Western Day

Yesterday was Western Day at Sonshine School. Avery wore, for the 2nd year, her Daddy's chaps and vest, from when he was a little boy. NO ONE else at school had anything like these - so Avery was pretty special. They each got to ride a horse and Avery had a lot of fun. If we'd have been planning ahead and thinking, Gabe could have taken our calf Blackie up there for the kids to pet - oh well - maybe next year. I have written several postings all today, so make sure to read on after these photos!

Avery's good friend Abbey Crow

Sonshine School Class

Carter's Birthday Party

We are so glad we got to stay through Easter week and be at Carter's 6th Birthday party. It was at a gymnastic's center - and they kids got to do all kinds of fun stuff, including jumping into the pit of foam, with a trampoline under it. Avery loved it, and it didn't take the owner of the center long to point to her and say "DAREDEVIL"! We need to get this girl in a tumbling class.

Easter Sunday

Here are a few more pictures of actual Easter Sunday. I have trouble when I try to add lots of photos to my blog, so I'll just do a different posting for each topic.

Arctic Egg Hunt

Well I guess I better report about Easter, because life keeps happening and I seem to keep falling further and further behind! Let me say one word about Easter weekend - COLD!!!! We were in Sulphur Springs on Saturday with Leslie's family and went to the Easter egg hunt at their church - where there were 40,000 eggs! Before the hunt started though, they had bounce houses and fun games for the kids to participate in, with live music and popcorn, cotton candy, etc. It's a great outreach to their community. I'm used to cold weather, but I never expected a windchill in the 30s on Easter, so I did not exactly have the right clothes for us. We were a bit chilly, but we had a very fun day! Here are some photos.

Living In the Lap of Luxury

Okay, I have to tell you about one of the most incredibly fun nights I've had in years. It was last Friday, when I got to live "the life of the rich and famous" for about 3 hours. I had mentioned to my brother that we should try to get tickets on ebay for the Dallas Mavericks game which was to be played the week I was there. He thought it sounded fun, so I got on ebay and bid on some tickets, but they were going for way too much - in case you don't know - the Mavs have the #1 record in the NBA this year and are totally awesome - so I started thinking we would probably just have to watch the game from the comfort of Mom and Dad's couch. Then I got an email from Mike saying he'd found us 4 tickets, so Mike and Julie and Leslie and I made plans to go. (Israel already had tickets and plans for he and Caleb to go to the game)

Can I just say, when my little brother does something, he usually does it up right. He is one of those people who works really hard, and plays really hard. He is a Chemical Engineer for Valspar, and it turns out he has vendors who sometimes have nice little gifts to bestow on their customers. It worked out wonderfully that one particular vendor has box seats at the American Airlines Center where the Mavericks play - and had 4 tickest available for the game against the Utah Jazz Friday night. I had no idea that these were anything other than ordinary seats. As we were walking through all the "secret passageways", and having to show our tickets over and over to gain access to OUR SUITE, Leslie said, "I feel like Julia Roberts on Pretty Woman going to the opra".

It was pretty amazing - a room with all the food we could eat (ribs, hot wings, hot dogs, nachos, fruit, veggies, dips, and an open bar with any drink you wanted). The seats were wonderful and each one had it's own program included, and binoculars to get a better look at the game. The room had a flat screen TV where we could check to see that the tornados that night weren't blowing us away! And then after halftime, a dessert trolley came to our suite and we got to choose from an assortment of yummy sweets. Here are some photos of our evening. Thanks Mike, Julie and Leslie for a great time!




Notice the TV and the weather we were in! When the game started the arena was only about 1/2 full - then filled up completely by smart people who waited until AFTER the tornado to come!


View from the suite out to our seats and the court.

Catching up in Reverse - Meet Brownie!

It's been WAY too long since I've posted, so I'm going to start with the most current news and move backwards, so at least I can get the stuff that's fresh on my mind written down! I still need to tell you about Mike & Julie's visit, Easter and our week in Dallas, but I'll start out with news of our new puppy Brownie! He's an adorable Australian Shepherd, German Shepherd mix that we got from our friends here in Abernathy. He will be an "outside dog", but for now we are letting him stay in quite a bit, except for yesterday when I was in Lubbock all day, so I left him in the backyard. Then a terrible hail storm came out of nowhere and the tornado sirens were apparently going off in Abernathy and I was in Lubbock and poor Brownie was here alone in the backyard hunkered down the best he could to get out of the elements. He doesn't have a dog house yet, so there wasn't much place for him to go. Poor thing - I hope he doesn't hate his new home after only 2 days! After getting dried off and warmed up, he was back to doing normal puppy stuff - chewing and playing, so hopefully he won't suffer any post traumatic stress. Next installment coming soon!