Tonya Fleetwood - Homepage

If you'd like to contact me: TMF222@YAHOO.COM

Congrats, Little Man!

July 18, 2005 - 3:13 pm

Ugh, I didn't mean to wait so long to make a new post. It's just hard to find the time anymore. I've been pretty busy lately, and when I'm not busy, all I want to do is relax. I have made a few subtle changes to the website recently. I added some more London photos. Check them out here. I also added Eric's graduation pictures. I recommend taking a look. And I also added a couple new pictures with Immy.

Where to begin! Well, the most important thing that's happened is Eric's high school graduation. I guess that's where I left off last time. So it was a really good trip home. I took a couple vacation days at work, so I wouldn't have to rush like last time. My mom, aunt Bon, and grandma met me at the airport. I could hardly wait to get off the airplane, but that's always the way I feel (especially when I finally start to see the Midwest and all it's green beautiful-ness from the plane window). Grandma was waiting in the car, and it was such a happy reunion. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. She and Grandpa Lloyd were on vacation the last time I was home. She'd cut her hair short, and she just looked great. Really refreshed and healthy! I had another surprise waiting for me in the car. Scooby!! They had brought Scooby along for the ride, and so I could cuddle and play with him on the way home. It was great! We had dinner in Platt City, MO on the way home. I love home! LOVE!

Mom took the next day (Friday) off so she could spend time with me. Bonnie did too actually. I had a hair appointment in Clarinda that afternoon, so we planned to spend the day there. They were having town-wide garage sales. My family is major fan of garage sales. Me too! That's how we spent the majority of the day. Then we had some delicious chinese food for lunch. My grandpa met up with us too, and bought all of our lunches. I went to my hair appt. afterwards. The lady totally fucked up my hair though, and I spent more time than I wanted that weekend being upset about it. So depressing! That night the whole family went out to dinner. Very fun! Very delicious! And, again, Grandpa paid for everyone.

So the next day I just hung out with my family. I wish I could take a week off work and just go home and do nothing. Just spend time with my family and be together. Well, we'd have to squeeze in a trip or two to Wal-Mart, but that's it. Now that's a vacation! That'd be so great...

That afternoon Bix was having his graduation reception. I'd gotten him a card, so I wasn't going to miss it. He was really happy to see me, and it was nice to see all of his photos and awards and such. The baby pictures were very cute. I ran into Tara, a friend I graduated with. Tara's sister, Tiffany, dates Bix. We chatted for a bit, then I had to leave. I had dinner plans with Jennifer, Jerod and Imajen. I was SO super excited to have dinner with my friends. It'd been well over a year since I'd seen Immy. She'd always been with her grandparents the last few times I'd gotten together with Jenn and Jerod. We were having dinner at the new Applebee's in Maryville. They were already there when I got there. They looked so good! Jennifer looks better everytime I see her (and she's always been gorgeous). And Immy has grown SO much! She'll be 3 at the end of July! She's so tall and looks EXACTLY like Jennifer. She's the most considerate and well-mannered little girl too! Every other word is please and thank you. It's so adorable. We had a very nice dinner, even though I spilled my wine all over Jennifer. Immy assured me that I shouldn't feel bad. =) She's so cute.

We finished our dinner early, so I decided to go out to their house in Burlington Jct. for a bit. I couldn't quite remember how to get there on the back roads, so Jennifer rode with me. It was really fun, just like the old days. They've redone parts of their house, so Jennifer gave me an updated tour. They have a huge two-story house. I love it! I stayed as long as I could, but then I had to get going. The drive home was almost an hour.

So the next day was graduation! It was very surreal. I couldn't quite believe that Eric was graduating from high school. It just didn't seem possible that he was that old. Like I've mentioned before, I was having a really hard time accepting it. But the day went on, as they do. Bonnie had asked me to get up early and help her decorate for Eric's reception. She'd rented the same place that I had my reception at. We made it look really nice! Bonnie had put together a scrapbook of pictures when Eric was younger. Of course, the whole thing made me teary-eyed. He was the cutest little boy ever. After we set everything up, we went home to get ready. My hair was a nightmare. I curled it and put it up, and it looked ok. But I definitely had imagined my hair much nicer for this special day. I really liked my outfit though. I wore what I'd worn to one of Hallmark's parties.

Anyone can come to the graduation, but each graduate gets a small number of tickets for their guests to sit on the floor with all of the graduates. Eric gave me one of these tickets. I felt really special. It was a really nice ceremony. Yes, I cried. It was inevitable. Seeing Eric and Wayne in their gowns was the first wave of emotion. The rose ceremony got to me too. The slide show was emotional as well. I've known all of the kids since Eric was in kindergarten, so pretty much everything affected me. All in all, I was pleased with the ceremony.

After the ceremony, it's tradition for the students to line up outside on the school lawn. It's called the 'Congratulations Line.' It gives all the attendees a chance to officially congratulate each student individually, and it's a great photo opportunity. So after we all walked through the line and took tons of pictures, we drove back to Eric's reception. A lot of Eric's relatives (on his dad's side) had come back. It was so nice, because I hadn't seen them for a really long time. When Bonnie and Martin were married, the entire family (his and hers) went on elaborate summer vacations together. We mostly went to Colorado to camp and white-water raft. There are lots of memories with Martin's other kids (Summer, Leroy & Jared). Not so much Eric, but the rest of us are pretty close in age. It was just really nice to see them. They live in Kentucky now. Leroy and I have actually been talking about arranging some small trips (him coming here and me going there). It'd be a lot of fun, especially because he manages a club down there.

So that's basically the gist of the day. Eric graduated. Wayne graduated. I cried. I gave Eric a really nice present which included a round trip ticket to come visit me. I've been trying to get him to come to NYC with a friend (preferrably Wayne) for the longest time. But he's always been reluctant. Hopefully now he'll plan to visit before he goes off to college in Wyoming. I'm definitely going to be visiting him there.

I wasn't ready to come back to New York, but I had to get back to work. Lots of things have been happening though. I'll try to give a quick rundown:

- My health insurance (& other benefits) finally kicked in at work. And I can happily report that I've set up an appointment with a new neurologist in the city. I'm so excited about this, because I haven't had a checkup in about 18 months. My headaches have come back full-force too, so I'm really relieved to be going to the doctor. Hopefully I like this guy.

- My cousin Zach graduated. I don't think I've even mentioned that Zach is living in New York now. He's been living here for the past six months. Besides being a little unexpected, we've managed to hang out quite a bit. We definitely have a bond that I'll never have with any other member of the Churchill clan. Anyway, Zach went back to Iowa for a couple weeks, then he's going to be living with me for a couple weeks. It's going to be a lot of fun!

- Some of my friends are coming for a visit! Tashena and Danielle are coming August 18. I'm so excited. It's been a while since any of my friends visited me. Tashena & Danielle have never even flown before. We're going to have a blast!

- I HATE the summer! I'm so ready for Fall weather. This heat and humidity doesn't agree with my hair, and it makes everything uncomfortable in general. The electricity bill has increased quite a bit. And summer movies are the absolute worst! Yes, I hate the summer.

- Yes, summer movies suck! I've seen quite a few movies in the last few weeks, and I have to say that I've been pretty disappointed. Batman Begins was definitely good, but for some reason I left the theater feeling slightly let down. War of the Worlds was a joke! I was so disappointed. I really like Tom Cruise (despite his recent craziness), and I really like disaster movies. This one started out really promising, but completely fizzled half-way through. Then the recent horror releases, Land of the Dead & Dark Water, were majorly depressing. I don't even know if you can call Dark Water scary. The trailer was very misleading, and I would call it more of a drama/mystery than a scary movie. Land of the Dead wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good either. I liked certain elements, and the idea was good. But overall, the movie wasn't executed that well. There is one movie that I highly recommend: March of the Penguins. It's a documentary about Emperor Penguins. It's SOOOO good. They are amazing animals. Amazing!

- I saw Nightmare on Elm Street on the big screen! I even went to Brooklyn to see it. I hate going to Brooklyn, so you know that it was a pretty big deal. There was a Johnny Depp festival at BAM, and Todd informed me that they were showing Nightmare (Johnny's first feature film). It was SO much fun! There were several people in the audience that hadn't seen it before. There is a scene toward the end (after Nancy tries to pull Freddy out of her dream to kill him) that is supposed to scare you and make you jump. Well, the woman sitting directly to Todd's right screamed louder than I've ever heard anyone scream in a theater before. And she literally jumped about 3 feet in the air. I loved it!!!

- I got hit by a car. This happened this past weekend. I was standing on the island in the middle of a 2-way street, and right as I attempted to finish crossing the street, a cab came out of nowhere. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. The side mirror was the only part of the car that hit me. However, the cab was going really fast and the impact completely broke the side mirror off the car. The mirror hit me on my left arm and took all of the skin completely off of my elbow. I have a huge, nasty bruise right above my elbow. There's another huge bruise higher up on my arm. Then I have a small bruise on my wrist and another one on my knuckle. It was completely my fault, because there was a "don't walk" signal. I'm ok, just sore. I was really embarrassed though! It was very stupid!

- I'm going home again in the near future! My class reunion is taking place the first weekend of August. I am so excited! There should be a pretty good turn-out, but even if only 10 or so come, it'll still be a blast!

I guess I'll stop there. I could keep going, but this is already too long. Happy reading!



Go to Older Entries Directory If you'd like to contact me: TMF222@YAHOO.COM Congrats, Little Man! July 18, 2005 - 3:13 pm Ugh, I didn't mean to wait so long to make a new post. It's just hard to find the time anymore. I've been pretty busy lately, and when I'm not busy, all I want to do is relax. I have made a few subtle changes to the website recently. I added some more London photos. Check them out here. I also added Eric's graduation pictures. I recommend taking a look. And I also added a couple new pictures with Immy. Where to begin! Well, the most important thing that's happened is Eric's high school graduation. I guess that's where I left off last time. So it was a really good trip home. I took a couple vacation days at work, so I wouldn't have to rush like last time. My mom, aunt Bon, and grandma met me at the airport. I could hardly wait to get off the airplane, but that's always the way I feel (especially when I finally start to see the Midwest and all it's green beautiful-ness from the plane window). Grandma was waiting in the car, and it was such a happy reunion. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. She and Grandpa Lloyd were on vacation the last time I was home. She'd cut her hair short, and she just looked great. Really refreshed and healthy! I had another surprise waiting for me in the car. Scooby!! They had brought Scooby along for the ride, and so I could cuddle and play with him on the way home. It was great! We had dinner in Platt City, MO on the way home. I love home! LOVE! Mom took the next day (Friday) off so she could spend time with me. Bonnie did too actually. I had a hair appointment in Clarinda that afternoon, so we planned to spend the day there. They were having town-wide garage sales. My family is major fan of garage sales. Me too! That's how we spent the majority of the day. Then we had some delicious chinese food for lunch. My grandpa met up with us too, and bought all of our lunches. I went to my hair appt. afterwards. The lady totally fucked up my hair though, and I spent more time than I wanted that weekend being upset about it. So depressing! That night the whole family went out to dinner. Very fun! Very delicious! And, again, Grandpa paid for everyone. So the next day I just hung out with my family. I wish I could take a week off work and just go home and do nothing. Just spend time with my family and be together. Well, we'd have to squeeze in a trip or two to Wal-Mart, but that's it. Now that's a vacation! That'd be so great... That afternoon Bix was having his graduation reception. I'd gotten him a card, so I wasn't going to miss it. He was really happy to see me, and it was nice to see all of his photos and awards and such. The baby pictures were very cute. I ran into Tara, a friend I graduated with. Tara's sister, Tiffany, dates Bix. We chatted for a bit, then I had to leave. I had dinner plans with Jennifer, Jerod and Imajen. I was SO super excited to have dinner with my friends. It'd been well over a year since I'd seen Immy. She'd always been with her grandparents the last few times I'd gotten together with Jenn and Jerod. We were having dinner at the new Applebee's in Maryville. They were already there when I got there. They looked so good! Jennifer looks better everytime I see her (and she's always been gorgeous). And Immy has grown SO much! She'll be 3 at the end of July! She's so tall and looks EXACTLY like Jennifer. She's the most considerate and well-mannered little girl too! Every other word is please and thank you. It's so adorable. We had a very nice dinner, even though I spilled my wine all over Jennifer. Immy assured me that I shouldn't feel bad. =) She's so cute. We finished our dinner early, so I decided to go out to their house in Burlington Jct. for a bit. I couldn't quite remember how to get there on the back roads, so Jennifer rode with me. It was really fun, just like the old days. They've redone parts of their house, so Jennifer gave me an updated tour. They have a huge two-story house. I love it! I stayed as long as I could, but then I had to get going. The drive home was almost an hour. So the next day was graduation! It was very surreal. I couldn't quite believe that Eric was graduating from high school. It just didn't seem possible that he was that old. Like I've mentioned before, I was having a really hard time accepting it. But the day went on, as they do. Bonnie had asked me to get up early and help her decorate for Eric's reception. She'd rented the same place that I had my reception at. We made it look really nice! Bonnie had put together a scrapbook of pictures when Eric was younger. Of course, the whole thing made me teary-eyed. He was the cutest little boy ever. After we set everything up, we went home to get ready. My hair was a nightmare. I curled it and put it up, and it looked ok. But I definitely had imagined my hair much nicer for this special day. I really liked my outfit though. I wore what I'd worn to one of Hallmark's parties. Anyone can come to the graduation, but each graduate gets a small number of tickets for their guests to sit on the floor with all of the graduates. Eric gave me one of these tickets. I felt really special. It was a really nice ceremony. Yes, I cried. It was inevitable. Seeing Eric and Wayne in their gowns was the first wave of emotion. The rose ceremony got to me too. The slide show was emotional as well. I've known all of the kids since Eric was in kindergarten, so pretty much everything affected me. All in all, I was pleased with the ceremony. After the ceremony, it's tradition for the students to line up outside on the school lawn. It's called the 'Congratulations Line.' It gives all the attendees a chance to officially congratulate each student individually, and it's a great photo opportunity. So after we all walked through the line and took tons of pictures, we drove back to Eric's reception. A lot of Eric's relatives (on his dad's side) had come back. It was so nice, because I hadn't seen them for a really long time. When Bonnie and Martin were married, the entire family (his and hers) went on elaborate summer vacations together. We mostly went to Colorado to camp and white-water raft. There are lots of memories with Martin's other kids (Summer, Leroy & Jared). Not so much Eric, but the rest of us are pretty close in age. It was just really nice to see them. They live in Kentucky now. Leroy and I have actually been talking about arranging some small trips (him coming here and me going there). It'd be a lot of fun, especially because he manages a club down there. So that's basically the gist of the day. Eric graduated. Wayne graduated. I cried. I gave Eric a really nice present which included a round trip ticket to come visit me. I've been trying to get him to come to NYC with a friend (preferrably Wayne) for the longest time. But he's always been reluctant. Hopefully now he'll plan to visit before he goes off to college in Wyoming. I'm definitely going to be visiting him there. I wasn't ready to come back to New York, but I had to get back to work. Lots of things have been happening though. I'll try to give a quick rundown: - My health insurance (& other benefits) finally kicked in at work. And I can happily report that I've set up an appointment with a new neurologist in the city. I'm so excited about this, because I haven't had a checkup in about 18 months. My headaches have come back full-force too, so I'm really relieved to be going to the doctor. Hopefully I like this guy. - My cousin Zach graduated. I don't think I've even mentioned that Zach is living in New York now. He's been living here for the past six months. Besides being a little unexpected, we've managed to hang out quite a bit. We definitely have a bond that I'll never have with any other member of the Churchill clan. Anyway, Zach went back to Iowa for a couple weeks, then he's going to be living with me for a couple weeks. It's going to be a lot of fun! - Some of my friends are coming for a visit! Tashena and Danielle are coming August 18. I'm so excited. It's been a while since any of my friends visited me. Tashena & Danielle have never even flown before. We're going to have a blast! - I HATE the summer! I'm so ready for Fall weather. This heat and humidity doesn't agree with my hair, and it makes everything uncomfortable in general. The electricity bill has increased quite a bit. And summer movies are the absolute worst! Yes, I hate the summer. - Yes, summer movies suck! I've seen quite a few movies in the last few weeks, and I have to say that I've been pretty disappointed. Batman Begins was definitely good, but for some reason I left the theater feeling slightly let down. War of the Worlds was a joke! I was so disappointed. I really like Tom Cruise (despite his recent craziness), and I really like disaster movies. This one started out really promising, but completely fizzled half-way through. Then the recent horror releases, Land of the Dead & Dark Water, were majorly depressing. I don't even know if you can call Dark Water scary. The trailer was very misleading, and I would call it more of a drama/mystery than a scary movie. Land of the Dead wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good either. I liked certain elements, and the idea was good. But overall, the movie wasn't executed that well. There is one movie that I highly recommend: March of the Penguins. It's a documentary about Emperor Penguins. It's SOOOO good. They are amazing animals. Amazing! - I saw Nightmare on Elm Street on the big screen! I even went to Brooklyn to see it. I hate going to Brooklyn, so you know that it was a pretty big deal. There was a Johnny Depp festival at BAM, and Todd informed me that they were showing Nightmare (Johnny's first feature film). It was SO much fun! There were several people in the audience that hadn't seen it before. There is a scene toward the end (after Nancy tries to pull Freddy out of her dream to kill him) that is supposed to scare you and make you jump. Well, the woman sitting directly to Todd's right screamed louder than I've ever heard anyone scream in a theater before. And she literally jumped about 3 feet in the air. I loved it!!! - I got hit by a car. This happened this past weekend. I was standing on the island in the middle of a 2-way street, and right as I attempted to finish crossing the street, a cab came out of nowhere. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. The side mirror was the only part of the car that hit me. However, the cab was going really fast and the impact completely broke the side mirror off the car. The mirror hit me on my left arm and took all of the skin completely off of my elbow. I have a huge, nasty bruise right above my elbow. There's another huge bruise higher up on my arm. Then I have a small bruise on my wrist and another one on my knuckle. It was completely my fault, because there was a "don't walk" signal. I'm ok, just sore. I was really embarrassed though! It was very stupid! - I'm going home again in the near future! My class reunion is taking place the first weekend of August. I am so excited! There should be a pretty good turn-out, but even if only 10 or so come, it'll still be a blast! I guess I'll stop there. I could keep going, but this is already too long. Happy reading!