Drought

It has absolutley shocked me little rain we have had the past 6months. Our usual daily dousings have been zilch, zero, zip. Which has postive side affects, less humidity, no mosquitos.
But it means serious issues with water supplies, farming, etc.

Kaylee was taking random pictures the other day on our drive home and I just discovered this one. It shows how low the San Jacinto river truly is. Where people once water skiied and tubed is now growing trees and bushes. I labled where the water normally is.

I heard on the news tonight that it's also causing major water pipe breaks in neighborhoods. Last night alone there were 100 different pipes that busted in Houston.

We need Rain in a bad, bad way!

First Day of School

Marching Band

Zane started Marching band for the first time 3 weeks ago. He is really enjoying it. Even in the triple digit heat for the last 20 days, he has not complained. So that has to count for something.

.

I went a little early to pick him up one evening and took the camera.

I operate under the mantra: "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission"

Especially when photographing Teenagers.

But he didn't complain. And I'm glad to have a little record of the last 3 weeks.

Maybe the most satisfying thing is when I asked him "How's it going?" he said, "Really good, I like learning something new"

Me too Zane, me too

Love Summer

Love Pretend Picnics

Love Natural Lighting

Love Feeding Babies

Love Mia

The Help

I don't think I have ever looked forward to a movie premiere this much. I had it on my calendar as soon as I saw the release date.

Last summer I read this book and I loved it. When it was over I wanted more....not necessarily to know more about the story line but because the author made me feel like I was friends with ALL the characters. It was written in a time that I sometimes think I would like to have lived. When people sat on the porch and talked, ate cornbread&tomatoes, and went to church on Sunday for dinner on the ground. But I don't live completely in fantasy, I know there was no AC, lots of hard work and lots of sticky pantyhose.
Sometimes when a book is made into a movie, parts change but this movie stayed very close to the original. It was done well! And I was not disappointed. It also was special that I got to see it with 10 friends and then had a late dinner after. (6 of us read it as well) But I feel bad for people who haven't read it and only see the movie, because the book was much funnier and much more in depth.
This is a MUST see and MUST read.
(I will now cease to be Siskel&Ebert)

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Dossier is in China

If you've been following the blog for a while you know that all the adoption paperwork is called a Dossier. And on Friday it left the agency in Virginia....and today it's in China. Actually August 8th.....What a great birthday present.

The representative in China will walk the dossier into the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs and that will be our Log In Date.

YAY!

Summer Scrappin

I've had a little time to fool around with some digital scrapbooking. Who knew when Marching Band practice started for Zane it was going to feel like school had started as well. Seems like my "running" has begun and it's only August 5.
But in the "in between time" I can get a few things done. And sometimes the few things are scrapbook pages. Have I mentioned I LOVE Digital Scrapbooking?????

An Adventure around every corner

Every night when we're outside in the pool at dusk something really neat happens. From somewhere close several bats fly out. It's really a fun thing to watch. From the pool looking toward the house the sky is really blue and there are few trees so you can really count all of the bats. Sometimes they come really close to the house or even close to our heads on occassion.

It's never bothered any of us because BATS eat Mosquitos. And in South Texas, Mosquitos are a HUGE problem. So as long as the bats are not roosting in my attic I'm cool with it.
That is until one morning when I went to clean the pool skimmer.

At first I thought it was a frog. But upon further inspection...IT's a BAT!

With visions of Rabies dancing in my head, I decided to ask David to scoop it out.

Not very pretty, but you couldn't help feel sorry for the little guy. No telling how long it struggled to stay alive in the water.

We laid him up on the roof to dry out and hopefully fly away. Then I remembered hearing that bats have to be hanging upside down to start flying. I'm not sure that is true but it couldn't hurt. So we hung him from a twig and the next morning he was gone.

Max

Flashlight Hide N Go Seek

A few years ago we started playing Flashlight Hide N Go Seek...

At Night

In the dark

In the house

It's something we don't do very often, Usually when we have a sleepover guest or family in town.

Well, last week our cousin Gabe came to visit us for a week of Camp Walling....His first request through the door was for hide n go seek.
So we waited until the sun went down and said, "OK let's get all the lights off.....Then all the kids disappeared.

David and I sat there wondering what happened...
A few minutes later they all appeared wearing all Black and dark clothes...so that they wouldn't be seen as easy.
Of course I needed to snap a picture, so they gave me their best Ninja Pose!

New Dress Pattern

Last week i went to a sewing retreat. After the first day I ran out of projects to do....don't get me wrong I have P L E N T Y of unfinished projects at home but I was 2.5 hours from home and still had a 12 hour sewing day ahead of me. So I promptly, went to the nearest Hobby Lobby and purchased fabric to make this cute little dress for Mia.

I love the way it turned out but I guess what I love the most is that I FINISHED the project.

Of course, I didn't have much choice with Mia pulling on my sleeve saying, "When's is going to be done? I'm ready to wear IT"

tick tock

Before Kaylee headed off to camp she asked to get a new battery in her watch. Normally she doesnt wear a watch but next week she needed to. She said when she wakes up she wants to know if its time to get up or should she force herself back to sleep. I thought that was a well thought out stance so I agreed to take her. Even though it was a saturday. As a general rule we avoid all weekend shopping. Thus avoiding the throngs of people.
So as I went around the house telling everyone where we were going,, everyone suddenly had a watch that needed repair. We ended up taking 6 watches with us. The man was kind of shocked...probably tripled his business for the day with just us.

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Underwater Camera fun

Just a few fun shots we took back at home with the underwater camera....I think it's fun

Look at the bubbles in Trent's nos

a few more.

A few more vacation shots...

What is really funny is that we bought an underwater camera so that we could take it tubing with us and not worry about getting the good camera wet. David and I both lauged when we had to explain to the kids what a film camera was. They kept saying, "can I see it?" " where's the delete button" "How do you get the pictures out?"
I realized Zane was about 2 when we got our first digital camera. We were some of the first people I know to have one simply because he worked for Casio at the time and we got our digital camera(s) free.
What I do without a digital camera?

Relaxing on the Guadalupe

For Vacation this summer we took a trip to New Branufels. We rented a cool treehouse and got to play and tube on the river.

Zane enjoyed some serious hammock time.

Ty on the other hand did not enjoy his encounter with the hammock. We aren't sure if he jumped completely over it or got on then flipped off.

We all enjoyed the water though. Yes the water was pretty shallow but the kids didn't care. They fished...

caught frogs

paddled around in the Kayak

Then we took a tube trip for several hours

It was a nice day....Even with the drought we had a Great time