Home Improvement

When we got home last week we hit the ground running to get started on some improvements we are making to our home. Some are major, like re-doing the bathrooms, replacing kitchen counters and painting the exterior of the house, and some are just little things that have been bugging us for a while but we haven't gotten around to doing anything about. We are hiring a contractor to do the big stuff and Chad got to work doing some of the other things on the list. Here are a couple pictures of things we've done, stay tuned for more interesting stuff. We're hoping to get it all done before the baby comes in a few months.

New porch light! After reading the post about Apple a few posts down, I would like to say "you're welcome" for not telling the story about returning 3 light fixtures to Lowe's and then spending an hour in another lighting store before choosing this one single light. I realize nobody cares about this but me and maybe my mom. This is what I'm excited about. Chad used chalkboard paint on the wall that faces our fridge and I love it! The bottom part is for Ezra to color on and the top part is mine. It turned out really good and I think I'm going to really enjoy it. The last thing Chad did this week was paint all the baseboards and chair rail trim in the guest bedroom. We are planning to move Ezra to that bedroom and keep the nursery as-is with maybe different bedding if we have a girl, but the green room will be Ezra's room, and if we have another boy, they'll share eventually.

So...that's all for now. Sorry if it bored you. Scroll down--I've posted 4 times tonight.

More pictures of the summer

These pictures are in no particular order. I took this one day when this little cub was found underneath the nurse's porch during Bible class. He is in the back of the game warden's truck. The game warden started driving off and the cub jumped out and ran down to the playground where another cabin was having class. Wayland ran down and grabbed it by its hide and put it back in the truck. Ezra with his buddy Jessica. She was such a help to me so many times during the summer and he adored her.

Ezra and Wayland the Bear Hunter/Skinner. They are also big buddies.
With Jessica the counselor.
With Candace.
Trying out the Rackleys' massage chair. Many of these pictures are courtesy Wayne Rackley.
This is a funny story. Jared and Britni got married during 2nd session and Wayland and Chad signed as witnesses on their marriage certificate. Then Britni filled out a part of the marriage certificate where you put in the bride and groom's names, but she thought that you were supposed to put the witnesses' names there. So Wayland and Chad were listed as bride and groom on their marriage certificate. Jennifer made them a cake and everything. Kandis and I were wondering if that made our marriages null and void.
Ezra occupies himself with sunflower seeds at the Brocks' wedding at Barillas lookout.
Ezra LOVED John Alan and Matt. Maybe it had something to do with their Toy Story outfits at one of the banquets. No, it probably had more to do with these guys showing him so much love and attention. For the first few weeks Ezra called John Alan "outside" because JA would always take him outside during meals and Ezra loved it. He finally got the hang of his name and now prays for John Alan and Matt on a regular basis.
Ezra loved trying on Wayland's hat.
This is the face Ezra put on for the first couple weeks of camp. He was skeptical of everything. I guess when he realized we weren't going anywhere he decided to lighten up.
Another one of Ezra and Jessica.
Love this sweet picture--thanks Wayne.
Um, I think he is hanging on to a deer antler? Hmmm.
I always mean to write stuff down or at least start blog drafts while we are at camp, but I never do. So then it gets to the end of the summer when we're all settled at home and I forget everything that I wanted to say. That happened this year again. It was a great summer. We knew better what we were doing and things were not so hectic. We enjoyed getting to know the permanent staff and the session staff. Many of those people have become like family to us. I especially enjoyed our college aged permanent staff and how sweet they were to Ezra. He just loved them, and they loved him too. What a blessing it is to have so many people that love your child. I am so thankful for the time we get to spend at camp and for the examples that these guys and girls are and will continue to be to my children.

Mini vacation in Santa Fe

The day we left camp Chad, Ezra and I drove the hour or so to Santa Fe to stay in a hotel and just relax before we headed home. I was so glad we took this little detour, because we got out of camp much later in the day than I thought we would after all the packing, loading and cleaning, and it was an exhausting weekend of starting each day super early and late nights each night. So I was glad not to have to drive 5 hours home exhausted and then have to unload, unpack etc. right away.

We decided that we would try a few restaurants that Guy Fieri had visited on "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives." One place we had already been twice--Harry's Roadhouse. The other places we went to were Backroad Pizza and Tune-up cafe.

Backroad was the first place we hit when we got to Santa Fe. We just ordered some garlic cheese rolls w/ their homemade ranch dressing for an appetizer, and Chad let me pick the toppings for the pizza. So I picked fresh garlic, pineapple, red onion, and canadian bacon. We all agreed that it was delicious, and enjoyed garlic breath for the rest of the day.We went to Harry's for dinner. This was our third time there, and probably our least favorite. Well, Chad didn't like his dinner very much this time. He got a steak and I got this delicious Moroccan vegetable stew w/ couscous: Anything lacking in either meal was made up for in the desserts. Chad got a slice of blueberry pie, which was just delicious with the lemon ice cream I ordered. Yummy!The first two times we went to Harry's I got the lemon ricotta pancakes and a Hawaiian pizza (yes, I love canadian bacon and pineapple on my pizza). I had been eyeing this on the menu but hadn't been willing to be that adventurous, but I was glad I finally ordered it. It was really good.

Finally, we stopped at Tune-up cafe because Tecolote cafe is closed on Mondays or we would have gone there. We will head back there next summer. Tune-up was really good though. It was a tiny little place and we ate outside. Actually, we have eaten outside at all these restaurants. You can do that kind of thing in Santa Fe because the weather is so good. I got the stuffed french toast which Ezra shared with me, and Chad got this dish pictured below. It was polenta with some kind of chorizo/corn chili on top of it. I tried it and it was really good. Ezra liked his scrambled egg too. This is how we all felt on the way home on Monday, and have felt pretty much ever since...it takes a while to recover from the summer.

Back in blogging

I'm back. It's only been a couple weeks since my computer hasn't been working, but I have barely noticed since we've been crazy busy at home. And, I just used Chad's computer if I needed to do something.

This post should really be titled "Why I love Apple" (the computer company, not the fruit, although apples are tasty too). Care for a story?

It was the last full day of 6th session. If you are at all familiar with Camp Blue Haven, you know that the last full day consists of lots of things: banquet, slideshow of all the session's pictures shown at banquet, many baptisms, closing campfire, people crying, etc. My story focuses on two things: the slideshow and the baptisms. When Chad and I got this job, a few things that fell into our job description were taking most of the pictures during a session (around 5-700 usually), putting together the slideshow, and making all the baptism DVDs to send home with kids whose parents didn't get to attend the baptism. Oh, and making CDs of all the pictures that appear on the slideshow. So, lots of technology going on.

Maybe I should back up even further. A couple weeks before this, due to circumstances completely under my control (i.e. clumsiness), I dropped my computer (which is really Blue Haven's computer that we use to do all this technology stuff) on the very hard surface of our tile in our living room. It worked just fine until the last full day of 6th session, specifically until one hour before the slideshow that Chad had been working on for 3 days was to be shown at the banquet. Back to the story.

As a teacher, I always thought that my students who told me that their computer crashed or that their printer ran out of ink or whatever the day before the paper was due were totally full of it. Maybe the majority of them were. But for the record, those of you who were being honest, I TOTALLY BELIEVE YOU NOW. Because that is exactly what happened to us. Right before I took the computer up to the dining hall so Chad could set it up for the slideshow, it froze. And then it wouldn't do anything. And then I forced it to shut off, and when it came back on, it wouldn't open any programs or files or anything. I spent the next hour online with Apple tech support, who helped me try everything in their arsenal except re-installing the operating system because I didn't have my CDs with me at camp. So I waited a few days and when we got back home, called them back, we tried what they wanted to try with the CDs, and nothing worked. Hard drive was inoperable. Meanwhile during that hour or so I was on the phone with Apple that day, Chad re-created the slideshow on his computer using the pictures that I had backed up on camp's external hard drive earlier in the day, along with all the other sessions of pictures. Whew! Glad I did that.

So, here is why I love having a Mac. You get to talk to a person--a NICE, KNOWLEDGEABLE person--on the phone every time you need help with your computer (one night, in our pre-Mac days, I spent TWO HOURS on computer chat with someone from McAfee on our Dell desktop whose first language was clearly not English, telling me over and over again that "I can help you with your problem." They couldn't, and I was so frustrated I was in tears by the end). We buy the apple care protection plan, which gives you as much access to tech support as you need, but the best part is that when they realized my hard drive was not going to get fixed, they sent me a box to pack my computer in, paid for overnight fedex shipping to Apple, switched out the hard drives, and sent it back. Then, when I got my computer back today (all of the mailing and repair lasted only 4 days including Saturday and Sunday), the computer took me through a few steps to recover ALL my hard drive information from our external hard drive (which is also our wireless router at home, called a time machine--it backs up wirelessly and automatically as often as I want it to). So I had this brand new hard drive, and all of a sudden it had all my pictures, my whole itunes library, all my documents, everything. People say they don't want to pay the extra money for an Apple computer, but I will gladly pay the extra money for a real person on the phone to help me and none of my data lost, especially pictures and videos...every time. Oh, and my sister told me that the other day they got a new computer, and Apple gave them a few hundred dollars credit for her husbands few-years-old computer that they traded in. So this is my unsponsored, unpaid advertisement for Apple. It's just technology, material stuff, but boy am I glad I didn't lose any of that stuff--especially my pictures.

Wow, are you still reading? That's amazing. Tonight I'll be posting a couple more entries, since I spent all day long cleaning our house, so I'll need to put my feet up so they don't start swelling. :)

August menu

After not having to cook for myself or my family for an entire summer, I look forward to getting back to planning our meals and being in the kitchen. It is a nice break from an otherwise sometimes tedious task of wondering what's for dinner. Somehow I had the wherewithal to plan our August menu before we left in May, and I am very glad I did, mostly because things are so hectic around here this week I wouldn't really have time to sit down and plan the menu. So here's what we're eating this month.

Baked ham & cheese party sandwiches, chips, fruit
Southwest chicken & corn cakes
Chicken huts (this recipe is very basic, so I add some spices and usually sauteed or green onions to the cream cheese mixture).
Homemade pizza
BBQ Meatballs (Pioneer woman's recipe), corn on the cob
Baked chicken taquitos, homemade salsa, guacamole
Braided sandwich loaf
Loaded baked potatoes
Smoky honey mustard pork
Coconut chicken
Hamburgers
Beef & mushroom lasagna
Roasted lemon chicken
Southwest pasta salad
Marinated flank steak
Sticky chicken wings

I just linked up to the recipes that I haven't linked up to before. If you are interested in any of the other recipes just search the earlier months of this year for other menus or ask me and I can email you the link.

We're home!

We are back at home for good! It was a great summer. I have at least a couple posts I need to do, so stay tuned. Tonight, we are going to relax!

One more post before we go back to the boonies...

The other evening our friends invited us to the TTU pool where they have a membership. It was an AWESOME pool for kids. I'm sure the Tech students love that. Anyway, Ezra had never been to a "real" pool before since every summer since he's been alive we spend in the mountains where the streams are frigid. He loved it. They had a very shallow area with these geysers all over and he would go from one to another yelling "Water!" Around the geysers and other pools was a lazy river. I held Ezra and we went around the river who knows how many times. If we were here during the summer I would definitely consider getting a membership. Thanks J & E for inviting us. You probably don't read my blog but if you do, thanks. :) I have a video too but I don't have time to upload it (three loads of laundry to fold) and I sound like a dork, so a picture will do I think. And just for kicks, I took a picture of Ezra eating his own plate of pad thai...yes, we went for Thai food twice in three days while we were home. What can I say, I'm pregnant and that's what I'm going to blame it on. He was a fan to say the least.

Ezra's vacation

Our good friends the Parrishes offered to take Ezra for a week during 5th session of camp. They teach 4th session and were bringing their daughter up to work 6th, so we decided that the week in between would be perfect. This is the longest we have been away from him. We missed him so much, but we knew he was having a BLAST...probably more fun than he has with us. No, not probably. We did enjoy the week by ourselves. Chad and I got to spend a lot more time together, I got to go to all the evening activities and just be more involved in camp. We sure were glad to get him back though. Toni & Charlie were nice enough to document the week with plenty of pictures. Here are a few. Thanks Parrishes for taking such good care of our boy and giving him plenty of juice. Haha!

Toni or Charlie would send me a little update every day. I think the description for this day was that they had to run some errands, so they took Ezra for ice cream so he would enjoy the outing. To continue the Toy Story obsession, Ezra now has a Woody doll to accompany his Buzz Lightyear. Thanks, Charlie!
Slave labor: get the two year old to help wash the car. He'll like it!
Especially if you let him play with the hose.

They took Ezra to see his first movie in the theater, "Cars 2." Ezra must have paid attention, because he can now identify Mater, McQueen, etc. when we go to Target.

He didn't quite make it through the movie. I don't think Toni minded one bit. Playing at the park on a hot day.
Ezra loves the Parrishes' cat, Pansy. He was looking at these pictures and set "Get out, Pansy." I think they had a healthy competition over Ezra's chair.
Pansy is a good sport. We'll be back for good in another week. We will miss camp and the people there so much, but I am ready to get back to "normal" life and start making preparations for our new addition.

13 week picture, 2 weeks late

Here's a picture of me already wearing maternity clothes at 13 weeks. My tummy is definitely more pronounced now, since I am 15 weeks along, but no picture to go along with it so this will have to do. I'm not sure yet when we'll find out if this baby is a boy or a girl (for the record, I think it's another boy), but I will for sure post when I do find out. Thanks to my wonderful sister-in-law Emma for the new wardrobe I get to have this time around.

Ezra turns two!

Yesterday was Ezra's second birthday. Whenever we would ask him what yesterday was, he would smile and sheepishly say, "Birthday." It was so cute.

We drove into Lubbock from camp yesterday and ran errands when we got home. I was craving Pad Thai from Thai Pepper, but they were closed, so we went to Thai Thai instead (what would you do without these crucial details of our life?) Ezra shared the pad thai with me, and he kept saying "more noodles. More noodles." Until we were totally out of pad thai. Should have ordered him his own. It was sooo good though...I might need to go back there tomorrow. Then, we ran a couple more errands, went and visited Charlie and Toni, and stopped at Red Mango for frozen yogurt. Ezra would only eat his yogurt out of the small sampling cups. Our last stop of the night was Sprouts, which is where Sunharvest Market was for all of two months, and it is the exact same thing, except maybe the produce is cheaper. I'm not sure yet. Anyway, we were pretty much the only people in the store, and Ezra ran around like a crazy person for 15 minutes or so. He loves to hear the sound of his voice echoing so he would yell just to hear it. Anyway, that was our day. We did have a party for him a couple weeks ago so we got all that present-opening out of the way.

Things about Ezra at two:
-He LOVES Toy Story. Most of the time these days, his first words in the morning are "Watch Woody Buzz?" over and over again. He alternates that with saying "Hey mama! Hey daddy!" repeatedly. After typing that last sentence, I went to get him up from his nap and he ran into the living room to find his new Buzz Lightyear.
-In typical two-year-old fashion, he is quite dramatic. He is such a happy boy, except when he is very unhappy, which is usually over something pretty miniscule (in my mind). He is learning how to cope with not getting what he wants all the time, or having to wait for something or someone.
-He is talking well and saying more and more word strings.
-He says the sweetest prayers. He will thank God for this person, and that person, etc. and usually end his prayers with "and all the people" just in case he left anyone out.
-His favorite foods are juice, cookies, candy, and fruit snacks. As far as real food goes, cheese, pizza, chicken nuggets, green beans, and mashed potatoes are some things that he always enjoys.
-He calls my iphone "My Phone" and wants to play with it all the time.
-He has become a very good car traveler--facing forward, watching woody buzz on the laptop, and playing with the iphone all help with this. He actually enjoys riding in the car these days.
-His favorite books are "If you Take a Mouse to the Movies," "Each Peach Pear Plum," and "Where the Wild Things are."
-He loves playing with his Woody, Buzz, and Rex, mega blocks, cars and trucks, stickers, and his race track.

What a blessing it has been to be entrusted with this little boy for the last two years. Ezra, you are truly a joy, and we love you so much! Happy second birthday!

Taking a break

I am taking a break from facebook. You won't be able to find me on there. I deactivated my account, which means I have to physically log back in to show up again in people's friends lists. Facebook is a great tool to keep in touch with my family and friends from all different points in life, but lately I'm just sick of it. You may ask why I don't just stay off of it, and keep my account active. Well, that is a little too tempting for me. I had a nasty little habit of checking it a few times a day, just to make sure I didn't miss anything, and always wanting to see what comments people were making on a status or who posted on my wall. Unfortunately, most of what I wasn't missing was complaining about unimportant stuff, pictures or speech that I didn't want to see, people checking in to every place they ever go, etc. And then there was the app on my iphone that I had access to all the time. So I deactivated to allow myself more self-control and more time in the day and deleted the app from my phone. In the past 24 hours since I left facebook, there have been a few times I have wanted to send someone a message or update my status, but it's never very important. Overall, I really don't miss it.

Some scriptures I have been meditating on that led to me being off of facebook for a while:
"Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children without fault in a warped and crooked generation." Philippians 2:14-15
"Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up, that it may benefit those who listen." Ephesians 4:29
"Be very careful, then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." Ephesians 5:15-16

Facebook is not a problem for everyone, but I was finding myself lacking self-control with the amount of time I spent on it, and the posts I was reading even from some of my Christian facebook friends were preventing me from thinking about things that were true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy (Phil. 4:8). I wonder how many out there are like me. For now, I'll be spending my time on other things and will try to post more to the blog so family and faw-away friends can keep up with us and see pictures of Ezra and our newest little one in just a few months. And, be sure to check back here to find out in a month or so if we're having a boy or a girl, if you're interested.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for a post about Ezra's 2nd birthday, which was yesterday.

Life update

We're home for the weekend so I thought I'd post some pictures. We are having a great time at camp. I can't believe we only have 3 weeks left!

Ezra is just growing and talking more every day. He'll turn two on July 28.

Ezra was unhappy because I was taking too long to get the camera and take the picture...he wanted to go outside in the RAIN!
We had a birthday celebration for Ezra last week when most of Chad's family was at camp. Here he is trying out his first oreo ball. I think he liked it. :)
Ezra and his cousin Norah holding hands during lunch.
Not sure how well you can see it, but here is a bear's paw print next to Chad's shoe up by the dumpster. The bear has been coming into camp and getting into the trash cans.
Must have been tie dye day...

The banquet theme is "Cowboy Christmas" so we have been dressing Ezra up in his chaps, vest, boots and hat.


I went to the doctor today and he did another ultrasound since Chad wasn't with me at my last appointment. It looked like a real baby today...we got to see the heart, spine, limbs, fingers, etc. So cool. Ezra kept looking at the screen and saying "watch movie. Watch Woody Buzz." So he was probably a little disappointed, but it was fun for the parents!

Our summer at Blue Haven is almost over. Next week we are leaving Ezra with the Parrishes so I will be able to be more involved in camp and not have to worry about taking care of him. I think this is the longest we will have been apart, so that will be hard, but once I get used to the naps and sleeping past 6, I think I'll be okay.

Other than that, I can't think of much else going on. Just enjoying our weekend at home, getting to worship with our South Plains church family on Sunday, and returning to our home away from home.