Just for you

Aimee this post is just for you. I was reading the newspaper this morning and stumbled upon this article. It made me think of you (and Holly). Check it out here.

See....your trip up the the St. Louis arch could have been much worse. And after reading this...Holly will never go up!!

Would you believe

that I got home with absolutely no pictures from the wedding. That is what happens when you are in the wedding and leave the photography up to your husband! (Just kidding Joel!) I promise that as soon as they all become available online I will share the link with you. There will surely be some beautiful pictures. Until then here is a picture of Mindy and Doug's boat house on the lake near Maryville. It is beautiful and we are already planning a cousin reunion there next summer!

We have some exciting news....our house is under contract!!! We accepted an offer yesterday and are very excited to think about starting to build the new house. The only thing I dread is packing boxes and moving twice. We have a lead on a rent house from our realtor so hopefully that will work out and we don't have to spend time searching for a temporary place to stay. We'll keep you updated.

In case anyone is interested...here are some pictures from the fantastic bed and breakfast we stayed in after the wedding. It is in Townsend, TN and had a great view of the smokey mountains. There was no tv or internet (which meant Joel couldn't work on vacation, yeah!) and our room had a huge jacuzzi tub in the bathroom. It was great!! We would highly recommend a stay as the atmosphere was relaxing, there are tons of places to see and hike, and the breakfast was delicious!!! We hope to go back again.

Here are the pictures....a) the view from our balcony; b) the sign for our room (each room is themed after an influential person in the history of the area); c) the lock on the door...there are no keys you use the lever to open and a wedge to lock it; d) a view as we drove through Cades Cove...it was beautiful and we spotted lots of wild life and came close to seeing a black bear!

Odds and Ends

We are back and there is so much to catch up on. I feel as though we were gone a month.

First, on a sad note, I just learned that my great-aunt Helen passed away on July 4. She was 94 and aunt Louisa's sister. It saddens me but I know she is in much better hands.

Secondly, on a happy note, my dear friend Teresa had her baby on July 3rd. Sadie Jeane made an early arrival (she was not due till the 29th) so she was small. She weighed in at 4lbs 15 oz. Her early arrival turned out to be a blessing as the cord was wrapped twice around her neck and had she gotten much bigger there would have been complications. Everyone is home and doing well now. We are planning to go see them at the end of the month. I can't wait!!

Also, while we were in Ohio, we learned that our dear friends Rob and Arika are expecting their 3rd child in February. We couldn't be more excited and think they are a little crazy because they already have their hands full!!

Finally, I promise to post later this week about the wedding. You should know it was beautiful, the weather cooperated and I can't think of a better couple than Mindy and Doug. It was perfect!!

Happy Birthday Holly!!!!!

Yeah, it's Holly's birthday!! I have never known anyone else who love to celebrate their birthday as much as my dear friend Holly. She starts counting down on June 1st. It is so much fun to see an adult have the same kind of giddy response as a child. I love it!

Holly and I have know each other since 3rd grade. I know just about everything she likes or dislikes. We have shared so much together too. We shared our proms, graduation, and most importantly our weddings. Someday we will share our kids too (although she has a head start on that!). I can't think of a better friend to have than her. I know that I can always call on her and she will be there for me.

So Holly, have a blessed and wonderful day. I hope you get some yummy chocolate cake and have a great time with your family. Also know that I really do cherish you and can't wait to meet baby Noble!!

On a side note, we are headed out to Nashville for the big wedding. We will be gone 10 whole days!!! Wahoo! I promise to post pics when we return. Until then.....

Three Years Ago Today

...I married the perfect guy for me. It seems like just yesterday we had all of our friends and family together. We had such a good time seeing everyone and dancing the night away. Things have not been perfect the last three years but I wouldn't trade any of them because they have been amazing.

So what are we doing to celebrate? Funny you should ask. Since we are leaving on Thursday to go to Nashville for Mindy's wedding we opted to book a few days in a bed and breakfast in the Smokey Mountains afterwards. We will then drive to Ohio for several more days before coming back. It will be our second time to be in Tennessee for our anniversary! In the meantime, we are going out to dinner tonight.

So thanks for letting me share my excitement. Three years isn't a lot but someday we will be celebrating 50.

A Wonderful Woman

I just received news that a wonderful woman has now joined the angels of heaven. My great aunt Louisa, who was 100, has finally met her maker. Although I am sad, I am finding it much easier to focus on the many memories I have of her. She lived a long, happy life and touched many people.

As a child, we would go have Girl Scout day camp in the pasture down from her house. You could always guarantee that she would make an appearance. Aunt Louisa was also very crafty and had a special room in her house full (and I mean FULL) of various craft items. I learned a lot from Aunt Louisa and will always carry these things with me.

So I find it hard to be sad for she is in a much better place. After all, her passing also adds one more person in heaven to watch over me!

Freedom

I finally have freedom!! No more early mornings to rush to work and no more children to entertain! It is a fantastic feeling. I find it fitting that school ends before Memorial Day (one of the many times we celebrate our freedom).

Today, however, I heard a disturbing conversation between a mother and her 4 yr old son at Chick-Fil-A.
It went like this:

Child: "Mom, what does that say?"
Mother: "Memorial Day"
Child: "What is that?"
Mother (asking her husband): "Is that when we celebrate veterans?"

I'm sorry but if you don't know what memorial day is about maybe you need your citizenship revoked. I take great pride in honoring those men and women who have defended my rights as an American. I would never dream of not knowing the National holidays we have for doing so.

So, this holiday weekend, take a moment to give thanks to all the people (past, present and future) who fight for our freedom. It's the least we can do!

A Broadway Debut

Well, maybe not quite Broadway but nevertheless still adorable. The kids did a great job on the clown show. The "Magicians" were the big hit. I was sitting in front of some of the Kindergarten kids during the magic tricks and heard the following:

Child 1: "How'd they do that?"
Child 2: "I think I know....it's just magic."
Child 3: "No...it's the magic wand!"

Too cute! And now some pictures....


Miss Mop and Sally Suds

Hobo Lunch

True Love

The Painter

The Magicians

Juggles and friend

The Tightrope Walker

The Waiting Game.....and Clowns

For those of you who don't know, we had a procedure today at our specialist. We will find out in two weeks if it was successful. While we have only been on this journey a short time, we are blessed by all the prayers from friends and family. I'm hoping that with the end of school approaching, these two weeks will fly by. Let's hope for some great news!

On a different note, it is the end of school and my class is performing a clown show tomorrow with the 1st grade deaf ed class. I will take lots of pictures and let you know how it went. They are just adorable as clowns. Hopefully they will all ham it up and remember their skits. I can't wait to share it with you!

7 things you may not know about me....

Here are the rules: each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to blog about their seven things and post the rules as well . At the end of your blog, you need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!
Where to start??

1. I am somewhat OCD about our bed. Every night I have to remake the bed before I get into it to sleep. Yes, I know I should make it in the morning but can't because my hubby is still in it when I leave. He also knows better than to attempt to make it because it won't pass my standards.

2. I hate living on top of my neighbors. Thus, the reason we bought land outside of McKinney. I grew up in the country and miss having fresh air and open space around me.

3. In relation to number 2, I could never go back to small town life. I've become too accustom to having good restaurants, good shopping, good grocery stores, all within 5 minutes and all open on weekends.

4. I love being a Texan!! There is nothing better that growing up and living in such an awesome state. After all how can you not love a state that makes good German beer (aka Shinerbock)! Having said that, I do love going to Ohio (especially since they now have Shiner!) and seeing actual seasons. We don't seem to really enjoy the seasons in Texas because they are so short!

5. I love to travel. Until I met and married Joel I'd never left the country. Now I've fallen in love with traveling the world and seeing new things. He is so much fun to travel with! The next places on my list to see are Alaska, Australia, Scotland, Ireland, Germany and Greece (again since it is so beautiful). I'm sure there are many more but that is the short list.

6. I love that my family has strong roots. If you've read all the blogs you know my family recently celebrated 100 years in Texas. We have reunion every two years and over 150 people show up every time. It is amazing to see everyone and listen to all the stories about my ancestors.

7. I love a good thunderstorm in the spring. Not the severe kind. Just the kind that have lots of rain and thunder and lightning shows. Nothing beats sitting outside on the porch and listening to it rain. That and a rainbow afterwards. Few things are a better reminder of God's promises and faithfulness!

I tag nobody. I think everyone else had done this but feel free to leave any of your unknown facts/habits as comments!

It's Official

We are land owners. This is our 1.5 acre lot we put a deposit on yesterday. It is northeast of McKinney. We are excited and scared to death! We have to close on it by July 21 but in the meantime have to put our current house on the market, decide on a floorplan and builder, and figure out so much other stuff! Again, exciting and scary. We will keep you posted....

London Pictures

London, Day 4

Our final day to sightsee in London, Wednesday, we exhausted ourselves. By the end of the day our feet, knees, legs, and bodies were screaming with exhaustion. However, it was well worth it! We started in the morning by going to Trafalgar Square. It is basically a common gathering area in front of the National Gallery with memorial statues and fountains.


We then walked down the Mall throught St. James' park to Buckingham Palace. We admired the Queen Victoria Memorial and walked to the gates to see the changing of the guard. Unfortunately, something came up in the Palace and they did not do their normal ceremony. Oh well, just an excuse to go back to London!


Then we walked over to Westminster Abbey (where Di's funeral was held) but didn't go in there because it was too expensive. From there we walked to Parliament. This was an interesing walk because there were protests going on about a vote Parliament was making about extending some nuclear weapon program. There were tons of police so we felt safe and got a good laught at all the "Tony Loves WMD" shirts and banners.


From there we walked across the river to the London Eye. We took a ride around it to see London from a birdseye view. It was fun. We then realized we needed to eat lunch (since we were starving) so we settled for the McDonald's that was right by the Eye. After we ate, my wonderful husband bought me ice cream outside. It tasted like heavy cream which was a different taste but I ate it all up. Not as good as gillato in Italy but still was ice cream!


We then walked to the tube station to go to see Kensington Palace (where Diana lived). We walked through Kensington park, saw the palace and gardens, and tried to follow the signs to the Diana Memorial Fountain. We ended up walking out of the way several times but finally found the fountain. It actually was unimpressive.
After that we walked to the Peter Pan statue (paid for by the author who lived near by). We finally reached our exhaustion point (it was late afternoon) so we walked back to our hotel and rested before dinner.


We decided to go to Piccadilly Circus (basically like Times Square) and walk to the original Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. We waited for an hour to get seated but in the meantime shopped at the store (I got a shirt). We ate an okay dinner....better than most of the other food we had in London and rode the tube back to the hotel where we packed our bags and crashed for a good nights sleep.

The Terrible Smell

I promise the final London post later this week but in the meantime.....

You never know what surprises you will encounter at my job. Some are pleasant, others are not. I was in for one of the unpleasant ones when I arrived at work yesterday. There was a funky smell coming from my room (it's not the first time as some of you may recall the rat/maggot incident) so I imediately notified the office. Our janitor (who is actually Ernie Banks' brother) came out to inspect things. He said he would call environmental services to have them come look. Since it was somewhat tolerable we stayed in my room and had class. Environmental services came and took a look around the ceiling and didn't find anything. They said it must be my carpet and they would come clean it on Good Friday since we don't have school. (I'm thinking to myself....yeah right, if it was the carpet I'd have smelled it before now...I've also been down this road before and we had maggots and a dead rat.) So.......I leave well enough alone, finish my day and come home to complain to Joel.

Then today, the smell is worse. In fact it is so bad my kids refuse to go into the room. We quickly hold our breath, gather up our pencil boxes and important papers and head across the portable to another classroom. In the meantime, the janitor has come back out and decided something must have died under my corner of the portable. So he calls environmental services, they come out, have a look and find nothing. Fortunately, he convinces them to look again in the ceiling with a flashlight (duh!!! It's dark up there!). Would you believe that they actually found something....a dead squirrel. Now if they had only really looked yesterday we could have avoided all of this to begin with. I hate people who don't take me seriously!

London, Day 3

Our third day in London, Tuesday, we went sight seeing on our own. We utilized the tube and saw lots of things. We started out going to the Tower of London and getting a tour from one of the Beefeaters. It was cool to learn about the history of the Tower and of the city. While there we got to see the Crown Jewels without a wait (sorry no pictures are allowed)! We left the Tower and went to St. Paul's Cathedral (we Charles and Di were married). We didn't go in because we are cheap but did look around at all the great architecture. From there we went to Covent Garden (an open air market) for lunch. We enjoyed being serenaded by street performers while we ate. We then went to Harrod's (mostly just to say we've been) and bought a magnet for our fridge. We then headed back to our hotel to freshen up before dinner. We went back to Covent Gardens to eat Italian food (which was terrible) on our way to West End. At the West End we saw the Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre and it was fantastic! I love theatre!!

Our beefeater at the Tower of London.
Joel by Tower Bridge
Me at Harrod's
The Theatre

London, Day 2

Our second day, Monday, we went on a tour outside of London to Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor Castle. This was also the day the camera acted up so we didn't get as many pictures as we wanted. We left London at 7:45 am and drove out to Stonehenge (a two hour drive). We were on a mini bus with 7 other people. One family was from Vancouver, and the other two couples were from Houston (what are the odds!) Stonehenge is actually pretty unimpressive unless you ponder all the questions like who made it and why is it there.


We then went on to the city of Bath and toured the Roman baths. It was fun and we would have loved to see more of the city because it is famous for its architecture. We then drove through the English countryside back towards London and saw lots of quaint towns.



We stopped at Windsor castle (where the queen spends her summers) for a tour. It was fun to see the state apartments, the gardens, the Abbey, etc. If fact, they were setting up for a state dinner that night so the queen was probably there when we were! Too bad you can't take picutres inside the castle. We then went back to London and out that night to a restaurant famous for their fish and chips. It was the best meal we had in London. Yummy!!

London, Day 1 of 4

So as promised, the details of our London trip. We left Dallas on Saturday morning and landed in London about 8 am Sunday morning. It was a long flight but worth it. We took an express train from Gatwick into London to catch the tube. We then discovered that the quickest route to our hotel was under construction for the weekend so we had to take several different trains to finally get there (not an easy feat with luggage!). We finally got to our hotel only to find our room wasn't ready. So we checked our bags with the bellman and decided what to do next. We chose to ride one of the tour buses around London to see the major sights and try to stay awake! We walked 5 minutes down to Speakers Square to catch the bus only to find a giant pro-Saddam rally taking place. Little scary to walk through but we quickly went around and tried not to draw attention to ourselves. We hopped on top of the bus (it was a double decker) and enjoyed our tour. We realized about half way through it that we were starving so we hopped off and found a McDonalds (we were too tired to do any heavy looking for food) and ate. We then hopped back on the bus, back to Speakers Square, through the Saddam rally and walked back to our hotel. We got our room took a short nap and went to dinner (in the hotel). We finally reached our exhaustion point about 10 and went to bed. We had to be up early the next morning for our tour of Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor castle. Now you know about day 1!


This is what one looks like after a long flight, trying to stay awake!

Us and Big Ben (Isn't Joel good at the self portraits!)

Home Sweet Home

We are back from our fabulous trip to London! We had a great time and I promise to post details and pics later. For now, we are happy to be home and sleep in our own bed! My goals for this weekend are to catch up on email (my apologies for not answering any lately) and readjust to the time change. My internal clock is all kinds of messed up!! Have a great weekend and I'll tell you more about our trip on Monday!

It's Known as "Special Events"

"What is it?", you ask. That dreaded word "Special Events". It is a tradition of 30+ years at the school I work in. Each year we vote on a different topic of study. Since I've been there we have done America (after 9-11), Mexico, Hawaii, and Italy. This year it is National Parks. We spend two solid weeks transforming the main hallway of the school into our topic (to see the progression click here and go to page 3). It is amazing when it's done so I've decided to share some of the pictures with you. We have spent this whole "final week" really learning about the various parks, camping and preservation. Hope you enjoy and remember....the pictures don't do it justice!!

Obviously Carlsbad Caverns The Everglades (and a view of the hallway)
Denali in Alaska
The Redwood Forest
East Coast Lighthouses
Yellowstone (Do you see Old Faithful?)
The Everglades


The Grand Canyon