HURRICANE WATCH

Guess what we are watching for! Though we do not live right on the coast, the projected path will take sweet Gustav over us once he makes landfall. Luckily my family in the Houston area should be OK-except for a lot of rain, they will not need to evacuate. We will be bringing in things tonight and preparing for a lot of rain, but today, it is a beautiful day and warm. The kids do not have school tomorrow, so we will be doing a little shopping for new school desks for their bedrooms.

We did get the dog bathed so if he is stuck inside for a few days, he will not stink us out....this is Cooper

This is Galveston on a calm day, we will see what it is soon. This was taken this summer when we went to visit my family.

SCHOOL

Today is the first day of school. Ruth is now in Intermediate school with Sara-one 5th and one 6th. They were both nervous for different reasons. Ruth does not know the routine, and having a locker with a lock is a new and nervous event. Sara is concerned over new teachers, not sure if she will be able to read the cursive writing on the board, and them not having an ESL teacher yet. This year due to overcrowding (new school will open next year), the ESL in in a nasty portable across the parking lot and Sara is afraid a stranger will get her going to class. They both got on the bus fine this morning and I told Sara about 10 times to make sure her sister gets home and off the bus at the right stop.....always the nervous mom.



As for me, I am spending the day decluttering the summer clutter, catching up on laundry, and maybe a little reading.

Summer Fun

Today I took the girls and sister friends to a local water park for the day. We all had a great time. There was not much crowd, I think because it looked like rain all day and school is about to start. I got on a few slides with them, but when they went on other, I found some shade or hung out at the wave pool and watched them.

A new baby in town

We have a first addition to a new generation on my side of the family. My nephew and his wife had a beautiful baby boy on 8-8-08. We hope to visit and begin to spoil him. His name....Preston, after his dad and grandpa.

Finally home from vacation

We arrived home this afternoon from our 2 wks in Georgia, which included two reunions. The first one was the yearly Judd family reunion which went well. We had the first of the next generation, Kyle, with us. He is just barely one and tooooo cute. Yes, we did make a pilgrimage to the nearly local Krispy Kream for the royal treat(ssss)-YUM! We all played a lot of badminton and played a lot of card games. The biggest skills test was the capturing and removing of mice (some would call them rats) that we had in our cabin. We did remove two. There was a lot of screaming, mostly from the older girls, and excitement from the younger. Jeff was upset that they ate through the lid of his cashews and ate some :(

The next reunion was for Sara and her life long friend Ling from China. Sara arrived in the US about a month before Ling and this is the first time in 1 1/2 years that they have seen each other. After a bit of shyness on their parts, they were back together again, mostly playing chess and watching their Chinese soaps we brought back with us. Ling was staying with her Aunt Sue, who is a wonderful woman. The girls had one sleepover at out condo, then the next night with Sue. Of course parting is sweet sorrow and Sara had her meltdown within an hour of returning after the farewells, but we will spend a lot of time looking at photos and planning the next great time......photos to follow......it is midnight and I need sleep!!!!!

We did catch the opening of the Olympics this evening. I did have to wake Sara up to see China come in. What a fantastic program.