Catching Up, Part 2!

July:  My sweet friend Candice got married.  I met Candice the summer after my ninth grade year, and we played AAU ball together for the next four summers.  Her dad, Ron, coached us all of those years.  They are such a neat family, and their friendship has and always will be precious to us.

 

Dad with her “little” brother, Ronnie:

When we first met them, Ronnie used to sit on the bench with us in games and I remember him walking around bouncing a tennis ball everywhere he went.  He was just a kid then, and now he is all grown up and plays in the NBA.

Here we are with Ron and my other coach, Lance.  I can’t tell you how many wonderful memories our teams had over the years!  It was the best!

Here’s a picture from the first year I played with this team in Shreveport, LA:

Here we are in Indianapolis the summer after my tenth grade year:

This next picture was taken in Cleveland when we went to Junior Olympics the summer after my junior year:

And here are Candice and I at all-star week just before we went off to college:

It’s still hard for me to believe sometimes that we are approaching our thirties…yikes!  Some of us are married with kids of our own and pretty much all of us have careers.  One of the girls in the photos is no longer here, and I still think of her often with so many questions.  It blows me away at how fast the years trickle by…sitting at her ceremony definitely stirred up my emotions.  I couldn’t hold back tears as someone sang “I Believe in You and Me.”  Mario’s sister picked that song to sing at our own wedding exactly three months to the day before we would lose her unexpectedly.  I watched Mario and my parents wrestle my sweet babies next to me as they crawled in and out of our laps.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of their little faces thinking about how quickly they were growing up…I thought about life and all of the twists and turns, joy and pain, loss and gain, disappointments and excitement.  Don’t get me wrong…it was a happy day and a great occasion!!!  That’s the great part, that you are standing in front of someone and vowing to love them through all of LIFE, no matter what you face together.  I am SO grateful for Mario and it always makes me happy to see two people that truly love one another join their lives together for good!

Also in July, my other “son” came for a visit!  We call Joe our son, because seriously, he seemed like he was for a long time.  I love this kid too death.  I knew the day would come when he would get too grown up for us, and it eventually happened.  He still stays in touch though, and we were SO happy when he came to see us one Saturday morning!  I made a big breakfast and we caught up!

 

J was ecstatic!!!!!! For the first three years of her life, Joe was pretty much like  a big brother to her!  He and Breylin went everywhere with us.  At church one time, a lady saw us loading (and yelling at…ha!)  all the kids in the car—and she said, “Wow!  You guys run a tight ship!! How do you do it?!” Ha! And all the time when we were out in public they would call us mom and dad in front of people to be funny. 

This is a picture of Joe & Brey from the summer of 2003, about a year and a half after I met both of them:

AUGUST:  Just had to share this cute photo Dad took of J when she stayed with them one weekend…

 

Just before school started, I finally got to meet one of Mario’s first cousins that I had never met before.   I had heard so much about her, and I knew that she was an amazing woman with a compelling story.  Don’t underestimate that last statement, you can click here and here to see for yourself!

Jaiden and Jeryn acted as if they had known her all their lives and put on their best show :)  I think Nikki was equally excited to see them!

 

Uncle Ike had no trouble keeping their attention…he is Danny’s brother—can you see a resemblance??

Nikki was wanting her picture made with Jeryn so badly…he wouldn’t look at the camera for anything but after about 500 attempts, we managed to have one or two where he was actually looking :)  And I love that they are rockin the twinkie look with their blonde hair!

That’s one thing I love about Mario’s family…even if it’s family you don’t get to see often, when you do get together, you can count on some good fellowship!

This completes my “Catching Up” Posts.  I hereby promise to refrain from having four page posts with ten thousand pictures in the future.

Catching Up, Part 1!

I am ashamed at how behind I have gotten when it comes to blogging!  I still have pictures from my friend’s wedding the first week of July that are still on my camera :(

So tonight, I have a clean house, the laundry is caught up, Mario is gone to rope for a while, and the kids have been bathed and are entertaining themselves.  At least for now. 

So I’m going to back-track a little and hit the high points…

APRIL:  I can’t believe I haven’t documented this trip to the State Farm Operations Center in Tulsa.  These pictures are from when we went for Mario’s interview…

 

 MAY: These two were in a wedding:

 

Jeryn on the day he turned two:

  

JUNE: A fun visit from my good friends Caronica and Tramale.  I think he actually goes by his first name William or “Will” now.  But to me, he’ll always be Tramale!  He was our student assistant for our basketball team my senior year.  He also helped manage the team in the years prior to that, and I have laughed so hard with him on so many different occasions.

I first met Caronica when she came to our college as a recruit.  My senior year when we went to the Final Four, she was a huge part of our success that year.  Awesome player.  Awesome person!  Thanks to her for staying with me and the kids a lot this summer while Mario was traveling!

 

We tried to grill out and I nearly caught the whole deck on fire.  I have never seen so much smoke in my whole life!  ha!  I AM NOT KIDDING.  The above photos were taken after we got things back under control, but I thought we were going to have to call for back up.  We were grilling bacon wrapped shrimp and the grease from the bacon was fueling the fire!  We took “flame-grilled” to a whole new level!  But it turned out pretty good! 

And then I just realized that I had not even posted a picture from Jeryn’s 2nd birthday celebration!  His birthday was May 31st, but we celebrated at our house the next week…Here are a few of the pics from that:

 

 

“I’m Liking the Sound of This!”

A few days ago, J overheard me telling Mario that I was considering splurging and purchasing some sort of an iPod.  I am training for a half-marathon in October, and quite frankly, I have gotten bored with listening to myself pant for an hour straight.   I thought maybe some upbeat music might spur my adrenaline and help me to get over the hump throughout the next eight weeks.

Later that night, J told me that she would “really like to have one of those ‘ipots.’  I told her it was not something we would just buy, but with some effort on her part, we might eventually get her something similar.  Someone had told me that you could get a pink MP3 player for kids that held 20 songs for about $20-$30.  We made a deal…if she continued doing a great job at her daily chores and learned 20 new bible verses, then we would purchase the MP3 Player.

So far she has learned 7 verses.  Today I took her to get her hair relaxed (a 3 hour process every 6 months) On the way, we practiced her verses in the car.  One passage she is re-memorizing is Psalm 91.  She had learned all 16 verses in October of 2007, but had forgotten a lot of it, so she was to polish it up as well. 

I stopped to ask her if she wanted me to explain what some of those big words meant.  She did, and so I attempted.  I explained what it meant to “dwell in the shelter of the Most High” and what other words and phrases like “refuge,” “fortress,” “fowler’s snare” and “deadly pestilence” meant.  She nodded and seemed to be understanding everything.  When I got to the part about being covered by His feathers, and finding refuge under His wings, I told her it was one of my favorite parts because it told of how our Heavenly Father protects us.  The Message translation puts it this way: His huge outstretched arms protect you—under them you are perfectly safe; his arms fend off all harm. Before I completely finished my explanation, she interrupted me, and nodding her head up and down slowly she said, “I’m liking the sound of this!”  Priceless.  So sweet, and she was so serious. 

Here she is when we got back home…in the 2nd photo she is actually counting out her money.  She came home last night with some change that her Granny had given her.  She said she wanted to “give it to the kids that didn’t have any.”  I asked her if she wanted to give it as an offering in her class Sunday or if she’d like to save it and help buy stuff for Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes in the next couple of months.  She opted for the latter. Now, anytime she overhears any pocket change jingle, she runs to collect :)

 

And here is little man, growing up right before my eyes, entirely too fast.  He tries to get in on the scripture memorization by repeating everything Jaiden recites.  He does his best…but he usually reverts back to singing “Cowboy Cool” or rambling about roping and spouting off our horses’ names.  It won’t be long before he is big enough to recite.  Lately, he is big on saying, “Guess what, Mama?!” or ”Guess what, sissy?!”  or “Guess what(whoever is around to listen)” It’s hilarious! 

Another thing that I love that he is doing right now is this sweet little “Mhhmmm.” to a lot of the questions I ask him.  I think it’s just fun to ask him questions and see that he is really comprehending what I’m talking to him about!

Last week before we went to visit Mo and Grandad, he talked ALL week long about “I go to Fwippin to wide farm buggy and see a mean bull.” 

 

I have tons of pictures from our visit last weekend…will post the pictures soon!

One more funny thing: Jeryn brought a pudding out of the fridge to me and asked to have some.  “Go get a spoon,” I told him.  And this is what he came back with:

Have you ever tried to feed someone JELLO pudding with a  ladle?

Thank you, Lord, for my precious children.  They are the biggest blessing!