Long Summer

Well as most of you know Russell's contract was not renewed for this school year with Hutto High School due to the need to hire a Math teacher they had to eliminate a Spanish position.

Well all summer Russell has been earnestly searching for a new teaching job for this year. Early in the summer he had a couple of interviews but nothing ever came of them. So we spent the whole summer hoping and praying that he would find something. Well June came and went, July came and went with no interviews. We were seriously worried when August came and he still hadn't heard anything. And then last week he got a call for an interview with a Primary School that was hiring for a Bilingual 2nd grade position. He interviewed and felt really good about it but Wednesday they called him and told him he didn't get it but that he would have been their second choice. We were both heart sick because we had felt so good about this position.

Well yesterday a school in Manor called and asked him to come in for an interview this morning. So he went for the interview and they told him they would get back to him either this afternoon or Monday morning.

Well this afternoon just before 4:00 they called and offered him the position!! We are so excited and so thankful for all your thoughts and prayers!!

New York

I just got back from the best trip of my life!!! Diana and I went to New York to help our friend Bek and her family pack up so they can move to Houston. It was such a blast. I narrowed down my 265 pictures to 38 so I know this is a lot of pictures but it could have been more so be grateful! LOL!! (If you would like to see all 265 come on over I'd be glad to show ya!!)

This is Diana, Nathanael, and I on the airplane. By the way Jetblue is awesome!!

They are stationed on Staten Island with the Coast Guard so you could literally walk out their front door and down the street and be at the ocean!!

This is a blue crab that had gotten stranded on the beach so we picked it up with a board and took it back to the ocean. It was really funny because it kept snapping it's claws and trying to get us. It just didn't understand that I was trying to help it.

The first Saturday we were there we went into Manhattan. To get there we had to take the Staten Island Ferry. It was really cool. In the terminal while we were waiting for the ferry there was a guy with a fiddle playing for us. It was really cool. (Video to follow)

This is me on the ferry

View of Manhattan from the ferry.

Subway turnstiles

Me on the subway.

This is where the World Trade Center was.

It's now a big construction site where they are building the new World Trade Center and the 9/11 Memorial.

This is a church that is across the street. It is where the firefighters and rescue workers would come to rest and eat and be taken care of between shifts. The cemetery out front has headstones from the 1700's it was really neat to see.

Inside the church they have a ton of memorabilia from 9/11

George Washington had his own personal pew in the church. During the rescue efforts of 9/11 they used his pew for massages and chiropractic purposes.

These are the pictures that people would carry around in search of their loved ones. It was so sad to see!! It was a very tearful experience to visit there.

Here is Diana & Kaelten going down into the subway

This is the subway train

This lady was standing in the subway posing as a mannequin she was a little weird!!

Times Square

Bek, Diana, & I at Times Square

We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe

This is our waiter and I. He was really funny!!

This is the famous Toys R Us from the movie Home Alone 2 it's been remodeled and now has a full sized ferris wheel inside. It was really cool

Here is the New Year's Eve Ball on Times Square

Statue of Liberty (obviously)

Macy's on 34th Street

This is the Empire State Building. We were going to go to the top but it was lightning so they closed it and we were going to go eat dinner and then come back when it cleared up but by then it was too late and we needed to get back.

Radio City Music Hall

NBC Studios the Rainbow Room

Rockafeller Center

The fountain at Rockafeller Center. Those umbrellas are where the ice skating rink is in the winter. And behind it is where the tree is.

Me in front of the statue. We ate at a really awesome restaurant right there on Rockafeller center it was awesome!!

The Brooklyn Bridge at Night

Manhattan at night.

This was seriously the best trip of my life!! Thanks so much Bek & Jared for letting me experience this. It was AWESOME!!

Sunflowers

My awesome friend Anna called today and asked if I would be interested in having her take some pictures of Kennadee with the sunflowers by our house. Of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity and they turned out beautifully!! Thanks Anna!! Click Here to see more of Kennadee's sunflower pics

Girls Day!!

Friday night we had Kennadee's cousin Hannah over for a sleep over. They were so cute!! They stayed up 'til midnight but they were really quiet so I didn't know they were still up until they came out and asked for another movie! I went up and looked in on them in the morning and they were sleeping face to face about a foot apart it was so cute! When they woke up they came down dressed in each other's clothes (Signs of what's to come when they are teenagers? I think so!) Well Kennadee was wearing her own shorts because Hannah's didn't fit. They had a blast!

Later that morning we were going to watch the Dayton girls so we decided to invite Sofia from across the street over to play in the sprinklers and she brought her little swimming pool to. Here they are all ready to go swimming!
The girls all had a blast while they swam and played. They got cold after a little while so we came inside to have cookies and then their Mom came and picked them up.

Camping

This weekend we went camping at Pedernales Falls with our good friends the Stiggins. We got there Thursday afternoon and set up camp. After we set up camp we hiked down to the river to scope out the swimming situation. The water was really shallow so we just sat down and chatted a bit while we waited for the sun to go down a bit more and it to cool off so we could go up and make dinner. 

When we were done swimming we went up and had tin foil dinners that Shannon had prepared for us. They were really good. Then we sat around the campfire and talked and then we put the kids to bed and played Canasta. 

That night we forgot to hang the garbage bag up and a raccoon ended up coming into camp at about 4:30 a.m. I got really scared and I woke Russell up (he made fun of me for being so wimpy) So basically I didn't go back to sleep for the rest of the night. I was sooo tired!!

In the morning we got up (everyone was up by 6:30 a.m.) and had breakfast burritos and then some yummy cinnamon rolls that Brandt had made in the dutch oven.

This awesome Cardinal bird kept flitting about in the trees around us. He was really cute and had a really awesome bird call. I also got to see lightning bugs at night they were awesome!!

After breakfast we drove to the Falls. They were really cool. Since Kennadee had woken up shortly after I did and hadn't gone back to sleep she was really grouchy and whiny. She finally calmed down and started to enjoy it when she found a sea shell on the rocks.

On our way back up the trail I saw this butterfly on these really cool wild flowers. I LOVE the wild flowers here in Texas there are so many different colors and types!! They are awesome.

We went back to camp and had some lunch and rested a bit. 

We tried to get the kids to take naps but it was so hot that we were unsuccessful. After awhile we decided to go down to the beach and swim in the deeper part of the river. It was a blast. We stayed there for several hours. 

Kennadee and Carston would play in the water with us and then go play in the sand and then come back in the water. It was so fun. The water was so nice and cool it felt good in the almost hundred degree weather. When it started to cool down a bit we headed back for camp and had dinner and then we put the kids to bed and sat around talking for a bit we were all so tired that we didn't end up playing any games. While we were sitting there talking Brandt saw something moving out in the woods. It was the raccoon back for more snacking!! We hurried and put all the food away in the car and took the trash to the garbage bin and then it went away. We also saw some deer on the other side of our campsite they were really cute. They weren't really afraid of us either. We went to bed and luckily for the most part slept through the night. Then we got up this morning and ate and cleaned up and came home. 

  Despite the heat all in all it was a really fun trip!! Thanks Brandt & Shannon for all you did to make it great!! We had a blast!!