Weekend Wrapup

I have been really bad about blogging, but I have a really good excuse. I don't know anything. The only time I can blog is on Monday and Tuesday if I am lucky, depending on our weekend activities. We are so boring around here and I am afraid that is not going to change anytime soon.

We did have a wonderful weekend. My parents and grandma came to visit us this weekend. They got here Friday afternoon and as soon as they got here we got back in the car to head to Luling. We went to Luling to eat dinner with a lot of people. My aunt and uncle and lots of cousins and spouses met us in Luling for dinner before we headed to Gonzalez for high school football. I have a cousin that is a junior this year and plays quarterback and safety.

I think there were about 14 of us at the game. We were our own little cheering section minus Jaime. He was working in Dallas on Friday and didn't get home until really late. We had a great time and it was a very nice evening. The game didn't go so well for our team, but the company was nice.

Grandma holding my great cousin Libby.Drew #4

The other high light of the weekend came as a surprise. My dad's college roomate is the trainer for Southern Utah and they happend to be in San Marcos playing Texas State. Growing up we use to meet him and his family for summer vacations. We had so much fun with them, but I had not seen him in about 12 years. My dad gets to see him a lot more than the rest of us. We ended up spending about an hour with him in the afternoon and then went to the game. The game was good and Southern Utah won. Drew ended up going with us which was really nice. I get to see Drew play football often, but I never get to sit and visit with Drew. He is a really good kid and a lot of fun to be around.

That about sums up our weekend. Now back to work. Maybe something interesting will happen today for me to post about. Don't hold your breath.

Prayers Wanted

Jaime and I went to Corpus on Sunday after church to see his grandfather. He is not doing very well. He has battled cancer a couple of times and decided this time he did not want to do any treatment.

We went to Corpus about three weeks ago to see him and he was still in okay shape. He was able at that time to get out of bed and was eating well. Jaime and grandpa had a good visit last time. A lot of the family spent that weekend together just talking about old times and family history. I know Jaime really enjoyed that time with his grandfather.

Sunday was a little different. Grandpa is no longer able to get out of bed. He also does not eat very much or drink very much anymore. He did eat a couple bites of a sandwich and had some grape juice while we were there. At this point we will take what we can get. Jaime sat with him for a long time on Sunday. Jaime read the paper to grandpa and they talked when grandpa was not asleep.

At this point we know he is not going to get better. We are just hopeful that his pain is not too bad and that he goes in peace. Please keep us and Jaime's family in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time. We will take all the prayers we can get.

Long Weekend

We had a very long and busy weekend. I think it is because when you get up at 5:15am on Saturday you make a lot more of the day opposed to when you sleep till 11:00am. I am not sure I am convinced that the longer weekend was better. I might like my sleep more.

I should start from the beginning. Jaime and I started our weekend on Friday by having dinner with Wendee. We had planned on the four of us going to dinner for my birthday, but David decided he would rather go hunting than eat dinner with us. We had a great dinner at Ruth Chris without David, but we would have loved to have him there.


As I mentioned earlier Saturday started early. I got up and headed to The Loft to work. It was nice to be able to sleep a little late since The Loft is so close. We were really busy and it was fun meeting all the regulars there. Jaime of course went with me and worked while I worked. David and Wendee and the kids came in for some coffee and breakfast tacos before heading to Conner's football game. Jaime went to Conner's game and took pictures for me. Conner's team ended up losing, but if you ask Conner he will probably tell you they won and he scored a touchdown. I have to admit it does make for a better story.



I got done working about 10:30am which I wasn't expecting. I was suppose to work till 2:00pm, but some other volunteers came in to work so I got to leave early. It worked out perfectly. David and Wendee were going to a friends ranch for the night so we took the kids for the afternoon.

I took my three kids to Dave and Buster's for the afternoon. Jaime, Corbin and Conner all really enjoyed D&B. I have to admit it was a lot of fun. They played games and I watched. We did take a little break, but only long enough to eat. All the boys were back to the games once their stomachs were full. Corbin and Conner both won enough tickets to get the stuffed animal they wanted. After all the games we headed for ice cream. No better way to end the night than with ice cream. We dropped the boys off with their grandma and we headed home to bed. You can't stay up very late when you get up so early. Everyone was well behaved and got along. You can't ask for more than that with three boys around.

Working Woman

It is official. I have become a working woman, but only for a little while and this one pays me. It will be so odd since lately I only do things where my services are free. I am going to be working at The Loft for a little while. The Loft is the coffee shop out by our house that The Foundry was modeled after.

First, I work tomorrow morning at The Foundry to make up for Monday. Cindy was nice enough to work for me on Monday while we were in Philadelphia. I picked up her Friday shift to pay her back. I am not really excited because it takes a long time to close shop on Friday, but it will be worth it for Philly.

Saturday I have to work at The Loft. Yes, that will be three days of getting up early. The good news is it only takes me 5 minutes to get to The Loft. I can sleep till 5:30am on Saturday. The thought gives me the shakes. I don't ever get up early on Saturday, especially that early. The good Lord sure is working on me.

Next week I will fill in some at The Loft while keeping my normal Foundry days. By October I will be working everyday. Monday and Thursday at The Foundry and Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at The Loft with a few Saturdays. I am excited about working at The Loft. I love all the girls over there and hopefully it will give me a chance to meet some more people from our neighborhood.

The Loft is a little short due to maternity leave by Michelle. She works almost everyday and also does all the ordering for them. That is basically what I do at The Foundry. The Loft also has a bunch of staff going on a trip to Israel. If I would have known there were options of working at The Loft or going to Israel, I am pretty sure I would have picked Israel. I am sure my new camera would love to go there and take some pictures. Maybe next time.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Pictrues, Pictures and More Pictures

I love my new camera. It is awesome and takes really good pictures. Out of the 328 pictures only one was blurry. I totally feel like a professional photographer except I have no idea what I am doing. I just want to share a few more pictures from our trip.

I love this picture of Jaime at the bottom of the steps at the Modern Museum of Art. I am not sure I was clear yesterday, but we did not see any art only steps.

My picture at the bottom of the steps is a little goofy, but turned out kind of cute. I doubt it will be displayed anywhere, but here.

I love this picture because you can see downtown Philadelphia in the back ground as well as the pretty park. It was such a pretty city.

Jaime comparing his feet with Rocky's feet. I think Jaime may have him on shoe size.

This was the view from our room. It was amazing. There was also this wonderful church across the street, but I forgot to get a picture of it. I loved looking at the fountain everyday, especially at night with it all lit up. There were tons of wedding parties at the fountain on Saturday taking pictures.

This is new Yankee Stadium. It is right next to the current Yankee Stadium and is basically designed just like the current one with a few updated features. I could never really get a good picture of current Yankee Stadium. Right now the stadiums are basically on top of each other. New Yankee Stadium was built on parking lots and old Yankee Stadium will become parking lots.

This is the current Yankee Stadium. We had great tickets. We were in the lower level at 3rd base. I can't even tell you how cool it was.

These are some of my favorite pictures from the actual game. I had a really hard time deciding.


These are some of my favorite pictures from the Phillies game.


Thanks Jaime for a great trip. I had a wonderful time and can't wait till our next trip together.

We're Back!

We are finally back from our Philadelphia vacation. The entire trip was amazing, but it is nice to be home except for all the laundry. I spent all day yesterday doing laundry and I still feel like I will never finish. Who cares about the laundry, back to the trip.

Friday we slept late and were very slow getting ready. It was really nice. We haven't had a chance to do that in a long time. Once we finally got up and around we went and at lunch. We had philly cheesesteak sandwiches. James really liked it and I thought it was okay. After lunch we went back to the hotel and bought some tickets for the Phillies vs. Brewers game. I was so excited. One more ball park I could cross off my list. They told us it was suppose to rain and there was no way they would cancel the game because it was so late in the season. We spent the rest of the afternoon buying rain gear. Of course when we arrived at the staduim they had canceled the game. We were told to check back about the makeup game. Thanks so much.


Saturday we got up and around a little faster than Friday. James was up and ready to watch hurricane coverage because staying up till 2am was not enough for him. Saturday was all about seeing the sights. We went to the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross' House and Constitutional Hall. It was all very interesting. The best was Constitutional Hall. To be able to sit in the place where are founding fathers were and so many presidents were was truely amazing.


Our last sight to see for the day was the Modern Museum of Art better known as the steps that Rocky climbed up. We had to see the steps, but no we did not run up the steps. Way to much effort on vacation.


After all the sight seeing we were pretty tired. We headed back to the hotel for a little nap before the Tech game. Of course the first thing I did Saturday morning was find a place for us to watch the Tech game at. The Fox and the Hound downtown said they would have the game on for us. We had a great time cheering on Tech. We were the only Tech fans there, but we didn't really care. As you can tell, I wore my game day shirt all day in order to support the Red Raiders.


Sunday was the day! We got up really early on Sunday morning to head to New York to see the Yankees. I was so excited. The drive was good and really easy. We hopped on the New Jersey Turnpike and we were at the staduim in an hour and a half. The staduim was amazing. It was unbelievable to be in the staduim that Ruth built. Just to imagine all the players that have played there over the years. It was amazing and I will never forget it. I am not a Yankees fan, but it was still fun. A Rod hit a grand slam in the first inning. Giambi hit a two run homer. Best of all Jeter hit three runs for the day which tied Lou Gehrig for most hits all time at Yankee Staduim. It was so cool and the place went crazy. There are only 7 more games that will be played at Yankee stadium.


After all the fun and sun (it was hot, very hot, like Texas hot) we headed back to Philadelphia for the Phillies make up game. I know it is crazy. It worked out so perfectly. The Yankees game started at 1pm and the Phillies started at 7:30pm. That gave us just enought time to drive back to Philly in order to make the first pitch of the game. It was crazy! I have never been to two baseball games in one day in totally different cities. I loved every minute of it.


That was pretty much the end of our trip. We were there on Monday, but Jaime was in a depo the whole day and I watched Sports Center most of the day. We flew home Monday night, but not without a little excitement. Our flight was canceled because it went through Houston so we ended up flying into Austin and driving the rest of the way home. It was worth it to sleep in my bed.

I will be back tomorrow with more pictures from the trip. I took 328 pictures with my new camera so I have plenty to share. I have to admit they are not as good as Pioneer Woman's, but maybe she will come down to Texas to give me some lessons.

My Birthday

I had a wonderful birthday!!! It did start out a little early, but it wasn't too bad. I got some presents at 5am so getting up early wasn't all bad. Jaime got me the camera I wanted and Paula got me some accessories for the camera. I got the same camera as Pioneer Woman so I am totally excited and can't wait to use it. It will take me awhile to figure it all out, but I am going to do a crash course before we start touring Philadelphia.

The Foundry was great this morning. We were busy which was nice and I had lots of phone calls and text messages. Caroline called me on her way to school. She was chatty Cathy this morning. We talked about everything from her feeling better to her moms windshield wipers. It was a very interesting conversation and I loved every minute of it.

Some of my wonderful co-workers came into the coffee shop on their day off to bring me a cake. Cindy and Michael planned it all out with the volunteers. It worked out perfect. It slowed down just long enough for them to sing to me and have birthday cake.

The cake was cute and really good. I love chocolate.

That would be me blowing out my 24 candles. That is all Cindy had which was fine with me. I am not sure we could have fit 4 more on there.

These are my wonderful Foundry friends. Michael, Joann, Cindy and Laura. Thanks so much to each of you for making my birthday a little more special. It was great!

After a wonderful morning at the coffee shop Jaime and I headed to the airport. We were on a direct flight from San Antonio to Philadelphia. Jaime and I took the last row on the plane to ourselves. It was perfect. We were able to stretch out and actually enjoy the 4 hour flight. We watched a movie to pass the time.

Once we arrived in Philadelphia we figured out we were staying about 30 minutes outside of town. With all the Ike preparations we didn't really look at the hotel. Jaime really didn't want to stay outside of town so we started calling around. We found that there was a Four Seasons right downtown. I know you won't believe me, but it ended up being the cheapest of all the other hotels we called. I was shocked. When I booked the room the lady asked me if we were celebrating anything. I told her it was my birthday. We have received the royal treatment since our arrival.

They upgraded our room to a suite overlooking this beautiful water fountain in downtown Philly. They also made us wonderful dinner reservations at a really nice steakhouse. The steakhouse was cool, but very different from Texas steakhouses. The craziest thing was the restroom was unisex. I know it sounds crazy. You walk in and there are stalls with L and M on them. You of course choose the appropriate stall and that is that. I ended up washing my hands with a man standing on each side of me. It was weird to say the least.

The food was wonderful and I really enjoyed it all. It is funny to see how other people live in a different city.


This definitely ranks up there as one of the best birthdays I have had. It was really wonderful. Thank you so much for all the calls and text messages. I really appreciate all of them and enjoyed talking to so many of my family and friends on my birthday.

We are sleeping in tomorrow morning so don't call me until after Noon. I am so excited about sleeping late and then we are going to tour the city. Don't worry I will take plenty of pictures and be back with more soon.

28 Things Celebrating My Birthday

Today is my 28th Birthday. It doesn't seem possible for me to be 28. I feel like I am still 18 sometimes. I love birthdays, especially mine. I love it most because all my family and friends call me on my birthday. It doesn't get better than talking to all your favorite people on the same day. I also don't mind all the attention. I am an attention seeker so my birthday works out well for me.

I have decided for my birthday I will do a list. I know you are so excited about it.

28 Things Celebrating My Birthday

1. Be sick. I still have it, but am trying very hard to get over it. I am not celebrating being sick only the fact that I will be well soon.

2. Going to Philadelphia for a little vacation. We were originally suppose to leave on Saturday, but with Ike moving in we are leaving tomorrow afternoon.

3. Going to Lubbock over Labor Day to see my family and football. Doesn't get much better.

4. Clean my house so Jaime's family can stay here during Ike invasion. I am glad we can house them during their evacuation. I am sorry we will not be here to see them.

5. Work at the Foundry. I considered taking the day off, but figured I would rather spend my birthday with people instead of home by myself even if I have to get up early.

6. Have birthday dinner with great friends when we get back from Philadelphia.

7. Do laundry because that is what I did yesterday to get ready for the trip.

8. Have a little party with Jaime's family when everything slows down and I am not sick. We tried last weekend, but I wasn't much fun to be around.

9. Go shopping and spend my birthday money that is burning a hole in my pocket.

10. Spend the whole day with my husband. I am really excited about this. I don't remember the last time we spent my actual birthday together.

11. Go to a Yankees game. We are going to drive to New York on Sunday to see a Yankees game and I am so excited. I don't like the Yankees, but want to see the stadium before they tear it down.

12. Leftover spaghetti with great friends. David, Wendee and the kids came over for a quick dinner last night. It was perfect!

13. Getting so many sweet cards from my family. My favorite is from Caroline. On the front it said Happy 4th Birthday. She figured it was my favorite number because that is how old she is. Makes sense to me.

14. Having one of my best friends come and spend 2 days with me. I love having Kalub here even if she doesn't decorate my house.

15. Sight seeing in Philadelphia. Aunt Anita has taught me to love history and I do. I love going places and seeing all the historical things. Washington D.C. is my favorite so far, but maybe Philadelphia will top it.

16. Getting a new camera for my birthday. I have not got it yet, but I know that is what I am getting. It works perfectly that we are going on a trip so I can take pictures with my new camera.

17. Hurricane's. Sometimes they put a wrench in my birthday plans, but Ike is helping me out. Because of Ike Jaime had to go to Corpus yesterday and pack up the office. That means no server so Jaime can't work. Thanks Ike. Please be kind to those who live on the coast.

18. Presents!

Oh, to be 18 again. Then that is where the list would end. I am going to pretend I am turning 18 because I can only think of 18 things right now. Maybe next year my Gulley will blog for me on my birthday.

The Decorator Has Left the Building

Kalub came to visit me on Monday afternoon. I was so ready to see her and spend some time with her. It has been way to long since we hung out. The good news was she was ready to decorate. She is amazing and does such an awsome job. We have slowly transformed different rooms in the house. I love everything she does, but so far the dinning room is my favorite.

This time we, and by we I mean her, decided to tackle the living room and the guest bedroom. She worked on the living room a few months after we moved in, but it still needed a few final touches to it. Boy, did she give it what it needed.

Yesterday morning we shopped. We shopped really hard. We started about 10am and finished by Noon so we could workout. After workout the hanging and decorating began. We worked our butts off for a few hours and then made dinner and then right back to work. We finally finished about midnight and all the hard work was well worth it.

The fireplace needed a little help in the living room. It is so large that the things that were there looked out of place. Kalub fixed that and voila!

Doesn't it look amazing. I love it!!! Kalub does a really good job with arangements. I don't know how she does it, but she just puts everything in the pot and it comes out perfect. Not quite the same when I do it. She made the arrangement for the fireplace and it only took her about 30 minutes. It was crazy, but look how good it turned out.

The windows also needed a little help. We did not get shutters for the windows in the living room because we have a great view. We didn't want to cover it up, but the windows have needed a little decoration to spice them up. Kalub took care of it.

I love the curtains at the top! I can't say the same for the shears, but since we are still in the middle of the heat wave they will have to do. We got the shears when we first moved into the house because the afternoon sun comes in those windows. It is so bad you could basically take your lawn chair and put it in the living room to suntan. Anyways, the shears go up easily and come down easily. Hopefully they will come down soon.

Jaime and I don't have many things on the walls here at the house. We have never really been into art so the walls have stayed empty, until now. Kalub is working very hard to fill up the walls. These items were never meant to go together, but they ended up together and I love them. They are perfect together. We had orginally planned for the candle holders to go in a different place, but Jaime messed that up. It wouldn't really work in that place because he is so tall and we figured he would run into them all the time. So, they ended up here and I like them better here.

I know I mentioned we did the guest bedroom as well, but you will not see any pictures of it here. You must come to visit me to see the guest bedroom. I promise it is worth the trip no matter how far you live. It looks awsome.

Thanks for coming Kalub. I really appreciate it and had a great time doing it. I love everything you did and can't wait for you to come and do another room. You are an amazing decorator and friend. You decorating and spending time with you is exactly what I wanted for my birthday. Thanks again.

I am afraid the dinning room has a little bit of competition. I think I might like the living room now more than I like the dinning room. Come see me and we will decide together.

I Caught Every Last One of Them

I had a wonderful weekend! I spent the entire weekend trying to catch every illness possible. I did an excellent job and caught everything I could think of.

It all started on Thursday. I woke up with a sore throat and it continued to get worse as the day went. By the afternoon I didn't have a voice anymore. It failed me completely. I went to the doctor Thursday afternoon and she said it was not strep throat, but it was really bad. She gave me a steroid injection and put me on antibiotics. I will no longer be able to compete in the Olympics because of my steroid use. I am very sad, but thankful for the shot. My throat was feeling much better by Saturday so my sinuses started acting up. I now have a terrible sinus infection that has moved into my lungs. It really is wonderful.

To top everything off, Jaime and I went to Corpus on Friday morning. Jaime flew in from Dallas Friday morning and Wendee was nice enough to take me to the airport so we didn't have two cars there. Jaime worked in the Corpus office all day and I got my nails and toes done. That was the best part of the weekend. We stayed with Jaime's parents Friday night. Jaime spent a lot of time with his grandfather and uncle Friday and Saturday. I stayed at Jaime's parents house and tried to infect everything possible. We came home on Saturday night and I went straight to bed. Jaime knew I was sick because I didn't even want to watch football Saturday night. That is a sad Saturday. I wasted a whole Saturday of football season that I will never get back.

Favorite Pictures

I was not able to share all of my favorite pictures from the weekend. The original post would have been 2 pages long with all my favorite pictures. Now is the time to share the pictures.

Jaime and I tailgating before the football game. We had a great time!

This is Doneece and I on our way to Church. It is not the best picture quality, but it is the only picture I have of us together. It will have to do.

This is sweet John. He is so cute and I love him so much. Here he is doing everything possible to protect his Smarties. He loves them so much and doesn't really want to share. It is really cute because it is a game to him. When you ask him for one he says no and then laughs really hard. It is funny.


This is Jaime and John. It took John a little while to get use to Jaime, but after that he was attached. John loved playing with Jaime as much as Jaime loved playing with John.


This is what John looked like before he had cookie cake.


This is what John looked like after he had cookie cake. You can't see it, but the cookie is still there. He only ate the icing off the cookie. Actually, I am not sure how much icing he ate and how much icing he was wearing. He enjoyed it no matter what.


After all the cake and ice cream it was time for jumping. Caroline started it and didn't want it to stop. She loves for Jaime to help her jump really high. She thinks it is great and continues to say again, again.


Next it was Johns turn. He loved it too. Caroline patiently waited for her next turn while John was going. Caroline was great about sharing. This was the first time John had wanted to jump with Jaime. Caroline let John have many turns.

John even loved watching his sister jump.

I love this picture of John holding his balloons and watching his sister play bowling on the Wii. He loves his sister so much and doesn't mind watching her have fun.

This is Caroline and Jaime bowling. Caroline really got into the bowling and loved telling everyone how she did. It took her awhile to get the hang of it, but once she did she was a pro.

This is John playing the Wii. He really didn't play, but he thought he was playing and he had a great time. Isn't he so cute!

Hope you enjoyed. I love looking at all the pictures from our weekend. I know it seems like I have more pictures of John, which is true. He is not as fast as Caroline so it is much easier to keep up with him to take pictures. Next time I will have to do a better job of chasing Caroline around with the camera.