Updates...

I haven't posted much lately, we've been pretty busy. Thought I would do a big update post.

Riley is nearing the end of his 9th grade year. He's in Sylvan for some extra help 2 nights a week. So far it seems to be working well, he's learning to study better and take good notes, and we are hoping it will help him with his AP Human Geography test that he has coming up. He is in study sessions 2 or 3 times a week, before or after school, for that, and ROTC keeps him busy with PT tests and different drill and marksmanship challenges. Add in football, and a pretty rigorous AP biology and AP English class, and then Sea Cadets, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and church, he's a busy guy. But he's a good kid, and has a great attitude, and he keeps us laughing.

Regan is nearing the end of 5th grade, elementary school, my baby!! She's in the middle of the dreaded STAAR testing and so afraid that she won't pass the STAAR tests and they will hold her back! I hate the fear they put in these kids. She makes all A's and B's so she has nothing to worry about, but she's also been in tutoring at 7am every morning for about a month, to work on math. They have one more to go, and then we might just have to take a mental health day! She's getting excited to go to middle school though, even if I'm not. I just can't believe my baby will be going to middle school.

And other than that, we've just been getting stuff done around the house. Finally worked on the downstairs bathroom, needed to fix the light in there and change out the curtain, then decided to switch out the toilet, but hey, why don't we change the floor too, it just kind of snowballed on us! But, now that it's done, it looks great, and we're ready to tackle other parts of the house now. It seems like every room needs SOMETHING. I guess that's the price of being a homeowner! No complaints here though.

David and I are great. In fact, our church asked us to go to Africa on a missions trip in December, and David said yes! He's never had any desire to go to Africa, but he knows I have always wanted to go. Our church has a campus in Xai-Xai, Mozambique, and in December, they host Christmas parties for the kids there, and we will be going with a team of mostly married couples to help with the Christmas parties. I can't wait, I'm so incredibly excited about it! Just have to get those dreaded shots first, ugh!!!

So, we would appreciate your prayers as we get ready, and of course, I will be updating along the way, and I'm sure I am going to have tons of pictures when we get back. I can't wait!!

 

WICKED!

I was SO excited to see Wicked! It was Regan's first musical, and I wasn't sure how she would appreciate it, but I think David is probably tired of being dragged to everything that comes to town. Now I have a new play buddy!

It was great and Regan really enjoyed it. The sets and dresses were amazing. We went early so tickets weren't as expensive, but we did get pretty good seats, and not too far back to see anything, so that was nice! War Horse and Annie are coming, so I am hoping we can go see those too. I love musicals!

Radiant Conference

The Radiant Conference this year was AMAZING!! I really enjoyed it, and was so happy that we managed to sell out of our cookies right before the conference started, so I could go and not worry about anything but volunteering! It started Thursday night with Priscilla Shirer, who is one of my absolute favorite speakers, and then Friday morning, Friday evening, and Saturday morning, with Lisa Bevere, and our Pastors, Joe and Lori Champion. The music was great, the specials were awesome, it was just really top-notch. I really enjoyed it, and getting to spend time with friends and have lunch and just have a kind of "girls weekend"!  (David did campus support)  Here's a recap video:
 http://celebrationtx.smugmug.com/Events/Radiant-Conference-2014/Videos/i-sWtTzzF

Juan in a Million

This is one of our favorite places to eat breakfast! And, I had a Groupon that was about to expire, AND we got to beat the SXSW crowds, and celebrate the (near) end of cookie season.

We always get the "Don Juan" and Riley has never before finished it, even though he always talks smack about how he can eat 2 or 3 of them if he wanted. Well, he finally was able to finish one, but it looks like he's about to hurl it up!

So after breakfast, Regan and I headed back out to finish up our cookie selling!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Regan told me the other day, "Mom, no more homemade Valentine's, okay?" Ugh, shot to the heart! It was bad enough that this was my very last school Valentine party to go to, now I can't even make fun Valentine's!? So, I bought her some Fun Dip and called it a day. She signed up to bring Ranch Dip (the good kind, she said) and David had the day off work, so I figured we would both go.

First, David made surprise lunch reservations for us at Fogo de Chau! The kids have separate things tonight (Riley and David are off to Ft. Hood, Regan and I have a cookie booth) so we figured we would celebrate early. It was nice! After lunch, we ran to the store to get the good dip, then went to Regan's school, where David surprised her with flowers.

I think she liked having her daddy come and bring them to her too! Then we came home and took a nap before we had to run pick up kids, get cookies, and go our separate directions. Ah, true love. It's not all hearts and flowers, it's the day to day commitment of being there for each other through thick and thin and still being able to have a conversation over the lunch table (that's not about the kids!)

Bling Your Booth!

Our Girl Scout Council is having a competition to "Bling Your Booth"! So Regan and her friend Marillah decided to get together and bling our booth! The only problem was it was SO COLD! And we had a busy day with early booths, and Saturday church now, so the booth we were at was 8-10pm! It was so late, and we were so cold! But the girls did great, we had signs and super-hero capes and tiaras and pink hair chalk and Mardi Gras beads, and all kinds of glitter! Not to mention gloves and scarves and ear wraps and puffy coats! And cake pops!!

And to top it all off, they still managed to sell 40 boxes. Way to go girls!

Cold Selling!

It's been SO cold lately, and we've missed a lot of booths due to bad weather, so we are really trying to make up the time. We did a booth after school, and it was SO COLD! We couldn't feel our nose or fingers about halfway in. And the bad part was, we only sold 11 boxes! We had a really cute customer though. Although, this is NOT the "Cookies for the Troops" program!

One Big Update!

It's been busy lately, haven't had much chance to update things.

Riley's been doing PT for his knee injury. We got the all-clear this week so he's really enjoying being back on full workouts at school. He can run and lift weights again, so he's happy.  He got an invitation to a Naval Academy Admissions Forum in Houston last weekend, so he and David went for Friday night, spent the night with David's cousin Jimmy, and did the admissions forum on Saturday. It sounded like they got a lot of good information, and Riley came home with a renewed determination to keep those grades up!!

For Regan and I, cookie season is on in full force. I have done the big cookie lottery, the cookie mega-drop, and we've completed our first week of cookie sales. I think we've sold around 300 boxes so far, but I need to do a good count.  Her science fair is over, and I couldn't be happier. I hate science fairs almost as much as I hate spiders. There's no need for either, really.

Today we had a SNOW DAY! Really, an ice day. It's been hilarious watching everyone on Facebook make fun of us wussy Austinites, but really, there were over 250 car accidents in the last 2 days with all the ice on the roads. So, we've just stayed home, eaten soup, and slept in. Can't complain! (Well, I can, because David keeps the house so cold, I have taken to wearing my jacket and scarf, and ear wrap, and gloves, INSIDE!) I'm a true Texan. I am ready for summer!

Tonight, David is at a men's conference at church, Riley is at Sea Cadets, Regan has 2 friends over, I have people coming to pick up cookies, Hunter ate a bag of powdered sugar, and it looks like a cocaine bust gone bad in my living room!!

New Years in Jacksonville

New Years in Jacksonville

Well, David and I have been trying to get out to see Elise for a while now, and it just hasn't happened. He doesn't have a lot of time to take off yet with the new job, and to get Hunter boarded, and take care of all the other pets around here, well, it just hasn't worked out yet. But, finally, I decided to just do a girl's road trip! Regan and I got up, I did some laundry, we packed and left town around noon. Stopped at Target to get a few things for the trip, and got into Jacksonville by dinner time! Had dinner with Aunt Kathy and Uncle Danny, got to meet and hold baby Mason (he was born on my mom's birthday, December 4th, so he's still a tiny little guy!) and see Elise.

I wasn't sure if she would remember me, or even want to be around me! She does have some stranger anxiety, but once I sat down on the floor and played with her present a little bit, she came over and put her forehead against mine and started talking to me! It was precious. After that, we were BFF's again. She loved to take Regan into her play house and have Regan read to her.

On New Year's Eve, we went to lunch with Nancy (Trista's BFF) and she had some friends over and we played games, 5 Second Rule and Mexican Train, watched some movies, and tried to stay up till midnight. Elise didn't make it much past 8, I barely made it to midnight, after falling asleep on the couch around 11! Then on New Year's Day, we went back to Aunt Kathy's for lunch of roast, black eyed peas and cabbage. Regan ate a whole head of cabbage just about, it was yummy! I always hate to leave, I feel close to my mom with that side of her family.  But I know we will be back soon. Regan and I made good time getting home, and I think the boys missed us a little bit!

Christmas #1

After church on Sunday, we had first Christmas with Mimi and Papa. The kids were very excited to finally get to open a present! Riley got a notebook (for school!) and Regan got One Direction perfume and poster! Then we went to dinner at Magnolia and then to Mozart's to check out their light show. It was neat, and very "Austin". Thankfully we got there just in time, and were able to come and go pretty quick, they were SO crowded, so we didn't bother with getting coffee or anything. Came home, and David and Riley were up late getting his notebook all set up.

Silly Stringed!

David took the kids Christmas shopping to buy me presents (isn't that sweet!) and they came home and ambushed me as I was getting ready to go out! They silly stringed me in the bathroom, 3 cans all over me! It was all in good fun though, and then David and I headed to Georgetown for tea/coffee and to walk around the square and look at lights and window shop.

Sewing Practice

I bought a sewing machine off Craigslist a few months ago, mainly to sew patches on things. Well, I learned through trial and error how to thread the needle and bobbin, and so, to practice, I sewed all the leftover patches on Regan's Junior Girl Scout vest. She's not a Junior anymore, and all I had at the time was olive green thread for Riley's Sea Cadet uniform. So, I practiced and got all the patches on, then went and bought clear thread. Then I sewed all her patches on her NEW Cadette vest. I can't believe she's a Cadette! She found her old Daisy and Brownie vests and tried them on, and it was too funny, they are so tiny now!

Anyway, here's the front, I need to get a picture of the back now with all our Arkansas trip patches on, it's already getting full!

Schlitterbahn

Regan won 2 free Schlitterbahn tickets for selling so many Girl Scout cookies earlier this year. Well, it's been so crazy this summer, we never had a chance to use them! Riley got to go twice this summer, and Regan hadn't been able to go, so I promised her a girl's day where we would just take off and go the last weekend they were open. Riley and David were supposed to go to Brady Lake for a Sea Cadets/Young Marine's joint training campout weekend thing, and there was NO WAY on earth we were going to be able to drag Regan out there after we were so bored last year! So, it was going to be a great weekend to go.

Well, it rained a lot, so much so that Riley's event was canceled at the last minute, which worked out well for me so I didn't have to worry about what to do with Hunter. And then, come to find out, Regan's friend Marillah, who also sold more than 1000 cookies and won the Schlitterbahn tickets too, also planned on going to Schlitterbahn the same day! So we met up with them, and Amie and I got to chill a little and hang out in the wave pool while the girls got to ride every little thing they wanted to ride! It was the perfect day to go, there were not many people there and the lines were very short.

After we left, we went to dinner in New Braunfels, and got home late, and very worn out. But Regan enjoyed her girls day and loved Schlitterbahn. It had been so long since we had been, she didn't even remember ever going there!

My First Ink

And my last! I've always heard tattoos are addictive but nope, they're just painful! Well, I've always wanted a tattoo but I couldn't decide what exactly I wanted. I mean, I haven't even painted my bedroom because I can't settle on a paint color! How will I live with something forever!

Well, today is mine and David's 20th anniversary, and what better way to commemorate it than with a tattoo? David was surprised, he didn't think I would really do it. I met him for lunch at Mandola's Italian Deli and it was really good, and then I went to the tattoo place. Talk about out of my element! But they were super nice and it was pretty easy. I was surprised that it hurt as bad as it did, I'm Ms. Natural Childbirth and all, but wow, ouch! The outlining was bad, the filling in wasn't too bad, or I was just numb by then!

So, what do you think? I told David he's been a figurative pain in the neck for the last 20 years, now he's literally a pain in my neck! But, no matter what, he's stuck with me now. I figure if we can make it for the first 20 years, the rest of our lives will be easy!

I like it, the kids were shocked, Riley thinks it's cool, Regan wasn't too happy, but glad my hair covers it. 

Now it's David's turn. Maybe my name in big fancy letters across his chest?

Another Court Update

We had another court update. It was really a status update on Elise, and Kenzie came this time, so it was an update on her as well, how much she has done and what her plans are. She is wanting Elise back, but has a long road ahead of her. Having her live with her in a shelter is not an option, and she's doing very well right now.

We go back in October, so we will see how things progress between now and then. "Dad" is now out of the picture since he decided he doesn't want to be involved, so that's a good thing. But here is the cutie patootie, she's so adorable!!

Cooking Lessons

I've been teaching Regan to cook a few things. She loves to cook and is always asking to help out, and usually I'm in a big hurry and don't want to take the time to mess with teaching her. But then I thought hey, teach a kid to cook, and that's one less thing for me to do :)

So we started off easy, with tacos, and the next night I taught her chicken fettuccine Alfredo, so she's got a couple of basic meals she will know how to make when she does move out on her own. Hopefully she won't be reduced to Ramen noodles like her brother (he "doesn't know how to push a few buttons")

Oh, and we got to wear our matching aprons from Ikea!!