Small Group Get Together

This year our small group decided to take the summer off. Everyone is so busy, and it's nice to enjoy Sunday evenings at home during the summer.

At the end of August, we had a little kickoff party at Oscar Store. Travis wasn't able to attend due to studying :( But Colby and I wouldn't miss it!

We were missing several families, but it was great to catch up with the O'Neals, Armstrongs, Smiths, Pattees and Kayla (representing the Hubbles)

Colby never misses an opportunity to get dirty

oops! I'm pretty sure he just threw "small rocks" at Sally's camera!!!

I'm really looking forward to our fall study by Matt Chandler on Phillipians. It's always refreshing to dig deeper into God's word with good friends. We are blessed to be a part of this group and are so looking forward to what God has planned for us all in this next year.

Derek's 30th!

I've said it before and I'll say it again...30th birthdays are the BEST!!!

August 31st we celebrated Big D's 30th birthday with dinner at Nami's. It was SO fun to hang out with great friends. Afterwards, most of us headed to Schoepf's BBQ in Belton for a benefit concert, which was a blast! I loved spending time with Whitney and Daniel since we don't get to see them too often, and any night with Liz and Derek is guaranteed to be fun. :)

Thank you for being 30 Derek!! and thank you for letting us join your celebration!!

Oooooh yes....Derek definitely danced on stage to a birthday song! :)

love you, roomies!

Bryce and Courtney's Shower

We are crazy busy with upcoming weddings and new babies on the way. (NOT US! But lots of our friends) Part of the fun of weddings and babies is throwing and going to showers! Last weekend, we helped host a shower for Bryce and Courtney. Travis and Bryce have been good friends forever, and driving out to the Alsup's house brought back many memories from going to hang out at "the hole" as they called it back then. :)

It was bittersweet because Travis was too swamped with studying to join us. He had a test 2 days later and sadly couldn't even take a study break to come hang out and celebrate for a little while. (Thank you Kevin and Katie for taking me along for the ride!!)

Bryce and Courtney got lots of cute stuff to go along with their "his and hers" shower theme. We are very excited for them and for their October wedding!

the happy couple

their little helpers

Trent, Allyson, and baby boy Parker (due in October)

Baby Williams is growing!! (Ashley, don't kill me for putting this picture on here...I think it's so cute!! Due in February 2011)

Brad & Dee (getting married in October also)

Collins and Katie (getting married in May)

fun times!!

Meet the Teacher

Last Thursday, we went to our first Mother's Day Out Open House!!! (Or "meet the teacher" as I like to call it) I don't know why, but I was soooo anxious about this. I totally trust my child to First United Methodist Church...it wasn't that at all, it was just that my 6 pound newborn BABY boy is old enough to be going to "school" with a backpack and a lunchbox and a teacher and art projects and recess and other friends that I don't know.

All of that to say that the minute we walked into Colby's classroom, I felt immediate relief. Colby's teacher, Ms. Crystal, went to Cater Elementary School, Bonham Middle School AND Temple High School with me!! She is super sweet and has 2 kiddos of her own. This will be her 3rd year teaching the older infant class, and I'm SO excited that Colby gets to spend the year with her.

The Martins were already there waiting for us, and that is definitely another reason why I am so excited about Colby going to MDO. He and Mason will have SO much fun together, and Liz and I can compare and share stories about the boys. They both had a BLAST playing together for almost an hour that night. They played with cars, blocks, a pretend kitchen with pretend food,the slide, etc. It's going to be a great year!!

Daddy met us in the parking lot

meeting Ms. Crystal

Apples! (there were apples hanging from the ceiling and Colby was very curious about them)

He LOVED the cars and trucks

Colby and Mason's precious cubbies next to each other!!

The daddies had just as much fun playing as the boys :)

What should we cook first??

Colby was SCARED of this slide! He cried when he watched Mason go down, he cried when he went down, he cried when we even mentioned it....it was so odd! (he finally got used to it...we don't get out enough!!)

warming up to the idea of sliding down a tall piece of plastic...

playing on the squishy stairs thing....definitely a fun night with the boys and their daddies!

Dive in!

The sign above my classroom door. :) I'm going to have to try to take a better picture of my mermaid at some point. This CRACKS ME UP!! I don't know what I would do without my teaching partner, Kim. She is sometimes the only thing that keeps me sane at school.

This summer we decided that we were going to do an ocean theme in 2nd grade. I didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into until Kim showed up with boxes and boxes and boxes of ocean STUFF!!! I have new goodies by my door every morning. :) The teacher name signs above our doors are by far the most brilliant thing ever, though. She went to GREAT lengths to find mermaids that were school appropriate. I love you Kim!!

Sign we made for our hallway

a few pictures of my classroom...I know most of you had never seen it before, but this is TOTALLY different than it's been for the past 4 years, so it's a little bit refreshing to have a whole new view in here

The mural that Kim and I hung in the hallway...my hope is that we will feel like we're on vacation all year long. :)

More pics to come....here we go again!!!

Daddy Daycare!

Travis has been so wonderful the past few weeks while I've been busy at school tearing my classroom apart and putting it back together again. Daddy Daycare has been in full swing, and I think Colby AND daddy have really enjoyed each others company. I'm sad that it all comes to an end next week. Trav starts his 2nd year of med school on Monday and I start teacher work week (or whatever they call it these days), so Mimsy's daycamp will be back up and running in just a few short days.

Yesterday the boys went on a field trip to Chick-Fil-A and the Lion's Junction Water Park in Temple. I was soooooo excited when I received these text messages from my boys! How do people make it without picture texts?!?

Ready to roll!

These faces crack me up!

not sure about the french fries? (ps...I LOVE that CFA has sticky plastic mats so that you don't have to worry about the germs on the table AND so that the mess is much easier to clean up...we bought some like this at Target and I always forget to take them with us)

Water Park!

There's that face again....cold?!?

One of Travis' med school buddies, Lael, even joined them for the water park fun...don't you know that had people talking!! Two men and a baby. :)

I'm so glad Colby has such an incredible hands-on daddy. I don't know what I would do without him!!! I've gotten SO much work done, and haven't had to worry about my boys at all. Love you Trav!!

Transformers...robots in disguise!!

I looooooooove 30th birthdays! I have only attended a total of 3 30th birthday bashes in my life, and all 3 of them have been amazing! I have got to start thinking of something special for Travis' 30th....I only have 14 months to plan...HELP! (kidding...I'm totally not freaking out about this yet...)

Anyway....last Saturday, we had the pleasure of attending a Transformers 30th birthday bash for our super cool friend, JEFF!!
His wife, Kim, invited us all over to hang out at their house for drinks and snacks, and the rest of the night was full of surprises for Jeff!!! SO FUN!!

Here we all are at the White house...ready to head out for the night

I LOVE these people...they're awesome and we are so thankful to call them our friends!!

SURPRISE #1!!! (Escalade limo parked in the driveway)

Surprise #2 was on us....a flat tire...which Patrick fixed with duct tape?!? Patrick- you're a rockstar!!

although we were sweating from all glands of our bodies, we managed to have a good time while the guys fixed our Escalade

SURPRISE #3....after only 1 McDonald's restroom stop and 6 bags of nuggets and fries, we finally arrived at DAVE & BUSTERS in Austin!!!! Can you tell that Jeff is excited?!?

GUITAR HEROES!! (this seriously looks like it could be an ad for D&B!!)

checking out the drink menu...just in case...

After an hour of being missing in action, we finally found Travis flying an airplane :)

Jenn is VERY brave for dancing against Kim in this game....she takes this VERY seriously!!

perfect form, Marla!!!

At the end of the night, we all donated our tickets to Jeff's birthday arcade prize shopping spree.

I was so proud of Sally and her wheel stopping skills....she landed on the 500 ticket space 3 times!! WAY TO GO SALLY!!!

Lakeway Resort

Last week we took a last minute mini-vacation with the Stahls. We have been talking about doing something all summer and calling it our anniversary trip since we never did anything for that. We looked at a few resorts in Houston and Dallas, but just didn't want to spend a fortune for a 2 day vacation.

Travis talked with a good friend of his who helped us get some very reasonable rates at the Lakeway Resort on Lake Travis in Austin, so we jumped on it, left the kids with grandma and were off to a few days of relaxation on the lake. It was gorgeous to say the least! Our rooms were overlooking the lake, and at night the sunset was one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. Chana and I got massages while the guys golfed, and the rest of our stay was spent in the pool. It was a wonderful getaway!!

full relaxation mode at the spa