Happenings

Beauty in the Common Things: The Internet. Common today...not so much 15 years ago. Daniel and I will be teaching Wee Worship this month at church and the internet is a great resource. I can talk via video to friends far away, go shopping, get my masters degree, and read books that are out of print all by a few touches of a button. Amazing!

Listen In: The Fresh Beat Band on Nick, Jr. We don't watch this often, but its kind of a cute show for kids.

Dinner Plans: Hmm....thats too far from now.

View from the Kitchen Window: A dreary day? A sunny day? Can't fully tell...but I know its colder outside!

Since the last blog entry, I had my birthday. Some people avoid their birthdays. I milk it! My husband actually spoiled me this birthday...maybe because its so close to thirty! I got an iPad, a cake, and ice cream. Daniel said he tried to get me one of those Barbie dress cakes because I happened to mention how I always wanted one and never got one...but he got this Little Mermaid cake instead:

It was so sparkley and YUMMY! Good job HEB! I got to keep Arial and Flounder doubled as a mirror...haha. We shared this and ice cream with our lunch buddies at school. I'm also enjoying the iPad. I use it to play games and journal as I'm settling down for the night. Grant loves to use it for games and to watch movies off of Netflix that streams through the internet. Another plus for the internet, watching movies on demand without a fat VCR!

The weekend before my birthday, Daniel, my brother and I went to the Iron Man Professional Bull Riding contest at Cowboys Stadium. Thank you to my friend Amber for the tickets, even though she didn't sit with us! I got to catch up with my big brother, see some adorable cowboys, and giant bulls. It had been a long time since I went to something like that, and I enjoyed it.

Our seats were right near the arena, or as I accidently called it-the bull pen. HAHA. I knew that sounded odd...can you tell I'm not a huge baseball fan??

Speaking of baseball...or something like it...Daniel is now back at umpiring softball. This is why I have some time to blog because he's out in his uniform yelling at teenage girls...haha.

I made him pose last week when he did a tournament for jr. varsity. Grant and I got to watch him for a while why we waited for our play date to come pick us up. Ok, we didn't really get to see him...Grant just yelled "Daddy! Come here!" half the time, and I was chasing him around the ballpark the rest of the time. One of the reasons I support him via telepathic style.
Today Grant and I were supposed to have another play date, but I'm not feeling up to par. This started yesterday and my Mom kind of feels the same way. We can't decide whether its allergies or something else. I'll just keep downing my Allegra and Flonase and cross my fingers.
So to take it easy today, I'll be doing plenty on the computer and doing "Just Dance Kids" for the Wii on the couch with Grant. My brother got me that and "Just Dance 2" for my birthday. If you haven't tried it, its pretty fun!

Wrapping up July

Beauty in the Common Things: Not having anything to do or anywhere to go. All summer, our family has been coming, going and back around again. It was nice today just to be lazy and love on my son.

Listen In: Honey barking outside. She is inside for the week being spoiled. She got 'fixed' and has to rest inside until she heals properly. She occasionally barks outside, I think to let Rowdy know she's still here.

View from the Kitchen Window: A lab mix looking depressed. Rowdy apparently is a sensitive soul. He literally looks sad that Honey is not with him. I remember when he was a puppy, our other dog Daisy got hit by a car. Daniel  buried her in the pasture next to our yard. Rowdy sat there for hours just staring in the direction of the buriel. We'd call him over to us and he'd just give us those sad puppy eyes.

Dinner Plans: Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

My nephew came back and stayed an entire week with us. It also happened to be the week my sister in law stayed a week with us. It was a fun, but tiring week.

We took a visit to see my niece, Vivian, who Grant now paid more attention to. He loved on her and was so happy to feed her. Here he is helping feed her and looking so happy to help me.

My family. It took a while to get us all together, and some of us are STILL not paying attention!

Fletcher and Grant had a great time playing the entire week. Grant would wake up every morning and immediately say, "Mimi's house?" , which is where Fletcher was staying. Here they are helping MiMi with some watering after playing in the pool.

Here, we are going to see Daniel at the ballpark. I made them hold hands whenever I could just because it was so darn cute!

Also, this week happened to be Vacation Bible School at our church. Daniel and I were both teachers and my mom and sister in law even got in on it. Here are some of the ministers helping the kids with one of the songs. It was only 4 days long, but it sure wore us all out! But I was definatley glad to be reminded of the Fruits of the Spirit.

Daniel and I, along with being Bible lesson teachers, were called on to be puppets. The one on the right cracked me up.

Grant was a little too small to be in a class for VBS, but joined in the action anyways. Here he is, of course, singing!

Here is my sister in law, Erica and my nephew Fletcher. Fletcher was in Erica's group for VBS. By day 2 he was absoluetly in love with her. Looks like he already has roaming eyes....haha.

Every day we did something different after VBS. One day we went to Hawaiian Falls, a local small waterpark. Grant and Fletcher loved it!

Here are all of us after enjoying the water.

Here is Grajt spraying his Daddy. Daniel then tried it out and sprayed a bunch of pregnant women. Whoops!

Grant is didnt know where to start when he got there!

Here is Fletcher spraying Erica. I tried to tell him that wasn't the way to get a woman!

After all the family had left, Daniel and I took Grant for a day trip to Glen Rose, TX to see the Fossil Rim Wildlife Park. It is a drive through safari. We were blessed that it was cool that morning, unlike this week being in the 100s.

Grant loved being able to get out of his car seat and roam around the cab to see the animals.

Here is Grant feeding some deer. I loved how the deer would come right up to you that you could pet them. Too bad hunting isn't this easy!

I loved it when we finally saw the giraffes. The herd was running with several zebra. Grajt yelled "Dinosaurs!". Indeed, they looked like dinosaurs running with their long legs and necks.

This rhino got my "So glad you're behind this fence" award. We got pretty close and he looked sweet, but I definatley wouldn't like to make him angry!

The ostrich got the "Thanks for making my husband flinch" award. This sucker was hungry and let you know it. Daniel was very hesitant to roll down the window.

rajt loved also being able to pretend 'drive'. Almost every time we get in the car he asks to drive. Boy, will we have our hands full in 14 years! Hmm, maybe they will raise that minimum age by then!

Lastly, we had to stop and see the dinosaurs. Glen Rose is also known for its Dinosaur State Park where there are footprint fossils and Dinosaur World where they have life size dinosaurs. This one was on the way out of the wildlife park. I'm sure glad they are extinct!