Senior Season

It's been a fun senior year for Carson so far, complete with tons of hard work, exciting football, and a homecoming crown to boot!

Dropping a few links to articles in the Bandera Prophet, etc. for future reference.

11/22/23: Historic Season Comes to an End...

11/11/23: Bulldogs Take Down Jarrell for First Playoff Win Since 2007

11/03/23: Bulldogs vs. Carrizo Springs (YouTube)

10/30/23: Bulldogs Clinch First District Championship Since 2009

10/13/23: Bulldogs vs. Pearsall (YouTube)

09/10/23: Bandera Homecoming King & Queen Crowned

09/04/23: Bulldogs Pull Away Late in Home Win Over Cotulla

Happy Birthday, Aaron!

Happy birthday, my love! 

We celebrated Aaron's 42nd birthday at home. He wanted to cook dinner at home, so he grilled steaks for us all and I made a peanut butter pie. We gave him a Blackstone griddle for his birthday. Abby also gave him a Matchbox Bronco (they're always sending each other pics of cool trucks and broncos) and a rubber chicken ("Guess what? Chicken butt...". It was a fun evening and we love celebrating our favorite guy!

 

Spring Break Beach Day

Spring Break hasn't been anything special this year. Aaron and I have still had to work. The kids have been mostly home, with Bella and Abby having a fair number of sleepovers here or there. So when Abby asked if I'd take them to the beach, I thought it sounded fun!

We left early on Friday so that we could maximize our time at the coast, and we drove to Port Aransas, our favorite little Texas beach town! We swam (a little at least--the water was COLD!), built our drip sand castles, ate and lounged. Carson begged me for a kite so I left to get one for him. He had the BEST time with it--until it flew away 20 minutes later! But we watched it for ages as it drifted far far away, and we found even that to be entertaining. 

All in all, I'd say it was a really nice day--slow and unhurried. Thankful for the time I had with these kids. They're pretty awesome.

 

Saying Goodbye to Sierra Trail

We moved into our house at 11310 Sierra Trail in the spring of 2010. We bought it for $128,000. We sold it in September of 2018 for $205,000 in five days. While we are excited for the hill country and small town living, we've grown to love this house, and finally had it almost exactly the way we liked it. Ha ha. 

Here are the photos from our listing. (Note that the super green grass is photoshopped. Ha!)

Backdated. Written in 2021.

Spring Break 2016

The up side of being at a year-round school is that we got a two week Spring Break! It came just in time, and we loved every second of it! Here's a little snapshot...

Aaron brought me a card and a cupcake to work to celebrate Spring Break.
Yes, it has been that kind of a year.

Carson learned how to mow the lawn.

Aaron and I got to squeeze in a few dates during the break too.
He's my favorite.

Since we usually do "that church thing" on Easter, that means we typically have to put off our Easter celebrations with my family off a week or two. This year we went up during spring break and got to spend a long weekend with everyone. It was great!

The kids dyed Easter eggs with Mattie.

And we spent Saturday out at Grandma & Grandpa's for our annual

Easter lunch...

...and treasure hunt!

And we spent time with cousins.

We spent Sunday morning at the church where I grew up, FBC Howe.

On our way home, we stopped to spend the afternoon with Nanny,
and we really enjoyed that special time.

We had time to finally make some progress on our master bathroom.

In addition, we spent a lot of time up at church working on projects. Our sweet kids happily came along and played and helped and hung out with us for long, long hours!

And on our last day of spring break, we had an "upside down" dinner,
with dessert (at Gables) first, and then pizza.

Only 7 weeks left and we are done for the year!

It's Baseball Season

Spring is here and that means so is baseball! Carson missed baseball season last year because we totally dropped the ball (no pun intended). He didn't mind, and he spent a lot of time skateboarding instead (which he loved), so it was all good--but he's happy to be back in the game this season.

This year, he's number 7 for the Braves, and has an awesome coach, Coach George. So far, we've loved watching him play every game! Looks like we're about halfway through the season right now, so there's more great baseball to come!

Carson is #7. He was getting ready for his first game.

Three generations of Baseball.

Kid Quotes: Hair

"You're a boy. You don't understand. If you're a girl, and your mom doesn't fix your hair the way you want her to, you cry. It's a big deal." 

-Abby

Kitchen Remodel

Since we moved in, we've always wanted to remodel our builders grade kitchen, but (as you know) kitchen remodels are expensive. So it's never gotten done.

But the first week of September (the week after I started working full-time), we discovered water leaking out from under the siding on the back of the house. And when Aaron pulled off the siding to investigate, he discovered a water leak that had been going on for who knows how long. So we got the leak repaired and then a day or two later, Aaron swore he smelled mold. I told him it was his imagination. But lo and behold, when he got under the cabinets, he found this...

So, we took out that whole wall of cabinets and called the insurance company. Getting this kitchen back up and running took September all the way to Thanksgiving due to the fact that 1) we did it all ourselves, 2) we never really seemed to be home, and 3) the rare times we were home, we didn't exactly have the energy to get it done.But it eventually DID get done, and we love it! 

I'll try to add some more pictures soon with our completed sitting room at the end, but for now, you get the idea.

"Spring Break" 2015

I didn't really intend for us to have Spring Break, but then I thought... why not?

So last week we played and had fun with friends and went to visit Grandma and Grandpa in Scurry. It was low key, but nice.

Carson riding the dirt bike at the Rairdon's house

Abby and Anni built a tent in the front yard

A sweet moment with the kids on the way to Grandma's

The rain did not phase them. They played outside nearly all day.

This is Carson's lizard, Lettuce, that he caught and brought home.

 The weekend brought illness upon our kids, so that meant taking it easy for a couple days. We got home from Grandma and Grandpa's on Saturday, and the kids and I stayed home from church on Sunday. It was strange not being there, but it was nice to have some time to clean and to finally get some artwork up on the walls.

Finally hung some of our artwork!

We typically spend Sunday night with Aaron's family, but with Carson still being sick, he and I stayed home and had chinese takeout and watched a movie. It was fun having a little at-home mini date with my sweet boy.

Chinese Takeout and a movie for Carson and I

Today everyone is feeling much better, and we are ready to take on our week and get back to our routine. Hopefully I'll be back with more updates soon!