BDay

I had my bday yesterday!

My MIL took me out for a ladies afternoon...

We had lunch at Mimi's Cafe. They gave me a complimentary slice of chocolate silk pie.

Then we went to the movies.


She dropped me off at the Yoga Studio.
I had one student.

Rohan and Primrose drove me home where much to my delight, Brandon threw me a surprise birthday party with a New Orleans theme! And some of the best food EVER!


Lots of people came.

Even the neighbors dropped by for a few minutes.
The babies had fun.
There was a cake - chocolate of course!
Ethan and daddy chilled out.
Another year older but still awfully silly.
Kasha really wasn't impressed.
GG partied with us.
My fantastic MIL who played such a key role in this. After all, she is the one who took me out for a "ladies afternoon" ha! I had no idea what I was in for!
My awesome husband who planned all this.
I didn't do anything - not even clean up! See Adam there - he did a lot of work too helping Brandon with the preparations and the kids.

Mosaic Meme

If you'd like to play along, here is what you do.

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

2. Use only the first page of results, and pick one image.

3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favorite food?

3. What high school did you go to?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

6. What is your favorite drink?

7. What is your dream vacation?

8. What is your favorite dessert?

9. What did you want to be when you grow up?

10. What do you love most in life?

11. What is one word that describes you?

12. What is your Flickr name?

A tag about me and my hubby

His name: Brandon

How long have you been married: 4 years

How long did we date: 3 years

Who said I love you first: I did

Who sings better: he does

Who's smarter: who do you think?

Who does the laundry: me

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed: Brandon

Who mows the lawn: Brandon

Who cooks dinner: Me, but he does most of the grilling

Who drives: Brandon

Who's more stubborn: that's a toss up

Who kissed who first: he kissed me first

Who asked who out first: we went out first in a group setting - but the group never showed up!

Who proposed: me

Who has more siblings: same

How old is he? thirty-something

Who eats more? Brandon

Who is taller? Brandon

Who pays the bills? I do

Who is more sensitive? me, by a long shot

Christmas 2002

Bandmaster's 5K

I woke up bright and early to run the Texas Bandmaster's 5k Fun Run. Aptly named- it was lots of fun. I am 90% sure that I will begin training for the San Antonio (half) Marathon in November. I placed first in my division, a semi-proud moment considering that I haven't run since sometime between the births of my children. Here is a pic of my lovely medal.

Soccer Game #4

huddle

Sam was having a bad day.

Gabriel is obsessed with his watch (which I bought for him for being especially well behaved a few days ago).

Aaron runs to celebrate his goal with his mom

All in all it was a pretty good game. This game seemed to be the most enjoyed (out of all the games) by our team, the other team, the ref - everyone. G acted tired. He would run after the ball a bit, then walk. I kept saying, "keep running! keep running after the ball!" When we got home he didn't want to get out of the car. Finally I coaxed him out and it turned out he had a 102 fever. I felt really bad for telling him to keep running like that. He has some medicine and feels a bit better.

We just can't get a break!

No pictures of game 3. I was home with Ethan and his ruptured ear drum and B didn't take the camera.

Sleepless in San Antonio

Ethan's ear drum ruptured last week. He has not responded well to antibiotics. He hasn't been sleeping. And now his schedule is all screwy. He woke up last night at midnight in a fantastic mood so I took a few shots of him.

my new purse i bought with birthday money. much more lady-like than the camo backpack with "Ethan" embroidered across it.

Ethan and Adam picking out tunes on Pandora Radio.

the intern with no name ... or feelings

Ok, he has a name - Adam. He has been Bob's summer intern and hanging out with us all summer and yet, he somehow managed to avoid the blog. Until now - mwa ha ha ha!

Adam and Brandon on the couch ... texting ... each other.

Rainy Day

Hurricane Dolly is sending some rain our way. But a little bit of rain will not stop this boy from riding his motorcycle!

Yoga Plug

Where we've been hiding

No adventures for us. We are all sick except G, who I have now nicknamed, Cockroach. How did he get so lucky? Apparently grapefruit are not naturally preventative like their cousin, the orange.

Getting Back into Routine

For the week of vacation I ate second helpings of fried foods slathered in butter and gravy. Ew. It was delicious to me at the time but since our return I have been consuming grapefruits by the truck load (slight exaggeration). What will eat when I get sick of grapefruits? Celery?


Brandon, in a moment of frustration, tore up our master bathroom floor and replaced it with this lovely floor. Much nicer. Job well done!

Soccer Game #2

We were expected at the field at 7:30 am for the team picture (an obscene time of day to be anywhere that you are not paid to be). Not many kids made it...


The game was exponentially better than the first.

The other team had only one good player. But he was so good that he kept getting the ball and kicking goals while his teammates ran behind him.

One of our players, Aaron, had an "ah ha" moment when he figured out suddenly how to play soccer. He kicked in two or three goals. Then he went to kick in another but it was going off and Gabriel swooped in and kicked it in! GOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL! It was an exciting kodak moment that I missed (with my camera, I saw it, of course). I was so busy jumping up and down and shouting at the top of my lungs (as if I were back in Brazil) that I completely forgot about taking a picture.

# 3 ready to play!

GO Bumblebees!

That's Aaron, #11, kicking in one of his many goals of the day. Also, #4 for the Tigers, their star player, stares in astonishment as the Bumblebees make an unexpected comeback.

Gabriel leaves the field to try to console Ethan, who was very grumpy about waking up so early.

Ethan is temporarily amused by playing soccer with our Haitian friend, Luckson. Notice Ethan is wearing two shoes. Rare.

GG takes fussy Ethan for a walk. GG didn't mind waking up early as she is naturally a morning person and was probably up and at 'em for a while before the game.

Back from Vacation!

Did I mention we were going on vacation and therefore I would be absent from blogging? No?

As mentioned on an earlier post, my SIL and her lovely family are preparing to move to Costa Rica for language lab then Peru for several years to plant a church. We all went on vacation to Branson as a last hurrah before they leave and we don't see them again for a long long long time. The crew was SIL and her family, our family, MIL & FIL. We had three condos so we all had some space which probably made the difference between bickering a lot and not at all. That's right, three families spent an entire week together without arguing! Its a dear diary moment.

It was also my FIL's 60th bday. So we had a little dinner for him at a BBQ restaurant and gave him a scrapbook of letters from his friends.

Here is a video I made for you - it takes the sting out of browsing someone else's family pictures.