Overheard at dinner...

Nathan: "When I grow up I'm not going to get married and have kids. I want to make stuff for grocery stores like daddy" (talking about conveyor belts)
Margaret: "I'm going to get married and have kids."
Nathan: "Why? So you can be mean to them?"

Glad Nathan has a healthy view of parenting.

First Day of School

Here are the kids ready to go for Nathan's first day of kindergarten and Margaret's first day of 3rd grade.

Wait - they had to say goodbye to Sandy first!
Nathan went straight in and sat with his friend Emyley without even turning around. Celebration dinner at Scotty P's

Like Father, Like Son

Nathan has dicovered the joys of hot sauce on eggs

August Slow Down

After our busy June and July of traveling and activities, we were looking forward to a relaxing August of swimming and hanging out. Well, August turned out to be so busy that I couldn't even keep up with the blogging. So here's a list of what we've been up to in no particular order:

- Went to see Lyle Lovett and his Large Band at Bass Hall
- Hosted Bunco
- Hosted a going away party- Had the guest bath painted blue and installed a new lighting fixture
- De-brassed the master bath and installed a new lighting fixture
- Painted two living room tables

- Got a cold

- Coordinated 4 Disciple classes for the fall

- Set off some rockets

- Organized a PTA membership drive and setup the school for Back to School Night

- Got a 7am wakeup call from a hot air balloon

- Visited the impressionist exhibit at the Kimball

- Endured a solid week of rainy days

- Watched tons of Olympics

- Did back to school shopping

- Started tball practice

- Had a group of giggling gym girls over to watch gymnastics

and ended with back -to-back pool parties and getting ready for the first day of school...That's it!

So Long, Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Goodbye...

As it seems to happen all the time in our lovely town full of transplants from other parts of the country, we had to say goodbye to yet more friends.

We met Chris in the MOMS club in 2005 and she became a member of our bunco group shortly after. We med Ed briefly at Mudbug Madness where he discovered that we were the people he wanted to hang out with. A few weeks later while the moms had a girls' day out, the guys got together and the rest is history. Our families became intertwined. Chris and I were good friends, Kyle and Ed were partners in crime, Nathan and Andrew became best friends, Hammie and Sandy loved their playdates, and Margaret and Zach liked each other ok. I know our families will keep in touch - and vacations together are already in the works. So - I am NOT saying goodbye. I'm saying see you later!

Opening Ceremonies and Dislocated Knees

For most people 8-8-08 will be remembered as the awesome Opening Ceremonies of the Bejing Olympics. For me, it will be the first day that we called an ambulance to our house.

Chris and Ed were over for dinner. The kids were playing inside and Ham was over to play with Sandy. Chris and I were standing in our backyard talking, enjoying the weather and innocently minding our own business. The dogs were also having fun running around together. And they ran right into the back of Chris' knee. 70 lbs Sandy + 100 lbs Hamilton = alot of force on the back of a knee. All I saw was Chris twirling around, falling on the ground, and then yelling "Call 9-1-1". Later I saw the problem - the kneecap that was now on the side of her leg.

The EMTs arrived, stabilized her leg, and we headed off in the ambulance to the ER. When they were wheeling Chris out of our backyard on the gurney, I took all the restraint I had to not grab my camera and click a picture (you are welcome, Chris). After getting to the hospital, they popped her knee back in place, fitted her with a brace and crutches, and we were back out the door 2 hours later.

As for the Opening Cermonies, thank goodness for DVRs. They were awesome when we watched them on 8-9-08.

Adventures of Le Pew Part Deux

After our last run in with Pepe, we hadn't gotten even a whiff of trouble and thought we were out of the woods...until last week. We were dog sitting Hammie. I opened the door to let Ham and Sandy in and was floored by the stench de skunk. Luckily the dogs did not suffer a direct hit, but the smell took several hours to get out of the house.
We made a call to our friendly Animal Control department who delivered this handy contraption to our door:

Yessiree - that's a genuine Armadillo trap that we are using to try to catch our skunk. If we do catch it, we just have to call and the brave man from Animal Control will come and pick it up. (He says 85% of the time the skunks don't spray when caged, but that doesn't sound like good enough odds to me!)
Last night, we set the trap with some Fancy Feast Tuna Surprise. An hour later we went out and found a kitten. We let her go and set the trap again. In the morning we checked and found the kitten again with another cat. I guess the Fancy Feast was too much to resist. And the skunk is still at large.