"Hurrication" Highlights

After two weeks at my parents house, we rolled back to town last Friday afternoon. We had a great time in Mansfield despite Keegan throwing up every 48 hours. (exciting, huh?) I thought he would be over it and then it would happen again. We are really not sure what it was, but the good news is he is better! :) This made it to where we could not really visit anyone, but we were able to throw in some activities that made is fun. Jonathan was able to stay in Mansfield until our power was turned and it made for some much needed family time. In fact, our boys slept in until 7:30 every morning! (Yes, that is sleeping in and it felt great!) Thank you Ike.

The Highlights...
*The Zoo. It is starting to get more enjoyable taking Keegan to the zoo because now he knows what to look for and what they are called! We took mom and my neice Jacey with us. Look at Jacey's face in that picture! Priceless!




*My Cousin, Shana Banana, gave birth to her baby boy...Jordan Malachi. I am so proud of her and he is beautiful!


*We went to the farm with Mrs. Debbie (my mom's neighbor and mine growing up). She has her horse, Jackie, in a stable at the farm and the owners were nice enough to let us experience all the animals up close and personal. I am pretty sure he likes animals from a distance and only in books. Charlotte the pig and Delilah the Donkey were all up in his business. However, Jack was rather fond of Delilah, and the donkey followed him all around. I wanted to take her home with us but I am not sure Jonathan would appreciate that a donkey in our back yard!







*Dinner out with our family. We went to a restaurant on Joe Pool lake and had a nice armoma of cigarettes combined with the boats gas smell. Isn't that lethel? Anyhow, we had a fun time and fed the ducks afterwards.

Really?

We found out that our house was wrapped yesterday. (again) I heard that toliet paper was a scarce commodity...and they wasted it on our trees. Somebody must be really bored.

And an update...Our house still does not have power and will be out until next week.

Our "Ike" Vacation

It looks like we might be around Mansfield for a few more days. I called my neighbor and she said that there are so many lines down around us and Centerpoint has not been out to repair anything yet. I feel so bad for them, but they are all cooking for each other, being kind and sharing generator plugs, and bringing back ice from an ice sculpting company to pass around. Yes, the last resort is a ice sculpting company. She said also that food and gas were hard to get and it would be better just to stay until things were back to normal. Of course, there is no way..no how...I would go back without power. BUT, praise God he has sent a cool front for all those without a/c and they actually had to sleep under many blankets to keep warm from the cool of the night.

What is so strange is UPS and Fedex resumed delivering on Monday. It is so strange that some things seem so normal, but other things are very much quite the opposite.

In the meantime, Jonathan does not have to go back until we have power at the house so it kind of feels like a vacation that we did not plan for. His boss is allowing him to work from Dallas even though the office is opening up tomorrow.

Jack ended up with the beginnings of two ear infections and Keegan a sinus infection. I am very grateful we were able to come up here and get them healthy!

Loving the A/C!

YIKES IKE!!!
We survived Hurricane Ike, but I could not survive the lack of power. Plus Jack's cold was not getting any better and wanted to be close to a doctor. We headed up to Mansfield this afternoon since who knows when we will get it back.

So I know one thing: Hurricanes in the night without power are very scary. I think I underestimated the power of this storm and next time I will get out of dodge if at all possible. We stayed up the whole night on guard listening to the strong gusts....not sure I could sleep anyway.

Our house suffered no damage, so we were very grateful for that. Jonathan's sister's house has a big whole in the roof and water damage upstairs. When we went for a walk the afternoon after, we realized how lucky we were. There were lots of trees down...some in houses, and some on cars.







The house behind our back fence had a giant pine tree fall sideways into their neighbor's yard. It could have very well fallen on our house. Thank you Lord for your protection!
*This is the best pic that I could get, but this pine tree is HUGE and is the entire length of a yard and a half.



The damage in our neighborhood and surrounding areas is so sad, but my heart goes out to all the people who lost their homes and families that lost loved ones.

YIKES IKE!

We decided to stay put instead of getting in the throng of traffic out of the city. Our area was not a mandatory evacuation. Besides, we are north and nothing much will happen here. (I hope) I do anticipate losing electricity for a good 24 hours, because all you have to do is get a small storm and it goes out. We have been watching the news on and off for a the last day and a half and they are pleading for people to evacuate in Galveston and surrounding low lying areas. BUT still, BUT STILL....people are deciding to brave the storm. Are they crazy? One woman is turning her garage into a booze party and inviting her neighbors. One man is finding a spiritual connection with the hurricane and staying although he knows he might die....but that is okay with him. "One with nature" is his swan song. The coast guard are already rescuing people who are stuck in the surge waters, and it has not even rained yet. It is estimated that 40% of the residents in Galveston decided to stay. Lord, help them in their stupidity to not heed the warnings. I am praying that people do leave when there is still time left.

I think we will be up most of the night listening to the weather, and I would be lying if I was not a little amped up to see it in action. The strength of this storm is something that I have never been apart of but I am relieved to be at arms length to Ike.

The 2am Sprinkler

Last night on every hour, Keegan kept getting up. I evidently was sleeping really sound, because I missed the the first three times that Jonathan got out of bed to take care of Keegan. Around the fourth time, I woke up and I asked what was wrong. He said that he wasn't sure, but we just needed to let him cry it out. After a good ten minutes his cry sounded strange and Jonathan headed upstairs to see what was going on. He came back down and said, "Keegan just took his diaper off and he peed on everything." I knew this moment would happen at some point, but was inwardly hoping it wouldn't.

At 2am we decided to look for duck tape and the only thing we could find was painter's tape. As we were searching for some tape... Jonathan mentioned that the first time he got up around 11pm his diaper was off, but he just put a fresh one back on and put him back in bed not thinking he would do it again. Of course, I probably looked at him with the eyes only a sleepy, cranky wife can give that spoke a million words that he could almost audibly hear. (sorry babe!) So with horns growing out of my head and steam coming out of my ears, we headed up stairs and wrapped the tape around his diaper (a few times). After the job was complete, Keegan looked up at us as if he was satisfied with his new blue addition on his diaper and said..."That's niiiice...oh...niiiice."

I could not help but smile, and boy did I need some comical relief.

Summer Vacation

We stepped back into the Hill Country this summer with Jonathan's family and visited River Inn Resort. The weather was nice the entire time and never got really hot. I used to live for summer's to lay out, but now I much prefer to lay out under a tree, read a book on a breezy day. The one hot commodity that River Inn Resort has is a flume that dumps you out in the river. When the crowd left after the busy weekend, we took a day and had it all for ourselves.







Laura and I got out there a few times and tried to not hold on, but only kept our arms up just long enough for a picture. Brad, I know you are laughing right now, because you thought it was not that fast. Okay..I am a weanie.


This has to be may favorite picture of my father in law.


Brad and his princess who preferred this little boat.

Past that, my beautiful niece Brianna opted to not get in the water too much.



This was Keegan's first fishing experience. We got him a Lighting McQueen fishing pole and instead of a hook it had a red plastic circle. Jonathan thought it was quite lame because it did not have an actual hook. I think temporarily he forgot Keegan was 2 an that he might be missing an eye after this vacation. Keegan thought it was so fun to cast it in (or actually throw it in) and then run the opposite direction from the river, dragging the red circle behind him. Okay, so we have a little more to teach him about fishing...but at least it is a start. Jonathan finally agreed that a hook would have been a bad idea. :)



The Hill Country is calling me back...

Lovebugs.: Do and Die

It is Lovebug season and I am tired of them getting in my hair, congregating with the mosquitoes in my backyard, and flying into our house. For some reason, they are in love with our backyard. It keeps Keegan busy chasing them around and yelling, "BEE FLY!" Anything that is a bug and flies is named this....we are working on it! I am ready for their season to end and go back to where they live the other parts of the year when they are not bugging us.

Anyhow, I looked up the love bug to find out how long I will have to deal with them and this is what I found out.

"The adult lovebug feeds on the nectar of flowering plants. Upon reaching maturity the lovebug spends almost the entirety of its life copulating with its mate, hence its numerous romantic nicknames. The male and female attach themselves at the rear of the abdomen and remain that way at all times, even in flight. In fact, after mating, the male dies and is dragged around by the female until she lays her eggs. Females lay up to 350 eggs in debris, and about 20 days later the eggs hatch into larvae. The larvae may live for months before passing into adulthood"

On a funny note, those poor females. Not only are they carrying around 350 eggs...they are carrying around their dead mate. Can a girl get a break...seriously? You know they are cursing Eve with the rest of us. And those males...they never get to learn from their mistakes of being lured into the lovefest.

On a serious note, can you imagine how many people can relate? I am glad my husband actually talks back and listens to me, but I am sure there are some people they could compare their marriage to that of a lovebug. But sometimes I think...am I dead weight my husband carries around? Am I doing my part to keep marriage interesting and not lifeless? Do I conserve enough energy at the end of the day to laugh and have a conversation with my hubby when he gets home from work? Do I listen to his day enough? Do I encourage him? Do I a pray for him enough?

Maybe something to think about....interesting how God can use something so annoying to teach us a life lesson.

Food Pantry Fun

Our Sunday school class once a month goes to a food pantry (supported by the church) to load up bags of groceries and give them to families that come in for assistance. We thought it would be such a great experience for Keegan so they came along with us.

Our friends, The Keplers, brought their two boys Billy (the one in green) and Gavin (the one in red). I promise that we did not plan for them to match! :)

Keegan was pretending to take notes and writing down what he saw on the cans. So cute!



I can not wait for our family to experience more things like this as they get older. Even though there were more cans misplaced than being put in the right spot, I hope that God will bless our efforts in raising our children to serve.

2009 Popular Baby Names

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On a Roll....

After a good blog fast...I am back. It has been extremely hard but worth it. It is amazing how your life seems more at ease when you get your priorities back in order. My time with the Lord has been amazing and the blog break was very timely. So, I will catch up on my life in the past twenty nine days a little at a time.

But for a start...we got back a week and a half ago from our vacation in Hunt, Texas. We come up in our driveway and see this huge pile of wet toilet paper on our front porch and a few caught pieces of toilet paper in our magnolia tree.

So, we got rolled...wrapped...whatever you want to call it. Rolled is what you call it in Mansfield. Wrapped it what you call it in Houston. My first group of sophomore girls set me straight on this issue. Mainly Miss Heather who said that if I said that I rolled...it meant that I was getting a little high...and not the distance of the thrown toilet paper.

Back to my wet pile of toilet paper. Some nice neighbor of mine took it all down for us and left the evidence for us to sort out. Either some twerps got the wrong house, an old student of mine found where I lived (only a handful know), or one of our friends felt like being a teenager again. Luckily whoever did it got less than a 6 pack and did not have a strong arm. (or they got caught)

If anyone has information on this "rolling"...please step forward. :)