Don't Mess With Mrs. McGraw!

Apparently Faith Hill had to teach a lesson of respect to an audience member for grabbin her man's privates during a performance on their Soul2Soul2 tour in Louisiana.

She may be a performer & celebrity, but she's a wife and mother first!! You go Faith!

You can watch the video clip of what happened below.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game!!

A week ago, Jason's sister Kelley and her husband Scott were out here for a visit to Nashville. And over that weekend, Jason had been planned for the four of us to take a trip to Chicago and see some sights and attend a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. We took off on our adventure Friday afternoon and drove the 8 hours up to Chicago. It really is a beautiful drive and for a lot of the drive, Jason was able to practice singing from memory a bunch of number #1 hits just in case he gets on Don't Forget The Lyrics. As much as I thought Jason could remember every song imaginable, his sister Kelley put him to shame, cause she remembers even more songs than he does!! The two were quite the duo belting out all kinds of hits from the 50's through the 80's.

Once we got to Chicago, we were surprised to find out that our hotel had been overbooked and only one room was available. So we had ourselves a little slumber party and stayed all together the first night. You can see the made up bed where Scott is standing in this picture I've included.

Saturday was full of sight-seeing! We took the Architectural Boat Tour of Chicago in the morning and walked around Chicago in the beautiful sunshine.

Chicago is really a huge city. I think its way bigger than Seattle and I was almost overwhelmed with their transportation system. There were subways above & below the ground, buses, trains....it was crazy. We of course had to experience the deep-dish Chicago-style pizza for lunch, which didn't disappoint. Later that evening we headed over to the Sears tower, which at one time was the tallest building in the world. 110 floors! I was nervous at first to ride the elevator up that high, but it literally took just a little more than a couple minutes to get to the top - that's fast!! The view was breathtaking and felt more like a view from an airplane, than an actual building. Even the other skyscrapers looked small in comparison.

Unfortunately the evening ended early for us because I wasn't feeling that well thanks to my tooth/jaw thing and an upset stomach. I'm hoping that in the future we can find a cheap southwest flight and head up for another weekend when I'm feeling better and can enjoy it more. I know its one of Jason's favorite cities and there's just too much to see and do to fit in just one weekend. Plus I've been told the shopping is amazing and I would love to see inside some of the stores ;-)

Sunday we slept in and started the morning out right with Starbucks - which was conveniently located right across from our hotel! Then it was off to the subway or "L", whichever it is, it head over to Wrigley Field. We weren't quite sure where we were going, so we decided to just follow everyone in Cubs attire. The field was so awesome. I'm used to Safeco Field, where everything is so new, but this place was so authentic and old, I loved it. We ate hot dogs, cotton candy, peanuts - and top it all off, the Cubs had a great game!

The drive back was a bit long and I had to work the next morning - but overall the weekend was pretty fun and we got some great pictures. Hopefully we can go back again soon and spend more time there. Enjoy all the pictures!

Wild Goose Chase

I'm starting to fall apart...not emotionally, but physically - the emotional part may be soon to follow if this keeps up. Maybe its cause I'm getting closer to 30 and that starts to happen? If you know me at all, you know I'm not a big fan of doctors, dentists or anyone else that has the right to poke, prod or drill into your body. And since moving out to Tennessee, I've managed to find all my doctors just fine, good ones too that I really like...but there has been one that I've procrastinated on finding...and that would be a dentist. Eww. I can't stand going to the dentist and I spend hours and even days before my appointments very anxious.

Well I've finally been having so much pain in my right upper jaw, that I made myself go and had it checked out. My friend Leslie recommended her dentist Dr. Shulman. I made my appointment and prepared myself to find out I needed a filling. He was nice enough and took some x-rays and said that he thought I might need a root canal, since he couldn't find a cavity where I was experiencing pain, but he wasn't sure. Lovely. I've had one of those, they're no fun, but neither is anything you experience at a dentist. So he tells me I'm going to have to see an Endodontist Specialist to be sure. Ok...

I make an appointment with Dr. Sheats for two days later per Dr. Shulman's recommendation. I go through the whole anxiety thing again with another restless night of tossing & turning and dreaming of needles, Novocaine and drills. But at least I'm going to do this before our trip to Chicago the next day and get it over with. So I go in to see Dr. Sheats and they do all these fun little tests - the bite test, where you literally bite on a stick (something I could have done myself); a cold test, where they put freezing cold water on a q-tip and touch it to your teeth to see if you experience pain (again, could have done that at home); and finally, a tapping test, where they bang the crap out of your teeth with their little metal tool, once again to see if I feel any pain. And I'm imagining these highly-technical tests aren't free. After all of this, I'm now in quite a bit of pain, more from the tests than my actual ailment. So Dr. Sheats tells me I need the root canal and takes me off to the billing department. They tell me it'll cost $500 out of pocket! Excuse me? I might as well fly home and get it done for next to nothing! Um, no thank you! So I leave that dentist office and go off in search of another Endodontist that is actually covered by my insurance. Now we're at the point of scheduling my third dentist appointment and having no actual work being done so far. My pain isn't unbearable, so I make my third appointment for a week later, which was yesterday morning. Again, starting to get super nervous and just really wanting to get this over with.

Finally I see Dr. Murray. Very nice guy, does all the same tests - biting, tapping and chilling. No pain. He looks at my xrays and tells me I DON'T need a root canal. And as my grandmother Ann would've said "Oh for crying out loud!". This dentist tells me that he believes that what can often be mistaken as a need for a root canal is actually pain caused from clenching and what looks to be the start of TMJ. I actually think he might be right with this one. I don't have one particular tooth in pain, but the right side of my face and ear hurts off and on and I know I do have a tendency to clench at night and when under stress. The need for three different dentist appointments was enough to stress me out. I guess eventually I'll need to head back to the original dentist Dr. Shulman and get fitted for a night guard to see if that helps. To top it all off, I've developed white sores in the back of my throat. Yea me. See, I told you I'm falling apart. I'm very much looking forward to this weekend of sleeping in with my hunny, catching up on So You Think You Can Dance, lounging at the pool with Kati and baking some yummy treats.

Thank God Its Friday!

I love this video. My dad sent it to us girls and it made me laugh :-)



Happy Friday everyone!

Random Information

Since I haven't had a chance to download my recent pictures from this last weekend's trip to Chicago, I thought I would share some random information with you. It was while we were in Chicago waiting to be seated at a pizzeria, when Kelley and I noticed that there was a little girl about 8 or 9 years old staring at me. I recognized her stare right away - its the look people get when they see someone with two different color eyes for the first time. It's caused all kinds of reactions - I mean all kinds.
When I was a little girl, my eyes were blue like most babies. Then after a few months, one eye got darker and the other remained the same. My mom took me to the doctor and he explained this happens sometimes, but it was nothing to be concerned about. As a young child with this condition, I thought I was cursed. Kids were ruthless in teasing me and making fun of my eyes. When your young, being different is weird and strange, but as you get older, you become unique and cool. I remember one time when a bunch of little boys from an inner city that we were ministering in, took one look at me and called me a witch. It started to draw a lot of attention from the kids and my only way of curbing the situation, was to tell them that if they didn't stop, I would put a curse on them. That seemed to do the trick ;-) I've also had many people comment that they had only seen this in animals, such as cats or huskies. This is true, even my first dog, Frodo had two different color eyes like me - we had a special bond because of it.
As I've grown older I've heard some serious doozies. For instance, while I was getting my oil changed in Shoreline a number of years ago, a mechanic walked up to me and thought he would be all sly and tell me that I was missing a contact. That's the most common one I hear. Or I often get asked if I'm aware that I have two different color eyes? Really? Get out! My favorite was while at a grocery store a couple years ago. The teller at the cash register tried to actually convince me that I was blind in my left eye. She said she'd seen that before, and that's what was wrong with it. Oh how we love stupid people. OH and I love this one! I have actually had a number of people ask me if I can see more blue out of one eye and more brown out of the other. Seriously?
(central heterochromia)

When I got into my early twenties, I wanted a name for it. An explanation. Something to be able to explain to people when they gave me that look like a booger was hanging out of my nose or that I had just grown a third eyeball. It was while visiting Christ Church Metro that an eye specialist had been visiting and I had found my answer. He told me it was called Heterochromia. Only one in a million people have it. For example - here's a list of people that you may not have known have two different colored eyes as well: Dan Aykroyd, Kate Bosworth, David Bowie and Jane Seymour (who I've met).
Heterochromia is caused by one parent carrying the usual normal autosomal chromosome that most people have and then the other parent is a carrier of the abnormal autosomal chromosome. If that happens, then the abnormal chromosome becomes dominant and with it automatically carry's a 50% chance of giving the child two-different colored eyes. So basically - I'm a carrier (duh) and if I have four kids, then two of them will more than likely have eyes like mine and two of them the same color eyes. Just like one of my parents is obviously a carrier and if they had one more child, then that child would probably have eyes like me. Not to mention, Kris & Kati might be carriers as well, but just ended up being the other 50% that doesn't show the trait (like mom & dad) - but their kids have a 50-50 chance as well. Kinda interesting...hopefully your not all bored by this point. I added some more pics just for the heck of it. These pictures are of other people I found that have heterochomia to different degrees.
(sectoral heterochromia)

(full heterochromia)

And you know what else is cool? We have our own special holiday - July 12th "Different Colored Eyes Day" (click here to see more).

That's it for now - I'll be back soon with an update on Scott & Kelley's visit with us and our trip to Chicago this last weekend as soon as I get my pictures up!

Wow have we been busy! This last week has been so crammed with activity - and as Kati will attest to, there's never a dull moment in the Keith home. And as a disclaimer, this blog contains quite a few kissing pictures...so you'll just have to deal.

I had forgot to mention that last Thursday night I took Kati to see a friend of ours performing at Christopher's Pizza downtown. After shopping for Kelley's wedding, we met up with my friend Brooke and saw our friend Cody Bender and his band perform. Which by the way, Cody is the one that sings "Unspoken" on Jason's MySpace page. I attached a picture of him for y'all below. Then Friday night was Kelley's wedding and only one picture turned out cause the lighting wasn't all that great. It was a very low-key wedding and small reception and we stayed for a couple hours before heading downtown to peek in on Jason while he was working. After all, we were all dressed up and had to get a little mileage out of looking cute :-) I added a picture of Kelley & Doug from their wedding and then this is also Kati and I all dolled up for the wedding.
Saturday Kati & I were up early (at least early for me on a Saturday) by 8:30am and off to LP Field where The Call was being held as an all day event. And it was hot - very hot. Thankfully we were able to get up to the club level where there was plenty of air conditioning to cool off every now and then. We weren't quite sure what to expect of the event, but it turned out to be mostly prayer, worship & testimonies. It was pretty good and I really enjoyed the music. Even our local celebrity artists Ricky Skaggs & Michael W. Smith (who is a worship leader at a church out here) showed up to do a couple songs. Kati held out and stayed through the whole day, while I left to meet up with Jason at 4:30 that afternoon. One thing that I thought was so funny though, was this guy's t-shirt. He was hardcore I'm tellin' ya. If you click on the picture, you can see a close up of Jesus in a boxing ring and it says "Undefeated" below it. It reminded me of the t-shirts my dad used to wear when we were kids!! This one's for you dad! Now speaking of Jason....what was he up to that morning you might be wondering? Well let me just tell you. He was auditioning at a casting call for a new show called, "What Are The Lyrics?"! We had seen this show advertised on TV before and he had mentioned on numerous occasions that he would love to be on that show. Ok babe. Then there Kati & I am sitting watching TV after the wedding Friday night when the ad comes on TV and says that there will be open casting calls at the Wildhorse Saloon Saturday afternoon!! Get out!! When Jason got home, I was so excited to tell him that he the opportunity to actually try out! At first he was like, "No...I've got too much going on tomorrow". WHAT??!! "Boy, you better get your buns down there and win us a million dollars!" For those of you that don't know this, my sweet husband has a mind of steel. He can memorize a song on the radio the second time he hears it. He sings along to every song from Nat King Cole to Fergie! It's a gift I believe he's picked up from his mom, because she too remembers lyrics amazingly well too. So anyway - he brushes off the idea and I head off to bed, shocked that he's not jumping at the idea. 3:30am rolls around and I feel this tapping on my arm. "I have to do this, I have to try out or I'll kick myself for not going. What time do you think I should be there?" Atta baby! So Saturday morning he grabs his water, stool, book and hat and heads to wait in line at the Wildhorse Saloon. My poor love sat there by himself for over an hour before anyone else showed up. He was the first one in line and ready to audition. And boy did he make me proud! He had to take a written test to weed out the people that weren't that good, then he had to sing in front of a group - which he did his impersonation of "Swingin" by Jon Anderson and everyone loved and finally he also sang "Two Pina Coladas" by Garth Brooks. They loved him and asked him to come back the following day for another audition. Yea!!

Sunday we headed off to church and then lunch with Genesis & Steven at Baja Burrito. Then Jason was off to his next audition. Once again they wanted him to sing, but this time on camera! They gave him a list of 5 songs and told him to pick the one he knew the best. So there's my rugged manly husband beltin' it out to "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cindy Lauper. Making me proud. He sang it again for Kati & I when he got home and oh my word. If this is ever aired on national television, you will all die from laughing so hard. They loved him and asked if he knew any pop songs, so he gave them a little Fergie. The show airs tonight on Fox for the first time at 8.30pm. If the show does well, they will start filming more episodes and we'll wait to hear back on whether they want to keep Jason. They really liked him a lot and said to not worry if it takes a few weeks to hear back from them. So who knows - his gift of remembering lyrics could possibly win us a lot of money!! Don't forget to watch tonight to support the show!
Last night was Jason's championship baseball games. He had two back to back and played so incredibly well! They won both their games and it was so much fun & exciting to watch! The second team was a young one and very cocky. They thought they were going to school our more "mature" team, but we had something else for them in mind :-) And for them playing two games back to back with even a couple guys gone, I was so proud of how well they played!! Jason was out there hitting home runs and stealing bases...it was so awesome! Here's a couple pictures from the game that Kati took with her phone. The first is me giving Jason his congratulatory kiss even though he's all sweaty and gritty (thus the face) and the second picture is of his team.

Kati & I are both here at work today. It's her first day at the office and the poor thing is so bleary-eyed. Unfortunately, she got so used to Jason's schedule the last week staying up with him till the wee hours of the morning, that she couldn't fall asleep last night and is soo tired. We had to do a little Starbucks to help kick-start the day. Jason picked up his sister Kelley and her husband Scott last night at the airport pretty late and they're home hanging out today. I'm not sure what we'll be up to tonight, since Jason has to work and I'll be home with everyone. Of course, I could always force everybody to watch So You Think You Can Dance and What Are The Lyrics and order pizza. :-) Sounds like fun to me!

Kati's Here!

Well I trust you all had a wonderful 4th of July! It was so great to spend it with my little sister Kati! She flew in on Tuesday afternoon and was immediately thrown into the evening preparations of getting ready for small group. And I'm pretty sure the entire group showed up too. I wasted no time in putting Kati to work and had her vacuum the apartment (hey, she offered!) . There was probably 15 or more of us squeezed into our living room and we served up some grubbin food. I'm not bragging or anything, but Jason & I can hold our own in the kitchen and it was so fun to be able to entertain our friends in our home!!

We have been so busy lately! Last weekend was spent mostly doing nothing but finishing up house projects. I had been desperately trying to finish a wall collage of our wedding pictures for the bedroom, plus we got Jason's old school desk moved from the porch to the guest room and then moved the computer to his desk. And yes, I was stressed. I didn't know how everything was going to be ready in time for Kati's arrival and Tuesday night's small group. But then Jason told me to trust him and sure enough the little elves worked through the night and got it all finished :-) Sometimes it really pays off to be married to a night owl (er, elf). But speaking of night owl - my oh-so-yummy husband has recently discovered Scrabble tournaments...online....please tell me this is a good thing. ;-) Last I heard, he was competing with people from Germany!!!

So anyway, back to this week. Tuesday was great with having Kati finally here and Wednesday we relaxed and headed over to Steven & Genesis' house for a BBQ with some friends. That evening we took Kati downtown for the fireworks show and watched it from my office on the 28th floor. It was amazing - these huge fireworks were all at eye level and just incredible. Yesterday and today has been no picnic getting back into the swing of things for work and my attorney has returned from his 10 day vacation hopped up on caffeine. It's been fun. *sarcastic*

I hope Kati is enjoying herself lounging by the pool and journaling on her laptop. I'm envious and so looking forward to the coming weekend. Tomorrow, Kati & I will be at The Call in the Titan's Stadium, but other than that, I'm hoping for a restful weekend.

Oh and tonight, I'm dragging Kati off to Kelley Skiles wedding with me. Jason's got to work, but at least I don't have to go alone! And if you read Kati's blog, then your well aware that I bought four, yes four, dresses last night when we went shopping cause I couldn't decide which one to get. Now you all know why I don't go to the mall much. It's too dangerous. But at least it was Charlotte Russe - one of my favorite stores because of how cute it is and how cheap too!! And I NEVER wear dresses, so this is a big step for me.

Stay tuned, there's sure to be lots more to come!!