Walk, Run, and Roll and Eat!

We had a wonderful, busy weekend! We started early Saturday morning helping set up and register for the SMA Walk, Run, and Roll. A family at church has a little boy with SMA and this is the second year that we have had the Fun Walk and Run. After helping with registration, I walked the 2 miles while Joey helped direct the walkers and runners along the route. It was a fun morning that concluded with a hamburger lunch (the Eat part!). We both helped with the serving of the food and waited until the end to eat, but it was worth it.

Saturday afternoon, we did a little around the house and cooked for the LIFE class (our Bible Class) Fish Fry. Saturday evening we enjoyed a windy evening outside and lots of good food! Since it was a Fish Fry, the main entree was fish and shrimp, but don't worry, Joey didn't go hungry. They also had pork loin and brisket for non-seafood eaters plus there were many wonderful side dishes and desserts! It was a great evening of food, fun, and fellowship!

We concluded the food part of our weekend with a potluck after church this morning and Mexican Pile Up tonight at our Spiritual Formation Group. It was a weekend of cooking, eating, and fun!!

Happy Earth Day!

As I am sure you know, Wednesday was Earth Day!

I had to share a great idea from a parent in my class.

She cleaned out cans, then she and her son in my class painted the cans and planted rosemary, sweet basil, and oregano in the cans. It was so thoughtful and my first Earth Day present as a teacher! I am not really sure how to cook with fresh herbs, but if I can keep them alive, I plan to learn how to cook with them. I thought that would be a fun Earth Day project for my class to do next year, although we might plant flowers. It might be an improvement on our Earth Day project this year: picking up trash!

Happy Earth Day, a few days late!

Stop and Smell the Roses

As our roses begin to bloom during the hustle and bustle of this time of the year, I am taking time to stop and smell the roses. While I enjoy the beauty of the roses and of this season, I am so thankful for the wonderful creation that God has blessed us with and for the way the beauty calms me and slows me down. The past few weeks have been busy ones for us. We continued to be blessed with many activities at church and with our friends and family. Joey continues to stay busy with his work and is getting to the time of the year of wrapping things up for this year and getting to work on next year. I have also been busy with some new projects. 2 weeks ago I started an online course to prepare for the ESL Supplemental TExES test. After finishing the course in early June, I will take the test June 27th. I will then be certified to teach ELL (English Language Learners) kids in my classroom instead of them being in a pull out program. It has been an interesting course that will well prepare me for the test, but is some what time consuming. I am hoping it will not only prepare me to pass the test, but also will get me back into the studying/school mode as I plan in the future to work on my Master's. I also recently began serving on the board of directors for Kindercare, our preschool at church. It is a time of revamping and improving for the program, so I am helping out with curriculum and planning. We have also been enjoying the time outdoors working in the yard together and enjoying fresh air. Even though I am not a rose gardener and probably do not give the roses the attention or care they need to be this beautiful, I am amazed that they still are so pretty and full of blooms!

I hope that whatever you have going on in your busy life, that you too will "Stop and Smell the Roses".

April Weekends in Review

The past three weekends we have enjoyed several fun weekend trips that I have not posted, so here is a weekend review.

Weekend 1 - Abbye's 1st Birthday (and other family members birthdays!)

The Birthday Girl Gran and Kenna enjoying the party.

Abbye trying on her John Deere Build-a-Bear clothes. The overalls were a bit snug, but she looked pretty cute!



Weekend 2 - Life Class Retreat at Lake Brownwood Christian Retreat Center. We had a great time playing games and getting to know people in our class better! It was a beautiful weekend we enjoyed some time outside!

Weekend 3 - Kenna's Birthday and Easter - The family all gathered in Snyder on Saturday for Kenna's (and other family members) birthday! Then on Sunday we went to church and had the traditional Easter picture by the tree at Gran's house. Then Abbye and Kenna had lots of fun seeing what the Easter bunny brought.

Our Easter Pictures

The Paparazzi

Amy doing "Head, Shoulder, Knees, and Toes" to get Kenna's attention and smile during pictures.

While Kenna and Abbye enjoyed playing with their Easter baskets, the big kids played too!

The Planning

The Plan Backfires - While Amy was trying to crack the egg on Charlie, he got the egg and cracked it on her!

After 3 full and fun weekends, we are looking forward to being home this weekend! Have a great one!

Prayers needed now!

One of my best friends from college and his family are definitely in need of your prayers.

Kevin Parker and his wife Sarah have three children, a set of twin boys and a four-year-old girl named Trinity. She has been sick the last couple of days, but at some point from the morning, after Kevin got back from church, he could not wake her up. He rushed her to the hospital and they had to revive her two times. They transferred her to Cook's Children's Hospital, but they weren't sure she would make the ride in the ambulance.

She did, but her little body if full of acid, and they don't know the cause. They put her on dialysis to rid her body of the acid, and at one time, things did not look very good at all. At the time of me writing this (at almost 1 a.m.) she had responded somewhat and had shown signs of improvement with good labs finally. Her CT scan was normal when they did it earlier.

They have started a blog.

Kevin was in our wedding, and has been a brother to me since we met between our junior and senior years of high school. That's a 15-year relationship that I truly treasure.

Please pray that God's healing hand be in this situation and that His will be done!

We're excited!

So last year, when Leslye and I bought our beautiful home, we were planning to use the house God would bless us with for his glory: hosting, entertaining and our own family.

Well... we have been able to host family and friends at the house, we have been able to entertain family and friends at the house and then there's the final matter... our own family.

Well, Les has been tired lately and we figured it was because she just had too much time off from Spring Break and was having a hard time getting back into the swing of things like she did at the beginning of the year and after the Christmas break. She hasn't really been sick - other than a couple of moments here and there of feeling a little nautious but feeling better after she ate.

However - I guess in my own wordy way - we are very excited to announce that we can now take care of the final blessing. God has continued to bless us!

This weekend, we added three new plants to our array of "kids". And they are beautiful! By the way.... Leslye says: "APRIL FOOLS!"

Love ya!