Family

The Lloyd family consist of David, Donna, Caleb and Madilyn. We are just like any other family and are trying to make the most of our lives. The post found within this section are about our everyday life from my point of view and maybe an occasional musing from David.

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Spring Break (Friday-Sunday)

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009


We spent Friday night traveling to Kingsport TN to visit our friends Joey and Cheryl Manis. It was a long trip but we made it to the hotel just before 10. Saturday we had the honor of attending the baptism and adoption party of the 4 Manis children (Sarah, Lydia, Joesph Jr, and Joshua). We are God-Parents to Sarah. We had a blast meeting the children and seeing Joey, Cheryl and thier older children Melissa and Marlana.

Sunday we went to church at the church where Joey is pastor. After church we hung out with them at their home until late in the eveing. We had a good time reconnecting with them and building relationships with the kids.

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Much Needed Vacation almost here

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

I can not remember a time when I have needed a Spring Break more than I do now. Life has just been moving really fast and I need time to relax and do nothing. I know many of you will say, Donna you just had a week long cruise in December to Mexico. I know but I really need another vacation, besides 3 months is a long time. I guess I am at a time in my life where I just want to have more down time and less work and stress time.

We will start our trip on Friday night by heading to Kingsport TN. We will be celebrating the adoption of the Manis children by attending thier dedication and adoption party on Saturday. We have not seen the Joe and Cheryl in years and are really looking forward to spending some time with them and their children. We also get to show off Madilyn and Caleb. They have not seen Caleb since he was a baby.

Monday morning we will head to Tybee Island Georgia. We plan to relax on the beach and at the condo from Monday until Friday morning when we will head home. I have posted a link to our condo, so you all can be jealous of the views that we will have 🙂

Spring Break Retreat Condo
http://oceanfrontcottage.com/rentals/the-desoto-jewell-unit-209/.

I will post pictures and a link to our Flickr account when we return home.

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What was I thinking????

Friday, March 20th, 2009


I feel so over-whelmed. I sometimes wonder how I am making it through with so much going on in life and what the heck was I thinking when I made the decisions I have made.

Currently I am enrolled in graduate school for 11 credit hours. That is just 1 credit shy of being considered full time. What in the heck was I thinking. Lets see… I was thinking that if I do not finish by May I will have to follow the new rules, which means more classes and taking another state test. I was thinking if I don’t finish by May I will not have a summer again this year. I was thinking if I don’t finish by May I may never finish.

Currently I am taking School Law, Educational Research and Portfolio Development. The amount of work required for these classes is mind blowing. Somehow, I am pushing through and making it.

What was I thinking when I decided to get a new job. I was thinking I would be close to home, get some of of the classroom experience, get away from the situation I was in that was horrible. Now I see the grass is STILL greener on the other side, but I am having to learn a whole new county and whole new rules and a whole new job. Then to top it off, I am filling in at another school, so I am doing my job at 2 schools, all for the pay of doing it at one school. What was I thinking. It would have been so much easier to just stay where I was , where I knew everyone and knew everything about the job.

It would be so easy to stay in my comfort zone and never move forward. This is what I was thinking, but I did not do that. I went with a crazy plan to adopt a baby, get a new job, and go to graduate school all at the same time.

At least the adoption is done, grad school will be over in May, and then maybe life can get back to normal.

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Tired

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Have you ever gotten a full nights sleep and woke up startled when the alarm clock went off? That is me lately. I am getting pretty good sleep now that Madilyn is sleeping through the night, but I wake up feeling like I have only slept an hour or so.

I long for times when work was not pressing and times when just hanging out was the thing to do. Seems like we do not have time to just hang out anymore now that we are responsilbe grown ups with careers, kids and bills. I want my life to be more than working, cleaning house and taking care of kids.

I determined a few weeks ago that I would make time for myself, David the kids and friends and not go crazy doing so. So on Feb. 14 I reactivated my gym membership and have been going to work out 3-4 days a week since then. I am feeling better, but still waking up tired. The time I spend at the gym is ME time. Time to think, time to chill and time to work on me. I LOVE it and don’t know why I quit going in the first place.

Last week I decided that it was crazy to drive Caleb all the way to youth, then go home only to have to come out to get him and drive home again. Our friends Iris and John live farther from the church than we do and thought the same thing. So this past Sunday night we spent about 2 hours chillin at “It’s a Grind.” It was a great night. We talked about fun things, serious things, stupid things, just whatever came to mind. Next week we are going to go get Sushi while the kids are at youth.

We are looking for a permanent babysitter so that we can establish a weekly or biweekly date night. While Caleb is too old for a babysitter he is not old enough to take care of Madilyn by himself. He has some hurt feelings about this but will get over it. We have a girl that we have used once and have scheduled again, and are hoping that it will work out.

Sometimes, you really have to think about and plan time to just relax and not let your life run you. Working on it, but right now life is running me I am not running life.

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8 Months

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009


Madilyn is 8 months old today. Time is passing by so very qucikly. She is a good baby and is really on the move lately. She crawls very fast, stands up and walks along the sofa while holding on. She begs for table food and has the sweetest smile I have ever seen a baby have.

She has added so much joy to our lives. I can not believe that we have had our precious baby for 8 months already.

She has had several ear infections and colds but she is very healthy otherwise.

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Random Thoughts

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

Life is moving on as it should. Sometimes I wonder when or if things will ever slow down for us as a family. I have not had much time for blogging so today I will post some random updates.

  • Madilyn is now almost 8 months old and doing great.
  • We have received her new birth certificate in the mail as well as the final adoption decree.
  • I finished my Financial Resources class at KSU and am now 3 credits closer to graduation in May.
  • Work got really busy for me. Too busy in fact.
  • Now not only working at Creekview, I am also working at SHS. The lady who does my job their is on medical leave. So I have to divide my time between two schools. It has been challenging, but I am making it work. I think:)
  • I decided I hate my body and how I look. So I have reactivated my Gym membership. Last week I went 4 times. I plan to continue to go on a regular basis.
  • I got a new “Hot” and “Sexy” hair cut. Hot and sexy were the words used by my much younger college classmates. Made me feel good. The style is much easier to maintain and is more hip. Changed my haircolor, it is much lighter now.
  • Decided that short jeans just don’t work and went with average. So now i wear heels with jeans and feel like I look so much better, just by making that change.
  • Spent my entire winter break working on KSU work and myself.
  • Joe Sangel spoke at Rev this morning. He did a great job talking about “Being debt free is Sexy.” David and I are working really working on becoming debt free for our family. We attended a class offered by him last year and learned a lot.
  • Praying about Caleb’s school situation. Tuition at his school is going to be around $8500 next year. This is getting out of our range. Looking at a situation where he may be home schooled part time and in class part time. Cost would only be $250 per month instead of the current $800 a month.
  • David’s business is going very well. He has had to hire several more contractors and work continues to come in.

Need to update more often, but life keeps getting in the way.

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7 Months

Monday, January 26th, 2009


It is hard to believe that Madilyn is already 7 months old. Where has the time gone? She is a beautiful little girl and I feel so blessed to have her. Our adoption will be final next week. While finalization is just a “piece of paper” I can not wait for the judge to say that the adoption is finalized. It seems like such a long road that we have traveled to get to this point.

Madilyn is reaching all of her milestones and is a happy healthly baby. She is now in the process of trying to stand up by herself. She falls, but always gets back up to try again. She is not one to give up easily.

She is now sleeping through the night, and when she wakes up she will play in her crib for a little while. Most of the time we can lay her down at night while she is still awake and within a few minutes she will fall asleep, without any fussing or crying.

I hope one day that she will know how much she is loved and how much she was wanted. I am so glad that the night we got the phone call about her we said yes. We had been hurt and let down so many times in the past with similar phone calls that we had given up on ever having another child. I am thankful that God placed in our hearts to say yes.

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updated pictures

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009


To view updated family pictures visit the link below. We have a folder called “Mexico Cruise- December 20-21” that has a ton of pictures from our recent vacation. The folder called “December 2008” has our Christmas photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lloydnc/

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December 25- Recap

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008


Christmas….

We were to dock at 8 am and we were scheduled to disembark at 9:25, so we should have made it to my moms house by noon for Christmas lunch. However, that DID NOT happen.
Around 7 they announced that we could not enter the Mobile Bay due to heavy fog. They also announced that we were waiting for our guide boat to join us, and that once the guide joined us it would take 4.5 hours to reach the dock. However, 2 hours later our guide boat was still not there and the fog was still very thick.
We made the most of things and Caleb and David played a game of chess and then we found some cards and played cards. Time went by so slowly. I was not able to place calls but was able to update family with text messages. We told them not to wait dinner for us.
Around 12:30 our guide boat showed up, we docked around 4:30. Those who kept their luggage got to disembark first. We had no clue we would be delayed so we had them take our luggage the night before, so we were last to leave the ship. We got off the ship around 6 pm. Security went very quickly and we were in our car around 6:45 and made it to my moms around 8:00 pm.
It really sucked not being with Madilyn for her first Christmas Day. She was very excited to see us when we walked into the house. She had not opened her presents so we got to do that with her. We ate leftovers and filled everyone in on our trip and gave the kids gifts we had purchased for them in Mexico. Over all it was a good Christmas and a wonderful cruise.

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Wednesday- December 24 (recap)

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008


Christmas Eve at sea….

Another lazy day at sea just hanging around on deck and relaxing. Of course Caleb spent a lot of time playing video games. But that was fine, it was what he wanted to do.
I took in a game show called the “Marriage Game.” It was funny. After that I stayed for the Christmas show. It was good, and made me get a little more in the Christmas mood. It is hard to think about Christmas when it is 80 degrees outside.
While I was watching shows David was hanging on deck.
We hit the ship gift shop and got some good buys. I got a necklace and 2 bracelets, Caleb and David got a bracelet. I got Madilyn a Mermaid doll and we picked up a few other items.
Tonight at dinner the waiters sang a goodbye song. It was funny. We had 2 really good waiters named David and Gusti. They provided good service and many laughs during the week.

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