"Huh?!"

If you have been around me for longer than 5 minutes, you will probably think "Huh?!" is one of my favorite words...for the record, it is not! I found out today that I am not a complete moron, I am truly deaf! After years of making people repeat everything they say sometimes 3 times or more, I finally broke down and went to the doctor... I went to visit the audiologist today where they put me in this super small room and hooked me up to these ear buds and made sounds and talked into my ears at different times, on different sides which took about 15 minutes. Come to find out, I have hearing loss in both ears! In my left ear, I can hear but cannot understand what you say no matter how loud it is said, only muffled noise. The doctor expressed concern that my hearing loss is not symmetrical in the fact that I cannot hear 100% out of either ear but the left is much worse than the right. So, he decided to do a test called an ABR (no clue what that stands for) where they hook these electrode things up to my head and behind my ears and make these super crazy noises in my ears to see what my brain waves were doing.

I couldn't help taking a crazy picture!

So this ABR test was inconclusive and did not show exactly what was causing the problem. I am not sure if this meant I did not have brain waves... lol! So now I have to go for an MRI next week to see what may be causing the problem. The doc is afraid that I may have a tumor blocking the nerves which may be disrupting the sound waves. If this is the case, the tumor would have to be removed even though it would most definitely be benign, it could cause problems with other things further down the road.

The Anatomy of the Ear

Just for an anatomy lesson, the little snail shaped thing in the middle is the cochlea (which makes you hear) the blue part in the middle are the nerves which make the sounds, where the sound goes in is where the high pitched sounds are processed and as it gets closer to the middle of the snail part that is the low pitched sounds. So this could be damaged from just nerve damage, born that way, genetic stuff, etc.  And then the little yellow nerves on the top-right of the picture are what he is worried may be blocked which would not allow sounds to process correctly. 

So, in conclusion, if it is not a tumor, it is not fixable so I will be saying "Huh?!" a lot! Probably followed by a "do what?!", "hmm?!", and a "one more time..." and if I still don't get it, just text it to me! Ha! I will also have to do everything possible to preserve my "good" ear so no scuba diving, gun shooting, or lawn mowing for me in the future! I will keep you posted on the results!

And we now now why I haven't been to the doctor until now...

February Firsts!

What an exciting week it has been here in Fayetteville! We finally got our first snow of the year and officially my first snow in Fayetteville. It was not as blizzard-like as last year (which I am happy about) but it was something! This is the only picture I got, when I woke up at 6AM it wasn't doing a thing and by 7AM this is the sight.....

It accumulated quite quickly and was gone about as fast as it came! It started raining by the afternoon so I never got a chance for a great picture.

This week was also celebration of our first married Valentine's Day together!! I had told Bobby that I did not want anything for Valentine's but just a special dinner out...he surprised me of course!


    I didn't work Tuesday so when he was leaving he left me a gift on the bar he had been hiding...balloons with a dozen chocolate dipped strawberries "edible arrangement", it also had a super sweet card with a PS note that read "get dressed up tonight for a surprise dinner"! Yippee!

So...we did just that! He had a friend make reservations at a new fancy Italian restaurant "Vetro" and it was so wonderful....we had appetizers, wine, great pasta and of course creme brûlée for dessert!

The Valentine's

Our centerpiece!

Fab wine!

It was a great snowy Valentine's week and it is ending with temps in the 50's...gotta love Arkansas weather! I just love my sweet Valentine!

On a fun note....we also discovered that Gracie is deathly afraid of balloons and will not enter the room they are in so we have been moving them around the house! Kyle came over tonight to watch the basketball game and we put the balloons by the door and had him ring the bell and she barked her head off but refused to go into the foyer because of the balloons! Bob said we may need to invest in daily balloons to keep her from attacking the guests! Ha!

Baby Fun...the sweet ones and furry ones!

We have had such a fun filled weekend with friends! Bob had to work super late in Little Rock Friday so I ordered a pizza and he stopped and picked something up and then we watched movies until late.

Saturday started out super lazy where we just wathced TV most of the day. I made muffins in my new cupcake maker that Bobby got me for Christmas, they turned out yummy but were not very pretty at all...never browned on top...but oh well, we ate them all!

We then decided to make it a movie night since we haven't been in a while. We went to see Contraband with "Marky" Mark Whalberg...I thought it was good, had a few twist in it but Bob was disappointed and felt as though more bad guys should have died! Ha!

Before we went to the movies, I decided it was time to go visit our favorite triplets!! Brandon and Michelle Elliott had the cutest triplets last year and they are about 9 months old now, such a sweet age! They all have there own personality and looks, they always joke that you could have them all sitting next to each other and never even know they were related! There is Knox who looks just like his momma, who had the biggest brightest eyes you have ever seen! He likes to growl at you and is very independent and likes to roam on his own!

Then there is little sweet Ava, who her momma says is everyones favorite! It is easy to see why, she is so sweet!! She was sitting in Bob's lap and kept pushing off like she was going to jump! She made it safely to the floor without him dropping her! Ha! She is the only one who cannot crawl yet so she just pulls herself everywhere and she gets so frustrated because the boys go everywhere and she cannot! Yes, I know this pic is upside down but that is how I took it, she was so busy rolling and flipping on the floor, that is how she landed!

Then there is Brooks (Bob's namesake child, or so we say)...he is so stinking sweet! I gave him his bottle while he was there and after that we were best friends, he started acting like he wanted to get down and play and I put him down and he instantly wanted back in my lap!! He was all smiles the whole time and thought I was so funny! Of course, I couldn't get a picture of his 3 teeth smile but it was there!

After the movie, we went to our friend Jeff's new house which used to be our rent house so it was fun seeing it all fixed up! He got a new fur baby! A bassett hound named Penny! He just got her and she is so sweet, she is 14 months old and was abused and was made to have babies as a baby...so sad!! I think Gracie would just love her so we will have to set up a play date soon!

Mike was also there with his fur baby, Chopper, who we say is a boxer but Mike says he is full blooded Pit Bull... He is also super sweet but is SO hyper and is 8 years old!! He is about 75 lbs. and thinks he is 5 lbs. Chopper and Penny had the best time, he kept charging her and flipping her over and she thought it was so fun! I am kinda glad Gracie was not there, not sure she is used to the roughness!!

Though it was a super fun, baby filled, Saturday, I still missed the best and cutest baby of all! Our little GB!

Cotton Bowl 2012

The Razorbacks were ranked #6 the end of the football season so we were in line to play at the Cotton Bowl against the #8 ranked Kansas State.  We had a few friends that had made plans to hang out at Northern Exposure Restaurant and they were so nice to invite us along. Our waitress was super stressed since we had about 15 people in our party and had planned on staying the whole night to watch the game. They were super short handed and she was frantic most of the night! She did a great job despite the circumstances and I think we may have gotten a few free drinks!

The boys had a good time...

Good times with great friends!

We had a great time and to make a great night even better, the Razorbacks beat Kansas State 29-16!!!

Woo Pig Sooie!!!!

Ringing in the New Year!

My first NYE here in Fayetteville and to imagine no one had plans and everyone said the idea was to go out on Dickson and find somewhere to hang for the night. We weren't too excited about this since past NYE that have been exciting consisted of reservations, tickets, bands, dinner, champagne toast.... I found nothing like this here in Fayetteville. So, we went against the odds and got all fixed up! We decided to eat at Red Robin since Bob worked late and we hadn't made reservations. Mom and dad stuck around to celebrate with us and we left the dogs to guard the house.

 We decided to venture out on Dickson and ended up at Brewski's which consisted of techno music and strange looking people. We lasted there until about 10:30 and decided we would have more fun at home in our PJ's. We loaded up Netflix and watched Paranormal Activity 2 and counted down until the New Year where we had champagne and went to bed. We are so exciting!! Overall, it was a pretty good weekend! Cannot wait to see what 2012 brings our way!

Christmas time!

We had so much going on this year for Christmas, it was exhausting! Christmas fell on a Sunday this year and of course Bob decided he needed to work on Saturday so we would be unable to go south until Sunday afternoon. Santa decided to stop by our house Thursday night for an early Christmas! We got lots of great things, Bob got some new golf clubs and I got a diamond Citizens watch and tickets to see Mary Poppins!!

Bob also surprised me Friday telling me to pack the bags and we were headed in early!! We got lots of great gifts from our family too and got to spend some time with both of our families together on Saturday night! Sunday was pretty busy too with lots of food and gift opening at the Brooks and we were exhausted when we got home!



Ham carving!





Bob's gradparents



Sister Love!



Christmas green!





Christmas sunset while driving down the interstate!



We then followed up the next weekend with more Christmas fun! The Jacobsen crew headed to our house for Christmas this year which was a big change for our family tradition! Sharon and Will are moving to Guam next year and this will be our last Christmas together for a while. So they were in Joplin, MO visiting Will's family so it was easier to come to Fayetteville than drive all the way to central Arkansas. I spent most of the day cooking lots of goodies for dinner and I do believe it was a hit since all we had left to eat was ham when it was all said and done!



Shawn and Cindy



Sharon and Will



The entertainment for the night...




Kiddos




Harley did not have a fun time...



In the end, it was a great Christmas!!!

It 's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas...

I cannot believe Christmas is just around the corner!!! Seems like just yesterday we were ringing in the New Years! Such a fun weekend we had enjoying a little bit of Fayetteville and their beautiful display of lights!

Holdiay Lights on the Square

There were Razorbacks on carousel

And Cinderella carriage rides...

And camel rides....

The lights were stunning!

We also had a great time getting into the Christmas spirit with help from Mom and Dad by decorating our house for the Holiday!



Even Harley came to visit!
Her first trip away from home!



Patiently waiting for decorations to be complete!



It was so nice seeing our house all decorated for Christmas!

Santa and his helpers climbing to the top!

Bob placing the topper just right!

Bob said he wished we could have the Christmas decorations year round! It would be nice but I think the neighbors would disagree!

Counting down the days until Christmas...can't believe it is 21....