Surprise!!!

Well, who knew that people actually read my blog?!?!? But I've had some complaints about it not being updated, so for those very few of you who have actually come back THANKS! and SURPRISE! It's updated! I don't have any new pictures, but keep checking back maybe in a couple months..hehe...hopefully before then!

Well, well, well, what's happened since March? I finished teaching the school year and are changing districts to be closer to home and save on gas money. I'll still be teaching Chemistry so it won't be that big of a switch at least I don't think so. We'll see come August! Justin's off school for the summer so that is nice to have him home more often and get some "honey do lists" a little shorter. Claire is also home more during the summer as I get to spend lots more time with her!

We all took a trip up to Michigan in June and had lots of fun! We got to see lots of family and friends! I also went on a scrapbook weekend the end of April and really enjoyed scrapbooking Claire's life. I have found a new hobby and one I hope to continue and keep up with. I'm going back with a lot of the same ladies for another weekend in September and looking forward to it already!

This week I'm attending jury duty and have not been picked for a jury yet, so hopefully tomorrow will prove more useful. In the meantime, Justin will be sanding and priming the hallway for a new coat of paint to go along with the new carpet coming soon.

I think what I learned the most from our trip to Michigan this past month was the Lord's overwhelming blessings to me and our family. It seems like such a simple thing, but I had lost that perspective and it's not a good perspective to lose. Thank you Lord, for all your blessings to us that we see and even those that we don't see.

Catch up time!

Well it's about time I catch y'all up on what's been going on here. We
finally got our digital camera working so I can update on pictures and
there's even a video! The video is of Claire drawing her version of a
face (she does say "that's Daddy!" at the end). Meemaw has been working
with her on this much more than we are and she is convinced that Claire
is above average on her drawing skillz. We're not too sure, but who knows?...here's documentation for the future I guess.







We have been working in our yard the last 2 weekends so there are some pictures of our progress. The tree is my big project for this year. You can see what I started with. This is all last weekend although I did work on it today and got some blisters to prove it. I also found 5 snakes yes 5 in there. I couldn't kill them
(not due to ethics just pure clumsiness and scarediness) so I flung
them as far away from me as I could. Justin tells me that this means
they'll just come back to their home and so he may be doing the
gardening from now on. The biggest snake was probably 4" in length so
we're not talking Anaconda's here. I'm just a wimp.





I also have planted anemones in the backyard. They started out as tubers
and I was reading a suggestion to put the tubers in lukeward water for
a few hours before planting to give them a jumpstart. Boy did that
work! Within 2 hours, roots were already forming. I've since added an
African Sun yellow daisy to the anemone garden to brighten it up and to
make Claire happy with they yellow flowers! Daisies are my favorite too
so it makes us both happy!





Last Friday I took my students to the Houston Museum of Natural Science and
took some cool pictures while I was there. Call me nerdy but the
periodic table was really cool! I also liked the hydrogen fuel cell
since that is a big topic in alternative fuels. DNA is always fun!



This is the entire periodic table. (A rare sight to have the lanthanide and actinide series included)



Here's a close up of rubidium. They have a sample of each element in its box
in the periodic table. The first and only time I've seen some of the
rare elements.



They have a butterfly garden there too, but we didn't visit this part.



Good ole' DNA



Hydrogen Fuel Cell


Claire sure is growing up. She is so polite by saying please, thank
you, and you're welcome without us needing to prompt her. (Most of the
time) We've also been stressing that we can pray to Jesus about
anything so we've been praying about helping her go titi on the potty.
She's starting to get the hang of it, I think. These are her new Dora
shoes that she is in love with. They're flip-flops so they don't stay
on her feet very well, but she loves them anyway. Especially since
Boots is on them too!





Hope you enjoyed catching up!

Fishers of Butterflies

Saturday Claire and I went to Galveston with Meemaw, Papa, Meme, Pawpaw, Uncle Matt and Matty. We all went to celebrate cousin Charlie coming back to Texas from Alaska. When we got to Aunt Peggy's house Claire got to "fish" with a Barbie fishing pole. She had a blast! I had to tear her away from it in order to eat and after she ate she went right back out to the water to fish some more. Good thing Papa was there to help her since I had no clue what to do. She is so brave as she liked to pet the fish once one was caught. Her fishing pole did not have a hook as it was just a kid's pole, but it did have a plastic butterfly on the end of the line and every time that she saw the butterfly coming toward her she announced, "It's coming!" over and over again. She was so excited! We also got to ride on the ferry there and back and she had fun feeding the birds there too. Justin didn't get to go since he was working and this week is the first round of tests. We missed him being there with us, but the end of his schooling is in sight and getting closer every day. Another sacrifice from a loving daddy.