OK I guess I have waited long enough to post something one my blog. I think my friend Tammie is the only one who ever checks it. LOL
School is going well, my daughter is now 30, my son is 28, I have 2 grandsons living in Togo, West Africa, ages 3 and 1(on the 23rd). We have another grandson due March first in California. We have been to Africa twice since my last post and loved it both times. As soon as I can get my pictures off my school computer and onto a disk, then perhaps I can post some here and on Facebook. =-)

This would make a great Christmas Break project since neither of my children will be home for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. Yes, I'm whining, but not for long. With gas prices the way they are and Real Estate being so slow, choices have to be made. I'd rather wait to go to LA to see my new Grandson that to go Christmas and not get to see him until the Summer or not at all. =-)

All in all, life is good and I am very blessed. I have a wonderful husband who loves me, children who have spouses that love them, grandsons who are a joy, and a ton of friends I wouldn't trade anything for, and a job I love. Praise God!!!

My Baby is 29!?!?!?!?!

It is hard to believe that 29 years ago, on a rainy evening, my precious daughter, my first born, entered into this world. It seems like only yesterday! I am so thankful for the beautiful young Christian woman, wife, and mother she has become.
Happy Birthday April!!!!

My Baby is 29!?!?!?!?!

Beginning of School

Well, I am back to teaching - again. =-)It seems like my job has been a bit of a yo yo these last few years. I have move school locations and changed job descriptions for the last 4 years. Hopefully things have settled down for a good while. I love the location that I am at, The Harding Cordova Kindergarten. I am back to teaching Jr.Kindergarten which is 4 year olds and it is so much fun. I love the staff and fellow teachers and my principal is great. Actually, all the principals that I have worked under while at Harding have been great!!
Working with 4's always leads to funny stories because of the way they think and they say what is on their minds and what THEY think is truth. =-)
One child when asked how the second day had gone with me said they didn't want to talk about me any more. When the parent inquired further it turns out that the first day of school for this child only had 4 children and the next day all the class was there, a total of 13, and the child was concerned that if they continued to talk about me there might be more children the following day so they Were Not ABOUT To Say ANYTHING ELSE about me to ANYONE! HA-HA Bless their little hearts.
Today we were painting apple trees using their hands as the branches and their arms as the trunk. As I applied paint to their hands and arm I was telling them what I was using and why. I had one child, who was African American, that told me I didn't need to use brown paint on their arm, because it was already brown. How cute is that!!
Well, we decided that I still needed to add the paint as "their brown" was stuck to their arm and wouldn't come off. We had fun giggling about it together.=-)
Children are such a joy!!

New refrig

Yea!!! I have a new refrigerator. Our old one was working ok , minus an icemaker, until I opened up the freezer door and the plastic seal that separates the refrig from the freezer broke. I didn't think much about it until the next morning I found all my newly perchased fresh produce frozen hard as a rock. Lettuce does not freeze well!! =-}
Rick and I decided to check out the Sears outlet store at the "scratch and dent" items. I found the refirg I had been hoping to own someday. It has the freezer on the bottom and double doors at the top. It Has An Icemaker!! WOHOO!! =-)
We decided to get it, but had to arrange for someone to deliver it for us as this store doesn't offer that service. It took serveral phone calls, but Rick finally found someone to handle the "big black box" for us.
I love it. It has so much room and ties in much better than the old frig did.
Speaking of the old frig.. we had the guys put it out by the curb hoping someone would want it. This was Thursday night. At 1:00 in the AM (Friday) I suddenly realized Many people do the weekend garage hunts and start early to seek out thie r "treasures". So I got up, made a sign stating that the frig worked ok and all the screws for the door were in a bag in one of the drawers. You haul it. FREE
At 8AM someone stopped with their pickup truck and hauled that baby away. WOHOO
Rick said my $25 sign worked.( It would have cost us $25 to get a city sticker for the trash guys to haul it off.)
We also got a sizable check back from our morgage co. for overpayment of our escrow account so that was also a pleasant blessing to help cover the cost we were not expecting.
Funny thing is this is not the only thing that has "fallen apart" in the last 2 weeks. The control pannel on my oven is not working right and we found out they don't make that panel anymore, and the ceiling fan in our room quit the other day. Rick had replaced the fan and found a company that will possible work on the curcuit board of the oven control panel. I will just be minus the use of my oven for a time(not that it gets much use, but I will miss it) Yeah for microwave ovens!!!

vbs time again

Last night was the first night of our VBS at Sycamore View.
The theme this year is "Gallilee by the Sea". On the front lawn we have a tent "city" set up with different shops and a big well in the center. Behind the shops are blanket with tribal names of the 12 tribes of Isreal.

We had a good turn out for our first night considering it was threating to rain. Which it did lightly for just a few minutes. Our main concern was for the thunder we kept hearing in the distance, but never any lightning strikes in our vicinity.(Praise God!!)

I had not signed up to do any thing this summer, but thought I might be asked to help with a skit like I did last year. They ended up having plenty of people for that. I did get a call the night before of a friend who had a family member to have a stroke and she needed to go help out with the family so I'm taking her place as one of the shop keepers in the jewelry shop with a friend of mine Sherry Hart. The Lord knew where I was needed. We had a lot of fun even though it was very HOT.

The big decision for everyone tonight will be whether to have the activities in the gym since they are forcasting a possibility of thunderstorms again tonight. Well those of you who know me KNOW how I voted. =-)

I'm sure, no matter what the weather tonight, we all will have a great time and God will be glorified.

Back to Blogging

I can't believe it has been over 6 months since I have posted!
Most of it has been from computer troubles and the rest, well "busy" is the best word to use. =-)
We have seen both children during this time and all family members are well, praise God.
We have enjoyed the emerson blog as well as Sarah and Allen's blog to help us keep up with their busy lives.
I am thrilled to let everyone know I will be teaching JrK at Harding Cordova Kindergarten this next school year. I am so excited about this opportunity and enjoy working with the ladies at that location. (I worked as a teacher's aide there this past school year)
I love being a "Nanna" to Caden, (though I wish we were closer in miles) and I'm looking forward to being blessed with another grandchild in early December! April is feeling well and in her second trimester at this time.
Caden has moved into the bumps and bruises stage of life. He has had as least two fall and recieved cuts on top of cuts, poor guy, but it does not seem to be slowing him down. It reminds me of a year when his Uncle Allen was about 3 or 4 and he had 3 cuts on the same place on his scalp after running into the kitchen's breakfast bar a few times,(within months of each incidents)plus a fall off the hearth in the living room. Fortunatly, I had his big sister April along with me and SHE told the doctor what he had been doing.=-) The doctor said it sounded like his house. It was comforting to have such an understanding doctor at the time.=-)
Allen just returned from a counselor and admissions conference in San Deigo. He had two presentation and both went well. He said at one of the presentations there was standing room only and people were sitting on the floor as well. He said it was exciting to hear refences made to his presentation at other presentaions as well.
I'm sure he will write more about this on his blog. =-)
Rick had been busy with his realtor duties and has had 3 closings this month and has several people his is helping to find new homes for. God has certainly blessed us both more than we deserve.
I just returned from a wonderful trip to Texas to visit with my parents, bother and his family. His youngest Jeremy left to attend the University of Texas at Austin for a summer session and then as a Freshman in the fall. "Hook'em Horns" is the new battle cry at their house. =-) Sean will be attending Texas Christian University this fall and is excited about his move. He is getting his own apartment and is so excited about it.Both boys have grown up to be fine young men.
Mom and Dad are doing well at this time. Mom is staying busy with church work and
Dad stays busy working part time for the city of Grand Prairie.
Well hopefully I have caught up everyone on what is generally going on in my life at this time and I will try to do better at posting more often on my blog. It will not be as fancy as my children's blogs, but it is a great way to keep up with family and friends.

Too Busy Reading

I know it has been forever since my last post, but I have been busy reading. Some of what I have been reading is for a course at the Harding Grad.School. I am auditing the course. I had enough tests and research papers while in school. =-)
It has been very interesting. The course is on women and ministries.
Now before you think "wow this woman is really trying to expand her mind", I have to confess that the remaining time I spend reading your blogspots!!! I enjoy both my family's blogspots as well as a few friends, and their friends. This stuff is additive!! They may have to start a "AA" for bloggers. =-)I'm Not trying to make light of the great work that AA does, just of my time on the internet reading and responding to blogspots.

Now on to family news:
Back in October, Rick surprised me with a trip to Abilene, TX to attend our Almamater, ACU for Homecoming. It was not our homecoming year(next year will be), but we had not been back since we graduated in 1977- you can figure the math! =-)
We had a lot of fun looking over the beautiful campus and looking at the new buildings that were only bean fields when we were there. The Wildcats at that point were undefeated, so we enjoyed a great football game. We also found some time to take some students from Memphis out for a meal, too. We enjoyed getting to see them, meet some of their friends, and deliver goody bags from home.
One of Sarah's sisters, Katie, and her husband live there, so we took her out to dinner one night. Chad, her husband, was in Dallas on business. We had a great time and hope to go back again. We did decide that ACU is by far the prettiest part of Abilene, at least the parts we saw. =-)We also enjoyed getting to spend some time with my parents, brother, and his family going and coming from Abilene. We always enjoy our time with family.=-)

April says that Caden is walking more so I hope to see a video soon on their blog.
It's getting colder where they are and with more snow on the Alps, I wouldn't be surprised if we see some skiing pictures in the future also.=-)They will be leaving for Togo, West Africa Jan.4.

Allen and Sarah hosted their home group at their home for "Thanksgiving" this week. They were quite excited to open their home to friends, and knowing Sarah, the place looked great!! =-)We are excited that we will be able to spend some time out west with Allen and Sarah during the Christmas break. We haven't them since early summer, though Allen has been to Memphis as part of his Recruitment job with Pepperdine University.

Rick has been having fun out in his workshop working on some vases, pens,
bracelet-assists, a lazy susan for me, and some gifts for friends and business associates. He's hoping for a few days of good weather soon so he can clean all the sawdust out of his workshop. =-)

My parents are doing well and in good health at this point. Rick's mother has been suffering with back and hip pain due to some compressed disks and swelling.

I have been working at "After School Care" the past month, in addition to my hours with Harding Academy during the day, as they have been short handed. I only agreed to work either until Thanksgiving or until Christmas. I have now chosen Thanksgiving as it is wearing me out, too much. 7 hours at school is enough for me at this
time. =-) I love my job at Harding Academy, but hope to be back teaching 4 year olds again next school year.
I think I am now caught up with the happening here and since you have taken the time to read all of this you may need to join me in forming an "AA for Bloggers". =-)
Have a blessed day!!! <><

First Day of Fall

Yesterday was the first day of Fall. There was a lot of stormy weather in the area, but it seem to mostly skirt around us. We did get quite a bit of rain, but that is all we got compared to some areas.
We talked with Brett and April during the morning and got to hear Caden say hi as he "talked" on his play phone. April says he puts the phone on his shoulder and leans his head over to "talk" into it. I can hardly wait to get a web cam for our computer and get the sound fixed so we can "see" them as we talk to them. I miss them a lot!!!
Allen will be coming to stay a few nights with us while he does some recruiting for Pepperdine University in this area. We are really looking forward to seeing him and wish that Sarah could come too, but this is getting into her busy time of year as she is trying to finalize all the group insurance deals she has been working on before the end of the year. Good luck Sarah!!!
I am hoping to get my fall decor put out before this day is over. I guess I better stop so I can get it done and do my reading for my Tue. nite class.
OK Tammie, I've updated my blog. =-)
Happy Fall everyone, enjoy this beautiful time of God's creation!! <><