11-27-06: Well, a lot has happened over the past 2 weeks, so I will try to give a brief and not too boring description. We headed down to Waco on the Friday before Thanksgiving to spend some time with Hollie’s dad and to see her grandma. We stayed with him Friday night, then came back home late Saturday night. Sunday we cleaned up the house, then Monday I once again tempted death by getting up on the roof to put lights on the house. Tuesday morning we flew out to Lubbock to spend some time with my side of the family. We stayed there until Friday afternoon. It was really nice to see everyone and just to relax for a few days. Hobs had a great first Thanksgiving. We put pics of our trips HERE. Also, he has begun to do a great impersonation of Stevie Wonder. We put a video of that HERE. We have spent the last 2 days since we have been back decorating the house for Christmas. We both love Christmas, but we have far too many decorations. This year we decided on to do the bare minimum, but that is still turning out to be very time consuming.

Hobs is still sick. He is hacking up junk from his throat all the time, so we are finally taking him back to the Dr. today. Hopefully that will clear him up. He has had a rough few nights, starting back in Lubbock. He is such a great sleeper at night, but lately we can just hear him struggling to breath, then waking himself up. It is sad to listen too. Given that, the Christmas decorating, and all the travel, we are all a little tired. Last night Hollie and I were really struggling to get the house finished before I went to work today, and were both really exhausted. I guess the whole evening culminated in my nice trip to Wal-Mart about 6:15 when I went to pick up some extra snow for our village (which is now more of a small city). So, against Hollie’s advice, I went to the Denton Wal-Mart. I get there and somehow manage to park within 1 mile of the entrance. I walk into the garden center entrance, and immediately am greeted by thousands of people. I know exactly what I want, so I walk to the back of the store, get my snow, get an air conditioner filter, then headed over to the grocery section to get some cheese for Hollie’s chicken spaghetti. So, I am walking through the middle of the store, and all of a sudden feel my feet slipping out from under me. I realize, too late at this point, that I have stepped in a huge puddle of water. So there I am, hydroplaning down the isle toward a rack of lady’s unmentionables. Not to worry though, I didn’t make it to the rack before my feet completely came out from under me, and I found myself doing Carly Patterson-esque splits on the floor, whacking my knee really hard on the ground. I took a minute to get my bearings. My snow and filter were lying about 50 yards back, where I had originally began my water slide down the isle. I was now lying halfway on my back in a puddle of water that would rival that of most kiddie pools, trying to see if my groin had sustained any permanent damage before attending to my knee. At this point I heard someone laughing. I looked up to see a 3 year old kid standing in his shopping cart laughing at me, while the two ladies with him just stared at me like I was somehow interrupting their precious bra shopping. I glared at the kid, and would have said something mean, but mi no habla espanol.

Anyway, I realized my knee was just skinned, and a little bruised, so I didn’t really feel the need to report this to anyone. So, I found a couple of hard working employees to tell about the water. I pointed to the puddle and told them what happened, to which they responded “that’s not good.” I took my bruised ego and limped off to finish my shopping. Ten minutes later I returned to find the water still there. At this point I became a little angry at their lack of interest. To sum up the rest of the story, after talking with 3 other employees, I finally was put into contact with the manager, and got someone to clean up the water. He gave me his name and number and took some info in case I ended up needing to go to the doctor. I assured him I was fine, but I am sure he was just trying to cover his butt.

Anyway, I hope you could maybe find a little joy in my misfortune. If so, then I guess it was all worth it. See you next week.

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11-13-06: Happy Monday! We had a wonderful weekend!  Saturday I (Hollie) went to judge a drill team and cheerleading competition while Stephen worked on his research paper.  After I finished judging I wanted to get the heck out of there in fear of having my car keyed or my face mangled.  Let me tell you – those parents took the competition so seriously and were ready and willing to cuss out anyone that didn’t believe that their little Suzie Q was the best at everything!  It was so hard for me not to stand up and say – can you teach your child about being a good sport, and that sometimes we don’t always win?  You know these days everyone is so afraid of damaging their child’s self-esteem and work so hard to build their children up and have them believing that they are the best at everything they do (if you don’t believe me tune in to the American Idol auditions this year and watch Simon shatter dreams) that children are never taught that its ok to lose – and its ok to not be the best at everything.  Needless to say there were parents there that thought their child had the best toe touch ever to be done in the state of Texas, when the fact of the matter is the child could barley get both feet off the ground.  I sure hope that Stephen and I are never “stage parents!”  Aside from all that drama – it was a lot of fun and it sure made me miss my days of dancing and performing.

 

Stephen worked on his paper while I was gone – and managed to get it finished.  Just something I love about my husband….He sits down and gets the job done.  If that would have been me I would still be working on it!  I can’t believe that the semester is winding down and he will be finished with his first 2 classes in just a matter of a few weeks!  YEAH!

 

We didn’t really do much of anything the rest of the weekend.  We went to church yesterday and had lunch as a family.  We came home and Hobs and I took a nap together while Stephen watched the Cowboy game.  It was pretty much a great day and a great weekend.  I just love my little family.  God has blessed us so much!

 

On to Hobs news…. He is almost crawling, and trying to pull up a little.  He is pretty mobile even though he doesn’t officially crawl yet…. He manages to get from point A to B to C… I can’t imagine how hard it will be to keep up with him when he is really mobile!  He knows how to give kisses now too!  We are so proud – our baby is the smartest and best at everything he does (HA HA HA I will refer myself to the paragraph above).  It is so much fun to watch him grow and learn to do new things.  We have been eating solid foods for almost 3 weeks now.  He loves sweet potatoes, carrots, and squash….I tried bananas this morning and…he totally gagged! It was the saddest yet funniest thing to witness.  He was not a fan at all.  So I think I will get a really ripe banana at the store and try the real thing and see what he thinks.  I tried the baby food – and lets face it….IT’S GROSS!

 

Have a great week – I really must get my dishwasher unloaded!