Rhuematoid Arthritis Update

Just wanted to thank everyone for their prayers over the last year. While my struggle with RA hasn't been as bad as other people's, but it's bad enough. The good news is that right now I'm in remission!! YEAH!!! With no signs of joint damage or other complications. I'm on no medications right now and I hope it stays that way. The trick now is to keep it in check and keep any flares-ups from happening. Thanks again for your love and support!

Happy Mother's Day

I hope all you mom's out there had a great Mother's day this year. I missed seeing my mom and mother-in-law this year. Holiday's can be very lonely when you're away from family. Anyway, my boys made the weekend very special for me. On Saturday we went to the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville. We had a really great day. I always love going to the zoo. And when we returned home and I was looking at the pictures I took, I had several that were mothers and babies. Neat, huh?

Well, I'll start with my babies!!! Andrew and AAron hangin' out by the gorilla's.

This is a mommy gorilla. If you look closely, under her left hand, she's holding a new baby! how exciting! they rolled around on the ground, climbed down to the watering hole, and she was so very gentle with the baby the whole time. All the while the big Silver back was hangin' out in the shade of the cave with his feet up in the air. Doesn't he know it's mother's day?

Then in the Australia exhibits we saw a mommy kangaroo with her little joey. They were taking a nap and she had covered the baby up with hay. It was so sweet.

And of course there were the ducklings. I'm not sure how many she had, but there were a lot of babies following her around.

Then we visited the nursery where the petting zoo was. Andrew was drawn to the baby camel, but Aaron liked watching the goats make poo-poo every where. What a great time!!!

Looking at all the pictures of the mommies and babies and reflecting on my recent study of Genesis, isn't it wonderful how God was so gracious to bless our existence with such wonderful things. What a boring place the earth would be with out the animals and creatures of the world.

Thank you LORD ! Happy Mother's Day!!

Andrew

Today my baby turned 9! It's bittersweet I guess. I can still remember the day he was born and how happy I was to finally be a mom. But now it's not just about being a mom, it's about being Andrew's mom (and Aaron's too). God gave me such a blessing when he gave me Andrew. Every day I get to watch him grow a little more mature, a little more independent, and a little closer to God. He's clever, he's funny, stubborn (which he gets from his dad), but he's also sweet, caring, and very protective of his family. What an awesome gift Andrew has been to me.

We started celebrating his birthday on Friday, May 2nd. We took off for a family day at the beach, even Zoey got to tag along this time. We had a great time. We were there for about 3 1/2 hours and Andrew was in the water nearly the whole time. He loves the water and is very comfortable in it (another trait he gets from his dad).

On Saturday, after a baseball game, we took Andrew and his friend Darren to The Zone for some go kart racing, putt-putting, bumper boats, and games. We had a great time. The boys had the most fun racing each other on the go karts. In the video clip below, Andrew is in the red kart and Darren is in the purple one.


Just look at the smile on his face. They rode the go karts twice which gave them each a turn at winning.


Even though Andrew had fun all day, he still managed to be a little grumpy when I would ask him to pose for a picture. I guess we are creeping up on pre-adolesence, aren't we?

Saturday night, we had Darren come over for cake, ice cream and family movie night. Notice the blue tongue from the icing. All in all, i think he has had a good birthday. But nothing can replace the memories of spending your birthdays with family and friends.

On Sunday , Andrew and his dad had a special movie day to go see the new movie Ironman. He is still talking about it, so it must have been pretty good. Today, he had to go back to school. What a bummer, but I think he had a pretty good day. I took cupcakes to his class this afternoon and tonight we had McDonald's for supper (his pick).

When we got home from baseball practice he opened a few more presents and then off to bed. It is a school night you know.

Happy Birthday, Andrew! I love you and as long as I can, I will always tuck you in at night, and kiss you goodnight after you've gone to sleep...

busy, busy, busy

Wow. Things have gone from some ole, same ole to really busy in the last few days. Richard actually managed a 4 day weekend and we've been taking full advantage of it. It's mostly been about Andrew since this is the weekend of his birthday and also the first year we haven't been able to have a "small"(LOL) family party for him. We wanted to make it special for him...although Aaron and Zoey managed to make a few appearances in there as well. Friday we went to the beach at South Padre Island. We took Zoey for the first time ever to the beach. What fun that was she did a lot better than we imagined she would. And for being a retriever, she's not very fond of water, that is, not until she discovered the ocean. The dog loved it! We had to keep her close to the beach because she would go out where she couldn't touch and get tossed under by the waves. There was a strong under-tow that day so i was a little nervous about letting her go out too far.

Enjoy these short movies.

Then on Saturday we finished game 3 of a mid-Season baseball tournament in the town/city of Hildalgo (which is about 10 miles from Mission). The boys didn't win but they played hard. The final score was 9-8. Bummer. We all thought they had it, too. While we were waiting at the field for the games to start, Aaron and I would go to the playground and wait. This is where Aaron makes one of his appearances. I call these pictures "GIVE YOUR GRANDMOTHERS A HEART-ATTACK!"

On Saturday we went to a fun place in McAllen called The Zone. The inside is kinda like Chuck E Cheese, but the outside is really cool, especially for boys. They have a go-kart track, batting cages, bumper boats, and miniature golf. Andrew took a friend, Darren, ANd the rest of our family went. I had the most fun on the bumper boats. Aaron really wanted to ride the boats so i took him in one boat, Andrew and Darren each had their own boat, and two other kids I don't know had their own boats. NOW, I'm the only adult out there and poor Aaron is stuck with me. What we didn't realize was the boats had a button to squirt water at other boats. YEAH. LOL. Even the two kids we didn't know where spraying me with water. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time and i think i was wetter from this than any water ride at Disney or Sea World! We had a blast! And thank goodness Richard was there to take pictures.

Today is kind of a restful day as Sunday should be. Richard took Andrew to the movies to see IRONMAN While Aaron and I are chillin'.

I know this weekend was about Andrew, and I didn't really tell you much about him, but I'll do that in another post.

I hope you have all had a great weekend and I pray that the Lord poured his blessings on each of you as he did us this weekend.