Such a FUN weekend

When Chad got home from work on Friday, we got ready and went to Lake Charles, Louisiana.  We went with Chad's best friend and his date to the Isle of Capri casino.  We won $500.  What's crazy is we didn't get home til 6:30am.  I was a zombie all day Saturday.  I got about 3 1/2 hours of sleep.  We had a great time though.  Maybe if I weren't fighting off a cold, I would've had an even better time.  ;)

On Thursday I'll be able to reveal the great projects I've been working on for Scrapperie with the Cherries Jubilee kit.  OMG, it's the best kit so far from Sandi....  (but I say that each month...lol)  ...but this one is sooooo so so pretty!  So be sure to come back on Thursday to check out my projects.  :)

Girl Scout Cookies

Lookie what I have!!!

yep, 7 boxes of cookies...  Mmmmm!!

And what's funny, is I have about 10 or more boxes coming from my brother.  HOLY COW, craziness I tell ya.  I won't be Girl Scout cookie hungry for awhile.  LOL  What's cool, is that I get to try out the cookies from the other baker.  The only cookies I've ever eaten are from ABC Smart Cookie.  But the baker of the cookies from my brother is Little Brownie Bakers.  So I'll get to try some of the different varities.  :)  Yep, I'm excited!!!

Bow to Royalty

I knew this, but today I was just reminded that I am 29th in line of King Henry II.  My grandmother and great aunt are 27th, my mom is 28th, I'm 29th and my kids are 30th.  Neat huh? 

....so bow...

LOL

A disaster and some lazy time

Last weekend, Jan. 30th, 31st and Feb. 1st I was in Galveston on a Scrapbooking retreat. Ohhhh, it was heaven. I think I enjoyed myself more this time than last time in August. It gave me the first opprutunity to go to Galveston to see how it looked since the Hurricane. I was so suprised. It didn't look near as bad as I expected. Infact, the Sea Wall was up and running. People were all gathered on the beaches (even though it was COOOOOLD!) It was even prettier than it ever has been in many many years. I was impressed. Galveston has done a supurb job at restoring itself. Two cheers to them!!

Anyways, I had a terrific time with all my scrappy buddies. Had some very good food, the house was neat, the bedding was way to comfy and the massage was what I needed. All the subbing last month had me all worn out. I was desperate for a massage!! I was able to get 14 pages done, and I finally took photos of the layouts so I can share with you. I'll do that later on after this post.

So lets move on....

Monday and Tuesday I worked. Wednesday I was suppose to go in at 10:30. But instead, my water heater decided I didn't need to do that. I had taken the kids to school that morning. And when I got back, I sat down to watch tv, because I haven't done that in months. I had LOTS to catch up on. Around 9:15ish I guess, I heard this banging cracking type of a sound. And it came from my laundry room. And then I heard water. I thought that was rather weird since no water was running anywhere in the house. So I get up and I really hear the water running..... from the water heater. OMG!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!! OMG!!!!!! Panic mode kicked in. LOL I rushed and grabbed a screwdriver to take off the wall panel where the water heater hides...lol And YEP, WATER was EVERYWHERE already. It was starting to leak out into the hall and my sons room.....but not the laundry room. It was leaking out at the walls. So I got my dad on the phone cause there was no shutoff valve. The stupid retards that put it in didn't put a shut off valve. Thanks mister!! I talked with him for a minute and decided to call the city to shut off the water, cause I couldn't get the knob to turn at the main shut off on the house. So they came ASAP, Thank you city of Daisetta. They FINALLLLLLY did something quick and prompt for the first time that I've lived here and I've lived here for almost 12 years. They responded to my phone call within like 1 or 2 minutes. I was shocked. In the mean time Chad's on his way home from work. When he got here, we went to Lowes and bought a new water heater and a shopvac. I spent the day sucking up water and draining the water heater. Thank goodness it wasn't too bad in the hall and Ryan's room. We finally got the water heater put in around 7pm. And boy howdy, it gets HOT! I'm thinking Chad is going to have to lower the temp...lol

So Thursday I was called in to sub, but I still needed to work on the carpets some more. I did it a couple of times and did the lazy thing for the day. WOW, that was great. I needed it so bad. Did the same thing on Friday. :)

Saturday was Ryan's Advanced Green belt test for TaeKwonDo! He did awesome!! Thursday is the award ceremony this week.

No work today, but I work Wednesday and Friday. I wasn't thinking when the Secretary called earlier, but Friday is the kids Valentine's day parties. But I think I'll be able to pull off going to their rooms to help with the parties. I'm sure the teachers aid for that class will help me out for sure. ....she loves me! ;)

So that's that.

Pics coming in a few....

Ahhh, Christmas!

I'm so excited!  It's Christmas season time again.  Every Thanksgiving night I pull out the tree and decorations and have at it.  Chad thinks I'm crazy because he says it's not December yet.  But to me, Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas Season begins. 

I'll have pics for you soon.  :)

BTW, it's Black Friday and you WON'T catch me out there doing any shopping.  NOOOOO WAY!!!  That day scares me...LOL

Out with the old....

...in with the new!!!

Last weekend, on Nov. 1st I took my first paycheck over to BestBuy. :) I purchased a brand new camera. I've had my old one for a few years now, since Feb. 17, 2006. It's a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S600.

And my new one is a Canon PowerShot SD870 IS.

I am really loving my new camera, and Chad is enjoying his new camera...LOL...my old one. ;) I'll post some pics later on from my new camera.

New Job

Yep, I now have a job.  LOL  Never thought those words would EVER come out of my mouth...LOL  I'm still in shock.  But yep....I'm working now.  Thursday I started.  I don't know if I mentioned back in August when I was going to the local college to get my Substitute Teaching Certificate.  But I got it.  And I finally started working on Thursday.  Was called back for the same teacher on Friday.  And then on Monday I subbed for a different teacher. 

My first Subbing job was for Pre-K.  I was scared to death...LOL  But we had a most wonderful day.  They loved me and I love them.  So like I said I subbed again for them on Friday.  But Monday I did the Kindergarten Computer lab.  oh my, that was the most boringest day ever...LOL  Tuesday I had a break.  And today is a local holiday.  :)

A little more of this and that

So this is my house....

...after Hurricane Ike.  You can't see the right side of the house due to all the tree branches hanging down.  Normally you could've seen it.  The left side of the house on the side where the tree is broke in half, is my bathroom and bedroom.  The front left side is the den where all my scrappy stuff lives.  The window to the left of the door is the diningroom and to the left of that where the little window is, is the kitchen.

Close call, you think??  We haven't messed with that tree yet.  We're going to get our yard men to take care of it for us.  Oh, if you look at the first photo you'll see our chimney is knocked around by the winds.

This is the back of the house.  That tree tried real hard to go through my livingroom windows.  But I have tough windows I guess.  Nothing went through our house, Thank God!!!  Our electric pole was knocked over a bit, Chad and his friend just had to stand it back up and all was well for that.  Thank goodness, cause my daddy isn't around for this hurricane.  He's living in Alaska now.  With Rita, I had to have him do a repair job on my pole.

The other angle of the back of the house.  Either the skirting was ripped off, or it was popping off at the seams.  While in Weatherford, Chad bought a window unit a/c.  It came in handy that's for sure.  I hate seeing this picture with it hanging out of my window though.  UGH!!

Back to the front again.  We decided to leave Chad's brand new car here when we left.  Thankfully, it wasn't damaged badly.  It just has a cracked windshield and a few little scratches.  The tree branch hanging at the house is what did the damage I believe and it came from the tree right by the generator.

Another view of that branch on the house.

Another of his car and the skirting.  Remember, Chad had not touched anything before we took these pictures.  This is what we saw when we arrived back home.

This is the road that goes around our house.  This tree in the road is from his aunts house next door. 

So that's that.  I only posted a couple of pictures out of 160.  ;)

A little this and that...

This location pictured above was my most favorite place to go while we were in Weatherford for the hurricane. :) It always put a great big smile on my face. :) ...and my mother told me to choke on it...LMAO! I think she was a little jealous that I was able to have Starbucks and she was stuck in Houston with no lights or opened facilities.

The pictures above are at Braums!!!! They are evil I tell ya!! We ate dinner there twice...LOL I hadn't eaten at a Braums since I was a little girl.

Ms. Kari and Ms. Saira were playing 'I Spy With My Little Eye'. They were so cute. They did that while I was registering for Fema at Kari's house. I love her house. It's so darn pretty!!!

I'll post some pics of my yard in a few..... :)

And HE said, let there be Light!!

Tuesday, September 23rd at 5:30pm the wonderful men from all over the United States restored our power. I'm thankful for the strangers who have been helping Southeast Texas. Without them, we'd still be sitting in the dark and who knows for how long. I wanted to cry when the lights turned back on. The kids wooted and hallered with excitment! It was GREAT!! I had just taken my ice cold bath, had gotten out and was getting dressed. And the lights came on. It was Chad's 30th birthday and I was getting ready to go find something to eat for his birthday, instead of eating MRE's. Don't get me wrong, MRE's have been great. But it was his special day. You don't turn 30 every day you know. ;) I wish I was able to get a cake for him in town. But Brookshire's isn't open yet and Walmart closed at 5pm. We didn't get to town until 7pm. I did buy him a birthday card though. The most special card ever made too. :)

....So here we are today, Thursday the 25th. I got up this morning and turned my computer on in hopes that maybe...just maybe my internet provider has fixed their towers and I'd have internet....

Guess what.... they did. ;) I was so excited. Took me awhile to go through all of my 1965 emails. Chad had 43...LOL



Lord willing, we won't have to do all of this again anytime soon.

Yesterday and the Next Day

Yesterday was my 13 year old brother in laws birthday. Me and the kids weren't home to celebrate with him, but from what it sounds like, there wasn't any celebrating. He was out on his skate board and broke his arm. He was in the ER all day. Poor thing. Nothing like breaking your arm the day you become a teen.

My great aunt, Saira and I went out shopping. We went to Target to get groceries. And when we came back we got my brother who lives with her and Ryan and went over to GameStop to get Ryan a new Nintendo DS. He traded in his Gameboy advance and a few games in to go towards the new system. That was his present from her for his birthday. After that we went store hopping, looking for a game for my brother....I think it was the new WarHammer game. Woo woo, fun!! LOL He's into that and that crazy crack game, World of WarCraft. We finally found it at BestBuy. And then we decided to have some lunch at Chili's.

Today we have to go back to GameStop. Yep, Saira wants to trade her gameboy in for a DS. Oh and last night she lost ANOTHER TOOTH. The kid is practically toothless. But she's tooooo darn cute!!

Tomorrow Chad is coming to see us. He's going to take me out for lunch. It's our 11 year anniversary tomorrow. 11 years ago tomorrow we started our lives together and it's great to see how far we've gotten.... 2 wonderful kids and a house that's still standing. ;)

He's been cleaning up. He took pictures of the mess, so when he gets here tomorrow, I'll post them for you all to see.

Another update...

Monday we went home and saw the house. We spent the night, but on Tuesday Chad brought me and the kids over to my aunts house who has power.

We have two HUGE branches on our house. No big damage at all though. And there is ALOT of debree throughout the yard.

The kids are all better, but I'm still getting over this cold. I've practically slept all day, off and on.

I'll update again soon.

I'm ALIVE

Well, Ike invaded my area. The word is, He did a number on Daisetta. Practically all the houses have a tree in the middle of them...EXCEPT for a few. Mine being that few. Thank you Jesus!!! We prayed and prayed about it. Of course, we did not stay. We evacuated on Thursday around 12pm and hot tailed it up to Weatherford, TX. Home of my dear blogging friend, Kari. ;) At the moment of booking our motel room, I didn't recall her living here (yes, we are still here). But probably about 5 minutes after booking, I sat there saying to myself "weatherford, I know that town......." and it finally donged on me, that Ms. Kari lives here. What a great opprotunity to meet up with a new friend.

So before we walked out the door at home, I sent her a quick email to let her know of our plans. And every day we've had a WONDERFUL time!! She's the sweetest. She really knows how to make an evacuee feel at home and enjoy their stay. ;) Friday was her birthday. So we met and had lunch...scrapbook shopped and of COURSE stopped at Starbucks,. She's a girl after my own heart I tell ya. Oh and we also stopped at Michaels. We had a most wonderful day!!

Saturday, we met up for lunch again. It was spitting rain on us so we just ate and then ran over to Target for Starbucks once again. This time I had to have her come check out all of my scrapbook albums and layouts. That took most of the afternoon...LOL Darn rain, we could've gone scrapbook shopping again or even shopping at the town square. Maybe today...lol ;) We'll have to see.

So here we are on Sunday. We planned on going back home today, but decided to stay one more day. Poor Ryan ended up with a stomach bug last night. It's not fun being in a motel room with a sick kid. :( It just broke my heart.
This afternoon Kari stopped by the motel and picked Saira and I up to register for FEMA online at her house. I think Saira is really enjoying the inneraction with Kari and her family and being in a HOUSE and not a little bitty motel room.

I really am not looking forward to going home. First of all because I will miss Kari, I've truly enjoyed hanging out with her. She's GREAT!!! ;) But the other reason is because my power will not be restored anytime soon. I've heard a few rummors from the local electric company guys that it could be December. PLEASE PLEASE pray that they get to Daisetta very soon and get power to us.

Hull-Daisetta ISD is all distroyed. So it will be interesting to see how school will go for the kids. The post office is messed up. But from several friends who stayed around (who were extremely scared and will never stay for another storm again) say that our house managed to stay untouched. Of course we prayed really hard that the Good Lord above would spare our house, and he did. There is a small branch on Chad's brand new car, but they say it shouldn't have done any damage at all.

That's all I know for now. I will post again when I have power I suppose. Or the next time I'm by a computer. Just wanted to let you all know that we are all fine and so are our belongings.

until next time....

Still CRAZY around here

It hasn't slowed down yet.  School, TaeKwonDo, Football, school TaeKwonDo, Football.  Over and over and over again.  A couple of days ago I threw in a little extra fun in my day with a candle party.  It had been awhile since I gathered my friends together with an at home party.  Before the candle party Kim and I scrapped.  We both made 1 layout.  As soon as I jounal on it, I'll share a photo of it.  :)

But to add more craziness to my life, last weekend I got a brand new truck.  We had a Silver '05 Dodge Ram truck.  Now we have a Red '08 Chevy Silverado truck.  It's awesome and I LOOOOOVE IT!!!!

I'll post photos soon.  ;)

That time of year again...Back-To-School

What an exciting day!!  The first day of school.  When I was a kid, I loved the first day of school.  I always looked forward to it.  Of course I looked forward to seeing all my friends, but I really enjoyed most of the subjects.  I loved History and Geography.  Today, I'm really not so great with dates and some history, but I still love it!!!  But Geography has never left me.  Tonight I was reading a paper that Ryan filled out and it had info about himself.  What color hair he has, what color eyes.  He wrote, "Hasl" or something like that...HEHE, he has Hazel eyes.  But anyways, it asked something like what subject you look forward to learn the most.  And he wrote "Math".  I was so proud to see that.  I hope he excels in math.  He always does soooo good in it.  My mom and grandfather were like whiz-bang mathematicians, so much I think they took my part....LOL  ;)  But anyways, that was really great to see.

They said they had a GREAT 1st day back to school.  :)

We started our day off by getting up and watching a cartoon while I made blueberry pancakes.  Gotta start off the day will a full tummy to fuel those little brains.  They got themselves all pretty and handsome and we loaded up with our overly heavy backpacks and extra bag of supplies.  Off to school we went.  This year was the first year I was pretty much in and out of there....compared to previous years.  This makes Ryan's 5th year of school....Pre-K thru 3rd now.  And all the previous years I would hang around for a good few minutes and watch him as he got his day started.  I'd help with his supplies and all that good stuff.  This time....  pshhhhh!  I showed him his room.  Helped him find and empty desk and that was that.  :(  How sad.  I think all the students were glad to see me.  ....they like me...lol  ;)  HEHE  Some I hadn't seen in a few years, because they haven't been in his class the last several years.  But his teacher came back in the room and I asked her if I could take a picture of the two of them.  And she was all excited about that.  She suggested where to take it....  along her Olympic Medal display.  She told me she was hooked on it the last 2 weeks, I said ME TOOOO.  lol  You'll see that pic at the end of this post.  So then I was off to Saira's room.  I had already dropped her off at her room first.  The parents were instructed to pull all their childrens supplies out and put them in the proper assigned location for each item.  That made it easier on her to put them away later on.  After I did my duties, I asked if I could take their photo too.  And so we did that.  I told them bye and took a couple of pics of Saira as I was leaving.  What a quick morning, I tell ya.

I didn't really do much, except for come home, eat my breakfast, make coffee, have a few cups, watch tv, fiddle on the computer and talk on the phone with everyone.  Then it was time to go get the kids at 3:10.  OMG, what a terrible/crazy line of cars at the school.  Craziness I tell ya, craziness.  I swear, those parents don't know how to form one line.  And I hate those parents that park on the side and walk up to get their kids.  UGH, so annoying to have those cars stuck in the way.  We didn't get back home until 3:25.  It doesn't take but 3-5 minutes to get from my house to the school for heaven's sake. 

So then, it was rush time.  Time to eat our snacks as fast as we can, get dressed for TaeKwonDo and head out the door by 4:00.  My son is the slowest clothes changer I know...LOL  But anyways, we made it to TKD right on time.  Once that was over, we had to go straight to football practice.  He changed into his football gear there at TKD, they all looked at us like we were goofy or something...LOL  On my way to practice Chad calls me, and says he's stuck in traffic and won't make there on time and asks for me to fill in for him.  ....say what?  Me??  ...yeah, ok, I'll fill in.  I'm now Coach Jayme.  Woo Woo....LOL  "down.....set...HUT!!!"  I was impressed with the boys, they actually listened to me.  I wasn't very nice either.  You can't be nice...LOL It's football.  I did a good job I thought.  ;)

Our day finally ended around 8:30.   And I have to tell you, I hate football and baseball season.  It means my kids don't get to bed on time.  Bed time is at 8pm here at my house.  But after being Mom, Bus Driver, Chauffeur, Coach and then mom again...shesh, I was pooped.  LOL  I'm going to bed early tonight.

But here are the few pictures that I had taken today....

So we had a wonderful day back to school...a little busy at the end of the day, but it was a good day.  :)

Busy Life

Sorry for not blogging in so long.  Shame on me!!  I guess life here in my house has gotten rather busy.  Last week I was going to the College for 4 nights to get my Substitute Teaching Certificate.  I had so much fun going to that class.  The instructor was a laugh a minute, she was wonderful!!!  I actually wouldn't mind going to her class every day.  ;)  Let's see, what else...  July 30th Ryan started doing TaeKwonDo.  He's already gotten his 2nd stripe, about to get his 3rd and will test for his yellow belt on Sept. 20th.  He loves it!!!!  This week we started football practice for him.  And now school starts on Monday.  The kids are excited and ready to go.  We have all the supplies and clothes as well.  Ryan starts 3rd grade and Saira will be in Kindergarten.  I'm pretty sure Monday will be a bittersweet day for me.  I'm excited that she'll be going to school all day, but at the same time it's rather sad.  :(  She's my baby, and growing up so quickly.  I'm sure I won't cry at school.  I don't like to cry infront of people...LOL  Especially her.  ;)  But I know as soon as I get going down the road I'll cry my little heart out. 

Oh, last weekend, I went to my first Scrapbook Retreat.  O.M.G.!!!!  What a blast that was.  It was awesome to just leave my scrappy stuff on my table and go to bed whenever.  I mean, I do that here at the house anyways, but to go some where and not have to pack it up and go back home was GREAT.  We had our food cooked for us and we even had a certified massage therapist give us massages.  She was wonderful.  It was much needed after all the scrapping we did the first day.

I will post pics of my 10 layouts that I completed.  But I won't be posting pics of the 96 7x7's that I did to complete our '07 vacation album. 

Update

All is well...  The storm did not upgrade to a Hurricane thank goodness.

Weather in the Gulf

Wow, sorry I haven't blogged much this summer. I guess the lazy days of summer have gotten me or something. It's not like I have all kinds of exciting things going on during the day either...LOL So it's either laziness or ....or.... or..... yeah, it's just laziness...LOL School starts soon enough so maybe I'll find time then. More on that later on....

but first... Lets talk about the weather.

Tropical Storm Edouard will be blowing in for a wet and windy visit tomorrow afternoon. I haven't even baked a cake for him yet. Maybe cookies will work for him. Not sure I have everything for a cake. But yes, he's coming and I don't like it. We're not leaving this time. Well, actually, before tomorrow afternoon we will probably hop over to Chad's mom and dad's. They are in a more stable house. We live in a double wide. Not Tropical Storm/Hurricane friendly. Although, it surived just fine and dandy during Hurricane Rita and it was a powerful storm. There were trees ALLLL over my yard. I'm sure some of my readers recall all of that.

Well, I hope I won't have pictures to share with you later. Meaning, I hope nothing happens. And HOPEFULLY I'll be able to log back on just as soon as it passes to update all of you. If not, don't panic...LOL... ;) My internet could go out....IF something knocks the little antenna thingy on my house (it's not a satelite, it's a little antenna) for my wireless internet.

Yet, another toothless kid

Saira lost another tooth last week. She lost it on Saturday. That kid was going NUTS I tell ya. I never saw or heard a child so extactic about a tooth falling out. But I think that tooth hung in there for a least a month. It was starting to get loose when she lost that first one. So it's been awhile. She was babying it....LOL

I think that's all I have for now. No new LO's to post for ya. But maybe before tomorrow evening I will. My scrappy mojo is coming back. Actually I don't think it was gone, I would just clean up and make things tidy over and over again and then not want to mess anything up. LOL

And then, another thing, I'm wanting to get a new cabinet for my room. But in order to do that, I have to get rid of the one that I have. So I think that bugs me, ya know? And also I have the scrapbook retreat stuck on my mind. That's Aug. 15th-17th. I'm beyond excited about it!!!!!!

;) And just so you know....Kim is the greatest!! ;)

HEHE!!!

Another Tooth

Ryan was working on a loose tooth last night.  It was hanging there when he went to bed.  I told him to be careful and not to swallow it in his sleep...LOL  He woke up this morning and worked on it some more and woke me up saying he lost it finally.  Yay Ryan.  He doesn't have many teeth left.

And Saira, she's been working on a loose tooth for about a month now.  I can't get her to work on it.  And it's just about hanging there too.  They could both have the tooth fairy tonight if she'd work on it.  I think she's scared of it coming out.  She's lost one before.  But then she had 4 pulled at the dentist.  So this would make tooth number 6, but number 2 on her own.  ;)