We really are still here!

I know it has been forever! As I have said before, why do I bother? Well, I bother because I hear from some of you if I do not bother, and I am glad to know that even though my posts are few and far between, that you are still reading them. Thank you! We have done a lot in the past few months and I will be posting tons of pictures. I will either do one big post or do a post for each event. Regardless, I will be back really soon with an update on our activities! I hope all of you are doing well!

Vacation

Here it is for those who have been asking about our vacation. We had a good time in San Antonio and were not ready to come home. Every summer we try to make a trip to Sea World San Antonio. We have so much fun and each time we go, Anna is able to experience something new. We have gone from her not really knowing what was going on around her, to just watching the shows, to riding rides, to feeding the animals, to having Dinner with Shamu. In a couple of years, she will be old enoughto do the Baluga interactive program where she gets in a wet suit and swims with the Balugas! She is growing up so fast. In fact I will posting in a couple of weeks about her birthday bash. She will be 6 years old!!! More on that and my baby starting Kindergarten later.

As much as I want to share all of the pictures with you, I will TRY to hit the high points, but we did a lot, so be patient with the pics and I hope you enjoy.

Our first stop was the Alamo. We took the little tour and we learned all about how Santa Ana had ultimately been captured by Stephen F. Austin and his men. Anna responded simply with "Well, if they captured Santa, who will bring us presents at Christmas?"

Out of the mouths of babes!

A fun tradition we have is that as soon as we get to our hotel, Anna gets to jump on the beds (since she doesn't get to at home)

As we entered Sea World

Yeehaw!

This sealion show is great! The Walrus was HUGE. This picture does not do him justice!

After the show, we went and fed the sealions!

Right next to the sealions were the Lorikeets, so we fed them too!

Tim is not so sure about this!

Anna on the other hand loved it!

This is me taking a pic of my arm with 4 birds on it!

I don't do rollercoasters, but look at my 2 crazy people. Anna actually held her arms up the whole time! This was the first time she has been tall enough to ride this rollercoaster. She has had her eye on it and she barely made it at 41.5 inches with her tennis shoes boosting her to 42!

Off to feed the dolphins!

They come right up and you can pet them while feeding them!

Anna and her daddy always climb to the top of this ropes course. They climbed though all that you see behind her. I am so glad this has become a daddy and Anna thing! I get to watch from the safety of the ground below!

This is the Baluga and Dolphin show. PHENOMENAL! The week after we left, the 2 female belugas delivered their babies within hours of each other!

Our new thing we added this year was having dinner backstage where they keep the Killer Whales. Many of you have asked how close we actually got to be to the whales. Well, how would you like eating dinner with this as your scenery. Well worth the money!

The dinner tables are actually right there by the pool

Here they are waving good-bye to us!

Our last shot of the trip!

This was such a fun trip! We bought season passes this year, so if any of you are ever in the area and want to take a quick trip south, let us know. It will be our pleasure to let you in on our fun vacation spot!

Drama Queen

For those who have not been updated on Anna's most recent hobby, here is a little glimpse into what she has been doing. When Tim started Grad school and was competing his master's in a year (yes I said a year...and he has done it!) Anyways, he decided he could not coach her soccer team anymore and she did not want to play if daddy was not going to coach. So, I asked her what she thought she might want to do, if anything. She said "I want to take singing classes!" This was music to my ears(no pun intended) So as to not bore you with all of the legistics and how it all came about, a friend of ours told her about a local theater that was putting on "The Sound Of Music" and that she should try out. She did, and then was born Gretl Von Trapp. She did so well and really enjoyed the whole process, practices, hair and makeup, costumes, etc. When SOM was over, she wanted to know what was next. We, as her responsible (at least we try) parents decided to make her take at least a month break between plays.

Well, July rolled around and we signed her up for a drama camp put on by Missoula Children's Theater. It is a week long camp and at the end of the week they put on 2 performances. This summer the play was "The Little Mermaid." Lest you be confused, this was NOT the Little Mermaid you and I grew up watching. In fact the only thing similar was that the kids were "little" and there were "mermaids" in it. Anyways, she audtioned and got the part of a Seahorse. She had a special singing part and had so much fun! Today were the performances and it was so cute.

I think she has found something that she not only enjoys, but seems to be talented in! Next, she is off to "Seussical: The Musical" and "The King And I" auditions in the fall. We never thought our little drama queen would actually be a "Drama Queen!" She loves it, and we have fun watching our little star in the making!

Here she is getting her microphone put on for the first SOM performance

"Gretl" before the show!

The family Von Trapp

Being silly after the showThe Little Mermaid Cast -she is the 2nd seahorse from the right:)

Our little Seahorse!

Family Getogether

I cannot tell you how long it has been since all of my immediate family was at the same place at the same time! Ok, I guess I can tell you...it was this past week. My brother-in-law will be deployed in the next few months and he and my sister and their kiddos came for a visit from Colorado. We had a good time catching up and letting the kids play. My brother and his wife came down from north Dallas to hang out too with their new little man! There is not a whole lot to report except that we hated to see everyine go. Here are a few pictures we took at my parent's house on Sunday! Enjoy!

Me, Tim & Anna

Ben(my brother), his wife & new son

Darla(my sister), her hubby & kids

The Folks

All the girls

All the boys

The whole gang

What a good lookin' bunch, huh? We had a good time! I will be posting tons of pictures over the course of the next few weeks. "Sorry" if you hate pictures, "you're welcome" if you like them!

Echo (echo, echo)Echo (echo, echo)

Hello to all of my 2 readers out there:) I am alive and well and enjoying summer. I feel busier now than before summer! I have a bunch of fun pictures to post and funny stories to tell, but they have not been put together in a coherent way yet. So...until then, this will have to do so that you know I have not fallen off the face of the earth. My sister and her family are here from Colorado so I will be wrapped up for the next 5 days, but you have waited longer than that before:)
Anyways, until then, I will leave you with this important question....What words of wisdom can any of you share about how you keep up with your laundry. I am DROWNING!!!! I don't know how it got this way. It has not always been like this, but oh my gosh, really? There are only three of us!!! Seriously, any help will be greatly appreciated, even if all you do is tell me your laundry issues are just as bad! Love you all and will post soon.....I pinky promise!

Thank You!

I will be back with a longer post about the craziness that is my life. But for now, I want to remind you to thank a teacher! This is teacher appreciation week and let me just say that having been a classroom teacher and now as a preschool director, teachers make the world go around! So, if you are reading this and you are a teacher......THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!! Your hard work does not go unoticed! I had a sweet mom leave a goodie on my desk today in my office! A sweet thank you goes a long way....and a little chocolate doesn't hurt!

New Every Morning!

I love how God uses little things around us to remind us how in control He ALWAYS is. As Anna and I hustled out the door this morning, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. In the blur of everything else, I noticed that the flowers I planted last summer were in full bloom. Now, let me just pause and say that I do NOT have a green thumb, or any other green fingers for that matter. About a week ago, I spent an hour in the flower bed pulling weeds the size of my non-green thumb! I was prepping the ground to plant some more flowers in the place of my dead ones....or at least so I thought, until this morning! They were a beautiful purple, pink, lavender (don't ask me what they are called, because I have No idea!) I stood there just staring at them as Anna ooohed and aaahed at the beautiful sight before us! I could not help but think that these flowers should not be here. After the weeds I saw and the bad soil they were in, there was no logical reason why these flowers were back in full bloom. Wow, isn't that how we are? We fill our lives(flower beds) wil so much junk(weeds) and there is really no reason that we should ever be back in full bloom(in the sight of God). God, however, weeds us and prunes the junk and allows us to be back in full bloom for Him. What a blessing! Our lives have been so busy over the past couple of months(I will share more later) that it was so nice to be slowed down by blooming flowers and to be reminded by my Maker that I too need weeding and can be blooming for His glory! Don't you just love the God we serve?

Ahhhh! Where do the years go?

I really have no insightful, deep thoughts to share this evening. I was going through some pictures for a scrapbook I am working on and I thought I would share some cute pictures I found. Thanks for indulging this nostalgic momma!

This is Anna decked out in her patriotic duds when we went to the airport to welcome home her uncle who had been deployed for a year!

My mom found her and one of her favorite dolls matching dresses. How do you resist?This is a first day of school shot We went to the circus for the 2nd anniversary of my 29th birthday this summer!Last but CERTAINLY not least, when you ask a 5 year old to give you their best "Game Face" just be ready for a good one! This was right before a soccer game!

4 Things. A Meme

I was tagged by my friend Stephanie at Stephanie's Mommy Brain to take this little challenge, so here goes!

4 Jobs I have had
1-Pharmacy Tech
2-Travel Agency
3-Bank Teller
4-Preschool Director

4 Movies I watch over and over (I try to not watch them over and over, but here are some I COULD)
1-The Bourne Movies
2-The Princess Bride
3-Pretty Woman
4-Home Movies

4 Places I have lived
1-Costa Rica
2-Ecuador
3-Kentucky
4-Texas

4 TV Shows I love to watch
1-Grey's Anatomy
2-Survivor
3-The Amazing Race
4-LOST

4 Places I have been
1-Brazil
2-Venezuela
3-Germany
4-England

4 People who e-mail me regularly
1-Julie W.
2-Lendy
3-My Hubby
4-Anna's Agent(I will blog about that at a later date)

4 Things I love to eat
1-Pizza
2-Tortilla rolls
3-No bake cookies
4-chips and queso

4 Places I would rather be
1-Disney World
2-A beautiful private beach
3-A cruise
4-visiting each of our friends that live overseas

4 Tings I look forward to in 2008
1-growing in relationship with God
2-growing in relationship with my husband
3-my baby starting Kindergarten!
4-going to all of the places mentioned above

4 People I would like to tag to do this challenge
1-Charity
2-Lendy
3-Sarah S.
4-Julie W.

Hope to hear from you girls real soon!

GOD IS SO GOOD!

I know that most of the people that read my blog are brothers and sisters in Christ, so I just want to encourage you that God is still doing amazing things and answering prayer. I have had a very stressful week and felt like the weight of the world is on my shoulders about many different things. I will not bore you with the details simply because they are not pertinant to the fact that my God is still very active in answering the prayers of His children, and because it would take WAY too long to go into. God is so faithful in meeting us where we are and allowing us to fumble a few times before reminding us who is in charge. God has been more real and active in me over the past few months than I have allowed Him to be in a while. It just takes me putting aside my selfish need to be in control and allow God to be the one who does the working. I am in a good place right now and my Faith in God's ability to hold me in His arms when I am weak and love on me has been strengthened. Didn't I already know this was the kind of God I serve? Absolutely, but don't we all need a little reminder every so often? I most certainly do!
Thank you God for being exactly what I needed, when I needed it! I trust in You!!!
If you do not know this God I speak of...please leave a comment and let me tell you more!

Pancake Emergency!

Ok, I swore that when I started a blog that I would not be one of those people who only posted once a month.....well, enough said if you have seen the date of my last post!
Well, I am reaching out to all of you wonderful chefs out there. I have pancake issues. We do a lot of breakfast for dinner around our house, and it is great until Tim or Anna requests pancakes(can you hear the Psycho music or is it just me?) Here is the issue. I ALWAYS burn them! I have seen them made and I know that you are supposed to cook them on a hot griddle and when they bubble up you flip them etc, etc. It never fails though that I burn them and the middle of them are undercooked. I have tried to adjust the heat, I have tried to put a little bit of butter on the griddle so they do not stick, I flip them as soon as I see the little bubbles pop on top. Bottom line, I need help! Call it silly, but it is so bad that when I failed, yet again, to make successful pancakes tonight, my sweet Anna said "Momma, would it work if you tried making them in the toaster oven?" I am willing to try anything at this point!
I know, "Why is she posting about pancakes?", but my family will appreciate any help you can give! From my pancake loveing family to yours....THANK YOU!


PS. This is the only food I seem to have an issue with. I am otherwise a really good cook! Really, I promise!

Coming to an end!

As I sit to write this, Tim and I are grieving. Yes, it is back to work tomorrow and the end of our Christmas break is officially here. I know some of you have been back to work since Wednesday but as teachers, we REALLY enjoy every tiny bit of vacation we can get. We had such a wonderful break. We usually make a trip to Alabama to see Tim's family the day after Christmas, but this year we headed to Colorado Springs. My sister and her husband are stationed at Ft. Carson and they do not know how long they will be there, so we decided to take advantage of them being there since I have never been (Tim was actually born in Colorado.) Thank you to Tim's family for so graciously sharing us with others! We had some good realxing time, but we could not go to Colorado and not do a little looking around! Here are some pics of our fun trip.

This is us 6 miles short of the top of Pike's Peak. It is as far as they would let us up since they were expecting 22 inches of snow that night!

This is a shot of the Rockies from Pike's Peak!

Our next little jaunt was to The Garden of the Gods. This is the leaning rock that Tim and Anna are so AMAZINGLY holding up!

Our happy, frozen, scared, little family!

Can you see the "Kissing Camels"

These are a couple of shots from outside the Focus on the Family Headquarters.

Cool Tour....Thanks Dr. Dobson!

Last, but definately not least.....The Royal Gorge! Check out the bridge!! This is one of my favorite shots! As I walked back across the bridge(yes, I walked it!) I stopped halfway and leaned over the edge and this is what I saw!!! What a Royal Rush!!!

So, you can see why we are sad it is all coming to an end! We had so much fun on our trip and for the record....I was able to drive for almost 2 hours!! I know!!! Anyways, it is back to work, but we will remember this trip! I hope all of you who have already gone back to work don't hate us too much, but I had to share. Please keep Tim and I in your prayers as we plug along this semester. I will be working on adding private kinder to the preschool I direct at our church, and Tim is in his last semester of grad school which he condensed into one year!!! Go Tim. He is going to school to become a principal, so he will not only be teaching this semester, he will be teaching, and looking for a principal job as well. Please lift him up! He has done so well and has maintained a 4.0 GPA! Can you tell I am so proud! Thank you all so much for caring to read about our family and we hope that God will truly bless all of you in this new year! Take Care!

I have been tagged!

My sweet friend Sarah has tagged me to tell 5 things that are weird about me. This is a funny topic because anyone who knows me, knows that their are MANY weird things about me. Sarah said the same thing about herself....I guess we are just a bunch of weirdos. I had to ask my husband if he had any to add, but again, the list was too lengthy. Anyways, here we go!
Let's do a countdown to #1

#5 I am VERY organized at work and am insistent that ALL things get put back in their proper place. Disorder drives me nuts! HOWEVER.....my house is not the same. Not to say that my house is nasty, but things do not have to be in their place all the time, I guess because many things don't even have a place to call home.

#4 Tim and I love to travel and we used to take long road trips. His family is in Alabama, and my sister and her husband are in Colorado Springs so we like to knock out these 12 hour trips in one fail swoop. I used to be able to drive 5-6 hours with no problem while Tim slept, and then we would switch.......then I had Anna. Now I can only make it about 30-45 minutes down the road before I am fighting sleep. Understandable you might say? Did I mention Anna if 5 YEARS OLD! Now Tim drives the whole way!

#3 When I go to bed at night I have a little rhythm I tap with my fingers while shaking one of my legs while I am waiting to fall asleep. I can't explain this one!

#2 I cannot have a pleasant bathroom experience unless the toilet paper rolls over the front of the roll and not from the back!

#1 Last but not least, when listening to the radio or watching TV, the volume number has to either be on an even number or a multiple of five:):):):) Again, take it or leave it!

So the question to all of you is...weird or obsessive compulsive???? You decide.

I am now going to tag Sarah S., Charity, Lendy, and Allison

FINALLY!!!

O.K. I know that I am WAY behind on this whole blogging thing, but better late than never, right? I have enjoyed reading my friend's blogs to see what they are all up to. The down side to reading your blogs is that I have used it as a replacement for e-mailing some of you! I figure that since I have read your blog and feel caught up with what you are up to, that I don't need to e-mail. Well, some of you have said you appreciate that I read your blog, but it does not help you know what we are doing. Therefore.......I am now in the blogging world.
I have gone back and forth about blogging. I have so many eloquent blogging friends, and eloquent I am not! I will give it a try though and who knows, maybe it will be great! So, there is my intro to the cyber world of blogging. I look forward to hearing from many of you!