What we did today.

We had the most amazing family mini-vacation today. We went to Fossil Rim Wildlife Center down near Glen Rose, Texas. It's a two hour or so ride through a nature preserve where you can feed animals from your car and see them out and about in the "wild". It was so fun! It really was a perfect family day-trip. Kudos to super-Dad for coming up with it and testing it on his youth group first. I highly, highly recommend this trip. It was flash-backs to Africa without tse-tse flies or malaria. You will love it! Just go on Wednesday. It's half-price day.

(Did you catch the reflection of my hand in the mirror?)

The Flood

One week ago today we had a major storm in the night. MAJOR storm. Non-stop thunder, continuous lightening and loud, loud rain. When we got up the next morning (with 2 extra kids in our bed) we saw that all was well and assumed that nothing had happened in Keller, as is usually the case. We were wrong. No one's house blew up and no one died here in Keller but there was definitely some serious flooding.
I took these shots while we were driving down the street that crosses a few blocks from our house. There is a mild little creek that flows low and slow along that street. It apparently broke free and had a good ol' time that night.

Someone got swept off the road. NEVER drive into high water, people!


This bridge normally sits so high above water level that you could fit a good sized (albeit narrow) house under it.


I believe that is the side-rail for the covered bridge up the street.




All fences, city-owned or private, wrought iron or white picket, were at least partially knocked down by this torrent.


Part of me really wishes we could have seen this, but most of me is really glad we didn't.

Happy Father's Day!

To my Daddy. Who was happier than he looks in this shot about the painting and how it turned out. I didn't give him time to smile before I snapped the pic.

and to the Daddy of my Children. Whom I adore fiercely.

By The Way....

We did take that job in Bethesda! I forgot to update you. It's all "for reals" now. We start work on August 1st but will be mostly gone from Texas by mid-July. So. If you're one on my many friends here close to home whom we were so excited to be closer to and I've managed to not see you in the 2 years we've lived here.....um, can we do coffee soon?

Seriously. Soon.

A few pics.

Why we don't have cable.


What my friends and I did last weekend.


What I want for Christmas.

Mooooovin' on

So. First it's very, very important that you realize that this is not officially official yet. No papers have been signed and final negotiations are not complete. However:

We have been offered the job in Maryland!!!! We are so excited! It's manifesting itself in a tendency to lay around and look dazed. All the little pieces are falling into place, including health benefits for the whole family.

Boggling.

Here's a pic of the church building. Well, a bit of it. You should Google Earth it.

(the two guys behind the sign with the umbrella are grilling for our BBQ potluck)

Wilson Ln, Bethesda, MD

Here too is a pic of the house next door, which we may very well be living in by this fall!!!

(I understand that you're not supposed to post things like that online, however, if I tell you we're gonna be in the parsonage how hard would it be to figure it out?)

WoooooHoooo!!!
We are unspeakably excited about this church. Pray a quick prayer of praise for us if you think about it.

Headed Out

We're headed to Bethesda Saturday. Please pray for us, for safe travels, for clarity and for our kids (and my Mom, bless her heart).





Do I look like I'm smirking? I've decided it's not the camera that adds 10 pounds, it's the smile. But hark! There's hope! I've been doing yoga and mowing the lawn and in other ways moving my.....well, myself...around. It's working! Slowly. slowly.......slowly.

And hey.....

..remember that church? the Church in Bethesda. You know: www.churchinbethesda.org ?

We're flying up the first weekend in June for an interview. I should say "another interview" since we've sent in a questionaire and they've done one interview on the phone already. Be praying for us. ....pretty please.

And since I don't have a photo of their building....and since I've been posting my art-y activities elsewhere....and just 'cause I wanna:

You can read it's life story here.

Graduation

Isaac had his Kindergarten graduation today. It was exceedingly cute.

Here he is accepting a hug from his teacher. Classic Kindergarten teacher. Sweet, great with the kids, loves to hug and sings songs all day with the kids. She even plays the accordion! Kudos to Mrs. Murphy!

Here he is accepting his "certificate" from the principal. Hints of goof-ball there:

Here's what he did when he noticed his Dad taking photos:

And here's the goofy face he made most of the rest of the day:

Kindergarten and already the class' biggest "ham bone". I foresee trouble in Jr. High.

(Do you love that little girl's look behind him?)

In Texas.....

Even the rich folk love 'em some Jack in the Box round here.

And even the limo's are trucks.

And even the trucks are bigger.

And even in Keller.....

Anyway. Wonder how much it gets to the gallon.

The Lawn

So. We waited a bit too long to mow our lawn. It's a long story full of completely lame excuses but you should know that a thistle can grow pretty freakin' big! Especially in the shelter of a lawn.

I've been inching away at the back yard all week long and last night I had just had enough. I stayed out past dark getting it d.o.n.e. I had a great deal of "help" from the men in my life. It made for a fun family evening.



My manly man took out the big ones for me. (He also mowed some too.)




Sometimes you win, sometimes the lawn wins. (Yes, that thistle has grabbed his stick. 8^0 )

Little bit beats the lawn into submission. (It makes it easier to mow.)

So now I'm singing, "I fought the lawn and the lawn won."

But it's not true. Mwahaha.

Posting elsewhere.

I know. Not much going on here on this blog. But I've been posting on my other two! You can check them out for how-to-y goodness. Or you can just wait here. I should have a pic or two I can post this weekend.

School is out for me now and I am giddy. It's a strange little weight in the back of my mind that's been lifted. I'm not sure how to describe it. I do plan on sleeping in next Tuesday for as long as I can. Which won't be too long since Josiah's new wake-up time seems to be 6:30. All year long we've been dragging him out of bed every morning at 7 or 7:15 and now that summer's fast approaching, he's kicked his morning clock up an hour. Ain't that just life?

It's time

It's just time for a new post. Now I get to think of something to blog about.

Let's see: The school year is almost over and I, for one, can not wait! Our Preschool program is tomorrow night and then we have 2 more school days and 1 more work day and then I'm free!!! (at least for the summer) Meanwhile, we've finished "Me Books" for each student and finished up the Mother's Day gifts. Now all we have left is one more Color Book project and a Father's Day gift. We have to do it all ahead of the holidays since school will be out by then. Could we just say, "No school, no project?" No. sigh. After my week and a half I think there are 2 more weeks of school for the boys then we're all free! Yay for sleeping til 8!

I finished up my next sewing project (a "sock turtle") and posted about it at the knitting blog. Next up: a frog. We'll see how that goes.

Hunter's hockey team came in second in the league for the season and took 3rd in sudden death over-time at the tournament. It was a real nail-biter. They lost in the last 2 minutes of the 5 minute over-time. Wow. His school band also took 1st in the band competition they had last week. I'm glad he's getting to enjoy such a fun year. I have a feeling 7th grade is gonna kick his rear. I won't tell him that, though.

We had some storms tonight but nothing major in Keller. Of course. It seems to always pass us by. I'm thankful to God for that. The worst was trying to convince Josiah that it was o.k. to come inside, even though the power MAY go out. After it blinked a couple of times he decided he'd rather stay outside in the rain, lightening and wind than come inside where he was unsure of the power. We eventually compromised by turning all the lights out. That way it wouldn't matter if the power went out. It worked quite nicely, if I do say so myself.

Now. Let's see if I can find a good pic' for you.

Here ya' go. Ike's class at his program last night. They split the Preschool into two and have 2 nights of programs instead of trying to have all 12-15 classes go in one night. I am so, so grateful!

Isaac's 3rd from the left on the back row.

Guess what we had for dinner....

....all this and he even speaks Spanish!

I know

I know I haven't written much, but I have been thinking about you. Really I have. I took all sorts of pictures to show you. Turns out most are just variations on a theme so I'll show you the highlights.

This is a bit of the hail that fell into our yard last Friday. We didn't get a whole lot and it was small. Mom and many others got 3" hail and everyone on Mom's block lost at least one skylight. One family on their block lost all of their West-facing windows. Considering that a tornado touched down in Fort Worth, they were lucky. We were seriously spared. The worst we faced was Whataburger not being able to run our card to pay for dinner. Todd had to go back later and pay cash. Yes, they let him take the food on a promise of future payment. I LOVE living in a small town!



This is Hunter playing goalie again. His team has been doing really well and he is continuing to get better and better. He's making a great block in this picture!




This is a "sock bug" I sewed to keep my socks-in-progress ready to travel. It's a blatant copy of someone else's but it turned out cute....and I won't be selling it or anything. For the whole story, check my knitting blog....if you're into that kind of thing. ;-)


Talk to ya'll later!

Happy Birthday....

....to Isaac!!!

He is strickly forbidden to get any older. 6 is quite old enough, thank you.

Happy.

Happy Easter!!!





We did the Easter thing at our house this year. Since Isaac's b-day is this week and all of Todd's family was headed up to see him, we just went ahead and did the whole holiday thing all at once. All of Todd's local family came and even the Vogts (good friends from New Orleans) got to come!

About 20 people. 10 of them kids. What do you do? You plan lots of outside activties, right? Yeah. It's a great idea until it SNOWS!!! Yup. We had flurries off and on through most of the day. Whatever!

It all turned out alright...as these things usually do. We had good food and a fun visit. Later on that evening my family came over. It wasn't purposeful segregation, it just worked out that way. My mom and aunt were down South looking at wildflowers and didn't get back into town until later in the afternoon. My cousin came into town to see my aunt so they all came over for dinner. It worked out nicely. I only had to clean house once and most of what we ate was left over from earlier. How's that for serendipity?

And since my house is already fairly clean, we'll be having company again tomorrow night. Work it, girl!!

I pray your Easter is blessed. It was a bit anti-climactic for us as our big celebration was yesterday. The first thing Josiah whispered to me this morning was, "Mom, the light's on in the living room. Did the Easter Bunny come?"

Oops. No. The Easter Bunny actually forgot to come. We were so tied up in getting things together yesterday that we didn't even think about the family traditions of Easter. The Easter Bunny wasn't here. It was just Todd playing the Nintendo. Just so you know, our kids are not permanently scarred. There was enough swag yesterday that they are well and truly sated.

And today, for Easter lunch, we had Taco Bueno.
8^D

Feeling neglectful

I've been blogging some at my knitting blog but not here so I'm feeling a bit neglectful.

I really don't have much to blog about. Life toodles along here. Little bit went for fillings this morning and ended up needing a "mini root canal". Yikes! And on school photo day! Oh well. It all worked out. They fixed him up and his swelling was almost completely gone in time for photos. And we're on a payment plan for the "pulp-ectomy". ew.

While you wait for me to have something interesting to blog about, check out this church:

www.churchinbethesda.org

and tell me what you think.

And because all blogs should have a photo, here's my nephew and brother-in-law at said nephew's 1st birthday party (it was a cowboy party).

Happy Birthday....

.......to Todd!!!!

I managed to finish Todd's birthday socks today. He'll get to wear them tomorrow to church. I'm rather proud of them. They're soft and fit him well. Yay!

He knew the socks were coming but this is a bag I started for him ages ago. He's been complaining about me not finishing it. I secretly finished it yesterday and surprised him with it this morning. He loves it. He's such a good husband.

Mom and Dad kept the kids for a few hours this afternoon for us. We ate at their place then headed out...mostly to run errands. In the midst of our errand running, however, we did manage to get by the new coffee/hookah pipe cafe. It was awesome.

FYI: Petra Cafe, on HWY 377 in Watauga (Texas)

Great, great coffee. Not bitter, very smooth, just enough flavor (when you order something like Cafe Mocha).

Their Hookah pipes are fun.

Service is very friendly and welcoming.

Atmosphere is clean and cozy.

2 thumbs up!

Saturday's Game

Hunter had another game on Saturday. They played the team they originally beat but this game was much different. They were really good and the game was close the whole time. In fact, it ended in a tie.

Ike came late with my folks. This is how he likes to entertain himself during the games.

I tried to get a pic of him while it still looked like he was walking along the court's wall but I was too slow.