Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Auntie Deb pulled off a great party! Kyle was quite the little party animal. He had a great time working the crowd.


I thoroughly enjoyed cake. It looked great and tasted even better!

Kyle and I spent some time at the actual party, but most of our time was spent.....


....playing on the inflatable toys! Kyle loved the Bungee Run. Aunt Jules also wanted to race me, knowing ahead of time that I am the Jane Long champion of the Bungee Run. However, she has a bit of a height advantage on me and was able to beat me every time!




Then, we got our gloves on for a little boxing match. Kyle tried to back into his:



When that didn't work, he pulled out some karate moves on me.


Even when he fell down, he kept getting back up and coming at me with more.

He finally had to give up, so he could return to the party.

The birthday girl, herself, also had a little boxing match. "T" came out as the winner!

Happy Birthday, Auntie Deb! You've come a long way, baby!

Friday Night

Granna and Aunt Jules flew in on Friday afternoon! It was great to get to see them. We had dinner at Grama Sue's house with Auntie Deb, Uncle Mark, and Aunt Terri. Then, Auntie Deb opened her big birthday box, full of 50 funny things for her 50th birthday. Among the favorites were the camping toiletry kit, FLARP, and the Mushebelly Ewe.

Granna, Jules, and Uncle Mark also got in some practicing for the song they were singing in church on Sunday. Kyle liked the music and wanted to "help" with the accompaniment, but did much better at helping Granna with her singing.

The Plane Ride

These are a couple of pictures from our plane ride from Ft. Lauderdale to Midland. Finally, on the stretch from Dallas, Kyle was able to have his own seat!

He kept looking up to try and see where the blast of cold air was coming from!

A LOOOOOOOOOOONG Day!

Exactly 9 hours from the time I walked out of my door in Miami, we pulled into Grama Sue's garage in Midland. It was a very long day.

The flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Houston wasn't too bad. We just had turbulence the whole way because of Hurricane Ike. We could even see the outer bands from the plane's windows! Kyle slept most of the way, which was a great blessing.

Then, we walked out into an airport I didn't recognize! We thought we would escape the effects of Ike, only to walk into the panic of evacuation mode in Houston! The airport was standing room only....and not much of that left! Our plane was late. Instead of having only an hour lay-over, it ended up being almost 2 hours! Then, we got on the plane and ended up staying on the runway for 25 minutes. That was the worst part of the day. It was hot, I had a headache, there was no movement, and Kyle had already been waiting around and had not been able to run and play for several hours. (Side note: as the plane was filling up, people kept moving past the middle seat next to us....a benefit of flying with a baby...no one wants to sit by you. Finally, we got down to the last few people. This lady asks if she can sit there, so I get up to let her have the middle seat. Then she asks, "Would you mind if I had the aisle seat?" *Is she INSANE? Did I not get an "A" boarding pass? Did I not get on the plane before her and already chose my seat and unpack all of Kyle's necessities? Can she not see I have a baby? Did she want me to do all the work of planning and preparing and then she just comes in at the last minute and gets what I already have with no effort? She must be a Democrat.* I'm thinking all these thoughts and more about this moron. I say, "Yeah, I do mind. With a baby, I need to be on the aisle, in case I need to get out." She replies, "Oh. Well, I'll go see if there's another seat in the back." Fine by me! So, here we are, doing all the stuff before we take off, and I think I may be sitting next to the ONE open seat on the plane, but in comes on last passenger, a stand-by, who ended up being VERY nice.....and DIDN'T ask for my seat.) Once we finally got off the runway, Kyle did pretty well.

Then, we had to land in Dallas. I'm actually glad we did, even though it added time to the overall trip. All but about 50 people got off the plane! Kyle and I had the whole row to ourselves. I'm so grateful for small miracles like that. It was an easy last stretch, and my headache FINALLY went away. (I had to cave in and get a Dr. Pepper.....even though I went back to Weight Watchers last night and pledged I would get back on track after gaining 4.4 lbs. Oh well. It's life. I'm still under goal and I'm not going to let food run my life, but I digress...)

How nice it was to land in Midland and have our luggage and Kyle's car seat arrive! We look forward to a great weekend!

I must be Crazy!

In a few hours, I leave for the airport. Kyle and I are going on a trip back to Midland to visit with family and friends and go to Auntie Deb's birthday party. I must be crazy.

I'm flying ALONE with an almost 14-month-old....who doesn't like to sit still...and is teething....has had diarrhea for 2 days.....which has caused AWFUL diaper rash....and doesn't like to drink out of a sippy cup because I'm still in the middle of taking away his bottles, "cold turkey."

And, it's the anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

But, hey....let's look on the bright side. A week ago, we were supposed to be slammed with a category 4 hurricane, one that could rival "Andrew" of 1992, and make my trip virtually impossible. That didn't happen. Plus, it's not THAT long of a flight, and maybe Kyle will sleep.

We'll be fine and we'll have a great time, but you might add us to your prayers!

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!