Lovin' North Carolina

Sunset and storm clouds on the lake.

Rich and Aaron at Grandfather Mountain.

Richard and I at Grandfather Mountain with the mile high swinging bridge...a little scary to cross, but not to bad.

a view of Short-Off Mountain from the lake

Aaron at the lake.

Andrew, Jonathan(my nephew), Jarrett (my cousin) and Aaron at Mt Mitchell State Park

Andrew with his souvenir from gem mining in the mountains

Richard helping Aaron mining for gems in the mountains.

Our dog, Zoey, cooling her belly after a hike in the mountains to a beautiful waterfall.

my niece Ashton, Andrew, Aaron and Levi climbing to the bottom of the falls.

I know I haven't been on here in a great while, but I'm back. I just wanted to update you all on the goings on of "Me and My Gang." Well, where to start...

My husband is getting ready to go back to Iraq for a 2nd tour with the National Guard. This time it's the Texas Nat'l Guard. I am very proud of him that he serves his country the way he does. Not that I want him to go back, but I am proud that he's a soldier and serves his country in any compacity. To make a long story short, since he's going to Iraq, I opted to return to North Carolina for the year he's gone. I wanted to be surrounded by my loving family that is my support system, not to mention the boys really miss their grandparents.

We left Texas on Aug 2nd and it took us two days to get to North Carolina. My husband will be with us until August 26th when he returns to TX to finish work and start preparing for his tour in Iraq. Since we've been home, we've been having a great time. We've been spending lots of time in the mountains and on the beautiful lake (thankyou Daddy for buying a boat!).

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Earlier this week, Andrew celebrated his 10th birthday. In his words, "I'm no longer a kid. I'm a pre-teen." YIKES!!! Richard and I decided that the 10th birthday should be a special day so Richard planned a very special outing for Andrew. Andrew shares his fathers passion for airplanes but has never been able to fly.....until now. Richard went to the local flight school and scheduled an hour flight for Drew's first flight lesson. Needless to say, the kid, I mean pre-teen, was thrilled and had a great time. I didn't go for fear of how Aaron would react to not getting to fly, but Richard took some great pictures.

Here they are with the plane. I'm kinda glad I didn't go up in this little plane. Rich said it was samll enough that the pilot was able to turn it around by hand.

This is the view from Andrew's side of the plane (Richard was in the back seat taking pictures). The pilot actually let Andrew take control of the plane and fly it. He was so excited. He danced around the house all evening singing, "I flew an airplane! I flew an airplane!"

This picture the pilot took of Andrew while they were in the air, as you can tell.





I think this years gift will be hard to top next year. But hopefully he understands that it was a special thing and not the norm. Who knows, maybe Richard will start taking him every year for a flight on his birthday. How cool would that be?

Happy Birthday, Baby, I love you!!!

"It's not my fault"

Play Ball!

Well, we finally finished up basketball and now we're on to baseball. Andrew's basketball team didn't have such a great season. We are hoping that baseball will be better. The assistant coach used to be a professional baseball player in Mexico and seems to really know his stuff. The only problem is he only speaks Spanish. Fortunately, The head coach is there to translate (and we always have Richard on the sidelines during practice translating for Drew). Last weekend he had a double-header. Figures first two games would be back-to-back. Unfortunately, the lost both games, but the second game they only lost by one point. I think they were just warming up during the first game. We'll keep you posted on the rest of the season.

More Cheese, Please!

I told Andrew this story was blog worthy so I guess I should share it.

He is reading a book for school, I'm not even sure what the title is, but in the book the main character was apparently having supper: Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, broccoli and cheese, and apple salad. So Andrew comes to me and says that sounds good can we have this for supper. "Sure!" I said. I really didn't have anything planned. He likes to help me cook so together we made the meatloaf, peeled and cooked potatoes for mashing, steamed the broccoli, and concocted a cheese sauce out of Borden's American cheese slices and milk (I wasn't sure it would work, but it was actually pretty good). Now, normally when i fix broccoli I only steam it with a little butter so to have cheese was a treat for the boys. Needless to say it was a big hit, I mean what kid doesn't like cheese? They ate all the broccoli we prepared and Andrew even fixed more. The two of them a lot of broccoli that night. Andrew even wanted to take some for lunch the next day but there is no way for him to heat it up to melt the cheese. Anyway, for a mom who is always looking for a way to get her kids to eat more vegetables, you would think I would have thought of cheese sooner. I guess we're never too old to learn.

Yeah!!! WE WON!!!

WOOHOOO!!!!! You should've seen it. The Bulls were on fire tonight! The Celtics, not so much. The little fellas just played their hearts out and it payed off. Andrew even drew a foul and had to make foul shots. He's tried so hard to avoid getting fouled because he's not that great at the free-throws, however, he went to the line, planted his feet and tried his hardest. He stilled missed both shots but he was very close to making them. I think it helped his ego a little that he came as close as he did, not to mention what the win did for the entire team. Thanks again for saying prayers for them.

Happy Valentine's Day

He loves me...he loves me not...HE LOVES ME!!!

I hope everyone had a great and happy Valentine's day. It's been pretty uneventful in the way of romantic things (we've been busy with basketball and Richard had to work today), but my husband did get me an awesome display of flowers. My two favorite flowers are white Roses and Rubrim or Day Lilies and that exactly what the arrangement is made up of! Those are the two flowers that made up my wedding bouquet, unbeknownst to him. Of course he said he had planned it, but I think he's lying. Now let me tell you a little about this wonderful arrangement. It is the tallest one I've ever received. It stands 36 inches from bottom to top of the tallest rose. The vase itself is 16 inches tall. WOW! It is beautiful. Nonetheless, I was very excited to wake up to such a wonderful and thoughtful gift. He does love me and I do love him.

The boys received Valentine's from a number of people, including their grandparents. Mamo (Richard's Mom) included a red ballon in each card. I was happy to blow them up and tie them off for each kid and then Andrew started decorateing his. Well, you know what ever big brother does, little brother has to do as well. So, Andrew and I both helped Aaron decorate his balloon. They have been playing with them all day. Who would've known a little red balloon could make two little boys so very happy. Thank you, Mamo!

...and the Suns win it in Overtime!

Yep, yep, yep. The Suns beat the Bulls in Overtime. Wow, what a game!!! With the tension of the game and the cheering coming from the crowd, one would have thought we were at the Dean Dome in an overtime game between the Tarheels and the Blue Devils (that's University of NC and Duke University. BTW, did anyone happen to see the Tarheels BEAT the Blue Devils last night? I DID!!! Thank God for ESPN!)! The score was in double digits...10 to 10 and the game clocked ended sending us into overtime! The Bulls played theire little hearts out and tried every chance they had to make the basket, but it all came down to a lucky shot for the Suns. The crowd went wild, for the other team, that is. The Bulls sideline sat down with an, "AWWWW." The final score...10 to 12. I just wanted to thank everyone for saying a little prayer for our Bulls. They are really starting to come together as a team and it's starting to show. Keep your fingers crossed that next Tuesday's game will be the winning game for them.

Bulls VS. Spurs

I know there are at least some grandparents out there that want to see Andrew play basketball. This is the game he had on 2/10 against the Spurs. His team is the Bulls!!! He's number 6, and of course one of the only anglo kids on the team. We haven't won a game yet, but it's not about winning at this point. The kids are still learning the basic foundations for the game. However, it would boost them greatly to win at least one game so please say a little prayer that tomorrow's game will go well. The game tomorrow is at 8:00 central time. In the meantime, enjoy the video clips of the Bulls and the Spurs in action.

Texas State Aquarium, Corpus Christi

On Saturday of Marc's visit, we went to Corpus Christi which is about a two hour drive from where we are. We started at the State Aquarium. In the way of aquariums it was pretty good but not the best we've ever been to. Not only did they have the aquarium exhibits inside displaying water habitats of all kinds like coral reefs, the Amazon, fresh water and so on, they also had outdoor exhibts with dolphins, sea turtles, and river otters. The Texas Alligator exhibit is just being built so we missed out on the "crocagators" as Aaron calls them.

This was a cool picture with the light coming up illuminating the boys with the fish behind them.

The next picture was fun. In this one room the lights were aimed at the wall to make the walls look like water. Marc and the boys were pretending to swim.

Here was the touch pond. I was taking pictures, Richard was making videos, which left Marc to touch the hermit crabs with the boys. Andrew, of course, had no problem picking them up and looking at them, but Aaron was a little more leary. Finally, "Uncle" Marc put a crab in a large shell and Aaron was okay holding it that way.

Another cool thing they had was the "bubble" as we called it. It was a tank in the corner of the room with this doom in it. The boys had to crawl into it from underneath and stand up so they could be inside the aquarium. Really cool.

Here is my family outside the State Aquarium. Of course this picture was taken at the beginning of the day before I was tired and frazzled. We were there almost all day. At about 2:30, Richard and Marc decided to go over to the USS Lexington which is right next door to the aquarium. The boys and I stayed to shop at the gifr shop and play on the playground for a little bit. Later we headed over to the beach next to the Lexington to play in the sand and wait on Daddy and Uncle Marc.

After we all met up again, we ended a perfect sea-side day with a sea-food meal at Joe's Crab Shack on the Bay. The view was awesom! What a great day we had.

Go VIPERS!

In the apartments where we live, there are some players for the minor-league basketball team, the Vipers, next door to us. Andrew has befriended them and asked them if they could get him some tickets to a game. To our suprise one of they players brought him 3 tickets on Friday for Friday's game. Since Richard's friend Marc is here visiting us the three of them went to the game. I'm not even sure who they played. From what I understand they played a pretty good game and the guys had a real good time, especially with the mascots. Here's Andrew at the game.

Here's Marc, Andrew and Richard with the Chick-Fil-A cow. I'm sure the cow has a name, but does anyone know what it is?

One of the mascots that entertained for the evening was Clutch. He was a bear and also the favorite of the game. He went around and picked three kids who dressed up in bear costumes, followed Clutch around the court and had to mimic everything Clutch did. Comedy ensued as you can imagine. One of the things he did was pretend to pee on someone, then they had to shake their rear-ends at the players or the cheerleaders, I forget which one.

Anyway, the guys had a great time and Aaron and I spent a nice quiet evening at home.

Fall Fun

Since we moved from the mountains and foothills of North Carolina and to a sub-tropical climate, we no longer get to experience the beauty of fall. I really miss the leaves changing and falling. But never fear...MAMO is here! In years past, she has sent a box of fall leaves to her grandchildren in Miami, Fl. Now she does the same for Andrew and Aaron. The had a blast playing in the leaves and having leaf fights. Here's what fall in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas is like. Don't miss the video that's in the middle of the pictures.

Lights, Cameras....Say Cheese

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Last week i took the boys to get some pictures taken. I still haven't had Aaron's 4 yr old picture taken and i was not happy with Drew's school picture so i wanted to have those redone. While we're at it, let's just have Christmas pictures taken too! Here's a preview of how it turned out. the boys did really good and despite how the usually get along, they really had fun and look like they really love each other.

Happy Halloween 2008

Happy Belated Halloween!
This year we skipped trick or treating and went to church festivals in the area. The first church festival we went to was at Baptist Temple which is where I attend MOPS. They had lots of blow-up rides and climbing slides, they had rock climbing wall, as well as food and candy.

Aaron of course came up with his own method for obtaining candy!
He was a clone trooper from Star Wars this year. Andrew didn't want to dress up this year so he just tagged along for the fun and games. He had a great time on the rock wall and the velcro jump.

we hope you all ahd a great halloween just as we did.

Sue the Dinosaur

Today we went to see Sue the T-Rex. She's the largest, most complete t-rex skeleton ever found. She was found in south Dakota i think and her actual bones are in chicago. the display we saw today was a replica of the actual skeleton, well at least we think it is. I can't imagine the actual skeleton being on a traveling display. So anyway, Andrew was so excited to see it and aaron was more excited to play with the displays that were interactive. all-in-all we had a good time.