THREE!

Look out, world--She's THREE!! Check out the reaction when she first saw the GINORMOUS Princess "Bouncy" Castle! Priceless!!
Jumping with friends!
Make a wish, sweetheart!!
For some reason, the kids thought it was a hilarious and fun "game" to pretend to sleep on Ryan's bed during the party! Ahhh...to be three again!
All in all, a great birthday! Omie came up early to celebrate and Ryan got great gifts from her aunts, uncles, cousins, and of course, Omie and Happy too! We got her a bunch of "dress up" stuff to play with and her friends gave fun toys and games and clothes as well. Thanks so much to everyone who helped celebrate--it was truly a wish come true for our little girl!

Stink-a-roo

Have you ever been awakened by your husband wearing nothing but a towel and...wait for it...skunk smell?? That's right ladies--you may commence drooling. I cannot describe really what that is like--I'm not sure what hit me first...the stench or the insistent "Kelly, Kelly" of Chris as he tried hard not to touch anything but still wake me up after being sprayed by a skunk on his run this morning. He apparently scared the little fella while on the cart path of the nearby golf course running his legs off (it was supposed to be a 16 mile run in preparation for the November marathon in San Antonio--it became a 2 mile short stinker).

So I did what any good wife would do--looked on the internet for a solution, literally, that would take away the obnoxiousness. Turns out, you need three things...baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, and liquid dish soap. Things that should be around the house. Of course, I only had the dish soap and not enough baking soda, so I then had to make a trip to Kroger (the convenient store was not so conveniently closed at 6am!) to pick up "the remedy" looking lovely myself I might add. Thankfully, it worked and we even made it to church sans smell--all I can say is: Thank goodness for the internet.

Iowa

Grandma's House

The first week in September Mom and I headed up to Iowa to work on the monumental task of cleaning out Grandma Memmelaar's house. She was, to put it mildly, a pack rat. She never threw out a single note written on a scrap of paper (found the one she wrote to herself about when Elvis died in 1977!) let alone the junk mail, clothes bought...you name it, she kept it. Here is a little review to show the work done (and there is still much left to do with the garage and basement virtually untouched when we left!) This is the upstairs bedroom "before"...

And after....Before.... And after...Many of the boxes held traveling "stuff"--every pamphlet and scrap from every trip taken was still in the house. She also had many boxes labeled "Countertop" and a year, filled with all the things from her kitchen countertop that she didn't go through, but kept, separated each week by a piece of newspaper as her filing system! She was also METICULOUS about labeling everything--from each outfit (what to wear it with or which jewelry matched) to which quilt belonged to great-grandma Meyer for her wedding, EVERYTHING had a little hand written note attached! Above is my Aunt Betty, cousin Jessie, and me and Mom--it was a long hard week of work, but I'm so thankful we were there together (mom's sister Ruth is snapping the photo)! Without them, this truly would have been impossible!

Here is the barn--it looks good inside and out! The grapes in the forefront of the picture were ripe and sweet--just DELICIOUS right off the vine!

Check out these celings in the barn! Someday I want to build a house and have ceilings that look like this!!

So all in all, it was a good bonding trip with Mom--hard to be away from Chris and Ry for so long, but the job needed to be done. We got to choose some items to take with us too, which was really special. I also learned just how important it is to be organized, hang on to those things that are truly important and toss the rest, and to pass down the important memories. I am so thankful for a great family and the chance to have a little closure from Grandma's passing--it was a difficult week at times, but worth it in the end.

My new little niece...

My sister Kimber had her third kiddo on September 5th, just about the time Mom and I got back from working on my grandmother's house in Iowa. We landed, Dad picked us up, and we went straight to the hospital where (after needing both breadcrumbs and GPS) we finally found them and met Sydney:

She was a little early, but both Kimber and Sydney are doing well and our family is so proud to welcome her to the family!

Hurricane Ike

Well, it's the closest we've been to a hurricane since moving to College Station in 1995. This morning about 6am the wind started picking up with about 40 mile per hour winds and went up from there. At it's worst, we had Category 1 wind gusts at 90 miles per hour from Hurricane Ike, but luckily, we were blessed to be pretty much free from damages. We lost a few plants from the front flower beds, but our trees held up thank goodness! Some others around us we not as lucky, with downed trees and fences, but thankfully we didn't have significant damage. Here is a little clip from the camera... towards the end of the segment, Ryan asks where her playset is--we took it apart and put it on the side of the house with the fewest windows just in case! We took this just after the worst of the winds began to die down from the back porch. Anyway--we're fine and now the rain and wind are just steady without being menacing. So long, Hurricane Ike--thanks for the day off from school yesterday! : )

What a week

So there's the old saying that teachers have three months off in the summer, which has never been true for me. But now that I'm an administrator, it is REALLY not true--instead it is more like 2 weeks. However, it is much different once the teachers start back as well, which officially happened last Friday. SIX FULL DAYS of staff development before our students (18 short of 2700!) return to campus. Let me let you in on a little secret....six days is too much.

It all started last Friday, a week ago today. We had things like training and 3 hour long faculty meetings to fill our day. Not the most exciting way to start things off. Coming back on Monday, things were a bit rough--some communication issues and such made for some negativity among the staff and really got to me. Today, Gwen and Scott (two other great Asst. Principals) even said that they had seen that I was "down" the past two days, but that they could tell things were better today, and they were. There are a couple of reasons for that: 1) The Obvious (it was Friday) 2)Yesterday many things that had been weighing on me got worked out in a 4 hour long meeting with the principal --yes 4 hours unannounced..... 3)I was reminded of one of the reasons I love my job--the fantastic teachers and staff I work with.

You see, this year, I get to work with my old department--the English Department. They are truly dedicated people who care immensely about doing great things for kids and are passionate about making a difference. I LOVED seeing that again and sharing ideas. We even had a short answer meeting today which probably should have been a real snoozer, but the group made it fun and we laughed and learned together. I was so refreshed!

Sometimes, as my friend and English department head, Stormy said so well in her blog this week, sometimes it takes a low day to help you appreciate the great days. That definitely happened this week--thankfully ending with the great day!

Somewhat relevant story that may apply: Some of you know that story about the guy eating dinner who was approached by a man who said he knew him. The second man said that he used to pack the parachute of the first man when they were in the army together. The first man said that he was so happy to finally know who had saved his life by so carefully packing his parachute because he had never really met the man before. The first man had always wanted to thank the second man but didn't know who he was. Anyway, long story short....the moral is: Consider who is packing your parachute--who is it that supports you each day to "save" you when times are tough? So let me say thanks to my "parachute" (or maybe my parachute packers?...anyway): my family, friends, and husband who offered me words of encouragment and rejuvenated me this week--I am truly blessed and could not have made it through the week without you!

Murder Mystery Dinner

Last night we went with our friends, Mike and Laura, to a murder mystery dinner at a local winery. They have them each weekend during harvest time (the grapes were ripe and gorgeous on the vines!). We had SO MUCH FUN! There were about 80 people there and about 12 were "suspects" including our friend Laura! We were told our parts ahead of time (I was the victim's lawyer, Chris was a "social worker" and of course, you can see that Mike was a minister while his wife Laura was a nun! The case was of a missing matchmaker who was just matching people up without looking at their information because her database went down--she just matched using names and addresses only--of course, people found out and had their reasons for being angry at her and whammo--you have a murder mystery dinner!

Of course, there were all kinds of costumes and people there--the pilot here won for best costume!

The food was fantastic as well and the wine with each course was delicous! We had a really great time with our friends and we decided that we should plan for this every summer before starting back to school! Thanks to Mike and Laura for a fun evening! We truly enjoyed it!