Tiny Talk Tuesday

Saturday morning as I was cooking breakfast....

Jacob: "Dad, what are you having for breakfast?"

Dad: "Same thing you're having for breakfast."

Jacob: "ME TOO!"

:)

From my bookshelf....

Recently finished reading....



This book was not at all what I expected. Not sure exactly what I expected, but this didn't seem to be it. It was, however, very good, and I especially liked his insights into the book of Deuteronomy (really) and LOVED his writing about the minor prophets.


Reading now....


This book is very good. I have been wanting to learn more about fasting for a long time. Even though I have fasted before, I always felt somehow that I was doing it "wrong". I'm only about half-way through, but so far I would recommend this book if you are interested in learning more about fasting.


Coming up next....



Still wanting to learn more.

Or maybe this one....



What are you reading?

San Antonio - Days 1 and 2

After much anticipation (ha ha) and computer frustration, FINALLY, here is our vacation update! Part 1 at least.

Our trip to San Antonio was....great....and much different than last time we were there....and nothing went as planned....but we had a lot of fun anyway. :)

I took 454 pictures. And I'm not even slightly kidding. When I was looking through all of them, I really wanted to include about 107 of them in this post, but I promise to spare you from at least 12 of them as many as possible. :)

Day 1, the plan was: To leave home around 9:00 a.m. and arrive in San Antonio early enough to spend some time on the River Walk before having dinner at my favorite River Walk restaurant, Casa Rio.

(here's a picture of it....isn't it just grand? I love it there.)


What actually happened: We ended up not leaving until almost 11:00, then stopped for AN HOUR at a park on the way to waste time eat lunch and play.



Come on, people! Doesn't my family know it's urgent that we get there already?!
These two pictures (below) have nothing to do with anything, except that I think they're cool. And if you're not from this part of the country, you may not know what they are. These are pictures of a wind farm that we passed on the way. Yep, you read that right. Out here in West Texas we have such an over abundance of wind that we actually farm it. These wind turbines are enormous - between 200 and 300 feet tall - and there are hundreds and hundreds of them spread across the wide-open plains of West Texas, where they are used to generate electricity. Pretty cool, huh? My brother is actually going to school to be an electrician on one of these babies.

(Sorry, I know this one's really blurry - all those little sticks you see are the turbines. They stretch as far as you can see in all directions.)


But I digress. Needless to say, we dragged into San Antonio late, tired, cranky, and hungry.

But on (another) side note, didn't we look cute in our St. Patrick's Day t-shirts?



We did eat on the River Walk, but alas, not at Casa Rio, where the seating was already closed for the night - what's that about? After spending what seemed like hours (actually probably only about 30 minutes) walking up and down the river looking for a place to eat where the wait was under an hour, we settled for a little sports bar and grill where a hamburger, a plate of enchiladas, and a plate of nachos (that the kids SHARED) cost us $63.

Day 2, the plan was: To go to the zoo.

What actually happened: We left the hotel about 10:30 a.m. (we were pretty close to the zoo), and after spending TWO HOURS sitting in deadlocked traffic just trying to get off the freeway on the zoo exit....

(see that line of cars way up there in the far right lane? yeah...it wasn't moving. at.all.)


....we finally got to the zoo only to find out there was no parking. Frustrated, we decided to move our zoo plans to Saturday and spend the day Thursday doing downtown stuff. We parked at the mall and headed to the Alamo. Once there we found another 45 minute wait just to get in.



I love Texas history. Having grown up mostly in Texas and New Mexico, I never realized that not all states have an entire class in school based on their state's history. :)

Did you know the flags of six different countries have flown over Texas (hence, the origin of Six Flags) - including their own? Yep, that would be The Republic of Texas. (You may have heard rumors that we're considering giving that another try. :) ) The Alamo played a big part in the birth of The Republic of Texas.

This building (second pic below) is the long barracks part of the fort. It used to have a second story that was a hospital. This is the place where the majority of those who died in "the battle of the Alamo" actually died.



I know you are so excited to know that.

You guys keep distracting me. For your trouble in sitting through that little history lesson, I've included some pictures of the beautiful scenery on the Alamo grounds.







That tree in the photo above was so cool. It's branches were so long, and I suppose so heavy, that they had actually turned and grown down toward the ground, and then when they hit the ground they turned and started growing back up again. Very cool.

After spending a couple of hours at the Alamo, we headed back to the River Walk to find somewhere to eat. We checked in at the Rain Forest Cafe, were told there was a one hour wait, and so we decided to stroll along the river for a while. We got back to the restaurant RIGHT when they were calling our names! Whew!

The Rain Forest Cafe is really cool. The entire restaurant is decked out like a lush rain forest. Thick vines cover all the walls and ceiling, trees are everywhere, and huge animatronic animals hide in every nook and cranny. Every 30 minutes or so there is a "thunderstorm", complete with lightning, thunder (no actual rain, thankfully!), and freaked-out animals. :)



We spent the rest of the evening going for a boat ride on the river and then just walking around checking things out.



Finally, at about 9pm we were ready to leave. We headed for the truck....and remembered we had parked in the MALL parking lot....where parking is charged by the HOUR. Great. We had been there, oh, roughly 8 1/2 hours. We were so thankful when we pulled up to the little booth and found out there was an $18 maximum!

Stay tuned for Days 3 and 4 coming up....

Please stand by....

Hey Bloggy Friends, just popping in to say hello and let you know I haven't forgotten about you. I've been working on a post about our San Antonio trip all week, but have been running into some technical difficulties getting my pictures to load.

That, mixed together with the I-just-can't-quite-seem-to-get-back-into-the-swing-of-things-after-a-big-trip chaos is really throwing me for a loop this week.

I hope you all had a fantastic Spring Break (or will have, if yours is still yet to come). I've missed talking with you guys. Don't give up on me....I'll be back as soon as I can!

Thankful Thursday

Today's Thankful Thursday is a post I never expected to write.

All over the news today was the story of the little seven-year-old boy in California who saved his family from armed intruders Tuesday morning. He grabbed his 6-year-old sister, hid with her in the bathroom, and called 911 while three men held his parents at gunpoint.

A seven-year-old boy. Sound familiar?

I have really struggled with this story today. It has made me feel sick inside and I've had to intentionally force my thoughts to move elsewhere when it comes to mind.

You see, I have my own 7-year-old boy.

And....Tuesday morning while intruders broke into that home in California - possibly even close to the same time - intruders were also breaking into MY home.

We're not sure exactly when it happened, actually. My Mister stopped by the house "mid-morning" on Tuesday to pick up something he had forgotten that morning. Sometime between his stop at home and the time the kids and I got home from school, someone had broken into our house. Kicked the front door in.

When we drove up to the front of the house I could see that the front door was standing wide open. While we sat in the car, in the street, I called the Mister to ask if he had come home for lunch and had maybe forgotten to shut the door. He often has to make several trips to his pickup carrying things out in the mornings....I thought it could have been possible that on his last trip out he had intended to go back but then just forgot. I really, truly thought that's what had happened. But he said no, he was certain he had locked the door.

Oh, and by the way, he was out of town when I called him. About an hour away.

I pulled into the driveway, left the car running, handed my cell phone to Kloe, confirmed "You know how to call 911, right?" and walked up to the glass door to see if I could see anything amiss inside. As soon as I got close enough to the door to see past the glare from the sun, I could see pieces of the shattered door frame laying in the entry way.

I ran back to the car and drove away as fast as I could. I called the Mister back because I was too.....hysterical??.....no.....but definitely not capable of talking coherently to a 911 operator. So I called Mister and through tears told him what I had seen and asked him to please make the 911 call. After calling two friends who weren't at home, and not knowing where else to go, I headed for my office. While we were on the way there, the police dispatcher called me and said officers were in route to my house and could I meet them there?

Really, how surreal is that? It's like a a line you would hear on some TV show. "Officers en route to the scene." Except the scene this time was my house.

When we arrived back at the house, there were two police cars parked in front. The officers were already inside and had already checked the house.

Are you ready for this?

There was nothing missing.

Nothing.

You've already heard how we have a 13-year-old car. Suffice it to say that many of the things inside our home follow suit. A hand-me-down television. A VCR...yep, you read that right....VCR. We do have a CD/DVD player, but it too is many years old. Apparently we didn't have anything worth stealing.

Here's the kicker, though. There was cash laying on the kitchen table - not a lot, but still, cash just the same - and my laptop (less than a year old) was on an end table in the living room.

And nothing was taken.

So y'all have to know my personality. The fact that nothing was taken in some ways made it even worse for me. Why would these people break into our home, invade our privacy, violate our sense of security....and NOT for the purpose of robbery? Why? It has left me very unsettled.

I'm trying to choose to see it through the eyes of my sweet friend Ashley, who said, "Maybe when they got in the door they saw a giant warrior angel standing in your living room and took off out of there!" Oh how I pray that is the case!

I have to tell you this whole episode has caused such a flood of different emotions that I didn't expect. Fear. Anger. Uncertainty. Loss of security. Anger. Violation. Confusion. Guilt (because I'm feeling all these things when nothing really bad happened). Anger. I will find myself going about my day as usual....and then I remember. And I go through the whole gamut of emotions all over again.

The kids are doing ok. Really well, actually. They don't want to go anywhere in the house alone, of course. And they've slept with us the last two nights. But overall I think they're doing good.

And so today we are thankful.

More than absolutely anything else, I am thankful no one was home. Had it happened on a Friday, there is a good possibility I would have been there. Or if it had been later in the afternoon..... I really, really can't let myself think about it.

I am so very thankful nothing was taken. Really my only concern the whole time we were driving around waiting for the police to call was that my laptop was gone with all the pictures of my kids on it. That thought alone made me absolutely sick.

I am thankful for our precious neighbor across the street who came over to help the Mister reinforce the door frame yesterday while we waited for a replacement door.

I am thankful for my sweet husband who took the day off work today just to be here in the house so it wouldn't be empty.

I am thankful for the grace of God that is protecting my children from fear and anxiety.

I am thankful for the Word of God, and for this verse that has been popping up everywhere around me for the past couple of weeks:

"Do not be anxious for anything. But in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phil 4:6-7.

I am thankful for God's protection, mercy, peace, grace, and compassion.

And I am thankful that angels are real. God's Word says He will give His angels charge concerning me (and my family), to guard us in all our ways (Ps. 91:11). It says that the angel of the Lord encamps around about those who fear His name, and rescues them (Ps. 34:7). We have always prayed that the angels of God will surround us and protect us at all times, AND that they will become visible to the human eye if necessary for our protection.

I'm hoping they became visible to two very astounded eyes on Tuesday.

The return of Family Night

We sort of put Family Night on hold over the holidays, and well, just sort of never got back to it. Actually, we have had 2 other family nights since the holidays, but one was GLOW night - all planned by Jacob - which was conducted mostly in the DARK. My camera doesn't take very good pictures in the dark, so I decided it would be best to spare you. :)

We started glow night by having dinner by candle light. Jacob created a scavenger hunt where we each had to find our own personal glow sticks, and then we had to use the glow sticks (and flashlights, 'cuz, ummm, glow sticks don't really produce that much light) to hunt for other treasurers.

We ended the night with a glow dance. We turned off all the lights, set up a couple of flashlights, and all danced together to praise music, waving our glow sticks and praising Jesus! How fun is that? I had my doubts when the plan was first described to us :) but it turned out to be a really fun night!

Our second family night was Webkinz night, courtesy of Kloe (are you surprised?). My camera battery was dead that night, and so we have no pictures of this night either. We had a scavenger hunt (can you tell that our family likes scavenger hunts?) orchestrated by Kloe where we had to find all the Webkinz, and then we took turns using our Webkinz to put on impromptu puppet shows for each other. Things got pretty silly really quick, and we spent a lot of time laughing. :)

AND SO....here we are at our first recorded family night of the new year. We had ARCTIC night! I got the idea from the penguin family night posted by Heather at Whittaker Woman. We renamed ours Arctic Night so that we could include a few other things, like this cute polar bear craft....


(apparently Jacob doesn't like boring ol' white polar bears)
(see the Kloe's cute baby bears?)

.....and a very exciting announcement - distantly related to the theme - at the end!

We started the night with snowflake quesadillas (copied from Heather). We folded up tortillas like paper and cut them with scissors.



We put a full tortilla in the pan, topped it with white cheese, and then the cut tortilla. And there you have it....snowflake quesadillas!



I also copied these cute little guys from Heather. They turned out really cute, even though the picture is a bit blurry.



We finished up with this yummy dessert.



After dinner we had penguin races. I couldn't find the package of balloons, so we used empty milk jugs instead.

Rule #1 - you must walk like a penguin! :)



AND THEN....it was time.....

We played Win, Lose, or Draw to do the BIG REVEAL. The kids had to guess the words one at a time as I drew the pictures.....(don't laugh at my lack of artistic ability, ok? remember, I'm a numbers person!)



("pink eye" provided by Jacob.....tiny beluga whale in the top right corner by Kloe)



Look at Kloe in this picture. She just figured it out. Cracks me up!





It was awesome! Both kids reacted exactly in line with their personalities. Kloe went crazy - jumping up and down, screaming, bouncing on the couch....while Jacob sat quietly with a small little smile until we finally had to ask, "Are you excited?"

He said, "Yeeeeesss......are we going to leave early in the morning? Will we miss school?"

Cute boy. It took him a while to soak it all in and figure out what spring break and this "vacation" thing are all about. He doesn't know what to do with excitement sometimes. When he was little, there were a couple of Christmases - sort of between the "too little to understand" age and the "got it all figured out and can't wait 'til Christmas morning" age - when he would stop in the middle of opening presents and walk into the kitchen, away from all the excitement, and just stand there with his back turned, not looking at us....he had reached his limit and couldn't handle anymore.

The Sea World thing was kind of like that. :)

He helped himself process everything by drawing this....

"Dofen"


And Kloe processed by making this for me. :) Love it!



So after all the on-again, off-again it's finally for sure....San Antonio, here we come!

I can't wait!

Ode to Seven

Seven.

It's such a big number. I can't believe it. It really does go by in the blink of an eye.

It seems like one night we went to bed with this little guy sleeping in the bedroom down the hall....




....and the next morning we woke up to this sweet boy.




(that would be the Socker Boppers - from photo above - in their shirts. :) )

You blink once, and they're starting school. You blink again, and they're playing football. And then you turn around and they're driving!




We had Jacob's birthday party at a go-kart race track, where they also have laser tag and glow golf. All the kids (including Dad!) had so much fun.



I love you, my big, sweet, funny 7-year-old boy.