Big Honkin' Update!

Here it is...everything that's been going on with us the past few months.

In the waning days of summer before school started, we made a last trip to the beach for the day. After the devastation in Galveston due to Hurrican Ike, I'm not sure when we'll be going back. I'm glad we had this last day...





Trying to keep Jackson busy those last few days before school started, we went out and got a Lego kit. I thought he would work on this over a couple of days, but instead he worked on it for several hours straight and finished it that same afternoon! I just love this picture of him...it totally represents how he looked at the end of a great summer...tanned, bleached hair, happy.


The week before school started Jordan got braces put on. I took this "before" picture on the way to the orthodontist, but forgot to take an "after" picture. Eleven years old, getting braces, starting middle school, growing up...*sigh*


We celebrated Jim's 44th birthday by going out with a group of friends to a fun wine bar and then to dinner at Del Frisco's steak house.




Labor Day weekend we rented two boats on Lake Conroe with a few friends. This time we rented a pontoon boat, like we usually do, and a speed boat so the kids could go tubing. The kids had a blast!





Another competitive gymnastics season got under way. This is Jordan's whole team and her with her two best friends on the team, Jayda and Hannah, all looking cute in their rock star warm-ups!


So far we've had 3 meets with 3 more to go...Jordan is improving her scores with each meet. I continue to be so impressed with her attitude and work ethic...she has to work hard at gymnastics, it doesn't come easy...but she loves it and won't think of giving it up. She sacrifices a lot of social time to be in this sport and sometimes I wonder if she's making the right choice, but for now it's what she really wants to do so we let her do it.

Jensen has entered the world of soccer. The jury is still out on whether she likes it or not, but she sure is cute!


And there you have it.

Hurricane Ike

Wow! I can't believe it's been more than a month since I've posted here. Promise to do a little better but before I get to what's been going on since the start of school, I thought I'd post my hurricane update. Most people who read this blog will have already read about this in e-mail but I wanted to post it here also so I have a record of it.

Well, two weeks to the day after hurricane Ike hit Glaveston/Houston and points north, I can finally report that we are back on our feet and fully functional. It’s been a long two weeks. The storm itself was something that I don’t ever want to experience again. The kids and I will leave town next time if at all possible.

We lost power on Friday, Sept 12th about midnight and it did not come on again until this past Thursday, Sept. 25th…12 ½ days later! I don’t think anyone dreamed the power would be out that long but with 2 million people without power and the amount of damage there was I guess that’s just how long it takes. Since the power came back on Thursday I’ve been doing nothing but cleaning and doing laundry! You would not believe the amount of laundry after two weeks of not doing any. Luckily I had done every stitch of laundry the day before the storm so we had enough things to last us but it was starting to get pretty gross around here.

We were very lucky and didn’t sustain any damage to our house except for a small tree that got uprooted in the backyard. Three houses on our street had trees go through the roof and one house had a tree go through their fence. Here are a few pictures of some of the damage on our street.







Those first few days after the storm we lived with flashlights. We did have our gas cooktop that worked so we could cook and we had running water so we could wash dishes, etc. and shower. Two families on our street had generators and they let us put a few things in their fridge that they were keeping running but for the most part we salvaged what food we could to ice chests and ate the pricier cuts of meat people had in their freezers. I had gotten about 5 bags of ice the day before the storm but by the day after it was starting to melt and we needed to find more ice. Searching for ice became my main job in those first few days. This is southeast Houston and even though we had a cold front come through after the storm, temps were still in the mid 80s so ice did not last long. By Monday after the storm there was one grocery store up and running. I had to wait in line for about an hour to get into the store and they were rationing out ice to 5 bags per family. That was the story for the next few days… more stores opened up but they were mostly using generators for power and couldn’t keep things cold. When they got a delivery of ice it was gone almost immediately. I’d have to go to 5 or 6 different places to find one that had ice and then often they would only let you buy 2, 3 or maybe 5 bags if you were lucky. Whoever in the neighborhood went out for ice tried to get some for everyone or would call and tell us where they found ice. This went on for about a week for us. Our neighbor directly next door got a generator delivered from his company on about Tues or Wed and they let us run an extension cord from it. We could turn on a lamp (that was heaven!!) and power a fan but we couldn’t hook up a refrigerator.

After a week of no power Jim went out and bought a generator. I was never so happy for a purchase in my whole life! With the generator we were able to hook up a refrigerator and stop living out of coolers. We also hooked up a couple of lamps and another fan. I could actually run the vacuum once in a while and blow dry my hair!! Now instead of foraging for ice I had to make daily runs to the gas station for gas. It took about 8-10 gallons a day to keep the generator running. By this time, getting gas was not a problem but in the beginning people had to wait in lines for 2 or 3 hours to fill up cans for their generators. There were only a couple of gas stations that were open and had gas. Next time I’ll have to stock up on a few days’ worth of gas before a storm hits. Also on my hurricane preparedness list for next time is a window air conditioning unit and an HD antenna for the tv.

The kids have fared very well…two weeks off of school (not sure yet how they’re going to make that up), playing with their friends all day everyday and staying up late. They really didn’t complain about not having tv, computers or video games. It’s going to be hard to get back to our routine when school starts back up on Monday.

Once again, like after our fire, we were reminded how lucky we are to have friends and neighbors that care for and look out for each other. With no family near by to lean on, this is extremely important for us and we’re so grateful. Now, back to our regularly scheduled lives…

Another First Day of School

A kindergartner (gasp!) a fourth grader (gasp!) and a middle schooler (gasp, gasp!). Jackson's face tells his whole story...not excited to be going to school. Jordan looks pretty happy and actually did seem pretty excited about today. Jensen has kind of a pained expression on her face but in actuality she was very excited to be heading off to Shadow Forest. She has her fisher price camera in her hands and asked if she could take it to school today to take a few pictures. Of course!! Girl after my own heart. Here are a couple of her photos:



Here's Jackson with his new bike he just got yesterday:


A couple of classroom photos and Jensen's new teacher, Mrs. Clift:



This was the moment of the day that pained me the most. Dropping Jordan off at middle school. When I took Jackson and Jensen I got to walk them into the school, go into the classroom, meet their teachers, see the other kids in the class. With Jordan going to 6th grade you get none of that. You drive them up, drop them off, and say goodbye. I don't know all the kids in her classes anymore, I don't know her teachers. I don't love that, I have to say, but I have to come to grips with it.

At the end of the day, all the kids seemed to be okay. Jensen had a great day and really seemed to like being at Shadow Forest. She's already scheduled a play date for tomorrow!

Everything seemed to go well for Jordan too. She got to all her classes okay, sat with friends at lunch and made it through the crazy, free-for-all dismissal process that's so unlike the orderly, sane elementary school dismissal.

Jackson had his typical first day..."horrible" was his exact word when he got home today. But that's okay. I've come to realize that Jackson does not transition easily from summer to school. It's hard for him and takes a good couple of weeks to get in the groove. I feel comfortable, though, with his teacher and his class. I think he'll end up having a good year even though he completely disagrees right now!

A new use for SU paper

Last Thursday was registration day for Jordan at Riverwood Middle school along with about 300 other incoming 6th graders. We stood in various lines to get her schedule, put money in her lunch account, get her textbooks, purchase a planner and a t-shirt, and the most exciting thing of all...get her locker assignment.


With that many people there at once it was a little nutty but also exciting to see so many faces that we knew. We found Jordan's locker (an upper one which is a bonus) and practiced her combination. At RMS they sell "locker shelves" which are basically 6 pieces of raw wood cut to fit inside the locker to stack on top of each other to form two shelves. Our neighbor is an 8th grade teacher at RMS and had given Jordan a set of the shelves at the beginning of the summer. She informed us that most of the girls do something cute with the shelves--paint them, cover them in fabric, etc.--and most of the boys leave them plain. We were at a little bit of a loss as to what to do with Jordan's shelves over the summer so we did nothing.

That day at registration you should have seen the production of mom's strewn all over the hallway floors frantically trying to cutely cover their daughters' locker shelves. We saw everything from fabric to different colors of duct tape being wrapped around the shelves to scrapbook paper. BINGO! I have tons of scrapbook paper that doesn't get used for scrapbooking so that was the perfect solution for us.

I found out that all the frantic preparations weren't really necessary that day since the school would be open everyday until school started so we could go back anytime and organize her locker. That day we went home and picked out some paper from my stash that Jordan liked. I went and bought a roll of clear contact paper and then got busy. We got the shelves covered and the next day (after Jordan got her braces put on...that's another topic), when it was much calmer, went back to put the finishing touches on her locker and put her supplies in.





These pictures are likely to be the only ones you see of Jordan at school this year and she really didn't want me to take these but since there was not another soul around to see her mom being a geek I didn't leave her any choice.




Doesn't this place look huge??

The olympics are killing me

Seriously. I can't keep up this pace of staying up until midnight every night and getting up at 7:00 a.m. At my age. One or two nights a week, maybe. But every night? The swimming and the gymnastics have just been so awesome. I don't get tired of watching it. Jordan and I have been the diehards...every night. Jim goes to bed and there we are on the couch glued to the t.v. The difference is, she sleeps in until 10:00 the next morning. Luckily for me, I'm not quite so interested in track and field so next week I should be able to get caught up on my sleep.

It's a Mystery

When Jackson opened the door the other morning to go out to play, this is what we found on the mat:



On the day before the last day of school, Jackson forgot his lunch box at school. I figured it was just gone and I'd be buying him a new one for this year. Nearly two months later, it shows up on our door step. No knock on the door; no note saying who dropped it off. Just the ice pack and the note that I had written him on that day were inside.



While I'm very grateful to whoever returned his lunch box, I am going BONKERS trying to think who it might have been. His teacher? A neighbor who might have picked it up on that day, thrown it in the back of their car and forgotten about it until now? A friend? Or maybe it was a sign from God to Jackson just to remind him that school is coming...soon. :-)

Lazy Days...

I've been urged to update and I suppose it has been a while since I've posted, but there's really been nothing much to report. Since we got back from the beach, we've kind of been on coast mode.

Jackson has had some excitement, though. Last week he and Jim went on a camping/river rafting trip with some other dads and sons (and a couple of moms too) from their cub scout den. They camped right on the bank of the river and spent two days floating down the river then coming back up and floating down the river again.



They came home exhausted, stinky and crabby. But I think they had a good time.

Seriously, other than that, we got nothin'.

I hope you're enjoying the dog days of summer.

Wii controllers found!

I got an e-mail from the owner of the condo saying that they actually found our Wii remotes in the couch cushions right where we left them. My faith in the honesty of humanity has been restored.

Date Night #?

I've lost track of how many dates we've been on in our year of 25 dates. I'm sure if Jim were here right now I could ask him and he would pull out his spread sheet and let me know, but unfortunately he's not here so we'll just have to leave it blank.

Last night we went out to dinner at one of my favorite places, and Jim tolerates it too,...Chili's! I love those little Slider hamburgers and have always loved their fajita nachos so that's exactly what we had. Along with a presidente margarita which I've also always loved.

After dinner we went to a comedy club which is something we haven't done in a while. We've been watching Last Comic Standing lately and it inspired us. Before we went in to the show we were trying to take a picture of ourselves in the parking lot and get the club name in the background. Not an easy task. Someone walking by asked if they could take a picture for us, but we felt like the biggest dorks alive so we just said, "no thanks," and gave up and went inside.

We tried again after the show and finally ended up with this as the best shot of the night.

Lost Wii Controllers

When we went to the beach I had the brilliant idea to take the Wii for the kids, and the moms too, to play during their down time. It was a great idea I thought. We got back from the beach on Wednesday and today, Saturday, I just got around to unpacking the Wii and hooking it back up to our tv at home. All the parts to the Wii were in the box, except the two controllers. Somehow they got left behind. And this is going to drive me crazy for the rest of my days.

We have always traveled alot because we've always lived away from our family so I'm a pretty good packer, traveler person. And I pride myself on never (or very rarely) leaving anything behind. Ask Jim's mom...she'll tell you that with all the crap we bring to her house, we hardly ever forget anything when we leave. Jim will say it's because of his obsessive checking of the drawers, under the beds, etc., ten times before we leave. But in reality, it's due to my uncanny, superb packing skills. Nevertheless, we are somehow without two Wii controllers...on my packing duty...there's no way I can blame Jim for this one. At least, I haven't figured out yet how it's his fault.

I did e-mail the owner of the condo and she said she'd check, but there have been renters there since we checked out so I'm sure if the cleaning people didn't take them, those people scooped them up. Maybe humanity will surprise me and they'll still be sitting right where we left them. We'll see. In the meantime, I'll be obsessing over how I could have possibly overlooked them.

Back from the Beach

I was a tad bit apprehensive about taking a mom/kid vacation to the beach with 6 kids and only 3 parents (Brandy with Dylan, Heather with Cameron and Megan and Me with the 3 Js) but it actually turned out better than I expected. We stayed 3 nights/4 days and I left wishing we had one more day to spend there. We rented a condo on the far west end of Galveston island. It was a little remote, but very peaceful, uncrowded and a fairly nice beach by Galveston standards. It's not Gulf Shores but it's also not a 10 hour drive away.

The kids and moms thoroughly enjoyed themselves...ate too much (the moms not the kids), played an unending game of Phase 10, had lots of yummy frozen drinks (again, the moms not the kids), played the Wii, read, slept, sunned, dug holes in the sand, found seashells, tried to fly kites, snorkled in the muddy water, argued, made up, did I say ate too much?, snuggled under blankets, got close to nature (jelly fish, crabs and snails), watched the sunset, swam, watched movies, cemented their bond, oh, and did I say ate too much? :-) I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

We're Back!

First, we had a great 4th of July day. We had just gotten back from Michigan the night before. We got up and went to the parade in the morning, then barbecued with neighbors in the afternoon, then set off tons of fireworks in the evening. At 4th of July parades, I'm always struck by the crowd and how so many people are wearing coordinating outfits. You don't see this for any other holiday and it cracks me up. I'm usually one of the few not wearing red, white or blue. On this holiday I'm always looking for something to wear but I just don't buy those colors for myself. Now, if brown suddenly became the color of choice for the 4th I'd be all set!

Our trip to Michigan and Indiana was great! We had awesome weather which gave us a break from our heat down here. Temps were in the 70s and 80s and while the kids were "freezing" most of the time, Jim and I were in heaven!





After spending the first couple of days with my dad, we headed up to stay with Jim's mom for a few days. The kids had a great time doing the usual stuff we do in Durand...go to the farm, climb trees, fish, play in the basement (continues to be a thrill for them), see some movies--Wall-E (thumbs down), Kung Fu Panda (thumbs up) and Kit Kittredge (big thumbs up) and generally just relax.


We then went down to Granger, Indiana to see the Tom Fujas and attend our nephew Ben's open house celebrating his graduation from high school. Ben has turned into a great person and he has a really bright future ahead of him. We're proud to be his God parents as well as aunt and uncle.

The party was great with all the Fujas except two in attendance. Our niece, Christine, introduced her fiance, Ben, to the whole family at the party...poor guy. They're planning a wedding in Chicago for the fall of 2009.



We spent the night in Granger to spend more time with Tom, Cindi, Kaity and Ben. The next day we headed to Notre Dame for a tour. It really is a beautiful campus...very peaceful. As of this moment (when she's 11) Jordan is saying that's where she'd like to go to college. It would certainly be a different college experience for her than the one I had. Notre Dame only has about 8,000 undergrads versus the 25,000 or so that were at Michigan when I was there. It seemed strange walking around the campus with her now and thinking that she could be back here as a student seven years from now. Suddenly, seven years didn't seem like very much time.


After the tour, we headed to New Buffalo, Michigan which is a cute beach town on Lake Michigan. We had a great lunch at a hamburger institution called Redamak's then went to the beach to walk around. The kids were bummed that we hadn't brought bathing suits, but after putting their toes in the freezing water, they were fine with keeping their clothes on! We weren't there very long before a storm rolled in across the lake and we had to head back to the car but not before we got a few great pictures (most of the good ones, taken by Kaity...she's a great photographer!).

After wearing out our welcome in Indiana :-) we headed back up to Michigan for a few last days with Jim's mom. We had a great trip and as always, it was sad when it was time to say good-bye.

Now, we're back in Texas and having a low-key week before the kids and I head to the beach for a few days of mom/kid vacation.

Summer Activities

These first two weeks of summer, I've kept the kids busy, busy, busy. I do this, not because I like to go through many gallons of gas (at $3.89 a gallon) driving around Kingwood, but because if I didn't this is what they'd do all day...


Thanks to Aunt Denise sending us her extra computer, we now have the coolest computer set-up on the block!

So, other than playing on the computer, this is what they've been doing.

Last week, Jackson went to a baseball camp put on by the Kingwood High School baseball coaches and players. He complained about it every morning, and I admit, it was hot (95 degrees or so) but he persevered.


That's Jackson in the red hat. If you could see the picture better, you'd see that he's smiling from ear to ear. I think he had a good time. You'll notice that he's one of the few kids in shorts. The rest are in baseball pants. Every morning I tried to get him to wear his baseball pants. He'd say, "Mom, it's so hot, I'm not wearing pants." I'd say, "But most of the other kids are wearing pants." He'd say, "But Mom, the coaches all wear shorts." True. Point taken.

Our local community college offers lots of classes for kids throughout the summer. This is something that's right up Jordan's alley, but her gymnastics schedule leaves little time for other things. Last week was the one week that her gymnastics school was closed and before her summer training schedule started. She wanted to do a class at the college and had four different classes to choose from. She chose "Wacky Weaving." Hmmmm. Over the course of the week, she made all kinds of woven projects using paper, fabric, yarn, string, even pipe cleaners. Most of all, I think she really enjoyed it. Too bad I got in a fender bender dropping her off one morning.

Jensen was also busy last week participating in a cheerleading camp for three days at The Little Gym. I have no pictures, but next time you see Jensen she can demonstrate the move where she was standing on a "real" cheerleader's hands and he dropped her and caught her in his arms. She thought that was the best!

This week, Jordan started her summer gymnastics schedule. She's at the gym four days a week for a total of 14.5 hours. Can you feel the pain? The exciting news, is that her hard earned grips finally arrived today. These are strips of leather strapped to your hands to use on the uneven bars to prevent blisters and rips in the skin on your hands, but the girls aren't allowed to use them until they have mastered the kip. I've heard that this skill is one of the hardest to learn in gymnastics. Jordan has worked very hard to learn this, sometimes coming home from practice with her hands literally bleeding. I'm so proud of Jordan and her attitude about gymnastics. It's really something that she loves to do, but it doesn't come easy. She works hard yet she rarely complains. I'm often in awe.

Jordan took a break from gymnastics one day to go bowling with the swim team. It was a perfect activity for a blistering hot day.


Jackson spent this week at cub scout twilight camp. Again, he complained every day about having to go but came home every night raving about it. What's not to love? BB gun shooting, paint ball shooting, archery shooting, water gun shooting. You get the idea. This is a liberal, gun hating mom's dream come true. What can I say? It kept him off the computer and he had fun.

Jensen's week was spent in more heavenly pursuits. She attended vacation bible school at Christ the King Lutheran Church. This is the church our friends the Kellers attend. Just like Jackson, she complained every day about having to go, but raved about it when she got home.



Well, that's what we've been doing so far this summer. Next week we're off to Michigan and Indiana for family togetherness. Our nephew, Ben, graduated high school and his open house is next Saturday. He's off to Notre Dame in the fall. Awesome. We can't wait to see everyone. We get home July 3rd. Will we be as busy in July? We'll see.