Valentine's Day 2011

 I am almost caught up. I can't believe it. This year, we decided that we would go to the zoo for Valentine's day. It was a great time for just Jonathan and I to spend together. We had both been so busy with trips, projects and work that we needed this day for us. To celebrate us as a couple. We may have done the unconventional thing and gone to the zoo and then gone for BBQ afterwards, but to us it was a great time to spend together.

 We found this picture and the name of the lion appropriate and funny all at the same time, so of course we had to take a picture of my Jonathan underneath it and then we decided we better take one of the really lion Jonathan. Which do you think looks more fierce?

December 2010

In December, we were able to visit Jonathan's parents outside of Asheville, NC. We were able to find really great ticket prices straight from Houston to Asheville, which is fantastic as otherwise we would have had to drive. Which in reality I don't mind, but overall, would prefer to have less travel time. In the past, we have had to fly into Nashville and then drive about five hours to reach them. Now, there are straight shot flights. This makes it much nicer.

While we were there, we were able to see snow, the Biltmore, and just the general Christmas spirit. It was also fun to see Jonathan's mother sing in her Senior Choir at a Christmas performance that they had while we were there.

This picture of the Cardinal on the bird feeder is one of my favorite shots. I might just have to use it for a Christmas card this next year. I stood just inside the back door at my in-laws house with the camera posed for awhile before I finally was able to get this picture. I think my in-laws thought that I was crazy, but to me it was the perfect shot. I think they agreed after they saw it too. It was fun to be in the cold weather for a little while, but it was also nice to get back to the relatively warm weather of Houston.

Thanksgiving

To my delight, my dad and his new wife (Cookie) were able to come  out to Houston for Thanksgiving. They arrived on Thanksgiving day, which was great and we were able to enjoy them for almost a week. As usual, we had a project for my dad and Jonathan to do while he was out here. We can't have my dad out and not have a project of some sort for him to work on. It just wouldn't be right. We were also able to fit a nice visit with Cookies Uncle into the trip. He was working and showing his car at the George R. Brown convention center and gave us tickets to get in. The little fire engine is one of three little cars that her Uncle has restored for his grandkids. Of course being a fire fighter family, we had to have this shot.

We also enjoyed having some fun at our neighbor sons expense. He has been parking his truck in front of his parents and our house for a long time and it was the first time that it was gone for awhile. So since we happened to have this sign in our garage (don't ask). We decided to put up the sign. Of course we had his parents permission as well as our other neighbors permission. It was fun to see and it was really fun to see him come home and run over the sign because he got so mad at it. I have to say, I think there is a little friction between him and the neighbors with regards to his parking habits. Not to mention the truck is really loud.

The project that my dad and Jonathan worked on while he was out here, was of course the garage. We had purchased a new door for the back of the house, so that we could put the old door from the back of the house on the back of the garage for easy access from the garage to the back yard. So, with my dad's help both doors were installed in one day. I don't have any pictures of that though. It was a good time and thankfully the weather held out for us too.

Six months since my last...

Ok, so it has been six months since my last post. I know, I am totally slacking. Things have happened in the past six months that honestly, I would like to remember and forget all at the same time. Lets start with April shall we?

April - We had a great time, Jonathan and I went to San Antonio for his birthday. We spent an entire day at Sea World. What a fantastic place for both kids and adults. Since Jonathan loves marine life, we went there. Actually I surprised him and took him there. That was a fantastic time and I will post pictures soon. Well, let's change that to later today. This gives me a deadline.

April - Jonathan also finished replacing the columns on the front of the house. We found out that we had termites in the columns, so we demolished all four of them and rebuilt two of them. Not an easy task, but Jonathan did it, with I have to say only a little bit of help from me. Again, pictures will come soon. 

Middle of April - We found out that we were chosen to foster two little ones. We were so excited because they were 4 months and 14 months. So they were great ages, although, lots of hard work. We spent as much time with them as we could and got them healthy again, although some thanks goes to the first foster parents for getting them healthy. We just continued what they had already started. This was a fun time to learn about how Jonathan and I interacted as parents to each other and to strengthen and learn from each other during this time. I will say that our marriage was truly tested during this time.

May - Was my birthday, and as much as Jonathan wanted to surprise me with something like I surprised him with, we had two children now, so we couldn't do that. He did however, find a babysitter for the night and we were able to go out to a nice quiet dinner without the rush of getting babies fed and down for the night. It was a very sweet night.

Beginning of June - My nephew Cody came out to visit us for two weeks. What fun that was. Unfortunately because we had the kids, we didn't get to do as many cool things as we had hoped to do, but he was willing to go along with whatever. We did make it to the beach one day, I think this will become tradition when he comes out. We were able to also get to a couple museums, but I think the best thing that Cody liked was the fact that he got to build or at least start to build a model car with Jonathan. Cody took it home with him to finish because they were not able to get it all done, due to kids, trips, and all that stuff.

End of Jun - We continued on, but what we didn't know was that things were working behind the scenes to move the children back to their first foster placement. We did not find out that the kids were going to be moved until the night before they were moved. This was hard to take. We thought we had our family through the CPS System, only to find out that the case worker didn't like us. It was difficult, we felt that we had just lost two of our own kids. We were becoming attached to these kids. I know as foster parents you are not to become as they say "attached" because at any time they could leave, but we were being told over and over that it was a pretty clear case. In the end, the kids went back to their first foster parents, we grieved for them. Then we praised God that they did go back to people that at least they knew. We pray continually for their safety, as the case is ongoing at least through December of this year.

July - In order to get some rest and to get out of a now way to quiet house. We left. We went to Austin for a couple of days. We spend fourth of July up there and just relaxed, hiked, and got a new perspective on us. In this time, we prayed and decided that we would wait to decided to continue the adoption process. This wait time will give us the prayer time to listen to what God is telling us with regards to our family. We will be waiting and listening through December. This will also allow us to decompress and travel without the worry of missing a phone call for kids because we are out of town.

August - Was spent pretty much just doing normal day to day stuff. We didn't go anywhere, we really didn't do anything, but that was okay. We focused on us, on our ministries at the church, our small group Bible studies. It was good.

September - I am finally up to this month. Whew! This month we had my dad and his fiance come visit us. It was a good time. We were able to go to the Aquarium downtown and see the exhibits, which again, was one of Jonathan's favorites. We were even able to get my dad's fiance on the ferris wheel which she claimed to be afraid of. She told us later, that it was the old type ferris wheels that she didn't like, not these knew ones. So it wasn't so bad. We had a good time, although the time went by very quickly. We will head back for their wedding next month and then they will be out here in November. Then it is a quiet December month, no traveling, well, except to do a quick visit to Jonathan's parents place early in the month. Then it will be a quiet December and Christmas.

Ok, I am done, there are the updates. Now I need to go find some pictures so that you can see that we actually were busy through at least some of these months. Thanks friends for reading this far, provided you actually read it and didn't just skip to the bottom.

Snow in Houston again!

Yep, it snowed in Houston again. It didn't stay long in our area, but as you can see from Jonathan's car, it did stick around in some areas. This was the morning after the snow storm when he got home from work. He said that at the firehouse they had enough snow to make a couple snowmen.

Brownie however did not like the snow. Our little prissy girl was thinking "you want me to go out and get wet" So after dragging her out and making her sit in it, I was finally able to get this very unhappy shot. But hey, it shows the snow. Now, if I could have gotten a picture of myself, I was covered in it by the time I got her to sit down.

This picture of the neighborhood shows the snow coming down. It was enough to put quite a bit on snow on the parked cars in on the street. It just didn't hang around for long, but hey, you take what you can get and I am happy with this. I would much rather have this, than the stuff they are dealing with in the Dakotas and Minnesota.

New Year's Eve

Since we were in Phoenix we did what some of the Phoenicians do. We went to the Tempe Tostito's Fiesta Bowl Block Party. Well, we didn't actually go, we stayed home out of the cooler temperatures and then went to a parking garage just a block away at about 11pm and hung out until midnight when we wished everyone a Happy New Year and watched the fireworks over the lake. Then it was a quick drive home and off to bed as 7am comes mighty early when you don't get to bed until after 1am. Why on earth did we have to get up so early? Well, Jonathan had to be back in Houston for work on the 2nd and the cheapest flight was the earliest one. So we booked it. It was nice though because we were able to ring in the new year with just the two of us like we did our first year together. AWW the memories! So HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone and I hope that it is going well for all of you. May God bless you in this new year.

Christmas 2008

Ok, so January is almost over and I am just now getting to put pictures and a posting on what went on. What can I say, I am still reveling in the after Christmas slow down. YEAH RIGHT!! So, again this year we went to Wendy's dad's house in Phoenix for Christmas and decided to stay on for New Years. We flew in on Christmas Eve and went from the airport, home to change and then off to church for the Christmas Eve service. Christmas day however was a lot slower. We were able to have a leisurely breakfast, went and saw the movie Marley and Me (take the tissues) and then went over to my brothers house that evening for a family Christmas present opening with our one year old niece. It was so much fun. My niece loved to help everyone open their presents. She is such a joy. I wish we could see more of her and I miss watching her grow up and doing things with her that I was able to do with my girlfriends son that I call my nephew. Maybe they will move to Houston some day - again - YEAH RIGHT!! We got to see a lot of friends and even though we took the camera to most of the things we did, unfortunately we forgot to take pictures. I guess we were just busy enjoying the company of friends instead of worrying about capturing the moment on camera. Here are a few from the family Christmas present opening with my niece. Enjoy!!

Snow in Houston

Yes, we got snow in Houston. Our house received about an inch of the white stuff on Wednesday, December 10th. Thankfully it didn't stay long enough to freeze on the roads and cause chaos, but boy was it fun to see coming down. It was fun to call all my family back in AZ and tell them that it was snowing in Houston. They couldn't believe it. I was like a kid in a candy store. I kept looking out the windows seeing if it was still snowing. Then at 10pm that night, I took Brownie out for her last duty of the day and low and behold there was snow on her dog house and on the fence. So snapped these pictures to share with everyone back home. Hope you enjoy!!!

Christmas and New year

Merry Christmas to all!! We spent Christmas visiting Wendy's family in Phoenix,
AZ. While we were there we were able to see her niece for the first time. We enjoyed our time together. We were also able to visit with the Handley's. Isaac was Jonathan's best man in our wedding. It was fun to see and hold their three week old baby while visiting with them. We even got Jonathan to hold Alex for a little while. We were back in Houston for New Years and spent it with friends, Lee and Ella at our neighborhood block party. There was lots of fireworks, which are legal where we live and lots of fun times. We came back to Lee and Ellas home right before midnight and toasted in the New Year since there were over 70 people at the block party and it was cold and windy outside. We had a great time and can't wait to have more fun in the upcoming year.

Thanksgiving and 1st Anniversary

Dad decided to drive out to Houston to visit us for Thanksgiving and again we decided to put him to work. Jonathan and dad installed a new oven on Thanksgiving day. How did we cook the turkey? In a crockpot. It turned out great and so did the oven. We also celebrated our one year anniversary the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Dad suprised us and brought out the top portion of our wedding cake, that my aunts had so gratefully saved. So we decided to feed each other again. The first time Jonathan couldn't smear it all over my face like he could this time. It was fun and we got a good laugh over it. As a matter of fact, dad didn't get the picture taken in time, so Jonathan got to do it twice. Isn't he a lucky fella.