the next day.

The surgeon agreed with everyone else assessment and said that he would need surgery. So surgery was set for the following Monday afternoon. Now, I don't know if any of you have had surgery but if you don't have a morning surgery then the whole day stinks. The same rules apply that you cannot eat or drink after midnight, but instead of having the surgery at 8 am we had to wait to go to the hospital until 1:30! It was a long time.

Here is Andy's hand the morning of the surgery. It is his left ring finger. Luckily he does not wear his wedding ring when he plays flag football so we did not have to have it cut off. You can see his finger is pretty swollen.

Here is a close up of his finger. Pretty gross.

Once we got to the hospital at 1:30 they immediately took Andy back to be prepped for surgery and I thought, this is great we will be home before you know it. Well, not so much. We ended up having to wait and he did not go into surgery until 4:15. It seemed like forever and he was hungry. The only funny part was listening to all of the other people around us that were there. We heard some funny stories!!!

While we waited I took some pictures of Andy. I know you all love the hat in the picture above. The one below is covered in iodine for surgery, but you can kind of see how his finger was a bit rotated and if we had not had it fixed, his fingers would have crossed when he made a fist.

He made it though surgery with flying colors. The doctor came out and told me that the break was even worse than he originally though and instead of the normal 3 screws that he thought he would need, he ended up need to add an additional 4th screw. So Andy now has a lot of hardware in that finger all of which will stay in there forever. Here he is the night he got home. He was a little tired and Monday night football was on.

Here is a post surgery picture. You can see all the screws that the doctor put in. Amazing that they could fit all 4 screws in one joint of his finger.

When we went back to get his stitches out I made him take more pictures. He was excited to finally be out of his cast and knew that he would be able to start moving it.

Warning: the picture below is an up close of his finger once the stitches were removed. It is kind of gross, but not too bad.

Here is the final side-by-side comparison.

Not too bad. He has been working to get all of his movement back. We are hoping that the swelling keeps going down because as you can see from the picture below he has to wear his wedding ring on his right hand. We hope that we will not have to have it resized to fit his new and improved bionic finger!

Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers!!

love always,

*tap-tap*

Is this thing on...

Probably no one reads this anymore since it has been so long since I posted. I have been so busy and I have a lot to bring you up to speed on. I finally downloaded all my pictures to my computer so I plan on doing that in the next few days. Why not today? Well, Andy and I had a super sick puppy last night. Sick from about 5:30ish (well when we realized it anyway) until late last night. We were so worried that we took turns sleeping on the couch with her to make sure she was okay. She looks like she is on the mend, and thank goodness because it was not a fun time in the Broome house. So while I gather myself I wanted to show you what I found in my backyard when I went home for lunch today. Here it is...

What is it you ask? A leg... a doll's leg. I would like to add that we have never bought anything that this might have been attached to and yet somehow it managed to get in the middle of our backyard. I laughed so hard when I found it. I really don't have any words...

love always,