help.....

OK how do I add blogging buddies links to the front page like you guys have it? Also, how do I see who has been here? Help me ladies please!!!!

Camping

Living in New Mexico has started our family in camping. The boys have gone a few times and spent the night and usually if the girls go it is just a day trip. So we have been planning for weeks now - that as soon as school was over we'd take a family overnight camping trip. So we wake up early in the morning, load the family truckster (my suburban) and head to the mountains. There is a camping site that we usually go to for the day and it has a fire pit and bathrooms and usually a creek. This time the creek was dired up. We get to the camp site and set up. As soon as we get their a girl from the campsite one over from us comes over. Now, seeing as how I work with children, I'm usually pretty patient and kind, BUT this girl would not leave! All day, she was over with us. For the most part it was ok since the kids and her were playing games and stuff but wow child give me a break! I was more irritaed with her parents. I would have told my kids to stay with us for a while and give the other people a break - but they did not even seem to notice her not being with them. More about her later.

Right across from us was a couple with 2 small kids; 1 was maybe 3 and the other a baby. I thought how nice. Until later..............................

So here are some pictures of our day then I'll go on with the story.


This is a picture of the kids helping set up camp - alright Mike and I did most of it they just wanted to make a fire. It was chilly up in them mountains!


This is the fire I got going - impressive - huh! OK really I bought a fire log at walmart and lit that and put fire wood on top of it - I cheated!



Kelly and Anna playing in what used to be the creek. They are just so cute!



Austin and Josh in the same creek. - They are just goofy!



This was at the campsite. Can you see how tall the trees are? It was just incredible!! we were at about 7900 ft. Just truly amazing!

We were having such a great day! UNTIL..... night came. It was so quite and peaceful then I start hearing some awful mexican jungle junk. It kept getting closer. I saw 5 cars coming towards the campground and Mike said to me - "don't worry there are no more camp sites open and then they'll leave." Guess what - he was wrong. Remember the sweet little family I told you about eariler well they were with them. They get out of their cars - kids in tow with beers in both hands, everyone smoking and a pregnant lady with a beer and a cigerrette. Dang I was mad! So while I was seething mad from that worring about who is going to take care of those kids when all the adults are plastered (which most of them were already) our pesky little neighbor girl came back. The boys locked themselves in the car so they would not have to deal with her - but was that good enough? NO! she started banging on the windows of the car. I politely asked her to stop. She kept going. Then she jumped up and grabbed the luggage rack on top of the car and was haning on it. I again asked her to stop. To no avail. She kept running around the car skreeching at the top of her voice for the boys to come out. By then, I'm very annoyed with her; with her parents not making her stop, with the stupid party going on next door with that crappy music and the louder the music got the louder the people got. To top it off it was getting colder outside. So Mike looked at me and asked - ready to go home yet. Man I think that was the quickest time to take down a camp in history.

OK are you happy now?

I know I have been quite lazy with the whole blogging thing. I have been extremely busy. Today was my last day teaching!!! Yeah! I have 3 weeks solid with cakes to do and deliver! Praise the Lord! Kids only have one more week of school - oh my! Mike has only one more month of employment - YIKES!

That is where my mind has been lately. We are just praying for the Lord to lead us. We were told that he would know about the Youth Pastor' job by the end of the month - that a few more applicants applied. So we are waiting on the Lord - trying to be patient (not easy for me) and praying a lot. It has been great to see how the kids are praying for this. I want it so bad because it would be such a wonderful thing for our family and I know we would be able to be a positive influence on the Youth in the church but I really want it for the kids to see how the Lord answers prayer - their prayers - not just mom and dad's.

We are also trying to prepare ourselves if the answer is a no. Mike has started sending out his resumes to different churches. We got a response from a church in Arkansas- where I would be thrilled if Mike has a job - I'm not really sure if I want to move again. BUT I have said that I'll go where ever the Lord sends us. Now, lets just say if there was a particular church in lets say Rockwall TX that needs someone - I'm sure my are could be twisted to move again.......

So needless to say other than being busy I have a lot on my mind and I promise I'll get better at blogging more regularly.

Sorry no pictures with this one.

My 39th birthday

Today is my 39th birthday. I have one more year until I'm officially old. My wonderful husband got me some great concert tickets - which includes an overnight trip for the two of us - YIPPEEE!!!! So I thought I'd share with you what my kids did for me. See if you can tell who has his mother's sense of humor........



This is Anna with the card she made for me. The card says that she "rilly" loves me. She also bought me a pack of ear rings.




Austin bought me the necklace I am wearing with some matching ear rings.- are you seeing a trend here?



See the nice pink package. My son Josh, bought me - guess what? You guessed it - some ear rings. But also in the pretty pink bag was a can of Dt. Coke ( my drug of choice). But of course he did not buy this for me - he just swiped it out of the 12 pack sitting in the fridge. Look closely at the wrapping paper. No he did not use tissue paper to wrap the gifts - he thought it would be funny to wrap my present in socks and underwear. - thanks Josh.



Now, my sweet Kelly, went against the trend of ear rings and bought me a 2 disk set of Tim McGraw's favorite hits. - Totally awesome!

So now, I'm another year older and so much more the wiser. Are you buying the wiser part? I thought I could pull that off.

My biggest heartbreak

I cannot tell you how sad I was when my dad told us we were leaving Garland. It was horrible!!!! I was leaving my best friends!!!But we had one great going away party for me. Pictures will soon be attached ..... I don't know how many houses we TP'd that night. It was awesome!!!

Wendy was saying that is was hard to believe that I lived there only 3 years because it seemed like forever. I think that was because Kristi and I wrote all the time. She sent me pictures of you guys through out the years, I got to come back 2 or 3 times to visit. Again, I have more pictures to post of those visits....

That pool we had was awesome! I remember my parents always saying that they bought the pool and they threw in the house - because it was not the greatest. I was telling my teacher's aide about one of the pool parties I had for my b-day and I fell asleep on my stomach and I burned sooooo bad that I had blister on my back and the backs of my knees that I would hardly walk and could not sit down. It was horrible! Thanks for waking me up guys! If I get skin cancer on the back of my knees it's your fault!!!

One of my favorite memories is the trip to Dillards! We were so loud and obnoxious ( I know that is hard to believe but we were). We started spraying perfume on each other, then the lotion came out then we got the powder stuff and we were running around the make up counters full or all the above mentioned trying to get each other then all of a sudden I feel the call of nature. I stopped running because I had to go sooooo badly and someone came and hit me in the face with a big ole powder puff and down I went to the floor. When I got up again there was a security guard asking us to leave and a big old wet spot on the floor. We had to still walk around the mall that way until one of our parents came - oh how much fun was that? :)

My extended family update.

Alright I'll start with my parents. My Sr. year in high school they decide to become missionaries in Mexico. After I graduated they went on debutation for a year, then did language school. They started a children's home for abused and abanonded children in Reynosa, Mexico. We have a new sibling in our family and her name is Lucy. She came to the home when she was about 2 months old and my parents have had her ever since and they are almost completed with the adoption. Lucy and my baby Anna are 3 weeks apart. How fun is that?

My oldest brother Bill lives in Sacramento, CA. He has 4 girls ages 17-5. He is in the Army National Guard and is being deployed to Iraq in July for 1 year.

Spencer lives and works in Mexico with his wife Patti who is a mexican national. They have 2 adopted children and then the baby who just turned 1 is their biological child.

Ray lives in New York City with his wife Nicole. He is top dog for the company he works for but I'm not sure what exactly he does. What ever it is - he is good at it. He travels world wide for them. They don't have any kids yet.

That is about it for them......I'll do a new post on how heartbroken I was when I moved from Texas.

Getting to know you.............

OK, my family consits of my wonderful husband Mike. He was my high school sweetheart. I just can't even tell you how much I love this man. Starting from left to right is Kelly, she is 10. Joshua is next to her and he is 11. Mike is in the middle then our baby Anna who is 7 then Austin is 13.





Austin is my gamer. We are regulars at Game Stop. He beats every game he gets in about 2 days. It get's quite irritating for me since I can't even last 5 minutes on anything without getting killed.




Josh is my sports nut. He acts just like his father except he looks like my brother.



Kelly is a people pleaser. She want's every one to be happy.



Anna is my wild thang. She is a walking disater area. You can always tell where she has been.