Go Army!

Today 3 vietnam era helicopters stopped at our airport to refuel on their way back to California from DC. They had been in DC to escort the thousands of motorcycles that ride to the capital every Memorial day.
When we 1st arrived the officials at the airport had no clue they were coming and even turned people away saying they had wrong information...luckily just as we walked out the doors we heard them landing.
Several of the pilots/crew are vietnam vets and we were able to talk with them and thank them for their service to our Country!


Thanks Dana for letting us know about it!

Progress of my gardens...

These are the giant pumpkins and carrots

This is the garden that keeps getting trampledand dug up by the dog(s)! the itty bitty plant is a cantaloupe that Chessie dug up, I managed to rescue it and transplant it back into the ground. The other plants are a pumpkin, zuchinni, watermelon and jalepeno.
Christopher is so proud of our lone jalepeno!

My pumpkin patch just off the driveway...looks really good!

the cucumbers are vining nicely
more zuchinni!

Dance Recital

I just had to post more pictures...I couldn't decide which to put up so I put them into a slide show. I can't believe how I beamed with pride while watching her! Not that she was the best dancer but, b/c she is "my" daughter and she was so beautiful and as she danced her little heart out! She enjoyed every minute of the experience and can't wait to do it again! Our dance instructor only holds recitals every other year so she'll have to wait a little bit.

Dress Rehearsal

As you can see Cat's hair wasn't done well but...it was only rehearsal! That's what the other mom's kept telling me! (Some mom's take this all a bit too seriously!)I love this picture-the girls on either side of Cat are both adopted and the girl on the right is the grand-daughter of Glennis who is director of the Maternity home through which we adopted Cat!

The Butterfly ballet! Catherine absolutely loved that everyone clapped for her-On the way home she told me she wanted to dance all night! She is quite the performer! She is 2nd from L in the back

The monkey dance-I know the pictures of poor but, I couldn't get any good shots with my camera-if you can't tell she is 2nd from the L in the front row! The audience loved this cute song!

For the real performance-I kept her hair up...here is her "sassy" self...she never tired of posing!

Cat the ballerina

My precious ballerina!

Look how good I did with her hair! I am so proud of myself! The night before at dress rehearsal, her hair looked pretty bad but with a few tips from mom's who had done recitals before, I managed to get a beautiful bun that lasted through both dances!!

Notice the pretty sparkles! She just loved that extra touch...she felt beautiful and kept running to look at herself in the mirror!

I don't think she quit smiling the whole day...yet another "Best day ever"!

Field day fun for Cat too!

Cat always has fun at "Christopher's" school! Stephanie loves to watch over her! She brought her slush that was leftover from the night before and shared with all the girls in Christopher's class...it went well with the chocolate donuts they were eating?!

She and some younger siblings of students had fun chipping away a chunk of chalk to find a hidden dinosaur. Her hair kept falling out-it looks funny in this picture!

Tonight she has dress rehearsal for her recital tomorrow afternoon. After her nap we have to experiment with her hair to see what we can do with it-since I kind of ruined it with the softener!

School is over...summer has begun!!!

Goodbye Fourth Grade!

Last night was awards night for CHS. The teachers award each student with a godly character quality that they see exemplified throughout the year. This year Christopher received "Determination"-Purposing to accomplish God's goals in God's time regardless of the opposition.

He and Mrs. Terry

The last day of school consists of donuts for class breakfast followed by field day. The PE teacher did a great job setting up fun games and friendly competitions-like flinging a rubber chicken with a giant sling-shot, kicking your shoes off the furthest (or is it farthest?) and carrying a marble with your toes...just to mention a few. The kids had a great time! At the end the teachers came out and squirted the unsuspecting students with water guns!

Anxiously waiting in line with classmates

Grabbing the marble with his toes before running or hopping back to the line. The little boy got quite upset with Christopher b/c he splashed him...but, he shouldn't have been playing in the pool anyway, silly boy.

I had hoped to get more pictures but, I spent time inside getting paperwork filled out for next year and talking about where my classroom will be, when I can get it set up and stuff like that.

The story behind the song "Cinderella"

Chapman family loss

Click here to read about the tragic death of Stephen Curtis Chapman's youngest daughter yesterday evening.
I was so saddened when I heard this on KVNE this morning!

How many people have your name?

There are a bunch more people with the same name if I use my maiden name-Thompson, with Arce there are only a few.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 34 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

*There are 691,876 people in the U.S. with the first name Brenda.
Statistically the 67th most popular first name.

*There are 1,578,389 people in the U.S. with the first name Christopher.
Statistically the 13th most popular first name.

*There are 567,186 people in the U.S. with the first name Catherine.
Statistically the 92nd most popular first name.

*There are 0 people in the U.S. with the first name Calixto.

Calixto is one of a kind!!!

Clean Sweep of my garage

I spent all day working in our garage! I will hopefully be having a yard sale the last weekend in May. I've never done it before and I'm a bit nervous about it. There is just too much junk to throw into a landfill so we'll try to sell our "junk" instead. Soon we may have room enough to park a car in there...not sure I will though with all the rats!!! YUCK!!!
Now I need to venture into the maid's quarters to sort through the mess in there...if I'm brave enough! It is difficult to clean such places up since most of the stuff belongs to my pack-rat of a husband (today I inadvertently called him a pat-rack! I thought that was funny!!!) Anyway, I have sorted through lots of piles now he needs to go through things before I'm tempted beyond control to just chuck them! Right now we have piles in our bedroom, the office and now the garage...and I don't think he'll have any time to do any kind of sorting any time soon?!
This question kept going through my mind all day..."why on earth do we have sooooo many books??"

Friends

After I posted the picture on the right a few days ago, I found this picture from '05. It is Zach and Christopher when they first played soccer together! At that point Zach didn't go to our school, now he does and they are good friends. It is neat to see how God brings godly friendships into the lives of our children.

To re-roof or not?!

We did get a check for the roof!! But, still...the deductible is so high I'm not sure if we can get it done?! The pitch on the roof(s) is so steep that it precludes us from doing it ourselves. The ins. company even allots an amount to cover the steepness, since roofers charge more for that. We also need to get rid of the asbestos tiles on the garage before the ins. co finds out about it. We weren't being secretive about them, I just think they gave us the policy site unseen when we moved from the old house. The adjuster pretended she did not see it and advised us to get it taken care of soon. She was very nice and informative...she went out of her way to help! What a blessing. She wasn't the local adjuster-she was from the catastrophe team and lives close to OKC. She was a God-send to us!
Now, to get some other estimates. The Ins Co.'s estimate is $9500. The previous estimate was actually cheaper...he had the flat part of the roof and the workshop included in his, which would bring his guess in lower than what they are allotting for.-Since they didn't include those 2 items. So, we'll see what we can get done over the next year...which is the time limit they give us.

The weekend-quite the long post!!!!!

This past weekend was very busy but, very fun as well. Friday night we rented Water horse...which the kids thoroughly enjoyed! We ended up not finishing it b/c Christopher had an early morning on Saturday and needed to be in bed early. We finally watched the rest Monday night! Cat, did get scared and ended up falling off of the couch in her fright...she was hurt a little bit...Christopher and I had to contain our giggles as it was pretty funny to see!
Saturday he left with the coach and his family to head to the tournament in Tyler, his game was at 8am so they left around 6:15. They won the 1st game and didn't play again until 3pm and then again at 6pm. That was one long day! They won all of those games which is exciting for them! He came home with new cleats and new ball-thanks to the coach! They spoiled him over the weekend.
While he was in Tyler, I softened Cat's hair...I will never do that again...I did mess up her curls. The texture is wonderfully soft but, the curls are straightened out in some places and is frizzy in others. I guess I'll just put it in braids a lot until it goes away. I'm thinking it is worth it to go to a professional...no more do-it-at-home for Cat's hair! After I did that she decided for some unknown reason to cut her hair!!!! Ugh!! She cut it right above her ear-I was so upset with her.
The reason we didn't go with Christopher is that we had CHS's graduation to attend. It was a beautiful ceremony and Dr. Austin was the speaker-he delivered a great speech. As part of the ceremony they show a video where each set of parents speak a blessing or words of encouragement to their child as pictures of them throughout the years are shown. It was beautifully done and brought tears to my eyes as we watched these babies, toddlers, elementery students just grow before our eyes into the young women and men they are today! It certainly brought to mind once again how quickly our years are passing with our children...just in a few years Christopher will be up there graduating and I will be crying all the more!!!
Later, at a dinner for Alana Squair we were able to catch up with friends we don't see very often. We also chatted a bit with Deb's parents...such a neat couple! Too bad they won't be coming to Longview anymore now that the Crowe's are gone. We do have an open invitation to visit them in NYC at Time's Square Church...now that would be a great thing to do!
We arrived home at the same time as Christopher-at 9:30pm-I had to wash his uniform for the morning and he hit the sack! On Sunday his game was not as early (9:30) so that was nice...although we don't prefer to miss church for sports we felt that we needed to follow through on our commitment and went as a family. I must say that it was nice spending the whole day together. Calixto has been working until after dark 6 days a week for the past few weeks! The team won the 1st game but then lost the next 2, which put us in 4th place. The official said ours was the most challenging age division b/c the teams are that good-that's why they gave 3rd and 4th place trophies! We ate dinner with several families after the games and really had a good time! I was reminded how different it is to hang out with non-believers! At one point the boys (at their own table) started playing Truth or Dare...a dangerous game?! and Christopher just walked away and watched the sports channel on the TV. I was proud of him for not getting sucked into something that potentially could have been dishonoring to God.
Yesterday, Merryl and Alana reported to homeland security and were told they must report back on July 14th with travel plans to leave the US in hand! They were hoping Alana's full scholarship to Louisiana Tech would allow her at least to stay. The judge told Merryl she could have her arrested on the spot or could put an ankle thing on her to monitor where she is in case she decided to try and stay! Please pray that God would indeed intervene and somehow allow them to stay here! I'm sure that decision just deflated the joy of Alana's graduation! I think if they must they will head to Canada and not return to South Africa. If only Merryl could find a man to marry!!!!
Ok, I' procrastinating on cleaning out our nasty garage!

Tilly's toys!

Soccer, soccer and more soccer!!

Whew! What a weekend!! Christpher played in a tournament in Tyler...the Tigers came in 4th place. There was some pretty tough competition out there! Christopher played extremely well and we are so very proud of him! We were the only Longview team-in our age group-to advance to the finals.

I'm glad tournaments don't come around every month, they sure wipe us all out! Some one (an adult) stole Christopher's new soccer ball yesterday, he had just gotten it on Sat. afternoon. The guy was playing with it during half-time of one of our games...he way over kicked the goal...on purpose...so he could retrieve it from far away and leave!! I saw him do it but, didn't realize it was my son's ball!!! Incredible what people stoop to!

Insurance and roof woes!!!!

According to the Insurance adjuster we don't have hail damage...except for a small localized area. She says our roof is not 5-6 years old as the previous owners told us!
Last time we called the ins co to look at the roof in our former house after the ice storm of 2000, they canceled our policy...we are a bit skiddish and pray that will not happen this time. The adjuster is very sweet and is going to try to get us a new roof somehow! She also saw that we have asbestos tiles on the garage...that might just do us in!!! I'm not sure they knew about that when they gave us coverage!
Oh we are praying for a good outcome!!!!!!

Randomness

A few nights ago Tilly got herself onto the roof and couldn't get down! I think this is a habit of hers, I've had to retrieve her from a tree, the garage roof and now the house roof. Calixto wanted to let her find her own way down...I could not do that...I dragged the ladder from the back yard...giving Calixto "that look" as I carried it past him and rescued my poor kitty!

Christopher said goodbye to his good friend Broderic on Sunday...he and his family left for the Ukraine yesterday! These boys were just babies when we met! Broderic is such a sweet kid and he says the funniest things! Christopher was sad they left, it'll probably be years before we see them again!!

Tonight the kids made a fort under the pool table thingy in his room, he was excited to let Cat play with him!

here they are on the inside with blankets, pillows, gameboy, books and the lamp! They are set for the evening!

What cuties! Isnt' Cat's smile infectious?!

Rucker and my conscience!

ok, I did something today...I felt bad about at first but then came to the understanding I'm not responsible...
You know the dog that keeps coming to our house? And I keep putting him in our back yard until the neighbor picks him up? Well, last night he wandered over, the owner was on his way out of town for a business trip and won't be back until Tues. He called his nephew (a high-schooler) to pick up the dog, well he didn't show up until 9:00. I told him I'd call on his cell if Rucker came back. This afternoon he showed up again! This time he pushed our side door open and came on in the house...luckily he didn't spot Tilly or the house would have been a disaster not to mention what would have happened to Tilly! I put him in the back yard as usual...but, he stepped on my pepper plant in my garden one too many times and...I...opened the gate and let him loose!!! I just let him go...to run away, or get hit, or get stolen and turned into a fighting dog!! I'm not going to feel responsible for this dog any longer!!
Ok...at least I'm trying not to feel responsible!!!

Life...

Thank the Lord, the rain has stopped! Lots of flooded places around Longview! Cat and I had to get out in the worst of it this morning for her vision therapy appointment, then we had to take Christopher lunch...since we had nothing for him to take this morning! I did go to Wal-mart after the lunch run!
Our roof leaked in the expected places, my gardens are ok just soggy except for the carrots-they are still under water, I don't think they will survive this time.
We received back the estimate from the roofer that examined our roof for hail damage...indeed we have quite significant damage. His estimate is a whopping $10,000!!!!!!!!!!! Our deductible is $2000...that means no new roof for us! I suspected the garage roof is covered in asbestos tiles and it is...which means some enviromental people have to come, remove them and dispose of them in a special way...which translates to..."no new roof on the garage"
Cat's therapy is going well, tomorrow a friend will bring over the balance beam and balance board that he made for us. She needs to work on those everyday at home. I was chided a bit this morning for not doing this already...we'll catch up I'm sure.
Only 7 more days of school left in the year-Yay!! Christopher is very excited about that, but what he doesn't realize is he'll be working with Daddy quite a bit...at least that is my plan! I'm in the process of thinking through and organizing the summer so, it doesn't take us by surprise. My parents will be moving to Oklahoma in June, the kids will have fun visiting them for a weekend or two. They will be 4 hours away in Ardmore which isn't bad driving time. I'm excited about this summer!