Anything for a buck???

Riley completed his annual pool dip on New Year's Day without a hitch. Jumped right in and swam across the pool. FIFTY TWO degrees !!!! I guess he'll do anything for a few bucks....TWENTY SIX Dollars for this craziness.

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A Style All His Own...

This kid has got style, not sure where it comes from, but he knows what he likes and doesn't care what anyone thinks. I personally think this was a pretty cool choice...





The first day he had it he wore it to the zoo for an all day Winter Zoo Camp with Jim's Cousin Cody. He got three compliments. One older woman told him she liked his Fedora, which baffled him, but he enjoyed the compliments.

Enjoy

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Thanksgiving gone and Christmas around the corner...

With the family gone, we spent Thanksgiving Dinner with our dear friends The Iserhott's. Even with Angie's parents, Aunt and Cousins visiting, she invited us to join in the fun. She made a fantastic dinner and we had a good time playing games and enjoying that good ole' Iowa Company.

I hit Black Friday hard. Yep, got out of bed at 4:00 am thinking it would be easy to hit Kohl's right away...not so true. It was slammed pack at 4:00 am. Gave up there around 4:45 and headed to the mall, where there was NO ONE and enjoyed wandering thru Old Navy, Macy's and others. I then headed to Target, a little worried, but was pleasantly surprised at the lack of people. I got what I needed and had a nice time wondering around thinking of Christmas.

Now, I'm busy baking this weekend and reading my annual Christmas Novels. Right now I'm in the midst of this year's Debbie Macomber Christmas story -- recommend it to anyone. Next it will either be Jeff Guinn's The Great Santa Search or A Very Merry Christimas - Lori Foster's collection of Christmas romance stories :)

Family Time

The weekend before Thanksgiving I had my wonderful family here visiting... We had a Wonderful time and always, always love being together and have some really good laughs, it's just so unfortunate it is only once a year. I love you all and miss you terribly.

Aunt Sandy from Iowa


Cousin Kelli with Riley


Cousins Kerri (from Seattle) and Kelli (from Baltimore)


Gabe with Grandma and Grandpa from San Antonio, TX area

The Whole Gang All Together

It's been too long...time to catch up...

It's been a while and, of course, there are things to catch up on.

Riley turned NINE! Holy Cow, a big 9. It's amazing how fast the nine years have gone. He is truly an amazing kid and we have enjoyed every minute of it.

To celebrate he had a slumber party with 5 friends. The big event he wanted to plan was tag team wrestling match in the front yard. They all had a great time. We ate pizza, cake, lots of snacks and soda and the boys stayed up until about 2am.

Halloween and the Evil Clown...

Riley finally decided one week before trick or treat, that he wanted to be a spooky, evil, zombie like clown. We put this together with stuff from our closets and I think it turned out pretty creepy.
He came home with a load of candy, covering the most ground ever this year. He was out for three hours this year - walking with friends, not just mom and dad.

Every Girl Needs a Change Once in a While...

So I went with darker hair this last time around. No more blond highlights. It took some getting used to, but I like it.

Flag Football

Riley has been enjoying the last few weeks of Flag Football. He is getting more comfortable with the game and is really starting to get a nice spiral in his throw. He is number 18 in the pics.

The State Fair

Two weeks ago we decided to take Riley to the Arizona State Fair for the first time. The ultimate motivator was a free concert...Weezer...Riley's SECOND favorite band, so all the better.
We took his friend, Bobby, with us to help with the rides.
It was way more expensive then any State Fair should be, but we all had a great time and came home with this wonderful prize from the water gun squirt game....





Yes, that's right a GIANT banana....we heard all kinds of comments as Jim was carrying it thru the fair..."hey, where did John go", says one buddy to another, "i don't know, i think he got stuck behind that giant banana!".

Gorgeous Weekend...

We have finally hit some good weather. We had beautiful 80s all weekend. We were supposed to get a nice big storm to cool it down, never got the storm, but did get the cooler temperatures.
Jim and I enjoyed a nice bike ride yesterday afternoon while Riley attended a friend's birthday party. We rode about 7 miles, big for me but not so much for him, but we had fun and did get caught in some minor rain two different times. I really want to start some family bike rides. We'll see how that goes over this next week.
Today was spent prepping the yard for winter. Mowing the grass real short, planting the seed, laying the fertilizer (steer manure)....good stinky fun! We even got Riley involved.

Quick Update...

So after Riley's makeup swim lesson on Wednesday, with a substitute instructor, she totally agreed that he should move up to her class! yeah! Just what we were wanting. So we returned for our scheduled lesson on Thursday night all jazzed and ready to swim with the new more advanced group, then after just 5 mins and 2 laps, a little 2 year old poops in the pool and evacuation was necessary!!!!! Lessons rescheduled, once again. Nice thing about the YMCA, they make sure you are rescheduled. So, we are happy to return next Tuesday and Thursday and Riley is so excited to be swimming with the stronger kids.

Oh, and we had our first flag football practice tonight. It was great fun and we are excited for a new season of fun!

Activities are good...

It's always good to keep the boy busy and I am trying so hard to engage him in other activities besides video games...ugh. I sometimes wonder why I ever agreed to one of those darn systems.
So, we have started swimming lessons. Riley can swim, he can dive, I just really want him to learn the proper way to do the various strokes. Maybe even get him interested in competitive swimming. We are doing lessons once a week at the YMCA. Nice facility, nice teachers, but I think he might have gotten stuck in a dud class. He has 3 total kids in his group, nice small group, but for some reason the instructor has cut his class short by 15 mins the last two weeks. I mean is 45 mins really too long to ask for the teacher to stick with it. I'm getting a little disappointed, but am hoping next week they move him up a level to a different teacher who enjoys instructing. I know I always have high expectations for these types of things, but all I'm really asking is for money's worth of a 45 min weekly lesson. I guess we'll see what happens this week.
We are also starting flag football! Today is our first team meeting. He is so excited to start this new adventure and to meet new friends. We'll keep you posted on how it goes.
Tomorrow is our 12 year anniversary, so I think we are going to dinner and maybe a movie. We haven't done that in a while so I am really looking forward to it.

Nice Ending to a good week...

Friday before a long weekend, yeah!
We got a wonderful voicemail from Riley's reading teacher today. She has been working with Riley since Kindergarten with his struggles on reading and called to tell us today that she has Riley again this year and she can not believe the change. He has a wonderful spark in his eye, he is excited about the stories, raising his hand to read aloud. She says this is going to be his best reading year, yet, and expects to see huge leaps in his abilities.
I'm so proud of him. We have been working very hard to read regularly. He fights us a little less each night as we, too, can see he is starting to enjoy it.
3rd Grade, so far, has been pretty great!

Back to School

Yep, it's that time again, Riley headed back to school last Monday the 11th. Here are a few pics of his first walk to THIRD grade. He was being a little stubborn on the 2nd two, wouldn't look at me.
He's enjoyed the first week and half of school. Excited that he has Science class this year and he changes teachers for classes for the first time. Our neighbor two doors down is his writing teacher.
He walks home each day on his own. Most mornings I still walk with just because I like to get out before starting my workday, but according to him, he'd be just fine walking to school each day, too!

Goodbye dear friend...

Tonight we had to say goodbye to our beloved Hobbs. At 13 years old he had lived a long and mostly healthy life. He's been our most friendly and loved of all pets...he loved all people and all animals, actually liked cuddling with dogs...he went by many aliases...hobbers, hobbers boolin, hobbie, chubby buddy, chubble bubble, chubba bubba, tubbs of chubbs.
When Jim and I had decided Marvin needed a companion, we went to the humane society and found this little itty bitty gray kitty laying so calmly right in the middle of his litter box. He was so tiny and cute, just loved laying in the kink of your neck as you sat on the couch.
Who knew he would grow to the whopping 20 pound cat he became. When having a yard sale once, he was laying in the chair next to me and as this guy was paying he commented "that's no cat, that's a lion". He was rather large and in charge, hince the various nicknames.
We love you dearly Hobbs and know that you are in a better place without suffering. We know you will find your dear friend Chouncey and live happily together.

One of those weeks

It's been a pretty hectic and crazy week around here. Riley had three baseball games and our team was resonsible for the maintaining the snack bar on one non-game night...that meant FOUR nights at the ballpark this week. By Thursday, our only night off, when I picked up Riley from school he says "Mom, I don't feel good, I'm so tired, I could hardley keep my eyes open". Poor guy, he's a little young to be up until 10 or after every night. Luckily that schedule is gone and we only have one game a week for the next three weeks. Oh, and we ended the week with 3 losses, two were close, the last, they blew us away.
I also met my new Boss for the first time this week. He's currently in Philadelphia, but is relocating to Minneapolis. I've had so many BIG changes happening at work. Because my client, Wells Fargo, is growing so much for us, we have built an entire new management team around it. Weird for me, considering it used to be small enough that my team of 4 managed it all. We are now up to 5 managers and 9 supporting operations. It will all be good in the end, but I'll have to work thru the struggles of change in my own way. Oh, and I do really like my new boss, that's always a plus!

Nascar

Jim, Riley and Gabe enjoyed the NASCAR races on April 12. I stayed home, did taxes and enjoyed being alone for a few hours...watched movies, read a book, it was peaceful.
Here are some pics of their adventure.

Time in Texas

I spent the weekend of April 5 in New Braunfels, TX (near San Antonio) with Grandma and Grandpa and had a wonderful weekend. We spent the day Saturday at the River Walk in San Antonio and with the NCAA Final Four games in town, there was a lot of people watching and activity all around. Sunday we drove to Austin and went to the State of Texas History Museum and then to dinner at the Salt Lick BBQ, a little ranch out in the midst of nowhere with wonderful open bit bbq. It was a fantastic day.
Monday, I was off to Dallas for a meeting at Corporate and back home on Tuesday.
Quick and enjoyable trip.

Ahhhh...another week goes by

With 4 baseball games the first week of the schedule, we've had a pretty hectic week. We ended the week with 1 win, 2 loses and a game that still needs to be finished (we were ahead by one, bases loaded, no outs, and the ump thought we were the home team, called the game and took off...before we could all understand what happened, the kids were off running around...so we need to finish that game's final inning).
Riley had a baseball friend spend the night Saturday. That was good fun for all.
We relaxed and worked a little here and there around the house on Sunday, nothing too exciting.
I'm preparing for a small getaway next weekend. I'm off to visit Grandma and Grandpa in San Antonio on Saturday on a way to a Corporate meeting in Dallas on Monday the 7th.
Love to all...