Traveling time

We are heading out tomorrow at 5am for our family reunion. This first day will be about 12 hours, the second day about 7. We have packed a ton of DVD's for the girls to watch, and got a new batch of motion sick pills for Sara~~hopefully it will make her sleep too. My parents are coming into town this afternoon and staying at a nearby hotel, where I will take the kids to swim for a while and hopefully wear them out. Tonight is the ritual of the packing of the car, AKA mom's stress point will be broken-----look out world. It would be better if it wasn't so VERY hot outside. I now pay the girls to do most of the packing and thank GOD they are now old enough to really help and young enough to not know how to get out of it.....


I can not wait to sit out on the porch with a good book, stare at the mountains, and read....a little piece of heaven on earth.

Back in August.....

DOGGIE FUN

We are having fun with the dogs.

Notice all the are together...Jessie, Cooper and Puff.

Mermaid

Today Sara decided to get into our pool to cool off. She did not want to get her hair wet, so she got a red shower cap and put a rubber band around it. It worked fairly well. She is good at improvising and finding something that works for her needs.

Afterwards, she gave up and just got her hair wet.

LIGHT

Today we replaced the entry light. I guess that since I could not reach the 20' to clean the light in 6 years, then just get a new one :) We switched from gold to black. Luckily I put low wattage bulbs in or it would have been enought light to land a plane.

BRIDAL SHOWER

Yesterday my sister Lisa and I drove to Houston for our niece Jennifer's bridal shower. Jennifer's sisters Ashley and Megan co-hosted the shower. The food was WONDERFUL and Jennifer got a lot of things to begin their household. Jennifer has wonderful friends who were at the shower.

I have to admit I loved the 24 hours with adult conversation only. I do believe that every summer we will re-establish the girl's weekend out where no kids or males are allowed. We used to go shopping, but I think we will just go somewhere, probably my mom's, and visit ie-talk.

FINALLY RAIN

Today we had rain--after almost a month













do you see it? There is a drop! That's all!!!!!!!

Today we rose again early and headed for our destination. The 4 carloads of family, along with too much luggage, stopped in Loveland at SAM's to purchase the food for 41 people for a week. My sister made separate lists and we were off. It took 3 flats and one shopping cart at SAM'S to get it all, and now.......it needed to fit into our cars. I really wish I had a picture of this! We rearranged the luggage, stacked it up, sat on it, held it in our laps, just short of strapping it onto our hoods.....we looked like a bunch of back hills folks.....maybe like the Beverly Hill Billies, without the mansion, or the dog.

We arrived and there were a number of family already at the cabin who gratefully helped unload everything and the girls took all the luggage upstairs to our room.

We have used this cabin many times over the years. Upstairs is 4 bedrooms, sleeps 14 with 1 bathroom. Downstairs sleeps 6 with 1 bathroom.....of course this is the main house and everyone is there all day.....1 bathroom downstairs. We did fairly good.

JULY 4TH

God bless America!

We are having a quite 4th at home.

new member of the family

Today we were driving around town doing a few chores, and ended up at the SPCA and brought home a brother for Cooper. His name was Louis-now it is Jessie. He is 6 months old and cross between a Chihuahua and a dachshund. He is already neutered and micro chipped. He gets along VERY well with the cat, basically ignores her. He follows Cooper around and loves to run. He is kenneled for the night until I trust that he does not cause problem....like I caught him carrying off my slipper.

SIX FLAGS OVER TX

This morning Jeff fixed everyone omletts to order. Everyone took a turn on the trampoline, mostly so Mark and Jennifer could prove to themselves that they still have it....and they do.

Being 6'6", Marc had a hard time sleeping in Ruth's bed-a double-too short for him. This is funny to those of us who are just barley over 5'2".

After breakfast and a quick trip to Wal-Mart, Marc & Jennifer are off to Six Flags with with the girls.

Company in town

This evening Marc and my niece Jennifer arrived for the weekend-they are the ones getting married in Nov. The girls were angels and helped clean the house all day and it does look good now---maybe I should take a picture to remember what it looks like clean LOL!!!

After the house tour, there was of course a game of Phase 10. I begged out and read some and visited with them during the game. Let it be known to all near and far~~~~MARC WON THE GAME~~~~and he is VERY proud of it too :) That is his winning score sheet close pinned to his shirt....what a ham!

MEDICAL RELEASE

This morning we had our last appointment with Sara's neurosurgeon, Dr. Honneycutt. He said she is a go. We just need to watch when she goes back to school and make sure her short turn memory and ability to concentrate is not affected. So far she is showing that there is no problem.
She is now one VERY VERY happy camper and already running, throwing the ball, and on the trampoline. We will still wait one week before she is back into gymnastics and let her practice at home, having been sedentary for a month, do not want her to over do it and land on her hear :( Maybe I will see if she will wear her bicycle helmet for gymnastics LOL!!!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

This morning Jeff got breakfast served to him, along with one large coffee. The girls each made him a card. Jeff also got a gift card to Border's and a new shirt-one that will not show coffee staines too much-it's brown.

BACK HOME

We had a great time with my parents. We saw my sister Chris and her dh and worked on furthering plans for the big family reunion later this year. She has a wonderful garden in her back yard too.

We spent the day with my sister Kathy and two of her daughters Ashley and Jennifer. First we went to a bridal shop and decided on a dress for the girls that complenent the other girls. They are quite grown up looking. After they we went to a pottery place and the girls all painted a piece. They will be fired and ready next week. Jennifer will bring ours up in a few weeks when they come to town to take the girls to Six Flags....mom doesn't do hot and long days well at all ;)

WE played LOTS of games of Phase 10-our new favorite. It is a long game and after about 5 times, I am done for a while.

We went to see my long time friend Ruth and her family. They are on year 2 of ? of a home renovation. They have an acre lot with many large oak trees...it is like being on a vacation, with the pool and all. Richard and Ruth cooked a wonderful dinner for all. Her boys taught Ruth how to play some zombie killing game, and Sara found something less violent on the other computer.

We did some shopping with my mom, but came home almost empty handed....making the men in our lives happy :)

Grandpa had the girls helping in the garden--check out this huge beet! It is getting almost too hot for tomatoes.


My mom showed Sara how she makes spaghetti. At first she thought it best not to, but then found that Sara is a good help in the kitchen.

vacation #1

The girls and I are heading out of town to visit my parents for a week. I will be back with many photos. Everyone have a good week....C & the monsters ;)

Thanks Nana & Papa

Today we received a package from Jeff's parents-a life saver for "school's out" blues. They sent two movies. We already watched the Velveteen Rabbit, and I think the kids have almost finished the activity book that went with it. Tonight we will watch The Secret. They has been great and they are wonderful for doing this.....

This is how the girls were laying ontop of each other as they watched the movie-Ruth is pretending that she is sleeping :)

DRESSES

Today we went to David's Bridals to look at Jr Bridesmaid's dresses. We will send these photos to my niece Jennifer to see....the girls are getting so excited for the wedding.....the just LOVE Marc and can not wait to have a brother cousin :)

CAMPING

We decided to break in the tent in the back yard on Friday and Saturday nights....starting slowly. It was a little hard setting it up because it was so windy and it was our first time....but we won that battle. We added 3 air mattresses, a fan and a DVD player. Cooper the dog slept with us, the cat was inside the house. We did find out that the dog ANNIE that lives behind us goes out for a potty every night and she heard us and began to bark then Cooper barked...

The first night we went inside at 5 am because it was getting so cold. The second night we went in at 5:30 am because that is what time the BIRDS get up! Both times we went to our beds and went back to sleep :)

6th grade ceremony-LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

Today is the last day of school, so I took a picture to compare from the first day:

And the last day

Today it was Sara's turn. In the morining they got to have one last market day, this time they used they "good behavior" money to bid on really cool things donated by the parents and establishements in the town. Sara had the most, of course, with over 20,000.000. She made her first bid for a $25.oo gift card to starbucks. They do not get to make a second bid until EVERYONE gets something. Her next bid was for a set of large loop earrings and eye shadow-too early for these!- and then a silver makeup case that I had donated. She was a happy camper.

Then the ceremony. They had to hold it in the Cafateria because the "team" sized in 6th are larger and made up of 6 classes.

Of course, she got many awards.

5th grade award ceremony

Today was the 5-C awards ceremony. Ruth got 10 awards, many 0f them with her same friends that she has know for years. Being shy, Ruth was not thrilled with being in front of all the parents, but she did give me a few smiles. If you do not know, Ruth is in the green/white shirt.

At the end the teachers all began to cry, the parents all began to cry....almost like being on OPRAH---pass the tissues.

Next year the kids will be split between this school and a new school, so they are saying goodby to a great school and to many of their good friends.

6th grade bottle rockets

Today was the day for launching the bottle rockets the kids made a few weeks ago. The flew two-one with an egg inside to see if they can keep it from cracking. Sara' s team's parachute tore so the egg was cracked.

The second rocket was just for fun-whatever you want and as big as you want. Sara's team put the rudders on at an angle to see if it would spin, but who could tell because it went up so fast.

We never had so much fun when I went to school....

Sara update

Sara is trying to stay in school all day and she has made it twice. Yesterday was a really bad day and she came home at 10:30. Her 3rd block teacher thinks that she had a small seizure-she herself had them when she was younger and is familiar with them.

She came home and took a 3 hour nap, then was recharged for a while, still to bed by 8:30.

The Dr said to make sure she is hydrated very well, does not play video games and that the florescent lights, such as those at school, actually hurt brain injuries because the subtle flickering, which we do not even know we see, the brain picks up and can cause problems. I am not going to suggest that the teachers turn off their lights, but it was interesting.

She is determined to get her all year perfect attendance-she must be at school until 10. She is also going for the all A all year and making sure she stays up on all tests, homework...of course there is only a week left and TAKS tests are over, so there is more putting up for the summer than there is learning.

Today they launch their bottle rockets they designed. I will be here to see this. There is an egg inside, and they are using soda bottles....I will post pics afterwards.

Happy Birthday Bryan

Today is my son Bryan Christian's birthday. The girls were excited to remember their big brother. He would have been 25....and it still feels like it was yesterday that he was here with us....

This is one of the few photos we have of him....with love