Big Trouble

His shirt and that face say it all. I knew it was quiet while I was working out....TOO quiet! I kept waiting for Kyle to come downstairs and play like he usually does, but today he didn't. You all know what it means when you can't hear what going on: something that SHOULDN'T be going on!

So, I followed the trail of toys up the stairs and into his room. There I found him, in the bathroom, putting everything he could find into the bathtub.

He transferred nearly ALL the toys from his basket to the tub. He threw in a few blankets. There's even a flashlight in there! At least he had a good time and didn't hurt himself and all of this kept him busy for 30 minutes.

Celebrating Retirement

Some of you may not have heard that we've retired and moved to Florida. That's right....RETIRED! Actually, we both just decided to pull out our money from our retirement accounts to have a little cash to live on while Stephen is in school. Also, there was NO way I was going to ACTUALLY retire as a teacher with TRS (the dictators who control Texas teachers' retirement accounts.) My age plus years of experience has to equal some crazy number like 80. I'm only at 33 now!
Anyway, I had all my paperwork in to take out my money and they sent me ONE LAST LETTER, a chance to back out of the deal. The letter asked "are you SURE you want to give up your retirement?" And, as if to sway my crazy decision, they put in the BIG selling point: "You could be eligible for early retirement benefits starting on August 31, 2034. You would receive a monthly amount of $164.93." WHAT? I couldn't live on that per month in 2008, let alone in 2034. Needless to say, I signed away my rights, yet again.
As for Stephen, his retirement account was with a county hospital. They take care of everything there. So, unless he was planning on working in Odessa, Texas, for the rest of his career (which we all know isn't happening) it wasn't worth it to leave his retirement money with them. We got the check yesterday and put it in the bank. (Not that we can access it because our bank put a hold on our account. I guess they don't want someone depositing a fake check and then taking all the money.) We did decide to celebrate our "retirement" this evening and we look forward to living out our days in "Sunny South Florida!"

Books

Kyle has two baskets of toys downstairs. Until recently, he always went for the one with the trucks, tractors, balls, and other similar toys. In the last week, he has developed an insatiable love for books. I think someone told him to "dive into a good book," and he took it literally:

He'll choose a book and bring it over, saying "buddy" or "muddy" or a combination of these words. These are his main words for communicating lately and can mean almost anything:
"I want that."
"Look at this."
"I want a drink."
"Pick me up."
"I want to take a bath."
You name it, in any situation, "buddy" or "muddy" will get the job done.
This week, these words have mainly been used to mean, "Read this to me." Just look at all the books we've read (multiple times) today:


And what is more fun to do after reading some good books? Throwing toys from the OTHER basket down the stairs!

Birthday Shout-Out

We'd like to wish "Happy Birthday" to Auntie Deb!!! It's a big day for one of Kyle's favorite great-aunts, but we're not telling HOW big! Just look what happened when we told Kyle......



We love you, Auntie Deb! Have a wonderful day and we can't wait to see you later this week!

Back to College Football!

That's right! It's that time of year again. Even though we are states away from our beloved Aggies, we were lucky enough to get to watch the game on tv! (Notice how the referee is giving the thumbs-up "gig 'em" to an Aggie player!) Kyle even joined in on the action.......

.....and got pretty upset over some of the stupid mistakes the Aggies were making.


He needed to have a drink and calm down. (He's doing better with the sippy cup thing. I guess "cold turkey" is the way to go!)

Luckily, the Aggies were able to bounce back from last week's embarrassing season opener and pull out a win over New Mexico. WHOOP!

All Weather, All the Time!

I don't have any pictures of Kyle today. The only pictures that have been flashing before my eyes ALL DAY are pictures of Hurricane Ike. I thought the weather team on NewsWest 9 in Midland was extreme when it came to "severe weather," but they have NOTHING on the meteorologists here. I can't get too involved in anything else on tv because they're ALWAYS cutting in to give the latest projected path of the latest hurricane. They were on for AN HOUR AND 30 MINUTES this morning......during the Price is Right.....which is RIGHT before their REGULARLY scheduled news time....which they still had. (Sorry for the run-on sentence, but I'm rambling in my head and that is the desired effect.)

They cut into Judge Judy at 4:30 for 30 minutes, again right before the regular evening news, but don't have any NEW news to report until the NEW reports come in from the National Hurricane Center at 5:00!!!!! (I'm sure there were more "special reports" throughout the day, but I was listening to Rush and didn't notice.) It's BEYOND extreme, and it's still FOUR days before they expect Ike to hit.

I went out to get a few necessities in case Ike really is the monster they're predicting, and everyone else apparently had the same idea. The Sam's parking lot was COMPLETELY FULL! Stephen tried to fill up his truck and every gas station he passed had crazy lines or signs that said they were out of gas. We have plenty of water and canned food to survive, but things change when you have a baby. I had to make sure I had enough diapers and non-perishable milk for him if we lose power and can't get to a store. I think we'll be okay, but I am definitely learning the meaning of "if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear."

Sippy Cups and Service Auctions

Kyle's doctor wanted him off bottles by his one-year appointment. We were living out of boxes and moving and not stable, so we decided to wait a little longer. Well, no more excuses! He is going to be off bottles....soon.....maybe.....if I can stand him spitting back out every sip he takes!!!!! Just look at his shirt! It doesn't matter if it's milk or juice, it's coming back out. I've tried different styles of cups with different types of sippy parts. Any ideas/suggestions would be much appreciated.

Some of you know my bad experience at a certain "service auction" we had at church a few years ago. I don't need to go into too many details, but let's just say my idea of my what my service would be was taken WAY over-the-top by someone else. When I donated a service of a "basket" of ironing, I envisioned doing a basket of ironing, like what you'd take to one trip to the cleaners. What I got instead was a BASKET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of ironing, like a year's worth. Okay, so I was a little grumpy about it.

So, we move to Florida, I'm trying to meet people at church, and I need to go to all the activities. What is the activity for the first Enrichment Night at our new ward? You guessed it....a service auction! (For those of you who don't know what this is....you answer a questionnaire and get "money" for positive spiritual or healthy or family-related things you've done in the week/month/year.) I decided to go to meet some new people and to replace the negative memory with a positive one.

When I signed up for a service to donate, I thought and thought about what it is that I could do and share with the women of South Florida and came up with a GREAT idea. I donated my services in setting up a blog! My goal of converting the world to blogging will soon be one person closer! I even donated more ironing.....with a limit of 5 items of clothing. Once I explained what a blog is, it went for high dollar, as did the ironing. I can't wait to do my service this time, seeing as I know what I'm getting myself into!

I also got some treasures for myself. I got some freshly-made peach preserves (with Georgia Peaches!) and some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I also got the best deal of the night: free babysitting for only FIVE FAKE BUCKS!!! No one else even bid on it! Now, Stephen and I can have a date night! I tried to buy more things, but they all went over my price range. I ended up giving the rest of my money to another bidder, so she could get what she really wanted. I had a great time and can now release the bitter memories of my service-auction past.

From the Cheap Seats

Did you know there is a place where you can decide to go see a Major League Baseball game on the day of the game and just walk up to the ticket counter and buy tickets for the cheap seats and have about 10 rows in two sections all to yourselves? We found such a place last night.

Dolphin Stadium is only a few miles from where we live. We noticed that the Atlanta Braves were in town to play the Marlins, so we decided to go to the game. We drove up about 15 minutes until game time. (I was thinking with my Rangers or Astros brain and trying to figure out where we were going to park, were we going to get any tickets, etc.) Silly me! We parked about five cars down from the entrance, right across from the ticket counters! The only seats that were "sold out" where the upper deck seats, but they don't even SELL any of those tickets, except for weekend games!!!! We got tickets in the "Fish Tank," which are the "cheap seats," but when we walked up there, practically the whole 2 or 3 sections around us were empty! It was great to sit where we wanted and let Kyle play in his own 2 or 3 seats. (In fact, most of the whole stadium was empty! Can you believe that? These pictures were taken AFTER the game had already started!)



We did our best to "root, root, root for Atlanta!"

It was NOT a very defensive game. We started with a homerun. They answered with 3 runs, one off an error. We came back and scored to make it 10-3. In the bottom of that inning, they scored 10 runs!!! We finally had to leave at almost 10:00, just after the top of the 6th inning, to get Kyle to bed! Luckily, the Braves were able to pull out a win in the end !!!


What a great night at the ball park!

Gator Park

Today we decided to take a little trip into the Everglades. It started with an airboat tour.


Kyle was required to wear a life vest, which he didn't mind too much, amazingly.


We started off going pretty slowly, so everyone could stand up and take in the scenery and get out their cameras. It was gorgeous and full of wildlife. We saw fish, birds, turtles and, of course, GATORS!


The largest bird that lives in the Everglades is the blue heron. Here's one perching right behind Kyle and then taking off to find more food.


After the slow part of the tour, we sped up and the motor was REALLY loud. You can tell how fast we were going by our messed up hair in these pictures! We had to put in some earplugs, which Kyle DID NOT like. (On the way back, we just plugged his ears with our hands. He did much better on the return trip.)

After the airboat tour, we got to meet some animals, up close and personal. We went to a show and saw a scorpion from Africa, a South American toad, a skunk, a cockatoo, a lemur, and, of course, MORE GATORS!




Kyle loves animals, especially birds, and was paying CLOSE attention to the show.


That is, until he started having to answer some texts:

After the show, we all got to hold "Larry," a three-year old alligator. Even Kyle, our little scientist, wanted to grab on and see what Larry felt like!


We walked around the park and saw a few more gators.

Then, our little adventurer spotted a waterfall. He pointed in that direction and then started to walk right over there and climb up on the rocks. He saw some ducks, a peacock, and his dad pointed out some ciclids in the water. (Stephen used ciclids in the research for his Master's Thesis, so he knows a little bit about these fish!)


What a fun day! We have now seen a major part of Southern Florida's natural environment. Just doing our part to support this ecosystem!

Labor Day

Stephen didn't have any classes today, so we decided to take a trip to the beach! With all the hurricanes and global warming and other gloom and doom in the world today, there was a red flag, "high hazard" warning. However, that didn't stop US from enjoying the day! We played in the waves, but stayed close to the shore because the current was so strong. It's understandable how easily someone could drown out there! We didn't take Kyle too far into the water, but he sure had a great time. He took one look at the waves and starting running in for more!