Our trip to AZ - October 2009

Our Trip to AZ started with a surprise for Tracy. She celebrated her birthday before we went home but no one called her. A few days later when one of her sisters called, I razzed her about not calling. So, when we got home, Tracy had this lovely poster waiting for her. I'm sure she loved it...

One of the reasons we went home was to send Tracy's little brother, Jay, off on a mission. He was called to serve in the Peru Lima South mission. It'll be nice to have another bro-in-law that can speak Spanish. It's hard to believe that Jay was only 5 yrs old when Tracy and I got married and he actually had to miss his first day of school for the wedding. My how time flies!

Before we left San Antonio for AZ, we had heard my in-laws had seen a few rattlesnakes and had killed 4 of them at their new house. We told the girls to let us know if they saw anything while outside. There were a few false alarms as the girls saw an occassional stick laying around. Then one morning, Halee was lifting a porch swing that had blown over during the wind storm the previous night. When lifting it, she heard the ominous sound of crotalid death. She dropped the swing and came running to me in hysterics screaming "snake, snake, snake." I asked her where the snake was and she pointed to the downed swing. I looked under the swing but I couldn't see anything so I decided to lift it and sure enough, there was a large rattlesnake.

Halee made a mad dash around to the back of the house and began pounding on the door for Tracy to let her in. I stayed out front, watching the snake and keeping my in-laws dog from getting too close to it. Meanwhile, I called to Tracy to bring me a shovel.

I grabbed the shovel, got on the top step of my in-laws porch and with a swift downward thrust, I chopped the head off the slithering beast. The End....

Afterward, I burried the head and had Halee and Nora pose for the picture. Halee refused to touch the snake and Nora was pretty good about holding it until the body of the snake started to coil up. That was the end of that - Nora and Halee both shot out of there like a couple of bullets.

Here's a pose of my girls in my Jeep. The Jeep was my first car when I was 16, so it has a special place in my heart. I love taking the Jeep on rides when I go home and so do the girls. The last 2 few times I've been home, the Jeep hasn't broken down on me which makes it even better!

Another thing we went home for was the wedding of my youngest sister, Valayne. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the blessed event. But, when I do, I will post some. She married a great guy named Pierce (also from AZ). We had a great time visiting with family and being involved in her wedding. They were married in the Mesa AZ Temple and had a reception at my oldest sister's house (Renee).

It was a truly fulfilling trip home. I look forward to the next trip, whenever that may be.

Our Make A Wish trip to Florida

Our wish trip started with a send off party at Chick-Fil-A. Nora told the wish grantors that she liked Chick-Fil-A, so that's where we partied! We had the Asay family there with us playing games, eating chicken sandwiches and just relaxing. We had a great time there.


Here's a picture of the girls before we left the house for the airport. We were ready to have a great time. The Make A Wish foundation made arrangements for us to stay at a place called Give Kids the World Village. This place was designed for children with life threatening diseases - to give them a chance to see some of Florida's attractions. We had heard lots of great things about the village before we left - and we were not disappointed! The village was great. They had parties every night, had an all you want Ice Cream Palace that was open from 7a-10p. They also had a couple of different choices of places to eat our meals. Did I mention that everything on the trip was free? What a blast!

We were given theme park tickets to Disney, SeaWorld, and Universal Studios. We were also given tickets to many other Orlando area attractions like the swamp boat ride that we took. We spent 3 days at the Disney parks and that was about enough theme park for us. We went to Universal for 1 day but we were so tired we decided to leave after about 2 hours. We were given preferential parking at the parks and we had guest assistance passes which allowed us to cut to the front of any lines - including character lines at Disney. That came in very handy since the parks were loaded with people in August when we went. We also had access to various VIP lounges at Disney, which came in really handy since it rained on us every day we were there. It was nice to go indoors, sip on some sodas and wait for the weather to improve. They thought of everything to make our trip wonderful.

The last pictures are of the characters from Give Kids the World Village. The male bunny's name is Mayor Clayton, the mayor of the village. His girlfriend bunny is named Miss Mary. The village was like a theme park by itself with many characters there. Some of the Disney, SeaWorld and Universal characters also came and roamed around the village for the families to meet. One of the fun things they did at the village was have Mayor Clayton tuck your kids in at night. Our kids thought that was really fun.

The trip lasted 7 days, which was too short for all the stuff that we could have done there. We had a great time, came home totally tired and have a ton of great memories that should last us a lifetime.

Spring Dance Recital 2009

Here's a couple of pictures and videos from Halee's and Nora's dance recital this past weekend. The girls thoroughly enjoyed entertaining us for the evening. It was a lot of fun seeing our girls in action once again.

Special thanks to Cassie White for teaching and for the great pics of the girls!

The fishing trip

We are trying to be involved with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society here in TX. This month, they had a picnic dinner at a little pond. The activities there included fishing, eating and pony rides.

Nora and Halee enjoyed the rides while McKayela enjoyed the fishing. She caught 3 crappie and was totally excited about doing it. She wasn't so happy to bait her hook with the worms or taking the fish off the hook, but that's what dad is for, right?

We really had a good time there. A big thanks to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and to the man who let us have fun on his property!

Ugly Sweater Party 2009

Tracy and I recently went to an ugly sweater party at one of our friend's house. What a hoot that was! When we found out about the party we hot-footed it down to the Goodwill and found some winners. My sweater - black turtle neck with rainbow stitching. Tracy's sweater was a Kindergarden-teachers nightmare - complete with crocheted sheep for buttons. Both of our sweaters won prizes. Both of our outfits were complimented by my old BCG's - military issued glasses called Birth Control Glasses that I knocked the lenses out of.

I won the Scariest Sweater prize probably because my sweater was not only ugly but when I pulled up the neck, I looked like some kind of gay ninja. Tracy's sweater won the "what were you thinking?" prize.

We had a great time and are keeping our sweaters handy for the 2nd annual ugly sweater party!

Our 11 year old

Yesterday, Feb 7, was the 11th birthday of our oldest child - Miss McKayela. It is amazing to me that she is getting as old as she is. The older she gets, it makes me realize how old Tracy and I are now getting, which is strange to me since I don't feel like I am that much older than the day I graduated from high school, but I digress.

Since McKayela was born, we have moved 7 times and lived in 4 different states. No doubt we will move several more times before she is able to go off to college and experience life by herself. I know she hates moving, which she reminds me of each time we do move. We have learned alot and continue to learn alot by raising McKayela. I appreciate her flexibility and her willingness to learn, grow, and experience life. Altough she can be trying at times, I can't imagine what our lives would be like without her.

Our Christmas and New Year

Our Christmas was a little different than most we have had since joining the military. We usually go to AZ and spend it there with both my family and Tracy's family. We decided, for the second time in our married life, to stay put for the holidays. It seems like an easy decision, but it wasn't. We love going home and being with family! I love seeing my siblings and parents. When I'm home, I love tinkering around on my Jeep and then taking it behind town and shooting my neglected guns. I also very much enjoy being with Tracy's family and I know the kids love it, too.

That being said, we stayed in TX because it is getting harder to travel and take Christmas with us. Packing Christmas to AZ and then bringing all that stuff back plus more is very difficult. We contemplated how we could make it work right up to the last minute. Staying in TX wasn't a bad thing. We have made lots of new friends that made the stay nice. We also had terrific weather - I think we had to turn our AC on the day after Christmas because it was 80 degrees in our room when we went to bed that night!

The girls made a big haul this year. Each got a video/MP3 player. Nora's MP3 player has already come in handy as she had to make a trip to the ER on New Years Day. The girls also got a battery powered scooter, which they all enjoy riding, including me. The girls have had alot of fun on the scooter and have been good about sharing it with the neighbor kids. So far, we have only had one accident when one of the friends fell off the scooter and scraped her leg.

New Years Eve was pretty low-key. We spent the evening at a pizza joint followed by board games at our house.