Archive for the 'James' Category



24
Jul
10

Pine Cove day 1

We just got back from our week long family camp vacation at Pine Cove!  We had a great time and I can’t wait to wade through all 400 pictures!  😉  Day 1 was last Sunday afternoon. 

When you enter the camp you see this:

All the counselors are hooping and hollering while your car drives in!  I should of realized from

this scene that my week was going to be LOUD!!  (And it was!)  😉 

We are about to enter into camp and we let the girls go through the sun roof to see all

the counselors going crazy for them!

The couselors unload our car for us-so nice!  We are shown to our cabin which was also

SO NICE!  Two bunk beds and a queen with 2 showers and 2 toilet rooms!  Living in luxury!

checking out camp and the view of the lake

That night we had a pool party and the girls were not scared at all to jump off the high dive!

Rilyn taking the plunge!

I’m reminded again how thankful I am for the swimming lessons we took this summer!

Ella jumping from the high dive!
I guess this is James’ attempt at a dive?!?  😉
10
Jul
10

“why do you hate God’s creation?”

I don’t know what is up with all the critters in our house as of late, but I’m getting sick of it!  (mouse in the kitchen in May(didn’t blog that), snake last week, and now…)  

So before I tell you what happened this morning, I have to tell you what happened last night. 

While I was cooking dinner on the stove, I turned on the overhead stove fan and I heard thumpity thump thump!  First thought was that the fan was broken.  Second thought was there was a dead mouse up there, and my third thought was a bird.  I had remembered hearing faint chirping noises in the vent last week.  

Now if you know me, you know I loathe birds. This happened to me a year and a half ago and I still get chills thinking about it.  So anyway, I tell James I think our fan is broken or there is an animal up there and so he turns it on and of course, it works fine. 

This morning James wants to make breakfast on the stove.  He turns the fan on and the thumpity thump thump happens and my first words were “I told you so!”  (I love saying that a little too much.)  He turns the fan off and on again and no noise.  “I’ll deal with it later” is James’ response.  Now I’m cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast and I see a bird’s head peeking at me from the vent!!!! (Bird must of used his beak to pry open the vent a little.)

bird’s eye and beak creepily looking at me in the upper left hand corner of vent

So of course I immediately scream bloody murder but James is outside and can’t hear me. But all the kids can and Asher and Ella immediately start crying. Rilyn comes running in the kitchen and I am yelling “There’s a bird in there! I hate birds!” and more screaming ensues from me. Rilyn looks at me and asks, “Why do you hate God’s creation?”
Ouch. That one hurt, but have no time to deal with my sinful state because THERE’S A BIRD IN MY HOUSE! (God understands me.)
So, I calm down enough to take a picture for the blog, (your welcome), and James comes in and I tell him he will get the bird NOW.
Here is James brainstorming.

“Maybe I can catch the bird in the bag?!?”

So James decides the bag probably won’t work and he goes into the garage to think of something else to do. Meanwhile, THE BIRD FLIES OUT OF THE VENT INTO MY LIVING ROOM!!! At this point I lose it and start screaming again (but still remain cool enough to take a picture-give me some credit!).

The bird perches on top of the middle curtain rod. 

James comes running in from the garage to find this:

rilyn
ella (with some MAJOR bed head)
asher

So you can safely say that I’ve managed to make sure that all three of my kids will be scared to death of birds for the rest of their life. At least they can look back on this blog and find the exact incident where mommy screwed them up and not have to go to a psychiatrist for it.
So James gets a broom and after about 5 minutes gets the bird to fly out of our house via the back door. I grabbed the kids and put them in their room like it was a scene from the Panic Room. 

James now has a new honey-do list and you can bet the first item is “go into attic and do what needs to be done.”

08
Jul
10

A bonding moment

Last Friday night James and 3 of his friends walked over to our house from our neighbor’s house to get Rock Band for the Wii.  Me and the kids were at my neighbor’s house hanging out.  They were gone a long time. 

Too long.

When they finally came back to the house you could tell they had a bonding moment.  A GUY bonding moment, (not a coffee house, long talk with tears kind of bonding moment that girls like to have.)  This was an adrenaline pumping, BB gun shooting, slicing open a snake kind of bonding moment AT MY HOUSE!

So as the story goes, they were walking up to my house and one of James’ friends saw a coiled snake in our vent above our garage.

vent above our garage

They immediately get their weapons of choice (a stick, a BB gun, a shovel, a rake…) and go after the snake.

captured!

They get it down and discover it is a texas rat snake 2 feet long.  So they shoot it about 4 times with a BB gun.

You can see some of the bb’s bulging out of the snakes neck in this pic

After it is dead they notice a bulging in the snake’s belly.

the bulge

Being guys, they slice open the body to discover that he had recently eaten one of our resident birds that nest in the vent. (If you want to see the picture click here.) Then they proceed to chop it’s head off and put it in an old gatorade bottle so James can show off their conquest to me (like I want to see!) Gross!
I am just glad that the snake was discovered by them and not me! Apparently the snake had to have had slithered up our garage doors to get it’s tasty bird treat. It gives me chills just thinking about it!!!  Ewwww!

*And I must give props to James for taking pictures.  I’m not necessarily excited to see these type of pictures BUT at least he is learning to have the foresight to get the camera when something important is happening!   That’s my guy!

06
Jul
10

fireworks!

We had a great July 4th weekend celebrating at my parent’s new (tree)house in College Station on their 14 acres.  This house is 10 feet off the ground on stilts!  (I will post pics another day.)  The kids had their first experience with sparklers and Rilyn even lit fireworks(with daddy supervising)!  Asher was freaked out and Ella didn’t like the noise.  Rilyn proved to be the family pyro along with James!

sisters
Ella’s first sparkler
Had to include this picture since it looks like Rilyn is lighting James bottom!
Asher getting some sparkler action
watching our own private fireworks show!
love Rilyn’s face in this one
Asher and Ella losing it with Grandma and Rilyn showing her pyro spirit
James living out his boyhood!  He could of played all night with the fireworks.
Rilyn getting brave and lighting the ‘big’ fireworks!
trying to write letters
showing off
we watched George Bush library firework show afterwards
Too loud for Ella!
Here is our attempt at a ‘cute’ family shot.  You can see Asher doesn’t want to be

tickled!  Oh well, we tried! 

screaming “Happy July 4th!”
30
Jun
10

california

Saturday evening was my cousin John’s wedding.  It was beautiful and so much fun to see all of my extended family again!

John’s wedding day
my cousins (there are 5 of us in this picture), and significant others

From L to R:  Diane(c), Amanda, Matt(c), Alexis, John(c), Bryan, Shannon(c), me, and James

Here is me with John circa 1990.  You like the custom puffy painted shirts I made

for all of us?  We were on a road trip from CA to MN and stopped at this Flintstone park!

Shannon and Diane, John’s sisters, are next to him.  My brother and sister are below me.

On Sunday, we drove back to Huntington Beach where my grandpa lives and James went golfing with the guys. On Monday, before we flew home, James and I went to Huntington Beach to take pictures (again with the beach pictures!). James really wished he could of gone swimming in the ocean, but there just wasn’t enough time. This was the beach I grew up going to. I have fond memories of taking the OC Transit when I was a jr. higher and tanning all day at the beach with my friends. 🙂

This is me underneath the pier at the beach
James wishing he was surfing out there…
That red roofed restaurant at the end of the pier was

where we were supposed to eat on Thursday night

to watch the sunset.  Boo.

You don’t see this everyday in Texas!
29
Jun
10

our little “getaway”

James and I flew to southern California last Thursday for my cousin’s wedding in Paso Robles.  We wanted to make it a long weekend so we could call it our ‘getaway’ trip for the year and relax together.

Wednesday night, Ella came down with a bad fever.  We were already at James’ parents house so I slept with her, and needless to say, I didn’t get any sleep.  I’m exhausted on Thursday when we get to the DFW airport.  Our flight kept getting bumped and finally got cancelled on Thursday.  We scramble to get a new flight and can’t get one until late so we miss our plans of a sunset dinner at the beach.  😦  Tired and frustrated, we have to fly to Phoenix first (our cancelled flight was direct).  It is 111 degrees when we fly in and we have to take a bus to get to our gate.  Wouldn’t you know it, but our bus’ air conditioning was broken!  So, we were driving around in a sauna.  We finally get on the plane that will fly us into LAX.  When we board though, the airplane’s air conditioning is broken and it feels like everyone is sitting in a baked potato!  The pilot apologizes and we sit there extra so that they can ‘fix it’.  The plane didn’t cool off until about 45 minutes into the flight.  That was fun.  The guy next to me had sweat dripping down the side of his face.  We finally hit our bed at my grandpa’s house in southern CA at 11 p.m.  (1 a.m. Texas time).  We were supposed to arrive at 8:30 p.m.  Sigh. 

The next morning we have to leave at 8 a.m. to drive up 4 1/2 hours to Paso Robles.  We ride up with my cousin and her finance.  We are driving on the 405 for like 30 minutes and we get sideswiped in the HOV lane!  (I’m telling you, don’t travel with us, we are bad luck!)  The guy who hit us started evading us and darting in and out of the 6 lanes.  He exits but we get his license plate number.  So now we have been sideswiped and hit and run.  Lovely.  CHIPS came out and took all of our info. and later in the day he actually called us to tell us he caught the guy! 

The rest of the day was calmer and we went to my cousin’s rehearsal dinner and had a great time.  The next morning, we drove to Cambria, which is a cute little beach town by Paso Robles.  James agreed to take pictures on the beach as long as he could watch the U.S.A. play in the World Cup at a local restaurant.

at the rehearsal dinner
Cambria
 
picture taken by my cousin’s wife
20
Jun
10

happy father’s day James

When I try to stop, (that’s hard to do!) and think about how amazing a father James is, I start to get teary-eyed. (In my old age, I cry all the time!) 😉 But seriously, “spiritual leader of our home” is the first thing I think of when I think of James as my children’s father. What a blessing to know that he wants to point our children to Christ everyday in every situation! And, he is smart and creative in the ways he chooses to do it! Seriously. This man came up with, (on a rainy Saturday), for the girls to do chores to earn money so they could buy ‘supplies’ for a person who is homeless. They went to the store later and bought a thermal blanket.
I think of James as the “funny dad” who is super goofy and loves to kid around. I am very, let’s say, ‘realistic’ and ‘down to business’ type mom and I tend to forego the ‘funny business’.  James brings the laughter in our home, and even though half the time it annoys me, the kids love it and need it! Okay, maybe I need it too. 😉  Example:  James declares as we are pulling in the driveway backwards that this is our ‘backward house’ because we are driving in backwards.  So everyone has to walk in the house backwards and do things backwards.  Drives me nuts!  But the kids love it!  🙂
James is the dad who makes up stories about princesses and knights for his daughters at bedtime that will last a couple of weeks.  Every night is a new ‘chapter’.  He takes his daughters on dates and plays soccer with them to teach them the rules.  He massages their feet after soccer games.  He dances in their dance recital, not to mention all the ‘dance parties’ he has in our living room with the kids!  He spends 2 hours making a birthday card for our daughter.  He drives Rilyn to school each morning and practices memorizing scripture with her.  They get donuts together for every scripture memorized.  I could go on and on.  We love you James!  Happy Father’s Day!   

father’s day 2010
father son
father’s day 2010
18
Jun
10

flashback friday-father edition

Happy Father’s Day weekend!!!

me and my dad circa 1985 (6 years old?)
James and his dad circa 1980
Daddy with Rilyn (notice the spit up!) 2004
daddy with newborn Ella-2006
daddy with newborn Asher making the same face and both showing their Agge pride!
30
May
10

dancing and sunsets

We had a great weekend with family here to see the girls’ dance recital yesterday.
Here is James and Rilyn’s dance to Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire. This was the finale and it did not disappoint! We will post later some of Ella’s dances that were really cute (mainly because she was bossing girls around the stage!).

our family

Later that evening, we went to the Oasis to celebrate James’ mom’s birthday!

James’ family
sunset capital of Texas

I had fun taking pictures of the girls that night!

ella’s freckles!
brown eyed girl

And this is what I caught Rilyn doing on one of the decks at the Oasis. A true girly girl who was probably wishing on a star and dreaming…

28
May
10

we have rehearsals for a reason

Have you ever had a moment where you wanted to cry and laugh at the same time?  Well, I could kick myself for not bringing my video camera to the girls’ dance rehearsal yesterday!  And, I’m so glad for rehearsals because Ella would have been MORTIFIED if the same thing happened at the actual recital.  You see, we discovered at the rehearsal that the stage floor is very slippery for tap shoes and my poor Ella tried her hardest, but fell while tapping to “Cotton-Eyed Joe” like 4 times!  Each time she fell, her face got more grimaced, until finally, it was too much and Ms. Jen came out to rescue her from her tears.  I felt so bad for Ella!  She was really embarrassed and told us she wasn’t going to dance on Saturday because everyone will laugh at her.  😦  After seaching with my swagbucks last night though, I discovered that duct tape on the bottom of her taps will simply solve the problem!  Here’s to hoping and praying!  (And if not, I will have my video camera rolling this time!)

Jen tries to comfort a sobbing Ella

Another “glad it’s rehearsal” moment for me:

Ella’s boa liner tore off of her tutu at rehearsal (you can see it hanging down a bit)I’ll be fixing that tonight!
Anna and Ella dancing to “someday my prince will come”
so precious!
Rilyn is on the far left.  About to dance to Defying Gravity from the Glee soundtrack
another reason rehearsals are good for Rilyn!    😉
This picture was taken before the tap shoe debacle.  Ella in the center. 
The finale is a dad/daughter dance to Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack!James and Rilyn at the far left.
James and Rilyn at the center front

If you live in the Austin area, please come to the recital! Saturday, May 29th at 4 p.m. (lasts 30 minutes) at Manor Middle School cafeteria!