Fast and Furious

This weekend was packed! Friday night we went to dinner to celebrate Kelly's and Mamo's birthdays.


Aunt Patsy was still in town and my cousins Jennifer and Michael came in for the weekend.







Kelsey stayed with us over the weekend while Daniel worked and we really enjoyed having her. She went to dinner with me on Friday night. Nathan had to work. Kelsey had so much fun playing with all the kids. They each had their own Nintendo DS and I thought it was so funny to hear them talk about downloading and chatting in "chat room A". What ever happened to good 'ole Monopoly, Tripoly and Yahtzee?


After dinner we went to Aunt Dixie's house for some cake and icecream...After our family get together Kelsey and I went home. Nathan got home from work and the three of us worked a bit in the kitchen. Kelsey loves to cook! She helped me make a broccoli salad and she helped Nathan prepare our breakfast. He has this recipe for Creme Brulee French Toast and it is to die for. You make it at night and then bake it in the morning. We stayed up playing Wii and then I finally had to go to bed!


I forgot to mention that before I picked Kelsey up for dinner I went to see Amy at the hospital. Becki met me there. We both were able to go in and see her. She was still in ICU. She was in a great mood and looked amazing. She even had on make up! Mascara, at that! She had bandages on her head and Mike joked about putting rhinestones on it. :)




Saturday morning I woke up early and picked up some breakfast tacos for her and headed back to the hospital. Becki met me there again. Still in ICU but checking into a room later in the day. We had a great time visiting with her. About 9:15 her neurologist came in and asked Becki and I to leave the room so he could remove the bandages and the drain. I knew this would be a stressful time for her. We left the room and went to see Ginger, who coincidentally just had her baby. On our way back over to the ICU I got a call from Amy saying we could come back. We walked in and saw her beautiful head and all bandages gone! I was amazed at how talented her doctor was! The area where he operated was so small even though they chose the more invasive operation. The patch was no bigger than a silver dollar. Her beautiful hair was all still there except for that small area. As time got closer to 10 am I had to head out. We were having breakfast with Daniel and Kelsey at home.

After we ate breakfast we all got on the road for Kelsey's soccer game in Kerrville. She was so awesome out there! They tied 1-1.


After the soccer game, Daniel had to head back to San Antonio for work and Nathan, Kelsey, Larry, Sylvia and myself got back into the car and continued our journey to Jollyville (Austin) for a family BBQ. We had a nice visit with Nathan's uncle and cousins. Susan came in from Fort Worth and Mindy and Erica live close by Chris. We had a great time. Kelsey made some new friends and played with a giant frisbee...



This is Nathan's cousin Karen...

After our dinner we drove back to San Antonio. Kelsey and Nathan stayed up late playing video games and I was the party pooper and went to bed. I got up and went to work and Nathan brought Kelsey to church. She stayed with me for Sunday school and Kids Praise and Daniel picked her up around noon.

In the afternoon we went to the Witte Museum with Amy, Tim and Nico to see "OUR BODY" the exhibit with real preserved human bodies. It was incredible and beautifully done. I thought I would be weirded out and sick to my stomach but I did pretty well. After our tour we went to La Madeleine. Great day!

This morning we woke up and worked in the yard all day. We planted some philodendrons in the front yard. We also planted some gladiolas. We raked leaves and planted 2 Japanese Maples in the back. Nathan is really, really into Japanese Maples. For dinner we had Tige, Sara, Faith, Adam and Alyssa over for dinner. Here are some cute shots with Sara and little Faith.

Happy Birthday, Kelly!

Today is my sweet sisters 30-something birthday! Dad came in town last night and stayed with us. Here he is catching up on some of my blog posts...

Today is also Mamo's birthday. She's 86 today! Happy birthday, Mamo! We're going to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate.





Dad got here around 8:30 last night. We watched a little TV and then went to bed sometime in the middle of Jay Leno. I had to get up at the butt crack of dawn to take Joy and Brad to the airport for their trip to Valparaiso for the basketball National tournament. They play tomorrow at 10 am. Good luck, boys!

After I dropped them off at 5:15 am I went back home and jumped back into bed. Ahhh....more sleep! Dad and I were out the door by 7:30. We went to Kelly's for a birthday breakfast. She wanted to go to Tommy's (restaurant). Lacey was at school but Ashley got to come...












After seeing her mom cross her eyes, Ashley wanted to learn how to cross her eyes. We told her to follow her finger to her nose with her eyes. She did it.

Amy's Biopsy Today

Would you once again please pray for Amy? She had the tumors in her brain biopsied today and I just talked to Mike. She's out of surgery but still in ICU. Best news is the doc determined that it is NOT lymphoma. Thank you, Lord! The doctor wanted to do the biopsy by drilling a hole in her head but then decided he wanted to see it first with his eyes. This called for removing a piece of her skull. The tumor was not on the surface like he originally thought. After sonogramming it's location he did the biopsy with needles. She has a killer headache right now and has some loss of control in her right hand and arm. Mike said that was to be expected and he said that they are expecting her to regain full control of her right side. I hope to go and see her tomorrow.

Easter Blessings!

Happy Easter! Technically, it's not Easter anymore. It's after 2am and I'm WIDE AWAKE. This weekend always puts me into a deep, deep sleep on Easter Sunday afternoon. Nathan and I got home around 6pm and I took a big 'ole nap. I didn't wake up until after 11pm. Considering I was at work at 5:30 and was running all morning, I don't feel so bad.











Saturday morning started out great. I got to work around 9:30 to get ready for my Easter Egg Hunt volunteers. It was a great event. We had a lot of people come. I have no idea how many but all 14,000 eggs were spoken for! We gave out 5 "golden eggs". Our 3 youngest winners took home a Build a Bear chick with really cute egg outfits. Our 2 older winners took home brand new bibles. We had 5 age groups on the field: 2's and 3's; PK; Kinder &1st; 2nd & 3rd; 4th and 5th.



Here's a picture of the crowd waiting to take their spots on the field. It's hard to tell how many people came. We had about 75 volunteers.




Freddy's Frozen Custard came out and gave away free custard samples. Here's me and Mary standing in front of their big cone balloon. I never made it over to get in line for my free sample. I heard it was good, though.

If you look really close you can see all the little eggs on the field. My boss constantly teases me that our event really isn't an Easter Egg HUNT. It's more of an Easter Egg Pick Up. Whatever...

After the Easter Egg Hunt I went home to get ready for a wedding in Dripping Springs. It was Darlene's daughter, Denise who got married. Darlene is a friend of mine from work. It was a gorgeous day and the location was a cute and rustic country barn where they had the wedding and reception. Here she is with her new husband, Bill and Darlene's husband, Horace, was the officiant. He's the mayor of Lytle.


Here's Darlene enjoying a nice, cold beer.










Robyn (also a friend from work), daughter, Hayley and husband, Mike at the wedding.










I got home from the wedding around 10pm. Nathan got home from work around the same time. I was so tired and knew I had to get up around 4am to make it to church bright and early for Sunrise service sound check.



EASTER MORNING! Here we are, in the dark, getting ready for Sunrise service. I sang with Leslie, Carol and Linda for this service. Nathan came, too. I didn't think he'd make it because he was up so late but I saw him come up for communion. After the service we had some breakfast before he went home. It was a wonderful morning. So many people. We had about 1100 at 9:30 and 11 in the sanctuary and our overflow service filled up at both the 9:30 and 11.


Here we are, nice and warm INSIDE after the sunrise service. The worship center decorators worked very hard on Saturday to "flower up" the cross. It turned out beautiful.
Don't you think?

















After 4 busy services I went home and changed clothes so Nathan and I could join our families. First, we went to his moms for lunch#1. After that, we headed over to Mom's for lunch #2 and Yahtzee with Lacey and Ashley. Here are some pictures from our day...

Daniel had to work so we had a quick lunch with him, Sylvia and Larry. Here we are in the backyard.












This is us at Mom's. Aunt Patsy is in town and her birthday is tomorrow!

While the girls were in the backyard doing their Easter Egg Hunt we found a surprise...6 baby kittens. Oh, Good Lord! Anybody want a cat? Or 6?

After we got the girls settled down and convinced them that they could not take a kitten home we were able to get some cute shots of them. You'll see just how shy Ashley is in front of the camera. Totally unsolicited. I promise.

Fabulous Friday

Today is turning out to be such a great day. I went to work and we got the athletic field all set up for the Easter Egg Hunt. It starts at 1pm and I feel really prepared. All the eggs are stuffed. The courtyard is stocked with all the tables, tents and chairs we'll need for our welcome area. The lemonade is already made and ready for us to display. The signs are all done and on their frames ready for distribution. Volunteers are informed and know where to go.


Pause in the work day---
Nate Henze just got a puppy! Her name is Lilly and she's a black lab. About 8 or 9 weeks old. She is so pretty! He just got her yesterday and he said he didn't sleep much last night.




After working on Easter Egg Hunt preparations I went to the noon Good Friday service. It was beautiful. Our pastors each take one of the 7 "Last Words of Christ" phrases and speak a few words about the text. Kyle and Kristy did a great job with the music and we had a violinist and a cellist play along with them. It was beautiful. I sat with Joy and Mary and what seemed like hundreds of kids. One little girl next to us about 10 mos old had the cutest and most unusual voice. She sounded like someone was tickling her and it made her have one of those really deep belly laughs. Thing is, no one was tickling her. Every time she made a noise, Joy and I got the giggles. You know, the giggles that make you almost cry b/c you know you're supposed to be quiet and reserved. In spite of all I just said, I really did pay attention in church.

After church, Joy and I went to lunch at La Madeleine. YUM! I love that place. Now, bellies full and work done for the day we parted ways and headed home. On my way home her husband called me and said that there were some flowers up at work for me. Since they live so close by he brought them home for me. Nathan sent me the sweetest bouquet of daisies and yellow roses in a darling vase with painted daisies. You see, yesterday he got lost while trying to avoid some terrible 410 traffic when on his way to a team building event with his co-workers. I was on the phone with him for about 15 minutes giving him a play by play description of where to drive. I was on google maps looking at the satellite and street views giving him directions. I guess you could say I was his personal GPS. For that simple task, he sent me flowers. Thanks, Honey! I love you!!!

Progress

I have an updated picture of the construction going on outside my window at work. Remember what it looked like a few weeks ago? Just the cement columns going up. Impressive! Well, look at it now.



















The two big trusses went up yesterday but I didn't have my camera. It's hard to appreciate how massive these things are. Pastor Tucker was standing down there next to them and he leaned up against it with his hand touching one of them. He was so tiny next to it.









The construction isn't the only area where I've seen progress this week....
Mom is getting closer to deciding what kind of car she wants. We've looked at:
Chevrolet Equinox
Saturn Vue
Toyota RAV4
Honda CR-V
Hyundai Santa Fe
Suzuki Grand Vitara

Her favorite is the Toyota RAV4 right now.
Nathan, I'm sure, will insist that she re-test dive her top 3 favorites again. Anyone out there have any input on any of these cars?? (Daniel- she wants me to send you a huge "Thank You" your way for all your input but she still says she doesn't want a "car-car". She wants to be "up high". Her mind is made up. I can tell you that your talks of being mindful of gas mileage has stuck with her. Out of all of those cars listed above, the Toyota has the the best mileage. She kept asking me if I thought you would approve.)