THE VILLAGE PEOPLE PART 4......ARIEL AND JOSH

They don't call them peeps for nothing!!!

Happy Easter peeps!!!! After 26...yes...TWENTY-SIX...days straight of training I have finally been given a day off.  YIPPEE.  Surprisingly enough I feel pretty good although there have certainly been times over the past three weeks that I have felt like I got run over by a truck.  I will tell you all the gory details of training next week because it is my day off so I choose to not think about training.  So there!!  Instead I will talk about two more village people...Josh and Ariel.  Since I will NEVER EVER have kids these two are the closest I will ever get.  I can't believe my niece and nephew are 13 and 25 respectively.  Where did all the time go? I still remember when both of them were born. Josh was born the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college.  While I got to spend all summer with him I hated being away from him when it was time to go back to school.  He did some pretty amusing things as a kid and some of my favorites were him putting waffles, orange peels, hot dogs and a number of other things in the VCR.  If something was missing chances were Josh stuck it in the VCR.  After watching his Gram sprinkle Carpet Fresh on the rugs for years he decided one day to try it out on the chair in the living room.  Too bad he used the parmesan cheese shaker instead.  That chair NEVER smelled good after that.  Despite growing up in a household full of woman he turned out pretty darn good.  I think it is simply awesome that he is an xray tech like me.  I also think it is amazing that he is a firefighter.  No one should be surprised at that since his favorite toy was a fire truck and his favorite movie is Backdraft.  Some of my fondest memories of Josh are when we went to Cancun together.  After check in at the resort we dropped our bags and went to get something to eat.  Then we hit the pool and sat by the edge on two lounge chairs and proceeded to drink and drink and drink for the next four, five or six hours.  At one point we were laughing hysterically over a straw floating in the pool because after that much alcohol everything is funny.  Sometime around 2 am we went to get some food but I think we may have fallen asleep halfway through.  Josh continued his drinking spree the next day with tequila volleyball and the following day he was popping champagne in the hot tub on our balcony around midnight.  Of course he fell asleep out there and I had to wake him up and make him get out.  The best part was having so much time to just talk and talk to him about everything and nothing.  You are one hell of a man Josh.  I love you and I am extremely proud of you.  Josh is training for his own race right now.  He and Jordin are doing a Tough Mudder in the Poconos in April.  They are going to run 10 miles while navigating obstacles containing fire, mud, water, walls and oh yeah..electric shocks.  And they call me crazy!!!!!

Me and Josh at his graduation from Rad Tech school.

Friday was Ariel's 13th birthday.  Unbelieveable.  She slept over Thursday night and I took her to the Anime Convention in Boston that she wanted to go to.  I am still not really sure what exactly this anime stuff is all about except it has something to do with Japan, cartoons, characters and very weird people.

some anime freak and not even the freakiest by a long shot

 All that really matters is Ariel wanted to go and I would do anything for her so I took her.  I think Ariel and I have an awesome relationship.  It has been wonderful watching her grow up and I am so impressed with the way she has turned out..especially considering the amount of time she spends with me and the fact that I traumatized her on a sled years ago.  I accidentally lost hold of  her sled at the top of a big hill and she took off at warp speed stopping only after getting hooked on a tree branch.  This led to one of our favorite Ariel sayings.....Dee...I'm Stuck. Oops.  Ariel is a fantastic artist, extremely intelligent, a non-conformer and a kind soul (although she would prefer people think otherwise).  She is the reason my immediate family calls me Dee.  Before she came along I was Deanne and my Mom was Dee.  When Ariel learned to talk she called me Dee and it stuck.  When she was a baby I would babysit her every Thurs after work.  I spent many years going to the parks, beaches, Chuck E Cheese, Bonkers etc.  We spent hours finding crabs at the beach, playing games at the Willows, drawing pictures and making things. Nowadays we still have sleepovers and can likely be found sitting next to each other on the couch sharing a pair of headphones listening to some obscure music she digs up.  If I go more than a week or two without seeing her I miss her.  Thankfully the child hasn't developed my affinity for the F word which really is miraculous considering the amount of time we spend together and the amount of times I say it.  I am immensely proud of you Ariel and I love you.  It means the world to me that the two of you are following this journey of mine and are going to be in Lake Placid.

Yes she is taller than me!!!