New Names for Each Other

We had fun with this recent school assignment. Julia and Reece are learning a little about some of the American Indians who lived 200 years ago. One of their assignments was to come up with names for themselves that best described their personality or character. Example; if you are a great soccer player you might want to be called Lightening Foot. Here's another; if your daughter has one of those personalities that attracts others to her, you might want to call her Magnet.

We laughed and laughed coming up with names that we thought best represented each other. Of course, no one would be named something that they didn't like themselves.

Here is what we came up with:

Big Eyed Boy!

This is Dr. PJ

I know it's kind of a funny name but it's what Reece wanted. We gave him this name because he wears his pajamas every chance he can get.

Whistling Brook

(Julia whistles constantly and very well, I might add)

White Teeth

AJ is always noted for his smile!

Sick Head

Ok, I know this doesn't sound like a complement but she wanted this name! She has been having headaches so please pray we can figure out the cause and get rid of them.

Mother Woman

Bald One

Do I need to explain?

My baby turns 8!

Reece turned 8 last month. Where does the time go? Eight is too close to ten! I don't care, Reece is still my little boy. He was the baby for 7 years before Micah came along and took that baby spot so I still think of him as the youngest.

Every now and then I have to remind myself that he is just a little boy because he is always trying to be so cool. I think coolness is a goal of his. An example; he has been begging me for months to buy him some Heelys. You know the shoes with the wheels that make it so that the "cool" boys can skate circles around their mothers while they are grocery shopping. Usually if Reece wants something and I don't buy it, he forgets about it after awhile. Not with this request. I know it's kind of frivolous to buy expensive shoes that he'll grow out of and that will feed his "cool" desire but. . . what are birthdays gifts for? And I'm a sucker for a little boy smile. Besides, maybe he'll learn that shoes don't make a person cool. We don't buy things for the kids for no reason throughout the year. There has to be an event to buy gifts, like a birthday or Christmas. So this was the time.

Look at that face!

Gotta check for the wheels. Are these the real thing?

Even though he things the Heelys will make him cool, he hasn't figured out that wearing dress socks with shorts will not! No matter how many times I tell him. He just doesn't care what color his socks are. Kids invent their own "cool" standard, I guess.

We let Reece have a small party this year. He hasn't had one in awhile. We went swimming first at our friends pool. Isn't is nice that we have friends with a pool who live real close by. They let us use their pool on a Friday night and even bring a few friends! We feel so fortunate that they let us use it. Especially since we live in one of the hottest parts of the country and have no pool of our own!

They started the pool party by doing crazy jumps into the pool and then we moved on into some races, and chicken fights. What's a pool party without chicken fights?

Reece invited 2 intern guys from Gospel for Asia to be at this party. This is Shawn jumping in and then Jody is the bigger guy (as opposed to the little one) on the right. Shawn is from Washington and he just finished the year program at GFA and has joined staff. He has left us for awhile to go home to raise his support. Jody is in the middle of his internship and he is from Pennsylvania. We really enjoyed having them at Reece's party and were so grateful that they wanted to come. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of them.

My teenage beauty. I'm so proud of her!

Big Eyed Boy.

Chicken fights. The two guys on the shoulders of the others have to fight to get each other off.

It never did happen. They just got tired.

Another round with another chicken!

In case you are wondering what in the world these are, let me explain that these are giant legos. I'm not very good at making fun cakes but it's the attempt that matters, right? Reece requested a lego cake because he is very much into Legos right now. They are another "cool thing" with 7-10 year old boys it seems.

I learned this time around that food coloring gets brighter as it sits. You know how hard it is to make primary colors with food coloring. Everything turns out pastel. Well, Legos aren't pastel! So I kept adding more color trying to make it darker. When we got back from swimming, I looked at the cakes and thought, "Wow! Now they are fluorescent! How am I going to eat all that dye?" I lived, thank goodness, and so did everyone else.

Goofy boys who hope they are cool.

This is Brandon Powell, Reece's friend.

Ok, now don't have anymore birthdays, Reece! Eight is a good age to stop at. Mom would be just fine if you stayed just the way you are forever.

Our 18th anniversary get-away

Our tradition for anniversaries is to stay a night at a fancy hotel with our Hilton honor points that we acquire throughout the year. The trick is finding a place to go that's not too far away and yet far enough that you feel you are getting away!

This year we stumbled upon a perfect hotel about 45 minutes away in Rockwall, Texas. What is special about this hotel is that it is on Lake Ray Hubbard.

Here is a picture of the back of the hotel where the pool is. We were on the 2nd floor and had a balcony off our room that overlooked the pool and lake.

This was our view at sunset. Isn't is gorgeous!

Ok, these fun blown glass decorations were hanging from the ceiling in the lobby right as you walked through the front door. I couldn't get enough of them. Rich made fun of me as I was drawn to them every time we walked past them. The rectangular shaped glass to the left of them was a waterfall type thing. There was water in-between two pieces of glass that flowed down the glass. Very peaceful!

Here is a closer look at what I called life sized earrings hanging from the ceiling.

I tried to convince Rich that we needed these in our home but I couldn't get past how impractical they would be with boys in the house!

View from our room

The lobby. I really wanted to curl up in a pair of sweats in one of those red velour chairs back there with a book, but there were too many other things to do and not enough time.

So relaxing to be around so much water.

After dinner that night, we walked around the harbor and watched the sunset. There were 4-5 restaurants to choose from that had views of the lake with live music playing. What a fabulous place so close to home.

This is my husband of 18 years. It was so nice to have him all to myself for 24 hours! We've learned so much about each other over the past 18 years.

This is the only picture we got of us together since we had to ask a stranger to take our picture. We did do this at dinner but my eyes are closing! Oh darn! That always happens to me. The more I try not to blink, the more inevitable it is that I will!

We ate at Culpeppers steak house and finally after 18 years have figured out which cut of steak I like best. The ribeye with all the great flavor! Rich printed out a description of all the cuts of meat for me since I always complain that he knows what to order and I never do. Now I know to just order what he does! :)

We spent a good amount of time at this pool. My favorite time was after our morning walk on the lake. It was about 10:00 and it was getting hot so we jumped in the pool. Not many people were there that early in the morning so it was perfect. Drinking a Coffee Mocha sitting by the pool with a good magazine is my idea of relaxation!

I fell in love with these lawn chairs. You can't see them very well, but they were like living room furniture out by the pool. I hope to look for something like this for our porch some day.

Did I mention the shops on the harbor? Along with the restaurants were a few really great shops. This chocolate factory was one of the best! What a great ending to a perfect day!

You can't ask for more! Dark chocolate cashew cluster was what I ordered. Rich got the milk chocolate cashew with carmel. A chocolate treat, sitting in the moon light with a breeze outside, next to my hubby exceeded my expectations of this get away!

We will surely go here next year and maybe the year after that!

Happy Anniversary to my better half!

New Hair--chop,chop!

Well here are some "before" pictures. Olivia has beautiful, thick, naturally wavy hair. She likes it long in the summer so she can pull it back and wear it up off her neck. I caught her with it down in this picture. She has been having consistent head-aches this summer so I suggested we cut her hair to see if it would help. It hurts my head to look at her when she wears all that hair up on top of her head!

I couldn't find a good recent picture of Julia. This is how long her hair had gotten before we cut it. That's the longest she has ever had it and it's even in a pony-tail in this picture.

Here is a cute picture of her way back in the Spring. Once I cut Olivia's off, it was Julia's turn for a trim. She is so easy going that she didn't really care if I cut it or left it long. I decided to cut it but not as short as Olivia's so she could still do girly, girl things with it.

The new hairdo

So . . . here you go Steve (my brother cuts hair as a profession). Pretty simple cut. I don't know how to do layers. Olivia might get some from a more professional hair stylist rather than her mom. Wish my brother lived closer! Her head-aches are still a problem but we are working on solving that ASAP!

Olivia is on crutches in this picture because she got stung my a bee on the bottom of her toe and her foot swelled up something awful. She has since lost the crutches but still has kept the cute "do".