Soccer and the Fair

The girls...Cat and Kayleigh at the Christopher's soccer game. I never even try to get action shots of the game...they never turn out good. Another mom was taking pics with a nice camera and lense...I'm hoping she got some of him playing goalie.

After the game "talk" with the coach...no one was happy! They are a good team but, they were not playing very well that day! Maybe they were nervous for their 1st real game. They played much better when they scrimmaged boys a year older then them a few weeks ago! Hopefully, they will win this Saturday...go Titans!!

Here we are at the Fair...in the convention center they had this petting zoo with Llamas, goats, a kangaroo-or that other animal like a kangaroo-I can't think of the name of it now. We really went inside because it was still so hot outside...once the sun went down it was a very pleasant evening.

We all went on the ferris wheel...I'll just pretend I don't know how much the tickets were for it b/c I would kick myself for going on it!! But, we all did enjoy the ride!

Cat and I went to the "Child Evangelism Fellowship" trailer to hear a story...sadly the story teller that we heard was not really very good...they have different people volunteer to tell the 15 minute story...I'm sure others were very good. After hearing the gospel presentation she was able to get her face painted and get a shaped balloon.

Of course what is a "Texas" fair without a giant turkey leg? They were delicious and hot off of the grill!

Even Cat enjoyed chompin' down on the giant leg!!

What a cutie! She had a blast on this roller coaster...she squeeled with delight and raised her arms above her head as it went up and down the tracks...that's our little thrill seeker!

Well...I'm another year older! My kindergartners celebrated my birthday on Friday and I was overwhelmed with their gifts!! They were so very excited to give me their presents...they could hardly contain themselves! We had cupcakes at snacktime and I think they sang to me several times throughout the day! They are such blessings!!
My birthday was on Saturday so we went to IHOP for breakfast. My kids could not contain themselves from telling our waitress it was my birthday and so the entire wait staff sang to me and brought me a hot fudge sundae! I would have appreciated the ice cream if it weren't breakfast time...but the gesture was appreciated! Catherine certainly appreciated it! Later that day we went to Christopher's first soccer game. He played goalie for the entire game and they lost 0-1, hopefully they'll do better next week, they were very "off" their game. Since we were in Tyler, we decided to go to the East Texas fair. We had a fun evening together...Catherine deemed it the best day ever!!
I had a terrible headache all day, actually all weekend which was a bummer!
Ok, rest time is almost over...I have to get back to work. I have little time to read blogs and I really miss it...

Hurricane Ike

At 4pm on Saturday we lost our power. Calixto and Christopher were at church helping with the Spanish speaking evacuees, they came home around 5 since our power was out. By 6:30 the winds died down so we went for a drive to check out local damage. We ended up stopping at a Whataburger that had power. We were in the drive through line for 50 minutes!! 50 minutes!! I couldn't believe it...but, never have I tasted such a good burger in my life!! We were starving! Afterward, we came home and camped out on the living room floor, ate brownies and ice cream (before it melted) while we watched a movie on the laptop. The battery died before the end of the movie but we had a fun evening together. It didn't get too hot in the house until just before morning.

The whole next day I just cleaned the house, did lesson plans and picked up fallen sticks in the yard. The kids had a blast playing outside with our neighbors the entire day while Calixto went out to help church families with fallen trees. The weather was absolutely beautiful and we enjoyed the slow pace of the day. I wasn't able to drive anywhere since my car was locked in the garage. The day before I cleared out a space, pulled the car in and closed the "electric" door...not thinking that we don't have a door to walk through (it's an old garage!) so...lesson learned...leave one of the garage doors accessible to open w/o electricity!!
I was really hoping school would be cancelled the next day but, the school had power and so it wasn't cancelled! Our power came back on by 8:30 Sunday night and I was able to have everything ready for Monday!!

Hurricane Ike damage

We only lost one tree-actually 3 trees in 1-in our empty lot on Jewell street. The 1st picture is looking toward Jewell street the tree snapped off the telephone pole bringing the transformer down on the ground. Incredibly it didn't take out our wooden fence, it just opened the gate!

Here is a view from the empty lot looking toward our house...

The trees are right next to the property line and look like they belong to the neighboring house...

Here you can see how the roots ripped up their concrete driveway...the house on the left of the picture had their electric wires/box torn away from the house. Their electric was restored on Tuesday I think. This didn't effect our electricity just the neighbors on that street. Thank the Lord it fell in the direction it did, if it fell the other way it would have completely destroyed the house just to the right!

Tornado, hail and now a hurricane...Anymore of this and we won't have any trees left!! We are grateful that we didn't have more damage than we did!! There are many people in Longview that had some pretty significant damage.

The electricity is finally back on after 28 hours! Thank you Lord!!

Life

I'm slowly adjusting to my new schedule, I wake up 5 minutes before my alarm goes off at 5:45 every morning. I'm trying not to stay too long at school in the afternoons, today I left at 4:05 which certainly beats 5:00. I still have not gotten the "dinner" stuff down! I keep forgetting to put the frozen chicken out or I don't have the correct ingredients on hand. I'll get a handle on that this week. Tonight we did have to order a pizza since I wasn't adequately prepared! I'd love to make cookies some time soon...I always used to make cookies...at least 2 times a month...I'll get to it eventually!
My parents were here for the past 2 weekends and my dad got some projects completed and my mom shopped for groceries and did laundry. Wow, what a help that was! I have to pick a day to shop at Walmart on my way home from school and stick with that plan.
Christopher is now playing for the "Texas Titans" a club team out of Tyler. His season hasn't started but he had 2 scrimmage games this past Saturday. They won both of them and one team was a year older than them. Most of the time he played goalie or defense and wasn't in a position to score goals. The coach is trying to find the best position on the field for them to play. The coaches have been pretty tough on them but, they are responding well and working extremely hard.
5th grade is a huge leap from 4th grade...much more is expected from the students. So far, Christopher has been doing well, but he must remain organized to be successful. Miss Ogden does a great job preparing them for 6th grade where they will change classes throughout the day. I love seeing Christopher and his classmates during the day, they always give me a big hug! the boys included! I don't see him much except for passing in the hall but I love knowing that he is just down the hall if I want to peek in on him.
Catherine is not liking school as well today! She had a little bit of trouble due to her choice of disobedience. I so appreciate the fact that I can get the scoop on her behavior immediately at school. I don't intervere with her teacher's discipline but I am able to talk with Cat or her teacher about it quickly. They both love being a teacher's kid...it comes with perks like staying after school everyday!! Cat isn't playing soccer which is wonderful...I can't imagine adding her practices and games to our schedule.
Ok, the pizza should be here soon...I'm going to veg out for a bit!

Cat got new reading glasses!! So here we are sporting our glasses!

Christopher doesn't wear his anymore and so they are a bit small. Although they both have 20/20, the glasses are helpful to prevent eye strain and help to not need them in the future. Cat's are part of her vision therapy as well and are a very low Rx. She loves them and couldn't wait to get them...she even picked the style out herself, they are black on the outside and yellow on the inside. Calixto didn't really like the style but I think she looks like a trendy little model!

If you look closely you can see the space where her tooth came out! The 3rd one she has lost!

I'm not sure why I didn't take other pictures but, that's all I have from her b'day weekend!

She is so very proud to be 6!

Our first day of school!

The students in lower school go to the cafeteria until the bell rings then they walk to their rooms. Here she is with her friend waiting for school to begin.

Birthday breakfast in bed! She was so excited to have b'fast delivered to her! But she quickly said let's go into the kitchen to eat.

What a sweet daddy she has! Don't you just love the morning hair?!