Plywood vs Mortar

In Beaumont, while everyone was at Lowe's buying plywood, batteries and generators on Sunday morning to get ready for the hurricane, Dave was buying mortar!!!

I'm telling you, he can't stop.  He just took this as an opportunity to get some work done around the house. 

I'll post some pictures of the finally project later.  This is just a little preview.  Tomorrow, he'll be applying the grout and the backsplash will be finished! 

So, how did you spend your Labor Day Holiday?

Well, what better way to spend a holiday than to go to a cemetery?  Yea, that's where we went!  

My grandfather, my dad's dad passed away 4 years ago and my grandmother passed away 10 years ago.  Natalia has been wanting to go to the cemetery for a while now.  Every time we drive by the cemetery, she begs for me to take her.  I think she is just attracted by all the beautiful flowers she sees. She loves flowers.  In any case, aunt Gilma called us this morning to let us know that she was going to go to the cemetery today, so we joined her.

Of course, this little visit to the cemetery brought up a lot of questions.  Oh boy, a lot of explaining to do....

Hope they can sleep okay tonight :0) 

Like Father Like Son

I'm telling you, every time we come to Papi and Mami's house we break / ruin something!  This morning, Carson wanted to cut a flower, so this is what happened:

A broken limb!

This is one of several things we have destroyed this weekend.  Luke drew on another wall yesterday and this morning, he broke a basket.  

We are soooo in debt!

THE HUMAN RACE 10K

While a bunch of you were keeping an eye on Gustav on Sunday evening, I was running the Human Race in Austin.

It was so fun!  There were approximately 13,000 people running the race in Austin alone. Including Lance Armstorng and Benjing gold medalist and former Longhorn swimmer, Brendan Hansen.

  

I wish I had my own camera to take my own pictures, but since I didn't, I had to borrow these from the Nike website.  

   

This was the course we ran.  Let me tell you...those were some hills!!!!  I did okay on the first hill, but by the 2nd hill, I wasn't too sure why I was doing this.  I walked a little during the second hill, but decided not to walk anymore.  I was afraid I was not going to be able to keep running if I stopped again.  You see, when I run, it is normally early in the morning.  The sun is not out yet and it is probably only 78 degrees.  Last evening, the sun was still shinning bright and it was 92 degrees or so.  Oh yea, and did I mention that there were hills??? 

I'm glad I had the opportunity to run the Human Race after all.  For a while, I didn't know if I was going to do it.  Brooke at Everyday Bailey, Elizabeth and I were going to go on a girls weekend and run the race.  Our plans, for the weekend, fell apart because of Gustav.  So, I wasn't 100 percent sure I wanted to drive from San Antonio to Austin just to run the race and then have to drive right back, but I did it and I'm glad I did.  I met up with Lucy and Lindy and we had a great time.

It took me one hour and eleven minutes to run the 6.2 miles.  This is a little longer than usual. I normally run it in one hour and five minutes, but I think the hills and the heat made it a little bit more difficult.  

I can't wait for my next race....

First Day of First Grade

Wow!  I can't believe my baby is in 1st Grade!  How did this happen?  Where has time gone? 

Monday morning, Natalia finally woke up after a lot of tickling and talking and negotiating.  After all that work, I got her attention:  "Hey, Natalia" I said, "do you want to help me make breakfast?"  She jumped out of my arms, got ready and went to the kitchen to make pancakes. We ate breakfast, finished getting ready, did our devotional, prayed and went to school.

This year, "first day of school" wasn't as hard (for either one of us) as her first day of Kindergarten was.  She did ask Daddy to carry her to her classroom though.  At first, I objected, but then I stopped myself and realized that this will soon stop!  She is growing up.  She will not be a little girl forever.  Why not take advantage of the little things that you can do now that you will not be able to do later?

She had a great day!  She really liked her teacher and informed me that they had a lot of work to do...

Update - Unpacking

Alright, so I'm finally getting a chance to blog :0)!

Here are two photos from Saturday.  I've been meaning to take more pictures, but I've been a little pre-occupied with Natalia's first day of school, Luke's follow-up ENT's appointment, the boys' open house, unpacking, running errands and so on and so forth. 

The house is coming along though.  My mom has been wonderful.  I could have not done it without her! Also, my mother-in-law has been so helpful.  She has fed us every night!  And as mentioned before, not only did Susan and Elizabeth give up their Saturday to help me, but look at how much fun they were having: 

And as always, Matt being so helpful!

He did mowed our grass on Monday though!  ~Thanks Matt, we really appreciate you guys.

Chaos

I'm at my in-laws house for dinner, so I have access to internet!  I decided to update you on my situation.  I don't think I need to say much.  These pictures pretty much speak for themselves:

As you walk in the front door

From my dining room

My dining room

The back room

The boys room

Do you feel sorry for me yet? 

But thanks to my Mom, Susan and Elizabeth, my house looks a lot better now.  My kitchen is done and a lot of those boxes are gone.  I'll post more pictures as soon as I can.