Ugh! Spring Break is almost over!

Well, it's the last "free" night of Spring Break! And it was a good one! I had Happy Hour here at the house and am still drinking margaritas -- yikes -- I should've stopped hours ago! Laura is a hoot -- I love her! And as an added bonus, I got to see the girls one last time before school starts again! (bleccchhh --school! hehe) They stopped by on their way back from Mema's house! wooohooo!

I have to tell you all about the week, but I'm waiting for my niece to send me all the pictures -- of course my digital camera wasn't working, so we took pictures on Kailey's phone! As soon as she sends them, I'll post!

Ohhhh noooooo!

This is Kristian.

This is Kristian's money.

This is where Kristian's money goes!

Hahahah!
Have fun, Kristian! You deserve it!
We love you!

Kamyn's birthday!

Happy 20th birthday Kamyn! I love you! I can't believe that it's already been 20 years since I went to the hospital, scared to death -- not because of childbirth but because I knew at that moment that I would have a child to care for for the rest of my life! Who knew that it would be so easy! Really! You have been such a source of joy, laughter, eye-opening revelations, and friendship. Words cannot explain what I feel for you! Happy birthday, baby!

Birthday Blog!

Yesterday was my birthday! It was a good day! All of my kids wished me Happy Birthday before school! Then somehow my 3rd period class found out what day it was, and they all stood and sang "Happy Birthday" to me! Towards the end of 5th period, a group of kids entered my room, single-file, and took turns, one by one, each giving me a compliment and a hug. Jon even got down on one knee! Funny! Then they all sang to me!

my third period class!

After school, I had Open House. But between 3:30 and 4:30, I had time to go home and quickly freshen up, during which time Rusty presented me with a gift card to Bealls (the only clothing store in town!) The poor guy went to the store with every intention of picking something out all by himself, but a saleslady convinced him otherwise! Bless her! Hah!

Now I can get whatever I want! Woohoo!

Then off to Open House I went, where Darcy took it upon herself to announce that it was my birthday! All of the teachers, parents, and students in the gym sang "Happy Birthday" while a birthday cake was set on the Science Department's table!

the Science Department -- Sunny, Laura, (Dexter), me, and Darcy

That sneaky Laura rushed to town after school to get that cake! (along with another surprise to come later!) The flower rings we all wore that night were from the cake! hah!

My flower ring!

Other surprise from Laura!

And this was the party truck! And I can't tell you where it was parked!

Back at home, Rusty was baking me a cake and cooking supper! It was all delicious!

Rusty icing the cake he made for me!

basting the shrimp

Steak, 'baked' potatoes, and shrimp! Rusty had already removed the corn in the husks! YUMMY!

After seeing myself holding the cake, I decided I shouldn't have any just then! Maybe a few laps around the track first! Hah! (yeah, right!)

And to end the day off, my BF/S (best friend/sister!) called! And so did Kristian! Hooray!

A great day it was!!!

Good weekend -- Reba placed first in pole vaulting at her track meet in Alice! Kristi texted me a picture and a video of Reba jumping (for some reason, it's called "jumping" and not 'vaulting'). Thanks Kristi! I'm going to try to get those on this blog sometime this week!

Then we found out that Anthony FINALLY passed all of his classes for the 3 week period, so he's now eligible to play baseball! Cool! He's actually a pretty good player! Let's just hope he keeps his grades up so he can finish out the season!

Then . . . the weather was so nice Sunday that I was able to weed ALMOST all of my flower beds! Hooray! I also planted some flower seeds that were so crazy tiny I thought I was going to have to use a magnifying glass and some tweezers to handle them! I finally decided that in nature, seeds are generally scattered by the wind and random movements of animals, so I pretended to be Mother Nature and kinda just scattered the seeds rather than actually planted them! We'll see what happens!

Darn!

Well, we no longer have fish in the freezer. We gave the fish Rusty caught the other day to my friend Laura. She really loves fish, and now that it is Lent, she and her family have to eat fish on Fridays. So she needed it more than we did! Plus, as you can tell by the picture, her husband is really skinny and needs the protein.

Fish in the House!

Hooray! We have fish in the freezer again! After too long, Rusty finally had an opportunity to go fishing today! He went with two buddies from work -- couldn't take our boat because the daggum Suburban is in the shop, but thankfully Jake has a boat too and was nice enough to come pick up Rusty this morning! However he got to the lake, I don't care! heheh! I'm just happy to have some fish in the house again! Woohoo!

Reba's and Anthony's redneck birthday party!

Well, Kamyn's birthday is just around the corner and I'm just now posting about Reba's and Anthony's birthday party LAST September! Anthony turned 16 on August 17, and Reba was 15 on September 6, so we just had a combined "party" out at the property. Reba invited her friends Shelby and Jackie (who just so happens to be Kristian's sister!) and Anthony invited Chris. Darrell also joined the family as we shot skeet, plinked around with the .22, cooked out, and generally acted like fools! Nothing really new! haha!

hunting and meat-processing fools!

This year was a great year for hunting! Our freezer is filled to the brim with wild game! Rusty and the boys along with our friend Mike Swenson processed at least 600 pounds of hamburger meat, breakfast sausage, link sausage, and summer sausage, on top of the regular ol' deer steaks, roasts, and stew meat! All the men in the family got at least one deer this year (Kristian got his first deer ever!), and to end the season in a grand manner, Kyle shot his first turkey!

Kyle's first turkey!

Kristian's first deer!

Just a little bit of the hamburger they processed

Goofballs can't use a knife without cutting themselves! Then the rednecks have to use duct tape to bandage themselves! Geez!

Kristian's last weekend with us!

Check out the tiny deer Kamyn's holding! Hah! (it's a magnet!)

Well, it's about time for Kristian to go back to Arizona. He'll be leaving on March 13, so he and Kamyn came to spend the night with us last weekend! (We missed Reba because she had her first track meet Saturday! more on that later!) They didn't arrive till Saturday afternoon, then left on Sunday evening, so we didn't have much time to "play" but it was good to see Kristian one last time before he leaves! He'll be going to Arizona for a short period of time then to either Montana or Wisconsin to start his stint with a Single A ball club. We tease about the camouflage coveralls he bought this year for hunting -- that he's going to make people laugh when he wears them to baseball practice in that yukky cold weather up north! hahah! Kamyn, Kristian, and I are all wearing coveralls because we went hog hunting Saturday night. Didn't have any luck, though. Just saw a couple of coons.

First Time Blog-Creator!

Hey hey all! This is the first blog I've ever even considered creating -- so please be patient. I don't yet have a set idea about how I want this blog to look . . . I will be learning and experimenting along the way. So, again, please be patient with me! More to come soon . . .