Sunday, August 30

So ... we are just living life and I've not been a very good blogger these days. It was an ultra busy week with everything starting again last week.

Days are really long with schedules such that we are up at 5:00 am every morning and a couple of us out of the house by 5:30 am. Not winding things down at night until 10 or 10:30 pm makes for some very, very tired adults & kids by the end of the week. Rachel's day on Friday was absolutely crazy actually ... at school for band practice by 6:00 am and I was picking her up at school at 9:00 pm after the high school scrimmage game where she had to work in her trainer capacity. Craziness... craziness...... she claimed she wasn't tired but she fell asleep within 1 hour of coming home and sitting on the couch. :-)

So tired that we really didn't do a blessed thing this weekend. The only thing we accomplished this weekend was figuring out how to connect the computer to the TV so we could watch the Dallas Cowboys game that was blacked out here in Houston last night.

New week coming up right now.... parent night at the new school... band... baseball... etc. Good times!!

Will come up with something fun to write about soon.

MA

Bring on the Homework!!!

Oh.. we're back.  We're really back into the thick of things now.  School has started yet again in the cycle of life.  

John has gone back to work.  Not very thrilled.  Heck, I wish I had had 2.5 months off work.  Geez... and not have 12 Million emails waiting for me when I got back.  It's like a fresh slate.  I go for two weeks and have 1200 emails to wade through.  Somehow.. it's just not the same.

Rachel  - first day at Friendswood High School as a sophomore!!  10th Grader!!  Truly... I can't really have a 10th grader do I??  Hard to believe.  I don't have any pictures of her first day because the sophomores, juniors and seniors didn't have to go to school until almost noon because they held the freshman orientation this morning.  So... she wasn't up and dressed when it was time to take Stephen to school.  However.. I'll get one sometime this week.

Stephen - different story.  He started last week actually, but here are some pictures of his first day of 7th grade at Lutheran South Academy.  New school.. new faces.. new experiences.  All very good so far!  He's running cross - country this fall for sports at school.  Fall Baseball begins tomorrow evening with the first practice!! 

Note his "spiky" hair.  LSA is all uniform too so he looks quite sharp!!  He's got his middle school coolness going now (deodorant, gel in the hair and everything!) . 

So... we're off on the school races!!!  On to Day 2!!

MA

Tuesday, August 18

Getting ready for school around here.  School supply shopping. Clothes shopping.  Various Registrations.  Picking up of Books, instruments, etc.  You name it... we're probably doing it!

Today the kids have their annual checkups and any random vaccinations.  I think Stephen may have to have one (I haven't told him yet) and hoping Rachel doesn't.  Otherwise, we have to go through that whole fainting thing with her.  Perhaps they'll believe me at the pedi's office since she's done it a couple of times there.

Stephen starts his new school tomorrow.  He's very excited.  Went over there yesterday for Book Day.  You don't actually get your Books... but you go through and sign up for all the things you need and then you pay for your books at the end along with everything else... i.e. PE clothes, bible, etc. etc. Expensive days right now let me tell you.  

Rachel's registration is tomorrow.  How very delightful!  

Off to work now for a little bit then take them to the doctor... then work some more... then go to a Band Booster club meeting tonight.

Have a great Tuesday!

MA

We're still here....

Just catching up with life right now.

Registration for Band happened on Saturday and I've had a lot of work inputting all the names etc. into the accounting system.  Takes quite awhile.

Work is busy - went to New Orleans today on business.  Luckily, I caught the earlier plane by an hour because as soon as I got in my car in Houston, the skies opened up with rain, hail, incredible lightning and thunder.  Could not even see in front of me and watched as the lightening took out several transformers right in front of me.  Yikes.... took over an hour to get home from Hobby Airport.  Normally, would have taken me 20 minutes.

Stephen has his Middle School orientation on Friday!!  Very exciting going into 7th Grade and a whole new school with new people to make friends with.   His new school has mandatory uniforms so had to go buy all the goods for him to wear. He's very excited about this year.  Prayers for a good year.  He starts school in a week - on the 19th.

Rachel doesn't start school until the 24th but she might have well have started on August 3 with Band that is noon  - 9 pm most every day.  She also decided she's dropping soccer and has decided to be a part of the Athletic Trainers.  Apparently, they love her in there so she went up and asked on Monday and voila, she's in.  Goes to show how often she's had to go in for ice packs, etc. while in soccer.  Why the change?  Well, she loves to play soccer and she plays pretty decently, but she's not probably going to ever make a varsity team.  She'd be happy to play on a junior varsity team all day long as long she is enjoying the game.   However, the soccer coach up at our high school is really a very mean lady - terrible to the girls, uninspiring, awful in my opinion.  The things she says and does to these kids is appalling to me and I'm not the one having to live through it, just listen to it.  Is it just my kid and this coach don't get a long?  No... after some of my own research, it's not that at all.  She's just that terrible to the kids and shouldn't even be there.  Why is she?  1 guess.... her teams keep winning.   

So, she's decided that she just doesn't want to deal with it any more.  I have to say I don't really blame her.  There isn't a thing she can do to make it better nor can I.  Now, she's just going to make friends with all the other athletes while helping them on the training side.... I'm not even sure what it means except that she has to be up at the school now 2 or 3 days a week in the mornings at 5:30 am to be able to help the football players during practice from 5:30 - 8:30 am.  :-0  Even earlier than band which is 6:00 am when school starts!!  

What's the countdown until she gets a driver's license????   80 days or so..... :-)

MA

Friday, Friday, Friday.....

I can honestly say, I've never before been so happy to see a Friday!!  Wow.. what a week this has been.  

Going on vacation is great .... but really hard when you come back to catch up with your life, both personal and work.  

I came back to just about 1200 emails in my work email inbox.  That is insane.  Not too many of them have I just been able to hit delete and move on!  I've made it through about half of them this week along with all the new requests/questions/etc. coming in this week.  Holy smokes!!

Stephen had his cardiology appointment this week that we had been waiting for since June.  Great news and thank you Jesus, he's just fine.  Normal EKG yesterday.  The doc thinks his fainting may be due to not enough fluids and the fact he may have something similar to his sisters vasal vagal fainting  issues which, while not altogether normal, are not life threatening.    His heart is just fine.   We can start the meds again which is a good thing for him (and us).  However, the tough part is he's grown 2 inches and gained 5 pounds since we last measured him.  Off the meds, he's been eating so much better and his growth is showing it.  Hard to want to put him back on them, but he will need them for school.  It's a conundrum....

If I didn't mention it perhaps in May, I agreed to take on the volunteer position for this year in the Band Booster Club of Treasurer.  I may live to regret it.  We'll see.  This weekend will probably let me know.  This is the big Registration weekend where all 250+ families will come through tomorrow and have to check out with me and a few helpers.  I've had to prepare lots and lots and lots of stuff in order to get ready for this and then will have to enter and account for it all.   

Pray for patience and energy!!

Please pray for John and Rene this weekend.  They are over in Piedras Negras for their annual charity football game.  It's a bit dicey on the border towns right now so please pray for their safety and a good game.

Later!!

MA

We're HOME!!!!

Well... we made it home late today from our fabulous trip!!  I think we've had enough of each other by now so we unpacked the car and we all went to our separate corners for some alone time.  Pretty funny huh!

It's back to reality tomorrow - work for me and band starts for Rachel.

More posts to come!

MA

Boys Trip to Nowhere - July 29 - 31, 2009

As I mentioned in my Blog - all the Boys left the Gals and went off to the Land of Nowhere for a rustic adventure of bonding, fishing and roughing it. You’ve already seen what the girls did while they were out - see that post HERE. We were very civilized and had a great time. The Boys had a fabulous time as well on their rustic adventure.


First up - the setting for the adventure: Quarter Circle Circle Ranch located high in mountains about 50 miles south of Gunnison, CO and not even on pavement. You have to know it’s there to find it. It’s a working horse ranch with parents, two children. They have Palomino horses - 7 roam and are friendly, 2-3 stabled, goats, chickens and geese. They have a booming business in the Fall/Winter for hunting season and have consistent fishing visitors through the Summer as well.

The following are thoughts from both John and Stephen that I gathered while we were driving from Almont, CO to Amarillo, TX yesterday. Hopefully, my Dad and Scott will have a chance to give me their thoughts at some point as well.

Going out together just as boys was a good opportunity for the different male generations of the family to be together, to share the experience of staying in a rustic cabin enjoying the beautiful country and to share a common hobby like fishing. It is an experience that hopefully the boys will look back upon with fondness. We hope to make this a yearly trip.

All the boys - Walter, John, Stephen and Scott - took off from Crested Butte South Tuesday morning in the Jeep packed with our camping and fishing gear. Unfortunately, we arrived too late on the first day to really do much fishing. Instead, the younger boys played with some other boys staying in another cabin while the big boys setup everything and relaxed a bit. John cooked a great hamburger and bratz dinner for everyone and we all just lounged around that evening listening to Poppy tell us great stories.



There is no electricity at these cabins so any light to be had was given off by kerosene lamps. It did rain a bit the first night.

The next day, everyone got up and John made coffee on the wood burning stove early in the morning. Breakfast was simple stuff like honey buns for the boys. Went fishing to Pauline Creek which was about 15 miles away. Drove the Jeep off road a bit and then climbed down the hill to reach the creek. John found himself walking through flowers that bees were visiting and an unfriendly bee decided to sting John to shoo him away! Being John the Great means even when stung, you don’t stop.

Stephen was leading the group down the mountain until Poppy took over the lead. Fishing in this creek was fun. Scott caught two fish today in this creek - small trout. No one else was successful, but we had a good time fishing. Finished our fishing late afternoon and returned up the mountain and back to the cabin for dinner. It rained today too several times. John cooked Bratwurst, hamburgers and beans for dinner today (again). Went to bed early and got up early the next morning.



Everyone took a shower in the outdoor shower (hot/cold water). Went fishing again today at a creek about 5 miles away. It was a windy day fishing there. Poppy caught one fish. Fished there for quite awhile - about 3.5 hours. Headed back to the cabin and loaded everything up for the drive back to CB South.



A few things about the Ranch and Cabins -

Outhouse - there was no indoor plumbing in the cabins - which meant the restroom facilities were in the form of an Outhouse. It was about 50 feet from the cabin. The boys tell us it was clean.

Spring Fed Pond with/Well House - This is where you go with a pail for water for cooking/drinking/storing food items that need to be kept cool. This was a job for the boys who would go with buckets and retrieve the water.

Interesting historical tidbit about this place/water spring - This is where the Ute Indians used to camp during the summertime. After the Ute Indians, it was a stop on the Stage route from Gunnison to somewhere for stagecoaches heading to Gunnison. Wonder if the Wells Fargo Stages went through here?

Milking Goats - they each got to try their hand at milking goats! I think everyone but Scott tried it. Stephen thought it was cool.

Wood Burning Stove - John LOVED cooking with the wood burning stove. But, of course he would if you know him. The MORE Rustic the Better. He says it took a little talent to get it going but apparently, he figured it out as he did set off the smoke/CO2 alarm at one point!!

Kerosene Lamp - Your light comes via kerosene lamp. No electricity. Means... no heat either. John said you would use the wood burning stove to keep the place warm all night long.

Favorites from the Adventure!

Stephen’s favorite thing was fishing.

John loved the isolation part of being out there. He wouldn’t mind it if it had been further away from the main cabin and he’d like to have stayed more days.
He’d like to go and then go on a pack trip. He also found it interesting that the 4 wheeler has replaced the horse as the mode of transportation on a ranch - or at least this ranch. In the time it took for someone to saddle up the horse, the guy just got on his 4 wheeler and rounded up the horses to get in the corral. Interesting, indeed.


PS - Not many fish were caught - 3 little ole fish. The Gals were expecting a whole bushel of fish to come home. Thus, our trout dinner was supplemented with chili dogs!! :-)

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Couple of Other Notes:

• We made it to Amarillo last night and had a great Mexican dinner at El Tejavan on I40. Highly recommend it.


• It’s a lot warmer here than in Colorado (boo hiss)


• A Bear visited the CB South house where my sister, Perry, rented and my parents as well as my other sister, Stacey and her kids are all staying. Apparently, that trout dinner we had the other night was a little too smelly in the trash as the Bear ripped open the “Bear Proof” trashcan to get to it. Apparently, said Trash can sits right outside Perry’s window which was OPEN that night so it was a bit scary I hear. I probably would have been a bit petrified myself. Wow!!


• We’re off to Dallas tonight to see Laila & Justin, talk scrapbooking, and run by the new Dallas Cowboy Pro Shop.