Some pictures from the weekend

We had a great time this weekend in Georgetown visiting Chad's side of the family. Emma and Shawn did a great job hosting lots of family. Here are a few pictures that I thought were pretty cute of the kids. Ava's getting ready to slide.
Riley and Elle...we celebrated their 4th birthdays this weekend. They are 2 1/2 weeks apart.

This one is hard to photograph. If Josey knows you want to take her picture, she completely ignores you. So I spent quite a bit of time with the camera on her and got a couple of cute shots.

And here's the newest addition, Lucy. Isn't she adorable? You can tell she is just loving sleeping on her dad's chest.

And thanks to Joey for getting this picture of Chad and me.

This weekend we are off to Georgetown to have a "Chad's side of the family" visit! We are so excited to have everyone together; it'll be the second time in the past 5 or so months that all the siblings and their kids have been in the same place, and we always have a blast. Only this time there will be one more! I'm taking my camera and I'm sure I'll have some fun pictures to post when I get back. We get to meet our niece Lucy for the first time. Time flies...seems like we were just meeting the other tiny little babies for the first time, and now they're all kids! You know, not babies anymore, kids. Speaking of that, we will also celebrate Elle's 4th birthday that happened a couple weeks ago. Riley gets a present too since her birthday was in March.

Also, I guess all our family knows now that Chad got a new job. What a blessing. He'll be working for a hospital here as a nurse tech until he does his clinicals and takes his NCLEX. He'll be able to turn in his availability and work when he wants to, pick the length of his shifts, and get practice for his clinicals. Also, he'll get a good feel for which unit he wants to work in when he becomes an RN. We are excited about the opportunities this blessing will open up for us in our lives.

I guess that is about it for now. Have a good weekend everyone! Yes, I know it's only Wednesday, but my weekend is starting earlier than that. Now, only 5 more weeks until school is out!

Fun (tiring) weekend

I don't remember when the last time was that I was the (lone) sponsor of 4 teenage girls for 4 days, but that was how it was this past weekend. I took my 4 2009 yearbook editors to a convention in Austin at UT, and we went a day early so we could get some planning done and of course go shopping and have enough time to eat at all my favorite Austin restaurants. Times like this are why I became a yearbook adviser. We had such a fun weekend. Our first stop on the way down was the side of the road. I kept pulling over to see if the patches of bluebonnets were enough to take pictures in. I hadn't really put a lot of thought into this, but I've realized lately that wildflowers don't really exist in west Texas. Growing up in Austin all my life, I just figured everywhere in Texas had the things. Anyway, most of these girls had never had their picture taken in bluebonnets before. Imagine how scandalized I was that you can call yourself a Texan and your parents never forced you to take cheesy bluebonnet pictures before! So, we did it. They were a little skeptical at first, but I think you can see that they turned out well. I even turned on the self-timer and put myself in one. Even with stopping to take pictures in the bluebonnets, it only took us 6 hours to get to Austin. Friday we spent the day just hanging out, Saturday was the convention at UT, and Sunday was the drive home. By the end of the weekend all four girls were just as excited about "everything yearbook" as I am all the time. I love my job!

Yes, they really were laughing this hard.

Good ol' Texas.

Bringin' in the big guns

APHIDS!!!!!!!!!!!!
or at least thats what i think they are. They look kind of like whiteflies and kinda like aphids and not exactly like anything i know, but I do know that they have obliterated all of my cucumber plants. One of them was beautiful and strong yesterday evening and this morning it was like the plant had never been there. Dry, crispy, and with a thousand tiny little holes in its little cotelydon leaves where they had sucked all of its juices out. My broccoli has been under attack but has held strong so far. I have found little nests of these things in the ground of my garden and rose bed. But now i am bringing in the organic big guns.....thats right: LADYBUGS. the aphids natural enemy. I went to a nursery to day and bought several butterfly flowers. they attract ladybugs. In fact, there was a ladybug all ready on one of the plants i bought and another landed on me while i was carrying it around in the nursery. I also bought two scented geraniums (aka citronella) and planted them in my garden as well. When I start earning some money I can buy more plants, and maybe some ladybugs if need be, but this should get me started. Anyway, this is a great test of patience for me. enjoy the pics.


butterfly





geranium

another 6 miler

I just ran my personal best: 6.02 miles in 55minutes. Thats 22.14 miles so far this month for me. I encourage everybody to get out and run or walk. you can go to MapMyRun and keep a great little training log, map out potential routes in your area, and see what routes other people recommend. Check it out! --Chad

New floors!

here are berfores and afters of our new floors. Enjoy.

Procrastinating

I am totally procrastinating right now. My job today is to get the 5th issue of our paper ready to go to press (and yes, the students did do their job, but my eyes are always the last ones to look at everything so nothing goes into print that I did not approve). Well, this takes a few hours to go through and I've been meaning to get to it all day, but duh, I've been teaching. So I've saved everything on my flash drive and will make a date with my laptop, issue 5, and "American Idol" tonight. I'd invite Chad, but I bet he's not interested given the other guests.

Well, we are going to state UIL. One of my students qualified as an alternate so Chad and I will be accompanying him in a few weeks to Austin for the meet. He may or may not compete, but if anyone doesn't show up, he's in, so we're going just in case that happens.

So I guess Chad told you about the big run. I was exhausted last night, but when I woke up this morning I felt good, and only my knee joints were sore--no muscles. Pretty cool.

Last thing...prepare to see some pictures pretty soon of our new floors. We replaced the floors in the front living room and all three bedrooms. The carpet was stained and gross from the previous owners, and we made it worse because we knew we'd eventually rip it out, so when we painted the rooms we weren't exactly what you would call careful with not getting paint on the carpet. All those rooms are wood now, so the house now has no carpet in it. Yay! Perfect for folks like us who don't take kindly to all the junk that gets caught in the carpet from dust, dirt, pets, etc...and our poor children who will probably have their father's respiratory issues. Anyway, it looks awesome and I have been itching to start taking pictures of it, but I've decided I'll wait until they're completely finished and the floors are actually clean. We have all the furniture from those rooms out in the garage and we're sleeping on our mattress in the living room, which has been pretty comfortable. Anyway...stay tuned.

the run

Everyone needs to give Lesley a hand. Last night we ran 6 miles together. This was Lesleys first time to run 6 consecutive miles, and only my second. I am more proud of her though because she ended up taking a wrong turn towards the end and I'm pretty sure that put her over the 6 mile mark, but she just kept on running. I'm proud of you honey!!

New niece & what's going on around here

The most exciting thing that is happening in our lives right now isn't actually happening to us, except indirectly. Chad's sister Emily gave birth to Lucy Adele Myers yesterday, and we are so excited to meet her! I know I've said this before, but nieces and nephews are so fun to have. Erin will have another baby girl in August, and that will make 8 for us. That's a lot of kids born in less than 4 years to our siblings! It's fun being the youngest.



Some other less important things are going on lately, such as me remembering why it's a bad idea to run at night. Chad and I went running together after playing volleyball up at church last night, and on the very last stretch my foot caught on an uneven part of the sidewalk. The irony is that this part of the sidewalk is painted YELLOW with reflective paint, and I've noticed it many times when I run during the day. But, it doesn't show up at night. Anyway, I caught myself with my left shoulder and elbow, followed by my right knee. All day my kids were asking, "Why are you limping?" And they got a kick out of the story. Glad it was amusing to someone.



Another thing going on in my life is journalism stuff. Our regional competition is this weekend, and two of my three kids advanced from the district competition, where our school took first place for the first time since the '80s. I'll let you know if either of them advance to state, which buys me a free trip to Austin and a day off school! Sweet!



Also, a few weeks back I chronicled the beginnings of our garden. Well, planting herbs from seed is not for the faint of heart, and I've already caved and bought herb plants, which were still cheap and are doing GREAT! I've already used some of the dill, and I've harvested some basil and Italian parsley. I've been reading about how you can turn fresh herbs into a paste and freeze in ice cube trays to use as fresh, so I think I'll do that to preserve what I've already harvested so I don't feel like I have to use it right away. I have two tomato plants that have sprouted and seem to be doing very well, although I've read a lot about how finicky tomato plants can be, so we're taking care not to disturb them too much while they're gaining their strength. Chad's garden is taking shape. He's already got two rows of spinach coming up, and he's planted tomatillos and a couple other things from seed, and the tomatillos come to mind because some of those have sprouted.



And finally, Chad applied today for his clinicals. This is what the long wait is for. We'll let you know when that happens. Now, it's sit and wait time.

The latest

Things have been pretty quiet here lately. The past week was a good one for me. I went with the UIL team to our district meet in Canyon on Friday. We are still not sure what the final results are, but our school did well and we are hoping that we beat Lubbock High which has not happened in a million years or something like that. On the homefront, Chad finished up the tile job and it looks great. Also, while I was gone, he spent the entire day cleaning the house and it was spotless when I came home. I think I thanked him 10 times for cleaning...let's just say it had been more than a week or two since either of us made progress towards a cleaner house. In case you forgot what the entry way looked like before, here are some reminders:And the finished product (minus a few extra coats of sealant that Chad still wants to do): Looks good huh? Now here's a picture of a deer that doesn't have anything to do with this post; I took the picture while we were visiting dad and the deer came up in the backyard to feed. Poor scrawny little thing.
Only 9 more weeks of school.

The play by play

Okay, I promised a bit more detail about our Spring Break excursions, so here it is. Friday afternoon we left for Blue Haven via Clovis, where a random person lives who said she wanted to buy our saltillo tile that doesn't match the saltillo tile in our house. So we stopped there and dropped off the tile, then went to camp. We were there all day Saturday and Sunday working on stuff around camp, and then we left Monday morning. While we were there, we met with our builder to get some more ideas about our cabin. Now, he is working on plans and gave us a timeframe of 3-6 months from start to finish. We're just not sure when he'll be able to start given other projects he's working on and the weather up there. Let's just say this: when it's done, you're gonna want to go there. We can't wait to be able to enjoy our cabin!

Okay, on to the next leg of our trip. Monday we drove to Weatherford from camp, via Lubbock to drop off dirty laundry and water our plants (which, I'm happy to report, are doing rather well! That's for another update.). That night we got to mom's and the rains came tumbling down. The next day we drove over to Hurst so Chad could take his final nursing test and yep, you guessed it, he passed with an A. So now, he plays the waiting game to get his application approved, get a date for clinicals, take clinicals, take NCLEX, become RN. Our guess is that this will take somewhere around 9 months for everything to be finished.

After Weatherford, we made our way down to San Antonio via Georgetown. We got to see Shawn, Emma, and the girls for a couple hours and went to church with Shawn (Emma stayed home with the kids since they had been sick). It was fun to see them and get to see the church they attend and where Shawn preaches.

Last stop was San Antonio. I mentioned random Craig's List lady earlier in the post, and maybe that requires a little bit more explanation. You all have seen the tile busted-out pictures in a previous post and the tile that was completely different from the saltillo that is installed in our den and hallway. Well, we wanted to put the same saltillo in our entry way, so we went over to our local home depot and found 12x12 saltillo tile there. Or maybe I should say "saltillo" tile. When we got it home, we realized that it was bigger than the original tile by about a half inch, not the same color, thinner, and pretty much not authentic at all. Great. Luckily, the previous owners of our home left a partial box of the original tile in the shed. After some digging on the internet, Chad found out that the guy who distributes this tile used to ship to Home Depot, but the orders were so big that he couldn't keep up and now distributes out of San Antonio. So, we made arrangements to pick up the tile in San Antonio, and while we were there we spent a few days with Dad & Ginny. Erin, Josh & the kids also made their way over and we got to see them. It was a successfull trip; we got the tile, we got to see family, and we got home in one piece, with enough time to go to church and sleep a few hours before I had to go back to work.

And that brings us to today. We're back at home, Chad is working on installing the tile in the entryway (finally), and we had a great Spring Break. Now the official "end of school" countdown is on: 10 weeks!

Around Texas and New Mexico in 7 days

We are home from our trips to Blue Haven, Weatherford, and San Antonio and successfully accomplished everything we set out to do over Spring Break. I'll blog more later...after 7 hours in the car today, I don't really feel like being on the computer!

Okay, NOW we're done

I actually submitted the rest of the yearbook pages today. We had a party in class. Glad I got the big cookie cake because it was all gone.

Can we just call off school tomorrow and have spring break early?

It is finished

The yearbook, that is. We finished all the pages today and now I just have to check through them one more time before submission. I'm pretty excited that our deadline is not until Monday and we are already through. I'm planning a party in yearbook class on Thursday complete with pizza and a cookie cake to reward my kids for all their hard work. Now the year feels like it's almost over, and I can truly relax during Spring Break! I can't wait.

Trying my hand at gardening

Much of today, Chad and I have been working in the yard, clearing the front flower bed to get ready for planting shrubs (there is nothing there now) and going to the nursery. We have this local nursery that we went to for the first time today, and I think we were probably there for two hours. They were so helpful and knowledgeable! I will never go to Home Depot or Lowe's to buy plants while we live here. A couple posts ago Chad showed you a picture of where he busted out the concrete slab that was supposed to be for an RV, although it must have been an RV for elves because it wasn't a very big slab. Anyway, he will be planting a garden there soon, and I have decided that my part in this whole venture will be sowing and caring for the herbs. I really like to cook, and I love using fresh herbs in my cooking, but I almost never buy them because 1)they are very expensive, 2) the quality in the local stores leaves something to be desired, and 3) I usually only use a little bit of them so the rest goes bad. Anyway, when we went to the nursery today, I picked out the seed packets of the herbs I like to use most often in cooking: thyme, basil, cilantro, mint, Italian parsley. These packets with a ton of seeds in them were less than 2 bucks each! They didn't have any rosemary seeds so I bought a rosemary plant. Well, while we were there, they just happened to be having an herb seminar, so I sat in on that and learned a bit more about how to plant and what sort of conditions to plant the herbs in. So over the next few months I will be documenting my first try at growing my own herbs, and I will show pictures of the progress. Here is the beginning: (thanks, mom, for all the pots! I didn't have to buy a single one.) From the left is thyme, flatleaf parsley, rosemary which is already smelling up the whole front porch, basil, mint, cilantro, and the 5 little pots on the bottom right will be tomato plants. I will be transferring everything in and out until the weather at night gets warmer. Once (if) the tomatoes become plants, we will transfer those to the ground in the backyard. The beginnings of my project. We are also planting spinach and squash in the garden, and probably some other veggies as well.

If you have any tips about planting in west Texas, we would love the suggestions! Chad's grandparents who lived here for years had a very large garden in their backyard and have given us some advice. Wish us luck!

This is a post by Lesley

I just wanted to clear that up and let all the readers know that I will try my best to put as few spelling errors in here as possible, and also check it for spelling multiple times before I post. Anyway...

I'm so excited. The yearbook is almost done. We have 8 pages left to do, plus the index. It will be done in just a few days, which makes me super happy!

Also...we have just received our first sketch for our cabin. We are meeting with the builder next Saturday (hopefully--they just had a foot of snow in the canyon so we'll probably have to meet in town, which is fine), and plans are underway to build this summer! Yipee! I'm not going to show you the sketch we received today because it is just a first draft and won't be what the floor plan will actually look like. You'll see soon enough.

Another piece of exciting news...Chad got an A on his 6th nursing test! He only took his 5th one last Saturday so this was really fast. Only one more left, then the wait for his clinicals, then the NCLEX. Keep him in your prayers as he gets to the part that he sees as what is going to be the most difficult.

And...it's the weekend! We will do more work on the house this weekend and get all the laundry put up that had to be washed over the week since our house has been demolished. We'll post pictures as soon as all the flooring has been replaced (except for the existing tile), which should be over the next few weeks. Then the house will be safe to visit again.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

A Chad update

The title doesn't mean that I am updating you on Chad, It means that I, Chad, am creating this post. It will be filled with random pictures of our lives right now. First, as many of you now I have begun the process of installing saltillo tile in the entry way of our house. The demo is done and now we must drive to San Antonio on Spring break to get tile that matches. I used a 4.5 inch angle grinder to get the thin set up and in the process got dust on everything we own. Literally I think this dust is so aggressive that it has probably traveled to some Carribean island by now and created an asthma epidemic among their children. So much for my New Years resolution of bringing peace to the world. Maybe next year. Here are some pics of the demo and the aftermath.

The ugly tile before

My weapon

My destruction!!!!!!!!!

So here is the aftermath of grinding up thinset despite, I might add, my efforts to contain the dust.

Notice where the star once hung on our wall

We were up until 11:30 that night cleaning. On a lighter note here are some pics of my climbing wall.
My wife just the way i like her, barefoot and climbing Random picture of my garden area (formerly concrete slab)
My compost bin made of recyled material (old lattice and pallet) and filled with recycled material (notice the beatiful egg shell, banana peel, and purple onion...delicious!)

Good weekend, good week

Well, I had a really fun weekend. I took Friday off, and Thursday afternoon I met up with mom in Weatherford for a weekend of shopping in Austin. We left early Friday morning and stopped by Shawn & Emma's to get a tour of their digs. Boy, is that place nice! We had a nice little visit with them, and then it was time to pound the pavement and find some good deals. We were seriously at stores from the time they opened until the time they closed on Friday and Saturday. We had so much fun! Our first stop was Ikea, where I found some cute area rugs for the guest bedrooms, some curtains for our room, and a few kitchen things (this was my first Ikea experience, and I'm hooked). Then it was on to the outlet mall in Round Rock where I found some clothes. Next we went and checked in to our hotel and went to our favorite Chinese restaurant, Twin Lion, for dinner. Not to waste any time, we then headed to the Arboretum for more shopping, and finally, the Gateway shopping center where they have a Crate & Barrel (first time in one of those too), an Ulta, and various other stores. Well, we still hadn't gotten our fix, but they were shooing us out and locking the doors, so we decided it might be time for us to go to sleep. On Saturday we headed out to the mall and then went to my favorite Mexican restaurant ever for lunch, Trudy's. After that we went to a few local Austin stores further south, and headed out of town around 5:00. On the way back to Weatherford we stopped at the outlet mall in Hillsboro where I found my prize item, a beautiful Kitchenaid Artisan mixer, and I got a great deal on it...less than 50% of what the regular price had been of the one I saw earlier in the day at Macy's. I've already used it twice and I love it! Anyway I was joking earlier about them turning off the lights and locking the doors, but this really did happen to us just as I was finding some really cute stuff to try on at the Gap outlet. Not to be discouraged when they turned off a light, I ran to the dressing room. It was a good thing I did because I got some really good deals there too on some cute stuff. I got back on Sunday in time to pick Chad up from the airport. It was really good to see him after not seeing him for a week.



This week has been a good one. Things are dying down at school, and spring is in the air, which means everyone is in a relatively better mood. We have a 4 day week this week with a teacher workday on Friday. I get one teacher workday off this year because I'm a UIL coach, and I was originally going to take this Friday off, but I decided that I will take one off later in the year and use this Friday as a day to get caught up, wrap up some yearbook stuff, and plan my curriculum for the rest of the year.



Lastly, we are excited because we have a brand new internet service provider. I know, fascinating. This is what people without kids have to talk about on their blogs. Anyway, I didn't know until about two weeks ago that you can get DSL and not have a landline...did you know that? Well, you should have told me! Since Chad & I only have cell phones we didn't want to put up the extra dough for a landline just so we could have better internet, so we suffered with stinky wireless for 6 months until I finally found something affordable and fast! So now we are up and running with our DSL and Chad can actually take his practice tests at home without "a network cable being unplugged" every 5 minutes. Woo hoo!



That's it from here. Chad has his 5th test tomorrow...we'll keep you updated of course!

**Update...Chad passed his test yesterday with an A...only two more to go.

Well, I figured since it's Saturday I better post since I have the time. Not much has been going on around here, just the usual. We had a good week. Thursday night (Valentine's Day) we had a few couples over from church for dinner and then we all went to a play at Tech. The play was written by a guy in our small group who is getting his Master's in playwriting from Tech. Anyway, it was being produced all week so we all decided to go on Thursday. It was really good and funny. (I know, I should be a play critic with insightful comments like that).

We are almost finished with our 4th yearbook deadline, with only one left after that. I'll have workdays every day next week until it (the 4th DL) gets done. I can almost taste the sweet satisfaction of completing the yearbook. Once the middle of March rolls around, it will be done, and all we have to do then is wait for them to print it and deliver it, and -oh yeah- plan next year's book.

Hmm...what else is there to tell...oh yeah, we got our new mattress. Some of you out there in blogging world may not care (especially the random people I don't know out there who read this blog), but we have wanted to buy a new mattress for a really long time, and it's not just any mattress, it's a Tempurpedic. Yes, that's right, we paid way too much money for the privilege of sleeping on marshmallows. Seriously though, we've had it for two days, and so far it has been super comfortable and worth every penny. So for those of you out there who have thought about buying one of these and just haven't brought yourself to do it yet, we can attest that it really is worth the money, as much as we know about it so far.

Yes, just another exciting week in the Montandon household. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

It's been a few days

Well, things are going well here. Chad took another test on Saturday and yep, you guessed it, he passed with an A. He is now on to his fifth test. He also just bought all the wood to build his climbing wall in our shed, so he's been working on that the past few days as well. As of today he has a cold, so he might be moving a little more slowly until he gets over it.

My weekend was good. My team won first place in Glen Rose, and I got to see my friend Larry from college. It was good to hang out with him and good that my team won, but not good that one of the buses broke down while we were in Glen Rose so we all had to pile on one bus for the 6 hour ride home. Anyway, the trip was fine except for that, and me being tired pretty much all the time from all the UIL events and yearbook deadlines that are running my life at the moment.

Yesterday we also went to a Superbowl party after our small group Bible study, and it was an evening filled with food, games, football teams I don't care about, and hanging out with friends.

That brings me to today. I finally got our plane tickets booked for our vacation this summer, so that's exciting. Only four more months until school's out! I won't start counting down the days quite yet (too depressing) but I am looking forward to summer, or at least spring break.

We have had a good weekend around here. Chad got up to go take his 3rd nursing test yesterday morning (and I got to sleep in! Woo hoo!) and he passed with an A. So he's almost halfway there with the tests. He has another one this Saturday, and then three more after that. He's doing great! Yesterday we also went running, did laundry, and raked the last of the leaves that have fallen into our yard.

Also, I spent a lot of yesterday researching plane ticket deals for our Hawaii trip (which explains the running--I'm trying to get in shape for our trip, plus fit into all the clothes I've grown out of). I need some advice from those of you who travel a lot. I have heard that there are better days of the week, and good times where you are a certain amount of time away from your trip, that it is better to buy tickets. Our trip is in mid-June, so when should I look for tickets? I had back luck yesterday because all of those flight-comparison websites had not updated their fares over the weekend and I kept trying to buy a fare that is apparently sold out. Anyway, if you have any advice about this, I'd love to hear it.

That's about it from here. More laundry this afternoon, and maybe a nap. Hope everyone has a great week!

Well...

The UIL meet is over and done with. I was up at school at 6:45 this morning to make sure my contest rooms were ready, and my judges and proctors started showing up at 8:15. I had 13 judges and 6 proctors total, so plenty of help. It ran very smoothly and I was finished by 2:00. Then I came home and took that nap I had been fantasizing about all day. So, now I know I can do it and it won't be such a big deal to me next year. I know some of you who read this are actually interested in how it went, so that's why I'm posting. Thanks for caring about the miniscule events in my life.

I just talked to Chad a little while ago and I think he is giving his third talk as I am writing this. After that he'll be done for the day and he'll just have Bible class and the sermon tomorrow (just?). Then he'll be going to visit Shawn & Emma, so I'll be picking up Brandi from the airport and we'll have a good ol' fashioned slumber party on Sunday night. I'm excited about it, and I'm also ready for Chad to be home!

Quick update. It's been a busy week and it will be a busy weekend as well. But, I am feeling a little deprived of blogging, so I decided to take a few minutes to feel like I am actually communicating with people. So a lot of you found out today that my sister is expecting another baby, and since she published it on the world wide web, I figured it would be okay to discuss on my blog as well. I'm really excited. Keep those nieces and nephews coming, family. They're lots of fun.

Also, I pulled a Josh today and made a complete fool of myself in front of the entire student body. You see, there are two mascots at school, and I have one in my yearbook class and one in my Journalism I class. So, they asked me to be a part of the pep rally today. Wanting to be a good sport, I said yes. So I had to do this stupid obstacle course thing with two other girl teachers that involved me jumping rope for 10 seconds at the half court line. It was a battle of the sexes pep rally, and the girls won. I mean, the guys didn't really try, but still I was glad that we won and also glad that the mascots didn't make me hula hoop. I'm actually pretty good at jumping rope. Anyway, a lot of my students were taking pictures at the pep rally today so if they got any of that I'll be sure to post it. I'm sure y'all will get a kick out of it.

Tomorrow is the dreaded UIL meet at the school. I'll be up at the crack of dawn to get my events ready, and I will be coordinating my four events all day (making sure I have proctors, judges, etc.). Just thinking about it makes me want a nap, which I will be sure to take tomorrow afternoon.

Chad's in Brownwood. Pray that his retreat goes well and that his trip is safe, along with the other people traveling to and from there.

We are going to Hawaii this summer. I can't wait.

That's all for now, folks. I'm actually having some girls from church over to the house tonight so I better straighten everything up. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

See you in March

Those of you who read about Chad and Lesley's adventures (as unadventurous as we may be) on a regular basis might notice over the next couple of months that the blog won't have as many entries on it. This is mainly due to the fact that I am a yearbook teacher, and out of the 5 deadlines we have during the year, four of them are in January, February and March, all before Spring Break. Sometimes I feel like an accountant that's really busy during a short time of the year and significantly less busy during other times of the year, but anyway, if you don't hear from me much before March, that's why.

I just got back from another UIL trip yesterday, in Flower Mound. It was a long trip home, stopping multiple times to repair and/or fill the other bus with more antifreeze. I was just glad it didn't break down completely, and we didn't have to fit all the mathletes on our bus. This weekend we are hosting a UIL tournament at my school, and I am in charge of all four journalism events. Since I've never done this before, I'm trying to be overly organized (is there really such a thing) and color-code everything, line up a few judges ahead of time, and make sure I have all my copies done way in advance. I'm sure it will be fine, and worrying about it would be breaking my New Year's resolution, so I'm not going to. I'm just sorry I have to give up this Saturday, because this is the weekend Chad is going to Brownwood to speak at the Heart of Texas Youth Retreat. Keep him in your prayers as he travels there and back, and as he speaks to the youth there. He will have 5 lessons total.

Also, in the next couple of weeks, Chad will be taking his Nursing 3 & 4 tests, with only 3 left to go after that. I'm so proud of him for studying so hard and being so disciplined. He would probably say he's not really being so disciplined, but it's all getting done somehow. And, he had the time to make a lemon meringue pie this weekend when I was gone. I was impressed, but I always knew he is quite the renaissance man.

Anyway, like I said, I probably won't blog much in the next couple months, but that's okay because we're pretty boring. If you're not already subscribed to something like bloglines, you should because that would keep you from checking the blog everyday only to see that nothing new has been added. But, if anything exciting does happen in our lives, y'all will be the first to know. Hope everyone has a great week!

Four years

Today is mine and Chad's four year anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been four years! Seems like just yesterday, not 7 1/2 years ago, that we met as potwashers at Blue Haven. The rest is history! We are at a lodge in Ruidoso until tomorrow celebrating. In the interest of not being on the computer the whole time we're here I'm going to sign off now...I just wanted to blog and say how blessed I am to have Chad for my husband and I am looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together. Have a great day everyone--I know we will.

The joys of homeownership

The title of this blog is partially sarcastic and partially serious. Yesterday we had the plumbers out to fix a couple of slow drains. In the process, one of our copper pipes that's probably been there since the house was built in 1962 busted and we had water all over the bathroom floor, and when we discovered the saltillo tile in the hallway was wet, we realized it had leaked between the wall of the guest bathroom and our closet. At that point we discovered the floor of our closet (carpet) was wet as well. Bummer. Anyway, after paying the plumber (to leave) we surveyed the damage. We're not really sure the extent of the damage at this point, but we are glad we have a 1-year home warranty that SHOULD cover leaky pipes not due to freezing. I think this is probably the first of many times we will call for a repair on our house only to discover that something much more major needs repair.

If you're going to have a plumbing issue, it should not be on New Year's Day, and it should not be right before you are about to leave town for your anniversary. The warranty place is (of course) closed today so we'll have to call them tomorrow before we leave. Luckily it's not a real emergency and only one of our water sources is unusable. We can still use the guest bathroom shower and sink, our shower and all the kitchen stuff so we're okay.

Chad and I briefly thought about pretending that we had not noticed the leak and pouring water all over our carpet so our homeowner's insurance would pay for new flooring, but then realized that might not be the best plan.

Anyway, the reason owning a house stinks, as most of you know, is because you are responsible for all these repairs. The reason it is good is because we are in control of who repairs it and when, and we don't have to wait for a landlord to get around to fixing it. And, if a leaky pipe or whatever is the worst thing that happens to us, all we have to do is remind ourselves that we have a great place to live and that we're not about to lose it because of a foreclosure like so many other folks these days. So this is what I think of when I start thinking that it's a bummer that our pipe busted. And, I'm not going to worry about it, because that would be breaking my resolution on the first day of the new year.

Naming a baby in 2008?

MSN.com has just released the Top 10 boys and girls names of 2007. I don't know how accurate it is since the Social Security Administration hasn't released the "official" list, but it's probably pretty close. Most of you who read this know that I am and have been really interested in names/words for most of my life (since I could read I guess), and this article points out one reason why names are fascinating: many times, the surgence or resurgence of a name reflects things that are happening in our culture. Most of you probably know at least one baby named Addison that was born since "Grey's Anatomy" appeared on TV, and the article points out that Addison climbed 20 spots in just 2007. That's kind of a big deal to name geeks out there. The same kind of thing had the opposite effect in 2006 when the name Katrina dropped from 246 to 382. To read more about the effects current culture has had on naming, go here. Fascinating! The author of the site sponsors a "name of the year" contest, and this year it was Barack. Let's see if the political climate of the United States has an effect on the number of little Baracks born in the United States in the coming years, shall we?

It would be interesting to see if this list took into account the kre8ive spellings of the mainstream names already present on the list (Addyson, Haylee, Ayden, etc.: you know, the parents who want to be "different."), or if those names are just a bit further down the list.

Anyway, if you are planning on having a baby in 2008, there's one list for you. You may want to get your ideas from it, or you may want to avoid it completely. Bottom line, if you love a name, you should go for it no matter how popular or unpopular it is. I mean, I grew up with many other Leslies in my classes (no other Lesleys though), and I was just fine. Anyway, even if you decide on a name for your child and have regrets about it later, a name isn't as permanent as it may seem. You can always change it like these people did. One girl in the article, named Sophie, began going by Isadora at the age of four!

Family Heirlooms

This is probably a normal thing, but I find that the older I get, the more interested I am in family heirlooms. This past week when we were at mom's house we went through a box of old quit tops that my great-grandmother Josie had done but never made into quilts. Mom wanted to know if Erin or I would like any of them. As ugly as some of them were (a lot of them were done in the '60s and the fabric reflected the garish styles of that decade), we hated to say no because a family member had made them. Anyway, I ended up with one and Erin decided to take the rest of the box.

Speaking of heirlooms, I received a gift for Christmas that is very special to me. Over the past few years, my mom, who would not fancy herself a scrapbooker, has spent a good amount of her free time (remember, she WAS working full-time until July and also taking care of my grandparents, just so there's no mistake that she had lots of free time) compiling scrapbooks of my life until I graduated from high school. She completed these scrapbooks and this was my main Christmas gift from her this year. It's so neat to have all of these memories compiled in scrapbooks so I can look at them whenever and be able to show them to my kids someday. They are also full of my mom's funny comments that only she could have said. Mom did a good job of taking separate pictures of me when I was a kid and I'm thankful that she did the scrapbooks that are just for me (she did the same for Erin a few years back). Anyway, her gift was definitely the most special gift I received this year and I am very thankful for it.

Also on the subject of inheritance, I have decided on my New Year's resolution for 2008. Many of you know that I get stressed/worried quite a bit, and this can be traced directly back in my family tree to my maternal grandparents, but especially my granddad. Anyway, that's not an excuse and I know that worrying is also a sin, so my resolution for 2008 is that when I start to get worried, to stop it and put all my burdens on God and have faith that he is going to take care of the situation and me. So there it is, I've gotten it out in the open so now I can't go back on it.

Happy New Year everyone!

Home again

It's well into the first week of my two week vacation from school, and we are home from visiting mom and grandmother in Weatherford. This holiday season was special for me because it's the first holiday season in 3 years that we have gotten to spend with my side of the family. I'll never take it for granted again! The first few days of my break, Erin, Josh and the kids and dad and Ginny all came to Lubbock and we had our first Christmas celebration in our new home. Well, it was really on Christmas Eve, but close enough. Then on Christmas day we packed up and drove to mom's for some family time in Weatherford. It was a lot of fun. After Erin and her family left, we rented a U-Haul and drove out to granddad's old barn out on their land to go through and pack up what was left there when they moved from the farm almost 10 years ago. We found some cool stuff but mostly it just needed to be gone through and gotten rid of. You know it's scary when you find a box that your granddad has labeled "bric-a-brac," and then there were all the boxes of old bank statements and tax returns circa 1970. No, I am not kidding. Anyway, we had fun doing a little manual labor that day and I'm sure mom will have a blast going through every single box that we brought to her garage.

So now we're back home and I'm savoring every minute of the time I have off. I could be doing a lot of work, but I promised myself that I wouldn't do anything work-related and that I would just enjoy my time off and relax. This is hard for me because sometimes "relaxing" means giving myself time to worry about all the stuff I have to do. Anyway, I'm not going to do it. Let tomorrow worry about itself.

Next week we will be off to Ruidoso for a couple of days to celebrate our fourth anniversary. I'm really looking forward to that. Chad has come down with a nasty cold that is making him feel pretty miserable, so please pray that it will go away before our little mini-vacation.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year. Here are some pictures from the past few days.

Kellen and Bonnie are scoping out the ornaments, lights and--oh yeah--presents.I think we've got ourselves a little Mozart on our hands. She'll be composing by age 3. Kellen and Pee Paw enjoying some quality time watching the "Jungle Book."Uncle Chad's electric drumset was a BIG hit. Look how fast Bonnie's hitting the drums!Kellen really enjoyed playing and was really amused every time a sound would come out of the amp...(oh yeah, Chad got an amp for his electric drumset for Christmas)Then it was out to play in the leaves. Secretly, we were just trying to pawn off the raking on our niece and nephew. It worked!This is about the time Chad suggested to Kellen and Bonnie that they should start throwing the leaves on me.

And Kellen got leaves in his mouth. Serves him right for being so mean to his aunt who was only trying to get some good photo ops.

I've just uploaded most of the pictures from Tyler to my Flickr website (see link to the right). If you are interested, you should be able to download the ones you want from there. I thought this would be a little more practical than burning 3 CDs of 330 pictures for anyone who may have wanted just 5 or 10. Also, when I was uploading them I did go to the trouble of rotating the vertical ones but it didn't seem to work. Enjoy!